Over the past few weeks, Aetherdrift cards have been on an absolute tear in a variety of different formats. Build-arounds like Monument to Endurance have helped new archetypes arise in Standard, Pioneer, and Modern alike.
Even in Pauper, we’re seeing some intriguing metagame shifts thanks to the power of Aetherdrift. One particular common powerhouse has completely revived a unique archetype known as Altar Tron. Being able to combo off is now easier than ever, as the deck managed to win a Challenge just a couple days ago. It’s been a while since Tron thrived in Pauper, so this is a welcome surprise.
Combo Kills
- Mana Value: 3B
- Rarity: Common
- Stats: 3/4
- Card Type: Artifact Creature- Toy
- MTG Sets: Aetherdrift
- Card Type: Whenever this creature or another artifact you control enters, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.
At a baseline, Altar Tron is a combo strategy that utilizes the Tron lands in order to get ahead on mana. Once you’re able to assemble all three distinct “Urza’s” lands, you end up with a boatload of mana.
This is super important, since the main combo lines this deck has access to require a lot of mana to pull off. In order to execute the primary combo, you need access to a few specific cards.
The first card necessary is Myr Retriever. Myr Retriever is a strong card that used to be a staple of Krark-Clan Ironworks decks in Modern before the deck received a ban. With a copy of Myr Retriever in your graveyard and another in play alongside Ironworks, you were able to create a loop.
You would simply sacrifice the copy of Myr Retriever in play to Ironworks, return the copy from your graveyard to your hand, and use the mana floating to cast that copy. With a Scrap Trawler and some other artifact trinkets in the mix, winning the game became trivial.
Ironworks isn’t Pauper legal, but the deck still revolves around a similar concept. Rather than using Ironworks to loop Myr Retrievers, this deck utilizes Ashnod’s Altar. Ashnod’s Altar only sacrifices creatures, so the card doesn’t do a ton in this deck without Myr Retriever. Nonetheless, its presence makes Myr Retriever a real threat.
Prior to Aetherdrift’s release, most Altar Tron decklists would play Golem Foundry and Weather the Storm alongside Myr Retriever and Ashnod’s Altar as a way to win games. By casting Myr Retriever infinite times, Golem Foundry would enable you to create infinite Golems, while Weather the Storm allowed you to gain infinite life. Weather the Storm still makes an appearance, but Golem Foundry is no longer necessary.
This is because Pactdoll Terror can take its place as a win condition when performing the combo. Each time you play Myr Retriever, you drain your opponent. This makes it easy to end the game on the same turn.
What’s nice about Pactdoll Terror is that even when you don’t have your combo ready, playing out artifacts and draining your opponent helps buy you time. In some games, you’ll simply be able to play multiple Pactdoll Terrors, follow up with artifact cantrips like Chromatic Star, and win the game without needing to execute a combo at all. Given how long it can take on Magic Online to perform infinite Myr Retriever loops, Pactdoll Terror’s ability to speed up the process is a godsend.
Spinning Your Wheels
- Mana Value: 1
- Rarity: Common
- Card Type: Artifact
- MTG Sets: Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth
- Card Text: Wizard’s Rockets enters the battlefield tapped. X, tap, Sacrifice Wizard’s Rockets: Add X mana in any combination of colors. When Wizard’s Rockets is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, draw a card.
The rest of the deck is built to help you find Tron lands or dig for your combo pieces. Drawing the correct Tron lands naturally is tough, so Expedition Map plays a crucial role in getting your mana engine online. Crop Rotation searches for a missing Tron land as well in a super efficient manner, but you’ll only find a couple copies in the deck since having to sacrifice a land in the process is a real cost.
As for churning through your library for your combo pieces, Chromatic Star and Wizard’s Rockets are top-tier inclusions in this category. Both cards serve as cantrips that trigger Pactdoll Terror, while simultaneously giving you access to colored mana. Your Tron manabase produces only colorless mana, so you need cards like these and Energy Refractor to filter to colored mana.
With this colored mana, Deadly Dispute, Eviscerator’s Insight, and Rowan’s Grim Search act as solid sources of card advantage. Deadly Dispute is the best of the bunch, as the Treasure left behind is quite valuable.
Facing the Top Decks
- Mana Value: R
- Rarity: Common
- Card Type: Sorcery
- MTG Sets: Scars of Mirrodin
- Card Text: As an additional cost to cast Kuldotha Rebirth, sacrifice an artifact. Put three 1/1 red Goblin creature tokens onto the battlefield.
In its current form, Altar Tron is robust and decently well-positioned. Pactdoll Terror lines up very well versus Kuldotha red. As long as you can get Tron online quickly enough, mono-red isn’t that well set up to mess with your plans. Plus, Fangren Marauder out of the sideboard is a nightmare for red decks to face. Meanwhile, Grixis Affinity can struggle to apply enough pressure in the early game.
The one thing this deck is missing is interaction. Broodscale combo is a bit problematic game one as a result. The good news is that Snuff Out in games two and three gives you a free way to kill Basking Broodscale while you continue to develop your gameplan. Snuff Out can come in handy against Ninja of the Deep Hours from Faeries decks, too.
Even against decks with lots of Counterspells, once you have Tron online, you can often cast a flurry of spells in the same turn. Myr Retriever can return copies of Pactdoll Terror that get countered to your hand, so fighting through disruptionis less troublesome than you might expect.
Altar Tron’s Challenge win this past weekend shows just how strong of an addition Pactdoll Terror is. The deck is still unlikely to be super popular, especially on Magic Online where clicking through everything can be a pain. Still, the archetype is much stronger than a lot of people give it credit for, so don’t sleep on it, or you may end up on the wrong side of the matchup.