[Primer] EDH Sharuum Engine: Jostin version

Commander / EDH Artifact Combo Competitive Multiplayer Primer WUB (Esper)

Stefouch

Land (36)

• 1x Academy Ruins
• 1x Ancient Den
• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Bazaar of Baghdad
• 1x Buried Ruin
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x Cephalid Coliseum
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Beacon
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Crystal Vein
• 1x Darksteel Citadel
• 1x Fetid Heath
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Gemstone Caverns
• 1x Glimmervoid
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Inkmoth Nexus
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Mishra's Workshop
• 1x Mystic Gate
• 1x Petrified Field
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Scrubland
• 1x Seat of the Synod
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Sunken Ruins
• 1x Tarnished Citadel
• 1x Tundra
• 1x Underground Sea
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Vault of Whispers
• 1x Wasteland
• 1x Watery Grave

UtilityArtifact (20)

• 1x Aether Spellbomb
• 1x Crucible of Worlds
• 1x Dispeller's Capsule
• 1x Elixir of Immortality
• 1x Ensnaring Bridge
• 1x Executioner's Capsule
• 1x Mindslaver
• 1x Nihil Spellbomb
• 1x Rings of Brighthearth
• 1x Salvaging Station
• 1x Sculpting Steel
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sword of the Meek
• 1x Tawnos's Coffin
• 1x Thopter Foundry
• 1x Time Sieve
• 1x Tormod's Crypt
• 1x Trading Post
• 1x Voltaic Key
• 1x Voyager Staff

Creature (7)

• 1x Duplicant
• 1x Karn, Silver Golem
• 1x Kuldotha Forgemaster
• 1x Magister Sphinx
• 1x Myr Battlesphere
• 1x Phyrexian Metamorph
• 1x Sphinx of the Steel Wind

Draw (6)

• 1x Fact or Fiction
• 1x Memory Jar
• 1x Mind's Eye
• 1x Thirst for Knowledge
• 1x Timetwister
• 1x Windfall

Planeswalker (4)

• 1x Karn Liberated
• 1x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
• 1x Tezzeret the Seeker
• 1x Venser, the Sojourner

Commander (1)

Manarock (14)

• 1x Azorius Signet
• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x Darksteel Ingot
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Gilded Lotus
• 1x Grim Monolith
• 1x Lion's Eye Diamond
• 1x Lotus Bloom
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Mox Opal
• 1x Sol Ring

Tutor (7)

• 1x Artificer's Intuition
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Entomb
• 1x Expedition Map
• 1x Intuition
• 1x Transmute Artifact
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

OtherSorcery (5)

• 1x All is Dust
• 1x Bitter Ordeal
• 1x Open the Vaults
• 1x Roar of Reclamation
• 1x Unburial Rites

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Sharuum the Hegemon

Primer for an Engine build, by Jostin123

What it is ?
This is the original version of the Engine build for Sharuum the Hegemon EDH Multiplayer. This deck focuses on resilience. It is not a hard combo deck. This deck will never be modified in future. It is left as it is for teaching purposes, unless its creator adds changes to the list.

All explanations are compiled info from MTGS member Jostin123. All credits go to him. He wrote this primer!

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Introduction Show

There have been many Sharuum threads created. Many have been combo builds strictly focused on going infinite as soon as possible. Some focus on reanimator aspects to get there. This deck is neither of those: it's more. Sharuum has the reputation of being one of the most notorious generals of all time. As such, tables will set their crosshairs on you the moment you reveal your general. Some mitigate this by trying to create the fastest deck possible. Combining off first is effective when no one has the stone cold nuts but you. However, when other people are threatening to go off as well, or when you get those awkward mulligans where you get no action, or don't have the right balance of pieces and mana to go off, drawing combo pieces that don't do anything to affect the game state or develop your board is useless. This is a highly tuned list which, depending on the board state, can go infinite on the table, but can also grind out huge advantages when the table is reloading after initial assaults-for those few times the game goes that long. This list is meant to be the most resilient list, laughing off Austere Commands, Return to Dusts, Fracturing Gusts, and Shattering Sprees almost every game. There a very little this list cannot do.

This list is a hybridization of the efficient combo and grindy attrition strategies packaged into an internally synergistic 100 card deck. The purpose for choosing those strategies is similar to the process of how one designs a Vintage Dredge list. In Sharuum, as with Dredge, you can build it to win as quickly as possible. Because Sharuum offers you some of the most broken options available to the format, it has a very high fast kill percentage of the available options for EDH generals. However, optimizing it for the fastest kill ratio possible makes it more susceptible to being crippled by silver bullets, some of which are commonly played due to the reputation of decks like ours. In my experience, the 1- 2 turns of increased speed gain less wins percentage-wise than a deck which sacrifices some of that speed for the resilience to play through and past the hate: you sacrifice the ability to combo as consistently on turn 4 for the ability to win through almost any board state. This style of deck construction has been key in playing in hyper-competitive groups where anyone can threaten combo kills and locked game states from turn 3 and on. As such, the deck rarely (if ever) finds itself without a relevant line of play or defenseless despite the barrage of animosity coming your way, turn after turn.

Individual Card Explanation Show

Creatures

(4) Phyrexian Metamorph: This card is the swiss army knife of the deck. Everyone knows that it's a combo piece, but unlike Sculpting Steel, it's almost everything else you can ask for. It can be a removal spell (especially against Voltron Generals), a beat stick, a utility piece… it all depends on how the game develops.

(5) Kuldotha Forgemaster: Everyone knows that it's a walking tinker. What many players don't realize is that it's also protects your artifacts from getting removed. When you play a deck with as bad a reputation for degeneracy as Sharuum, your board will get targeted. Forgemaster, is one of a few sac outlets for your artifacts that can offer you "protection from removal" and that's huge. In some situations, protecting your stuff from the rest of the table is more important that your "tinker" target.

(5) Karn, Silver Golem: In my opinion, this card is of quintessential importance to my build. It helps slow down extremely broken starts, can punish people who rely heavily on sweepers, provides blockers while being an excellent wall himself, and more often than credited, has allowed me to win tables by turning my board sideways. My most clutch plays have been to shut down broken artifact effects by animating them to buy me that extra turn. More than once, I've stopped a Birthing Pod from going nuts, or kept Sharuum (or other generals) from being tucked by a Proteus Staff. I know a lot of people don't like Karn, but he has a lot of niche applications, and that advantage adds up.

The Karn Clinic Show

The Rules Interactions

Karn, Silver Golem provides Sharuum with a lot of solid interactions, oftentimes extending advantage, either through raw card advantage, resource conversion, or punishing answers. The flowing is an in-depth analysis on Karn interactions. In order to understand the interactions, one must have a good grasp of the comprehensive rules, in order to know when and how it would be beneficial to use Karn. I will break down the interactions with card by card type and/or engine where applicable. Before we do that, I want to explain Karn's unique interaction with combat.

As an attacker, he will get in for 4 damage on a defenseless opponent. However, he is an even better defender. Most of the popular aggro generals lie in the 6 power to 7 power range, making Karn a very efficient defender. In addition, there are specific instances where you do not want to damage or kill the incoming attacker but still protect your life total. He defends very well against the following popular cards and more:

• Academy Rector

• Phyrexian Obliterator

• Mogg Maniac

• Seedguide Ash

• Solemn Simulacrum

• Stalking Vengeance attackers

Equipment
Karn has the ability to function as a supercharged Tower of the Magistrate. To use Karn in this manner, you have to know timing and interaction rules with equipment. From the Comprehensive Rules

• 702.6a Equip is an activated ability of Equipment cards. "Equip [cost]" means "[Cost]: Attach this permanent to target creature you control. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery."

Equipping a creatures happens at sorcery speed. Because Karn's ability can be played at instant speed, you can use his ability to respond to the equip activation.

• 301.5c An Equipment that's also a creature can't equip a creature. An Equipment that loses the subtype "Equipment" can't equip a creature. An Equipment can't equip itself. An Equipment that equips an illegal or nonexistent permanent becomes unattached from that permanent but remains on the battlefield. (This is a state-based action. See rule 704.) An Equipment can't equip more than one creature. If a spell or ability would cause an Equipment to equip more than one creature, the Equipment's controller chooses which creature it equips.

By making Karn animate an equipment, you can make that equipment "fall off" the equipped creature.

With both these rules, Karn can offer you maximum flexibility with controlling equipment in the game. Karn can slow the tempo that the "Sword" cycle can generate. Karn is also an excellent answer to Umezawa's Jitte as it has as a big butt (which can be bigger after combat) and can keep Jitte from netting counters by unequipping it before combat damage. However, there are instances where you would want to prevent a creature from being equipped. Grafted Exoskeleton kills a card that it becomes unattached from. If your opponent has a card with a death trigger that you want to prevent, by animating G.E. with Karn while the equip trigger is on the stack, the equip effect will fail, preventing that Reveillark from resurrecting a creature, or preventing an Academy Rector from tutoring an enchantment into play. In Sharuum, I have animated a Sword of The Meek as an extra blocker, just to prevent extra damage and get it back when I sac it to Thopter Foundry.

There are lots of different equipment, and Karn's interactions with them can help you skew combat math and play equipment activated abilities and their combat triggers. Just as each equipment has a different ability, so is Karn's utility just as different with each equipment and each change in the board state.

Non-Equipment Non-Creature Artifacts
Karn has the ability to change an artifact's card type, which is a rare effect in this game. Here are the rules for type changing effects as per the Comprehensive Rules

• 205.1b Some effects change an object's card type, supertype, or subtype but specify that the object retains a prior card type, supertype, or subtype. In such cases, all the object's prior card types, supertypes, and subtypes are retained. This rule applies to effects that use the phrase "in addition to its types" or that state that something is "still a [type, supertype, or subtype]." Some effects state that an object becomes an "artifact creature"; these effects also allow the object to retain all of its prior card types and subtypes.

• Example: An ability reads, "All lands are 1/1 creatures that are still lands." The affected lands now have two card types: creature and land. If there were any lands that were also artifacts before the ability's effect applied to them, those lands would become "artifact land creatures," not just "creatures," or "land creatures." The effect allows them to retain both the card type "artifact" and the card type "land." In addition, each land affected by the ability retains any land types and supertypes it had before the ability took effect.

• Example: An ability reads, "All artifacts are 1/1 artifact creatures." If a permanent is both an artifact and an enchantment, it will become an "artifact enchantment creature."

By changing a card's card type, Karn either widens or narrows the effects that can interact with that card. This may make that artifact legal target for an effect (animating an artifact to seal it with a Tawnos's Coffin or making it an illegal target (animating a Trading Post to save it from a Terastodon. It's something to take into consideration if you play against lots of green mages, especially if Rite of Replication floats around your meta.

By gaining the creature type, an artifact is now subjected to all the game rules that creatures are subjected to. Here are some relevant rules creatures are subjected to. As stated in the Comp Rules

• 302.6. A creature's activated ability with the tap symbol or the untap symbol in its activation cost can't be activated unless the creature has been under its controller's control continuously since his or her most recent turn began. A creature can't attack unless it has been under its controller's control continuously since his or her most recent turn began. This rule is informally called the "summoning sickness" rule.

Artifacts that become creatures can't tap to activate their abilities unless they've started the turn under their opponent's control. Some artifacts have tap abilities that limit the timing of when you could activate them, such as Proteus Staff and Birthing Pod. Most don't, but through playing with precision and anticipation of how the board will unfold, you can still limit what your opponents can do with their artifact tap abilities. A great example of this is animating a freshly played Lux Cannon in response to the resolution of multiple Derevi, Impyrial Tactician untap triggers targeting it. It can also tame a Mimic Vat the turn it comes into play, making imprinted Titans not as painful.

Creature Damage and Toughness
There are rules that govern how creatures deal and receive damage. As per the Comp Rules

• 302.4b A creature's toughness is the amount of damage needed to destroy it.

This is why, when a creature has 0 or less toughness, it dies as a state-based effect: it takes 0 damage for it to die.

Karn can animate 0 cost artifacts, killing them on sight. In this regard, Karn is a colorless Gorilla Shaman.

Engine and Card Interactions

Karn's type changing ability allows him to work very well with specific cards. In this section, I will begin with interactions specific to my list, and then branch out into common interactions with Karn in Sharuum lists, ending in interactions with cards you can anticipate out of different archetypes and generals.

Salvaging Station
The most important of my engines is the Salvaging Station engine. The tap ability is amazing, but it is it's triggered ability that Karn facilitates. My list runs a number of "cogs" (non-creature artifacts which cost 1 mana or less, some people nickname them "trinkets". By animating some of these cogs, you can force Salvaging Station's untap trigger to go on the stack, for your benefit.

Karn + Salvaging Station + Mana Rocks
Interactive pieces:
A) Seat of the Synod, Ancient Den, Vault of Whispers, Mox Opal
B) Mana Crypt

A) You can mana fix by tapping your colored sources, then using off-color or colorless mana to animate your colored source, killing it, which triggers S.S., which you can then use to reanimate the artifact, tapping it again to fix your colors.

B) If you do the above with Mana Crypt, you can generate infinite colorless mana, which will enable you to generate infinite colored mana through the above process. Note that all the above mentioned pieces as well as Darksteel Citadel will enable to generate infinite morbid triggers for no mana deficit to you.

As a side note, whenever you use Karn to kill one of your opponent's artifacts, that morbid trigger will untap YOUR Salvaging Station. Most people forget that.

Karn + Salvaging Station + 1cc cogs
Interactive pieces:
A) Tormod's Crypt, Nihil Spellbomb, Dispeller's Capsule, Executioner's Capsule, Expedition Map
B) Aether Spellbomb, Voyager Staff
C) Sensei's Divining Top, Nihil Spellbomb

A) When Karn animates these artifacts, Salvaging Station can bring them back for use a second time before your next turn.

B) These cogs don't have a tap ability, so you can use Salvaging Station to reuse these cogs for as many times as your mana allows. Just spend the extra 1 mana to animate before you use them.

C) By animating these cards and sacrificing them, you generate a mini card-draw engine. You can tap your STD, and then with the ability on the stack, sacrifice it to an effect. Then, with the draw ability on the stack, use salvaging station to bring it back. You get to draw a card and since the Top is a new object, it won't be put on top of your library. It is similar with Nihil Spellbomb: animate it, sacrifice itself to trigger S.S., and you'll need to pay a black mana to draw a card each cycle.

Also note that this method also has different applications. Salvaging Station, Karn, and mana can:

1. Generate enough "persisted" blockers as you have Cogs and mana.

2. Blunt or Prevent net loss of permanents from Annihilator triggers.

3. Allow you to make multiple thopter tokens without access to Sword of the Meek by using your cogs, at no net permanent loss to you.

4. Allow you to take infinite turns with Time Sieve (when you have a minimum 5 cogs and 5 mana, and is a great way to come back with infinite turns when your Thopter/ Sword combo is broken up.

5. Generate morbid triggers to break open Bitter Ordeal (which, even if not enough to rfg all libraries, can neuter enough from everyone's library to still make a HUGE impact on the game).

6. Protect Sword of the Meek from Crypt effects.

7. Protect your cogs from exile effects for availability and reuse later in the game.

Salvaging Station + Karn in combat
Everyone knows that Karn can make blockers, but many don't realize that Salvaging Station offers combat tricks. For 2 mana, you can off an artifact, untapping S.S. And animating it to block. Salvaging Station is an even better attacker. When swinging at an opponent who has a low life total, or attacking a planeswalker an opponent strategically needs to protect, Salvaging Station is a huge body that gains "Vigilance" when it's killed its blocker.

Karn + Trading Post
Karn allows Trading Post to Regrowth any artifact in your graveyard to your hand at the cost of an artifact in play.

Karn + Indestructible artifacts
Karn allows indestructible artifacts to become your best attackers and blockers in combat. The most common of these is Darksteel Ingot and Darksteel Forge. Indestructible artifacts are the best way to clog the ground and go a long way to giving your planeswalkers the time needed to go ultimate.

Karn + Duplicant
This is a great way to exile artifacts. This is very useful for dealing with indestructible artifacts, and the new annoying legendary equipment in Theros. You will just want some things to stay dead.

Karn + Tawnos's Coffin
Protect your non-creature artifacts from targeted removal, or take someone else's out of the equation.

Karn + Mycosynth Lattice
Karn allows you to Stone Rain any land in play for 1 colorless mana.

Karn vs. Intruder Alarm
Karn can allow you to generate a wealth of mana by animating your artifacts in response to the I.A. triggers. You can also animate Oblivion Stone and use I.A. to put counters on multiple permanents a turn.

Karn vs. Drop of Honey / Porphyry Nodes
Save your creatures by animating other creatures for these effects to pick off.

Karn + The Abyss
The Abyss pick off non-artifact creatures every turn, keeping a contained battlefield contained. Karn allows you to use your mana artifacts as an army to swarm the table to close out the game that The Abyss can't touch.

Karn vs. Wrath of God effects
Karn can punish those who use sweeper effects by animating their artifacts so they'll die along with all the creatures on the table, or animate your own artifacts to save them from some conditional sweepers (such as Barter in Blood). I've killed many artifacts in response to Sunblast Angel's trigger by animating the same artifacts it's caster used to pay its cost.

Karn vs. Green removal
Most popular green removal spells in EDH have a clause specifying that it cannot kill creatures, such as Woodfall Primus, Terastodon, and Sylvan Primordial. By using Karn, you can animate an artifact in response to the targeted spell, saving your artifact.

These are only a few of the hundreds of niche interactions where Karn's ability can alter the outcome of an interaction, board state, or line of play. His use is only limited to the rules knowledge and awareness of the pilot.

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(6) Sharuum the Hegemon: duh

(6) Duplicant: Swords to Plowshares on a stick is a great effect, even at 6 mana.

(7) Magister Sphinx: Allows this deck to get surprise wins, and lets you skip the 5 attack steps needed to kill with general damage. Most of the time, when a player gets aggressive very early in the game, they are able to impose their advantage due to being able to race the table. Azusa can hardcast Eldrazi by turn 5 when people are just playing their Solemn Simulacrums and Oracle of Mul-Dayas This allows you to catch them with their pants down and allows the table to get back into the game, because now those 1/1s and 2/2s become relevant.

(7) Myr Battlesphere: As reiterated before, this card is not only a beatstick, but is an excellent way to control planeswalkers. For example:

• If the opponent's planeswalkers are poorly defended, the tokens can swarm in past blockers and tick them down.

• If the opponent has multiple planeswalkers with high starting loyalties (Karn Liberated, Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker, etc), I can attach into one, while using the attack trigger on Battlesphere to burn the opponent out, redirecting the damage to another planeswalker, knocking off at least 4 loyalty to the other.

• If the opponent has decently-sized blockers, I can swing in with Battlesphere and still burn out the planeswalker with the method stated above.

In each instance, I can still get through to connect with a planeswalker, even if Battlesphere doesn't attack it directly. This is important because I don't have to sacrifice tempo in order to deal with them: I'm still hitting the opponent, forcing chumps, and overall still affecting the game state in a relevant way. Being how Battlesphere is a decent Sharuum target and synergized with multiple other synergies in the deck (blink effects, Time Sieve) my thinking was that it could offer more on-board flexibility without negatively impacting the rest of the deck. He's always a solid blink / reanimation target. Now that Sundering Titan is banned, Battlesphere is the go-to beat stick for the deck that doesn't leave you exposed if removed.

(8) Sphinx of the Steel Wind (SoSW): It's taken a while, but this card has grown on me a little since it was suggested by the rest of the boards. As said before, the life-gain is nice, but the most relevant abilities are first strike and flying, as it shuts down a most abilities on creatures that triggers on damage: 6 first-striking damage is huge, even in Commander.

Mana Rocks

(0) Lion's Eye Diamond: This card is more tech than acceleration. It allows me to cast Sharuum as soon as turn 1 if necessary (has come up in some 1v1 side-table match-ups in between Commander games). It is one of 2 functional Lotuses in the deck (for redundancy) but also lets me float mana through my mass-draw spells in the deck, lets me lock down the table when paired with Ensnaring Bridge, and most importantly can function as an Entomb variant. Recurrable via salvaging Station.

(0) Mox Opal: Most people label this as artifact ramp. The truth is, unless you play a near 50/50 ratio of artifacts to non-artifacts, this is not reliably artifact ramp (as you can't jump the curve when you really want to, which is between turns 1-3). Most people don't play artifacts as heavily, which in that instance, makes it cost-efficient mana fixing. Metalcraft is d ifficult to achieve for most decks to achieve before your 3rd main phase, which is when your ramp has the most impact. Recurrable via salvaging Station.

(0) Mox Diamond: True mana ramp. Recurrable via salvaging Station.

(0) Mana Crypt: See above. Recurrable via salvaging Station.

(0) Lotus Petal: Good mana ramp, and a huge infinite mana enabler, especially with Salvaging Station shenanigans. Recurrable via salvaging Station.

(0) Lotus Bloom: Conditional mana ramp and an excellent pitch target. This is a card I don't see people discard enough, and I don't know why. Recurrable via salvaging Station.

(1) Mana Vault: True mana ramp. Recurrable via salvaging Station.

(1) Sol Ring: See above.

(2) Grim Monolith: Ditto. I prefer this card over Thran Dynamo as both a way to lower the mana cost of the deck, and make it more explosive in the early game.

(2) Dimir Signet: Much needed mana fixing, especially with the number of lands that only tap for colorless mana that I run. I prefer the signets over the Talismans due to the fact that they fix my colors better. They can provide triple same colors off of a signet and filter land (using the off-color to power the filter-land): not the case with Talismans. I run a lot of colorless-generating lands so that kind of mana flexibility is crucial.

(2) Azorius Signet: Same as above.

(3) Darksteel Ingot: Another great ramp card. This card has even better utility, as both Tez, Agent of Bolas and Karn can make you an indestructible blocker, which is huge when you need to protect your life total or a planeswalker.

(3) Chromatic Lantern: One of the best color fixers in the game, this offers the deck the color fixing aspect of Mycosynth Lattice that you want, without the intimidation factor of giving everything a glass jaw by making them artifacts. This effect has become more useful than the mana-ramping charge counter that comes off the Coalition Relic it replaced.

(4) Thran Dynamo: Mana ramp.

(5) Gilded Lotus: Mana ramp and fixing.

Manarocks Mini-Primer Show

In this section, we will discuss mana rocks in depth. We will discuss the purpose of these artifacts mana sources, the reasons for using other artifact mana sources, and the pros and cons regarding tempo, resources, and game states that can come up regarding them. We will also discuss the non-core strategies and metagames that weigh into the cost/benefit analysis when choosing your mana rocks. As metagames are not consistent across all areas, nor should mana bases as a whole. However, this discussion will serve to discuss trends so people can understand the logic underlying their mana rock selections.

The Core Artifact Sources

Chromatic Lantern: This slot has proven its utility in decks across the board, not just Sharuum. It's ability to allow your lands to tap for any color (even those that do not ordinarily tap for mana goes a log in making this a mainstay for the deck. Lists utilizing lands such as Bazaar of Baghdad, Mishra's Workshop, Ancient Tomb, Gemstone Mine can take advantage of Chromatic Lantern's ability to make these, and all the other lands in your deck better. My favorite use of Lantern is to use fetchlands as mana sources, allowing you to hold them back to best maximize their deck shuffling ability. For those who run basic lands, this is a key function to keeping immune from Blood Moon effects (which a heavy density of mana rocks already assists with exceptionally well). This card allows decks to skimp on a few colored lands, which allows the deck the space to run the broken extra mana lands, which mostly all of them produce colorless, and as stated above, allows you to stretch all your lands as mana sources.

Lion's Eye Diamond: Possibly the most debated mana rock of the archetype, Lion's Eye Diamond is a high-risk / high reward card. On its surface, it is a mana rock that can be used to activate abilities and can be activates in response to a draw spell or trigger on the stack to generate mana for whatever card you draw when that draw spell or trigger resolves. But this is EDH, and so this mana rock takes on a completely different identity in this deck.

1. L.E.D. is a cards that loves cards that interacts with zones other than your hand. When your commander is in the command zone, L.E.D. can help cast if for you, at the cost of your hand.

2. The ability is a mana ability, so it is activated and resolves like a mana ability. That means:

3. 1. Pithing needle cannot shut this card down.
4. 1. Stifle and Trickbind cannot target it.
5. 1. L.E.D. can be activated through split second spells. Take Possession can't steal it, Krosan Grip can't break it, Wipe Away doesn't have to bounce it. And remember, with the above-named spells, even though they are split second, if they have no legal targets, they are countered upon their resolution.
6. 1. The ability resolves immediately. Once you crack L.E.D. for mana, the ability resolves immediately.
7. 1. Even with all this flexibility, you can only activate it when you can activate an instant, which means you can't break it in the middle of the resolution of another spell or ability, or during the replacement of an effect (which you could for normal mana abilities). Your timing rules still apply (I know, it's a bit weird).
8. 1. Now that you understand how effective a discard outlet the card is, you can see why I advocate it as much as I do. In addition, it is a trinket, making it tutorable with Artificer's Intuition and Trinket Mage (for those who still chose to run it), and recurrable with Salvaging Station.

9. Draw spells aren't the only cards that interact favorably with Lion's Eye Diamond. Since our commander is the equivalent of a 6 mana Goblin Welder, any artifacts you pitch are fair game for Sharuum to resurrect to the battlefield. Fanning open a hand of LED, lands, other mana rocks, and another Sphinx can, for all intents and purposes, end games right then and there, especially when going first. If you cast a Roar of Reclamation or an Open the Vaults, and crack your L.E.D. in response, you get back all the artifacts you discarded, and the L.E.D. itself. When you've unlocked this accomplishment, you've essentially Show and Telled all the artifacts in our hand into play, and usually a bit more from your graveyard (which for the purpose of this mini-primer, will now be called the junkyard).

Mana Crypt and Sol Ring: The best mana rocks in Vintage and in Commander, these cards are the most broken mana ramp spells offered in the format. Both are pillars that support Sharuum. Both tap for 2 mana. Both are extremely cheap to cast. Both are recurrable via Salvaging Station. However, Mana Crypt's secondary function is the deck's backdoor gravestorm enabler for Bitter Ordeal. Mana Crypt costs 0 mana. Karn, Silver Golem is card used in most engine-based Sharuum lists to great effect as stated here (insert link). The two, in conjunction with Salvaging Station, can create an infinite mana / infinite gravestorm loop. Here are the steps:

1. Tap Mana crypt and float 2 mana.

2. Use 1 mana to animate Mana Crypt with Karn, Silver Golem. This turns Mana Crypt into a 0/0 artifact creature, which dies as soon as statebased effects are checked. Salvaging Station triggers.

3. With the trigger on the stack, tap, Salvaging Station to reanimate Mana Crypt back to the battlefield.

4. Let the trigger resolve and untap Salvaging Station.

With each cycle, you will net 1 mana and add 1 to the gravestorm count. The infinite mana is great to break out of taxing effects (I hate the term STAX in EDH, as it genuinely does not exist in its truest for in the format) and is a backdoor way to Bitter Ordeal the table from out of nowhere. Sol ring cannot do this, because when animated, Karn cannot kill it. However, if Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite is on the table, feel free to use Sol Ring the same way as Mana Crypt to combo kill that player… they will have deserved it for having put an Elesh Norn on the table.

Mox Opal: With the amount of artifacts a Sharuum list should run, this is the closest thing to a real mox the deck can get. Recurs with Salvaging Station.

Lotus Bloom: The other Lotus in the deck, Lotus Bloom is a great turn 1 play for the deck, and when resurrected from the junkyard, functions as an actual lotus. This card sets up a lot of back-door Bitter Ordeals by being the source of BBB used to cast bitter ordeal at the end of your Karn/Mana Crypt chains. Some of the hardest decisions I have faced as a player have involved drawing a Lotus Bloom in a [card}Memory Jar[/card] hand and judging whether it is more optimal to suspend it, or let it hit the yard at the end of turn. Seems simple enough, but games have been won and lost on not getting that call right.

Mana Vault: It's a great mana accelerant, and BBFs with Voltaic Key. Remember that you can chose to pay an untap in the upkeep, but the damage is taken in the draw step. If you have an effect (like Necropotence) that makes you skip your draw step, you don't take damage.

Grunt Rocks - The Heavy Filters

Darksteel Ingot: This card has a non-exciting mana output-to-cost ratio, so why does this card make the cut?
Indestructability

If it was just its resistance to sweepers, it would not be enough. But our deck allows us to use Darksteel Ingot more effectively than that. Karn, Silver Golem can animate it into a 3/3 attacker or an even better defender. Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas can turn it into a 5/5, which when you factor in its indestructability, can not only get very aggressive, but can more importantly defend a planeswalker so well, you can realistically get it to ultimate. When your opponent is forced to Plow a terrible mana rock in order to not lose the game, that mana rock is doing its job.

Gilded Lotus and Thran Dynamo: Both cards are excellent at generating lots of mana. I prefer Thran Dynamo in theory, because of the lower cost output, which makes it the faster mana rock. In practice however, Gilded Lotus's ability to fix colors, especially with the filter lands, has proven to be more useful than its one mana increase has been a detriment. Both are excellent mana sources, and occasionally, can be used to pick off low hanging fruit when Karn animates them to get into the red zone.

Grim Monolith and Basalt Monolith: Both Monoliths are used as mana rock that bridge oour low costs plays to our higher cost plays with reasonable tempo. I've used both in my lists. Basalt Monolith has the increased benefit in creating infinite mana when combed with Rings of Brighthearth (you copy the untap ability, then hold priority and net and extra untap each cycle). However, my specific list does not make great use of infinite mana, and as such Grim Monolith has a better cost/benefit ratio for my specific list. I can understand players using either.

Signets vs. Talismans
Both are acceptable as early game mana sources. Which ones are best for your deck will depend on the rest of your mana sources, your curve, your sorcery-type bombs, and your budget. I've seen players build lists where all the available talismans and signets are in the same 100, but this is wrong, as both overlap with each other, but neither bridges the other out into tempo-positive plays in a way that a land drop couldn't do more effectively. You shouldn't be playing mana rocks for the sake of playing mana rocks. If you've played mana rocks on turn 1, 2, and 3, and have missed land drops on turn 3 and 4, and need to play a signet to have mana up on turn 5, it could be variance. But if this happens 3-4 games out of 10, it means your mana base is way off, you need to shave rocks, and you need to increase your land count. Players have had land counts posted here as low as 33, and I've gotten a few lists PMed to me running only 30 lands. If you're playing mana rocks on turn 4 or 5 instead of affecting the gamestate in a meaningful way, it's a problem, and when identifying that problem, the theme between these lists are that they run signets and talismans side by side. Here's my rule of thumb:

If you are running Yawgmoth's Will, counterspells, and cheap reactive answers (swords, plow, etc.) then your deck is biased towards running talismans. Your deck is one that has a greater need to keep mana open to interact with the opponent. By running talismans, you can bridge out your mana and still keep that 1 or 2 mana open fairly easily until you can untap. Upon tapping, you can then play that threat. For example, when playing your artifacts out of the yard with Yawgmoth's Will, you want those artifacts to tap immediately, and for no cost, as artifacts that don't do this can't let you play more things in that small window of time will provides. In these instances the amount of mana tends to be more important than the colors, as colors can be fixed by running a basic or three in the deck

If you are using Roar of Reclamation and answering threats with better threats, your deck is more biased to using signets. You have fewer instances where you need to keep mana up until you untap, and the caliber of threats needed to act in this way tend to be color specific (sphinxes, planeswalkers, mass artifact reanimation, etc.) Signets work better to consistently color fix your mana base, as the colors of mana tend to be more important than the quantity of mana. Your lands would in theory benefit from fewer basics, as the need to hit your colors is more important than not being able to tutor from the occasional Ghost Quarter activation pointed your way.

How Manarocks Drive the Lands you Use

Your decks's mana needs should dictate what lands you use, but when it comes to a deck as mana dense and mana hungry as Sharuum, your mana rocks are equally responsible for dictating the specific lands your decks should be using to optimize your mana output. In addition, one must plan for the targeted and mass LD to be played in some form, because let's face it, we're playing a general who's had a bounty on its head longer than Bin Laden. I preface the next few sections with saying that, in a perfect world, there wouldn't be color screw. However, in competition and high level play, there will be tussle of resources, and the fight will bleed over to your mana base. With that said, the below advice takes targeted and mass land destruction into consideration when building the manabase to play Sharuum.

Mana Output with Filterlands
Mystic Gate, Sunken Ruins, and Fetid Heath require an abundance of colored sources in order to be able to consistently put out a maximum range of colored mana sources. Colorless mana can't be used to filter out colored mana (which is why consideration must be given for playing/ omitting cards like Thran Dynamo, Everflowing Chalice, and Worn Powerstone in your lists for the sake of colored mana production). However, your mana needs may vary, and with that variance comes specific needs. Talismans can consistently work with filter-lands to get you double mono colored mana ((U)(U), (W)(W), or (B)(B)), but cannot easily get you triple mono colored mana ((U)(U)(U), (B)(B)(B), or (W)(W)(W)). If you're playing Soulscour, you should not be playing talismans to try to help you get (W)(W)(W) for the spell. For example, it would take two talismans and a filterland or one talisman and two filterlands to produce triple mono color as opposed to a single signet and one filterland, assuming no other colored lands on the table (which realistically can happen at the start of the game or after a MLD spell). It may not seem like much, but when you only have a one-turn window to cast what you need, it matters. When I cast Sphinxes (even Sharuum), I'm not looking to recast them all the time, just once or maybe twice. For that, using filters to triple color splash is fine, abeit a bit irresponsible. If you're playing cards that are more intensively color specific, like Lighthouse Chronologist (only being used to illustrate the point), then you're going to need to compliment it with basics, check lands, and the like, because you aren't splashing for these colors and effects, they are a big part of your game.

Using Basics in Your Mana Base:
I usually advocate using basics in your mana base in order to mitigate issues with certain silver bullets (Blood Moon and Back to Basics being the biggest reasons).

I have a philosophy for this topic: if you are playing a fair deck or a fair deck trying to do unfair things, you need basics. Period. Only if you are looking to be an unfair deck doing unfair things is it understandable to mitigate basics from your list.

The reason for this is simple: tempo risk vs. tempo reward. Unlike Vintage or Legacy, being hit with multiple Strip Mine is a real thing, but due to its cost and general lack of better utility, not everyone runs wasteland in their 99 (the majority do, but not everyone). If your deck is one that relies on grinding out the table to win games, then the number of cards you'll face that interact with your lands go way up. Cards like Acidic Slime, Terastodon, Chaos Warp and more will always look to remove a threatening permanent on turns 4-6, but on turns 8-10 when the dust has settled and there is a clear delineation of who's threatening to win and who is hanging fruit, you lands are now targets of opportunity. Unfair decks look to win either in one grand turn, or quickly and swiftly, so the game will usually not develop to one where an Acidic Slime is backbreaking. It shouldn't. The effect just isn't powerful enough compared to the strategy you are implementing.

Now, with regards to Sharuum, I would run basics unless you are looking to do unfair things with your manabase. In my specific list, 75% of my cards are colorless. This means 75 of my 100 cards are either land or a card where any mana producing land will generate the mana needed to pay for my spell. The other 25 cards require colors, with a few having strict color requirements. Most view my deck as an Esper deck when looking at my color scheme. I view my deck as a colorless deck splashing esper colors: not the same. This is one of the reasons why I have such a high count of lands that tap for colorless, but also one of the reasons why I run signets filterlands and Gilded Lotus over talismans, basics, and Thran Dynamo. This is not for everyone or every deck, but with my Sharuum list, my lands usually fulfill the colorless costs of spells, and I let my artifact mana color me out, using my filterlands to diversify or concentrate those specific colors I want as needed. In the event that I draw a mana-rock light hand, my mana base still has the fetch-targeting, duals, shocks, and filters needed to pull weight. A card you can't cast is a dead card, and so you should build your mana base to be able to cast everything you need, even through a strip mine or two.

Draw Spells

Many people ask why I prefer draw spells over card filtering. My philosophy on this is that card drawing, when playing multi-player games, exceeds card filtering due to the raw card advantage it generates. Even though card filtering spells can dig deeper, when you compare them to the best card drawing spells in the game (and this is a Vintage-esque format with a deep card pool) you can draw more cards with your individual spells (which mitigates the "digging deeper" argument) while allowing yourself more options in-game. More cards means more options, which is important when the games develop so quickly. The card you impulse for last turn may not be what you need now, and the card you need may have been binned to the bottom of your deck thanks to impulse. Lastly, you are playing multiplayer. When you are being targeted by an entire table, you are more likely to survive that barrage when you have an abundance of options (and more importantly, cards to burn/waste) when sitting down against multiple opponents. Whether you're getting hit with a Karn +4, hit by Nath's discard trigger, or any abundance of such effects, it's nice to have the extra cards in hand to protect your genuine lines of play. When looking at my draw spells, understand that most of these cards can be played or used under a Gaddock Teeg, whether it be through casting or reanimation. When I first started playing Sharuum, I played and optimized it under the harshest of conditions. There were 3-4 G/W/X decks playing at any given time, each playing an abundance of hate like Aura Shards, Austere Command, Teeg, and Fracturing Gust (I believe those Generals were Teneb, Gaddock Teeg, Rafiq of the Many, and that 0/5 Treefolk general for 3mana). Lowering the CMC of my draw effects and ensuring that they could be utilized under such hostile conditions went a long way to helping me win games, by ensuring that I could reload my hand after taking everything the table was dishing out.

(3) Thirst for Knowledge: It does what you want it to, and can do it at instant speed. You can't ask for more. Many people play it as soon as it's drawn, but depending on what's in hand, it may be better to sand-bag it.

(3) Windfall: Very explosive in the early turns, this card usually draws me a new hand of 5 or 6. It's not a card I usually sandbag.

(3) Timetwister: This card has two functions. The first is as a method of GY protection, When the table is hating on you, they will randomly kill almost anything that hits your side of the table, not matter how insignificant. Also, you will be the target of opportunity of a lot of opponent's effects, like shattering Spree, Austere Command, Aura Shards, and more. In those instances, I use Timetwister to ensure that Tormod's Crypt doesn't become insane against me. The second use it as a turn 1or 2 Serum Powder. Due to the generous mulligan rules of Commander, everyone starts out with a stronger than average hand. More than once, people have snap mulliganed into an Aura Shards, Viashino Heretic, or other hate card just because they see my general pre-cut. Pulling a timetwister early, especially after you've played ramp, will naturally lower the strength of your opponent's hands as a whole, which means you will tend to play against less hate in the early turns, which is when you are most vulnerable. Windfall doesn't do this because it leaves you more vulnerable to graveyard hate, which is more likely when everyone has drawn a new hand. It's also a great way to neuter top-deck tutors (which has happened more than once).

(4) Fact or Fiction: The only draw spell that does not meet the above criteria, this is the one draw spell that I usually sit on. It's the most player-friendly of them all because it's interactive, but can also function as an Entomb effect when top is in play.

(5) Mind's Eye: This is the draw spell of choice when you need to draw into gas, and no one is threatening the table. Many times, everyone is waiting for the first person to blink, especially when playing against other control decks. Use those extra do-nothing turnsto your advantage.

(5) Memory Jar: The most explosive card draw you have available, and one of the main reasons for Elixir of Immortality's inclusion in the deck. Games involving multiple Jar activations usually end in a Roar of Reclamation for 15+ artifacts, ending the game swiftly. However, there are other, more niche, uses. The first is to draw yourself a permanent 7 when you are desperate. The end-of-turn triggers of Jar can be stacked, such that if you have popped a Jar more than once in the same turn, you can chose which hand everyone keeps by stacking the triggers accordingly. This can be important because, if someone plays a Hurkyll's recall or Rebuild during your turn, you can pro-actively mess-up their anticipated lined of play by switching the hand they were expecting to keep. The second niche effect is to trap game-ending sorceries you know they have in-hand by exiling them for the turn (I've delayed a game-ending Tooth and Nail more than once in this fashion). The third is as an actual win condition. Certain spells will cause players to come dangerously close to decking (cards like Primal Surge, and Strategies like Kami of the Crescent Moon come to mind), and you can actually kill someone with the draw. Many people play with Eldrazi to give their decks "protection from mill" not realizing that when being milled, if Kozilek is one of the last cards in their deck, I can kill them with the shuffle trigger on the stack.

Tutors

(1) Entomb: Your most efficient mill card. This ensures that you are always one untap step from doing something unfair.

(1) Expedition Map: This slot doesn't get a lot of accolades, but pulls its weight, most of its uses are to get Mishra's Workshop, Academy Ruins, or Cavern of Souls. The casting cost on this one is extremely important, as it can get you the Cavern of Souls before counter-magic mana is up.

(1) Vampiric Tutor: The only top-deck tutor I will run in the deck, due to its synergy with all the draw and can-tripping artifacts in the deck, and its cheap casting cost. I would never play Imperial Seal in this deck because of its sorcery speed. This being an instant is of upmost importance.

(2) Artificer's Intuition: This is you entomb engine of choice. It lets you bin expensive artifacts to get the ramp needed to play your general. With a Salvaging Station in play, you can instead pay U to put each trinket (1CC or less artifact) into play, circumventing the need to cast spells, which is very important when playing against blue mages.

(2) Demonic Tutor: What hasn't been said about this card already. No one can give the excuse that it's too expensive for their list, no matter how budget it is. This card's effect is worth way more than its $10 - $15 price tag.

(2) Transmute Artifact: The most efficient Tinker effect since Tinker's been banned. It can entomb an artifact when necessary, but that's only come up 3 or 4 times over the years that ive been playing and perfecting this deck.

(3) Intuition: The go-to search spell. This card, like Gifts Ungiven, allows you to dump combo pieces to win on the spot, even if Sharuum is tucked, which is why Unburial Rites is the reanimation spell of choice for this build. However, with the addition of Savlaging Station and Trading Post, you can utilize Intuition successfully without being "all in" and risking losing those critical pieces

Planeswalkers

A lot of people simply stuff planeswalkers into the deck because they are "good". Planeswalkers are always good, that's why you can't crack them as consistently as rares in packs. Just be because they are "good" doesn't mean they belong in your deck. In my opinion, a planeswalker should provide you with effects you want on your creatures and spells, but with the protections of a planeswalker. Jace the Mind Sculptor is amazing, but the +2 and-1 effects aren't that useful to your deck, and neither is his ultimate. Even the +0 effect sin't amazing, because after the 1st use,, you're seeing the same 3, and there aren't that many spells in this deck that you wan to hide on the top of your library. This deck is not a good-stuff deck: it is a machine with many different overlapping and interlocking engines that give it greater utility and power than its individual cards can on their own. It is with ideas in mind, that the below planeswalkers have made the cut. Also, planeswalkers in this deck tend to stay on the table longer than in most other decks due to the hyper-effective defensive plays this deck is capable of making, protecting the planeswalkers better, thus drawing more heat off of the rest of your board.

(4) Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas: Every ability of this guy is something you want to have at any given point in the game. The card filtering is important, as the depth that you dig is just as important as the card advantage it nets, which is why this gets the nod over Jace 2.0 in this deck. The -1 is very important, as animating a Darksteel Citadel or Darksteel Ingot gives you an indestructible blocker/ attacker (which many of your effects can give pseudo-vigilance by untapping) and Animating an Inkmoth Nexus can win games in the most un-winnable circumstances. Even the ultimate is synergistic with the deck, as it can kill players out of nowhere, and net you the life needed to leverage wins against the rest of the table, offering you an alternate end-game.

(5) Tezzeret the Seeker : Untapping mana rocks is important for enabling the explosive turns that this guy can enable, but the –X ability is just as important, as you can Tutor utility pieces onto the table, and in dire straits, even get lands onto the table without actually playing lands. The ultimate also ends games, because Tezzerter acts as a Super-Karn without the mana requirement. Overall, these abilities compliment all the engines in the deck and also enable a different end-game.

(7) Karn Liberated: This slot was originally occupied by Spine of Ish Sah, but was quickly replaced due to having greater synergy with the deck than Spine, despite the fact it is not an artifact. The -3 ability allowed me to deal with certain obscene hate cards without fear of reanimation, especially white cards like Aura Shards Leonin Relic-Warder and Archon of Justice, which can be reanimated by Sun Titan, Karmic guide, and the infinite Reveillark tricks I yawn at. The +4 help me keep that broken player in check, but more importantly, draws heat off of Sharuum and the rest of my board as people mostly fear the -14 ability, which always draws scoops from the table. The -14 ability has only happnened once, but has forced concessions from the entire table.

Utility Artifacts

(0) Tormod's Crypt: The majority of decks I've faced play out of the graveyard in some from or another, whether it is through Reveillark tricks, Eternal Witness abuse, reanimation effects, etc. People skimp out too much on graveyard hate, and this is one of the only ways to cut off the easiest route to an EDH infinite.

(1) Aether Spellbomb: People usually see this as a bounce spell, but it has broader applications, it deals with indestructible creatures (especially when combined with a mass-draw spell), keeps your general's commander tax down, and when recurred with Salvaging Station, can draw you many cards over the course or a few turns or attack steps.

(1) Dispeller's Capsule: This is one of the unsung heroes of the deck, and is the only artifact & enchantment destruction cards that is synergistic with the recursion engines of the deck. Recurrable via salvaging Station.

(1) Elixir of Immortality: This card is our out to mill win –cons, and plays an important role by protecting us from Crypt-like effects. Recurrable via salvaging Station.

(1) Executioner's Capsule: Another slot that draws attackers away from our direction and is Recurrable via salvaging Station.

(1) Nihil Spellbomb: Everything said about Tormod's Crypt holds true here, except that when recurred with Salvaging Station, it becomes a draw engine.

(1) Sensei's Divining Top: Everyone knows the strength of Top. I will only add that Salvaging Station, Voltaic Key, and Rings make this stronger by actually allowing you to net cards with the draw activation, making it a draw spell and not just a card filtering spell.

(1) Voltaic Key: Untaps mana rock, lets you reuse some of your utility artifacts, and gives vigilance to attackers. Just a solid spell.

(1) Voyager Staff: On its own, it allows Sharuum to infinitely chump an attacker, and in a pinch, can save you from an attacker. When combined with Rings, you can start tearing up the board. Recurrable via salvaging Station.

(2) Sword of the Meek: One of the strongest combo pieces of the deck, it also happens to be one of the weakest slots in the deck. There isn't much utility for this card outside of Thopter Foundry abuse, and would be cut is it were not for the strength of Thopter Foundry.

(2) Thopter Foundry: The second-best combo enabler of the deck, most people see this card and cringe. The real value however, isn't with producing lots of flying 1/1's but the ability to protect your artifacts from getting tucked and exiled. This card is also a card-advantage engine when combined with Trading Post, which is nothing to sneeze at.

(2) Time Sieve: People fear the infinite turns. I use this as a way to get an extra turn to rebuild when people play the inevitable artifact sweeper. The fact that it can net me infinite turns (through Thopter/Sword combo or just Salvaging Station shenanigans) is just gravy. I mostly use this as a way to protect myself from exile effects pointed my way.

(3) Crucible of Worlds: A strong slot, with a unique effect in these colors. It's obviously good with fetches, but it shines when used with an active Bazaar. In those slow, grindy games, I can use intuition to set-up a recursion engine with any combination of this, Academy Ruins, Petrified Field, and Buried Ruins to ensure a steady stream or lands and /or artifact recursion effects.

(3) Ensnaring Bridge: Just a great way to say "NO" to the attack step. I have grinded many wins on the back of this card. It not only offers temporary protection to my planeswalkers (it will get destroyed), but when it sticks for the long-haul, can shut down everyone else's attack steps while I swing in with Thopters (using the game's draw step to enable them to attack). People forget that it offers the table protection from annihilator, which helps it survive when necessary. Even if you can't readily attack, it's sometimes a good idea to deploy threats while this is out, as you are always one Memory Jar activation away from a surprise attack. Bazaar help this card manage attackers very well.

(3) Rings of Brighthearth: Look at all the activated effecte this deck offers… then magine getting them twice. That's why it's in here.

(3) Sculpting Steel: The weaker half of the combo, this mostly copies other people's ramp. Once in a while you'll get to double up on a Salvaging Station, Trading Post or other insane effect. Sparingly, you'll get to copy a bad-ass beatstick or utility creature die to the prevalence of Phyrexian Metamorph (it becomes an artifact in addition to the creature it copies, allowing you to sometimes use this as a Clone).

(4) Tawnos's Coffin: This card is a better Voyager's Staff. It's half Maze of Ith and half Venser the Sojourner but all gravy in this deck. It's a reusable artifact that blinks Sharuum and can keep other threats on ice.

(4) Trading Post: This is such a house or a recursion spell. People ask if this is better than Salvaging Station. Neither is quite stronger than the other as they work differently, but the overlap is nice.

More Info on Trading Post Show

Trading Post acts as a complimentary Salvaging Station that trades the effectiveness of a single narrow ability for multiple abilities that work with multiple card engines and feedback loops in the deck.

• Discard a card: the effect allows you a discard outlet to reanimate things with Sharuum. My list contains recursive artifact-based blink effects. When combined with said blink effects (one of many self-recurring engines in my deck), you are essentially playing the card you discarded while bypassing the most hostile game zone: the stack. I hear that ignoring counterspells or cheating things into play is pretty good. Also sets up rediculous Roar of Reclamation and Open the Vaults plays. The gain life aspect isn't as important here, but in a rare pinch when playing unusual generals, has had some usefulness.

• Pay 1 life: put an 0/1 goat token into play - feeds into it's most important ability, making Post a stronger card, but more importantly, generates a creature that dies easily to trigger a Salvaging Station untap. Trading a life to buyback a crypt or spellbomb is decent in lists that look to abuse them.

• Sacrifice a creature: return target artifact from your graveyard to your hand - when facing the hate, it eliminates Sharuum's general tax. This allows you to work Sharuum as hard as you want and keep it cheap for the endgame. In conjunction with Thopter Foundry, enables a broken recursion engine that overlaps Salvaging Station, and branches it out to larger CC spells. It proactively helps you dodge graveyard hate, recycled your ETB effects, and allows you to slaver lock without skipping your draw step to do so.

• Sacrifice an artifact: draw a card - helps dodge targeted exile effects, tuck effects, and helps you dig for threats, especially when paired with top-deck tutors. Has also been combines with salvaging station to become a Skullclamp engine for artifacts when used on 1 drops like nihil spellbomb and Sensei's divining top, both of which net you 2 cards when sacrificed properly.

All these effects are decent and assume that you're only using Post once a turn. If you have untap effects, it gets better. The presence of Trading Post in my lists helps bridge interactions between the various card engines and feedback loops, creates new ones, and serves to protect existing ones on the table.

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(6) Mindslaver: People see this card and shudder. The truth is, it's only an infinite if there is one opponent left on the table. Sometimes, to pull in a player that's gotten out of hand, you need to use their deck / resources to dismantle themselves. This card allows you lines of play that wouldn't be possible without its use, and is very difficult to use optimally. Most of the games where it's used, it's only been used once that game, and although its possible to Slaver-Lock someone into a concession, I haven't needed to do it in almost 3 years. It is an avenue to an alternate win, but one that is painfully slow. It's best use is to deploy and use it when you can catch the most aggressive player with their pants down.

(6) Salvaging Station: One of the all-stars of the deck, it is an uncounterable source of card advantage. Aside from reviving your trinkets, it is also a great attacker. People forget about the untap trigger, which is the reason this card is so good. Manytimes, I will animate the trinket I am about to use, just to be able to get it back with Station. When Station itself is animated, it becomes a 6/6 that untaps when it gets chump-blocked, making it an ideal attacker. Just through simple combat, it can untap itself many times before you take your next turn, and in conjunction with Karn, Silver Golem and a little mana, can offer you protection from annihilator.

Other Sorceries

(3) Bitter Ordeal: The reason I prefer this win-con over Disciple of the Vault or Extractor demon is that it can be good all by itself. Something as normal as fetching a land and using a capsule to kill something (generating Gravestorm 3) can neuter the most abusive infinites your opponents' deck have. Using Thopter/Sword can neuter them, just as firing off a Time Sieve activation.

(5) Unburial Rites: Reanimation spells play well with our General, but this one is chosen over some of the more conventional reanimator spells due to its flashback. This is the only spell that will let you go infinite with Sharuum if it is tucked, by way of Intuition and etra mana alone. No other reanimation target you fetch out with an Intuition pile can do that (cuz it will most likely end up in the yard). In a sense, it forces them to give you Sharuum.

(6) Open the Vaults: You run almost 50 artifacts and you'see how good this is. Running both this and Roar of Reclamation makes your Crypt and Nihil Spellbomb that much better, as it makes this all the more one-sided.

(7) All Is Dust: This used to be interchanged with Oblivion Stone, but this is by far the stronger of the two as it leaves most of your board unscathed.

(7) Roar of Reclamation: Same as Open the Vaults, but even more one-sided.

Lands

There's not much to say about the mana base other than this configuration is the most optimal list available, and that the use of Chromantic Lantern and Urborg overlap very well and enable your fetchland to tap as actual mana sources. They also allow Bazaar and Mishra's workshop, Ancient Tomb, and Mana Confluence to tap for mana normally, which is more important that one would think it is. I'll only elaborate where necessary.

Fetch Engine: Flooded Strand, Godless Shrine, Hallowed Fountain, Marsh Flats, Polluted Delta, Scrubland, Tundra, Underground Sea, Watery Grave.

Mana Acceleration: Ancient Tomb, Crystal Vein, Gemstone Cavern, Mishra's Workshop.

Artifact Lands: Ancient Den, Darksteel Citadel, Seat of the Synod, Vault of Whispers.

Rainbow Lands: City of Brass, Command Tower, Glimmervoid, Reflecting Pool.

Tarnished Citadel: The damage dealt is well worth having another Rainbow land that comes into play untapped, and can mana fix in conjunction with the filter lands.

Mana Fixing: Fetid Heath, Mystic Gate, Sunken Ruins, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.

Utility Lands: Academy Ruins, Buried Ruin: I run the 4-land artifact/land recursion engine of Academy Ruins, Buried Ruin, Petrified Field and Crucible of Worlds to be able to ensure that, if a piece gets hit with graveyard hate, the other 3 will still keep the engine going.

Bazaar of Baghdad: A difficult card to use optimally, Bazaar feeds into a lot of other engines and feedback loops in the deck. When games get grindy, the recursion engines can let Bazaar become a card advantage engine when you lack a hand. Urborg and Chromatic Lantern allow this to also tap for mana when necessary.

Bazaar Mini-Primer Show

Bazaar is the most skill intensive card to use in Vintage, and I would argue the game of Magic. Bazaar of Baghdad is a card that trades card selection for card advantage. Because of this, the card filtering has to generate a ridiculous amount if advantage the card to make up for the card advantage you are losing to use it. Because of this, the cards surrounding Bazaar need to pull the most amount of weight possible.

In the game of magic, you naturally only draw one card a turn. That card drawn will revert back to a +0 advantage when you play that card. Bazaar converts that natural +1 advantage into a +0 advantage in exchange for seeing two more cards from your deck. However, each card you play after a Bazaar use will put you at -1 advantage to play it. If you use a Bazaar liberally, you will run yourself out of a hand. The turn you play Bazaar essentially is equivalent to missing a land drop, as Bazaar does not tap for mana.

This is a lot of disadvantage to manage for using one card. However, getting to see two extra cards a turn, without the use of any additional card or mana investment is huge and if managed competently, can lead to tempo blow-outs from which no one will be able to recover.

Bazaar is used primarily for digging and card filtering purposes. The two are not synonymous. When digging, the deck pilot is looking for specific cards or effects and utilizing Bazaar as a means of finding those cards or effects.
(Example: You have a Worldgorger Dragon in your graveyard and you are looking for one of many Animate Dead effects to create your infinite Mana loop.)

Through filtering, a player can trade out useless cards in hand for those that have more immediate value.
(Example: You have a Blightsteel Colossus and Sphinx of the Steel Wind, neither of which you have the colors or mana to cast, so you activate Bazaar to draw 2 cards, keeping other cards that you can cast).

Conveniently, Bazaar puts the cards in a zone very convenient for creating huge tempo gains and generating tons of abuse and value: the graveyard. There are exceptions to when you Bazaar for value, and those exceptions will come up somewhat regularly. With that said, here are the basic guidelines for Bazaar useage in any format it's legal in:

How to Manage Bazaar Activations

In order to use a Bazaar, you have to play it. Because it does not generate mana, the most optimal time for you to play Bazaar if Baghdad is under the following conditions:

• You have enough cheap mana acceleration such that playing Bazaar for the turn does not equate to tempo loss of mana for the turn.

• You do not otherwise have a land drop for the turn.

• You have an effect that will allow Bazaar to tap for mana at no tempo loss to you (such as an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.)

• You recognize early on that you are required to hit specific resources before a specific amount of time, and you need to filter with Bazaar to guarantee you hit those resources. It could be a certain mana threshold with which to operate, or it could be a certain engine that will allow you to play through an impending game condition.

Guidelines for Activating your Bazaar

• If you have 3 or more cards in hand it is usually safe to Bazaar. That will allow you to play a land and a spell.

• When you have 2 cards in you will need only be able to keep one of them, so that value has to be great because you will lose 3. You will only be able to play a land or a spell.

• Never Bazaar with one card in hand. You will lose your entire hand for little to no benefit. You will need to wait a turn to draw up to two cards, then you will be able to keep one, like the senario above.

• If you have no cards in hand, you can elect to use Bazaar during your upkeep. If you do, you simply draw and pitch two cards, then draw and keep your card during your draw step.

Bazaar of course gets better when you have effects that allow you to use your graveyard as a resource: Sharuum offers is the ability to do so. When the game state allows us to do so we can use Bazaar as a way to gain card advantage, not lose it. Sometimes, you will filter into a game breaker (like Open the Vaults or Roar of Reclamation).

Bazaar Value Engines and Interactions

Bazaar + Sharuum & Tawnos's Coffin / Conjurer's Closet
When you Bazaar, you can pitch whatever cards you want to get out directly into play. When you trigger the Coffin or Closet, you'll get whatever artifact you target with Sharuum. This generates ridiculous advantage and tempo boost, and is the #1 way to beat counter-spell heavy decks like Azami.

Bazaar + Crucible of Worlds
This engine allows you to break even on the Bazaar -1 card advantage. You can use Bazaar to ensure you hit your land drops. Just pitch your lands to Bazaar and replay them out of the yard.

Bazaar + Salvaging Station
This is the same with Bazaar except that you are pitching your cogs to put them into play instead of lands.

Bazaar + Ensnaring Bridge
You can use Bazaar to manage your hand size for Ensnaring Bridge, while digging for a permanent answer for the creatures you are keeping from attacking you. Ensnaring Bridge will eventually get blown off the table, so when it does, you want to be ready. Sometimes the answer or enabler you dig into (Karn Liberated, either Tez, or Memory Jar. Ensnaring bridge is also a card that slows down the pace of the game enough to allow Bazaar to become even more impactful than usual. In a sense, it's secondary role is a great way to protect your Bazaar digging.

Bazaar + Memory Jar
You can get maximum value from Jar and even use Jar to dig for specific cards to break games open. With a Mem-Jar on the table, crack the Jar to draw seven on your last opponent's end step (the one who goes immediately before you do). Activate Bazaar while still in the end step to draw 2 and pitch 3. Then on your draw step, draw your card and activate Bazaar to draw another 2 cards. This allows you to see a maximum 12 cards through a single Jar activation: this play digs you deep enough to act as a tutor for most overlapping cards or effects (cards or effects that play similar roles as another card or effect in your deck).

Bazaar + Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas / Mind's Eye / Sensei's Divining Top & Voltaic Key
Tez, AoB's +1 allows you to use Bazaar and mitigate the -1 are advantage for the activation, and plugs very well into interactions like Crucible and Salvaging Station, to even net you +2 and occasionally +3 advantage with a Bazaar activation, which is along the line of Uba Mask abuse.

Also, when filtering through your deck, you may occasionally filter into a Roar of Reclamation, Open the Vaults, Trading Post, or other spell or engine, Bazaar or otherwise, that completely changes the equation for which you value Bazaar activations (usually it will break Bazaar in half). This is not by accident: in my list, a Bazaar, properly used and left unchecked, will end the game. Period.

Open the Vaults and Roar of Reclamation will usually become .5X for 1's where X is the number of cards in your graveyard. Trading Post will turn your thopters and Myr tokens into Regrowths with an active mill engine (via Bazaar) online.

There are other minor interactions, like surprising your opponents with creatures in response to a Living Death, generating instant threshold for Cephalid Coliseum between an opponent's end-of-step and your upkeep, and it's obvious synergy with just your general.

Cavern of Souls: It's really pulled its weight against blue mages.

Cephalid Coliseum, Inkmoth Nexus, Petrified Field, Phyrexia's Core, Strip Mine, Wasteland.

Deck Strategy Show

You will need to stretch every bit of utility out of this deck in order to have success with it. There are many card advantage engines built into the deck. Some of them overlap, in order to conserve card slots in the deck, and some don't. They all serve to net you the most advantage giving the 100 card deck construction constraints. I am going to give insight into the various engines of the deck and how these individual pieces come together as a system to help the deck function as a well-oiled machine.

System - Draw Engine

Primary Pieces: Thirst for Knowledge, Windfall, Timetwister, Fact or Fiction, Memory Jar, Mind's Eye, Sandstone Oracle.

Secondary Pieces: Nihil Spellbomb, Sensei's Divining Top, Aether Spellbomb, Trading Post, Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, Bazaar of Baghdad, Cephalid Coliseum.

Purpose: These cards work together to create a card advantage and card filtering engine. The primary pieces inject the deck with burst card draw to keep the cards flowing to help build your board and help you reload after the eventual board sweeper. The secondary pieces are there to interface with card engines that the primary pieces dig you into, which will allow you to draw cards freely as abilities and not spells. This allows you to draw as many cards as you'd like at will, becoming a system that is much more difficult to disrupt and nets long-term advantage.

System - Tutor Engine

Primary Pieces: Entomb, Expedition Map, Vampiric Tutor, Demonic Tutor, Transmute Artifact, Intuition.

Secondary Pieces: Artificer's Intuition, Tezzeret the Seeker , Memory Jar.

Purpose: The deck uses tutors to bridge the gap between explosiveness and effectiveness. This deck utilizes cogs (0- casting cost and 1 casting cost utility artifacts) as the main workhorses for repeatable utility effects. The primary tutors work to stabilize (and sometimes cripple) the board so you can set up your secondary tutors (which interface with many of the deck's overlapping engines) so they can stay on the board to incrementally give you more ways to interact with opponents to keep them in check while you build to "go off". However, many times you will just fall into an insta-win opportunity early enough to take it, despite resistance from the table.

System - Defensive Engines

Purpose: These cards serve to protect your cards from global and targeted effects in order to maintain the most amount of decision play options and decision trees available to in-game. These systems are the bread and butter of the deck as they not only protect each card, but most also aid in furthering your board presence and disruptive capabilities.

Protection from Exile Removal (in play): Voyager Staff, Aether Spellbomb, Dispeller's Capsule, Thopter Foundry, Time Sieve, Tawnos's Coffin, Trading Post, Kuldotha Forgemaster, Phyrexia's Core.

Protection from Exile (graveyard removal): Timetwister, Elixir of Immortality, Buried Ruin, Academy Ruins.

Combat Protection: Ensnaring Bridge, Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, Sphinx of the Steel Wind, Thopter / Sword Combo, Voyager Staff, Tawnos's Coffin, Karn, Silver Golem, Myr Battlesphere.

Life Loss / Direct Damage Protection: Sphinx of the Steel Wind, Thopter Foundry, Elixir of Immortality, Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, Trading Post.

Proactive Prevention: Tormod's Crypt, Nihil Spellbomb, Dispeller's Capsule, Executioner's Capsule, Karn Liberated, Duplicant, Phyrexian Metamorph, Karn, Silver Golem, Bitter Ordeal, Magister Sphinx, All Is Dust, Expedition Map targets, Myr Battlesphere.

System - Recursive Engine

Primary Pieces: Sharuum the Hegemon, Salvaging Station, Tawnos's Coffin, Trading Post, Rings of Brighthearth.

Secondary Pieces: Voyager Staff, Voltaic Key, Roar of Reclamation, Open the Vaults, Unburial Rites, Crucible of Worlds, Karn, Silver Golem, Venser, the Sojourner, Phyrexian Metamorph / Sculpting Steel.

Purpose: These are the cards which, when they interact together, allow the deck to recycle and compound its effects into an insurmountable advantage over the rest of the table. When certain combinations of cards (recursive and otherwise) come together, they create game situations where you essentially go infinite (effects, mana, turns, etc.) or create such a board state that winning is inevitable.

Going Infinite

I describe this as the ability of the deck to reduce relevant interactivity and create effects and loops that enable the deck to function without using the stack. The closer the deck performs to this threshold, the more difficult it becomes for opponents to stop the deck from performing. Going infinite requires tapping into the deck's recursive engine in such a manner where you are using effects that would normally protect the deck's internal components and utilizing them to instead generate advantage.

The deck revolves around to functionally similar recursive pieces: Sharuum the Hegemon and Salvaging Station. Salvaging Station has the ability to trigger and recur cogs fair artifacts (with casting cost 1 or less, which we will call cogs for the purpose of this primer) an unfair number of times. Sharuum can recur unfair artifacts a "fair" number of times. Salvaging Station triggers when any creature dies, and Sharuum triggers upon entering the battlefield. Both events can happen pretty often, and the various engines of this deck feed into both components of this engine.

With Salvaging Station, every time a wrath effect is played or combat damage is assigned but before it is dealt, you can respond with lots of effects so that when the creatures hit the graveyard you can respond between each untap trigger, allowing you to vastly manipulate the table and end up with no net loss of board presence to your field. Furthermore, you create effects that will force Salvaging Station to trigger. Karn Silver Golem is invaluable in this regard. Karn can turn your 0 cost artifact into creatures, killing them, and forcing Salvaging Station to trigger, whereby you can return it to the field (this allows Mana Crypt to generate infinite colorless mana for you) You can also animate artifacts your 0-cost cogs before sacrificing them, in order to allow Salvaging Station to bring them back to play.

Sharuum and a "blink effect" will work very much the same way, but not nearly as efficiently. There are only 3 blink effects in the deck: Voyager Staff, Venser the Sojourner, and Tawnos's Coffin. For voyager staff, one would need a repeatable way to recur it (Salvaging Station) in order to start gaining ETB triggers. The other two blink effects can work without any outside assistance. Venser is the weaker of the remaining two blink effects, but has a much higher ceiling for degeneracy. Tawnos's coffin is the more resilient of the two and compliments Sharuum very well. Specifically, Tawnos's Coffin blinks the target back in when it is either untapped or destroyed, which allows you to pull the trigger when your last opponent passes you the turn. If a player targets Sharuum, you can blink Sharuum to fizzle the spell, but if the opponent targets the Coffin for destruction, you can blink Sharuum in response, and when the coffin dies, it will trigger Sharuum to bring the coffin back. You can also use Tezzeret or Voltaic Key to reuse the coffin. This flexibility and resiliency is the reason I prefer coffin to alternatives like Conjurer's closet.

Both of these cards can function mutually exclusively but also interact very well together. More so, every system in the deck is built to interface with either or both of these engines. Time Sieve works with Salvaging Station as a way to both protect Salvaging Station from exile effects, and to quickly populate your board to take extra turns. Venser works to reset both. When you start interfacing other engines into the recursion engine, you start breaking these effects wide open. Plugging Memory Jar into the Sharuum engine gives you a ridiculous card advantage engine. Plugging Karn into Salvaging Station hakes for a hyper efficient Station engine. Plugging Nihil Spellbomb into the Station engine makes for an efficient draw engine, whereby you cantrip for every creature that dies while clearing out graveyards. While labeled a recursive piece, when working with a recursive system, Trading Post helps bridge all the engines together through converting one resource into another.

One important piece in kick-starting this engine is Cavern of Souls. Cavern of Souls allows you to bypass counter-magic, making it very difficult for opponents to impede your ability to jumpstart the recursion engine. The only real way to "buy time" against a board state of mana, an inactive Sharuum, and a Cavern of Souls is recursive bounce, which itself can be responded to with various effects throughout all of our engines to make that recursive bounce line-of-play less effective for the opponent.

Date added	8 years
Last updated	2 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	24 - 0 Mythic Rares 49 - 0 Rares 14 - 0 Uncommons 13 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.13
Tokens	Emblem Venser, the Sojourner, Goat 0/1 W, Myr 1/1 C, Thopter 1/1 U
Folders	Artyfacts examples, Retired Decks, inspirational decks, Memory Bank, Favorites, Sharuum
Based on	Sharuum Engine: Brown Esper Kitty Stefouch EDH