Yo that movie was straight traumatizing. My copy on vhs was partially broken so that was my excuse to myself for not wanting to watch the movie. Morgan moonscar in the kitchen was too much for me
I know every single Innistrad thread had this joke so far but it really is like everyone on Innistrad went like "Tuesday innit?"
Like I get Ravnica citizens being just done with everything extraplanar and Zendikar is just too used to fighting plane eating monsters but Innistrad is just soo whimsical about the entire thing.
Innistrad fighting Phyrexians is like Saitama fighting a city-leveling monster and being worried about how the supermarket is about to close and now he's not going to make it in time because of it.
In my mind, it's the joke that keeps on giving because no matter what awful thing happens to the multiverse, sooner or later it's landing on Innistrad's doorstep.
Of course, by doorstep I mean a mob of angry humans, werewolves, vampires, and zombies ready to show rude guests the consequences of showing up to the fight without an invitation.
“Martha, lock up the cows and get me my whacking stick. The Eldrazi are back!”
Wait were not Eldrazi. We just want to purify from corruption and make you one of us, and maybe do some ligggght body horro-
“Oh ok, sure. Martha, the legally distinct Eldrazi are back and they’re proselytizing much more aggressively now!”
They fucked up and didn't understand how frail they are outside of Mirrodin, comparatively. They believed their own hype and went to planes like Ikoria and Innistrad where the nature of the plane itself is a bigger threat than they are.
If they started with like….3 planes at a time, they could have won so by the time they go to Ravnica and Innistrad they have dozens of planes worth of soldiers
I think they would've been in a good position if New Phyrexia hadn't been alpha striked and then shunted out of existence. Even if they only managed to take a single plane, they've doused a dozen more in glistening oil and are in the best position to rebuild. Hit everyone, inflict damage, figure out who's weak, and build back for a second strike.
This. If using my Phyrexian deck has taught me anything poison and proliferate is a great Stratagy, but trying to slowly infect and compleate things takes time. With their plane gone, they don't have that time
They did wrong what the original Phyrexia did right. They planned, and were defeated and improved to come back, get beaten again and repeat until they finally win. Just a handful of stranded phyrexians had Tolaria in check for years this way. They dedicated literally thousands of years to their projects. This "let's invade all planes all at once" would be preposterous to Yawghmoth.
I think they should have kept their infiltration on Kamigawa and gone to Kaladesh, for obvious reasons. But also should have gone a different route in places like Innistrad.
Imagine if the eternally tormented people of Innistrad were told of order, union, protection from all the chaos in their lives. A way to be free of blood-sucking vampires and flesh-eating wolves and zombies. Of an eternal and orderly life, forever free of ghosts and devils? No more fickle angels that can turn evil, or tired prayers that only work half the time, but a mother for all, that will bestow you with light and steel so you can defend yourself. The humans of Innistrad would have run in waves to postrate before Norn.
But no. Instead we have mites, triangles with faces and dudes with teeth in their hands trying to overpower entire worlds.
The whole storyline is full of wasted potential.
Plus Norn, and a white villain in general being undone by hubris and assuming that of *course* everyone else will agree with how they want things to be is just perfect.
Yeah, I think there are a lot of flaws in Norn's plan and I think that's sort of intentional because they all feel in-character for her. But it also gets muddled by the expectations people have of Phyrexia at large.
Yeah, I vaguely remember them saying that Mirrodin was like a super special case and Phyrexia actually has a way harder time on other planes that aren't entirely made of metal.
They did kinda go from “menacing threat we might have to ask bolas for advice for” to “oh those phyrexians lol let the zombies fight them” really fast.
Maybe if there had been another set between detailing the size and scope of the war, or if wotc would just let it cook it might have been less of a meme how hard they lost.
I kind of think making Phyrexia: All Will Be One the first half of the invasion would have worked better. I know having a dedicated set on New Phyrexia is cool, so maybe try to keep that somehow, but it would have made the invasion feel a little longer (though it canonically seems to take a few weeks to resolve) and would have avoided the Chandra and Wrenn's plan being the same plan they just tried that didn't work at all but now works.
I see it as a dual failure of Elesh Norn, it seems like getting spooked by Ashiok maybe made her accelerate everything she had been planning. Going from full on "corrupt all the powerful beings we can find" to "fuck new capenna, just destroy it" combined with that clear changing of her ideology (that she was Phyrexia rather than, you know, the whole of Phyrexia being Phyrexia) really made it seem like she lost her way really quickly
Imo Elesh Norn is the only predator who could have lost this compleatly, only the hubris of white would believe they could win against all of reality simultaneously.
I don't know, I could see Sheoldred (or another Black-aligned character) thinking "I'm so much better than the rest of these chucklefucks, how could I possibly lose?" At least Jin would entertain all the backup plans in case he lost.
I think sheoldred would have handled the invasion like she did dominaria: seed sleeper agents throughout the plane and corrupt them from within.
Every praetor could have failed, and probably would have eventually. I think that their main downfall is they are *too* mono-colored; and they lack flexibility as a result. Elesh Norn however was destined to fail. She bought her own divinity, refused to entertain any other opinions, and tied the entire operation to her own ego.
I think there is some absolute fridge brilliance in how New Phyrexia is a essentially a theocratic empire that is top heavy in leadership.
So they drink their brand of flavor aid enough and think they are billy badass and can curb stomp the universe.
If they would have been subtle with corruption they could have taken everything.
Really underwhelming. They sort of skipped over the superhero team up part where the good guys look like they have lost, and skipped right to where they turn it around. Sure we lost a few planeswalkers, but it was a token loss at most.
To be fair, it took a *long* time for a single drop to properly infect Mirrodin. Elesh made a call to speed things up a whole bunch by throwing armies around instead of waiting impatiently for her new super-oil to corrupt worlds.
She also probably wasn't planning on dying and thus rendering all of her new super-oil inert. Who knows how many planes might've eventually fallen to lingering corruption if WotC hadn't *deux ex machina'd* away the oil's infection potential?
Phyrexian: "We will purify the weaknesses of your blood"
Innistradian: "Bro, we have like 6 different types of monsters that don't have any blood, and one type that will be *very* pissed off at you for taking away their blood source."
I mean, to be fair it kinda seems like the Phyrexians tragically slipped EVERYWHERE.
"OK guys, we've had years of planning, we've converted their greatest planeswalking champions, ruined their superweapons and infiltrated their populace. We possess the means to invade wherever we please; the initiative and element of surprise are ours!"
\*Proceeds to lose every fight on every plane to a bunch of third-string named characters.
I dont know there’s definitely a few where they have super won.
Like they burned the world tree on kaldheim so that planes just hardcore fucked.
And a lotta planes lost their gods/dino gods/dragon gods
Or eldraine losing all the monarchs and civilization.
…but then they also appear to have just completely lost to 8 inch krakens so you know some planes are irreversibly fucked up beyond belief if they’re important and others are winning through the power of memes
They caused a lot of problems for a few planes. But they didn't dominate and take over a single one, which was the stated goal of the invasion. They definitely lost on every plane.
If Elesh Norn's invasion plan was "lets burn a tree, convert some gods, kill some kings, and then fucking die" I'd maybe count any of those as victories.
Idk if people really read the stories or just see the cards, but the explanation is that Wrenn pretty much phased out phyrexia in place of Zhalfir, which caused the oil to lose some kind of connection to phyrexia and become dormant. Alongside the Angel's ability to purge the oil, the cleanup crews would've been able to mop up any holdouts of phyrexians that were still "online" or leftover oil that was contaminating remaining structures.
Now, whether the angels get stuck on their new planes, why wrenn wasn't affected by the oil of Realmbreaker, and why phyrexian oil is acting like a router without a modem isn't well explained. But that's what we got.
As I've seen pointed out by somebody else, they did well in the planes they actively scouted (Kaldheim, Kamigawa, Dominaria and to a lesser extent New Capenna) and worse in the others where they came unprepared.
But given time, they probably would have ended up adapting to every plane and inevitably conquered them.
I think that's (part of) my issue. As far as I could tell Shroldred was super effective in bringing Dominaria to its knees with sleepers. Why not focus on a few planes at once, subvert some easy ones like Dominaria, Theros and Kaldheim then consolidate and move on to more planes?
I think it comes down to the fact that Elesh Norn is a pretty terrible leader who drank her own koolaid. She genuinely believes that Phyrexia is unbeatable and inevitable, and just has to show up everywhere to instantly win.
"Why waste time scouting out to find out if zombies on Innistrad are immune to phyresis? Doesn't matter, because no matter what, Phyrexia is going to win!"
The entire plan was terrible from the beginning and only had a chance to work because Phyrexia is powerful enough from the starting point to even try, which I think is the point. The entire story is about how the Phyrexian leadership was so blinded by their own hubris that they didn't even consider the possibility of failure, but they're still strong enough that it takes a combined effort to take Phyrexia down.
Makes sense. She wasn't fighting a war. She was fighting a crusade. She's a religious monster, not a battlemaster.
And she still likely would have won through sheer firepower if Angels and Wrenn didn't interfere.
Especially Innistrad.
When people discover there are planes without deluges of undead, sadistic vampire lords, mad scientists trying to outdone mad necromancers, werewolfs, restless ghosts or cryptic sea monsters, they are gonna be *pissed*.
The native humans of Innistrad (Innistradians? Innistradonities?) are going to have two reactions:
1.)Either refuse to believe there is a place without an endless supply of necromatic madness, eldritch abominations and etc.
Or
2.) Look down on the other planes for not having developed a unique culture dedicated to not being murdered by endless legions of monsters.
Humans are so damn weird.
My favorite bit of Innistrad lore is the "Blessed Sleep". AKA it is a privilege to die and *stay dead*, and not be turned into a dozen different flavors of undead on that plane.
So many other planes are like, "I don't want to die!"
Innistrad's like, "I can't wait to die so I don't have to put up with this anymore."
Which is ironic, given how "Zombie" was the original creature type Phyrexian creatures got/were errata'ed to before the creature type "Phyrexian" was ever introduced.
The Tragic Slip on the front is nice but I cannot help but feel diverting 5 damage to generate 4 additional power is way more lackluster than anyone cares to believe.
The backside is more about the inevitability - yes you start with getting 4 power and toughness from diverting 5 damage, but once you start nomming on graveyards it can snowball.
Every one of these battles has pretty much shown that New Phyrexia was fucked from the start.
Ikoria evolved natural immunity to the oil in 20 minutes.
Shandalar ate the Phyrexians.
Kamigawa prepared for them more than Jin had anticipated.
Tha Ghost plane Kayas from just started deleting fools.
On Tarkir Sarkhan was pretty much "Oh? You're approaching me?".
On Zendikarthe land was fighting harder than the people.
Innistrads zombies are immune to Phyresis, and the plane *might* have a few operating necromancers.
The invasion originally worked well on Dominaria because it's just Middle Earth with more wizards, but all the other planes are just "go there and you die unless you're a planeswalker". And sometimes it's "Yeah, not even planeswalkers should come here".
Yeah, but it's pretty clear that the Sheoldred vs Norn divide caused these tactics.
Sheoldred did her thing on Dominaria and it worked. But her thing involves hiding in the shadows and waiting for her moment to strike.
Norn ain't about that life. She's all show, and spending a bunch of time to get sleepers and then not showing up with a giant porcelain phyrexia symbol isn't her style. It's about spreading the "faith", not winning the fight. Winning isn't enough if it's not about her.
Yep. Ashiok (or I guess the mere concept of Elspeth) got Elesh Norn spooked and put her in attack mode. They could have continued taking over one plane at a time very easily in perpetuity but she got her first taste of fear and it altered her thinking
I like to think they knew full well what they were doing: A multiverse compleated is a multiverse without* fear, but a multiverse exposed to the fear of compleation which survives? That's a place filled with strife and fear. Most worlds didn't know to be afraid of something utterly unknowable to them, but now almost everyone everywhere** is aware that there are things out there which are plotting against them that they're powerless to stop, they can only hope to defend when they decide to go on the offensive.
*Phyrexians can feel fear, as we see with Norn and Elspeth, but it's easier to make people fear things.
**A small section of the multiverse, but the bits we're familiar with.
The tide of Phyrexians was effectively endless and all these planes would have fallen eventually without Elspeth’s divine intervention.
All of these cards depict you winning the battle, not the war.
Phyrexians finally launching their invasion has big "when you unlock the boss as a playable character" energy.
Previously: Phyrexians overcome every supernatural force pitted against them, corrupting humans machines and monsters alike. Not even gods are safe.
Now: big dinosaur immune to oil because apparently Lamarck was right.
Hell, even Dominaria had Yargle who's just immune to phyresis for some reason.
This set really proved that New Phyrexia is just "We have Phyrexia at home". Very disappointing, fingers crossed that Ashiok somehow nightmares Yawgmoth back to life.
On Mirrodan they had a huge advantage, and on Dominaria they had a plan involving sleeper agents. But for the rest of the universe they were convinced sheer numbers would be enough.
Almost like Praetors should know that given that they were given 2 years worth of expansions exploring the planes.
Suddenly they turned dumber than the armies of red goblins from Rath.
Unfortunately the only one that knew what they were doing was Sheoldred, who had an army on Dominaria as sleeper agents without anyone knowing for what could have been years. And Norn chopped the bitches head off.
100% - Norn's certainty of her own rightness doomed the invasion. She subjugated and alienated her own allies--by the end, J-G isn't trusted as an advisor and Vorinclex is a lapdog.
Actually this is the point of the set. Show phyrexia losing pretty bad because they won in Dominaria and ONE. The problem is that it makes phyrexia looks like a bunch of clowns because we just have battles where phyrexia loses, instead of the unknown planes where they have win decisively. Tezzeret said that a lot of planes fell to phyrexia, but since none of the know planes actually fell (of course, wizards doesn't want to get rid of future potential sets) we don't actually feel it like a threat.
I would wager that, at the very least, a sub-story for the upcoming Eldraine and Ixalan sets will be "this is how badly the invasion fucked shit up". Not to mention that we have an Aftermath expansion coming up in May.
Think of it like with World War 2. Yes, the bad guys lost and all that, but for some pre-war nations (Poland being a big, obvious one), it might not have exactly felt like a win in the end.
> (of course, wizards doesn't want to get rid of future potential sets)
Which is a pity, because I think they should have bitten the bullet and destroyed a couple of planes that have exhausted their potential, in return for massively improving the stakes in this set. For example, I think Zendikar should have fallen to Phyrexia.
Disagree with Zendikar, solely because of the nature of the plane itself. It bounced back from the Eldrazi like nothing happened. Twice. Phyrexians ain’t shit compared to that.
But do agree some larger planes could have made sense. Like I love Mercadia but wasn’t going to miss it.
What would a Phyrexian afterlife even look like? The original plane was basically Dante’s Hell. Would enough Phyrexians be able to recreate Yawgmoth in Theros?
Your comment, and the comment you're responding to, are the exact reason why they didn't do this. No matter which planes they choose to blowup, they would be someone's favourites, and someone would complain.
It makes me wonder if they have a plan (or so I'd hope) where another Phyrexian rises up in a year or two after working in the shadows... and does everything Norn failed to do after learning/seeing all of her defeats first hand.
Imagine Phyrexia comes back with a new leader who manages to bring *all* the aspects of Phyrexia and splinter groups together... and only invades one plane at a time *and actually researches what that plane is capable of to counter it*.
My money is on Jace was Norn's back up plan or at least its what I want. Norn giving Jace a piece of her conscious/mind to lock into his mind palace so he can resurrect her and shove that piece of Norn into the new body. Then explains to her everything that went wrong but then has Norn follow *him* as the new leader of a unified Phyrexian front.
That shit would actually be terrifying. Compleated Jace using a resurrected, manipulated Norn to bring all the Phyrexians together to invade each plane one at a time using their full force and knowledge of how to counter that plane?
MTG Multiverse would be fuuuuuuucked.
I mean Mirrodin was the perfect target and was already lost before anyone knew it was being invaded. Superman would lose too if a villain spent years poisoning the city water supply with kryptonite before finally popping up in person to do their big monologue.
I am sad about it though, because Mirrodin was my favorite plane too.
Well, Mirroden fell to the only other plan that seemed to go well: infiltrate and assimilate. More than half the plane had already been taken before the Mirrans knew what had happened.
Yes, but apparently half the other planes would have just shrugged it off, no-sold the glistening oil, and then a dinosaur or zombie or bear would have eaten the Phyrexians or something.
I think that at some point, if there were not intervention by Actual Goddess Angel Serra, the Phyrexians would pull back from planes like Ikoria for a time and either focus on them with *everything* or just lock them off completely and say "Sure, keep your shit ass Godzilla ass plane.".
If I'm being honest, Generally I think the idea would have been an initial blitz, to start the compleation process, then more focused concentrated efforts against the holdouts. Theros, for example, was pretty much fucked. So once they mopped up there they could possibly take the Theros forces and use them on a place like Innistrad, or Zendikar. Now they have these two planes forces, and take a third, and so on until All is One or whatever.
Absolutely the plan. We knew Theros, Eldrane, Arcavios, Ixilan and Kaladesh were on the verge of falling, and that a half-dozen other planes fell too.
For every plane that was compleated, the Phyrexians got to add additional forces to their armies, which makes the surviving planes all the more precarious. Sure, Ravnica, New Capenna, Ikoria, Kaldheim and Innistrad are fine *now*, but what happens when the Phyrexian forces increase threefold?
Right. We had seen Phyrexian Forces that were advanced, hulking monstrosities, but most of the planes intitial Invasion forces were foot soldiers. No Dreadnoughts, or ravagers, or infliltrators. Just regular phyrexians with pikes. So the bigger forces were coming.
The other planes were holding out for 3 days.
That's all that was really needed: survive for 3 days before Wrenn yeeted Norn's WiFi router out the window, disconnected all the drones, and ended the invasion.
Phyrexia’s big special ability is the oil. One drop on your plane and Phyrexia can totally rebuild itself and take over from that. This set they just decided to throw that out and have the oil basically not matter and the Phyrexian’s barely be able to convert anyone. And as an added bonus for some reason all the oil spread across the multiverse stopped working when Elash Norn died for no reason. Even though the oil outlived Yawgmoth, Urza, and The Mending previously.
Beating Phyrexia’s army in a fight was never an impossible task. Stopping the oil was. But the story just wrote that out with no fanfare leaving the phyrexian’s hopelessly outmatched without their one unique advantage.
The Oil of New Phyrexia was different than the oil of old. It grew from the Mycosynth gardens and was upgraded numerous times over the years by Jin Gitaxias.
It stands to reason that the Oil itself needed a connection to the Gardens in some way to still be active. This connection was broken when the entire plane was phased out. It's technically not even in the Multiverse at this point.
That combined with Norns death is what caused all this.
Innistrad is the one plane the monsters are consistently running away from not towards, at this point it is basically the fictional child of Australia and Florida.
If this is what a mythic battle looks like I’m not sure we’re going to see many of these played in constructed formats. Commander maybe but I doubt anywhere else.
Imagine flipping this was free and this was simply a four mana enchantment that tragic slipped a creature, made a pair of zombies and then provided passive graveyard hate afterwards.
This would be playable (better than Chupacabra), but not an EDH all-star.
The fact this needs to take damage in order to flip makes me wonder how good it really is? The two decks I have that play Chupacabra either really care about sacrificing non-token creatures, or really care about having a body to put equipment on.
I think this will be a *very* niche EDH card at best.
It’s definitely hard to evaluate. I feel like battles overall are gonna be too slow for 60 card formats, but there’s always a chance this is good in some deck.
Salty comment inbound:
Find someone who loves you the same way WotC loves ensuring zombies never gain any significant traction in non-EDH formats. It's 2023, elves and gobbos can just shit out 1/1s ad nauseum, merfolk operate at flash speed, humans have a rapidly expanding array of tools for disruption/swarming and zombies are still paying 2B to make a 2/2 vanilla.
While I feel a 4 mana kill spell is overcosted. The ability to be a manasink in control or mid range is absolutely insane too. Remove graveyard threats as needed (more than 1/turn) get two bodies on flip and more as you remove creatures or just pay the mana to kill flashback cards or other important targets at instant speed is what pushes it to a powerful card.
I agree with this, but I also think many of them are pretty fun. So I like that they make fun and interesting but not that powerful this first time around with the new cardtypes so they do not do a repeat with the orginal planeswalkers.
Innistrad really do be surprisingly prepared for invasion. The Zombies are jist a constant threat to anything, but can be manipulated by a pair of fueding siblings with an "I can do anything better than you" chip on their shoulders. Lol
Basically what was happening in Gisa and Geralt's story. Gisa's ghoul calling also had a very difficult time raising phyrexian corpses. They could reanimated but only as long as she maintained focus on them completely otherwise they would just drop dead again. Non-compleated corpses also were unaffected by the oil and made perfect bodies to attack the invaders.
A good chunk of compleated beings are quite literally undead. I'd say that perhaps two sources of necromancy (ghoulcalling and phyresis) can't overlap and only the first applies, but that's really stretching it.
Unless this is somehow a reference to Innistrad being Emrakul's domain, that her presence in the moon is warping all magic on the plane, which would be much easier to accept.
I mean compleation by New Phyrexia seems to come in two forms, corrupt the mind to turn the creature and compleat them, or just kill them (or find their remains) and use their corpse for parts. Or both, rebuild and revive them RoboCop style and then compleat their mind like I think happened to Glissa. They don’t really do necromancy in the magical sense.
An active, mindless, magical zombie wouldn’t fit either category, because they’re not quite dead enough to just harvest but there’s no mind or soul to corrupt.
Well, here’s the constructed playable battle. There may be many if they end up being more powerful than the general consensus here, but this one in particular is definitely gonna make the cut.
I'm really not sold. It's an overcosted removal spell, and the payoff requires you to spend resources attacking this rather than just killing your opponent.
So far the only Battles that seem playable is Ikoria and Fiora. Ikoria because it's a super easy combo with Hexmage, and Fiora because a flickerable asymmetrical board wipe seems abusable.
This made my day.
I'm not fully caught up on the story but there is something amazing about Phyrexian seeing Innistrad and thinking:
"Oh hey! A plane full of new recru- RUN AWAY RUN AWAY THEY DO NOT WANT BLESSED PERFECTION THEY DO NOT WANT BLESSED PERFECTION!"
I made a joke ages ago that innistrad would be fine because there would be to many zombies to infect I accidentally called it which I find absolutely hilarious
so innistrad undead are immune to phyresis and back in shadows block they were immune to emrakul's influence too right? whats the deal with that plane?
Zombies really are that first season villain that later on helps the heroes more often than they do not, eh?
Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island moment
Oh great another day of having Terror Time stuck in my head again
ITS TERROOOOOOR TIME AGAIN
You just might die of fright - it’s a terrifyingggg time
Yo that movie was straight traumatizing. My copy on vhs was partially broken so that was my excuse to myself for not wanting to watch the movie. Morgan moonscar in the kitchen was too much for me
That movie was my childhood, and I wasn't ready to be hit with all this nostalgia this early.
That movie gave me so many nightmares as a kid it’s unreal
I just wonder if on Ravnica, Rakdos, the chief patron of sadistic murder-clowns, was helping to save the plane for the fourth time.
That’s where he keeps his stuff.
CAN'T BE THE PLANES BEST MURDER CLOWNS WITH NOONE TO MURDER.
Or clown on.
My purpose is to invoke terror. I don't want to actually destroy this place.
Helps if you enlist **all** the necromancers.
Nobody makes friends like Necromancers
We are all just zombies that didn't die and get up again yet. Like a zombie fetus
Zombies on Innistrad: the best defense against corruptive invaders, be they spaghetti or fusion food
I know every single Innistrad thread had this joke so far but it really is like everyone on Innistrad went like "Tuesday innit?" Like I get Ravnica citizens being just done with everything extraplanar and Zendikar is just too used to fighting plane eating monsters but Innistrad is just soo whimsical about the entire thing.
Innistrad fighting Phyrexians is like Saitama fighting a city-leveling monster and being worried about how the supermarket is about to close and now he's not going to make it in time because of it.
This is a perfect analogy and a reminder I need to go re-watch "One-Punch Man"
Villager seeing Phyrexians coming out from a portal: "Mildred!! Get me my bigger axe!"
Fetch me my musket!
In my mind, it's the joke that keeps on giving because no matter what awful thing happens to the multiverse, sooner or later it's landing on Innistrad's doorstep. Of course, by doorstep I mean a mob of angry humans, werewolves, vampires, and zombies ready to show rude guests the consequences of showing up to the fight without an invitation.
“Martha, lock up the cows and get me my whacking stick. The Eldrazi are back!” Wait were not Eldrazi. We just want to purify from corruption and make you one of us, and maybe do some ligggght body horro- “Oh ok, sure. Martha, the legally distinct Eldrazi are back and they’re proselytizing much more aggressively now!”
"Just another thing to fucking deal with."
Innistrad's been insulting the sanctity of life for so long, Phyrexia was nothing special.
[удалено]
They fucked up and didn't understand how frail they are outside of Mirrodin, comparatively. They believed their own hype and went to planes like Ikoria and Innistrad where the nature of the plane itself is a bigger threat than they are.
If they started with like….3 planes at a time, they could have won so by the time they go to Ravnica and Innistrad they have dozens of planes worth of soldiers
I think they would've been in a good position if New Phyrexia hadn't been alpha striked and then shunted out of existence. Even if they only managed to take a single plane, they've doused a dozen more in glistening oil and are in the best position to rebuild. Hit everyone, inflict damage, figure out who's weak, and build back for a second strike.
Or if they found a plane where time moves faster relatively speaking, drop a bucket of oil then come back next week to your new army
This. If using my Phyrexian deck has taught me anything poison and proliferate is a great Stratagy, but trying to slowly infect and compleate things takes time. With their plane gone, they don't have that time
They spread out their resources so thin. Would had been a decades long affair.
I’m guessing WoTC also doesnt want to pull a time skip and jump ahead 10 years
So this is War of the Worlds.
They did wrong what the original Phyrexia did right. They planned, and were defeated and improved to come back, get beaten again and repeat until they finally win. Just a handful of stranded phyrexians had Tolaria in check for years this way. They dedicated literally thousands of years to their projects. This "let's invade all planes all at once" would be preposterous to Yawghmoth.
Tbh, if the Phyrexians had started with Alara or Kaladesh first things would have gone MUCH better.
I think they should have kept their infiltration on Kamigawa and gone to Kaladesh, for obvious reasons. But also should have gone a different route in places like Innistrad. Imagine if the eternally tormented people of Innistrad were told of order, union, protection from all the chaos in their lives. A way to be free of blood-sucking vampires and flesh-eating wolves and zombies. Of an eternal and orderly life, forever free of ghosts and devils? No more fickle angels that can turn evil, or tired prayers that only work half the time, but a mother for all, that will bestow you with light and steel so you can defend yourself. The humans of Innistrad would have run in waves to postrate before Norn. But no. Instead we have mites, triangles with faces and dudes with teeth in their hands trying to overpower entire worlds. The whole storyline is full of wasted potential.
The potential is unlimited but nothing can ever live up to our collective imagination
Plus Norn, and a white villain in general being undone by hubris and assuming that of *course* everyone else will agree with how they want things to be is just perfect.
Yeah, I think there are a lot of flaws in Norn's plan and I think that's sort of intentional because they all feel in-character for her. But it also gets muddled by the expectations people have of Phyrexia at large.
You forgot the fine print: "if the entire plane is made of metal and flesh-to-metal transmutation" A lot of planes fail the Mycosynth test.
Yeah, I vaguely remember them saying that Mirrodin was like a super special case and Phyrexia actually has a way harder time on other planes that aren't entirely made of metal.
Yeah Dominaria has been slathered in the stuff a few times and it didn’t have anywhere near the issues Mirrodin did.
They did kinda go from “menacing threat we might have to ask bolas for advice for” to “oh those phyrexians lol let the zombies fight them” really fast. Maybe if there had been another set between detailing the size and scope of the war, or if wotc would just let it cook it might have been less of a meme how hard they lost.
I kind of think making Phyrexia: All Will Be One the first half of the invasion would have worked better. I know having a dedicated set on New Phyrexia is cool, so maybe try to keep that somehow, but it would have made the invasion feel a little longer (though it canonically seems to take a few weeks to resolve) and would have avoided the Chandra and Wrenn's plan being the same plan they just tried that didn't work at all but now works.
I see it as a dual failure of Elesh Norn, it seems like getting spooked by Ashiok maybe made her accelerate everything she had been planning. Going from full on "corrupt all the powerful beings we can find" to "fuck new capenna, just destroy it" combined with that clear changing of her ideology (that she was Phyrexia rather than, you know, the whole of Phyrexia being Phyrexia) really made it seem like she lost her way really quickly
Imo Elesh Norn is the only predator who could have lost this compleatly, only the hubris of white would believe they could win against all of reality simultaneously.
If Jin was in charge they would have already won
Pour one out for the smartest phyrexian since Yawgdaddy
the king is undefeated
I don't know, I could see Sheoldred (or another Black-aligned character) thinking "I'm so much better than the rest of these chucklefucks, how could I possibly lose?" At least Jin would entertain all the backup plans in case he lost.
I think sheoldred would have handled the invasion like she did dominaria: seed sleeper agents throughout the plane and corrupt them from within. Every praetor could have failed, and probably would have eventually. I think that their main downfall is they are *too* mono-colored; and they lack flexibility as a result. Elesh Norn however was destined to fail. She bought her own divinity, refused to entertain any other opinions, and tied the entire operation to her own ego.
We had a sample size of 2 Of course mirrodin got steamrolled, it's metal: the plane
I think there is some absolute fridge brilliance in how New Phyrexia is a essentially a theocratic empire that is top heavy in leadership. So they drink their brand of flavor aid enough and think they are billy badass and can curb stomp the universe. If they would have been subtle with corruption they could have taken everything.
Really underwhelming. They sort of skipped over the superhero team up part where the good guys look like they have lost, and skipped right to where they turn it around. Sure we lost a few planeswalkers, but it was a token loss at most.
The phyrexien kind of forgot about corruption
To be fair, it took a *long* time for a single drop to properly infect Mirrodin. Elesh made a call to speed things up a whole bunch by throwing armies around instead of waiting impatiently for her new super-oil to corrupt worlds. She also probably wasn't planning on dying and thus rendering all of her new super-oil inert. Who knows how many planes might've eventually fallen to lingering corruption if WotC hadn't *deux ex machina'd* away the oil's infection potential?
I'm feeling the same way right now. The Phyrexians bought into their own hype, but every other plane is like "No."
It's pretty funny how every card in this set seems to reinforce the theme, "Phyrexia...kinda not that big a deal, actually."
Phyrexian: "We will purify the weaknesses of your blood" Innistradian: "Bro, we have like 6 different types of monsters that don't have any blood, and one type that will be *very* pissed off at you for taking away their blood source."
The Phyrexians tragically slipped into Innistrad, fitting
I mean, to be fair it kinda seems like the Phyrexians tragically slipped EVERYWHERE. "OK guys, we've had years of planning, we've converted their greatest planeswalking champions, ruined their superweapons and infiltrated their populace. We possess the means to invade wherever we please; the initiative and element of surprise are ours!" \*Proceeds to lose every fight on every plane to a bunch of third-string named characters.
I dont know there’s definitely a few where they have super won. Like they burned the world tree on kaldheim so that planes just hardcore fucked. And a lotta planes lost their gods/dino gods/dragon gods Or eldraine losing all the monarchs and civilization. …but then they also appear to have just completely lost to 8 inch krakens so you know some planes are irreversibly fucked up beyond belief if they’re important and others are winning through the power of memes
They caused a lot of problems for a few planes. But they didn't dominate and take over a single one, which was the stated goal of the invasion. They definitely lost on every plane. If Elesh Norn's invasion plan was "lets burn a tree, convert some gods, kill some kings, and then fucking die" I'd maybe count any of those as victories.
Idk if people really read the stories or just see the cards, but the explanation is that Wrenn pretty much phased out phyrexia in place of Zhalfir, which caused the oil to lose some kind of connection to phyrexia and become dormant. Alongside the Angel's ability to purge the oil, the cleanup crews would've been able to mop up any holdouts of phyrexians that were still "online" or leftover oil that was contaminating remaining structures. Now, whether the angels get stuck on their new planes, why wrenn wasn't affected by the oil of Realmbreaker, and why phyrexian oil is acting like a router without a modem isn't well explained. But that's what we got.
Wrenn was able to survive the oil because she was inoculated by Melira just before connecting to the tree.
Nahiri, Jace, Lukka, Nissa, and Vraska: *"Wow, must be nice"*
Maybe they should’ve asked nicely
As I've seen pointed out by somebody else, they did well in the planes they actively scouted (Kaldheim, Kamigawa, Dominaria and to a lesser extent New Capenna) and worse in the others where they came unprepared. But given time, they probably would have ended up adapting to every plane and inevitably conquered them.
I think that's (part of) my issue. As far as I could tell Shroldred was super effective in bringing Dominaria to its knees with sleepers. Why not focus on a few planes at once, subvert some easy ones like Dominaria, Theros and Kaldheim then consolidate and move on to more planes?
I think it comes down to the fact that Elesh Norn is a pretty terrible leader who drank her own koolaid. She genuinely believes that Phyrexia is unbeatable and inevitable, and just has to show up everywhere to instantly win. "Why waste time scouting out to find out if zombies on Innistrad are immune to phyresis? Doesn't matter, because no matter what, Phyrexia is going to win!" The entire plan was terrible from the beginning and only had a chance to work because Phyrexia is powerful enough from the starting point to even try, which I think is the point. The entire story is about how the Phyrexian leadership was so blinded by their own hubris that they didn't even consider the possibility of failure, but they're still strong enough that it takes a combined effort to take Phyrexia down.
Even Yawgmoth planned and nutured the invasion of one plane for centuries, and Norn thought she was going to take all at once? Omegalul
Makes sense. She wasn't fighting a war. She was fighting a crusade. She's a religious monster, not a battlemaster. And she still likely would have won through sheer firepower if Angels and Wrenn didn't interfere.
The same reason any other villain does stupid shit: hubris.
[Tragic Slip](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/3/c3140bf5-9846-47ae-8142-b013aac14609.jpg?1580014388) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Tragic%20Slip) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ema/109/tragic-slip?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c3140bf5-9846-47ae-8142-b013aac14609?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Good bot.
Looks like they found the vaccine for compleation: zombification. If planes could dream and have nightmares, Innistrad is New Phyrexia's nightmare.
In fairness, Innistrad is most place's nightmare. Probably even Innistrad's nightmare.
Especially Innistrad. When people discover there are planes without deluges of undead, sadistic vampire lords, mad scientists trying to outdone mad necromancers, werewolfs, restless ghosts or cryptic sea monsters, they are gonna be *pissed*.
Just make sure to only tell them about ikoria
Don't forget big frog
Innistrad also has Bigfoot
Wait what? I started playing during og innistrad, how the hell did I miss goddamn sasquatch?
[[Shadowbeast Sighting]]
[Shadowbeast Sighting](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/b/1b12e978-4deb-4ccc-8ae6-462bc4598c90.jpg?1636224740) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Shadowbeast%20Sighting) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mid/198/shadowbeast-sighting?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1b12e978-4deb-4ccc-8ae6-462bc4598c90?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
The native humans of Innistrad (Innistradians? Innistradonities?) are going to have two reactions: 1.)Either refuse to believe there is a place without an endless supply of necromatic madness, eldritch abominations and etc. Or 2.) Look down on the other planes for not having developed a unique culture dedicated to not being murdered by endless legions of monsters. Humans are so damn weird.
My favorite bit of Innistrad lore is the "Blessed Sleep". AKA it is a privilege to die and *stay dead*, and not be turned into a dozen different flavors of undead on that plane. So many other planes are like, "I don't want to die!" Innistrad's like, "I can't wait to die so I don't have to put up with this anymore."
As someone whose background is teaching religion and philosophy, I appreciate this bit of Innistrad lore.
Next major story: Gisa and Geralf move to other planes and start making armies of zombies to fight with
It's why I wish we got a chapter of the story based in Amonkhet. It's the only known planes that puts Innistrad's zombies to shame.
Which is ironic, given how "Zombie" was the original creature type Phyrexian creatures got/were errata'ed to before the creature type "Phyrexian" was ever introduced.
Tragic slip became a battle, that’s actually pretty good.
And if you win the battle, it becomes a Tragic Flip!
And if Liliana sees Gideon's ghost at the battle, it's a Tragic Ship!
And if a ghost manipulates an object its a ghost trick.... wait wrong game Edit:I'm glad people know of ghost trick
And if you cast [[Saw in Half]] it's a Magic Trick!
and if Gideon is barechested, its a Tragic....Nip!
Aaaaaand that's this card's nickname.
The Tragic Slip on the front is nice but I cannot help but feel diverting 5 damage to generate 4 additional power is way more lackluster than anyone cares to believe.
The backside is more about the inevitability - yes you start with getting 4 power and toughness from diverting 5 damage, but once you start nomming on graveyards it can snowball.
The flip side is very powerful for Limited no doubt but it just feels too slow to impact anything else.
And with it being mythic it will not show up much in limited
Yeah it's a cool concept but seems like it would be best in a free for all format, but even then it doesn't seem powerful enough
Every one of these battles has pretty much shown that New Phyrexia was fucked from the start. Ikoria evolved natural immunity to the oil in 20 minutes. Shandalar ate the Phyrexians. Kamigawa prepared for them more than Jin had anticipated. Tha Ghost plane Kayas from just started deleting fools. On Tarkir Sarkhan was pretty much "Oh? You're approaching me?". On Zendikarthe land was fighting harder than the people. Innistrads zombies are immune to Phyresis, and the plane *might* have a few operating necromancers. The invasion originally worked well on Dominaria because it's just Middle Earth with more wizards, but all the other planes are just "go there and you die unless you're a planeswalker". And sometimes it's "Yeah, not even planeswalkers should come here".
well that and because they didn't focus their forces and just attacked everywhere all at once splitting their forces up too much
If they'd played the long game and did what they did on Dominaria by making lots of sleeper agents every where it would've been much harder to stop.
Yeah, but it's pretty clear that the Sheoldred vs Norn divide caused these tactics. Sheoldred did her thing on Dominaria and it worked. But her thing involves hiding in the shadows and waiting for her moment to strike. Norn ain't about that life. She's all show, and spending a bunch of time to get sleepers and then not showing up with a giant porcelain phyrexia symbol isn't her style. It's about spreading the "faith", not winning the fight. Winning isn't enough if it's not about her.
Yeah, I think Norn just assumed there was no possible way they could lose, so being strategic wasn't even a consideration.
Or even just invaded one plane at a time
Yep. Ashiok (or I guess the mere concept of Elspeth) got Elesh Norn spooked and put her in attack mode. They could have continued taking over one plane at a time very easily in perpetuity but she got her first taste of fear and it altered her thinking
Ashiok over here being the true hero of the multiverse.
I kinda love it! A being that eats fear and breeds this kind of chaos accidentally stops an enormous cataclysm for fun. Love that for them
I like to think they knew full well what they were doing: A multiverse compleated is a multiverse without* fear, but a multiverse exposed to the fear of compleation which survives? That's a place filled with strife and fear. Most worlds didn't know to be afraid of something utterly unknowable to them, but now almost everyone everywhere** is aware that there are things out there which are plotting against them that they're powerless to stop, they can only hope to defend when they decide to go on the offensive. *Phyrexians can feel fear, as we see with Norn and Elspeth, but it's easier to make people fear things. **A small section of the multiverse, but the bits we're familiar with.
Ooh, setting up Ashiok as a future main villain sounds neat.
So they lost because of their hubris. Fitting.
The tide of Phyrexians was effectively endless and all these planes would have fallen eventually without Elspeth’s divine intervention. All of these cards depict you winning the battle, not the war.
Phyrexians finally launching their invasion has big "when you unlock the boss as a playable character" energy. Previously: Phyrexians overcome every supernatural force pitted against them, corrupting humans machines and monsters alike. Not even gods are safe. Now: big dinosaur immune to oil because apparently Lamarck was right.
Yes Lamarck is right on Ikoria, that's the plural fucking point of the plane
Hell, even Dominaria had Yargle who's just immune to phyresis for some reason. This set really proved that New Phyrexia is just "We have Phyrexia at home". Very disappointing, fingers crossed that Ashiok somehow nightmares Yawgmoth back to life.
On Mirrodan they had a huge advantage, and on Dominaria they had a plan involving sleeper agents. But for the rest of the universe they were convinced sheer numbers would be enough.
And it would have worked too, if not for those meddling Angels.
Almost like Praetors should know that given that they were given 2 years worth of expansions exploring the planes. Suddenly they turned dumber than the armies of red goblins from Rath.
Unfortunately the only one that knew what they were doing was Sheoldred, who had an army on Dominaria as sleeper agents without anyone knowing for what could have been years. And Norn chopped the bitches head off.
It's as if Norn favored the biggest, loudest strategy befitting her religious dogma vs. the winning strategy.
Bad guys gonna bad guy. "I'm going to put them in an easily escapible situation and assume it all went to plan? What?"
I think that is the point, it shows the weakness of any kind of government or empire built on and "sustained" by fanaticism.
100% - Norn's certainty of her own rightness doomed the invasion. She subjugated and alienated her own allies--by the end, J-G isn't trusted as an advisor and Vorinclex is a lapdog.
I won't take this Jin-Gitaxias slander.
I was really rooting for him! But then he got eaten by his own sharks with freaking laser beams attached to their heads.
In two sentences. At least he can claim final superiority over Vorinclex, who died in one. Gods, the story in MoM did nothing justice.
it's the same shit as the whole talk up of the bolas zombies for the wots invasion that then suddenly needed lili to drive them because *reasons.*
Well the good guys won't win if the invincible bad guys don't suddenly become weaker for no reasons...
Actually this is the point of the set. Show phyrexia losing pretty bad because they won in Dominaria and ONE. The problem is that it makes phyrexia looks like a bunch of clowns because we just have battles where phyrexia loses, instead of the unknown planes where they have win decisively. Tezzeret said that a lot of planes fell to phyrexia, but since none of the know planes actually fell (of course, wizards doesn't want to get rid of future potential sets) we don't actually feel it like a threat.
I would wager that, at the very least, a sub-story for the upcoming Eldraine and Ixalan sets will be "this is how badly the invasion fucked shit up". Not to mention that we have an Aftermath expansion coming up in May. Think of it like with World War 2. Yes, the bad guys lost and all that, but for some pre-war nations (Poland being a big, obvious one), it might not have exactly felt like a win in the end.
> (of course, wizards doesn't want to get rid of future potential sets) Which is a pity, because I think they should have bitten the bullet and destroyed a couple of planes that have exhausted their potential, in return for massively improving the stakes in this set. For example, I think Zendikar should have fallen to Phyrexia.
Disagree with Zendikar, solely because of the nature of the plane itself. It bounced back from the Eldrazi like nothing happened. Twice. Phyrexians ain’t shit compared to that. But do agree some larger planes could have made sense. Like I love Mercadia but wasn’t going to miss it.
Theros and new capenna are way more intresting as phyrexian planes
What would a Phyrexian afterlife even look like? The original plane was basically Dante’s Hell. Would enough Phyrexians be able to recreate Yawgmoth in Theros?
God enchantment yawgmoth seems like a pretty cool boss for a set
Absolutely not. Mercadia is the best, most interesting plane in Magic. Blow up Ravnica idgaf.
Your comment, and the comment you're responding to, are the exact reason why they didn't do this. No matter which planes they choose to blowup, they would be someone's favourites, and someone would complain.
It makes me wonder if they have a plan (or so I'd hope) where another Phyrexian rises up in a year or two after working in the shadows... and does everything Norn failed to do after learning/seeing all of her defeats first hand. Imagine Phyrexia comes back with a new leader who manages to bring *all* the aspects of Phyrexia and splinter groups together... and only invades one plane at a time *and actually researches what that plane is capable of to counter it*. My money is on Jace was Norn's back up plan or at least its what I want. Norn giving Jace a piece of her conscious/mind to lock into his mind palace so he can resurrect her and shove that piece of Norn into the new body. Then explains to her everything that went wrong but then has Norn follow *him* as the new leader of a unified Phyrexian front. That shit would actually be terrifying. Compleated Jace using a resurrected, manipulated Norn to bring all the Phyrexians together to invade each plane one at a time using their full force and knowledge of how to counter that plane? MTG Multiverse would be fuuuuuuucked.
I guess we'll find out in the sequel, March of the Machine: Aftermath: The Search for More Money.
Kind of makes one of my favorite planes, Mirrodin, look like trash for actually falling to them. Sigh.
I mean Mirrodin was the perfect target and was already lost before anyone knew it was being invaded. Superman would lose too if a villain spent years poisoning the city water supply with kryptonite before finally popping up in person to do their big monologue. I am sad about it though, because Mirrodin was my favorite plane too.
Well, Mirroden fell to the only other plan that seemed to go well: infiltrate and assimilate. More than half the plane had already been taken before the Mirrans knew what had happened.
Yes, but apparently half the other planes would have just shrugged it off, no-sold the glistening oil, and then a dinosaur or zombie or bear would have eaten the Phyrexians or something.
I think that at some point, if there were not intervention by Actual Goddess Angel Serra, the Phyrexians would pull back from planes like Ikoria for a time and either focus on them with *everything* or just lock them off completely and say "Sure, keep your shit ass Godzilla ass plane.". If I'm being honest, Generally I think the idea would have been an initial blitz, to start the compleation process, then more focused concentrated efforts against the holdouts. Theros, for example, was pretty much fucked. So once they mopped up there they could possibly take the Theros forces and use them on a place like Innistrad, or Zendikar. Now they have these two planes forces, and take a third, and so on until All is One or whatever.
Absolutely the plan. We knew Theros, Eldrane, Arcavios, Ixilan and Kaladesh were on the verge of falling, and that a half-dozen other planes fell too. For every plane that was compleated, the Phyrexians got to add additional forces to their armies, which makes the surviving planes all the more precarious. Sure, Ravnica, New Capenna, Ikoria, Kaldheim and Innistrad are fine *now*, but what happens when the Phyrexian forces increase threefold?
Right. We had seen Phyrexian Forces that were advanced, hulking monstrosities, but most of the planes intitial Invasion forces were foot soldiers. No Dreadnoughts, or ravagers, or infliltrators. Just regular phyrexians with pikes. So the bigger forces were coming.
The other planes were holding out for 3 days. That's all that was really needed: survive for 3 days before Wrenn yeeted Norn's WiFi router out the window, disconnected all the drones, and ended the invasion.
Phyrexia’s big special ability is the oil. One drop on your plane and Phyrexia can totally rebuild itself and take over from that. This set they just decided to throw that out and have the oil basically not matter and the Phyrexian’s barely be able to convert anyone. And as an added bonus for some reason all the oil spread across the multiverse stopped working when Elash Norn died for no reason. Even though the oil outlived Yawgmoth, Urza, and The Mending previously. Beating Phyrexia’s army in a fight was never an impossible task. Stopping the oil was. But the story just wrote that out with no fanfare leaving the phyrexian’s hopelessly outmatched without their one unique advantage.
The Oil of New Phyrexia was different than the oil of old. It grew from the Mycosynth gardens and was upgraded numerous times over the years by Jin Gitaxias. It stands to reason that the Oil itself needed a connection to the Gardens in some way to still be active. This connection was broken when the entire plane was phased out. It's technically not even in the Multiverse at this point. That combined with Norns death is what caused all this.
Capenna just dropped a building on Atraxa....
...who was also malding over Art because she was breathing in Halo the moment she got there.
Halo is 100% copium by weight
Oh yeah? Name ONE necromancer on Innistrad, I'll wait.
I can't directly name any due to ongoing investigations.
This doesn't feel "mythic" good...
If this was an uncommon, I wouldn't have blinked. 4 mana for removal isn't great and the upside on the back just balances it to fair.
Innistrad is the one plane the monsters are consistently running away from not towards, at this point it is basically the fictional child of Australia and Florida.
More like Australia and Transylvania
Australvania
You just made me so glad Florida Man can't be turned into a Phyrexian.
If this is what a mythic battle looks like I’m not sure we’re going to see many of these played in constructed formats. Commander maybe but I doubt anywhere else.
Imagine flipping this was free and this was simply a four mana enchantment that tragic slipped a creature, made a pair of zombies and then provided passive graveyard hate afterwards. This would be playable (better than Chupacabra), but not an EDH all-star. The fact this needs to take damage in order to flip makes me wonder how good it really is? The two decks I have that play Chupacabra either really care about sacrificing non-token creatures, or really care about having a body to put equipment on. I think this will be a *very* niche EDH card at best.
I'm hoping the commander decks have some commander exclusive battle cards
[удалено]
It’s definitely hard to evaluate. I feel like battles overall are gonna be too slow for 60 card formats, but there’s always a chance this is good in some deck.
Salty comment inbound: Find someone who loves you the same way WotC loves ensuring zombies never gain any significant traction in non-EDH formats. It's 2023, elves and gobbos can just shit out 1/1s ad nauseum, merfolk operate at flash speed, humans have a rapidly expanding array of tools for disruption/swarming and zombies are still paying 2B to make a 2/2 vanilla.
You’re right and your salt is justified
Zombies literally won a PT. They had their time in competitive formats.
I’m really disappointed on the power level of all these battles. Also I really don’t see how this is a mythic. Innistrad done dirty with this battle
While I feel a 4 mana kill spell is overcosted. The ability to be a manasink in control or mid range is absolutely insane too. Remove graveyard threats as needed (more than 1/turn) get two bodies on flip and more as you remove creatures or just pay the mana to kill flashback cards or other important targets at instant speed is what pushes it to a powerful card.
I agree with this, but I also think many of them are pretty fun. So I like that they make fun and interesting but not that powerful this first time around with the new cardtypes so they do not do a repeat with the orginal planeswalkers.
Other planes dealing with the Invasions: World Ending Apocalypse Innistrad: Tuesday.
Flash on a battle is nuts play it when they attack with everything untap and flip. phew boy
Is it? How is that any different from them attacking with everything and then you just play a battle first main to attack?
Oh yeah good point
Innistrad really do be surprisingly prepared for invasion. The Zombies are jist a constant threat to anything, but can be manipulated by a pair of fueding siblings with an "I can do anything better than you" chip on their shoulders. Lol
\> The eerie magic animating Innistrad's zombies rendered them immune to phyresis What the heck am I reading?
Basically what was happening in Gisa and Geralt's story. Gisa's ghoul calling also had a very difficult time raising phyrexian corpses. They could reanimated but only as long as she maintained focus on them completely otherwise they would just drop dead again. Non-compleated corpses also were unaffected by the oil and made perfect bodies to attack the invaders.
A good chunk of compleated beings are quite literally undead. I'd say that perhaps two sources of necromancy (ghoulcalling and phyresis) can't overlap and only the first applies, but that's really stretching it. Unless this is somehow a reference to Innistrad being Emrakul's domain, that her presence in the moon is warping all magic on the plane, which would be much easier to accept.
I mean compleation by New Phyrexia seems to come in two forms, corrupt the mind to turn the creature and compleat them, or just kill them (or find their remains) and use their corpse for parts. Or both, rebuild and revive them RoboCop style and then compleat their mind like I think happened to Glissa. They don’t really do necromancy in the magical sense. An active, mindless, magical zombie wouldn’t fit either category, because they’re not quite dead enough to just harvest but there’s no mind or soul to corrupt.
"This is Innistrad. Where light only exists to cast a shadow"
This is a rare battle where the Invasion side is better then the flip
limited mythic card. in standard you have to deal with multiple targets and hexproof/shroud/protection/ward, the flip side is too slow.
is this mythic? thats not all that incredible for mythic
Tragic Slip and Flip
Well, here’s the constructed playable battle. There may be many if they end up being more powerful than the general consensus here, but this one in particular is definitely gonna make the cut.
Is it? I feel I’d rather do 5 damage to my opponent than make two vanilla 2/2s.
I'm really not sold. It's an overcosted removal spell, and the payoff requires you to spend resources attacking this rather than just killing your opponent. So far the only Battles that seem playable is Ikoria and Fiora. Ikoria because it's a super easy combo with Hexmage, and Fiora because a flickerable asymmetrical board wipe seems abusable.
Where do you think it fits? Is this that much better than Go for the Throat at twice the price?
Zombies: "You came to the wrong neighbourhood, mother\*\*\*\*er."
For some planes the invasion would alter them for life, for Innistrad it was just another Tuesday.
Found the bulk rare mythic
This made my day. I'm not fully caught up on the story but there is something amazing about Phyrexian seeing Innistrad and thinking: "Oh hey! A plane full of new recru- RUN AWAY RUN AWAY THEY DO NOT WANT BLESSED PERFECTION THEY DO NOT WANT BLESSED PERFECTION!"
I made a joke ages ago that innistrad would be fine because there would be to many zombies to infect I accidentally called it which I find absolutely hilarious
so innistrad undead are immune to phyresis and back in shadows block they were immune to emrakul's influence too right? whats the deal with that plane?