Why I am (probably) DONE with ALCHEMY on MTG Arena | WARNING: HIGH SALT CONTENT
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ต.ค. 2024
- *SUPPORT*
CoolKidsClub Membership - / @covertgoblue
MTGA Assistant - link.overwolf....
Patreon - / covertgoblue
Donate - streamelements...
Shop - CoolStuffInc.com Promo Code CGB5 - www.coolstuffi...
*SOCIALS*
Twitter - / covertgoblue
Discord - / discord
Twitch - / covertgoblue
Facebook - / covertgoblue
Instagram - / covertgoblue
Title Music by Sam Plotkin - www.samplotkinmusic.com
Logo design by HolyMTG - HolyMTG@gmail.com Twitter @HolyMTG
Unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC.
#cgb #mtgarena #mtg
I feel the same as CGB. Initially was very open to the idea of Alchemy and really enjoyed it at first, especially pre epiphany ban but now it's just degenerated into cash grab garbage format. Really sucks to see it squandered like this.
I mean it was just always so obviously cash grabby. No wildcard refunds for nerfs = cashgrab.
It really did devolve quickly didn’t it!
They are just trying to milk a dying format while they still can.
fuck alchemy
The lack of new art is absolutely as bad as you make it out to be. Most of the alchemy cards that actually did get new art looked unpolished, which was already a good reason not to play, but seeing the same art really ruins it. One of the things that I hold dearest about magic is the art and flavor text. Playing a card with art that matches it's affect and flavor text that references another card's art and/or abilities is what makes the game enjoyable to collect and play, even if you play casually. It makes it actually feel like magic's worlds are alive, and alchemy usually just crushes that feeling with overcomplicated card effects and weak art design.
Some cards I still own and cherish JUST for the art and flavor text.
"Years of attempts have brought the goblins no closer to growing a sausage tree."
"XR-17 seems to feed off the mental energies of its enemies. This is the reason the goblins are unaffected."
It's a sign of how much they care about Alchemy. Art for a card is in the hundreds of dollars so they just decided to skip the 30 year old rule that different cards have different art to save single digit thousands.
Its Greedzards cutting corners and putting the same price tag for less effort
i mean this is just pathetic, every other tcg that i have play would have different animation/art for it. What is the point of digital only if you can even do that
Yeah and it isn't just an art and flavor problem. It's a game design problem.
This is called heuristics, which is a strategy in design used to ease cognitive load in decision making. This is especially important in a game like MTG with so many unique game pieces to keep track of.
"Art = Card" Yes. That was pretty much THE MOST IMPORTANT design philosophy when developing the game originally. It's why the art was so striking and unique.
heck even other tcg like hs would do different art/animation
No it wasn't, in homelands every common has two different arts.
@@daveclarke1990 Yeah, they experimented with alternate arts for the same card after a few expansions, but quickly found out it wasn't that great for identifying cards at a glance. Here's a direct quote about it from a 2002 interview: "While we don't like to completely rule anything out, there currently are not any plans to repeat the alternate art within a set model. The main reason is that most players recognize cards through the artwork."
@@daveclarke1990 you cant argue with the fact that 99% of people identify cards with a glance at the artwork. Thats why we have no text cards, because the artwork can be iconic enough.
I quit Arena before Alchemy came out, glad I never had to get into it. Your point about re-using the art is 100% justified. This is a company that is making money hand over fist off the back of its loyal fanbase. Cutting corners by re-using art for multiple different cards is totally unacceptable and I think they should get more flak for it.
I just wish alchemy could be separated from historic brawl. They're ruining the one format I feel like most players love. It's impossible to keep up as a free to play player :(
This is my gripe. I love Historic Brawl and Historic and the standard rebalanced cards being forced into Historic formats has p*ssed me off to no end.
That's what they want. They forced it into Historic to make you have to always be buying new packs to keep up.
I don't mind Alchemy cards in historic brawl. They can be fun in small doses and its not like you HAVE to craft them. There are usually solid alternatives in 100 card formats. I don't like the rebalanced cards though.
we need either alchemy removed from anything called historic or an explorer brawl.
solution is explorer brawl i guess
I was someone who enjoyed Alchemy since its release, but I can no longer defend its existence. It has failed at what it supposedly set out to do, and has just become another cash grab for WotC. The existence of the Grinning Ingus lifegain deck and the complete lack of meaningful balance changes (since the Venture buffs at least) was almost the last straw. And after looking at the Baldur's Gate spoilers, I have lost all excitement for the format.
I couldn’t agree more-- how did they not see this coming????? Grinning ignus is the reason I can’t play alchemy. If they have the red bard legend out it’s game over… How is infinite combo fun in online format? I understand alchemy cards attract power hungry mongrels with cards not possible in standard but this is beyond broken . Please fix the broken combo or I’m done with alchemy forever
@@matthewsolbrig9770 strict Procter, completely owns that deck, just saying
I pre-ordered because i thought that we would get basically the same cards as in the Paper commander set, which i really liked, but now after seeing this i feel cheated. I will open the packs but i doubt i will play more than 2 games in Alchemy. As with the other Alchemy cards they will only end up in my Historic brawl decks.
@@moridhel This was also something I was worried that might happen. I haven't preordered on Arena in over a year anyways, but I was still concerned about the bait and switch. I was excited about getting the new Venture dungeon (I know some people hate Venture as a mechanic, but I've loved it), and not a single new Initiative card was added to the client from the Paper release, and no Venture cards were reprinted from AFR. So once Venture rotates out this fall, it's gone forever, and it'll be unplayable in Historic as long as that format stays the way it is. :(
Ingus is sorcery speed and gets hard countered by any deck with any form of interaction
Given the reason Wizard's does anything these last few years, it seemed obvious from the start that Alchemy was a way to make players always buy new packs. It's basically continuous rotation. The only reason they do anything any more is to suck as money out of the world as possible. Alchemy is slimy and gross 🤢
Really enjoyed this video. I totally welcome more of these kind of "episodes" once in a while where you discuss stuff around Magic. Appreciate the honesty in discussing your point of view in a sensible fashion.
Alchemy was a disappointment for me from the perspective of "adjusting" powerful standard cards that see a lot of play to the point of frustration (Aspirant, Goldspan, etc) - you cannot play "adjusted-standard", you can only play Alchemy, which you need to view as a completely independent/different format. In that sense it's another way to sell more product, especially since like you said, new Alchemy cards are really powerful and unavoidable to have if you want to be competitive. Still, not gonna like, have had a lot of fun doing crazy stupidly powerful stuff, especially after watching crokeyz's Bo3 videos with the format.
PS: same art, different card is also disorienting to me. And I totally agree it will lead to constant hovering over the card to recall what it is.
see.. just scroll down the comments and youll find someone who thinks the same way you do. This is it for me. Well said Cinetyk
As someone that used to play Hearthstone, I was okay with a digital-only format coming to Arena.
I was hyped to see a constant stream of meta changes forcing people to adapt their strategies.
I wouldn't mind the digital-only cards if everyone got access to them. It'd be a fair playing field where, if there are must-haves in the digital-only cards, well, everyone has them, while also discouraging Wizards from making them so strong people would no longer need the cards you actually had to buy to play.
This is obviously not what happened. Instead, we got cards so strong they might see play in Vintage if you could use them there.
The way the cards read, they feel a little like Shadowverse cards, if control existed in that game.
Either way, agreed. The total changing of the cards is an utter turn off.
(In addition to what you brought up, lol)
I wouldn't say they would see vintage play, it is a format which tinker or doomsday can set up a win turn 2 with counter magic backup or dredge can drown you in creatures in one turn, shops can tax decks out of the game and has a land that can tap for 3 mana. But yeah the cards are meta-defining in a modified standard and very obnoxious in historic.
Alchemy should have just been rebalancing existing cards to make them more playable. Mostly buffing cards that didn't get there. Forget adding new cards. That would have been fun.
Yeah, but how were they going to monetize it...
@@TheKetsa They could have buffed weaker cards in alchemy to make new deck archetypes viable in alchemy as opposed to creating new cards(eg. maybe make burn good or spirits or Ninjas better) and still nerf stuff like Epiphany in order to make a more diverse format.
As a mostly free player it would still be too pricy for me but perhaps it would have suited others who draft all the time or are willing to pay more for a rebalanced standard.
@@silverdeathgamer2907 they need to throw it in the garbage. Buffing/rebalancing cards after the fact is an absolute detriment to the game in a number of ways not just one. They need to just balance their cards FOR STANDARD BEFORE they release them into the game (and get rid of alchemy)...not make a parallel format that destroys any incentive to play the game AT ALL.
@@AndresColumbus Standard honestly is pretty balanced since ephiphany is gone even if certain cards like the wandering emperor, Lier or meathook massacre feel like the can quickly bury certain decks in value.
@@TheKetsa People would be drawn into the game and would play more because their shitty cards are now better and the oppressive cards are nerfed. Pushing for short-term gains might ruin their long-term money grab.
Funny you mention Tasha cause when I saw her being announced in arena as an alchemy card I was like okay I'll try alchemy and play her as a commander. Didnt even read the card out of excitement but after reading it....being mad is the nicest way to put it
You should just label these type of videos as arena cast podcast. I miss it.
Sweet old days when we were young.
Hear hear. I don’t like Alchemy but also enjoy discussion about Magic. Where is Arjuna? 😄
Arjuna got a job that conflicts with filming schedule and no longer has time for the podcast
cgb can have guest host. Gl AJ with his new job but think the podcast should still go on
Should try to have Dev on. Love hearing him talk too.
Alchemy Is 2 things: 1) a complete waste of online mode cards oportunity. 2) wasted resources that should go to make everything else in the game better.
I agree, art is so important in the game. You remember cards based on art. Even the alternative art cards can be awkward
I honestly think that CGB is giving wizards too much credit.
The past several sets already proved that alchemy is a low effort whale farm.
Get the designers with the lowest salaries and the cheapest artists, reuse art and watch the cash roll in…
He is on their payroll now.
@@dameongeppetto
Good. He’s real good at his job and his job is playing and hyping up their game.
Hopefully wizards will do more official videos with good content creators.
Loved the chat, I miss Arena Craft a lot and would love to have you just chat once in a while…maybe with a guest…maybe Arjuna…
I was an Alchemy fan, but for me, the power creep was bothersome and I felt like some of the digital only mechanics were too hard to play around (perpetually reduced costs of counter spells for example). I started working my into Explorer rather than spending the extra WCs on Alchemy.
"The opponent doesn't always have to have fun in magic" lol best CGB quote of all time...some one need to put this one a t shirt
I was done with Alchemy when they changed the Townrazer to hit only nonbasic lands after I crafted them for my land destruction deck because it could hit basic lands...
I thought that was bad, but that is just lazy and cheap.
One of the worst parts of this for me is how they just lumped in the alchemy cards into game modes or formats where there are no alternatives other than ignoring the new cards completely and dealing with them whenever they show up or just integrating them to your game plan so you don't miss on their bustedness. Didn't expect I'd have to devote so many of my wildcards to keep my historic brawl decks relevant, but thanks to alchemy, feels like I'm struggling even more on top of the other woes that come with Arena economy.
Also, like yourself, it bugs me to no end that the Baldurs Gate cards are coming to Arena in such an altered state. I was willing to put up with it if it meant I got to play around with all the fun stuff paper commander got. This just feels very wrong and killed my excitement for it, ngl...
I just quit historic brawl unfortunately. I hope we get explorer brawl in the future.
And that's just for Brawl where you only need one copy of each new card. Imagine having to spend 4x more WCs on them. Predatory is right.
Agreed, Alchemy cards are BUSTED, especially when they are allowed into Historic. Please dumpster those cards/allow them ONLY in Alchemy formats for those that desire to play these cash cow/cash grab cards!
@@veeclash4157 Vee. I just got back into Arena. I stopped before crimson vow. Are alchemy cards legal in regular historic?
I liked first revision alchemy, even nerfs and buffs, but kamigava alchemy opened my eyes, good alchemy cards was so much better then good standard cards that instead of noble goal of diversifing standard metagame they just create another narrow one. And you need another infusion of rare wildcards to play it.
Exactly, Alchemy fails at providing an "adjusted" Standard format with some new stuff thrown in the mix for variety. It is completely a distinct format and needs to be viewed as such.
It could never just "diversify standard metagame" as metagames are always contextual, if you introduce one new strategy that proves to be T1 it can literally shift every other decks viability within the format. Alchemy has consistently been a different format since its introduction and that's fine imo. Personally I find that most people salty about it are salty that it is a format that is in their face, being promoted similarly to standard on the client in regards to events etc...that they feel they cannot financially afford to play and it hurts their feelings.
@@TheEvolver311 or the people who invested in historic and got shafted and fucked over.
@@TheEvolver311 well it can be just like every new set drop but alchemy is just to powerful that not playing them is not an option unlike most standard. This feel like eldraine all over again with its pushed pwr lv, but instead we get it with every new set.
Exactly my thoughts! I crafted the red dragon and the dragon whelp (and both got nerfed!) Than with all the black rare cards I stop caring about Alchemy (and Historic) and now they just waste space in my decks collection...
Alchemy has felt for me, since they released it, exactly like they want you to spend money on two completely separate sets per set release. It's a wallet drain. You can absolutely play Standard without touching Alchemy. You absolutely cannot play Alchemy without crafting or opening Standard cards. You can no longer have fun playing Historic Brawl without crafting or opening Alchemy cards. It's borderline unethical, blatant greed.
I was really excited for Alchecmy, thinking it was a way to weaken or buff some cards acoording to how much play they see in Standard. So, in my head, it was a way to kepp the meta fresh and changing through sets. But no, it was a degenerate cash grab where you have to buy all this new rares and mythics in order to stay competitve. If they take out all Alchemy's cards it would be awesome
I'm with you. A format that aim to keep standard fresh by buffing nurfing cards ? Having a bigger amount of playable decks ? Using more of your collection ? Sign me up ! What's not to like ?
But then yeah... Having to craft a LOT of 4 of rares/mythic of cards you couldn't opened anyway...
And it's not stoping. So many new cards. So little adjustments....
So sad. I was so hyped :-(
My trajectory was very similar to yours (CGB). When it launched I loved it. I was excited to see magic finally stop being held back mechanically by the tabletop version of the game and as yois aid at the time I felt the format needed a more rapid turnover rate than standard could provide given people were now playing dozens of games a day every day rather than a few per week every Friday night.
Yes it was expensive and had clear cash grab elements but that's ccgs for you - it's an expensive hobby and always have been. Hen and now I had no sympathy for the people wanting it to be free to play.
The designs were new and innovative and the cards were fun and awesome and regular buffs and nerfs to keep the game feeling fresh through dozens of matches every day sounded great. The early changes to nerf izzit were great and seemed right on the money. It really felt like magic was headed in the right direction and becoming a modern digital game like I'd always dreamed fo.
Then this year in one release after another wizards just made it so the only decks worth playing were white/7 agro and black/x mid-range. I would queue everyday with my control or ramp or a midrange pile of my own and everyday nothing but the same 2 (maybe 3 if you count venture but it never felt that different from any other agro deck to me) archetypes and 4 to 6 specific deck lists and it just got boring. Poetic justice i guess - ididnt care about all the rares because I could afford them but I failed to reckon with how hard they would push the power level to make people buy them and just completely destroyed any fun and actually undermined the whole point, which was to increase variety and replay ability and innovate in cool new ways. The whole format since the start of 2022 has felt like failure after failure after neglect. Everything you say aboutt the alchemy new capena cards is completely true and this set does not look like a change in course at ll.
I pissed off to historic and explorer after snc when the black midrange stuff became truly opressive and haven't been back since.
you got exactly what you and every other alchemy player deserves. it is a degenerate format for tools with more money than brains.
Regarding Cabretti Revelers, consider the most. It's GR1! 3 mana, and the rest is automatic and free. It's not legendary. Consider lithoform in standard. It's 4 mana, legendary. It cost 2 and a tap to copy an ability, 4 to create a token. So you spent 8 mana, plus 6he casting cost. This revelers is busted. I wouldn't care if Alchemy was only confined to its own game type, but it's legal in historic which is what I play!
CLB was honestly the most fun I had drafting IRL in a long time, so that’s why this feels like a complete letdown to me. Especially with the outright hypocrisy in delaying Pioneer again when these cards are a lot more tricky to program than the gap in competitive pioneer. If it was available on mobile for pickup games, idk if I wouldn’t have gone with MGTO instead now.
Covert Light Blue?
@@pucakuro Commader Legends: Battle for Baldurs gate
That's the crazy thing right, I was happy seeing Alchemy being also implemented into draft thinking, huh, I might get into that now that I can get those cards through limited grinding.
Then I looked at the designs. I'm fine playing explorer and standard, thank you haha.
They are outrageous!
Your thoughts on this matter completely match my own CGB - thank you for posting this video. I also had skeptical hope for alchemy and was willing to give it a try but the more it went on the more it just felt like a mobile gaming cash grab. They obviously don't dedicate the necessary resources to analyze the meta and regularly update it like they promised. Instead it's just a stale piece of garbage where every game is just endless value. The fact that these cards apply to historic as well has essentially ruined that format for me and I no longer play it.
I no longer play standard. I no longer play historic. I no longer play alchemy. The only constructed format that I still like is historic commander, which unfortunately also has alchemy cards but at least players can't use 4x of these ridiculous cards. They also seem to be pushing alchemy extremely hard - force feeding everyone. I wonder, is it truly paying off for them or did they just decide to promote it like crazy for a year and see where it lands? At this point I just hope it dies or is at least contained in it's own biosphere and no longer taints other formats.
You are so right about the art being key to identifying cards - which is why I hate all the alternate graphics I encounter in just Standard. I have to check the purple (or is it orange?) Hives every time, never mind the multiple variations on legendaries and planeswalkers. It has become a very annoying distraction. But making a brand new card with the same art and name is so antithetical to Magic's tradition, it's horrifying. I found this discussion to be very helpful, thank you! As for the Alchemy universe, I just don't have time to learn so many new mechanics.
A big part I think is that they've said before that Arena wasn't replacing normal Magic but then say they want Alchemy to be the main tournament format.
I tried watching your videos of Alchemy but sadly it just didn't do it for me.
Oh my god, you really hit home with the recognize the card by the art part (38:54). Back when I was playing Magic in middle school and had a limited English vocab pool the art really helped me; it’s after a couple years did I finally remember that “there’s white card with this +1/+1 something ability-have to read the card to be sure-that has to do with attacking (renown), and it’s called Topan Freeblade,” because all I remember is the really bright lighting on the warrior. Same for that black rogue card with exalted (Duskmantle Prowler, and never realized I’ve been confusing renown with exalted this entire time), I see the rogue on the chapel with a knife out and it tells me that there’s going to be +1/+1 things happening. Maybe we don’t all use art as a memory helper the same way but really glad you brought this up!
So I can say you’re definitely not going crazy! >:) I didn’t like the card changes in Alchemy mainly because of this art reason, and I was definitely thinking about briefly trying Arena Baldur’s Gate until I saw this video and the changes (or lazy non-changes regarding the art).
I was most excited for this set when it was announced because of all the cool commanders I usually miss being an Arena only player. To see awesome commanders like Tasha get changed when there's no good reason to do so just broke me, why rebalance a card that wasn't broken or underpowered to begin with?! I was looking forward to that card most of all and what they replaced it with is just boring and does nothing similar to the original.
I also wonder if the designers saw we joked about the lines of text on Questing Beast and said "Hold my beer" when designing specialize. I refuse to read what the Alchemy Davriel does to this day and I hope the specialize cards show up as little as he does because I won't be reading them either.
Thank you for the shoutout! As a f2P player I could never fully endorse alchemy because of its financial aspect, but I kept an eye on it for the same reason you were optimistic about it : rebalances, both in cards and archetypes. However this experiment demonstrated if it was ever needed that WotC simply does not know how to do things in any other way that "We are basically the only ones in the market so let's do whatever we want people will still buy!", except that is probably only true for paper.
Hit the nail on the head there. I thought from the beginning that alchemy was going to be a low key wild card sink to force people into spending more real money on sets. wizards has just become one of the most manipulative and greedy companies out there. even the way they do high dollar reprints are designed to keep singles expensive. then theres the fact that when they do nerf a card you have spent wild cards on, you dont get them back, which is probably why they make them so OP in the beginning. its like: lets make these cards mandatory to sink all the players wild cards into them and when there out were gonna nerf them, now no one had wild cards and they HAVE to spend real money on standard.
Alchemy breaks a number of fundamental implied agreements between Wizards and the playerbase. The cards are the cards. The art is the art. What the hell! Trying to play in MTGA Historic Brawl now is like showing up for a LGS and having someone at the door say, "Hey. You. New kid. Hand me your deck. I need to go through it." and then they take a sharpie out and cross out the text on your cards and write new things on them. I wouldn't mind an Alchemy Brawl game mode where the insanity can be kept caged in a corner the way the Alchemy game mode is, but it's not okay to literally change the cards (without it being obvious - same art) and then ban the original versions of the cards for Historic Brawl.
I regret the $50 that I ended up spending on Alchemy and wish that I had seen this video first. Thank you CGB as always for watching out for the community. Rather than un-inviting you, Wizards should INVITE you more - to the rooms where the card development is happening, so that you can advocate for fun magic for all of us! Thank you for doing what you do!
I've been playing the chromatic cube recently, and the absolute absurdity of the "Whenever you cast a creature spell, put another creature on the battlefield" effect being attached to a) a slow vivian planeswalker for 5 mana that you have to protect and b) a 3-mana new capenna alchemy enchantment that then dominates the battlefield... both of them had their place, but a lot of the new capenna enchantments felt almost busted, even in a very high powered cube. It just exemplifies your argument about alchemy cards being tuned to absolutely warp the meta, rather than fit in neatly. Other enchantments from the new capenna alchemy were also a problem (e.g. the enchantment that gives all your creatures everywhere +1/+1 every turn)
Alchemy is bad not because of its design but the fact its done poorly. what alchemy should have done was bring eternal staples into a format that owuld otherwise be too powerful for standard, such as bringing pioneer staples to play in the event
explorer will be converted to OG pioneer after all the cards have been added...
It's a bad design for a TCG that have a paper form. It's a lazy fix.
It started as a lazy fix, so it's only a matter of time until it turn into an actual atrocity.
The chance of them pulling this kind of atrocity is lower if it's a well thought out fix, which alchemy isn't.
Historic Anthology fulfills that role, so what you actually want is just more Historic Anthology.
The actual point (or imo at least should be) is to introduce cards which would be impossible or impractical on paper but are cool/fun designs, to buff cool cards that are not quite viable, and to nerf cards which are obnoxious within the format. To this end they don't seem to be improving, unfortunately.
Alchemy is a cash grab. They made the format to force players to buy packs, because you need to in order to keep up with the meta.
I really liked how Alchemy rebalanced failed themes like Party and Dungeons to make them more competitive. Less of a fan of rare-chasing cards!
First of all, thank you! I've been watching some of your videos for a while now. Really happy and glad to see how far you've come. :) When I first saw this one suggested to me I was like: "Whoa, around an hour of salty CGB content, uhhh no thank you..." but now that I've seen it, I once again have to say thank you. Your arguments seem very reasonable, well presented and really got me thinking... I haven't played alchemy (Didn't sit right with me from the beginning) but I listened... a lot, and over time I saw a lot of the themes and points you and friends of me made, over the course of alchemy beeing played and/or presented (or in some cases maybe also thrust down our throats) coming. And I agree with a lot of them but not only that but I think there's a lot of things to unpack here... So once again thank you for this video, it's a really good one and thanks for the inspiration it gave me. It's nice to see someone that has such a seemingly close relationship with WOTC speak his mind about the current state of things.
Alchemy never had me and never will. Still, for what it's worth I can't believe they re-used artwork. That is incredibly confusing. When they spoiled Prosper for Arena I swear I spent a good 2-3 minutes reading and rereading the card to make sure it wasn't an Alchemy version with the same artwork and I was just missing some change.
The bigest fail of alchemy is low level of balancing.
I was expecting a balance once a month; instead we got a place where the black color breaks everything up.
I was saying how broken citystalker was during the alchemy championships and I got mass down voted on reddit because "blood tokens are not good and death touch is irrelevant on a 3/3"
@@8dolfonrunescape looks like people like imbalanced cards,I dont know what to say...
@@8dolfonrunescape reddit has no clue about esport and MTG, especially not /r/magicarena - only bootlickers and whales are there who try to netdeck >62% wr with preconstructed decks.
@@8dolfonrunescape I had the same problem explaining the fact that Key to the Archive it's an annoying and obnoxious card, especially due to the fact that allows to play Demonic Tutor (which is not legal in Historic nor Historic Brawl). All of this just to be downvoted because for them "casting a Demonic Tutor at turn 6 it's not so strong as casting it at turn 2". They completely missed the point of my complaints, but it shows their "comprehension" of the game lol.
At the start of Alchemy I felt pretty much the same as you did, for the same reasons. I played it way more than standard, having fun and success with my specialized Green - splash red - werewolf draw deck. Top rank was Mythic 1316. During the Black Winter I was annoyed but I still won a lot since my deck matched up well against those cards. I quit when the next batch was released because of MTG greed. I had decided that if they did the bizarre one uncommon, the rest rare or mythic I was done so that's what I did. Before that though I was playing everyday, meeting the goals, and ranking up but since I wasn't spending money I was falling further behind on cards every set. (I'm a deck-builder so I need most of the good cards). It left me trying to build half-assed version of the fun stuff I wanted to try and racing to get the rares I needed keep my good deck playable. It just wasn't worth it. I didn't just quit Alchemy by the way - I quit Arena altogether. I still watch your videos though and looking at those previews I'm glad I quit when I did, I'm as appalled as you are.
Keep up the good work and you're cool.
A perfect time for CGB solo podcast :P Thanks for the vid. The worst part of Alchemy was the feeling of them stretching out standard way too much. Was a bit of a fan of the rebalances (who knew delving into the dungeon could be dece) but stuffing new cards into packs like they did was rough to day the least.
Is it wrong that I find salty CGB more entertaining.
I'm with you on this one. At the beginning of the Alchemy format, I was IN. I guess because of the promise to switch up broken standard cards. Standard over the past few years has felt like there are a handful of cards that are head and shoulders above the rest in power-level which makes the format stale. I was excited for Alchemy, even played in for a long time. You hit the reason on the head with the EVERYTHING is a 2 for one! It puts a select few cards above the rest and MUST be played if you want to have a fightning chance. I lost interest somewhere in the new year. To say exactly when is hard to do. When these cards rotate in September maybe WotC will have learned something, but that is always the hope. Thanks for the content, is a joy to watch! Cheers!
The bad news is that all current Alchemy cards don't rotate for another year. Only the buffed or nerfed standard cards will be rotating out in September.
@@axodys Where did you get that info from?
@@FluffySpikeM Wizards has said that from the beginning. It’s a rotating format paired to Standard so Alchemy:MID/VOW,NEO,SNC cards will rotate out when those Standard sets do.
@@axodys I wrote a follow-up, but caught myself in the process. Your previous comment was simply a little confusing, as you didn't differentiate on set titles, but on card alchemy/standard status instead.
It doesn't matter if a card is buffed, nerfed, alchemy or standard-legal. It rotates when its corresponding standard set rotates out. So this September leaving Standard will be all sets before MID/VOW (and they didn't have any alchemy cards linked to them, yeah).
@@axodys yes I meant some of the Standard cards that impact this
Fun deck I made, try it out 😈
4 shakedown heavy
2 extract the truth
3 demogorgons clutches
2 junji, the midnight sky
4 tergrid, god of fright
4 hold for ransom
3 revitalize
3 mirror box
4 The long reach of night
4 reidane, god of the worthy
3 professor onyx
+24 lands
Alchemy - the balance changes are too rare/infrequent and not interesting enough,
each alchemy set introduces too many new cards.
Alchemy is a classic example of a good idea being executed poorly, basically a WotC special at this point.
Probably, but I think it was a bad idea from the start. Honestly, I hope that Alchemy ends up like Tiny Leader. If you know what I mean...
it was a horrible idea. How are people still thinking this was a 'good' idea? Because they keep releasing broken cards? You know what the good idea is? Its to stop printing and releasing broken/overpowered/overloaded cards to sell to commander players and balance standard.
it was a bad idea
@@AndresColumbus Because the world is moving to more digital. Magic is increasingly a digital game.. Being able to live balance is huge at being able to prevent metas from becoming stale. Digital design space has a lot of room for effects impractical of impossible to implement in paper.
Alchemy is something a lot of people like myself were waiting on with mtg, but in usual wotc fashion they have botched it to the point of apathy even for the people who wanted this kind of thing
I’ll admit that I’m one of the fools that pre-ordered the bundles after seeing Tasha would be included. Never struck me to read the card because the art was the same. Congrats Wizards, you scammed me out of $100. Hope it was worth it.
order not cancelable ?
You might be able to sue them for misleading marketing, especially because the card text in the store item is close to unreadable even on big high-res monitors...
I haven’t tried because last time I contacted support they told me that the refund was a “one time courtesy” (I ordered the wrong styles pack for the Hinata showcase). So I’m working under the assumption that I’m all out of do-overs, and need to pay attention better. Certainly not going to escalate to a lawsuit over $100, my lawyer charges $400/hour and while I don’t really have any better use for my cash in this economy, I definitely don’t have the time or energy. Mainly sharing my experience to underscore that re-using the art for a completely different card is 100% predatory, they know what they’re doing here. And if they don’t then it’s even worse.
@@marchnm alternatively, contact some local consumer protection agency - depending on where you live, they might (or might not) even file a class action lawsuits for this
Don't listen to these people, yes you can get your 100 dollars back but WotC will ban your account, not worth it.
I never got into it whatsoever. Not wasting my wildcards on pretend cards.
First off, haircut looks excellent.
Secondly, thank you very much for this video. I remember when alchemy was first announced and you were a major proponent of it. It’s good to see a content creator change their opinion was the product doesn’t achieve what was expected.
I also love the long form chat videos, one of the best parts of your content is the explaining of plays. Explaining your thoughts on formats as a whole is extremely enjoyable and has been lacking since Arena Craft Podcast ended
"Perpetually" is actually the most game breaking mechanic that Wizards ever introduced imho.
I still think its pre nerfing companion. At least in recent years
@@rayzhang7591 Yeah, I'd agree companion is the worst in recent years. If you include everything I'd say Dredge compares to it pretty well, but both just cause ridiculous consistency.
@@rayzhang7591 probably ever…. I mean, lurrus is pretty much the only card EVER to be banned in vintage due to power level
phyrexian mana
I stopped playing completely when alchemy came into historic. It was discouraging that all the decks I built were now changed, obsolete, or ineffective. When new capenna was released I decided to pop back in to see what’s changed and played a few games. As I was going to go spend some wildcards I realized I had to make a decision: alchemy or standard? I stopped playing again because I like playing historic brawl casually and like to play standard ladder. I knew I couldn’t keep up doing both. I’ll come back once either alchemy is gone, or it is moved to its own category
It was always difficult enough to have new art for the same card as now two images did the same thing. But once you learn the art, you knew the card text. That feels like a game requirement for me. This is like Monopoly have all bills that say "100" on them and are all yellow, except if you look close there is small text that says "10,20,50" etc. Visual cues are critical to good game design and it seems they broke that rule here.
One cool thing about Arena for me is the feeling, that I could grab those cards and play it in paper Magic. Maybe this is the reason why I completely dislike Digital-only cards including those Digital-only modifications on existing cards. Also for me as a free2play player I cannot spend my wildcards for an additional format.
When it comes to different cards with the same art, I feel the same like CGB, that hurts a lot. I'm often playing the same deck for a hundred of games, but don't know every card name, just the picture and what it does.
I miss the Arena Craft podcast. I always looked forward to it so much. On the last episode he mentioned only about 30% of people stayed until the end of the episode. I find that hard to believe for some reason. I found the podcast to be so entertaining. I love the chemistry between Arjuna and CGB. It's like brothers bickering and taking jabs at each other and I think it's hilarious. I hope so badly that it comes back and soon. There's a big hole in my weekly podcast rotation and it bums me out.
I feel the same way and I've stopped playing alchemy. When you did the alchemy vs standard challenge I was for alchemy the whole way but now I'm for standard 100%. I've wanted to hear your thoughts on this too. High salt content is fine with me. The more CGB the better 😊
Props to you coming forward with your thoughts. I like these videos too btw!
Totally agree. I thought it will be exactly the same as the paper with some cards might not appearing due to multiplayer effect. But then they change the card completely and just keep the art. So confusing and surprised how many resources it takes to do that while they can spend those resources to bring more Pioneer cards to Arena
Im one of those people that pretty much rejected alchemy right away. Of course Im just here on the channel for CGB, but at the same time, alchemy is not and never will be magic. Cash grab aside its a totally different game
All I want is Historic Brawl without Alchemy. Having to use rebalanced cards especially feels really bad in a format where I don't feel like the balance changes make much sense.
Mr "Alchemy will be the most played form of Magic on Arena" (after getting paid off by Wizards of the Coast) now says Alchemy is no good. How can you trust a paid shill? Hope the cash infusion was worth losing your credibility. After the format fails, WotC calls up CGB and says "it's ok, you can diss on Alchemy now."
A comment. I enjoyed Alchemy when it first arrived and thought it was fun, but then they introduced those kamigawa black cards and I just quit it altogether it was not fun to play haven't gone back to it since. I completely agree if a card does something completely different the art should be different as well. The specialize mechanic seem similar to the Druid Class choose cards in Hearthstone and each mode has a different art and those choose cards most of time just have 2 modes. There is no excuse why wizards can't have a different art for each mode it's just lazy. I definitely won't be touching alchemy again especially seeing some of the new Alchemy cards.
I really appreciate you keeping it real and like this content. Helps me save money and I’ll just have to watch tomorrow to see how it actually plays out
Ad free talk with CGB, this was like hanging out in person. A very nice treat.
$100 to get a head start on a format no one wants to play?
What a steal!
I'm so glad you brought up the artwork thing. When I was looking at the AH:BG spoilers, I was so confused by all the different cards with the same artwork. It was funny when they did that with Very Cryptic Command in Unstable, but to do it in a competitive format??
I love Tasha in print and was happy to see you try her out on The Worst Possible. I was hoping they would just port her as is to arena so I could try building around her. What they decided to do is nothing short of a travesty! Completely changed the flavor but kept the artwork the same. Absolutely ridiculous.
Love these rant style videos, even if I dont 100% agree with everything. I love hearing what one of my favorite youtubers thinks about mtg in general. I hope these stick around! You rock CGB. (Also im leaving my comment here and not on patreon cause I have 0.74 cents in my bank account so lol)
You're absolutely right about the art. It makes the game feel unprofessional and unpolished when they recycle the same art for different cards.
I am perfectly okay with shoveling all these cards into Historic and Historic only and turning that into clownshoes Vintage, that is a brand of dumb fun I'm okay with. Alchemy as a standard adjacent format still makes no sense to me and I sympathize with people who don't want Historic Brawl cluttered with half baked design mistakes.
I love how we can't play historic without alchemy rebalances on arena :^)
truly a smart decision by the wizards
What about Explorer?
@@theomnipotent9402 Continously making the majority of the playerbase grow resentment towards you has got to be an unwise business strategy in the long term
Thanks, CGB. Love this kind of content. Really missing this kind of perspective since ArenaCraft went away.
I missed it. Why did it go away?
@@friendo6257 Arjuna didn't feel like he was able to dedicate the energy/passion to it that he felt would be necessary to continue. I hope it comes back one day, I enjoyed it.
@@returningwhisper Dang. Agreed. That was one of my favorite MTG podcasts.
Playing vs the hag, opponent has a collection of all the different ones and it’s a crazy board state. They’re attacking and you have a lightening helix, it’s a difficult set of blocks to make to work out whether you can live or not. Timer runs out because you can’t pinpoint which hag is giving all the rest of the hags menace. This art thing is actually shocking, I think it damages the perceived quality of content on arena over all.
I really like the concept of alchemy, having a changing meta and buffing lesser used cards sounded awesome. And that is also where they lost me. Nerfing Hullbreaker Horror so it can be countered is only really a nerf if you are playing blue. Cards that weren't being played because they were weak getting buffed by adding 1 toughness, toughness wasn't the reason they weren't getting played. Maybe what I wanted alchemy to be and what wizards planned alchemy to be were just different, but I was out before this latest round of awful ideas.
This is crazy, I was totally in agreement with you about being hopeful for alchemy. These new cards are totally turning me off from Alchemy formats.
Absolutely great video. I just got back into arena (left around oko, fires, growth spiral, etc. Got banned and companions were changed) just been playing historic brawl commander with friends. Played a bit of standard and such and the current formats feel extremely degenerate. I 100% have given up on arena and current formats. Extreme cache grab rare chasing bs. Having fun playing draft/cube IRL and commander online.
Again great video. After eldraine standard and companions I completely gave up on WOTC making reasonable new sets and fun experiences without being completely predatory. Really feel like you expressed that vibe while giving credit to some of the ideas they had
The best thing about Alchemy is that I can take a break from the grind while the next set runs its course. I need a break from this game and it's nice to just jump in and play some casual games while my gold stockpile rebuilds.
I don't mind the Alchemy cards in Historic Brawl though since Brawl/Commander has never felt like real magic to me anyways and seems like a fine place to enjoy some of these busted cards. It's easier on the WC budget since you don't need to craft full sets. You can just use some of the free cards they've thrown your way if you have em and some of them are actually really fun to play. I really enjoyed the Dungeon mechanic but it never got there in Standard so it's nice that I can play a competitive Dungeon deck if I wanted to.
I still don't understand why they would bother to nerf cards when they print uncommon cards that are far more powerful. This ruins Historic the most. Makes no sense why stuff like Luminarch Aspirant and Goldspan Dragon are gimped in Historic when there are waaaaaaaaaaaaay more powerful things.
I stepped away from Magic for the last year and a half due to health complications, and I just recently came back within the last week.
My first reaction to the current sets is "wtf"
I don't know if it's just me, but so many cards have a block full of text with multiple actions and triggers, I mean, it feels like you need to do a several hour study of the set before you sit down and play.
Otherwise, your opponents are aggravated, as you need to slow play to read the box of text on each card.
Maybe it's just me, but it seems Magic the Gathering have lost their way, and they're experimenting with entirely new and complex mechanics.
Like so many, I think alchemy is an incredible concept. ‘Because the standard format is so quickly solved on arena, we’re going to take advantage of the digital format to introduce a premium version of standard that makes use of new, unique cards with mechanics that wouldn’t work in a physical format.’ Basically more magic the gathering. It makes sense that it would be more expensive because, well, wizards is doing more work and delivering more product, so you should expect to pay a bit of a premium. But, unfortunately, the reused artwork drives home the crux of the issue: that wizards is trying to squeeze money out of their player base while minimizing the effort that goes into the product. This is a normal business model, but the fervor with which it’s being applied here is insulting. Seems businesses often fail to consider that good business practices, when applied too liberally in pursuit of short term growth, alienate customer bases in the long run.
Money tunnel vision seems to have stripped the wizards of sense momentarily…as Alchemy currently makes zero of that - in all ways… wonder whether it all generates that thing they want: money 💰🤔
100% agree on the artwork thing. I really liked the innestrad alchemy set introducing some fun new mechanics and cool cards with cool artwork. When they added Kamigawa I still kinda liked it. Sure it got quite a bit more powerful and they pushed some of the cards very hard but you still had a bunch of new interessting cards with cool artwork exploring themes of the set that didn't get enough attention in the main set. Seeing the Capenna set I was already getting nervous with how pushed the set was with so many powerhouse cards that instantly redefined what decks you could and should play but atleast we still got a bunch of cool artwork.
Now with baldures gate I was super excited on getting some of the commander cards getting added onto arena while adjusting them so they actually work in 1vs1 while keeping the card's identity the same. And then shit went down. I can't even put it into words how much the art thing threw me off and then they didn't even try to keep the theme of the card the same. If you want to make new cards with interessting mechanic: great. I love it. Go ahead. Go crazy do whatever you want and I'll probably be somewhat happy but make the unique cards with their own names and artwork.
I love the Baldur Gate Set, currently playing with many of them on paper! I actual got excited to hear a rumor that it would be coming to Arena thinking "Cool, i get to play these cards on brawl!". My disappoint when they not only revealed it as an alchemy set, but also the harsh changes to cards and reused art is just a whole new level. I will not be playing with this alchemy set, just like the other alchemy sets. Such a waste.
Nailed it. I feel like it was really hard to not raise your voice in this video LOL. 100% agree this set hurts.
Thanks for your in-depth look at the format. I haven’t played one game of alchemy and have no plans to play any. No mastery pass for me this round either. The lack of art for each different version of cards makes it a non-starter, but I do not want to collect a separate set of cards for this game. I’m excited to play explorer, but I don’t even have enough cards to even think about it yet. I’m sticking to standard for the present.
I could not finish watching but I think you explained the core of the process perfectly. I feel the exact same! I loved Alchemy in the beginning. Even played my first Qualifier Weekend in Alchemy. And then WotC showed what kind of greed monster they are. And the people who made those decisions would definitely be fired in every functioning company!
As someone who started playing arena not that long ago, I wasn't really into Alchemy right from the start. As fun as it seems to have new interesting digital-only mechanics and the possibility to balance cards post release, I couldn't stomach having to pay the money to buy all the additional boosters on top of standard. I really feel like you have to chose *either* standard *or* alchemy. So in the end I have never been able to really give alchemy a chance and test it out.
I really wish WotC would give people more freedom to toy around with cards and deck ideas before having to commit to purchase boosters or spent wildcards.
I had to hydrate after all that salt. But sometimes you have to salt a wound for it to heal. I am just not sure salt is going to help heal the ALCHEMY shaped hole in my arena deck lists.
Was looking forward to playing Tasha in historic brawl. This would be a very different deck than I was hoping to build.
You're definitely not alone. I missed basically every era of Magic between the very beginning and GRN so I've heard a ton about the middle-years of Magic's history where there was a relatively high power level but everything felt fun, impactful and balanced. It wasn't just this "Play Control then cast one spell to Win the game" that it's been since Wilderness Reclamation et. al.* or SMORC under them while still letting individual cards be individually impactful and powerful. Alchemy felt like that to me. Yes, so many two-for-ones but the thing to remember is it's the same way for your opponent. So while the NEO Alchemy cards often felt bad to play against they also provided room for you maneuver which made the game interesting for me.
SNC Alchemy started to change that. Now I'm definitely a sucker for bonus value and Cabaretti Revels feels, very much, like a Commander style card and an angle for resiliency against Control I'm all for it. Still, something like that is prone to abuse as we see with the Grinning Ingus deck (to which: it's definitely the Alchemy cards that made that deck possible, it was technically do-able since the release of SNC but it wasn't reliable until you could get the treasure added to it or have another way to grab your life pingers with Revels) which is why it's odd that they didn't use their current safety valve of "once per turn".
Which brings us to Baldur's Gate. Like you I was excited to see them bring some of the sweet flavor of cards that were definitely mid-tier viable in Historic Brawl and let us play with them in a more constructed manner. I look at everything in BG and none of them, at all, seem like they'd make an impact on Historic. Even the Monster Manual, which, granted, doesn't have the turn counter restriction of Aether Vial but at 4 mana sorcery speed renders it unplayable. And that's the sum total of Baldur's Gate: changes to keep from bringing in sweet options (Backgrounds/Partner/Friends Forever would be great in H-Brawl) and minor changes for mechanics that just won't be on Arena (Myriad) or minor to major changes that render cards totally unimpactful in any format.
So, for the first time since I started with Arena, I really think that I won't be a moderately sized sea creature for this set. I've always let the FOMO of the pre-orders get me to buy them and, generally, I've always gotten my money's worth out of them. I just don't see BG being sufficiently impactful to make me need the cards and with so many of them being unplayable versions of sweeter cards I don't find myself WANTING any of them. Given that I probably won't play more than the minimum draft to get my "free" pack so I might as well let my remaining tokens pay in for that.
*To that point: I think it would have been fine if Reclamation, Fires, Adventures, Omnath/Genesis Ultimatum and Emergent Ultimatum had all been able to be together at the same time. It means that there are a lot of top-end finishers and guarding against every one of them isn't possible. I feel a lot of the singular focus top-end decks that you either run or SMORC under was a direct result of bannings that eliminated their competitors leaving only one way to go over the top in Standard.
I'll put this as a reply to myself as it's really another set of thoughts:
So what do I want to see from Alchemy?
1. rebalances are FANTASTIC. I love the idea of being able to pull up any and every bad to moderately playable card into something playable. Obviously pure Limited things like 5-mana Murder don't need rebalancing since those have Constructed equivalents but cards with sweet effects that are just underpowered being pulled up while cards with sweet effects that are overpowered being pulled down are great. I, personally, feel that players don't need to be "compensated" for those changes when they're pulling cards down but I can understand the argument and feel that the bottom line impact of that is so minimal that they might as well address the fear of loss and give away wildcards when nerfs happen.
2. New cards and an alternate format with a power level that's pushed to be higher than Standard but variable as cards get tweaked. As I indicated in the above post: Magic players that have been around seem to be fairly universal in the opinion that there was a middle-era (that seems to begin around Lorwyn and continue through RTR or MAYBE Theros) where Magic was filled with Powerful cards and strategies that felt balanced and fun to play. Whereas the current era of Magic has been about one or two massive I Win spells and the Control deck to make casting them possible or the SMORC deck that blows them away (or gets blown away by a sweeper). The general dissatisfaction with Magic seems to stem, for longer term players, from this disparity and Alchemy has, to me, felt like what they described (at least until recently).
3. 0 cost to get into Alchemy. I believe it was Jim Davis that suggested that the new Alchemy cards be the Arena Starter Set and I wholeheartedly agree. Again, this is a case of marginal cost vs marginal gain and, given that Wizards has to give cards away to new players anyway, making them the digital only cards means they can bring in MORE money when those players want to transition into Standard since their decks won't be purely Standard legal cards. Expanding the Starter Set with every set release also means that new players have more flexibility for their initial decks for when they're pushed out of the wading pool and even if it means that Alchemy's new cards are only 10-15 instead of 20-30 as a result that's fine. Set's Alchemy drops are between $40 and $80 per player cost to Wizards for a full rare playset. That's just nothing compared to the baseline of twice that for the regular set. They could easily use that as Arena Marketing cost and lose basically no net value.
4. Shandalar 2.0 that uses Alchemy cards AND pushes rebalances even further just for that mode. This doesn't necessarily need to be IN Arena but having a single-player mode akin to the old Shandalar game would be a huge boon for Arena, provide a location for them to bring in even more powerful cards than they're comfortable allowing in to Historic and allow them to push cards to the edge for the fun of it.
Enjoyed the video. And hoping to see more of these "information videos". On alchemy I was a beliver or "hoper" at the beginning and hoped for something fresh in a stale standard-format. But they lost me on Kamigawa as every new card was either busted and/or rare/mythic. So I stopped playing the format completly.
This changes to Alchemy and also impact on Historc Brawl as a self lover of Commander & HB im thinking of turning Arena off my computer and getting back to oldschool Paper - this cardrelease is giving me the feeling of wizards even just want my money and dont care about anything else
My issue with alchemy is that I pretty much exclusively play paper MTG. I don’t want to watch content where cards differ from what they would do if I pick them up, and it’s why I basically don’t watch any historic brawl. You can’t use any of the info gleamed from the cards in anywhere other than arena, because the cards don’t exist anywhere else. I just never saw the point. Now if they had made alchemy an almost entirely free experience (which would never happen) then maybe I’m interested, but other than that I won’t ever bother.
Drafter here; I've found double team to be fun in draft. You only get the second copy if you can get that first attack, and some of them arnt all that good at combat so finding the right time to get in can be a fun little challenge. It's less fun on the mythic Angel but you only get the second copy if you can pass through a turn cycle, and it dies to Dragons Fire so sometimes you have hold off until you can protect it.
Specialize though is just straight up bad. Far too many words, and they are all above rate creatures that let you turn extra lands into advantage while making the creature even stronger. Thankfully They're spread around the colors so it's not warping the format that much.
The redeeming feature of this draft format is that the DnD style modal cards and the adventures means there's a tonne more combat tricks floating around which makes combat more tense.
Overall I think the format is better than Streets of New Capenna but worse than Midnight Hunt
Really glad to see you acknowledge how degenerate and anti-consumer alchemy is.
It COULD have been fun, but the design was far too "now you gotta spend even more tickets if this meta pops off" to look even close to appetizing.
This is basically like a solo CGB podcast. I would love more just thinking out loud content about what's going on. Something to listen to on the drive to work.
48:38 As CGB was saying "you see Tasha and say: That's my girl!"
My brain, thinking the model for her is the extremely beautiful MTG artist Marta Nael: I wish!!!!!!!!
"I honestly believe, Alchemy is being made to supplant and replace standard as the primary format on MTG Arena, and that it will succeed" - CGB ~4:50 in this video th-cam.com/video/stRLUCnEhUU/w-d-xo.html This guy also called Fable of the Mirror Breaker a bad and unplayable card in his set review of Kamigawa. Some of the worst takes of 2022 right here folks.
I completely agree with you. Magic art just CANNOT EVER be re-used on different cards. It's utterly appalling
52:21 Please, do! Always good to hear your thoughts about Arena's situation.
I’m a patreon member, TH-cam, and twitch subscriber. I watch you play magic, whatever video you make I’ll watch it, and I’ll Enjoy. You’ve give shout outs to my kids, I support you making the content you want, always, including your rants. You, sir, are the coolest.
That's a great point about double team with legion angel, legion angel is basically only five copies of a bland 4/3 with flying (though you get the four from one) so eight copies of something that may even be bland could be broken.
im fresh back to MTG, got on arena. im starting to build up the cards for standard, might take awhile though. so...ive been spamming alch. the same art/card variants/specializes have been a headache to grasp in the span of a week or so. however, perpetual is the only mechanic i have despised outright, is that alch specific?