Magic: The Gathering's planeswalker Nissa, Ascended Animist, brings overwhelming win condition to Phyrexia All Will Be One

Magic: The Gathering’s next expansion has some of the most popular planewalkers turning to the forces of evil. Though not by choice, Nissa has become Compleated with some of her former Gatewatch allies. Like other Phyrexian planeswalkers, Nissa, Ascended Animist, is incredibly powerful. However, she might be the strongest of them all.

All of her abilities are terrifying, and though she has a high casting cost, you can simply play her for the full mana value and end games, depending on the board. What will she bring to Magic: The Gathering next month?

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Nissa, Ascended Animist, joins the forces of Phyrexia in Magic: The Gathering

Nissa in Magic: The Gathering has always been an incredibly powerful planeswalker, but this might be the strongest form of the character yet. Though she costs a whopping seven mana, two of which are Phyrexian mana, you must unveil her at full cost for maximum effect.

You can play her for five mana, for the cost of four life. However, this also means she goes from seven loyalty to three. This makes it so much easier to defeat her with direct damage spells. At least you can easily use her up-tick at each turn to continually generate creatures. But what does she do?

Nissa, Ascended Animist in Magic: The Gathering (Image via Wizards of the Coast)

Nissa, Ascended Animist

• Mana Value: 3GGPP
• Type: Legendary Planeswalker - Nissa
• Rarity: Mythic Rare
• Base Loyalty: 7
• +1 Ability: Create an X/X green Phyrexian Horror creature token, where X is Nissa, Ascended Animist’s Loyalty
• -1 Ability: Destroy target artifact or enchantment
• -7 Ability: Until the end of the turn, creatures you control get +1/+1 for each Forest you control and gain trample.

Nissa’s +1 synergizes perfectly with her -7. You can make a constant flow of stronger creatures, while simultaneously playing with big green ones. Since she’s almost going to be played in a mono-Green deck, taking her out will give your creatures a minimum of +7/+7 for the turn.

If you use this on a deck with mana ramp, that number could easily skyrocket. Depending on the deck you’re running in Magic: The Gathering, you could be giving your creatures +15/+15, and smashing through any defense.

That’s what makes her so dangerous. Instead of making her Forests combatants, like the previous iteration of Nissa, she channels the power of Forests to inflate her creatures - likely Phyrexian Horrors.

While there are plenty of Planeswalkers in this expansion - 10 to be exact - it seems like Nissa, Ascended Animist, will be the most powerful one to come out of Phyrexia: All Will Be One.

Phyrexia: All Will Be One concludes the current Magic: The Gathering storyline, and releases on February 10, 2022.