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After posting my thoughts a few days prior in the /Spikes thread about beating Delirium with Pummeler, a few have expressed interest in my Simic List. What follows is a pseudo comprehensive tale of the deck and how it plays in our current format. There will be talk of sideboard vs specific matchups as well. On to that decklist!
Creatures (16)
3 Servant of the Conduit
4 Aether Theorist
3 Bristling Hydra
4 Electrostatic Pummeler
2 Multiform Wonder
Not Creatures (26)
4 Attune to Aether
4 Blossoming Defense
4 Larger than Life
2 Glimmer of Genius
3 Era of Innovation
3 Deadlock Trap
4 Negate
1 Dovin Baan
1 Key to the City
Lands (18) - Certainly fine with 4 Attune, 3 Elf, draw power.
4 Aether Hub
2 Botanical Sanctum
6 Forest
6 Island
Sideboard
4 Woodweaver's Puzzleknot
1 Multiform Wonder
4 Ceremonious Rejection
3 Fragmentize
2 Appetite for the Unnatural
1 Free slot for your meta
Having been a regular at my local game store since Mercadian Masques, I've seen a few standard formats. I've been around the block, and yet this current standard is potentially the standard that I enjoy the most in the past decade. Though I may never cast another Tinker, artifacts will always hold a near and dear place in my heart. What I found, is a deck that reminds me of so many of my favorite cards from days gone by.
I am a fringe-decker, it's what I do. While you played Jund, I played Time Sieve. While you played Machinehead, I played a Rising Waters variant with Undermines and Nether Spirits. I like control, I like blue, I like artifacts. I like sitting down across from my opponent with a deck list that isn't old hat. I want my opponent to have zero idea what 60 cards are in my library. This current standard format is prime for my pickings, as it were.
I started this set cycle with a mono green energy build, as I was thrilled to find that $40 could get me in pretty competitively. The win con? Electrostatic Pummeler. This potent 3 drop can not only double itself, but it comes toting a package of 3 energy to fuel the rest of my army. I piloted the deck to mediocre success, finishing with a lot of 3-2 and 2-3 records in FNM. My problem? Fragility.
During the first week or two of the Meta, my opponents would respond to pummeler only verbally. No lands were tapped, no spells cast, "I haven't seen that card before... It resolves." Today, only a mere month later, it is a vastly different landscape. My opponents are clearly aware that my 1/1 can swiftly become a 5/5 with Trample via larger than life. Backed with 6 energy, you are staring down the proverbial barrel of the 20/20 trample gun. With cards like Harnessed Lightning, Murder, Declaration in Stone, Fragmentise etc, I knew that if I was going to see any success i would have to treat my Electrostatic Pummelers like an infant child, protecting it from the world until it grew legs of it's own. Boy do they grow up fast. Pummeler has a removal magnet tucked away in his back pocket, between his wallet and dip can.
Green wasn't enough. My original list carried 4 Blossoming Defense, and still does, yet in a 15 card game (7 on the draw + 8 turns) I was going to see one, or so my blackjack days will tell me. Peering over the spoiler and digging deep into sets past, I didn't see enough of what I wanted in Green alone and made the decision to branch out. I first took a look to see what the pros were doing, which is always a great strategy.
Red/Green variants of energy pummeler don't solve the real issue at hand. The lists were placing well at large events, but not taking home any titles. After extensive playtesting I again found that the combo, so to speak, can simply fall apart to properly timed removal. Simply relying on haste and double strike to 'get there' before your opponent does feels random. I don't like random. When visiting a local casino, the pit bosses know me by name, and they know that I do everything in my power to remove the possibility of random. It's also their fault for playing 2 deck blackjack with 6 players per table. When you are as calculated as I am in your gameplay, there is but one answer to this problem; blue.
Blue has so many great energy standouts, the decklist practically built itself. 4 Aether Theorists help me shred through my deck, bringing 3 energy to the party. Glimmer of Genius reminds me of the glory days of Type 2 (the standard of that era) with Fact or Fiction. Fact or Fiction is probably my favorite Magic card of all time, and so Glimmer of Genius was a 4 of. In time I have reduced that number down to 2.
Glimmer is far too heavy, and my energy was most often above the necessary 6 by the time I went to cast it. What, at first, looks like a 4 cost energy boost, simply becomes scry 2 and draw 2 cards, provided the energy doesn't matter. I'm not saying that it isn't good, but staring at a board state with 14 energy, 5 open mana and needing a Larger than Life to win is frustrating. Enter Era of Innovation.
This card is hands down busted. It may table to you in your spammed online drafts, but when I topdeck it late into a game, it basically reads Ancestral Recall for 1 more colorless mana. Thinning Glimmer down to 2, I found that Era as a 3 of plays perfectly.
I have been a fan of Negate since it made its way into Time Sieve ala M10. Though the card proved itself quite merciless in a format full of lightning bolts, Ajani and blightnings, it found a great home near the above mentioned standard removal staples. I had not, at first, realized that it also takes care of vehicles, and let's not forget, Ob Nixilis is a one-shot Pummeler remover. We play 4 of these for very good reason, rounding out blue.
Bristling Hydra has been at 3 copies since my deck's original inception, and they are an absolute standout vs Delirium. They have won me many games, but I still had 2 slots open for something late game. Something modular, something evasive, something BIG. I wanted Morphling back, and for a time Hydra had felt like that. Built in hexproof is absurdlly good. I found the card that I wanted in Multiform Wonder.
Multiform Wonder (pretty sure you haven't seen one in any competitive play that has mattered as of yet) is a 5 drop 3/3 that, like many others, brings 3 energy to the party. It may not have hexproof, but for 1 single energy it can be given your choice of flying, vigilance, or lifelink until eot. For 1 energy it can also recieve your choice of +2/-2 or -2/+2. On the attack, I reliably swing with a 5/1 flying vigiliance lifelink. Backed by a Larger Than Life, we are looking at a 9/1 flying vigilance lifelink for 5 energy.
Provided you can make this guy hit face, an 18 point life total difference is devastating. It ensures the game will go into later turns, drawing me more cards, seeing more Glimmer, more Era, and more combo pieces to blow your world apart. Let's be honest though, Multiform Wonder gets there by himself quite a bit. It also doesnt take a genius to see the parallels with Morphling, one of my favorite critters of all time. I have also fueled it into a 0/15 and blocked Emrakul.
Deadlock trap may be one of the most underrated cards in our current format. It may not be the Rishadan Port that I loved so very much, but it certainly brings an Icy flavor to the party. When eldrazi can't swing, planeswalkers can't emblem, your day looks a lot better. On your swing-for-the-win turn, it taps down blockers. Delirium plays the deathtouch land as well as the early deathtouch 1/1, and I am more than happy to tap those down. I need my dudes in play, not in my graveyard in order to last out Delirium.
Since the great adoption of blue, I have found that I am far more reliable. Negates have kept a great many spells at bay, and I even keep a few built to last in my sideboard. Speaking of, this deck carries the unique ability to splash energy cards of the 3 other colors. My sideboard has seen Harnessed Lightnings, Live fast etc and I have never had an issue casting them. 4 Aether hubs and 3 Servant of the Conduit do nicely alongside 4 Attune to Aether, ensuring I never miss my 1 of plains, mountain or swamp, depending upon which spicy tech I am splashing on that particular evening.
I now have tremendous matchups vs Fevered Visions. Propelling me into card filtering is not the life you want. I may be a control deck, but when I can swing for 20 with trample on turn 4, you don't try to win the long game. Sideboard in the 2 Appetite for Unnatural and 4 Woodweaver's Puzzleknot and you should be quite sound to go the distance.
Delirium is by far my worst matchup, but 4 Woodweavers Puzzleknots give me the time to get there. I am also partial to boarding in another Multiform Wonder in hopes that a few lifelink turns and clever blocks can thin down the board state to buy time. Not faring well against Delirium is currently a big issue. Grand Prix Warsaw saw SIX Delirium decks in the Top 8, which has me scared. Carrying blue, I have the unique ability to wait until an opponents tapped out turn to resolve my Pummeler, and hopefully have a counterspell or two in hand to ensure he is still on board when my opponent passes back. For now, I don't see how Pummeler wins without sheerly overwhelming via RG, or winning the longer game state with UG.
VS UR Spells/UW Flash, I recommend resolving an Era of Innovation as quickly as possible. I value it on turn 2 over the Servant or even Aether Theorist provided that you are on the play, or they are tapped out. If you consider that your opponenent has a 1:1 ratio of removal/counterspell in relation to cards in your deck, draw engines will be the only way to overcome. Not to mention the longer it is in play, the more value it sees. At current I play 10 Artifacts main deck, and after sideboard we bring along Woodweaver's Puzzleknots. This matchup is easily won if you play it slow and cautious, but an early resolution of Era should count as every single nail in that coffin. Multiform Wonder blocks Torrential Gearhulk/Avacyn all day long, leaving them mostly no kill condition, save the Dynavolt Tower. The 4 Negates in the deck should ONLY be cast against the Dynavolt Tower, Glimmer of Genius or Planeswalker. Deny them their sauciest cards and you will go the distance. Gearhulk should be all but dismissed as this control/combo deck is quite full of chump blockers. Multiform also says hello to spellquellers all day.

I will update this thread with setlist info. Feel free to post any pictures/videos, updates, comments, questions, etc. here
Muse continues the tour from Austria into Switzerland for a pair of back-to-back gigs starting tonight! The Austria show was a pretty standard Night 1 set featuring Plug In Baby, Map of the Problematique, Hysteria, and Take A Bow in their respective slots. Feeling Good was played in the piano slot, however. Will they continue this general set of rotations for Night 1 in Switzerland or will they continue from the last show and start with more of a "Night 2" set tonight.. we'll see soon enough. I'm guessing most bets in the casino below will either be right on or way off.
Via sjoerddebruin:
>The venue seems to have it limits again, just like Belgium. No drones will be in the air tonight and there is a square frame around the stage. https://www.instagram.com/p/BFRkFsNCGSI/
Guess this song:
There's a circle of witches, ambitiously vicious they are
Our attempts to remind them of reason won't get us that far
Today's Winner: SoldierOfCydonia
Previous Winner: Tunaman008 The song was " Warsaw Or The First Breath You Take After You Give Up" by Them Crooked Vultures
[Setlist]

1. Drones
   
2. Psycho
   
3. Reapers
   
4. Plug In Baby
   
5. Dead Inside
   
6. Hysteria (w/ Interlude and Back In Black riff outro)
   
7. Isolated System (Shortened)
   
8. The Handler
   
9. Supermassive Black Hole (w/ Voodoo Child riff intro)
   
10. Starlight (w/ Prelude)
    
11. Citizen Erased
    
12. Munich Jam
    
13. Madness
    
14. Undisclosed Desires
    
15. Revolt (w/ JFK)
    
16. Time Is Running Out
    
17. Uprising
    
18. The Globalist
    
19. Drones (Reprise)
    
20. Mercy
    
21. Knights of Cydonia (w/ Man With A Harmonica intro)
    

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Next Gig: May 12th, 2016, Hallenstadion, Zurich, Switzerland (Night 2)