Tag: Tokens

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The Great EDH Challenge: Yore-Tiller – Breya, Mud Shaper

Decklist: https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/breya-mud-shaper/

Power Level: 7.3

Breya is a powerful artifact commander that serves as interaction in the command zone, in addition to being an excellent outlet for infinite mana. This deck can’t produce infinite mana, but it does enjoy generating plenty of artifact tokens to use in sacrifice shenanigans.

I’ve always preferred the “mud” border of the old artifacts, so I decided to make a deck themed around them. The release of the Brother’s War commander precons made this deck idea far more viable, and much of this deck uses cards from those. I could have increased the power and budget of this deck by including numerous other powerful “retro” artifacts, but I limited myself to only a few of those, such as Metalworker. Despite the deckbuilding limitation, the deck still has plenty of synergy, mainly revolving around artifact token generation and sacrifice.

Cards like Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer and Urza, Chief Artificer provide excellent free token generation on each of our turns. Other cards like Sai, Master Thopterist and Sharding Sphinx make us work a bit harder for our tokens, but not too hard. We use these artifact creature tokens to attack our opponents and to interact with them thanks to Breya and other cards like Oni-Cult Anvil. There is also a large amount of draw engines available in this deck. Bident of Thassa draws a card for each crature that deals combat damage, and is perhaps the best way to draw a large amount of cards in the deck. Value engines such as Thopter Shop and Thopter Spy Network are far more gradual and consistent ways to draw cards.

This deck is a more traditional EDH deck, where the playstyle tends to be a mix of battlecruiser and tinkering. Once we have a large amount of artifacts on the battlefield, we typically can do all sorts of things to both generate more value and expand our board presence. This deck wins with combat damage at least half of the time, usually with large constructs created by Urza, Lord High Artificer and Digsite Engineer. The other half of wins are attained through combos involving Ashnod’s Altar, Marionette Master, Sharuum the Hegemon, and Sculpting Steel. It always helps to have a way to close out a game using a combo that can be interacted with by casual, less-powerful decks.

I have plenty of artifact decks, as it is my favorite archetype in Magic. This deck does the usual tinker-y things that those decks tend to do, with a specialization in token generation. If you like having a lot of artifacts, then this is a fun deck to play.

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The Great EDH Challenge: Jeskai – Gavi’s Cycling Nest of Tokens

Decklist: https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/gavis-cycling-nest-of-tokens/

Power Level: 4.7

So when I saw a commander with a name so similar to my own, I had to make her. (My name is Gavin)

Gavi revolves around cycling, drawing at least 2 cards each turn, and making tokens. Hence, this is a cycling deck with a token subtheme. You’ll feel awesome when you have a hand full of cycling cards with Gavi out. You’ll feel hopeless when you have no cards with cycling in your hand when she’s out. It can be…a very bipolar experience.

This deck is fairly close to the original precon, so I will be careful not to call it completely original. Don’t worry, this is the only deck in my challenge that is close to an existing precon. What can I say; they jam-packed the original precon with a lot of great cycling synergies. The modifications I made are a mixture of toxic and value. Cards like Containment Construct and Nezahal, Primal Tide are amazing value adds, while cards like Decree of Silence and Decree of Annihilation are just…the epitome of toxic. As I said, this deck provides quintessential bipolar gameplay.

We spend the first 5 turns setting up value engines, and ramping to Gavi if we are fortunate to draw mana rocks in our opening hand. An early Fluctuator or Teferi’s Ageless Insight makes our cycling easy and extra effective. Once Gavi is out, we start cycling to success. For long-term survivability, we only cycle to ensure that we are drawing two cards on EACH turn, if possible. We want as many Cat Dinosaurs as we can get, since they block well and attack well. Speaking of tokens, we can make a variety of them.

Ominous Seas and Hoofprints of the Stag provide passive ways for us to turn draws into powerful tokens. 8/8s and flying 4/4s excel at killing opponents, and we make them pretty easily in this deck with our constant cycling and wheeling. Valiant Rescuer and Akim, the Soaring Wind give us additional 1/1s each turn, though Akim’s six-mana ability is often just too costly to be utilized. Anointed Procession doubles our tokens, which is especially powerful when paired with one of our best token generators, the almighty Shark Typhoon.

If you don’t want to win via the slow grind of making tokens to attack with, we have two alternative win conditions that our oftentimes my main ways to victory. Psychosis Crawler and Brallin, Skyshark Rider   work as a lethal pair to allow us to kill our opponents simply by cycling and wheeling through our deck. New Perspectives makes that game-plan trivially easy. Approach of the Second Sun wins us the game when we cast it twice. It is especially great in our deck, as we can often dig to it by our next turn.

If you have cleared the board of major threats and have a value engine setup, you can lock your opponents out of the game using the Decree of Silence/Solemnity combo. It counters all of your opponents’ spells, which is oftentimes enough to make players scoop on the spot. Well, that and blowing up all lands with a Decree of Annihilation cycled for free. This is especially funny when you have a Herald of the Forgotten on the stack when you cycle it, since it will get back some of your lands. I love that big cat; it oftentimes turns the game around for us.

There is a lot of interaction in this deck. Interestingly, a bit of it can be played for free with Gavi out. Dismantling Wave clears the board of artifacts and enchantments when it is cycled, and Nimble Obstructionist can stop a game-winning ability from resolving when it is cycled. Winds of Abandon is my favorite board wipe for aggressive decks, as it clears the way for you to swing for lethal against your opponents’ big board states. Flame Blitz is funny, as it just says no to keeping planeswalkers on the field. We don’t mind, since we only run Chandra, Flamecaller, who can act as a board wipe herself.

This deck may have a few powerful cards in it, but it still isn’t much more powerful than the precon. Blowing up lands and countering all your opponents spells sounds funny, but it isn’t usually a surefire way to win. That is especially true when you can’t reliably tutor for those effects. This is a fun deck to play if you enjoy building up value engines that synergize with drawing cards. Think of it as being a loving mother who watches her kids multiply as she feeds them yummy draws, in the form of cycling and wheels. Just remember to protect your nest.