Bauble Broodstar Affinity - 60

Cranial Plating on an Ornithopter. Good times indeed.

If you're looking to update the build, let me know. There's a metric ton of artifact support available now, even on a budget.

Thanks Anon88 for the suggestion of Cranial Plating!

dknight27,
Yes, I'm legit interested in updating the build, as long as it sticks with the core theme of Broodstar, the Affinity mechanic, and stays with Blue/Black. I also need to stay away from infinite combos or infinite lock for my play group balance. As long as it's either Legacy or Vintage legal I should be good. :)

Any ideas and feedback would be appreciated!

There's good news and bad news about artifact decks. The good news is, there's basically limitless support/ideas to draw from. The bad news is, all the broken artifacts are expensive. However, there is more than enough cheap material to make a playable/winning build with what you're going for.

First and foremost, you're gunna try and up the speed of the deck. You want as many artifacts on the field as you can get as quickly as possible, which activates your heavy hitters that need lets of artifacts. To do this, you run a bunch of 0 and 1-drop artifacts that still give you advantage.

If you're ok with vintage, you're basically obligated to run a copy (you can only have 1) of Sol Ring. The 0-drops you want to run are Mishra's Bauble and Urza's Bauble, both of which replace themselves if you need it (with a little info advantage). Being able to drop some turn 1 and speed up your artifact count is CRAZY powerful, and when you don't need them for affinity anymore, you sac them off and draw. Perfect win/win scenario.

Then you've got affinity critters that you need for damage. Refurbished Familiar, Thought Monitor, and Frogmite fit nicely in here, though I personally don't like running too many Thought Monitors (2 is preferred) in case they clog up my opening hand, but that's me. Plenty of other people like running the full set.

Another mechanic that works almost identically to affinity is improvise, which basically turns all your artifacts into mana rocks (those 0-drops suddenly become moxes, which is ludicrous). Kappa Cannoneer is an absolute nightmare win condition and is probably the card this deck needs most. Emry, Lurker of the Loch is another heavy hitter, this time a recycling engine that fits like a glove with your Baubles. Every turn, you can play 1 from your grave for free, then sac it to draw an extra card. Plus, Emry is ludicrously cheap (can be played turn 1), and gets the mill, opening up targets.

Metallic Rebuke is excellent counter coverage if you're playing into lots of problematic cards, as you will almost certainly be able to cast it for just U.

A huge consideration for the build would be running Sphere of Resistance, as it essentially doesn't affect your build in the slightest but absolutely hamstrings opponent across the board. Since it's an artifact, it's net 0 in cost for you, but to opponent it's an anchor that can lose them the game.

Mystic Forge is an engine of destruction for cheap artifacts/affinity mechanics, and once you have one fielded, you'll be dropping spells off your deck like crazy. Crystal Skull, Isu Spyglass works almost identically, except it lets you play artifact lands and taps for mana, so it's a great consideration, even if it has the double blue cost.

Soul Manipulation and Signal Pest don't really fit in here, as they're too slow and/or don't give enough benefit. Ratchet Bomb has similar problems, as you've got to wait around for the counters to build and it hits your own targets as well. It's mainly used as an anti-token card, as you can sac it for 0 and kill off tokens. If you need removal, try Executioner's Capsule.

This feedback is amazing!!! So much to consider! I'll have a dig through my collection of cards and see what I can come up with to retool this deck. Excited! :D

Okay, I've made some drastic changes based on the feedback here and what's in my card pool. Any cards that were previously in the deck I just shoved in the sideboard for now and will remove when it's finalized.

I do have to worry about tokens and some low cost tribal decks in my meta so Ratchet Bomb is desirable in that sense. I've left it in, but would love a better artifact removal or two cost black removal with that in mind if it exists.

Otherwise, I've kept the 2 Broodstar and even if it's a token amount for Cranial Plating and Refurbished Familiar, keeping the Blue/Black theme is important. I'm happy to boost this to 65 cards to squeeze a few more cards/sideboard into the main deck but I know it hurts deck efficiency.

Thoughts?
- I either have to keep the Mystic Forge [Legacy Legal] or drop the Sol Ring [Vintage Legal]

For now, I'm going to drop Sol Ring and add Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge

For your artifact removal, Engineered Explosives can accomplish the same thing, but much more quickly, as Ratchet Bomb. Cast it for 0, 1, or 2 and then dump it off for (2) and you can clear the board of whatever. Shrivel and Nausea are 2-drop nukes, but they're pretty conditional. Unfortunately, the best 2-drop nuke is in red, so you'll either have to be ok with playing for shenanigans with the -1/-1 for a turn, run Explosives and hope for the right colors you need, or grit your teeth and accept a 3-drop nuke from black, of which there are many options.

Tezzeret being a 6-drop seems problematic to me, especially since there's no real way to ramp to him. Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas is the traditional artifact planeswalker, as it's a 4-drop that generates material or creates win conditions, and goes for $2.50 which isn't bad at all. Karn, the Great Creator also fits like a glove, and has all kinds of nasty tricks you can pull with him (such as the ol Liquimetal Coating in the sideboard lock that lets you murder a land every turn). If you don't have access to ether of those, I'd personally run another Mystic Forge over the big Tezzeret, but that's me.

As for Sol Ring, if you want to run vintage, it's basically a must, but this deck should work perfectly well in legacy without it, so you should be fine. Realistically, vintage is a format of nonsense that can only really be played by extremely wealthy people, so keeping things in legacy makes more sense for 99% of magic players. With all the junk available in vintage, it's not uncommon to essentially lose the game before you get to play a single card because opponent can dump his whole hand turn 1 or just lock you out turn 1 then sit back and engine into a win condition.

Thanks for the feedback dknight27! My play group is mostly Legacy legal, with Vintage being allowed if the deck is otherwise banned in Legacy but legal in Vintage. Big money cards just don't exist in our play group, so it's pretty chill. Most of the deck's I've been building and the others I'm up against are fairly balanced against each other so it works out. No power 9 here. :D

Looking into this, I agree. I'll try to source some Engineered Explosives, they make more sense with what I'm trying to do in this deck and ... they can be dropped for 0 to boost the Affinity artifacts if needed.

I'll swap over to Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas as well since I think I have one. I don't have a third Mystic Forge so we'll see how it plays. :)

Thanks Anon88! I'll dig into these. I have, for years, struggled with how and if I should use Welding Jar. Ha! :D