A Meddling of Sorts: Garruk vs Elspeth
On the lookout for a good read? Head over to Gathering Magic, where Erik Saeger’s tinkered with the Duel Decks to make an Infected Garruk battle an Elspeth with an Equipment theme. Let’s support our Precom Community, and tell ’em Ertai sent ya!
Ertai’s Trickery: Mad Machinist’s Mash-Up (Part 6 of 6)
And so it’s come to this. A week of pooling and cutting, arranging and tinkering, and all the labour to be decided on a mere three games with Sam. Those who’ve read from the beginning have experienced our colour selection, choice of removal, card advantage and Land options, Creatures, and final assembly of the deck.
When we began this project, it was to take the cards of three Artifact-focused preconstructed decks (Planechase’s Metallic Dreams, Archenemy’s Assemble the Doomsday Machine, and Duel Decks: Elspeth vs Tezzeret’s Tezzeret) and combine them into one 60-card hybrid with which to take the field against Elspeth’s deck. When we analysed and playtested Elspeth’s deck, we found it strong in the early game with a decent removal suite, so a slower Artifact theme had its work cut our for it.
At the eleventh hour, based on advice from readership I stripped out a Swamp and added a Mistvein Borderpost, which I had previously cut from consideration, to bolster the mana base of the deck.
Sam and I took them to battle, and here are our notes.
Ertai’s Trickery: The Mad Machinist’s Mash-Up (Part 5 of 6)
At last we are ready to assemble the Mad Machinist’s Mash-up! Over the past week, we’ve taken the cards from three different Artifact-based precons (Planechase’s Metallic Dreams, Archenemy’s Assemble the Doomsday Machine, and Duel Decks: Elsepth vs Tezzeret’s Tezzeret deck), and pared away cards in search of making a cohesive whole.
As we said in the beginning, we won’t always make the same choices that you might, and we’re certainly not against being wrong on occasion, but the end result should be a deck that blends the strengths of all three, capable of holding its own even moreso against Elspeth’s deck in the Duel Decks. In our next (and last) installment of this Trickery, we’ll be taking the Mash-Up to battle against her mono-White deck. So let’s go deckbuilding!
Ertai’s Trickery: The Mad Machinist’s Mash-Up (part 4 of 6)
Once again we return to the lair of the Mad Machinist, and continue our Frankensten-like work on a hybrid deck combining the best elements of three different preconstructed decks! In the past three episodes of Ertai’s Trickery, we’re looking to build a powerhouse Artifact deck out of the 180 cards afforded us by Planechase’s Metallic Dreams, Archenemy’s Assemble the Doomsday Machine and the Tezzeret deck from Duel Decks: Elspeth vs Tezzeret.
In earlier articles, we’ve narrowed the colour scheme down to Blue/Black, and have made early rounds of cuts on our removal, and selected cards that would give us a steady dose of card advantage.
By the end of today’s column, we’ll have our second round of cuts comeplete, and ready to start deckbuilding! All that remains are critters, counters, and miscellany, and we’ll hit them all today!
Ertai’s Trickery: The Mad Machinist’s Mash-Up (Part 3 of 6)
Welcome back to the next installment of our latest series, Ertai’s Trickery! Our goal is simple: make a solid 60-card deck out of a very limited card pool: Planechase’s Metallic Dreams, Archenemy’s Assemble the Doomsday Machine and Tezzeret’s deck from Duel Decks: Elspeth vs Tezzeret. In past episodes we settled on a colour scheme and began to look at removal. Next, we’ll be looking at ways to get the most out of the 60 cards we settle on.
Ertai’s Trickery: the Mad Machinist’s Mash-Up (Part 2 of 6)
Welcome back to the next installment of Ertai’s Trickery! We’re back in the machine shop, exploring the considerable number of trinkets and artifacts we’ve salvaged from Metallic Dreams, Assemble the Doomsday Machine, and Tezzeret with an eye to assembling the most powerful, most lethal, and most foe-crushing collection of 60 cards we can, before leading them to bloody retribution against that most nettlesome, meddling Planeswalker, Elspeth! Muahahaha!!!
*cough*
Sorry, got carried away there for a moment. Anyway, in our last installment we made all the easy, colour-based cuts. Since the Mad Machinist’s Mash-Up is going to be Blue/Black, we’re now down to only those cards that will work within that framework, but we still have way too many for a deck. It’s time for the next round of cuts, and some difficult decisions.
Ertai’s Trickery: The Mad Machinist’s Mash-Up (Part 1 of 6)
Today we’re excited to introduce a new occasional series to the website: Ertai’s Trickery! Whereas the Meddling series follows very specific rules with an eye to refining an existing deck within its own framework, Ertai’s Trickery throws such stodgy methodolgy to the wind. No, what you’ll find here is the offbeat, the oddball and the extraordinary, and we’ll be beginning today with the start of a mash-up deck.
The genesis for this feature came from one of our readers, Jars, who had this to say:
One suggestion that you might want to try in the near future: since you already have all these Wizards-made decks (Intro Packs, Duel Decks, etc), what say you to doing a mash-up of sorts? I mean, use cards from another precon to tweak and improve this deck. For example, use the “Assemble the Doomsday Machine” Archenemy deck or “Metallic Dreams” Planechase deck to give the Tezzeret deck a boost. I know that you have specified your procedure of editing decklists (e.g., no adding rares) but this might be a good thing to try.
The more we thought about it, the more fun the idea sounded. But then we thought, “hey, why limit ourselves to just two? Since we have all three of those solidly Artifact-based decks in our library, let’s see if we can’t come up with something truly wicked. So Planechase’s Metallic Dreams, Archenemy’s Assemble the Doomsday Machine, and Duel Decks: Elspeth vs Tezzeret’s Tezzeret deck came down off the shelf and were dumped into one large pile.
Duel Decks- Elspeth vs Tezzeret: Tezzeret’s Deck Review (Part 2 of 2)
At last, the chance to sleeve up behind Tezzeret’s Artificer deck had arrived, and with the perfect opponent. Jimi, who particularly fancies White Weenie strategies, was excited to try and take me down with Elspeth. We played our opening customary ‘friendly’ just to get a dry run with the decks and determine play order for the first ‘real’ match, and I lost quite soundly. Eager to settle the score, we began our three with me on the play, and here are our notes.
Duel Decks- Elspeth vs Tezzeret: Elspeth’s Deck Review (Part 2 of 2)
Keen to get the decks out into the field after a thorough breakdown of each, I challenged Sam to the customary best-of-three. She took Tezzeret leaving me with Elspeth, and here are the notes from the matchups.
Duel Decks- Elspeth vs Tezzeret: Tezzeret’s Deck Review (Part 1 of 2)
The role of the Artificer has long held a rightful place in the world of Magic: the Gathering, truly beginning in 1994 when a small, 100-card set was released three months after Arabian Nights. Called Antiquities, it introduced a flood of artfacts into the game, and lent itself well to those seeking to take on the role of a mad tinkerer.
Flash forward to today, and one need not go back all that far to find the role alive and well. Archenemy’s Assemble the Doomsday Machine cast its villain in such a role, as did Planechase’s Metallic Dreams. Alara block’s Esper decks tread a similar path. But in looking over the contents of the Tezzeret deck, this may well be the very best of the lot.
That’s not necessarily the same thing as saying that it plays better than any such deck previously released. What we mean is this: if you’re looking for a deck that gives you the feeling of actually playing as an Artificer, a mage surrounded by mechanical minions- this one is the best in breed.
To see why, let’s begin with a survey of the workshop.
Ertai's Lament 
