Thopter Assembly

[Aace]

Rumor just came in from Salvation:

Thopter Assembly 6
5/5 Flying
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you control no other thopters, return ~ to your hand and put 5 1/1 flying artifact thopters into play.
 
Very nice synergy with smokestacks. Seems like this block will be VERY good for Stax.



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Edit* Image added, name corrected.

[minusblindfold]

time sieve is funny with this.

[Troy_Costisick]

It's competing with Steel Helkite, Wurcoil Engine, and Myr Battlesphere.  Hard finding a place for this thing with alternatives like that.

[Killane]

Rumor just came in from Salvation:

Thopter Assembly 6
5/5 Flying
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you control no other thopters, return ~ to your hand and put 5 1/1 flying artifact thopters into play.
 
Very nice synergy with smokestacks. Seems like this block will be VERY good for Stax.



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Edit* Image added, name corrected.

I don't buy it. Seems too easy to get infinite turns in extended with Time Sieve. I don't think they'd print this.

[AmbivalentDuck]

It's confirmed.  Time to buy up Time Sieves.

[vartemis]

Only in standard could I see that combo work. Too much mana anywhere else. Best strategy I can think of would be to weld the assembly in EOT, but that would make it a 3 color requirement with the sieve.

[Suicideking]

Only in standard could I see that combo work. Too much mana anywhere else. Best strategy I can think of would be to weld the assembly in EOT, but that would make it a 3 color requirement with the sieve.

Except Time Sieve isnt legal in standard.

[vartemis]

Only in standard could I see that combo work. Too much mana anywhere else. Best strategy I can think of would be to weld the assembly in EOT, but that would make it a 3 color requirement with the sieve.

Except Time Sieve isnt legal in standard.

Whoops.  Thought it was in the last set.  Relegated to kitchen table playing in that case.

[Troy_Costisick]

It's legal in Extended.

[MaximumCDawg]

It's competing with Steel Helkite, Wurcoil Engine, and Myr Battlesphere.  Hard finding a place for this thing with alternatives like that.

Well, this has some interesting advantages over those cards.  It bounces itself the first time it's out, and anytime you run out of Thopter tokens.  Can that be used as an advantage somehow?  I mean, with Smokestack, you could ramp it way, way up and still be able to generate permanents each turn.  None of the other cards can do that.  Plus, this is not flying 5 damage for 5 mana.  This is 10 damage for 5 mana if you can afford to spend it twice.  That's pretty nifty utility out of a single card.  Almost singlehandedly shuts down Oath, provided it does not get countered or eaten while in play (perhaps an unlikely senario) because it blocks up to five creatures forever and ignores Iona.  This is Bitterblossom plus Tetravus covered in awesome sauce.
  
I'm also not sure the Time Sieve suggestion is not worthy of consideration.  With Mishra's Workshops running around, getting 5 mana to start the engine isn't too difficult.  The questions would be: (1) Is running Sieve / Thopter in a Workshop any better than Vault / Key; and (2) Is running Sieve / Thopter in a workshop shell better than just running other cards that win in different ways in those slots?

As to #1, seems like Sieve/Thopter has something going for it.  There's some synergies here.  Sieve is BU so you're in those colors. Sieve ups your blue count for FoW, which is great.  Thopter is good on its own if you can cast it - five damage in the air is nothing to sneeze at, and remember, it becomes 10 damage in the air next turn.  If you make the investment of 5 mana each turn for two turns, that's a three turn clock; more like two if they have used Bob or some fetchlands.  You're in black, so you could also run Contamination as a secondary lock.  Heck, even if you added rituals, resolving Thopter once with Containmination out should give you enough time to get the mana you need to make the lock permanent.

I don't know that this guy competes with Tinker targets, but the idea of a card that is either 10 damage a turn or a repeatable way to spawn 5 1/1s is definetly worth of discussion.  I'll be trying to break this guy for sure.

EDIT: Like this maybe as a the core of a BU fish deck:

Creatures (13)

2 Thopter Assembly
3 Dark Confidant
4 Bitterblossom
3 Ninja of the Deep Hours
1 Inkwell Levithan

Permission / Discard (15)

4 Spellstutter Sprite
4 Force of Will
3 Mana Drain
4 Duress

Removal (5)

1 Diabolic Edict
1 Echoing Truth
3 Nature’s Claim

Combo (3)

1 Time Sieve         
2 Contamination

Search (3)

1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Tinker

[Delha]

I'm also not sure the Time Sieve suggestion is not worthy of consideration.  With Mishra's Workshops running around, getting 5 mana to start the engine isn't too difficult.  The questions would be: (1) Is running Sieve / Thopter in a Workshop any better than Vault / Key; and (2) Is running Sieve / Thopter in a workshop shell better than just running other cards that win in different ways in those slots?

It's not just 5 mana. It's resolving this for 5 mana repeatedly AND generating . Every shop/tomb you drop is a land that does not help cast Sieve.

[Mr. Type 4]

This probably casual-league, but isnt there a card where I can sac creatures for 2 mana each?

[Wagner]

This probably casual-league, but isnt there a card where I can sac creatures for 2 mana each?

Ashnod's Altar for 2 colorless each, Phyrexian Altar for 1 colored mana each.

[MaximumCDawg]

This probably casual-league, but isnt there a card where I can sac creatures for 2 mana each?

Ashnod's Altar for 2 colorless each, Phyrexian Altar for 1 colored mana each.

Or, Blood Funnel gets you a similar effect with the added bonus of being Donateable for the win.

Also, in mulling this over, I wonder if this dude lends himself at all to a BUR deck featuring Riddlesmith and Goblin Welder?  Maybe like:

Mana Base (22)

10 Mox + Lotus + Petal + Crypt + Ring
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Volcanic Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Badlands
1 Island
1 Mountain

Creatures (14)

3 Riddlesmith
4 Goblin Welder
3 Memnite
2 Thopter Assembly
1 Inkwell Leviathan
2 Trinket Mage

Combo (2)

1 Time Sieve
1 Tendrils of Agony

Utility (3)

1 Skull Clamp
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Aether Spellbomb

Control (13)

4 Force of Will
4 Arcane Denial
3 Mana Drain
1 Diabolic Edict

Draw / Tutor (5)

1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Intuition
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Tinker
1 Yawgmoth’s Will

SB (15) (to stop dredge and shop basically)

4 Leyline of the Void
4 Yilixid Jailer
4 Annul
3 Ingot Chewer

Some thoughts:

1. Thopter combos with Sieve, but being welded out for five 1/1 fliers early on is not bad either.

2. Riddlesmith, Skull Clamp, and Arcane Denial all do double duty as draw engines in this deck.  Smith > Frantic Search because it beats, and with moxen lets you chuck an Assembly a turn earlier than Search does.  AD > Spell Pierce in a powered shell because it doubles as a draw engine and an emergency counter.

3. Memnite adds pressure in early game and can pitch to Welder / Smith / Arcane Denail in late game.   

4. Welder has some use against shop out of the gate, but probably is not enough.

5. The thing that Thopter Assembly adds to make this deck interesting, to me, is another dual-function card.  Thopter either functions as a beater or a combo enabler depending on what you need.  Thus, I think he’s got a lot of flexibility over Vault-Key, even if he is waaaay more expensive.

The idea would be that this deck plays a different game in the early, mid, and late game.  Early game, it plays some cheap beaters and protects with countermagic; combo-control.  

Midgame, you weld or tinker out Thopter or Inkwell and go nuts.  You get back in the game against Fish by protecting your evasive artifact fattie.

Late game, you opt for the Yawgmoth-Tendrils plan.

And, at all steps, you can nut out with a lucky Tinker or Time Sieve combo.


EDIT: One more thought, not a good one; Thopter actually is stuck as a 4 turn clock (t1 - Play thopter, sick) (t2 - Make tokens, also sick) (t3 - replay thopter, wing 5 with tokens) (t4 - swing 10 with team)

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

Are you for real on the arcane denial? I gotta believe that mana leak or negate is just better.

Thopter Assembly looks okay. I think the best use for it may be against workshop decks. 5 permanents is no joke.

[serracollector]

When I first saw this I didn't think of Time Sieve at all, I immediately thought Skull Clamp.  With Myr Battlesphere and this guy, doesn't skull clamp just look the new colorless draw engine for vintage?  Just my thoughts.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Why Skullclamp when you could just win with Sieve?

[serracollector]

Because it allows you to stay colorless? 

Making a more aggro form of Mud using Metalworkers, Myrs, Thopter, and Skullclamp wouldn't be bad.  If fire and ice make the cut, certainly skullclamp + 1/1 tokens and Metalworker can easily combo out?

[MaximumCDawg]

Are you for real on the arcane denial? I gotta believe that mana leak or negate is just better.

Thopter Assembly looks okay. I think the best use for it may be against workshop decks. 5 permanents is no joke.

I'm a wild and crazy guy!

The reason to run Arcane Denial is that it supplements this deck concept's desire to run alot of cheap artifacts.  It's a draw engine, and only a counterspell in a major pinch.  Might not be a great idea, but I'm toying around with cards that might supplement Thopter and friends with dual purposes.

[Justin]

Master Transmuter seems like cheap recursion for this thing, since it gives you the bounce fodder for transmuter. You could also put it into play at the opponents EOT, leaving less time for them to deal with it prior to its upkeep. I still dont think this card cuts it in any vintage build, but if you run transmuter, assembly & battlesphere you're going to be way up in the permanent count.