Sets (ONE) Phyrexia: All Will Be One Previews


I know this is a slightly older post at this point, but the more I think about this new Nissa the less I like her. I thought this might be an interesting discussion.

I think this Nissa is good when she's able to win the game with her faux-craterhoof impression. While I think she's clearly worse as a big overrun than hoofdaddy (if you're ramping her out she might be giving as little as +3/+3, and she doesn't come with a free body– you need to have enough extra creatures lying around to kill the opponent after tapping your mana dorks), the fact that she's a pretty modal Planeswalker can make up for this weakness. She's definitely better than the other 7 Drop Green Walker (although maybe not better than Karn?)

So what's the problem? I don't think she is better than the commonly used 5 mana options, even when considering her modality. Cards like Nissa, Who Shakes the World, Wrenn and Seven, and Vivien, Monster's Advocate are all able to be used to their fullest extent when a player reaches turhn 5. While Nissa, Ascended Animist can start making 4/4s or blowing up artifacts or enchantments on 5, I am not convinced that is better than the high synergy outcomes the other three common 5s can provide. You really need to be getting up to 7 for her to be fantastic in my view, and you need to have enough forests and spare creatures for that ability to pop off. Compare that to Nissa, Who Shakes the World, who can immediately start ramping a player to the moon the turn she comes into play, Vivien, who can be a combo and draw engine, or Wrenn and Seven, who has interesting graveyard and land synergies and makes powerful scaling tokens .

Essentially, I think Nissa, Ascended Animist is cool and unique, and when she works I think she's a bit beating. However, I think she is just one of several interesting options for Big Green Walker, and isn't necessarily the best. I think Nissa, Who Shakes the World still probably holds that title.

What does everyone else think?

Simply put, I disagree!

Making a 4/4 as a + ability (!) is pretty good in regards to using her to her "fullest extent" on turn 5. A 4/4 is meaningfully bigger than a 3/3, and you'll get a 5/5 the following turn if Nissa's not disrupted. The other 5 MV walkers don't have that same escalating danger, and are less necessary to kill on site for opponents if they hope to survive.

World-Shaking Nissa doesn't start ramping the turn she comes into play unless you're in a scenario where Phyrexian!Nissa is entering with a 6/6 beater, and Wrenn and Seven can be downed by a shock after placing a treefolk. I get you on the lack of neat synergies, but even ignoring the fact that Nissa, Ascended Animist is a three-way split card, the average case scenario for Nissa is much better at 5 than the competition. The scenarios where you've built your deck in a way to maximize the other walkers AND where that comes together exactly on five mana are, from my spitballing, dramatically less common than scenarios where you're able to squeeze more value out of the Ascended Animist by skipping the Phyrexian mana in her cost. The powerlevel may not be as interesting, but it's real, and it's more robust imo

I don't have any interest in cubing her (for reasons outlined earlier in the thread), but I do think generically she's the best MV5+ walker in green all the same. I would personally advocate for cubing Nissa, Who Shakes the World over her because she makes for a more dynamic cube environment. Raw power on a card-by-card basis is not the ideal I'm personally maximizing for, but if you are...Phyrexia never sleeps.
 
Simply put, I disagree!

Making a 4/4 as a + ability (!) is pretty good in regards to using her to her "fullest extent" on turn 5. A 4/4 is meaningfully bigger than a 3/3, and you'll get a 5/5 the following turn if Nissa's not disrupted. The other 5 MV walkers don't have that same escalating danger, and are less necessary to kill on site for opponents if they hope to survive.

World-Shaking Nissa doesn't start ramping the turn she comes into play unless you're in a scenario where Phyrexian!Nissa is entering with a 6/6 beater, and Wrenn and Seven can be downed by a shock after placing a treefolk. I get you on the lack of neat synergies, but even ignoring the fact that Nissa, Ascended Animist is a three-way split card, the average case scenario for Nissa is much better at 5 than the competition. The scenarios where you've built your deck in a way to maximize the other walkers AND where that comes together exactly on five mana are, from my spitballing, dramatically less common than scenarios where you're able to squeeze more value out of the Ascended Animist by skipping the Phyrexian mana in her cost. The powerlevel may not be as interesting, but it's real, and it's more robust imo

I don't have any interest in cubing her (for reasons outlined earlier in the thread), but I do think generically she's the best MV5+ walker in green all the same. I would personally advocate for cubing Nissa, Who Shakes the World over her because she makes for a more dynamic cube environment. Raw power on a card-by-card basis is not the ideal I'm personally maximizing for, but if you are...Phyrexia never sleeps.
the mana doubling on Shakin' Nissa is the draw for me for sure. it's just hard to imagine what all you can do with DOUBLE MANA and a hand full of broken cards until you're swimming in the POWER and your face is going numb
 
Simply put, I disagree!

Making a 4/4 as a + ability (!) is pretty good in regards to using her to her "fullest extent" on turn 5. A 4/4 is meaningfully bigger than a 3/3, and you'll get a 5/5 the following turn if Nissa's not disrupted. The other 5 MV walkers don't have that same escalating danger, and are less necessary to kill on site for opponents if they hope to survive.

World-Shaking Nissa doesn't start ramping the turn she comes into play unless you're in a scenario where Phyrexian!Nissa is entering with a 6/6 beater, and Wrenn and Seven can be downed by a shock after placing a treefolk. I get you on the lack of neat synergies, but even ignoring the fact that Nissa, Ascended Animist is a three-way split card, the average case scenario for Nissa is much better at 5 than the competition. The scenarios where you've built your deck in a way to maximize the other walkers AND where that comes together exactly on five mana are, from my spitballing, dramatically less common than scenarios where you're able to squeeze more value out of the Ascended Animist by skipping the Phyrexian mana in her cost. The powerlevel may not be as interesting, but it's real, and it's more robust imo

I don't have any interest in cubing her (for reasons outlined earlier in the thread), but I do think generically she's the best MV5+ walker in green all the same. I would personally advocate for cubing Nissa, Who Shakes the World over her because she makes for a more dynamic cube environment. Raw power on a card-by-card basis is not the ideal I'm personally maximizing for, but if you are...Phyrexia never sleeps.
I think you make some salient points about Nissa, Ascended Animist's floor that I had failed to consider in my initial evaluation. I still think Nissa, Who Shakes the World is a better card in general (Usman Jamil calls her "The Queen of Green Planeswalkers," and I still feel inclined to agree). I think two vigilant 3/3 beaters and the ability to potentially create 14 mana on turn 6 is better than making a 4/4 and a 5/5.

In either case, interesting discussion! Thank you very much!
 
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Having played a pre-release, discussed the set with other players, and watched a video or two about the set: wow! Lovely limited format. Keen to see how draft plays out compared to sealed, but it seems like the RW equipment theme and the GB toxic archetype are both excellent, with blue not really being nearly as interesting as the other colors. Oil cards work well enough without being overly reliant on additional oil enablers, and seems like proliferate is going to be fine but less impactful than it was last time around in WAR.

No additional cards I'm interested in for cube from these experiences so far, which is pretty rare for me. I guess that speaks to how narrow and/or wordy a lot of this set is.

Brother's War is in my 10 most-drafted sets now, so I was anticipating to be sad to see it go on Arena for a set with poison counters as a main theme, but I'm eager at this point to get in my reps.

Here in Glasgow, pre-releases sold out and filled up, some of the best attendance since the pandemic according to local players. People really seem to like the flavor/world and everyone wants to open Elesh Norn. If nothing else, I'm happy that Magic has found a way to make a compelling set of villains in the Praetors that people can actually build a fandom around, as this certainly didn't happen to this degree with Bolas or the Gatewatch. This is the kind of fan-service WotC should keep digging into, and while I know many are sad that this storyline is ending in the next set (?!), the fact that Norn won't overstay her welcome means that she can keep a positive reaction from the audience in perpetuity.
 
Like Bolas or the Edrazi, Phyrexia will for sure not 100% irrecoverably disappear, just been reduced to a stasis from which to retake it when needed.
 
Like Bolas or the Edrazi, Phyrexia will for sure not 100% irrecoverably disappear, just been reduced to a stasis from which to retake it when needed.

Bolas was overused so he had to go. Also the villain had to lose the final battle.

The Eldrazi were cool and unique at first. But for some reason (I still do not agree with) most players didn’t like the annihilator mechanic on 10+ mana legendary creatures for competitive constructed formats. So The Eldrazi titans had to lose their defining mechanic on the revisit of the plane. And then they became bland. Along with a last-minute change to the design of Battle for Zendikar (devoid was added because Wizards wanted color-blind people to easily be able to see that the colored Eldrazi spawn and scions were actually colorless) made the reception of the return block unpopular. So they had to go. We didn’t even revisit Emrakul in the last two sets we were on the plane of her existence. It’s like they forgot she’s still there.
 
@landofMordor
I have a hard time seeing it. I hope you are right but it feels like reaching. There would be some mention of Emrakul if they wanted to build hype. Normally you don’t build hype by silencing something to death and oblivion for 10 years.
 
@landofMordor
I have a hard time seeing it. I hope you are right but it feels like reaching. There would be some mention of Emrakul if they wanted to build hype. Normally you don’t build hype by silencing something to death and oblivion for 10 years.
Emrakul being trapped in the moon is why the day/night cycle on Innistrad got screwed up, leading to the eternal midnight that had to be undone in the Midnight Hunt/Crimson Vow story arc. While we didn't see any actual Eldrazi, emrakul-influenced Horrors and her presence in the moon were definitely important to the two sets.
 
Emrakul being trapped in the moon is why the day/night cycle on Innistrad got screwed up, leading to the eternal midnight that had to be undone in the Midnight Hunt/Crimson Vow story arc. While we didn't see any actual Eldrazi, emrakul-influenced Horrors and her presence in the moon were definitely important to the two sets.


Yeah but the majority of people don’t know this thus proving my point.
 
Emrakul being trapped in the moon is why the day/night cycle on Innistrad got screwed up, leading to the eternal midnight that had to be undone in the Midnight Hunt/Crimson Vow story arc. While we didn't see any actual Eldrazi, emrakul-influenced Horrors and her presence in the moon were definitely important to the two sets.

I straight up had zero idea there were some kind of "eternal night" going on at any point on innistrad.
 
I straight up had zero idea there were some kind of "eternal night" going on at any point on innistrad.
It was mainly a plot point in the story articles and not so much on the actual cards. The key characters, items, and locations such as The Celestius, Katilda, Dawnhart Prime, The Moonsilver Key, and Teferi, Who Slows the Sunset were all on cards, but the fact that they were trying to prevent an eternal night from occurring wasn't entirely clear just from looking at the flavor text of cards.

It's not quite as bad as the assassination plot against the praetors being absent from the original Scars of Mirrodin block, or Elspeth dying in Journey into Nyx only being a plot point in the book without showing up in the set anywhere, but the key elements of the Innistrad 3 story are definitely harder to follow on the cards than is desirable.
 

Chris Taylor

Contributor

The tokens' characteristics are entirely replaced by either 2/2 green Cat creature token with haste or 3/1 green Dog creature token with vigilance. They don't have any other abilities the tokens would have been created with. Anything else specified in the effect creating the tokens (such as tapped, attacking, “That token gains haste,” or “Exile that token at end of combat”) still applies.
Emphasis from reddit. Looks like if you incubate, any cats you produce will have the +1/+1 counters from incubate!
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