Phyrexia is Hell | A 30-Year History of Magic's Most Sinister Villains
837,110
Published 2023-03-01
www.kickstarter.com/projects/originalmagicart/nils…
This video traces a 30-year history of Magic's oldest villains — the Phyrexians — and showcases the evolution of their visual design. It also provides an introduction to the esoteric Phyrexian language.
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🦉 Guests:
Fernando Franco Félix
youtube.com/@HighlyEntropicMind
ϕ Deciphering Phyrexian Playlist:
• Deciphering Phyrexian
🎵 Music:
In Obscurity Lies the Gate - Christoffer Moe Ditlevsen
www.epidemicsound.com/track/oqHUoJgi6Z/
The Golden Spiral - Yi Nantiro
www.epidemicsound.com/track/0sf7I3xkQe/
Atomic Numbers 1 - August Wilhelmsson
www.epidemicsound.com/track/XTCI5thzDQ/
Shapes of Shadows - Franz Gordon
www.epidemicsound.com/track/CCX1Md1HkY/
Spook - JH Coleman
www.epidemicsound.com/track/CiMLLMmrLO/
My Moon and Your Sun - Hampus Naeselius
www.epidemicsound.com/track/VLxWzaKFhd/
Willow Wonder - Guustavv
www.epidemicsound.com/track/2m3qrkxyKf/
Feeeeelings - Guustavv
www.epidemicsound.com/track/nOSKIv6Vkq/
In Pieces - Madison York
www.epidemicsound.com/track/jCOXqpQmPU/
The Tired Summer - Franz Gordon
www.epidemicsound.com/track/tZFKY8b0QC/
Autumnal Equinox - Ave Air
www.epidemicsound.com/track/lTl835txs4/
📘 Chapters:
0:00 Card Kingdom
0:20 Coalesce Apparel & Design
0:43 Prologue: 32 Teeth
3:49 Part I: The Primordials
13:54 Part II: The Viral Prismatic Empire
30:57 Part III: The Metal Tongue
49:03 Part IV: All Will Be One
1:04:28 Nils Hamm Playmat & Token Collection
1:05:28 Epilogue: The Hexadecimal Die
📓 Sources:
docs.google.com/document/d/1spIxju14-e0ll8CTBWg0aO…
#mtg #magicthegathering
All Comments (21)
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There's something wonderfully thematic about the fact that despite Phyrexian being written vertically, it is displayed horizontally on cards. The idea that a Phyrexian would be most comfortable reading the name of a land or creature when it is tapped (aka exploited) is perfect.
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The fact that this was basically a feature film and it came out only two months after your last video is insane. Thank you for all the work you put into your art.
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Boy, those Phyrexians sure are really cool villains that have had a lot of effort put into them. Sure hope this multiversal war they're staging has a good conclusion.
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"I have these nightmares where I lose my teeth" is the most jaw-dropping (no pun intended) intro lines to any video you've ever done. Masterful work, sir.
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I'm impressed by the effort Wizards put into the Phyrexian Language. I thought it was just an Alphabet but to hear that it's a full fledged language with its own rules and words is amazing.
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I like that they added unhuman sounds. Most conlangs I know of don't do that even if the are spoken by creatures without a semblance of similarity to humans.
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I've never heard anything about Magic lore or Phyrexia, and clicked on this just out of curiosity. I was definitely not expecting such an in-depth and superbly composed essay about a creepy yet oddly fascinating fictional race. Now excuse me while I "perfect" my vocal chords so I can properly speak Phyrexian
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I think Yawgmoth is the most fitting man to sing a song "I'm only human, after all". Because he was just that, only a human, not even a planeswalker, but he created the most wicked hell in all multiverse, not even a fucking dragons could match the sheer level of MALICE this dude casually threw around.
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I'm also curious what the Phyrexian language can't say. Considering how much they strive to strip away everything that doesn't fit with their warped vision of 'perfection,' a simple expression of physical need like "I'm thirsty" might not even be in their lexicon.
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Came in for lore and analysis behind art pieces and I never expected a long segment about the language. Fernando's dedication truly demands every respect I can give.
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I remember the Jin Gitaxias text reveal. It’s insane that members of the community have such a strong dedication towards a manufactured language that the translation was pretty much spot on
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the recent Phyrexian focus in magic has very nearly dragged me back into the game. Phyrexia as a concept hits deep for me, and i can’t describe why.
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So ... this whole time Wizards has had like a handful of people making the Phyrexian language that is rich and complex and borrows from all sorts of real languages?
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It's an odd coincidence how one of the notable features of Phyrexians has been the huge amount of teeth, while one of the ways to spot AI art in the current iterations are the images having way too many teeth.
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I've been aware for a long time now that cards written in phyrexian were a thing, but I always thought the language was commonly known, explained on a blog post or else. This whole section on linguists working to decipher it is completely new to me, and I have to say... I've never seen anything so COOL before!!! These guys are heroes in the fandom of MTG, and they deserve recognition! What an adventure they are having, IRL, inside Magic's lore!
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Would just like to point out that the writing is insanely good. The diction, prosody, and pacing were so good I was constantly blown away “Thrun smiles with crooked teeth”
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As someone who's first set of MTG was scars this was a lovely review of the visions and art which fueled the imagination of my 12 year old self.
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Spice8Rack releases Mill vs Discard Yesterday, then my man Sam releases some (what I always assume to be absolute fire) poetic knowledge. This is the best month ever. Love your work man, can't wait to see what drops tonight!
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speaking of the transhumanist ideal of immortality, the phyrexian word for perfection and perfect is a combination of the words "to make" and "eternal"
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I'm absolutely obsessed with the entire Phyrexian aesthetic. Something about it is so subversive while also having meanings within meanings. A message I've always gotten from their aesthetic is something like "Finding the perfections in imperfections while knowing nothing is truly, fully perfect." Even a figure like Elesh Norn who seems perfect still has cracks in her crown/mask and exposed flesh, suggesting that no one is capable of achieving total perfection.
