The 10 best alchemy cards in Magic: The Gathering, ranked

Magic: The Gathering’s Alchemy format, launched on Arena in 2021, is due to retire in early 2027. A ranking of ten notable cards from the experiment highlights how digital-only mechanics and online rebalancing let designers change the game in ways that physical cards cannot.

The examples include Forsaken Crossroads, a land that can untap when its controller goes second, and Symmetry Sage, whose digital version was strengthened for Arena play. Fragment Reality offers efficient removal with a random replacement for the opponent, illustrating Alchemy’s appetite for unusual trade-offs. Although its dedicated queue is ending, Alchemy’s cards and ideas will remain in Arena formats including Historic, Timeless and Brawl.