So they were supposed to use the "inverted growth" trick twice? Once on a slith and once on a hydra? That doesn't make such sense. Especially given that hydrae are probably way more popular than sliths ever were.

Speaking only for myself, I'd have preferred the Slith, but I was a huge fan of the Slith.

Honestly, I disliked most of Scars. I mean, I dislike the Phyrexians in general and always have, so that didn't help, but I just didn't enjoy that block at all, apart from poison counters, which I've always wanted to come back. But the flavor, the story, and the aesthetics of the cards were, for the most part, not appealing to me.

I actually liked Scars block more than I thought I would. Mostly, it's because I really hated Mirrodin the first time around and was glad to see it destroyed (mostly because it looked like an artificial He-Man world). The only things I liked were the things that feel pseudo-sapient (myr/slith), playing with the age-old scifi ponderings about AI. I still have to picture Vedalken as amphibian to not hate them (Though that more because I hate the idea of a society solely focused on scientific advancement. There's never been a system that worked that way in real life. The closest I can think of I don't think of fondly.).

They used the reverse growth trick a lot.
Carnifex Demon and Etched Monstrosity come to mind immediately.

But yeah, screw hydra. I hate most of the pushed overly mechanical buggers.

I meant "inverted growth" in the sense of representing something that is normally associated with growth through +1/+1 counters instead shrink through -1/-1 counters. I should have just said "shrinking".

I just want myr back. Anybody think there's a chance that a planeswalker copied down my favourite creature type's blueprints? I think I asked this before, but is there any chance that the original myr weren't from Mirrodin?

I am under the impression that the myr were created by Memnarch, but it's been years since I read the Mirrodin novels, so I could be completely wrong. (Was that detail in the Mirrodin novels?)

@Slith: The kind of design where they just remove a -1/-1 counter fom themselves (and preferably move it to another creature) when they damage a player would have worked fine. Or just the kind of thing Thrummingbird does. There would have been lots of possibilities to stick to the "growth" theme. I hope they'll be around again the next time we see New Phyrexia, they already looked pretty creepy and kinda Phyrexian to begin with. Alternatively, I wouldn't mind seeing the Slith on their original homeplane. It's probably some alien place like Fabacin or Belenon or even Iquatana...

@Phyrexians: I love Phyrexians, and Old Phyrexia had a huge part in drawing me into the game. It was like Christmas when they brought back Phyrexia AND poison in the same block. Though I hope New Phyrexia will evolve some more and become more like Old Phyrexia regarding the look and body shape of the creatures. New Phyrexia had a lot of creatures that were just corrupted versions of the races of Mirrodin and still had the corresponding creature type (humans, elves, leonin, vedalken etc.), and that was perfectly fine as it showed how they were corrupting the plane. But I've always been a fan of cards like Phyrexian Slayer or Phyrexian Reaper that just look like sick alien cyborg monsters with totally inhuman body shapes. Or things like Abyssal Gatekeeper or the original artwork of Phyrexian Rager and Phyrexian Delver that use body parts of humanoids but rearrange them into completely different silhouettes. New Phyrexia had some of those, too, but I'd like them to move away from their Mirrodin origns to some extent and closer to some of the old stuff.

@Myr: Memnarch had all of Karn's research notes, which must have involved lots of blueprints, too. I'm still pretty sure it said somewhere the myr were a completely new design, but I can't point to a source for sure. On the plus side, there are still myr on New Phyrexia, they've just been phyrexianised. I guess they didn't even notice and are still doing their thing, though.

@Suq'Ata/Rabiah connection: I've heard of that connection before, but it makes me wonder: Do we know anything about the Suq'Atans' religion? Like, are they canonically Muslims or something? I think we all got used to the real-world weirdness of Rabiah, but Islam existing on Dominaria might be kinda weird. Not that that's going to come up again I'm sure...

The slith were pretty much called out as being native to Mirrodin.

You mean because they were influenced by the suns? Because that's not saying much.

While it would be easier to go the multiple discovery route (like with ornithopter), at least there's another way to bring back myr without New Phyrexia. Tamiyo knows about myr and her notes are rather detailed. I think Tezzeret could theoretically help them appear somewhere else too.