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Many, many weeks ago I featured a deck in the relatively new “Deck a Day” feature on the main page that tried to abuse Amrou Kithkin with Thran Weaponry. While the deck may not have been an all-star deck, it sure was fun to play. Then I was looking for another card to feature in this series, and I realized Thran Weaponry was a solid Casual card that needed a little lovin’. And thus, I present to you another episode of One Card to Rule Them All featuring Thran Weaponry! Oh. You say this is Lorwyn Theme Week here on Magic Deck Vortex? Thran Weaponry isn't from Lorwyn? Well... don't worry. I'll touch upon some Lorwyn cards somewhere in this article. Or, maybe I'll just talk about Kithkin with Thran Weaponry. You'll have to keep reading to find out.
Let me start off by saying this card is symmetrical. It’s definitely not like Gaea’s Anthem or Glorious Anthem, which are completely asymmetrical and totally in your favor. It affects all creatures in play and gives not +1/+1, but +2/+2 while tapped! This can be a blessing and a curse. Say your opponent has more creatures than you – suddenly giving all creatures +2/+2 will be a detriment to you. Vice versa and it’s an effect that gives you the upper hand. Luckily, you have to activate the ability for it to be in effect. While pumping mana into it can be seen as cumbersome, the activation cost and tap give you some control over the card. Plus you can choose not to untap it and not have to throw more mana into it on your next turn if you have the board advantage with creatures.
Then there’s the echo. You get a cheaply-costed artifact with a board-pumping ability that won’t see the light of two turns unless you pay its echo cost of four. I would imagine without echo, this card would normally cost six or seven mana by current Magic costing standards (if such a thing exists). While I used to pair echo with Thran Turbine (as it was designed to ease the echo costs in the Urza’s block), we recently received a card called Thick-Skinned Goblin, which will alleviate any qualms you or I have with the Weaponry’s echo cost. Overall, this is a mediocre card at best. I mentioned earlier that this is a strictly Casual card. People have dubbed it a “bad rare” in the past, and I won’t argue with them. However, if you build around the positives and negatives of this card, suddenly it becomes a triumph if you can win several Casual games with it. Theme Decks… using Thran Weaponry? I won’t be talking a whole lot about the following deck for two reasons. One, it’s already in the database. Two, it’s no longer consistent with the original design of the deck – which was a Soldier-less Soldier Theme deck.
Why isn’t it consistent anymore? Since this deck was created before Mirrodin block, the Yotian Soldiers were included, as they did not have the Soldier creature type at that time. But that doesn’t take away from the fun of the deck. Alongi used cards with “Weapon” in the title to further cement the Soldier theme of this non-Tribal Soldier deck… thus the inclusion of Thran Weaponry. One interesting interaction is the fact that Spikes won’t die after you remove the last counter while the Thran Weaponry is activated. Even though the creature is a 0/0 without the +1/+1 counters, it’s a 2/2 with the Weaponry in action (assuming they were in play before you activated the Weaponry). This concept will work with the Phantom creatures from the Odyssey block as well. Don’t forget to try Theme decks out with your card of choice. While you could always build some crazy Combo deck with a card, you can most certainly make an equally crazy Theme deck. In the case of the Weaponry, there are two cards Alongi didn’t include in his deck that have “Weapon” in the title: Dwarven Weaponsmith and Viashino Weaponsmith. Now go off and make your own Weapon Theme deck. You could go as far as including cards with “Weapon” in the flavor text. To help you out, here’s a link. Seriously, let’s move on. Below is the deck I was referring to in my intro. It is a deck attempting to abuse some of the characteristics of the Weaponry with cards like Amrou Kithkin and Intrepid Hero.
Kithkin Weaponry acts much like a Weenie deck with a few tricks. On the early front you have Suntail Hawk, Soltari Visionary, Master Decoy and Whipcorder. The Decoy and Whipcorder help to tap down your opponent’s creatures while Beloved Chaplain works to block big creatures effortlessly. Once Thran Weaponry goes live, you have several tricks up your sleeve. Now Amrou Kithkin can’t be blocked as long as your opponent’s creatures have one power or more (but should they have any 0/1s, 0/2s, 0/3s, etc… they would be able to block her). Assuming they can’t block her, just equip her with Empyrial Plate and swing for LOTS of damage. If that doesn’t work, you always have the shadowy Soltari Visionary, which can also pick off your opponent’s enchantments while dealing damage at the same time. Intrepid Hero will have better pickings, being able to kill any creature with power four or greater. Any creature with a power of two or greater can be targeted by your Hero while the Weaponry is in effect. Should your opponent have a plethora of creatures that seem overwhelming, I’ve included Cessation and Kor Haven on top of the Decoys to keep them at bay. Once you have the board all set up and in your favor, one copy of Armageddon is like frosting. So that’s my original deck. It just so happens that Abe Sargent, resident casual guru on Star City Games, also built a Thran Weaponry deck. Eerily enough, it looks very similar to mine with an added twist. An ingenious twist at that. Let’s take a look:
It utilizes the same concepts as my deck except with a little less tap-down and a lot more Intrepid Hero effects in the form of Reprisal and Retribution of the Meek. Another cool card is Skyhunter Skirmisher. A double striking, flying 3/3? Sign me up! So back when I originally wrote this article I was trying to think of a super-cool deck for today’s article and I became stumped. I didn’t want to rehash the Crackdown – Weaponry combo, or even rehash White with the Weaponry at all. I was thinking and thinking and thinking and I just couldn’t come up with anything. But then I started thinking some more. Retribution of the Meek, Meekstone, and Intrepid Hero – they all punish creatures for being too big. Are there other cards that interact with creatures with high power? Cards that aren’t White? Off to Gatherer I went – and I thought I found a gem.
Marble Titan was a possibility, but that was White, so it was out. Solar Tide was nice, but then again it would affect ALL creatures, so that wasn’t an option either - plus it's White. Big Game Hunter is like a comes-into-play Intrepid Hero. Bloodshot Trainee gets to deal four damage now that he's big enough from the Weaponry, but he doesn't really do much when all of your opponent’s creatures are likely higher than four toughness too. Then there was Hidden Predators, a nice Green one-drop that turns into a 4/4 creature when an opponent has a big creature in play. I then came upon Kavu Lair. “Whenever a creature with power four or greater comes into play, its controller draws a card.” Now that sounds like it can be abusable. Even more so if you team it up with Words of Wilding. Here’s how I THOUGHT it worked (BOMBO ALERT!): With Kavu Lair and Words of Wilding in play and the Weaponry in play and online, play a 2/2 or bigger creature. When it comes into play, thanks to the Weaponry, it looks like a 4/4. This triggers the Lair and you would draw a card. Instead, use the replacement effect of Words of Wilding and put a 2/2 Bear token into play. It appears as a 4/4 to the Lair and you get to draw a card. You can keep replacing your draw with a Bear token and generate as many Bear tokens as you have mana available (don’t forget it costs one to do the replacement). And then I posted this article for review in the top secret Writers’ Guild of Magic Deck Vortex, and the entire second half of my article was torn to smithereens. Thanks, Death_By_Beebles(DBB). You see; there’s this little rule about continuous effects, activated effects and static abilities that nuke this combo. Rule 418.3b applies here – see the rules note above. Thus, when Thran Weaponry is activated it affects a set number of creatures in play. It won’t affect any creatures that come into play after it has been activated unless you re-activate it. So when a 2/2 token comes into play with the Thran Weaponry already activated earlier in the turn, the 2/2 will still come into play as a 2/2. Kavu Lair won’t activate, I won’t draw a card and the Words of Wilding won’t trigger since I’m not drawing a card from Kavu Lair. The whole combo was debunked. Needless to say, I was quite upset. However, that will not stop me from bringing you a deck that really packs a punch with Thran Weaponry. Since I won’t go the White route, let’s go the Black route. The Dark Crystal Weaponry If you’ve ever seen the Dark Crystal, which is one of my top 20 favorite movies of all time, you’ll remember the Gelflings – little elf-like creatures that could be zombified in a way to help power the Dark Crystal Weapon. Or was it the Dark Crystal Weapon sucked the life out of them to zombify them… hmmm. Anyway, this smells of Green and Black to me. While this really has nothing to do with the following deck, it does spring to mind Elves (Gelves), Green mana and Black mana and the weapon of the Dark Crystal (Thran Weaponry)… Yeah, I know this is a stretch. Here’s the deck anyway:
This deck uses some of the new Elves from Lorwyn such as the combo-rific Wren’s Run Packmaster and Elvish Harbinger. You see, you can play the Harbinger, search for Packmaster, draw and play Packmaster next turn and champion the Harbinger. Should someone destroy the Packmaster, you will get the Harbinger back, at which point you can now search for another Packmaster again… or any other Elf card in the deck. The Harbinger also has a suite of utility Elves to choose from like Essence Warden in case you are in a quick need of life. With all of the token generators in the deck you shouldn’t have any problem gaining some life. Elvish Promenade will double your Elves in play, which is nice with Thran Weaponry as long as you activate the weapon after you resolve the Promenade. A cute little trick with the Harbinger includes Mikokoro; who wants to wait a turn when you can activate Mikokoro to draw the Elf card you just put on the top of your library? What’s even more synergistic is that it will give your opponent a card too, which you can force them to discard using your discard spells or Nath. While Imperious Perfect isn’t really a toolbox card, it can be seen as one. You can create tokens with it and it gives your Elves +1/+1. This doesn’t help out the Wolf tokens that your Packmaster can generate, but it does help all of the other Elves in the deck. One other toolbox Elf is Taunting Elf. If you find yourself not able to keep up with your opponent, just search out this guy and prepare your opponent for an all out attack where all but one of your attackers will get through and you can hopefully deal the fatal blow to your opponent. Of course, this card could just be a catalyst for your win condition.
Your discard suite of cards includes Cabal Therapy and Ostracize, two veterans of discard cards; Augur of Skulls, a new guy on the block that is capable of a good punch in the face; and finally Nath of the Gilt-Leaf. He is not only a discard engine against your opponent, but a token generator. The more you make your opponents discard, the more 1/1 Elf tokens he generates. The rest of the deck is pretty typical with some Legendary lands thrown in for fun, some tutors and some anti-artifact spot removal and creature-sacrificing cards. As usual, I would encourage you to try out this deck, but make it your own. You can do so by re-evaluating some of the card choices I’ve made and tweaking the deck with cards you actually own. Perfect it to work for you and against your Casual playgroup – also known as your Casual metagame.
I guess I’ll just have to read the entire Comprehensive Rules book … again … and hope I soak in more of it this time. Has anyone put together Cliffs Notes for the comp rules? I guess it would help if they stopped changing them so often, but I digress. Until next time, may you find other cards to “Rule them All” with. Speaking of next time, I plan on picking up a card bashed in an MDV article from last week and expanding on it quite a bit. Curious which card? I'll give you a hint - Amadeus wrote the article. Streetz P.S. Here’s one last deck using Thran Weaponry, except this deck is by Your Worst Nightmare. I’ll let you figure the deck out.
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Soldierless
Soldiers. 
Kithkin
Weaponry. 
Crackdown
is the ingenious inclusion in this deck. Unless they are playing with a White
deck, Crackdown will keep the majority of their creatures tapped down while the
Weaponry is live. It’s like a one-sided Stasis in White, for creatures….
The
concept of this deck is to overwhelm your opponent with creatures by means of
token generators and discard spells. If your opponent doesn’t have any creatures
to cast, activating the Thran Weaponry isn’t so much a threat for you and more a
threat for your opponent. That is, your creatures will get +2/+2 and so will
your opponent’s creatures, except that they won’t have any creatures. That's
breaking the symmetry, baby. 
That’s
all the time I have for today. I hope you have learned to be mindful of Bombos
as I almost missed one myself earlier in the article. It really is a downer as I
was so excited about that deck before DBB crushed my dreams and hopes with his
ruling technicalities. *sigh*