Welcome to this week’s guide to Midweek Magic! In case this is your first time, Midweek Magic is a weekly event on Magic Arena which is always free to play, features a recently updated format (usually), and gives a few free prizes in the form of two rare card rewards and a random cosmetic reward for your first three wins.
But, you can keep playing as much as you like which makes it a great way to test out some new decks you might not be used to, figure out what cards you might be interested in crafting with wildcards, and racking up some quick wins on your journey to 15 daily/weekly marks. It’s also a great way to close out your daily quests without having to risk your position in the ladder rankings.
This week’s event brings us the newest Alchemy format with the release of The Brothers’ War Alchemy. Below we’ll highlight all four deck options and let you know which one may be right for you. They’re presented in the same order as they’re available to be viewed in-game, not in any kind of ranked order. But, if you have to know, our favorite deck is Reforged Monsters but the best deck is probably Powerstones Aplenty. Cityscape Leveler is just bananas.
Powerstones Aplenty (UR)
This is a pretty straightforward tempo deck built around Yotian Courier and other Powerstone-creating effects to ramp up to The Mightstone and Weakstone, Warzone Duplicator, and Cityscape Leveler. Thran Spider and Urza’s Command help you get there along the way.
If you love ramping up into Kaiju/Gundam-style artifact creatures this is the deck for you!
Rank and File (WU)
This Soldiers deck isn’t too far off from what you might find in the Standard queues. Valiant Veteran, Harbin, Vanguard Aviator, and Skystrike Officer join Alchemy offerings By Elspeth’s Command and Patchplate Resolute to build a very aggressive clock.
If your style is to build a wide army of small creatures and then aggressively pump them up and swarm your opponent, this is the deck for you!
Reforged Monsters (BRG)
This is the mid-range/reanimator deck of the bunch. From Standard it features some heavy hitters including Liliana of the Veil and Titan of Industry plus Olivia, Crimson Bride to reanimate creatures. Alchemy’s variant on Circle of the Land Druid helps fill your graveyard with the goods. Mishra’s Command and Gix’s Command keep your opponent in check until you can get your monsters back onto the battlefield.
If you enjoy keeping the board clear until you reanimate your monsters then this deck is for you!
Tick, Tock (UB)
Last but not least is the control deck of the bunch. A combination of draw spells and removal spells including Consider, Cut Down, Go for the Throat, and Path of Peril join several powerful Alchemy cards including Piece it Together, Bind to Secrecy, and your win condition: Rusko, Clockmaker.
If playing a permission deck that wins with an inevitable (and literal) ticking clock is your style then this deck is for you!
That’s all for this week. Good luck exploring Alchemy and make sure you come back next week when Midweek Magic will feature Explorer which was just infused with Explorer Anthology 2. See you then!
Rich Stein (he/him) has been playing Magic since 1995 when he and his brother opened their first packs of Ice Age and thought Jester’s Cap was the coolest thing ever. Since then his greatest accomplishments in Magic have been the one time he beat Darwin Kastle at a Time Spiral sealed Grand Prix and the time Jon Finkel blocked him on Twitter.