(Mischievous Meeps | Art by Rio Sabda)

Welcome back to The Alchemist’s Coffer. While we’re boosting into Bright Lights and the odder brews are still being worked on, why not have a look at some more… traditional potions and trinkets from a while back? Just keep an eye out for Mischievous Meeps.

Chugging Potions

Delving into potions from Everfest and Welcome to Rathe, there are plenty that see play and some still tucked away. Potion of Luck has its home in Valda and any other Guardian using Earthlore Bounty to make Seismic Surges. Additionally, any other odd deck that may want a mulligan will benefit from the brew.

For a few more interesting gimmicks, Potion of Seeing with Chains of Eminence and Censor could potentially make for a few blowout turns. Potion of Strength is strength pot; it’s not always used but can help squeak out damage when staring down decks more inclined to block. While I think Potion of Déjà Vu was a mistake because Kano gets way too much use out of it, outside of Kano it can make for a very interesting patterns of play. For example, you can pitch a card to play next turn or stack a powerful arrow on top of the deck for Azalea to give it dominate.

Energy Potion is a handy option that lets a lot of decks produce a slightly stronger turn with fewer cards from hand, and Clarity Potion helps you set up rabbles, arrows, or other things that rely on the top of the deck. Draws off of Sink Below or Crown of Providence can be helped by the extra opt as well. Potion of Ironhide seems a bit odd for a deck that wants to block but letting a three block for four is very handy for conventional breakpoints. Healing Potion? Just don’t. In all seriousness it’s very hard to find a reason to play Healing Potion over cards such as Sigil of Solace or Healing Balm. Timesnap Potion is good for dealing with Illusionst without giving up your boots for time skippers or letting a deck without copious amounts of go again do an extra thing in their turn.

Triggering Talismans

Now that we’ve gone over the potion racks, it’s time to look into the more unusual trinkets, starting with Talismans. Talisman of Balance, like with the rest of the Talismans, has innate go again, allowing them to be played without immediately ending your turn. Starting with balance, this allows you to refill your arsenal if your opponent has an arsenal, giving you a little means of recouping some gas after an offensive turn as long as they didn’t use their arsenal. Talisman of Cremation is a little more niche than balance, allowing you to banish all copies of a card from your opponent’s graveyard, so long as you played a card from banish.  Shadow heroes benefit the most from this Talisman more than any other hero might.

Talisman of Dousing is an interesting item, as long as you don’t mind putting a card that doesn’t block in your inventory, it provides Spellvoid 1 while on the field so that you can absorb a little more arcane damage from decks that enjoy handing it out. Talisman of Featherfoot allows little attack reaction buffs such as Lunging Press to also grant your attack go again on top of the attack buff that it hands out. While not much, sometimes a small swing in your favor can bring a lot of tempo with it.

Playing a lot of reds? Talisman of Recompense is here to save the day by letting one of your red pitches generate three resources instead, leaning into an aggressive deck that can pitch a little bit better than it should a few times in the game. Talisman of Tithes is a bit of a tricky one to evaluate. While punishing people that use your turn to fix and filter their hand with Sink Below and Crown of Providence is a good prospect, this tiny trinket can do even more. Using Talisman of Tithes with Coax a Commotion or This Round’s on Me turns the symmetrical card draw into Snatch and keeps your opponent off of five-card hands.

Talisman of Warfare seems promising as it offers arsenal disruption for both you and your opponent, it is by far the easiest Talisman to play around. Not only does Talisman of Warfare have to sit on the board to destroy arsenals, it has to deal two damage; no more, no less. Requiring a specific amount of damage even for a potent effect makes it a bit unwieldly as it is up to your opponent most of the time if you’re dealing exactly two damage or not.

Activating Amulets

With potions and talismans out of the way, let’s go over the last of the items that fear the Meeps. Amulet of Assertiveness can turn a attack from arsenal into a potential extra attack for the turn, which can also activate Talisman of Cremation to banish a card out of the opponent’s grave as well. Amulet of Earth, while locked only to Earth talented heroes, can enable cards like Force of Nature or just force through a little extra damage, as long as you fused with Earth this turn. Amulet of Echoes, like many of the other trinkets is a bit situational but can punish your opponent for recurring cards with something like Rattle Bones or simply drawing multiple copies in one hand of a card in different colors.

Amulet of Havencall can extend your survivability if your hand is already empty from having to block out your opponent’s turn by pulling Rally the Rearguard out of the deck and onto the current chain link to block. While suspended in Classic Constructed until Iyslander, Stormbind reaches Living Legend, Amulet of Ice always removes a card from your opponent’s hand, provided you’ve Ice fused this turn, and provided they have no floating resources when you activate it. Even if you have to wait a turn to apply its effect, Amulet of Ignition provides a discount on whatever you plan to do with your turn so long as you remember to activate it before doing anything else. With the introduction of Morlock Hill and Oasis Respite, Amulet of Intervention seems to be strictly worse than both of the other options. Intervention still provides an additional point of block when you are being threatened with lethal.

Giving go again with Amulet of Lightning seems pretty good right? Until most Lightning cards already have go again. With most fused targets having go again, Lightning still has a few cards that can help, such as Frazzle and Snap. Some of these knick-knacks have far more interesting and potent effects than the rest of them, and then there are the others like Amulet of Oblation, while being able to pop cards with phantasm an extra time or keeping yourself from fatigue by an extra card, can be a very versatile effect, though the requirement of having a card already hit the graveyard on the turn of activation makes it more restrictive than you might want it to be.

Chasing Steam Trails

With Bright Lights just around the corner bringing plenty of new items to the game for Mechanologist, it’s interesting to see the options everyone has up to this point. With plenty of tools for every strategy, adding in some non-blocks to bolster a plan might just be what you need… just remember to not let Meeps run off with them… or Kyloria either.

Mari Groh

Mari is a Flesh and Blood player who enjoys a good session of deckbuilding more than playing the actual game at times, though both sides of the game are her passion. A former Azalea main she has put her bow away in favor of concocting odd brews, having yet to find a true favorite deck again. Coming from a slew of different card games including Magic The Gathering the resident jank specialist is here to brew and jam games... so long as she isn't distracted by other games or creative writing.