The 58 Best Artifact Creature Cards in Magic Ranked

Last updated on November 9, 2026

Wurmcoil Engine | Illustration by Raymond Swanland

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 brings about lots of balancing challenges.

Today it’s time to hit the forge and plunge headfirst into everything about artifact creatures. Let’s get started!

What Are Artifact Creatures in MTG?

Stonecoil Serpent | Illustration by Mark Poole

Artifact creatures are cards that are both artifacts and creatures. They have both card types, and interact with anything that mentions either card type, or both. They’s very often colorless creatures, though artifact creatures with proper colors are faily common in modern Magic.

To qualify for this list, a card needs both “artifact” and “creature” printed in its typeline. The list will not include cards that become artifact creatures but don’t start that way.

#58. 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 emergency 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.

#57. Steel Hellkite

Steel Hellkite is the combination of a big dragon and a small, selective wrath effect. This is very much a card associated with 2010s Commander and less of an important role-player in the power crept 2020s, though some decks can make good use of it.

#56. 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 them, especially 100% colorless decks. It’s got good synergies with cards that care about 2 power or less, or artifact reanimation (Feldon of the Third Path, Osgir, the Reconstructor).

#55. Angel of the Ruins

One of the best artifact removal effects in white, Angel of the Ruins can be a strong three-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.

#54. 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, becoming a huge beater while generating the mana for expensive spells.

#53. Silent Arbiter

Silent Arbiter is a very real card for a pillow fort strategy that wants to take things slow, and it’s 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: planeswalkers, superfriends, stax decks, or some kind of exalted strategy. 

#52. Assimilation Assessor

Assimilate is a fun mechanic, an alternative take on reanimation that steals creatures from opponents. Assimilation Assessor is a great example of its potential. This card works as midgame graveyard hate that can steal some creatures exiled this way when it attacks. There’s a bit of randomness in how this card will play, but the upside is very fun to explore.

#51. 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. This remains a powerful roadblock despite its relative age. 

#50. Myr Battlesphere

Myr Battlesphere has been usurped as a premium big target to cheat or Tinker into play. It still has the ability to go wide and tall, and can absolutely make a dent if surrounded by token or artifact synergies.

#49. 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 putting a 7/10 in play.

#48. Komaimu Battle Armor

Komainu Battle Armor 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 onto an evasive or unblockable creature to get the job done.

#47. Crystalline Entity

Crystalline Entity can work as a one-sided board wipe if you load up on artifact creatures (a very popular artifact strategy). The clear downside is its high cost and the requirement that you cast it to get the sweeper. That said, artifacts are well known for a ton of mana ramp like Thran Dynamo and Hedron Archive.

#46. Two-Color Gearhulks

• Riptide Gearhulk
• Oildeep Gearhulk
• Pyrewood Gearhulk
• Brightglass Gearhulk
• Coalstoke Gearhulk

These are all nice additions in decks that can cast them, but they’re somewhat worse than the original gearhulks just because of the color restrictions. Riptide Gearhulk sees the most play in Commander as a removal creature that hits each opponent.

#45. Mono-Colored Gearhulks

• Combustible Gearhulk
• Verdurous Gearhulk
• Noxious Gearhulk
• Torrential Gearhulk
• Cataclysmic Gearhulk

The original gearhulks nailed it as far as Titan-like ETB creatures go. My favorite is Torrential Gearhulk, which is a strong win condition for control decks, allowing you to ambush your opponents with a 5/6 flash creature and a strong instant from your graveyard like Cryptic Command or Magma Opus.

#44. 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. The scarecrow 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.

#43. Platinum Angel + Darksteel 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. Darksteel Angel was released in Reality Fracture as an homage. In any metagame where players focus more on doing their own thing and less on removal, these can be a nice form of life insurance.

#42. 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.

#41. 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.

#40. Primary Unimatrix Adjunct

The Star Trek release gives a ton of benefits to artifact creatures. Primary Unimatrix Adjunct is a white option for making all your artifact creatures quite deadly. Giving artifact creatures double strike is incredible, especially once you factor in any other pump effects or stat-boosting equipment.

#39. Jurati, Cordial Queen

Jurati, Cordial Queen is a cheap Azorius Borg creature that can produce some great clone effects for artifact tokens. Now, this isn’t as good as cloning a regular artifact card you’ve played, but the cheap mana value and easy condition for the trigger make this card valuable for sure. This can especially be good with some artifact tokens from cards like Malcator, Purity Overseer and Simulacrum Synthesizer.

#38. 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. It’s a very malleable commander than can be built in a number of different directions.

#37. Solemn Simulacrum

Solemn Simulacrum isn’t the Commander staple it used to be, but it’s still a pretty good card in slower formats. 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.

#36. Surge Conductor

Surge Conductor is a really simple proliferate engine. The restriction to artifacts isn’t too bad since many artifacts pick up counters worth proliferating, whether that’s +1/+1 counters, charge counters, or something else.

#35. Necron Deathmark

Necron Deathmark is a good evolution over cards like Ravenous Chupacabra, allowing you to play it at instant speed while also 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.

#34. Mendicant Core, Guidelight

Mendicant Core, Guidelight is an interesting aggressive artifact creature that’s bolstered by other artifacts you control. After building up to max speed, you can start copying your artifact spells, giving you more value while growing your creature. With a little support, you can regularly attack with an 7/3 or greater while cluttering the board with artifacts.

#33. Iron Man, Bleeding Edge

Iron Man, Bleeding Edge is a powerful artifact commander that lets you double down on one artifact per turn. That means two copies of powerful mana rocks like Gilded Lotus, which in turn leads to two Portal to Phyrexias, Cybermen Squadrons, and anything else you can think of.

#32. 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.

#31. The Reality Chip

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 other zones.

#30. Stridehanger Automaton

Plenty of aggressive decks want to flood the board with artifact tokens, so they’re happy to have Stridehangar Automaton as a token doubler. Every Treasure coming with a Thopter puts lots of pressure on your opponents, not to mentioning benefiting Karnstructs and Nettlecyst that care about the number of artifacts you control.

#29. Ethersworn Canonist

Ethersworn Canonist sees can be a total nuisance of a hate bear, with this human cleric protecting its owner from fast combos without impeding their own, assuming they resolve around artifacts.

#28. 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.

#27. Ravenous Robots

Artifact decks often want a board full of artifacts, which Ravenous Robots provides. Making every artifact you cast become two is perfect with cards like Urza, Lord High Artificer, Nettlecyst, or sacrifice outlets like Krark-Clan Ironworks.

#26. Codie, Vociferous Codex

Codie, Vociferous Codex is a fun 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.

#25. 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 Bolas's Citadel, an equipment, or even a commander with a good ETB effect. 

#24. Giggling Skitterspike

Giggling Skitterspike is a card you can use to hold the fort against your opponents. After you activate monstrosity, the ability to deal 6 damage directly to all your opponents is no joke. You can also target it with your own auras and build a Voltron version that damages your opponents without the need to attack, not to mention heroic or combo payoffs.

#23. Craterclaw Colossus

Artifacts get their very own Craterhoof Behemoth in Craterclaw Colossus. This red finisher can mass pump your creatures’ power based on the number of artifacts you have. It doesn’t give the toughness boost like Craterhoof, but artifacts are often quite easier to amass in large numbers. This card begs you to cheat it onto the battlefield.

#22. Krang, Utrom Warlord

Every deck needs top-end in Commander. For artifact creatures, that’s Krang, Utrom Warlord, a walking Akroma's Memorial that makes your artifacts deadly to behold. Between haste and indestructible, your opponents have very little time and few options to answer it.

#21. One, Borg Evolved

If you liked the medley of keywords for artifact creatures offered by Krang, Utrom Warlord above, you’ll love One, Borg Evolved. I give this a slight edge over Krang as a keyword soup enabler because of the massive combo of double strike, flying, and menace. Sure, indestructible is probably one of the best keywords you could give, but One, Borg Evolved instantly turns all your artifact creatures into massive threats.

#20. 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 in dedicated artifact decks, and this goes very well with artifact recursion or blink effects.

#19. Data, Exploring Humanity

Among the four versions of this character, I believe Data, Exploring Humanity will make it into more decks as a midrange way to accelerate strategies. The discover 4 every turn you can draw two cards just loads up on board value while gaining card advantage. This combination is going to be killer in certain builds.

#18. Iron Man, Titan of Innovation

At its core, Iron Man, Titan of Innovation is a “dragon” that creates Treasure tokens, very similar to Goldspan Dragon. Whenever it attacks, Iron Man triggers this unique artifact Birthing Pod on top of the already excellent card rate. You can turn the newly created Treasure into a 1-mana artifact, or go even further in the chain. As a commander, it’s very viable even in the competitive EDH realm.  

#17. 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. If the Mirrodin artifact lands ever become legal in Modern again, the card might see a resurgence.

#16. Hugh, First of Many

Hugh, First of Many promotes an artifact clone strategy like Jurati, Cordial Queen, but now imagine it’s for any artifact spell you cast and repeatable if you have the mana. If you can develop a huge mana base, then you can replicate your artifact spells multiple times for devastating interactions and combos. I think you’d love multiple copies of a big-bodied Master of Etherium, but think about some possibilities alongside Mirror Box. I can see Hugh easily becoming one of the best cards from Star Trek, and it’ll make its way into some quite interesting builds.

#15. The Borg Queen

The Borg Queen is a great mix of artifact creature pump and creature theft. This Esper legend makes for a great commander to lead Borg creatures, like One, Borg Evolved and Locutus of Borg in its own precon, alongside classic artifact creatures like Roaming Throne and Steel Overseer.

#14. Ultron, Artificial Malevolence

Ultron, Artificial Malevolence is a breakout commander from Marvel Super Heroes, one of the few colorless commanders really worth running. Its Mirrorworks on a stick shtick leads to disgusting turns, even if making your artifact copies creatures limits your explosive potential.

#13. Locutus of Borg

Locutus of Borg is going to be a great Esper way to grow your artifact creature army. The price is right, and the token-creating ability it gives to all your artifact creatures is quite enticing for strategies using cards like Cyberman Patrol or Simulacrum Synthesizer. The unrestricted trigger means your tokens can also make tokens, which should allow for some great snowballing potential.

#12. Scion of Draco

Scion of Draco was already a good card and saw some play in domain decks, then it had a massive resurgence in 2024 thanks to Leyline of the Guildpact. This provided 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.

#11. Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer

Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer is a go-wide Izzet commander that rewards you for making big tokens. These can be clones of a large creature, artifact tokens created by the various Saheeli cards, or just a massive Karnstruct. Then, this artificer makes your tokens – Treasures, Clues, Food, Thopters, and so on into copies of said big creature.

#10. Breya, Etherium Shaper

Breya, Etherium Shaper has always hovered in the top 100 commanders on EDHREC. Very powerful and versatile, it’s one of the best artifact commanders, providing good value by entering the battlefield with two thopters, and by sacrificing artifacts for damage, removal, or lifegain. Surrounding it with good artifacts or cards that favor sacrificing permanents is the way to go.

#9. Pinnacle Emissary

Artifact and affinity decks in Legacy and Modern have adapted Pinnacle Emissary as a powerhouse threat that fills the board with tokens faster than your opponents can keep up with, and all for 1 mana thanks to warp. It’s even good enough for Vintage Cube!

#8. 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.

#7. 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 cantrip creatures like Elvish Visionary and Dusk Legion Zealot.

#6. Roaming Throne

Roaming Throne is one of the most overpowered 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 and have it just be a trigger doubler for that card, if nothing else.

#5. 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 any of those three token types. Seeing as many EDH strategies these days revolve around creating these tokens, it’s extra value to have around.

#4. Blightsteel Colossus

Blightsteel Colossus can win you a game in one single attack. It’s also indestructible, meaning that exile effects are the primary way to deal with it. Formats running Tinker can also consider this as a fast wincon, and polymorph decks often run this as the only viable creature they can sneak into play.

#3. Golos, Tireless Pilgrim

Golos, Tireless Pilgrim 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 play for free. You even get a full extra land when casting this scout. That’s why Golos is banned in Commander.

#2. 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 point in the game, and it’s an automatic win with Heliod, Sun-Crowned. You can even play the Ballista in combo decks that require 0-mana creatures to enter and immediately die. 

#1. Esper Sentinel

Esper Sentinel does almost everything you’d hope for in 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

Giving all your artifact creatures keywords is always going to be a great strategy. Cyberdrive Awakener gives your artifact creatures flying, which is one of the best keywords for attacking. Cyberman Patrol gives your creatures afflict 3, so your opponents still lose life even if they’re blocked. Combine afflict with Alibou, Ancient Witness, and you have a hasty army that dishes out lots of damage just by attacking.

There are a ton more examples of pumping artifact creatures from the Star Trek set, like Command Subadjunct, Hive Mind Coprocessor, and Ambulatory Reactor.

Artifact creatures have a selection of one-sided board wipes to choose from, including Organic Extinction, Their Name Is Death, and Battle of Wolf 359, to name a few.

Foundry Inspector and Etherium Sculptor reduce the cost of your artifact spells, making 1-mana artifacts free to cast.

There are some incentives to go all in on artifact creatures as a theme. Chief of the Foundry is your basic +1/+1 lord. Urza, Prince of Kroog and Steel Overseer buff your creatures, while Imotekh the Stormlord and Urza, Chief Artificer give them menace. Cybermen Squadron further contributes by giving your artifact creatures myriad.

Universes Beyond isn’t shy about supporting artifact creatures, as proven by cards like Iron Man, Modern Marvel, Age of Ultron, Krang, Utrom Warlord, and Chrome Dome. Star Trek really leans into the artifact creature theme with the Borg, useful spacecraft like Type-03 Borg Vessel, and spells like Battle of Wolf 359 and Emergency Regeneration.

Is an Artifact Creature Two Card Types?

Yes, it is. Artifact and creature are two different card types, 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, Esper Sentinel’s creature types are human and soldier, not artifact and creature.

Are Artifact Creatures Indestructible?

Not inherently. Some but not all artifact creatures are indestructible if they have that keyword in their text box. For example, darksteel in MTG is flavored as an indestructible material, so many cards that have “Darksteel” in their name, like Darksteel Colossus and Darksteel Angel, are indestructible. Regular artifact creatures can be destroyed by creature removal and artifact removal, besides regular damage and other forms of creature removal.

Do Artifact Creatures Count as Colorless?

Artifact creatures count as colorless if their mana cost contains no symbols.  Arcbound Ravager is a colorless artifact creature, while Cyberdrive Awakener is a blue artifact creature, and Esper Sentinel is a white artifact creature.

Are Artifact Creatures Considered Historic?

All artifacts are considered historic permanents, alongside sagas and legendary cards, whether they’re creatures or not.

Wrap Up

Memnarch, the Warden | Illustration by Gaboleps

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). Artifacts have been the historically most problematic card type in Magic due to their ubiquity, and many of the best artifacts hold up through the years.

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. And check out The Daily Upkeep newsletter to stay up to date on all the latest MTG news.

Stay safe, stay healthy, and I’ll see you in the next one!