The Brothers’ War is upon us, and goes over one of the most important conflicts in Magic: The Gathering history as brothers Urza and Mishra go toe-to-toe. With the two artificers fighting, there is an influx of new artifacts that will surely change the landscape of Magic moving forward.
Artifacts can be some of the most powerful cards in Magic: The Gathering. When used right, they can flip a game on its head. Brothers' War does not disappoint in that it brings in some incredible artifacts to either create new powerful decks and combos or add to those preexisting ones you love so much.
10 Symmetry Matrix
A small but good one, Symmetry Matrix allows you to pay one generic mana to draw one card if a creature with power equal to its toughness enters the battlefield under your control. It might not be a game changer, but it is going to give you quite the edge.
It's worth mentioning this is not limited to once per turn. As many times as you have a creature with equal power and toughness enter the battlefield, you can activate the ability. Since it works with creature tokens as well as normal creatures, any deck that has a heavy token creation aspect will benefit greatly from Symmetry Matrix.
9 Urza's Sylex
For two generic and two white mana, you can exile Urza's Sylex to destroy everything on the board except six lands that each player chooses of their own. This is great in a pinch if you need a good escape plan from an overwhelming board. When exiled, you may pay two additional generic mana to search your library for a planeswalker card and put it into your hand.
This exiling ability is where Urza's Sylex shines. Simply because you do not need to activate the ability on this card to exile it and repeat the ability to fetch a planeswalker. Flickering, which is the act of exiling a card and bringing it back to the battlefield, will allow you to use this ability as much as you see fit, which could greatly turn the tides of a game.
8 Hulking Metamorph
Prototype is a new ability brought in with Brothers' War that allows you to cast a card for less mana, but for a weaker version. This ability is also going to get repeated quickly by those who are savvy to the many flickering effects out there, as when these prototype cards are brought back in from being flickered, they come in at their strongest form, not the prototype form. This is going to allow for a lot of cheap casts to become stronger for a lot cheaper.
Hulking Metamorph has quite a steep cost at nine generic mana, but coming in at a 7/7 and copying any other strong artifact you have out there is big. Even for its prototype ability, a 3/3 is not a bad creature by any means when it is copying another strong artifact.
7 The Stasis Coffin
This is a card that is going to be very annoying in the right hands. Stasis Coffin allows you to pay two generic mana to exile it and receive protection from everything until your next turn. While it won't protect your creatures, it will certainly keep your life total sitting pretty. In a big game of Commander, this could easily save your life.
Pair it with Karn, the Great Creator and you can fetch it from exile to use turn after turn to keep yourself protected from everything.
6 Rootwire Amalgam
Another card with the prototype ability, Rootwire Amalgam has the potential to be a very heavy hitter. Costing five generic mana, it comes in as a 5/5. However, its activated ability has you sacrifice Rootwire Amalgam to create an X/X colorless Golem artifact creature token, where its power and toughness are three times that of its base power. Meaning you have a 15/15 with haste to go full tilt at your opponent.
With the mana needed being green, chances are you will be able to ramp up to this one very quickly in the right game.
5 Phyrexian Fleshgorger
Phyrexian Fleshgorger is yet another prototype card. For seven generic mana, Phyrexian Fleshgorger comes in as a 7/5 with ward, menace, and lifelink, which is one whopper of a combo.
Again, this is a card that can be played cheap with its prototype cost and be flickered to bring in the stronger version on a budget. Its ward cost of paying life equal to its power is a great way to keep opponents from messing with it as well, especially in Standard where that is a third of your starting life total.
4 The Stone Brain
There's a pretty good chance either this card or Karn, the Great Creator are in danger of getting banned in certain formats in the future. The combo that Karn and The Stone Brain create is going to be very strong. The Stone Brain lets you pay two generic mana to exile it, name any card, and search your opponent's hand, graveyard, and library for up to four cards with the same name to exile them. Any card name means you can target lands if you want. Your opponent is playing Tron against you, then go right at it.
What makes it so strong is that Karn will have the ability to fetch it from exile and allow you to do it over and over again, removing any strong card of your opponents as you see fit.
3 Portal To Phyrexia
Portal To Phyrexia is a very strong artifact that forces each opponent to sacrifice three creatures upon entering the battlefield and allows you to pull a creature from any graveyard to the battlefield each turn. Here's the kicker - that sacrifice ability is triggered each time this artifact enters the battlefield. Yet another card that is going to have the potential of being used over and over again by flicker effects.
Plus, it's not a legendary artifact. This means you can copy it or play more than one, which will stack the ability to fetch the strongest creatures from any graveyard.
2 Mishra, Lost To Phyrexia
One of the few meld cards that is being brought back in Brother's War, Mishra makes the work worth it. First in order to gain Mishra, Lost To Phyrexia you must play both Phyrexian Dragon Engine and Mishra, Claimed by Gix, which are both good cards in themselves.
If you're lucky you could have Mishra, Lost To Phyrexia out by turn five, which is essentially a game over for your opponent thanks to the very strong abilities you can choose from when it enters the battlefield or attacks. Not to mention that it comes in as a 9/9. Mishra, Lost To Phyrexia is worth the effort to get out there.
1 Liberator, Urza's Battlethopter
Liberator, Urza's Battlethopter is not only a great card, but it also has some strong potential as being quite a good commander in the right artifact deck. With a low mana cost of three generic mana, it can be played at any time thanks to its flash ability. An ability that it then gives to all colorless spells and artifact spells while it is on the battlefield.
This ability can also be beefed up by casting spells with higher mana costs than Liberator, Urza's Battlethopter. On the surface, this card might not look like a lot, but all the positives it gives you when it is out there are simply too hard to ignore.