The Planeswalking Peddler

Magic: The Gathering – New Phyrexia

t’s that time again. A new set’s release (or pre-release) came and went, and with it came a host of toys for our grubby little gaming hands to get a hold of.

Most of them are recurring themes and remain the same, like infect, living weapon, metalcraft, and proliferate, but one of the more interesting innovations to come around this time (in my opinion) is Phyrexian mana.
Phyrexian mana comes in the same five flavours as normal mana; white, blue, black, red, and green. That means that they are payable like normal mana, which is a good thing.

Now, the difference between Phyrexian mana and normal mana is that Phyrexian mana can be paid through an alternate way. You can pay 2 life instead of paying the cost for a Phyrexian mana symbol.

Let’s look at an example.

Porcelain Legionnaire costs 2 colourless mana and 1 White Phyrexian mana. You can either pay 2 colourless and 1 White to cast it, or you can take the cheap way and pay 2 mana plus 2 life. Taking the cheap route reduces your life total a bit, but it lets you bring out a 3-power creature with first strike as quickly as turn 1 or 2, depending on your deck. That’s nothing to laugh about.

Multiple symbols of Phyrexian mana work the same.

Moltensteel Dragon can be paid through the full mana cost (4 colourless and 2 Red) or you can opt to pay 4 colourless and 4 life, bringing down this big flyer with increasable power on turn 3. The cost of increasing its power can be paid the same way as paying Phyrexian mana in the casting cost. You either pay 1 Red to buff the power, or you can pay 2 life. You can pay more than once if you really like dragons.

One of the recurring themes throughout the New Phyrexia set is Golems. Many cards produce Golem tokens and even give bonuses to said Golems.

All ‘Splicer’ cards allow you to put Golem tokens into play on top of bestowing some ability to your Golems. Other cards also help you generate a Golem army, but I’ll let you discover them on your own. More fun that way.

Now for something different. During all the Magic tutorials on this site, we have seen artifacts only as colourless cards. Artifacts can actually be coloured, and have actually been coloured, and are now coloured again thanks to the Phyrexians.

Porcelain Legionnaire is actually a white card because it has the White Phyrexian mana symbol. Phyrexian Metamorph is a blue card because it has the Blue Phyrexian mana symbol.

One thing to note is this: cards are coloured based on their mana symbols, not on what type there are. So artifacts are colourless based on their colourless mana symbols, not because they are artifacts. If an artifact sudden had a Green mana symbol, then it would be green. If it had a Black or Red mana symbol, it would be black or red.

That’s all for this guide to New Phyrexia. For more information on New Phyrexia’s recurring mechanics, read the Magic: The Gathering Tutorials Week 12 and 13.

Till next time, sayonara.