A brief little history on this deck. Daretti was not my first Commander deck. In fact, when I first thought about getting into the format, I found a Kaalia of the Vast list that I liked and built it. I had a fair amount of success with it. However, when people saw what it could do, I was always the target of everyone’s attacks, counters, and removal spells. It made it hard to make a comeback and play anything.
When Commander 2014 came out, I decided I was going to build Nahiri, the Lithomancer until I happened upon a Daretti, Scrap Savant. I thought to myself, “No way can this deck be any good. But, it looks fun, so I’ll try this instead.”
Fast forward to today. Daretti has easily become my best and all-time favorite deck. It doesn’t seem to matter how much hate he receives; he seems to be able to persist through much of it, and can come back and win games out of nowhere. I haven’t had more fun games than I have had with him.
You may ask yourself “Why play Daretti as your commander?” There are many reasons as to why or why not you should play them. Let’s take a look at the card itself:
Daretti is not a Creature: This is important to note because now you have a General that is immune to creature removal of all kinds. Yes, he will be the target of attacks, as with all Planeswalkers, but it will also act as a fog for you.
Relatively low CMC: He has a CMC of 4. Although it is not as low as some other General, it is also not that high. With the kinds of ramp we run, it is possible to get him out on turn 1, or more consistently by turn 2. Getting him out as early is possible means you have a good chance at getting further ahead than any of your opponents.
Mono-Red: Daretti is a mono-colored General. What does that mean? It means a more consistent mana base. You don’t have to run any non-basics to fix your colors. The only non-basics you need are your utility lands. This also makes your entire deck consistent as you only have red spells to play.
His abilities are where he really shines:
+2: Card Filtering- This is a graveyard-based artifact deck. Being able to pitch artifacts and draw into more cards is insane. It is essentially a repeatable Faithless Looting each time. It’s not necessarily card advantage, as you will end up with the same amount of cards in hand, but when you combine it with Alhammarret's Archive, then you gain your card advantage.
-2: Artifact Recursion- Once you have pitched some nice artifacts into the graveyard, you can “weld” artifacts back. Who wouldn’t want to turn a spent Mana Vault into the better Gilded Lotus, at literally no cost to you?
-10: The Ultimate- If you are able to achieve Daretti’s Ultimate, you essentially become a force to be reckoned with. Opponent’s artifact destruction spells become null and void. Your “weld” effects become so much better since you will get back what you welded away, gaining you an even better board presence. Once this is happens, you become harder to kill.
You might like Daretti if:
1) You enjoy the simplicity of playing mono-colored decks.
2) You enjoy artifact and/or graveyard based decks.
3) You enjoy cheating in big, dumb artifacts.
4) You enjoy playing aggro decks, but also like elements of control.
5) You like having a Planeswalker as your General, instead of a boring creature.
You might dislike Daretti if:
1) You want more colors for more options.
2) You hate artifacts and want to destroy all graveyards.
3) You want the option of using Commander Damage as an alternate win condition (which you can still win that way here; you just have to try. ;))
There are other possible commanders to choose from. Here’s a few possibilities:
Arcum Dagsson: Mono-Blue toolbox deck. This is a very powerful deck, and once Arcum is on board with a little protection, it can be difficult to win, especially if the pack some counters. Bosh, Iron Golem: Another Mono-Red general. In my opinion, a fairly weak general as you need to sacrifice your artifacts to deal damage. Definitely not good in multiplayer. Karn, Silver Golem: Mono-Brown goodies. Tons of infinite combos. Mostly runs artifacts, so even more prone for a big blowout. Memnarch: Another Mono-Blue deck. This guy. This guy is a pain. He steals artifacts; OUR artifacts. Fairly difficult to deal with, but kinda fun to play with. Muzzio, Visionary Architect: Another Mono-Blue deck? Yup. This time it’s Daretti’s student. Can dump artifacts like no one else’s business. Can go from a tiny little rock to a Darksteel Forge with one activation. Sharuum, the Hegemon: Esper Combo deck. Counters. Removal. Infinite combos. Being three colors makes the mana base a bit rocky, and possibly slow.
This deck has changed quite a bit over the years. Straight out of the box, there's quite a bit of non-artifact cards in it. I immediately noticed that as being a problem because if you want to maximize Daretti's effectiveness, you need more artifacts than that.
Next thing I noticed, mono-red doesn't have many forms of disruption. In order to combat full boards of creatures that want to attack Daretti, or decks with lots of counters that want to counter all of your relevant things. That's why I added a bit of Stax effects with the combo of Static Orb and Clock of Omens to slow everyone down. Mass creature removal is also necessary, as a clogged board is difficult to deal with.
What you see here is a culmination of extensive testing and I feel it is at a point where not much else needs to be changed.
Chaos Warp: One of the few pieces of spot removal we have. Can hit any permanent which is amazing. Can also save our stuff from our opponent's dirty things.
Enchantments:
Blood Moon: The lone enchantment in this deck. It will hinder other players more than it will us.
Planeswalkers:
Chandra, Flamecaller: I was against this card when it was first spoiled, but decided to give it a try. I must say that I am glad I did. It has become a core card in this deck. Her -0 is a one-sided wheel effect that nets us +1 card. Her -X makes for a good board wipe, and is copyable with Rings of Brighthearth to all her to have remaining loyalty to survive, but also wiping out anything with 6 or less toughness. Her +1 is the least used mode for me, but I have used it to great effect. Karn Liberated: Good form of removal. Should be auto-include in most builds. Even better with Rings of Brighthearth. Ugin, the Spirit Dragon: Most of our permanents are colorless, so his -X ability won't hurt us much. Where he really shines is his Ultimate, especially with Rings of Brighthearth.
As far as a strategy goes, everyone is going to play their deck differently. The way I play Daretti is to get him out early and rush towards his Emblem. Once the Emblem is achieved, it becomes difficult for our opponents to win. How do we go about doing this? Simple. We do the following:
1) Mulligans: Your opening hand is very important. It'll basically tell you how the game is going to go. You want at the very least one Mountain in your starting hand in order to pay for Daretti's color requirement. After that, you want mana rocks. More specifically, early, cheap mana rocks like Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, or Mana Vault. Even Grim Monolith is good, albeit a bit slower than the others. You want these to pump out a fast Daretti. Finally, you need pitch fodder. Whether that's the big artifacts, extra mana rocks or lands, or utility artifacts. Something to make it worth casting Daretti.
2) Early Game: Get Daretti out as fast as you can. Turn 1 is definitely the best, and there are a few ways of doing this, such as:
Once on board, keep using his +2 ability to rush for that ever so sweet Emblem. Don’t hesitate to use his -2, as sometimes that is going to help you keep Daretti safe and set your board up for later.
3) Mid Game: This is the part of the game when you have been alternating his +2 and -2 abilities to set up your hand, board, and graveyard in order to get to your win conditions. By this time, your opponents should be on to your game plan and what your deck can do (if they didn't know already just by seeing Daretti). You want to be able to protect him as much as you can, so use things like Blasphemous Act to clear the board of creatures so they can't attack him, or Silent Arbiter and Maze of Ith to slow them down. Silent Arbiter has a decent butt on him so small critters can't get past him. To really slow people down, get him, Mycosynth Lattice, Unwinding Clock, and Maze of Ith to essentially prevent anyone from getting an attack through. It's a lot of cards to assemble, but it can be done.
4) Late Game: By this time, you should have dug and pitched through your deck to find your road to victory. There are many ways to do this. Straight up attacking down your opponent's life totals from 40 to 0, infect damage through Blightsteel Colossus, or through one of the many combos this deck can do, which will be discussed in another section.
As with any deck, there are going to be some weaknesses. Some of these include:
1) Artifact Hate: Daretti is an artifact-based deck, and in the EDH format, there is TONS of various artifact removal. There is the old-fasioned artifact destruction, such as Aura Shards, Vandalblast, Bane of Progress, among others, but these are the most potent. There is also exiling effects, such as Return to Dust and Merciless Eviction, as well as many others. These are harder to come back from, as we cannot recur them.
2) Graveyard Hate: Not only is Daretti an artifact-based deck, it is also graveyard-based. Cards such as Tormod’s Crypt, Relic of Progenitus, Rest in Peace, Leyline of the Void, etc. put a real damper on our gameplan. Trying to get these out of our way as early as possible will only help us in the long run.
3) Counter Decks: Personally, this is the one I dislike the most. It’s one thing to play your stuff and then get it removed. It’s another to not even get to play them because they get countered. Over. And over. And over again. It can be frustrating, so if you’re playing in a counter-heavy meta, Defense Grid might not be a bad inclusion.
Hellkite Tyrant: Too risky of a card for us to run. If we get Bribery’d, we run the risk of giving our opponent’s the victory, and I’m not about that. It’s risky enough running Blightsteel Colossus and Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, but I feel they do more for us than the Tyrant.
I don't see how Lattice, Scrap Mastery, and Darreti's ultimate combo. Scrap Mastery puts them into the graveyard from exile not the battlefield.
Edit: Nevermind read the wording wrong.
Reading cards is key my friend! Lol. I'm only messing around.
It definitely can be confusing to some, especially that combo. The emblem sees the cards entering the graveyard as artifacts, so it will trigger. Once they are in the graveyard, they cease to be artifacts, but will still return.
[[Scrap Mastery]] is definitely a card that needs to be read and reread a few times. Some times I still have troubles with it and have to actually think of what I'm doing.
A brief little history on this deck. Daretti was not my first Commander deck. In fact, when I first thought about getting into the format, I found a Kaalia of the Vast list that I liked and built it. I had a fair amount of success with it. However, when people saw what it could do, I was always the target of everyone’s attacks, counters, and removal spells. It made it hard to make a comeback and play anything.
When Commander 2014 came out, I decided I was going to build Nahiri, the Lithomancer until I happened upon a Daretti, Scrap Savant. I thought to myself, “No way can this deck be any good. But, it looks fun, so I’ll try this instead.”
Fast forward to today. Daretti has easily become my best and all-time favorite deck. It doesn’t seem to matter how much hate he receives; he seems to be able to persist through much of it, and can come back and win games out of nowhere. I haven’t had more fun games than I have had with him.
His abilities are where he really shines:
You might like Daretti if:
1) You enjoy the simplicity of playing mono-colored decks.
2) You enjoy artifact and/or graveyard based decks.
3) You enjoy cheating in big, dumb artifacts.
4) You enjoy playing aggro decks, but also like elements of control.
5) You like having a Planeswalker as your General, instead of a boring creature.
You might dislike Daretti if:
1) You want more colors for more options.
2) You hate artifacts and want to destroy all graveyards.
3) You want the option of using Commander Damage as an alternate win condition (which you can still win that way here; you just have to try. ;))
This deck has changed quite a bit over the years. Straight out of the box, there's quite a bit of non-artifact cards in it. I immediately noticed that as being a problem because if you want to maximize Daretti's effectiveness, you need more artifacts than that.
Next thing I noticed, mono-red doesn't have many forms of disruption. In order to combat full boards of creatures that want to attack Daretti, or decks with lots of counters that want to counter all of your relevant things. That's why I added a bit of Stax effects with the combo of Static Orb and Clock of Omens to slow everyone down. Mass creature removal is also necessary, as a clogged board is difficult to deal with.
What you see here is a culmination of extensive testing and I feel it is at a point where not much else needs to be changed.
4 Daretti, Scrap Savant (Altered)
Creatures:
1 Goblin WelderFoil
3 Imperial RecruiterFoil
3 MetalworkerFoil
3 Squee, Goblin NabobFoil
4 Silent ArbiterFoil
4 Solemn SimulacrumFoil
5 Karn, Silver GolemFoil
5 Kuldotha ForgemasterFoil
6 DuplicantFoil
6 Steel HellkiteFoil
6 Wurmcoil EngineFoil
7 Hellkite IgniterFoil
7 Myr BattlesphereFoil
7 Sandstone Oracle (Altered)
10 Ulamog, the Ceaseless HungerFoil
12 Blightsteel ColossusFoil
Artifacts:
0 Lotus BloomFoil
0 Mana CryptFoil
0 Mox DiamondFoil
0 Mox OpalFoil
1 Codex ShredderFoil
1 Mana Vault (Altered)
1 Sensei’s Divining TopFoil
1 Sol RingFoil
1 Voltaic KeyFoil
2 Grim MonolithFoil
2 Lightning GreavesFoil
2 Mind StoneFoil
2 Thought Vessel (Altered)
3 Basalt Monolith (Altered)
3 Crucible of WorldsFoil
3 Rings of BrighthearthFoil
3 Staff of DominationFoil
3 Static OrbFoil
4 Clock of OmensFoil
4 Gauntlet of Might (Altered)
4 Hedron ArchiveFoil
4 Nevinyrral’s DiskFoil
4 The Chain VeilFoil
4 Unwinding ClockFoil
5 Alhammarret's ArchiveFoil
5 Blinkmoth UrnFoil
5 Gilded LotusFoil
5 Memory JarFoil
5 MirrorworksFoil
6 Contagion EngineFoil
6 MindslaverFoil
6 Mycosynth LatticeFoil
6 Staff of NinFoil
7 Spine of Ish SahFoil
9 Darksteel ForgeFoil
1 Faithless LootingFoil
1 Gamble (Altered)
1 VandalblastFoil
2 RecoupFoil
3 Wheel of FortuneFoil
5 Scrap Mastery (Altered)
7 All Is DustFoil
9 Blasphemous ActFoil
Instants:
3 Chaos WarpFoil
Enchantments:
3 Blood MoonFoil
Planeswalkers:
6 Chandra, FlamecallerFoil
7 Karn LiberatedFoil
8 Ugin, the Spirit DragonFoil
Lands:
0 Ancient TombFoil
0 Arid MesaFoil
0 Bazaar of Baghdad
0 Bloodstained MireFoil
0 Buried RuinFoil
0 Command BeaconFoil
0 Haven of the Spirit DragonFoil
0 Darksteel CitadelFoil
0 Dust BowlFoil
0 Great FurnaceFoil
0 High MarketFoil
0 Maze of IthFoil
0 MirrorpoolFoil
0 Mishra’s Workshop (Altered)
16 MountainFoil
0 Phyrexia's CoreFoil
0 Scalding TarnFoil
0 Strip MineFoil
0 WastelandFoil
0 Wooded FoothillsFoil
As far as a strategy goes, everyone is going to play their deck differently. The way I play Daretti is to get him out early and rush towards his Emblem. Once the Emblem is achieved, it becomes difficult for our opponents to win. How do we go about doing this? Simple. We do the following:
1) Mulligans: Your opening hand is very important. It'll basically tell you how the game is going to go. You want at the very least one Mountain in your starting hand in order to pay for Daretti's color requirement. After that, you want mana rocks. More specifically, early, cheap mana rocks like Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, or Mana Vault. Even Grim Monolith is good, albeit a bit slower than the others. You want these to pump out a fast Daretti. Finally, you need pitch fodder. Whether that's the big artifacts, extra mana rocks or lands, or utility artifacts. Something to make it worth casting Daretti.
2) Early Game: Get Daretti out as fast as you can. Turn 1 is definitely the best, and there are a few ways of doing this, such as:
3) Mid Game: This is the part of the game when you have been alternating his +2 and -2 abilities to set up your hand, board, and graveyard in order to get to your win conditions. By this time, your opponents should be on to your game plan and what your deck can do (if they didn't know already just by seeing Daretti). You want to be able to protect him as much as you can, so use things like Blasphemous Act to clear the board of creatures so they can't attack him, or Silent Arbiter and Maze of Ith to slow them down. Silent Arbiter has a decent butt on him so small critters can't get past him. To really slow people down, get him, Mycosynth Lattice, Unwinding Clock, and Maze of Ith to essentially prevent anyone from getting an attack through. It's a lot of cards to assemble, but it can be done.
4) Late Game: By this time, you should have dug and pitched through your deck to find your road to victory. There are many ways to do this. Straight up attacking down your opponent's life totals from 40 to 0, infect damage through Blightsteel Colossus, or through one of the many combos this deck can do, which will be discussed in another section.
As with any deck, there are going to be some weaknesses. Some of these include:
1) Artifact Hate: Daretti is an artifact-based deck, and in the EDH format, there is TONS of various artifact removal. There is the old-fasioned artifact destruction, such as Aura Shards, Vandalblast, Bane of Progress, among others, but these are the most potent. There is also exiling effects, such as Return to Dust and Merciless Eviction, as well as many others. These are harder to come back from, as we cannot recur them.
2) Graveyard Hate: Not only is Daretti an artifact-based deck, it is also graveyard-based. Cards such as Tormod’s Crypt, Relic of Progenitus, Rest in Peace, Leyline of the Void, etc. put a real damper on our gameplan. Trying to get these out of our way as early as possible will only help us in the long run.
3) Counter Decks: Personally, this is the one I dislike the most. It’s one thing to play your stuff and then get it removed. It’s another to not even get to play them because they get countered. Over. And over. And over again. It can be frustrating, so if you’re playing in a counter-heavy meta, Defense Grid might not be a bad inclusion.
-Shattering Spree
+Blasphemous Act
-Pithing Needle
-Howling Mine
-Winter Orb
-Mana Web
-Ruination
+Mox Diamond
+Static Orb
+Clock of Omens
+Tawnos's Coffin
+Mind's Eye
-Tawnos's Coffin
-Inkmoth Nexus
+Codex Shredder
+Gemstone Caverns
-Scuttling Doom Engine
-Defense Grid
-Ugin's Nexus
+Trading Post
+Price of Glory
+Alhammarret's Archive
-1 Mountain
-1 Fellwar Stone
+1 Command Beacon
+1 Thought Vessel
-2 Mountain
-1 Tormenting Voice
+1 Reliquary Tower
+1 Sanctum of Ugin
+1 Sandstone Oracle
-Mountain
+Bazaar of Baghdad
-Soul of New Phyrexia
-Caged Sun
-Reliquary Tower
-Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
+Fellwar Stone
+Chandra, Flamecaller
+Haven of the Spirit Dragon
+Mirropool
-Mind’s Eye
-Thran Dynamo
-Starstorm
-Hammer of Purphoros
-Fellwar Stone
-Trading Post
-Comet Storm
-Thopter Assembly
-Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer
+Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
+Voltaic Key
+Blinkmoth Urn
+Lightning Greaves
+Contagion Engine
+Hellkite Igniter
+The Chain Veil
+Staff of Nin
+Lotus Bloom
-Sanctum of Ugin
+Dust Bowl
[EDH Non-Primers] Newzuri | Breya
[EDH Non-Primers] Newzuri | Breya
Edit: Nevermind read the wording wrong.
Reading cards is key my friend! Lol. I'm only messing around.
It definitely can be confusing to some, especially that combo. The emblem sees the cards entering the graveyard as artifacts, so it will trigger. Once they are in the graveyard, they cease to be artifacts, but will still return.
[[Scrap Mastery]] is definitely a card that needs to be read and reread a few times. Some times I still have troubles with it and have to actually think of what I'm doing.
[EDH Non-Primers] Newzuri | Breya