This list is fairly recent and started out as an upgrade to the Invent Superiority Commander 2016 PreCon Deck. I tried to make it as fun as possible in a somewhat competitive environment. The deck is pretty much in line with others in my playgroup, in terms of power level, maybe just a bit better positioned since my meta hasn't yet shifted to deal with a strongly combo oriented deck like this one.
This deck started off as a budget list and it still is not one of the most expensive ones out there. However, essentially due to its mana base being probably the most awkward from all the Commander 2016 precon, I felt compelled to optimize it, running a few fetch and fetchable lands. This threw the deck value over the 200$ roof that I personally envision for a budget EDH deck, but the core of the deck is still achievable within a reasonably cheap price range. Further down in this description - after you see how the deck functions - you will find a section dedicated to reducing costs of the deck while mantaining a strong and very competitive list for probably most non-cutthroat playgroups.
This being said, let's go onto a bit of background and the general deck idea.
Breya, Etherium Shaper is that kind of creature that sometimes resembles a planeswalker, granted you need to pay her activation cost, but unlike a planeswalker, if you are willing to pay you can activate her abilities multiple times a turn and that's where things tend to get broken.
When C16 first came out I passed on the opportunity to get my own Breya precon, but the more I looked at her, the more I felt like I should play her. And then AER came out and I opened 3 Planar Bridges out of 5 boosters. That was a strong sign to me that I should do something with those and, turns out, Breya is probably one of the best generals to fit that card in, so I bit the bullet and got my precon which I am now trying to improve on.
Full on Combo VS Control
Very well suited for a combo general, Breya, Etherium Shaper also seems like a very good choice to lead a strong control deck. If you think about it, when you run a combo deck, what you need the most is time to assemble your combo, and Breya buys you that time with her abilities as well.
One thing is certain with Breya: Artifacts matter. So cards like Nim Deathmantle and Krark-Clan Ironworks are easy decisions, while others like Panharmonicon or Torrential Gearhulk require a bit more building around and on that will depend their power level. I started out making somewhat of a Token deck with Panharmonicon and a lot of thopter generators, but given that my main win conditions are infinite combos, I'd rather equip myself with ways to supercharge and protect those wincons, and now the deck is much more control oriented and takes advantage from Torrential Gearhulk, Jace, Telepath Unbound and Magus of the Will rather than Myr Retriever, Sanctum Gargoyle and such.
This Mana Base has to be thread carefully. Watch out for very mana intensive cards if you're building the deck, especially if you don't run optimal fixing, and try to keep as few of those as possible to avoid mana screws and awkard opening hands. This is the reason why this is the first EDH deck I've built with real fetch lands in it - because I felt the mana base was slowing me down too much and I couldn't afford 4 colors (with almost equal importance within the overall strategy) with a bunch of tapped lands or too many basics, I really felt the need to be able to get all my colours soon and often, which did not happen consistently before this upgrade.
Expensive card mana-wise. Definitely there are cards that would get me whatever I needed for cheaper mana investment than Planar Bridge - much higher price tag though - but they would also require more dedicated slots in the deck and some build around to ensure I could play them over and over if I needed that. We are trying to win with some combo and Planar Bridge will get us all those combo pieces and put them on the battlefield! The edge that Planar Bridge gives us is the ability to tutor those multiple pieces in a pretty swift manner once you get it out. Yes, it costs 8 mana per activation and usually has one activation per turn, but when you just need 2 permanents with it to win the game on the spot, it seems to me like a fair price to pay.
The Combos
If you've played Breya or against her, even the precon deck, you'll know that the deck doesn't need to go infinite to win a game. The decklist might seem perfectly fair, you might not even see anything too broken in it, but Breya is a surprisingly good general even outside of any combos, which makes her deck much more resillient than it would seem at a first glance.
But of course, if I'm playing Breya, I'm not just looking for that versatility, that's an added feature! The deck's main win conditions are, obviously some game ending combos. These are the ones I currently run (along with some visual cues to better show which parts can interchange):
The drill here is to make mana in order to activate Breya and bring her back with paying the remaining for Nim Deathmantle or for Eldrazi Displacer. With the first we need to sacrifice Breya to herself, with the last one, we need to keep her and sac the tokens. Activate Breya infinitely and win on the spot. Notably, Grand Architect doesn't work with Eldrazi Displacer since it only allows you to tap thopters to pay for artifacts or activated abilities from artifacts, but the remaining pieces are interchangeable.
One other way to go around this combo is with Reckless Fireweaver, Disciple of the Vault or even Marionette Master - This way you don't need to activate Breya, you just need to sac accordingly to make mana and bring her back, letting Fireweaver or Disciple do the damage for her. This is particularly useful if something like a Pithing Needle is in effect naming Breya.
Sharuum the Hegemon + Any non-token artifact + Ashnod's Altar / Krark-Clan Ironworks + Nim Deathmantle + Reckless Fireweaver / Disciple of the Vault
This combo pretty much functions as a different iteration of the first one. But in here, we are not counting on Breya activations or her tokens entering the battlefield with her. We are sacking any non token artifact, or we need one in the graveyard, so we sac one artifact and Sharuum the Hegemon making mana to pay for Nim Deathmantle, bringing Sharuum back with any dead artifact, so you can make mana again and repeat the loop. This is where you need the pingers. Since you are not making infinite mana, nor activating Breya out of that, you need something that deals damage upon entering or leaving the battlefield: Reckless Fireweaver and Disciple of the Vault are our enablers, once again.
Also, if you have any free sac outlet, even if it is Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer, and one blue artifact along with Sharuum, you can also do the same with Grand Architect instead of Ashnod's Altar or Krark-Clan Ironworks
The cat is dead in standard, but it's all good in EDH. I didn't think I'd keep Felidar Guardian in after I upgraded the deck as I was planning, but it turned out so powerful in pretty much any ocasion that I had to keep it, especially since it might end games out of nowhere too. I wanted Saheeli anyway because all of her abilities are relevant in this deck, but I didn't expect the cat to be just as powerful. The combo here is well known: Saheeli blinks the cat, the cat blinks Saheeli, and so on, to infinite tokens attacking for lethal.
If you can somehow make mana in one turn, and you have Planar Bridge, get the Guardian, blinking the Bridge, tap it again for Saheeli and in one turn you've assembled the combo out of nowhere.
One blue mana to make Pili-Pala blue with Grand Architect, use Grand Architect's second ability tapping Pili-Pala to make mana and use it to untap Pili-Pala with it's own ability, making one mana of any colour. Repeat that as many times as you want and you have infinite mana in any combination of colors. Infinite mana is always good, but in this deck it's enough to win. Worst case scenario, just sac Breya to her ability infinite times, casting her over and over again with Pili-Pala's colored mana.
Play Thopter Assembly, if you have more thopters sac them somehow for value, at your next upkeep, Thopter Assembly goes back to your hand leaving 5 thopters that you sac to Time Sieve to take an extra turn, play Thopter Assembly again and just like that, infinite extra turns, provided that you keep playing the Assembly each and every turn.
With either Reckless Fireweaver and/or Disciple of the Vault that's infinite damage from the thopters entering and leaving the battlefield.
This combo won't work if somehow you are decking yourself though, so keep that in mind if you face a lot of mill decks.
Again, the deck is still in its most embrionary stage, so this is the least combos you will ever find in this chapter. These are fairly easy to assemble, and there are more than a few ways to get the needed pieces even without adding some tutors and similar effects in Kuldotha Forgemaster and such. The best way to get any of these combo pieces is the previously mentioned Planar Bridge at this point.
Additional Notes
I've updated the decklist with custom categories, you can scroll to those if you wish so you can measure which cards function towards each goal. I've listed Trinket Mage as targeted removal, as it finds us any of the capsules or Aether Spellbomb (not just those, but those are usually the more relevant). I decided to keep a category for blink effects even though they're still few, since they are very relevant and really versatile. Eldrazi Displacer and Felidar Guardian will work towards various goals, either making additional tokens, reset planeswalkers, repeat relevant ETB abilities, and so on.
From now on you will be able to follow any upgrade or general tinkering I made in the deck in the sections below. If you have a Breya deck that you want to improve, this section might be a useful guide so you can see where I stubled and what conclusions have I reached through my own experience; if you are a more experienced Breya player, then I'd really appreciate if you took a few minutes to check these out and share your thoughts with me.
IN
Even though some of these will probably get cut in the long run, I'm focusing on whatever useful upgrades I can make based on my own collection and cards I know I can pick up.
OUT
Some of these cards are really good, they just don't fit as well within the main strategy, or I pulled out most of the support cards that made them useful (for instance Loxodon Warhammer is great equipment, but when I took out all lifegain cards except Breya herself, it feels out of place), others are a personal choice based on meta (Grip of Phyresis for instance, since most equipment my playgroup runs are Boots and Greaves, and I don't feel like I need Grip just for those)
As you've probably read in the description, our mana was far from optimal. I tend to avoid including very expensive lands in my decks both for budget reasons (to whom it may concern) and to keep my decks together (in this case I ended up stripping to parts one of my modern decks which I barely used, but was of some importance in terms of keeping a gauntlet), but Breya really required it, because the deck is not incredibly fast in most situations, and my playgroup is starting to get to a point where they can pretty much keep me out of the game if I'm starting missing my colors for a couple of turns.
IN > Polluted Delta, Flooded Strand, Bloodstained Mire, Steam Vents, Sunken Hollow, Smoldering Marsh, Shivan Reef, Aether Hub, Prairie Stream
OUT > Plains, 2x Mountain, Buried Ruin, Mystic Monastery, Nomad Outpost, Azorius Chancery, Rakdos Carnarium, Transguild Promenade
The reasoning behind these particular multicolored lands is that I wanted less tapped lands and I have more Esper/Grixis cards and Dimir/Boros cards, than Jeskai/Mardu or Azorius/Rakdos. Like this I can keep my mana less awkward and say tap a Dimir Aqueduct and an Inventors' Fair to cast Silas Renn, Seeker Adept instead of tapping a Rakdos Carnarium and one Island. This is particularly relevant to "economize" my colored mana when possible and cast as many different spells as I might need too. I favored the BFZ dual lands instead of shocks because I owned most of them and therefore it's cheaper for me this way, but shocks are definitely more versatile. In addition to this, I was meaning to get some signets, and as it was well pointed out by a fellow user, more untapped lands and cheap mana rocks as the signets in just one or two turns will improve tempo and fix our colors as well. Cards with intensive mana costs are an issue, especially because we are trying to hit 4 colors and not multiples of one same color as we progress through the game and the signets make those multiple symbols extra awkard. Overall I tried to streamline our colors and reduce the average CMC we're running.
IN > Azorius Signet, Boros Signet, Dimir Signet, Izzet Signet, Orzhov Signet, Rakdos Signet
OUT > Blinkmoth Urn, Everflowing Chalice, Hellkite Tyrant, Marionette Master, Soul of New Phyrexia, Sydri, Galvanic Genius
I can't show you enough how much it pained me to cut some of these cards. Hellkite, Master of Puppets and Soul of New Phyrexia especially, because they all bring so much value that it's hard to see past it, but in the end, they are all too expensive, and apart from Helkite Tyrant late in the game with everyone tapped out (and if we are looking to combo off, we are hoping the game won't last that long), none of them win the game on its own. In fact, Soul is actually a defensive card, while Master is just another combo enabler for the main combo that costs almost double of its interchangeable counterparts combined. I love these big splashy spells, I can't help it, but looking at it in plain clarity, they just drag my games longer and don't contribute a whole lot.
Again, due to the added difficulty on very mana intensive cards, I deemed Open the Vaults was too situational and too much of a stretch in most game scenarios, especially because it isn't always game breaking and most times I'll help my opponents out as well - especially a very pesky enchantment based Oloro, Ageless Ascetic deck that I play against often.
This upgrade not only lowers my curve and will allow a better use of my mana, just squeezing Steelshaper's Gift when I have one leftover or casting it to get something like Nim Deathmantle and play it right away, but also gets me any equipment I want - being the combo piece, or some form of protection of card advantage. In time cards like Lightning Greaves will come in too, probably Sword of the Meek as well, so this will almost always be useful.
I've previously talked about trying out cards that I am not all that sure about, instead of auto includes, for the sake of having the experience to back my decision. I finally feel like I had enough games to figure which cards I don't really want in here, to make way for those auto includes still missing.
First of all, only in game situation I found out that the summoner only gets artifact creatures. That makes it so much less relevant in this deck that it doesn't even make sense to rearranje the deck in such a way to make the most out of somewhat of a repeatable tutor. The Summoner makes no sense so it gets the cut. As for Vedalken Engineer, I love the card, but playing a 4 color deck, where most cards, especially artifacts, don't require 2 of the same color, it becomes less useful. It can't even help us ramp into Breya that optimally. We have Grand Architect that gives a similar effect to all our blue creatures and that, so far, has proven more than enough for me.
In fact, I've been able to hard cast Blightsteel Colossus and make that infamous double Planar Bridge activation with just regular acceleration and Grand Architect, along with my blue creatures. Opponent's don't see it coming, and we are able to generate incredible ammounts of mana out of nowhere. One blue thopter can usually turn in 4 colored mana activating 2 different signets, and that kind of explosive mana happens really easy within the deck, even without Grand Architect, so now I'm starting to feel more comfortable including some additional forms of card advantage to keep that engine working.
I really like Akiri, but I very rarely attack with this deck, and when I do usually I do it with Cranial Plating on Breya, so I hit harder for commander damage, keeping the option to use her ability to remove blockers that might trade with her. Since the deck is focused on comboing off, Akiri started to seem a bit like a odd duck, and I mostly played her as a way to block and kill something attacking me, and even that, I can almost as easily remove with Breya most of the times, so I ended up cutting Akiri here. Wandering Fumarole enters tapped and I really want to avoid that, and I have enough blue sources and few red spells so I ended up cutting it, along with a swamp to keep an healthy number of each type of basic land. 37 lands was proving to be more than enough with all the ramping in the deck, so I feel like 35 is okay right now, especially given that we are making more ways to draw cards on a cheap and recur that value later with Jace, Telepath Unbound. With Amonkhet spoilers complete I will update the deck and description, and reduce on the creature count to include more control cards, and so Panharmonicon will have less and less importance. For now I'd rather cut it than Pia Nalaar, Maverick Thopterist, or any of the Retrievers.
With Amonkhet out I was bound to make another update to the deck, and so I took the chance to get copies of a few missing cards still.
Let's start with the lands: Cascading Cataracts was the only noteworthy card out of Amonkhet for this deck, I picked up a copy along with the missing Artifact Land, and threw both in. Boros Garrison is out for the Cataracts since fewer and fewer cards in the deck require to cast.
Then onto the biggest upgrades, cards like Tezzeret the Seeker , Time Sieve combo, Supreme Verdict and such were missing because I didn't own any additional copies, and so I had to order them. As I tend to to, I tried to split my investment in various upgrades, and this one brought in the main missing parts. I'm still debating the inclusion of the Sword of the Meek combo, mainly because of my playgroup, I fear the deck might be slightly overpowered as is, to be adding even more combos.
I'm so sad to yet again take my Blightsteel Colossus back to the binder. The deck is much faster without it, and facing a Bribery or any similar theft effect it becomes too much of a liability. Other cards are pretty much worse overall than the cards we're bringing in, so I don't think there's much else to be said.
And finally, all those instants and control pieces that I didn't run before are now making their way, along with Torrential Gearhulk and Magus of the Will since I now have more targets to recur, and can profit further from these effects adding to the already included Baby Jace.
IN > Anguished Unmaking, Counterspell, Magus of the Will, Reality Shift, Render Silent, Swan Song, Torrential Gearhulk
OUT > Thran Dynamo, Pia Nalaar, Maverick Thopterist, Master of Etherium, Hanna, Ship's Navigator, Cranial Plating and Chief Engineer
Probably the most noteworthy cuts are Thran Dynamo and Hanna, Ship's Navigator. The Dynamo is the more awkward of our mana rocks, since we mostly want to cast a lot of spells with lots of colored mana (same reason why we want Cascading Cataracts and even tapping for , the Dynamo ends up tapping for or mana, wasting the rest many many times. Hanna is awesome, but the most broken thing I can do is getting Sharuum the Hegemon back, and that would cost me so, yeah, a bit pricy. And I feel like I'd rather try and assemble a different combo than get back a combo piece that an opponent destroyed because the deck is so versatile in that matter, she is very hit or miss and so I'd rather have something more streamlined.
With the last B&R announcement I finally got my hands on a
Aetherworks Marvel. Initially I meant to include it it my
Meren of Clan Nel Toth deck, but the more I thought about it the more game changing it looked within my Breya deck.
Thinking about it, both decks would mostly generate energy through sacrificing permanents, and thats just the way Breya wins the game, while Meren creates strong attrition through it and doesn't win right away.
Meren's attrition would gain some "free value" from Marvel, while hopefully Breya will ocasionally hit a game ending combo from it. Much like the reason that got it banned in Standard, Marvel would act in Breya like a roll and re-roll until it eventually wins the game.
I'm trying it out in place of the very good, though very mana consuming as well, Ethersworn Adjudicator and I believe it will mostly be a matter of "can I generate enough energy fast enough?" to define if it is a worthy inclusion.
As for Hour of Devastation, much like Amonkhet, there are no spicy additions to consider. Following the Kaladesh block, there would never be much artifact support from Amonkhet, and even though there are some strong cards worth considering for some niche situations, I don't think there is anything strong enough to become a staple in Breya as of this moment so for no, no other changes will be made.
The deck hasn't suffered any changes in the last few months because of how consistent and reliable it has become. It's already a bit of a boogeyman deck in my playgroup, so really nothing in Ixalan was worthy of changing the list. Now, Rivals bring a spicy new addition that I could not overlook and that doesn't necessarily turn the deck into more of a boogeyman, instead giving it much needed reaction capability whenever the matches might turn Breya into the archenemy.
So, I took Aetherworks Marvel out and moved into my Meren of Clan Nel Toth deck. Logically, Planar Bridge would look like a more appealing target to cut, but Marvel requires investment in it, while Bridge just sits there for you to use at anytime you might need. Both turn you into a target, and with Marvel they have more time to see it come, while it might take longer to assemble any of the combos. Meren could use an explosive card like Marvel, since its attrition based game plan tends to drag out longer and it is pretty much already sacking creatures to feed Marvel.
Storm the Vault functions essentially as ramp, but if you somehow are behind on artifacts it helps feeding Breya. Once it's transformed into Vault of Catlacan you have a card so broken its inspiration is banned in EDH, in the one perfect deck to run it in. In case of a board wipe, you have enough mana to counter, react somehow, if nothing else to blow everything up for Breya, just by keeping the vault up. This was the first card spoiled for RIX if I am not mistaken, and right away I made up my mind to fit this one in Breya somehow.
By now that I have an idea of how the deck plays and where I want it to go, my maybeboard is much more well defined. Some of these cards are obvious inclusions but for various reasons, they are still not in the deck - some I don't own at all, the deck is not ready to make the most of some others, and there are some obvious auto includes that I know I want in there, but I am still trying out different cards to see which are the underperformers.
Ramp
Artifact Synergy
Control
Land Improvement
Alternative WinCons
Magister Sphinx - especially relevant due to two massive lifegain decks in my playgroup.
Mechanized Production - Enchanting Breya, and sacking the copy to the original for one activation and eventually winning with 8 thopters on the field seems fine.
C-C-C-COMBO!
(These are not necessarily cards that only work within their own combos, but if I chose to bring one up, I might look at bringing the whole combo. The main reason for not including these right away is budget only. Most cards needed are pricy and I don't own any copies. Cards in italic are already in the list.)
- Entomb + Worldgorger Dragon + Animate Dead (This one does not synergyze with anything else in the deck, so I feel like it can make the deck more inconsistent. I'll only know for sure trying it out)
Note: At some points Chinese marked cards might show up in the list. Those represent upgrades that I still need to pick up, which are at the time either proxied in the deck or being replaced by a different card as a placeholder until I get my copy.
If you read through all of this, don't forget to leave your thoughts below and THANK YOU!
This is still one of my first approaches to budget options regarding this decklist, so in time I will develop this much further. (Budget notes still to be updated after
Change Log #4)
Obviously, one of my biggest financial improvements in this list was the inclusion of fetchlands and a few fetchable lands. These are not cheap and definitely not viable if your budget is short. One way to cut on this cost is keeping the original precon mana base, it is functional, but keep in mind that you need to reduce mana intensive cards, and seek spells with fewer of the same mana symbols for better consistency. No Phyrexian Rebirth, difficult to include even Whir of Invention and such. Unless you make some huge change to the deck core and make it look like 2 colors splashing 2 others, that might be okay, but if you have an even split, or even a 3 color split with a splash it is virtually impossible to be consistent with those kinds of spells.
Chromatic Lantern is still not as expensive as it once was (and real cheap on MTGO) so it might help fixing cheaper than the fetchlands, and if you play in a really slow environment, try maybe the Vivid Landcycle, but there is no budget competitive solution to a 4 color mana base.
Now, onto a bit of speculation. I decided to group these cards together because even though they don't have anything that binds them together, they are all cards that are being affected by the present time. Let's go one by one.
Krark-Clan Ironworks hasn't seen a reprint (that's it. No legal reprint, not ever). And for a Fifth Dawn card that makes infinite combos legal and fringe playable in modern as well as EDH, that makes it's price shoot up. KCI is at it's highest price and there is no expectable drop for at least a year or so, and that drop will only happen if it is reprinted somewhere. Keep in mind that there is no Masters format announced for 2018 and that or the next Commander set are the most expectable places for KCI to show up, since the plane from it was original is now essentially destroyed. This is why it is so expensive, and there is no way it is going down without a reprint. If you don't want it, but still want the gombo you must have Ashnod's Altar, and to make up for redundancy, you should run Trophy Mage to get the Altar, replacing KCI directly.
Blightsteel Colossus is getting old as well, and even if we go back to New Phyrexia it is unlikely that it gets reprinted out of some kind of Antology set, WotC doesn't seem comfortable enough with infect, so it's unlikely to be in a real set. It is not going down, but it isn't also vital for the deck to function. You can change it for something like a much cheaper Metalwork Colossus and get yourself a big threat that you can play cheaper most of the times. Blightsteel is here mostly to splash something big out of Planar Bridge and represent an imminent threat if nothing else is going on. There is no similar replacement, and there is no need for one. If you want to go budget, you can cut this one without looking back.
Saheeli Rai is at her most expensive price tag right now due to the copycat standard deck. She is also fringe playable in Modern, but Standard is what's making her card so expensive. You can take her out and lose the combo entirely, this is also one card that benefits from Planar Bridge, since the combo is very quickly assembled if you get the Bridge first. You can free 2 slots (I'd keep Felidar Guardian for value anyway) and spare about 15$ in the process.
Cyclonic Rift is still one of the pricy cards in the deck, but this is a staple in the format, and the recent reprint in MM3 made it drop in price to it's lowest in a long time, so move in on these soon. I don't recommend you cut this for budget right now, get in on Cyclonic Rift while it is affordable.
Smuggler's Copter is a personal choice, it will likely keep costing a couple of bucks unless it is unbanned in standard, so if you are willing to get one, this is the fair price. If you don't want to, it is not vital in the deck.
- There are a few other expensive cards in the deck, namely Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
. I owned one already, so it made sense for me to use it, but if you don't, there are other, cheaper ways to reproduce part of his utility. If you want loot effect, the previously spoken Smuggler's Copter is 10 times cheaper and can do some incidental damage while at it. If you want the ability to play spells from your graveyard, look into Magus of the Will (which you should have if you bought the precon) or Past in Flames (at a slightly lower price right now due to its inclusion on one of the Commander 2016 decks and recently Modern Masters 2017). Neither of these effects is vital to winning the game, but if you are looking into strengthening your control options, I'd look into these as a replacement for Jace. Jace is all those effects in one repeatable outlet, but it is also a bit more fragile and menacing to the whole table.
To reduce costs I'd cut Krark-Clan Ironworks, Blightsteel Colossus, Saheeli Rai, Planar Bridge and Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
, sparing about 70$ overall, making way for other very relevant cards like Trophy Mage, Scrap Trawler, Thopter Spy Network, Whirler Rogue, and something else from the precon like Akiri, Line-Slinger if you like to attack or Magus of the Will if you prefer controlling the board and making the most of each and every card you play. Be mindful of your choices and make sure they fit your deck both in mana requirements and, mostly, level of priority in your path to win the game. Sometimes you can't replace an expensive card directly, but there are budget options that can steer your deck's strategy in order to make it cheaper and competitive. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to leave a link to your deck below, I'll be glad to help you out and learn something from you too!
All your suggestions, comments and experiences about Breya, Etherium Shaper that you want to share are welcome! If you like this deck, leave your upvote, it's heavily appreciated!