#gitaxian probe

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Gitaxian Probe by Chippy

[sylvhem]

From the Vault: Phyrexia

When Wizards of the Coast choose to discontinue the From the Vault series, almost two years ago, many said it was inevitable because the company had finally run out of good themes for those products. I disagree and think that, on the contrary, there is still lot of cool themes that could be used to make new From the Vault. So I decided that, since I was constantly thinking about new ideas for them, I will periodically make posts presenting “custom” From the Vault, that is, lists of fifteen cards tied by a theme that I think would make a good From the Vault product.

And the first entry in this series will be From the Vault: Phyrexia. What a better way to start that with the classic antagonist of the series? Moreover, Phyrexia being around Magic: The Gathering lore since Antiquities, there is a lot of cards and sets to choose from. It’s more a problem of “too many cards” than “too few of them”. Also, this is the perfect occasion to reprint some of those cards with the Phyrexian watermark.

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician

I can’t possibly make a retrospective of Phyrexia without including the man who created it, Yawgmoth. A Thran physician exiled for his interest in eugenics as well as his support to a failed revolution, Yawgmoth traveled across Dominaria, experimenting on various species, often under the pretense of bringing medical help. He later took his revenge on the people who cast him away when, recalled to the Thran Empire to help cure a mysterious disease, he seized the opportunity to transform the sicks into mutants and use them as an army to overthrow the government. With the candid help of the planeswalker Dyfed, he traveled to an artificial plane long abandoned by its creator and immediately started to modify it to suit his needs, creating Phyrexia. Bounding himself to the plane’s core, he then became immortal and inherited god-like powers. Unfortunately for him, Rebbec, the chief architect of the Thran capital of Halcyon, trapped it there, making him and his follower unable to return to Dominaria. He then spent the next millennia perfecting his creations, conquering other planes and plotting to, one day, finally take over his birth plane.

On this card, Yawgmoth is depicted as his young self, before he ascended to godhood and maybe even before his exile. Nonetheless, we can see him wearing a phi-shaped tool to his belt, hinting to the fact he may already have some plans regarding his future creations. Even if it’s technically a card that predates Phyrexia, the facts that he is its creator and that he already started his “Great Work” made it an auto-include here.

Phyrexian Altar

This card, originally printed in Invasion, is a classic of the game. Not as well-know as some other cult cards, it’s still quite popular and is relatively used in Commander. Moreover, its original art have never been used on a modern frame and it would be the perfect occasion for this.

Priest of Yawgmoth

Not as well know, Priest of Yawgmoth is a card that come straight from Antiquities. Not as powerful nor popular as Phyrexian Altar, it’s an interesting card in that it’s a good representation of what the original mechanical take on the Phyrexians was. Also, it could really use a reprint, to have an occasion to see this art in a modern frame, but, more importantly, to have a version of this card with its much simpler Oracle text.

Phyrexian Arena

This card is too much of classic to not be a part of this set. Originally printed in Apocalypse, it has been reprinted numerous times, including in core sets, but still commands a higher price tag due to its popularity in formats like Commander. This would be the perfect occasion to have a version with the Phyrexian watermark.

Phyrexian Tower

Originally printed in Urza’s Saga, this card was then part of the same cycle of legendary lands that gave us Gaea’s Cradle, Serra’s Sanctum and Tolarian Academy. But unlike those three cards, Phyrexian Tower and Shivan Gorge were not put on the Reserved List.

Despite that and the popularity of this land in Commander, it has never been reprinted before Ultimate Master (if we omit its gold-bordered version). We could reprint it with its gorgeous new art, but I think it would be a good opportunity to use its classic illustration, never used in conjunction with the modern frame before.

Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

You can’t make From the Vault: Phyrexia without including at least one of New Phyrexia’s praetors. And none of them is as iconic as Elesh Norn, leader of the Machine Orthodoxy. Moreover, this card have been printed five times but always with the same illustration. A premium print like this one would be a good occasion to give it a new artwork.

Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice

This card may be the most popular commander of all time. Besides, apart from its original printing in Commander 2016, it only has been reprinted once, in Commander Anthology Volume II. None of those printings have a Phyrexian watermark.

Phyrexian Unlife

This card is such a good depiction of what Phyrexia is that it would be sad to not include it in this set.

Phyrexian Obliterator

A really cool and flavorful creature card. It’s probably the most iconic card from New Phyrexia.

Birthing Pod

A staple of the Modern format before its ban, it gave birth to an entire archetype.

Gitaxian Probe

Banned in Legacy, Pauper and Modern, restricted in Vintage, this card used to be a staple in those formats when it was still legal to play it.

Surgical Extraction

This card is one of the most popular card in Legacy and commands a huge price tag because of it.

Dismember

A Modern staple and a useful card all around.

Gut Shot

This list lacked a mono red card and Gut Shot is a popular card in Pauper, played in numerous archetypes.

Phyrexian Scriptures

The Scriptures, Phyrexia’s sacred texts, have been referenced in numerous flavor texts through the years. That’s why it was cool to finally have a card to represent them in Dominaria!

And that’s it! What do you think of that list? Would you have done things differently? Does it convinced you other cool From the Vault could be made?

[hokenbunroku-blog]

（{U/P} can be paid with either {U} or 2 life.）

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Draw a card.

[mtg-weekly-recap]

MTG Weekly Tumblr Recap - Volume 1, Issue 1

Wanted to doodle something silly!  Saheeli prob love cats <3 

Original art by @isharton | Please support them at their Patreon!

Welcome to the very first issue of the MTG Weekly Tumblr Recap of the new year! For those unfamiliar with what we do, the MTG Weekly Tumblr Recap is a gathering of some of the most notable posts and trends from within the MTG Tumblr community for a given week. For this issue, we will be covering the week of January 8, 2017 through January 14, 2017. If you are interested in joining our writing team, please PM any of our writers and we will add you to our Discord group chat.

1. Banned & Restricted Update Discussion

Original image posted by @sarkhan-volkswagen

Wizards of the Coast announced bannings this past week, and I can’t say I’m surprised. Emrakul, the Promised End, Smuggler’s Copter, and Reflector Mage were banned in Standard, while Modern bans were simply Gitaxian Probe and Golgari Grave-Troll. There have been mixed feelings about these bans: many people were annoyed and upset that their favourite cards were banned, while others were quite relieved.

Emrakul, the Promised End, the final titan to be released, and the first to be banned. According to WotC, Emrakul was “created to be scarily powerful,” and “delivered on that promise too well.” @ugin guessed that “if an Emrakul hit the field, I would guess that approximately 90% of the time that person would win.” Scarily powerful indeed, and this was made even more scary with cards like Aetherworks Marvel. As a counterpoint, @life-is-short-for-us said that it isn’t unbeatable, but didn’t suggest how to actually beat it. Instead, he simply said that for Standard, it isn’t about “banning cards that are too good, but banning cards that are so good they are damn near impossible to beat and your only hope is playing the mirror match and they are like 70% of the field.”

This brings us to our second card banned, Smuggler’s Copter. While I don’t play much Standard, this one annoyed the hell out of me, and now that it’s banned, I’m kinda relieved. For this one, Wizards says that it was in too many of the top decks and was restricting creativity. I agree, as does @queen-marchesa: “The one that is least surprising is the Copter. It really was too omnipresent in Standard to allow for exploration or creativity.” I have always thought that the Looter Scooter was too powerful for a turn-two artifact, which helped turn the format stale.

Our final Standard banning was Reflector Mage. There’s not much to say about this one, really, and I think it was one of the odder bannings. Wizards says that, “Our data showed the White-Blue Flash deck was too powerful against the field,and Reflector Mage has been on players' lists of most-disliked cards, since the days of Collected Company.” I suppose when you take down decks with Emrakul and Copter, W/U Flash would be the one to dominate. Tumblr users agreed, with one stating, “The card ended up being very effective in this format.” Others thought it was a surprising ban, but seeing that it’s stuck around for so long, “makes sense.”

As for the Modern bans, let’s start with Gitaxian Probe. This one is one of the least surprising to me, as it takes some skill out of the game. According to @jurou-tenshi, “Git probe has had it coming for a long time. It enabled too many degenerate strategies.” @avatar-of-woah states, “Probe’s actually a real issue in infect because it takes play skill out of the equation. Instead of trying to read your opponent and what they could have that would beat you, you just pay two life,” and proceed from there. According to @urzas-raven-armour, “With the probe ban, storm is even less playable now.” I would assume that this ban also hits Delver decks, but I don’t know enough about them.

The final ban released this week was Golgari Grave-Troll, and from what I have found, people are glad to see it go. One user said that “Dredge is a silly silly deck that has proven to be too powerful for Modern,” and with the Delve mechanic brought back in Khans of Tarkir, I agree. Golgari Grave-Troll is a creature with Dredge 6, and it enters the battlefield with counters equal to the number of creatures in the graveyard. You can also pay one generic mana and remove a counter to regenerate it. Now, that seems extremely powerful to me, especially in the late game, where you’ll most likely have a lot of creatures in your graveyard, but it is definitely the Dredge 6 that puts it over the top, enabling way too many graveyard shenanigans.

--- Connor S, @solemnly-mystifying

2. This Past Week’s Magic Story Review

Kari Zev - playing around with a doodle. | Original art by @sketchydoodles​

In this past week’s new Kaladesh Story “The Skies Over Ghirapur,” by Ari Levitch, we were introduced to the feisty teenage pirate captain, Kari Zev. In this story Kari Zev and Jace Beleren team up to assist the renegades, first by going on a heist to obtain aether, then to help the renegades take on the Skysovereign after they lost control of the Aether Hub in the story “Burn.”

The Tumblr community met this story with overwhelmingly positive reviews. The community adored the tenacity of Kari Zev and her sidekick, the monkey Ragavan. Tumblr user @zomburai claimed that the story was a delight. Others, like @abzanascendancy, were most excited about sky pirates. They also applauded Kari Zev for being 15, yet also being able to “pilot, command and crew her own ship.” Community members were even more excited about pirates then they were already, and some probably hope that a pirate-themed block will come along in the not-too-distant future.

With only three stories left in the Aether Revolt storyline, the MTGcommunity is anxiously waiting to see what happens next, with the Gatewatch’s final confrontation with Tezzeret and the Consulate, and what else that is in store for the plane of Kaladesh.

--- Chelsea W, @chelsea-beleren-vess

3. General Magic Story Discussion and Speculation

Deploy the Gatewatch | Original art by Wesley Burt

This week has been rife with Magic Story metadiscourse, from speculation for the future, to reflection on the past. Fans discussed Nissa’s shift toward tolerance in Magic Origins, and whether or not this made her a “Mary Sue”, prompting @commandtower-solring-go’s analysis of the term and its relationship to Magic [x]. On the other side, @chelsea-beleren-vess compiled potential points of civil war foreshadowing [x]

Prior to her Origins revision, Nissa, like most elves, believed that elves reigned superior over other races, and moreover her band of elves above even other elves. When her backstory was updated, these biases were no longer present. Lots of fans were upset by this. They missed their little racist, which is a little distressing, honestly. It’s important we ask ourselves why it’s so important for her to be hateful. This led one user to ask @markrosewater why the Gatewatch was composed of “Mary Sues.” By and large, “Mary Sue” is a term used to degrade a character for being all-powerful or infallible. This term really doesn’t describe the Gatewatch. Take Gideon, who was too proud and got his Irregulars killed, then repeated the mistake on Zendikar. Look at Jace --- neglectful of his duty as the Guildpact, and by even his own admission, annoying and pretentious as all hell. Liliana is, well, Liliana. Chandra has consistently been short-sighted and rash; she has consistently endangered the lives of the people she cares about, including the Gatewatch (see “In This Very Arena” and “Burn”). Nissa has been altoether aloof and unable to relate to her teammates, and was made to suffer immensely over the course of the Battle for Zendikar storyline.

Wizards could be setting the stage for a civil war within the Gatewatch, ala Marvel. In this hypothetical confrontation, Gideon leads one side, while Jace rallies his allies. Who will side with whom is anyone’s guess, but I’m personally partial to Chandra, Nissa, Gideon, and Ajani squaring off against Jace and Lili, but this is clouded by my distaste for Lili and her relationship with Jace, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

--- Nick D, @nick-dowdle-jeskai-judicator​

4. Incoming WoTC President Chris Cocks’ Digital Tease

Glimpse the Future | Original art by Andrew Robinson

Last Thursday, the President of Wizards of the Coast, Chris Cocks, released a public statement regarding the future of WotC’s IP, concentrating on the following points:

Reimagining digital versions of Magic and other Wizards games.

Bringing their characters and worlds to other games and experiences.

Making people’s Wizards experiences more efficient, connected, and convenient.

What most Tumblrs seemed to latch onto was the idea of Magic: the Gathering or Dungeons and Dragons branded video games, and many people wanted to share their thoughts on the matter.

@simic-initiate said, “I’ve no doubt irritated many friends by consistently insisting that Magic has a criminally underused mythos and cast of characters. Wizards does SO much world building each plane that just, hardly gets used again if ever.” [x]

@planeswalkerwithtardis suggests, “Persona JRPG with MtG characters as the personas, color combinations replace arcana. It would also hedge Wizard’s bets by crossing their customer base for that product with the ever hungry Persona fan base.” [x]

@youknowwhatscrewyou went a different direction: “I would love an mtg fighting game, similar to smash bros or something, so that is not too competitive and allows for some fun, crazy stuff.” [x]

@mixingmetaphorsoup also thinks MMOs are a hiding to nothing: “What? Throwing spells at a Planeswalker in an MMO? Surely you mean MOBA. As I’ve said before, Magic fits perfectly into a MOBA shell.” [x]

What video game genre do you think would make a good Magic game?

--- Liam W, @coincidencetheories

BONUS! “LILIANA VESS - MAGIC THE GATHERING.” Original art by @lunardays22

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Thank you again for reading this week’s issue of the MTG Weekly Tumblr Recap. If you are interested in contributing to the Recap, either by keeping track of notable posts and trends throughout the MTG community on a given week, or writing a short blurb on a specific topic, please PM our main editor @the-burnished-hart or any of our staff writers.

[magicjudge]

B&R list:

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/january-9-2017-banned-and-restricted-announcement-2017-01-09

Announcement Date: January 9, 2017

Effective Date: January 20, 2017

Magic Online Effective Date: January 11, 2017

Standard:

Emrakul, the Promised End is banned.

Smuggler's Copter is banned.

Reflector Mage is banned.

Modern:

Gitaxian Probe is banned.

Golgari Grave-Troll is banned.

The list of all banned and restricted cards, by format, is here. The full list of cards banned in Modern is here. The full list of cards banned in Standard is here.

Next B&R Announcement: March 13, 2017

[mtg-cards-hourly]

Gitaxian Probe

"My flesh holds no secrets, monster. The spirit of Mirrodin will fight on." -Vy Covalt, Mirran resistance

Artist: Trevor Claxton TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

[mtg-cards-hourly]

Gitaxian Probe

"My flesh holds no secrets, monster. The spirit of Mirrodin will fight on." —Vy Covalt, Mirran resistance

Artist: Chippy

[nickmeccia]

nickmeccia.storenvy.com