MTG Blog

Non-Green Artifact Reanimation Package - $6.27

request by anon

This request was for Breya, but it will work for any artifact based non-green deck. Artifacts can play a huge role in some decks. So we need to ensure they stay on the board and, when they inevitably get taken out, we can bring them back when we need to. Let’s look at some ways to bring artifacts back from the dead.

Daretti, Scrap Savant - $2.94 His first ability isn’t that great, especially considering we are in black and blue which are the two best card draw colors. What we really want him for is the other two abilities. If you’re playing some sort of artifact tokens like Clues, Treasures, or Thopters, this can net you a ton of advantage. His emblem is where it’s at. It turns all those Commander’s Sphere rocks into repeatable draw and any common sac for an effect artifacts into MVPs.

Restoration Gearsmith - $0.05 There are quite a few of these types of creatures, mostly in White. They’re good because you get an artifact back and a chump blocker.

Emeria Shepherd - $0.35 Definitely a late game win-more or desperate attempt to come back card. It’ll do an amazing job whatever your condition is though. Since this is a four color package, don’t expect very many Plains if any that late in the game. Getting them into hand repeatedly is still a great effect.

Argivian Restoration - $0.16 A cheap, straight-to-the-battlefield card. Doesn’t get any simpler than that.

Scrap Trawler - $1.40 Now losing an artifact you have on the field won’t sting so much. Combine it with Daretti’s emblem and it’s pure advantage at that point. Just so long as you have a good mana curve of artifacts, you should pretty much always get this trigger.

Sharuum the Hegemon - $0.55 If you don’t wanna run a four color artifact deck, Sharuum is a great commander. She can reanimate an artifact, so no having to recast it. The other great thing about her is you can get infinite ETB/LTB triggers with her and Phyrexian Metamorph (the Legend rule helps us in this instance).

Faith’s Reward - $0.60 Nothing wrong with a little board wipe insurance. Bonus is it gets everything, not just artifacts.

Obzedat’s Aid - $0.22 Another copy of Argivian Restoration. It’s not limited to artifacts though. It may have a high cmc for a reanimation spell, but it’s any permanent.

There you have it, folks. Numerous ways for us to keep our artifacts out of the graveyard. This is only the tip of the iceberg too. Most of these types of effects are in White and Black. Make your artifacts into undying zombies and…

Victory shall be yours

— Jake, @apok-the-combomancer

Assuming that your opponent is casting Day’s Undoing during their turn, then none of the triggers will matter here since ending the turn causes any triggers that are waiting to go on the stack to cease to exist. Your opponent will draw double cards from Alhammarret’s Archive, but Niv and Sphinx don’t matter here.

Players don’t get priority in the cleanup step unless an ability triggers because of something that happens in the cleanup step, such as Archfiend of Ifnir triggering. When something triggers in the cleanup step, that trigger will go on the stack and players will get priority as normal. There will then be another cleanup step after the first cleanup step. The turn won’t end until there’s a cleanup step in which nothing triggers and players don’t get priority.In the scenario you describe, Archfiend of Ifnir will trigger for each card you discard. Those triggers will go on the stack and resolve one by one. Generous Patron will trigger for each creature that gets a counter from Archfiend’s trigger, causing you to draw that many cards. When the new cleanup step starts, you’ll have to discard to hand size again, which will trigger Archfiend again, which will trigger Patron again, etc. This process will continue until either your opponent has no creatures left that can get -1/-1 counters or you lose from drawing your whole deck.

Yes, they can keep it from going to the command zone if you shuffle it in rather than putting it into your command zone when the trigger resolves. Even if you tutor and find it’s not there, it’s too late to do anything about it.

The rules for having to reveal face down exiled commanders no longer exists.

@collection-of-beings wanted a pod of decks that could be used to get people into Modern. I decided to keep all of the decks only producing one color of mana, not only to keep the price super low but to showcase a cool avenue for each color in the most popular Eternal Format. With the exception of Mono R Hollow One, which I might run through a League on MTGO sometime in the near future, I have piloted all the other lists to some amount of success. After dumping all the decks and sideboards into TCG Player and pressing optimize cart, it gave me a price of $151.14 after shipping. 

I will say the decks have some interesting dynamics with each other, and should be able to facilitate some fun games while also all being decks I would be more than happy to go to an FNM with. Their own personal ‘pod meta’ will definitely have different favored match ups and post board games, which is a fine precursor for newer people to the way formats generally function. I’ll do a very quick run down of all the lists below the cut. 

What’s your favorite color(s) to play with?

What do you think your color is?

Which plane would you want to visit?

Which plane would you want to live?

Who is your favorite planeswalker?

Who is your favorite non-planeswalker character?

Do you focus on tribal, flavor, general synergy, or something else?

Are you more aggro or control?

How do you go about building your deck? What’s the process?

Do you name your decks? If so, what are their names?

Do you have a favorite creature type?

What’s your favorite card?

What’s your dream deck?

What’s your favorite block? Favorite set?

What creature type would you want tribal, no matter how ridiculous?

Have you played in a tournament? What format? What did you place?

What format do you prefer?

What are your personal friendly rules for 60 card?

What are your personal friendly rules for Commander?

Have you and/or your friends ever made your own format?

What blocks or sets do you think would go well together?

Do you keep up with the story?

What’s your favorite story/article?

If you could be any creature type, what would you be?

Do you have any Fanwalkers? Or other OCs?

Is there a plane you’d like MtG to visit/revisit?

Is there a character you’d like MtG to visit/revisit?

What’s your favorite mechanic? Least favorite?

What’s your favorite flavor text? Least favorite?

What is your favorite thing about Magic: the Gathering?

Angels or Demons?

Merfolk or Pirates?

Vampires or Werewolves?

Black Zombies or Blue Zombies?

Phyrexian Mana or Hybrid Mana?

Eldrazi or Allies?

Multicolored or Monocolored?

Dinosaurs or Dragons?

Goblins or Elves?

[Full List Here]

When Varina first got spoiled the commander community was excited to finally have a strong Esper Zombies commander. My first thought was that she would be perfect for my 5C Karona Zombies list (which is the best way to play zombies ;D). BUT APPARENTLY NO ONE ELSE WANTS TO RUN KARUM AND GLISSA.

Anyways, my own terrible brews aside, lets talk about Varina. On top of being a solid 4/4 for 4, her first ability is a powerful card selection engine that encourages a go wide strategy. Her second ability enables that go wide strategy by turning cards you don’t need into more zombies.

Speaking of zombies, as a fan favorite archetype they tend to be REALLY EXPENSIVE I tried to focus more on going wide with zombies than just running a pile of cards like Scarab God and Kalitas. A lot of the bigger Zombie token makers actually play really well with Varina’s Discarding. From Under the Floorboards will always be cast with Madness. You can fill your yard and Delve out a tonne of zombies with Empty the Pits. And even Army of the damned can be flashed back if you have the mana. Anointed Procession is one of the more expensive includes in the deck and is far from necessary, but being able to double up all these tokens ends up being extremely powerful.

On top of our token Producers we have a lot of powerful zombies can get there on their own. Cards like Lord of the Accursed, Cemetery Reaper, and Diregraf Captain make each of our smaller zombies into real threats. While cards like Corpse Auger and Graveborn Muse keep our hands nice and full. Smaller early plays like Tidehollow Sculler and Withered Wretch offer powerful support effects that will come in handy through out the game.

Speaking of Tidehollow Sculler, I want to point out an important thing about this card less experienced players might not know. There are a lot of cards that exile something until it leaves play. Cards like Cast Out and Seal Away have been carefully worded so that their effect is one trigger. Because, the older format on cards like Oblivion Ring, and Tidehollow Sculler can be easily exploited. If you hold priority with the ETB trigger on the stack, you can sacrifice the Sculler and cause the second trigger to happen. Which returns nothing to their hand, then the first trigger resolves and you get to pick something and exile it. When you do this there is no way to return that card to their hand outside of an effect like Pull from Eternity.

On top of the straightforward plan of ‘turn zombies sideways’ there is another way for this deck to win. This Grimgrin combo is a classic in a lot of zombie decks, but for good reason. Once you land Rooftop Storm you can easily win the game. The way this works is that Gravecrawler can be recast from our graveyard thanks to Rooftop Storm, and Grimgin can then sacrifice that Gravecrawler making a perfect loop. The easiest way to win with this would be to trigger Diregraf Captain or Wayward Servant over and over again. However you can also make use of Viscera Seer to dig through your deck for whatever card you really need, or even sacrifice the Gravecrawler to Ashnod’s Altar to cast a very large X spell.

The rest of the list is the usual mix of Removal, Ramp, Card Draw. With a few extra spicy includes. Wonder lets our zombies fly, which effectively makes them unblockable for a lot of decks. Sudden Spoiling can easily turn a fatal swing into a onesided board wipe. Combined with all the sacrifice outlets, Living Death can often also be a one sided wrath effect. 

I really like this deck and cannot wait to pick up my own copy of Varina… for Karona… OKAY LISTEN THE DECK IS SWEET. JUST LOOK AT IT.