So, What About Phyrexia: All Will Be One Mechanics?

UPDATE (December 14, 2022 10:10 PM EST): It seems that three of the five were already spoiled accidentally, supposedly on WotC's BilliBilli page. While the timing of the leak was quite... peculiar, they were shown in the same way as the other cards previewed over the last official tweets for Phyrexia: All Will be One, so they seem pretty legit-ish.

UPDATE (December 15, 2022 8:22 PM EST): More cards leaked. Another Proliferate card, one new Corrupted card, and several cards using oil counters. See new images below.

With the official unveiling of Phyrexia: All Will Be One just recently, we finally got a lot of tantalizing sneak peeks of its product information, promos, events, and other stuff. Junji Ito’s rendition of Norn, for example, will be yet another very welcome and fitting addition to the set, as previous similarly-themed alternate art proved to be massively popular.

We also get to see the first previews of its cards, a combination of new and old faces from what once was the plane of Mirrodin. Unfortunately, the reveal of its much-anticipated mechanics was still left without an update. At this point, until ONE’s next debut on January 17th comes, we won’t get an official answer.

That doesn’t leave us without anything to ponder about, though. Thanks to a combination of both confirmed and slightly-confirmed information a few months ago, and over the last few days.

Phyrexian Toxic Nerfs Infect back to Poisonous

Way back last October, players saw the first leaked image of a card named Myr Convert. The manga art and borderless style, along with the foil reflecting off the Phyrexian symbol were quite peculiar at that time, so the leaks were mostly taken with a grain of salt. But now with the official reveal from WotC (showcasing the same card design and patterns), we can confirm that indeed this is most likely the real thing.

Now, we never knew what Toxic did, since the card did not explain the mechanic. At least for a couple of months. Until, the arrival of one Phyrexian Mite token leak. The card was supposedly found in a random Jumpstart pack, and was said to be double-faced, the poison counter itself being represented on the other side.

The card says “Players dealt combat damage by this creature also get a poison counter”. This is clearly a rewording of the older Poisonous ability, but with the notable absence of the word “whenever”. This indicates that the ability doesn’t go on the stack, and just happens as soon as combat damage is dealt.

Furthermore, unlike Infect, it does not say that the combat damage is equal to the number of poison counters (“deals damage in the form of”). So no matter what happens to the stats of this specific token, it is only capable of inflicting a poison counter once per attack.

We’ve already witnessed the onslaught of Infect on constructed formats many years ago. It wasn’t just a way to circumvent crazy life-gain strategies. It outright ended games on a single swing since you can just pump whichever itsy-bitsy Infect creature was not blocked within a Combat phase.

With this updated Toxic ability, we essentially bring back the limitations of Poisonous to balance old Phyrexian Infect without the complications of a triggered ability. The effect is then twofold:

• First, unless the Toxic value itself was manipulated (which should be possible given that it is scalable), the creature can now only deal poison counter(s) per attack with the number stated.
• Second, Toxic cannot be countered. Or at the very least, all triggered ability shenanigans would no longer apply to it.

One direct downside of tweaking the Phyrexian’s signature poison counter ability from Infect to Toxic, is that it lost some of its utility by removing the -1/-1 counter effect on creatures. It also somewhat removed part of the lore’s flavor by affecting the similarly Phyrexian-introduced ability Proliferate (it won’t affect creatures anymore for Toxic).

In any case, this is an interesting way to bring back poison counters in the context of a (mostly) Phyrexian ability. Would it turn out to be too nerfed for practical use? It certainly fits better to the originally-intended theme of a slow, irreversible Phyrexian infestation at least.

Corrupted Makes Poison Counters Even More Flavorful

Another card that was leaked at the same time as Myr Convert was Sinew Dancer. As you can see from its description, it gains an alternate reduced-cost version of its ability thanks to Corrupted. The idea is simple: the opponent only needs to have a certain number of poison counters on them for the ability to become usable.

This is pretty much very straightforward as with many alternate activations or casting cost abilities like Threshold. But, would the ability condition be truly limited to just three or more poison counters? Yes, just like Threshold, the naming convention dictates just one value to make its effect universally understood after its release.

But what if it doesn’t stop there? Five poison counters may already be halfway to victory, but it can also bring forth spicier advantages to squeeze the game even further instead of being just a alternate activation condition.

Also, design-wise, it should work for triggered abilities as well. Questionable pump effects aside, effects like fog and taxes can truly bring the flavor to life (or death) of an opposing planeswalker slowly succumbing to your disease-ridden compleation tactics.

The ideas are practically endless.

Proliferate is Back!

And yes, what discussion of Phyrexia: All Will be One would it be without the brief mention of the thematically-fitting return of Proliferate itself? Again, included in the set of leaked cards from October, the particular card in the upper right you see in this image provides this confirmation.

Even without the introduction of board-state-related counters to a significant number of cards, the fact that this ability exists alone is enough that we can expect quite a variety of counter producers in this set. Like, just below Thrummingbird's right side is another card that produces counters, Sawblade Scamp.

In fact, poison counters specifically don't necessarily have to be the focus of the set. Though, with all the corruption and compleation going on mechanics and flavor-wise, it wouldn't be surprising if at least one meta build makes it to Standard as soon as it hits physical and digital shelves on February.

Speaking of which...

More Compleated Planeswalkers, More Phyrexian Mana

On a final note, it was teased in the recent WeeklyMTG livestream about Phyrexia: All Will be One that more compleated planeswalkers will be featured in the set. They did not reveal who exactly would be corrupted by New Phyrexia, but they provided ten candidates with significant roles in the set’s story. Like Ajani and Tamiyo, their Compleated status means that Phyrexian mana will be usable at the cost of reduced loyatly counters when they enter the battliefied. Hopefully, they aren't going to be as hard to play as the previous two.

Jace (Ravnica)

Kaito (Kamigawa)

Kaya (Ravnica)

Koth (Mirrodin/New Phyrexia)

Lukka (Ikoria)

Nahiri (Zendikar)

Nissa (Zendikar)

The Wandering Emperor (Kamigawa)

Tyvar (Kaldheim)

Vraska (Ravnica)

To celebrate this supposed selection process, each candidate character is provided with an alternate manga art that depicts their compleated/corrupted forms, a sort of “what if” scenario for the characters. Koth was already spoiled to survive this current set during the livestream, so at least four more of them will not turn their “what ifs” into story-based reality (though they might still appear as cards).

As for the five that will be compleated, our predictions are as follows based solely on the shock factor of their corruption (disregarding the details of the “what if” art and their respective color alignments):

• Jace
• Kaya
• Nahiri
• Lukka
• The Wandering Emperor

Vraska feels a bit too obvious of a compleation target due to her alignment with Jace, while Tyvar doesn’t have much shock value to his corruption. As for Nissa, well… we had to choose between her and Jace. We felt like a compleated Jace is just much more interesting. Same conflict for Kaito and The Wandering Emperor as well.

The compleated planeswalkers will be released as Mythic Rares for Phyrexia: All Will be One. Let’s see how many of them turn up true on January 17th earliest.