By popular demand (all right, one guy voted) this edition of "Better know an artifact deck" is about my colorless control deck. When the deck was first envisioned, it had a creature aspect to it which has since been removed in favor of a creatureless build. The thread discussing the creature deck can be found here, but I will be discussing the deck as it exists now.
4 x Ancient Tomb
4 x City of Traitors
4 x Cloudpost
4 x Glimmerpost
4 x Urza's Mine
4 x Urza's Powerplant
4 x Urza's Tower
4 x Black Vise
4 x Bottled Cloister
4 x Defense Grid
4 x Ensnaring Bridge
4 x Jester's Scepter
4 x Noetic Scales
4 x Null Brooch
4 x Scalding Tongs
The core card of this deck is Bottled Cloister . Without instants, or flash, I've decided to embrace the fact that an artificer's hand is of very low use during their opponent's turn and exploit that for gain. We therefore put our hand in the bottle during our opponent's turn, and use cards which make use of small hand size( Ensnaring Bridge
and Scalding Tongs
), or discarding your hand ( Null Brooch
), to benefit from it.
The rest of the deck is used to protect your combos and board position through the use of cost increasing cards ( Defense Grid makes counterspells a bit unreasonable), counters on sticks ( Null Brooch
and Jester's Scepter
), or creature protection ( Ensnaring Bridge
and Noetic Scales
, or as a win condition (once they can't cast anything, Black Vise
hurts pretty bad[/c]).
Ideally, you want Defense grid up as soon as possible, because if anything is going to ruin this deck's day, it's counterspells. An early black vise is also great in order to start the clock as early as possible. Then, as you build your mana base, look for some counter abilities asap, and don't be afraid to use null brooch even before the cloister comes out if it's only going to cost you dead cards (a second ensnaring bridge or noetic scales for example). Get the cloister up and then null brooch/Jester's Scepter whatever seems dangerous, while the bridge/scales protect you from creatures and the tongs/vise eat away at your opponent.
Being a deck vulnerable to disruption, it could always use more speed. The colorless mana base takes care of some of that, but I've tried several forms of acceleration without success. (Mox diamonds, chrome moxes, and mox opals, as well as jeweled amulets). So the only place to go from here would be Mishra's Workshop s, which are going in here just as soon as I get them.
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As an added bonus, I'd like to talk about the creature version of the deck, which I was not disappointed with. I only turned it creatureless to "see if I could."
Colorless Control
4 x Cloudpost
4 x Urza's Tower
4 x Urza's Mine
4 x Urza's Power Plant
4 x Deserted Temple
4 x Manakin
4 x Roterothopter
4 x Junk Diver
4 x Null Brooch
4 x Mana Web
4 x Defense Grid
4 x Dolmen Gate
4 x Bottled Cloister
4 x Ensnaring Bridge
4 x Angel's Trumpet
If I were to build this version again, there are several changes I would make. I'd probably use the same mana base as the creatureless version, since Glimmerpost was printed after this decklist was written. Also, I'm not sure I'd keep the mana web
except perhaps as a sideboard against decks with large amounts of dual lands. It was not as disruptive as I expected in testing, especially with the removal of mana burn.
The main reason I like this version of the deck, however, is the Angel's Trumpet / Ensnaring bridge
/ Dolmen Gate
combo. Cloister and ensnaring bridge says the opponent's creatures can't attack, and then the trumpet says creatures that didn't attack not only get tapped, but the opponent takes 1 damage for each one. And to add insult to injury, dolmen gate
allows your creatures to attack without concern for their own safety, leaving you protected from the trumpet's mighty sound.
In all honesty, the deck may well work better with creatures, but I have a special place in my heart for creatureless combo control and that's the version I stuck with.
Next time on "Better know an artifact deck": Green +1/+1 counters!
