work in progress

-= HELLBENT STAX =-

Daretti cEDH Primer

Feel free to comment. I really appreciate your thoughts and ideas. There is always room for improvement and opportunities to learn something. Also feel free to join the Daretti discord: https://discord.gg/qhBSDP6

>Intro 

This is my idea for a competitive Daretti stax deck. It combines disruptive stax pieces with aggressive but disadvantageous ramp like City of Traitors, Sandstone Needle or Treasonous Ogre and card filtering like Bazaar of Baghdad, Burning Inquiry or Faithless Looting. The idea is to profit from having no cards in hand (Hellbent). Going Hellbent quickly means you can take advantage of cards like Anje's Ravager, Lion's Eye Diamond, Experimental Frenzy, Null Brooch or Sandstone Oracle. 

Unlike classic stax builds that aim to denie resources by tax effects and by attacking lands and other mana sources to grind the game to a halt, this build tries to hinder spell casting with cards like Chalice of the Void, Nullstone Gargoyle and Possibility Storm. In addition it tries to disrupt winning lines. 

Being able to perform under the circumstances you have created, you start to dig into your library with Daretti, Anje's Ravager or Memory Jar to assemble your wincon. 

What makes this build unique
You can find many Daretti Stax builds online. Compared to other lists, the following cards usually don't see much play and characterize my Hellbent Stax build:

• Chalice of the Void 
• Nullstone Gargoyle 
• Possibility Storm
• Anje's Ravager
• Semblance Anvil
• Mesmeric Orb
• Treasonous Ogre 

Daretti Hellbent Stax - to play or not to play?
Not everyone likes to play heavy control or mono red. Being on mono red means playing with restrictions. The build (and Daretti as a Commander) will suit your playstyle if you 

• like disruptive control and stax
• like nonlinear play patterns 
• want to draw a lot of more cards 
• take risks by discarding cards or your entire hand 
• like artifacts 
• want to play a graveyard centric strategy 
• want to play mono red in cEDH but not Godo

This build (and Daretti) is probably nothing for you if 

• want to play a top tier cEDH control deck
• can't decide what card to discard 
• have trouble discarding your entire hand 
• want a combo piece in the command zone
• Null Rod, Collector Ouphe and Stony Silences see much play in your meta 

Budget & proxies
The deck is meant to be played in competitive pods. If a mono red deck shall keep up with UBGx lists, there can be no mercy and no budget limitation. If you - like me - can't afford to buy cards like Mox Diamond, Lion's Eye Diamond or even Bazaar of Baghdad, use a proxy. 

Modified casting costs
The casting costs of some cards are changed to the effective cost, like Chalice of the Void from cmc0 to (at least) cmc2. On the other hand, the cost of cards that aren't meant to be cast but welded in, like Possessed Portal, are reduced to zero. This reveals the effective mana curve and lets you calculate the amount lands better. 

List of modified casting costs 

• Chalice of the Void set to cc2 
• Rolling Earthquake set to cc2
• Walking Ballista set to cc2
• Anje's Ravager set to cc2
• God-Pharaoh's Statue set to zero
• Nullstone Gargoyle set to zero
• Possessed Portal set to zero
• Alhammarret's Archive set to zero 
• Memory Jar set to zero 
• Sandstone Oracle set to zero
• Squee, Goblin Nabob set to zero
• Deflecting Swat set to zero 

Sideboard and Maybeboard
Sideboard used as maybeboard for this build. Maybeboard used to gather all cards that are (remotely) playable in a Daretti deck, no matter what game plan, competitive or casual.

>Gameplan 

This is a competitive deck. We play to win - by any means necessary. The deck does what mono red stax decks can do best - slow down the game to prevent faster decks from winning, grind and finally win the game. The game plan can be broken down in three stages: staxing, grinding and winning the game. Those often correspond to the commonly used differentiation of game stages: stax early game, grind mid game and win late game.

In comparison to other competitive Daretti builds this one tries to ramp and grind more aggressively. It uses more disadvantageous cards to produce fast mana to get out a stax piece quickly and to dig deeper into the library. The list is a stax deck for sure, but in the Daretti spectrum between combo and control it's more combo oriented than others. 

You can find some in depth analysis for stax, grinding and winning in the corresponding sections. The following subsections give a short overview for the early, mid and late stages of the game. 

>Early game  (T1 - T4) 

Hellbent Stax plays like almost all cEDH decks. You build up a board state during the first two or three turns. The goal is to cast Daretti on turn two or three. You should take a mulligan if you don't see a chance to cast on turn three when looking at your starting hand. 

With all the cards that provide fast mana there is a notable chance to produce two or even three mana on turn one. This can be used for stax pieces like Chalice of the Void (X=1), Cursed Totem or Blood Moon, Magus of the Moon or Trinisphere. Few things are more satisfying than a turn one Blood Moon. 

Another common play pattern would be to discard a cmc-wise expensive card like God-Pharaoh's Statue, Nullstone Gargoyle or Alhammaret's Archive with Faithless Looting, Tormenting Voice or Bazaar of Baghdad to weld it back in with Daretti. 

Lion's Eye Diamond offers ridiculous but risky plays on T1. It gives you the mana to cast Daretti and it lets you discard your hand. If you manage to cast another artifact or your land is an artifact land you can trade your hand for T1 Daretti and an impactful artifact. The following artifacts are worth the risk: Alhammaret's Archive, God-Pharaoh's Statue, Nullstone Gargoyle, Sandstone Oracle and Trinisphere (if you go first).

...

>Mid game (T5 - T8) 

Once your opponents winning lines are (temporarily) interrupted you start to grind and assemble your combo pieces. 

...

>Late Game (T9+) 

... 

>Stax

The classic stax strategy is to win through resource denial, card advantage and attrition. Even though it's possible to grind an EDH game to a halt by denying your opponents all their resources and win by drawing more and losing less cards than your opponents do, that strategy is in my opinion not strong enough to compete in the current meta - at least not with mono red. The game is too fast. When fast combo decks can constantly attempt to win on turn three, there is often no time to find another card that breaks parity on a symmetrical stax effect like a card that produces tokens for Smokestack. Therefore I try to play only stax effects, that are asymmetrical on their own. This is true for cards like God-Pharaoh's Statue or Stranglehold but also for Moon effects or Lodestone Golem because of the way the deck is built.

Resource denial is difficult too. It's often not possible to effectively attack all three major mana sources (lands, artifacts and creatures) at the same time or in the time window fast combo decks offer. Not to mention enchantments like Carpet of Flowers, Utopia Sprawl or Smothering Tithe. Therefore this build's main goal is to attack spell casting and interrupt winning lines. Spell hate and the graveyard-centric strategy that is implied by Daretti work well with a mono red deck, because red can't keep up in card quality when it comes to instants and sorceries. Having ability-based access to the graveyards allows us to attack spellcasting aggressively with cards like Chalice of the Void or Possibility Storm.

Tempo advantage
Everyone has an idea of what tempo or tempo advantages means. A common definition is that Tempo is the pace at which one plays threats. This can be achieved with mana efficient “on curve” plays. If tempo is related to a single commander tempo often stands for a build that can win faster. Najeela Tempo vs Najeela Stax. But you could also relate deck archetypes to others. A fast combo deck like Selvala Brostorm then has a natural tempo advantage over Niv-Mizzet Parun (when goldfishing). 

I prefer to use the term tempo to describe the current state of the game. I would say, the player who has progressed his own game plan the most in relation to their opponents, in other words who is closest to victory, has a tempo advantage. If someone gains tempo advantage and keeps it throughout the entire game, that inevitably leads to victory. The problem with my definition is that the information you need to determine who has a tempo advantage is hidden if you are participating in the game. But you can state that the first player in turn order has a natural tempo advantage. Playing on curve and using slot efficient combos of only one or two cmc-wise cheap cards (including a commander if possible) helps a lot to (start with or) gain and keep the tempo advantage. Most cEDH decks have more speed in assembling their combos than Daretti has.

Stax pieces kill your opponent's tempo because they are meant to disrupt their game plan. Many effects are symmetrical which makes it necessary to break the parity. I try to avoid those but some cards are just too strong to not play them. Grafdigger’s Cage, Torpor Orb or Cursed Totem for example. Losing engines Goblin Engineer and Goblin Welder, rituals like Treasonous Ogre or Dockside Extortionist and combo pieces like Walking Ballista or Underworld Breach hurts. Those cards are needed because most decks find their combos before Daretti does. But when you do, you can use Daretti to sacrifice the disruptive artifact and combo off.    

Although the wording of many cards implies a symmetrical effect, many effects aren’t symmetrical due to the way the deck is built. Blood Moon turns everyone’s nonbasic lands into Mountains but a mono red won’t be disrupted by that. Lodestone Golem hits only nonartifact spells of which we don’t play much. Trinisphere hits everyone but the average cmc of a Daretti deck (2+) is higher than the average cmc of most other decks. For the same reason Chalice of the Void on X=1 hits other decks harder. Even Possibility Storm and Nullstone Gargoyle can be asymmetrical. You don’t have to cast cards for an artifacts-only combo. Daretti can play around by discarding and welding those in. And Possibility Storm can turn redundant mana rocks and stax pieces into missing combo pieces. 

Other stax pieces are one-sided on their own. Tangle Wire taps 12 of your opponents but only 3 other cards of you. Close to Time Walk, isn’t it. And God-Pharaoh’s Statue or Stranglehold affect opponents only. 

Deal with spellcasting and permanents
The cards meant to control the game can roughly be divided in two categories: cards that disrupt or prevent your opponents from casting spells and activating or triggering abilities on one side and cards that deal with what is coming through on the other. Nonbasic land hate, taxation and abilities that counter spells fall in the first category of disruption. Mass and spot removal and spells that counter spells belong in the second category of reaction. A card of its own kind is Possessed Portal. The card is disruptive as hell and has a devastating impact on the game. But it's more of a one-card wincon and therefore it is discussed in the corresponding section.  

Disruption	Reaction
Blood Moon	Red Elemental Blast
Magus of the Moon	Pyroblast
Tangle Wire	Null Brooch
Grafdigger's Cage	Deflecting Swat
Cursed Totem	Anger of the Gods
Phyrexian Revoker	Sweltering Suns
Torpor Orb	Rolling Earthquake
Stranglehold	Blast Zone
God-Pharaoh's Statue	Abrade
Lodestone Golem	Barbarian Ring
Trinisphere	Chaos Warp
Chalice of the Void
Nullstone Gargoyle
Possibility Storm

Anti tutor side effects
In addition to those cards listed above there are some cards that can by chance be used to control the game. Codex Shredder and Mesmeric Orb mill and therefore can be used to control what the top card of your opponent's library is when they draw. Both cards shut down sorcery-speed Imperial Seal and Codes Shredder also shuts down instant-speed top-deck tutors like Vampiric Tutor unless a card like Brainstorm is used to draw the tutored card before the mill-ability resolves. Geier Reach Sanitarium can be used against top-deck tutors too if your opponent has an empty hand after the resolution of their top-deck tutor. Burning Inquiry can also be used to mess up your opponent's hand (and maybe your own hand too) when they pass their turn after they've cast a to-hand tutor. Same is true for Wheel of Fortune. And Memory Jar can be used to prevent an opponent from winning on their turn when activated before their main phase, for example to answer your opponent's Ad Nauseam on the end-step before their turn. 

Anti meta stax
What cards you need to successfully pilot a stax deck strongly depends on the decks you play against. Playing stax requires you - probably more than other archetypes - to build accordingly to our meta. To a certain degree stax is anti meta magic. 

The most frequently used wincons are probably Consultation, Ad Nauseam & Underworld Breach Storm, Food Chain, DramaticScepter and Dockside Loops. You might also play against Time Twister Loops, Worldgorger/Relic-Warder, Kiki-JikiPod, DualTwin, EarthcraftNest, Sensei's Loops, Cephalid Breakfast/Hermit, Aluren, Bomberman, FreedTender, Razaketh, ThiefWheels, Najeela or Godo. 

When playing stax you need to know how your opponents engines and wincons work to interrupt them effectively. There are only a few tutors in mono red and you often need those to find the missing piece for your combo. Even though it’s often smart to use your first tutor for the most effective stax piece. Therefore you need to know if the stax pieces you have drawn are sufficient or what card will be the most effective for the current match-up if you have to tutor for one. 

Spell-based loops and Storm
The majority of the commonly used wincons include a spell-based loop. This is true for Food Chain, DramaticScepter, BreachLED, SDT or Dockside loops. From the stax player's perspective spell loops are similar to spell chains created by Storm decks. A very effective way to attack spell-based loops and Storm are tax effects like Lodestone Golem or Trinisphere. Storm turns of an Ad Nauseam often start with free mana and rituals in the cc1 slot like Dark Ritual, High Tide or Rain of Filth. Those can be attacked with Chalice of the Void on X=1. 

Ability-based loops
Many spell-based loops are also ability-based. Isochron Scepter has to be activated and Dockside's ability must trigger when entering. Same is true for mana abilities like Food Chain or Lion's Eye Diamond. A pure ability based loop is Worldgorger Dragon with Animate Dead. Birthing Pod lines into Kiki-Jiki and the good old combo of Earthcraft and Squirrel Nest are ability-based too. In addition to that infinite outlet commanders like Thrasios, Triton Hero, Yisan, the Wandering Bard, Urza, High Lord Artificer, Najeela, the Blade-Blossom and many more have activated abilities. Commanders like The First Sliver, Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger or Naru Meha, Master Wizard have triggered abilities. All activated abilities can be interrupted by Phyrexian Revoker. Even mana abilities and abilities of lands. Cursed Totem deals with creatures that have activated abilities and Torpor Orb deals with ETB Trigger. Some triggered abilities are too specific. There is no answer for The First Sliver which triggers on cast. HelmGodo triggers during combat, but before that Godo’s ETB effect has to trigger and Helm to be attached. Equip is an activated ability. Or Gitrog, if you - like me - have no idea how that shit works exactly. 

 
Non-loop wincons
Consultation is presumably the most played non-loop wincon. Thassa’s Oracle, Jace, Wielder of Mysteries and Laboratory Maniac win the game when you draw from an empty library or resolve Oracle’s trigger. Tainted Pact and Demonic Consultation get you there by exiling all cards from your library. CephalidBreakfast and Hermit Druid lines use mill instead and return Thassa’s Oracle from the graveyard. Torpor Orb helps against Oracle. Cursed Totem stops Breakfast. And Pyroblast and Red Elemental Blast can hit Jace or Labman in response to the draw effect or in the upkeep before the draw step. 

Lavinia Omen Pool wins via hard lock. Blood Pod has Kiki-Jiki lines but can win by disruption and beats too. Board wipes help here. 

My personal anti meta choices
The selection of stax pieces in the list is optimized to perform well in my personal meta. I need wipes that deal three damage. I need tax against Storm decks and Food Chain. And I need Torpor Orb against ConsultationOracle. I don't need combat control or Tabernacle because I don't face Tymna or Najeela at the moment. And I don't need graveyard hate. 
... 

> Grind

The idea behind the Hellbent game plan is to dig faster and deeper into your library to find what you need and discard everything you don't need. The ongoing process of drawing and discarding (or vice versa) works better when you play many permanents - most of them artifacts - and less cards that depend on the circumstances (like spells that need a target). Discarding artifacts is no substantial downside, because the deck has easy access to the graveyard with Daretti, Scrap Savant, Goblin Welder and the other recursion effects. With the graveyard being an active zone for artifacts, you generate card advantage by discard artifacts in exchange for card draw. 

This build is designed to grind. Nothing is more frustrating than finding the right stax pieces and then being out valued by your opponents. Most cEDH decks can generate a lot of value, which means card advantage. The word "draw" is written on most of the strongest Commanders like Tymna, Thrasios, Kenrith and Kraum. It's written on Daretti too, but in combination with the word "discard". Nevertheless being the Elder, Daretti is our primary way to generate card advantage. 

Different ways to generate card advantage
Card advantage means more than just drawing cards, even though raw draw is often the easiest and strongest way of getting card advantage because most cards are active in your hand.

For clarification or the concept and the terms card advantage, card disadvantage or quality advantage, I can recommend the following article written by Leo Bartolome: https://www.cardmarket.com/de/Magic/Insight/Articles/Define-This-Card-and-Quality-Advantage-Part-1

He defines the term as follows:

Card Advantage is the action of acquiring more active cards than your opponent. When your opponent gains card advantage, you generate Card Disadvantage.

Quality Advantage is the action of improving the quality of your active cards without changing the number of active cards relative to your opponent.

With the graveyards being a zone a Daretti deck has easy access to, filling the yard with cards, in particular with artifacts, generates card advantage. Therefore Mesmeric Orb and Codex Shredder can produce card advantage by milling cards. And Daretti and other card filter effects provide not only quality advantage but also card advantage when you discarded an artifact. Similar to a Legacy Reanimator deck, we don't plan to cast the cmc-wise expensive artifacts like Nullstone Gargoyle, Sandstone Oracle or God-Pharaoh's Statue. Discarding those means sending a card that's inactive in your hand to the graveyard where it's active now.

In general you try to avoid nonbos. But mono red stax doesn't have the luxury of avoiding all negative side effects. Cursed Totem stops mana dorks and some of the strongest commanders like Thrasios or Urza. But it also stops our Goblin Welder and Walking Ballista. Even though Daretti can get rid of stax pieces that are artifacts, drawing an Imperial Recruiter with Torpor Orb on the battlefield makes Recruiter a dead card. Unless you draw another "dead" card you technically have generated card advantage when you discard the Recruiter with Daretti to draw a card. 

On the other hand you can generate card advantage in a negative way for example with a board wipe that destroys more "cards" from your opponents than from yourself. Removing Commander creatures is a special case because those cards are active or will eventually become active in the Command Zone.

Good news is that stax pieces will often generate - some say "virtual" - card advantage. By definition it's card advantage when you deactivate more cards from your opponents with a stax piece than from yourself. You often can't see the impact of a stax piece because it prevents your opponents from casting spells they have in their hand. Sometimes the effect is quite obvious when you hit a multicolored deck without basic lands with Blood Moon because you can see their land base. From a card-advantage-perspective you can trade 100 for 1, which in other words is a lockdown. There will often be a Mox Diamond or something else that will help. But a 97 for 1 trade is still ridiculously good. When you look at the mana curve of cEDH decks you can see that Chalice of the Void on X=1 will shut down between 20 and 30 nonland cards from your opponents. Most competitive Daretti lists have between 10 and 15 cards in the cc1 slot, but Daretti can turn those inactive cards into active ones. 

... 

>Win

There are different ways to win the game. Most combos are rather engines that once assembled will find the card(s) to actually finish the game with. A combo that lets you draw your deck will lead more often to victory than a combo that just produces infinite mana. A common pattern for a winning line of three steps would be to assemble a combo that lets you draw your library, which allows you to assemble a second combo, that generates enough mana to play a spell that burns all your opponent's life. 

Some stax pieces are meant to stop combos. Therefore it's important to be aware of what stax pieces you need against the opponents you are playing against and which combo can be executed with those pieces in play. 

Another way to win the game is to lock down all your opponents indefinitely. This is a different form of combo. Instead of maximizing your chance of winning the game, a lockdown minimizes your opponents chances of winning. Technically you don't win on the spot, but over the course of the game you will. If you aim for a lockdown, beatdown is a viable wincon. For example turning Mycosynth Lattice into a creature with Karn, the Great Creator. 

>Combos 

This subsection lists the main combos and gives a short description of how to execute them. 

Sensei's Loops (draw deck) 

• Sensei's Divining Top 
• Mystic Forge or Experimental Frenzy
• Semblance Anvil (or Cloud Key,... ) 

With all three pieces in play you can tap Sensei's Divining Top to draw a card and put it on top of your library. Mystic Forge or Experimental Frenzy let you cast Sensei's Divining Top from there for free because of the cost reduction by Semblance Anvil. You can now draw all cards from your library. 

Metal Domination (infinite mana, life & draw deck) 

• Staff of Domination 
• Metalworker
• Three or more artifacts in hand 

Metalworker can produce large amounts of colorless mana. Staff of Domination can untap a creature and itself for 4 generic mana. With three (or more) artifacts in hand Metalworker taps for 6 (or more) mana. You are now infinite and can use the mana to draw your library or gain life. The lifegain isn't very useful unless you have to use Rolling Earthquake to finish the game. 

 
Wheel Loops ("draw" deck) 

• Underworld Breach
• Lion's Eye Diamond
• Wheel of Fortune

With Underworld Breach on the battlefield and the LED plus Wheel in your hand and/or graveyard you can start to cast Wheel over and over again to fill your graveyard with the cards you need to finish the game. Wheel lets you discard the six cards you need to escape LED and Wheel plus an additional one card that fills the graveyard. LED produces three red mana which pay for Wheel's mana cost. A typical winning line would be resolving Breach midgame or late game with a decent amount of cards on your graveyard. Depending on the amount of cards in your graveyard and library you should be able to resolve at least one spell like Scrap Mastery to return an artifact only wincon like Basalt, Rings, Key and Codex Shredder. 

Mesmeric Monolith ("draw" deck) 

• Mesmeric Orb
• Basalt Monolith
• Recursion 

Basalt Monolith can be tapped for three colorless mana and be untapped for three generic mana. With Mesmeric Orb triggering during that process you can mill any number of cards for free. You can do this until you find what you need and weld it in. Mill all cards from your library can be very powerful with Underworld Breach or Scrap Mastery. Both can be returned with Codex Shredder. A winning line could be to mill yourself, weld in Shredder, sac it to return Breach, cast Breach, get free rocks like Mana Crypt and Lotus Petal, then mana positive rocks like Sol Ring and Mana Vault, then Rings of Brighthearth to go infinite, cast Ballista and burn face. Free mill can also be used for top deck manipulation which is useful with Mystic Forge or Experimental Frenzy. 

Basalt Rings (infinite mana, draw deck) 

• Rings of Brighthearth 
• Basalt Monolith 
• Two generic mana
• Sensei's Divining Top 

With both cards in play and enough mana to start the process you generate infinite colorless mana. The idea is to copy the activated ability to untap Basalt Monolith, which costs three generic mana, with Rings of Brighthearth for only two generic mana. Being untapped twice for a total of five mana, Basalt Monolith can produce six colorless mana. But you need to invest some mana before you net mana. With Basalt Monolith untapped you can tap it producing three colorless. You can use that mana to activate the untap ability. You now need to invest two mana from other sources to pay for Rings to copy the ability while it's on the stack. After the resolution of the first untap ability (the copied one) but before resolution of the you tap Basalt Monolith for three colorless. After the resolution of the the second untap ability you are back to the starting point, but with additional three colorless mana in your mana pool. You can use that mana for Rings during the next cycle. With Sensei's Divining Top and Rings of Brighthearth you can copy the draw ability to draw your deck. 

>Finisher 

The combos in the subsection above need one of the following cards or combination of cards to win the game. 

Burn

• Walking Ballista
• Rolling Earthquake
• infinite mana 

This is self-explanatory. 

Mill

• Codex Shredder 
• Voltaic Key
• Rings of Brighthearth 
• infinite mana

Tap Codex Shredder to kill your opponent. Then activate Voltaic Key targeting Codex Shredder. Use Rings of Brighthearth to copy the untap effect and choose Voltaic Key as new target. Let the both untap effects resolve and do it again until all opponents are milled out. 

>Lockdown

The Portal Grind

• Possessed Portal 
• Daretti, Scrap Savant Emblem 

Possessed Portal is an insane card. No card draw and it triggers at the beginning of each end step, not only your own end step. Breaking parity on Possessed Portal is really hard. But  actually you don't have to in the first place. All we want is to delay the game with Daretti on the battlefield to get the Emblem, because it's able break parity on Possessed Portal. 

Before you start the Portal Grind you have to do some math. You need to count everyone's cards in hand and their permanents on the battlefield. If someone else is far ahead, for example because he resolved a Dockside Extortionist and created a huge amount of Treasure tokens, this player will profit the most because you will have to sacrifice Possessed Portal to its own trigger before that player runs out of cards. 

Take in account cards like Squee, Drownyard Temple or Crucible of Worlds, which reduce the number of cards you lose during the Portal Grind. 

For a successful Portal Grind you should be able to protect Daretti. Since the cards in your opponents are hidden, you should count the damage done by the creatures on the battlefield and by Commanders, which could enter the battlefield and attack before your opponents run out of resources. 

If you play it right, Daretti, Scrap Savant is the only card left on the battlefield and nobody has cards in their hands when you sacrifice Possessed Portal for its own trigger. During the next turns you should be able to get the emblem without losing Daretti and draw an artifact to weld Possessed Portal in. At the beginning of your end step, Emblem and Portal will trigger. You can stack the trigger so that the emblem will bring back the artifact first. You can sac the returned artifact for Possessed Portal. In the end step before your turn, you can sacrifice Possessed Portal to its own trigger. This allows you to draw a card in your draw step and use Daretti to dig. The Emblem will return Possessed Portal at the beginning of your end step denying your opponents to draw. 

But there are different lines. With a Goblin Welder you can sacrifice Possessed Portal EOT before your turn you can draw and weld it back in before denying your opponents to draw cards. With a draw engine like Anje's Ravager and Goblin Welder you can break parity on Portal without the Emblem. 

Mycosynth Karn (currently not played)

• Mycosynth Lattice
• Karn, the Great Creator 

You presumably have heard about this one. It recently got banned in Modern. Mycosynth Lattice turns all permanents into artifacts and Karn, the Great Creator acts as a one-sided Null Rod preventing your opponents from activating activated abilities of artifacts including mana abilities. On top of that Karn, the Great Creator can turn Mycosynth Lattice into a 6/6 creature that can block for Karn or attack for the win. 

>Notably strong synergies

There are card interactions that I wouldn't use the term combo for. But those strong synergies can be very useful to advance the game plan by creating a reasonable advantage. 

Possibility Sphere

• Possibility Storm
• Trinisphere or God-Pharaoh's Gift

Tax effects like Trinisphere or God-Pharaoh's Gift (or Sphere of Resistance, Damping Sphere or Thorn of Amethyst) will affect each spell that is cast. This means the spell exiled with Possibility Storm and the random spell that can be cast without paying its mana cost will cost more. 

Shredder Mastery

• Codex Shredder
• Scrap Mastery

Both cards can return the other one from your graveyard. This can generate lots of value if sequenced over two turns or create an infinite loop if you can generate ten mana including two red mana from artifact sources. 

... 

>Single cards

>Currently testing

The following cards are in the list for testing purposes:

• Null Brooch
• Nullstone Gargoyle (good results so far) 
• Possibility Storm 
• Mesmeric Orb
• Sandstone Oracle 
• Burning Inquiry
• Dire Fleet Daredevil
• Semblance Anvil 

The next cards in line for testing are:

• Endbringer (no artifact but lots of value) 
• Slagstorm (trying more wipes) 
• Devastating Dreams (very risky but interesting) 

>Y u play? 

...

>Y u no play? 

Mycosynth Lattice/Karn, the Great Creator

Vandalblast/Gorilla Shaman/Shenanigans

Winter Orb/Static Orb

Sphere of Resistance/Damping Sphere/Thorn of Amethyst

The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

Ensnaring Bridge/Silent Arbiter

Clock of Omens/Unwinding Clock

Trading Post/Kher Keep

Crucible of Worlds

Ugin, the Ineffable

Krark-Clan Ironworks/Scrap Trawler/Myr Retriever

Engineered Explosives/Oblivion Stone

Command Beacon

Fork/Reverberate

Reality Scramble/Ugin, the Spirit Dragon

>Final words

If you want to dive deeper into Daretti, Scrap Savant as a Commander, get more inspiration and read other people's ideas and thoughts, take a look at the following decks and Primers:

Guerte's* Degenerate Artifacts [Primer]

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/primer-daretti-degenerate-artifacts/

discord collaboration cEDH optimized list

https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/daretti-degenerate-artifacts-cedh-optimized/ 

Keska's Daretti Spaghetti [Primer]  https://www.moxfield.com/decks/TOa-VKJzJ06Wepi5ou_TVQ/primer

PeaceandMusic's Daretti [Primer] 

https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/daretti-new-and-improved-w-primer/

Ecch1's Daretti Blueprint

https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/daretti-blueprint/?cb=1553108607

Yugaminaena's Daretti 

https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/01-02-20-daretti/?cb=1581470213

twoandablue's MUDdy Stax

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/2108868#paper

wspedroo's Daretti Trashmaster 

https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/daretti-thrashmaster/

Gate88's Daretti with Forge

https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/daretti-w-forge/

>Change log

9. May 2020

Out:

• Shenanigans 

In:

• Deflecting Swat 

I'm not sure whether this is the correct cut, but I want to make room for Deflecting Swat. I don't see Null Rod very often in my current meta and there aren't a lot of other problematic artifacts too.

30. April 2020

Out:

• Ghirapur Orrery

In:

• Mesmeric Orb 

It has turned out that it's too hard to trigger Ghirapur Orrery's ability constantly. 

Mesmeric Orb costs less and mills huge amounts of cards. Since the deck has easy access to the graveyard, milling can provide card advantage. Mesmeric Orb and Basalt Monolith let you mill cards until you find what you need. Mesmeric Orb stops top-deck tutors like Imperial Seal and it can by chance mill your opponent's wincon.