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Mishra's Unstoppable Artifice

Commander / EDH Artifact Combo Jank UBR (Grixis)

CDClarke


Maybeboard


My first artifact-based commander deck. I decided to go with Mishra up front for a few reasons - he's a rarely used commander with an ability that has some very interesting uses even in a singleton format, his colour identity contains all my favourite artifact support colours (blue and red with a hint of black for good measure), and he's simply one of favourite characters in Magic.

There are lots of changes yet to be made so suggestions are appreciated. Currently the land base isn't complete at all, And I've likely gotta make many cuts to the mainboard as well. In addition, though there are several 'win conditions' in the deck, I'm not sure I have a very clear gameplan yet other than abusing Mishra's effect as much as possible and playing strong artifacts.

Here's a few cool combos in the deck, most of which are three cards or less so you can grab them very quickly with Behold the Beyond!

  • The most basic use of Mishra's ability is to steal your opponent's spells, cast them and grab your matching spell from your library. To help us grab the most relevant spells to steal, we have Thada Adel, Acquisitor, Grinning Totem and Praetor's Grasp to grab whichever card we like without much risk of completely whiffing. Some easy steals could be Sol Ring (everyone uses Sol Ring right?), Solemn Simulacrum , any of the signets we have, or Commander's Sphere. If you're playing against another artifact-based deck, then your selection becomes even broader. Opposition Agent is particularly nasty, being able to flash in when an opponent begins a search begins a search and stealing whatever they find, as well as shutting down future searches. However, if the opponent isn't searching for an artifact, it loses some shine.

  • The next and less obvious way to abuse Mishra's ability is to have your spells countered or otherwise moved to another zone. For example, with Nullstone Gargoyle on the field, the first non-creature spell of each turn will be countered, your own included. However, if Mishra, Artificer Prodigy is on the field, then the abilities will be stacked such that your artifact spell will be countered and sent to the graveyard, then Mishra's effect will put that artifact onto the battlefield from the graveyard. In order to disrupt our opponents while having Mishra push our artifacts through to the field no matter what, the afforementioned Nullstone Gargoyle, Planar Chaos and Possibility Storm are great inclusions that screw with our opponens while aiding us. In particular, Possibility Storm becomes LUDICROUSLY GOOD in combination with Mishra. You can stack your triggers when you play an artifact spell such that your artifact gets swapped out for a different one by the storm's effect, then Mishra grabs the artifact you first cast from your library and puts it straight to the battlefield. That's a two-for-one offer on EVERY ARTIFACT YOU CAST. Needless to say, Demonic Tutor should be grabbing Possibility Storm at every opportunity.

  • In addition to the more disruptive effects described above, we also have some other effects that push us along in the same fashion. One of the key ones here is Blood Funnel, which will make our artifacts cost 2 less and we don't even have to sacrifice a creature to make them stick!

  • Darksteel Forge + Mycosynth Lattice + Nevinyrral's Disk . Use these three together to wipe out every single permanent your opponent's control, while preserving yours. Warning - will make your playgroup hate you.

  • With Thopter Assembly + Time Sieve out, with enough mana/cost reducers out to recast the Assembly results in infinite turns. When Thopter Assembly bounces itself on upkeep to give you 5 Thopter tokens, which you immediately feed to the Sieve. Then, re-cast Assembly ready to run the same combo again on your extra turn.

  • Whenever you drop Goblin Engineer, Ichor Wellspring is a good search to start building value by swapping it in and out to draw cards, but there are plenty of cheap artifacts you can get out with engineer that you need to be flexible - sometimes you want Scrap Trawler or Myr Retriever to get things from the yard into your hand, or get out a quick Etherium Sculptor or other cost reducer to move your game faster.

  • Myr Battlesphere is another decent win condition since we can recur it over and over again to build up lots of tokens that can be sac'd to Goblin Welder, or just used to beat face.

  • Arcum Dagsson + Mechanized Production attached to any artifact creature will net you a free non-creature artifact every turn by sacc'ing the token to Arcum. Super easy way to power out Mycosynth Lattice, Darksteel Forge...

  • Goblin Welder + Myr Battlesphere + Ashnod's Altar + Staff of Domination plus any other artifact in the graveyard nets infinite artifact ETB effects. Sacrifice the Battlesphere to Goblin Welder and return the artifact from the graveyard to the battlefield, and sacrifice the Myr tokens to Ashnod's to get 8 colourless mana. Spend four of that to untap Goblin Welder and then untap the Staff, and repeat by swapping the artifact with the Battlesphere again. To make this go fully infinite, Ingenious Artillerist on the field will inflict infinite damage to all opponents, while swapping the Battlesphere with something like Ichor Wellspring draws infinite cards.

  • Ashnod's Altar + Myr Battlesphere + Nim Deathmantle gets infinite Myr tokens. Sacrifice the Battlesphere and one of the Myr tokens to get 4 colourless mana, and use it to get the Battlesphere back with the Deathmantle and then loop.

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Date added 7 years
Last updated 1 year
Key combos
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

10 - 0 Mythic Rares

45 - 0 Rares

14 - 0 Uncommons

18 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.71
Tokens Copy Clone, Emblem Daretti, Scrap Savant, Myr 1/1 C, Thopter 1/1 C, Treasure, Wurm 3/3 C w/ Deathtouch, Wurm 3/3 C w/ Lifelink
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