What is Phyrexian mana and how does it work?

Phyrexian mana is a new type of mana symbol introduced in New Phyrexia, written as {W/P}, {U/P}, {B/P}, {R/P}, or {G/P}. Each symbol can be paid in one of two ways: by spending one mana of the appropriate color, or by paying 2 life instead. This means cards with Phyrexian mana costs can effectively be cast off-color, as long as you're willing to pay life — which is why several NPH cards with this mechanic have been banned in formats like Modern and Legacy.

Which New Phyrexia cards are banned in Modern?

Gitaxian Probe is banned in Modern (banned February 2017) largely because its Phyrexian mana cost meant it was a free spell in any deck willing to pay 2 life. Surgical Extraction remains legal in Modern as of this writing. Always check the official Magic: The Gathering banlist before building, as restrictions can change.

Who are the five Phyrexian Praetors in New Phyrexia?

The five Praetors are the mythic rare legendary rulers of New Phyrexia's factions: Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite (white), Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur (blue), Sheoldred, Whispering One (black), Urabrask the Hidden (red), and Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger (green). Each gives its controller a powerful ongoing benefit and imposes a mirror-image penalty on opponents.

What block is New Phyrexia part of?

New Phyrexia is the third and final set of the Scars of Mirrodin block, released in May 2011. The block also includes Scars of Mirrodin (October 2010) and Mirrodin Besieged (February 2011). All three sets are set on the metal plane of Mirrodin, following the Phyrexian invasion from its beginning through to the complete conquest of the plane.

What happened to Mirrodin in the New Phyrexia storyline?

By the time of New Phyrexia, the Phyrexians have fully conquered Mirrodin and renamed it New Phyrexia. The native Mirran inhabitants were either compleated (transformed into Phyrexians) or driven into hiding as small resistance cells. The five Praetors now each rule one layer of the plane. The plane's fate was later revisited in the 2023 sets Phyrexia: All Will Be One and March of the Machine, where New Phyrexia was ultimately phased out of the multiverse.

Is Karn Liberated from New Phyrexia good in Commander?

Karn Liberated is a strong Commander option, particularly because his colorless mana cost means he fits into any deck regardless of color identity. His +4 loyalty ability exiles cards from opponents' hands, his -3 exiles any permanent, and his -14 restarts the game with all cards he's exiled. In Commander, he's most commonly seen in colorless or artifact-focused decks, and in Constructed formats like Modern he's a staple of the Tron archetype.

New Phyrexia (NPH): Set Guide & Card List

The war was already over before the set even released. When Wizards announced the block's final installment under its Phyrexian name - not the Mirran one - fans knew the good guys had lost. New Phyrexia arrived in May 2011 as the third set in the Scars of Mirrodin block, completing one of Magic's bleakest storylines and delivering a mechanical identity unlike anything the game had seen before.

What is New Phyrexia?

New Phyrexia (set code: NPH) is a 175-card set released in May 2011. It is the third and final set of the Scars of Mirrodin block, following Scars of Mirrodin (SOM, 2010) and Mirrodin Besieged (MBS, 2011).

The set concludes the story of the Phyrexian invasion of the metal plane of Mirrodin. Where the block began with Phyrexian oil quietly corrupting the plane's surface, New Phyrexia is the aftermath - a world fully transformed and renamed. The native Mirrans are defeated, driven into hiding or compleated, and five Phyrexian factions now control the plane's five layers.

Themes and mechanics

New Phyrexia is mechanically dense, and its most important contribution to the game is one that still echoes in every tournament format today.

Phyrexian mana - the set's defining innovation

New Phyrexia introduces five new mana symbols, one per color, collectively called Phyrexian mana. Each symbol can be paid in one of two ways: with one mana of the appropriate color, or by paying 2 life instead.

Written as {W/P}, {U/P}, {B/P}, {R/P}, and {G/P}, these symbols fundamentally change how you think about mana costs. A card with {1}{U/P} in its cost can be cast for {1}{U} or for {1} and 2 life - meaning a blue card becomes, in practice, a colorless card if you're willing to pay the toll.

This has enormous implications for deckbuilding and format legality. Phyrexian mana effectively makes some cards near-colorless, and several NPH cards with these symbols have become format staples or restricted cards specifically because of this flexibility. The symbols also heralded the return of colored artifacts, a concept previously seen in Future Sight (2007) and the Esper shard from the Alara block.

Accessibility note: Because all five Phyrexian mana symbols share an identical shape and differ only by color, the set received complaints from colorblind players. Wizards partially addressed this by including standard mana symbols in the effect boxes of relevant cards.

Returning mechanics

Several mechanics from earlier in the block and Magic's history return in NPH:

Infect - creatures with infect deal damage to players as poison counters and to creatures as -1/-1 counters. A player with ten poison counters loses the game.
Proliferate - choose any number of players and permanents with counters, then add one more of any counter already on each. Powerful with both poison counters and loyalty counters.
Living weapon - Equipment that enters the battlefield attached to a 0/0 Germ token it creates. The weapon comes with its own (admittedly fragile) carrier.
Metalcraft - abilities that function only when you control three or more artifacts.
Imprint - exile a card and reference it later. Primarily appears on artifacts.

The rules term poisoned - introduced in Mirrodin Besieged - also returns. A player is poisoned if they have one or more poison counters.

Splicers and the blood tax

Two smaller subthemes weave through the set. Splicers are 1/1 creatures that put 3/3 Golem artifact creature tokens onto the battlefield when they enter and grant those Golems abilities - a nice payoff for anyone building around token strategies or artifact synergies.

The second subtheme was nicknamed the blood tax by players. These are spells that resemble familiar utility cards but include a small life-loss rider. The clearest example is Vapor Snag, which bounces a creature for {U} - functionally similar to the old Unsummon - but causes its controller's opponent to lose 1 life in the process. Small effect, real impact over a long game.

Karn - the first colorless planeswalker

NPH gives us Karn Liberated, a historic card for several reasons. He is the first planeswalker card with no color in his cost, making him playable in any deck regardless of color commitment. At the time of release, his +4 loyalty ability was the highest starting loyalty gain of any planeswalker's first ability ever printed. His ultimate, at -14 loyalty counters, was also the most expensive planeswalker ultimate ever printed.

Those numbers aren't just flavor - they mean Karn takes a long time to threaten his game-ending ability, but is extraordinarily difficult to kill with direct damage before he gets there.

Cycles in New Phyrexia

NPH is structured around five distinct cycles, each representing a different slice of Phyrexian society.

The Praetors

The centerpiece cycle. Five mythic rare Legendary Creatures - one per color - representing the five rulers of New Phyrexia's factions:

| Praetor | Color | Faction | |---|---|---| | Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite | White | The Machine Orthodoxy | | Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur | Blue | The Progress Engine | | Sheoldred, Whispering One | Black | The Seven Steel Thanes | | Urabrask the Hidden | Red | The Quiet Furnace | | Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger | Green | The Vicious Swarm |

Each Praetor gives a powerful positive effect to its controller and an inverse, punishing effect to opponents. They are among the most iconic Commander cards ever printed - individually powerful enough to warp games, and collectively a portrait of Phyrexia's fractured but terrifying hierarchy.

The Chancellors

Five rare creatures - one per color - with a unique ability: you can reveal them from your opening hand before the game begins for an immediate small effect. This gives decks running them a potential turn-zero advantage, something almost unheard of outside of free spells.

The Exarchs

Five uncommon Cleric creatures, one per color. Each Exarch gives you a binary choice when it enters the battlefield: trigger a positive effect for you or a permanent you control, or trigger the inverse on your opponent or one of their creatures. They reward reading the board state and reward flexibility.

The Shrines

Five uncommon artifacts. Each Shrine accumulates charge counters both at the beginning of your upkeep and whenever you cast a spell of a specific color - then can be sacrificed for an effect that scales with how many counters are on it. Patient players are rewarded; opponents are incentivised to remove the Shrine before it grows out of hand.

The Souleaters

Five common artifact creatures, each with an activated ability costing a single Phyrexian mana symbol of a specific color. They're the set's most accessible showcase of the new mechanic - cheap creatures that non-blue or non-black decks can still pay into using life.

Limited and Draft

Drafting New Phyrexia is a high-stakes experience because of Phyrexian mana's life-payment option. You will routinely pay life to cast spells in colors you aren't even drafting, which means your life total matters in a fundamentally different way than in most Limited formats.

The infect mechanic continues from earlier in the block and shapes aggressive strategies. A deck can win through poison damage independently of combat math based on regular power/toughness - ten poison counters and ten points of regular damage are both lethal, so opponents have to track two separate clocks.

The Exarch cycle offers consistent two-for-one-style decision points, making them excellent Limited pickups. The Splicer creatures provide a strong going-wide token strategy if you can draft multiples, since their Golem tokens stack buffs from each Splicer you control.

Format check: New Phyrexia drafts today typically run as Scars of Mirrodin block drafts (SOM/MBS/NPH), which gives a fuller picture of the Mirran vs. Phyrexian mechanical divide.

Notable cards and their impact

Several NPH cards have left marks on Constructed formats that persist well over a decade later.

The Praetors - especially Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur - became fixtures in Commander and reanimator strategies across Legacy and Modern. Elesh Norn's symmetrical anthem/debuff effect is so powerful that she has appeared on ban-watch lists more than once.

Karn Liberated became a cornerstone of the Modern Tron archetype, where his combination of colorless cost and powerful +4 ability fit perfectly into a deck that generates massive amounts of colorless mana.

Vapor Snag's blood tax design made it a better tempo tool than its humble appearance suggests, and it saw significant Standard play during its time in format and has remained a Modern staple in blue tempo and control decks.

The Phyrexian mana cards as a whole generated enormous competitive impact. Several - including Gitaxian Probe and Surgical Extraction - have been banned in Modern, with Probe also banned in Legacy and Pauper, specifically because the life-payment option made them too easily splashable across color restrictions.

Format check: Gitaxian Probe is banned in Modern (as of February 2017) and Legacy. Surgical Extraction remains legal in Modern and Legacy as of this writing, but always worth checking the current banlist before building.

Lore and setting

New Phyrexia sits on the plane of the same name - originally called Argentum, built by the planeswalker Karn, then renamed Mirrodin after the golem Memnarch reshaped it. By the time this set takes place, the Phyrexian infection that began beneath the surface has fully consumed the world.

The five Praetors each rule one of the plane's five layers, corresponding to the five colors of mana and five distinct philosophies about what Phyrexia should become. Elesh Norn's white faction preaches unity and conformity through surgery and doctrine. Jin-Gitaxias's blue faction pursues knowledge and perfection through augmentation. Sheoldred's black faction controls the underworld and its dead. Urabrask's red faction - notably - is the most isolated, and Urabrask himself quietly shelters some surviving Mirrans, earning him the enmity of the other Praetors. Vorinclex's green faction is purely primal: grow, consume, dominate.

Lore aside: Urabrask's quiet defiance makes him one of the more morally complex figures in Phyrexian lore. He doesn't help the Mirrans out of mercy exactly - he just disagrees with his siblings about what New Phyrexia should be. It's a rare crack of ambiguity in an otherwise pitch-black villain faction.

The surviving Mirrans are reduced to small resistance cells by this point in the story. The plane's conquest is presented not as ongoing but as already complete - the set's name change from Mirrodin to New Phyrexia was Wizards' way of signaling that outcome before a single card was spoiled.

Several years after NPH's story, under the leadership of Elesh Norn, New Phyrexia launched an invasion of the entire multiverse - the central conflict of the Phyrexia: All Will Be One and March of the Machine (2023) sets. That storyline ends with New Phyrexia being phased out of existence, swapping places with the plane of Zhalfir and locking itself away from the multiverse permanently.

Set legacy

New Phyrexia is remembered as one of the most mechanically impactful sets of the modern era, and also as a genuinely dark storytelling achievement.

The Phyrexian mana mechanic is NPH's most lasting design contribution. It forced the game to reckon with what happens when color identity becomes negotiable - the answer, it turns out, is that some effects become too easy to access regardless of your deck's colors, and the banlist has been catching up with that reality ever since.

The Praetors defined a generation of Commander play. Elesh Norn especially has appeared on the battlefield in so many games that she's practically furniture at this point - iconic enough that she anchored the main villain role in the 2023 Phyrexia arc and received multiple new card treatments as a result.

Perhaps most unusually, New Phyrexia is a set where the villains won, and Wizards committed to that outcome in the most direct way possible: by changing the plane's name on the product. That kind of narrative courage - letting the story go somewhere genuinely bleak - gave the Phyrexians the weight they needed to become Magic's most enduring antagonists.

For anyone interested in Magic's history, New Phyrexia is a required stop. ✨