Alchemy Cascade – Midweek Magic Event Guide and Best Decklists

Hey everyone! It’s time for another Midweek Magic so I am here to provide you with your usual dose of bad dad jokes and decklists to get you your wins ASAP. This week we’ll be playing Cascade Alchemy which is as bat poop crazy as it sounds. It’s normal Alchemy decks, except you get to cascade (pretty similar to discover except that you can’t choose to put the card in your hand) the first time you play a spell each turn.

We’re going to look into how to abuse this. First off there aren’t any zero cost spells in the format so we’re not going to be hitting anything on turn one. There are no cards like Ancestral Vision or Crashing Footfalls to really take advantage of this.

That makes it look like the game plan will be flooding the board as quickly as possible since sweepers don’t really play well with the ability. As the saying goes, there is no wrong threats, only wrong answers. Think about it like this, if you’re playing a control deck and play a five-mana sweeper, what are you hoping to hit? Cascade isn’t like Discover so if you hit a counterspell, it is a dead card. Hitting a removal spell when you just swept the board also does nothing. After looking at all that, we’ll be avoiding control decks for this event.

We also don’t want to play anything that will be a dead card if we hit it off of the cascade. That means no combat tricks, but we do want to be playing instants so that we can get the cascade trigger on their turn as well.

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Event Details

Welcome to Midweek Magic! Each week, try out a different way to play MTG Arena!

The first time you cast a spell each turn, you’ll get to cast another, less expensive card from your library without paying its mana cost. What a bargain! All you’ll need to play is a 60-card Alchemy deck.

Find out more details about this and upcoming Midweek Magic events HERE.

• Duration: December 5th, 2023 @ 2:00 PM PST to December 7th, 2023 @ 2:00 PM PST
• Format: Alchemy Cascade
• Entry Fee: Free
• Ends After: You can play as much as you like for the duration of the event.
• Match Structure: Best-of-one matches (BO1)

Maelstrom Nexus Emblem

The first spell you cast each turn has cascade. (When you cast your first spell each turn, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card whose mana value is less than this spell’s mana value. You may cast that card without paying its mana cost if the resulting spell’s mana value is less than this spell’s mana value. Then put all cards exiled this way that weren’t cast on the bottom of your library in a random order.)

Event Rewards

Wins	Reward
1 Win	Rare Individual Card Reward (ICR)
2 Wins	Rare Individual Card Reward (ICR)
3 Wins	One Random Cosmetic Item

Decklists

Boros Mentor

I started out with this as a Jeskai build, but I’m going to be honest with you, I flew too close to the sun on that one. The mana was a total mess because you can’t play too many tapped lands in a cheap aggressive format so you were taking a ton of damage off of painlands. It just wasn’t happening.

Pia Nalaar, Consul of Revival is great because it will trigger every time you cascade. Monastery Mentor is also busted if you know that you are getting two triggers off of your first spell.

If you’re wondering why Hexgold Sledge is in there, it provides a prowess trigger, two creatures, and an equipment for three mana while giving you a decent cascade. That’s an awful lot out of one piece of cardboard.

Red Deck Wins

You know what goes great with getting to cast an extra spell every turn, prowess and spell triggers. Both of which tend to be right up reds alley.

You can mess around with this build a lot to try to nail it down such as swapping out Embereth Veteran for Phoenix Chick.

White Aggro

You can’t really go wrong with white aggressive decks in a format that rewards going after the opponent hard. The go wide strategy is complemented by getting to add an extra spell every turn. Just a reminder that you can hold Resolute Reinforcements until you can flash it in on their turn for the extra trigger.

Dinosaurs

You might be asking yourself why I’m dropping dinosaurs in the middle of an alchemy cascade event? You are going to be ramping hard with a guaranteed Delighted Halfling or Ixalli's Lorekeeper off of casting a two drop.  That will make sure that you can get to your big bois quicker.

Who doesn’t want to cast a massive Ancient Imperiosaur so they can attack with a very Belligerent Yearling?

Budget Red Burn

Here is your commons and uncommons only deck to get you through your MWM without eating up those precious rare and mythic wildcards.

Burning them out becomes a lot easier when you get an extra spell when you cast something. Face is the place to win the race.

Complete List

The below decks also include ones submitted by the community.

Wrap Up

Thanks for reading! I’ll be back soon with my coverage of Khans of Tarkir limited. Until then, stay classy people!