Table of Contents
- Phyrexia: All Will Be One Constructed Reviews
- Jace, the Perfected Mind
- Ichormoon Gauntlet
- Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus
- Mindsplice Apparatus
- Blue Sun’s Twilight
- Encroaching Mycosynth
- Blade of Shared Souls
- Unctus, Grand Metatect
- Mercurial Spelldancer
- Minor Misstep
- Distorted Curiosity
- Trawler Drake
- Thrummingbird
- Bring the Ending
- Experimental Augury
- Prologue to Phyresis
- Conclusion
Hello everyone! With the full spoiler for Phyrexia: All Will Be One live, we can finally get into breaking down the cards with constructed applications!
Since I did individual card reviews already, rather than repeat myself, I’ll link the article, but still give the verdict and decklist if that’s what you’re more interested in. For this, I’m going to cover every Mythic, every Rare, and then choice uncommons and commons that have potential. Let’s get into it!
As always, here’s the scale I’ll be using to label the new cards that potentially have constructed applications.
- 0/5 – Unplayable in every sense.
- 1/5 – Extremely niche play or very unlikely to see play.
- 2/5 – Niche to no play, maybe playable in certain conditions.
- 3/5 – Reasonable playable. Not format breaking, but has the power level to see play in some strategy (or strategies).
- 4/5 – Very strong card, but not the best the format has to offer. Has the power level to see a lot of play.
- 5/5 – The very top of the format. This card will create a huge impact going forward on the format.
Phyrexia: All Will Be One Constructed Reviews
Jace, the Perfected Mind
Rating: 2.5/5
Ichormoon Gauntlet
This card is soooooooooooooooooo cool. Instant Commander staple, 10/10. For Constructed? Eh. This is clearly a cool engine card, but paying three mana to do nothing is not my cup of tea in a Standard that has Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, Wedding Announcement, and Raffine, Scheming Seer. Maybe there’s some cute thing you can do with it, but the odds of this card actually being good seems extremely low.
Rating: 1/5
Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus
Four mana 3/5 is relatively below par, and to make things even more awkward, the indestructible trigger for this is not the easiest to trigger as removing three counters from things and still needing a mana after that is a pretty big ask.
Furthermore, while proliferating twice can be powerful, that’s still not even that strong of an engine card as the only deck that could conceivably want it is a Toxic deck, and I’m still not a fan. Maybe there’s something here still, but I’m really not seeing it.
Rating: 1.5/5
Mindsplice Apparatus
Rating: 1.5/5
Blue Sun’s Twilight
The closest analog to this card is Entrancing Melody which was an alright card, but never anything special. Furthermore, normal Mind Control has never been a Standard playable effect (at least in a long time), so the 5-6 mana version of this is also not great. However, if you go for x=5+, you do get a pretty big tempo swing as stealing and cloning something can be quite powerful. The downside is that the best things to steal are generally Legendary creatures so making a token of that isn’t helpful, but it’s not bad overall.
Rating: 2.5/5
Encroaching Mycosynth
I have no idea why you would want this effect, but this reeks of potential combo. As it stands, until that combo is found, this card is completely useless.
Rating: 0*/5
So this is a Mirror Image that can make your other creatures a Mirror Image if you pay two mana to move the Blade? Weird. I can’t see this being good beyond some weird combo I’m not thinking of (maybe double Reflections of Kiki-Jiki, but even then that’s not a combo), but this is a sweet card.
Rating: 1/5
Unctus, Grand Metatect
Yet another weird Blue rare, they really put all their wacky designs here, didn’t they? I digress, we have a 3 mana 2/4 that lets your other creature be looters when they tap, gives artifact creatures +1/+1, and can make a creature of yours an artifact for one Phyrexian Blue mana.
On the surface, this would make the most sense in an old style Mono Blue Tempo deck with a bunch of small creatures, but the most current version of Mono Blue uses only 8 creatures. Even if there were a viable low to the ground Mono Blue Tempo deck, tapping out on turn three just to filter, not even draw cards, would still be very suspect. I’m not feeling it.
Rating: 1.5/5
Mercurial Spelldancer
Yet another super interesting card!
First off, we have a two mana 2/1 unblockable, not playable by itself, but a solid stat line. Then with each noncreature spell you get an oil counter, then if you connect with an opponent and spend two oil counters, you get to copy your next spell. I could see this in two strategies – a tempo deck looking to cast a bunch of spells, or a deck that’s looking to cast a particularly big spell. I think Tempo would make more sense as that leverages the 2/1 unblockable better and it’ll be easier to quickly accrue oil counters.
That said, this card is far from amazing, but I think it does have some Constructed applications.
Izzet Spells
by DoggertQBones
Standard
Tempo
best of 1
0 mythic
16 rare
22 uncommon
22 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Creatures (14)
Instants (20)
Sorceries (2)
Enchantments (4)
Lands (20)
60 Cards
$93.48
Rating: 2.5/5
Minor Misstep
For Arena formats, this card isn’t useful. In older formats like Modern, Legacy, and Vintage, this may be more exciting. In Modern this probably still isn’t that powerful as it doesn’t stop Evoke cards, but I could see this being good in Legacy or Vintage. However, I’m ranking based on Arena.
Rating: 0.5/5
Distorted Curiosity
Divination has not been a Standard playable rate for a long time, but a Divination that could cost one mana? Now we’re talking! This is similar to Of One Mind, a Divination that never made it in Standard due to the cost reduction condition being a bit too difficult, but for Toxic decks, this shouldn’t be too hard to achieve. Definitely limited in applications, but powerful if you can get the three requisite poison counters.
Bant Toxic
by DoggertQBones
Standard
Aggro
best of 1
0 mythic
36 rare
14 uncommon
10 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Creatures (16)
Enchantments (4)
Lands (22)
60 Cards
$161.2
Rating: 2/5
Trawler Drake
I saw players comparing this to Enigma Drake, but you don’t need to cast the spells after Enigma Drake for this to be good. Extremely unlikely this could be playable, but not completely impossible.
Rating: 0.5/5
Thrummingbird
Thrummingbird wasn’t that strong when New Phyrexia was printed, and it’s not going to be that strong now. On the bright side, Proliferate themes are stronger now than they were before, so it could be playable in a deck that cares a lot about that, but beyond that, you’re not going to see this anywhere.
Dimir Toxic
by DoggertQBones
Standard
Tempo
best of 1
0 mythic
18 rare
24 uncommon
18 common
0
1
2
3
4
5
6+
Creatures (18)
Instants (12)
Lands (22)
60 Cards
$107.52
Rating: 2/5
Bring the Ending
We already know that Make Disappear is a surprisingly good card, so a Make Disappear for a Toxic deck is bound to be pretty good! Being a Make Disappear early and Counterspell late is quite the range and this is a relatively big draw to playing Blue in your Toxic decks.
Rating: 2.5/5
Experimental Augury
Like Divination, Anticipate is not a Standard playable rate (especially since we have Impulse). However, when you tack on Proliferate, that does make it more appealing. This is probably still not good enough, even with a whole keyword added, but it’s definitely close enough to consider.
Rating: 1.5/5
Prologue to Phyresis
In decks looking to win through Toxic, you can view this as two mana deal two damage to an opponent and draw a card. Obviously this isn’t identical to what I said, but it’s pretty close. Would I play that card in a deck that’s looking to pressure the opponent’s life total? Potentially, so I think if you’re playing Toxic, this is minimum a consideration.
Rating: 2/5
Conclusion
Unfortunately, Blue seems incredibly weak in this set. A lot of the standout cards were super cool designs spaces, but really missed the mark in terms of power level. That said, many of them are so complicated that maybe there’s more to them than meets the eye and someone will find a way to break them!
Thank you for reading!
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