"Every. Effing. Artifact.: Why Memnarch Has My Attention."

 "Every. Effing. Artifact.: Why Memnarch Has My Attention."

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.MD

One of the things I saw in the Reality Fracture EDH precon spoilers that gave my heart a little twinge was Memnarch.

Not the Memnarch I knew and loved.

Well… technically, it is Memnarch.

But this is the good Memnarch.

The Echoverse version.

A far cry from the Memnarch who spent his time stealing other creatures from other planes and generally making everyone’s life miserable.

This Memnarch is Memnarch, the Warden.

And honestly?

I like this guy.

A lot.

For starters, he is a ten-mana colorless Wizard who is also an indestructible 8/9.

This guy is tough.

Really, really tough.

He also creates two 1/1 colorless Myr artifact creature tokens.

Those lovable little metal guys that were scattered all over Mirrodin, doing all sorts of jobs before the Phyrexians came along and decided that everyone needed to have a much worse day.

But that's not even the part that got me excited.

The really exciting thing about this Memnarch is what happens when he attacks.

You draw a card for each artifact you control.

Each.

Effing.

Artifact.

Read that again.

Every artifact.

And immediately, my brain went straight to my Sai, Master Thopterist Commander deck.

Because Sai does not believe in owning a reasonable number of artifacts.

Sai believes in production.

You cast artifacts.

You make Thopters.

You make more artifacts.

You sacrifice artifacts.

You make more tokens.

And eventually your battlefield starts looking less like a Commander deck and more like a small industrial complex.

And now Memnarch walks into that mess and says:

"You know all those artifacts you have?"

"Yes?"

"Draw a card for each one."

Excuse me?

Each one?!

This is the kind of card that gets me more excited than some of the other obviously powerful cards in the precon.

Because this is exactly the kind of ridiculous interaction that makes me want to build a deck.

I can already see the battlefield.

Sai has been doing Sai things.

There are artifacts everywhere.

Thopters are everywhere.

Myr are everywhere.

Somehow there are probably several other tokens whose original purpose I have completely forgotten.

And then Memnarch attacks.

And suddenly my artifact army isn't just an army.

It's a library search system with legs.

Yes, Memnarch costs ten mana.

Yes, that is a lot of mana.

But when the reward is potentially drawing a card for every artifact you control, I suddenly find myself asking a very dangerous question:

"How many artifacts can I make?"

And if you have played enough Commander, you already know that this is how it starts.

You tell yourself you're just going to add a few cards.

Then you need more artifact generators.

Then more token makers.

Then more ways to sacrifice them.

Then more ways to recur them.

Then suddenly you're staring at your decklist at two in the morning wondering why you have 47 artifacts.

And somewhere in the middle of all that madness, Memnarch is sitting there waiting to turn every single one of them into another card.

That Reality Fracture precon was already looking interesting.

But now?

It's looking really, really fine.