SECRET ORIGINS OF PHYREXIA (Before Yawgmoth) | Magic: The Gathering Lore 

The fall of the Thran empire and the creation of Phyrexia takes place thousands of years before Urza and Mishra were even born. There’s no reason to think The Brothers War would shed any light on pre-Yawgmoth phyrexia.

I don’t want to Phyrexia to be a place that was created by Yawgmoth, I want to be a place that was found by him. The implication that it is something from somewhere else long ago that was left over. That there were horrors in the distant past so immense that their very ashes are enough to destroy everything we know. I like that mystery.

Wanted to do a little spooky speculation for October. Many players dont know the origins of Phyrexia. Hopefully we learn more in Brothers War!

Considering that by the start of the brothers' war, Phyrexia was already Phyrexia, sadly I don't think we're gonna get much insight on its true origin in this set... but maybe we get to know more about Gix, at least!

Wonderful work. One thing you missed is Phyresis was originally developed to be a vaccine for a disease destroying the Thran known as Phthisis. Yawgmoth went a little too far on the development of it, resulting in the Oil we know and love today. I believe Yawgmoth used oil from Pre-Phyrexia to complete his design, though it's been many years since I've last read the novel. Bonus: Phyresis is a card from Mirrodin Besieged and Phthisis is from Time Spiral.

Just off the top of my head, but perhaps the creator died because an artificial/artifact plane wasn't able to create mana to sustain them? In some of the old books, mana was *everything* to a planeswalker, they had to constantly consume more just to survive. There is Serra's Realm, but that was (obviously) a white mana plane. Maybe Phyrexia was just colorless at first, and that's like trying to live on only eating boiled potatoes. It was making a LOT of mana for him to consume, so he was just sitting there not realizing he was slowly dying of malnutrition. And when he did there was a sudden surge of unused mana building up there, which is why it was able to draw someone's attention so soon. But Yawgmoth wasn't a planeswalker (yet), so he wouldn't have relied on mana and could live there just fine. And by the time he became one, he had turned it black.

So canonically bionicle is set in the first sphere

The Phyrexians are my favourite! I'm so happy that we're getting more Phyrexia stuff.

Personally i wouldnt be surprised if he just died by pretty mundane reasons like: - He use too much power to make the plane and died on the spot. - In his obsesion to make the plane he died of exhaustion. - He was mortally wounded somewhere else and escaped to his plane but died. or my favorite... - He just fell some stairs and broke his neck.

Blessed be those who give perfection! We are all to lay upon the Alter and be blessed with perfection we are all to be compleated!! All Hail her Majesty Elesh Norn! All will be one

Bringing back Urza and Mishra (albeit using time travel) really makes me wonder if they want to bring back Yawgmoth. I wouldn't be surprised to see a plot where Elesh Norn tries to resurrect him in her own body, or turn herself into a being like Yawgmoth became. Alternatively, there was that novel where Karona interacted with a weakened Yawgmoth. Her meeting him was declared not-canon and that Yawgmoth was dead, but it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility to retcon the retcon.

Great choice of subjects my man. Your work is next level.

A dark world with 9 spheres/levels that brings pain, death, and corruption of life that was originally ruled by a dragon? Sounds like Phyrexia was heavily inspired by Paradise Lost and Dante.

As someone who just got into mtg and found out the preator & phyrexia, this was great fill in for some of the things I didn’t know!

I love the Thran book. Great video editing.

Just got back into magic after years being away...only doing mtg arena but new phyrexia was my first real block that I knew what I was doing and the story is one of my favorite so glad there going back to it and can't wait to see the cards

A mirrodin White artifact deck was my first MTG deck loved my luxodon and cat cards miss that world

I loved it thanks aetherhub

Nice job

My theory is that because phyrexia was an artificial plane, it simply taxed the creator to death. Much like when Sarah explained to Urza how she constantly needed to maintain her world, and that its creation nearly killed her

My absolute favorite tribe I’m hella new to MTG my 1st pack was release day of Kamigawa and I pulled Tamiyo compleated

GREAT VIDEO!!!!

What about that Demonic Leviathan that Nicol Bolas randomly fought and consumed its power? Could it be this planeswalker in "dragon" form?

I like to think that pre mending plainswalker killed himself because he got bored of being immortal

I was just watching a video about the hellraiser movies and the ending music from that video and the starting music from this one were the same. I have the worst good luck ever lol

I'm excited and anxious

I think that note that the Caves of Koilos are letting more Phyrexians loose makes me think that Yawgmoth may return. I wouldn’t put it past him that he wouldn’t have had a failsafe just in case he was destroyed

Glistening oil gives me Alien-Borg vibes, an insidious intelligence assimilating tech and organisms alike in pursuit of perfection. Wizards, hore me, I got ideas for this. Lol

I'm surprised we never had an official name or fan-name for the Pre-Phyrexia plane. "Prime 9" could be used as a placeholder name. I hope we get more information in the future.

Is it just me, or is it weird that a pre-mending immortal planeswalker just so happened to die?

For some reason, I get the feeling that the story of the creation of Phyrexia involves time travel, perhaps the planeswalker that created it is actually post Mending and through some causal loop ends up in the past and creates it, or instead that is how they died. Idk, I just get that feeling for some reason. That, or it's "death" was a necessary sacrifice to complete Phyrexia (perhaps going with the point below) I also feel like what happened to Yawgmoth, the whole merging stuff, might have been him merging with the World Soul. I believe that's the right name. It's a feature of planes we have seen in the lore before, including many mentions of the Soul of Ravnica, I believe one character whose name escapes me absorbed the World Soul from her home plane. I believe they are mentioned a few times with the story of Davriel, or some other mysterious character. It is as it sounds, the soul of the plane. Not too much is known about them, but what is known would fit the idea of Yawgmoth effectively merging with the plane to become a god.

Probably the real Nicol Bolas is in the center of Phyrexia controlling every phyrexian and the preators.

Ob Nixihilis being involved with the Phyrexians in some way, shape or form would be cool, Ob being a pre-mending planeswalker has the potential to have a rich history of chaotic shenanigans, I mean what were his true motives on New Capenna?, Surely he had some sort of interaction with Urabrask while he was there. I want Wizards to build more on Ob in the future, so much potential.

I can’t help but feel that illyanas crow man is the planeswalked you made the phyrexian plane

I know you probably don't remember a comment I made on a video long ago but I feel like you and few other vorthos content creators shouldve been reached out to WOTC to do the lore because y'all truly care about the story and I feel like y'all would do it some good overall.

Glad ya found your script 😋

The origin of Phyrexia It's Aku from Samurai Jack Season 3, episode 11 ''The birth of Evil part 1''

Perfection is only achieved through the lessons of metal. All shall be metal, all shall be perfect.

What if it was Mishra (after merging with the dragon engine) who created this plane. Like he didn't die after the sylex blast, but also turned into planeswalker. Maybe he got displaced out of time and it was a loop where he would be compleated by Phyrexia but also be their original plane's creator too. And then shortly after building this plane (maybe to make an army to attack Dominaria) his brother kills him...again?

All I want is Infect back in standard so I can do competitive

Very thorough, but the title is a bit of a stretch and a little misleading. Still, enjoyed the work!

Planeswalker might've "died" in order to become One with the plane.

im currently reading the Thran. holy shit a great book

Yawgmoth merged with the dying plane, by consuming the flesh of creator of the plane. Yawgmoth fell in love with the plane and wanted to do anything to perserve/keep it alive.

How about the planeswalker that created it isnt actually dead... and that everything that has happened (like Yawgmoth turning it into Phyrexia and waging his war) was all a part of his plan? Maybe he knew the mending was coming and this was the only way to escape it... and Tef's time traveling will somehow allow him to resurrect as a pre mending planeswalker in a post mending multiverse? That would be a pretty big threat...

Bolas would make sense because he had tezz keep tabs on them. But maybe urza did?

Phyrexia is the plane of Mirrojin that was sent on a journey through time by the sacrifice of Teferi and some new planewalker.

I can't wait for teferi to go back in time and fucking everything up 🙏🙏🙏🙏

This dark plague must be burned away. Not even a drop of that damned oil can be left, less this plague rise once more. For those they killed, and those they corrupted and took from us, we must burn them all.

How cool would it be for Sarkhaan to know who created the plane

To be honest I like the idea that we don't know. Adds a bit of mystery.

Yawgmoths experiments where is the beginnings biological. The fusing of humans and other biological flesh to make them stronger. In phyrexia his experiments on humans changed in a way that the plane itself was changing the humans sent there to heal. Helping them grow stronger and taller. To see phyrexia in a better light the story would have to go further back to the time of the Thran.

Could it be that this unknown Planeswalker somehow fused with the world he created and then the Leylines where corrupted which slowly killed the Planeswalker and turned the world into this nightmare form I remember that Nissa said the Leylines of Innistrad where sick or something like that resulting in all the horrors of Innistrad (that wheren´t a big old eldrazi) and the ones on Amonkhet where baiscly dead so if something would happen to the leylines it effects the whole world (of course only if there where leylines to begin with because the world didn´t form natural)

Didn't Dyfed also die from getting a special power disrupting dagger planted in her dome by a mortal? She was also a pre mending planeswalker with all the god like powers that come with that. Still died to a mortal betraying her, though. If it can happen to one of them, it's not so unimaginable that it couldn't have happened to another. Maybe the dragontransforming planeswalker took a shine to a mortal as well, showed him his new plane to flex and eventually paid the same price Dyfed did. Maybe that's a bit farfetched, but the point is: It doesn't have to be something super powerful that did it. A clever enough mortal can do it too.

Time to upgrade my infect deck.

Is it possible that when Sarkhan returned to the present, it split him based on timeline?

Yo let’s go 💀🤖

so.,. yawgmoth...found it.....and didn't create it....sooooo what ever killed that pre mending planes walker is ..wandering around out there..... with all his premending powers no less.....

We are the Borg

I was under the impression that it was the powerstones that was the origin of phyrhesis not phyrexia itself.

👏

1:45 Please planeswalkers were as far above the gods as the gods were above mortals.

Wtf you talking about. Already there is a novel that explains the origins of Phyrexia circa 99. The brothers wars has nothing to do with. We even have the cards for most of the guys on the story expect for human gix and dyfed. The Fall of the Thran even have a saga card

A dead dragon planeswalker… I mean, we know someone like that. Is it possible it could be Ugin?

immortal yes but what if a dragon tricks you into deleting yourself from time ?????? # Sarkhan Val

phyrexian dreadnaught yeah, that leviathan and polar kraken. The big creatures all worth nothing, god i remember being in elementary school, and kids would love these and thought they were the greatest and best cards lmfao, becaues they couldnt understand the game yet, all they could understand was 11/11. I still laugh about this with some of my friends, i still keep a few legacy decks. Not a fan of the direction the game started to go later on.

3

I want the story to be awesome, but I feel like I have been saying that for so many years that I might see mere competence as greatness now. War of the Spark had potential, but Wizards is at least somewhat self-aware and knew if they made bold choices like yeeting Bolas, it would be up to them to create a new and more interesting threats or characters to arise from the power vacuum. I at least respect the fact that they knew they would fuck it up if they tried, opting to manufacture another sterile, dogshit story that reads like bad fanfic. That was something they knew they could realistically deliver on.

Phyeixians are Borg??

100

Chromium the mutable

We always assume Dyfed's intent was benign, but what if Phyrexia was always Dyfed's creation that she wanted to gift her race for whatever experiment she had in mind. She was Thran afterall so some level of artifice would most likely be of interest to her.

Possibility: Sarkhan is compleated, battles Teferi, and is blasted back in time to pre-Thran times. He inherits new power in pre-mending times and decides to adopt his dragon form everywhere he goes since it requires so little effort. Eventually he creates new enemies and even creates the yet-to-be-named Phyrexia. Dyfed is one of his new enemies and battles him across the planes with a team of her time thus discovering his plane where he is eventually killed.

10 bucks says that the new "story" will involve time travel and Elesh Norn ends up being the progenitor of the phyrexians in some form of "you are your own grandpa" scenario. Presumably in an attempt to escape with her life after whatever event

First

First one here ha ha