I definitely see through your response what the overall goal of your deck is and the building decisions you're using to achieve it. How is it performing against Elves, RDW, and Aggro/Zoo? Have you run into any Zombie decks? One weakness I do see is that there isn't any hard global enchantment removal; Evolutionary Leap I think would ruin my day in that matchup. I'm curious to hear more about how it works out as you continue to use it; I plan on testing it out myself tomorrow when I have some free time.

Looking over the list, it reminds me a bit of my days playing Howling Mine back when it was standard legal. Very few creatures (4 IIRC) and an arsenal of annoying spells. What about Sphinx's Tutelage as an alt win condition in conjunction with Jace and/or Avaricious Dragon to speed up the clock? With all of the card draw mechanics in the deck and supporting spells to maintain board control, it seems like a late game package that fits with the theme.

A deck for Thopters
60 Cards. 37 nonlands (24 creatures, 13 spells). 23 Lands (4 , 10 ; and 9 others).
Converted Mana Cost. X-0-8-15-7-7-3

Creature 24
-- 4x Bonded Construct
-- 4x Perilous Myr
-- 3x Runed Servitor
-- 1x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
-- 3x Chief of the Foundry
-- 3x Thopter Engineer
-- 1x Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh
-- 3x Reclusive Artificer
-- 2x Pia and Kiran Nalaar

Spell 13
-- 4x Fiery Impulse
-- 3x Telling Time
-- 4x Twin Bolt
-- 2x Thopter Spy Network

Land 23
-- 3x Foundry of the Consuls
-- 4x Izzet Guildgate
-- 2x Sulfur Falls
-- 10x Mountain
-- 4x Island

I would suggest considering Whirler Rogue, and Ravaging Blaze. Rogue keeps the token production constant and can give Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh a better chance of flipping. I wasn't a fan of Runed Servitor or Bonded Construct when I tested them, even though there aren't many early game drops for colorless in for 1 or 2 mana, I would rather have Titan's Strength or Disperse to scry and counter Aura casts in the early game. For card draw I would look to Artificer's Epiphany; it's something I'm considering replacing Disperse because when I don't find the Thopter Spy Network I have no way to maintain card advantage. Everyone and their mother seems to be running G/W aggro/enchant. I think I saw 5 of those decks out of the last 7 games. So long as you get enough opening burn spells to shut down their initial drops, all you really have to worry about is Gaea's Revenge which tokens can block all day. Jace, Vryn's Prodigy dies every game I've ever dropped him before he can flip. The same is true for games when people cast him. He seems like a late game drop, but when I play Thopter, late game is a thunderstorm of 2/2 or 3/3 fliers that drop people insanely fast.

These aura decks just die to burn and Disperse. I've seen lots of them and they rarely play on after the third 2for1.

Just make sure you have a counter for Primal Huntbeast. I just had a game where this thing hit the board and was buffed by 2 Nimbus Wings to a 5/7 hexproof flying. I was close to giving up until I realized I could use 2 Disperse on his auras to ground the guy and block him to death.

I've been having a ball playing Origins on the iPad. It was fun starting from scratch, relearning all the cards and trying to build sustainable decks.

After playing a lot of mono-colour aggro to learn the cards, I've been trying to build control decks.

My most successful/fun decks so far have been a Rakdos "Sac and Steal", and this Izzet Control deck.

Izzet a Bird?
4 x Perilous Myr
1 x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
3 x Telling Time
4 x Twin Bolt
3 x Chief of the Foundry
1 x Jhessian Thief
2 x Aeronaut Tinkerer
3 x Thopter Engineer
3 x Artificer's Epiphany
2 x Exquisite Firecraft
3 x Whirler Rogue
2 x Pia and Kiran Nalaar
1 x Reclusive Artificer
2 x Thopter Spy Network
2 x Willbreaker

8 x Island
6 x Mountain
2 x Sulfur Falls
3 x Foundry of the Consuls
1 x Rogue's Passage
4 x Izzet Guildgate


The aim is to win by going wide with lots of little Thopters, pumped by the Chief of the Foundry's.

There is a lot of card draw with Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Telling Time,Jhessian Thief,Artificer's Epiphany, and Thopter Spy Network in order to find the answers for whatever your opponent is throwing at you.

No big creatures, because there is just so much cheap removal in Origins, I'd rather go wide with low cost flyers.

I find the trick is to play slow control. Most of my losses have come from over extending for a quick win, and not leaving up enough blockers for any unexpected tricks.

I'm not sure about 2 Willbreakers, and even Jace is a bit iffy. But I like stealing their cards, and Whirler Rogue, Rogues's Passage,and Twin Bolt make it easy to target the opponent's creatures. I was thinking to maybe swap one out for another Reclusive Artificer

I'm looking for advice on how to improve it please. The hardest match up seems to be Aura decks especially when they are coupled with Sigil of the Empty Throne.

Cheers

Nish

So I've been busy tinkering in my lab pouring over some cards and trying to make a deck just for them. Everyone said I was daft to build a deck around one card, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It failed miserably. So I trimmed it down, refocused it and tried again. This is that deck and it is a love letter to Willbreaker.

Slave Breaker
x4 Goblin Arsonist
x1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
x2 Harbinger of the Tides
x4 Perilous Myr
x4 Twin Bolt
x4 Frost Lynx
x4 Act of Treason
x3 Enthralling Victor
x3 Reclusive Artificer
x3 Whirler Rogue
x2 Flameshadow Conjuring
x2 Willbreaker
x10 Island
x9 Mountain
x2 Sulfur Falls
x3 Rogue's Passage

And there you have it. She's beautiful isn't she? I mean sure she dies to aggro in a heart-beat but who doesn't these days? When she works though - oh when she works it's a piece of art. The very definition of poetry in motion - that is if your particular brand of poetry involves someone weeping softly in the background begging you to let them keep just one of their creatures. I know mine is!

As a side note you must *must* have 'Always Use Optional Abilities' turned off to use this deck. A lot of your abilities will bounce or kill their potential target before you can enslave them to your will and have them perform your dirty work. With that option off you can target them (thus triggering Willbreaker) and then decide not to trigger the effect (so Goblin Arsonist won't deal damage, Frost Lynx won't tap the enemy etc). The only exception to this is Perilous Myr who is so damned blood-thirsty he will kill regardless of your wishes. Only target things with him that you either want dead or have more than 2 toughness remaining.

A couple of notes on cards that might not be obvious;
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy: Basically here to help dig through your deck faster to find Willbreaker. Once he changes he still retains his usefulness - his +1 basically becomes 'steal your opponents creature' which isn't something you can balk at.

Whirler Rogue: Willbreaker's BFF. Once they are out together her ability becomes 'Tap Two Artifacts: Assume Direct Control. It's a match made in heaven.

Flameshadow Conjuring: For just 1 mana you too can double up all your ETB effects! Big hitters got you down? Double Frost Lynx can lock them down while you find a solution! Keep getting bit by flyers? Two Whirler Rogues can lock down the sky! Need something dead right now? Two Reclusive Artificers can handle that for you! All this and more can be yours for only one mana - and remember once Willbreaker is around that's twice as many target effects you can abuse to steal your opponents junk!

Rogue's Passage: It's effect is expensive, clunky and not particularly useful to this deck - but it provides mana when it's not doing anything else and gives you a near indestructible source of targets to work alongside Willbreaker.

Willbreaker: The uses should be obvious but when she's this useful it would be criminal not to mention her again!

Here's my take on the thopters:


4x Fiery Impulse

4x Perilous Myr
3x Alchemist's Vial

3x Esperzoa
3x Chief of the Foundry
1x Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh
3x Thopter Engineer
2x Ghirapur Gearcrafter
4x Artificer's Epiphany

3x Whirler Rogue
2x Pia and Kiran Nalaar
2x Reclusive Artificer
2x Thopter Spy Network

Lands: (24)
8 Islands
8 Mountains
2 Sulfur Falls
4 Izzet Guildgate
2 Evolving Wilds

Only played a few games with it, so not sure how it fares against the better decks. Not quite aware of the meta of Origins yet either. But it works allright so far.

There's some things I'm not completely sure about yet, like the inclusion of Esperzoa. We don't have Sanctum Gargoyle and Courier's Capsule like in 2015, but it works well with Alchemist's Vial. But that's about the only thing it works well with. You can just have it bounce itself and recast it if you have Thopter Engineer on the field, but that can be expensive.. More testing is needed to see if it's worth including at all.

As you can see, I only included the artifact-generators, and not so much the artifact-synergees(?) like Aeronaut Tinkerer or Scrapyard Mongrel. I think Aeronaut Tinkerer is a decent card though, so I might see about including it. But I think the goal of this deck is to simply overwhelm with thopters.

All in all, I think it's a pretty fun playstyle atleast, especially since I love Izzet, and I love artifacts. I rrrrreally do hope they give us Sharding Sphinx later on though.

I tested this deck in a couple of online matches and it did well against aggro or enchantment decks. It wasn't consistent enough against slower decks though. When I had to wait too long for the Sphinx or more card draw, the fatties would take over the game before I could finish my mill. Also, 22 lands are not enough, even with all the card draw and scry.

To make a long story short: I switched 4x Calculated Dismissal and 2 Bone to Ash for 3x Inspiration, 2x Displacement Wave and an Island. It runs so much smoother now. Displacement Wave is better than I thought, it's a solid reset button against weenies, deals with Hexproof and tokens and it bounces the Vials for even more draw.

1-drop
4x Fiery Impulse

2-drop
1x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
2x Harbinger of the Tides
3x Sigiled Starfish
4x Alchemist's Vial
4x Disperse
4x Twin Bolt

3-drop
3x Sphinx's Tutelage
3x Jhessian Thief
4x Artificer's Epiphany

4-drop
3x Inspiration

X-Spells
2x Displacement Wave

Land
2x Sulfur Falls
13x Island
8x Mountain

I'm having a hard time building a reliable izzet thopter deck.

Between the network, the rogues, and chandra's parents the manarequirements are extremely dire with what we have to work with.
So I decided it might be fair to consider that the true aggro thopter decks can best be covered in the rakdos thread, whilst for an izzet thopter build, I would look to go further into the blue cards instead of the double red requirements, because 5 double blue 4 drops means it is very hard not to get a bloated curve or mana issues when you include chandra's parents. That means imo building around willbreaker might be a thing (maybe).

I've made a deck like garren has, but which is a bit less all in, but i'll be damned if I type that thing out here without the deckbuilder tool of mr P

Just wondering if anyone else has come to the same conclusion ? Izzet thopters > forget double red.



EDIT :

Also geg : consider thief vs hydrolash in your build ? Imo thief just turns their removal 'on' when you spend recources to get it through or do a combat trick. The other dudes you run get value easier imo.

Jhessian Thief has been absolutely amazing so far. Worst case scenario is when she gets removed, but they still spend time and mana to do so, which helps me more than the aggressor.

If she stays on the board, things get even better. She gets buffed by 28!!! spells in the deck, so basically at least once every turn, often multiple times at instant speed. They can't let me draw an additional card each turn, so they need to keep blockers back, which already helps me. Most of the time I can clear the path anyway and restock my hand or force very favourable trades by removing another creature and pumping her. Displacement Wave for X=2 can also clear their side and allow her to swing.

When you can't afford to attack, she's also a dangerous defender. I already told the story of her killing a double Nimbus Winged 5/7 Huntbeast by herself with the support of 2 Disperse. Still a 1for2 but this is a tough one for most decks. Lesser creatures should be even more aware of her pump ability when I have mana open to Disperse or burn stuff. There's a very good chance that you have more combat tricks in hand.

Hail to the Thief!

Hydrolash you can't afford to play with this deck. Negating 2 damage for a turn does basically nothing in the long run as opposed to killing a weenie, which saves you 2-3 damage every following turn. It's an expensive cantrip, a mana sink and it hurts the deck's speed and safety.

Hydrolash generally doesn't prevent 2 damage in my games. More like 6/8, and cantripping at that. People don't ever go wide on you ?

Witty name I had a look at your control list. I haven't had time to test my own list, that said, have a look at my Jeskai creatureless list. Personally I prefer 100% creatureless so you can avoid stuff like Ravaging Blaze.

Oh, I don't know how I missed the plural - that makes the card much better. But it serves a different purpose than the Thief. The Thief is a solid turn 3 play. Hydrolash gets more effective the longer you play. Maybe I'll give it a shot, but I'm not sure what to throw out. Definitely not the Thiefs and I don't think it's a good idea to lower the amount of 2-drops. Basically it does the same thing against weenies that Alchemist's Vial does against fatties. The Vial has better synergy with the deck though, as it can be bounced and the 2 cmc spot is much less crowded.

Hello, first of all i want to say that my english is bad, excuse me if you don't understand me .

What do u think of change Reclusive Artificer for 2x Pia and Kiran Nalaar? Im playing it that way and works fine, 2 more artifacts and u can use the skill with Perilous Myr. Problem is i need to fill the deck with one more card, i'm using Thopter Spy Network but i'm not sure about that.

Btw i like this deck a lot but if they kill Willbreaker we're ****, don't you think?

I'd be perfectly okay with that change. Perfectly fine - more thopters is always good both to give more ammunition for Whirling Rogue and just for swinging at the opponent. Plus you can always blow them up with Pia and Kiran Nalaar to push through that extra damage.

And yeah if Willbreaker dies or never turns up your pretty much doomed. Then deck was built as a fun experiment rather then as a competitive deck. Glad to hear you're having fun with it though!

That's the problem when you rely on single cards as your main win condition. If my opponent plays enchantment removal against the Tutelage, it's pretty much game over. Doesn't happen very often because only elves include it as a side effect on a body. Willbreaker is a different story though - almost every deck has ways to kill that.

this.

I've already won two games in my own mill list simply by dispersing or waving my own vials for the last bit of draw needed of tutelage

I don't agree on the reclamation sages being an elf archetype only thing though. I've seen it lots in gruul, jund, golgari control, even bant control and simic bounce decks.

It's come to the point where if I see a green source on the table early game, I think long and hard before I slap tutelage turn 3 , even though I do think it is often still the right play. Disperse can be a lifesaver here.

My take on Thopters is similar to UndeadWildChild's deck.

I tried taking it to a more controlling direction with the inclusion of planeswalkers, Disciple of the Ring and Telling Time.

Still not sure on Telling Time vs Artificer's Epiphany, need to test them both once I got all the cards.
Also not sure if Chandra is good.


Creatures
1 x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
4 x Perilous Myr
1 x Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh
3 x Chief of the Foundry
3 x Thopter Engineer
3 x Whirler Rogue
2 x Pia and Kiran Nalaar
1 x Disciple of the Ring

Instants
4 x Fiery Impulse
2 x Disperse
2 x Ravaging Blaze
3 x Telling Time
4 x Twin Bolt

Sorcery
2 x Exquisite Firecraft

Enchantments
2 x Thopter Spy Network

Lands
2 x Foundry of the Consuls
2 x Sulfur Falls
4 x Izzet Guildgate
9 x Mountain
6 x Island

18 x Creatures
19 x Spells
23 x Lands

Mana Curve: 4-16-9-7-1


Thougts and improvements/suggestions are welcome.

I second you on that, yalldaball. I run Reclamation Sages in any deck with Green, simply because very few decks are not running artifact/enchantments. They are always useful in the current meta.

I actually played a guy this morning who dropped a 3rd-turn Sphinx's Tutelage and I responded with a Reclamation Sage. After that, I just sat back, dropped a few more creatures and slowly wore him down. At the end, I had a pair of creatures dealing 3 damage a turn and two Reclamation Sages in hand if he decided to get cheeky with me.

I tried Hydrolash in a couple of games and I think it's a solid replacement for Inspiration, when you're facing a wide board. I used this advantage to make another change: I replaced Sigiled Starfish with Telling Time, because I need less blockers with Hydrolash, it helps to find what I need a little faster and it's the much better top-deck. Still testing if I miss Scryfish early on, but I'm pleased with the changes so far.

So this is the verion I'll be running for the next few days. (Grinding is sloooow with this deck, so that's one downside. It's a lot of fun though ;D)

1-drop
4x Fiery Impulse

2-drop
1x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
2x Harbinger of the Tides
3x Telling Time
4x Alchemist's Vial
4x Disperse
4x Twin Bolt

3-drop
3x Sphinx's Tutelage
3x Jhessian Thief
4x Artificer's Epiphany
3x Hydrolash

X-Spells
2x Displacement Wave

Land
2x Sulfur Falls
13x Island
8x Mountain