Two of the most beloved strategies in all of MTG are Artifacts and Tokens. Both themes offer incredible build-around potential that can snowball quickly, making them perfect archetypes for EDH. Thanks to the wealth of artifact tokens popular in the format, the themes tend to blend seamlessly, as well.
This makes it all the more intriguing that a powerful artifact token generator from Darksteel continues to fly under the radar. The card is efficient, easy to abuse, and even opens the door for some game-breaking infinite combos.
MTG Genesis Chamber
Despite its simple design, Genesis Chamber can provide a lot of utility across a variety of archetypes. As a two-drop, this artifact can come down early and start flooding the board with Myr tokens. The only downside is that Genesis Chamber provides a symmetrical effect, so you need some way to break parity.
The simplest way to do this is to just get more value out of Genesis Chamber than your opponents. Commanders like Norin, the Wary, who repeatedly leave the battlefield and reenter, go a long way towards ensuring you get the better end of the deal. Similarly, mass blink effects like Morningtide’s Light are capable of netting you a ton of tokens at once.
As you continue to build out a big board of Myr, any effects that reward you for making tokens kick things up a notch. This includes mass pump effects like Urtet, Remnant of Memnarch, or through Aristocrat payoffs like Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER.
There are even some Commanders that can turn Genesis Chamber’s symmetrical effect into a personal benefit. Toxrill, the Corrosive is a great example, turning all of your opponent’s tokens into Slugs. Kambal, Profiteering Mayor instead copies the tokens directly, amplifying the value with its lifestealing triggers.
Outside of maximizing your tokens, tapping Genesis Chamber can prevent your opponents from using it. This makes the card an interesting addition in Urza, Lord High Artificer decks, especially since you can tap the tokens for more mana.
Infinite Combos
Beyond being a generically powerful token generator, Genesis Chamber also enables a multitude of infinite combos. One of the more powerful options involves pairing Urza, Lord High Artificer’s mana-producing ability with Deadeye Navigator‘s blink effect. With all three cards in play and Urza and Deadeye Navigator Soulbonded, all you need to do is tap two of your other artifacts for mana and blink out Urza. When Urza reenters, you’ll get a Construct token as well as a Myr token that you can then tap for mana to blink out Urza again, making infinite tokens.
Another style of combo you can pull off is infinite death triggers with Nim Deathmantle, Ashnod’s Altar, and any Blood Artist effect. To kick this off, you need to sacrifice a nontoken creature to Altar, triggering Nim Deathmantle. After paying four mana to bring the creature back to play, you’ll also create a Myr token from Genesis Chamber. These two creatures can then be sacrificed to Altar, and the four floating mana can be sunk into Nim Deathmantle’s trigger again to repeat the process.
A Hidden Gem
Despite all of these different ways to take advantage of Genesis Chamber’s trigger, the artifact remains surprisingly underplayed in Commander. The card sees play in under 47,000 decks, according to EDHREC, which isn’t exceptionally high considering that it’s colorless.
This low demand makes Genesis Chamber all the more affordable, with near-mint Darksteel copies selling for under $5. So long as you don’t mind the Chucky Secret Lair variant, you can grab the artifact for even less. While it’s not quite a budget card, Genesis Chamber remains extremely accessible to most players.
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