Hey everyone! Apparently, they are brewing up some really powerful stuff in the alchemy labs of New Capenna. I’m going to hook you up with a limited review of all these new platinum hits since we’re actually getting to draft with Alchemy cards.
These cards were designed for constructed so they are going to kick the power level up a bit in a similar way to the Mystical Archive in Strixhaven. With that said, lets check out what these new bombs can do.
In Premier Draft Alchemy: New Capenna, players draft three packs of Streets of New Capenna as usual, but one common card in each pack is replaced with one card from Alchemy: New Capenna. This card can be any rarity, as follows:
55% of packs contain an uncommon card.
38.57% of packs contain a rare card.
6.43% of packs contain a mythic card.
Each rare appears twice as often as each mythic.
Event Details
Duration: June 2, 2022 at 8:00 AM PST – June 5, at 8:00 AM PST
Format: Streets of New Capenna Draft
Entry Fee: 10,000 gold or 1,500 gems or Draft Token
Ends After: 7 wins or 3 losses, whichever comes first.
Match Structure: Best-of-one matches (BO1)
Event Rewards
Premier Draft New Capenna Alchemy has the same entry and payouts as the familiar Premier Draft events and awards Alchemy: New Capenna packs.
0 Wins: 50 gems and 1 Alchemy: New Capenna Pack
1 Win: 100 gems and 1 Alchemy: New Capenna Pack
2 Wins: 250 gems and 2 Alchemy: New Capenna Packs
3 Wins: 1,000 gems and 2 Alchemy: New Capenna Packs
4 Wins: 1,400 gems and 3 Alchemy: New Capenna Packs
5 Wins: 1,600 gems and 4 Alchemy: New Capenna Packs
6 Wins: 1,800 gems and 5 Alchemy: New Capenna Packs
7 Wins: 2,200 gems and 6 Alchemy: New Capenna Packs
In case you’re a limited only player, drafting with this means that you get a choice of three random cards out of its spellbook. There are some great high rolls like Angel of Sanctions and Angel of Invention, but some pretty bad ones like Segovian Angel. You might not even be able to cast Enduring Angel since it requires triple white mana.
If you are planning to go late, this can actually be one helluva finisher that lets you go way over the top. That means it is probably at its best in an Obscura control deck. If you are planning to just pop it right away, then you paid four mana to “tutor” up a random angel that you still have to pay to cast which is an almost unplayable dumpster fire. Just don’t toss this in your aggressive decks and it’ll be great.
Oh, were you trying to race? You have chosen… Poorly. No Mercy on layaway is still pretty good when you consider that you would be playing this card for the huge flying body anyway.
Especially disgusting in Bo1 where you’ll know to take the hit from their creatures before dismantling your poor unsuspecting opponent. It even gives you the opportunity to do your best Batman impression by growling, “I’m Vengeance” while destroying their army.
This ability might seem like a big drawback, but gating a creature back to your hand and making it a bigger flyer is actually a pretty powerful ability. It gets even better if you already got some value out of the creature with something like Backup Agent or Corrupt Court Official. It also wrecks any enchantment-based removal your opponent has chilling on one of your creatures.
Outside of that, a 3/4 flyer is a great stat line in this format and you get it all for the measly cost of three mana. Really high pick with the only real downside being the double white in the casting cost.
Have to get the disclaimer out of the way here: A card from your opponent’s deck is typically going to be worse for you than a card from your deck because it probably isn’t on theme with what you’re doing. That said, two mana to draw a card every turn can be a pretty busted ability as long as the game goes long.
This agent also can invalidate your opponent’s scrys, but a better opponent might actually put a land on top to trick you, so watch for that. It even fills in the one drop slot for some Obscura Ascendancy shenanigans or for the five different mana values in your graveyard. It’s a lot of card for only one mana.
This is just Divination that you can throw back if it’s bad. Not a good card, but if you need a playable you won’t be too embarrassed to show up with this one.
Personally, I’m looking forward to drawing the same two cards I just shuffled back in because that’s how it usually goes in Magic. Everyone who’s ever cast Thoughtseize knows exactly what I’m talking about.
Instant speed Man O' War is going to be amazing in a tempo format. Being a 2/3 means it might even get to pick off an attacker while bouncing something else. Making a spell cost one more can be pretty annoying, but probably won’t actually affect the game too much. Just an all-around great card. Take it and bounce your opponent right out of the club.
Another huge flyer that you would be thrilled to have even if it didn’t have an ability. So, what does that ability do? It lets you sacrifice one of your poor innocent creatures to form a Demonic Pact. That’s a huge amount of value there, but puts you on a clock to end the game before it ends you. You either need to have a way to remove your own pact or just outright kill your opponent before you get to that point.
Demonic Pact also has one of the worst Arena misclicks imaginable. Oops, I guess I just lose the game.
Shield decks HATE when you do this one weird trick! Seriously this card just dunks all over brokers decks as either a two-mana doom blade against smaller creatures or even picking off two solid ones with the simple sacrifice of a Corrupt Court Official.
If you want to get really dirty, Involuntary Employment one of your opponent’s creatures and build your own one-sided board wipe.
If you’re playing a sacrifice or blitz theme, this will provide some serious value over time. The main problem is that sometimes it does nothing and your opponent can play around it since it only triggers once for turn.
As far as it’s spellbook goes, it’s got some hits like Morbid Opportunist that will keep pulling you ahead on cards. It also has some pretty big whiffs that aren’t going to be very good by the time you can play them like Hoard Robber.
While the body is pretty terrible in this format, it is almost always going to get you at least one treasure token even if you have to get them by trading off your other creatures. The home for this is in either an aggressive Gruul or Cabaretti deck.
The spellbook for this one is unimpressive with such all-time hits as Stuffed Bear floating around. I’m pretty sure that you can find a much better use for two artifacts than hunting around in this dung pile.
The “flashback” ability on this card requires you to have a creature in hand, play it, and have it deal damage when your opponent is well aware of the outcome. The odds of that happening when it matters is pretty low so you can just ignore that ability and consider it a bonus if it works.
Instant speed interaction is solid and because of the rarity, it’s less likely that your opponent is going to play around this. Solid, but unspectacular removal spell.
Along with Involuntary Employment, this doubles up on the chances to steal your opponent’s creature and sacrifice it for profit. The question is if that is enough to make Rakdos grab and sac a viable deck. The actual answer is really dependent on how many of those are opened in your draft.
One really nice change on this one from other threaten effects is that even if you don’t have a way to sacrifice the creature, you no longer have to worry about it blocking when they get it back. It even accelerates the clock on the opponent by pinging away at them.
As with all cards with this effect, it really depends on what you are bringing back with it. Getting a now dragonized flyer back can be a huge game swinging effect. Settling for getting a ground chonker back is much less impressive.
This card would be pretty bad except for some hidden text in there. It says draw a card before drafting and that is a big enough difference to thump this one in the deck. It’s basically a two-mana cycle that can turn a land into a decent man land later.
A mana dork that can only cast creatures is still a pretty solid card for two mana. The real value here is dependent on how many strange creature types you have because if you can get even one card out of this, it’s a HUGE jump in grade. If it turns into a few cards, then this is busted. Most of the time you’ll just be happily casting your other citizens a little ahead of curve.
To quote George Takai, “OH MY!”. Have you lived the nightmare of your opponent dropping Brokers Ascendancy and thought, well at least it can’t get worse than that? BREAKING NEWS: It got worse.
This requires you to end the game quickly or everything they draw is going to be Gi-(Editor’s note: Seriously Josh, stop trying to sneak that word in)-normous! Magic is a zero-sum game when it comes to fun and whoever plays this is having all of it.
Every creature you play ramps you? Umm…excuse me…what? The only thing holding this back is being in Cabaretti instead of one of the better combinations. I’ll happily splash this into any Selesnya deck I have and I’m sure it can lead to some absurd things going down.
Is this an improved Phyrexian Arena in limited? Indeed, it is. This draws guaranteed gas every turn and if somehow you can’t play that card, you get a treasure token to make sure you can play the next turns free card.
There’s a huge difference in a three-mana perpetual card advantage machine and a five mana one so don’t even consider comparing it to Wiretapping. If you somehow run out of creatures in your deck and couldn’t finish the job with all of them, you weren’t going to win that game anyway.
Negate or copying the best creature in your opponent’s graveyard for two mana is a totally fine card.
You’re probably not casting this early and Dimir usually ends up hitting all five costs at some point in the game so it can even have a free card thrown in by the time you cast it. It’s spellbook isn’t anything to write home about, but hey free is free.
There are going to be times when this is just worse than Boon of Safety since you can’t use it to trade for another creature. On the other hand, it is completely bonkers against removal since it counters it, gives you an extra ETB trigger, and puts another shield counter on it.
Another three-mana card advantage engine that…wait…does that say onto the battlefield…now we’re cooking with some serious octane. One very important point is that this doesn’t say only once per turn so this can go really go off. The Cabaretti know how to party and their revels are getting cray cray.
While the colors are less than ideal, the effect is worth splashing as long as you have…let me check..yes.. these things called creatures in your deck. It only takes one activation to pull even on cards and everything from there is profit.
This puts a huge amount of pressure on your opponent even if it’s just pulling out mediocre creatures. Just try to have a decent curve of creatures so you can almost always grab one off of this.
Seriously another three-mana card advantage engine?!? I guess everyone gets to get in on that action now. Maybe the SNC alchemy theme is busted card draw. Take that Inspiring Overseer! Not so fancy now, are you!
This is the older brother of Toluz, Clever Conductor that he only wishes he could be. Conniving away a land to get another one in hand keeps your grip plump while thinning your deck. It can even act as a pseudo tutor by pitching a card type that you only have a couple of left in your deck.
Bonus: If your opponent makes you discard with Corrupt Court Official, it lets you filter that card too.
While Floridamun is going to be thrilled to have another croc lurking around, it’s kind of lacking on the power level compared to some of these other alchemy rares. It also requires three colors in the worst shard so that’s a pretty big knock against it.
If you compare it to Girder Goons, it ends up costing one more mana and you end up with a 4/4 instead of a 2/2. That sounds great on the surface and if you can thump it on turn three that’s wonderful, but having to pay shard mana for the blitz option does knock this down a bit from that.
If you do hard cast this, be careful about doing the ol steal and sac because they will get the ability to bring their creature back as an ooze.
Getting to exile your opponent’s best creature while adding to the board is pretty big game. A random creature added to their hand is a pretty low cost for clearing an important blocker or flyer out of the way.
While it might not come up often, it’s also an option to hit your own creature if it’s under enchantment removal or you just REALLY need something that’s in your deck.
A slightly above rate creature that makes two of your other critters drop treasures would be amazing in Brokers colors. Unfortunately, Gruul is the worst color pair and I don’t think this is the rare to put it over the top.
If you are willing to go down that route, then this combos very well with Jetmir's Fixer or some Stimulus Package shenanigans. Of course, if you already have a Jinnie Fay, Jetmir's Second then feel free to grab this boss to get the kitty train going.
On it’s base, a 3/1 menace for two is exactly what the aggressive Rakdos deck is looking for. The fallback to blitz it in to get a sacrifice trigger and a card back is still pretty solid if you draw it later in the game.
The ability to give another creature blitz is a nice little bonus, but there aren’t a lot of death triggers to abuse it with. The best use of it is to sneak in a hasty lethal or cash in a no longer relevant creature for a card.
This has a pretty huge delta between a random bear and OMG what just happened. If you play this on turn two with 4 creatures in your hand, you are most likely going to bury your opponent in citizens before they know what just went down.
The downside of drawing this late and being like , ”Umm….2/2…go.” is very real, but don’t let that dissuade you from jamming it. If you’re playing it, I might want to replace cards like Warm Welcome with a random creature because you need a critical mass of creatures and tricks are too important to replace.
Unless you have a bomb that you want to protect, this is probably not as good as Disciplined Duelist for the same mana cost at uncommon. Granted that’s like saying, ”Damn, I only won a million dollars”. Cry me a river, right?
It’s not often going to be bigger than a 5/5 that gave a shield counter to something else, but what else are you expecting for three mana?
I love Grixis control in SNC and was excited to see what crazy mythic I was going to get to play with. Well, this ain’t it. The difference between casualty 1 and 2 is astronomical because you have to sacrifice a relevant creature instead of an Expendable Lackey or Corrupt Court Official.
Are you looking to sacrifice a Snooping Newsie to copy a spell? Not unless that spell is really key to the game. Maybe Murder or Whack are worth it, but most of the other relevant targets already have casualty.
Now this is a rare that Grixis control wants to open! Four mana for a 4/5 flyer with ward would be a pretty easy windmill slam on its own.
Self-mill for four cards is a quick way to hit five-mana values in your graveyard to enable your News Team and then it even throws in a Dig Up the Body. Yes, please!
Wrap Up
I’m super excited for this shake up to SNC even if it jacks the power level way up. It might even be enough to change the format from pauper to prince. Good luck out there and let me know what kind of alchemic concoctions you come up with!
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Josh is a member of the elite limited team The Draft Lab as well as the host of The Draft Lab Podcast. He was qualifying for Pro Tours, Nationals, and Worlds literally before some of you were born. After a Magic hiatus to play poker and go to medical school, he has been dominating Arena with over an 80% win percentage in Bo3 as well as making #1 rank in Mythic.
