Best of Phyrexia: All Will Be One – Commander Deck Cards!

Commander, Magic: The Gathering Strategies, TCGs

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Mike Carrozza - February 7, 2023

Welcome to my set review of Phyrexia: All Will Be One, where I will pick five cards of each colour and discuss my favourite cards from them.

It’s time for me to cover the new cards from the Commander preconstructed decks, as well as the Commander-legal Set and Collector Booster exclusive cards.

Without further ado, here are my favourite new cards!

Clever Concealment

Teferi’s Protection brought back phasing in 2017 and we saw it take over metas all over. It truly is the best protection spell of all time. Clever Concealment is a potentially free (if you’ve got enough untapped creatures) but toned down version of Teferi’s Protection. It doesn’t phase out your lands and it doesn’t protect you or your life total, but it saves what you need to save and I love it.

This is the chase card from Commander precons if presale prices are to be believed and I understand why. Protect your enchantments in your enchantress decks, planeswalkers in your planeswalker decks, artifacts, creatures, whatever you need to protect on your board, it’s out of reach for your opponents. Protect your tokens even! Phasing! It’s awesome!

Norn’s Decree

We have a new pillowfort card. Will this prompt an alpha strike to take you out? Yeah, likely. But this will give you the time to work out your defences. Also, with the influx of poison counters coming thanks to this set, we might see the second ability get some traction even without you taking damage.

Remember, if an opponent deals enough combat damage to kill you and you trigger the last poison counter, your opponent will survive.

I love the idea of seeing this in play and casting Fractured Identity on it. Enjoy cards and poison counters, ya nuts!

Mirage Mockery

I absolutely love clone spells. I especially love clone spells with modality. Mockery’s closest analogue is Saheeli’s Artistry which for six mana gives you a token copy of a creature and one of an artifact.

Mockery is only for creatures, requires you to control them, and requires an artifact and nonartifact creature to entwine. Liquimetal Torque is in more and more of my decks. Adrix and Nev, Twincasters decks will likely be the ones to benefit from this most.

Urtet, Remnant of Memnarch

I am shocked at the amount of people absolutely bonkers excited for a dedicated Myr commander. It is so unexpected to me!

That said, Myr are known for being mana dorks in all colours and Urtet’s activated ability makes them a five-colour commander, so pop all those little guys into it. With these Myr getting untapped at combat, you can really just be a big mana deck and play all the expensive cards you’ve been holding off on because they’re eight mana and who has the time!

The activated ability paired with the untap means that your little Myr army can big pretty big when it’s time to swarm.

The issue is that five-colour commanders are so open-ended and while this definitely pulls you in a specific direction with the Myr type elements, it’s just easy to go whatever direction you need to go.

Staff of the Storyteller

In white, you’re often making tokens accidentally even. Staff of the Storyteller is likely to become a Phyrexian Arena that costs one white mana instead of one life. Even on it’s ETB, Staff of the Storyteller can be 1WW for a card draw which in white isn’t the worst place to be. My Thalisse, Reverent Medium deck is going to try this out for sure. Otharri, Suns’ Glory (spoiler, my fave of the new commanders) is going to take advantage of this.

There are so many token decks in white that will have this seemingly innocuous piece outing gain advantage over time. Also, this feels like such a stupid thing to want to remove! It doesn’t feel good to target this with removal! Because it seems so innocent!

Watch your opponent get cards and then rethink your stance on not targeting this artifact. (This is more of a note to self right now.)

Honorable Mentions

Otharri, Suns’ Glory – My fave new commander from the new Commander cards. I wrote an article about this crazy Phoenix and I may or may not be building this.
Norn’s Choirmaster – This is perfect for Aminatou, the Fateshifter. Blink Aminatou, proliferate every planeswalker. Luxior might get her to attack too! Hamza, Guardian of Arashin decks better get ready to jam the Choirmaster!
Glistening Sphere – This isn’t great but if you can get the Corrupted ability, this can be pretty great. Keep an eye on your metas because if poison is around even without you being the reason, you can take full advantage.
Hexplate Wallbreaker – EXTRA COMBAT EQUIPMENT! Congrats combat and equipment decks, you did it! This rules for you!
Geth’s Summons – This might get me to build a poison deck. Four mana to get a creature from every player’s graveyards, this might make me want to play five or six player games even. If this ever gets you four creatures, please let me know. I love it.
Roar of Resistance – This is absolutely a group hug/slug card that will sneak up on your opponents much like Duelist’s Heritage did when people realized it can be for your opponents’ creatures.
Synthesis Pod – Birthing Pod for spells! It doesn’t need to be spells you cast, you can have copies on the stack to exile. Either way, really cool design and reference.
Monumental Corruption – Point this at the right player and you’ll kill them. Play this in the right deck, you’ll draw a ton of cards. That simple.
Skyhunter Strike Force and Tangleweave Armor – I don’t like these too much, I just like that they’re making cards that encourage players to play their commanders.
Lux Artillery – Counter decks are going to put a hell of a clock on games. Artifact creature decks like Losheel and Alibou have a reason to run Chromatic Lantern!
Chiss-Goria, Forge Tyrant – This can cost RRR and needs you pretty heavy in artifacts. This looks like it might be possible, but make sure your deck building can handle it!