Welcome all to a brand-new season of the Daily Dose. I'll be writing each day about some of the new cards from Core Set 2021 coming out in early July. It is great to be back talking about some new Magic cards and being a Core Set, some awesome reprints. I'll save the reprints for another day, as today I am going to be talking about two new artifacts and an artifacts matters card. Artifacts are a card type that they have strayed away from being too large of a focus for any set, as sometimes they can be too powerful in numbers. It is great to have a few strong ones in each set though and Core Set 2021 does not disappoint.
First off is an artifact that I would describe as a super enlarged Chromatic Lantern. Here is Chromatic Orrery.
Chromatic Orrery
This artifact is a whopping 7 mana to get onto the battlefield, but if you can ever cast it, it can be more powerful than cards like Gilded Lotus and Chromatic Lantern combined. There are dreams of having this on the battlefield alongside Niv-Mizet, Reborn so that you can draw 5 cards per turn, but most often that will not happen. I see this having an impact in Limited and Commander, but not so much in any regular Constructed formats. The casting cost is too high, but if there ever does become a deck that is able to play Chromatic Orrery, chances are it will win the game.
Next up is an artifact creature that does not like planeswalkers. Here is Sparkhunter Masticore.
Sparkhunter Masticore
Three mana for a 3/4 is solid, even if you must discard a card to cast it. Immediately I think of the fact is has protection against Teferi, Time Reveler, and any other planeswalker that wants to try and remove it from the battlefield. It's great against planeswalker control decks as it can get rid of their loyalty at a low, low price of one generic mana per loyalty. Sparkhunter Masticore also has protection from everything else for the cost of 3 mana per turn since you can make it indestructible. There will some decks that are able to take advantage of the fact that you need to discard a card like Bant Control, who wouldn’t mind putting an Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath into their own graveyard. The same would apply for Rakdos and Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger. Do not forget that 3 power on a 3-mana creature is a quick clock for your opponent, and the 4th point of toughness goes a long way to winning battles in combat.
Finally, a red Dragon that's not an artifact itself but wants you to get greedy and collect as many as you can. Here is Gadrak, the Crown-Scourge.
Gadrak, the Crown-Scourge
I see this card going straight into my Rakdos or Jund Sacrifice decks. I cannot wait until I can sacrifice a creature to my Witch’s Oven like our old favourite Cauldron Familiar to get two artifacts for each time it dies. With this combination in play, you should have four artifacts in no time. Even if you cannot attack right away, you are left with a strong 5/4 blocking creature. I also like that you can gain Treasure tokens if your opponent’s creatures die as well. This should not be too hard to do in a deck famous for removal spells. If you ever need to sacrifice itself to Witch’s Oven, you will also get 2 Food tokens instead of 1.
As you can see, artifacts will play an important role in Core Set 2021. We'll have to wait and see if their impact in Standard is short or prolonged. Thanks again for joining me on the Daily Dose of Core Set 2021. Join me again tomorrow as the journey continues!
