Suddenly, an all-creature deck starts to look
viable. You can now drop creatures, Auras of all
kinds, artifacts, and even planeswalkers at
instant speed... if you pay an extra three mana
per turn for the privilege to do so. Momir Vig
Commander decks will love this, as will any deck
that runs Sages of the Anima, but it's no
substitute for a well-timed combat trick. As
much as I love Simic-style decks, I just don't
see this making much of a splash. It reminds me
too much of Novijen, Heart of Progress, which
also wanted you to pay an additional "GU, T" for
your spells and was best when you had multiple
creature cards in hand and the ability to drop
all of them in a turn. That never worked because
nobody wanted to pay that much extra, and I see
this card having a similar fate.
Fun fact: Alchemist's Refuge is a near-reprint
of Winding Canyons from Weatherlight, and I'm
very surprised it's taken so long to get such a
reprint. Being able to play during your
opponent's turn is a very strong advantage,
since a lot of decks can't reciprocate. Plus,
since Wizards of the Coast still doesn't seem to
have observed what the right cost range for
universal (soft or otherwise) counterspells is,
you can easily splash one of the two colors in a
deck that's partly the other and post your
decklist all over every format until they
do finally take notice. Plus, flashing a
Kederekt Leviathan onto the field is pretty
hilarious.
Welcome back readers today’s card of the day is
Alchemists Refuge an interesting land granting
all your non land cards flash. In standard I can
see this card as maybe a one of or two of in
land bases for decks required the right color it
helps do decent combat tricks at instant speed
but also allows you to try and play around
countermagic but with Cavern of Souls I don’t
know how relevant that is making this a fringe
card in standard. In extended and eternal you
can flash in even more powerful things but I
don’t see this card making much of an impact it
requires tapping three lands for marginal
benefit and decks in these formats just have
time for that. In legacy and vintage the same
concept applies this card doesn’t do enough and
slows down the game for the person playing it
putting them behind. In casual and multiplayer
this card is an EDH all-star and also helps
players do insane things such as flashing
planeswalkers in at instant speed. In limited
its expensive and requires a blue/green deck
making it not much of a pick. Overall a card
best suited to casual and multiplayer play and
provides an interesting and cool effect.
Today's card of the day is Alchemist's Refuge
which is a land that can tap for one mana or for
a Blue and Green mana allows you to play
non-land spells as if they had Flash until end
of turn. This is likely going to see quite
a bit of play in the future as Green/Blue cards
return to Standard. The additional two
mana to play various non-instant cards outside
of your turn is a cost that can easily be
managed with Green's acceleration and Blue's
control. The threat of nearly anything
appearing during an opponent's turn,
particularly during combat, is a major
psychological weapon even if the effect isn't
triggered.
For Limited this is a bit of incentive to try
forcing a Blue and Green deck, but isn't strong
enough by itself to do so unless the pool itself
encourages it. As a rare this is not
something you really want to see in Sealed where
the odds of Blue/Green being a playable build is
unlikely. For Booster this could be made
to work, but it isn't the best color pairing and
is a pretty weak first pick. Casting
spells at instant speed may be useful as a
combat trick and having the flexibility to wait
until the end of your opponent's turn to play a
spell, it just seems too situational to dedicate
a card or entire build around.
Welcome to the card of the day section
here at Pojo.com! Today we are looking at
Alchemist’s Refuge from Avacyn Restored.
Alchemist’s Refuge is a rare land that taps to
add generic mana. It also has the ability of pay
a green and a blue mana, tap it: You may cast
nonland cards this turn as though they had
flash.
Rare lands are always nice. They usually
come with some form of ability that makes them
insane. While Alchemist’s Refuge certainly meets
the criteria, it falls well short of the best
rare land from Avacyn Restored. However, while
it is no Cavern of Souls, it does do something
really amazing, granting flash to your nonland
spells. It is always nice to be able to drop in
a surprise blocker, or launch a sorcery on your
opponent’s turn. The drawback is that it costs
mana to spend mana. And sometimes it is not
worth it to spend the extra two mana.
