(I would love feedback! I'm still learning how to build nice decks and I don't know /every/ card. I particularly like suggestions on lands)
Edit:
12/20/2014: Replaced 2x Due Respect with 2x Blind Obedience.
12/22/2014:
- Added Second Elesh Norn to mainboard
- Swapped 2x Forced Worship with 2x Dispense Justice
- Added 2x Rebuke to sideboard
- Added 4x Puncturing Light to sideboard (based on local meta)
- Added 2x Reprisal to Sideboard
- Added 4x Cloudshift to Sideboard
- Note: Some sideboard cards are not 'sideboard cards' and would be swapped entirely pre-match/tournament depending on opponents.
- Added 4x Apostle's Blessing to Sideboard
This deck was made for two reasons:
1.) A Response to Konfused_Kat's Elesh Norn flavor deck found here: http://www.mtgvault.com/konfusedkat/decks/phyrexian-flavor-deck-elesh-norn/
2.) Because I wanted a Elesh Norn flavored Phyrexian Deck
~~~ Bonus? Most of the cards look pretty epic in your hand. Just saying.
You've got a lot of white spells, and a lot of uncolored artifacts, as well as the option to pay life instead. This is rather important, because there tends to be a lot of ways to return that life to you. Likewise, a lot of your damage to other players will probably be in the form of infect counters (depending on how you roll the deck) or straight up.
Tried to keep a good balance of defense and offense where I could.
My lands are lacking as of 9:50 on 12/18/2014, but I'm going to be working on them to make a little better selection. I imagine I can do better.
"I wanna capture the commanding/religious nature of Elesh Norn herself. For those unfamiliar with the story and the general idea of "flavor," Elesh Norn is essentially the Phyrexian equivalent to the Catholic Pope. Known to their religion as "the Grand Cenobite." The vast majority of the white faction of Phyrexia is very much based in religion and as such is opposed to much change. While it is organised, this organization is based of religious order. "
- Konfused_Kat
I did the same, being that it was based upon their build. I kept a good grasp on the sycophant creatures and oppressive instants/sorceries/enchantments to build a deck that forces you to bend to it or break beneath its armies of zealots and mindless constructs.
Thematically, I think I nailed it. At the same time, the deck has some promise. Maybe not going to be your tournament winner or anything, but you can at least hold your own... maybe... against your friends or lower level, non-power decks with the same sort of theme-oriented build.
While not the most powerful deck in the game, its a theme deck, so its to be expected. But its also a theme deck that should be able to pack a good punch. Most of your cards cost 2-3 mana, and plenty of them have the option to pay life instead, which is nice, because you have plenty of life return options.
You can either attack your opponent for standard damage or go the infect route (which might be easier) when you pair your Blinding Souleaters with Priests of Norn to keep the pain on.
You have a number of removal options and a good selection of multi-purpose creatures. Mana comes pretty easily, but I still need to figure out what I'm going to do for /sure/ with my lands. I'm sure I can do better than a bunch of plains.
EITHER WAY... should be a fun deck (and its not that expensive!)
~~~~ Maindeck:
- Caged Sun: What greater way to represent one's power than by capturing and harnessing the power of the sun for one's one gain? The sun, the symbol of your white army, has become the prisoner of Elesh Norn and has been used to give you +1/+1 to all your white creatures (of which you have a good number), but also to /double/ the mana gain each turn. Granted, its a six colorless mana cast, but that's why there is only one. It's not real crucial, but if you get it early on and have the chance to play it, throw it down and let it go to work.
- Norn's Annex: Norn's Annex is a hit or miss. It's not going to be real useful against decks that use one or two cards to attack you, or other decks that are heavy on white. You'd not really need it against a deck featuring something along the lines of exalted. That's why we swap it with mindcrank when that occurs! In general, it's going to be a safe bet, because it /is/ an inconvenience for your opponent that they will likely try to remove, so that works in your favor. If you get the chance to play multiple mindcranks you'll be frustrating! It's good against decks like goblins or token spawners that use a lot of smaller things to attack you.
------ Mindcrank
- Shrine of Loyal legions: Shrine of legions... You're a cult of people worshiping someone like Elesh Norn... obviously you need shrines for your legions of cultists. If nothing else, this shrine serves a couple of purposes. It gets counters put on it, which if you're not planning to sac it, you can use to buff hex parasites (for whatever reason you'd want to do that), or you could spawn those myr tokens after a few turns and then sac them with a few of the other nifty cards that you should have! Really, its just a nice card to have. Not crucial by any means.
- Unwinding Clock: I'd say of most of the cards that don't directly slap your opponent around, Unwinding Clock is a must have. Not only does it untap all your artifacts, but among those artifacts is Blinding Souleater. This means that you get to tap their defenders, and then their attackers! How much more awesome can that get? Oh, it also untaps Porcelain Legionnaire with their lovely first strike! Its basically a vigilance factory.
- Blinding Souleater: This card makes tap dancing sexy. Three mana to play it, and after that it can just keep tapping creatures, stalling big attackers or allowing you to bypass defenders with your own creatures! It gets to be twice as amazing when you put down an unwinding clock.
- Cathedral Membrane: Cathedral Membrane can be a hit-or-miss. It's not overly expensive, and not overly intimidating until you read it. When it comes to throwing away a creature for a block, Cathedral Membrane takes the gold on that (at least it does a nice job). Block that creature, before the combat resolves, sac it to Phyrexia's Core and get one life and obliterate a creature with up to six toughness. It's going to die anyway, why not make sure it gives you one life? If you don't feel like using Cathedral Membrane, Hex Parasite seems like a solid replacement.
------ Hex Parasite
- Porcelain Legionnaire: Porcelain Legionnaire is a nice, solid attacker. It's not overly expensive to play and comes with first strike and infect. On its own, its not too fancy because it can be easy to kill because of its low defense. Its obviously weak to indirect attacks. However, when you pair it up with your Blinding Souleaters, it can sneak through the enemy's defense and put those infect counters on! Depending on what you're fighting, Hex Parasites might be a good substitute.
------ Hex Parasite
- Chancellor of the Annex: Chancellor of the Anex is a card you hope shows up in your opening hand. If it does, it's a real pain to the opponent because it can really stall their early game. Otherwise, it's just a decent mid- or late-game flier.
- Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite: Probably one of my favorite cards. Not only does Elesh Norn look cool, but she basically ends the game when she shows up (if she doesn't get removed). It basically eliminates any enemy under a */3, but also makes anything under a 5/5 lose to your 1/1s (if you have any). Therefore, when she shows up, you attack and win basically everything.
- Inquisitor Exarch: There's really nothing to /not/ like about Inquisitor Exarch. He hits with 2 right out of the gate as soon as he is played, and then is a functional 2/2 or can give you 2 life instead of targeting the opponent.
- Priests of Norn: Three mana for a 1/4 with vigilance and infect is hard to pass up. They are the ones to attack for you, and function as nice blockers, too. They are much more fierce with caged sun and/or Elesh Norn around.
- Shattered Angel: Because lands show up so often, getting three life each time your opponent plays one is hard to pass up. A 3/3 flier for 5 isn't /too/ bad, either.
- Suture Priest: This is a no-brainer. One life for all your creatures, -1 for all of theirs, for two mana? If you're /not/ playing these in your white phyrexian deck, then you've got a problem.
- Forced Worship: Forced Worship is a good card to stop early attackers, and is made more epic than other mitigating cards by the fact that it can be moved around! Basically, it stops an early attacker and forces the opponent pay to release it. It's obviously no Singing Bell Strike, but if they dont have white mana, its cruelty.
- Phyrexian Unlife: Helps you not lose. You should have at least one or two. It would be neat if you were a permanent, then your Hex Parasites could remove infect counters from you! Oh well.
- Due Respect: Easy way to slow the opponent down. Can make early game mana come in tapped, as well as early creatures. Make sure you /do/ play it on their turn, not yours...
- Marrow Shards: Marrow Shards is a hit or miss. It does 1 damage to each attacker, meaning it is effective against small targets like tokens. Likewise, it can be used to cheap and effectively close the gap between you and the opponent's cards. It makes that 1 extra toughness that you can't compare to suddenly not there. If you're feeling like it won't be useful, Dispatch is a really good replacement since you have plenty of artifacts. Otherwise, just remember to reeeaally hold your Marrow Shards until they are going to be of the most use.
------ Dispatch
- Phyrexia's Core: If you don't have Phyrexia's Core with this many artifacts, you're doing something wrong. Not only that, but it pairs soooo well with Mycosynth Wellspring that Elesh Norn should reach out of her card and slap you if you don't put them in your deck. DONT ASK WHY I didnt put Mycosnyth Wellspring in my main...
- Plains: They may take our lives, but they shall never take our maaanaaaa!
- Vesuva: Its all your other lands. Can become Windbrisk Heights. Probably. Since it enters the battlefield as another card, it becomes that card before being on the battlefield, therefore, it enters the battlefield as Vesuva or other land. If it copies Windbriks Heights, Vesuva enters the battlefield as Windbrisk Heights, and is now Windbrisk Heights, allowing you to use Hideaway again... or just becomes a plains or whatever. It's handy.
- Windbrisk Heights: Hideaway that Elesh Norn! Or something else. Its easy to attack with three things.
~~~~ Sideboard:
- Mind Crank: Mindcrank is just a handy thing to have lying around. If you play with the above cards, something like Suture Priest, you can whittle away at their deck. A lot of people will be all 'why go for that when you're not making a library killing deck'... well... 'cuz you might get lucky and eliminate that one card they are /really/ hoping for. And with multiple suture priests on the field... Weeeeell... cards start to flow. Just make sure they dont play out of their graveyard first or you might be helping them more than hindering.
- Mycosynth Wellspring: This should be in the main. Its here because its up to you (or me) to determine where to put it. MAAAYBE drop a couple plains, dunno... remove a creature or two... but get it in there. It's too handy to /not/ have, especially with Phyrexia's Core which can just sac it right away.
- Hex Parasite: The bane of all things counters... These are a /must/ have because they just make those counter-spawning people squirm. Or maybe not. I don't know. They also keep those planeswalkers in check, because they /do/ use counters. Loyalty Counters. FEEED THE PARASITE!
- Dispatch: You've got plenty of artifacts. Its an easy exile card. One mana? Yes please. Tapping doesn't hurt either if its absolutely necessary, but you'd be stupid to waste it on that unless its going to be a massive amount of damage.
- Remember the Fallen: The ability to return a creature and/or an artifact to your hand is sooo nice. It's a lovely counter to non-exile removal cards, and can even bring back your Mycosynth Wellspring if you need that extra boost!