Mono Brown, splashing Silver!
I have very often cast Kozilek on turn 1/2 with this one.
Ultimately you want to make infinite mana (I have had absurd things happening, like 8XYZ mana on turn 2 thanks to Metalworker, Doubling Cube and Voltaic Key, leading to me drawing and playing my whole deck) and attack with your Eldrazi or, alternatively, win with Time Vault.
Once you've cast your first Kozilek, there's gonna be an endless stream of at least 1 Kozilek each turn, WHILE making it harder and harder for your opponent to even cast a single spell.
I tried to put in quite a lot of high CMC Eldrazi to have a ~75+% rate of having ONE to TWO in my opener. Sometimes it's possible to play a sphere before casting an Eldrazi, to play around counters... But regardless you're gonna get a lot of value, obviously because of both of Kozileks' triggers, triggering when they're CAST. The new one's is so good, that it alone inspired this deck...
...Otherwise... you're forced to lock down the game with spheres long enough, so that you play out all your mana and cast an Eldrazi you are most likely going to draw within 4-5 turns.
Card choices in need of explanation (work in progress !):
Library of Alexandria:
Playing Library in your deck pretty much guarantees that you're playing a control deck (disinformation).
Also, it is just a great card in general, especially if you can go off with the possibility of playing your whole hand at once.
Apart from that, it's obviously a great win-more-card with the Great Distortion/Butcher/Jar.
Doubling Cube:
It doesn't seem great at first, since it needs at least 7 mana in the pool to even produce a single mana...
But... from that point on (which isn't unusual to get to on T2+) it becomes insane, especially if you can reuse it with Voltaic Key. I have literally had THOUSANDS of mana in the pool on T2 a few times, thanks to Cube, which definitely made the difference between doing nothing and playing my whole deck that turn.
If you have 10 mana to cast the Great Distortion with a Cube still in hand, you can "draw a card and put it into play, for free".
Voltaic Key: =>
Pretty much "just" a Sol Ring in this deck with the Monoliths and Mana Vault. Untapping Sol Ring or Mana Crypt still at least provides +1 mana...
If you have a Doubling Cube out, Key becomes another one. If you have an active Metalworker, Key adds the same amount of mana he adds minus 4 (Key in hand) or minus 1 (Key already played).
The real value of Key, though, is 1. untapping Monoliths/VaultS you wouldn't be able to untap otherwise, setting up for a big turn, and 2. being discarded to Kozilek's counter ability to counter cmc1 spells. There are not many 1 drops which make sense in this deck, as opposed to the amount of cmc1 spells in most Vintage decks...
=> Time Vault: <=
This seems like a no brainer to me, because of the 4 Voltaic Keys + 1 Clock of Omens and especially because of the amount of card draw in the deck.
<= Kozilek, Kozilek, Emrakul & Memory Jar:
The Great Distortion: {Menace (Oath)}
Butcher of Truth:
Memory Jar:
Emrakul:
Clock of Omens:
Having 9 artifacts which don't untap normally pretty much requires you to play 4 Keys. After a few matches i figured i needed another effect like that. Actually specifically Clock's, because...:
- 9 imortant artifacts don't untap normally...
- the activated ability:
- doesn't cost mana; Sometimes I only have Workshop mana or mana from the 9-1=8 artifacts spare, which doesn't work with key
- is actually very cheap and can be used multiple times a turn. The first activation will cost me tapping Clock itself + another artifact, mind you. Tapping Spheres and summoning-sick Metalworkers means a lot of mana. Tapping Moxen to untap artifacts tapping for {3} is... okay. And tapping something like Sol Ring + X to untap one of the 8, on the end of my opponent's turn is... still value!
- a cmc of 4 is not a real cost in such a deck. Also it is the only one i have for The Great Distortion.
And why Workshop is still insane in this build!:
Making Metalworker a 1drop without having to use an artifact to cast one is already convincing enough.
Otherwise Workshop acts kind of like an... interpreter^^ You can play (sometimes multiple) mana producing artifacts off of it, where as an Ancient Tomb 1. produces less mana in that case and 2. should've better been used to cast an Eldrazi instead.
Possible modifications I can see:
- Add Mox Diamond(s), drawing more cards off of the Great Distortion and casting it earlier sometimes.
- Tutoring with Eye of Ugin, Ring of Three Wishes or Planar Portal
- Lodestone Golem...
- Sundering Titan...
- Cloudkey?
- another Emrakul.
- Sensei's Divining Top: There are no (relevant) ways of shuffling, but it draws you cards with Keys and Clock, aswell as giving you a way to find important and powerful/useful cards up to 3 turns earlier by itself. All of that works well with Library of Alexandria aswell. Also it would be another 1drop for Kozilek's countering ability.