The Community Deck Build Project v4.0

[kirkusjones]

Yea to the Resonator, Hellkite and Ugin. I'm also not convinced on Perilous Myr, I feel like Ichor Wellspring might be a better two drop, even if it's not a creature.

My pick today is Wurmcoil Engine. Triggers Gilarna, beats face and is a fantastic recursion target.

[3drinks]

I'd be a lot more interested in Perilous Myr if it were either one mana cheaper for a slightly weaker effect or a significantly larger effect at 4 mana more. As it stands, without either Salvaging Station or Gilanra synergy, is 2 damage really worth the slot? I'm open to being convinced, but I'm far from sold. I'll abstain for now.

It's true that, say, an Explosive Apparatus is technically better in the abstract, though there's something to be said about a rattlesnake, and being a creature, as well I believe you're underselling just how many x/2s something like this can hit, in a similar vein to how lightning bolt is the best removal in the format yet people continuously fail to watch how many times an entire combo is stopped because it hinged on an x/3.

[Dunadain]

I'm not a fan of Perilous Myr either. Not sure if I like Explosive Apparatus either. I'll say Nay to both.

I think, oftentimes, making your removal/boardwipes/counterspells overall weaker, but synergistic with the rest of your deck is a mistake, as you need your removal to be reliable even when the rest of your deck isn't off the ground yet/is being hosed at the moment.

For example, take my Emiel the Blessed list, it runs a lot of creatures that have ETB effects that destroy my opponents stuff, and they are fantastic, but I also run Generous Gift, Beast Within, and Unexpectedly Absent. Sure I could replace those cards with more creature etb removal effects, but then I would be screwed against Torpor Orb/Hushwing Gryff/Hushbringeretc.. The creatures with a removal etb also come at a premium, they require a higher mana investent and they are not instants (though Solitude is an exception).

I particularly don't like Perilous Myr and Explosive Apparatus because they are rather narrow. Yes, there is almost always going to be an X/2 on the field, there might even be a X/2 that you want to kill a decent amount of the time, but often times, the thing you NEED to kill is not going to have 2 or less toughness.

Therefore, I'll nominate the humble Beast Within I know it's a staple and many people try to avoid playing too many staples, which I understand, but Beast Within is just so good, it handles any permanent type, it doesn't get hosed by graveyard hate (while also removing the graveyard hate), and it's an instant. If people are balking at the hefty 3MV I assure you, it is worth the flexibility, but if people remain unconvinced I can nominate a 2MV black removal spell tomorrow if that sounds more acceptable.

Edit: also our commander is a pretty strong, repeatable, yet situational piece of removal, why do we need more situational removal in the 99?

[Crazy Monkey]

Yea Strionic Resonator, we.have a couple big triggered abilities to copy.
Yea Ugin, the Ineffable, we want to spend less on big spells.
A strong yea on Perilous Myr, as a combo card. If it costs 2 less (free) and we're already looping artifact creatures, then the myr represents an infinite direct damage outlet. Worst case it curves into our commanders or gets discarded as an artifact. I see a lot of potential. EDIT: we have ugin already nominated for cost reduction, and there are 2 or 3 more cost reduction sources the may be reasonable options.
Yea Steel Hellkite for being the right MV, and adding to our on board control suite.
Yea Beast Within for being a good card.
Yea Tireless Tracker for making artifact tokens.

I nominate Brainstone because card draw is good. It's the most mana intensive trinket for card draw, but it is also a lot of card selection. It's also a decent turn 1 play when setting up our commander(s) to look at sequencing. I think its reasonable even despite there being 'free' draw abilities on trinkets.

[Dunadain]

Are we planning on playing a lot of cards that cheapen artifacts? None have been nominated yet.

Edit: yay on brainstone, playing brainstorm everything is pretty strong, and if the mana base ever gets upgraded to fetches, it'll take off.

[Crazy Monkey]

@Dunadain I was editing it in when you posted, but I think that cards like Mycosynth Golem or Semblance Anvil could make a lot of sense here. I was going to nominate the golem after the salvaging station package is done.

[kirkusjones]

@Dunadain I was editing it in when you posted, but I think that cards like Mycosynth Golem or Semblance Anvil could make a lot of sense here. I was going to nominate the golem after the salvaging station package is done.

I feel like it's too early for Mycosynth Golem, considering it only affects creatures and we're running pretty light on those so far. I go back and forth on Semblance Anvil, if it sticks around, awesome, but it's going to draw hate pretty quick. They feel like they both belong with Tortured Existence, saved for late in the deck building process.

[aliciaofthevast]

I'm not convinced on brainstone because it's only really good with station, and even then we're still paying 2 to use it. I think we can do better so that's a nay!

Beast Within doesn't need any arguments though someone really should have submitted assassin's trophy first, right?

I'm also going to yay perilous myr because I see what 3drinks is going for here.

For today's card, I recommend Cloud Key as the cost reducer of choice! It's usually gonna name artifact right? But it's not as fragile as Foundry Inspector.

[Dunharrow]

Ya strionic resonator
I am going to nay steel hellkite. I think there are better cards that trigger on ETB that could be more synergistic. Armix can shoot down potential blockers though so I think it is close... but in these colors I just think we can do better.
Perilous Myr is one of my early favourite cards that I built around when I started playing. That being said, I think it is a bit weak for commander. That's my issue with tortured existence - I can't think of cards to play with it. If we had good creatures to play with it, fine, but if we have to go with things like Perilous Myr I am a little less thrilled.
Nay brainstone, seems weaker than the card advantage that Green and Black can generate normally.
Yay beast within
Yay cloudkey

[3drinks]

Lots and lots of interesting discussions and theories floating around yesterday. I'm most excited that a humble card like Perilous Myr would become so contentious at a 2-2 split. We're seeing that divide between efficiency and "everything needs to be a homerun" and I think that's a fascinating development, despite myself being very clearly in the "sometimes all you need is a base hit" camp. It's proof that all these years latre, Fire Imp is still a strong card; and while the myr needs to die to be an imp, it's at least got the decency to cost less mana and not require a colour commitment to replicate our ugly anorexic little friendly imp. Now that this is out of the way, there's a few confirmations to be cleared up;

Ugin, the Ineffable, Strionic Resonator, and Beast Within have all - perhaps unsurprisingly - been confirmed. Brainstone, after myself being the deciding nay, hasn't made the cut. And there's a lot to unpack with Brainstone albeit it's much more technical than many would like to read.

I'm also going to offer a yay to each of Steel Hellkite, Cloud Key, and Wurmcoil Engine, the latter of which seems to have gotten lost in the days' posts as no one else commented. How do you lose something so big and ferocious and menacing though?

On the subject of Brainstone though;

So, yes, Brainstorm @ one mv is good. At instant it is good. In general it is good...until it isn't. I think people are seeing the very familiar text and equating that with the best draw ever because it's in every deck but we're missing that for the longest time, Brainstorm was strictly unplayable. It wasn't until we got more mainstream shuffle effects that made Brainstorm go from actively harmful, to a legal ancestral recall (shout out to my boi Soldier of Fortune!) As this deck isn't a fetchland deck out of the box, how many shuffles do you expect to have? Especially given how these threads historically have eschewed all but 1-2 tutours for a myriad of reasons. This puts brainstorm effects in a poor position, and that's assuming the trinket version was equal...but it's not because it's still a three cost effect (2 off the Station but if your ceiling relies on having and keeping a six mv card on board, welp...). Yes it digs three, except not really because it's locking your top deck for two turns barring shuffle. One of the greatest strengths of brainstorm is to draw three fresh cards, put two trash cards on top, then shuffle them away which is how it creates the ancestral recall effect. This deck isn't doing that, and at that point (especially at the same base mv three cost), a read the bones|tsr is actually more efficient as it digs {up to} four for the same numerical cost and provides the same +1 CA.

Thank you for listening to my TED Talk on CA principles.

For today's card, I'm going to follow Alicia's advice and recommend the simple AssTroph. At two mv, hit anything barring protection, I'm willing to give you a basic land for that level of flexibility.

Ugin, the Ineffable yay - 3 nay - 0
Strionic Resonator yay - 4 nay - 0
Brainstone yay - 1 nay - 3
Beast Within|tsr yay - 3 nay - 0

---

Perilous Myr yay - 2 nay - 2
Steel Hellkite yay - 1 nay - 1
Wurmcoil Engine yay - 1 nay - 0
Cloud Key yay - 2 nay - 0
Assassin's Trophy yay - 0 nay - 0
Tortured Existence yay - 2 nay - 1

[Dunharrow]

yay Wurmcoil Engine
Yay Assassin's Trophy

I found a gem last night and I am excited to post it : Gerrard's Hourglass Pendant
I hate that it self exiles, but here are the pros:
1. We can discard it to Armix and return it later to play with Salvaging Station
2. We can sac a whole slew of things and return them to play and keep chaining our stations and other synergies to create a winning turn.

[Dunadain]

On the topic of Brainstorm, I wasn't around before fetchlands were introduced, but Brainstorm sees a lot of play in pauper which doesn't have fetchlands either.

Yay assasins trophy
Nay steel hellkite
Yay wurmcoil engine
Yay cloudkey
Nay tortured existense

An I'll nominate Mishra's Bauble as the simplest Salvaging Station target available.

[kirkusjones]

Yea Assassin's Trophy, yea Cloudkey, yea Bauble, yea Pendant. It's been an all star in Meria, Scholar of Antiquity alongside stuff like Claws of Gix and Grinding Station AND my nomination for today: Krark-Clan Ironworks. Sac outlet, mana generation and hell, it's even making me reconsider Perilous Myr.

EDIT - was pleased to discover KCI is within our budget, but even if it wasn't, I'd be pushing hard for it.

[RxPhantom]

Yay to Wurmcoil and Hellkite. They're exactly the kind of heavy hitters that this deck wants. I was going to suggest both if someone else hadn't. Yay to Assassin's Trophy, Cloud Key, Bauble, and KCI. Big enthusiastic yay to Gerrard's Hourglass Pendant for doing lots of cool things, allowing resistance to board wipes, hosing extra turns, and allowing us to have big turns recycling our eggs. Good find there.

My suggestion today is Golgari Charm. The flexibility it provides has been very useful to me through the years. We can protect ourselves from many board wipes, kill a mess of tokens, or destroy a pesky enchantment.

[3drinks]

Wurmcoil Engine yay - 4 nay - 0
Cloud Key yay - 5 nay - 0
Assassin's Trophy yay - 4 nay - 0

---

Perilous Myr yay - 2 nay - 2
Steel Hellkite yay - 2 nay - 2
Tortured Existence yay - 2 nay - 2
Gerrard's Hourglass Pendant yay - 2 nay - 0
Mishra's Bauble yay - 2 nay - 0
Krark-Clan Ironworks yay - 1 nay - 0
Golgari Charm yay - 0 nay - 0

Will update the main list on my break.

[Crazy Monkey]

Yea Gerrard's Hourglass Pendant as a artifact that can salvage and also rebuild or contribute to value engine plays.
Yea Mishra's Bauble because cards are good.
Yea Krark-Clan Ironworks for value and combo.
Abstain on Golgari Charm because I don't know how creature heavy this deck will be. -1/-1 and enchantment removal are nice options, but the regeneration is why I usually play this. I am not certain that we have the creature density for this to outperform other removal options.

My nomination today is Conjurer's Bauble. No mana to activate, some graveyard manipulation, and card draw.

[Dunharrow]

yay Bauble and KCI
Golgari Charm is probably good enough. I prefer more open-ended removal spells, but in a pinch this can regenerate our commander when it suicides into an army to pick off a problematic creature. So, reluctant yay.

I Like Conjurer's bauble but I am wondering if there is a way for us to loop anything with it. I don't see how the graveyard manipulation part is useful at the moment. @Crazy Monkey can you elaborate a bit on what we can do here?

[Jemolk]

@3drinks It looks like you missed the yeas for Steel Hellkite from @kirkusjones and @Crazy Monkey. That should put it at +4, if my count is correct.

I think I've come to a conclusion on Perilous Myr. The fact that it can be a combo finisher probably pushes it over the top for an inclusion. I don't generally like to run combos in my own decks, but I'm not going to try and impose that on this community build. It's a yea.

KCI is obviously ridiculously strong, and again, not going to try and impose my own personal deckbuilding constraints on the group build. Yea.

Conjurer's Bauble is a pretty amusing card here, especially with Salvaging Station. The ability to screw up reanimation while also cantripping is pretty nice. In terms of graveyard hate, there are many stronger options, but as a potentially repeatable cantrip that also does some minor graveyard manipulation? Sure, why not. Yea.

Golgari Charm -- it's no Rakdos Charm, but the versatility is quite nice. In my own meta, it wouldn't be that rare for it to be valuable for wiping out hordes of goblins, and it could also hit soldier tokens a good amount of the time. Its removal modes aren't exactly Steel Hellkite level, but it seems pretty good, and the regen is also great. Yea.

Been on a bit of a removal-nominating kick lately. Let's keep that going and see how far it goes. I nominate Noxious Gearhulk. It is, once again, exactly the correct CMC for Gilanra. ETB kill something and gain life is also pretty strong, especially if we can reuse it -- which we definitely can. Even just a single shot has allowed me to win games where I was otherwise pretty dead, though -- the lifegain in addition to removal can be a big swing when you're behind, which is exactly when you most need an effect like this regardless. Oh, yes, also we could copy its trigger with Strionic Resonator if we have both.

[RxPhantom]

Oooooooooohhhhhh...big yay to Noxious Gearhulk. 6MV artifact fatty that kills things and gains us life. Perfect.

[kirkusjones]

Love me some Noxious Gearhulk, yea. And Golgari Charm overperforms in Grismold (as it should), but in addition to acting like Agent Orange on the plant tokens, it also picks off mana dorks and utility critters while dodging indestructibility. Yea to that too.

[aliciaofthevast]

When I see conjurer's bauble I think "why not phyrexian furnace?" If we want it for grave stuff I mean. When we just want a cantrip, yeah Mishra's Bauble is best in class, but that's all it does.

I like Infiltration Lens to help ensure Armix isn't blocked (I'm okay with a draw2 for that exchange!) but I think for today my card has to be......

Myr Battlesphere!! It's a crazy big army in a can that gives lots of artifact numbers for our Armix count.

[RxPhantom]

Yay to MyrSphyr. Heads up everyone, I'm gonna yay every good 6+MV artifact creature.

[Crazy Monkey]

yay Bauble and KCI
Golgari Charm is probably good enough. I prefer more open-ended removal spells, but in a pinch this can regenerate our commander when it suicides into an army to pick off a problematic creature. So, reluctant yay.

I Like Conjurer's bauble but I am wondering if there is a way for us to loop anything with it. I don't see how the graveyard manipulation part is useful at the moment. @Crazy Monkey can you elaborate a bit on what we can do here?

I nominated Conjurer's Bauble almost entirely as a way to draw cards, with the potential upside being that it allows some level of graveyard interaction. It's no Nihil Spellbomb for utility, but it doesn't cost mana to draw cards. It's also a may, so there it isn't disrupting our own graveyard stuff. There's around 3+ better trinkets for doing things other than cards, but not that many without a mana cost associated with those cards.

I should point out that it only interacts with our own graveyard, so this is definitely not going to mess with opponents unless they pointed Reanimate at our Wurmcoil Engine.

Yea Myr Battlesphere and Noxious Gearhulk as big mana artifacts, although I am getting a bit wary of how top-heavy our curve is getting. I guess it's less of a problem with a mana dork in the command zone.

[Dunharrow]

But that's just it, Conjurer's bauble is not graveyard hate. Like, I guess technically if someone wants to grab something from your graveyard, but that seems too niche of a reason.
I thought maybe there was a loop where you could put something from the yard into your deck and then tutor it back (like Mistveil Plains and Sunforger).

In any case, I will yea Battleball and Noxious Gearhulk.

And if we are able to pull off some infinite loops with Perilous Myr turns it into a yes for me. But what's the combo? So far I haven't seen an infinite combo in the deck.

[Jemolk]

Oh, I guess I read Conjurer's Bauble too fast. I thought it said target card from a graveyard. A lot less interesting realizing it says from your graveyard. I'll retract my yea vote because my reasoning was invalid, and will abstain instead. I just don't know enough about the use case to really say much. If it's just a cantrip that we're hoping to recur with a Salvaging Station package, I'd think Urza's Bauble would be more worth tossing in first, at the very least.