Daretti, Stax Savant

Commander / EDH Artifact Competitive Group Slug Multiplayer Stax

bimjowen

Artifact (42)

• 1x Alhammarret's Archive
• 1x Anvil of Bogardan
• 1x Basalt Monolith
• 1x Crucible of Worlds
• 1x Cursed Totem
• 1x Defense Grid
• 1x Ensnaring Bridge
• 1x Everflowing Chalice
• 1x Expedition Map
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Gilded Lotus
• 1x Grafdigger's Cage
• 1x Grim Monolith
• 1x Lion's Eye Diamond
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Memory Jar
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Mindslaver
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Mox Opal
• 1x Mycosynth Wellspring
• 1x Possessed Portal
• 1x Rings of Brighthearth
• 1x Sculpting Steel
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Smokestack
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Sphere of Resistance
• 1x Staff of Domination
• 1x Static Orb
• 1x Tangle Wire
• 1x The Chain Veil
• 1x Thought Vessel
• 1x Thran Dynamo
• 1x Tormod's Crypt
• 1x Torpor Orb
• 1x Trinisphere
• 1x Uba Mask
• 1x Voltaic Key
• 1x Ward of Bones
• 1x Winter Orb

Land (32)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Blinkmoth Well
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Boseiju, Who Shelters All
• 1x Buried Ruin
• 1x Darksteel Citadel
• 1x Drownyard Temple
• 1x Dust Bowl
• 1x Geier Reach Sanitarium
• 1x Great Furnace
• 1x Inventors' Fair
• 1x Kher Keep
• 13x Mountain
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Sea Gate Wreckage
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Thespian's Stage
• 1x Wasteland
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Sorcery (10)

• 1x Cathartic Reunion
• 1x Decree of Annihilation
• 1x Destructive Force
• 1x Devastation
• 1x Gamble
• 1x Pyroclasm
• 1x Rolling Earthquake
• 1x Scrap Mastery
• 1x Trash for Treasure
• 1x Wheel of Fortune

Commander (1)

Creature (10)

• 1x Goblin Welder
• 1x Imperial Recruiter
• 1x Magus of the Moon
• 1x Magus of the Wheel
• 1x Masticore
• 1x Metalworker
• 1x Myr Retriever
• 1x Scrap Trawler
• 1x Squee, Goblin Nabob
• 1x Wurmcoil Engine

Planeswalker (2)

• 1x Chandra Ablaze
• 1x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon

Enchantment (2)

• 1x Blood Moon
• 1x Stranglehold

Instant (1)

• 1x Chaos Warp

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Maybeboard

Land (5)

• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Bazaar of Baghdad
• 1x Mishra's Workshop
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

Artifact (1)

• 1x Krark-Clan Ironworks

Sorcery (1)

• 1x All is Dust

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NOTE: This decklist has been dramatically revamped for competitive play. The average CMC is now 3.03, down from 3.5!

Intro

Hi folks! Thanks for taking a look at my Daretti competitive EDH deck. I have been compiling feedback from folks on this thread as well as on Reddit. I take all feedback seriously and I really do consider every potential suggestion!

Significant Recent Changes (For Those of You Who've Been Following This Deck's Evolution!):

• Cut the majority of the cute "value" cards, such as Solemn Simulacrum and Filigree Familiar .
• Added more mana rocks, including Gilded Lotus and Thran Dynamo.
• Re-added several game-ending sorceries, including Devastation and Decree of Annihilation.
• Also added Ward of Bones as a game-ending follow-up to these MLD spells.
• Cut Vandalblast and Mycosynth Lattice, as the latter card is a dead-draw without the former.
• Removed the Madness subtheme. While really cute and really fun, these cards weren't consistently powerful enough to justify including.
• Cut Thorn of Amethyst. Great card, but hurts me more than it hurts my meta.
• Cut Pyroblast and Red Elemental Blast . Since I'm generally perceived as the "least threatening" deck at the table, and because the build up of my stax effects is sort of insidious and resilient (since I can get them back with Daretti, Scrap Mastery , and Trash for Treasure ), it's not often people are countering my spells. Plus, I generally am tapping out on my turns anyway. Instant speed responses are also very non-synergistic with my Uba Mask and my Defense Grid. We also have Boseiju, Who Shelters All to protect our MLD spells, as well as Expedition Map to tutor it up.
• Cut all the no-value 1 and 2 CMC artifact creatures that were only meant to be blockers for Daretti. Replaced these with artifact creatures that generate value when sacced to Daretti's -2.

Daretti's Gameplan

This is a stax deck that attempts to resolve Daretti as early as possible, then grind the game to a crawl with stax pieces as we derive value from our commander, Goblin Welder, The Chain Veil, and our artifacts. We have a fair number of stax and tax effects to harm combo/control players, which make up a large majority of the competitive EDH decks out there. The Moon effects are not to be underestimated, as they really can damage multicolor decks, the new 4 color generals in particular. Our goal here is to create an undesirable game state for our opponents and win through a miserable war of attrition.

My LGS Meta

My meta is largely Storm-light. I hesitate to call my meta "non-competitive" because there are horrendously powerful decks that can go off as early as turn 4 if not interacted with. A few folks play Thrasios/X. One pilot uses a budgetless CV Teferi deck. Aside from these tier 1 decks, there's a mediocre Ydris deck, a lot of midrange decks, a couple of Tasigur decks (none of which are as good as mine <3), several VERY tuned Breya decks, a budgetless Captain Sisay deck, a Grand Arbiter Augustine IV stax deck, a ton of Meren variants, some of which are midrange and some of which run stax, a ton of Atraxa variants (I HATE THAT THIS DAMN THING FLIES, it kills Daretti so often!), a Gitrog combo deck, as well as several aggro decks (think Mayael the Anima and Kaalia value decks) and some very fast elfball decks. Note that the prevalent aggro and elf decks are the reason I run so many boardwipes such as Pyroclasm and Rolling Earthquake. If you decide to test my deck, please feel free to slot these meta-dependent cards out for additional anti-Storm or anti-control cards.

Win Conditions

We have a number of win cons. Daretti or any of our card draw engines (Sensei's Top, Chandra Ablaze, Magus of the Wheel, Wheel of Fortune, Cathartic Reunion, Staff of Domination, Anvil of Bogardan, Memory Jar, or our card draw activated abilities on our lands) combined with Alhammarret's Archive allows us to rapidly generate card advantage in a way mono-red seldom can. Rings of Brighthearth and The Chain Veil is a powerful value engine with Daretti, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and Chandra Ablaze . You can also assemble miserable hard locks with Smokestack and Possessed Portal. It takes some setup, but in grindy games you can get there. Possessed Portal in particular can create some of the most toxic, hilarious game states ever -- not allowing anyone to draw cards is just pure delight. The main issue with the Portal is Tasigur and Thrasios can play around it, so use it with care.

Going Infinite

Rings of Brighthearth goes infinite with Basalt Monolith. With Staff of Domination in play, this allows us to draw much of our deck, cast Devastation or Decree of Annihilation, and follow up with Daretti and a Ward of Bones or a Possessed Portal to close out the game. Alternately, Metalworker, three artifacts in our hand, and Staff of Domination produces infinite mana as well. Everflowing Chalice with 4 counters on it + Voltaic Key + Rings of Brighthearth also goes infinite. This one is a bit convoluted, but it can happen.

Our Planeswalker Options

Currently, it seems Chandra Ablaze is the best iteration of Chandra to run as her -2 fills our yard, refills our hand, and harms the hands of our opponents all at once. She is also absolutely insane with both Possessed Portal (EVERYONE IS HELLBENT NOW!) and with Alhammarret's Archive (you guys pitch your hands and draw 3, I'll pitch my hand and draw 6, sounds good!). Also, her +1 is surprisingly effective at occasionally taking out problem creatures. Chandra, Torch of Defiance is a bit like Jace, the Mind Sculptor: she isn't as amazing in multiplayer as she is in 1v1 but she isn't bad. YMMV. I personally took her out after a lot of testing. I most often found myself wanting to -3 her to shoot a dangerous creature or +1 her for card advantage. Chandra, Flamecaller is another option and while her 0 ability is also great with Alhammarret's Archive and fills our graveyard, it only nets us 1 extra card each time we use it. I haven't been able to make room for her as her CMC is at the top of our curve and she's a little worse than Chandra Ablaze. Ugin, the Spirit Dragon generally removes problematic permanents that mono-red cannot deal with otherwise; since we run so many artifacts, using his -X ability rarely harms our board state (particularly if Daretti is not in play).

Sac Fodder for Daretti's -2 Ability

• Wurmcoil Engine (really great value)
• Myr Retriever (really great value)
• Scrap Trawler (really great value)
• Mycosynth Wellspring (really great value)
• Everflowing Chalice (can be used as a value sac cast for 0)
• Lion's Eye Diamond (see above -- although it's a hilarious use of a $100 card -- sometimes you just don't want to pitch that hand! lol)
• The two artifact lands
• Any of our tapped mana rocks
• Voltaic Key
• Sensei's Divining Top

Odd Cards in the Deck

• Probably the strangest card in the deck is Masticore which simply does not see play in cEDH. However, with pretty extensive testing I have found him to be strangely powerful. Masticore comes out early with ramp or with Daretti's -2, he protects Daretti with his powerful body and regeneration, he provides an additional discard outlet for Daretti to abuse, and he can easily ping away mana dorks or troublesome, low-toughness commanders or problem creatures (think Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Kataki, War's Wage, and Gaddock Teeg). He's an awkwardly-relevant Teferi, Temporal Archmage murderer/deterrent, too!
• A lot of folks have told me Alhammarret's Archive is sub-optimal. This may be true, but combined with Daretti's +2, Anvil of Bogardan, Sensei's Divining Top or a wheel, Archive creates some incredible card advantage that simply is not otherwise available to mono-red. I do believe the slow nature of the Archive is offset by its insane power, and while it will always be a high priority target in a 1v1 game, in a multiplayer game our permanents are generally not the priority for our opponents to remove at a competitive table.
• Uba Mask is interesting tech that removes the ability for anyone to play new cards at instant speed, and it also prevents any creatures from attacking once we have Ensnaring Bridge in play.

Land Tech

Our lands provide our mono red deck with some much needed utility. Blinkmoth Well is a nice piece of tech that allows us to dodge the effects of Winter Orb and Static Orb. Drownyard Temple allows us to get a head start if a land destruction spell resolves, and it also allows us to safely pitch it to Daretti and then bring it back to play. Some of our other lands provide self-explanatory utility, while others simply ramp our mana forward. Darksteel Citadel survives land destruction, and both Citadel and Great Furnace are artifacts that can be sacrificed to Daretti's -2. With Crucible of Worlds in play, this can be repeatedly abused. Likewise, Strip Mine and Wasteland always cause headaches with Crucible, particularly in games with a smaller number of opponents.

Other Considerations

I am currently strongly considering adding Paradox Engine since it can allow the deck to pseudo-"storm" off once it has a lot of mana rocks in play. However, I don't think this is consistent enough to be worthy of a slot. I am also currently testing Krark-Clan Ironworks as it has glorious synergy with Scrap Mastery : sacrifice all our artifacts in response to Scrap Mastery and pull them all back to play in addition to whatever was in our graveyard. It's a fairly nasty combo pointed out to me by Gates_88 on Reddit -- I'm currently deciding whether Krark-Clan is worthy of inclusion outside of the combo.

Considerations for an Unlimited Budget

1. Bazaar of Baghdad: amazing synergy with Daretti.
2. Mishra's Workshop: the best artifact ramp in the game.
3. The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale: hoses a lot of creature-based strategies and barely harms us.

Unfortunately, these cards are worth well over $3000. I am working toward their acquisition. However, if you play online or your LGS allows proxies, by all means: add these to the deck.

Cards I'm Working Toward Acquiring:

1. Treasonous Ogre: for fast mana ramp.
2. Krark-Clan Ironworks: for mana ramp, and for the synergy described above with Scrap Mastery .
3. City of Traitors: for fast mana ramp.
4. Gemstone Caverns: for fast mana ramp.

Notable Exclusions

• Lotus Petal: Daretti is not a powerful-enough turn 1 play in a multiplayer game to justify running suicide single-turn ramp effects that cause a major net-loss in card advantage.
• Simian Spirit Guide: See above.
• Epicenter : weak to Rest in Peace / other graveyard hate.
• Jokulhaups : hurts our board state too badly to justify including. Conversely, Decree of Annihilation earns a slot due to its modality: cycling it is an un-counterable MLD effect, and hard-casting it with Daretti as the only planeswalker in play is game over if it resolves.
• Ruination : hurts our land base too badly. A lot of decks can play around this with mana rocks and mana dorks, and sometimes resolving this actually ends up hurting us more than it helps us. It's a lot better in a deck that plays more basics, so YMMV.

Thanks for Reading!

Feel free to take a look at the "Maybeboard" to see if you agree with any of these potential inclusions, and if you do, please suggest which card I should remove for each. Thanks for taking a look! Let me know if you have any additional suggestions. Don't forget to UP-VOTE if you like my deck, or if you're just happy I'm trying hard to keep Daretti at the cEDH tables!

Top Ranked	Achieved #5 position overall 7 years ago
Date added	7 years
Last updated	3 years
Exclude colors	WUBG
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	19 - 0 Mythic Rares 46 - 0 Rares 16 - 0 Uncommons 6 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.03
Tokens	Emblem Daretti, Scrap Savant, Kobolds of Kher Keep 0/1 R, Wurm 3/3 C w/ Deathtouch, Wurm 3/3 C w/ Lifelink
Folders	asdasd, Other people's awesome decks, Saved, EDH Things, Helpful Decks, Stax Ideas, Cool + Interesting, maybe build, Cool EDH, EDH Decks By Others