I've always loved the idea of artifact decks. They're some of the most dominant decks in the oldest formats this game has, they've been around forever... and they've been hellishly expensive. So much so that I could never justify playing them.
And then WotC printed cards.
As soon as I realized I could mess around with artifacts in standard I started brewing, and I've been having so much fun with it. Never realized just how tricky the lands are to do right but even in the early days when I had to round my mana out with basic lands the deck actually did things, and it did them surprisingly well. I don't think standard artifacts can ever truly match the tempo of RDW and there are some fringe matchups that can knock out a few key cogs in the machine you build to make the whole thing break down but who cares about that, it's artifacts in standard!! Besides, every deck gets countered by something...
Combos And Key Players
(note: I've only been able to test this deck on MTGA due to certain global pandemic things so your LGS' "meta" may have you swapping out pieces of this deck to fine tune against expected matchups. This is also an idealized list, I don't have all the pieces for this yet but when I can, this deck is what I want to have)
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Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
: Did you expect any other card to be talked about before this one: They reprinted this one knowing full well he was coming out in a new era of artifact decks, and of course his built-in boardwipe leaves your side completely untouched as well. We have a few ways to ramp into him early as well, which is a lot of fun. My only complaint is that
Tergrid, God of Fright
+
Soul Shatter
is a deck that exists, and he caps off our curve. Generally though it's fine since he can't use his second ability against us and taking a bolt for a turn or 2 while I get a massive Stonecoil out is fine with the sustain we've built into the deck and the size of our creatures.
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Chrome Replicator
+
Lithoform Engine
: Hear me out on this one, I know it's expensive but for 4 4/4s I'm ok with spending 9 mana, especially since we've got another card that we'll talk about in a moment that will make this one a no-brainer.
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Forsaken Monument
: This card on its own makes the entire deck not only viable but worth playing semi-competitively. With our ramp this usually comes out turn 4, and on turn 5 we tend to have 12 or 13 mana available to use for whatever we want (basically Ugin things), and the above combo is not only paid for but assuming we can get 2 of something on the board beforehand that becomes 4 6/6s, and of course the life gain stacks up fast as well.
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Cosmos Elixir
: This one just came out with Kaldheim and I'm honestly loving it. Early game it's the draw power that artifacts otherwise lacks access to, and later on if you start slipping it's a cushion to help you stall for that one key card that will turn it around. Kaldheim also gave us
Weathered Runestone
which is a fun screw you to Kroxa and Tergrid.
This deck is really great if your meta isn't too terribly fast, if you can reach turn 5 intact you'll generally be able to put up a good fight, in terms of price it's still a bit more than I personally would spend on standard but it's not an unreasonable price for an artifact deck with no basics. Thanks for checking out the list, hopefully you enjoy this one if you get the chance to try it out!
