Please sanity check my inclusions

[CleanBelwas]

Hi all,

For reasons I'm not quite sure of, I really like Zirda, the Dawnwaker.

I got lucky and pulled one out of a pack so decided to give it a go and make a deck. I started brewing, went through my boxes and what not looking for good abilities that get better when they're cheap, as you do. One of the first cards I thought of was Basalt Monolith. I've got one kicking around in a other deck somewhere and thought "Hey, infinite mana. Seems good".

Then I went over to EDHRec to see if I'd missed anything obvious and basalt monolith isn't in the mana artifacts on the Zirda page.

Am I going crazy? Zirda and Basalt monolith is infinite mana, right?

Tap Basalt for 3, use Zirda's reduction to activate Basalt's untap ability for 1 (as the untap ability isn't a mana ability), net 2, repeat an arbitrarily large but defined amount of times.

I get that EDHRec is an aggregate of real peoples decks so it's not necessarily going to pick up everything or be consistent etc., but given that basalt monolith is reasonably budget, zirda has 200+ decks and it's a real easy 2 card infinite mana combo (one card being your commander), I was really expecting to see it and so I'm questioning if I've missed something important?

If I'm being an idiot, feel free to point and laugh at me. If I'm not, hooray! Infinite Mana!

[Xaarvaxus]

I'm seeing Basalt Monolith as the #1 listed card under 'Top Cards' for Zirda on EDHREC which is why it's not down under 'Artifacts'.  Too good to be generically lumped in that category.

[CleanBelwas]

Haha shit, so I AM an idiot.

Thanks man, I must have missed that one.

[dexflux]

Grim Monolith is also on the menu, if you have the need for it.

WotC is getting more creative with Boros legendaries. Let's hope for more! Also, include Sunforger. Do it.

[Aetherium Slinky]

What's your plan with Zirdy boi? Looking forward to this.

[CleanBelwas]

What's your plan with Zirdy boi? Looking forward to this.

Ah man I can't decide. I've got several avenues I'm exploring including:

- Tiny Robot Army. Using Myr Matrix as a mana sink to make a horde of tiny robots, then stuff like Steel Overseer and some untap shenanigans to turn them in to big robots.

- Flinging Big Robots. Just a load of really high costed artifact creatures like Myr Battlesphere, Metalwork Colossus, Draco etc. with things like Brion Stoutarm, Barrage Tyrant and Bosh, Iron Golem to throw them at people.

- Just going to value town. Things with activated abilities that are just way better with the cost reduction. Specifically things that don't tap when you activate them. Captivating Crew is one I'm particularly keen on.

- Maybe some kind of artifact graveyard combo stuff with Feldon and Teshar recurring stuff and Ashnod's Altar and KCI killing stuff to create loops.

- Impact Tremors and Tokens. A lot of good mana sinks that create tokens for 1 mana with Zirda out. Pretty easy to make a loop with Phyrexian Altar, a token generator and adding Impact Tremors/Hissing Iguana to just burn people out of the game.

- I'm trying to find the dumbest way to win with infinite mana. Getting Zirda and Basalt monolith out together should be real easy, but a big Jaya's Immolating Inferno is just so meh. I'm looking for something real dumb. Currently I'm liking Goblin Cannon, but it doesn't quite seem dumb enough. Maybe Boros Mill? Should be pretty easy to mill everyone out with infinite mana and people wouldn't expect it in Boros.

I dunno really. Happy to hear any and all suggestions if anyone has any cool ideas.

[dexflux]

You could always try to win with Goblin Charbelcher. Not the strongest of cards, but impressive.

[CleanBelwas]

You could always try to win with Goblin Charbelcher. Not the strongest of cards, but impressive.

Oh damn, that's a good shout, I forgot all about that card. I wanted to build a charbelcher deck after seeing one in Canlander. Maybe this is the deck...

Thanks for the suggestion. That seems like a lot of fun.

[Aetherium Slinky]

I dunno really. Happy to hear any and all suggestions if anyone has any cool ideas.

I built that Zirda + Breya cycling deck. You should probably include the cycling lands if nothing else because they're almost free with Zirda.

Weird things become viable with Zirda. Like Umbral Mantle + a dork goes infinitely large. I get it that dork = one of the Myr in this case but still.

Another card that just looooves Zirda is Staff of Domination. Don't know what you're going to do with it but it'll be 2 mana cheaper to do that.

A golem tribal with Belbe's Portal? Bosh, Iron Golem, Geode Golem, Golem Foundry, Hammer of Purphoros, Master Splicer, Meteor Golem, Titan Forge...

Since Zirda has hybrid mana remember that you can always go mono red or mono white with it. I was thinking along the lines of Mobilization, anthems and full soldiers or something similar since white finds enchantments relatively easily.

Here, all cards that have an activated ability that is reduced from 3 generic to 1 mana, doesn't require tapping: https://scryfall.com/search?as=grid&order=name&q=oracle%3A%7B3%7D%3A
from 2R to R: https://scryfall.com/search?as=grid&order=name&q=oracle%3A%7B2%7D%7BR%7D%3A
from 2W to W: https://scryfall.com/search?q=oracle%3A%7B2%7D%7BW%7D%3A&as=grid&order=name
from 3 generic to 1 mana that does require tapping: https://scryfall.com/search?as=grid&order=name&q=oracle%3A%22%7B3%7D%2C+%7Bt%7D%3A%22
and so forth.

[CleanBelwas]

Thanks dude!

Some real cool ideas here. I'll definitely be including cycling lands, but I have a Gavi, Nest Warden 100% cycling deck so I'll probably leave that theme for that deck.

Umbra mantle is a great include that I completely forgot about and I got one in a Mystery Booster so that's straight in.

Golems is very tempting. I've long been in love with Precursor Golem and it's high risk, high reward nature, and Titan forge seems a lot better with Zirda and things like clock of omens and voltaic key.

Thanks for the scryfall links too, super useful.

[G. Moto]

One thing you could also do is run Zirda with Brion Stoutarm. If you do run the captivating crew in this deck you can cast spells that steal your opponent's creatures and fling them for damage against your opponent. Give brion the thornbite staff and you've got a machine gun for wiping out people's life totals.

[Slyvester12]

I have a reasonably tuned janky combo deck built around using myr to make infinite mana. It's crazy fun and I highly recommend going that route. Myr Galvanizer helps you go infinite by untapping multiple dorks, so Umbral Mantle/Staff of Domination/etc... only need to untap one thing. Also, galvanizer + literally any copy effect goes infinite with two dorks or one Palladium Myr.