Chargin' up Charge Counters Combo in Modern
Artifact strategies have been the favorite of many people throughout the history of Magic. Ancient Stirrings, Mox Opal, and various Tezzeret Planeswalkers have proven time and again to be key in these kinds of builds in modern. But Everflowing Chalice? Voltaic Key? Coretapper? Not a single one to be seen. Unless, of course, you look in the right place.
Charge Counters Combo or “Dice Factory,” as it’s known, has a few different shells floating around, many of which can be seen in the MTGSalvation thread linked above (our list is the Magistrate’s Scepter deck found here). In general though, the deck uses charge counter artifacts like Everflowing Chalice and Astral Cornucopia to produce a boatload of mana, then dump it all on a wincon. But of course, just trying to hardcast these cards is absolutely horrible as far as mana ramping goes.
Which is why we have our Surge Nodes and Coretappers, letting us pile on the counters early to ramp us to our big threats. Voltaic Key helps us untap our counter-giving pieces early on, and can untap our mana rocks later on to make even more mana. Mox Opal is a great way to ramp in artifact decks, giving us colored mana for free and accelerating our gameplan as early as turn 1. Ensnaring Bridge is an amazing toolbox piece if we need it for handling the more aggressive strategies, and Magistrate’s Scepter is up there with “hilarious and salt-inducing ways to win the game,” since it goes infinite with a combination of Coretappers, Voltaic Keys, and Tezzeret, the Seekers.
On the spell side of things, Ancient Stirrings is amazing for digging through to find an artifact or land (70% of the deck), and Board the Weatherlight does a good enough Stirrings impression that we want it in here too to help find our combo. Tezzeret’s Gambit keeps our hand full, acting as a sort of colorless Divination with a proliferate tacked on top, which is obviously great at charging up our artifacts. Finally, we have Wildfire, which doesn’t always act as a wincon, but being able to clear out the opponent’s lands and creatures on turn four can certainly trigger some scoops. Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas has a +1 that looks a lot like Ancient Stirrings, a minus that gives us a big threat, and of course his ult can often just win games outright. Tezzeret the Seeker is no slouch either, untapping our ramp pieces, finding any piece we need to win, or even just letting us swing all in at once.
The manabase for this deck is beautiful, and as you can see, there’s not a single fetch or shock in sight. It’s pretty standard for an artifact deck manabase, but I’ll still never get tired of seeing it. Academy Ruins can recur an artifact that the opponent has managed to get rid of, and Inventors’ Fair helps against aggro while also giving us yet another tutor. Darksteel Citadel helps us get fast Mox Opals, while also giving us another artifact for Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas’s ultimate. Aether Hub is great at giving us colored mana when we need it, while giving us colorless until that point. Glimmervoid and Spire of Industry are our primary mana fixers, giving us absolutely any color of mana at a very low cost, and the single forest is there in case we need it.
In the sideboard, we have the Nature’s Claim to go alongside our beautiful single Forest, giving us insurance against Blood Moon and other artifact decks. Abrupt Decay is a good catch-all answer for whatever our opponent is throwing at us, and Crumble to Dust shuts down Tron for a couple turns while we ramp out. Padeem keeps our combo pieces safe from hate, and Wurmcoil Engine let’s us end the game when we need something a bit easier to play than the Scepter combo. Lux Cannon lets us have an answer for big things our opponent might play, while also giving us the option of just slowly wiping the opponent’s board. Ensnaring Bridge is here for when we’re matched up against a deck that we really need it against, and Spellskite is another, cheaper way to keep our combo safe. Defense Grid slows down countermagic to the point of near-unplayability, and Damping Sphere can keep Tron and Storm at bay while we try to win. We have Pithing Needle to deal with the various Planeswalkers of the format, as well as miscellaneous activated abilities from things like Aether Vial or fetchlands. Grafdigger’s Cage can help us deal with the many graveyard decks running around, and Welding Jar is one last way to keep the hate away while we try to win.
Tips:
- If you have energy, Tezzeret’s Gambit can proliferate that too, giving you an extra use of colored mana.
- If you really need to, you can sacrifice Coretapper for a quick burst of counters, then bring it back with Academy Ruins.
- It’s important to remember that zero-power creatures can attack through an Ensnaring Bridge even if you have no cards in hand, which makes Noble Hierarch in particular a bit of a nuisance.
Extra Spice:
- Karn Liberated can be a great way to win game when played early, letting us pretend to play some weird version of Tron. Ugin can also be put in here for the exact same reason. Both of them are big finishers that basically end the game when they’re played.
- Paradox Engine makes the untappers and mana rocks put in a ton of work, and is honestly just a lot of fun in general. If you like doing weird combos (potentially even weirder than the basic shell of the deck), give this one a shot.
- Whir of Invention can be a great way to play a more toolbox-style deck, letting us use that extra mana to tutor up absolutely anything we could want.
Dice Factory is a lot of fun, especially if you like the feeling of constantly fiddling with dice while you play Magic. The basic shell is pretty rigid, but everything around it can be changed and tuned to make the deck play the way that you want it to. I highly recommend checking out the MTGSalvation thread on the deck, as it goes very heavily into detail on a lot of the different shells people have played, and is a great place to discuss the deck with other people who enjoy it. The deck may not be getting top 8’s at major Modern events, but it’s more than capable of taking you to the top 8 of FNM in one of the weirdest ways possible.
