When Shards of Alara debuted a number of years ago, I was thrilled by Esper's artifact theme. See, I started playing Magic just after Fifth Dawn hit the shelves, so I was raised on the artifact theme of the original Mirrodin block and I tend to naturally gravitate towards artifacts. However, I tend to gravitate toward artifacts in Red, so when Esper's themes were revealed to the world, I was crushed that my very favorite color wouldn't be a part of it. I realized that Esper colors were the most controlling colors and the Red player in me reviled that, so in all of my years of playing Magic, I've yet to build an Esper deck, until now.
With the four color Commander precons out, the WUBR combination has been granted an overwhelming artifact theme, featuring classic Esper strategies but titned with the color Red ("Resper" if you will). As you might imagine after reading the previous paragraph, I'm thrilled that the coolest part of Alara gets to use and abuse my favorite color. Running a modified form of the Invent Superiority precon deck is a very natural thing for me.
When I initially started building a list for Breya, Etherium Shaper, I kept wanting to capitalize on every letter of her text, but following that line of thought kept turning it into Thopter/Servo/Myr_Token_Spam.dec and that's just a boring way to play. After enough frustration with that, I said screw the sac outlet, I'll focus on just her first ability of getting two free bodies on the field with herself. Keeping the idea of three bodies for the price of one in mind, I crafted a list around using Breya and her thopters as a resource to pull cards out of the deck. Polymorphing happens to be one of my favorite feature of blue's part of the color pie, so Proteus Staff and Jalira, Master Polymorphist feature prominently in our strategy. When else do you get to turn a thopter token into a Combustible Gearhulk? The rest of our strategy centers around sacrificing and recurring artifacts for value, better known as durdling around.
Note: Though we're in great control colors, my play style shies away from being the control guy. We run some answers in here, but just enough to deal with big threats.
You might notice that there's a little ETB matters theme in here. That's because I can't stop putting Panharmonicon in every deck I can. It's got so much value. I also like to jam Flameshadow Conjuring and Warstorm Surge wherever I can, so that's personal preference.
If you've ever played with me, especially against my Kiki-Jiki deck, you'd know I never run infinite combos in my decks, I don't even want to tempt myself with them. Well, I realized I have at least one after putting the list together: Breya plus Eldrazi Displacer and Krark-Clan Ironworks. Breya feeds her thopters to the Ironworks to make four colorless mana, then you spend three of it to blink Breya with Displacer, accruing one mana. Since I don't really have anything to spend infinite mana on, I'm going to leave the combo in there for now. However, if Breya decks become infamous for going infinite, it's coming out.
Lastly, as soon as I get my hands on a Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, he's going straight in. I might have to wait a paycheck or two for that.
If you have any comments, concerns, ideas, suggestions, constructive criticisms, whatever, please share!
You do have something to sink the infinite mana into. Once you've managed to get your arbitrary amount of mana, you can blink Breya with Displacer to get an arbitrary amount of Thopters, then use your mana to sac the thopters to her ability and burn out the table.
You obviously don't have to use it, but if you have the combo present on the board, you're going to be noticed.
Not unless Panharmonicon's sitting out or I'm sac'ing Breya herself. I'm probably going to switch KCI out soon anyway, in my playtesting, I am thoroughly unenthused by it.
I highly recommend sculpting steel; it can give the deck some extra consistency with power.
Also, why no artifact lands?
Sculpting Steel's on my short list for inclusion. I do my very best not to run artifact lands besides Darksteel Citadel. One Vandalblast and I lose them.
How about good ol' fashioned Polymorph for your Durdlemorph deck? There's also Mass Polymorph, Reweave and Synthetic Destiny. While any of the creatures you run are definitely upgrades over a 1/1 thopter, a lot of them are really unimpressive hits of a Polymorph effect. I'd slim down on the total number of creatures and add some huge bombs like Blightsteel Colossus. As you go down on creatures (and even if you don't) having ways to make tokens is very useful. I don't much care for Spawning Bed, Foundry of the Consuls or any of the other lands you have to sacrifice to make tokens, but Kher Keep and Westvale Abbey are reasonable.
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You would never guess, at the terrifying sight of the man, that Hunding was as charming a companion as one could wish for.
How about good ol' fashioned Polymorph for your Durdlemorph deck? There's also Mass Polymorph, Reweave and Synthetic Destiny. While any of the creatures you run are definitely upgrades over a 1/1 thopter, a lot of them are really unimpressive hits of a Polymorph effect. I'd slim down on the total number of creatures and add some huge bombs like Blightsteel Colossus. As you go down on creatures (and even if you don't) having ways to make tokens is very useful. I don't much care for Spawning Bed, Foundry of the Consuls or any of the other lands you have to sacrifice to make tokens, but Kher Keep and Westvale Abbey are reasonable.
Running more creatures is really just a matter of personal preference. The deck's got a blink component that I want to keep going strong. I want to keep this deck midrangey and without one-shot threats like Blightsteel, they tend to be bad for politics. I also want to be able to recur my things (Daretti, Sharuum, Welder, etc), so I haven't included the exiling Polymorphs for that reason. Synthetic Destiny is very tempting though, I may add it later on depending on how the deck plays. I seriously thought about vanilla Polymorph and Reweave but decided not to include them because I only got one card from each, whereas as Jalira and Proteus Staff offer multiple activations and Divergent Transformations gets two for one. As for the lands, I'm being very cautious with the mana base right now since I've never played a four or five colored deck. As I get a better feel for the mana base and figure out what I can take out and what I should keep in, I'll start slipping those lands in.
Not unless Panharmonicon's sitting out or I'm sac'ing Breya herself. I'm probably going to switch KCI out soon anyway, in my playtesting, I am thoroughly unenthused by it.
So if you use KCI to sac both thopters you net 4 colourless mana. You use three to blink Breya with Displacer. This nets you 2 more Thopters, and you still have 1 colourless mana. Now, you sac the two new Thopters again, granting you 4 more colourless mana. You now have 5, and you now blink Breya for 3 again, you have 2 left. You're netting 1 mana each time. Once you have decided your 'infinite' figure of mana, you can now just blink breya without saccing the thopters, to have a huge number of thopters. Once you have that amount of thopters you can then use your agreed sum of mana to sac the thopters to Breya to deal 3 damage over and over and over.
You don't need Panharmonicon to achieve this, just Breya, KCI, and either Eldrazi Displacer or Nim Deathmantle (Sac Breya + 1 Thopter to pay the Deathmantle effect).
Oops, I missed the Displacer part of that. I've taken KCI out anyway so I won't need to worry myself with an infinite combo.
Updated list coming in the next few(ish) days.
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With the four color Commander precons out, the WUBR combination has been granted an overwhelming artifact theme, featuring classic Esper strategies but titned with the color Red ("Resper" if you will). As you might imagine after reading the previous paragraph, I'm thrilled that the coolest part of Alara gets to use and abuse my favorite color. Running a modified form of the Invent Superiority precon deck is a very natural thing for me.
When I initially started building a list for Breya, Etherium Shaper, I kept wanting to capitalize on every letter of her text, but following that line of thought kept turning it into Thopter/Servo/Myr_Token_Spam.dec and that's just a boring way to play. After enough frustration with that, I said screw the sac outlet, I'll focus on just her first ability of getting two free bodies on the field with herself. Keeping the idea of three bodies for the price of one in mind, I crafted a list around using Breya and her thopters as a resource to pull cards out of the deck. Polymorphing happens to be one of my favorite feature of blue's part of the color pie, so Proteus Staff and Jalira, Master Polymorphist feature prominently in our strategy. When else do you get to turn a thopter token into a Combustible Gearhulk? The rest of our strategy centers around sacrificing and recurring artifacts for value, better known as durdling around.
Note: Though we're in great control colors, my play style shies away from being the control guy. We run some answers in here, but just enough to deal with big threats.
1 Breya, Etherium Shaper
Lands
4 Plains
4 Island
4 Swamp
4 Mountain
1 Command Tower
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Watery Grave
1 Blood Crypt
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Godless Shrine
1 Steam Vents
1 Adarkar Wastes
1 Underground River
1 Sulfurous Springs
1 Battlefield Forge
1 Caves of Koilos
1 Shivan Reef
1 Arcane Sanctum
1 Crumbling Necropolis
1 Nomad Outpost
1 Mystic Monastery
1 Esper Panorama
1 Grixis Panorama
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Terramorphic Expanse
Creatures
1 Goblin Welder
1 Baleful Strix
1 Burnished Hart
1 Eldrazi Displacer
1 Metalworker
1 Pilgrim's Eye
1 Scarecrone
1 Faerie Artisans
1 Jalira, Master Polymorphist
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Restoration Angel
1 Restoration Gearsmith
1 Sanctum Gargoyle
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Master Transmuter
1 Razor Hippogriff
1 Sphinx Summoner
1 Urabrask the Hidden
1 Combustible Gearhulk
1 Duplicant
1 Noxious Gearhulk
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Sharuum the Hegemon
1 Filigree Angel
1 Trash for Treasure
1 Rite of Replication
1 Beacon of Unrest
1 Scrap Mastery
1 Divergent Transformations
Enchantments & PWs
1 Flameshadow Conjuring
1 Daretti, Scrap Savant
1 Nahiri, the Harbinger
1 In the Web of War
1 Warstorm Surge
Artifacts
1 Sol Ring
1 Elixir of Immortality
1 Skullclamp
1 Dispeller's Capsule
1 Executioner's Capsule
1 Mind Stone
1 Azorius Signet
1 Dimir Signet
1 Rakdos Signet
1 Boros Signet
1 Orzhov Signet
1 Izzet Signet
1 Ichor Wellspring
1 Mycosynth Wellspring
1 Strionic Resonator
1 Commander's Sphere
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Chromatic Lantern
1 Proteus Staff
1 Etherium Astrolabe
1 Hammer of Purphoros
1 Trading Post
1 Whip of Erebos
1 Krark-Clan Ironworks
1 Panharmonicon
1 Conjurer's Closet
1 Spine of Ish Sah
1 Darksteel Forge
You might notice that there's a little ETB matters theme in here. That's because I can't stop putting Panharmonicon in every deck I can. It's got so much value. I also like to jam Flameshadow Conjuring and Warstorm Surge wherever I can, so that's personal preference.
If you've ever played with me, especially against my Kiki-Jiki deck, you'd know I never run infinite combos in my decks, I don't even want to tempt myself with them. Well, I realized I have at least one after putting the list together: Breya plus Eldrazi Displacer and Krark-Clan Ironworks. Breya feeds her thopters to the Ironworks to make four colorless mana, then you spend three of it to blink Breya with Displacer, accruing one mana. Since I don't really have anything to spend infinite mana on, I'm going to leave the combo in there for now. However, if Breya decks become infamous for going infinite, it's coming out.
Lastly, as soon as I get my hands on a Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, he's going straight in. I might have to wait a paycheck or two for that.
If you have any comments, concerns, ideas, suggestions, constructive criticisms, whatever, please share!
Also, why no artifact lands?
Not unless Panharmonicon's sitting out or I'm sac'ing Breya herself. I'm probably going to switch KCI out soon anyway, in my playtesting, I am thoroughly unenthused by it.
Sculpting Steel's on my short list for inclusion. I do my very best not to run artifact lands besides Darksteel Citadel. One Vandalblast and I lose them.
Blue lives don't matter in the slightest.
I was focusing hard on artifacts, kind of shoved those to the back of the priority list. I'm giving them much more consideration now.
Running more creatures is really just a matter of personal preference. The deck's got a blink component that I want to keep going strong. I want to keep this deck midrangey and without one-shot threats like Blightsteel, they tend to be bad for politics. I also want to be able to recur my things (Daretti, Sharuum, Welder, etc), so I haven't included the exiling Polymorphs for that reason. Synthetic Destiny is very tempting though, I may add it later on depending on how the deck plays. I seriously thought about vanilla Polymorph and Reweave but decided not to include them because I only got one card from each, whereas as Jalira and Proteus Staff offer multiple activations and Divergent Transformations gets two for one. As for the lands, I'm being very cautious with the mana base right now since I've never played a four or five colored deck. As I get a better feel for the mana base and figure out what I can take out and what I should keep in, I'll start slipping those lands in.
Oops, I missed the Displacer part of that. I've taken KCI out anyway so I won't need to worry myself with an infinite combo.
Updated list coming in the next few(ish) days.