Junkyard Genius
Creature — Human Artificer
When this creature enters, create a tapped Powerstone token. (It's an artifact with "
: Add 
. This mana can't be spent to cast a nonartifact spell.")
, Sacrifice another creature or artifact: Until end of turn, other creatures you control get +1/+0 and gain menace and haste.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- BR
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- The List
- Price
- $0.08
- EDHREC rank
- #20450
Junkyard Genius hits the board and immediately grants all your artifact creatures menace and the ability to crew Vehicles for free — that's a wide, immediate effect for a four-mana uncommon. The cost is real: four mana for a 3/3 with no built-in protection is easy to answer, and the payoff only matters if your deck is already leaning hard on artifact creatures.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Junkyard Genius is a Commander card through and through — the artifact-creature synergies it enables are exactly the kind of build-around effect that rewards dedicated deckbuilding, and multiplayer games give you time to set up a board worth buffing. In competitive 1v1 formats like Modern or Legacy, a four-mana 3/3 that does nothing the turn it enters and dies to every common removal spell simply isn't viable. Pioneer follows the same logic — the card is legal but irrelevant in a format that punishes slow, fragile engines. Oathbreaker could find a niche use case if your planeswalker and signature spell already care about artifacts, but the sweet spot remains Commander, specifically at tables running Vehicles or wide artifact-creature synergies.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.08 bulk tier
At $0.08, Junkyard Genius is deep bulk — you're paying almost nothing for a card with a narrow but real Commander niche. Bulk uncommons with build-around upside don't tend to climb unless a new commander explicitly supercharges them, so treat this as a cheap include now rather than a spec.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.