Let's brew! Hamza, Guardian of Arashin Tempered Steel

[pokken]

So I haven't had a fun idea for a deck in quite a while but this guy really stoked my affinity fires!

I've had a few affinity builds before and they were fun but had too many colors and never got the fit quite right. This guy looks awesome. Things I see going:

1) He's very very cheap with the right setup
2) He enables infinite combos with artifact creatures, e.g. Ancestral Statue
3) He's in a narrowish color range that should present some deckbuilding challenges

I love +1/+1 counters and I love artifacts. and I really love Tempered Steel!

Some of the cards I'm thinking about:

• Steel Overseer
• Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
• etched champion
• arcbound ravager
• chief of the foundry
• hangarback walker
• scrap trawler
• scrapyard recombiner
• teshar, ancestor's apostle
• thopter assembly
• walking ballista
• Mystic Forge
• Mox Opal
• Ajani Steadfast
• Inkmoth Nexus
• Blinkmoth Nexus
• ancestral statue
• stonecoil serpent
• endless one

But I've love all kinds of ideas if you've got'em.

The most interesting thing here I think is the opportunity to do a really, really compact ramp package because playing cheap dudes with counters = ramp. But figuring out how to turn that into a payoff is the tough thing, and restocking the hand is also tough.

Some ways to restock the hand might be things like Ranger of Eos and Proclamation of Rebirth, but probably a bunch of things I'm missing.

Congregation at Dawn and stuff that lets you play creatures off the top is probably a very good thing to do also.

[pokken]

As far as play patterns, one really nice thing about this guy with artifacts is you're going to have a *really* explosive turn once you get 3-4 dudes with counters out. You'll go:

Hamza (GW or 1GW) then vomit your hand of artifact dudes.

I'm thinking the creature account probably needs to approach 45-50, and it'd be ideal if we could think of ways to turn them semi-stormy and hopefully do one of two things:
1) Dump your hand and refill it in the same turn (e.g. drop your entire hand then play a bomb card draw spell) while presenting a scary boardstate
2) Straight up kill that turn with a haste enabler (like Crashing Drawbridge or something).


And one of the huge gaps is sac outlets in these colors. Probably need to play Phyrexian Altar and Krark-Clan Ironworks to be able to support the rather savage Myr Retriever lines.

Myr Retriever plus Krark-Clan Ironworks and Scrap Trawler set up some really nasty lines of play, probably some rather easy infinites in there.

Might even be able to make do without that many haste enablers if you can just make your Blinkmoth Nexus and stuff infinitely large.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

I think this deck needs plenty of cards that put a counter on each creature you control as they allow you to go 0 to 60 the fastest. The best are White Mike, archangel of thune, felidar retreat, etc.

Also, don't forget the clockwork family of artifacts, as they do the same work as modular cards here.

[Wallycaine]

Cathars' Crusade seems like a no brainer, given the theme. It'll pay for itself almost instantly, and gives you another outlet for infinite ETB's. Felidar Retreat might be worth considering as a backup, and obviously Gavony Township should be in the mana base.

Most of the outlast creatures probably aren't worth it, but Abzan Falconer is a nice way to grant mass evasion.

Arcbound Crusher is a modular creature I have fond memories of, even if it's proooobably not good enough. Does kill someone with Ancestral statue, though.

Armorcraft Judge and Inspiring Call seem like decent card draw options, since you'll be maximizing for that, and Call even protects your board from a wrath. Basri's Lieutenant can make it so you still have a board state after a wrath as well.

Bloodspore Thrinax is one of the few ways to ensure your dudes are entering with counters, rather than having to wait until they're in play to put them on. Good-Fortune Unicorn, Juniper Order Ranger or Renata, Called to the Hunt does the same job with slightly less setup, though obviously a lower ceiling as well.

Conclave Mentor is a bonus Hardened Scales, which could be useful.

Daring Archaeologist gives you some recursion, and also grows with your cheap artifacts.

Morph creatures might be worth looking at, the one that brings it to mind is Den Protector. Once you get up to 3 creatures with counters, they're free to lay down, which is pretty nice.

Incubation Druid might be worth putting in your ramp package, assuming you're running enough other ways to get counters on it, which you probably should be. Rishkar, Peema Renegade might be worth it too, and could create some explosive starts.

Luminarch Aspirant is a pretty decent cheap way to spread out counters early. Mikaeus, the Lunarch might serve a double role of being a payoff for having a massive amount of cost reduction, while also enabling said reduction early with his tap.

Pentavus might be worth looking into trying? He's expensive, but provides an army in a can for you once you've gotten some reduction going.

The Great Henge combines more card draw with +1/+1 counters. ...Does mean you have to have a way to kill them with sub infinite bounces if you go "off" with ancestral statue, but does draw you your deck on the way there.

Ugin's Conjurant also goes in the pile of "Scaling X cost dudes with counters". Unbreakable Formation gives you another board wipe protection spell that also helps counters.

Obviously a lot of these aren't artifacts, so there's probably an upper limit to how many you can include, but they're the ones that popped out to me.

[Mookie]

I'll call out the various green 'play a creature, draw a card' effects - Soul of the Harvest, Beast Whisperer, Guardian Project, etc. The Great Henge seems particularly relevant, in case you have any creatures without counters. Plus Glimpse of Nature, obviously.

I'll also note Cathars' Crusade, Good-Fortune Unicorn, and Juniper Order Ranger as other ways to spread around counters if desired.

....as an Animar player, I will note the attributes that make Hamza different from Animar - namely, that Hamza also has cost reduction, and that you can play out your +1/+1 counters prior to the commander hitting the field, which allows for more explosiveness. Access to white mana also opens up some options, as does the ability to work alongside tokens.

One notion I had when I first saw Hamza was Hydras - Lifeblood Hydra seems particularly powerful, especially if you're planning Altar shenanigans.

[pokken]

Incubation Druid reminded me of Gyre Sage which is probably also real good, and potentially a way to make infinite mana


Animar, Soul of Elements is definitely an apt comparison. I think the difference you outline is spot on. One of the problems Animar has is he often gets killed or has to sit on the table for a turn and costs 5, 7, or 9, or whatever, but Hamza can kinda slowplay a little more - develop your board before deploying and then boom wombo-combo.

The Great Henge is a nice pick, esp. since Hamza makes it almost free by himself.

[darrenhabib]

Forsaken Monument is a nice addition to Tempered Steel.

If you've played Animar, Soul of Elements then you'll know that ways to refill your hand are really essential as you can dump your hand quite quickly.
These are in theme with colorless and/or +1/+1 theme; The Great Henge, Tireless Tracker, Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, Kozilek, the Great Distortion, Sandstone Oracle,
These are further creature; Beast Whisperer, Keeper of Fables, Regal Force, Soul of the Harvest, Voice of Many, Lifeblood Hydra, Ohran Frostfang, Primordial Sage,

When it comes to +1/+1 counters and distributing I don't have anything specific with artifact creatures.
Bow of Nylea, Cathars' Crusade, Cazur, Ruthless Stalker, Collective Effort, Curse of Predation, Felidar Retreat, Forgotten Ancient, Juniper Order Ranger, Mikaeus, the Lunarch, Nissa, Voice of Zendikar, Oath of Ajani, Path of Discovery, Renata, Called to the Hunt, Retreat to Kazandu, Shalai, Voice of Plenty, Song of Freyalise, Venerated Loxodon, Verdurous Gearhulk, Yannik, Scavenging Sentinel,
A bunch of the Ajani planeswalkers have good +1/+1 counter distribution.

Bounty of the Hunt can power out a Hamza on Turn 2 if you flood the board with 3 creatures.

[pokken]

I had really really good luck with the planeswalkers in my previous affinity build so I'm a bit inclined to try Nissa, Voice of Zendikar and stuff like that for sure. I think I need to be really careful to keep the volume of counter enablers down if they aren't creatures, however.

Verdurous Gearhulk is an artifact, so goes very well.

Gonna be quite the endeavor to put this all together, as the balance of explosiveness and artifact shenanigans and so on is going to be quite hard to find.

I think that the Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle and Scrap Trawler and Myr Retriever loops are likely to be the strongest thing to be doing, but need to meld that with enough counters to make everything work. Stuff like Llanowar Reborn and Gavony Township seem like great ways to make that glue a little less slot-costly.

If I get the creature count high enough, Ruins of Oran-Rief might even be playable. And I am sure Idyllic Grange actually is good for once lol.

[pokken]

Artifact stuff I like:

• arcbound ravager
• hangarback walker
• shifting wall
• stonecoil serpent
• walking ballista
• blade of the bloodchief
• clockwork beetle
• arcbound slith
• epochrasite
• bow of nylea
• scrap trawler
• workshop assistant
• myr retriever
• scupting steel
• sword of truth and justice
• arcbound reclaimer
• crystalline crawler
• ginger brute
• extruder
• mindless automaton
• myriad construct
• thopter squadron
• verdurous gearhulk
• triskelion
• workhorse
• pentavus
• the great henge
• codex shredder

• vizier of the menagerie
• vivien, monsters' advocate

Another big issue is getting the balance of "I'm a goofy ass krark combo deck" and "i'm an aggro deck" right.

I think the most fun way to play is going to be pressuring hard with giant crappy creatures and comboing if you hit, vs. working hard to set up the combo. That's what I typically did with my previous iterations and it was pretty fun.

[pokken]

Remembered that with a 2 Mana 5/5 you can probably do sick work with greater good. Might enable some stormoffs with phyrexian altar.

[Crazy Monkey]

Remembered that with a 2 Mana 5/5 you can probably do sick work with greater good. Might enable some stormoffs with phyrexian altar.

This reminded me of my Ghalta, Primal Hunger commander storm, and food chain with cost reduction on the commander. As long as the cost reduction keeps up, you can storm out, if that's desired.

[pokken]

Food Chain is another decent call. All we need is a way to keep making bros and you can keep chaining. Just need to add 2 per cycle. The limitation is most of the consistent abilities to create more dudes with counters require activated abilities instead of creature mana.

It's possible there's some rube goldberg combination of Genesis Chamber and Cathars' Crusade or the like.

[maeos]

I think Hamza would also do well as a hydra commander, although he might be a win-more. the more hydras you have on the field the bigger the next one becomes. some of the hydras synergize with the archbounds like wildwood scourge, vastwood hydra, scourge of skola vale, kalonian hydra

[pokken]

I think Hydras is a little too fair for my tastes. The super power in the ability comes from making stuff free ninety free I think.

He kinda just reads as a strictly better Rakdos, Lord of Riots to me almost (for artifacts).

[Crazy Monkey]

What about metamorph support here, they're affected by cost reduction and gain +1/+1 counters. The ones that come to mind are Ainok Survivalist, Den Protector and Hidden Dragonslayer.

[pokken]

What about metamorph support here, they're affected by cost reduction and gain +1/+1 counters. The ones that come to mind are Ainok Survivalist, Den Protector and Hidden Dragonslayer.

The morph cost isn't reduced though which is oofie. But you can morph them in the firstplace and then sac them which is great. Might be solid for all around builds but not sac'ing to Krark-Clan Ironworks I think is the clincher for me that most of them won't be good.

I do like Den Protector however as there's likely an infinite or pseudo loop with him - probably good as a one-off. Play him for free, flip him to get your commander back, then sac him to Phyrexian Altar to pay for a lot of the cost.