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Note: You can read up on Celixia 101 by Lionden_56 by clicked here. Welcome back! It’s time to take another look at Celixia, the fictional card set by John Streetz. Last time, we took a look at Ambush and Orbs. Here is a quick recap: Ambush is the ability to play cards during combat for their ambush cost. Orbs are mystical artifacts that have varying effects on the game and on certain cards. Today, we take a look at two different mechanics that seemingly go hand in hand: Reclaim and “chaos.” Chaos - the mechanic.
Activated shuffle effects are rare in Magic. That is there are few permanents that allow you to shuffle your library for a cost that can do it more than once. The only four cards that allow you to do it are Soldier of Fortune from Alliances, Myr Mindservant for Mirrodin, Temporal Aperture (one of my favorite all-time cards), and Soothsaying. I am not saying there are few cards that have shuffling somewhere in their effect (because there are actually quite a few), but to shuffle your library on a regular basis is unusual in real magic... that is until Celixia came along. Oh! For the record, Soothsaying is in Celixia! So I get to shuffle my library, big deal. Unless I’m psychic, how does this ability help? Real magic has only one card that triggers when a library is shuffled and that is Psychogenic Probe (from Mirrodin). While Celixia didn't 'reprint' the Probe in the set, it is full of cards that trigger when your library is shuffled. Take for instance Tainted Knowledge. Editor's Note: This card was designed originally by Death_By_Beebles. As his prize for scoring high in the Flavor Text Contest #3 on MTP while it was alive, he was allowed to design a card for Celixia. The following card is the final version of the card.
With Tainted Knowledge, your shuffling turns into a card-drawing engine. [Not really an engine, but a great way to draw a card for almost nothing. ~Streetz~] With Soothsaying, it becomes 3UU: Draw a card. Not terribly cost effective, but it works. A better combo would be Tainted Knowledge with one of the legendary lands. These legendary lands from Celixia let you shuffle a card from your hand into your library for only one colored mana and have an effect in addition. So Nox, Shadowscape Citadel + Tainted Knowledge = B, Shuffle a black card from your hand into your library: Target player loses 2 life and you draw a card. Not bad for B and a card from your hand. A second great thing about Tainted Knowledge is the effect it can have on the opponent. If your opponent doesn’t have a stable shuffling engine, the damage can pile up quickly. 2 life from Nox and 2 from Tainted Knowledge every turn makes the opponent’s clock a lot shorter. Other fun chaos effects include things like Chaos Sphere. It is an artifact with, “Whenever a spell or ability causes a player to shuffle his or her library, you may pay 2. If you do, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature.” That’s right, whenever you shuffle you library, one of your creatures gets bigger. Entropic Idol is just an artifact until you shuffle your library. After, it turns into a 3/4 creature. The cycle of “boxes” can be used as a catalyst for shuffle triggers as well. The “boxes” are a cycle of enchantments that allow you to shuffle them into your library to get an effect. The cycle includes Blessed Chest, Mind Trap, Death Trap, Contained Firebolt and Chest of Courage. Editor's addition: There are also a cycle of creatures throughout each color that untap whenever you shuffle your library. Myth Rifter is the white cleric that destroys an aura for one white mana. Ripple Rifter is the blue wizard that allows you to draw a card and discard a card for one blue mana. Assassin Rifter is the black wizard that taps for one black mana to have target player lose 1 life. Sand Rifter is the red wizard that deals 1 damage to any target for one red mana. And finally there is the Vhad Rifter, a Cat Shaman, that taps without a cost to put a land card from your hand into play. Rifters, obviously, is the name of this cycle that all untap whenever a spell or ability causes you to shuffle your library. In conjunction with reclaim and chaos effects, you could go off on some crazy combo. You have yet to figure that combo out. ~Streetz~ Reclaim - the mechanic. Reclaim, unlike the chaos concept in Celixia, is a keyworded ability. The ability reads as follows:
While the legendary lands are a good shuffle engine, Reclaim can be devastating. Not only do you get the shuffle trigger, but you also get a spell back into your library. While you aren’t guaranteed to draw it again, the spell is always in the back of your opponent’s mind. Because of this, Reclaim is more than just a good means to shuffle your library. It's almost like having 8 copies of the same spell in your library instead of four. However, some of the reclaim costs can be expensive. Because white, green, and red got all of the ambush cards, Blue and Black get most of the reclaim cards. This makes sense, since blue and black have the best library manipulation. Don't think that only blue and black get all of the Reclaim cards. There are several cards with Reclaim in Celixia in each color and even artifacts. However, blue and black get the most.
Mindstorm is another card with great potential if drawn more than once, because of its versatility. Change the text of target permanent by replacing all instances of one color word with another or one basic land type with another. This effect doesn't end at end of turn. Are you playing against something with islandwalk? All you have to do is mindstorm to give it a landwalk that won’t hurt you. Is your opponent playing two Green/White, but only have a single plains? Mindstorm that plains into a swamp. Does your creature have islandwalk, but your opponent isn’t playing any islands? Simply change one of their lands into an island - or change the islandwalk to whatever basic land walk you want. While this isn’t anything new, as cards like Mind Bend and Spectral Shift also allow you to do this, Mindstorm has the potential to show up multiple times. If one of the above problems surfaces, you are covered with Mindstorm. If all three show up, you are still covered with Mindstorm. And, Mindstorm has the lowest Reclaim cost in Celixia. Although the mechanic isn’t exactly Yawgmoth’s Will, it can still be devastating if you draw powerful spells over and over again. Luckily, it isn't anything like Affinity or the land untapping spells from Urza's Block - but to be able to simulate more than 4 copies of a spell in your library is a very intense ability. Putting the two mechanics together Here is a quick deck that utilizes both mechanics:
This is a very defensive black/blue deck. Mind Trap, Death Trap, Deter, and oppressive ripple all keep opposing creatures off the board. The idea is to get Tainted Knowledge dealing 2 a turn, tidal vortex will either deal three or lock down the opponent. Other combos include Mindstorm plus Takh Drainer. This allows you to give the drainer protection from whatever color you need. Thought Estos is good on the draw, as you get a free 1/1 if it is in your opening hand. So there you go, that’s Celixia. 306 cards exclusively for the MDV faithful. The link to the CELIXIA visual spoiler is here. The link to the text spoiler with images is here. The CELIXIA forums are here. (Plus, there's a Mafia Game in the CELIXIA theme presently in progress. Celixia is fun. Celixia is unique. I would encourage you to check it out, perhaps put a few decks together, and experience the fun of a non-real set of Magic: the Gathering cards. If you so choose to do so, there is a Magic Workstation Unity thread in the forums you can join. By joining this 'unity' you will have a better opportunity to test out some of the Celixia cards with other people. Celixia 101 is now over. Class Dismissed Note: Some of the article was edited by the editor (Streetz) to reflect the current happenings of the set. For instance, Lionden_56 had commented on the Celixia tournament, which is currently over. I replaced it with some other information without noting it as an editor's note. You can discuss this article in the MDV forums here. Most Popular
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While
chaos isn’t an actual keyworded mechanic, it is one of the major themes of
Celixia. Streetz breaks it down like this: 
Deter
is a great example of a card with potential game-breaking effect if drawn more
than once. Deter returns all attacking creatures to their owner’s hands for only
2UU. All of them! If your opponent alpha-strikes, you get a one-way Wrath of God
(except that they are returned to the hand instead of put into the graveyard).
Then you can shuffle Deter back into your library with a chance of drawing it
again. As mentioned before, although you can only have 4 copies of any given
card in a deck (excluding basic lands), the reclaim mechanic can make it seem
like you have more. This is good. Very good.
Reclaiming
Chaos.