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Love it or hate it, Alchemy fundamentally expanded Magic’s mechanical lexicon. It proved a digital platform that could just as easily test ideas physically impossible on cardboard as much as it simulated paper play. Drafting the Power Nine from thin air, altering card stats permanently across zones, and directly patching first-player win-rate disparities horrified MTG purists, yet it also gave digital players a hyper-evolving metagame that embraced software's speed.

Though the dedicated queue is sunsetting, Alchemy’s digital footprint will endure across formats like Historic, Timeless, and Brawl. To understand this chaotic era of digital card design, let’s take a peek at some of the cards that defined it. From format-warping value engines to brilliant structural fixes, here are the 10 cards that best encapsulate Magic's Alchemy experiment.

10

Forsaken Crossroads — Alchemy: Innistrad

Image: Wizards of the Coast

Forsaken Crossroads may be the least exciting card on this list to look at, but it’s also one that best explains why Alchemy was willing to experiment with the fundamentals of Magic. The land enters tapped, lets you choose a color, and you scry when it enters; if you're not the starting player, you may untap it immediately. In other words, Forsaken Crossroads is a land specifically designed to address the disadvantage of going second. That's an unusual thing for a Magic card to acknowledge so directly. Instead of pretending that the play/draw imbalance doesn't exist, Alchemy designed a card around it.

Forsaken Crossroads became useful far outside Alchemy, appearing in Historic, Brawl, and other Arena environments. It isn't a card that wins games by itself, of course, but that's exactly why it’s such a good fit for this list. Alchemy wasn't only about making broken cards; sometimes its most interesting ideas were surprisingly subtle.

9

Symmetry Sage — Adventures in the Forgotten Realms

Image: Wizards of the Coast

Marking the first entry on this list that isn't an Alchemy exclusive, Symmetry Sage is inseparable from the format’s approach to rebalancing. Wizards changed the digital version from a 0/2 into a 0/3 and increased the power it could grant to another creature through its Magecraft effect, which buffs a creature to base power 3 whenever you cast or copy an instant or sorcery. The change effectively turned what was already an interesting one-drop into a far more threatening piece for blue aggressive decks.

Symmetry Sage is exactly what makes Alchemy so fascinating. Wizards could effectively create a different version of a card for digital formats without changing the physical version sitting in someone's collection. The card went on to matter most in Historic, particularly alongside cheap wizard creatures that could take advantage of its power-setting ability. It therefore represents another side of Alchemy's legacy — not a card invented for the format, but a demonstration of how digital rebalancing could alter the competitive identity of an existing Magic card.

8

Fragment Reality — Alchemy: Kamigawa

Image: Wizards of the Coast

What happens when you take one of Magic's most powerful effects and give it an appropriately weird Alchemy drawback? Fragment Reality. For a single white mana, the instant can exile a nontoken artifact, creature, or enchantment, but (much like Generous Gift, Path to Exile, and Chaos Warp) the opponent gets a random creature card with lower mana valye from their library. That tradeoff is the entire point. You aren't simply removing a permanent; you're gambling that whatever replaces it will be less threatening than what you just exiled.

Despite that drawback, the efficiency was so extreme that Fragment Reality became relevant well beyond Alchemy itself. Wizards eventually rebalanced the card after a particularly nasty interaction with Leyline options that created a powerful and consistent Historic and Timeless strategy, changing it so that it could only target an opponent's permanent. Few cards better demonstrate how Alchemy was balanced around interactions that could be adjusted digitally after the fact.

7

Fearsome Whelp — Alchemy: Innistrad

Image: Wizards of the Coast

Fearsome Whelp doesn't look particularly terrifying until you consider what its ability does over several turns. At the beginning of your end step, the creature can permanently reduce the cost of dragon spells in your hand. It’s a tired, tried-and-true effect found on a multitude of cards, from Dragonspeaker Shaman to the Ur-Dragon. But if your opponents happen to leave the Whelp alive after several turns, suddenly those dragons you've been collecting all game become dramatically cheaper, as the effect can snowball over the course of play.

The Whelp’s effect is exactly the kind of ability Alchemy was designed to explore, taking the familiar idea of a tribal cost reducer and making its impact permanent through digital mechanics. Wizards even included Fearsome Whelp among the early cards it chose to rebalance, a good indication of how quickly the effect could become problematic. It may not be Alchemy's flashiest creature, but it captures the format's appetite for cards that become much stronger the longer they survive.

6

Inquisitor Captain — Alchemy: Innistrad

Image: Wizards of the Coast

Inquisitor Captain looks harmless on paper, but the right deck can turn it into a four-mana value explosion. Its ability checks for a huge collection of cheap creatures across your graveyard, hand, and library, then uses Seek to find two qualifying creatures, putting one onto the battlefield and the other back into your library. It’s the type of card that rewards you for going all-in on cheap creatures, turning a crowded deck into an instant source of value.

The Captain became a showcase for how Alchemy's digital mechanics could produce interactions that were much harder to predict than those of ordinary Magic cards. Wizards eventually rebalanced it alongside a number of other early Alchemy cards, like Town-Razer Tyrant, Goldspan Dragon, and the aforementioned Fearsome Whelp. Even after those changes, though, the basic idea of building your deck around a density of cheap creatures, then letting a single four-mana creature turn that density into a sudden burst of board presence, is rather fascinating and not something you’ll often find in the traditional version.

5

Oracle of the Alpha — Alchemy: Dominaria

Image: Wizards of the Coast

There are plenty of powerful Alchemy cards, but very few can say they put the Power Nine into your deck like Oracle of the Alpha. When this three-mana blue bird wizard enters the battlefield, it conjures Ancestral Recall, Black Lotus, the five Moxen, Timetwister, and Time Walk ans shuffles them into your library. It’s a bit ridiculous on purpose. The Power Nine are some of the most famous and inaccessible cards in Magic's history, and Alchemy simply decided that, in a digital environment, there was no reason you couldn't occasionally play with them.

Oracle isn't necessarily the most efficient creature on this list, but that's almost beside the point. Its existence captures the freedom of Arena's digital card pool better than almost anything else. It’s a card that obviously could never function normally in sanctioned tabletop Magic, which is precisely why it belongs among Alchemy's most memorable creations.

4

Key to the Archive — Alchemy: Innistrad

Image: Wizards of the Coast

Key to the Archive might be the single best advertisement for Alchemy's spellbook mechanic. At four mana, the artifact is already a useful source of colored land, but its real appeal comes from the curated selection of cards it can offer upon entering the battlefield. Its spellbook includes absurdly powerful options, such as Demonic Tutor, Time Warp, Counterspell, Day of Judgment, and Lightning Bolt.

You don't know exactly what you'll get, which keeps the card from functioning like a traditional tutor, but every activation gives you access to spells that can completely change the texture of a game. Key to the Archive feels less like a traditional artifact and more like Alchemy opening a tiny portal into Magic's enormous back catalog.

3

Town-Razer Tyrant — Alchemy: Innistrad

Image: Wizards of the Coast

Town-Razer Tyrant was one of the earliest Alchemy cards to demonstrate just how far the format could stretch Magic’s traditional design boundaries. The four-mana dragon targets an opponent's nonbasic land upon entering and turns it into a ticking time bomb: sacrifice the land or take damage. That's already a nasty bit of land disruption, but the card became particularly notorious because it could punish multicolor decks that relied heavily on their mana bases.

Wizards ended up rebalancing the aptly named Tyrant more than once, eventually limiting its ability to nonbasic lands and moving the damage trigger from the opponent's upkeep to the end step. Those changes are part of what makes Town-Razer such a good snapshot of early Alchemy. It was a card that demonstrated how digital rebalancing could let Wizards experiment with effects that would be much harder to change once they'd been printed on paper.

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2

Rusko, Clockmaker — Alchemy: The Brothers’ War

Image: Wizards of the Coast

Rusko, Clockmaker is Alchemy distilled into one strange and deeply annoying package. The four-mana 3/3 creature doesn't merely generate value when it enters the battlefield; it conjures a Midnight Clock and keeps turning noncreature spells into additional resources. Every time you cast a noncreature, Rusko's engine rewards you with another Clock trigger while draining your opponent and raising your life total. Such a brutal combination made it remarkably difficult to race or grind out.

More importantly, Rusko demonstrates why digital-only Magic can feel so different from tabletop Magic. The card is built around conjuring and repeatable digital effects that would be awkward, or simply impossible, to execute physically. The Clockmaker eventually became a particularly notorious card in Historic and Brawl, but its roots are firmly set in Alchemy, representing the format's willingness to make an entire engine fit inside one creature.

1

Crucias, Titan of the Waves — Alchemy: The Brothers’ War

Image: Wizards of the Coast

Crucias is probably the easiest card on this list to point to when explaining why Alchemy could get a little out of hand. The four-mana Grixis (black-red) creature didn't need much help to take over a game, combining a solid 3/3 body with a triggered ability that could generate a Treasure while giving its controller an unusually powerful form of card selection.

The important part wasn't simply that Crucias generated value; it let you decide what kind of value you needed at the opportune moment, turning excess cards in hand into exactly the sort of resource your deck was looking for. That made it a nightmare for opponents trying to play a normal midrange game. Wizards eventually stepped in, reducing Crucias from a 3/3 to a 3/1 after black-red midrange decks made it become one of Alchemy's best-performing strategies. %!s()

In a statement shared with Rolling Stone, Kraft said the call was based on the rapper’s “recent actions, material shared from the stage during Ed Sheeran’s shows in New Jersey, and a broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery that we believe has been deeply offensive and hurtful to the Jewish community.” (Along with Macklemore‘s recent statements, Kraft appeared to be alluding to a 2014 incident where Macklemore was accused of dressing up as an antisemitic caricature. The rapper apologized, but insisted he was just trying to disguise himself.)

Adding that Gillette Stadium was committed to “providing a welcoming environment for all guests and ensuring that all events held at our venue do not provide a platform for hate speech,” Kraft said that the venue decided that Macklemore’s participation in Sheeran’s two upcoming shows at Gillette “would cross that line.” (Macklemore has been dropped from not only the Gillette Stadium shows, but the rest of Sheeran’s Loop tour.)

Kraft’s statement was released after Macklemore, in his own comment, alleged that Kraft called Sheeran and told him the rapper “would not be allowed to perform in his stadium.” However, Kraft did not acknowledge Macklemore’s other major claim about the situation: that Kraft also “rallied some of the other stadium owners and collectively they gave [Sheeran] an ultimatum: If Macklemore stays on the tour, you will not be allowed to play in our venues.” (A rep for Kraft did not immediately return a request for comment on that allegation.)

The uproar over Macklemore and his spot on Sheeran’s Loop tour erupted after the rapper joined the trek in early September for two shows at MetLife Stadium outside New York City. At the first gig, Macklemore yelled “Free Palestine”; expressed solidarity with people in Gaza and the occupied West Bank; showed images of the devastation from Israel’s war on Gaza; and performed his protest song, “Hind’s Hall,” about pro-Palestine demonstrators at Columbia University. 

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“A big part of the reason why I wanted to do this tour in the first place is so I could stand up in stadiums like this and say two words that are very near and dear to my heart: ‘Free Palestine,’” Macklemore said onstage. “I said, ‘Free Palestine!’ I want those words to be loud and clear, so that people all the way in Gaza to the occupied West Bank know that we have not forgotten about them.”

In his own statement, Kraft insisted his decision to ban Macklemore from Gillette was “not about diminishing the suffering of innocent Palestinians or denying anyone the right to advocate on their behalf.” He argued, however, that such advocacy “should not come at the expense of the Jewish community or obscure the responsibility of Hamas.”

He continued: “Too many lives have been lost and there has been too much suffering, but only sharing selective information and ignoring the actions of Hamas is not honest and only advances more divisiveness and hate. Over many decades, I have directed resources to Palestine and created athletic and entrepreneurial opportunities for Palestinians who I admire and respect. Standing with the Palestinian people and standing against Hamas, antisemitism and hate should not be mutually exclusive.”

Kraft, who is Jewish, is a strong supporter of Israel and Jewish causes, having donated millions of dollars to them over the years. He’s also spearheaded several efforts to combat antisemitism, which he referred to in his statement, saying he feels “a responsibility to stand up when I believe that line has been crossed.” 

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Macklemore, both onstage and in his own statement, has rebuffed the argument that voicing support for Palestinians and criticizing Israel and its actions in Gaza and the West Bank is antisemitic. “Antisemitism is real,” he wrote after being dropped from Sheeran’s tour. “And that is exactly why the word matters too much to be used as a shield against criticism of the Israeli state. When criticizing Israel, opposing Zionism or saying ‘Free Palestine’ gets conflated with hatred of Jewish people, it doesn’t protect Jewish people. It protects Israel from accountability.” 

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In closing his statement, Kraft expressed his “tremendous respect” for Sheeran and “his unique ability to bring people together and spread joy.” He also said he would “welcome the opportunity to sit down with Macklemore and discuss the facts, because ultimately our goal is the same — peace for all people, an end to suffering, and an end to all hate.”

A rep for Macklemore did not return a request for further comment. %!s()

The announcement came as part of a new strategic partnership between Finland and France, formalised by the countries’ foreign ministers in Helsinki on Monday. Finland becomes the 10th European country to join the French initiative, which comes as Russia is viewed as a growing threat and increasing concern over the commitment of the United States to help protect the continent.

“Finland has decided to join forward deterrence,” according to their joint statement.

Finnish President Alexander ‌‌Stubb wrote on social media that the initiative is “first and foremost about strengthening European security”.

A nuclear steering group will be set up in the coming months to begin implementing the cooperation, the two European Union states announced.

Stubb was careful to state that the initiative does not replace NATO’s nuclear deterrence, insisting that the move had been discussed extensively with the US ⁠⁠and the military alliance.

However, Finland joins Britain, Germany, Poland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Denmark and Norway in signing up for cooperation with France’s nuclear umbrella, as President Donald Trump’s shake-up of NATO has Europe – and especially those states closer to Russia in the east – reassessing their security arrangements.

Estonia is also in discussion with France with an eye on joining the enhanced nuclear deterrence, Prime Minister Kristen Michal told the AFP news agency.

“We are under NATO’s nuclear umbrella already. And France is also backing up our independence with the troops in Estonia. So if the cooperation can be deeper in the nuclear field, that probably will go so,” he said.

Under the initiative, the French president ⁠⁠alone has the authority to decide when nuclear weapons are used, in contrast to NATO, which has a shared Nuclear Planning Group.

However, it offers joint ⁠⁠exercises, the potential short-term deployment of nuclear-capable assets on allied territory and deeper consultation.

Finland does not intend to allow nuclear weapons to be ‌‌stationed ‌‌on its territory in peacetime, Stubb noted.

Finland is among a number of European countries that warn of the growing threat from Russia.

Finnish authorities seized a vessel in December suspected of intentionally severing undersea telecommunications cables amid fears of Russian sabotage in the Gulf of Finland.

The Fitburg was en route from the Russian port of St Petersburg ⁠⁠to Israel at the time of the incident, according to Finnish officials. %!s()

"Anything but blue," we chanted, spamming left-click over Green and Red.

It is, for some reason, understood in Wardogs that Blue team kinda sucks. It seems like a silly claim to make in an FPS where teams are scrambled every match and everyone starts with the same exact resources, but Blue's infamy began during Wardogs' closed betas and has only cemented since launch. If you're a Wardogs player, you immediately knew who this article was about.

"The battle before the battle," reads one top-upvoted post on the Wardogs subreddit, depicting a team select screen with a sparse Blue roster. Another post renames each faction according to difficulty: "Easy" for Green, "Normal" for Red, and "NIGHTMARE MODE" for Blue.

Even the devs are acknowledging Lonestar's bad rap.

"Lonestar actually did it," Bulkhead co-founder Howard Phillpott posted on X today in response to a Lonestar win screen.

To a degree, the Blue team hate is a joke that the community and devs are having fun with. Most aren't taking it super seriously, but some definitely are.

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"They literally are the dumbest people on the planet," wrote one aggrieved Redditor, citing counterproductive behavior on his Lonestar teams, like "using the respawn vehicle to just drive circles in the FOB, not realizing no one can spawn because they keep moving it."

Last night was the first time I actively avoided Blue, which delayed me getting to play by a few minutes. In more extreme cases, an entire match can be delayed by folks dragging their feet with Lonestar.

"The server would boot up, the first 40 or so players would sort into teams, and then the match start would come to a complete halt as people refused to pick Blue," recounted Reddit user PogoMarimo. "These would be 80+ pop servers and they would go 10 minutes without launching because not enough people were willing to pick Blue to get the match to the starting population needed."

"I, of course, was one of those refusing to choose blue, because I had already done Blue duty twice that day and saw awful things happen. I'm not ashamed to admit it."

Anecdotally, I have witnessed some truth to the Lonestar hate. Of the three matches I played last night, the two I played on Blue team were undeniable stomps—the sort of matches where Red and Green have sturdy FOBs and drill towers controlling the hot zone, while it took 45 minutes for our Blue base to construct a complete wall.

My last match of the night was on Red, and the difference was dramatic: Within 15 minutes, a squad of dedicated building specialists had constructed a super FOB with reinforced walls, barbed wire moats, enclosed sniper towers, mortar emplacements, and a maze of doors and alleys meant to deter infiltrators. Green had a similar setup on the other side of the map, while Blue was just sort of… there.

So if there is something about Blue, what is it, exactly?

One popular theory is that Lonestar is the worst team because it has fundamental disadvantages. The blue pants and patches that all members wear allegedly make them easier targets in forested areas. I think there's some truth to this, especially the blue jeans of it all, but none of the factions camouflage particularly well out in the open (an intentional bit of design, I reckon). But perhaps Lonestar has it worse than the others.

The other theory is that Lonestar beginning in the southernmost corner of the map, while Manticore and Valkyra begin in the West and East, sets the Blue faction up for a two-front war. I think this could have some merit—it is notable that the headquarters aren't lined up a perfect 120 degrees around the circumference of the zone, but it's hard to say for sure if this actually translates to a Blue team sandwich with any consistency. This talking point is coming up enough that I expect Bulkhead will chime in someday soon with data that supports or disproves it.

Another, less talked about possibility, is that Blue team's infamy is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Folks have one bad night with Lonestar and decide to believe the reputation, or hear it's the team to avoid, or notice everyone else actively avoiding it, and you end up with a Blue team full of less experienced players. It's a fascinating problem—if it even qualifies as one yet—unique to Wardogs' three-team format. Maybe I should try to buck the trend and go Blue. At least I know there's always a free seat.

Morgan has been writing for PC Gamer since 2018, first as a freelancer and currently as a staff writer. He has also appeared on Polygon, Kotaku, Fanbyte, and PCGamesN. Before freelancing, he spent most of high school and all of college writing at small gaming sites that didn't pay him. He's very happy to have a real job now. Morgan is a beat writer following the latest and greatest shooters and the communities that play them. He also writes general news, reviews, features, the occasional guide, and bad jokes in Slack. Twist his arm, and he'll even write about a boring strategy game. Please don't, though. %!s()

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Phillip Cook. It has been edited for length and clarity.

A physicist or a mathematician might argue with me, but I believe chemistry is the best way to understand how the world works. Once you understand atoms, the underpinnings of the world around us can be explained.

Over the past 26 years, I've aimed to demonstrate this for my students through experiments. One of my favorites involves dissolving an aluminum soda can with sodium hydroxide, more commonly known as lye. Once the can dissolves, students can see the invisible plastic liner inside, which holds the soda.

I've been doing these experiments for decades. In 2019, when a student told me I should film them, I didn't realize that decision would change my life.

The TikTok was a student's idea

It happened at the beginning of the school year, a time when I do a lot of demonstrations to get my students curious about chemistry. That particular day, we were putting a gummy bear in potassium chlorate, which produces a violent reaction.

My student said, "You should put that on TikTok." I asked her what TikTok was. After she explained, I trusted her with my phone, and she set up my account. Then, she filmed the experiment so I could focus on conducting it safely.

Once the demonstration was complete, the class picked music to overlay on the video, and my student posted it. I didn't think twice as I went home for the weekend. I was just humoring my pupils.

Pressure to create became unhealthy for a bit

Monday morning, kids were asking if I'd seen TikTok. I opened it, and felt a punch to my gut. The video had about 75,000 views, and I had 5,500 new followers. Until then, I thought I'd been doing well on social media with my Twitter account, talking with 200 fellow teachers.

I was struck by how many people were genuinely curious about chemistry. I decided I'd keep making videos, but I soon discovered it wasn't as easy for me as my student had made it look. My videos take time and planning. Because of the nature of the demonstrations, I can't film in bulk as some creators do.

As my following grew, I felt pressure to constantly be making content. It became unhealthy. Yet, I knew my day job teaching was my first priority, followed by my family. These days I'm good about keeping a healthy balance of teaching, social media, and downtime.

I show students it's OK to make mistakes

My followers on TikTok are pretty diverse. They're evenly split between males and females, and I have a pretty wide age range. What they all share is curiosity. I've built a following by tapping into things that people are naturally curious about.

I always engage with commenters who ask quality questions. If you're going to ask a question, you deserve an answer — or at least an acknowledgment.

I'm candid about what I don't know. I want to model that for my audience. Over the past few years, my students in the classroom have become increasingly anxious and afraid of making mistakes. But that's the beautiful thing about science—we learn through making mistakes.

I'm glad I can build scientific literacy

I'm also a dad — my kids are 20 and 24 — and I've seen how easy it is for kids to spend too much time online. I've talked with my daughter about that, and I put boundaries around social media use when she was a teen, including taking the phone at night. At the time, she wasn't happy about it, but there was no way around that. Luckily, my kids and I are both pretty good about keeping boundaries with social media now.

I feel so lucky to have been embraced by this online community. It's easy to go down rabbit holes on the internet, and I'm happy to help nudge people down the rabbit hole of scientific literacy and exploration.

Too many people didn't have a positive experience with science in school. I'm helping them be curious again. If they can chase that feeling—and maybe learn at least one little nugget they didn't know before—I've done my job.

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Kelly Burch

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Kelly Burch has been writing about personal finance for more than a decade.She's particularly interested in how finances impact the most intimate parts of a person’s life, from educational and reproductive choices to love, immigration, or estate planning. Kelly has written about these topics personally and explored them with experts, including entrepreneurs, multi-millionaires, financial planners, and more.Kelly is a first-generation college graduate and homeowner who integrates her personal experience creating financial stability into her reporting. She’s a career journalist, with work appearing in “The Washington Post,” “The Chicago Tribune,” “Boston Magazine” and more.Kelly lives in rural New Hampshire with her husband, two children, and two dogs. When she’s not behind her desk, she can be found getting lost in the mountains and lakes around her home.Follow her on Facebook or Twitter, or learn more here.   

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