Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer - Izzet Myr and the Seven Dwarves

[MeowZeDung]

Updated on 4/11/20: major overhaul to the original list. I'll likely spruce this OP up eventually, but for now here's the bare bones version:

Izzet Myr and the Seven Dwarves

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

Commander (1)

1 Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer

Mana Rocks (10)

1 Sol Ring

1 Thought Vessel

1 Mind Stone

1 Fellwar Stone

1 Hazoret's Monument

1 Worn Powerstone

1 Izzet Signet

1 Talisman of Creativity

1 Commander's Sphere

1 Thran Dynamo

Creatures (13)

7 Seven Dwarves

1 Loyal Apprentice

1 Dualcaster Mage

1 Alirios, Enraptured

1 Dwarven Recruiter

1 Faerie Artisans

1 The Locust God

Artifacts (3)

1 Mirage Mirror

1 Mimic Vat

1 Helm of the Host

Instants (13)

1 Brainstorm

1 Swan Song

1 Arcane Denial

1 Teleportal

1 Chaos Warp

1 Cackling Counterpart

1 Fact or Fiction

1 One with the Machine

1 Confirm Suspicions

1 Spell Swindle

1 Blue Sun's Zenith

1 Stroke of Genius

1 Expansion // Explosion

Sorceries (16)

1 Ponder

1 Faithless Looting

1 Preordain

1 Serum Visions

1 Twinflame

1 Heat Shimmer

1 Quasiduplicate

1 Mitotic Manipulation

1 Foresee

1 Rite of Replication

1 Saheeli's Artistry

1 Stolen Identity

1 Flood of Tears

1 Clone Legion

1 Ghired's Belligerence

1 Stolen by the Fae

Enchantments (4)

1 Flameshadow Conjuring

1 Rhystic Study

1 Thopter Spy Network

1 Mirror March

Planeswalkers (3)

1 Saheeli, Sublime Artificer

1 Saheeli, the Gifted

1 Ugin, the Ineffable

Lands (37)

1 Fiery Islet

1 Forgotten Cave

1 Hanweir Battlements

1 Lonely Sandbar

1 Mirrorpool

1 Mystic Sanctuary

1 Spire of Industry

1 Springjack Pasture

1 Wandering Fumarole

1 Command Tower

1 Reflecting Pool

1 Exotic Orchard

1 Steam Vents

1 Cascade Bluffs

1 Sulfur Falls

1 Shivan Reef

1 Evolving Wilds

1 Terramorphic Expanse

1 Ash Barrens

1 Myriad Landscape

1 Dwarven Mine

1 Strip Mine

1 Rogue's Passage

6 Mountain

8 Island

Approximate Total Cost:

[MeowZeDung]

Some changes:

12/26/19

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

OUT (6)

1 Pattern Matcher

1 Accelerate

1 Followed Footsteps

1 Reckless Bushwhacker

1 Levitation

1 Hour of Eternity

IN (6)

1 Beamsplitter Mage

1 Fists of Flame

1 Mimic Vat

1 Dragonshift

1 Rush of Adrenaline

1 Rile

Approximate Total Cost:

Pattern Matcher was in the deck to get more Seven Dwarves into play, but it was the most overcosted effect I had that did so, and only brings the dwarves to hand, not the battlefield. Even worse, it's a blank unless there's a Seven Dwarves on the battlefield and can leave me open to a blowout. That said, I'll keep it in mind since I can always copy it to get multiple Seven Dwarves off of Pattern Matcher etb effects. Beamsplitter Mage goes in as the replacement to make sure my Cerulean Wisps type of effects are blanks less often. Definitely nowhere as good as Zada or Mirrorwing, but respectable in a pinch, and he doubles the effect of Quasiduplicate/Twinflame when one extra token is just what I need for Brudiclad to mold into a bigger threat.

Accelerate is the most overcosted draw effect in the Zada package, and it's terrible without Zada or Mirrorwing. Even in the best case scenario, the haste is redundant with Brudiclad's effect. Fists of Flame goes in the slot, and it has me excited! I know it's casual magical Christmas land, but if this thing hits Zada/Mirrorwing with several threatening tokens on board, I get to draw a bunch of cards, pump the team, and get some much needed evasion. It will be tedious to order the stack correctly for the greatest benefit though.

Followed Footsteps is good when it works, but it's slow compared to what the deck is capable of, and it's just asking for a 2 for 1 blowout. I don't know why I didn't think about Mimic Vat before. Duh.

Reckless Bushwhacker was part of the Zada package as an additional tutor target for Goblin Recruiter and Goblin Matron and a way to give a team of freshly Quasiduplicated creatures haste, but Brudiclad makes it redundant. So, in goes Dragonshift, which seems like a good option to target Zada/Mirrorwing with when I don't have a more threatening token like a wurmcoil or seven dwarves to copy and go off with. The overloaded version can also win the game from out of nowhere in some cases where I'm low on tokens and targeting all of my non-token creatures would give me more dragons.

Levitation is great with a board of massive dwarves, but my meta does have a lot of fliers in it with Alela, Artful Provacateur and Drana, Liberator of Malakir and their flying armies, so I think the pump/trample and lower cost is worthwhile. Of course, it is situational, requiring Zada/Mirrorwing to be good, but that's kind of the point of the deck in a nutshell: High power, but lower consistency.

Hour of Eternity was just too slow and expensive, though it is really the only recursive effect I was running, so this may be a mistake. We'll see. Rile gets the include for the card draw and the evasion when it finds Zada/Mirrorwing. As far as the ping is concerned, a board of 10 11/11 dwarves doesn't mind it

I got 3 games in with the deck in the last several days. I was in a winning position in the first game, but one opponent had an incredibly explosive turn despite being way behind and took out the table from out of nowhere. I won the other two games

MVPs were:
-Faerie Artisans, which gave me massive value off Vindictive Vampire and Territorial Hammerskull tokens they made and Brudiclad then copied
-Stolen by the Fae, which bounced a 5 drop blocker and gave me 5 more tokens to turn into dwarves
-need it be said? Seven Dwarves. The third game was won with a horde of them, and after blocks/effects I dealt 103 damage in a single combat step

It's a sweet deck. I'm loving it.

[Slipperygecko]

I played Brudi quite a bit and found the table got smart and tended to remove him quite quickly. Padeem, Consul of Innovation and Lightning Greaves were both great protection. Also would run ~12 rocks and cut my lands back to make up for it as a 6 cmc commander is very expensive, and was best brought out when the board was already setup for him. 36 lands was def enough, with cantrips / cheap draw could go down to 34.

Dualcaster Mage goes infinite with all the copy spells and is also good interaction if someone ramps. Helm of the Host was a dangerous card in that it could end up being basically a free turn for my opponents since it costs so much to activate and typically what I would equip it to got removed. Spark Double on the other hand was a great card instead as it guaranteed a single copy for much less CMC.

If you were to consider optimising, Combat Celebrant and Timestream Navigator both go infinite with Brudi and a token generator.

One with the Machine is a 4 cmc 6 draw with Brudi out which is very nice too

[MeowZeDung]

Thanks for the feedback! Can't believe I didn't think of dualcaster + rite/quasiduplicate/twinflame! And I think you're right about the helm. Sweetest trap card ever. I'll probably just do a direct swap.

No celebrant and navigator for me since I want to stay silly and causal with this list, but still good to know!

[MeowZeDung]

With the pace of life being a lot different during the coronavirus craziness, I've had way too much time on my hands to brew, tinker around on this site, and do some MtG related soul searching. I've decided to reduce the number of decks I maintain and actively play. I just wasn't getting around to playing all of my decks, and I came to terms with the fact that the reason was because some of them were just linear and boring and weren't actually creative or interesting to pilot. This deck, however, is not one of those, so I'm keeping it intact. I have changed a lot though, most notably by removing the Zada, Hedron Grinder package.

Brudiclad update 4/11/20

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

OUT (38)

1 Darksteel Ingot

1 Hedron Archive

1 Gilded Lotus

1 Mask of the Mimic

1 Spy Kit

1 Savage Beating

1 Twisted Image

1 Cerulean Wisps

1 Rile

1 Rush of Adrenaline

1 Leap

1 Shadow Rift

1 Expedite

1 Beamsplitter Mage

1 Fists of Flame

1 Temur Battle Rage

1 Fall of the Hammer

1 Goblin Recruiter

1 Polymorphous Rush

1 Goblin Matron

1 Dragonshift

1 Sarkhan's Triumph

1 Zada, Hedron Grinder

1 Mirrorwing Dragon

1 Blast of Genius

1 Soul Foundry

1 Supplant Form

1 Wurmcoil Engine

4 Mountain

3 Island

1 Spirebluff Canal

1 Spinerock Knoll

1 Buried Ruin

IN (38)

1 Fellwar Stone

1 Mind Stone

1 Hazoret's Monument

1 Alirios, Enraptured

1 Flood of Tears

1 Blue Sun's Zenith

1 Flameshadow Conjuring

1 Swan Song

1 Serum Visions

1 Fact or Fiction

1 Preordain

1 The Locust God

1 Loyal Apprentice

1 Confirm Suspicions

1 Rhystic Study

1 Spell Swindle

1 One with the Machine

1 Stroke of Genius

1 Stolen Identity

1 Arcane Denial

1 Dualcaster Mage

1 Brainstorm

1 Saheeli, the Gifted

1 Thopter Spy Network

1 Foresee

1 Faithless Looting

1 Ugin, the Ineffable

1 Ponder

1 Expansion // Explosion

1 Fiery Islet

1 Forgotten Cave

1 Hanweir Battlements

1 Lonely Sandbar

1 Mirrorpool

1 Mystic Sanctuary

1 Spire of Industry

1 Springjack Pasture

1 Wandering Fumarole

Approximate Total Cost:

I'll comb back through the IKO/C20 spoilers with Brudiclad in mind when I have a chance and post another update when I have some of those cards. There wasn't anything particularly strong for this deck iirc, except for generic goodstuff like the free blue counter.

While playing this deck tonight, I had the distinct pleasure of hitting a Verdant Force with Stolen Identity, turned 2 other tokens into a Force precombat, and thus began a saproling token bonanza. I won the game by attacking with 41 copies of Verdant Force

[MeowZeDung]

Well, tonight I played a game with Dualcaster Mage and Cackling Counterpart in my opening hand and thought "Hmmm... it'll be fine. I can't do it until the turn after Brudiclad anyhow. . ." Then I promptly drew Heat Shimmer

I'm not fond of winning that way. Feels yuck to me.

I suppose I'll take Dualcaster Mage out for something from the new set, or maybe something over the top like Brass's Bounty or Captain Lannery Storm. I don't own a Dockside Extortionist, or perhaps that would be the best include. I still need to review all the izzet and colorless cards that Brudiclad would like from IKO/C20, so I'll reserve judgement until then.

[darrenhabib]

I suppose I'll take Dualcaster Mage out for something from the new set

Lutri, the Spellchaser as your companion. That was a joke, but wouldn't it have been sweet.

[MeowZeDung]

I suppose I'll take Dualcaster Mage out for something from the new set

Lutri, the Spellchaser as your companion. That was a joke, but wouldn't it have been sweet.

I would've had to drop my seven dwarves though, and that just can't happen.