Breaking down the artifact invasion.

[cooberp]

Wonder is nice but not worth the color inconsistency.  If you run Cities of Brass then you don't fully take advantage of Land Grant deck thinning and you are still horribly vulnerable to B2B.  If you just run the Forests then you get color screwed.  If you cut to RG you lose some random brokenness for focused brokenness and utility.

[Fishhead]

Quote Perhaps the reason why Genesis has helped me more than you is that I'm dueling with players who can laugh off first-turn 5/3's and 4/4's and always have the D-Blow, and so a card that really makes the difference for me might seem overkill for you.

Like I said, if you are playing in a mainly Control metagame then feel free to maindeck Genesis.  It will be very good, just for the reasons you originally posted.  Watch out for BtB from MonoU though.  

If you are not playing in a Control metagame, Genesis is too much a "long game" card to be optimal.  

As for always having the D-Blow, well, thats why TnT has a favorable matchup against Keeper.  TnT has three different paths of quick attack, and Keeper can often stop one or two but seldom all three.  If your opponents always have the D-Blow, I suggest you watch them shuffle more closely.  Theres only one MDed.    

Quote  ...all these Keeper is dead/Keeper is tier two/Keeper can't keep up with metagame aggro people are NOT playing against the Keeper players at Neutral Ground...

Whats up with this stuff?  NGNY *used* to be one of the leading metagames in the US, but these days is it still considered so?  I look at the reports from there and frankly they dont look any different than my local weekly.  I dont see any Matt D or Alex Shvartzman playing there anymore.  Weren't there 2 Keeper players at the last one?  

Quote Uhum, sorry, but what improves a deck in testing? Trying a lot of different cards and build off course.

OK, sorry, maybe I didnt phrase that well.  Like I said, I think its good that people are trying all sorts of new cards in the deck; but what I am trying to suggest is that people play the deck as-is for a bit before going too nuts.  Every two days I see a decklist that has morphed by another four cards; I dont think you all can seriously be testing the changes you are making.  I've played the deck for some time now and, IMHO, 9/10s of the changes in the last decklist are a bad idea.  (Like Spike Feeder was.  No offense, but just an example.)  I'm not trying to stifle peoples innovation, but I am trying to point out that the Germans having been playing variations of this deck for a lot longer than anyone here has been thinking about it.  Maybe you are a super-magic-genius and you can see 10 cards that need to be changed in a week of play (that a large group of people missed in 6 months of testing) or maybe you are just Wile E. Coyote'ing yourself off a cliff.

[Vegeta2711]

I again will agree with Fishhead, and think that the Germans should be given more credit before having their versions of the deck totally shredded. Like I said to Fever the only tech I can honestly say is good and so far has been living up to expectations has been Quirion Ranger, 'though Bottle Gnomes (I totally forgot he existed) was cool against Sligh with lots of burn.

I also will hold back on any sort of real commentary on the Keeper match up 'till I get my games in vs Mako Satou. (Anyone remember her from BD?)

[cooberp]

NG has gone through a bit of a down period this summer as a good number of the regulars are out of town. and Steven Sadin is banned  It certainly hasn't tanked long-term though.
I was posting tons of different versions trying to accomplish the goals of increased color consistency, resistance to nonbasic hate, and ability to win if you dont draw workshop mox guy.  The list I have now has basically accomplished these goals, I feel.
I feel no particular deference to the Germans--they were running LoA in this, after all.  I think the deck is far from optimal and has plenty of room for improvement.  The concept, however, and 80 percent of the original decklist is just a knockout.

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

I'll have to ask Benjamin Rott for his actual decklist, but it's fairly close to Benjamin Ribbecks Duelmen-winning deck. But I know Benny (Rott) has at least some Bottle Gnomes in his SB. For reference, I'll give the link:

http://www.morphling.de/artikel/reports/benni21072002.html

On B2B: playing that after there's a 4CC at least 4 power monster doesn't help you a lot. and TnT boards 4 REB and 2 Lyrist/Emerald Charm usually. By the way, the Deck has just to many must counters for Mono-U to win (the Keg that eats the Welder won't get any other critter). You have to play all out Aggro here, but try dropping a SotF on the way. One of the two plans works usually . Oh,  maybe it's only 75%, but there is a reason why nobody plays mono-u over here.

Genesis is a nice thing, but it takes the aggro-element of the deck down, which further weakens your chances against combo. The deck doesn't try to play lots of comes into play effects or something, it wants to beat heads in. I don't say it's bad, I just say you don't need it MD. It's good against Keeper, but not needed anywhere else (Survivaling through three Incarnations with that few g available costs you at least 2 turns you could have searched & cast beats.). It's been cut here just lately, though, and might be added again, but I don't feel like it.

Wonder alone is not worth the color-inconsistency, sure. But Tinker and Ancestral are. The Wonder just finally screws Keeper, as Moat sometimes did rescue it before. Not that it's bad in the mirror, either.

There are 4 SotF in the Deck, yeah. For the same reason Keeper plays fact, Stroke, Geyser etc. It's used as a drawing engine, not a tutor mechanism. The tutoring function is an added bonus.

For Keeper: There are no Blood Moons in TnT Sideboards here usually, as you don't need them to beat Keeper.
The only way I found to get back to 50/50 against this deck is to play Power Artifact in my Keeper!

@cooberp: your first post tells me, why you don't fare as well against keeper/control: you play this as Survival. This gives them some key-spell to counter and wrack your strategy (by the way, what did you cut for Bird and Ranger, if not Fat?). It makes you more open to B2B, too, as you require regular green mana to work.

I don't know what was usually sided out against Sligh, as I wasn't playing TnT myself but against it. And I never play Sligh, so maybe it turns into SotF-Mode in that special matchup. I don't know. Just beware of PoP with that strategy. I'll ask Benjamin or just let him tell his opinions here. But I'm pretty sure he didn't jank his Masticore.
While I'm at it, I think Keeper is Tire 1, but which competetive Sligh deck doesn't MD at least 3 PoP?

LoA: I don't know if it's ideal, but there are two things making it worth to look at. First it's a primary Wasteland target, protecting your Workshops. Secondly it can even in this deck win games. But to be honest, we're thinking of janking it, too.

Living Wish
Benny and me were testing a version with Wishes in Place of Wonder, Genesis and Uktabi, but because of a lack of time and the want to test AoS, we didn't have final conclusions. (but we know AoS beats TnT   )

/edit: Winter Orb: so far nobody tried out adding this to TnT, but as I see it 1. control still is a good matchup anyways and 2. you usually want to get all the mana you can every turn. It really hurts you, too, especially against Sligh, one of your worst matchups. You might put it in the SB, though.

[ScaldMonger]

I have been reading every post so far on this topic and am currently running stacker2, id like to try the survivle tubbies but as I read I don't even know what the current version looks like. On top of that is there blue anymore in the deck? Iit seemed to have died out to stabalize the mana base, but looks like it snuck back in because of ancestral and tinkers brokeness in the deck (ancestral in any deck). If possible could anyone post up the current version of the deck in its R/G build and it's R/G/U build? thanks in advance and great job on the thread....best read i've had in a long time.  

[Thug]

There is no "current" version, we are not working all together on 1 version. Cooberp for example has cutted blue, something I aint thinking of yet. If you read whole this thread you shoul dhas a good idea of what a decklist could look like, not to mention the mulitple decklists posted. I would advise to duplicate one, and change things that you feel are neccisary.
Have fun,

Koen

[ScaldMonger]

Yeah after i posted i figured that there isnt a set list yet and i might as well go through and find one that suits my meta and go from there. I havent put this deck together IRL yet but If I do build it, using the R/G build (no ancestral yet)  I'll post my results. Just outa curiosity has anyone tried it with just 3 workshops? I dont know how badly it would cripple the deck but it seems that it might help with the manabase a bit, especially in survival/tubbies where it can afford to not lay a fatty first turn. Thanks again.

[jpmeyer]

Quote (Thug @ Aug. 30 2002,08:23)There is no "current" version, we are not working all together on 1 version.

Well, the "standard" version is the German version, which I personally like.  The only changes I would personally make to the maindeck are -1 LoA, +1 Forest and MAYBE -1 Uktabi Orangutan (move him to the board,) +1 Quirion Ranger since that choice is obviously a metagame call because of all the TnT and Stacker in Germany.

[BigChuck]

I don't think it is possible to have a completely standard list. As I think most of you will agree, at least a couple slots are dedicated to metagame calls(like the uktabi and such) so I think the best we could do is come up with a skeleton. Most of the deck is pretty similar, but some decks have some drastic differences. Like one thing I've noticed  is a lot of people hating on Coob's BoP in his version, but they really are incredible. I playtest against him more then is healthy, and they've done him a world of good. They've either alloed him to do some ridiculous things, or just survival more, which is never bad. I think we should work together on a basic skeleton for the deck though, and leave room for metagame slots.

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

First thing, here is Benny's most recent list:

Mana
4 Tropical
4 Taiga
4 Land Grant
1 City of Brass
4 Mishra's Workshop
3 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
7 SoLoMoxen
1 Grim Monolith

Spells:
1 Memory Jar

1 Tinker
1 Ancestral
1 Walk

4 SotF

Creatures:
4 Juggernaut
4 Su-Chi
2 Triskelion
1 Masticore
1 Shaman
1 Quirion Ranger  --great addition!
1 Wonder  (Meta choice, as people keep playing Moat MD. Not really needed otherwise)
1 Anger
1 Uktabi Orang-Utan
1 Squee
4 Goblin Welder
1 Elvish Lyrist

SB:
don't know exactly. some mix of Bottle Gnomes, a Masticore, Artifact Mutation, REB, Emerald Charm, Genesis and Tormods Crypt. Another Lyrist, too, I think.

@Scaldmonger: never cut on the Workshops. They are what applies the pressure that makes you strong against Control and is your nearly only chance against Combo. And plan A still is dropping a fattie first turn.

The BoP: I think their not bad, but Quirion Ranger is enough for this job. And the only thing I can think of cutting is the City, your colored mana is already screwed enough (though it works) and 50% mana is definitely enough. You don't have extensive need for dropping an additional g/u/r, you need the first one and BoP doesn't help with that.

Living Wish: they proved to be slowing the deck down while didn't really need them.

[cooberp]

Why do we need two Triskelions?
You cut Genesis, why?
QR + BoP=3 mana of any color each turn.  The mana in the German versions of this deck is atrocious and you DO need colored mana, and lots of it.  Believe it or not, you really dont draw Mox Workshop Guy most of the time.  You need to be able to tutor into an effective mana engine.  I would definitely play the Birdie over a City of Brass.

[Vegeta2711]

2 Trikes = beatdown + machine gun with no drawback like Core, and is also great to keep welding. That's my reasoning.

I thought we all explained the Genesis issue. Genesis is a late game card which unless you play in a heavy control metagame, is simply not needed MD. The fact is it almost always requires getting Survival into play, in which case you should be searching for more threats over and over again. SotF into Anger, Squee, Random Fattie, etc... Unless you need one of your anwser creatures first.

Also to quote Mon
"Genesis is a nice thing, but it takes the aggro-element of the deck down, which further weakens your chances against combo. The deck doesn't try to play lots of comes into play effects or something, it wants to beat heads in. I don't say it's bad, I just say you don't need it MD. It's good against Keeper, but not needed anywhere else (Survivaling through three Incarnations with that few g available costs you at least 2 turns you could have searched & cast beats.). It's been cut here just lately, though, and might be added again, but I don't feel like it."

hm. not enough test info that I've used BoP for me to judge.

Also at least when I play the deck, I have almost never needed 3 colored mana in a turn. What are you doing with all of that stuff? Most of the time you only need to Survival once a turn (except for the intial burst of dropping incarnations into the grave and grabbing squee), maybe cast a power card or anwser creature... I don't see why you would need 3 colored mana every turn, when a lot of times you are casting colorless threats and your main search engine looks through the deck for G and your usually only doing it once past the first one or two turns it's out.

[FeverDog]

Maybe its just me, but i dont see why Workshops are needed here, much like in Funker. You have a grand total of 12 artifacts to cast with them(not counting mana artifacts), i would think more colored mana would be useful.

I understand that once you get a Survival into play you keep searching for fatties, but if you dont draw one or it gets countered, your Workshops will not be that useful.

Flame away  

[Vegeta2711]

Well your big artifact creatures aren't really scary unless you can drop them quickly. If you drop the workshops you can't drop a 1st or 2nd turn fattie with any form of consistency. SotF also becomes worse if you have to search and wait a turn of the mana capacity to cast a artifact creature.

Basically if the Workshops are cut, the deck becomes much much slower... I really couldn't imagine the deck w/o Workshops.

[cooberp]

Vegeta--I don't know, I find the deck *very* G hungry, but maybe that's because I'm utilizing the Survival more than most builds (although not cutting any of the fast fat).  I have a tendency to use the Survival to build up mana when I dont have a Workshop, cast and use Lyrist in the same turn, use Genesis, etc.  One of my biggest frustrations with the German version is that it never seemed to have enough G for my liking.
I want to stress again that you ARE a fast fat deck with Survival rather than a Survival deck with fast fat.  But Plan B needs to be completely effective, not half-assed.
FeverDog--the Workshops are 100 percent necessary because it is the turn one Juggs and Su-Chis that preemptively beat aggro decks and force control onto their heels so that Survival can overrun them in a turn after they have used up all their resources to stay alive.  Without them, it's just a very poor Survival deck.

[ScaldMonger]

Thinking back cutting any number of workshops is a very bad idea. Your right when you say that the deck is fast beats with survival, not the other way around. The only other real thing I have to add is the possibility of Flowstone Sculpture to the deck. I dont think he is the greatest of creatures but his compatability of using him in conjunction with squee and the incarnations is interesting at the least. Just my opinion, could be wrong.

[Triple_S]

Azhrei and I are still working on the new tweaked version of Funker but TnT is the much better deck in my opinion.  And this is coming from the guy who created Funker.  While the new Funker might be better (it cuts the black and adds Survivals also) than the old version, TnT features a much better early and late game and is less inclined to lose steam while waiting for a bomb.  It pains me to say this, but if you have the cards for both TnT and Funker, play TnT.  Atleast to me, TnT is the natural evolution of the archtype.  It combines the best aspects of Stacker2 and Funker while giving the genre the needed extra punch (SotF) the deck needed.

Maybe this was a bit rambling, and more based upon my opinion and slight experience playing TnT IRL, but I felt it was worth adding.

[BigChuck]

@Scaldmonger:The Sculpture is unnecessary IMO. I'm thinking that the main reason your playing it is moat. With genesis and lyrist, your going to kill the moat evantually, and I think it's not worth playing a normally suboptimal creature, just to get around something which you can handle.

@triple S: How much different is your funker decklist then TnT? I Mean, considering youve added survivals, i can't see it being all that much different.

[cooberp]

How have people been sideboarding?  Give me plus/minuses vs. Keeper, Mono U, Stompy, Sligh, and Suicide.

[jpmeyer]

Quote (Triple_S @ Sep. 02 2002,00:36)Azhrei and I are still working on the new tweaked version of Funker but TnT is the much better deck in my opinion.  And this is coming from the guy who created Funker.

And as the guy that invented Stacker I also say that this deck is just better in practically every way.  It is the only aggro deck which I consider tier 1.

[Triple_S]

The deck isn't fit for print yet but historically biggest difference b/t Funker and its artifact cousins (Stacker, TnT) is the absence of Workshops and the presence of the restricted list (ala Keeper) along w/ Covetous Dragons.  Has anyone tested TnT vs Funker?

[Gothmog]

On whether Workshops are needed, I've been playing Ur Artifact Beatdown without Workshops and I can't say its slow.  I do play with Mana Vault in addition to the usual artifacts, and it seems to get lots of broken starts.  I also play with Wheel and Windfall that lead to more brokenness early.  Basically I have three reasonably possible ways to be broken; Lotus, Mox/Mana Vault or Mox/Sol Ring (which still doesn't get a 4cc Juggy) but lots of ways to take advantage of that occasional draw including draw 7's.

I think this thread is coming back around in tone.  For awhile it seemed people were pushing to make it a Survival deck with answers to every issue rather than a fast beatdown deck.  If that's the way you want to play it, maybe a couple less Workshops is a good call.  In my view, the deck is best as a beatdown machine with backup plans, but the actual engine for the beatdown is Mr. Welder, because he puts things into play uncounterable.  I think there's two directions to go, you have to decide what you want to play.

If you don't play Workshop (or even if you do) consider Mana Vault.  It taps for 3, leads to broken starts and is another artifact to Weld.

[ScaldMonger]

@Gothmog: I believe the deck can function using the same broken starts by using 3 workshops and putting in the mana vault also. I have been playing with that combination for a while now and it seems to work.

@Bigchuck: I think the flowstone has other purposes than just flying, the fact that it could have trample and first strike makes a difference. It can take out morphlings (which COULD be a problem even though this deck seems very resilient) and trample could help with the chump blocks. Still, probably not needed, im gonna test him out.

[Bastian]

A question to triple S.

You said that "the new Funker might be better (it cuts the black and adds Survivals also)". This must mean a very radical change in the deck, since the original funker didn't pack many creatures and to change it to a survival strategy you're going to be packing A LOT more creatures!

How's the deck coming?

[Triple_S]

Its going to be a while before it is made for public consumption.  The biggest reason being is I am still working on learning how to play TnT, which is the vastly superior deck.  TnT is tier 1, Funker is probably tier 2 I think.  Why play a tier 2 deck (even if it is one you created) when you have the cards to play a vastly superior deck that is much more competitive versus Keeper and owns most of the major Aggro decks.

[Fishhead]

Quote TnT is tier 1....a vastly superior deck that is much more competitive versus Keeper and owns most of the major Aggro decks.

Hows your testing going against Keeper?  Around here Keeper is considered a favorable matchup for TnT; pretty much along the lines of the 60-66% that Mons gave.  And it only gets better after sideboarding; although that might just mean that Keeper needs to devote some serious thought to how to deal with the new Tier One kid on the block.  

[cooberp]

Admittedly, I have definitely been taking a majority of games versus Keeper.  But I'm not willing to say anything concrete until I play 20 matches at NG.  I will definitely report results once I do.

[Black_plague]

hello
i was building TnT when I saw my Solitary Confinements and thought i could make a deck putting these two ideas together
and here it is
P.S- please have an open mind.

Creatures:
4-Birds of paradise
1-Squee,Goblin Nabob
1-Reya Dawnbringer
1-Juggernaut
1-Masticore
1-Iridescent Angel
1-Morphling
1-Genesis
1-Wonder
1-Anger
1-Uktabi Orangutan
1-Elvish Lyrist

Artifact/Enchantment:
4-SolitaryConfinement
1-Moat
3-Survival of the Fittest
3-Winter Orb
others spells:
1-Balance
1-Enlightened Tutor
1-Ancestral Recall
1-Fact or Fiction
1-Time walk
4-Impulse

Mana:
7-Solo moxen
1-grim monolith
1-treva's ruins
1-tolarian academy
4 city of brass
4-tropical island
3-tundra
3-savannah

i know it may look weird but i think this is the deck to break the confinement, well maybe im kidding my self on that one but the deck uses the survival to get most of the creatures including the dawnbringer in the graveyard and use the squee to feed the confinement then go beatdown with the guys. The winter orb with the confinement is a sort of lock
thx

[j_orlove]

Unfortunately, that won't work. Putting Reya in the graveyard serves no useful purpose, as genesis only returns her to your hand.

Also, that deck really shouldn't be in the artifact thread. Mods, feel free to move this post with it if you can.


On TnT, the Trisks are excellent. Since I often find myself hardcasting them, multiples really make sense.

Genesis in particular, I'm wavering. I really like it, but sometimes it just clogs my hand. The 4G cost is nearly impossible in this deck, so you need survival to get rid of it, which can be very annoying.

I still have no ideas on the manabase, but it certainly needs fixing.