Koll, the Forgemaster | Art by Bram Sels

Not Another Boros Equipment Deck...

Hello, fellow brewer, and welcome back to Brew For Your Buck, where we swap out the top 10 most expensive cards in a deck with 10 budget cards that add a unique twist. This week, we're combining the most popular Boros commander with the most popular Boros theme. It's Osgir Equipment! "But wait, Brian!" you ask, "That seems pretty straightforward and frankly, a little bor(os)ing." Well, to spice things up, we need to look a little closer.

Osgir quickly became the most popular Boros commander because he provides a grindy, value-oriented, graveyard-centric playstyle for the color pair, and finally gave us something other than just another Equipment or combat-focused commander. Just a few months earlier, we also received an uncommon legend from Kaldheim that looked like, yes, yet another Boros Equipment commander. However, when looking at these two side-by-side, I see some striking similarities that involve graveyards.

What I didn't put together at first is that Koll is a combo-tacular commander that combines Equipment and graveyard strategies all the way up through cEDH tables. Inspired by Jake FitzSimons and his article on Commander's Herald, we're going to slot Koll and his infinite combo pieces into our Osgir deck. Looking at the average Osgir Equipment list on EDHREC, the deck clocks in at a whopping $367.81. A sword and some mono-W staples contain most of the cost. Interestingly, we're removing only white or colorless cards from the deck. All the red cards stay put.

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. Sword of Feast and Famine ($41.39)
            2. Stoneforge Mystic ($33.85)
            3. Esper Sentinel ($27.79)
            4. Smothering Tithe ($24.40)
            5. Teferi's Protection ($23.88)
            6. Hammer of Nazahn ($21.68)
            7. Shadowspear ($18.68)
            8. Steelshaper's Gift ($16.79)
            9. Enlightened Tutor ($14.92)
            10. Sword of the Animist ($10.74)

Total Value of Cuts: $234.12

Of note, this time only Sacred Foundry ($16.95) would be in the top 10 if we counted lands, so most of the mana base is pretty affordable! Replacing the Foundry with a budget option brings our total savings to $251.07.

Additions

Koll, the Forgemaster ($0.09) is the obvious first addition to deck, and before we get into the individual swaps, here's how the combo works in a nutshell: using Equipment cost-reducers we equip a mana-neutral creature that will die and come back to our hand through Koll's ability over and over again. I'll go through the specifics of each card below, then sum up the combo lines at the end. Of course, these cards also have utility outside of just combo-ing off, so don't worry about adding cards to the deck that are dead without Koll.

Fodder Creatures

Let's start with the mana-neutral creatures. The first place to look is creatures that literally cost zero mana. Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh ($0.45), AKA Roger, is a familiar face in Equipment decks, as the plethora of keywords make him great at wielding a weapon of your choice. Next, and don't laugh, is the mighty Ornithopter ($0.08). Again, a zero-mana creature with evasion, it can wear Equipment just fine, but it also can be recurred with Daretti, Scrap Savant or Sun Titan, sacrificed to Osgir's first ability, or tutored up with Goblin Engineer.

The next two are not actually zero mana, but function in much the same way as we proceed through the combo. Myr Moonvessel ($0.30) pays for itself with its own ability after we sac it. It also offers a weird form of ramp if you make multiple copies of it, and it has synergies with the other artifact-matters cards, similar to Ornithopter. Finally, we have Impulsive Pilferer ($0.08), which functions much in the same way as Moonvessel. Just make sure you don't Encore it for the combo, as it exiles the real card and just makes tokens of itself.

Equip Cost-Reducers

Next thing we need is a way to equip without spending mana. Fortunately, the deck already has some of these effects, as we have Puresteel Paladin, Fighter Class, and Bladehold War-Whip. Adding Auriok Steelshaper ($1.26) and Nahiri, Storm of Stone ($0.13) to the mix is basically automatic. You'll see that you may need two of these on the battlefield depending on which ones you have access to, though Osgir can clone Bladehold War-Whip if you want to be sneaky from the graveyard.

Key Equipment

We have our fodder, we have our cost-reducers, now for the finale. This deck already has plenty of ways to find these key pieces of Equipment, but Osgir also lets us recur them from our 'yard pretty easily if they get binned before we pop off.

First up is Skullclamp ($3.81). Yea, it stretches the definition of a budget card a bit, but as one of the most powerful Equipment ever printed, it's worth every penny. With Koll and an equip-cost-reducer on the battlefield, equipping this to one of our non-Ornithopter fodder creatures this allows us to literally draw our entire deck at sorcery speed. Equip the clamp, our creature dies, Koll brings it back, and we cast it again to repeat. This combo is the heart of the cEDH versions of Koll, so we'd be remiss to not include it.

Now we need a way to win the game. For this, we turn to Mortarpod ($0.09) and Mask of Immolation ($0.05). In a similar fashion to the Skullclamp line, just equip and sacrifice the creature with its new ability to ping an opponent. Koll will trigger, returning the creature to your hand, then repeat to keep on pinging until the table is dead.

Wrap-Up and Savings

Alright, let's recap the combo lines. We need Koll on the battlefield and:

1. A mana-neutral creature
2. A way or ways to reduce the equip costs to zero
3. Skullclamp, Mortarpod, or Mask of Immolation

Then, we equip the mana-neutral creature and go to town! Now for the savings:

Sweet, we cut the deck's price by 2/3 and you get to keep all of the leftover Equipment staples. Plus you have the start of a really fun cEDH deck! Thanks again to Jake for the inspiration for this one, it was really fun to find an interesting home for this budget package! If you liked slotting in an infinite combo, you can also check out my article about Mishra, Tamer of Mak Fawa!

Do you have a cool combo idea to slot into a deck? Do you have a commander you want to see featured? Let me know in the comments below! If you want to see more budget content, follow me on Twitter @BrewForYourBuck! I post quick swaps for really expensive cards, and other budget deckbuilding content. I'll see you next time when we brew for your buck!

Brian Cain

Brian played Magic intermittently between 2003 and 2017 when he fully embraced his love for Commander. Finding ways to maximize the value of each piece of cardboard in the deck is one of his favorite things to explore, especially if it involves putting lands in the graveyard! Outside of Magic, Brian works as a consultant in the marine industry, turning his passion for boats and ships into a career.