Image courtesy of Scryfall.com
Enchantments and Artifacts in the Graveyard: Fortuitous Find Explored
Kaladesh gave us a world where invention hums in every gear, and black mana often hides a clever undercurrent of graveyard play. Fortuitous Find, a common sorcery from Kaladesh (set code KLD), is the kind of spell that quietly rewards patient players who value graveyard recursion and board presence. For a modest three mana—{2}{B}—you get to choose one or both powerful, cross-purpose effects: return an artifact card or return a creature card from your graveyard to your hand. 🧙♂️🔥💎
Card Snapshot: Kaladesh in Black
- Name: Fortuitous Find
- Set: Kaladesh (KLD) • Color: Black
- Mana Cost: {2}{B} • Converted Mana Cost: 3
- Type: Sorcery • Rarity: Common
- Oracle Text: Choose one or both —
• Return target artifact card from your graveyard to your hand.
• Return target creature card from your graveyard to your hand. - Flavor Text: An aetherborn wastes neither time nor treasure.
- Artist: Tomasz Jedruszek
In Kaladesh, even a spell that fetches from the graveyard feels like a measured, artisan gesture—calculated, stylish, and practical. Fortuitous Find embodies that charm with a wink and a pry bar. 🎨
How the Text Works: Dual Targeting, Dual Potential
The card’s beauty lies in its versatility. For a black-mana spell, Fortuitous Find doesn’t just pry a single option from the graveyard; it gives you two distinct avenues, and you can choose one, or both, depending on what your deck needs at that moment. Here’s how to think about its two halves:
- Artifact recovery: Reaching back for an artifact card can be a game-swinging move. Artifacts often form the backbone of artifact-centric decks—equipment that buffs your creatures, cluing you into a ramp artifact, or a utility artifact that produces mana or card advantage. Returning an artifact from the graveyard can refill a critical piece of your engine, especially if your deck relies on artifacts that recur or ETB (enter the battlefield) effects.
- Creature recovery: Fetching a creature card from the graveyard fuels aristocrat strategies, reanimation themes, or token-heavy boards. It can save a late-game plan when your graveyard is teeming with catlike resilience, letting you reanimate a key beater or a utility creature that your strategy hinges on.
Because the spell can target both types, you can tailor your play to what your opponent has left on the battlefield or what your graveyard has accumulated. The mana cost is a fair trade for a flexible plan—especially in formats that value grind and recursion, such as Modern, Commander, or Pioneer. Modern legal? Yes. Commander-ready? Absolutely. And in formats where graveyard games shine, Fortuitous Find becomes a reliable hiccup for control and midrange mirrors. ⚔️
Strategic Applications: When to Reach Back from the Grave
Fortuitous Find shines in archetypes that want to poke holes in the opponent’s removal suite while rebuilding their own board state. Consider these angles:
- Graveyard value engines: If your deck piles up artifact or creature cards in the graveyard—think artifact-centric combos or aristocrat shells—this card becomes a multi-use bridge. You can rebuild your battlefield while denying your foe a quick sweep for two critical attackers or a finisher wrapped in a single card’s recursion. 🧙♂️
- Midrange grind: In games where each card drawn is precious, Fortuitous Find acts as a two-for-one late-game engine enabler. It may not win the game outright, but it buys you time to redeploy threats from the graveyard, often turning a losing race into a careful tempo swing.
- Synergy with graveyard-focused removal: Some decks leverage discard or return-to-hand effects to recycle key artifact or creature targets. Fortuitous Find can be the missing piece to refill your hand with either a crucial artifact or a tall, stubborn creature to block or threaten with brute force. 💎
Flavor-wise, the card’s theme sits comfortably in Kaladesh’s world of inventive resourcefulness. The idea that a well-timed find in the graveyard can pivot the whole game captures the essence of aetherial ingenuity—a hallmark of the set’s design. The art and flavor text reinforce the idea that even in a bustling workshop, a small, well-chosen retrieval can be a priceless treasure. 🎨
Enchantment and Artifact Interactions: What Makes Fortuitous Find Shine?
When we talk about enchantments and artifacts, Fortuitous Find offers a quiet but potent way to interact with both categories in one spell. Here are a few interaction notes that can shape deckbuilding decisions:
- Artifact-focused decks: Returning an artifact from the graveyard to your hand can help you reclaim a key piece—whether it's an equipment that needs a wielder on the battlefield immediately or an artifact-based mana engine you want to sequence again. In decks that lean on artifacts for value, this effect can lock in card advantage across turns. 🔥
- Creature recursion: In creature-heavy builds, pulling a critical creature back from the graveyard at the right moment can spike your aggression or stabilize your defenses. This is especially potent when the creature has a pivotal ETB or a strong static ability that benefits from repeated entry to play. ⚔️
- Enchantments and graveyard themes: While Fortuitous Find itself isn’t an enchantment, it sets up graveyard interplay that can complement enchantment-based fetch or protection strategies—especially in control-or midrange shells where you want to reassemble threats after removal. The ability to fetch from the graveyard synergizes with strategies that protect or recur important artifacts and creatures, creating a layered approach to resource management. 🧙♂️
Deckbuilding Tips: Making the Most of the Find
To maximize value from Fortuitous Find, build around the following concepts:
- Graveyard shaping: Include cards that fill your graveyard with relevant artifact or creature cards, so you maximize your options when Fortuitous Find resolves. Think of these as your “fodder” that pays dividends when you fetch them back. 🎲
- Target prioritization: If you’re in a deck that relies heavily on artifacts, choose artifact recovery first to restore your board’s technology edge. If your deck leans on creatures with synergy effects, pick those first to regain board presence quickly. 💎
- Rarity and access: As a common, Fortuitous Find slots into many decks without pulling most of your mana curve away from higher-impact spells. It’s not the face of a build, but a steady backbone that supports a broad range of strategies. 🧙♂️
- Format considerations: In Commander, this spell can be a flexible late-game play, especially in decks that care about graveyard recurrences or artifact synergies. In Modern and Pioneer, it can slot into midrange and graveyard-based archetypes that appreciate efficient value. 🔥
Flavor and Lore: A Flavorful Tie to Kaladesh
The flavor text—“An aetherborn wastes neither time nor treasure”—hints at Kaladesh’s character: a culture that values cleverness, efficiency, and the art of making do with what the workshop supplies. Fortuitous Find embodies that ethos by turning a moment of graveyard salvage into a practical, decisive play. In the grand tapestry of Kaladesh, even a modest sorcery can become the spark that re-ignites your board and turns the page on a tense late-game duel. 🧙♂️🎨
As a collector’s note, Fortuitous Find remains a neat staple in the Kaladesh block for its accessibility and the dual-utility angle. It’s a reminder that not every spell needs to be flashy to leave a lasting impression on the battlefield—and on your curve. If you ever find yourself in a grueling stalemate across a dim-lit battlefield, you’ll be glad you spared a moment for this little bit of graveyard alchemy. 🎲💎
And if you’re cooking up a build that enjoys the cross-pollination of enchanting effects, artifact synergy, and graveyard recursion, Fortuitous Find stands as a quiet, reliable piece that can help you steady the ship and push toward a win with resilience and style. The Kaladesh toolkit is vast, and this spell is a calm, capable gear in the mechanic’s belt. 🔥⚔️