Price$1.31 – $2.96
Buy on TCGplayerSculpting Steel
Artifact
LegalRank #674
You may have this artifact enter as a copy of any artifact on the battlefield.
Why is this card good?
Sculpting Steel is a colorless artifact "clone" that copies any artifact on the battlefield — yours or an opponent's. That flexibility is what makes it quietly excellent in artifact-centric decks.
The obvious play is doubling your best mana rock — a second Mana Vault, Gilded Lotus, or a Sol Ring is rarely bad. But the real ceiling is copying something busted: an opponent's (or your own) Mana Crypt, a powerful key piece like The One Ring, or a combo-enabling artifact. In dedicated builds it copies things like Aetherflux Reservoir, Time Sieve, or a problematic stax piece.
Wants it: artifact ramp decks, big mana commanders (Urza, Breya, Brago, Jhoira, Osgir — who can recur and copy it), and any deck leaning on a strong artifact engine.
Skip it if your deck has few impactful artifacts. At three mana it's only as good as the best target on the board — in a low-artifact pod or creature-focused build, it's a dead clone with nothing worth copying.
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Printings (12)
Played by these commanders
Brimaz, Blight of Oreskos100% of 1
Osgir, the Reconstructor100% of 1
Szarekh, the Silent King100% of 2
Rulings (5)
- 2007-07-15
Sculpting Steel doesn't copy whether the original artifact is tapped or untapped. It also doesn't copy any counters on that artifact, any Auras or Equipment attached to that artifact, or any effects that are currently affecting that artifact — you get exactly what's printed on the chosen card and nothing more. So if you copy an animated Chimeric Staff, for example, you get a normal, nonanimated Chimeric Staff.
- 2007-07-15
If the chosen artifact is copying something else (for example, if the chosen artifact is another Sculpting Steel), then your Sculpting Steel enters as whatever the chosen artifact copied.
- 2007-07-15
If the chosen artifact is a token, your Sculpting Steel copies the original characteristics of that token as stated by the effect that put it onto the battlefield. Your Sculpting Steel is not considered to be a token.
- 2007-07-15
You can choose not to copy anything. In that case, Sculpting Steel stays on the battlefield as an artifact that doesn't do much of anything.
- 2004-12-01
Any "enters" abilities of the copied artifact will trigger when Sculpting Steel enters. Any "as enters" or "enters with" abilities of the chosen artifact will also work. For example, if Sculpting Steel copies an artifact creature with sunburst, the copy will get +1/+1 counters based on the number of different colors of mana used to pay Sculpting Steel's total cost. If Sculpting Steel copies a noncreature artifact with sunburst, the copy will get charge counters based on the number of different colors of mana used to pay Sculpting Steel's total cost.