Big Blue Boom Button aka Grand Architect combo or Mono Blue Eldrazi Ramp

There was something niggling at me yesterday, I probably need to get out more, but instead I decided to build a deck. I’d been working on a blue deck recently and I had a look at some of my cards and a thought struck me...

There are some really broken cards in Scars and two or three cards keep jumping out at me.  So I decided to stick them together and suddenly... the entire game unravelled.

I guess its mono blue Eldrazi ramp?

Ladies and gentlemen, this one is going to raise eyebrows.

I call it... 

Big Blue Boom Button

You will need. 

1 Ulamog the Infinite Gyre

4 Grand Architects

4 Kraken Hatchling

4 Trinket mage

4 Enclave Cryptologist

4 Liquimetal Coating

4 Everflowing Chalice

1 Expedition Map

2 Kuldotha Forgemaster

2 Wurmcoil Engine

1 Spawnsire Of Ulamog

1 Mindslaver

2 Elixir of Immortality

1 Platinun Emperium

1 Prototype Portal

1 Voltaic Key

1 Eye of Ugin

4 Eldrazi Temple

18 Islands

Ok this deck may take a few run-throughs, before it starts to make sense. At first glance the inclusion of the Eldrazi temple may seem unusual, but as it unfurls I hope you can see the method behind the madness and remember it still taps for one colourless...

This deck uses a few tricks, but where you’re headed is Spawnsire of Ulamog. We’ve seen ideas around this card before and its ultimate ability is so tempting, but equally too out of reach to be competitive. Well it was, this deck smashes that theory and not only makes it possible, it makes it easy... This is how it’s done...

You will need a few cards to make this happen, but they’ll come easy and you won’t even raise an eyebrow until it’s too late.

Big Blue Boom Button uses an engine not dissimilar to my mono nlack control deck The Dark Design. What you are looking for is an opening hand with a grand architect, any blue creature, liquimetal coating, a trinket mage an expedition map and a pair of islands.  I realise this is the god hand, but to be honest you can do this trick any number of ways so I’ll just skip to the end.

Once you have the Expedition Map ready to go, you’re looking for the Eye Of Ugin. Now it’s safe to assume that you’re going to have some blue creatures in play and if you have a Grand Architect and the liquimetal coating in play you’re probably going to win...

In your opponents turn, use the Liquimetal Coating to turn the Eye of Ulgin into an artifact (yep, you guessed it and it works) tap any blue creatures to tutor up the Forge Master, as the Eye OF Ulgin searches for colourless creatures not just Eldrazi.

In your turn play the Forgemaster and if you can, play the trinket mage and get the Voltaic Key if you don’t have it already.

Next you need to tutor up a Wurmcoil Engine, using the eye and the Architect’s trick again, play it in your turn. This will give you some defence until their next end step.

This time sac the wormcoil and a liquimetal coated land and drop a chalice for zero to sac to the Forgemaster and go get the portal.  As you already have the key, imprint this and make as many keys as you can by tapping blue creatures and un-tapping the portal. You should be able to make upwards of 6 and you can now sac 3, at instant speed at any time to tutor up the other Wurmcoil for defence or the Mind Slaver to steal your opponents next turn or the Platinum Imperium to stabilise your life.

At the end of your opponents next turn use the liquimetal coating and the Eye to look for the Spawnsire or Ulamog if you have enough mana to play him. If you need to, go find the elixir and replenish your library.  As soon as you find a Chalice you’ve won, quite literally.  

Remember! Whenever you have spare mana use it to generate keys.

The end game is simple, you use blue creatures to create huge kicked chalices and then the excess keys to un-tap them, this should enable you to play the Spawnsire in one turn and then all you need to do is use the Liquimetal Coating  to turn the Spawnsire into an artifact and then you can use your blue creatures to activate the ultimate ability and bring in your horde of Eldrazi from outside the game, or even just Emrakul and few other fatties.  

The synergy of this deck is incredibly fluid, once you have those keys in play you can tap and un-tap nearly everything by tuning everything into artifacts with the Liquimetal Coating and then using the keys to un-tap the coating and then moving on to the next one. You can even use the blue creatures to tap for 2 mana then use the Liquimetal Coating to turn them into artifacts and use 1 of the 2 to un-tap them so you can tap them again for 2, leaving 1 mana floating.  With enough keys you can achieve almost anything.

The Liquimetal trick also works on the Cryptologists which will help you dig deeper in the deck and once you have the portal and the key you can create enough keys to tap and unto the world...

Here’s an example....

Let’s say you have...  1 Eye Ugin and 5 islands in play...A Grand  Architect, a forgemaster and two hatchlings on the battlefield, a key on the portal and liquimetal coating and last turn you made 3 keys...

This turn you can... tap an island to make a key, tap a trickster to make 2 mana use 1 to untap the portal and make another key use the last to make another key... sac three keys to the Forgemaster go get Mindslaver, tap the other trickster and the architect for 4 mana and sac Mindslaver to take opponents next turn.  Use the liquimetal coating to make the Architect an artifact, tap an island for 1 mana, use a key to un-tap him, tap him for 2 mana, use 1 mana on another key to untap the portal and then make another key, keep using your islands to keep making keys until you have one key left and 3 mana, use this to untap the forgemaster, sac 3 keys to go get the Elixir of Immortatilty use 2 mana to tap and sac the elixir and reset your deck...

Next turn you can do the same thing again and your opponent... will never have another turn.

This deck also has solid defence from the one drop 0/4 hatchlings and once the Forgemaster is in play you should be able to tutor up anything you need rather than play them, so counter spells will have limited effect on your deck. It’s a blue deck, so sideboard counter spells for game two because whilst it may be funny to have 15 Eldrazi marching out of the sideboard in the middle of the game, there’s really no need, as an Emrakul will pretty much win the game for you.

 I’ve tested it against most decks and its pretty quick and left unchecked, this deck will eat pretty much anything, although it is weak against memoricide in game two, hence the counter spells. In the first game unless your opponent has a great start or main deck artifact hate, they are going to really struggle to compete.

  

This deck is really fun to play and it will leave your opponent scratching their heads and looking like you’ve just punched their favourite puppy.  

 Now I feel I should say that this deck also works with pretty much any artifact you can think of..  I have gone for the cheapest options, but you could swap out the Platinum Emperium for the Masticore and of course you could have a horrid amount of Eldrazi in your sideboard and if you can afford the Big Three (Kozilek, Ulamog, Emrakul) then they would be worth including... but it also works with out them and come on guys whens the next time you're actually going to play any Artisans of Kozilek. Pathrazers of Ulamog or It That Betrays?


UPDATE 

Nov 12th

Ok after some playtesting I reccomend that the following changes are made to make the deck even more playable.

 You can drop the Trinket mages because the forgemasters can find all the combo pieces a lot earlier and you really need the spaces for more portals and voltaic keys, you can also drop a chalice and an islond for more expedtitoin maps...

In yoir sideboard you really only need three emrakuls to win the game and use the other spaces to safety proof the deck...  

As soon as you reach Spawnsires ultimate ability, play Emerakul.  In your second turn swing with him, after combat play the second one, which will give you another turn and destroy the pair of them . In your next turn play the last one...If you don't win, your opponent is somehow cheating or you don't deserve to win..

Update Nov 13th

Ok now I call the deck Eldrazi ramp, but to be honest that's not really the trick...
What this deck is really trying to achieve is a forgemaster in play (Easy enough!) and then to tutor a portal  and imprint the key... with any blue creatures and an architect (or even without) this deck can do increadible things... 

Lets say the erchitect is in play...  and just one other blue creature 1 liquimetal coating and I've made 2 keys and I  have 4 lands...

Watch this for card advantage...

In your turn I can make 7 voltaic keys...

...on my turn I can  sac and use the remaining mana to tap and untap the forgemaster enough times to play both my wurmcils,  my emperion, sac both my wurmcoils,  tutor up an elixir tap and sac it (gain 5 life potentially... ) and then retutor both the wurm coils back into play...

thats 4 lands for 2 x 6/6 deathtouch/lifelinkers 2 x 3/3 lifelinkers and 2 x 3/3 deathtouchers  and an 8/8 thats says my life doesn't change...oh and I gained 5 life...
oh actually I don't do I? or do I?... because I can make one of the tokens blue and then sac the emperium in response before gainng the life and then retutoring the Emperium...Also remember that most permanents can be turned into artifacts and thus become viable targets for the grand architects... Celestial Colonnade,  Dawnglare invoker,  air servent etc etc etc....  

Here's the match ups...


Eldrazi ramp.... If you can get the portal and the key on turn 4/5 and then tutor for the Emperion... There is little they can do to beat you.... Even if they Ulamog they Emperion you can just tutor up the elixir tap sac it and use another key on the forgemaster and re tutor the Emperion again... all in the same turn... with the amount of keys you can generate each turn Annihilator just tickles and because Empoerion and portal are colourless they can't all is dust it...


Elves - use the Kraken hatchlings early game turn 2/3 to stop early damage, but don't let them die.  Then when you get the architect/ eye get the forgemaster and portal… if you can survive until the Emperio is out you should win... a really funny way to finish elves is to mindslave them late game and genisis wave them to death... as they MAY choose to put any cards revealed by the wave onto the battlefield and you will chose not to and therefore mill them to death with their own card… if they are running ulamog, play him and take out their biggest threat with him as you can make any number of keys each turn it won’t matter...

Valakut  because Valakut is such a one trick pony as soon as you can, tutor up a mindslaver and just ruin their game by using all their explores, cultivates and tap and sac the shrines to bring in all the mountains you can because when those mountains are on the field and they run out there deck is useless... 

Red deck will probably eat you

Blue white control  - you'll need to keep recurring mindslaver and doing the wrong things with their planeswalkers... fate seal them with jace and bounce jace with venser to keep him down, use gideon to blow up their creatures...If they wrath you could be n trouble..


That’s about it... It’s a fun deck, but needs some work...

.

A Word About EDH

Elder Dragon Highlander

Often referred to as simply E D H, this is probably my favourite faction of magic. EDH is usually played as a multi player game and decks can vary hugely in power and price. Its also very much aboiut diplomacy, you can win games by losing and lose games by playing the best card and sometimes looking at the wrong player funny will take you out of the running,.I love it, because of all these things.

I’ll tell you the basics and if you want to learn more I’ll post some links in a moment, but there’s a point to this story and I want to get to it...

So basically to build an EDH deck, you will need...

One legendary general... Rule of thumb, the more abilities the better...

One 100 card deck ( including the general ) No duplicate cards (except basic lands ) and only cards in the colours of your general...

The general starts off outside of the game in a special exile (known as the command zone, if he is killed or exiled you may return him to the command zone and replay him, but each time you do he/she costs 2 colourless mana more to play,. this is accumulative)
.

 You have 40 life and if you take 21 points of combat damage from a single general you lose.

And that in a nutshell is EDH.

The full rules can be found here...

Last night we played a four player match.  Dave P, Tim H, myself and Kitt.  Both Dave P and Tim H are seeded players, indeed one of them is in the UK’s top 20...

Kitt and I are not.  

Dave’s deck is a carefully created collection of his best cards and his general is Rafiq of the Many, a particularly despised general in the world of EDH, Tim is playing Teneb the Harvester, Kitt is playing Kemba, Kha Regeant and I am playing Patron of the Akki.  

Where this story gets interesting is how the game went, by the second turn both Tim and Dave had at least £100 of cards on the table. Dave’s got a pair of dual lands and Tim is sporting a Mox Diamond and Maze of ith. Now you have to remember that Kitt’s equipment deck is half cats and half rusty swords, bread knives and pots and pans and I picked up my general in a 30p box at the local store and there is only one kind of land in my deck and they are high and pointy and people like to climb them.

Naturally Kitt and I won. Well Kitt won really, but I gave him the game and our smug alert went off the chart...

Over the next week, I shall be building my fifth EDH and I intend to theme the entire thing around cows.  You may laugh and I suspect you might, but trust me when you’ve been beaten to death by a herd of herbivores the laughing stops. (on a related note I was once killed by an alarming amount of Squirrels, which was just embarrassing) 

So to help me on this quest, I’d like all of you to find as many cow or more importantly cow related cards as you can and send me the suggestions.

I also want to know if you have similarly insane theme decks. Do you have a Gang of Gingers? or a Bat Attack deck? or anything weird and wonderful? Send in your deck lists and I’ll create a top ten bizarre EDH deck list...

The email is

gordonvader@hotmail.co.uk

No Myr Mortals New Budget Deck

I mentioned Semblance Anvil earlier in the week, I was convinced there was a deck here and so I set my mind to finding it… It also gave me a chance to sort out two other decks ideas I had been toying with, so in a nutshell, this deck is three decks in one

No Myr Mortals

You will need…

2 Ajani Goldmane

2 Chandra Nalaar

2 Garruk Wildspeaker

2 Jace Beleren

2 Lilliana Vess

2 Leaden Myr

2 Copper Myr

2 Gold Myr

2 Iron Myr

2 Silver Myr

4 Myr Reservoir

4 Myr Battle Sphere 
4 Semblance Anvils

4 Contagion Engine

There’s no getting away from it this time, you are going to need non basics… I recommend 2 each of the entire Scars set, they are all about £3/$4:50 each at the moment, give or take.  In addition to that you will certainly need Terramorphic expanse, if you want to be sure of playing anything and whilst the fetch lands are better, they are only slightly better ( An Arid Mesa ain’t going to help at all if you need a swamp)  

This deck is also a little bit pricier than the other decks at the moment, but it does use a lot of cards that are… a) at their lowest price ever and b) are likely to increase in value…

I am talking about the old school planeswalkers of course. I actually started playing as these cards were introduced and I remember the fuss over the fact that Garruk was selling for £20 at one point. Now you can pick them all up for under £7 and one of them in particular is very, very cheap. Hopefully when you see what this deck does this might change, because the cheapest planeswalker is probably the best in standard at the moment. (discounting the Mind sculptor for the moment.)  Yes if this deck goes to plan you’ll be hard pushed to tell me why Chandra Nalaar is currently selling for £4/$6 or less.

So what does it do? And how does it work? Well let me explain, are you sitting comfortably? Good because this may take a while, you really should have asked what it doesn’t do.

The plan heads off in three directions at once, you are trying to imprint both architects and planeswalkers with the anvil, but which you do first will be relevant to circumstance more than anything else. The mana myrs are there for amp and mana fixing and you’ll need to decide in which direction to head based on the draw, but in theory by turn 6 you can, by proliferating,  set off anyone of the planeswaker’s ultimate abilities and possibly even two of them.

You could…

… give an army of Myrs +3+3 and trample  

 …mill twenty cards from your opponent’s deck

…get a 15/15 or higher avatar

…rob your opponent’s graveyard

…or best of all!!! Deal 10 damage to your opponent and all their creatures…

How you play will be up to you and based partly on luck and partly on the situation… The Myr Battlespheres will just keep coming back thanks to the eeservoirs and with the mana myr army and the anvils on play, you’ll always have spare mana to play and power the Contagion Engine.

So win conditions.

1.       Planeswalker’s ultimates or a combination of them…

2.       Myr Battlesphere beatdown it’s just going to keep coming back…

3.       Mana Myr swarming perhaps with Ajani’s counters? Maybe reinforced by liliana’s grave robbing? Perhaps pumped and trampling thanks to Garruk…

The more you play with this deck the more you’ll see the great synergies the old plains walker had together.  Garruk gives Ajani’s Avatar the trample he always lacked, Jace floods the graveyard for Liliana and Chandra?  Well Chandra doesn’t need any help to win games…

A word on planeswalker trading. These cards have been printed a few times and their value is going to differ, so if you sare trading to keep as much value as possible, and the person you are trading with doesn't care... then there are specific editions you'll want to try to get ...

Ajani - aviod M11 and M10 try and get a Lorwyn One

Lilliana - as above, but really avoid alternate art foil duel deck edition as these are worh less than the non foils.

Jace - again as above

Chandra - as above but the foil version is a better pick than the M10/M11

Garruk - As above except there is a kind of holy grail Garruk ( foil XBOX live edition...if your Garruk has a little xbox controller in bold in the centre, go buy yourself a cake you've earned it)


News UPDATE Nov 10th - I have now decided completely on my own and without any rigging from my friiends and readers that Semblence Anvil can readily be replaced in the deck by ANY OTHER CARD IN STANDARD on account of Semblence Anvil being completely pants... I thankyou!

Our First Competition

Now it's only for fun at this stage, well fun and glory, but we have begun pestering Wizards for prizes (and trust me there's only so many naked pictures of me they can take...)(update 23rd Nov WE HAVE PRIZES see the end of the thread)

But for now you'll have to content yourself with fame on our soon to be introduced Wall of Fame and because I'm also lovely, I will send you a handbuilt deck of my choice from the list of many on this site...

So here's the Challenge...

You must create a deck centered around a key card of our choice...

The deck must clearly use this card at it's core and we will judge the best suggestions and publish the winner's deck at the end of the month...

November's Card is... Etched Champion

So how would you make a deck based on this card?...

Either, Email me your deck entries, or Post them as comments to this page... The competition will run until the 1 st of December...

...and to clear a few things up, your deck should be standard legal...

If there is enough interest we might add other categories later, but right now its T2/standard only....

The first two decks are in the comments box following this article so get innovating... If you want to win you have to be in...

 Update Nov 23rd We Have Prizes....

Yep through our contacts on the Front Line of the Mirrin Conflict we've managed to get out hands on some very exclusive Mirrin and  Phyrexian Wristbands... and if that wasn't enough we're also throwing in a sealed playset of FNM Merrow Reejereys....


We have also secured some prizes through a new affilation which we will be announcing at the end of the month so there wil be Prizes every month... And we're gonna let the winner pick the next card..


The competion will be judged by a DCI judge and his decision will be final...


We asked him what he was looking for in entries and this was his answer...


"I'm looking for something new, something I haven't seen before. I know all about the current game and you won't be winning anything by slippimg him into a deck that already exists... Unless he really makes it his own..."


Look ar the pretty things...

These are rarer than golem droppings and you can't get them anywhere yet...

The reason this blog exists is fair play...

Its all very well to have all the fetch lands and Jace the bloody Mind Sculptor if you can afford to spend £500/$700 on a deck.

Ok, So there was always red deck wins, but with the arrival of Koth of the Hammer, the man has managed to spoil that avenue too...(Is it just me or does Koth Of The Hammer look like he likes wearing dresses on the Weekend? Not that I'd say it to his face)

Oh Wizards run their Building on a budget section and whislt we applaud it, it can push the value of the cards they highlight back out of budget...

So how do you compete? Well thats why this blog exists we're going to get thinking and get chatting and get innovating and we shall be bringing you the best in top budget builds.  

Because there's nothing more satisfying in the realm of magic than smashing a two grand deck with a handful of commons and some thought...