My Top 10 Nonlegendary Phyrexians for Commander
Phyrexia: All Will Be One is upon us and the Phyrexian invasion of the Multiverse has begun in earnest. While they haven’t always been represented by an actual creature type, the Phyrexians been around since Antiquities was released in 1994. Given the longevity that they have as antagonists in the Magic story, it should come as no surprise that there are numerous Phyrexian creatures that are both powerful and exciting to play with. In this article, I’m going to showcase my top 10 nonlegendary Phyrexians for Commander.
Given that the Commander format is largely based around legendary creatures, you may be wondering why I would specifically exclude legendary Phyrexians from this top 10 list. After all, there are a ton of great Phyrexians that you can play in the command zone. I simply didn’t want to fill up this list with cards like Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and K’rrik, Son of Yawgmoth. While I love these cards, I think that almost everyone knows about them already. This restriction frees up a lot of space on the list to include some cards that people may not have seen before. Let’s do this!
Author’s note: At the time of writing, there are 330 nonlegendary Phyrexians in Magic. This number does not include changelings, and it also notably doesn’t include Consecrated Sphinx because the Magic team decided to keep its creature type open so it can appear outside of sets related to the Phyrexians.
Phyrexian Devourer
Why would you want to eat your library in order to make one really big creature that you have to sacrifice when its power is 7 or greater? The reason that this card makes my list is because of how useful it is as a combo enabler. Thanks to its updated rules text, Phyrexian Devourer loads itself up with +1/+1 counters equal to the mana value of the cards that you exile. This opens up a lot of possibilities. As always, I’d recommend consulting the most current Oracle text whenever you’re dealing with old cards like this one.
The main place where I see this card shine are in decks built around assembling Buried Alive piles. It’s easy to put this and a card like Walking Ballista into your graveyard and then use Necrotic Ooze to kill off your opponents by eating your library and then shooting them down. You can even eat more cards in response to removal in order to make sure that it’s big enough to finish the job. There isn’t really another card quite like it for this purpose. This card also works well with Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord as a decisive table finisher.
Skirge Familiar
Discarding cards and turning them into mana is just straight up cracked. There are so many applications for this type of ability because black has so many ways to benefit from having cards in your graveyard. This is another classic example of a card that sounds like it has a real downside on paper when it’s actually all upside in practice. The only thing that makes this ability seem even remotely balanced is that it only produces black mana. That isn’t much of a restriction, so it’s easy to figure out why there aren’t any other cards that work quite like Skirge Familiar.
Eagle-eyed observers might have noticed that this is another creature that plays really well in Buried Alive piles with Necrotic Ooze. You’ll usually see it played alongside Asmodeus the Archfiend and Chainer, Dementia Master. You might also run into this creature in the 99 of decks led by commanders like The Gitrog Monster and Oskar, Rubbish Reclaimer. These types of commanders greatly benefit from powerful discard outlets and have a lot of ways to turn that extra mana into a win.
Phyrexian Delver
The next Phyrexian on our list brings back another creature when it enters the battlefield. Much like Reanimate, you’ll lose life equal to target’s mana value. While there’s a big difference between the mana costs of Reanimate and Phyrexian Delver, the latter card comes with the added benefit of being on a creature. This means that reusing the ETB trigger or getting other benefits out of the body can be done very easily. After all, black has plenty of ways to abuse extra bodies.
The most common place that I’ve found this card is in decks led by Meren of Clan Nel Toth, but it can find a home in almost any reanimator deck. It’s worth noting that Phyrexian Delver is both a Phyrexian and a zombie, meaning that it fits well into any deck focused around that creature type. This means that you can cast it for free with Rooftop Storm and even double it with Necroduality! The versatility of this card makes it one of my favorite value pieces in any zombie deck.
Blightsteel Colossus
Outside of legendary creatures, this might be the most well-known Phyrexian card. As such, I couldn’t rightly pass it by when making this list. Blightsteel Colossus is the corrupted version of the earlier Darksteel Colossus. The two cards have a lot in common, as they’re both 11/11 creatures with trample and indestructible that shuffle themselves into your library instead of going to the graveyard. The most obvious difference is that Blightsteel Colossus has infect This means that it’s surprisingly easy for Blightsteel Colossus to kill off a player in just a single hit.
The best way to play this creature is probably to find a way to cheat it onto the battlefield. Reanimating it won’t work because of the replacement effect that keeps it out of the graveyard, so you’ll have to find another way to do it. Cards such as Sneak Attack and Ilharg, the Raze-Boar make it easy and even allow you to connect without waiting a turn cycle because of summoning sickness. That said, my favorite way to make sure that Blightsteel Colossus deals lethal damage is by targeting it with Chandra’s Ignition. If everything goes to plan, this will eliminate all of your opponents at the same time!
Massacre Wurm
The best sweepers in Commander leave your side of the board largely intact. With all of the mana dorks, utility creatures, and hordes of tokens in Commander, you can count on Massacre Wurm to put in a lot of work in most games while leaving your creatures around to continue the fight. Its other ability will usually create a pretty big life total swing on the turn that it comes down, but it will continue to ping people when their creatures die as long as it sticks to the board. This is a lot of value for just a single creature.
One of my favorite things you can do with this card is giving it encore with Araumi of the Dead Tide. If you have 3 opponents, this will give opposing creatures -6/-6 and it will drain your opponents for 6 life for each creature they control that hits the graveyard. It gets even worse when you use Mystic Reflection to make even more of them!
Exxaxl: You called (͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)?
Chief: No, this is a one-man article. Get back to editing, please!
You shouldn’t have much trouble finishing them off after a play like that into a jammed up board with a ton of creatures on all sides. I play a lot of Adeline, Resplendent Cathar and this is one of the worst creatures for me to encounter during a game.
Phyrexian Revoker
I’d have a hard time telling you about the last time that I played a Commander game where I didn’t see something that had a powerful activated ability. In fact, popular cards like Deathrite Shaman and Staff of Domination have several! In a manner not unlike Pithing Needle, this creature has the ability to put a stop to activated abilities of a card of your choice. The key difference is that you can’t name land cards, even though Phyrexian Revoker can stop mana abilities. Think of the possibilities!
It’s not terribly uncommon to see this creature show up in stax or hatebears decks as a way to proactively stop certain powerful cards that might throw a wrench into the gameplan, but it also makes a great silver bullet against decks that rely on powerful activated abilities from cards like Breya, Etherium Shaper or Selvala, Heart of the Wilds. Phyrexian Revoker is a very efficient little silver bullet that definitely feels like it can be used judiciously in casual or cEDH pods alike.
Phyrexian Metamorph
Ever since the appearance of Clone in Alpha, it seems like the going rate for this effect without significant downsides has been 4 mana. Phyrexian Metamorph puts a different type of spin on that concept by using Phyrexian mana as a potential way to discount the spell, in addition to allowing you to copy an artifact or a creature. These things make it one of the best Clone variants in the game, so it’s easy to see why this is one of the most popular cards to make my top 10.
There are so many great creatures and artifacts in the average Commander game, so you’ll almost always have something worth copying on the battlefield. While 3 mana and 2 life for an Esper Sentinel or a Skullclamp isn’t exactly the best rate, it can be argued that these cards are worth more than 1 mana in the first place! Since Phyrexian Metamorph will always be an artifact regardless of what it copies, this also opens the doors for a bunch of shenanigans involving copying or untapping artifacts if that appeals to you.
Defiler of Vigor
I actually like every single card in this cycle quite a bit, but there’s just something about this one that really speaks to me. It shouldn’t be too difficult to cast a lot of green permanent spells with the cost reduction that Defiler of Vigor gives you, allowing you to pump up your team with loads of +1/+1 counters and quickly take your opponents down. The life loss likely won’t matter too much when you’re building up the size of your board so quickly in comparison to everyone else.
I’ve seen this card go off with cards like Glimpse of Nature and Beast Whisperer and almost become a manual creature storm deck pumping out tons of elves and other small creatures until the opponent drew into a Concordant Crossroads and were able to swing out and end the game after churning through their library. I can definitely see this card finding a home in almost any green deck focused on playing tons of creatures and turning them sideways for big damage.
Soulless Jailer
I’ve often said that Grafdigger’s Cage is one of the most underplayed cards in Commander because of how many different flavors of shenanigans it can stop cold. Soulless Jailer is another variant of this theme. In exchange for a few looser restrictions—namely allowing creature spells to be cast from graveyards and not restricting casting spells or having permanents enter the battlefield from libraries—this card turns off casting noncreature spells from exile. Outside of Drannith Magistrate, no other card does that!
This means that Soulless Jailer turns off things like impulsive draw and cascade. Cards like Jeska’s Will and Apex Devastator become a lot less exciting and commanders like Maelstrom Wanderer and Prosper, Tome-Bound lose much of what makes them great. This might seem harsh, but it doesn’t turn off casting spells from your hand like normal. This creature will be an all-star for a deck like Winota, Joiner of Forces that doesn’t rely heavily on anything that it stops, especially since it isn’t a human.
Venerated Rotpriest
When I first saw this card, I didn’t think too much of it. Then I read it again. Yes, that’s right. Venerated Rotpriest will trigger even if you’re the one targeting your creatures with spells. This can quickly poison out an opponent while you’re doing what your deck already wants to do by casting instants, sorceries, and auras that target your creatures. This can help make certain combat-focused decks much more efficient because you can poison one opponent while swinging at another.
Once I properly understood this card, I immediately thought of Blanka, Ferocious Friend—or The Howling Abomination on the Universes Within reprint that is coincidentally in boosters for Phyrexia: All Will Be One. The poison can help you fight back against life gain and it really speeds up the clock and helps you finish players before they take you out. You can also use Venerated Rotpriest with cards such as the new Clever Concealment to mass target your creatures quickly finish off opponents using poison.
I’ve got to admit that it was hard to narrow this list down to just 10 cards, because there are so many great Phyrexian creatures, so I wanted to showcase a few more that narrowly escaped my top 10. I think we’ll see even more of them when March of the Machine releases later this year. I hope that you’ve enjoyed reading along, but I’d love to hear about your own favorite nonlegendary Phyrexians as well that I’ve missed. Feel free to reach out 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.
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