Self-Operating Vehicles are the Future

Commander / EDH* Artifact Vehicle WUB (Esper)

mortalrage

Artifact (31)

• 1x Aetherflux Reservoir
• 1x Azorius Signet
• 1x Bolas's Citadel
• 1x Conqueror's Galleon  ^Flip
• 1x Cranial Plating
• 1x Darksteel Forge
• 1x Darksteel Ingot
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Hedron Archive
• 1x Mystic Forge
• 1x Neurok Stealthsuit
• 1x Nevinyrral's Disk
• 1x Orzhov Signet
• 1x Parhelion II
• 1x Prismatic Lens
• 1x Retrofitter Foundry
• 1x Sculpting Steel
• 1x Silent Submersible
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Skysovereign, Consul Flagship
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Spine of Ish Sah
• 1x Staff of Nin
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Talisman of Hierarchy
• 1x Thaumatic Compass  ^Flip
• 1x Thran Temporal Gateway
• 1x Trading Post
• 1x Traveler's Amulet
• 1x Wayfarer's Bauble
• 1x Weatherlight

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge

Land (35)

• 1x Buried Ruin
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Darksteel Citadel
• 1x Esper Panorama
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 9x Island
• 1x Orzhov Basilica
• 1x Orzhov Guildgate
• 5x Plains
• 1x Scoured Barrens
• 1x Seat of the Synod
• 5x Swamp
• 1x Tainted Field
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse
• 1x Tranquil Cove
• 1x Vault of Whispers
• 1x Vivid Creek
• 1x Vivid Marsh
• 1x Vivid Meadow

Instant (7)

• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Dispel
• 1x Dovin's Veto
• 1x Mortify
• 1x Negate
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Utter End

Enchantment (5)

• 1x Hidden Stockpile
• 1x Phyrexian Scriptures
• 1x Tezzeret's Touch
• 1x The Antiquities War
• 1x Thopter Spy Network

Commander (1)

Creature (18)

• 1x Chief Engineer
• 1x Contraband Kingpin
• 1x Emry, Lurker of the Loch
• 1x Etherium Sculptor
• 1x Metalwork Colossus
• 1x Myr Battlesphere
• 1x Padeem, Consul of Innovation
• 1x Palladium Myr
• 1x Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage
• 1x Renowned Weaponsmith
• 1x Sai, Master Thopterist
• 1x Scuttling Doom Engine
• 1x Sharding Sphinx
• 1x Sharuum the Hegemon
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Soul of New Phyrexia
• 1x Sphinx of the Steel Wind
• 1x Thopter Assembly

Sorcery (2)

• 1x Merciless Eviction
• 1x One with the Machine

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Sideboard

Creature (7)

• 1x Filigree Angel
• 1x Pentavus
• 1x Pilgrim of the Fires
• 1x Scrap Trawler
• 1x Scuttling Doom Engine
• 1x Steel Hellkite
• 1x Triskelion

Artifact (3)

• 1x Glaring Spotlight
• 1x Mycosynth Lattice
• 1x Time Sieve

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Maybeboard

Creature (11)

• 1x Cruel Celebrant
• 1x Foundry Inspector
• 1x Hanna, Ship's Navigator
• 1x Merchant's Dockhand
• 1x Noxious Gearhulk
• 1x Phyrexian Metamorph
• 1x Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage
• 1x Scrap Trawler *f-pre*
• 1x Treasure Mage
• 1x Trophy Mage
• 1x Vedalken Engineer

Artifact (8)

• 1x Commander's Sphere
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Fieldmist Borderpost
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Mistvein Borderpost
• 1x Scourglass
• 1x Thaumatic Compass  ^Flip
• 1x Voltaic Key

Instant (3)

• 1x Stoic Rebuttal
• 1x Tempest of Light
• 1x Utter End

Enchantment (2)

• 1x Mechanized Production
• 1x Sunbond

Land (2)

• 1x Ancient Den
• 1x Seat of the Synod

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Overview

Sydri vehicles and esper artifact value! Sydri just cares about the environment so much that she's devoted her skills to developing a potent fleet of self-driving vehicles!

Gameplan

The game-plan is mostly based around ramping out to hit the vehicles and value engines for the deck. Once this deck sets up on the board, particularly if Sydri, Gavanic Genious is around on the field, we can do some serious damage. With artifacts that deal damage and thopters getting deathtouch and beaters getting lifelink, Sydri can provide a lot of value. The biggest problem I used to find with this deck was the early game so with this iteration of the deck I've tried to keep the mana curve a little lower with more consistent ways of getting the required mana as quickly as possible. There are a number of effects that can provide consistent draw effects to help make sure that once a decent mana base is set up, we can continue pumping out valuable effects in the later turns of a game.

The main win condition is simply hitting our opponents' faces with heavy pieces of metal. Things like Sphinx of the Steelwind, Parhelion II, Metalwork Colossus and really any artifact with a big CMC are some of the main beaters with things like Padeem, Consul of Innovation and counterspells for the protection that the deck needs. As this deck is largely very straight-forward in presenting its threats, protection for our artifacts and commander is very important!

Deck Stand-outs and Personal Favourites

- Skysovereign, Consul Flagship: This card will always hold a special place in my heart as it was the card that almost single-handedly earned me some of my first victories playing this deck. Partnered with our commander, this ship turns into an absolute monster, often swinging for 5 or 6 (depending on animated with Sydri vs. crewed), killing a blocker and healing for 8 or 9 each turn. Giving this thing deathtouch is disgusting. Honorable mention to Ballista Charger which serves essentially the same purpose but is a bit worse than the Star Destroyer of Kaladesh in most situations.

• Aetherflux Reservoir: I believe the only maindecked infinite combo win in the deck, Reservoir provides a potential infinite damage combo if we have it and Sydri on the field at the same time while we have 50+ life and available. Beyond the combo, Reservoir is still a valuable tool to keep a relatively healthy life total, and 4 CMC for a non-creature artifact is perfectly serviceable for the rest of what the deck wants to do.

• Trading Post: It took me a long time to understand the value of this card. If you run an artifact deck, or really any deck that plays a longer, interactive game, make sure you have Trading Post. Your things are going to die sometimes, and having a way to get cards or recursion out of other people removing your things feels so good. Also it makes goats.

• Mechanized Production: Synergizes with things like Sharding Sphinx or Myr Battlesphere for a potential alternate win-con and when you don't have those it's here for just a whole lot of value (army of 9/9 Darksteel Forges anyone?)

• Staff of Nin: Card-draw value and removal on a stick while Sydri is in play. What more do you want?

• Caltrops: With Sydri and , kill every attacking creature (or more realistically, just stop the table from attacking). CAUTION: very dangerous to attack with Servos, Myr and Thopters while in use, so remember to plan your own attacks carefully!

• Thran Temporal Gateway: One of the only cost-cheating effects (along with Sharuum, sort of) and it's so nice to have against counterspell-heavy decks. Also again, 4 CMC non-creature artifact is still just fine for the rest of the deck when it's not able to get a Sphinx of the Steel Wind for .

• The Antiquities War: This is a nice pay-off for the token-generation in the deck if that's going to be a win-condition. Considering how the biggest pay-off is forecast like this, the reason this is here is COUGHbecause I don't want to buy a TezzeretCOUGH because it's still a nice effect to get good artifacts in-hand and there are lots of cards that enjoy the animate effect even if there aren't enough thopters to run someone over. Cranial Plating being the other main pay-off for keeping thopters around. In all seriousness, if you have Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge, Tezzeret the Seeker or Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, I'd argue those would be better options.

• Karn, the Great Creator: I love this card for this deck. It fits so damn well. Karn is here to be another option for animating things other than Sydri and his -2 ability lets us grab other cards that I have in the sideboard that are, for the most part, really good in certain situations this deck can find itself in, but often not necessary otherwise (also a couple strong beaters as well). One card in the sideboard of particular note would be Time Sieve as the second half of an infinite turns combo if Thopter Assembly or Myr Battlesphere + Mechanized Production are around, or it can be another pay-off for just having lots of tokens in general a la Sharding Sphinx. Another thing, I used to feel a bit uncomfortable about running Mycosynth Lattice in the mainboard of a more casual-focused deck, but grabbing it when I can get the Karn + Lattice lock just by getting Karn seems like a more interesting way of using the Lattice at least. Speaking of which, no artifact salad would be complete without the lattice... (I'm not sorry)

• Mycosynth Lattice: If you want to play stax, mainboard this baby and add some tutors to make sure you can get this and any of the following combos on the board at the same time. Note that Liquimetal Coating has similar uses, but is much less oppressive. For spicy results, combine with Darksteel Forge + Nevinyrral's Disk to repeatedly destroy every permanent except yours. Alternatively, with Karn, the Great Creator to stop your opponents from being able to use their lands (and destroy lands with Karn's +1). Also with just Sydri, blow up any land, any time, for just a single mana each (also works on -cost non-creature permanents). Short of stopping the game, Karn's +1 and Sydri's ability can also destroy auras when they're made into artifacts because when an aura gets animated into a creature it falls off of whatever it was enchanting and then dies due to it still being an aura not being attached to anything (similarly, they can also unequip equipment from things although this does not require Lattice or Coating and does not immediately kill the equipment). Final bonus is that everything being an artifact means that animating permanents will allow anything to die to effects that kill creatures.

• Sharuum the Hegemon: I'm playing her for strict value mainly, along with Scultping Steel. Not for a combo. The only outlets for her combo really are Contraband Kingpin as the most complicated method for tutoring and Karn could grab Scrap Trawler to empty the graveyard of artifacts with CMC <6. I have strongly considered making the deck based around Sharuum and am still on the fence about Blood Artist-type effects in the deck in general. We'll see what the future holds for this type of synergy.

Thanks for checking this out!

Whether or not you like the deck, feel free to comment with ideas or questions! Like I said before, I am constantly working on brewing more ideas for this deck so I'd love to hear what you think!

If you're really curious, I also have an older version that is very budget-friendly if you want ideas for that: https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/automatonic-galvotronic-old/

Date added	5 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	8 - 1 Mythic Rares 29 - 8 Rares 21 - 1 Uncommons 21 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.69
Tokens	Angel 4/4 W w/ Vigilance, Construct 4/4 C, Goat 0/1 W, Myr 1/1 C, Pentavite 1/1 C, Servo 1/1 C, Thopter 1/1 C, Thopter 1/1 U