Dime a Dozen #115: The Birth Pangs of UB Gearseeker

Posted on November 25, 2016 by Jason Moore

Jason takes the young 5/6 under his wing and battles in the Pauper 2-Mans! Will he break free of defeat’s Bleak Coven, or fall victim to periods of Duress?

Enjoy!

You can find Jason
on MTGO as BambooRush
and on Twitter @dimecollectorsc.

 

  1. Hi Jason, nice deck. In the end of the slivers match, it would probably be better to return stalker instead of vampire. You could play it in the same turn to block and disfigure. Also, you should try to disfigure before concede. If you suceed, the remaining sliver would became 3/3, leaving you with 1 life and a turn. I kindda felt you got a bit desperate under sliver pressure and made some snap decisions in the end of the game, can’t say your chances were good, but sometimes we just need to find the “not do bad” play under a bad spot I guess.

  2. uspdudes – Good catch! You also bring up good points about snap decisions and the “not do bad” play. Much appreciated, and thanks for your comment as always.

  3. Hi Jason,
    Thanks for your efforts to make these videos for us!

    Seeing how many artifacts your deck has, I think your deck could play 4 Dhund Operative and 4 Viridian Longbows. The operatives are good by themselves but when a Trinket Mage finds you a bow you can control the board efficiently. Furthermore, the operatives help you against bogles.

    What do you think?

  4. I like the deathbow idea as well, but 4 bows is overkill. There is also the Tidehollow Strix, a UB 2/1 Artifact Creature with flying and Deathtouch that can wield the bow or trade with anything in combat and also helps pump out gearseeker.

    With no way to nuke them ourselves, there are better options than Ichor Wellsprings. Either Metalspinners Puzzleknot, or Alchemist’s Vial, both draw a card for 2 mana and offer additional value on the back end with a built in sacrifice mode.

    If you end up putting in more creatures that die, and artifacts that sac, you could also try the graveyard recursion offered by Fortuitous Find, offering an effective draw 2 for 3 mana from your graveyard in many situations.

    Good Luck, Keep brewing.

  5. Oops, 4 bows was a mistake. I meant 4 operatives and only 1 bow. He already plays trinket mages that can search the bow.

    Concerning the recursion, I prefer grim harvest because it can be used several times. Think for example of an attacking operative with open mana and harvest in the grave. This gets even better if you add bladed bracers :)

    This deck reminds me a bit of trinket control that plays agur of skulls, mulldrifters and crypt rats.

  6. Ops, I was trying to type “not to bad” play, I misspelled. But I guess the meaning ended up being the same. Sometimes we are just under a bad spot or a bad matchup. Sometimes our chances of winning are low, but even those times, we can maximize our chances. Having a 30% chance of winning instead of a 20% chance doesn’t look very exciting, but it can actually make a difference in the long run. The problem is that the brain “hates” to make “lose less” decisions. We get confused, frustrated, looking for an out. This kind of situation can actually come up in life. Sometimes in life we have to take the “less bad” decision and it is really hard to evaluate it.

  8. FissureMan – Cool ideas! I think Silkbind Faerie might be worth pairing with Longbow here, too.

    FlintSmith – Puzzleknot slipped my mind. I’m gonna try it!

    uspdudes – Yes, please do!

  9. Very nice brew! But as previous posters have said it need some tweaking.
    Definetly cut the wellsprings unless your not going to bring in perilous research.
    I’d like the idea of a bow and some more trinket mages. I think trinket mage is just always (well in vacuum) gonna be better than seagate in this deck. Definitely strix over Dhund opereativ though if you go in that direction.

  11. Dam this deck is fun…
    I brewed with the deck for a few days now. I went 1-4, 2-3, 4-1, 4-1 and now 5-0 in the league so my remade version of your deck will be on https://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/pauper#online tomorrow i guess… which is a shame because I think it might be like tire 2-3 so we will se a lot of it. Surprise factor will be completely gone… and I love playing with it.
    Its ONLY and i mean only nemesis is mulldrifter for some reason.

    Keep up good work Jason!

  12. The list…

    Creatures
    4 Trinket Mage
    4 Bleak Coven Vampires
    3 Gearseeker Serpent
    3 Tidehollow Strix

    Other
    4 Thoughtcast
    2 Preordain
    4 Chainer’s Edict
    4 Dead Weight
    3 Prophetic Prism
    2 Dimir Signet
    1 Executioner’s Capsule
    1 Flayer Husk
    1 Reaping the Graves
    1 Tragic Slip
    1 Nihil Spellbomb

    2 Swamp
    4 Darksteel Citadel
    1 Dimir Aqueduct
    4 Dismal Backwater
    1 Mortuary Mire
    4 Vault of Whispers
    2 Island
    4 Seat of the Synod

    Sideboard
    1 Evincar’s Justice
    1 Nihil Spellbomb
    2 Shrivel
    2 Stormbound Geist
    3 Hydroblast
    4 Duress
    1 Viridian Longbow
    1 Reaping the Graves