MTG Salvation

The main "artifacts-matter" cards:

In general, I find that this deck is most often found within either a blue or blue-black control shell or a UG ramp shell. It ends up doing one or both of the following:
1) Ramping mana quickly to expensive spells, particularly Sundering Titan / Eldrazi. The core here is that artifact acceleration can often be both huge card advantage and very explosive (e.g. 3 mana out of one card from Thran Dynamo, Grim Monolith, and Gilded Lotus), enabling one to quickly supply a bigger threat than the opponent.
2) Tinkering into a ridiculous creature. This isn't that dissimilar from reanimator, and typically uses many of the same enablers (especially tutors) as well as targets (Sphinx of the Steel Wind, Sundering Titan)

What else do you run, or should be considered important to the strategy? (No need to list every artifact--a critical mass is clearly important.)

3) Aggressive I'd also like to have a more aggressive version of the deck--perhaps a Tempered Steel / Robots / Shrapnel Blast - style deck--focusing on what is basically "artifact tribal" effects -- using cards like Blade Splicer, Signal Pest, Cranial Plating and other equipment, etc. Suggestions for whether this works in your cube / playgroup, and how to achieve such a thing, are welcome.

Thanks for starting this thread. I was just asking whether one existed in another thread.

One issue I have: You mention the artifact acceleration "the more broken the better" and that the deck ends up "Ramping mana quickly to expensive spells". Doesn't this just trample over Green as the ramp colour? Why bother playing all of the Green ramp if I can just artifact it up?

Cheers.

I no longer support the artifact deck explicitly. However someone actually managed to almost create a mono-brown deck in my cube last friday though. It was all artifacts and just a small few blue spells like Tinker.

I don't think Tinker requires much support to be awesome. Just need a few mana rocks, Wurmcoil, Myr Battlesphere, Sundering Titan and you're set.

Quote from marbor

Artifact mana stealing green's ramp theme is worrisome, but at the moment I'm fine with it. Green has a lot more to offer than ramp, and is the only place to find 1-drop mana acceleration (in my unpowered Cube at least).

At the moment, I'm fighting hard to ensure that Green has something to offer that people can easily identify with. I'm currently down to ramp and midrange cards, basically. If a lot of ramp get swallowed up by artifact mana, then that gets lost as well.

As for 1-drop mana acceleration, that depends what you're running. Besides the moxen, there are also Mana Crypt, Mana Vault and of course Sol Ring. I don't run any of these, nor Signets or most other artifacts that produce coloured mana.

This is why I'm interested in this thread - what cards are absolutely essential to the archetype? Is it just the enablers? Or do you need the broken mana rocks for this archetype to be attractive (assuming you don't draw Tinker)?

Quote from Amadeus8574

At the moment, I'm fighting hard to ensure that Green has something to offer that people can easily identify with. I'm currently down to ramp and midrange cards, basically. If a lot of ramp get swallowed up by artifact mana, then that gets lost as well.

Well, if you supported green aggro pretty hard green would have that as well. Green ramp and artifact ramp are not mutually exclusive, and just because artifact ramp is available won't mean that no one drafts the green ramp. Not everything is available every draft; the artifact ramp is highly desired so getting a Kodama's Reach or BoP late is helpful to the green player. You can also play both types of ramp in the same deck.

This is why I'm interested in this thread - what cards are absolutely essential to the archetype? Is it just the enablers? Or do you need the broken mana rocks for this archetype to be attractive (assuming you don't draw Tinker)?

I would say the broken manafacts really help but I'm not sure they are essential. The artifact deck comes together once in a while in my cube and it usually does involve the Moxen and a signet or two. I think the most important cards for the deck (excepting Moxen) are:

Blue signets or talismans
Academy Ruins
Tolarian Academy
Tezzeret, the Seeker
Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
Tinker
Thirst for Knowledge
The typical Tinker targets (Sundering Titan, Myr Battlesphere, Wurmcoil, Trike)

Goblin Welder is also good for this deck, especially if you are pushing reanimator at the same time (Discard Wurmcoil to Oona's Prowler, Welder away your Izzet Signet for the Wurmcoil).

Cheers,
rant

Ya, my artifact support package is going to look like this:

Tezzeret the Seeker
Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
Tolarian Academy
Academy Ruins
Thirst for Knowledge
Trinket Mage
Tinker
Goblin Welder

And the usual broken fast mana (6 Moxen, Vault, Crypt, Ring, Monolith, Lotus) but also including Mind Stone, Everflowing Chalice, Chrome Mox, Mind Stone, W/U Talisman, W/B Talisman and Coalition Relic.

The usual artifact creatures and artifact fatties (Wurmcoil, Titan, Battlesphere) but also having Triskelion and Sphinx of the Steel Wind.

Plus all the other regular players of good blue cards and good artifacts to go with it.

Quote from Magic-Jiffen

I wouldn't play Sphinx of the Steel Wind because she is exclusively a Tinker target and to difficault to hard cast.

greetz

Sphinx is also a great reanimator target, and a lot of cubes that push the artifact deck also push reanimator. Also, I think Sphinx was hardcast more often than any other tricolor card I ran back when I ran them, save Wild Nacatl. It was hard cast at least as often as Sundering Titan.

Cheers,
rant

I'm going back to 450. My thread has all the details.

I never liked the big mana rocks at all. I won't be playing any of them at 450.

And Sphinx is far more than just a Tinker target. It's easily cast in artifact builds, it is often reanimated and it can be cast in esper control.

Quote from Magic-Jiffen »

The Sphinx was hardcasted 0-1 in two years.
Sundering Titan ~50 times - but he was also higher picked and more played.
That is the experience in my playgroup

Ok, well that's a different experience than we've had with Sphinx over the years.

Is it worth revisiting Copy Artifact? The card is much more limited than Phyrexian Metamorph, but there are a lot of targets to copy for a mere 1U.

If you have a fair number of 3-5cc artifacts, Karn, Silver Golem is far better than he looks. There are some people in my playgroup clamoring to have him put back in now that the artifact.dec is up and running again. I may not be able to hold them off for long.

Copy Artifact isn't a bad card at all. There's a lot of targets (and a lot of good ones) for 2-mana.

Hi wtwlf -

Just to confirm (I took a quick glance at your list), you're not running signets? I ask because you included the two talismans over their respective counterparts? Any reason for that?

I don't run the signets. I'd only be interested in the blue ones anyways. In RU and UG, I have better guild support than the mana rocks, and in UW and UB, I have Talisman which I prefer. The talisman can be immediately tapped for mana, which I much prefer, because there are a lot of 1cc cards on T2 I want to have access to after playing a Talisman, and I lose out on all of those plays with the Signets. The talisman are also better at dividing my resources between turns and phases, which I like to have more control over.

I am curious as well. If your cube is "unpowered" does this deck still function without taking away the "ramp" deck from green?

It's a lot harder to get it to work in an unpowered cube, but it doesn't really take anything away from green's ramp strategy.

Also, in unpowered it can be a lot more awkward simply because you have to run worse artifacts to make it work. I wouldn't push hard to support the artifact deck with stuff like tezz without the moxen. Although I could see running a cube where you played 5 moxen and no recall, walk or lotus, if you really wanted to.

I think it functions in a different manner than green ramp. Both are solid approaches in my cube, but they intermingle very little.

I will say though: If you're unpowered and want to support artifact.dec, we've found a critical mass of 2CMC artifacts to be absolutely mandatory, followed by a couple large stones to better reach your big plays.

I've been supporting this archetype for about 6 months now in my unpowered 450, and I've had some really good luck with it. Tinker is obviously very powerful, but pushing both this and reanimator lets you run great fatties like Sphinx of the Steel Wind, even if it isn't going to get cast all that often.

The one thing I found after a lot of testing was that both Tezzerets are plenty good in an unpowered version, but that Tolarian Academy simply doesn't do enough to take up a blue slot. I think Academy would be a lot better if I ran power, but we finally ended up cutting it this week after it underperformed for so long.

What about the Wildfire deck? It's generally a red control deck where you pick up artifact mana, Goblin Welder, and a few big artifact finishers... Heck you even want Crucible of Worlds to go with your lands that disrupt lands while helping you recover from your own Wildfires or Sundering Titans, and you should be ahead if you're getting things like Avalanche Riders as is... It still holds true that this deck wants mana rocks more than anything, but it quickly becomes an artifact deck that can splash colours in certain situations for things like Tinker.

You're also not upset to pick up things like Icy Manipulator or Ring of Gix in that deck as they can just as easily hit lands as creatures.

I have a lot of time for Vedalken Archmage here - card advantage is king, and he's in blue (which you'll inevitably be drafting anyway if you're going artifact-heavy, thanks to Tinker, Fabricate, Etherium Sculptor, Grand Architect etc. etc.). He's certainly not the worst card in my cube. Surprised no-one else has mentioned it yet... does anyone else even run it?

Well here's the thing about Archmage, he's 4 mana for an 0/2 and an ability that requires you to play more cards in the future, that's pretty bad, even in terms of a straight up MD5 draft.

More so, he requires you to PLAY artifacts, you can't simply trigger him off of a Tinker or Welder which is the nail in the coffin. Nor do artifact lands trigger him I think, as lands aren't cast.

Quote from Geocide

Where my cube's at right now is the choice between a quick artifact deck with stuff like signal pest, master of etherium and ethersworn canonist or a rampy tinker deck with artifact mana, grand architect and some big stuff to ramp to or tinker.

I think you'll find big mana artifact.dec to be much easier to support than affinity-style aggro. I mean, just too much of artifact aggro requires a massive critical mass and not getting sniped by other aggro players whose desires overlap with yours. It just isn't deep enough to support imo.

Big mana tho... that thing gets stupid and has a much larger pool to pull from. Just make sure you run every 2-drop manastone you can if you're unpowered.

I play Everflowing Chalice in my cube. I think it's a great mana rock. The flexibility is quite valuable, and it's 0cc is relevant with several different cube cards.

The artifact deck is damaged severely if you're both unpowered and ban fast mana. Which is too bad, because it's a really awesome archetype.

Quote from MagicFever

Thats because I want it back! If adding fast mana (Sol Ring, Grim Monolith and Mana Vault) would the archetype viable you think? The question that comes to my mind than would be. How good/bad is fast mana in an unpowered cube.

Sol Ring is often called the best card in cube--nearly always picked over Moxen if the option is available. Mana Vault is often picked over Moxen as well. Personally, I consider both of these cards "power." Grim Monolith is really, really good too, but probably not quite as good as the other two.

Basically, if your cube is unpowered, these will likely be the best cards in your cube.

Personally, I've an unpowered cube--even less powerful than most unpowered cubes, as I don't include most cards I deem "R&D mistakes". The artifact deck was drafted just the other day and it performed solidly. Basically it was a Ub control deck featuring a ton of artifacts and exploiting the synergy between them, and it worked well, losing I believe only to the table's only red drafter.

Quote from MagicFever

Do you have a list of your cube here?

I am well aware that these cards would be the best cards in cube. I like your last sentence and that is how I would look at this kind of deck, too. Basically as I said I would add 2 PW and a few more artifacts (2-5) and thats it.

I don't have a list here (I have one from like a year ago but that was several iterations ago and has little in common with the current list). But looking at your list, if you're mostly looking for mana sources, I would consider:

• Grim Monolith
  
• Worn Powerstone
  
• Thran Dynamo
  
• Everflowing Chalice
  
• Basalt Monolith

Various 2-mana Stones (Fellwar Stone, Sphere of the Suns, Prismatic Lens)

The stones may be less important because you have some signets and Mind Stone already in there.
I also noticed that you do not run Phyrexian Metamorph. That can be a very helpful Copy Artifact (great on Thran Dynamo, various equipment, Wurmcoil Engine, etc.) as well as a cheap Clone. Finally, I often consider Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre and Kozilek, Butcher of Truth fantastic artifact ramp targets because Thran Dynamo et. al. just create so much mana.

Personally, I would avoid Sol Ring and Mana Vault, but obviously that's up to you.