phyrexia's only non-basic land and it is such a let down.. if only it didn't cost mana to activate.
AnTzero
★★★★☆ (4.8/5.0)(13 votes)
Never underestimate lands with utility. After all Mycosynth Wellspring, Ichor Wellspring, Spine of Ish Sah, and a few others are all willing to give up existance for great Phyrexia.
The point of this card also lies in the fact that it is capable of replacing cards like Throne of Geth if you don't mind missing the proliferate. It just allows you to some cards for other cards and lands like this are quintessencial for the development of new stratagies.
bit of a letdown, but has some small bit of utility, it is a sac outlet for your artifacts, although there have been better ones, shame you have to pay mana for it though. original mirrodin had many good sac outlets, far better than this, however in new phyrexia life will be a very precious resource for phyrexian mana, I think phyrexian mana is a good idea as it gives you a use for life as a resource when your getting the hell poisoned out of you.
Well, it's good to sac your stuff in response to an opponent trying to steal it or if you want something in your graveyard for some reason. As garabor says though: why does it cost mana to activate? That makes it so much worse. The no-mana cost of diamond valley for example is a reason why it's so good. For lifegain purposes this card sucks though, as it does if you just add it randomly to decks. 1/5
Nucleon
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Like AnTzero said, Spine of Ish Sah and the Wellspring duo both combo well with this card. So do Bonehoard and Slag Fiend, for that matter, given that each of them love having artifact/artifact creature cards in the graveyard. Act of Agression becomes targeted artifact creature sacrificing, which is a bit of a stretch, but workable. Perilous Myr, Necropede, and Core Prowler all have triggers for leaving the battlefield, so having the option to trigger those on command is welcome. Plus, there's probably combo potential with Dross Scorpion.
I wouldn't mind getting this card at all. Besides, it's cool.
Whenever I see this card, I can't help but be reminded of the beginning of the Transformers Movie (the REAL Transformers movie, not the Bayformer ones) when you see Unicron digesting Lithone and all his systems start powering up. If you remember the movie, you know EXACTLY the frame I am talking about.
I trust that Wizards will do the right thing and give me a card that transforms Mirrodin into a giant robot voiced by Orson Wells.
Its just a shame it costs a mana to activate, I mean would it have killed them to have made the activation similar to high market?
Bass1987
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Colorless Edh decks get another land which is awesome
Cubozoan
★★★★☆ (4.5/5.0)(3 votes)
This may seem underwhelming, but you have to remember just how few artifact sac outlets there are in this block. This card is a godsend in limited and block for everyone running Perilous Myr, Ichor Wellspring, Mycosynth Wellspring, and more. The fact is, if you're running a lot of artifacts like these, you can afford to run a non-coloured land or two, so there's very little downside to throwing this in and giving your wellsprings and Slag Fiends the boost they need. This card may not be spectacular, but it's very, very useful.
Opaque
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
The sac ability should also include adding one mana of any color like mirrodin's core. The flavor is lost, I'm afraid. (shakes head in disdain)
scumbling1
★★★☆☆ (3.5/5.0)(2 votes)
It's not bad: it produces mana, and enters the battlefield untapped. You're hardly penalized for getting a land with a non-mana ability. That is generally a good thing.
However, the ability it has is so weak that it's hard to get very excited over it. One life is meaningless trifle. A fun use of High Market was a cheap counter to Control Magic-type effects; unfortunately, artifact theft isn't nearly as rampant as creature theft. Both High Market and Phyrexia's Core can be used to put permanents in the grave reliably, but adding a mana requirement to the less-useful ability's cost just makes me scratch my head and wonder why.
BastianQoU
★★★★☆ (4.4/5.0)(5 votes)
Kind of odd switch to me. Mirrodin's Core gave you any color of mana every two turns Phyrexia's Core destroys artifacts (checks with phyrexia) for life gain (wut) i know there are plenty of art saccing that could use this, but from a mana fixer to a life gainer.. it just seems off.
SeiberTross
★★★★☆ (4.5/5.0)(2 votes)
Run with Glissa, the Traitor. You can sacrifice the artifact of choice w/o having to spend slots on a crappy sacrifice outlet, or crappy cards (see Horizon SpellBomb) just because of their sacrifice clause. Allowing you to build MUCH better decks, and make Perilous Myr incredibly annoying.
Wynzerman
★★★★☆ (4.2/5.0)(2 votes)
I'm going to jump on the "don't knock it until you know how to use it" bandwagon here... Life gain, let alone a solitary life seems underwhelming at first glance, but the possibility here is actually much scarier than "1 life every turn", because it's activation ability allows it to be used in response to something else. In an artifact engine, this one life is often what you need to survive a full turn, or push out an off-color Phyrexian mana spell. Ontop of that it's a non-basic utility land that doesn't have any excess conditions for it's usage other than "have lotsa artifacts handy"
Mode
★★★★☆ (4.4/5.0)(5 votes)
I like the art hommage to Mirrodin's Core, but even though a sacrifice outlet on land is great, i'm not quite content with what it does. The mana activation cost doesn't seem right. Overall the ability doesn't seem right compared to Mirrodin's Core. I would have loved the ability to be ", Sacrifice an Artifact: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool."
DacenOctavio
★★★★☆ (4.1/5.0)(4 votes)
The flavor allusion to Mirrodin's Core is quite off. While it is indeed very phyrexian to consume things for gain, being a weak Claws of Gix isn't very cool :/
GengilOrbios
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.5/5.0)(2 votes)
*** gross picture. nothing against franz vohwinkel - he's a great artist, but I just don't like the Phyrexian flavour...
Splizer
★★★★☆ (4.5/5.0)(1 vote)
Is it just me or is this land about to go into cardiac arrest?
Salient
★★☆☆☆ (2.5/5.0)(1 vote)
I think of this as me directly sapping the core of the life force it contains, using an artifact sacrifice to tap into the phyrexian chokehold on the core.
It returns the flavor, then... but I feel a little guilty every time I use it.
TherealphatMatt
★★★☆☆ (3.5/5.0)(1 vote)
Grossly underrated.
Klutz42
★★★★☆ (4.8/5.0)(2 votes)
Right. It's so easy to be blind to the fact that this is clearly a sac engine. Use it with Modular, or as other people stated, the two wellsprings and the spine. The one life is merely a minor fringe benefit. Maybe even run it next to your Disciple of the Vault(s) as well.
In fact, I might even build a deck with this next to some Clone Shells and Summoner's Eggs with eldrazi/colossi in them.
NickDay
★★★★☆ (4.0/5.0)(1 vote)
I wish this was an artifact land.
DoragonShinzui
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(3 votes)
Such a sad waste of a card. I know it's a decent enough sac engine, but it could've been so much more! Look at the old Mirrodin's Core! This could've been a Phyrexian mana fixer (Something that, as of yet, doesn't exist), taking off of an old card's flavor and twisting it into something interesting, like all good Phyrexianized cards should do!
Take, for example, this version I thought up: Phyrexia's Core (Uncommon) Land
: Add to your mana pool. , Sacrifice an artifact: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.
Same role filled, only now it's an actually decent card simply by itself, and absolutely dripping with flavor, rather than this bland, colorless mess of a card which makes no sense no matter how long I look at it. Why would a land that eats artifacts for Phyrexia give life? Why?
Ryjhan
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
to the people saying it should have been some sort of phyrexian mana fixer: it kind of is one, if you look at all the cards that have the phyrexian mana symbol that costs either mana or life to play.
DarthParallax
★★☆☆☆ (2.5/5.0)(1 vote)
DoragunShazumi doesn't know Phyrexia flavor very well -_-
Gaining life is actually quite in flavor for them. :P Read the old "Artifacts Cycle" books. Yawgmoth was a CLERIC. An evil one, sure. Which is why you have to kill artifact creatures to gain life (artifact creatures being possibly easier to make than just artifacts, depending on your style/how many Memnites you own).
This isn't a useless card.
It has plenty of flavor.
I LIKE that it's more colorless than the rest of New Phyrexia- it reminds me of the last remains of Old Phyrexia buried within the New. :)
TBPH: If you want a really Sick Phyrexian Land, you have Inkmoth Nexus. If you want better or different that but still strong and flavorful.....Phyrexians don't do a whole lot of things fairly. You probably want broken cards. :P
PS: Is this situationally better than High Market?
Megadog
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Mirroden's Core: Every second turn, for no cost, you get one mana of any color. Phyrexia's Core: Every second turn, for 2 and two artifacts, you get one mana of any color to spend on phyrexian mana symbols only.
Comments (33)
The point of this card also lies in the fact that it is capable of replacing cards like Throne of Geth if you don't mind missing the proliferate. It just allows you to some cards for other cards and lands like this are quintessencial for the development of new stratagies.
@Garabor: Well, to be fair, they also got Inkmoth Nexus.
For lifegain purposes this card sucks though, as it does if you just add it randomly to decks.
1/5
I wouldn't mind getting this card at all. Besides, it's cool.
I trust that Wizards will do the right thing and give me a card that transforms Mirrodin into a giant robot voiced by Orson Wells.
Its just a shame it costs a mana to activate, I mean would it have killed them to have made the activation similar to high market?
However, the ability it has is so weak that it's hard to get very excited over it. One life is meaningless trifle. A fun use of High Market was a cheap counter to Control Magic-type effects; unfortunately, artifact theft isn't nearly as rampant as creature theft. Both High Market and Phyrexia's Core can be used to put permanents in the grave reliably, but adding a mana requirement to the less-useful ability's cost just makes me scratch my head and wonder why.
Mirrodin's Core gave you any color of mana every two turns
Phyrexia's Core destroys artifacts (checks with phyrexia) for life gain (wut)
i know there are plenty of art saccing that could use this, but from a mana fixer to a life gainer.. it just seems off.
but even though a sacrifice outlet on land is great, i'm not quite content with what it does.
The mana activation cost doesn't seem right.
Overall the ability doesn't seem right compared to Mirrodin's Core. I would have loved the ability to be
"
It returns the flavor, then... but I feel a little guilty every time I use it.
Use it with Modular, or as other people stated, the two wellsprings and the spine. The one life is merely a minor fringe benefit. Maybe even run it next to your Disciple of the Vault(s) as well.
In fact, I might even build a deck with this next to some Clone Shells and Summoner's Eggs with eldrazi/colossi in them.
Take, for example, this version I thought up:
Phyrexia's Core (Uncommon)
Land
Same role filled, only now it's an actually decent card simply by itself, and absolutely dripping with flavor, rather than this bland, colorless mess of a card which makes no sense no matter how long I look at it. Why would a land that eats artifacts for Phyrexia give life? Why?
Gaining life is actually quite in flavor for them. :P Read the old "Artifacts Cycle" books. Yawgmoth was a CLERIC. An evil one, sure. Which is why you have to kill artifact creatures to gain life (artifact creatures being possibly easier to make than just artifacts, depending on your style/how many Memnites you own).
This isn't a useless card.
It has plenty of flavor.
I LIKE that it's more colorless than the rest of New Phyrexia- it reminds me of the last remains of Old Phyrexia buried within the New. :)
TBPH: If you want a really Sick Phyrexian Land, you have Inkmoth Nexus. If you want better or different that but still strong and flavorful.....Phyrexians don't do a whole lot of things fairly. You probably want broken cards. :P
PS: Is this situationally better than High Market?
Phyrexia's Core: Every second turn, for 2 and two artifacts, you get one mana of any color to spend on phyrexian mana symbols only.
I see the idea, but damn Wizards, just damn.