Yesterday, we looked at a White-Green deck featuring Ajani, which is in my opinion one of the cooler characters that the entire planeswalker malarkey has spawned. Well, today we look at the polar opposite in colors, with Planeswalker Deck “Tezzeret, Master of Metal” being a Blue-Black deck that heavily uses artifacts to boost its plays. And this is not just me using some marketing speech, since the deck works around the keyword Improvise which allows you to pay for cards by tapping artifacts rather than paying mana, which can speed up the board-building process by quite a bit. Is the deck worth playing though? Well, only one way to find out. Here is the decklist for Planeswalker Deck featuring “Tezzeret, Master of Metal”: Creatures (20): 1x Ornithopter (0) 2x Augmenting Automaton (1) 1x Merchant’s Dockhand (1) 2x Dhund Operative (1B) 3x Tezzeret’s Simulacrum (3) 1x Dukhara Peafowl (4) 1x Treasure Keeper (4) 1x Quicksmith Spy (3U) 1x Foundry Assembler (5) 2x Bastion Inventor (5U) 2x Wind-Kin Raiders (4UU) 1x Ironclad Revolutionary (4BB) 1x Barricade Breaker (7) 1x Fen Hauler (6B) Spells (15): 2x Universal Solvent (1) 4x Pendulum of Patterns (2) 2x Implement of Examination (3) 1x Essence Extraction (1BB) 2x Tezzeret’s Touch (1UB) 1x Reverse Engineer (3UU) 2x Tezzeret’s Betrayal (3UB) 1x Tezzeret, Master of Metal (4UB) Lands (25): 11x Island 10x Swamp 4x Submerged Boneyard Most Preconstructed Decks do not bother to put one-drops into the mix, but I have to give kudos to whoever made this Planeswalker Deck since it not only starts at one, but rather at zero: The deck has one copy of “Ornithopter“, which is a 0/2 creature with Flying for absolutely nothing. You might ask yourself what that is supposed to be good for, but I can tell you that “Ornithopter” has plenty of uses, from being a cheap Flying blocker, being an easy target to boost due to its in-build evasion, working with keywords like Ninjutsu for some tricks; or, in the case of Planeswalker Deck “Tezzeret, Master of Metal”, being an artifact creature that can be tapped to help cast spells with Improvise. Of course there are other cheap artifact creatures to make Improvise cards happen: “Augmenting Automaton” is just a 1/1 for one mana that can be boosted by +1/+1 for the turn by paying two mana, while “Merchant’s Dockhand” is actually the first Rare of the deck being a 1/2 that allows you to sift through the top cards of your library, equal to the number of artifacts you tap in addition to paying the four mana cost of the effect, and then lets you add one of them to your hand. Neither of these one-drops is particularly brilliant, but they do serve as a decent start on which you can build the rest of your board. The reason for why you want cheap artifacts around becomes clear fairly quickly. “Dhund Operative” is a 2/2 for two mana but with an artifact on your side of the field it becomes a 3/2 Deathtouch creature instead, which is certainly worth playing. “Tezzeret’s Simulacrum” is a 2/3 for three mana that you can simply tap to make the opponent lose one life point, but with a Tezzeret planeswalker around this effect upgrades to doing three life loss instead, which is probably the biggest boost on planeswalker-depending creatures in have seen in these decks so far. The first card that is straight-up bad in my opinion is “Dukhara Peafowl“, a 2/4 for four mana that can gain Flying if you are willing to pay one mana for its effect. It could have been a 2/4 with Flying and still would not have won any contests, but this is just a case of WotC providing stupid filler cards in their sets; a trend I am not happy about in the slightest. “Treasure Keeper” is much better in comparison, being a 3/3 for four mana that reveals cards from the top of your library when it dies and casts the first nonland card for three or less mana, which makes the thing worthwhile in my opinion since you should always get something out of the effect. “Quicksmith Spy” is the second Rare of Planeswalker Deck “Tezzeret, Master of Metal” and continues the trend of somewhat weird utility option in the Rare slots. The creature itself is a 2/3 for four mana and gives one target artifact you control a tap effect that simply lets you draw a card, which is pretty good if you have a valid target but only over time to make up for the otherwise lackluster creature you are playing. And then we get to the realms of Improvise, playing creatures for cheaper with the help of our grey friends. “Foundry Assembler” is pretty straightforward, being a 3/3 for five mana that has Improvise and therefore gets one mana cheaper per artifact you tap when paying for this guy. “Bastion Inventor” is also pretty simple, a 4/4 with Hexproof for six mana that, you guessed it, comes with Improvise. “Wind-Kin Raiders” is a 4/3 Flying creature with Improvise that you play for UU in the best-case scenario. Then there is “Ironclad Revolutionary“, which in my opinion could have gotten Improvise on top of what it does but happens to only be a 4/4 for six mana that gives you the option to sacrifice an artifact, which gives it two +1/+1 counters and makes each opponent lose two life points. “Barricade Breaker” is back to form though, being a 7/5 for seven mana that is forced to attack each turn and, surprise, has Improvise to come into play for cheaper, while “Fen Hauler” is a 5/5 for seven mana that has Improvise and evasion in form of not being blockable by artifact creatures. The cover card in form of “Tezzeret, Master of Metal” is also pretty solid in my opinion; and actually works with the deck, which is not necessarily the case with Planeswalker Decks. The card costs six mana and comes into play with five loyalty counters, which you can increase by one via the first effect that allows you to reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal an artifact, add that card to your hand and place the rest on the bottom of your library. This is basically a fancy draw effect, but it works with the next effect, which for minus three loyalty makes target opponent lose life equal to the number of artifacts you control. This is a pretty solid effect overall, but having a way to get to more artifacts in general is certainly adding some synergy. And then there is the effect for -8, which simply lets you gain control of all artifacts and creatures target opponent controls. This is a game-ending effect, as is so often the case with the last effect of a planeswalker card, and while you will probably not resolve this one all that often it certainly gives “Tezzeret, Master of Metal” some punch. Now, the non-creature spells are certainly a bit weird. Instead of having something that can just destroy creatures as removal, we get to use “Universal Solvent” in Planeswalker Deck “Tezerret, Master of Metal”, which is just being an Improvise tool for most of the time since its destruction effect, albeit powerful since it simply destroys a permanent, requires seven mana to activate. There is a playset of “Pendulum of Patterns” which on top of being tappable for Improvise gives you three life points when entering the battlefield while also being crackable for five to draw a card. “Implement of Examination” is kinda cool, being another artifact that has a sacrifice effect that draws you a card as well as an effect that draws you a card when it goes to the graveyard, which makes it a “draw two” that you can, you guessed it, also use for Improvise. “Essence Extraction” is the first non-artifact in this paragraph, which deals three damage to a target creature and heals you for three life points for a total of three mana. To make something out of those random non-creature artifacts, we have “Tezzeret’s Touch” which is an enchantment for three mana that turns to enchanted artifact into a 5/5 and returns the card back to the battlefield when going to the graveyard, which allows for some cheeky plays. “Reverse Engineer” is a “draw three” for five mana but with Improvise to make it solid in this deck. And then for creature removal we have two copies of “Tezzeret’s Betrayal“, which is costly at five mana and only works at sorcery speed, but doubles as the searcher for “Tezzeret, Master of Metal“. Planeswalker Deck “Tezzeret, Master of Metal” is certainly different; but not in a bad way. There are quite a few interesting interactions in the deck, and with every cheap grey card on the field being a potential resource for something bigger something that looks like a lame duck of a start might actually just be two turns of ramping into the necessary cards to go big. There are plenty of ways to improve the deck with cheap options, with something like “Welding Jar” being absolute gold for various reasons, while switching cards like “Pendulum of Patterns” for cheaper card draw and mana options like “Mind Stone” would certainly help the deck get more consistent. And not only on the artifact front the deck can deliver: Being Blue-Black means that it has access to plenty of Esper-themed cards and therefore tons of colored artifacts to work with, while being the supreme color combination of destruction and control effects. And the best thing about it all? The Planeswalker Deck “Tezzeret, Master of Metal” is not even that expensive, with plenty of offers around the 15€ mark that I feel would be a decent price for the deck at hand. Overall, this is a solid Preconstructed Deck and one that I could see being fun for someone interested in a slightly different take of Blue-Black.