Pattern Recognition #63 - Phyrexia, Part 2

Features Opinion Pattern Recognition

berryjon

5 April 2018

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Hello everyone! My name is berryjon, and I am TappedOut.Net's resident Old Fogey and part-time Smart Ass. And welcome to another edition of Pattern Recognition, a series in which I talk about any subject I want, or which is suggested to me by you, my adoring fans.

So, last week I talked a bit about the history of Phyrexia, how it came to be and how it ended. Today I'm going to talk a but more about what it actually meant to be Phyrexian.

The first subject I will examine is how the physical creation of the first Phyrexians shaped their beliefs. As I mentioned last time, the first Phyrexians were born out of medical treatment for the wasting disease known as Phthisis. This treatment, which involved the ingestion of Glistening Oil in a process called Phyresis, helped the victims of the disease by replacing the infected flesh with uninfectable metal.

This is the first aspect of Phyrexia, one that often gets overlooked in all their other things. Phyrexia is about self-improvement. From its beginning, those who have chosen the path of Phyrexia have done so in order to be better, in order to become more.

In order to become powerful, where once you were weak.

Let me tell you about Ertai, Wizard Adept. This man was a member of the Weatherlight Crew, and during the ship's trip to Rath to rescue Captain Sisay from Volrath the Fallen, he volunteered to stay behind to maintain the stability of the Erratic Portal they would need to leave Rath. Because he was just that awesome, of course. This is the same portal found in the background of his art.

However, when it came time to leave Rath, the Skyship Weatherlight was being pursued by Predator, Flagship, and Ertai found himself on the wrong side of the portal after it closed. He was captured by Commander Greven il-Vec and brought back to Volrath's Stronghold.

There, he met Belbe, a Phyrexian who had been sent to Rath to oversee the selection of a new Evincar for the demi-plane. Because of Ertai's confidence and her growing contact with non-Phyrexians, Belbe offered him the chance to improve himself. In anger at the perceived betrayal and abandonment by Gerrard and the crew of the Weatherlight, and in addition to his growing attraction to Belbe, Ertai agreed.

Now, what I just said was completely disingenuous, and a very bad summary of one of the major plots of the novel and set Nemesis. You see, Ertai's journey into Ertai, the Corrupted wasn't one decision. It wasn't forced on him at any point. It was as series of compromises and advances.

Phyrexia is reason, and this is what makes it so dangerous. Phyrexia is more than willing to sit down and talk with you, not because it's just waiting to dump you in a vat of machine oil to turn you into a zombie, but because Phyrexia is honestly interested in what you want from it. Through Belbe, Phyrexia reasoned with Ertai, finding out what he wanted, what he wasn't willing to give up, and then offering it to him for a price he was willing to pay.

Ertai became Phyrexian through his own willing choice, a series of decisions that were what was best for him.

On the other hand, Phyrexia is equally willing to accept a "No". From the same novel, Belbe makes a similar offer she makes to Ertai to Greven for much the same reason. Do you want power?

Greven, on the other hand, declines. He has seen what the pursuit of power has done to Volrath, as well as Crovax and Ertai as they make their plays for Evincar of Rath. And he wants no part of that. He chooses to be the blade, rather than the hand that wields it, and in service, he sets himself free of Phyrexia.

And Phyrexia accepts his decision. Those who think ill of him and Phyrexia might see it as a case of the dark and ruinous forces of Yawgmoth refusing to have someone who cannot take a stand and become more than they are. Or they could think more highly of them both for respecting his recognition of his limits, and his desire to not give up anything else for Rath and Phyrexia. A strength of self that cannot be improved upon.

Ertai accepts. Greven rejects. And Phyrexia is stronger for both of them.

But Phyrexia is linked inexorably to the will of Yawgmoth. In fact, one can say that Yawgmoth is Phyrexia. Indeed, when Belbe was sent to oversee Rath's new Evincar, she was implanted with a black sphere with which Yawgmoth could directly watch the proceedings, and this was considered quite normal, even a sign of Yawgmoth's favor!

Ywagmoth was worshipped as a God in Phyrexia, and for all intents and purposes, he might as well have been. And with Worship comes Fanatical Devotion. Sorry for using White cards there, but it was the best option. I supposed Warped Devotion might be a nice choice, but it's effect isn't that in line with what I wanted to portray here.

Now, this is where people start to make some poor connections in the way Phyrexia is portrayed. Because of this unity between Yawgmoth and Phyrexia, especially once the Invasion - where a lot of people start to get their information about them - hits.

It is my opinion that it is Yawgmoth's obsession with Dominaria, the Thran and later Urza, that drives the plot of the game for the first few years, and that driving has coloured people's expectations about Phyrexia. Phyrexia is a place of evolution, forced or not, directed or not, but still a place where people seek power for themselves. Not necessarily to rule over others - that's just a perk - but to become individually mighty. They want power, and not just because Yawgmoth offers it.

For Yawgmoth offers power through Phyrexia, but always for a price. And that price is to, in one way or another, to serve him. Yawgmoth's crusade against Dominaria and Urza is something of a tragic thing. You see, it is him that gave life to Phyrexia through his efforts, and that same effort is what killed Phyrexia.

What I'm trying to say here is that while if you were to draw a Venn Diagram of Yawgmoth and Phyrexia, there is a massive, massive amount of overlap. Yet there are slivers where they are not the same thing. Yawgmoth had his obsession, and Phyrexia was more than just being evil cyborgs born from the nightmares of H.R. Geiger.

No, wait, that came later. Never mind.

Outside of Magic, the only fictional group I can think of that really resonates with Phyrexia's philosophy and how they treat non-Phyrexians are the Shadows from Babylon 5. Both groups encourage conflict to better the participants, both are willing to lend their aid to any participant - for a price, and both choose to be quite reasonable about the lines other people have.

Phyrexia, unlike Yawgmoth, isn't a monolithic and dogmatic thing. They can tolerate and encourage differing opinions and internal strife so long as the end result is better for the whole.

And this starts to tie into the last point I want to make about Phyrexia. Of all the colours and all the factions in Magic, even more so than the Guilds of Ravnica and their hybrid mana to show how invested they are in their colour-pairs, Phyrexia is Black.

This is such a fundamental truth to the game that Black and Phyrexia are so intertwined that every Phyrexian card in the game is either Black or an Artifact (the latter thanks to their Thran origins).

is the colour of sacrifice. Black offers greater power at a cost. Now, you can get away with playing Black without using this self-destructive techniques, but when you look at cards like Phyrexian Scuta or even more powerfully, Phyrexian Arena or Phyrexian Boon which explicitly rewards the creature for being Black and punishes it for being not.

Phyrexia and Black are more than willing to offer power. For a price. What are you willing to pay?

That's a short segment, and for that I apologize. But I just wanted to state, for the record that Phyrexia is Black, and while Black as moved away from Phyrexia, the converse isn't true at all.

Because, you see, and here is where I get mad at the sad, horrible, and completely insulting set of New Phyrexia.

First, I would like to direct you to this article from John Dale Beety, over at Star City Games, entitled: Why New Phyrexia Failed Me as he says a few things I agree with. Not everything mind, you but certainly a few things.

You see, Wizards touted New Phyrexia (then known as "Action!" as the return of one of Wizard's great villains. Never mind that it was Yawgmoth who was the Villain. It's like saying that Mordor was the real evil in the Lord of the Rings, and not Sauron (LotR Fans, I apologize for the simplification). And they crafted a wonderful chain of events to show it happening!

New Pyrexia is the result of Memnarch going mad under the influence of the Mycosynth Lattice. The source of the Lattice was a single drop of Glistening Oil that was accidentally included in the construction of the Mirari, which in turn, became Memnarch. This oil came from Karn, Silver Golem after he became a Planeswalker, and before the Mending. Now, for the longest time, I thought that this Oil came from the Invasion, when Karn had abandoned his vows of pacifism in the face of extinction, and instead was killing Phyrexians, and mauled Tsabo Tavoc. But some research indicated that this particular Oil actually came to Karn when he was constructed.

I mentioned last week that Urza was at war with Phyrexia, right? Well, one small aspect of that war was the Phyrexian Newt, Xantcha. A Newt is the lowest caste of Phyrexian, those who are barely Phyrexian, or just beginning the process of Phyresis. Now, Xantcha was being trained as one of Gix's spies, but as Xantcha developed, she discerned that most heretical of thoughts. That perhaps Yawgmoth might not have Phyrexia's best interests in mind. She rebelled, and eventually came into the sevice of Urza, acting as his conscience. For if he could destroy Yawgmoth, then he would stop holding Phyrexia back with his desires.

Xantcha was killed on Dominaria by Gix shortly before his defeat by Urza, and in honor of her sacrifice, Urza took her Heartstone, turned black by her actions, and used that to help give a mind and a soul to Karn, Silver Golem. This is the source of the Glistening Oil. A traitor's heart, held in the chest of killer of Yawgmoth.

New Phyrexia treats Phyrexia as an infection. And I say this not just because of the Infect mechanic. No, rather those who currently rule the plane of Mirroden, the Praetors and the Thanes and all those who serve at their feet, see Phyrexia in a horribly incomplete and offensive manner. That it is something to be spread about, trying to reach every last piece of the plane and make it into Phyrexia, to 'compleat' them.

They are CHILDREN playing DRESSUP with daddy Yawgmoth's clothes, reciting the words and PLAYING the part of Phyrexian without understanding that Phyrexia is an Ideology. It is a choice that each makes. Glissa, the Traitor is no Traitor, not like Ertai or Crovax. She was corrupted by the monsters that rule Mirroden, and had no choice in the matter. She is no traitor.

And yet, to make matters worse, New Phyrexia attempted to show that all colours were Phyrexian. And I don't mean through the banal and poorly designed Phyrexian Mana. I've bitched about that already. White was twisted from 'everyone helps each other' into 'Everyone will be like us'. Blue's desire for knowledge gained Black's inability to be sustainable, and I cheered when Gitaxian Probe got banned. Black lost anything good about itself, instead doubling down on the sacrifice part of its theme. Green's desire for stronger creatures left nature behind and became more and more about what the guiding Preator thought was best, rather than letting nature take its course. Red lost was semblance of self-control it had, or more precisely, stopped caring about who it did or didn't hurt.

PHYREXIA DOESN'T WORK LIKE THAT!

Phyrexia is a state of mind, not a state of body. A single drop of oil does not contain within it the whole of Phyrexia. You can't recreate a monster by a single faint sound heard in the dead of night!

You...

You..!

You know what? I would love to see Gix make a return. I would love for him to fall out of a Temporal Portal here on Modern Dominaria, travel to New Phyrexia, see what is going on there, then show them how a real Phyrexian does things. That's my revenge desire.

Join me next week when I start to look at Dominaria proper, and I'll start with all the cards that didn't make the cut in Time Spiral.

Until then, please consider donating to my Pattern Recognition Patreon. Yeah, I have a job, but more income is always better. I still have plans to do a audio Pattern Recognition at some point, or perhaps a Twitch stream, and you can bribe your way to the front of the line to have your questions, comments and observations answered!