Well, Durrrr!

I'm excited.

Which is to say, I'm always excited when I get to do any new deckbuilding, and th release of a new set is a prime time to do so. As I've said, one of the best feelings that I get in Magic is that of exploration. That's why I enjoy playing Limited and why I enjoy building decks.

Let's focus on the latter today, as we take a look and a half at a guy I mentioned in my spoiler review...

Not to be confused with Dogwelder

Out of all the cards in Mirrodin Besieged, this is the one that catches my eye first. As with Necrotic Ooze, this card is the embodiment of exploration. There are nearly a hundred cards to use the Welder with in Standard, and thousands of combinations, any one of which could have a thoroughly novel effect.

The most obviously powerful combination is Soliton + Khalni Gem. With both imprinted, Welder can tap for UU and untap for U, making an arbitrary amount of U, which can be used to untap the Welder again to create any other color. Not to mention that Soliton provides extra utility by allowing Welder to untap and imprint multiple artifacts at once.

Here's my take on Myr Welder; it uses a little variant on the Dredgevine engine, but more on that in a bit. First, let's weld some Gems to things.

Beadazzler Web
Creatures
4 Myr Welder
4 Soliton
4 Hedron Crab
4 Enclave Cryptologist
1 Molten-Tail Masticore

Artifacts
4 Khalni Gem
4 Decimator Web

Spells
4 Vines of Vastwood
4 Grim Discovery
4 Jace's Erasure

Land
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Halimar Depths
6 Island
3 Swamp
2 Forest

The kill is to get a Myr Welder out with Soliton, Khalni Gem, and Decimator Web on it. The key to this is generally to mill out cards with Hedron Crab, but Enclave Cryptologist's looting can help. Jace's Erasure is a choice that I've never seen, but I'd be interested to see how it performs. Merfolk Looter isn't in Standard any more, but I'm not excited to run Reckless Scholar. Erasure seemed at least a reasonable replacement, but we'll see.

Another thing that this lacks from Dredgevine is resilience. It's almost entirely dependant upon Welder. As a result, I'm running the full complement of Grim Discovery and adding in Vines of Vastwood to give it a little extra protection. What it gains in this tradeoff though, is explosiveness. With an active Welder, you can imprint Soliton, untap for U, imprint Khalni Gem, untap again, and you have infinite mana to imprint Decimator Web and kill your opponent. As a result, it's vulnerable to sorcery speed removal only on the turn you cast it, and then removal can be responded to by starting the combo, at which point you can simply stack new activations on top of their removal.

It's certainly not perfect, but it's a deck idea that I'm excited about, and very interested to keep diving into, successful or not.

But while we're here, how about something less than successful?

Relic Putrescence is interesting. It doesn't seem to have a place really. I've never felt like I wanted to play it in limited, and it's too slow for constructed. Worst of all, it gives your opponent the choice as to when to take a poison counter.

Until now, that is.

What if you were to enchant your own Myr Welder? And then, say we tap it repeatedly. Soliton and Silver Myr would work, but I'm sure there are others. Once there are ten Relic Putrescence triggers on the stack, well.... we can just give them to your opponent.

WHAAAAAAT?

Yes, from the Scars of Mirrodin FAQ:

"When the enchanted artifact becomes tapped, Relic Putrescence's ability triggers. The player who gets the poison counter is the player who, at the time the ability resolves, controls the artifact that became tapped. If that artifact is no longer on the battlefield, its last existence on the battlefield is checked to determine its controller. It doesn't matter whether Relic Putrescence is still on the battlefield as the ability resolves, what artifact it's enchanting at that time, who controlled the artifact at the time it became tapped, or who tapped it."

Yes, "it's yours, you touched it last" is a better argument now than when you were 8.

Bazaar Trader works. Or if you're feeling spicy and can muster more creatures than your opponent, so will an imprinted Jinxed Idol.

That's some Jinx, huh?

Is this good? Probably not. But is it hilarious and awesome? Oh, most definitely.

And that's enough to make me want to build on it and make it work.