Sai, The Thopter Master

Commander / EDH* Artifact Budget Mono-Blue Tokens

JablesMcBootee

Artifact (24)

• 1x Commander's Sphere
• 1x Crook of Condemnation
• 1x Everflowing Chalice
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Hedron Archive
• 1x Inspiring Statuary
• 1x Krark-Clan Ironworks
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Mind's Eye
• 1x Mirage Mirror
• 1x Oblivion Stone
• 1x Prismatic Lens
• 1x Seer's Lantern
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sky Diamond
• 1x Smuggler's Copter
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Spine of Ish Sah
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Wayfarer's Bauble
• 1x Weatherlight
• 1x Worn Powerstone

Sorcery (2)

• 1x Fabricate
• 1x Reshape

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Tezzeret the Seeker

Creature (22)

• 1x Burnished Hart
• 1x Chief Engineer
• 1x Chief of the Foundry
• 1x Duplicant
• 1x Etherium Sculptor
• 1x Foundry Inspector
• 1x Grand Architect
• 1x Jhoira's Familiar
• 1x Junk Diver
• 1x Master of Etherium
• 1x Memnarch
• 1x Meteor Golem
• 1x Myr Retriever
• 1x Padeem, Consul of Innovation
• 1x Riddlesmith
• 1x Ruination Guide
• 1x Scrap Trawler
• 1x Sharding Sphinx
• 1x Silver Myr
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Steel Overseer
• 1x Trophy Mage

Land (36)

• 1x Buried Ruin
• 1x Darksteel Citadel
• 1x Desert of the Mindful
• 1x Inventors' Fair
• 26x Island
• 1x Lonely Sandbar
• 1x Memorial to Genius
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Seat of the Synod
• 1x Temple of the False God

Commander (1)

Instant (12)

• 1x Commit / Memory
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Evacuation
• 1x Mystic Confluence
• 1x Negate
• 1x Paradoxical Outcome
• 1x Rapid Hybridization
• 1x Reality Shift
• 1x Rebuild
• 1x Retract
• 1x Whir of Invention

Enchantment (2)

• 1x Efficient Construction
• 1x The Antiquities War

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Deck Analysis

Premise

I've always loved artifacts, mana rocks are my favourite cards to play in any deck (I think that my Jhoira build had like at least 15-17 mana rocks in it, sorry not sorry), but building Sai really highlighted my passion about these colorless cards. Easy to cast, they often ramp you, draw you cards, and they help each other in many situation. I simply love playing these, it feels like designing and creating a contraption, that once it gets going, it's a full self-powered engine that wins.

The Plan

T H O P T E R B E A T S

In mono Blue, combos are too easy to build. Yeah, we could get infinite mana with Grand Architect and Pili-Pala... but have you ever thrown sixty thousands thopters in your opponents face?

That's the plan we're trying to achieve today.

Game Structure

1. Turn 1-3: Play utilities artifacts or spells on the first couple of turns, then drop Sai on turn 3;
2. Turn 4-7/8: Start gathering engine pieces and making thopters in the meantime, countering, disrupting and protecting yourself from other people's hate;
3. Turn 9- : Gain control of the game, pump your army and bash their little heads against the opponents.

Sai's can go under the radar, for a couple of turns, but when you go off, it's impossible not to become the target.

Generic Tips

• Cast Sai on turn 3, and begin thoptering the turn after, unless circumstances prohibits that. Being a 3 drop, Sai cannot be cast on turn 2, unless you have Sol Ring in your opening hand;

• Plan things a turn ahead with your mana rocks: if you can't cast Sai and a 1 drop on turn three, hold them up to have one more thopter on turn 4;

• Use Sai's ability if you can't cast anything else: by the time you can activate it, you should have at least 3-4 thopters, and if you are in danger of not having cards in hand, a couple of cards could be useful;

• Use tutors on what you need most:

Card Draw -> Skullclamp, then Mind's Eye;

Removal -> Spine of Ish Sah, then Duplicant, last Meteor Golem;

Recursion -> Scrap Trawler, then Myr Retriever, then Junk Diver;

Mana Discounting -> Etherium Sculptor, then Foundry Inspector, last Jhoira's Familiar;

Ramp -> Krark-Clan Ironworks, Solemn Simulacrum, then Burnished Hart, last Wayfarer's Bauble.

Single Card Analysis

Chief Engineer

This vedalken artificier is Sai's best friend, and the true explosiveness comes from this guy. It's not unusual to have T2 Chief, T3 Sai and begin to dump your hand as fast as you can. 2 mana and 1 mana artifacts are mandatory with this plan, and that's why we're running as many as we can.

Unless it's protected with counterspells, if played early, it's going to die soon, but if you can play it early, play it without doubts because no other card lets you be so explosive as this: remember, you still have Commit // Memory for the late game, if you want to get him back.

Grand Architect

Grand Architect serves the role of a second Chief Engineer. It makes you make more mana with less creatures, but you can't chain artifacts all together, assuming you don't make your artifacts blue. In this case, basically each land is going to tap for 2 mana instead of U. +1/+1 on blue creatures is a neat little bonus, but not broken. One thing that you could do is attacking with a bunch of creatures, leaving your mana open, and pump single artifact creatures for 1. It's not impactful, but should come in handy.

Keep in mind that having both Grand Architect and Chief Engineer on the battlefield is not useless: you can tap your blue creatures for 2 and other ones for 1.

Scrap Trawler & My Retriever

These are your main cards that makes you loop artifacts by sacrificing them to filter through your deck. If you sack both of them with Sai's ability, once his ability is put on the stack, they will trigger at the same time, doing this will give you 3 triggers: 1. Scrap Trawler's ability that returns an artifact with 2 or less mana cost from the graveyard to your hand. Return Myr Retriever to your hand; 2. Scrap Trawler's ability that returns an artifact with 1 or less mana cost from the graveyard to your hand. Return an artifact with 1, an artifact land or nothing to your hand; 3. Myr Retriever's ability that returns another artifact from the graveyard to your hand. Return Scrap Trawler to your hand.

The most important thing about this combo is not that you're drawing, but that you may cast 2 artifacts again, giving yourself 2 more thopters. If you get 1 or more mana-discounting artifacts, it's easy to go off and paying 1U to draw a card and having 2 more creatures on the battlefield every time.

Krark-Clan Ironworks

The only loop we have in the deck is a KCI-style interacion between Krark Clan Ironworks, Myr Retriever and Scrap Trawler. For those who don't know this combo, here's how it works:

1. Get the three on the battlefield, and a card to cast in hand or an ability to activate;
2. Declare that you want to cast a spell / activate an ability;
3. Choose mode, additional costs etc. etc., if any;
4. Choose targets, if any;
5. Determine costs, and play mana abilities;
6. Pay costs, put the spell / ability on the stack.

Krark Clan Ironworks ability is a mana ability, so it doesn't use the stack. This means that in Step 5 you can sacrifice multiple artifacts, and the triggered abilities generated by Scrap Trawler will be put on the stack once the spell or ability is put on the stack. Let's say you are sacrificing Scrap Trawler and Myr Retriever. You generate 4 mana, and once they are put in the graveyard and the abilites are put on the stack, you can return both to your hand, as with Sai's ability. From now, you can go pretty wild: Sacrifice the 2 artifacts, generate 4 mana, cast Myr, create a thopter, sacrifice it and with 3 mana floating play Scrap Trawler, create a thopter again. You now have basically infinite thopters and mana, because every time you go through this loop you're netting 1 mana.

Closing up

This deck feels like a living engine: turn by turn, artifact by artifact, it starts to work on his own. If you like artifacts, having big turns and recovering quickly from sweepers, give it a try. Let me know what you think of this deck and this article, suggestions would be appreciated!

See ya next time, Jables

About Me

Commander player for 3-4 years, I'm one of those player that can't simply play one strategy for more than one month. "Experimentation" is my motto, I love to surprise everyone at the table with new decks, new interactions and new commanders. Decks I've played the most include: Freyalise, Ephara Oketra's Monument, Maelstrom Wanderer, Karador Aristocrats.

Date added	5 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	2 - 0 Mythic Rares 28 - 0 Rares 29 - 0 Uncommons 15 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.12
Tokens	Frog Lizard 3/3 G, Manifest 2/2 C, Thopter 1/1 C, Thopter 1/1 U