#drones drones drones

[andrewberg]

Death Cult (via piratewires.com)

[sundayswiththeilluminati]

Okay SO. It’s time for me to update my decklist because I did a TON of trading at PAX Prime. I played in 3 official and 2 unofficial drafts (2 RoE, 2 Origins, 1 MM2) and had some great pulls, a lot of which I traded for nice cards for the thopter deck.

I drafted right before I headed out to the show, and managed to pick up both Hangarback, Pia and Kiran, and Thopter Spy Network So I showed up looking for a few cards in particular: a playset of Hangarback Walkers (I had 2), a playset of Thopter Spy Network (I had 3), a playset of Exquisite Firecraft (I had 2), and anything else that would work well in the deck.

On the first day of the show someone from WotC gave me a “Battle for Zendikar Survival Kit,” aka a lunchbox, which perplexed me at first but then I opened it and found lots of goodies inside like a hedron die and two booster packs! I opened an Embermaw and a Goblin Piledriver in the packs and traded them to one of my roommates for a Hangarback Walker then traded a promo Path to Exile and a Kolaghan’s Command to another friend for a fourth. A friendly fellow who played a heavy RW Commander deck took Tajic, Blade of the Legion and a couple uncommons for a Thopter Spy Network and a Shivan Reef, and an Inquisition of Kozilek got me another Exquisite Firecraft plus five dollars in IOU card credit.

In terms of sweet pulls, I got Splinter Twin in one of the RoE drafts and a foil Bitterblossom in the MM2 draft, which was incredibly fun to play with. I also picked up another Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind and a Shivan Reef to help with fixing.

At the moment I’m sick so I’m not going to write much more, but suffice to say I love my thopter deck right now and PAX Prime was a total blast.

[sundayswiththeilluminati]

Current “Unrestricted Drone Warfare” Deck

4x Hangarback Walker 4x Thopter Engineer 2x Chief of the Foundry 3x Whirler Rogue 3x Pia and Kiran Nalaar

2x Fiery Impulse 2x Clutch of Currents 1x Negate 2x Impact Tremors 2x Artificer's Epiphany 1x Claustrophobia 2x Rolling Thunder 2x Exquisite Firecraft 4x Thopter Spy Network

2x Shivan Reef 2x Foundry of the Consuls 4x Swiftwater Cliffs 9x Island 9x Mountain

Sideboard: 1x Pia and Kiran Nalaar 1x Exquisite Firecraft 1x Chief of the Foundry 1x Rolling Thunder 1x Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh/Chandra, Roaring Flame

Made entirely with cards pulled in Limited or traded for. Contains nothing costed higher than 5 except arguably Ravaging Blaze (RR + X, do X damage) and Pia and Kiran (2R + sac an artifact, do 2 damage). Gonna take it out for a spin tomorrow.

EDIT: Updated 08.02. Removed Chandra’s Fury, added a Chief of the Foundry (pulled in draft), another Pia and Kiran and a Hangarback Walker (traded for), and increased the number of lands.

EDIT: Updated 08.08 Traded for Chandra and a couple of other new cards, completed playset of Thopter Engineer, cut back the high end of the mana curve severely; replaced Lightning Javelin with Fiery Impulse for better Chandra and cut a Ravaging Blaze, which makes me sad inside but such is the finite nature of things.

EDIT: Updated 08.12 After more playtesting, worked on making it even faster. Cut the Ringwarden Owl (last 5 CMC card) and added another Glory Chaser, cut a Fiery Impulse in favor of an Anchor to the Aether I traded for. Ideally I’d like to replace the Gearcrafters with Hangarback Walkers, add more Chiefs of the Foundry, maybe another Whirler Rogue; more Spy Networks, more Exquisite Firecraft replacing Fiery Impulse, another Anchor to replace Disperse or perhaps a Claustrophobia.

Updated 08.24 Got some sweet new cards in draft and added them in. Swapped Disperse for a Negate since Anchor to the Aether now fills the same bounce slot. Completed playset of Pia and Kiran, took out the Gearcrafters in favor of another Whirler Rogue, another Chief of the Foundry, another Hangarback, and the new Pia and Kiran. Added another Thopter Spy Network, added an Evolving Wilds for the double casting cost cards, cut the Prism Ring in favor of a second Angel’s Tomb.

Updated 09.04 Traded a ton at PAX. Completed playsets of Hangarback Walker and Thopter Spy Network, pulled Ral Zarek in a booster (!), traded for a second Niv-Mizzet & added both to the deck, along with a couple of Darksteel Citadels to ensure I have artifacts on the field. Picked up 2 Shivan Reefs for fixing; not ideal but functional. Traded for another Exquisite Firecraft, bringing me up to 3. Dropped: Angel’s Tomb (no longer really necessary), Runed Servitor, 2x Pia and Kiran. Thinking of going to 2x Whirler Rogue and 3x Pia and Kiran; they’re the same cost (2 + UU/RR) and make the same number of thopters (2) but I’d rather have the sac engine of Pia and Kiran than the tap ability of Whirler Rogue. Only downside is Pia and Kiran are Legendary so I can only have one down on the field at any given time, whereas Whirler Rogue has no such constraints.

Rules change, also: I have decided to include cards pulled from what I call “the sadness booster,” which is the single booster pack I buy myself when I scrub out of a draft completely. The sadness booster counts as draft.

Updated 09.14 Completed the playset of Exquisite Firecraft and also picked up a Chandra’s Ignition; I’d like to put it in this deck but I don’t have that many high-power creatures. After extensive playtesting I identified 2 problems: 1) the increased number of spells meant I was having trouble drawing creatures; and 2) I was getting stuck on double casting costs a lot. So accordingly I took Niv-Mizzet back out (sorry Firemind, you’re just too expensive for this deck), added another Whirler Rogue (went to 3 each of WR and P&K), cut Titan’s Strength and a Fiery Impulse, and cut some of the colorless lands to increase the amount of colored mana. I don’t like losing the Foundry of the Consuls but honestly I didn’t get to sack it that much anyway and I’d rather have the mana to cast Thopter Spy Network.

The deck now has only two cards that are not Standard-legal: Darksteel Citadel and Ral Zarek. In the event that I need to play by Standard rules I can swap both of them out for...probably a Foundry and a Pia & Kiran.

Update 10.02 Working on developing a broad sideboard. This deck can now take on most other archetypes but it has a lot of trouble with weenie decks (elves, white tokens, etc.) Rolling Thunder from BFZ goes a long way towards solving this problem, but it’s not a perfect solution. Still working on figuring out what to swap in and out. Also testing out various dual lands (Swiftwater Cliffs, Mystic Monastery, etc.) A lot of the deck’s success seems to depend on when I get the first Thopter Spy Network down, so I’m debating whether I need something that can tutor up enchantments; trouble is there really isn’t anything good in UR for that. Whirler Rogue is real good for flipping Chandra, BTW. I tried swapping in Dragon Tempest, a Tarkir block enchantment for 1R that gives all flying creatures haste, but in practice I don’t often run into situations where I don’t have at least one Thopter Engineer on the board and that already gives the artifacts haste.

Update 10.10 Planning to take the deck to an actual Standard tourney in a couple weeks; let’s see how wrekt I get. With that in mind I’m firming up the sideboard and thinking more about the land base. I got a few more Swiftwater Cliffs and those are going in. Also it turns out Darksteel Citadel is legal in Standard, so the only card I have to swap out is Ral. Debating whether to include any other spells from BFZ besides Rolling Thunder, or any of the special lands - Skyline Cascade (U) can tap stuff down and Looming Spires (R) gives haste and +1/+1. I also looked at the current meta (!! yes I know) and as I guessed people are doing fun things with Hangarback + the +1/+1 counters in Tarkir block. All of those spells are in Abzan though aka the exact opposite of the colors I’m playing, so I’m not going to take the deck apart and rebuild it WBG just because that’s what everyone else has. Scatter to the Winds might be a good control spell to bring in, plus maybe something like Tightening Coils. Or Benthic Infiltrator? Man people hate Benthic Infiltrator. Nettle Drone? Artifacts are colorless spells...oooo wait can I bring in Tide Drifter?? Okay, the Devoid thing is going to require a little more thought.

Update 12.21 Had a deeply unhappy time at said Standard tourney, which put me off my feed for a few weeks. May attempt revenge with a WB reanimator ally deck. But in the meantime, I’ve added Rolling Thunder since it’s just the best, and Clutch of Currents since it can both bounce opponents’ creatures and bounce mine to get multiple ETB thopters. Also added Impact Tremors, which put in work during the tourney. Had to take Ral out since he’s not Standard-legal. Took Chandra out because she wasn’t combo’ing super well but I still like her. Added in a playset of Swiftwater Cliffs traded for.

[sundayswiththeilluminati]

I really want to build a thopter + burn deck out of the cards I’ve gotten in drafts, but I don’t know where I would play it. I want to play a deck more than three or four times, but I don’t want to deal with the Standard meta and some kid who got a decklist off the internet. I’ve thought about commander but IDK about that one of each card rule. I just want to play my dang drones.

[sundayswiththeilluminati]

3-2 at the prerelease with my burn + drone deck! VICTORY. By which I mean I got 9th and 1-8 got prizes. But by which I ALSO mean that I managed to resolve Thopter Spy Network AND keep it on the battlefield long enough to generate 5 DRONES.

WE SWARM

[sundayswiththeilluminati]

I am going to go to the Magic Origins prerelease and I am going to build a Chandra + thopter artifact deck and aLL SHALL FALL BEFORE THE MIGHT OF MY DRONE ARMY

[worsethandetroit]

The CIA itself does not seem to know the affiliation of everyone they kill. Secret CIA documents recording the identity, rank and affiliation of people targeted and killed in strikes between 2006 to 2008 and 2010 to 2011 were leaked to the McClatchy news agency in April 2013. They identified hundreds of those killed as simply Afghan or Pakistani fighters, or as “unknown”.

Only 4% of drone victims in Pakistan identified as al Qaeda members