Development of a New Deck: Breya’s Grand Machinations
I have decided to build a new deck with some stipulations. This deck is meant to be less cut-throat but at the same time still being enjoyable for me to play. The stipulations I gave myself were as follows:
It must include White
The largest fraction of spells in the deck must be creatures
Can only contain one tutor (This includes cards that tutor for limited amounts of cards but does not include fetchlands)
Can only contain 2 or less counter spells
Cannot be a hard control deck
That limits most of the things I normally stuff into a deck. So what did I end up with? A four color synergistic combo deck lead by Breya, Etheriem Shaper. (Note part of the reason I wanted to make her is because she is a very pretty foil)
The details of the deck is as follows:
One of the early articles I wrote was concerning different types of combo decks in Commander. I separated them into Agressive Combo (built to combo out) Control Combo (A slower deck that uses combo as its win-con to eventually close the game) and Synergistic Combo (A deck built with strong cards that just happen to form combos). The design of this deck is a hybrid between an Agressive Combo deck and a Synergistic Combo deck. It is filled with tons of good cards that interact well with each other but they all happen to interact too well. The deck-list ensures that you will probably be able to look at your opening hand and find some way to go infinite.
The actual article is here if you want to look at it: http://wordofcommander.tumblr.com/post/140699943345/combo-in-commander
The machinations the deck names refers to is putting together these combos. There are obvious ones like the Kiki-Jiki and Splinter Twin shenanigans, Palinchron with half the deck and so on, but the cards lend themselves to a lot of stranger less intuitive ways where things just fall into place. Part of the fun of this deck is not to go infinite but to go infinite in ways you did not know you could. For example Archeomancer, Turnabout, Nim Deathmantle, and a sac outlet can provide infinite mana with enough lands. The deck is a puzzle with many ways to solve it. The lack of tutors means that as a player you have to think about the cards you have available instead of trying to put together the same combo each time and so on. It is a deck that highly appeals to the Johnny aspect of the way I play.
Breya herself is very important to the deck as she is part of many of the combos. From being able to shoot everyone down with her ability while being caught in the Worldgorger Dragon loop, providing 3 bodies to sacrifice to many of the engines of the deck, or the fact that with infinite mana she can actually be cast and sacrificed herself over and over again to kill by abusing the command zone. She is just the perfect commander for this type of deck.
The current iteration of the deck-list is:
Commander: Breya, Etherium Shaper
Creatures: 29
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker Workhorse Pestermite Restoration Angel Village Bell Ringer Dualcaster Mage Worldgorger Dragon Fiend Hunter Eldrazi Displacer Palinchron Deadeye Navigator Rasputin Dreamweaver Sun Titan Phantasmal Image Fatestitcher Karmic Guide Reveilark Body Double Sunstrike Legionare Leonin Relic Warden Zealous Conscripts Sharuum the Hedgemon Mikaeus the Unhallowed Soulfire Grandmaster Felidar Guardian Necrotic Ooze Archeomancer Phyrexian Metalmorph Purphoros, God of the Forge
Instants: 4
Mystic Confluence Turnabout Cryptic Command Evacuation
Sorceries: 5
Demonic Tutor Temporal Manipulation Twinflame Right of Replication Wheel of Fortune
Artifacts: 14
Krarak Clan Ironworks Nim Deathmantle Ashnod's Altar Phyrexian Altar Altar of Dementia Blasting Station Skullclamp Sword of the Meek Thopter Foundry Coalition Relic Chromatic Lantern Sol Ring Mana Crypt
Enchantments: 9
Splinter Twin Intruder Alarm Animate Dead Elemental Mastery Dance of the Dead Goblin Bombardment Omniscience Necromancy Mana Echoes
Planeswalkers: 2
Saheli Rai Venser the Sojourner
Lands : 37
Command Tower Reflecting Pool City of Brass Mana Confluence Spire of Industry Opal Palace Nomad Outpost Arcane Sanctum Crumbling Necropolis Spire of Industry Exotic Orchard Forbidden Orchard Mystic Monastary Grand Coluseum Tarnished Citadel Flooded Strand Marsh Flats Arid Mesa Windswept Heath Polluted Delta Scalding Tarn Misty Rainforest Bloodstained Mire Verdant Catacombs Wooded Foothills Tundra Scrubland Plateau Underground Sea Volcanic Island Badlands Hallowed Fountain Godless Shrine Sacred Foundry Watery Grave Steam Vents Blood Crypt
This deck is not budget friendly. It makes use of a large amount of cards that are commonly abused in Commander and other formats. Even worse is the mana base: 10 fetchlands, 6 duals, 6 shocks, and almost every gold land known to man is going to add up. That’s the price you pay if you want a nearly perfect manabase to support 4 colors and Eldrazi Displacer’s colorless activation though.
As for how competitive the deck is I would rate it at being fairly moderate. It has the potential to win early and is quite resilient as it has nearly endless angles to try to win from. The downside is that it is very limited in interaction and will simply be outdone by strong early game dominating decks, aggressive combo, hard control that creates locks, and so on. The lack of tutors makes the deck interesting but does severely limit its capabilities. Additionally while it does run a lot of strong individual cards they are still outclassed by many other cards, primarily the many strong value creatures in green. I would say this deck is on the higher end of casual and lower end of competitive having draws that can overwhelm some casual groups and sometimes being able to steal games from competitive groups. It could be easily adjusted into a powerful competitive deck but as it is I wouldn’t be taking it into a Commander League match. I will however enjoy playing it with the newer members of my playgroup who do have some experience with the format.
The deck is still being built with about 70% of the cards already acquired. I will start testing it out with proxies filling in for the remaining cards while I track them down. I will update on how it performs and if any changes should be made to the deck. Until then; good luck and have fun.
