Overall theme (what is the deck trying to do?)

So… if you have stumbled upon this wayward deck build and are reading this primer, I would like you to know two things going forward. The first is that this deck design is generally a bad idea because you are shut off to so much of the game and its intended purpose. The Second is it’s a blast to see that this is even possible in the game of sorcery and generally and whole-heartly believe that this was in no way intended to be able to be played by the creators of the game. With that said Welcome to the Colorless Ironclad!

Colorless Ironclad as you might expect does not mess with threshold of any type and is a pure artifact deck. The theme besides being pure artifacts, is as the flavor text of the Ironclad (Repel, rebuff, rebuke!) and your goal is to lock your opponent out of areas of the board while you put up defenses to stop your opponent from being able to kill you on deaths door, while bringing destruction by a few choice win conditions.

Strengths and weaknesses.

In General, not having to mess with thresholds mean that cards you draw are just always playable, so long as you have mana your good. You as the Ironclad with 2 less damage taken means your harder to kill allowing you to treat your life total as more of a resource than a closely guarded necessity. you have plenty of opportunity to make incoming direct damage done become 0 and can afford to lose one and have one as backup.

Your atlas is by far the greatest asset for the deck, no threshold means that you can take full advantage of a variety of sights that help you build up. 3 Towns, 3 Ghost towns, and 2 Major Cities all help with ramping or cost reduction, 2 Crossroads and 2 Primordial Springs help get us the right sites for job. 2 Bureau of Occult Control help deny collections of their easy access to helpful cards, 2 Wizard’s dens for added card draw, and 2 Sinkhole’s for board control.

Strategy (how does it win the game, what's plan A, what's plan B, how do you plan to get there?)

To best describe the winning strategy of this deck is to endure the onslaught. Eventually given enough time and luck your opponent will run out of cards and momentum. Of which then with a few niche things you sweep up the win. The few ways I have won with this deck are as follows.

1.) The Immortal throne, play it and sit back and wait.

2.) Golden Harp and doomsday device

3.) Weight of bodies that move and attack on your opponent’s turn with an aggressively Voltron Ironclad

4.) Death by a thousand cuts, Infusion factory make all your monuments, weapons, and armor mobile little 2/2’s.

Opening hand / mulligans (key cards to hold and cards you definitely want to mulligan, and why)

For your opening hand site wise I really happy for at least 1 town and or 1 free city to help with the first minions played. An opening crossroads is nice but can be lackluster. Primordial spring is nice to have buy turn 3 or 4 when you can skip a site play to force the spring for the site draw. Clay Golem or Iron man Talus are great starter minions, wiccan tools or ferryman’s coins are also great opening hand cards to have. Generally, mulligans are any doubles of cards to go fish for something you don’t have or if they are too high-cost early game.

Single card discussion (are there any standout cards / interesting interactions you want to highlight?)

With 4 Makeshift Barricades, 2 Golden Harps, and a Blasted Oak are all staple Ironclad musts, but cards like Sentinel Trap and Bailey really stand out when your able to dictate where your opponent can go or be safe. Belfry is nice to untap your Ironclad after drawing a site leaving him able to help block incoming attacks on things like free city or is he has a weapon and is being aggressive.

Matchup dependent advice

Fire and Air are safe elements to play into generally, but Water (if you don’t have a Driftwood Marrows handy) and especially earth is rough going due to the ability to place your beautiful collections of toys and trinkets underground where they can’t help you. Acid Rain, Bury, Cave-in, and Earthquake can completely destroy your builds. Best to play cautiously into water and earth as they are common plays in those elements. Your Monuments however can be rescued by the Undertaker Engine.

Collection cards (when to sub them in, and why)

As far a collections go we don’t play one and hope that the Bureau of Occult Control helps mitigate our opponents payables, pesky disenchants and their kin.

Ironclad

@MitchDunn