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.
Given that Phyrexia: All Will Be One also comes out with a pair of preconstructed Commander decks, I’ll also be covering my favourite new cards from there in another article.
Without further ado, here are my favourite Green cards!
This is a solid contender to replace Crucible of Worlds in decks that need their artifacts to do something else while also allowing for calculated single plays. That second ability isn’t always going to be activated, but playing a fetch land or something from your graveyard, that’s every time.
The Gitrog Monster is one of my only remaining green decks, and when I tell you that some turns I only play one thing and the rest is activated abilities, I think this is going to find an easy slot in there.
This is definitely limiting, but in a pinch, it can be exactly what you need. Just don’t go playing Underworld Breach from this activation.
A new Craterhoof Behemoth for mono green decks or decks running Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth just dropped and she is sickening, honey.
Sure you can pay five mana, four life for a three loyalty planeswalker, but paying six, mana for five loyalty is also a sweet spot. The plus one in a deck poised to take advantage of big tokens like Ghired, Conclave Exile can get out of hand if you’ve got Nissa out on seven. That is of course if you don’t just ultimate her immediately. Nissa is a threat on the table or a surprise in hand. This is the scary planeswalker of the set for me!
Lagrella, the Magpie decks just got a new win condition.
Go ahead and look up cards that target any number of creatures. Then build up a board and target all of them. Venerated Rotpriest does not care who targets your creatures, whether that creature is a token or not, Venerated Rotpriest only cares if they are targeted by a spell.
Keep this one in your pocket until the time is right because this sick little freak is going to turn some heads. It’s only one mana! And that art! Good god, this card is beautiful.
Tamiyo’s Safekeeping, this is not, but Tyvar’s Stand does grant two of the best keywords to a creature for one mana and then you have the option of buffing that creature up as much as you need. Obviously, pop this on a trampler and get damage all the way through.
I think we are at capacity for Caustic Caterpillar type cards. Cankerbloom looks disgusting and the choice of cashing it in for destruction or construction is great in the right deck. Get over the top in your token swarm counters deck and mess with the math. Fynn, the Fangbearer decks get a little extra utility here. All in all, proliferate isn’t necessary everywhere, but it is nice to have when the time is right.
Yeah, I cheated, but for good reason. There is so much happening on this card. A mana dork that eats your opponents graveyard before becoming a small beater is incredible. Targeted graveyard hate is more and more necessary, and when it’s just tacked on to something that’s making you mana? Lord save us all. This is a power creep canary has been long dead in this coal mine moment.
Honorable Mentions
- Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus – Green Dominus isn’t crazy but a repeatable doubler is great. Unnatural Growth is in the command zone now!
- Plague Nurse – Going in on toxic? Give opponents an extra poison counter to deal with for each instance.
- Infectious Bite – Rabid Bite that gives opponents poison counters. Creep!
- Paladin of Predation – Hahaha, this is honestly hysterical. Toxic 6 is so funny. Give it double strike, please!
- Rustvine Cultivator – A mana dork that untaps a land instead of adding mana is worth a second look. With all the proliferate, maybe this one stands a chance, but with it having to tap to add oil counters on it, I’d say it’s less likely.
- Unnatural Restoration – Solid tech piece for decks that want Proliferate!
- Tyrranax Rex – This is so ridiculous. Standard beater, but in Commander, it goes into Dinosaur tribal.
- Green Sun’s Twilight – This isn’t Green Sun’s Zenith level of good. Revealing the top X is so much worse. Sad!
- Expand the Sphere – This can either be an Explosive Vegetation or double Proliferate or Rampant Growth and Proliferate. This is pretty cool!
- Bloated Contaminator – 4/4 for three mana that gives two poison counters on hit with Trample. Yeah, aggro poison decks are going to be annoying.
- Noxious Assault – Everybody calm down. This is the closest thing to a board wipe green gets here and it requires a ton of creatures. Your opponents might block nine creatures and deal with you easily after. That said, this is the groan card because people are calling it the new Triumph of the Hordes. If you like that, enjoy this!
That does it for Green! Catch you next time for Gold!
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