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Much Abrew: Karn's Dice Factory (Modern, Magic Online)


Hello, everyone! Welcome to another episode of Much Abrew About Nothing. We'll be able to start exploring Modern Horizons next week, but for today, we're heading to Modern for a deck built around one of the most powerful planeswalkers from War of the Spark: Karn, the Great Creator. Karn has made some immediate waves in Modern thanks to its "lock your opponent out of the game" combo with Mycosynth Lattice. And while our deck is looking to assemble the combo, it's doing it in a rather unique way. Rather than using Tron lands or green ramp spells, Karn's Dice Factory is looking to use Coretapper and Surge Node to put counters on Astral Cornucopia and Everflowing Chalice. If the Karn, the Great Creator / Mycosynth Lattice lock isn't enough to win the game, we can turn to the combo of Sword of the Meek and Thopter Foundry to gain a bunch of life and make a bunch of 1/1 Thopters. Is the charge counter–heavy Dice Factory plan the right way to take advantage of Karn, the Great Creator in Modern? Let's get to the video and find out; then, we can talk more about the deck!

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Discussion

  • First off, this was a really strange league. While we technically finished 3-2 (which is probably about what we deserved), just about every part of how we got there was odd. We almost never drew Karn, the Great Creator, and the one time we did, it was in the Karn, the Great Creator mirror when we already had a Sorcerous Spyglass on Karn. Only playing a four-of a couple of times across five matches and 13 games is pretty unlikely. Then, as far as our record, we won a match we probably should have lost thanks to our opponent timing out, and we lost a match that we were almost guaranteed to win thanks to our opponent cracking a Relic of Progenitus and hitting Shatterstorm to blow up our entire board the turn before they would die. So while our record was reasonable, in the end, it was a really, really strange league.
  • Maybe the most disappointing part of Karn's Dice Factory was that we ended up being just Dice Factory since we never really managed to draw Karn. I guess the good news is that we managed to post a winning record without ever using our namesake card—imagine how much better the deck would be if we actually locked our opponent out of the game with Karn, the Great Creator and Mycosynth Lattice every few games!
  • If you decide to pick up the deck, don't be afraid to play Everflowing Chalice or Astral Cornucopia for free with no counters. While dumping all of our mana into them is fine in the late game, both cards are actually fairly inefficient. Our most explosive draws involve one of these cards along with another card that can add a bunch of charge counters, like Coretapper or Surge Node.
  • Speaking of Coretapper, it's basically free if we have an Everflowing Chalice or Astral Cornucopia since we can immediately sac Coretapper to add two charge counters to the mana rock and get us back the two mana we spent to cast Coretapper. More importantly, this mana boost lasts for as long as the mana rock is on the battlefield, making Coretapper an absurdly strong ramp spell in our deck.
  • Thopter Foundry and Sword of the Meek were solid and responsible for most of our wins. When combined with the oodles of mana we can make with Astral Cornucopia and Everflowing Chalice, it's pretty easy to make enough Thopters to win in just a couple of turns and gain a bunch of life along the way.
  • I'm not really sure what the point of Clock of Omens is. It can make a lot of mana if we already have an Everflowing Chalice or Astral Cornucopia with a bunch of counters, which can help us cast Karn, the Great Creator and Mycosynth Lattice in the same turn, but mostly we just sideboarded it out every game and hoped we never drew it. The slot could probably be better used on another artifact like Engineered Explosives or a third Chalice of the Void
  • One of the biggest downsides to Karn's Dice Factory is artifact hate is brutal. We got blown out one game by Shatterstorm, and Stony Silence is equally devastating. While Karn, the Great Creator and Sai, Master Thopterist give us finishers that can function under artifact hate, in practice, we're rarely going to beat these cards. While the speed and power of the deck help make up for the drawback, in some sense, we need to just cross our fingers and hope that we dodge the hate.
  • The other issue with the deck is that hands without an Astral Cornucopia or Everflowing Chalice and a way to add counters can be too slow. Don't be afraid to aggressively mulligan slow hands in search for more explosive ramp starts.
  • All in all, Karn's Dice Factory felt solid, especially considering that it felt like we were playing at less than full power thanks to our inability to draw Karn itself. Should you play the deck? I think it's good enough to pick up a lot of wins but can struggle with consistency and hate cards. Still, posting a winning record with our weird draws is a testament to the deck's power. And if you manage to dodge the hate, the deck could put up a solid performance at an FNM and maybe even a Grand Prix or SCG Open.

Conclusion

Anyway, that's all for today. Don't forget to vote for next week's deck by liking, commenting on, and subscribing to Instant Deck Tech videos! 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.



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