I talked a little bit last week about a Tezzeret deck I had been working on for Standard, and enough people asked for a primer that I thought I would oblige. Besides, it’s been a little while since I’ve done one of these, and I wouldn’t want y’all to think I had gotten rusty, now, would I?
Last week was slightly awkward for me, as there were certain massive beatings (I’m looking at you, Wall of Reverence) that I was unable to reveal, and which shift the metagame quite heavily in favor of this deck. So in many ways now’s the perfect time to highlight the list, but nevertheless I do want to be quite clear about a few things. First of all, I haven’t broken the format or anything. I didn’t give this list out prior to Kyoto because I didn’t think it was a Pro Tour-winning deck, especially given that our Five-Color Control (modeled after Chapin & Co.’s Worlds list) was such a tremendous beating that it would have been pointless to run something else. This list isn’t the full-on nuts. As I alluded to last week, there are critical mass of diverse-yet-potent threats in the format that all demand different answers, and with only a certain number of slots to work with it’s impossible to do everything at once without morphing into a different deck. At the same time, the deck is extremely well-positioned for the control mirror, especially against the list that won the Pro Tour, and has enough tools to get the job done against anything. It’s a great deck for a local event because it’s fun, it uses cards that don’t get nearly enough time in the spotlight, and it rewards tight play like few decks I’ve ever seen. Plus, I mean, I do think it’s good. But in the past when I’ve written primers, they’ve all been for decks that I’ve thought were completely and utterly busted. I don’t want to set up false expectations.
The list has changed a little bit since my article last week. Some of these changes have to do with the Pro Tour, some are simply the result of more testing, and some involve technology that I wasn’t at liberty to disclose beforehand. Here it is:
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (26)
Spells (30)
What changed from last week?
In the maindeck, -1 Mind Stone -1 Vivid Meadow -1 Island, +1 Executioner’s Capsule +1 Exotic Orchard +1 Mistveil Plains
Out of the board: -1 Rings of Brighthearth -1 Scepter of Dominance -1 Broken Ambitions -1 Hallowed Burial +2 Vendilion Clique +1 Wispmare +1 Infest
The maindeck changes were the result of a number of things, not the least of which is the realistic possibility that Wall of Reverence-based Five-Color Control can gain enough life (or at least gain enough life to force you to do something that leaves you vulnerable) that you can’t actually kill them easily with damage. Fortunately, Mistveil Plains is totally insane in a deck where you can tutor up cards from your library at will, so you want to play another copy anyway. This gives you an excellent zero-mana win condition in slower matchups that also turns Tezzy into a hard lock if you have enough time. It’s the addition of this second Mistveil Plains that encourages the Executioner’s Capsule. We should be clear about something, though: Executioner’s Capsule is a terrible removal spell. People were asking last week about why it wasn’t in the deck initially, and the reason is that paying 1BB to kill a creature – a creature that isn’t, crucially, a Tidehollow Sculler, a Broodmate Dragon, or a Doran, the Siege Tower – is absolutely awful. Furthermore, one of the reasons Terror is so incredible is that it can blow them out when they aren’t expecting to see it. You lose that surprise value with Capsule. Unfortunately, the existence of Gaddock Teeg in a deck that’s definitely going to be popular necessitates the inclusion of some more cheap removal spells, and the need to recur kill spells cheaply to win an attrition war against Reveillark means that you have to sacrifice some of your effectiveness in the early game. A Mind Stone was cut for the Capsule because drawing two of them early in a deck with Broken Ambitions is bad (you never have that much time) and because you’re no longer worried about running out of artifacts with which to actually kill them. The Capsule is another early play, so the fact that you’re sacrificing some acceleration isn’t a very big deal. Finally, an Island was cut for a second Exotic Orchard due to colored mana requirements.
The sideboard changes came about because of the need to change your plan against control decks slightly. One trend that is very unfortunate for this deck is that because Cloudthresher has been replaced to a large extent by Volcanic Fallout, people are starting to run Cascade Bluffs in their Five-Color Control lists. This means that you can’t keep people off Cruel Ultimatum mana by porting their Reflecting Pools – though you should remember to tap the Bluffs if it’s their only source of red mana, to achieve the same effect. This makes your old plan, which was just to bring in infinite Icys and hit them with a Mind Shatter at your earliest convenience, a little worse, so you have to be more proactive. Clique accomplishes that goal while also providing a little bit of insurance against Planeswalkers, and can also serve as a removal spell against faster decks while taking their recovery mechanism (Reveillark, Siege-Gang, Ranger of Eos, Ajani) in the process. Wispmare, meanwhile, is important because your plan against BW involves hitting them with Cumber Stone and then Sculpting its Steel, so you want to make sure that Glorious Anthem isn’t sitting on the table making you a sad panda. That, coupled obviously with its traditional power versus Bitterblossom, merits its inclusion. Don’t think of it as a one-of. Think of Dispeller’s Capsule as the second, much-worse copy of Wispmare for which you can tutor while pulling double-duty against Scepter of Fugue. Finally, the Infest replaced the Burial to show respect for Gaddock Teeg and to strike a little earlier.
Of course, covering the changes I’ve made to the deck doesn’t really accomplish much if you don’t understand the reasoning behind the numbers in the first place. So let’s go through that real quick.
Maindeck:
4 Tezzeret the Seeker: Four copies is correct, even though it’s a five-mana legendary spell. The reason is that frequently you have to cast your first copy as a straight-up tutor, either for Cumber Stone or for a Scepter of Dominance you need to stay alive. Also, you’ll find yourself often wanting to “rebuy” your Tezz in order to kill them quickly.
4 Wrath of God: You’re a creatureless deck, so you need to make up for that by blowing up the world. Frequently, doing it once won’t be enough, so you’ve got to load up on these to ensure that you have one when you need it. This is particularly relevant in a field defined by Tidehollow Sculler.
1 Hallowed Burial: Again, without permanents to play defense, animals need to die. We’re running this over Scourglass because Glass doesn’t kill your Tezzeret and doesn’t effectively have Suspend 1. In a format with Cryptic Commands and Siege-Gang Commanders, that untap step is just too much to take.
2 Path to Exile / 3 Broken Ambitions / 1 Executioner’s Capsule: These are your concessions to the polarity of the format’s major threats against which Wrath is either a poor or ineffective: Mistbind Clique, Reveillark, Figure of Destiny, Tidehollow Sculler, Kitchen Finks. The thing is that you only have a few slots with which you need to do a ton of different things, and the limits of this mix reflect that. You very much, for example, want to play a maindeck Celestial Purge. But the present configuration maximizes the diversity of threats which you’re capable of answering, and you have to accept that sometimes you’re going to be holding Capsule when they Sculler your Wrath and you’re going to lose because of it. That’s Magic.
4 Cryptic Command: I mean, it’s the best card in Standard. It’s even better when Mind Stone turns it on a turn earlier.
1 Pithing Needle: Nassif & co. felt this card was good enough when you mised the single copy, so it’s even better when you can tutor it up on a whim. It’s also just another card you can lay down early to buy time against specifically Figure of Destiny and recursive Mogg Fanatic.
2 Scepter of Dominance: It’s amazing how much better Icy becomes when it’s a mana cheaper. You get the classic “Tap your guy/Wrath the dudes you just played to get around my tapping your guy/Tap your next guy” interaction, which is such a massive beating that I’m surprised I’d forgotten about it until now. But it also dulls the effects of Unearth, can stop a Clique for a turn if you have a White source in your hand, and can Port people’s colored sources right out of the game. Finally, it allows you to play the incredible Mistveil Plains.
1 Scepter of Fugue: I am less high on this card out of the board than some others because of the existence of Celestial Purge. Still, the card can be a total beating and can win slow matchups singlehandedly. Also, don’t underestimate the value of taking out a white deck’s second wave preemptively. You’ll take some damage in the short term, but it will double or triple the effectiveness of your Wraths.
1 Cumber Stone: Good against all Spectral Procession and Bitterblossom decks, it can also enhance the value of your Wraths of God for the same reasons as Scepter of Dominance.
1 Marble Chalice: This is the card that generates the most raised eyebrows, but you need some means of getting out of Banefire/Siege-Gang range, and it interacts positively with Tezzeret. Finally, it’s another White permanent for Mistveil. You’d be surprised the amount of time this buys you.
4 Esper Charm: The glue that ties everything together.
2 Courier’s Capsule: Like its Executioner friend, the card played fairly is rather unexciting, though at the end of the day sometimes you just need to draw some cards. But turning Tezzeret into double-Honden is worth it, and it increases your deck’s velocity in the midgame.
3 Mind Stone: As mentioned earlier, four is too many, but it interacts well with Tezzeret and the extra mana sources (coupled with Icy) position you well against Faeries and Five-color when it comes to resolving big spells.
I’ll dodge a thorough explanation of the manabase except to say that Springjack Pasture definitely wins games, and I’ll encourage you to test it before you laugh it off as being entirely too Creature-Goat.
Sideboard:
I covered Clique, Wispmare, and Infest already, but I might as well review the rest. The Terror/Purge split accounts again for Mistbind Clique/Mutavault/Teeg versus Doran/Scepter of Fugue/Tidehollow Sculler demands, but their applications are obvious. Bring them in when you need to point and click. The Relic and the Capsule are for when you need tutorable ways to interact with their respective card types and/or zones, though you have got to be careful not to blow yourself out with Relic. Also, if you draw it early, don’t be afraid to sit it on the table. Mind Shatter + Negate is your plan versus midrange and control, and Sculpting Steel becomes the second copy of Marble Chalice, Cumber Stone, or a Scepter as necessary.
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As with every deck, you need to ask yourself what you gain by playing this deck before you sleeve it up. With the control decks moving to permanent-based solutions to the format’s creatures, you gain even more of an edge from playing a creatureless deck, since other decks will doubtless evolve to incorporate more straight-up removal spells. The deck that wins the Pro Tour always sees a spike in play immediately afterwards, and now is no exception. The fact that you can dodge the ensuing hate is huge. Also, as I talked about a few weeks ago [link to “Control Deck Theory”], the fact that you’ve got recursion, cheaper and more resilient threats, and a greater density of mana sources puts you in a better phase-3 position than the format’s dominant control deck, which gives you considerable edge in that matchup since it’s bound to go long. Finally, nobody’s playing artifact removal spells. The traditional vulnerabilities you’d be exposed to by playing cards like Scepters and Cumber Stones—having to rely upon them for your plan only to have them blown up easily—are skirted, and so in a sense you’re getting away with something you really shouldn’t be. These factors taken together mean that you’re in a real position to exploit some of the format’s natural vulnerabilities, at least before it adapts to accommodate you.
With all of that out of the way, let’s get to matchups.
B/W Tokens
One thing you have going for you in this matchup is that they’re not very fast, objectively speaking. This, coupled with their lack of range (though watch out for versions that start packing Profane Command) means that frequently you can set up a Tezzeret while you’re relatively safe. If people follow LSV’s lead and cut their Thoughtseizes, the matchup gets even better for you. They can’t really answer your permanent-based solutions, so you can milk tremendous value out of your Wraths as long as you don’t let yourself get Scullered at a very inappropriate time. One thing that’s vital is to prioritize Glorious Anthem, since it effectively doubles their clock while rendering your Cumber Stone nothing more than a speed bump.
Sideboarding:
+1 Infest, +1 Wispmare, +1 Dispeller’s Capsule, +1 Sculpting Steel, +2 Celestial Purge, +1 Negate
-1 Scepter of Fugue, -1 Marble Chalice, -1 Executioner’s Capsule, -2 Courier’s Capsule, -1 Scepter of Dominance, -1 Mind Stone
Random artifacts that don’t do much in this matchup come out for ways to combat their Planeswalker sideboard plan, their Scullers, and their Anthems. You lose a Mind Stone because pure speed just isn’t a priority in this matchup. Capsules come out because you plan on winning on the board and you don’t want to prioritize your hand size only to be hit by Head Games or Mind Shatter. Losing a Scepter is unfortunate, but they are a token deck and sometimes it just doesn’t do enough. If you’re on the play and they’re a version without (for example) Knight of Meadowgrain, or in general are planning to beat you by going large, keep the Mind Stone in and bring in some Mind Shatters to just hit them for three on the fourth turn and challenge them to kill you from there.
Various R/W Aggressive Decks
The most crucial difference between R/W and B/W for Tezzeret is that R/W can “go Aggro” with Figure of Destiny. It’s a shame that this guy can get in for infinite damage, but he’s actually very problematic for you and needs to be answered as soon as possible. He’s why you’d like to play Terror in the main, but have to play Path because of Sculler and Doran and Reveillark. Pathing him is just always so awkward because it leads right into something nightmarishly bad for you like a Siege-Gang Commander. Anyway, whether it’s with Needle or a removal spell, prioritize on reducing this guy’s threat level as soon as you can. Other than that, you’re going to be in for a long game. You have to play your Tezzeret very aggressively because unlike in most other matchups there’s nothing you can get that just totally shuts them down. At the same time, they can’t do much about your getting your Tezzeret to five, Cryptic Commanding their guys, and smashing in for tons of damage. Chances are they have a Path, but you’re fully untapped and might just have five artifacts regardless. You are not favored in game 1, though, so you’ve got to compensate out of the board. Fortunately, they rarely have much to bring in against you other than potentially Lapse of Certainty.
I mix together a deck like Cedric’s and the traditional Kowal-based “Boat Brew” decks simply because your plan against them is the same. Boat Brew is much worse of a matchup for you because they have a better second wave, but Cedric just sideboards into that deck anyway in this matchup so you have to approach the three-game set the exact same way.
Sideboarding:
+2 Terror, +2 Celestial Purge, +1 Infest, +1 Sculpting Steel
-2 Courier’s Capsule, -1 Cumber Stone, -1 Scepter of Fugue, -1 Tezzeret the Seeker, -1 Broken Ambitions (on the draw) / -1 Mind Stone (on the play)
Against Proper Boat Brew (additionally):
+1 Relic of Progenitus, +2 Mind Shatter
-2 Path to Exile, -1 Scepter of Dominance
The reason the sideboarding is different involves, principally, Siege-Gang Commander. Without that guy your Scepters of Dominance get a lot better. With him in the equation, on the other hand, it’s more important to strip their hand in case they have him and take some damage before you Wrath. Figure and Ajani are so important that Purge is fine just for those.
Dark Bant
This is a classic Animals-Versus-Wraths battle with one major kink thrown in the picture: man oh man is Gaddock Teeg good against you. Your Scepters are solid gold, and you don’t care at all about anything that isn’t an animal. Simply focus on staying alive and on killing Teeg as quickly as you can. Obviously, Rafiq can deal a whole lot of damage at once, but he’s also relatively easy for you to deal with. Use your Paths wisely, and remember that Broken Ambitions is utterly insane against them.
Sideboarding:
+1 Infest, +2 Celestial Purge, +2 Terror, +1 Sculpting Steel
-1 Cumber Stone, -1 Marble Chalice, -4 Cryptic Command
That sideboarding might surprise people a little bit, but you’re incredibly favored in the matchup and the only way you’re going to lose is if you get blown out by a Guttural Response. Plus, their Guttural Response slots are straight swaps with their creature removal, so it’s a natural fit. Basically, they plan to Jamie Wakefield you with their last fattie, and you’re dead set on ensuring that doesn’t happen. Because they can’t punish you for tapping out, your Cryptic Commands all of a sudden become incredibly narrow cards. Taking them out reduces their interactive potential while letting you tap out every turn like you want to do anyway. After board, every card in your deck either kills creatures or draws you more cards that kill creatures. It’s quite insane, actually.
Goat Land also earns its keep in this matchup alone.
Blightning Beatdown
One incentive to play this deck, actually, is that zero copies of Blightning made the Top 8. This matchup is quite bad for you because Unearth is insane, Goblin Outlander can’t be tapped by Scepter of Dominance, and the actual card Blightning is a nightmare for you. The way you win this matchup is to fire off an early Broken Ambitions into a Cryptic Command and stabilize on a Tezzeret. Your Scepters are very good, obviously, against their creatures that don’t have Pro-White, and help to keep their Unearth spells in check to some extent. Still, you have to keep mana open when they have an important creature in the yard even if it doesn’t get Unearthed, which is obviously problematic. This is in addition to the fact that they can simply burn you low enough that you have to Cryptic a Javelin on your end step, or something, allowing them to resolve a Siege-Gang and/or Unearth for the win. What is crucial is getting a Chalice on the table as soon as possible, because it gives you inevitability while keeping you out of Banefire range.
Sideboarding depends deeply on whether or not they have Bitterblossom. If they do, you want to keep in Cumber Stone and bring in Wispmare to stop it as well as any potential Everlasting Torments. It also makes cards like Executioner’s Capsule worse. On the other hand, if they have something closer to Herberholz’ list with Figures, Ram-Gangs, the full amount of Ghitu Encampments, and Siege-Gangs, you’re going to want your Capsule as well as your Terrors. It’s difficult to write up a sideboarding guide because there is so much variance from list to list, but you’ll always want Purges and a Sculpting Steel to double up on your Marble Chalices.
Five-Color Control
This matchup always boils down to whether you can resolve one big spell. It’s matchups like these where understanding interaction advantage is incredibly important, because you get to look at every card in their deck in terms of what specifically it can actually do against you. Plumeveil, Wall, any creature removal spell: literally blank unless you’re “going for it” with Tezz. Volcanic Fallout: Pay 2 life to remove two loyalty counters from Tezzeret the Seeker. Broodmate Dragon: Wrath or no? Literally the rest of their deck is card-drawing, counterspells, and Cruel Ultimatum. They have more ways to draw two than you do, but you have more mana sources, fewer dead cards, and inevitability in the form of recursion. Focus simply on playing as many lands as possible. Try not to ‘bite’ unless you have to, because even if you sneak a Tezzeret through they can kill it with the Volcanic Fallouts that have been sitting in their hand doing nothing (unless you jump loyalty immediately, but a one-loyalty Tezzeret tends to be rather fragile). On the other hand, frequently Cruel Ultimatum just isn’t all that bad for you. I mean, it’s always going to be bad for you, but you don’t care about the life really so it’s actually just +4 -3. When you realize that between one and two of the cards they draw are going to have zero interactive potential, and that you will also probably be discarding Paths to Exile and Cumber Stones, it’s not nearly as vital as, say, a Tezzeret in play. He is frequently a greater power. That being said, the way you lose is to fight hard over a Tezz only to have them untap and do something ludicrous like Ultimatum into Dragon or even Dragon into double-Cryptic for your Wraths.
Sideboarding:
-2 Path to Exile, -1 Hallowed Burial, -2 Wrath of God, -1 Marble Chalice, -1 Cumber Stone, -2 Tezzeret the Seeker, -1 Executioner’s Capsule
+2 Celestial Purge, +2 Vendilion Clique, +1 Dispeller’s Capsule, +3 Mind Shatter, +1 Negate, +1 Sculpting Steel
Despite your having such a great matchup game 1, you have to change things around significantly game 2 because of Scepter of Fugue and their ability to cash out blank cards. You’re taking out Tezzeret because even though he’s nuts you rarely just want to run him out there early, lest you risk getting Ultimatum-ed; you might say “well he’s at 5, so if you play him then nothing really bad is going to happen to you.” That’s fine, except they may have their Shatters, they may have Head Games, and they may do something like end step Plumeveil + Path to Exile, untap, land, Cruel ya, because they know the matchup is bad and have to make you screw up to win. Why risk it?
You have to tap out for Mind Shatter, as well, but the difference is that it always gets them.
Faeries
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Or at least stumbled. Or had a misstep along a sidewalk-crack. No, gents, ladies, the little dragonfly-like roguish pests that could are still here to stay, and that’s not necessarily a good thing for the Tezzeret deck. Their biggest threats against you are far and away Mistbind Clique and Bitterblossom, but fortunately for you cards like Scion of Oona are on the decline. That means that Cumber Stone can serve as a trump for any number of Faerie Rogue tokens, and it also makes getting that card into play a top priority. The best thing about their Bitterblossom is actually — counterintuitively – that it turns Spellstutter Sprite into an absolute monster. You can fight their Cryptics and Broken Ambitions because you have the same spells with more mana, but Sprite becomes surprisingly annoying when you need to resolve a Wrath. Without Bitterblossom you’re in fine shape because their Sprites are more or less blank and you can ensure they don’t resolve a Clique. Get a Needle to stop their Mutavaults and you should be okay. With Blossom, though, your priority becomes Stone into Scepters to stop their bigger threats. Unlike with Five-Color, you absolutely kill Bitterblossom with Esper Charm. You can also steal a game here and there with Scepter of Fugue.
Sideboarding:
+2 Terror, +2 Celestial Purge, +1 Wispmare, +1 Negate
-1 Marble Chalice, -1 Scepter of Dominance, -1 Hallowed Burial, -2 Wrath of God, -1 Tezzeret the Seeker
After board, you’re much better equipped to deal with their Blossoms as well as their Mutavaults, and can handle things like Liliana they might bring out of the board to trump you. Traditional wisdom would dictate you bring in Mind Shatters here, but in reality it’s much more important to just start killing their guys and playing lands. You can’t afford to tap out to Shatter them at basically any point in the game, and you don’t have the luxury of setting up a big Shatter turn because you could just get Vendilion Cliqued. Instead, I’ve found it’s best to simply handle their threats as they are presented and win off your instant-speed card drawing.
…
Well, that’s roughly 4,300 words on how to turn artifacts sideways for lethal damage. I think this deck is very well-positioned at the moment, and I hope y’all seize the opportunity to capitalize on that in your respective FNMs. The deck is very different, is incredibly fun, and most importantly plays basically every single one of my favorite Standard-legal spells (Wrath, Cryptic, Tezzeret, Esper Charm, Vendilion Clique, Scepter of Dominance). Good luck, and let me know in the forums how it goes!
Zac