The Phyrexian Mana Problem | Magic: The Gathering March of the Machine Design MTG 

From a historical perspective, I think it's cool and fitting that Phyrexian mana achieved some notoriety. It really helps sell the idea that Phyrexia doesn't play by the rules and is uniquely threatening

Phyrexian mana on Kicker effects is always something I felt could be interesting

Give me video essays every day please lol. Also, I believe you fixed the Phyrexian mana problems in the past couple of sets. If you were to tell us it can be done, we wouldn't believe, yet here we are! Please please PLEASE make a video essay about one or more of these topics: 1. Stun counters. 2. Blue vigilance. 3. Black enchantment destructions. 4. White card advantage. Thanks again for everything you do :)

Don't forget about the lovely "Defilers of ___" from Dominaria United! These phyrexian creatures let you use pseudo phyrexian mana to spend on permanents of their color! A super cool design that connects them to their phyrexian roots, without explicity using phyrexian mana symbol. (And great for a fan of Wurms like myself!)

The thing about Phyrexian mana, is that it's so SO intensely flavorful. There's beauty in its simplicity. Generally when you look at a new card, even before you read any effect or flavor text, what do you do first? You look at the mana cost. That in and of itself is why Phyrexian mana is such a powerful flavor win. Because right away you would be met by something that has undergone compleation. You see it in their mana. You feel it right away. It has very strong and powerful symbology that can't be ignored.

I do like the way phyrexian mana was implemented in MOM, but it still feels like “Pay 4 mana and 2 life to transform” lol

I absolutely love the way Phyrexian Mana was implemented in MOM. It’s added such a beautiful texture to the format, which has become one of my all-time favorites. Would love to see that again someday when and where it makes sense to do so.

It's crazy to think of a timeline where phyrexian mana just payed for generic mana (it would have been even more flavorful) and it's just pretty good but fine.

I am surprised you didn't touch on the creatures that effectively give phyrexian mana to your other spells, like the Defiler cycle from Dominaria United or K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth

The color pie break can be fixed by changing the rules so that the player must control a mana source of the respective color…don’t necessarily need to use it to cast the spell

Very good video and explanation, but is unbelievable how a card like Mental Misstep was approved to be printed in the first place. It was totally obvious how broken it is, not only in Vitange or Legacy. Other cards like Probe or Pod were obviously good but took time to figure out how break them.

I think a fun plot twist of Phyrexian mana would be incorporating it in such a way that any player can use said abilities. The example I'd refer to is what Xantcha, Sleeper Agent has, where any player may activate that ability. Rather than the Phyrexian mana being a one sided thing, it opens up an interesting direction of how it is used.. Or you're expanding on what Norn's Annex had where opponents had to pay life to attack. Just a thought

I recently did a review video on the New Phyrexia precon "Life for Death" where the theme was Phyrexian mana; bizarrely it was RW, and didn't take advantage of Phyrexian mana's main/problematic strength of including other coloured Phyrexian mana spells. Was really fun to review and talk about. Love your videos Gavin!

I did remember Rage Extractor, only because I got fixated on making a format around mashing precons together a while back (I still think it's awesome, I just haven't gotten anyone to play with me yet lmao). Rage Extractor appears in a weird grindy red-white intro pack focused around phyrexian mana, and I thought it was so cool. A part of me wishes we got more Phyrexian Mana Matters cards..

Personally, I think the best example of Phyrexian mana is in K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth. That's because it's the only card where both the cost you pay and the power you get in return feel tangible and substantial; it creates a dopamine-filled cycle of draining yourself to almost nothing to cast just one more spell, and it feels amazing. It's exiting, it embodies the gameplay identity of black, and it's appealing to all kinds of players.

loved this vid! would've love to hear a bit about your opinions on the design behind K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth though 👀

I wanted to hear about the Defilers here! I love the reworking of the Phyrexian mana mechanic on that cycle of cards

I think the catch with doing it as many times as there now has been makes the mechanic feel iconically phyrexian. I see it and it screams compleation. I can’t imagine losing that flavor so I think if the phyrexians come back, it has to with them. I’m sure there are more ways to do it, but the branding alone makes it feel worth doing.

Thanks, Gavin. I am a competitive player, yet I know Magic really needs people like you to maintain order as time goes; otherwise, it would turn into complete chaos. I am also a software engineer, so I understand the challenges of collaborating with teams on delicate design issues.

I think the way you did with the planeswalkers was a good way of using phyrexian mana. A drawback on the cards effect/power for it to be played earlier. You did a similar thing in brothers war with regular mana for the big artifact creatures. I still think that if you use phyrexian mana + a mana for the colors of the card you could solve this issue even with instant/sorcerys. The challenge will be for the card to have a modal effect that is tempered with the tempogain the paying of life gives.

As a casual player, I did enjoy Phyrexian mana a lot back in New Phyrexia. It was cool, clean and powerful, and I enjoyed being able put off-color cards in my janky decks. Of course, I understand the problems with bending/breaking the color pie now, but back then I just thought it was rad.

Phyrexian mana to cast hyper effiecient/near free spells in the early game was the issue with it in competitive magic. DMU, ONE and MOM cards never caused any problems because the cards with phyrexian mana were more mid-late game oriented

I think Phyrexian Mana is most problematic on instants, and an any spell/card that can be cast for zero mana.

I know this isn't related to the video but, speaking of past mechanics I wish "Afflict" would come back, idk make a commander precon based on it would be VERY cool, you guys liked Goad making your opponents attack other players but what about punishment for when they block you seems fun. Makes me WANT to attack a player because I know hey, if you Block, your gonna lose 4 life, OR you could just let this 1 power go through.

I remember building a rage extractor deck back in the day. I still have it kicking around somewhere

Rage Extractor came up in a recent conversation I had so I did remember it! We were talking about how Scryfall formats the coloured mana as {R/P} for example, but {P} works for the card:) very fun little tidbit!

The first use of Phyrexian mana just allowed for egregious color pie breaks - that might be the biggest sin. I think limiting the use in the mana cost of a spell and moving it to the text box was the smartest idea (also, keeping it off of one mana spells). It definitely feels a lot "fairer" on a creature than in a spell.

These behind the scenes design stories you and Mark tell are the things I like the most of what you do.

Something along the lines of "Do X and if you payed no life to cast this, [i.e. didn't pay the phyrexian mana with life] also do Y" seemed to work well for compleated and could work on other card types

I feel it’d be interesting if Phyrexian Mana had been purely fixing instead of fixing AND cost reduction. Like, imagine a world with “Phyrexian mana can be paid with either M or one life and one mana of any type.”

Great video! I started playing with Scars of Mirrodin, so that entire block will always be extremely nostalgic for me. I'm a big fan of the power downgrade on the planeswalkers if Phyrexian Mana was used to cast them. I feel like making them scale with the game is a good way to balance it out (HUGE fan of prototype creatures for the same reason).

Surprised you didn't touch on the one new card that does actually have phyrexian mana in its casting cost. The 5 color jellybean

Not only do I remember rage extractor, I have an entire deck revolving around rage extractor! That is still my favorite artifact!

I love phyrexian mana personally, the flavour win is just so big!

Game design student here! Thank you so much for the work that you do! As for your questions, I disagree with your comments on instants and sorceries. I don't feel Phyrexian mana is inherently problematic balance-wise, it was just costed wrong as "pay 1 mana" instead of "pay 2 life". Infernal Grasp is basically Dismember, if it were costed at 1PB. So Surgical Extraction is as fine as The Stone Brain. Probe is just juiced Urza's Bauble. Dismember would cost 7, Mutagenic Growth 2, but... colorless effectively gets access to every color where appropriate. I could totally see Act of Aggression flavored as a colorless spell, where appropriate. Mindslaver exists! It's just that colorless gets well-statted creatures more than it gets counterspells, so it feels like much more of a break at that rate. That being said, I completely agree with all your other statements, at least until MoM. Just because you can doesn't mean you should, and Phyreixan mana as used earlier... isn't really fun. However, the Phyrexian mana as used in MoM felt the most viscerally *right* I have ever seen it used. It feels *right* to pay 2 for the transformation, in a way that is actively fun and makes me want to do more of it! It's part of why MoM is such a fun draft format! I'd love to hear how people rate it in market research!

You can put the Compleated mechanic on creatures and make them enter with a -1/-1 counter, to balance the life cost just like Planeswalkers. And, as you said, it makes for interesting decisions!

Thanks for another great video! I think WotC handled Phyrexian Mana elegantly in the most recent sets, if we only focus on Limited, Standard, and perhaps Pioneer, and that is certainly admirable. However, I feel like with this constant attempt to avoid giving us powerful, and sometimes "free", simple effects (narrow counterspell, card draw, regrowth, pump spell etc.), the boundaries are often pushed at the other end, so that we are seeing more and more haymaker and do-it-all cards. At the most recent Pro Tour (which was entertaining and a good step back on track for competitive Magic), many of the actual games were simply about building up to Commander-like swingy effects. Play a bomb that Plague Winds your opponent, brings 2-3 permanents with it and draw a bunch of cards. Then your opponent does the same. And this goes back and forth, until someone whiffs on their top deck. That's not very interesting Magic to me, because it discourages early and efficient interaction, seeing that you're basically only aiming to play the biggest and most swingy effects (Fable, Etali and Breach come to mind here). You can also see the design philosophy leak into eternal formats, where instead of these powerful, but rather simple effects, we get the Initiative, Minsc and Boo, Atraxa or similar. It takes away the charm of the formats, where you nickel and dime your way through a match having to think of card advantage, because your bombs are gifts that keep on giving. I don't mind powerful effects, but I prefer them in an environment with equally powerful interaction so there's a cost to putting so many of your eggs in one basket, and we are getting a lot more of the bomby stuff, than the interesting interaction these days. Thoughts to consider?

I remember Mark Rosewater discussing the return of phyrexian mana as well and he remarked a variation of flashback as an interesting take on it but it fell through because it needed more support than the set had room for. Specifically, there would be instant/sorceries that would exile themselves after resolving and then you would pay a different cost that used phyrexian mana to cast it again out of exile, putting it in the grave. In this case, you still had to use the color and amount properly on the initial cast but then could get a fix and/or reduction on the recast

I almost thougt the treatment to Compleated on other permanent cards on All will be one, like "if this spell enter the battlefield being cast and without paying life this turn, enter with a +1/+1 or [X ability] counter on it". But the activation cost is a nice thing.

I really love phyrexian mana: it was one of the first big changes to a mana symbol, it felt iconic and fitting and great. Unbalanced for sure, but unforgettable. On a side note, New Phyrexia art was on another level. Pity the recent sets took it in a different direction.

I remember some talking suggesting that you only being able to spend P if you had a land in play of the corresponding color or if you could reveal the appropriate land. I think compleated was a brilliant choice, altering the stats to make them more "on curve", still capturing the flavor, and offering a choice. I find "the only life that matters is the last when you lose" a very challenging concept for players to grasp because of how it goes against our natural impulse to retain all resources possible or viewing life as a score you want to maximize and something like P will always be Spike-y, and honestly thats fine for me. The other implementations in abilities or adjacent like the Defilers or even Krrik feel right too. I like the mechanic as a whole, just it probably should be used sparingly or balanced as a steeper cost

I absolutely remember Rage Extractor! I built around it in Standard with metamorph for double the rage and it was actually really solid. It was WUBR with all the low drop creatures and Tempered Steel with Rage extractor as the finisher. The mana base was all over the place, but hey, phyrexian mana and some life gain. I was often even able to outrace our local champ's Valakut deck. (And before you think he's some small town champ, he had 6 Pro points). Man, I wish that card had taken off more, it was such a fun deck, but I'd only got back into MTG at the end of Scars, so I wasn't yet shooting for the competitive scene. Still, yeah, not many people seem to remember it anymore, I guess it's biggest claim to fame was throwing a huge wrench in my local meta. XD

Awesome video as Always thanks gabe

I personally enjoy the color pie breaks we get, especially when they give access to an important but balanced effect effect. Surgical Extraction is a beautifully flavorful card and a good way to give that type of interaction to decks, while not being too crazy due to the number of artifact graveyard hate. Dismember costing 4 life and still a mana makes it a hard cost to pay for some powerful removal, even though all the colors have some ways of removing things.

I agree that Phyrexian Mana on non-permanent spells was a bad move, just imagining how Gut Shot was originally planned to be as a Shock would had being even more catastrophic. K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth is the prime example of pushing this cost to the extreme and he gets out of hand pretty quick. The way it was handled later on was a good move.

I think a possible way to partly fix Phyrexian mana exists in a pair of cards from Betrayers of Kamigama: Horobi's Whisper and Roar of Jukai. They can be spliced on without colored mana, but require you to control a Swamp/Forest to gain the spell effect. Additionally, you could have the effect scale based on mana spent to cast, like with Compleated.

Loved Phyrexianized Tamiyo and Ajani with controled phyrexian maná (not absolutly colorless). Would love to see it again

I think that changing the rule text for phyrexian mana to something like "pay one generic and one life" instead of "paying 2 life" would have solve the problem of mana accelerating. It would still have the problem of color pie, but with this nerf, some card wouldn't have been banned

I think you might’ve forgotten something, the Dominaria United Defilers also use phyrexian mana, after all they essentially have the ability to spend one phyrexian mana to add one mana to your mana pool as a mana source

One important thing about MOM Phyrexian mana thats a lot more important now than it was during the first batch is color identity for commander. That single off color pip in the transform cost means you now have a monocolor creature that's playable only in dual colored decks.

Honestly it just feels like all the problem cards just needed to have +1 colourless and problem solved! Feels like what you guys did with Tamiyo

Link and pwnage sound sick. I still want more meld or fusion cards.

I think the Phyrexian mana on activated abilities was really cool and I would like to see it again. Compleated walkers was a neat idea, but you guys were REALLY careful with costing everything. I get it for sure, but I'd love to see it come back a tiny bit stronger. most of the walkers were weaker or fine at the cost they would have with it removed entirely

I remembered Rage Extractor. Well, not from when it was released, but when looking at Scryfall I saw it and was surprised something specifically referred to phyrexian mana.

Could you talk about the limited fixing cycles from Alara (Panoramas, Borderposts) and New Capenna ? (Pseudo-fetchlands that sac on etb) I'm curious to see if we could get wedges panoramas or opposite borderposts, or if there is a mechanical problem with those (like the panoramas don't "make" colored until turn 3). I also love how borderposts work with "catch-up ramp" from white.

i got the red/white phyrexian mana deck as a kid, and rage extractor was essentially one of my wincons (and/or just the card I loved playing the most, besides moltensteel dragon)

I like the idea of using phyrexian mana alongside coloured mana in the future, thinking of examples where adding a single coloured mana to a phyrexian mana card could make it almost as good as the "Standard" Counterspell effect on a UUP cost, or Lightning Bolt on a RP cost could be ways to go forward, even keeping the identity off of sorcery and instant cards putting that on to a creature also works, a Rotting Bear idea of 1GP for a 2/2 with infect seems like a card that could fit in without going into any deck because of the lack of colour cost

In hindsight, phyrexian mana is way less broken on activated abilities, like we did in MOM. Compleated planeswalkers are a cool trade off.

Phyrexian Mana is cool! K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth needed a shout out in the video!😂😂😂

Hey I LOVE Rage Extractor! I have no idea what it does, but the Raymond Swanland art is KILLER

I absolutely loved this set. I used rage extractor as my center point and ran all the colors. It was definitely a suicidal race for victory lol

I love Rage Extractor. I think I brewed up a Mardu-coloured Standard deck with 4 of them and as many decent Phyrexian mana cards I could get away with (Porcelain Legionnaire, Vault Skirge, Spined Thopter, Dismember, even lesser-regarded cards like Slash Panther and Pith Driller). It was a lot of fun having removal or Lava Axes tacked on to all my spells!

Me personally, I love the Phyrexian Mana mechanic! I know there were some people who had no faith in you guys making it work well in these latest sets, but with how colossally iconic both the mechanic and it's negative effects across every meta, I had no doubt you guys were going to try to make it work and you did it! Of course the fundamental problems of Phyrexian mana is apparent and obvious now so I imagine that we are not going to be seeing a lot of it regardless, especially considering where the Phyrexians are at right now. But I would love to eventually see the Generic Phyrexian Mana symbol you mentioned be used for something, BUT in addition to that possibly even a Colorless Phyrexian Mana Symbol. Of course it'll be hard to distinguish between these two symbols with how similar their printed colors are, if not identical, so perhaps we'll only get one or the other. But either way I'd love to see more of these symbols on new cards when the time is appropriate for them. Who knows, maybe you guys can figure out how to get them onto nonpermanent, possibly with Kicker? (I mean all effects are Kicker, or at least they're all Kicker or Horsemanship, but I mean actual Kicker/maybe Multi-Kicker). Hope you guys keep up the great card design work you've been giving out the past few years!

This talk makes me specifically want some Lorwyn/Shadowmoor talks, starting with why hybrid colorless mana costs haven't been revisited (like {W/2}, just one of each color plus Reaper King). I guess in 2011 I wasn't advanced enough to realize I could put Mental Misstep in my monowhite deck, back when we didn't play Commander. But now that we're always playing Commander, old phyrexian mana seems to sit in a more ok spot than the color breaking issue (although, the life cost is half as hurtful now). Personally I want more "playing around with the mana", maybe some sort of opposite of phyrexian mana (not as in gain life as an alternative cost).

Huzzah! Another longer video, keep those coming.

I think Phyrexian mana as a tool for providing effects to colorless decks is an interesting space to explore. Colorless decks already pay a premium for what they do, turning Phyrexian mana into a "colorless" mechanic that is at a slightly worse rate could create some positive shake ups in that context. 1{R/P} sorcery deal two damage to any target . 2{B/P} sorcery destroy target nonartifact non black creature. Printing slightly worse call backs to old staples could be interesting.

I think Phyrexian mana in CMCs for Instants and Sorceries are fine if they are used for damage spells, like with Gut Shot and Mutagenic Growth: deal damage to yourself for bigger damage to the opponent.

I like phyrexian mana, and I think there is still a framework for it that would yield some creative design space. There are cards with text similar to "as an additional cost to cast this spell, pay (1) or 2 life" which doesn't seem too strange. But it feels very black with the life loss, so perhaps in the future if the Phyrexians found their way back, maybe phyrexian mana could find a place as a black ability for the set, with a life loss theme as an archetype of the set. Then mana costs could be set at a slightly higher cost, so that when the phyrexian mana is used, it puts the spell at where it should be. Then typically only decks who want the life loss would run those cards. I think there might also be a creative space for other pitfalls of using it, much like the compleated planeswalkers, perhaps some spells specify that life lost through phrexian mana is doubled, or also requires a land to be sacrificed when used.

i always thought that Parasitic mechanic refereed to mechanics that only worked with each other and dont translate to outside their sets, like Splice onto Arcane.

I would love to hear the story about the Storm mechanic and how it came to be and what are they dev's thoughts on it now

For the color pie break, imo, Phyrexian mana should have always had the rider of " _if you control a ,_ you may pay 2 life..." Now you don't need to actively have that color up to use it, but it needs to be in your deck. Some of the cards would still likely be busted just for being free (locking mental misstep and probe to only blue would just make blue more of the best color, lol, so they might still need a ban), but it would be less of a problem at least.

Dismember one of my favorite cards ever. Print more like it please!!!!

Bought a Rage Extractor many years ago waiting for when it would become great in a commander deck

Love these kinds of deep dives! And agreed, it worked out well for some texture but it's just inherently flawed as a design.

Phyrexian mana also poses an accessibility problem. Colorblind player can differentiate regular mana symbols by shape. That doesn't really work when all you've got to go on is a Φ.

Wonder if that Link ability is based on God Link from Duel Masters? It combines all the characteristics from two designated cards when they're together. It was Ken Nagle too, who later brought Transform and Meld from DM iirc.

I always recommend Gitaxian Probe in any spellslinger commander deck that can use blue. There’s no reason not to as it’s literally a free cantrip that also procs all of your spellslinger effects. You have 40 life, so use it!

The design logic for this mechanic makes perfect sense, and even though it didn't turn out as expected, it's easy to see how the mechanic ended up being the way it is.

I remember Rage Extractor too! But too few cards & too weak an average to really pull of an EDH theme deck with it…

Use in Instant/Sorcery (transient spells) was definitely the original error. I agree.

So with how Phyrexian mana was done in the last few sets. I think that its honestly cool and can add some great flavor to some cards, but I do think its playing with some really dangerous fire. I love to see it return and mess with but with max cation. To me, its too cool not to do more of in some way as its kind of a taboo machine like storm. So powerful that its a mistakes but things like it become more exciting (like thousand year storm). I want the team at wizards to not give up one what made this broken machines cool while balancing out out the power level a bit. A tough path to walk, but honestly some times you guys have nailed it out of the park (and some times you miss the mark but its how such things go)

I remember Rage Extractor because it was in the first deck I ever got, I got it as a birthday gift

There was a commander that could be played on turn one when you mulligan down to three cards and that was absolutely broken mostly because once a player had it out it was possible to win on turn three.

I loved this set! Still play some of my decks against my friends. Also it is broken

What I like about this mechanic lorewise is it felt Phyrexian, the nemesis were in 5 colors and not just black and they were here to stay.

It would be interesting if phyrexian mana could turn a colored source into a colorless one. It would still lead to color pie breaks, but it wouldn't need to be balanced around the cost being reduced.

I’m a proud Timmy that’s definitely down to see more Phyrexian Mana

3:24 dude. I did not realize that was praetor's grasp's art

I am excited to see interesting phyrexian permanents in the future

I think your point about instants and sorceries being the true problems is an excellent one because resolving into the graveyard made these cards really obscene with effects that care about the graveyard. I don't think Magic design should feel like they have to hold back with graveyard mechanics in fear of what happens in a format where you could play cards like Gitaxian Probe.

I wish there would be MORE Phyrexian cards... Oh well, happy to have any at all at this point

Can you do a video on Menace? Just had a thought the other day about why Menace isn't an N ability... Menace 1 - 1 extra creature to block (regular Menace) Menace 2 - 2 extra creatures to block (Pathrazer of Ulamog) Seems like it would open design space for the ability...

I think Phyrexian mana on instants and sorceries require the cards to be severely overcosted with additional colored pips, if you intend to have all the colored pips be Phyrexian. I imagine what the game would look like if Surgical Extraction was P/B P/B P/B. It would still probably be a sideboard staple but it would feel riskier to use it. Even at that cost, I still wouldn't expect anyone to play any of the other alternatives.

Implementing both colored and colorless phyrexian mana would be an interesting compromise. To avoid color pie break on instants and sorceries, put generic phyrexian mana in the costs so spells like dismember would've been B + 4 life instead of generic + 4 life. This probably would've stopped many of the problem cards like misstep and probe from being developed since they have no generic to be made phyrexian.

Phyrexian Mana as it is now, is a better Design choice as it was in the past. To be honest: When I started to play MtG and stumbled upon this Mechanic, I thought of how unique and cool it was. Having the Phyrexian Symbol in the Mana Cost of a Card to show that this belonged to the Phyrexian Archetype and that you had to decide to pay with your Life was very flavorful and true to the whole Idea of „No Progress without pain“. But as we all know, this became indeed a Problem for all the Reasons Gavin showed us in the Video. So I am happy to see Phyrexian Mana again, but handled more carefully today. This Mechanic is the Flagship for the Phyrexians and it would be sad to not see it again on future Cards associated with them. The Mechanic also can become your downfall, if you are to greedy and not careful enough. I often got in Situations where I wished, I would not had paid the Life but the Mana instead. In Short: If I see a Card associated with the Phyrexians it should either do something with Poison Counters, Proliferate or have that nice dreadful Emblem somewhere in it‘s Mana Cost or for it‘s Ability that we all know and love or hate.^^ Have a nice day everyone!

Ayyyyyy Rage Extractor!!!! I knew that one!

I'm designing my own Jumpstart-style micro set for fun that has McMana, which can be paid with one mana of any color or by sacrificing a Food token. You could still bend the color pie, but it would take more work to get the tokens beforehand, and be more difficult than just a resource you always have immediately like life.

I think there is a lot of untapped design space with Phyrexian mana, if you use it as a modal modifier, just like with the planeswalkers. Examples: U(Phyr)3 Sorcery Draw 3 cards. If life was paid to play the spell, draw 2 cards instead. B(Phyr)B Instant Destroy a creature with power 5 or less. If life was paid to play the spell, instead destroy a creature with power 2 or less. This could be on a host of spell and creatures as well, where life payment would make them weaker or non-life payment would make them stronger.

I think the mechanic is fine in a vacuum. Undercosted effects with a life cost are a normal part of many sets, Phyrexian Mana is just that codified as a set mechanic. The problem was the transgressive philosophy, and the feeling of "phyrexia" the designers aimed to use it for. If Dismember cost B P/B P/B, it would be a completely fair black removal spell competing with other, arguably better black removal spells, but that wouldn't have achieved the design goals of New Phyrexia. Also, while Phyrexian Mana is nominally a cost reduction mechanic, my Spike brain just looks at the maximum discount as the base cost and each Phyrexian Mana symbol as Secret Kicker: Gain 2 life.

I agree that there was not a problem with the mechanic itself. It's just a few cards, mostly some of the ones that become free. Even "free" spells such as Mutagenic Growth, Gut Shot and Surgical Extraction are quite fair and situational in all formats they are legal in. My problem is with the way in EDH you can't play cards you could perfectly pay for, such as Mutagenic Growth in a UR deck. If they have a problem with some cards, they should just ban them and let the rest cards work as intended at deck building time.