MTG Salvation

Inspiring Statuary

At its worst, it's a 3 mana rock that taps for 1, and can't be used for other artifacts (or to pay for activated/triggered abilities).

But... could it be better than that? Does anyone who use it? What with?

I am building a Clue deck I will be including it in. Anything making artifact tokens and Unwinding clock I guess.

I've been happily running it in my Azami deck alongside Trail of Evidence. Started of as a budget way for not having fast mana rocks and been actually enjoying it since. It's no real replacement for them as those mana rocks are just more efficient, more competitive builds will consider three mana CMC too high since it comes down a turn later, only generates colorless and as mentioned can only be used on non-artifact things.

But I found that the incidental mana generation it provides can add up already, depending on what artifacts you already run of course, there are a few that have static abilities which gain additional uses with Inspiring Statuary. Though even Lotus Petal can benefit from it, as you don't have to sacrifice it with Statuary out unless you need the colored mana.

And yeah like MRHblue said, if you can get some artifact token generation going then its going to quickly produce more and more mana. It's why I run Trail as I'll be casting enough instants and sorceries when my deck goes off, providing me with more mana the more I do essentially. With the advantage of having additional card draw options as well with clue tokens.

Again, it's by no means perfect but I've been enjoying it enough to keep it around in my deck.

I run it in my Kozilek deck and I've found it to be pretty useful. The bulk of the deck's non-land cards are artifacts, so while it doesn't let me cast them, it is usually tapping for a decent amount of "mana" and it does let me cast the most important card, my general. It's also an out against Null Rod/Stony Silence, which are not unheard of in my meta, locking down all my mana rocks.

Another potentially useful place for the card is in an equipment-centric voltron deck. Being able to tap your swords to pay for your spells is a nice trick.

I use it in decks that play Winter Orb, Static Orb, etc. Being able to turn a symmetrical effect into a one-sided effect at instant speed while also ramping your Blue Sun's Zenith is not bad!

It can also be good if you have a lot of artifacts that don't get tapped for abilities, like equipment.

Ahem...

There are also plenty of non-artifact cards which produce artifact tokens. (Especially in Kaladesh block! Servo tokens, anyone?) And it's good with artifacts you generally don't tap. (This would include equipment, spellbombs, monuments/medallions, that sort of thing.)

Beyond that, it can be used with Increasing Confusion/Comet Storm/Exsanguinate/Entreat the Angels/etc. as a win condition in an artifact deck.

It's baller in my King Macar deck. Tapping gold tokens and vehicles to cast something and then sacrificing gold to cast something else is powerful.

Works well in my Nazahn equipment deck. Agree, basically a rock by itself as worst case.

I use it for Nahiri, the Lithomancer deck, turning equipments into stones.