As we’ve covered repeatedly, March of the Machine has some seriously powerful cards. Whether you’re after an awesome new commander, format warping bomb, or insane MTG combo deck, March of the Machine has it all! As if all that wasn’t enough already, March of the Machine is even making some of MTG’s worst cards viable!
Since being announced in December 2021, the new digital-exclusive Alchemy format was quickly despised by many MTG players. This has led to the burgeoning format and its cards being deemed the worst in all of Magic: the Gathering. Despite these complaints, many Alchemy cards are actually rather good, problematically so in quite a few cases.
A Rather Long Spellchain
Thanks to the format’s digital possibilities, there is no shortage of interesting, powerful, and unique Alchemy cards to play with. Some of these, such as Rusko, Clockmaker and Crucias, Titan of the Waves, are brutally powerful all on their own. Other Alchemy MTG cards such as Racketeer Boss have, or rather had, plenty of combo potential.
While Racketeer Boss was ultimately nerfed to stop the card from creating infinite combos, it’s hardly the only Alchemy card with combo potential. In fact, one Alchemy card can create an infinite loop all on its own. Introduced in Alchemy: Dominaria Spellchain Scatter allows you to duplicate the next spell you cast. Putting that copy into your hand until the end of turn unless it was kicked, Spellchain Scatter loops with itself.
While having two Spellchain Scatters in your hand sets you up to cast infinite spells, doing this isn’t exactly free. As, while cheap, each of these spells does cost one mana to cast. Thankfully, to mitigate this cost, players could use cards such as Birgi, God of Storytelling. Adding one red mana for each spell played, Brigi properly enabled this combo, allowing players to cast infinite spells.
Once this infinite spell combo was up and running, only one step remained: actually winning the game. As, while you’re free to cast this loop as much as you like, without another combo piece, it doesn’t really do anything. Thankfully for players trying to make this combo work, there are plenty of MTG cards that synergize with spells being cast. Guttersnipe, for instance, offers two damage for each spell cast. Alternatively, Adeliz, the Cinder Wind lets you buff your board before swinging in for lethal.
Urabrask’s up to No Good
Requiring at least four MTG cards to do anything, it’s safe to say this combo is somewhat janky. After all, any of these combo pieces could be effectively countered and removed fairly easily. Thankfully, thanks to March of the Machine, this combo has become much more consistent in Historic. As if that wasn’t good enough, this combo is even now viable in Alchemy, for the few people playing that.
This newfound strength is thanks to the new Urabrask card in March of the Machine. Offering red mana for every spell cast, alongside one damage to any target, Urabreask does it all. Cutting down the number of required cards from four to three, this combo is suddenly a lot more viable.
Despite being more consistent thanks to just being a three-card combo, it’s certainly not unbeatable. Requiring five mana for everything on one turn, this combo is hardly the fastest. That being said, however, even in Alchemy, a well-timed Reckless Barbarian can facilitate a turn-three win. Alternatively, in Historic, Strike It Rich or Magda, Brazen Outlaw can at least speed things up by a turn.
While it’s now back up to a four-card combo, a turn-three potential kill is still rather exciting. Getting it to activate consistently, however, is still easier said than done. After all, you do request two copies of Spellchain Scatter for this combo to work. That is unless you want to add the graveyard into the mix.
Thanks to cards such as Dreadhorde Arcanist or Chandra, Acolyte of Flame, this combo can use just one Spellchain Scatter. Casting it for the second time from the graveyard, these cards make the combo somewhat more reliable.
The Alchemy Dilemma
As enticing as this somewhat janky combo may be, you might want to hold off on spending all your wildcards. After all, this combo is only in Alchemy and Historic. As digital formats, the cards in these formats are able to be nerfed or buffed without warning. Should this happen, you won’t receive any reimbursement for the wildcards you spent on your deck. If you have to build an entire deck from scratch, this could be quite the blow to your wildcard wallet.
For better or worse, there’s no guarantee that Wizards of the Coast will crack down on this specific combo. It hardly seems to be a surefire strategy, after all. That being said, however, Wizards does have a history of nerfing, or even banning problematic combos. This happened to the meta-dominating Grinning Ignus combo which was a little too un-fun to play against.
Should the Spellchain Scatter combo become too prevalent, it’s possible the same thing may happen once again. Whether or not it does, however, remains to be seen. Even if it does get banned, it’s unclear if people will even care. After all, Alchemy cards are far from popular in the eyes of many players, with the same being true of the format.
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