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Cid, Timeless Artificer

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Cid, Timeless Artificer

At a glance

  • Commander: Cid, Timeless Artificer
  • Colors: Azorius
  • Archetype: Azorius artifact aggro-midrange
  • Power tier: mid-high

Cards

The Commander (real printed text)

Cid, Timeless Artificer Artifact creatures and Heroes you control get +1/+1 for each Artificer you control and each Artificer card in your graveyard. A deck can have any number of cards named Cid, Timeless Artificer. Cycling (, Discard this card: Draw a card.)

The scout’s paraphrase was accurate — Cid is a scaling anthem, and the key word is Artificer, not “artifact creature.” The buff size equals (Artificers you control) + (Artificer cards in your graveyard). So an Artificer that dies still pumps the team from the graveyard. The anthem applies to artifact creatures AND Heroes (the Final Fantasy “Job select” Hero tokens), so every Servo/Thopter/Myr token and every Hero token swings as a real body once a few Artificers are down. Cycling means Cid is never a dead card if you’re flooded.

Gameplan

  1. Turns 1-3: Deploy cheap artifact creatures and a rock or two — 0-drops (Ornithopter, Phyrexian Walker), 1-drops (Arcbound Worker, Court Homunculus, Gingerbrute, Ardent Recruit, Arcbound Mouser), and ramp (Sol Ring, signets).
  2. Turn 4: Cast Cid. Even with just 2-3 Artificers in play your whole board grows +2/+2 or +3/+3 — a swarm of 1/1 Thopters becomes a swarm of 3/3 and 4/4 fliers.
  3. Turns 5+: Each additional Artificer (and each one that has died into your graveyard) cranks the anthem higher. Token-makers (Aviation Pioneer, Nimble Thopterist, Aspiring Aeronaut, Glint-Sleeve Artisan, Inspired Inventor, Myrsmith, Etherium Spinner) keep refilling the board so wraths and chump-blocks don’t stop the clock.

Why it wins — the inevitability plan

WU has no board wipes at common, so this deck does not durdle into a wrath. It wins through an evasive go-wide swarm: the anthem turns dozens of cheap artifact tokens into a lethal flying army. A huge fraction of the team flies natively (Ornithopter, every Thopter, Faerie Mechanist, Cloudkin Seer, Skyscanner, Aeronaut Tinkerer, Cloudsculpt Technician, Propeller Pioneer, Aspiring Aeronaut, Dawnglare Invoker) or is unblockable (Gingerbrute, Slip Through Space). The graveyard-counts clause means killing my Artificers actually grows the anthem, and Cid recurs via cycling/recast. Dawnglare Invoker’s : Tap all creatures target player controls` is a repeatable alpha-strike enabler that punches through any ground stall.

Role breakdown (with counts)

  • Lands — 37: 3 artifact lands (Ancient Den, Seat of the Synod, Razortide Bridge — they help metalcraft), 6 WU duals/utility (Tranquil Cove, Azorius Guildgate, Meandering River, Skybridge Towers, Thriving Heath, Thriving Isle), 14 Plains, 14 Island.
  • Ramp — 9: Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Azorius Signet, Mind Stone, Guardian Idol, Prophetic Prism, Commander’s Sphere, Ornithopter of Paradise, Mana Geode. (Several also cantrip/scry; kept lean per the rubric — token-makers ARE the late-game mana sink, not more rocks.)
  • Card advantage — 11: Inspired Inventor (mode), Faerie Mechanist, Nimble Innovator, Scholar of Stars, Selfcraft Mechan, Weapons Vendor, Oltec Archaeologists, Cloudkin Seer, Sea Gate Oracle, Skyscanner, Slip Through Space (unblockable + draw). Plus Cid’s own cycling and cantrip rocks as overflow.
  • Spot removal / interaction — 13: Bind the Monster, Last Breath, Pillar of Light, Expel, Blade Banish, Ride’s End, Second Thoughts, Blessed Light, Crib Swap, Bounce Off, Clutch of Currents, Gideon’s Lawkeeper, Frost Breath. White exile-removal hits anything; blue bounce + tappers buy tempo. The interaction count is deliberately high to compensate for the lack of wipes.
  • Mass/pseudo-wipe — 0: None exist in WU commons. Compensated with the 13-piece interaction suite + Dawnglare Invoker tap-down + go-wide inevitability (the rubric’s “compensate” clause).
  • Payoffs/enablers — the rest: ~18 Artificers (the anthem fuel), token generators (Cogworker’s Puzzleknot, Iron League Steed, Filigree Crawler, Sky Skiff), metalcraft/artifact-matters bodies (Ardent Recruit, Court Homunculus, Gearsmith Prodigy, Etherium Sculptor cost reducer), and modular beaters (Arcbound Worker/Mouser that hand counters to artifact creatures).

Key synergy lines

  • Cid + cheap Artificers in the yard: Trade an Aether Swooper or Myrsmith in combat early; it keeps buffing once Cid lands. The graveyard clause makes chump-blocking your Artificers a trap for opponents.
  • Etherium Sculptor / Voyager Quickwelder make artifact spells cost less — chain multiple token-makers in a turn to explode the board, then Cid makes them all lethal.
  • Modular (Arcbound Worker/Mouser): when they die, dump counters onto a flier like Faerie Mechanist for a bigger evasive threat that Cid then pumps further.
  • Dawnglare Invoker taps the blocker-heavy opponent so the anthem’d swarm connects unopposed.

Pilot notes

  • Mulligan for a turn-1/2 artifact body + a rock or land that lets you hit Cid on curve.
  • Don’t over-commit into open mana if a known wrath is out there — but remember dead Artificers still fuel Cid, so the board is resilient. Hold one token-maker post-wrath to rebuild instantly.
  • Sequence removal reactively; you’re the beatdown, so spend interaction on blockers and on whoever’s racing you, not proactively.
  • Cycle Cid only as a last resort flood-breaker — usually you want it on the battlefield as the engine.

Weaknesses

  • No board wipe of its own — a wide opposing go-wide deck can race or out-grind on the ground if your fliers get chumped repeatedly. Lean on tappers + evasion.
  • Anthem is single-point-of-failure-ish: without Cid the tokens are tiny. Mitigated by Cid’s cycling, recast, and a deep token base, but heavy commander hate slows you.
  • Light on instant-speed protection — Cloudshift-style blinks weren’t prioritized; a targeted removal spell on Cid sets you back a turn.

Decklist

⬇ Download as .txt — paste into Moxfield, Archidekt, or MTG Arena.

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