Another Working Man’s Blues

Mono-Green Mana Value Triggers and Artifact Creatures

Workshop Warchief by Zoltan Boros

The plight of the working man never seems to improve. It’s a big job getting by with nine kids and a wife. Every morning, you tumble outta bed, stumble to the kitchen, pour yourself a cup of ambition, yawn and stretch, and try to come to life. You take the train to the factory because your Dodgy Jalopy won’t run again. You keep your nose on the grindstone; you work hard every day.

You make a little extra money at the Boxing Ring, even though you know the fights are rigged. And when money’s tight and you can ignore your conscience for a night, you work as freelance muscle for one of the families that rule New Capenna. The work turns your stomach, but you get some respect, at least. Everyone knows, if they see you comin’, they better step aside. A lotta men didn’t, a lotta men died. One fist of iron, the other of steel – if the right one don’t get you, then the left one will.

You dream of a better life – or at least a better car. Working on the assembly line, every day you watch them beauties roll by and sometimes you hang your head and cry. Sometimes you daydream that you’ll sneak a new car out of there in a lunchbox in your hand. You’ll take it one piece at a time, and it won’t cost you a dime.

That’s when it hits you. Why not build something better? Something bigger? A lot bigger. Colossal, even. They’ve pushed you around your whole life. Time to push back. So you set to work in your garage, building a new future for yourself – and for everyone who’s ever held you down.

Another Working Man’s Blues triggers off the highest power, toughness, or mana value of your permanents.

Use Boxing Ring, Prizefight, Outmuscle, and Savage Punch to control early threats and crank out Treasure tokens. Then cast Marut with your Treasure tokens and get them all back! Dodgy Jalopy, Freelance Muscle, Ambitious Dragonborn, and Manaplasm all get huge bonuses from having high-power or high-cost creatures.

To finish, use the Treasures left from casting Marut to bring out Metalwork Colossus. Equip with Colossus Hammer and scavenge one or two Dodgy Jalopies from your graveyard to make your Colossus-equipped Colossus even Colossus-er. Then copy it with Sculpting Steel, cast Overwhelming Stampede, and smash everything! It’s what they deserve.

(With apologies to Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Bruce Springsteen, and Dolly Parton.)

Creatures (16)

  • 4 Workshop Warchief
  • 1 Freelance Muscle
  • 1 Metalwork Colossus
  • 1 Marut
  • 1 Foundry Inspector
  • 1 Steel Overseer
  • 1 Kuldotha Forgemaster
  • 1 Chief of the Foundry
  • 1 Manaplasm
  • 2 Myr Moonvessel
  • 2 Myr Scrapling

Vehicles (5)

  • 4 Dodgy Jalopy
  • 1 Capenna Express

Artifacts (6)

  • 1 Boxing Ring
  • 1 Mystic Forge
  • 1 Sculpting Steel
  • 1 Welding Jar
  • 1 Sol Ring
  • 1 Manifold Key

Equipment (1)

  • 1 Colossus Hammer

Enchantments (1)

  • 1 Fight Rigging

Sorceries (8)

  • 2 Overwhelming Stampede
  • 2 Outmuscle
  • 2 Savage Punch
  • 2 Cultivate

Instants (8)

  • 4 Prizefight
  • 4 Beast Within

Lands (24)

  • 24 Forest

Tokens

  • 3/3 Green Beast
  • 4/4 Green Rhino Warrior
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