Last updated on August 8, 2025
Mishra's Bauble | Illustration by Chippy
Atla Palani, Nest Tender is a Naya commander that creates egg creatures and synergizes with eggs. Rukh Egg is, well, a creature with the “egg” creature type. There are some creatures in Magic that are also eggs, eleven to be precise. But creature eggs aren’t what we’re covering today.
Funnily enough, when MTG players talk about eggs, they actually mean artifacts, not creatures.
Eggs in Magic are artifacts that you “crack” to obtain something, usually cards or mana, and their history begins all the way back in the Odyssey MTG Set with cards like Darkwater Egg. The eggs strategy can be a good one, and it has even won Pro Tours in the hands of Stanislav Cifka (Modern at PT Return to Ravnica – 2012).
This strategy requires some eggs to be broken, and today we take a look at the best eggs for you to crack.
What Are Eggs in MTG?
Vexing Bauble | Illustration by Tony Foti
An egg in MTG is an artifact that’s usually very cheap, between 1 and 2 mana to cast, and you can sacrifice said artifact (“crack the egg” in Magic slang) to draw a card.
Some eggs also generate mana when you sacrifice them, so you can use this mana to cast another egg without losing tempo. They can also be used to filter mana, turning a colorless mana into a colored one.
The name “egg” comes from the Odyssey cycle of eggs, like Darkwater Egg and Mossfire Egg. These cost 1 mana to cast and 2 mana to sacrifice, but when you do, you get a card and the mana you’ve spent to crack the egg.
Then you have the Spellbombs from the original Mirrodin, like Origin Spellbomb. You can pay 1 mana to sacrifice and draw a card, or you can pay colored mana to do a spell-like effect like deal direct damage or bounce a creature.
This design appears on cards like the Skullbombs from Phyrexia: All Will Be One or cards that have the subtype “clue” and can be sacrificed for 2 mana for you to draw a card.
For the purposes of this list, with a few exceptions, an egg is an artifact that has a mana value of 2 or less, has a sacrifice cost of 2 or less, and is a cantrip that replaces itself by drawing you a card.
What Is the Egg Deck?
In the Eggs deck, you want artifacts that are eggs like Chromatic Sphere and Chromatic Star on the battlefield. You want to set a big turn where your eggs are in place and you cast Lotus Bloom. Crack your Lotus Bloom, your eggs, generate a lot of mana, and cast something like a Faith's Reward or Open the Vaults that can return all the artifacts you’ve cracked back to the battlefield.
Each time you do the loop, you crack your eggs, draw cards, and generate mana, and then you cast another copy of Faith's Reward again (or Beseech the Mirror tutoring Faith's Reward), getting back all your eggs, cards, and mana. To win, you just need to sacrifice Pyrite Spellbomb again and again targeting your opponent’s face. A card like Bolas's Citadel allows you to keep paying life to cast your cheap eggs and to find your other enablers, while being a good alternative wincon.
Honorable Mentions
The Odyssey Eggs
The original Odyssey Eggs don’t fit my description of giving you a card back, although they fit colorless mana into specific colored mana like the signets.
Digital-Only Eggs
These cards were only released on MTG Arena as part of Alchemy sets:
- Ominous Lockbox is a very cool card. It’s a blue clue that lets you copy a spell cast by your opponent if it matches the number you’ve selected. You could implement this in paper MTG by writing the number value on paper, but it would look very much like an Un-set card.
- Slayer's Bounty is an incentive to crack clues or crack the Bounty itself. The cards you can get from its spell book are all “bounty related”, and many of them are white removal spells, so you have an idea about what you'll get.
Sustenance
Instant Ramen is a meal when you need it, and egg is truly an excellent topping just like the flavor text says. In terms of gameplay I do like to get my card up front, as this makes it a good flicker target. I throw Nutrient Block in here as well because sometimes you need a cheap indestructible artifact that won't die until you want to sacrifice it, but both are still weak enough to not get a rank.
#28. Implement of Combustion
If you want to unlock damage-based synergies like those required to turn on spectacle or bloodthirst, Implement of Combustion is playable. Otherwise, you can stick to the other eggs.
#27. Implement of Ferocity
Implement of Ferocity is an egg you can crack to get a +1/+1 counter on a creature, and that’s good with MH3 adapt creatures or with a +1/+1 counter commander.
#26. Nihil Spellbomb
Nihil Spellbomb was for a long time a graveyard hate staple, allowing you to get a Relic of Progenitus-like effect in black decks. It’s been beaten in efficiency ever since, although you can add to your black decks in EDH for redundancy.
#25. Jack-o’-Lantern
Although it’s a weaker card than most eggs in this list, Jack-o'-Lantern can do a bunch of stuff. You can first get a targeted card from an opponent’s graveyard then exile the Lantern from your graveyard to filter mana. Some effects care about other cards leaving the graveyard, so there are positive and negative aspects, like missing on delirium, delve, and the like.
#24. Combat Courier
You can do some fun combos with Combat Courier thanks to the unearth ability. It’s at least a 6-mana draw-two, and it can much better the right synergies. Not to mention that it also attacks and blocks.
#23. Elsewhere Flask
The best characteristic of Elsewhere Flask is to turn all your lands into the same type, and that can combo off with cards like Corrupt or Scapeshift.
#22. Terrarion
Like Wizard's Rockets, the best thing about Terrarion is that it can be sacrificed right away with the right support crew. Otherwise, don’t bother with this artifact because it’s too slow.
#21. Aether Spellbomb
Aether Spellbomb is one of the most useful spellbombs and eggs, mainly because bouncing a creature is the real deal, and it can be yours, too. Many commanders enjoy this kind of effect. This egg does so many little things right: It’s cheap to cast, cheap to bounce, and cheap to sacrifice.
#20. Wizard’s Rockets
Wizard's Rockets has the downside of not being able to be used right away, but you can sacrifice it through other effects like the bargain mechanic or Deadly Dispute. In this case, it’s almost equal to Chromatic Star.
#19. Guild Globe
Guild Globe is comparable to Golden Egg. It’s a little better at filtering mana, but it loses on the food synergies and the lifegain.
#18. Lantern of the Lost
Lantern of the Lost is almost a Relic of Progenitus, although losing on the tap ability. But if your deck needs redundancy on the graveyard hate effect, it’s a fine egg to have.
#17. Brainstone
Brainstone is an egg that you can crack to get a Brainstorm effect. This and Brainsurge are some of the only ways to get a Brainstorm effect in Modern, although this egg never got much traction. It’s fine in EDH, especially if your deck cares about drawing extra cards.
#16. The Cycle of MKM Clue Equipment
If there’s one card type that sometimes needs a failsafe, it’s equipment. It’s miserable to have great equipment lying around with no creatures to equip, or if you’re playing against a deck full of removal spells.
Murders at Karlov Manor brought these classic Clue weapons, and you can equip your creatures or get your card back to try to find a better card.
#15. Candy Trail
Candy Trail fuses a Food and a Clue token in a simple card design. You’ll also get to scry 2, and the card itself costs 1 mana, so it’s a good turn-1 play, especially if your deck is into scrying.
#14. Mephitic Draught
Mephitic Draught is very similar to Ichor Wellspring except that you have to pay some life to get the cards.
Being a black artifact limits its flexibility: You can only play it with commanders that include black in their color identity. I can see this egg being better if there’s a good incentive to lose life in future mechanics or commanders.
#13. Parcel Myr
Parcel Myr is a clue that’s also a 2/1 myr. It’s strange to see myr not generating mana, but it is what it is. With that many clue synergies going on in modern MTG, this is no ordinary bear or myr, I’ll tell you that.
#12. Red Herring
Speaking of clue designs that are also creatures, Red Herring is a very interesting one. This red artifact creature takes the classic 2/2 for 2 mana that must attack, and it adds the sacrifice clause. Instead of simply attacking when you know the creature will die, you can crack it and get a card. Good early and okay late.
#11. Cryogen Relic
Cryogen Relic is a less flexible Ichor Wellspring, but more useful in that it can sacrifice itself and utilize a stun counter.
#10. Conjurer’s Bauble
Conjurer's Bauble doesn’t require you to spend mana to crack it, which is good. It also offers you some redundancy because you can return your wincons from your graveyard back into your library, which suits combo decks well.
#9. Ichor Wellspring
Ichor Wellspring sees play in Magic formats like Pauper where you get something when it ETBs and something when it leaves the battlefield. Especially alongside Deadly Dispute, a card that already gives you a strong value to sac an artifact. If you have an EDH deck that cares about artifacts entering or being sacrificed, this is a cool egg to play.
#8. Vexing Bauble
Vexing Bauble gets the egg design and adds the “no free spells allowed”, which is good to fight the pitch spells that are ever present in old formats as well as mechanics like cascade, discover, and the like. If you don’t need the effect anymore, just crack it away.
#7. Arcum’s Astrolabe
Arcum's Astrolabe is so good it was banned from multiple formats. The downside of costing snow mana is negligible in Constructed formats, and the card ends up being a strictly better Prophetic Prism that also cantrips and generates snow mana of any color.
#6. Golden Egg
Golden Egg is the classic egg that can generate a mana or gain you life. It’s a food, after all. If you need added synergies with food on your Golgari () decks or need to forage, this one is for you.
#5. Soul-Guide Lantern + Relic of Progenitus
Both of these cards are 1-mana eggs that exile graveyards and draw you cards. Soul-Guide Lantern offers you a targeted exile effect when it ETBs, while Relic of Progenitus doesn’t. Still, Relic is a little better as you can exile a card every turn, and when you crack it, you exile all the graveyards while also giving you a card.
#4. Ransom Note
Ransom Note is a 1-mana clue that can be used for other finalities, including goading a creature or cloaking the top card from your library. Flexibility is good, and you also always get to surveil 1 on ETB, too.
#3. Pyrite Spellbomb
Pyrite Spellbomb is one of the better eggs. It’s a good spell in Shock, and the failsafe is to be a cheap egg. It’s also one of the main wincons in eggs-dedicated decks.
#2. Chromatic Sphere + Chromatic Star
Chromatic Sphere and Chromatic Star are almost the same card, and the difference is in the wording. Chromatic Star is a little better because you can sacrifice it to another effect and still get a card, while with the sphere, you need to use the activated ability. These cards are the bread and butter of egg decks and are overall some of the best colorless card-draw effects. They’re cheap, and they’re great mana-fixers that generate mana of any color.
#1. Mishra’s Bauble
Mishra's Bauble became an MTG staple in the delve/prowess era simply because it triggers both for free. It’s good in aggressive decks, delirium decks, delve decks, decks that care about artifacts, you name it. It even gives you some information about what they’re drawing next.
Best Egg Payoffs
Now that we’ve seen all the good MTG eggs, let’s see some payoffs for this strategy!
The classic payoffs for the egg strategy are the cards that return artifacts from your graveyard to the battlefield or spells that put all cards that were put there this turn into play. Cards like Academy Ruins, Brilliant Restoration, Second Sunrise, Hourglass of the Lost, Redress Fate, and Faith's Reward are very good here.
You can also have cards like Dance of the Manse and Bello, Bard of the Brambles to have these eggs also beat down as 4/4s.
Some eggs want to be sacrificed to draw you cards, so symmetrical sacrifice effects like Smokestack tend to work well with these cards.
The artifact recursion can be more subtle, so cards like Myr Retriever and Emry, Lurker of the Loch easily get eggs back so you can use them a second time. Other times, the recursion is not subtle at all like on Scrap Welder, Goblin Engineer and Daretti, Scrap Savant.
Krark-Clan Ironworks is interesting when you’re sacrificing artifacts again and again. You can generate a lot of mana that way.
If we think of EDH, good artifact commanders include Breya, Etherium Shaper, Urza, Lord High Artificer, and Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain.
You can think of getting paid off when you sacrifice an artifact. Disciple of the Vault is a classic here, but you can have cards like Marionette Master and Marionette Apprentice, plus Agent of the Iron Throne as a background for your commander.
Wrap Up
Nihil Spellbomb | Ilustration by Franz Vohwinkel
I love eggs and eggs decks. I love the idea of turning something that seems so silly and innocent into a winning deck. But I also think, in a world of artifact heavy EDH decks, that a lot more of these cards should see utility play in the format.
How about you? A favorite egg left out of the deck? Let me know in the comments, or over in the Draftsim Discord.
That was over, easy!
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