Sai - Low Curve Thopter Swarm
Posted: Thu Oct 17, 2019 9:47 pm
My Approach
Focus:
- Commander Centric - This deck has a BIG focus on getting the commander into play anytime they are not. It leads it to have a weakness relying on the commander to do things. Anytime the commander dies, is stolen, or disabled the #1 objective is to save them.
- Storm Style - Once Sai is in play, my objective is to just chain artifacts as fast as possible. Any artifact that draws me another card tends to be good. The more artifacts I can move the more thopters I get.
Limitations:
- Combo - My goal is ultimately not to go infinite. There are a few things that "can" go off but my hope is not to execute infinite combos. I ultimately want to zero my opponents health totals ideally utilizing combat.
- Land Disruption - I won't play Sunder or Back to Basics. Maybe in a stretch I might play Tangle Wire but no Winter Orb / Static Orb / Stasis.
Weaknesses:
- Commander Centric - As I said before, this deck is built around Sai. Recasting him once or twice wont be the end of the world but if you can't stick him the first few times at least for a few turns you will really notice it. Decks with heavier focuses of removal and interaction will be harder to play against assuming they proactively hate on your commander.
- Draw / Cast Hate - These effects are somewhat rare in commander but Notion Thief and Rule of Law effects would be some extremely challenging effects to play through given the nature of how this deck plays.
- Token Hate - This is probably the last thing I worry about given that you can potentially still play the deck somewhat decently. The hardest sort of token hate to fight through would be Plague Engineer effects (often things in black or white). You can potentially get past Propaganda / Crawlspace effects though given a few alternate wincons or possibly by bouncing them out.
Sai, Master Thopterist
Approximate Total Cost:
Omissions:
- Mox Diamond - moxes are great and its possible that I can refill my hand quickly. The issue is that the tempo to get this specific mox online generally speaking the only upside of it tends to be in my opening hands where as the other moxes that I run are good after my commander and don't have card disadvantage. Mox Diamond's power tends to only be in opening hands and often times I struggle to have enough lands due to how few I run. I felt like the overall flexability of it wasn't quite what I wanted here given this.
- Thopter Spy Network / Mirrodin Besieged / Efficient Construction - I tried playing some of these effects but in the end my issue was that they are really slow to cast and I will generally always play Sai on curve over them. It takes another turn to set up one of these beyond Sai. In a nutshell they felt really slow to set up and bring more attention to me without immediately doing much for me. I often found that if I already had Sai in play with one of these in hand I was tempted to just move artifacts assuming I had them than I was to spend a turn setting one of these up.
- Opposition - So, assuming I wanted to pair it with Unwinding Clock I could try to lock people up but that isn't really my goal. I tend to move fast enough that I can chump block people or just attack them. I don't really want to spend the time and mana casting this I guess even though its possible it could add to my capability to attack and or defend the fact that its not an artifact has made it a little less appealing to me. I just get the feeling from this card that it moves a little slower than what I was hoping to do with this deck. Its a great control effect for tokens, I am just not sure if I want to spend a turn casting it.
- Mishra's Workshop - I don't have the $$$ for one. I think its really sweet for a very select few commander decks but its so narrow I have never wanted to drop the money to get one for this format.
Things to Test:
- Foundry Inspector - There just aren't that many artifact cheapeners out there. The fact that its on a body and costs more is why its not in my list already.
- The Antiquities War - It digs kind of deep but it still costs 4 and is a non artifact. I am not sure how much I like it but I guess it kind of does positive things.
- Artificer's Assistant - It might be fun, but that said if a lot of my deck is just cantriping artifacts do I scry past those? I still need to hit land drops too so I am not really sure where I stand with this one.
- Reverse Engineer - I feel like I often have a few thopters or random artifacts sitting arround so.... UU draw 3 seems kind of fine. I just need to find some time to pick up a copy and somewhere to slot it in.
- Transmute Artifact - I would love a copy.... but the $$$ for it is a bit steep considering I have almost never wanted a copy before now. Cool card, but it seems a bit narrow in use.
- Semblance Anvil - The cost reduction is REAL good. That said, card disadvantage is a little skitchy with me. I like drawing but I don't always have great draw.