Some fun interactions that originally built around Aetherflux Reservoir, but realized that repeatable bursts of damage would be more interesting than a single blast. I've been playing a mono-blue Reservoir deck that paints a rather large target on my back out of fear that I can go from basically nothing to annihilating the whole table in a single turn so I thought I'd depart from there and see what I could come up with.
The original plan was to build around a few of the spoiled cards from Aether Revolt including Pia's Revolution and Scrap Trawler. They both seem to be obvious choices with Metalwork Colossus, and I wanted to also include Yahenni's Expertise, Trophy Mage, and
Quicksmith Rebel
. That's already a lot of card slots and I was having a really hard time narrowing down what direction I wanted to take.
After playing through several hands I found that the red aspect of the deck was the most prominent even though I had more black cards than anything. I tweaked the numbers a little and then realized how I wanted to go. I think I've figured out the best way to capitalize on the Scrap Trawler and the Revolution.
First, having ways to sacrifice your own things is important because you can't just wait around for your opponent to do it for you. Pia Nalaar takes care of that all by herself for one colorless mana. In my other build with Metalwork Colossus, he is very vulnerable to Declaration in Stone. Pia can in response just sacrifice the targeted Colossus to stop Declaration in it's tracks. It is also nice since sometimes you may not be able to afford the actual sacrifice cost of the card like the 3 mana for the Fireforger's Puzzleknot or the 2 mana for Hedron Archive. Obviously you do not get the sacrifice effect of the card if you do it that way, but it will trigger both the Scrap Trawler and Pia's Revolution. It also ups the ante on
Explosive Apparatus
since it would usually cost 3 mana to do just 2 damage but sacrificing it to Pia could be 3 damage for just one mana. If the choice is to go back to your hand then you can actually just replay it and sacrifice it again. I'd considered Reckless Fireweaver for that "damned if you do, damned if you don't" action, but I'll come back to that idea later.
This is where things get exciting. Sacrificing the Hedron Archive will allow you to bring back either the Fireforger's Puzzleknot or
Explosive Apparatus
from the graveyard via the Trawler. If you have the Revolution out then the Archive also goes back to your hand unless your opponent takes 3 damage. Sacrificing the Puzzleknot can bring back an Apparatus and also either go back to your hand or deal an extra 3 damage. The Apparatus can't bring anything back from the graveyard, but it will either just keep going back to your hand or deal a total of 5 damage if it goes to the graveyard. When your Colossus goes to the graveyard it can bring back any of those three or even a Foundry Inspector or a Scrap Trawler. The best part is that if it does die it will either go to your hand or deal 3 damage, but it does hit the graveyard first so it can bring something back no matter what. It's better off dead to you because now if you use it's ability from the graveyard you can sacrifice two artifacts to bring him to your hand and those two artifacts will also either go to your hand or deal 3 damage each to stay in the yard and they both also trigger the Scrap Trawler so it's best to sacrifice larger things to bring back the smaller things. It's quite interesting.
The only real reason for blue here is the Trophy Mage which might as well read "Search your Library for target Scrap Trawler". It does also bring with it the options for counter spells in the sideboard which is perfectly fine too against the right enemy. The other guy I really like here is the
Quicksmith Rebel
. He turns any of your artifacts into a little 2 damage canon that just adds to the fun. If I had room for ways to bounce and re-trigger or even clone him I would do it, but it's more of a secondary means of damage that draws attention away from other things. I like him.
Unlicensed Disintegration is targeted removal, plain and simple. It's like
Murder
but with 3 face damage. I'd run 4 main but I just couldn't get the numbers to line up right for that to happen. The fourth one sits in the sideboard to bring in place of whatever isn't working.
Incendiary Sabotage
and
Morbid Curiosity
may not make the final cut. I chose them because of their additional cost since it is another means of triggering your other permanents and their upsides of drawing up to 11 cards or wiping the board seemed good enough to run at least one of each. Originally I had a pair of each but that was before I decided full sets of the Colossus, Mage, and Trawler were completely necessary.
Tezzeret the Schemer and Tezzeret, Master of Metal are both intriguing to me. Neither of them feel completely broken and to most don't even look that good (by what I've been reading in comments about them anyway). The Schemer is nothing special looking on the surface. The +1 gives you a little mana battery that helps with color fixing and a slight amount of ramp. Not great, but with three colors it should come in handy. the -2 could be an absolute blowout if you have an open shot with a Colossus that could swing as hard as 19/1 if you have exactly 9 artifacts on the field. Of course you can also use this to just kill something really big. The Ultimate is possible after just two turns of +1 which is appealing since he would be relatively easy to protect depending on when you get him down. This turns your Puzzleknot or Apparatus into a 5/5. Forever. That doesn't stop at end of turn. This even works on those little mana batteries you may not have even used. It would work on Clue tokens if you had some. Not bad, I find him to be quite balanced. He's not so strong that your opponent would immediately feel threatened and wipe him off the table with everything they've got, but then again just a few short turns later you've got something pretty sweet. The Master of Metal is a little more frightening at a glance since you could potentially steal your opponents entire board, but that's four turns away at least and since he costs 6 mana in the first place you'd have to be playing a pretty long game for that to matter. The +1 is pretty neat, basically Madcap Experiment lite. You don't get the artifact for free, but it helps you dig faster. The real power here is the -3. That can just straight up end the game in a flash. This Tezzeret is more of a sign of the end than something that will stick around on the table for very long. In a slow game like Two Headed Giant where he's easier to protect and stay alive in general for a longer game that Ultimate could completely blow out the other team. Definitely not plan A, but it's a solid plan either way.
There's a whole lot more cards to come in Aether Revolt, so we'll see what happens to this list. There's a few slots that I'm alright with changing up but overall I feel the direction of this is unique. I'm sure the Colossus and Trawler will be seeing a lot of each other over the next several weeks, but there's a lot of potential there since those two are colorless and can fit into almost any build.
Anyways, thanks for reading and let me know what you think in the comments. Don't forget to rock that +1 button if you like what you see :)
Happy new year!
