Coherent Enough?
Deck Help forum
Posted on May 17, 2012, 11:51 p.m. by Phantom07
Ok so this deck is basically Tempered Steel with some mana acceleration and token production. It works pretty well, except for the occasional color problem. Sometimes the deck seems to be a little schizophrenic but it has the same win condition almost every time: Creatures and/or tokens out on the field with plenty of mana for activating Gavony Township and lots of +1/+1 counters spread around with a tempered or two in play to buff them up, swing to win.
Here's the deck list: 62 cards total (trying to trim it down to 60, was hoping some insight from others would give me some useful ideas).
Creatures: 21
4x Signal Pest4x Memnite2x Vault Skirge2x Solemn Simulacrum3x Birds of Paradise2x Viridian Emissary2x Blade Splicer2x Mikaeus, the Lunarch
Planeswalkers: 22x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
Spells: 52x Tezzeret's Gambit2x Oblivion Ring1x Dispatch
Enchantments: 44x Tempered Steel
Artifacts: 93x Origin Spellbomb2x Shrine of Loyal Legions1x Chimeric Mass3x Mox Opal
Land: 214x Inkmoth Nexus3x Gavony Township4x Razorvirge Thicket2x Sunpetal Grove1x Island1x Swamp2x Forest4x Plains
The strategy is pretty straight forward-turn 1: memnite, signal pest, land, spellbomb/birds/mox opal (creatures w/ mana acceleration)turn 2: land, blade splicer/shrine/simulacrum/skirgefrom there drop either mikeaus/tempered steel/tezzeret or distribute counters with gavony township/Mikaeus to beef up creatures and swing to victory. All the while drawing to maintain beat tempo and fuel
Side board has not been developed so ideas are welcome for that, thinking of working in Sphere of the Suns for more color spread. I'm pretty sure tezzeret's gambit works on loyalty counters as well so I might make room for a third since having the zero and one drops quickly depletes my hand.
Tezzeret's Gambit can be used to add loyalty counters. My first recommendation would be to drop the Gavony Townships and go with more dual lands. The +1/+1 counters shouldn't need to be a factor in this type of deck.
If you like you can check out my Tempered Steel deck, Blades of Steel for ideas. For the most part it runs pretty smoothly. Hope it helps!
May 18, 2012 12:50 a.m.
as much as ide love to help out here (playing temprered steel and a ton of variants)
try to make the decklist on the site and link it here, this is making my eyes bleed. ill be back ;)
May 18, 2012 3:09 a.m.
I dont think tempered steel needs ramp, the best you can do is to run 4 mox opals, also if you really want to run tezz you need more blue and black sources such as darkslick shores
May 18, 2012 7:24 a.m.
PhyrexianAssimilator says... #9
In your play description, I understand that is the optimized turn, but with only Birds of Paradise and Mox Opal (as well as three other 1-drops you could play instead) it doesn't seem all that consistent that you'll ramp on turn one. When I continued to your turn two description and saw "simulacrum," I asked myself, how the hell is he getting four mana turn two? You would have had to keep a hand that was Green land, birds, mox opal, two memnites, +2 cards. Depending on the two cards, that might actually be a decent hand, but think of how hard it would be to get those five cards all in your opening hand.
If your gameplan is going to assume T1 mana dork, you should probably have more than THREE of them (Mox Opal is not a mana dork, unless you imagine it like a bird that needs metalcraft. That's basically what it is, except it can't get bolted down). Also, you should probably assume T2 you will be playing three drops, not four drops.
I'm with plewaza (that is such an odd name) on this one. Tempered Steel decks shouldn't need ramp. The best ones are all-in aggro. While you're going T1, green land, bird, opal, and two memnites (were in magical christmas land for this example), T2 Simulacrum (to... what? Ramp into Mikaeus, the Lunarch? Chimeric Mass?), T3 Tempered Steel and two cards left in hand, a normal Tempered Steel player is going T1 signal pest, memnite, mox opal (again magical christmas land), tap opal to play Vault Skirge, T2 Tempered Steel and swing silliness. They sit there, one turn earlier, with a better board position that you and two more cards in hand.
My point is that Tempered Steel has always been about closing the game quickly, and with the abundance of 1-3 costs played in the deck, ramp is just unnecessary.
Epochalyptik says... #2
If you use an actual deck form then it will be easier to read and analyze this information. We'll be able to offer better feedback as well.
May 18, 2012 12:28 a.m.