A Brief History of Phoenix Design (1994-2020)

Casual* Mono-Red

Sky_Blue_Skies

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As my username suggests, I have a lot of love for creature-oriented skies decks and I really enjoy thinking up alternate versions of this old archetype.

This said, I'm going to try something a bit different this time. Instead of posting a new deck, I'm going to devote this page to a historical discussion of the design space devoted to the creature type “phoenix” from its introduction in the early 1990s to the present day. With apologies to the strictly “competitive” crowd, what follows is aimed largely at a “casual” audience--i.e. those who appreciate, play, or build decks independently of Magic's established formats--though I both understand and appreciate that many players can wear both of these hats simultaneously. Nevertheless, given that phoenixes are seeing little mainstream constructed play at the time of writing, I hope that readers feel inspired to give them another chance the next time they need evasive and recursive Red creatures regardless of their preferred play style(s).

Phoenixes have their mythological roots in ancient Egypt and Greco-Roman antiquity, though their current level of visibility in many popular cultures is likely tied both to the work of nineteenth-century folklorists as well as to the emergence of mainstream fantasy over the last fifty years or so. The flavour and design of Magic’s phoenixes focuses principally on the bird's ability to defy death by combusting and rising anew from its ashes, Wizards’ importation of the phoenix archetype in gameplay language has remained relatively faithful to the historical source material. However, as games of Magic tend to last less than 500 years, the time required for some phoenixes to die and be reborn, their immortality has been incorporated into Magic by enabling (almost) every phoenix to “rise from its ashes” in ways that mesh with Red’s piece of the color pie, as opposed to that of Black or White, the colors that tend to monopolize efficient recursion at the level of design. Aside from possessing the flying mechanic, an element meant to express the phoenix’s identity as a kind of bird, all phoenix cards, with one bizarre exception discussed below, are imbued with some form of built-in recursion. This said, although graveyard synergies lend themselves to Shenanigans of the Very Broken Variety (SVBV), there are surprisingly few phoenixes that have made a mark on the constructed scene. This fact makes phoenixes all the more interesting as a design archetype, as it suggests that Wizards’ model for phoenix design can still be productively explored and pushed in new directions without TOO MUCH risk of creating oppressive gameplay and metagames.

Why examine phoenixes in particular? First, phoenix creatures enjoy a significant homogeneity in design. As I'll demonstrate below, 25 out of 26 phoenixes printed between 1994 and 2020 adhere to a basic template that is actually very, very close to aforementioned view of the bird that is dominant in mainstream Euro-American fantasy. Indeed, as opposed to other creature types from this same source material like dragons, dwarves, elves, or angels, phoenixes have all been designed to cover more or less the same small set of design elements from their earliest days in the game. In short, their basic design contours have changed little as the game has evolved over the years even as subtle variations on the phoenix theme have been tastefully adapted to the changing context of Magic’s thematic and mechanical evolution. Second, while phoenixes are actually relatively rare in Magic, they appear almost exclusively at higher rarities despite the fact that Wizards does not consider them to be Red's “iconic creature type” (that would be dragons). In this respect, phoenixes take up an unusual place in the larger universe of creature types that is shared by other “near iconic” types like djinn (blue), wurms (green), archons (white), and gorgons (black). I'd love to cover other types like these at a later date, but the fact that phoenixes fit into this uncommon “B category” makes them an interesting subgroup for historical discussion. Third, I personally think that the degree of creativity put into phoenix design over the last three decades is impressive and worth discussing BECAUSE of the narrowness of the design model established in 1994. To my mind, improvising within a small framework can be just as inspiring and aesthetically important as coloring way outside the lines. (For an example of this, listen to the music of Bill Evans, Mark Knopfler, or Stewart Copeland). Finally, I think that Jesse Mason of Killing a Goldfish is on to something in stressing the need for more discussion of Magic design that comes from outside the Wizards corporate umbrella. While it’s a pleasure to read design perspectives from long-time insiders like Mark Rosewater, who has produced a truly immense output on the subject since the early 2000s, the monopoly of company perspectives on Magic design has, at least in my view, provided a single normative narrative through which to interpret the success and failures of card design. On my part, I am CERTAINLY not an expert or an insider. I am, however, a Magic player who thinks a lot about how magic is made, and I’d argue that gives me as much of a right to an opinion on design as anyone else.

With these outlined, what you’ll find below is my attempt to discuss the evolution of a specific aspect of the game, i.e. a single creature type, in a linear fashion aimed more towards how new phoenixes were designed in light of their predecessors than how significant they were and are in competitive magic. (To be fair, content creators like Nizzahon have those bases covered very well: see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcnNixArcao&ab_channel=NizzahonMagic.) Instead, what I'd like to do is encourage you to think historically about Magic design irrespective of how much any given design history “matters” to how to the game has been played thus far. I like this approach, because I think it has the potential to change the ways we think about the game and the way we play it the more it is adopted and propagated by players.

All this said, let’s turn to the print timeline of Magic’s phoenixes.

1): Despite their prominence in other fantasy games, phoenixes were not featured in Alpha, nor did they make an appearance at any point in the first year of Magic expansions. Indeed, the inception of the creature type did not occur until the Legends expansion in 1994 and the printing of Firestorm Phoenix, a 3/2 flyer for 4RR with a death trigger that returns it to its owner’s hand. To be sure, the fact that Firestorm Phoenix has a mana cost of 4RR makes a hard sell in retrospect, especially as it is one of the few phoenixes that has become truly outdated because of later, “strictly better” cards. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that Wizards seems to have imagined phoenixes as powerful creatures with minimal drawbacks from the very beginning. In contrast with other recurring creature types printed at higher rarities, like demons for example, Firestorm Phoenix saw that firebirds entered Magic as efficient beaters that required little work to wield effectively. Though it can’t be recast the turn it dies, this interpretation of “returning from the ashes” was the first of its kind in Magic and is memorable as such. As we’ll see when we examine in 99% of the phoenix cards that follow, the baseline archetype established by Firestorm Phoenix was to define all firebirds that came after in a way that, as far as I can tell, is uncommon in the annals of Magic design.

2): Following the introduction of the phoenix creature type in 1994, it was not until the Visions expansion in 1996 that another firebird was printed. This addition was Bogardan Phoenix, a 3/3 flyer that was aggressively costed for its time at 2RRR. While all early phoenixes lack haste, the mechanic which would come to distinguish them from other bird creatures in later expansions, Bogardan Phoenix does boast another interpretation of the “rise from the ashes” idea, a fact that effectively solidified the ability type as a pattern virtually exclusive to phoenixes in Red. Indeed, the first time it dies Bogardan Phoenix returns directly to the battlefield good as new, albeit with a “death counter” on it to mark the fact that its next encounter with mortality will be its last. This is the beginning of the “direct-to-board” recursion mechanic that we will see again and again in some of the most powerful of later phoenixes. Though perhaps not the most efficient phoenix by today’s standards of creature design and stat efficiency, the size, built-in evasion, and recursive potential of Bogardan Phoenix made it a formidable threat in its early environment that typically required at least two distinct answers from an opponent. As we’ll continue to see below, the fact that phoenixes can garner card advantage in this way has proven to one of their core strengths as a creature type. I personally think that Bogardan Phoenix’s ability to return to the battlefield without requiring any sort of cost makes it an important early member of the firebird tribe even if it can only pull this trick off once.

3): Next up is Shard Phoenix, a surprisingly innovative reimagining of the creature type printed in Stronghold in 1998. As a 2/2 flyer for 4R, it is a poor challenger to its forefeathers in terms of raw stats. However, it is clearly designed to serve an altogether different purpose. While previous phoenixes were meant to attack in the air again and again, Shard Phoenix present a novel interpretation of the creature’s historical mythos by inviting its controller to use it as a reusable burn spell that hits all creatures without flying. True, paying a total of eight mana to play a relatively small flyer, sacrifice it to burn your opponent’s board, and return it to your again is a bid ask. It is nevertheless is worth noting that card enables a variety of different play patterns, as it effectively allows you to choose whether combat damage, burn, or some combination of the two is the best option for applying pressure mid game or finishing an opponent off outright. At the same time, the wording of Shard Phoenix’s sacrifice means that you can acitivate it anytime in response to targeted removal and take a shot at turning an opponent’s strategy on its head. From a historical perspective, Shard Phoenix is also significant for introducing the optional, mana-costed recursion ability to the tribe which will spawn an entire sub-variety of later phoenixes that require mana input to return from the graveyard.

4): Shivan Phoenix, the first of two “strictly better variations on Magic’s original firebird, appeared the following year in Urza's Legacy, a set that saw a temporary, if highly significant increase in the power level of Magic as a whole. As such, Shivan Phoenix gives us a 3/4 flyer for 4RR that returns to its owner's hand EVERY TIME it dies without any caveats barring when is can be recast. Sure, six mana is a lot, but Shivan Phoenix's ability to trade in the air with other flyers, or alternatively bear the brunt of removal or burn spells and end up back in your hand, makes it a safer bet for a win condition than most airborne beat sticks. Once again, this phoenix’s stat-line pales in comparison with newer iterations of the creature type. Nevertheless, its theoretically endless recursion really matters for game states even if it can’t return directly to the battlefield and stops short in the face of exile spells. Historically speaking, Shivan Phoenix is also important as a signpost for the early development of Magic’s ongoing “powercreep”: while 4RR got us a 3/2 flying with this ability back in 1994, one could land a 3/4 flying with identical rules text for the same cost five years later in 1999.

5): For reasons I don't quite understand, phoenixes suffered a similar fate to that of demons in the early 2000s in that they did not appear at between 1999 and 2006. While I have difficulty in believing that concerns over “black magic” and the “evils” of satanism among American youth extended to fantasy firebirds, Wizards appears to have left phoenixes by the wayside until the printing of Skarrgan Firebird in the Guildpact expansion. This, for me, marks something of a turning point in phoenix design for two reasons. First, Skarrgan Firebird is the inaugural phoenix created under the post Mirrodin block design philosophy in which creature-oriented gameplay was gradually privileged over spell-oriented gameplay by specifically pushing the stat-lines, efficiency, and ability margins of creatures. In other words, I'm quite confident that this creature would cost 6RR or 6RRR if it was printed in, say, 1995. Second, the fact the bird is a 3/3 flyer for 4RR that can be reliably cast as a 6/6 with recursion in the style of Shard Phoenix signals its place as a “fattie,” a.k.a a big creature that can end the game in a hurry if unanswered strictly through the exercise of sheer power. We are still more than a decade away from phoenixes being pushed enough to be archetype or format-defining cards all on their own, yet the fact remains that Skarrgan Firebird is the first of a generation of MTG phoenixes that bore the mark of Magic’s new design focus on powerful creatures.

6): Full disclosure: Molten Firebird from 2007’s Planar Chaos is the card that first got me thinking about the evolution of phoenixes. In keeping with Time Spiral block’s dual emphasis on inventiveness in design and subtle references to Magic's past, Molten Firebird is one of the more “out there” interpretations of the creature type. On the one hand, it is clearly a throwback to the immortality effects of its ancestors as a 2/2 flyer for 4R with a death trigger that spares it from the graveyard. On the other hand, the fact that it returns directly to the battlefield without an on-the-spot cost makes it much more efficient than all previous phoenixes in terms of recursion alone. Moreover, because the “cost” of its immortality is giving up your next draw step, this firebird represents an early, if typically uncredited form of card draw in Red inasmuch as the next card you “draw” after losing your Molten Firebird is another Molten Firebird which costs 0 and comes into play with faux because it returns to the board at your end step. (Rest assured, you can end this cycle at any point for 4R by activating its self-exile ability.) While I'm not exactly sure what kind of deck this card slots into (some undiscovered ETB combo perhaps?), its is undoubtably one of the most fascinating variations of the phoenix type in the entire history of the game.

7): In the late 2000s Wizards altered their longstanding approach to printing phoenixes at sporadic intervals and decided instead to print at least one firebird almost every year. The first instalment in this vein is Worldheart Phoenix from 2009's Conflux, a 2/2 flyer for 3R that can return for WUBRG as a 4/4. I like that it can return as a larger and more efficient creature later for a higher cost, if far more complicated mana cost, as it essential plays as two creatures in one: once you’ve played the first inefficient creature, you then have the option of casting (and recasting) another more powerful one if you can pay the (albeit steep) mana cost. More important for our purposes here, however, is Wizards’ attempt to make a phoenix fit specifically within the multicolored theme of Alara block. As far as I can tell, the release of Worldheart Phoenix thus marks the beginning of a pattern of firebirds whose recursion abilities are framed in whatever design language is privileged in a given set, whether this take the form of a new mechanic or an old one put to different (phoenixian) purposes. It is also worth noting that Worldheart Phoenix is the first and last of Magic's firebirds to directly incentivize multi-color decks and the only phoenix to feature non-red mana symbols.

8): The release of Magic 2010 in 2009 saw something of a return to the Shard Phoenix model of phoenixness with the printing of Magma Phoenix. While we’re not quite at the stage in design history when phoenixes could be printed with truly efficient base stats by modern standards, Magma Phoenix is an important precursor to later firebirds in this respect as a 3/3 flyer for 3RR. At 3RR, its “return to hand” ability is over-costed even by the measures of the era. However, this drawback is somewhat balanced out by its death clause, which hits all creatures and players for three. I think the design here is an interesting nod to 1998 but wonder simultaneously whether aggressive red decks that seek to clear the board while chipping away at life totals are best served by his kind of curve topper. In any case, Magma Phoenix is a repayable, global burn spell and a recursive, evasive creature all built into one, and this makes it perhaps the most pushed form of this brand of phoenix design we have seen yet.

9): Although the original Mirrodin block did not include any phoenixes whatsoever, Wizards’ return to the plane in 2010’s Scars of Mirrodin saw the printing of Kuldotha Phoenix, the first firebird to feature the haste mechanic. On its face, Kuldotha Phoenix is a limited bomb with potential for constructed playability. It's a 4/4 flyer with haste for 2RRR, which makes it an excellent surprise assault on your opponent’s life total. It’s also the most efficient phoenix we’ve seen yet in terms of its raw stat line, and perhaps the most objectively powerful of all phoenixes to be given the “return directly to the battlefield” ability. I personally think haste is one of the most elegant, if consistently underrated mechanics when it comes to applying unexpected pressure on board states. For perspective, casting and swinging with Kuldotha Phoenix on turn five is arguably comparable to casting it the previous turn without your opponent’s knowledge. To be sure, the fact that its recursion is tied to the number of artifacts you control makes it something of a build-around if you want to fully exploit its potential. Nevertheless, Kuldotha Phoenix is arguably one of the more influential models for the history of phoenix design as a significant percentage of firebirds printed over the last decade feature a similar focus on efficient (and often hasty) bodies coupled with specific, build-around recursion abilities.

10): Chandra's Phoenix from 2011 Magic 2012 is a case in point. It’s a 2/2 flyer with haste for 1RR (thus making the cheapest phoenix printed until this point) that synergizes well with burn spells and Chandra planeswalkers. This, for me, is the true beginning of specifically “phoenix”-oriented strategies because of the way in which the card asks you to play it alongside other things that mono Red or Blue/Red spellslinger decks already do well, i.e. playing burn and winning with Chandra. While few Chandra planeswalkers were played in competitive circles until Chandra, Torch of Defiance in 2016, her presence in innumerable Jeskai, Izzet, and Red Deck Wins builds created from that point onwards means has enabled Chandra's Phoenix to shine in key areas of Red’s current overall design space. True, this bird returns to your hand instead of directly the battlefield, but its low mana cost, reasonable “immortality cost” (it costs no further mana input after all), and efficient body more than makes up for this fact. To my mind, the overall success of Chandra's Phoenix helped solidify the aggressive 3-drop mode of phoenix design that has proven quite popular over the last ten years, and as such this is FAR from the last time the card will appear in this study.

11): Having established several distinct, yet at times overlapping moulds for the creation of the creature type over decades, Wizards really seems to have begun fine-tuning and tweaking the core building blocks of its phoenixes from the mid-2010s. Take Firewing Phoenix, a 4/2 flyer for 3R from Magic 2013 that can soar from its ashes to your hand for 1RRR. There is literally nothing new here, just slightly tweaked stats and costs. While it lacks the haste mechanic, a characteristic which might help it better serve aggressive decks, its relatively high power allows it to hit your opponent reasonably hard or, if blocked, to potentially trade upwards with more expensive creatures. In both cases, its activated ability can theoretically let you come out ahead in terms of card advantage, as you can simply replay the bird if it’s removed or sacrificed in combat. Though underwhelming when compared with some of the flashier birds we’ve seen thus far, Firewing Phoenix stands as evidence of how far phoenix design had come as of 2012, especially given its status as an uncommon.

12): Firebirds printed at rare or mythic rare, on the other hand, were to experience something of a creative renaissance during Theros and Khans blocks. As a skies player and a passionate lover of jank, I have a soft soft in my heart for all of these cards. Flame-Wreathed Phoenix, released with the original Theros expansion in 2013, saw a return to the model of Skarrgan Firebird or Kuldotha Phoenix in terms of “fattie” status while also incorporating new set mechanics as a means to express tried-and-true firebird “immortality.” This one comes down either as a 3/3 hasty flyer for 2RR (a great deal from a phoenixian perspective) or a 5/5 flyer for 2RR (a great deal for a Magic card, period) depending on which of these two poisons your opponents feel most inclined to face. Sure, cards that give opponents any kind of choice are usually worse than those that don’t, and the design decisions made here do ensure that opponents can choose not to be surprise attacked by a hasty phoenix if they’d rather wait a turn to deal with a slower, albeit larger one. Nevertheless, I still think Flame-Wreathed Phoenix holds an important place in the most recent era of phoenix design as it continues the trend of efficient flyers that employ increasingly creative ways to incorporate the flavor of phoenix mythology into Magic's design language without being too repetitive too often. The art is also quite awesome if I may say so.

13): Khans block is, in my opinion, the “flavor country” of jank. In addition to introducing a slew of format-breakingly powerful cards like Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time, the block also contains a huge number of highly flavorful, niche build-around cards that generously reward creativity in deck building. Ashcloud Phoenix is a prime example of the latter category. Printed in the Khans of Tarkir expansion in 2014, the bird is a 4/1 flyer for 2RR that becomes a facedown 2/2 creature when it dies. This is a BRILLIANT use of the morph mechanic as the firebird can then be flipped back into its original form for 4RR at which point it shocks both players. Like Wizards’ previous use of metalcraft to enable Kuldotha Phoenix’s recursion ability four years earlier, this element of Ashcloud Phoenix’s design aptly highlights the way in which the contours of the phoenix archetype could develop with the game itself. As Wizards introduces, reintroduces, or reimagines mechanics, this simultaneously opens up new possibilities to breathe new life into an old mould premised on strictly on evasion (i.e. flying) and revival (i.e. “immortality” effects). The card also creatively combines a variety of aspects from older phoenixes while adding its own unique flavour to the mix. Once again, its recursion effect is “free” (as in, automatic) and direct to board, but requires an additional mana cost if you’d like to (re)play a player-shocking Ashcloud Phoenix as opposed to a vanilla 2/2. Even in the latter case, however, this bird still gives you AT LEAST another body on board in the case that its shot out of the sky before it can do any damage, and provides a fair amount of versatility if you can untap with it, trade with other creatures, and start thinking about bringing it back to life alongside its shocking “ashcloud.” In case you hadn’t noticed, this recursion effect is actually a careful revision of that of the original MTG phoenix, except you are “recasting” your bird from your board (where its hiding as a 2/2 creature) instead of from your hand, at which point you also cast a doubled-edged burn spell. This makes Ashcloud Phoenix somewhat more vulnerable to disruption than its predecessors, but the fact that it returns directly to the battlefield as a sort of temporary “proxy” for itself an important innovation that would later spawn some of Magic’s most powerful phoenixes.

14): The other phoenix from Khans block is Flamewake Phoenix, a 2/2 hasty flyer for 1RR that can return directly from the grave to the field for R if you can meet the requirement of the ferocious mechanic (i.e. have at least one creature on board with power 4 or higher). A competitive all-star from 2015’s Fate Reforged, this bird is a clear expansion on the design space pioneered on Chandra's Phoenix: it asks for different preconditions, though delivers an equally efficient, evasive beater that can enable surprise attacks to an opponent’s face. The difference between the two lies in that Flamewake Phoenix needs one Red mana to recur and does so directly to board on the combat step. It also synergizes more with bigger creatures than with burn spells or planeswalkers. Much of the enthusiastic things I’ve said above about Ashcloud Phoenix also apply to the design of Flamewake Phoenix so I’ll not repeat them here, but suffice it to say that I think this was the best three-mana firebird in the game until quite recently. Despite the fact that it must attack whenever able, its seen play in standard, block, and even modern. Its printing also helped make the shadow of “phoenix tribal” less of a meme and more of a theoretical possibility because of the redundancy facilitated by access to two different hasty phoenixes in the three-drop slot. Finally, the introduction of a negligible downside in the form of Flamewake Phoenix’s “attacks each turn if able” clause arguably opened up new design space at the three-drop slot, as this allowed Wizards to continue pushing the design of cheaper phoenixes without resorting to creating “strictly better” versions of older cards.

15): If Flamewake Phoenix was an expansion on the ground laid by Chandra's Phoenix, the same can be said about Flame-Wreathed Phoenix and Akoum Firebird from 2015’s Battle for Zendikar. Twenty one years after the first appearance of phoenixes in Magic, the printing of this bird finally marked the point at which one could cast a 3/3 hasty flyer with built-in recursion for 2RR, although this boon is tempered by the same “attacks each turn if able” that we saw attached to Flamewake Phoenix. However, aside from pushing the boundaries of stat-line and ability efficiency at four mana, Akoum Firebird also makes good use of the landfall mechanic for its (by now virtually mandatory) return-to-board ability. Based on the ways in which hasty phoenixes with three or greater power are designed these days, I think Wizards is a bit worried about making these birds too easy to get back to the field, especially if they are at all efficiently costed. Assuming that they are right in thinking that an easily recurrable Big Bird with haste would prove unduly oppressive, a landfall-based revival effect for 4RR seems on point for 2015. This trick should be easy to pull off in most builds given that playing lands is a near universal strategy in magic, but at 4RR I don't think anyone will be “breaking” Akoum Firebird anytime soon. The same cannot be said for another phoenix printed in 2018 as we’ll soon see...but it’s worth noting that incorporating landfall into a phoenix’s “immortality” clause is yet another use of one of a set’s core mechanics to express an in-game function that is at the heart of the creature type.

16): Shadows Over Innistrad, Kaladesh, and Amnokhet blocks are all bereft of phoenixes. This is presumably so for reasons related to flavor. If this is true, however, its unclear to me why they suddenly return in Ixalan block, which, based as it was on Iberian, South American, and Caribbean influences, should be no more likely to harbor firebirds than a gothic, steampunk, or ANCIENT EGYPTIAN plane. In any case, it was the Rivals of Ixalan expansion that signalled a triumphant return to phoenixhood in 2018 with the introduction Rekindling Phoenix. While Ixalan block is mostly remembered for its relatively low overall power level, Rekindling Phoenix is hands-down one of the most powerful firebirds of all time, and its printing represents a turning point in the potential power level of phoenix cards in general. It’s a 4/3 flyer for 2RR that effectively returns from the dead on your next turn unless opponents can either kill the 0/1 elemental token that spawns it each upkeep (note the similarities to Ashcloud Phoenix on this score) or remove all copies of the phoenix from your graveyard. It also returns from the grave with haste, so things can get serious for opponents, real fast. Needless to say, Rekindling Phoenix’s super effective stats and automatic recursion make it an excellent vehicle for two-for-ones. What more is their to say. This bird has one of the most decorated competitive histories of all creatures of its type, a status it achieved due to its raw power as well as the strength of the HazoRed decks it appeared in. Who knew that phoenixes would be super good if you made them so easy to recur? Wizards. Wizards knew this, and would soon exploit this knowledge even further throughout the year. Also, its rad that Rekindling Phoenix is an owl.

17): While Wizards refrained from printing a single phoenix for nearly two years after the second Zendikar block, the creature type has experienced a significant resurgence since the printing of Rekindling Phoenix. Indeed, four more phoenixes were printed in 2018 beginning in the Dominaria expansion with Warcry Phoenix, a 2/2 flyer with haste for 3R that returns to the battlefield for 2R during your combat step whenever you attack with at least three creatures. Three attackers is a high bar to entry, however, which makes this ability feel a little “win more” to me. While I sometimes wish that Warcry Phoenix either cost less to cast or came down as a 3/2, I am inclined to see this unique interpretation of the phoenix type as part of Dominaria's empahsis on creativity in design at the lower rarities, which arguably signalled a lessoning of the rarity-oriented approach to design complexity dictated by the New World Order philosophy. Powerful or not, Warcry Phoenix is one of my favorite uncommons from the set and I’m happy to see Wizards direct the phoenix creature type toward straightforward creature aggro.

18): This is where things get very weird. Screeching Phoenix, released in the summer of 2018 as part of Magic’s “Global Series” is basically a phoenix in name only. While its artwork clearly depicts a firebird, the card itself lacks virtually every hallmark of the phoenix creature type when it comes to design. As a 4/4 flyer for 4RR that gives your entires board a repeatable +1/+0 for 2R, Screeching Phoenix has more in common design-wise with cards like Shivan Dragon or Purphoros, God of the Forge than ANY of the cards I discuss above or below. It’s certainly not a bad card by any stretch, but I don’t view it as part of tradition of MTG phoenixes when it comes to how the card was put together. My reasoning is simple: this bird may be on fire, but it can’t bring itself back from its ashes!

19): In spite of the strangeness of the previous entry, Core Set 2019 marked a return to form with Immortal Phoenix, a CLEAR throwback to the earliest firebirds in MTG. This bird is a 5/3 flyer for 4RR that returns to its owner's hand whenever it dies. As it is essentially a “strictly better” version of Firestorm Phoenix and Shivan Phoenix, it therefore highlights the extent to which decades of power creep have changed the industry standard for designing the “returns to hand” sort of firebird. In 1994, 4RR got us a 3/2 flyer that can’t be recast the same turn it died. By 1999, this was upgraded to a 3/4 flyer which can be recast at will. By 2018, this mana cost buys us the exact same bird, albeit buffed-up to a 5/3. Sure, this phoenix is not so much of a new idea as an improvement of an old one, but a 5 power flyer with recursive potential for no added mana cost can do some serious damage if its payed in the right shell. Though it dies relatively easily to burn spells, few other flyers at comparable mana costs can effectively block Immortal Phoenix and the fact that it returns to your hand as a matter of course makes it a fitting addition to Magic's long line of firebirds who make up for their low toughness with efficient recursion.

20): Arclight Phoenix, like Rekindling Phoenix before it, is one of the most powerful firebirds ever printed. It is a triumph of the design model I have been discussing here. While initially dismissed as an unplayable, “niche mythic,” it has since proven its worth as a very important card in spellslinger style decks and even birthed its own distinct archetype that has seen play in multiple formats. First of all, Arclight Phoenix is quite powerful in a vacuum: as a 3/2 flyer with haste for 3R, it compares quite favorably with its predecessors. If Akoum Firebird’s stats represent the absolute limit of four-drop phoenixes with haste, Arclight Phoenix is only one point of toughness behind (though it arguably makes up for this as well by having a slightly more splashable mana cost.) However, Arclight Phoenix transcends most of its peers largely because it slots so well into spell heavy mono Red or Blue/Red decks. True, returning it from the graveyard is not strictly “free,” as this requires that you cast as least three instant or sorcery spells during your turn, which, if you want to attack with the phoenix right away, must be cast on your first main phase. Be this as it may, chaining together multiple cheap cantrips and burn spells is already a primary strategy in Izzet spellslinger and other comparable decks, so adding this phoenix to the mix is mostly all upside with little effort, especially because it always returns with haste at the beginning of combat. Relying on an small army of resurrected firebirds as your win conditions is therefore relatively easy because their recursion triggers can be brought online simply by casting the host of other spells in your deck specifically dedicated to getting you ahead in card advantage. Although Flamewake Phoenix was perhaps the first great example of a firebird that doesn’t mind being discarded for some other purposes only to be resurrected on the cheap to apply sudden pressure on an opponent’s board, Arclight Phoenix stands head and shoulders above most other phoenixes in this game because it clearly WANTS TO BE IN THE GRAVEYARD IN THE FIRST PLACE and can return directly to the board so long as you make reasonable steps towards the right Plan A--i.e., playing cheap draw and burn spells. Akoum Firebird may be important precursor here, yet again, as it is designed to return to board through landfall triggers, through it still requires 4RR to do so. In sum, I think Arclight Phoenix is perhaps the most influential of all Magic’s firebird’s in that its design pays homage to much of what has proven to work over the last two decades of pheonix design (i.e. efficient stats, evasion, haste, direct to board recursion, etc.) while FINALLY capitalizing on the tantalizing promise of funky graveyard shenanigans that was arguably built into these birds from their inception in 1994, yet only fruitfully exploited in recent years.

21): While I stand by what I say above regarding Wizards increased tendency to print phoenix cards in recent sets, for whatever reason, only one bird from the recent glut of phoenix printings was released in 2019. Perhaps we can chalk this up to the lack of suitable expansions in terms of flavor, but in any case, Skyfire Phoenix from the Commander 2019 release is our sole entry for the year. Design-wise, this is basically a variation on Akoum Firebird (i.e. a 3/3 flyer with haste for 2RR) albeit with a recursion ability perfectly suited for commander: each time you cast your commander, it returns directly to board. Sure, this way of designing phoenixes specifically for the commander format is perhaps both obvious and intuitive, but I still think it’s a worthy expansion on the set of traits proven to make four-drop phoenixes effective in Magic gameplay. For four mana, we’ve now come to expect flying, haste, a statline juuuuust below passing the vanilla test, and some form of recursion. Skyfire Phoenix delivers on all of these fronts in a unique way, and that's all I would expect from the first commander phoenix

22): 2020, the present year as of this writing, was one of the all-time best years in terms of new and unique phoenixes. The first new addition from among this most recent lineup is Phoenix of Ash from Theros Beyond Death. A 2/2 flyer with haste, the bird is yet another clear callback to the model of three-drop firebirds established by Chandra's Phoenix. As reader will likely noticed by now, Wizards appears to have gradually considered the haste mechanic to be an important part of phoenix design identity since the mid 2010s or so, and I doubt they will print another three-drop phoenix that deviates significantly from the “2/2 flying haste for 3cmc” mould anytime soon. This said, the design language of Phoenix of Ash’s return-to-board ability also recalls the innovate design pattern established by Worldheart Phoenix a decade earlier. Like Flamewake Phoenix, Kuldotha Phoenix and Akoum Firebird before it, Phoenix of Ash takes advantage of one of the Theros Beyond Death expansion's new mechanics, namely escape, to express its recursion. While 2RR plus four cards to exile from the yard is a reasonably steep cost unless your deck is specifically built for the task, the reward is substantial, as the hasty bird returns ready for battle in the air with an additional +1/+1 counter on it. (My personal theory in this respect is that that the net increase in phoenixes that are more than happy to start out their game lives in the graveyard is the result of the lessons Wizards learned from the success of Arclight Phoenix in 2018.) Finally, it just occurred to me that the fact that Phoenix of Ash has a form of the unkeyworded “firebreathing” ability is basically the only way in which Screeching Phoenix may have tangibly influenced the phoenix design paradigm.

23): The Ikoria expansion may be best remembered for pushing the limits of in-game tracking with the mutate mechanic or breaking EVERY SINGLE FORMAT IN MAGIC with the companion mechanic, but it also introduced Everquill Phoenix, the first of Magic's phoenixes to unambiguously pass the vanilla test. Once again, this is an example of a new set’s unique mechanics serving as the means for a firebird’s revival. Though Everquill can be cast as a 4/4 flying for 2RR (not a bad rate), it can also be mutated onto another creature already on board for 3R. If you choose the latter option, you get a red artifact “Feather” token that can be sacrificed for 1 in exchange for returning ANY PHOENIX from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped. This makes Everquill Phoenix the first phoenix-tribal support card in the game. To the trained eye, however, this ability also hints at the influence of Rekindling Phoenix, whose 0/1 elemental token was a far easier target for opponents disrupt its recursion than Everquill's non-creature artifact token. At the same time, the fact that Everquill Phoenix comes down without any form of recursion unless its mutated reminds of Flame-Wreathed Phoenix, which, if you recall, can trade its return-to-hand ability for bigger base stats if an opponent so chooses.

24): Technically speaking, Spellpyre Phoenix is the second firebird to be specifically released with a commander product (i.e. Commander 2020). However, I would argue that its design is not specifically catered toward the format. The bird is a 4/2 flyer for 3RR that scoops an instant or sorcery with cycling from the yard when it enters the battlefield and can be returned to hand for more card advantage shenanigans if you cycle two or more cards per turn. My point here is that a cycling-tribal phoenix with a recursion ability seems designed more with Ikoria’s “cycling matters” theme in mind that the gameplay patterns particular to commander. While, I doubt that Spellpyre Phoenix was designed for Legacy or Vintage, I’m disinclined to consider this a design sequel to Skyfire Phoenix. This said, cycling is a graveyard mechanic with a long and storied history in Magic design, so I think it makes a great deal of sense to incorporate this form of strategy into the design language of phoenixes. To be sure, 4/2 with flying is a statline we have seen before for a less intensive mana cost, i.e. with Firewing Phoenix, and this similarity makes we want to slot Spellpyre Phoenix in with its relatively power-heavy and toughness-light predecessors like Immortal Phoenix.

25): Lightning Phoenix from the innovative Jumpstart expansion is, to my mind, one of the more self-consciously designed phoenixes in Magic history. This is a highly subjective and speculative claim, but I'm putting it out there because the design language employed here reads like a series of clear allusions to lessons Wizards learned in previous years of phoenix-making. This is to be expected. Wizards has been designing phoenixes for two and a half decades and the “weight of history,” so-to-speak, hangs all the heavier on newer additions to the tribe. Let me try and justify this view. First of all, the bird is a 2/2 flyer with haste for 2R, making it a variation on the Chandra's Phoenix mode with a slightly more splashable mana cost. Given that Magic's phoenixes have really shone in decks other than mono Red builds lately, I wonder whether this design is an intentional nod to the possibility of playing the card in multicolor spellslinger decks. However, because Lightning Phoenix can’t block, this “cheaper” casting cost arguably comes at a tangible price, for it is therefore unable to chump attacking creatures and take advantage of its recursion by doing so. This bring me to my next point. As other voices have already noted, this phoenix appears to have been designed as a somewhat defanged Arclight Phoenix which returns direct-to-board ON YOUR END STEP so long as you have dealt at least 3 damage to an opponent during your turn. Hence, in addition to being a subtle reference to Lightning Bolt itself, perhaps the most iconic and efficient way to deal 3 damage in older formats, I think that the printing of Lightning Phoenix is a direct callback to that of Arclight as its design language appears to be wary of creating redundancy in dedicated Izzet Phoenix decks, whereby players could take advantage of up to eight efficient, recursive, and hasty birds during their combat step. I would also claim a connection to the likes of Flamewake Phoenix and Akoum Firebird which can’t readily exploit their conditional immortality for blocking purposes either as they must attack whenever able. To be clear, I really like the depth of design history on display here as it aptly showcases the long journey of phoenix design and the variety of interesting decisions Wizards has made on the way.

26): Aurora Phoenix is the latest addition to the tribe. Introduced with the Commander Legends expansion, the bird is a 5/3 flyer for 4RR with cascade and a recursion ability that triggers when you cast other spells with cascade. This makes it yet another new expression of the phoenixian immortality effect, albeit one tied to a very powerful mechanic which can often result in very stacked board states if you build your deck accordingly. The fact that it returns to your hand and not directly to the board may seem like a drawback at first glance, but I imagine this is meant to help you set off cascade chains on later turns. The ability’s lack of any real input cost is also a boon, as this means you can regain your evasive flyer while trying to win the game in other ways.

So that does it for my brief history of phoenix design. Feel free to comment below on any part of what I’ve written here (corrections are especially welcome) as well as your overall thoughts on the creature type and its development. Also, I’d love to hear ideas about where phoenix design could go in the future, including personal card designs.

While I won’t commit to anything just now, there’s a real chance I’ll write more of these in the near future if I’m sufficiently inspired by the design history of another creature type. However, if anyone else feels inclined to contribute similar content, I highly recommend that they do so.

Cheers, SBS

Top Ranked	Achieved #50 position overall 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Casual Tribal 4 years ago
Date added	4 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Casual legal.
Cards	0
Folders	words