Zabaz Bionicles

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BeneTleilax
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Post by BeneTleilax » 2 years ago

I think I've finally figured out the right mix of aggro, voltron and junkyard for this deck. The deck plays kinda like being a kid with a bunch of Bionicles. Make a bunch of robots, recombine all their pieces, when you're done with them put them in the bin until you're ready to pull them back out. It's pretty simple for how versatile it is, and the recursion and draw engines are usually enough to surmount aggro's general fragility. It's got couple janky combos as a last resort, or if everyone forgets to interact with us at all, based around looping 1 mana Modular guys to put arbitrary counters on Hangarback, sacrificing Hangarback, and giving the tokens haste. The deck does keel over and die to grave hate and a couple inconvenient wraths, but it's hipster enough (and Boros enough) that it isn't treated as too much of a threat.
Bionicles

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EDITS: Cut Transmogrant for Unwinding Clock
Cut Arcbound Whelp for Boros Keyrune
Cut Cathar's Crusade for Storm of Souls.
Last edited by BeneTleilax 2 years ago, edited 7 times in total.

Robobro72
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Post by Robobro72 » 2 years ago

Super into this list, probably one of the more all-in Zabaz lists I've seen. The main thing that stood out to me was the inclusion of 3 artifact conversion cards (Liquimetal Coating et al). I think you have about 10 non artifact, non land permanents so am I missing some kind of synergy?

I suppose I'd suggest a few cards that I thought of but looking at EDHREC might be a bit obvious and/or not great for my wallet personally. Inkmoth Nexus seems like an obvious include as it gives you a hugely powerful secondary "voltron" target other than zabaz. To that end Blinkmoth Nexus also helps. Seems like it would be quite strong to have threats that are immune to most sorcery speed interaction. Obviously the lack of modular makes it a bit suspect, though.
I suppose I'll bring up Ichor Wellspring as it seems to be very popular for its cute interaction with Zabaz's first activated ability. Personally a divination with some upside isn't terribly exciting but with welder/engineer it is a decent engine.

Really cool though. I may draft up something incorporating Flamekin Herald and Glimpse of Tomorrow since it likely allows for modular counters to transfer from one board to the next (though Zabaz does come into play last). That does make the inclusion of Hangarback Walker a bit suspect but with more tutors and recursion engines to get all 0 CMC spells out quickly I think it could be strong idk. May post it in here if it goes anywhere

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BeneTleilax
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Post by BeneTleilax » 2 years ago

Robobro72 wrote:
2 years ago
Super into this list, probably one of the more all-in Zabaz lists I've seen. The main thing that stood out to me was the inclusion of 3 artifact conversion cards (Liquimetal Coating et al). I think you have about 10 non artifact, non land permanents so am I missing some kind of synergy?
We have enough artifact synergies that making things into artifacts in a pinch is just very handy. They can also be used defensively to ransom someone's permanent against artifact sweepers. Might take out Transmogrant though, not sure.
Robobro72 wrote:
2 years ago
I suppose I'd suggest a few cards that I thought of but looking at EDHREC might be a bit obvious and/or not great for my wallet personally. Inkmoth Nexus seems like an obvious include as it gives you a hugely powerful secondary "voltron" target other than zabaz. To that end Blinkmoth Nexus also helps. Seems like it would be quite strong to have threats that are immune to most sorcery speed interaction. Obviously the lack of modular makes it a bit suspect, though.
Nexus is too expensive rn, but if the price ever goes down I'm certainly picking it up.
Robobro72 wrote:
2 years ago
I suppose I'll bring up Ichor Wellspring as it seems to be very popular for its cute interaction with Zabaz's first activated ability. Personally a divination with some upside isn't terribly exciting but with welder/engineer it is a decent engine.
Wellspring just isn't that good, even with the amount of recursion I'm using. I have better things to loop with the goblins, and I basically never want to be sinking 2-3 mana a turn into sorcery speed draw.
Robobro72 wrote:
2 years ago
Really cool though. I may draft up something incorporating Flamekin Herald and Glimpse of Tomorrow since it likely allows for modular counters to transfer from one board to the next (though Zabaz does come into play last). That does make the inclusion of Hangarback Walker a bit suspect but with more tutors and recursion engines to get all 0 CMC spells out quickly I think it could be strong idk. May post it in here if it goes anywhere
That's a neat little combo, I'd love to see what you build.

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BeneTleilax
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Post by BeneTleilax » 2 years ago

Took Cathar's Crusade out, it was always treated as more of a threat than it was, and generally felt winmore, as I don't have that many ways to make tokens. Storm of Souls gets right in, it even buffs the modular dudes a little by giving them a base p/t.

Elywood
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Post by Elywood » 2 years ago

Hey, really neat deck! Big fan of the theme as this was my childhood as well haha

So I see how this can be voltron-y (by quickly sacc'ing modular creatures and stacking +1/+1 counters), but how do you usually win with this via going wide? Without cathar's all your creatures are pretty small and don't really have any sort of evasion. Would love to hear more about how this deck plays as I'm considering building it :)

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BeneTleilax
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Post by BeneTleilax » 2 years ago

Finally finished my Neon Dynasty updates. This set had several great cards for the deck: Lion Sash is another way to use counters and push a voltron strategy while giving the deck access to in-theme grave hate, Lizard Blades provides another way to give Zabaz double strike that can also be a threat in itself with enough counters, Experimental Synthesizer is just more card draw, which is always great. Iron Apprentice sadly doesn't have real Modular, and Brilliant Restoration is too expensive I think, especially because I like having all the colorless utility lands. I did manage to finally snag a KCI though, so that gets right in.

Ended up cutting Gold Myr for still being bad, Arcbound Reclaimer for being my worst recursion piece, Lotus Petal for scaring people, and Bronze Guardian for being too costly and always getting removed.

The deck is performing quite well, and catches people off guard, first by not being a complete gimmick, and second by how quickly it can recover and pivot between roles. It's reminding of why I loved the resilience and versatility of GB when I started playing EDH, before it got too saturated with goodstuff.

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