Our Top 10 Cards for Phyrexia: All Will Be One
At long last, we've returned to New Phyrexia. The Invasion Tree has shattered the barriers between planes and the Phyrexian invasion of the Multiverse has begun! It seems like we've been waiting ages to see what Elesh Norn has been planning, going all the way back to the appearance of Vorinclex on Kaldheim. Whether you stand with the Phyrexians or the Mirran Resistance, all signs point to this being a monumental Magic release.
There's no doubt that Phyrexia: All Will Be One is one of the most anticipated Magic releases in years. How could it not be? It’s full of new mechanics as well as callbacks to iconic sets that took place on Mirrodin and New Phyrexia. In this article, we (Chief, Phyrexian Mite Enthusiast and Exxaxl, Wishing Darksteel Was Readily Available in Real Life) will highlight our top 10 cards from the set. Let's find out if this set measures up to the hype!
Clever Concealment
Chief: Commander is a format where cards such as Blasphemous Act, Toxic Deluge, and Cyclonic Rift see heavy play. Not all popular sweepers destroy permanents, so making them indestructible won't always work. Clever Concealment will allow you to phase out as many nonland permanents as you like, provided they can be targeted by the spell. This means that cards like Lightning Greaves and Sword of Hearth and Home might keep you from saving a few of your permanents, but that's still better than losing everything.
Compared to a spell like Teferi's Protection, this card has both pros and cons. It won't be too difficult to cast this spell using convoke to spend little or no mana and it allows you to keep permanents such as Smothering Tithe or Rhystic Study on the board to keep putting in work while phasing out other things that you need to protect from removal or limited sweepers that won't hit certain permanent types. Phasing out your board without gaining any protection for yourself can also leave you quite vulnerable, so you’ll want to figure out the right balance when to cast this spell.
The Mycosynth Gardens
Exxaxl: Returning readers will know that I have a soft spot for playing around with Magic’s rules and having more than one of a card in the singleton format that is Commander will always be a fun way to play the game to me. It’s not often a land makes our top 10, so let’s break down why I love this card.
It enters untapped, makes mana from the get-go, filters (badly, but still) and can copy a nontoken artifact you control. At its weakest, you’ll copy a mana rock. But would you not slot a second Skullclamp in your token deck when given the chance? How about Lightning Greaves? I’d totally play two of Esper Sentinel, Panharmonicon, or Lightning Greaves when given the chance. Any card that can fill redundancy slots is alright with me.
The fact that this is a land is what makes it strong. You can copy something at instant speed, and I doubt someone is going to Strip Mine or Demolition Field your Mycosynth Gardens for something you may have later. Because it has no color identity, you’re now also able to copy artifacts in colors that previously lacked the ability of doing so without devoting spell slots to artifacts like Mirage Mirror. Tap your Sol Ring to make the mana to get a second Sol Ring sounds funny to pull off at least once.
Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines
Chief: I've been waiting to see this card for a long while now and I'm not disappointed. I've always been a big fan of cards like Torpor Orb and Hushbringer, but it can be difficult to play these cards in decks including white because they can cause you to miss out on powerful creatures such as Recruiter of the Guard and Stoneforge Mystic. Elesh Norn allows you to play these cards with impunity while offering an asymmetrical hate effect against enters-the-battlefield (ETB) abilities belonging to your opponents. She even works on ETB abilities of noncreature permanents!
Some concern has been expressed about this type of card design, but I don’t really see her as being a problem card for Commander. There's no question that ETB abilities are some of the most powerful and undercosted things in the game, so having more ways to effectively answer cards like Dockside Extortionist and Thassa's Oracle feels like a net positive. Panharmonicon isn't a super widely played card despite the popularity of ETB cards, so I don't expect to see Elesh Norn outside of dedicated ETB decks or in tables that aren't expecting powerful cards like this one.
Synthesis Pod
Exxaxl: This is kind of a weird one. I don’t think this card is outrageously strong, but it does provide a mechanic I enjoy, just like Rod of Absorption, Wand of Wonder, and Chaos Wand before it. Playing spells that aren’t my own is something several of my decks already try to do when I have room left for some odd pet cards.
The big difference with Synthesis Pod is you can sort of aim for certain big hits you know your opponents will play. What are the odds the Tatyova, Benthic Druid landfall deck is not running Avenger of Zendikar in the 7-mana slot or Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait for 6? Chances are small that the mono-white player isn’t playing Generous Gift or Drannith Magistrate. If you play against friends and you know each other’s decks, this card allows for some serious metagaming too. It’s also not lost on me that a blue artifact looking to yoink spells from your opponent probably doesn’t want to target the other blue player - for the risk of running into a counterspell which will be a pointless hit to get unless you’re activating Synthesis Pod in response to an already ongoing stack war.
While you can’t guarantee what you’re going to make your opponent reveal, you can do some risk versus payoff assessments and cast spells and target opponents accordingly. This card’s in a bit of a weird spot where initially, it feels like the higher power you play this card, the more valuable the payoff might be. Your hit in a deck with lots of fast mana and card draw will likely be better than if you target a player that was playing a boxed precon - but you’re equally likely to just run into a counterspell (with no target), a combo piece that does nothing for you, or a card that’s straight up worse than what you initially cast.
Relying on what others may have is always risky and should rarely be your main strategy. Your opponents do reveal cards until that mana value plus 1 has been found though, so while it’s not this card’s main goal, it is a nice way to see a large portion of your opponent’s game plan and strategy if you didn’t pick up on what exactly the deck was trying to do before. Outside of just running this because it’s fun, I can see it being useful in decks like Pako, Arcane Retriever and Haldan, Avid Arcanist; Tasha, the Witch Queen; Sen Triplets; or Xanathar, Guild Kingpin. You’re already committed to playing other people’s decks at that point.
If Synthesis Pod allowed me to play the card from exile for as long as that card remains exiled (like how Vivien, Champion of the Wilds or Siphon Insight work) I’d likely play this card in my Umbris, Fear Manifest deck. For now, it’s just another funny ‘I like my cards but how about yours’ trinket. This card getting printed does open the possibility of every color getting their own Birthing Pod-adjacent card, and I’m very excited to see which other ones we’ll see in the future in this cycle - even though I’m fully aware said ‘cycle’ might never truly be completed, or it simply isn’t even a cycle to begin with and this was just a one-time thing they wanted to do.
Solphim, Mayhem Dominus
Chief: I like a few of the cards in this cycle quite a bit, but there's something particularly appealing about Solphim's design. While we've seen Gisela, Blade of Goldnight's unique take on doubling damage and Obosh, the Preypiercer doubling damage from odd mana value sources, this is the first time we've gotten a purely mono-red damage doubler in the command zone. Jeska, Thrice Reborn is so close. While it's limited to noncombat damage, I don't think that's much of a problem for red. I'm always excited to see cards that help strategies like burn and aggro scale better in Commander, so I'm definitely going to be on the lookout for cool decks built around this commander.
A big appeal with this cycle of creatures is that they all have the ability to gain an indestructible counter. In Solphim's case, this requires you to discard cards in addition to the other costs. This actually isn't a big downside in red, because you can always use them again with cards like Mizzix's Mastery or Underworld Breach. Being indestructible also allows Solphim to survive the damage from spells such as Blasphemous Act and other similar red sweepers. Now they just need to reprint Repercussion!
Drivnod, Carnage Dominus
Exxaxl: This is the second ever card we see that cares about doubling death triggers outside of Teysa Karlov. I think the obvious synergy lines here are Dictate of Erebos and Grave Pact, and if you already lean in on these cards, I’m sure you wouldn’t mind getting twice the amount of triggers there. Those were the two big ones I thought about when this card got previewed, but it can do so much more.
If you’re running a deck with Junji, the Midnight Sky or Kokusho the Evening Star at the helm, it’s definitely worth considering. When your gameplan revolves around cards like Blood Artist and Zulaport Cutthroat triggers, Drivnod will help you close out the game faster. Abzan Ascendancy will put more tokens on the board. Archghoul of Thraben is going to churn through your deck at double the speed.
Eloise, Nephalia Sleuth and Elenda, the Dusk Rose are going to become a threat way more quickly and your board just became a little more resilient if you’re playing Colfenor, the Last Yew or Meren of Clan Nel Toth. Just make sure cards like Midnight Reaper or Dark Prophecy don't kill you in the process.
Soulless Jailer
Chief: This card is nuts. While it gives up a little bit of the text on cards such as Grafdigger’s Cage and Weathered Runestone, this creature’s ability to stop noncreature spells from being cast from exile hits so many relevant things in Commander. The fact that it doesn’t stop permanents from entering the battlefield from libraries is also huge for certain decks that wouldn’t want to run similar cards that hit libraries. Soulless Jailer’s 0/4 stat line means that it can even survive Lightning Bolt while also giving it a fair chance to survive when it swings to get that trigger for Winota, Joiner of Forces in cEDH!
With cards like Jeska’s Will, Professional Face-Breaker, and Prosper, Tome-Bound seeing a ton of play in Commander, this card is in a prime position to have a big impact on the table every time that it hits the battlefield. You can also combine it with Uba Mask and restrict your opponents to playing only creature spells out of exile if they don’t have an answer on hand when it hits the board. Personally, I’m looking forward to adding Soulless Jailer to my Heliod, Sun-Crowned cEDH deck in order to have yet another weapon against Underworld Breach and some other similar strategies.
Tyvar’s Stand
Exxaxl: Hexproof and indestructible with a potential combat upside. While it’s true that we have seen similar cards before - like Blossoming Defense and Tamiyo’s Safekeeping - this one has the potential to turn your unblocked commander into a lethal threat, or skew combat in your favor when someone overcommitted their attack. Usually I prefer combat tricks like these to be any target and not just creatures you control, such as cards like Rogue’s Passage potentially weaponizing creatures your opponents control.
Being able to sink in as much mana as you want is going to make this card a great ‘in response’ in the right deck. Gargos, Vicious Watcher just became a little more threatening. Ghalta, Primal Hunger gets another instant speed one-shot card. People will think twice next time about not blocking your Toski, Bearer of Secrets. If you’re trying to rebuild your combo lines after a board wipe that Marwyn, the Nurturer won’t mind this effect either.
Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler
Chief: Tyvar’s back and this time he’s doing a very convincing impression of Thousand-Year Elixir. This card offers a fair amount of utility and should play well in a variety of different decks that have elves or other creatures with tap abilities. It’s definitely nice to see a planeswalker at this cost that feels extremely useful for certain decks without feeling like it’s going to warp entire formats. I’m personally not very drawn to planeswalker cards because they can be tedious to play around, but it’s hard to find fault with such a solid role-player that doesn’t do anything that threatens to completely warp the game if left unchecked for a turn or two.
If you’re playing a commander like Lathril, Blade of the Elves and you’re already running the aforementioned Thousand-Year Elixir in order to benefit from tap abilities right away, you might consider adding this planeswalker for redundancy. The -2 ability can even be used to bring back a small creature back from the graveyard if you’re looking to rebuild after a board wipe. Golgari decks that rely on mana dorks and other useful creatures that tap to use abilities will probably love this card. It’s also refreshing to see so many planeswalkers at Rare in the same set, because the best ones can often command high prices at Mythic.
Kethek, Crucible Goliath
It’s like a Rakdos Neoform or Birthing Pod - but in reverse. I’m interested in turning Kethek into a chain reanimator piece. If you can manipulate the top of your library to make sure that the right creatures are there, you can guarantee the lines of play in your deck will work smoothly. When a creature dies, it brings a friend, and that friend also brings a friend!
In my end step, sacrifice Sheoldred, Whispering One to bring Wurmcoil Engine or Burning-Rune Demon on the field. Next turn, these can bring in Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Puppeteer Clique, or Phyrexian Delver, which in turn can find Disciple of Bolas, Pitiless Plunderer, or Vindictive Lich. Yes, I’m well aware I’m just building Kethek like I would Araumi of the Dead Tide if she had access to red.
Ilharg, the Raze-Boar and God-Eternal Bontu are creatures that get sent back to a known position in your deck, so I’m pretty sure you can generate some nice synergy lines that way. While you’re not guaranteeing your next hit to be those cards, you do now know there’s a 5-drop 3 cards deep into your deck. Scroll Rack likely isn’t a bad choice for Kethek either.
This concludes our top 10 cards for Phyrexia: All Will Be One. It was honestly pretty hard to narrow it down to just 10 cards, so we’d love to hear your favorites over on Twitter! If you’d like to check out more PlayEDH content, you can find more articles here or tune into the PlayEDH Radio 903.1 podcast here.
If you’re looking to play curated webcam EDH online or just want to chat with thousands of Commander players from all over the world, come join us on our Discord server. We hope to see you there! Articles like these are made possible and kept ad-free by our amazing Patreon supporters.
“This article is unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC.”
