UW Panharmonicon By Pierre Dagen (Standard)

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This deck is my first take on abusing 《Panharmonicon》. When evaluating the card, the main question should be “Not counting 《Spell Queller》’s, how many enter-the-battlefield triggers do I need after I cast this card to make sure it was worth it?”. One is absolutely not enough (I do not think there is a single ETB trigger in standard that would be worth investing four mana, even though some of the gearhulks come close). Two is kind-of-fine, but I would still not be overly excited, because you also need to take into account the fact that you probably lost a lot of tempo casting the card. Three is where you really begin to snowball. Basically, any combination of three ETB effects between 《Reflector Mage》, 《Skysovereign, Consul Flagship》, 《Drowner of Hope》 and 《Glint-Nest Crane》 is going to be worth a lot more than the four mana you had to invest in it.

Now that we got this part right, we also need to draw up a general game-plan. For me, the biggest issue with playing a 4-mana artifact that does nothing on its own is that you need to still have cards in your hand when you cast it; in other words, you will have to play 《Panharmonicon》 on turn 3 or 4 if you want it to actually matter. The obvious flaw is that it will instantly result in you falling behind on tempo, which is why the choice of being blue/white was super obvious: 《Reflector Mage》 is just a disgusting magic card once you start doubling its ETB effect, and it also happens to destroy any kind of tempo advantage your opponent might have in just one swing.

The rest of the deck is fairly self-explanatory, but still features a ton of nice synergies; I especially love how 《Glint-Nest Crane》 is both great at finding 《Panharmonicon》, and great at letting you snowball after you drew it. Apart from that, the deck plays out a lot like a blue-white tempo deck, where you attack them in the air with 《Eldrazi Skyspawner》 and 《Smuggler's Copter》 and hold the ground with your scions and 《Reflector Mage》. 《Angel of Invention》 is obviously quite sweet here, not only because it is yet another card that works well with Panharmonicon but also because you often have a lot of random critters chilling around. This lets you play a solid, if not spectacular, tempo game when you do not draw the namesake artifact. Also, 《Eldrazi Displacer》 shines in this build where it basically combos with every single creature you play, which makes it even easier to generate absurd amounts of value over the course of a long game.

Finally, in case you did not notice, this deck features a powerful combo finish that I actually assembled quite often in testing: if you manage to control 《Panharmonicon》, 《Eldrazi Displacer》 and 《Drowner of Hope》, you can blink the drowner an infinite number of times, each iteration netting you one more scion token. In a vacuum, that lets you build infinite mana, infinite creatures, and infinite blinks.

From that point on, you can tap their whole board, bounce all of their creatures with a 《Reflector Mage》, or even do something really cool: if you also have a 《Glint-Nest Crane》, you can blink it until you find a 《Skysovereign, Consul Flagship》, play it and then keep blinking (remember that you also control an infinite number of scions to crew) until they have no creatures left.

At that point, I think we can all agree that the deck is sweet. It is still an experiment though, and there are a few issues that need working on, but this is definitely a solid start. Going further, I am less than happy playing 《Hedron Crawler》 in the face of a potential 《Liliana, the Last Hope》, and board sweepers should be a huge issue when we try to assemble creatures-based synergies. Still, I like the fact that we have a ton of synergies while playing almost only “good” cards that can hold their own in power-level wise. Trying other two-drops, and possibly 《Fairgrounds Warden》 as a “fifth” 《Reflector Mage》 for the aggro match-us are two things that sound interesting right now. You could also go nuts and splash a little bit of red, courtesy of 《Aether Hub》, to run 《Saheeli Rai》 as a way to hedge against removal while keeping a strong enter-the-battlefield them.