Hello, my fellow Planeswalkers! I am The MTG Hero, and today we’re heading into the lab with Tony Stark to build one of the coolest new Marvel-themed decks in Standard: Jeskai Artifacts!
If you’re a longtime Magic player, you probably remember Birthing Pod. It was such a powerful engine for creature-based midrange decks that it eventually earned itself a ban in Modern.
Fast forward to Aetherdrift, and Wizards gave artifact players their own version of that effect in Repurposing Bay.
If you’ve spent any time on MTG Arena over the past year, chances are you’ve run into the artifact midrange deck built around this incredible card alongside Simulacrum Synthesizer. The strategy is simple but incredibly effective: flood the battlefield with artifacts that generate immediate value while creating an ever-growing army of Construct tokens that quickly overwhelms the opponent.
The archetype has been hovering just outside the top tier of the metagame for quite some time, but I think we’ve finally reached the point where it’s perfectly positioned. With many players focused on beating the various Izzet decks dominating Standard, Jeskai Artifacts attacks from an angle that many of those decks simply aren’t prepared to handle.
This deck is absolutely packed with artifacts that generate value the moment they hit the battlefield.
Whether it’s removing an opposing threat, drawing a card, or creating another powerful permanent, nearly every spell replaces itself in some way. There are very few “do nothing” cards here, every artifact advances your game plan while making it harder for your opponent to keep up.
Then we have the real engine of the deck: Simulacrum Synthesizer. Every artifact you cast creates another Construct token, and those Constructs continue growing larger with every artifact that enters the battlefield. Before long, what started as a modest board presence becomes an army capable of ending the game in just a couple of attacks.
Of course, none of this would be possible without Repurposing Bay.
Once your artifacts have served their purpose, Repurposing Bay lets you cash them in for even more value. Sacrifice an artifact you’ve already used—like Spring-Loaded Sawblades or Cryogen Relic, and tutor up another artifact with a higher mana value. Most of the time, that means finding another copy of Simulacrum Synthesizer, triggering your existing Synthesizers while adding yet another engine to the battlefield.
The value snowballs incredibly fast.
It’s not uncommon to go from a seemingly stable board to producing multiple Construct tokens every turn while chaining artifact after artifact together. Few decks in Standard can keep pace with that kind of relentless advantage, and even fewer can actually stop it once the engine gets rolling.
But having our own Birthing Pod for artifacts isn’t all this deck has going for it, we also get our own version of Collected Company in United Battlefront.
Battlefront lets us look at the top seven cards of our library and put any combination of artifacts with mana value three or less directly onto the battlefield. In practice, that means one four-mana spell routinely turns into four to six mana worth of permanents that immediately generate value.
If Simulacrum Synthesizer is already on the battlefield, it gets even better. Those two artifacts immediately create two massive Construct tokens, often entering as 5/5s or larger. The amount of value generated from a single spell is absolutely absurd.
Tony by no means breaks the deck. However, he is a very useful creature because lets us look at the top four cards of our library every turn to find an artifact or combo piece.
Tony adds another nedded layer of consistency to the deck and a “plan b” win condition that is far better than flipping Sawblades or Clay-Fired Bricks
Once we reach the mid-to-late game and have plenty of mana available, we can transform him into The Invincible Iron Man. After transform him, attacking immediately lets us put an artifact from our hand into play for free.
That ability often swings the game on the spot.
But the real piece of technology in this deck is The Fire Crystal.
This single copy opens up lines that make the deck feel more like a combo deck than a midrange strategy. On turns where we’re casting multiple artifacts and producing several Construct tokens, Repurposing Bay can tutor up The Fire Crystal, giving our entire board haste and allowing us to end the game immediately out of nowhere.
Having flash makes this one of the best interaction spells in the deck. It cleanly answers attacking creatures or creatures that have become tapped with five toughness or less. That’s especially relevant against Izzet, where nearly all of their Elementals sit right at five toughness.
This is essentially an Oblivion Ring for the current Standard format. It answers nearly any permanent that matters. The Start Your Engines ability doesn’t come up often, but every once in a while it provides just enough extra damage to finish a close game.
This is honestly the best card in the deck in my opinion. Think of this as a modern take on Temporary Lockdown. It’s an outstanding answer to aggressive creature decks while also dealing with Earthbent lands, making it one of the most flexible interaction pieces available to the archetype.
Replacing itself with a card would already make this playable, but the ability to tap down an opposing creature in a pinch gives it surprising flexibility.
While it doesn’t technically draw a card, it replaces itself by finding a land, helping ensure we continue making our land drops while gaining a bit of life along the way. In longer games, transforming it provides an anthem effect while producing additional bodies to either pressure the opponent or protect our planes.
The Non-Artifacts
Just because this is an artifact deck doesn’t mean every spell has to be an artifact.
Instant-speed removal is incredibly important in today’s Standard. I highly recommend at least two copies, as it’s one of our cleanest answers to cards like Ouroboroid before they completely take over the game.
Castle Doom is a new pick up and is a fantastic land for this deck. It allows for unmatched mana fixing and allows us to turn useless artifacts into 3/3 tokens.
Vault allows us to have another way to dig through our deck and find what we need when we need it. I wouldn’t run too many of them, but it is a great utility land in a pinch.
This is a nice way to make copies of artifacts we already have if we need them like another Snare to remove a threat or another Synthesizer. It is also easy to get enough counters since our construct tokens are usually huge. One or two is generally enough to activate it.
This card shuts off interaction during our turn, making it much easier to resolve our engines. It also pairs nicely with the back side of Clay-Fired Bricks, creating an even wider battlefield.
I still believe this is the best graveyard hate available. I see many artifact players choosing Rest in Peace, but that has always felt like a mistake to me. Soul-Guide Lantern contributes to our artifact count making our tokens bigger and we can sacrifice a token to find it if needed.
Outside of surprising opponents with a lethal Fire Crystal turn, this is our cleanest answer to Sunderflock and other enter-the-battlefield strategies like Reanimator.
Still one of the strongest artifact and enchantment removal spells in Standard. Being able to destroy both types at once creates huge tempo swings, while the backup mode of distributing +1/+1 counters is surprisingly relevant.
This is the sideboard card I most want against Midrange and Control. Affinity often allows Krang to come down for very little mana, refill our hand, and quickly become one of the biggest threats on the battlefield.
Another powerful sweeper that can remove anything. What I love about Split Up is that it can basically be a one-sided effect in a lot of senarios allowing us to keep our creatures.
Wrap-Up
This deck isn’t new. Jeskai Artifacts has been lurking on the ladder for quite some time and has always been capable of some absolutely explosive turns, but it never quite managed to establish itself as a true Tier 1 contender.
I think that’s finally starting to change.
The addition of Tony Stark gives the deck exactly what it was missing: another powerful engine that both improves its consistency and becomes a legitimate win condition all on its own. Being able to continually dig for the perfect artifact before transforming into The Invincible Iron Man gives the deck an entirely new dimension and makes its late game even more difficult to compete with.
I’ve had an absolute blast upgrading established archetypes with the new Marvel cards, and this might be my favorite one yet. Tony Stark doesn’t reinvent Jeskai Artifacts—he simply makes one of Standard’s most powerful value engines even better.
If you’re tired of the Izzet soup dominating the ladder and want a deck that attacks from a completely different angle while not folding to cards like Sunderflock, I highly recommend giving Jeskai Artifacts a try.
It has the card advantage to grind, the removal to stabilize, and thanks to The Fire Crystal, it can end games out of absolutely nowhere.
My name is The MTG Hero. I have played Magic for over 15 years. I am a consistent high Mythic ranked player. Follow me on Twitch and subscribe on YouTube!
