The Aetherspark is one of the goofiest types lines on any Magic: the Gathering card we've ever seen before. A Legendary Artifact Planeswalker – Equipment is certainly a novel string of words , and because the word “planeswalker” is in there, the card is eligible to be a Brawl commander.
So, of course, I built it.
How to Even Begin?
The Aetherspark is doing a lot of different mechanical things. It's an equipment, so we'll want creatures that can meaningfully carry it. It adds +1/+1 counters, and it can ramp us a crazy amount if it goes unchecked. These three major synergy points lead me to lean on colorless creatures that are relatively cheap but benefit from having counters placed on them , and huge Eldrazi monsters.
Given Modern Horizons 3 and recent sets giving colorless a fair amount of support, this wasn't hard to put together.
The Early Creature Package
In selecting creatures, I wanted to find efficient creatures I could reasonably play before The Aetherspark drops. Fortunately, there are tons of colorless creatures like Monoskelion, Marketback Walker, and Hangarback Walker that benefit from having +1/+1 counters applied to them, so The Aetherspark's +1 loyalty ability can give additional benefits. The counter that ability provides is probably the least impactful portion of the card, so focusing on that synergy for additional value is crucial.
In order to take advantage of The Aetherspark's passive ability, focusing on more aggressive creatures like Gingerbrute or Syr Ginger, the Meal Ender allows us to apply pressure to our opponents while also ramping up our commander's loyalty. This pressure is important for setting the tone and forcing our opponent to use up any interaction early in the game. The Aetherspark is uniquely positioned to bridge an early aggressive gameplan into a large late-game board state.
Other creatures that assist in this effort are Myr Convert, Stonecoil Serpent, and Crystalline Giant. A strong two or three drop creature that can pick up the commander on turn four is what we're looking for.
The Ramp
This deck is littered with mana rocks, which might seem odd given that I just described how we want to establish an aggressive board in the early game. We're still a colorless deck, after all, and our commander can ultimate into ten mana, so we have plenty of huge payoffs to ramp into. Fortunately, because our deck is colorless, cards like The Irencrag, Pristine Talisman, or Mind Stone are ideal because of their colorless mana, which can make them a liability in multicolored decks.
Many other colorless ramp favorites, like Palladium Myr, are present, but being an Alchemy-friendly format lets us play Urza's Construction Drone. The Urza lands (Urza's Mine, Urza's Tower, and Urza's Power Plant) represent very powerful ramp if we can collect all of them, and the drone wants to be attacking on turn four. The curve between it and our commander is undeniably powerful , and if our opponent fails to kill it before its second attack, we're almost guaranteed to have the full Urza-tron assembled by turn six or seven, which lets us cast our payoffs consistently.
The Payoffs
You didn’t think I was going to make a colorless Brawl deck and not include Ulamog, did you? In fact, we’ve got him twice! Both of these ten-drops are some of the most busted creatures you can play in the game if you’re actually able to resolve them, often winning the game the following turn assuming your opponent doesn’t scoop to them hitting the stack.
We also have a fair bit of expensive removal that could be a liability in our hands early, but could be devastating late. Cityscape Leveler's removal mode being a cast trigger rather than an enter trigger makes it incredibly effective against counter magic , and its size makes it an amazing Aetherspark wielder. Meteor Golem is a classic that I just couldn't resist, and Portal to Phyrexia creates inevitability after an immediate mini-board wipe. If you have to surveil away or discard any of the other large Eldrazi early in the game, Portal can be a fantastic way to get them back.
There are plenty of Eldrazi right now that can help us survive even if we've been pressured early. Breaker of Creation gains an obscene amount of life given that everything in our deck, even the lands, is colorless, while also putting an eight-power beater online that our opponent will have a hard time targeting. Sire of Seven Deaths is also nothing short of disgusting if it actually hits the battlefield. The seven keywords stacked atop each other on this text box make for a body that very rarely loses combat and gains us life on both offense and defense.
The Colorless A-Team
There are three cards that should probably be in every colorless deck on Arena, and they're Forsaken Monument, Kozilek's Command, and Echoes of Eternity. This deck is no exception. Forsaken Monument is basically Mirari's Wake for colorless, except it also has a life gain component added to it for some reason. Doubling mana production and boosting your entire army are incredibly valuable effects , and five mana for that is a steal.
Kozilek's Command is an incredibly versatile card with each mode being situationally relevant. More often than not, you'll want to select the spawn token mode alongside whichever removal is most relevant. Given that you may not have a target to remove, being able to draw a card with some selection ensures you'll always get decent value out of this thing, and ramping from four mana to seven on the following turn, or five to eight, is no joke.
Echoes of Eternity's case for being an auto-include isn't as strong as the other two here, but many colorless permanents have triggered abilities on entering, casting, or on dealing combat damage in the case of The Aetherspark. Being able to double these triggers while also doubling the spells themselves can generate a level of value very few other decks will be able to keep up with. Taking a turn off to play this is a steep cost, but the following turns (assuming you're not under immediate pressure) are going to be transcendent.
Conclusion
The Aetherspark presents an interesting build-around challenge that forced me to think of colorless in a more proactive way. The colorless Eldrazi decks of the past , where the early game is all ramp, didn't quite take advantage of the spark meaningfully, but going all-in on aggro or eggs combo didn't take advantage of what the spark gave you once its loyalty was high. This balancing act was tricky, but I like where the deck landed. Some games feel like it's ramp-heavy where we're just playing colorless “good stuff,” while others have us draw aggressive hands and pressure the opponent super fast.
The flexibility is a lot of fun , and I'd recommend giving it a chance. Thanks for reading, and happy brewing!
