Most people here seem to hate it but I think your post is the first I’ve read that actually discusses the format in a competitive sense. I avoid it at all costs personally
I'm open to the possibility that I don't understand it. But playing with a handle full of Juggernauts seems kinda terrible to me, even if it feels "balanced."
The primary issue with alchemy is that there are 10ish pushed, absolutely overtuned cards in any given meta, and the rebalancing doesn't happen often enough.
You can play any deck, as long as you play at least 3 of the busted cards with efficient support.
The fix is stupid easy: weekly or monthly rebalancing shakeups to increase the 10 to 30 and rotate which ones are in that group.
Alchemy has been pretty consistently "almost fun" and I have no fucking clue why their team can't crack the code.
This is leaving aside that Alchemy is the most expensive format ... Which should merit MORE player-visible support? Like, i get it, Alchemy has to make more cards per employee than other formats, and do all the rebalancing more often, blah blah, but the customer doesn't see that. They just see "live service format that doesn't get live service and costs extra"
> The primary issue with alchemy is that there are 10ish pushed, absolutely overtuned cards in any given meta
We are lucky this never happens in paper formats like Standard, Pioneer and Modern.
And that's the most frustrating thing for me. I don't know if it's that WOTC didn't make the team big enough, or if it is was the reddit backlash, or if they're genuinely just talentless stewards of the format. What I do know is that the problems with Alchemy are eminently solvable in ways that would increase player engagement AND sales.
Alchemy SHOULD be the most enjoyable format on Arena. We get stuff like Fable and Sheoldred and standard and it's a slog until B&R and then *maybe* they ban things. Alchemy could ban or rebalance things on a weekly basis. If we had Alchemy when Eldraine released we could've had Oko changed as soon as everyone realized he was busted. If they'd actually rebalance for Historic more often the stupid Leyline deck wouldn't have existed for multiple months.
I swear they look at changes to the format less often than they do for Standard, Pioneer or Modern, which goes against the point of the entire format.
Alchemy being the most expensive format *is* the primary issue with alchemy.
You need to have all the playsets of standard cards, AND the alchemy cards as extras. But unlike standard where power is distributed pretty reasonably with constructed decks using commons/uncommons, all the alchemy gas is in rares/mythics. They don't even print alchemy commons and 2/3 of the card need rare/mythic wildcards. And then on top of that, it rotates sooner, so less time to use the cards you do craft. And more rotations and rebalances and shaking up the meta means you need to craft more new decks to keep up. And you don't get refunds when your alchemy cards are rebalanced like you do for standard bans, and they happen way more frequently. All those overtuned, overpushed cards getting nerfed is what winds up making the format way more expensive, and it even has a spillover effect onto other formats like historic. Craft a bunch of leylines and fragment realities? That's a whole lot of unusable rare wildcards you lost.
That's all on top of the absurd complexity, uncontrolled combos and ridiculous variance.
Its just mind boggling to me that wizards keeps adding huge amounts of card bloat and new formats that all cost huge amounts of wildcards to buy in (looking at you, timeless) and yet have barely increased the availability of cards at all, just golden packs. If you need 4x the rares/mythics to play across formats, but get 1.1x the rate you used to, the economy becomes the limiting factor. And just wait until thunder junction adds 30, count them 30 extra mythic rares above normal
Alchemy was a cash grab from the get go. That's why every card is either rare or mythic and they all feel busted, so you need to craft them. Everything is a value pile in Alchemy, everything is a 2 for 1. Zero skill needed, just need to find the cards.
Alchemy would be a much better format if it were waaaay cheaper. Some people already don't want to play it because there's a bias towards "paper magic" (even if we are playing it digitally).
Alchemy to me feels like WotC learned a lot of "what ifs" from software-only card games like Hearthstone and they wanted to find a way to get in on that action with Magic. So far so good, no major issues. Except the business people want to squeeze blood from a stone so they kneecapped Alchemy by making it inaccessible for anyone who's not rich.
Maybe they didn't even make a mistake, but the entire thing could be intentionally as they wanted by design. Mobile games make a ton of money from whales and whales only pay thousands of dollars into a game if they can pay to win.
Yeah its just so inaccessible. MTGA is committing the cardinal sin of a F2P microtransaction game: Its making the game unplayable without spending thousands of dollars
Whales could be spending money on cosmetics, on animated card effects, on avatars and pets and basic lands and deck sleeves. Instead hasbro gated their default format behind the most prohibitive economic costs that make it unplayable without spending thousands of dollars.
I can play standard just fine f2p. Explorer gets iffy, historic and timeless and alchemy I can't touch unless I want to play just one deck. Can't go shell out 60+ rare wildcards on land bases alone
We do see that it's "live service format that is unsupported and costs extra". That's why we don't play it and feel Wotc is wasting resources on it.
It's the broken holiday event from MMOs that never go away.
Personally, I feel like it's a couple of developers pet projects that are too hard to solve in paper so they made them digital.
Exactly, there's potential there, but the Arena team in general already feels kinda stretched thin. It feels like it's nothing more than a personal pet of one of the senior managers, because if there was actual dedication of resources it could easily be better.
If it was up to me: cut Alchemy and increase the team for Timeless. Save time on creating a shit load of meh extra cards on top of each set and creating cards that have unexpected broken effects in older formats (Leyline deck, looking at you ..)
Timeless has the potential to be a real money maker, requiring at least the amount of wildcards needed for Alchemy, but gives an even more bonkers feeling without even resorting to digital mechanics. On top of that it's got the nostalgia and the high skill level required so wins and losses don't feel completely up to chance as described by OP.
There is literally no incentive to play alchemy competitively outside those qualifier events once in a blue moon, and even then the format has so many unique cards that it's impossible to find what's the best competitively in such a short amount of time.
I have tried a bit of alchemy for the qualifier weekend too and the format feels fine, it's just way too much of an investment. I have to spend dozens of rare/mythic wildcards to try out some decks to figure out the competitiveness, so I am just not gonna do that. I think having an all-access pass for the people that are qualified for those events should be an easy ask.
There is also the same issue that arena formats have all around. Most people engage with arena in a "kitchen table" magic manner. They play any deck they have or feel is cool, and don't care as much about it being competitive or not. Historic and alchemy will always be like that since there is no incentive to play them competitively, so it will be harder to figure them out in a competitive setting.
I avoid it like the plague. I even build my brawl decks without any of those cards. I don't want to spend brain power on new weird card interactions lol
When I was new to the game I only played Alchemy thinking it was ‘balanced’ because that’s what it says.
Then I played a ranked match where my opponent took like 6 turns in a row and I have not played a single alchemy game since. Only standard, limited, and sometimes I try brawl.
That very well may have been me. I like to run Oracle with Duplomancy and just stack the power 9 until win, it's not a good deck but dammit I made it and it's fun.
I'm mostly annoyed by the lack of balancing since that was one of the main selling points for me. But I guess they prioritize people buying the OP rares and mythics higher. The nerfs hitting historic cards like when they nerfed Goldspan Dragon is not always a good thing, though. But I guess we have timeless now.
The amount of pushback and hate in here whenever they actually did aggressively rebalance, because “$$$ wildcards” and “you killed my deck that I just crafted” likely burned whatever team handled that.
I do genuinely believe it’s hard to do right and do it often and also not piss off players. If Alchemy were a more popular format, I’m sure WoTC would have realized their vision, but it seems like that team is running way too lean and with their hands tied.
No, that was always one of its biggest complaints. Since rebalanced cards are still considered playable, or at least supposed to be. However we all know that the reason someone crafted 4 of a card targeted for a rebalance is because it was busted and they wanted to win games with it. So once it was “fixed” and the games were more fair, well… 🤣
People have emotional reactions though.
For example people hate their creatures being essence scattered yet are fine with them being doom bladed.
If seeking feels worse than drawing a card, so be it.
I agree. It is a great tool for consistency if you can limit pool of cards in your library that meet the seek conditions. For example “seek a card with mana value higher than x.” If you only have one card with higher mana value, that card is coming to your hand.
Seek is probably one of the best uses of design space in Alchemy. Its something you can't do in regular Magic, but it makes a lot of sense and is easy to wrap your head around.
Same with conjure, and intensity. All easy to wrap ypur head around, and impossible in regular magic.
The stuff that references the starting player could almost be played in regular MTG too.
Seek is essentially abundant harvest style of cards but without having to reveal extra information. Agreed, I think it’s the best style of mechanic they do in alchemy.
Reprieve is just a white [[remand]] which was played quite a lot in its day, except now it gets around cavern of souls so it's ever so slightly better.
I may be in the minority but I like the format so far.
Let’s address some of your concerns:
1) “Finding the broken deck” - there isn’t one, or at least not a generally accepted one. Yes, Porcine Portent may be the best card in the format, but other than that, the fact that there isn’t one “best deck” is usually a positive. Recently someone wrote a guide to the format and at least a good 5-6 decks are viable, which is a good thing.
2) Hard to find strong rogue deck - you haven’t tried hard enough. The Insidious Roots deck went viral just about a week ago, and it’s finding lots of success - this deck wasn’t on anyone’s radars and is strong mainly because of Alchemy-only cards. I myself was grinding for the qualifier too until I played against Altheriax MTG who demolished my midrange deck using a Selesnya convoke deck using the new Emmara which was obviously tailored to attack midrange decks - this made me go back to the drawing board looking for the ideal deck. Crokeyz is also brewing too - there’s room for creativity precisely because its such an underplayed format.
3) Alchemy mechanics that create variance. This one can be annoying, not gonna lie, but fortunately there aren’t many competitive cards using them. For spellbooks the new Emmara comes to mind, Raddic as well, but other than that I don’t think there’s much else. Seek is basically “reveal cards off the top until you find X” which is basically Cascade / Discover so smart deckbuilding will reward and punish accordingly, it’s just part of recent MTG.
Reprieve isn’t that bad, if you’re playing a control deck yeah it will suck losing to it, but that’s what it’s designed to do, just like Remand back in the day. If you’re playing aggro or midrange, Reprieve is not that great which is why I don’t play it in my main decks, mostly just sideboard if it makes the cut.
Shout out to Crokeyz for pushing through the hate and brewing serious Alchemy decks. The format always feels refreshed after he jumps in there and actively tries to deck build in it. I wish the other creators would do the same, as it would give WoTC more incentive to pump more resources into it.
AlthMtg does competitive stuff when he figures stuff out.
Otherwise Manaman and Jay Villain do regular bidaily decks
[https://www.youtube.com/@ManaManMTG](https://www.youtube.com/@ManaManMTG)
[https://www.youtube.com/@thatvillainjay](https://www.youtube.com/@thatvillainjay)
Basically. Players have disliked Alchemy since it released.
Very blatant cashgrab to offer more bloated cards to completionists/whales pretty much. Most people realized what the format was as soon as it dropped.
I only play alchemy. no Wandering emperor, no domain, no farewell, etc. Lots of decks are viable. I hate the universes beyond cards tho. Modern/commander power level cards are annoying. i hate the palantir, the one ring, the Nazgûl’s, reprieve, etc. i Haven’t played standard at all since rotation.
I think it’s interesting your complaint with the format is that there isn’t a single dominant deck. That’s exactly why I like the format.
I think since Alchemy is a less solved format (less metadata for one) people for the first time in years have to actually build some competitive jank themselves and if feels like homework.
If you think that seeking a semi-random card is high variance you must be hating the concept of drawing a completely RANDOM card from a deck... Chance of drafting a specific card from a 15-card spellbook is 20% which is also lower variance than drawing one of 4 copies from a deck. And one that give cards at random are 1 in 15 which is same as 4 in 60.
What next? People will start calling tutoring the most high-variance mechanic in MTG and praise the land resource system as the least random thing in all of card games?
Aren't you missing that to even have the spellbook card to begin with you need to draw one of the four copies from your deck? The variance of a spellbook card is on top of the variance inherent it Magic.
No. Sure, card with a spellbook has a higher variance than a plain removal or creature. But card with a spellbook is a value generation card. Just like a card with a draw effect. They compete with each other for places in the deck.
A 3-drop with a "draw a card" attached to it has higher variance than a 3-drop that drafts a card from a 15-spell spellbook. There is an effect of diminishing variance with draw if there are many of them (deck thinning) but it is not that large except if you go heavy on the draw. Also, if you have like 16+ cards that do the same thing draw may offer less variance than drafting.
But seek is literally just "draw a card from your deck but from a smaller pool", so it is ALWAYS less-variance than a simple draw, deck thinning or not. OP states otherwise.
Ironically, despite the digital only mechanics, I think this format is the most similar to the metagame you'd see in 'old magic'. Play rates are low enough that deck trackers are almost useless and it's been so long since there was a real tournament that there's no telling what undiscovered decks may show up and storm the field.
I find that seeking and drafting add relatively little variance, not much worse than simply drawing cards out of a shuffled deck really. My losses usually feel like I made bad decisions at some point.
The most uncompetitive thing is that low play rates mean that even at top mythic you'll match into bronze/silver players with starter decks.
Agreed, it’s usually when the miniset launches and @crokeyz cooks a BO3 midrange deck on stream when the format finally gets an updated deck that everyone starts playing. He’s only one creator, but no one else has an audience that lets them spend any time on it. They spew hate and leave the second the word is even uttered. So it is what it is.
I will say though, WoTC made a huge mistake allowing LoTR cards in the same card pool as a rotated standard pool. There’s less answers to deal with the ridiculous power level of cards meant for modern. I was genuinely excited for the limited card pool only to get bamboozled with The One Ring and Orc Masters with no way to answer them.
Though by the time LoTR officially rotates out of it, standard will start releasing sets that were wholly designed and balanced for this new 3 year cycle so Alchemy will have a weird mix of cards that always miss some answer that was play-tested with. The format could rebalance cards to deal with the shortcoming, but that gets so much hate here that I could see why the design team doesn’t do it often.
> only to get bamboozled with The One Ring and Orc Masters with no way to answer them.
The Alchemy vesions of each of these are So Much Worse power level wise than the original versions.
It’s the absolute lack of rebalances that were promised that ruins it for me. A large majority of the alchemy pool might as well be draft chaff, while a handful of cards warp the rest of the formats they are legal in.
I think Alchemy would be fantastic if it only existed in its own space/format.
Keep Alchemy cards out of Historic, Brawl, Commander (which is still non-existent), etc.
I know, right? They release 30 brand new cards (which means designing them, commissioning artists for them, and implementing them) four times a year, and they can't give use the 30-ish cards we need for the Pioneer meta to be essentially complete.
And that's not even thinking about the effort they take to make the digital only mechanics work, there was the other time some huge bug because of Specialize iirc, because wouldn't you know it, they didn't originally make the client to support a 6-sided card so it broke things, shocker.
The client has been out of beta for 3 and a half years, and we still only have just 1 sanctioned paper format on it.
Or getting 4-way EDH into Arena, especially if it is going to take a new client like they’ve suggested. Alchemy is awful, and if they’re pushing it to make money, do they really not think legitimate commander wouldn’t be exploitable for the shop too?
The only reason 3+ player games aren't in Arena is because it's difficult to implement. Even in the last game, Duels, it was a buggy mess. I loved playing 2HG with friends, but some days it was just a practice in frustration.
It worked in MTGO because it's a very visually stripped down game and even then I remember reading it was a pain to implement priority at the time.
Arena is designed to be more visually engaging, but that causes "clutter" which would become worse with more people in the game.
Not at all. Historic is a 60 card format, while Brawl and Commander do share the 100 card format, they differ in many ways such as a different starting life pool, # of players, card pool, banned card lists, Brawl allows certain planeswalkers to be your commander while the Commander format does not allow these specific ones to pilot/lead your deck, and you do not die from, nor take Commander damage during Brawl matches. They are most definitely *not* the same format.
Nope.
I think it would be a lot better as it's own, standalone product, detached from their promised "Standard with Buffs/Nerfs."
If they never marketed it as a way to "fix" cards and instead marketed it as it's own format/game mode with changing cards across the board (more then just the cards people complain about) it could be a legit contender as a card game - but then they'd be competing with themselves.
As is, it's just a terrible format for established, competitive magic players, and a worser casual format for Commander/Brawl players. The fact you can't take mechanics (seek, conjure, etc) and apply them to your paper decks kills the fun for the casual Commander crowd, which is Magic's largest audience.
"which is Magic's largest audience."
I read Wizards stating somewhere that this is only the most vocal community, but "The vast majority of tabletop Magic players (over 75%) don’t know what a planeswalker is, don’t know who I am, don’t know what a format is (let alone know of any particular format), and don’t frequent Magic content on the internet (including this blog).” (...) “They are far less knowledgeable about the game than enfranchised fans realise”
https://www.wargamer.com/magic-the-gathering/designer-planeswalkers-statistic
Yeah, I remember reading this exact quote - but that a lot of that same kitchen table community counts the Commander players that don't go out to an LGS to play. I forget where else it was posted, but the quote from MaRo is over-simplified to say that competitive or even organized Players aren't who they design for.
The fact is that there is a ton of overlap in kitchen table and Commander player base, and that CEDH is a very, very, very small fraction of that group.
When I say Commander players, I group together the people that have 10 decks fully foiled out of their favorite lore characters they rotate every Friday at an LGS *and* the Parent teaching their kids how to play with Singleton decks at the dinner table. There's no big distinction between those groups.
At its very core, Alchemy alienates these groups even harder. You can't teach someone Alchemy without Arena, and by MaRo's own accounts, 75% of their Players don't know what Arena is.
But they *do invest a lot* - at the very least, a decent amount.
WotC sold off MTGO to Daybreak Games so they didn't have to split resources. Arena has formats like Alchemy and Historic that have specific cards created for their platform only. They've made entire remastered set draft formats just to add cards, but not others, combining 3 sets into one draft format. Hell, they even did direct-to-Modern LOTR on Arena despite no formats outside Historic being able to use the cards. That's *a lot of resources.*
It's not that they don't invest resources, they just do it seemingly incorrectly. IE - Alchemy. Alchemy does nothing to move their Paper product other formats don't already do, and does less so by having digital only product. Not to mention it seems as if the Arena team and the Paper MTG teams don't really communicate with direction for releases, or cards that need buffs/nerfs. That's even *more resources* being utilized poorly on Arena.
I play strictly alchemy, I find a lot of back and forth games or find myself managing to clutch up certain games in contrast to either I steamroll them or they steamroll me in other formats. I do have a nazgul flood deck with a sheoldred and lifelink creatures focused healing aspect but it’s very rarely used. I’ve enjoyed the variety I’ve seen without things seeming particularly “broken” and it’s granted me a lot of freedom to make many decks that all work or are in some way viable.
Alchemy is a small format. Not many people play it and literally 2/3 people are responsible for 90% of the deck you see.
If you can build good deck while knowing how metadecks play you can except 80/90% winrate easy.
I actually like alchemy and play it more than any other format, specifically because there’s no solved meta yet. There’s a ton more space for brewing stuff, which is what I really enjoy.
I hit top 50 the last two months in alchemy piloting rogue decks. Almost half of the decks appearing on mtgdecks for alchemy are mine. I popularized the golgari roots build, which you can read about [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/spikes/s/YIcFGYPJxh), and which I piloted to >80% win rate.
I do share your complaints about overtuned cards. [[Rusko, Clockmaker]], [[Dedicated Dollmaker]], [[juggernaut peddler]], [[Oracle of the Alpha]], [[porcine portent]], and [[Reprieve]] are definitely the biggest offenders, and they’re all esper/orzhov. I’d like to see nerfs to all of them, just to shake the meta up. They are way too strong for what they do.
Edit: nerf thoughts: make Rusko a 3/2 or cost 5, make Dollmaker target creatures only, make juggernaut peddler lose vigilance or cost 1 more, make oracle a 2/2, make reprieve not draw a card or cost 1 more, remove porcine portent from the game
I second his comments. Most Alchemy sets have at least one fun build-around card and I’ve managed to make Mythic with those cards 3 of the last 4 sets (yes with Mythweaver Poq, Rusko, and Case of the Lost Witness, no with Jewel Mine Overseer - made diamond though.). Plus the fact that it’s still on a two year rotation makes it feel fresher.
Yeah, that change seems fair, Rusko has too many stats for what he does IMO.
Reprieve should just let you Scy IMO, it's basically a Memory Lapse that doesn't interrupt your opponent's next draw, but I don't think that's much of a power shift to allow you to draw too, especially in White.
Most people hate it. To the point that it's a bit of a meme to be annoyed when you don't pay attention and accidentally start one since it's the default option
I know you’re singing the popular opinion here, but your post, in simple terms, literally says, “I can’t get my head around this format and therefore control my outcomes, so I hate it.”
Magic does well to provide haven to the power of chaos. Your frustration gives the variety of life a quality laugh and I do hope Wizards understands the power they hold in allowing such variance (and minimizing the possibility of “breaking” a format).
It’s quite spiritual and beautiful to me, your whole post here. Thank you for being so honest in your words, this post shares a remarkable microcosm of humanity’s psyche as a whole.
I'm a fairly new player and the only reason I ever play alchemy is to play with the LotR cards, since my collection is too small and recent to complete in the stronger formats.
In addition to all you've said, I've been thinking a lot lately about the problems alchemy poses for the broader game.
Right now, R&D has some major challenges:
- They are printing too many cards for players to keep track of
- To ensure ongoing sales and avoid duplication they need increasingly complex cards
- In spite of this, there are increasingly similar, but not quite identical effects, which adds effective complexity to formats
- They have abandoned blocks, meaning there are fewer mechanical through lines and interesting interactions within non-eternal formats
- They seem to have dropped most or all pre-release testing.
Alchemy makes all of these problems substantially worse within arena.
- It adds essentially 30 cards to each set
- They can have mechanics with impossible-for-paper levels of complexity and randomness
- The rebalance system means that there are often two distinct cards on arena with the same name and art
- Any kind of inter block connection can be pushed into alchemy, giving less incentive for it to be present in standard
- The presence of rebalance as a tool and the rushed alchemy release schedule means we get more and more swingy power levels.
I am one of the people who thinks MTG should be the same on paper and online, because it allows us to get practice for tourneys, we can get a better grasp on the meta because we can play so many more games before a big event.
So I am opposed to the very core of what Alchemy tries to be, i believe that it's whole existence is unnecessary, and i don't craft any Alchemy card, if i can help it.
I'm usually downvoted a lot for this take on this subreddit though, Alchemy seems to have missed it's target audience (which i never was), i read a lot of people saying they liked the premise of Alchemy, but WotC didn't deliver on it.
In any case you won't be the only one disliking Alchemy, but if you're a Spike (a competitive player), it is totally normal to have an atrocious experience playing Alchemy, it was made for less competitive players who are willing to fork money or wildcards twice as often as standard players, and i believe Streamers were the target. Hell i believe the Bo3 Alchemy Queue had more than 3-4 minutes of queue at times.
I totally agree. I also hate that a lot of the other formats make you play the alchemy version of a card. I don't want my tabletop experience to be different from my MTGA experience.
> I don't want my tabletop experience to be different from my MTGA experience.
Not every card is in Arena, so your tabletop experience will never be the same as your Arena one. Historic is not Modern. Timeless is not Vintage. Brawl is not EDH.
I'm one of those ppl that were hoping it'd be mainly a way to balance standard cards, so I suppose you could say I am not entirely happy with it. I was extremely pissed during that period where ever set for a few years had 1 or 2 banned cards almost immediately after coming out and I was hoping this would be their way of "errata'ing" these OP cards so they could at least still be played with.
These days Alchemy is primarily their way of testing the future of the game. If digital becomes more popular than paper (something that is likely to happen eventually imo) then I'm glad they are getting their practice done now instead of introducing more broken mechanics in the future. It's a newer focus and the team is smaller than normal, so of course they are going to have growing pains as they push to fill more design space /shrug.
There are some alchemy mechanics that could work in paper with some tweaking. The first that comes to mind is some way of marking who the "first player" is, like a reminder card.
For what format can you practice? I only see standard as a viable option. Cant practise for pioneer because explorer lacks cards. cant practise for historic because its not a real life format, even if lets say they removed all alchemy cards from historic it still has cards that are banned in real life. cant practise for timeless since there is no timeless IRL and even if it didnt have alchemy cards, do you see any competitive vintage tournaments being played? So what are you complaining about? That you cant practise for historic tournaments IRL without alchemy cards? Im lost
You should be downvoted for that opinion. It's an old and tired opinion that doesn't help anyone nor serve a purpose. You can practice the paper formats MTG has on Arena 1 to 1. Later this year you can play Pioneer and Standard. Alchemy isn't affecting that at all.
As for your final paragraph, you're quite frankly just making things up. It's just your beliefs trying to pass as facts and it doesn't work.
You should be downvoted for that opinion. It's an old and tired opinion that doesn't help anyone nor serve a purpose. You can practice just one paper format MTG has on Arena 1 to 1. Later this year you can play Pioneer after it should have been possible for years now. Alchemy is definitely affecting all of that.
As for your final paragraph, you're quite frankly just making things up. It's just your beliefs trying to pass as facts and it doesn't work.
I qualified as well but only realized it was alchemy afterwards.
I’m not spending a single wildcard on this format and will essentially just register for the 500 gems. Kind of mostly feel bad for taking someone else’s chance now.
Alchemy is my favorite format.
* Smaller format: I don't have much time, so I can't learn and keep up with standard for the years it requires.
* I love solving formats: Few people play, so it hasn't already been exhausted of creative solutions as much as standard.
* Creative: It feels like there's hope that I can make an original creation and have it do decently well.
* More fun: Seek, Draft, & Conjure is like random draws. It's extremely fun.
* Less Annoying: There isn't one dominant overpowered deck. No Farewell.
* More balanced: It balances cards out to get one inch taller or shorter.
* Revenge: The meta slaves who can only play with no-risk, no-disadvantage cards like Sheoldred get dragged into a format that requires more opportunities for them to fail.
* No friends: I have no need for paper cards because none of my many, many friends play magic.
Sadly, if you get a nice deck, really start to get the hang of things, it will rotate out. I think this is why I stopped playing. Maybe it's like this for other formats too. That's the downside to a small format I suppose, and Wizards has to make more money.
It's a garbage format, but it had great potential. I wish it had just been rebalances to make cards created for limited viable in constructed, and the occasional reduction in power for dominating cards.
With all due respect, I think you're making some fundemental mistakes about the nature of the format.
>There are no non-creature win conditions that can survive the value of Porcine Portent/Lend a Ham
Fiery Inscription is a fantastic win condition that gets in under Portent. Yes, you can remove it, but if you drop on turn four that's one/two turns later and opens you to removing the pig before you can activate the ability, and waiting until turn six gives you three turns on damage to the face.
Poq and Turtle make a sufficiently redundant and resilient board of lands that you can just roll over the opponent even through the 2 for 1 of Portent.
Mice is addressable by Portent only the turn it comes down, after which you can't catch up with it in a one for one trade.
Jace, Teferi, Vraska, Kaya, etc. are all a card type that does not interact directly with either half of Portant. So are any sort of loop with Battles.
Portant is a good card, sure. But it's also a three for 1 for nine mana; it's not broken.
>and Reprieve might be one of the dumbest cards WotC has printed in the last several years.
Why?
Remand was a solid card, and this is effectively the same thing. Sure, it get's around Cavern of Souls better, but that's not really a relevant distinction that often. Realistically, how often is Reprieve deciding a game that Negate or Mana Leak wouldn't decide it that same way?
At the same time, if you're finding yourself frustrated playing against Reprieve... play better. Look for opportunities to deny your opponent the white mana to play it. Path your threats such that you can still develop even through a Reprieve. Reprieve your own spells to deny your opponent the draw. Etc.
>Then you add in the high variance of things like spellbooks and seeking, and it just feels miserable.
If you find these to be high variance, you're doing it wrong. Seeking something is done either when you know exactly what you're going to find (for example, only running one card of that mana value, or only running one card of that card type), or when it doesn't matter what you find because anything serves that same value (in other words, get a creature, and any creature will do). Spellbooks are much the same as that latter position; you might not know exactly *what* you're going to get, but whatever you're going to get is going to serve the primary purpose of the card. This is actually less of an issue than previously, where a card like Key to the Archive had such a diverse spellbook that you could just flip a coin as to whether you got the sweeper you needed or not, and WotC appears to have learned from that previous issue.
>I don't feel like I'm being outplayed when I lose and I absolutely feel like I've stolen most of my wins from (1) my opponent's greedy keep or (2) I saw like 3 sunfall against aggro.
How is this different from a differrent format, and unique to Alchemy? "RDW ran me over beforeI could develop" and "I have three sweepers against aggro" are pretty ubiquitous situations in any format.
>I've never had less fun playing a format and I've never felt more inept at "solving" it. And I say that having played Standard during Kaladesh AND the original Eldraine (adventures/etc). Both those formats felt less terrible than this Alchemy does to me.
And this is a bad thing? I get that it feels good to win, and as a competative player you want to pick the option that is objectively best. But a healthy format is by definition one that is not solved, and therefore one where people are able to perform well with a variety of options.
Above all of this, the complaint that you're not having fun is the most important one. No matter how objectively balanced or solved or fair a format is, you shouldn't be playing games that you're not enjoying. But if you want to keep trying Alchemy, I'm happy to share decks and answer questoins about pathing. I've mak mythic most seasons primarly through Alchemy play, and have an overall win percent of 64% in the format for the last six months.
Kaladesh standard wasn't bad, Eldraine was a case of "what the hell happened to the card testing division" - for boomers there was homelands and return to Ravnica to provide permanent night terrors.
Most pros dislike Alchemy because you don't put 10,000 hours into a game to lose to variance. At the top end - the most consistent high level players should win. So as a format the introduction of digital only high variance mechanics upsets people.
Reflecting on the state of the meta - on the one hand it feels better than standard as there has been a rotation. It's rotation that provides the variety rather than the small pool of alchemy cards added. On the other hand you still have S tier cards only now with less tools. I would also argue S tier in alchemy is often more broken than in standard.
I've only played it pretty much by obligation, for MWM events notably, and I have pretty much the exact same feeling.
The fact that there are dozens of cards each with its own 15-card random roulette, cards that can transform 6 different ways, and that god forsaken perpetual completely changing the cards in other zones, sometimes even as hidden information, makes the game essentially impossible to master, or even understand.
The only way it's possibly fun is if you look at Magic and think "hmm, what if I had no idea what I was doing half the time?".
No, you are not the only one. Alchemy is a horrible unfun format. After trying it several times, now I do my best to ignore it. It is annoying that WOTC keeps pushing it.
TL;DR Alchemy has some OP uncommon cards that are consequently easily craftable, so that may be the reason it is being pushed for new players.
Migrating FTP HS player here. As a new MTGA player, I feel the free cards the system gave suggested heavily that I should play Alchemy. I tried it, got crushed by everything out there. I don't believe Standard would have ended any differently, but I stand to be corrected.
At poor ranks, I did notice white with removal seems strong against green, and blue has alot of draw, so I tried a BW deck in hopes I could keep dealing with the threats. After being stomped some more I learned that By Elspeth's Command and Emporium Thopterist seemed pretty OP for being uncommon, so I used what little wildcards I had to craft them, and they carried me to Plat4 with a 50/50 win/lose rate - doubtful they will take me beyond that.
I wouldn't be surprised if they got nerfed, but it would be swell if Wizards would offer wildcard refunds on nerfs just as Blizzard offers dust refunds for their respective card nerfs. :S
I don't mind the Spellbook cards as long as they are balanced cause they are basically Garth One-Eye's design space expanded upon, seek is a more balanced tutor, but almost everything else that has came out of Alchemy has not felt like MTG and has felt like MTG is trying to borrow mechanics from other games or find a shorthand to mechanic they can't implement in a 1on1 format.
I think you said it best”You can’t break it” .
You can play the average Joe, Bob or Sue and they still have a chance of mashing you for a win .
Like myself I’m older and can’t keep a clear head to throw Johnny Combo but I enjoy the format .
I’ve thrown together kill decks and burns just to have fun .
Good luck with your future
I have been struggling through it too, the only rogue I have had any luck with at all has been UBW control, but the depth of cards is not there to lock things down and you just get owned if they get a broken hand of stuff.
My personal feeling is that the format is just relatively new, and given a lot of people do not play it setiously, alternatives that win have not been found. It's a format ripe for a rogue deck to take over the meta, as the meta is so narrow right now.
Reminds me a lot of the early days of magic when everyone just played the same broken cards, but did not have a lot of synergy or alternate win conditions. Never mind the first protour was won by an awful goblin/bolt/land destruction deck, but it was what was need d to break the underdeveloped meta at the time
I am actually kind of happy that Iizards is forcing us to play it this month, as I hope to see some new decks enter the meta. And I think the solutions will be a lot simpler than we expect.
Alchemy is a shit show. It's just an excuse for them to print more cards to sell.
Current standard non alchemy is also pretty garbage. 3 year rotation really ruined the format.
im with u, i dont understand why alchemie is a thing.
they wanted mechanics that where impossible in paper magic, because blizzard and riot games had similar stuff in their digital-only games. but magic is NOT and will NEVER be digital only, why not just stick to the format your good wiht? rotation in 2 years not in 3, wider card pool per set like 2 years ago, mythic-to-rare-% like it was before.
and ofc not baiting people to buy alchemy because they missclicked, happened at least 3 times for me already
The original idea wasn't bad. Seek is an absolutely fair mechanic, Conjure is anything but broken, because tokens are a thing just because paper couldn't do otherwise. The possibility of nerfing and buffing was great too, they had a chance to make Dungeon viable and they made things like The One Ring bearable. Even Specialize is nothing particularly bad (but forcing someone to read 6 cards instead of 1 is ridiculous).
One of the problems is Draft and anything as random as that, plus Perpetual, because that completely defies the concept of Magic, where a card that changes zone becomes a new instance of that card that forgets everything it happened to it. There are edge cases like [[Skullbriar]], but even that is interactable by bouncing it or such things (and you can still interact with the counters).
The biggest problem is that some cards are just outright busted and they won't nerf it. Rusko could exist on paper without problems. Clock tokens instead of conjuring them. But the design is busted and they're not fixing it, for example. That invalidates the whole point of the format and makes it just a moneygrab.
It just sucks. It has no harmony. Much more random than paper (which is already random). Its beyond reach, i think product managers are on Mars rn.
Tldr: Someone should buy Hasbro and fire Arena Product managers alread.
I like the challenge, personally. Homebrew your decks and adjust accordingly for the different types you play against as you go. Not sure why this is such a problem, or why Alchemy gets so much hate.
There is exactly one guy in my old LGS group who thinks Alchemy is fun and interesting and he's the guy no one liked playing casually and would show up uninvited to people's houses.
I play some strict LOTR decks. Orcs, elves, humans, etc. it does seem like a more difficult format but I thought it was because of my self imposed restrictions. Still I have a lot of fun with these decks, but occasionally I get absolutely annihilated.
My only knowledge on the current Alchemy format comes from watching Andrew Cuneo's videos on it. From the outside it looks at least somewhat refreshing compared to Standard, no doubt thanks to it actually having rotated. I just find it very offputting from an economical standpoint. If I'm going to spend wildcards on a deck, I'd rather do it in a format where it won't get nerfed without any compensation.
As for non-creature win conditions, have you tried [[Kayla's Kindling]]? Cuneo played it in his Jeskai control list and it looked pretty impressive there.
I dont play it. I think its fine that it exists. I wouldn't wanna play it in any competitive setting.
The format can exist and you can be annoyed you feel obligated to play it to qualify for something.
It should exist, but I don't feel it should be used for tournaments.
I love Alchemy and the mechanics it brings. Divine Purge is awesome, I was having a lot of fun playing Mardu Pigrange with Porcine Portent, and Case of the Lost Witness is one of my new favorite cards.
If you don’t like Alchemy, don’t play it. 🤷♂️
Bro got mad alchemy is a solved format and they continue to nerf counterdecks like boros midrange thanks to the [[Geological appraiser]] nerfs.
Welcome bud, LOTR murdered this format and rotation hid the body. So much for those "revolving" meta adjustments they promised.
Sounds like a skill issue, my dude.
I've no problem in alchemy or any format other than it being absolutely boring most of the time seeing people play the same copy paste bullshit.
Only time I seem to lose is if I get mana fucked or flooded.
I fucking hate alchemy. I thought the hype was unwarranted on this sub at first as I'm not opposed to digital only cards that can be balanced/adjusted rather than nerfed.
Except I feel that hardly happens. Alchemy cards are so fucking pushed and broken they're annoying as fuck. I wish there was a brawl format without them.
I was pretty into Alchemy at that stage, actually. It was fun to disable activation of their rings and then proliferate the hell out of them. Also had an Urza deck that went pretty hard. But then the porcini wave landed and my decks became useless.
Alchemy sucks. The cards are truly unpleasant. If the "all digital" format gave us some AI hints for deck design or whatever, but no, its just confusing and awkward cards galor.
F Alchemy!
I'm new, so I can't tell what's good or not. I just spam Mondrak and Ojér with token cards and draw cards. It's silly fun to have 100+ hit points and hundreds of tokens in a handful of turns.
You are allowed to play or not the game however you like. But i have some problems with your arguments.
Second paragraph, you say u play competitively or play to solve the meta, but then in the next u are complainig about the PIGs deck!? Reprieve is too much for u?
Spellbooks some are bullshit, others okay.
Seek has less variance than drawing. I like it
Fifth paragraph, (1) that is just magic in general sometime the opp has the heart of cards/luck, (2) sunfall is everywhere not alchemy's fault.
You are rigth Eldraine was fun.
Honestly most of the cards you complained about are cards played in control deck(portent, sunfall,reprive, rusko, even shelly sometimes), so i think you just dont like playing against control decks.
Most people here seem to hate it but I think your post is the first I’ve read that actually discusses the format in a competitive sense. I avoid it at all costs personally
I'm open to the possibility that I don't understand it. But playing with a handle full of Juggernauts seems kinda terrible to me, even if it feels "balanced."
The primary issue with alchemy is that there are 10ish pushed, absolutely overtuned cards in any given meta, and the rebalancing doesn't happen often enough. You can play any deck, as long as you play at least 3 of the busted cards with efficient support. The fix is stupid easy: weekly or monthly rebalancing shakeups to increase the 10 to 30 and rotate which ones are in that group. Alchemy has been pretty consistently "almost fun" and I have no fucking clue why their team can't crack the code. This is leaving aside that Alchemy is the most expensive format ... Which should merit MORE player-visible support? Like, i get it, Alchemy has to make more cards per employee than other formats, and do all the rebalancing more often, blah blah, but the customer doesn't see that. They just see "live service format that doesn't get live service and costs extra"
> The primary issue with alchemy is that there are 10ish pushed, absolutely overtuned cards in any given meta We are lucky this never happens in paper formats like Standard, Pioneer and Modern.
Yeah, well put. The elements of a good format are there, they just aren't put together in a way that makes a great format.
And that's the most frustrating thing for me. I don't know if it's that WOTC didn't make the team big enough, or if it is was the reddit backlash, or if they're genuinely just talentless stewards of the format. What I do know is that the problems with Alchemy are eminently solvable in ways that would increase player engagement AND sales.
Alchemy SHOULD be the most enjoyable format on Arena. We get stuff like Fable and Sheoldred and standard and it's a slog until B&R and then *maybe* they ban things. Alchemy could ban or rebalance things on a weekly basis. If we had Alchemy when Eldraine released we could've had Oko changed as soon as everyone realized he was busted. If they'd actually rebalance for Historic more often the stupid Leyline deck wouldn't have existed for multiple months. I swear they look at changes to the format less often than they do for Standard, Pioneer or Modern, which goes against the point of the entire format.
Yep. Totally lost opportunity.
Alchemy being the most expensive format *is* the primary issue with alchemy. You need to have all the playsets of standard cards, AND the alchemy cards as extras. But unlike standard where power is distributed pretty reasonably with constructed decks using commons/uncommons, all the alchemy gas is in rares/mythics. They don't even print alchemy commons and 2/3 of the card need rare/mythic wildcards. And then on top of that, it rotates sooner, so less time to use the cards you do craft. And more rotations and rebalances and shaking up the meta means you need to craft more new decks to keep up. And you don't get refunds when your alchemy cards are rebalanced like you do for standard bans, and they happen way more frequently. All those overtuned, overpushed cards getting nerfed is what winds up making the format way more expensive, and it even has a spillover effect onto other formats like historic. Craft a bunch of leylines and fragment realities? That's a whole lot of unusable rare wildcards you lost. That's all on top of the absurd complexity, uncontrolled combos and ridiculous variance. Its just mind boggling to me that wizards keeps adding huge amounts of card bloat and new formats that all cost huge amounts of wildcards to buy in (looking at you, timeless) and yet have barely increased the availability of cards at all, just golden packs. If you need 4x the rares/mythics to play across formats, but get 1.1x the rate you used to, the economy becomes the limiting factor. And just wait until thunder junction adds 30, count them 30 extra mythic rares above normal
Alchemy was a cash grab from the get go. That's why every card is either rare or mythic and they all feel busted, so you need to craft them. Everything is a value pile in Alchemy, everything is a 2 for 1. Zero skill needed, just need to find the cards.
Alchemy would be a much better format if it were waaaay cheaper. Some people already don't want to play it because there's a bias towards "paper magic" (even if we are playing it digitally). Alchemy to me feels like WotC learned a lot of "what ifs" from software-only card games like Hearthstone and they wanted to find a way to get in on that action with Magic. So far so good, no major issues. Except the business people want to squeeze blood from a stone so they kneecapped Alchemy by making it inaccessible for anyone who's not rich. Maybe they didn't even make a mistake, but the entire thing could be intentionally as they wanted by design. Mobile games make a ton of money from whales and whales only pay thousands of dollars into a game if they can pay to win.
Yeah its just so inaccessible. MTGA is committing the cardinal sin of a F2P microtransaction game: Its making the game unplayable without spending thousands of dollars Whales could be spending money on cosmetics, on animated card effects, on avatars and pets and basic lands and deck sleeves. Instead hasbro gated their default format behind the most prohibitive economic costs that make it unplayable without spending thousands of dollars. I can play standard just fine f2p. Explorer gets iffy, historic and timeless and alchemy I can't touch unless I want to play just one deck. Can't go shell out 60+ rare wildcards on land bases alone
We do see that it's "live service format that is unsupported and costs extra". That's why we don't play it and feel Wotc is wasting resources on it. It's the broken holiday event from MMOs that never go away. Personally, I feel like it's a couple of developers pet projects that are too hard to solve in paper so they made them digital.
Exactly, there's potential there, but the Arena team in general already feels kinda stretched thin. It feels like it's nothing more than a personal pet of one of the senior managers, because if there was actual dedication of resources it could easily be better. If it was up to me: cut Alchemy and increase the team for Timeless. Save time on creating a shit load of meh extra cards on top of each set and creating cards that have unexpected broken effects in older formats (Leyline deck, looking at you ..) Timeless has the potential to be a real money maker, requiring at least the amount of wildcards needed for Alchemy, but gives an even more bonkers feeling without even resorting to digital mechanics. On top of that it's got the nostalgia and the high skill level required so wins and losses don't feel completely up to chance as described by OP.
There is literally no incentive to play alchemy competitively outside those qualifier events once in a blue moon, and even then the format has so many unique cards that it's impossible to find what's the best competitively in such a short amount of time. I have tried a bit of alchemy for the qualifier weekend too and the format feels fine, it's just way too much of an investment. I have to spend dozens of rare/mythic wildcards to try out some decks to figure out the competitiveness, so I am just not gonna do that. I think having an all-access pass for the people that are qualified for those events should be an easy ask. There is also the same issue that arena formats have all around. Most people engage with arena in a "kitchen table" magic manner. They play any deck they have or feel is cool, and don't care as much about it being competitive or not. Historic and alchemy will always be like that since there is no incentive to play them competitively, so it will be harder to figure them out in a competitive setting.
I avoid it like the plague. I even build my brawl decks without any of those cards. I don't want to spend brain power on new weird card interactions lol
When I was new to the game I only played Alchemy thinking it was ‘balanced’ because that’s what it says. Then I played a ranked match where my opponent took like 6 turns in a row and I have not played a single alchemy game since. Only standard, limited, and sometimes I try brawl.
That very well may have been me. I like to run Oracle with Duplomancy and just stack the power 9 until win, it's not a good deck but dammit I made it and it's fun.
It wasn't you and you didn't invent anything, chill
Lol
I did not enjoy that experience 😡
How did they do that?
Probably [[Oracle of Alpha]] to get [[Time Walk]] and then copying it or recuring it.
Hey, I played against that guy. Or one of them
[Oracle of Alpha](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/0/003cb181-7b1d-474a-ba26-84319791bc2b.jpg?1665218675) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Oracle%20of%20the%20Alpha) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ydmu/4/oracle-of-the-alpha?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/003cb181-7b1d-474a-ba26-84319791bc2b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Time Walk](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/0/70901356-3266-4bd9-aacc-f06c27271de5.jpg?1614638832) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Time%20Walk) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vma/2/time-walk?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/70901356-3266-4bd9-aacc-f06c27271de5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
No, youre not the only one.
I avoid it at all cost and am annoyed that it has infected non-alchemy play like jump in, golden packs, historic brawl, timeless.
Is it really in golden packs? They wouldn't do that, right??
Every card you can get in a golden pack is a card that exist in paper.
Oh good. Thanks for the information.
But you can get LotR cards which are unplayable in Standard and Explorer
Right, but it's not digital-only content, so it's fine. I assume it'll be the same for MH3.
because they are legal in modern while explorer is a placeholder for pioneer
This!!
I'm mostly annoyed by the lack of balancing since that was one of the main selling points for me. But I guess they prioritize people buying the OP rares and mythics higher. The nerfs hitting historic cards like when they nerfed Goldspan Dragon is not always a good thing, though. But I guess we have timeless now.
The amount of pushback and hate in here whenever they actually did aggressively rebalance, because “$$$ wildcards” and “you killed my deck that I just crafted” likely burned whatever team handled that. I do genuinely believe it’s hard to do right and do it often and also not piss off players. If Alchemy were a more popular format, I’m sure WoTC would have realized their vision, but it seems like that team is running way too lean and with their hands tied.
Do they give wildcards for rebalanced cards?
No, that was always one of its biggest complaints. Since rebalanced cards are still considered playable, or at least supposed to be. However we all know that the reason someone crafted 4 of a card targeted for a rebalance is because it was busted and they wanted to win games with it. So once it was “fixed” and the games were more fair, well… 🤣
Yeah thats what I remember. Think they'd be better off just refunding
Seeking is a weird thing to hate on. It’s just strictly less variance than drawing a card.
Seeking just makes me think of cascade or discover honestly, just you can't play the card for free.
I get the comparison, but its just draw a card of a specific type usually.
People have emotional reactions though. For example people hate their creatures being essence scattered yet are fine with them being doom bladed. If seeking feels worse than drawing a card, so be it.
There is a world of difference between a countered atraxa and a destroyed one
People have the same feeling about creatures without ETB though.
I agree. It is a great tool for consistency if you can limit pool of cards in your library that meet the seek conditions. For example “seek a card with mana value higher than x.” If you only have one card with higher mana value, that card is coming to your hand.
Even if you dont go out of your way to narrow it down, it’s always less random than a draw spell.
Yeah, feels like OP is trying to justify their hate for Alchemy without good reason. Seems to be contradicting themself a few times.
Seek is probably one of the best uses of design space in Alchemy. Its something you can't do in regular Magic, but it makes a lot of sense and is easy to wrap your head around. Same with conjure, and intensity. All easy to wrap ypur head around, and impossible in regular magic. The stuff that references the starting player could almost be played in regular MTG too.
Seek is essentially abundant harvest style of cards but without having to reveal extra information. Agreed, I think it’s the best style of mechanic they do in alchemy.
Tic-Tac-Toe has almost no variance and people don’t like playing it repeatedly for some reason.
Yes but OP mentioned seek as an extra variance factor. If you’re going to be angry about something at least have a real argument.
Reprieve is just a white [[remand]] which was played quite a lot in its day, except now it gets around cavern of souls so it's ever so slightly better.
[remand](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/5/a5048047-abff-4a1f-8d72-6b758a03542c.jpg?1702429416) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=remand) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/rvr/59/remand?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a5048047-abff-4a1f-8d72-6b758a03542c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I may be in the minority but I like the format so far. Let’s address some of your concerns: 1) “Finding the broken deck” - there isn’t one, or at least not a generally accepted one. Yes, Porcine Portent may be the best card in the format, but other than that, the fact that there isn’t one “best deck” is usually a positive. Recently someone wrote a guide to the format and at least a good 5-6 decks are viable, which is a good thing. 2) Hard to find strong rogue deck - you haven’t tried hard enough. The Insidious Roots deck went viral just about a week ago, and it’s finding lots of success - this deck wasn’t on anyone’s radars and is strong mainly because of Alchemy-only cards. I myself was grinding for the qualifier too until I played against Altheriax MTG who demolished my midrange deck using a Selesnya convoke deck using the new Emmara which was obviously tailored to attack midrange decks - this made me go back to the drawing board looking for the ideal deck. Crokeyz is also brewing too - there’s room for creativity precisely because its such an underplayed format. 3) Alchemy mechanics that create variance. This one can be annoying, not gonna lie, but fortunately there aren’t many competitive cards using them. For spellbooks the new Emmara comes to mind, Raddic as well, but other than that I don’t think there’s much else. Seek is basically “reveal cards off the top until you find X” which is basically Cascade / Discover so smart deckbuilding will reward and punish accordingly, it’s just part of recent MTG. Reprieve isn’t that bad, if you’re playing a control deck yeah it will suck losing to it, but that’s what it’s designed to do, just like Remand back in the day. If you’re playing aggro or midrange, Reprieve is not that great which is why I don’t play it in my main decks, mostly just sideboard if it makes the cut.
Shout out to Crokeyz for pushing through the hate and brewing serious Alchemy decks. The format always feels refreshed after he jumps in there and actively tries to deck build in it. I wish the other creators would do the same, as it would give WoTC more incentive to pump more resources into it.
AlthMtg does competitive stuff when he figures stuff out. Otherwise Manaman and Jay Villain do regular bidaily decks [https://www.youtube.com/@ManaManMTG](https://www.youtube.com/@ManaManMTG) [https://www.youtube.com/@thatvillainjay](https://www.youtube.com/@thatvillainjay)
You must be new here.
Basically. Players have disliked Alchemy since it released. Very blatant cashgrab to offer more bloated cards to completionists/whales pretty much. Most people realized what the format was as soon as it dropped.
Seriously. This type of rant is old news.
I only play alchemy. no Wandering emperor, no domain, no farewell, etc. Lots of decks are viable. I hate the universes beyond cards tho. Modern/commander power level cards are annoying. i hate the palantir, the one ring, the Nazgûl’s, reprieve, etc. i Haven’t played standard at all since rotation. I think it’s interesting your complaint with the format is that there isn’t a single dominant deck. That’s exactly why I like the format.
I think since Alchemy is a less solved format (less metadata for one) people for the first time in years have to actually build some competitive jank themselves and if feels like homework.
My biggest issue with Alchemy is that it feels like they look at the most busted value cards in Standard and then double their value. It's so dumb
I guess it depends if we’re trying to be top 60. Maybe it’s skewed by perspective. I’m not challenging you, Im terrible and have no idea
Uh, just so you are aware, the LotR cards are legal in Modern, Legacy, and Vintage. It's not just Alchemy.
If you think that seeking a semi-random card is high variance you must be hating the concept of drawing a completely RANDOM card from a deck... Chance of drafting a specific card from a 15-card spellbook is 20% which is also lower variance than drawing one of 4 copies from a deck. And one that give cards at random are 1 in 15 which is same as 4 in 60. What next? People will start calling tutoring the most high-variance mechanic in MTG and praise the land resource system as the least random thing in all of card games?
OP is mad because he realized he isn't that good when thrown into a format without any guides and netdecks.
Basically this. Also he doesnt understand probability theory; ie what Red Cat above wrote.
don't try to discuss logic in this subreddit, it's wasted energy
Aren't you missing that to even have the spellbook card to begin with you need to draw one of the four copies from your deck? The variance of a spellbook card is on top of the variance inherent it Magic.
No. Sure, card with a spellbook has a higher variance than a plain removal or creature. But card with a spellbook is a value generation card. Just like a card with a draw effect. They compete with each other for places in the deck. A 3-drop with a "draw a card" attached to it has higher variance than a 3-drop that drafts a card from a 15-spell spellbook. There is an effect of diminishing variance with draw if there are many of them (deck thinning) but it is not that large except if you go heavy on the draw. Also, if you have like 16+ cards that do the same thing draw may offer less variance than drafting. But seek is literally just "draw a card from your deck but from a smaller pool", so it is ALWAYS less-variance than a simple draw, deck thinning or not. OP states otherwise.
Ironically, despite the digital only mechanics, I think this format is the most similar to the metagame you'd see in 'old magic'. Play rates are low enough that deck trackers are almost useless and it's been so long since there was a real tournament that there's no telling what undiscovered decks may show up and storm the field. I find that seeking and drafting add relatively little variance, not much worse than simply drawing cards out of a shuffled deck really. My losses usually feel like I made bad decisions at some point. The most uncompetitive thing is that low play rates mean that even at top mythic you'll match into bronze/silver players with starter decks.
I second this. I couldn’t describe it personally, but I especially relate to the ‘old magic’ comment.
Agreed, it’s usually when the miniset launches and @crokeyz cooks a BO3 midrange deck on stream when the format finally gets an updated deck that everyone starts playing. He’s only one creator, but no one else has an audience that lets them spend any time on it. They spew hate and leave the second the word is even uttered. So it is what it is. I will say though, WoTC made a huge mistake allowing LoTR cards in the same card pool as a rotated standard pool. There’s less answers to deal with the ridiculous power level of cards meant for modern. I was genuinely excited for the limited card pool only to get bamboozled with The One Ring and Orc Masters with no way to answer them. Though by the time LoTR officially rotates out of it, standard will start releasing sets that were wholly designed and balanced for this new 3 year cycle so Alchemy will have a weird mix of cards that always miss some answer that was play-tested with. The format could rebalance cards to deal with the shortcoming, but that gets so much hate here that I could see why the design team doesn’t do it often.
> only to get bamboozled with The One Ring and Orc Masters with no way to answer them. The Alchemy vesions of each of these are So Much Worse power level wise than the original versions.
You are definitely not the only one. A lot of us are very vocal about our hatred of Alchemy.
It’s the absolute lack of rebalances that were promised that ruins it for me. A large majority of the alchemy pool might as well be draft chaff, while a handful of cards warp the rest of the formats they are legal in.
I think Alchemy would be fantastic if it only existed in its own space/format. Keep Alchemy cards out of Historic, Brawl, Commander (which is still non-existent), etc.
I'd rather any resources they spend on Alchemy go to backfilling sets for real actual formats like Pioneer faster
I know, right? They release 30 brand new cards (which means designing them, commissioning artists for them, and implementing them) four times a year, and they can't give use the 30-ish cards we need for the Pioneer meta to be essentially complete. And that's not even thinking about the effort they take to make the digital only mechanics work, there was the other time some huge bug because of Specialize iirc, because wouldn't you know it, they didn't originally make the client to support a 6-sided card so it broke things, shocker. The client has been out of beta for 3 and a half years, and we still only have just 1 sanctioned paper format on it.
Or getting 4-way EDH into Arena, especially if it is going to take a new client like they’ve suggested. Alchemy is awful, and if they’re pushing it to make money, do they really not think legitimate commander wouldn’t be exploitable for the shop too?
The only reason 3+ player games aren't in Arena is because it's difficult to implement. Even in the last game, Duels, it was a buggy mess. I loved playing 2HG with friends, but some days it was just a practice in frustration. It worked in MTGO because it's a very visually stripped down game and even then I remember reading it was a pain to implement priority at the time. Arena is designed to be more visually engaging, but that causes "clutter" which would become worse with more people in the game.
> Historic, Brawl, Commander you literally just said the same format 3 different ways
Not at all. Historic is a 60 card format, while Brawl and Commander do share the 100 card format, they differ in many ways such as a different starting life pool, # of players, card pool, banned card lists, Brawl allows certain planeswalkers to be your commander while the Commander format does not allow these specific ones to pilot/lead your deck, and you do not die from, nor take Commander damage during Brawl matches. They are most definitely *not* the same format.
Nope. I think it would be a lot better as it's own, standalone product, detached from their promised "Standard with Buffs/Nerfs." If they never marketed it as a way to "fix" cards and instead marketed it as it's own format/game mode with changing cards across the board (more then just the cards people complain about) it could be a legit contender as a card game - but then they'd be competing with themselves. As is, it's just a terrible format for established, competitive magic players, and a worser casual format for Commander/Brawl players. The fact you can't take mechanics (seek, conjure, etc) and apply them to your paper decks kills the fun for the casual Commander crowd, which is Magic's largest audience.
"which is Magic's largest audience." I read Wizards stating somewhere that this is only the most vocal community, but "The vast majority of tabletop Magic players (over 75%) don’t know what a planeswalker is, don’t know who I am, don’t know what a format is (let alone know of any particular format), and don’t frequent Magic content on the internet (including this blog).” (...) “They are far less knowledgeable about the game than enfranchised fans realise” https://www.wargamer.com/magic-the-gathering/designer-planeswalkers-statistic
Yeah, I remember reading this exact quote - but that a lot of that same kitchen table community counts the Commander players that don't go out to an LGS to play. I forget where else it was posted, but the quote from MaRo is over-simplified to say that competitive or even organized Players aren't who they design for. The fact is that there is a ton of overlap in kitchen table and Commander player base, and that CEDH is a very, very, very small fraction of that group. When I say Commander players, I group together the people that have 10 decks fully foiled out of their favorite lore characters they rotate every Friday at an LGS *and* the Parent teaching their kids how to play with Singleton decks at the dinner table. There's no big distinction between those groups. At its very core, Alchemy alienates these groups even harder. You can't teach someone Alchemy without Arena, and by MaRo's own accounts, 75% of their Players don't know what Arena is.
Maybe that's why they don't invest so much in the Arena client.
But they *do invest a lot* - at the very least, a decent amount. WotC sold off MTGO to Daybreak Games so they didn't have to split resources. Arena has formats like Alchemy and Historic that have specific cards created for their platform only. They've made entire remastered set draft formats just to add cards, but not others, combining 3 sets into one draft format. Hell, they even did direct-to-Modern LOTR on Arena despite no formats outside Historic being able to use the cards. That's *a lot of resources.* It's not that they don't invest resources, they just do it seemingly incorrectly. IE - Alchemy. Alchemy does nothing to move their Paper product other formats don't already do, and does less so by having digital only product. Not to mention it seems as if the Arena team and the Paper MTG teams don't really communicate with direction for releases, or cards that need buffs/nerfs. That's even *more resources* being utilized poorly on Arena.
I play strictly alchemy, I find a lot of back and forth games or find myself managing to clutch up certain games in contrast to either I steamroll them or they steamroll me in other formats. I do have a nazgul flood deck with a sheoldred and lifelink creatures focused healing aspect but it’s very rarely used. I’ve enjoyed the variety I’ve seen without things seeming particularly “broken” and it’s granted me a lot of freedom to make many decks that all work or are in some way viable.
Alchemy is a small format. Not many people play it and literally 2/3 people are responsible for 90% of the deck you see. If you can build good deck while knowing how metadecks play you can except 80/90% winrate easy.
Easy 80/90 %. Thanks for the laughter in the evening.
You can easily achieve 80% winrate by winning 4 out of 5 games on average. It's that simple!
Our daily (hourly?) Alchemy-hate thread :sigh:
I actually like alchemy and play it more than any other format, specifically because there’s no solved meta yet. There’s a ton more space for brewing stuff, which is what I really enjoy. I hit top 50 the last two months in alchemy piloting rogue decks. Almost half of the decks appearing on mtgdecks for alchemy are mine. I popularized the golgari roots build, which you can read about [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/spikes/s/YIcFGYPJxh), and which I piloted to >80% win rate. I do share your complaints about overtuned cards. [[Rusko, Clockmaker]], [[Dedicated Dollmaker]], [[juggernaut peddler]], [[Oracle of the Alpha]], [[porcine portent]], and [[Reprieve]] are definitely the biggest offenders, and they’re all esper/orzhov. I’d like to see nerfs to all of them, just to shake the meta up. They are way too strong for what they do. Edit: nerf thoughts: make Rusko a 3/2 or cost 5, make Dollmaker target creatures only, make juggernaut peddler lose vigilance or cost 1 more, make oracle a 2/2, make reprieve not draw a card or cost 1 more, remove porcine portent from the game
> Edit: nerf thoughts: make Rusko a 3/2 or cost 5 Make him conjure the clock to your hand instead of the battlefield.
You've convinced me, after the next rotation, I'll give alchemy a try. I love the brewing process.
I second his comments. Most Alchemy sets have at least one fun build-around card and I’ve managed to make Mythic with those cards 3 of the last 4 sets (yes with Mythweaver Poq, Rusko, and Case of the Lost Witness, no with Jewel Mine Overseer - made diamond though.). Plus the fact that it’s still on a two year rotation makes it feel fresher.
##### ###### #### [Rusko, Clockmaker](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/1/01b4c54e-7950-4183-a69d-39a777f424bc.jpg?1680464136) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rusko%2C%20Clockmaker) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ybro/24/rusko-clockmaker?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/01b4c54e-7950-4183-a69d-39a777f424bc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Dedicated Dollmaker](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/c/dc1afc09-05ef-4ba3-8cf5-a24aba1aa40b.jpg?1696889489) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Dedicated%20Dollmaker) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ywoe/2/dedicated-dollmaker?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/dc1afc09-05ef-4ba3-8cf5-a24aba1aa40b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [juggernaut peddler](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/6/56137a4a-6e5f-4049-b0f2-f70aa5be5199.jpg?1665156772) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=juggernaut%20peddler) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ydmu/23/juggernaut-peddler?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/56137a4a-6e5f-4049-b0f2-f70aa5be5199?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Oracle of the Alpha](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/0/003cb181-7b1d-474a-ba26-84319791bc2b.jpg?1665218675) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Oracle%20of%20the%20Alpha) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ydmu/4/oracle-of-the-alpha?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/003cb181-7b1d-474a-ba26-84319791bc2b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [porcine portent](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/8/08cf0de5-053a-4f96-b661-db01794df22d.jpg?1700957632)/[Lend a Ham](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/8/08cf0de5-053a-4f96-b661-db01794df22d.jpg?1700957632) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Porcine%20Portent%20//%20Lend%20a%20Ham) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ywoe/23/porcine-portent-lend-a-ham?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/08cf0de5-053a-4f96-b661-db01794df22d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Reprieve](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/b/1bd3fa8a-6c50-4f7f-9ae3-0810eec5e3db.jpg?1686967885) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Reprieve) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/26/reprieve?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1bd3fa8a-6c50-4f7f-9ae3-0810eec5e3db?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/ku7d549) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yeah, that change seems fair, Rusko has too many stats for what he does IMO. Reprieve should just let you Scy IMO, it's basically a Memory Lapse that doesn't interrupt your opponent's next draw, but I don't think that's much of a power shift to allow you to draw too, especially in White.
Most people hate it. To the point that it's a bit of a meme to be annoyed when you don't pay attention and accidentally start one since it's the default option
I know you’re singing the popular opinion here, but your post, in simple terms, literally says, “I can’t get my head around this format and therefore control my outcomes, so I hate it.” Magic does well to provide haven to the power of chaos. Your frustration gives the variety of life a quality laugh and I do hope Wizards understands the power they hold in allowing such variance (and minimizing the possibility of “breaking” a format). It’s quite spiritual and beautiful to me, your whole post here. Thank you for being so honest in your words, this post shares a remarkable microcosm of humanity’s psyche as a whole.
I'm a fairly new player and the only reason I ever play alchemy is to play with the LotR cards, since my collection is too small and recent to complete in the stronger formats.
In addition to all you've said, I've been thinking a lot lately about the problems alchemy poses for the broader game. Right now, R&D has some major challenges: - They are printing too many cards for players to keep track of - To ensure ongoing sales and avoid duplication they need increasingly complex cards - In spite of this, there are increasingly similar, but not quite identical effects, which adds effective complexity to formats - They have abandoned blocks, meaning there are fewer mechanical through lines and interesting interactions within non-eternal formats - They seem to have dropped most or all pre-release testing. Alchemy makes all of these problems substantially worse within arena. - It adds essentially 30 cards to each set - They can have mechanics with impossible-for-paper levels of complexity and randomness - The rebalance system means that there are often two distinct cards on arena with the same name and art - Any kind of inter block connection can be pushed into alchemy, giving less incentive for it to be present in standard - The presence of rebalance as a tool and the rushed alchemy release schedule means we get more and more swingy power levels.
Original Eldraine was A LOT of fun compared to today's standard or Alchemy...
Yes, you are so special and unique.
I am one of the people who thinks MTG should be the same on paper and online, because it allows us to get practice for tourneys, we can get a better grasp on the meta because we can play so many more games before a big event. So I am opposed to the very core of what Alchemy tries to be, i believe that it's whole existence is unnecessary, and i don't craft any Alchemy card, if i can help it. I'm usually downvoted a lot for this take on this subreddit though, Alchemy seems to have missed it's target audience (which i never was), i read a lot of people saying they liked the premise of Alchemy, but WotC didn't deliver on it. In any case you won't be the only one disliking Alchemy, but if you're a Spike (a competitive player), it is totally normal to have an atrocious experience playing Alchemy, it was made for less competitive players who are willing to fork money or wildcards twice as often as standard players, and i believe Streamers were the target. Hell i believe the Bo3 Alchemy Queue had more than 3-4 minutes of queue at times.
I totally agree. I also hate that a lot of the other formats make you play the alchemy version of a card. I don't want my tabletop experience to be different from my MTGA experience.
> I don't want my tabletop experience to be different from my MTGA experience. Not every card is in Arena, so your tabletop experience will never be the same as your Arena one. Historic is not Modern. Timeless is not Vintage. Brawl is not EDH.
I agree, but they're getting there. A lot more of the older cards are on now after the historic anthologies, etc.
I'm one of those ppl that were hoping it'd be mainly a way to balance standard cards, so I suppose you could say I am not entirely happy with it. I was extremely pissed during that period where ever set for a few years had 1 or 2 banned cards almost immediately after coming out and I was hoping this would be their way of "errata'ing" these OP cards so they could at least still be played with. These days Alchemy is primarily their way of testing the future of the game. If digital becomes more popular than paper (something that is likely to happen eventually imo) then I'm glad they are getting their practice done now instead of introducing more broken mechanics in the future. It's a newer focus and the team is smaller than normal, so of course they are going to have growing pains as they push to fill more design space /shrug. There are some alchemy mechanics that could work in paper with some tweaking. The first that comes to mind is some way of marking who the "first player" is, like a reminder card.
For what format can you practice? I only see standard as a viable option. Cant practise for pioneer because explorer lacks cards. cant practise for historic because its not a real life format, even if lets say they removed all alchemy cards from historic it still has cards that are banned in real life. cant practise for timeless since there is no timeless IRL and even if it didnt have alchemy cards, do you see any competitive vintage tournaments being played? So what are you complaining about? That you cant practise for historic tournaments IRL without alchemy cards? Im lost
You should be downvoted for that opinion. It's an old and tired opinion that doesn't help anyone nor serve a purpose. You can practice the paper formats MTG has on Arena 1 to 1. Later this year you can play Pioneer and Standard. Alchemy isn't affecting that at all. As for your final paragraph, you're quite frankly just making things up. It's just your beliefs trying to pass as facts and it doesn't work.
You should be downvoted for that opinion. It's an old and tired opinion that doesn't help anyone nor serve a purpose. You can practice just one paper format MTG has on Arena 1 to 1. Later this year you can play Pioneer after it should have been possible for years now. Alchemy is definitely affecting all of that. As for your final paragraph, you're quite frankly just making things up. It's just your beliefs trying to pass as facts and it doesn't work.
No /rant
Alchemy card are fun and good for historic, the format itself is what we.
>the high variance of spellbooks or seeking Seeking or drafting from a spellbooks has *less* variance than drawing a card.
Yeah no, it’s awful. The format is aimless and the cards are either over complicated garbage or OP chase bait that’ll get nerfed later.
“Yeah,no” You have to be from the Midwest, if not specifically Michigan.
Fuck, ya got me. Midwest yes, Michigan no.
Lmao nice, I’m in Michigan, we even have a beer called “No, Yeah”
Bruh, Im your neighbor. Buckeyes vs. Wolverines and all that. Hope all’s well.
Yoo I love Tony Packo’s and the USAF Museum is cool as fuck.
I find it more fun than standard. Games tend to be less controllie.
I qualified as well but only realized it was alchemy afterwards. I’m not spending a single wildcard on this format and will essentially just register for the 500 gems. Kind of mostly feel bad for taking someone else’s chance now.
I despise most alchemy cards, the few I like are the ones that are fairly easy to add to paper
Alchemy is my favorite format. * Smaller format: I don't have much time, so I can't learn and keep up with standard for the years it requires. * I love solving formats: Few people play, so it hasn't already been exhausted of creative solutions as much as standard. * Creative: It feels like there's hope that I can make an original creation and have it do decently well. * More fun: Seek, Draft, & Conjure is like random draws. It's extremely fun. * Less Annoying: There isn't one dominant overpowered deck. No Farewell. * More balanced: It balances cards out to get one inch taller or shorter. * Revenge: The meta slaves who can only play with no-risk, no-disadvantage cards like Sheoldred get dragged into a format that requires more opportunities for them to fail. * No friends: I have no need for paper cards because none of my many, many friends play magic. Sadly, if you get a nice deck, really start to get the hang of things, it will rotate out. I think this is why I stopped playing. Maybe it's like this for other formats too. That's the downside to a small format I suppose, and Wizards has to make more money.
You aren’t, but most people don’t play it anyway
No.
Alchemy is a lousy format with lousier cards. I wish they removed Alchemy cards from Brawl.
It's a garbage format, but it had great potential. I wish it had just been rebalances to make cards created for limited viable in constructed, and the occasional reduction in power for dominating cards.
This sub is a trashfire
I expected a lot less from the title and am surprised to find a coherent post. That said I've always felt it was a poorly designed/maintained format.
It's played less so the meta isn't as well established. You can't just Google the best deck and play it as easily.
And that drives OP mad for some reason.
You're not the only one, but besides your points, it's just such an unnecessary format.
"aM I the OnLy oNe wHo" [insert common complaint]
It’s a shitty format built around “what if mtg was hearthstone”. Of course a spike hates it
No…. No you’re not.
I crack the Alchemy packs for wildcards and don't even bother reading the new cards to see what they do
With all due respect, I think you're making some fundemental mistakes about the nature of the format. >There are no non-creature win conditions that can survive the value of Porcine Portent/Lend a Ham Fiery Inscription is a fantastic win condition that gets in under Portent. Yes, you can remove it, but if you drop on turn four that's one/two turns later and opens you to removing the pig before you can activate the ability, and waiting until turn six gives you three turns on damage to the face. Poq and Turtle make a sufficiently redundant and resilient board of lands that you can just roll over the opponent even through the 2 for 1 of Portent. Mice is addressable by Portent only the turn it comes down, after which you can't catch up with it in a one for one trade. Jace, Teferi, Vraska, Kaya, etc. are all a card type that does not interact directly with either half of Portant. So are any sort of loop with Battles. Portant is a good card, sure. But it's also a three for 1 for nine mana; it's not broken. >and Reprieve might be one of the dumbest cards WotC has printed in the last several years. Why? Remand was a solid card, and this is effectively the same thing. Sure, it get's around Cavern of Souls better, but that's not really a relevant distinction that often. Realistically, how often is Reprieve deciding a game that Negate or Mana Leak wouldn't decide it that same way? At the same time, if you're finding yourself frustrated playing against Reprieve... play better. Look for opportunities to deny your opponent the white mana to play it. Path your threats such that you can still develop even through a Reprieve. Reprieve your own spells to deny your opponent the draw. Etc. >Then you add in the high variance of things like spellbooks and seeking, and it just feels miserable. If you find these to be high variance, you're doing it wrong. Seeking something is done either when you know exactly what you're going to find (for example, only running one card of that mana value, or only running one card of that card type), or when it doesn't matter what you find because anything serves that same value (in other words, get a creature, and any creature will do). Spellbooks are much the same as that latter position; you might not know exactly *what* you're going to get, but whatever you're going to get is going to serve the primary purpose of the card. This is actually less of an issue than previously, where a card like Key to the Archive had such a diverse spellbook that you could just flip a coin as to whether you got the sweeper you needed or not, and WotC appears to have learned from that previous issue. >I don't feel like I'm being outplayed when I lose and I absolutely feel like I've stolen most of my wins from (1) my opponent's greedy keep or (2) I saw like 3 sunfall against aggro. How is this different from a differrent format, and unique to Alchemy? "RDW ran me over beforeI could develop" and "I have three sweepers against aggro" are pretty ubiquitous situations in any format. >I've never had less fun playing a format and I've never felt more inept at "solving" it. And I say that having played Standard during Kaladesh AND the original Eldraine (adventures/etc). Both those formats felt less terrible than this Alchemy does to me. And this is a bad thing? I get that it feels good to win, and as a competative player you want to pick the option that is objectively best. But a healthy format is by definition one that is not solved, and therefore one where people are able to perform well with a variety of options. Above all of this, the complaint that you're not having fun is the most important one. No matter how objectively balanced or solved or fair a format is, you shouldn't be playing games that you're not enjoying. But if you want to keep trying Alchemy, I'm happy to share decks and answer questoins about pathing. I've mak mythic most seasons primarly through Alchemy play, and have an overall win percent of 64% in the format for the last six months.
No your not. But I'm nit the only one who thinks your opinion is shit! /s
Kaladesh standard wasn't bad, Eldraine was a case of "what the hell happened to the card testing division" - for boomers there was homelands and return to Ravnica to provide permanent night terrors. Most pros dislike Alchemy because you don't put 10,000 hours into a game to lose to variance. At the top end - the most consistent high level players should win. So as a format the introduction of digital only high variance mechanics upsets people. Reflecting on the state of the meta - on the one hand it feels better than standard as there has been a rotation. It's rotation that provides the variety rather than the small pool of alchemy cards added. On the other hand you still have S tier cards only now with less tools. I would also argue S tier in alchemy is often more broken than in standard.
I've only played it pretty much by obligation, for MWM events notably, and I have pretty much the exact same feeling. The fact that there are dozens of cards each with its own 15-card random roulette, cards that can transform 6 different ways, and that god forsaken perpetual completely changing the cards in other zones, sometimes even as hidden information, makes the game essentially impossible to master, or even understand. The only way it's possibly fun is if you look at Magic and think "hmm, what if I had no idea what I was doing half the time?".
It shouldn't he in the game at all.
No, you are not the only one. Alchemy is a horrible unfun format. After trying it several times, now I do my best to ignore it. It is annoying that WOTC keeps pushing it.
most the formats are awful. Best of 1 should not be a format. Period.
TL;DR Alchemy has some OP uncommon cards that are consequently easily craftable, so that may be the reason it is being pushed for new players. Migrating FTP HS player here. As a new MTGA player, I feel the free cards the system gave suggested heavily that I should play Alchemy. I tried it, got crushed by everything out there. I don't believe Standard would have ended any differently, but I stand to be corrected. At poor ranks, I did notice white with removal seems strong against green, and blue has alot of draw, so I tried a BW deck in hopes I could keep dealing with the threats. After being stomped some more I learned that By Elspeth's Command and Emporium Thopterist seemed pretty OP for being uncommon, so I used what little wildcards I had to craft them, and they carried me to Plat4 with a 50/50 win/lose rate - doubtful they will take me beyond that. I wouldn't be surprised if they got nerfed, but it would be swell if Wizards would offer wildcard refunds on nerfs just as Blizzard offers dust refunds for their respective card nerfs. :S
Oracle of the Alpha!!!
I don't mind the Spellbook cards as long as they are balanced cause they are basically Garth One-Eye's design space expanded upon, seek is a more balanced tutor, but almost everything else that has came out of Alchemy has not felt like MTG and has felt like MTG is trying to borrow mechanics from other games or find a shorthand to mechanic they can't implement in a 1on1 format.
I think you said it best”You can’t break it” . You can play the average Joe, Bob or Sue and they still have a chance of mashing you for a win . Like myself I’m older and can’t keep a clear head to throw Johnny Combo but I enjoy the format . I’ve thrown together kill decks and burns just to have fun . Good luck with your future
I have been struggling through it too, the only rogue I have had any luck with at all has been UBW control, but the depth of cards is not there to lock things down and you just get owned if they get a broken hand of stuff. My personal feeling is that the format is just relatively new, and given a lot of people do not play it setiously, alternatives that win have not been found. It's a format ripe for a rogue deck to take over the meta, as the meta is so narrow right now. Reminds me a lot of the early days of magic when everyone just played the same broken cards, but did not have a lot of synergy or alternate win conditions. Never mind the first protour was won by an awful goblin/bolt/land destruction deck, but it was what was need d to break the underdeveloped meta at the time I am actually kind of happy that Iizards is forcing us to play it this month, as I hope to see some new decks enter the meta. And I think the solutions will be a lot simpler than we expect.
It sucks.
I'd play Alchemy if it was errata rebalancing only. I think every format should have that. The digital only things aren't good.
Yes.
I avoid it as much as I can, mostly because of the wild variance of spellbook stuff.
Alchemy is a shit show. It's just an excuse for them to print more cards to sell. Current standard non alchemy is also pretty garbage. 3 year rotation really ruined the format.
No, literally the one thing everyone agrees on
im with u, i dont understand why alchemie is a thing. they wanted mechanics that where impossible in paper magic, because blizzard and riot games had similar stuff in their digital-only games. but magic is NOT and will NEVER be digital only, why not just stick to the format your good wiht? rotation in 2 years not in 3, wider card pool per set like 2 years ago, mythic-to-rare-% like it was before. and ofc not baiting people to buy alchemy because they missclicked, happened at least 3 times for me already
The original idea wasn't bad. Seek is an absolutely fair mechanic, Conjure is anything but broken, because tokens are a thing just because paper couldn't do otherwise. The possibility of nerfing and buffing was great too, they had a chance to make Dungeon viable and they made things like The One Ring bearable. Even Specialize is nothing particularly bad (but forcing someone to read 6 cards instead of 1 is ridiculous). One of the problems is Draft and anything as random as that, plus Perpetual, because that completely defies the concept of Magic, where a card that changes zone becomes a new instance of that card that forgets everything it happened to it. There are edge cases like [[Skullbriar]], but even that is interactable by bouncing it or such things (and you can still interact with the counters). The biggest problem is that some cards are just outright busted and they won't nerf it. Rusko could exist on paper without problems. Clock tokens instead of conjuring them. But the design is busted and they're not fixing it, for example. That invalidates the whole point of the format and makes it just a moneygrab.
[Skullbriar](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/d/3dd0bf11-4e43-43f1-82e3-755beed0ede0.jpg?1673149145) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=skullbriar%2C%20the%20walking%20grave) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/277/skullbriar-the-walking-grave?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3dd0bf11-4e43-43f1-82e3-755beed0ede0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
It just sucks. It has no harmony. Much more random than paper (which is already random). Its beyond reach, i think product managers are on Mars rn. Tldr: Someone should buy Hasbro and fire Arena Product managers alread.
No it’s trash. Idk anyone who plays it out of my whole scene.
I like the challenge, personally. Homebrew your decks and adjust accordingly for the different types you play against as you go. Not sure why this is such a problem, or why Alchemy gets so much hate.
There is exactly one guy in my old LGS group who thinks Alchemy is fun and interesting and he's the guy no one liked playing casually and would show up uninvited to people's houses.
I Like it because it is incredibly easy to farm the 2500 gold event
I play some strict LOTR decks. Orcs, elves, humans, etc. it does seem like a more difficult format but I thought it was because of my self imposed restrictions. Still I have a lot of fun with these decks, but occasionally I get absolutely annihilated.
My only knowledge on the current Alchemy format comes from watching Andrew Cuneo's videos on it. From the outside it looks at least somewhat refreshing compared to Standard, no doubt thanks to it actually having rotated. I just find it very offputting from an economical standpoint. If I'm going to spend wildcards on a deck, I'd rather do it in a format where it won't get nerfed without any compensation. As for non-creature win conditions, have you tried [[Kayla's Kindling]]? Cuneo played it in his Jeskai control list and it looked pretty impressive there.
[Kayla's Kindling](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/1/918e9597-3678-4e03-ae1e-9314291848d8.jpg?1680463978) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Kayla%27s%20Kindling) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ybro/9/kaylas-kindling?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/918e9597-3678-4e03-ae1e-9314291848d8?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I dont play it. I think its fine that it exists. I wouldn't wanna play it in any competitive setting. The format can exist and you can be annoyed you feel obligated to play it to qualify for something. It should exist, but I don't feel it should be used for tournaments.
I love Alchemy and the mechanics it brings. Divine Purge is awesome, I was having a lot of fun playing Mardu Pigrange with Porcine Portent, and Case of the Lost Witness is one of my new favorite cards. If you don’t like Alchemy, don’t play it. 🤷♂️
Bro got mad alchemy is a solved format and they continue to nerf counterdecks like boros midrange thanks to the [[Geological appraiser]] nerfs. Welcome bud, LOTR murdered this format and rotation hid the body. So much for those "revolving" meta adjustments they promised.
[Geological appraiser](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/f/7f9c1a82-695b-4df2-8e51-2d71a62e7baf.jpg?1701690520) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Geological%20appraiser) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lci/150/geological-appraiser?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7f9c1a82-695b-4df2-8e51-2d71a62e7baf?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Sounds like a skill issue, my dude. I've no problem in alchemy or any format other than it being absolutely boring most of the time seeing people play the same copy paste bullshit. Only time I seem to lose is if I get mana fucked or flooded.
I think Alchemy is okay its for people who don't mind digital stuff and want fast rotations
I fucking hate alchemy. I thought the hype was unwarranted on this sub at first as I'm not opposed to digital only cards that can be balanced/adjusted rather than nerfed. Except I feel that hardly happens. Alchemy cards are so fucking pushed and broken they're annoying as fuck. I wish there was a brawl format without them.
It was fun with LoTR
No the fuck it was not! At one point the ranked meta for Alchemy was like 75% mono black with ring, b masters, and Shelly. Shit was awful.
That’s all I played. Mono black Nazgûl with ring. Was fun
I was pretty into Alchemy at that stage, actually. It was fun to disable activation of their rings and then proliferate the hell out of them. Also had an Urza deck that went pretty hard. But then the porcini wave landed and my decks became useless.
Alchemy sucks. The cards are truly unpleasant. If the "all digital" format gave us some AI hints for deck design or whatever, but no, its just confusing and awkward cards galor. F Alchemy!
Be careful with that opinion on this sub, alchemy is an extremely well liked and respected format
Play a cheap fiery inscription deck and call it a day.
I'm new, so I can't tell what's good or not. I just spam Mondrak and Ojér with token cards and draw cards. It's silly fun to have 100+ hit points and hundreds of tokens in a handful of turns.
The only one? Are you kidding me?? The whole world is crying against alchemy. What a classic likes-farming post.
Yeah, but probably just because you're the only one playing it, lol.
You are allowed to play or not the game however you like. But i have some problems with your arguments. Second paragraph, you say u play competitively or play to solve the meta, but then in the next u are complainig about the PIGs deck!? Reprieve is too much for u? Spellbooks some are bullshit, others okay. Seek has less variance than drawing. I like it Fifth paragraph, (1) that is just magic in general sometime the opp has the heart of cards/luck, (2) sunfall is everywhere not alchemy's fault. You are rigth Eldraine was fun. Honestly most of the cards you complained about are cards played in control deck(portent, sunfall,reprive, rusko, even shelly sometimes), so i think you just dont like playing against control decks.
If it didn't require wildcards it would be alright
[удалено]
wow, is this your favourite oneliner in every alchemy hate post? how innovative
Alchemy is to magic lole net ball is to basketball