With Commander 2016 fully spoiled, let's take a look at Breya, Etherium Shaper and what she can bring to the table.
Hello, Boys
Breya is the kind of girl your mother warned you about -- she has a short fuse, a hair trigger, and is primed and ready to explode. And in the end, that's what set her apart from the competition. Sure,
Sydri, Galvanic Genius
plays it cool and Pia Nalaar has some of that fiery spark, but in the end it's the combination of cold beauty and destructive passion that...
Okay, you know what? I'm done with the puns now. Breya mixes up the traditional White-Blue-Black artifact recursion package with access the traditional red artifact sac outlets, not to mention her own powerful outlet ability. Sydri and Sharuum would rather keep their field, while Feldon and Daretti (or I guess either card with Pia) lack the powerful artifact synergies mostly locked up in blue, particularly non-welder based recursion. The end result of this is a strange little deck with two main strategies for achieving victory: either by (mostly evasive) artifact tokens potentially buffed by various lord effects, or via wantonly sacrificing artifacts to deal the finishing blow. It's a very ruthless deck, but runs the risk of burning itself out to get that damage through.
Artistic Beauty
Let's talk about building. Artifact decks are known for their ability to fill the field with steel-grey at a rate all but the most dedicated token decks struggle to keep up with. The premier example of this strategy is Affinity, a mechanic notably lacking from this Breya deck, but there's still a good deal of devotion to building a board and making it better.
Cost Reducers are critical for that. With an average CMC of 3.36, Breya isn't the most mana-expensive of Commander decks, but neither is she exactly cheap. Enter Etherium Sculptor and Foundry Inspector, partners in crime that, along with mana-generating artifacts like Worn Powerstone make it much more plausible to reach the 6-mana-and-up game-changers.
Along with them comes the gas. This deck features 21 Token generating cards and 7 pieces of draw or draw-substitute, the latter of which is actually rather low, all things considered. Backing this up are the 'Anthem' effects that enable each of my artifacts, distributing a bonus across a massive board. 4 are traditional anthems (granting +1/+1) while there are also 2 effects that provide global bonuses to an increasingly impressive board. Wind it up and set it in motion -- this deck can be like clockwork.
Ruthless Efficiency
So what about the other side, the side that makes everything go boom? Breya herself is, of course, the queen of sacrificing artifacts. Of the three modes she offers for her activated ability, all have their uses, though gaining 5 life is generally not the one you want to use -- if you're dying to non-infinite damage killing incoming with the -4/-4 effect might not be quite as efficent point for point but it actually drains resources from the enemy rather than forcing you to face the exact same thing again next turn. In general, her 3-to-the-face is the deck's inevitability. And you might say that it's not so hard to get a thopter up to 3/3, so why blow two on damage? It's not always economical to open up the board for thopters swinging, and sometimes you have an artifact that's just going to die anyway, so why not turn it into profit? Her -4/-4 mode, on the other hand, is a powerful control element -- a loss of 4 toughness kills a lot. A loss of 8 downs almost anything, and if you need something dead trading at worse than 1-for-1 isn't so bad when you're giving up tokens that are less-than-1-card valuable (even potentially 0-cards valuable if the generator isn't lessened by making tokens. I'm looking at you,
Whirlermaker
).
Beyond Breya, Arcbound Ravager is the master of artifact sacrifices, happily concentrating power should there be no anthems on the field or cleaning up scraps from artifacts slated to be lost otherwise unprofitably.
Goblin Welder
is a close second, as well as being part of a powerful recursion package including such other hits as Skeleton Shard and Master Transmuter + Sharuum the Hegemon
. To round out the destructive side of the deck there are potent control elements that aren't based around reducing my artifacts to rubble. Cards like
Scourglass
,
Ethersworn Adjudicator
, and Ethersworn Canonist help keep the board in a manageable state. By which I mean, of course, that when everything goes boom I don't just mean my stuff. Breya has a hilarious mean streak like that.
For You Disgusting Biophiliacs
So, it has come to my attention that there are some non-artifact cards in this deck. These will be given brief explanations to justify their existence.
- Angel of Invention makes artifact tokens (potentially) and is an anthem. What's not to love?
-
Master Trinketeer
is similar. He's more reliable at making tokens but only buffs servos and thopters... which is OK in my book. (Or Breya's little black book)
- Whirler Rogue makes some tokens, though only once, but thereafter offers a powerful ability to get damage through.
Thopter Engineer
is much the same but offers Haste instead -- very potent with a Master Transmuter
-
Thopter Spy Network
happily churns out tokens, and even helps refill my poor hand.
-
Goblin Welder
is one of the best recursion pieces despite the net of +0 permanents. Trash for Treasure is the one-shot spell version.
-
Daretti, Scrap Savant
is Welder effect who can filter my draws. His frustrated future self, Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast, is more of a token-maker with shades of recursion and control.
-
Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
is a good deal simpler: a card acquisition engine that also offers a potent finisher with his ultimate.
- Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer can't weld artifacts into anything in particular, but he can let worthless ones take the fall for the valuable, which in some ways can be better than welding them after the fact.
- Shrapnel Blast and
Artillerize
serve to turn artifacts into burn more efficiently than Breya herself can.
- Disciple of the Vault is a classic artifact finisher, though it's likely outdone by newcomer Marionette Master, who can cause Breya's 3-burn to cause a grand total of 11 life loss.
- What they do for death,
Reckless Fireweaver
does for creation, and unlike his counterparts, he doesn't discriminate, burning all opponents equally.
-
Flamewright
forges tokens on the cheap (Even if they are less useful, compare that mana cost to
Whirlermaker
) and can burn them herself in a pinch.
- Fortuitous Find is a powerful recursion spell, along with its friends Remember the Fallen and Refurbish
- Reshape on the other hand, is a to-the-battlefield tutor. Do I need to explain why this is here?
- Parasitic Implant isn't powerful or even good, but it's one of the more hilarious plays out there.
- Hanna, Ship's Navigator is the sugar to Breya's poisoned explosive spice: always ready to bring back what I need, sweetly picking up the pieces that Breya leaves behind.
