But turns out, obviously none will be, ain’t no way NotC will let Magic be that cool. People would get scared. What they are supposed to is to look at Elesh Norn and say “compleat me mommy”. Unfortunately, we look at her minions and just be like “turns out if I get completed I’ll just get some red fabric, that’s baffling”. Obviously, that’s in comparison to New Phyrexia back in 2011, right before Innistrad so you know it was a more based time. Back when Elesh Norn was actually flat.
This plane is kinda important for being the first one that properly got visited after basically a full decade of Dominaria being Magic’s primary plane, because someone like MaRo realized that 1. The players are supposed to be these planeswalkers that walk between different planes, therefore it’s really weird we’ve been to so few planes 2. Planet of hats worked better on actual humans (so maybe not us) than to build a giant nuanced realistic planet like Dominaria 3. Dominaria probably has ran out of space by this point. Well, it’s still pretty heavily tied to Dominaria in one way, the character Karn created it and unknowingly made it with a smidge of Phyrexian oil, both things that are pretty tied to this important place. And yes, if you haven’t realized, that’s the lore reason for why we have Phyrexians now.
Anyhow, you obviously know the original Mirrodin for being a really broken block, so much so it harmed Kamigawa brutally in much the same way Urza’s Saga harmed Mercadia. Both for the same reason really, cheating mana. The older set do so by untapping lands, especially a few that taps for more than one mana just by being legendary, the newer set do so with affinity, which counts these artifacts that are easy to include in any deck by being colorless and also counts the artifact lands which basically means they produce 2 mana.
Then onto Scars of Mirrodin, the very first return block, also could have been known just as New Phyrexia then by the end “hey it’s Mirrodin all along”, that piece of design lore really resonates with me because nowadays I don’t think they would do that. This block isn’t as broken because it places a new focus on the war between the two factions that is mentioned somewhere in this paragraph. The villains one won and unfortunately did brought a broken mechanic through. That’s Phyrexian mana if you haven’t realize, making what would otherwise be colored cards just colorless because 2 life, same rate as a shockland. And also infect, because some commander players don’t like the fact that “poison tolerance” doesn’t scale to their format’s life total, to which I say, maybe 40 life might be a bit much in the first place.
Did you know that in Future Sight they made a compleat clue myr that is colored thinking that New Phyrexia would have the theme of colored artifacts? I wish they went with that, for how boring it truly is and should have just been Magic’s thing. Also you can’t spell compleat without pleat like you can’t spell pleated skirt without the pleat too, now I understand why Elesh Norn is the face of the whole ordeal. Step on me!
This set’s goal is to be the place for all those wanting to play the role of the villains, the Phyrexians specifically. Not by cheating mana costs anymore, but by killing people with poison and also now by messing with their own counter currency: the oil counters.
Poison actually didn’t start out for Phyrexians, it existed in ancient Magic, and MaRo really championed it, so much so he put Poison into an unreleased Un-set where it’s the vegetables that do the poisoning. He did eventually get his way in Future Sight with two cards that have poisonous, this ability that gives poison whenever the creature sabotages. Well that’s a pretty wordy and stuttery feel to come about it, being a long name and a triggered ability respectively, ain’t cutting it for these perfectionists. So they go about power creeping Wither from Shadowmoor to make Infect, which because it power creeps Wither, it scales with the creature’s power. And a creature’s power can be scaled surprisingly easily, since maybe you only need that power for a single turn, the rate you get can be pretty great, like 3 power for 1 mana because Lighting Bolt have proven that to be balanced. 3 out of 10 points of poison however, not so much. Or a different way of looking at it is what if that’s the only 3 points you’ll ever deal to the opponent and all the other creatures you drafted dealt damage normally? Suddenly it doesn’t seem so useful. So let’s bring back poisonous, but now less stuttery and have a snappier name, so toxic it is.
Back to that only 3 points argument, unlike life points it turned out dealing these increments of poison doesn’t feel as much of a threat like losing an actual chunk of your life is. Because you know, nobody pays poison to do stuff, unlike life. So what if there’s a perk to having just those few points? Well, that’s where corrupted comes in. It’s a fun way to mirror metalcraft back in SOM, with both wanting 3 of something truly.
Back to Mirrodin history, one of the big things it introduced are charge counters, which is basically its try at a currency for these artifacts to work with. They actually tried energy back in these days too, but well that took 13 more years and still proves to be broken so. But well, we got what we got, a currency that there are certainly ways to move them around, just not a lot. Now we basically get them back, but in the new compleat form, the oil counters. Which a certain Dominarian compleat ship did not use, let me remind you it surely exists. In design lore, these actually can be proliferated from zero to one because they were a keyword, but unfortunately we settled on just spelling out the counters. This was certainly not short because this set was before the two shortenings of arrivals.
Old Phyrexia is known a bit for the nine spheres, the formation of the planet with each layer inward getting scarier and scarier. Now the New Phyrexia have just as many spheres too, just their functions are different. This is the new land type of this set, clearly disregarding the facts that 1. Cards are still rectangles 2. Mirrodin already has its Locuses 3. I wish Mirrodin lands were artifact lands too.
What’s for the Mirran heroes to do? Well, they are now Rebels, because the watermarks for the two sides are gone since the enemy can just carry the Phyrexian type now (and if they used to be Humans they just aren’t anymore, a certain Unfinity card would be sad about that). And they also got their version of living weapon, which now makes 2/2 Rebels instead of 0/0 Germs. I’m writing this just as a set making a 1/1 version of this keyword, so I wonder how much design implications I’ve touched on this keyword, for this one you just know it has an exclaimation mark and it has to capitalize both of its words.
And now onto what’s not necessarily a mechanic, more so just the artistic tone of the sets. You heard all the mad rants at how toned down the Phyrexians look now. Like all the white Phyrexians have going for them are teeths, otherwise they just have red fabric to them, not all that scary. The argument is too obvious, nowadays Magic has too many people to appeal and a lot of them might get scared of these evil monsters hence why we only have this set to dedicate to these villains. I could suffice it’s because well a lot of the aritsts that made the older cards as scary as they aren’t around anymore (even if they do, they might be someone like Igor Kieryluk only making like 3 pieces compared to half a dozen). Granted we have recruited new artists with unique styls, but like you look at the set gallery and I dunno, have they really got as big of the pie as they should? Or now we reserve the true horror to the showcase cards? I’ll probably do some art comparison for a few cards to illustrate this point later, I don’t promise actual art critique skills, what I write might just be me recalling what I read on the internet like 2 years ago.
This 20 mythics set is divided into 15 monocolored cards where each color get 3 cards, 3 multicolored cards where none are tricolored and 2 colorless artifacts. That’s probably the biggest split for the monocolored card for a while I think.
This is our big mythic cycle in place of the praetors. They have a lot of mechanical cohesion to live up to. These are all 2 devotion Phyrexian Horror commanders that double somethings and have a phyrexian mana based way and also something else to get an indestructible counter. Three of them are cheapest at 4 mana with stats ranging from total to 8 points to a 5/4 and needs three mana (maximum) to get the counter. The black one costs 1 more, goes for 1 less power than Yargle and a more popular ability to double, hence the cost increase truly. And lastly the biggest one at a whopping 7 mana is surprisingly small at 4/6 until you realize it doubles creatures’ stats, which is so generic that’s probably why it costs so much. These two expensive ones just require two mana to get the counter, through the green one’s other cost is more restrictive than the white one literally, through I suffice after paying for the red one you can pay for the blue one, and after paying for these you can pay the blue one. Keywords wise, the blue one has flying and the green one has reach, what a basic pair to Magic.
Flavor wise, each of these follow the name structure of <Name>, <Aspect> Dominus, with the only instances of three syllables being the blue one’s both words and the green one’s name. Gender wise, the two Dimir ones are male and the others female, white you can guess by appearance (something something bible accurate angel), the red one you can guess by name (Sophia but sharper I feel) and the green one you can just go with it.