Magic: The Gatheringis still holding strong with its digital-only Alchemy releases, with Alchemy: Ixalan as the latest set onMagic Arena. As with the majority of Alchemy releases, this batch of 30 cards reinforces the mechanics and themes of the main set,The Lost Caverns of Ixalan, but includes designs that only work in a digital play space.
All the usual Alchemy fixings are here, including seek cards, perpetual changes, spellsbooks and conjuring, as well as a new ‘Chorus’ subtype that uses the existing intensity mechanic to incentivize the use of multiple Chorus cards in one deck. It’s a hodgepodge of cards that should add new strategies to Historic and Historic Brawl, Alchemy, andthe new Timeless format.
10Dusk’s Landing
Not Quite A Vampiric Tutor
Theoretically, Dusk’s Landingcould be reworked as a paper cardwith a ‘search’ effect instead of ‘seek,’ but that version would be horribly broken. A single mana to seek two randomVampiresis already an impressive rate, but getting to choose those Vampires would push it over the top.
This Alchemy batch released a mini-cycle of cantrips associated with the main creature types of Ixalan, though oddly theDinosaurversion is absent. Dusk’s Landing is the best by far, as the only one that offers pure card advantage, and a simple lifelinker’s usually enough to fulfill the condition.
9Radiant Smite
Lost The Die Roll? No Problem!
Alchemy cards often play around with bonuses for the player on the draw. It’s a simple way to mitigate the downside of playing second, which in modern Magic is an undeniable disadvantage in metas full of cheap, powerful cards.
Radiant Smite’s bonus is simple lifegain, which gives the player on the draw more breathing room against fast opponents. It’s just a fine removal spell with a failsafe inCycling, and makes losing the die-roll a safer proposition. Cards like this could exist in paper, but tracking the first-turn player on later turns is an unnecessary bit of mental upkeep.
8Cogwork Progenitor
As A Matter Of Artifact…
It takes the right kind of deck to work, but Cogwork Progenitor is an immensely powerful card. The checkboxes you need to mark off include having artifacts worth seeking, and expendable ones worth sacrificing. Artifacts in your graveyard work too, but you need to get them there first. You can also lean on trinkety tokens likeTreasuresand Food.
The interesting part is that the non-creatures Coggy-P seeks become 1/1 creatures. Perpetually ‘animating’ a non-creature permanent creates all sorts of situations that aren’t normally possible, and should facilitate some cool interactions.
7Valiant Batrider
Good Stats. Bonus Text
A 3/3 flyer for three mana with any sort of upside is still very much above-rate for modern Magic. The upside in question is a repeatable way to tax your opponent’s mana. They can choose to ignore the boons you give them, but that’s just more cards for you.
Of course, the boons only trigger on non-creature spells, so Batrider loses some appeal in matches where both players are just slamming creatures into one another. Strange that this card’s worded for multiplayer purposes on a platform that only supports 1v1 matches. Points for consistency.
6Landlore Navigator
One Bird With Two Stones?
Arena consciously increased the number ofuncommonsin Alchemy releases, yet many of them end up being just as powerful as the rares anyway. Take Landlore Navigator, a 2-drop that can passively spit Thieving Magpies into play if you provide a steady stream of artifacts.
Alchemy cards make a point of highlighting forgotten or otherwise unplayable cards. We saw this with Dragonfly Pilot in Alchemy: Kamigawa, which conjured the somewhat terrible Dragonfly Suit. You’d never intentionally run Thieving Magpie, but Landlore Navigator’s a fun roundabout way to make the card relevant.
5Chitinous Crawler
Descend Enabler. Descend Payoff
Chitinous Crawler is the perfect blend of enabler and payoff for self-mill and descend decks. It’ll be a while before Descend 8 is turned online, but the Crawler helps by stuffing extra permanents into your graveyard. If you can get extra benefits off those conjured cards, even better.
Interestingly, once you reach the requisite eight permanents, using the descend ability to play a card from your graveyard actually decreases your permanent count, so Crawler could incidentally shut off its own ability. No matter, it’ll probably fill that graveyard right back up on the following turn.
4Mythweaver Poq
A New Take On Mana Ramp
Mythweaver Poq introduces a novelform of rampby conjuring duplicates of lands you control as they enter the battlefield. Your normal land drop alone is worth an entire extra land. Poq only triggers once per turn, but it’ll copy everything if multiple lands enter at the same time. Oh, and Poq gets enormous.
It wouldn’t be too bizarre to repurpose Mythweaver Poq as a paper Magic card. Changing the conjure text totoken creationwould be a bit messy to track, but would absolutely excite players enough that they’d accept it as the price of admission.
3High Marshal Arguel
Goodbye, Marshal Arguel
It’s weird to see a known character take a backseat in an Alchemy set rather than appear in the main set, but High Marshal Arguel’s abilities clearly wouldn’t fly in paper. Creating/conjuring other named permanents just isn’t something paper Magic supports (ignore Garth One-Eye).
At face value, Arguel’s a 3/1 that dies into your choice of a card advantage enchantment or a land, since you choose whether or not to transform your newly conjured Arguel’s Blood Fast. The dream of making two 4/3 flyers is enough to include a couple copies of Blood Fast in your deck already.
2Scalesoul Gnome
Ignore The Dino
Clearly the stats and trample are coming from the Dinosaur, so why isn’t Scalesoul Gnome a Gnome Dinosaur? Seems unjust. Regardless,Discoverhas proven itself to be problematic, or at least very, very good in a contained setting, so Scalesoul Gnome’s combat trigger feels like an effect worth working towards.
The conjure ability works independently of the combat damage trigger, so this can just sit in play and accumulate extra cards any time you play something from exile.Adventuresare probably the most egregious use of this ability, and playing cards from exile is quite common in red.
1Reflection Net
Complicated, But Net Positive
The going rate for an instant-speed lockdown enchantment is usually four mana, but Reflection Net shaves a mana off the cost without any real drawback. These effects tend to play well and complement your other instant-speed effects perfectly.
Reflection Net’s upside is unique for an effect like this, giving you a one-shot upgrade to one of your creatures, assuming you snagged something worth transforming into. Why couldn’t this card exist in paper? Maybe the combination of altering a permanent plus being a one-time only activation is too much information to track for one card.
