#grip of phyresis

[dailymtgflavortext]

"Even your blade knows who will triumph here." —Atraxa, Praetors' Voice

-Grip of Phyresis

[danco110]

“Zhbankov, I need you to-”

“No, ma’am, I’m Denis.”

“Oh, sorry. Er…Zhbankov?”

The other compleated inquisitors all warily eyed each other, too embarrassed to call for each other by name. Then, one of their tallest stepped forward, theatrically brandishing his porcelain arm-blade.

“Here, ma’am!”

“Sorry about that, Zhbankov. It’s just…well, we all look alike, now!”

The other Phyrexians muttered their agreement.

“Indeed, ma’am. Anyways…orders?”

“Oh, right. I need you to take a detachment and…”

The commander was interrupted by the panicked cries of an incompleat priest, stumbling towards the group while being chased by a metal-plated devil. The fiend finally caught up to the man as he tripped and fell, and wrapped a steel claw around his panicked face.

“Orders, ma’am?”

The commander’s grip around her poleaxe tightened, until her porcelain talons parted to reveal the crimson sinew beneath. “Norn would have us assist the devil…”

Zhbankov balked at the statement. “The devil, ma’am?”

“Exactly, Norn would. I, however, think we should…”

“Understood!”

Zhbankov stabbed his bladed arm into the devil’s back. The monster crumpled, but the damage was already done, as the fallen priest was already sprouting bone-white growths from his head and back. The new Phyrexian pulled himself to his feet, only to kneel before the agitated commander.

“Orders, ma’am?”

“…Were you the only human around?”

“No, there were others. I was sent to get help, but…was ambushed. Now that I have partaken of glorious Phyresis, however, that shall not happen again.”

The commander nodded. “Well, you came looking for help. Let’s go help them.”

“Yes!” grinned the new convert. “Let us share this gift!”

“No. Let us…actually help them.”

“What?”

The commander gestured with disgust to the dead devil at her porcelain feet. “I will not help these monsters.”

“Oh…all right, then. Actual help it is.”

With a shrug, the priest fell in line with the other inquisitors.

—

[Many Innistradi converts rejected Norn’s standing orders of compleation, in favor of continuing their wars against human and monster-kind, regardless of whether they were Phyrexian or not.]

[dailytopimagic]

Topi’s Daily Card #862:  Grip of Phyresis

Everyone hates that one guy who seems to get boots or greaves every game, or the sword of X and Y that just ruin your deck.  Blue has a fun answer now, and that’s by just flat taking the equipment.  Of course, unless it pumps toughness the germ it equips to will just die, but it will still scurry away for you to just equip to something else.  The best part of this is that it’s an instant, so mid combat your can just ruin someone’s unblockable, untargetable plans.  It’s a great combat trick, and while it may not go well against every commander, there will almost always be a target in every game of EDH.

[femmchantress]

Get yourself a girl who’s rapidly undergoing to blissful process of compleation, gripped in the ecstatic throws of phyresis’ glorious work - remade in both body and mind, liberated from the fragility of flesh and welcomed lovingly into the embrace of ichor, metal, and viscera-stained porcelain.

[askkrenko]

Krenko’s Guide to Creature Types: Germ

Art by  Igor Kieryluk

What is a germ (flavorfully)?

Forget what you know about germs in real life. In Magic, Germs are specifically barely-mobile carriers of the Phyrexian infection. They don’t have any strength of their own, they’re just the tiniest of Phyrexians, and they attach to otherwise inanimate objects to make them animate and move, halfway transformed into a Phyrexian Machine. 

What is a Germ (mechanically)?

A Germ is a 0/0 Black creature token created by the Living Weapon ability or the card Grip of Phyresis. The Living Weapon ability is found on equipment cards and creates a germ for them to attach to when they enter the battlefield, allowing them to be immediately useful. For example, Flayer Husk is an equipment that gives +1/+1l, but Living Weapon creates a 0/0 creature with it, so it enters the battlefield as a 1/1 creature, allowing you to play it without immediately needing a creature to attach it to.

Can I make a Germ deck?

The real question here is “Can I make a Living Weapon Equipment deck” and… sure? You can absolutely make a deck that cares about equipment and runs multiple cards with Living Weapon. If you really wanted, you could even run a Commander deck with all nine of them. But that’s not really going to get you very far, and there’s not really any reason to. Don’t get me wrong, Lashwrithe is one of my favorite cards in all of Magic, but most Living Weapon cards are overcosted as creatures and then overcosted as equipment to account for the fact that you’re getting both. A Germ deck just isn’t happening.

Is Germ a good creature type?

You know what? No. I’m usually pretty good to these small creature types with clear mechanical identities that do a thing that only they can do, but this ISN’T something only Germ can do. Any reasonable creature type could have been used for Living Weapon. Sure, Phyrexian types tend to get weird, but how about Horror? Myr? Zombie? Blinkmoth? Pest? They’re not all perfect suggestions, but did we really need these cards to create a new creature type that only exists for the purposes of their token? It’s just a waste of space, and by NOT making them Myr Zombie Horrors it gets rid of the ability for these cards to have interesting synergies across the game.

[totallyjazzed]

In wake of the ONE spoilers I decided to write a little something about Fayinn, my D&D Character / Fanwalker

For context, at the end of our Ravnica D&D Campaign one of the PCs accidentally brought back something infected with Phyrexian Oil to Ravnica, and the decision post-canon was that she accidentally a Phyrexian apocalypse on Ravnica almost directly after the end of the War of the Spark.

Wish

The creature that was once Acting Guildmaster Fayinn of the Izzet League turned a sphere over in her hand, shaking it around and watching the bluish-white electric ball bouncing off the sides. She scratched her head, running a sleek metal hand through the tangled web of copper wire that could loosely be called her hair. 

She walked over to the window of “her” office and looked over at the courtyard. Chaos was unfolding between all four of her mechanical eyes, business as usual then. 

She moved her attention back to the sphere, she knew what it was, she knew what it contained, she even knew how to open it, but she couldn’t. It could cause far too much damage to the already-struggling infrastructure of the plane. As far as she could tell, nobody outside of Ravnica knew that she and her cohort were here, and they’d be unlikely to find out.

Planeswalkers did not visit Ravnica, not by choice, not since the War, and other Phyrexians? Hah, forget it! They were alone here, no relief was coming, the only thing they could do was spread perfection or die trying.

Fayinn had handed herself over willingly, but not before throwing a wrench in the works of her “successor”, a four-armed four-eyed research machine that also occasionally went by her name. She had managed to extract her own planeswalker spark and seal it within the crystalline orb that now vexed her, this had made her vulnerable to phyresis while at the same time ensuring she could never be fully claimed by it. The fact that an incompleat individual came up with such a clever plan irritated the new Fayinn, and if her porcelain face could move it would scowl.

Opening the sphere would free her spark, yes, but what would that *mean*? Would it return to her the ability to traverse the planes, would it restore her incompleat soul to the perfect body it did not deserve? Would it find a new host, a Ravnican citizen that it could extract from the warzone to call for aid from the rest of the multiverse? Fayinn hadn’t known, so Fayinn didn’t know. It had been a gamble, one that could only pay off if she opened the sphere.

It had to be a trick. There had to be some way that she knew what would happen without passing on that knowledge to her current self. This pathetic, ignorant fleshling was trying to trick her own perfected mind from beyond the grave and she would not accept it! She punched the wall out of frustration, breaking off some of the brickwork, such a display of emotion would be heresy in the motherland, but being one of only two compleat Guildmasters had its perks.

There was a timid knock on the door. “Enter”, she said in monotone, and an intern entered, hunched over in fear. His name was Aladam, and he had been one of her subordinates during the War. Such a pathetic creature wasn’t worth compleating, but she kept him around for his unwavering loyalty in the face of abject terror. “Speak”, she said, regarding him as she might regard an interesting-looking tree.

“The-there’s been a b-b-b-breakthrough in S-spark research, Guildmaster”, the intern snivelled, “They say the S-s-s-s-spark r-rejects all b-bodies that aren’t its own, a-a-and that a spark without a host will die v-v-very quickly”. She considered the information, dismissing him with a wave of her hand, he scuttled away before she could change her mind.

She gripped the sphere tightly, cracks forming on its surface. The research had made sense, while the spark had not originally been her own, Fayinn had made a wish. Despite the foundations, this was certainly *not* Fayinn’s body any more. She would not claim the power she desired, which was unfortunate, but the opening of the sphere would extinguish Fayinn of the Izzet for good, leaving only Fayinn of Phyrexia in her place.

The sphere cracked and shattered in her hand, the glass littering the floor with red and blue shards while the lazotep bindings buckled, the spark floated up into the air, in front of Fayinn’s face. It floated listlessly in the air, unsure of what to do, but then stopped and approached her. She did not move, all of the rules of sparks told her that it would fizzle and die no matter what it did from now on.

But Fayinn had made a wish.

The spark shot into Fayinn, passing through the metal of her torso and into her system. She felt something she thought she’d never feel again. Pain.

Fayinn screamed a metallic scream, every joint crying out in perfect agony, before collapsing to the floor in a smouldering metal heap.

Aladam poked his head through the doorway and looked at her as she picked herself up off the ground, chuckling to herself. The chuckle gave way to a cackle, then to a heavily modulated laugh, maniacal enough to terrify even the strongest of wills, but Aladam did not run, he did not move, he just looked at the machine. The machine looked back at him. If her face could move it would be grinning ear-to-ear.

“It’s good to have you back, Boss”

She walked over to him, snatching a steaming-hot mug of coffee from his hands and pouring it over her porcelain face, letting the liquid seep into the metallic joints and circuitry she hadn’t had time to fully adjust to.

“It’s good to *be* back”

[misteryada]

Trying to figure out a card to take out of my RUG deck for when I get Nissa, Genesis Mage (at this point the deck is Nissa tribal with red). My friend keeps telling me Grip of Phyresis but I think he’s just salty about how often I’ve used it on his stuff to win the game. I can post a list if anyone would like to help?

[oracletext]

Amonkhet Spoilers in Commander Context: Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun

This is a strange angle for a token commander. His first ability pushes you to go tall instead of wide, which is at odds with token strategies in general. I don’t think the embalmed copy of Temmet will be capable of dealing commander damage either, which makes a voltron strategy awkward.  Granting random tokens a slight buff and evasion is also pretty weak unless you can get token copies of real creatures with useful saboteur abilities, or absolutely massive tokens, so here are cards that I think merit consideration for inclusion in a potential Temmet deck.

Token Copies of real creatures

Back from the Brink: Give all your dead creatures pseudo-embalm

Cackling Counterpart

Clone Legion

Dance of Many

Faerie Artisans

Fated Infatuation

Followed Footsteps

Mechanized Production: Possibly not enough artifact creatures or living weapon cards in the deck to justify this.  Blue and White are good at tutoring for artifacts and equipment respectively, though.

Mimic Vat

Minion Reflector

Mirrorpool

Rite of Replication

Saheeli’s Artistry

Seance: Only really works with lots of ETB dudes.

Soul Foundry

Soul Separator

Stolen Identity: Cipher works well with unblockability

Supplant Form

Large Tokens

Batterskull: Living weapon synergizes well with Temmet.

Bonehoard

Crush of Tentacles: Temmet is cheap enough to cast that this is realistic to cast for its surge cost.

Dark Depths

Desolation Twin

Grip of Phyresis

Helm/Shield/Sword of Kaldra: Ambitious, but cool.

Metallurgic Summonings

Phyrexian Processor

Phyrexian Rebirth

Reef Worm

Scytheclaw: Gives random tokens an insane saboteur ability

Stitcher Geralf

Grant Powerful Saboteur Abilities

Bident of Thassa

Celestial Mantle

Coastal Piracy

Deepfathom Skulker

Grafted Exoskeleton

Mask of Memory

Quietus Spike

Sharding Sphinx

Sword of Feast and Famine: Notably running the swords that grant protection from white or blue don’t work with Temmet’s ability. Despite this nombo, they are powerful enough to include anyway.

Worldslayer

I wouldn’t run all of these unless you don’t mind not casting spells for the first five turns of the game. Going deep on copying creatures with powerful saboteur abilities looks weaker than slapping a bunch of equipment or auras on a token and swinging with a giant unblockable dude. I’d look to fill out this list with white’s equipment-friendly cards and some efficient token producers.

[mtgbracket]

Round of 8192 - Batch 50

You can now vote in Batch 50!

Currently open batches:

Batch 50 Batch 49 Batch 48 Batch 47 Batch 46 Batch 45 Batch 44

Batch 43 results will be up shortly.

Feature match: Darkness versus light, with Liliana of the Dark Realms versus Luminesce.

Full list of matchups:

Sandsteppe Outcast vs Wall of Junk Languish vs Orcish Lumberjack Jugan, the Rising Star vs Commune with Lava Mob Rule vs Illuminated Wings Scrap Mastery vs Anticipate Nahiri, the Lithomancer vs Scalding Devil Liliana of the Dark Realms vs Luminesce Quickling vs Stromkirk Noble Champion's Drake vs Griffin Canyon Urborg Emissary vs Chain of Smog Hazezon Tamar vs Watcher Sliver Agent of Horizons vs Soul of Shandalar Ambition's Cost vs Blood Cultist Karona's Zealot vs Narcolepsy Armageddon vs Urbis Protector Twilight Shepherd vs Keepsake Gorgon Volley of Boulders vs Marble Diamond Thunder Dragon vs Mortify Pulling Teeth vs Alloy Myr Empty the Warrens vs Porphyry Nodes Obzedat, Ghost Council vs Wingrattle Scarecrow Boseiju, Who Shelters All vs Day of Judgment Platinum Emperion vs Grip of Phyresis Nameless Inversion vs Obelisk of Jund Dimir Keyrune vs Lone Wolf Kami of False Hope vs Penumbra Spider Adarkar Wastes vs Patrol Hound Void Stalker vs Prismatic Omen Life's Finale vs Aspect of Wolf Jeska, Warrior Adept vs Gibbering Hyenas Relic of Progenitus vs Nevermaker Akki Coalflinger vs Rakdos Riteknife

[mtgbracket]

Round of 16384 - Batch 221

Batch 221 voting is now open. The following polls are currently open:

Batch 221 Batch 220 Batch 219 Batch 218 Batch 217 Batch 216 Batch 215

Batch 214 results will be up soon.

The full list of matchups for today is:

Lone Rider vs Tanglebloom Flamespeaker Adept vs Whelming Wave Seal of Cleansing vs Fade into Antiquity Boiling Earth vs Kami of the Waning Moon Jinxed Choker vs Gossamer Phantasm Sandstorm Charger vs Fountain Watch Wild Evocation vs Markov Blademaster Masticore vs Soulsurge Elemental Funeral March vs Drown in Filth March of the Returned vs Levitation Iona's Judgment vs Bog Raiders Mul Daya Channelers vs Gift of Tusks Evangelize vs Devastation Tide Etched Oracle vs Nomads' Assembly Beacon of Destruction vs Battering Wurm Mist Raven vs Grip of Phyresis Ambush Commander vs Pentavus Nath of the Gilt-Leaf vs Watcher of the Roost Rhystic Scrying vs Straw Soldiers Veiled Apparition vs Lightning Blow Chariot of Victory vs Grasp of Phantoms Dying Wail vs Jeskai Infiltrator Benthic Explorers vs Windwright Mage Mycoloth vs Safewright Quest Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni vs Flagstones of Trokair Pain // Suffering vs Vampiric Touch Redirect vs Dirgur Nemesis Storm Elemental vs Dauntless Dourbark Keranos, God of Storms vs Elvish Lyrist Scalding Devil vs Trained Cheetah Aberrant Researcher vs Devoted Retainer Zhang Fei, Fierce Warrior vs Aether Mutation