I have not registered marvel snap for about a week, just when the new Quantum-Thematic season has started. Now, you may ask, what could be powerful enough to drive me away from a game that I have made my ministry since its release?
The big daddy, the OG, the original Magic: The Gathering.
Magicthe last set of, Phyrexia: All will be one, has come to me in a way that defies even my expectations. i play role Magic in casual in-person games with friends on a fairly regular basis and have been content with that. But there is something irresistible about this set, with its hideous meat creatures with too many teeth, that has forced me to play the digital version, Sand, non-stop.
It all started when I told my husband that I wanted to do a pre-launch event. I have been playing Magic off and on for about 13 years, and the last preview I remember going to was probably for Core Set 2011. While I can get my fix by playing with friends like I normally do, I wanted the challenge of playing against people who are He won’t look at me with puppy dog eyes and ask me for a gentleman’s mulligan. So our group of Magic-Playing friends got together for a preview of Phyrexia at the local game store.
I don’t recall pre-releases in the past being as strict with timing as this one was, but I was really messed up trying to put together a cohesive deck in the allotted time. I didn’t feel good about it. My deck was bad (so bad that I took the time to make another deck that was still bad), and ended the night with an ignominious score of 1-2: that one won the result of a lucky bye. Usually getting so much yelling turns me off. When I have a losing streak in BreakI generally don’t want to watch the game during the standard 24 hours. But even after that atrocious pre-launch, I still jumped magic sand the first day Phyrexia came out, and I haven’t stopped drawing since.
It definitely helps that Phyrexia prefers my preferred archetype, playing giant creatures that do nasty things (ie the typical green ramp), and that the archetype I don’t like, anything blue, isn’t as strong. But I think the problem is worse than just that.
I think it could be… filled?
From its definition on the MTG wiki (its traditional definition, not its keyword meaning):
Completion involves the replacement of much of a person’s organic parts with artifice, usually resulting in the death of their original organic body. The being retains his memory and personality, but loses its soul and is endowed with a fanatical desire to serve Phyrexia.
That pretty much describes the fanaticism with which I have continued to play this set.
There’s just something about the HR Giger-like monsters in Phyrexia, the hideous Sheoldred, the toothy arms of the Mandible Justiciar, or the haunting allure of the Mother herself, Elesh Norn, that are so cool to watch that I can’t stop playing. . Also, the many synergies in this set seem to work better for me than the mechanics in other sets. I love the toxic damage that allows me to kill my opponent every time he gets 10 poison counters. I also enjoy the various cool things you can do with the oil mechanic. Equipment cards aren’t usually my thing, but the new mechanic in For Mirrodin that allows equipment cards to essentially come with their own creature to wield is pretty cool. Who wants to spend mana to play an equipment card and then spend even more to attach it to something? I don’t!
Phyrexia has been my favorite set for a long time. It might be my favorite set of all. I have a lot of fun drawing, choosing cards like this. nasty, evil thing which allows me to do double damage, that even when I lose (and somehow I lost with this deck), I just want to get back on the skinny, bony horse and start over. And when do I win? Phew. One of my first successful draft decks was one where I left this thick boy Trample every creature on the board to poison my opponent to death.
In another draft, my opponent dominated the board with a horde of creatures that I couldn’t get through. He was dead in the water until I pulled out a creature that allowed me to fly over a wall of monsters to directly damage my opponent. Even then, he was still dead, but my opponent conceded, awarding me the win because they probably miscalculated him. He was one damage point away from winning. I knew it; my opponent did not. My husband was screaming and yelling as if he had won.
Phyrexia is somehow uniquely fun compared to most of the others. Magic sets I’ve played. I’ve become a monster, so I feel right at home with Phyrexia: All Will Be One.
