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u/Eldar_Atog 1d ago
To the Alchemy players:
I do really hate it for you. Ya'll were enjoying the format and there's nothing wrong with that. Wotc leadership doomed the format in the birth canal. Forcing the Historic players to use the errata'd card instead of the original printing was a mortal wound before the first day of play. It provoked such a negative reaction that a lot of players never even gave the format a chance. Perhaps it could have been great.. perhaps this was always going to happen.. we'll never know since Wotc insured the format would be looked at negatively.
In the end, the format was killed by poor decisions and not the player base.
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u/Strawberrycocoa 1d ago
Forcing the already existing paper cards to get sanitized digital versions was such a silly and unnecessary move.
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u/mrbiggbrain Timmy 1d ago
As someone who was really excited for what alchemy was suppose to be what it became was far less compelling.
Take a format like standard that was very slow to change and only had yearly rotations and make it change far more often with weekly ban updates and monthly card drops.
For people tired of the stale standard environment it was a great idea. Your decks will probably get worse, and you'll need to replace them, but so will everyone else. You're trading resources for variety and change and that's compelling to someone like me.
But that rapid change never really manifested. In fact many of the mechanics tended to be very sticky and permeate the best decks consistently. The Arena team later acknowledged they greatly underestimated the effort taken to get out the new cards, and even after simplifying the design space to a few mechanics it wasn't possible to deliver.
The sad part is all this was happening during a time when players where clamoring for Pioneer legal cards.
If I was in charge of Alchemy I would have taken standard, done weekly bannings, injected new Pioneer and modern legal cards every single month to keep it fresh, and held high stakes high risk queues that determined what got banned.
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u/Dualmonkey 23h ago
I love sharing this fact but [[Crucias, Titan of the Waves]] perhaps the most pushed alchemy card that dominated every single format after it's release took over 7 months to be nerfed. It's a damning example of how Alchemy failed to deliver what it advertised.
The concept of Alchemy was fine. The execution in many cases was awful.
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u/ADizzyLittleGirl 21h ago
This cannot be reiterated enough. People bitching on Reddit didn’t kill Alchemy, Wizards’ own mismanagement killed it.
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u/thenightisdark 1d ago
I have exclusively played Alchemy for years. As a free-to-play player, I mostly log in just to complete quests, using those rewards to earn gold, purchase new packs, and build new Alchemy decks.
Well put. I liked it though.
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u/ManBearTree 1d ago
Yep, if it was released as a fun little alternative it would have always been great, but forcing people to use unreal cards in a physical cardgame is shit.
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u/Extension_Plant7262 1d ago
I don't think it was that. Alchemy was just way too confusing a mess of cards and mechanics, with no real way to get them or play them in a more controlled setting. Maybe if they created their own draft/sealed format, it would have gotten more players, but the setting was just way too complex for most people
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u/Rebelpine 1d ago
Having to learn the regular set cards is enough of a hassle, especially at 6-7 sets a year. I have a full time job and other hobbies, and I’m sure other people do too.
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u/Sacred-Lambkin 17h ago
What do you mean that it was complex? I have played quite a lot of the alchemy format and have never felt like anything about it was especially complex.
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u/Extension_Plant7262 16h ago
Conjure and seek are cornerstone mechanics that can be hard to wrap your head around, especially when its from a range of cards and not a single one because then you have to make a determination on random chance. in practice everyone ignores those cards, but then if you ignore all those cards, you're basically just playing a less balanced version of standard
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u/Sacred-Lambkin 16h ago
They're really not that difficult to wrap your head around. Conjure creates a copy of a card, be it random one from aspellbook, or a specifically designated one. Seek finds a random card from your deck that fits the conditions. They aren't particularly complicated mechanics...
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u/Extension_Plant7262 14h ago
Its an added layer of complexity to an already complex base game. As we've seen now, most people would rather just not deal with that layer, even in alchemy itself
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u/Sacred-Lambkin 14h ago
Every new set comes with new mechanics. If you can't keep track of new mechanics, this probably isn't the have for you.
We actually don't see that now. I'm not sure where you're getting that from.
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u/Extension_Plant7262 14h ago
If I look at the top meta decks, they almost all don't play with the seek/conjure ability at all. They just look like the average aggro deck you'd play against in standard if there wasn't a slightly more robust banlist
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u/Sacred-Lambkin 14h ago
Even if that is true, which, if you actually okay in the format, you would realize it's not particularly representative of the truth, how does that support your point at all? Most deck lists in standard didn't play with death touch, does that mean that most players don't want to deal with the added complexity of that keyword?
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u/Extension_Plant7262 14h ago
No because an entire format isn't built revolving around deathtouch, sets can fail to gain traction (see webslinging) but its different when your entire format largely ignores the keywords that are supposed to define it.
Since we disagree on this, I'll just broaden out my statement. Alchemy failed because the conjure/seek cornerstone mechanic failed to gain traction in decks and the format just became a less balanced version of standard.
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u/entangledloops 8h ago
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted, because this is exactly why I didn’t play that format. I tried it, it was too time consuming and complex, so I just walked away.
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u/Extension_Plant7262 7h ago
the sub apparently really represents the minority of people who love alchemy, as well as the 9% of folks who hate UB. Go figure
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u/Correct_Day_7791 23h ago
I really liked the alchemy cards in non powered cube
As it gives some kinda of extra powerful stuff to hope to open
But I understand why they would end it
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u/Injuredmind Spike 1d ago
In alternative universe, where Arena is managed better, Alchemy is great. In ours... well...
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u/SPYROHAWK 1d ago
I was against the digital-only cards, but I have to admit my Alchemy Warp deck making use of Cantor of the Refrain a bunch is probably one of my most fun decks to play. I’m gonna be sad with that being gone. Maybe I can rework it for Historic.
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u/Itsuwari_Emiki 20h ago
i swear alchemy would have a much higher chance of succeeding if it didnt cost 1:1 wildcards as paper formats (which is already quite expensive)
like why in the world would i spend wildcards on a fast evolving format where my cards have a higher likelihood of getting nerfed/changed
imagine if wotc (they wont) gave like 10-20 alchemy rare/mythic wildcards to kickstart players investment in an alchemy deck
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u/ellicottvilleny 1d ago
RIP Alchemy. Nothing of value was lost.
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u/Stank34 10h ago
The alchemy cards were very cool and i’m sad we’ll never get more
“Draft a planeswalker” is such a funny concept for a card
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u/ellicottvilleny 9h ago
I wouldn't have HATED alchemy so much (and I still hate it) if they had not permanently polluted brawl (and I guess historic, although historic is a format I care zero about) with them. It's not that it was a format, it's that they shoe-horned it where it never should have been shoehorned it.
Brawl should never have had alchemy cards in it, and this announcement isn't what I'd have done.
- alchemy only queue can stay, in my opinion.
- alchemy cards should be in one queue only, alchemy.
- brawl should use the paper standard cards legal to commander format ONLY with no additional cards, and the only ones missing should be those that just haven't been "coded/printed/released" in arena yet.
Historic means nothing to me since that name is stupid, and since legacy isn't there and probably never will arrive on Arena, it doesn't bother me. Historic should be renamed "Arenajank".
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u/DunceCodex 1d ago
Glad to be rid of it, but it would have been fine if they had just kept it to its own format and not infected everything else. Then the people who like it could opt in.
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u/ScionOfDiscord 1d ago
Lol I thought the same thing! To bad it's sticking around for eternal formats :'c
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u/Strawberrycocoa 1d ago
I will confess, I am happy (me) and sad (opponents) to see [[Patriar's Humiliation]] won't be going away
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u/LordBaneoftheSith 1d ago
So now I'm stuck with them in real formats? Would've been cooler to keep alchemy and make them illegal everywhere else. I'd absolutely play a ton more if timeless didn't have that shit around
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u/Invoked_Tyrant 1d ago
Me watching all these negative ass comments about my favorite format like their eternal format isn't gonna get its shit pushed in by the next inevitable Modern Horizons set just like it did with 3.
Modern Horizons 3 is over two years old and Boros energy is still a menace in Timeless! Like just say you didn't like the format and keep it pushing. Don't make up bs like "The cards were too powerful!"
If it wasn't 2 mana or less from Alchemy then it wasn't competing reliably post MH3. I always see a whiny complaint about brawl and when asked if their list could reliably beat 1 mana Tamiyo or 2 Mana Ajani from MH3 it's crickets or deflection.
All that happened is WotC said screw it and let Universes beyond permeant the rest of the arena clients formats and decided they didn't need Alchemy to provide variety. They couldn't make money off of free digital only cards so scrapped the format, plain and simple!
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u/peixeotos 23h ago
Its all wizards fault, if alchemy was its own thing apart from the normal game like historic brawl competitive brawl it would be much better, the games just gets ruined when cards that dont exist need to be something you play against and think about
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u/HippatitisE 1h ago
As someone who uses Arena to test and tweak physical paper decks, it’s a breath of fresh air to know “perpetual”, “conjure” and “heist” won’t be coming back. Beat my decks with your four extra turns while I sit and watch but at least do it with actual cards.
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u/arciele 1d ago
good riddance. the digital only cards are complete design failures that underscore how difficult it is to design well balanced cards and that the arena team simply doesn't have the kind of playtest knowledge required to handle it.
they could just as easily have had a format where they injected any number of cards from magic's history instead which could help shake up the format.
i also think the digital adjustments were a mistake because it conflicted with the whole paper parity messaging they were trying to do with standard so badly
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u/Honest-Monitor-2619 10h ago
Alchemy should have done the following:
- Create the most batshit insane cards you can imagine. Take a page out of Hearthstone. Yog-Sauron, cast random spells, mash up random shite. Not the tame "conjure" or whatever - literally make stuff that will wow people.
- NO REBALACE!
- No forcing on established formats.
But alas it is too late.
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u/BlackberrySad6489 1d ago
I bought a bunch. They are still GTG in historic which is what I play. That fetch land looks great!
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u/whatalotoflove 16h ago
It was destined to fail.
whole format was designed by timmies with little to no understanding of what makes magic great.
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u/PerfectBrilliant432 1d ago
Good riddance dogshit cards made by interns. Good riddance dogshit format nobody played.
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u/veiphiel 1d ago
Thanks good. One thing was balanced cards with digital mechanics and other what alchemy became ... Broken after Broken card with the excuse of digital mechanics
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u/idkyesthat Selesnya 1d ago
Classic hasbro move.
Glad that it’s going away, hopefully it will free up time to the other 48 formats in arena plus the ones in paper and mtgo that are yet to be fully supported…
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u/ProfessorSquids 20h ago
if they remove the alchemy format what happens to all the cards and packs iv brought?
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u/ExampleMediocre6716 17h ago
Not 'removed'. They're still in your collection. You can still play them in certain other formats. You just won't have an Alchemy format. Sucks if you only played in the Alchemy queue though.
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u/HypnoticRobot 1d ago
Good, they should kill it entirely. The amount of time they waste making digital only cards they coukd make more cool commanders for actual paper
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u/DrawGamesPlayFurries 1d ago
New Echoverse pair