This is a Breya combo deck primer WORK IN PROGRESS
THE COMBOS
Breya, Etherium Shaper + Nim Deathmantle/Eldrazi Displacer + Ashnod's Altar/Krark-Clan Ironworks - infinite 1/1 blue Thopter tokens, infinite damage, infinite life, and infinite -4/-4 to any target creature. Sacrifice Breya and one blue 1/1 Thopter token that she creates to either Krark-Clan Ironworks or Ashnod's Altar. Then, when Breya hits the yard, pay 4 to activate Nim Deathmantle, reanimating Breya as a black Zombie with +2/+2 and intimidate. This will trigger Breya's ETB ability, generating an two 1/1 blue Thopter tokens (in addition to the 1 blue Thopter token that you didn't sacrifice alongside Breya). Then, you can sacrifice one Thopter to Krark-Clan Ironworks/Ashnod's Altar to generate two colorless mana. Repeat the combo from step 1 ad infinitum until you're satisfied with the amount of colorless mana and Thopter tokens you have, then use that infinite colorless mana and 1/1 counters to sacrifice to Breya's first ability to deal 3 damage an infinite amount of time. If you're using Eldrazi Displacer, then instead sacrifice Breya's two Thopter tokens to generate four colorless mana, and use three of that to spend on Eldrazi Displacer's first ability, netting you one colorless mana on each cycle, repeat ad infinitum.
Blood Artist/Disciple of the Vault + Ashnod's Altar/Krark-Clan Ironworks + Nim Deathmantle + Myr Battlesphere - Infinite 1/1 colorless Myr creature tokens and life loss. Do the same as above, except instead of using Breya's activated ability, it relies on the triggered ability from Blood Artist and Disciple of the Vault.
Sydri, Galvanic Genius + Aetherflux Reservoir + 50 life, AKA the Death Star - Pay 50 life, deal 50 damage, and then gain 50 life. This deck has a decent amount incidental lifegain which means that hitting the 50 life benchmark isn't unreasonable by any metric, although I would classify this as a backup win condition more than anything else since it tends to be slow when it comes to actually charging your turbolaser. If your opponent has some way to prevent them fron being targeted like Leyline of Sanctity or
Imperial Mask
, or that prevents them from taking damage like Platinum Emperion, it still functions as basically infinite removal against most any threatening creature. However, when you trigger the combo, I'd make sure that you have a decent amount of extra life just for cushion - nothing is more feelsbad than paying 50 life only to get killed by a Bolt in response.
Saheeli Rai + Liquimetal Coating + Disciple of the Vault/
Altar of the Brood
- While all three are on the battlefield, and if Saheeli has 2 or more loyalty, then tap Liquimetal Coating to make Saheeli an artifact, then use her -2 targeting herself to make a copy. Once both are on the battlefield, legend rule kicks in, and you'll ditch the Saheeli you just used to -2. Then, you have a fresh Saheeli with enough loyalty to -2 again, targeting herself again - and as per the text on Saheeli's -2, it's an artifact. Repeat ad infinitum, and each time one of your Saheelis dies, you drain the table for 1 life or mill them for 1 card, resulting in an instant win as early as turn 3 or 4.
Time Sieve + Daretti, Scrap Savant Emblem/Thopter Foundry + Sword of the Meek/Thopter Assembly - infinite turns. Start off with your Time Sieve + your engine of choice (Daretti emblem, Thopter/Sword of the Meek combo/Thopter Assembly)/ If you're using Daretti's emblem, sacrifice any five artifacts of your choice (preferably something like a used mana rock). If you're using the Sword combo, pay five mana to make five 1/1 Thopter creature tokens and gain five life. If you're using Thopter Assembly, just play it and wait for a turn cycle, then bounce it to your hand to make five thopters. After you have the requisite five artifacts, just sac em' to time sieve and make sure to use whatever engine you used to get those artifacts again so that you have five more artifacts to sac next turn.
Grand Architect + Pili-Pala + Breya, Etherium Shaper + Disciple of the Vault/
Altar of the Brood
+ any sac outlet - infinite mana, infinite damage, or infinite mill. Grand Architect + Pili-Pala is a pretty staple combo that doesn't need any introduction. You use them to generate infinite mana, cast and sac Breya an infinite number of times to generate an infinite number of Thopters, then use her ability to burn for an infinite number of damage. If Breya is out of comission thanks to a card like Pithing Needle or something similar that shuts down her ability to active her damage clause, then Disciple and Altar of the Brood make a convincing stand in for infinite damage and mill.
Buyer's Guide
For those of you on a tight budget, who cant afford everything on the deck, Im going to outline the best way to put the deck together from scratch -
For starters, you should pick up the Invent Superiority deck. It costs $30, and contains the following cards in the deck-
Breya, Etherium Shaper Daretti, Scrap Savant
Chief Engineer
Etherium Sculptor Hanna, Ship's Navigator
Sydri, Galvanic Genius Solemn Simulacrum
Sphinx Summoner
Hellkite Tyrant
Sharuum the Hegemon
Myr Battlesphere Trash for Treasure Beacon of Unrest Sol Ring Thopter Foundry
Seat of the Synod
Darksteel Citadel
Arcane Sanctum
Command Tower Buried Ruin Exotic Orchard
Mystic Monastery
Nomad Outpost Crumbling Necropolis
Thats a lot of stuff for the deck these cards alone cost around $45, so youre already getting a pretty good deal. Those cards notwithstanding, the precon itself is currently the only way to get ahold of Breya, and it has a value of a little over $100, so its a pretty stellar deal anyways WotC really knocked it out of the park with this bad boy. You get a solid quarter of the deck, a good handle on the manabase, some tutors and consistency, a few wincons, and some really important combo pieces. Its a good ground on which you can build the deck. Plus, there are plenty of cards in here that just dont quite make the cut by a hairs breadth, so they make good additions if you cant afford some of the more expensive parts of the deck.
From there, we need to focus on fully assembling our combos by picking up pieces that interact with multiple engines and provide value absent the combo.
This includes cards like Ashnod's Altar, Krark-Clan Ironworks, Sword of the Meek, Time Sieve, Blood Artist, Disciple of the Vault, Eldrazi Displacer, Nim Deathmantle, Goblin Welder, Grand Architect, Master Transmuter, Sydri, Galvanic Genius, and Thopter Assembly.
This gives you a really solid background of combo pieces while costing you under $50 for a very substantive bump in power for the deck you get access to multiple infinite turn combos, several strong artifact synergies, multiple paths to infinite mana, lots of ways to cheat out artifacts, and also some very solid sac outlets.After youve assembled the combo core, the next place you want to look is increasing consistency, and this is the priciest part of the deck by a decent margin. This includes expensive lands (Shocks, fetches, 5c lands, and utility like Academy Ruins), tutor effects (like Inventors' Fair, Demonic Tutor, Fabricate, Reshape, Enlightened Tutor, Kuldotha Forgemaster, Transmute Artifact if you can afford it, etc), and mana rocks (like the Signets, Darksteel Ingot, Commander's Sphere, etc.). Youll also want to add a decent removal package, which is something the deck severely lacks. My personal picks for most important prioritywise are
Chaos Warp
, Swords to Plowshares, Dispatch,
Hinder
, Counterspell, and Anguished Unmaking.
This can get pretty pricey getting all the expensive lands and tutors can cost you upwards of $70 for no demonstrable impact in terms of powerlevel, but its a lot more important than the next tier of upgrades, since it makes it a lot easier to smoothly access your whole curve of power. All the power in the world isnt worth shit if you cant cast your spells.
Finally, you want to fill out your deck with extraneous 2-card combos, artifact synergies, and removal as you see fit. This covers basically everything that hasnt been covered so far
Tezzeret the Seeker
, Saheeli Rai + Liquimetal Coating + Disciple of the Vault / Altar of the Brood, Aetherflux Reservoir, Scourglass, Spine of Ish Sah, Mana Echoes, Padeem, Consul of Innovation, Goblin Welder, Junk Diver, etcetera. This is when your deck will probably branch out from mine, because although there are a lot of cards that you just should not take out of the deck under any circumstance, there is a lot in my list thats up for debate that you can change to fit your pet cards or whatever else.
