As spoiler season for upcoming Magic set MTG Phyrexia: All Will Be One kicks off, Wizards of the Coast has revealed every compleated Planeswalker, as well as all the set’s mechanics.
We knew (at least) five planeswalkers were getting robofied in the Phyrexia set, and over the days have watched as first Lukka, then Nahiri, then Vraska, then Nissa were all put into the compleated pile, and their planeswalker cards shown off. Now, finally, we’ve seen the lot, with Jace, The Perfected Mind. Yep, good old Jace is dead.
In some scenarios, Jace’s new card may as well read: pay three mana and two life, opponent mills 9. But he’s much more flexible than that, and can also draw cards and weaken creatures. In a dedicated mill deck, that -2 ability is going to be great!
You might have missed her reveal yesterday – Nissa, Ascended Animist is an interesting case, as if you pay the full seven mana for her, she’s much stronger, able to create bigger tokens, destroy more artifacts and enchantments, and even pump up your whole board right away. You’ll have to decide whether it’s worth paying extra for more oomph.
A neat little easter egg worth mentioning is that Phyrexian Nissa and Jace are both drawn in the same poses as their former cards, specifically matching up to Jace, the Mindsculptor and Nissa, Who Shakes The World. The new Vraska also seemed to harken back to the card Vraska the Unseen.
As for mechanics, the card Paladin of Predation shows off a brand new one, Toxic, a new way of using poison, where both damage and counters get dealt. This mighty paladin can issue six poison counters at once – pretty scary on an evasive uncommon.
Supporting Toxic is the popular returning mechanic Proliferate, which lets your counters swiftly spiral out of control. Venser, Corpse Puppet is an unusual proliferate-matters card, making artifact creatures fly or creating a unique token golem creature, The Hollow Sentinel, every time you proliferate.
Last time Proliferate appeared, in War of the Spark, there were loads of +1/+1 counters alongside it, but Phyrexia: All Will Be One has neither +1/+1 nor -1/-1 counters. Instead, it uses the new Oil counters, as seen in Urabrask’s Forge. These don’t have a uniform effect – instead they’re defined by the cards they interact with. Designer Adam Prosak tells Wargamer oil counters were used instead of the usual +1 or -1 counters because they can be used “for a wider variety of benefits in conjunction with proliferate”.
To avoid poison being so ‘all or nothing’, the next new mechanic in the set is Corrupted. This gives cards a bonus effect if an opponent has three or more poison counters. For instance, The Seedcore (we’re guessing the first of many ‘Sphere’ lands about to be revealed) can boost a 1/1, and Skrelk’s Hive gives all toxic creatures lifelink.
Finally we have For Mirridon! Harking back to Living Weapon from New Phyrexia, this mechanic is a form of ‘snap-on equipment’, recently declared deciduous by Mark Rosewater. It creates a 2/2 red rebel creature token and then attaches the equipment to it. The example card Blade of Shared Souls actually lets you turn your rebel into any other creature you have out.