M15 Artifacts

~
Happy Tuesday MTG peeps,

For today's post on the MTG Realm blog, we wanted to start covering off some of the new Magic 2015 core set card offerings that may make a splash into standard constructed.  We're certain that within a few weeks after the M15 official release this weekend, Magic: the Gathering players will be fine tuning standard constructed decklists during tournaments and casual events like Friday Night Magic - and what we make note of here may be phophetic as metagame absorbs and adjusts to the new cards - or simply be just wrong.  If you still need to get equipped with the latest cards, pop on over to MTG Mint Card.

Anywhoos, a few cards we took an interest to as the spoilers and previews rolled out over the last few weeks involve a potential of articfact-centric decklists thanks in part to a few new key cards.

Chief EngineerWhen we first saw this card with a sweet convoke ability for artifacts, our imagination went wild - powering out a bunch of small creatures to convoke artifact fattys like Soul of New Phyrexia or even a Scuttling Doom Engine.  We thought we might just be looking at another resurgence of affinity - or at the very least, another great inclusion into some Modern lists.  Dropping two zero-costing Ornithopter turn one, a Phyrxian Revoker turn two, the Chief turn three and then you'd be on you way to get Soul of New Phyrexia out earlier.

Ensoul Artifact 
Another M15 card which jumped out at us was Esnoul Artifact.  We realise that to maximize playtime for this aura may require the use of Heliod's Pilgrim to dig the aura out of your library and get it into your hand - this might just be reasonable.  In this case our imagination had us playing this right on turn two on either the indestructible land 'Darksteel Citadel' or even better, on the zero-costing 0/2 Ornithopter morphing into a 5/5 flyer.  Another lovely target for this aura could even be the 2/1 Armored Transport costing three mana - the cool thing here is that you can make it a 5/5 that doesn't take any combat damage from blockers.

 










Another interesting aura to consider may be Aqueous Form that will give you an unblockable creature - with the bonus of scrying when you attack which will smooth out your draws.  Obviously we are looking at decklist featuring blue as a primary colour - but do we need a second colour and if so, which one?  The new M15 card Shrapnel Blast.  For one colourless and one red, this instant will allow you to blast five damage to target player or creature for the additional cost of sacrificing an artifact - not too shabby we think.  Madcap Skills is another aura - and a rather popular red one which may now give this decklist a With the likes of Springleaf Drum, yet another artifact, you could get some decent access to any colour.

Wherever you may take this, we think it will deliver a lot of fun and engaging games.  Feel free to shoot us an eMail or drop a comment below.
~