How They Brew It - Quadrupling Season
Doubling Season | Illustrated by Richard Wright
Good twilight, agent. Congratulations on taking down that communist moon, and don't worry about Hawaii; there was nothing you could have done. Inside this Post-A-Nut is a small, self-contained whodunit mystery. As part of this system, we have included a tiny crime scene, tiny victim, and tiny detective, complete with an even tinier pipe and magnifying glass. Solving this mystery will reveal your next mission, and as such, this system will self-deduct in thirty seconds.
Since early 2019, global supply chains have been in a state of constant disruption, leading to a large-scale financial crisis as goods became more difficult to manufacture, ship, and track. Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs, saddled themselves with debt, or otherwise become financially uprooted by the strain this has put upon our nation's economy. Today, The Agency has discovered the reason behind this unprecedented societal upheaval: 55-year-old Stan G. G. Dostoyevsky, alias "The Supplier." This individual, who has two arms and is dangerous, has become the first in recorded history to break the laws of supply and demand; as his stockpile grows, his demand only increases. Your mission: trace The Supplier to his secret, hidden underground lair in Zafra de Záncara, shut down his criminal syndicate, and then send a message that nobody is above the law.
Twin Peaks
Good dawn, agent. I'm spymaster admiral Michael Celani, and I love the supply chain so much I've written several shipping fanfictions. Listen well, because I'm about to tell you something important. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: none of these things help the economy, and so you are to ignore them in pursuit of your target. If we don't build enough products in other countries this year, then our lives are meaningless and always have been.
Stangg, Echo Warrior, a man of many twins. Every time he attacks, another of his triplets enters the battlefield, and that quintuplet gets a copy of every single Aura and Equipment attached to the original. Now normally, a group of quintuplets wouldn't be a problem that warrants the attention of all one hundred and thirty-seven extant shadow governments, because dealing with men carrying an absurd amount of weaponry is just called living in Texas. But the weapons and Auras he carries tend to attract attention, the type of attention that can quickly rival even the most powerful board states.
Skyrocketing Demand
No, the problem with Stangg, Echo Warrior is that his particular gear is so highly valued that it rivals that Starbucks cup that people are getting trampled over at Target for, and attracting a big crowd raises demand for his products even further. Whether he's supplying anti-economy Rebels with Equipment like Barbed Batterfist, or making actual, real wolves pay real money for a Wolfrider's Saddle, the more permanents attached to Stangg, the more tokens he makes when he attacks. Now, when those Equipment copies enter the battlefield, the Stangg Twin will sell them to the token creatures they attract, rendering him completely defenseless when attacking. Even worse, both the Twin and his fraudulent fashions will go away at the end of the turn, unless you stop it with the obligatory Sundial of the Infinite. But there is one thing that's guaranteed to stick around: the tokens you've created with your Equipment!
She's a Rebel
As mentioned, the first category of Equipment that create token creatures upon entering the battlefield is anything with For Mirrodin! Each of these weapons creates a 2/2 Rebel when they hit the field. Because our main strategy involves getting a ton of Equipment attached to Stangg, we're prioritizing low equip costs over any real buff. Barbed Batterfist is the best of the bunch, costing a measly one mana to equip, but Hexgold Halberd and Vulshok Splitter are also quite cheap to move around. Hexplate Wallbreaker is the only Equipment in this category with an actual, real benefit: it creates a second combat phase on attack, granting Stangg more opportunities to peddle his ill-gotten goods.
Not Quite For Mirrodin
Aside from Rebels, we've also got a grab bag of one-offs here that make all sorts of creatures when they hit the market. Mask of Immolation makes an Elemental, and you can immediately sacrifice that fiery fellow to take out any dork on the other side of the field with one toughness. Goblin Morningstar gives trample, a useful benefit for your main Stangg, and it comes with a 1/1 Goblin that may or may not steal the mace away from you. It's actually generally better for it not to auto-Equip, since that leaves the attacking Stangg Twin a bit stronger. Finally, Wolfrider's Saddle makes Stangg harder to block and comes with a free 2/2 Wolf each time you attack.
Dangerous Aura
It's not just Equipment that Stangg copies when he strikes. It turns out he's selling good vibes, because Auras get duplicated, too. There's a few of them that come with tokens: Fists of Ironwood comes with two 1/1 Saprolings, and Raised by Wolves does the same with 2/2 Wolves. It's worth noting that Raised by Wolves is especially potent, since it also makes your Twins stronger based on the number of Wolves you have, and it forms a nice little value combo with Wolfrider's Saddle. One with the Kami has the most absurd value, though: the way it's worded, both copies see the Stangg Twin die, meaning you're making at least six Spirits a turn that's enhanced by any power-boosting modifications you might have.
Brand Loyalty
Based on the mathematical projections we got back from the Department of Agriculture, Stangg, Echo Warrior's brand loyalty is growing at an exponential rate, having just surpassed Amazon retail's and approaching Apple's. Those figures are worrying. With this much loyalty, there's a few sycophants out there that will really, really insist on ridiculous things, like if you buy a Samsung Galaxy Note, it'll explode. Before we send you in there, we're going to brief you on the worst of the worst.
An Alliance of Arms
With a ton of creature tokens joining the Stangg Craze every turn, it's only natural that the deck runs some payoffs for it. Let's start with the basics: Impact Tremors, Witty Roastmaster, and Purphoros, God of the Forge are here, and they represent a great secondary win condition for the deck. If you can't beat down your opponents going wide, you can sure burn them out. For mana generation, Gala Greeters and Rose Room Treasurer both make Treasure tokens, allowing you to keep piling on Equipment after combat, and Cryptolith Rite turns them each into dorks for later turns. Finally, Tribute to the World Tree is also an absurd payoff in this deck, since it buffs all of your tokens to at least 3/3s and draws cards off a significant portion of your main deck's creatures. It also guarantees a card when you attack, because the Stangg Twin is three power.
Treasure Trove
In most cases, the same number of artifacts are entering the battlefield every combat as creatures thanks to Stangg's trigger, so it stands to reason that anything that cares about artifacts entering will be just as effective as anything that cares about creatures. That leaves Reckless Fireweaver and Ingenious Artillerist as clear analogues to Impact Tremors, giving us five opportunities at that win condition. On the value side, Sarinth Steelseeker can help you draw lands and filter your deck, and although the Alliance category gets more consistent activations since they benefit from other creature spells you cast as well as tokens generated by Auras, one advantage that these Artifactfall permanents have is that they benefit from our incidental Treasure and Food creation. There's a lot in the deck, whether it be through Auras like Sticky Fingers, one-off effects like Seize the Spoils, or other generators like Peregrin Took and Tireless Provisioner, so you'll always be getting some value off something.
Quadruple Agent
Agent, it's worse than we thought. We've redirected all the satellites we use to keep tabs on the 18-34 demographic to actually doing surveillance for the benefit of the public, and it turns out there are no fewer than eight hundred Stangg Twins running around. Our mathematicians are trying to figure out what number goes past "quintuplets," let alone the eight hundred person variant. We've seen this before. There's doubling shenanigans going on, and based on the fact that our tokens create tokens, doubling actually means quadrupling. How's that work?
When Stangg, Echo Warrior creates his tokens, an effect like Parallel Lives doubles not only the number of Stangg Twins, but also the number of Auras and Equipment he creates. You'll choose one Stangg Twin to equip both sets to, and it's a good idea to equip it to the Stangg Twin you're not sacrificing to the legend rule. Then, each of those modifications create their tokens -- twice of them -- for four total times the amount of tokens per token. Then, you can even double the doubling by doubling Stangg, Echo Warrior's attack trigger using doubling cards like Strionic Resonator or Roaming Throne.
But of course, this is pretty dull. Doubling tokens is about as common a Commander trope as casting an overloaded Cyclonic Rift or asking on Reddit if you're the Bolas for winning the game. Doubling copies of Equipment to double copies of the tokens they make is pretty fun, sure, but I feel like it's time to give our Artifactfall creatures some substantial buffs.
With these permanents, you can make arbitrary artifacts into Equipment, and those Equipment can be attached to Stangg to duplicate them as part of his combat trigger. With Bludgeon Brawl, try attaching all your Treasures to Stangg, then attacking to get a second set of them. Or three times as many, if you've got a token-doubler in play. And all of this leads to the real kicker:
Chishiro, the Shattered Blade ties it all together. When an Aura or Equipment enters, you get a 2/2 Spirit with menace. Bludgeon Brawl makes any artifact into an Equipment. Some creatures, like Gala Greeters and Rose Room Treasurer, make a Treasure when a creature enters the battlefield. Even Peregrin Took can create an Equipment every time you create a Spirit token, creating infinite Spirits -- as long as you have a way to kill one of them to end the loop.
My Brand
Now that you know everything about the world's most heinous criminal, who has an army of devoted fans at his beck and call, and a strong array of powerful weaponry, it's time. Go on. Get 'im. I mean, last time we did this theme, you blew up the moon, so I don't think I can escalate from this point. Have fun!
If you enjoy How They Brew It, check out the Discord and my other projects at my website, where you can vote for which deck tech you want to see next. This next set of decks is going to be crazy, so you won't want to miss this chance. And of course, come check me and my two friends out on Am I The Bolcast?, the only podcast that can definitively tell you if your ethics are correct. Give it a listen!
