"Daretti ,Scrapyard Savant:More Trash,More Treasure"

"Daretti ,Scrapyard Savant:More Trash,More Treasure"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.

Goblins.Lots and lots of Goblins.I just love these little critters that pour out of warrens and generally make a nuisance of themselves in whatever plane they happen to be in. I envisioned a goblin planeswalker to be something that helped in making aggressive decks more aggressive or something that provided battle tactics for Red. I expected Squee , Goblin Nabob or Slobad , (who had a spark but gave it up) to be the first Goblin Planeswalker to be printed.

Wizards of the coast had other plans and there is something that is endearing about good old Daretti , Scrap Savant , he reminded of another thing that I loved. Metal and lots of it.I guess this guy would be most at home in Mirrodin where there are tons of scrap to go around or in the Markets of Ravnica. Fioras loss is the Multiverses gain and I am happy that he is out there.

One of the first 5 planeswalkers that are allowed to be your Commander Daretti is set to command an artifact army the likes of which we have never seen or probably seen but not utilized in such a way.

A few weeks ago someone said online that you could not win using the new planeswalker commanders and I do not question this observation because these commanders do not deal General damage however they are invaluable tools in leading you to victory and they do so consistent with the theme that they are in. Daretti does this in a very big way and at four mana does it pretty early compared to his other Planeswalker batch mates.

As a comparison 3 of these Planeswalkers Commanders create token creatures with the exception of Teferi and Daretti who are are content to do some library manipulation. For today I would just like to talk about Daretti whose heavy artifact from the grave theme excites me to no end. 

With a mana cost of 4 mana and a starting loyalty counter of 3 coming from the command zone. I would like to think of Daretti and the other planeswalker commanders as ultra support for their particular theme.Red has recently been getting a lot of cards that lets it draw for a cost like Khans of Tarkir Tormenting Voice which lets you draw two cards and requires you to throw 2 cards afterwards. This new approach to red of card drawing for a cost is represented in Daretti and his +2 ability that allows you to discard two cards from your hand and to instantly refill those you discarded with 2 more. Discard and Draw! This acts as a filter effect for your for your hand and thins your library at the same time.Hopefully this gives you a suitable artifact to put into the graveyard and worthy targets for Darettis second planeswalker ability. 

His -2 ability requires you to sacrifice an artifact so that you could return an artifact from your graveyard into play. Trash for Treasure or so they say. More recent cards from M15 like Scuttling Doom Engine would be happy to be sacrificed to deal 6 damage to a player and then get back another awesome artifact into play.In order to power out Daretti as fast as you could you could even sacrifice Prisms that no longer have any charges on them , Scars of Mirrodin artifacts Mycosynth wellspring that lets look for a basic land card when it comes into play or when it goes to the graveyard or the Phyrexian version Ichor Well Spring that lets you draw a card instead.In this case. Twice! And this is just the sacrificing part...what do you actually want to get in return for your sacrificed trash?

Something like a used Nevs disk or Perilous Vault? A Ratchet Bomb? A Steel Hellkite? Bosh, Iron Golem? A Wurm Coil Engine? It really depends on the artifacts you have put into your deck or the effects that you need at the moment. Mass removal or something that could be used as a combo piece like Goblin Charbelcher or Krark-Clan Iron Works perhaps? Maybe the last piece in the Kaldra artifacts? Or any of the swords from Mirrodin.

And before moving on to Darettis Ultimate ability you could not sacrifice an artifact to his second ability and have that artifact back into play.To put it simply when you sacrifice an artifact you need to already have a target.So when someone removes you target artifact , nothing comes back on your side and you just sacrificed an artifact for nothing. Booo! Now with that out of the way...

While it might not be necessary to win it would be cool to reach Darettis ultimate -10 ability which gives you an emblem that says Whenever an artifact is put into a graveyard into play  , you could return that artifact into play at the beginning of the next end step.

So let us say you cast Shimatsu the Blood cloaked and decide to sacrifice all of your artifact permanents to it. Not only did you add a lot of +1/+1 counters on it but you could also get the effects of those artifacts that were sacrificed(IE.Mycosynth Wellspring and Ichor Wellspinrg) and to make things worse for your opponent you actually get all of these permanents back at the beginning of the next end step(not necessarily your own end step).If they have enter the battlefield effects you would be able to get those as well. One particular combo that I like here is to keep on sacrificing things to Krark-clan Ironworks and triggering Grinding station when they come back.Depending on the number or artifacts that were sacrificed and comes back you could untap the Grinding station for each one until you run out and mill your opponent for the win. In the same manner you as long as you have mana you could sacrifice things to Bosh, Iron Golem and kill them with direct damage. I mean if you were able to continually sacrifice a Scuttling Doom Engine you could dish out 12 damage per sacrifice.If you attacked with the SDE you are looking at 18 damage! It comes back at the end of turn and if you do not want to attack on the next turn and decide to throw it at the end of your turn as well that is 30 points of damage on just one turn! Now imagine that this particular artifact comes back at the next end turn...In EDH you have 3 opponents who would have 3 separate end turns. You could keep on sacrificing and it would keep on coming back! Hopefully you still have mana for each sacrifice!

Another combo that would make a come back is the Fireball/Red Suns Zenith/Banefire + Krark-clan Iron works combo.I mean countless artifacts sacrificed and with a single red mana could spark enormous damage and if the damage is not enough all the artifacts return and you could burn that opponent for more! Daretti you have made a believer in me.

The cool thing is that getting Darettis emblem and killing him does not mean that you lose him for good. Daretti could simply come back and do more filtering and trash for treasure effects for you for as long as you could cast him. Not quite the Goblin I was hoping for but he does know what he is good at and for me that means detonating a lot of things in my opponents faces.