It’s Daylight Sieving’s Time

Hello everyone, and welcome back to The Arcane Sanctum. Today we’re going to use a lot of metal to manipulate time and (table) space as we talk about one of my favorite planeswalkers ever made.

Unlike many other Planeswalkers, Tezzeret has specific cards you must use to build around him. While some may think that’s “bad” I like to think of it as “bad ass” in this case. He’s really easy to ultimate as you only need to use his first ability, get the turn back, and then if things add up right use the ultimate for the win.

However there’s more than one way to win.  Let’s take a look at the deck.

Creature
3 Glint-Nest Crane

Planeswalker
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

Instant
4 Whir of Invention
3 Fatal Push

Sorcery
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Collective Brutality

Artifact
4 Pentad Prism
3 Thopter Foundry
2 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Sword of the Meek
2 Welding Jar
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Time Sieve
1 Pithing Needle
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Mox Opal

Land
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Island
4 Polluted Delta
2 Ghost Quarter
2 Swamp
2 Watery Grave
1 Academy Ruins
1 Darksteel Citadel
1 Inventor’s Fair
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Sideboard
3 Echoing Truth
3 Duress
2 Damnation
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Witchbane Orb
1 Grafdigger’s Cage
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Pithing Needle
1 Ghost Quarter

This deck is more of a lock down or Prison type of control deck where you start by attacking the opponent’s resources, and use your arsenal to prevent them from attacking you as much as possible.

This is my current version of the deck. Prior to this I had 3 Abrupt Decay in the sideboard, and a 2 / 1 mix of Misty Rainforest / Breeding Pool. I don’t think the green splash is worth it honestly, and adding a Darksteel Citadel helps to bring my artifact count up. I did try a version without Glint-Nest Crane, and it felt way too slow so I added them back.

 

How does the deck operate?

You want to assemble the 3-card combo of Thopter Foundry, Sword of the Meek, and Time Sieve. The last one is sometimes not completely necessary as the first two plus an active Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas can spell an early victory for you.

You don’t necessarily have to wait until you have 5 Thopters on the field to activate Time Sieve. Sometimes when you are ready to “go off” you could have 4 mana in play, 1 land in hand, 2 Thopters, and 3 other artifacts that will not matter as you start taking infinite turns. There are times I started the cycle by choosing a Pithing Needle, an Ensnaring Bridge, an empty Pentad Prism, and then made 5 Thopters a turn until I had mana to start making more per turn. You  grind them out by obtaining an insane amount of life, and attacking for a few damage a turn.

One of the best ways to assemble the combo is by using Whir of Invention. Every time I cast this spell it’s the most fun I could be having, and I’m probably doing something pretty busted. Pentad Prism adds 3 mana to this spell so you can assemble pieces early.

However you can get more than combo pieces. Remember when I said this is a Prison type of control deck? Here are some lock pieces.

With your curve generally low you won’t have many cards in hand, so Ensnaring Bridge helps keep your opponent’s creatures at bay. Just be careful with the number of cards in your hand though. They can still attack with a 1/1 and use spells to pump it before the damage step as that gets around Ensnaring Bridge. While they are too busy not attacking you could also remove their lands from the game with both Crucible of Worlds and Ghost Quarter. While this does not progress your mana base it does keep your opponent from playing larger spells against you, or you could lock them out of a certain color. You could also get back a fetchland, or even Inventors’ Fair.

The rest of the deck is filled with cheap artifacts that you can cast early, and often. Pentad Prism for example can even set up a turn 3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, and while it may be tempting to use his first ability making the Prism (now with 0 counters) a 5/5 artifact creature can be another path to an early victory.

The suite of discard spells with Inquisition of Kozilek, and Collective Brutality, can strip your opponent of needed resources for their deck, or cards that can devastate your strategy (looking at you Kolaghan’s Command). While Thoughtseize might be better in the maindeck the abundance of Boros Burn, Chalice of the Void decks (thanks Eldrazi Tron!), and other aggressive strategies will mean you want to protect your life total early. If your meta has less of this then you can switch it out moving the Brutalities to the sideboard.

Fatal Push helps clear early creatures, Pithing Needle helps deal with problem planeswalkers, and Relic of Progenitus deals with graveyard strategies during game 1 (and you can get this at instant speed with Whir of Invention!).

The sideboard is filled with ways to deal with creature decks that go wide, ways to protect you from Storm decks, more discard when Fatal Push is not ideal, and although not a clean answer Echoing Truth can help deal with problem permanents for us.

I have been playing this deck off and on for several months, and have a lot of fun utilizing it’s abilities. Whir of Invention feels like a blue version of Chord of Calling, and is currently my favorite card of 2017. The other thing I like about this deck is the theme involved. Tezzert & artifacts. No other planeswalkers that normally would not pair with Tezzert in the stories that are made of the game. This deck hits on a lot of Vorthos levels for sure.

If you enjoy playing with artifacts, and locking out your opponent, all the while building up a combo then this deck is for you. So give it a whirl, or a whir, and tell me what you think of the deck. Make sure to comment below, follow me on Twitter, and Facebook.

Until next time…TAP MORE MANA!!!