I’ve written for Gathering Magic for a few years and it’s been rewarding and challenging. I’ve had a ton of support from this community as well as the Magic community at large and this week I got a chance to pay some of that back. Gathering Magic contributors all received a metal Thopter token in the mail and I decided that I would randomly choose one of my twitter followers who retweeted the picture and a reminder to read my article on Gathering Magic every week. It was a big success — a lot of people were interested in the token. And who wouldn’t be? It looks amazing.

I was a little sad to give it away but the community has been very good to me so it was also gratifying to do something nice for the community in return. However, there was only one token so there could be only one winner. I thought the perfect complement to the giveaway would be a deck that makes the most of Thopter tokens so everyone could benefit. I liked the concept of the giveaway a lot, so I’m sure I’ll do more in the future. In the meantime, what do we want in a Thopter-focused deck, exactly? Can the things we can do with Thopters that are the most fun ever fit in a 75% deck? Can mere 1/1 flying creatures ever hope to compete in a 40 life format? OK, that last one isn’t a real question — we know that Thopters are small on their own but they can get out of hand very quickly. The question here won’t be “Are Thopters good at all?” but rather “Do you expect us to believe a deck with Thopter Foundry, Skullclamp, and Time Seive is 75%?” and it’s an interesting question. A lot of those strategies were originally in the third EDH deck I ever built; the deck that led me to come up with the 75% approach in the first place. What makes me think I can jam some of those same cards in a different deck and not encounter the same problems I did with Sharuum the Hegemon? I think the answer is “I’m better at this, now” and I hope I’m right. I wrote this paragraph before I tried to make the deck, after all, so whether or not I actually pull this off is a mystery to both of us right now.

What do we need to look out for if we’re going to pull this off?

Instead of Sharuum and all of the inherent loopiness and combo-heavy focus that comes with that sort of build by virtue of having your commander be a combo piece, I decided to focus on a commander that rewarded me for attacking with tokens and there was an obvious choice — Sydri, Galvanic Genius. I won’t lie and say I haven’t been itching to build around her ever since I realized she would turn Aetherflux Reservoir into a mini Baneslayer that could go all Death Star on someone in a pinch. I want some Thopter madness in the deck but I also want to play some of the cards that make Sydri fun to play. I think I can find a nice balance without making a deck that’s terrible or oppressive. Let’s see what we can come up with.

Sydri, Galvanic Genius ? Commander| Jason Alt

• Commander (1)
• 1 Sydri, Galvanic Genius

• Creatures (26)
• 1 Arcum Dagsson
• 1 Baleful Strix
• 1 Cataclysmic Gearhulk
• 1 Duplicant
• 1 Ethersworn Adjudicator
• 1 Filigree Familiar
• 1 Grand Architect
• 1 Hangarback Walker
• 1 Hanna, Ship's Navigator
• 1 Karn, Silver Golem
• 1 Kuldotha Forgemaster
• 1 Lodestone Myr
• 1 Magister Sphinx
• 1 Master of Etherium
• 1 Master Transmuter
• 1 Memnarch
• 1 Myr Battlesphere
• 1 Phyrexian Metamorph
• 1 Scarecrone
• 1 Sharding Sphinx
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
• 1 Steel Hellkite
• 1 Thopter Assembly
• 1 Whirler Rogue
• 1 Wurmcoil Engine

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 1 Tezzeret the Seeker
• 1 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

• Spells (32)
• 1 Dispatch
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Return to Dust
• 1 Thirst for Knowledge
• 1 Open the Vaults
• 1 Transmute Artifact
• 1 Tempered Steel
• 1 Thopter Spy Network
• 1 Aetherflux Reservoir
• 1 Ashnod's Altar
• 1 Azorius Signet
• 1 Batterskull
• 1 Chromatic Lantern
• 1 Darksteel Forge
• 1 Dimir Signet
• 1 Dispeller's Capsule
• 1 Everflowing Chalice
• 1 Executioner's Capsule
• 1 Gilded Lotus
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Mana Vault
• 1 Orzhov Signet
• 1 Sculpting Steel
• 1 Skullclamp
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Sword of Fire and Ice
• 1 Sword of the Meek
• 1 Thopter Foundry
• 1 Thran Dynamo
• 1 Time Sieve
• 1 Trading Post
• 1 Worn Powerstone

• Lands (38)
• 4 Island
• 4 Plains
• 4 Swamp
• 1 Academy Ruins
• 1 Ancient Den
• 1 Arcane Sanctum
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 Caves of Koilos
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Creeping Tar Pit
• 1 Drowned Catacomb
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Foundry of the Consuls
• 1 Glacial Fortress
• 1 Godless Shrine
• 1 Hallowed Fountain
• 1 Inventors' Fair
• 1 Isolated Chapel
• 1 Seat of the Synod
• 1 Temple of Deceit
• 1 Temple of Enlightenment
• 1 Temple of Silence
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Urza's Factory
• 1 Vault of Whispers
• 1 Vivid Creek
• 1 Vivid Marsh
• 1 Vivid Meadow
• 1 Watery Grave

Buy This Deck

It can finish the game. I see a lot of durdle decks that have the right idea and have a lot of synergy with the commander but ultimately lack ways to do things that aren’t cute and can actually bring the game to a close. This doesn’t have to be a combo — more often than not it’s just a direction — if the cards in your deck all “point in the same direction” that is to say all work to achieve the same goal, whether that’s stockpile and use energy, mill them, give you a bunch of tokens and swarm or Craterhoof them or any number of ways to win, the deck is more effective than a “jack of all trades, master of none” approach and that was a seriously long run-on sentence, I apologize. The point is that we don’t have to be some wacky Thopter tribal deck to benefit from going wide, or using our Thopters as a resource.

Time Sieve is strong in this deck and with Thopter Assembly it can be a bit of a rough combo to deal with if they can’t stop you right away, but Thopter Assembly is a nonbo with the rest of the deck. Rather than exclude it on that basis, I decided to include it. In games where you have a strong Thopter presence, Thopter Assembly isn’t that great and it forces you to basically wipe the board if you want to use your Time Sieve combo. When you’re losing, using the Assembly to give you the Thopters you need to power Sieve and get back into the game is a good play. The combo is fairly easy to disrupt, you have to go all-in on it and you have to find a way to win that isn’t Thopters if that’s what you’re going to do. Luckily, the deck has ways to win that aren’t Thopters, so we’re good there.

Without tutors, you’re stuck drawing your combos naturally. The only choice you have is to play the deck as designed and use the strong abilities of your artifact creatures to gain an advantage, keep them in line with your spells and occasionally you can go ham with Time Sieve. That won’t happen often, though, so you’ll need to be proactive because stalling until you naturally draw combo pieces is a way to let them get insurmountably far ahead and besides, you don’t really need the combo anyway. Just take their faces to Thopter town and you’ll be fine.

What do we think? Did I break any of my “rules” here? Are infinite combos absent mass card draw a problem or are they likely to come up in 1/x games which is how often we shoot for winning anyway? Is this too strong to be 75%? Too weak? Let me know in the comments section. Thanks for tuning in yet again and if those metal Thopter tokens ever go on sale at Cool Stuff Inc, this is a deck to consider. Until next week!