Karn, Scion of Urza
4
Legendary Planeswalker — Karn
5
+1 Reveal the top two cards of your library. An opponent chooses one of them. Put that card into your hand and exile the other with a silver counter on it.
-1 Put a card you own with a silver counter on it from exile into your hand.
-2 Create a 0/0 colorless Construct artifact creature token with "This creature gets +1/+1 for each artifact you control."

This seems quite strong to me; even if the +1 is only drawing you extra lands, you can get back any especially powerful spells you exile (note that Karn can grab cards exiled by other Karns), Karn can protect itself with the -2 ability, and the creature generated is of relevant size in any deck with sufficiently high artifact count. The main problems is that Karn is not himself an artifact and so cannot be powered out by Workshop.

He's quite good. The +1 is great CA even if you're getting the worst of the top 2. Other Karns being able to get cards from exile is also great. This fits any deck, actually.
Even Shops can play it, although Ravager Shops seem too focused on speed to enjoy this.

I like how it can easily be a win con as well, just a few moxen, and 1 or 2 Tokens can easily take the game. Reminds me a lot of Tezz 2.0, but colorless, and possibly better.

This card seems like a lot of fun.

I don't think it's playable in Vintage Workshop decks.

Definitely looking forward to drafting once the new set comes out.

Shops, prob not. I think some sort of super friends deck however he is a top contender.

• Plays nice with other walkers including jaces brainstorm
• Creature is potentially large very quickly, can end games
• Colorless means you can play it off sol lands/ring

Basically I think he fits into blue control decks next to jace, and often that is good enough.

I kinda-sorta like this guy. Just for card draw, he's strictly worse than Coercive Portal, but his dude-pumping ability is relevant.

Another possible tack is to use the fact that he doesn't actually draw the cards to your advantage; i.e. use him with Chains of Mephistopheles or anything else that punishes card draw.

@dr-j said in Karn, Scion of Urza [DOM]:

he's strictly worse than Coercive Portal

I'm not even sure that's true.

On T0, Karn has drawn you the worst of two cards. Portal has done nothing.

On Tn, where n is odd, Karn has, in the worst case, drawn you the top n+1 cards of your library. That's if you alternate his plus and minus ability. Portal has drawn you the top n cards.

In the best case, Karn has dug you deep into your library and drawn you the best of these cards.

I think he has merit just as himself in the right builds packing lots of mana rocks, and other artifacts (divining top seems hella good here), and just trying to drop him turn 1 as often as possible and make a token, then repeat next turn. On average its a 3 turn clock? Thats not horrible in the current meta.

@evouga Okay, you have a point, I was neglecting the fact Karn draws a card the same turn it hits play. It's better than I initially gave it credit for.

I actually think the token is the biggest draw for this guy. Unlike Jace who you very often have to fateseal with first less he eat a bolt, Karn's minus puts 2 valid threats on the field and even if you lose Karn to a bolt you still have dude who can threaten. Karn is also structured in such a way that if your Karn dies and you cast a new one it's more like a refresh than a restart.

I would love to figure out the math and permutations to find out in a deck that runs a full compliment of reasonable ways to drop Karn turn one, how often that happens. It will surely be more than a t1 Jace because of the color requirements.

• Sol ring
• Mana crypt
• Mana vault
• 5 moxen
• Lotus
• Mox Opal
• 4 Ancient tomb
• 4 City of traitors
• Tolarian Academy
• Spirit guides?

The nice thing about that workshops free manabase is you can also run lodestone golem as a 5th 4 mana point threat pretty well, and even though knot seer.

@protoaddct Sounds like maybe a variant of colorless Eldrazi?

@dr-j possible. But Eldrazi proper really wants to hit null rod and that is not great here.

I think you have to run blue though, youll need force and misstep to push this through just like jace. Probably at that point you can run tinker engine, jace, and blue power and its basically just a big blue artifact list.

This might fit well in the crucible #2 slot of budget eldrazi.

@protoaddct I agree here, seeing potential for sol lands the first thing I thought when he came up is “This could potentially help out the mono Red hate deck!”

While it doesn’t run the moxen and sol ring, I feel like one or two of this guy who can sneak out pretty easily turn one or two when you are still ramping Red to get Chandra out might be dandy. Card advantage early and a sort of mid game rabblemasteresque effect could be meaningful...or it could be crap...but more often than not he’ll be running out a 2/2 or 3/3 token with EBridge and Rod in play. There are probably a number of wiser brains in the room who will say this is foolish. But it might be just the right flavor of jank for Red.

I would agree if 4 mana Chandra was not just better. Starting with 4 of her as a base, plus all the hate you use, i'm not sure that deck has the slots. Plus you likely want 3 karn minimum since one can rescue cards from anothers exile.

Now in modern, this card is redonk in colorless anything. Even legacy I think this sees play. Vintage has so many options I think you have to structure a build around this to really capitalize.

@protoaddct said in Karn, Scion of Urza [DOM]:

I would agree if 4 mana Chandra was not just better. Starting with 4 of her as a base, plus all the hate you use, i'm not sure that deck has the slots. Plus you likely want 3 karn minimum since one can rescue cards from anothers exile.

I think you still Chandra it up, but I think maybe you run one or two of these instead of Hanweir Garrison #3/4? The ability to field threats via those tokens gives it an edge, plus it replaces itself, plus helps you take better advantage of the low-red mana hands that you occasionally wind up having to keep.

@bandswithothers said in Karn, Scion of Urza [DOM]:

I think you still Chandra it up, but I think maybe you run one or two of these instead of Hanweir Garrison #3/4? The ability to field threats via those tokens gives it an edge, plus it replaces itself, plus helps you take better advantage of the low-red mana hands that you occasionally wind up having to keep.

I think my issue with it is that in a deck that has a low artifact count the tokens are not great, plus if you run Ensnaring bridge they will often be unable to attack, which relegates Karn to a draw engine.

The issue with Karn being a draw engine in mono red blood moon list as it currently stands is the fact that
A) it conflicts with Ensnaring bridge and
B) what do you draw into?

Chandra does not face these issues because she does not actually draw and she is a wincon through the bridge, where as Karn is not. Any card that you cannot fully utilize in that deck is likely not good enough at this point.

I almost feel as if a lot of the mono-red decks, if looking to drop Garrison or Rabblemaster, would be totally better served to just run Honden of Infinite rage or Curse of the Pierced Heart or some other source of repeatable damage.

I think it is more likely that this karn either ends up in a modified Eldrazi shell, possibly with that new sphere but no null rod, or a Blue/Red core that runs Force, Misstep, Dack, Jace, and heavy artifact removal to compensate for the loss of null rod and basically just plays keeper that just happens to sometimes play a turn one walker that makes you a 4/4 gro creature backed up with counter magic.

I think he is a good contender for a smokestack build as both the draw engine and a win con. That's where I think I'm going to try him first.

@trius Mmmmmm Smokestack... Is it just too slow to shut down Rav Shops though? I don't know if the cantrip decks struggle to out tempo ravager, no matter how much I love Smokestack...What kind of list would you consider here?

@Protoaddct You know, it's a noobxor thing but I hadn't really thought about the draw into bridge vs chandra's exile. I think it's not a matter of trying to drop Garrison, but to find the right utility to either gain some tempo early to make a sol land heavy keep possible as even a mull to 6 can be just awful compared to other decks.

This would be my first pass. I'm sure it could be greatly improved upon:

4 Hangarback Walker
4 Tangle Wire
4 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Lodestone Golem
1 Staff of Nin
1 Black Lotus
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
4 Sphere of Resistance
1 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Trinisphere
4 Ancient Tomb
2 Ghost Quarter
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Karn, Scionof Urza
4 Smokestack
2 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Inventors' Fair

4 Grafdigger's Cage
3 Witchbane Orb
1 Dismember
2 Jester's Cap
4 Tormod's Crypt
1 Ensnaring Bridge