How does the Grinding Station combo work in Oswald Grinding Cam?

Grinding Station untaps itself whenever any artifact enters the battlefield, per its own oracle text (Scryfall). With Emry, Lurker of the Loch and Sewer-veillance Cam in play, you sacrifice the Cam to Grinding Station to mill three, Emry recasts the Cam from the graveyard almost for free, its reentry untaps the Station, and the loop repeats until the opponent's library is gone.

What does Sewer-veillance Cam do in Modern?

Sewer-veillance Cam is a one-mana Flash artifact whose own ability only taps or untaps a target creature when it enters or leaves the battlefield (Scryfall). It doesn't untap artifacts itself. Its combo role is as cheap, recurrable fuel: Grinding Station cares about any artifact entering, and the Cam is the artifact this deck is built to keep entering.

Can Oswald Fiddlebender go infinite in Modern?

Oswald Fiddlebender's own ability isn't infinite. It sacrifices an artifact to tutor one costing exactly one more, put onto the battlefield, as a sorcery-speed activation (Scryfall). The infinite piece is the separate Grinding Station and Sewer-veillance Cam and Emry package. Oswald's job is assembling that engine, not looping on its own.

Why is Emry, Lurker of the Loch good in this deck?

Emry has Affinity for artifacts, so this deck's own Moxen and Baubles make her cheap to hardcast, and her tap ability lets you cast any artifact card from your graveyard that turn (Scryfall). That turns Grinding Station's self-mill from a risk into fuel: a milled Mox, Portable Hole, or Sewer-veillance Cam is never actually lost.

Is Oswald Grinding Cam a mill deck or a combo deck?

It's a combo deck that wins by milling. The early turns look like a normal artifact-value shell playing Moxen, Portable Hole, and Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student, and the mill kill only happens once Oswald or Urza's Saga assembles the full Grinding Station and Sewer-veillance Cam engine, usually as a fast finish rather than a slow grind.

How do you proxy-test a deck like this with your playgroup?

Print or sleeve proxies for the expensive pieces, then get the deck to the table where it actually matters: against your group's real decks, not a stranger's list online. Tabletop Time lets you set up a free Modern night with a quorum, so the session only locks in once enough players confirm.

Oswald Grinding Cam: A 20-Year Throwback in Modern MTG

Twenty years ago I built an Enduring Renewal combo deck around Grinding Station, a Fifth Dawn artifact that milled opponents out one loop at a time. This September I found Grinding Station again, riding Oswald Fiddlebender to the best Modern win rate at Pro Tour Marvel Super Heroes (magic.gg, 2026). Twenty years later, with better cards around it.

A hand holding a fanned grip of playing cards over a worn wooden table Photo: planet_fox via Pixabay, Pixabay Content License

What Is the Oswald Grinding Cam Deck?

Oswald Grinding Cam is the community's name for an Oswald Fiddlebender combo deck built around tutoring toward Grinding Station, with Emry, Lurker of the Loch and Urza's Saga running a second toolbox on top. It plays like a normal blue-white artifact value shell for the first few turns, then wins in one turn once the mill engine comes online.

The shell underneath the combo is genuinely good on its own: Portable Hole and Metallic Rebuke for interaction, Mox Amber and Mox Opal for acceleration, Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student for card selection. That matters, because a combo deck that can only combo is a bad deck. This one plays a real Modern game while it waits for the pieces to line up. At Pro Tour Marvel Super Heroes, the archetype was the only Modern deck in the field running Loki, God of Mischief, and it posted a 77.8% win rate, the highest of any Modern deck at the tournament (magic.gg, 2026). Pilot Gaëtan Bossy went 7-2-1 in Modern rounds with it (magic.gg, 2026).

Here's the composition of the actual 60-card list I'm running:

Oswald Grinding Cam: 60-Card Deck Composition

Author's decklist, Archidekt, verified 2026-09-03

Lands (18)30%

Creatures (16)27%

Combo/Engine Artifacts (14)23%

Mana Rocks (8)13%

Instants (4)7%

Lands and mana rocks together are 43% of the deck (per the chart above), which is exactly what a list trying to combo off on turn three needs.

How Does the Oswald Fiddlebender Combo Loop Work?

Oswald Fiddlebender sacrifices an artifact and searches for one that costs exactly one more, putting it onto the battlefield as a sorcery-speed activation ({W}, {T}, Sacrifice an artifact) (Scryfall, 2026). That's a Birthing Pod chain built out of mana values instead of creature types, and it's the reason this deck runs so many cheap, disposable artifacts.

A clean line looks like this: sacrifice a Mishra's Bauble (already drawn its card) for a Portable Hole, sacrifice the Hole once it's done its job for a two-drop Grinding Station, and now the combo pieces are on the table. Every rung of that ladder is a real card the deck wanted anyway, which is what separates a good toolbox package from a dead combo piece sitting in your opener. Per mtgrocks.com (2026), Oswald can also reach into the sideboard mid-game for Damping Sphere against Storm and Amulet Titan, Vexing Bauble against Affinity, or Pithing Needle, turning the same activation into a toolbox for interaction, not just for the kill.

What Do Grinding Station and Sewer-veillance Cam Actually Do?

Grinding Station reads: "{T}, Sacrifice an artifact: Target player mills three cards. Whenever an artifact enters, you may untap this artifact" (Scryfall, 2026). That second line, printed all the way back in Fifth Dawn in 2004, is the entire engine, and it doesn't care what kind of artifact showed up, only that one did.

Sewer-veillance Cam is a one-mana Flash artifact from the 2026 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles set, and its own ability is easy to misread: "Flash. When this artifact enters or leaves the battlefield, you may tap or untap target creature. {3}{U}, Sacrifice this artifact: Draw two cards" (Scryfall, 2026). It doesn't untap artifacts at all, on its own text. What it does is enter and leave the battlefield cheaply and repeatedly, and Grinding Station's separate ability triggers off any artifact ETB, the Cam included.

Put them together with Emry, Lurker of the Loch and here's the loop that put this deck in front of me twenty years later: sacrifice the Cam to Grinding Station for its ability (mill three), Grinding Station may untap itself off that same artifact leaving and re-entering, Emry taps to cast the Cam back out of the graveyard almost for free thanks to her Affinity discount, and the whole cycle resets. Do it enough times and the opponent's library is empty. This is, functionally, the same shape as the Enduring Renewal deck I played twenty years ago, where a free zero-cost creature dying and returning to hand reset Grinding Station over and over. The pieces around it changed completely. The heart of the combo didn't.

Why Is Emry, Lurker of the Loch My Favorite Creature in the Deck?

Emry, Lurker of the Loch is the best card I've gotten to build a deck around in years. Her text: "Affinity for artifacts. When Emry enters, mill four cards. {T}: Choose target artifact card in your graveyard. You may cast that card this turn" (Scryfall, 2026).

I say that as someone who has played artifact decks since I first understood what a mana rock was. Affinity makes her cheap off the deck's own artifact count, often a one- or two-mana 2/1 by the time she hits the table. Her own ETB mill feeds the graveyard she's about to raid. And her tap ability is the reason self-mill is an asset instead of a liability in this list: a Mox milled by Grinding Station or by Emry's own trigger isn't gone, it's one tap away from being cast. She's the piece that makes the whole deck's aggressive artifact count and heavy self-mill make sense as a coherent plan instead of a pile of risk.

What Role Do Urza's Saga and the Mox Cycle Play?

Urza's Saga is a second toolbox running alongside Oswald's. Its final chapter tutors any artifact with mana value 0 or 1 straight onto the battlefield (Scryfall, 2026), meaning a free Mox Opal, Mox Amber, Mishra's Bauble, Portable Hole, or Sewer-veillance Cam off a single land drop.

Chapter I taps for colorless mana and Chapter II makes a 0/0 Construct that grows by +1/+1 for every artifact you control, immediately sizable in this deck. Mox Amber and Mox Opal are both zero-mana artifacts. Mox Amber taps for any color among legendary creatures and planeswalkers you control, which is live fast in a deck running Oswald, Emry, Loki, and Tamiyo. Mox Opal has Metalcraft and taps for any color once you control three or more artifacts, a threshold this deck crosses embarrassingly early. Between the two Moxen, Urza's Saga, and Oswald's chain, this deck can be sequencing multiple artifacts before an opponent's first real interaction spell is online, which is exactly the kind of turn-two-into-turn-three explosiveness a Modern combo deck needs to be taken seriously. I've won games off the Construct alone, swinging as a 5/5 or 6/6 built entirely out of Baubles and Moxen while my opponent was still trying to find an answer, with the mill combo never even needing to happen.

Why Is Portable Hole the Best Removal Spell Ever Printed?

I'll die on this hill: Portable Hole is the best removal spell Wizards has ever printed. It reads: "When this artifact enters, exile target nonland permanent an opponent controls with mana value 2 or less until this artifact leaves the battlefield" (Scryfall, 2026).

I say that fully aware of what else exists in Modern. One mana, catches most of the format's dorks, cheap planeswalkers, and early threats, and it does its job on the stack the moment it enters, no combat step required. In this deck specifically, it's not just interaction. It's a one-drop artifact that's already done its job by the time you need to sacrifice something to Oswald, so it becomes the free rung on the tutor ladder toward Grinding Station. A removal spell that plays offense and defense for the same one mana is exactly my kind of card, and it's the single piece of this list I'd never cut regardless of what the rest of the deck looked like.

How Do Agatha's Soul Cauldron and Loki, God of Mischief Interact?

Agatha's Soul Cauldron and Loki, God of Mischief don't actually combo with each other, and I'd rather say that up front than pretend otherwise. They're two separate value pieces sharing a 60-card deck: the Cauldron turns graveyard hate into a growing threat, and Loki turns the deck's ordinary targeted abilities into a free card once a turn.

Agatha's Soul Cauldron exiles cards from any graveyard, including the opponent's, doubling as graveyard hate on top of a mill payoff. When it exiles a creature card, it puts a +1/+1 counter on a creature you control, and that creature gains every activated ability of the creatures exiled that way (Scryfall, 2026).

Loki, God of Mischief reads: "Whenever a player or permanent becomes the target of an ability you control, draw a card. This ability triggers only once each turn" (Scryfall, 2026). Oswald's tutor targets a card, Emry's cast ability targets a card, Portable Hole's exile targets a permanent, so Loki turns that ordinary sequencing into a free card once a turn without spending a card to do it. He was, per magic.gg (2026), the standout new addition in the Pro Tour list, both accelerating Mox Amber and functioning as a standalone card-advantage engine. I still play around losing him before he's drawn me anything, because a three-mana legendary with no protection dying to a stray removal spell on turn three feels like getting robbed of a card I'd already counted on.

Why Does Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student Round Out the Early Game?

Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student is a one-mana flier that makes a Clue on attack (more Metalcraft and Oswald fodder) and flips into Tamiyo, Seasoned Scholar once you draw a third card in a turn. She's a low-commitment early play that scales into real card selection and never feels bad to draw.

Where Does Oswald Grinding Cam Sit in the Current Modern Metagame?

Oswald Grinding Cam is also called Grinding Emry or Azorius Loki online. Its Pro Tour showing ran alongside Marvel Super Heroes Draft at MagicCon: Amsterdam, July 17-19, 2026 (mtg.wiki, 2026), and the matchup spread from that weekend says more about how to sideboard than the headline number alone does. Per mtgrocks.com (2026), the archetype matches up well against Boros Energy and Izzet Affinity, and struggles more against Boros Land Destruction and Eldrazi Tron, resource-denial decks built to strip away the cheap artifacts this combo shell needs before Grinding Station ever comes online.

That's a real, current, competitive Modern deck, not a nostalgia build I'm forcing Grinding Station into. The nostalgia is just a happy accident of what the deck ended up needing.

How I Actually Pilot This Deck

The early turns are about sequencing artifacts, not casting the combo: land, Mox, Bauble or Hole, then Tamiyo or Emry whenever the mana lines up. I don't activate Oswald until I have a target worth tutoring for, since sacrificing live interaction just to dig early costs games you were already winning.

Sacrificing a Hole that's still holding down a real threat just to dig for Grinding Station a turn early is exactly that mistake. The sideboard package (Consign to Memory, Dispatch, Force of Negation, Tormod's Crypt, Dusk Rose Reliquary, Haywire Mite, Vexing Bauble, Damping Sphere, Disruptor Flute, Pithing Needle) is built to answer graveyard hate against your own combo and to give Oswald extra targets against the matchups that actually beat this deck, per the metagame notes above. Board in graveyard hate answers against decks that respect the mill plan, and lean on Metallic Rebuke and Portable Hole to buy time in the matchups where you're racing rather than comboing.

This is not a deck you finish tuning alone. It rewards the same loop I wrote about for tuning any MTG deck with your playgroup on Archidekt: play it, note what actually beat you, adjust the sideboard split, and bring the updated 75 back to the table. If your group runs a regular Commander night alongside Modern, this is exactly the kind of list that's worth proxying up and testing against real decks before you commit to the paper cards. The same logic holds if your playgroup mixes formats night to night: whether you're drafting fresh boosters at home or running a dedicated Modern night, get new tech to the table before you trust it.

Twenty years ago Grinding Station was the whole plan, propped up by whatever zero-cost creature I could find. Today it's a supporting piece in a deck that's actually good, and getting to run that loop back with Emry, Portable Hole, and Loki around it is the best kind of Magic nostalgia there is. If you want to proxy this list and get it to the table, set up a free Modern night on Tabletop Time with a quorum, so the session only locks in once enough of your group actually confirms.