Too-Specific Top 10 - Double-Facing Artifacts
December 1, 2023 by
DougY 
(Tetzin, Gnome Champion | Art by Kekai Kotaki)
Flip, Flop, Flip, Flop
Welcome to Too-Specific Top 10, where if there isn’t a category to rank our pet card at the top of, we’ll just make one up! (Did you know that The Everflowing Well is the only double-faced card (colloquially, dual-faced cards, or DFC for short) you can cast as an artifact that can eventually copy a permanent spell?)
All right, so Tetzin, Gnome Champion is the cutest thing ever printed with gears, right?
So now the only question is, are there enough DFC artifacts to support it?
Top 10 Jeskai Dual-Facing Artifacts
There are currently 66 dual-facing artifacts within the Jeskai color identity, so the initial survey seems pretty promising. Unfortunately, not all 66 of those actually trigger Tetzin, given that many of them initially enter the battlefield as another permanent type. This isn't automatically disqualifying, as battles specifically do re-enter the battlefield when they transform, but they're the only permanent type to do so.
Criteria: Double-faced cards within the Jeskai color identity that can enter the battlefield as their artifact side. As is tradition, all results are ordered by EDHREC score.
All righty then, we seem to have figured out our nonsense for the week, so let's see what our best options are for a Tetzin brew!
10. Valkmira, Protector's Shield
(Helms 91 Decks, Rank #1,862; 14,542 Inclusions, 1% of 1,396,685 Decks)
Four mana is a bit more than we're looking to pay if we're going to be stringing together Tetzin triggers (more on that later), but the back half of Reidane, God of the Worthy is castable straight out of the hand and has relevant abilities. Specifically, preventing one damage to everything you own and yourself, along with giving you and your entire team Ward 1. In short, Valkmira seems worth it, much as Reidane herself is kind of a bad Hatebear.
9. Cryptolith Fragment
(15,506 Inclusions, 1% of 3,075,263 Decks)
I'd say that I've never really gotten the hype around Cryptolith Fragment, but I've put it in more than a few decks myself. There's no question that it's a bad three mana rock, entering tapped and having an almost impossible-to-achieve flip condition for a very minimal payoff. With that said, it is a fun minigame you get to play and technically qualifies as ramp. When it comes to Tetzin, the cupboard is bare enough that this probably has to be considered, but I'm not ecstatic about its inclusion, even in a world where it will be easier to flip.
8. The Omenkeel
(Helms 682 Decks, Rank #951; 18,103 Inclusions, 1% of 1,514,881 Decks)
At first, I thought The Omenkeel wouldn't really see many triggers in a Tetzin deck, but boy was I wrong. We won't see any on this list, but let me introduce you to an entire universe of dual-faced Vehicles:
Top 10 Jeskai DFC Vehicles
- Cosima, God of the Voyage
- Conqueror's Galleon
- Slicer, Hired Muscle
- Prowl, Stoic Strategist
- Ratchet, Field Medic
- Optimus Prime, Hero
- Goldbug, Humanity's Ally
- Jetfire, Ingenious Scientist
- Arcee, Sharpshooter
- Invasion of Kaladesh
A whole series of powerful, relevant DFCs that will trigger Tetzin are going to get missed because a ton of folks aren't going to be comfortable with their cute Gnome friend being a Transformers commander in disguise. With that said, a ton of these Robots are cheap to cast with their More Than Meets The Eye cost, will get your mill going, and then will absolutely destroy in combat while also having relevant abilities to an artifact deck. Most notably, any Tetzin brew out there ignoring Ratchet, Field Medic's artifact recursion and Slicer & Jetfire's pure aggro are going to be missing out on some key weapons that push this deck over the top.
7. Toralf's Hammer
(Helms 1,475 Decks, Rank #582; 21,333 Inclusions, 1% of 1,465,870 Decks)
Toralf himself usually gets all the glory, so it's nice to see a commander that's finally going to give his Hammer of Bogardan shoutout some love. Toralf's Hammer is both a cheap Tetzin trigger at two mana and a relevant equipment that can both make Tetzin into a 5/2 and also let him rain fiery wrath down on the board if you find yourself with excess mana laying around. That last scenario seems unlikely, given the straight amount of gas Tetzin provides, but hey, it's nice to have options!
6. Thaumatic Compass
(23,180 Inclusions, 1% of 3,075,263 Decks)
The original Ixalan DFCs have always been popular, and Thaumatic Compass is no exception. While its ability originally reads as extremely underwhelming at three mana to get a basic to hand, I know that I at least can say that I've used it more times than I can count. Sometimes you just need land, even if it's going to take your whole turn to get it. Other times you have more mana than you know what to do with, so you might as well get more and flip this thing, right?
Speaking of the Compass's easy flip condition, getting to seven lands in a mid-power game is no issue, and having a Maze of Ith is always welcome, especially when you can also tap it for mana.
5. Sword of the Realms
(Helms 312 Decks, Rank #1,275; 30,377 Inclusions, 2% of 1,396,685 Decks)
The fact that we're talking about yet another cheap Equipment that will make Tetzin a bit more fearsome lets you know that both halves of Halvar, God of Battle are going to be relevant in this deck. Giving all your equipped creatures double strike is sure to end some games, and even if you play this down as Sword of the Realms early for value, you can still easily flip it to Halvar when you finally decide to Craft Tetzin in the late game.
4. Treasure Map
(31,175 Inclusions, 1% of 3,075,263 Decks)
Treasure Map is one of those cards that has always just been on the edge of 99s for me, but I think we actually get there this time. At two mana, it's a cheap Tetzin trigger, and the scry only makes it more useful in that same vein to try and make sure you flip an artifact. Flipping it over via Tetzin's back half unfortunately doesn't get you the three Treasure, but if you've got the mana to spare you could do worse than three scryes followed by four extra mana or the option for some cards.
3. Dowsing Dagger
(36,414 Inclusions, 1% of 3,075,263 Decks)
Here's my beef with Dowsing Dagger: You can just play Thran Dynamo. Maybe that's not entirely fair, but the rigmarole of giving an opponent blockers, then equipping it, then attacking someone else to hopefully get through just does not feel good enough for the three mana payoff. I think this makes the cut in most Tetzin brews, but the minute any of them start trying to power up, Dowsing Dagger should be first on the chopping block.
2. Primal Amulet
(49,282 Inclusions, 2% of 3,075,263 Decks)
Pretty much any Tetzin brew worth its salt is going to be trying to go crazy with DFC triggers, so there's just not enough room to make Primal Amulet a thing. Sad, really.
1. Harnfel, Horn of Bounty
(Helms 1,756 Decks, Rank #498; 103,216 Inclusions, 7% of 1,465,870 Decks)
Finally, Harnfel, Horn of Bounty gets its day in the sun! Don't get me wrong, there will absolutely be times where you've got plenty of gas and what you need is more mana, but having looked at a few different versions of Tetzin all across the power spectrum now, Harnfel is useful in all of them. Whether at high power or low, there's nothing like taking all these artifacts you're getting back to hand and turning them into two cards. It keeps Storm turns chugging or just digs to find you that answer you need to take the win home. Great late game card.
Honorable Mentions
I liked Tetzin enough that I went ahead and made two versions: One at mid-power, and another that's scraping the bottom of cEDH. First, let's take a look at the mid-power, the original reason I was interested in this commander.
Two-Face
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One thing that surprised me a little bit in testing and building this deck was not only just how good Tetzin was, but also how good "cheap flip" artifacts were with it. For that reason, and with both versions, the fuel that keeps the deck going for the most part isn't featured on the list above, but is rather buried deep down the line of EDHREC scores.
Especially at high power, the best DFC in your deck is Thraben Gargoyle. Not because of anything the card says on it, but rather because it and Neglected Heirloom are DFCs you can cast for a single colorless, or even often for free with an Etherium Sculptor or other cost reducer. With that said, Thraben Gargoyle's flip cost is pretty easy to pull off, and gives you a relevant body in the air at lower power levels. I wish I could say the same for Neglected Heirloom, but you usually have to equip it to a Transformer to get it to go, as Tetzin exiles itself before it ever transforms. Er, converts.
In similar fashion however, the other one-mana DFCs are also great in the deck. Getting three mills and a card for a single mana just feels like cheating honestly, so you're happy to play all five of these cards, but The Enigma Jewel and Dire Flail both feel pretty underwhelming unless you get to flip them. That's not true for Waterlogged Hulk and Oteclan Landmark, however. Hulk lets you mill even more cards into the graveyard in a deck that's always going to love that, and clears the top of the deck for Mystic Forge. Oteclan Landmark, on the other hand, lets you scry 2 before you mill for Tetzin, almost guaranteeing you hit an artifact.
As previously stated, those cheap flips are what you're really looking for with Tetzin, and that goes double for the high-powered version.
Flippy Loops
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There are a lot of cEDH players scoffing at this brew right now, and to them I only have two words: Anje Falkenrath. For those that haven't ever seen an Anje cEDH brew, it plays every Madness card. Okay, that's not quite true, it does leave some truly terrible stuff on the cutting room floor. What an Anje brew is looking to do, however, is simply get through its entire deck to get to the cards it needs to win. In other words, you're looking to get Anje down on turn one or two, and race through the deck, discarding every Madness card you draw, until you hit either a combo that will win you the game, or fast mana that will let you cast said combo.
In my opinion, high-powered Tetzin is trying to do the same thing. Get Tetzin down early, then start casting every cheap flip DFC you can get your hands on, returning either more DFCs to your hand to keep going, or grabbing fast mana and combo pieces as you flip over your entire deck. It's not quite as powerful as Anje, mind you, as Tetzin is harder to get down and costs mana to keep things going, but in my experience with the deck, it can routinely win on turn four and present at least some resistance to the table along the way. Nothing to sneer at, even if it isn't going to win any cEDH tournaments anytime soon.
Nuts and Bolts
There always seems to be a bit of interest in how these lists are made (this seems like a good time to stress once again that they are based on EDHREC score, NOT my personal opinion…), and people are often surprised that I’m not using any special data or .json from EDHREC, but rather just muddling my way through with some Scryfall knowledge! For your enjoyment/research, here is this week’s Scryfall search.
What Do You Think?
Another thing I realized in the building of these decks is just how much information overload there can be in a game of Magic. Tetzin, at any power level, asks you to know both the front and back halves of dozens of cards, and to consider them three at a time, all while a table waits for you to make anywhere from one to 30 of those decisions in a turn. While I enjoyed the experience and it made me feel like a Smart Guy™, I'm not sure that it's something that I'd want to keep up with as a daily deck, which makes me wonder if Wizards should be encouraging this amount of complexity and decision paralysis.
And finally, what do you think of Tetzin? Do you think it could make a splash at higher powered tables if it gets a better deckbuilder and/or more support? Or are you planning on playing a tamer version that will lean into the flip cards themselves?
Let us know in the comments, and we'll see you at the table that flips over into a hot tub. Just... keep the cards dry, okay?
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DougY
Doug has been an avid Magic player since Fallen Empires, when his older brother traded him some epic blue Homarids for all of his Islands. As for Commander, he's been playing since 2010, when he started off by making a two-player oriented G/R Land Destruction deck. Nailed it. In his spare time when he's not playing Magic, writing about Magic or doing his day job, he runs a YouTube channel or two, keeps up a College Football Computer Poll, and is attempting to gif every scene of the Star Wars prequels.
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