Against the Odds: Teaching Arena Zoomers about Eggs (Brawl)
Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Against the Odds! Eggs might be Modern's all-time most hated archetype, known for boring opponents to death. Can we make it work on Arena and teach a new generation of Magic players the joy of sitting around and watching your opponent play Magic? That's our goal for today. As soon as I saw Sami, Wildcat Captain, I knew it would be the perfect card for an Eggs deck. If we can get a few artifacts on the battlefield and then drop Sami, all of our colorless spells become free, which should let us chain together random eggs (artifacts that draw cards when they enter) and mana rocks (to make mana for colored spells) until we play through our entire deck, maybe as early as Turn 4! Initially, I tried doing this in Standard, and I couldn't make it work at all. There weren't enough Eggs, and Sami died too often. But then I realized that Brawl might be the perfect format for Eggs since we'd always have access to Sami, Wildcat Captain as our commander, and we'd have way more support pieces to work with. So I made the switch, and I'm glad I did because the deck ended up pretty sweet! Can Sami bring Eggs to Arena? How many Zoomers will scoop rather than sitting through our seemingly endless combo turns? Let's get to the video and find out!
Against the Odds: Teaching Arena Zoomers about Eggs
The Deck
Since we're playing 100 singleton cards today, I won't try to write about each one. But I did want to give an overview of how the deck works, in case you want to try it yourself. Our deck is 100% all-in on Sami, Wildcat Captain, to the point where we are pretty unlikely to win without getting a Sami on the battlefield. While Sami's a bit expensive at six mana, it has a busted ability: giving all of our spells affinity for artifacts. The way our deck is built, we'll ideally play Sami (which should make most of our deck free) and then, on that same turn, chain together eggy card draw until we eventually find a finisher and close out the game.
We have two different types of artifacts that are essential for this plan. The first are eggs, which are cheap artifacts that draw cards when they enter or leave the battlefield. In the early game, these cards build up artifacts on the battlefield so that when we play Sami, Wildcat Captain, our affinity count will be high enough to make the rest of our deck free. Once we have a Sami, these cards turn into free card draw since we can cast them for zero mana and draw a new card (or perhaps multiple cards, if we have something like The Endstone or Panharmonicon on the battlefield).
It's also worth pointing out that our red Treasure looting cards, like Big Score, [[Pirate's Pillage], and Unexpected Windfall, also serve the same purpose, even though they aren't technically eggs. But with Sami on the battlefield, all of these cards essentially become free or even generate extra mana. Take Big Score, for example. We can spend one red mana to cast it and then make two Treasures, which means we technically turn it into a Pyretic Ritual that also double loots, which is a pretty powerful card.
Speaking of rituals, the other important class of artifacts in our deck is mana rocks, which turn into rituals once we have Sami on the battlefield. In the early game, these cards—and all of their friends—ramp us into Sami while also upping our artifact count. Once we have Sami, Wildcat Captain, they generate mana since we can cast them for free thanks to Sami and immediately tap them to make mana, which lets us play some of the finishers and support cards in our deck that aren't colorless and require honest-to-goodness mana.
While we can play through a lot of our deck just by chaining together eggs and mana rocks, a handful of cards in our deck should allow us to literally play our entire deck that turn if we happen to get one of them on the battlefield alongside Sami. The backside of Birgi, God of Storytelling Harnfel, Horn of Bounty lets us discard a card to impulse draw two cards, which not only doubles up all of the card draw from our eggs but also lets us turn extra lands that we draw into real cards. Quicksmith Genius loots whenever an artifact enters, making it a great way to get rid of extra lands for more action. The Endstone just draws us a card whenever we do anything, which makes it pretty tough to fizzle, while Mystic Forge lets us play artifacts from the top of our deck, and Panharmonicon doubles up the draw from our eggs entering the battlefield.
We also have Paradox Engine, which I almost didn't include because it makes it too easy to go infinite. But for some reason, the card is still legal in Brawl, and it does fit the deck perfectly. Untapping all of our nonlands whenever we cast a spell typically give us infinite mana thanks to all of our mana rocks. And if we also have Mystic Forge on the battlefield, we can keep tapping it to exile extra lands from the top of our deck, so that we can make sure we have an artifact to cast (for free with Sami) trigger Paradox Engine and keep the fun going. If you ever untap with Sami, Paradox Engine, and at least a few random cards in hand and on board, it's very hard not to win the game that turn.
Speaking of finishers, we only have a handful in our deck because if we're going to win the game, we're probably going to draw our entire deck anyway, so we'll find them sooner or later. Glaring Fleshraker makes an Eldrazi Spawn whenever we cast a colorless spell and pings for one when a colorless creature enters, like the Spawn. This means once it hits the battlefield, all we need to do is cast 25 colorless spells to win the game. This might sound like a big ask, but it really isn't in our deck. Weapons Manufacturing is similar, except we need a second combo piece to actually finish the game. Whenever a non-token artifact enters, we get a Munitions token that deals two damage when it leaves the battlefield. This means that to win the game, we need to have 13 artifacts enter and then find Radiant Lotus to sacrifice all of the Munition tokens. Radiant Lotus mana also lets us win with Boommobile. We can play through our deck, build up a ton of artifacts on the battlefield, sacrifice them all to Radiant Lotus to make three times a ton of mana, and then pump it all into Boommobile to burn our opponent out of the game on the spot! In reality, we usually don't need to win the game because most people end up scooping five or 10 minutes into our combo turn out of boredom.
Wrap-Up
While I don't put much weight into Brawl records because it's a somewhat casual format and people scoop early, we went 9-5 with the deck overall. So it isn't just a meme; it's a meme that can actually win a lot of games! More importantly, the deck actually had some absurd egg turns. It turns out that Sami, Wildcat Captain is actually pretty busted, and we had a bunch of games where we either literally or figuratively (because our opponents ended up scooping early) played through our entire deck! I'm sure it's not a ton of fun for our opponents to sit through, but it's actually a blast to play! If you like goldfishy combo decks with 20-minute turns, give Sami Eggs a shot in Brawl!
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
