Building with Flavor: Daretti, Rocket Engineer

Posted on February 12, 2025

Welcome back Loreseekers, as I begin my series on Aetherdrift Flavor Builds. Today I'm going to start with one of my favorite characters in all of Magic: Daretti! Daretti has been a D-Lister among Planeswalkers for over a decade, and frequently passed over for more popular Red-aligned planeswalkers. With the desparking, he and Chandra can now coexist in a set, and he can even be a supporting character!

Who is Daretti?

Daretti, Rocketeer Engineer by Sam Perin

Daretti the Professor

Daretti was first named way back 2014's Like Cogwork and Blood Will Have Blood, as a former professor of the Academy at High Paliano on Fiora who mentored Muzzio, Visionary Architect. In the story, Professor Tulando accuses Muzzio of having killed Daretti, to which Chancellor Grinaldi replies that, if he did, he did them a favor. Later that year, we would learn who Daretti was from his appearance as part of the first cycle of Planeswalker commanders in Commander 2014. The insert with his deck had this to say:

On his home plane of Fiora, Daretti was known as a goblin of uncommon intellect, talent, and ambition. His goal was both simple and audacious: to become a master artificer at the Academy in the High City of Paliano. As he rose through the ranks, the city's mage elite tittered, then scoffed, then protested. In the end, it was not their plotting but Daretti's own experiments that proved his downfall. One of Daretti's famed creations exploded, apparently killing him. In reality, the shock ignited Daretti's latent Planeswalker spark, and he planeswalked to relative safety. His legs were gone, but he was alive - and now had many worlds of knowledge and artifice to explore. He built himself an elaborate cogwork conveyance and continued his experiments in artifice, both on Fiora and beyond.

While it does say he lost his legs here, we see in Aetherdrift that he lost the use of his legs. It's also apparent that he met with Muzzio again after his spark igniting, given that Muzzio has learned of other worlds in his story. Despite the accident, it's clear from Aetherdrift that Daretti really did enjoy teaching young minds, based on his interactions with Chandra and Loot later in the story.

Daretti's Revenge

Deadly Derision by Gaboleps

Daretti would reappear two years later in Conspiracy: Take the Crown. As a result of the original Conspiracy stories, the Academy has been shuttered and Muzzio exiled (implied to be the work of Grenzo, Havoc Raiser). In Bloody Instructions, Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast joins Grenzo in the midst of the riots following Marchesa's ascension to Queen (the riots also being Grenzo's doing). They raid the home of former Professor Fimarell, who plagiarized Daretti's work after his apparent death and stole credit for all the cogwork devices he'd previously ridiculed. After some prompting from Grenzo, Daretti has his revenge on the professor, pushing him out the window to his death.

We know at this point Daretti had a lair in the Paliano undercity, and that during the Phyrexian Invasion in March of the Machine, he battled the Phyrexians (Deadly Derision). He lost his spark in the aftermath.

Daretti's Joy

Sparkless, Daretti would eventually find a home away from home on Avishkar, a plane he'd visited in the past and found absolute joyful innovation. Free of the scheming and politicking of Fiora, Daretti found a kind of peace. This is the Daretti we meet by the story of Aetherdrift, who has joined up with a group of likeminded, although chaotic, goblins from an unnamed plane and formed the Goblin Rocketeers.

Daretti is captured by Muragandan raiders (along with Loot, the Pathfinder) and is instrumental in their Explosive Getaway alongside Chandra, Spark Hunter and Pia Nalaar, Chief Mechanic. After the group crashes into an oasis on Amonkhet, he and Pia gives their escape vehicle a Tune Up. As Loot leads them to an Omenpath back to the finish line, Daretti keeps their rocket from falling apart as they crash land again (Count on Luck). We don't see him again after that, but I like to think he's enjoying his life on Avishkar.

The Deck

Count on Luck by Michal Ivan

The flavor focus on this deck is Fiora, Avishkar, and pulling from like-minded goblins and artificers. Unfortunately for us, most of the cards Daretti appears on can't actually go in either of his decks: Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast, Deadly Derision, Explosive Getaway, Tune Up, and Veloheart Bike aren't in Red, leaving us only Count on Luck, Daretti, Scrap Savant, and Scrap Mastery. Only the latter two are in the deck, as impulse draw isn't something Daretti is looking for. I'm also including Chandra, Spark Hunter, as it is functionally a vehicle themed re-do of Daretti's original card, making it an auto-include. Pia Nalaar is also in here as that was the most appropriate version of Daretti's new friend I could find. Unfortunately, there isn't a Mono-Red Loot, but we'll be doing a lot of Looting, haha (and suddenly I'm yanked off-stage).

While this isn't a budget deck, I didn't go as crazy with expensive artifacts as I could have, keeping the total price around $150.

The deck itself is slightly different from what you'd get with a Daretti, Scrap Savant deck. With Daretti as a creature, we've included more vehicles and some equipment to make use of that, as well as some goblin-matters cards. And because this Daretti doesn't come with an intrinsic discard ability, I've filled it with ways to get your good artifacts into the graveyard fast. Let's break it down.

The Goblins

While this deck isn't going to overrun your opponent with goblin tokens, there's a goblin theme here worth mentioning. Cards like Howlsquad Heavy, Goblin Warchief, and Goblin Chieftain ensure your important goblins hit the ground running with haste, while Grenzo, Havoc Raiser and Krenko, Baron of Tin Street provide some utility.

Of course, some of the usual reanimators are here: Goblin Engineer and Scrap Welder. You can substitute in a Goblin Welder in place of Burnout Bashtronaut if you can afford one, but it was showing up as too pricey for my purposes in this deck.

The Artifacts

Boommobile and Burner Rocket are here mostly for flavor, as they're the only Mono-Red Goblin Rocketeer vehicles. Lifecraft Engine is here to help with the goblin sub-theme, while Starting Column gives us Speed and the ability to loot later in the game. There's a few other Avishkar vehicles here for fun: Smuggler's Copter for more looting (Daretti lacking an inherent discard ability is what hurts this deck most), and Ovalchase Dragster which is a nice recurrable threat to the board.

The deck has a pretty standard package of artifact reanimation targets: Meteor Golem, Ancient Stone Idol, Phyrexian Triniform, and Myr Battlesphere being major ones. [Bosh, Iron Golem] is here for his all around absolute unit status (flinging an artifact that you'll bring right back with Daretti on attack).

Taking advantage of Daretti's status as a creature with a triggered ability, I've included Panharmonicon and Strionic Resonator. The equipment package here includes Swiftfoot Boots (which I realized is a bit messed up for Daretti), Mask of Memory to help you get reanimation targets in the graveyard, and Embercleave as a win con that's so useful I had to include it despite the flavor break. Remember: this Daretti deals Commander damage, and on attack you can bring Embercleave right into play on Daretti. Sneaky tech: you can attack with nothing but Daretti and swap a Great Furnace on the board to go from a 0/5 to 7/6 Double Strike Trampler with Embercleave.

The big flavor break here though is Knight Paladin, which is a Universes Beyond card. However, with the potential to stack multiple Daretti triggers, a card that repeatably does damage to all opponents is too tempting to ignore.

The Academics

There's not a lot left to talk about here, but I did want to note I purposeful drew some Academics here to lean into Daretti's history as a professor. Illuminate History and Audacious Reshapers, for instance, are cards from Strixhaven University, while Feldon of the Third Path was similarly an academic with the Third Path.