Mirrex – Phyrexia: All Will Be One
Date Reviewed: March 24, 2023
Ratings:
Constructed: 3.63
Casual: 4.13
Limited: 4.13
Multiplayer: 3.50
Commander [EDH]: 3.63
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Mirrex’s game text poses two interesting questions: can you get more colored mana out of it than written, and can you use a repeatable stream of toxic mites? The mana part is more of a curiosity, but the answer to the latter is definitely yes (which probably sounds really bad out of context). The pedigree of repeatable creature generation on lands is undeniable – Urza’s Factory was a huge deal in Time Spiral Standard because it allowed control decks to pressure other control decks without spending much in the way of resources or, often, making a first move that the opponent could really react to. I could see Mirrex playing a similar role in the modern era, particularly in formats like Standard or maybe even Pioneer, since the Mite tokens are more of a threat than their 1/1 stats would immediately suggest. The one wrinkle is that decks are more proactive than they were back in 2006. Aggro decks are maybe about the same speed, and combo decks show similar resilience as Dragonstorm despite often facing disruptive creatures and stronger discard. And even control opponents can get in your face and mess you up, even if they often do it at sorcery speed now. I’m not as down on this card as that might sound, though: the inherent power of an ability like this, and the deceptive effectiveness of the Mite tokens will go a long way.
Constructed: 3.5
Casual: 4
Limited: 4
Multiplayer: 3.5
Commander [EDH]: 3.5
If the new Phyrexia sets have proved nothing else, it’s that that plane is capable of some surprisingly subtle horror beats. Mirrex’s art looks distant and abstract, almost more decorative than a direct portrayal of something. Then you look up the story articles, and you find out that Mirrex was once the surface of Mirrodin, and the Phyrexians laid it to waste and eventually built an entire artificial layer over it, a layer which came to contain innumerable monuments to their victory. That’s not the sky – that’s the support struts and plumbing for a planet-sized celebration of genocide.
Mirrex feels like a descendant in the long lineage of creature lands, particularly hearkening back to the Blinkmoth Nexus and Inkmoth Nexus duo from past Mirrodin visits. Mirrex is a bit different, combining a Crumbling Vestige-style mana trigger that lets you get mana of any color on its first turn out, with the ability to churn out an army of mites to wreak havoc. In a long game, this is a surprisingly threatening weapon, as you can eventually churn out enough bodies to break through and start spreading the infection, and while it costs three mana to use, that’s still fair enough. Mirrex seems like a solid weapon for slower, more controlling decks, and while it’s fairly okay as just a land, it’s solid enough with some clear upsides to make it worth using.
Constructed: 3.75
Casual: 4.25
Limited: 4.25
Multiplayer: 3.5
Commander [EDH]: 3.75
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