ETHERTHORN Alara Workshop???

[KingHeavy]

This list just came about due to possible synergy from three spoiled Shards of Alara cards that have been discussed and could have potential.  Im not claiming anything but I'll give the so called "bulk list" and then explain what I think could happen, however it is obviously rough but could be tweaked by thise better than myself possibly into something dangerous or at least annoying (for the opponent)

First the spoiled cards for reference:

Etherium Sculptor      1U
-Artifact Creature - Vedalkan Artificer

    Artifact spells you play cost  less to play.

                                                       1/2
Ethersworn Canonist  1W
-Artifact Creature -Human Cleric

     Each player who has played a nonartifact spell this turn can't play additional nonartifact spells.

                                                     2/2

Master of Etherium    2U
-Artifact Creature - Vedalken Wizard 

     Master of Etherium's power and toughness are each equal to the number of artifacts you control.
     Other artifact creatures you control get +1/+1.

                                                   */*


ETHERTHORN

4 Etherium Sculptor
4 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Master of Etherium
4 Thorn of Amethyst
4 Sculpting Steel
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Crucible of worlds
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Saphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Force or Will
4 Curse Catcher
4 Street Wraith
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
1 Academy Ruins
4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand


Now I know there are a half dozen really important cards that I've left out, but thats for simplicity at looking at the idea.

Synergy: Thorn and Sculpting steel with crucible and Strip/Wasteland provide most of the mana denial, as well as CotV;  Sculpting steel can copy the Ether Sculptor, the Canonist, AND the Master, who is the "kill" along with the other artifact creatures.  Thorn doesnt effect the other "lock" cards in the deck, namely the Canonist and the Sculptor.

The rest is temporary filler, like street wraith(although quite good) or general permission in FoW and Curse Catcher.

The parts that bother me are the 1) lack of draw engine 2) workshop mirrors, 3) of course Dredge, Affinity, and 4) maybe the manabase.

Again this is more a note on the synergies between the canonist, the sculptor, and the thorn, but it seems like it could cripple a lot of decks.  No more than one non-artifact spell per turn, and everything costs a lot more, but not for me. 

I feel there is some serious potential to this strategey, but I need help tightening it up so please give some advise and deck revisions.  Thanks a bunch!

[the boogie man]

What if you played with less sculpting steel, no cursecatcher, no enlightened tutor, and less/no street wraith, and you could play with thoughtcast. you have enough artifacts. frogmite would be a decent addition if you had sword of fire/ice or cranial plating. tinker is also always a good addition. it may not seem that great when you have a ton of stuff and thorn down, but if your behind it is really good.

You could also go the other way and add skullclamp and genesis chamber. frogmite goes well with this too. you could easily make master of etherum huge, and have a small army of 2/2's, and probably play way more spells than your oponent, especially under ethersworn.

[timp]

you could throw in tezz or march to convert all those thorns and stuff into a kill condition

[forneus]

why not play sensei sensei with that sculptor? i think he'd be great in the deck

[hyperchord24]

What if you played with less sculpting steel, no cursecatcher, no enlightened tutor, and less/no street wraith, and you could play with thoughtcast. you have enough artifacts. frogmite would be a decent addition if you had sword of fire/ice or cranial plating. tinker is also always a good addition. it may not seem that great when you have a ton of stuff and thorn down, but if your behind it is really good.

You could also go the other way and add skullclamp and genesis chamber. frogmite goes well with this too. you could easily make master of etherum huge, and have a small army of 2/2's, and probably play way more spells than your oponent, especially under ethersworn.

I really like MoE and the sculpter very much in shop aggro.  The problem I see in my theoretical deckbuilding is I try to do too much.  I try adding them in traditional shop aggro builds, but then I really want to take advantage of the fact that they are blue artifact creatures and add things like FoW and other broken blue things like tfk, brainstorm, tinker and recall.  By then I have well over 60 cards.  I'm not sure yet where he fits.

Tolarian Academy should be in here too.

[the boogie man]

You only need 16-18 blue cards minimum, and 4x master, sculpter, and fow is 12 already. Thoughtcast is a very cool draw spell if you can support it. Throw in time walk and ancestral and you have a large portion of a decklist. Genesis chamber goes really well with affinity, and goes really well withboth master and sculpter. Frogmites become very free very quick, and even enforcer would be playable. If you need more draw, sword can be picked up by any number of guys. cranial plating would become crazy lethal. In a very blue list, i think that these guys should definately be run in some sort of pseudo affinity list.

I think that making all your cheap guys basically free and pumping all your creatures fits much more into an affinity deck than a shop aggro list. how many threats are on the board when a workshop aggro deck wins? I haven't played w-aggro in a while, but i was under the impression that 1-2 threats usually go the distance.