Hi there, today I thought I would like to introduce you to your new favorite language: Phyrexian. It’s not just a script that Magic cards use to look like there’s real lore behind the cards, it is a real and constructed language that real language freaks concocted up for us. So what makes it special and why does it look so funny? I don’t think I could do as good a a job as other people on introducing people to the Phyrexian in a blog post such as this. So go watch Rhystic Studies video on this, if you like. It’s a good introduction. But what I can show you is how I unprofessionally translated one of the two cards that weren’t in Phyrexian already!
All the Phyrexian cards. Look! So many Elves!To summarize my workflow on translating the Ichorclaw Myr
and the Blight Mamba
1.) Get Phyrexian to work on Magic Set Editor. For this I needed to install the ProgressEngine font, which comes with the Editor, but installing it and getting it display was a bit finicky. It required going to a style’s config file to change it manually, because there is no option in the Editor to change fonts. It was a pain to set up and work with Magic Set Editor, but as far as I can see the only option to make a different font work.
2.) Figure out how to type Phyrexian! This is not clear at all, there is not perfect guide for the font. For example, you start sentences with “|”, but a lot of this is trial and error. A lot of phyrexian symbols look very similar, so you need to use accents like ^ and ` with letters. Some symbols seem to be missing completely from the font, so the result will be imperfect (So real Phyrexians would not be happy with this at all)
3.) Copy what you can. So the Glistener Elf
is already in Phyrexian, so you can copy “Glistener” and “Infect” very easily.
4.) Translate the name of the card itself. The phyrexian dictionary does not have a lot of words, so you need to take a similarish word and just use it. For the Mamba, it was “Beast” and for the Myr, I chose “Minion”.
5.) Translate the rest of the rules text. For this you need both grammar and words. Once again, the words are very limited, so you need to get creative. For example, on the mamba, I translated “Regenerate” as “(if-when) death (then) life” where life and death are words, and the concepts in brackets are grammatical structures.
6.) Be aware that you could have done everything wrong but still had fun doing it. It’s just enjoyable to make something! I hope nobody double checks my work though, I would be immediately thrown out of Phyrexia.
That’s it really! If you’re still curious, I recommend looking at the aforementioned phyrexian dictionary. Or the Samples page on the mtg.wiki here. I especially recommend playing the lines for “Jin-Gitaxias, Progress Tyrant” and “Mental Misstep your Sol Ring. "
So with that out of the way, I can talk about the less important things.
The Deck
I honestly just netdecked this list from Reddit. Three things of note I think are
1.) Llanowar Augur
. This card really enables me to call this deck an Elf deck. With two elves in the deck, I think it’s entirely fair to call it Elves. Faeries have done it before. This deck even has 50% Elves.
2.) Hickory Woodlot
. On the surface a very risky card. But it’s perfect in this deck. You can frontload your creatures while holding up protection. For a deck that wants to win turn 3, this is great.
3.) Go Forth
. I always liked the cheeky little “Get a land or different effect” cards, and this is no different. I really like that you the first mode adds consistency, while the second mode advances your gameplan as infect. Of course, every other deck plays Ents, because Landcycling on creatures is just that good. Nice to see that other effects of this nature are still uniquely valuable to decks.
The gameplan of this deck is extremely linear. Early creature. Have enough pump spells to kill. Have evasion to avoid opponent blocking. Have protection for your creature not to die. This deck tries to condense the whole game into a few turns. Which makes every single decision matter more.
I changed one Faerie Macabre
in the Sideboard to a Nature's Claim
, believing that facing artifact lands would be a more likely occurance than Spy Combo.
The Matches
Match 1 2-1 Versus Mono Red Rally.
Game 1 and 3 were won in a similar fashion: early poison counters, then I was on the backfoot and slowly died to creatures. For my opponent, it was a matter of calculating with how many creatures to attack while leaving enough blockers ready to block, while also trying to kill my creatures, which sometimes worked, and sometimes didn’t. Fun and tense games!
One decision that I remember that mattered a lot, was that Rally had 2 spells exiled, ready to be cast next turn. So the optimal play in my turn was just to play nothing at all.
Game 2 was a quick one with Rally on the play doing Rally things.
Match 2 2-1 Versus Caw Gates.
Game 1 was a very interesting game. I chose to keep a slow hand, and my aim was to just cheap in with 2 infect creatures without pumping much to evade strands and removal. This worked out for a while, but all my creatures were green so Strands did end up winning the game. Probably a bad keep to kee pa slow hand with no colorless creature. This league is also just me doing practice with this deck, and it shows here. Small decisions that didn’t immediately lose the game, but still were obvious in hindsight. Gotta make the right calls.
A match made in heaven. Against white, both players automatically mulligan to 6 by discarding these cards.Game 2 was a pretty quick infect win over two turns. Had a Snakeskin Veil
for a removal spell. That’s what you want to be doing on the play.
Game 3 was a Mulligan to 5 on the Draw. Deck was still quick enough to get a turn 3 kill. It was nerve wracking though. What I got is the nuts start
Turn 1 Hickory Woodlot
. Turn 2 Glistener + Augur. At this point, I am thinking about the win on 3. I had +10/+10 pumps in total. Now Caw Gates being Caw Gates, they can prevent this. My opponent played Squadron Hawk
, and I recoiled in Terror. The usual way this goes is that they take their hawks, and discard a Prismatic Strand. Prismatic Strands
ofc ruins the dream of an OTK unless you have the Ichorclaw Myr
. But they didn’t find all 3 Hawks! They had 2 Hawks in hand when casting it! I was soooo relieved. So they have exactly 7 cards in hand, and discard 0. So they have no counterplay to me killing them with a 14/14 infect trampler. A real rollercoaster of emotions.
Match 3 0-2 Versus Mono Blue Terror. A fascinating match, that made me really appreciate this deck. The games didn’t last long at all, but not for the reason you think. Well maybe. Game 1 mulligan to 4, no infect creatures in 4 hands. I can’t mull to 3. So I keep and slowly die until I find an infect creature but it’s too late.
Now game 2 was the game. I had a perfect hand, 1 Infect creature, two +4/+4 pump spells, two Mutagenic Growth
s, Hickory Woodlot
and Escape Tunnel
. Now the game plan was clear, play the creature on turn 2 where opponent can’t counter it, and then, mono blue being mono blue, it cannot interact with it, other than Gut Shot
. But with two Mutagenic Growth
I felt very comfortable. The game state on turn 2 was: tapped Hickory Woodlot
, Escape Tunnel
on my side. On opponents side, 2 Islands. My opponent passed priority. I cracked my Escape Tunnel
to fetch a forest. In response, my creature gets Gut Shotted. But, that’s not a problem I thought, I have 2 Mutagenic. Turns out, my opponent had 2 Dispels for my 2 Mutagenic. So my creature died and I lots the game that way.
There were 2 misplays in my opinion. First is opponent passing priority. Then me cracking my fetchland. If I pass to my turn, I win, there is no way my creature dies, and even through Dispels I am in a great situation. I think you everyone should always try and kill Infect creatures on their turn, if they have the chance. Because otherwise, it might become just too big too kill. I had 0 Mana, 2 Protection spells, and lost. It was the tiniest of mistakes that made me lose. And because of this I really started loving this deck? Like, you always want to be able to decide a game. You want your decisions to matter. And with this deck, every single thing matters. You can win or lose QUICK. And you deserve both.
Match 4 2-0 Versus Steelfin Whale
Combo. This is the closest to a free matchup. A slowish deck that runs Dispel
and a 3 mana boardwipe as interaction. Play a Glistener Elf
, pump it, game over. I do like when decks have polarized matchups, cause you can simply dodge bad ones! And to perform well in any kind of tournament, a bit of luck is required anyway, so why not a deck with lopsided matchups.
Match 5 1-2 Versus Mono Red Madness. I’m gonna say it. Infect Phyrexian Elves is the best deck cause it’s fun to play against Red Madness. Game 1 I was only missing evasion to win. I had enough pump and protection to not lose my creatures. Game 2 was relatively straightforward, just overloaded on turn 3 with protection up.
Game 3 though however, was sooo interesting. It started really badly. My opponent Faithless Looted and discarded 2 Lava Darts. That’s a terrible start for me, because they now always can cast 2 spells on my 1/1s to kill them, whenever I try to do anything with them. But I also had 2 protection spells and 1 pump spell in hand. It was a game of cat and mouse, I play a creature, I let it die because I couldn’t beat 2 Lava Darts + another removal in hand. Eventually I ran out of creatures and had to go for it. But the last card my opponent had in hand was the fourth Lava Dart
. So the stack was 4 Lava darts, 3 Protection spells. I lots my creature, my opponent lost all mountains, but I couldn’t come back from this. I died too quickly. I needed an infect creature, and two pump spells, and evasion. Living 4 turns was impossible. GG. Opponent played well. They killed my creature on their turn and discarded Lava Darts Turn 1. There was never a window. But they really wracked their brain this game, and that is so fun to see. Phyrexian Elves makes for great games!
Endstep
This deck is really cool, it rewards not misplaying so heavily while compleating opponents as fast as possible.
I worked hard for this league and I loved every bit of it. The deck delivered, I feel like the effort of preparing everything except adequate practice paid off.
Thanks for everyone attending, I really enjoy each and every league day so much. Thanks to Pascal for the last minute Embiggen
delivery, without you I couldn’t have killed people on turn 2. See y’all next time!
What to play next? What do I add to my costume to look even more Elven? DM me ideas!