Artifacts are one of the strongest card types in Magic: the Gathering. With cards ranging from mechanical monstrosities to helpful automatons and legendary weapons to help conquer the battlefields, there are plenty of powerful cards to build a deck around.

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If you're looking to build an artifact-based deck but aren't sure where to start, we've assembled the best of the best for your decks. Whether you're looking to put together a powerful Commander list or need a one-of card as a little spice to your casual deck, any of these artifact cards will have a huge impact on your game.

Updated June 7, 2023, by Ryan Hay: Tons of new artifacts releasing all the time to Magic, and if you're in the business of building an artifact themed-deck, there's no end of powerful cards to pick from. Whether you're looking to upgrade your Commander deck or want to take on Modern with one of the most powerful artifact-themed Planeswalkers around, there are tons of great cards to pick up for your collection. Each artifact might do something different, filling various roles in decks depending on what goal you're trying to achieve.

13 Unwinding Clock

Image of the Unwinding Clock card in Magic: The Gathering, with art by Mike Bierek

If you're all in on an artifact deck, Unwinding Clock can keep your creatures on the defensive and give your other artifacts additional activations. With Unwinding Clock in play, all your artifacts untap during each other player's untap step.

There are plenty of cards that Unwinding Clock helps to reach greater power. Any mana rocks you have, like Sol Ring and Basalt Monolith, are reset every turn, giving you plenty of extra mana to play with during your opponent's turn to cast spells or activate the abilities of your other artifacts.

12 Arcbound Ravager

Image of the Arcbound Ravager card in Magic: The Gathering, with art by Kev Walker

One of Magic's old-school monsters on the battlefield, Arcbound Ravager was a staple in tournaments for years during its time in the Affinity decks. Even though it has fallen off in recent years, the Ravager can still terrorize the battlefield in the right deck.

Arcbound Ravager's instant speed sacrifice outlet for artifacts makes it so powerful, putting a +1/+1 counter on it for each artifact it consumes. It also comes into play with a +1/+1 counter on it already, and since it has modular, you can move its counters to another artifact creature when it dies. Load up another creature like Inkmoth Nexus or even a Blightsteel Colossus to push some additional infect damage over your opponent's blockers to win the game.

11 Darksteel Forge

Image of the Darksteel Forge card in Magic: The Gathering, with art by Martina Pilcerova

A very simple artifact with an exceptionally high cost, Darksteel Forge is a must-have for any artifact-based Commander deck. At nine mana, the Darksteel Forge grants all your artifacts the keyword indestructible, making them immune to any sort of effect that would destroy them, including spells and combat damage.

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You need to be careful with Darksteel Forge, though, since you can still be forced to sacrifice your artifacts through any number of spells or effects. You also need to watch if your creatures have taken lethal damage and an opponent can remove Darksteel Forge from the battlefield, either exiling it or putting it back in your hand, which will cause all your creatures to die to state-based actions.

10 Academy Ruins

Image of the Academy Ruins card in Magic: The Gathering, with art by Zoltan Boros and Babor Szikszai

While not an artifact, Academy Ruins helps you keep your artifact cards around for a long time thanks to its ability to return them from your graveyard to the top of your deck. The great thing about Academy Ruins is that you don't have to sacrifice it to use its ability, letting you repeat it over and over again.

An obvious combo with Academy Ruins is with the artifact Mindslaver, which can be sacrificed to take control of an opponent's turn. Even in a multiplayer format like Commander, you can still disrupt your opponent's plans with all sorts of shenanigans. Maybe you force your opponents to keep attacking each other or force them to use their Planeswalker's most powerful abilities on themselves.

9 Master Transmuter

Image of the Master Transmuter card in Magic: The Gathering, with art by Chippy

An extremely versatile creature, Master Transmuter lets you swap the artifacts you have in play with those in your hand, getting around the need to pay for high casting costs and the chance of your opponents countering your spells. For just one blue mana, you can tap Master Transmuter to return an artifact you control back to your hand to then put an artifact from your hand and put it on the battlefield.

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There are a few things you'll want to keep in mind with Master Transmuter before you start jamming it into your deck. If you don't have any other artifacts in play you want to bounce back to your hand, you can always choose to bounce itself since it is an artifact creature. The other important thing is since part of the cost is returning an artifact, that same artifact will be in your hand when the ability resolves.

8 Ashnod’s Altar

Image of the Ashnod's Altar card in Magic: The Gathering, with art by Greg Staples

An amazing artifact for almost any occasion, Ashnod's Altar fulfills two vital roles in Commander decks. This cheap artifact provides a free sacrifice outlet for your creatures and generates two generic mana each time you sacrifice a creature to it.

There are plenty of ways to put Ashnod's Alter to good use, with plenty of combos capable because of its ability. An easy artifact-based combo you can pull off with little work includes Myre Battlesphere and Nim Deathmantle. All you have to do is have all the cards in play, sacrifice the Battlesphere to the Altar, generating two mana. So long as you have two extra mana, you can pay four to return it to play with the Deathmantle attached to it while also creating four 1/1 Myr artifact creature tokens. Keep sacrificing the Myr Battlesphere and at least one Myr token to recur them endlessly, giving you infinite mana, tokens, and death triggers.

7 Steel Overseer

Image of the Steel Overseer  card in Magic: The Gathering, with art by Chris Rahn

Artifact creatures don't have very many creatures with Lord effects, creatures that grant all creatures of a specific type a boost to their stats or abilities. Steel Overseer might just be the best of its type, with a simple but effective activated ability to give your artifact creatures a permanent upgrade every turn.

You can tap Steel Overseer to put a +1/+1 counter on each artifact creature you control. Slowly ticking up your creatures can create a cascading effect to quickly wash over your opponents. Unlike other Lord effects, the boost that your artifact creatures gain is permanent since they're in the form of +1/+1 counters.

6 Tezzeret, Agent Of Bolas

Image of the Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas  card in Magic: The Gathering, with artby Aleksi Briclot

A constant villain in the Magic lore, Tezzeret is an artifact-themed planeswalker, so dedicated to his craft and his pursuit of power that he replaced much of his body with a magical metal called Etherium. As a planeswalker, Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas acts like another player on your side of the battlefield, capable of activating one of its abilities each turn so long as you can pay the cost in the form of loyalty counters.

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Tezzeret's first ability digs through your library to help find artifact cards and adds them to your hand, effectively giving you a filtered draw for artifacts. Its last ability is exceptionally easy to hit, requiring only four loyalty counters to activate, draining an opponent of life equal to twice the number of artifacts you control. This counts tokens, too. So if you've made plenty of Treasure tokens or copies of your artifacts, you could take out an opponent in just one activation.

5 Scourglass

Image of the Scourglass card in Magic: The Gathering, with art by Matt Cavotta

A one-sided board wipe that almost always works in your favor, Scourglass is a unique artifact that decimates the battlefield if not answered by your next turn. For just five mana, Scourglass can be tapped and sacrificed to destroy all permanents in play, excluding artifacts and lands.

You can only activate this ability on your upkeep, making it a little narrow in terms of use but still a powerful deterrent for your opponents. If you have a way to cheat it into play on an opponent's turn, say with a Master Transmuter, you can watch your opponents over commit to the battlefield just to disrupt all their plans.

4 Panharmonicon

Image of the Panharmonicon card in Magic: The Gathering, with art by Volkan Baga

Many of the best creatures and artifacts in Magic have some sort of enter the battlefield effect. Whether it's destroying something your opponent controls or helping you fix your lands, there are all sorts of powerful effects that Panharmonicon lets you double up on. This four-mana artifact triggers if an artifact or creature entering the battlefield causes a triggered ability of any permanent you control to trigger, adding a second trigger to the stack.

There are tons of extremely powerful effects that become even better when doubled up, like Portal to Phyrexia's ability to force your opponents to sacrifice three creatures when it comes into play, now forcing all your opponents to sacrifice six creatures instead. A great creature with Panharmonicon is Yarok, the Desecrated, a popular commander that functionally does the same thing but triggers every enter the battlefield of all permanents instead.

3 Fabricate

Image of the Fabricate card in Magic: The Gathering, with art by Warren Mahy

For most Commander decks, a well-timed tutor can turn the tide of a match. While a bit more specific than other tutor spells, Fabricate is a powerful tool in an artifact-themed deck. For just three mana, you can search your library for an artifact card, show all your opponents, and then add it to your hand.

Don't forget that you can use Fabricate to search up any type of artifact card, including any one of the numerous artifact lands that have made their way to Magic, as well as any artifact creature. In the right deck, Fabricate can be just as versatile as other tutors, grabbing practically any card for any situation.

2 Aetherflux Reservoir

Image of the Aetherflux Reservoir  card in Magic: The Gathering, with artby Cliff Childs

It doesn't take long for Aetherflux Reservoir to get out of control and let you start picking off your opponents one by one. Every time you cast a spell, you gain one life for each spell you have cast this turn. If you have cast just one spell, you'll gain one life. If you have cast five spells, you'll gain a grand total of fifteen life.

If your opponents don't have an answer to Aetherflux Reservoir, they'll quickly find themselves facing down its activated ability, which requires you to pay a steep 50 life to deal 50 damage to any one target. 50 damage is more likely than not to be plenty of damage to one-shot an opponent, taking them out of the game. Just make sure you're in a good enough position so that you don't get targeted by your other opponents once you pay the cost.

1 Karn, The Great Creator

Image of the Karn, the Great Creator card in Magic: The Gathering, with art by Wisnu Tan

An extremely powerful planeswalker for your artifact deck, Karn, the Great Creator pulls double duty, hampering your opponents while giving you access to a whole new world of artifacts. Much of Karn's power comes from its second ability, which lets you search your sideboard for an artifact and add it to your hand, turning your sideboard into a toolbox for almost any situation.

Eternal formats love Karn, especially Pioneer and Modern, where there are tons of cards to utilize in your sideboard. Perhaps the best part of this Karn is its passive ability to deactivate your opponent's artifacts for as long as Karn is in play. This turns off everything from mana rocks to Treasure tokens and other utility artifacts.

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