Ingenious Smith

Creature — Human Artificer

When this enters the battlefield, look at the top four cards of your library. You may reveal an artifact card from among them and put it into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.

Whenever one or more artifacts enter the battlefield under your control, put a +1/+1 counter on this. This ability only triggers once each turn.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Alchemy	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Brawl	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Pre-release	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Standard	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (13)

greenweird on Retriever Repeater Stations

8 months ago

I made a similar deck to this named Lesser Masticore = Exodia!?! The inspiration is actually from elsewhere, but a lot of the cards are the same like Grinding Station, Ichor Wellspring and Myr Retriever, but my deck went all in on using Semblance Anvil as the cost reducer, and uses cards like Ancient Stirrings, Glint-Nest Crane and Ingenious Smith to get the Anvil or whatever piece of the combo lacking. I think it works really well! Feel free to check it out, I'm gonna goldfish this to see if there's anything I can implement to my deck.

Icbrgr on Pioneer Artifact Aggro: Where's Ensoul?

1 year ago

Ever since the beginning of Frontier/Pioneer Ensoul Artifact aggro has had a presence in the competitive meta.

Ive seen the deck evolve over time to be less {UR} and now be more {WU} for the sideboard answer cards/removal and Ingenious Smith/Michiko's Reign of Truth  ^Flip... which makes sense and all...but why has Ensoul Artifact fallen out of favor in these decks?

I always thought that the main appeal to the deck was making an Ornithopter a 5/5 flyer or slapping it onto Darksteel Citadel for 5/5 indestructible and just close out the game quickly with an obnoxious early beater that either was harder to remove or had evasion... combined with whatever artifact synergy the decks running.

Is Ensoul Artifact suffering the same fate as Kird Ape/Loam Lion/Wild Nacatl where although aggressively costed it just isnt enough anymore? I see some {UR} lists still running the card on some Youtube lists but they are starting to be over 6 months old now.

Disclaimer:

I personally still run Ensoul Artifact in a {UR} list featuring Patchwork Automaton with Reinforced Ronin/Network Disruptor... I feel like I have a moderate/acceptable success/winrate with the decklist; but admittedly I dont play Pioneer very seriously and just attend the LGS that hosts Pioneer ever once in awhile because its a bit of a drive to get there as opposed to other shops that play EDH/Modern far more conveniently for me.

Gidgetimer on Elesh Norn, Mom and ETB …

1 year ago

Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines has a replacement effect, so it replaces the trigger with two triggers. Ingenious Smith means that an artifact entering will only trigger the ability once per turn. Replacement effects that cause an additional instance of the trigger are not affected by the restriction.

I wouldn't say that one "overrides" the other, but yes you will end up putting two counters on the Ingenious Smith when the first artifact enters on a turn. A second artifact entering the same turn would never trigger Ingenious Smith, so you will not then get "an additional time" to have 1 trigger.

Chaospyke on Elesh Norn, Mom and ETB …

1 year ago

From the new set there are many cards that double effects; notably Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines. Does MOM overide abilities that have once per turn clauses Ingenious Smith

CheapnFast on Budget Modular

1 year ago

A copy or two of Power Depot would fit the synergies pretty well. Although it makes more sense in a two-colored deck, and it is a little awkward that it comes into play tapped, it is something to ensure you always hit with your Ingenious Smith ETB, and is a good sacrifice outlet for Throne of Geth.

Blobby_Bobby on FIGHT ME COWARD!

1 year ago

Preliminary thoughts: Cut Relic Seeker, Ingenious Smith, Foundry Inspector and/or Dwarfhold Champion and add 2-3 lands. I'll have a grip more suggestions to come.

itsbuzzi on Jeskai Ensoul (PNR)

1 year ago

Hey Alebasso, no bother at all! I only have a free account here so I can't have fancy updates showing cards in and out so I tried my best with my update section. Glad it got you to the correct answer because, yes, they aren't there because I never considered them for the deck.

I felt like Smith's etb ability is nice to get another body but growing was a bit slow, and you can't Ensoul them. My list goes to get damage in quick. If they searched for an enchantment and put the artifacts on the bottom instead of giving me a Gingerbrute and putting my enchantments on the bottom that would be nice. Plus with the addition of Hushbringer in the side running Smith is pretty bad because no etb trigger.

Patchwork was a brief thought but I played Hangarback Walker prior and felt that they are very similar and both was too slow as well. The ward ability is nice but can still be played around. Similar to Hangarback Walker where once destroyed he made at least one body, that was then shortly destroyed as well.

Not that either is a bad card I feel they don't fit with my deck. There are a few ways to build Ensoul. UR goes for more aggressive plays, UW is more artifact heavy, Jeskai is a bit of both. There may be other color combinations but I feel these are the most popular 3 and personally the best versions. I like Jeskai because you get a bit of both sides of the coin although playing it you need to figure out which side is better for what you have.

Both Ingenious Smith and Patchwork Automaton are decent cards but better in a more artifact heavy build like the UW version. I only have some of this artifact heavy aspect here but not enough to go "all in" on the specific archtype.

Hope that helped!

ET_lord_of_squirrels on Competitive GW scales

2 years ago

Thanks for the feedback zapyourtumor! Some reasonings:

-Steel Overseer is definitely slow. I have only just started playing with these recently, and they seem fantastic as a way to put counters on Esper Sentinel without The Ozolith. The protection from Blacksmith's Skill, they are a resilient, must answer threat usually, but their slot may go to more Ancient Stirrings or some Arcbound Worker in the future.

-Welding Jar, Snakeskin Veil, and Blacksmith's Skill all fall under the protection category for me. I started with jars (and I know some lists are runing 4-of recently, because they're great), then I moved to veil, and now I'm on skill. The reason being that I'm a paper player, and as such, I've adapted to the local meta. Unlike veil or jar, Blacksmith's Skill can protect Urza's Saga and Inkmoth Nexus which is huge in a meta full of exile effects and Spreading Seas

-I did try Ingenious Smith for a while, but felt that it was slow, and required more 1-drop artifacts to be effective. While it is certainly a great card, my deck just isn't great for it right now. Usually it felt bad that I couldn't target it with modular, or that it couldn't hit lands with the ability

-Arcbound Mouser is also a great card, but in a deck where 1 drops usually get sacrificed to Arcbound Ravager or Zabaz, the Glimmerwasp, I felt that the lifelink wasn't super relevant. I've also liked having Arcbound Worker over it when I want a 1 drop, as it doesn't require any painful white mana, so I can leave my coloured sources open to play things such as Hardened Scales.

A lot of the information I get for this deck comes from the hardened scales discord server. Feel free to join us there if you haven't already!