Artifacts are, literally and mechanically, a huge part of New Phyrexia inMagic: The Gathering. As the end result of Yawgmoth’s vision, the Plane is populated by horrific amalgamations of flesh and metal, built and bred for war, with artifice seeping from every dank lair and shining vestibule.
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It’s no surprise, then, that All Will Be One, our latest Phyrexian field trip, features a plethora of interesting artifact cards for players to use. From grand monuments to innocuous objects, there’s no shortage of options for those looking to move into the mechanical for their next Magic deck. We’ve filtered out the factory defects to bring you the ten most effective artifact cards in the set.
10Vat Of Rebirth
Reanimator strategieshave long been popular and viable in every competitive Magic format, and Vat of Rebirth presents an efficient, low-cost option for that style of deck. you’re able to get the Vat on the battlefield for just one mana, and from there, it will accumulate oil counters whenever another artifact or creature you control goes to the graveyard.
It’s worth noting that tokens do contribute to this, so sacrificing treasures, clues, etc. will add oil to your Vat. Once it’s full, you can pay three mana to bring back a creature of your choice from your graveyard. The lack of a sacrifice requirement on the Vat itself is surprising and pushes this from a limited-only card to a constructed contender.
9Mirran Safehouse
Mirran Safehouse is one of those brilliant build-around cards in Magic; the kind that sets your mind racing with possibilities that only expand the longer you think about them. A three mana do-nothing card by itself, it gains the activated abilities of all land cards in all graveyards, meaning that if there is a ceiling on this Safehouse, it’s a very, very high one.
The range of things this can do boggles the mind, especially when you factor in eternal formats and Commander. With a bit of milling, this can tap for multiple colours of mana easily. Beyond this, in a dedicated deck, you can add on a lot of extra utility and likely tee up a ridiculous combo as well.
8Encroaching Mycosynth
An evolved version of Commander staple Mycosynth Lattice, this card makes every permanent you own across every zone an artifact. This has a huge number of applications across a range of formats, as it opens up angles of interaction the game’s designers may not have intended.
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Cards that tutor for artifacts, or cheat them into play, tend to be much cheaper than those that do the same for creatures, meaning you can circumvent high mana costs for big threats with this card. It also provides a major boost to cards with an affinity for artifacts, letting all of your permanents in play contribute to reducing their cost.
7Monument To Perfection
Currently the only card that specifically interacts with the ‘Sphere’ land type introduced in All Will Be One, Monument to Perfection is an interesting option for mana-hungry decks. Paying three mana to add a land, even a specific one, from your deck to your hand is steep, and the ultimate payoff requiring nine different lands likelyconfines this card to Commanderfor the time being.
That said, the payoff is certainly worth it: a 9/9 monster with toxic 9 will end games fast, and the built-in protection of indestructible is a welcome addition that will let it stick around to do so. While slow, this could easily become part of a standard package in five-colour Commander decks for the rest of time.
6Conduit Of Worlds
Riffing on the iconic Crucible of Worlds, Conduit provides the same effect in a new, eco-friendly package. Not only does it let you play land cards from your graveyard, a powerful boon in self-mill strategies, but it also lets you play any other permanent cards from there as well, provided you don’t play anything else in the same turn.
This creates an unusual spin on a reanimation deck: one that pays full price for its creatures from the graveyard but does so with the help of lands that were drawn for ‘free’ by milling them. It’s at its best in specific strategies, but its base power is high enough to include in any midrange deck.
5Tablet Of Compleation
A card advantage engine that builds up slowly over time, Tablet of Compleation’s abilities match its Phyrexian nature perfectly. Coming down for two mana and tapping to gain an oil counter, the card does nothing for the first two turns it’s in play. Once it has two counters, however, it can tap for mana; once it has five, it becomes an incredibly efficient card draw option.
The Tablet’s generic costs and usefulness make it a candidate for just about any deck, but it excels in those that can distribute extra oil counters, such as decks with a proliferate sub theme. If your deck can get its card draw ability online early, then it’s worth adding a few copies of this to compleat the list.
4Ichormoon Gauntlet
A card to superchargeyour superfriends' deck, Ichormoon Gauntlet is a legitimate game-changer. A rare instance of a card granting your planeswalkers extra abilities, it gives every planeswalker you control a cost-free +1 that also ramps up any counter-based strategies you have in play, including poison and oil.
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The second ability is even better, however, letting you take extra turns provided you can amass enough loyalty counters on your planeswalkers. This shouldn’t be too hard, given that the card also lets you place a counter for each noncreature spell you cast. This is a potentially explosive artifact that your opponents will need to deal with right away.
3The Filigree Sylex
The Filigree Sylex is a versatile, powerful card. Slowly filling with oil as you tap it turn after turn, the Sylex gives you the option of sacrificing it to sweep away everything of a specific mana cost, like a worse Engineered Explosives. Alternatively, it lets you build up ten counters total to deal ten damage to any target, a line which, in most cases, will likely translate to ‘your opponent.’
The Sylex starts to shine when you consider its nuances, however. The oil removed for its second effect doesn’t need to be from the Sylex itself, so if you have a lot of oil in play, you can just drop this and immediately deal ten to your opponent. Combine this with Solphim, Mayhem Dominus foran in-set OTKthat looks surprisingly easy to pull off.
2Urabrask’s Forge
An interesting blend of grindy advantage engine and aggressive threat, Urabrask’s Forge will certainly bring down the hammer on your opponents. Building up oil and granting you a hasty trampler with proportionate power each turn, it puts your opponent on a clock from the moment it’s cast.
It’s the kind of card that can win you a bad Control matchup single-handedly without much support, but when you factor in the myriad ways to add more oil to cards in the set, it becomes a terrifying must-answer threat in any given situation.
1Staff Of Compleation
Many Magic cards sacrifice raw power in favour of versatility, and Staff of Compleation may be the prime example of this design style. Offering four different options, as well as the option of paying mana to untap the Staff and use it more than once a turn, the range of possibilities here stretch as wide as the Phyrexian skyline.
The fact that each ability costs life instead of mana, along with the Staff’s low base cost, immediately brings it into constructed contention, where all four abilities can see use in different situations. Expect to see this Swiss Army Staff across the table from you in multiple formats from now on.
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