Mono-Red is a tricky beast in Commander. Efficiently-costed, damage-based removal, which is so good in formats like Standard and Modern, just doesn’t cut it in a format of 13/13s (or 47/47s) and creatures with protection from everything. Even when they can be pointed at a player, seven Lightning Bolts will kill in Modern, but Commander needs 14 for one opponent; you need 42 Lightning Bolts to kill 3 opponents. (By the way, if you’ve figured out a way to cast 42 Lightning Bolts in Commander, please leave it in the comments. ‘Cause that’s awesome.)

But a big part of EDH is taking on challenges. We intentionally limit the cards we can play, sometimes choosing commanders which make it very difficult to choose cards, but we do it anyway, because we love that challenge. We play what we love, rather than what’s optimal, because this is the format which lets us do that. So maybe Bosh, Iron Golem or Daretti, Scrap Savant is the better choice for this deck, but I say we give Magic’s favorite rebel-parents a chance.

Before you click away, muttering how “Bosh is just better,” hang tight. Possibly, sure, but they’re different, and besides, build a Pia and Kiran Nalaar deck and you’ll probably have the only one in your playgroup. Also, because we know their story, and their fates, we can use our optionboard to flash forward in time in a fun, and unusual, way.

So we make a couple of little flying artifact Thopters when our generals enter the battlefield. There are a few tricks we can use to abuse that, but without jumping through a bunch of hoops we aren’t going to make a massive flying army. There are other ways to use those little dudes, though, including the other important ability the inventors provide: we can, for 3 mana, sacrifice an artifact to Shock anything.

Pia and Kiran Nalaar ? Commander| Mark Wischkaemper

• Commander (1)
• 1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar

• Creatures (26)
• 1 Anger
• 1 Bosh, Iron Golem
• 1 Burnished Hart
• 1 Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh
• 1 Chief of the Foundry
• 1 Etched Champion
• 1 Feldon of the Third Path
• 1 Goblin Welder
• 1 Hangarback Walker
• 1 Hellkite Igniter
• 1 Hellkite Tyrant
• 1 Ingot Chewer
• 1 Junk Diver
• 1 Kuldotha Forgemaster
• 1 Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient
• 1 Myr Battlesphere
• 1 Myr Retriever
• 1 Pentavus
• 1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
• 1 Scuttling Doom Engine
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Steel Hellkite
• 1 Thopter Assembly
• 1 Thopter Engineer
• 1 Thopter Squadron
• 1 Wurmcoil Engine

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Daretti, Scrap Savant

• Spells (32)
• 1 Shrapnel Blast
• 1 Molten Psyche
• 1 Scrap Mastery
• 1 Trash for Treasure
• 1 Furnace Celebration
• 1 Caged Sun
• 1 Commander's Sphere
• 1 Conjurer's Closet
• 1 Everflowing Chalice
• 1 Fire Diamond
• 1 Heartstone
• 1 Hedron Archive
• 1 Ichor Wellspring
• 1 Mimic Vat
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Mirrorworks
• 1 Mycosynth Wellspring
• 1 Myr Turbine
• 1 Nevinyrral's Disk
• 1 Pristine Talisman
• 1 Skullclamp
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Spine of Ish Sah
• 1 Staff of Nin
• 1 Trading Post
• 1 Ugin's Nexus
• 1 Unstable Obelisk
• 1 Thought Vessel
• 1 Voltaic Key
• 1 Worn Powerstone
• 1 Hammer of Purphoros
• 1 Mindslaver

• Lands (40)
• 27 Mountain
• 1 Arcane Lighthouse
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 Foundry of the Consuls
• 1 Ghost Quarter
• 1 Homeward Path
• 1 Mirrorpool
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Phyrexia's Core
• 1 Smoldering Crater
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Tomb of the Spirit Dragon
• 1 Darksteel Citadel
• 1 Great Furnace

Buy This Deck

Staff of Nin draws us an extra card each turn, and Skullclamp turns our free Thopters into two cards at the low, low cost of a single mana. Molten Psyche is kind of a mini-wheel with fire. Daretti lets us loot for up to two each turn. Ichor Wellspring is great here, because we get two cards for it, plus we can sacrifice it for something and recover it to keep drawing. While we’re at it, we’ll have no shortage of artifacts to sacrifice to Trading Post. Mycosynth Wellspring works just like its Ichor-filled counterpart, except it gets us a basic land, thinning our deck and guaranteeing we hit our land drops. Mirrorworks isn’t draw, but it gives us copies of our artifacts, which is great when it’s one of the Wellsprings, but hilarious when it’s Scuttling Doom Engine and downright terrifying when it’s Wurmcoil Engine.

Speaking of which, we’ve got Scuttling Doom Engine and Wurmcoil Engine to threaten our opponents, and they both do a pretty good job, especially when we can sacrifice them at will and have a number of ways to get them back. Hellkite Igniter can get serious pretty quickly, and Hellkite Tyrant is big, smashy, and comes with a win condition built in. Myr Battlesphere is no slouch, either, and is wonderfully returnable, like so many other cards in the deck, including Thopter Assembly.

We’ve also got some cards which are just fun. Mimic Vat, which is great in many EDH decks, really shines here: Solemn Simulacrum? Thopter Engineer? Wurmcoil Engine? Yes please. Ugin's Nexus can’t keep coming back, because it will exile itself, but at least we can control exactly when we want to take an extra turn. Meanwhile, Mindslaver can actually turn into a lock with enough mana, at least of one opponent. And Kuldotha Forgemaster can go hunt down just about anything we need. Purphoros, God of the Forge is mostly annoying here, though again, Mimic Vat can make it just silly. Combine with Myr Turbine for extra fun.

All by itself, this deck is a solid little Mono-Red goodstuff deck, using artifacts in unexpected ways. Mindslaver, which can sometimes feel unfair, works here due to the style of deck and that it doesn’t go out of its way to lock up the game. Plus, a deck like this can be really fun to pilot — play a thing, then sac the thing. Then recur the thing but sac another thing. Eventually, we’re flooding the board with wurm tokens or rolling Spine of Ish Sah. It’s fun to play with our resources like that.

But here at Convertible Commander, we also want to be able to swap out a few cards for some others we carry with the deck and have a different experience. In this case, we’re going to jump forward in time.

Optionboard:

• Pia Nalaar
• Chandra’s Phoenix
• Chandra’s Spitfire
• Oath of Chandra
• Chandra’s Fury
• Chandra’s Outrage
• Chandra’s Pyrohelix
• Chandra Nalaar
• Chandra, Flamecaller
• Chandra, Pyrogenius
• Chandra, the Firebrand
• Chandra’s Ignition

We start by abandoning poor Kiran and making Pia Nalaar our commander. We get the same size commander for one fewer mana, and though we get only one Thopter, we get an extra ability. Our sacrifice gets cheaper, if less effective, but now we can pump up a creature with extra mana. But the fun part is we replace Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh (which is her young, un-sparked self) with three forms of her more mature version, as well as a number of her namesake spells.

The optionboard result is a more themed version with more burn and a bit less artifact synergy. It may not be quite as competitive, but that can be a good thing. With a less spikey group, going up against some of the new pre-cons, or using the deck as a teaching tool, the Pia-only version gives us flexibility we don’t have otherwise unless we carry an additional deck.

At the end of it all, the deck really wants Darksteel Forge and Steel Overseer. Mycosynth Lattice would probably be nice, too. Myr Sire isn’t expensive and looked like a good choice, but I didn’t want to cut anything for it. Whirlermaker would be good for a token direction, and Erratic Portal is a good way to return creatures to your hand. Shattering Pulse is a great choice if your group has another artifact player.

What kind of Mono-Red decks do you play? How would you build Pia and Kiran? Did I miss anything? Please let me know in the comments!

Play artifacts, sacrifice them, get them back and play them again. Wurmcoil Engine on a Mimic Vat? Live the dream!

Main deck: $99.04

Optionboard: $22.64

Total Cost: $121.68