A History of Phyrexians

[Music] [Applause] welcome to magic arcanum i'm ryan gomez behind the scenes is nicole burdick and we're so glad you're here because it's story time the phyrexians have been a part of magic since the game's earliest days and thanks to a certain card in caldheim it looks like they're about to be a major piece of the story once again if you're new to the game or just want a refresher on how these horrors have impacted things over the years you're in luck because today we're taking a look back at a history of the phyrexians let's start with some basics a phyrexian is a completed creature from phyrexia neufyrexia or another such infected plane and already we have a lot to unpack completion is the end goal for fyrexians it is the total replacement of your organic parts with perfect infallible artificial ones though you do get to keep your personality and memories it comes from an older english term that means having all necessary or desired elements or skills which again shows us how obsessed the phyrexians are with achieving their version of perfection in that way they are a bit of a cult actually a cult of machines who take over entire planes and convert the local inhabitants into their own army of followers this makes them one of the greatest threats to the multiverse on par with the eldrazi and thanks to having a pool of cards that covers some 25 years now we get an excellent look at their evolving methods and tactics now this is a history of phyrexians and that means we're going to look at how the tribe has been depicted artistically and mechanically throughout magic's existence i won't be digging too deep into the story here that's being saved for a future video probably closer to when they are more central to the ongoing narrative so where do we start well how about with phyrexian gremlins from the 1994 set antiquities as far as i can tell this is one of the first depictions of phyrexians in magic and i gotta say they're not exactly filling me with fear we should note however that already the tribe is demonstrating an affection for artifacts which will become one of their defining traits in the years that follow these gremlins were actually native creatures on the original plane that became home to the first generation of phyrexians which explains their googly-eyed nature things would change dramatically when we came to mirage and began to uncover remnants of phyrexian technology on the plane of dominaria with phyrexian dreadnought being a classic example at this point in the story the phyrexians were something just out of reach we heard about them and saw evidence of their existence and influence but they weren't really present themselves within the game's first few sets visions and weather light continued to tease players with artifacts carrying the phyrexian name which only added to their mystique phyrexian grimoire and phyrexian splicer from tempest started to reveal the darker side of the tribe but even that was overshadowed by the presence of slivers and dothi which were all still connected to the wrath overlay and that was the staging ground for the impending phyrexian invasion of dominaria and that sorry sorry i know i said i wasn't going to talk too much about the story in this one and now you know why it gets messy anyway urza's saga block became arguably our first real introduction to the phyrexian threat it chronicled the planeswalker urza's journeys across dominaria as he sought weapons and allies to stand against the forces of darkness urza and his brother mishra are certainly names to know when it comes to the phyrexians but you will also start to see cards reference yagmoth who is the misguided doctor behind their quest for mechanized perfection everything you could ever want to know about this character is covered in a video by spice 8 rack so rather than do the injustice of trying to summarize it i'll just ask you to check it out using the provided link now back to urza's saga which was actually a flashback in terms of storytelling that's why we see teferi as a student here after hearing about him as an adult in prior sets that also explains why the phyrexian dreadnought appeared in mirage it was left over from the battles fought long before like we'd now see in the saga block the phyrexians are defined by their infectious nature they can create machines of war for themselves but in order to really increase their own numbers they have to infect other life forms and then build upon them in magic one way to capture the debilitating effects of an infection on a creature is through the use of abilities that diminish their power and or toughness enter the carriers a four card cycle from urza's legacy that beautifully illustrated this concept the denouncer debaser and defiler were increasingly powerful creatures that could be sacrificed to deliver a matching sized debuff to an opposing creature their flavor text even chronicles the stages of symptoms their targets would endure culminating in death as captured on the phyrexian plague lord the cycles rare in addition to sacrificing himself the plague lord was also boss enough to be able to sacrifice a lesser creature for a smaller version of his own effect this painted the phyrexians as brutally efficient in their aims they would use any tool available to them as they sought to wear down and eventually overtake all life on dominaria but overtly spreading their sickness wasn't their only plan sleeper agents were deployed too to further destabilize the dominarian resistance from behind the lines while poisoning the air and infiltrating the enemy forces the phyrexians also sent forth wave after wave of their own shock troops zombies skeletons imps and minions that assaulted dominaria on every front the elite among them were even called knights who retained much of their human knowledge and skills but were corrupted to serve yogmoth by eradicating all natural life and destroying any society that wasn't part of phyrexian origin perhaps the most terrifying though were the horrors because they could be just as dangerous to the other phyrexians as they were to the dominarians you don't deploy a horror for battle so much as unleash it and then try to stay out of its way really with their mechanized army of murder machines the phyrexians were a dire threat to dominaria and on top of all that they cheated they brought stuff back from the dead like all the time making it virtually impossible to win against them in a war of attrition obviously the best thing to do is just exile them all but that's a story for another time once again we are focusing on the mechanical and artistic evolution of the phyrexian tribe over magic's history which admittedly is hard to do because they spanned several creature types as we just saw nevertheless urza's saga did establish some key things that would be built upon in the following years first the connection between infections and minus minus effects i don't want to spoil things for you this early in the video but we have not seen the last of this one second the self-sacrificing nature of the phyrexians they will use and abuse their own creatures without limit if it will get them closer to victory which makes sense because in victory you acquire a whole lot more creatures to spend on your next invasion and third these guys love artifacts like i love scarlett johansson's bathwater oh that's a good vintage oh colin jost is going to send me a strongly worded letter now i think anyway even at this early point in their history the phyrexians already have several powerful artifacts in their collection most of which have a decidedly black mana twist to them take the phyrexian processor for example you pay life when it enters the battlefield and the amount is up to you but the more you put into it the larger the minion token you get back out these themes would continue up through time spiral block the phyrexians didn't change much even though story-wise we were jumping around a bit here is fyrexian rager from apocalypse in 2001 it's one of my favorite pauper cards and it's another great representation of everything phyrexian paying life to draw a card stays true to what we know about their stance on using life as a resource and if the tutu body doesn't scare your opponent into submission that art certainly will what's that you've made it to the late game and need just a few more cards to secure victory staple two of these bad boys together and call it a gargantua as they say success breeds repetition even in the cold calculating way that the phyrexians are known for and that's pretty much it for what i consider to be the first generation of phyrexian cards they were very clearly a dangerous threat but mostly focused their efforts on dominaria they were generally contained within black and artifact cards though they did come in a pretty wide range of creature types there was one other thing i found interesting about the early phyrexians which is how they were unified in purpose but not so much in function the tribe itself lacked a consistent mechanical identity i mean yes as i've said they would often sacrifice their own creatures use life as a resource and make use of debilitating effects to win combat but none of that was keyworded aside from some similarities in art you couldn't just pick up any card and instantly know it was part of the phyrexian tribe that changed quite dramatically when we reached scars of miradin which gave the phyrexian forces two complementary abilities infect and proliferate muradin was an artificial world created by the planeswalker carn but he also unknowingly tainted it with phyrexian oil this oil would corrupt whatever it touched and eventually portions of karn's creation began to turn against him and the rest of his world thus we have our second generation of phyrexians and these ones developed without leadership or guidance from yogmoth which led to some changes in their behavior to start with they were no longer exclusively tied to black mana the phyrexians of miradin quickly infected all five colors which actually introduced some diversity into their own way of thinking atop each color there stood a preeter which embodied what that color meant to the long-term ambitions of new phyrexia as the plane would eventually be known the green one for example was voronclex who sees the plane as one grand arena in which the strong should continually hunt down and destroy the weak now you might be thinking so what in green the strong always hunt the weak right well normally once the hunter feeds upon its prey it stops eating but by the green phyrexian philosophy you don't stop hunting just because you're full so there is still a bit of blacks ambition and greatness at any cost behind the other four colors of neophyrexia anyway even though the tribe has spread out across all the colors they are more mechanically in concert than ever before let's take a look at infect which turns damage into poison counters on players and -1-1 counters on creatures remember our carriers from way back in the day and how those debuffs were used to show the sickness that spread from the phyrexian hosts well now you don't have to sacrifice your own creature to give a temporary stat reduction to an opposing creature you just have to connect with it in combat and it's permanent not only that but you can apply pressure to your opponent now as well stacking up those poison counters and completely ignoring any sort of life gain strategy they might have been going for this corrosive and rule-bending mechanic is a perfect fit for the phyrexians maybe one of the best marriages of flavor and function we have ever seen in magic i'm not saying it's fun to be on the receiving end of it i just respect it for what it is proliferate worked in concert with the infect ability to provide another path to victory that was also evocative of thyrexian methodology so long as you could land a single poison counter you could then grow it through proliferation rather than depending on additional combat damage this meant that even if your opponent thought they had stabilized behind a sturdy wall of defenders a single drop of phyrexian oil would always be a threat which really captured the feeling of hopelessness experienced by the natives of miradin and then we come to phyrexian mana perhaps one of the most broken and controversial mechanics the game has ever known now i admit this was another good way of showing the ruthless nature of the phyrexians their willingness to pay life for an advantage is something that was well established by the time we reached miradin unfortunately this one pushed the envelope too far in my opinion and rather than be another iconic representation of the infectious nature of the phyrexians we were left with a mechanic that shattered the color pie which is one of magic's most sacred elements yeah yeah phyrexians having no respect for anything is on brand for them i get it but at the end of the day the game needs to function for it to be fun otherwise it doesn't matter how neat your mechanized horrors are because no one's gonna stick around and play with them anyway the phyrexians of this era continued in the tradition of their predecessors showing up with a variety of creature types flensermite was a throwback to the original phyrexian gremlins and phyrexian crusader reminded us that their knights are just as dangerous as ever the undead were still on the front lines with zombies doing their part to spread the good news to any living thing they could get their hands claws claws claws on for me though it was really the horrors that stood out they came in every size from the lowly fume spitter up to the nightmare fuel that was the mighty phyrexian obliterator a four mana five five with trample is already scary enough but naia help you if you so much as look at this thing funny because it's gonna devour your entire board they also pulled a subtle design trick here to make the phyrexians a bit more cohesive by actually removing some creature types and leaving them as just a class take a look at suture priest for example it's very clearly a phyrexian something but it's just a cleric because any remnant of its previous humanity is simply gone there was no shortage of impressive artifacts either with standouts like batter skull and birthing pod bearing the phyrexian watermark and i don't think you can play a game of commander today and not see a worm coil engine or a blight steel colossus so unified mechanical identity with infect and proliferate returning creature types even as the tribe spread to new colors on a new plane an artistic style that remains one of the most unsettling in all of magic new phyrexia kept everything players loved about the original phyrexians while giving their infectious battlefield tactics stronger representation during play now we seem to be entering a third age of phyrexians voron klex recently appeared on caldheim rocking an actual phyrexian type and he stole some magical tree sap which has led to rampant speculation about his next move we also know that the planeswalker carn has been gathering weapons and allies with the goal of resuming the fight against the phyrexian threat on his self-made world of miradin with both sides building up their resources and looking to expand their reach it's hard to imagine the fighting being contained to new phyrexia especially since voranklex appears to have access to some sort of portal technology this could be coming from tesoret and a repaired planar bridge or perhaps the phyrexians have recreated their older planar portals either way the next time we see them the phyrexians are sure to have moved at least one step closer to their idea of completion where do you think we'll find the phyrexians next and which of their cards is your favorite let me know down in the comments and then make sure you like this video and subscribe to the channel so you don't miss the great stories you'll only find here on magic arcanum we'll see [Music] you

Channel: Magic Arcanum

Views: 113,328

Rating: 4.9624767 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: 1c6U_wCBh-4

Length: 19min 16sec (1156 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 23 2021