Hello, this deck is my attempt at a mono color commander deck. I've always wanted to play an artifact-centric deck...and I also wanted to play storm. However, I haven't constructed a deck that incorporates the two themes into a single, coherent strategy.
This is a side project of mine while I'm building my The Ur-Dragon deck. It is made with left over cards (because I don't want to spend more) and as such, its power level suffers a little bit. This is still an untested list and feedback and comments are always welcome.
Lu Xun, Scholar General is a very unassuming commander that could easily get under everyone's radar. He is a card advantage engine with the added bonus that he can get you a lot of cards in very short order. The nice thing about his triggered ability is that it is something we can improve via cards like Fireshrieker, Tandem Lookout, Coastal Piracy, [c]Curiosity[c], and the like. By improving his card drawing capabilities, we can be sure that we'll somehow draw into our win conditions, given time. This also reduces the need for tutors, which leads to variance and fun in games.
I originally built the deck with the Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter + mana rocks combo. The problem I see with relying on that combo is that we need those exact two cards to come up so I tried to find ways to get them, with tutors. However, I've found Paradox Engine to be a much decent version of Dramatic Reversal. With this in mind, I crafted the deck around the card and had the artifact theme of the deck as "mana rocks".
With a decently large number of mana rocks, we can easily cast very expensive spells such as Enter the Infinite to use as a game-ender. I don't like the cheesiness of a Laboratory Maniac win so I intentionally excluded him from the list. The next best alternative I've found is to win the turn you cast Enter the Infinite with either decking all opponents or by using storm to win. Mind's Desire as well as Temporal Fissure come to mind. However, I found them to be just game enders. They are good when that is your intention, but they are bricks when we draw into them early on. I'd pretty much prefer most of the cards in the deck to be somehow useful at nearly all stages of the game. Then came the combos, which are somewhat explained in detail below.
The deck has some pillowfort elements to protect us from earlier onslaughts. Meekstone doesn't hinder us as much as it does opponents, while Propaganda and Crawlspace are pretty much self-explanatory. Since we're running blue, I figure some counterspells would go a long way. I chose counterspells with multiple uses - card draw (Arcane Denial) and buyback (Spell Burst).
That's it for now. I'm still going to go and test the deck and hope that it's going to be fun to play with and against. I feel like the deck would like a solid plan B if everything fails. If you have any suggestions or thoughts, please do let me know.
After a couple goldfishing sessions, these are the cards that need to be cut:
1. Prophetic Prism - just not the kind of mana rock the deck wants
2. Coral Atoll - tempo killer and is often not worth it
3. Syncopate - I could easily just run another cheaper and more reliable counter in that slot
And the list of cards I'm keeping my eye on:
1. Trophy Mage - tutoring is rarely necessary, might as well be another rock or another card draw spell
2. Condescend - I thought having a couple of "X" counterspells would be fun, turns out they were more liabilities than assets
3. Coastal Piracy - I find this card to be somewhat slow, could it be that this card can be replaced with another draw spell?
Bident of Thassa, Coastal Piracy, Curiosity don't seem good in this deck. Too few creatures and too much riding on your commander getting into the red zone.
Hello. Thank you for the suggestions. I have been testing the deck these past few days and have changed the deck little by little. The OP has been edited to contain the latest decklist.
Unfortunately, I don't feel like spending much money on the deck, so most things suggested (like Academy Ruins and Unwinding Clock) are just out of the price range. Trinket Mage I agree though. I tried looking for a Grand Architect around here but I just can't seem to find any. Would Renowned Weaponsmith fir the bill?
As much as I'd like to include a lot of "draw X cards" type of spells, the only good one I found lying around was Pull from Tomorrow.
What do you think of the following cards? Will they be somewhat useful?
Hello. Thank you for the suggestions. I have been testing the deck these past few days and have changed the deck little by little. The OP has been edited to contain the latest decklist.
Unfortunately, I don't feel like spending much money on the deck, so most things suggested (like Academy Ruins and Unwinding Clock) are just out of the price range. Trinket Mage I agree though. I tried looking for a Grand Architect around here but I just can't seem to find any. Would Renowned Weaponsmith fir the bill?
As much as I'd like to include a lot of "draw X cards" type of spells, the only good one I found lying around was Pull from Tomorrow.
What do you think of the following cards? Will they be somewhat useful?
I hate letting opponents draw, unless its killing them. Myojin of Seeing Winds, Overflowing Insight, Recurring Insight are in the $1 price range and are excellent sources of draw with big mana.
I've played Thopter Spy Network in a few decks and its been a bit slow. You really need other artifact creatures to warrant it.
I don't think Storm is a practical format if you're not willing to pay for at least some key cards. That, and it isn't viable IMO in mono-blue.
I mean no offence, but the only thing making your deck storm is AEtherflux Reservoir. If that card dies - and it really is a very good card, but it's still just one card - you are in big trouble!
In case you really want to play storm, though, there are plenty of EDH decks that already exist. I run Mizzix storm myself! There's even mono G storm involving The Great Aurora, led by Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury. Who would have believed???
So I suggest you read around some. There are lots of different threads discussing storm in EDH, and there are several of them that don't require Candelabra of Tawnos to win. Either way, it's best for you to know what works in storm if you want to run it!
However, your deck seems like a pretty good artificer deck. There are very good artifact-support cards in blue, and many of them don't cost a lot. How about considering changing your deck philosophy?
In an artificer deck, Thopter Spy Network is a pretty good card, as is Bident of Thassa, Sharding Sphinx, etc. Darksteel Forge and Nevinyrral's Disk are both good cards in an artificer deck, but together they are really awesome.
You even have a good artificer commander in your list - Padeem, Consul of Innovation. Why not just try switching them and see what happens?
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Hello, this deck is my attempt at a mono color commander deck. I've always wanted to play an artifact-centric deck...and I also wanted to play storm. However, I haven't constructed a deck that incorporates the two themes into a single, coherent strategy.
This is a side project of mine while I'm building my The Ur-Dragon deck. It is made with left over cards (because I don't want to spend more) and as such, its power level suffers a little bit. This is still an untested list and feedback and comments are always welcome.
Decklist
1x Lu Xun, Scholar General
Artifact (28)
1x Aetherflux Reservoir
1x Astral Cornucopia
1x Basalt Monolith
1x Bident of Thassa
1x Commander's Sphere
1x Darksteel Ingot
1x Dreamstone Hedron
1x Everflowing Chalice
1x Fireshrieker
1x Hedron Archive
1x Inspiring Statuary
1x Lightning Greaves
1x Meekstone
1x Mind Stone
1x Paradox Engine
1x Rogue's Gloves
1x Sapphire Medallion
1x Skeleton Key
1x Sky Diamond
1x Sol Ring
1x Star Compass
1x Swiftfoot Boots
1x Sword of the Animist
1x Thought Vessel
1x Thran Dynamo
1x Trading Post
1x Ur-Golem's Eye
1x Worn Powerstone
1x Arcane Denial
1x Blue Sun's Zenith
1x Brainstorm
1x Capsize
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Commit / Memory
1x Dig Through Time
1x Dramatic Reversal
1x Dream Fracture
1x Engulf the Shore
1x Evacuation
1x Psychic Spiral
1x Pull from Tomorrow
1x Spell Burst
1x Stroke of Genius
1x Whir of Invention
1x Whispers of the Muse
Creature (9)
1x Endbringer
1x Etherium Sculptor
1x Foundry Inspector
1x Padeem, Consul of Innovation
1x Psychosis Crawler
1x Shimmer Myr
1x Synod Artificer
1x Tandem Lookout
1x Vedalken Engineer
Enchantment (6)
1x Collective Restraint
1x Curiosity
1x Dissipation Field
1x Imprisoned in the Moon
1x Thopter Spy Network
1x War Tax
1x Blighted Cataract
1x Buried Ruin
1x Darksteel Citadel
1x Encroaching Wastes
1x Faerie Conclave
1x Field of Ruin
1x Ghost Quarter
1x Halimar Depths
1x Inventors' Fair
20x Island
1x Mystifying Maze
1x Temple of the False God
Sorcery (7)
1x Ancestral Memories
1x Blatant Thievery
1x Enter the Infinite
1x Kefnet's Last Word
1x Mystic Speculation
1x Reverse Engineer
1x Serum Visions
Planeswalker (1)
1x Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
Some Explanations
Lu Xun, Scholar General is a very unassuming commander that could easily get under everyone's radar. He is a card advantage engine with the added bonus that he can get you a lot of cards in very short order. The nice thing about his triggered ability is that it is something we can improve via cards like Fireshrieker, Tandem Lookout, Coastal Piracy, [c]Curiosity[c], and the like. By improving his card drawing capabilities, we can be sure that we'll somehow draw into our win conditions, given time. This also reduces the need for tutors, which leads to variance and fun in games.
I originally built the deck with the Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter + mana rocks combo. The problem I see with relying on that combo is that we need those exact two cards to come up so I tried to find ways to get them, with tutors. However, I've found Paradox Engine to be a much decent version of Dramatic Reversal. With this in mind, I crafted the deck around the card and had the artifact theme of the deck as "mana rocks".
With a decently large number of mana rocks, we can easily cast very expensive spells such as Enter the Infinite to use as a game-ender. I don't like the cheesiness of a Laboratory Maniac win so I intentionally excluded him from the list. The next best alternative I've found is to win the turn you cast Enter the Infinite with either decking all opponents or by using storm to win. Mind's Desire as well as Temporal Fissure come to mind. However, I found them to be just game enders. They are good when that is your intention, but they are bricks when we draw into them early on. I'd pretty much prefer most of the cards in the deck to be somehow useful at nearly all stages of the game. Then came the combos, which are somewhat explained in detail below.
The deck has some pillowfort elements to protect us from earlier onslaughts. Meekstone doesn't hinder us as much as it does opponents, while Propaganda and Crawlspace are pretty much self-explanatory. Since we're running blue, I figure some counterspells would go a long way. I chose counterspells with multiple uses - card draw (Arcane Denial) and buyback (Spell Burst).
Graveyard recyclers (Commit // Memory, Psychic Spiral) I found to be necessary includes in case we mess up with our Enter the Infinite turn.
Combo
Primary Enablers:
1. Enter the Infinite - for tutor
2. Paradox Engine - for mana
Combos
Psychosis Crawler + Enter the Infinite
1. Cast Psychosis Crawler.
2. Cast Enter the Infinite.
3. Opponents lose a lot of life and you win.
With Paradox Engine out, the following combos are possible:
Enter the Infinite + Blue Sun's Zenith + Whispers of the Muse
1. Cast Enter the Infinite drawing your library and leaving 1 card in.
2. Cast Whispers of the Muse with buyback and draw the last remaining card on your library.
3. Cast Blue Sun's Zenith for x = 0, shuffling it into your library.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 as many times as desired.
5A. If you have Aetherflux Reservoir out, snipe each opponent with your infinite life.
5B. With infinite mana (from rocks and Paradox Engine), repeat step 2, then cast step 3 with x = 100 to deck each opponent out from the game.
Mystic Speculation + Aetherflux Reservoir
1. Cast Aetherflux Reservoir.
2. Cast Mystic Speculation with buyback.
3. Repeat step 2 as many times as desired.
4. Gain infinite life with Aetherflux Reservoir.
5. Snipe each opponent with your infinite life.
Afterword
That's it for now. I'm still going to go and test the deck and hope that it's going to be fun to play with and against. I feel like the deck would like a solid plan B if everything fails. If you have any suggestions or thoughts, please do let me know.
RBW Mardu Reveler
Commander:
UW Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper - One-Punch Griffin || UR Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain - Historic Tribal Superfriends
GR Omnath, Locus of Rage - Turbo Lands Spellslinger || WURBG Scion of the Ur-Dragon - Living Death Reanimator
BGonti, Lord of Luxury - Gonti's Midnight Party
Under Construction:
WGU Rubinia Soulsinger - Enchantress || RBGU Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder - Cascading Artifacts
RU Jhoira of the Ghitu - Dragonstorm Eldrazi || RU Mizzix of the Izmagnus - Spellslinger
WURBG The Ur-Dragon - Cloning for the Win || WGU Roon of the Hidden Realm - Creature Toolbox
RBGU Vial Smasher the Fierce Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix - Lots'a Combos || BW Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim - Reanimator Combo
WBGU Atraxa, Praetors' Voice - Modified Precon
BUR Nekusar, the Mindrazer || U Arcanis the Omnipotent - Artifact "Storm"
1. Prophetic Prism - just not the kind of mana rock the deck wants
2. Coral Atoll - tempo killer and is often not worth it
3. Syncopate - I could easily just run another cheaper and more reliable counter in that slot
And the list of cards I'm keeping my eye on:
1. Trophy Mage - tutoring is rarely necessary, might as well be another rock or another card draw spell
2. Condescend - I thought having a couple of "X" counterspells would be fun, turns out they were more liabilities than assets
3. Coastal Piracy - I find this card to be somewhat slow, could it be that this card can be replaced with another draw spell?
RBW Mardu Reveler
Commander:
UW Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper - One-Punch Griffin || UR Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain - Historic Tribal Superfriends
GR Omnath, Locus of Rage - Turbo Lands Spellslinger || WURBG Scion of the Ur-Dragon - Living Death Reanimator
BGonti, Lord of Luxury - Gonti's Midnight Party
Under Construction:
WGU Rubinia Soulsinger - Enchantress || RBGU Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder - Cascading Artifacts
RU Jhoira of the Ghitu - Dragonstorm Eldrazi || RU Mizzix of the Izmagnus - Spellslinger
WURBG The Ur-Dragon - Cloning for the Win || WGU Roon of the Hidden Realm - Creature Toolbox
RBGU Vial Smasher the Fierce Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix - Lots'a Combos || BW Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim - Reanimator Combo
WBGU Atraxa, Praetors' Voice - Modified Precon
BUR Nekusar, the Mindrazer || U Arcanis the Omnipotent - Artifact "Storm"
Seems like there is only a few pay off cards for all the artifact mana you have in the deck. I'd add some more draw cards, like Pull from Tomorrow, Brain Geyser, Mind Spring, Mystic Confluence. If can afford a Memory Jar as well. Other pay off cards can be Planar Portal, Planar Bridge.
Further cards I would put in:
Cards I'd take out:
Obviously only if you want to spend $$$ Mana Vault, Mana Crypt, Grim Monolith, Metal Worker
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
Unfortunately, I don't feel like spending much money on the deck, so most things suggested (like Academy Ruins and Unwinding Clock) are just out of the price range. Trinket Mage I agree though. I tried looking for a Grand Architect around here but I just can't seem to find any. Would Renowned Weaponsmith fir the bill?
As much as I'd like to include a lot of "draw X cards" type of spells, the only good one I found lying around was Pull from Tomorrow.
What do you think of the following cards? Will they be somewhat useful?
RBW Mardu Reveler
Commander:
UW Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper - One-Punch Griffin || UR Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain - Historic Tribal Superfriends
GR Omnath, Locus of Rage - Turbo Lands Spellslinger || WURBG Scion of the Ur-Dragon - Living Death Reanimator
BGonti, Lord of Luxury - Gonti's Midnight Party
Under Construction:
WGU Rubinia Soulsinger - Enchantress || RBGU Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder - Cascading Artifacts
RU Jhoira of the Ghitu - Dragonstorm Eldrazi || RU Mizzix of the Izmagnus - Spellslinger
WURBG The Ur-Dragon - Cloning for the Win || WGU Roon of the Hidden Realm - Creature Toolbox
RBGU Vial Smasher the Fierce Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix - Lots'a Combos || BW Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim - Reanimator Combo
WBGU Atraxa, Praetors' Voice - Modified Precon
BUR Nekusar, the Mindrazer || U Arcanis the Omnipotent - Artifact "Storm"
I've played Thopter Spy Network in a few decks and its been a bit slow. You really need other artifact creatures to warrant it.
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
I mean no offence, but the only thing making your deck storm is AEtherflux Reservoir. If that card dies - and it really is a very good card, but it's still just one card - you are in big trouble!
In case you really want to play storm, though, there are plenty of EDH decks that already exist. I run Mizzix storm myself! There's even mono G storm involving The Great Aurora, led by Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury. Who would have believed???
So I suggest you read around some. There are lots of different threads discussing storm in EDH, and there are several of them that don't require Candelabra of Tawnos to win. Either way, it's best for you to know what works in storm if you want to run it!
However, your deck seems like a pretty good artificer deck. There are very good artifact-support cards in blue, and many of them don't cost a lot. How about considering changing your deck philosophy?
In an artificer deck, Thopter Spy Network is a pretty good card, as is Bident of Thassa, Sharding Sphinx, etc.
Darksteel Forge and Nevinyrral's Disk are both good cards in an artificer deck, but together they are really awesome.
You even have a good artificer commander in your list - Padeem, Consul of Innovation. Why not just try switching them and see what happens?