Casey Jones, Jury-Rig Justiciar

The rate is fine on a miss and excellent on a hit, and TMT's artifact density is the question that determines which. Counting common and uncommon artifacts in the set (equipment like Bespoke Bō and Novel Nunchaku, plus the food-makers and the scattered utility pieces), a dedicated UR Artifacts or Mardu Equipment build can reasonably field eight to ten artifacts in the maindeck, which puts the dig at roughly a coin-flip to hit. That is the threshold where Casey crosses from filler two-drop to the engine piece the deck builds around.

P1P5 to P1P7 in red-artifact lanes, later in straight aggressive red. The haste matters for the floor: on a whiff you still presented two damage on turn two into a format whose ground commons are mostly 2/2 and 2/3, where racing a tapped-out opponent for one turn buys real life-total margin. The ceiling is what UR Sneak and RW Equipment want: turn-two Casey into turn-three Bespoke Bō equip-and-swing is the cleanest tempo line red gets in this set, and finding the equipment to make it happen is exactly what the trigger is for.

Maindeck in any red deck with five or more artifacts, sideboard otherwise. The punishers are the format's cheap removal: Grounded for Life clips it for one mana if it ever taps to attack, and Stomped by the Foot answers it before the equip lands. Against the BW removal decks Casey reads as a tempo bid, not a value engine; against the BG food and UR Sneak mirrors, it is the best two-drop in the format.

The selection-on-a-stick role that red artifact decks have wanted for years, and the commanders are obvious once you see the dig. Bruenor Battlehammer and Wyleth, Soul of Steel want the equipment-finding more than the artifact-token decks do: a turn-two Casey into a turn-three swing that has already located the right weapon turns the enter trigger into combat tempo rather than a card-draw tax, which is exactly how voltron wants its tutor to read. Magda, Brazen Outlaw is the other natural home, where the artifact you reveal can feed her dwarf-and-treasure engine, though she would rather the card found treasures directly. This is Bracket 2-3 material. The dig is too narrow and too body-dependent for cEDH, and the random-bottom clause means it never sculpts draws the way a real selection package would; it pulls one artifact and forgets the rest.

Budget keeps it honest. Expect a sub-$5 secondary price out of the gate, which puts it inside casual equipment builds without straining the list. As a deck role it is the seventh or eighth artifact enabler in a Bruenor or Wyleth shell, competing with cheap tutors like Steelshaper's Gift or Open the Armory for the find-my-equipment slot. Casey is worse than those when you need a specific piece (they tutor exactly; Casey only sees four cards) and better than them when you want a body and haste attached to the search. In a four-player game the 2/1 is a non-threat, so resolving it draws no political heat; the value is private and small, which is precisely the bracket it belongs in. Outside artifact-matters red, the card does nothing.

A two-mana hasty body for red artifact decks that want a cheap way to dig toward a specific equipment or treasure piece, the kind of selection red usually cannot buy. The trouble in Modern is that those decks do not really exist at a competitive level; the artifact shells that win here lean on combo pieces and fast mana, not a 2/1 that finds one wrench off the top four. It has not registered in tracked play this season, and there is no built archetype asking for it. A toy for budget red artifact brews, cut from anything with a real plan.

Legal since its March 2026 release, but it has yet to register in any tracked Standard deck this season. The structural read explains why. The artifact-matters shell Casey wants to anchor, the one that chains cheap equipment and treasures off a hasty two-drop, does not exist as a coherent archetype in the current pool. Red's artifact payoffs are thin enough right now that a four-card dig for a single artifact is digging toward cards that are not worth finding. The body is fine on rate, a 2/1 haste for two with an enter trigger, but a 2/1 with no follow-up is a poor use of a turn against the format's aggressive decks, and the selection clause only matters if the thing it finds bends a game. Without that payoff, Casey is a worse aggressive two-drop than the cards already filling those slots, and the trigger is a tax rather than tempo.

This is the cleanest red artifact tutor printed at its rate, which means the gap is the format around it, not the card. If a later set prints the equipment-chain or treasure payoff the deck is missing, the read changes overnight.

Casey rotates in the fall 2027 cycle with its parent block, exact date pending Wizards' announcement. That is a long runway, and nothing on the announced schedule gives the archetype a home before then. The honest version is that the card is waiting for a deck rather than a date.

Red artifact decks in Pioneer have wanted this exact effect for years, and the format has finally printed it, but the deck that would run four copies has not consolidated around it yet. The closest established home is the various builds that lean on cheap equipment and treasure chains, and there Casey Jones reads as a two-of curve filler rather than a four-of engine piece: a hasty body that finds the missing wrench while applying two damage the turn it lands.

The selection is narrow by design, which is the problem in a format where the broad red aggro decks (Mono-Red, Boros) do not run enough artifacts to make the dig live. You need a critical mass of equipment and trinkets before the enter trigger reliably hits, and Pioneer's red aggro shells have historically chosen consistency over the artifact subtheme. That leaves Casey in the artifact-aggro builds that surface around new equipment, where it competes with the deck's other two-drops for the same slot, and the choice tips toward Casey only when the deck is artifact-dense enough that whiffing is rare.

So far this season it registers as a fringe card: present in a single tracked list as a pair, not a staple of any top deck. There is no slot conversation to speak of because the archetype that wants the full playset has not stabilized in tournament Pioneer. The card is good at what it does; the deck built to use it is still notional. If a dedicated red artifact-aggro list consolidates, this is the dig the engine has been missing. Until one does, it is a role-player waiting on a home.

A two-mana hasty body that digs four deep for one artifact, in a format where Black Lotus, the Moxen, and Tinker already assemble whatever artifact a deck wants on turn one for free. The selection is real but the rate is wrong: Vintage's artifact engines run on the Power Nine mana math, not on a 2/1 that finds a single card and gets bottomed-out on the rest. It pays Mental Misstep and Force of Will on the way in for a topdeck-smoothing effect the format does not ask for. Legal, but yet to register in tracked tournament play. Noise.

A 2-mana 2/1 with haste that digs four deep for an artifact. The body sits where Legacy already runs Dragon's Rage Channeler, Ragavan, and Delver of Secrets at one mana, all of which apply more pressure for less. The dig is real selection, but it finds only artifacts, which is a narrow ask in a format whose red decks lean on Lightning Bolt and Murktide Regent rather than an equipment chain. Paying Daze on the way in for a conditional tutor attached to a fragile body is not a trade Legacy wants. The format's artifact-matters shells run at the Mishra's Bauble and Urza's Saga level of efficiency, not at two mana for a body that needs a target to justify itself. Legal, but yet to register in tracked tournament play, and the structural read says that holds. Does not clear the bar.