The latest Magic: The Gathering set, Phyrexia: All Will Be One, sees Elesh Norn lead a legion of biomechanical monsters to war against the heroes of the MTG multiverse. The horror-inspired creatures feel like they could fit into an MTG movie if David Lynch directed it, and the art is some of the most interesting this year — especially if you’re a horror fan like me. The set also returns poison counters to tabletop and digital play, which can make for hectic (and sometimes annoying) games when you can lose at effectively half-health. Them’s the breaks when you’re dealing with Phyrexia — they don’t play fair.
The storyline in Phyrexia: All Will Be One sees Elesh Norn rise to power as the heroes of the MTG Universe gather in one place. It feels as high-stakes as Avengers: Endgame. Will one of our Planeswalker heroes die?
Here’s a little bit from Wizards on the story — but read more yourself if you can.
When the Phyrexians invaded Mirrodin, they fell under the influence of the plane’s colored suns. The mana from the white sun gave birth to Elesh Norn. She adopted and twisted the societies and beliefs of those she conquered into her Phyrexian faction, the Machine Orthodoxy. She preaches a vision of grand unity where no creature is separated from the other by such pitiful, mortal barriers as skin or flesh.
At first, Norn believed she was the divine speaker for Karn, the planeswalking golem who brought Phyrexians to Mirrodin. As their creator, he was revered as a god. But he proved to be mortal, flawed, and betrayed the Phyrexian cause. This convinced Norn that she must become her people’s new leader, and she dubbed herself the Mother of Machines. To shepherd in a new age of Phyrexian glory, she has orchestrated a plan to unite the Multiverse.
There are a lot of strong cards in Phyrexia: All Will Be One and just as much striking art — whether you’re holding paper or cracking packs in MTG Arena. Some of my favourites skew either wonderfully weird or straight-up scary. Crawling Chorus is a Phyrexian Horror that lives up to the name; Meldweb Curator looks like it wandered out of a more-messed-up BioShock game; and my favourite Planeswalker this set is Vraska, Betrayal’s Sting — I’ve always had a soft spot for Vraska, and this time the card matches the character.
It’s also hard to look past the alt-art for Elesh Norn herself — stunning, in the most horrific way.
The set also features alt-art influenced by Japanese horror — gorgeous and gruesome. Here are a couple of examples:
I unboxed a bunch of the new set thanks to Wizards of the Coast — check it out below.
New and Returning Mechanics
Let’s take a look at the new and returning abilities and keywords in this set.
Poison Counters & Toxic
Poison counters are back alongside the new Toxic keyword. Toxic N means a creature deals its normal combat damage and also gives the player it hits N poison counters. (By contrast, the older Infect replaced damage to players with that many poison counters, and damage to creatures with that many −1/−1 counters.) A player with ten or more poison counters loses the game.
Proliferate
Proliferate returns. When you proliferate, choose any number of permanents and/or players, then give each another counter of every kind already there (+1/+1 counters, loyalty, oil, poison, etc.).
Corrupted
Corrupted checks whether an opponent has three or more poison counters and unlocks additional effects while they’re sufficiently contaminated (e.g., “Corrupted — as long as an opponent has three or more poison counters, this creature has lifelink”).
For Mirrodin!
For Mirrodin! appears on Equipment. When an Equipment with For Mirrodin! enters the battlefield, you create a 2/2 red Rebel creature token and attach the Equipment to it.
Oil Counters
Many permanents enter the battlefield with oil counters. Their abilities add, remove or check oil to power up effects and synergies across the set.
I’ve been drafting horribly with this set, so let me know in the comments how your luck has been. Do you like this set? Planning to check it out?
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