It's been a few months and I am pondering some changes to this deck. The rule for me is no spending more money on it- it's already a blingy deck and one that wins and attracts tons of attention, and I just can't justify spending even a few more bucks. That means if I don't have it around or haven't pulled it, it can't get added. That being said, I do own or have pulled a few cards I want to try out...
Underworld Breach - Inspired by a recent thread here, I think I want to try this. The fail rate is that this is "red regrowth", AKA "Regrowth you have to use now, right now." That isn't a terrible fail-rate at all - this deck has so many ways to pull artifacts back, but there have been plenty of games lately where being able to pull back, say,
Scrap Mastery or
Karn, the Great Creator is what I actually needed to win. And of course with all my looting, it isn't uncommon to have my graveyard outnumber my library in the endgame and to have access to 20+ mana on the table - I am sure there are ways for this to go off, and go off in destructive if not truly infinite fashion.
Soul of New Phyrexia - I am surprised I have never tried this dude. He's an expensive, slow bomb and seems just worse than Wurmcoil Engine, Steel Hellkite, Myr Battlesphere, and Combustible Gearhulk (AKA my actual MVP murder machines) but I think it is better than a few other cards in the list now, and I've noticed my deck somewhat struggling to actually seal the deal. 6/6 Trample moves people to dead reasonably fast, and insurance against enemy boardwipes (or the ability to use my big mana stack to make my boardwipes asymmetrical) is really strong. I'd prefer to try out
Ancient Stone Idol, but with my aforementioned refusal to buy singles I don't own, we're gonna try some Soul instead for now. I am willing to hear arguments that
Platinum Angel,
Akroma's Memorial, or
Scuttling Doom Engine (which I also own and toyed with) are better calls though.
Meteor Golem - Also painfully slow, but plays well with some other cards in my deck - better than a few cards currently in the list, at least.
Thrill of Possibility - Instant speed draw!
Magmatic Sinkhole - I am unconcerned about paying the Delve cost, and have found
Roast to be dead a little bit too often to want to keep it around.
Voltaic Key - Long story time; this deck was originally
Karn, Silver Golem "as many infinite combos as I can run". That got a lot of hate and got old, so I wanted to dismantle it into something newer and different-er. I intentionally left out a lot of combo culprits and have only slowly started sneaking some back in starting with KCI during my last remodel. I think it is time for Key to be another one of those cards. Key is a frequent mana rock as it combines with any rock that makes 2+ to come out ahead. More than that, it can be amazing alongside
Trading Post and
The Chain Veil, two of the most powerful cards in my deck. I do worry my deck doesn't run quite enough targets for it, but the only way to know for sure is to test it out.
Mirage Mirror - This feels flexible, powerful, and fun, and I want to experiment with it.
The hard part is to find cuts. The easy cuts start with
Spitebellows and
Roast for being dead too often and/or not interacting as strongly with my deck; Meteor Golem and Sinkhole are the replacements.
Pentavus and
Pia and Kiran Nalaar are also easy cuts - these cards are simply too slow and "too cute", and dropping them will lower my decks out-of-control curve.
After that, I get to cuts I find a little more uncertain and controversial. Tentatively, I am thinking of cutting...
Sculpting Steel: This card has been "Thran Dynamo #2" a little too often for my tastes. I suspect I will find Mirage Mirror more fun and more flexible - but they are different cards, and I am not sure this is a great call.
Metalworker: A rockstar in most Daretti builds, but my more eccentric list finds this guy to rarely be stronger than a
Palladium Myr. In a stronger, more cutthroat deck or meta he'd earn his keep, but he's been sorta meh for me in my current configuration.
A land - going down to 33 feels suicidal, but the primer runs 30. I have rarely had a draw that fails to hit land drops. And I'm hoping that adding Thrill and Key make the deck play a bit leaner.
I also considered cutting
Curse of Opulence and
Treasure Nabbber both of which have underperformed so far, but I haven't logged too many games since adding them and figure I may want to give them a bit more time to shine before making a decision. Thoughts? Suggestions?