Author's Note: This deck is a mono-R Artifact Good Stuff kind of deck. This is not a control deck and this deck has little denial/stax elements to it. If you are looking for a hyper-competitive deck that relies on denial and primarily focusing on Daretti's Ultimate, this is not the list for you. If you are interested in smashing face with creatures like Blightsteel Colossus, then welcome home friend
First of all, I would like to say thank you for taking the time to look over my decklist. If someone ever asked me to pick one color, and only one color, to represent my playstyle for MTG and EDH/Commander, I would pick R every time. Almost all of my decks I have played involved red in some way and I love the chaos red brings. Though I never put some of the lists up on this site, I have played many mono-R decks ranging from Dragon-Tribal with Zirilan of the Claw, Gaka's Norin the Wary deck (and yes, it is awesome to play), to "Blow up the World!" with Ashling the Pilgrim. I find it my personal mission to make people believe that mono-R can be the strongest mono colored decks possible!
Now, for how this deck came about: Out of sheer boredom one day, I decided to sleeve up Juwdah's Kozilek, Butcher of Truth deck - found by clicking here - for my Local Game Store's (LGS's) EDH League. Obviously being a colorless Commander, the deck was entirely artifacts and I found it exciting to be playing a mono-"brown" deck. Sadly though, the league gained up on me during the games (who knew people would be scared of an Eldrazi Commander?) and I decided to tone the deck down by going with Karn, Silver Golem (decklist linked in my signature). Unlike Kozilek, Karn did not really work well with the league - the no infinite combo rule makes Karn not nearly as powerful - so after one day of games, the deck never really saw the light of day again...
Fast forward to the release of Commander 2014 - I bought the red deck and played it out of the box and suddenly realized how INSANE Daretti is. With my own tweaks to the list, including some of the things I learned from my previous decks, this deck has been disgusting in my play tests and been able to pull off some ridiculous stuff - best play yet was having two Blightsteel Colossus's on T5. Artifact decks have always been known for some ridiculous stuff, but now it has gotten even better.
Anyways, I hope you enjoy reading this list and have comments/suggestions because this deck is currently one of my favorites to play
Daretti is a pretty ridiculous mono-R commander because he solves a lot of issues that R decks face. To illustrate some of this, let me take a moment to go over the pro's and cons of Daretti:
Daretti, Scrap Savant's Pros 1. Daretti is not a creature. Remember how annoying it was to have your Commander shuffled into your library via Terminus, Hallowed Burial, Banishing Stroke, Spin into Myth, or Condemn (just to name a few...)? Thankfully with the Tuck rule change, this isn't an issue, but having Daretti as a non-creature is still clutch. Wrath spells and single target creature removal becomes ineffective at getting him off the board. 2. Daretti's +2 ability is pretty much a repeatable Faithless Looting. If you haven't played a mono-color deck (other than U...), you'll know that card draw/filtering is one of the most difficult aspects of the deck. Everyone has been raving about how Faithless Looting gave red a huge boost in draw, and thus power. Now with Daretti we have access to this draw power every turn, the ability to flush out win-cons and needed cards is that much higher, which is awesome. Also, his +2 ability does a really good job helping his next pro.... 3. Daretti's -2 ability lets you cheat some ridiculous artifacts into play earlier than intented Since we had to discard to draw with the +2, there should be a lot of opportunities to shove a good artifact into the graveyard. My favorite card to do this with is Darksteel Forge - You can reliably get this card in play as "late" - a relative term based on how soon Daretti sees his 2nd turn in play - as Turn 5. Again, this is all operating under the assumption that we have an artifact to sacrifice, which shouldn't be hard in a mono-"brown" deck. 4. Daretti's Emblem, if you are so lucky to get it, pretty much means "I win" Granted, the "I win" statement is very dependent on the artifacts in your deck, but in my list it means I can lock someone out of the game via Mindslaver, can exile any creature each turn with Duplicant, or try to make a bunch of tokens via Pentavus or Myr Battlesphere to name a few things. With everything you're playing being able to stick around - unless someone has some instant speed graveyard hate or a lot of RFG effects - you shouldn't struggle too much with winning the game.
Daretti, Scrap Savant's Cons 1. Daretti is not a creature. I can hear it now: "Wait a second Vash, didn't you just list this as a pro?" - Well, yes I did, but do you remember that thing called Commander Damage? With this deck, kiss that win condition goodbye. Yes, it is possible to deal Commander Damage if we have Liquimetal Coating and Karn, Silver Golem in play, but in a mono-R deck, do you think this is going to consistently happen? Even those silly Phelddagrif care-bear decks can win via Commander Damage if they want to... To make up for this issue, it is important to pack this deck with strong and effective cards and some good creatures to get our opponents life totals down to 0. 2. Daretti is only good during your turn and does nothing on an opponents turn. Again, another issue with a Planeswalker - he does such ridiculous things, but it is all at sorcery speed and only on our turn. For those new to magic, get used to saying the phrase "Without passing priority, I activate Daretti's -/+ X ability", because I have been burned by not activating Daretti right away and moving on to do something else instead... 3. You need to either be really quick to get Daretti out or you need to have good protection for him. The last major issue of Planeswalkers - people like to get rid of them since they provide so much. Daretti is only 3R to play, so with the assortment of good mana rocks in this deck, he can very easily be in play on Turn 2, when most people don't have creatures in play. The issue come around when we have no access to mana rocks and play him on Turn 4: by then, people will have creatures available to pick away at his loyalty counters if we don't have anything to protect him. 4. Daretti has the inherent "Planeswalker Hate". I almost think this is universal to any meta, but Planeswalkers usually get hated on right away no matter what they are doing, even if it is just a friendly Jace Beleren... That being said, the usual "I play my Commander and Pass my Turn" doesn't work well in this deck because more than likely, without any real protection/blockers, Daretti won't live until the next turn. It becomes important to size up your playgroup's feelings for Planeswalkers and act accordingly if you want Daretti to live long enough to be effective for this deck. 5. Daretti becomes a difficult Commander to use as the # of players in a game goes up. Due to the fact that Daretti is only effective on your turn and has no inherent protection, the more people to come at him, the harder he is to play and utilize. When sitting down at a casual game, if the game has 5+ players in it, I am hesitant to use this deck due to how difficult keeping Daretti around becomes. I find Daretti is good in your standard 4 player game, but beyond that it becomes too difficult to manage.
Beyond just Daretti, there are several other good options for an artifact-themed deck - and some of them are not even limited by being mono-R. For simplicity's sake, I will go over *my* take on other possible commanders and why I really didn't like them for my artifact deck:
Arcum Dagsson: Mono-U artifacts means you can really control the game via counter spells and other shenanigans. Arcum has a great ability, which is pretty much Tinker on a stick, and you can make a great toolbox around him. The issue is, like all toolbox decks, the deck is going to be dependent a lot on what you build into your toolbox. Additionally, your opponents are going to realize how much of a threat you are fairly quickly as you start to dig through your deck. If you want to go Toolbox artifacts, give him a go! There are two good primers on him - rockondon's and TheTrueNub's- so there is a lot of material out there for you to read
Bosh, Iron Golem: Bosh, to me, seems like a good choice for a 1v1 deck. He is able to provide a lot of damage from his "throw" mechanic, which will take a player out really fast. I just don't see this working well in multiplayer, especially with all the artifact hate that exists in the world.
Hanna, Ship's Navigator: Hanna is a nice choice for an artifact deck because she isn't over powered, but still provides a good boost in deck power. WU are good artifact colors, but I believe the power level increase to R is too good to pass up with the new cards printed.
Karn, Silver Golem: One of the two old-school artifact themed decks. Karn decks are prone to doing some ridiculous things - there are so many infinite combos available due to his ability. Unfortunately, in my case infinite combos are a no-no, so when I had a deck based around him, I really wasn't able to reliably do much. If you are allowed to go infinite, make a deck with him and enjoy the ridiculousness. If you are looking for good information, check out Burntgerbil's primer - found here- it is well written and goes over a lot of the combos available to Karn.
Sharuum the Hegemon: The other old-school artifact themed deck. Sharuum decks are also generally some interesting combo decks, and being a tri-colored deck you have access to a lot of artifact support - but Sharuum decks are well known and have a stigma to them in some communities, so be ready for undeserved hate sometimes. In my case, similar to Hanna, I find what R brings to the table is something unique and in the case of Daretti and my deck, I am able to be a lot faster than Sharuum in getting win cons on the table.
Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer: Slobad decks are usually built to take advantage of his protection ability. trees' Primer - found here - does a good job illustrating this, so I won't spend too much time discussing it. Just know I find Slobad good enough to include in my deck as one of the 99, so if you want to go down the "blow up the world" route, consider using him
Sydri, Galvanic Genius: Sydri takes the good of Karn while also giving access to tri-colored decks. Like Sharuum though, I find her to be a little slow and more of a control build. The lifelink and deathtouch ability is cute when you use it on an animated Caltrops, but otherwise she isn't as great as Karn or Sharuum IMO.
So, after reading my comments on Daretti and my Artifact-themed Commander reviews, here are the pro's and con's of this decklist:
You're going to like this deck if...
1. You like artifacts - this deck is made to get the good ones in play fast and exploit them.
2. You enjoy being able to exploit Goblin Welder unlike ever before.
3. You enjoy playing an aggressive deck that also has some control elements sprinkled into it.
4. You like being able to filter through your deck via the draw/discard effects R uses.
5. You like having a Planeswalker as a Commander.
6. You enjoy the challenge that a mono-colored deck brings.
You're NOT going to like this deck if...
1. You hate artifacts.
2. You don't like interacting with your graveyard or your gaming meta has a lot of graveyard hate.
3. You would rather play a control deck or STAX based artifact deck.
4. You would rather draw cards and not have to discard cards from your hand.
5. You like having Commander Damage as an option to win games.
6. You don't like being challenged during deck construction, thus you dislike mono-colored decks.
My name is James and I am 29 years old currently living in Clarkston, WA. I've played MTG off and on for the past 17 years and have really enjoyed the fun times I've had and the many people I have met. I started playing EDH/Commander with my close friends back in 2008 and my obsession with the format has been non-stop since then. I've made decks of all types ranging from Rhys the Redeemed Tokens, Reaper King Control/Tribal, and Tibor and Lumia Control/Combo to name a few of my favorites.
Over time, I have found that I have a tendency to build my decks so that they are efficient and effective, meaning that they are not one-trick ponies, but rather able to adapt and compete against the wide range of decks in this format. That being said, often a card that I've selected for a deck has the requirement that it is useful in any situation and not just part of one possible combo.
Lastly, this deck was made in lines with my old "competitive" (I use this loosely because my meta's definition is very different from the CEDH thread/meta discussed on this forum) didn't allow infinite combos and as such I didn't include them. I have since moved away from that group and now find myself in an area that is more casual and less competitive, so I have made some cuts in cards to accommodate a more friendly atmosphere.
My Meta
Like I said in the above section, I used to play against many different forms of control, combo, and aggro in my local game store's (LGS's) EDH league. That League had house rules of no infinite combos, which helped this deck perform since it stopped the combo players from just going off, but many people packed the common hate cards such as Aura Shards, Vandalblast, and MLD such as Armageddon.
Now that I moved, I have no real idea what this deck is going to come up against, so I am starting to build it a little bit of how I want to play and not necessarily tuned to combat others - this is especially true since my store is more casual and playing for fun, not for the win. As I make changes I will be sure to note them and discuss them in good detail in my responses.
In this section, I will go over my explanations on the cards I have selected for my deck and point out some of the cool interactions they have with other cards. For organizational purposes, each section is organized by card function.
Beatsticks, "Really Good Stuff", and "Good Stuff"
Mr. Blightsteel wants to give you a LOVE HUG!
Beatsticks
For the sake of conversation, Beatsticks to me means that these are the creatures that are going to put a whooping on my opponents - these are the guys that are going to turn sideways and wreck face on my opponents.
Precursor Golem: 9 P/T is pretty good for only 5. The tokens increase our body/artifact count for protecting Daretti and using his -2. Sure he is susceptible to nasty removal spells, but once you get to Chaos Warp him for the first time and get three copies of the spell, which then can net you three permanents (which this deck has many of), you will have a darn good time with this guy every time you use him
Combustible Gearhulk: I love the choice this guy puts on an opponent - 3 cards for me or take damage? People who somewhat regularly play against this deck have seen the high CMC cards this deck runs, so it's a serious choice. The most I've done is 22 damage to one person, which isn't anything to scoff at. After the CIP trigger, the fact it is a 6/6, First Strike means he will kill a majority of threats other players will put into play. All around a great beatstick!
Scuttling Doom Engine: What is there to not love about a card that has the words "Doom Engine" in it? This guy is quite the beater because most insignificant creatures - AKA Tokens - can't block it. What this translates to is Scuttling Doom Engine is a source of removal if someone wants to prevent that damage, or just take 6. What brings it to the next level is abusing the GY recursion through Goblin Welder and Scarecrone to deal a significant amount of direct damage.
Soul of New Phyrexia: The best Soul printed in M15 imo - this guy is great at being another Darksteel Forge when we need it, only he technically can be better since he makes my permanents indestructible for only 5. People will comment that you have to keep 5 mana open, but with the amount of mana rocks this deck packs and the untap effects available, I have never found this to be an issue. And besides his ability, he is a 6/6 with Trample, meaning we can do some decent beating in to people with him when he is in play.
Steel Hellkite: What's not to love about this flying artifact menace? He has a pump and can do a lot of evasive damage to an opponent. His true power is his X ability - this is one of the best removal tools this deck has. There are few better ways to nuke out problematic permanents - Aura Shards anyone? - than the Hellkite.
Thopter Assembly: Another good flier, only this guy usually makes us 5 tokens and goes back to our hand. The 5 tokens are great for Daretti's -2 ability and to be used as chump blockers, but the clutch part is that the Assembly goes back to our hand as soon as those come into play. This allows the deck to gain some card advantage through Daretti's +2 if we want it, or just cast him for beats. Utility is always welcome in any deck I make.
Wurmcoil Engine: One of the best Pre-release cards given out by Wizards. This guy has so much value, it is insane. He provides a stable way to regain life through his Lifelink, he provides good removal because of his Deathtouch, and when he is sent to the graveyard, he gives us 2 more artifacts and the same net power and abilities! This deck has a lot of ways to send him to the graveyard and bring him back in play through some method, so it is easy to get 3+ of each token he makes if we have one of those engines online.
Hellkite Igniter: As previously stated, there are 49 artifacts in this deck. That means this beautiful dragon is going to get some pretty high artifact counts for his ability, and his ability is only 1R, so it is pretty easy to get multiple activations of it. The most I've gotten out of him in one swing was 29 damage, but that is still pretty awesome to nail someone in the face with :D.
Myr Battlesphere: The Deathball, as I like to refer to it - this guy can shred some opponents up! Besides the fact he brings in some Myr fodder, those Myr can help him become awesome by increasing his power and causing direct damage. Given the decks ability to recur a lot of creatures, this guy is great to be sacrificed and then brought back to get even more Myr in play.
Darksteel Colossus: The lighter, less devastating brother of Blightsteel. Darksteel usually just swings over and over and loves smashing people's faces. Remember, this deck is about doing 40 damage for most wins, so taking 11 per turn puts a good clock on an opponent.
Blightsteel Colossus: I call this guy "One-Shot, The Robot" because getting him into play early is a great way to just take someone out of the game. If your play group dislikes infect, you might want to be careful about using him and go with Darksteel Colossus instead. If they don't mind infect, then definitely include him! The fact that he is an 11/11 with Trample, Infect makes people need to sacrifice their strong utility creatures that they have in play just to stay alive. Unfortunately he can not be recurred at all since he gets shuffled into the library, but his ability to just kill people makes him the best Beater I got.
One of the best utility creatures for an artifact deck.
"Really Good Stuff"
To me, "Really Good Stuff" means that when you see this list of cards, an experienced Magic player will easily say "Yeah, those are pretty obvious card choices for an Artifact deck..." - These are the utility cards that enable a lot of broken things related to artifacts in mono-R and even colorless decks as well.
Goblin Welder: This guy is by far the most abusive creature in this deck when you pair him with Daretti. Besides just being able to recur out an artifact when it dies, with Daretti we can use his +2 and discard something like Darksteel Forge to only use Goblin Welder to bring it into play way earlier than intended. Not only that, he is great with abusing comes into play (CiP) triggers and on death triggers. What is even more disgusting is that if we are lucky enough to get the Daretti Emblem, he pretty much turns into a recursion engine for anything. TLDR: Play him early and enjoy the ridiculous stuff he can do.
Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer: One of the deck's main sacrifice engines, he is used often to protect my important artifacts when someone attempts to remove them. He is also good at stopping any annoying RFG effect - such as Return to Dust and he is also good at tripping the death trigger of Wurmcoil Engine, Solemn Simulacrum, and Spine of Ish Sah to name a few. I mentioned the Primer that was written on him and he can be awesome in a deck that utilizes a lot more wipes, but in this deck he does more than enough for the theme.
Rings of Brighthearth: Any deck that enjoys activated abilities loves this card. Even better, since our Commander is a Planeswalker, we can get double abilities for just an additional 2. I could go on and on about this artifact, but really it just takes having it in play in one game for anyone to get how amazing this card is.
Aetherworks Marvel: My favorite energy producing card in the set. This deck sees a lot of cards going into the GY, especially tokens, so it is not hard to get to 6 energy. When we have 6, I like to use this card at the end of the turn before mine only because if I hit a beatstick creature, I want to use it right away on my turn. This is generally a 'lottery card', but it adds an element of chance/surprise that is unique. Keep in mind that you're casting the cards, so anyone with a Counterspell can stop you.
Alhammarret's Archive: All you need to know is this artifact turns Daretti into a discard 2, draw 4. We gain a little bit of life, but really the huge bonus to the deck's draw engine is the most important part of this artifact.
Karn, Silver Golem: The ultimate artificer. In this deck, he plays the role of allowing my mana rocks and utility artifacts to turn into some disgusting beater creatures when I want them to be. He is also an impressive blocker since he becomes an 0/8 when blocked or blocking. And who doesn't love the Mycosynth Lattice + him combo for some good old LD?
Mirrorworks: In a lot of artifact decks, this card can be considered difficult to abuse because it takes that extra 2 when you are casting artifacts. However with this deck, considering that it cheats most of the artifacts into play, Mirrorworks just becomes godlike. Want to know a ridiculous play to do with it? Copy a Ugin's Nexus with it, when the state-based Legend Rule kicks in, use the displacement effect of the Token to have an extra turn and then sacrifice the original to prevent stopping the extra turns, thus getting 2 extra turns. Enjoy the shenanigans!
Akroma's Memorial: Personally, any time I am playing a creature beats deck, I am usually running this card. Memorial for this deck provides two huge buffs: Vigilance and Flying. Now, this deck can swing creatures all the time and can be setup to protect Daretti from anything that wants to come his way. Win/Win in my opinion.
Mycosynth Lattice: My previous comments in the Karn discussion highlight one of the more common broken thing this card allows, but Mycosynth also empowers three other cards (besides Daretti): Scrap Mastery (super ridiculous play btw), Hellkite Igniter, and an Overloaded Vandalblast. I think why this card works well with these three cards is obvious, so I won't go into much more detail, but if you wanted to make this card more beneficial for you, add in Shattering Spree or Shattering Pulse to get even more milage.
Darksteel Forge: What's better than having a field of artifacts? Having a field of INDESTRUCTIBLE artifacts! Forge pretty much just makes my board insanely difficult to deal with, and thus adds to the likelihood of winning. Be careful of RFG and tuck effects though, but either way if those cards are used here, it is one less card to remove the major utility/beater artifacts
Haste Effects: Making all the utility creatures even more awesome!
"Good Stuff"
These artifacts are just good in a lot of decks - they are not special only to Daretti and see action in many different types of decks out there.
Crucible of Worlds: Considering I run only one real MLD effect - Ruination - I am not going to get a bunch of "bang-for-my-buck" on this card like many other decks do. For this deck, I like to have this card because I can use Daretti's -2 ability on the artifact lands (or any land I make an artifact) and then replay it if I need to keep my land count up high enough. Also, some people in my LGS's league run MLD effects, so it will let me recover when I square up against one of those decks as well.
Hammer of Purphoros: Giving creatures Haste is always good, but what makes this win out over cards like Anger or Fervor (besides being an artifact...) is the ability to make 3/3 artifact creatures. Mid to Late game, my lands generally are being filtered away via Daretti, so being able to keep creatures in play and ready to attack my opponents, or just die as chump blockers, is nice to have access to.
Contagion Engine: The best Proliferate tool. It allows us to tick Daretti up much faster, but also be a great tool at effectively board wiping an opponent if they are running a token strategy. This is a card I love to cycle in and out of my graveyard for that reason.
Ugin's Nexus: A lot of people enjoy abusing extra turns, and to that this card says "NO!" But really, the best benefit of this card is being able to pop an extra turn when I need it. If I know I can smash face or pull off something ridiculous next turn, then I will happily ensure my possible win by doing it right away.
Mindslaver: With Daretti's Ultimate, Mindslaver locks are a thing. Regardless, the -2 ability of Daretti lets me chain lock an opponent that is being troublesome or close to winning. In my LGS's League, it also lets me get points since I am the one controlling my opponents turn, so it is kinda a card in my playgroup, but still it has enough benefit to warrant a spot in any players deck based solely on being able to decimate the board state and hand of the opponent you are controling.
Untap Effects, Recursion, and Card Draw and Tutor
Breaking artifact decks since Urza's Saga...
Untap Effects
Untap Effects are pretty obvious... but for the sake of teaching, they allow this deck to exploit artifacts, getting them in play earlier or providing activations of good artifacts. Easy example: untapping and double activating mana rocks can get a beater in play fairly early.
Voltaic Key: The old school untapper in this deck - Key can make an early Mana Vault be almost broken. The advantage of the T1 drop is why it always gets a spot in any artifact deck I make.
Unwinding Clock: Best untapper in the deck because it hits every artifact I have on other untap steps. Pair this with Vedalken Orrery and Opponents turns = Your turns too.
Recursion
One of mono-R's biggest weaknesses is the lack of recursion. When playing artifacts though, we get access to several really good recursion cards that negate this inherent weakness in R.
Recoup: Mono-R decks have a disadvantage in the fact that they have few tools to recover cards from the graveyard, especially spells. This card lets us get back our bomb sorcery spells such as Scrap Mastery and Blasphemous Act. The added bonus of Flashback allows us to discard Recoup with Daretti and still be able to utilize it down the road.
Scarecrone: Another "Cheaty McCheaterson" card for this deck, especially with Daretti in play fueling it. Use Daretti's +2 to discard away a bomb like Pentavus and use Scarecrone's ability to put it in play instead of Daretti's -2. In a pinch, Scarecrone can be a source of card draw if we are really struggling to get something going. I first fell in love with this card in my Reaper King deck and love to find uses for it in other decks
Trading Post: Talk about utility! This card does a lot for any mono-R deck and even helps fix the weakness of mono-W as well. An auto-include in most decks since it provides blockers, life gain, card draw, and artifact recursion at negligible costs.
Scrap Mastery: Now besides Daretti being printed, this deck was also built based on how excited I was to see this card - a Living Death for artifacts?! Sign me up!!!! Daretti can dump great cards into our graveyard and almost all the time our opponents at the table are going to not be playing a deck that could take advantage of this. Generally the worst case scenario is our opponents get back some mana rocks that died in a wipe, so unlike Living Death I use this card pretty regularly and early if my GY is stacked with gas.
Best R draw available IMO
Card Draw and Tutor
Simple Magic facts: Drawing cards is good. Tutoring for cards is also good. More cards in Hand = More chances of winning.
Pro-Tip: Always remember to pay that 1 when Rhystic Study is in play, kiddos.
Faithless Looting: One of the best draw cards for R, thank you Wizards for printing this card. I used to think this card sucked because I got "negative advantage" from casting it the first time (essentially hand size decreases by -3 while we only get a +2 in cards, thus a net -1) but in reality filtering your deck is always a really, really, good thing to do. Now, remember Daretti's -2 ability as well, this card gives us access to a discard effect to just drop that Darksteel Forge into our graveyard and then cheat it into play many turns early.
Gamble: R's only "tutor for anything" card, with a little downside of randomly discarding something. However, remember Daretti's -2 ability... That discard is very easily recoverable...
Sensei's Divining Top: It pretty much never die, it filters the top 3 cards of our deck, and it comes into play on T1. Need I say more?
Quicksmith Genius: Artifacts come into play from this deck a lot, pretty close to all the time. Filtering the deck is nice, and if I am just netting land the entire time I will keep filtering those cards away until I get good cards.
Wheel of Fortune: Magic is often all about hand sculpting and setting yourself up for the later stages of the game. For me, I say screw that, let's have some chaos instead! If my hand is full of a bunch of artifacts, I will generally wheel early due to Daretti's -2 ability, but otherwise this card is awesome to use when I have few cards in hand, since it reloads me to a full hand again.
Kuldotha Forgemaster: The best artifact tutor available to R and X decks, this guy is the only way to cheat out Blightsteel Colossus into play other than casting him. The three artifact sacrifice is a deep cost, but often I am tutoring for a win-con, so sacrificing my mana rocks is usually what I am doing most games instead of my other good artifacts.
Memory Jar: Besides a draw engine, Memory Jar is almost a mill tool for this deck - I use this card during my turn to take advantage of the cards I just drew, but it can also be used in a pinch to dig for removal or responses to anything my opponents are doing.
Sandstone Oracle: A new addition to the artifact world, this creature has a high mana cost which makes it a little rough some games. But with how Daretti works regarding filtering, typically your hand will empty fairly quickly and need a bulk replenishment, which this creature does excellently. It gets even more ridiculous if we have a U player at the table drawing insane amounts of cards as well.
Removal and Control/Denial Cards
My favorite all-time artifact removal.
Removal
Don't like that card? Get rid of it!
How you ask? With Removal, duh!
Vandalblast: While it sucks being on the receiving end of this card in an artifact deck, there are often artifacts that need to die under an opponents control. Include the times Mycosynth Lattice is in play, and enjoy the many Vindicates you get!
Chaos Warp: R's tuck spell, with the cute effect of possibly netting a new permanent. This card is awesome to use on U players since they ususally whiff, but even if I want to save one of my cards from RFG, I have good odds of turning up something useful or just a land (which is what it usually is...)
Nevinyrral's Disk: A good wipe that doesn't kill Daretti, which is quite nice if we are trying to get his ult off later in the game. Have Darksteel Forge in play, and this will lock the board down quite nicely.
Duplicant: Speaking of ETB triggers, the best form of removal is RFG removal. Duplicant is a great way to deal with anything troublesome. He has grown a lot in popularity over the years, so if you haven't joined the club yet you should.
All is Dust: Considering how many cards this deck runs are colorless, All is Dust is a great way to sweep away our opponents boards while keeping our good stuff intact. This card is one of the few ways for people to deal with a protected (shrouded/hexproofed) Avacyn, Angel of Hope. Also, remember that this card is pretty bad when Mycosynth Lattice is in play...
Karn Liberated: I already run one Karn, might as well run both Karn's! This Karn though, is great at removing stuff from the game like Duplicant does. I honestly have never gotten his ultimate off, and probably never will, so if you get one activation of his RFG, it is still worth it.
Spine of Ish Sah: Spine is a good source of removal because with Daretti's -2, it just keeps coming back over and over again. It would be nice if it stayed in the GY once it got there, but beggars can't be choosers.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon: Ugin is disgusting in this deck. The +2 ability really can take care of most annoying utility creatures, but where Ugin shines is the -X ability. This ability clears the field of just about any enchantment or creature that is hindering this deck. Also, since we're mostly colorless anyways, the minus ability is pretty much a one-sided board wipe and the fact that it exiles the permanents means we can get rid of ridiculous indestructible/regeneration abilities that are keeping those permanents around. In regards to the ultimate, that doesn't need much of an explanation - it's just good. Don't expect to ever resolve it though, because people have just gunned for Ugin each time I've resolved it.
Blasphemous Act: A good board wipe that also doesn't hit Daretti. I usually end up only paying R for this spell due to the number of creatures in play at a given time, which makes it nice since we don't need to dump all our mana on the turn to wipe the board.
Control/Denial Cards
The best way to protect your board is to deny others the ability to mess with it.
Torpor Orb: ETB abilities can ruin artifact decks and in general are very common in Commander/EDH. For an example, Aura Shards is the bane of this deck and thankfully Torpor Orb completely neutralizes it. There are only a couple ETB abilities in this deck that will get hurt by this card.
Tangle Wire: Denial is an effective way to keep Daretti alive and well in this deck, and this guy does it best in the early stages of a game - nothing like forcing this in play on T4 and watching as my opponent taps all their lands. Also as the counters get low, this artifact makes for a great -2 since we've probably done a lot of digging with Daretti's +2 Late game, this card isn't too much of a beast, so it can be foddered away for Daretti's +2.
Mana/Land Acceleration and Non-Basic Lands
Mana/Land Acceleration
Mana Crypt: One of the best mana rocks in the game. I finally bit the bullet and ordered one and I can not tell you how explosive this card is. The random 3 damage does not even matter considering how fast this card lets Daretti and other Beaters hit the field - this equates to being ahead of everyone by 2 turns.
Mox Diamond: Another "free" mana rock - discarding a land can be meh, but with mulligans this should never really be a big issue. Big assistant at getting an early Daretti.
Mox Opal: 0 cost mana rock. Metalwork is normally an issue in some decks, but with this many artifacts it is easy to get this one online early.
Mana Vault: Early mana rock, usually exploited once and then used for Daretti's -2 if there is something good to grab. If I have an untap artifact card in play, I'll keep it around longer for sure.
Sol Ring: How is this card not banned yet.... I just don't get it....
Fellwar Stone: Either makes 1 or R if we are lucky, but it comes into play untapped and can be used right away on another artifact. Good at getting Daretti in play ASAP like most other 2 cost mana rocks.
Fire Diamond: One of my few mana rock R sources in the deck. It works well since it comes into play early, sometimes T1 with other rocks involved.
Grim Monolith: Similar situation as Mana Vault, early explosion, often sacrificed for Daretti's -2 if I want to exploit him early.
Mind Stone: A mana rock that can be sacrificed early if a wipe comes down, sounds good to me.
Darksteel Ingot: An indestructible mana rock. No one really wastes an RFG effect on it, so it will stick around most games.
Metalworker: Thank you for unbanning this card! I liked how they said a deck using him is usually "All in" to get the most out of him. On average, tapping him gives me 6, which is ridiculous on T2-T4, depending on how fast I can get him in play.
Hedron Archive: A new rock out of Battle for Zendikar, the tapping for 2 at the cost of 4 is nothing impressive, but the big attraction is the card draw. Having more sources to draw with this deck is never a bad thing.
Solemn Simulacrum: ETB trigger for a land, death is a card draw. Included in most all decks, so don't think too hard when adding him to your deck.
Gilded Lotus: The third R source rock. Can't say much more about it, a great mana rock used in many decks.
Lands
The utility lands - each does something a little more than just make mana for the deck.
Ancient Tomb: I personally do not care about the 2 damage, getting 2 per tap is definitely the nuts.
High Market: Sac outlet to prevent RFG effects and tucks for creatures. Always good to include in any deck.
Homeward Path: Ever been killed by your own Blightsteel? It happened to me once and I had to add this land to stop it...
Inkmoth Nexus: Infect is a real thing and having a 1/1 flier with it is nice. The activation also makes this into an artifact creature, allowing me to -2 with Daretti as needed or make this card ridiculously huge with sacrificing Arcbound Crusher.
Maze of Ith: Great at stopping any voltron strategies or big dudes that can cause problems.
Miren, the Moaning Well: Sometimes we need life, and we do have some big fatties that can get us that life if we want it
Phyrexia's Core: Sac outlet for artifacts, like High Market it helps prevent RFG's.
Strip Mine: Sometimes a land needs to die, this land enables that.
Thespian's Stage: Sometimes I want 2 copies of utility lands. Thus, I copy them.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth: Not a big deal, it turns some lands into actual mana tappers and prevents some lands from always hurting us. It can help opponents out a lot, so be careful when you play it.
Wooded Foothills: Fetch Land #2 - See Bloodstained Mire for the details...
General Statement and Mulligan Priority
Like all of my decks, this deck was built to have fun when you are piloting it - sure, winning is fun, but as you can tell from my list it wasn't filled with all those nasty STAX cards that would protect Daretti and let him stay alive until his ultimate goes off. There are also not that many combo pieces and infinite combos in this deck - that was all done for a purpose: Infinite combos were not allowed in my last LGS's League, so there is no infinite mana with Basalt Monolith and Rings of Brighthearth (yet...) and there isn't a Staff of Domination to dump said infinite mana into (though I really should run that card anyways... *notes to self*...) - if you wanted infinite combos, you are in the wrong place. Go make a Karn, Silver Golem deck and enjoy those all of those infinite artifact combos.
So obviously since this deck uses a Planeswalker as a Commander, we are looking to win by using the creatures in this deck to deal 40 damage, or deliver 10 poison counters via Infect. Since there is really only one win condition available to this deck, it makes it pretty obvious the route we are going to go down. So when it comes to your opening hand, it isn't as easy as seeing "Oh, I can do X strategy instead of Y", for this deck there is an order of priority of cards you would like to see and keep. The following list is what I deem to be important to have in an opening hand:
1. Mana Rocks/Accel: Getting Daretti in early means he is more likely to stay alive. It is crucial to have one, if not 2, rocks in hand to speed Daretti's access to the table. 2. Removal: Since it is not common in the deck, it is nice to keep at least any removal card around if we drew into one. If we have multiple copies in hand, then I would keep one and partial the others. 3. Beatstick or Utility creature: Obviously we want something that can make a statement, maybe Wurmcoil Engine or Steel Hellkite, to get out in play early - either of these can let us be aggressive earlier or protect Daretti. Some of the late game Beatsticks are good to keep since they can also be cheated into play. Honestly the only two I would partial away immediately are the Colossi - Blightsteel Colossus and Darksteel Colossus - since they can't be placed in the GY and won't help much with the early game. 4. Card Draw: Daretti himself is a form of filtering, so having to ensure we keep a draw spell is often not necessary, thus why it is one of the lower priorities in an opening hand. 5. Control/Denial Cards: With filtering and tutors, we can dig for these cards - you need to have a board to protect to make these cards necessary, so don't keep them in hand if you don't have threats as well.
Obviously the above list is not set in stone: make your decision based off the decks you are playing against - if someone has a Voltron Rafiq of the Many, having removal or creatures available earlier becomes much more important than having mana rocks. Also, if you have a bunch of Removal and Mana rocks, don't be scared of taking a mulligan to see what you can get instead - this deck is fairly consistent on getting playable opening hands as long as you have an early R source of some sort (remember, we only need 1 R source for Daretti).
Step 1 - Get Daretti into play ASAP
So now that you have an idea of what type of hand you should have, the next trick is knowing what to do with it. In my experiences, the best thing to do is get Daretti into play as soon as possible. With this current list, there are three ways to get him into play T1, several ways to get him in play on T2, and many ways to get him in play on T3. To make you familiar of the different ways, the lists below contains the cards required to pull off a T1 or T2 Daretti:
Note: Obviously this takes a ridiculously lucky hand, but understand any hand with Mana Crypt in it is going to allow this deck to explode. Take advantage of it and hope for the best for a T1, but T2 Daretti is also powerful, and easier to accomplish.
T3:
Any 2 cost or less Mana Rock + all 3 Land Drops
Since Daretti brings so much to the table, even if I have a good utility creature or artifact in hand, I find it more important to rush Daretti onto the field. The earlier he gets into play, the more likely he is to stick around in my opinion.
Step 2 - How to utilize Daretti and what Direction to Go
So, the Mid game gets a little bit tricky depending on how early Daretti was able to hit the table. In my world of EDH/Commander games, generally the first 3-5 turns of a game is all about each player tutoring/"deck massaging" and getting setup to start making their big plays. What that translates to us is if Daretti can come out really fast, going for his Ultimate is a possible move to make.
To break it down, here is a list of situations:
If Daretti was cast on T1 or T2: Rush for Daretti's Emblem. Sure it is awesome to have a big creature like Myr Battlesphere in play by T3, but it isn't worth wasting the chance to have that emblem. This deck wasn't built to really abuse the emblem, but just simply having it almost makes this deck impossible to stop unless everyone you play against utilizes RFG mechanics.
If Daretti was cast on T3 or T4: Alternate Daretti's +2 and -2 to "rush" artifacts. Now, sometimes even still the game is pretty stagnant, so you may think to still rush for the emblem, but I generally will not do that when I cast Daretti on T3. The reason is it takes too much away from getting good artifacts in play to get that emblem, and by T7 - when we could activate Daretti for his Emblem if every turn we did his +2 - there is definitely going to be a threat in play that will swing at Daretti to knock him low. So with all that in mind, I generally alternate between his +2 and -2 to cheat into play strong artifacts as well as filter my deck for good cards.
If Daretti was cast on T5 or Later: Panic. I am kidding on the panicing, but in all seriousness this is an unfortunate situation for the pilot of this deck. Daretti coming in later than T4 forces this deck to be a little more pillowfort and play closer to the vest. I generally may play Daretti, but won't be trying to shove big artifacts in my graveyard because by now the other players on the table have an established board. I'd stick to just filtering through the deck and trying to get good cards into play via casting and not cheating.
Once Daretti is in play, 99% of the time my first ability to use will be his +2 - honestly the only time I would -2 is if someone used Winds of Change on T1. What I discard with my +2 activations is entirely dependent on my board and hand - do I have a lot of land and mana rocks available? Then I would discard the lands and hope to draw into some good artifacts. Do I have any ridiculous artifacts in hand, such as Darksteel Forge, that will not be able to be cast for a long time? Discard that to setup the reanimation on the next turn. Also take a second to look at the board state - is everyone at the table ramping or are they dropping threats? Based on those situations, if everyone is ramping then feel free to put utility rocks in the GY, but if they are dropping threats, put some threats in there as well so that they can be used to counter their plays.
Based on what you discarded and what the others are doing at the table, the next turn's activation is entirely subjective. People generally begin to get concerned the more you use Daretti's -2 (which is always nice to use on a tapped Grim Monolith or Mana Vault), so make sure you are getting something good with the -2 or be able to use your ability to manipulate table politics in your favor to avoid the table ganging up on you.
So in summary: how we play around Daretti is very situational. Take some time to assess what the board state is like and how far the game is progressing - don't be afraid to "go for it" if you will, but be careful about overextending because it is difficult to recover with this deck if it gets all the hate when at the table.
Step 3 - Exploit some Combos and Creatures
So, obviously this deck doesn't just win by playing Daretti, though it is a huge part of how to pilot the deck. During the later (or early/mid parts of the game, depending on how ridiculous the opening hand was) part of the game there are several cards to enjoy utilizing to get the win.
There are not too many big tricks to doing the 40 points of damage to an opponent - it is just a matter of getting one of the strong artifact creatures in play, so I won't go into a bunch of detail on each artifact creature (if you want more details, go back to the individual card discussion). What I will point out is besides the obvious beaters, two good ones to utilize are Precursor Golem, Thopter Assembly, and Myr Battlesphere due to their token production. With the numerous ways to bring artifact creatures back from the graveyard to my hand or the battlefield, fielding an army of Golems, Thopters, or Myr Tokens can be the real deal.
A crazy good card in this deck is Mycosynth Lattice. Not only can Mycosynth Lattice make anything I want be used for Daretti's -2 ability, it also pairs well with several cards. Want to have a one-sided massive Vindicate? Mycosynth Lattice + Vandalblast. Want to one shot an opponent? Mycosynth Lattice + Hellkite Igniter. Want to be "that guy" and lock out my opponents from doing anything? Mycosynth Lattice + Karn, Silver Golem. Any artifact player knows the power of the Lattice, so don't be shocked if this card gets dealt with as soon as it comes into play.
Also with Daretti's -2 ability, Mindslaver locks become a real threat to this deck's opponents. It isn't infinite, thus I have it in the deck, but depending on how far the game has gone along, I have been able to control an opponent for 3 turns in a row on a couple of occassions. Taking control of a player's turn has a lot of potential, especially if that opponent is the one with the best board position.
Also a key card any point in the game is Kuldotha Forgemaster. Having three artifacts can be difficult if he is cast early, so usually it doesn't hit the table until the later phase of the game, but when this deck is in a pinch and needs that win-con ASAP - AKA: Blightsteel Colossus - there is no better way to grab the artifact needed than the Forgemaster. If we are lucky enough to have Rings of Brighthearth in play as well, a great board control combo is Darksteel Forge and Nevinyrral's Disk.
So another summary for you: This deck is not going to combo out all the time. I would suggest to be aggressive with the Beatsticks and try to focus on getting that 40 damage in on an opponent. Look to the ridiculous combos if you are fortunate to draw into it, but I would suggest not forcing tutors into making those combos happen since they alone do not facilitate wins.
Example #1 Cards: 2x Mountain, Darksteel Forge, Goblin Welder, Mind Stone, Mox Diamond, All is Dust Status?: Keep, but can be risky. Reasoning: The 2 lands allows for the deck to play Mind Stone on T2, or we can get risky and play the Mox Diamond right away and be @ 3 mana on T2. Most likely, given we would see 2 draws, this may get a land in hand and the T2 Daretti, but at worst it will probably be T4 unless you're that unlucky... I like having the forge available in hand to cheat into play to protect my board. All is Dust also acts as a problem solver if people go crazy fairly early.
Example #2
Cards: 2x Mountain, Sol Ring, Metal Worker, Trading Post, Combustible Gearhulk, Chaos Warp Status?: Keep. Reasoning: T3 Daretti will happen no matter what thanks to Metal Worker. I would honestly hold tight on casting Forcefield or Chaos Warp and would potentially toss on Daretti's first +2, just because if we drew into some explosive artifacts we could possibly play them on T4.
Example #3
Cards: 2x Mountain, Wurmcoil Engine, Unwinding Clock, Rings of Brighthearth, Steel Hellkite, Memory Jar Status?: Mulligan. Reasoning: There are no options for an early Daretti and we have very little mana. I would either toss 5 and keep a Mountain and Rings of Brighthearth or just dump the entire hand. There just isn't much to work with here.
Obviously this deck has some weaknesses to it. From my experiences, these are several of the issues this deck can face when it is being piloted:
1. Artifact Hate - Most Notably Aura Shards, Vandalblast, Bane of Progress, and Shattering Spree: Some of the formats most prevelent cards are in that list right there. I wouldn't be shocked in almost any game, this deck could potentially face these cards. For the players packing the "come into play" hate cards, look to get Torpor Orb into play to shut those cards down. Otherwise, to just keep the artifacts alive, get Darksteel Forge or Soul of New Phyrexia in play, though the Soul needs a lot of mana to protect everything...
2. Counterspell type Control Decks: Like my other decks, I personally do not make my decks to be able to prevent counter spells. The creatures and utility artifacts can potentially be bad to some of my opponents, so some counter can fly in this direction. In this deck, there is no real way to prevent those counters, so the best course of action is to get some recursion engine online to bring the countered cards back from the GY. If you want to add more cards than what I use, look to add Myr Retriever or Junk Diver to the fold.
3. Decks that run Bribery, Acquire, or Sphinx Ambassador: When people find out this deck has Blightsteel Colossus and Darksteel Colossus in it, they always want to try to grab them from this deck. This list already has some ways of stopping this situation, via some of the artifact removal, but if steal effects are still haunting this deck, I would look to add a Homeward Path to get the card back or include Maze of Ith to prevent the combat damage from the creature. To make it a matter of emphasis, I had to add both of these lands into my deck due to other people adapting to this list. If your problems keep getting worse, add ways to tutor for these lands like Expedition Map.
4. "Captain Top-Deck" - Otherwise known as "Lack of Draw": So while Daretti does filter through the deck a lot, if we play everything we got from filtering with his +2, we run into an unfortunate wall. Cards like Howling Mine, Font of Mythos, Staff of Nin, or even Staff of Domination can provide more necessary draw power to keep this deck turning along. Like my other decks, my only advice is to limit the number of drawing cards you put in the deck since Daretti provides so much digging already.
5. Hellkite Tyrant: This creature get his own special section because of how effectively he can hose this deck. To be honest, there isn't much of a defense you can do to stop this guy other than hold a removal source in hand if you know you are playing against him. The best solution I can offer is this: If you have people that play with this guy in their decks, increase the amount of removal in this deck - cards like Starstorm and Banefire can do the 5 damage, or go with some good sorcery speed removal like Aftershock.
6. Artifact Exile Effects such as Return to Dust or Merciless Eviction: This deck does a good job of getting back artifacts that get destroyed, but like all decks in EDH/Commander, when good cards get removed from the game, we're pretty much hosed. In all honestly there are no real ways to stop the global exile effects, so it becomes important to be able to play around them. What I mean by that is this: Don't over extend with this deck. If you have a good thing going, such as a Mindslaver-lock or something, don't keep playing your bomb artifacts just because you can. Play a little bit conservative and you'll be able to live after a wipe like this goes off.
I'll start by discussing the really top dollar cards this deck would love, but I just don't have them due to money constraints:
Mishra's Workshop: 3 for artifacts doesn't help us with Daretti, but it is still a ridiculous land to drop that can be copied since it is non-legendary... The amount of broken possibilities is just too high to describe with this card... Pulled the trigger on this card, haven't complained yet lol... (though my wife almost killed me...)
Bazaar of Baghdad: This land is awesome at filtering and setting Daretti up without having to use his +2 to do it. Pretty much you can filter, discard, and reanimate a crucial artifact all in one turn, which doubles the speed of this deck. Just insane... Imperial Recruiter: Of any card, this would probably be the first I buy from this group because it would enable me to filter for Goblin Welder, Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer, and Metalworker. Creature tutors are always good, this guy probably being the best option for mono-R. Best part of weddings? Gifts. Best part of Nerd Friend? Nerd Friend Gifts. Another eye-roll from the wife accompanied this one, but thanks Brad!!!
Now for general stuff:
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker: Awesome at making copied creatures, but not great in this deck - I have few creatures I want to copy a lot, so this is more of a Win-More/Flair addition if I put him in.
Mindless Automaton: Decent card draw, but I find him a little too slow and also you pretty much are paying 4 to draw 1 card, which is a stiff cost and a bad trade imo.
Goblin Lore / Control of the Court: While the card advantage is obvious, my big issue with these cards is that they can discard away a lot of key cards at random. If this deck was more STAX/Combo, I would not have a problem with this since most of those cards can be recurred, but having to discard away my only beater I have can put this deck in a bind and take it from possibly winning to hoping to filter to a threat.
Ensnaring Bridge: Good Daretti protection, terrible for a combat deck where we like big dudes sometimes...
Ward of Bones: More protection, but imo this covers opponents just as well - no one wants the Zur player being able to lock down the game easier because we are not as fast as them.
Lodestone Golem: Excellent artifact control card, but this makes recasting Daretti (which always needs to happen in a game) even more difficult.
Thran Dynamo: This has come up several times because it is considered a staple artifact ramp, but the reason I do not run it is because I am more about utilizing early mana cards instead of later mana rocks. Dynamo's 4 cost is not helpful at ramping into Daretti, who will ramp me into better artifacts as the game goes on than Dynamo will.
Basalt Monolith: Not going for infinite combos makes Basalt a bad card....
STAX and MLD
It may not have come up much in this list, but it has come up quite often in the posts in this thread, but I am not a huge proponent of STAX. I prefer to control the game slightly, but I don't want to make it completely unplayable for others unless I am mauling them down in the process. That being said, the majority of the STAX core has been omitted for a reason.
ISBPathfinder made a good post that I'd like to quote regarding these cards in a post, so I will share his quote to represent the cards I will not be using in my own deck:
This isn't to say that all of these things go into a list, but these are things I would consider for a stax build. I am sure I missed some too but these are some core elements I would consider. When doing stax, doing MLD effects sort of goes hand in hand in my mind. You can do it without.... but there aren't enough effects for me to really feel like it would be a stax deck as a whole. Stax attacks landbases as well generally speaking. There are a lot of effects that I didn't list as well which are stax friendly but I wanted to just make a quick list of some things I would generally consider possibly in a stax build.
Generally speaking token production (especially free token production goes well with stax). Krenko, Mob Boss and Goblin Assault for instance tend to do well with these tactics.
Reasons: A lot of the cards included were discussed in the thread so far, so I wanted to make homes for them. The cuts were because of the following reasons:
Crawlspace: Didn't protect Daretti well enough.
Ward of Bones: Slow to get out, didn't prevent someone from already beating into me if they had a big board.
Myr Turbine: Not enough Myr, better token makers out there.
Hellkite Tyrant: I really love this card, but I think too many people will see it and flip out about it. I will sideboard it in when I want to for certain games, but keep it out of the main deck to mitigate forum comments lol...
Vedalken Orrery: Not enough bang for the buck - I honestly don't need to instant cast much in this deck and I don't really care what other people are doing on their turns. This isn't a control deck really.
Mountain: Needed to make room for the Tomb.
Pentavus has been slow lately, so I wanted to get some more token production on that requires less mana investment. Both Precursor and Assembly were on my list of wanting to include and they performed very well this past couple of weeks of testing.
Serum Tank had been rather slow for me lately, so I found it an easy cut to add another beater (Assembly will eat this card slot)
Ruination has been decent, but I want more enchantment removal. Hellkite was a good fit for that removal, and he also increases my Beater count.
Sculpting Steel had some ridiculous plays, but after a conversation with ISBPathfinder, I came to terms that he is a Win-More and not necessarily a card that provides value by itself. Tangle Wire was his suggestion for a card to help protect Daretti, and it worked remarkably when I utilize it.
Another ISB suggestion was the Inkmoth Nexus since it can be used as Daretti Fodder and a possible Infect kill. I have plenty of red sources to get the 1 needed for Daretti, so it was a simple mountain cut.
3/19/2015
In: Mana Crypt and Fellwar Stone
Out: Clock of Omens and Viashino Heretic
Reasons:
Really the crypt doesn't need much of an explanation - it is just good. Fellwar stone was added because I want to shift my rocks more into ramping to Daretti, so have 3 of the 2 rocks sounds better on paper. For cuts, Clock of Omens is more for artifact that like to tap and I am not running too many of those, so this has been a dead draw for me. Viashino Heretic was a flavor addition in this deck and while cute, isn't too on par with the theme, so I cut it as well.
5/18/2015
In: Akroma's Memorial and Mox Diamond
Out: Liquimetal Coating and Darksteel Ingot
Reasons:
Akroma's had been a playtesting card that worked really well - I was never sad to draw it. Liquimetal Coating on the other hand, was meh... It required too much of a setup and only benefites a couple cards, one being a card I cut in the past. Mox Diamond was added for more explosive plays early game and keeping the same count for rocks, I dumped Ingot off because it was really slow (even if it's one of my favorite cards...)
6/7/2015
In: Recoup
Out: Tawnos's Coffin
Reasons:
I hate seeing a really expensive card being cut from my list, but Tawnos's Coffin really was very situational in my list and not providing enough awesomeness on its own. Recoup is also situational however it has been great because it has allowed me to not have to hold onto my big spells all the time.
9/17/2015
In: Mishra's Workshop, Maze of Ith, Forcefield, Ancient Tomb, Imperial Recruiter, Homeward Path
Out: Some stuff.... I honestly don't completely recall it all....
Reasons:
I am just going to refer to these deck changes as the "Dollar Dollar Bling" update, because really that's pretty much what happened... All of these cards are ridiculous in their own ways - Workshop is broken on a crazy level: I once did a T1 Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Workshop, into Tangle Wire.... Forcefield has been used to just simply protect myself time and time again from aggro decks, which helps me stabilize and recover that much better. Imperial Recruiter is just a better Goblin Matron in that it can get me Duplicant, Scarecrone, or Metalworker instead of just goblins. Ancient Tomb adds a little bit of ramp into the deck. The other lands are simply there to stop me from dying to my own Blightsteel lol...
10/04/2015
In: Hedron Archive
Out: Thran Dynamo
Reason: Thran hasn't really been a clutch mana rock in this deck, so I am willing to change it out with the new 4 drop rock. The draw two card function can be very necessary with this deck when I need to reload my hand, so I am excited to see how this plays out long term.
11/19/2015
In: Sandstone Oracle and Contagion Engine
Out: Worn Powerstone and Contagion Clasp
Reason: Engine is a just straight upgrade over Clasp, so not much to add there. I am wanting to see how Oracle works, so I took out my least favorite mana rock to make an easy cut. Powerstone's CIPT effect made it provide less impact than needed, so it was an easy cut for me.
02/18/2016
In: All is Dust
Out: Stranglehold
Reason: I had been play testing All is Dust for awhile and found it to be a very good sweeper against a majority of my opponents. To replace it, I originally cut out Strangehold because I didn't find myself facing people taking multiple turns anymore and it was too slow to stop the early game tutors. Since it has been cut, I haven't missed it so I am content cutting it out for good.
04/30/2017
In: Combustible Gearhulk, Quicksmith Genius, Aetherworks Marvel
Out: Forcefield, Blood Moon, Blinkmoth Urn
Reason: Formalizing the changes I made a bit ago, so these aren't really 'new'. The 3 cards I formally added where what I enjoyed significantly from Kaladesh. The cuts were because more often one card was irrelevant (Forcefield), one was too 'hatey' in my new store (Blood Moon), and one provided ramp that was a little late/unnecessary (Blinkmoth Urn). The additions are spelled out inside the thread and card discussions, so see those sections for the major details
Last but not least...
I would like to say thanks for taking the time to read this Decklist. I hope you find it enlightening and a fun deck to play around with yourself. I have thoroughly enjoyed the deck and look forward to any suggestions or comments you have regarding it!
One thing in the primer I wanted to point out: You mentioned that you can use Goblin Welder or Scarecrone to recur Blightsteel Colossus, but this does not work. The shuffling effect is a replacement effect, so it never goes to the graveyard in the first place, so using an ability while the shuffle effect is on the stack is never possible. The same is true of Darksteel Colossus.
summoner's egg seems strictly better at what you are trying to accomplish, although a card better still is kuldotha forgemaster, which can search up a nice artifact finisher. give forgemaster haste with lightning greaves
Mirrorworks is really disgusting in Daretti, any reason for the exclusion?
No particular reason, I used to just find it clunky because I would usually waste a turn to cast it, but now with Daretti being able to bring it into play earlier than expected, I see value in it again. I'll add it to my list of things to try and work in as cuts are made!
In multiplayer rounds Fellwar Stone is often enough going to be the strictly better version of Fire Diamond. Not having "summoning sickness" can be a huge deal.
Good point on Fellwar Stone, my only issue is sometimes I really do need that R mana to do certain things, and I might not get that for sure with the Stone. I agree with Myr Turbine, so I am honestly looking to get a Myr Matrix instead, which would fit the same role as what I use Turbine for.
What you wanna do is drop Hellkite Tyrant immediately. You bring all the artifacts, if he's cloned he can't even protect you from himself, plus Bribery, Reanimate etc etc. Never run cards that hose your own deck. You seem to be running draw/discard exclusively. How is that working for you? I found myself too often with nothing in hand and a nuked GY. I really dislike that the wheels give all the others a fresh 7. Loreseeker's Stone isn't really bad at all, especially when copied. I even gave Tower of Fortunes a try, good results! Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient is missing btw, you should try him out, he just does some WORK here.
Hellkite Tyrant's ability to screw this deck is entirely Meta dependent, the situation you described is entirely possible and can ruin this deck if those cards are all commonplace in deck construction. In my case, not many people pack Clone cards and I only know 2 other people that own Bribery, other than myself. Also, there are a good 30+ decks that I can match up against, so in situations where I could get screwed, I do sideboard him out. But the value he brings and also potential win-con is quite nice to have - so I run him for now.
The draw I utilize has been fine for me, since I focus a lot on recurring out artifacts from my GY and back into my hand or play. I have had few instances where I was really screwed for cards. The two cards you mentioned for straight draw are nice and also efficient, but I just haven't needed anything else yet.
Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient is good, but Rings of Brighthearth is better for this deck because I can copy Daretti' abilities and also non-artifact creature abilities. I don't have too many artifact only activations, so I feel like I would be forcing him if I included him in this list. However, as the deck changes that may not be the case anymore.
One thing in the primer I wanted to point out: You mentioned that you can use Goblin Welder or Scarecrone to recur Blightsteel Colossus, but this does not work. The shuffling effect is a replacement effect, so it never goes to the graveyard in the first place, so using an ability while the shuffle effect is on the stack is never possible. The same is true of Darksteel Colossus.
I need to read cards better.... I'll fix that comment, thanks for the catch!
Crawlspace doesn't protect Daretti, since people can attack him instead of you. Silent Arbiter is better for a Daretti deck.
I knew there was a better option, I just completely forgot the card name! I'll try to trade locally for it or go out and order it on my next card order
I have a Daretti deck that is so much fun to play and I'm debating the usage of either Summoner's Egg or Clone shell. Any thoughts on which is better?
I agree with the poster who got back to you, Summoner's Egg is better due to the ease of getting rid of artifacts. Clone shell is just too situational and hard to setup.
How do you feel about Kuldotha Phoenix , I will try it out in my build but it seems like a very under-rated card that can be amazing in this deck. Flying hastefor 4 that can be casted constantly? Yes please. I don't think many builds here even considered it because it seems like a pretty unused card EDH-wise.
I can vouch for the arbiter though, amazing card for controlling the game.
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Hi I'm Infecter4life and ironically I only play GBx decks.
How do you feel about Kuldotha Phoenix , I will try it out in my build but it seems like a very under-rated card that can be amazing in this deck. Flying hastefor 4 that can be casted constantly? Yes please. I don't think many builds here even considered it because it seems like a pretty unused card EDH-wise.
I can vouch for the arbiter though, amazing card for controlling the game.
Another interesting card I overlooked... I'd probably add Steel Hellkite first though, since he adds to the removal category and can be pumped. But if I am on the lookout for more flyers as I test the deck out I will definitely give the phoenix a go.
And yes, I am definitely getting an arbiter when I find one, or I am going to order one once the holidays are over. It will definitely keep Daretti protected for many turns.
@ Infecter4life: i run Kuldotha Phoenix and i love it. The only Phoenix that goes straight to the battlefield. The others are better for Daretti's +2, but 4/5 mana to get a single card back to your hand, better play Squee, Goblin Nabob then (which doesn't do anything else). It depends on how you play Daretti, i try to only do his -2 with all the proliferate there is. cheers
Only reason I know about this card is because I looked at your list
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Hi I'm Infecter4life and ironically I only play GBx decks.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but couldn't you turn Daretti into an artifact via Liquimetal Coating, and then animate him with Karn, Silver Golem, swinging for at least 4 commander damage? Anyway, love the list. I'll be building a Daretti of my own after I have my fun with Feldon. One question for you at this time: For those of us who don't have a Cruible of Worlds, would you recommend playing more than 35 land due to the large amount of looting the deck offers?
@ Infecter4life: i run Kuldotha Phoenix and i love it. The only Phoenix that goes straight to the battlefield. The others are better for Daretti's +2, but 4/5 mana to get a single card back to your hand, better play Squee, Goblin Nabob then (which doesn't do anything else). It depends on how you play Daretti, i try to only do his -2 with all the proliferate there is. cheers
Okay, that being said - what would you pick to use between Kuldotha Phoenix and Steel Hellkite? I have one card I plan to take out and either of them would fit well.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but couldn't you turn Daretti into an artifact via Liquimetal Coating, and then animate him with Karn, Silver Golem, swinging for at least 4 commander damage? Anyway, love the list. I'll be building a Daretti of my own after I have my fun with Feldon. One question for you at this time: For those of us who don't have a Cruible of Worlds, would you recommend playing more than 35 land due to the large amount of looting the deck offers?
Yes you are right, it came up the other night, but really the likelihood of that staying around for awhile is slim to none, thus I pretty much consider that win-con unlikely/next to impossible in any given game lol. In regards to your question on Crucible, yes I would increase the land count to 38ish if I didn't have it in my deck. I will often loot early with Daretti and toss my lands into the yard, which makes playing Crucible early to immediately make land drops from my GY. If I wanted to really pimp the deck out, I would throw in copies of all Mountain fetch lands to make my deck thinning even more powerful.
Steel Hellkite, no question! These nasty enchantments...
Edit: i've been thinking of adding Into the Core lately. With Lattice and Coating (for which you have plenty of ways to untap it) exile 2 permanents really is strong. I'll give it a shot and see how it goes.
Okay, thanks for the input. Interesting suggestion honestly! I think that could work well for this deck - I'll be on the lookout for it!
Also as a sidenote, I am slowly filling out the other sections of the decklist (with the goal of being a Primer someday), so if you see anything weird in those sections let me know! I have a tendency to work on decks when I am close to going to bed, so it might not make much sense LOL
I'm absolutely floored that no one, in any of the Daretti deck threads I've visited, have mentioned any of the Atogs. Specifically, I run Megatog in mine. Once I've achieved my emblem, he's basically a free sac outlet that can be used to defend well, attack well, and on other players turns, technically, untap all of your tapped artifacts. I've been running him consistently for a few weeks now, and he's just SICK. Great finisher, since he gets trample from the ability.
The other card I've been running that I can't seem to find in anyone else's decklists so far is Mindless Automaton. Again, post emblem, he's at bare minimum, drawing you an extra card during every person's turn. He's also a cheap discard outlet, where you can basically exchange two cards from your hand for an extra card off the top. He also puts artifacts you want to cheat into play, into the graveyard for you. Just a solid investment, and easily worth the 4 mana.
I have found that using every possible resource to get Daretti into play on turn 3 will give you a very good chance of getting the emblem. I also run a few proliferate-type cards, so it's entirely possible to have the emblem in play by turn 6. Generator Servant can help you get Daretti into play on turn 3. Ancient Tomb is totally worth taking the hit for, in order to get Daretti down on turn 3. Of course, Sol Ring gets him into play on Turn 2.
I've been trying out a few Flashback effects in the deck, so I'm not fearful of discarding those cards, when I don't have great artifact choices to discard. Seize the Day is great, to get that second attack in with Hellkite Igniter or Megatog. Recoup gets you back a copy of Scrap Mastery, in case it's not a great choice to cast it when you first see it in your hand. Basically, these cards make everything in your hand expendable. To take advantage of that, I am also running Burning Inquity as a sort of hand-refill/opponents hand-disruption spell.
Of course, these are all a bit more 'kitchen-table' casual game suggestions, but hopefully, they'll help in some way.
The reason no one runs Megatog is because there are better options for sac outlets. I'd run Slobad and Krark-Clan Ironworks over Megatog. Mindless Automation is good though, especially if you run a lot of proliferate effects like I do.
I am not thinking of making my list very competitive, but I want it to be decent enough, what would you said are a few cards outside the box that are rather important or core to this deck? I would prefer not to spend heavily. would appreciate suggestion.
I am not thinking of making my list very competitive, but I want it to be decent enough, what would you said are a few cards outside the box that are rather important or core to this deck? I would prefer not to spend heavily. would appreciate suggestion.
Clearly not OP here but let me just give you some suggestions of cheap cards that make the deck much better:
Tis the season to be busy with Holiday stuff and closing out the year... Sorry for no recent posts! Still need to sit down and finish up this post someday...
I'm absolutely floored that no one, in any of the Daretti deck threads I've visited, have mentioned any of the Atogs. Specifically, I run Megatog in mine. Once I've achieved my emblem, he's basically a free sac outlet that can be used to defend well, attack well, and on other players turns, technically, untap all of your tapped artifacts. I've been running him consistently for a few weeks now, and he's just SICK. Great finisher, since he gets trample from the ability.
The other card I've been running that I can't seem to find in anyone else's decklists so far is Mindless Automaton. Again, post emblem, he's at bare minimum, drawing you an extra card during every person's turn. He's also a cheap discard outlet, where you can basically exchange two cards from your hand for an extra card off the top. He also puts artifacts you want to cheat into play, into the graveyard for you. Just a solid investment, and easily worth the 4 mana.
I have found that using every possible resource to get Daretti into play on turn 3 will give you a very good chance of getting the emblem. I also run a few proliferate-type cards, so it's entirely possible to have the emblem in play by turn 6. Generator Servant can help you get Daretti into play on turn 3. Ancient Tomb is totally worth taking the hit for, in order to get Daretti down on turn 3. Of course, Sol Ring gets him into play on Turn 2.
I've been trying out a few Flashback effects in the deck, so I'm not fearful of discarding those cards, when I don't have great artifact choices to discard. Seize the Day is great, to get that second attack in with Hellkite Igniter or Megatog. Recoup gets you back a copy of Scrap Mastery, in case it's not a great choice to cast it when you first see it in your hand. Basically, these cards make everything in your hand expendable. To take advantage of that, I am also running Burning Inquity as a sort of hand-refill/opponents hand-disruption spell.
Of course, these are all a bit more 'kitchen-table' casual game suggestions, but hopefully, they'll help in some way.
A lot of cards you suggested are somewhat already accounted for in this deck by other cards and I do appreciate the more 'kitchen-table' suggestions
Mindless Automaton seems a little unnecessary for this deck due to what Daretti does already. Since Daretti is the Commander, and thus consistently available any game, I would find including Mindless Automaton as a waste of a card slot :/
I have yet to run into an issue getting Daretti into play earlier than T4 - My count of mana rocks is consistent enough to get him T3 almost any game, T2 some games, and T1 rarely. Just to spitball, I would say it is broken down like this - and no, this is not mathematically proven in any way lol...
T1 Daretti Chance - Less than 1%
T2 Daretti Chance - ~3%
T3 Daretti Chance - 55%
T4 Daretti Chance - 41.(something)%
Flashback effects could be nice to include, but I am more "All-In" on artifacts here for this deck. I don't run too many spells that I necessarily need again, it is more about grabbing back permanents from my library. That being said, I am starting to think Warp World would be hillarious...
The reason no one runs Megatog is because there are better options for sac outlets. I'd run Slobad and Krark-Clan Ironworks over Megatog. Mindless Automation is good though, especially if you run a lot of proliferate effects like I do.
Yeah, but Megatog doubles as a sac outlet AND a finisher. Slobad and KCI are just durdlers, in the long run.
I disagree here - Slobad is amazing at protecting key pieces of my deck. I would never think to cut him based on the protection he brings to the table.
I am not thinking of making my list very competitive, but I want it to be decent enough, what would you said are a few cards outside the box that are rather important or core to this deck? I would prefer not to spend heavily. would appreciate suggestion.
I am not thinking of making my list very competitive, but I want it to be decent enough, what would you said are a few cards outside the box that are rather important or core to this deck? I would prefer not to spend heavily. would appreciate suggestion.
Clearly not OP here but let me just give you some suggestions of cheap cards that make the deck much better:
He named a lot, but a couple more to think of would be Trading Post and Arcbound Crusher are both cheap and very durable cards besides the ones he listed.
I run a similar build myself now as I rotated to mana rocks, however I put Kiki-Jiki in and my god is this card disgusting in this type of build. Also recommend trying out Ugin's Nexus as this card is super super good in my testing.
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Hi I'm Infecter4life and ironically I only play GBx decks.
I run a similar build myself now as I rotated to mana rocks, however I put Kiki-Jiki in and my god is this card disgusting in this type of build. Also recommend trying out Ugin's Nexus as this card is super super good in my testing.
I would think Kiki-Jiki would be a little situational honestly - I don't think there are enough creatures in the deck to really get that milage out of him consistently. Ugin's Nexus definitely is going to get a spot based on how the league has gone lately - the number of extra turns people are trying to take is ridiculous... That and the extra turn being timed to whenever I want/need it is kinda that extra icing on the cake for me
Always an excellent card so include it if you want, but I prefer it in a reanimator themed deck (RB, URB, or GRB decks) that needs ways to cheat stuff into play/GY. I personally think Daretti accomplishes the role that Sneak Attack would fill, so I don't have plans to include it.
Crucible is nearly worthless in this deck with your lands being what they are (even after considering pitching them to daretti and playing them after). Why not make it awesome by adding the mesa, foothills, mire, tarn, and a wasteland?
Crawlspace is weak in my opinion. To me it reads: "aggro decks can still beat you up." Perhaps silent arbiter might work better.
Burnished hart has been great for me. Last game I had skullclamp on it and rings of brighthearth and valakut in play. When I sacked the hart I put 4 mountains on the battlefield, drew 2 cards, and cast 4 lightning bolts. Obviously it won't always be that good but still, at worst its usually a blocker that fetches 2 mountains.
goblin welder and slobad are very strong in this deck. I know the recruiter is expensive but I would at least include goblin matron to tutor for them. I'd add kiki jiki too.
Skullclamp has been outstanding card draw for me. Not just for 1/1's but for all those artifact creatures that end up going in the graveyard with welder-type shenanigans.
I notice your write up mentions darksteel colossus. You might want to delete that since it isn't in your decklist.
I'm running a Daretti deck too, and I noticed how powerful Scuttling Doom Engine is a deck like this is. Abusing the six damage multiple times a game is great.
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Author's Note: This deck is a mono-R Artifact Good Stuff kind of deck. This is not a control deck and this deck has little denial/stax elements to it. If you are looking for a hyper-competitive deck that relies on denial and primarily focusing on Daretti's Ultimate, this is not the list for you. If you are interested in smashing face with creatures like Blightsteel Colossus, then welcome home friend
Table of Contents
Introduction
First of all, I would like to say thank you for taking the time to look over my decklist. If someone ever asked me to pick one color, and only one color, to represent my playstyle for MTG and EDH/Commander, I would pick R every time. Almost all of my decks I have played involved red in some way and I love the chaos red brings. Though I never put some of the lists up on this site, I have played many mono-R decks ranging from Dragon-Tribal with Zirilan of the Claw, Gaka's Norin the Wary deck (and yes, it is awesome to play), to "Blow up the World!" with Ashling the Pilgrim. I find it my personal mission to make people believe that mono-R can be the strongest mono colored decks possible!
Now, for how this deck came about: Out of sheer boredom one day, I decided to sleeve up Juwdah's Kozilek, Butcher of Truth deck - found by clicking here - for my Local Game Store's (LGS's) EDH League. Obviously being a colorless Commander, the deck was entirely artifacts and I found it exciting to be playing a mono-"brown" deck. Sadly though, the league gained up on me during the games (who knew people would be scared of an Eldrazi Commander?) and I decided to tone the deck down by going with Karn, Silver Golem (decklist linked in my signature). Unlike Kozilek, Karn did not really work well with the league - the no infinite combo rule makes Karn not nearly as powerful - so after one day of games, the deck never really saw the light of day again...
Fast forward to the release of Commander 2014 - I bought the red deck and played it out of the box and suddenly realized how INSANE Daretti is. With my own tweaks to the list, including some of the things I learned from my previous decks, this deck has been disgusting in my play tests and been able to pull off some ridiculous stuff - best play yet was having two Blightsteel Colossus's on T5. Artifact decks have always been known for some ridiculous stuff, but now it has gotten even better.
Anyways, I hope you enjoy reading this list and have comments/suggestions because this deck is currently one of my favorites to play
So why is Daretti so good?
Daretti is a pretty ridiculous mono-R commander because he solves a lot of issues that R decks face. To illustrate some of this, let me take a moment to go over the pro's and cons of Daretti:
Daretti, Scrap Savant's Pros
1. Daretti is not a creature. Remember how annoying it was to have your Commander shuffled into your library via Terminus, Hallowed Burial, Banishing Stroke, Spin into Myth, or Condemn (just to name a few...)? Thankfully with the Tuck rule change, this isn't an issue, but having Daretti as a non-creature is still clutch. Wrath spells and single target creature removal becomes ineffective at getting him off the board.
2. Daretti's +2 ability is pretty much a repeatable Faithless Looting. If you haven't played a mono-color deck (other than U...), you'll know that card draw/filtering is one of the most difficult aspects of the deck. Everyone has been raving about how Faithless Looting gave red a huge boost in draw, and thus power. Now with Daretti we have access to this draw power every turn, the ability to flush out win-cons and needed cards is that much higher, which is awesome. Also, his +2 ability does a really good job helping his next pro....
3. Daretti's -2 ability lets you cheat some ridiculous artifacts into play earlier than intented Since we had to discard to draw with the +2, there should be a lot of opportunities to shove a good artifact into the graveyard. My favorite card to do this with is Darksteel Forge - You can reliably get this card in play as "late" - a relative term based on how soon Daretti sees his 2nd turn in play - as Turn 5. Again, this is all operating under the assumption that we have an artifact to sacrifice, which shouldn't be hard in a mono-"brown" deck.
4. Daretti's Emblem, if you are so lucky to get it, pretty much means "I win" Granted, the "I win" statement is very dependent on the artifacts in your deck, but in my list it means I can lock someone out of the game via Mindslaver, can exile any creature each turn with Duplicant, or try to make a bunch of tokens via Pentavus or Myr Battlesphere to name a few things. With everything you're playing being able to stick around - unless someone has some instant speed graveyard hate or a lot of RFG effects - you shouldn't struggle too much with winning the game.
Daretti, Scrap Savant's Cons
1. Daretti is not a creature. I can hear it now: "Wait a second Vash, didn't you just list this as a pro?" - Well, yes I did, but do you remember that thing called Commander Damage? With this deck, kiss that win condition goodbye. Yes, it is possible to deal Commander Damage if we have Liquimetal Coating and Karn, Silver Golem in play, but in a mono-R deck, do you think this is going to consistently happen? Even those silly Phelddagrif care-bear decks can win via Commander Damage if they want to... To make up for this issue, it is important to pack this deck with strong and effective cards and some good creatures to get our opponents life totals down to 0.
2. Daretti is only good during your turn and does nothing on an opponents turn. Again, another issue with a Planeswalker - he does such ridiculous things, but it is all at sorcery speed and only on our turn. For those new to magic, get used to saying the phrase "Without passing priority, I activate Daretti's -/+ X ability", because I have been burned by not activating Daretti right away and moving on to do something else instead...
3. You need to either be really quick to get Daretti out or you need to have good protection for him. The last major issue of Planeswalkers - people like to get rid of them since they provide so much. Daretti is only 3R to play, so with the assortment of good mana rocks in this deck, he can very easily be in play on Turn 2, when most people don't have creatures in play. The issue come around when we have no access to mana rocks and play him on Turn 4: by then, people will have creatures available to pick away at his loyalty counters if we don't have anything to protect him.
4. Daretti has the inherent "Planeswalker Hate". I almost think this is universal to any meta, but Planeswalkers usually get hated on right away no matter what they are doing, even if it is just a friendly Jace Beleren... That being said, the usual "I play my Commander and Pass my Turn" doesn't work well in this deck because more than likely, without any real protection/blockers, Daretti won't live until the next turn. It becomes important to size up your playgroup's feelings for Planeswalkers and act accordingly if you want Daretti to live long enough to be effective for this deck.
5. Daretti becomes a difficult Commander to use as the # of players in a game goes up. Due to the fact that Daretti is only effective on your turn and has no inherent protection, the more people to come at him, the harder he is to play and utilize. When sitting down at a casual game, if the game has 5+ players in it, I am hesitant to use this deck due to how difficult keeping Daretti around becomes. I find Daretti is good in your standard 4 player game, but beyond that it becomes too difficult to manage.
Beyond just Daretti, there are several other good options for an artifact-themed deck - and some of them are not even limited by being mono-R. For simplicity's sake, I will go over *my* take on other possible commanders and why I really didn't like them for my artifact deck:
Arcum Dagsson: Mono-U artifacts means you can really control the game via counter spells and other shenanigans. Arcum has a great ability, which is pretty much Tinker on a stick, and you can make a great toolbox around him. The issue is, like all toolbox decks, the deck is going to be dependent a lot on what you build into your toolbox. Additionally, your opponents are going to realize how much of a threat you are fairly quickly as you start to dig through your deck. If you want to go Toolbox artifacts, give him a go! There are two good primers on him - rockondon's and TheTrueNub's- so there is a lot of material out there for you to read
Bosh, Iron Golem: Bosh, to me, seems like a good choice for a 1v1 deck. He is able to provide a lot of damage from his "throw" mechanic, which will take a player out really fast. I just don't see this working well in multiplayer, especially with all the artifact hate that exists in the world.
Hanna, Ship's Navigator: Hanna is a nice choice for an artifact deck because she isn't over powered, but still provides a good boost in deck power. WU are good artifact colors, but I believe the power level increase to R is too good to pass up with the new cards printed.
Karn, Silver Golem: One of the two old-school artifact themed decks. Karn decks are prone to doing some ridiculous things - there are so many infinite combos available due to his ability. Unfortunately, in my case infinite combos are a no-no, so when I had a deck based around him, I really wasn't able to reliably do much. If you are allowed to go infinite, make a deck with him and enjoy the ridiculousness. If you are looking for good information, check out Burntgerbil's primer - found here- it is well written and goes over a lot of the combos available to Karn.
Sharuum the Hegemon: The other old-school artifact themed deck. Sharuum decks are also generally some interesting combo decks, and being a tri-colored deck you have access to a lot of artifact support - but Sharuum decks are well known and have a stigma to them in some communities, so be ready for undeserved hate sometimes. In my case, similar to Hanna, I find what R brings to the table is something unique and in the case of Daretti and my deck, I am able to be a lot faster than Sharuum in getting win cons on the table.
Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer: Slobad decks are usually built to take advantage of his protection ability. trees' Primer - found here - does a good job illustrating this, so I won't spend too much time discussing it. Just know I find Slobad good enough to include in my deck as one of the 99, so if you want to go down the "blow up the world" route, consider using him
Sydri, Galvanic Genius: Sydri takes the good of Karn while also giving access to tri-colored decks. Like Sharuum though, I find her to be a little slow and more of a control build. The lifelink and deathtouch ability is cute when you use it on an animated Caltrops, but otherwise she isn't as great as Karn or Sharuum IMO.
So, after reading my comments on Daretti and my Artifact-themed Commander reviews, here are the pro's and con's of this decklist:
You're going to like this deck if...
1. You like artifacts - this deck is made to get the good ones in play fast and exploit them.
2. You enjoy being able to exploit Goblin Welder unlike ever before.
3. You enjoy playing an aggressive deck that also has some control elements sprinkled into it.
4. You like being able to filter through your deck via the draw/discard effects R uses.
5. You like having a Planeswalker as a Commander.
6. You enjoy the challenge that a mono-colored deck brings.
You're NOT going to like this deck if...
1. You hate artifacts.
2. You don't like interacting with your graveyard or your gaming meta has a lot of graveyard hate.
3. You would rather play a control deck or STAX based artifact deck.
4. You would rather draw cards and not have to discard cards from your hand.
5. You like having Commander Damage as an option to win games.
6. You don't like being challenged during deck construction, thus you dislike mono-colored decks.
A little more background before the decklist...
Who am I?
My name is James and I am 29 years old currently living in Clarkston, WA. I've played MTG off and on for the past 17 years and have really enjoyed the fun times I've had and the many people I have met. I started playing EDH/Commander with my close friends back in 2008 and my obsession with the format has been non-stop since then. I've made decks of all types ranging from Rhys the Redeemed Tokens, Reaper King Control/Tribal, and Tibor and Lumia Control/Combo to name a few of my favorites.
Over time, I have found that I have a tendency to build my decks so that they are efficient and effective, meaning that they are not one-trick ponies, but rather able to adapt and compete against the wide range of decks in this format. That being said, often a card that I've selected for a deck has the requirement that it is useful in any situation and not just part of one possible combo.
Lastly, this deck was made in lines with my old "competitive" (I use this loosely because my meta's definition is very different from the CEDH thread/meta discussed on this forum) didn't allow infinite combos and as such I didn't include them. I have since moved away from that group and now find myself in an area that is more casual and less competitive, so I have made some cuts in cards to accommodate a more friendly atmosphere.
My Meta
Like I said in the above section, I used to play against many different forms of control, combo, and aggro in my local game store's (LGS's) EDH league. That League had house rules of no infinite combos, which helped this deck perform since it stopped the combo players from just going off, but many people packed the common hate cards such as Aura Shards, Vandalblast, and MLD such as Armageddon.
Now that I moved, I have no real idea what this deck is going to come up against, so I am starting to build it a little bit of how I want to play and not necessarily tuned to combat others - this is especially true since my store is more casual and playing for fun, not for the win. As I make changes I will be sure to note them and discuss them in good detail in my responses.
With that being said, The Decklist
Deck by Function
4 Daretti, Scrap Savant
Beatsticks (Qty: 11)
5 Precursor GolemFoil
6 Combustible GearhulkFoil
6 Scuttling Doom EngineFoil
6 Soul of New PhyrexiaFoil
6 Steel HellkiteFoil
6 Thopter AssemblyFoil
6 Wurmcoil EngineFoil
7 Hellkite IgniterFoil
7 Myr BattlesphereFoil
11 Darksteel ColossusFoil
12 Blightsteel ColossusFoil
"Really Good Stuff" (Qty: 10)
1 Goblin WelderFoil
2 Slobad, Goblin TinkererFoil
3 Rings of BrighthearthFoil
4 Aetherworks MarvelFoil
5 Alhammarret's ArchiveFoil
5 Karn, Silver GolemFoil
5 MirrorworksFoil
6 Mycosynth LatticeFoil
7 Akroma's MemorialFoil
9 Darksteel ForgeFoil
"Good Stuff" (Qty: 5)
3 Crucible of WorldsFoil
3 Hammer of PurphorosFoil
4 Contagion EngineFoil
5 Ugin's NexusFoil
6 MindslaverFoil
Untap Effects (Qty: 2)
1 Voltaic KeyFoil
4 Unwinding ClockFoil
2 RecoupFoil
3 ScarecroneFoil
4 Trading PostFoil
5 Scrap Mastery
Card Draw and Tutor (Qty: 9)
1 Faithless LootingFoil
1 Gamble
1 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Quicksmith GeniusFoil
3 Imperial RecruiterFoil
3 Wheel of Fortune
5 Kuldotha ForgemasterFoil
5 Memory JarFoil
7 Sandstone Oracle
Removal (Qty: 9)
1 VandalblastFoil
3 Chaos WarpFoil
4 Nevinyrral's DiskFoil
6 DuplicantFoil
7 All is DustFoil
7 Karn LiberatedFoil
7 Spine of Ish Sah
8 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon (Alter Art)
9 Blasphemous ActFoil
Control/Denial Cards (Qty: 2)
2 Torpor OrbFoil
3 Tangle WireFoil
Mana/Land Acceleration (Qty: 13)
0 Mana CryptFoil
0 Mox DiamondFoil
0 Mox OpalFoil
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol RingFoil
2 Fellwar StoneFoil
2 Fire DiamondFoil
2 Grim Monolith
2 Mind StoneFoil
3 Metalworker
4 Hedron ArchiveFoil
4 Solemn SimulacrumFoil
5 Gilded LotusFoil
0 Ancient TombFoil
0 Bloodstained Mire
0 Buried RuinFoil
0 Darksteel CitadelFoil
0 Great FurnaceFoil
0 High MarketFoil
0 Homeward Path
0 Inkmoth Nexus
0 Maze of IthFoil
0 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
0 Miren, the Moaning Well
0 Mishra's Workshop
0 Phyrexia's CoreFoil
0 Strip MineFoil
0 Thespian's Stage
0 Urborg, Tomb of YawgmothFoil
0 Wooded Foothills
17 MountainFoil
Deck by Card Types
4 Daretti, Scrap Savant
Creatures (Qty: 22)
1 Goblin Welder
2 Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer
3 Quicksmith Genius
3 Imperial Recruiter
3 Metalworker
3 Scarecrone
4 Solemn Simulacrum
5 Karn, Silver Golem
5 Kuldotha Forgemaster
5 Precursor Golem
6 Combustible Gearhulk
6 Duplicant
6 Scuttling Doom Engine
6 Soul of New Phyrexia
6 Steel Hellkite
6 Thopter Assembly
6 Wurmcoil Engine
7 Hellkite Igniter
7 Myr Battlesphere
7 Sandstone Oracle
11 Darksteel Colossus
12 Blightsteel Colossus
Sorcery (Qty: 8)
1 Faithless Looting
1 Gamble
1 Vandalblast
2 Recoup
3 Wheel of Fortune
5 Scrap Mastery
7 All is Dust
9 Blasphemous Act
3 Chaos Warp
Artifacts (Qty: 33)
0 Mana Crypt
0 Mox Diamond
0 Mox Opal
1 Mana Vault
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sol Ring
1 Voltaic Key
2 Fellwar Stone
2 Fire Diamond
2 Grim Monolith
2 Mind Stone
2 Torpor Orb
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Hammer of Purphoros
3 Rings of Brighthearth
3 Tangle Wire
4 Contagion Engine
4 Hedron Archive
4 Nevinyrral's Disk
4 Trading Post
4 Unwinding Clock
5 Alhammarret's Archive
5 Gilded Lotus
5 Memory Jar
5 Mirrorworks
5 Ugin's Nexus
6 Mindslaver
6 Mycosynth Lattice
7 Akroma's Memorial
7 Spine of Ish Sah
9 Darksteel Forge
7 Karn Liberated
8 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Lands (Qty: 34)
0 Ancient Tomb
0 Bloodstained Mire
0 Buried Ruin
0 Darksteel Citadel
0 Great Furnace
0 High Market
0 Homeward Path
0 Inkmoth Nexus
0 Maze of Ith
0 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
0 Miren, the Moaning Well
0 Mishra's Workshop
0 Phyrexia's Core
0 Strip Mine
0 Thespian's Stage
0 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
0 Wooded Foothills
17 Mountain
Decklist Statistics
You can find the comprehensive statistics by clicking here.
Average CMC: 4.29 (including Daretti)
Net Value for the Deck: $2259.55 (non-foil values, updated 02/18/2016)
Card Explanations
In this section, I will go over my explanations on the cards I have selected for my deck and point out some of the cool interactions they have with other cards. For organizational purposes, each section is organized by card function.
Beatsticks, "Really Good Stuff", and "Good Stuff"
Mr. Blightsteel wants to give you a LOVE HUG!
For the sake of conversation, Beatsticks to me means that these are the creatures that are going to put a whooping on my opponents - these are the guys that are going to turn sideways and wreck face on my opponents.
Precursor Golem: 9 P/T is pretty good for only 5. The tokens increase our body/artifact count for protecting Daretti and using his -2. Sure he is susceptible to nasty removal spells, but once you get to Chaos Warp him for the first time and get three copies of the spell, which then can net you three permanents (which this deck has many of), you will have a darn good time with this guy every time you use him
Combustible Gearhulk: I love the choice this guy puts on an opponent - 3 cards for me or take damage? People who somewhat regularly play against this deck have seen the high CMC cards this deck runs, so it's a serious choice. The most I've done is 22 damage to one person, which isn't anything to scoff at. After the CIP trigger, the fact it is a 6/6, First Strike means he will kill a majority of threats other players will put into play. All around a great beatstick!
Scuttling Doom Engine: What is there to not love about a card that has the words "Doom Engine" in it? This guy is quite the beater because most insignificant creatures - AKA Tokens - can't block it. What this translates to is Scuttling Doom Engine is a source of removal if someone wants to prevent that damage, or just take 6. What brings it to the next level is abusing the GY recursion through Goblin Welder and Scarecrone to deal a significant amount of direct damage.
Soul of New Phyrexia: The best Soul printed in M15 imo - this guy is great at being another Darksteel Forge when we need it, only he technically can be better since he makes my permanents indestructible for only 5. People will comment that you have to keep 5 mana open, but with the amount of mana rocks this deck packs and the untap effects available, I have never found this to be an issue. And besides his ability, he is a 6/6 with Trample, meaning we can do some decent beating in to people with him when he is in play.
Steel Hellkite: What's not to love about this flying artifact menace? He has a pump and can do a lot of evasive damage to an opponent. His true power is his X ability - this is one of the best removal tools this deck has. There are few better ways to nuke out problematic permanents - Aura Shards anyone? - than the Hellkite.
Thopter Assembly: Another good flier, only this guy usually makes us 5 tokens and goes back to our hand. The 5 tokens are great for Daretti's -2 ability and to be used as chump blockers, but the clutch part is that the Assembly goes back to our hand as soon as those come into play. This allows the deck to gain some card advantage through Daretti's +2 if we want it, or just cast him for beats. Utility is always welcome in any deck I make.
Wurmcoil Engine: One of the best Pre-release cards given out by Wizards. This guy has so much value, it is insane. He provides a stable way to regain life through his Lifelink, he provides good removal because of his Deathtouch, and when he is sent to the graveyard, he gives us 2 more artifacts and the same net power and abilities! This deck has a lot of ways to send him to the graveyard and bring him back in play through some method, so it is easy to get 3+ of each token he makes if we have one of those engines online.
Hellkite Igniter: As previously stated, there are 49 artifacts in this deck. That means this beautiful dragon is going to get some pretty high artifact counts for his ability, and his ability is only 1R, so it is pretty easy to get multiple activations of it. The most I've gotten out of him in one swing was 29 damage, but that is still pretty awesome to nail someone in the face with :D.
Myr Battlesphere: The Deathball, as I like to refer to it - this guy can shred some opponents up! Besides the fact he brings in some Myr fodder, those Myr can help him become awesome by increasing his power and causing direct damage. Given the decks ability to recur a lot of creatures, this guy is great to be sacrificed and then brought back to get even more Myr in play.
Darksteel Colossus: The lighter, less devastating brother of Blightsteel. Darksteel usually just swings over and over and loves smashing people's faces. Remember, this deck is about doing 40 damage for most wins, so taking 11 per turn puts a good clock on an opponent.
Blightsteel Colossus: I call this guy "One-Shot, The Robot" because getting him into play early is a great way to just take someone out of the game. If your play group dislikes infect, you might want to be careful about using him and go with Darksteel Colossus instead. If they don't mind infect, then definitely include him! The fact that he is an 11/11 with Trample, Infect makes people need to sacrifice their strong utility creatures that they have in play just to stay alive. Unfortunately he can not be recurred at all since he gets shuffled into the library, but his ability to just kill people makes him the best Beater I got.
One of the best utility creatures for an artifact deck.
To me, "Really Good Stuff" means that when you see this list of cards, an experienced Magic player will easily say "Yeah, those are pretty obvious card choices for an Artifact deck..." - These are the utility cards that enable a lot of broken things related to artifacts in mono-R and even colorless decks as well.
Goblin Welder: This guy is by far the most abusive creature in this deck when you pair him with Daretti. Besides just being able to recur out an artifact when it dies, with Daretti we can use his +2 and discard something like Darksteel Forge to only use Goblin Welder to bring it into play way earlier than intended. Not only that, he is great with abusing comes into play (CiP) triggers and on death triggers. What is even more disgusting is that if we are lucky enough to get the Daretti Emblem, he pretty much turns into a recursion engine for anything. TLDR: Play him early and enjoy the ridiculous stuff he can do.
Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer: One of the deck's main sacrifice engines, he is used often to protect my important artifacts when someone attempts to remove them. He is also good at stopping any annoying RFG effect - such as Return to Dust and he is also good at tripping the death trigger of Wurmcoil Engine, Solemn Simulacrum, and Spine of Ish Sah to name a few. I mentioned the Primer that was written on him and he can be awesome in a deck that utilizes a lot more wipes, but in this deck he does more than enough for the theme.
Rings of Brighthearth: Any deck that enjoys activated abilities loves this card. Even better, since our Commander is a Planeswalker, we can get double abilities for just an additional 2. I could go on and on about this artifact, but really it just takes having it in play in one game for anyone to get how amazing this card is.
Aetherworks Marvel: My favorite energy producing card in the set. This deck sees a lot of cards going into the GY, especially tokens, so it is not hard to get to 6 energy. When we have 6, I like to use this card at the end of the turn before mine only because if I hit a beatstick creature, I want to use it right away on my turn. This is generally a 'lottery card', but it adds an element of chance/surprise that is unique. Keep in mind that you're casting the cards, so anyone with a Counterspell can stop you.
Alhammarret's Archive: All you need to know is this artifact turns Daretti into a discard 2, draw 4. We gain a little bit of life, but really the huge bonus to the deck's draw engine is the most important part of this artifact.
Karn, Silver Golem: The ultimate artificer. In this deck, he plays the role of allowing my mana rocks and utility artifacts to turn into some disgusting beater creatures when I want them to be. He is also an impressive blocker since he becomes an 0/8 when blocked or blocking. And who doesn't love the Mycosynth Lattice + him combo for some good old LD?
Mirrorworks: In a lot of artifact decks, this card can be considered difficult to abuse because it takes that extra 2 when you are casting artifacts. However with this deck, considering that it cheats most of the artifacts into play, Mirrorworks just becomes godlike. Want to know a ridiculous play to do with it? Copy a Ugin's Nexus with it, when the state-based Legend Rule kicks in, use the displacement effect of the Token to have an extra turn and then sacrifice the original to prevent stopping the extra turns, thus getting 2 extra turns. Enjoy the shenanigans!
Akroma's Memorial: Personally, any time I am playing a creature beats deck, I am usually running this card. Memorial for this deck provides two huge buffs: Vigilance and Flying. Now, this deck can swing creatures all the time and can be setup to protect Daretti from anything that wants to come his way. Win/Win in my opinion.
Mycosynth Lattice: My previous comments in the Karn discussion highlight one of the more common broken thing this card allows, but Mycosynth also empowers three other cards (besides Daretti): Scrap Mastery (super ridiculous play btw), Hellkite Igniter, and an Overloaded Vandalblast. I think why this card works well with these three cards is obvious, so I won't go into much more detail, but if you wanted to make this card more beneficial for you, add in Shattering Spree or Shattering Pulse to get even more milage.
Darksteel Forge: What's better than having a field of artifacts? Having a field of INDESTRUCTIBLE artifacts! Forge pretty much just makes my board insanely difficult to deal with, and thus adds to the likelihood of winning. Be careful of RFG and tuck effects though, but either way if those cards are used here, it is one less card to remove the major utility/beater artifacts
Haste Effects: Making all the utility creatures even more awesome!
These artifacts are just good in a lot of decks - they are not special only to Daretti and see action in many different types of decks out there.
Crucible of Worlds: Considering I run only one real MLD effect - Ruination - I am not going to get a bunch of "bang-for-my-buck" on this card like many other decks do. For this deck, I like to have this card because I can use Daretti's -2 ability on the artifact lands (or any land I make an artifact) and then replay it if I need to keep my land count up high enough. Also, some people in my LGS's league run MLD effects, so it will let me recover when I square up against one of those decks as well.
Hammer of Purphoros: Giving creatures Haste is always good, but what makes this win out over cards like Anger or Fervor (besides being an artifact...) is the ability to make 3/3 artifact creatures. Mid to Late game, my lands generally are being filtered away via Daretti, so being able to keep creatures in play and ready to attack my opponents, or just die as chump blockers, is nice to have access to.
Contagion Engine: The best Proliferate tool. It allows us to tick Daretti up much faster, but also be a great tool at effectively board wiping an opponent if they are running a token strategy. This is a card I love to cycle in and out of my graveyard for that reason.
Ugin's Nexus: A lot of people enjoy abusing extra turns, and to that this card says "NO!" But really, the best benefit of this card is being able to pop an extra turn when I need it. If I know I can smash face or pull off something ridiculous next turn, then I will happily ensure my possible win by doing it right away.
Mindslaver: With Daretti's Ultimate, Mindslaver locks are a thing. Regardless, the -2 ability of Daretti lets me chain lock an opponent that is being troublesome or close to winning. In my LGS's League, it also lets me get points since I am the one controlling my opponents turn, so it is kinda a card in my playgroup, but still it has enough benefit to warrant a spot in any players deck based solely on being able to decimate the board state and hand of the opponent you are controling.
Untap Effects, Recursion, and Card Draw and Tutor
Breaking artifact decks since Urza's Saga...
Untap Effects are pretty obvious... but for the sake of teaching, they allow this deck to exploit artifacts, getting them in play earlier or providing activations of good artifacts. Easy example: untapping and double activating mana rocks can get a beater in play fairly early.
Voltaic Key: The old school untapper in this deck - Key can make an early Mana Vault be almost broken. The advantage of the T1 drop is why it always gets a spot in any artifact deck I make.
Unwinding Clock: Best untapper in the deck because it hits every artifact I have on other untap steps. Pair this with Vedalken Orrery and Opponents turns = Your turns too.
Recursion
One of mono-R's biggest weaknesses is the lack of recursion. When playing artifacts though, we get access to several really good recursion cards that negate this inherent weakness in R.
Recoup: Mono-R decks have a disadvantage in the fact that they have few tools to recover cards from the graveyard, especially spells. This card lets us get back our bomb sorcery spells such as Scrap Mastery and Blasphemous Act. The added bonus of Flashback allows us to discard Recoup with Daretti and still be able to utilize it down the road.
Scarecrone: Another "Cheaty McCheaterson" card for this deck, especially with Daretti in play fueling it. Use Daretti's +2 to discard away a bomb like Pentavus and use Scarecrone's ability to put it in play instead of Daretti's -2. In a pinch, Scarecrone can be a source of card draw if we are really struggling to get something going. I first fell in love with this card in my Reaper King deck and love to find uses for it in other decks
Trading Post: Talk about utility! This card does a lot for any mono-R deck and even helps fix the weakness of mono-W as well. An auto-include in most decks since it provides blockers, life gain, card draw, and artifact recursion at negligible costs.
Scrap Mastery: Now besides Daretti being printed, this deck was also built based on how excited I was to see this card - a Living Death for artifacts?! Sign me up!!!! Daretti can dump great cards into our graveyard and almost all the time our opponents at the table are going to not be playing a deck that could take advantage of this. Generally the worst case scenario is our opponents get back some mana rocks that died in a wipe, so unlike Living Death I use this card pretty regularly and early if my GY is stacked with gas.
Best R draw available IMO
Simple Magic facts: Drawing cards is good. Tutoring for cards is also good. More cards in Hand = More chances of winning.
Pro-Tip: Always remember to pay that 1 when Rhystic Study is in play, kiddos.
Faithless Looting: One of the best draw cards for R, thank you Wizards for printing this card. I used to think this card sucked because I got "negative advantage" from casting it the first time (essentially hand size decreases by -3 while we only get a +2 in cards, thus a net -1) but in reality filtering your deck is always a really, really, good thing to do. Now, remember Daretti's -2 ability as well, this card gives us access to a discard effect to just drop that Darksteel Forge into our graveyard and then cheat it into play many turns early.
Gamble: R's only "tutor for anything" card, with a little downside of randomly discarding something. However, remember Daretti's -2 ability... That discard is very easily recoverable...
Sensei's Divining Top: It pretty much never die, it filters the top 3 cards of our deck, and it comes into play on T1. Need I say more?
Quicksmith Genius: Artifacts come into play from this deck a lot, pretty close to all the time. Filtering the deck is nice, and if I am just netting land the entire time I will keep filtering those cards away until I get good cards.
Imperial Recruiter: The best mono-R creature tutor every printed. In a nutshell, this guy fetches for all my utility guys, except Karn, Silver Golem and Kuldotha Forgemaster, that this deck utilizes. More ways to get Goblin Welder into play is always a good thing, trust me.
Wheel of Fortune: Magic is often all about hand sculpting and setting yourself up for the later stages of the game. For me, I say screw that, let's have some chaos instead! If my hand is full of a bunch of artifacts, I will generally wheel early due to Daretti's -2 ability, but otherwise this card is awesome to use when I have few cards in hand, since it reloads me to a full hand again.
Kuldotha Forgemaster: The best artifact tutor available to R and X decks, this guy is the only way to cheat out Blightsteel Colossus into play other than casting him. The three artifact sacrifice is a deep cost, but often I am tutoring for a win-con, so sacrificing my mana rocks is usually what I am doing most games instead of my other good artifacts.
Memory Jar: Besides a draw engine, Memory Jar is almost a mill tool for this deck - I use this card during my turn to take advantage of the cards I just drew, but it can also be used in a pinch to dig for removal or responses to anything my opponents are doing.
Sandstone Oracle: A new addition to the artifact world, this creature has a high mana cost which makes it a little rough some games. But with how Daretti works regarding filtering, typically your hand will empty fairly quickly and need a bulk replenishment, which this creature does excellently. It gets even more ridiculous if we have a U player at the table drawing insane amounts of cards as well.
Removal and Control/Denial Cards
My favorite all-time artifact removal.
Don't like that card? Get rid of it!
How you ask? With Removal, duh!
Vandalblast: While it sucks being on the receiving end of this card in an artifact deck, there are often artifacts that need to die under an opponents control. Include the times Mycosynth Lattice is in play, and enjoy the many Vindicates you get!
Chaos Warp: R's tuck spell, with the cute effect of possibly netting a new permanent. This card is awesome to use on U players since they ususally whiff, but even if I want to save one of my cards from RFG, I have good odds of turning up something useful or just a land (which is what it usually is...)
Nevinyrral's Disk: A good wipe that doesn't kill Daretti, which is quite nice if we are trying to get his ult off later in the game. Have Darksteel Forge in play, and this will lock the board down quite nicely.
Duplicant: Speaking of ETB triggers, the best form of removal is RFG removal. Duplicant is a great way to deal with anything troublesome. He has grown a lot in popularity over the years, so if you haven't joined the club yet you should.
All is Dust: Considering how many cards this deck runs are colorless, All is Dust is a great way to sweep away our opponents boards while keeping our good stuff intact. This card is one of the few ways for people to deal with a protected (shrouded/hexproofed) Avacyn, Angel of Hope. Also, remember that this card is pretty bad when Mycosynth Lattice is in play...
Karn Liberated: I already run one Karn, might as well run both Karn's! This Karn though, is great at removing stuff from the game like Duplicant does. I honestly have never gotten his ultimate off, and probably never will, so if you get one activation of his RFG, it is still worth it.
Spine of Ish Sah: Spine is a good source of removal because with Daretti's -2, it just keeps coming back over and over again. It would be nice if it stayed in the GY once it got there, but beggars can't be choosers.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon: Ugin is disgusting in this deck. The +2 ability really can take care of most annoying utility creatures, but where Ugin shines is the -X ability. This ability clears the field of just about any enchantment or creature that is hindering this deck. Also, since we're mostly colorless anyways, the minus ability is pretty much a one-sided board wipe and the fact that it exiles the permanents means we can get rid of ridiculous indestructible/regeneration abilities that are keeping those permanents around. In regards to the ultimate, that doesn't need much of an explanation - it's just good. Don't expect to ever resolve it though, because people have just gunned for Ugin each time I've resolved it.
Blasphemous Act: A good board wipe that also doesn't hit Daretti. I usually end up only paying R for this spell due to the number of creatures in play at a given time, which makes it nice since we don't need to dump all our mana on the turn to wipe the board.
Control/Denial Cards
The best way to protect your board is to deny others the ability to mess with it.
Torpor Orb: ETB abilities can ruin artifact decks and in general are very common in Commander/EDH. For an example, Aura Shards is the bane of this deck and thankfully Torpor Orb completely neutralizes it. There are only a couple ETB abilities in this deck that will get hurt by this card.
Tangle Wire: Denial is an effective way to keep Daretti alive and well in this deck, and this guy does it best in the early stages of a game - nothing like forcing this in play on T4 and watching as my opponent taps all their lands. Also as the counters get low, this artifact makes for a great -2 since we've probably done a lot of digging with Daretti's +2 Late game, this card isn't too much of a beast, so it can be foddered away for Daretti's +2.
Mana/Land Acceleration and Non-Basic Lands
Mana/Land Acceleration
Mana Crypt: One of the best mana rocks in the game. I finally bit the bullet and ordered one and I can not tell you how explosive this card is. The random 3 damage does not even matter considering how fast this card lets Daretti and other Beaters hit the field - this equates to being ahead of everyone by 2 turns.
Mox Diamond: Another "free" mana rock - discarding a land can be meh, but with mulligans this should never really be a big issue. Big assistant at getting an early Daretti.
Mox Opal: 0 cost mana rock. Metalwork is normally an issue in some decks, but with this many artifacts it is easy to get this one online early.
Mana Vault: Early mana rock, usually exploited once and then used for Daretti's -2 if there is something good to grab. If I have an untap artifact card in play, I'll keep it around longer for sure.
Sol Ring: How is this card not banned yet.... I just don't get it....
Fellwar Stone: Either makes 1 or R if we are lucky, but it comes into play untapped and can be used right away on another artifact. Good at getting Daretti in play ASAP like most other 2 cost mana rocks.
Fire Diamond: One of my few mana rock R sources in the deck. It works well since it comes into play early, sometimes T1 with other rocks involved.
Grim Monolith: Similar situation as Mana Vault, early explosion, often sacrificed for Daretti's -2 if I want to exploit him early.
Mind Stone: A mana rock that can be sacrificed early if a wipe comes down, sounds good to me.
Darksteel Ingot: An indestructible mana rock. No one really wastes an RFG effect on it, so it will stick around most games.
Metalworker: Thank you for unbanning this card! I liked how they said a deck using him is usually "All in" to get the most out of him. On average, tapping him gives me 6, which is ridiculous on T2-T4, depending on how fast I can get him in play.
Hedron Archive: A new rock out of Battle for Zendikar, the tapping for 2 at the cost of 4 is nothing impressive, but the big attraction is the card draw. Having more sources to draw with this deck is never a bad thing.
Solemn Simulacrum: ETB trigger for a land, death is a card draw. Included in most all decks, so don't think too hard when adding him to your deck.
Gilded Lotus: The third R source rock. Can't say much more about it, a great mana rock used in many decks.
Lands
The utility lands - each does something a little more than just make mana for the deck.
Ancient Tomb: I personally do not care about the 2 damage, getting 2 per tap is definitely the nuts.
Bloodstained Mire: Fetch Land, works great at deck-thinning. Works even better with Crucible of Worlds.
Buried Ruin: Artifact recursion if I have no recursion available.
Darksteel Citadel: Counts as an Artifact, helps with early game Metalcraft for Mox Opal. Also good for Daretti's -2 ability.
Great Furnace: Same as Darksteel Citadel.
High Market: Sac outlet to prevent RFG effects and tucks for creatures. Always good to include in any deck.
Homeward Path: Ever been killed by your own Blightsteel? It happened to me once and I had to add this land to stop it...
Inkmoth Nexus: Infect is a real thing and having a 1/1 flier with it is nice. The activation also makes this into an artifact creature, allowing me to -2 with Daretti as needed or make this card ridiculously huge with sacrificing Arcbound Crusher.
Maze of Ith: Great at stopping any voltron strategies or big dudes that can cause problems.
Mikokoro, Center of the Sea: Card draw, always good!
Miren, the Moaning Well: Sometimes we need life, and we do have some big fatties that can get us that life if we want it
Phyrexia's Core: Sac outlet for artifacts, like High Market it helps prevent RFG's.
Strip Mine: Sometimes a land needs to die, this land enables that.
Thespian's Stage: Sometimes I want 2 copies of utility lands. Thus, I copy them.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth: Not a big deal, it turns some lands into actual mana tappers and prevents some lands from always hurting us. It can help opponents out a lot, so be careful when you play it.
Wooded Foothills: Fetch Land #2 - See Bloodstained Mire for the details...
Playing the Deck - Tips and Tricks
The best tutor this deck will ever have.
Like all of my decks, this deck was built to have fun when you are piloting it - sure, winning is fun, but as you can tell from my list it wasn't filled with all those nasty STAX cards that would protect Daretti and let him stay alive until his ultimate goes off. There are also not that many combo pieces and infinite combos in this deck - that was all done for a purpose: Infinite combos were not allowed in my last LGS's League, so there is no infinite mana with Basalt Monolith and Rings of Brighthearth (yet...) and there isn't a Staff of Domination to dump said infinite mana into (though I really should run that card anyways... *notes to self*...) - if you wanted infinite combos, you are in the wrong place. Go make a Karn, Silver Golem deck and enjoy those all of those infinite artifact combos.
So obviously since this deck uses a Planeswalker as a Commander, we are looking to win by using the creatures in this deck to deal 40 damage, or deliver 10 poison counters via Infect. Since there is really only one win condition available to this deck, it makes it pretty obvious the route we are going to go down. So when it comes to your opening hand, it isn't as easy as seeing "Oh, I can do X strategy instead of Y", for this deck there is an order of priority of cards you would like to see and keep. The following list is what I deem to be important to have in an opening hand:
1. Mana Rocks/Accel: Getting Daretti in early means he is more likely to stay alive. It is crucial to have one, if not 2, rocks in hand to speed Daretti's access to the table.
2. Removal: Since it is not common in the deck, it is nice to keep at least any removal card around if we drew into one. If we have multiple copies in hand, then I would keep one and partial the others.
3. Beatstick or Utility creature: Obviously we want something that can make a statement, maybe Wurmcoil Engine or Steel Hellkite, to get out in play early - either of these can let us be aggressive earlier or protect Daretti. Some of the late game Beatsticks are good to keep since they can also be cheated into play. Honestly the only two I would partial away immediately are the Colossi - Blightsteel Colossus and Darksteel Colossus - since they can't be placed in the GY and won't help much with the early game.
4. Card Draw: Daretti himself is a form of filtering, so having to ensure we keep a draw spell is often not necessary, thus why it is one of the lower priorities in an opening hand.
5. Control/Denial Cards: With filtering and tutors, we can dig for these cards - you need to have a board to protect to make these cards necessary, so don't keep them in hand if you don't have threats as well.
Obviously the above list is not set in stone: make your decision based off the decks you are playing against - if someone has a Voltron Rafiq of the Many, having removal or creatures available earlier becomes much more important than having mana rocks. Also, if you have a bunch of Removal and Mana rocks, don't be scared of taking a mulligan to see what you can get instead - this deck is fairly consistent on getting playable opening hands as long as you have an early R source of some sort (remember, we only need 1 R source for Daretti).
Step 1 - Get Daretti into play ASAP
So now that you have an idea of what type of hand you should have, the next trick is knowing what to do with it. In my experiences, the best thing to do is get Daretti into play as soon as possible. With this current list, there are three ways to get him into play T1, several ways to get him in play on T2, and many ways to get him in play on T3. To make you familiar of the different ways, the lists below contains the cards required to pull off a T1 or T2 Daretti:
T1:
Great Furnace + Mox Opal + Mana Vault or Mana Crypt
Mox Diamond + Mana Vault + Any land
Mana Crypt + Sol Ring or Grim Monolith + Mountain or Mox Opal
Note: Obviously this takes a ridiculously lucky hand, but understand any hand with Mana Crypt in it is going to allow this deck to explode. Take advantage of it and hope for the best for a T1, but T2 Daretti is also powerful, and easier to accomplish.
T2:
Sol Ring/Mana Crypt + 2 lands, one able to produce R
Mox Diamond + Any 2 CMC rock + 2 land drops, any mana color possible
Sol Ring/Mana Crypt + Voltaic Key + a R-source land
Mana Vault + a R-source land
Sol Ring + Grim Monolith + a R-source land
T3:
Any 2 cost or less Mana Rock + all 3 Land Drops
Since Daretti brings so much to the table, even if I have a good utility creature or artifact in hand, I find it more important to rush Daretti onto the field. The earlier he gets into play, the more likely he is to stick around in my opinion.
Step 2 - How to utilize Daretti and what Direction to Go
So, the Mid game gets a little bit tricky depending on how early Daretti was able to hit the table. In my world of EDH/Commander games, generally the first 3-5 turns of a game is all about each player tutoring/"deck massaging" and getting setup to start making their big plays. What that translates to us is if Daretti can come out really fast, going for his Ultimate is a possible move to make.
To break it down, here is a list of situations:
Once Daretti is in play, 99% of the time my first ability to use will be his +2 - honestly the only time I would -2 is if someone used Winds of Change on T1. What I discard with my +2 activations is entirely dependent on my board and hand - do I have a lot of land and mana rocks available? Then I would discard the lands and hope to draw into some good artifacts. Do I have any ridiculous artifacts in hand, such as Darksteel Forge, that will not be able to be cast for a long time? Discard that to setup the reanimation on the next turn. Also take a second to look at the board state - is everyone at the table ramping or are they dropping threats? Based on those situations, if everyone is ramping then feel free to put utility rocks in the GY, but if they are dropping threats, put some threats in there as well so that they can be used to counter their plays.
Based on what you discarded and what the others are doing at the table, the next turn's activation is entirely subjective. People generally begin to get concerned the more you use Daretti's -2 (which is always nice to use on a tapped Grim Monolith or Mana Vault), so make sure you are getting something good with the -2 or be able to use your ability to manipulate table politics in your favor to avoid the table ganging up on you.
So in summary: how we play around Daretti is very situational. Take some time to assess what the board state is like and how far the game is progressing - don't be afraid to "go for it" if you will, but be careful about overextending because it is difficult to recover with this deck if it gets all the hate when at the table.
Step 3 - Exploit some Combos and Creatures
So, obviously this deck doesn't just win by playing Daretti, though it is a huge part of how to pilot the deck. During the later (or early/mid parts of the game, depending on how ridiculous the opening hand was) part of the game there are several cards to enjoy utilizing to get the win.
There are not too many big tricks to doing the 40 points of damage to an opponent - it is just a matter of getting one of the strong artifact creatures in play, so I won't go into a bunch of detail on each artifact creature (if you want more details, go back to the individual card discussion). What I will point out is besides the obvious beaters, two good ones to utilize are Precursor Golem, Thopter Assembly, and Myr Battlesphere due to their token production. With the numerous ways to bring artifact creatures back from the graveyard to my hand or the battlefield, fielding an army of Golems, Thopters, or Myr Tokens can be the real deal.
A crazy good card in this deck is Mycosynth Lattice. Not only can Mycosynth Lattice make anything I want be used for Daretti's -2 ability, it also pairs well with several cards. Want to have a one-sided massive Vindicate? Mycosynth Lattice + Vandalblast. Want to one shot an opponent? Mycosynth Lattice + Hellkite Igniter. Want to be "that guy" and lock out my opponents from doing anything? Mycosynth Lattice + Karn, Silver Golem. Any artifact player knows the power of the Lattice, so don't be shocked if this card gets dealt with as soon as it comes into play.
Also with Daretti's -2 ability, Mindslaver locks become a real threat to this deck's opponents. It isn't infinite, thus I have it in the deck, but depending on how far the game has gone along, I have been able to control an opponent for 3 turns in a row on a couple of occassions. Taking control of a player's turn has a lot of potential, especially if that opponent is the one with the best board position.
Also a key card any point in the game is Kuldotha Forgemaster. Having three artifacts can be difficult if he is cast early, so usually it doesn't hit the table until the later phase of the game, but when this deck is in a pinch and needs that win-con ASAP - AKA: Blightsteel Colossus - there is no better way to grab the artifact needed than the Forgemaster. If we are lucky enough to have Rings of Brighthearth in play as well, a great board control combo is Darksteel Forge and Nevinyrral's Disk.
So another summary for you: This deck is not going to combo out all the time. I would suggest to be aggressive with the Beatsticks and try to focus on getting that 40 damage in on an opponent. Look to the ridiculous combos if you are fortunate to draw into it, but I would suggest not forcing tutors into making those combos happen since they alone do not facilitate wins.
Example Hands
Example #1
Cards: 2x Mountain, Darksteel Forge, Goblin Welder, Mind Stone, Mox Diamond, All is Dust
Status?: Keep, but can be risky.
Reasoning: The 2 lands allows for the deck to play Mind Stone on T2, or we can get risky and play the Mox Diamond right away and be @ 3 mana on T2. Most likely, given we would see 2 draws, this may get a land in hand and the T2 Daretti, but at worst it will probably be T4 unless you're that unlucky... I like having the forge available in hand to cheat into play to protect my board. All is Dust also acts as a problem solver if people go crazy fairly early.
Example #2
Cards: 2x Mountain, Sol Ring, Metal Worker, Trading Post, Combustible Gearhulk, Chaos Warp
Status?: Keep.
Reasoning: T3 Daretti will happen no matter what thanks to Metal Worker. I would honestly hold tight on casting Forcefield or Chaos Warp and would potentially toss on Daretti's first +2, just because if we drew into some explosive artifacts we could possibly play them on T4.
Example #3
Cards: 2x Mountain, Wurmcoil Engine, Unwinding Clock, Rings of Brighthearth, Steel Hellkite, Memory Jar
Status?: Mulligan.
Reasoning: There are no options for an early Daretti and we have very little mana. I would either toss 5 and keep a Mountain and Rings of Brighthearth or just dump the entire hand. There just isn't much to work with here.
Potential Difficulties When Playing
Obviously this deck has some weaknesses to it. From my experiences, these are several of the issues this deck can face when it is being piloted:
1. Artifact Hate - Most Notably Aura Shards, Vandalblast, Bane of Progress, and Shattering Spree: Some of the formats most prevelent cards are in that list right there. I wouldn't be shocked in almost any game, this deck could potentially face these cards. For the players packing the "come into play" hate cards, look to get Torpor Orb into play to shut those cards down. Otherwise, to just keep the artifacts alive, get Darksteel Forge or Soul of New Phyrexia in play, though the Soul needs a lot of mana to protect everything...
2. Counterspell type Control Decks: Like my other decks, I personally do not make my decks to be able to prevent counter spells. The creatures and utility artifacts can potentially be bad to some of my opponents, so some counter can fly in this direction. In this deck, there is no real way to prevent those counters, so the best course of action is to get some recursion engine online to bring the countered cards back from the GY. If you want to add more cards than what I use, look to add Myr Retriever or Junk Diver to the fold.
3. Decks that run Bribery, Acquire, or Sphinx Ambassador: When people find out this deck has Blightsteel Colossus and Darksteel Colossus in it, they always want to try to grab them from this deck. This list already has some ways of stopping this situation, via some of the artifact removal, but if steal effects are still haunting this deck, I would look to add a Homeward Path to get the card back or include Maze of Ith to prevent the combat damage from the creature. To make it a matter of emphasis, I had to add both of these lands into my deck due to other people adapting to this list. If your problems keep getting worse, add ways to tutor for these lands like Expedition Map.
4. "Captain Top-Deck" - Otherwise known as "Lack of Draw": So while Daretti does filter through the deck a lot, if we play everything we got from filtering with his +2, we run into an unfortunate wall. Cards like Howling Mine, Font of Mythos, Staff of Nin, or even Staff of Domination can provide more necessary draw power to keep this deck turning along. Like my other decks, my only advice is to limit the number of drawing cards you put in the deck since Daretti provides so much digging already.
5. Hellkite Tyrant: This creature get his own special section because of how effectively he can hose this deck. To be honest, there isn't much of a defense you can do to stop this guy other than hold a removal source in hand if you know you are playing against him. The best solution I can offer is this: If you have people that play with this guy in their decks, increase the amount of removal in this deck - cards like Starstorm and Banefire can do the 5 damage, or go with some good sorcery speed removal like Aftershock.
6. Artifact Exile Effects such as Return to Dust or Merciless Eviction: This deck does a good job of getting back artifacts that get destroyed, but like all decks in EDH/Commander, when good cards get removed from the game, we're pretty much hosed. In all honestly there are no real ways to stop the global exile effects, so it becomes important to be able to play around them. What I mean by that is this: Don't over extend with this deck. If you have a good thing going, such as a Mindslaver-lock or something, don't keep playing your bomb artifacts just because you can. Play a little bit conservative and you'll be able to live after a wipe like this goes off.
Notable Exclusions from the Deck
I'll start by discussing the really top dollar cards this deck would love, but I just don't have them due to money constraints:
Mishra's Workshop: 3 for artifacts doesn't help us with Daretti, but it is still a ridiculous land to drop that can be copied since it is non-legendary... The amount of broken possibilities is just too high to describe with this card...Pulled the trigger on this card, haven't complained yet lol... (though my wife almost killed me...)Bazaar of Baghdad: This land is awesome at filtering and setting Daretti up without having to use his +2 to do it. Pretty much you can filter, discard, and reanimate a crucial artifact all in one turn, which doubles the speed of this deck. Just insane...
Best part of weddings? Gifts. Best part of Nerd Friend? Nerd Friend Gifts. Another eye-roll from the wife accompanied this one, but thanks Brad!!!Imperial Recruiter: Of any card, this would probably be the first I buy from this group because it would enable me to filter for Goblin Welder, Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer, and Metalworker. Creature tutors are always good, this guy probably being the best option for mono-R.
Now for general stuff:
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker: Awesome at making copied creatures, but not great in this deck - I have few creatures I want to copy a lot, so this is more of a Win-More/Flair addition if I put him in.
Mindless Automaton: Decent card draw, but I find him a little too slow and also you pretty much are paying 4 to draw 1 card, which is a stiff cost and a bad trade imo.
Goblin Lore / Control of the Court: While the card advantage is obvious, my big issue with these cards is that they can discard away a lot of key cards at random. If this deck was more STAX/Combo, I would not have a problem with this since most of those cards can be recurred, but having to discard away my only beater I have can put this deck in a bind and take it from possibly winning to hoping to filter to a threat.
Ensnaring Bridge: Good Daretti protection, terrible for a combat deck where we like big dudes sometimes...
Ward of Bones: More protection, but imo this covers opponents just as well - no one wants the Zur player being able to lock down the game easier because we are not as fast as them.
Lodestone Golem: Excellent artifact control card, but this makes recasting Daretti (which always needs to happen in a game) even more difficult.
Thran Dynamo: This has come up several times because it is considered a staple artifact ramp, but the reason I do not run it is because I am more about utilizing early mana cards instead of later mana rocks. Dynamo's 4 cost is not helpful at ramping into Daretti, who will ramp me into better artifacts as the game goes on than Dynamo will.
Basalt Monolith: Not going for infinite combos makes Basalt a bad card....
STAX and MLD
It may not have come up much in this list, but it has come up quite often in the posts in this thread, but I am not a huge proponent of STAX. I prefer to control the game slightly, but I don't want to make it completely unplayable for others unless I am mauling them down in the process. That being said, the majority of the STAX core has been omitted for a reason.
ISBPathfinder made a good post that I'd like to quote regarding these cards in a post, so I will share his quote to represent the cards I will not be using in my own deck:
Besides that list, I'd also add:
Change Log
12/13/2014
In: Mirrorworks, Darksteel Colossus, Ugin's Nexus, Goblin Matron, Scuttling Doom Engine, Tomb of the Spirit Dragon
Out: Crawlspace, Ward of Bones, Myr Turbine, Hellkite Tyrant, Vedalken Orrery, Mountain
Reasons: A lot of the cards included were discussed in the thread so far, so I wanted to make homes for them. The cuts were because of the following reasons:
Crawlspace: Didn't protect Daretti well enough.
Ward of Bones: Slow to get out, didn't prevent someone from already beating into me if they had a big board.
Myr Turbine: Not enough Myr, better token makers out there.
Hellkite Tyrant: I really love this card, but I think too many people will see it and flip out about it. I will sideboard it in when I want to for certain games, but keep it out of the main deck to mitigate forum comments lol...
Vedalken Orrery: Not enough bang for the buck - I honestly don't need to instant cast much in this deck and I don't really care what other people are doing on their turns. This isn't a control deck really.
Mountain: Needed to make room for the Tomb.
1/21/2015
In: Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, Bloodstained Mire, Wooded Foothills
Out: Arcbound Reclaimer, 2x Mountain
Reason: Ugin definitely needed a spot and I have found I don't need much additional artifact recursion, so out goes the lessor one this deck has. The Fetch lands were added to give Crucible of Worlds more of a reason to be in the deck and also help with overall deck filtering.
2/15/2015
In: Precursor Golem, Thopter Assembly, Steel Hellkite, Tangle Wire, Inkmoth Nexus
Out: Pentavus, Serum Tank, Sculpting Steel, Ruination, Mountain
Reasons:
3/19/2015
In: Mana Crypt and Fellwar Stone
Out: Clock of Omens and Viashino Heretic
Reasons:
Really the crypt doesn't need much of an explanation - it is just good. Fellwar stone was added because I want to shift my rocks more into ramping to Daretti, so have 3 of the 2 rocks sounds better on paper. For cuts, Clock of Omens is more for artifact that like to tap and I am not running too many of those, so this has been a dead draw for me. Viashino Heretic was a flavor addition in this deck and while cute, isn't too on par with the theme, so I cut it as well.
5/18/2015
In: Akroma's Memorial and Mox Diamond
Out: Liquimetal Coating and Darksteel Ingot
Reasons:
Akroma's had been a playtesting card that worked really well - I was never sad to draw it. Liquimetal Coating on the other hand, was meh... It required too much of a setup and only benefites a couple cards, one being a card I cut in the past. Mox Diamond was added for more explosive plays early game and keeping the same count for rocks, I dumped Ingot off because it was really slow (even if it's one of my favorite cards...)
6/7/2015
In: Recoup
Out: Tawnos's Coffin
Reasons:
I hate seeing a really expensive card being cut from my list, but Tawnos's Coffin really was very situational in my list and not providing enough awesomeness on its own. Recoup is also situational however it has been great because it has allowed me to not have to hold onto my big spells all the time.
9/17/2015
In: Mishra's Workshop, Maze of Ith, Forcefield, Ancient Tomb, Imperial Recruiter, Homeward Path
Out: Some stuff.... I honestly don't completely recall it all....
Reasons:
I am just going to refer to these deck changes as the "Dollar Dollar Bling" update, because really that's pretty much what happened... All of these cards are ridiculous in their own ways - Workshop is broken on a crazy level: I once did a T1 Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Workshop, into Tangle Wire.... Forcefield has been used to just simply protect myself time and time again from aggro decks, which helps me stabilize and recover that much better. Imperial Recruiter is just a better Goblin Matron in that it can get me Duplicant, Scarecrone, or Metalworker instead of just goblins. Ancient Tomb adds a little bit of ramp into the deck. The other lands are simply there to stop me from dying to my own Blightsteel lol...
10/04/2015
In: Hedron Archive
Out: Thran Dynamo
Reason: Thran hasn't really been a clutch mana rock in this deck, so I am willing to change it out with the new 4 drop rock. The draw two card function can be very necessary with this deck when I need to reload my hand, so I am excited to see how this plays out long term.
11/19/2015
In: Sandstone Oracle and Contagion Engine
Out: Worn Powerstone and Contagion Clasp
Reason: Engine is a just straight upgrade over Clasp, so not much to add there. I am wanting to see how Oracle works, so I took out my least favorite mana rock to make an easy cut. Powerstone's CIPT effect made it provide less impact than needed, so it was an easy cut for me.
02/18/2016
In: All is Dust
Out: Stranglehold
Reason: I had been play testing All is Dust for awhile and found it to be a very good sweeper against a majority of my opponents. To replace it, I originally cut out Strangehold because I didn't find myself facing people taking multiple turns anymore and it was too slow to stop the early game tutors. Since it has been cut, I haven't missed it so I am content cutting it out for good.
04/30/2017
In: Combustible Gearhulk, Quicksmith Genius, Aetherworks Marvel
Out: Forcefield, Blood Moon, Blinkmoth Urn
Reason: Formalizing the changes I made a bit ago, so these aren't really 'new'. The 3 cards I formally added where what I enjoyed significantly from Kaladesh. The cuts were because more often one card was irrelevant (Forcefield), one was too 'hatey' in my new store (Blood Moon), and one provided ramp that was a little late/unnecessary (Blinkmoth Urn). The additions are spelled out inside the thread and card discussions, so see those sections for the major details
Last but not least...
I would like to say thanks for taking the time to read this Decklist. I hope you find it enlightening and a fun deck to play around with yourself. I have thoroughly enjoyed the deck and look forward to any suggestions or comments you have regarding it!
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No particular reason, I used to just find it clunky because I would usually waste a turn to cast it, but now with Daretti being able to bring it into play earlier than expected, I see value in it again. I'll add it to my list of things to try and work in as cuts are made!
Good point on Fellwar Stone, my only issue is sometimes I really do need that R mana to do certain things, and I might not get that for sure with the Stone. I agree with Myr Turbine, so I am honestly looking to get a Myr Matrix instead, which would fit the same role as what I use Turbine for.
Okay, I'll address this all in bullet points...
I need to read cards better.... I'll fix that comment, thanks for the catch!
I knew there was a better option, I just completely forgot the card name! I'll try to trade locally for it or go out and order it on my next card order
I agree with the poster who got back to you, Summoner's Egg is better due to the ease of getting rid of artifacts. Clone shell is just too situational and hard to setup.
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I can vouch for the arbiter though, amazing card for controlling the game.
And yes, I am definitely getting an arbiter when I find one, or I am going to order one once the holidays are over. It will definitely keep Daretti protected for many turns.
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Only reason I know about this card is because I looked at your list
Yes you are right, it came up the other night, but really the likelihood of that staying around for awhile is slim to none, thus I pretty much consider that win-con unlikely/next to impossible in any given game lol. In regards to your question on Crucible, yes I would increase the land count to 38ish if I didn't have it in my deck. I will often loot early with Daretti and toss my lands into the yard, which makes playing Crucible early to immediately make land drops from my GY. If I wanted to really pimp the deck out, I would throw in copies of all Mountain fetch lands to make my deck thinning even more powerful.
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Also as a sidenote, I am slowly filling out the other sections of the decklist (with the goal of being a Primer someday), so if you see anything weird in those sections let me know! I have a tendency to work on decks when I am close to going to bed, so it might not make much sense LOL
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The other card I've been running that I can't seem to find in anyone else's decklists so far is Mindless Automaton. Again, post emblem, he's at bare minimum, drawing you an extra card during every person's turn. He's also a cheap discard outlet, where you can basically exchange two cards from your hand for an extra card off the top. He also puts artifacts you want to cheat into play, into the graveyard for you. Just a solid investment, and easily worth the 4 mana.
I have found that using every possible resource to get Daretti into play on turn 3 will give you a very good chance of getting the emblem. I also run a few proliferate-type cards, so it's entirely possible to have the emblem in play by turn 6. Generator Servant can help you get Daretti into play on turn 3. Ancient Tomb is totally worth taking the hit for, in order to get Daretti down on turn 3. Of course, Sol Ring gets him into play on Turn 2.
I've been trying out a few Flashback effects in the deck, so I'm not fearful of discarding those cards, when I don't have great artifact choices to discard. Seize the Day is great, to get that second attack in with Hellkite Igniter or Megatog. Recoup gets you back a copy of Scrap Mastery, in case it's not a great choice to cast it when you first see it in your hand. Basically, these cards make everything in your hand expendable. To take advantage of that, I am also running Burning Inquity as a sort of hand-refill/opponents hand-disruption spell.
Of course, these are all a bit more 'kitchen-table' casual game suggestions, but hopefully, they'll help in some way.
Clearly not OP here but let me just give you some suggestions of cheap cards that make the deck much better:
Mirrorworks
Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer
Kudoltha Forgemaster
Darksteel Forge
Kudoltha Pheonix
Anyways, Responses!!!
A lot of cards you suggested are somewhat already accounted for in this deck by other cards and I do appreciate the more 'kitchen-table' suggestions
Megatog is accounted for by me running Hellkite Igniter, Arcbound Crusher, Blightsteel Colossus, and Darksteel Colossus (recently added). Another beatstick creature added to the list would take away from something else, which is why I would shy away from including Megatog.
Mindless Automaton seems a little unnecessary for this deck due to what Daretti does already. Since Daretti is the Commander, and thus consistently available any game, I would find including Mindless Automaton as a waste of a card slot :/
I have yet to run into an issue getting Daretti into play earlier than T4 - My count of mana rocks is consistent enough to get him T3 almost any game, T2 some games, and T1 rarely. Just to spitball, I would say it is broken down like this - and no, this is not mathematically proven in any way lol...
Flashback effects could be nice to include, but I am more "All-In" on artifacts here for this deck. I don't run too many spells that I necessarily need again, it is more about grabbing back permanents from my library. That being said, I am starting to think Warp World would be hillarious...
*nods in agreement*
I disagree here - Slobad is amazing at protecting key pieces of my deck. I would never think to cut him based on the protection he brings to the table.
He named a lot, but a couple more to think of would be Trading Post and Arcbound Crusher are both cheap and very durable cards besides the ones he listed.
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Sydri's Magical Castle WUB
Chainer, Dementia Master: "Bring out your dead!" BBB
Riku Because Copying Decimate URG
Xira Arien, Jund StaxBRG
The Sylvan-Primordial-PlasmBUG
Trostani ComboGW
Vizkopa Guildmage - Peasant VariantBW
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RW Aurelia, The Warleader --- R Daretti, Scrap Savant --- RUB Thraximundar
Crawlspace is weak in my opinion. To me it reads: "aggro decks can still beat you up." Perhaps silent arbiter might work better.
Burnished hart has been great for me. Last game I had skullclamp on it and rings of brighthearth and valakut in play. When I sacked the hart I put 4 mountains on the battlefield, drew 2 cards, and cast 4 lightning bolts. Obviously it won't always be that good but still, at worst its usually a blocker that fetches 2 mountains.
goblin welder and slobad are very strong in this deck. I know the recruiter is expensive but I would at least include goblin matron to tutor for them. I'd add kiki jiki too.
Skullclamp has been outstanding card draw for me. Not just for 1/1's but for all those artifact creatures that end up going in the graveyard with welder-type shenanigans.
I notice your write up mentions darksteel colossus. You might want to delete that since it isn't in your decklist.
My G Yisan, the Bard of Death G deck.
My BUGWR Hermit druid BUGWR deck.