Starter Commander Deck: Go, Go, Gadget Golems!
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Wizards has recently released five new introductory Commander products called Commander Starter decks. I reviewed them in a previous article, but they were generally worth far more than their price tag of $25. That's an incredible value! That's an entire 100 card Commander deck built, mana balanced, and ready to play for the approximate price of 25 cents a card. That's an awesome price point, but to be fair I plan on building as many of the most popular archetypes available for exactly that or less in this series on budget building. One of the best ways to introduce a friend to Commander is to either give them a deck or let them use one of yours. We're not made of money, but $25 is not a big ask for an entire deck. This series is going to highlight Commander decks that can be built for under $25. These decks will also lend themselves to upgrades; each deck grows along with you and your collection. To start things off we need to look into an artifact deck as Brothers' War is releasing shortly, and the five starter decks lacked an artifact themed deck.
Golems are go for our artifact theme. Ich-Tekik, Salvage Splicer is going to be partnered with Armix, Filigree Thrasher in this Go-Go-Gadget Golems deck. The synergies are what make this deck a functional masterpiece; the artifacts and golem sub-theme make it so that our commanders show up and immediately make our deck significantly more powerful. The easy goal is to cast Armix early, drop plenty of other artifacts as we go, and then get Ich-Tekik into play. Once Ich-Tekik is in play we can feel free to sacrifice all of those extra artifacts to draw cards, put counters on our golems, and generally grind out as much value as possible. Ich-Tekik, Salvage Splicer basically provides us with a huge pay-off for all of our sacrifice outlets. Ingenuity Engine, Metalspinner's Puzzleknot, and many other cards in the deck help to crank out additional value. Meanwhile, once you fill up that graveyard, or even the battlefield, you get to attack with Armix and pick off whatever opposing creature might be the most annoying at the time. This deck benefits tremendously from having so many cross-synergies.
The deck wants to flood the board with tokens, artifacts, and other sacrifice outlets. This allows us to use cards like Horizon Spellbomb, Armillary Sphere, and Mycosynth Wellspring, and even Golden Egg to let us grow our team while advancing our game plan in a variety of ways. The deck boasts several ways to create golems, like our Vital Splicer and Maul Splicer, while also utilizing our twenty three golems already in the main deck. When we consider how powerful some of our golems can be…making them even more powerful is just awesome.
The deck is purposely designed to have as many self-sacrificing effects as possible. This allows us to fully leverage both of our commanders' abilities. Meanwhile, there are a couple of sacrifice outlets in the deck that are deceptively powerful. Throne of Geth is particularly powerful in that when we have Ich-Tekik out we get double the counters on our creatures—beautiful synergies abound.
The deck has plenty of incremental draw as well as several sacrificial draw spells in the form of Altar's Reap, Village Rites, and Costly Plunder. More ways to build up the pile of scrap in our yard to enable Armix's attack ability while also growing the team with Ich-Tekik. This deck can be deceptively powerful, and it can really crank out the cards in the mid to late game. There are several top-end finisher style cards and we even have a one sided six mana reset button in Their Name is Death.
If you're looking for upgrades, then I would suggest replacing a few of our golems with the pricier ones when you get a chance. A few golems to consider include Mycosynth Golem, Blightsteel Colossus, and Darksteel Colossus. Mycosynth Golem is probably the most exciting new addition you could make to this deck. It costs nearly as much as the deck itself, but it works wonders for our ability to flood the board with our well-built machines.
This deck is budget, but it can easily get upgraded with various sacrificial engines and other counter enhancing shenanigans. Just be aware that as you replace cards you aren't simply trying to go for pure power, because the deck thrives on synergy. The Urza lands and other big mana enablers are probably worth considering as well. As you look to upgrade just be certain you're not sacrificing your synergies. I hope you enjoy playing with this ultra budget starter Commander deck! I highly recommend it as a tool for teaching and as a way to play with newbies that have picked up one of those new starter decks. Enjoy telling your friends that they are about to face your “Go, go, gadget golems” deck, and so may the cards and the golems remain ever in your favor!
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