Dominaria Remastered is filled with artifacts from all overMagic: The Gathering’s history. Some of the oldest and strangest pieces of metal return to this grand set of reprints. It’s clear these colorless gems will stand the test of time, building into the meta.
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Artifacts aren’t just utility spells. You can build your entire deck around some of these. Just look at what Urza has been able to do in his legendary career. From disruption to damage, these artifacts can go in decks of all stripes. Control players get cards that can slow the game down, while aggro and tribal builders get portals to bring out the big beasts. Even MTG’s own iteration of the “Infinity Gauntlet” makes an appearance.
10Ornithopter
Every MTG player needs to cast at least one zero mana spell before they’re done. Ornithopter adds a free floater (with a 0/2 body and flying) to your growing artifact army. Don’t discount the power of that keyword. Think of Ornithopter as a top advance agent in yourninjutsu ninja deck.
Ornithopter also takes part in some four-card and five-card combos that go infinite like butter. Pair the thopter with effects that want repeated spell casts, and win the day for a grand total of zero mana spent.
9Damping Sphere
This Thran relic has spent ten thousand years doingnothing- and wants another thousand years at your table. Damping Sphere favors a control strategy to counter fast decks that love to ramp many spells together each turn.
Lands that double from enchantments or other battlefield effects will now only produce extra colorless mana. The more spells you cast per turn, the more expensive they become. For only two mana, the Damping Sphere makes every spell count and becomes the centerpiece of mana control plans.
8Crawlspace
Crawlspace turns the combat zone of your game into a rather narrow hallway. Mass creature decks will have a hard time beating this card, as it hinders any attack plan using more than two creatures.
With Crawlspace, a control deck only needs a pair of big blockers to buy time for their finishers. It turns out this simple three-mana artifact can provide defense as strong as a castle wall. Commander leads thatforceopponents to attack, like Basandra, Battle Seraph or Thantis, the Warweaver, favor Crawlspace’s battlefield-defining ability.
7Icy Manipulator
“Tap target land” effects are quite rare in MTG for the sake of the player experience. Tapping down lands, let alone artifacts and creatures too, is an especially invasive strategy, disallowing a deck from doing what it wants to. Icy Manipulator does just what its name suggests.
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This four-mana artifact can shut down attackers, make them vulnerable to removal, lock up rival artifacts, and more. And in what may be Magic’s most simple but effective combo, companion your Icy Manipulator with Winter Orb and prepare for a cold-blooded game.
6Jester’s Cap
The archetypaljesteris a force of not only comedy butchaos. Jester’s Cap lets you ‘jokerify’ your opponents by peeking through their entire deck for the three cards closest to their heart, only toexilethem. Ha!
MTG’s jester is malevolently controlled by their cap, who laughs back at the audience by knifing jokes directly into their deck. Jester’s Cap and the lesser known Dimir (Blue/Black) Commander Umbris, Fear Manifest are a match made in heaven. However, in general, Jester’s Cap may not be a card you should play with friends if you wish tostayfriends.
5Triskelion
Triskelion can fling +1/+1 counters like bullets, one counter for one damage to any target. The triangular robot wants to absorb more, double, and otherwise proliferate the counters on its body.
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Another combo piece, Triskelion rumbles into infinity alongside Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Heliod, Sun-Crowned. For a more controlled approach, Experiment Kraj gives Triskelion a buddy cop on the battlefield. Produce and fire off +1/+1 counters back to back, with the abilities shared between the two monstrosities of steel and biomatter.
4Cryptic Gateway
Cryptic Gateway’s purpose is anything but cryptic. This golden door wants dragons, demons, and angels flying right through it. Imagine cheating out Eldrazi with this thing. Goblins activating this effect many times over is just as scary.
Cryptic Gateway is a tribal deck builder’s dream. The drawback is that you have to man at least two creatures at the gate, who could be attacking instead. But since the artifact itself does not tap, the “tap two untapped creatures you control:” can be resolved for as many duos as you have.
3Legacy Weapon
What a card. This latest print of Legacy Weapon is quite a view. All forms of mana must coalesce to produce this kind of power. The seven-mana artifact wants rainbow mana to unlock its laser beam. Build for it, and “exile target permanent” will soon roll off the tongue of the five-color mage at the helm alongside Gerrard and the gang.
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Legacy Weapon represents the culmination of Dominaria’s storylines, between Urza and Yawgmoth, with the destinies of the Weatherlight crew achieved. This artifact cannot be returned from a graveyard butcanbe fired multiple times in one turn and have its exiling blast doubled by the Lithoform Engine.
2Urza’s Incubator
Urza’s Incubator provides mass tribal support. Two less mana to cast all your creature spells means your deck can marshal its forces twice as fast. Tribes that feature heavy colorless mana costs are set to take full advantage of this discounting effect.
The more creature instances of at least two colorless in their mana cost, the better. Dragons, Wurms, Angels, and Dinosaurs are examples that benefit from incubation. Urza’s Incubator is an inexpensive artifact play at only three mana, and it’s now a mythic rare for good reason.
1Gauntlet of Power
At last, Magic’s Infinity Gauntlet. Not unlimited power, but quite a boost for mono-color decks. All your creatures get +1/+1 and all your basic lands produce double mana. Don the gauntlet, and your chances of winning have probably just doubled.
The flip side of Gauntlet of Power is that it will affect your opponent’s creatures of the same color too. Rival mono-color decks of the same stripe get an opportunity to see whose deck is trulybuilt different. To fully unlock the gauntlet’s boon, consider X spells that can fully utilize all that extra mana.
