Combo! Control! Tezzeret! All in one deck?

Hello everyone! Beseiged has hit the streets, and I haven't played a single event with it yet! But that's fine, I should be hitting up the FNM this week with the new Shape Anew deck I posted running Not of this World. But I'm not here to talk about Standard, I'm talking about Legacy!

For a while now, I have really wanted to build a countertop deck (for those not in the know: Sensei's Divining Top + Counterbalance = tons of free counterspells) but getting the cards is always a problem. As I mentioned yesterday, I just traded for my first Top (and at great value) and until I make the deck it's rocking the 100 card Cromat deck. Mana bases are almost always perfect in Legacy thanks to the lovely interaction between fetch lands and dual lands, so I have heard of crazy decks like WURG Countertop. However, for my build I am going to be going Esper.

Some key things to think about when designing CounterTop is:
1) What is my win condition?
2) What is my anti-aggro plan?

I decided to answer both questions at the same time with.... **DRUM ROLL** Thopter Foundry + Sword of the Meek.

In case if you don't know how that works either:
With those 2 cards in play, pay 1 and sacrifice Sword of the Meek to put a 1/1 flying Thopter token into play and gain 1 life. Because Sword of the Meek is in your graveyard when the token comes into play, Sword of the Meek returns equipped to the token. So for 1 mana you net 1 life and a 1/1 flying creature, at instant speed!

Before I keep on talking about how awesome everything in this deck is, let me show it to you:

4x Counterbalance
4x Sensei's Divining Top
2x Sword of the Meek
4x Thopter Foundry
4x Enlightened Tutor

3x Thoughtseize
4x Force of Will
1x Moat
4x Brainstorm
2x Jace, The Mind Sculptor
2x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
3x Swords to Plowshares

3x Chrome Mox
4x Tundra
4x Underground Sea
1x Scrublands
4x Marsh Flats
4x Flooded Strain
1x Swamp
1x Island
1x Plains

Now theres a lot going on, but in the end it's quite simple. Up top, we have our control/win condition package. In the middle, we have our disruption and planeswalkers, and then at the bottom is our mana. We only have 23 mana sources, but that's because our curve is so low:

0 - 4 (Force of Will)
1 - 18
2 - 10
3 - 0
4 - 5

Now the tricky thing we have with such a low curve is that we can't counter everything, but in legacy, everything is done for as little mana as possible. I'm thinking I may need to add some 3-drops to the deck just for the sake of having 3-drops. If I do, I may lean on Veldaken Shackles because it does incredibly relevant things while being a 3-drop and an artifact. Speaking of artifacts, we run 13, which is low if we want Tezzeret to hit every turn, but the ones we want to hit are VERY important, so digging 5-deep at a time is always appreciated. With Enlightened Tutor, Tezzeret, Jace and Brainstorm finding your combo pieces shouldn't be hard at all and you know I love a deck that almost never mulligans. The Mox are there to really get some ramp going. How about turn 1 Counterbalance? Or turn 1 Thoughtseize + Sensei's Divining Top? Sounds pretty good to me.

One card in the deck breaks the bank more than any other card I have ever even considered playing is Moat. Clocking in at $284.73, this guy is a major investment. No, I don't have any. However, there is one at stock at Toys going for $270 and Evan said he may give it away as a prize for a legacy event! This is my chance! Moat is simply insane. It beats Progenitus, Zoo, Goblins, Merfolk, and even many Reanimator targets (although I must defend reanimator: just get Iona or Terastadon to clean up that problem). I wouldn't be able to afford more than 1 ever, but I have never seen a list run more than that, so I think I'm safe.

Quick Aside
{
While price checking Scrublands, I discovered the Beta version is more expensive than the Alpha version. I don't know why...
}
End Aside

This deck seems incredibly powerful to me, and thanks to the 15-proxy rule that we have at Toys, I can start using this deck almost immediatly! Thopter Foundry costs less than a dollar and Sword of the Meek is in the mid-2s, so I can snag those rather quickly. I don't have Flooded Strains, but there are only 3 non-island lands in the deck (1 scrubland, plains, swamp) so Misty Rainforest or Scalding Tarn works just as well. After buying Thopter Foundrys and Swords, I will be at 17 proxys, so a couple trades will get me into playing range, which means I can put up some reviews and reports.

That's all from me today! Until next time, stay classy!