Any tips for Monk's U/W artifact deck? When I tried it, it didn't feel good at all. The deck was too slow to stop aggro and didn't have the late game to beat control. In my single player testing I went 2-8 which was my worst yet. The esper version feels much better with Tower Gargoyle.

I definitely agree that it seems to win out of nowhere.

You have to treat it almost like a combo/control deck and look to set up an Esperzoa engine with Sanctum Gargoyle in my experience. Repeatedly casting that and recurring the Capsule is just a tremendous amount of advantage that takes over the game.

It takes a bit of setup, though, and it feels like you're just doing nothing until all of a sudden when you just win. It's weird.

I've been having quite a bit of success with it. The combo takes some time to set up, but when it works, it's a ton of fun. I think adding black just makes the deck too aggro or something. You're forced to add in the Strixes and Tower Gargoyles, and it becomes too creature heavy. It might be a better deck, I have no idea, but it doesn't seem as fun to me.

I've been having a lot of fun with this deck lately! It's the first deck I've made (that doesn't suck) that's not just a slight variation of something already posted here. This is a pretty adaptive deck, if the opponent have a slow start you can go aggro-control. If you have to get defensive the tokens, walls and brimaz is plenty to stabilize you, the tokens can also be used for removal when the opponent think it's safe to attack.

There's lots of good synergy:
Mentor - Wall of Omens - Talrand - Raise The Alarm - Brimaz - Chasm Skulker - Think Twice; Get card advantage and grow the skulker.
Big Skulker - Planar Cleansing; board clear + get tokens, has won me the game a few times.
Counters - Think Twice - Raise The Alarm; If you have these 3 instants in your hand on turn 2 you have a lot of options, is you opponent casting something annoying? counter it. Does your opponent pass the turn with no creatures on board? Put two tokens in play and go into aggro-control mode. Or you could just draw a card!

Pestermite is pretty great too, can be played at end of opponents turn if he didn't cast anything worth countering. Perfect for trolling Kiln Fiend decks, they sink artful dodge and 100 other instants into it and then I just tap it in the pre-combat phase.

That looks pretty good, but let me express my distaste for Switcheroo. For five mana at sorcery speed, Angelic Edict is much much better.

Have you thought about Skymark Roc here at all?

I thought about Angelic Edict but the plan is to counter anything I'd need to edict, if I'd switch out Switcheroo for anything it would probably be Traumatic Visions extra counters and land consistency, I've lost games because I kept a 2 mana hand and didn't draw into any lands for a few turns.

I've thought about Skymark Roc too, but I don't know what I'd cut for it. You'd probably say cut Switcheroo but I like the card, it's fun to steal your opponents best creature, like win-me-the-game-GRISELBRAND!

Switcheroo is really easy to disrupt, though; if your opponent has a bounce or removal spell they can point it at the guy you intend to donate and the spell fizzles. That's usually a pretty big blowout. I get the fun factor so if that's important to you then you should keep it, but otherwise I'd find something better.

Have you thought about playing Obelisk of Alara? You have the trilands to access a lot of the modes.

I guess you're right about Switcheroo, but the blowout only happened to me once without counters so far. I'll try to sub the Switcheroos for Obelisk tomorrow as they were overlooked by me due to only the white and blue abilities being pretty meh, didn't think about my trilands.

If you like it and have fun with it then you should play it. I just want you to be aware of the risks.

Obelisk is a really good card, if you decide to play it then I would look at the manabase a bit and try to squeeze in as much value as possible.

I got this game with the humble bundle, so I thought I would post the deck that I beat most of the game with and won a few games online with. I still have not unlocked everything, I would be using stoneforge mystics and vapor snags if I had :v

3 x Elite Vanguard
4 x Loyal Pegasus
4 x Cloudfin Raptor
4 x Triton Shorestalker
2 x Hero of Iroas
3 x Ajani's Pridemate
4 x Leonin Snarecaster
1 x Brimaz, king of Oreskos
2 x Mentor of the meek
2 x Banisher Priest
1 x Baneslayer Angel

3 x Military intelligence
2 x Gods willing
3 x Voyage's end

22 x Basic lands


This deck is extremely aggressive, and the ideal opening play is a turn 1 raptor into a turn 2 shorestalker and then pegasus or vanguard, followed by military intelligence to restock.

My take on an "Azorius good-stuff"-deck.



This feels very strong after initial testing! I guess it's just generic UW good-stuff, but it's actually really fun to play! All my creatures poses such a massive threat by themselves (and even more so together, of course), so I find my opponents burn through their removal extremely fast. I really love Reprisal here, vs. all matchups. Vs. tokens I can f.ex crack open my Chasm Skulker, vs. Izzet Burn; Kiln Fiends, and of course all sorts of fatties. The worst matchups are probably the mirror (where only RNGsus can decide), anything containing Anger of the Gods or Planar Cleansing (unless I have a Dissolve at hand), and of course the goddamn spiders.

Overall great synergy and massive CA here. Brimaz, King of Oreskos, Talrand, Sky Summoner and Raise the Alarm tokens trigger Mentor of the Meek, which triggers Chasm Skulker. Opening a Chasm Skulker potentially triggers massive draw through Mentor of the Meek, which in a dream scenario can trigger the other Chasm Skulker. All the tokens easily trigger Military Intelligence and Bident of Thassa, which triggers Chasm Skulker again. The activated ability of Bident of Thassa is also extremely useful to force unnecessary taps into Wall of Omens, and bad engagements into large Chasm Skulkers or Baneslayer Angel. Gods Willing is excellent spot protection, though I wouldn't mind fitting a couple of Safe Passage as a backup Dissolve vs. f.ex Anger of the Gods, which otherwise obviously destroys this deck. Considering I have several ways of dealing with resolved creatures, I might consider including the full set of Negate just to protect against sweepers. Though, I do feel the Scry justifies Dissolve's extra . Coupled with all the drawing power available, I get even more CA just by defending myself with Gods Willing or Dissolve just by their added scrying goodness.

Update:
-2 Angelic Edict
+2 Negate

Figured I have enough ways to deal with nasty creatures with Dissolve, Reprisal and even Bident of Thassa + Gods Willing, so protecting against sweepers and removal are of much higher priority. This means I have no way of dealing with artifacts or enchantments*, but I'll just have to hope my own enchantments proves to be nastier than theirs in the long run. And lowering the curve is always a good thing.
*(Well, Negate can of course also counter nonsense like Beastmaster Ascension or Angelic Accord, though it's a much smaller chance I actually have Negate when they cast it. Though, a resolved Beastmaster Ascension, Angelic Accord or even Sanguine Bond for more than a turn or two without drawing Angelic Edict would probably mean I have already lost anyway.)

Really want this to be consistent, but it just feels so clunky. No offense to you Monk, it's a great deck considering the cards available. It's great if you can survive to late game without being sweeped, and can finally get your esperzoa/gargoyle-engine running, but it just feels so slow and vulnerable. Even with Gomazoa, it can't stand much pressure. And there's just so many pieces necessary for it to work, and any decent opponent just have to remove one of them, and the deck falls apart. Wouldn't mind some negates here maybe. Though, it is really fun to play when all the gears are in place!

My latest list drops stoneforge, amulet and 1 angelic edict for 4 voyages end. It helps a lot in the early game against aggro, protects your threats and helps to reuse gargoyle. Try it and let me know.

Yeah, I read the post-list discussion, and removed both mystics, one angelic edict, amulet and the mentors for 3 voyage's end and 3 gomazoas.
I've had quite a win-streak with now, so I guess RNGesus was in a worse mood earlier.

On a side-note: Do you think artifact decks work better in pure Azorius, or are the Esper versions also viable?

Esper is viable and I guess if you want to go pure artifacts then it is the only option but you lose out on consistency and the space to just play powerful cards. I think UW is a lot better.

I have an Esper list that runs Sanctum Gargoyle as it's only white card and it works really well. I never really saw the appeal of Tower Gargoyle or Esper Cormorants. Instead preferring to double down on Glaze Fiend.

The deck plays a ton of cheap artifacts and is able to consistently activate Glaze Fiend (often multiple times per turn). Sanctum Gargoyle allows you bring back Glaze Fiends and Sphinxes that eat removal, but also allows you to recycle the cheap artifacts to activate Glaze Fiend while getting you value in the process (stuff like Couriers Capsule, Travelers Amulet).

Esperzoa does the same thing, bouncing our cheap artifacts (and Sanctum Gargoyles) to allow us to keep pushing damage with Glaze Fiend.

Getting an Etherium Sculptor on the table alongside a Glaze Fiend just makes it stupid, making most of your deck cost between 0-2 CMC letting you superbuff Fiend pretty easily.

Tidehollow Strix functions well as a cheap Evasion beater alongside Fiend and can function as removal in the deck. Keeping it back to block and trade with something when you need to with the reassurance you can use Sanctum Gargoyle to get them back if need be.

I think the biggest thing with people making Artifact decks in Esper is that they get tempted into running the Esper Artifacts (Tower Gargoyle and Esper Cormorants) which in most cases just make the deck weaker. Strix, Sanctum Gargoyle, and Esperzoa are often enough to play a good defensive game when you need to while gaining value off of stuff like Capsule and Travelers Amulet until you can drop a Sphinx and just take over the game.

Glaze Fiend, Strix, and Sanctum Gargoyle allow you to go into beatdown mode when you need to, smashing face for a bunch while gaining value off of those same cheap Artifacts I mentioned earlier.

The deck is posted over in the Esper thread if anyone wants to look it over. It could probably use some fine tuning to optimize it, but in the experiences I have with it, it works extremely well.

That actually looks pretty good, but I kind of agree with what Monk implies; that if you're running any white mana, you might aswell include ridiculously overpowered stuff like Baneslayer and Brimaz. But I gotta say, I really love the Esperzoa -> Sanctum -> Capsule recursion.. Insane CA!! And Bident with thopter factory is pretty insane aswell. The singleton of Elixir of Immortality is also pretty great. Auto-win vs. milling decks, and gets you and extra source of steady lifegain with the Espergoyle-engine, in addition to Baneslayer and Obelisks.

Here is the updated list. Sigiled paladin and voyages end help a lot vs aggro.

Adding black basically makes it an artifact aggro deck, which I think is mind-numbingly dull considering we already have, mono white, mono red, red white, green white, red green white, etc, aggro decks. It'll feel different for a couple games, maybe, since it's with artifacts, but it's still aggro. The UW list above is different, and fun, and kinda feels like a combo deck, and I love it. Yeah, it has Every-White-Deck Angel and Every-White-Deck Cat in it, but it makes use of a lot of cards that don't see much play.