Modern Musings: Forgotten Artifacts Part Three — Myr Enforcer

Hello everyone! Welcome to another Modern Musings!  This week will conclude my three part series on forgotten artifacts with what I think is one of the most criminally underrated colorless 4/4: Myr Enforcer.  Before Hollow One and Thought-Knot Seer, Myr Enforcer was the turn 2 colorless 4/4 that everyone feared.  I think that it may actually even be favored in the current metagame.

Why Is It Good?  

It dodges Fatal Push and Lightning Bolt, and it comes down often on turn 2 putting immense pressure on your opponent.  But that’s not even the true power of Enforcer.  I think it’s real value is in triggering this card:

I think Sanctum is super exciting when put alongside Enforcer as it not only allows you to potentially chain together multiple free enforcers in a single turn.  Not only that, but it can also serve as a tutor for any colorless creature in your deck, like Arcbound Ravager or Etched Champion.  This enables even more nut draws from a deck known for having some of the nuttiest draws of all time.  I remember reading an article a couple years back where someone actually took a deck to a PPTQ.  I managed to dig it up and found his decklist, and though he didn’t do particularly well with it there, I think his list has a lot of potential:

First things first though, I do think that this list has some mistakes in it.  I’m not an affinity expert but I’m pretty sure cutting Inkmoth Nexus is probably incorrect.  As weird as it may seem, I think cutting Glimmervoid/Spire of Industry is actually what we want to be doing.  I will admit that this makes our sideboard considerably worse, but it’s worth noting that adding Enforcer makes stony silence a little less effective against us.  Only a little though.

The updated list would look something like this I think:

The changes I made were pretty small, but I think will give the deck a bit more bite:

-1 Galvanic Blast
-4 Glimmervoid
+1 Karn, Scion of Urza
+4 Sanctum of Ugin

I’m sure that more experienced affinity players will be able to better tune this list than I, but I think it may be a good start.

The Other Deck

The other deck that utilizes Myr Enforcer well is one that plays another long forgotten artifact: Frogmite.  This leads to a more classic build of the deck as seen here:

This is really reminiscent of affinity decks of old, especially with the Frogmites and Welding Jars.  The other interesting card that this deck runs is Contested War Zone; a card that can only be run in the most aggressive of decks.  Bomat Courier makes an appearance as well, giving us a source of card advantage. A final note about this deck is that it runs only 12 lands, which is actually absurd.  That being said, it’s not exactly like this deck needs more either, as the most expensive cards mana-wise in the deck are Arcbound Ravager and Cranial Plating.

That wraps up my three part series on forgotten artifacts.  I hope you enjoyed this little trip into the fringe of Modern, and if you’d like me to do more stuff like this, be sure to let me know in the comments!  And don’t forget to tune in next week when we talk about whether or not something needs to be done about the Krark-Clan Ironworks combo.