[AER]Thrash Metal (UW Untap/activation combo)

[Darkenslight]

THRASH METAL!

Introduction:

With the release of Aether Revolt, we gte the creature Crackdown Construct. This creature has an almost unique ability that activates whenever a non-mana artifact or creature activated ability happens. Funnily enough, the card Basalt Monolith has an activated nonmana ability. You can essentially tap and untap the Monolith endlessly (for an example of how to abuse this, take a look at the Four Horsemen deck.)

The aim of the game here is to make an arbitrarily large creature that swings for the win, or can conceivably gain you an arbitrarily large amount of life.

So, let's take a look at a prospective decklist.

Lands (24):

4 Flooded Strand
4 Tundra
4 Polluted Delta
4 Island
7 Plains
1 Karakas

Wombo Combo (14):

4 Wake Thrasher
4 Crackdown Construct
4 Basalt Monolith
2 Nomads en-Kor

Good stuff (22):

4 Enlightened Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Swords to Plowshares
4 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Batterskull

This is very much a first-draft core decklist, with all the weaknesses it entails. I'm pretty sure this starting point is misbuilt, and I'd like to see more 0-Equip costs, but those are few and far between.

Thoughts, critiques and improvements are always encouraged.

[filln]

I'd substitute Nomads en-Kor with Aphetto Alchemist since Nomads don't interact with Wake Thrasher. The list I'm brewing is a touch more artifact heavy so I'm using Ancient Tombs since a lot of the combo cards are rather high cost.

EDIT: Might scale back on the Jitte and Sword too. Instead put in some protection from Mother of Runes or Apostle's Blessing.

[Weapon X]

Combos that don't win when they happen are generally bad. Worse is that there isn't even any protection for the combo. I sense a common game would result in someone letting you combo and then removing the creature or simply blocking.
That said look into a few things if you want to pursue it:
-streamline the plan
-protection for the plan
-alternate win through synergy
- build mono first. Addition colour can fill in weak points you find

As a suggestion, look at at something like stifle/nought. It should be a fairly decent starting point.

[Barook]

Combos that don't win when they happen are generally bad. Worse is that there isn't even any protection for the combo. I sense a common game would result in someone letting you combo and then removing the creature or simply blocking.
That said look into a few things if you want to pursue it:
-streamline the plan
-protection for the plan
-alternate win through synergy
- build mono first. Addition colour can fill in weak points you find

As a suggestion, look at at something like stifle/nought. It should be a fairly decent starting point.

Technically, S&T into Emrakul doesn't win the game immediately either. I agree with your points, though.

- Streamline the plan:
4 copies of Alchemist/Monolith and Crackdown Construct/Wake Thrasher should be the core, which gives you 8 interchangable combo pieces each

- Protection:
There are two ways to build this thing - either as a stax shell with Chalice & company (think Faerie Stompy) or as a cantrip base with lots of counters and maybe even a CounterTop shell. Apostle's Blessing is great since it can also protect our noncreature artifacts from Abrupt Decay.

- Alternate win through synergy:
Forcing things through is going to be difficult, especially relying on the combat step when Miracles is still in the format. Apostle's Blessing certainly is nice as it doubles as protection (that can even work under Chalice). If you go for the cantrip shell, stuff like Shadow Rift can help. For the Stompy Shell, there are various equipments with Trample, but expect a minimum investment of 3 mana for that. One could also play Altar of Dementia instead for the same cost. For a Stax shell, given the high artifact count, Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas might be interesting as well.

- Speed:
Another point not mentioned, but that I'm missing: Speed - without some serious accel (minimum Sol lands, probably some kind of Moxen as well), I doubt the deck can match the speed of other combo decks in Legacy, given that the combo costs at least 5-7 mana and needs the attack step.
The best Magical Xmas scenario is probably something like this:
T1: Sol Land, Lightning Greaves
T2: Blue Source, tap Sol Land for Grim Monolith --> --> Alchemist, equip it, untap Grim Monolith --> 5 mana, play Crackdown Construct, go infinite with Greaves between Alchemist and CC, swing. And the beauty of this is that you would even have open to protect stuff with Blessing.

I'd probably try out some kind of Chalice-base shell first, with lots of Sol Lands, Monoliths and potential Eldrazi back-up in form of TKS and Reality Smasher.

[filln]

Here's what I'm tinkering with at the moment:


4 Crackdown Construct
1 Altar of Dementia
4 Basalt Monolith
4 Grim Monolith
3 Talisman of Progress

4 Wake Thrasher
4 Aphetto Alchemist
4 Brainstorm
3 Transmute Artifact

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Apostle's Blessing
1 Enlightened Tutor

4 Ancient Tomb
4 Flooded Strand
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Windswept Heath
4 Island
1 Plains
3 Tundra


I've only been goldfishing with it so far and appear to usually be able to attack in around T4 or T5, but sometimes T3. Maybe it needs Lightning Greaves to speed up by a turn.

One downside of Basalt Monolith and Aphetto Alchemist compared to Nomads en-Kor is that your opponent has a chance to Bolt / Swords in response to your first activation, so it seems a touch less resilient compared to Life.dec or Cephalid Breakfast in that regard.

List is changing basically every hour... would love some feedback. Especially appreciate the feedback given by @Barook so far!

[Weapon X]

Was actually going to use that as a point myself. Show and tell doesn't win the game immediately, but the single attack does with protection and resiliency to back it up.

As an aside if you were to play grim monolith (as mentioned in barooks post) in addition to basalt, you may be able to go a power artifact route instead. You could win however you want with infinite colourless mana

[filln]

Was actually going to use that as a point myself. Show and tell doesn't win the game immediately, but the single attack does with protection and resiliency to back it up.

As an aside if you were to play grim monolith (as mentioned in barooks post) in addition to basalt, you may be able to go a power artifact route instead. You could win however you want with infinite colourless mana

Nice! I was actually debating between utilizing the Rest in Peace/Energy Field/Helm of Obedience combo or the Power Artifact/Stroke of Genius/Staff of Domination combo in the sideboard as a transformational option.

Might be leaning towards the first option of the two just because it's a two card combo vs. three card. Plus the individual pieces of the first may be more useful with less setup.

[Darkenslight]

I'd substitute Nomads en-Kor with Aphetto Alchemist since Nomads don't interact with Wake Thrasher. The list I'm brewing is a touch more artifact heavy so I'm using Ancient Tombs since a lot of the combo cards are rather high cost.

EDIT: Might scale back on the Jitte and Sword too. Instead put in some protection from Mother of Runes or Apostle's Blessing.

Combos that don't win when they happen are generally bad. Worse is that there isn't even any protection for the combo. I sense a common game would result in someone letting you combo and then removing the creature or simply blocking.
That said look into a few things if you want to pursue it:
-streamline the plan
-protection for the plan
-alternate win through synergy
- build mono first. Addition colour can fill in weak points you find

As a suggestion, look at at something like stifle/nought. It should be a fairly decent starting point.

These are both valid points. As are the rest of the decklists and discussions.

To address your points; the primary aim of this is to make sure there is discussion as a new deck. The second point is that I wanted to find out early weaknesses, so that it can be iterated. I waqs thinking of using efficient counters for the deck's typical predators (for example, Envelop as specific hate for Miracles), which would likely require a reworking of the manabase in favor of more Islands.

[Zombie]

Lavaclaw Reaches and Wandering Fumarole are two manlands that can trigger the Construct an infinite number of times.

[The Nobodys]

This deck seems interesting. I would add a +1 to the idea of making it a Chalice of the Void deck, and going from there. Also, if you go the power artifact route, why not take a look at the new Walking Ballista. It kills on inf mana resolution, provides a blocking/creature removal body when necessary, and can wear a power artifact in certain situations. It's also scale-able, making it a decent option with all the artifact ramp.

[Captain Hammer]

I think a Stompy manabase is the best starting point for this deck.

Here is what I'm going to start with and I'll modify it as warranted...

10 Island/Fetchlands
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Chrome Mox

4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Apostle's Blessing
4 Lightning Greaves
2 Grim Monolith

4 Crackdown Construct
4 Wake Thrasher
4 Basalt Monolith
4 Aphetto Alchemist

SB:
3 Pithing Needle
3 Back to Basics
3 Misdirection
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Warping Wail
2 Altar of Dementia

The build is designed to consistently combo off and swing on turn 2/3 using all the artifact mana acceleration and lightning greaves. Apostle's Blessing makes your win condition unblockable. Greaves speeds you up by a turn and also lets you use Aphetto to untap Grim Monolith to generate enough mana to win the game on turn 2. FoW, Greaves, and Apostle's Blessing all protect the combo. Altar provides an alternate win condition thru a resolved Bridge/Moat. 8 Cantrips improve consistency and BS even protects your combo from discard.

However, the best thing about the combo is that it's a 2 card combo in which any of 8 cards combo with any of 8 other cards so the consistency of having it in your opening hand is ridiculous, especially when combined with the 8 cantrips. Tutoring is unneccesary.

[filln]

I think a Stompy manabase is the best starting point for this deck.

Here is what I'm going to start with and I'll modify it as warranted...

10 Island/Fetchlands
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
3 Chrome Mox

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
4 Apostle's Blessing
3 Lightning Greaves
3 Grim Monolith
2 Voltaic Key
1 Altar of Dementia

4 Crackdown Construct
4 Wake Thrasher
4 Basalt Monolith
4 Aphetto Alchemist

SB:
3 Pithing Needle
3 Warping Wail
3 Back to Basics
3 Propaganda
3 Misdirection

The build is designed to consistently combo off and swing on turn 2/3 using all the artifact mana acceleration and lightning greaves. Apostle's Blessing makes your win condition unblockable. FoW, Greaves, and Apostle's Blessing all protect the combo. Altar provides an alternate win condition thru a resolved Bridge/Moat. 8 Cantrips improve consistency and BS even protects your combo from discard.

However, the best thing about the combo is that it's a 2 card combo in which any of 8 cards combo with any of 8 other cards so the consistency of having it in your opening hand is ridiculous, especially when combined with the 8 cantrips. Tutoring is unneccesary.

Nice, I'm going to load this up and goldfish a bit. I did notice you're at 62 cards at the moment though.

[Captain Hammer]

Nice, I'm going to load this up and goldfish a bit. I did notice you're at 62 cards at the moment though.

Oops, yeah go ahead and cut Voltaic Key from the list to get it down to 60, Key to untap Monoliths for a ton of mana is redundant with 4 Aphetto Alchemist already in the deck that can do the same thing. I edited my list to get it down to 60. It also didn't seem worthwhile to play a Stompy manabase without Chalice so I altered the deck as below...

Metal Stompy

10 Island
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Chrome Mox

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Apostle's Blessing
4 Intuition
4 Force of Will
2 Misdirection

4 Lightning Greaves
4 Basalt Monolith
4 Aphetto Alchemist
4 Wake Thrasher
4 Crackdown Construct

SB:
3 Faerie Macabre
3 Back to Basics
3 Trinisphere
3 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Altar of Dementia

This list is the best route to take with the deck imo. Its ever so slightly slower compared to my earlier list but it's much more resilient and plays maindeck hate against most of the format.

The only thing I'm unsure about is whether or not it's worthwhile to make room for some maindeck Grim Monoliths to accelerate the deck and abuse with Aphetto Alchemist. And I'm not 100% certain if I made the correct call in replacing the maindeck Trinisphere with maindeck Misdirection just to get the blue count a little higher and give an additional answer to Abrupt Decay/Hymn/StP/Counterspells. Back to Basics would have worked as well. Except for these uncertainties, the rest of the list is airtight in my view.

[HdH_Cthulhu]

Rings of Brighthearth also goes infinite with monolith; its more a slow edh combo, but does sound better than power artifact!

[MGB]

Rings of Brighthearth also goes infinite with monolith; its more a slow edh combo, but does sound better than power artifact!

Rings of Brighthearth seems like an interesting addition.

[Captain Hammer]

I think the Metal Stompy list I just posted is the strongest direction to take this deck just because it's incredibly consistent, packs in so many ways to protect the combo and also packs plenty of hate against the rest of the format.

Rings of Brighthearth also goes infinite with monolith; its more a slow edh combo, but does sound better than power artifact!

Interesting. 4 Rings would go great with Grim Monoliths, Voltaic Key and Metalworker (or Thran Dynamo) in a deck packing Karn Liberated, Ugin the Spirit Dragon, All is Dust and various other high mana colorless bombs. It gives you a great alternate win condition but is probably a turn too slow for the format.

[EpicLevelCommoner]

Is it strange that I believe Basalt Monolith+Wake Thrasher would fit into Merfolk better?

Otherwise, Rings of Brighthearth+Basalt Monolith for infinite mana could open up the possibility for an Eggs-based cantrip shell.

[(nameless one)]

Is it strange that I believe Basalt Monolith+Wake Thrasher would fit into Merfolk better?

Otherwise, Rings of Brighthearth+Basalt Monolith for infinite mana could open up the possibility for an Eggs-based cantrip shell.

I used to run Minamo, School at Water's Edge with Wake Thrasher before in merfolk before. That might be something to look into