Review of Tezzeret

nyaa

I recently picked up this game a month ago and I am thinking of building a support intensive deck, given that I have some decent support cards in my inventory (including Jace's Sanctum and Thopter Spy Network). The deck seems to run decently with Jace (at level 30) but I am wondering if the deck will run any better / more efficiently in a Tezzeret deck. Can anybody provide some advice / review on Tezzeret?

Jace's Ingenuity and Mind Sculpt ability has been pretty decent in helping me keep the deck going (not sure about confusion) but all of Tezzeret's abilities seem to be more supportive of, well, supports and being a Gen 2 planeswalker, it does have higher mana bonuses (+2, +3, +2, 0, 0 for WUBRG).

Anybody want to share their experience with Tezzeret?

ShawnP1

I've been running a Tezzeret deck and it is quite good, it is a bit slow at first but picks up speed quick when I get the gem conversion supports on field.

halcyanide

I managed to win tezzeret in the quick battle and IMO, he's not worth it.

His lackluster performance has less to do with his abilities and more to do with the current state of supports. Many supports have just 1 or 2 shield value and can be wiped out by your opponent in a single turn. I once had a board of SIX supports all taken out by a rediculous cascade by my opponent. I know the computer is bound to get lucky occasionally, but having all your mana investment in board tiles makes their luck hurt you more than it would for other decks.

Additionally it is easy to get crippled because blue supports always go on blue tiles. If you run several supports, you'll soon find that every blue tile on the board has a support on it, Which means you actually DONT want to match gems of your color because you would be removing a shield. That's also not counting the disaster of if any of them happen to line up. You could have three supports with 6 shields each and if you or the opponent manages to match them, suddenly all three are destroyed.

Supports in general either need more shield, or (like most cards actually) need to cost way less.

As for Tezzeret's abilities, his first one is nearly useless. Every once in a while I'll do it if I see the opponent would make a match that would destroy an important one (thopter spy network), but otherwise it's pretty much a waste.
His second ability is pretty cool. I use this one often if I'm behind or haven't gotten a specific support I need (thopter spy network).
His third ability is great. I use it every chance I can. Unfortunately, I can't reliably very often. It's high cost is well deserved for being able to make a creature monstrously strong, but usually by the time I have enough points to cast it, my opponent has already destroyed a couple of my supports. And if they manage to destroy all of your supports, you now have an ultimate that does exactly nothing.

You may have noticed my dependence on Thopter spy network. That's because it's the only blue support that can reliably create creatures (Part the Waterveil is offensive with how useless it is). You need supports that create creatures if you want to take the most advantage of Tezzeret's abilities and fill his 8 maximum limit while still being able to damage the opponent in some way. Unfortunately this basically means his entire deck is reliant on one card. A mythic. Thankfully blue has no shortage of card draw, so if you do have it, it shouldn't be too hard to find it.

TLDR: tezzeret has the potential to be amazing, but is highly limited by how weak supports are in general.

Morphis

I played some tezzeret but not that much.
Anyways in my opinion it all depends on how heavy you want to go in support.
I think with 6 or more support is safe to say that tezzeret is better.

First skill helps low shield supports. That is quite good with clausteophobia.

Second skill is more of a gamble. You can get a support that is useful or maybe reinforce a support that did not need reinforce at all(cause high current shield value). Random but sometimes good.

Third skill, is great but slow. You can look at it like a finisher.

A full support deck as blue is harder to do compared to white(still best color for it in my opinion) cause you cannot defend yourself consistently and slowing down initial opponent game requires specific supports to be played within the first few turns.

Of course don't even think about building a tezzeret deck without spy network.
I presume reading your post you have it though.

VladG0015

I think adding scrying to this game would greatly help him out!

... or it might just break the game

span_argoman

halcyanide wrote:

As for Tezzeret's abilities, his first one is nearly useless. Every once in a while I'll do it if I see the opponent would make a match that would destroy an important one (thopter spy network), but otherwise it's pretty much a waste.
His second ability is pretty cool. I use this one often if I'm behind or haven't gotten a specific support I need (thopter spy network).
His third ability is great. I use it every chance I can. Unfortunately, I can't reliably very often. It's high cost is well deserved for being able to make a creature monstrously strong, but usually by the time I have enough points to cast it, my opponent has already destroyed a couple of my supports. And if they manage to destroy all of your supports, you now have an ultimate that does exactly nothing.

You may have noticed my dependence on Thopter spy network. That's because it's the only blue support that can reliably create creatures (Part the Waterveil is offensive with how useless it is). You need supports that create creatures if you want to take the most advantage of Tezzeret's abilities and fill his 8 maximum limit while still being able to damage the opponent in some way. Unfortunately this basically means his entire deck is reliant on one card. A mythic. Thankfully blue has no shortage of card draw, so if you do have it, it shouldn't be too hard to find it.

TLDR: tezzeret has the potential to be amazing, but is highly limited by how weak supports are in general.

As Morphis said, the first skill helps cards like Claustrophobia a fair bit. If you're using gem-converting supports, it also helps to keep them around for longer.

Also Part the Waterveil isn't useless. It's just clearly meant to be for Kiora. Hint: Animist's Awakening / Nissa's Renewal

Try something like:
Prairie Stream
Sunken Hollow
Caves of Koilos
Shambling Vent
Thopter Spy Network
Claustrophobia
Jace's Sanctum
Day's Undoing
(Bounce spell of your choice)
Sphinx's Tutelage / Creature of choice

Suggested creatures:
Willbreaker - Supports trigger its ability
Herald of Kozilek - Makes 4 of your supports cheaper. Crucially these 4 happen to be your gem converters aka mana+loyalty generators.
Ramroller - You're almost assured the +2/+0. Berserker should be manageable considering you have bounce + Claustrophobia.
Reclusive Artificer - 3 damage to a creature can help clear the smaller ones

Morphis

VladG0015 wrote:

I think adding scrying to this game would greatly help him out!

... or it might just break the game

Talent of the telepath is even better than scry.
The problem with tezzeret has more to do with the lack of supports that impact directly the game without the need of having a creature out.
There are many gain mana/gem transform but are pointless if you have no big fatties to play with it.

Blue has no the knightly valor.
Blue has no Gideon reproach.
Blue has no sigil of the empty throne
Claustrophobia is a worse version than suppression bonds.

Only thing blue has better is spy network.
The perfect deck would have been white blue but lore wise as far as I know(not much tbh) not valid for tezzeret.

halcyanide

span_argoman wrote:

As Morphis said, the first skill helps cards like Claustrophobia a fair bit. If you're using gem-converting supports, it also helps to keep them around for longer.

Also Part the Waterveil isn't useless. It's just clearly meant to be for Kiora. Hint: Animist's Awakening / Nissa's Renewal

Try something like:
Prairie Stream
Sunken Hollow
Caves of Koilos
Shambling Vent
Thopter Spy Network
Claustrophobia
Jace's Sanctum
Day's Undoing
(Bounce spell of your choice)
Sphinx's Tutelage / Creature of choice

Suggested creatures:
Willbreaker - Supports trigger its ability
Herald of Kozilek - Makes 4 of your supports cheaper. Crucially these 4 happen to be your gem converters aka mana+loyalty generators.
Ramroller - You're almost assured the +2/+0. Berserker should be manageable considering you have bounce + Claustrophobia.
Reclusive Artificer - 3 damage to a creature can help clear the smaller ones

Like I said, I use the first ability occasionally. It's just not nearly as useful as his other abilities. Gem converting supports end up hurting as much as helping because they can destroy your supports. Too many supports are too fragile that you can't afford to take a hit on them.
Supports are a bad investment because every turn your opponent has a chance to destroy them. Imagine if you paid 12 for a 4/4 creature that your opponent could destroy simply by matching gems. Not using spells or attacking or anything. Nobody would ever play that creature.

Also I'm glad part the Waterveil is only good for people who spent $50. I stand corrected, what a great card /sarcasm.

Rootbreaker

I think he's too slow, and the blue Support deck isn't really a thing. It's fun to make your creature one shot someone, but it takes way too much setup (grabbing all the supports out of your deck, not having them die, having a creature, and a ton of loyalty) to get to that point.

I don't have Thopter Foundry, but I also don't really like the speed on that card anyway. One creature might be significantly better than 4 smaller creatures with the same size, due to animation delay.

span_argoman

halcyanide wrote:

Like I said, I use the first ability occasionally. It's just not nearly as useful as his other abilities. Gem converting supports end up hurting as much as helping because they can destroy your supports. Too many supports are too fragile that you can't afford to take a hit on them.
Supports are a bad investment because every turn your opponent has a chance to destroy them. Imagine if you paid 12 for a 4/4 creature that your opponent could destroy simply by matching gems. Not using spells or attacking or anything. Nobody would ever play that creature.

Also I'm glad part the Waterveil is only good for people who spent $50. I stand corrected, what a great card /sarcasm.

I personally think the first skill is better than the second. Considering you're likely to have 7 to 8 supports in a Tezzeret deck, it's a roulette game with the second ability as to what support you'll get for free. And all the more cause supports are so fragile that you should use the first ability to keep your supports around; that is its purpose after all.

Though of course the best ability as we know is obviously the third one.

And yes, I agree that Tezzeret isn't fast enough for QB until Blue gets another creature summoning support which he can use. He takes a long time to build up the supports on the board. And Thopter Spy Network's animations take a long time.

And oh please, you can't expect every card released to be equally useful for all planeswalkers. Consul's Lieutenant is better for Origins Gideon than Ally Gideon cause he can imbue it with Vigilance and Flying to make a super defender. Ally cards on the other hand are better for BFZ Gideon cause he's designed around them. Supports are better for Koth than Chandra cause Chandra wrecks the board so often. Painful Truths is better for Ob Nixilis than Liliana cause it combos with his third ability for potentially 55 damage.

Sure we don't like the fact that their pricing for Kiora is so expensive. But on that we can play our part by not paying cash to buy it and making our displeasure known here in the forums. You can slowly grind out the crystals through QB and daily rewards to get Kiora if you really want her. At the end of the day this is still only a game you play for leisure and you're not forced to pay the prices if you don't want to. The issue is not with the card itself.

nyaa

Thanks for the feedback. I wasn't expecting too many comments, at least not as detailed and diverse as these (if a little passionate). I guess the arguments for sticking with Jace is a little more persuasive and hence I won't be getting it. I do find Gideon v2 to be pretty amazing in Quick Battles though (I got it earlier) but that's a topic for a separate thread

jollyrogercjf

I saw your post and I have been wondering the exact same thing, is it worth it for Tez? I keep hovering over the buy button but I never seem to want to pull the trigger, I have a thopter spy network deck that I rarely if ever lose with, I don't see how it would be better with Tez over Jace, while Thopte Spy Network is a win condition its not my only one. The deck plays classic control, removing opponents creatures, bouncing creatures, getting card advantage until I find the card I'm looking for then combo'ed with Jaces Ult I sit back and gradually win the game while they are stuck with no mana for the rest of the game. I am going to post my list soon if you would like to see it, you are right there is not alot of good blue support I don't think Tez is set to really work yet.

Upstartes

I have been playing around with Tezzeret. I don't have Thopter Spy Network, so I'm missing the one card that would be really good in the deck. Nevertheless, I have been having fun.

I must have gone through 20 deck variations before settling on something. Currently my Tezzeret deck isn't anything worth bragging about, but it does as well as any of my other 2nd-tier PWs. It does have Part the Waterveil in it, so a spot of good luck can make a game go amazingly well - but only every now and then.

Like others have said, I wish Blue had a few more supports that really alter the game when they come into play. I find Tezz's second ability is the one that gets the most use. I only get to his third ability in maybe 1 of 3 games.

ShawnP1

So I have been running a Tezzeret deck for a while now, and I have only lost to crashes in QB.
His second ability is way to random without scrying to actually be terribly useful except to filter through your deck faster.
I honestly prefer the first ability over the second; because I just get my gem converters on board with retreat to coralhelm and sphinxes tutelage. They usually can't cast anything and turn to frog and claustrophobia stops them if they do.
I use Jhessian thief to draw extra cards and it goes very well. I unfortunately don't have thopter spy network but none the less it works. The only PW to give me trouble is Garruk, with his tokens and insane mana gain he is very hard to stay ahead of.
I will admit it is a very slow deck but very efficient, plus blue is supposed to be in it for the long game anyways so what can you expect?
I must say gem conversion seems dangerous but really isn't if you are careful about destroying the right gems on the board you can keep your supports far apart. And most definitely use his first ability, your supports need to stay on board (and not just for his third ability which in my opinion simply speeds up the inevitable and is therefore not so important).