Will WotC Use Phyrexian Mana in a Future Non-Standard Set?
General forum
Posted on July 1, 2021, 8:44 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
Mark Rosewater rated artifact lands as a 10 on the storm scale, meaning that they are very unlikely to return in a standard-legal set, but WotC printed ten new artifact lands in Modern Horizons 2, which is legal in modern, but not standard. Similarly, Rosewater also rated Phyrexian mana as an 8 on the storm scale, but I am hoping that WotC may print new cards with Phyrexian mana in non-standard sets, such as future Commander sets or a potential Modern Horizons 3.
What does everyone else say about this? Will WotC print new cards with Phyrexian mana in a non-standard set?
Technically, they already have, with K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth .
I would be fine if they didn't, though. With time the constructed-playable ones have settled into filling a niche in the metagame but free spells and color pie bleed are pretty dangerous.
I suppose more Phyrexian Mana abilities wouldn't be too bad.
July 1, 2021 9:34 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #4
Grubbernaut, what about cards with multiple colors of Phyrexian mana? I think that that would be a great way to balance their power.
July 1, 2021 9:49 p.m.
DemonDragonJ I disagree that multicolor P-mana will help balance. Dismember is still solid green removal, and Gitaxian Probe is/was the card advantage white needed.
All the same, I'm sure more P-mana cards will show up, but strongly overbalanced. There might be a couple of playable cards, but WotC will lean towards too weak over too strong.
July 1, 2021 10:04 p.m.
Omniscience_is_life says... #6
DemonDragonJ you have many fora about this topic, and every one has been filled with people saying how insane Phyrexian Mana is. Now, I don’t think it’ll never return, but it is a truly broken mechanic that shouldn’t see that much usage at all.
July 2, 2021 12:22 a.m.
Grubbernaut says... #7
There are probably some niche playable commander cards it could work for, but historically, the most "balanced but playable" P-mana card is probably Dismember . And that's a damned good card.
I just don't think it's a good design space for anything other than that.
July 2, 2021 12:36 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #8
For everyone here who is saying that Phyrexian mana is broken and overpowered, how do you explain WotC printing new artifact lands after they had declared those to be broken and overpowered? What about the fact that storm and dredge have returned in non-standard sets, despite being insanely powerful?
July 2, 2021 7:37 a.m.
I'm surprised artifact lands got printed, and I'm waiting for the MH2 lands to break, even with entering tapped.
Dredge is only a significant problem with a bug number; Shenanigans is basically a repeatable Shatter , since Dredge 1 isn't that threatening. The most used Dredge cards are Golgari Thug and Stinkweed Imp , which dredge 4 and 5, and Golgari Grave-Troll is banned in Modern. So this is a case of overbalancing.
There's a similar story with Storm: it's only a problem if it represents a win condition, like Brain Freeze , Tendrils of Agony , Grapeshot , or Empty the Warrens . I don't think too many games have been won or lost on Astral Steel or Reaping the Graves . It depends on the effect it goes with.
July 2, 2021 9:31 a.m.
Phyrexian mana has a problem that Dredge and Storm do not--it is basically free. Life is one of the worst resources in the game--sure, if you run out of it, you have lost, but there is no difference between winning at 1 life versus winning at a hundred.
Phyrexian mana allows you to drop powerful effects either early in the game or when you are otherwise tapped out. And all you have to do is pay a rather insignificant amount of life.
Storm requires you to set up your storm turn, which means investing sufficient resources to try and win the game on the spot. It is a powerful finisher--but it is not an effortless one. Let's also note that Phyrexian mana makes Storm itself worse, since you can free cast spells.
Dredge is also incredibly powerful, but you still have to sink resources into it to cast the dredged card or to benefit from the cards you just milled.
As for Artifact lands, the biggest problem with the original artifact lands was their entering the battlefield untapped. When you take affinity into effect, that means each artifact land was effectively worth two mana... the very turn it was dropped. The new artifact lands might tap for multiple colors of mana, but they still enter the battlefield tapped, greatly reducing their efficacy outside of Affinity for Artifacts, and, even in Affinity, they only become better than a basic on their second turn.
July 2, 2021 11:56 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #11
Caerwyn, what is your opinion of "free" spells such as Force of Will , Pact of Negation , Force of Negation , Fierce Guardianship , or Deflecting Swat ? Are they as unbalanced as is Phyrexian mana?
July 2, 2021 12:15 p.m.
TriusMalarky says... #12
The MH2 Artifact Lands enter tapped. That's big enough to balance them. See, affinity wants busted turn one plays, and these don't allow for that. While they still get busted turn two plays, they aren't able to be nearly as aggressive as they could be with the OG Artifact lands, which prevents the artifact lands from being actually problematic.
Storm requires a ton of support to be good, and even then it still needs a good storm card. You need mana generation of the correct colors, you need good engines to keep casting spells, and you need good enough cantrips for the combo to function. Most of the new storm cards are green and white. White, obviously, has none of the things needed for storm to work. Green doesn't either. The only new storm card that's good as a win con is the Squirrel one, which is hard to make work in Modern, but has been breaking Pauper. I believe they forgot to think of Pauper when making that one. But the rest are totally fine because what they do isn't inherently broken.
Pitch Spells, like Force of Will or the Incarnations, and the Pacts are all fully balanced. They are good because they provide an effect for a significant non-mana cost(or, in the case of pacts, a delayed mana cost) for a playable effect. These are the cards that prevent format warping. Why? Because it's incredibly difficult to justify running them if they don't answer a commonly seen threat, such as way-too-early comboing. The cost is just too great to counter Path to Exile with Force of Negation outside of specific board states.
The commander-based free spells, IMO, are mistakes. They're passable because the commander format is typically 4 players, meaning that whatever you can do, it's probably not better than what 3 players can do. Outside of, say, Hullbreacher+Wheel(breacher needs ban), or the fortunately banned Flickering of Sylvan Primordial , which are better than what 3 other players can do.
Phyrexian mana has only been a problem with 1 mana cards. Probe and Misstep, as well as Gut Shot, Growth and Revival, are easily played in any deck and 2 life is minimal for a free mana. However, none of the cards with at least one non-phyrexian mana in their cost are all that broken. While Dismember is good, remember it costs 4 life and one mana to cast at cheapest, and that's quite a bit.
I could see them bringing Phyrexian mana back, but with costing similar to Dismember where it costs a good amount of life and at least some mana to use. Maybe a Negate or something.
July 2, 2021 1:02 p.m.
You may have a point that with the lessons learned Wizards could print a Modern-legal Phyrexian mana card that is not format warping, but all the same I would prefer that they didn't because there's a high risk of warping the format. Reducing or altering mana costs is dangerous. Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise are banned for that reason. And more relevantly, Gitaxian Probe and Mental Misstep are more than worth two life.
Force of ___ spells and the new elemental incarnations are balanced in that a card in your hand is worth more than life points. But even then, the quality of cantrips in Legacy means Force of Will costs you less and the format's absolutely defined around the card. Force of Negation started seeing fewer copies played at a time in Modern after Uro was banned and didn't provide an easy way to recoup resources.
Also, now we have had enough time to learn that big mana decks are fine with Dismember, but I'm sure at the time people were upset that Tron could just pay four life and take out a creature. Even the proposed double Phyrexian Blue Negate would be a dangerous card, countering a Blood Moon or Pillage would absolutely be worth four life.
July 2, 2021 1:34 p.m.
DemonDragonJ - I think the above posts do a good job responding to your question about other free costed spells. The only point I really want to add--every single "free" spell with a good effect, be it Dismember or Force of Will quickly becomes a staple in any format where it is legal. Phyrexian mana's inherent problem is it will always be broken--it will either be an effect of limited use, and thus not playable, or it will be a useful effect, in which case its free/reduced casting cost makes the card a must-include.
July 2, 2021 1:58 p.m.
Grubbernaut says... #15
The only real way i see to get "good but not broken" cards out of it, for the most part, is to include regular colored mana in the costs as well. And that doesn't seem to be in the spirit of what they do with p mana.
It's a good case study in a cool idea that is dangerous in reality.
July 2, 2021 2:34 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #16
Grubbernaut, what about having five or six Phyrexian mana in the cost of a spell? Surely, a cost such as or would force players to play strategically?
July 2, 2021 10:33 p.m.
Grubbernaut says... #17
The effect would have to be insane to be worth it, meaning it would be worth it in the early game for life, or easy to offset with hard mana later on.
Or, if it wasn't essentially game winning, it wouldn't be worth it and would be terrible.
July 3, 2021 1:19 a.m.
plakjekaas says... #18
Fun fact, an Artifact Land was just spoiled to be in the Forgotten Realms set: Treasure Vault.
I'm not sure about anything they say they will/won't do in relation to the Storm Scale. Although I agree with the majority here that they shouldn't try to balance something as inherently broken as Phyrexian Mana. Free spells are very much the enemy of a fun Standard format.
July 3, 2021 2:25 a.m.
Above all, the Storm Scale isn't a hard and fast internal document. It's a personal guideline/estimate that Mark Rosewater uses to organize abilities for the Standard format, trying not to give away future information to anyone who asks. The Storm Scale has no real bearing on the creative process.
So artifacts lands being a 10 just means that he, personally, considers it very, very unlikely any given Standard environment will contain them. If AFR has one, that means that his guess was wrong in this case.
July 3, 2021 2:38 a.m.
plakjekaas says... #20
If you look at any Storm Scale article, it's suggested that any 10 requires a major miracle to return to a standard set. I'm just wondering what the miracle was in this case.
I'm making the same point. The Storm Scale can't be trusted as a guarantee for future sets. But because OP specifically referenced the atrifact lands, it seemed sort of relevant to the discussion.
However,the original artifact lands were mostly banned because of the Affinity mechanic, I suppose there's no such dangerous synergy present in Standard right now. Although Treasure Tokens seem to be omnipresent now, with dragon synergies galore, I don't think Standard is the format it would be risky for. Phyrexian Mana would be way worse, probably for every single player format, even though it's ranked the same on the Storm Scale.
July 3, 2021 2:57 a.m.
TriusMalarky says... #21
The artifact land isn't going to be a problem in Standard, Historic or Pioneer(unless there's some affinity in Historic that I didn't know about). It's mostly a thing in Modern . . . as copies 5-8 of Darksteel Citadel . I'm marginally worried about that.
Phyrexian mana can't be printed into standard because it's such an efficient mechanic and any halfway good one would immediately be a staple. It might be in a supplemental set, but I honestly doubt it. They should know now that a Phyrexian mana card is best costed by not counting the phyrexian mana, i.e. Probe is always a zero mana card, so balance its abilities as such. This means it's unlikely that we see it anytime soon as it's so hard to balance. But you freaking bet we'll see it again one day, just as soon as they can balance it.
Grubbernaut says... #2
Probably, but they shouldn't. They'll either be completely OP or unplayable, imo.
July 1, 2021 8:50 p.m.