Astor, Bearer of Blades is one of those cards players keep asking about. Here is, in plain words, what its official text says, the rulings published by Wizards of the Coast, and the combos players actually run.
Official card text
When Astor enters, look at the top seven cards of your library. You may reveal an Equipment or Vehicle card from among them and put it into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. Equipment you control have equip. Vehicles you control have crew 1.
Complete guide
Astor, Bearer of Blades is a legendary Human Warrior that serves as the ultimate strategist for any artifact-heavy deck. By streamlining the costs of your gear and providing instant card selection, he ensures your army is always combat-ready. Whether you are piloting massive war machines or wielding ancient weapons, Astor makes everything more efficient.
Finding Your Tools
When Astor, Bearer of Blades enters the battlefield, he immediately triggers an ability that lets you look at the top seven cards of your library. From these, you can pick one Equipment or Vehicle card, reveal it, and add it to your hand. The remaining cards are placed on the bottom of your library in a random order, ensuring you don't lose track of your deck's composition.
Unified Costs
Astor provides two powerful static abilities while he is on the battlefield: Equipment you control gain an 'Equip {1}' ability, and Vehicles you control gain 'Crew 1'. These are in addition to any existing equip or crew abilities the permanents already have. You choose which ability to activate; for example, if a Vehicle already has Crew 4, you will likely choose to use Astor's Crew 1 ability instead to save resources.
Timing and Persistence
It is important to note that once you activate an equip or crew ability granted by Astor, that ability stays on the stack independently. If an opponent removes Astor from the battlefield in response to you activating 'Equip {1}', the ability will still resolve normally, and your creature will still become equipped. However, once Astor is gone, your other artifacts lose the discounted costs he provided.
Strategic Deployment
Play Astor when you have high-cost equipment like Colossus Hammer or heavy vehicles that usually require a large crew. He functions both as a tutor to find your win condition and as a mana-saver that allows you to re-equip your board after a board wipe or during a complex combat phase.
Interaction examples
Roaming ThroneIf you have Roaming Throne on the battlefield with 'Human' or 'Warrior' chosen, Astor's enter-the-battlefield ability triggers twice. You will look at the top seven cards, potentially take an Equipment or Vehicle, then immediately look at the new top seven cards to take another.
Solemn SimulacrumWhile Solemn Simulacrum is already a creature, if you were to find a high-cost Vehicle with Astor's first ability, the Simulacrum could easily crew it using Astor's 'Crew 1' modifier. This allows you to keep your utility creatures useful in combat even if their base stats are low.
Guide written with AI from the official text and rulings. Official English text prevails.
How it works : Astor, Bearer of Blades
Original English text — Wizards of the Coast / Scryfall
- #1· Wizards of the Coast
You may still activate any other equip or crew abilities that permanent has if you wish.
No other card is named in this ruling.
- #2· Wizards of the Coast
Once either the equip
or crew 1 ability is activated, causing Astor, Bearer of Blades to leave the battlefield won't stop the ability from resolving.No other card is named in this ruling.
Legal formats
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Meta decks with Astor, Bearer of Blades
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