Why Wait For Scars?
I am sorry, I finally have to do it: start talking about a rogue deck for the current Standard. Everything seems to have gotten in the way of me actually testing the deck, from key cards being in the mail for a while, to having a new set released which changed the deck up, to getting distracted by various rogue deck ideas that I had for various Rise of the Eldrazi cards that took me a while to get access to the cards I needed. I even hinted at the deck through my second article mentioning Runed Servitor as something I was testing with. So what is this deck that I am suggesting? An artifact deck. I don’t feel like waiting for Scars to be released to get my fill of artifact goodness, especially when I can have it now!
The core concept of the deck is abusing Lodestone Golem, one of my favorite cards from Worldwake. While it is in Bolt range, a 5/3 is a fairly scary creature. To make it worse almost every spell played in Standard is made to cost more. The Golem is easy to drop turn three if you drop an Everflowing Chalice at 1 on turn two. Unless your opponent has some cheap removal they lose (at least in my experience).
Here is my original concept for the deck pre-M11:
Standard Mono-Brown
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Now parts of this deck are pretty rough. The sideboard is pretty awful to start. Some cards also raise eyebrows like Platinum Angel, a card I personally hate but as a singleton Eye of Ugin target does not seem too bad. Keening Stone as a backup win condition is also a bit strange but had potential to be quite obnoxious against various decks that filled their graveyard. The manabase is also strange with no basics leaving the deck weak to Path to Exile and some of the lands being seemingly useless such as Unstable Frontier. Overall the deck did pretty well in testing though I only used it on Workstation a little bit.
M11 changed things though. Reprinting Juggernaut was huge, adding another 4-drop to play alongside the Golem is nice even if it does not lockdown your opponent as well (though it does get around Wall of Omens nicely). Voltaic Key is also huge in a deck full of artifacts. Crystal Ball providing colorless scrying is similarly useful. Sadly now anything I say about the deck is going to be more theoretical as I have not had the opportunity to fully use the deck with the new cards as well as somehow torching my copy of Workstation.
My New Core of the Deck
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So with this core I am not sure how I want to fill out the last 24 slots. One option is in the original idea: using Eye of Ugin to fish out a toolbox of artifacts and colorless spells to deal with whatever situations. Then running a playset of Eldrazi Temple makes sense as it is pretty pointless to run the Eye without a couple Eldrazi. For this option I would add to my core:
4 Eldrazi Temple
2 Eye of Ugin
8 other land, I am not sure exactly which ones but they should be useful fetches with Expedition Map
2 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre (the best Eldrazi you can realistically cast)
2-3 other creatures to fetch with the Eye
4 Dreamstone Hedron
1-2 All is Dust (depends on how many creatures you want to fetch with the Eye, luckily as a tribal sorcery it counts as a creature to fetch with the Eye)
Another idea I have been contemplating is adding blue for Master of Etherium, Spreading Seas, and Mana Leak. The Master will always be huge and makes my Golems and Juggernauts more survivable which is awesome. Spreading Seas and Mana Leak make it far more difficult for my opponent to play their spells. Maindeck I would add to my core:
4 Master of Etherium
4 Mana Leak
2 Spreading Seas
14 Islands
I am currently leaning toward this second option but with testing I may discover another option. I will at least report on the forum how I am doing with the list if I don’t have enough to write another article about it. Please try out the standard artifact deck and tell me what you think of it (even if it is that I am completely insane for playing such a deck).
Perry Grosch
Tags: artifacts, Goblin Secret Agent, rogue decks, standard
If you’ve got the Voltaic Key coupled with either Dreamstone Hedron or Everflowing Chalice with a couple of counters on it, you essentially have unlimited mana.
Why not use that to drop some really fat creatures?
To that end, Ulamog and his Eldrazi buddies really fill that notch nicely.
I’d go with an Eye of Ugin or 4 to make sure you can fetch those fatties one your combo is setup.
Actually testing the blue version last night I found that mystifying maze is much better than quicksand and addresses the fact that you do end up with a ton of mana with the key. The Eldrazi also could work for this but then you go more towards a creature based plan instead of disrupting your opponent which seems to work better. I don’t know though maybe I am wrong with what strategy to take test it out and report back on the forum how it does.
Eye of Ugin doesn’t work with All Is Dust, because although it is an Eldrazi card, it isn’t a creature.
I would also suggest going creatures with Master of Etherium and also you might want to try a few Steel Overseers. It’s probably a much better two-drop than Runed Servitor. Also, as removal, you might want to include Brittle Effigy.
All is Dust is a tribal sorcery so it has a creature type, I know tarmogoyf counts it as a creature so I believe that the eye should too.
I can see the argument of steel overseer over runed servitor as both are removal targets but the overseer is not immediately useful and is smaller than the servitor for a while which limits it’s usefulness. The overseer is also a wretched topdeck while the servitor gives you a guy and another chance to topdeck something useful. I prefer the servitor simply for the mindgames you can play with him but the overseer might be better for some players.
I will try out brittle effigy though as that is another great m11 artifact that I forgot about.
A single activation of Steel Overseer is worth it, taking your Lodestone Golem or Juggernaut out of Bolt range.
Tarmogoyf counts All Is Dust as a Tribal, which is a separate type, with the same subtypes as Creature, but it is NOT a Creature. If you have a Tribal Instant and a Creature in the graveyard, Tarmogoyf is 3/4. Eldrazi Temple works on All Is Dust, because it only cares about the subtype, Eldrazi, not whether that subtype belongs to a Creature or a Tribal; but Eye of Ugin cares for the type, Creature, which is not the case for All Is Dust.
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