Hoarding Dragon and Thopter Spy Network both seem like great options. Spy Network spits out a new artifact every turn and draws you cards when you connect with any of your artifact creatures like Breya herself or the super necessary Steel Hellkite.
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I mean, I like Breya, but, I feel like her ability set is just a little bit too weak. I do run a thopter-tribal-ish deck, and I really want Breya to lead it (it's currently lead by Sharuum), but I'm not really sure how Breya contributes more than Sharuum.
I mean, I like Breya, but, I feel like her ability set is just a little bit too weak. I do run a thopter-tribal-ish deck, and I really want Breya to lead it (it's currently lead by Sharuum), but I'm not really sure how Breya contributes more than Sharuum.
I would say it depends on how you build Breya. I made a Sharuum deck in the past and made it to win in one two ways: typical Sharuum infinite combo or creating an army of expendable artifiact creature tokens to wreak havoc on opponents while protecting yourself. As such, I included things like Sharding Sphinx, Platinum Angel, Conjourer's Closet, Thopter Spy Network, Darksteel Forge for making everything that much harder to get rid of, Magister Sphinx to get your opponents nice and low and so on. Carrying over much of that to Breya but I can include R and RW.
As such I'll get access to Pia and Kiran Nalaar for more thopters, Scrap Mastery for more recursion, Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer for protecting vital artifacts, both versions of Daretti for utility, Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer for giving the thopters more punch and also Gisela, Blade of Goldnight. Gisela ups the firepower of the deck while mitigating damage aimed a me. Breya herself can also help in sparking off Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood quite easily. Heck, throw in a Dictate of Erebos just so when thopters start dying, your opponents really get the short end as your thopters were made to be plentiful and expendable while many of their's are not.
This is not even getting into all the infinite mana combos you can take advantage of or the sheer level of mana we can produce regularly. Breya may not have Sharuum sheer impact once she hits board but her colors and her ability to feed into various strategies should not be underestimated. Shoot, throw Sharuum and some of her combos in the deck just so you don't miss out on them.
Breya's deck is called "Invent Superiority". She was never really about being the most powerful thing on the board. She was about giving you the tools and resources to build up tactics and strategies that will give you the ability to adapt to most of what's thrown at you.
Breya's deck is called "Invent Superiority". She was never really about being the most powerful thing on the board. She was about giving you the tools and resources to build up tactics and strategies that will give you the ability to adapt to most of what's thrown at you.
It sounds like my Sharuum decks is much more token oriented, but has many of the same card choices (though, I don't play any infinite combos, my group frowns on it and I find it to be unfulfilling). I also play things like Whirler Rogue. I also try to make use of my tokens with cards like Steel Overseer, Master of Etherium, Chief Engineer, Mycosynth Golem and Cranial Plating (I'm still torn on Tempered Steel).
Breya is like a dream come true in that she generates tokens and does stuff with tokens, but, I don't really see it working as well as Sharuum. Part of what makes Sharuum dangerous is that I can table things like Darksteel Forge earlier than I would normally, making it really hard to clear the tokens away, or rezzing token-generators like Myr Battlesphere so I can recover much faster. Breya doesn't have the same impact. Your suggestion is that I 'invent superiority', as though I wasn't playing an adaptable and powerful set of cards already. Yeah, I got that part, but I guess I don't see where the red cards are going to push this over the edge, especially if I'm giving up reliable access to Sharuum for... Breya. I'll buy that playing with Jor Kadeen might be fun, though.
Your suggestion is that I 'invent superiority', as though I wasn't playing an adaptable and powerful set of cards already.
Whoa. I was not implying anything of the sort. I'm sorry if I came off that way. I was more expressing how while Breya is not as powerful as Sharuum on her own, she can still give you access to everything Sharuum has and then some as she has access to all the colors that majorly deal with artifacts in some capacity.
Yeah, I got that part, but I guess I don't see where the red cards are going to push this over the edge.
That's perfectly fine. Everyone has their own view of things and what they value for their decks.
I like Breya specifically because she's not Sharuum. Don't get me wrong, I like winning, but when I'm winning a five-player free-for-all with every other player turned against me? It might be a bit too strong. I want a swingier Artifact Deck anyway, and Breya lets me turn my creatures sideways.
Rather than start a new thread, I will reply here.
I agree that of the four color commanders and decks, this one strikes my fancy the most as well. In terms of flavor, I feel this was a home run. Not a grand slam, but certainly a home run. The Esper shard with all of its artifact/etherum goodness + Red, as opposed to just WUB+ R was a good call. Izzet is also already the steam punk guild. I can't over state how happy I am with this from the Vorthos side of things.
The commander herself can combo out with Nim Deathmantle + Ashnod's Altar. If you don't know the combo, you simply sacrifice a thopter to Ashnod's Altar for 2, then Breya for an additional 2 and use that total of 4 to pay for the triggered ability of Nim Deathmantal. That will return your commander to play with two more thopters, resulting in +1 thopter each time you do this. You can then use a million thoptors to add two million colorless mana, which can then be fed back into Breya's first choice dealing 3 million damage and winning the game.
It seems that when playing Esper, and often times commander in general, combo is the direction of choice. I feel like the best way to take the deck is pack it with ramp, card draw, tutors and various two card combos. Maybe some removal to slow down the beats and counterspells to protect your combo of choice.
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"Whatever style you wish to play, be it fast and frenzied or slow and tactical, the surest way to defeat your opponent consistently is by dominating him or her in the war of card advantage." - Brian Wiseman, April 1996
deathmantle and ashnods is very slow and requires her on the field.
Bomberman combo is so much faster and one of her main points of difference to decks like tasigur.
For everyone saying she's weak, you're all ridiculous and not playing to her strengths.
She's an infinite combo piece in the command zone, she's much stronger than sharuum... but yeah if you're playing silly thopter tribal let's durdle for 20 turns and do nothing... of course she's going to be weak
I mean, I like Breya, but, I feel like her ability set is just a little bit too weak. I do run a thopter-tribal-ish deck, and I really want Breya to lead it (it's currently lead by Sharuum), but I'm not really sure how Breya contributes more than Sharuum.
She's weak because you're playing an extremely casual weak deck, she's not a weak commander by any means.
This is like me running a voltron deck with Tasigur as my commander and complaining that he's weak because he doesn't interact with my shell as well as other commanders.
The issue isn't Breya, it's you.
If you want to see her strength play to her strengths.
Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
I am probably not even seeing all the possible snowballing in the draw/sac/recur pieces I have in my list, so it's a case of 'need testing'.
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deathmantle and ashnods is very slow and requires her on the field.
Bomberman combo is so much faster and one of her main points of difference to decks like tasigur.
For everyone saying she's weak, you're all ridiculous and not playing to her strengths.
She's an infinite combo piece in the command zone, she's much stronger than sharuum... but yeah if you're playing silly thopter tribal let's durdle for 20 turns and do nothing... of course she's going to be weak
I wanted to reply to the Bomberman combo first:
It is an established combo for sure, but unless I am mistaken, it requires you to have Lion's Eye Diamond to work, does it not? Only Black Lotus and LED generate the positive mana to feed Auriok Salvagers, and Lotus is banned in commander. So, if you have a $135-$275 card (according to magiccards.info), then good for you, but the rest of us paper players can't even go Bomberman if we wanted to.
On the other hand, Nim Deathmantle + Ashnod's Altar is cheap ($) to acquire and not that mana intensive to fire off either. A 2 cost equipment, a 3 cost artifact, and WUBR (4cc) for your commander. You could occasionally curve into the combo on turn 4, which could be done with some consistency with the help of fetch lands and a turn one tutor. (Vampiric Tutor, Demonic Consultation, Enlightened Tutor, Steelshaper's Gift).
I am not saying one is better than the other, and I am well aware that "Ashnod's Deathmantle" is a total investment of 5WUBR (9). I am simply saying it isn't as bad as you seem to imply. This combo also happens to work with other creatures which create two tokens, not just the commander itself. There are games where you could have Myr Battlesphere, Wurmcoil Engine, Precursor Golem, or one of many other creatures already in play and stumble into this combo and just win.
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I completely agree that Breya is a combo piece which you always have access to. Once you hit infinite colored mana, she can sacrifice a thopter and herself to her own ability (and doesn't even need to go to the graveyard) to shoot the table for infinite damage. There are many ways of creating infinite colored mana, and if we want to go the combo route, then we should probably add those many different forms.
"Whatever style you wish to play, be it fast and frenzied or slow and tactical, the surest way to defeat your opponent consistently is by dominating him or her in the war of card advantage." - Brian Wiseman, April 1996
Yeah, and I think Breya can make a strong combo commander. The Pili-Pala plus Grand Architect works well here because it can theoretically go off fast and Grand Architect is great with Breya while Pili-Pala is at least an artifact to sac. The Worldgorger Dragon combo also has potential: you just need another creature in a graveyard to end the loop with an arbitrary amount of mana or Breya already on the field or a way to cast Breya at instant speed or another instant-speed wincon. It is a very risky combo, though.
If you play against stax and/or lockdown decks, Breya has notable advantages over Sharuum the Hegemon: she costs two less and adds two a additional permanent to your battlefield. Breya additionally of course serves as a wincon with infinite mana, which Sharuum does not.
I'm all for different play styles with commander, but I have a feeling you're going to end up in the same situation as my gf with chaos jihora. You can try all you want to convince people this isn't a combo breya, but they're still going to treat you as a combo breya. Honestly I see this being the new face of sharuum or daretti artifact combo.
Speaking of which, aside nim and krack, what are some good combos as well? I know of the eldrazi displacer and alter being alternatives, but are there any more?
I was a long time daretti player who scrapped him to make a Kozilek deck for my gf. Thinking of going artifact again. I know daretti and regular artifact combos (like Karn+microsynth or prototype+nexus) but are there many involving other colors?
So far the biggest I've seen is sharuum+sculpting+anything that does damage for artifacts hitting the field/dying
I seen the ideas of running Marionette Master, but wouldn't Panharmonicon be an auto include if you're using her as a combo commander? Marionette gets twice the fabricate (or fab and three thopters) and Breya gets four thopters instead of two. I have a Grixis artifact combo deck (Thraximundar) that serves as an over glorified Daretti shell and I want to try to do the same with Breya. I plan on picking her up next weekend and brainstorm some ideas.
Edit: For clarification, I run a lot of loot draw in Daretti, but with Freya's color, it's be better to run tutors instead.
I tend to agree with you Gren on loot draws. Even the exile draw from cards like Chandra, Torch of Defiance is a bit better unless there's a ton of recursion synergies going on in the deck. Also, depending on the deck build Daretti, Scrapper Savant can be a stronger card than Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast. I'd say if I'm running a token generating strategy there are enough recursion cards in the deck that I'd probably swap Daretti, Scrap Savant for something like Nahiri, The Harbinger, which gives the same kind of loot draw, but also gives a repeatable exile effect for opposing enchantments, artifacts, and creatures. In commander I've found that having cards like Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury can really help a lot in the longer running games Commander often entails. The other option probably would be to swap in a tutor walker like Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas or Tezzeret the Seeker. I'll probably end up swapping for Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas as the deck seriously needs some digging / tutoring power that doesn't require hand discards.
Honestly, I'm still working on the list I want to play with her as the commander. Red is normally a pretty weak color in commander, but as a supplementary color it's really good when combined with the esper ones. I might try going combo with a myr subtheme as the myr still have some of the better ways to search for themselves on top of the more generic tutors.
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(Even tasigur misses out on that, so this is a pretty big deal)
There's a nim deathmantle and krark clan iron works infinite too, that might be worth running...
Hoarding Dragon is a decent tutor as long as you can keep a sac outlet around (like Ashnod's Altar). Liquimetal Coating would be a good addition as well. Silverskin Armor is a great include as well. Its especially great with Indomitable Archangel.
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I mean, I like Breya, but, I feel like her ability set is just a little bit too weak. I do run a thopter-tribal-ish deck, and I really want Breya to lead it (it's currently lead by Sharuum), but I'm not really sure how Breya contributes more than Sharuum.
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I would say it depends on how you build Breya. I made a Sharuum deck in the past and made it to win in one two ways: typical Sharuum infinite combo or creating an army of expendable artifiact creature tokens to wreak havoc on opponents while protecting yourself. As such, I included things like Sharding Sphinx, Platinum Angel, Conjourer's Closet, Thopter Spy Network, Darksteel Forge for making everything that much harder to get rid of, Magister Sphinx to get your opponents nice and low and so on. Carrying over much of that to Breya but I can include R and RW.
As such I'll get access to Pia and Kiran Nalaar for more thopters, Scrap Mastery for more recursion, Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer for protecting vital artifacts, both versions of Daretti for utility, Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer for giving the thopters more punch and also Gisela, Blade of Goldnight. Gisela ups the firepower of the deck while mitigating damage aimed a me. Breya herself can also help in sparking off Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood quite easily. Heck, throw in a Dictate of Erebos just so when thopters start dying, your opponents really get the short end as your thopters were made to be plentiful and expendable while many of their's are not.
This is not even getting into all the infinite mana combos you can take advantage of or the sheer level of mana we can produce regularly. Breya may not have Sharuum sheer impact once she hits board but her colors and her ability to feed into various strategies should not be underestimated. Shoot, throw Sharuum and some of her combos in the deck just so you don't miss out on them.
Breya's deck is called "Invent Superiority". She was never really about being the most powerful thing on the board. She was about giving you the tools and resources to build up tactics and strategies that will give you the ability to adapt to most of what's thrown at you.
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It sounds like my Sharuum decks is much more token oriented, but has many of the same card choices (though, I don't play any infinite combos, my group frowns on it and I find it to be unfulfilling). I also play things like Whirler Rogue. I also try to make use of my tokens with cards like Steel Overseer, Master of Etherium, Chief Engineer, Mycosynth Golem and Cranial Plating (I'm still torn on Tempered Steel).
Breya is like a dream come true in that she generates tokens and does stuff with tokens, but, I don't really see it working as well as Sharuum. Part of what makes Sharuum dangerous is that I can table things like Darksteel Forge earlier than I would normally, making it really hard to clear the tokens away, or rezzing token-generators like Myr Battlesphere so I can recover much faster. Breya doesn't have the same impact. Your suggestion is that I 'invent superiority', as though I wasn't playing an adaptable and powerful set of cards already. Yeah, I got that part, but I guess I don't see where the red cards are going to push this over the edge, especially if I'm giving up reliable access to Sharuum for... Breya. I'll buy that playing with Jor Kadeen might be fun, though.
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Whoa. I was not implying anything of the sort. I'm sorry if I came off that way. I was more expressing how while Breya is not as powerful as Sharuum on her own, she can still give you access to everything Sharuum has and then some as she has access to all the colors that majorly deal with artifacts in some capacity.
That's perfectly fine. Everyone has their own view of things and what they value for their decks.
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[EDH Non-Primers] Newzuri | Breya
I like Breya specifically because she's not Sharuum. Don't get me wrong, I like winning, but when I'm winning a five-player free-for-all with every other player turned against me? It might be a bit too strong. I want a swingier Artifact Deck anyway, and Breya lets me turn my creatures sideways.
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I agree that of the four color commanders and decks, this one strikes my fancy the most as well. In terms of flavor, I feel this was a home run. Not a grand slam, but certainly a home run. The Esper shard with all of its artifact/etherum goodness + Red, as opposed to just WUB+ R was a good call. Izzet is also already the steam punk guild. I can't over state how happy I am with this from the Vorthos side of things.
The commander herself can combo out with Nim Deathmantle + Ashnod's Altar. If you don't know the combo, you simply sacrifice a thopter to Ashnod's Altar for 2, then Breya for an additional 2 and use that total of 4 to pay for the triggered ability of Nim Deathmantal. That will return your commander to play with two more thopters, resulting in +1 thopter each time you do this. You can then use a million thoptors to add two million colorless mana, which can then be fed back into Breya's first choice dealing 3 million damage and winning the game.
It seems that when playing Esper, and often times commander in general, combo is the direction of choice. I feel like the best way to take the deck is pack it with ramp, card draw, tutors and various two card combos. Maybe some removal to slow down the beats and counterspells to protect your combo of choice.
Bomberman combo is so much faster and one of her main points of difference to decks like tasigur.
For everyone saying she's weak, you're all ridiculous and not playing to her strengths.
She's an infinite combo piece in the command zone, she's much stronger than sharuum... but yeah if you're playing silly thopter tribal let's durdle for 20 turns and do nothing... of course she's going to be weak
She's weak because you're playing an extremely casual weak deck, she's not a weak commander by any means.
This is like me running a voltron deck with Tasigur as my commander and complaining that he's weak because he doesn't interact with my shell as well as other commanders.
The issue isn't Breya, it's you.
If you want to see her strength play to her strengths.
Also, in an artifact deck, Tempered Steel > Glorious Anthem
On phasing:
Then 'improving the fire' via Helm of the Ghastlord, Curiosity, Elder Mastery, Sigil of Sleep, Spirit Loop, Arm With Aether, Furnace Celebration, Marionette Master, Sludge Strider etc.
I am probably not even seeing all the possible snowballing in the draw/sac/recur pieces I have in my list, so it's a case of 'need testing'.
I wanted to reply to the Bomberman combo first:
It is an established combo for sure, but unless I am mistaken, it requires you to have Lion's Eye Diamond to work, does it not? Only Black Lotus and LED generate the positive mana to feed Auriok Salvagers, and Lotus is banned in commander. So, if you have a $135-$275 card (according to magiccards.info), then good for you, but the rest of us paper players can't even go Bomberman if we wanted to.
On the other hand, Nim Deathmantle + Ashnod's Altar is cheap ($) to acquire and not that mana intensive to fire off either. A 2 cost equipment, a 3 cost artifact, and WUBR (4cc) for your commander. You could occasionally curve into the combo on turn 4, which could be done with some consistency with the help of fetch lands and a turn one tutor. (Vampiric Tutor, Demonic Consultation, Enlightened Tutor, Steelshaper's Gift).
I am not saying one is better than the other, and I am well aware that "Ashnod's Deathmantle" is a total investment of 5WUBR (9). I am simply saying it isn't as bad as you seem to imply. This combo also happens to work with other creatures which create two tokens, not just the commander itself. There are games where you could have Myr Battlesphere, Wurmcoil Engine, Precursor Golem, or one of many other creatures already in play and stumble into this combo and just win.
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I completely agree that Breya is a combo piece which you always have access to. Once you hit infinite colored mana, she can sacrifice a thopter and herself to her own ability (and doesn't even need to go to the graveyard) to shoot the table for infinite damage. There are many ways of creating infinite colored mana, and if we want to go the combo route, then we should probably add those many different forms.
If you play against stax and/or lockdown decks, Breya has notable advantages over Sharuum the Hegemon: she costs two less and adds two a additional permanent to your battlefield. Breya additionally of course serves as a wincon with infinite mana, which Sharuum does not.
Speaking of which, aside nim and krack, what are some good combos as well? I know of the eldrazi displacer and alter being alternatives, but are there any more?
I was a long time daretti player who scrapped him to make a Kozilek deck for my gf. Thinking of going artifact again. I know daretti and regular artifact combos (like Karn+microsynth or prototype+nexus) but are there many involving other colors?
So far the biggest I've seen is sharuum+sculpting+anything that does damage for artifacts hitting the field/dying
Edit: For clarification, I run a lot of loot draw in Daretti, but with Freya's color, it's be better to run tutors instead.
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Actually, there seems to be a lot of good walkers for Breya. Saheeli Rai, Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, Tezzeret the Seeker, Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast, Daretti, Scrap Savant, Dack Fayden (also known in my last play group as mr grabby hands), Nahiri, The Harbinger, etc. I probably missed one somewhere, as well.
Honestly, I'm still working on the list I want to play with her as the commander. Red is normally a pretty weak color in commander, but as a supplementary color it's really good when combined with the esper ones. I might try going combo with a myr subtheme as the myr still have some of the better ways to search for themselves on top of the more generic tutors.
But yeah, Saheeli Rai + Ashnod's Altar + Wurmcoil Engine / Pentavus / Myr Battlesphere = fun times. Well, unless your friends don't like watching you play with a paper pad to make sure you are doing the math right on getting tokens out of a pentavus.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!