The 47 Best Artifact Commanders in Magic Ranked

Last updated on September 22, 2025

Imotekh the Stormlord | Illustration by JB Casacop

Artifacts are one the strongest card types in Magic. Many artifacts are frequent fliers on banlists, and some of Magic’s most powerful sets like Mirrodin and Kaladesh are associated with artifacts. They offer incredible flexibility since any deck can play most artifacts because they’re often colorless.

So, how can you exploit such a powerful card type in Commander? The first step is determining how you want to make use of artifacts. Do you want to go wide with an army of artifact creatures? Cheat massive artifacts like Darksteel Reactor or Blightsteel Colossus into play? Or dominate the table with stax?

I’m ranking all the best artifact commanders to help make this choice easier!

What Are Artifact Commanders in MTG?

Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain | Illustration by Brad Rigney

Artifact commanders are legendary creatures, vehicles, spacecraft, and eligible planeswalkers that care about artifacts in some way. They might have a strong triggered or activated ability that improves as you play artifacts, sacrifice artifacts for value, make it easier to cast artifacts, and so on.

All colors have a few commanders. They support a wide range of archetypes, from artifact creature aggro to control to combo to stax. Whatever strategy you want to play, one of these commanders supports it.

#47. Bello, Bard of the Brambles

This Gruul commander from Bloomburrow has an awesome ability: During your turn, all your non-equipment artifacts and non-aura enchantments with mana value 4 or more turn into 4/4 indestructible elementals with haste. Plus, you get to draw a card whenever these creatures deal combat damage to a player. Talk about value!

#46. Bosh, Iron Golem

Bosh, Iron Golem is a classic commander, but a little over-costed. This commander has game-ending potential since it can throw artifacts at your opponents like ballistic missiles, but it takes a lot of mana to get to that point.

Bosh can be an excellent outlet for infinite mana if you can find infinite artifacts to go with it, and it's also just a large artifact you’ll always have access to for decks that care about that.

#45. Syr Ginger, the Meal Ender

If you’re looking for the challenge of building with a colorless commander, Syr Ginger, the Meal Ender is an intriguing option.

Like other artifact commanders, Syr Ginger capitalizes on sacrifice outlets as they allow this food knight to grow bigger and manipulate the top of your library.

With it, you can start abusing some powerful infinite combos like Animation Module + Krark-Clan Ironworks to make your commander stronger and add infinite mana. Its colorless color identity is a limitation, and while some powerful colorless payoffs like Echoes of Eternity exist, it still may be a hard cookie to swallow and build around.

#44. Armix, Filigree Thrasher

It can be tricky to gauge the value of partners solo, but Armix, Filigree Thrasher is a fantastic enabler for artifact decks trying to do things with their graveyard. It’s a free discard outlet that’s also removal. Armix gets to control the board, which also helps it keep attacking to discard more cards on future turns.

Counting artifacts in play and the graveyard helps this card scale fantastically. Once you’re a few turns in, it should have no trouble killing almost anything your opponents play.

#43. Sanwell, Avenger Ace

Sanwell, Avenger Ace is a cheap, aggressive commander that draws you cards as long as you have a high vehicle or artifact creature count. Sanwell getting protection from combat damage does a lot to make this card playable.

Attacking is the easiest way to tap Sanwell, but you could also tap it to crew a vehicle and get the opportunity to play something on another player’s turn, as the ability ignores timing restrictions.

#42. Keskit, the Flesh Sculptor

Keskit, the Flesh Sculptor gives you a way to sacrifice artifacts for fun and profit, the profit being some fantastic card draw. Getting the best two of three cards is better than just drawing two cards, and the third goes into your graveyard.

Black is great at using the graveyard, so this is practically drawing three cards by sacrificing three artifacts. Keskit can be incredibly strong with the right partner.

#41. Rebbec, Architect of Ascension

Rebbec, Architect of Ascension is a boon to any partner pairing playing with artifacts. It's a solid option for offense and defense. 

Spreading protection across your team enables attacks while making it almost impossible for your opponent to interact with your board without dealing with this card first. The strategy gets tied together with something like a Mycosynth Lattice or Liquimetal Torque to turn Rebbec into an artifact so it protects itself.

#40. Drafna, Founder of Lat-Nam

Blue gets interesting artifact commanders with Drafna, Founder of Lat-Nam kicking things off with a mana-intensive value engine. The first ability not only helps to fuel the second but gives you instant-speed protection for important artifacts.

The copy ability costs a lot of mana, but blue artifact decks are great at ramping, and the ability can copy early mana rocks to produce additional mana to copy big spells later. Drafna is a great commander to double up on all your important artifacts.

#39. Lita, Mechanical Engineer

Lita, Mechanical Engineer does its best impression of Unwinding Clock, and it’s a pretty good mimicry. It gives some defensive power to a deck looking to attack. Its activated ability helps to force through damage in the late game.

This card works very well with artifact creatures that tap for mana like Palladium Myr since you can tap the myr in response to the end step trigger and untap it for a burst of mana at the end of the turn.

#38. Trazyn the Infinite

One of the best activated ability commanders in the game, Trazyn the Infinite was aptly named because this commander goes infinite with ease once you’ve filled your graveyard with artifacts.

An easy combo is Pili-Pala with anything that allows your commander to tap for two mana or more, like Sol Ring or Palladium Myr for infinite mana, which you can then use to win with the abilities of Walking Ballista. And this entire combo is one Buried Alive from happening!

Black has plenty of ways to put specific cards in the graveyard from your library, enabling quick combo kills.

#37. Padeem, Consul of Innovation

Another way to protect your artifacts is with hexproof from Padeem, Consul of Innovation. This commander also gives you plenty of card draw.

Most commander decks that aren’t artifact-focused only run a few mana rocks, so you can often win the mana value war. It’s easy to play something bigger than everything else in a deck dedicated to putting massive artifacts into play.

#36. Inspirit, Flagship Vessel

Inspirit, Flagship Vessel is pretty niche, as it supports cards that care about charge counters like Lux Cannon and Magistrate's Scepter. But I can't think of a better commander for this archetype.

#35. Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient

Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient gives red its own combo commander. It’s almost like artifacts lend themselves well to being combo pieces. Kurkesh pairs well with cards like Voltaic Key and Manifold Key to generate infinite mana with rocks like Gilded Lotus that tap for multiple colored mana.

There are plenty of activated abilities on artifacts worth copying, like Kuldotha Forgemaster and Magistrate's Scepter.

#34. Alibou, Ancient Witness

Alibou, Ancient Witness is another aggressive artifact commander that enables powerful attacks by giving your creatures haste. It gives your opponents little to no breathing room, especially if you can power out something like Blightsteel Colossus early. It’s worth noting that Alibou doesn’t need to attack for its triggered ability to work, and it counts all your tapped artifacts, not just creatures.

You can tap a bunch of mana rocks then attack with something meaningless like a Thopter to deal a bunch of damage to something and dig through your deck to find your finishers.

#33. Jan Jansen, Chaos Crafter

Jan Jansen, Chaos Crafter gives all the aristocrats players an entry point to artifact decks. This works great with cards that care about artifacts dying like Disciple of the Vault and Marionette Master.

It works just as well with red effects that care about them coming into play, like Reckless Fireweaver and Hedron Detonator. Jan Jenson is a great commander if you want to pelt your opponents down 1 point of damage at a time.

#32. Bartolomé del Presidio

More often than not, you’ll pair Bartolomé del Presidio with the likes of Blood Artist or Disciple of the Vault, cheap win conditions that are easy to reanimate with spells like Unearth or Recommission. It gives you the opportunity to build a low-curve deck that can maximize sacrifice payoffs and things that generate tokens like Pitiless Plunderer for extra artifacts to sacrifice.

The deck can run other combos involving cards like Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle, Myr Retriever, Karmic Guide, and Reveillark, which makes it a versatile Orzhov commander for annoying your opponents and winning games.

#31. Mendicant Core, Guidelight

If one Portal to Phyrexia is good, then two must be better, right?

That's the thesis behind Mendicant Core, Guidelight. A super cheap commander that scales so well with the game is quite powerful; you can cast it early and often. You can cast this three times by the time Niv-Mizzet, Parun hits the battlefield once.

#30. Gandalf the White

The gray wizard from the Lord of the Rings franchise debuted as a unique white commander that doubles the triggers on legendary permanents and artifacts entering or leaving the battlefield.

Gandalf the White may not seem impressive at first, but you can get amazing results by using Ichor Wellspring to draw two cards or wiping entire boards with the help of Portal to Phyrexia.

#29. Osgir, the Reconstructor

Osgir, the Reconstructor was the face of Strixhaven‘s Lorehold Commander precon, and highlights an attempt by Magic to move Boros in a direction that wasn't just purely combat-oriented. That resulted in this excellent artifact commander that turns trash into treasure, or treasure into more treasure, depending on the target.

Osgir works well with cheap artifacts like Lotus Petal, which spots you the mana to start duplicating expensive artifacts like Wurmcoil Engine. It also rumbles fairly well, and it's a cheap artifact sacrifice outlet to boot. Well rounded and strategically dense–elements of a fun and powerful commander.

#28. Imskir Iron-Eater

Imskir Iron-Eater is a powerful Rakdos commander that lets you draw cards based on half the number of artifacts you control. Imskir's affinity reduces its cost for each one of your artifacts, meaning that in the late-game Imskir often costs just to cast.

Additionally, Imskir's activated ability allows you to pay and sacrifice an artifact to deal direct damage equal to the sacrificed artifact's mana value. This can be a powerful way to remove threats or finish off opponents by flinging expensive artifacts at the opponent's face.

#27. Leonardo da Vinci

Assassin's Creed‘s Leonardo da Vinci is a blue commander who excels in artifact-centric decks. It has versatile activated abilities that provide card draw and the means to generate and enhance Thopter tokens. By paying , you can give your thopters base power and toughness equal to the number of cards in your hand, turning them into significant threats.

Additionally, Leonardo's , ability lets you draw a card, discard an artifact, and create a Thopter token copy of that artifact. This ability is particularly powerful for cheating some of the more expensive artifacts into play, especially those with game-changing ETB abilities, like Portal to Phyrexia or The One Ring.

#26. Jackdaw

Of all the cards elevated by the Edge of Eternities rules change that allows legendary vehicles to be your commander, Jackdaw might be the most exciting. Its super wheel draws a ton of cards if you litter the battlefield with artifacts—which hardly takes effort thanks to Treasure and Clues and the like.

#25. Shao Jun

Shao Jun is a fun Izzet commander to build around if you play your cards right. While the most obvious choice is to pair it with Unwinding Clock to reuse its abilities on each of your opponent’s turns, you can also run other clever synergies, like putting Curiosity on it for extra card draw.

#24. Meria, Scholar of Antiquity

Meria, Scholar of Antiquity has an interesting take on artifacts in a color pairing that’s often more interested in destroying artifacts than using them. This card is great with artifacts like Winter Orb and Static Orb because you can tap them on the end step before your turn so you aren’t affected while your opponents can’t play the game.

#23. Imotekh the Stormlord

Imotekh the Stormlord helps black get aggressive with their artifact creatures. Giving menace to your biggest and best artifact creatures is nice, but making artifact creature tokens is what you want this card for.

You can trigger this ability easily in black, using reanimation spells or rebuying artifact creatures with effects like Phyrexian Reclamation.

#22. Anrakyr the Traveller

Anrakyr the Traveller is a devastating commander to untap with. Paying life instead of mana is a deal black mages have happily taken for decades, and it’s no less powerful here. Getting to put a Wondrous Crucible or Bolas's Citadel into play well ahead of schedule while still having all your mana is incredibly powerful.

Since Anrakyr lets you cast the spells from your hand or graveyard, you even get to set it up with all of black’s powerful tutors like Entomb and Vampiric Tutor, or you can replay the artifact if your opponent destroys it.

#21. Noctis, Prince of Lucis

Noctis, Prince of Lucis is perfect for the combo-minded artifact player. It often graces high-powered tables because casting spells from the graveyard is perfect for anybody interested in sniping the table with a flurry of spells.

#20. Sydri, Galvanic Genius

Sydri, Galvanic Genius is a fun engine enabling powerful plays. You can always make your artifacts into massive beaters, but there’s plenty of trickery to be had here. Many of this card’s interactions come from making an artifact into a creature then giving it lifelink and deathtouch.

It works well with Aetherflux Reservoir, letting you kill the table with just over 50 life. It’s also fun with cards that damage creatures like Caltrops or Staff of Nin.

#19. Sharuum the Hegemon

Sharuum the Hegemon is a Commander classic offering powerful graveyard interactions. You can establish a simple infinite loop with this and a Phyrexian Metamorph or Sculpting Steel that wins through any number of means like Disciple of the Vault or Urza, Lord High Artificer.

You could also play a fairer gameplan and bring back massive artifacts like Myr Battlesphere or Portal to Phyrexia over and over by flickering Sharuum with cards like Conjurer's Closet.

#18. Ragost, Deft Gastronaut

Ragost, Deft Gastronaut gives all your opponents the worst bout of Food poisoning they could dream of. Don't skip on lifegain synergies to untap Ragost; this thing deals up to 12 damage a turn cycle with proper support, so it’s one of the stronger burn commanders out there.

#17. Urza, Chief Artificer

Urza, Chief Artificer can overtake a game with just a few turns. Producing free Constructs is incredibly powerful since they grow huge, but giving them menace makes it hard for your opponents to block.

Probably the best affinity commander in the game, Urza is also hard to deal with thanks to affinity for artifact creatures. The cost reduction makes this 6-mana commander feel much more like a 4-mana commander that doesn’t care much about commander tax.

#16. Chiss-Goria, Forge Tyrant

Card draw in the command zone is always welcome, so you’re happy to see Chiss-Goria, Forge Tyrant come down often and early. This is a very expensive commander, but affinity for artifacts helps make it accessible since it lowers commander tax.

The card draw ability is flexible and lets you cheat on mana. The dragon‘s great in a red artifact deck trying to power out big artifacts quickly because early mana rocks work incredibly well with big affinity spells.

#15. Karn, Legacy Reforged

Construct tokens have long been dubbed Karnstructs because they debuted on Karn, Scion of Urza, and we’ve finally got a Karn that grows with your artifacts. This is a great commander to go all the way into mono-brown and play nothing but artifacts, using top-end payoffs like Mycosynth Lattice and Darksteel Forge.

#14. Sai, Master Thopterist

Sai, Master Thopterist generates tons of Thopter tokens to take over the skies. It's effective with various artifact loops you can establish in blue to generate infinite Thopters. The tokens can also be defensive pieces in a long game, providing chump blockers and a source of card draw.

#13. Losheel, Clockwork Scholar

Losheel, Clockwork Scholar is another fantastic option for players who want to get aggressive with their artifact creatures. Keeping aggressive artifact creatures safe from combat damage enables incredibly powerful attacks and forces your opponents to make hard decisions since they can never trade on defense.

The card draw is the icing on the cake. It’s easy for a dedicated deck to enable it, and flash shenanigans even let you get card draw on your opponents’ turns.

#12. Oswald Fiddlebender

Who doesn’t love a good Birthing Pod in the command zone? With Oswald Fiddlebender as your commander, you can ramp up your artifact curve for the low cost of 1 mana. You can convert early artifacts like Mycosynth Wellspring or Ichor Wellspring into combo pieces like Rings of Brighthearth and Basalt Monolith.

#11. Emry, Lurker of the Loch

Emry, Lurker of the Loch is another combo commander for artifacts. It works particularly well with Mirran Spy and other cards that let you untap your creatures to establish loops with cards like Lotus Petal or Mishra's Bauble.

This commander also lends itself well to a grindy gameplan. Getting to recast your best artifacts every turn makes it hard for other decks to disrupt you without killing Emry. Even if they do, its affinity ability makes replaying it incredibly easy.

#10. Iron Man, Titan of Innovation

Iron Man, Titan of Innovation brings the joy of Birthing Pod to your artifact deck. Since it makes a Treasure, the floor is often a commander that gets Sol Ring, and the ceiling is so high you need a spacesuit to reach it safely.

#9. Daretti, Scrap Savant

Daretti, Scrap Savant is a great commander to use all those artifacts you rummage and loot away. It’ll fill the graveyard itself to enable its powerful -2 ability. Turning dinky little artifacts like Ornithopter into big hitters like Triplicate Titan helps mono-red Daretti decks power through their opponents. If you ever get the emblem, your opponents are in for a world of hurt.

#8. Muzzio, Visionary Architect

Muzzio, Visionary Architect is one of blue’s commanders that care about large artifacts.

Once you get something expensive in play, either honestly with mana or with some cheats with something like Master Transmuter or Show and Tell, Muzzio dumps plenty more artifacts into play.

#7. Alela, Artful Provocateur

Alela, Artful Provocateur converts your artifacts into fliers that beat down in the air. This ability is similar to Sai, Master Thopterist, but it takes it up a notch. Alela works well with artifacts that help draw cards like Bident of Thassa and Skullclamp that benefit from having a swarm of small creatures in the air.

You can also get a lot of mileage from artifacts that care about creatures of the same type, like Adaptive Automaton and Coat of Arms.

#6. Galazeth Prismari

Unsurprisingly, this commander that taps artifacts for mana works well with previously mentioned cards like Winter Orb.

This commander’s mana is restricted to instants and sorceries, but there are plenty of powerful effects to spend it on like Comet Storm, Transcendent Message, and Crackle with Power. These are perfect storm colors, so cards that generate Treasure can also work with Galazeth to end the game in a single explosive turn.

#5. Teshar, Ancestor’s Apostle

The best white artifact commander is easily Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle. You don’t need artifacts to get the historic trigger, but Teshar has found a home as the commander for white artifact-combo decks that pair Teshar with cards like Myr Retriever and Blasting Station to establish all kinds of powerful infinite loops.

#4. Breya, Etherium Shaper

One of the first 4-color commanders ever printed, Breya, Etherium Shaper is a walking combo engine. It goes infinite itself with a Nim Deathmantle and Ashnod's Altar but has the perfect color combination to enable any of the artifact combos we’ve already looked at.

This isn’t a commander to play fairly, but one to stack with tutors and combos.

#3. Arcum Dagsson

Another great commander for cheating artifacts into play is Arcum Dagsson. It's a devastating commander to untap with since it turns something minute like Memnite or Silver Myr into something obscenely powerful for free!

It also works well with cards like Liquimetal Torque. You can turn an opponent’s creature into an artifact and force them to sacrifice it. This commander is a great way to remove commanders in blue, though you’ll have to hope that the targeted player isn’t running many massive artifacts of their own.

#2. Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain

Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain is another incredible combo commander. Much like Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle, Jhoira doesn’t need to go with artifacts but works best with them.

It’s a Cheerios-style commander, making ample use of 0-mana artifacts like Mishra's Bauble and Spellbook to draw a bunch of cards before bouncing them back to your hand with Retract or Paradoxical Outcome to do it all over again. Jhoira is a storm commander in the truest sense.

#1. Urza, Lord High Artificer

It’s no surprise that Urza, Lord High Artificer tops this list. This commander comes in with a powerful Construct token and turns all your artifacts into Mox Sapphire. More importantly, it’s an incredible combo and stax engine.

This card does so much work with artifacts like Winter Orb and Static Orb that prevent your opponents from playing the game while letting you play your entire deck to snag an easy win once you’ve found a way to generate infinite mana.

Best Artifact Commander Payoffs

Artifact Creatures

Commanders that care about artifact creatures need a high count of those, but need some support. Cards like Tempered Steel that buff your artifact creatures are great. If you care about your artifact creatures dying, cards like Skullclamp and Disciple of the Vault do a lot of work. There are also a handful of good board wipes like Their Name Is Death and Organic Extinction that decks heavy on artifact creatures can use to devastate the opponents and keep their board state up.

Of course, these support cards do nothing without artifact creatures. Tokens from cards like Pinnacle Emissary, Third Path Iconoclast, and Thousand Moons Smithy are essential for aggressive artifact decks.

Cheating Mana Costs

Decks that look to cheat big artifacts into play need big artifacts worth cheating into play. Cards like Solemn Simulacrum and Meteor Golem often aren’t worth the effort; you need things like Blightsteel Colossus or Portal to Phyrexia. You’ll also need to get a bunch of mana rocks to support these big artifacts if you can’t get your commander or another engine online.

If you cheat artifacts into play with Show and Tell and Master Transmuter, you need to find them, preferably with tutors. Scour for Scrap, Fabricate, and Enlightened Tutor are critical here.

Combo Commanders

Artifact commanders that try to combo off need some specific cards, but there are broad pieces you can look for. A colorless combo any deck can run combines Wurmcoil Engine, Nim Deathmantle, and Ashnod's Altar to make infinite tokens and infinite mana. Walking Ballista is a great outlet for any artifact deck that makes infinite mana. Look for cards that can repeatedly untap themselves and/or sacrifice things for free like Blasting Station and Ashnod's Altar to establish combos, since free or close to free is important for many loops.

Of course, there are some other cards that aren’t artifacts but provide different effects when combined with them. You can use Molten Duplication to copy powerful ETB effects, and Forensic Gadgeteer can enable infinite combos with certain artifacts. Don't forget about cards that create artifacts of their own when they enter the battlefield like Thraben Inspector or Roxanne, Starfall Savant.

Since artifacts have so many potential combos, it's best to pick a lane. If you're using Urza, Lord High Artificer, infinite mana combos are more useful than infinite sacrifice combos; Noctis, Prince of Lucis wants storm payoffs like Aetherflux Reservoir, and so on. Picking a specific combo archetype makes things much smoother, and it lets you build redundant combos for additional consistency.

Commanding Conclusion

Oswald Fiddlebender | Illustration by Steven Belledin

Artifacts are one of Magic's most powerful card types, with a long history of broken combos and obscene cards littering ban lists across formats. They’re easy to break, and their long history means we can split artifacts into many archetypes.

Different artifact commanders care about different things. Some are aggressive, others controlling, and some combo off quickly. Picking the right artifact commander is about picking the playstyle you enjoy the most and dedicating yourself to it. If it can be done in Magic, you can probably do it with artifacts.

What’s your favorite artifact commander? Do you play with any artifacts? Let me know in the comments below, or over on the official Draftsim Twitter.

Stay healthy and have fun!