Turbo Tezz!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Eastman]

So I can't take any credit for this list or anything about it, but I wanted to start a thread about it since I'm starting to test it myself.  John Jones, very impressively, has made the finals at two major events recently with his Turbo Tezz list.  Nor is he the only one, I've seen the list popping up all in a number of high finishes in tournaments recently.  Thought we should have a thread about it.  Here is John Jones' list copy/pasted from the N.Y.S.E. event last week.  

Top 8 Decklists:

1st – John Jones
Turbo Tezz

4 Island
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Underground Sea
2 Flooded Strand
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Sol Ring
2 Mox Opal
2 Grim Monolith
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Time Vault
1 Memory Jar
1 Myr Battlesphere
2 Voltaic Key
3 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Echoing Truth
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Rebuild
1 Tinker
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 Ponder
1 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
2 Preordain
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Tezzeret the Seeker
2 Mana Drain
3 Spell Pierce
4 Force of Will
1 Mana Vault

SB:

3 Hurkyl’s Recall
3 Red Elemental Blast
1 Volcanic Island
2 Ravenous Trap
3 Relic of Progenitus
1 Echoing Truth
2 Sower of Temptation

------------------------



And here is Joe Tanner's list which came in first in Richmond a few weeks ago:  

1st place: Joe Tanner-Turbo Tezz

Maindeck:
3 Island
3 Underground sea
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Opal
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Blightsteel Colossus
1 Time Vault
3 Voltaic Key
3 Grim Monolith
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
3 Tezzeret the Seeker
2 Spell Snare
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Brainstorm
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Tinker
1 Time Walk
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
Sideboard:
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Perish
3 Mindbreak Trap
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Yixlid Jailer
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Steel Sabotage

---------------------------------

So a few things I like about this approach.  (1) having a lot of artifact mana is actually really good against shops right now.  There isn't a ton of null rod out there, and artifact mana is awesome against stax unless they have first turn chalice on the play.  I sort of like the approach of saying "ok, well I will lose to first turn chalice god hands unless I get off a hurkyls, but will have a greatly improved matchup against most other mud hands."  (2) having mana and business spells is also good against shops, which have been beating gush in part due to the dysnergy of running a ton of low-cost/low-reward draw spells (preordain and gush) against sphere effects.  A big fat business spell like a tezzeret lets you only pay for spheres once, rather than having to pay for them throughout the game.

Some friends tested a similar list a year or so ago that used transmutes instead of the tezzerets in this list.  Tezzeret seems to be a big improvement.  At the time the synergy of voltaic key with sensei's tops and with the monoliths was just awesome.  You always had mana, and with tops and keys, you can draw a ton of cards.  It is a very powerful draw engine in the stalled out midgames that characterize most contested games between blue decks these days.

Anyways I wanted to get a discussion on this list started.  Who else has been working with turbo tezz lists like this?

[vassago]

I like the idea of this deck. Big mana + planeswalkers. It can race the Shop lists with a early Tez, or suffer through a long game due to the large number of tops. Persoanlly, I'd try and fit another Jace in, but it might be too greedy.

[Shax]

Turbo Tezz is a great deck. I tested the crap out of a  Turbo Tezz, with Oath instead of the massive amounts of artifacts. It ran alot more artifacts than a normal traditional Tezz list would I admit. Three Tezzeretts, Emralku, and Inkwell(?) or it was a Sphinx or nothing at the time for the Emralku power. Turns out lots of Tezzeretts make for a deadly but inconsistant deck. I would have no problems winning but it was very unstable. More streamlined decks or decks that didn't branch out so much could sneak me, and I had some problems with storm. It would be safe to say that it does fairly well against MUD, since I have Oath power. And Storm isn't ran much now because of MUD. So yeah, some good luck and deck knowledge will get you far with a heavy artifact based Tezz list.

[mmcgeach]

It is hard to ignore the two tournament wins with this.  I've put the first list together for testing myself, too.

Some initial comments:

- both lists run the same number of artifact mana sources, but the first has 24 total mana sources and the second has 28(!).
- I feel like having artifact mana that doesn't cost 0 is a help vs. chalice.  You've got an additional out at 1CC with mana vault, and a couple monoliths at 2CC.  The voltaic keys make these reusable.  TurboTezz only has 1 or 2 more zero-CC mana sources than the average deck.
- I can't tell what the right number of tops/keys is.  The Spanish list on the other thread (the mass mox manabase thread) has 4 keys(!).  I agree that the key/top interaction is killer in the mid game.  It really lets you pull ahead of other blue decks. Two mana to draw 1 card is an awesome deal for this deck.
- I love the Mind Twist out of the sideboard from the Spanish list.
- All this mana tempts me to play bigger cards.  Mind Twist has a nostalgic appeal, so does Fact or Fiction, for that matter.  It seems like Gifts and Thirst are auto-includes with this type of list, but they're omitted from the first list. And that list comes in first frequently!
- Casting Tezzeret seems better now w/less creatures in the meta.  There's fewer Dark Confidants around to kill your Tezz.
- Casting Tezzeret also seems better now w/less counterspells in the meta.  Older Tezz decks ran 4 FOW, 4 Drain, 3 Pierce, 3 Duress.  It was hard to resolve a big bomb that requires tapping out when every deck was packing that much control.  It's easier now to sneak a bomb past the blue decks' smaller complement of counters.  Of course, casting Tezzeret might not involve tapping out with this deck, but it does seem to involve using all your blue mana.

anyway. 

This is a blast to test.  Many thanks to John Jones.

[kalisia]

Anyone has tested Academy Ruins? It should fit well for a Time Vault recursion in Turbo Tezz.

[CHaPuZaS]

This is the final decklist for the deck I'll be playing in about 10 hours:

TurboTezzCast, by César Fernández

Maindeck

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
2 Mox Opal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
2 Grim Monolith

1 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Tolarian Academy
3 Underground Sea
1 Island
4 Seat of the Synod

4 Voltaic Key
1 Time Vault
3 Sensei's Divining Top

4 Force of Will
3 Mana Drain
2 Misdirection
1 Steel Sabotage

1 Time Walk
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor

1 Tinker
1 Brainstorm
4 Thoughtcast
1 Ancestral Recall

4 Tezzeret the Seeker
2 Jace the Mind Sculptor
1 Myr Battlesphere

Sideboard

2 Thoughtseize
3 Mindbreak Trap
3 Steel Sabotage
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Sower of Temptation
1 Trinisphere

The most important changes in relation to regular TurboTezz decks is that I'll be playing Thoughtcasts and Seats of the Synod. Not only I think that Thoughtcast is the perfect draw engine for this deck, but also I find unbelievable that no other TurboTezz decks play Seat o the Synod. I mean, I'm playing 4 copies because of Thoughtcasts, but if I weren't playing TCs I'll surely play at least two of the artifact lands. The synergy between them and Voltaic Key is fabulous. It enables that aditional mana to cast a Mana Drain in the first two turns without being unable to cast Thoughtcasts or other spells, and it also makes operative Mox Opal. During the last tournament it happened to me at least three times that I have mana in the first turn to cast a Mana Drain thanks to SotS, powering at the same time a second turn Tezzeret in two of these games. For those appealing to the good old power of Null Rod, this is not the same in the post Steel Sabotage era.

[TheWhiteDragon]

Yeah, I'd still say any deck with a set of null rods is just going to pwn you.  Also gorilla shaman would eat this for lunch.  Also keep in mind that seats are wastelandable, and hit by all the artifact killers.  For tapping just for blue, it's hard to see the benefit over basic island, even if your thoughtcast ends up costing 1 more.

[Iron_Chef]

Here's some insight into John Jones' list, which he has used to win back to back tournaments with over 40 players at each one.

http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=41999.0

[Phele]

I think, it is better to post this here then in the tournament report section, to keep the discussion going.

To John Jones, even though it seems, he's not able to post here:

Great deck, great perfomance, good Job!

Anyway, as you stated yourself, that there is probably room for improvement, some initial thought that might in parts be true for all the deck versions:

- I think that your strategy against Null Rod builds is still not strong enough. Competent Noble-Fish- or even GW-Beats-players have so many angles, where they can attack you, it might be hard to stop them. Null Rod is obviously the worst thing for you, but even Pridemages and Co are horrible. They can hinder your Oops-I-Win factor, they beat down your Tezzes/Jaces and Battlesphere is not the best Bot against them. I see that you have some weapons against them and can still overpower underpowered stuff like Noble Fish, but I think overall they might have the upper hand.

- Other cards you are very vulnerable against are REB and Mystic Remora. REB hits almost anything in your deck but Key-Top, which could help you to win over card advantage. But meanwhile the other control player will put together its own combo or card drawing tools. I especially think of Painter, which is not very common in the US but pretty popular here in Germany. They play REBs main and several dudes to beat your planeswalkers. Same for Remora: You can see a deck called Remora Trap quite often in Europe, which plays Remora, Mindbreak Trap and  Empty the Warrens, which are all quite effective against you.

- Non Gush combo build are in quite a good position against you. They might be quicker then you and things like TPS just have to play around your spell pierces as you don't have any specific weapons against them. TPS could probably let Tez just happen and then win the next turn with Duress backup.

I want to underline, that I don't think you anyhow misbuilded your deck. The opposite: You perfectly adjusted your sideboard against the US meta, where obviously things like Painter, Remora, TPS and even Fish are not quite common or the prefered choice of the good players who tend to Gush, Shops or Oath. And your deck has several advantages compared to other combo build, especially a very good MUD matchups. These are just some notes to think of.

- Are just two Voltaic Keys enough? It seems to me that Key is the centerpiece lots of cards in your deck have synergy with: Top, Tez, Grim?

- My last point is, that I think that Welder could probably fit in this deck. It might not be a good idea to weaken the mana base, but it could be too good of an improvement, as you already play Opals and a Volcanic in the side. With some slight adjustments (maybe add Thirst again and additionaly Gifts, Fact and even Slaver) this deck gets another very powerful route to win and another way to get your Time Vault back in play. With Welders it would get very close to the former Steel City Vault builds. SCV had a bit different game plan by relying more on Draw7s, but is also centered around Time Vault and broken mana. But where SCV might be even a bit more broken you have the more consistant draw engine, combo approach and the better backup plan if Vault fails. Adding some Welders could give you the best of both worlds. There are so many ridiculous things you could do with Welder and Top, Battlesphere, Jar, combo pieces and your broken mana ... beside being also a nice weapon against Shops and Blightsteel Collossus.

Again: Great deck and keep up the good work.

To Cesar: I don't see the powerful advantage Thougthcast gives you. It might happen quite often, that you can draw two cards for one blue mana, even though this is not guaranteed. On the other side you weaken your Null Rod matchup and your mana base overall and could easily exchange Thoughtcast with things like Preordain to get a similar effect for what this decks want.

[CHaPuZaS]

To Phele: Less than one hour to go for the tournament. I must admit I haven't tested at all this Month again. I must also admit that I'm playing Thoughtcast just because it is my "pet card". That will improve my matchup vs. Blue, Dredge and Storm Combo, while it messes with the matchup vs Workshop and Fish. That's true. That change might have been unnecessary, but I feel like playing a card I'm confident with. Let's see how it turns out and if I am lucky with the pairings.

[Phele]

... but I feel like playing a card I'm confident with.

That is a very good reason to play certain cards. Good luck to you and I am very curious about your results.

[CHaPuZaS]

I ended 3-3, losing vs a Legacy formated Canadian Threshold a Jacerator and a UR Fish. I won two matches vs Jacerator and one against Noble Fish. The round vs Threshold was lost because Myr Battlesphere wasn't able to do the 20 damage (A BSC will have won one of the games). Against the Jacerator I lost one game because of a five card mulligan and a missplay on my side. The UR Fish was just too much a bad pairing but one game I will have won if I has played in the correct order, just the same kind of mistake as in the Jacerator match. Not sleeping enough and not testing the deck at all put me in a fair result given the effort.

Another Turbotezz, played by Omar Rohner (Who will have topeighted four out of four tournaments with Turbotezz) will Top if he is not out with 4-1-1 due to tiebreakers. He's playing a classic variant and he is just telling me I should have played Colossus 2, because its benefits outclasses those obtained by playing Battlesphere.

[TheWhiteDragon]

Were the Seats of Synod ever a problem?  I hd no issues with thoughtcast, but the seats over basics seamed a bad choice.  How'd they work for you?

[CHaPuZaS]

Were the Seats of Synod ever a problem?  I hd no issues with thoughtcast, but the seats over basics seamed a bad choice.  How'd they work for you?

I may have lost one of the games Vs. Threshold because of that, I don't know if my opponent would have let resolve a Tinker I would have had mana with 2 basics instead of one.

As a side note, I won't be playing Thoughtcasts or Mox Opal (At least not a pair) if it weren't because of the SotS. I also won 2 games exclusively because of chaining 2 or 3 Thoughtcasts in a row in two games of the rounds I won 2-0 vs Jacerator. A Jacerator was far away in card advantage because of an Ancestral and a Library, but I remember being able to resolve a T-Cast, drawing an playing a Mox Sapphire and a T-Cast, drawing and playing an Opal and a T-Cast, and drawing and playing a Lotus and a Will for full crazyness.

[TheWhiteDragon]

Thoughtcast may be decent.  Meta dependent.  I really don't think the -1 you probably got on thoughtcast is worth having 4 extra lands shut off by shaman, rod, or wasteland.  If you knew nobody was playing shaman or rod though, then it's fine.  Thoughtcast itself is still fine considering the ridiculous amount of artifacts run.

[Asphyxious]

John asked me to comment on some of our card choices and testing results in relation to what's being discussed.

Academy Ruins and Regrowth:  We tested both of these cards out for a while (regrowth when we included green) and came to the conclusion that they were unnecessary, especially after we finally added YawgWill.  Being able to recur Time Vault only came up very very occasionally, and wasn't worth the non-basic, non-blue-producing land.  Additionally, in those situations tinker bot and Tezz ultimate were both still very threatening wincons.  In the beginning, we definitely undervalued Tezz's ultimate as a true wincon (without infinite turns).  Running so many artifacts makes it quite easy to simply drop tezz and win on the next turn without Time Vault (this often came through against Null Rod).  The fact that bob is not as popular is definitely a big plus here.

Additional Keys: We started with three keys and three tops,, but dropped to two keys because there isn't a whole lot of value to multiple keys.  Yeah you can add that much more mana or draw an extra card with top but the deck doesn't need quite that much mana and the top interaction wasn't worth the slot.  A lot of the power of this deck comes from simply digging into the deck for relevant cards, and key was a card that was often not relevant.

Welder (mostly on the mana base):  One of the things that we (John especially) liked about the deck was the high number of basics.  He loves being able to grab island after island.  In fact, we tried to keep the sideboard mono blue as well, but the REBs proved to be too good to pass up.  That being said, welder definitely has potential in this deck and we haven't tested it directly.

4cc cards:  Surprisingly, this comes down to available mana.  The deck tends to eat a fair amount of mana as it is with top and key for extra draws.  More importantly, having the blue mana for counter magic is vital as the deck runs a tight mana base as far as blue count.  Additionally, John often said that he felt that FoF, Gifts, and Thirst "just don't get there".

Thoughtcasts: This was one of our tougher decisions.  In the beginning, this was essentially our central design point.  However when testing with Will Magran, he made the suggestion that we try out Spell Pierces and reduce our Drain count.  We went from 4 Force and 3 Drain to 4 Force, 3 Pierce, and 2 Drain.  This, obviously, slowed the deck down a little bit, but it also made it easier to play relevant spells on turn 1 and 2 like top, key, preordain, brainstorm, recall, etc.  because it wasn't necessary to sit on the mana for drain as often.  As the deck slowed down, the value of Thoughtcasts and the other fast mana began to decrease.  John was also still looking to increase the basic count by removing the Seat of the Synods, so Thoughtcasts came out.  The result was a lot more consistency, for a minor loss in speed.  In a more blue heavy metagame (or combo heavy), the thoughtcasts and seats would probably go back in for the speed boost.

Robots:  Currently, John has been very happy with BSphere because of how well it handles shops.  But we still have a slot that we haven't been able to fill with confidence.  We've tried Timetwister, Jar, Regrowth, and a couple others.  A second robot might definitely be able to fill this slot.  BSC is a likely candidate because it is very often better against blue decks than BSphere.  The only thing I'm concerned with is the ability to hardcast it.  Our original bot was Inkwell, which was still easily castable and can be pitched to Force, but BSC's speed might still prove to be better.

[Eastman]

@thoughtcast. Another reason to dislike it that hasn't been mentioned is that opposing mana drains pull 5 from draining it.  You can get into a problem where you are treating it as throwaway draw, but your opponent sees it as a tasty mana drain snack and beats you with the mana it throws him.

[serracollector]

Thoughtcast is also stopped by gaddock teeg.  With the inclusions of revoker and Leonin-Relic Warder, G/W teeg decks are becoming more rampant, teeg stops tezz, jace, thoughtcast, force, gush, and misdirection, and thats just in blue.....

[CHaPuZaS]

In a more blue heavy metagame (or combo heavy), the thoughtcasts and seats would probably go back in for the speed boost.

That's the point, because LMV metagame is highly blue, I took the decision of playing them because of that.

Thoughtcast is also stopped by gaddock teeg.  With the inclusions of revoker and Leonin-Relic Warder, G/W teeg decks are becoming more rampant, teeg stops tezz, jace, thoughtcast, force, gush, and misdirection, and thats just in blue.....

That's not been played in Madrid enough fo being took into account.

@thoughtcast. Another reason to dislike it that hasn't been mentioned is that opposing mana drains pull 5 from draining it.  You can get into a problem where you are treating it as throwaway draw, but your opponent sees it as a tasty mana drain snack and beats you with the mana it throws him.

During the last (Almost) two years playing Thoughtcasts, no more than four or five have been drained, and I recall winning some of that games. I think it's irrelevant.

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

@Chapuzas: tough luck man! How many of the games you lost came down to Null Rod?

@thoughtcast. Another reason to dislike it that hasn't been mentioned is that opposing mana drains pull 5 from draining it.  You can get into a problem where you are treating it as throwaway draw, but your opponent sees it as a tasty mana drain snack and beats you with the mana it throws him.

The same could be said for Gush, so this really shouldn't matter too much (not saying Tcast is as good as Gush, but as far as Drain is concerned, they're pretty much identical).

4cc cards:  Surprisingly, this comes down to available mana.  The deck tends to eat a fair amount of mana as it is with top and key for extra draws.  More importantly, having the blue mana for counter magic is vital as the deck runs a tight mana base as far as blue count.  Additionally, John often said that he felt that FoF, Gifts, and Thirst "just don't get there".

Was that before or after you switched to the the B-splash-version with the full three tutors? Because it really seems like a resolved Gifts should just be GG every time in that list, which is kind of the definition of a sick card. Seems much better than Timetwister/Jar at the very least.  
Gifts also is far easier to cast with Drain-backup than Tezz himself on turn 2/3.

[heiner]

Have to agree with Mon, some testing revealed that gifts and fact are the nuts. They are much easier to protect then Tez as they cost only 1 blue, and blue mana is scarce in this dec (compared to colorless). Furthermore, you can use it as eot bait, and then follow up with Tez in your own turn.
Apart from this I really like the list and I would prefer to play, fact, gg and TfK over the thoughcast draw engine.
Having so much colorless mana, I prefer Tez over Jace.
Preordain is also very, very good, especially if you play only 11 lands. I learned to love it in gush and also like it in here. Its on par with ponder and one could play a third one. It allows you to keep so many more hands, that only have one blue mana.

[CHaPuZaS]

@Chapuzas: tough luck man! How many of the games you lost came down to Null Rod?

Not even one. None of the three Jace Control decks played it, that's for sure, neither the Threshold player. Against both Fish decks I won and I lost without almost any interaction, without Null Rod in the ecuation.

I'm going to travel to Bazaar of Moxen 5, and I'll be testing and refining TurboTezz with two great players: Omar Rohner (Spanish Champion and BoM Legacy winner) and Pablo David Diaz (BoM Vintage winner). At least Rohner and me are very sure of playing this deck in about three months if nothing changes the metagame, and for the metagame we expect there (In a non-proxy tournament)... We'll be playing without T-Casts and Seats for a more resilent mana base.

[Asphyxious]

4cc cards:  Surprisingly, this comes down to available mana.  The deck tends to eat a fair amount of mana as it is with top and key for extra draws.  More importantly, having the blue mana for counter magic is vital as the deck runs a tight mana base as far as blue count.  Additionally, John often said that he felt that FoF, Gifts, and Thirst "just don't get there".

Was that before or after you switched to the the B-splash-version with the full three tutors? Because it really seems like a resolved Gifts should just be GG every time in that list, which is kind of the definition of a sick card. Seems much better than Timetwister/Jar at the very least.  
Gifts also is far easier to cast with Drain-backup than Tezz himself on turn 2/3.

This is definitely a good point.  We haven't gone back to these since we splashed black.  Not as sure about Fact (because it's less controllable), but Gifts could definitely be the card we've been looking for.  And EOT bait would definitely be relevant in a lot of games.

As for the light manabase, it's definitely true that there are fewer pieces of mana, but it's also true that those pieces tend to add more mana (i.e. grim monolith, or moxen with key), and the high basic count definitely helps stabilize the manabase against wasteland decks.  Additionally, Grim Monolith has been very crucial in the shops matchup.  As a shops player testing against this deck, turn 1 grim monolith was a very bad sign for me, and it often resulted in me losing the game.  Suddenly my spheres to buy turns were much less valuable.

[LSD25]

wanted to bump this thread due to the unrestriction of FoF.  switching out sensei's for FoF might test okay, but sounds like a trade down on paper.  maybe the welder route is the way to go... that will require a retune of 10-15 cards, and will destabalize the mana base a bit, but makes FoF piles much more resiliant.

Thread necro is fun and all, but a new topic would probably be more beneficial to trying to have this discussion in a thread with no responses since March of this year.  I'm going to start a new thread for this discussion - Prospero.