Why is this white? I get WoG was white, but this seems completely black, from effect, to name, to art.

Phyrexian Rebirth

"Black" is not the color of evil. Nor is white the color of "good".

I'm going to argue against that the name is black; Just because it includes Phyrexia doesn't make it black on Mirrodin; and Rebirth fits just as easily in white as in black, and not as easily in any other color.

I'll grant you partial point on the art - the only ways I can defend it are the white sun in the background and saying "but all Phyrexians are horrifying hunks of bio-mechanical scrap."

The effect... I'm kind of torn, really. White tends to get the big, Wrath of God-type effects; but doesn't do big revive effects much and, to my knowledge, never big creature tokens. In that sense, I think it should have been .

The flavor text... Seems typically Phyrexian. I can't really connect it to any of the factions clearly; though I think it would have been better attached to the Progress Engine.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Searc ... ced&text=+[return]+[creature]+[card]+[graveyard]+[battlefield]&color=+[W]

White does get a lot of revives, and as far as tokens go, I think white did a bunch for Return to Ravnica for the Populate mechanic.

~SE++

Sweepers - white white black
Flavor of killing others and making an abomination out the dead - black black black
Artwork of monstrous evil looking creature - black black black
Horror creatures - black black black
Flavor text about how it's joyous to kill others and create abominations - black black black

So literally the only thing that makes it white is the fact white also has sweepers.


This has nothing (and I've said nothing) about white being 'good' and black being 'bad'.
We've seen over the course of the storyline plenty of corrupt white based characters.

But everything about it, from art, to flavor, to mechanic, to practicality, screams black.

That link is giving me a "server error" from Gatherer, but I can admit your point. It's just that, typically, black is more "get out of your graveyard" where white is more "protect from harm". I am going mostly by my own collection, though, so take with a grain of salt.

I'd have to double-check the token-creators of RtR, but as far as Populate/Selesnya goes, that was more about the number of tokens than their size. I mean, sure, they had a number of 3/3s and stuff, but Populate's main focus was doubling every kind of token, not adjusting their size. Phyrexian Rebirth can make a bloody huge creature token, something normally reserved for green.

And you know, now I'm wondering what would happen if you made another of those horror tokens with Populate. Shouldn't it end up a 0/0, because no creatures were destroyed to make it?

No, it'd be the same size. The power and toughness are determined when the spell is cast, but becomes a permanent aspect of the card.

~SE++

This is white mechanically in every way. Martial Coup

I have to disagree there (unless I'm misunderstanding and you mean Martial Coup is the one mechanically spot-on).

The key difference, to me at least, is that instead of summoning a multitude of creatures (a la said coup and totally in white), it creates one big creature. White doesn't do big creatures, even if it does get "Destroy all creature" effects. If it made X 1/1 tokens, it would be closer to white. That's why I argue it seems more like a than pure-

Well it's a flavor stretch because of Phyrexia. White does occasionally get big creatures, but the point is that it's a wrath and it's punishing the opponent for overextending. Black is more about punishing them for the fun of it, not as an actual punishment. For me the card feels like a penalty thing. "You have too many creatures not following Elesh Norn! You must join us, blah blah." All the colors had to be stretched a little in that set.

Hmm, very nice. I hadn't thought of it that way...

Are you sure you're not confusing phyrexian with black here?
Because Phyrexia is in some aspects very much white.

Man, this post sure is troll

If the card had said "Angel" instead of "Horror", this could have been printed (mechanically, not with this flavor) in Avacyn Restored. If it had said "Spirit" it could have been in Kamigawa, if it said "Elemental" it could have been in Ravnica. Nothing wrong with it.

Except horror has been exclusively black throughout the entire history of magic
Angels and spirits both have been and largely are white creatures.

Horrors are explicitly black creatures so your hypothetical makes no sense

Consider

Creator shaman 1uu
Creature shaman
T: put a 1/1 beast into play

How is the right color? 1uu is obviously completely wrong.
Saying "well if instead of beast it said merfolk" is a completely superfluous argument.
In reality it says beast just like in reality it says horror.

Just because you disagree doesn't mean you can spam a thread to derail it.

Horror has been majority black, I agree. But not exclusively. Wayward Angel, Balefire Liege, Chained Throatseeker, Possessed Nomad, Skaab Ruinator, Deathbringer Liege and a few more are non-black in nature.

Then Curse of the Swine, Ovinomancer, Rapid Hybridization and Wall of Kelp must be pretty wrong to you as well.

~SE++

Your hypothetical card is without any context or flavor, unlike Phyrexian Rebirth, whose mechanic is strongly tied to the setting it's made in.

Have you even looked at any other cards in the set? There are far worse offenders there.

And all of those could very easily be argued have black flavor.
One mistake does not make another correct. Poor logic.
Furthermore half of those have black implicitly part of the card



It was a bad example because wizards and shamans can summon creatures
My point still stands completely true though, semantics aside.

It depends on the context. Yes, Phyrexian Rebirth, when taken completely out of context, feels awkward in white. In any other set, it would have been black, or white black.

However, Phyrexian Rebirth was printed in a set that showed the different faces of Phyrexia. All phyrexian creatures are more or less horrors from an outsider's point of view, hence why the card pumps out an horror.

To take your example, it's true that in the abstract, it doesn't make sense as a blue card. Imagine however a set where the whole world is covered in jungles or something and beasts are the most common thing in the world. Then that card might make sense.

A more concrete example would be how, before lorwyn, people would have told you that merfolks in white don't make sense and black goblins and elves was a stupid idea. Put them in the right context though and they make sense.