Scrap Trawler

Artifact Creature — Construct

Whenever Scrap Trawler or another artifact you control is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, return to your hand target artifact card in your graveyard with lesser converted mana cost.

Discussion (51)

abby315 on Rona is maybe not bad

15 hours ago

I've never seen a Rona deck either so I love the idea! So feel free to take these suggestions with a grain of salt, but I think they'll fit your gameplan. I'm including cards that would give you a self-mill subtheme, because you can play with your graveyard as an extension of your hand.

Whir of Invention - artifact tutor, seems good to grab your wincons.
Baleful Strix - it's just Good Value, Son . Stitcher's Supplier, Liliana, Death's Majesty, Champion of Wits. Fact or Fiction, Dakmor Salvage, - graveyard feeders on good cards
Murderous Cut, Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time - since you only need one artifact that combos in your GY, you can use the rest for good Delve fodder!
Drown in the Loch - if you do add the self-mill strategies
Argivian Restoration, Buried Ruin, Fortuitous Find, Reconstruction, Scrap Trawler, Trading Post?, Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge? - to return good artifacts/Krark Clan to your hand if you mill it

Not totally sure on cuts because I haven't played the deck, but if you need help I can suggest some cards that look on the weaker side!

jaymc1130 on Polymorphin' Power Emry

4 days ago

KCI has been an excellent performer for me. The situations where you can generate infinite mana with any random 0 or 1 cmc artifact when in play alongside Mirran Spy and Emry are so numerous that all natural development plays double as set up, making it an extremely efficient play pattern. Most of those lines of play also wind up resulting in infinite draw when running the baubles and Chromatic pieces, and targeted removal or countermagic are ineffective as an answer to KCI since Emry just recurs it from the graveyard. Opponents are forced to answer Mirran Spy as it's on the stack a lot of the time or just outright lose if it resolves. Upping the artifact count to 35-40 and running some other combo elements that are artifacts with synergy alongside KCI make the lines of play extremely consistent as Emry will very often find a way to assemble a combo with her first ETB. Scrap Trawler, Magewright's Stone and Thousand-Year Elixir are wonderful complimentary pieces to this game plan that help create those consistent conditions and make Emry a serious threat to end the game on turn 3 and every turn after. I've really liked this approach so far and it's proven the most consistent of the variations I've been trying.

I was planning on giving the Altars (Phyrexian, Ashnod) a try but KCI is simply far superior in functionality so I've stuck with it. With my current list I almost never feel like any draw is a dead draw, everything does something depending on which cogs are on the field and it just becomes a matter of figuring out which last cog is needed to assemble the win.

bantrules12 on Druken Distortion

2 weeks ago

Definitely addJunk Diver, Myr Retriever, and Scrap Trawler they make it great when u have a Krark-Clan Ironworks

DrukenReaps on Druken Distortion

2 weeks ago

With my commander discarding stuff I wonder if colorless reanimation is enough of a thing? I've got a few pieces... I'll try and find room for some more...

Sword of Light and Shadow, Workshop Assistant, Scrap Trawler, Myr Retriever, Metalwork Colossus, Junk Diver, Conqueror's Galleon  ^Flip, and Trading Post are all possibilities. Returning to hand is actually perfect for the commander's ability. Of course an empty hand is also good (luls) so maybe Null Brooch?

jaymc1130 on Emry, Lurker of the loch cEDH

2 weeks ago

bmc10

I think no matter what Dramatic Scepter can have a place in a competitive Emry build, the nature of the combo is simply that strong. If some one wants to run that set up I don't really think it's a poor choice by any means, it simply means the deck will have to be tuned differently to make optimal use of the combo. I've disliked it's performance in the iterations I've had it in so far mostly because I had difficulty in one of two areas: consistently getting Emry out and active as early as possible due to the number of additional tutor elements that feel required to reliably find Dramatic Scepter combo, and consistently hitting quality artifact targets for Emry to recur for value or a win (also due to increased tutor density and decreased artifact density). There is very likely some ideal balance where these issues can be resolved well, but I've had much better luck with the approach that eschews Dramatic Scepter altogether so far for increased consistency playing around Emry value. I'm interested in finding the optimal set up for both approaches in due time and figure the best way to do that is constantly check out other interesting Emry lists for the spicy tech that might make the difference.

When it comes to the keys in Emry I'm not quite sure how much value they would hold given typical play patterns for a number of different approaches. There's nothing wrong with having a nice artifact untap ability or two hanging around to generate extra value from Mana Vaults, Sensei's Divining Tops and the like but I don't think these pieces offer a whole lot as combo elements so they'd likely be pieces that only offer value generation. Makes less sense to run pieces that exclusively provide value without offering combo potential when those slots can potentially do both with something like Chromatic Sphere or Golden Egg. I think if an Emry list wants to get into Urza, Lord High Artificer packages with bounce elements like Paradoxical Outcome and Retract while running perhaps some stax elements like Trinisphere they have more merit as the keys would provide a lot more utility in these situations (particularly Manifold Key letting big constructs swing for 20 to the face). I did initially give an iteration including an Urza package with a key a try but it felt like the deck was pulling in too many directions to perform consistently. Again, with optimized tuning this might be pretty viable competitively, but it feels hard to make it work just right.

Scrap Trawler has been a wonderful performer for me so far. It's definitely going to be a card that Emry variants running a KCI package want to include as it opens up some seriously powerful lines (particularly the Intuition line to tutor for a full infinite combo with a single card at instant speed), but I've had a coupe of games now where Scrap Trawler chains simply for value led to a developmental advantage that secured my ability to win a turn or two later. The important thing to consider with a Scrap Trawler inclusion is that the deck will then really want artifacts in the 0, 1, 2, and 3 slots that can consistently sacrifice themselves for value of their own accord. I had one turn that I recall quite clearly where I had a fair amount of mana available to me and a Semblance Anvil plus Etherium Sculptor in play paired with the Trawler and some random Emry enablers when I drew into Memory Jar. I got to play the Jar, defend it with countermagic, sac Lotus Petal, sac Chromatic Star getting back the Petal, sac Mind Stone getting back the Star, tap and sac Eye of Ramos getting back the Stone, play all my returned artifacts for free plus a new one I had drawn, then sac the Jar getting back and exiling the Eye for later and draw a new grip without even using an Emry activation that I would then later use on a second Jar drop and activaton. I wound up drawing into 2 different engines that I was able to play and subsequently won the game. The value Trawler can generate can be pretty nutty at times when it leads to wins out of nowhere, and the combination of Scrap Trawler, Magewright's Stone, Krark-Clan Ironworks, any 0 cmc artifact, and any 1 cmc artifact as an outright infinite engine for mana (and often draw at the same time) is a solid capstone.

jaymc1130 on Emry's Trinkets

2 weeks ago

Heya, just wanted to drop this here for you to find some inspiration. Emry's a lot of fun lately for me to tinker around with and I've been interested in seeing what other people are doing so I can pull as many good ideas into a competitive build as possible. There's still plenty of quality options in this list that are budget friendly enough for less expensive lists so have a look: Emry's Forgeworks

Of particular note for builds that run KCI (which is beginning to look like a must run in Emry decks) are Scrap Trawler, Magewright's Stone, Thousand-Year Elixir and Intuition. The ability to Intuition (which may or may not be out of your price range, definitely the expensive card in this grouping) for Trawler, MW Stone, and KCI at a single time to assemble a full infinite combo at instant speed in one go is very powerful. Even without Intuition the Trawler chains KCI enables can really turn what would be a mediocre board state into a dominant one. Highly recommend these bad boys for an Emry build.

Urza's Bauble is another budget friendly card that's a very solid inclusion to more consistently get Emry out on turn 1 while also offering the ability to combo out and win at instant speed on the next opponent's upkeep.

As a side note, Lightning Greaves is a no go for Emry in most situations. The abilities that tend to offer combo win potential via untap effects are usually targeted and shroud prevents stuff like Mirran Spy from untapping Emry without a way to equip at instant speed in response to the Spy trigger.

jaymc1130 on Emry, Lurker of the loch cEDH

3 weeks ago

Ok, Scrap Trawler is sweet. Goldfished it a couple times and played one game with it.

The ability to Intuition for Scrap Trawler, Magewright's Stone, and Krark-Clan Ironworks is amazing. It won't matter which one the opponent gives you, you're going to get all 3 into play that turn or the next, at which point you're basically online. Just need a 0 and 1 cmc artifact (which you should be getting incidentally as part of board development with the right build) that draws a card and start chaining. Considering adding Merchant Scroll into the list because of just how strong the Intuition line can be. KCI is just busted, definitely try some games with this card mate, it really makes an Emry deck hum.

jaymc1130 on Emry, Lurker of the loch cEDH

3 weeks ago

firrlo

I played a half dozen more games with Emry last night testing some iterations. Ultimately I just didn't like the performance of Freed from the Real either. Both of the aura's are a lot more narrow than the Spy, but this is a mono colored deck and we won't have access to Jeskai Ascendancy that is the absolute best combo piece, gotta work with what's available. Pemmin's is staying in though, the protection and utility it offers made for better performance and one piece that works with Lion's Eye Diamond or KCI/Eye of Ramos/Commander's Sphere/Implements of Sacrifice and cost reducers to go infinite is worthwhile as it dramatically increases the consistency of going off the turn or two after casting Emry due to dramatically increased chances of Emry mill hitting relevant pieces to recur.

Mesmeric Orb was actually something I gave a try in my initial incarnations and it's performance was atrocious. Too vulnerable a line to any form of graveyard hate, too clunky, to narrow. The deck still needs some form of ability to make use of repeated Emry activations and draw out though, and in fact the drawing out part is significantly more important than the creation of infinite mana part. Infinite draw always leads to infinite mana, while infinite mana with no command zone outlet is largely useless the majority of the time.

Riddlesmith and Vedalken Archmage did not cut it in the handful of games I played with them in, too slow, inconsistent, clunky, easy to remove. Nor does Rhystic Study in my group, just not competitive enough in terms of the value it tends to generate (drawing typically 2 cards and mostly taxing players' excess mana that isn't needed, in which case cards like Thirst for Knowledge offer better value despite not being competitive enough itself). So somehow Emry needs a way to consistently draw, both for value and to combo out, and moving to Chromatic Sphere/Conjurer's Bauble//Mind Stone type cards with 5 or 6 artifact cost reducers seemed logical. Turns out this has been dramatically more consistent while still fast, though a bit wasteful in terms of card slot efficiency.

Krark-Clan Ironworks should likely be a staple for an Emry deck. It's ability to turn any artifact into an infinite mana generator seriously widens the decks scope and allows more focus to be given to the draw aspect. The additional consistency it's inclusion allows cannot really be understated. I actually have yet to try Phyrexian Altar or Ashnod's Altar though I considered them initially. Ultimately those 2 sacrifice outlets are just too narrow in scope and the combo lines to go infinite are way too convoluted and clunky. It seems to make more sense to use a sacrifice outlet that's going to enable 40% of the deck to become combo pieces. Won't be the combo the deck really wants to look for, but KCI will often be the one it finds with very little effort.

I gave both Magewright's Stone and TYE a look last night in the slot previously held by Freed from the Real and found them interesting. With an active Emry, KCI, and cost reduction pieces to play for 0 mana they generate infinite mana quite nicely. I don't know if the "haste" clause is more valuable than needing one less cost reduction piece to enable the line, but I do like the utility of a hasty Emry in the event my first Emry cast got killed off. It might be worthwhile to run both, but I kind of doubt it. I'm sticking with TYE at the moment.

Scrap Trawler is on my radar as my next idea to test out. Seems like an interesting piece to have around with KCI (I'd initially thought of it as a piece for the Altar pair). Would open up some interesting lines, for example: Tap Mana Vault for , sac it for , sac a tapped Magewright's Stone for , bring Mana Vault back to hand, tap Commander's Sphere for , sac Commander's Sphere to draw a card, bring Magewright's Stone back to hand. With the loop can be repeated with Emry recurring Commander's Sphere infinitely to draw infinite cards and generate infinite blue mana. With a single cost reduction piece in play a dozen other lines open up. With 2 in play basically every card in the deck would generate infinite mana and card draw with only a single untap of Emry required. These lines seemed too convoluted to me at first, but after playing around with the deck some and seeing how often it comes by combos incidentally off a single Emry activation given the dearth of fodder I'm starting to think Scrap Trawler might have a place in the deck (in which case I'd definitely run Magewright's Stone in addition to TYE).

Man, Emry is hella fun to theory craft. Just talking about the possibilities gets my juices going.

As a point of inquiry, how are you liking High Tide and is a line with Candelabra of Tawnos+Minamo, School at Water's Edge worth inclusion in your mind? Is Minamo, School at Water's Edge worth inclusion as just a value piece and if so, what kind of artifact density do you feel is needed to justify it as a value developmental piece?