Introduction:

I've been brewing away this past week and I've been looking for some fun win conditions that might be hiding in Dominaria. I've come across a couple and plan to post more brews when I've playtested them all, but I wanted to get started with this fun one!

The Antiquities War has a lot of potential power in its pages. Hitting that 3rd stage with a board full of artifacts is some serious GG. The main issue? It requires a lot of artifacts.

MtG Arena's card pool doesn't have much when it comes to artifacts, so I knew the only way to really make Antiquities work would be to mix in a handful of the best ones and then get as many Treasure cards on the field as possible.

The game plan for the deck is to control while gathering artifacts (primarily in the form of Treasures) and then drop Antiquities once we've got the board stabilized and close to a dozen artifacts. The Artifact Army we get a few turns later swings for a lot more than lethal. Sounds like fun!

Here's a screenshot of lethal with an early version of the deck: https://imgur.com/a/fKGI8ue

I've built a few iterations of the deck with different control shells. The best I've come up with (and unfortunately the most expensive) is using a Planeswalker control strategy with Karn, Gideon, and Teferi. This "Super Friends" strategy is extremely powerful and can practically win on its own without any of my Antiquities War nonsense. At any rate, I'm featuring this Planeswalker version as my recommended build but I've included a "Budget" version that uses a more general control shell to try and do the same thing.

Deck Strategy:

Here is the core of the deck that I don't think any version of this deck can go without:

• 3 The Antiquities War
• 3 Karn, Scion of Urza
• 3 Treasure Map
• 2 Spell Swindle

The Maps and Swindles gather our Treasure Army and give Karn lots of artifacts to buff his tokens. Once it's all on the board we are ready to drop an Antiquities War and give our opponent a few turns to think about how he or she is going to handle 12 5/5 Treasure Artifact Creatures and 2 19/19 Karn Constructs all at once.

General Thoughts:

• We're aiming to cast Antiquities when we've got at least 6 treasures and maybe a few other artifacts. We want to make sure that 3rd stage is going to be lethal, so I am usually waiting to bait them in to a good Settle the Wreckage or chip away at them with a Gideon before I commit to setting up Antiquities.

• Karn is AMAZING! In my opinion, he belongs in almost any control deck at the moment. He nets you a ton of card advantage and unlike in a lot of decks running him, we can actually make great use of his Tokens.

• Both Karn and Gideon act as meat shields. That's why I'm running 3x Karn and 4x Gideon. We make up for lack of creatures and extensive removal by just being "tanky". To save on some Mythics you can probably afford to drop to 2x or 3x Gideon, but I have 4x so darn it I'm using them.

• The Aggro matchup can be a little rough. We need Settle the Wreckage right on time. Also Gideon has to help hold the fort down for as a long as he can.

• The Control matchup is very favorable. Counters aren't that great because we are building a large board state with a lot of pieces, rather than dropping a few powerful bombs here and there. The best part of the control and midrange matchup is that all of their creature removal is useless against you. U/B Control has so many dead cards against this deck, it's wonderful to watch them keep passing their turn with 4 cards in hand and nothing to do.

• We are looking to remove threats with a suite of 4x Seal Away and Settle the Wreckage. I'm finding games often hinge on whether I've got Settle available or not, so zealously look for it with mulligans and your scrying.

• Speaking of Settle the Wreckage, it OWNS this deck. I didn't play against it during any of my playtesting, but if your opponent has Settle up and your Antiquities has dropped....I guess that's just how it goes sometimes...

• Mirage Mirror was included after I was screwing around with all the different available artifacts. It proved to have a lot of utility and flexibility. Most often I am Miraging to create a copy of my Karn token for a turn, but I've found it incredibly useful in copying opponents creatures as well.

• Oath of Teferi speaks for itself as far as letting you use loyalty abilities twice. A great synergy I've been using it for is bouncing my Treasure Cove land to turn it back in to a Treasure Map. More treasures = more win.

• Traxos, Scourge of Kroog is a weird inclusion, I know. He was in there during early testing and he stayed as a one-of because he made such a great blocker.

• Yes. I know about Revel in Riches. It seems like another fun way to win with Treasure artifacts.

Playing on a Budget:

Here's a budget rendition of the deck that swaps out the Planeswalker control shell with the Gideons and Teferi's for some counter-magic.

Artifacts (7) :

• 2 Edifice of Authority
• 3 Treasure Map
• 1 Mirage Mirror
• 1 Thaumatic Compass

Creatures (4) :

• 1 Traxos, Scourge of Kroog
• 3 Gleaming Barrier

Enchantments (9) :

• 4 Seal Away
• 2 Search for Azcanta
• 3 The Antiquities War

Instants and Sorceries (13) :

• 2 Cancel
• 2 Hornswoggle
• 4 Settle the Wreckage
• 2 Spell Swindle
• 3 Supreme Will

Planeswalkers (3) :

• 3 Karn, Scion of Urza

Lands (22) :

• 14 Island
• 10 Plains

Conclusion:

Some quick, very narrow stats. I went 13-7 in a 20 game run. All my testing was done at Rank 1 Gold, not that rank seems to matter who you get paired against whatsoever. So not the greatest results, my losses were almost all to aggro decks where I didn't find a Settle in time.

I would love to hear your thoughts, suggestions, and criticisms. Happy to answer any questions!