MTG Top 10: Phyrexian Mana | Magic: the Gathering | Episode 80 

As a commenter pointed out, I made a mistake on this one. Namely, I forgot to include Spellkite, which is kind of funny, because it has appeared as #1 on a bunch of other top tens I have done (artifacts, 0-power creatures, Horrors ). Basically, I screwed up when I was doing research, and only considered cards with Phyrexian mana in their cost, instead of cards that have it in the text box. Luckily, of the other cards I missed, Spellskite is the only one who would make the list. With 188 points, it would have been #2, making its first appearance on an MTG top 10 not as the #1!

Then they created K’rrik, Son of Yawgmoth

You could easily have Phyrexian Mana come back and not warp the format. You just have to be smart about it. If Dismember cost one generic, one black mana, and one Phyrexian black mana, it wouldn't be an issue. Or even one black and one Phyrexian black.

Surgical Extraction's art always creeps me out.

Phyrexian mana was not a MISTAKE, it was a GIFT.

Here's what I think is the real tragedy of Phyrexian mana as a mechanic: while it is completely and almost unsalvageably broken from a gameplay perspective, I genuinely believe it is the most elegant and well-designed mechanic in MTG. I think it's because of this that it's only at a 7 on the Storm scale, rather than at a 10 where it belongs. Here's my reasoning for why it's such a brilliant mechanic from a design perspective: 1. The mechanic is novel, but extremely simple and easily understandable. 2. The mechanic perfectly encapsulates old Phyrexian cards: Phyrexian Rager, Phyrexian Arena, and Yawgmoth's Bargain all show us that Phyrexia is willing to sacrifice life for value. 3. With that in mind, from a Vorthos standpoint, it's very easy to imagine the lore behind Phyrexian mana. It's basically blood magic, a common trope. 4. The mechanic works beautifully in the 'environment' of a purely Phyrexian world. In the previous two Scars sets, there were enough Mirrans to make life matter a lot. In New Phyrexia, many more creatures have infect. In such a context, what does life matter if most things are going to kill you with poison counters? 5. It perfectly encapsulated the feeling of New Phyrexia. The designers wanted New Phyrexia to 'violate' players, hence all of the bleed mechanics (like Vapor Snag) and extensive color bleed in the set. Phyrexian mana is an almost deliberately un-fun, Spike mechanic, which I think beautifully captures the spirit of the set. 6. Phyrexian Mana made colored artifacts feel meaningful. In Alara, colored artifacts just felt like regular creatures and enchantments that happened to have the artifact subtype. With Phyrexian mana, you could either play the artifact for colorless (like most artifacts) or for colored mana, making colored artifacts feel like they had a purpose other than making the artifact type feel like it had less of a distinct meaning. 7. New Phyrexia was filled with color bleed. Phyrexian mana allowed for color bleed from a more functional standpoint, by allowing you to play cards from other colors without splashing. 8. Phyrexian mana is essentially the opposite of a parasitic mechanic, which was needed given that Scars functioned heavily on parasitic mechanics. Other broken mechanics like storm and affinity had issues other than simply being overpowered. What was 'happening' that caused your spells to be cheaper because of affinity? How did affinity fit into the set other than tasking you with playing more artifacts (or lands)? It also required you to keep constant track of the number of permanents you had, which could be tedious for new players. Storm had many, many more problems. Why was an instant/sorcery mechanic in a creature focused set? It required players to keep track of the number of spells played in a turn, which is not good for new players or casual players. It was mechanically very complicated as it cast a number of spells at once, and a newer player might not understand that you can't counter it with a simple counterspell. In short, Phyrexian mana was perfect, but so, so, so broken.

I have Norn's Annex in my RW Melee commander deck as a great way to prison an opponent(s) creatures, just need Angel of Jubilation for it to work fully.

Infect, Phyrexian Mana, alongside Proliferate... I hate the whole Scars block.

I run Marrow Shards in my Mardu Aristocrats deck as a token deterrent. It is also very effective as a way to hit early aggressive creatures to disrupt the initial damage output. Lastly, it is an excellent way to force an opponent into choosing between thinning their board or losing a counterspell to a 0 mana mini wipe. In late game it doesn't do as much, but if you play white you have the option to stack multiple copies on top of one another for an amplified effect. It's a fun card.

Yeah dismember isn't going to be banned...wonder how the list would be if the rest weren't banned

Top 10 kobolds (The joke is i dont think there are even 10 kobolds in the game) But on a serious note, top 10 ice age/coldsnap.

Gut Shot is actually insane now that spectacle is a thing, I think it’ll be moving way up on this list because of that.

easy fix: make a card cost 1r(r/2life) instead of 2(r/2life) etc.

Does spellskite not qualify for this list?

I’d like to see a top ten mana rocks, maybe even top ten modern legal mana rocks.

Mental Mistep is the most broken counter spell of all time i do not think that Phyrexian mana should ever come back these cards wil change there ranking over time. I think that Phyrexian Mana wil always be Broken for a bunch of reasons 1.The Spells can`t ever be one or two mana 2.Having multiple phyrexian mana symbols is not really a down side like even if Dismember cost( 2Generic and double phyrexian black mana sure the card would be worse but it would still be a playable card) 3.There are literally no downsides to the cards and even if they somehow where down sides to it they are so minimal 4.They don`t really punish play mistakes\target mistakes all that much 5.They don`t punish mana bases in anyway

Phyrexian mana is... interesting, but I gotta say hearing things like 'this green spell was popular in mono black agro' or 'this red spell was mostly used in blue/white control' is.... weird to say the least.

I feel like they could bring phyrexian mana back if they really designed some real drawback to the stuff... my idea is some sort of uber creature that WWUUBBRRGG, and when it enters it does 2 damage to you for each color that wasn't paid to cast it to keep it from getting all that easily cheated in without just decimating you and making you vulnerable to getting burned out or something, but at the same time be crazy awesome.

keep up the good workmy good man.

Surgical Extraction is one of my favorite cards, and yet I don't think it's broken. It was a legit solution for the play era I was in most that desperately needed play diversity. I think it was a MUCH needed check for formats where people were dropping non-stop infinite combos which could easily kick turn 3. It made it impossible in most play circles to play anything but another infinite combo deck or a blue counter deck. Neither were fun for me or MANY other people wanting to play with a little more diversity. Surgical Extraction forced that diversity, and also had the added benefit of being a strength check against $$$ decks. Not going to lie, it felt pretty good extracting Mind Sculptor EVERY TIME which forced CawBlade and Venser bounce decks to do something OTHER than just locking down the board and making everyone sit there until Venser went off. Extracting $$$ and infinite combo cards forced play open and let people actually play magic. It's also my favorite against stasis formats. Oh? Your idea of fun is locking 3+ people with 1 mana a turn and not letting any of our stuff untap? Well, my idea of fun is extracting your ability to pull that bullshit right out of your deck.

I was when surprised when Gitaxian probe was only 2nd on the list, until dismember showed up. I'd never seen it before, but I've used grasp of darkness before so when you say 1 mana for -5/-5 I'm like, yeah, that'll do the trick.

Wonder if the basic mechanic could be salvaged by attaching a colored mana cost to the castings? Make some of it colored-only, and some of it chose-a-color-or-life? That would limit the splash issue quite a bit. You could also play around with increasing the life toll to three or even more per unpaid mana, and maybe even make the cards use two, three, or more mana colors. Wouldn't be Phyrexian flavor-wise at that point of course, but you can see why it's only a seven on the storm scale since there are so many ways to modify the basic concept.

If you do it right, Its not broken. Make the spells cost colored mana AND phyrexian mana. 2 Life are always equivalent to 1 mana. See shocklands or Shock itself. Make a 4 dmg instant, but it only does 2 if you payed life for it. I know, red decks would jerk off to a card like this but i think you get the point. Give cards with phyrexian mana a drawback for using it.

phyrexian mana is coming back a touch in unstable :P

Most of the cards with phyrexian mana were overpowered. I always like immolating souleater for turn 3 win using only standard commons

They still making cards with 0 CMC, hoping this time that maybe for once it won't be completely broken, to no avail

I love this mechanic, love all the broken mechanics, they make the game much, much more interesting, than it would have been otherwise. I sincerely hope R&D keeps slipping up so that we get powerful cards and powerfull effects

Also, phyrexian mana really should have been "pay one of the color, or one generic and one life' or something.... I don't see R&D didn't know at this point that free spells tend the break the game, and that paying life is almost never a real cost.

What? Phyrexian Mana made cards playable? How terrible!

Colorless phyrexian mana would be easy to design cards for.

I despise this mechanic. Design wise, it’s the laziest shit ever created and, flavour wise to its benefit, spits in the face of magics entire identity, both with Mana and it’s colours and all they stood for. It’s a parasite warping magic history into soulless efficient and cheap engines. It’s more insulting than Banding. It makes blue look great and totally not overpowered. EDH May have have made them a little less absurd because of its restrictions to the colours but i will never give this mechanic any credit. It’s trash as far as I’m concerned.

I had a combo deck, darksteel jugernat, with a worldslayer equip, destroys everything everyturn and attacks for 2. Dissmember got me a few times.

Force of Will isn't a broken card. Yes it is a "free" counterspell. But it puts you under a clear deck building restriction, you need to run a minimum number of blue cards to make it work. Also it isn't even a "good" card. Force of Will is a necessary inclusion in the blue decks to stop the fast and unfair combo decks in the formats or stop turn 1 lockpieces like chalice. But used as a "free" counter spell it most often is a 2 for 1 against you. Force of Will is card disadvantage (not always of course, but often). Non blue decks, not that reliant on 1 mana carntrips, use such mentioned lockpieces to fight fast combo decks. Force of Will keeps fast and unfair combo decks in formats like Legacy in check. The card is an important peace of the format. It is also most often boarded out in like grindy delver mirrors for example, because it is just not good to trade 2 for 1 in a grindy matchup where every card matters, even if it is free. Mental Misstep is broken because it is free without carddisadvantage and non blue decks can run it.

I can see phyrexian mana working if the spell has enough of a base cost. So say a 4/4 for 2 phyrexian, 1 colorless and 2 green. That gives you a 4/4 for 3, which is strong, but not broken.

A little sad but not at all surprised that my favorite card with this mechanic didn't really see any top level play, considering how absolutely busted they all are. But I love Moltensteel Dragon, pouring every bit of mana and life into it and giving it double strike and/or Flinging it at your opponent's face afterward feels amazing and can easily take them from starting life or higher to completely dead even in formats like Commander. And in a red/artifact deck it's very easy to cheat it into play and give it haste to do this completely out of nowhere.

It's a shame about it not returning, just needs to be bumped up to -4 life rather than -2, adding normal coloured mana to the cards as well, being careful 0 mana, etc…

It probably wouldn't have been so broken if it required you to have a land of the color the spell is or some other color restriction that prevent them to be played in any deck

So after Karn found the magical McMuffin or whatever needed to destroy new phyrexia I find it possible we could return to return to phyrexia after our return to return to ravnica so here’s hoping for phyrexian mana to return.

I would have Thoughtseize designed to have phyrexian mana like: B(PhyrexianB) Then the effect

Do you think phyrexian mana could return on cards with benefits if you haven lost life this turn?

After this Ravnica block that we're currently having we should go back to phyrexia

Make it that you pay 5 life for each pirexian mana. Or it need to be 8?

I think phyrexian mana is less broken when relegated to activated abilities

Really wish they had included some of these cards in Iconic Masters. Some of them are obviously too much for limited but cards like Apostle's Blessing I think would play well at Uncommon or Spellskite at rare. Would have gone a long way towards making the kiln fiend deck tier 1 and allow you to run protection for your fiend in both UR, RW or better RG.

I'm surprised Norn's Annex didn't make the list. It's one of my favorite anti aggro cards.

I think Phyrexian mana would be ok if there was ALSO a colored mana involved. For example, Rogue Refiner costs 1GU. If it cost 1GP(U) instead, it wouldn't be broken.

What were they thinking when they made dismember? It's literally just a straight-up better flatten/throttle, as well as having phyrexian mana. If flatten/throttle didn't exist when this came out, then i guess it makes sense.

My top 3 would be 1 mental misstep banned in modern and legacy card and is a powerhouse in vintage number 2 would be gitaxian probe banned in modern restricted in vintage crazy good that for 2 life u get to look at opps hans free info and replaces its self also free storm count in storm decks and then number 3 dismember powerful kill spell that deals with most creatures in modern

Well, given that tamiyo, compleated sage is a thing phyrexian mana appears to be on a comback tour.

Great videos

Idk, storm is a pretty powerful mechanic.

Already been proven wrong, phyrexian mana is back

Dismember, Spellskite(should be here) and other 8 spells

Wait it did come back in unstable with crank, although it cost four

I thought that gutshot was the most stupidest card ever made because the simple fact is you have to pay to 2 life or pay red mana to play it and you only dealing 1 damage to any creature or player

I love phyrexia so I really do want to see a set for phyrexia again

How about they do phyrexian mana only on activated abilities not on cmc?

Phyrexia is the strongest.

Sad to see my personal favorite Porcelain Legionnaire didn't make the list

An interesting mechanic could be phyrexian mama in reverse where your opponent would gain two life instead in order for you to activate the alternate manna cost.

Enter K'irrik

Top 10 Madness Cards?

For December / winter could you please make a Top 10 Snow cards?

Spellskite

1 Mana 1/1 flying and Life link not good by it self whaaat

Surprised no spellskite

I love phyrexian mana

09:20 why does this make me have 56 cards?

Top 10 draw spells

Now there is spike

No spellskite?

*laughs in K'rrik*

I love Phyrexian mana from a design concept but the price compered to the value simply was not big enough to scale it out atleast for fair decks, Infect and Dredge would still play Probe if it was 4 life instead of 2. FoW is a balansed spell you loose life and it is inherently card disedvangate FoW is almost always a 2 for 1 to the person that does the countering unless you have 5 mana. Where is Misstep always a 1 for 1 if the card costs 1 ofc

While "free removal" of Dismember is more versatile compared to any other card, it is not the best of this list. Mental Mistep is by far the best, and would be an auto include in almost every deck if it was legal in Modern and Legacy. Secondly, Gitaxian Probe is just way better than Dismember as well, as free hand reveal is just a dumb mechanic and should have never been printed

Couldn't WotC amend phyrexian mana with some sort of "errata" that they "Heretofore" cost 3 (or maybe 4) life instead of 2?

If phyrexian mana had been "One mana of the correct color or one life and one generic", it would probably have been a lot more able to be balanced. Also, Pod is unique because it doesn't actually need to have phyrexian mana to be broken. It's just that it's Survival and Aether Vial at the same time.

We need another mental misstep. Its one of the best cards ever. Its not at all broken unless you are trying to do some turn 1 win degenerate combo. For people trying to play fair magic mental misstep is perfectly fine. I think it makes format environments healthier, along with pithing needle.

"the overpowered nature of cards like Force of WIll" Excuse me? FoW is incredibly fair. You would NOT want to see Legacy or Vintage without Force. I probably would've quit Magic by now, if there wasn't Force. Please... What are you talking about?