SPECIAL THANKS to maniac4238 for the video suggestion! It somehow exported without audio, so in order to get this to you all today, I once again look like I was filmed properly. Apologies.
Before the 5 praetors, Phyrexians used to be a black colour creature type with some rare different colours. The colour black reflects what Phyrexians used to do the most, sacrifice creatures to empower others. The introduction of the other 4 colours made Wotc rethink what Phyrexians should be known for. I think the 5 predators show the corruption of the colour they represent. A positive effect for the controller and a negative for the opponents.
I definitely agree that the Praetors themselves represent a corruption of the color. The underlings unfortunately lack a bit and tend to just parrot their color. Some of the white phyrexians have a fun twist where they can make your opponent lose life alongside lifegain effects which I think is a decent representation of color corruption, but otherwise they tend to stray too close to safe color choices
Hitting 5 colours makes it not surprising that they don't have a single unifying mechanic. I do think the proliferate is the closest, since it can increase poison, oil counters, and +1 or -1 counters.
Making a true Phyrexian deck would probably just be aiming for vibes of invading the battlefield, infecting and weakening the board, and perhaps taking players' creatures as well? Basing it off a mechanic alone really doesn't seem to work so well.
Personally I wish they would have made oil counters a sort of +1/-1 effect based on creature type. So like if a non-phyrexian had a oil counter on it it gets -1/-1 and vice versa.
Have you considered the alternative, it makes sense from a narrative perspective of why they don't seem unified. The phyrexians lost because them being unable to square their differences. Before what made them weak was their over reliance on Yawgmoth. When they diversified at first it seemed like a strength, but as they in-fought, it became their weakness. Additionally it makes sense that the Green/White/Blue colors would form a cohesive deck since it was those that got along better than the others.
From a narrative perspective it does make sense! This video is primarily about the mechanical and deckbuilding implications of that narrative decision And i do agree that no one particularly getting along with colors like red or black also makes sense from a narrative stance
I've a strange feeling that the "villains" aren't supposed to win, so they're made to be just good enough to be scary in a vacuum, but not actually good enough to beat anything out on their own. I'm looking at what they did to Nicol Bolas.
Villains in MtG really have the entire multiverse stacked against them. Now they'll also have to deal with the Avengers, Autobots, and Rick Grimes. Tough out there. 😢 That's why the latest "big" bad guys have been concepts like capitalism and political systems. Haha. Kinda tough to take over a world by force when 20 dudes can materialize outta the void and beat your ass.
I feel long ago i thought phyrexian lord shouldve been phyrexians enter with a +1+1 counter, since the closest to phyrexian tribe synergy usually revolve around various counters, proliferate, paying life, and artifacts
I think they tried to consolidate the Phyrexian identity for the colors in ONE but they missed the ball when it came down to the MonoColor domains because they fixed the set mechanics for limited dual color archetypes instead of the full picture and didn't print new Praetor cards to go with it or at least make some lesser MonoColor legends to go with it. -White should have been about artifacts with the mite tokens -Black should have been about oldschool sacrifice -Red should have been about Oil counters -Green should have been about Toxic stacking -Blue should have been about proliferate And then they should have printed dual color cards to go with the Draft Synergy, it would have made the limited environment a bit difficulty due to mana fixing issues but New Phyrexia is about the 5 colors and their praetors not about what mechanic blends between each sphere, that was their design mistake.
I have a suggestion, it seems unusual but “Dark Ritual” as a ludonarrative archetype has always seemed like an interesting to me, especially in the early days of magic (and how it’s evolved). Every other color has some kind of mana instant from the early days of magic (high tide comes to mind) but no color seems to have quite embraced them narratively as Dark Ritual. Fundamentally, there seems to be quite a lot of spells, abilities, triggers that can cast for exactly {B}{B}{B}, aka exactly Dark Ritual. I don’t see a lot of people talk about it tho. Maybe there’s just not a lot there or I’m chasing ghosts but its odd how no other color cares as much about such a specific cost.
The "Dark Ritual archetype" is fundamentally limited by the need to draw Dark Ritual, so I'd say it's more of an homage to such an iconic card than a true recurring theme.
What do Phyrexians do? They corrupt and assimilate. Even though they aren't top tier, there are a couple decent Phyrexian themed decks in standard, and in EDH I've actually had smashing success with a Phyrexian themed Atraxa Grand unifier deck. Tinkering around in pioneer seems like a fun time, but infect keeps getting pushed out of modern. Maybe legacy, but unlikely. (And ONE strats are too slow for those formats)
"Big" Atraxa is a great commander, lore-wise, now that you mention her; she can be used to unite all the Praetors that *don't* defect during the multiverse invasion
So I'm a phyrexian fan, a fanrexian if you will. I love them, I put them in all my decks, they often give me an excuse to proliferate. I used to think it was a bad thing that I couldn't make a consistent phyrexian kindred commander deck but I'll do it anyway. Seriously I have a problem
Phyrexians becoming a creature type was a huge mistake. Old Phyrexia was a coalition of horrors, machines, mutants, demons and undead. At the time of the change, many old phyrexians did not get errata'd, either because Wotc forgot about them or because of monetary reasons, as they admitted with Consecrated Sphinx. If you wanted to build a phyrexian deck back then, it would be either a mono-black aristocrat deck with artifact synergies or old school black aggro, not a tribal pile. The last phyrexian redesign (MOM era) was poorly handled on almost all fronts, born from a misguided attempt to redesign the New Phyrexians. As you said, attempting to "fix" infect and phyrexian mana was a mistake that further diluted the identity of the new phyrexians, but to me the visual changes were even worse. If you're doing an horror set, why would you design all of your factions to look so clean and marketable? That's not what fans of the setting would want and people who don't like Phyrexia wouldn't enjoy them either. And so, by tring to appeal to everone, they appealed to no one. Truly, a tale as old as Wotc itself, as we just saw it repeat with Duskmourn 😂
I would personally disagree one point, i think adding the ohyrexian type is great, but i prefer multiple types on a card (like zombie elf phyrexian, or phyrexian demon, so on). I STRONGLY agree they toned them done way too much, and even retconned the appearance of some characters from lore at the end of the New Phyrexia set and their appearance in Phyrexia All Will Be One. For instance the surgical horror of blue was entirely avoided, instead they went for weirdly clean chrome. Red was an art fail after their redesign. I think all the exarchs looked great. I have 4 phyrexian EDH decks though, so I may be biased 😅
I disagree with the phyrexian creature type being a mistake, since adding it opened up the opportunity for tribal synergies and the potential shenanigans that come from it. However I do agree with you when it comes to infect, phyrexian mana and their redesign in MoM. And don't get me started on Incubate, god I hate Incubate.
I need to comment here, yes, 100000% yes The loss of block format has ruined planar identity IMHO. I started playing during Battle For Zendikar. And I loved how you had two sets that synergized with each other. Unfortunately, as time has gone on we've gotten into the modern social trap of new new new new new with a dash of nostalgia. And it's a shame. They try to make synergistic things across sets but it mostly feels weird and shoe horned in. Like when they made Capenna and then every set after that had cards that would in some way shape or form work with the crime families. Personally as a Vorthos it destroys any semblance of flavor from a story perspective.
As someone who was introduced to Magic with Scars Of Mirrodin… FAK OFF WITH THE FAKIN' INFECT!¡!1 (jk I don't mind it if it's not ending the game stupid-quick)
I'm actually only using Xavier Sal as the commander for my Sultai Phyrexian deck, focusing on the incubators and whatever mites i can get to populate, and of course the poison and oil to proliferate. I also have a mono-black phyrexian deck with Yawgmoth at the helm for a more flavorful approach.
I got into magic earlier this year and became infatuated with Phyrexia. I now have 5 decks that are very heavily phyrexian themed using some other stuff here and there to help round out ‘doing the thing’. In my head canon, anything non phyrexian has been subsumed by Phyrexia (i.e. ocelot pride/oketra’s monument in my Mondrak deck. )
In fairness, phyrexians don't even have aesthetic focus. If they did have a stronger mechanical identity, it still often wouldn't really feel like playing a phyrexian deck. It wasn't until the new stuff that phyrexians within a colour were given a visual theme, and it's still far from perfect - white does well, with some outliers, while green still doesn't have a style. And that might make mono-colour phyrexian decks possible, but it doesn't create any cross-colour identity and really gives an image of the different layers of phyrexia having almost nothing to do with one another. And the other problem is, what would phyrexian mechanics look like if they *were* intended to work as an archetype? The through-line of phyrexia's lore and mechanics is basically "inject quintessential black-ness into cards". It's a plane that assimilates any and all things, so anything can be a phyrexian as long as it has some feeling of being corrupted, which results in cards first being black, then being any creature plus the Infect keyword, then Phyrexian mana which represents black's tendency to spend less mana and sacrifice other things instead, then just any card the set needs but with a creepy image. "Colour but black" doesn't make for particularly good archetype design, since every colour pair that includes black is already innately a colour-but-black archetype. The only other identities Phyrexia could arguably support as archetypes are "artifacts matter" and "buffs matter", but both of those have already been done quite a few times so wouldn't feel uniquely phyrexian.
Yeah, the transform abilities being so mana hungry and sorcery speed was way too far. Some of those cards would've been sick if they were properly costed. 😓
I've tried so many times to make a Phyrexian tribal and I can just never get it into a spot where the cards play as well as they do in my other decks. Zopandrel truly shakes the board up in my Selesnya counters deck, but never seems to get the same level of payoff when I'm goldfishing a Phyrexian deck. Oh well, I like having them as functional pieces in other decks a lot, Zopandrel and Blighted Contaminator carry tons of weight when theyre allowed to do their thing.
I still think one of the EASIEST changes they could have done was have incubator tokens the Phyrexian GOLEM creature type so they would receive splicer support in addition to already benefiting from the proliferate and artifact synergies. We were RIGHT. THERE.
My Saskia the Unyielding Toxic/Infect Proliferate deck says Phyrexians love poison counters in particular and counters in general. They are Proliferate Tribal
I like what they did with cards like Phyrexian censor and the praetors. I believe a proper Phyrexian deck would revolve around incubators, counter manipulation and some kind of aristocrats control. I think cards such as Brimaz Blight of Oreskos might be the best repesentative of the future of a Phyrexian archetype (at least a healthy one). Incubators need a LOT of new support, and proper commanders, but cards such as Etched Slith I believe propose an incredibly interesting thing to the table. Etched Slith's ability allows for the use of poison, proliferate, incubators and even has some utility as it could theoretically kill small creatures with +1/+1 counters as life. It is a card that encourages you to either make incubator tokens to feed the Slith or even poison the enemy to remove and in turn but the Slith. I think this card is genious and pretty overlooked.
I have tried a couple times to make it in EDH but it just does not feel right to me. I really liked the OG phyrexians from dominaria and even the ones from new phyrexia. But the ones from DMU, ONE, and MOM just do not hit right for me, especially for their artwork and flavor, which matters a little bit for me. A lot of the phyrexians from SOM/MBS blocks have infect, which do not really synergize well with other phyrexians. The old phyrexians are pretty much only black, with a couple splashing into other colors. I just really wish I could make a deck that actually feels right and that makes me happy. I love cards like Phyrexian Obliterator, Phyrexian Rager, and Phyrexian Plaguelord.
They really suffer from being so prevalent in Magic. They've been through so many design thought processes and eras that it makes it really hard for them to mesh together
@@HPuzzleYT Phyrexians are a legacy from when the story of MTG was really a story first and cards second - this was a time when many of the critical characters didn't exist in the game at all. That caused phyrexians to become steeped in this flexible lore designed for a linear narrative. Later sets have much more faction identity because they start to be designed for the card game first - that's how you get your Ravnicas and your Alaras with focused archetypes. When they tried to bring back Phyrexians, they found themselves trying to bring them back into a game that's structurally different to the game they came from. And I'd actually argue that it was their *lack* of prevalence that caused the problem. If Phyrexians had remained present during the shift towards more archetype-focused set design, they'd probably have been one of the first archetypes, which would have allowed them to be given an archetypal identity before all the good ones got taken for other planes and other themes. Kaladesh's ideas would have worked brilliantly as Phyrexian mechanics, I reckon.
It's never gonna happen due to how problematic the following two were for the actual game, the mechanic part, but I think that the two more representative mechanics for phyrexia (or at least the first two that come to mind) are phyrexian mana and infect...
thematically phyrexians were so much more impactful when they weren't a type. Priests of norn was just a cleric stripped of any other aspect of what it was into something unrecognizable beyond the task that it was assigned to its identity removed it became unnamable... until they named it and it was just another guy like the horror flick that reveals a low budget monster killing the mystery, they ruined the mystique and didn't actually have a payoff for doing so why did they think it was a good idea to retcon the original design without a plan to make it mechanically relevant?
Mmmmh, should you tackle Battles next? on how some are good in standard, but ultimately are fading away into a forgotten type. Battle are great to add for delirium and other mechanics, but ultimately. There are not enough of them. there are like 5 or 6 battles are a somewhat good, 3 are decent and the rest are very specific to some decks, and not even that good to begin with. There is also the impending point of it was integrated in a single set, having no support from other sets (oh, except one Atraxa), it does work with proliferate but not much again permanent removal: you have to remove all the counters to use it, if you spend a *Vindicate* or *Atraxa's Fall* you won't get the free spell behind the card. It forces any deck using them to take a creature route, not like aggro or midrange, but at least a few attackers to whittle away the counters. Creatures that benefit from attacking battles (the *Rampaging Raptor and the Rampaging Geoderm, in Gruul colors) are ultimately, very powerful, that won't attack your opponent immediately, it gotta attack the battle to benefit from it (you don't have to, but if you want to get all the value of your battle, you gotta keep grinding). And ultimately, these damages on the battles are not damage done to your opponent, they technically gain life when you give them a battle. The Concept of battles is very good, and we need to see more of these to really explore the concept. ExtraCredits did a video on this card type. My take on the good battle cards: Invasion of Innistrad (a debuffing removal AND a token generator? sign me in!) Invasion of New Phyrexia (it got a free Teferi *obligatory finding a teferi in your halloween candy joke*) Invasion of Shandalar (not that good, since an endurance just saves your graveyard better WITH an instant speed, but it got *Show and Tell* on every turn thereafter, just gotta cards in hand to play them free.) Invasion of Ikoria and Invasion of zendikar (both *Chord of Calling* effect and a *Explosive Vegetation* with a stick on the other side) invasion of Eldraine (could have a spot in discard, if you didn't need to beat it down with a stick). Invasion of Firoa (it is a boardclear, that's right, it also has big gal on the other side, but you know, kinda hard to beat down a battle when you have no creature remaining) ________________________________________ Where are the epic battles from the past? Where is "The Brother's War" into "Sylex's explosion"? Where is "War of the Khans"? Where is our "Guild's War" with its "The Guildpact"? Where is our "Invasion of Phyrexia"? (Lorewise: The one Urza led with the Titans in the novels) Where is our "Teysir's Destiny"? (Check out the lore from Arabian nights) But here i am, why am i suggesting cards concept for a card that already has that role fullfilled (by Saga)? We could have gotten these explorations from Modern Horizon III but it didn't try being bold enough with card types, why creating a brand new card type and not supporting it after the release of MOM??? Tarmogoyf and Delirium should have benefited from this card type, yet, Tarmo-Jund, Sultai-Tarmo, or even Goyf Tribal is nowhere to be seen in eternal formats.
The concept of battles is horrible, the mechanics are so needlessly convoluted and they barely make thematic sense. How does one cast a battle? How does one attack a battle? What does it mean to deal damage to a battle? Battle has had no support since its introduction because they couldn't think of anything to actually do with it - the play pattern of battles is very difficult to work with and they're parasitic in any deck that uses them, they have no backwards compatibility with anything that's more specific than "target permanent", and you as a designer can't make reliable estimates of when a battle will be defeated, if at all.
While it might be difficult to pull off in 60-card, it's easy to do in EDH; I have 2 Phyrexian decks (both infect, Atraxa and Skittles; there are no non-Phyrexian creatures in either deck).
i appreciate the grievance about wizards' plane hopping set cadence leaving new mechanics to rot in suboptimal commander decks while never really cohering anywhere else. when are they ever going to use forage or impending again
While I think this is not GOOD, it's also not too out of the ordinary. Yes, "phyrexian" creature type is underwhelming, but they represent the whole plain. So I think expecting a real phyrexian deck is roughly on par with "dominaria deck" or "ravnica deck"
That's because the "phyrexian" deck is and always will be infect which might not be a synergy based critical.mass aggro deck ALL of the creatures with infect are phyrexian so...that does in face make there a phyrexian deck, just because the cards don't all lean into each other's typing doesn't make the deck not phyrexian. Modern (modern as in time wise not the format) goblin decks barely run tribal synergy bit that doesn't stop them from being goblin decks.
Honestly, I just really want to have fun with a deck of Phyrexian cards cuz I like their design… but god I’m FEELING how inadequate they can really be. I’m playing the mobile game of MTG cuz that’s all I got and I have won VERY FEW matches with my Phyrexian cards, I am new, only got into the game this year… but… ouch. It is a bit of a self esteem blow when your main source of wins has been pre-built decks.
i tried doing incubate tribal and yeah, i strongly agree before i watch the video. its such a vague definition between victim and people obsessed with possession. but i guess it makes sense, since theyre a blob of yawgmoths ramblings.
To me Phyrexia is about the subjugation of the individual. So an Esper deck with mindcontroll, stax, boardwipes, hand disruption and sacrificing creatures embodies the idea for me.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, my boy has *talent*. If this doesn’t work out, you could always do dramatic readings for a living, bro. Seriously.
The Thing is when you are putting them into all five colors you can’t have them work too well together in a block or it fucks up sealed formats too much think the eldrazi in B for Z. When half the cards are Phyrexians they can’t all synergize with each other. Also I’m thinking about modern infect and between 12 infect attackers mutagenic growth git probe and apostles blessing there was definitely a modern infect deck that used infect/phyrexian mana on the majority of its noneland cards.
I have a more "fun" way of seeing things what is Phyrexia's identity in the game? the biggest mark they've left on the game isn't in any one type of deck, with any one strategy, rather Phyrexia's identity in mana, poison, counters, proliferate, all of these DO have one unifying trait, they're just generically powerful effects. Phyrexia IS generically powerful, and Phyrexia will be wherever it needs to be. Phyrexia has one the war, not by assimilating everyone into themselves, but by assimilating themselves into everyone as WOTC chooses to develop their mechanics and powercreep over the story as the game homogenizes, we learn who REALLY won the invasion. there is no Phyrexian deck because All decks are Phyrexia *All Has Become One*
I'm wondering how an idea of Phyrexian's gaining benefits based around having a lesser life total. To turn Phyrexian mana cheating and damaging self to then be a way to help get yourself under your opponents Life to then use more of there core strategies. I guess to flush it out better, and I know Wotc will will want it be seen through the lens of Commander, what I'm suggesting would be effects that are applied to or only target opponents that have a higher life total than you, though may still have a lesser effect if used or targeting against those with equal or lesser life than you
Phyrexians secretly sneak in and infiltrate everything. They don't want to be their own unique thing until they've already converted everything. Sure, right now its just an infect deck every now and again, an incubating shark in your spell slinger deck, a sunfall in your control decks, a few phyrexian mana cards here and there, Elish Norn in reanimator sideboards, etc. but in a decade or two, when we're all playing Phyrexians: the Gathering, this video will look pretty dated.
But what about the selesnya and the dimir toxic decks, both use mostly phyrexian creatures and proliferate cards from ONE, those are crealy phyrexian decks Edit: lol You actually talk about those decks, and even if they are not meta, dimir poison still see rogue play in the ladder, so the arquetype is not totally dead
Apologies, i was being an intentionally unreliable narration so I could talk up Toxic more lol And not dead yet and still around, but with new developments in Standard it's starting to fade out of the Competitive tournaments compared to where it was a few months ago Hoping that maybe Foundations shifts the meta enough for it to make a triumphant return to the top tables!
My vision is a little wonky so I didn't notice during shooting and usually my filters cover it lol, cleaned them before the latest video and there was still stuff on them, might just need new ones
Are you not including commander then? As phyrexians have several typal decks, also poison was a deck in standard back in the day. Your also just wrong as bant poison and dimir poison were both decks in standard just a couple months ago. I used several corrupted cards in bant posion it was a top 10 meta deck. This video is just wildly incorrect.
I do in fact mention how Commander is where these mechanics do their best. However, given that literally anything can work in Commander, it's not a good idea to include it. I also do, in fact, talk about the Toxic decks in Standard, even going so far as to calling it a true Phyrexian deck! I find that watching a video before commenting tends to be a solid strategy.
@HPuzzleYT sorry hard to make it all the way to the end when most of whats being said is wildly innacurrate. I gave you a solid 75% of the video but it wasnt worth finishing. Be glad it irritated me enough for me to leave engagement which is better for you anyway.
SPECIAL THANKS to maniac4238 for the video suggestion!
It somehow exported without audio, so in order to get this to you all today, I once again look like I was filmed properly. Apologies.
Before the 5 praetors, Phyrexians used to be a black colour creature type with some rare different colours. The colour black reflects what Phyrexians used to do the most, sacrifice creatures to empower others. The introduction of the other 4 colours made Wotc rethink what Phyrexians should be known for. I think the 5 predators show the corruption of the colour they represent. A positive effect for the controller and a negative for the opponents.
I definitely agree that the Praetors themselves represent a corruption of the color. The underlings unfortunately lack a bit and tend to just parrot their color. Some of the white phyrexians have a fun twist where they can make your opponent lose life alongside lifegain effects which I think is a decent representation of color corruption, but otherwise they tend to stray too close to safe color choices
I mostly agree, aside from urabrask
Is it great when people just gloss over YEARS of lore because "I Dont like that bit"
phyrexian wasn't even a creature type until 2022.
@@Calvansbagoftricks*2021
And while it was only added as a creature type then, Phyrexians had been part of the game since 1994.
Hitting 5 colours makes it not surprising that they don't have a single unifying mechanic. I do think the proliferate is the closest, since it can increase poison, oil counters, and +1 or -1 counters.
Making a true Phyrexian deck would probably just be aiming for vibes of invading the battlefield, infecting and weakening the board, and perhaps taking players' creatures as well? Basing it off a mechanic alone really doesn't seem to work so well.
Personally I wish they would have made oil counters a sort of +1/-1 effect based on creature type.
So like if a non-phyrexian had a oil counter on it it gets -1/-1 and vice versa.
@@dragonlordblazer13 That's kind of neat. Might be tricky to track for new players, but I like the flavor.
Have you considered the alternative, it makes sense from a narrative perspective of why they don't seem unified. The phyrexians lost because them being unable to square their differences. Before what made them weak was their over reliance on Yawgmoth. When they diversified at first it seemed like a strength, but as they in-fought, it became their weakness.
Additionally it makes sense that the Green/White/Blue colors would form a cohesive deck since it was those that got along better than the others.
From a narrative perspective it does make sense! This video is primarily about the mechanical and deckbuilding implications of that narrative decision
And i do agree that no one particularly getting along with colors like red or black also makes sense from a narrative stance
I've a strange feeling that the "villains" aren't supposed to win, so they're made to be just good enough to be scary in a vacuum, but not actually good enough to beat anything out on their own.
I'm looking at what they did to Nicol Bolas.
Villains in MtG really have the entire multiverse stacked against them. Now they'll also have to deal with the Avengers, Autobots, and Rick Grimes. Tough out there. 😢 That's why the latest "big" bad guys have been concepts like capitalism and political systems. Haha. Kinda tough to take over a world by force when 20 dudes can materialize outta the void and beat your ass.
More like All Will Be Mid
10/10
No notes
I feel long ago i thought phyrexian lord shouldve been phyrexians enter with a +1+1 counter, since the closest to phyrexian tribe synergy usually revolve around various counters, proliferate, paying life, and artifacts
Can't forget the infect/toxic/oil counters
When it was first introduced I really didn't like the phyrexian creature type update because I enjoyed phyrexian not being any one thing.
I think they tried to consolidate the Phyrexian identity for the colors in ONE but they missed the ball when it came down to the MonoColor domains because they fixed the set mechanics for limited dual color archetypes instead of the full picture and didn't print new Praetor cards to go with it or at least make some lesser MonoColor legends to go with it.
-White should have been about artifacts with the mite tokens
-Black should have been about oldschool sacrifice
-Red should have been about Oil counters
-Green should have been about Toxic stacking
-Blue should have been about proliferate
And then they should have printed dual color cards to go with the Draft Synergy, it would have made the limited environment a bit difficulty due to mana fixing issues but New Phyrexia is about the 5 colors and their praetors not about what mechanic blends between each sphere, that was their design mistake.
I have a suggestion, it seems unusual but “Dark Ritual” as a ludonarrative archetype has always seemed like an interesting to me, especially in the early days of magic (and how it’s evolved). Every other color has some kind of mana instant from the early days of magic (high tide comes to mind) but no color seems to have quite embraced them narratively as Dark Ritual. Fundamentally, there seems to be quite a lot of spells, abilities, triggers that can cast for exactly {B}{B}{B}, aka exactly Dark Ritual. I don’t see a lot of people talk about it tho. Maybe there’s just not a lot there or I’m chasing ghosts but its odd how no other color cares as much about such a specific cost.
The "Dark Ritual archetype" is fundamentally limited by the need to draw Dark Ritual, so I'd say it's more of an homage to such an iconic card than a true recurring theme.
What do Phyrexians do?
They corrupt and assimilate.
Even though they aren't top tier, there are a couple decent Phyrexian themed decks in standard, and in EDH I've actually had smashing success with a Phyrexian themed Atraxa Grand unifier deck.
Tinkering around in pioneer seems like a fun time, but infect keeps getting pushed out of modern. Maybe legacy, but unlikely. (And ONE strats are too slow for those formats)
Hero
@@HPuzzleYTand then I changed my post into a goddamn mini essay.
"Big" Atraxa is a great commander, lore-wise, now that you mention her; she can be used to unite all the Praetors that *don't* defect during the multiverse invasion
So I'm a phyrexian fan, a fanrexian if you will. I love them, I put them in all my decks, they often give me an excuse to proliferate. I used to think it was a bad thing that I couldn't make a consistent phyrexian kindred commander deck but I'll do it anyway. Seriously I have a problem
Phyrexians becoming a creature type was a huge mistake. Old Phyrexia was a coalition of horrors, machines, mutants, demons and undead. At the time of the change, many old phyrexians did not get errata'd, either because Wotc forgot about them or because of monetary reasons, as they admitted with Consecrated Sphinx.
If you wanted to build a phyrexian deck back then, it would be either a mono-black aristocrat deck with artifact synergies or old school black aggro, not a tribal pile.
The last phyrexian redesign (MOM era) was poorly handled on almost all fronts, born from a misguided attempt to redesign the New Phyrexians. As you said, attempting to "fix" infect and phyrexian mana was a mistake that further diluted the identity of the new phyrexians, but to me the visual changes were even worse. If you're doing an horror set, why would you design all of your factions to look so clean and marketable? That's not what fans of the setting would want and people who don't like Phyrexia wouldn't enjoy them either.
And so, by tring to appeal to everone, they appealed to no one. Truly, a tale as old as Wotc itself, as we just saw it repeat with Duskmourn 😂
I would personally disagree one point, i think adding the ohyrexian type is great, but i prefer multiple types on a card (like zombie elf phyrexian, or phyrexian demon, so on).
I STRONGLY agree they toned them done way too much, and even retconned the appearance of some characters from lore at the end of the New Phyrexia set and their appearance in Phyrexia All Will Be One. For instance the surgical horror of blue was entirely avoided, instead they went for weirdly clean chrome. Red was an art fail after their redesign. I think all the exarchs looked great.
I have 4 phyrexian EDH decks though, so I may be biased 😅
I disagree with the phyrexian creature type being a mistake, since adding it opened up the opportunity for tribal synergies and the potential shenanigans that come from it.
However I do agree with you when it comes to infect, phyrexian mana and their redesign in MoM.
And don't get me started on Incubate, god I hate Incubate.
Wait does the community at large not like Duskmourn? :<
I've been pleasantly surprised how much I like the set, its new mechanics, and the lore of it
to be fair real life horrors have become slick, clean and marketable xdddd
I need to comment here, yes, 100000% yes
The loss of block format has ruined planar identity IMHO. I started playing during Battle For Zendikar. And I loved how you had two sets that synergized with each other. Unfortunately, as time has gone on we've gotten into the modern social trap of new new new new new with a dash of nostalgia. And it's a shame. They try to make synergistic things across sets but it mostly feels weird and shoe horned in. Like when they made Capenna and then every set after that had cards that would in some way shape or form work with the crime families. Personally as a Vorthos it destroys any semblance of flavor from a story perspective.
WIZARDS!!!! GIVE US MORE INFECT PHYREXIANS!! AND MY LIFE IS YOURS
Your life for Ire?
As someone who was introduced to Magic with Scars Of Mirrodin… FAK OFF WITH THE FAKIN' INFECT!¡!1
(jk I don't mind it if it's not ending the game stupid-quick)
Real
By the Nine Sphere ! you did it ! You took my suggestion !
so much hype seeing the thumbnail. Video is great, keep it up :) !
i'm correcting one of my arguments up there, the Rampaging raptor is good at breaking BY attacking the player.
I thought it was a really interesting idea to delve into! Thank you for suggesting it!
I definitely consider Infect and the Toxic decks in Standard as "Phyrexian"
I miss Yawgmoth.
For commander they just need a new Atraxa with a good typal payoff, it's that simple.
Not 5c omnath?
@yusheitslv100 I don't like the idea of an Omnath with a Phyrexian payoff.
Lore wise feel like blasphemy.
@@jackyoh971 tbf, isn't WUBRG Omnath corrupted by Phyrexia during the Realmbreaker invasions?
I'm actually only using Xavier Sal as the commander for my Sultai Phyrexian deck, focusing on the incubators and whatever mites i can get to populate, and of course the poison and oil to proliferate.
I also have a mono-black phyrexian deck with Yawgmoth at the helm for a more flavorful approach.
@jackyoh971 the 5c one (Locus of All) is Phyrexian, tho.
Phyrexia is also blasphemous by nature.
7:06 I mean... Essence of orthodoxy is maybe a bad example here since it does support he phyrexian type.
I got into magic earlier this year and became infatuated with Phyrexia. I now have 5 decks that are very heavily phyrexian themed using some other stuff here and there to help round out ‘doing the thing’. In my head canon, anything non phyrexian has been subsumed by Phyrexia (i.e. ocelot pride/oketra’s monument in my Mondrak deck. )
The closest Ive come is building a Jinnie Fae commander deck that uses incubate and living weapons to make really cost-effective creatures
OH MY GOD I FORGOT LIVING WEAPON
@HPuzzleYT The urge to start my post with "Um actually, you forgot" was there for sure lol
@@schmian95 i was going to do it but checked comments first :D
In fairness, phyrexians don't even have aesthetic focus. If they did have a stronger mechanical identity, it still often wouldn't really feel like playing a phyrexian deck. It wasn't until the new stuff that phyrexians within a colour were given a visual theme, and it's still far from perfect - white does well, with some outliers, while green still doesn't have a style. And that might make mono-colour phyrexian decks possible, but it doesn't create any cross-colour identity and really gives an image of the different layers of phyrexia having almost nothing to do with one another.
And the other problem is, what would phyrexian mechanics look like if they *were* intended to work as an archetype? The through-line of phyrexia's lore and mechanics is basically "inject quintessential black-ness into cards". It's a plane that assimilates any and all things, so anything can be a phyrexian as long as it has some feeling of being corrupted, which results in cards first being black, then being any creature plus the Infect keyword, then Phyrexian mana which represents black's tendency to spend less mana and sacrifice other things instead, then just any card the set needs but with a creepy image. "Colour but black" doesn't make for particularly good archetype design, since every colour pair that includes black is already innately a colour-but-black archetype. The only other identities Phyrexia could arguably support as archetypes are "artifacts matter" and "buffs matter", but both of those have already been done quite a few times so wouldn't feel uniquely phyrexian.
Yeah, the transform abilities being so mana hungry and sorcery speed was way too far. Some of those cards would've been sick if they were properly costed. 😓
I've tried so many times to make a Phyrexian tribal and I can just never get it into a spot where the cards play as well as they do in my other decks. Zopandrel truly shakes the board up in my Selesnya counters deck, but never seems to get the same level of payoff when I'm goldfishing a Phyrexian deck. Oh well, I like having them as functional pieces in other decks a lot, Zopandrel and Blighted Contaminator carry tons of weight when theyre allowed to do their thing.
I still think one of the EASIEST changes they could have done was have incubator tokens the Phyrexian GOLEM creature type so they would receive splicer support in addition to already benefiting from the proliferate and artifact synergies.
We were RIGHT. THERE.
My Saskia the Unyielding Toxic/Infect Proliferate deck says Phyrexians love poison counters in particular and counters in general. They are Proliferate Tribal
I ADORE Phyrexia. It's my favorite plane, and creature type, which is why i really hate how there seems to be no real way to make a deck like this.
Extremely well spoken, ill be waiting for more
Great video man, really made me realize that every Phyrexian ive ever used has been a tech choice to support something else.
I like what they did with cards like Phyrexian censor and the praetors. I believe a proper Phyrexian deck would revolve around incubators, counter manipulation and some kind of aristocrats control. I think cards such as Brimaz Blight of Oreskos might be the best repesentative of the future of a Phyrexian archetype (at least a healthy one). Incubators need a LOT of new support, and proper commanders, but cards such as Etched Slith I believe propose an incredibly interesting thing to the table. Etched Slith's ability allows for the use of poison, proliferate, incubators and even has some utility as it could theoretically kill small creatures with +1/+1 counters as life. It is a card that encourages you to either make incubator tokens to feed the Slith or even poison the enemy to remove and in turn but the Slith. I think this card is genious and pretty overlooked.
I have tried a couple times to make it in EDH but it just does not feel right to me. I really liked the OG phyrexians from dominaria and even the ones from new phyrexia. But the ones from DMU, ONE, and MOM just do not hit right for me, especially for their artwork and flavor, which matters a little bit for me. A lot of the phyrexians from SOM/MBS blocks have infect, which do not really synergize well with other phyrexians. The old phyrexians are pretty much only black, with a couple splashing into other colors. I just really wish I could make a deck that actually feels right and that makes me happy. I love cards like Phyrexian Obliterator, Phyrexian Rager, and Phyrexian Plaguelord.
They really suffer from being so prevalent in Magic. They've been through so many design thought processes and eras that it makes it really hard for them to mesh together
@@HPuzzleYT Yeah. But phyrexians really fascinate me, so it's a little disappointing.
@@HPuzzleYT Phyrexians are a legacy from when the story of MTG was really a story first and cards second - this was a time when many of the critical characters didn't exist in the game at all. That caused phyrexians to become steeped in this flexible lore designed for a linear narrative. Later sets have much more faction identity because they start to be designed for the card game first - that's how you get your Ravnicas and your Alaras with focused archetypes. When they tried to bring back Phyrexians, they found themselves trying to bring them back into a game that's structurally different to the game they came from.
And I'd actually argue that it was their *lack* of prevalence that caused the problem. If Phyrexians had remained present during the shift towards more archetype-focused set design, they'd probably have been one of the first archetypes, which would have allowed them to be given an archetypal identity before all the good ones got taken for other planes and other themes. Kaladesh's ideas would have worked brilliantly as Phyrexian mechanics, I reckon.
Yogmoth must be rolling in his tomb at the sight of New Phyraxia.
Emrakul: "fine, I'll do it myself"
Me: (makes Phyrexian/Eldrazi deck)
Thought I was walking into a realmbreaker, the invasion tree video
Phyrexian tribal absolutely eats in commander though
It's never gonna happen due to how problematic the following two were for the actual game, the mechanic part, but I think that the two more representative mechanics for phyrexia (or at least the first two that come to mind) are phyrexian mana and infect...
thematically phyrexians were so much more impactful when they weren't a type. Priests of norn was just a cleric stripped of any other aspect of what it was into something unrecognizable beyond the task that it was assigned to its identity removed it became unnamable... until they named it and it was just another guy like the horror flick that reveals a low budget monster killing the mystery, they ruined the mystique and didn't actually have a payoff for doing so why did they think it was a good idea to retcon the original design without a plan to make it mechanically relevant?
What do Phyrexians _do_ ? Kinda like what humans do. A little bit of everything.
Mmmmh, should you tackle Battles next? on how some are good in standard, but ultimately are fading away into a forgotten type.
Battle are great to add for delirium and other mechanics, but ultimately. There are not enough of them.
there are like 5 or 6 battles are a somewhat good, 3 are decent and the rest are very specific to some decks, and not even that good to begin with.
There is also the impending point of it was integrated in a single set, having no support from other sets (oh, except one Atraxa), it does work with proliferate but not much again permanent removal: you have to remove all the counters to use it, if you spend a *Vindicate* or *Atraxa's Fall* you won't get the free spell behind the card.
It forces any deck using them to take a creature route, not like aggro or midrange, but at least a few attackers to whittle away the counters. Creatures that benefit from attacking battles (the *Rampaging Raptor and the Rampaging Geoderm, in Gruul colors) are ultimately, very powerful, that won't attack your opponent immediately, it gotta attack the battle to benefit from it (you don't have to, but if you want to get all the value of your battle, you gotta keep grinding). And ultimately, these damages on the battles are not damage done to your opponent, they technically gain life when you give them a battle.
The Concept of battles is very good, and we need to see more of these to really explore the concept. ExtraCredits did a video on this card type.
My take on the good battle cards:
Invasion of Innistrad (a debuffing removal AND a token generator? sign me in!)
Invasion of New Phyrexia (it got a free Teferi *obligatory finding a teferi in your halloween candy joke*)
Invasion of Shandalar (not that good, since an endurance just saves your graveyard better WITH an instant speed, but it got *Show and Tell* on every turn thereafter, just gotta cards in hand to play them free.)
Invasion of Ikoria and Invasion of zendikar (both *Chord of Calling* effect and a *Explosive Vegetation* with a stick on the other side)
invasion of Eldraine (could have a spot in discard, if you didn't need to beat it down with a stick).
Invasion of Firoa (it is a boardclear, that's right, it also has big gal on the other side, but you know, kinda hard to beat down a battle when you have no creature remaining)
________________________________________
Where are the epic battles from the past?
Where is "The Brother's War" into "Sylex's explosion"?
Where is "War of the Khans"?
Where is our "Guild's War" with its "The Guildpact"?
Where is our "Invasion of Phyrexia"? (Lorewise: The one Urza led with the Titans in the novels)
Where is our "Teysir's Destiny"? (Check out the lore from Arabian nights)
But here i am, why am i suggesting cards concept for a card that already has that role fullfilled (by Saga)?
We could have gotten these explorations from Modern Horizon III but it didn't try being bold enough with card types, why creating a brand new card type and not supporting it after the release of MOM???
Tarmogoyf and Delirium should have benefited from this card type, yet, Tarmo-Jund, Sultai-Tarmo, or even Goyf Tribal is nowhere to be seen in eternal formats.
The concept of battles is horrible, the mechanics are so needlessly convoluted and they barely make thematic sense. How does one cast a battle? How does one attack a battle? What does it mean to deal damage to a battle? Battle has had no support since its introduction because they couldn't think of anything to actually do with it - the play pattern of battles is very difficult to work with and they're parasitic in any deck that uses them, they have no backwards compatibility with anything that's more specific than "target permanent", and you as a designer can't make reliable estimates of when a battle will be defeated, if at all.
While it might be difficult to pull off in 60-card, it's easy to do in EDH; I have 2 Phyrexian decks (both infect, Atraxa and Skittles; there are no non-Phyrexian creatures in either deck).
What is your take on the Silver bordered-cards? Are they Un-playable?
Uncrustable
i appreciate the grievance about wizards' plane hopping set cadence leaving new mechanics to rot in suboptimal commander decks while never really cohering anywhere else. when are they ever going to use forage or impending again
Does anyone even remember Adamant?
All will be power level one
I find it funny that every single phyrexian mechanic is "parasitic," seems appropriate tbh
When you assimilate everything, you become everything.
While I think this is not GOOD, it's also not too out of the ordinary. Yes, "phyrexian" creature type is underwhelming, but they represent the whole plain.
So I think expecting a real phyrexian deck is roughly on par with "dominaria deck" or "ravnica deck"
That's because the "phyrexian" deck is and always will be infect which might not be a synergy based critical.mass aggro deck ALL of the creatures with infect are phyrexian so...that does in face make there a phyrexian deck, just because the cards don't all lean into each other's typing doesn't make the deck not phyrexian. Modern (modern as in time wise not the format) goblin decks barely run tribal synergy bit that doesn't stop them from being goblin decks.
most of the one set per mechanic issues would be at least lessened if Magic revived the block system
Making some solid points here :)
You should probably clean the glasses before the video lol, great video tho! I've always wondered why phyrexia cards feel different to play
Yeah I didnt realize it was the glasses and not my wonky eyesight lol, I've cleaned them since
your video production is crazy u deserve more recognition
I feel like Pauper's poison "storm" with proliferate is the most phyrexian deck
Phenomenal video
Honestly, I just really want to have fun with a deck of Phyrexian cards cuz I like their design… but god I’m FEELING how inadequate they can really be.
I’m playing the mobile game of MTG cuz that’s all I got and I have won VERY FEW matches with my Phyrexian cards, I am new, only got into the game this year… but… ouch. It is a bit of a self esteem blow when your main source of wins has been pre-built decks.
No shout out to the enchantment that gives phyrexians +1/+1?
Weird, it didn't pop up in my searches. Though, a 4 mana Lord effect is challenging to make work in contructed
i tried doing incubate tribal and yeah, i strongly agree before i watch the video. its such a vague definition between victim and people obsessed with possession. but i guess it makes sense, since theyre a blob of yawgmoths ramblings.
To me Phyrexia is about the subjugation of the individual. So an Esper deck with mindcontroll, stax, boardwipes, hand disruption and sacrificing creatures embodies the idea for me.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, my boy has *talent*.
If this doesn’t work out, you could always do dramatic readings for a living, bro. Seriously.
I only see one solution, Phyrexia muste comeback! All will be one!
The Thing is when you are putting them into all five colors you can’t have them work too well together in a block or it fucks up sealed formats too much think the eldrazi in B for Z. When half the cards are Phyrexians they can’t all synergize with each other. Also I’m thinking about modern infect and between 12 infect attackers mutagenic growth git probe and apostles blessing there was definitely a modern infect deck that used infect/phyrexian mana on the majority of its noneland cards.
I have a more "fun" way of seeing things
what is Phyrexia's identity in the game? the biggest mark they've left on the game isn't in any one type of deck, with any one strategy, rather Phyrexia's identity in mana, poison, counters, proliferate, all of these DO have one unifying trait, they're just generically powerful effects. Phyrexia IS generically powerful, and Phyrexia will be wherever it needs to be.
Phyrexia has one the war, not by assimilating everyone into themselves, but by assimilating themselves into everyone
as WOTC chooses to develop their mechanics and powercreep over the story as the game homogenizes, we learn who REALLY won the invasion.
there is no Phyrexian deck because All decks are Phyrexia
*All Has Become One*
Brimaz, blight of oreskos is my phyrexian typal commander. Lets just say there are some questionable creatures in there
They just need to make phyrexian mana devotion
I feel like it’s kinda thematic that the colors don’t really blend because of how in universe most of the praetors hate eachother right?
Oh yeah in terms of flavor it's great! Just not as great from a purely mechanical side of things
I'm wondering how an idea of Phyrexian's gaining benefits based around having a lesser life total. To turn Phyrexian mana cheating and damaging self to then be a way to help get yourself under your opponents Life to then use more of there core strategies.
I guess to flush it out better, and I know Wotc will will want it be seen through the lens of Commander, what I'm suggesting would be effects that are applied to or only target opponents that have a higher life total than you, though may still have a lesser effect if used or targeting against those with equal or lesser life than you
I have a Phyrexian deck based on Rage Extractor and Phyrexian mana. It sucks lol.
I use to teach new players as it is VERY predictable but fun.
Ironically the only ones I like are the New School Colorless Ones. Mainly cause None of the Older Ones fit my Playstyle.
I was able to make one for Commander
make the background music louder I could still hear you.
Real
Phyrexians secretly sneak in and infiltrate everything. They don't want to be their own unique thing until they've already converted everything. Sure, right now its just an infect deck every now and again, an incubating shark in your spell slinger deck, a sunfall in your control decks, a few phyrexian mana cards here and there, Elish Norn in reanimator sideboards, etc. but in a decade or two, when we're all playing Phyrexians: the Gathering, this video will look pretty dated.
No one will pick Phyrexians over Post Malone Sephiroth
But, how does this affect the Avengers SpongeBob Final Fantasy deck?
Vorinclex is now the Alaskan Bull Worm
But what about the selesnya and the dimir toxic decks, both use mostly phyrexian creatures and proliferate cards from ONE, those are crealy phyrexian decks
Edit: lol You actually talk about those decks, and even if they are not meta, dimir poison still see rogue play in the ladder, so the arquetype is not totally dead
Apologies, i was being an intentionally unreliable narration so I could talk up Toxic more lol
And not dead yet and still around, but with new developments in Standard it's starting to fade out of the Competitive tournaments compared to where it was a few months ago
Hoping that maybe Foundations shifts the meta enough for it to make a triumphant return to the top tables!
typal?
dawg, if you gon' wear sunglasses like that, clean them before shooting lmao
My vision is a little wonky so I didn't notice during shooting and usually my filters cover it lol, cleaned them before the latest video and there was still stuff on them, might just need new ones
Are you not including commander then? As phyrexians have several typal decks, also poison was a deck in standard back in the day. Your also just wrong as bant poison and dimir poison were both decks in standard just a couple months ago. I used several corrupted cards in bant posion it was a top 10 meta deck. This video is just wildly incorrect.
I do in fact mention how Commander is where these mechanics do their best. However, given that literally anything can work in Commander, it's not a good idea to include it. I also do, in fact, talk about the Toxic decks in Standard, even going so far as to calling it a true Phyrexian deck! I find that watching a video before commenting tends to be a solid strategy.
@HPuzzleYT sorry hard to make it all the way to the end when most of whats being said is wildly innacurrate. I gave you a solid 75% of the video but it wasnt worth finishing. Be glad it irritated me enough for me to leave engagement which is better for you anyway.
Okay! Have a blessed day!
@@HPuzzleYT you too. We both just passionate about this subject matter.
I agree. I think our disagreement on information presentation is good because without it, things would get too one-sided in the world
Phyrexian sure is a broken tribe.
It should be toxic or poison.
Ok Jack Black.
Typal sounds so dumb. Such a needles pc bs change.
please clean those glasses
My lack of vision gives me strength