The Mechanic That Violated the Laws of Magic
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- čas přidán 1. 04. 2024
- An Indie Dev and a AAA Dev discuss Phyrexian Mana and how it creates the feelings of the Phyrexian invasion in gameplay.
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Thumbnail Artwork: Surgical Extraction by Steven Belledin - Hry
I wonder if phyrexian mana helps casual players understand life as a resource.
By being optional they can put it in their deck with no plan to pay life, but then at some point theyll get an opportunity to cast it for life when they dont have enough mana and it will be obviously worth it.
That’s a great point.
😂
That’s a phenomenal point! Gonna have to keep that in mind for my own designs.
Infect was also introduced together with Phyrexian Mana.
So you have this meta-subversion that life is a resource but it’s not the only thing we’re counting.
Also “Phyrexian Compleation” is the term to turn things Phyrexian.
Infect was introduced a set (or two? can't remember if phyrexian mana showed up in the second or third set of the block) earlier, and the 'opposing side' had Metelcraft.
... didn't take more than one game playing with those mechanics to see that the claim that the prerelease and release events would dictated the subsequent direction of the block was a straight up lie. (metelcraft was, in practice, 'this is an overpriced creature with no ability. If you have three artifacts, it becomes a creature that would actually be reasonable for the initial cost which still has no ability'.)
@@laurencefraser thanks for the correction.
Infect was Scars of Mirrodin
Physician mana was New Phyrexia
Phyrexian mana works perfectly when its not the only mana symbol on the card
Only *colored* mana too.
It works great when you read the card with the life payment and consider if that's fair and in color.
@SeekSeekLest you can have other colors, like the planeswalkers. As long as there is at least 1 other colored mana symbol it seems to work as intended.
Works perfectly within the laws of magic, sure. But breaking the game was the point 😄
@@distractionmakers yeah the mechanic isn't broken when phrexian mana is not the only mana symbol on the card
Phyrexian mana would have been great if it wasn't attached to very specific mechanics. Mental Misstep is the biggest one, Gitaxian Probe following, but being forced into a dead draw by a red player using Noxious Revival to make me draw a chump I'd just used to block his red aggro with felt bad, and then using Postmortem Lunge to bring back the thing I'd blocked swinging again makes me feel like I'm playing Yu Gi Oh again and not MTG.
Edit because I just remembered Tezzeret's Gambit shenanigans with it being splashed in green poison decks.
I like thinking about the version of Phyrexian mana that made it so you could pay life ignore the color requirement, effectively making the cost generic, instead of replacing the cost. It tells the same story of giving up some of your life to become one with the machine that is Phyrexia to let you do things you normally can't do, but keeps the safety valve that is the mana cost in place.
The idea of Phyrexian mana being able to remove the color from a spell and making everything colorless, like an artifact, is such good flavor. I never though about it like that until you mentioned it.
Gitaxian Probe is banned in more places than mental misstep by virtue of being a common, it is banned/restricted everywhere that Mental Misstep is and is also banned in Pauper, and while it's not as much a "design black hole" that Mental Misstep is, it's still one of the strongest cards ever printed. It helps combo decks for free, it has the same destabilizing effect on a game as an early Thoughtseize.
I think it's an interesting mechanism in a lot of ways, but I do wonder how much of an issue any of the other phyrexian mana cards would be if they were more like dismember where there's a required mana cost on it. It would certainly have that effect on Mental Misstep (now it can't counter itself) or Gitaxian Probe (peek is bad)
The only "free" phyrexian mana card that really felt like it nailed it on both feeling and power is Surgical Extraction. Cards like Tormod's Crypt have been around since almost the inception of the game, and that effect has been around for black since at least the first Kamigawa. It manages to be both a black and colorless effect, and really rode that line, and like you said, it felt outrageous to be able to do it for "free" even though there ARE other free effects at least somewhat like it, even though it is a black effect.
I'd love to see the world where Mistep cost 2 blue phyrexian instead of 1, maybe let it counter spells with cost 1 or less.
Also glad you pointed out Peek being bad lol Git Probe but with normal mana is not still broken.
Git Probe is also banned in pauper. Pretty much all the common single phyrexian mana cards are. The only one we get is gut shot, because trading 2 damage to face to do one damage is kinda bad
Yeah. Pretty much all the Phyrexian Cantrips are good to broken, Mental Misstep and the black one that removes card from Hand/Yard/Library are broken good, Probe and Mutagenic are REALLY good. Gut shot is just HORRIBLE.
There's a digital card game called Eternal which by virtue of being digital goes about this in a cool way. "Lands" add to your color pool (which isn't consumed when playing cards) while providing power (which IS consumed and regens start of turn, just like magic where lands untap). Then cards have both a color and power requirement, so a card having 1RR as a cost means it costs 1 power but it requires you to have 2 red in your pool. So you can have "free" cards (in that they consume no power) that are restricted in which decks they go (by still having color requirements).
Although that completely removes the narrative aspect of phyrexian
Huh, that is an interesting system.
Oh, I've played a mountain of Eternal!
Yeah, as the other guy said, they've essentially split the color requirements (Influence) from the resource you actually spend (Power) into two separate resources which "Lands" happen to grant both of.
This also has the benefit of allowing effects to grant the player one but not the other, creating more knobs to balance with. There are tons of effects that give Influence without mana, allowing for the developers to slip extra sources of fixing wherever they need to, as well as payoffs for big amounts of fixing. And there are effects that grant mana without Influence, allowing ramp spells to be more diverse.
At Any Cost is a burn spell that gets a massive damage boost when you have 12 shadow influence, so it's used as a finisher in a deck that plays several of these effects that grant shadow influence (Makkar Evangel, Forbidden Research, etc). It's really interesting to see how they started with "Here's how we can improve on mtg's mana system", and then asked "What interesting design space does this open up on its own?"
I love exploring the interplay between lore and gameplay in the mechanics and flavor of the cards. The idea of a lack of any emotion or philosophy is a neat take on Phyrexian mana.
I see the Phyrexian Planeswalkers as still having their regular color pips because Phyrexia couldn't consume them *completely*
This is actually canonically correct. They had to develop a new process to compleat planeswalkers because normal compleation kills their spark. In that sense, the planeswalker version of compleation works but is imperfect and that's the reason planeswalkers were able to come back from compleation while normal creatures can't, they're just dead.
Best way to have handled this would've been something like
Mental Misstep
1PhyrexianBlue
(1PhyrexianBlue can be payed with 1Blue or 2Life, but only if you control an Island)
Counter target Spell with Converted Mana Cost 1
That’s not a bad solution.
Gitaxian Probe is banned in more formats than Mental Misstep, but it was legal for much longer than Misstep was. Both are banned or restricted in Modern, Legacy, and Vintage. Probe is also banned in Pauper, but Misstep isn't legal there.
Thanks for the clarification!
I remember, due to the way core sets rotated, when you could play in standard: 4 preordain 4 ponder 4 gitaxian probe 4 splinter twin and 4 deceiver exarch in the same 60 card deck. It was only legal for a month or two, but it was wild.
I had never thought about how flavorful phyrexian mana is. Wow! I'm awed by how elegant that is. Great video.
I thought we were taking about Cascade. Or Urza’s Untap cards. Or the Kaladesh Cycle where you get a free card when you cast it. Or MH Elemental “free” cycle. Or Affinity. 😂
git probe is honestly more broken than mental misstep in that it's literally just less relevant cards in your deck overall. a deck with four gitaxian probes in it might as well be 56 cards, which is MASSIVE for consistency.
Only issue is mulligans, and tax effects. The only decks I think played probe either cares about spells/paying life/cards in graveyard or possibly only in the case of infect looking at the opponents hand was just that good.
You could say a similar thing about street wraith, but I don't see a lot of decks playing a playset unless it fits the theme.
They’re both horribly broken cards. Both banned in legacy, Banned in modern, restricted in vintage. They’re probably both top 100 cards most powerful cards ever printed.
The mechanic is so cool that I never cared that a few of the cards were broken
10:38 This discussion sort of completely missed the most recent wave of phyrexian mana designs in March of the Machine, where a mono color card would get an off-color phyrexian mana cost to transform into a multicolor card of both those colors. This allowed WotC to let those monocolor designs bend towards this other color on the back, while still gating them off from decks which lacked the colors to be getting those sort of effects.
I don't even have y'all on notify but always see your vids pop into my feed right away. 🤘
(half surprised you all weren't talking about the infamous "free" spells from... urza block IIRC?)
now that.. was a special time!
As a note towards the "if you made git probe cost a blue mana it would still be broken", That's a card that exists, its called peek, its even better due to being an instant, and it sees no play despite being legal in vintage, legacy, modern, and even pauper.
The reason that git probe was broken is that the decks that really wanted that effect were non-blue decks more than blue decks. Giving a combo deck perfect info on what to play around in the opponent's hand is insane, giving that same information to a blue deck is a lot less meaningful, due to blue not being about playing around your opponent's cards, but instead being the reactive player.
Everyone cried and reeled. But they learned in those months ~ Phyrexia *IS* stronger.
Glory to Phyrexia!
I think maybe the new stuff demonstrates a flaw in the way 'Standard' is defined. If they could limit sets to more tight use they could experiment more.
For the record, they did print a non-Phyrexian-mana Mental Misstep. It's called Minor Misstep, and it's not even strictly worse, because it can counter spells of mana value 1 **or less** (i.e. also mv 0), unlike its predecessor.
It is not broken, in fact, I don't think I've heard anyone say anything about it, and you didn't even know it existed...
Mental Misstep was pretty balanced in Standard iirc, played in most blue decks but not always as a 4-of and often in the sideboard.
Later I played the shit out of gitaxian probe in my UR delver in legacy. Looking at the opponents hand is so strong.
No one complained about commander? Someone must have kidnapped the real distraction makers!
You know us so well 😆
Life being a resource isn't unique to Phyrexian mana, it was just the best mechanic around it. And honestly, I like it and is a space I'm waiting for them to touch basis on again. Also, life essence/magic are intertwined in a lot of stories. That's kinda the point of mana as a concept, iirc. This is kinda just natural progression of magic as a concept and the game
Phyrexian mana was broken from day 1. There is a reason at the time, and still to this day, have 4 Mutagenic Growths in my Blue Black Infect deck. Being able to have a unblockable creature thats lets say a 1 1, play the +1 and infect card, which I think Is 1 Black, and then simply deal 8 to yourself to make it a 10/10 Infect and instantly win is stupid good. Also helps the decks mana curve is like a 1.2.
as of this moment, gitaxian probe is banned or restricted in all 60 card formats its was legal in. the card is another everyone should be playing 4 of type card.
Digital phyrexian mana would allow alchemy style adjustments to the life cost of the phyrexian mana on a per card basis... Git probe for 3-5 life is a much bigger ask than just two life, and that could be adjusted as needed for each card 🤔
I think the mana should be connected to phyrexians. So being able to pay the mana if you control a (legendary) phyrexian would nerf it a lot and keep the flavor.
Ah ye K'rrik, son of Yawgmoth one of the most broken black cards ever as it turns all of your black cards with black mana symbols into black Phyrexian mana. He is usually used for storm decks but in the 99 he is quite devastating when he comes out as suddenly the power level of your deck just shot through the roof in mid game, and if ya are running a life gain deck with him well then i hope you enjoy the free discounted black cards.
Though side note imagine him being used to freely cast B.F.M as all it would cost is a mere 40 life instead of 20 black mana. Honestly i think B.F.M is the only card other than basic lands from the Un-sets that could actually be allowed in normal games since it is a actual fair card even if it is a 99/99, granted you need to cast both halves in order to put him into play but there was a Eldrazi Angel that was two cards that you then merge to summon in a non joke set that existed
Just saying not as crazy as may you think to bring him into the actual game and not just left as joke cards
I think they already created the not broken version of Phyrexian mana: The 2 generic/colored mana.
I played the shit out of mental misstep in my Legacy burn back in the day when it was legal.
I just like Dismember & Mutagenic Growth making Mono U viable in competitive formats.
"violating the laws of magic" immediately makes me think about "bridge from below" which imo is still one of the worst designed cards in mtgs history from a design standpoint, not a power level standpoint
It’s so terribly weird on a bunch of different levels.
On a design level, it’s pretty much the only enchantment that works like that, and the restrictions it has on it make it approach One With Nothing in terms of being hard to experiment with.
On a competitive level, the only way to gain any sort of value out of it is a deck that is directly told by Bridge from Below “don’t interact with your opponent’s board”. Granted, you can avoid that clause with things like Anafenza or Leyline of the Void, but that’s probably the first you’re hearing of it.
And your reward for all of that is zombie tokens. Outside of Hogaak’s reign of terror, those little guys aren’t doing much of anything, and for the Johnny/Jenny out there, this is probably the least reward to effort ratio out there
Feels like it needs its own video haha. Bridge is very unique, though. You have to give it that. 😆
Phyrexian mana was a taste of what it’s like to play yugioh.
Are you comparing Yu Gi Oh to Phyrexia? Are you saying Yu Gi Oh is HELL?
Mental Mistep that cost a regular blue pip would be completely fair and not even good.
Hmm, is it better, worse, or the same as spell snare?
@@distractionmakers We already have "mental misstep but regular blue pip", minor misstep, it's better than mental misstep's *text box*. But it's way worse and barely sees play ever. The big thing with mental misstep and spell snare is the mana advantage, your opponent sinks two mana into a spell, you put one mana in, and your spell wins. Minor Misstep only trades even or down on mana. So it's noticeably worse.
@@distractionmakers worse. The big thing spell snare does is put you ahead on tempo by costing less than the spells it counters it.
The downside of counterspells is you need to commit the mana up front. You expect some kind of tempo gain for that, but when you just break even on mana and cards there isn't much point.
you give blue a finger: useless.
give blue an arm: breaks game.
Serious question. New Phyrexia Phyrexian mana cards are Broken. At what life cost do these cards become fair? The cards are pay 2 life instead of paying the 1 mana.
Hmm, I’m not sure any amount of life is fair where they would still be played. Maybe pay half your life, so it’s more dynamic, but wouldn’t just kill you. Life as a resource is tough because you start with so much of it and the only point that matters is the last one.
If you're playing against a graveyard combo and you have Surgical Extraction in your non-black deck, then cast Snapcaster Mage to additionally flashback Surgical Extraction, it feels like cheating.
Totally! Who plays a Graveyard Combo deck!? Eww.
Should’ve been free for three
The only actually broken phyrexian mana card was the free counterspell. Wizards continues to make this mistake, they've printed lots of these since.
damnation card looks so cool. also the comparation you do about black and white, its like the horse shoe theory with the left and right.
How much of your life would you spend on
P e r f e c t i o n
?
K’rrik my baby ♥️
As a filthy casual, I love phyrexian mana. I find it to be hilariously busted. I may be a masochist but I want more