So, I decided to challenge myself and build a colorless Commander deck for my LGS's league. The first draft was a Kozilek, Butcher of Truth deck, but he drew too much hate due to the power that an Eldrazi brings to the table. So I changed the deck to Karn, Silver Golem and made the list an artifact aggro/control deck.
Note: Before going through this list and commenting on the deck, it is important to note that the league I play in does not allow infinite combos, so a lot of the standard Karn, Silver Golem combos using Voltaic Construct and Rings of Brighthearth for infinite mana, card draw, etc., are not used - though Rings is in the deck for the ridiculous, non-infinite, interactions it provides. Though, if you are interested in learning about these combos I suggest you go to Burntgerbil's decklist by clicking here.
So Beatdown is fairly subjective, since Karn, Silver Golem can make any of my artifacts into big creatures, but there are 6 artifact creatures that can grow pretty big and can swing the game into my favor via their damage output.
The strong beatdown cards in this deck are the following:
Blightsteel Colossus: It goes without saying much that an 11/11, Indestructible, Trample, and Infect is some serious beatdown. Bring in one of the two haste enablers - Lightning Greaves and Akroma's Memorial - and one-shotting an opponent is easy to pull off.
Myr Battlesphere: With the number of Myr in the deck and ways to make more Myr tokens, the Battlesphere can facilitate a lot of damage at an opponent. The most I've pulled off is an X of 15, but even if it is only in the single digits I don't complain from the extra damage.
Arcbound Crusher: The fact that this deck is pretty much all artifacts, this guy has a tendency to grow as the game goes on. I like to cast him ASAP and allow the rest of my cards buff him up as I play them.
Wurmcoil Engine: IMO, Wurmcoil was the best pre-release card Wizards has ever given out. In beatdown, no one likes to lose a creature to him due to deathtouch, so often he can get in for 6 damage on an opponent and help keep the life count up for this deck - often I do 10-16 damage to myself through Ancient Tomb...
Steel Hellkite: An excellent artifact flyer, it effectively acts as both removal and beatdown. Considering the few ways artifacts have to destroy pesky enchantments - Aura Shards being an obvious one - this guys is great.
Pentavus: This deck loves artifacts to be in play, so being able to make more tokens is good. Add in Rings of Brighthearth and Pentavus allows us to assemble a massive army.
The Control Artifacts
Pretty much control in this deck is accomplished through resource denial and forcing my opponents to be unable to untap and use their permanents during the game. Since artifacts offer a lot of denial, I had to trim the number I use down to the ones that I consider to be the most effective to the game plan. It goes without saying that these cards will usually make this deck the target of a lot of aggro, so I keep that in mind and play them as needed depending on my hand and board state.
The strong control cards in this deck are the following:
Torpor Orb: While some of the creatures in this deck need ETB effects, often this card helps this deck more than it hurts it because stopping ETB effects ensures no Aura Shards shenanigans will go on, as well as stop many other nasty creature cards out there - Acidic Slime, Woodfall Primus, and Terastodon to name a notable few.... I usually hold this card back to respond to these type of effects, just to ensure that I am able to use my ETB abilities as needed before shutting them down.
Winter Orb: The beauty of running an artifact deck is all the colorless mana ramp I employ already through artifacts, so limiting the number of lands everyone untaps generally causes no major issues for myself. This orb is by far the easiest for this deck to abuse compared to Static Orb.
Storage Matrix: Similar effect to Static Orb, but not as painful to myself (since I will name Artifact most likely). This card will generally slow my opponents down since they will have to untap lands if they want to play things, or just their creatures if they want to attack.
Storm Cauldron: While the additional land play could be nasty, this card will hurt most of my opponents since they will need to take a lot longer to setup their board state while I continue to exploit my mana rocks. Also, what isn't awesome about getting three uses out of an Ancient Tomb when I desperately need mana?
Ward of Bones: Depending on my situation, this card can act like a resource denial or will prevent my opponents from swarming and overwhelming Karn and his "minions". Any denial is good denial, especially on the enchantment side - since this deck has no enchantments.
The "Too Good to Not Mention" Artifacts
Some artifacts are just so awesome and deserve to be mentioned in my list simply because of what they bring to this deck. With that being said...
The just plain good, and usually broken/abused, artifacts I utilize are the following:
Rings of Brighthearth: If you haven't looked at Burntgerbil's deck yet, let is just be said that most infinite mana combos in colorless decks are utilized by this artifact right here. For this deck, Ring is used for several different things, but the main ones are doubling the abilities of Pentavus to make more artifact tokens, abusing Staff of Domination, and getting another tutor off of Kuldotha Fogemaster. Like I said earlier, for the broken combos, go see Burntgerbil's deck by clicking here.
Trading Post: Utility on an artifact is awesome! In this case, the ability to either gain life, make a token blocker, return an artifact, or draw a card is perfect. Trading Post is less abusable than Staff of Domination, but the effects it provides is necessary to recover during most games.
Staff of Domination: With infinite colorless mana, this card would pretty much win me the game. In this deck, I just like to use it as draw engine or a tap down effect during an opponents turn. It can be expensive, but with any untap effect and a decent amount of mana, this card really helps any deck...
Unwinding Clock: Speaking of untap effects, how about the most abusable this deck can have? Considering everything in this deck is an artifact, Unwinding Clock provides so much mileage in the form of allowing me to abuse my utility artifacts on every turn possible.
Kuldotha Forgemaster: The best tutor available to this deck - being able to put any artifact I need into play is quite nice. Need to murder someone ASAP? Grab Blightsteel Colossus. Need to protect my board? Grab Darksteel Forge. If the game is getting out of hand and I really want to get controlly, then I can go grab...
Mycosynth Lattice: This card + Karn pretty much can seal any game in my favor. It may get old and be "too easy", but the best resource denial comes from destroying the lands in play. Making those artifact lands into 0/0 creatures for the cost of 1 is downright mean... Also, to touch on this, it also makes artifact sweeping spells less beneficial to my opponents, except for Vandalblast, which will just hand the game to that person instead lol....
Honestly, I don't really like the sacrifice criteria of Phyrexian Dreadnought. If I wanted another big artifact beater (and I kinda do...) then I'd be more likely to go with Darksteel Colossus. Indestructible beats is better than just a 12/12 imo...
The charge counter cards are something cool - perhaps I may include some, especially the ones that facilitate card draws.... I've noticed this deck can really get screwed by lack of draw from time to time =/
Have you added our new pal, Soul of New Phyrexia yet ? He's already doing major work in my Karn deck (Not to mention my Krenko, Derevi Enchantress, Erebos, Zegana Merfolk Tribal, Shattergang Brothers, Kamahl Fist of Krosa, Iroas, Kurkesh and Shadowborn). I feel like with enough mana it's really going to shift removal preferences in this format even further towards more exiling.
Y'know who else has been doing double duty in my Karn list lately also ? mother-flippin' Deal Broker. He's dug deep enough to get whatever I needed on several occasions now - including digging into a Soul of New Phyrexia and then pitching it to activate it to survive a Vandalblast.
Great list so far - it's great to have other Karn players and I appreciate all the love you've thrown me in your write-up.
Have you added our new pal, Soul of New Phyrexia yet ? He's already doing major work in my Karn deck (Not to mention my Krenko, Derevi Enchantress, Erebos, Zegana Merfolk Tribal, Shattergang Brothers, Kamahl Fist of Krosa, Iroas, Kurkesh and Shadowborn). I feel like with enough mana it's really going to shift removal preferences in this format even further towards more exiling.
Y'know who else has been doing double duty in my Karn list lately also ? mother-flippin' Deal Broker. He's dug deep enough to get whatever I needed on several occasions now - including digging into a Soul of New Phyrexia and then pitching it to activate it to survive a Vandalblast.
Great list so far - it's great to have other Karn players and I appreciate all the love you've thrown me in your write-up.
I've been trying really hard to get my hands on a Soul of New Phyrexia since M15 released! Once I have him, I am totally putting him in the deck because he offers another strong form of protection versus removal.
Deal Broker is interesting and I see your point about him being very good at digging. One of the big weaknesses of this deck is lack of draw, so finding a spot for him would be good as well.
Out of curiosity, are there any other big artifact creatures that you think warrant a spot? I feel that Batterskull may need to find a spot in this list and I am also thinking of including Grafted Exoskeleton for giving some more Infect win-cons...
Okay, I'll have to make those additions to the deck soon then - Do you know of any other infect or beatdown cards I am missing?
BTW, I love your deck and wish I could build something similar to it - the "no infinite combo" rule makes Karn a little tricky to build around since he can go infinite fairly easily lol.
Generic Reasons: Portal and Mirrorworks required a lot of mana or just seemed like meh draws in a couple games, so they got the axe. The two arcbound guys are good, but I already have a lot of artifact recursion and the overseer only helps a couple creatures. Putting in more buffs and overall deck synergy was needed.
Hopefully I will get to play test these changes this weekend
For the sake of conversation, I am posting to inform anyone reading this that I have retired this decklist simply because at my LGS/League, artifacts have made a sudden surge and now there is too much artifact hate in my meta. I hope anyone reading this list got some ideas for their own deck
So, I decided to challenge myself and build a colorless Commander deck for my LGS's league. The first draft was a Kozilek, Butcher of Truth deck, but he drew too much hate due to the power that an Eldrazi brings to the table. So I changed the deck to Karn, Silver Golem and made the list an artifact aggro/control deck.
Note: Before going through this list and commenting on the deck, it is important to note that the league I play in does not allow infinite combos, so a lot of the standard Karn, Silver Golem combos using Voltaic Construct and Rings of Brighthearth for infinite mana, card draw, etc., are not used - though Rings is in the deck for the ridiculous, non-infinite, interactions it provides. Though, if you are interested in learning about these combos I suggest you go to Burntgerbil's decklist by clicking here.
1 Karn, Silver Golem
Acceleration Artifacts (Qty: 12)
1 Everflowing Chalice (0cc, 2 Multi-kicker)
1 Mox Opal (0cc)
1 Mana Vault (1cc)
1 Sol Ring (1cc)
1 Grim Monolith (2cc)
1 Basalt Monolith (3cc)
1 Coalition Relic (3cc)
1 Semblance Anvil (3cc)
1 Thran Dynamo (4cc)
1 Blinkmoth Urn (5cc)
1 Gilded Lotus (5cc)
1 Dreamstone Hedron (6cc)
Artifact Creatures (Qty: 17)
1 Arcbound Ravager (2cc)
1 Myr Retriever (2cc)
1 Steel Overseer (2cc)
1 Palladium Myr (3cc)
1 Scarecrone (3cc)
1 Shimmer Myr (3cc)
1 Arcbound Crusher (4cc)
1 Lodestone Golem (4cc)
1 Duplicant (6cc)
1 Soul of New Phyrexia (6cc)
1 Steel Hellkite (6cc)
1 Thopter Assembly (6cc)
1 Wurmcoil Engine (6cc)
1 Myr Battlesphere (7cc)
1 Pentavus (7cc)
1 Mycosynth Golem (11cc)
1 Blightsteel Colossus (12cc)
Card Draw and Filtering (Qty: 5)
1 Sensei's Divining Top (1cc)
1 Howling Mine (2cc)
1 Scroll Rack (2cc)
1 Serum Tank (3cc)
1 Staff of Nin (6cc)
1 Expedition Map (1cc)
1 Skyship Weatherlight (4cc)
1 Kuldotha Forgemaster (5cc)
Utility Artifacts (Qty: 8)
1 Crucible of Worlds (3cc)
1 Rings of Brighthearth (3cc)
1 Sculpting Steel (3cc)
1 Staff of Domination (3cc)
1 Trading Post (4cc)
1 Myr Turbine (5cc)
1 Mycosynth Lattice (6cc)
1 Darksteel Forge (9cc)
Untapping Effects (Qty: 3)
1 Voltaic Key (1cc)
1 Clock of Omens (4cc)
1 Unwinding Clock (4cc)
Control Artifacts (Qty: 8)
1 Torpor Orb (2cc)
1 Winter Orb (2cc)
1 Mimic Vat (3cc)
1 Static Orb (3cc)
1 Storage Matrix (3cc)
1 Tawnos's Coffin (4cc)
1 Storm Cauldron (5cc)
1 Ward of Bones (6cc)
Removal (Qty: 4)
1 Nevinyrral's Disk (4cc)
1 All is Dust (7cc)
1 Karn Liberated (7cc)
1 Spine of Ish Sah (7cc)
Creature Buffing (Qty: 4)
1 Lightning Greaves (2cc)
1 Grafted Exoskeleton (4cc)
1 Batterskull (5cc)
1 Akroma's Memorial (7cc)
Utility Lands (Qty: 12)
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Deserted Temple
1 Eye of Ugin
1 Homeward Path
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Mystifying Maze
1 Religuary Tower
1 Roque's Passage
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Tower of the Magistrate
1 Vesuva
1 Winding Canyons
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Crystal Vein
1 Temple of the False God
Land Destruction Lands (Qty: 4)
1 Dust Bowl
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Strip Mine
1 Tectonic Edge
Card Recursion Lands (Qty: 3)
1 Buried Ruin
1 Haunted Fengraf
1 Petrified Field
Man Lands (Qty: 5)
1 Blinkmoth Nexus
1 Inkmoth Nexus
1 Mishra's Factory
1 Mutavault
1 Springjack Pasture
Sacrifice Outlet Lands (Qty: 3)
1 High Market
1 Miren, the Moaning Well
1 Phyrexia's Core
Colorless Producing Lands (Qty: 5)
1 Blasted Landscape
1 Darksteel Citadel
1 Urza's Mine
1 Urza's Power Plant
1 Urza's Tower
So Beatdown is fairly subjective, since Karn, Silver Golem can make any of my artifacts into big creatures, but there are 6 artifact creatures that can grow pretty big and can swing the game into my favor via their damage output.
The strong beatdown cards in this deck are the following:
Blightsteel Colossus: It goes without saying much that an 11/11, Indestructible, Trample, and Infect is some serious beatdown. Bring in one of the two haste enablers - Lightning Greaves and Akroma's Memorial - and one-shotting an opponent is easy to pull off.
Myr Battlesphere: With the number of Myr in the deck and ways to make more Myr tokens, the Battlesphere can facilitate a lot of damage at an opponent. The most I've pulled off is an X of 15, but even if it is only in the single digits I don't complain from the extra damage.
Arcbound Crusher: The fact that this deck is pretty much all artifacts, this guy has a tendency to grow as the game goes on. I like to cast him ASAP and allow the rest of my cards buff him up as I play them.
Wurmcoil Engine: IMO, Wurmcoil was the best pre-release card Wizards has ever given out. In beatdown, no one likes to lose a creature to him due to deathtouch, so often he can get in for 6 damage on an opponent and help keep the life count up for this deck - often I do 10-16 damage to myself through Ancient Tomb...
Steel Hellkite: An excellent artifact flyer, it effectively acts as both removal and beatdown. Considering the few ways artifacts have to destroy pesky enchantments - Aura Shards being an obvious one - this guys is great.
Pentavus: This deck loves artifacts to be in play, so being able to make more tokens is good. Add in Rings of Brighthearth and Pentavus allows us to assemble a massive army.
Pretty much control in this deck is accomplished through resource denial and forcing my opponents to be unable to untap and use their permanents during the game. Since artifacts offer a lot of denial, I had to trim the number I use down to the ones that I consider to be the most effective to the game plan. It goes without saying that these cards will usually make this deck the target of a lot of aggro, so I keep that in mind and play them as needed depending on my hand and board state.
The strong control cards in this deck are the following:
Torpor Orb: While some of the creatures in this deck need ETB effects, often this card helps this deck more than it hurts it because stopping ETB effects ensures no Aura Shards shenanigans will go on, as well as stop many other nasty creature cards out there - Acidic Slime, Woodfall Primus, and Terastodon to name a notable few.... I usually hold this card back to respond to these type of effects, just to ensure that I am able to use my ETB abilities as needed before shutting them down.
Winter Orb: The beauty of running an artifact deck is all the colorless mana ramp I employ already through artifacts, so limiting the number of lands everyone untaps generally causes no major issues for myself. This orb is by far the easiest for this deck to abuse compared to Static Orb.
Static Orb: Speaking of Static Orb.... A stronger board lock that can be good when we are in "Beater Mode" with cards like Blightsteel Colossus. If Clock of Omens or Staff of Domination + Karn are in play, I can negate the effect on my turn by tapping Static Orb down before my turn.
Storage Matrix: Similar effect to Static Orb, but not as painful to myself (since I will name Artifact most likely). This card will generally slow my opponents down since they will have to untap lands if they want to play things, or just their creatures if they want to attack.
Storm Cauldron: While the additional land play could be nasty, this card will hurt most of my opponents since they will need to take a lot longer to setup their board state while I continue to exploit my mana rocks. Also, what isn't awesome about getting three uses out of an Ancient Tomb when I desperately need mana?
Ward of Bones: Depending on my situation, this card can act like a resource denial or will prevent my opponents from swarming and overwhelming Karn and his "minions". Any denial is good denial, especially on the enchantment side - since this deck has no enchantments.
Some artifacts are just so awesome and deserve to be mentioned in my list simply because of what they bring to this deck. With that being said...
The just plain good, and usually broken/abused, artifacts I utilize are the following:
Rings of Brighthearth: If you haven't looked at Burntgerbil's deck yet, let is just be said that most infinite mana combos in colorless decks are utilized by this artifact right here. For this deck, Ring is used for several different things, but the main ones are doubling the abilities of Pentavus to make more artifact tokens, abusing Staff of Domination, and getting another tutor off of Kuldotha Fogemaster. Like I said earlier, for the broken combos, go see Burntgerbil's deck by clicking here.
Trading Post: Utility on an artifact is awesome! In this case, the ability to either gain life, make a token blocker, return an artifact, or draw a card is perfect. Trading Post is less abusable than Staff of Domination, but the effects it provides is necessary to recover during most games.
Staff of Domination: With infinite colorless mana, this card would pretty much win me the game. In this deck, I just like to use it as draw engine or a tap down effect during an opponents turn. It can be expensive, but with any untap effect and a decent amount of mana, this card really helps any deck...
Unwinding Clock: Speaking of untap effects, how about the most abusable this deck can have? Considering everything in this deck is an artifact, Unwinding Clock provides so much mileage in the form of allowing me to abuse my utility artifacts on every turn possible.
Kuldotha Forgemaster: The best tutor available to this deck - being able to put any artifact I need into play is quite nice. Need to murder someone ASAP? Grab Blightsteel Colossus. Need to protect my board? Grab Darksteel Forge. If the game is getting out of hand and I really want to get controlly, then I can go grab...
Mycosynth Lattice: This card + Karn pretty much can seal any game in my favor. It may get old and be "too easy", but the best resource denial comes from destroying the lands in play. Making those artifact lands into 0/0 creatures for the cost of 1 is downright mean... Also, to touch on this, it also makes artifact sweeping spells less beneficial to my opponents, except for Vandalblast, which will just hand the game to that person instead lol....
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[RETIRED Primers]:
RW Aurelia, The Warleader --- R Daretti, Scrap Savant --- RUB Thraximundar
Phyrexian Dreadnought to fit your beatdown theme, couples with Torpor Orb and Illusionary mask (which would great for a deck like this but a bit spendy)
for more creatures theres Golem Foundry and his bigger brother Titan Forge
On the topic of charge counters theres Coretapper, Energy Chamber, Surge Node, Power Conduit to add them on and move them around then Lux Cannon, Otherworld Atlas, Serum Tank, Sun Droplet (very hand for EDH as the life racks up quickly and counters can be moved around to be more beneficial)
Honestly, I don't really like the sacrifice criteria of Phyrexian Dreadnought. If I wanted another big artifact beater (and I kinda do...) then I'd be more likely to go with Darksteel Colossus. Indestructible beats is better than just a 12/12 imo...
The charge counter cards are something cool - perhaps I may include some, especially the ones that facilitate card draws.... I've noticed this deck can really get screwed by lack of draw from time to time =/
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[RETIRED Primers]:
RW Aurelia, The Warleader --- R Daretti, Scrap Savant --- RUB Thraximundar
Y'know who else has been doing double duty in my Karn list lately also ? mother-flippin' Deal Broker. He's dug deep enough to get whatever I needed on several occasions now - including digging into a Soul of New Phyrexia and then pitching it to activate it to survive a Vandalblast.
Great list so far - it's great to have other Karn players and I appreciate all the love you've thrown me in your write-up.
I've been trying really hard to get my hands on a Soul of New Phyrexia since M15 released! Once I have him, I am totally putting him in the deck because he offers another strong form of protection versus removal.
Deal Broker is interesting and I see your point about him being very good at digging. One of the big weaknesses of this deck is lack of draw, so finding a spot for him would be good as well.
Out of curiosity, are there any other big artifact creatures that you think warrant a spot? I feel that Batterskull may need to find a spot in this list and I am also thinking of including Grafted Exoskeleton for giving some more Infect win-cons...
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[RETIRED Primers]:
RW Aurelia, The Warleader --- R Daretti, Scrap Savant --- RUB Thraximundar
BTW, I love your deck and wish I could build something similar to it - the "no infinite combo" rule makes Karn a little tricky to build around since he can go infinite fairly easily lol.
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[RETIRED Primers]:
RW Aurelia, The Warleader --- R Daretti, Scrap Savant --- RUB Thraximundar
In: Steel Overseer ---- Out: Erratic Portal
In: Soul of New Phyrexia ---- Out: Mirrorworks
In: Grafted Exoskeleton ---- Out: Arcbound Reclaimer
In: Batterskull ---- Out: Arcbound Overseer
Generic Reasons: Portal and Mirrorworks required a lot of mana or just seemed like meh draws in a couple games, so they got the axe. The two arcbound guys are good, but I already have a lot of artifact recursion and the overseer only helps a couple creatures. Putting in more buffs and overall deck synergy was needed.
Hopefully I will get to play test these changes this weekend
Banner by Traproot Graphics
[RETIRED Primers]:
RW Aurelia, The Warleader --- R Daretti, Scrap Savant --- RUB Thraximundar
Banner by Traproot Graphics
[RETIRED Primers]:
RW Aurelia, The Warleader --- R Daretti, Scrap Savant --- RUB Thraximundar