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Bosh, Iron Golem - ArtiSMASH! (Retired)

Commander / EDH Artifact Mono-Red

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Maybeboard

Other (95)


"Red thinks artifacts are shiny and pretty, but it drops them a lot and likes to watch them explode."

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I bring you my latest commander deck featuring Bosh, Iron Golem . In practice, I find my favorite decks, the ones I have the most fun playing, end up being mono-colored. Maybe it's my timmy nature that has me reach for decks that singularly smash, but I also gravitate toward those that do it in interesting ways. I see Bosh in that vein and feel the same way about my multani-yavimays-avatar-the-land-is-angry "Multani" deck.

The most basic concept is to get artifacts out as fast as we can and start to swing and fling...dang, another good name for this deck.

My maybe board is made up of the cards that I chose to cut from the initial deck pool.

The general game plan is to use all the advantage of our artifact ramp to get big boy artifacts out for use with Bosh. I've focused on the untapped rocks (save for Worn Powerstone ) like Hedron Archive , Dreamstone Hedron , and Thran Dynamo and the zero mana artifacts like Mana Crypt and Mox Opal , to name a few. We can support and accelerate that strategy through damage doublers like Fiery Emancipation and activated ability copyers like Rings of Brighthearth , Illusionist Bracers and Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient .
The deck supports getting our big stuff on board in multiple ways. We have the aforementioned artifact ramp ( Worn Powerstone , Hedron Archive , Dreamstone Hedron , Thran Dynamo , Mana Crypt , Mox Opal , etc.). We are running Snow covered mountains to use with Extraplanar Lens . We also have multiple cost reducers like Ugin, the Ineffable , Helm of Awakening , and Jhoira's Familiar to get things out as fast as possible. Finally, we have more than one method of cheating them in through Sneak Attack , Quicksilver Amulet , Kuldotha Forgemaster , and Planar Bridge . The last two have the advantage of allowing us to drop directly from our deck and Planar Bridge has the added benefit of doing that for any permanent. Finally, we did choose to include Blinkmoth Urn and Mana Flare . These benefit our opponents too, but it can mean more for us (this needs more play testing), since we have some very juicy targets into which we can drop that mana.
The deck wants to increase it's damage as much as possible. We want to make every fling with Bosh, Iron Golem count and preferable for more than the cards CMC. We support this in a few different ways. We mentioned above Furnace of Rath and the spell copyers Ring of Brighthearth, Illusionist Bracers and Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient . Don't forget, these can stack, possibly making a 5 CMC fling hit for 20 damage. We can also use Heartless Hidetsugu to start cutting our opponents down. We have to be careful, because this affects us too, but with our flinging nature we can often outpace our opponents in damage dealt.
Artifacts can be fragile at times and with our entire strategy being tied to them, we need some good ways to recur them. As such, we've got a package that includes Scrap Trawler , Myr Retriever , and Junk Diver , among others. We also have to be conscientious of artifact wipe, with your Nevinyrral's Disk , Rampage of the Clans and the potentially free C20 Dismantling Wave ...red, white, and green all have artifact wipe plus a few different colorless options. For just those occasions Scrap Mastery and conscientious can be our saving grace.
The deck has a card draw suite and a protection package. Having enough or too much of one or the other is a fine balance to make. There are notable artifact card draw you find in many Bosh, Iron Golem decks out there that I excluded, like Mind's Eye . I am probably running more red draw than others. I am using both red wheel effects and including things like Faithless Looting and Forgotten Cave . I feel good about what I have in there for draw, but only time will tell. The same can be said with protection. Do I need the Swiftfoot Boots and Lightning Greaves of the world with the other protections (like Darksteel Forge ) and recursion I have? Another 'time will tell' item.
The deck has one big obvious way to win - throw those artifacts at your opponents until they dead. Even an opponent at 40 life could face down a Heartless Hidetsugu , Fiery Emancipation , and Illusionist's Bracers to cut their life to 20 and put them out of the game by flinging any random 4 drop with Bosh, Iron Golem . If life totals are lower, we might be able to fling three 3 drops to each of our opponents and wipe everyone out.

However, there are a couple other ways we can win. We've got a deck of big scary creatures that can smash face in addition to flinging face. Another fun way to win is to drop Grafted Exoskeleton on Bosh, Iron Golem and seriously reduce how much we need to fling into our opponents faces.

The first notable exclusion is no infinite mana combo's. I am not generally a big fan of infinite combos in magic. Though, if they require a lot of setup, I complain less than the turn 3 methods.

The second notable exclusion, while not absolute, is planeswalkers. I am rarely a fan of planeswalkers in EDH and only felt Daretti, Scrap Savant and Ugin, the Ineffable added enough value. It's a shame to leave out the Karn's of the world, but I couldn't argue they fit well enough.

There are other fatty's I considered; my maybe board is ripe with them. I trimmed down quit a bit from my starting point and aimed for the ones that supported our game plan. This does mean I dumped pretty much all eldrazi. I scrapped Emrakul, the Promised End and Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre which you see in a lot of Bosh, Iron Golem lists. Also missing are other high CMC'ers like Darksteel Colossus and Guardian of the Ages not that our deck doesn't have plenty of others.

And then there is what many just consider a not fun card Worldslayer , which just goes so beautifully with Darksteel Forge .

The biggest concern is a lack of pressure. The deck is likely not doing much to slow down and discourage my opponents early. That usually means we need to be fast, which artifact ramp can help with, but it can also be pricey. The number of turns required to build to a state that swinging/flinging makes sense is giving my opponent a lot of time to get their game plan in place. Additionally, artifacts can be fragile. there is no artifact social contract (and there shouldn't be). We could be completely out of the game with an ill-timed (for us) artifact wipe. We've got a couple methods to deal with this ( Scrap Mastery , Darksteel Forge , etc.), but possibly not enough ways to dig them up. At least I don't have to fear a Blood Moon :)
The deck might be moving in too many directions at once. With an artifact deck that could really play any artifact, since they are all flingable with Bosh, Iron Golem , it can be a bit easy to just grab all the artifacts with the best mechanics and include them. As I edited down the deck, I was trying to remove the dross, but I don't know how successful I was.

I look forward to any advice the community may have.

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Comments

94% Casual

Competitive

Date added 4 years
Last updated 3 years
Legality

This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

15 - 0 Mythic Rares

44 - 0 Rares

15 - 0 Uncommons

10 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 4.51
Tokens Emblem Daretti, Scrap Savant, Myr 1/1 C, Treasure, Wurm 3/3 C w/ Deathtouch, Wurm 3/3 C w/ Lifelink
Folders Deck that I want to build that aren't mine., EDH, Saved, Tapped Out - User Decks
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