Consuming Oni is massive.
A four-mana 6/6 with flying and menace, Consuming Oni is reminiscent of cards like Desecration Demon and Grinning Demon, where you get a huge creature at the price of a few small drawbacks. Consuming Oni’s drawback is that during your end step, a random card in your hand perpetually gains “When you cast this spell, you lose 3 life.” While 3 life is a lot, especially when it’s a recurring effect, you don’t have to cast those spells. Plus, if Consuming Oni is left alive, chances are you’ll have your opponent on a much faster clock.
Forgeborn Phoenix follows the normal Magic recipe for Phoenix creatures – a three-mana 2/2 with flying – however this one can also be reconfigured. Additionally, whenever it or the equipped creature dies, it perpetually gains the ability to return from the graveyard to the battlefield whenever an equipped creature you control deals combat damage to a player or planeswalker. Since both its casting cost and reconfigure cost are relatively low, recurring this threat shouldn’t be too hard.
Another artifact creature, Inchblade Companion can reconfigure for two mana and create a copy of itself each time it becomes attached to a creature. Of course, the copy doesn’t have this ability, so it won’t stack up like Scute Swarm, but you can re-equip multiple times to create more tokens.
A three-mana 2/2 with double strike, Imperial Blademaster rewards you for attacking with lone Samurai or Warrior creatures. Whenever you initiate this action, you’ll get to draft one of 15 cards from Imperial Blademaster’s spellbook. You can view those cards below.
One of the stranger artifact creatures we’ve seen so far, Semblance Scanner is a three-mana 3/1 that can be reconfigured for one mana. Whenever it or a non-token creature it’s equipped to deals combat damage to a player, you conjure a duplicate of it into your hand. At just one toughness, the stat-line is underwhelming, but if you’re able to connect with it, conjuring a replacement for it or another creature is some serious value.
I don’t think we’ve ever seen a card quite like Molten Impact. The first part of the card acts like a normal removal spell, dealing four damage for two mana. The second part however, keeps track of the amount of excess damage that was dealt to the original target creature or planeswalker, and then applies that excess damage to another target creature or planeswalker the next time you cast a spell, even across turns. Molten Impact seems really powerful, especially against aggressive decks with plenty of cheap creatures with one or two toughness.
Jukai Liberator is a strong midrange creature that can surprise your opponents. While a 3/3 for three mana is an average stat-line, ninjutsu makes it cheaper to cast, and being able to seek a land or nonland permanent each time it deals combat damage to a player is seriously powerful.
Another interesting creature sporting ninjutsu, Swarm Saboteur conjures a Virus Beetle into your hand each time it deals combat damage to a player. As a two mana 2/1 with deathtouch, opponents will have a tough time deciding whether they want to lose a creature blocking it or risk losing cards from their hand.
Shrines get some love! Not only does Chronicler of Worship tap for mana of any color, but when it enters the battlefield, you dig seven cards deep into your library and put a random Shrine card from among them into your hand. That Shrine also perpetually has its casting cost reduced by one. Could this be the card Shrine decks have been looking for?
Holographic Double makes use of the conjure mechanic – allowing you to pay U and exile it from your hand in order to conjure a copy of any other creature in your hand. While not blatantly powerful, being able to conjure an extra copy of your most impactful creatures at will is nothing to sneeze at.
So what do you think of these previews? Are you excited for the next step in Alchemy’s evolution? Let us know in the comments.
Alchemy: Kamigawa is scheduled to release on MTG Arena on March 17.