Pro-Life Rater Machine

T

Terentius

Guest
Artifact Proliferate stuff. The base for this deck was Tezzeret's duel deck, but not many of those cards remain in its current form.
*Produces creature tokens, or temporarily transforms into a creature

Creatures: 12
3x Thrummingbird
4x Triskelion
4x Coretapper
1x Clockwork Dragon

Sorceries: 4
4x Tezzeret's Gambit

Noncreature/nonland artifacts: 21
4x Everflowing Chalice
4x Energy Chamber
3x Contagion Clasp
2x Contagion Engine
2x Chimeric Mass*
3x Titan Forge*
3x Lux Cannon

Planeswalkers: 3
2x Tezzeret, the Seeker
1x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon

Lands: 20
4x Cloudpost
4x Glimmerpost
2x Mystifying Maze
3x Ancient Burial
7x Island
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6o cards


Thrummingbird is new to the deck, put in mainly to help early ramp on Chalice, but is useful throughout (wish it was an artifact). I also have a set of Steel Overseer, and at least 1 more of most of the cards in the deck. Might could use some bigger bombs too.


How's it look boys?
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
I've actually been testing the Duel Decks: Elspeth vs. Tezzeret against each other. I'll eventually use the results as material for an article. Anyway, I really like both decks and think they're more fun than the other duel decks I've investigated. While Tezzeret's deck is fun and fine as a duel deck, there are a lot of cards that wouldn't make the cut if I wanted to build my own Tezzeret-based decks, and some that I'd want more copies of. While it's bought me time to try to deal with Elspeth's flying creatures once or twice, I wouldn't normally bother with Clockwork Condor, for example.

I like some of the changes you've made. You've got an 8-post engine going on for mana production, and some more menacing creatures than were available in the original deck. Multiple Contagion Clasps also seems like a good move. That card has wrecked the Elspeth deck in my playtesting more than any other card.

Some other cards I'd think would warrant consideration: Voltaic Key, Sol Ring, Mana Vault, Pithing Needle, Vedalken Shackles, Academy Ruins, Engineered Explosives.
 
T

Terentius

Guest
Multiple Contagion Clasps also seems like a good move. That card has wrecked the Elspeth deck in my playtesting more than any other card.
Yeah, Contagion wrecks weenies. I also like eliminating things through means other than direct damage or destruction.

Some other cards I'd think would warrant consideration: Voltaic Key, Sol Ring, Mana Vault, Pithing Needle, Vedalken Shackles, Academy Ruins, Engineered Explosives.
I could get down with Pithing Needle and Vedalken Shackles, even though I don't have many Islands. I have a set of Voltaic Key, but I think it's more useful in other types of artifact decks. I could use Ratchet Bomb, which is similar to Engineered Explosives, but it's often too much of a Pyrrhic victory. I do have a couple of Steel Hellkites though.

I still need more playtesting, but do you think it's worth it to keep trying to work in Infect/Poison? I can't see proliferating poison counters to victory if it started with a single hit from Necropede, but two hits from Phy Jug should do it. If not, I can bring in other good stuff like Steel Hellkite and Qumulox.
 
T

Terentius

Guest
Did some more playtesting on Sunday against my friends' decks. They were still in development, so this deck was probably outright stronger, but it was still good feedback.

-3 Necropede - My worries turned out to be merited. The best I could do is proliferate a single poison counter 5 times, even with a solid amount of mana. I don't dislike the card though, and if I later find something isn't pulling its weight, this is probably first off the bench.
+1 Chimeric Mass - Need an additional X mana dump, for when I'm sitting around late game with 18 mana to spare.
+1 Triskelion - removing counters to ping as an instant is boss, AND his guns can be reloaded? My friends expressed extreme displeasure with this card, which I countered by noting that he costs 6.
+1 Lux Cannon - One was never enough.
-1 Thrummingbird - This is the card that was out of place in the original post.
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
I was just testing Elspeth vs. Tezzeret again. You know what card I really wish the Tezzeret deck had? Serrated Arrows. That thing could be really fun in this sort of deck. Well, maybe not fun for your opponents, but that's only if they're relying on creatures...
 
T

Terentius

Guest
The card seems versatile enough, but I'd rather have another Triskelion. Serrated Arrows won't work with Energy Chamber, which makes up a sizeable portion of my counter generation, and it requires tapping to use. Besides, the weapons of mere men can't stand with the machine army.

-2 Phyrexian Juggernaut
+1 Triskelion
+1 Memnarch
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
The card seems versatile enough, but I'd rather have another Triskelion. I Serrated Arrows won't work with Energy Chamber, which makes up a sizable portion of my counter generation, and it requires tapping to use. Besides, the weapons of mere men can't stand with the machine army.
The cards have very different roles, so I'm not sure why Serrated Arrows and Triskelion would be compared. Triskelion is a game-winner, but something that you need to survive to exploit. In the original Elspeth vs. Tezzeret Duel Decks, Triskelion ultimately becomes the most powerful card, other than maybe the planeswalkers themselves. But it does cost 6 mana. That's not to say I wouldn't want more copies of Triskelion in a more focused version of deck. I totally would. But this sort of deck is going to need cheaper answers too. Serrated Arrows would have been great for that.

The lack of interaction with Energy Chamber is unfortunate, but the card is still good with Proliferate. Most of the time, you'd probably just end up expending the counters, but it would buy time for the bigger guns to come out.
 
T

Terentius

Guest
Yeah it's a fine mid-range card, but this is my highest mana-ramping deck, even outpacing that Enchantment Power deck. So I thought I'd swing for the fences in terms of power and disregarding cost. It's not uncommon for me to get out Triskelion, Contagion, Lux Cannon, or a golem on turn 3. And it typically goes downhill from there for my opponent.

I feel bad because it's like I'm snubbing a lot of your advice, but I can tell you like to play with a lot more control than I do. I'd bet you have a decent amount of control in almost all of your decks. Discard is fine for me, but I don't run much removal as I mentioned earlier, and I don't think I've ever put any countermagic in any of my decks (though I plan to change that soon). In the words of The Hulk, "I just wanna smash!"
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
Yeah it's a fine mid-range card, but this is my highest mana-ramping deck, even outpacing that Enchantment Power deck. So I thought I'd swing for the fences in terms of power and disregarding cost. It's not uncommon for me to get out Triskelion, Contagion, Lux Cannon, or a golem on turn 3. And it typically goes downhill from there for my opponent.
If that's what you're going for, why not do 12-Post instead of just 8-Post? I'm not asking that one from experience, just from the general impressions I've gotten seeing 12-Post played by other people. You didn't mention anything about it before, but you decided it wasn't worth it, well, you're the only one who's tested this exact deck, so you'd know. I'm bringing it up because I think you may not have actually seen 12-Post in action yourself, and if that's the case you should check it out.

I feel bad because it's like I'm snubbing a lot of your advice, but I can tell you like to play with a lot more control than I do.
Heh, I don't feel snubbed at all, I was just clarifying on that card because you said you'd rather have a fourth Triskelion, and it's not a card that fills the same role. I suspect that with the way you've built this deck, Triskelion is just too good not to run four of, but that doesn't mean every other possible card has to be considered to be competing with Triskelion specifically for slots.

I'd bet you have a decent amount of control in almost all of your decks.
Well, the project that I'm most invested in right now is basically the last decklist in my new article (haha, I totally just plugged my articles on the message boards). Technically the sideboard is one card off because the inventor of the deck modified the sideboard since I put the deck together, and I haven't bothered to swamp sleeves to make that Tropical Island a Chain of Vapor, but that's trivial. So yeah, I've got four copies of Cabal Therapy and I can fetch Thoughtseize with Burning Wish if I absolutely have to. Does that count as a decent amount of control?

Discard is fine for me, but I don't run much removal as I mentioned earlier, and I don't think I've ever put any countermagic in any of my decks (though I plan to change that soon). In the words of The Hulk, "I just wanna smash!"
For your opponents' sake, I hope you don't have a playset of Show and Tell. :p
 
T

Terentius

Guest
If that's what you're going for, why not do 12-Post instead of just 8-Post? I'm not asking that one from experience, just from the general impressions I've gotten seeing 12-Post played by other people. You didn't mention anything about it before, but you decided it wasn't worth it, well, you're the only one who's tested this exact deck, so you'd know. I'm bringing it up because I think you may not have actually seen 12-Post in action yourself, and if that's the case you should check it out.
I did not know this existed. After a quick Google, it appears the pertinent card is Vesuva? A fine land, but I don't feel like this deck needs them at ten bucks a pop. Chamber/Chalice does a fine job of shoring up any holes in the 8-post, and you better believe I'll play it second turn with Chalice for zero.
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
I didn't realize that it's a $10 rare. I guess if that's too much, then the Eldrazi that 12-Post decks often play would be way too much.
 
T

Terentius

Guest
I've updated this deck a few times since I last posted, and I think it's reaching the point where I won't be making any more major changes.

+4 Coretapper - A veritable workhorse that provides huge amounts of stability to the deck. Go ahead, use a kill spell on it; I don't care.
-1 Memnarch - Cool, but didn't synergize with the focus on proliferate.
-1 Pentavus - I found this card unwieldy. Triskelion is more reliable.

-2 Golem Foundry - Didn't produce enough, and the golems from this weren't effective enough.
-2 Chimeric Egg - The one thing I didn't like about this card is that it couldn't transform and attack one turn, then transform and block the next, because it'd be tapped. If it could do that it'd have a spot.
+1 Titan Forge
+1 Lux Cannon
-1 Chimeric Mass

+1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon - Opened one in a booster. Such power!

-1 Seat of the Synod
-1 Darksteel Citadel
+1 Ancient Burial
+1 Mystifying Maze

I guess if anything I'm still trying to reach a consistent endgame scenario besides general board domination.
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
Interesting. I wouldn't expect to see Ugin in this sort of deck, but you've got the mana production for it and if you have eight mana lying around, it's a pretty potent use of that. I can't recall having seen any deck quite like this one, so it's tricky to evaluate. Amusingly, with your emphasis on Proliferate, this deck has the potential to live the dream and actually ultimate Ugin as a realistic option.
 
T

Terentius

Guest
Interesting. I wouldn't expect to see Ugin in this sort of deck, but you've got the mana production for it and if you have eight mana lying around, it's a pretty potent use of that.
I tell you what, I was staring down the barrel of a loss in a 2HG game this past Saturday: 2 Vampire Nighthawks, a Grave Titan, and some weenie artifact creature with lifelink and Ensoul Artifact. Top-decked Ugin, threw him down and did his -X for 6 immediately. I wasn't able to keep him alive after that, but he definitely won that game for me.
Amusingly, with your emphasis on Proliferate, this deck has the potential to live the dream and actually ultimate Ugin as a realistic option.
I've only played this deck twice against other people since I put him in, and he's come out both times; the time besides what I mentioned above, I was able to land his ultimate. And proliferate was definitely a factor in including 3 planeswalkers.
I can't recall having seen any deck quite like this one, so it's tricky to evaluate.
This pleases me!
 
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