From the Vault: Relics

FTV Relics

After Dragons and Exiled about fliers and banned cards, this time it is about some of the favourite permanents among all - artifacts. Relics selects 15 cards among all the most useful or iconic colorless cards, and gives them a new revamped design when necessary. As usual, they come from different ages of magic, and thus this reflects on the quality of cards, which is not valid all the time. Starting from oldest, Sol Ring and Ivory Tower. The two one mana artifacts occupied different roles, as the Tower provided a good amount of life gain to slow control decks, while the Ring is known for its straightforward acceleration.

In a diametric opposite to Ivory Tower, there's Black Vise. A similar ability, but instead of giving life to the controller, it deals damage to the opponent. Last from the early days, Nevynirral's Disk, the first blow up all permanent ever printed recently became famous more for EDH purposes. Skip forward in time, Ice Age has Jester Cap, the first artifact response to exile directly from a deck certain cards and Zuran Orb, a zero mana artifact that sacrificing a land gives you back 2 life, famous for being friends with Balance or Land Tax. Jumping to Stronghold, another zero mana artifact, Mox Diamond, the most powerful mox after the original ones. Mox Diamond worked well together with another one of the set, Memory Jar. The five mana artifact makes each player set aside the current hand for drawing another one of seven, dealing with 0 card to seven switches in combo decks.

In more recent times, the artifacts became more useful than broken iconic ones, so we have good buddies Masticore, a 4/4 at four mana that usually clears the board by damages, and Sundering Titan that makes each player choose a land for each basic type and destroy those lands, duals included. Karn didn't have much fame, as the 4/4 can't really block or deal damage, but it turns artifacts into creatures with converted mana cost power and toughness. Last ones, Mirari, the spell duplicator, similar to Isochron Scepter, which plays them directly and Sword of Body and Mind, one of the famous swords cycle.