Standard Mono-White Servos

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Happy Thursday MTG peeps,

Once more, we play our dangerous game, a game of Magic: the Gathering against our old adversary - The standard constructed metagame.  We will be heading to our local gaming store, OMG! Games, here in Barrie, Ontario with a new weapon sleeved up for tomorrow's Friday NIght Magic event.

If you've been reading MTG Realm for any length of time, then you may know that we do love the primal strategy of creatures turning sideways in the red zone.  Whether it is the achetype of white-weenies, or cheap tokens with a pump spells.  Today's post is the latter.  There is an opportunity here for the budget MTG gamer to get a 'foot in the door' as the expression goes for an opportunity to win some games at FNM with a decklist costing well under $100.

The Game Plan
Play a number of spells to create 1/1 colourless artifact Servos creatures and pump their base power / toughness.

21 Lands:
16 Plains
2 Westvale Abbey
3 Ruins of Oran-Rief

The mana-base is pretty straight forward - 16 Plains and 3 copies of Ruins of Oran-Rief to sneak an extra +1/+1 counter on (one) colourless creature which entered the battlefield that turn.  Two copies of Westvale Abbey is placed in the mix as we do expect to create a healthy number of token creatures which may be sacrificed to create the flip sided Ormendahl, Profane Prince.  A 9/7 demon with flying, lifelink, indestructible and haste seems like a solid plan 'B'.  Always pack a parachute. 

19 Creatures: 
4 Master Trinketeer
4 Chief of the Foundry
4 Metallic Mimic
4 Ornithopter
3 Hope of Ghirapur

Ornithopter is a shoe-in - a 0/2 artifact creature for zero (0!) mana which will get pumped up with other spells we'll yatter about soon.  As for Hope of Ghirapur, we already had these and for similar reasons for Ornithopter, not a bad choice.  The ability to sac this thopter to stymie your opponent's hopes to cast non-creature spells until your next turn seems good.

Metallic Mimic will, in almost all cases get cast while naming Servos so that you can then start piling on those +1/+1 counters on your Servo army.  Chief of the Foundry lends it self naturally as an 'Artifact Lord' to pump up those Servos and Thopters alike. The same holds true for Master Trinketeer, which also provieds a handy 'mana sink', later game to generate more Servo tokens. 

14 Spells: 
4 Sram’s Expertise
4 Servo Exhibition
3 Collective Effort
3 Built to Last

Built to Last may seem to most players not the best choice but we think it is well suited in our local game.  A one-drop for a +2/+2 instant pump and make the creature (if it is an artifact) indestructible is good, but may be side-boarded out for Stasis Snare likely for the second game.  Servo Exhibition is great value generting two 1/1 Servos for two mana.  Collective Effort gives a multi-tool to pump creatures, kill an enchantment or an opponent's creature with power 4 or more.  

Sram's Expertise just shines in this build - 4 mana for 3 Servos is sweet, especially so as this sorcery will also in most cases allow you to play a free card from your hand (with converted mana cost 3 or less).

6 Artifacts: 
4 Cogworker’s Puzzleknot
2 Animation Module

Cogworker's Puzzleknot is really essentially in this build.  We were not sold on this at first given that it basically costs 4 mana to produce only 2 Servos - but- after a good deal of playing, we really need those exra Servos.  Being able to hold back two mana to produce a surprise chump blocker at instant speed is also very good tech.  

At one point we did have a full deckset of Animation Module in an attempt to 'push' the combo of Animation Module and Metallic Mimic (produces a cycle of Servos as long as you have the mana for it).  After a number of games, the shiny just kinda wore off as the Module was a dead card on the Battlefield waiting for the Mimic to come down.

We hope this post encourages you to try this decklist or something similar.  There are two other very good posts online if you should be interested in perusing this :

• Budget Magic: $76 (15 tix) Mono-White Servos (Standard) by SaffronOlive on MTG Goldfish
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/budget-magic-76-15-tix-mono-white-servos-standard

• Mtg Budget Deck Tech: Mono-White Servo Combo in Aether Revolt by Strictly Better MtG

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paf9zAv6AQs 
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