#phyrexians my beloved

[8thy]

Custom MTG token art time - Phyrexian Horror

Wanted to put together a Standard deck for a competition in a few days so thought I’d draw a token too. Pretty rare I use colour but this and another token I just did too at time of queueing, the Toy token

Bonus one I did too later after I originally queued this post :>

[littjara-mirrorlake]

From my in-progress homebrew D&D 5e supplement, Plane Shift: Mirrodin/New Phyrexia: playable Myr!

They've been beloved in playtesting, with no fewer than three myr PCs appearing in the party over the course of a 3-year campaign. They are one of two new playable races in Plane Shift: New Phyrexia, along with the core-born Phyrexian.

Constructed Resilience and Sentry's Rest are abilities that previously appeared on the Warforged in Eberron: Rising from the Last War, and Regenerative Repair is a less restricting version of the ability Healing Machine from Astral Adventurer's Guide.

Text from the image under the cut!

Metallic, beak-headed myr inhabit Mirrodin, scampering at the feet of larger humanoids and largely considered below their attention. Few know of their true origin as creations of the mad wizard Memnarch, designed to be mechanized servants and his eyes across the plane. Following Memnarch’s fall, the myr found themselves with sapience and free will, though their core values of duty, community, and knowledge remain.

Myr Traits

Type. You are a Construct. You are also considered a myr for any prerequisite or effect that requires you to be a myr.

Ability Score Increase. Your Intelligence score increases by 2, and your Dexterity score increases by 1.

Age. As constructed creatures, myr don’t grow old in the traditional sense, and they are able to live indefinitely if well-maintained. You are immune to magical aging effects.

Size. Myr average about 3 feet tall. Your size is Small.

Speed. Your base walking speed is 25 feet.

Constructed Resilience. You have resistance to poison damage and immunity to disease, and you have advantage on saving throws against being poisoned. You don’t need to eat, drink, or breathe. You also don’t need to sleep, and magic can’t put you to sleep.

Darkvision. Your constructed senses grant you superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Bonus Proficiencies. You gain proficiency in one skill and one tool of your choice. The tool you chose is integrated into your body and cannot be removed while you live.

Networked Minds. You can communicate telepathically with other myr within 120 feet of you.

Sentry’s Rest. When you take a long rest, you must spend at least six hours in an inactive, motionless state, rather than sleeping. In this state, you appear inert, but it doesn’t render you unconscious, and you can see and hear as normal.

Regenerative Repair. If the mending spell is cast on you, you can expend a hit die, roll it, and regain a number of hit points equal to the roll plus your Constitution modifier (minimum of 1 hit point). Spells such as cure wounds and spare the dying which restore hit points or preserve life, and normally don’t affect constructs, function as if you were a humanoid.

Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and one other language of your choice.

[vinegar-on-main]

Some naive people thought the phyrexians were peaceful, turns out those were already on their side long before they invaded.

Phyrexian Walker

“I have heard terrible tales of black rains, ashen fields, and metal that screams. I have consoled myself that the tales were a myth of some fevered mind. But today I saw a walker—and now I fear the truth.” —Kasib Ibn Naji, Letters

Artist: Bryan Talbot TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

[markrosewater]

I know the Phyrexians are gone (sorta), but what are the chances of seeing Proliferate coming back in maybe a standard set? It's always been my favorite mechanic and hopefully one day I'll get to see a Legendary creature in Grixis that Proliferates

Proliferate was in War of the Spark proving it can coexist without the Phyrexians.

It’s well beloved. I assume it will return one day.

[justicefortyvarkell]

Chapter 1 of Duskmourn story posted today. Highlights and spoilers under the break.

- Having a description of suburbia in Magic feels so strange. Especially with the family feeling like they pulled the Deetzes straight from Beetlejuice.

- Kaito and Emperor with bonus Yoshimaru. Is this the good boy's official magic story debut?

- Duskmourn is very interesting in concept. A parasitic plane that sends out its feelers to abduct people into the house through doors that shouldn't be there. Wonder if this is only a recent result of the Phyrexian invasion or if it's been going on since the house took over Duskmourn. Also makes me wonder if Duskmourn is a transient plane like Shandalar, moving through the multiverse.

- Tyvar, my beloved. First himbo in our hearts.

- Niko being desparked sucks to hear but also seems kind of inevitable. I don't know how they polled with the audience during first Kaldheim, but I always liked them.

- "why is that man not wearing a shirt?"

- I hadn't considered before the story dropped how much Niko and Aminatou might be at odds due to their very core character differences. Surprising that Niko has heard of Aminatou though. I always imagined Aminatou as more obscure even in the world of plainswalkers.

- Aminatou has checkpoint powers. Weird use of bending fate, but okay.

- Proft present, barely.

[hyde-the-toad-bard]

Was talking with a friend and realized that Kellan is taking Eldraines storybook vibes with him. In Wilds of Eldraine, we see Kellan and pals journey through a bunch of well trodden fairytales to, say it with me folks, save the kingdom under a terrible spell.

He then goes to Ixalan and goes on a cave diving treasure hunt.

He then goes to Ravnica and runs smack dab into a murder mystery.

Now he's going to Thunder Junction to pull off a heist.

Even in planes without Kellans involvement, he is indicative of the new tone. Bloomburrow is just the secret of nimh but with a lightning otter(Ral Zarek my beloved)

Kellan is the centerpiece of a bunch of stock episodes wherever he goes, and honestly, I kinda vibe with the interdimensional tourism angle mtg is going for after the phyrexian invasion.

It's a weird shift in tone after all this time with the phyrexian invasion, but I like goofy shit like this so I'm cool with it.

[fierceawakening]

Wanted to revisit this when more awake. (Please take this as me pondering, not criticizing.)

No, English doesn't conjugate future tense in the verb itself. But we do have a future tense MARKER, "will" or "shall."

Tense in Phyrexian is similarly not conjugated in the verb. It's in the mood marker, which is pretty similar except at the front of the sentence rather than next to the verb.

So I was Ass U Ming that we'd get future the same way we get present and past.

(Future Declarative) Fierce go toward store.

But you're probably right that one could get the idea across with:

(Declarative) Fierce tomorrow go toward store.

So I can see leaving it out.

Soooo the contents of the Phyrexian Language Journal thingo got leaked and of course I looked at them because KNOWLEDGE MUST CONSUME

and there are a few new vocab words, huzzah

(also bafflingly no future tense? I guess you use conditional present for that? or maybe jussive even? I must go to the store? hm)

anyway

one of them is "defile/defiler"

raise your hands/tentacles/clicky metallic appendages if my new blog banner should be WE ARE NOT DEFILED

[hazel2468]

Okay this is apparently a Magic theory blog now. But I just gotta...

I'm talking with the wifey. About the most recent side story, the Ravnica one. And I simply MUST present my theories about Jace, Vraska, and how Norn is a fucking IDIOT.

Spoilers for March of the Machines, but it's been out for a couple of days now so. If you haven't read it yet, tough tiddies.

Okay. My Theory.

Jace is playing Norn like a fiddle, and he saved Vraska.

Jace ALWAYS has a plan. Always. He doesn't leave things to chance- he's just like that. There's precedence for him preserving his mind in the face of some altering or possessing influence (see what happened with Emrakul, where he created a little mental "safe house" for himself. Also see what happened with Vraska- little mental "safe house" for her). Jace is NOT the kind of person who would go to fight the Phyrexians, knowing he might get Compleated, and not have a plan to preserve his mind. I think that, combined with the fact that he was fucking stabbed with a sword made of fucking HALO, makes a pretty good case for Jace being more himself than Norn would want him to be.

Not to mention the whole bit where he just. Dips before Norn gives him any orders. We see in the chapter that Norn is assuming that he already knows what she wants... But we have also seen that Elesh Norn's biggest weakness is her hubris. The way she is so assured of her own rightness has consistently been her undoing. It cost her Tamiyo, Ixahel is rebellious. Even Atraxa, Norn's own daughter, is not immune to individual thought and feeling (saw art and had an existential crisis there, didn't you, Atraxa?).

So if Jace is himself, if he isn't under Norn's control as much as he should be, or even at all. If Jace is still purely JACE. What do you think this oh-so-smart-but-still-so-stupid lovesick bisexual man is going to do?

The same thing he did before. Go after his fucking girlfriend.

The entire Ravnica story, from Vraska's perspective, demonstrates that some part of her is preserved. Her mind is safe from Norn's corruption (and I am specifically calling it that because I think the idea that phyresis and Phyrexians are inherently corrupting and evil is stupid, tired, and abelist as well). She persists in there and, when she "dies", she is preserved.

So when Jace showed up, at first? Yeah- I thought Vraska was dying, and she was just giving herself the closure she needed. Getting to spend just a little more time with her beloved, even if it wasn't real.

But then shit started jumping out at me. Vraska's mind was in a place that JACE created for her. Everything seemed too real. There was a moment when Vraska experienced their kiss from Jace's perspective- how could a memory in her head do that? The way that Jace reacted to things she said (asking to make it right, a do-over, another chance)....

And then Jace telling her "this part hurts", like he KNOWS. The explosion of white light instead of what I frankly would have expected from her death, a fading into peaceful darkness.

And all of this was purely wishful thinking-

And then her fucking body vanished. Ral fucked up the oil in her, and then her body was GONE.

So, current running theory in this house?

Vraska's mind, her self, was preserved in the mental safe house that Jace made for her. Something we've seen him do in the past for himself in the face of mind-altering forces. Then, Ral fucked up the Phyrexian oil and that really took Vraska apart. But when she went down, she ACTUALLY spoke to Jace. That vision of Jace in her head was the real Jace, communicating with her while he tried to save her. And as for the flash of white light, well, bare with me here...

Halo. Jace was stabbed with a sword made of Halo, and I think its power might have given him the edge he needed to win over Norn's influence. What if he simply did the same thing to her? "This part hurts"- because Jace KNOWS what it feels like for his Phyrexian body to be flooded with Halo.

I could be wrong. I really hope I'm right. Because if WotC gives us this, saves these two, then there is HOPE for Nissa because holy FUCK if they disrespect the fucking gays again with this one... Normally I would say I find it hard to believe that anyone can build up a relationship's significance like Chandra and Nissa's has and then fuck it up, but WotC has done it once.

[sylvan-librarian]

Nissa’s Pilgrimage Part 2: Duels of the Dual Origins

Time for another deranged essay about Nissa. Last time, I wrote about my own attachment to the character (which hopefully explains why the hell I’d go to the trouble of writing an entire essay series about her), but this piece discusses a more practical matter: why was Nissa written into the world of Magic The Gathering in the first place, and what role does she play within the game’s larger narrative? That matter is a little complicated because it involves extensive rewrites and retcons on the part of the story team at Wizards of the Coast.

Nissa Revane was introduced as a character in a video game first: Duels of the Planeswalkers, which was released on the Xbox 360 (an ancient relic of a bygone era) in June of 2009, a few months before Nissa’s initial appearance as card in the first Zendikar set, which hit shelves in October 2009. According to the Voice for Vorthos panel at Pax Prime 2015, the designers of Duels of the Planeswalkers needed a face character for their black/green elf deck, centered around the way elves were presented in Lorwyn (read: racists). Since no existing planeswalker fit the mold, the design team, according to Jeremy Jarvis, created this “kind of a villainous, you know, hardcore, staunch xenophobic person that would run this elf deck. That was the need for her; that’s how she was created. She was visually meant to be slightly off-putting; it’s why she doesn’t have eyebrows and her eyes are just these solid green orbs.” This was Nissa’s introduction, and it was how she was presented in Magic’s overarching lore from her introduction in 2009 all the way to Magic Origins in 2015. After some cursory digging through the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, I found Nissa’s original blurb on Magic’s website, circa 2011:

Her planar travels have taken her to other places where elves thrive or even rule, such as the sunny world of Lorwyn. There she met elves who fully embraced their role as the pinnacle of nature, using both life magic and its shadow to assert their primacy.

Yikes.

Further insights into Nissa’s original personality can be found in the 2010 novel Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum, which recounts Nissa’s journey to Eye of Ugin with Sorin Markov and the vampire Anowon and Nissa’s subsequent release of the Eldrazi Titans. In this particular scene, for example, Nissa explains to her vampire companions that all “‘elves receive power from the land. We do not need to cut and hack and burn as humans do.’ She looked from Sorin to Anowon. ‘You are all, human and vampire, suckers of life. You are the same in our eyes.’” Later on, we get Nissa’s thoughts on goblins. Despite her previous protestations, she starts to warm up to her vampire ally Anowon, who thus far has been nabbing goblins every few days in order to feed on them; Nissa rationalizes his actions this way: “He was a vampire after all—a merciless vampire. He could not be trusted. On the other hand, he had conducted himself fairly, and who could blame him for feeding on the goblins, who were, after all, barely lifeforms. They were not children of the forest, but rather opportunists of the stone and dell.”

…barely lifeforms.

Yikes again.

Needless to say, there was little to like about Nissa’s original presentation in Magic fiction. Aside from how poorly written she is in Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum (on top of being xenophobic, she is also presented as belligerently naive and an incompetent leader), there is simply nothing fascinating about a stupid racist. Many other villains in Magic’s lore are beloved and have countless fans of their own: Bolas, the Phyrexian Praetors, and even Nissa’s mortal enemies, the Eldrazi Titans themselves, are fun to like, depending on personal preference. Their villainy is so overblown and impossible that it’s easy to suspend our disbelief and just enjoy the fictional mayhem for what it is. However, in our current cultural climate where stupid racists have spent the last decade driving the world closer and closer to hell, the original Nissa’s brand of villainy just isn’t very fun to engage with

However, Nissa’s presentation in Magic’s lore did a complete 180 between 2014 and 2015, retconning nearly all of her villainy and transforming her blatant, remorseless xenophobia into a simple distrust of outsiders and a desperation to protect her home. Her motivations of seeing “elves at the pinnacle of nature” was completely erased from her background entirely, replacing it with a respect for all life, and her magic, which was previously tied to summoning and buffing elves and elves only, became inexorably tied to the land and its leylines.

Readers wouldn't receive the full retcon of Nissa’s backstory until “Nissa’s Origin: Home” was released in the summer of 2015, but we did get a glimpse of who Nissa would eventually become in the 2014 story “Nissa, Worldwaker,” a piece of webfiction revealed in tandem with her card of the same name during the preview season for the 2015 Core Set. It’s interesting to note that at this time in Nissa’s development, the story team appears to keep Nissa’s old self largely intact; instead of simply erasing the rough edges of her backstory like the Magic Origins retcon would, it seemed at the time like “Nissa, Worldwaker” was supposed to be the beginning of Nissa’s redemption arc. For example, look at the opening blurb at the very beginning of the story:

The elf Planeswalker Nissa Revane has led a difficult life. She's been exiled from her tribe, the Joraga, on more than one occasion, and becoming a Planeswalker set her even further apart. She traveled to different worlds, seeking to understand the nature of elves' responsibility toward nature, but she always returned to her home plane of Zendikar. Whatever peace she managed to find for herself came to an end with the rising of the monstrous Eldrazi. These vast, interplanar beings, devourers of entire worlds, had been imprisoned on Zendikar millennia before. Desperate to save her world, Nissa broke the lock that kept the Eldrazi on Zendikar. Her hope was that the Eldrazi, freed of their confines, would travel out into the Multiverse. Their threat would spread, but Zendikar would be saved. It didn't work. At least one of the three Eldrazi titans remains on Zendikar, threatening all life on the plane with annihilation. Nissa stayed to fight the Eldrazi, but she fears it's hopeless. To defeat the monstrosities that assault the plane, all of Zendikar would have to fight as one…

Notice that while the story is clearly setting Nissa on a new path, it doesn’t deny what her character was previously, nor does it deny that the events that took place in Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum did in fact happen the way they were originally reported. In “Nissa, Worldwaker,” we are presented with a Nissa a few years after she naively set the Eldrazi free, broken by her endless fight with Ulamog’s brood and wracked with tremendous guilt from the actions she took at the Eye of Ugin. 

The story opens with Nissa getting rescued by a human man named Hamadi after Ulamog completely annihilates Nissa’s Joraga clan down to, apparently, Nissa herself. Her first reaction upon waking up in her savior’s tent shows that much of her old xenophobia still remains: “‘Where am I?’ Nissa said. Mistrust everyone. Even though the human saved her, the old Joraga instincts remained. She felt vulnerable, naked under the furs, and she knew her full power was a long way from returning.” Nissa and Hamadi later talk about this with each other: how nearly all the civilizations of Zendikar were isolated and separated from each other, and it took the rise of the Eldrazi to bring them together. 

Then, Nissa listens as Hamadi begins to tell her about the destruction of his home and his people, and it’s here we begin to see Nissa’s transformation; as she listens to Hamadi’s stories, 

a growing ache welled up within her body and lodged itself in her throat. She was responsible for all of it, all his loss and all of Zendikar's devastation. Hamadi had pulled her, a Joraga elf, from certain death. He had risked his life and had saved hers. And she was the cause. Dark memories started to crawl into Nissa's mind from all the worst places. All her failures, her foolish choices, her selfishness and arrogance, poured into her gut like a lead weight. She became tangled in the web of her past that was filled with the bodies of a thousand innocents who had fallen to the Eldrazi. She could have saved them all.

This is the most important section of “Nissa, Worldwaker” for the character’s burgeoning growth, but this story also shows readers something else: the transformation of Nissa’s magic. Nissa’s first card, Nissa Revane was a planeswalker that cared only for elves, and all of her story appearances have shown this narratively. However, with Nissa, Worldwaker, we are given a card with a completely altered skill set. In this card, Nissa animates lands into creatures that fight for the player and untaps lands to symbolize how her deep connection to the land can generate a near endless amount of mana. While I assume the primary reason for this shift in Nissa’s skillset was due to the team’s desire to explore a new design space, the story, “Nissa, Worldwaker” also tries to explain this shift narratively; by rejecting her former tribalism and xenophobia and embracing all life on Zendikar, Nissa unlocks the might and the loyalty of the land itself. This is driven home by Hamadi revealing that the nickname he has been calling Nissa throughout the story, “Shaya,” means Worldwaker.

While this created an interesting setup for future Nissa stories, Magic’s story team clearly decided that Nissa’s previous way of life (read: racism) made her unsuitable to be a hero of Magic the Gathering, so they instead opted to retcon her entire backstory as a part of making her one the iconic five planeswalkers for their Magic Origins initiative. At the time, Wizards of the Coast announced that they would be getting rid of the yearly standard set release model they had been using - two three-set blocks and a core set per year - opting instead for three two set blocks per year and no core set at all. Forecasting deeper, more focused storytelling, Magic Origins was marketed as being the “final'' core set while also introducing revised backstories of five planeswalkers who would be the focus of Magic storytelling for the foreseeable future: Gideon Jura, Jace Beleren, Liliana Vess, Chandra Nalaar, and Nissa Revane. 

While a handful of the other stories in the Magic Origins arc simply revised certain elements to make these characters more palatable to readers - Chandra’s for example - Nissa’s revised backstory, “Nissa’s Origin: Home,” reworked the character from the ground up, completely erasing from the narrative much of her characterization in Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum and elsewhere, and even bringing into question the canonicity of the redemption arc forecasted the previous year in “Nissa, Worldwaker.” 

In the original canon, Nissa embraced the xenophobia and tribalism of the austere Joraga tribe, and she was only truly ostracized when she became a planeswalker. In the new canon, Nissa spent her childhood being ostracized by the Joraga because she and her mother were the last of the animists. 

Nissa constantly has nightmares, and the Joraga clan believes that these nightmares are a curse the world of Zendikar has placed on the animists because of some unknown crime. Numa, the chief of the Joraga, tells Nissa’s mother one night after Nissa wakes up screaming and startles the village: “‘Your people angered Zendikar and they paid the price. There is a reason that you are the last of the animists.’” Nissa overhears this, and being young at the time and not knowing any better, she runs away to avoid causing any more trouble for her family.

This sets Nissa on her hero’s journey, where she comes to embrace her burgeoning animist powers, learns that her dreams are not a curse from Zendikar but instead a plea for help, and experiences her first major failure (of many). She journeys to the Akoum mountain range for the first time and finds the mountain where the Eldrazi Titans are imprisoned. Not understanding enough about the threat she is facing, she attempts to reach her consciousness through the mountain and is met with the oppressive, impenetrable, alien mind of Emrakul, the greatest of the Eldrazi Titans. The trauma of realizing she is no match at all for this creature causes her planeswalker spark to ignite and she ends up on Lorwyn.

Here again is where Nissa’s story diverges dramatically from her original background. Originally, Nissa was fascinated by Lorwyn’s fascist elves; as mentioned earlier, we are told that there “she met elves who fully embraced their role as the pinnacle of nature, using both life magic and its shadow to assert their primacy.” In the revised origin from “Home,” Nissa does, in fact, meet Lorwyn’s elves, but she is absolutely horrified by their way of life. After she finds Dwynen’s tribe slaughtering innocent, helpless boggarts simply because they are ugly, she exclaims, “‘There is so much evil … So much darkness already. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it all. It’s horrible. It’s awful.’ Tears welled in her eyes as she thought of her precious Zendikar. ‘Yet you insist on adding more.’” Obviously, this does not go over well with a bunch of elf supremacists, and she is forced to planeswalk back to Zendikar before she gets executed.

And here is where Nissa’s two origins largely converge. Strangely enough, despite Nissa’s characterization as belligerently naive, incompetent, and wildly prejudiced during the events of Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum, nothing in this novel has been officially retconned as of yet. In fact, other than a few flashbacks to show personal growth, Nissa’s life during this time wasn’t addressed in a meaningful way until late 2022 in Magic The Gathering: The Visual Guide. In the small blurb we get about Nissa, we are told:

Joined by the vampire planeswalker Sorin Markov, Nissa journeyed to the Eye of Ugin, the magical control center of the Hedron Network. Nissa’s distrust of vampires ran deep, and she betrayed Sorin by destroying the central hedron—rather than helping him repair it—in the hope that Sorin was lying and the Eldrazi would leave once they were freed. The truth was far worse.

In essence, we are told that the basic events of Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum did in fact happen largely the way we were told they did. Without being instructed otherwise, we can really only assume that the Nissa in the modern canon was probably less incompetent, hateful, and racially prejudiced than what the novel told us. 

But why was Nissa changed so drastically, and what does this mean for us readers and players? The answer to the first question can be found in the Voice for Vorthos panel at PAX Prime 2015. Kimberly Kreines, one of the Magic Story Team’s lead writers at the time, explained:

We want her values to reflect the way we as a company are evolving as well and we want to set ourselves up for the best success with this character moving forward, and so the parts of her personality we chose to preserve, we carefully thought about that, and where we see her evolution going next is, you know, we’re happy with where we are with her right now, and excited, really excited, for the potential of all of these characters.

In other words, Nissa’s shift from a racial supremacist to a shy cinnamon roll was part of a larger shift in the evolution of the Magic Story Team’s values. It’s important to note that Nissa was not the only character whose sharp edges got polished down during the Magic Origins stories. Chandra, for example, had been presented previously as selfish to a fault, not really caring who gets hurt by collateral damage. Jace gets transformed from a mind mage who is more than happy to destroy the minds of basically anyone who gets in his way to someone who only destroys the minds of those who he believes deserves it.

Seen in this context, one can see that the changing culture at Wizards of the Coast pushed their creative minds to ensure that the main characters of their world were more heroic (or at least less terrible) than they had been previously. You can definitely view this through a cynical lens and argue that the protagonists of Magic stories from 2015 and beyond have suffered extreme ‘Disneyfication,’ in that they are now more palatable to a wider audience than the morally gray (at best) way they were presented previously. And the relative backlash at the time reveals that is certainly what many Vorthoses believed. For example, a 2017 article from Hipsters of the Coast argued that Nissa’s change may have been worth it in the end, but that many Vorthoses also had “their confidence shaken” by these abrupt changes to existing lore.

Fast-forward to 2023, however: Magic’s player base is larger than ever, and many of these new players came into the game in a post-Magic Origins world. Nissa’s original story has almost been forgotten. These days, Nissa is mostly known for her relationship with Chandra (more on that later), how she and Chandra’s relationship has been mishandled and botched throughout the years and then, finally, given the respect and honor it deserves (definitely more on that later), and for being a green menace during the both War of the Spark standard season and in the early days of the Pioneer format.

To conclude on a more personal note, I came into Magic the Gathering in 2014, and I fell in love with Nissa’s cards and Nissa’s character during the Magic Origins and Battle for Zendikar stories, so the dramatic shift in Nissa’s character portrayal did not bother me then and still does not today. While an argument can certainly be leveraged against Wizards of the Coast for, at times, sacrificing story quality in an attempt to appeal to a wider audience, I can’t say I see that in the Magic Origins changes to the game’s main cast of characters. From my point of view, Nissa as a complex character - a genuinely good person who has made terrible mistakes then learned from them - is much more interesting and relatable than a Nissa who is a genuinely terrible person (racist) that gets a chance at redemption (realizing that non-elves are people).

If you stuck through this meandering, long-winded nonsense, thanks! I hope you learned something or at the very least found something to enjoy about it. Next time, I will be talking about Nissa during the early days of the Gatewatch story arc, so I hope you are prepared for a lot of…

See you next time!

References

Annelli, J. (2022). Magic The Gathering The Visual Guide. DK Publishing

Byrne, L. (2017), Retcons of Revane, Part II 

Lee, A. (2014) Nissa, Worldwaker

Magic Story Team (2015). Nissa’s Origin: Home  

Magic Story Team (2015). Voice for Vorthos Panel at PAX Prime 2015

Wintermute, R. B. (2010). Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum. Wizards of the Coast

[danco110]

“My tenure here in your workshop has passed, Helm. It is time for me to report back to Elesh Norn.”

The artificer warily eyed the porcelain centurion standing in the doorway. “Is that so, Lance?” Helm muttered.

The other Phyrexian nodded stiffly. “Correct…although, I must admit I am uncertain as to why Norn ordered me to conduct this surprise inspection on your work and subordinates. By my calculations, your efficiency is unmatched throughout the sphere.”

“Yes, well…” Helm droned, “surely our beloved praetor knows better than we.”

“Indeed.”

Just before Lance could turn to leave, there came a loud clattering noise from the back room. Helm’s face fell, as Lance aimed his bladed wrist towards the sound.

“Helm, get behind me.”

Helm pondered his answer for a moment. “No, Lance, I don’t think we’re in any danger.”

As if on cue, another Phyrexian stumbled into view, this one clad in the green augmentations typical of the Hunter’s Maze.

“Oh, Master Helm! I was just trying to test the…leg servos.”

The artificer’s eyes drifted towards Lance and his outstretched weapon.

“You were not present for my personnel count. Identify yourself.”

“My…my name is Mace, sir. I guess you could say I’m here on loan from the Maze…indefinitely.”

Much to Helm and Mace’s surprise, Lance relaxed his arm.

“I was wondering about the Tangle modifications on this workshop’s golems. Be present for the next inspection, or else.”

“I…yes, sir.”

Satisfied with Mace’s answer, Lance nodded and turned to leave, only to be stopped once more, this time by Helm.

“Wait…Against my better judgement, I’ll ask: when are the reprisals coming? For harboring Mace?”

Lance tilted his head. “Reprisals? Don’t be ridiculous. As I said, your workshop’s efficiency is unparalleled.”

“But…Mace? Norn?”

Lance’s head tilted slightly further to the side. “I…see no reason to bother my praetor with the mundane specifics of your operation. Do you?”

“Er…no. Do you have any objections, Mace?”

“No, sir.”

“Good.”

[yourfavepokemontype]

I get the sense you play mtg...who are your fav characters?

I'll be real, most of my faves are just cause they look cool lmao. I only just recently started getting into the lore and story. However! My list is as follows...

THEM THEM I LOVE THEM SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JACE AND VRASKA MY BELOVEDS I'm broke but a store near me has the Jace nendoroid and I NEED IT

SHES MY MOM I LOVE TAMIYO

Genuinely my ideal gender. Green phyrexians in general but Vorinclex is my boy and got disrespected so hard in MotM...

He's a staple in my decks and I cherish him

[ratking-usurper]

They gotta introduce a new Magic, the Gathering villain, for the freaks to thirst over. Im not a phyrexian girly but do like them, Bolas sucks, and my beloved eldritch wife is trapped in the Moon for the forseeable future. Gotta get some new players for the freaks to write hyper analized essays about. Ive read more about Urabrask in the last day than has been written about him in cannon and thats what its all about! WOTC GIVE US NEW FREAKS AND BETTER STORY!

[haileys-dreamland]

You wanna behold some Blessed Perfection?

good god i need phyrexians to look at

[ourlittleforever]

A Knight's Comfort

Ship: Millie / Arvad

Words: 1056

Rating: T

After the Weatherlight's compleation, Arvad returns to his wife.

AKA Arvad deserved more recognition in the story and by god I'm going to fucking give it to him.

The mountains of House Croger's territory stood like eternal guardians, towering above the land and casting a protective shadow over every town. Still, Arvad felt no safety. Guilt consumed him; he glanced over at Raff and Shanna, who, for all their power, were becoming exhausted from the long trek. The travel to House Croger would have gone much easier aboard the Weatherlight. The same Weatherlight that he let fall to the Phyrexians.

He gritted his teeth. Ulaten, Botono, and Anyxni were dead and it was his fault. Velena and Elmegraun, too. He hadn’t been able to stop the Phyrexian slime from claiming them, or in Velena and Elmegraun’s case, turning them into little more than a puddle of viscera. He hadn’t been strong enough.

The gates to House Croger’s estate opened; the green-red glow of Angelfire lanterns cast a sickly glow over the ground. 

Standing with their back to the gate was his beloved wife, Millie. They’d been summoned back to their home to assist in the resistance effort; though they hated to part with the crew, and especially Arvad, Millie had answered the call. Currently, they were directing two other clerics, pointing and explaining some kind of warding magic Arvad couldn’t hope to understand.

The elder of the clerics gestured at the crew, and, at spotting Arvad, looked utterly horrified. The knight averted his eyes, suddenly feeling incredibly small. He’d been so confident, so unshakeable before – now, all he wanted was to disappear.

His gaze lifted when he heard Millie turn, the swish of their skirt giving them away. Their eyes lit up at the sight of him. “Arvad!” they shouted, sprinting to him and leaping into his arms. Arvad caught them effortlessly, and for the first time in days, he felt a shimmer of hope. Millie pressed their little face into his neck and hummed happily. “I missed you,” they said as he set them back down. Millie leaned to the right slightly, looking out the gates of House Croger. Their grin dropped for a fraction of a second at the realization the Weatherlight wasn’t sitting outside. Arvad heard them swallow hard before they took a step back and put on a brave smile. “I’m… I’m so glad you’re safe.”

“Lady Rosecot,” one of the clerics said, “this vampire…”

Millie turned and lifted their left hand, wiggling their fingers to draw attention to their wedding band. “He’s with me, Olfyn,” they said. “Where’d ya think I got the title from?”

Olfyn glanced at the other cleric, then pressed his lips together and sighed. “Yes, of course, my lady. This must be the husband you were always talking about...”

“Yeah. Arvad, Lord Rosecot,” Millie said, sensing Arvad was clearly not in the mood to speak. “Anyway. If you two don’t mind, I’m going to catch up with him. You remember the instructions for the ward, right? Or do I need to write them down?”

“We remember, my lady,” the younger cleric, a stout girl, replied. “You enjoy your time with… with him,” she finished as politely as she could. “If we need you, we’ll send a message.”

“Good.” Millie took Arvad’s hand and tugged on it, tilting their head toward a small cabin. “C’mon.”

His wife turned to him and took both his hands. They took a minute to form their sentence before gingerly asking, “Did you guys park the Weatherlight back farther, or…?”

Arvad glanced at Shanna, who nodded. The vampire followed Millie to the building, which was clearly set up to be the cleric’s base. Their books and scrolls lay about haphazardly, and supplies were left on the tables. The bed was unmade, with their favorite stuffed animal – a small orange cat, gifted to them by Arvad – laying in the middle. Millie’s clean clothes were stacked on top of a chair near the bed. Arvad couldn’t help but smile. The room was so quintessentially Millie in every regard.

Arvad swallowed hard. How was he going to explain this without sounding like an idiot? “It… It’s gone, Millie,” he finally said. “After we dropped you off, the crew found a landfill of Phyrexian garbage. We thought it might hide the Weatherlight as it traveled over Sheoldred’s domain.”

Millie tilted their head slightly as they processed what he had said. Their eyes widened, and a frightened gasp escaped their lips as the weight of the realization hit them. “It’s gone?” they whispered.

“We stopped in Otaria after a battle with a compleated dragon. Shanna, Tiana, and Raff went off to find some source of magic that might help repair the ship. While they were gone, there was…” He choked up. Keep it together. They deserve to know. “There was a problem in the engine room. Botono, Anyxni, and Ulaten – I couldn’t – they were already –”

Arvad squeezed his eyes shut, hot tears burning. Grief became an iron ball in his chest, his ribs suddenly feeling painfully tight. He shook his head, trying to shake off the impending sobs, but it was too late. For the first time since the incident, Arvad cried. His shoulders jerked with the weight of his weeping. 

He felt a soft little hand on his cheek, and Millie turned his face to theirs. Reluctantly, Arvad opened his eyes. Their gaze was so gentle, so understanding, and it somehow made him feel both better and worse. “Hey,” they cooed, wiping away a tear with their thumb. “I’m just glad you’re safe, love.”

Arvad placed his hand over theirs and took a deep, shuddering breath. “Thank you,” he managed to choke out. “I was terrified I’d never see you again.” He pulled Millie against his chest and sighed. The scent of their favorite soap surrounded him, and, combined with their weight in his arms, it was the greatest comfort of all. “I love you, princess,” he murmured. “More than life. You are everything to me.”

“I love you too.” They nuzzled their face into his chestplate. “How about we take a bath? Get you feeling clean again, relaxed.”

“I’d like that. Very much.”

Millie pulled back and tiptoed over to their bathtub, running the water before turning to Arvad with a tiny smile. That little expression, their bright green eyes – it made him remember why he kept fighting. 

He followed them to the tub, a spark of hope igniting in his heart once more.

[big-phyrexia-fan]

phyrexian language panel my beloved

[rojorojo]

I´ve been playing way way to much magic the gathering, I wanted to post cool cards but then I saw a youtube video about how to grow your collection for free and it really worked and now I struggle to keep track of the outside of my  main decks. I´ve settled on my colors, mainly black with a side of and green and/or white. I got the hang of most of the modes but my win rate is about 50%, limited is the most difficult you have to build a deck from cards that I´m not familiar plus it cost in game currency to get in those events so I don’t have a lot of practice, in standard/alchemy i´m bouncing around gold and silver, then there is brawl almost twice as many cards with no repeats and everything revolves around a main gal/guy/creature/entity, the Commander, you can’t get outside of the commander colors.

My main gal is Glissa Herlad of Predation

I was struggling with defense and she is champ, she also can turn aggro really quick when needed. Design wise is cool but no my favorite, the would be my beloved Sheoldred, the Apocalypse

 I tried to put her as a commander but with mono black I was struggling to put lands/mana on the board, that’s like green specialty, I have a couple of sexy black/white vampires that I tried to use but the mana was a problem also, I have a single black/green/white commander but it doesn’t synergize well with vampires and phyrexians and phyrexian vampires. And well, that’s it, this has been an update.