Hello, Nation! Let's take a look at all of those recently spoiled New Phyrexia cards with an eye toward how they'll play in Casual Land. I do these reviews with an eye toward many of the major formats in our world: Commander and Five-Color, Pauper and Peasant, Highlander and Chameleon, multiplayer and duels, and more.

Now, in the realm of All Things Casual, I expect to see every card from New Phyrexia sooner or later in someone's deck. What I intend to do is to just mention those cards I see as having a major impact, or about which I have a comment. Otherwise, we'll skip the card and move on. I want to fit in as many cards in this article as I can, so I don't have time to name every card and offer some clever variant of "Good in limited, poor in constructed."

Are you ready for the trip? We'll begin in White, move around the color wheel, and then hit the colorless stuff. Alons-y!

White

Auriok Survivors – This will likely see play in Abe's Deck of Happiness and Joy, where I feel that I need more quality creatures of size. It has an ETB ability that looks like it should be on some utility creature that costs 4 mana and is a 1/1 or 2/2, but instead it costs 6 and is at Grid Monitor size. It's interesting to see what decks it will fit in. I think it's solid, no question; it just a little unusual for what it does, so we have to play with it a bit.

Blade Splicer – It's 4 power of creatures for 3 mana; holy crap! I suspect this will get looked at some in Standard. Don't know if it's good enough to make the cut there or not, but that is not why it will see play in our decks. Expect to see somebody abuse this (and the other Golem makers) by bouncing or flickering it over and over again.

Chancellor of the Annex – I like the concept of the Chancellor cycle of creatures, so no complaints here on that. My only issue is that the benefit you get for them is usually small and impacts only the first turn or two. Therefore, four of these are much weaker in multiplayer. This one is the best of that group of four, because it basically Force Spikes everybody once. They know it, it slows their first drop by a turn, and then you move on. Not too shabby at all. It helps you get out of a bad opening seven or develop your board position, and yet I doubt anyone is going to get super pissed off and come your way. Everything changes when you actually play it; it's a little heavy-handed—do you want to Force Spike spells as a 7-drop? It's more likely to annoy than interfere with opponents' plans, and yet no one wants you to mess with their mana, so this is likely to be a bigger target.

Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite – This is my favorite of the Praetor cycle for casual Magic, since it kills so many creatures and pumps you so much. Even if it gets immediately killed by a Terminate, it already swept away the X/2's and X/1's that others controlled. It's a double Ascendant Evincar that is based solely on what you control and don't, rather than color. That is an awesome ability.

Exclusion Ritual – At first, I thought this cost too much to Meddling Mage a card, but then I realized it was also an exile Desert Twister (for nonlands). It will only Meddling Mage a card if that card is in play, but locking out anyone from dropping a certain planeswalker or Skullclamp or whatever has some serious value. It's not for every deck, but it's for some.

Master Splicer – See also: Blade Splicer (Sensor Splicer, not as much; the other colors are not generally as good, either, except in a dedicated Golem deck).

Norn's Annex – I love the Phyrexian mana mechanic. It's rare that you see a mechanic that is clearly a Spike mechanic. You see some Johnny and Timmy ones, and many are in multiple areas, but one that is so obviously Spike doesn't come around much. Of the PMMs, this may be my favorite. It's the best Ghostly Prison variant I've seen in a while because it protects my planeswalkers, and it forces opponents to spend White or 2 life. That's nasty if they aren't playing White.

Remember the Fallen – Card advantage is very keen in Pauper formats, and the likelihood of getting both the creature and artifact in the graveyard is pretty strong. Use this to get both back!

Shattered Angel – A 5-mana Soul Warden for lands is annoying. Life gain rarely gets you targeted and killed. This will. At least it is a "may" effect. Gaining 12 life every turn is going to get you targeted faster than four Akromas and a Mirror Gallery. Yuck. Good with Horn of Greed, which entices your opponent to play extra lands.

Blue

Chancellor of the Spires – In most situations, this is the worst Chancellor. Imagine you are playing that ubiquitous multiplayer casual format called Commander. You open with this and force your four opponents to mill seven. What have you accomplished, really? I know that seven turns later you can use the instants and sorceries you milled after you've played Mr. Chancellor. It seems like a long time to wait. How many Windfall–, Winds of Change–, Wheel of Fortune–, Time Reversal–type cards do you expect to get played in the meantime? It could easily accelerate people into good stuff like Dredge, Bloodghast, Flashback, and incarnations. In years past, we learned not to mill opponents, but yourself. This won't even let you do that. Its use is very limited.

Corrupted Resolve – A long time ago, I wrote an article about ways WotC could bring back poison counters to be a lot of fun. I love poison counters, I enjoy alternate ways to win, and I think this block has done a great job at pushing the mechanic in great directions. This set, however, feels a little too poisony for my tastes. I don't like too much of any mechanic in a set. I get poison, I get poisoned as a way to do things, but there are too many janky things like this that just make the set feel less than it should (mechanically). There's too much toast for the butter.

Deceiver Exarch – Virtually a Pestermite with a 1/4 nonflying body, this is a great surprise to lock down one attacker and block another. These are the backbones of decks. They aren't flashy; they don't win the game on their own; but this one adds to your tricks and creatures very nicely. This is a good card.

Impaler Shrike – For Pauper decks, I think this is a strong win. You get an acceptable flyer, and you also get the chance for cards. I also think there is some value here in multiplayer. I'd like to say, "I guarantee that I will sacrifice this creature for cards," get a hit in, sacrifice it, and hope no one gets too upset, because I'm not keeping it around for beatings, and that's the only way I can get the cards off it. It's like a Concentrate that deals 3 damage to someone.

Jin-Gitaxis, Core Augur – It's very expensive. By the time you can cast a 10-mana creature, your opponents may not be discarding many cards anyway. A simple and quite commonly played Reliquary Tower prevents someone from being hosed by this. It will get autokilled the second it sees play. The only obvious value I see in this is to sneak it down when people are largely tapped out in the late game in order to draw seven and restock immediately. I'm sure you can find uses in things like reanimation, Oath of Druids, or with Show and Tell–type cards and such, but this is a bit heavy for most situations. (One idea does strike me: Tooth and Nail with Entwine, go for this and something to protect it—then you would get away with just one of these, and be unlikely to draw it at bad times.)

Mental Misstep – It's an uncommon going for a ton of money in the early days of the single sales. As I write this, you have to spend $5 to get this uncommon. That's silly and speculative. I doubt this is as good or as useful in tons of formats as Eternal Witness or Skullclamp or Sensei's Divining Top are. Wait to open these in packs or the price to drop. (What will this cost when this article gets published? I wonder.) In casual play, they have little use. Even in tournaments, they are useful in some narrow situations, but I doubt they have much use in many outside of the obvious. Are you stocking these for Standard? Block? The Not-Very-Popular-Right-Now-Extended? Didn't think so.

Mindculling – Why were you not a common for Pauper??? Grrr . . .

Phyrexian Metamorph – I always thought copy effects were better than people credited them with being. A Clone is basically creature removal by being creature equilibrium. Then you cast Control Magic on an opponent's creature and you swing with your Clone of his. Nasty. Blue has the best creature removal. Anyway, this is awesome as either a Clone or Copy Artifact, whichever you choose or need. Want that Mind's Eye or that Kokusho? That's fine; have either. Phyrexian mana is solid on this, as I can think of decks that would really want this in a not-Blue setting. One example is the mono-Green deck, or perhaps a Red/Green deck.

Psychic Surgery – End tutors that place cards on top of the library permanently! No more Sylvan Tutor for you! You can also hurt opponents a bit after any other shuffle effect. It's not bad, but it may lack enough juice to play. I guess we'll see.

Xenograft – One Conspiracy, a ha ha ha . . . two Conspiracy, a ha ha ha!!! (Yes, they have some mechanical difference. No, I don't care.)

Black

Chancellor of the Dross – Ah yes, the good Chancellor. Its reveal ability rocks in multiplayer. Getting a 6/6 Flink creature for 7 mana is also pretty rockin'. (People often call creatures with flying and trample "Flample"; "Flink" is the obvious next step).

Dementia Bat – It costs 10 mana to Mind Rot someone; I know. Why am I even bothering to mention this? Because check this—how many discard effects are out there that don't just work on your turn? Not that many. Finding a way to force a discard as an instant is very difficult. You can sacrifice this just after someone draws a card for turn. Did you draw an instant? No? Ahhhhh. This is not shabby at all.

Despise – I think this obvious anti-planeswalker card will be pretty nifty.

Enslave – I think this is a good reprint(???) from Planar Chaos. Maybe it should be called a sideprint.

Entomber Exarch – I love Gravedigger cards, so this will easily make a splash in my own decks, because it can do something else if I'm not feeling the Gravedigger vibe at that moment. This is another of those solid backbony cards like Deceiver Exarch that I mention above.

Evil Presence – Really? I don't mind crazy old-school reprints from Ye Olde Days, but still. We had the whole of Phyrexian history to pull from, and we went with this?

Geth's Verdict – Name all of the instant Edicts out there. There aren't many, and certainly not for 2 mana. The extra Black mana from Diabolic Edict gives you the ability to tink opponents for life loss. That's not much. In decks that can afford the double Black, this may be close to an auto-include as your Edict of choice.

Life's Finale – In every set, I look for Wraths. What will be the next good mass removal spell? This is Wrath of God + Buried Alive you can't use on yourself—an odd combination, to be sure. What made WotC think that these two effects would work together? Why not Congregate + Wrath of God? Why not Disenchant + Wrath? Why not Rain of Salt + Wrath? Why not Giant Growth + Wrath of God? This is just as random as those. Maybe even a bit more so. You have to Buried Alive a foe instead of yourself; it feels like a wasted opportunity. Wrath of God plus triple Bloodghast in your yard can be pretty powerful, but no, you've got to do it to an opponent instead. Wrath of God plus a reverse Buried Alive where I shuffle three of those opposing dudes back to their library would rock. After all, I never want to put creatures in my foe's yard; I usually want to pull them out!

Mortis Dogs – I really liked Hollow Dogs. You could have reprinted them here, and I would have been happy. They're still a nice homage with a cool extra ability that I think is very smart. Yay!

Phyrexian Obliterator – These have an obvious value in multiplayer and casual in mono-Black decks of various types. They are quite strong, and they just hose the crap out of Red. How does Red kill one of these thumping down on it? I hope you are playing Cinder Cloud.

Praetor's Grasp – As a 3-mana Grinning Totem that does not reveal the card and can be kept in reserve the entire game until you need it, this is pretty strong. I expect it to make an immediate impact.

Sheoldred, Whispering One – While a 6/6 body is certainly sufficient for the purposes of killing, Swampwalk is hardly the ideal sneaky ability you'd want on her (maybe they wanted to stay away from the obvious intimidate?). The simultaneous ability to reanimate your goodies while also sacrificing your opponent's is nice. 7 mana is a reasonable cost for her, too. Watch as the battlefield changes quickly when she's on your side.

Surgical Extraction – It's an instant Extirpate without Split Second, but can be cast for no mana but 2 life. Whoop-dee-doo. Let's move on to fun stuff!

Red

Act of Aggression – I think the best use of Phyrexian mana is to use it on a card that another color or combination of colors might want to lose life to play. What color wants to spend 4 life and 3 mana to do this? Blue can do it for ; why pay 3 and 4 life? Black just kills the offending creatures, and then moves through and on. White is the same with enchantments and Swords to Plowshares effects. That leaves Green, but most Green decks would probably prefer to stomp through your creature rather than add it to their force for a turn or steal one to block another for creature kill. If you were to reprint Ray of Command as a Green card for , would you even want it for your decks? I doubt it—it just doesn't fit what the color wants to do. While most of the Phyrexian mana cards are those that another color might want to rock, this doesn't seem to be it. This seems to be a miss. How about a Fork instead? That would have been super-sexy. (Otherwise, this seems that it needs to be played solely in Rage Extractor decks.) (I think this is the second-worst use of Phyrexian mana in the set.)

Chancellor of the Forge – Getting your 1/1 token on the first turn, with Haste—not that big of a deal. Getting five or six in the midgame to late game is much better. Since this is an ability that is essentially a double, it works very well with Parallel Evolution, Doubling Season, and Momentary Blink.

Geosurge – Would someone like to explain to me why this has the Mirran watermark and not the Phyrexian? It's not mechanically tied to the Mirrans, and it's not themed to the Mirrans in name or picture. Why did one of the handful of Mirran cards get wasted here?

Moltensteel Dragon – Who wants to play this? For a Red deck, this is strictly worse than Shivan Dragon unless you drop it early with a life loss, and then push attacks as fast as you can. That has some value. Otherwise, play other Dragons. Your 4-drop and 5-drop slots for Dragons already have better entries, so there's no reason to accelerate this out for a life loss unless you really are feeling spicy.

Priest of Urabrask – Like Mortis Dogs, another throwback to Urza's Saga is this Priest of Gix remake. Like Priest of Gix, you can expect to see a ton of these in storm decks, combo decks, and more. Get some for your deck stock, and you'll not be sorry that you have a set or more.

Urabrask the Hidden – Who doesn't like Fervor effects? I love them! Especially on creatures like Madrush Cyclops, or this 4/4 for 5 mana. The extra ability is just a tiny bit of gravy.

Vulshok Refugee – Remind me to write this down somewhere, because protection from Red creatures in mono-Red are awesome to build around, due to the sheer number of cards in Red that deal damage to all creatures. No other color needs protection from itself more than Red does. When it actually gets one, I love it!

Green

Beast Within – An instant Vindicate or Desert Twister for 3 mana with a splashable cost is amazing. The only disadvantage is that you have handed your opponent a 3/3 dude. It's like a one-shot Terastodon, only it can take out a creature. This is a sexy card for Green, and one of the better utility spells in its arsenal—of all time. I remember when Harmonize got printed, and I recommended in my review article that you acquire as many as you can, because Green would never get it as good again. Well, get as many of these as you can, because Green will never get it as good again.

Birthing Pod – Note that, unlike many search effects, you can only get the set cost. So if you sacrifice a 3cc creature, you can only get something that costs 4, not 4 or less. That's an important point. It still rocks, but it is a bit more limited than you may have thought.

Brutalizer Exarch – This is not bad at all. Like the first card I reviewed today, Auriok Survivors, it feels a bit big for the abilities it has, but it has a good casting cost to go with its size and usefulness. I expect to play them myself, and recommend you try them out as well.

Chancellor of the Tangle – Getting an extra mana on the first turn can really help you get ready, but most of the time, it's going to be lost. The 6/7 Vigilant and Reach body is odd size/ability combination. Why not 7/7? I actually like the idea of Reach/Vigilance together, since Reach is defensive, and Vigilance ensures you will be holding back. We'll call it "Vigileach." I like the Vigileach, and I suspect it will play well (it keeps back Akroma the Elder, for example). Good card as a creature, not a super-great reveal ability.

Corrosive Gale – This is exactly the sort of card I was talking about in my Red section—lots of decks want a Wing Storm but aren't playing Green. Possibilities include an aggro deck that's ground-bound, or a deck looking for an answer to many of the most powerful multiplayer creatures around. I love it.

Mutagenic Growth – I can't imagine how many aggro players are out there, right now, salivating over playing this card. This might be the single best Phyrexian mana card in terms of pure power.

Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger – Everybody loves Mana Flare, especially for just themselves. Everybody hates not being able to untap all of their lands. Combine the two and you have a lot of love for you, and a lot of hate from your foes. I mean serious, eyes-blazing-into-your-soul hatred. No one likes having their mana messed with, and this does it a lot more than Chancellor of the Annex. That means Vorinclex is DOA. This would be better if it just Mana Flared you, and nothing else. Omnath survives a lot. This will not.

Other Stuff

Karn Liberated – I don't get why this costs as much money as it does on the singles market. This planeswalker costs 7 mana to play. You get a loyalty of 6. Then . . .?? What's your plan? Exile two cards from your hand and then activate the ultimate ability? That's slow, not very good in tournaments, and will give you all of two cards for the game, which you won't have been able to play by the seventh and eighth turn, so that slows you even more. How is that worth $50? What are you going to do with it, side it in for the second game after you won the first to slow things down? Are you going to use the middle ability to exile a permanent twice and then take him off? Perhaps you'll flip back and forth between exiling a card from your opponent's hand and then one in play? That's worse than Liliana Vess—you realize that, right? I doubt I'm going to fear your 7-mana Desert Twister that leaves you a 3-loyalty planeswalker, or your 7-mana discard for one card. Whoa! That's hardly game-winning in tournaments. This is a guy that looks exclusively like he's for casual play, so I don't get his current cost. I suspect it will drop like Nicol Bolas did. I don't how see a 7-mana planeswalker whose ultimate ability is basically Shahrazad minus the life-loss subgamey part is something hotly desired in Tournament Land.

Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer – This is arguably the only Metalcraft card, ever, that you can play in a deck with a few artifacts, but not that many. It still wants a ton like the other cards, but it is still so good on its own (5/4 First Strike for 5 mana!) that you don't have to have Metalcraft for this one to be good. If you've got a deck with a few Myr and maybe four to six other artifacts, toss him in. You'll be fine.

Alloy Myr – I love this card!!! I intend to acquire, roughly, 5,012 of this thing and put a full set in any deck anybody has. I will keep some sleeves with me of various types and colors, sneak a few of these into whatever sleeve you're playing with, and slide them into your deck. Stealth Alloy Myr!

Batterskull – I loved Living Weapon from the last set, and the one good thing about New Phyrexia instead of Mirrodin Pure is that we get more living weapons—yay! Despite its early price tag, I really like this card a lot for casual. It's a 4/4 Vigilant Lifelinker for , and when it dies to something, just spend 3 to recur it and play it again. Or you can equip it to make anything really, really good. Either way, it looks like a rocking card. It's definitely a winner.

Caged Sun – This gets added to my MBC Commander deck led by Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief. Otherwise, it feels like another card that's not Mirrodin in any way, but was given pretty artwork and the watermark anyway (it could easily have been a cage with teeth and scales, and you would have bought it as Phyrexian).

Etched Monstrosity – For Five-Color players with a multiplayer bent, this is rocktastic, and I expect to add it to Abe's Deck of Happiness and Joy very, very soon. It's not that useful in many other decks (although it's still a 5/5 for , which is not sneeze-worthy).

Hex Parasite – Another entry in the "I Hose Planeswalkers" section of this set, it has some value in our world as well. You can easily strip dangerous cards of tokens, from Darksteel Reactor to -1/-1 counters from Infect, Wither, and other things, and lots more. It's just too bad you aren't a permanent, or else this would strip off your poison counters, too!

Lashwrithe – With an equip cost of , but an ability that only works with Swamps in play, this is the worst example of Phyrexian mana. You would never want to play this in other decks, and why lose life rather than spend a couple of Black in a Black deck? It seems like a choice you would virtually never make. Now, if this were instead an artifact that gave the equipped creature a Specter ability (: +1/+1 to this), I can see this as the equip cost, because you might want to save the mana for the pump. But otherwise, this does not work for me. Yuck.

Mycosynth Wellspring – Who doesn't like playing Lay of the Land–style cards? Getting a basic of any type, in a deck with any color, seems really powerful. The ability to double dip and get card advantage when that artifact will inevitably be caught up in some removal effect or other is sexytastic. I want to see these in an Obliterate deck. Everything from Pauper on up should want many of these.

Necropouncer – Living Weapon is awesome, and giving a creature I just played Haste and +3/+1 for just 2 mana is super-fun! Who wants to see how angry Red Akroma can really get? That's a massive hit from anybody. This may be my second-favorite equipment in the set (behind Batterskull).

Phyrexian Hulk – I like old, crazy reprints, but we went with a vanilla creature as one of them? Sigh.

Pristine Talisman – There's no reason I can think of not to play these fairly regularly in decks. This is another of those backbone cards that's not sexy, but it gets the work done, and you need to own a good stock.

Shrine of Boundless Growth – Are you a little disappointed that these aren't Artifact – Shrine? I'll admit that I was. When I first saw their names in a card list, I was hoping we'd see a cool note to the Kamigawa Hondens here, which was a very successful mechanic from Champions. I thought it would be neat to see a use of the shrines here, but as artifacts in this world. I thought that would be really cool! Then I saw the physical card in the spoilers and noted that it didn't have the Shrine subtype. That's very sad.

Soul Conduit – This is a major threat to a table that has many players. You can save someone who has a low life total from death, or send someone with a high life total down to low right in front of that Earthquake or attack by a Deep-Sea Kraken, etc. I suspect this will easily be Public Enemy #2 by any player who does not have the lowest life total at the table.

Sword of War and Peace – Pro White and Red is not bad. I don't like the abilities as much as some others—there is no chance for any card advantage from them. No Raise Dead, no Shocking a creature, no making a 2/2 dude, and no discard, just hitting opponents for some extra damage (perhaps) and gaining some life. It doesn't suck, and it's worth playing, but it doesn't compare to other entries. In fact, I'd say it's the weakest of the lot (without any playing of it, obviously).

Torpor Orb – If you play this against me . . . I will punch you. That is all.

Phyrexia's Core – Sac an artifact for a life? It seems an awful lot like High Market, and that's always been a decent card to toss into the occasional deck. Toss them into the occasional deck with some artifacts and you'll be happy. Take a look at Mycosynth Wellspring.

Sixty-two cards were commented on from New Phyrexia, which is a giant chunk of stuff. There are a lot of great cards in here for your various decks. Finding and using them for duels, Emperor, Two-Headed Giant, Commander, and others—that's good stuff. Next week, we'll build some decks with the new cards.

See you next week,

Abe Sargent