Everyone loves a good artifact or two in their Commander deck, but with the almost overwhelming number of cards released over the past few years, it can be hard to keep track of them all. Plenty of great artifacts are either completely overshadowed by better cards, or don’t quite fit into as many decks.
It can often feel like a good chunk of your deck is automatically taken up by Commander staples like Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Swiftfoot Boots, and more. These cards might not fit into every Commander deck of course, but they can be a great addition to your deck if you find a card is underperforming or if you want to try something new!
Bident of Thassa
If you’re looking for an artifact which will pull plenty of weight in a match, then check out Bident of Thassa. It draws you cards when a creature you control deals combat damage to a player, so if you swing with five creatures, you draw five cards. While not super exciting, it’s hard to argue with the value you gain from attacking.
The real power of Bident of Thassa comes from its activated ability. For two mana you can force an opponent to attack with all their creatures this turn. There’s a solid chance they’ll target you seeing as you’re forcing them to attack, but if you have a good defense set up, they’ll be more inclined to attack someone else. This gives you a chance to swing in on your next turn to draw some more cards.
Mirror of Life Trapping
There’s a lot happening with Mirror of Life Trapping which makes it a little confusing at first glance. Essentially, if you (or any other player) cast a creature, you immediately exile it and then return all other creatures currently exiled by Mirror of Life Trapping back to play.
It is more or less a budget version of Panharmonicon, giving you (and your opponents), a second enter the battlefield trigger. Since it affects all creatures it can be a little risky, but there’s a little spice with this artifact. If your opponent casts a creature you can’t actually deal with, you can destroy or blink the Mirror while the creature is exiled to permanently exile it from the game.
Cyberdrive Awakener
A relatively slept-on card when it was released, Cyberdrive Awakener is a little steep mana value-wise, but provides some wild value. Not only does it give your artifact creatures flying, but turns all your artifacts into 4/4 creatures to swing in. If you’ve made a dozen or so Treasure tokens the turn before, suddenly you have an army to throw at an opponent.
If you have an effect which will let you flicker Cyberdrive Awakener, then you can repeatedly trigger its enter the battlefield effect, turning your artifacts back into flying 4/4 creatures over and over again.
Dolmen Gate
An extremely straightforward artifact both in its effect and cost, Dolmen Gate is the perfect card in a creature-based aggro deck. Preventing all combat damage done to your attacking creatures gives you free rein to swing into whatever board state your opponents set up.
Dolmen Gate is particularly effective with additional combat sets and other attacking triggers. If you can attack multiple times in a turn, you can attack through your opponent’s defenses or whittle their creatures down to nothing with each attack.
Mirage Mirror
The second mirror on this list, Mirage Mirror is anything you want it to be for just two mana. It is effectively the best artifact, creature, enchantment, or land in play whenever you need it to be. If your opponent has a Cathar’s Crusade in play and you’re about to make a bunch of tokens, now you can buff them all when they enter.
Keep in mind that as soon as you activate Mirage Mirror it loses the ability to change form again until the next turn. You can go ahead and turn it back into the same card or another if you need, but once it changes it is stuck in that form for the turn.
Nautiloid Ship
This weird little Vehicle does a lot both when it enters the battlefield and when it attacks, adding a lot of value for relatively little mana. For only four mana, Nautiloid Ship enters the battlefield and exiles an opponent’s entire graveyard. Then, when it attacks, you can put a creature exiled by it into play under your control.
Keep in mind Nautiloid Ship can only bring back creatures it has exiled, so if another creature was sent to exile with Swords to Plowshares you can’t get it. Also, once the graveyard of your choice has run out of creatures, you can blink Nautiloid Ship to exile another graveyard and start snagging cards from there next.
Coveted Jewel
For six mana you get to draw three cards and can tap Coveted Jewel for three mana the turn it comes out. This is a pretty strong play, especially if you’re casting it to refill your hand a bit or can cast it a few turns earlier. The huge downside is that your opponents can steal Coveted Jewel if they attack with a creature that isn’t blocked, but in a Stax or similar deck with plenty of ways to deter your opponents from attacking, you can keep yourself safe or at least keep your opponents in check. Those strategies either prevent them from attacking or chump block anything they throw your way.
Mimic Vat
Mimic Vat has fallen off in popularity in recent years, but there’s still tons of value to gain from playing this artifact. With its imprint ability, you can steal any creature when it dies and then start making token copies of it.
The token you make only sticks around for a turn but gains haste so you can attack immediately. If you steal a creature with a great enter the battlefield effect, like the new Atraxa, Grand Unifier let’s say, you’ll be able to get more and more cards with each activation.
Twinning Staff
There’s absolutely no reason not to be playing Twinning Staff if your deck has any way to copy spells. Its activated ability likely won’t be too relevant. Seven mana is a lot to dump into it while you’re also casting spells, but it’s still an option if you’re flooding out on mana.
Think of using Twinning Staff in a Riku of the Twin Reflections deck. Because of the way the staff is worded, you can copy any spell, not just instant and sorceries. So you can copy your creature spells an additional time. With spells like Double Major and Irenicus’s Vile Duplication, you can even copy your legendary creatures for tons of value.
Magnetic Mine
If you’re in need of some anti-Treasure tech then Magnetic Mine is the way to go. With Magnetic Mine in play, when an artifact hits the graveyard it deals two damage to its controller. There are other silly things you can do with Magnetic Mine, like turning everything in play into an artifact with Mycosynth Lattice.
You can hold up Magnetic Mine until after an opponent has played a Dockside Extortionist to force them to pop all their Treasure Tokens when they weren’t ready. Or you could cast it early on to force your opponents to rethink their turns.
Ryan Hay (he/him) has been writing about Magic: The Gathering and video games for years, and loves absolutely terrible games. Send him your bad game takes over on Twitter where he won’t stop talking about Lord of the Rings.