All 45 Robots in Magic Ranked

Last updated on August 20, 2024

K-9, Mark I| Illustration by Narendra Bintara Adi

Hello planeswalkers! Let’s dive into the 0’s and 1’s of MTG! Today we’ll take a look at the robot creature type. This is not to be confused with artifact creatures like myrs and thopters. We’re talking about the exact artifact creature subtype “robot.”

You’d be forgiven if you knew nothing about this subtype. It’s obscure and not canonical. However, it is a part of MTG, and why not have fun with some human-like automatons? How are they different from the other artifact creatures, and most importantly, are they as cool as the name implies?

What Are Robots in MTG?

One-Clown Band | Illustration by Ralph Horsley

Robot is an artifact creature subtype that appears in Unfinity and some Universes Beyond Magic sets. None of these robot creatures are a part of the main Magic storylines. They were created to represent pop culture robot characters or soften stigmas about tropes (clown robots are inherently less creepy). You can find them in a few of your favorite themed Universes Beyond sets like Transformers or Fallout.

#45. T.A.P.P.E.R.

Tapping two creatures to tap an opponent’s isn’t worth it in my opinion. T.A.P.P.E.R. is a low-cost, tap-ability creature with not much upside. Plus, you don’t want to get into the dull “what is a hat?” arguments.

#44. Ticking Mime Bomb

Ticking Mime Bomb is one of these fun action cards from Unfinity, but only in a novel way. First, you need another person outside the game, they need to guess the creature you actually want, and you need plenty of robots to be effective. It’s fun, but not a good card.

#43. Impounding Lot-Bot

As fun as it is to practice your robot voice and yell at your friends, Impounding Lot-Bot is just a mid-level card that isn’t legal in any format. Enjoy yelling “INCARCERATE!” to your friends and then move on to more interesting cards.

#42. Robo-Piñata

Robo-Piñata is a mana sink with mana value 3 if getting ticket counters or stickers is your aim. It has some tiny value as sacrifice fodder because it’s also an artifact. Outside of that, I don’t believe there’s much value in this creepy robot (except the flavor text).

#41. Juggletron

Juggletron is an entertaining, and not format-legal way to play with the stickers in Unfinity. For each sticker in the appropriate area, Juggletron gets more power and effects from the stickers. With so many options you can make use of name, art, ability, and even stat stickers.

#40. One-Clown Band

One-Clown Band has an activated ability to pump other robots. This could facilitate an interesting typal build with the Transformers or Fallout sets. Still, One-Clown Band won’t be too much help in these typal decks unless you can reduce the cost of its activated ability.

#39. Non-Human Cannonball

A 4/3 creature for 3 sure passes the Vanilla test for decent creatures. However, Non-Human Cannonball does run the risk of dealing damage to you when it dies. There will be much better cards with mana value 3 to put in your Commander decks, I promise you.

#38. Assembled Ensemble

Assembled Ensemble is an interesting robot card that isn’t legal in any competitive format. Its power grows with your robot army and it has a decent way to create many robot creature tokens. Not format-legal, but interesting enough amongst friends.

#37. Omniclown Colossus

Omniclown Colossus has a funny board wipe and an interesting affinity. This card does a pi amount of damage to each creature. This is no different than 3 essentially, but much more fun. Also, I guess this is a solid card if you have enough clowns to cast it for cheap.

#36. Draconian Gate-Bot

Draconian Gate-Bot is only for those diehard fans who are going to play with attraction decks. This card can allow you to open an attraction or destroy an opponent’s. Make sure to read up on the rules of attractions and junkyards before you use this card.

#35. Ticketomaton

Ticketomaton has decent synergy for ticket counter and sticker decks. The mana value is reasonable and you get both benefits of creating a ticket counter and placing a sticker on one of your permanents. I’m not as experienced as some of you might be with the Unfinity mechanics, but I’d be interested in how well this card works in one of these decks.

#34. Clockwork Droid

Exert has its advantages and so does Clockwork Droid. When you exert this card it becomes unblockable and gives you a useful scry. The stats aren’t great and it plays quite slow, but doing 3 damage that can’t be blocked does have some value to it.

#33. D00-DL, Caricaturist

Who doesn’t want to draw some sort of monstrosity with a ton of MTG keyword abilities? When D00-DL, Caricaturist ETBs you get 15 seconds to draw a creature with characteristics that match keywords. For example, if you draw wings your creature has flying, or vigilance if you draw a shield. This card is not format-legal, but it sounds like a ton of fun and I’d love to see some of the drawings players made.

#32. Cybermat

Cybermat was made for aggressive artifact decks. The skulk ability makes up for its low toughness and ensures you can do a ton of damage. If you can keep this little creature alive and attacking often, you might be doing a ton of damage quickly. Don’t be surprised to run into some chump blockers though.

#31. The Motherlode, Excavator

The Motherlode, Excavator is a midgame attempt at sneaking past your opponent’s defenses. You need your opponent to set up some of their nonbasic lands, so you can gain a good amount of energy counters. Then, when you attack you can hopefully render their defenses useless by making their non-flying creatures unable to block. This card has upside, but not enough consistency to be in many decks.

#30. Flamewar, Brash Veteran

Flamewar, Brash Veteran is a cool way to make sure you get some solid creatures in your hand. Flamewar, Streetwise Operative can stockpile cards with intel counters when it deals combat damage to an opponent. Then with Flamewar, Brash Veteran you can ditch your hand to use these intel cards when needed. I didn’t rank this card higher because I feel like the stats and slow play pattern will be more of a hindrance than anything.

#29. Cyclonus, the Saboteur

Cyclonus, Cybertronian Fighter has an incredible ability to give you an extra beginning phase after it deals combat damage. This can be such an advantage to untap all your lands and permanents, and draw a card. The downside here is the high price you need to convert into Cyclonus, Cybertronian Fighter. You either pay a high More Than Meets the Eye cost or hope you can connive enough to convert Cyclonus, the Saboteur.

#28. Curie, Emergent Intelligence

Curie, Emergent Intelligence is a card with somewhat capped potential. That potential is mimicking a big artifact creature you have and drawing many cards. The downsides, however, are the use of the word base power and the fact that you have to exile one of your other creatures. This card could be great, but the rest of your match has to be going well for that to happen.

#27. Yes Man, Personal Securitron

Giving an opponent a creature so you can draw or get more creatures later is a solid trade in my opinion. You can give an opponent Yes Man, Personal Securitron to draw two cards. Drawing two cards is such a big advantage over having just a 2/2 creature. Once this card is removed from the battlefield, you also get tokens based on how many players this Yes Man has bothered.

#26. Mister Gutsy

Along with Codsworth, Handy Helper, Mister Gutsy is going to be a nice new card for aura and equipment decks. It’s cheap, it grows bigger from your aura and equipment cards, and once it dies it can help you get through the top of your deck. This card is nothing shiny or fancy, but it's a solid robot that benefits certain deck styles.

#25. Codsworth, Handy Helper

Codsworth, Handy Helper is a handy helper for your aura or equipment Commander decks. This card provides commander protection, mana support, and easy ways to move your equipment or auras around. Codsworth can be a nice addition to commanders like Galea, Kindler of Hope or Uril, the Miststalker.

#24. Rex, Cyber-Hound

Rex, Cyber-Hound is an interesting robot to mimic and benefit from your opponents’ bomb creature cards. You can pay energy counters to copy a creature’s activated abilities from a creature in an opponent’s graveyard. This can be a wonderful way to steal bomb strategies from an opponent, but the power, toughness, and lack of keywords make it a weak attacker. This card also has very little value against noncreature decks and decks with no activated abilities.

#23. ED-E, Lonesome Eyebot

ED-E, Lonesome Eyebot is a great card draw creature. By attacking your opponent, you can build up quest counters and sacrifice this creature to draw one plus the number of quest counters. The nice part is you don’t even have to attack with this creature to gain the quest counters. It doesn't hurt either that it has flying.

#22. Soundwave, Sonic Spy

Soundwave, Superior Captain will give you the tokens, and Soundwave, Sonic Spy will use those tokens to maximize your instant and sorceries. Copying spells from your graveyard can be such a huge advantage in a game. The fact that you can copy some massive spells based on the amount of combat damage tokens do to an opponent is huge value. The More Than Meets the Eye ability is a little expensive, but this is still a solid Transformer card.

Note that the instant/sorcery you target has to have an exact equal mana value to the amount of damage your tokens dealt, so it takes some careful maneuvering.

#21. Behemoth of Vault 0

Behemoth of Vault 0 is an expensive creature that also has removal, like a Meteor Golem. A big difference between the two is with Behemoth of Vault 0, you get a big creature and you also have to pay energy counters to destroy something. A little bit better, and a little bit worse. Overall, this is a solid robot for an energy counter deck that can build up its mana.

#20. Robobrain War Mind

Robobrain War Mind provides two great things for you. Potentially a good amount of energy counters and power that can grow with the number of cards in your hand. There are many ways to draw a ton of cards, possibly making this card huge after a card like Flow of Knowledge.

#19. Celebr-8000

Celebr-8000 is a fun card for rolling the dice and seeing what happens. There are six options that this card can get before combat depending on the numbers you roll on two separate dice. With a bonus of double strike if you roll doubles. All robots are only available in Eternal formats, so have fun with it and “celebrate” more often.

#18. Assaultron Dominator

Assualtron is right! Whenever your artifact creatures attack you can give them added help with Assaultron Dominator. All you have to do is build up your energy counters and your artifact creatures can become deadly with first strike or trample.

#17. Rose, Cutthroat Raider

Junk tokens may become an interesting mechanic from the Fallout set. Rose, Cutthroat Raider can turn your aggressive behaviors into Junk. This is good junk I promise. With this card’s static ability, you can gain mana and play your top deck. Junk tokens give aggressive decks a lot more firepower. The only downside is that a 4-drop isn’t so aggressive.

#16. Blaster, Combat DJ

Blaster, Combat DJ has a wonderful flow to both sides of the card. Blaster, Morale Booster helps you to move counters around, which can be used in so many beneficial ways. Once it’s out of counters, you convert it and give all of your artifact creatures Modular 1. Repeating this converting action can have huge benefits for so many Commander artifact decks.

#15. Arcee, Sharpshooter

Arcee, Sharpshooter is a cheap and aggressive Transformer creature. It can remove creatures through combat tricks and is a versatile asset to aggressive Boros () decks. This card works best in decks with a lot of combat tricks or pump spells.

#14. Jetfire, Ingenious Scientist

Jetfire, Ingenious Scientist is a solid attacking creature that can lead into a mana boost for your artifact decks. Removing counters from this card or other artifacts will give you a ton of colorless mana to play with. The value here is the fact that you can convert back and forth with Jetfire, Air Guardian to swing hard and get mana from the same card.

#13. Ultra Magnus, Tactician

Sneaking creatures onto the battlefield is a surefire way to gain an advantage over your opponents. Ultra Magnus, Tactician can sneak cards like Myr Battlesphere or Wurmcoil Engine onto the battlefield for deadly effects. Using the More Than Meets the Eye alternative cost here may be the quick way to apply a ton of pressure with Ultra Magnus, Armored Carrier.

#12. Securitron Squadron

Securitron Squadron is a solid card for token decks. Tokens entering the battlefield with an extra +1/+1 counter is going to make some aggressive token decks even harder to manage. As a bonus, you can also play this card in the late-game to create even more pumps for your tokens.

#11. Goldbug, Humanity’s Ally

Humans and robots together in harmony? With Goldbug, Humanity's Ally you can protect your human creatures from being countered (with Goldbug, Scrappy Scout) or taking combat damage. This is a cheap option for giving protection to your human creatures with a few extra benefits. Of course, it’s more susceptible to removal since it’s a creature.

#10. Prowl, Stoic Strategist

Prowl, Stoic Strategist is a solid way to recast your creatures or vehicles or slow down your opponent’s onslaught. Converting it to Prowl, Pursuit Vehicle will draw you a card and give you a chance to pump this card up. Either side gives you a benefit and that’s what makes this card useful.

#9. Sentry Bot

Sentry Bot will be a great option for energy counter creature decks. It can be flashed in for cheap if your opponent attacks you widely, and adds a ton of energy counters on top of that. Then you can spend those counters to give all your creatures +1/+1 counters. Load up on those energy counters with cards like Aetherworks Marvel.

#8. Megatron, Tyrant

The leader of the Decepticons, Megatron, Tyrant can pack a real punch in artifact decks. Megatron, Destructive Force is a solid removal engine if you’re willing to treat your artifacts as cannon fodder. The excess damage can be done to your opponent and, once converted, you can stop any combat trick nonsense when you attack.

#7. Ratchet, Field Medic

Ratchet, Field Medic is a great card to add to… well, robot decks (more on the distinction between robot subtype and robot decks later). It converts from Ratchet, Rescue Racer whenever your non-token artifacts go to the graveyard. The value is in returning these artifacts from the graveyard to the battlefield depending on how much life you gain. This card lends itself well to aggressive and reanimating artifact decks in Commander.

#6. Optimus Prime, Hero

Well, let’s dive into the big guy himself! If you’ve ever seen Transformers®, then you know of Optimus Prime. Optimus Prime, Hero is a solid pump for Jeskai () Commander decks. Both sides of the card bolster your smaller creatures, and if Optimus Prime, Hero dies it just returns back to the battlefield converted into Optimus Prime, Autobot Leader.

#5. Starscream, Power Hungry

Starscream, Power Hungry is a great Transformer to utilize the More Than Meets the Eye ability. Starscream, Seeker Leader establishes the monarch designation in your matches. Once you become the monarch, then your draws will start to ping your opponent. This card gains a ton of value if being the monarch and drawing cards is your aim.

#4. Slicer, Hired Muscle

Slicer, Hired Muscle is a wonderful Transformer for your big Commander games. The haste and first strike of Slicer, High-Speed Antagonist can almost assure you’ll convert it quickly and cheaply. After that, the fun begins. You can give it to your opponents and goad it to start chaos amongst your enemies. The fun part is you can give it to each of your opponents on their turns. The double strike potential should make for some interesting decisions from your opponents.

#3. Blitzwing, Cruel Tormentor

Doubling the damage you do each turn is an amazing advantage. Blitzwing, Cruel Tormentor can do just this and reasonably effectively. The random keywords Blitzwing, Adaptive Assailant gains will hopefully convert it quickly. Once converted you can strike hard and double the damage an opponent takes each turn!

#2. Liberty Prime, Recharged

Get your energy counters ready for this massive death machine. Liberty Prime, Recharged has incredible stats and keywords for its cost. The downside is it costs you energy counters to attack or block. This should be no problem with its activated ability or cards like Decoction Module.

#1. K-9, Mark I

K-9, Mark I is the ultimate good boy for your Commander decks. It has two different abilities to protect and enhance your legendary creatures. More importantly, the doctor’s companion ability allows it to share the command zone as long as the other is a Time Lord Doctor. Having two Commanders can be a huge advantage for your color wheel and play style.

The possibilities are almost as endless as the Doctor Who® adventures. There are 17 Time Lord Doctors to choose from in many color combinations, except for black. They are mostly in blue and have so many different abilities and play styles. Choose wisely or make a ton of different combinations. No wrong answer.

Best Robot Payoffs

All robots are artifact creatures. So, they can be solid creatures to help cards like Padeem, Consul of Innovation or Organic Extinction. Robots can also benefit commanders like Karn, Legacy Reforged and Breya, Etherium Shaper.

Several of the robot creatures above work with energy counters. You can find great benefits from pairing them with cards like Attune with Aether, Decoction Module, or Winding Constrictor. As far as energy commander go, the new Dr. Madison Li and Atraxa, Praetors' Voice can use these robots well.

For the few Unfinity fans out there, make sure to pair your robots with cards like The Most Dangerous Gamer or Space Beleren.

The robot creatures fit a wide range of different decks. Aura/equipment decks can benefit from some of the robots above like Codsworth, Handy Helper. Add some of these robots to commanders like Eriette of the Charmed Apple and alongside cards like Puresteel Paladin.

Robots Creature Type vs. Robot Decks

Time to explain something that may be confusing. The term robot has been used in the past for a different meaning than what we talked about above. The slang term “robot” has referred to Constructed decks with affinity for artifacts or decks that build to huge artifact creatures or endgame cards. Since artifact creatures look like the popular concept of robots, players used the term to describe many artifact-style decks.

With the Unfinity and Universes Beyond release of the artifact creature subtype robot, we now have a new use for the word in MTG. I believe the lexicon will change a bit and the slang deck name “Robots” will start to fade away. If you want to avoid some confusion, I suggest saying “Robot Deck” for artifact decks (or not using this term), and “robot typal” for the creature type.

Wrap Up

Liberty Prime, Recharged | Illustration by Pascal Quidault

Beep-boop-beep-beep. That’s my robot attempt at thanking you for reading this article. These rankings won’t affect the Standard metagame, or be a part of many Twitch videos, but robots are cool dang it! Robots are great for collectors and those who like to make creative decks with their friends.

If you enjoyed this article, then please go check out all the other wonderful articles on Draftsim.com. To join the conversation follow us on X/Twitter or join the official Discord. Stay safe and may you top deck exactly what you need!