Powerstone Tokens in MTG: Rules, FAQ, and Best Cards

Last updated on December 26, 2024

Powerstone token | Illustration by David Auden Nash

Powerstone tokens are artifact tokens introduced with Karn, Living Legacy in Dominaria United. The splitting of an ancient Thran powerstone was the final straw at the beginning of The Brothers’ War in Magic lore, as depicted on Splitting the Powerstone.

So, naturally, Powerstones are all over the place in The Brothers’ War. Although there have been powerstone cards before, like Fractured Powerstone, Powerstone Shard, and Worn Powerstone, Powerstone tokens along with legendary artifact The Mightstone and Weakstone are the first to have the powerstone subtype.

It's unclear if we'll be seeing these again any time soon, but let’s get into the details for those interested!

How Do Powerstone Tokens Work?

Urza, Powerstone Prodigy | Illustration by Donato Giancola

Powerstone tokens are artifacts created by other cards. They can tap for one colorless mana, but that mana can’t be used to cast nonartifact spells.

Though it's not an inherent trait of the token itself, all cards that create Powerstones have them enter the battlefield tapped to balance them out. They're usually created when a permanent enters or as an additional effect of a spell, similar to the way Clues, Food, decayed Zombies, and Treasures are created by other cards.

Powerstone tokens are created by dozens of cards in The Brothers’ War, Karn, Living Legacy, and a few in The Brothers’ War Commander and the Dominaria United Commander precons.

Can You Cast a Nonartifact Spell with a Powerstone?

No, the only restriction on Powerstone tokens is that you can't use their mana to cast a nonartifact spell.

What About Paying for a Nonartifact Ability?

Yes, you can use the mana from Powerstones to pay for the abilities of non-artifact permanents, just not the spells themselves.

Can You Pay for Activated Abilities with Powerstones?

Yes, activated abilities are also fine to pay for with Powerstones.

Can You Pay for Triggered Abilities with Powerstones?

Yes, triggered abilities are another type of ability you can pay for with Powerstones. For example, if you have Powerstone cards and Durable Handicraft in your Commander deck, you can use Powerstone mana to pay the in response to creature ETBs.

Can You Pay Costs with Powerstones?

Yes, Powerstones can be used to pay costs. You can also use the mana to pay for things like ward, or to meet the mana threshold for a counterspell cast against you, like Scatter Ray.

Can You Pay for Commander Tax with Powerstones?

No, Powerstones cannot be used to pay for commander tax unless the commander you're casting is an artifact. Commander tax adds to the cost of a spell, and additional mana costs of nonartifact spells cannot be paid with Powerstone mana.

Can You Copy a Powerstone?

Yes, you can copy Powerstones with copy spells and effects. But keep in mind that when you copy tokens you copy the token itself, not the way it was initially created, which is what had it come into play tapped. This means that copied Powerstones come into play untapped.

Are Powerstones Good?

Powerstones were excellent in The Brothers' War Limited.

There’s no way Powerstones can be as good as we think they are, right?

Ethan Saks, Lords of Limited

Turns Ethan was onto something there! Powerstones are extra resources tacked on to spells you might cast anyway, and they become mana sources you can use for artifacts and activated abilities, or as sacrifice fodder. There were a lot more artifacts in the set than usual, which means the mana often had a use.

There were also a lot of mana sinks in the format, including many that cost quite a bit. And there were an unusual number of creatures that get bonuses from sacrificing permanents, like Gixian Infiltrator and Goblin Blast-Runner. Then there’s the fact that two signpost uncommons, Arbalest Engineers and Junkyard Genius, as well as two excellent blue cards, Stern Lesson and Urza, Powerstone Prodigy, have good Powerstone synergies.

Powerstones were never a huge contender in Constructed, and they're reasonable in Commander if you're interested in the base cards that make them. Even the most hyped up Powerstone cards like Sarinth Greatwurm haven't reached staple status in the format. Perhaps the most prominent one in Commander is Cityscape Leveler, though that uses Powerstones as a downside, so it doesn't really count.

Gallery and List of Powerstone Cards

• Arbalest Engineers
• Argothian Opportunist
• Ashnod, Flesh Mechanist
• Cityscape Leveler
• Excavation Explosion
• Fallaji Excavation
• Geology Enthusiast
• Gix's Caress
• Great Desert Prospector
• Hall of Tagsin
• Horned Stoneseeker
• Junkyard Genius
• Karn, Living Legacy
• Koilos Roc
• Mishra, Lost to Phyrexia
• Powerstone Engineer
• Repair and Recharge
• Sarinth Greatwurm
• Sibling Rivalry
• Slagstone Refinery
• Splitting the Powerstone
• Static Net
• Stern Lesson
• Stone Retrieval Unit
• Terisiare's Devastation
• The Brothers' War
• The Mana Rig
• Thran Spider
• Urza, Powerstone Prodigy
• Urza's Command
• Visions of Phyrexia
• Wreck Hunter

Note that The Mightstone and Weakstone also has the “powerstone” subtype, but isn't an artifact token.

Yotian Courier and Hurkyl's Prodigy are digital-only cards from Alchemy: The Brothers' War, and are therefore only available in select MTG Arena formats.

Best Powerstone Cards

There are some powerful Powerstone cards, but some of them don’t quite seem worth their rate. But here are 10 efficient options worth consideration in your decks across various formats.

Honorable Mention: Yotian Courier

The Yotian Courier stays in your Magic Arena, but does a lot of work in artifact decks, bringing you more artifacts and making mana rocks to help pay for them.

#10. Repair and Recharge

Five mana in a white or black build tends to be the going rate for reanimator cards at common or uncommon. Grab a big artifact creature you looted away or even a planeswalker with Repair and Recharge.

This joins a growing list of mono-white reanimator cards for Commander players, which feels like a more viable archetype with each set release.

#9. Stern Lesson

Stern Lesson is Divination but you discard a card and make a tapped Powerstone. Divination isn't exciting to play in Commander, but I can see decks that want to fill the graveyard playing Stern Lesson. It's also blue ramp, which is quite the oddity.

#8. Urza, Powerstone Prodigy

A broken card with the name Urza in it? I’m shocked. Well, maybe only broken in Limited and just a good card outside of that, but still. This is a great addition to EDH decks that want to bin and recur artifacts.

#7. Terisiare's Devastation

Terisiare's Devastation is good in a deck that’s already packing a lot of Powerstones or other black ramp. Would you cast Languish for 8 if you got four Powerstones afterward? I mean, sure, if 8 was easy mana.

An answer for indestructible creatures is always nice. This is a bit of a niche card, but it will wreak when it fits.

#6. The Brothers' War

The Brothers' War is just mean. If you can survive the turn you cast it then you’re in a great spot.

I’d say this wants to be cast late in the game, but you’re ramping and then doing at least 4 total damage even if it’s early and chapter two whiffs.

#5. Karn, Living Legacy

Panned by the MTG community when it dropped in Dominaria United, Karn, Living Legacy is a lot better than players thought. There were various superfriends decks on the fringes of Standard fueled by board wipes and Urza Assembles the Titans. Those decks can finish with Karn, Living Legacy.

This has the potential to be a decent control finisher in a deck that can make other Powerstones to fuel Karn’s second and third abilities.

#4. Urza’s Command

Urza's Command is an extremely strong command in the right deck. The Powerstone option on it is the weakest, but the mass power nerf is useful, and the 0/0 Construct tends to be one of the better tokens you can make, even if it enters tapped.

You’ve got some solid ramp for the next turn. A fail case is you scry 1, draw a card, and nerf an attack, which isn’t bad.

#3. Wreck Hunter

Wreck Hunter is bonkers. This can come down at the end of a turn after a board wipe or a Vandalblast and just drop a massive number of Powerstones.

It won’t do much against token armies since it needs the destroyed cards to be in the graveyard, but this is going to be one of those groan-inducers in other contexts.

#2. Mishra, Lost to Phyrexia

If you meld Mishra, Claimed by Gix and Phyrexian Dragon Engine into the supersized Mishra, Lost to Phyrexia you might no longer care about those two Powerstone tokens. You’ll be too busy high-fiving someone.

But if this melds when players have an empty board then you may very well just make six(!) Powerstone tokens. Or you’ll only make four as you clean out someone’s saved removal from their hand.

#1. The Mana Rig

What? What?!?

The Mana Rig would be nuts even without that second ability.

Wrap Up

Koilos Roc | Illustration by Antonio Jose Manzanedo

I love this mechanic. Tapped Treasure tokens (hello, Gala Greeters!) were a good innovation. You can ramp but not just storm off, and these are a nice iteration of that.

Mana-generating permanents that allow for the ramp you need to power out a bunch of 7-drops in Standard while also not breaking Commander in half are great. Didn’t we all remember the dark days of the Mirrodin block Standard when we heard about this set (or listen to a boomer who was there to tell you about it)?

The designers threaded the needle nicely here to be able to give us big insane Timmy/Tammy things that we might actually cast in a Standard game without tossing balance off another Throne of Eldraine level cliff.

Do you think we’ll see Powerstones again? It’s tough, because when will we be going back to Dominaria after 2023? Maybe Teferi, Temporal Pilgrim will bring a sack of these back from the past and leave them all over the multiverse. Anyway, let me know your thoughts in the comments below or on Draftsim’s Twitter.

In the meantime watch out for Hidetsugu Consumes All and Structural Assault, and have fun!