Architect Blue

[Alex]

This is the deck I played last Saturday at the RLL Grand Finale. It's rogue, and also a lot of fun to play! I went 1-1-2 with it over 4 rounds.

4 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
2 Academy Ruins
2 Nimbus Maze
2 Hallowed Fountain
8 Island
2 Plains

4 Enclave Cryptologist
4 Grand Architect
4 Wurmcoil Engine
4 Trinket Mage
3 Master of Etherium
4 Scarecrone
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Inkwell Leviathan

2 Welding Jar
4 Brainstorm
1 Everflowing Chalice
4 Dispel
1 Aether Vial

Sideboard:
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Patrician's Scorn
3 Oblivion Ring
2 Chill
3 Flashfreeze
3 Path to Exile

(The Tundras, Flooded Strands, Wurmcoil Engines and Trinket Mages were lent to me by Tim, the eventual season 2 champion).

The glue, and namesake of this deck is Grand Architect. With him, you can pull off insane plays like T1 Crypto, T2 Crypto, T3 Architect, tap all 3 creatures for 6 colourless, Wurmcoil Engine. Architect also makes playing a Leviathan not so tough, and even DSC is within reach.

Trinket Mage works with the cheap artifacts to grab whatever you need. Short on mana? Grab Chalice. Tricky counter-happy opponent? Get Aether Vial. Playing against Dredge? Fetch up a Crypt post-sideboard. I was never sorry to see a Mage during my matches.

Scarecrone is a card that everyone had probably forgotten about, but in this deck it actually works well. If the scarecrow is left untouched, it'll keep bringing back Engines, Masters and even other Scarecrones. With GA in play, it's even easier to do this. At worst, it'll block and draw you a card.

Also, Wurmcoil Engine makes Tarmogoyf scared. I have first-hand experience of this.

4 Brainstorm provides excellent card draw, of course, and I ran 4 Dispel because I wanted a way to force things through vs Force of Will. In one match vs Pyromancer Ascension, that happened when he tried to Force an Engine and Dispel successfully sent it through, literally for the win.

Regarding lands, the fetches and duals made color screw a non-issue, Nimbus Maze was essentially a dual all day long (so good!) and Hallowed Fountain got me out of a jam once or twice as Tundra 5 and 6.

The sideboard is the best I've ever made, because, for once, I was able to identify threats in my opponent's deck and had the exact cards I needed to deal with those threats. In the Pyro match, I sided in 12 cards against him, and one of them, Chill, was huge in holding off the combo. Trinket Mage found Tormod's Crypt against Dredge, and Flashfreeze fought off a Pernicious Deed (yep it works, because enchantments are spells when on the stack).

I'd like to make this my deck for at least the first part of 2011, but that'll require putting some cash into it: the fetches and Tundras for a start. I'll also have to grab some Engines (I played with foil copies, which worked, but I'd rather have non-foil).

Master of Etherium was actually meant to be Baby Jace, but I forgot to replace them when I got to the pub. In the end, the Masters were actually quite good in the deck. Of course, I could easily fit Jace 2.0 into this deck and it'd work brilliantly, but I like to eat.

Welding Jar will probably become two more Chalices and I might do something with Inkwell and DSC. Force of Will would work really well, but again, budget is an issue. Slowly, maybe.

[browncoat]

That looks like a fun and incredibly silly deck.

The only card I can really think of that seems to be missing is a sensei's divining top. Even if you are not running counterbalance it is still awesome and a great trinket mage target.

[Deckbuilder]

You could also add treasure mage to grab some fattys out of your deck.

[Deckbuilder]

you could also consider thirst for knowledge as a draw spell that lets you put a fat artifact creature into your graveyard so you can reanimate it with scarecrone. you can play treasure mage, search for target big artifact creature, then play thirst for knowledge, discard the creature, and then reanimate with scarecrone. Not a bad little toolbox to have going in a deck like this. I would replace darksteel colossus with a creature that will sit in your graveyard or blightsteel colossus which is just better. You may also want to consider playing master transmuter to get big creatures out early.