Forensic Gadgeteer card art

Forensic Gadgeteer

Creature — Vedalken Artificer Detective MV 3

Tracked across real Commander games played through TurnZero HQ.

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What it doesCombosRulingsIn the 99Every version

What it does

Whenever you cast an artifact spell, investigate. (Create a Clue token. It's an artifact with "{2}, Sacrifice this token: Draw a card.")

Activated abilities of artifacts you control cost 1 less to activate. This effect can't reduce the mana in that cost to less than one mana.

Combos with Forensic Gadgeteer

Lines this card is part of — what it needs alongside it, and what the two of them do. An infinite result is the one that moves a deck's bracket.

Showing the 8 shortest and most explosive. This card appears in more than these — follow any of them through to Commander Spellbook to browse the rest.

Combo data from Commander Spellbook, the community-maintained database of Magic combos. Mirrored nightly.

Rulings

7 official rulings, in the order Wizards published them.

  • 2024-02-02

    Forensic Gadgeteer's last ability affects only abilities of artifacts you control on the battlefield. The costs of activated abilities of artifact cards that work in other zones, such as cycling, won't be reduced.

  • 2024-02-02

    Some abilities trigger "whenever you sacrifice a Clue". Those abilities trigger whenever you sacrifice a Clue for any reason, not just to activate a Clue's activated ability.

  • 2024-02-02

    Activated abilities contain a colon. They're generally written "[Cost]: [Effect]." Some keywords are activated abilities and will have colons in their reminder text. Triggered abilities (starting with "when," "whenever," or "at") are unaffected by the cost reduction ability of Forensic Gadgeteer.

  • 2024-02-02

    You can't sacrifice a Clue to pay multiple costs. For example, you can't sacrifice a Clue token to activate its own ability and also to activate Alquist Proft, Master Sleuth's ability.

  • 2024-02-02

    Clue is an artifact type. Even though it appears on some cards with other permanent types, it's never a creature type, a land type, or anything but an artifact type.

  • 2024-02-02

    If an effect refers to a Clue, it means any Clue artifact, not just a Clue artifact token. For example, you can sacrifice Wrench to pay for Alquist Proft, Master Sleuth's activated ability.

  • 2024-02-02

    Some spells and abilities that investigate may require targets. If each target chosen is an illegal target as that spell or ability tries to resolve, it won't resolve. You won't create any Clue tokens.

Rulings are Wizards of the Coast's own, mirrored from Scryfall and refreshed nightly.

In the 99

Every deck whose current list includes Forensic Gadgeteer, whatever its commander.

Decks running it 4
Games played 0
Win rate — Fewer than 5 completed games — not enough to publish a rate yet.
Confirmed on board 0 Games where a board photo caught it actually in play.

Most played under

Commander Decks Games Win rate
Breya, Etherium Shaper 1 0 —
Tivit, Seller of Secrets 1 0 —

Colors it shows up in

  • Esper 1 deck
  • Four-Color (no Green) 1 deck

Every version of Forensic Gadgeteer

4 printings, newest first. Prices are the market figures Scryfall publishes, refreshed nightly — a printing with no figure shows a dash rather than a zero, because Scryfall genuinely publishes none for some of them.

Prices from Scryfall, which tracks the TCGplayer and Cardmarket markets. They move daily and are a guide rather than a quote. Search TCGplayer for Forensic Gadgeteer — a name search across every version, for the printings TCGplayer publishes no direct link to.

Aggregated from Commander games tracked in TurnZero HQ. Every figure counts decks and games only — no individual deck list, player or playgroup is identified. Win rates are withheld below 5 completed games, where the sample is too small to mean anything.