Phyrexia: All Will Be One is the next in a line of Artifact-centric sets in Magic: The Gathering’s history.
Marking the return of the Phyrexian threat, ONE brings support for Artifact strategies through multiple formats, including a new three-mana Artifact lord. Unctus, Grand Metatect is a 2/4 Phyrexian Vedalkin that supports Blue Artifact lists from multiple angles.
While Mono-Blue Artifacts isn’t an established archetype in Standard at the moment, with the help of Unctus and other pieces introduced in ONE, it’s possible the deck will make its presence known in the format.
Unctus, Grand Metatect
- Mana value: 1UU
- Type: Legendary Artifact Creature Phyrexian Vedalken
- Rarity: Rare
- Stats: 2/4
- First ability: Other Blue creatures you control have “Whenever this creature becomes tapped, draw a card, then discard a card.”
- Second ability: Other Artifact creatures you control get +1/+1.
- Third ability: P: Until end of turn, target creature you control becomes a Blue Artifact in addition to its other colors and types. Activate only as a sorcery.
Mono-Blue Artifacts is looking like it’ll be a real deck in Standard when ONE releases. This three-mana lord is the ideal self-contained engine to drive the archetype. Giving your creatures +1/+1 will turn low-power tokens into legitimate combat threats the opponent must deal with. Unctus gets even better when you pair it with other Blue creatures or creature tokens. The card draw ability is an effective way to dig deeper into your deck to find disruption or further threats.
The activated ability is nice and can help support running non-Artifact creatures in the list. Being able to turn your creatures into Blue Artifacts will let them take advantage of the buffs provided by Unctus and other supporting cards in the list. The only real downside to Unctus is the lack of evasion, which Blue decks rely on to win through combat damage. There are more than enough evasive threats in Blue that a list built around Unctus can effectively pressure life totals, however.
Experiment with Unctus at ONE prerelease events starting on Feb. 3 followed by a global release on Feb. 10.
