The Next 100 Project: Spinning Off Of Sheldon

Welcome! Today I want to look closer at a Commander deck published by Sheldon Menery a couple of weeks ago. As part of his Chromatic Project, he finished with a colorless
deck led by Karn.

Sheldon inspired me to try my hand at it, but from a different angle of attack. I think, on the surface, that a lot of folks consider the colorless cards
to be fairly limited in depth. Outside of some artifact themed sets, there aren’t that many colorless cards printed in each set. How could there be enough
non-lands to support a second Commander deck?

You know what would be fun? Let’s delve into the colorless cards a bit more to see what we could uncover. I decided to build another Karn deck with some of
Sheldon’s ideas, but without repeating any non-land card he has. Other than Karn himself, there are no duplicates.

Normally, in my Next 100 projects, I would set aside the lands as well as the rest of the deck. Due to the unique nature of this project, and since I can’t
run any basic lands, I am going to keep his landbase mostly intact. The only changes are ones that make sense for my deck.

Let’s start with Sheldon’s fun deck!

Karn, Beatdown Golem

Sheldon Menery

Test deck on 10-09-2014

Commander

Creatures (17)

Planeswalkers (2)

Lands (38)

This looks like a blast to play, right?

So how can I build a Karn deck without dipping into that awesome stuff?

Karn, Silver Golem (Next 100 Project)

Abe Sargent

Test deck on 10-20-2014

Commander

Creatures (28)

Lands (40)

I wanted to keep some of Sheldon’s thoughts in place for this deck. For example, he chose not to run Blightsteel Colossus. It’s not his sort of thing–and
I agree completely. I rarely run it. So I didn’t toss it into the Next 100 either, since that would violate the flavor of our Karn deck. There are more
than enough quality cards to run a solid deck without having to do that.

I did add some extra lands and pulled Maze of Ith. I can’t run a lot of high quality mana rocks like Sol Ring and Everflowing Chalice. Thus, the need for
additional lands (Maze felt too much like a non-land and was against the flavor of the Next 100 challenge). The lands I added were simple: Winding Canyons
for flashing an artifact creature and then a variety of manlands like Blinkmoth Nexus and Mishra’s Factory. I also pulled Inkmoth Nexus for Mutavault. I
actively don’t like infect creatures outside of a dedicated poison deck.

There are some solid artifact-centric cards out there that I included to pump our theme. This synergy is an important key to consider when your deck lacks
the best “good stuff” available in your colors. When you can’t run Sol Ring and Nevinyrral’s Disk and Mind’s Eye, then grab stuff that works well together.
(This is just as true for decks with colors too.) If you can’t acquire the expensive cards on Commander’s Greatest Hits, don’t worry. Just run fun stuff
that works well together. You’ll find that some cards that work together usually more than hold their own against pure power.

Take Mirrorworks, as a great example. It helps to churn out more fun artifacts. Getting a double dose of a solid artifact is candy-tastic. Another
underplayed card is Unwinding Clock. It’s a virtual Seedborn Muse for just your artifacts. In a Karn deck where you run a passel of artifacts, that’s a
nasty injection of untapping. Take a look at Shimmer Myr, Steel Overseer, Arcbound Reclaimer, Arcbound Crusher, and Golem Artisan for more pro-artifact
inspiration. There’s usually a lot of these cards under the surface, lingering and waiting to pounce into your deck.

And some of these are downright game-winning. Tap some stuff for Lodestone Myr and swing with a giant trampler. That’ll blow through some defenses, and you
aren’t risking your board position. If you prefer a giant army of 1/1s to the big death beats of DJ Lodestone, then how about Myr Incubator? Just a simple
sacrifice and search can unearth enough 1/1 Myr tokens to overwhelm that defense.

Once we get past these synergistic cards, what else awaits?

An artifact deck might not draw enough cards, so I made sure to include stuff like Coercive Portal (which normally draws you a card rather than going off),
Serum Tank (a much cheaper, although paperwork heavy version of Jayemdae Tome), Skullclamp, Diviner’s Wand, Sword of Fire and Ice, and so forth. Shoot,
even Sensei’s Divining Top and Scroll Rack will give you a new selection of cards. You could also run stuff like Emessi Tome or Ashnod’s Cylex. Yes, I’m
crazy enough to throw in that Tower of Fortunes.

And the tools don’t end with just card drawing. Wanna handle opposing stuff that’s being ornery? Sheldon used one of my favorite artifact based answers
(Tawnos’s Coffin). But we can still dip into Oblivion Stone and Perilous Vault for mass removal. Meanwhile we can tap down annoying creatures with Icy
Manipulator or Puppet Strings. Rustspore Ram can blow up another piece of equipment when it enters the battlefield (ETB), and Triskelion has been shooting
small stuff for virtually the entire history of multiplayer in Magic. Even Helm of Possession can steal a creature for you.

There have been a strong number of artifact entries through the years that will either reshuffle your stuff back into your deck or let you do that to
someone else to fight any possible graveyard abuse. The most recent entry, Cranial Archive, also draws you a card when it’s used, so it doesn’t require a
card. That’s the kind of juice that makes me happy. It’s not too sweet, like Pineapple Juice, and neither it is tasteless like Cranberry; it’s just right.

We can run a smattering of recursion ourselves. I initially had Salvaging Station in the deck to re-use stuff like Expedition Map, but in the end I didn’t
feel there was enough so I pulled it. That’s alright, because we still have classics like Arcbound Reclaimer to throw dead stuff on top of the deck, as
well as Junk Diver and Myr Retriver, which have been best friends with artifact decks for a long time.

Oh, and while speaking of Expedition Map, it tutors for any land, so it can be really nice in here. You can use it as land destruction (Strip Mine),
recursion (Buried Ruin, Petrified Field), defense (Mystifying Maze), sacrifice engine (High Market), creature (Mishra’s Factory), anti-theft (Homeward
Path), life gain (Tomb of the Spirit Dragon), as well as grabbing one of the Urzatron lands, Winding Canyons, Vesuva, or even Reliquary Tower. That’s a
pretty flexible tutor.

And that’s not all. I dug into the artifacts of yore and found a card I had forgotten even existed: Ward of Bones. If you have also forgotten this card,
then take another look at it. I know, I know, it has a six mana tag. But you know what? Dang is that not a good card to build around? Keeping folks from
playing more lands, creatures, artifacts, or enchantments is just sexy. It’s a decent anti-ramp answer. It works against folks with lots of creatures that
use ETB abilities rather than spells. It forces an artifact or enchantment heavy deck to play fair. In a way, it’s a quasi-Balance that keeps things on the
justice side of life. Even in this deck, it’s pretty keen. Since you aren’t running enchantments, no one else can play any. Considering the sheer number of
artifacts this deck includes, it obviously won’t prevent artifacts from being played. But it’s a nice tool against everything else.

Now add the expected quality of cards you normally find in a Next 100 project, such as Wurmcoil Engine and Mindslaver, that were probably in the next
section of stuff fighting for a spot in Sheldon’s deck.

The fun of Veldaken Orrery mixes with Thopter Assembly and Etched Champion. You’ve got a Karn deck with some zest behind it.

You could also run Venser’s Journal, Manakin, Milikin, Memory Jar, and lots more. There’s still a huge network of tonnage to dip into for your Karn deck.
Shoot, you could build a Third 100 project and save for mana rocks, you’d still find a lot of quality. From Sword of Light and Shadow to Arcbound Ravager,
and Silent Arbiter to Howling Mine/Temple Bell, there are a lot of options to run through.

I hope there were a few cards in here that jumpstarted your own deck. What cards have you been considering for your Karn deck? And if not your Karn, what
about other decks that could use a Ward of Bones, Copper Gnomes, or Unwinding Clock?

Thanks again to Sheldon for letting me run a riff off his fun Karn deck!