Synopsis

Possibly the worst idea ever conceived, we're going to abuse the ever-loving hell out of Kaladesh block's Energy mechanics to do all sorts of shenanigans that our opponents hopefully aren't prepared for. Energy counters are a weird little anomaly in that they're on the player, and therefore incredibly difficult to deal with, but the offset to that is we only have two sets to work with to really make it shine, those being Kaladesh and Aether Revolt. So the deck is going to focus on generating a bunch of energy and really focusing on dumping it into some key, useful sources, and pairing it with some artifact love to tie the whole thing together.

Inspired by basically the best MTG YouTube channel, Commander's Quarters, I've split this apart into 10 "tactics" (including the mana base, not including the Oathbreaker/Signature Spell) to help explain what's going on.

The Deck

This is not a great deck. It definitely works in casual play, I've won with it before against more well-crafted decks, but this is using an obscure mechanic that existed in a single block for exactly two sets. Don't expect to build this and destroy everybody, that's not what it's for, I just have a nostalgia for Kaladesh since it was my first real block and I love the aesthetic and the mechanic.

Also, you'll notice a couple of objectively non-optimal cards, namely Lightning Strike and Cancel , which are just objectively inferior to Lightning Bolt and Counterspell . Just replace them if you want, but for some reason I personally just don't enjoy playing those cards, I feel like their power level is just busted compared to other spells that do similar things.

Saheeli, Sublime Artificer 's effect will generate for us a small army of servo tokens we can then manipulate into becoming whatever other artifact we want. We can use this to great effect by copying mana rocks like Thran Dynamo , getting great energy value cards doubled up like Electrostatic Pummeler , or grabbing more useful artifacts by cloning something like Kuldotha Forgemaster .

Glimmer of Genius , as our signature spell, does a lot of things for us. First, it lets us dig up to 4 cards deep, letting us get those crucial pieces for our deck to go off. Second, it generates us precious, precious energy. And third, it gives us a Saheeli trigger we can reliably call upon. 4 mana for quite a bit of value, in my opinion. It's certainly better than the old signature spell I tried to use ( Harnessed Lightning works well in this deck, but not signature spell well).

We have three rocks that cover three areas for us. Izzet Locket gets us some mana fixing and we can use it for card draw, plus with Goblin Engineer we'll be able to recur it later on if we want. Firemind Vessel gets us RB with every tap, helping us get out Saheeli when we need her, or really anything else. And Thran Dynamo has a whopping 3 colorless for us, helping us cast and recast our signature or get whatever pieces we need on the field faster, since this deck is has lot of artifacts.
We need to spend our energy counters on something, and these cards make up that something. We have a mix of smaller guys that can help spiral things out of control if left alone, and big heavy hitting pieces that can help us end games. Aether Chaser and Thriving Turtle get us some good value in terms of tokens and a good blocker pretty early on, as well as a place to put that energy we'll be getting.

For our game ending items we have Whirler Virtuoso , who can accelerate our token generation to ludicrous degrees by introducing thopters to the mix, Electrostatic Pummeler , who grows exponentially with energy being pumped into him, and Multiform Wonder , who with a couple of +1/+1 counters can become a flying, vigilant, lifelinking force of metal death.

These cards will get us energy at a highly consistent rate, though they all feature decent to great abilities we can exploit when we have the energy available to do so, or when we no longer require them. At the bottom end is Era of Innovation , which lets us pay 1 to grab up energy, and we can later sack it for some card draw.

Dynavolt Tower is possibly one of our best energy sources, since it generates an additional 2 energy with every instant or sorcery we cast, and we can even tap it down with 5 for a bolt if we need it, making it decent-ish removal in a pinch.

The really good stuff comes in with Gonti's Aether Heart and Aetherworks Marvel . Gonti's Heart is great because it synergizes with Saheeli's token generation to incredible effect, netting us 2 energy basically any time a non-creature spell is cast, and we can exile it when we don't need it anymore to get that sweet bonus turn and really crush the other players. And while I shouldn't need to explain it, the former bane of Standard Aetherworks Marvel will punish the others for destroying our permanents and let us dig deep for those really great pieces we need.

The whole gang is here, Animation Module , Decoction Module and Fabrication Module . When all three are working in conjunction, you wind up with a machine that when started will spit out energy counters, +1/+1 counters, and servo tokens for as much mana as you wanna feed it. Divvy the +1/+1's out for a wide strategy, or pile them all up to get a heavy hitter, these three cards by themselves have the potential to cause a ton of damage without any other cards being required.
Magic Comprehensive Rules 701.26a: To proliferate means to choose any number of permanents and/or players that have a counter, then give each one additional counter of each kind that permanent or player already has.

By definition that works with energy counters, so guess what we're doing? To be fair, it does a lot more than just feed our energy machine. It also pumps up anything we have with a +1/+1, and most importantly it refuels Saheeli so she can keep doing her -2 to clone artifacts. We have a few sources of proliferation (plus one land I'll mention here before we go to the mana base).

For a quick one-pump-chump, Tezzeret's Gambit lets us take a shock and pay 3 to proliferate and draw 2. It also synergizes with Saheeli and as a result can give us a token. Overall, not a bad way to spend 2 life.

For ongoing effects, we look to Flux Channeler and Inexorable Tide . The former procs whenever Saheeli does, the latter procs every single time we cast a spell. With both of these on the field, we'll often be proliferating twice for every spell we cast.

Finally, Karn's Bastion gives us a relatively safe way to keep some kind of proliferation on the field. It ain't the prettiest, but if we find ourselves without our main two pieces on the board, it helps for a backup.

A couple of our big winning cards, and especially Electrostatic Pummeler , have a fatal flaw in that they can't really get beyond blockers. Our removal packages that we'll go over is fine for taking out single threats, but I haven't really worked in a ton of board-wiping potential. So, these cards exist to circumvent that issue and give us a little evasion in the form of Trample.

For one-offs we have Built to Smash and Run Amok , which basically do the same thing to an artifact creature. Run Amok is a bit more flexible with non-artifact creatures, if for some reason Thriving Turtle survives to be something crazy big like an 11/14 (which I guess could happen, given all the proliferation...).

For a bit more stability we have Soulbright Flamekin , which you can pay 2 into in order to give a creature trample (and if you do it 3 times it pays for itself with 8 red mana, which is neat), and Sword of Vengeance , which I specifically picked because you can tutor for it and regain it with Goblin Engineer.

Speaking of that last card, let's talk about our tutor package. It's small but it's pretty potent, if utilized properly. We have Fabricate , which could arguably work just as well as Glimmer of Genius (maybe even better) as our signature spell, which lets us tutor any artifact into our hand for 3. Goblin Engineer lets us tutor any artifact into our graveyard, and then can tap with one red mana to bring back any CMC 3 artifact to the battlefield.

But the best one of all is Kuldotha Forgemaster , who works incredibly well with Saheeli. Sac 3 artifacts, tap him, cheat any artifact you want onto the battlefield. With as many tokens as we'll have, this is a no-brainer. Plus, we can copy it with Saheeli's -2 and do it a second time if we want to. Welcome to value city.

We have a small removal package more geared towards proccing Saheeli than doing any major work, but it's useful for taking out the occasional threat. Lightning Strike (feel free to sub Lightning Bolt ), Shock , and Harnessed Lightning for the big boys. I also have Doublecast listed here, and while technically it's not removal, I couldn't really think of a better category to slot it since it's effect is so unique compared to the rest of the deck. So yeah, it lives here.
Our control package is a bit more substantial than our removal, since we want to make sure our stuff is hitting the board and control is arguably the best way to do that. Cancel (feel free to sub Counterspell ), Negate and Unwind for countering; Disperse , Unsummon and Rescue for taking our permanents or our opponent's permanents off the table; and Confiscation Coup as an outlet for some of that pent-up energy and for some cheeky thievery, and in my opinion a cheeky, if slightly non-optimal contender for the Signature Spell slot.
Ending on a dry note, here's our land package.

Conclusion

I had a lot of fun working on this, and I'll probably keep tweaking it and adjusting it. I dunno, I have fun with it, if this isn't your cup of tea then I totally get that. I play a lot of weird, backwards decks. My first standard deck was a Rakdos energy deck with a white splash for card:Annointed Procession that focused on making a token army, so this kind of takes me back to those times. Anyway, this was fun to write, I enjoyed my time. Do whatever you want with the deck, throw it away, call me stupid for doing something so outlandish, w/e.

For those interested (since I mentioned CQ in the synopsis), the deck as it stands costs ~$67 USD for 60 cards including basic lands using TCG Player optimization including Heavily Played / Damaged cards, which is kind of budget? I mean there's definitely pricier OB decks on TappedOut, I saw some Tezzeret deck that cost like $8k.

Anyway, thanks for sticking through to the bottom, I hope you enjoyed reading about my deck.

Later,
-Hatterini

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Date added 4 years
Last updated 4 years
Legality

This deck is Oathbreaker legal.

Rarity (main - side)

2 - 0 Mythic Rares

15 - 0 Rares

15 - 0 Uncommons

17 - 0 Commons

Cards 60
Avg. CMC 2.82
Tokens Servo 1/1 C, Thopter 1/1 C
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