Historic 101: Herald and Karn Go to Artifact Castle
Yes, the title is a reference to that movie lololol. However, I've been waiting for Kaladesh's release to get my hands on a deck that can utilize Herald of Anguish as I played this deck when it was legal in standard. The only issue was how often people ran Thrashing Brontodon. Luckily, that dinosaur is out of my life so let's take my old standard list and port it over to Historic!
Gameplan
What makes an artifact deck with The Antiquities War as a win condition worth trying now? Easy, Kaladesh has released a ton of cheap artifacts for us to flood the board with to really use Improvise
Renegade Map does a lot more for the deck than you'd think as it is a cheap artifact to play to set up for our improvise spells, and it also allows us to play a lower land count as it can become a land and trigger revolt off of Fatal Push. Revolt is easily triggered in this deck from all of our artifacts. The other two artifacts are just two mana ways to throw two more artifacts onto the board! Servo Schematic is especially great when paired up with our big Improvising demon as we can sac the Schematic to Herald of Anguish for removal and get another 1/1 artifact out of it.
Thanks to KLD block we also have access to Metallic Rebuke and other payoffs for all of our cheap artifacts! Metallic Rebuke is the tempo spell we need to get that additional turn to set up. When paired with cards like Sai, Master Thopterist's thopter army, people will have to respect our open mana and untapped artifacts! The Antiquities War is another way to dig for artifacts like Grafdigger's Cage to keep us alive against Goblins, Rakdos Pyro, and Aetherworks Marvel. It also gives us a way to turn all of our little dinky artifacts into beefy 5/5s when we hit the third chapter! Lastly, the whole reason we're here! The star of the show is Herald of Anguish. The card isn't even legendary so you can have multiples which means things will get out of hand quick (pun intended). It's also a 5/5 with flying and can't be killed by a Fatal Push so a decent amount of removal will be needed for it! By the way, I originally thought about going Grixis (of course, I did) for Maverick Thopterist to get more out of Improvise but I think Dimir is good enough.
Of course, we're playing Karn in our deck but not Karn, the Great Creator! Karn, Scion of Urza is strictly better here as we can get aggressive with Karn's -2 while leaning into the +1 to draw cards. Another planeswalker that might shock you is Tezzeret the Schemer. Tezz didn't see much play in its standard life but with how little removal we have, I thought I'd try to utilize the schemer as a singleton. The etherium cells could have potential. I thought about squeezing a Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge but just couldn't find the space and six mana is quite pricey.
Conclusion
The deck performed quite well against the Temur Aetherworks Marvel decks. I think this was mostly due to the fact that some of our opponents had some big misses with their Marvel. However, we should probably have four copies of Grafdigger's Cage in our 75. That little one mana artifact seems like it's the glue holding Historic together for fair decks. The cards I felt could be dropped would be our third copy of The Antiquities War. It felt a bit clunky at times but was obviously good as it won us a few games. I'm just not sure we need three when we have other ways to win. Sai, Master Thopterist felt amazing to play in this deck so maybe there are cheaper artifacts like Mox Amber to play with! Overall, this deck is definitely the Tezzerator deck I've been missing in Historic. It may not be tier 1 but it is definitely fun as it gives Dimir another way to play! My final closing thought is, why did they exclude Battle at the Bridge from Kaladesh Remastered? That card isn't broken and is actually good for an Improvise deck.
Anywho, thanks for watching and supporting the content. You all rule for still supporting me in year two of my MTGGoldfish adventures!
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-Your Friendly Neighborhood AsianAvenger
Twitter: @TheAsianAvenger || Twitch: twitch.tv/TheAsianAvenger || Email: theasianavenger@mtggoldfish.com
