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Tribal Thriftiness #56 – The Endless March

Richmond, Virginia hosts the first StarCityGames.com $5,000 Standard Open of 2009!
Tuesday, February 17th – Continuing a look at forgotten gems from Tenth Edition, Dave presses on and digs up a forgotten less-than-a-dollar rare that’s a perfect match for some of Esper’s artifacts – March of the Machines.

Over the last month, I’ve had a couple of opportunities to make “Magic Road Trips” – one to a PTQ, the other to the Conflux Prerelease – and one of the things I love about these trips is that, invariably, one of us will come up with a completely off-the-wall deck idea – and then things snowball from there.

To give you some perspective on this (and to give you an idea of how exactly wacky this wacky is), the first deck we brainstormed was centered around Puca’s Mischief. You’d cast Puca’s Mischief, and then trade stuff like your Oblivion Ring or your Fertile Ground or your Lignify off to your opponent for his actual good stuff. It was so hilariously awesome that I actually went ahead and bought a dozen or so Puca’s Mischiefs just in case we ever wanted to actually play the deck.

The brainstorm deck for this past set of trips? March of the Machines.

Forcing the March

(I started out titling this section “Forced March” but I realized it’s a card. StarCityGames.com autocarding feature would probably hate me and mess up the formatting.)

I was really excited when they reprinted March of the Machines ($0.75) in Tenth Edition. It’s a cool card that alters how you perceive your board, and is a great card to build a deck around. The first time March of the Machines was in Standard, it spawned a deck based around the indestructible artifacts of Darksteel… and the fact that Obliterate doesn’t kill enchantments. The deck was powerful and popular, and even won Canadian Nationals in 2004.

March / Obliterate
Jingpeng Zhang
Canadian Nationals 2004 Winner

4 Flooded Strand
4 Grand Coliseum
4 Island
3 Mirrodin’s Core
5 Plains

4 Condescend
4 Darksteel Ingot
4 Darksteel Pendant
2 Echoing Truth
4 Mana Leak
4 March of the Machines
2 Obliterate
2 Pulse of the Fields
2 Serum Visions
1 Talisman of Indulgence
3 Talisman of Progress
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Wrath of God

Sideboard:
3 Annul
4 Cabal Interrogator
2 Mycosynth Lattice
4 Pyroclasm
2 Stifle

Rare Cost Summary:
Flooded Strand ($22.50 x 4 = $110.00)
Grand Coliseum ($1.25 x 4 = $5.00)
March of the Machines ($0.75 x 4 = $3.00)
Obliterate ($1.25 x 2 = $2.50)
Pulse of the Fields ($1.00 x 2 = $2.00)
Wrath of God ($15.00 x 4 = $60.00)
Mycosynth Lattice ($3.00 x 2 = $6.00)
Stifle ($15.00 x 2 = $30.00)

Obviously those prices are adjusted now for the power and necessity of the fetchlands in Extended, but even adjusting the manabase to add in some of the two-color options in the current Standard environment, I don’t think that this deck really costs that much.

The idea of the deck: Make some indestructible artifacts, animate them to sit as blockers, clear the board when necessary, and attack on your own time. Indestructible creatures were a lot harder to deal with back then; every other deck in the Canadian Nationals Top 8 either relied on Wrath or damage-based solutions to deal with creatures on the other side of the board. There was also a Red/Blue version of the same deck in the same Top 8.

March of Progress

So, on to the task of making a new March of the Machines deck.

Unfortunately, we don’t have any indestructible artifacts any more to merit automatic selection for the deck. I’m okay with that; beyond being indestructible, the Darksteel artifacts were less about their useful properties and more about being the cleanup. Luckily we have a whole plane of artifacts to choose from, thanks to Shards of Alara. I want the new deck to use its artifacts for their intended functionality as well as being attackers once the March comes down, so I’m going to start by focusing on those. Here are some possibilities:

Armillary Sphere: The inclusion of Armillary Sphere rests completely on the final manabase. Seeing as to how we want this to be a budget deck, it seems likely that we will rely on uncommon lands like Arcane Sanctum; depending on what colors the deck ends up, it could be necessary to include the land-fetching Sphere. His two-casting-cost isn’t insignificant when it comes to the final push, but it does make him a target for the numerically-minded removal spells in Standard.

Chimeric Staff ($0.50): Chimeric Staff is an interesting card for this type of deck. At four mana, it essentially just sits like a lump on your side of the board until you decide to make the mana investment to activate him – but then he jumps up and provides you with a midgame blocker that can potentially take down some of the bigger creatures in Standard. He’s a 4/4 after the March, which is nothing to sneeze at, but can still activate his ability if you need that last couple of points of damage and have the mana to burn.

Cumber Stone: I love Cumber Stone for this deck. He messes up math, puts your opponent’s offense down a notch, and turns on as a 4/4 guy under the March. Four, to me, is the magical casting cost where your army starts to avoid numerically-based removal like Agony Warp and Firespout, and starts to require either a Wrath or one-for-one “destroy” removal to stem the tide. Cumber Stone is a pretty complete package in that regard. The fact that he turns off Bitterblossom tokens is pretty nice too.

Gnarled Effigy: Another 4cc-er, and another artifact with a decent ability to use before dropping the March. Possibly the only thing that relegates him to the sidelines is the expensive mana commitment to use that -1/-1 counter. Four mana is a lot, especially when you consider…

Icy Manipulator: One mana to render a creature ineffective is a lot better than four mana. Icy Manipulator has been around for a long time, and this deck lets him shine.

Illuminated Folio: Depending on the non-artifact contents of the deck, this is a card-drawer with a much cheaper activation cost them Jayemdae Tome or Scepter of Insight. The 5cc means that it should probably be a one- or two-of, though.

Mind Stone: Mana acceleration plus card-drawing is nice. I’m sure we’ll want some of the Obelisks once I get to them alphabetically (because they’re 3cc rather than 2cc, which actually is important in this deck) but Mind Stone is an accelerant on a critical turn when you’re talking about a lot of 4cc artifacts – not to mention March itself.

Moonglove Extract: A way to push through those last few points of damage, plus he’s a 3/3 under the March, which is nothing to sneeze at. The sacrificial ability is a nice way to compensate for getting hit by Agony Warp and Incinerate.

Obelisk of Esper: The most likely of the Obelisks to be included, but again, it’s dependent on the colored content of the deck. If we end up Blue/Red, then Obelisk of Grixis likely gets the nod.

Rod of Ruin: A continuous source of damage and another 4cc artifact. No colored requirement in the activation cost means it can be used no matter what colors we end up in.

Scepter of Fugue ($2.50): Honestly, it’s the only Scepter I would consider for this deck. The casting cost actually matters when you’re talking about March of the Machines, and that makes Icy Manipulator more interesting than Scepter of Dominance and Jayemdae Tome more interesting than Scepter of Insight. Scepter of Fugue, however, doesn’t really replicate anything available in Standard (Disrupting Scepter was in Ninth but not in Tenth), and the ability seems really cheap, relatively speaking.

Ward of Bones ($0.50): Well it would be funny at least. And that six casting cost! Wow.

First Cut

The first decision tree to make is the colors of the deck. Obviously we want access to some Blue mana, seeing as how we intend to have March of the Machines as our primary win condition. From there, it gets a little murky. Do we include White, as Jingpeng Zhang did, to give us access to targeted removal and potentially Wrath of God? Do we include Black to let us play Scepter of Fugue, and possibly some searching cards like Beseech the Queen? Are Red or Green options?

The core of the deck shapes up like this:

4 March of the Machines
4 Icy Manipulator
4 Cumber Stone
4 Artifact Acceleration Of Your Choice
4 Moonglove Extract
2 Illuminated Folio

24 Lands

That leaves 14 cards to play around with. Options in each color… White: Condemn, Path to Exile, Wrath of God. Black: Scepter of Fugue, Beseech the Queen, Infest. Red: Volcanic Fallout, direct damage. Green… okay, I got nothing. I imagine Scattershot Archer or Cloudthresher are possibilities for anti-Faerie options. Blue: Countermagic like Broken Ambitions or Negate, card drawing like Tidings or Ponder.

I think I’m going to start with Mono-Blue, and then put together a multicolored version.

Mono-Blue March

4 March of the Machines
4 Cumber Stone
4 Icy Manipulator
4 Mind Stone
4 Moonglove Extract
2 Illuminated Folio

4 Broken Ambitions
4 Ponder
4 Negate
2 Tidings

4 Faerie Conclave
20 Island

Rare Cost Summary:
March of the Machines ($0.75 x 4 = $3.00)

Eighteen colored cards should be plenty to trigger Illuminated Folio.

Blue-Black March

4 March of the Machines
4 Cumber Stone
4 Scepter of Fugue
4 Obelisk of Esper
4 Moonglove Extract
1 Rod of Ruin
2 Icy Manipulator
1 Ward of Bones

4 Broken Ambitions
4 Beseech the Queen
4 Infest

4 Arcane Sanctum
4 Faerie Conclave
8 Island
8 Swamp

Rare Cost Summary:
March of the Machines ($0.75 x 4 = $3.00)
Scepter of Fugue ($2.50 x 4 = $10.00)
Ward of Bones ($0.50 x 1 = $0.50)

The deck really needs some sort of mass removal, and Infest certainly works in that aspect. Running Beseech the Queen allows for some singleton special-ee-tays in the maindeck, and it probably could let me adjust the numbers on some of the disruption… if I needed to.

March On

I still like March of the Machines. I haven’t been this excited about playing with artifacts since Mishra, Artificer Prodigy was around. I keep seeing him in my binder and thinking, I should make an EDH deck around him! Yeah, I don’t think that works out so well. At least March of the Machines will let me bring out the contraptions again.

(No, not THOSE contraptions.)

Until next week…

dave

dave dot massive at gmail and facebook

Bonus Section: Fully Powered March

As I was looking through the cards that could potentially go into this deck, I started noticing that there are some real powerful cards that work with this archetype – too bad they’re ridiculously expensive. But I still think it’s an interesting-enough concept to keep exploring, so here is my first cut at a fully-powered March of the Machines deck.

Fully Powered March

3 March of the Machines

2 Tezzeret the Seeker

4 Cumber Stone
4 Icy Manipulator
4 Obelisk of Esper
1 Rod of Ruin
2 Moonglove Extract
1 Pithing Needle
1 Legacy Weapon
2 Scepter of Fugue

4 Cryptic Command
4 Wrath of God
3 Path to Exile
1 Fathom Trawl

4 Reflecting Pool
4 Arcane Sanctum
2 Mystic Gate
2 Sunken Ruins
4 Vivid Creek
2 Vivid Meadow
2 Vivid Marsh
3 Island
1 Exotic Orchard

Is it good? I have no idea. Tezzeret acts as artifact-search for the singletons, and you get real mass removal and real counterspells, although having four-by Cryptic Command as your only counterspells might be iffy – I’d guess you’d want something to supplement them. Legacy Weapon is targeted removal on steroids if you can get it out, and the rest of the artifact selection gives you the versatility you’d want with Tezzeret. The real question will be, is Tezzeret more powerful when you don’t have to worry about using his Ultimate ability to win the game? Icy, tap, Rod of Ruin, ping, untap them both and they attack. I kinda like the sound of that.