Alchemy: Tarkir Complete Set Review

Hey all. Alchemy: Tarkir drops on Magic Arena on Tuesday, April 29th, and with comes 30 new cards legal in Alchemy, Historic, Timeless, and Brawl, and there are some sweet cards in this set.

Like always, I’ll be focusing on Alchemy as I evaluate cards, as I don’t play enough Historic, Timeless, or Brawl to be informed on those formats, although I may shout them out here and there.

This is the last Alchemy set before rotation, as Final Fantasy will not have an Alchemy set attached to it, so these cards are coming into a very crowded format, but I think some of them have a chance to make an impact right away, and if not then they won’t have to wait long for a fresh format at the end of summer.

So let’s dive in and talk some sweet new Alchemy cards!

Lam, Storm Crane Elder

Lam, Storm Crane Elder is an awesome payoff for a prowess deck, and it can snowball very quickly.

To make use of Lam I would say you need to be ready to trigger it at least once if not twice the turn you play it. There are a few ways to do this, such as plotting cards to cast right after you cast Lam, or waiting until you have five or six mana to cast a cheap spell right afterwards.

If Lam ever lives a turn cycle though, you are going to be a huge favorite to win, unless your opponent has sweepers, as your copies of Monastery Mentor are going to be making tokens themselves, making a very wide board with just a few spells.

If I was going to find a home for Lam right now, it could be the sideboard of Jeskai Control, as something to bring in against other slow decks that are likely to sideboard out removal and sweepers in the post-sideboard games.

You could also build some sort of Jeskai or Boros spellslinger deck, using Cori-Steel Cutter, with Lam at the top end. Regardless, I expect Lam to very silly in Brawl if that is your format.

Thunderbond Vanguard

Thunderbond Vanguard is crazy in a mobilize deck. You can know have a dream curve of turn one Stadium Headliner, turn two Voice of Victory, into turn three Thunderbond Vanguard, attack, and all three of those mobilize tokens enter as a copy of Thunderbond Vanguard and you are attacking for 20 exactly.

Even without that perfect curve, this card has got me interested in trying other tokens decks, and figuring out others ways to abuse this. Curving this into a card like Hop to It or Heroic Reinforcements can also lead to an insurmountable board state.

Token decks are a bit tough right now because of how good the chorus cards are at cleaning up boards, but I think it is possible to make happen, especially if you are trying to utilize haste to recover from sweepers with cards like Heroic Reinforcements, Song of Totentanz, or Windcrag Siege (on Jeskai).

Waystone’s Guidance

Speaking of tokens, Waystone’s Guidance is a cool card. On it’s face it is a simple buff for your attacking tokens, great with mobilize, etc. That second paragraph of text is wild though. Your first creature every turn gains mobilize 2? Wow.

So this obviously designed for a mobilize type deck, where you are playing creatures, like Voice of Victory or Sanguine Evangelist or Thunderbond Vanguard, and less for a token deck using cards like Hop to It or Frontline Rush.

I really like how this plays out, because unlike normal token decks that might be powerful against removal, this puts a spotlight on all of your creatures, making them all threats that need to be removed. So if your opponent is able to keep the removal flowing they can compete, but if they let it slip once you are off to the races.

I also really like this card with Resolute Reinforcements, as you can cast a creature on your turn and give it mobilize 2 and then cast the reinforcements on your opponent’s turn and get another creature with mobilize 2.

So right away just going through the white cards I already have several ideas for token decks, and I can’t wait to try them out.

Cunning Azurescale

Cunning Azurescale is a huge upgrade for the Jeskai Dragon/Control deck that has popped up in Alchemy. Not only does this add dragons to our deck giving us a better chance of having a dragon to behold with Dispelling Exhale, but it also gives us much need flexibility for our control deck.

Hitting your land drops is the most important part of any control deck. You need to play a land every turn for the first 7-8 turns so that you are able to have enough mana to both develop your hand or threats and answer your opponent’s plays.

Cunning Azurescale lets you pass on turn two, holding up Dispelling Exhale or removal, and if they don’t do anything worth answering you can seek a land if you need one, or a nonland if you have plenty of lands.

Even on turn four or five if you are missing a land drop you can use the omen to find one and still hold up a two or three mana play.

In the late game, you can deploy your 5/5 flier and seek two nonlands to keep your hand full, or if you have a seven or eight mana play you can seek two lands.

This kind of flexibility is what control decks need, and helping to hit land drops is just so powerful in my opinion.

Pearl Lake Warden

Pearl Lake Warden is a nice inclusion for a ramp deck or some sort of dragon deck, although I’m not sure if it is powerful enough to make it in Alchemy.

Three mana to just seek one land into play is below the rate you would want. I do like that once you shuffle this back into your deck you can then cast it from the top if you have the mana later on, I just think that if you were dedicated to ramping you have better options.

If you are trying to play a Temur Dragon deck or Sultai Dragon deck, I think you are better off playing Bloomvine Regent, but if you need to up your dragon count this is a reasonable inclusion.

Ureni’s Counsel

Ureni’s Counsel is a sweet card for a dragon deck, and can easily cost just one blue mana to seek a dragon. Is that powerful? Sometimes. The problem is if you are playing it to seek a specific dragon, then you only have four dragons in your deck so it cost three mana.

I just think that decks like Jeskai Dragon Control, even if they are playing enough dragons for this to cost one, would rather just have other spells in their deck, but it could be worth trying to see how it feels.

Harmonize is nice on this spell because it does give it some card advantage later on, but it being double red does really limit what types of decks this can go in.

Maybe this is more of a sweet Brawl card than a competitive Alchemy card, but I would be happy to be wrong.

Draconic Fealty

Draconic Fealty is really good against a lot decks, and just okay against a lot of others.

On its own one mana to get their most expensive card is fine. Since it is a sorcery you can’t loop it with cards like Nurturing Pixie or Dedicated Dollmaker can with Hopeless Nightmare, but you do always get their most expensive card which will be impactful against slower decks.

Where I like this card is when you are also getting to exile their graveyard because then you can have main deck graveyard hate on a totally reasonable card. However, then you would have to be playing a lot of dragons.

I think there could be a Sultai or Golgari Dragons deck in the format, but I don’t think that Draconic Fealty is powerful enough to push you towards that style of deck over other midrange decks. That said, if you are jamming some dragons then this card is a pretty sweet inclusion.

Runeblade Raiser

Runeblade Raiser is an interesting take on your average recursive black one drop, this one comes back for free but just once.

I could see playing this in a sacrifice deck, treating this similarly to a card like Infestation Sage, giving you two creatures to sacrifice for one. I could also see playing this in a deck playing Insidious Roots as a free way to trigger the roots.

That said I’m not too excited about this card. I just think there are better options for both of those styles of decks.

Sibsig’s Artisan

Sibsig’s Artisan is fine as a 3/2 for two mana, and it adds a lot of sweet value as the game goes on.

So you active its Renew ability to put three +1/+1 counters on a creature, and then when that creature dies it can also renew to put three +1/+1 counters on a creature and transfer the ability as well.

So as long as you got creatures and your opponent doesn’t have exile removal or kills a creature in response to the renew ability, you can keep the fun going on and on.

I think this card is not great in an average creature deck, but I do think it is an option for a deck trying to make use of Ketramose, the New Dawn or Insidious Roots, as it gives you a recurring way to exile creatures from your graveyard.

However, I think it is too slow for Insidious Roots and Ketramose decks usually don’t play enough creatures that would be consistently dying, so maybe this is just a sweet Brawl card for the time being.

Dragon Typhoon

Spellbook: Thunderbreak Regent Stormscale Scion, Magmatic Hellkite, Boltwing Marauder, Neriv, Heart of the Storm, Caldera Pyremaw, Thundermane Dragon

Dragon Typhoon is probably too expensive for Alchemy, but if you ever do get it into play your are going to quickly take over the board. I like that this triggers from noncreature spells as well, so you can resolve this on turn seven and then cast a one mana spell to immediately get a dragon from its spellbook.

I like that you can cash it in early on turn four for a 4/4 token, and I could see it being the top end of some sort of ramp deck that is able to quickly get it into play and then draft multiple cards from it pretty quickly to take over the game.

There just isn’t a solid ramp deck in Alchemy right now, but I think we have a lot of good tools that make it worth trying, but we’ll see if Dragon Typhoon is the top end card of choice for those decks.

Dragonblood Twins

Dragonblood Twins has a low floor and a high ceiling, and I think it isn’t too hard to achieve that high ceiling.

I say it has a low floor because a 2/2 for two mana with no abilities or enters/dies effect is just not what Magic is about anymore. This dies to all the most played removal and gives you no value in those cases.

However, if you get to untap with this, trigger flurry, attack for four and trigger double team, you have a pretty serious threat on your hands. The copy created by double team means you are likely going to be able to trigger flurry again the next turn, and if your two drop is consistently a 4/4 flying you are pretty happy.

I just don’t think there is any deck right now that wants this, and again I just feel like in most cases this is just going to die and get no value, making me think this is mostly a limited card.

Dragonsoul Prodigy

Dragonsoul Prodigy is so sweet if you get to untap with it, or are able to wait until you can deploy it and trigger it right away.

Similar to Dragonblood Twins above, a 2/2 for three with no enters/dies trigger on turn three is just not going to be good enough in 90+% games of Alchemy. However, if you can wait until turn four, cast this and then cast Roost Seek from Sagu Wildling, for example, or turn five and cast Petty Revenge from Disruptive Stormbrood, and get a copy of that dragon into play, you are getting a lot of value.

I do think it is just too slow and too fragile to really pop off, but I love the card design, giving you the dragon and the omen at the same time.

Stormforged Armor

Stormforged Armor gives us a fun callback by conjuring a Ball Lightninginto play when you attack, and I love that you can equip this without paying mana, letting you get use out of it when you play it on turn three.

There are ways to abuse this card, with cards like Windcrag Siege on Mardu, which will double the attack trigger to give you two copies of Ball Lightning and I think it seems pretty nice with Cori-Steel Cutter, since you will almost always have a creature to equip this to.

I just feel like equipment are a tough sell unless they do something powerful on their own like Cori-Steel Cutter (I bet you forgot it was an equipment with an equip cost didn’t you?) or something broken like Skullclamp.

I also don’t like that this card is Legendary, like what is the problem with having multiple of these in play? Maybe this is more of a Brawl card for that reason.

Swiftspear’s Teachings

Swiftspear’s Teachings at a base cycles, and then turns whatever creature you cast afterwards into a Monastery Swiftspear. I would not sleep on this powerful one drop.

Any one mana cantrip is going to be fine if there are decks that care about digging through their deck or casting an abundance of spells, such as decks using Cori-Steel Cutter.

So the question is, what is the best thing to turn into a Monastery Swiftspear? There are some sweet options that come to mind.

At two mana we have cards like Arabella, Abandoned Doll and Caustic Bronco that would benefit from the haste to attack in right away, and at three mana we have cards like Preacher of the Schism and Sentinel of the Nameless City that would like haste as well.

Cards like Fear of Ridicule, The Infamous Cruelclaw Thieving Aven and Unstoppable Slasher all benefit from haste making it so they can hit the opponent one turn earlier to trigger ahead of schedule.

I don’t know the best home for this card, but this type of card can seriously break a game of Magic. There are some creatures that were not meant to have haste and prowess, and this card is as cheap as it comes and replaces itself, making me think that there will be a lot of silly things to do with this card in a variety of formats.

Amber-Plate Ainok

Amber-Plate Ainok is a solid creatures, but again a 2/2 for two mana with no value is just a hard sell in todays world. There are ways to tap it, such as crewing a vehicle or saddling a mount, to trigger the endures 1 part of this card, but if you aren’t able to attack and get that double team trigger I just think there are better options.

This card is probably pretty good in limited though!

Hardened Bonds

Hardened Bonds is a nice value engine for a deck that easily distributes counters to its creatures. Once you put a counter on a creature, you seek a creature that gets a nice buff, and as long as you are able to do that every turn using cards like Innkeeper's Talent or Hollowmurk Siege, you will never run out of creatures to throw at your opponent.

While it is limited by that once each turn clause, as long as you are using that consistent source of counters every turn, you will always have a new creature to deploy to receive those counters and keep the train going.

How creature aggro and midrange decks lose is by being ground out by sweepers and big card advantage spells, but if you are able to have a creature every turn, this puts a lot of pressure on any opponent, as they have to find answers over and over again.

I’m not sure there is a current home for this, but I think it is worth building around.

Pampered Loamfrill

Pampered Loamfrill is an interesting card that can help recur creatures from your graveyard in a unique way.

A 1/1 Deathtouch for one is always fine, it will always trade with something bigger or go 1-for-1 with removal, but then you get the bonus of being able to exile it to conjure a duplicate of a creature from your graveyard on top of your library with +1/+1 and Deathtouch.

My first thought is this is great for Insidious Roots, because it triggers roots when you renew it, but can also put a missing piece like Chitinous Crawler back on top of your deck so you can have access to it next turn.

Other than that, there are silly things you could do in formats like Historic, such as putting Goblin Chainwhirler on top of your deck with deathtouch.

Other than that, I’m not sure where this card fits in, but if you are a roots player give it a try and see how it feels.

Audacious Knuckleblade

Oh, Audacious Knuckleblade. As someone who cast Savage Knuckleblade hundreds of times (and then lost most of those games because that deck and that card weren’t very good) I love a call back to it in name, mana cost, and number of activated abilities.

Audacious Knuckleblade is awesome. It can fetch other copies of itself, untap, and haste your whole team. If you have a ton of mana you could reasonable fetch a copy from your deck, untap it, and then give it haste.

I think there is a possible home for this card in the exhaust decks that make use of Trackhand Trainer to reduce the cost of those exhaust abilities. Once you have a Training Grounds in play, that first ability because insane, letting you fetch out another copy of Audacious Knuckleblade for just one green, making it very easy to chain them together at end of turn.

Putting those abilities onto another creature with Agatha's Soul Cauldron is also pretty powerful, with both the surveil and haste.

I’m really excited to give Temur Exhaust another go and see if it can compete with the top decks in the format. I’m sure I will be let down by this knuckleblade just like I was the original, but I have to try.

Call the Crash

Rhinos! Call the Crash doesn’t just give you one Siege Rhino, it gives you two copies of Siege Rhino. I think it is totally reasonable to suspend this on turn four and get your rhinos on turn six, or just ramp up to six mana and cast it a turn or two early.

Getting two 4/5s with trample and draining for six life is no joke. This can swing games that looked nearly lost back in your favor, or close out games that had stalled. Hell this could be your only win condition, as all four copies add up to 24 points of life drain.

I do think this is much more of a control card than a midrange card, and I look forward to giving Abzan Control a shot once the set comes out.

Dalkovan Outrider

In a dedicated Mobilize deck, the buffs from Dalkovan Outrider are going to stack up quickly. On curve after a Voice of Victory, your next creature is going to get +2/+2 after you sacrifice those tokens at end of turn.

These buffs help your mobilize creatures to continue to attack and trigger mobilize, which will in turn continue to trigger Dalkovan Outrider.

Mobilize has not come together yet, but we got so many good cards for it in this drop that I think it has a shot of being a legit aggro deck in the format. I’m not sure that Dalkovan Outrider makes the cut though, just because we have so many other powerful cards.

Maybe after rotation, or maybe in some sort of Rakdos sacrifice deck, Dalkovan Outrider could become a player in the format.

Hamza, Might of the Yathan

Hamza, Might of the Yathan can make a powerful board very quickly. Like most landfall this cards, this card secretly cost six mana, not five, because you are going to want to be able to cast it and then immediately play a land to trigger it.

We do have Fabled Passage in Alchemy, so you can get two triggers pretty quick if you line things up. I think the issue with Hamza is that he is just pretty expensive, especially since you do need to wait until turn six to guarantee some value.

However, if you are able to get Hamza going you are going to get a ton of value, generating a ton of 2/2s, and I’m excited to rebuild my old G/W Landfall deck built around Felidar Retreat, and splash black for Hamza at the top end.

Overall, I think that Hamza is more of a Brawl card, but I would be happy to be wrong.

Illuminating Lash

Illuminating Lash is a weird spell. I’m not sure why it doesn’t just draw a card itself. I like that it can hit any target, meaning it can go at the opponent’s face for some reach. I feel like if I wanted this type of effect I would rather play something like Glacial Dragonhunt to also get a card into my graveyard.

Being a sorcery really kills this card I think, if it was instant it would be much more useful as a removal spell, and the weird delayed card draw would feel less bad.

Mardu Thunderkite

Mardu Thunderkite is kind of weird. I like that it is a 2/4 flying with mobilize 2, meaning it is sort of like a 4/4 flying for three mana, which is a good rate, but the enters ability feels weird, because it doesn’t benefit your mobilize tokens.

Don’t get me wrong, this is a powerful card, as it can be a 2/4 flying haste mobilize 2 for three mana, or it can give your existing creatures menace to help them get in damage, or lifelink to swing the game back in your favor.

I just think it is strange that it doesn’t interact favorable with mobilize tokens, but who am I to complain. I think it should absolutely be considered when building mobilize decks because it is just so flexible.

Oasis of Renewal

Oasis of Renewal is a sweet card advantage engine for a deck making use of renew or flashback, or even if you just have a way to exile cards for your graveyard consistently like Ghost Vacuum, you are going to get a lot of card advantage.

First of all, for three mana you get to seek a land and nonland card, which is fine on its own, and then if you are built around it you can consistently seek one to two cards per turn.

The current decks that do well in Alchemy aren’t super reliant on synergistic card advantage engines, so I’m skeptical that Oasis of Renewal has a home in the current format, thus, maybe it is just a Brawl card for now.

Song of Seasons

Song of Seasons is a sweet Cultivate variant, getting you a mountain, a forest, and a non-mountain non-forest, letting you put one into play, one into your hand, and one into your graveyard.

Right of the bat, this doesn’t just seek basic land cards, so you could be getting surveil lands for your mountain and forest card, and any interesting card for your non-mountain non-forest.

There are also a lot of upsides to dumping a land into the graveyard, such as triggering descend, putting it there to get back with Blossoming Tortoise, or for Wary Zone Guard.

I think this is probably the new default three mana ramp spell for a ramp deck in these colors, and I am really looking forward to trying Temur ramp once the set comes out.

Stonehind Ancient

Speaking of Temur Ramp, Stonehide Ancient is such a nice threat for a ramp deck. Getting to six mana is very realistic, and bouncing your opponent’s whole board while putting a 6/6 flying, vigilance into play is going to buy so much time and close out the game quickly.

Warning Tremor is also pretty great at setting up Stonehide Ancient, as you can cast it on turn three, and then cast another copy of Stonehide Ancient on turn four. Or any variety of dragons really.

This also plays pretty well with Fountainport Charmer, as the charmer can come down with offspring on turn three, curving perfectly into Stonehide Ancient on four, and you even get to pick the charmer back up to cast on a later turn and give out more discounts.

I think that Stonehide Ancient is one of the most exciting cards from this set, and I look forward to trying it in a couple of different decks.

Territorial Strike

Territorial Strike is a weird card. Three mana sorcery to destroy any nonland permanent is fine, but we do already have Maelstrom Pulse for this cost that can occasionally snag multiple cards. I guess if you are a dragon deck you could play this instead, but most of your dragons are going to be used for their omen spell first, making it hard to guarantee that you will make use of the buff.

I think that dedicated dragon decks have lots of good options and if Territorial Strike were going to make it, it would be in small numbers like one or two.

Xho Cai, Flickering Talon

At three mana, Xho Chi, Flickering Talon this is a slightly worse Mantis Rider, only hitting for two damage instead of three, but the other upsides are nice. Getting a reduction on a noncreature spell is going to make triggering flurry easier, and there are a lot of cool things you can do with this flurry ability.

Even just flickering Xho Cai to regain that reduction on your next noncreature spell can be useful, but once you combine it with powerful enters effects you can really start having fun.

The only issue, as with many cards, is I’m not sure what deck this goes in, and if it is a Jeskai card then it can really only go in one type of deck. There are a lot of sweet Jeskai cards worth flickering though, so it would definitely be fun to try out.

Dragonweave Tapestry

Dragonweave Tapestry is a cool card, conjuring two copies of Disruptive Stormbrood, Purging Stormbrood, Runescale Stormbrood, Twinmaw Stormbrood, and Whirlwing Stormbrood into your deck, and then serving as mana rock to cast those spells and turn them into card advantage.

That said, I think it is just too slow to be a real player in the format. Taking your fourth turn to do nothing just ain’t it, even if it does give you good value over the rest of the game. Maybe I’m wrong and a dedicated dragon deck could make good use of this to stay topped off on cards.

This seems like more of a Brawl card to me, and that’s okay.

Desert Cenote

Desert Cenote is an interesting new option for Desert decks, but I am a bit suspect of it as a replacement for Captivating Crossroads once it rotates.

The awkward part here is that you need to have cards in your hand to get those colors, so as a top deck later in the game it might not fix the color you need, or even early on you may want to choose a color of a card not in your hand, but are unable to.

I also don’t like that it always enters tapped if you are the starting player, unlike Captivating Crossroads that is eventually untapped.

So I would only pick this up if you want it for desert reasons, as I think it is bad as a generic mana fixer.

Wrapping Up

What an interesting Alchemy set. I think that almost every card has potential to see some play, but I don’t think that any of the cards buff up existing popular archetypes in clear and obvious ways. I feel like all of these cards have to be brewed around in one way or another, and that really excites me.

Rotation is still a few months away, but since this is the last Alchemy set before rotation I really want to brew a lot with these cards and especially look forward to after rotation where these cards may have more of a chance to shine.

I really like the direction that Alchemy has taken in recent months. Yes, the chorus cards are powerful, but there are so many interesting things to do that makes the format feel like such a breath of fresh air after playing Standard.

I hope you are as excited for this Alchemy set as I am, and as always, best of luck in all of your brewing and all of your games!