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Kurkesh Artifact Shinanigans

Commander / EDH Artifact Combo Mono-Red

Reverie42

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Artifacts (23)

Spells (6)

Creatures (18)

Lands (37)

Commander (1)

Commander: Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient

Ramp (14)

Planeswalkers (1)

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Other (11)

I enjoyed the artifact juggling in the precon Daretti deck. However, to really go off generally required ult'ing Daretti, which just wasn't really reliable enough. Swapping the commander from Daretti to Kurkesh gives you access to a lot of similar interactions with way less investment.

There are a fair number of similarities here to my Atraxa Goodstuff deck. However, the increased artifact density and the fact that we can get double value out of expensive abilities makes running some fun artifacts like Ring of Three Wishes, Mirrorworks and Planar Bridge more feasible.

The general goal with this deck is to land a few artifacts and support cards that allow you to dig or fetch in to other support cards and just outvalue your opponents. Kurkesh's ability can be copied with Strionic Resonator for additional value. Ideally, you can eventually take infinite turns with Magistrate's Scepter, at which point finding a way to win should be easy.

The main themes in the deck are:

  • Artifacts with activated abilities
  • Artifact untapping
  • Graveyard recursion
  • Counter manipulation
  • Oracle's Vault with 3 brick counters is a huge amount of value. With Kurkesh, it ca[n be fully charged in 2 turns, at which point you can start playing 2 extra cards for free per turn for 1 mana.
  • Planar Bridge and Tower of Fortunes are quite expensive, but if you can activate/copy them, you're generally way ahead almost instantly. Bridge especially lets you fetch any answers you need at instant speed.
  • Mirrorworks and Prototype Portal can both give you extra copies of important artifacts. Portal is tricky since a lot of the effects you would love to have multiple times (e.g. Mindslaver) are quite expensive to cast and activate the same turn (and even more if you want to do it the turn you play portal). Sometimes just copying something cheap with an ETB like Ichor Wellspring that you can tap for Clock of Omens or sac to Trading Post is the right answer.
  • Titan Forge, Lux Cannon, Golem Foundry, Ring of Three Wishes and the like are a little clunky on their own, but doubling their triggers is powerful and they get way better with Contagion Clasp or Contagion Engine

  • Magistrate's Scepter goes infinite with a proliferate source or enough mana and Clock of Omens. Being able to take two turns per tap makes it much easier to recharge before your opponents get more turns.

There are really only three relevant cards here, but they can all be quite powerful.

  • Voltaic Key's ability can be copied to give an extra untap. This can be very useful for generating extra mana from Basalt Monolth or Thran Dynamo. It is also really strong with Lux Cannon, which with 5 mana, Kurkesh and key can get 4 charge counters and destroy 2 permenants if you copy all the cannon and key abilities.

  • Clock of Omens gives you a way to turn various artifacts that you can't (or won't) tap in to more value. Kurkesh can copy its ability and it can also tap to itself, making the first activation cheap. The wellspring artifacts and clues from Tamiyo's Journal are fairly easily-accessible tap sources. You can also tap Great Furnace to it in a pinch.

  • Basalt Monolith can only untap itself, but you can copy the untap trigger with Kurkesh. This means that each red mana you can generate yields 3 colorless mana with Monolith and Kurkesh. You could optionally also run Grim Monolith, which nets 2 colorless mana per red. Any time you can tutor, monolith should be top priority.

  • Trash for Treasure, Junk Diver, Daretti, Scrap Savant and Goblin Welder can all fetch artifacts from the graveyard to hand or battlefield on a 1 for 1 basis. Spine of Ish Sah and Metalwork Colossus are both good sacrifice targets since you can get them back on their own.

  • Scrap Trawler pairs nicely with a sac outlet like Bosh, Iron Golem or Daretti, Scrap Savant
  • Feldon of the Third Path is great when you can copy things like Myr Battlesphere, Wurmcoil Engine or Duplicant. In general, almost every creature in the deck is a good target and in many cases having to sac it is either not a big deal or actively helpful.
  • Metalwork Colossus can act as a sac outlet and repeatable threat. In the late game, you can just win on the spot by using Bosh, Iron Golem to repeatedly fling it at your opponents' faces and copy the damage with Kurkesh. Bosh and a mana rock generally means recasting it is free.
  • Arcbound Reclaimer with a proliferate effect can repeatedly set up your draws. This can sometimes be used to Mindslaver lock your opponent.
    • Many of the artifacts in this deck use counters as a cost. To give more activations of those artifacts, Contagion Engine and Contagion Clasp can be used to proliferate more counters. Kurkesh can copy their abilities, which lets Engine give 4 counters for 5 mana.

    Pentavus can also be a very useful defensive card. Both of its abilities can be copied by Kurkesh, which lets you generate a lot of flying chump blockers if you need to stall. 4 mana nets a flying 1/1 and a counter, but there are a lot of ways to manipulate the counters as the situation requires. You can remove all of the counters to dodge an exile effect, which nets a bunch of chumps and gives you the ability to fetch it back later.

    Mindslaver is a very powerful card. It's usually considered much worse in Commander since it can only target one player and it tends to draw a massive amount of hate. Kurkesh can copy the ability to control two opponents. If you have the ability to recur it, this usually gives you enough advantage that you can avoid being hated out.

    Daretti, Scrap Savant, Junk Diver, Buried Ruin and Trash for Treasure can all get it back once. Prototype Portal, Scrap Trawler, Arcbound Reclaimer and Daretti's emblem can recur it repeatedly with the right setup.

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    Revision 8 See all

    (3 years ago)

    +1 Chromatic Orrery maybe
    +1 Dockside Extortionist maybe
    +1 Endless Atlas maybe
    +1 Extraplanar Lens maybe
    +1 Gauntlet of Might maybe
    +1 Gauntlet of Power maybe
    -1 Gilded Lotus maybe
    +1 Manifold Key maybe
    +1 Ugin, the Ineffable maybe
    Date added 6 years
    Last updated 3 years
    Legality

    This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
    Rarity (main - side)

    6 - 0 Mythic Rares

    36 - 0 Rares

    20 - 0 Uncommons

    10 - 0 Commons
    Cards 100
    Avg. CMC 3.92
    Tokens Clue, Copy Clone, Emblem Daretti, Scrap Savant, Goat 0/1 W, Golem 3/3 C, Golem 9/9 C, Myr 1/1 C, Pentavite 1/1 C, Tuktuk the Returned, Wurm 3/3 C w/ Deathtouch, Wurm 3/3 C w/ Lifelink
    Folders EDH
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