Upgrading C14 Red: Urza's Janky Combos
Have you been tinkering around with Daretti, Scrap Savant and your C14 Red Deck: Built from Scratch? Are you wondering how to get maximum value out of your Goblin-turned-Professor X? Look no further, today we're going to go over some upgrades for your Built from Scratch deck. We're going go full artifact combo on this deck and make Urza proud. Forget about Peer Through Time, this is the real Urza deck! So many broken artifacts! Let's find a way to abuse them.
Tutors
Our deck is going to be full of artifact combo-pieces, so we'll need a way to dig through time them out. Include some of these tutors in your 100 cards. Conveniently, they put artifacts in the graveyard for some Daretti, Scrap Savant shenanigans.
Fast Mana
We're also going to need mana to cast our goodies. Include some of these to get copious amounts of mana flowing. Conveniently, broken mana-sources usually lead to combos ...
Combos
Staff of Domination can be used to create a lot of combos. For 4-colorless mana, you can untap a creature the Staff of Domination. What can we do? How about we call on our Modern combo-friend kiki-jiki, mirror breaker?
If you have the above four cards out, you can generate infinite mana and infinite hasty Myr Battlesphere. Use Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker to copy Myr Battlesphere. Sacrifice 3 of the 1/1 Myrs to generate 6 mana. Use 3-mana and Staff of Domination to untap Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and 1-mana to untap the Staff of Domination. You now have an extra 2-mana, a 1/1 colorless Myr, and a hasty Myr Battlesphere in addition to what you started with (with everything untapped). Repeat infinite times for infinite creatures and mana. Staff of Domination with Metalworker also work for infinite mana if you have 3 or more artifacts in your hand.
Salvaging Station is also another card ripe for comboing. How about infinite mana? Flayer Husk is conveniently a 1-cc artifact that generates a creature! Bring Flayer Husk back from the graveyard with Salvaging Station, then sacrifice the Flayer Husk to Krark-Clan Ironworks for 2-mana. The Germ dies because it's now a 0/0 and it untaps Salvaging Station. Repeat for infinite mana.
How about a mill combo? Equip Su-Chi with Nim Deathmantle. Sacrifice Su-Chi to Altar of Dementia and mill an opponent for 6. When Su-Chi hits the graveyard, take the 4-colorless mana and use the trigger from Nim Deathmantle to bring back Su-Chi. Repeat for inifnite sacrifice triggers and infinite mills!
How about instant speed infinite mana? Imprint Prototype Portal with Lotus Bloom. Sacrifice the Lotus Bloom for two red mana, and one mana of the your infinite color. Use one red mana to activate Voltaic Key to untap Prototype Portall, and copy the trigger with Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient to untap Voltaic Key with the remaining red mana. You just produced 1-mana for free at instant speed. Repeat for infinite mana.
Combos with Everything
Mycosynth Lattice pretty much combos with anything that affects artifacts. You can pump Hellkite Igniter to infinity and beyond, Hoard-Smelter Dragon becomes 3R: Destroy anything, and you can take every permanent from a player with Hellkite Tyrant. Darksteel Forge makes everything you own indestructible, which can be particularly nasty with with Nevinyrral's Disk.
More Combo Pieces
Here are some more potential combo enablers. I'll let you discover how to break them:
Fatties
OK, so now we have our fatties and we have our combos. What we need to do is survive! Try some of these utility cards to live long enough to wreak havoc on Dominaria.
Board Control
Keep the board clear with some removal.
Copy Effects
Double-dip your activated abilities and artifacts with these cards!
Utility Creatures
These creatures may not be gigantic Dragons or Collosus', but they provide some utility while keeping you alive in the early game.
General Utility
I'm sure you can find ways to make these cards work for you:
The Karn-Daddy
And how can we have an artifact deck without the greatest artifact of them all? Come on down, sidekick of Urza! If you want to be mean, Karn, Silver Golem combos with Mycosynth Lattice for land destruction a 1-mana a piece.
Conclusion
That's it for me this week. Start brewing up those terrible artifact combos! Leave a comment below if you have some janky combos that would make Urza proud. If you enjoyed this article, check out my past Upgrading C14 articles on white, black, and green. If you don't have the Commander 2014 decks yet, you can still grab them Ebay for $110-$120. Also be sure to check out the full decklists for the pre-constructed decks.
- Ricardo
