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Animate Artifact

Enchantment — Aura

Enchant artifact
As long as enchanted artifact isn't a creature, it's an artifact creature with power and toughness each equal to its mana value.

CMC
4
Mana cost
{3}{U}
Color identity
U
Rarity
uncommon
Set
Unlimited Edition
Price
$5.85
EDHREC rank
#25440
Buy on TCGplayer
Animate Artifact card art
Animate Artifact turns any noncreature artifact into a creature with power and toughness equal to its mana cost — which means a card like Aetherflux Reservoir becomes a 4/4 body that can now attack, block, and trigger creature-based synergies. Four mana for an aura that does nothing on its own is the real cost: if the enchanted artifact leaves the battlefield, you're down two cards for nothing.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

FormatVerdict
commander legal
legacy legal
modern not legal
pioneer not legal
standard not legal
vintage legal
pauper not legal
oathbreaker legal

Animate Artifact is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, but Commander is where it sees the most plausible homes. In Legacy and Vintage the card is too slow and too fragile — both formats punish two-piece enchantment setups that fold to a single removal spell. In Commander, artifact-heavy builds can exploit it to push damage through or enable combo lines with large-cost artifacts that wouldn't otherwise qualify as creatures, though dedicated artifact-creature commanders usually have better options that don't require Animate Artifact as a setup piece.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Budget Alternatives

Cheaper options that do most of the same work

Liquimetal Torque and Liquimetal Coating don't animate artifacts into creatures, but if the goal is enabling creature-based synergies on artifacts, cards like Karn, the Great Creator or Sydri, Galvanic Genius do the job more resiliently and on demand. Animate Artifact fills a narrow role that few cards replicate exactly, so the honest budget alternative is often just cutting the effect entirely unless the combo payoff is specific and reliable.

Price Context

Current price

$5.85 mid tier

At $5.85, Animate Artifact sits in mid-tier pricing for a card with extremely narrow Commander applications — you're paying a collector premium on an old card, not a power premium. Unless you're completing a specific combo that requires it, that $5.85 buys better interaction in almost any deck.

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Sources

Mentioned

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Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.