General Alchemy, Playtest, Funny and other strange cards

There are a bunch of pseudo-official cards that can be run in our cubes but that we rarely do. Perhaps they are part of the Un sets, the digital-only Alchemy sets or those funky playtest cards. While the quality of these sets is pretty low, particularly Alchemy, there are still some cards that deserve a second look.


For me, Tchotchke Elemental is complete staple. It's both a tokens and +1/+1 payoff not unlike Champion of the Parish or, perhaps, Regal Bunnicorn. It's fun to play, never a power pick, but absolutely brilliant in the right deck. It can grow extremely fast (it gets one counter per planeswalker, for example) but it's limited by the lack of trample. This combination of powers and limitations make it worth your while.

Theorically, it goes infinite with clones but it's extremely rare for deckbuilding reasons. It's more of a cool feature that happens once every 30 games.


This might be the strange card that sees the most play in Riptide cubes. There is demand for 2-mana discard creatures like Mesmeric Fiend, but they are all on the weak side. Ultimately, your opponent can just kill it and get their card back. Frogkin Kidnapper is different because it's worded like Elite Spellbinder: The effect goes on and even if the creature is killed. Good for all of us who play at higher power levels.

Symmetry Sage is a ton of fun, but it's just too weak for cube. In practice, too many creatures already have 2 power or aren't significantly boosted by getting a +1/+1. By making it a 0/3, however, and boosting its ability to 3/3, it becomes an actual threat. It's feasible to play two spells and swing with both it and a powered-up token. Is that broken? No, but it's good, playable and fun. If you want something like Delver of Secrets, try A-Symmetry Sage instead.

Note that it changes the base stats, so it works with equipment, Berserk and so on.

Spell decks are a favourite here, but it's a problematic archetype. I like A-Symmetry Sage because it's a good payoff, different and not hard to understand at all. My current ranking looks something like this:

Dreadhorde Arcanist {R}
Monastery Mentor {W}
Kitsa, Otterball Elite {U}
Dragon's Rage Channeler {R}
--
A-Symmetry Sage{U}
Young Pyromancer {R}
Soul-Scar Mage {R}
--
Harmonic Prodigy {R}
Third Path Iconoclast {U}{R}
Sedgemoor Witch {B}
--
Everything else is unplayable



This is a Time Spiral variant, but in red! That's worth a good look and I ran it for a very long time. I only cut it because it can only be played for value, not combo. You are drawing random cards so you cannot expect to chain off after it.

Now, let's get weird:



For as long as I've had my cube, I've wanted a big creature that covered all combo archetypes: Reanimator, Sneak Attack and Storm. Yet, everything I tried was either bad or downright obnoxious. This one looks exactly what I was looking for.

1) It can be hard-cast
2) It can be interacted with: It doesn't protect itself nor provide all of its value on ETB
3) In order to get extra cards, you will probably need to play slower and chain a couple spells.
4) It provides its own Storm win-condition so you don't need to draft both it and another finisher.
5) Even for value, storm Lighting Bolt seems a ton of fun!

In many ways, it seems a better designed Niv-Mizzit, Parum. I really hated Niv. Combining card draw, removal and face damage was dumb, particularly since it punished the opponent for playing the game. It was all balanced by its UURR cost which is such a blunt way to do it. It wasn't even good in control. Another comparison is Thousand Year Storm. While it's more vulnerable, giving actual draw and a win condition seems worth the trade-off.



Chatterstorm isn't good enough and neither is Awaken the Woods. But what about this combination of both? It can be both a win condition and a setup spell, which is huge. It could work well in the type of Temur decks that like Fastbond, since it costs just one coloured mana, it looks like an easy splash.

The issue is that it might be too good as pure value. Turn three, you Brainstorm and play this, netting you 2 lands. Or, you play this in a sacrifice midrange deck. Play a one drop, then this for 2 extra mana next turn and 2 bodies to eat. It's also dumb with Mox Diamond: It gives you 4 mana on turn 2!


Random stuff:
---


This should be a great card for any deck running discard. The only issue is that it's...kind of marginal? If you could ramp with it, it would be a premium target but, as is, it's just a little bit of value.



This looks like a fantastic cheat target, having a limited ETB and being an artifact. In some ways, it could act like a much fairer Griselbrand. My only worry is that it forces the opponent to lose one card might be too much. Perhaps it can be an alternative to Archon of Cruelty?



Black should be an artifact colour, but it doesn't actually have the payoffs for this. This could be one, but a massive attack may not matter when it trades with everything.



This is badly written but it has a ton going for it: It's a spell that creates artifacts. It can be used to create a better Phyrexian Arena or an Artifact Dark Confidant. And since it has flashback, you can do it again latter on. Having to spend 4 mana for the creature seems bad, though, Bob is so good because it's a 2/1.



A unique piece of removal that should create memorable game states. It may seem expensive, but it's the right cost for the effect. As usual, the problem is: Do you need it? My answer is probably no.



Now printed in real life, this is a white fireball. Funny with Earthcraft and haste, its main issue is simply that it's not necessary. The effect is good, it's a cool design but, again, you probably don't need it.

Anyways, those are just my thoughts on these quirky cards. Hope that helps!
 
Tons of likes, but no comments! What do you think? Are you running any of these funky cards? Tempted about it? Let me know!
 
I am sticking to the somewhat classic nonfixing singleton idea for my cube. I feel it’s easier to get feedback from people and it’s more approachable than with a bunch of “fake” cards (this is purely subjective as I am sure the UB cards I run are considered “fake” by others).

Should I change my mind, there are definitely some that would archetype defining. Chatterstorm and Awaken the Woods is insanely good for combo decks.
Frogkin Kidnapper would also be slotted in. Incubob is an easy include. It’s an amazing glue card!



This is a nice 5 color payoff that is exciting and cheap. I would run it with cards from the cube



This one would be played as well I think. 1 mana storm/prowess enabler is great. Birgi, Kykar, Storm-kiln Artist would be combo engines in conjunction.



Chris posted about this being really good and that seems accurate. Retrace is a great mechanic!
 
If A-Symmetry Sage was just a real card that existed I would be running it in every high power format with a spellslinger deck already. It's fast and powerful and fun. The barrier is that the arena font looks sooooo ugly so I'd need to make my own fake real one if I wanted a nice version of it and that's like one to three extra steps of work. So I don't own any yet. But soon I will.

The card I often think about but have been to much of a coward thus far to try is:

I keep thinking about running this in a low power fair stuff cube as like a pseudo future sight. I can't decide if it's awful because it costs 4 and doesn't actually provide card advantage or if it's maybe kinda decent cus it gives you a pretty substantial amount of selection.

It also probably has some kind of sicko synergy potential with self mill strategies and stuff like shelldock isle and lab man effects? Much to think about. Also very bad with tutors in a way that is very funny.
 

Chris Taylor

Contributor
I am sticking to the somewhat classic nonfixing singleton idea for my cube. I feel it’s easier to get feedback from people and it’s more approachable than with a bunch of “fake” cards (this is purely subjective as I am sure the UB cards I run are considered “fake” by others).

Should I change my mind, there are definitely some that would archetype defining. Chatterstorm and Awaken the Woods is insanely good for combo decks.
Frogkin Kidnapper would also be slotted in. Incubob is an easy include. It’s an amazing glue card!



This is a nice 5 color payoff that is exciting and cheap. I would run it with cards from the cube



This one would be played as well I think. 1 mana storm/prowess enabler is great. Birgi, Kykar, Storm-kiln Artist would be combo engines in conjunction.



Chris posted about this being really good and that seems accurate. Retrace is a great mechanic!
So good I had to nerf it
YwMMu8J.png

Retrace on this thing means you have zero bad draws, but I guess that is kinda the point. Felt very pack rat adjacent
 
Add "discard a land" to the flashback, maybe? Otherwise, the second cast is card advantage.
 
Whatever the mechanical and gameplay benefits, the aesthetic disadvantages of the Test Cards are a huge hurdle for me. If I were to see a card that I absolutely had to include, and could be bothered to design and print a better looking version, maybe one day it would sneak into my cube.

Sigardian Evangel is intriguing, particularly if it is now available in paper. This might be in part because of a busted Arena cube deck I had involving Evangel with Oketra's Monument.
 
Whatever the mechanical and gameplay benefits, the aesthetic disadvantages of the Test Cards are a huge hurdle for me. If I were to see a card that I absolutely had to include, and could be bothered to design and print a better looking version, maybe one day it would sneak into my cube.
One of my goals is to give these cards actual illustrations, probably do the same with a few branded cards as well. What do people use to make customs?
 
If A-Symmetry Sage was just a real card that existed I would be running it in every high power format with a spellslinger deck already. It's fast and powerful and fun. The barrier is that the arena font looks sooooo ugly so I'd need to make my own fake real one if I wanted a nice version of it and that's like one to three extra steps of work. So I don't own any yet. But soon I will.

The card I often think about but have been to much of a coward thus far to try is:

I keep thinking about running this in a low power fair stuff cube as like a pseudo future sight. I can't decide if it's awful because it costs 4 and doesn't actually provide card advantage or if it's maybe kinda decent cus it gives you a pretty substantial amount of selection.

It also probably has some kind of sicko synergy potential with self mill strategies and stuff like shelldock isle and lab man effects? Much to think about. Also very bad with tutors in a way that is very funny.
I've run it before in my fairly high power cube and it wasn't great, it just isn't worth spending 4 mana on this most of the time.

It did lead to a very funny game where one player played Split Screen and the other Phyrexian Metamorphed it so they both had split libraries.

I guess since I do run some Un- cards I can add my thoughts on the ones I've tried:

Blast from the past
Lots of people have cubed this, it's ok but more cool than good. If you're lower power it could work well.

Rare-B-Gone
This wasn't it for very long at all, I wasn't a fan. The fact it hits lands is brutal.

City of Ass
This is great, basically ETB tapped 5 colour land with no other downside, and once in like 20 games someone will untap it with Garruk and make an extra mana.

Jackknight
I don't play any contraptions and without that text this is similar to Patchwork Automaton, without Ward but triggering off tokens etc. It's good but people do sometimes get confused when they see the contraptions line.

The Grand Calcutron
Most people weren't brave enough to try this, and the few times it did get played the biggest effect was that it made the game take three times as long to play.

Urza, Academy Headmaster
My favourite silver-bordered card to cube. It's fun to build around, always interesting to have in play, and generally worth the hoops you have to jump through as the abilities can be very strong. Sometimes he does do nothing but that's the risk you take. The only downside is he's a bit fiddly, I use the website so internet access is required. Maybe I should get the app.

Frazzled Editor
Perfectly fine and actually probably even better now than when I played it, but I cut all permanent protection from my cube because I don't like how it plays.


Something I've found with silver-border cards is that they often read better than they play, and what can be a cool or amusing idea is actually miserable to play against. I'm thinking here of X, Clocknapper, Animate Library, Summon the pack as examples, which I played with or against in the Unstable prerelease.
 

Chris Taylor

Contributor
MidJourney + a CardConjurer fork that still works + MPC (or at least I’m planning too)
:mad:
One of my goals is to give these cards actual illustrations, probably do the same with a few branded cards as well. What do people use to make customs?
Here's the CC fork I've been using: https://cardconjurer.app/
Art is Artstation, DeviantArt in a pinch, or The Imaginary Network. Artstation is great for following specific artists (At least until the platform enshitifies, Julie Dillon dropped off DeviantArt semi recently so link to her personal website for now.)

Imaginary network is great for drilling down on a specific vibe, like "warriors" or "aetherpunk" or "Wastelands"
It can be a bit hard to find art for spells, ie non-permanents, since there's nothing that really drills down in to "removal spells" per say, but you can find stuff for sure.

From there I honestly just print it on paper and put it in a sleeve 99% of the time, but that's because I churn so much with my cube. Anything I am making permanent is ordered via MPC (Which has a European equivalent I think?)
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
I'm not going to pretend AI art is a force for good, or anything, but it does fit my purpose. My pockets aren't lined with gold, so I'm either using existing art without paying for it, or do it this way. I find it's great for generating generic, throwaway art, which is just fine for my customs. For my D&D characters I commission artwork, because AI sucks at getting the details down. Hell, it often even sucks at getting the composition of a piece right in general.
 
A friend mentioned today that MPC could be in danger because WotC is now involved in cedh. Could this be true? I'm scared to not be able to update my Pokémagic cube soon
 

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Seems unlikely. MPC predates Magic, so it's not like this is a new service. They've not cared any of the last however many times they've made a push for new tournament players, and MPC already does copyright review of any project you submit.

They usually reject any order that just has the default magic back, for reference.
 
I'd caution against putting the Alchemy version of cards in your cube directly, speaking from experience after trying to figure out why my cube suddenly had invalid cards in it when wotc deleted the alchemy version of Esika's Chariot.



I think Boons are the mechanic that are most easily transferable to paper, considering they're basically just delayed triggers with a "token", which really is more of a paper implementation than what you'd see in digital card games. I have Resolute and Blast in my list, and I have not seen Underbridge Warlock before, but I could consider cubing that one as well. Maybe Pup if I end up with more ability counters.
 
I feel like the cards that care about you being the starting player or not are even more transferrable, it's just that most of them aren't worth the trouble.



I feel like this cycle is doing something cool, but I feel like the blue one is the only one that's actually elegant.
 
I was scryfalling for some red sweepers and stumbled upon:



You have to do a little bit more accounting while this is in play, but honestly a really cool design.
 

Chris Taylor

Contributor
So lemmie get this straight, Solitary Study is both a card you will end up controlling many copies of, AND encourages you to have many creatures out? :p
 
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