Twin to Win

Well hello there! Welcome back to another edition of 60 to 100, the quickest article series around! Not that the articles go by fast, necessarily. However, this week we're definitely breaking down some rapid fire combo decks. Don't believe me? Well, it doesn't take a combo player like DM Cross to appreciate this week's focus.

First, it was The Command Zone who talked about this spicy new Commander 2018 number. Then it was our dear own Nate Burgess who followed suit. Then our Christian Alexander was unable to resist the call. Soon, others will fall too. It's inevitable. All will become the same, and everyone shall copy each other, now that Brudicald, Telchor Engineer is out roaming the playgroups for us all! Once a single person has become one with the most Myr of engineers, it's only a matter of time before everyone does!

More like "Brutal"-clad

Now, let's just think about this predicament for a second - is that really so bad? Look at this guy, he's got a blue-ish red-ish way about him that makes even the most green-ish white-ish players say, "Hmm, maybe..." Of all the new commanders from Commander 2018, this is the one that I'm most excited about, and the one I'm the most surprised to be excited about! Normally it's hard for me to get excited about the Izzet color combo, especially when I know it's part of an "artifact matters" precon. However, once Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer settled in on me and I had a chance to toss around its token-y bustedness, I was ready to join the hive. Or clan. Or whatever you call a gaggle of Myr touched by the Phyrexian yuck.

60 Cards of Inspiration

I wouldn't be very good at writing articles that take 60-card decks and translate them into grand 100-card decks for EDH if I forgot to provide you with some backstory. For this week's 60-card inspiration, we have a bit of a double dose; we're taking one deck that was too good for Modern and one deck that you always have to watch out for, especially if your name is Matt Morgan and you think you're never going to play the deck again...

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

*4 Deceiver Exarch

*4 Snapcaster Mage

*2 Pestermite

*2 Vendillion Clique

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

*4 Splinter Twin

*1 Blood Moon

*2 Cryptic Command

*2 Dispel

*1 Electrolyze

*4 Lightning Bolt

*4 Remand

*1 Roast

*4 Serum Visions

*2 Spell Snare

[/Spells]

[Lands]

*1 Desolate Lighthouse

*4 Island

*1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge

*4 Misty Rainforest

*4 Scalding Tarn

*2 Mountain

*4 Steam Vents

*3 Sulfur Falls

[/Lands]

[/cardlist]

Splinter Twin: The deck that so many people hated for so long. Draw cards, play some counters, go infinite with Splinter Twin and Deceiver Exarch. Easy peasy. If you played Modern back when this deck was legal, you knew what was going on. Many of your Spike buddies probably have slipped this combo into a deck or two, myself included.

How about the other, more aggressive deck that Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer has some similarities to?

[cardlist]

[Creatures]

*4 Foundry Street Denizen

*4 Reckless Bushwhacker

*4 Goblin Guide

*2 Goblin Chieftain

*3 Goblin Piledriver

*4 Legion Loyalist

*4 Mogg Fanatic

*4 Mogg War Marshall

*4 Goblin Bushwhacker

[/Creatures]

[Spells]

*4 Lightning Bolt

*4 Goblin Grenade

[/Spells]

[Lands]

*4 Bloodstained Mire

*4 Wooded Foothills

*11 Mountains

[/Lands]

[/cardlist]

Yep. There it is. Goblins. This 60-card list serves as a backbone for every Krenko, Mob Boss deck. Even Vin Diesel isn't this fast and furious. (Well, he might be furious, but I would be too after making what seems like triple-digits worth of sequels and making everyone think that NoS was a cool thing.)

So... Brudiclad. Our spindly Vin Diesel of the Myr world. Given the above lists, where does Brudiclad come into play, and why do we care? Turns out, the answer is easy! Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer he makes all of our tokens transform into our biggest token, so we're going to use all our Gobbo friends to make all their Gobbo tokens, then use the Splinter Twin of days past to make a big token, and then we're going to have some fun!

Cladding Up

Now that we have our gameplan figured out, we have to decide how we want to make some tokens. We already know how the tokens are going to be supplied. Our commander provides consistent Myr output, and Krenko, Mob Boss and his ilk (such as Siege-Gang commander) provide tons of tiny dudes. This army of 2/1's and 1/1's needs to feed off of something to get bigger and stronger. Sadly, we can't just copy any creature on the battlefield, since Brudiclad isn't that furious. If he would take a chill pill for a minute, we might have gotten away with it, but it's probably for the best this way.

Still, we've got some great options for making token copies. Dominaria gave us one of the hottest new token producers in the form of Helm of the Host. It even lets us make copies of our commander! Another solid addition from 2016's Commander product is Faerie Artisans, which makes copies of our opponents' creatures. If they want to give us gifts by playing massive creatures for us to copy, why wouldn't we accept their gifts? Sure, it's a little low-floor/high-ceiling, but isn't that part of what makes it so fun?

This is also, finally, a deck that allows me to play one of the bombiest bulk mythics that I've never gotten to fully appreciate: Clone Legion. The only thing better than copying one of your opponent's creatures? Copying all of that opponent's creatures. Along with the 'copy en masse' theme, Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer's EDHREC page also features the gold standard for huge copy spells, Rite of Replication, which will drop down a few copies of anything we really want. Is it 75%? You betcha. But when we're making all of our little dudes into copies of their big dudes, it definitely starts to tilt the scale in our favor. I dig it.

Finding Our Own Payoffs

I've been playing this game long enough to know we can't just expect our Plan A to work out. Plan B's are usually still pretty great and good enough to win, so we need to find some other payoff cards to transmogrify our tokens into big fatties. Battlebond gave us some awesome gifts, such as Arcane Artisan. This is a fantastic way to make our own tokens of whatever fatty we happen to have stuck in our hands. Blightsteel Colossus? Sure! Consecrated Sphinx more your jam? Do your thing and make an army of them, why don't you! I won't judge, unless of course it's because you chose to play Consecrated Sphinx. Get creative young person!

Our next creature is just insane when we can make copies of it. I'd love for it to be made more available for players with a reprint (fingers crossed). What's the card? Our good buddy Scourge of the Throne! It might have a price point that keeps it out of hands of many players, but oh. My. Goodness. It's so great here! Make a copy of it, make your tokens copies of it, attack one person, and get a ton more combat steps afterward to pick off the rest of the table. Seems pretty solid to me.

And here we go folks, the fully engineered list!

Some last notes to remember!

• Brudiclad transforms all of our tokens, regardless of form, into whatever other token we want. This includes our Treasure, Gold, or even Clue tokens, which means spells like Spell Swindle and Confirm Suspicions pull double duty for us. Counter a spell, get five Blightsteel Colossus next combat? Seems unfair.
• Some token-makers in the above list don't stack well with Brudiclad's timing, such as Blade of Selves. Even if you don't get to keep those tokens forever, I like it in the deck.
• Coat of Arms and Shared Animosity have enormous upside when your creatures all become copies of the same creature. I know I don't need to explain more.
• Flameshadow Conjuring finally has a home where it might be worth running in large numbers. Paying just one extra red mana to make all your tokens become your new duder seems very worth it on the high end.

And there we have it! Once again, dropping some knowledge bombs on how to swap formats at the drop of a copycat hat. Whats your favorite Brudiclad tech? Did I miss it, or is there still some brewing you're excited to do? Let me know in the comments. Thanks everyone!