"Amateurish. Nearsighted. A waste of my time and everyone else's." -Flavour text on Punish Ignorance.
That phrase probably describes this deck, but one day I happened to stumble across Punish Ignorance, a brilliantly flavoured counterspell laced with life gain and life loss, and I fell in love with it and Esper (U/W/B Artifacts) in general.
== AS USUAL, ANY COMMENTS/SUGGESTIONS ARE APPRECIATED! YOU CAN IGNORE THE WALL OF TEXT IF YOU WANT TO, I JUST RAMBLE ON ABOUT HOW MUCH I LIKE ARTIFACTS AND WHY I INCLUDED STUFF IN THIS DECK. :D ==
I've always wanted to build an Esper themed deck, but never really knew what to put in it.
Obviously there were going to be artifacts of sorts, but with so many to choose from, it was difficult to narrow them down to stuff that would work in a deck.
In the end, I looked at the three basic categories that artifacts fall into: beats, utilities and end-games.
::Beats::
Esper Stormblade - A 2/1 for 2 which grows into a 3/2 flier when there's another multi-coloured permanent under my control. The buff condition is very easily met in this deck, and his colours/types mean that he is immune to the most common removal spells (Doom Blade and Go For The Throat).
Tower Gargoyle - A 4/4 flier for 4, with the same removal immunity as above, and activates Stormblade's buff.
Ethersworn Adjudicator - Oh, just so good. Creature and enchantment removal with its own untap ability. If you want cheaper untaps, use the Unbender Tine(s). On top of that its a 4/4, so its ready to swing when you need it to.
::Utilities::
Darksteel Forge - All my artifacts are now indestructible? Yes please.
Etherwrought Page - This one has so much flavour it could substitute as barbeque sauce. Need some life? You got it. Need to filter a card? You can do that too. Want to cause a heck of a lot of life loss in multiplayer? Sign right here.
Unbender Tine - Untap target permanent. Yes you read that correctly: target "permanent". Anything you need untapping is now untapped, including land.
Mask of Riddles - Now this I like simply for the pretty much guaranteed card draw each turn, especially when equipped to a Stormblade.
Master Transmuter - Just glorious in artifact decks. Cheat out the expensive stuff, or bounce stuff you want to protect ~including itself~. Brilliant card.
Etherium Sculptor - Makes your artifacts cheaper. What's not to like?
::End-games::
Sphinx of the Steel Wind - Hello, I'm a 6/6, Flying, First-striking, Vigilant, Life-linked, Pro-red, Pro-green sphinx, and you can have me out as early as turn 4. GG.
Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas - Not strictly an artifact, but he may as well be.
+1: Filter the top 5 cards of your library.
-1: Turn that *insert any piddly artifact here* into a 5/5. Permanently.
-4: You win the game.