In this experiment, we fill our yard with scrap and then defeat our opponent in one masterful salvo.

Many, many Jace's Erasure triggers ago, I wrote an article about using Scrapyard Salvo in Pauper. Since Khans of Tarkir’s release, I’ve felt that it might be worth revisiting that deck if only to propose that Treasure Cruise would make a fine addition. That would be quite the short article.

While that won’t be this week’s topic, it is apropos, as Magic: The Gathering—Commander (2014 Edition) is bringing an artifact-themed red deck including red’s new Living Death variant—for artifacts.

The Pauper deck sought to cycle through easy-to-cycle-through artifacts such as Chromatic Star in order to quickly reach a threshold at which it could kill with only a single Scrapyard Salvo. Of course, it would take backup in the form of additional Salvo copies or Artillerizes, but one can dream. One version of the deck used Jace's Erasure to double the number of cards hitting the graveyard, and Treasure Cruise could capitalize on some of the nonartifact cards by exiling them for additional draw. The deck may one day be complete when perhaps Shrapnel Blast is printed at common.

Incidentally, this concept is very similar to a deck I wrote about just two weeks ago, when the goal was to cycle a bunch of creatures into the graveyard in order to fuel Empty the Pits. That concept was based on an old Standard deck that cycled creatures for a massive unearth turn, and my Empty the Pits list borrowed heavily from Modern Living End decks, which cycle creatures only to return them with the namesake card.

Looping these concepts back around, why don’t we cycle a bunch of artifacts into our graveyard in order to artifact Living Death them with the new Scrap Mastery? Of course, artifacts and creatures operate on different principles, so rather than attack with what we return, we’ll be reusing them for value in order cycle more—and then, of course, Scrapyard Salvo, because who could resist?

(If you do want to go strictly the Living End route with Scrap Mastery, try an Esper-themed deck using some Glassdust Hulk triggers.)

Scrapyard Mastery ? Casual | Andrew Wilson

• Creatures (4)
• 4 Composite Golem

• Spells (35)
• 2 Treasure Cruise
• 4 Scrap Mastery
• 4 Scrapyard Salvo
• 1 Bosium Strip
• 4 Chromatic Sphere
• 4 Chromatic Star
• 4 Darkwater Egg
• 4 Lotus Bloom
• 4 Mossfire Egg
• 4 Shadowblood Egg

• Lands (21)
• 9 Mountain
• 4 Cephalid Coliseum
• 4 Forgotten Cave
• 4 Temple of Epiphany

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The Cycling

No, we’re not Urza’s Saga cycling here (except the four Forgotten Caves). In this case, we’re paying small amounts of mana for cards to replace themselves so we can dig deeper and deeper into our library and fill up our graveyard at the same time.

Shadowblood Egg, Mossfire Egg, Darkwater Egg – The Modern Eggs deck was named after a previous deck known as Eggs, which prominently featured these three alongside Sungrass Egg and Skycloud Egg. Here, we have the two that generate to help us with most of our spells, and we have one of the Eggs that makes in case we need it for Treasure Cruise or Cephalid Coliseum. The Eggs function like the Chromatic artifacts except that they cost more to cycle (though it doesn’t matter if we have something to spend the mana on afterward) and are more restrictive in what colors they can generate.

Lotus Bloom and Composite Golem – If we’re ever able to string together multiple resolutions of Scrap Mastery in a single turn, these will be the reason. With any two of these, we can end up with more mana than we started with after a Scrap Mastery, and with enough of these, that means we activate all the artifacts we brought back to draw a bunch more cards, potentially casting another Scrap Mastery.

Cephalid Coliseum – This one isn’t an artifact, but it does help the deck out in a couple aspects. Clearly, drawing three cards is nice—that would help any deck. But one of the problems we can have is wanting to go off but having Lotus Blooms and Composite Golems stuck in our hand, while we’d really like them in our graveyard. The Bloom is literally impossible to cast, and if we don’t suspend it early, it could end up having no relevance in the game. The Composite Golem is very expensive and could end up just as useless as a Lotus Bloom. A Coliseum lets us discard three cards, which represents 9 to 15 mana with Scrap Mastery if we have three of these eight cards otherwise stuck in hand.

Bosium Strip

First, and perhaps most importantly, it can double up a Scrapyard Salvo for us. The Salvos are our only win conditions, and frequently, one copy wont’ be enough. With Bosium Strip, we can pay to be able to cast a Salvo from our graveyard (assuming we haven’t mistakenly put any other cards on top of it). That costs a total of , though it is possible to break it up into two turns ( on one turn and on the following turn).

Treasure Cruise is a bit risky. If we had more spells to delve away and more lands that would be hitting our graveyard, I wouldn’t feel so worried about finding enough cards to help pay for the Cruise without losing all our Scrap fuel. That’s why I chose to only include two copies here, and Bosium Strip’s ability to let us double up on a Treasure Cruise could very well go to waste if we can’t pay the steep cost.

Finally, and perhaps most excitingly, we can use Bosium Strip to let us cast Scrap Mastery again. The chances we can do so optimally, however, are slim. But let’s dream.

Imagine we have artifacts in our graveyard that, collectively, could produce at least 10 mana—in this case, they’ll be two Composite Golems. And then let’s assume we have a Scrap Mastery in hand and at least a few more artifacts in our graveyard that can filter mana to red and draw cards. We also control Bosium Strip and a Lotus Bloom, perhaps just off its last time counter. Finally, we have five lands.

Fortunately for us, our artifacts all have activated abilities that are also mana abilities. Mana abilities, when they’re also activated abilities, can be activated any time we have priority (just like other activated abilities), but they can also be activated any time the game asks us to pay mana. One such time is when we’ve declared we’re casting a spell and we reach the spellcasting point when we have to pay the spell’s costs—by that time, the spell is already on the stack.

In this case, that means we can declare we’re casting Scrap Mastery from our graveyard, thus moving it from our graveyard to the stack. We can then sacrifice a Composite Golem and a Mossfire Egg in sequence so that we have the requisite mana. Those cards are now in our graveyard, but since we’re already in the middle of casting Scrap Mastery, Bosium Strip doesn’t care what is where anymore. Once we’ve fully cast Scrap Mastery, but before it resolves, we can sacrifice any or all of our other artifacts as we choose, thus generating more mana and drawing more cards. Finally, Scrap Mastery will resolve, exiling itself (according to Bosium Strip’s effect) and bringing back all our graveyard scrap.

Again, remember that Bosium Strip applies to the entire remainder of our turn, and not just the next spell we cast.

It turns out I had a lot to say about Bosium Strip, but it has some wonky things going on for it. Its impression of a Yawgmoth's Will is notable, and it definitely does some weird things with permanents that have mana abilities requiring self-sacrifice.

If you love Scrapyard Salvo, if you want to try something weird with the new Scrap Mastery, or if you just needed a reason to dust off your old Fabergé, give this deck a try.

Andrew Wilson

@Silent7Seven

fissionessence at hotmail dot com