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Over the years of Magic's history, they have printed many silly little artifacts that sacrifice themselves to do something. When Ashnod was spoiled for Brother's War, I knew right away what I wanted to do with her. All those trinkets and baubles had finally found a home.
Here are all the silly little 0-3 drops that we will be working with.
We'll go over all of these when we get to their respective sections. But as you can see, there are quite a few of them and that is only a handful compared to what the deck could be running.
The game plan of this deck is to play cheap artifacts that can sacrifice themselves for free or for very little mana. Sacrifice them with Ashnod on the battlefield to out value your opponents. Then bring them back to repeat the process. Thus creating a little value engine.
Unlike most of my decks, there aren't really any cards that are dedicated to a theme or strategy that I can just group together (for example Mill, +1/+1 Tokens, Clones) to get the theme of the deck across. So I'll be starting with General Support & Synergy section.
I have separated this section into two categories. Both help the deck run smoothly, but they do it slightly differently.
Support cards are there to make sure that our engine pieces can be found and can be used immediately.
For example, Audacious Reshapers will supply fuel for the engine at the cost of life points. Trading tokens for non-token artifacts. Thousand-Year Elixir effectively gives haste to all of our creatures because this deck relies heavily on tap effects.
Synergy cards help the deck once the engine gets going, giving us additional benefits like blockers and flexibility in our plays.
Golem Foundry and Mirrodin Besieged giving us blockers to protect ourselves with. Storm the Vault and Brass's Tunnel-Grinder turning into lands with major benefits.
The cards in this section can just be equated to cogs or the grease between the gears for the deck's artifact engine.
The backbone of our whole deck's strategy. We want to be looping artifacts in and out of our graveyard for value and damage. There are two types of recursion in the deck.
The first and most prevalent is, of course, artifact recursion. There are two sub-types: creatures that tap to recure artifacts and artifact creatures that recure when sacrificed.
The three creatures that tap to recure all have their own special upsides.
The two artifact creatures that recure on sacrifice are Myr Retriever and Scrap Trawler. They are mostly just used as sacrifice fodder to double up on our recursion effects. There is a ruling error that often gets played with Scrap Trawler that I will explain in the FAQ.
Second are the creature revival cards. Dross Skullbomb, No One Left Behind, and Doomed Necromancer. They are there to get back our artifact recursion creatures. Occasionally they will grab other creatures for the deck's engine like damage or draw.
This is the other half of our deck's value engine. There are 15 artifacts in the deck that all say "sacrifice: draw a card" on them. We plan on doubling up on these with Ashnod. I'll just be talking about the dedicated draw spells here though.
There are two types of draw, self-sourced and out-sourced. The first one is self-explanatory, as mentioned before, there are artifacts in the deck that say "sacrifice: draw a card" as one of its abilities.
The out-sourced draw goes to the cards that rely on other cards to draw.
Now with our engine up and running, how do we benefit/win from it?
This is our "win-con". Once we have our engine built, we will try and use these cards to burn or drain our opponent's life totals.
Most of them trigger off of artifacts either ETB-ing or being"put into a graveyard. By looping artifacts in and out of our hand battlefield and grave, we can rack up decent amounts of damage.
There are a few exceptions:
Mana Accelerants & Artifact Cost Reduction: These cards are important for easing our mana burdens. Most of our baubles and trinkets are around 1-2 mana. So to allow us to recast them over and over and have it not drain up all of our mana every time, we need to make sure that we have at least one of these cards on the battlefield.
Removal: We are running a relatively small removal package at only 8 cards (technically 10 if we include Goblin Engineer and Pyrite Spellbomb). I have tried to keep the removal flavorful to the deck's themes. Be warned, you only have 3 cards that can deal with problematic enchantments.
Targeted Removal:
Our two options for mass removal are Oblivion Stone and Terisiare's Devastation. Terisiare's Devastation can also be a great tempo piece if you are behind. Pump as much mana into it and get a large burst of power stones to fuel our artifact spells later.
Lands: I am running a budget mana base that is trying to maximize out on artifact lands. They will help supply additional artifact ETB triggers for the cards that care about that.
These are 5 cards that I think really exemplify the deck's ideals or are some cool tech that I don't want you to miss out on.
Most players know someone who says "I don't negotiate with terrorists" and refuses to play for any card's taxes. They are what makes this card so good. With a cost reducer in play, you can just loop artifacts back to your hand over and over accruing more and more value.
This is an all-star in the deck, however, it is a double-edged sword. Because everything is now an artifact, it turns on everything. The deck will run at 110% efficiency. All of our damage spells will trigger on anything we do and gives more flexibility with our recursion.
However, the chance that you get blown out is much much higher. All artifact removal becomes much more of a threat, a single Vandlebalst ruins you. It all so will non-bo with a few of our cards. Audacious Reshapers will only hit the top card of the deck now, and it will now hit instant and sorcery spells, making them fizzle and do nothing.
This is arguably the most important of our recursion pieces. Every Ashnod deck runs this card, and for good reason. It does everything that this deck wants. It's a cheap artifact that sacrifices itself, lets you get a creature card back to hand, and lets you draw cards on top of that! At baseline, it is an artifact that replaces itself in hand. With Ashnod out, it becomes a +4 in card advantage with two of those being your choice. It being an artifact also means that it will be triggering all of our synergy/damage spells.
This enchantment pulls double-duty building. Normally we will be picking the Mirran side to pump out blockers and sack fodder to fuel the engine. Occanaly in the late game, especially if we are board wiped, It can win us the game by casting it for the Phyrexian mode.
this is the type of card that this deck was built for. With Ashnod's ability, this spell gives us the value that a 7-cost spell should give. What I mean is, without our cost reduction effects in play, it costs 3 to play and 4 to activate. Essentially making it a lackluster 7 cmc spell. However, with Ashnod in play, the effect is now in line with what you want to be getting with a spell that costs that much.
It is important to note that you roll two dies and do each effect separately. Not roll one die and do one effect twice. Also if you roll two nat 1s that is just funny. Just for that alone, I think Treasure Chest is worth the inclusion.
There are a few things/cards that this deck struggles against:
Cards that say "Players can’t cast more than one spell each turn" really hamper the deck. While they don't outright shut down the deck like a card that I'll mention later in this section. Deafening Silence is the poster child for this effect though as it is an enchantment, something that our colors struggle to deal with, and it comes down early enough to disrupt our gameplan.
No matter what the Aura Shards player says; they are not your friend. It is also hard for our deck to deal with because it is an enchantment. Be sure to deal with them ASAP.
He completely shuts down the deck. While we can still make use of our creatures, nearly a third of our entire deck is artifacts and almost all of them have activated abilities.
Shimmer Myr: I would like to add this card but sadly there isn't any space for it.
Scrap Mastery: This would, more times than not, sit dead in my hand. Casting it would often mean sacrificing many of my lands, putting me back farther than I was to gain.
Farid, Enterprising Salvager: He felt like a "Win More" sac outlet that I didn't need. He never really ended up doing much whenever he was out; especially if I was behind. I would also seldom activate his ability because I would rather be sacrificing my artifacts to themselves.
Thopter Spy Network: I don't ever go to combat with this deck. Nor do I need the card draw.
Efficient Construction: It used to be in the deck. I had to cut it to make room for another card. It was the choice between it and Golem Foundry. I chose to keep Golem Foundry over it because Golem Foundry was an artifact and I don't get many chances to play Golem Foundry.
Stormclaw Rager: The same problem with Farid, Enterprising Salvager applies to this card. I didn't need the sac outlet because all my artifacts sacrifice themselves and I didn't need the card draw. Plus the the deck doesn't go to combat.
Kuldotha Forgemaster: I have no "bomb" artifacts that I need to tutor out. Most of them are cheap little things that wouldn't be worth tutoring out. The few that aren't, like Meteor Golem and Encroaching Mycosynth, still aren't worth the 5cmc plus thee artifacts to search out.
Solemn Simulacrum: I wanted an artifact that sacrificed itself and I didn't need the sacrifice fodder. I could get better value out of a mana rock that could be sac-ed to draw.
Ichor Wellspring / Mycosynth Wellspring / Servo Schematic: I want artifacts that sacrifice themselves. I also don't really need the fodder.
Smelting Vat: Most of my artifacts are too small to reliably hit anything off the top with this ability. And the artifacts that are large enough to work, I want to stick around the battlefield.
Q: You have cards in the sideboard, but the Commander format doesn't allow a sideboard. So what are they doing here?
A: I put cards that I am currently playtesting in the deck into the sideboard.
Q: Why are there no infinite combos in the deck? // If you just add X card you can go infinite, why don't you?
A: My playgroup's meta has something of a soft ban on infinite combos. We are fine with a combo that can go near infinite, but not actually infinite.
For example Zimone, Quandrix Prodigy + Retreat to Coralhelm + Lotus Cobra + Simic Growth Chamber = Infinite landfall triggers. This is not cool within our meta.
However, the combo of Zimone, Quandrix Prodigy + Retreat to Coralhelm + Simic Growth Chamber = as many landfall triggers as I have mana. This is perfectly fine. According to our playgroup's founder, it's to make players think outside the box and be more creative with their combos.
Q: If I sacrifice an artifact token or 0 cmc artifact with Scrap Trawler in play; can I get a 0 drop artifact from the graveyard into play?
A: No, this is a common mistake that I have seen with this card. Scrap Trawler only grabs cards will lesser Manna Value and 0, sadlly, is not less than 0. I discovered this was a semi-common ruling error when I let someone borrow the deck and they tried to loop Mishra's Bauble and Urza's Bauble together an infinite amount of times. Another time someone tried to suggest that I had won the game by stating the same infinite loop.
Needed more protection for Ashnod. Replaced Smelting Vat and Vial of Dragonfire with Netherborn Altar and Darksteel Plate
After playtesting I Found that the deck would run out of gas if there if I didn't have a recursion outlet on the board, so I added these three to help.
| Removed | Replaced |
|---|---|
| Gonti's Aether Heart | Mystic Forge |
| Darksteel Plate | Audacious Reshapers |
| Removed | Replaced |
|---|---|
| Aetherflux Reservoir | Thousand-Year Elixir |
| Netherborn Altar | Visions of Phyrexia |
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