Crafting Blue-Green Artificial Evolution in Modern

Creature toolbox decks have been in the game for ages now, and artifact toolbox has been gaining popularity in modern. But what about artifact creature toolbox? Why hasn’t anyone tried to build that yet? Well, more fun for me I suppose. If nobody else is stupid enough to do it, I will! Honestly, the deck has shaped up really well, and there’s even some stuff I’m excited to throw in here from Dominaria (assuming I can bring myself to cut cards for them). Let’s dive into this list!

    This deck has quite a few one-ofs, and that’s (mostly) intentional. There were so many cards that were just so much fun that I couldn’t quite bring myself to cut. Which, in my opinion, is a fine problem to have. The current list gives you a lot of options, and while unoptimized, is a ton of fun to play. The deck could be easily optimized by someone trying to really make this competitive, but for the sake of this article, I decided to keep things loose and wild. So let’s dig into the meat of this deck.

    Starting things off we have Noble Hierarch and Birds of Paradise to help power out out bigger spells, or even just help us drop 3-drops early. If you’ve been keeping up with all of my articles, I’m sure you’re sick of seeing mana dork decks, but I promise that at least the next deck I play won’t have them. Scout’s honor.

For our two-drop creatures we have Glint-Nest Crane, which checks quite a few boxes for the deck. It acts as a mini-Ancient Stirrings, swings in the air, and blocks just fine. Chief Engineer is often going to be the better of these two-drops however, giving all of your artifacts convoke so you can drop your bombs sooner, or even just allowing you to play more small guys.

Our three spot is pretty crowded, and for good reason, since it has a lot of our best creatures. We have Filigree Familiar to act as a nice blocker that boosts our life total and plays well when we sacrifice it to Eldritch Evolution. Scrap Trawler gives us some nice recursion, and if our opponent lets it live, can really help us grind out long games. Our best creatures in this slot though are Master of Etherium and Etched Champion, with Etherium being a huge beater that also acts as a lord for our artifact creatures, and Etched Champion being an unblockable, shroud, can’t-die-in-combat bear.

    Once we hit our four-drops, we start hitting our bigger creatures, and ones that we’ll be more inclined to tutor for and tutor with than ones we want to always have. Treasure Keeper is our very own Matter Reshaper, with the upside of always hitting something it can cast. It gives us a cascade-on-death trigger that makes him a decent blocker, an attacker we don’t mind losing, and good evolution fodder. Solemn Simulacrum is another card that acts as something we can sacrifice to evolution, and also ramps us up to cast our big spells if we don’t have our tutor. We also get Whirler Rogue, which ranges from decent to great, giving us four power and toughness over three bodies, and can make our creatures unblockable. It dies to every removal spell in the format except Hornet Sting, but will always leave something behind for us to work with. Keeping in mind that the “something” is two fliers, it’s certainly not a bad deal. As our last four mana creature we have Phyrexian Metamorph, which, while looking like a mediocre card overall, can actually be pretty useful for its versatility. Obviously the fail case here is that nobody has any artifacts or creatures, and this is completely unusable. The best case, however, is that we get a three or four mana bomb. The typical case, however, is that we get an extra 3-5 mana creature, which is a fine rate, especially considering that we can tutor it up to copy anything on the board, including an opponent’s Meddling Mage or Ulamog, or even an Oblivion Stone.

    For five-drops, we get Verdurous Gearhulk, which gives us eight total power, four of which we can distribute among our creatures, which means it leaves an impact even if it immediately dies or we sacrifice it to evolution. Our second five drop, which is definitely my favorite of the two, is Precursor Golem. The biggest issue with this card is its interaction with removal, with Bolt, revolted Push, and Path all killing the three golems, and an unrevolted push can still kill both of the tokens. However, the effect here is great if it sticks. Three bodies means that you get more power out of Master of Etherium’s lord effect, and they buff Master even more. Precursor Golem also allows us to ramp faster with Chief Engineer, and leaves behind two 3/3s if we sacrifice the original to evolution.

Our six-drops are where things start getting really good. Wurmcoil Engine gives us an absolute beater, killing anything in its path and gaining us life. This is buffed by Master, and is one of our prime targets for Whirler Rogue. Our other six-drop is Steel Hellkite, which reads “You win the game” against some decks if you can get even a single activation out of its ability. Its evasive, it’s a mana sink, and it punishes go-wide decks hard. Hit a humans or merfolk player? Two mana board wipe. Affinity? Say goodbye to you artifacts. Tron? Uhh...next question. Even in the worst-case scenario against most opponents, you can get rid of the most problematic permanents with the first activation, and pull clean-up duty with the second. Finally, we have Myr Battlesphere, which comes down and just wins. Opponent overwhelming you? You just made five bodies. Close to winning? This gives a single Master +5/+5, adding a total of 18 power to the board. It also turns on Whirler Rogue, and can swing in itself as an 8/7.

    For our spells, we have Mox Opal, which helps us accelerate, fix, and (combined with our dorks) is part of the reason we only have 20 lands. Eldritch Evolution is part of what makes our whole deck works, helping us tutor up answers and threats for only three mana. Our last spell is Tezzeret the Seeker, which gives our artifact creatures pseudo-vigilance, untaps artifact creatures we convoke with, and gives us extra uses from our Mox Opals. His -X does a fantastic job as a tutor, giving us sideboard bullets and creatures and putting them straight into play. This comes down and gets Pithing Needle, Master of Etherium, and even Silent Arbiter if you need it, or just upticks and generates value.

    The manabase is pretty normal, with fetches, shocks, fastlands, basics, and a single Flooded Strand for the extra fetch. An advantage of being a highly-colorless deck, however, is that we can run a few more utility lands than normal. This gives us access to Academy Ruins for graveyard recursion, Inventors’ Fair for lifegain and an extra tutor, and Inkmoth Nexus for a Gearhulk-friendly beater that hits in the air. We have Field of Ruin to help with Tron and other big mana decks, and Spire of Industry and Glimmervoid help fix our mana.

    In the sideboard, we have Metallic Rebuke to act as a 1-mana Mana Leak in matchups where we need access to countermagic, DIsplacement Wave to help against decks with lots of cheap permanents, and Shapers’ Sanctuary to out-grind removal-heavy decks like Jund or Mardu Pyromancer. We also have Pithing Needle to use against Aether Vial, Tasigur, Liliana, and Jace. Grafdigger’s Cage and Relic of Progenitus help fight the graveyard-based decks, Reclamation Sage for affinity and blood moon, and Silent Arbiter to punish go-wide decks like humans, Hollow One, and Affinity. Thragtusk helps us pull ahead against burn and other aggro decks, and Duplicant gives us an out against big creatures we struggle with stopping. Notably, this can stop Ulamog and leave you with a 10/10, or just kill some smaller problematic creature like a Meddling Mage or Flamewake Phoenix. While it doesn’t get the exiled creature’s abilities, it’s still going to be good often enough to bring in every few games. Rounding off our sideboard, we have Field of Ruin and Ghost Quarter to provide more protection against big mana.

Tips:

• Avoid running out Master of Etherium against red decks if you don’t have three or more artifacts, since that opens him up to bolt. Any more, and he should stick around for a while.
• Don’t be afraid to use Metamorph to copy an opponent’s creature or something as small as a mana dork. One notable (but fairly rare) use is that you can copy an opponent’s merfolk, which gives it buffs from both your Master and your opponent’s Lord of Atlantis.
• Metamorph gets enters the battlefield effects and dies triggers (and all other abilities, but these are the ones that usually trip people up), meaning that you can get tokens from Precursor Golem and Battlesphere, make baby Wurms by copying Wurmcoil, or bouncing with Reflector Mage.
• In a pinch, don’t hesitate to use Tezzeret as a 5-mana tutor. It hurts, but sometimes it’s what you need to dig yourself out of the hole.
• In the most desperate of situations, you can mill your opponent one turn at a time with access to six mana, Academy Ruins (this doesn’t count as one of your six mana), and Silent Arbiter. You can infinitely recur Arbiter with Ruins, casting him each turn and blocking to stop your opponent from getting damage through. Not something that will come up that often, but it is an option.

Potential Changes/Extra Spice:

• The first and most obvious change is to lower the number of one- and two-ofs. Probably scrap Scrap Trawler, get rid of Solemn Simulacrum, and make your five- and six-drops two-ofs rather than one-ofs by cutting one of each.
• Mox Opal has so far been a bit lackluster, but at times really shines. It’s a bit of a middle-ground card that’s left me wanting for better in some cases, and praying to draw it in others.
• Silent Arbiter actually seems like something I would like in the main. I side it in a lot more than I ever expected, and I would recommend finding a spot for it if it fits in your meta.
• Ancient Stirrings is in a weird spot in this deck where it doesn’t seem like the ideal way we want to spend turn 1, but digs wonderfully later on and can help us out early if we aren’t playing mana dorks.
• Phyrexian Revoker can give us a tutorable Pithing Needle with legs, but naming the right target makes it a removal magnet.
• Sharding Sphinx is a bit win-more, but powering it out as early as turn three is very appealing. Your army will grow quickly with this guy out, especially when you consider that the tokens it makes also trigger the ability.
• You can splash white for Cataclysmic Gearhulk, giving you a boardwipe you can tutor off of Evolution, and synergises pretty well all of our artifact creatures since we can keep one as our artifact, and one as our creature.
• White also gives us access to Ethersworn Canonist, a bear that locks out Storm and slows down any nonartifact opponents.

Love from Dominaria:

    There are a lot of synergistic cards in Dominaria, and a lot of stuff I want to try out. Obviously not all of these can make the cut (especially when I’m struggling to cut cards already), but there’s definitely some really cool stuff here, including even more stuff that pushes us into white.

Damping Sphere seems like an auto-include in this deck’s sideboard, since it helps fight Tron and Storm.

Daring Archaeologist is a good evolution target since it acts as a beater and can get back what we sacrificed to find it in the first place.

Karn, Scion of Urza gives us two Master of Etheriums (minus the lord effect) for four mana, and that’s in the case where we need the bodies. Aside from that, he acts as a major card advantage engine, giving us a slightly worse version of “draw a card” every turn, but allowing us to get back the good ones afterwards. The fact that Karn also goes through two cards at a time can be useful, since it helps thin out your deck.

Mishra’s Self-Replicator seems like the kind of card you need to untap with, but can win the game if you do. Casting cheap artifacts with this guy out means that we get extra copies, and the copies can increase exponentially since the copies also have the ability.

I love Teshar, Ancestor’s Apostle, and the ability to cast a Mox Opal or Wurmcoil Engine and get back a Master of Etherium or mana dork straight to the battlefield. It dies pretty easily to removal, but can really help you pull ahead if it lives.
Traxos, Scourge of Kroog is a funny card that is easy to trigger here, and swings hard for his mana cost. He even has evasion! One of the hidden modes on this guy is that he untaps if you convoke with him, so he can be extra mana in those cases.

    Eldritch Evolution is an all-around fun card, and getting to run it with artifact synergy is great. There’s still a ton of customization and optimization that can be done, and it’ll only get better with access to cards from Dominaria. The deck definitely feels strong enough to take to your FNM, and with some tuning, I could even see attempts at making it more competitive. The deck doesn’t fold to Stony Silence like most artifact decks, and has a ton of flexibility and slots to play around with. You can throw in Platinum Angel if you want to, or even Memnarch to steal your opponent’s permanents. Whatever way you choose to take this deck, you’ll have a blast with it, and get access to even more toys after Dominaria drops.