The victory on Ravnica felt like the dawn of a permanent golden age. But deep beneath the surface of a fractured, metal world, a nightmare born from Dominaria’s ancient sins was quietly mutating. This is the story of the New Phyrexian invasion, the darkest, most desperate hour the Multiverse ever faced.
The Birth of New Phyrexia
Millennia after Urza destroyed the original Phyrexia and Yawgmoth perished in the skies of Urborg, a single drop of the mutagenic Glistening Oil survived. It had been carried across dimensional space by the corrupted Karn to the peaceful, hollow metal world of Mirrodin.
Over time, the oil took root, corrupted the plane’s synthetic ecosystem, and birthed a brand-new iteration of the machine hell. Without Yawgmoth to rule them, distinct factions of Phyrexians evolved under five different praetors, each representing a color of mana:
-
Elesh Norn (White) preached unity, purity, and absolute submission under her grand architectural vision.
-
Jin-Gitaxias (Blue) pursued ruthless biological and technological perfection through experimentation.
-
Sheoldred (Black) ruled through brutal hierarchy, ambition, and psychological terror.
-
Urabrask (Red) championed an eerie sense of individual freedom and passion, rebelling against Norn’s tyranny.
-
Vorinclex (Green) embodied a brutal, unfeeling philosophy of apex predator evolution.
Eventually, the ruthless white praetor Elesh Norn outmaneuvered her rivals, united the factions, and crowned herself the Mother of Machines. New Phyrexia was no longer just a localized plague – it was an industrial superpower with a terrifying new capability: they figured out how to pierce the planar barriers and target the rest of the Multiverse.
The Secret Infiltration: The Compleation of Heroes
Elesh Norn knew that a brute-force invasion against a united Multiverse would fail. Instead, New Phyrexia weaponized stealth, betrayal, and psychological infiltration.
Using newly developed dimensional portals, the Phyrexians began quietly capturing, torturing, and „compleating“ some of the greatest heroes and Planeswalkers in existence. One by one, legends fell to the glistening oil:
-
Tamiyo: The gentle, archive-loving moonfolk scholar was captured and converted into a cold, calculating machine of metal and logic.
-
Ajani Goldmane: The noble, lion-hearted leonin mentor, a founding pillar of moral strength, was subverted in secret, turning a beloved friend into a sleeper agent of unimaginable cruelty.
-
Vraska and Jace Beleren: Even the brilliant telepath Jace and the assassin queen Vraska were systematically broken and converted, dealing a psychologically devastating blow to the resistance.
The horror of New Phyrexia was not just that they killed their enemies; it was that they stripped away their souls, forcing them to fight as mindless, biomechanical weapons against their own families.
All Will Be One: The Strike Team That Failed
Realizing the existential threat too late, a desperate coalition of surviving Planeswalkers and native heroes launched a preemptive strike directly onto the heart of New Phyrexia.
Armed with high-tech defenses and desperate courage, the strike team descended into the layers of the metal world to assassinate Elesh Norn and shut down the invasion portals.
It was a catastrophic trap.
The Phyrexians were prepared for them. The strike team was systematically dismantled, overwhelmed, and betrayed from within by their own corrupted comrades. The mission failed utterly, and Elesh Norn’s master plan was unleashed. The portals flung wide open, and the March of the Machine began.
March of the Machine: The Multiverse Burns
Across every known plane—from the neon streets of Kamigawa and the gothic horrors of Innistrad to the wild woods of Eldraine and the timeless rivers of Tarkir—the sky suddenly tore open.
Phyrexian drop-ships, compleated gods, and corrupted heroes poured out simultaneously onto every world. There was no safe haven.
-
Global Resistance: Every plane fought back with everything they had. On Innistrad, humans and monsters fought side-by-side; on Dominaria, veterans of ancient wars stood shoulder-to-shoulder with a new generation; on Ixalan, mortals and dinosaurs defended their home jungles.
-
The Searing Rebellion: Surprisingly, Urabrask, the red praetor who valued passion over absolute control, assisted the resistance by actively rebelling against Elesh Norn, buying the Multiverse precious time before he was dismantled for his treason.
-
The Ultimate Sacrifice: Countless heroes fell. Worlds were brought to the absolute brink of total structural collapse, burning under the white-hot synthetic light of Elesh Norn’s ambition.
The Turning Point: Zhalfir’s Return and the Fate of Elesh Norn
Just when all hope seemed entirely extinguished, a stroke of brilliant, desperate magic turned the tide.
The master chronomancer Teferi, who centuries earlier had phased his homeland of Zhalfir completely out of time to save it from destruction, managed to locate his lost continent. Working with surviving mages, Teferi swapped the location of New Phyrexia with the continent of Zhalfir.
In an instant, New Phyrexia was yanked out of the multiverse’s core network and stranded in a localized, harmless temporal pocket, cut off from its portals. At the same time, an entire army of veteran, battle-hardened Zhalfir warriors materialized directly onto the battlefield of Ravnica, turning the tide of the final defense.
With their network severed and their connection to their Mother of Machines broken, the Phyrexian horde collapsed into uncoordinated fragments. Karn, the silver golem created by Urza to end this curse millennia ago, delivered the final justice, sealing the fate of Elesh Norn and putting an end to the nightmare.
Why Chapter 6 Was the Darkest Hour
The March of the Machine changed the Multiverse forever. While the Phyrexians were defeated, the cost was astronomical: countless lives were lost, trusted heroes were permanently gone or forever scarred by their time under the oil, and the fundamental laws governing how planes interacted were shattered.
The Multiverse was safe, but it was bruised, battered, and standing on the edge of a completely unknown future.
Ready to explore the shattered aftermath and the dawn of a brand-new era? Continue reading with Chapter 7: Omenpaths and the New Multiverse – The Aftermath and Modern Horizons.
