Phyrexia: All Will Be One Constructed Set Review and Decklists: Red

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

• White
• Blue
• Black
• Red
• Green
• Multicolor
• Colorless

Capricious Hellraiser

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Rakdos Midrange

by DoggertQBones

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Buy on Card Kingdom $597.28

Standard

Midrange

best of 1

13 mythic

29 rare

9 uncommon

9 common

0

1

2

3

4

5

6+

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Planeswalkers (3)

3

Liliana of the Veil

$41.97

Creatures (17)

3

Tenacious Underdog

$1.47

4

Bloodtithe Harvester

$1.40

4

Sheoldred, the Apocalypse

$319.96

3

Capricious Hellraiser

$2.97

3

Phyrexian Fleshgorger

$17.97

Instants (5)

2

Cut Down

$2.58

3

Go for the Throat

$4.47

Sorceries (6)

2

Duress

$0.70

4

Invoke Despair

$2.36

Enchantments (4)

4

Fable of the Mirror-Breaker

$79.96

Lands (25)

2

Mountain

$0.70

5

Swamp

$1.75

4

Blackcleave Cliffs

$9.96

4

Sulfurous Springs

$7.16

4

Haunted Ridge

$35.96

4

Ziatora’s Proving Ground

$47.96

1

Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance

$5.99

1

Takenuma, Abandoned Mire

$11.99

60 Cards
$597.28

Rating: 4/5

All Will Be One

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This is such a weird card. I understand Oil Counters are a big part of this set and (I believe) this works with Planeswalkers, but this seems quite underpowered for a Mythic. This can be very powerful in a protracted game, but in Constructed, spending five mana for a card that does literally nothing by itself is always extremely sus unless that card is going to do some insane things afterwards. Considering the applications of this card seem pretty tame, I’m not feeling it personally.

Rating: 1.5/5

Solphim, Mayhem Dominus

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Mono Red Burn

by DoggertQBones

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Buy on Card Kingdom $126.08

Standard

Burn

best of 1

5 mythic

7 rare

12 uncommon

36 common

0

1

2

3

4

5

6+

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Planeswalkers (2)

2

Chandra, Dressed to Kill

$23.98

Creatures (11)

4

Thermo-Alchemist

$1.40

4

Kessig Flamebreather

$3.96

3

Solphim, Mayhem Dominus

$47.97

Instants (8)

4

Play with Fire

$15.96

4

Lightning Strike

$1.40

Sorceries (8)

4

End the Festivities

$7.96

4

Reckless Impulse

$5.96

Enchantments (8)

4

Kumano Faces Kakkazan

$2.36

4

Mechanized Warfare

$2.76

Lands (23)

20

Mountain

$7.00

3

Mishra’s Foundry

$5.37

60 Cards
$126.08

Rating: 4/5

Koth, Fire of Resistance

Rating: 3/5

Red Sun’s Twilight

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I’ll put it to you this way, there’s a reason they decided to only spoil this when they were finishing preview season. This card sucks. Who is looking to pay seven mana for artifact destruction that may or may not net you good value?

Rating: 0.5/5

Vindictive Flamestoker

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This is the saddest Bomat Courier I’ve ever done seen. This card is interesting as being able to pitch your hand and draw four cards is a lot of cards. However, you do need to put some oil counters on Flamestoker first to make that reasonable, so I would say you’d need minimum two counters to make that ability close to worth it. The issue is the body is very bad and this only seems good if you can cast it early so you can passively pick up spells you’re playing. I don’t think this card is good enough, but the ability is so powerful that it may have a shot regardless.

Rating: 1.5-2/5

Slobad, Iron Goblin

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This is a very weird ramp card, but I kind of dig it. A three mana 3/3 is acceptable, and sacrificing an artifact that’s outlived its usefulness to ramp into bigger artifacts could be good. What would this go in? Absolutely no idea. My first thought was something with Skitterbeam Battalion as that’ll net you five mana and two tokens and you can ramp into Cityscape Leveler, but I’m somewhat stuck beyond that. This would work extremely well with cards like Ichor Wellspring or Mycosynth Wellspring, but we don’t have cards like that in Standard. Nevertheless, Ramp should never be overlooked, especially when you can get it in big bursts, so while this is probably too gimmicky, it is worth a consideration.

Rating: 2/5

Urabrask’s Forge

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Here we have another case of a card that looks reasonable, but its hard to find a proper home for. If you need a continuous stream of tokens that you specifically want to die that turn, this seems like a great card. Furthermore, over the course of many turns, those tokens will become stronger and stronger, so it stops being just a sacrifice fodder generator and more an actual win condition. Unlike the other scaling oil cards, as long as the body is always relevant to your game plan, this card will always be good. I feel like the current Sacrifice builds probably can’t fit this at the moment, but it does have potential.

Rating: 3/5

Dragonwing Glider

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Standard has been without a five mana Red dragon for a bit, and here it is, a Goblin in a paraglider. Close enough, I guess. Most of the five mana “dragons” come with inherent upside, but this upside is that it’s an Equipment! For five mana, you get a 4/4 Flying Haste, then you can reequip for an additional five mana.

While the concept for this is quite cool, I think it doesn’t work well in execution. The equip cost is very pricey even for a strong benefit, which severely impacts how useful this card can be, even in a long game. Furthermore, when the best part of this card can be hit by Abrade, that’s not a great deal. I don’t think this card is bad necessarily, but I think it’s thoroughly outclassed by our other options.

Rating: 2/5

Cacophony Scamp

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Boros Hammertime

by DoggertQBones

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Buy on Card Kingdom $409.7

Historic

Combo

best of 1

0 mythic

32 rare

20 uncommon

8 common

0

1

2

3

4

5

6+

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Creatures (22)

4

Ornithopter

$1.56

4

Esper Sentinel

$171.96

4

Cacophony Scamp

$1.40

4

Ingenious Smith

$1.40

3

Kemba, Kha Enduring

$1.47

3

Astor, Bearer of Blades

$1.47

Instants (4)

4

Resolute Strike

$1.40

Artifacts (14)

4

Retrofitter Foundry

$51.96

4

Colossus Hammer

$13.96

1

Cliffhaven Kitesail

$0.35

1

Shadowspear

$27.99

4

Barbed Spike

$1.40

Enchantments (1)

1

Fighter Class

$4.49

Lands (19)

3

Plains

$1.05

4

Battlefield Forge

$3.96

4

Inspiring Vantage

$9.96

4

Needleverge Pathway

$25.96

4

Sacred Foundry

$87.96

60 Cards
$409.7

Rating: 3/5

Furnace Punisher

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I absolutely love cards that punish nonbasic land use – I was very much a Burning Earth fan, and while this is extremely tamed down, it is still pretty good! This is definitely too weak for main deck play and probably too weak for play in sideboards, but it is a must kill for most three color decks which is nice, especially as they receive a new batch of fastlands which is going to further lower their basic land count. I’m pulling for you Punisher!

Rating: 2/5

Gleeful Demolition

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Hey! I remember you!

Kudoltha Rebirth saw pretty fringe play in a bursty aggro/combo thing, so if anything like that becomes reasonable, Gleeful Demolition will obviously be strictly better. This is still a very niche card, but having the ability to just destroy an artifact is nice as well.

Rating: 2/5

Free From Flesh

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While I have been pretty unimpressed with the oil counter offerings, this card is quite powerful. Some creatures work extremely well with more oil counters (Vindictive Flamestoker,Exuberant Fuseling) so this could be a strong card in conjunction with them. However, playing medium cards to make a meh card better isn’t exactly what I like to be doing. Definitely interesting, but it’s unlikely to be a competitive offering.

Rating: 2/5

Volt Charge

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I wanted to mention this because back in the day, this was actually a playable card. Granted, this was with Shrine of Burning Rage and Koth of the Hammer, but still! Despite that, Volt Charge has not aged gracefully, and while I like seeing it back, it was relatively fringe back in 2011 so I don’t like its odds now.

Rating: 1.5/5

Conclusion

While Black was similar to White in power level, it seems Red is most similar to Blue here! There’s a lot of weird cards here which brings down the average Red cards power level, however, there are some pretty decent offerings as well which makes it more appealing than Blue.

Thank you for reading!