New Phyrexia

New Phyrexia is a Magic: The Gathering expansion set that was released May 13, 2011. It is the third set of the Scars of Mirrodin block, which returns to the plane of Mirrodin, previously visited in the Mirrodin block that concluded in 2004.^[2] The release announcement indicated that the set, codenamed "Action", would be named either Mirrodin Pure or New Phyrexia.^[1]

The tagline for the set is "The Grand Compleation is Achieved," and the expansion symbol matches the Phyrexian watermarks found on non-land or planeswalker cards from Scars of Mirrodin and Mirrodin Besieged. Prerelease events were held on May 7 and 8.^[3] It contains 175 cards.

History

The origins of New Phyrexia date back to the early design stages of the original Mirrodin set. The idea of Phyrexian oil influencing Mirrodin's evolution was included in the storyline for future use.^[4]

New Phyrexia was originally planned to be the first set of the "Lights" block, with the storyline being set after the Phyrexians had already conquered Mirrodin. Eventually, designer Mark Rosewater made the decision to build the block around the war between the Mirrans and the Phyrexians, leading up to New Phyrexia after Scars of Mirrodin and Mirrodin Besieged.^[5]

In the original announcement from December 9, 2010 it was left open whether this set would be named New Phyrexia or Mirrodin Pure. On March 29, 2011 Wizards of the Coast announced that New Phyrexia was going to be the name of the set.^[6] The tagline for Mirrodin Pure would have been "The Sharpest Steel is Tempered in Fire".^[1]

On April 19, 2011, spoiler pictures for the entire set were leaked online, almost a month before the release date.^[7] The leak caused Wizards of the Coast to take action against those responsible for prematurely revealing the set in its entirety, by banning them from the DCI for various lengths of time.^[8]

Mechanics

New Phyrexia introduces the following mechanics:

• Phyrexian Mana Symbols - Mana costs containing Phyrexian Mana Symbols can be paid with either the given color or two life per Phyrexian Mana symbol. In New Phyrexia, all permanent cards with Phyrexian Mana in their costs are colored artifacts, which were last seen in Shards of Alara block.

The following mechanics from Scars of Mirrodin and Mirrodin Besieged return in this set:

• Infect - A creature with "Infect" deals damage to creatures in the form of -1/-1 counters and to players in the form of poison counters. A player with 10 or more poison counters loses the game.
• Metalcraft - "Metalcraft" rewards a player for having three or more artifacts in play. Creatures with "Metalcraft," for example, tend to increase in power and toughness and/or gain new abilities they otherwise wouldn't have. Some cards with "Metalcraft" are themselves artifacts, meaning only two more artifacts are needed to activate their Metalcraft abilities.
• Proliferate - The keyword action "Proliferate" allows players to give additional counters to cards and players who already have them. The player chooses which cards or players will get another counter, though the ability is not targeted.^[9]
• Imprint - The only returning keyword from the original Mirrodin block, this keyword allows a player to "imprint" some card on a permanent, usually on an artifact (removing that card from the game). That permanent's effect(s) depend(s) on the card imprinted (for example you can imprint a creature on Soul Foundry and then activate it to reproduce copies of that creature). New Phyrexia is the first set to have imprint on nonartifact permanents. In a recent article, Mark Rosewater stated that he did not believe Imprint was implemented as well as it could have been.
• Living Weapon - This ability is found on Equipment. When a piece of Equipment with "Living weapon" enters the battlefield, it creates a 0/0 Black Germ creature token and is immediately attached to that token.
• Poisoned - Not a keyword ability, "poisoned" is a rules term that describes a player who has one or more poison counters. Certain cards will get a boost when targeting or attacking a player who is poisoned.^[9]

Notable Cards

• Birthing Pod is a card that allows players to sacrifice a creature to search for another creature with a converted mana cost one higher and put it into play. Many players have designed their decks around the Birthing Pod card, with Birthing Pod decks having considerable success at high level events.^[10]
• Dismember is a card costing two black Phyrexian mana and one colorless mana that gives -5/-5 to target creature. The card proved controversial on its release as it is a very powerful removal spell that can be played in any deck, due to the lack of a colored mana requirement. A number of commentators considered this to be overpowered.^[11][12]
• Mental Misstep is a blue counterspell with a cost of one Phyrexian blue mana, allowing it to be played for one mana or 2 life, that counters spells with converted mana cost 1. The card made little impact in Block Constructed or Standard but had a very big impact on larger formats where one mana spells are more prevalent. As a result the card has been banned in Modern,^[13] Extended and Legacy.^[14] Mark Rosewater has expressed a dislike for this card as he didn't feel a free counterspell in any color was a good idea.^[15] However, he does note that the card was originally going to have the effect of Force Spike, and so could have been considerably more powerful.^[15]
• Sword of War and Peace is the last of the cycle of Sword equipment cards, a cycle that started in Mirrodin block. The sword gives +2/+2 and protection from red and white to the equipped creature. Its secondary ability is to give the creature's owner 1 life per card in hand and deal the opponent 1 damage for each card in their hand when the equipped creature deals damage to an opposing player.

Notes and references