Ub Artifacts

Brittle Effigy is just a great, cheap catch-all removal for the deck that can be tutored up with Trinket Mage. The clasps are also artifacts which makes a big difference here as well. The Certarch, in my opinion just honestly isn't that great of a card. The Thrummingbird has potential, but the fact that it isn't an artifact makes it just a bit worse than the Clasp for now, I think. Thanks for the input, though. I'll definitely keep it in mind.

You know, you're probably completely right about the lack of creatures for the Masticore... Dang. Totally didn't even think about it while I made the deck. Just seemed like such an awesome artifact to be playing with. Ha. Chimeric Mass actually is a card I'm really excited about. It can be tutored up with Trinket Mage and can become massive with the help of Grand Architect. Plus, proliferate should work nicely with it as well. It also dodges sorcery removal which is important at times (can't die easily to DoJ or Journey to Nowhere). I can totally understand what you're talking about with the Tumble Magnets. Maybe you're right here, but I think I'll at least give them a try for a bit. Who knows, they may really prove to be helpful but I definitely can see pulling them at some point.

Opals do seem good, but I honestly am not sure if there is enough artifacts in the deck, plus I just don't want to go buy them at the moment if I have a cheap, relatively decent substitute but I'll look to adding them as I acquire them.

Thanks for your advice. I really do appreciate it. I can tell you've definitely become a much better deckbuilder yourself lately, and seem to be much more creative than myself with your multitude of decks.

Haha, just glad I could help at all! (:
And thank you, once again. It seems as if magic is all I do, so I at least want to be good at it :P
But it honestly does mean a lot coming from you.

(it feels as if I live on this site, you just posted that comment 3 minutes ago, LOL)

to be honest, i'd drop mimic vat all together for another tezz. one mimic vat, with still such a low creature count, will more than likely just be a dead draw. plus if you get a wurmcoil in the vat, you don't get the tokens because he's exiled, not sent to the graveyard.
so i'd drop him for another tezz. (:
also i'd drop a tumble magnet for a stoic rebuttle, and also change the other 3 leaks to stoic rebuttles, too.

thopter assembly is so under rated. as soon as I saw it my jaw dropped! (and lucky me, i pulled a foil one at the prerelease, along with tezz! :D)

but edna, I have a serious question for you.
I reallly want to make a boros deck, but I can decide which one to make, either my boros aggro, or my boros battle cry.
Could you check the aggro (seeing how you already commented on my battle cry) and compare the 2?
I'd have to invest serious cash into both of them, and don't want to waste money xD

Hope I helped, again, and thanks so much for all of your time.

Here's the link;
http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=124120

Ok, so I made the Stoic Rebuttle change. Thanks for that reminder. I'd honestly just forgotten but had planned to do it. :/ I do like the one-of Mimic Vat as it is also incredible with to steal my opponents creatures as well, especially titans. Plus, with "just" Wurmcoil, it's potentially 3 mana per turn for a 12 life swing each turn. Plus, if I activate on my opponent's end step, I can actually end up making and attacking with 2 in the same turn which would be nasty. So the one will stay I think. Other than that, I may drop a Tumble Magnet for the 4th Tezz back. Problem is he's basically legendary and expensive to aquire...

Thanks again. Gonna check your Boros deck now.

I had completely forgotten about other people's creatures, lol. yeah, keep the vat. :P

And yes, i forgot also about the lifegain aspect of wurmcoil. Plus, you either lose a creature or take 6 with him. So again, not too shabby.

Thanks, also, for the comment. (:

Mimic Vat
Imprint -- Whenever a nontoken creature is --put into a graveyard from the battlefield-, you may exile that card. If you do, return each other card exiled with Mimic Vat to its owner's graveyard.
{3}, {T}: Put a token onto the battlefield that's a copy of the exiled card. It gains haste. Exile it at the beginning of the next end step.
And if they kill the token of Wurmcoil you get two tokens

Yeah, great suggestion. I do really like the idea of the Battlesphere. I'll look into that for sure. Thanks. I'll give your decks as soon as I have a bit more time on here (hopefully sometime tomorrow or the next day).

I think the dual lands are just fine for now, but I'll look at trying to maybe shave just one island and one swamp or something. Idk. I'll think about that one. As for the Ratchet Bomb, it's true that it can certainly hurt me as well, but in situations where it'll be used, it will likely be more important to just destroy the opponents stuff, even if a few of my cards die as well. For example, against Kuldotha red, if my chalice has to bite the dust to stop their wave of tokens and let me survive, so be it. Or if it can take out all the Avenger of Zendikar tokens, it still seems like a fair trade. Plus, at this point I'll be playing around the Ratchet Bomb a bit more as well, as it is a Sideboard card. Many of the cards it would backfire on me with are likely to be sided out anyways. So basically, I think it's a necessary card, even if it can backfire. Plus, being able to grab it with Tezz is awesome!

But thank you for your comments. I'll give your deck a look soon, too.

I have in fact. However, I think in this deck there are more/better targets for Trinket Mage. Adding Treasure Mage would probably mean swapping it for the Trinket Mage or pulling more artifacts out, neither of which seem very apealing to me. I wish I could have it, or it was an artifact, but I just don't think there is room for it.:/

Well, after just making some major changes to the deck, I did opt for at least giving the Treasure Mage a try... I added a bigger mixture of 6 drops which may make it better than before, but for now, just one will be in for testing.

I checked it out and commented. Looked like a fun deck.

Thanks for the replies... how do you get your deck on the homepage the amount of likes?

Umm, on the right-hand side it just shows the most recently created decks I believe. The "Top" decks spot is for the decks with the most likes and comments on them.

As for the Zenith... I wish it wasn't so, but it is basically one of my only outs to your boros decks and others like it. Haha. Plus, it can be cast at 3 or 4 if needed. I see what you mean with the top end thing. It was something I looked at, but this deck isn't exactly control either, so I'm not sure I want to have too many less than 6. It's just that in a control deck, it doesn't usually matter if you don't drop your bomb until turn 15 or so. This deck will probably get smashed if I wait that long so 6 may be a necessary evil. Plus, having the Wurmcoil instead of the Mage gives me more artifacts to grab with Tezz. I can certainly see your point, though. I'll probably try testing it as is a little, but definitely keep in mind your advice. My hope is that having so many cards like Chalice, Pilgrim's Eye, and Grand Architect will help smooth this problem out. Guess only way to know for sure is testing.=) Thanks for your help.

haha, in regards to boros someone once told me "i run black sun"
in reply, "i run boros, so that's irrelevant" :P

I can see where zenith may come in handy there.

And by all means, it was nothing. The amount of help you've contributed into helping me is farrrr more than the little I've helped you. I'm just glad I could help at all, really. :3
I never though the one who helped me from the start would ask me for advice, lol. And I was even more surprised when my advice helped! xD

Out of all people on mtg vault, I think you and surewhynot have helped me the most. And I thank you both. :)

Haha, well, you just never know, huh? Haha. Sometimes even people who aren't amazing can be a big help, just by providing an additional perspective to the deck. This isn't trying to say you're not really good or anything. Far from it. I think you've clearly developed pretty rapidly into a good magic player and deck maker. The point I'm trying to make is just that anyone can help with great suggestions.

I'm glad I could help so much, though. And surewhynot definitely seems to have a bunch of good ideas as well. Glad I can be considered with him.:)

Once again, thank you. (:
And oh, what's this? It seems this deck just hit the top list.
Congrats ;D

Hahaha anytime ;D

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm not going to totally argue against them, but try to explain why I haven't made the changes you've suggested or why I maybe wont at all with some of them.

Well, as for Mana Leak, no worries - I'm honestly probably one of the biggest fans of this card out there. I put a full playset in almost any deck that I think could benefit from it. However, this just isn't one of those decks so much. With soo many artifacts, the Rebuttal is essentially the same cost but better. I originally had Mana Leaks but made the swap over and put one Leak back for another Rebuttal. The main reason for this is mind games I can play with the opponent. If they see a Mana Leak game one, they'll be trying to play around it all of game two. Also, it's nice on turn two when usually I can't use the Rebuttal. The fact that there are only 3 counters in the deck is mostly just to use them for the major pesky cards that would otherwise completely stop me and again for mind games with the opponent.

The deck is not in any way intended to be aggro or control. Instead, it is more-or-less a mid-range "Junk" deck. The main thing this deck is built to do is play powerful cards with great effects and card advantage.

As for the Clasp, I did actually originally run 3 plus 1 in the SB. These were really good when they were working at their best, but almost a wasted card when I actually was trying to do something. The fact of the matter is, they're too slow for what they do. At four mana, I'm usually better off leaving up counter/Go For the Throat mana open or dropping a planeswalker or bomb. Seagate Oracle is great in normal UB control decks but this deck needs to maximize its artifacts and the only potential cards to cut then would be artifacts (or cards that find artifacts). Without the Clasp, Emrakul is an even further from possible card and I just don't see it being all that likely.

As for the Spell Pierce, it is an absolute animal against control decks! I can now stop their turn one Inquisition or fire back at their counters to force my cards through for only one mana. Plus, it almost always catches them off guard and stops their planeswalkers. I love the card, and while 4 may be too many, it needs to stay for sure. 3 may be appropriate but testing will determine that. Consuming Vapors is far too slow for stoping all the tokens of Kuldotha Red and both Ratchet Bomb and Black Sun's Zenith do a much better job of stopping these (with added benefits of either being an artifact or being able to kill Thrun and reshuffle effects).

As for too many big threats, that seems to be a reccuring theme. This may be absolutely correct but for now it's mostly just testing. It really depends. The problem is, like you said it is not controlling enough to wait 15 turns to drop a bomb, yet it is not quick enough to possibly justify 6 or more.. We'll see.

What do you mean exactly by condense? It's only 60 cards, which is the minimum requirement. Unless you mean making it with more 4-ofs... I can understand that but for now I'm going with the diversity and testing route. Thanks for the complement, though.:)

This is pretty true, but only having 3 charge counters can be a major pitfall. Plus, they are really good sometimes and terrible against some of the more swarm-type decks so I think 2 is probably the right number. Also, as for the 2-of type thing, Most of it is just for diversifying options and redundancy. For example, the Trinket Mage is mostly there as a random, fetch w/e is most important at the time card but not entirely relevant on its own. I understand the argument for 4-ofs though. I always used to try to make my decks as streamlined as possible and it makes sense why, but in practical senses, it doesn't always work out so nicely. :/ I'll keep it in mind, though. Thanks.

The Transmuter seems like a great card, although not standard anymore which this deck is trying to stick to...

The Chimeric Mass is a great blocker/artifact at any stage of the game and can be tutored out by the Trinket Mage. There are also plenty of artifacts to make use of Tezzeret's -1 ability. The Pilgrim's Eye is incredible because it thins my deck, prevents me from missing land drops, and becomes a 5/5 flyer with Tezzeret. If I need to kill something off with a Brittle Effigy, I'd much rather be able to do that than playing a planeswalker that wouldn't save me anyways. If the walker would help me, then I'd just play it instead. Every card in this deck can be a threat with the help of Tezzeret or even on its own in the case of the cards like Wurmcoil Engine and the Myr Battlesphere. Jace is actually surprisingly one of the worst cards in here as far as "threats" go. Mimic vat doesn't need to even imprint one thing of mine to be even decent. And yet, I would love to imprint any of the creatures in my deck onto it. It's also a 1-of because it is not going to be the best card in many situations, but there are some matches where it will shine incredibly and give the deck ways to win it otherwise may not be able to. Treasure Mage is primarily experimental but great with a slightly diversified threat force. It's also almost like having another artifact out. Grand Architect is probably one of the weakest cards in the deck. None of the cards need it to power them up really and the "ramp" is hardly useful when instead I can play Chalices and similar cards. Plus, it is not itself an artifact which is relevant. As for the pulling in too many directions, that may be the one area I could actually understand an argument for. It does appear that way, and I realize this. At this point, the deck is still undergoing a fair amount of tweaking. Numbers are off, but the base seems well set, I think.

Any counter-arguments? Just trying to explain why some of the cards are actually quite relevant and not nearly as bad as you seem to see it as.

Thanks for your reply. Its always nice to see ones opinion not go unnoticed.

I ended up sectioning this out because there was so much. lol Don't mistake any of this for negativity as I do like your build. Ive just been working on something very similar the last few days and have quite alot to say.

part 1: treasure/trinket mage, everflowing chalices
I am still all for the chalices. My opinion with the architects still stands, however I can understand your wanting to keep him at less than 4. I myself am in the making of a blue black Tezzeret build and trying as much as I can to not put too much blue in there. But the architects themselves can pump out 2 mana per turn for free, the equivalent of a palladium myr. Not only is that a huge plus but they'll always retain the option of pulling 2 more mana out of other blues, and 1 from your artifact creatures. Theyre great for pumping your chalices as well.
Now this is just a guess, but it seems like your trinket mages are there to pull the chalices. They could always pull the chimeric mass but Ill get to him later. My main concern with this is that your dropping 3 mana to pull a chalice or will have to be played next turn or kicked for 3 less than what you have available.(that turn) If you were to run the architect, you could drop him for 3, and get 2 back from him the same turn to play artifacts. You're already running 4 chalices so your odds of drawing one are high. Multiple chalices are nice but end up being wasted late game. The good thing about tezz though is that you can boost them or just keep pushing them to the bottom of your deck.
Now as for the treasure mage, he is one 3 drop that is meant to grab 1 out of 6 drops with a cost of 6 or higher. Odds are that you'll pull 3 of those 6 drops before you even get the treasure mage, making him an expensive 2/2 that tezzeret isnt friends with. I personally would be much happier being 2 mana ahead of the game with an architect on the field, than I would be having 4 big creature in my hand.

In summary, the architects will add some much needed speed to this deck. Nothing sucks more than getting raped by turn 3 or 4 from a goblin deck before you've gotten anything on the field.

part 2: creatures
Chimeric mass is still so useless in here in my opinion, his flexible cost is nice, but the fact that you need to animate him throws the cost factor out the window. While proliferate can really take advantage of it, there's nothing else for it to offer. I definitely love the hellkite, hes one of my favorite artifact creatures. Same goes for wurmcoil. Myr battlesphere im a little iffy on, but if managed to get that guy in the mimic vat then god help whoever youre playing. Not to mention it would work awesome with tezz. An awesome combo would be using jace to recast it, and tezzeret to direct damage them for ALOT. Pilgrims eye is nice for flying and land fetching. Putting that land on the field would make it worth it for me, but as it stands it's abilities just doesn't it's cost.

In summary, outside of the pilgrims eye, the creature base looks like something out of a control deck, except instead of grave titans and frost titans, youre using artifacts. I dont have a problem with this strategy IF youre running the right amount of control and have a reliable card base. Both of which are a little slim in this build.

part 3: Control, everything else.
I love the brittle effigy, especially in an artifact deck. Stoic rebuttle could have a huge place here if there were more early game artifacts. Go for the throat is always great, really rounds everything out. Youve got pretty much every blue black land in standard lol, not bad but seems like alot will go in tapped. Having the reliability of both colors is awesome though.

part 4: cards to consider
mox opal, etched champion, Phyrexian Revoker, darksteel axe.

Thanks for the detailed reply. Yeah, I just cut the Treasure Mage. He was good for testing the deck a bit, though. If your deck is still needing to try out certain 6+ artifacts, he's quite a good card to help test with.

The extra cost on the Mass is slightly annoying, but yet, it is at least only 1 mana and dodges Day of Judgement which is the Caw-Go deck's main removal spell (and a very popular deck at the moment). You were right about Trinket Mage fetching that card, but it also fetches the Brittle Effigy which is very handy sometimes. Plus, it works with Grand Architect well and can just net card advantage with the Chalice when needed. Also, it grabs the Elixir of Immortality post-board which is probably one of the best reasons to play it honestly.

I did drop the Mimic Vat, to make room for other cards like Duress and Inquisition. It just wasn't doing as much some games and the games where I really wanted it, it was like I could never draw it! Haha. Oh well...

I'm working on the control element a bit more right now. It seems to be a good addition. I wasn't originally sure how much artifacts I would need/want, though.

The Champion almost seems too aggressive for the deck, though it may be a decent sideboard against the creature decks. Darksteel Axe has the same type of problem. It doesn't really do enough for the deck I think. If I wanted an equipment, it would likely be one of the swords instead I think.

Opal seems like the card that always works best when I don't need it as much anymore. I'd want it to be active the first 3 turns, where it won't be active. After that, my Chalices and Sphere of the Sun's will be enough, mixed with Pilgrim's Eye, I think. I do love the card, but feel like this just isn't the right deck for it (and the legendary part really hurts it).

Phyrexian Revoker is probably best at shutting down Jace, the Mind Sculptor and not enough else I think. The problem is, my deck places Jace, and even Tezzeret, probably the next best option to name. It just seems a bit counter-productive. Is there a better card it could hit instead? Maybe I'm missing something with this card...

Final ruling thus far: Agree with more control and dropping the Treasure Mage. Chimeric Mass still stays, along with the mage to fetch it. This is maybe just a pet card of mine, but I like it. You could be right and I totally see your argument. It'll be kept in mind for sure. However, it is also a 5/5 for 0 with the help of Tezzeret... That never seems too bad.;) Oh, and the Battlesphere... pretty much insane with Tezzeret and excellent without.:) Thanks for your advice, as always. I'll keep all of it in mind, but keep working on it for now.

I cant believe I overlooked effigy. I'm still a little anti-mage, but I see you did drop chimeric down to 1 so the mage definitely more practical. Revoker would be amazing for shutting down Jace, but that will also keep you from putting yours on the table. However its a much cheaper option than dropping yours and nerfing both. So far though its looking pretty good, my suggestion were mostly based around making some awesome 5/5s with tezzeret. Hence Darksteel Axe equals an indestructible 5/5, although I can see how its not viable without Tezz. Etched Champion on the other hand, is very powerful in here, even without Tezz. Id lean more towards counter than discard but looks pretty good.

Man, that was some good advice!

Sorry to sound like a total dick, but you kinda just sounded like a total dick too, lol.

Don't just say "yeah, this is a nice try but my decks better, so you might as well just copy mine". That came off as really rude, and it kinda bothered me. :P

Haha, thanks for backin' me up with that. But yeah, I really wouldn't rough it up until you've given some of it a try. So far it seems pretty potent. Always have things to tweak of course and the metagame will play the biggest part in making a deck good.

haha, anytime. there's no problem with asking for advice on somebody elses deck, but just telling them that they should flat out copy yours is.. well, being a bit of a dick. :P

EthanLewis has deleted this comment.

Well, I've tested it a bit more and I'm thinking you're right (as was Ethan) about dropping the number of big guys. The main reason is because Tezzeret already honestly can do that for you anyways... I added four 1-mana discard effects to help against control and even slow down some of the aggro decks. Sphere of Suns is back in the deck. Tumble Magnet still hasn't really proven itself to me that much yet that I need 4, but a couple can be nice at times. I'll check out your deck now.:) Thanks for your comments.

If it hasn't proved it self for you(Tumblet Magnet) then i understand.
But your Ideas is really awesome and i really hope your deck will work

Thank you! Good luck with your deck as well.