Whir of Invention

Instant

Improvise (Your artifacts can help cast this spell. Each artifact you tap after you're done activating mana abilities pays for .)

Search your library for an artifact card with converted mana cost X or less, put it onto the battlefield, then shuffle your library.

Discussion (51)

Optimator on SadoArtifacthate

1 week ago

Finally, if the main goal is to go wide (which it may not; even a moderate amount of going wide helps Saheeli's discount ability. Just going off your description), Coat of Arms might be a good win condition, especially with tutors like Fabricate , Reshape , Whir of Invention , and Tezzeret the Seeker . It's dangerous though, being symmetrical, so it's a toss-up as to whether it's worth it. Typically one plays it the turn they swing all out and try to win.

Optimator on SadoArtifacthate

1 week ago

Cool stuff! I dig the deck name. I just barely built a Saheeli deck focused on tokens too. Junk in the Trunk.

I see you have Faithless Looting in the deck. Considering you're running and you don't have a strong graveyard theme, I would recommend a more normal draw spell. If you want to keep the card low CMC perhaps Preordain or Serum Visions . I like Concentrate too (I prefer draw spells that draw three or more cards for a strong hand refill, so I stay away from Divination and its ilk. They can still smooth out draws and get you to your land drops). draw spells like Mind Spring et al are great with Saheeli's discount ability. Also, Brainstorm is a bit of a trap unless the top of your deck matters. No card advantage, only selection.

I've been experimenting with Saheeli's Directive and been less than impressed, unfortunaltely. Too bad, since it's a Saheeli-themed card. I think a deck needs to be at least 40 artifacts deep to make it hit reliably. It's a shame, because spells are great with Saheeli, the Gifted . Also, some of your wincons are non-artifacts.

Speaking of which, consider spells like Comet Storm and Whir of Invention to take advantage of the discount. My deck should give you some inspiration!

mymanpotsandpans on Looking for Pyromancer Pioneer cards

3 weeks ago

Haves:

1x Petrified Field

1x Stoneforge Mystic

1x Batterskull

1x Bloodstained Mire

12x Whir of Invention

Wants:

2x Kolaghan's Command

4x Dreadhorde Arcanist

4x Drown in the Loch

4x Thrill of Possibility

3x Bedevil

1x Canyon Slough

2x Foreboding Ruins

3x Angrath's Rampage

SideBae on

4 weeks ago

So before I get to suggestions, I want to mention that I think your deck is beautiful. I love the idea of getting the whole thing painted... looks great so far.

1. I think you should consider Mystic Remora . It may take you a while to get your general down, and Mystic Remora can keep your opponents from playing long enough for you to build up some mana. Or, if they're inexperienced, it can easily be an Ancestral Recall .

2. You should consider running some more mana-dorks -- they're the main reason to run green, since they'll speed you up like crazy. Deathrite Shaman and Birds of Paradise are the best ones (so crops for running them) but I'd also run things like Elves of Deep Shadow , Fyndhorn Elves and Arbor Elf . Note that using things like Wild Growth and Utopia Sprawl will get Arbor Elf to tap for two mana.

3. I think Nature's Lore is probably better than your Kodama's Reach . I say this because, with 36 lands, you'll usually already have a land in hand when you cast Kodama's Reach , making the to-hand tutor effect less potent. Also, Nature's Lore is two mana and searches an untapped (and not necessarily basic) land, meaning it is effectively one mana on the turn you cast it. If you want to get spicy, Three Visits is a functional reprint for a lot more money.

4. You may wish to consider Life from the Loam and/or Ramunap Excavator redundant Crucible of Worlds es. I've had good success with both, not least because artifact-removal is frequently harder to dodge than creature-removal in EDH metas.

5. Sultai colors have a lot of room for disruption. Two favorites of mine are Narset, Parter of Veils and Ashiok, Dream Render . (I honestly think War of the Spark was a mistake.) Both of these cards prohibit your opponents from taking very common actions in Magic, meaning they pin down most decks very well. Worth noting is that Narset, Parter of Veils also builds card advantage, and Ashiok, Dream Render doubles as graveyard hate. If you pair Windfall with Narset, Parter of Veils , you can win on the spot; same is true with your Notion Thief .

6. Depending on your meta, Carpet of Flowers and Compost may be worth considering. Most metas are at lest 40% blue, at a table of four you'll usually get good value out of Carpet of Flowers . Black is the second most powerful color, so Compost is also frequently useful.

7. I'm assuming control is a large element of this deck -- have you considered Counterbalance ? You've already got Sensei's Divining Top , Brainstorm and Scroll Rack to make it good.

8. I've never been a fan of Palinchron -loops for infinite mana, since the card seems way more expensive than infinite-mana loops need to be. I think the current best infinite mana combo available is Dramatic Reversal on Isochron Scepter while you have more than 2 mana in rocks or dorks out, and Power Artifact on Grim Monolith also works. Note that Dramatic Reversal is fetchable with your Spellseeker , and that the artifacts are way easier to tutor than creatures (see Whir of Invention , Transmute Artifact , Fabricate , Reshape and friends).

9. If you don't want to go artifact-heavy, I suggest running more dorks and putting in some artifact hate. Both Null Rod and Collector Ouphe are frequently one-card-wins.

10. There're a few piece of interaction I think you're missing. Force of Negation is an A card, and Veil of Summer is an easy A+. Nature's Claim is an excellent piece of spot removal; notably, it is stopped by Mental Misstep , which I also think you should run. A mana-free counter for Sol Ring s and Swords to Plowshares es is pretty good, especially with such a 'KILL ME' general. I also think Toxic Deluge is frequently better than Damnation , since it offers more selection with what to kill and can still be cast with Gaddock Teeg on the board.

11. Lim-Dul's Vault is a tutor to consider.

12. I'm not sure, but Null Profusion and Recycle seem pretty dumb in this deck. Damia, Sage of Stone will get around the 'skip draw step' clause pretty well.

13. Finally, Windgrace's Judgment and Casualties of War are good ways to get multi-for-ones in your colors. I've had more luck with Windgrace's Judgment (if only because it's an instant), but both may be worth trying.

Good luck!

wallisface on Emry Boots

1 month ago

Hey dude, liking these changes, the deck feels a lot more streamlined than before!

If you’re looking for additional suggestions, then these are my current thoughts:

1) you probably either want to make the deck more consistent, by running more 4-ofs instead of all the 1-and-2-ofs, or else allow it to work better under a more tool-boxy build, by including a playset of Whir of Invention . I’m not sure how viable it’d be getting 3 blue for Whir though, so probably better to go for the first option. But in either case, you’re looking to more reliably get the pieces you need to see the game through. So more of the key cards like Walking Ballista , for example.

2) the tricky part of any deck - whittling it down to 60 cards. Anything above 60 will just make it less consistent and make your draws generally worse. Being able to confine your mainboard to 60 will make your deck stronger overall and having to critically evaluate cards down to that restriction makes for a better deckbuilder over time also.

3) some other cards to consider:

• Voltaic Servant can help make your Steel Overseers go crazy, as well as help Traxos stay upright.

• Inventors' Fair can help drag the game out longer while also finding useful cards lategame

• Buried Ruin can help to protect your boardstate by getting back the stuff that gets sniped.

• Expedition Map feels vitally important for getting an earlier Tron, it’ll allow you to run more higher-cmc cards also (as tron will be more reliable)

• consider adding a single Mycosynth Lattice to your sideboard so your Karn can fetch it for an auto-win condition (prevents your opponents from being able to tap their lands etc)

• Tron loves Wurmcoil Engine , but i know these cards are expensive money-wise. If you can manage to get some, they’d make the deck much, much stronger (you’d probably only want to run 2 of them, maybe 3 at a push, depending how easily you can assemble Tron)

SideBae on Alela, control-aggro

1 month ago

Hey! So I have some suggestions: feel free to ignore any/all of them.

1. There's a reason Ponder and Preordain are banned in Modern, and it's because they're stupid-good cards. Being able to dig you to what you need and past what you don't for one blue mana is a REALLY powerful effect, even if the cards themselves may not look as powerful as they are. I highly suggest including them. I like that you're already running Brainstorm , though I think running two+ more fetches would be ideal; you don't want to get locked with two dead cards on top of your deck.

2. I do not think Path to Exile is good in EDH. Ramping your opponent in a format with everyone trying to do busted things is rarely anything short of a bad idea, and is frequently dangerous. (Note that your Ashiok, Dream Render does not stop opponents searching off YOUR spells.) As I see it, you may be better off just running another card-draw spell, which would dig you to more potent removal; I suggest Painful Truths . Three-mana: draw-three is a hard rate to beat, and I've been very impressed with it in my Tasigur, the Golden Fang list.

3. You have some good artifact ramp, but I think it can be improved. I really like that all your rocks are two or less mana -- three-mana mana-rocks are simply not good enough a lot of the time, especially with a four-mana commander. Unfortunately, a lot of the best ramp in EDH is very expensive: Mana Crypt and Mox Diamond come to mind. I do have some other suggestions though. Consider at least a few of the following: Talisman of Dominance , Talisman of Hierarchy , Talisman of Progress , Fellwar Stone (which is admittedly a worse Arcane Signet , but still good), Mind Stone , Everflowing Chalice and/or Thought Vessel .

4. Whir of Invention is a card you may wish to consider. It can grab your Bolas's Citadel late-game, but more importantly it acts as a to-battlefield tutor for things like your Cursed Totem or Skullclamp . Also, it's instant speed.

5. If you want to run things like Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite or Consecrated Sphinx , I suggest you think about a reanimation package. In general, these duders will be tough to cast, and being able to cheat them into play will give you a competitive advantage. Entomb and Buried Alive are the best ways to bin your targets (though there are others, like Liliana of the Veil or your maybe-board Frantic Search ), and you can then use spells like Animate Dead , Dance of the Dead , Necromancy , Reanimate or Unburial Rites to profit for less mana than usual. Intuition is a fun (if not cheap) card to pair with Unburial Rites and some reanimation targets, thought the precise pile may be tough to determine. Also, due to your colors, you may even consider Dreams of the Dead . The cumulative upkeep can be tough, but if you run something like Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur then you'll be able to do your damage within a turn-cycle or so, and the upkeep won't matter.

6. Your mana curve is pretty consistently low. I think you should at least playtest Counterbalance , since you already have the Sensei's Divining Top . Counterbalance does tend to be a high variance card, and it may end up being more of a preference-call than a meta-call. But I like it, so I figured I'd mention it.

7. I'm not sure how good Hushbringer is, since it stops your Skullclamp from triggering... You may be better off with just a Spirit of the Labyrinth or such.

8. Depending on how often you get to five mana, Divine Visitation could be a win-condition in itself in this deck. Making a 4/4 every time you cast an artifact or enchantment seems... good.

9. Mystic Remora is good. In less-experienced metas, it is often an Ancestral Recall ; even if people know that it's better just to wait it out, Mystic Remora will still buy you time to develop your board and make land-drops while opponents try to outlast it. Being one mana was a mistake, but it's here, so what the hell.

Right. That's all I got. Good luck!

Oloro_Magic on I think there's a better ...

1 month ago

This has actually been done some by other people in the Whirza community; I recommended that you check out Kannister's stream over on twitch where he is always testing out new variants on Urza. The Karn version is certainly powerful but really it shows what has always been the weakest part of the Urza deck, and that is that it really doesn't do anything amazing.

Kannister explained this once much better than I ever could, but essentially the Urza decks, at least the dominant versions, fall into two categories (I don't include Paradoxical Outcome Urza as I find that to be a very different kind of deck): Stoneforge Mystic Urza and Goblin Engineer Urza. We will start with the Engineer versions first as those have had more success up to this posting. As Kannister explained these builds kind of bridge the line between prison and combo, Goblin Engineer playing particularly well with Ensnaring Bridge . However, when you really look at these lists the deck is at best an average prison deck, it doesn't fully commit to the plan and isn't wholly concerned with locking its opponent; it really only plays a few silver bullets and bridge to slow down the game in most cases. Likewise the combo aspect of the deck is far from optimal as the deck does not have a very streamlined way to consistently end the game turn 3 as its potential is, for this reason it is an average combo deck. The genius behind the list comes when you put those two together, as the combo pieces, particularly Urza, and Thopter Foundry do a lot in the way of slowing down the game and generating continued value. And Goblin Engineer feeds perfectly into the combo being able to fetch either piece. Those two average parts make the deck incredibly complete and difficult to play against.

The stoneforge versions are essentially the same, but instead of the prison aspect, they have a midrange plan that can simply steal games, stoneforge also able to fetch up half the combo if needed.

The Karn versions of the deck represent the most powerful thing that can be done likely, but they come at a great cost, as your list reflects, and as Kannister has noted, playing Karn likely means you can't really play Whir of Invention and because of that you have to make a choice. Do you want the flexibility of Whir and the instant speed, or do you want to go all in on Karn and play a very toolbox approach to the deck. Most chose the former, yet Urza is good enough that the Karn route remains a fine option.

I should also note that in your list you have a Krark-Clan Ironworks in the sideboard. That card is very banned, in fact if it were not banned, myself and many others would likely still be playing Ironworks combo and Urza likely would have a home there somehow.

Bleakz29 on Kess Slingin' and Stormin' these spells

2 months ago

Love that Whir of Invention idea when late game, searching for the Aetherflux Reservoir . I considered Time Spiral for a long time but I need to find one as it is on the reserved list. As for the last resort reanimator plan, I could just run Blatant Thievery instead and copy it and wreck the board.