Welcome all to the Daily Dose of War of the Spark, where today I’ll be talking about 3 new cards that focus on you guessed it, artifacts! Although so far there doesn’t seem to be many artifacts in the set, there are some planeswalkers with very specific abilities involving artifacts that are hoping that some get added soon. War of the Spark isn’t an artifact set, but it is choosing to mix in some colored artifacts as well as some other creatures and such in the set. This will allow these planeswalkers to have some toys to play with. One of the planeswalkers you won’t be opening in a War of the Spark booster pack anytime soon though as it’s the buy-a-box promo for the set!
This planeswalker has been synonymous with artifacts for years. Here is the buy-a-box promo Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge.
As you can see, this card is built to be in a deck full of wonderful artifacts. Let’s look at the abilities for this planeswalker.
Creature and planeswalker spells you cast have affinity for artifacts. – I never thought I would see the day where affinity was printed as a keyword on a Standard-legal Magic card. True that it is only on a 6 mana planeswalker, but it will certainly have an impact for all your future spells once Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge hits the battlefield. I also like how it affects all creatures including artifact creatures.
[+2]: Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge deals X damage to each opponent, where X is the number of artifacts you control. You gain X life. – A nice little drain life of your opponent on a +2 loyalty ability is nice. That will put it at a strong 7 loyalty to begin with. Using this ability could be quite the life total swing depending on how the game has been setup up to this point.
[-3]: Return target artifact card from your graveyard to your hand. – This is a great ability to help you get back from the graveyard a key artifact that you might need to win the game. You might even be able to cast it for cheap if it’s a creature since it will have affinity for artifacts.
[-8]: Exile the top ten cards of your library. Put all artifact cards from among them onto the battlefield. – This ultimate ability that isn’t that far away after casting Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge. Throw in a proliferate trigger and you could be using this ability on the turn after you cast him.
If you are looking to create a bunch of artifacts, this next planeswalker is for you. Here is Saheeli, Sublime Artificer.
This card looks like the planeswalker/artifact version of Young Pyromancer but better since it triggers on all noncreature spells not just instants and sorceries. Let’s look at the abilities for this planeswalker.
Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, create a 1/1 colorless Servo artifact creature token. – This is a planeswalker where it’s all about creating artifacts, but you don’t need to be playing this in an artifact deck for it to be successful. This would shine in a deck like Izzet Drakes, which casts multiple noncreature spells a turn. This would fill your battlefield with 1/1 colorless Servo tokens quickly.
[-2]: Target artifact you control becomes a copy of another target artifact or creature you control until end of turn, except it's an artifact in addition to its other types. – In continuing with the Izzet Drakes deck, you can use this ability to take one of your 1/1 Servo tokens and copy for example an Enigma Drake that you just cast or already have on the battlefield. This will creatre tons of damage in a quick amount of time.
Finally, we have the colorless planeswalker that will fit into any deck, Karn, the Great Creator.
They have creatured another 4 mana Karn to be able to put into our decks. Let’s look at the abilities for this planeswalker.
Activated abilities of artifacts your opponents’ control can't be activated. – This one-sided Stony Silence will be great to counter any artifacts your opponent might have on the battlefield. There are some games where this ability won’t really do much, but there will be some instances where it will leave your opponent with some dead cards in their deck.
[+1]: Until your next turn, up to one target noncreature artifact becomes an artifact creature with power and toughness each equal to its converted mana cost. – Once again, this ability will come in handy if you have the right cards in your deck. With the right build though you could maybe have a 6/6 The Immortal Sun going into battle.
[-2]: You may choose an artifact card you own from outside the game or in exile, reveal that card, and add it to your hand. – This can allow you to get a key artifact from your sideboard or deck like Sorcerous Spyglass to shut down an opponents' card.
There you have it, 3 planeswalkers tailor made to be put into a Grixis artifact deck. Let your deckbuilding wheels start turning. Thanks again for reading the Daily Dose of War of the Spark. Join me again tomorrow as I end week number two with a look at some Gruul cards that look to bring back the smash.
