Azorius Metalwork Pioneer: Deck Tech and Sideboard Tips

This deck has as its main strategy to cast the highest number of Metalwork Colossus as soon as possible, and for that, it counts with Brass Knuckles, which for just manas offers us a mana value of 8 on the battlefield thanks to its copy.

Outside that, this strategy counts with many useful artifacts such as Gilded Pinions and Wedding Invitation which offers evasion to our 10/10 creatures. Besides that, the deck has draw mechanics such as Ingenious Smith and Glint-Nest Crane which still offer us a body to block and give us tempo.

Regarding control elements, we have Portable Hole and Glass Casket which besides being good removals, they also offer us artifact mana value to help us cast Metalwork Colossus.

Decklists

The initial proposal is to be a good budget deck for Pioneer, having a low initial cost and being capable of being enhanced. This budget decklist even managed to get a 5-0 in a league:

From this initial decklist, many more elaborate variations have come up. Some use Karn, the Great Creator, to bring more versatility and have a way of seeking out Metalwork Colossus in your sideboard.

The most recent version even managed to get a top 16 on December 11th's Pioneer Challenge by using as another attack angle in this deck the card The Antiquities War in its sideboard.

To keep a hand in this deck, we must have in mind two main postures:

Against more aggressive decks, we need more reactive hands with interactions such as Portable Hole or Glass Casket to contain our opponent's game plan while we evolve our battlefield. Because of that, drive away from slow hands with two or more copies of Metalwork Colossus or Brass Knuckles.

Against slower decks we must have more explosive hands, giving priority to keeping Gilded Pinions which allows us to cast Brass Knuckles turn 3, causing our plan to evolve very well.

In matches against Control decks that have board wipes, be careful to not cast more than 2 Colossus, as just one Colossus with double strike is enough to win, usually.

To play around removals, some lists also use Witch's Oven, which by sacrificing Metalwork Colossus creates us 2 food tokens, being enough to return it to your hand without hindering the mana value of your artifacts.

Favorable Matches:

Being a deck with high-value cards on the battlefield, we can say it has favorable matchups against Control archetypes, as many decks in the format can't deal with 2/3 10/10 creatures at turns 4 and 5.

Besides that, to play around board wipes, this deck still counts with some counters in its sideboard such as Metallic Rebuke and Metalwork Colossus can come back from the graveyard.

Azorius Control

This is a slower opponent, which has very few threats early game, which favors our game plan. Specially regarding the play in which we can cast a Gilded Pinions turn 2 without suffering counters, and we still count with Brass Knuckles which need to be countered twice, as it creates a copy when being cast.

In this match, keep in mind to cast only 2 Metalwork Colossus as we might suffer a lot against global removals such as Farewell. Post side, we must use Metallic Rebuke to protect our game plan and use The Antiquities War as a plan b to finish the game.

Lotus Field

Being a Combo deck with little to no interaction, we can be as aggressive as possible, looking to always cast as many Metalwork Colossus as possible between turns 3 and 4 to finish the game quickly. If you can, try to start with at least one copy of it in hand and artifacts to speed up your game.

Post side, our match gets better as we use Damping Sphere to hinder the combo plan at the same time we create artifact mana value to our own game plan. Another very important card in this match is Unlicensed Hearse, which might prevent the opponent's plan of using their graveyard and offer us another win condition, as it is easily creewed by an Ingenious Smith.

Unfavorable Matches:

Our archetype has the most difficulty against Aggro and Midrange decks such as MonoU Spirits and Rakdos Midrange, as they are decks that can overwhelm our plays early on - be it by countering our spells at the same time they can advance their own game plan by putting threats on board.

For those matches, it is fundamental to have initial interaction such as Portable Hole or Glass Casket and also keep hands with creatures that generate us value at the same time they contain our opponents' game plan.

Rakdos Midrange

This match I consider difficult, as our opponents have plenty of interaction and discard such as Thoughtseize and Abrade, and post side some lists also use Extinction Event which exiles our Metalwork Colossus preventing them from returning, besides the deck also having threats that are difficult to deal with such as Sheoldred, the Apocalypse and Graveyard Trespasser // Graveyard Glutton.

To play around our opponents' game plan, we must use Metallic Rebuke to protect ourselves from threats and The Antiquities War as a card advantage card. Some lists also use in their sideboard Supreme Verdict, which deals with the threats.

Spirits

Any version of the Spirits deck ends up being a difficult match because any version of it can get fast creatures with evasion at the same time they can counter our key cards, specially considering that some of our cards have a high cost to be cast.

To contain our opponents' game plan, we must seek interactive hands with Portable Hole or Glass Casket to hinder our opponents' plan. Post side, we must increase our interactions with Metallic Rebuke and increase the amount of Glass Casket. In case your list runs Supreme Verdict, it is an excellent card, as it can only be contained by Spell Queller.

After a few tests, I felt the deck needed more cards that speed up our game plan and give us more versatility during the matches.

For that, these are my suggestions of cards for that plan: The Celestus, which besides ramping has a nice source of card filtering to make us find Metalwork Colossus quicker.

Another card that remains very versatile is Oswald Fiddlebender, which is useful as a tutor for our supporting cards in the deck looking for evasion with Gilded Pinions and Wedding Invitation or even haste with Haunted Cloak.

With the arrival of the new set The Brothers' War, which has an artifact theme, we have some good new additions to the deck, such as Urza, Lord Protector, which reduces the cost of casting artifacts, which speeds up our game plan.

Another great addition to the deck is The Mightstone and Weakstone, which besides being a removal against aggro decks, might serve as a source of card advantage by drawing two cards, and it still has a 5 mana value, which makes it easier for us to cast our main piece, Metalwork Colossus.

This is a good deck for those who want to get into this format and play, and can be enhanced as time goes on with many variants, and Pioneer cards that can also be reused in other decks.

This is my cue, see you in the next article!