The last of many spoiler seasons, at least for a little while, is finally nearing an end. Edge of Eternities has been out for some time now, but some cards from the full release are still getting spoiled. Alchemy: Edge of Eternities is set to release next week, but until then, we’re still seeing new cards every day.
Some of the recent Alchemy spoilers are powerful enough to make an entire color more playable across digital formats. These cards won’t be able to do that, but there are certainly some interesting applications for them.
Network Marauder
Network Marauder is a great payoff for Affinity decks, especially when coupled with the new Warp mechanic from Edge of Eternities. Perpetually increasing the power of all artifact creatures you own can create disturbingly aggressive boards, especially when paired with Pinnacle Emissary. This will not only buff all the tokens it makes, but Emissary can trigger Network Marauder itself for just one mana.
It might not be able to see play in Alchemy due to a lack of artifact creature-style support, but Network Marauder could make an impact on Historic. Many Modern Horizons cards, like Kappa Cannoneer and Thought Monitor mean that there are strong payoffs worth working towards that synergize with Network Marauder. Smaller creatures, like Esper Sentinel, synergize incredibly well with Network Marauder.
Affinity, in fact, is one of the biggest presences in the Historic metagame at the moment. There isn’t a particular direction that the deck is going in, but a majority of the decks are either Dimir or Izzet in nature and are relatively creature-based. Frankly, these decks might be too strong to include Network Marauder, but there could be some room for consideration.
Alchemy, in comparison, has more support for a Simulacrum Synthesizer deck. This could do work with Network Marauder since Synthesizer will trigger from its entry, but the perpetual effect will likely be a lot less relevant. I personally expect that, if Historic were to be optimized for a Qualifier weekend, Affinity would drop off, but current results suggest that the archetype is rather popular, which means that Network Marauder might see some experimentation.
Mutable Pupa
Mutable Pupa doesn’t start out as much, but this creature can grow quickly. Getting bigger each time you play a bigger creature, and taking on any keywords that those creatures have, Pupa can quickly scale to become a problematic threat. Of all the Alchemy decks that currently see play, Mutable Pupa likely fits quite well in Selesnya Convoke strategies, if those are still playable post-rotation.
In Convoke, Pupa doubles as both a scalable threat and a way to cheat in your larger creatures. As long as some of your other threats have some keywords on entry, Mutable Pupa will easily scale incredibly fast. This strategy also circumvents Mutable Pupa’s biggest weakness: it’s a very bad topdeck in the mid-late game. Even if drawn late, you can still play the Pupa and use it to Convoke into a bigger threat.
In that vein, Mutable Pupa could also benefit from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Waterbending works similarly to Convoke, and can also allow Pupa to create value at different points in the game. All of that said, unlike some of the other Alchemy cards seen during this quick spoiler season, Mutable Pupa basically has no chance of seeing play past Alchemy and Brawl. Big bodies aren’t that impactful in Historic and beyond.
In Brawl, Pupa can synergize extremely well with Commanders that have a lot of keywords. Yuna, Hope of Spira might be an oddly good deck for it. Since enchantment creatures will enter with Lifelink and Trample thanks to Yuna, the Pupa will also be able to gain those qualities. The card could also synergize well with Green Brawl Commanders that care about +1/+1 counters. Many cards in those decks should naturally have Trample, and Mutable Pupa will gain counters to use through its Evolve ability.
Notably, any keywords that the Pupa gains will stick with it as it passes through zones, so reanimating the Pupa could lead to some interesting situations. Even then, however, this Pupa will start out again as a 1/1, meaning that the effort is unlikely to be worth it.
Mutable Pupa and Network Marauder won’t be a card that threatens to change any formats as we know them, but could be a fun addition to a pet deck within one of MTG Arena’s many digital formats.