Season 13, Episode 8: Brew Session (Tameshi, Reality Architect)
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It’s not often that we get to witness the birth of a brand new combo deck. But the Modern card pool is a strange and wonderful place, and Tameshi, Reality Architect has the right skills to enable some truly impressive plays.
In this episode of Faithless Brewing, we take a detailed look at Tameshi, Reality Architect and the many combos you can build with him. We start by discussing Tameshi’s applications as a fair card. Tameshi’s two abilities can generate enormous advantages simply by returning Urza’s Saga, Mishra’s Bauble, or other cheap artifacts and enchantments. But the real power of Tameshi lies in the combo potential. We discuss six potential combo packages, and consider four decklists proposed so far by various brewers.
I will give a brief rundown of the combos here, and direct you to the podcast episode for a full discussion of their strengths, weaknesses, and how to build them.
Combos with Lotus Bloom
The basic setup for these combos is Tameshi in play and Lotus Bloom in the graveyard. Tameshi allows you to pick up any land to return Lotus Bloom to play, which you sacrifice for three mana. You can repeat this action until you run out of lands. This can generate boatloads of mana, but how do you convert it to a win? There are at least four options.
Cultivator Colossus: The cleanest, most powerful option. Cultivator returns all your lands to play tapped, and potentially many more, and draws a boatload of cards. Tameshi doesn’t care whether the land you bounce is tapped or not, so as long as you have at least W floating, you can do it all again.
Ashaya, Soul of the Wild: Ashaya turns all of your creatures into lands. That means instead of bouncing real lands to re-buy Lotus Bloom, you can instead bounce a cheap creature such as Thraben Inspector or Voldaren Epicure. Use the Lotus Bloom mana to re-cast the creature , and presto, you are infinite.
Sculpting Steel: Similar to Ashaya, this combo works by having Sculpting Steel copy a Darksteel Citadel or Treasure Vault. You then perform the Tameshi Bloom loop, bouncing Sculpting Steel each time instead of a real land. The mana from Lotus Bloom allows you to keep recasting Sculpting Steel.
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn: Not a combo per se, but a reminder that all we really need is a way to convert a pile of mana into a win. 15 mana can be achieved with Tameshi Bloom + 5 untapped lands.
Combos without Lotus Bloom
Any loop with Tameshi requires white mana. In these combos, rather than Lotus Bloom, our mana comes from the lands that Tameshi is looping.
Seismic Assault + Dryad of the Ilysian Grove: Start with these plus any two of Urza’s Saga, Darksteel Citadel, or Treasure Vault. Bounce one Saga to hand to return the other Saga from graveyard to battlefield. Then discard the Saga you bounced for 2 damage. Dryad allows the Sagas to tap for W to fuel the loop. All of these pieces, including Dryad and Assault, can be returned by Tameshi.
Amulet of Vigor + Artificer’s Intuition: Amulet of Vigor x2 + Razortide Bridge x2 forms a loop with any discard outlet. Artificer’s Intuition finds all of the pieces while also providing the discard outlet. It sounds like a lot pieces, but in fact all you need at the start is Tameshi + Intuition, some lands in play, and any artifact in hand. The kill comes from Intuition finding Altar of the Brood, or Walking Ballista plus a third Amulet for infinite mana.
Brewers, Start Your Engines!
Hopefully this overview gives you a sense of the vast combo potential of Tameshi, and some of the challenges involved in tackling a card that can be built in so many different ways. In the podcast episode, we go in depth into the strengths and weaknesses of each combo package. We also consider four decklists to test. As is our custom, we will report back with our findings in next week’s episode.
Happy brewing!
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Timestamps
[2:40] Housekeeping
[4:22] Understanding Tameshi
[8:14] Fair uses: Urza’s Saga, Mishra’s Bauble
[11:45] Lotus Bloom
[14:14] Cultivator Colossus
[22:41] Ashaya, Soul of the Wild
[26:57] Sculpting Steel + Darksteel Citadel
[32:16] Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
[33:59] Seismic Assault + Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
[37:56] Amulet of Vigor + Artificer’s Intuition
[44:05] Sketch #1: Wargate Tameshi by daviusminimus
[52:39] Sketch #2: Ashaya Combo by geegoat
[55:19] Sketch #3: Amulet Intuition Tameshi by Ari Lax
[59:11] Sketch #4: Tameshi Titan by Ari Lax
[1:04:13] Final thoughts
If you’d like to get in on the Tameshi action, I’d direct you to two additional resources. First, u/daviusminimus has been putting up tremendous results already with his Wargate Tameshi brew, including numerous 4-1s and a boatload of 3-2s. You can find many of his leagues on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC9V5f68FPNRH54oHf4KH7Q), or catch him live at twitch.tv/daviusminimus.
Second, daviusminimus has also set up a Tameshi Discord server, which is already buzzing with lots of wild ideas. Join the conversation here: https://discord.gg/8UcJ4h4n.
