3 Vehicle Decks Combined For Under $100! | Modular Vehicles | Shorikai, Greasefang, Depala
Do you love Vehicles, but can't decide on which Commander to build around? Want to reanimate Parhelion II with Greasefang, Okiba Boss, but also want to slam people with Hoard Hauler while drawing tons of cards off Depala, Pilot Exemplar? And don't you also want to have a friggin' gundam in your command zone, aka Shorikai, Genesis Engine? Well, I have the solution for you: welcome to my Budget Modular Vehicles deck!
What's A Modular Deck?
Modular decks are a term I've come up with myself: basically these are multiple decks that share a core pool of cards, allowing us to play decks with different commanders and distinct play patterns while saving tons of money in the process. This is the third Modular deck I've made, the first being Modular Kicker and the second Modular Auras.
For Modular Vehicles, I will provide three distinct Vehicle decks that share an overlapping white core, with the total price of all three decks combined being just under $100!
How Does It Work?
My Modular Vehicles decks are comprised five sections:
- A White Core section composed of only White and Colorless cards.
- A Boros section composed of only Red and Boros cards, including the Boros commander Depala, Pilot Exemplar.
- An Azorius section composed of only Blue and Azorius cards, including the Azorius commander Shorikai, Genesis Engine.
- An Orzhov section composed of only Black and Orzhov cards, including the Orzhov commander Greasefang, Okiba Boss.
So to play any of the decks, simply take the White Core section and any other section, shuffle them up, and you're good to go! And since each section is divided by color identity it's easy to divide them back into sections after you're done playing with one version.
For example, if you want to play the Boros Vehicles deck, simply mix together the White Core section and the Boros section for a full 100-card deck led by Depala, Pilot Exemplar. Then when you want to play a different deck, simply take out every card that has a Red or Boros border to divide the sections once more. It's that simple!
The White Core
The White section is the core of all three of these modular decks. While the vast majority of Vehicle cards are colorless, White is one of the primary support colors of the archetype and is the common overlapping color among all the current Vehicle commanders.
White provides some huge support cards for a Vehicles deck such as the best mass Vehicle recursion in the format with Brilliant Restoration, unmatched protection with cards like Leonin Abunas and Bronze Guardian, along with some of the best Vehicles like Parhelion II. White isn't the de facto best color for Vehicles like it is for Auras, but if you want to play all the Vehicle commanders in a modular deck then White has to be your core color.
Since we're a Vehicles deck and all vehicles are artifacts, it makes sense to take advantage of artifact synergies, which I deliberately steered the deck into: we're running all the artifact mana cost discounts from Foundry Inspector to Semblance Anvil, drawing cards off Canoptek Spyder and Sanwell, Avenger Ace, and protecting our board with Leonin Abunas and Bronze Guardian. We will further expand on our Vehicle primary theme and Artifact subtheme in the multicolor sections.
Azorius Section (Shorikai)
What's a cooler Vehicle commander pick than a commander that's actually a vehicle?! Shorikai, Genesis Engine is such a winner in terms of concept alone, but thankfully for us it's also a powerhouse of a card: this is an ultra-reliable value engine sitting in our command zone, drawing us cards, filling our graveyard for reanimation, making pilots to crew our vehicles, all while not being a creature unless we want it to be so it's exceptionally hard for opponents to remove it.
Shorikai has an incredibly high power ceiling, being able to go infinite with Intruder Alarm and doing evil things with Unwinding Clock and Skullclamp which are outside the budget range of this deck, but they are available if you want to upgrade. Even without those things however, Shorikai is an undeniable value engine doing exactly what this deck wants to be doing.
The Shorikai section also provides the best Artifact ramp options with cards like Etherium Sculptor, the best draw options with cards like Research Thief, and the best Vehicle inclusions with sweet stuff like Imposter Mech.
Orzhov Section (Greasefang)
Greasefang, Okiba Boss is arguably the most explosive Vehicle commander out there, able to super efficiently reanimate and immediately swing with the scariest Vehicles in the format: the classic play pattern of Entomb and then reanimating Parhelion II is sure to traumatize your playgroup! Greasefang has the most powerful reputation in certain 1v1 formats and I've tried my best to recreate that experience here in Commander.
To get our heavy-hitters in the graveyard we've got Unmarked Grave, Vile Entomber, Final Parting, and Oriq Loremage to tutor them into our graveyard, or discard them from hand while killing something with Armix, Filigree Thrasher. Then we reanimate it with Greasefang and smash face! If we want to reanimate the vehicle again instead of returning it to hand we can then sacrifice it with cards like Braids, Arisen Nightmare.
Also shoutout to our board wipes Terisiare's Devastation and Their Name Is Death, both perfect wipes in our Artifact Vehicles deck! And King Macar, the Gold-Cursed which is powerful repeat creature removal as we tap him down to crew vehicles!
Boros Section (Depala)
Depala, Pilot Exemplar will always have a place in my heart as both the first Vehicles commander ever printed and being a perpetually underrated Commander that has never failed to impress me. Depala provides an incredibly powerful card advantage engine in the command zone with a small anthem as the cherry on top. I can't stress enough how good it is to have a commander that you can sink all your mana into and immediately refill your hand with gas!
While I didn't shove in a full Dwarf Tribal subtheme into this section, I did add a couple strong choices that synergize well in the deck, with the best by far being Magda, Brazen Outlaw: tap to crew vehicles, make treasure, spend that treasure to cast spells or cheat out Parhelion II? Sign me up!
Other goodies in this section include Alibou, Ancient Witness which is totally cracked in this deck, repeat removal (including player removal) while also massive scry that pairs perfectly with Depala, or Hoard Hauler which makes tons of treasure and synergizes great with Magda!
The Combined Lists
Here are how the decks look like when you combine a multicolor section with the white core for complete 100-card decks. All three decks combined come just under $100!
The deck lists roughly adhere to Frank Karsten's land count calculator as well as his mana sources calculator, with the notable exception being that I chose to run Knight of the White Orchid with only 26 white sources that can cast it on-curve despite Frank recommending 30 white sources to cast a WW spell on turn 2 consistently. My argument is that Knight strong enough in this deck that it's worth running despite being a little inconsistent as a turn 2 play. All other spells should be consistently castable on-curve.
That's All, Folks!
I hope you enjoyed this third set of modular decks. A lot of people have been asking me for Modular Vehicles so I hope this delivers! Next week's commander is still to be determined so feel free to toss in your suggestion in the comments section. Thanks for reading!
