I'm in the process of building several decks to have around the house to play with when my friends come over. The idea of agrro/control thopters intrigued me. Would love to know what I can do to improve the deck. My explanation of the deck is down below.
CREATURES (18)Ornithopter opens up our curve as a 0 drop. The flying is nice and this gives us an early target for Ghostfire Blade. Hangarback Walker is our big thopter generator of course. Play turn 2 for a 1/1 body that replaces itself. Buff it and keep swinging and either force them to pop it or pop it with Shrapnel Blast, burn them for 5 and get a wide board state.Thopter Engineer gives us two creatures for 3 mana and gives our thopters haste. Chief of the Foundry is our other 3 drop giving our artifact creatures +1/+1. It doesn't take long before you're swinging in with a lot of 2/2+ thopters. Whirler Rogue is one of our two 4 drops and givs us more thopters and the ability to force damage through. Pia and Kiran Nalaaar finishes out our creature list. This 4 drop gives us two more thopters and the ability to burn. Great for board stalls or finishing the game.
ARTIFACT (5)Ghostfire Blade will almost always e used to target one of our thopters. That means it costs 1 to place it and 1 to equip it. A 3/3 flying thopters in the early game is trouble. Eldrazi Monument I thought it would be cool to run a 1 of Eldrazi Monument as well. The flying doesn't really help, but the indestructible and 1/1 is nice. We shouldn't need it for more than a turn by the time we hit turn 5, but if we need to keep it around we can just sac a thopter to keep it running.
ENCHANTMENT (5)Ensoul Artifact is a real winner for us here. 2 mana slap it on to a thopter and go to town with our 5/5 flyer. Even if we only get one hit in we're applying a lot of pressure. Ghirapur AEther Grid is in as a one of. Good to break the board stall and can be a finisher for those last few points of damage we need.
INSTANT (8)Lightning Bolt and Shrapnel Blast are sitting in our main for the Bolt and Burn Thopter plan of attack.
BUT...
What I wanted to do with this deck was play to two different styles. If you want to go burn aggro, play the Bolt and Blast. If you'd rather play a little more mid game, swap them out for the Thopter Spy Network, Mana Leak and Condescend. That's what our 4th Hangarback in the side board is for too (longer game to make more thopters). In the more expanded game you'll want to pull out a couple mountains for our sideboarded islands. Phyrexian Revoker also comes in allowing us to lockdown some of the activated abilities of bigger threats. Pia and Kiran and Aether Grid serve as our win conditions along with the typical thopter strike.
Tl;dr - the aggro version of this deck wants to create tokens quickly, hit hard, hit fast, and burn. The midgame version of this deck wants to counter, make more tokens over a longer period, and swing in for a lot of damage at once.
This deck comes in at $150 and is a pretty good deal. You won't be winning any tournaments with it, but it's a fun deck that can switch play styles in between games. I think this deck will make a nice addition to the kitchen table along with the Goblins, Bounce'n'Blink, Allies, and Landfall decks.
