Get ready for a tribal deck on a budget with a new red legendary dragon. . . and a bunch of puny goblins.
What's that you say? Goblins? Yes, Goblins.
Gadrak, the Crown-Scourge is an interesting mono red option with some pronounced benefits and drawbacks. Three mana for a five power evasive commander is a good deal, and making treasures is powerful, both for ramping your mana and playing into artifact synergies, even in a monocolor deck.
That said, Gadrak's attack is restricted based on artifact count, and in order to get treasure, nontoken creatures must die and Gadrak must be in play at the beginning of your end step. This forces the deck build down a certain path to some extent, but it's always fun to forgo the conventional wisdom at least a little.
Gadrak's Goblin Graveyard
Approximate Total Cost:
Treasure To Die For
In order to assemble a proper dragon's lair sized pile of treasure, lots of nontoken creatures will need to die on your turn. It's way too risky to depend on your opponents to open themselves up to this possibility, and some decks don't play many creatures. That said you'll want plenty of nontoken creatures of your own and ways to kill them.
You'll need lots of sac outlets and preferably ones that are creatures which can themselves die usefully. The list picks up several additional synergies along the way by sticking primarily to goblin and artifact creatures.
Skirk Prospector, Krark-Clan Stoker, and Thermopod are mana dorks that sac stuff, and Pashalik Mons gives a solid payoff while multiplying gobbos (tokens, unfortunately) and setting up for a big Skirk Prospector or Thermopod mana turn if you need one.
Goblin Sledder pumps Gadrak at instant speed, and Extruder does it even better. You can probably just ignore the echo cost most times since you already got your counters.
Arms Dealer, Siege-Gang Commander, and Goblin Trashmaster all provide instant speed removal.
To wipe most of the board without touching Gadrak there's Krark-Clan Shaman, who can be activated multiple times before the first trigger is allowed to resolve. This is useful on your end step since you can allow Gadrak to trigger, respond by blowing up a ton of ground critters, then those deaths are counted on resolution whether Gadrak is removed or not. Essentially a build-your-own Magmaquake.
Then there's Daretti, Scrap Savant, Goblin Engineer and Goblin Welder to upgrade your artifacts, and Scrapyard Recombiner which has several targets.
Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer can protect your Swiftfoot Boots for an added layer of safety, or even Gadrak himself with Liquimetal Coating.
Lastly there's Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded, who sends a hasty creature to the board and sacrifices it for 3 mana. The deck isn't built around Purphoros though, so you won't be cheating anything broken into play. Metalwork Colossus is one large, punchy hunk of metal Purphoros can cheat in though, and the sac ability from the graveyard can be useful.
Two of the deck's best workhorses, and reasons to run goblin synergies, are Squee, Goblin Nabob and Squee, the Immortal. These fine fellows allow you to keep saccing a non token creature on a regular basis without suffering massive card disadvantage. Squee, the Immortal is vastly superior once you are in a position where you want to sac something over and over in a single turn, but Squee, Goblin Nabob still lets you incrementally pile up treasure and reap the benefits of your sac outlets every turn. You'll especially want to pair these two with Hazoret's Monument, Goblin Chieftain, or Skullclamp.
Flamewake Phoenix is similar to the Squees, but with no goblin synergy and the recursion only works if Gadrak or some other beefcake is in play under your control.
Solemn Simulacrum is in the deck, doing it's usual ramp thing and waiting to be sacced for value.
Workshop Assistant is helpfully asking you to sac it, and Junk Diver is practically begging for the Skullclamp. Burnished Hart would love to go get you two mountains and a treasure. Such altruism.
Then there's Hoarding Dragon, and while a 4/4 flier for 5 mana might be ok in limited, that's not great in commander, so you mostly want this guy to tutor up an artifact then die, possibly sneaking a hit or two in or blocking something scary. It's a fine Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded target.
Then there's the creatures that save you the trouble of having to sac them and do the deed themselves.
Bomat Courier can be the cheapest draw spell in the deck if you get it out early or play smooth politics before saccing it.
Goblin Cratermaker and Goblin Kaboomist are fun, flavorful inclusions which can "sacrifice" themselves while providing some value. Note that Cratermaker kills Eldrazi not named Ulamog.
One important piece for the deck is Salvager of Ruin, which is cheap, plays nice with artifact synergies, sacs itself, recurs a permanent of any kind, and is itself easily recurrable. It is also a construct that Scrapyard Recombiner can fetch.
Arcbound Reclaimer can "sac" itself after providing value twice, or be sacced to throw the counters on a Metalwork Colossus or what have you.
Back From The Dead... In Mono Red?
Wellllllll... sort of. For your non-artifact creatures not named Squee or Flamewake Phoenix, Salvager of Ruin is your best bet. Skirk Drill Sergeant can at least replace a goblin, but not recur it.
Trash for Treasure isn't a creature, but it lets you bring something back straight to the battlefield. A second worthy noncreature is Pia's Revolution, which will burn opponents early when they feel confident with big life totals, but get your critters back once they start sweating it a bit. Trading Post does everything, but most important of all is probably the recursion mode. Finally, there's Buried Ruin chipping in from the manabase.
Being A Big Spender... Or Saver
So, what's a fiery winged scourge to do with all the plunder and booty acquired through the deaths of many minions and foes?
spells are one great way to blow all that cash.
Saheeli's Directive can fill your board with robots and your graveyard with Squees and other goodies to get back with Salvager of Ruin and company. The improvise keyword here lets you simply tap treasures for generic mana instead of saccing them. This is great because you can save them for later, but be warned: you can't use a treasure to improvise and then sac it for more mana since the default use of a treasure requires both tapping and sacrificing.
Indomitable Creativity is similarly spicy, but be careful! You don't want to destroy Goblin Chieftain and flip over a Bomat Courier or destroy an opponent's Arbor Elf and they flip over Pathbreaker Ibex. Choose targets carefully. The great thing with Creativity is that you get more treasure from it to replenish your stockpile.
Get rid of a threat or dome an opponent then cast a free spell with Electrodominance, or wipe a big chunk of the board with Magmaquake. Both are instants and at their best on end step in response to the Gadrak trigger.
Tell the scariest player at the table they are done playing magic with a massive Banefire, or just outright win with style by dropping all that coin on Comet Storm.
Finally there's Commune with Lava to let you functionally draw half your deck. Note that you have access to the cards until the end of your next turn, so you can get 2 land drops and an untap step out of it. Also note that whatever you don't play gets exiled, so choose wisely!
Apart from spells and normal ramptastic use, you can just let the treasure pile up for a couple of alternative uses... and dragon hoarding flavor.
Reckless Fireweaver doesn't care if you save your money, just that you make lots of it. Ghirapur Aether Grid and Inspiring Statuary, however, want you to fill that 401k up and not touch it. In exchange your treasure tokens become pingers and/or lands (sort of), a superb investment. Again, a note of caution: if you tap an artifact for Grid or to improvise you will not be able to sac it for mana until it untaps.
While it's not nearly as exciting as the above, and you will hardly want to sac treasure for it, you can also invest mana for your future into Crucible of the Spirit Dragon for Gadrak recasts. Mono colored decks can run more utility lands than multicolor decks, so even though it's not a thrilling land, there's almost no opportunity cost in running it, and you'll occasionally find a little extra mana to spend rather than let it go to waste.
Prized Possessions
Some trinkets and servants in the dragon's lair are more desirable (or necessary) than others.
Wayfarer's Bauble is also great to get that fourth artifact, attack, then sac it for a land.
Treasure Map // Treasure Cove and Walking Atlas are slower, but have more ramp potential. Then the manabase chips in with Drownyard Temple and Myriad Landscape as ramp options.
Cost reduction can "make" a lot more mana than rocks and lands a good portion of the time, so the deck runs Foundry Inspector, Hazoret's Monument, and Goblin Chieftain. These are especially good when you're wanting to recast one of the Squees or a Junk Diver/Salvager of Ruin over and over again.
Skullclamp is one of the most insane magic cards ever printed and can now be had at a very reasonable price. Buy one of you don't have one and put it in this deck. There's also some (admittedly less powerful) card draw stapled onto lands in Arch of Orazca and Bonders' Enclave, and flood insurance in the cycling lands such as Forgotten Cave.
Gadrak wants Squee and wants him NOW, so Goblin Matron is sent to fetch him. Sometimes Gadrak wants a different Goblin slave, and she can get them too.
Strionic Resonator copies Gadrak's trigger and can be responsible for a lot of treasures hitting the board. There are also several other targets in the deck, from Scrap Trawler to Solemn Simulacrum to Skullclamp.
You want Gadrak to stick around, so the deck runs Mask of Avacyn and Swiftfoot Boots. Fortunately Gadrak's low cmc means a board wipe isn't the end of the world, and the boots get you swinging again right away, as do Emergence Zone and Hanweir Battlements.
There's also Liquimetal Coating which enables Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer to protect Gadrak, Goblin Trashmaster to kill most things, Goblin Welder to recycle goblins, or Scrap Trawler shenanigans.
Key to the City is a slow, expensive rummage, but the artifact, evasion, and discard are all welcome. Rogue's Passage also helps if flying just isn't enough.
Last but not least, Seize the Day can be a player killer with a pumped dragon, Spine of Ish Sah removes a lot of problems, and Chaos Warp gets rid of any problem for a price to be determined at a later topdeck reveal.
So there's budget Gadrak coming in at $75. If you wanted to expand the budget there's some easy upgrades no matter which route you want to take. Lightning Greaves, Helm of the Host and Swords of X and Y for a voltron build, Goblin Recruiter and Krenko, Mob Boss + Ashnod's Altar/Phyrexian Altar for a more goblin centered build, Kuldotha Forgemaster, Wurmcoil Engine, and Krark-Clan Ironworks for a more artifact centered build, and so on.
I think mono color decks are a great introduction to Commander, so this would make a wonderful new player or loaner deck because A) Dragons are cool B) Stockpiling treasures is cool C) Killing lots of stuff is cool D) Sac/Recursion engines are cool.
I hope you enjoyed it! Let me know whatcha think.
Zacama
