ARJUN EGGS NON-COMPETITIVE
Opening
Based off of NickyBolas's Arjun Eggs list.).This deck is an eggs deck with a much less stream-lined and competitive build than Nicky Bolas' original list linked above. I really liked his build, since my first ever deck was the Nuts and Bolts intro decks from the Fifth Dawn expansion back in 2004, which was full of the cards called eggs, and I never could find a good reason to put them into a commander deck until now.
The eggs build in Magic is full of cheap artifacts played in quick succession to get an overwhelming card advantage from their effects and comboing off.
Main Strategy
- Play cost reducers and mana rocks
- Play cheap artifacts for free that replace themselves
- Play cards that reward casting artifacts or sacrifice them
- Play a Mindmoil effect
- Draw through deck
- Play Win Condition
In-depth card explanation
Mindmoil
Mindmoil and Arjun, the Shifting Flame
Both of these drive the deck, but we can still win if we don't have access to them. Whenever we cast a spell, we recycle our hand, provided we have at least one card, and get a new one. These effects do not shuffle our library, so we evade Stranglehold and other cards similar to it. Arjun is mindmoil on a stick, but he is always in our command zone, but we keep a copy of mindmoil in our deck if we don't have enough mana to get Arjun safely on the field and initiate the combo with a cheap/ cost reduced artifact.
Cost Reducers
card:Etherium Scupltor, Foundry Inspector
Both of these are artifact creatures, so we can recur them more easily, get rewarded for casting them, and reduce their costs, all while having a one-sided effect. A bit frail, but they can come back easily. Best to play early.
Herald of Kozilek
More color intensive, but can affect Eldrazi and colorless planeswalkers if we decide to play them. Also has a big butt.
Semblance Anvil
Has the imprint mechanic, which can reduce our cost of artifacts by instead of one. If you exile an artifact creature, even better. You can also play it without exiling anything if we need to trigger effects. Please don't exile something important, get rid of one of the lesser eggs instead.
Helm of Awakening
For all the group hug fans out there, you will recognize this one. This provides a universal effect for all spells played by anyone by reducing the cost by . This should not be played in the early game, as it leads to our opponents reaping the benefits too much. Better to use before we combo off. Is an artifact, so we can scrap it for value.
Possibility Storm
One of the most popular chaos cards in this format. We can cast cards of the same type for free by playing others, sometimes getting lucky, other times failing completely. This causes two 'casts', one for the spell getting played, and the one that replaces it, so it can trigger Arjun, and certain card drawing effects twice.
Combo Finishers
Psychosis Crawler and Sphinx's Tutelage
The two main win conditions of NickyBolas' deck. They reduce life or mill 2 cards for every card drawn. With a mindmoil effect, victory can be assured within a turn.
Aetherflux Reservoir
We play a lot of cheap spells, giving us a storm like feeling to our strategy. We can play this as early as turn 3, and ramp up life very early on. Makes us a target very early on, but if we cast enough spells the turn we cast and stick it, we can KO very early on.
Cheap Artifacts <
Card Draw, Best to Worst
Sensei's Divining Top
Top deck manipulation, card draw and making the game extremely slow! This card is great, as it allows us to restart the combo all by itself due to its tap ability. More experienced players may target you when you cast this. Be warned.
Chromatic Sphere, deck:Chromatic Star
Classic eggs. Provide us a replacement mana and a card. Star is better because we can sacrifice it and still get is effect.
deck:Aether Spellbomb, Pyrite Spellbomb, and deck:Conjurer's Bauble
These two spellbombs provide an effect or a card. That utility and the ability to draw a card for one is great. Bauble draws us a card for free and saves a card from the graveyard.
Ichor Wellspring
Perfect sacrifice material. Great with cost reducers, even better with graveyard effects.
Panic Spellbomb, Flight Spellbomb, card:Impliment of Combustion
Specific mana costs and one shot usage makes these less than ideal to play in the early game. The two lesser spellbombs arebrutal at times, as they need the specific mana open after they use their effects or are put into the graveyard, or they won't refill our hand.
Mana, not ranked
Lotus Petal
Insane in this deck. Starting combos, working with Scrap Trawler, and giving us early starts, it is a great card for this deck.
Sol Ring
Cheap ramp, fast starts, gets Timmys wet. All-star in this deck. Don't be afraid to sac it.
Wanderer's Twig, Traveler's Amulet, Expedition Map, Mycosynth Wellspring, Prophetic Prism
Replace themselves and get us a land for our hand. Expedition Map gets us those sweet nonbasic lands. Wanderer's twig has some awesome Tolkien vibes. Great in late game as we can fill up our hand more so mindmoil can gives us a greater amount. Wellspring costs more, and can provide a second effect when sacrificed. Prism gives us a card, and can 'convert' our mana into something we need.
Wayfarer's Bauble
Ramps very early on. Does not replace itself, but it can be played cheap or can be sacrificed.
Basalt Monolith
Cost reducers and untapping effects make this brutally unfair for our opponents.
Other Cheap Artifacts
Elixir of Immortality, Myr Retriever, Voltaic Key, Shimmer Myr, Crawlspace
Elixir provides graveyard saving and life gain abilities. Retriever gives us an artifact back when it dies. Key works it mana rocks and Trading Post. Shimmer can allow us to play spells when we are recycling our hand. It creates a second cycle when we do this. Crawlspace prevents a blowout attack from happening to us.
Scrap Trawler
Can extend the life our turns immensely. Eating our artifacts, then getting something back is amazing. Insane with lotus petal.
Artifacts with CMC >
Clock of Omens
This can get way more value with a decklist full of artifacts, but its fine here. Main target is trading post.
Trading Post
Utility to the extreme. We use the bottom two abilities the most, which leads to value town with stuff like myr retriever or sad robot. I never could find a place for it before, but I am very happy it is in this one.
Krark-Clan Ironworks
Where is the reprint MaRo? One of the best cards in the deck, giving us mana from artifacts we don't need. Often extends the turn late game.
Ancestral Statue
Animar, Soul of Elements's best friend makes an appearance in this deck. Bouncing an artifact back to our hand with a cost reducer means we can play more free spells. If we have enough mana open along with a few cost reducers, we can continually bounce him back to our hand and continuously play him. With a mindmoil effect, he will trigger mindmoil, give us a new hand, then come back into our hand, allowing us to play him again.
Solemn Simulacrum
Sad Robot appears for ramp and card draw. The ramp is optional if you don't want to shuffle your deck (especially double sleeved), but getting a card off death makes him a great sacrifice target. The cheaper he is to cast, the better!
Blinkmoth Urn
This gives us a lot of mana due to the sheer amount of artifacts we play in this deck. This can give value to our enemies, so don't be afraid to sacrifice it.
Alhammarret's Archive
Alhammarret, High Arbiter may be complete trash, but his archive is fantastic. This is a dangerous card to play in this deck. NickyBolas's warning applies here too: with a mindmoil effect and the archive on the battlefield, a cast spell will result in this formula: (n-1) *2. Our hand will nearly double, and if we chain enough cast spells, we can draw ourselves out. Have a sacrifice outlet, or be prepared to end the turn and discard a lot of cards.
Salvaging Station
My first rare ever. Brings back our cheapo artifacts, and puts them into play. This allows us to refill our hand more consistently if we sacrificed or discarded a lot of small artifacts early on.
Combustible Gearhulk
A punisher effect that we can cheat into play, recur multiple times, or cast at a discount. We want to fill our graveyard, so either option is good for us.
Spine of Ish Sah
Vindicate in artifact form. We have a number of ways to get it into the battlefield, and it will bounce back to our hand if is destroyed.
Non-Artifact Cards
Card Draw/filtering
Vedalken Archmage, Riddlesmith, Quicksmith Genius
These three cards reward us for playing artifacts. All three have weak bodies. Archmage and Riddlesmith reward us for casting artifacts, but Quicksmith gives us a card whenever an artifact enters the battlefield, meaning he can give us card filtering off of artifact lands and graveyard recursion. Make sure to stack the triggers if you have a mindmoil effect out!
Ponder and Brainstorm
Topdeck manipulation. Brainstorm counts as card draw, so it fuels tutelage and psychosis crawler, and doubling with archive.
card:Thoughcast
The sole card in this deck with the affinity keyword. Being able to reduce the cost by 4 is astounding and helps keep tempo going. Remember to check your artifact lands!
Read the Runes
Card draw and sacrifice in one card. The choice to discard or sacrifice is great for us, as we can sac an artifact like sad robot to get additional value.
Paradoxical Outcome
Same concept as Ancestral Statue, but on a bigger scale. Bouncing low cost artifacts, drawing cards, then playing them again for free will definitely recharge us if we run out of gas. Can also save our stuff in a pinch.
Trinket Mage
The sole spell-based tutor in our entire deck. We run around 20 cards with a CMC equal to/less than . Trinket Mage can help stabilize our early game or get a useful tool later on.
Faithless Looting
This has been an all-star since it first came out. Dumping big artifacts for more useful items in the early phases of the game is always needed. Having flashback is even better. I guarantee you if that this was made in 2017, it would have a cmc of and a flashback of .
Graveyard/ Sacrifice
Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer
A free sac outlet with artifact protection is very much appreciated. Save your stuff from an opponent's Vandalblast.
Goblin Welder
This guy is a monsters, especially in the early game. Being able to constantly regain value and cheat mana costs is always appreciated.
Scrap Mastery
A red card:Red Living Death, that also provides us the utility of Second Sunrise in this deck, and can bring us back from a an artifact boardwipe.
Pia's Revolution
A red artifact version of Athreos, God of Passage. Our opponent has to choose: take 3 damage, or extend the turn over a wanderer's twig. It doesn't specify how it got there, so cracking an egg, saccing something, or even our opponent blowing our stuff up will trigger this for each individual artifact.
Daretti, Scrap Savant
Everyone's favorite Goblin-Wheelchair-Pope-Artificer-Revolutionary is at full force here. He fills our graveyard, draws us card, and has a goblin welder effect. If your opponent allows you to ultimate, you will be near unstoppable.
Removal
Negate
Cheap counter spell, both financially and CMC wise. Can be improved upon, but I don't have better stuff on me.
Chaos Warp
Gets rid of anything, at instant speed, and makes MaRo upset. What's not to love? Can get rid of stuff like Grafdigger's Cage and Leyline of the Void. Might backfire on you if they get out something nasty, but you should be good majority of the time!
Izzet Charm
Utility to the extreme. Counter spell, removal, and faithless looting all in one package. Don't be afraid if you need the cards!
LANDS
No lands that Enter the Battlefield Tapped! We need to keep out tempo up, and slowing ourselves down will hurt us. We keep a total of 23 basic lands, as nonbasic land-hate grows each expansion.
Non-Basic Lands
card:Commander Tower, Shivan ReefGives us both types of colors we need.
Ash BarrensThe pauper staple is in this deck working as a way to thin out our deck to get the land we need, or the refuel our hand when we want to recycle our hand with a mindmoil. Don't be afraid to play it early on!
Great Furnace, Seat of the Synod, Darksteel CitadelThe artifact lands that destroyed standard when they came out and have scared WoTC from ever making a land with two types ever again. They trigger certain effects, can be sacrificed, tutored, or returned from the graveyard. They are great cards to pitch to the graveyard, as they can easily return.
Geier Reach Sanitarium, Desolate LighthouseThese two have a looting effect on land. Geier's ability is cheaper, causes our opponents to draw, but can lead to some hand disruption, especially other combo players. Lighthouse ability costs more, but only affects us.
Buried RuinThis gets us a card back from the graveyard at instant speed. Great for escaping a Rest in Peace, while costing us the land.
Phyrexia's CoreA sacrifice effect on a land is useful for us, and the life gain can help us out a bit.
Inventors' FairThe metalcraft ability is easy to reach, gaining us life each turn for Aetherflux Reservoir. The main draw for this is the tutoring ability, getting us ANY artifact we need.
Cascading Cataracts
Another indestructible land, pretty much avoids land destruction effect with few exceptions. Can also help us fix mana if we have too much colorless in our pool.
Mystifying Maze
Saves us from a death threat, unless if they have hexproof or shroud.
Weaknesses
Graveyard Hate, artifact hate, and 99 counterspell crap. We run extremely fast in our strategy, but our durdley strategy prevents us from getting our win condition in place.
Change log
11.25.2017Removed, Added
Dispel, IslandPsychic Spiral, MountainReality Shift, MountainImplement of Examination, Cascading CataractsInspiring Statuary, Mystifying MazeAlchemist's Vial, Possibility StormSkullclamp, Spine of Ish SahPilgrim's Eye, Combustible Gearhulk
