Mono-Red Artifacts isn't an archetype I've played with that much in Commander. When Daretti, Scrap Savant hit the format back in 2014, I was busy tinkering with my Mayael, the Anima deck. I'm not sure I even picked up any of those Planeswalker precon decks, though I might have grabbed Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury. Before Daretti the best Mono-Red Artifacts Commander might have been Mirrodin's Bosh, Iron Golem. Artifacts and Red go together really well, and even back in the day there was a lot of support for this shiny archetype.

Today I'm going to be looking at a new Legend from Secrets of Strixhaven that puts a spellslinging twist on a Red Artifacts build. Not only will this card have me building around shiny things, it's also going to have me building around Instants and Sorceries.

Mica, Reader of Ruins is a 4/4 Legendary Human Artificer with a pretty neat ability. Whenever I cast an Instant or Sorcery spell, I may sacrifice an Artifact. If I do, I can copy that spell and I may choose new targets for the copy. Mica has Ward as well, requiring my opponents to pay three life in order to target him with a spell or ability.

My biggest question is how I'll be balancing my card types so that whenever I really want to copy an Instant or Sorcery, I'm ready and able to do so. I also want to run a combination of Artifact token generators and Artifacts I'm happy to sacrifice to copy those Instants and Sorceries. Before we even get to wincons and threats, let's take a look at that sacrificial fodder.

Artifact Fodder

Having lots of Artifacts lying around is a major goal for this deck, so I'm running cards like Loyal Apprentice to make Thopters and a bunch of different Treasure generators. Some of them, like Ancient Copper Dragon and Cavern-Hoard Dragon, can be serious threats in their own right.

Academy Manufactor might also come in handy, giving me a Clue and Food whenever I make a Treasure token, but I'm most excited about a few odd little paperweights I threw into the list.

Prized Statue is the sort of card that I'd normally expect to be able to get turned into a Creature, but this fallen idol is just a two-mana Artifact that creates a Treasure token when it enters play or gets put into a graveyard from the battlefield. It's not the kind of ramp you can get a lot of value out of, but I do like that it pays for itself.

Drawing cards is one of the biggest hurdles any deck is going to need to overcome, so Creatures like Circuit Mender and Filigree Familiar are great options for Mica. Each will gain me two life when they enter, and will have me draw a card when I sacrifice them. Circuit Mender's card draw trigger is a leave the battlefield trigger but I'll be sacrificing it, not flickering or blinking it in this list.

Ichor Wellspring and Mycosynth Wellspring are niche Artifacts that will trigger when they enter and leave play. The former will have me draw a card and the latter will have me tutor a Land to my hand. I would comfortably refer to these as paperweights, as they do nothing when they are on the battlefield, but that's understating the value they bring to a Mica, Reader of Ruins deck.

I'm also running a few ways to get repeated value out of my better Artifact fodder with lots of ways to bring Artifacts back out of the graveyard.

Scrap Trawler, Goblin Engineer, Junk Diver, Workshop Assistant, and Myr Retriever all provide some degree of recursion, though in different ways. Trash for Treasure might be one of my best options as it brings an Artifact back to the battlefield. I could easily see myself sacrificing an Artifact to cast this and get an extra copy.

Daretti, Scrap Savant is in today's list, as it's a capable Planeswalker that can give me card selection, recursion, and an emblem that lets me bring Artifact cards that go to the graveyard back to the battlefield at the beginning of the next end step.

I'm also running Daretti, Rocketeer Engineer, which has an enter the battlefield and attack trigger that lets me sacrifice an Artifact to bring target Artifact card in my graveyard back into play.

All this recursion and all of this shiny sacrifice fodder is for one thing and one thing only - copying Instant and Sorcery spells. My next step is seeing if I can find some spells worth copying.

Discarding and Digging

Digging for my wincons is something I want to prioritize in today's list, so I'm running a bunch of card draw spells to help with that. The biggest problem is that drawing in Red usually involves discarding cards. What I want is to load up on spells that have the discard as part of the casting cost rather than part of the resolution of the spell. Once I've cast the spell, copying it won't force me to discard again.

Both Thrill of Possibility and Wild Guess will have me discard a card to draw two cards, which isn't amazing but if I copy it I'll find myself up three cards instead of up one card. Demand Answers is even better, letting me discard or sacrifice an Artifact to draw two cards.

Quarrel's End is an interesting variation on this theme, having me discard to draw two and make a 1/1 Human Soldier Creature token. An even more interesting variation is Grab the Prize, a two-mana Sorcery that will have me draw two cards and if the discarded card wasn't a land card, it will deal two damage to each opponent.

Card draw is nice, but getting card draw and Treasure tokens is even better. Seize the Spoils will have me discard a card to draw two cards and make a Treasure token. Big Score and Unexpected Windfall are amazing, giving me two cards and two Treasure tokens. Remember that we're copying these so those last two spells should have me discard to draw four and make four Treasures.

All this card draw is meant to help me dig to my wincons, which come in a few flavors that should be familiar to anyone used to playing Mono-Red in Commander.

Cards like Ensnared by the Mara, You Find Some Prisoners, and Etali, Primal Storm can give me access to my opponents' cards. There's something delicious about winning the game off of spells your opponents brought to the game. There's no guarantee any of these will hit an Instant or Sorcery spell, but if they do, I'll be ready to get an extra copy of it.

Burn isn't usually a great way to win games in Commander. There are generally three opponents and everyone's starting life total is twice what you usually have to try to burn through, so a Lightning Bolt isn't often going to cut it.

Price of Progress is perfect in a format where more and more players are abandoning basic Lands in favor of an ever-growing pool of duals, utility Lands and even tri-Lands and Lands that create mana of any color. This two-mana Instant will do damage to each player equal to twice the number of nonbasic Lands that player controls.

Comet Storm is also in the list and is a perfect place to put Mana Geyser mana. It can be kicked to hit as many targets as I've got mana for.

To get a little more out of burn spells, I'm running Pyromancer's Goggles, which taps to make a Red mana. If that mana is used to cast an Instant or Sorcery spell, I'll get an extra copy of that spell. I'm also running Fork, Reverberate, and Reiterate, each of which can copy an Instant or Sorcery spell.

If I cast a spell, sacrifice a trinket to get a copy, cast a Fork to get a third copy, and sacrifice another trinket to get a copy of my Fork so I can get a fourth copy, it won't take all that much burn damage to kill the table.

I'm also running Fire Servant, a five-mana Elemental that will double damage from my Red Instant and Sorcery spells, and City on Fire, an eight-mana Enchantment that will triple damage from sources I control. I expect I should probably be running more burn spells, but finding that magic number is very much something I'll need to figure out through play-testing.

Doing the math on a scenario where each player has a meager three nonbasic Lands, Price of Progress copied, with a Fork to make a copy and a copy of the Fork to make that fourth copy means I'd be doing 24 damage to each opponent. Add in a damage doubler or tripler and that's likely to be a win unless someone has rocketed their life total way above 40.

Reading Ruins & Ruining Lives

Well, ruining life totals, not lives. This deck is built to be playable in Bracket 2 and possibly Bracket 3 pods, so it's sure not going to be ruining anyone's life. I'm not running any game changers and I'm not even running Sol Ring. So, while this deck should be able to pack a decent punch in lower powered games, there's plenty of room for upgrades.

I'll note that my first draft had a few pieces of Equipment in Strata Scythe, Nettlecyst, and Blackblade Reforged to let my Dragons be a bigger combat threat. I ended up dropping them in favor of my package of copy spells, as I'm excited to see how much I'll be able to get out of them.

Copying my own wincons can be effective, but copying an opponent's big spell and then getting a second copy might become an unexpected wincon on its own. A couple of copies of a big Torment of Hailfire or Exsanguinate put on the stack and resolving first might be enough to kill the caster before their own wincon can resolve.

Mica, Reader of Ruins | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Mica, Reader of Ruins

• Creatures (22)
• 1 Academy Manufactor
• 1 Ancient Copper Dragon
• 1 Cavern-Hoard Dragon
• 1 Circuit Mender
• 1 Crime Novelist
• 1 Daretti, Rocketeer Engineer
• 1 Etali, Primal Storm
• 1 Filigree Crawler
• 1 Filigree Familiar
• 1 Fire Servant
• 1 Goblin Engineer
• 1 Goldlust Triad
• 1 Iron Myr
• 1 Junk Diver
• 1 Loyal Apprentice
• 1 Myr Retriever
• 1 Professional Face-Breaker
• 1 Reckless Fireweaver
• 1 Scrap Trawler
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Weftstalker Ardent
• 1 Workshop Assistant

• Instants (14)
• 1 Big Score
• 1 Chaos Warp
• 1 Comet Storm
• 1 Demand Answers
• 1 Fork
• 1 Price of Progress
• 1 Reiterate
• 1 Reverberate
• 1 Street Spasm
• 1 Thrill of Possibility
• 1 Unexpected Windfall
• 1 Valakut Awakening
• 1 Wild Magic Surge
• 1 You Find Some Prisoners

• Sorceries (12)
• 1 Blasphemous Act
• 1 Brass's Bounty
• 1 Ensnared by the Mara
• 1 Grab the Prize
• 1 Hit the Mother Lode
• 1 Insult / Injury
• 1 Mana Geyser
• 1 Mizzium Mortars
• 1 Quarrel's End
• 1 Seize the Spoils
• 1 Trash for Treasure
• 1 Wild Guess

• Artifacts (13)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Cursed Mirror
• 1 Fellwar Stone
• 1 Gilded Lotus
• 1 Ichor Wellspring
• 1 Mycosynth Wellspring
• 1 Mystic Forge
• 1 Prized Statue
• 1 Pyromancer's Goggles
• 1 Ruby Medallion
• 1 Skullclamp
• 1 Slagstone Refinery
• 1 Wayfarer's Bauble

• Enchantments (1)
• 1 City on Fire

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Daretti, Scrap Savant

• Land (36)
• 33 Mountain
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 Junktown
• 1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle

Buy This Deck Export text

This is another relatively budget-friendly decklist, but you could easily tune it down even further. Below Bracket 2 is the realm of goofy theme decks, and I could see Mica, Reader of Ruins in a "gun show" deck focused on men who have clearly been spending way too much time at the gym. I noticed Mica's beefy arms pretty quickly when assembling this column's header graphic. This guy is jacked.

Staying in Bracket 2, I think it would be more interesting to mess with your gameplan a bit. Those Dragons might be happy to have some powerful Equipment to help them pack a bigger punch.

You could also wrap a Goblins deck around Mica, Reader of Ruins and run a subtheme of Artifacts and spellslinging to make it more interesting. A secret Zada, Hedron Grinder deck would love to get extra copies of cantrips and pump spells. Any time you're putting your real Commander in the 99, I expect you'll eventually wind up putting them in the Command Zone.

To power this list up to Bracket 3, you could throw in a few ways to make more mana. Extraplanar Lens and Caged Sun are both solid choices, and Snow-Covered Mountains would fit in nicely if they are within your budget.

Portal to Phyrexia and Blood Moon might be worth adding, and you'll definitely want to run Jeska's Will and Deflecting Swat. Hellkite Tyrant might also be worth considering, though I've played against enough theft decks that I'm hesitant to run a Dragon that can steal all of my Artifacts and win the game if it fell into the wrong hands.

I don't think Mica's ceiling is going to end up much more than a high Bracket 3 Commander.

Final Thoughts

While I wasn't able to get this list into a game, I was able to do a little goldfishing and I think it's a decent starting point. Any list you get from me or anywhere else online is something you should work on and tweak until it matches your playstyle and the power level of the tables you play at.

Play your pet cards. Switch the gameplan to something more (or less) combat focused if that's where your heart lies.

What I'd be most excited about when playing Mica, Reader of Ruins would be catching someone with some crazy, big mana spell on the stack that you get to copy twice by using one of your copy spells and sacrificing an Artifact. Of course, I've also had the opposite experience, sitting with a Fork in hand next to a player who spent several turns in a row tutoring for Forests.

Needless to say, tutoring for Forests was the last thing on my mind playing a Mono-Red Commander deck, but I still long to catch something crazy on the stack and be able to take advantage of it.

That's all I've got for today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!