-Reckless Scholar says "Progress comes at a price." Does that sound Phyrexian?
Not really. Phyrexia is an extremely backwards faction that seeks to eliminate all free thought. It's a Lovecraftian theme that basically runs that with great knowledge comes great insanity.
unless there were something sealed in the moon previously it would just make..a giant fleshy moon
Phyrexian oil cannot produce flesh out of thin air. If the moon is 100% silver, the oil's got absolutely nothing at it. Even if it were just common silicate rock (like the real Moon more or less), the oil would not be able to get any purchase on that. In the end, the oil is fairly useless unless there is some life going on already, and if that life incorporates metallic elements, all the better.
-The hanging symbol in Root Out is akin to a Phyrexian symbol mixed with Avacyn's.
Please, not every circle with a stick is a sign of illuminati phyrexia. The letter
is fairly popular in Russian language..rings any bells? Any conspiracy theories? By the way, the Russian translation of the name 'Phyrexia' itself starts with that one. Bingo!
(thx forum admins for not allowing non-Latin characters so I have to resort to images)
It's just some sort of a root/bone attached to her symbol to create a makeshift focus or talisman. It's a reference to what can be best summed up as 'folk' or 'pagan' magic tradition that is ever present on Innistrad. There are numerous cards with similar references in the first INN block.
-Likewise for the symbol on the shield in Ethereal Guidance.
Not only is it a ridge in the middle of the shield (which actually makes sense - it makes the shield more resilient), but the entire idea of that card is the opposite of what you suggest. It is meant to represent untainted Avacynian faith, a remnant of the old guard of Cathars being protected by Saint Traft in opposition to the recent madness. It is supposed to show an unwarped symbol.
The Jace-League couldn't beat, let alone touch Yawgmoth.
1. Jaya was weaker than Urza, that was always known. And if Urza can't defeat the Phyrexian Army on his own then clearly Jaya cannot.
Jaya was a mortal spellcaster, which probably put some limit on the amount of mana she could potentially channel, even if given access to a large 'mana pool'. This leads me to another question, btw: why have pretty much nobody in MTG lore across the planes develop some sort of mana amplifier that would allow a person to channel excessive amounts of mana without damaging themselves? Something akin to a Sa'angreal from WoT, that both protects the channeler and increases his capacity. Urza had thousands of years to come up with something, is he not an artificer, in the end?
Sure, Izzet have their over-engineered manapunk gizmos, but they don't seem to be overly useful.
3. Karn can't cure Mirrodin/Argentum. He cannot cure original Phyrexia. He left Elspeth and Koth on Mirrodin to go and find other planes which he inadvertently infected to prevent them from going out of control.
That's because (a) Mirrodin is completely metallic and is, thus, uniquely susceptible to Phyrexian corruption, and (b) because Karn is fairly clueless on how the oil works and how it can be disrupted or eradicated. He could probably come up with something if he put enough effort into researching Phyrexia, but for all the fancy magic that we come across I've yet to see a functional microscope be mentioned anywhere in MTG lore. Do you see now what all that fancy magic can do to you? Even the 'sophisticated' societies like Esper are more or less techno-barbarians.
5. The war wasn't waged just on Dominaria. It was waged all over the multiverse from Rath, Serra's plane, Phyrexia and Dominaria. Urza and the Titans attacked Phyrexia in hopes to wipe out their armies. It didn't quite work, although they did suceed in wiping out most life on the outer spheres.
They succeeded in totally annihilating all spheres using Soul Bombs, and, on top of that, the plane will quickly collapse without the maintenance Yawgmoth could provide. It was in a bad shape anyways since the death of its actual creator. IIRC it was outright stated in the Thran book that the plane had merely years before collapse if left unattended. How long has it been since Apocalypse, centuries? Old Phyrexia had gone the way of Serra's realm by now.
While I agree that the FIRES OF FRIENDSHIP is a new low in Magic storytelling, I'm not getting the fanboi support of Phyrexia, either. It is just as much of an overpowered gimmick plot hole as the whole Eldrazi thing. Magical plague that infects anything living or dead to kill them within minutes and turn them into ravenous undead monstrosity etched with metal and tubes that just coalesced from thin air? Terraforming entire landscapes into mires of black goo that is actually a sophisticated alien nano machine (or have they retconned it)?
Does it also serve you hot coffee in bed by chance? It's an even more obnoxious example of bad storytelling. Boo wooo, phyrexia stronk, fear phyrexia cuz its stronk. Surely, the story might need a powerful antagonist to force the heroes to get their act together..but the implementation leaves much to be desired. They have never even provided believable explanation for where the Phyrexians got all of that fancy tech, either.
To be reasonable, the Weatherlight crew did unload the Null Moon's accumulated mana on Yawgmoth and that hurt him. So a plane-powered fireblast might do something (but does it have to be white mana?).
Yawgmoth might possess godlike powers on his own plane, but he is just a superpowered sorcerer loaded with black mana everywhere else.
I'm offended by the entire idea of people spending their lives believing something not only clearly fictional, but a fictional entity designed specifically to control the masses. What now, should we remove any reference of religion from every product since it's clearly not 'politically correct' to exclude a group of people like orthodox atheists? Or should we rewrite history removing all accounts of religion, belief and associated cultural values from it?
Something worthwhile does not need to be protected from 'offense' by a fictional character name in a card game. Maybe if neo nazis started killing people specifically to despise maori culture that would be something. Law suits over a random name coincidence? A capricious and immature statement from a religious group feeling entitled to control what they can while shoving their beliefs in your face.
I understand people who think of it as a sign of respect, but denying creativity and freedom on artistic expression over a bunch of disgruntled people stuck in the middle of nowhere has its limits. Especially if the only reason those people are disgruntled is because they can get a bunch of bucks from the court.
The game does not check any characteristics other than the one specified in the effect. It's irrelevent wether the spell is an enchantment, a sorcery, an instant or lacks any type at all. It's only checked if it is a creature. If it is not, it's countered by Negate. Whatever else it is.
I could fit hundreds of thousands of Azeroths into Russia. There would not even be any need to fight them. They would get hopelessly lost and suicide, incapable of bearing the gloom and desolation of endless uninhabitad wastelands that is my country. It's not even close.
Fun fact: If you drown every human in the world in lake Baikal, its water level will rise by 30 centimeters.
You are so outraged at some dudes bringing in a couple of fish to fight for sports? Thankfully you don't live in Russia. Here people would rather bring some ethnical minority guys to fight for sport. Or much rather just beat them down for sport in a backstreet or somewhere.
It's even surprisingly heroic and optimistic in spite of the inevitable doom.
Now guess what is the problem with Zendikar and eldrazi. My point still holds, they diminished a true Lovecraftian horror to something much less deep, gloomy and engaging. They have done better when they did not have such a developed and recognized canon as a theme for an entire block.
This is, by the way, exactly the true meaning of 'grimdark' meme - a solid and adult theme devolved into a hollow show-off targeted at the audience who know nothing of struggle, suffering and deprivation or any other mature themes that may have been raised.
Honestly, the lore lately (since the mirari saga and mirrodin 1.0 I think) has become shallow and inconsequential. The problem is not even in the actual representation of lore on cards or in books, that's a whole other problem. The root of the problem lies in current lore rotating around the poster boy planeswalkers with no character development to speak of and who generally posess nothing valuable for lore development. Not only does this make their stories boring, low quality generic fantasy writing, but also shifts the focus from the actual world-building and world-centric problems to spotlighting the new 'superheroes' of the lore, who are just there to attract the teen audience with the boobs on shiny product cover.
Even the new (not so new actually..) system of getting one brand new world for each block is not that detrimental to the lore. Lorwyn could have been a fine example of a world building done right. The problem is, again, that 'good guys won', thus voiding any emotional engagement with that world. Imagine what would Lorwyn/Shadowmoor be should the twisted Aurora cycle remain unchanged? A double faced nightmarish world where all of the sentient beings live hollow lifes, haunted by the memories of their souls from the other side? All of the elder beings who actually live long enough to witness the changing of day and night slowly going insane from their visions and memories from the other 'half' of the world? Shadowmoor block was also..not even grim, or gritty, or gloomy, but it had a certain feeling of inevitability about it, which is nowhere to be found in the recent sets, but quite evident in cards like Mass Calcify or Hallowed Burial.
This would even lay the basis of a future return to lorwyn set. Leaving problems to be solved and some, let's call it 'entry points' for the actual story to be set, like the fae actually having their own agenda and some control over what is happening out there. This would still be vastly different from the current state of Zendikar since the conflict of Lorwyn would be much more emotionally engaging and we would have some material to connect to, unlike an entire plane filled with violent mana storms and rampant tentacle monsters. The eldrazi look a little..cheap, and all of this eldrazi-hype OH GODZ TENTACLED WORLD CONSUMING MONSTERS W R DUUMD smells of cheap superhero fantasy aimed at 13-15 audience like warhammer 40k. And the fact that the storyline just took a several year break from it diminishes our emotional involvement even more and is even more reminiscent of the already mentioned w40k, where in 20 or so years of product development the lore hardly moved a year or two.
Typical boxes in Russia are officially retailed at like 180-220$ per box, depending on the set, I think. Has been long since I checked the official shops.
upd: I checked some shops and they list a theros booster box at like 250-280$ nominal price with 'discounts' bringing the actual price into 190-210$ range. They also blatantly raise prices on anything that has any value to be opened in the packs. AR boxes are still in like 320$ range..
The second catered to anyone who sacked lands and wanted to play them. Retrace and cycling come to mind.
It would be folly to think that Crucible was designed targeting the people who wanted to abuse land recursion. In fact, Wizards did not even fathom it could be happening when they were printing it. It was designed as a totally casual way to counter land destruction (a totally casual strategy already by then). Should they anticipate it being used in competitive decks in constructed and actually being a build around card for certain strategies they would have probably costed it at cmc 6 or above.
In fact the success of Crucible is only due to wizards not caring about their contest to such a degree that they did not bother to check if their new 'casual ld counter' card is going to be used ANYWHERE. They just defaulted it to a trash casual rare status and were done with it. No thought process, no analysis, nothing. Can't be bothered with that on an overhyped fan contest, I guess.
It's a bit funny to see how "where is modern headed?" has turned into a big price discussion thread...
No it is not. Actually it goes a long way of telling something is way off with the business model of Wizards when all of the formats are affected detrimentally by singles pricing. Sure Wizards may be optimizing their revenues more or less, but in recent years this seems to alway come at the expense of player experience, which is a slippery slope to walk. On one hand they dumb the game down to cater to the casual masses, but at the same time the disparity between an average casual player and an average competitive player increases, and the competitve staples and their price tags are the cornerstone of the problem. Wizards create more and more barriers of entry into the competitive scene, thus preventing many of those casuals from making a larger involvement with their game and ultimately driving them off. Which is because casual magic holds no competition to casual PC or console games, or traditional activities. Plain and simple.
While this may be leveraged somewhat in standard since it mostly consists of cards in actual limited pools (still getting problems like the whole 'second set' issue), but if wotc are pushing eternal formats they need to pay heed to the card availibility.
There is something WAY off when the developer and publisher of the game caters to the minority of collectors who see MTG as an investment while leaving actual players who play the game with the short end of the stick. And I'm not even talking about the MSRP and retail shops, which is a whole other issue, I'm talking about individual collectors and traders who provide nothing to Wotc. The whole reserved list philosophy, for instance, only goes to support that tiny group of not players nor wotc customers.
.. of course they are. Do you really think that a format that rotates every year should cost the same to play as a format that doesn't rotate, whose only concern is new cards obsoleting your current cards, and bannings?
I think that singles market provides no direct profits to wizards WHAT-SO-EVER and very marginal indirect profits at best. Thus, actually making the cards more accessible and bringing masses of players into the game looks like the better solution, given the recent attention to TCGs and similar geeky hobbies overall.
The real issue is that wotc are not ready to handle a larger scale of their game due to their outdated infrastructure (all Hasbro holdings are notorious for this) and inability to handle larger print runs and logistics, but really, wotc, time to step up your business.
Wizards really need to step up their efforts in leveling the price tags across the decks and formats. While MTG has always been on the expensive side of tabletop hobbies, the prices on many staples got out of control. Dropping around 1k $ on a competitive deck is way above what most players are ready to do. They need to print MM2 with an actual print run comparable to a september large set (or larger) and include most of the overpriced staples in it.
They should also do away with the mythic rare rarity to preserve the health of the entire game, but that's obviously not going to happen.
Not really. Phyrexia is an extremely backwards faction that seeks to eliminate all free thought. It's a Lovecraftian theme that basically runs that with great knowledge comes great insanity.
Phyrexian oil cannot produce flesh out of thin air. If the moon is 100% silver, the oil's got absolutely nothing at it. Even if it were just common silicate rock (like the real Moon more or less), the oil would not be able to get any purchase on that. In the end, the oil is fairly useless unless there is some life going on already, and if that life incorporates metallic elements, all the better.
Please, not every circle with a stick is a sign of
illuminatiphyrexia. The letteris fairly popular in Russian language..rings any bells? Any conspiracy theories? By the way, the Russian translation of the name 'Phyrexia' itself starts with that one. Bingo!
(thx forum admins for not allowing non-Latin characters so I have to resort to images)
It's just some sort of a root/bone attached to her symbol to create a makeshift focus or talisman. It's a reference to what can be best summed up as 'folk' or 'pagan' magic tradition that is ever present on Innistrad. There are numerous cards with similar references in the first INN block.
Not only is it a ridge in the middle of the shield (which actually makes sense - it makes the shield more resilient), but the entire idea of that card is the opposite of what you suggest. It is meant to represent untainted Avacynian faith, a remnant of the old guard of Cathars being protected by Saint Traft in opposition to the recent madness. It is supposed to show an unwarped symbol.
Jaya was a mortal spellcaster, which probably put some limit on the amount of mana she could potentially channel, even if given access to a large 'mana pool'. This leads me to another question, btw: why have pretty much nobody in MTG lore across the planes develop some sort of mana amplifier that would allow a person to channel excessive amounts of mana without damaging themselves? Something akin to a Sa'angreal from WoT, that both protects the channeler and increases his capacity. Urza had thousands of years to come up with something, is he not an artificer, in the end?
Sure, Izzet have their over-engineered manapunk gizmos, but they don't seem to be overly useful.
Is there an actual source for this? I'm fairly certain that Phyrexian compleation is just handwaved in the 'canon' we have from WOTC.
That's because (a) Mirrodin is completely metallic and is, thus, uniquely susceptible to Phyrexian corruption, and (b) because Karn is fairly clueless on how the oil works and how it can be disrupted or eradicated. He could probably come up with something if he put enough effort into researching Phyrexia, but for all the fancy magic that we come across I've yet to see a functional microscope be mentioned anywhere in MTG lore. Do you see now what all that fancy magic can do to you? Even the 'sophisticated' societies like Esper are more or less techno-barbarians.
They succeeded in totally annihilating all spheres using Soul Bombs, and, on top of that, the plane will quickly collapse without the maintenance Yawgmoth could provide. It was in a bad shape anyways since the death of its actual creator. IIRC it was outright stated in the Thran book that the plane had merely years before collapse if left unattended. How long has it been since Apocalypse, centuries? Old Phyrexia had gone the way of Serra's realm by now.
Does it also serve you hot coffee in bed by chance? It's an even more obnoxious example of bad storytelling. Boo wooo, phyrexia stronk, fear phyrexia cuz its stronk. Surely, the story might need a powerful antagonist to force the heroes to get their act together..but the implementation leaves much to be desired. They have never even provided believable explanation for where the Phyrexians got all of that fancy tech, either.
Yawgmoth might possess godlike powers on his own plane, but he is just a superpowered sorcerer loaded with black mana everywhere else.
Something worthwhile does not need to be protected from 'offense' by a fictional character name in a card game. Maybe if neo nazis started killing people specifically to despise maori culture that would be something. Law suits over a random name coincidence? A capricious and immature statement from a religious group feeling entitled to control what they can while shoving their beliefs in your face.
I understand people who think of it as a sign of respect, but denying creativity and freedom on artistic expression over a bunch of disgruntled people stuck in the middle of nowhere has its limits. Especially if the only reason those people are disgruntled is because they can get a bunch of bucks from the court.
Fun fact: If you drown every human in the world in lake Baikal, its water level will rise by 30 centimeters.
Such daily life. Very inspiring.
Now guess what is the problem with Zendikar and eldrazi. My point still holds, they diminished a true Lovecraftian horror to something much less deep, gloomy and engaging. They have done better when they did not have such a developed and recognized canon as a theme for an entire block.
This is, by the way, exactly the true meaning of 'grimdark' meme - a solid and adult theme devolved into a hollow show-off targeted at the audience who know nothing of struggle, suffering and deprivation or any other mature themes that may have been raised.
Even the new (not so new actually..) system of getting one brand new world for each block is not that detrimental to the lore. Lorwyn could have been a fine example of a world building done right. The problem is, again, that 'good guys won', thus voiding any emotional engagement with that world. Imagine what would Lorwyn/Shadowmoor be should the twisted Aurora cycle remain unchanged? A double faced nightmarish world where all of the sentient beings live hollow lifes, haunted by the memories of their souls from the other side? All of the elder beings who actually live long enough to witness the changing of day and night slowly going insane from their visions and memories from the other 'half' of the world? Shadowmoor block was also..not even grim, or gritty, or gloomy, but it had a certain feeling of inevitability about it, which is nowhere to be found in the recent sets, but quite evident in cards like Mass Calcify or Hallowed Burial.
This would even lay the basis of a future return to lorwyn set. Leaving problems to be solved and some, let's call it 'entry points' for the actual story to be set, like the fae actually having their own agenda and some control over what is happening out there. This would still be vastly different from the current state of Zendikar since the conflict of Lorwyn would be much more emotionally engaging and we would have some material to connect to, unlike an entire plane filled with violent mana storms and rampant tentacle monsters. The eldrazi look a little..cheap, and all of this eldrazi-hype OH GODZ TENTACLED WORLD CONSUMING MONSTERS W R DUUMD smells of cheap superhero fantasy aimed at 13-15 audience like warhammer 40k. And the fact that the storyline just took a several year break from it diminishes our emotional involvement even more and is even more reminiscent of the already mentioned w40k, where in 20 or so years of product development the lore hardly moved a year or two.
upd: I checked some shops and they list a theros booster box at like 250-280$ nominal price with 'discounts' bringing the actual price into 190-210$ range. They also blatantly raise prices on anything that has any value to be opened in the packs. AR boxes are still in like 320$ range..
It would be folly to think that Crucible was designed targeting the people who wanted to abuse land recursion. In fact, Wizards did not even fathom it could be happening when they were printing it. It was designed as a totally casual way to counter land destruction (a totally casual strategy already by then). Should they anticipate it being used in competitive decks in constructed and actually being a build around card for certain strategies they would have probably costed it at cmc 6 or above.
In fact the success of Crucible is only due to wizards not caring about their contest to such a degree that they did not bother to check if their new 'casual ld counter' card is going to be used ANYWHERE. They just defaulted it to a trash casual rare status and were done with it. No thought process, no analysis, nothing. Can't be bothered with that on an overhyped fan contest, I guess.
No it is not. Actually it goes a long way of telling something is way off with the business model of Wizards when all of the formats are affected detrimentally by singles pricing. Sure Wizards may be optimizing their revenues more or less, but in recent years this seems to alway come at the expense of player experience, which is a slippery slope to walk. On one hand they dumb the game down to cater to the casual masses, but at the same time the disparity between an average casual player and an average competitive player increases, and the competitve staples and their price tags are the cornerstone of the problem. Wizards create more and more barriers of entry into the competitive scene, thus preventing many of those casuals from making a larger involvement with their game and ultimately driving them off. Which is because casual magic holds no competition to casual PC or console games, or traditional activities. Plain and simple.
While this may be leveraged somewhat in standard since it mostly consists of cards in actual limited pools (still getting problems like the whole 'second set' issue), but if wotc are pushing eternal formats they need to pay heed to the card availibility.
There is something WAY off when the developer and publisher of the game caters to the minority of collectors who see MTG as an investment while leaving actual players who play the game with the short end of the stick. And I'm not even talking about the MSRP and retail shops, which is a whole other issue, I'm talking about individual collectors and traders who provide nothing to Wotc. The whole reserved list philosophy, for instance, only goes to support that tiny group of not players nor wotc customers.
I think that singles market provides no direct profits to wizards WHAT-SO-EVER and very marginal indirect profits at best. Thus, actually making the cards more accessible and bringing masses of players into the game looks like the better solution, given the recent attention to TCGs and similar geeky hobbies overall.
The real issue is that wotc are not ready to handle a larger scale of their game due to their outdated infrastructure (all Hasbro holdings are notorious for this) and inability to handle larger print runs and logistics, but really, wotc, time to step up your business.
They should also do away with the mythic rare rarity to preserve the health of the entire game, but that's obviously not going to happen.