MTG Salvation

Yeah, I should really get Firestorm back in - and Tormenting Voice has been on my radar for a little while, too. I experimented in a few formats with that core set version that cost RR, and the effect is welcome but badly costed - much better at 1R.

Interesting thought, I hadn't even considered Tormenting Voice, great support for the artifact deck and graveyard strategies. I would probably test it if the discard was an effect rather than an additional cost.

Tormenting Voice has been a good graveyard enabler for reanimation decks (with or without artifacts) that has mild applications as a card draw effect in other decks, too. It's no Faithless Looting, but for larger cubes that want more red discard effects, it is fine.

Currently, I am mostly looking for more good artifact fatties. Despite its 21 year history, there are surprisingly few good artifact fatties in Magic. I really want Scrap Mastery to be a thing, but the you need several big artifacts in your deck for it to make sense.

I think there are quite a few really good ones:

Sundering Titan
Myr Battlesphere
Aether Searcher
Inkwell Leviathan
Wurmcoil Engine
Bosh, Iron Golem

Are all reanimation targets as well.

Darksteel Colossus
Blightsteel Coloussus

Are much narrower and I don't run them but they are amazing targets for certain effects.

I think it's really hard to make Scrap Mastery work though unfortunately.

Quote from Goodking »

I think there are quite a few really good ones:

Sundering Titan
Myr Battlesphere
Aether Searcher
Inkwell Leviathan
Wurmcoil Engine
Bosh, Iron Golem

I'm already running all of these, plus:

Wurmcoil Engine
Soul of New Phyrexia
Scuttling Doom Engine
Duplicant
Sphinx of the Steel Wind

There are certainly enough options for smaller cubes, but for 600 cards, I feel that I could use two or three more. If only to replace some of the weaker ones that I am currently running.

I've been thinking about Darksteel Colossus, but not being able to use Goblin Welder / Daretti / Scrap Mastery / any reanimation spell at all on him means that half the reasons for including another artifact fatty don't apply. At that point, I am happier with just running Kozilek and Ulamog.

I really want Scrap Mastery to work. Or at least have another cubable Welder effect. Trash for Treasure is just so meh.

How has Soul of New Phyrexia been? We are thinking about cutting Sundering Titan for either Soul or Scuttling Doom Engine. Also, why don't you run Myr Battlesphere? That card is nutz.

Oh god, why would you cut Sundering Titan? SoNP and SDE are amateurs who try to play in the majors with the Titan. I'd cut Razormane before Titan.

-AA

Scuttling Doom Engine is far better than Soul of New Phyrexia. Its not even close. And Sundering Titan is better than both.

Sundering Titan's a baller.

It's a great card but my group isn't into the "bad feelings." I built a tinker deck with him and like 4 tutors and caused lots of rage scoops. I agree he is a super strong card, but the needs of the group outweigh the needs of the cube manager.

I cut Mind Twist and Plow Under for similar reasons, although I do think that Sundy is way less offensive than either of those cards.

Drafting enough cheap mana rocks is the biggest hurdle for our artifact decks. They're just such commodities and everyone grabs them early and often.

Quote from Torggo »

Scuttling Doom Engine is far better than Soul of New Phyrexia. Its not even close.

I'm coming around on this. I had cut Scuttles for Soul but will probably reverse that in the next update.

It has a form of evasion and domes you when it dies. Solid card for medium and larger cubes.

So I am beginning to wonder if I should even support the artifact deck in my cube. I have a 540 card unpowered cube and it doesn't feel like the deck ever comes together aside from someone just playing tinker and some other large artifact as opposed to actually using Daretti or either Tezz. Does anyone else have experience with the archetype at that size?

Nope. I have a 540 card cube and the artifact.dec is beastly!

Honest question here, is it even worth trying to support this style of deck in an unpowered cube?

I thought I had clarified this in my post but I actually hadn't my cube is unpowered.

Oh that changes everything. I have no idea if it's good or not.

I would imagine the Artifact deck would be pretty tough to draft in an unpowered 540 cube without the Signets. Cheap mana rocks are always in demand and if you don't get a bunch guys like Metalworker, Academy and the Tezzerets don't really get to shine.

Quote from hardb0dy »

I would imagine the Artifact deck would be pretty tough to draft in an unpowered 540 cube without the Signets. Cheap mana rocks are always in demand and if you don't get a bunch guys like Metalworker, Academy and the Tezzerets don't really get to shine.

It works for us. We run a few signets and a ton of other mana rocks, and I allow players to include singleton artifact lands if they so choose.

I have a 600 cards unpowered card and the artifact deck is fun and good enough. It is definitely not the easiest deck to draft and there are other archetypes where it is easier to draft powerful decks, but it is certainly draftable. When you draft my cube with a "I need to maximize my chances to go 3-0" mentalitiy, you should probably not draft the artifact deck though. In other words: It is a tier 2 strategy. You can win the draft with it, but you'll have to work a little bit harder for it than with several other draft strategies.

Note that I run all 10 Signets and a few support cards for this archetype that aren't that common (like Renowned Weaponsmith and Grand Architect).

I'm not a huge fan of adding so many signets to an unpowered cube. I like 2 mana artifact rocks, but find the more you add in an unpowered cube, the more you punish decks that aren't playing signets. Giving decks the option of always playing 4 drops on turn 3 can be dangerous and make everything into a signets-or-bust type of meta.

Yeah, you definitely could be right, my only issue is that it eliminates what is green's biggest strength by giving it to a lot of other colors. I'm looking forward to seeing your results, as I feel our cubes are fairly similar in application/content. You mitigate the green issue a decent amount more than I do with a midrange/aggro package that I don't support as heavily, but I see a lot of similarities in our lists. You also may find that you might not need to add all ten, something worth considering as you already run a number of them.

FWIW, I run both Skullclamp and Jitte and while they are at the absolute top of power level in my cube, there has to be a best and I'm OK with those being that 'best'. My line of thought is that, with ample artifact removal, these cards are much less of an issue. While they can still run rampant, it feels less like it's their fault when they do and more so that there isn't enough artifact removal in the decks they are beating. This is not always a clear case in practice--Jitte is Jitte, Skullclamp is Skullclamp, they are powerful cards that do powerful things--but if you don't take that Reclamation Sage/Acidic Slime/etc and you lose to those cards, you can only blame the cards so much.