#Alchemy: New Capenna

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Subversive Acolyte by Darren Tan

[niuttuc]

Thoughts on the extended standard rotation?

It's... Certainly a choice.

On its face, the reasoning makes sense, making standard more stable with less bans and a slower rotation so that paper players are less afraid of investing in it and playing the format. Sure, I can buy that.

The main issue is that the vast majority of Standard play emigrated to Magic Arena in the meantime. A staggering amount of standard is played there, enough to keep it up as the most played competitive format overall according to MaRo, despite it being essentially dead in paper.

On Magic Arena, playing games is very convenient, and thanks to the free-to-play model, rotation is less scary and feels less like a loss. Because it's so convenient to play games, people who play Standard on Magic Arena will tend to play many, many more games than paper players. Playing maybe once a day or once every couple days instead of maybe once a week at FNM.

Because they play more games, they become familiar with the standard metagame and play pattern much faster. And, after becoming familiar with it, they become bored with it. This is accentuated further by Arena's economy heavily encouraging playing competitively viable decks. Not only is there a ranked ladder, but also a top-tier mythic like Sheoldred costs the exact same as a jank piece like Angel of Suffering.

These facts combine to make the decision of a more stable standard a pretty awful one for Magic Arena Standard players. They face the prospect of a boring format and the same cards sticking around for far longer, and even the chance of a banning to shake things up is taken from them.

The current Standard is, by most metrics, very healthy! There is top decks and strategies, but there's a few of them, and a range of themes that see play. But it doesn't really matter because by this point, arena players are tired of playing against the same cards and the same decks, again and again. Some variation of black midrange has been near the top of the meta since... Basically Streets of New Capenna released.

With that in mind, Wizards' decision seems like sacrificing Standard where it is currently and factually popular, for a chance at reviving it in paper. A slim chance, if you want my opinion, people afraid of rotation that don't want to invest into standard aren't afraid that the rotation isn't long enough, they're afraid of the existence of a yearly rotation at all.

It's not an attempt at reviving Alchemy, as conspiracy theorists would have you believe. Alchemy's launch was so disastrous it is unsalvageable PR-wise as a competitive format, and WotC knows it enough to avoid mentioning it at all cost when they can these days, and promoting it as little as possible.

I think it's a mistake all the same. I expect the three-year rotation to stick around, because it doesn't change that much in the grand scheme of things, but I also expect the "one ban window a year" concept to disappear within six months. There's precedents, WotC often makes these announcements of sweeping course changes "forever" that are reversed when they realize they're heading straight into a wall. But I don't like that either. Competitive magic has been having such a hard time these past five years, with WotC out of the blue overhauling entire structures every few months. It makes it confusing and impossible to get into for players.

Five years ago, Wizards tried sacrificing competitive paper magic in favor of an Esports dream of digital magic. Five years later, they're trying to sacrifice the success of digital magic that didn't quite match the profits in their dream to salvage paper magic's competitive scene.

And somehow, both decisions seem stupid.

[lazodiac]

Been awhile, but lets get back to Thunder Junction. There's artifacts aplenty and we need to note down where they're from! Last time we did the Multicolour cards, which can be found here. For now though, lets begin...

ARTIFACTS

(the uncoloured ones anyway)

As somewhat befits this project, our first one is a Thunder Junction original... by way of being so many planes mashed together that it isn't really possible to pinpoint exactly one. The coinage is all new marks, but the variety of other golden trinkets come from multiple different planes, from New Capenna to Ravnica to Amonkhet to Jund. Cute, though.

A Thunder Junction original, and another good example of how Thunder based magical enchantment works- you need a loop to run it through, so their TNT boxes are gonna be full of horse-shoes.

I will note that technically the detonation plunger SHOULDN'T be the actual, like, explosive device, since that ensures whoever is using it fucking dies, but close enough.

This is a native resource of the plane being gathered with a pretty typical bowl, so that's a point for Thunder Junction.

Also the emphasis of the art is on the diamond in the gold! This isn't inaccurate, many gold mines convert to diamond mines over the years.

Hellspur boots are, as you'd expect by this point, native to Thunder Junction. I gotta imagine these hurt to wear right?

A train! While the gigantic motorwheel is hilarious to look at, and the levitated tracks a bit silly, I think this is genuinely a very cool artistic design.

It's explicitly made clear all trains are from either Kaladesh or New Capenna, and this is clearly a Kaladeshi train.

Hah, good pun. I have no reason to assume this beyond maybe some minor artistic things but I choose to believe this is an Atiin made creation. They're nomads, after all.

A living scarecrow that attracts birds and generates mana? This is from Lorwynn/Shadowmoor you can't fool me!

Made of gemeralds found in the very rock itself, this natural golem is, of course, native to Thunder Junction.

There are a couple places this guy could be from. The floating shoulder spikes strike me as hedron esque, the armour evokes New Capenna, but the actual make of this guy... I'm gonna go with Dominaria. Whoever made this is from there, and has those design sensibilities.

Now this one? This one is obvious. You don't get this sort of smooth metalwork on any plane but the Esper region of Alara. There's a good chance that if you cracked this puppy open there would be some dog flesh underneath that has been completed sculpted over in Etherium.

There's a couple places this could be from. My gut was Innistrad, but there's no Innistradi markings- not even the faint sign of a collar. It's also not common for ARTIFACTS to be the walking dead, in Innistrad. With that in mind, and due to the prevelance of the very lovely looking skull, that this is from Ulgrotha.

A completely plane agnostic concept, but with a old west flavor. This is a Thunder Junction original.

This beautiful piece of work is, I feel, pretty clearly from Eldraine. The artistic style on the bandana feels like it could be viking inspired, but by that same token feels appropriately middle-european.

A fey-made bandana for all your sneak-thieving needs!

Sold by Honest Rutstein, so I see no reason not to claim this is from Innistrad.

Hey so as it turns out there aren't many artifacts in this set- that are uncoloured, at any rate. The rest are all throughout the coloured runthroughs, so go look at those if that's what you're most interested in. Lets look at our count;

Atiin Plane 1

Alara 1

Eldraine 1

Innistrad 1

Kaladesh 1

Lorwynn/Shadowmoor 1

Thunder Junction 6

Ulgrotha 1

Not bad, not bad. Next up will be Unique Lands... and then onto the Alchemy cards, the Vault, and the tokens, and we'll finally be done with this. Hope you enjoyed!

[sdyuteiaok]

Another slower start, but I believe we may have a solid concept here if it pans out. Plus I have been scrambling to get some Drafts in after hours for the Dominaria Alchemy limited-time Limited format, and have been 4-3 each night--nothing apart from Slimefoot feels crushingly ridiculous like New Capenna Alchemy, which is a great relief, at least.

[jodeeeart]

Some recent Magic stuff!

Maestros Ascendancy + Elegant Entourage For Magic: The Gathering - Streets of New Capenna AD Cynthia Sheppard

Xander's Wake + Menagerie Curator for Alchemy: New Capenna AD Deborah Garcia

[overgrown-estate]

An Offer You Can't Refuse

With "Streets of New Capenna" preview season a week away, if there isn't a cycle of 'Offers', that's a lost opportunity. There's only one Magic card with the word Offer in the title and that's a recent Alchemy card. There's 18 cards with the word Offering in the title.

Since New Capenna is a set about demonic crime families, then an Offer cycle would make since. Perhaps they be modal (option) cards and/or have a drawback if you refuse to do an action or choose an effect.

This is just me musing, though.

[esportschimp]

MTG Alchemy: New Capenna Premier Draft event extended

MTG Alchemy: New Capenna Premier Draft event extended

the Alchemy: The New Capena The Prime Draft event is included magic sand Extended through June 13 at 10 a.m. CT, Wizards of the Coast said today. Alchemy: The New Capena Released June 2, with 30 new cards. SandOnly digital formats Alchemy, Historical and Historical Fight. For the first time since the Wizards began issuing digital cards, there was a limited event that accompanied Alchemy: The New…

[mtgdays]

Alchemy Spoilers — June 1 | Complete Previews

Alchemy Spoilers — June 1 | Complete Previews

The rest of the New Capenna Alchemy previews. Source: MTG GOLD FISH

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Obscura Polymorphist by Darren Tan

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Herald of Vengeance by Billy Christian

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Graven Archfiend by Duong ct

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Diviner of Fates by Randy Vargas

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Giant Regrowth by Brian Valeza

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Spara's Bodyguard by Ilse Gort

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Traumatic Prank by Brian Valeza

[mtgdays]

Alchemy Spoilers — May 29 | A Lot of Seeking

Alchemy Spoilers — May 29 | A Lot of Seeking

New Alchemy cards for New Capenna are here, including a whole lot of Seeking. Source: MTG GOLD FISH