Phyrexia: All Will Be One cards keep showing up in Commander decks

The cards from Phyrexia: All Will Be One that actually mattered did not stay in Commander because they were the loudest previews. They stayed because they solved real problems at real tables, and Nick Price’s June 15, 2026 EDHREC look-back makes that plain by asking whether ONE could stand alongside the set before it in Commander’s long memory. The answer, at least by deck counts, is yes.

What survived after the preview season cooled off

ONE hit shelves on February 10, 2023, after previews began on January 17 and Commander previews and decklists arrived on January 18. Wizards also made the set easy to find, with availability on MTG Arena, through Amazon, and at local game stores, so the cards entered Commander from day one with a wide pipeline into the format. That mattered because Commander is a 100-card singleton multiplayer format, usually built as 99 cards plus one commander, which means every card that keeps showing up has cleared a very demanding test of repeat play.

That is the real story behind this set’s staying power. Commander does not reward novelty for long unless the card keeps doing something useful in different pods, different metas, and different deck shells. ONE managed that by producing removal, protection, and finishers that did not just look exciting in preview season, but kept earning their seats months and years later.

The removal spell that kept its seat

Sheoldred’s Edict is one of the clearest examples of a Phyrexia card becoming a real Commander staple. It is an instant from ONE, card number 279, and its appeal comes from how efficiently it solves the old Diabolic Edict problem in multiplayer: the spell has to matter when each opponent can present a different board state, and it has to still feel good when tokens, planeswalkers, or awkward permanents are sitting across from you. Sheoldred’s Edict does that work cleanly enough to remain a premium answer.

That flexibility is exactly why it still gets played. Decks that want cheap interaction, especially black midrange, control, and sacrifice-adjacent lists, need removal that does not rot in hand when the table gets wide or weird. In Commander, an answer that can hit multiple kinds of threats without asking for much mana becomes more than a spot removal spell, it becomes a slot that keeps paying rent.

The finisher that turns a board into a clock

If Sheoldred’s Edict is the card that keeps you alive, Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus is the card that ends the conversation. Price spotlights it as the set’s gigantic combat-matters haymaker, a stat-doubling threat that gets even nastier when it sits beside other multipliers. That puts it squarely in the kind of decks Commander players already love to build around, the big creature shells, Dragons, Dinosaurs, and Xenagos-style plans that want one explosive turn to be enough.

The reason Zopandrel stuck is simple: Commander still rewards cards that compress time. A creature that makes every attack step scarier, or that turns one board into lethal damage faster than people expect, will keep finding homes long after the set’s release window closes. It is not subtle, but it does not need to be. In the right shell, the card asks one question and answers it immediately: can you survive the next combat step?

The tiny card that quietly overperforms

Skrelv, Defector Mite is the opposite kind of Commander success story. Wizards identifies it as a legendary artifact creature, a Phyrexian Mite, and card number 33 in ONE, which already tells you it arrived early in the set and was easy to notice. Price treats it like the kind of one-drop that looks small until it starts protecting the rest of your board, and that is exactly the sort of support piece Commander keeps rewarding.

Skrelv’s lasting appeal comes from how little setup it needs. Decks that care about sticking a key creature, protecting a voltron threat, or forcing opponents to spend removal in awkward ways all want a card like this, because it makes a bigger threat harder to answer without taking up much space itself. That kind of efficiency is gold in a format where everyone is trying to stretch every slot, and it helps explain why a modest-looking one-drop can outlast flashier previews.

Why ONE kept showing up where it counted

What the data really shows is that ONE did not need to be a single-theme set to matter. It produced the kind of cards Commander always remembers best: cheap interaction, scalable combat pressure, and low-cost utility that fits into a wide range of lists. That is a stronger recipe than simply printing a handful of splashy names that only work when the rest of the deck is built around them.

That also explains which early favorites did not dominate the conversation. The cards that got the biggest first-week glow were not always the ones that kept surfacing in deck lists later, because Commander rewards repeatable function more than one-time excitement. When a set has a card like Sheoldred’s Edict for removal, Skrelv for protection, and Zopandrel for closing games, the cards that keep winning slots are the ones that do an ordinary job extraordinarily well.

Phyrexia: All Will Be One ended up looking better in hindsight than it did in the first rush of preview hype, and that is the kind of lesson Commander players can actually use. If you are deciding what to buy, build around, or leave in the binder, the cards that survived here are the ones that still solve problems on turn two, turn five, and turn ten, which is exactly why they kept showing up after the spotlight moved on.