The 44 Best Artifact Creatures in Magic Ranked

Last updated on March 25, 2024

The Reality Chip | Illustration by Campbell White

Artifact creatures have been a topic of discussion since the beginning of Magic. The fact that they benefit from being both creature and artifact types and are flexible enough to go in every deck brought lots of balancing problems in some Constructed formats.

These creatures gained colors when it made sense from the Shards of Alara block onward, and colored artifacts are a mainstay nowadays. Today it’s time to dive headfirst into everything about artifact creatures.

Ready? Let’s get started!

What Are Artifact Creatures in MTG?

Stonecoil Serpent | Illustration by Mark Poole

Artifact creatures in MTG are cards that are both artifacts and creatures. MTG is a game that revolves around attacking and blocking, so artifacts that aren’t creatures are very hard to justify an inclusion in your decks – you can play some but not many unless you’re going deep on some weird artifact control strategy like in Lantern Control decks. They also help Limited play by being a creature that almost every deck can play since most of them are colorless cards. They can ruin Draft by being colorless rare or mythic bombs that go into every deck – Wurmcoil Engine comes to mind.

Lands and artifacts that can become artifact creatures aren’t included here. I’ve also opted not to include artifacts with the living weapon mechanic or the for Mirrodin! mechanic.

#44. Ornithopter

Little, harmless Ornithopter opens this list solely for the fact that it’s an artifact that costs 0 to cast. You’ll have an early blocker and an evasive creature that can wear an aura or a good piece of equipment, not to mention the possible benefits with mechanics like metalcraft or affinity.

#43. Painter's Servant

Painter's Servant is a combo piece with Grindstone, and by assembling this combination you’ll mill all the cards from an opponent’s library. Painter's Servant is easily tutorable, and this combo deck is a nice option for formats like Legacy. The color-changing ability can also be relevant for some EDH decks.

#42. Memnarch

Memnarch is an interesting theft card/commander, allowing you to steal key cards from your opponents by converting them into artifacts. It fits blue artifact strategies and theft strategies well. Cards that reduce the mana you need for activated abilities are a good pairing with Memnarch.

#41. Steel Seraph

Steel Seraph is a good mix of a 3-drop or 6-drop angel. It’s a good fit for white weenie decks, flier decks, and angel decks, both in 60- and 100-card formats. Besides the flexibility, you can give relevant abilities to your creatures, both offensively (flying) or defensively (lifelink and vigilance).

#40. Duplicant

Duplicant is a mix of a Fiend Hunter/O-ring-type creature with a Clone. It’s a removal spell for decks that lack it, especially 100% colorless decks. It’s got good synergies with EDH decks and cards that care about 2 power or less, or artifact reanimation (Feldon of the Third Path, Alesha, Who Smiles at Death).

#39. Blade of the Oni

Blade of the Oni is a versatile creature, being either a 3/1 menace or a powerful equipment. Being able to pay 4 mana to convert something into a 5/5 demon is strong, and there are even incentives to play this card in demon typal decks.

#38. The Cycle of Gearhulks

Gearhulks are 5-6 mana creatures that have a strong ETB effect. My favorite is Torrential Gearhulk, which is a strong win condition for control decks, allowing you to ambush your opponent’s creature with a 5/6 flash creature and cast a strong instant from your graveyard like Cryptic Command or Magma Opus.

#37. Angel of the Ruins

Angel of the Ruins can be a strong two-for-one in EDH, allowing you to exile mana rocks or pesky enchantments. It’s good in angel decks, blink decks, and ramp decks, as well as in reanimator decks thanks to cycling.

#36. Myr Battlesphere

Myr Battlesphere continues to be one of the premium big targets to cheat or Tinker into play. It has the ability to go wide and tall. And it's even better if you have some token synergies.

#35. Sundering Titan

Sundering Titan is banned in Commander as it’s easy to lock players out of the game by nuking their lands. It was an important part of Tron decks, where people could cast it on turns 4-5 and slow down their opponents significantly while also having a 7/10 in play.

#34. Platinum Angel

Platinum Angel was one of the first creatures that outright stated that you can’t lose a game and your opponents can’t win. It sees some play in Commander decks that want to have risky cards like Phage the Untouchable or Demonic Pact. That said, in a metagame where people are focusing more on doing their own thing and less on removal, it can be a nice life insurance.

#33. Phyrexian Fleshgorger

Phyrexian Fleshgorger is a nice value proposition as a 3/3 or a 7/5 with menace and lifelink at two different points of the curve. What sets this card apart is that your opponents must pay life to target it, and if you can back up the aggression, suddenly your rival won’t be too keen on spending that much life to remove the Fleshgorger.

#32. Cloudsteel Kirin

Cloudsteel Kirin is already a good card as a 3/2 flier for 3 mana. If you can reconfigure it onto another threat, like your commander, suddenly you’ll have a flying commander and you can’t lose the game. The card sees play in Voltron EDH decks, decks that have synergies with equipment, or equipment affinity.

#31. Lion Sash

Lion Sash is very similar to a white Scavenging Ooze. It’s significantly more flexible, allowing you to have a large threat or an equipment. It’s a versatile creature that’s also targeted graveyard hate.

#30. Hollow One

Hollow One is very impressive in 1v1 formats like Modern or Pioneer where you can play a 4/4 creature for free in certain decks. It doesn’t do much in EDH, however.

#29. Solemn Simulacrum

Solemn Simulacrum isn’t the staple it used to be, but it’s still a pretty good card in slower decks. You get free ramp, and you can block and cantrip for a card, not to mention the added value you’ll get by blinking it.

#28. Komaimu Battle Armor

Komainu Battle Armor has the Marisi, Breaker of the Coil effect. Goading every creature a target player controls is so cool. The problem is, if they have that many creature cards to goad, it’s harder to get in an attack. It’s easier to reconfigure this card into an evasive or unblockable creature to get the job done.

#27. Necron Deathmark

Necron Deathmark is a good evolution over cards like Ravenous Chupacabra, allowing you to play it at instant speed and milling cards. It will frequently be a three-for-one if you get a good block. The Deathmark is a good tool to have in value decks.

#26. Steel Hellkite

Steel Hellkite is the combination of a big dragon and a small, selective wrath effect. It sees some play in Vintage thanks to Mishra's Workshop, and it wipes tokens off the board like no one else when it manages to deal combat damage to a player.

#25. Skrelv, Defector Mite

Skrelv, Defector Mite is a little 1/1 Phyrexian mite with a very good ability. Being able to protect other creatures gives this card the Giver of Runes / Mother of Runes feel. It sees play in Standard toxic decks, and decks that want to use Skrelv as the protector of bigger creatures like Sheoldred, the Apocalypse or Raffine, Scheming Seer.

#24. The Reality Chip

One of the best legendary artifacts in the game, once The Reality Chip is reconfigured to another creature, you can play cards from the top of your library, getting a good amount of card advantage every turn. It sees heavy play in blue Commander decks, helping you make your land drop every turn, churning through your deck and giving you information. Bonus points if you can benefit from casting spells from exile.

#23. Ethersworn Canonist

Ethersworn Canonist sees plenty of play in diverse formats as a hate bear, with this human cleric protecting its owner from fast combos. You can also fill your deck with artifacts and become immune to its downside.

#22. Stonecoil Serpent

Stonecoil Serpent is useful early and late. Having reach, vigilance, and protection against multicolor means that the card can be a brick wall to many threats in many different formats. Can’t pass through this serpent that easily.

#21. Metalworker

Metalworker is a crazy card and one of the best constructs in Magic. It’s very fragile as a 1/2 for 3 mana, but if you can untap with it, you can generate 2-8 mana in an instant. Cube decks like to play it to cheat big cards into play. You can then use the mana to cast anything from an Ugin, the Spirit Dragon to a big green creature.

#20. Codie, Vociferous Codex

Codie, Vociferous Codex is a key cEDH commander, allowing you to use its main ability to cast a 1-mana spell and cascade into Profane Tutor. From there, you should be able to combo very fast and win.

#19. Ramos, Dragon Engine

Ramos, Dragon Engine was one of the first “play as many gold cards as possible” commanders available. It’s also a dragon, which means you have many dragon synergies available. As a 5-color commander that benefits from colored and gold spells being cast, it’s got a lot of synergies with mutate spells cast onto it.

#18. Phyrexian Metamorph

Phyrexian Metamorph is a very cheap clone at 3 mana and 2 life, being able to copy not only creatures but also artifacts. This shapeshifter sees a huge amount of play in Commander, allowing you to copy a powerful artifact like Jeweled Lotus, an equipment, or even a commander with a good ETB effect. 

#17. Hangarback Walker

Hangarback Walker is another example of a value creature that gets worse as MTG becomes a more “powerful” game. Still, it’s a flexible construct that provides value when it dies, and you can even pump it if you’re not doing anything else. Of course, you’ll probably want to put this card in +1/+1 counter / proliferate decks to grow the Hangarback faster.

#16. Thought Monitor

Thought Monitor is an interesting Mulldrifter from Modern Horizons 2. It’s got affinity, and if you can reduce its cost by 3 you’re already getting an excellent deal. You’ll be able to cast it by spending 1 or 2 mana several times, and this goes very well with artifact recursion or blink effects.

#15. Karn, Legacy Reforged

Karn, Legacy Reforged is a very interesting card to play in heavy artifact/colorless decks. The card is an enabler and payoff for colorless ramp and a payoff, becoming a huge beater while generating the mana for expensive spells.

#14. Silent Arbiter

Silent Arbiter is a very real card for decks that want to take things slow and take a pillowfort strategy, and one of the best tools against go-wide decks. Now you can only be attacked by one thing, and you even have a 1/5 to block. It sees play in decks that can take advantage of this situation – decks commanded by planeswalkers, super friends, stax decks, or some kind of exalted decks.

#13. Wurmcoil Engine

Wurmcoil Engine is difficult to ignore once it hits the battlefield. A massive 6/6 wurm with deathtouch and lifelink is hard to race in the air or on the ground, and even if you kill it with a removal spell or a double block, it returns as two bodies – which can be way worse. Power creep is real though, so Wurmcoil sees way less play, relegated to ramp decks or in sideboards against red/burn decks.       

#12. Arcbound Ravager

Once the terror of many formats including Standard and Modern, Arcbound Ravager sees significantly less play than it used to. It’s still a free sacrifice outlet for artifacts and a card that can benefit from +1/+1 counters synergies in decks like Modern Hardened Scales. This scenario could change were artifact lands legal in Modern, though.

#11. Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer

Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer is a go-wide Izzet commander that rewards you for making big tokens. These can be a clone of a large creature, artifact tokens created by the various Saheeli cards, or other possibilities. Then, this artificer makes your tokens – Treasures, Clues, Food, Thopters, whatever you like – into copies of said big creature.

#10. Breya, Etherium Shaper

Breya, Etherium Shaper is actually ranked #32 on EDHREC in lists posted online. Very powerful and versatile, it's one of the best artifact commanders, allowing you to play four colors and build around artifacts. The card provides good value by entering the battlefield with two thopters, and by sacrificing artifacts you’ll get damage, removal, or lifegain. Surrounding it with good artifacts or cards that favor sacrificing permanents is the way to go. 

#9. Baleful Strix

Baleful Strix is very easy to include in a UBx deck, granting you your card back and an evasive nuisance, and you can trade this bird of death with almost any creature. It’s a big upgrade over solid, playable cards like Elvish Visionary and Dusk Legion Zealot.

#8. Roaming Throne

Roaming Throne is one of the most interesting creatures to be printed in recent MTG sets. It’s a typal lord for triggers, but you can also choose it to copy a triggered ability from a specific commander – name gods for The Scarab God, or Phyrexians for Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, for example.

#7. Academy Manufactor

Academy Manufactor’s main feature is to turn a single Treasure, Food, or Clue token into one of each. It’s a must-have artifact in decks that care about Clues, Treasures, or Food tokens, and there’s been a bunch of these over the years. Seeing as many EDH strategies these days revolve around creating these tokens, it’s extra value to have around.

#6. Blightsteel Colossus

Blightsteel Colossus can win you a game in one single attack. It’s also indestructible, meaning that primarily exile effects can deal with it properly. This golem is also one of the main Tinker targets in formats like Vintage, seeing as cheating one of these into play is frequently a win for you.

#5. Golos, Tireless Pilgrim

Golos, Tireless Pilgrim is a card that dominates the late game like few others. Once you get access to 7 mana, you just get three cards from your library that you can cast for free. You even get a little value when casting this scout. That's why Golos is banned in Commander. Golos of M20 was also very dominant in its Standard format, being the best thing you could do in midrange/control decks.

#4. Scion of Draco

Scion of Draco was already a good card and saw some play in domain decks, but now it’s all the rage thanks to Leyline of the Guildpact. Now you have an extra way of casting the Scion for 2 mana. Scion of Draco also fits multicolor decks pretty well, being able to give plenty of combat-related bonuses to gold creatures, and surprise, surprise, Leyline of the Guildpact also helps with these bonuses, extending them to all creatures including the Scion itself.

#3. Walking Ballista

Walking Ballista is a very flexible card, fitting aggressive, combo, and ramp decks alike. You can either snipe small creatures with the Ballista’s counters or burn your opponent. It’s good at every part of the game, and if you have cards like Heliod, Sun-Crowned on the battlefield, it’s an automatic win. You can even play the Ballista in combo decks that require 0-mana creatures to ETB and immediately die. 

#2. Shardless Agent

Cascading into free and powerful spells like Living End and Ancestral Vision is one of the things Shardless Agent does best. This 2/2 value rogue almost always cascades into a good 0- to 2-mana spell, and it’s been a pillar of powerful Modern and Legacy decks for a while now.

#1. Esper Sentinel

Esper Sentinel does almost everything you’d expect from a white card. It taxes opponents and lets you draw a card every now and then, while being a 1-drop human on top of everything. They get better in multiples, too. Just boosting the power of one Esper Sentinel from 1 to 2 is already a game changer.

Best Artifact Creature Payoffs

MTG has a bunch of mechanics to incentivize you to play many artifacts, like metalcraft and affinity, as well as good build-around cards. When you’re playing a lot of artifact creatures specifically, there’s some synergies that come to mind.

Steel Overseer

Steel Overseer adds a bunch of +1/+1 counters to your artifact creatures, and that’s extra good with Hangarback Walker or Walking Ballista.

Foundry Inspector

Cards like Foundry Inspector make your artifacts cheaper, including your artifact creatures.

Imotekh & Urza

Imotekh the Stormlord gives one of your artifact creatures +2/+2 and menace each of your turns, while Urza, Prince of Kroog gives them +2/+2 permanently.

Losheel, Clockwork Scholar

Losheel, Clockwork Scholar lets your artifact creatures attack with impunity by preventing all damage when they do so, while giving you an extra card now and then.

Alibou, Ancient Witness

Alibou, Ancient Witness is a hell of an aggressive payoff for artifact creatures, as it gives them haste and allows you to damage any target based on the tapped artifacts you have.

Cyberdrive Awakener

Cyberdrive Awakener can be a strong win condition. It transforms all your noncreature artifacts into 4/4 fliers until the end of the turn, as well as gives your other artifact creatures evasion.

Cyberman Patrol & Cybermen Squadron

Cyberman Patrol is a good incentive to have an aggressive artifact deck, as your robots attack with afflict 3. Cybermen Squadron gives your guys myriad.

Marionette Master

Marionette Master is one of the nastier payoffs, as your dying artifact creatures tax an opponent's life total hard.

Is an Artifact Creature Two Card Types?

Yes, it is. Artifact creatures are both artifacts and creatures, so every effect that boosts or hampers either of these two types applies at the same level.

Is an Artifact Creature a Creature Type?

No, it’s not. Artifact and creature are both card types, whereas creature types are subtypes. For example, Combat Thresher is an artifact and a creature at the same time, and its only creature type is construct. Esper Sentinel’s creature types are human and soldier, not artifact and creature.

Are Artifact Creatures Considered Historic?

Sure. All artifacts are considered historic permanents, alongside sagas and legendary cards. Naturally, both nonlegendary and legendary artifact creatures fit this bill.

Wrap Up

Platinum Angel | Illustration by Brom

Well, that's it for today. I hope you enjoyed our time together.

Artifacts being colorless always meant inclusion in almost any deck and a flagship from WotC’s balancing teams. After all, lots of cards from this list are a part of Magic’s design and competitive history, having earned their place in the Hall of Fame (of Pro Tour appearances in broken decks).

What’s your favorite artifact creature? Are there any that I missed in this list? Let me know in the comments down below or over on Draftsim’s official Discord.

That’s all from me for today. Stay safe, stay healthy, and I’ll see you in the next one!