Welcome back to Fun & Jank, Episode 45! Plum here, and this week we’re talking Urza. No, not that Urza — I mean Urza, Lord Protector, one half of a legendary Magic mullet: business in the front, planeswalker party in the back.
This build takes what we learned from Episode 23’s Tezzerator brew and puts it to work again, but the real backbone comes from Edge of Eternities. With a few powerful new tools in the mix, the toolbox archetype felt like the perfect place to start tinkering again. There’s also nothing quite like melding Urza. Once you do it once, you want to do it again and again and again.
This Tezzeret is the perfect foreman for a toolbox. His static ticks him up every time an artifact enters, which means normal play patterns (and Yorion, Sky Nomad blinks) grows his loyalty fast.
Let’s talk about his abilities:
0: Untap an artifact or creature; if it’s an artifact creature, it gets a +1/+1 counter. That means extra activations on things like The One Ring or extra mana from The Mightstone and the Weakstone, Artifact Lands, etc.
–3: Tutor any artifact with mana value one or less. This is our main engine for the list. With Tezz acting as a repeatable tutor for small silver-bullet artifacts, we can find a wide range of answers for a wide range of decks.
–7: Although he isn’t our main win condition. It is relatively easy to ultimate him in our deck. This usually happens in the late game and allows us to turn our hate pieces into a way to close out the game.
Tezzeret is a strong and cheap core to build around. With a plethora of decent 1-drop artifacts to tutor up, he can provide unparalleled versatility all for just three mana.
Tezzeret is a great new addition, butWhir of Invention gives the deck true toolbox reach: instant-speed access to the exact artifact that solves the current problem, while keeping mana up for interaction. We combined it with Perilous Snare in our old Tezzerator list, but let’s talk about Pinnacle Starcage. It’s a small-ball sweeper/control piece. It compresses early boards, then turns into material value later to close out games. It’s great against go-wides and cheap threats.
You’ll see that it is a bit of a “nonbo” with a few pieces of our deck, which is why we’re only playing a couple copies. It’s moreso a “break in case of emergency” kind of card, but Whir of invention makes sure we have access to it whenever we need it.
One of the biggest strengths of this shell is how much coverage it gets from its toolbox. Between the suite of three-mana white artifacts like Perilous Snare and Pinnacle Starcage, the deck has reliable access to clean, repeatable removal for just about any nonland permanent. That alone would give us a solid baseline against creature decks, planeswalkers, or even random utility pieces.
However, while I was brewing this I realized we might as well go big or go home right? We can only play so many artifacts in the mainboard, and we’re limited to mainly one mana spells for Tezzeret. So if we want even more adaptability, we can play Karn, the Great Creator to make the most of our sideboard space too. Karn’s versatility matters even more in a deck already tuned for silver bullets. Between his ability to tutor directly from the sideboard and Tezzeret’s ability to dig into the library, you’re essentially playing a list where almost every draw step has an out, with redundancy. Broad-spectrum removal plus tutor access to hyper-specific answers is powerful combination.
Most games start with us playing the early cop role — using cheap permanent removal like Portable Hole, Perilous Snare, or Pinnacle Starcage to keep the board from getting out of control. Those spells, backed by countermagic like Metallic Rebuke, let us slow things down long enough to set up shop.
From there, the goal is to land an engine:
Tezzeret, Cruel Captain turns every artifact into extra value, digs for bullets, and can eventually ultimate into a steady stream of robots.
The One Ring stabilizes and keeps the cards flowing.
Karn, the Great Creator opens the sideboard toolbox, giving us the exact hammer for whatever nail the opponent presents.
Once we’ve stabilized behind one of these engines, the deck shifts gears. We start finding the silver bullets we need with Tezz or Whir of Invention, while continuing to accrue value off of our artifacts and walkers. The endgame is flexible but powerful: sometimes it’s melding Urza, Lord Protector into Urza, Planeswalker, sometimes it’s ultimating Tezzeret, and sometimes it’s dropping a Karn win-con straight from the sideboard to end things on the spot.
Lets talk about the Silver bullets.
Tezzeret’s Tool Box
Portable Hole – cleanly answers cheap creatures and utility permanents. The main thing we usually get with Tezz.
Stone of Erech – graveyard hate that comes down fast and keeps recursive decks honest. Also good against Phlage and stops Ajani from flipping.
Aether Spellbomb – flexible bounce spell that doubles as a cantrip when not needed.
Moonsnare Prototype – mana smoothing and extra utility in grindy games. Tezzeret can untap it to double its mana.
Witching Well – raw card selection when you just need more gas.
Esper Sentinel – Taxes noncreature spells and draws cards when opponents don’t pay. Good incremental card advantage.
Haywire Mite – One of the cleanest answers to enchantments and artifacts. Exile removal stapled to a 1-drop body, and it gains a bit of life on the way out.
Elixir – Graveyard reset and lifegain in one. A great late-game tool for matchups where decking yourself or burn pressure is a concern.
Each of these tools is narrow on its own, but the power lies in never having to main-deck multiples—you just grab the right one when it matters.
Karn’s Tool Box
Platinum Angel – the emergency parachute. Some matchups can’t beat it once it’s down.
Grafdigger’s Cage – the classic anti-graveyard piece. Turns off Collected Company, reanimation, and anything trying to cast from the library.
Tormod’s Crypt – zero-mana, instant-speed graveyard hate Great when you need to keep mana open for interaction.
Damping Sphere – shuts down Storm-style combo and slows greedy manabases by taxing multiple spells per turn. A must-have against Lotus Field and similar strategies.
Liquimetal Coating – the infamous Karn lock piece. With Karn’s static shutting down activated abilities, you can turn lands into artifacts and strand opponents without mana. It also has utility by turning random permanents into artifacts to interact with in other ways.
The Stone Brain – proactive disruption. Strip out key combo pieces or cut off finishers from control decks. Against slower strategies, it can completely collapse their plan because it can be rebought with Karn over and over.
Pithing Needle – sometimes you need a second copy. Planeswalkers, combo enablers, or random artifacts all fall under its umbrella.
Glass Casket – cheap removal that sticks around. Helps shore up against low-to-the-ground aggro where Portable Hole alone isn’t enough.
Portal to Phyrexia – the haymaker. Rips apart a creature board and then starts reanimating your choice of finishers. Against midrange and creature combo, this is usually lights out.
Wurmcoil Engine – stabilizer supreme. Lifegain plus a sticky threat, perfect against red decks or attrition mirrors.
Cosmos Elixir – grind engine in slower matchups. Gains you incremental life when you’re behind and keeps the cards flowing when you’re ahead. Great as a pivot into a more controlling plan against attrition decks.
The One Ring – Karn tutoring this up is huge. Sometimes you don’t need an answer, you just need to slam the most generically powerful card in Magic. The Ring stabilizes life totals for a turn and then buries opponents in cards.
Karn’s Sylex – a unique sweeper. Exiles all nonland permanents with mana value X or less, and has that secondary ability to shut off odd abilities here or there.
The Mightstone and Weakstone – removal or card draw on entry, plus the crucial half of Urza’s meld condition. Even outside of that, Karn fetching this in grindy spots is fantastic; it kills midrange creatures cleanly or digs you toward engines, while producing restricted mana to fuel more artifact spells.
Together with the earlier bullets (graveyard hate, lock pieces, big closers), these round out Karn’s toolbox into something that covers basically every angle: lifegain, card draw, sweepers, disruption, and win conditions. It’s exactly why this deck feels like it always has a plan, no matter the matchup.
Gameplay
I took this list for a spin on stream and ended up with a 2–3 record. Not the most glamorous finish, but a lot of that was on me — I kept a few sketchy opening hands trying to see how flexible the deck really is. The good news? Even in the losses, the deck showed exactly what it’s built to do: buy time with cheap removal, set up an engine, and then lean on the toolbox to keep adapting.
When things lined up, the deck felt great. into the right bullet at instant speed is every bit as satisfying as you’d expect, and the new toys from Edge of Eternities — especially — really smooth out the gameplan. The flip side is that piloting choices matter a lot. This isn’t a list that bails you out with raw card quality if you stumble; it rewards tight mulligans and knowing when to reach for which tool.
I may have overdid it with so many tool boxes, but it was fun nonetheless. This is the second time we’ve played Whir + Snare, and I think Pinnacle Starcage has been a very very good addition to that package. This was also my excuse to finally play Urza, and it was everything I could have hoped for and more. Can’t wait to play this core again in the future.
Closing Thoughts
This deck was deeply satisfying to pilot — there’s something inherently fun about having a drawer full of gadgets and knowing you can reach for the right one at the right time. The toolbox style makes every game feel different, and Tezzeret really ties the room together by making sure you’ve always got a silver bullet within reach. That said, I did feel the deck was a little stretched thin. By dedicating so many slots to flexibility, sometimes the raw power level isn’t quite there, and the list can stumble when it needs a more straightforward threat. On top of that, the current format has plenty of efficient answers that line up cleanly against us: Assassin’s Trophy, Fragment Reality, and Leyline Binding all answer our permanent-based removal or lock pieces without much fuss. The counter spell suite we play can help with that, but sometimes its still not enough.
Still, that’s the tradeoff of playing a toolbox: you sacrifice a bit of consistency for adaptability. And even if it isn’t the most ruthless strategy in the room, the games where you finally meld Urza, Lord Protector are worth every sketchy hand you keep.
Thanks for reading.
As always feel free to comment and leave any questions you have below! Make sure to come back next week for even more Fun & Jank!
If you want to see these decks in action, come hang out with me on stream where we test, refine, and have a ton of fun together!
Happy Brewing!
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Plum is the creator of the Jank Tank.
He started playing at the ripe old age of 12 and immediately fell in love with the infinite possibilities that deck building could lead to.
He truly understands that jank is a mindset, and spends most of his free time brewing and concocting new and exciting deck lists to help inspire and promote creativity within the MTG community.
