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Thopter Foundry

Artifact

{1}, Sacrifice a nontoken artifact: Create a 1/1 blue Thopter artifact creature token with flying. You gain 1 life.

CMC
2
Mana cost
{W/B}{U}
Color identity
BUW
Rarity
uncommon
Set
The List
Price
$0.29
EDHREC rank
#7670
Buy on TCGplayer
Thopter Foundry card art
Thopter Foundry converts any artifact into a 1/1 flier and a life point, and with Time Sieve on the table that loop becomes infinite turns on demand. It's a staple in Sharuum the Hegemon builds and every other Esper artifact shell for exactly that reason — low cost, high ceiling.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01
Sharuum the Hegemon

Sharuum the Hegemon

22.5% of decks · synergy 0.21

Sharuum the Hegemon recurs artifacts from the graveyard, which makes Thopter Foundry a reliable engine piece that can be rebought after removal and slots directly into the Time Sieve infinite-turns line the archetype is built around.

02
Breya, Etherium Shaper

Breya, Etherium Shaper

42.8% of decks · synergy 0.19

Breya, Etherium Shaper generates Thopter tokens naturally, so Thopter Foundry doubles as both a conversion engine and a sacrifice outlet that feeds Breya's own activated abilities — the synergy runs in both directions.

03
Sydri, Galvanic Genius

Sydri, Galvanic Genius

17.1% of decks · synergy 0.16

Thopter Foundry fits cleanly into Sydri, Galvanic Genius artifact-value shells as a steady token producer, and the life gain it generates has mild relevance in a deck that often plays a slower, controlling game.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

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

Commander is where Thopter Foundry does its real work — the Time Sieve combo is well-known but remains effective, and nearly every Esper artifact commander has a reason to run it. In Legacy and Vintage it sees fringe play in artifact combo shells, though dedicated Thopter-Sword decks have mostly faded from those metas. Modern is the most interesting constructed home: the Thopter Foundry plus Sword of the Meek engine was once powerful enough to draw bans, and the pair remains a legitimate threat in artifact-heavy builds. It's not legal in Pioneer, Standard, or Pauper, which limits its competitive footprint but doesn't matter much for its primary audience.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$0.29 bulk tier

At $0.29, Thopter Foundry is deep bulk — a card with genuine combo pedigree available for essentially nothing. That price reflects broad reprint availability rather than any drop in demand, so it's a zero-hesitation pickup.

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Sources

Mentioned

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