Nurse Ratchet - somebody call an ambulance (but not for me) [Brainstorming]

[DirkGently]

I can't seem to help myself building more of these stupid transformers. I guess it's because I'm waiting for my new instructor to get type rated on my aircraft. I ought to study for more written tests, but meh, I've only got 2 left, and the weather textbook is soooo looooong.

Anyway, Ratchet, Field Medic // Ratchet, Rescue Racer.

This guy has some pretty obvious lines of play - sac artifacts, gain life, recur artifacts. Implement of Improvement has never looked so good.

Beyond that card, though, things get a bit fuzzy. There are other artifacts that sac for lifegain (Sunbeam Spellbomb for example), but without any other bonus it's somewhat unimpressive.

So getting lifegain reliably requires more work. The simplest option I see is to use a lot of the typical lifegain package - Soul's Attendant for example - and just rely on your opponents giving you the fodder to recur your Mishra's Bauble or whatever. Notice that, since it enters tapped of Ratchet, we'll need a decent amount of fodder to pull this off at maximum efficiency, unless it doesn't require tapping as part of its cost (i.e. Elsewhere Flask).

I see Ratchet primarily as a value engine. Input lifegain and baubles, acquire card draw. Cool. So I think the difficult part is in finding a win condition. There are a few ways to go that I can see:

1) there's a lot of things that trigger on gaining life - i.e. Regna, the Redeemer. As long as we're already built for gaining life to trigger Ratchet, we might as well get some value off it.
2) there's also some pretty strong triggers off creatures specifically entering - stuff like Welcoming Vampire and Blessed Sanctuary. So we could include a bunch of the free artifact creatures, and then sac and recur them for value. This feels like it's gotta be either all-or-nothing. I doubt it's worth including the artifact creatures/sac outlets/creature etb effects unless we're going all the way in on it.
3) A different angle would be to focus on stax - since we don't need to cast many spells once our engine is going, and can generate plenty of value without even having creatures on board (since ratchet can be a non-creature artifact on enemy turns), we can make the board hostile to casting spells and controlling creatures without issue.

So that's where I'm at at the moment - there are a lot of baubles that can be used to generate value with Ratchet, but finding a good way to win I'm still not sure about.

Ah, mono-white problems.

edit: here's the list.

Ratchet

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

Commander (1)

1 Ratchet, Field Medic

Creature (14)

1 Ethersworn Canonist

1 Crested Sunmare

1 Spirit of the Labyrinth

1 Burnished Hart

1 Attended Healer

1 Scrap Trawler

1 Mageta the Lion

1 Archivist of Oghma

1 Solitude

1 Oswald Fiddlebender

1 Soul's Attendant

1 Soul Warden

1 Serra Paragon

1 Peacekeeper

Artifact (36)

1 Blasting Station

1 Nevinyrral's Disk

1 Wayfarer's Bauble

1 Tablet of Epityr

1 Summoning Station

1 Dungeoneer's Pack

1 Expedition Map

1 Codex Shredder

1 Implement of Improvement

1 Chromatic Star

1 Scrapheap

1 Chromatic Sphere

1 Aetherworks Marvel

1 Ivory Tower

1 Fountain of Renewal

1 Salvaging Station

1 Orazca Relic

1 Grinding Station

1 Terrarion

1 Thought Vessel

1 Unstable Obelisk

1 Phyrexian Furnace

1 Oblivion Stone

1 Mind Stone

1 Golden Egg

1 Mishra's Bauble

1 Barbed Sextant

1 Scrabbling Claws

1 Potion of Healing

1 Urza's Bauble

1 Soul-Guide Lantern

1 Scourglass

1 The Underworld Cookbook

1 Conjurer's Bauble

1 Alhammarret's Archive

1 Amulet of Vigor

Enchantments (5)

1 Island Sanctuary

1 Darksteel Mutation

1 Authority of the Consuls

1 Cleric Class

1 Peace of Mind

Sorcery (2)

1 Approach of the Second Sun

1 Brilliant Restoration

Instant (5)

1 Dispatch

1 Fateful Absence

1 Path to Exile

1 Oblation

1 Fated Retribution

Planeswalker (1)

1 Ajani, Strength of the Pride

Lands (36)

1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

1 Reliquary Tower

1 Inventors' Fair

1 Terrain Generator

1 Kor Haven

1 Cave of the Frost Dragon

1 Emeria, the Sky Ruin

1 Phyrexia's Core

1 Radiant Fountain

1 Access Tunnel

26 Snow-covered Plains

Approximate Total Cost:

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Salvaging Station seems like a natural fit here alongside Golem's Heart. I'm not Captain Combo or anything, but Salvaging station + flayer husk + any sac outlet is infinite something and might be a vector in which to turn value pieces into a win. Approach of the 2nd Sun + enough bauble draw might be another way to put the game to bed without going too far outta your way.

[DirkGently]

@TheAmericanSpirit Ha, I've come to similar conclusions while brainstorming. I'm not a huge fan of approach since it's a 1-card, very-hard-to-interact-with wincon, but it might be our best option here.

Golem's Heart is probably better here than anywhere, although it still doesn't excite me. Difficult to cast artifacts on enemy turns, so it's only helping us recur one artifact per turn cycle (I guess theoretically two?). Triggers for enemies, of course, but I dunno that it's any better than say Soul's Attendant. I guess it can be recurred which is nice. I'd probably at least consider it if I had one but I don't. I do need to pick an Implement of Improvement, though, so maybe I'll add it to the shopping list.

I did consider going full station combo as well - obviously hard to assemble but at least Ratchet provides some protection. Salvaging is kinda redundant with Ratchet, but since Ratchet is limited to one-per-turn it could definitely be worth it (it also returns them untapped which is nice). The other pieces have some synergy too, with the likely exception of Blasting Station. Having the whole package is pretty fun, though, imo. Husk I'm less into - I don't know how many sac outlets we want since most baubles are self-sacrificing, so it's probably a 3-piece combo where 2 pieces don't do much except as part of the combo.

Other wincons I've brainstormed:

-Infect (not many enablers, but there are a few artifacts that proliferate on death)
-Voltron via +1/+1 counters (putting a lot of chips on Arcbound Ravager for that to work, but at least our commander is a non-creature on enemy turns (usually))
-General lifegain synergies (a la Heliod, Sun-Crowned).
-Stax (not strictly a wincon but likely fits well into the deck regardless)
-Just beating down with fat artifact creatures (guaranteed to be awful)
-Planeswalkers (some synergy with stax and wipes but getting into the weeds a bit)

[DirkGently]

An important part of this deck is going to be the lifegain, since we only have 1 Implement of Improvement. So here are all the other ones that look potentially interesting to me.

• Fountain of Renewal
• Archivist of Oghma
• Serra Paragon
• Dungeoneer's Pack
• Implement of Improvement
• Orazca Relic
• Ashes of the Abhorrent
• Righteous Cause
• Claws of Gix
• Sunscorch Regent
• Soul's Attendant
• Auriok Champion
• Soul Warden
• Authority of the Consuls
• Paradise Plume
• Umezawa's Jitte
• Sun Droplet
• Pristine Talisman
• The Celestus
• Shattered Angel
• Prism Ring
• Golem Heart
• Angel Feather
• Profane Memento
• Leonin Elder
• Soldier of the Pantheon
• Scrapheap
• Contemplation
• Spectrum Sentinel
• Tablet of Epityr
• Aetherflux Reservoir
• Inventors' Fair
• Staff of Domination
• Trading Post
• Zuran Orb
• Chalice of Life
• Orazca Relic
• Campfire
• Revitalize
• Renewed Faith
• Soulmender
• Sunbeam Spellbomb
• Potion of Healing
• Scroll of Avacyn
• Resplendent Mentor
• Peace of Mind
• Ghost-Lit Redeemer
• Marble Chalice
• Braidwood Cup
• Tanglebloom
• Mine Worker
• Royal Herbalist

Obviously some crappier stuff at the bottom especially, but I'm just brainstorming. I think the ideal number here is probably at least 15, maybe up to 20? We don't really go anywhere without one, all we have is commander lifelink. I guess like Enlightened Tutor can get implement of improvement so we can count it.

[Chromaticus]

Extorting might be a useful avenue - Blind Obedience in particular. That way you can guarantee 3 life gain on any spell.

High Market and Diamond Valley come to mind for lifegain on lands that can also sacrifice artifact creatures.

[DirkGently]

@Chromaticus Extort might be okay if the card itself does something useful, but as I'm not that big on draining enemy life and I'm mostly running 1mv baubles so that all my other lifegain sources can recur them, I don't think it's something I'd go big on. Blind obedience is definitely the best of them but I'm still not super into it, as I don't plan on attacking very often.

I think deciding whether to focus on creatures is a necessary crossroads to consider for this deck, but I think I'm going to focus primarily on non-creature artifacts i.e. baubles. I'll have some creatures, but they won't be the things I'm trying to recur or sac. High market might make the cut anyway just as a mediocre option if I'm desperate that doesn't cost me much to run, but diamond valley not tapping for mana probably means it doesn't make it in.

[DirkGently]

Crap, I haven't written up my list yet. I guess I'll try to do that.

I played it once. It was pretty agonizing to play. Just way too many triggers and optimizations to keep track of. Recursion CAN be annoying - I don't think it's a big issue necessarily since most of the recursion pieces just draw cards and don't do much on their own. But mostly it's just way too monopolizing on the clock. Trying to play it I quickly gave up on trying to optimize and just focused on getting through my actions as quickly as possible. It's extremely slow to win, or at least it was when I played it. I'd "won" many turns before I actually won.

So yeah, would not recommend.

[Haman]

Do share yr list.
I agree that there are quite some triggers but it's not that bad.
My friend and i built ratchet, he went combo kci route,while i prefered punchy ghost style. Some cards will function similar regardless of styles.

Best cards- potion of healing, implement of improvement, bottle gnomes
These cards u can reuse even in tapped form.

In most case, the card we recured every turn is probably the card we sacrificed. Normally try to get ratchet to do some free lifelink damage on our own turn and get some other artifact, while the rest of the players' turns, we just keep recur the same artifact.

Some other good cards are peace of mind, scrapheap. In a few games, i actually reanimated a meteor golem despite not reaching 7 mana., getting a canoptek tomb sentinel every turn end games

I am trying out the arcbound creatures, except ravager, they have a little timing issue. In order for modular to work properly, ratchet need to be a creature in other players turn., unless casting revitalise in hand in response to a removal, else ratchet will be removed.

In all my games, probably kill my opponents with unblockable ratchet cleric class assisted, made 20/20 tokens with phyrexian processor and random aetherflux resovoir death

[DirkGently]

@Haman Okay I finally got off my ass and put up the list in the OP.

Maybe different versions would be more tolerable, but my version was a trigger nightmare.