[Free Article] The Anatomy of Vintage Tezzeret

[Smmenen]

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vintage/17071_So_Many_Insane_Plays_The_Anatomy_of_Vintage_Tezzeret.html


This article deconstructs Vintage Tezzeret, by compiling a list that reflects the most popular and winning card choices in the archetype.    

Whether you are aiming to beat it or to perfect your own list, if you want to see what the most winning Tezzeret deck looks like, do not miss this article!

Also, you will see a list of every card run in a Tezzeret list in the last two months.  

[Tha Gunslinga]

Can we find whoever got Time Vault re-errata'd and shoot them?   Please?

[Twaun007]

Wasn't it Stephen Q. Menendian who singlehandedly rescued Time Vault from oblivion?

[Suicideking]

This has come up in discussion so I thought I'd get peoples opinions here.  Isn't this a thirst for knowledge deck moreso then it is a tez deck.  TfK drives this archetype and with the dominance might cause a DCI reaction. 

[Twaun007]

If Thirst for Knowledge is the driving force behind the archetype and warrants DCI action wouldn't it just switch to an Intuition/AK archetype?

[Purple Hat]

there will always be a best engine.  be it gush, tfk, intuition/AK or some other card, the DCI can continue restricting things all the want, but some new engine will spring up to replace the old one every time.

[vassago]

This has come up in discussion so I thought I'd get peoples opinions here.  Isn't this a thirst for knowledge deck moreso then it is a tez deck.  TfK drives this archetype and with the dominance might cause a DCI reaction. 

I think the DCI has been pretty lag about looking at the absurd amount of islands in the format. I do believe, sir, that this is moreso an island deck. Islands drive this archetype, and the DCI should look into its future legality. 

[EnialisLiadon]

Haven't read the article as I don't have premium, but I am looking to change that soon.

Just wanted to say that talk of restricting TfK just seems crazy to me.  I think problems with diversity are better solved with unrestrictions, rather than restrictions.  But I don't want to turn a thread about Tezzeret decks into a B/R thread...especially since the latter hardly ever ends well.

[OwenTheEnchanter]

Restricting Thirst wouldn't do too much to this deck, obviously it would hurt but they would just default to some janky card draw instead (I mean people win matches with Thoughtcast and Couriers Capsule.)

[Stormanimagus]

Restricting Thirst wouldn't do too much to this deck, obviously it would hurt but they would just default to some janky card draw instead (I mean people win matches with Thoughtcast and Couriers Capsule.)

I'm not entirely sure. There is other blue draw true, but I think the DCI could revolutionize Vintage by restricting more Blue-Draw Bombs. It would be very interesting if Blue ceased to be the dominant color and was balanced more evenly with the other 5. You'd still have restricted sauciness like Ancestral and Twister and Walk, and Brainstorm, but there would be more slots to fill in a deck such that it couldn't be the "Island-go" strategy that I, personally find boring.

I dunno about other people, but I find pure overpowered control boring and would like to see control players have to innovate their decks to include lock-pieces + countermagic instead of just draw + countermagic. Blue could still be a contender, but would sometimes be a splash instead of a base color and other colors like green and even white would get heavier consideration as a base color.

Making Control suck would probably make Combo run more rampant, but actually, in theory NO. Control does well against Stax and if Control is weakened then Stax should become stronger and hence Combo becomes Weaker as it has a poor matchup vs. lock decks.

With this higher balance of the 3 major archetypes perhaps Fish could truly become viable.

It seems to me like, presently the balance of power in Magic is dictated by what the players want (and most like Mana Drain being the best) and the other two major archetypes (combo, stax) must devote so much attention to trying to beat Control that they get slaughtered by everything else and too few of them post great numbers.

And Fish has practically no chance on a consistent basis.

I'd like to see Parfait become viable, as well as jankier versions of Fish. I'd like to see Standstill make a comeback as a Control Strategy.

I dunno. Restrictions are a major headache and balancing act, but I really think Blue is still too powerful in Vintage today.

I'd like to see ALL the colors get featured in a deck and that doesn't really happen much right now.

[LordHomerCat]

Get real.  You could restrict every blue card in Magic and it would still be the best color in Vintage by a mile.  Counterspells and Card Draw are like the two most powerful things you can do in the game and they were both Blue for like forever, so blue is the best color period.

There are plenty of formats where Green and White decks are good, but if you are using every card ever printed, Giant Growth is never going to be on the same level as Ancestral Recall.

I don't think Thirst should get restricted, as mentioned players would just switch to some other engine like Intuition/AK.  Thirst is not the problem with Tez.

[Suicideking]

I dont have a problem with thirst and am against restricting it, but in the past when one deck dominates the format stupid cards get restricted.  I'd rather they unrestricted something to balance things out, but after they restricted ponder I dont think its that far fetched to see TfK axed.

[Troy_Costisick]

Restricting Thirst wouldn't do too much to this deck, obviously it would hurt but they would just default to some janky card draw instead (I mean people win matches with Thoughtcast and Couriers Capsule.)

I'm not entirely sure. There is other blue draw true, but I think the DCI could revolutionize Vintage by restricting more Blue-Draw Bombs.

You mean like how Vintage has been revolutionized since the June 2008 restrictions of multiple blue draw spells and the September unrestrictions of non-blue acceleration cards?  Count me out of that kind of revolutionization.  An environment where over 40% of the decks overall use the same engine and half the large-scale tournament winners use the same engine is boring for me.  I'd be hesitant to encourage any more restrictions.

I dunno about other people, but I find pure overpowered control boring and would like to see control players have to innovate their decks to include lock-pieces + countermagic instead of just draw + countermagic. Blue could still be a contender, but would sometimes be a splash instead of a base color and other colors like green and even white would get heavier consideration as a base color.

Well, if you're looking for a deck that runs countermagic and lock-pieces you should try Stephen's Christmas Beating's deck.  There's plenty of reports on it in the tournament forum.  But honestly, how much innovation do you want from Tez players?  The archetype has been around for less than 3 months.  It took almost 9 months for the true power of the Gushbond engine to be applied to multiple archetypes.  Let's give control players some time to try out the new cards before we hang them for not being innovative enough.

With this higher balance of the 3 major archetypes perhaps Fish could truly become viable....

And Fish has practically no chance on a consistent basis.

You know, Stephen is often criticized for making statements that slant toward a particular archetype, but this comment takes the cake for that sort of thing.  You're talking about Mana Drain, Storm, and Shop decks then suddenly out of nowhere lament that Fish is not a dominant powerhouse?  Who said anything about Fish?  Anything Stephen has said pales in comparison to that.  At the moment, Fish is outperforming TPS, Shop Decks, Painter Decks, and Oath.  That's pretty darn good!  Not only that, Fish decks rely a lot on Null Rod and Chalice of the Void.  If suddenly a deck that is highly vulnerable to those two (Tez) is suddenly restricted out of existance, what's going to happen to Fish's main strategy?  Poof!  That's what will happen.  Right now is an excellent environment for Fish.  I can't think of a time when the best archetypes played so many cards that were hamstrung by Rod and Chalice.  

I'd like to see Parfait become viable, as well as jankier versions of Fish.

So we want to promote crapy decks as hallmarks of the format?  You're kidding, right?

I'd like to see Standstill make a comeback as a Control Strategy.

Wait a sec.  I thought blue draw cards were the problem here.

I dunno. Restrictions are a major headache and balancing act, but I really think Blue is still too powerful in Vintage today.

There is no way to ever remove blue as the most powerful color.  Even restricting every blue card ever printed would not have an effect.  Rightly or wrongly, the evolution of Magic has seen to it that blue cards have the most powerful effects in Vintage.  Nothing can change that, but it doesn't mean that blue decks can't be overcome in any given meta.  One just has to be willing to play a deck that is outside their normal pet-deck comfort zone.

I'd like to see ALL the colors get featured in a deck and that doesn't really happen much right now

A lot of the current Tez decks play 4 out of the 5 colors, some are even 5 for 5.  It's happening all over the place.  Did you read the article?

I'm not seeing Tez decks and Mana Drain decks in general as a severe problem at the moment.  A new set has just been released; in 3 months we'll get another one.  We'll have to see what happens.  I certainly don't believe that we need to start restricting components of the deck willy-nilly just so the Fish archetype or any other specific archetype for that matter can flourish.  I think we should wait for more data to come in to see how people adapt to Tez and Mana Drain powered decks before taking any strong position on restricting cards to neuter this still relatively new archetype.

[pocky]

Mana drain is not the problem (as another thread was devoted to), Time vault is the problem. As I remember correctly, and many others of you as well, Menendian advocated the re-re-errata of Time Vault to its original oracle wording.

In any case, would null rod Tyrant Oath be the deck to top Tezzeret decks? Would a second turn tyrant, or first turn null rod ruin Tezz's day? Though Chain of vapor would wreck the null rod (unless there are multiples)... The CoV would need to be countered or misdirected to another of your permanents... What about pithing needle?

[Troy_Costisick]

In any case, would null rod Tyrant Oath be the deck to top Tezzeret decks? Would a second turn tyrant, or first turn null rod ruin Tezz's day? Though Chain of vapor would wreck the null rod (unless there are multiples)... The CoV would need to be countered or misdirected to another of your permanents... What about pithing needle?

Tez decks tend not to play Chain of Vapor for obvious reasons.  Null Rod also has some negative synergy with the Moxen Tyrant Oath decks tend to use to bounce everything.  I'm not saying it's impossible, just that there's some hurdles there.  Needle might be another possiblity.  It'd be best against an entire field of decks if you could declare it on fetchlands too like Polluted Delta and Flooded Strand.  However, Oath decks tend to run those as well.  There may be some deck design space there. 

Peace,

-Troy

[Sextiger]

We might as well just unrestrict Gush and company again, blue had the same win percentage then as it seems to now.  We're starting down a slippery path by just banning every damn blue card. 

[Smmenen]

We might as well just unrestrict Gush and company again, blue had the same win percentage then as it seems to now.  We're starting down a slippery path by just banning every damn blue card. 

Blue actually was a smaller part of the pie in the Gush era than it is now. 

[M.Solymossy]

Bottom line in vintage is:  If your deck is not playing Ancestral recall and Mana Drain, or Dredge cards, or Mishra's workshop, your deck is built wrong.  Go play Legacy if you want cards like Counterbalance and Standstill to be teir.  If you want to bash with Red, white, and green men, go play Extended or Standard. The format is FINE as it is.  Yes Tezzeret is good, but it's beatable.   Look at TK:  You either play the best deck, or play to beat the best deck.  There is a reason his stax deck won the ICBM Open.

[LordHomerCat]

Bottom line in vintage is:  If your deck is not playing Ancestral recall and Mana Drain, or Dredge cards, or Mishra's workshop, your deck is built wrong.  Go play Legacy if you want cards like Counterbalance and Standstill to be teir.  If you want to bash with Red, white, and green men, go play Extended or Standard. The format is FINE as it is.  Yes Tezzeret is good, but it's beatable.   Look at TK:  You either play the best deck, or play to beat the best deck.  There is a reason his stax deck won the ICBM Open.

You forgot Dark Ritual.

Also, if they unbanned all the Gushbond stuff, I would be one happy Vintage player.  I fully support that movement!

[jamestosetti]

I think Tezz should be restricted. I've been playing a deck with 1 Tezz in it for quite a while and the only thing beating me has been comp tezz control with 2 Tezz and they don't even beat me every time. The other hard match up was painters combo and that was because I had not been using blue elemental blasts because I use s/b space for the rest of the meta.The cards like mana drain and thirst for knowledge are good for the format I think. If Tezz isn't restricted you'd think they would make a new archetype to kind of hate on it and have good matchups with the other decks. They had no problem hating on tps.The other part of it is that it's probaby a more popular deck so more people are playing it than should be? I think this deck could have the faeries effect that bitterblossom had in type 2. That was so ridiculous that its been an almost uncontested deck for a whole year.How lame does that get?

[PETER FLUGZEUG]

Wait a second.
One first thing: Blue is the best color in vintage. Even if every blue card is restricted.
This is vintage.
A second thing:
Well, there's ONE reason drain decks are dominant right now (as compared to other blue strategies):
TfK or IntuAK are the best draw engines. All of those cost 2 or more colorless mana to play. Mana drain provides this. That's the reason.
If they were to unrestrict gush, duress would be a viable disruption strategy again, as gush doesn't cost mana.
Also, you can build decks that just reap tezzeret apart. It's not that hard. (One component costs R, you can run up to 8 of it...)
There's a lot of room for unrestrictions. New restrictions don't help. You can even run draw engines like
1 TfK
1 Gush
1 fact
1 brainstorm
1 ponder
1 gifts
1 recall
1 deep analysis
1 thoughtcast
1 courier's capsule
1 meditate
...
you get the point?
Card draw is good.
Blue is good.

[Troy_Costisick]

I think Tezz should be restricted.

Why?  A growing number of decks only play one of him now anyway.  What would restricting him accomplish?

[forests failed you]

Restricting Thirst for Knowledge would greatly hurt this deck.  The problem is that Vintage is at a point where if you just continue to restrict all of the playable cards, the decks are just a bunch of singletons with Duals, Fetches, and Force of Wills.  The actual problem is that the win condition, Time Vault and Key, is just really, really strong.  It doesn't require very much mana, it is only two cards, and it actually wins the game when you do it.  One of the important things that people often overlook about Vintage is building the deck that has the most efficient win conditions.  Gifts played DSC and Tendrils or Empty, essentially a storm spell to win with.  If the Gifts deck wasn't restricted, I am pretty sure that the win condition of choice would no longer be Tendrils, but rather Vault / Key.  I haven't gotten a chance to play a ton of Tezzeret games, however the combo seems really dumb to me from the games I have played.  Its almost just too easy...  You do it and the game ends.  It takes a lot of stratagy out of the format when the control decks are just trying to assemble a two card combo to win the game with. 

[Qube]

I think really, that an unrestriction of Gush would change alot. Not all will change back to gush because without 4 merchant scroll, 4 Brainstorm, you only have a drawspell (for sure a strong) but wouldn't be like gush,scroll, gush,scroll, gush... And like menendian said, blue was played lower than now.

And why it's a problem if a deck is good or very good? other decks like staxx wins now over a the last time also tournaments, ichorid also, oath also. (and more) they all do not run vault&key... If you don't want to play tezz, so play something to destroy tez...

Time is needed to figure out that for decks could played with tezz and what's the best option to play against it.

[wiley]

I enjoyed the article, thanks for pulling the info together.  I find it interesting that the composit list didn't change and kind of wonder what it will look like 2-3 months from now.  If you're looking for an idea to do at that time I would love to see a third edition of this article.

The main reason people are complaining is because mana drain is coming back into dominance.  There have been multiple instances in the past were mana drain fueled decks have made up more than 50% of the world meta for a full year, go back into the meta reports from the person that did them before Steve if you want hard proof.  Many people don't remember these periods and/or didn't realize when these periods happened because there was more than one archetype with the mana drain engine doing well.  There really isn't anything new going on here other than the kill condition.

Multiple drain decks have been 'nerfed' in the past by restricting things like gifts, that can't be done with the current tezz lists because they run their kill conditions in singleton anyway, and there are other fairly comparable draw engines to use.

That said, I would hate to see a gush fueled time vault deck.

[Troy_Costisick]

The actual problem is that the win condition, Time Vault and Key, is just really, really strong.  It doesn't require very much mana, it is only two cards, and it actually wins the game when you do it.

The same can be said of Painter-Grindstone, couldn't it?  Time Vault and Key are vulnerable to a myriad of cards.  Opposing decks should include those cards to improve their chances against Vault decks.  And just as often as a Tez deck wins with Vault/Key it wins with Tinker-Colossus.  In fact, as I go back through my personal play notes from the last four tournaments I attended, I lost more games to Tinker than I did to Key or Tez himself.  I don't yet believe that Vault/Key is a problem.  In fact, I believe it is a very vulnerable combo.

[wiley]

The same can be said of Painter-Grindstone, couldn't it?  Time Vault and Key are vulnerable to a myriad of cards.  Opposing decks should include those cards to improve their chances against Vault decks.  And just as often as a Tez deck wins with Vault/Key it wins with Tinker-Colossus.  In fact, as I go back through my personal play notes from the last four tournaments I attended, I lost more games to Tinker than I did to Key or Tez himself.  I don't yet believe that Vault/Key is a problem.  In fact, I believe it is a very vulnerable combo.

As far as the painter comparison, well 3 mana < 6 mana.  It is as simple as that.  You may have cards that beat both strategies (null rod) but you have less time to find and resolve them when the kill costs less resources, you also have a harder time resolving it.  Tinker is in both decks, as well as many others.  Tez doesn't get tinker more than other decks.

[Bongo]

Good article, it was interesting to see how Tez decks evolved.

However, I find the current metagame increasingly boring and unfun. Mana Drain is everywhere, mostly in the form of Tez, with some occasional Painter or RemoraMeditate thrown in.
While I can accept that Blue is the best color in Vintage, that doesn't mean it is healthy for a metagame to have over half of the top 8 lists start with "4 Mana Drain". The empirical evidence is absolutely there. I find it astonishing that Drain is still unrestricted, even with empirical evidence that it is absolutely dominating. Those numbers eclipse those from previously banned cards (across multiple formats) easily.

I also can't understand why chaff like Grim Monolith is restricted, while Mana Drain is not.

[nineisnoone]

Haven't read the article as I don't have premium, but I am looking to change that soon.

Just wanted to say that talk of restricting TfK just seems crazy to me.  I think problems with diversity are better solved with unrestrictions, rather than restrictions.  But I don't want to turn a thread about Tezzeret decks into a B/R thread...especially since the latter hardly ever ends well.

Very true.  It's funny how sometimes you'll hear the "unrestrict Brainstorm" call in one thread and in another you'll hear the call for restriction thirst for knowledge.

I think if history has shown us anything it is that new strategies (through new cards or unrestrictions) more frequently lead to more diverse and dynamic metagames (note, I didn't say better).  It makes a great deal of sense because in a dynamic market there is are greater potential rewards (even if on average not as rewarding as more modest rewards).  The less risk averse take gambles with some of them paying off.  As that happens the market changes, trends emerge, and gamblers take new risks to go after rewards.  But the key here is that even the risk averse have to make changes to adept.

However if we cut off options, then there are fewer risks to take, fewer decisions to make.  Risk takers don't only have fewer tools in their toolbox, but as other players make fewer decisions, i.e. take fewer risks, their opportunities to take their own risks.  As risk takers take fewer risks, the risk averse have even less reasons to take risk, resulting in a sort of metagame recession.

[Suicideking]

Restricting Thirst for Knowledge would greatly hurt this deck.  The problem is that Vintage is at a point where if you just continue to restrict all of the playable cards, the decks are just a bunch of singletons with Duals, Fetches, and Force of Wills.  The actual problem is that the win condition, Time Vault and Key, is just really, really strong.  It doesn't require very much mana, it is only two cards, and it actually wins the game when you do it.  One of the important things that people often overlook about Vintage is building the deck that has the most efficient win conditions.  Gifts played DSC and Tendrils or Empty, essentially a storm spell to win with.  If the Gifts deck wasn't restricted, I am pretty sure that the win condition of choice would no longer be Tendrils, but rather Vault / Key.  I haven't gotten a chance to play a ton of Tezzeret games, however the combo seems really dumb to me from the games I have played.  Its almost just too easy...  You do it and the game ends.  It takes a lot of stratagy out of the format when the control decks are just trying to assemble a two card combo to win the game with. 

The combo is ridiculously strong.  Under the current B&R guidelines theres nothing they can do to hurt the combo either.  Restricting Key and Tez isn't going to change it.  Even restricting mana drain wont help because the deck could be ritual driven like gifts was before it got axed.