Dwarven Armorer

Creature — Dwarf

(Red), Tap, Discard a card: Put a +0/+1 counter or a +1/+0 counter on target creature.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (6)

DreadKhan on Why Are Goblins More Popular …

8 months ago

I think dwarves are associated with being extremely devoted craft-persons, mastering skills that a human neither lives long enough to achieve similar skill. In many settings dwarves are the best mortal craft-persons, and I think they are meant to represent the 'noble' skilled trade persons of the world, people who devote endless hours of struggle and strain, if not outright suffering, to get really, really good at something, not so much for their own benefit (because they could do something else and it'd be easier) though they are usually paid. Becoming a craft person is a life of sacrifice, and those who chose it were often known to be difficult/stubborn, if they weren't they wouldn't have succeeded. If you think about history, most people either were skilled or depended on those who were, so myths about such beings would be quite sympathetic.

I think if you consider dwarves to be representative of the trade-persons of old, it's pretty obvious why modern people don't feel the same connection to dwarves, dwarves that would have reminded you of the local blacksmith perhaps are now much more alien, who do these people remind you of if you work in an office and everyone you know has white collar jobs? Dwarves as they originally were presented are insane in their own way (by modern sensibilities), but in a way that is not very marketable, a life of unending toil (and a likely much shorter lifespan) in trades seems horrifying to many people used to an easier life.

Goblins in contrast with Dwarves, at least as presented in MtG, are quite relatable by modern standards. Who's inner child doesn't love Goblin Snowman? Who's inner child still relates to Dwarven Armorer? I mean, mine does, I've always been fascinated by skilled trades. The silly nature of goblins, their insane technology, bonkers lifestyle/sheer impracticality grants them a significant charisma. The artists depicting Goblins likely relate more to the nature of Goblins, while those depicting Dwarves might not have the same connection. Dwarves have some aspects of artistry in many settings, but it's in the furtherance of their skills, making things pleasing to the eye is a task to be considered once you can already make it perfect by every other metric, artists never work in terms of perfection the way engineers get to (this guy aside). You'll be a much better blacksmith if you have artistic ability that you have cultivated, but the fundamental task of blacksmithing is deeply different from most art, much more sweat and pain arguably goes into smithing than painting or singing.

In conclusion, I think the reason Goblins were more popular is a mix of a number of factors, but the shortened version is that it's a lot harder to relate to dwarves now than it used to be, so their weird nature/lifestyle seems alien, both to consumers and to creators. I could be wrong, but I think if more of the WotC employees had trades backgrounds 'back in the day' we would have seen a lot more dwarves, and they'd have probably been more exciting.

In terms of gameplay, I think it's also a potential issue that Dwarves have very little synergy with one another, but Goblins are one of the high synergy tribes that's seen lots of support, there are so many Goblins and most of them care about other Goblins (or fill a role like fast aggro), so if you build a whole deck around Goblins it's going to be a lot more synergistic than one built around, say, Dwarves that came out before the year 2000.

Random point, since goblins usually care about other goblins (this guy aside), if you are building a deck with access to them and Dwarves and only want to throw in a few, does it make more sense to use him with no synergy or this guy?

DreadKhan on Super Shivan

1 year ago

There are some ways to tutor out the Shivan, one is Gamble, another is Magda, Brazen Outlaw. Gamble works well with recursion effects, which is a niche area for White. Zirilan of the Claw is a really weird one, iirc you can get around the exile effect by flickering the Shivan, at which point it's yours forever. Flicker effects are sometimes useful to protect the Shivan, so they're not 1 trick ponies and you could run more than one in a deck without them being superfluous. The worst might be Magda, but there are ways to generate 5 treasures and that's all you need, and some dwarves have amazing tap abilities like Dwarven Miner, a move that will annoy your opponent without really winning you the game, it's using your opponent's lands to dig out Shivan. Another good Dwarf could be Dwarven Blastminer, Dwarven Driller, Storm-Kiln Artist can make treasures too, some maybe options are Axgard Cavalry, Bomb Squad, Dwarven Armorer, and Mine Layer. There are some terrible options but I'm not going to bother with them. If you want a pretty competitive feeling Shivan Dragon deck, you might look up some Magda cEDH lists, that's a fairly competitive way to dig out a non-Legendary dragon.

Green is another great colour to look at if you want to dig out creatures, if you used something like Atla Palani, Nest Tender you can dig out creatures from your deck, guaranteeing access to Shivan eventually (if you run very few creatures you only need to pop a few eggs and you're guaranteed to hit) and she'd give you access to Green, which has it's own power buffing effects that can be quite notable. If you throw in a few cards that shuffle your graveyard back into your library (Green is great at this), you can recur your Shivan through Atla, so it can be pretty resilient.

I'm not disagreeing with Black as an option, just throwing another idea out there for you to think about.

The coolness of this deck idea makes me vaguely curious about a Red heavy Dragon Tyrant Atla Palani deck, just run stuff to make a nutso Dragon Tyrant and take over with your beefy beater.

Videmon on For Sale: Older editions

2 years ago

Hey guys,

I am looking into selling my Magic cards I have just come across. I haven't played in 20 years and figure its time to get rid of them. They span the older generations such as 3rd edition, 4th edition, chronicles, ice age, homelands, and fallen empires.

There are 271 cards in the collection. Notable cards include, Dwarven Armorer Zelyon Sword Ashnod's Altar Reveka, Wizard Savant Lightning Bolt Serra Angel The Rack as well as snow covered lands.

I'm looking for about $100 for the collection. I'm open to discussion. Pictures available upon request.

Tarnoduds on Treasure Dwarves

3 years ago

Hey there! Thanks for the insights on my list! Here, I'll give some of my own:

-I understand what you mean when you point out that I should have Seven Dwarves on my list simply for the low CMC. But have you thought about using those slots for 1 CMC dwarves? On this deck, 2CMC 2/2's are worst than 1 CMC 1/1's simply because you can curve'em into Magda on T2 and start generating treasures. I'm only trying to remove the seven dwarves from list because I consistently get a 1 drop dwarf on T1 into Magda T2 into a 3 drop (or a 1 drop + a 2 drop) on T3. This way you can often enough get 5+ treasures by T4 (If no one removes Magda, ofc).

-Your list seems to have a lot of payoffs both for Dragons and Artifacts/Equipments. Thats not bad, but you must remember: Magda's abillity is quite strong when you can pop it early. In my experience, if I pop it by T4-5 with the correct tutor I will snowball the game really fast and win the game with 3-4 more activations tops (normally I'll have 1 available per turn by then). My point beeing, with 10-12 payoffs you should be more than ready to kick it off. I, personally, prefered the artifact road since I can play dwarf tribal with a few dragons to bring some value. But if you want to play heavy on two tribes, thats also fine!

What I'd suggest to you is to try at least a few of those 1CMC dwarves and try to take away a few of the payoffs for a smoother mana curve.

A few good 1 drops to look for: Universal Automaton , Dwarven Grunt , Dwarven Trader , Dwarven Scorcher , Bloodfire Dwarf , Dwarven Armorer , Enslaved Dwarf and Liberated Dwarf . Honestly they're all better than Seven Dwarves , even if you manage to have more than one in the board, since you dont care for their size but for how many activations each managed to get from your commander.

If you go for dragons, I'd suggest Utvara Hellkite and Lathliss, Dragon Queen . You can get SO MUCH VALUE with those guys it's not funny.

Gattison on Pauper Dwarves

5 years ago

Dwarven Armorer is actually a rare, and Dwarven Ruins is actually an uncommon. Those early sets can be tricky. =P

Maybe use Duergar Assailant or Dwarven Nomad instead? And Sandstone Needle ?

Necrotize on Keywords, Mechanics, and More. I've …

7 years ago

Just a quick one off the top of my head, some older cards have unique versions of +1/+1 counters that either give +1/+0 or +0/+1. Dwarven Armorer does both but there's also things like Coral Reef.

Amplify, which appears only in one set IIRC. Aven Warhawk. Basically just gives it bonus counters when it enters for each creature that shares a type.