Molten Psyche

The last decklist I posted was a deck built around the new Scars of Mirrodin card, Genesis Wave. Today we’re going to take a look at another Scars of Mirrodin rare that is also a very Johnny-friendly, build-around-me card: Molten Psyche.

Much like Genesis Wave, Molten Psyche is a card that has an effect we’ve seen variations on before, but still does its thing in a rather unique way. Underworld Dreams, Cerebral Vortex and Spiteful Visions all fill the same sort of niche as Molten Psyche, but the Psyche stands out at both more difficult to utilize, and more powerful than other options if so utilized. Underworld Dreams and Wheel of Fortune have long been the best of friends, but Molten Psyche is basically Wheel + Dreams all rolled into one card, with a half-price discount to boot. The catch is that it needs Metalcraft (having three artifacts on the board) to work at full power.

The appeal of building a deck around Molten Psyche is that it imposes certain restrictions or requirements that must be met in the deckbuilding process to ensure you get any real value out of playing the card. In short, it’s a “build-around-me” card. This is a card that requires a bit of creativity and problem solving to use effectively, which makes it an appealing choice to me, because I love solving puzzles and doing things a bit outside the box. The appeal of playing Molten Psyche comes from the fact that it can potentially kill any number of players at once, making it a great Multiplayer card, which is the #1 format I’ve been playing recently.

And with that, let’s get started building. The first step in building around this particular card is to look at the drawback, in this case Metalcraft. It’s not exactly a drawback per se, but we obviously want to have 3 artifacts on the board when we cast this card as consistently as possible. Occasionally we might cast this without having Metalcraft in a dire strait, but this should have very infrequently. We also don’t want this to be a dead card in our hand while we wait several turns to draw another artifact.

So this tells us we need plenty of artifacts in our deck to consistently and reliably get Metalcraft online. Now, I ask myself: Since we are already striving to achieve Metalcraft, will there be other Metalcraft cards we’d want to run? In short, the answer is: No. I already know my colors are Red and Blue (we’ll get there, hang on) so I’ll just say that the only other Metalcraft card that might be worth considering is Argent Sphinx, but it doesn’t really tie into our strategy in any meaningful way. Having ruled out pushing a Metalcraft strategy, lets move on to selecting those artifacts that we need to satisfy our Metalcraft requirements.

To get help with this step, we’ll skip ahead just a bit and glance at our VIP’s main purpose: To force opponents to draw extra cards, while punishing them for doing so at the same time. Since we’re obviously going that route, we should start by looking at Artifacts that force our opponents to draw extra cards. These artifacts will satisfy both goals at once, activating Metalcraft for us, whilst ensuring our opponents have full hands to punish.

Off the top of my head, Howling Mine, Temple Bell and Font of Mythos are prime examples. Looking at the Psyche again, we see that it’s a Sorcery, meaning we will be casting it on OUR turn. Howling Mine and Font of Mythos cause our opponents to draw on THEIR turns, so these have some value, but Temple Bell is the ideal card here, because we can force everyone to draw on OUR turn, right before we cast the Psyche. Howling Mine still has value, though, I think. It’s cheap and fast, and will also help you draw into key card faster, while making it more difficult for opponents to dump their hands too quickly.

So lets throw in 4 of each, along with our Molten Psyches, of course:

4 Molten Psyche

4 Howling Mine

4 Temple Bell

Another artifact that seems ideal here is Ebony Owl Netsuke. It basically functions in a similar fashion to the Psyche as it punishes opponents for keeping a full grip. Conveniently, it’s also cheap to cast, making it a perfect fit. It’s synergetic and redundant to our core strategy, so 4x these go in.

4 Ebony Owl Netsuke

Speaking of redundancy, I want to combine Molten Psyche with another card that is very similar: Cerebral Vortex. Cerebral Vortex also forces a player (can be you in a pinch) to draw extra cards and then punished them for every card they’ve drawn that turn. It’s a fun card I’ve always wanted to use, and it seems perfect here, so let’s throw them in. Another U/R card that likes to punish card drawers is Niv-Mizzet himself. As a creature, in a multiplayer-oriented deck, he’s pretty fragile, and most players are smart enough to kill the Firemind on sight, if possible. But it won’t always be possible, so occasionally the Firemind mind win a game for me. He’s worth having 1x at least.

1x Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind

4 Cerebral Vortex

Now we need some defense. Blue/Red can defend itself against creatures in two ways: Burn and Bounce. Burn is usually better, but here I think we want bounce. Why? Well, it returns stuff to our opponents hands, and we want our opponents to have full hands, right? So after considering a wide range of available options, I settled on this modest package:

4x Aether Adept

3x Evacuation

We’re almost there, but we have a few more slots to fill. I’d like to squeeze in a few more artifacts, and I want to ensure we have plenty of mana, so I’m throwing in some Izzet Signets. Since we’re drawing so heavily on the Izzet well, and our deck is VERY Instant/Sorcery dependant, let’s add a dash of Izzet Chronarch - in case we have to blow a key spell early, we can get it back later. Windfall is great after Niv-Mizzet or before Molten Psyche.

2 Izzet Chronarch

3 Izzet Signet

3 Windfall

Finally, we add the lands. I want to run the U and R artifact lands from Mirrodin to really enable Metalcraft as easily as possible. We have very few creatures, making them a precious commodity. And they all happen to be Wizards. And all but 1 have EtBF abilities we might like to recur. So, Riptide Laboratory seems like a good fit – just as a one-of since this isn’t our main goal here. The rest of the lands will be whatever U/R duals we have access to, rounded out with good ol’ Basics.

Voila!

4 Aether Adept

2 Izzet Chronarch

1 Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind

4 Cerebral Vortex

4 Molten Psyche

4 Ebony Owl Netsuke

4 Temple Bell

4 Howling Mine

3 Izzet Signet

3 Windfall

3 Evacuation

3 Shivan Reef

3 Steam Vents

3 Cascade Bluffs

4 Great Furnace

4 Seat of the Synod

1 Riptide Laboratory

3 Island

3 Mountain

There we have our deck. Ideally, you’ll spend the early game developing with your artifacts while using Aether Adepts and Evacuations to keep creature pressure off you and keep your opponents hands full. Then once you hit 6 mana or so, unleash a flurry of stuff culminating in a Molten Psyche that should kill just about everyone.

If anyone is left, use Izzet Chronarch to set up another whirlwind of card drawing and damage. Ebony Owl Netsuke and Niv-Mizzet can help out with damage-dealing. Niv-Mizzet is also a good feint, as you will often not need him, but your opponents will probably think he’s more important than he is and waste time and resources dealing with him, while you calmly set up the Molten Psyche kill instead. Occasionally, he will be more useful, though, so Riptide Laboratory can help protect him in that case.

One thing I’m iffy about is Windfall. While I do think the card is a good fit here, I wonder if something like Twincast/Reverberate might be better here. I’ll try out the Windfalls first, but if they aren’t as good as I hope, I’ll swap them out for Twincast and see which works better. If you try this out and find you need a bit more bounce for early game defense, I’d suggest Aether Spellbomb as it is an Artifact as well as a bounce spell.