You can’t keep a good Magic: The Gathering set in the grave for long, and now that Shadows over Innistrad has risen from the dead as Shadows over Innistrad Remastered, you can finally play with tons of classic cards on Arena.
Filled with all sorts of Gothic terrors and creatures of nightmare, both traditional and cosmic, Shadows over Innistrad Remastered brings with it an interesting artifact package filled with cards that are great for constructed decks. These packages also include cards that are surprise all-stars in limited formats such as drafts.
10 True-Faith Censer
A two-mana piece of equipment that scales depending on what type of creature it is attached to can do some heavy lifting in your draft pool. Normally, True-Faith Censer gives your equipped creature +1/+1 and vigilance, optimally turning a creature with first strike or deathtouch into a great attacker and blocker.
Slap True-Faith Censer on a human, and now it’s getting +2/+1 and vigilance, making it a fearsome attacker, particularly with the very powerful Humans draft archetype in this format.
9 Harvest Hand
Another useful limited tool, Harvest Hand, is more of a chump blocker than anything else, at least at first. Sitting at a solid three-mana, the 2/2 Scarecrow is great for gumming up the board with creatures or trading up in blocks against another creature.
Once Harvest Hand dies, you return it to the battlefield flipped, now as Scrounged Scythe. Once equipped, for just two mana, you give a creature +1/+1, and if it’s human, it gets the added benefit of gaining menace.
8 Brain In A Jar
This weird, existential artifact has been downshifted in rarity, from rare to uncommon, but still does a lot of neat things. For one mana, you can add a counter to Brain in a Jar and then cast an instant or sorcery card for free if its mana value is equal to exactly the number of charge counters on it.
If you don’t have a spell you can cast equal to the counters on it, you can always remove a bunch of those counters to scry that many cards, helping you reset it to a more manageable number. If you have a way to repeatedly untap it in a turn, you can pull off some silly shenanigans with it.
7 Soul Separator
Another weird little artifact, Soul Separator lets you recycle the creatures in your graveyard to turn them into two new tokens. Even though it's a one-time use, you have to sacrifice Soul Separator to activate its ability, you can do it at instant speed, giving you some interesting plays you can do in response to your opponent’s spells.
When you do sacrifice Soul Separator you get a 1/1 token that is a copy of the exiled creature that also gains flying. You also get another token: a Zombie with power and toughness equal to the exiled creature’s stats.
6 Stitcher's Graft
A piece of cheap equipment that gives you a massive boost in power sounds great, though it does come with a hefty cost. Stitcher’s Graft costs only one mana to cast and two mana to equip, giving your creature an impressive boost of +3/+3 to their stats.
The downside comes when you go to untap with your creature since it will no longer untap on your untap step. If you can equip Stitcher’s Graft to a creature with vigilance you’re in the clear. Otherwise, reequipping Stitcher’s Graft means you have to sacrifice that creature, but if you can equip it to an expendable creature, it won’t make too much of a difference.
5 Epitaph Golem
Epitaph Golem on its own isn’t very impressive. It is a five-mana 3/5 with a curious ability to put a card from your graveyard on the bottom of your library. While on the surface it seems like it might be a way to prevent milling out or to bring back a card if you can tutor it from your deck, it has the potential to do much more.
When paired with cards like Quintorius, Field Historian who creates creature tokens when a card leaves your graveyard, you suddenly have a cheap engine for making creatures while recycling those cards back into your deck.
4 Butcher's Cleaver
A third human-specific piece of equipment, this time giving a creature you control a hefty boost in power while helping you stabilize in the game. With Butcher’s Cleaver equipped to a creature, you’re giving it an impressive boost to its power, giving it +3/+0 as long as it’s attached.
In a Human-themed deck, Butcher’s Cleaver can save you from the brink of death by giving your equipped Human lifelink. Even if you aren’t playing a Human-themed deck, equipping Butcher’s Cleaver to a creature with evasion like flying can give you a consistent source of damage to send your opponent every turn.
3 Slayer's Plate
A more well-rounded piece of equipment, Slayer’s Plate hits hard and slots right into that Human archetype that is very strong in Shadows over Innistrad Remastered limited formats. This three-mana piece of equipment also only costs three mana to equip while giving the attached creature +4/+2 to its power and toughness.
Even better, if your opponent can take down your equipped creature, you create a 1/1 spirit token if it was a Human. From there, you can reequip Slayer’s Plate to that spirit, giving you a 5/3 flying creature to keep on attacking with.
2 Cryptolith Fragment // Aurora Of Emrakul
This mana rock not only helps reduce your opponent’s life total whenever you use it but, when conditions are met, can quickly help you win the game. When you tap Cryptolith Fragment you add one mana of any color to your mana pool all while dealing one damage to each player, yourself included.
Once both players have ten or less life, you transform Cryptolith Fragment into Aurora of Emrakul. Now as a 1/4 Eldrazi, Aurora of Emrakul causes your opponents to lose three life automatically whenever it attacks, dealing a total of four damage if it hits your opponent.
1 Tamiyo's Journal
An artifact that continuously turns out Clue tokens while having a built-in tutor effect is absolutely wild for Brawl and Historic Brawl formats. With Tamiyo’s Journal in play, you create a Clue token at the start of your turn. You can either save up these tokens or wait until you have three to use Tamiyo’s Journal’s second ability.
By sacrificing three Clue tokens, you get to search your library for any card you want and put it directly into your hand. With cards like Parallel Lives and Anointed Procession doubling your tokens, you can tutor cards up much faster than just waiting for every three turns.