Artisan Set Review: The Final Alchemy Set

Welcome nobles, artisans, peasants, and paupers!

Today I'm taking a look at the cards we acquired from the final alchemy set. The majority of these are pretty interesting designs that are very cost efficient. So, without further ado lets dive right in.

Prophet of the Planeswalker

We got one of the final planeswalker support pieces and it's a strong one at that. Prophet of the Planeswalker gives the beheld planeswalker [+1] to all their loyalty activations on enters, similar to how Carth the Lion works. It's a decently strong effect that allows for loyalty abilities to easily become neutral or even positive. If you flicker Prophet enough it should be easy enough to make any loyalty ability positive, however I think it'll be best with [-1] loyalty abilities because they'll become [0] abilities immediately.

I think with this and Way of the Pyromancer we might have enough support to make some of the War of the Spark (WAR) planeswalkers competitive. I'm leaning towards Mardu or Naya being good because they get either Jiang Yanggu to put counters on your creatures, or Davriel to apply hand pressure. Both color combinations also get access to Vraska which I think might be worth looking at again. You can also ignore playing other colors and go with a Boros shell with cards like Saheeli, Tibalt, Dovin, and the new Way of the Healer.

Very excited to see if this can help make the WAR planeswalkers better or not.

Asymmetry Sage

A-Symmetry Sage has returned, but quite a bit worse. Asymmetry Sage is a combination of the base version and rebalanced version of Symmetry Sage. It gives creatures base power three until end of turn like rebalanced sage, but it has the two toughness like base sage. Two toughness makes this a lot worse as it no longer survives a lot of removal its counterpart was immune to before. Things like shocks, Pyroclasm, and Fire Magic now all easily clean them up, leading to this being a lot less attractive than its predecessor. Still, it's nice to have a strong flying blue threat at one mana.

Crux of the Theory

An interesting build around was added with Crux of the Theory. It heisting on enter already makes it card neutral, which has proven to be very good with engines similar to this in the past. The triggered ability shouldn't be too hard to trigger, with the heisted card guaranteeing that you trigger it. Learn, Prepared, and Conjure also trigger the ability as well, each with their own quirks.

Prepared gives a fairly consistent way of having ways of triggering with cards like Voxmancer, but prepared spells are also often far weaker. Heisting is kinda consistently inconsistent, with you having to play your opponents cards. Learn is pretty good when you do it, but there aren't a lot of good cards with it unfortunately. Finally there's conjure which feels the weakest of the bunch in my opinion, because the cards that are good conjure cards often want you built around them. Overall, it looks like there are enough options where you can consistently trigger it.

Empower Jace 2 for the ability is pretty good but also a bit awkward, as you normally want to hit odd numbers with Jace's [-3] to draw multiple cards. There's ways around with cards like Oath of Gideon, but then you're having to supplement for the weakness which is not something you normally want to do.

Unsure if this card will actually be good or not, but I think it's worth looking into for sure.

Bend Mortal Limits

Another alchemy hand attack spell got added and it's about as good as the rest of them. Bend Mortal Limits and other alchemy hand attack spells have always had a crucial flaw where they only show the card types that they mention rather than the whole hand. This leads to you getting less information than from spells like Duress and Dread Fugue. So a bit disappointed we got this rather than some other card.

Sparks Ablaze

Got a pretty decent new removal spell with Sparks Ablaze, that's similar to Flame-Blessed Bolt and Magma Spray. Being able to handle a threat without it dying is nice, especially with Unbreakable Remnant and death triggers becoming popular. Getting a discount on your next planeswalker on top of all that looks very good at a first glance. My main worries about this card is that our planeswalkers might not be good enough and that not crossing the three damage threshold might not be good enough.

Will say however, using this with all the other planewalker support we've gotten might make it worth using. It works as a one mana removal spell you can play off of a turn two Way of the Pyromancer, and it makes some of the more expensive planeswalkers easier to play, like Kaya, Vraska, and Chandra. I'm very curious if that'll make it see play or not.

Selfless Germinator

Green has a new interesting one drop in Selfless Germinator. At base it's a Savannah Lions, so nothing super exciting, but I think the exhaust ability might be pretty interesting. It ends up working as a cantrip in the mid to late game, either paying the three mana or at one mana increments. Being able to do it at one mana increments does make it more appealing, as it's pretty easy to hold up while still developing your board.

Where I think this effect really shines though is with Exhaust and Conjure payoffs. Neither of them have had the best enablers, but they've had alright payoffs and I think this helps push both of them to being more appealing. Kinda doubt it'll be enough to make them good enough, but one can dream.

Zimone the Calculating

Zimone the Calculating is our second version of this effect now, alongside Loot. Them both being legendary is quite a downside, but it does still provide some pretty nice consistency. Thankfully a lot of the best shrink effects we have for these two are already graveyard focused or put cards into the graveyard, so we can consistently cast that prepared spell. It'll probably be more of a meme deck than anything, but it's cool to have in the format and might lead to some fast kills.

Killian, Spotlight Chaser

Killian, Spotlight Chaser seems like he has high potential for both fair and unfair strategies. The main two ways I see using him are with three mana spectacle or madness burn spells, or as a combo card alongside Val.

When using him in a more fair way, you wanna deal three damage with a bolt to seek one of your madness or spectacle cards. If you're on the Spectacle plan, you can immediately play the card you seeked for one mana to either deal three more with Skewer and seek another card or get two cards for later with Light Up the Stage. If you're on the madness package then you get Temper or Alms, which you can play for one when you discard it at the end of turn. Not sure it'll see play this way specifically because our mana is bad, but I'd love to be wrong.

The other way that immediately comes to mind is using him alongside Val for a combo win. He has some upsides and downsides compared to using Trelasara. The main downside being that you must seek a card to actually trigger Val, meaning the damage is capped. There are some pretty big upsides for using him instead though, the main ones being that you're in much better colors (either Mardu or Jund). Both Mardu and Jund have much better tutors to find your combo pieces with cards like Assemble the Team and Lively Dirge, with Dirge also being able to recur a removed piece. Jund also has great mana with two different reveal lands and a triland.

Overall, very excited to try this out in both the more fair ways and the combo to see if he's any good or not.

Rootha, Ardent Artisan

This next one won't be legal in Historic Artisan due to its ability to conjure rares. I'm still intrigued about Rootha, Ardent Artisan for Timeless Artisan though. She gives an interesting way to turn your extra mana ramp or artifact lands into other artifacts. If you get to the 7-9 mana range you get some pretty crazy strong rares and mythics that can win the game outright. Seven mana is probably the most consistent with the fewest duds and nine mana has the highest chance of hitting a bomb.

One of the worries that I do have about this card is just how mana intensive she is to function and how fast the format she's legal in is. If we ever get some good mana acceleration I'll probably take a good look at this, but till then I'll probably keep it on the shelf for now.

Dina, Flesh Sower

Our final card is Dina, Flesh Sower, who looks quite strong for Soul Sister shells. Unlike other pridemates we have, she perpetually grows and has a way to self enable growth because of lifelink. On top of all that she has a pretty decent death trigger that grows one of your cards in hand and gives it trample. Being able to grow a Soul Sister into a large body or giving trample to one of your pridemates seems very good.

Perpetually growing is quite nice as well, as it allows you to recur her and have her already be very big. It's also not terrible if your legend rule her to get her death trigger and trigger all your soul wardens, though I'd likely not want to do this most of the time. With this and the other cards we got from Reality Fracture, Soul Sisters looks pretty interesting.

Final Thoughts

Overall, a pretty interesting set of cards we got for the final alchemy set. I think I'm personally most excited for Prophet of the Planeswalkers, but most of these cards seem pretty powerful or interesting and they might spark some interesting artisan decks.

I'm a bit sad to see alchemy go, but at the same time it has warped the format with cards like Landlore Navigator, Inspiring Easel, and Switchgrass Grazer. So in a way I'm glad that we won't be getting cards like that in the format anymore.

With that though, it concludes our one and only Artisan Alchemy set review. Hope you enjoyed the article and see you all next time!