I like Scars, I mean Scars of Mirrodin ovbiously I wasn't coming out of the sexy medical fetish cabinet. I 've always liked the idea of Artifacts, whether it be little robot myrs scurrying around the landscape or a special bag of peanuts that can reverse time (this one I made up, so please don't waste your time looking for it on Gatherer... but if you are a research bod at Wizards R&D then please make it and call it Vader's Magic Nut Sack)
Obviously being on Mirrodin I'm spoilt for choice for bobbits and trinkets and indeed fetishes and it got me thinking.
What's better then a lot of artifacts?
Well since you asked... Lot's more artifacts...
And so to the deck Ladies and Gentlemen
This is The Tardis (google it if you don't know the Arcronym) because it's a lot bigger inside than it looks.
You will need...
2 Mumble Tagnets
4 Prototype Portal
2 Myr Propagator
1 Myr Reservior
1 Myr Galvaniser
4 Perilous Myr
1 Myr Battlesphere
4 Everflowing Chalice
2 Elixir of Immortality
4 Throne of Geth
1 Voltaic Key
4 Ratchet Bomb
4 Kuldotha Forgmaster
1 Lux Cannon
So what's on the agenda? Well this one is a combination of a few of my favourites plays. and has a sneaky trick to deal with the obvious sideboard card.
So how does it work?
Welll your first port of call should be either an everflowing chalice or a ratchet bomb. The bombs and the perilous myrs will be your removal and as the deck progresses you'll find it pretty easy to recurr them, so don't be affraid to blow up anything you don't like the look of. Your own threats are a never ending supply of robotic myrs that will start off as annoying and soon become earth breakingly devastating.
The deck itself is situational and has a few tricks depending on who you are up aggainst, but it won't take a detective to point out that the deck has many ways to create excess artifacts and also to proliferate. There is also a tutoring element and once you get to that level you are going to be having a lot of fun with this deck.
So basically...
A section of the deck makes artifacts...
Part of the deck sacrifices artifacts to proliferate...
Another porton of the deck brings back artifacts from the graveyard.
Another little bit Tutors artifacts into your hand...
I'll explain each section...
Making artifacts - Well this one is easy you are doing two things here for two reasons. Firstly most of the artifacts in the deck can be used in mass amounts so if you get a portal you can imprint pretty much anything you like and it will serve you well (including the portal itself...)
As artifact hate is still a sideboard card in Standard you are pretty safe to drop these willy nilly and not think about the consequences. Like I said, almost everything works and later you will be tutoring artifacts up left right and centre so just imprint the first thing you see and remember what ever it is it will serve the portal's second function well.
Second function? Oh yes, the hidden agenda is to build some towers of babel, which in turn willl fulfil two other secret functions. Put simply, in creating artifacts you are making more fuel for the fire.
What fire? Well like I said there are two... the first is the old devil proliferate which you do in this deck with the Throne of Geth and that demands a sacrifice every time you do it... The second is the Forgemaster which again require sacrifices to tutor up an artifact.
Proliferate, why and what's to proliferate? There are three obvious targets and a less obvious techie target in this deck. It won't take a genius to spot that Lux Cannon, Tumble Magnet and Everflowing Chalice all work well with the mechanic, but there is another target that can pull off a sneaky trick, so be cautious as to why, when and how you proliferate the Ratchet Bomb... What? Well let me put it another way, just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should do something... Particularily if you want to make your opponent think you've missed a trick...
What I'm trying to say is that if this deck behaves and you take the first game your opponent is probably going to sideboard in ratchet bombs aggainst you and they are going to race them to 4 mana to take out the portals, and your best defence is to feign ignoramce, because if they think you've missed the trick they are going to try and set the bomb off as they hit 4 counters and you are going to use your throne to proliferate it to 5 at instant speed. Of course if they aren't playing bombs zap em as high as you can get them . Don't underestimate this little Jedi Mind trick. and speaking of which why not have some fun with the land.. I reccomend Dread Sanctuary and Raging Ravine (which you can also proliferate)but appart form that its any colour so pick anyone you like.
Recurring Artifacts - this deck does this in two ways, Firstly the reservior (which should be one of the first things you get with the foregmaster) will keep bringing back the collection of myrs.. Perlious for removal, palladium to ramp, propagators to increase the threat and battlespheres fot the win... At the same time if you lose anything too valuable, you can always use the deck's second method of recursion, elixir of immortality, to get it back in the deck...
Tutoring... Ok this is simple, use the token artifacts you've generated to find the pieces you need to win the game, by saccing them to the Forgemaster.
Strategy? Get your bombs out early get the first one up to the threat level yu expect for your opponenets deck... 4 for blue white control, 6 for eldrazi ramp, 3 or 5 for elves... (as we mentioned ealrier it may be wise to pretend not to notice that you can proliferate the bombs, particularily if you don;t need to)
Tutor for the resevior or the propogater early to get some defence and the battlespheres will be your game winner....Once you get the tutor engine up and running get a glavaniser on a prtoal and then get a battlesphere on another...
As the new set comes in save a space for Thopter Squadron as it will fit in here perfectly...
