The best colors for Artifact Commander decks in MTG

Key foods

• Artifact decks in the Commander format offer different colors for different strategies.
• Jeskai focuses on tokens, red on sacrifices, and black on artifact creatures.
• Mono Blue is a strong option due to its powerful tutorials and returns to artifacts.

Artifact decks are some of the most popular in Magic: The Gathering's Commander format. There's nothing better than collecting a pile of artifacts, dohikes, and tumbabobs and using them to turn your opponents into a fine paste.

But there are many different ways to build an artifact deck, and artifact decks can be found in a large number of colors. Before choosing your commander, you should think about which colors you like to play the most.

10 Jeskai (blue/red/white)

Non-creature tokens, skills, and spells

Blue, red, and white are, individually, three popular colors for artifacts, but surprisingly, when combined, they can take your deck in a different direction.

Borrowing from white's love of tokens, you tend to get commanders like Cayth, Renowned Mechanist, and Tetzin, Gnome Champion, who like to pull out a lot of token artifact creatures. Alternatively, you can focus on energy with Dr. Madison Lee and Liberty Prime, Recharged.

Because these three colors focus more on non-creature spells, you'll often find commanders that aren't clearly artifact commanders that work well. This is why you sometimes see Elsha of the Infinite or Kykar, Wind's Fury pilot artifact decks.

White is the only color of the three that does not see more play in a monochromatic deck. That's because its core cards, like Esper Sentinel, Oswald Fiddlebender, and Ethersworn Canonist, are all better suited when supporting decks with better artifact synergy rather than core focus.

9 single red

Steal them, sacrifice them

Red likes to be reckless with artifacts, and you'll often see them sacrifice them for profit, like Bosh, the Iron Golem, which turns them into direct damage, or Slobad, the Iron Goblin, into mana. Farid the Enterprising Salvager is one of the most versatile commanders of this type, as sacrifice can allow Farid, harass Farid, or draw cards.

Even outside of commanders, you will make many sacrifices. Trash for Treasure , Goblin Engineer , and Goblin Welder all sacrifice artifacts and return them to the battlefield for return element, and Crime Novelist turns them into +1/+1 counters and red mana.

Of course, Red has lost a large chunk of his artwork with the banning of Dockside Extortionist. But it's still very easy to play artifacts or build artifact tokens, which will likely remain monochromatic red for a long time.

8 single black

This is just the Warhammer 40000 Necron Deck

Cold and heartless creatures are a big part of black's identity, which makes monoblack artifact decks often focus on artifact creatures.

The Warhammer 40,000 Necron Commander deck almost single-handedly highlights mono-black artifact decks, with Imotekh the Stormlord, Szarekh the Silent King, Trazyn the Infinite, and Arakyr the Traveler all good enough to lead their own decks. All of them tend to play with the graveyard or your whole life in some way and are very much an encouragement to sacrifice, self-sacrifice and return.

Outside of 40K, almost every black card you see in artifact decks is mostly about creature returns. This is why these decks love artifact creatures so much. Synergies are powerful artifacts, powerful creatures, why not combine the two with a fearsome return or damaging Gearhulk?

7 Izzet (red/blue)

Cheerio, old part

It's strange that when white is not involved, red and blue are much simpler than artefacts. Most blue/red decks love to play artifacts, copy them, or draw cards from them to continue, which is why cheerios is such a popular archetype here.

Cheerios is a deck that uses no-cost spells to great effect, with Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain leading the way. Casting Chrome Mox, Mox Amber, Mox Opal, or Everflowing Chalice for zero mana and drawing cards can give you a huge advantage. Alternatively, you can use Shao Jun to hit them for direct damage, Brudiclad to make tokens and turn them into something scary.

These colors also have Enthusiastic Mechanaut, a way to turn one-mana artifacts into cheerios, and Third Path Iconoclast for that nod to the noncreature spell that made Izzet so popular.

6 Non-green (white/blue/black/red)

For when you must have it all

Green is the only color that hates artifacts, so it's often kept out of the party. Four-color commanders are rare now, so your choices for this color are slim.

You're probably playing Breya, the Etherium Shaper that does it all. It builds artifacts on entry, gives you a way to sacrifice them, and gives you access to the four colors that care most about artifacts. While you can choose Akiri and Silas Ren, or Bjorna and Wenrog as friends forever, neither is as effective as Bria.

It's not a smart or elegant way to build a deck, because you're just combining a bunch of things that each color can do on its own. But you have a few multi-color options that aren't common anywhere else, like Jan Jenson, Chaos Crafter.

5 Boros (red/white)

Classic colors of Voltron

Red and white are a curious pair of colors for artifacts because there are two main ways to make them.

The first is someone everyone knows and loves: Voltron. It always feels good to build a bunch of pieces of equipment, attach them all to one creature, and swing by a giant commander and endgame. Throw in cards like Puresteel Paladin, Embercleave, Sram, Senior Edificer. Riav, Professor Smith; And Akiri, the intrepid voyager, and you rise so quickly.

A second, lesser-known method of Boros construction was introduced in Strixawn's Commander decks: Return. Osgir, the Reconstructor is still the best commander for this style, but he pairs well with red sacrifice cards to fill your graveyard with artifacts and bring them back. Copy them with Oltec Matterweaver or Cursed Mirror, and you can go much wider than Voltron decks.

4 Grixis (blue/black/red)

Move over 40k, doctor who reigns here

Unlike non-green, Grixis actually has its own identity for artifact decks and isn't just a bunch of black, blue, and red cards. That theme, in true Grixis fashion, is “huge amounts of value.”

Most of the Grixis artifact commanders have a lot of text boxes of things you can do. Mishra, the Eminent One copies them and turns them into creatures, Ashd, the Cyberman only copies them through the wounded, and Davros, the Dalek creator makes you an artifact token and forces your opponent to draw a card between you or choose one if they discard the card. I have lost enough life

Interestingly, Grixis decks don't tend to use mono-black like Warhammer 40,000 decks. While red still has the sacrifice packs of Goblin Welder, Audacious Reshapers, and Slobad, black tends to use more cards like Marionette Master and Dalek Squadron.

It also uses Dimir blue/black cards like Baleful Strix and The Cyber-Controller for added value.

3 WUBRG (white/blue/black/red/green)

Pour all together

Why settle when you can use everything? Five-color artifact decks are rare, as green adds next to nothing to the strategy, but there is one place where they shine: Myr.

Myr are artifact creatures that often have knockback abilities, such as mana generation. And the best commander for Myr decks is Urtet, Remnant of Memnarch, which rewards you for the Myr spell by building another Myr.

I was once thinking of building an Urtet Combo deck that only used two-way lanes to combo Goblin Charbelcher. It was too much of a glass ball, so I decided to stop it.

On top of Myr critical mass, like Alloy Myr, Myr Retriever, Hovermyr, and Myr Turbine, green adds a few tools to the deck. Most of the good green cards are generic like Heroic Intervention and Beast Within, but Duskmourn also introduced Enduring Vitality which allows all Myr to hit for any color.

2 single blue

Simply the best

Blue is by far the best monocolor for an artifact deck, and some of the scariest artifact commanders are monoblue. Emry, Lurker of the Loch gives you near-constant return by pushing artifacts out of your graveyard, and anyone who's been in a pod with Urza, Lord High Artificer knows how out of hand this deck can get.

Blue with Whir of Invention, Fabricate, and Trinket Mage is the best color equipped for artifact teachers. Checks with Forensic Gadgeteer or draws cards with Vidalken Archmage. It can copy artifacts with Phyrexian Metamorph, trick them with Master Transmuter, or spread with Sharding Sphinx.

Blue is the backbone of most artifact decks, and relying on it as the only color in the deck allows you to really play to its many strengths.

1 Esper (white/blue/black)

A little support isn't a bad thing

That being said, blue is an incredibly powerful color for artifact decks, and it's taken to another level with white and blue support.

Some of the game's most iconic Artifact Commanders are Esper, such as Sydri, the Galvanic Genius. Ella, the artistic provocateur; Sharum Hegemon; and the Silas Renn/Rebbec partner pair. But regardless of who you choose, they all follow the same pattern that allows Blue to do the heavy lifting.

You'll still use Etherium Sculptors and Thopter Sky Networks to discover artifacts, but now you also have access to cards like Losheel, Clockwork Scholar. Or Bronze Guardian to protect and restore your artifacts if your opponent somehow gets through your engagement wall. You also can't forget Esper Sentinel, which is one of the best turn one plays you can build in the entire format.