Combustible Gearhulk

Artifact Creature — Construct

First Strike

When Combustible Gearhulk enters the battlefield, target opponent may have you draw three cards. If the player doesn't, put the top three cards of your library into the graveyard, then Combustible Gearhulk deals damage to that player equal to the total converted mana cost of those cards.

Discussion (47)

Mana_Mythic_Legendary on Pursuing Perfection, Part 8: Rakdos …

3 weeks ago

Brothers, sisters, and assorted non-binary siblings, welcome to the riot! You like throwing waves of frothing, hasty lunatics at your opponent AND profiting when said lunatics die? We got you! You like watching the world burn and don’t mind getting caught in the flames? We got you! You like anarchy? The purge movies? Gender reveal parties? We got you! Rakdos is the proud home of those who take pleasure at the expense of others, the sort of people who like to mix Skittles and M&Ms in the same party bowl. If that sounds fun, then just you wait: in the house of red and black, that sort of misbehavior is only the appetizer.

Haste and sacrifice. Vampirism and burn. Discard in both barrels. This is a beautifully synergistic color pairing that belongs in the same league as peanut butter and chocolate. Heath Ledger’s joker undoutably played a rakdos deck: things like Havoc Festival, Last One Standing, and Sire Of Insanity are all up the clown’s alley. There are a number of themes we can cover here, but as usual we’re settling for three: Discard, WAAAAGH, and Pain. As always, please bear in mind that the point isn’t a discussion of the competitive but rather as a celebration of the thematic.

Discard

This is both red’s primary draw resource and a uniquely black removal technique. Combining those aspects makes for a deck that both ruins opponent’s hands and digs through your own cards at shocking speed. Granted, you won’t have a big hand, but who cares? Suddenly you've got an overpacked graveyard at your black-hearted beck and call. Red self-mill and black reanimation, people, with just a naughty touch of haste. Discard a pile of hate and then pitch said pile straight into combat. You won’t be sorry.

A regular teddy bear, Chainer’s second coming is a real treat for anyone who left their graveyard hate at home. Haste on a stick is only a perk: suddenly your graveyard is only as full as you want it to be, and probably full of friendly, group-huggy things like Ravenous Chupacabra or Combustible Gearhulk. Yes, the table will certainly love you and your unending, undying deck of unbearable hellbeasts. Undoubtably.

Ok, this guy is horrifying, as you would expect of the king of Grixis. Anyone not running tokens is going to be mighty twitchy about seeing this guy hit the field, and who needs a hand anyway? Rakdos evidently loves empty hands, and rewards you for ensuring that particular misery has company. Consider, if you will, the fulsome, vicious suite of cards tied to poking those who discard. Consider Experimental Frenzy. Consider all the madness cards you could play (or, you know, just play Anje Falkenrath instead). And, if you get tired of the simple gains synergy can win you, you can always Demonfire someone.

THIS. This is neat. Leave aside the look on the face of that certain someone who steals everything on the board. Pay no mind that Seize the Day and all it’s red cousins can make Blim an unholy terror. Forget that you can pass off Demonic Pact, Grid Monitor, and whatever other obnoxiousness you can think of. None of that matters, no. This, for all you glorious nutters out there, is an excuse to finally play Nuisance Engine. That’s the takeaway here.

WAAAGH

Anyone can run tokens or big creatures, but only in Rakdos do you find the conjunction of boardwide haste and sacrifice. Harnessing right, proper WAAGH energy means not just drowning opponents in a tide of zippy little shits but also capitalizing on all that death to cause even more mayhem. Did you ever want to hold a bundle of fireworks, light them all at once, and watch whatever you point them at turn into a smoking, shredded pile of giblets? Here’s the lighter, fellas.

Treasure tokens. Nuff said.

There are a number of nasty combos here that I’d rather not spread. I’ll just say that long ago, I played many, many depressing games against a Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund deck. There was self-milling involved, and Living Death. Evidently, someone decided what the deck needed, rather than burning, was fewer moving parts. That someone deserves a long, interesting life in all the worst ways.

This guy makes me laugh. The idea of ruining the table’s carefully laid plans to off you and instead throwing them into combat with each other is absolutely hilarious. It’s like a Fog designed by someone with pyromania-by-proxy syndrome, and that second block of text the equivalent of throwing gasoline on an already burning house. Get a Conjurer's Closet in there and watch the fun.

Pain

Forget destroy effects. Those are too easy. Direct damage. -X/-X. -1/-1 counters. Life loss. All of the nastiness you can fling at opponents and creatures is under the umbrella of this color pairing. If you like blasting the unholy hell out of your opponents and their minions, this is the arsenal you’re looking to plunder. Stuff like Blasphemous Act, Toxic Deluge, or Orcus, Prince of Undeath will leave a smoldering crater of a battlefield, across which you’ll doubtless be stepping with appropriate gribbliness. Or launching that demonfire we talked about. Whatever works.

Ah, the original Mr. Stop-Hitting-Yourself. I’ve had my eye on this guy for over a decade. Do I own the deck? No. Do I intend to? Again, no. But the prospect here is so, soooo satisfying to think about. To hell with infinite combo fruitwaffles. Damned be those green jackasses ramming X cost spells down the table’s collective throat. Kaervek’s mean, but keeps it clean. Like, nuclear fire sterile clean, and the best part? It’s all self-inflicted!

We really can’t talk red-black without discussing demon himself (hehehe). This guy’s been piloting one of my decks for years, and for good reason. The lord of riots likes to pass out rewards for smacking people. Do you like to be rewarded for smacking people? I do. Rewarded with free things... Eldrazi things. Eldrazi things that tutor more things (Conduit of Ruin), reanimate more things (Artisan of Kozilek), or… well, you can always go for broke and just ruin someone else's things (Void Winnower). Run artifacts, like Hangarback Walker. Run X drops, like Maga, Traitor to Mortals. Run anything you like. Run everything you like. Just have fun running them for next to nothing.

-1/-1 counters, magic’s analogue for injury and agony. We really shouldn’t talk red-black without talking about Wither, the Everlasting Torment of a keyword that was a precursor to the dark days of Infect. It’s safe to say we all have opinions, for good or ill, about Infect’s place in commander. That said, if you want to play with -1/-1 counters and aren’t fond of green or dealing with those opinions, Scorpy’s first line of text makes this guy an overwhelmingly safe bet. Rocking crap like Black Sun's Zenith is the easy answer: let’s make this fun, discard a crapload of cards, and watch your opponent’s boards melt into obscene card advantage while your Archfiend of Ifnir giggles in the corner.

And for my personal favorite...

There is an unfortunate element of “screw you in particular” to Xantcha: declaring open season on somebody’s life total sends a particularly unpleasant message. This is another commander that, laying aside the card advantage, doesn’t bolster your deck, which makes for an interesting challenge. I’ve said it before, one hallmark of a good deck is the capability of functioning without its commander… though if you build this hateful beast, I suggest you pack lots and lots of ramp. Just ‘cause.

That's it for this round. Thoughts and questions are welcome. I hope you enjoyed it, and will come back next week for Gruul!

Prior Articles:

Dimir

Azorius

Green, with links to the other mono-colors

Hav0cD3m0n on Rionya, Fire Dancer

3 weeks ago

Combustible Gearhulk and Tectonic Giant can be kinda neat in the deck I think. There's not much cards in mono red that can make you draw a bunch of cards.

reddeath68 on Everything Has a Price

3 weeks ago

Lithelain Some interesting suggestions, the problem with Vengeful Strangler  ^Flip is that they just sacrifice whatever you put the curse on. Accursed Witch  ^Flip would work better but she is a bit more expensive at 4 CMC.

Combustible Gearhulk Is interesting but they can be a huge whiff at 6 mana if you hit lands, plus milling can rope you of much needed cards. For instance imagine if you accidently mill your needed board wipe or kill spell, especially if Killing Wave is your board wipe over Choice of Damnations as that would only do 1 damage.

Creeping Chill Would work much better in a self mill deck, something like dredge or surveil.

Lithelain on Everything Has a Price

3 weeks ago

Hi, passing by to add my two cents as I found these cards that have similar mechanics:

Vengeful Strangler  ^Flip: I like this one as it is an assured 2 hp each turn unless blocked (thus killed) and therefore attached to potentially some high value creature or planeswalker. Perhaps Basilica Screecher could be replaced/mixed with this.

Combustible Gearhulk: kinda expensive but with a similar mechanic as Sin Prodder.

Creeping Chill: good synergy with Combustible Gearhulk, but otherwise kind of bad imo (perhaps only worth ituseful against milling decks?).

libraryjoy on Messing with Lore

1 month ago

No, that's not how Panharmonicon works in this instance because it's an activated ability creating the tokens, not a creature entering the battlefield. The creatures it would work with are Angel of the Ruins, Combustible Gearhulk, Meteor Golem, Myr Battlesphere, Quicksmith Genius, Solemn Simulacrum, and Sun Titan - and maybe the modular one. I don't think it's worth it for just those few. Unwinding Clock is probably your best bet.

And I notice Zirda's not in your maybeboard. I would HIGHLY recommend it for this deck. Not only is it part of the combo, but it discounts Osgir's ability by 2.

jakeyuki12 on Aurelia Angels Tribal

4 months ago

Faithless Looting is good to filter through cards, especially if you want to get specific cards in the graveyard. Sword of Fire and Ice is good with Aurelia, double combats, double the draw.

Here's my experience with cards like Browbeat : I find people are less willing to pay for it if it is repeated. I run Combustible Gearhulk in my Osgir, the Reconstructor deck. In that deck, I can recur Combustible Gearhulk over and over. Because of that, I've drawn 9-15 cards in games when I see it because I target the opponent with the lowest life total. Since they know I can repeatedly do this and they can't keep affording to pay the life, they let me draw the cards. So if there's a way to use it repeatedly, then I find them reliable as card draw. If not though, then what you fear is true, they'll just take the damage.

Mana_Mythic_Legendary on Pursuing Perfection, Part 4: Mono-Red …

4 months ago

At the outset of this article I wasn’t overly fond of pure red as a concept. In my eyes it’s been too aggressive and too narrow in scope to form a deck that would keep me, specifically me, happy. I say this with a double helping of skepticism, because Omnath, Locus of Rage , Okaun, Eye of Chaos , and Rakdos, Lord of Riots all keep me very happy. Today, we’re talking Burn, Chaos, and Sneak Attack as key concepts in mono-red. As always, please bear in mind that our focus here is not necessarily competitive but rather thematic, archetypical commanders.

Burn

Red patented fast damage output, but the standard RDW strategy has limited viability in EDH. Lightning Bolt and the like often don’t cut it in a format where everyone starts with 40 life. Dig for recurring damage like Irencrag Pyromancer or BIG stuff such as Molten Disaster , though, and you can reach frightening levels of well done and extra crispy.

I am a huge fan, and not just because of the card. Gloriously savage as this card might be, it still pales in comparison to the character in the books. Anyone who single-handedly roflstomps the blue representation on an entire plane and then EATS HIS OWN DEITY should inspire terror even when rendered on cardstock. Make sure that only you have an odd life total, play any Furnace of Rath effect, turn right, leave only blood and ashes in your wake. Seriously. He might pop off the card and eat you if you don’t.

I knew a guy who played Ashling and 99 mountains. I’m fairly sure he never won with it, but nobody laughed either. Hard to laugh at someone whose general is a water balloon slowly filling with napalm.

I don’t like Purphoros. I freely admit to sulking like a teenager with a bad haircut whenever I see him in a game, let alone in the command zone. Indestructible on generals, I can take and even enjoy. Massive damage output tied to creating horde of tokens, I can appreciate (see my favorite in mono-black, hehe). Both of them together, though, is too much for me to take with grace. But who needs to care about grace when you have so. Much. POWA.

Chaos

Some folks aren't looking for anything logical, like winning. Some folks just want to watch the world burn. Such folks come to Red, the color of all true agents of chaos, where they can ensure no plan, no board state, no hand is safe. Planar Chaos , Possibility Storm , and the iconic Wheel of Fortune are all examples of this wild approach to magic. Go nuts, and drive everyone else crazy in the process. Maybe you'll win, maybe you won't, but you'll certainly make a difference and have fun!

Does anything really need to be said, other than a profound sense of pity for opponents who are praying to top deck? Play things like Seize the Day and seize all their goodstuffs as well.

Come the time to discuss Izzet we’ll talk a coin deck, but I don’t honestly think ol’ double-or-nothing here is just for flipping coins all game. No, you come to this guy to truly take your chances. Who should his partner be? Don’t have one. That, and the prospect of a twincast Warp World will drive opponents bonkers. However, point of order (bleh): Krark is also an unholy terror if you want to break storm spells. Just be sure to bring his thumb.

I'd never heard of Diochan before writing this, and... wow. Just wow. Assuming you aren't stocking a suite of boots or maybe Darksteel Plate , how delightfully risky. How marvelously political. Bring Thornbite Staff for EXTRA wow... Wow!

Sneak Attack

This is an odd, but potent one. Next to the whole glorious theme of chaos, Red's most irritating archetype may well be creating/playing/stealing creatures for a turn, examples being Tilonalli's Summoner , Insurrection , or even the ludicrously rare keyword Dash. There isn’t a relevant mono-red general that temporarily steals creatures as yet, but there are still some real doozies in the neighborhood. Just ask Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and his blue ETB untap friends (disqualified for extra-chromatic fraternization, but still).

The raw potential here utterly terrifies me: spam useful cantrips and have a Combustible Gearhulk in play. Or maybe Utvara Hellkite . EeeeEeeeEEEK.

Red has the least graveyard-related cards of any color and arguably the least thematic business to be fiddling about in there, phoenixes notwithstanding, so Feldon’s a bit unusual. Consider the weight of discard/draw in Red’s wheelhouse (see what I did there?). Consider what can be in your graveyard. Consider that it will cost three mana to wink it out. No more, no less. Solemn Simulacrum . Cavalier of Flame . Bearer of the Heavens . Have yourself a time.

We’ve talked graveyard and copies, but red also makes with the actual Sneak Attack . I suppose Lord Okkoto makes for a world class distraction. A favorite red archetype of mine is the extra combat phase, and the high mighty porkiness is a marvelous opportunity to fetch opponents an epically Savage Beating by dropping all sorts of heinous nastiness without actually paying for it.

And, for my personal favorite...

Rakdos, Lord of Riots and Omnath, Locus of Mana are two of my oldest commanders. Evidently those genes shouldn’t be mixed, because that’s how I surmise we got here. What an absolute beast. I started this article down on red, and ended it with a passionate need to build this monstrosity. As you may have guessed and will confirm in the next article, I am a green player at heart. Neheb sings the song of my people. Loudly. Boisterously. Encouraging atypical silliness like Soulfire Eruption and Apex of Power .

That's it for this round. Thoughts and questions are welcome. I hope you enjoyed it, and will come back next week for Green!

Prior Articles:

Mono-White

Mono-Blue

Mono-Black

LunchBox1211 on Card creation challenge

4 months ago

Emrakul, Ulamog and Kozilek

Legendary Creature - Eldrazi Titan

~ can not be countered, flying, trample, protection from colours.

When you cast ~, draw 5 cards, then reveal a card from your hand. Exile up to 2 target permanents with mana value equal to or less than the mana value of the revealed card. If you revealed a colourless, non-artifact card this way, take an extra turn after this one.

Annihilator 6.

Whenever a player would sacrifice any number of permanents, if they do not control the required number of permanents, they exile cards from their hand equal to the difference.

25/25

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ULTRA ANNIHILATOR! Slapping two creatures on one card is not unheard of ( Anax and Cymede for example).

Make a Gearhulk (see Combustible Gearhulk , Torrential Gearhulk )