MTG Salvation

So I've recently considered trying to build an edh deck with Karn, Silver Golem as the commander. My question is how hard is it to play with just artifacts in edh? While I am up for a challenge, I am concerned about just being completely destroyed by the rampant anti-artifact cards in my meta. Also, I am not really into infinite combos, but am aware that many Karn decks include several. Can anyone shed some light or experiences on the difficulity of playing a mono-brown, all artifact deck?

If your meta is really that heavy anti-artifacts, then it might not be a wise decision to build this deck as it'd be a poor meta choice. As for specific things to watch out for, Stony Silence and it's precursor Null Rod will be your greatest obstacles as they can(and most likely WILL) shut your deck down hardcore.

shattering spree. every deck with red in it. mono artofact seems too fragile.

Hardest part is the manabase. You'll end up using a bunch of fairly useless lands with abilities you probably won't use. Not having at least basics to fall back on hurts a lot.

And to add to the Null Rod topic; You also need to worry about nonbasic hate like Ruination, Blood moon, Primal Order, and the like. While blood moon doesn't hurt as much, you do lose all your land's abilities. Primal order kills in just a few turns and you don't have very much removal.

I've a friend that build a decent colorless deck but they are fragile. Main thing is just be fast and have tons of indestructable things.

If you can afford a workshop then yes. otherwise there's no reason.

Quote from darkeshrine

Hardest part is the manabase. You'll end up using a bunch of fairly useless lands with abilities you probably won't use. Not having at least basics to fall back on hurts a lot.

On the contrary. There are dozens of useful colorless lands. The biggest problems are affording Mishra's Workshop, figuring out what to sacrifice to Scorched Ruins, figuring out what to copy with Vesuva, and figuring out what to tutor with Expedition Map.

Here's my own list:


Blinkmoth Well is useful if you run cards like Howling Mine and Blinkmoth Urn in order to remove the symmetry from those cards. You can also use things like Clock of Omens or Lodestone Myr, but having a higher density is good, and it only takes a land slot. (And it still taps for mana.)

Eye of Ugin is a great choice even if you don't run any Eldrazi cards -- it tutors for any of your creatures!

Darksteel Citadel doesn't do anything special, but it is an artifact, so it works with things like Unwinding Clock and Clock of Omens.

Vesuva can become any land in play, and in a Karn deck, your entire mana base is useful nonbasics.



The only time I've felt any of these lands were a dead card were in situations where I would have felt a basic was just as dead. (ie: I wanted gas, not a land)

As a side note, I've noted every card in this thread to use against you and will.. Just for kicks.

(Styx and I are in the same meta)

Mmm vandalblast so good fur you chill.

Karn's a blast. Click my sig to see my list and read the primer-y bits. It's the reason I got back into magic.

The viability of the deck is based on two factors:

1) The desire of people in your playgroup to completely hose players entirely.
2) the number of people in your playgroup.

We've got a few bad sports in our playgroup and if someone shuts me out with null rod (I've never seen one in 1-2,000 games) I'd probably just pick up my cards and take out my binder and trade with other people in the middle of the game - barring that, I'll just hop on my smartphone and quietly surf the web while they continue playing - but I refuse to sit there and pout - my time's too valuable for that. This rarely ever happens, though. Often times (especially if you really know the deck) people won't stop me just to let the contraption run and see what it does. The deck is always really fun to play and has enabled some of the most memorable games I can remember.

EDIT: Let me explain on point 2. The fewer people you have in your playgroup and the fewer decks you play between you, the more likely you are to incur hate cards (or complete hose-age) for karn - because it's an easy target and for some people if they can't win, they'll settle on ruining someone else's time.

I do see people who join one of our massive games occasionally that are unfamiliar with everyone's playstyle and they will target me when I'm far from the most dangerous person at the table - just because I've got all the scary silver/brown cards out.

I have 6 different decks I play edh with. I suggest having multiple decks so someone can't hose you based on your sleeves. Also play with good sports - it makes it all around much more fun.

I had a Karn EDH for a while. If built correctly, its really strong and really fast. . . I took it apart because there's a lot of artifact destruction in my meta, and every U deck started running Back to Basics.

Quote from Lithl

On the contrary. There are dozens of useful colorless lands. The biggest problems are affording Mishra's Workshop, figuring out what to sacrifice to Scorched Ruins, figuring out what to copy with Vesuva, and figuring out what to tutor with Expedition Map.

Here's my own list:

darkeshrine's DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Produces Extra Mana (10) 1 Ancient Tomb 1 City of Traitors 1 Crystal Mine 1 Mishra's Workshop 1 Scorched Ruins 1 Springjack Pasture (also creates tokens) 1 Temple of the False God 1 Urza's Mine 1 Urza's Power Plant 1 Urza's Tower Land Destruction (3) 1 Dust Bowl 1 Strip Mine 1 Tectonic Edge	Manlands (6) 1 Blinkmoth Nexus 1 Dread Statuary 1 Inkmoth Nexus 1 Mishra's Factory 1 Mutavault 1 Zoetic Cavern Sacrifice Outlets (2) 1 Miren, the Moaning Well 1 Phyrexia's Core Recursion (3) 1 Buried Ruin 1 Haunted Fengraf 1 Petrified Field Defense/Tokens (5) 1 Maze of Ith 1 Mystifying Maze 1 Quicksand 1 Springjack Pasture (also adds extra mana) 1 Urza's Factory	Special Activated Abilities (5) 1 Blinkmoth Well 1 Deserted Temple 1 Eye of Ugin 1 Homeward Path 1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea Other (3) 1 Darksteel Citadel 1 Reliquary Tower 1 Vesuva

Blinkmoth Well is useful if you run cards like Howling Mine and Blinkmoth Urn in order to remove the symmetry from those cards. You can also use things like Clock of Omens or Lodestone Myr, but having a higher density is good, and it only takes a land slot. (And it still taps for mana.)

Eye of Ugin is a great choice even if you don't run any Eldrazi cards -- it tutors for any of your creatures!

Darksteel Citadel doesn't do anything special, but it is an artifact, so it works with things like Unwinding Clock and Clock of Omens.

Vesuva can become any land in play, and in a Karn deck, your entire mana base is useful nonbasics.



The only time I've felt any of these lands were a dead card were in situations where I would have felt a basic was just as dead. (ie: I wanted gas, not a land)

Looking at your list, 5 of those didn't exist when i constructed mine. I ran both the Urza-tron lands and Cloudpost/Vesuva, but it was so rare for me to ever get them on line that they were almost basics without the support(fetch, ramp, etc). Dread Sanctuary is just terrible, solely because it stays a creature until someone decides to kill it. Workshop is absurdly expensive and i don't think it'll ever be within budget for a player with almost any budget at all. City of traitors is pretty terrible within the first few turns, because that's when you'll need to hit the most land drops, and terrible later in the game because the extra mana just isn't as important anymore. Quicksand is almost a basic, in that most of the things you'd want to kill with it don't attack, and that it's ability requires sacrificing a land. Mutavault doesn't really help beside being a 2/2 when you need one. Mutavault doesn't become an artifact and its changeling thing never does anything in a colorless deck unless your running one of a few really bad cards that at most boost it just slightly.

Karn can be very good. It tends to ramp very quickly, as there is a lot of very powerful artifact ramp and the fact that things like Sol Ring don't produce colored mana is not a hindrance in a colorless deck. Stax seems to be the best overall strategy for Karn, though he is definitely most effective with infinite combos (of which there are many), so I don't know how good the deck would be without them.

Quote from darkeshrine

Dread Sanctuary is just terrible, solely because it stays a creature until someone decides to kill it.

Um... no it doesn't. I think you're thinking about Stalking Stones -- and there's a reason Stalking Stones isn't in my list.

Quote from darkeshrine

Workshop is absurdly expensive and i don't think it'll ever be within budget for a player with almost any budget at all.

Agreed, it's expensive... but it's also probably the best damn land you can have for a Karn/Ulamog/Kozilek EDH deck. There are a whooping three nonartifact spells in my deck, so it's hard to argue against the value it gives.

Quote from darkeshrine

City of traitors is pretty terrible within the first few turns, because that's when you'll need to hit the most land drops, and terrible later in the game because the extra mana just isn't as important anymore.

You'd be surprised how useful City of Traitors can be. T1 City of Traitors into a few mana rocks can be just dumb, Crucible makes the self-sacrificing almost negligible, and City is an excellent land to sacrifice to Scorched Ruins. And don't forget you can tap it before playing the next land (or even in response to the trigger) to float the before you lose it.

Of course, its usefulness largely depends on what's in your hand, but I've found the key to a successful colorless EDH deck is an explosive start.

Quote from darkeshrine

Quicksand is almost a basic, in that most of the things you'd want to kill with it don't attack, and that it's ability requires sacrificing a land.

Strip Mine requires a sacrifice, too, and I don't see you complaining there. It's true Quicksand isn't going to take out some huge beater, but it can make the difference in combat, and there are x/2 creatures that swing regularly -- Thada Adel, Acquisitor, for example.

Quote from darkeshrine

Mutavault doesn't really help beside being a 2/2 when you need one. Mutavault doesn't become an artifact and its changeling thing never does anything in a colorless deck unless your running one of a few really bad cards that at most boost it just slightly.

Yeah, it's a 2/2. It also only costs 1 to animate, it's a Blinkmoth so it can be buffed by Blinkmoth Nexus, it's an Assembly-Worker, so it can be buffed by Mishra's Factory, and it doesn't ETB tapped unlike so many other manlands.

But more than that, my Karn deck is fairly creature-light; Karn can animate noncreature artifacts for a turn, but the manlands are nice security.



EDIT:
Also, Expedition Map makes Urzatron or Temple/Ruins easy to assemble. Mirrorworks and/or Rings of Brighthearth make it easier still. And it's pretty easy to recur, to repeat the process all over again. (I've actually had games where I completely empty my deck of lands in a single turn solely because of Expedition Map, then Goblin Charbelcher three opponents at once FTW.)

Quote from Burntgerbil

Karn's a blast. Click my sig to see my list and read the primer-y bits. It's the reason I got back into magic.

The viability of the deck is based on two factors:

1) The desire of people in your playgroup to completely hose players entirely.
2) the number of people in your playgroup.

We've got a few bad sports in our playgroup and if someone shuts me out with null rod (I've never seen one in 1-2,000 games) I'd probably just pick up my cards and take out my binder and trade with other people in the middle of the game - barring that, I'll just hop on my smartphone and quietly surf the web while they continue playing - but I refuse to sit there and pout - my time's too valuable for that. This rarely ever happens, though. Often times (especially if you really know the deck) people won't stop me just to let the contraption run and see what it does. The deck is always really fun to play and has enabled some of the most memorable games I can remember.

EDIT: Let me explain on point 2. The fewer people you have in your playgroup and the fewer decks you play between you, the more likely you are to incur hate cards (or complete hose-age) for karn - because it's an easy target and for some people if they can't win, they'll settle on ruining someone else's time.

I do see people who join one of our massive games occasionally that are unfamiliar with everyone's playstyle and they will target me when I'm far from the most dangerous person at the table - just because I've got all the scary silver/brown cards out.

I have 6 different decks I play edh with. I suggest having multiple decks so someone can't hose you based on your sleeves. Also play with good sports - it makes it all around much more fun.

I was hoping you would post here in this thread because now I can go and find your Karn list lol. I built a Dagsson deck, and while I have fun with tinkering my D-Forge, I always felt that I needed moar artifacts(kind of have a thing for artifacts). My friends even agreed, Karn IS the deck for me, my very identity even(even easier on MTGO since things liek Candelebra and Workshop are a bit easier to get).

Awesome ! Welcome to the fold, I guess. You can always find my deck under Edh> multiplayer commander decklists.

I suggest to build your first version of it and get a bunch of games under your belt to better know which particular cards work best with your group and your playstyle. Feel free to chime in over at my thread if you ever have any questions.

The mana base is only difficult because most of the lands are rare. I ran an Emerakul deck a while ago and I was running garbage like panoramas. Basically any non-basic that didn't come into play tapped was fair game. If you have the cash to use only the good colorless lands then mana really isn't that big a deal. A much bigger problem is your real lack of anything resembling efficient draw/removal. When your best draw is like minds eye and you're best removal is Brittle Effigy... Well you run into some problems with being able to do more than one thing a turn.

Quote from Lithl

Here's my own list:

Forgotten One's DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Produces Extra Mana (10) 1 Ancient Tomb 1 City of Traitors 1 Crystal Mine 1 Mishra's Workshop 1 Scorched Ruins 1 Springjack Pasture (also creates tokens) 1 Temple of the False God 1 Urza's Mine 1 Urza's Power Plant 1 Urza's Tower Land Destruction (3) 1 Dust Bowl 1 Strip Mine 1 Tectonic Edge	Manlands (6) 1 Blinkmoth Nexus 1 Dread Statuary 1 Inkmoth Nexus 1 Mishra's Factory 1 Mutavault 1 Zoetic Cavern Sacrifice Outlets (2) 1 Miren, the Moaning Well 1 Phyrexia's Core Recursion (3) 1 Buried Ruin 1 Haunted Fengraf 1 Petrified Field Defense/Tokens (5) 1 Maze of Ith 1 Mystifying Maze 1 Quicksand 1 Springjack Pasture (also adds extra mana) 1 Urza's Factory	Special Activated Abilities (5) 1 Blinkmoth Well 1 Deserted Temple 1 Eye of Ugin 1 Homeward Path 1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea Other (3) 1 Darksteel Citadel 1 Reliquary Tower 1 Vesuva

That's very good list to start from, but its missing some cards that the OP may want to consider:

High Market: Cheaper Sac outlet that Miren, although I can see running all three (Miren, Phyrexia's Core, and High Market)

Eldrazi Temple: If you are running Eye of Ugin, then this is also a must.

Glimmerpost/Cloudpost: Gives you something else interesting to copy with Vesuva

Arena: Depending on what you are running, this may be a better fit that Maze of Ith in the "doesn't produce mana" category.

Cathedral of War: Again, depending on what you are running you may want the Exalted trigger.

Rogue's Passage: Another card from a recent set that I think is one of the better lands recently printed for EDH.

Quote from Forgotten One

High Market: Cheaper Sac outlet that Miren, although I can see running all three (Miren, Phyrexia's Core, and High Market)

Huh. I could've sworn I put High Market in the deck, but I just looked back through and it's not there.

Quote from Forgotten One

Eldrazi Temple: If you are running Eye of Ugin, then this is also a must.

Only if you're running heavy on the Eldrazi spells. My deck has All is Dust and Ulamog; Ugin is there more for the ability to tutor any of my creatures (and the deck is relatively creature-light) than to make Eldrazi cheaper.

Quote from Forgotten One

Glimmerpost/Cloudpost: Gives you something else interesting to copy with Vesuva

I can see the attraction, but with so many choice targets for Vesuva, two locuses didn't seem worthwhile to me.

Quote from Forgotten One

Arena: Depending on what you are running, this may be a better fit that Maze of Ith in the "doesn't produce mana" category.

As I said, creature-light deck. I suppose I could animate an artifact with Karn and use it to fight, but I also don't own an Arena

Quote from Forgotten One

Cathedral of War: Again, depending on what you are running you may want the Exalted trigger.

Ew. ETB tapped? Exalted is not worth that.

Quote from Forgotten One

Rogue's Passage: Another card from a recent set that I think is one of the better lands recently printed for EDH.

I built the deck before RTR. Rogue's Passage might be worthwhile, especially if I get tired of Karn turning into a 0/8.

I'm assuming when you say mono-brown you mean all old bordered artifacts? It sounds cool but I think it would be extremely difficult to make a cohesive and powerful deck.

Quote from Naga"s Shadow

A much bigger problem is your real lack of anything resembling efficient draw/removal. When your best draw is like minds eye and you're best removal is Brittle Effigy... Well you run into some problems with being able to do more than one thing a turn.

It's really not that big a deal, since you're able to ramp so much more efficiently with colorless (:2mana: is generally considered about equal to 1 colored mana from a design perspective). Between mana rocks and untap effects, a colorless EDH deck should generally have more mana than any other deck at the table (perhaps excluding Azusa) unless someone goes infinite (and it's fairly easy for you to go infinite, too).

I run some incremental card draw; Sword of Fire and Ice, Howling Mine (with effects to tap it down, making it asymmetrical), Bottled Cloister. Some activated card draw; Serum Tank (I have never run out of charge counters on this thing), Tower of Fortunes, Skullclamp. Some self-sacrificing card draw; Memory Jar, Dreamstone Hedron. And, of course, Mind's Eye. It's hard to say what the best of the bunch is, although I would say it's actually Bottled Cloister overall. Not because it draws me the most cards, but because it also enables Ensnaring Bridge and Null Brooch to be used completely unfairly.

I disagree that Brittle Effigy is the best removal available. I think that honor goes to either All Is Dust, Nevinyrral's Disk, or Steel Hellkite. All three get around shroud/hexproof. All Is Dust gets around indestructible. All Is Dust and Steel Hellkite will not affect your board. Nev's Disk is simply unfair when paired with Darksteel Forge, and even worse if you add Unwinding Clock on top of that.

But Karn Liberated and Duplicant are both nice sources of exile other than Effigy. Oblivion Stone is another nice sweeper. Goblin Charbelcher and Triskelion both work as sources of burn. Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre and Spine of Ish Sah are both Vindicate effects, and the latter can be recurred with Phyrexia's Core or Krak-Clan Ironworks.

Quote from DTrain5742

I'm assuming when you say mono-brown you mean all old bordered artifacts? It sounds cool but I think it would be extremely difficult to make a cohesive and powerful deck.

Mono-brown usually means simply all artifacts, regardless of border. The name is based on the old border, but the meaning isn't.

I'd like to comment on Rogue's Passage -

In a game last week, It allowed me to let one opponent's general swing into another opponent unblocked. This knocked the one opponent out of the game and let me win handily shortly afterwards. It's these kinds of weird cases that get a card into my deck in the first place. It's likely it'll find a home in there.

My friend faced a similar conendrum. He wanted an artifact tribal deck, but wan't sure what to do with it. Karn was the 1st place he looked, but after thinking, he liked Glissa's recursion, but he also liked the two Tezzeret's interactions with artifacts. In the end, He went with Damia as a commander for draw and also Voltron possibilities and added the best cards in BUG to go with a deck full of artifacts. The deck is now mean and one of the strongest in my playgroup, if it is a BUG artifact goodstuff deck.

Regardless artifact based decks can work, especially if you have ways to get forge online fast.

Totally viable. If you want some good pointers, check out ruleofthumb’s Ulamog deck or the one I built a while ago based on his. To be honest, I pulled the deck apart because it was so hard to beat and no one in my meta wanted to play against it anymore