MTG Salvation

In the dim light of the dragon's lair you can just make out the great beast, a true elder dragon, slumbering in the darkness upon a great hoard of what you can only assume must be treasure. Under the rumbling of the dragon's snores you can hear the gentle whirring of some kind of mechanical conveyer belt, working away in the darkness behind the beast. As you approach the monster, however, you see that what you took to be treasure is nothing of the sort. This ancient evil sleeps not on a hoard of gold, but on the scraps of broken spellbombs, cracked baubles and other worthless trinkets. What kind of idiot dragon is this???

It's Crosis, the Purger, and this is his TurboTrash!!!



So in the grand tradition of taking crappy ideas and trying to make them as good as possible: it's a Salvaging Station deck designed with only the intent of abusing that card and all the tiny effects you can get out of 1cc artifacts. The main restriction is that there are no infinite combos; in practice that means no free sac outlets.

The deck is composed for the most part of 1cc artifacts, cards that enjoy artifacts coming into play/leaving play, cards that tutor for Salvaging Station, cards the create creatures, and a few board wipes for good measure. So far I've played a fair number of games with it and it loses a lot (which is fine, I kinda just like durdling with artifacts) but it has won a few, mostly if it gets ignored until the late game, at which point it can play a board wipe and then slowly win by attrition. Crosis himself tends to only wake up if we need a blocker or to try and close out the game. I've managed to get Salvaging Station in every game, and usually there are more tutors than I actually need to get it (which is fine, I use the extras to get the right kind of trash)

Notable artifacts and support cards include:
Triangle of War which allows Crosis to fight all the creatures one after another (though like any gladiator he will get tired)
Pyrite Spellbomb which is my super awesome wincon
Universal Solvent which is a very mana-intensive fix-all
Codex Shredder which recurs all the cards in the deck
Artificer's Intuition which means you tutor as many artifacts as you have blue mana, and you do it every turn
Pia's Revolution which is the backup plan if Salvaging Station gets exiled (there are a lot of ways to get it back from the yard)
Sly Requisitioner + Krovikan Horror/Scorched Rusalka + 1cc artifact that sacs itself = the closest thing we get to a combo - it basically enables us to pay 1 or R (+ whatever it costs to sac the artifact) to do 1 damage to a creature or player, in addition to getting whatever effect sacrificing the artifact gives (usually drawing a card). It's best with things that sac for free, eg Conjurer's Bauble.

Any input you may have is appreciated, I know there are some suboptimal choices there, some of which are made to accommodate pet cards or budget, but others that are just bad, and there are a few cards I'm already thinking of cutting, but can't really think of what to put in their place besides more wipes. Mostly I'm looking for help with closing out games quickly.

TL;DR Salvaging Station deck, no combos, suggestions welcome! Thank you

yo mate,

Pretty solid list - i don't see much, but Academy Ruins should properly be in your list to recover Station. What about Disciple of the Vualt's bigger sister Marionette Master? She's pretty manaintensive, but closes out the game alot quicker then disciple and Reckless Fireweaver. Maybe Riddlesmith could do somoe work. Flitering cheap artifacts into your grave to bring back with Station doesn't seem that bad.
Don't know if Etherium Sculptor can make anything infinite, but those cheap rock gets even cheaper.

Salvaging Station is a cool card for sure. Nice take on it you made here

I love this style of deck. Salvaging Station is so cool.

I don't know if you'd be willing to add white (I run a 1-mana artifact themed deck in U/W), but if you are then Auriok Salvagers is pretty baller.

My super secret ultra tech is Tel-Jilad Stylus plus Avarice Totem. The Stylus, for some blessed reason, reads "target permanent you own", not control, so I can grab something I want from someone who doesn't have five mana free, then tuck the Totem back on the bottom of my library for later tutoring out. I've found the Stylus to also be invaluable at saving other key components in a tutor-heavy deck. With enough mana, this might be able to replace the red damage win condition, meaning that you could move to esper (Dromar, the Banisher, perhaps, to stick with the dragon theme?).

I feel like there's a bunch of other secret 1-mana artifact tech that I'm forgetting. I'll come back to this thread tomorrow with fresh eyes. I've never thought about the idea in an EDH form, though, so this is super cool.

EDIT: I'll second Etherium Sculptor. He makes recycling one mana artifacts way easier.

Quote from Iansisle »

My super secret ultra tech is Tel-Jilad Stylus plus Avarice Totem. The Stylus, for some blessed reason, reads "target permanent you own", not control, so I can grab something I want from someone who doesn't have five mana free, then tuck the Totem back on the bottom of my library for later tutoring out.

I guess this would also work with Brittle Effigy.

Ah, sadly not. The Effigy exiles itself as part of the activation cost, so by the time you would get priority to tuck it, it is already gone. Avarice totem only works if you let the ability fully resolve and then activate the Stylus.

Ah, I see.

Maybe getting the totem into the grave would be better, since it's easier for the Station to recur it. Krark-Clan Ironworks fits the bill, and maybe even Etherium Astrolabe. There's also the atogs and Slobad. Also Phyrexia's Core which i thik you should run reguardless, since it can protect your station from exile.

Sadly, that won't work either. An exchange has to be fully completed for any part of it to go through, so if you don't hand over control of the Avarice Totem, then you won't get control of whatever you were targeting. The reason the Tel-Jilad Stylus works is because it doesn't care whether or not you control the Totem, just that you own it. So you exchange control and let it fully resolve. Then you tap the Stylus to put the Totem back on the bottom of your library. This gets more complicated if they have 5+ mana open, as they can activate the Totem in response to steal back their thing. If they don't understand how the combo works, they may do you a favor by trying to activate the Totem without provocation, at which point you can tap the Stylus in response to fizzle the exchange and waste five of their mana. But I wouldn't risk that more than once!

Er, I also don't want to derail this thread with too much rules discussion! I do think that more sac outlets for the deck would be good in general, but I see that the OP wants to avoid free sac outlets, so the Ironworks is probably out. Etherium Astrolabe is a good call, also Phyrexia's Core - although this is a three color deck, so I'm sure we don't want to go too crazy on colorless lands.

I looked through my own deck in the light of day to see if I had any more secret tech hiding out. Some ideas:

• Seat of the Synod and the various other artifact lands. They can be blown out by Shatterstorm, but it's also a way to tutor out a land in a pinch.
• Stone Calendar - from the Etherium Sculptor school.
• Vector Asp and Viridian Longbow - another win condition
• Meekstone - this stops soooo many decks.
• Mistveil Plains - if you convert to white. I like being able to recycle things as many ways as possible, and the opportunity cost is pretty low.
• Grafdigger's Cage - more random hate.
• Citanul Flute - more digging through the deck.
• Cloudstone Curio - for looping the various Trinket Mages and what have you.
• Pithing Needle - more random hate.
• Altar of the Brood - another win condition. Triggers an awful lot with all the cycling through cheap artifacts.
• Elixir of Immortality - I'm not usually a fan of this card, but I feel it does good work in this deck, mostly by keeping my graveyard from being exiled.
• Gonti's Aether Heart - I haven't actually had a chance to test this yet, but it's theoretically very good in my deck, especially as I run Riftsweeper to possibly recur it. Might be worthwhile for you if you add more energy outlets too.
• Trash for Treasure/Daretti, Scrap Savant - If you stay in red. These are in a different artifact deck I run, but they're one of my favorite ways to recur big artifacts in a loot/sac heavy deck. The Trash for Treasure seems especially thematic!

Thanks for the input y'all

I stayed away from Marionette Master mostly cuz i didn't like the art. But you're right that she's way better than Disciple of the Vault here. I think I'll do a switcheroo on them - plus it gives me something else to transmute for with the 6cc cards.

While I think lansisle is right about the rules on Tel-Jilad Stylus, I'm not totally sold on including it... it seems a bit narrow on its own, and Avarice Totem kind of has a built-in combo where if they don't have 5 mana you can swap any permanent of yours with one of their for 10 mana (activate it targeting one of your lands or something, then activate again targeting something you want - the way triggers resolve you end up with the totem and the desirable thing, they end up with the land). But it is a cool interaction.

I like a lot of the suggestions, Etherium Sculptor could definitely make it in (i don't think it goes infinite) and Stone Calendar is super classy. I think I'm going to stick with Grixis, though I agree that esper adds a lot. I'd be interested to see any esper list you may have tho lansisle - you mention your playing something like this, but I get the impression it's a 60 card deck?

Quote from aslidsiksoraksi »

While I think lansisle is right about the rules on Tel-Jilad Stylus, I'm not totally sold on including it... it seems a bit narrow on its own, and Avarice Totem kind of has a built-in combo where if they don't have 5 mana you can swap any permanent of yours with one of their for 10 mana (activate it targeting one of your lands or something, then activate again targeting something you want - the way triggers resolve you end up with the totem and the desirable thing, they end up with the land). But it is a cool interaction.

I think it's such an all-star in my deck because of the many (and repeatable) tutors it runs. I originally included it mostly to protect my board from opposing hate, and only discovered the fun interaction with Avarice Totem later. It's also been super helpful for resetting things like Pithing Needle or The Rack after their original targets had vanished.

Quote from aslidsiksoraksi »

I like a lot of the suggestions, Etherium Sculptor could definitely make it in (i don't think it goes infinite) and Stone Calendar is super classy. I think I'm going to stick with Grixis, though I agree that esper adds a lot. I'd be interested to see any esper list you may have tho lansisle - you mention your playing something like this, but I get the impression it's a 60 card deck?

The Dark is the classiest of all sets.

I don't mind posting my list at all. It's technically 4c NonRed, although the green and black splashes are so minor that it's really more of Azorius+. It is a multi-player oriented 60 card deck, I think best optimized for 3 player games where it can sort of hide out and wait to pounce on whoever survives the battle of the more threatening decks. It is almost a singleton deck, however, because I want it to be as toolboxy as possible. It's super good at recovering lost permanents (the green splash is 99% so even exiling won't stop me) which is why redundancy of effects is so low.

Of course, as I recently discovered, it does NOT like Akroma's Vengeance, not one little bit!

Haha I like your strategy of hiding out and pouncing on the last person - that's pretty much the only way I try to win with my list too. Looking at your list it's pretty different, it looks like you've sort of done a build-your-own salvaging station with trinket mage and cloudstone curio. I can see why Tel-Jilad Stylus would be so good in that list, and also why you can play some of the 1cc creatures like Vector Asp that wouldn't make sense for me (since Salvaging Station works on noncreatures only).

Are you able to really win with Altar of the Brood? How often do you end up just enabling other people? There's a lot of recursion in EDH and in my meta specifically, I worry that it might end up not being that good, though in conjunction with Grafdigger's Cage it could work well.

I would say that grinding with Altar of the Brood is probably my second best win condition, just behind "people getting frustrated at the cockroach soft-lock and quitting." I'll usually refrain from throwing it down if people are playing GY focused decks until I can get a Grafdigger's Cage online. I also used to run Relic of Progenitus and Scrabbling Claws, which can help more with the Meren of Clan Nel Toth style recursion. Oh, and Bojuka Bog might be a good inclusion if there is a lot of GY shenanigans in your meta.

The Altar of the Brood win is probably just easier in 60-card constructed than EDH simply by the nature of the formats. There is the combo with Undead Alchemist, of course, which can turbocharge it, but that card doesn't really fit with the rest of your deck too well and could be construed as an infinite combo -- not truly infinite, but close enough to get groans from your group.

As far as the other win conditions, "sniping people with Viridian Longbow (either poisoned or not)" and "random Windborn Muse aggro over a Meekstone" are the third and fourth most common. I also had a win with Metallic Sliver back in the day when there were more slivers in my meta. They've shifted away from those decks, though, so he got cycled out.

I never noticed the non-creature restriction on Salvaging Station. Go figure, that's too bad, though I suppose it makes sense with the infinite possibilities otherwise. I would agree that there are a few differences between the two lists in terms of engines, but a lot of similarity in terms of finishers and shenanigans!

scrap mastery seems really good here.

thanks for the suggestion! Scrap mastery does seem interesting, my only worry is that it will require me to sac my Salvaging Station in return for a ton of 1cc artifacts. could be good if i already have a Junk Diver or something on the table though. or if played Trash for Treasure (which i'm definitely thinking of adding in).

Thank you for such an unique decklist! I will study it further before commenting on it. :3