It’s been a hot minute since the last time I posted a “Brainstorming” article on here, which was way back when I shared my Vraska, Swarm’s Eminence deathtouch-tribal list with y’all (which you can find here). For those that might not be familiar, “Brainstorming” is the series where I take a look at a partially-tuned decklist, discuss what my thought process was while building it, and look into potential upgrades. I haven’t felt inspired to do another one of these articles for quite some time, but a new card from Kaldheim has reignited that spark. I’ve had my eye on one particular Oathbreaker brew since the first week of Kaldheim previews, and I’m excited to finally be able to share the spice with all of you!
The Oathbreaker & Signature Spell
Reckless Crew is, without a doubt, my favorite new Signature Spell out of Kaldheim. This card won’t necessarily win the game on the spot when it’s cast, but the fun factor of this sorcery is through the roof. I absolutely love the idea of suddenly summoning a dwarven army to take up arms and ride a fleet of vehicles into battle, so of course I’m going to build around this effect as a Signature Spell. Reckless Crew probably won’t end up being cast from the command zone more than once or twice per game in most Oathbreaker lists, but that’s pretty typical for Signature Spells across the board. In the right sort of strategy, Reckless Crew can also net plenty of value right away with even just one casting.
Although there are a few different types of decks one could build with Reckless Crew, I’ve had my mind settled on one particular style of list for a while now. Boros is definitely the strongest color pairing for either equipment or vehicle decks in Oathbreaker, and my plan is to include plenty of each of those artifact types in this deck. Blue also has a lot to offer for artifact-heavy strategies, though I plan on using it as more of a supporting color than anything else. I do admittedly have a bit of a weakness for three-colored decks in general, but I really do think Jeskai colors offers some of the most exciting deck-building possibilities for this Signature Spell. Luckily for me, Jeskai colors became available in Oathbreaker just this last year!
Narset of the Ancient Way isn’t especially well-suited to the style of deck I’m looking to build, but she does share some small, incidental synergies with the deck’s game plan. The vast majority of cards I’m looking to cast are going to be noncreature spells, so I won’t have any issue getting plenty of value out of that +1 ability. On top of that, I can also choose to hold Narset back until the turn I want to cast Reckless Crew, which we can do as soon as we hit seven mana thanks to her mana ability. Her remaining two loyalty abilities don’t do quite as much for this deck, but being able to randomly draw an extra card is the sort of effect that can always come in handy.
The Deck
Decklist: Jeskai Pit Crew
The goal of “Jeskai Pit Crew” is pretty straightforward. Step one, play a bunch of equipment and vehicles; step two, cast Reckless Crew; step 3, profit. Ideally, we’re going to have at least three or four equipment/vehicles on-board before casting our Signature Spell, meaning most of our early-game plays will have to be setting us up to slam this sorcery. That being said, Reckless Crew is certainly not this deck’s only way to win the game. Artifact-centric strategies in Oathbreaker have plenty of tools available to them, and we’ll be utilizing a number of these different payoffs to help close out the win for our dwarven armada.
- The Staples: This type of deck is a bit on the unusual side of the deck-building spectrum, but one benefit is we get access to all the best equipment and vehicles Oathbreaker has to offer. Heart of Kiran and Smuggler’s Copter are both generically strong cards, though their low mana-costs make them even more helpful in this list. Shadowspear and Skullclamp can hit the board even earlier, and they’ll be sure to give our dwarves a bit more “oomph” when they eventually reach the field. Sword of Sinew and Steel is perfect for shooting down opposing Oathbreakers, and Grafted Wargear is another classic equipment perfect for getting in the red zone. Although it technically isn’t a creature itself, Batterskull can still help us hold down the fort until we get our dwarf army online. Mizzium Tank is similarly helpful since it can essentially crew itself as long as we have noncreature spells to play. We’re also running Skysovereign, Consul Flagship as a heavy piece of top-end to blow up and/or fly over our opponents’ board states. If all that weren’t enough, we’ve even got Sram, Senior Edificer around to net us plenty of extra cards as we get our game plan going.
- The Spice: Not all of our powerful cards are as common as our array of staples. Giant Ox and Armed and Armored are both pretty new to the format, but they’re perfect for this sort of strategy, as is the very thematic Bearded Axe. Mystic Reflection is another new piece of tech that can come in handy, whether it be as an answer for an opponent’s Oathbreaker or as a way to turn our incoming dwarves into something a bit spicier. Speaking of cards that pair well with Reckless Crew, Mace of the Valiant is an equipment that can quickly become very deadly once all our dwarves hit the field. Peacewalker Colossus is a nice backup way of getting our vehicles moving, and the activated ability is relatively low-costed. Even still, my favorite bit of spice in this list is definitely Reins of Power. This tricksy instant regularly has plenty of wacky applications, and this is even truer in the case of this deck—and yes, you can tap all your dwarves to crew your vehicles, then use this spell to untap all of them and temporarily hand them over to one opponent to take out a common enemy!
- The Other Cards to Ride to Victory: The train of vehicles continues on! Cultivator’s Caravan coincidentally functions as both a vehicle and a mana-rock, which is particularly helpful in this sort of three-colored strategy. As far as more offensive potential, Aethersphere Harvester can help hold down the air while Untethered Express runs wild on the ground. Cosima, God of the Voyage is also chilling in this list, but we’re pretty much always going to opt to play The Omenkeel side instead. We’ve also got access to Halvar, God of Battle, and both his front half and the Sword of the Realms side can prove useful in various situations. To top off our equipment arsenal, I’ve decided to include Commander’s Plate since most of our equipping is going to happen for free as we resolve Reckless Crew. If our dwarf army and fleet of vehicles isn’t enough to close out the game on its own, we can call in the cavalry in the form of foretelling Starnheim Unleashed. We can also add some chonky robot friends to the field thanks to Karn, Scion of Urza.
The Brainstorming
To be completely honest, my overall feelings toward this deck really went back and forth a lot as I built the list. There were some points where I felt like I was piloting hopeless jank and other times where I felt like I was some sort of mad Jeskai genius—particularly when I thought to add Mystic Reflection and Reins of Power. The selection of equipment/vehicles has felt pretty consistently-solid, and I think I’ve successfully managed to keep the list from being too reliant on Reckless Crew. I’m pretty happy with where the deck is now, though I think there’s definite room for improvements.
In addition to discussing some other possible inclusions for the list, let’s take a look at the current inclusions that I’m most skeptical of, previous inclusions that I cut from the list, and the cuts that I may end up putting back in the list.
- Cards I’m skeptical of: There are only a handful of cards I’m not totally sold on in this iteration of the deck, though I do believe they’re all “fine” inclusions in their own right. I was initially attracted to Forging the Tyrite Sword for this list since it both helps with color-fixing (in the short-term, at least) and it can tutor up whatever equipment we may need. That being said, I think I would prefer to run a form of ramp that is more permanent/repeatable than the one-time use of a few treasure tokens. The remaining two cards I’m skeptical of both essentially fill the same function; Ensoul Artifact and The Antiquities War can both be used to animate our vehicles without the use of a crew, though the latter of these options does take a while to get going. The Antiquities War also animates all of our noncreature artifacts, including things like treasure tokens and artifact lands. Even still, I think this list could do a bit better as far as additional support-pieces/win conditions. Sagas are always a bit riskier when you’re counting on reaching their final chapter.
- Cards I cut: Since I’ve been so excited to try out the new foretell mechanic from Kaldheim, I did end up initially including several other cards with foretell in the deck. I thought Dual Strike might be a fun card to combine with Reckless Crew, though it winded up feeling more “cute” than “effective” in practice. Another card I briefly toyed with was Cosmic Intervention (my overall top card from the set for Oathbreaker), but it didn’t feel especially necessary or synergistic in this specific list. The final foretell card I tried running is Saw It Coming, and while it certainly proved to be useful, I eventually opted to cut it in favor of more equipment and vehicles. As far as other types of cards, I also tried out Gideon Blackblade at a later point in testing. The fact that Gideon is a noncreature card capable of crewing vehicles is very noteworthy, especially since he can further buff vehicle creatures with his +1 ability; however, in practice, he ended up feeling surprisingly clunky, and I eventually found other cards I wished to test out.
- Cards I may try again: It may surprise some readers to not see Start Your Engines somewhere in this deck given how popular of an inclusion it is in other vehicle-based decks. It ended up being pushed to the side simply because I found other four-drops I was fond of (Reins of Power specifically, if I recall correctly), but I could definitely see myself going back to find room for it once more. The Royal Scions is another card I ran in the first iteration of this list, mainly for their ability to buff vehicle creatures. It ended up feeling a bit more awkward than expected since this deck actually tends to take a while to actually go on the offensive. Even still, their other +1 ability definitely provides some solid card-filtering, so I may look to try The Royal Scions again if I need more help smoothing out my draws.
- Other Considerations: Given the three-colored nature of this list, Conqueror’s Flail could definitely be another equipment card worth looking at. Maul of the Skyclaves is another piece of equipment I always like to try out, though I suspect the enter-the-battlefield trigger wouldn’t see much use in this specific deck. Nahiri, Heir of the Ancients could be a neat equipment-themed way to provide a bit of an early board-presence, and her +1 ability does pair particularly well with Skullclamp. I could also see Elspeth, Knight-Errant finding a spot here as an additional way to push through damage and/or gum up the board. As far as more artifact-themed cards are concerned, Master of Etherium definitely seems like an appropriate inclusion. Tempered Steel is another great way to give our fleet of vehicles a hefty boost. One other less-thematic card I could see myself trying out is Echo of Eons, simply because it pairs so well with Narset’s -2 ability. In fact, I think I’ve included Echo of Eons in pretty much every other Jeskai Narset list I’ve ever brewed up, so it’s kinda surprising I never thought to find room for it here.
Off to the Races!
I have quite-literally wanted to brew this list up since I first saw Reckless Crew previewed, and I had as much fun building the deck as I expected I would! It’s true that this isn’t the first time I’ve written about a Jeskai artifacts deck (linked here, if you’re curious), but this second list is definitely very different from the Kuldotha Rebirth list I made all those months ago. Although I’m not normally much of an enthusiast of equipment/vehicle-centric decks, I do really love the image of summoning an army of dwarves to recklessly ride a fleet of vehicles into battle, and I hope some of y’all found some wacky deck-building inspiration of your own while reading this article!
Have you tried playing Reckless Crew in Oathbreaker yet? Do you have a similar list of your own or any suggestions for this deck? Make sure to share your thoughts/suggestions/brews with me on Reddit or on Twitter!
About the author: My name is Alex Enders. I am a college student that’s been playing MTG for almost eight years, though I only recently began experimenting with writing content. My personal formats of choice are Oathbreaker, EDH, and draft. My other interests include music, education, and most things nerdy. You can find me on Twitter (@AAAEnders) or email me at aenders2112@gmail.com