Late-August Upate!

This iteration of post-rotation Azorius Artifacts for Bo3 aims to steadily control the board until you snowball out of control with Simulacrum Synthesizer

Here, artifacts like Assimilation Aegis and Braided Net // Braided Quipu double dip in controlling your opponents board while growing your own. While some Synthesizer decks run very aggressively to attempt to beat your opponent down before they can contain your constructs, this deck excels in reacting to your opponent's strategy while constantly threating a sudden explosion of large constructs.

In the early game, Spring-Loaded Sawblades // Bladewheel Chariot helps to mitigate any aggressive decks trying to overrun you while Candy Trail gives you some much needed scrying and on-command lifegain.

On Turn 3, your options open up tremendously: Thran Spider gives you a solid blocker while accelerating your mana; Assimilation Aegis can remove a building threat; Simulacrum Synthesizer can set up your coming draws while presenting a legitimate threat that must be dealt with asap; Urza, Lord Protector presents a blocker that simultaneously accelerates you into the mid-game; Braided Net // Braided Quipu can slow a "pump" based build, delay your opponents beat-down strategy, or (my favorite use) stop your opponent's planeswalker from doing anything for three turns.

While available on turn three, it may not always be your go-to play. But, it bears mentioning that Three Steps Ahead is a wildly flexible card in this configuration. You, however, are not a "counter everything under the sun" player. I cannot stress how much this card must be used wisely. Identify your opponent's strategy as soon as you can. Then hold Three Steps until you can either counter a big turning point in their strategy (with the possibility of drawing extra cards depending on available mana and state of the game) or use it to EoT copy your synthesizer or another immediately impactful artifact to swing the game in your favor. Don't just toss this out because you have open mana

Along with the above options, a new tech that I've found great success with is the inclusion of Liberator, Urza's Battlethopter. I know, I know, no one is running this. Let me explain. There's three legitimate nightmares for this deck: control, hyper aggro (looking at you Manifold Mouse), and decks mainboarding Brotherhood's End.

Battlethopter is incredible against azorious control. Take away their advantage of countering on your turn and force them to counter on their's. This opens up an avenue to get things to stick on your turn, whether that be by casting on your turn or using Fabrication Foundry to bring back what they countered. You only need a handful of things to hit before U/W control can't keep up.

Battlethopter also helps against the hyper aggro decks. People tend to forget that it's second ability consistently drops +1/+1 counters on it at instant speed. A well-timed Sawblades or Aegis and suddenly aggro is down an attacker and your blocker is a 2/3.

Lastly, Brotherhood's End seems to be everywhere now, and for good reason. It counters the aggro in the meta and puts a stop to similar decks as the one here capitalizing on Synthesizer. Battlethopter is a great way to work around it since you can simply drop your artifacts EoT. It's not a perfect solution, but that's also a good reason for having Dawn's Truce in the side (see below).

If you're moving into the late game, The Mightstone and Weakstone gives you strong removal or card draw to refill your tank while triggering Synthesizer to create another threat; Unstable Glyphbridge // Sandswirl Wanderglyph can clear the board and trigger Synthesizer after the board is swept, leaving you with hefty bodies to get aggressive with; and Chimil, the Inner Sun can trigger Synthesizer while generating a free cast every turn and can shut down azorius control's countermagic.

This deck also gives you some recurrence with Fabrication Foundry. Use Foundry to exile Unstable Glyphbridge // Sandswirl Wanderglyph to bring The Mighstone and Weakstone from your grave for its ETB trigger. Exile Thran Spider to pull your Synthesizer back onto the board, exile a Glass Casket and Spring-Loaded Sawblades // Bladewheel Chariot to bring Assimilation Aegis from the grave to remove a threat while triggering Synthesizer. The deck has a variety of choices throughout a match that is heavily dependent on your ability to identify your opponent's strategy and take the correct path.

In the lands, ever-annoying Mirrex operates as its own steady threat while also giving you an easy way to create an artifact that you can craft Unstable Glyphbridge // Sandswirl Wanderglyph or Spring-Loaded Sawblades // Bladewheel Chariot with. Keep in mind, though, those tokens do not have a mana value and can't be used as fodder for Fabrication Foundry. We also have a single Fomori Vault if the game drags on to open up card selection for fueling your Synthesizer. Don't be afraid to use Restless Anchorage to create map tokens because those tokens will strengthen your Synthesizer constructs. Lastly, the brand new Fountainport is tremendous here. It opens up your options during the mid-game to accerlate your mana, create a blocker, or set up for additional card draw and extends your mana usage efficiently into the late-game. 

Lastly, a few words on Fabrication Foundry. I believe this card truly shines in this deck and has more uses than most realize. To ensure you use it properly, the exile effect of Foundry is a cumulative X cost of artifacts that you exile from your board. This opens up some interesting options if you're paying attention.

For example: your graveyard holds your Chimil, the Inner Sun; on your board you have two Fabrication Foundry's, a Spring-Loaded Sawblades // Bladewheel Chariot used for removal in the early game, and am Assimilation Aegis that missed a target either due to protection or bounce. Here, you could activate one Fabrication Foundry and select X = 7. You'd exile the second Foundry, the Sawblades, and the Aegis to pay for it. Now, you can grab Chimil from your grave for 3 mana and exiling a few less-than-useful artifacts from your board.

Another scenario that occurs often: you have The Mightstone and Weakstone on your board and just drew a second one. You could play the second Mighstone, letting the first one that you tapped for mana go to the graveyard, and, on that same turn or later in the game, use the second Mighstone's mana to help pay the Foundry's activation cost, exile the Mightstone you kept on the board for Foundry's X = 5 activation, and return your first Mighstone from grave for another ETB effect.

In the sideboard, I've elected to include plenty of aggro hate with Glass Casket and additional copies of Spring-Loaded Sawblades // Bladewheel Chariot, along with a few Get Lost.

For your more controlling match-ups, Negate helps guarantee your Synthesizer hits the board. A second copy of Urza, Lord Protector gives you a greater opportunity to meld with The Mighstone and Weakstone, granting you you the incredibly powerful Urza, Planeswalker for your troubles, who can take over games single-handedly.

Currently, the meta includes plenty of the OTK combo using Vraska, Betrayal's Sting with a Level 3 Innkeeper's Talent to instantly trigger Vraska's ultimate and give you 18 poison counters. While Get Lost helps mitigate the risk of Innkeeper going off, this deck can easily run The Stone Brain and remove Vraska or Innkeeper from your opponent's deck, depending on what shell they are running the combo in.

Soul-Guide Lantern is a much worse replacement after losing Unlicensed Hearse but still relevant as a one-time bandaid against Mosswood Dreadknight, Ruthless Negotiation, Scavenger's Talent, or Virtue of Persistence. An argument could be made for running Rest in Peace in place of the Lantern. That, however, completely shuts down your Foundry, which you shouldn't be keen to do considering the power you lose.

Lastly, I elected to include two copies of Dawn's Truce. Before rotation, the greatest enemy of this deck was the much-hated Farewell, which would instantly lose you the game. Now that it's gone, I can breathe a little easier... Until I saw Season of Gathering. While it's not nearly as devastating as Farwell since it neither exiles nor touches your graveyard, an artifact sweeper is still a heavy setback. Dawn's Truce is your one saving grace if you suspect your opponent is either running Gathering or pulled it from the sideboard following Game 1. Without it, your board is always susceptible to a clean sweep that leaves your opponent's board untouched. Truce also gives you an extra out against Brotherhood's End if you don't have your countermagic handy.

Regarding the update:

This deck previously ran two copies of Glass Casket in the mainboard. Although there is plenty of aggro and midrange in the meta where these help, I found them less than perfect and often served to delay progressing the game plan of this deck. They are still in the sideboard for you to adjust to those more aggressive decks, but, in my opinion and testing, they were less impactful overall. Similar tweaks were made by lowering the number of Aegis (previously four copies, down to two), Nets (down to three), and Glyphbridges.

The single copy of Nexus of Becoming has also been removed as it primarly served to mitigate the havoc that discard decks can wreak or as a payoff for your mana acceleration. This deck, however, runs more efficiently with a lower top-end and Nexus often worked against the powerful tools that Foundry gives you. In short, it became a "win more" card, which I believe is always unnecessary.

I hope this write-up helps someone who finds reactive decks interesting and wants to fiddle with some artifacts in the current meta. Enjoy!