Also, you dont whiff on lands like you do with Etali
While it may be among the newest formats to grace Magic: The Gathering's constructed offerings, Alchemy has already become no stranger to the power of combo decks
The reduced hand size doesnt matter much, but you are drawing the cards and not just placing them in your hand, which has positives and negatives, especially against Orcish Bowmasters
They serve to give your side of the board tempo by allowing your creatures to attack (removing defenders), giving you more time to set up the board (removing attackers/expensive creatures), and allow for combat tricks (saving your creatures after damage is on the stack
"The most powerful cards were used more often in the games," noted Jones
The static ability says "for as long as this card is encoded on that creature, that creature has 'whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, you may copy the encoded card and you may cast the copy without paying its mana cost'" (Rule 702.99a)