Price$0.74 – $5.62
Buy on TCGplayerArchmage Emeritus
Creature — Human Wizard
LegalCard DrawRank #259
Magecraft — Whenever you cast or copy an instant or sorcery spell, draw a card.
2/2
KeywordsMagecraft
Why is this card good?
Archmage Emeritus is one of the best payoffs for spellslinger decks — a repeatable card-advantage engine on a body. Every instant or sorcery you cast or copy draws you a card, which snowballs hard in decks built around chaining spells.
The "or copy" clause is what elevates it. In decks with copy effects like Twincast, Reverberate, or commanders like Veyran, Voice of Duality (which also doubles magecraft triggers), each spell can draw multiple cards. It's a near-auto-include in storm, spellslinger, and "izzet matters" shells.
Who wants it: Mono-blue or Izzet spell decks — Mizzix, Kalamax, Niv-Mizzet, Veyran, Talrand, anything with 20+ instants/sorceries.
When to skip it: Creature-centric, tokens, aristocrats, or any deck running few noncreature spells — without a high instant/sorcery density it's just a vanilla 2/2 that dies to a breeze. It also doesn't protect itself, so plan to capitalize quickly before removal hits.
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Magecraft payoff making Treasure on each spell cast or copy.
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Token generation triggered by instant/sorcery spells.
Talrand, Sky Summoner
Creates Drake tokens whenever you cast instants/sorceries.
Murmuring Mystic
Bird tokens on each instant/sorcery cast for similar payoff.
Veyran, Voice of Duality
Doubles magecraft triggers, perfect partner for Emeritus.
Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
Draws cards and pings, classic spellslinger card-draw engine.
Guttersnipe
Damage payoff per instant/sorcery cast.
The Locust God
Draw-triggered token engine synergizing with extra card draws.
Printings (11)
Played by these commanders
Rootha, Mastering the Moment100% of 1
Shiko and Narset, Unified100% of 1
Y'shtola, Night's Blessed100% of 2
Stella Lee, Wild Card100% of 1
Combos (8)
- Fury Storm + Archmage Emeritus
→ Infinite card draw, Near-infinite magecraft triggers
- Orvar, the All-Form + Mystic Sanctuary + Dream's Grip + Aquitect's Will + Archmage Emeritus
→ Infinite card draw, Infinite draw triggers, Near-infinite landfall triggers
- Archmage Emeritus + Chain of Smog
→ Near-infinite magecraft triggers, Infinite draw triggers, Infinite self-discard triggers
- Chain of Acid + Archmage Emeritus
→ Infinite card draw, Infinite draw triggers, Near-infinite magecraft triggers
- Archmage Emeritus + Chain of Plasma + Brash Taunter
→ Infinite card draw, Infinite draw triggers, Near-infinite damage
- Archmage Emeritus + Chain of Plasma + Stuffy Doll
→ Infinite card draw, Infinite draw triggers, Near-infinite damage to one opponent
Rulings (4)
- 2021-04-16
If an effect creates multiple copies of an instant or sorcery spell, magecraft abilities trigger once for each copy created by the effect.
- 2021-04-16
If an effect creates a copy of an instant or sorcery spell, this will also cause the magecraft ability to trigger.
- 2021-04-16
Each magecraft ability has a different effect, although they all have the same trigger condition, whenever you cast or copy an instant or sorcery spell.
- 2021-04-16
Some effects instruct you to copy an instant or sorcery card in a zone other than the stack. These copies do not cause magecraft abilities to trigger. However, most effects that do this also allow you to cast the copy, and casting the copy will cause magecraft abilities to trigger.