The core objective of the fledging Metalwork Archetype (or as I call it, Colossal Eggs), is to rapidly set up a resilient board where all of your artifacts are free to cast, including the signature creature Metalwork Colossus. Once you have a Metalwork Colossus on the field and in the graveyard, you use Scrap Trawler and Metalworks' effects to loop the Colossi repeatedly with cantripping artifacts to draw your deck and storm off in some manner.
I made a post on Reddit about this deck, and my experience with it at Magicfest Atlanta in 2019. This Modern home-brew is probably the most fun I've ever had with a deck in a very long while. It turned heads, raised eyebrows, and had people wondering what the hell I was doing, the way Magic should be! Coincidentally, I'm not the only one who's conceived the idea of looping Metalwork Colossus as a win condition: only several other people have, but their builds have different ways of finishing off the opponent that are as equally creative, flavorful and as cool as mine. I will share those later.
My original build focuses on drawing as much of my deck as possible and accumulating a storm count until finally drawing Aetherflux Reservoir and doming your opponent with 50 damage. I look forward to showing you how this hilarious deck achieves that meme-worthy finish, amongst other spicy win conditions.
Eggs is anything BUT dead, y'all!
The Core Cards
To build a Metalwork Colossus Deck in Modern, the following core cards are an absolute must:
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Metalwork Colossus: The boss monster of the deck, the Blue-Eyes to my Seto Kaiba, the Dark Magician to my Yugi Muto. This gigantic Construct on its face looks like pure, unplayable jank but is a house if put in the right deck. It didn't see too much play in Kaladesh Block Standard because it was overshadowed greatly by the Gearhulks and Aetherworks Marvel Energy decks, and it needed a shell that only the expansive card pool of Modern could provide. If you can amass a collection of non-creature artifacts on the board for a total Converted Mana Cost of 11, this 10/10 is free to cast. Often enough, this deck can win simply by beating down with these behemoths on turn 4, and as a result many of my dumbfounded opponents haven't been able to see the extent of this deck's potential.
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Scrap Trawler: The lynchpin of the deck; we can win via beatdown without it but it is mandatory to have on the field to storm off. Its effect allows us to effortlessly recycle artifacts and gives this deck its surprising resiliency.
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Semblance Anvil and Cloud Key: Lightning-fast wins are made possible by these cheap artifact cost-reducers. When Semblance Anvil is put in play you can exile another artifact under it to reduce the casting cost of artifacts by 2. The result is a contribution towards the Colossi's cost reduction of FIVE, not just three. Cloud Key reduces costs by 1, contributing a total of four to Metalwork Colossus.
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The Eggs: The best artifacts to put in your deck are cards that are colorless, cost two mana, and draw a card when they enter the battlefield while also offering some other utility. So far there are a handful of cards that do that, enough to play a critical mass. The best hands-down is Ichor Wellspring, followed by Prophetic Prism, Alchemist's Vial, Elsewhere Flask, Golden Egg, Guild Globe, and the new-from-Ikoria Sleeper Dart. You want to run at least 16 copies. On top of those, an honorary egg you must run several of is Mind Stone for extending your ramp capabilities. With a Semblance Anvil in play these cards are free to play, resulting in turns where you drop an Anvil and then chain 5, 6 or more of these cards together back-to-back. That's typically when your opponent starts to look puzzled.
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Ancient Stirrings: This Modern staple helps you dig not only for a critical artifact combo piece, but also for a land if you need it. A full playset is a must.
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Colorless Lands: Inventors' Fair and Sanctum of Ugin are excellent lands for the deck. We can use their abilities to tutor for missing combo pieces. The Sanctum by itself turns one free Colossus into 2 free Colossi. Just be sure to float its mana first. Phyrexia's Core is our main way of getting the first Colossus into the graveyard.
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Your Win Condition: Like I said, mine was using Aetherflux Reservoir as a storm conduit if I wasn't just beating down with Colossi. But, as you'll read, there are a host of other possible win conditions.
Executing the Combo, Step-by-Step
To pull this combo off, you need the following board state, which is surprisingly easy to achieve with the right build:
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A Metalwork Colossus on the battlefield.
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A Metalwork Colossus in the graveyard.
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A Scrap Trawler on the battlefield.
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Enough generic artifact cost reduction so that your Eggs are free (so one Anvil or two Keys in play).
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A total combined CMC from non-creature artifacts on the board, plus Anvil and Key cost reduction, of 11 at minimum. It commonly looks like 1 Anvil + 3 Eggs, or 2 Keys + 2 Eggs.
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A land or two untapped, but not completely necessary if you have untapped Mind Stone in play.
To Execute One Combo Loop, Do the Following:
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Activate the ability of the Metalwork Colossus in your graveyard, sacrificing two artifacts to return it to your hand. Sacrifice the Metalwork Colossus on the field and one of the 2-mana Eggs to pay this cost.
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When the sacrificed Colossus and the Egg hit the graveyard, it will place two Scrap Trawler triggers on the stack. Use the trigger from the Colossus hitting the graveyard to put the Egg that came with it back in your hand. If you are running any 1-mana or 0-mana utility artifacts, take advantage of the Scrap Trawler trigger from the 2-mana Egg to return one of those to your hand too, but that isn't necessary for the combo--just a bonus.
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You now have a Colossus and an Egg in your hand. Cast the Egg first to draw a card, then cast the Colossus.
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You have completed one full loop. You've drawn a card (or two cards if you did this with Ichor Wellspring) and raised your storm count by 2.
To Finish Your Opponent off With The Death Star Variant:
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Get a spin down die and start keeping a storm count.
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Repeat the combo loop, drawing your deck and casting the Eggs you draw.
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As you repeat the loop, use any excess mana you have to cast extra Semblance Anvils and Cloud Keys you draw to get your generic artifact cost reduction to 4 and over. Use your spare untapped lands and Mind Stones you draw to pay any extra needed cost.
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Eventually, you will hit Aetherflux Reservoir. Cast it, and afterwards use your storm count to start increasing your life total with its effect as you keep looping.
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Dome your opponent for the win with its ability once you're at a comfortable 60 life, no less.
Other Win Conditions and Sideboard Cards, And Why They're Necessary
Sideboarding with this archetype is less about finding ways to hate out common decks in your meta, and more about finding cards that nullify what you expect the decks in your meta to side in against you for games 2 and 3. The cards you bring in should be about protecting your machine, not as much about interacting with your opponent's board (some interaction against certain decks is needed to protect your engine, and I'll get to that soon).
Common Hate and Your Sideboard Answers
If your opponent is a half-decent deck builder, they will include artifact hate and graveyard hate in their sideboards for games 2 and 3. Here are some of the more common types of hate you'll get and how to fight through it:
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Generic Targeted Artifact Destruction: Think Ancient Grudge, Vandalblast, Smash to Smithereens. Fortunately enough, this deck has such strong recursion that targeted removal on your artifacts is not something you should worry too much about. Scrap Trawler triggers can get your Eggs back, but the cards most likely to be targeted with removal are the Colossus, the Cost Reducers, and the Trawler itself. We want a Colossus in the graveyard, so we often find ourselves secretly thankful if our Colossus gets zapped. To assist with the other problems we can use two cards: Goblin Engineer and Conjurer's Bauble (which I made the mistake of not including in my GP Atlanta deck). The Engineer is an all-star as a two-of in the main deck. When played it puts a Colossus or another combo piece directly into your graveyard to speed up the combo, and you can sacrifice a Colossus on board with the Goblin's second ability to bring back a Key, an Anvil or a Trawler. Conjurer's Bauble is an egg that can put any card in your graveyard at the bottom of your library, and we can use our land tutors to get what we returned to the deck back into our hand later.
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Activated Ability Hate: Think Stony Silence, Karn, the Great Creator, Pithing Needle and Collector Ouphe. Believe it or not, with an alternate win condition switch-out this deck can win right through most of these cards. I used to sweat Karn as it usually meant Mycosynth Lattice was to follow but now that it's banned we're in the clear! Another sweet bit of knowledge passed to me by a judge is that three of those four cards affect only artifacts that are ON THE BATTLEFIELD. The ability of Metalwork Colossus in the graveyard to return itself to your hand is not impacted. However, if your opponent plays Pithing Needle and names Metalwork Colossus... that's not good. But we have a way to deal with it: Steel Hellkite. This dragon can be cast for cheap and do an Engineered Explosives impression on your opponent when it connects, destroying the Needle and freeing your combo.
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Targeted Graveyard Hate: Think Surgical Extraction, Extirpate. These cards must be answered. Conjurer's Bauble removes the target of Surgical Extraction and puts it back in the deck, effectively countering it. Extirpate is one of the only answers we can't stop due to Split Second. Fortunately, few people run it because Surgical Extraction is so much better in Modern 95% of the time as you can cast it for free! So...pray you aren't playing a budget player. If you know your opponent personally and that they have Extirpate in their sideboard, they are likely to target Metalwork Colossus as they'll be removing both your loop plan and your beatdown plan. To respond to this, side in Steel Hellkite and/or Moltensteel Dragon as alternative cheap beaters in game 3 alongside Mystic Forge if you don't run it already in your main deck like me. Mystic Forge gives us an alternate means of going off, casting artifacts off the top of the deck and exiling lands to build a storm count instead of looping.
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Graveyard Hosing: Think Bojuka Bog, Relic of Progenitus, and Tormod's Crypt. These cards
are very difficult to stop and are the worst nightmare of any deck utilizing its graveyard to win. If you have players in your meta running these as their preferred form of graveyard hate, you have only 1 saving grace: Elixir of Immortality. This card has saved my ass on so many occasions not just in Modern, but in Commander as well. However, there is one slight problem with it. You cannot cast this card at instant speed. It has to be sitting on the battlefield in order for you to use it because the "shuffle your graveyard into your deck" effect is an activated ability. An opponent may or may not have a graveyard hoser ready in hand and will want to remove the elixir first regardless, which will force your hand and make you activate it to save your graveyard. To combat this, run a Shimmer Myr alongside the Elixir. This will let you play artifacts at instant speed, and you'll be able to cast and activate it in response to your opponent's move for your graveyard, catching them off guard as they will have thought you're wide open.
Sideboard Cards and Strategies for Common Modern Decks
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Burn: Dragon's Claw is your best card in this matchup. A free tutor target that turns opposing bolts into shocks. Your strategy should be to get as many Colossi into play as quickly as possible to chump block Goblin Guides and Monastery Swiftspears. Beating down with 10/10's should be your main plan. If Eidolon of the Great Revel is summoned, you will have a bad time, as each Colossus loop will shock you. You should proactively use Inventor's Fair to get out an Aetherflux Reservoir as fast as you can to offset life loss, and not rely on drawing into it through loops as you will die before that happens.
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Death's Shadow Shells: For the Surgical Extractions that are inevitably in their sideboards, use Conjurer's Bauble to keep your combo safe. Attack with your 10/10's and force them to spend their Kolaghan's Command putting a Colossus where you want it: the graveyard. Surprisingly, Grove of the Burnwillows is your best card in this matchup. A land! Who would have known? They need to get their life down to make Death's Shadow big, so give them life every turn! Tap your Groves for colored mana every chance you get. Even if you aren't required to spend the mana to cast spells, just tap them. Give your opponents life to slow them down a wee bit, keeping them as close to 20 as possible without going over so you can still finish them in 2 hits from a Colossus. Be sure to use Alchemist's Vial to make their threats unable to attack or block.
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Humans: Steel Hellkite is your saving grace, as Humans decks like to flood the board quickly and with cheap creatures that the dragon can wipe out in one fell swoop with its Engineered Explosives attack. Meddling Mage is a pain, so be sure to tutor the dragon out as soon as you can. Field your robots and keep them out until you're ready to go off. Ghirapur Aethergrid also works very well here, tapping down your multitude of artifacts to ping everything to death and keep the board empty.
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Death and Taxes: Same as above. Scorch those taxing bastards with Steel Hellkite fire. Gaddock Teeg is a bitch, though. To get around him you need a threat that's cheap but can also get huge: your best bet is a Modern golden oldie, the legendary Arcbound Ravager. Pair him with a newly-printed card, The Ozolith. Cast your eggs, draw a bunch of cards, summon this artifact-gobbling monster and pump him to high heaven before damage. Sacrifice him to his own effect if your opponent tries a Path to Exile.
All Win Conditions and Dirty Tricks Thus Far
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Free Creature Beatdown: Turns out swinging at your opponent with 10/10's and pumped Arcbound Ravagers is an effective way to win in a format where the real starting life total is often 17, especially against non-creature decks. If you need evasive threats in your meta you can tech in Moltensteel Dragon and Steel Hellkite.
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Death Star: My earliest method and favorite plan utilizing the Colossus Loop described above.
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Death by 20 Pings: Ghirapur Æther Grid is one helluva card in matchups where your opponent things that Stony Silence or Karn, the Great Creator will stop you. With this enchantment on the field, perform your Colossus loops until you have at least 10-20 non creature artifacts on the board including 2 Mind Stones. Leave your Colossi untapped as defense or attack with them if you want. In main phase 2 use the Grid to tap all your eggs down and ping your opponent for damage. Kill all their creatures first as insurance if you wish. Then, perform the Colossus loop twice more with the two Mind Stones, as they do not draw you a card when they enter the battlefield to prevent you from decking yourself, so you can put them back onto the battlefield untapped. Tap them to ping your opponent for 1 damage. Repeat the process, looping the Mind Stones to get them untapped, until your opponent is dead.
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Death by Germ: Instead of looping an egg that draws you a card, perform the Colossus loop infinitely with Mortarpod, a Mirrodin artifact that automatically comes equipped onto a Germ creature token when cast using the Living Weapon mechanic. Since Mortarpod gives the creature token an activated ability to sacrifice itself to deal 2 damage to any target, Stony Silence effects do not stop this.
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Mill: Perform the Colossus loop using three cards - Metalwork Colossus, a 2-mana egg, and a 1-mana or 0-mana sideboard tech card like Pithing Needle or Tormod's Crypt while Grinding Station is in play. In the Grinding variant of this deck, Grinding Station can be used both to mill your own deck to find combo pieces faster and as a win condition. This comes from another Reddit user's build that he shared. When you perform the Colossus loop in this variant, start by activating Grinding Station and sacrificing the 1 or 0 CMC artifact to mill the opponent. Next you execute the Colossus loop, using the Scrap Trawler trigger from Metalwork Colossus to return your 2-mana Egg to your hand, but also using the Scrap Trawler trigger from the 2-mana Egg hitting the graveyard to return the 1/0-mana artifact you sac'd to the Grinding Station to your hand. Next, cast all three cards and your Grinding Station untaps to complete the loop. Repeat until your opponent's deck is gone. This will not win through Stony Silence effects.
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Karn Fling: The wonkiest win condition I've conjured by far requires a little more open mana to execute but it can win through artifact hate. It involves Karn, Scion of Urza and Fling. Fling is already a great tech card to add to the deck in case you swing with a pair of Colossi in an attempt to OTK your opponent, and your opponent is forced to block. One Colossus gets through. Sacrifice the blocked Colossus to Fling and close out the game. Karn, Scion of Urza is a solid card too, although I'd run no more than 2. His plus ability is simply card draw which is always good, but it's his minus 2 we care about. After summoning a Construct creature token with power and toughness equal to the number of artifacts you control, perform Colossus loops until you have at least 20 artifacts other than the Construct token in play. Then Fling that 20+/20+ token at your opponent for the instant kill in the same turn by filtering mana from your Mind Stones through Prophetic Prisms. Feel free to put a whole playset of Fling in your sideboard; it might get countered.
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Masked Magistrate Hand Lock: If you're really, really feeling sadistic you can lock your opponents out of playing the game entirely and subject them to an agonizing loss. Save this for when you want to mine maximum salt. This lock doesn't require any mana base modification as we can filter with Prophetic Prism. We're using Drannith Magistrate and Uba Mask. To get the whole lock online in a single turn, perform the Metalwork Colossus loop until you draw a Mind Stone. Perform the loop indefinitely with the Mind Stone, tapping it to float the colorless mana before sacrificing it to the Metalwork Colossus in your graveyard to start the loop. In a paper game, indicate to your opponent that you will be making infinite mana. Next, continue with the loop until you have Prophetic Prism and Conjurer's Bauble in play and you draw both Uba Mask and Drannith Magistrate. The Bauble is insurance in case your Magistrate is killed or countered. Filter some of your infinite colorless mana through the Prophetic Prism to make white and cast the Magistrate, then cast the Uba Mask. Your opponent will be unable to cast any spells from anywhere other than their hand with the Magistrate's effect, but with Uba Mask in play, any card they draw from then on is exiled face-up and is supposed to be cast from there. They cannot play Magic anymore beyond the cards they already had in their hand when the lock was put in place and the permanents they already have on board. Win however you like from here and enjoy their misery.
The Most Brutal Win Condition of All: The Armageddon Lock
Surprisingly, we have a lock-out win condition that is even more sadistic than the Masked Magistrate. This one involves a bit of main and side deck adjustment. The required cards are Mind Stone for infinite mana as previously described, Karn, the Great Creator (which you'll want in your main board), and then The Chain Veil and Liquimetal Coating in your sideboard.
With the Colossus loop going, generate infinite mana with the Mind Stone as described earlier. Dig for and cast Karn, and then use his minus 2 ability to get the The Chain Veil out of your sideboard. Cast it and then activate it. You can now activate Karn's -2 ability once more. Use it to get Liquimetal Coating out of your sideboard. Cast it. Now, activate the Metalwork Colossus in your graveyard to conduct a Scrap Trawler loop, sacrificing the Colossus on board and the Chain Veil, returning the Colossus in the graveyard and the Chain Veil to your hand. Cast both so Chain Veil is now back in play untapped. Now, activate the Liquimetal Coating to turn an opponent's land into an artifact in addition to its other types. Next, activate Chain Veil to give Karn another loyalty ability activation, and use his +1 ability to turn that land you just made an artifact into an artifact creature with power and toughness equal to its CMC, which will be 0. The result is that the 0/0 artifact land creature will die and go to the graveyard. Now, perform a Colossus Scrap Trawler loop using the Liquimetal Coating, returning it to play untapped. Next, perform a Colossus Scrap Trawler loop using the Chain Veil, returning it to play untapped.
You have fully closed this extended loop. Repeat this whole process to destroy all of your opponent's lands, rendering them unable to play anything for the remainder of the game that costs more than 1 mana unless they have mana dorks or rocks. Remember in this order: 1) Cast Karn, 2) Chain Veil from sideboard, 3) Coating from sideboard, 4) Loop Chain Veil, 5) Activate Coating, 6) Activate Chain Veil, 7) Activate Karn, 8) Loop Coating, 9) Loop Chain Veil, repeat steps 5-9.
Systematically destroying all of your opponents' lands in a single turn is absolutely the most smug, in-your-face way to win that I have conceived with this deck. A part of me legitimately regrets discovering this dreadful power and sharing it with you. The more sportsmanlike thing to do when you already have infinite mana and loops online is to go ahead and deliver the coup de grace with Aetherflux Reservoir, but sometimes you just want to make your opponent suffer. Save this display of sheer brutality for the most obnoxious tournament grinder in your local game store, that one asshole that pisses on other players for not net-decking or for playing with budget decks. Save this torture for that arrogant player nobody likes, for whom you'd give anything to serve comeuppance. As long as you limit this to those bastards, I won't regret disclosing this technique. Do not subject your friends or any poor soul you face off against on Magic Online to this fate. They don't deserve to lose like this.
Concluding Remarks
I hope you enjoyed reading the extent of my knowledge of this rogue archetype, derived from a long record of local game store experience and play testing. Pick it up and try it out, if you wish. It's not a deck for the faint of heart, but true combo connoisseurs and trolls alike will find nothing but sheer delight in playing with it.
As long as the core cards in this deck are not banned, the Way of the Eggs will never truly die.
