Radiant Lotus was extremely hard to assess coming out of the gate. Named after the infamous Black Lotus, these flower-like MTG cards all share the similarity of creating a ton of mana. So as to not create the most broken MTG card in history again, however, new Lotus cards have different restrictions to stop them from being too powerful. The result? Lotus MTG cards commonly end up either broken or terrible.
Radiant Lotus is no different. A mana value of six is a hefty cost to pay for an artifact that generates more mana, but Radiant Lotus can generate tons of mana if you have the artifacts to sacrifice. Since Radiant Lotus sacrifices mana in one go, you also need a massive setup to use this card properly.
Still, cards that instantly generate tons of mana routinely created problems. Radiant Lotus has already created a Standard archetype behind it and, while the deck didn’t perform super well at Pro Tour Aetherdrift, it is beginning to put up consistent results, winning tournaments, as players begin to figure it out.
The Combo
The first step to successfully using Radiant Lotus in a combo deck is to find a way to win the game with it. Boommobile offers this in a neat package. The Vehicle doesn’t offer much past its ability, but that ability essentially offers a Fireball effect on a pseudo-body. Boommobile even refunds mana used to cast it, making the card rather efficient. Radiant Lotus can easily turn Boommobile’s Exhaust ability into instant death.
Many MTG Aetherdrift artifacts that players were weary of in the set’s spoiler season appear in this deck. The main artifact used to assemble all of your moving pieces is Repurposing Bay. This Birthing Pod for Artifacts allows you to run smaller numbers of Boommobile and Radiant Lotus in your deck while keeping combo kills consistent. This helps alleviate a common weakness of combo decks, that individually, cards can often be weaker.
On top of finding your combo pieces, Repurposing Bay also helps get around Radiant Lotus’ mana value. Because your entire deck is built around artifacts, Affinity for Artifacts can seriously reduce the casting cost of your cards. This turns Memory Guardian into a cheap way for Repurposing Bay to find your Radiant Lotus. Cast your Memory Guardian for a reduced cost, and use Repurposing Bay to turn it into a Radiant Lotus.
Artifact Theme
As you may have noticed, almost every single nonland card in this deck is an artifact. This not only allows Repurposing Bay to be as flexible as possible, but it also helps Radiant Lotus generate tons of mana when you’re trying to go for the combo kill.
Smaller artifacts like Chainsaw and Legion Extruder act as removal that synergizes well with your other cards. Legion Extruder can even be used as a lackluster alternate win condition if necessary, turning your redundant artifacts into creatures. Of course, after the enters effects have been resolved, these can easily be repurposed with your Repurposing Bay.
The other big win condition that this deck offers is Simulacrum Synthesizer. Because almost your entire deck consists of artifacts, it is very easy for the Constructs created by this card to get really out of hand. Thanks to Repurposing Bay, it’s also really easy to trigger Simulacrum Synthesizer multiple times. Even if a majority of your artifacts are smaller than 2, you can repurpose them to trigger Synthesizer. Need to trigger it twice? Sacrifice larger artifacts!
An Unassuming Centerpiece
It may not seem like it, but The Enigma Jewel is a really important card in this deck. Not only do a ton of different artifacts in your deck rely on the activated ability mana, but The Enigma Jewel gives your combo a second life of sorts.
Crafting with The Engima Jewel is something that’s easy to overlook, but is absolutely crucial for playing this deck properly. Notably, almost all of your artifacts meet the requirements of having an activated ability to be Crafted with The Enigma Jewel.
Locus of Enligthenment copies all of your activated abilities that aren’t mana abilities. While this won’t double the amount of mana you make with Radiant Lotus, it will double your Repurposing Bay triggers, your Boommobile triggers, and some other activated ability triggers. The most important aspects come in two forms.
Firstly, you can resurrect your combo with The Enigma Jewel. If, for whatever reason, your combo cards end up in the graveyard, you can use them to Craft Locus of Enlightenment. From there, you can use Radiant Lotus’s and Boommobile’s ability in the same turn.
Secondly, being able to double Repurposing Bay triggers is absolutely enormous. Each sacrificed artifact will now tutor up two upgraded items to put into play. If you’re sacrificing a two-drop, you can tutor up another Repurposing Bay alongside another artifact to keep going up the tree. While it becomes easy to overwhelm your opponents with Constructs at this point, the Radiant Lotus combo gives this deck a way to beat other lategame strategies like Domain Overlords.
The one Non-Artifact Card
Torch the Tower is the one non-artifact card in the main deck for this combo. Bargain synergizes really well with all the artifacts that this deck leaves lying around. Since this deck can struggle with faster strategies, Torch the Tower helps keep aggressive starts somewhat contained.
As many Standard players know, exiling targets is really important thanks to the everpresent Heartfire Hero. This card is capable of blowing players out incredibly fast, and having a way to put a stop to that without taking extra damage is important.
Ultimately, it appears that, while this Radiant Lotus Combo deck is powerful, the optimal lines of play are difficult to find. As a result, the deck is held back by its difficulty to pilot. Even past that point, the deck likely struggles with faster matchups like RG Mice and might lose to Omniscience Combo thanks to being the slower combo deck.
Regardless, this deck seems to reward a pilot who becomes familiar with how the archetype works. As a result, as this deck ages, it might start becoming a more core part of the Standard metagame.