During Edge of Eternities spoiler season, some players were hopeful that the set would have what it takes to make Standard artifacts a top tier archetype. With payoffs like Pinnacle Emissary working their way into the format, this didn’t feel too far-fetched. Interestingly, though, Pinnacle Emissary really hasn’t panned out in a Standard setting as of yet.
In fact, just today, a unique Izzet artifacts build that completely eschews Pinnacle Emissary put up an undefeated run in a Magic Online Standard League. This archetype instead relies on abusing a handful of powerful synergies and using them to take over the long game. If you enjoy grinding your opponents into dust, you’re in for a good time.
Intriguing Synergies
At a baseline, the goal behind this Izzet artifacts shell is to find your payoffs and use them to generate value turn after turn. There are a handful of cards present that heavily reward you for constructing a deck with tons of cheap artifacts.
First, we have Weapons Manufacturing. Weapons Manufacturing is a new tool from Edge of Eternities and is your biggest incentive for playing this deck. Any time one of your nontoken artifacts enters, you’ll get a Munitions token for your troubles that, when it leaves the battlefield, deals two damage to any target.
Notably, you do need ways to sacrifice these tokens in order to start sending damage everywhere. Fortunately, there are a number of sacrifice outlets available.
Your primary sacrifice outlet, Legion Extruder, is also another elite artifact payoff. Legion Extruder and Weapons Manufacturing is a match made in Heaven. As long as you can keep casting artifacts, you’ll continue to produce Munitions tokens that serve as perfect fodder for Legion Extruder’s activated ability. You’ll start flooding the board with 3/3s in no time.
Even in games where you don’t draw Weapons Manufacturing, Legion Extruder can still take things over singlehandedly. Cards like Collector’s Vault give you consistent fuel to feed Legion Extruder, so you never have to worry about sacrificing meaningful board presence.
This can be a bit mana intensive, but luckily, The Enigma Jewel can pay the activation costs of both Legion Extruder and Collector’s Vault just fine. Curving The Enigma Jewel into Collector’s Vault will let you start your Treasure production and hand smoothing immediately.
Repurposing Bay Package
Where things really start to get out of control is when you add Repurposing Bay into the mix. With Weapons Manufacturing out, you can continuously sacrifice Munitions tokens to grab one-drop artifacts like Dusk Rose Reliquary, which in turn will net you more Munitions tokens when they enter. Converting a one-mana artifact into Legion Extruder has its benefits, too.
Unsurprisingly, there are potent tutor targets up the curve. At one mana, grabbing Ghost Vacuum can be essential versus Yuna, Hope of Spira decks. At three mana, Perilous Snare serves as a solid catch-all answer.
Perhaps the coolest card to search up lies at four mana with Phantom Train. If you’ve managed to produce an array of Treasure and Munitions tokens, Phantom Train threatens to grow quite large.
In some games, you’ll even be able to use Phantom Train in conjunction with Gleaming Geardrake to set up lethal out of nowhere! Gleaming Geardrake grows whenever you sacrifice an artifact. If you’re confident your opponent doesn’t have removal at the ready for Geardrake, going all in and sacrificing your board of artifacts to enable an enormous, evasive attack is a great option to have.
Matchups
Overall, for such an off-the-wall strategy, there’s a lot to like about its position in the metagame. Many top tier strategies aren’t well equipped to break up your artifact synergies.
Dimir midrange, for example, is at your mercy once you stick Repurposing Bay, Legion Extruder, and Weapons Manufacturing. With four copies of Torch the Tower in your deck and plenty of trinkets to Bargain away, you can often cleanly deal with Enduring Curiosity when it lands.
Kaito, Bane of Nightmares is your only main concern, and even there, Legion Extruder and Munitions tokens can reduce Kaito’s loyalty down pretty fast. Perilous Snare is a great answer to Kaito, too.
Versus Izzet Cauldron, you do have to worry about Vivi Ornitier and Agatha’s Soul Cauldron running away with things. Most of the deck’s creatures also have three toughness, so they don’t die to Legion Extruder’s trigger or a Munitions token getting sacrificed. The good news, at least, is that Repurposing Bay can grab answers to Vivi and Cauldron to slow the opponent down.
Any matchup where Legion Extruder and Munitions tokens can reliably kill opposing creatures, such as mono-red aggro, you’re feeling pretty good. Where this deck can struggle, though, is against players that are prepared with lots of answers to artifacts.
Azorius control, for instance, utilizes Seam Rip, Pinnacle Starcage, and sometimes even Ultima as the ultimate hammer. Blue decks in general have access to Annul as well, which can be annoying to play around.
Izzet artifacts has a lot of air in the deck, so in games where Legion Extruder, Repurposing Bay, and Weapons Manufacturing get answered on sight, closing games isn’t easy. Nonetheless, with artifact decks few and far between in Standard, many players just aren’t prepared to handle what Izzet artifacts brings to the table. There’s plenty of room to explore within this space, so keep this archetype on your radar.
Stick with us here at mtgrocks.com: the best site for Magic: The Gathering coverage!
