Look, I know you probably have a lot questions if you’ve looked at the deck list. Questions like “Why is this Goblin Charbelcher deck running 32 lands?” and “Where is your Walking Ballista in your artifact combo deck?” In this guide I will do my best to answer these questions as well as many you didn’t even ask.
What the heck is this pile?
This deck is the culmination of years of tinkering in the blue red artifact combo space, and originally starting as the mono red 2015 commander pre-con. It took a lot of different builds and a lot of matches to get to the point where I have deliberately made this deck a lot worse then it should be. My aim with this build is to play some extremely powerful cards which are personal favourites of mine at a power level which allows play at more casual tables. So I set myself the challenge of finding a way to make a deck that is fair, but is also a combo deck that plays most of the busted artifact fast mana. It does this by sticking heavily to the artifact theme in place of more generic good-stuff cards, playing as many fairer interactive cards as it can over more efficient combo pieces, and by introducing a big dose of randomness to many of its interactions and combo wins. It plays out as a control combo hybrid, while trying to avoid using stax pieces that prevent people from playing the game, instead trying to slow down and interfere with its opponents before scraping together an oddball combo win.
So how does it win?
The cleanest way to win with the deck is by generating infinite mana and artifact untaps then firing Goblin Charbelcher until everyone is dead.
This is the most boring way to win, and I would strongly encourage anyone looking to play this to avoid rushing to combo as quickly as possible. The most exciting and memorable games with this deck come from setting up fun value engines and blind top of the library flips. Being attacked with a Brago? Activate that Goblin Charbelcher with no idea what cards are on the top of your deck. Need to stop an opponents vital spell from resolving? Blind flip cards off the Blue players deck with Chaos Wand hoping to spike a counterspell. Set up a recurring Aether Spellbomb with Salvaging Station to keep a Ruric Thar, the Unbowed of the table. Good matches with this deck feel like you are always just evading being killed, working out lines to buy one more turn, or recur key cards over and over again. So don’t just rush to combo. Sometimes go get that Pithing Needle or Torpor Orb instead, maybe Icy Manipulator down their big threat with Meekstone in play. Have fun with it!
With all that said, there are many ways to set up the combo win, but I will cover the main types of line to victory you can look to set up.
1 - Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter
+ Mana Rocks + A Repeatable Effect.
Imprinting Dramatic Reversal onto Isochron Scepter with at least three manas worth of mana rocks gets you infinite mana and infinite non-land permanent untaps, this is a non-deterministic kill with Goblin Charbelcher as you can fire it an infinite number of times at your opponents but until you have been through your entire library, you can hits large runs of land and deal no damage for several activations in a row. Once you’ve activated it enough you will have ordered every card in your library in chunks to be able to consistently deal damage (since you put them on the bottom in any order), but I’ve never had anyone insist of playing it out since people can easily understand the loop and what it does.
2 - Basalt Monolith + Rings of Brighthearth + Voltaic Key & Goblin Charbelcher OR Sensei’s Divining Top
By copying the untap ability of Basalt Monolith with Rings of Brighthearth you can generate infinite mana, providing you have an extra two mana to start the chain. It’s a little complicated so I would look up an explanation of exactly how to explain what you are doing to your opponents if you are unfamiliar with the combo. Adding Voltaic Key allows infinite untaps of any artifact once you have infinite mana, you do this by copying its untap ability with rings and targeting itself with one of the untaps and your desired target with the other (note this combo does not work with Manifold Key as that cannot target itself with its untap ability). With this loop set up you can fire your Belcher infinite times just like the other loop.
The other key interaction to keep in mind is with Sensei’s Divining Top. With infinite mana and Rings you can copy Top’s tap ability to draw your entire library. With your first activation you draw a card and put Top on the top of your library, with the second you re-draw the Top and can continue from there.
3 - Codex Shredder + Krark-Clan Ironworks + Scrap Mastery
+ a whole bunch of artifacts
If you have a big ol’ pile of artifacts in play, sacrifice them all to the Ironworks, then sacrifice the Ironworks to itself, you’ll need to float at least two red mana from mana rocks on each loop for it to work as well as a minimum of eight colourless mana but ideally more to gain mana on each loop. Use the red mana to cast Scrap Mastery returning all the artifacts to play including Codex Shredder and Krack-Clan Ironworks, activate the Codex Shredder to return Scrap Mastery to your hand and then sacrifice all your artifacts to the Ironworks as before. If you add any mana sink to this loop you can activate it over and over as it is returned to play untapped, so you can draw your deck one at a time with an egg, blast them with Pyrite Spellbomb, or activate Goblin Charbelcher or Chaos Wand as many times as you want.
WORK IN PROGRESS
Why Nin, the Pain Artist?
Nin makes a fantastic commander for any non-linear density based combo deck because her ability always allows you access to a way cards that is not dependent on any specific synergy with the rest of your deck. This allows you to play fewer cards that simply draw you cards and really up the artifact count.
