Living Brain, Mechanical Marvel

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A 4cmc 3/3 legendary artifact creature that animates one non-Equipment artifact per combat into a 3/3 and untaps it, providing a modest attacker from otherwise inert artifacts. Signature in artifact-matters shells but the effect is weak — animating a single artifact to a vanilla 3/3 is underwhelming at 4 mana, and the once-per-turn restriction plus artifact-density requirement make this a fringe inclusion. The untap is relevant for mana rocks or artifacts with tap abilities but the floor is low.

• The untap clause has hidden synergy with artifacts that have tap-activated abilities (e.g. mana rocks, equipment with tap costs), turning a utility artifact into both an attacker and a fresh activator in the same combat step.

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• Unlike many animators, this targets non-Equipment artifacts specifically, so it cannot beef up your Swords or Hammers for combat — equipment synergy decks get no combat bonus from this effect.

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• As a Legendary Artifact Creature itself, Living Brain counts as an artifact for its own trigger's pool, but you cannot target itself since the trigger requires 'another artifact' by color-identity context — note the oracle text says 'target non-Equipment artifact you control,' which technically could self-target, but the 3/3 base P/T change would be a no-op on a 3/3.

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• EDHREC rank: #16,586