Great flexible card, good at powering any tribal/token deck. I personally use it in my cleric deck (along with goodies like Rotlung Reanimator and Mirror Entity (or conspiracy) to generate multiple infinite combo's. Great for that last touch of mana and other card's such as grave pact.
Great card all in all, just terrible in most decks, gotta be used appropriately, as must all cards.
I don't understand the flavor of this and of Phyrexian Lens. There are both phyrexian artifacts right? But all Phyrexians are black so why should they want to produce mana of other colors?
rembrajn
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
Woodfall Primus, Mighty Emergence, Greater good and Phryexian Altar. Now you can draw and play your whole deck, and destroy all their lands, artifacts, enchantments and planeswalkers. Throw in Emerakul for infinite turns
@AColonyOfAnts using Pawn of Ulamog/Altar/ Nether Traitor actually works a little better... and you get infinite mana to boot. Of course, the Traitor would be more difficult to come by. Either way, some great combos achievable with this card.
Pawn of Ulamog/Altar/ 2 Nether Traitors can net you infinite Eldrazi Spawn as well (so could 1 Traitor and one Reassembling Skeleton, as I have both in a deck).
Any of those combos finishes well with Flesh Allergy.
Also Urborg Justice in addition to the Grave Pact strategies already posted.
Sac Saffi for your reveillark. Then, sac the Slime to the Altar, then the Reveillark. Return Saffi and Acidic to play, along with Reveillark. Rinse and repeat until your opponents have no noncreature permanents.
While you are at it, you can use all of the extra mana to cast Kozilek, Butcher of Truth to refill your hand and beat savage face.
Phyrexia was mostly black but a few Phyrexian cards use blue or red mana (black's allied colors). Tsabo Tavoc (quoted on both this and Phyrexian Lens) is black/red. Plague Spores is also black/red and Phyrexian Infiltrator, while mono-black, has an ability that uses blue mana. Both of these cards also have a quote from Tsabo Tavoc, interestingly enough. There's also Phyrexian Tyranny which is all three.
Going back earlier we have Phyrexian Purge which is black/red. Volrath, who is mono-black himself, has a bunch of associated cards in other colors - Volrath's Curse, Volrath's Shapeshifter, and Whim of Volrath in blue and Volrath's Gardens in green(!). Volrath also has the Dream Halls inside his stronghold, and according to its flavor text, Theft of Dreams is one of Volrath's powers too. It's painfully obvious Volrath himself should have been black/blue, actually.
tavaritz
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
I have to say that more mana is merrier so I'd prefer Ashnod's Altar, because you can always wash the to any colour(1).
a good combo with this card could be gravecrawler with diregraf captain and phyrexian altar just keep saccing the gravecrawler and bringing him back with one black mana everytime and doing 1 damage to your opponent every time.
Guess What! More infinite combos!
(As if we didn't have enough already)
I tried to make it standard legal by doing this weird thing with gyre sage but there are no repeatable mana filters at all (I know that it would work with axebane guardian instead and be standard legal but I just did an infinity with axebane guardian so I wanted to try something new).
Phyrexian Altar + Young Wolf + Thrull Parasite + Freed From the Real + Blood Artist + Blood Artist
One of the most feared and powerful cards among my playgroups. I am not sure how this thing fares in constructed, but in EDH it is insane. Phyrexian Altar plays into so many combos that it's mere presence on the board suggests sinister intentions. Even without combos, this thing is a house. In my opinion every commander deck can use an effective sac outlet to protect against exile, tuck, clones, and steal effects. It's almost always better to sac your commander than give it up to Gilded Drake. You can sac things like Anger, Academy Rector, Reveillark. You can play Sylvan Primordial, sac, and use the mana to Reanimate. Even 2 or 3 mana can be important reach for a turn. You can sac in response to wipes and play instants. The possibilities and combos are endless and often effortless. But the card itself depends on context, so it is certainly not broken. Just a very, very powerful tool that is justifiably feared.
Comments (20)
Great card all in all, just terrible in most decks, gotta be used appropriately, as must all cards.
Turns colorless mana into colored mana.
There are both phyrexian artifacts right? But all Phyrexians are black so why should they want to produce mana of other colors?
Throw in Emerakul for infinite turns
Now add Butcher of Malakir or Grave Pact and/or Mortican Beetle, and things get hilarious.
Pawn of Ulamog/Altar/ 2 Nether Traitors can net you infinite Eldrazi Spawn as well (so could 1 Traitor and one Reassembling Skeleton, as I have both in a deck).
Any of those combos finishes well with Flesh Allergy.
Also Urborg Justice in addition to the Grave Pact strategies already posted.
Sac Saffi for your reveillark. Then, sac the Slime to the Altar, then the Reveillark. Return Saffi and Acidic to play, along with Reveillark. Rinse and repeat until your opponents have no noncreature permanents.
While you are at it, you can use all of the extra mana to cast Kozilek, Butcher of Truth to refill your hand and beat savage face.
This and 2x Nether Traitor
Or this and Eternal Witness + Unearth
Phyrexia was mostly black but a few Phyrexian cards use blue or red mana (black's allied colors). Tsabo Tavoc (quoted on both this and Phyrexian Lens) is black/red. Plague Spores is also black/red and Phyrexian Infiltrator, while mono-black, has an ability that uses blue mana. Both of these cards also have a quote from Tsabo Tavoc, interestingly enough. There's also Phyrexian Tyranny which is all three.
Going back earlier we have Phyrexian Purge which is black/red. Volrath, who is mono-black himself, has a bunch of associated cards in other colors - Volrath's Curse, Volrath's Shapeshifter, and Whim of Volrath in blue and Volrath's Gardens in green(!). Volrath also has the Dream Halls inside his stronghold, and according to its flavor text, Theft of Dreams is one of Volrath's powers too. It's painfully obvious Volrath himself should have been black/blue, actually.
(1) Even with the crappiest washer: Celestial Prism.
T1:Play Forest, tap, play Sol Ring
T2 Play Forest, Play Aluren, flash in Azusa
T3: Play Phyrexian Altar, go infinite, play Genesis Wave
(As if we didn't have enough already)
I tried to make it standard legal by doing this weird thing with gyre sage but there are no repeatable mana filters at all (I know that it would work with axebane guardian instead and be standard legal but I just did an infinity with axebane guardian so I wanted to try something new).
Phyrexian Altar + Young Wolf + Thrull Parasite + Freed From the Real + Blood Artist + Blood Artist