Artificer’s Research?
Saheeli just got a blue/red artifact deck, and artifacts are a common place to find charge counters and support for it.
The biggest problem with Firemind’s Research is building up the number of charge counters on it. Coretapper and Energy Chamber work on artifacts, and Firemind’s Research isn’t one.
Well, that is until you make it an artifact. You can’t use many enchantments that would double the number of counters you’re getting, at least if you stick to blue/red, but when speaking of Blue and artifacts, one should think of Mirrodin and Proliferate.
In Commander, you’ll need roughly 40 charge counters (maybe more for lifegain decks, or less if they’ve lost life other ways), but doing that with a 1:1 ratio of Sorceries and Instants is... sub-optimal. Proliferate will help, but being that it only works when you already have counters on Firemind’s Research. Even with Coretapper and Energy Chamber, we’re still looking at probably 10-20 turns.
Clockspinning was a card I talked about a bit recently with Sagas coming out, and it would work double-time for Firemind’s Research, giving us a counter for being an instant, putting out another (provided there was one already for you to target), and if you pay the Buyback, you can keep casting it and greatly speed up the process.
Since we’re talking about Proliferate and such, we probably don’t want all our eggs in the Firemind’s basket, and Clockspinning can help keep Sagas on the board. So if we put Sagas in the deck, we can use Flame of Keld and/or The Mirari Conjecture to be other targets for Clockspinning, Power Conduit, and also as a source of more Instants and Sorceries.
One final note, a Sorcery that doesn’t get much love. Dismantle destroys an artifact and puts as many counters as it had onto another artifact you control (as either +1/+1 counters or charge counters). Darksteel Reactor is pretty nice as your first target because it’s Indestructible, so doesn’t actually lose any counters or get destroyed. ...Also works as an alternate win condition, and you could move a 20+ Firemind’s Research onto it with Liquimetal Coating, potentially winning on your next upkeep. Maybe put in a few cards for extra turns so that comes sooner than it naturally would, too.
As for alternate win conditions in a red/blue artifact deck with instants and sorceries, feel free to put Aetherflux Reservoir in there, too. Frak. Now I almost want to make this Red/Blue/White so I could use Firesong and Sunspeaker for those instants and sorceries (no interaction with enchantments/artifacts, sadly).
P.S. Firemind’s Research triggers when you CAST a spell. If it gets countered, you still get the charge counter.
