To take you in the sun to promised lands
To show you every one
It's the time of the season for loving
"Eggs" often proves to be a difficult and cumbersome concept in EDH, but I think I've found a sweet spot of interactivity, enjoyable decision making, and some mighty explosive plays with my
Akiri, Line-Slinger
and
Silas Renn, Seeker Adept
deck, lovingly titled Eggs, Legs or Kegs - Nobody Rides for Free as a play on that one bumper sticker what which your cool uncle had on his Volkswagen Type 2.
What this deck IS
Eggs, Legs or Kegs - Nobody Rides for Free is a low-mana-cost artifact deck that works to grind opponents to dust using graveyard recursion and discounted spells. The early game consists of getting some card draw from your eggs, getting them into the bin, and hopefully landing a discount option to start playing your eggs for free. Many of our eggs offer some flexibility, and a removal suite helps prevent opponents from going too crazy as we assemble our engine. A subtheme of energy counters gets us extra value and leads to incredibly efficient turns and the inevitable egg-laden death of our opponents.
What this deck IS NOT
As I mentioned in my Sidisi primer, I'm not a fan of infinite combos. The color options here offer plenty of combo possibilities and if that's a direction you want to take your eggs deck you're more than welcome to do so, but I like spice, and artifact combo just isn't enough spice for me. This deck is also not really a budget deck - the mana base is aggressive since we really have to meet our color needs early on. Eggs can smooth that out a bit, but only so far. There's also a few premium cards in the deck that carry a hefty "Reserved List" tax on them. You can get by with a budget build, but some of these cards are very painful to replace - looking at you, Yawgmoth's Will...
Why this deck is FUN
Eggs is an oft not seen deck archetype in EDH, and even more rare to be non-infinite. This leads to perplexed opponents and gives me a slight edge in that they really aren't sure what to expect. Unfortunately, the deck never flies entirely under the radar since simply uttering the word "eggs" seems to be a taboo that transcends format, but all the same this deck can hang with the best of them, challenging conventional gameplay and leading to some fascinating decision-making opportunities. This is a "thinking person's deck" with all the intellectual joy that one could hope for.
Where the Commanders Fit In
Now, you may be saying to yourself, "Why isn't this doofus running Breya, Etherium Shaper? She's way easier to go infinite with!" Well, three reasons. First, I hate infinites, and I feel I've been very clear on this, hypothetical stranger. Please pay closer attention. Second, Breya is super common for this color combination and I wanted to do something more unique. Third, Silas Renn lets me recast my eggs from the graveyard, and Akiri gets beefier with each artifact on the battlefield. I know Akiri is much more common in equipment builds, but she's a defensive piece in my deck and an optional way to punch opponents who get out of line. Overall, the tag team duo has proven to be amazing for this deck, and while Breya may be the "optimal" choice, I prefer the unconventional.
Deck Strategy 1 - Eggs, Eggs, Eggs!
Well, where do we start? Of course, an eggs deck has to have some delicious, nutritious eggs. We run close to every possible egg for our colors, from the most traditional, literal eggs in
Darkwater Egg
,
Shadowblood Egg
and
Skycloud Egg
to more recent, spiritual eggs in
Chromatic Star
,
Chromatic Sphere
and
Terrarion
. We run the four OG Mirrodin Spellbombs, giving us some utility options and draw capabilities without the mana benefit, and
Nihil Spellbomb
to deal with graveyards. A few other egg-like cards round us out by way of giving some additional functionality or removal options in things like
Dispeller's Capsule
,
Executioner's Capsule
,
Wayfarer's Bauble
and
Scrabbling Claws
.
Deck Strategy 2 - Artifact Discount Emporium
Eggs are both tasty and beneficial to our health, but one mana is an awful lot to pay for them. How do we get around this without going out of business? Thankfully, there are a bunch of cards that allow us to pay less mana for our artifacts, and this deck runs almost all of them.
Cloud Key
,
Etherium Sculptor
,
Foundry Inspector
,
Herald of Kozilek
,
Jhoira's Familiar
and
Ugin, the Ineffable
each discount our eggs in one way or another, with some offering discounts to other card types as well. One card I choose not to play is Helm of Awakening, as we're not in the business of offering charity to our opponents. That, and the six card options I already run have proven to be more than enough.
Deck Strategy 3 - Now We're Cooking with Eggs!
Of course, what's a load of free eggs without a kitchen in which to cook 'em? These eggs need to do work for us besides drawing some cards or filtering our mana, right? Well, for starters, let's use our eggs to draw even MORE cards!
Vedalken Archmage
and
Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain
allow each of our eggs to draw us deeper into our deck.
Sai, Master Thopterist
is our "One Stop Thopter Shop",
Saheeli, Sublime Artificer
is the same except Servos, and
Pia's Revolution
is a particularly spicy bit of tech that either lets us get our eggs back to play again or turns each of their activations into a Lava Spike.
But these few bits of seasoning won't do by themselves - that's when we call in the Master Chefs.
Firebrand Archer
and
Cabal Paladin
are our Chefs de Partie, bleeding the entire table every time we cast an egg.
Reckless Fireweaver
holds the title of Sous Chef, blasting our opponents not only when we cast eggs but when our artifacts enter the battlefield, such as from the graveyard (see next section), and our Chef de Cuisine is none other than the resident bad-ass,
Marionette Master
- while wearing an impressively tall chef hat of three +1/+1 counters, she turns every egg activation into 4 life lost by an opponent. Now THAT'S a spicy meatba... err, egg. A spicy egg.
... It just doesn't have the same ring to it.
Deck Strategy 4 - Waste No Part of the Egg
What's better than a scrumptious egg prepared by the finest chefs? Why, TWO eggs, of course! Our deck offers loads of ways to recast our eggs from the graveyard or return them to the battlefield.
Yawgmoth's Will
allows us to cast eggs from the graveyard again, though we usually don't want to crack them that turn because we don't want them exiled - it's still a great way to get more cast triggers off of a Cabal Paladin or Firebrand Archer.
Faith's Reward
and
Second Sunrise
can pull my stuff out of the yard either after a board wipe or after a big sacrifice-y turn.
Scrap Mastery
and
Open the Vaults
offer a way to bring my artifacts back to the battlefield, though I usually want to do this after cleaning out my opponents' graveyards with my Nihil Spellbomb. Finally,
Salvaging Station
offers a great way to pull eggs back into play as well, offering some huge value when responding to a creature board wipe.
Extra Bits of Spicy Tech
As I mentioned in my introduction, the deck uses an energy subtheme supplemented with
Era of Innovation
,
Aetherworks Marvel
and
Gonti's Aether Heart
. Marvel is the most useful of the three, of course, offering to dig for an answer such as a board wipe or removal spell, or just a big splashy recursion spell.
Trading Post
is incredibly versatile here in that it offers many modes and options for our low-cost-artifact-filled deck, and
Paradoxical Outcome
is an absolutely incredible draw spell when I can pick up a load of eggs with it, draw a ton of cards, then replay all my eggs for free.
Improvements / Suggestions / Final Thoughts
My most recent additions to the deck are planeswalkers from War of the Spark. This deck previously ran only
Daretti, Scrap Savant
for his +2 discard/draw and his -2 Trash for Treasure ability, and now I have three more of the big bastards. Ugin is mentioned earlier as he provides discounts for all my colorless spells (see: artifacts are typically colorless), and Saheeli is also mentioned earlier as a Servo generator. The one I didn't bring up was
Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge
. I have no clue what they were thinking when they printed this card, but I have to assume someone at Wizards of the Coast saw my sweet ass deck online and went "You know what that doofus needs? Some incredibly spicy tech." His static ability gives all my creatures and my other planeswalkers affinity for artifacts, and his +2 is insanity manifest. In an eggs deck, he's practically a win condition all his own. I haven't tested these bad boys and girl out yet, but I'm incredibly confident that they will do wonders for my game plan.
If you decide to build your own version of this deck, I can say with confidence that it is my second favorite deck I own, right behind my Sidisi deck, even though it's one of my most recent builds. The theme really came together perfectly, and I absolutely adore the possibilities this deck presents. Sure, sometimes you draw a bunch of eggs and not a lot else to do with them, but since your snacks let you keep drawing deeper, you'll find some payoffs sooner or later. And yes, it hurts to get your graveyard exiled, but because of the redundancy of card effects we run, even losing a few artifact discounts or damage grinders won't flat out lose us the game - we can rebuild, and we can prevail. And by golly, it's gonna be a damn fun game either way.
tl;dr:
(Updated 12-1-2019)