Pointed Discussion

two mana for a clone that can change to another dude 4,5 star

4.5/5 Just because on its own its pretu vulnerable, but its potential is huge. Aqueus form makes this guy nuts.

Bant Auras could make very good use of this, along with cards like Alpha Authority and Gift of Immortality. Might be better in the sb if control becomes too dominant though.

Biovisionary finds a new friend.

Copy other Artisan of Forms so that you can have the ability twice.

And not just till end of turn

compared to phantasmal image who does not want to be targeted in any way, this one begs for it.. you need another card to make it work... which makes it bad if you are in a pinch...
i guess i have to draw my Mizzium Skin first..

Purplerooster, I know that deep down in my heart the ability will resolve as a copy of one and then another if Artisan of Forms has two instances of the ability.

But I want to pretend, for at least a little bit, that somehow the game was broken horribly.

What creatures are perfect for having multiples of, but only for a brief 1/2 of a second stack trigger?

You don't need another artisan. You can double the ability by targeting itself. It's really not that useful though.

So as many as four of these on the field while Lazav, Dimir Mastermind stands alone (being legendary) enjoying the awesomeness that is hexproof but stuck with twice the mana cost in two colors, and a much harder activation, and less choice in what he turns into.

Compare also with Cemetary Puca (easier than Lazav to cast but still strictly harder than Artisan), cheaper and WAY more versatile than Clone, still not as awesome in my book as Cryptoplasm (but then, if something was more awesome than cryptoplasm, then cryptoplasm would just become that. Checkmate.)

Heroic is an interesting mechanic, and reminds me a little bit of splicing in that you kind of find yourself wanting disposable spells to fuel it. It'll be interesting to see how this one plays.

Use clone to copy it and suddenly clone becomes able to change its own form

Am I the only one who thinks this is a great way to use heroic? Say she copies phalanx leader, next time you copy her she activates both her heroic abilities. Could you use her to stack heroic abilities over time?

Combos with combat tricks.

This is a clone i can really sink my johnny teeth into.. mmm tasty

Shimmering Wings, eh?

If you copy an elite arcanist... do you exile a spell then? Does your artisan of forms have the same ability the copied one does? Or does it just have no ability?

Being a fan of phantasmal image(which this card is not), i really want this card to be good, i just don't think it is.

In the event of me copying a Favored Hoplite, will Artisan of Forms receive the heroic benefit from the card I copied? In other words, will Artisan of Forms get a +1/+1 counter if I copy Favored Hoplite?

Soul's Fire gotta love that stack

This fellow has a home in my Mirrorweave/"General Cloning Shenanigans" deck. If you are sufficiently daring, you can permanently transform your creatures with Mirrorweave, provided you have a means to trigger all of your copies' heroic abilities before the turn ends. The other fun combo with him is that clone tokening cipher card. While nothing crazy, it's a nice way to trigger heroic, since the Artisan will have changed shape before the spell resolves, plus you have a recurring source for triggering heroic if you manage to hit a player.

So, yesterday, I played this and it was targeted by a Doom Blade. I responded by playing Boon of Erebos, and changed it to a black creature my opponent had. I was under the pretense this was legal since it follows stack. But both my opponent and a nearby judge declared that since Doom Blade was played first, I can't change it after the play.

Which was right?

let's say I activate her heroic changing her to a creature with an unactivated monstrous ability, then activate her newly acquired monstrous ability, then activate her heroic ability changing her to a creature with the monstrous ability. Is she still monstrous? i.e. can i put more monstrous counters on her?

This card is incredibly fun. I have copied someones monstrous creature, in turn using the monstrous ability and beating them. My favorite trick I have pulled off, though, was against a black deck. They used a big creature with intimidate, my little Artisan of Forms was +1/+1 due to putting a counter on him from Phalanx Leader. I used a Doom Blade on Artisan, proc'd the Heroic trigger, copied the big creature he was swinging with, causing Doom Blade to dissipate. That was a block he didn't quite enjoy. :)

Recently, me and some friends played a sealed team event. A guy on my team got TWO Shipbreaker Krakens for his Dimir deck (built around Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver).

In the final 2HG match, one Kraken had already been played, made monstrous, killed...

Then the next came, was made monstrous, and shortly afterward, the opposing team was ready to fold.

But my teammate says: "No, don't give up, please let me make the following play!"

He plays Aqueous Form on his Artisan of Forms. Heroic triggers.

"I copy my Kraken... I tap a lot of mana... I make it monstrous. I tap down the last of you blockers... and attack with two 10/10s, one unblockable. Oh, and Scry 1."

I think they had three life left beforehand anyway... :D

"So, yesterday, I played this and it was targeted by a Doom Blade. I responded by playing Boon of Erebos, and changed it to a black creature my opponent had. I was under the pretense this was legal since it follows stack. But both my opponent and a nearby judge declared that since Doom Blade was played first, I can't change it after the play.

Which was right?"
Who was right was irrelevant, if those were the cards cast. He cast a doom blade, you cast a spell that regenerated the creature, nullifying the doom blade anyway.
That being said: "A heroic ability triggers whenever you cast any spell that targets the heroic creature, including a spell that also targets another creature."

Heroic triggers on the casting of a spell, not on the resolution. As soon as you cast the spell targeting the creature with Heroic, the heroic ability goes on the stack, so if you turned it into a black creature, it would no longer have been a legal doom blade target, so the doom blade would fizzle, and the artisan would be a copy of the black creature, tapped, regenerated, and +2/+0.

hunt the weak

@Dalent
If that's really all that happened, you made a legal play. Artisan of Forms was no longer a legal target for Doom Blade, so that spell fails to resolve.

Someone correct me if I am wrong, but she DOES NOT trigger enters-the-battlefield abilities.

My own question:
- If she copies herself, does she get two copies of her own ability? That would mean the ability triggers twice next time you target her. So... could she then copy herself again, twice, which would give her four copies of the ability (because she "gains this ability" each time in addition to the abilities she already had).
And the obvious followup, how do I exploit this into a killer combo?

Used this with at the prerelease to copy inspired creatures, worked amazingly well. I can't wait for the comboes that'll come out of this.

probably my most favorite, least used card from theros, imo. now that I think about it though, I'm immediately sideboarding 3 of these in my Spellheart Chimera deck to deal with the Fleecemane Lions that seem to be breathing down my neck every time i play a game of standard lately.

this has been one of the scariest cards i have put into my bruna deck, this makes sure my opponent knows that their field is now MY field. trust me, you will understand after you copy an eldrazi god for just 3 mana, this girl being 2, aqueous form. short version of the story. i won.

A Human Wizard Shapeshifter !
and a combo lover's dream in standard.
Dream on, I know
but say I have two of these out early game, each enchanted with a Gift of Immortality, and
I've protected Elite Arcanist brandishing Triton Tactics long enough for Medomai the Ageless to enter play and
land his attack damage with the help of Hidden Strings....

i would like to understand how her ability works, when a cast a spell for the first time it will trigger the heroic ability and the i choose wich creature i want to copy, right! My doubt is, what happens when a cast a spell on this "artisian of the forms/something copied" the heroic ability will work again or it only works once?

@Sorenssen: Her copy effect gives her the ability as she copies something else, so yes, you can use it again.

And, I've found a use for having her target herself! As was pointed out, that causes her to have two instances of the heroic ability, meaning she can switch twice off one spell. While testing the post-JOU version of my cipher deck, I've used that on occasion to have a Hidden Strings or Trait Doctoring copy have her turn into a Nivmagus Elemental long enough to exile it, then turn her into a Sage of Hours. It's fairly rare for the circumstances to emerge - for it to be possible and relevant I need all three out, her with three +1/+1 counters, and to hit with a single cipher spell - but it happens sometimes and is hilarious.

(If you ever find yourself saying "In response to heroic, exile the Hidden Strings copy, then with the first doubled heroic ability have her become a Sage of Hours, remove five, then in response to the other heroic ability, Bioshift..." and so on, something has gone either amazingly right or horribly wrong.)

Also, it's quite pleasing to use her on an opponent's Pack Rat, active the Rat's copy ability, and in response turn her into a Desecration Demon. (At instant speed during the declare blockers step, incidentally.)

@ DoctorWhom42
I'm not posting this to show off or tell you you are wrong but simple to clear some things up and improve your knowledge and the knowledge of anyone reading this. For those unaware the scenario was describes as follows
"So, yesterday, I played this and it was targeted by a Doom Blade. I responded by playing Boon of Erebos, and changed it to a black creature my opponent had. I was under the pretense this was legal since it follows stack. But both my opponent and a nearby judge declared that since Doom Blade was played first, I can't change it after the play. Who was right?"
originally posted by Dalent

The short of it is that the judge was incorrect in his/her ruling. The long of it is as follows: Doom blade is on the stack targeting Artisan of Forms. When Boon of Erebos is cast targeting Artisan, the heroic ability is placed on the stack targeting a black creature the opponent controls, above both the Doom Blade and Boon. When the heroic trigger resolves Artisan becomes a copy of this black creature. Then Boon of Erebos resolves giving the creature +2/+0 and a regeneration shield. Finally Doom Blade attempting to resolve but is countered on resolution due to Artisan being black and therefore an illegal target. Now the big difference between what should have happened and what you commented is that Artisan of Forms never becomes tapped or regenerated during this process as Doom Blade was countered and Artisan was never destroyed. A common mistake of players comes with no properly understanding regeneration. When you regenerate a creature you are placing a delayed trigger on them, often called a regeneration shield. This trigger states that if this creature would die this turn instead remove all damage from the creature, remove it from combat and tap it. You can regenerate a creature a hundred times but as long as no spell, ability or combat damage destroys it, this delayed trigger will never happen and the creature will not tap.

I hope people have found this useful and informative.

interesting interaction with Fated Infatuation. you target this with fated infatuation and then this card's ability triggers. then you may target a different creature and when the fated infatuation finally resolves you can have two copies of the same creature that can morph later if you target them again.

@EmberFlux:
To answer your question, Artisan of Forms will not get a +1/+1 counter on it for copying Favored Hoplite, since the spell that would activate its Heroic ability to allow it to copy the Hoplite would have already been cast. So the spell would resolve as soon as the copy resolves.