It was me trolling you.

This deck can be so crazy, the opponent at one point had 110 Lifepoints.

I'm making a new post for this deck because I've featured it on YouTube and I want to be able to link to it from there. The table will reflect any changes made after the recording of the deck tech.

And holy ****, I basically came up with the same list as DaRkStAr, above me. Now I just feel stupid.

How is that deck supposed to beat Baneslayer Angel?

Also.. no video yet. Still uploading?

We've been through this, I need to make the post while the vid is uploading so I can have the link for the video description.

..and we will continue to go through it God damnit!

Darn straight!

I am honored

If Total Control Episode 9 taught me anything.. it's that 'Its not the arrow, it's the Indian."

I think everyone's artifact deck looks about the same if you are in Esper colors. I do not run cloudshift, so I am just a few cards different.

As far as Cloudshift, it does not trigger Myrsmith. Cloudshift always has its uses in any deck, for dodging removal, surprise untap and fogging an attacker. Other than the standard uses all cloudshift does for artifacts is pump glaze fiend and trigger the gargoyle's EtB. Best case scenario you attack with the gargoyle and leave the fiend behind, then cloudshift the gargoyle for two 2/3 blockers, which is not terribly impressive.

Compared to Hakeem, I am at -1 Tidehollow Strix, -1 Obelisk, -4 Cloudshift and +1 safe passage, +2 esperzoa, +1 time warp, and +2 darksteel axe.

Esperzoa is take it or leave it, it does backfire sometimes but it helps to have very cheap artifacts like the axe. It gives you a lot of triggers for myrsmith and glaze fiend, plus it can re-use the gargoyle if needed.

The one support spell I really think belongs in esperfacts is Time Warp - you are playing a deck full of evasive beats that really sucks at blocking, why not get in an extra attack. Esperfacts has virtually no ability to block, so if this spell isn't helping you then nothing will. Safe Passage is similarly a means of reducing your opponent's tempo or surviving a sweep.

Esperfacts is fun, you can get really good draws where you just steamroll your opponent with evasive beats. No other evasive deck has such a fast clock, bar kiln fiend + artful dudge. The problem is consistency. Goblin rabblemaster is a 3 turn clock by himself. Glaze fiend can do amazing things, but this requires a hand full of other cheap artifacts, usually requires etherium sculptor to get pumped into 4/5 territory, and will often run out of steam without myrsmith or esperzoa to generate more triggers. No removal can have really bad consequences. I was thrilled with my hand of etherium sculptor and 2 tower gargoyles, but when both gargoyles were exiled with Banisher Priest I really had nothing to show for my efforts, no way of getting my gargoyles back.

So starting tomorrow, I'm going to be testing the following changes to Esper Artifacts:

-4 Cloudshift
+4 Vapor Snag

-1 Sanctum Gargoyle
-2 Sharding Sphinx
-1 Obelisk of Alara
+4 Esper Cormorants

+Assorted manabase changes

I think losing the six-drops is the correct call, but I really think Cormorants is better than Juggernaut here because evasion is really key for this deck. Sorry Beast, but we will talk about it every time I draw it.

Vapor Snag over Cloudshift just feels better in a beatdown deck because it gets blockers out of the way on the cheap and the point of life loss could matter with this style of deck. It's possible that four is too many, but we'll see as I test it over the next few days.

EDIT - After a conversation with mobius, I'm going to trim a Courier's Capsule and a land to play 2x Traveler's Amulet. He is correct to say the mana is the deck's biggest flaw so this could allow the deck to play less tapped lands and more basics. It also gets the artifact count up to 31 which is really good. I will update the table and create a new manabase when I get off work.

If you are adding more 1 cost artifacts then Esperzoa starts to look better and better.

Also time warp. This is a primarily blue, tempo based deck. A real no-brainer IMO.

I still don't think I would want to draw a second Esperzoa basically ever. Time Warp is fine, but I'm going for Artifactus Maximus. Where would you cut for it?

Right now I am testing a build without Myrsmith, for a few reasons. She isn't an artifact herself, she is a utility creature that you do not want to attack or block with, like Young Pyromancer. Red/izzet decks generally run enough removal that they can slow opponents down for a few turns, we don't here. The real nail in the coffin is that it is just really hard to curve out with her.

I think she works better in a UW build with more control and more non-creature artifacts. Theoretically she has great synergy, but in practice you are spending 3 mana on your first 1/1 token.

Disagree. Myrsmith is a Piker that lets you sink mana to go wide. If you have an Etherium Sculptor then the tokens are free, and they trigger Glaze Fiend whether you pay for them or not. She fits the setup-into-beatdown plan of the deck.

Actually, the synergy between Smith, Sculptor, and Fiend is the core of the deck. They are all decent on their own, but get better no matter which two of them you manage to land together.

Re: Esperzoa, you may be right, but I am not sure. This deck won't tend towards board stalls... you live fast with evasive beats and die fast with few blockers, so you are less likely to draw multiple copies than in a control deck.

I am not ready to post my build yet, but I think I am going to go down to 3 sculptors. We don't need to ramp into 6 mana artifacts. And I am at 17 blue creatures and only 7 non-blue, so hall of legends is looking more attractive as a singleton.

Here is the comparison I make with Myrsmith - Selesnaya Evangel. You would think she would work great in a W/G token deck, but she is just too slow. W/G tokens need to start the beats early and often, and cannot afford to spend three mana before they get their first token. Even when I get sculptor, I find the deck has plenty of mana sinks in the courier's capsules, creatures returned by the gargoyles, replaying creatures bounced by Esperzoa, equipping darksteel axe, activating bident, etc. My ideal hand starting hand contains Glaze Fiend, and I want to continually pump it up with evasive beats that put more power on the table themselves. Myrsmith is an investment that takes 3-4 turns to pay off in terms of evasive damage output - this is not a deck that goes wide on the ground, but in the air.

I still disagree because Evangel is great in token decks. Just like in this deck, Selesnya should load up on two-drops and play slightly behind the curve to increase board presence without spending too many cards.

It's not straight-up beatdown like Boros, you have to set up a board then go boom.

Glaze fiend is just much more aggressive than anything available to W/G. I just had a nut draw that went like this:

T2: Fiend
T3: Fiend, swing for 2
T4: Sculptor, twig, sac twig for island, swing for 8
My opponent is playing G/R ramp and hits one fiend with banefire and drops arbor collossus
T5: Master, Master, swing with 6/7, he declines to block
He makes the collossus monstrous and destroys my other fiend
T6: sculptor, tidehollow strix, hall of +1/+1 pumps, swing with two 8/8 masters and a 4/5 sculptor for lethal.

I accounted for every mana this game. If I somehow had Myrsmith in my hand as a magical extra card I don't know when I would have played it.

Like you said, Evangel is played behind curve, but the Evangel gets to make a token every turn whether you draw a land or not. Myrsmith loses value if it isn't one of the first cards you drop.

Ultimately you may be right, but no one has really discussed this particular issue before. Then again, I have never been a fan of Evangel (and I don't like Selesnaya token strategies generally), so we may just end up disagreeing here.

Edit - reworked a lot of stuff.



I only have four slots to devote to non-artifact spells, so I want something that is versatile and powerful. I think Ulcerate is going to keep that spot. It outright kills utility creatures that avoid combat and it shrinks anything larger (e.g. Baneslayer) to a manageable size so that you can trade in combat.

20 lands is kind of ridiculous, but I have 3 traveller's amulets for fixing and hitting land drops. The deck can function on three lands if you have an etherium sculptor. Getting the number of taplands right is very important - I normally go with at least 10 in a tricolor deck, but the early turns are critical with this deck. The amulet can actually be better for getting the right color of mana on turn 3-4 since the land it fetches doesn't come into play tapped.