Last week we looked at cards to go into our Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer deck. After looking at all the options, we came up with this:

Brudiclad, the Great Imitator | Commander| Bruce Richard

• Commander (1)
• 1 Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer

• Creatures (16)
• 1 Dockside Extortionist
• 1 Dragonmaster Outcast
• 1 Etherium Sculptor
• 1 Faerie Artisans
• 1 Feldon of the Third Path
• 1 Hangarback Walker
• 1 Meteor Golem
• 1 Myr Battlesphere
• 1 Padeem, Consul of Innovation
• 1 Persistent Petitioners
• 1 Sai, Master Thopterist
• 1 Sharding Sphinx
• 1 Soul of New Phyrexia
• 1 The Locust God
• 1 Tilonalli's Summoner
• 1 Vizier of Many Faces

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 1 Saheeli Rai
• 1 Tezzeret, Artifice Master

• Instants (10)
• 1 Chaos Warp
• 1 Confirm Suspicions
• 1 Cyclonic Rift
• 1 Evacuation
• 1 Hornswoggle
• 1 Pongify
• 1 Rapid Hybridization
• 1 Reality Shift
• 1 Spell Swindle
• 1 Supplant Form

• Sorceries (12)
• 1 Brass's Bounty
• 1 Clone Legion
• 1 Coastal Breach
• 1 Crush of Tentacles
• 1 Curse of the Swine
• 1 Echo Storm
• 1 Rite of Replication
• 1 Saheeli's Artistry
• 1 Stolen Identity
• 1 Tempt with Vengeance
• 1 Vandalblast
• 1 Zndrsplt's Judgment

• Enchantments (5)
• 1 Flameshadow Conjuring
• 1 Followed Footsteps
• 1 Rhystic Study
• 1 Storm the Vault
• 1 Thopter Spy Network

• Artifacts (17)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Armillary Sphere
• 1 Ashnod's Altar
• 1 Darksteel Plate
• 1 Eldrazi Monument
• 1 Fellwar Stone
• 1 Helm of the Host
• 1 Idol of Oblivion
• 1 Izzet Signet
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Mimic Vat
• 1 Mirrorworks
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Spine of Ish Sah
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 Thran Dynamo
• 1 Vedalken Orrery

• Lands (37)
• 14 Island
• 6 Mountain
• 1 Academy Ruins
• 1 Arcane Lighthouse
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 Cascade Bluffs
• 1 Command Beacon
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Desolate Lighthouse
• 1 High Market
• 1 Izzet Boilerworks
• 1 Mirrorpool
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Steam Vents
• 1 Sulfur Falls
• 1 Temple of Epiphany
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Volcanic Island

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Since building the deck, I've had some time to play-test it out a little. I'd like to provide the results of my play-testing and look at a few cards that performed better than expected and others that were a little less so. Obviously, I don't have the Arcane Signet to run in the deck, so I chose a card that I would quickly remember and be able to replace: Crow Storm. The idea of getting copies of the strongest flyer in all of Magic could not be resisted! Unfortunately for me, but probably fortunate for our purposes, Crow Storm never appeared in any of the games.

The deck really does seem to be boom or bust. I had one game that ended on turn five and not surprisingly, Brudiclad did almost nothing. I countered a couple of spells and played Evacuation to stem the tide as best I could, but I was unable to string together anything else to get going. Another game saw a host of Treasure tokens become 3/3 Beasts, but before I could get anywhere, an Austere Command blew my board up and I wasn't able to recover.

Another game proved interesting in that I got an early Tilonalli's Summoner and was able to attack twice, adding six Elementals both times. This allowed all sorts of shenanigans with the token creatures being thopters for a round, then Rhinos for a round, then Armada Wurms. That game was a lot of shifting plays and it was good fun!

Good Cards

Brass's Bounty: I was always happy to see this card. It meant that I was going to get at least six tokens and I would regularly use a couple of them to help ramp up to the next turn's plays. The Treasure tokens were the lion's share of the tokens I used in most games. While the cost of the card should limit its effectiveness, I didn't tend to have any problems casting it.

What I did discover was that the chunk of my ramp spells that used Treasure tokens weren't nearly as much ramp as I thought they would be. I was hesitant to use too many of them to play another spell since I really wanted to have a number of tokens that would be fearsome to my opponents. The deck may need a few more ways to ramp so I'm less reliant on the Treasure tokens to get me there.

Supplant Form: What a rock star! It is a pricey card, but the swings it creates are amazing! I was able to bounce on opponent's creature, then have a copy of it to block part of the attack. The weakest plays involved screwing up my opponent's combat. Other times I was able to use it to eliminate a key block, then come crashing in. Ghired, Conclave Exile essentially switched sides, creating a 4/4 Rhino. It attacked because Brudiclad gave it haste, which created another Rhino. They had one less blocker and I had two more attacking creatures they weren't counting on!

Eldrazi Monument: When all your 1/1 Elemental tokens turn into 2/1 Myrs with Brudiclad, then fly, get +1/+1, and are indestructible, you don't really need to turn them into anything. The Monument set up a number of attacks. It meant that I didn't feel the need to try to make a token copy of an opponent's monster creature. Sure, making the creatures into 6/6 Beasts instead of the 3/2 Myr would have been amazing, but not playing it just meant that my opponents were going to have to either Wrath the board or destroy the Monument to stop this from continuing. If they Wrath, I would have wasted a spell. If they destroy the Monument, I have creatures as big as they would have been if I had just waited. And sacrificing one token creature every turn was irrelevant; Brudiclad makes a token every turn anyway!

Bad Cards

Thopter Spy Network: Spending four mana for an enchantment that often did nothing until the next turn was a little painful when you were looking for some immediate results. I also discovered that when the Elementals are your tokens, you don't necessarily have an artifact in play to get the Thopters started. In one game the Spy Network didn't do anything for four straight turns. When you add the number of times I forgot to draw my card off of it because an artifact creature did damage, you can begin to see why I was less enamored by it.

I need to avoid playing it out well before I have any artifacts out. I'm not willing to dump it, but I need to remember that it works best with Brudiclad out. I also intend to add a Great Furnace and a Seat of the Synod. That may help it get online a little quicker.

Soul of New Phyrexia: The card is great, but the problem is keeping the mana open. Five mana is a lot to ask of any deck, and when this deck plays spells, they tend to use up all the mana available, so often games involved working with what was already on the battlefield. This was fine for a while, but it led to a few dull turns.

Followed Footsteps: This made the cut because I could enchant an opponent's creature and get copies of it every turn. That seemed like a lot of fun until I had the chance to do it and realized that two of my opponents had sacrifice outlets on the battlefield. This would turn Followed Footsteps into a sorcery speed removal spell for six mana. I know I can do a lot better than that. I haven't decided if an expensive removal card that can make a copy of one of my creatures every turn is worth it yet, but I'm leaning away from it.

Play Style

The deck was fun, but it was clear that the more I played the deck, the better the deck became. It was more than just knowing when to counter a spell, although that was part of it. Knowing what order to play spells and whether to play them at all was huge. I had one board where I knew I was going to need to cast Evacuation, but I didn't want to do it until I was facing some serious damage. Three turns later I had done nothing as I wanted to keep Evacuation mana up, and didn't want to play out tokens that would just disappear. I suppose I could say that I played it perfectly, since I drew cards and didn't take any damage, while attacks were going on around me, but it felt like a misplay to do nothing for so many turns.

Also along those lines, knowing how many tokens should swing in is important. In the game when I had ten Armada Wurms (then twelve the next turn!), I swung with all of them at my two remaining opponents. I was lucky enough to still have Brudiclad and a couple other creatures to block, but swinging wildly like that is not the correct play. I still need to learn how much to keep back and how much to swing.

Knowing what to change the tokens into is key as well. It isn't always about the wildest token or the biggest token. Ten 5/5 Wurms are great, but if they can't get through, maybe ten 1/1 Thopters are better. You need to take into account your defense and your offense.

The value of cards that make a type of token every turn can't be understated either. If you are making a Thopter every turn, you can turn your tokens into something else and always know you can get the horde of Thopters back the next turn if you want them. There were a couple of times when I flipped to Thopters to have the flying creatures, only to realize that I now didn't have a way to make them back into a big token again since the token creature that was a Wurm was now a Thopter.

This dovetails perfectly into the final issue; it is also very easy to forget that every token must change. I used an Echo Storm in one game to get three copies of my Sol Ring on the battlefield. I used them over the next several turns to cast spells, while using Brudiclad's ability to make all tokens into Thopters. It wasn't until after the game that I realized that I shouldn't have still had the Sol Ring tokens.

Changes

So what should the changes be? In all honesty, I'm not sure. I would like a few more games under my belt before I start yanking cards. I know the mana base needs to be adjusted to get more Red sources in. I know I want more ramp, but I don't know what to pull out to make that happen. Perhaps I can look at three and four mana cards that ramp and help the deck's strategy.

This is where all of you come in. What suggestions do you have for additions and what would you pull out? Keep in mind the goal of seeing different things each game. Hit me up in the comments or on Twitter. I'm going to give Brudiclad a rest for a few weeks while I play some games and take your suggestions. In the meantime, I have been ignoring all the new Eldraine cards, so expect to see that coming to the forefront in the coming weeks!

Bruce

@manaburned