Return of the Artifacts!

A pleasure to meet you all, I am Drakos, a new content creator. This is in fact my first article! I am from the outbacks of Southern Australia, I have been spell-slinging since the release of Dark Ascension. However, I did not start playing daily until Eldritch Moon. I mainly play Modern, although I also enjoy 7 Point Highlander as well as the occasional Pioneer match. Today I am discussing the diversification among artifacts and their decks in Modern.

Father of Artifacts

Urza, Lord High Artificer has been a mainstay within the Modern format since the printing of Modern Horizons. He is an essential piece of the thopter-sword combo involving both Sword of the Meek and Thopter Foundry. You can play Urza in value decks, such as Corey Baumeister’s list that premiered at SCG Knoxville (Nick Miller, 2020). Turning any artifact into Mox Sapphires is a great value. His second ability can even cast spells from the top of your library. Did I mention our caped crusader also spawns a construct whose power scales with your artifacts? Indeed, the father of artifacts is quite powerful. He can win games if left unchecked. There is an argument that Urza’s printing doomed Mox Opal to its long-awaited departure from the Modern format.

The Old Artifacts and the New

While Mox Opal was Modern legal, we saw a wide range of artifact decks excel within the world of Magic; the beloved Affinity, broken KCI combo, speedy Cheerios, tiresome Lantern Control, prison-based Tezzerator lists, and even the resilient Hardened Scales Affinity. In present times, it feels the only real artifact decks we have include Urza in some way or another. We do have Tron, but can you really call that an artifact deck with mana filtering cantrips, a board-wipe, Wurmcoil Engine(s), as well as the options that can be grabbed by Karn, the Great Creator? At least we have Grinding Station combo right? The deck is enabled by Underworld Breach and can already provide fast wins, who knows how long it will stick around for?

Enter… The Ozolith!

This new artifact screams Hardened Scales Affinity support. It has an effect similar to the modular mechanic. Arcbound Worker and Arcbound Ravager are noteworthy creatures with this mechanic. However, The Ozolith does not suffer from graveyard hate, unlike cards with modes that need to die to trigger the movement of counters. In essence, this adds modes to every creature, who are then unaffected by replacement effects such as Rest in Peace or Leyline of the Void. The Ozolith‘s first ability interacts favorably with modular triggers as it does not remove the counters from creatures with the modular mechanic, they are instead replicated. The potential for Inkmoth Nexus wins increases greatly with this fantastic new inclusion.

I am interested to see if The Ozolith has what it takes to revive the now rogue Hardened Scales Affinity. I do hope it is a step towards the kind of artifact diversity we once had. This has been Drakos providing you with my thoughts of the many artifact decks throughout Modern’s history, see you all next week!