Engineered Explosives MTG Card


Card setsReleased in 5 setsSee all
Mana cost
RarityRare
TypeArtifact
Abilities Sunburst

Key Takeaways

  1. Offers sweeping board control against swarms of low-cost permanents, ensuring a strategic card advantage.
  2. Can be detonated at instant speed, aligning with high-stakes gameplay and disruptive strategies.
  3. Demands a diverse mana base which could limit its use to specific deck builds and strategies.

Text of card

Sunburst (This comes into play with a charge counter on it for each color of mana used to pay its cost.) , Sacrifice Engineered Explosives: Destroy each nonland permanent with converted mana cost equal to the number of charge counters on Engineered Explosives.


Card Pros

Card Advantage: Engineered Explosives can be pivotal for sweeping multiple permanents off the board with a single card, enabling a significant card advantage against opponents, especially when facing a swarm of low-cost creatures or tokens.

Resource Acceleration: While not directly accelerating resources, the flexible mana cost of Engineered Explosives allows for effective mana usage. It can be engineered to destroy specific problematic permanents without wasting excess mana, ensuring efficient resource utilization.

Instant Speed: Although not an instant itself, Engineered Explosives can be activated at instant speed, offering the strategic advantage of detonating at the most opportune moment. This versatility ensures you can navigate around your opponent’s plays, disrupting their strategy at a critical juncture during their turn or in response to a game-changing spell.


Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Engineered Explosives doesn’t directly lead to a card being discarded, but due to its Sunburst ability, using it effectively may require a diverse mana base, meaning you could be foregoing more flexible or immediate answers in your hand.

Specific Mana Cost: To maximize Engineered Explosives’ potential, you need access to many different colors of mana. This can be challenging in decks not designed to produce a wide array of colors, leading to suboptimal detonations.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: While flexible in its scope, Engineered Explosives can demand a substantial mana investment before it matches the board-clearing capabilities of other, more cost-effective sweepers, especially if you’re trying to destroy higher-cost permanents.


Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Engineered Explosives offers a flexible solution to a wide range of threats. Easily slotted into almost any deck, it can be calibrated to destroy permanents of any specific converted mana cost, making it an adaptable tool for many game situations.

Combo Potential: This artifact thrives in environments where you can capitalize on its scalability. It can be combined with cards that alter or reduce mana costs, or even those that proliferate counters, thereby increasing its range and effectiveness.

Meta-Relevance: In a game where board presence is crucial, Engineered Explosives stands out for its ability to manage the battlefield. Against decks that swarm with tokens or rely on cost-efficient permanents, it serves as a powerful reset button, maintaining its relevance in various competitive settings.


How to beat

Engineered Explosives poses a unique challenge when facing it on the battlefield. This versatile card is renowned for its ability to deal with a broad spectrum of threats, providing players with a tool that can sweep multiple permanents off the board, depending on the amount spent to cast it. It’s a staple in formats where flexibility and adaptability are key, especially when dealing with a variety of decks.

To effectively outmaneuver Engineered Explosives, it’s essential to be strategic about the mana value of the permanents you deploy. The card is only as powerful as the mana invested into it. An approach to mitigate its impact is to diversify the mana value of your own nonland permanents, making it less likely that Engineered Explosives can remove all of your threats in one fell swoop. Another tactic involves using cards that can’t be targeted by Engineered Explosives’ ability, such as those with hexproof or protection from artifacts. In addition, keeping up instant speed removal or bounce spells can thwart your opponent’s plans by responding appropriately to the activation of Engineered Explosives’ ability, saving critical pieces on your board from destruction.

Being mindful of Engineered Explosives’ presence in an opponent’s deck, and adjusting your playstyle accordingly, will undoubtedly help in crafting a successful strategy against this powerful artifact.


Cards like Engineered Explosives

Engineered Explosives distinguishes itself in Magic: The Gathering as a versatile artifact. By comparison, Ratchet Bomb offers a similar explosion of permanents by accumulating charge counters, but it lacks the color specificity that Engineered Explosives presents. This can be a notable difference when targeting a multicolored board state, as Engineered Explosives can be calibrated to clear out specific threats.

Another parallel can be drawn to Powder Keg, which also destroys tokens and creatures of a certain cost without needing to pay mana for activation like Engineered Explosives. However, Engineered Explosives surpasses it by its ability to eliminate all nonland permanents of the chosen converted mana cost, not just tokens and creatures. This increases its utility in diversified metagames with an array of problematic enchantments, artifacts, and planeswalkers.

In analyzing these analogs in deck-building strategies, Engineered Explosives shines due to its flexibility and controlled board wipe capabilities. It adeptly adapts to various situations, making it a prime choice for players who value strategic precision in controlling the battlefield in Magic: The Gathering.

Ratchet Bomb - MTG Card versions
Powder Keg - MTG Card versions
Ratchet Bomb - Scars of Mirrodin (SOM)
Powder Keg - Urza's Destiny (UDS)

Cards similar to Engineered Explosives by color, type and mana cost

Black Lotus - MTG Card versions
Ornithopter - MTG Card versions
Jeweled Amulet - MTG Card versions
Zuran Orb - MTG Card versions
Phyrexian Marauder - MTG Card versions
Claws of Gix - MTG Card versions
Mana Crypt - MTG Card versions
Mox Opal - MTG Card versions
Chalice of the Void - MTG Card versions
Orochi Hatchery - MTG Card versions
Tormod's Crypt - MTG Card versions
Mox Diamond - MTG Card versions
Everflowing Chalice - MTG Card versions
Memnite - MTG Card versions
Chimeric Mass - MTG Card versions
Chrome Mox - MTG Card versions
Turbo-Thwacking Auto-Hammer - MTG Card versions
Division Table - MTG Card versions
Rapid Prototyper - MTG Card versions
Inflation Station - MTG Card versions
Black Lotus - Collectors' Edition (CED)
Ornithopter - Dominaria Remastered (DMR)
Jeweled Amulet - Masters Edition II (ME2)
Zuran Orb - Pro Tour Collector Set (PTC)
Phyrexian Marauder - Visions (VIS)
Claws of Gix - Urza's Saga (USG)
Mana Crypt - Judge Gift Cards 2011 (G11)
Mox Opal - Double Masters (2XM)
Chalice of the Void - Judge Gift Cards 2019 (J19)
Orochi Hatchery - Champions of Kamigawa (CHK)
Tormod's Crypt - Friday Night Magic 2008 (F08)
Mox Diamond - From the Vault: Relics (V10)
Everflowing Chalice - Tales of Middle-earth Commander (LTC)
Memnite - Duel Decks: Mirrodin Pure vs. New Phyrexia (TD2)
Chimeric Mass - Modern Masters 2015 (MM2)
Chrome Mox - Double Masters (2XM)
Turbo-Thwacking Auto-Hammer - Unstable (UST)
Division Table - Unstable (UST)
Rapid Prototyper - Unstable (UST)
Inflation Station - Unstable (UST)

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Engineered Explosives MTG card by a specific set like Fifth Dawn and Modern Masters, there are several reliable options to consider. One of the primary sources is your local game store, where you can often find booster packs, individual cards, and preconstructed decks from current and some past sets. They often offer the added benefit of a community where you can trade with other players.

For a broader inventory, particularly of older sets, online marketplaces like TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom and Card Market offer extensive selections and allow you to search for cards from specific sets. Larger e-commerce platforms like eBay and Amazon also have listings from various sellers, which can be a good place to look for sealed product and rare finds.

Additionally, Magic’s official site often has a store locator and retailer lists for finding Wizards of the Coast licensed products. Remember to check for authenticity and the condition of the cards when purchasing, especially from individual sellers on larger marketplaces.

Below is a list of some store websites where you can buy the Engineered Explosives and other MTG cards:

Continue exploring other sealed products in Amazon
See Magic products

Printings

The Engineered Explosives Magic the Gathering card was released in 5 different sets between 2004-06-04 and 2020-08-07. Illustrated by 3 different artists.

#ReleaseNameCodeSymbolNumberFrameLayoutBorderArtist
12004-06-04Fifth Dawn5DN 1182003normalblackRon Spears
22013-06-07Modern MastersMMA 2042003normalblackLars Grant-West
32016-09-30Kaladesh InventionsMPS 362015normalblackJames Paick
42018-12-07Ultimate MastersUMA 2272015normalblackLars Grant-West
52020-08-07Double Masters2XM 2522015normalblackLars Grant-West

Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Engineered Explosives has restrictions

FormatLegality
CommanderLegal
LegacyLegal
ModernLegal
OathbreakerLegal
VintageLegal
DuelLegal
PredhLegal

Rules and information

The reference guide for Magic: The Gathering Engineered Explosives card rulings provides official rulings, any errata issued, as well as a record of all the functional modifications that have occurred.

DateText
2020-08-07 Colorless mana won't give Engineered Explosives another charge counter. Colorless is not a color.
2020-08-07 If a permanent has in its mana cost, X is considered to be 0.
2020-08-07 Tokens that aren't a copy of something else don't have a mana cost. Anything without a mana cost normally has a mana value of 0.
2020-08-07 You can choose any value for X as you cast Engineered Explosives. The value chosen for X doesn't directly affect the number of charge counters Engineered Explosives enters the battlefield with, but it does let you pay more mana and thus spend more colors of mana to cast it.

Recent MTG decks

Continue exploring other format decks
More decks