The deck is intended for use in MTG Arena. I wanted to make a post rotation artifact deck.
The win strategy for this deck is to get Sai out as soon as possible. Once he is out the goal is to dump artifacts when possible (unless they have potential 1/1 board clear) to get a large amount of Thopter's out on the field. Using The Antiquities War, Tezzeret and skyscanner to draw into Karn. Once Karn is out I mostly use his -2 whenever possible for the tokens that scale of artifacts.
Treasure map is a great card for boosting your artifact count exponentially (3 treasure tokens) allowing you to potentially get 4 flying thopters and 2 8/8 token's within 6 turns if all goes well. Once I have the karn tokens out I try and keep as many artifacts alive so I stop using thopters to block and try and get Voltaic Servant and Traxos out. The combo of both of them allows for a strong defense as well as an attacker against decks with less power. I can beat them down with the large tokens and flying swarm of thopters or play The Antiquities war and convert those flying 1/1 into 5/5 which opponents generally have a hard time preparing for once they see the Saga drop.
Tezzeret is there primarily for draw and free Thopters thus buffing Karn tokens. However if I get him to 10 LP then -9 allows for great searching and a potential win. By this point the enemy will have used most 'destroy artifacts' if they have them in hand allowing you to pull out helm of the host. This card sits well on a lot of the creatures in this deck. Drawn naturally it's great to put on skyscanner for an extra draw every turn. However it fits best on Karn's tokens, basically allowing 2x -2 every turn. Or on Sai allowing you to amass an army of thopter loving dudes. I have been at 6x Sai in an earlier version of this deck that ran 3x Helm of the Host. When you search with antiques with 6x Sai you know your in for a treat. 6 Thopters >next turn> 7 Thopters >next turn> 13 5/5 flying thopters, i'm salivating just thinking about it. Run it as x1 because it is slow and not effective at all in early turns.
Sai himself is a good blocker but I also use Gleaming barrier so that my overall artifact count isn't reduced if he is killed. This allows me to survive the early rounds against more aggro decks while I build my board.
My deck does lack removal except the x2 Selective Snare. These were originally in my sideboard but I brought x2 over because the amount of decks with large amounts of a single creature type are huge and I encountered a lot (Cats, Vampires, Merfolk, Soldiers, Zombies and Dinosaurs) to name a few. As my mana requirements are relatively low it has been quite common for me to hold on to this card even from initial hand. At 6 lands & 3 treasure tokens there is decent ramp in the deck, being able to XU and return most of their creatures to hand to open up for an attack is really nice.
Improvements that need to be made is making the deck more consistent. I know I can do this with more x4 however I feel like everything except maybe the 3x Sparring Constructs are needed however even they have their use because with Jhoira whenever I draw them they can be insta dropped for 0 buffing a karn token by 2/2 (1/1 from itself and 1/1 from thopter generated from Sai). I like the 2x though because when using antiques and other draw in deck it's nice to have a selection of specific cards to choose for the situation.
sideboard is pretty lackluster, Siren when I find myself against aggro, Sleep when I am vs lifesteal or Dinosaurs. Chaos wand is there because I lack removal so if against a deck with removal or burn I can drain them out while using them myself. It's not that great but there are not too many artifacts and I don't want to lower my artifact amount too much.
Please criticize at will, I want this deck to be good, I am fully aware that it isn't too strong and enough early aggro or burn is this decks weakness. Any Standard imporvements? Or is it optimal until another set drops. I was thinking of mixing the deck up with the same main theme but having white in there primarily for Divine Visitation (in maybeboard).
