Mardu Shops is designed as an artifact aggro-combo deck for a meta without infinite combos. Tymna provides card advantage to go along with all of the creatures in the deck, while Akiri can generate some heavy beats as well as being a two-drop creature for Tymna to draw off of on turn 3. Marionette Master together with recursion engines and sac outlets provide the reach to close out games.
Early-game:
T2: Tymna the Weaver - > draw one
T3: Ideally draw two
T1: Hope of Ghirapur
T2: Akiri, Line-Slinger
T3: Tymna the Weaver - > draw two
T1: Chrome Mox - > Loyal Apprentice
T2: Tymna the Weaver - > draw two
Mid-game:
Recursion
Sacrifice Outlet
End-Game/Other Synergies
- Mass recursion via Scrap Mastery and Living Death can work wonders here.
- Inkmoth Nexus fueled by Cranial Plating, Arcbound Ravager and Yawgmoth, Thran Physician
- Athreos, God of Passage + Pia's Revolution: for artifact creatures this essentially means a target opponent needs to pay six to stop you from recurring artifact creatures if you can have them out together. Since this deck attacks life totals quite aggressively, this becomes quite effective.
- Scrap Trawler: the deck has a lot of good lines of play with Scrap Trawler. Useful for this is also Scrapheap Scrounger which can recur itself.
- Oswald Fiddlebender: is a nice new tool the deck has gotten. Some good lines are: 1 cmc artifact - > Myr Retriever - > Scrap Trawler - > Krark-Clan Ironworks. Upon sacrificing Myr Retriever you can retrieve the 1 cmc, and upon Scrap Trawler retrieve Myr Retriever, allowing you to continue sacrificing artifacts. Also note Wurmcoil Engine - > Angel of the Ruins.
- Phyrexian Scriptures: given that most of the (valuable) creatures are artifacts in this deck, this is quite close to a one-sided board wipe. In addition, you can use this to make Marionette Master an artifact (allowing you to also move counters through Arcbound Ravager).
- Marionette Master: Marionette Master already hits very hard, but boosters such as Cranial Plating or Archangel of Thune can make this a very rapid win condition.
- Archangel of Thune: there's a lot of life sources in the deck to keep in mind: Vault Skirge , Tymna, High Market, Inventor's Fair, Shadowspear, Lurrus of the Dream-Den, Wurmcoil Engine . Also note the synergy with Yawgmoth, Thran Physician.
- Worthwhile to note that Luminous Broodmoth also grants evasion on the recursion, which can make quite a difference for Akiri, Cranial Plating and Tymna. Therefore sometimes it may be worthwhile to sacrifice creatures to push through damage.
- Stoneforge Mystic can find protection/haste (Lightning Greaves), card draw (Skullclamp) and damage output Cranial Plating).
Thanks for reading and happy to hear your thoughts!
*****Credit for this Primer Template belongs to all members of the Primer Committee*****