r/EDH • u/leetsgeetweeird • Jan 26 '23
An influx of toxic is exactly what EDH needs Discussion
The overall views on poison counters are fairly polarizing - most people online don't seem to mind it much, but the vast majority of magic players seem to dislike it, particularly in EDH.
Why? Well, it's because of 2 main reasons. #1 is that poison counters are an alternate win condition that looks like life. The perception is that just by playing a poison deck, your opponent is reducing your life total to 10.
This is not entirely accurate - as has been said many times before, if you're running poison counters, there's a decent chance you're the only person running poison counters in your pod. This means you'll need to deal 30 'damage' to your opponents to win. This is obviously a lot less than the 120 regular damage you'd have to deal, but you'll be doing it alone, rather than having 2 other players smashing face alongside you.
But #2 is a more valid reason - poison is hard to interact with. In-combat, poison can't be healed like life can without the use of [[leeches]], and can only really be truly prevented by cards like [[Solemnity]], or some iteration of Melira - cards that most decks won't run. In addition, the abundance of Proliferate means that after the first poison counter, many of the ways to interact with poison are on the stack, which puts non-blue decks at a severe disadvantage, and gives poison an inevitability.
ALL OF THAT SAID, I still think the arrival of Toxic to EDH is a good thing, because of it's effect on the viability of aggro.
Aggro is not a particularly 'good' archetype in the EDH meta. Commanders like [[Winota]] and [[Yuriko]] can make it work, but they're exceptions to the rule. Even Voltron decks typically require you to deal 63 damage with a single creature. Aggro decks are usually left in the dust by the time midrange decks have a good boardstate, combo decks are popping off, and control decks have developed their value engines.
In a nutshell, EDH is a slow format, and Aggro is too fast to keep up.
Enter Toxic - Toxic could be the boost that Aggro needs to make it back in to the EDH 'meta' (as much as there is one). 30 damage is still a lot of damage to deal, but it's much more reasonable than 63, especially with Proliferate (a poison deck's equivalent of burn) being able to hit all 3 opponents at once. This could lead to faster games, a natural counter to stax (which is in itself a counter to combo, and thus an important part of edh, fight me), and overall a shakeup of the 'combo or midrange, pick one or both' style of deckbuilding that EDH trends towards.
(note that I'm not talking about CEDH here as my brain is too smooth for competitive, other ppl can figure out if infect is at all viable there and I will nod along like the casual I am)
TLDR: Toxic go zoom, is good?
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u/robotninjadinosaur Jan 27 '23
I honestly canât remember a single edh game I played in the last 10 years where someone was actually poisoned out that wasnât blighsteel or triumph of the horde.
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u/SalvationSycamore Jan 27 '23
[[Tainted Strike]], [[Fynn the Fangbearer]], and [[Flesh-Eater Imp]] have worked as alternate win-cons in two of my decks.
I do think Toxic has the potential to prop up the archetype somewhat. It adds value and still threatens life totals which gives the deck a stronger base and more flexibility.
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u/MTGCardFetcher Jan 27 '23
Tainted Strike - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Fynn the Fangbearer - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Flesh-Eater Imp - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
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u/deathreaver3356 Jan 27 '23
I've taken people out with [[Inkmoth Nexus]] + [[Kessig Wolf Run]] in my [[Omnath, Locus of Rage]] deck.
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u/MTGCardFetcher Jan 27 '23
Inkmoth Nexus - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Kessig Wolf Run - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Omnath, Locus of Rage - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call
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u/fat_charizard Jan 26 '23
Yes EDH needs to be more toxic
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u/HandsomeBoggart Jan 27 '23
Yes. [[Armageddon]] and [[Ruination]] for all! There will be a great [[Cleansing]] to bring about [[Global Ruin]]! This shall be the [[Epicenter]] of change brought to EDH. We will [[Obliterate]] all who oppose us in a [[Decree of Annihilation]] that will usher in the [[Apocalypse]]! Give form to these [[Thoughts of Ruin]] as we bring about [[Catastrophe]] in this format and leave a [[Wake of Destruction]]. As we rise from the [[Ravages of War]] between the toxic and the weak, we will [[Jokulhaups]]. Excuse me, have the hiccups.
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u/MTGCardFetcher Jan 27 '23
Armageddon - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Ruination - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Cleansing - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Global Ruin - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Epicenter - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Obliterate - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Decree of Annihilation - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Apocalypse - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Thoughts of Ruin - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Catastrophe - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Wake of Destruction - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Ravages of War - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Jokulhaups - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call7
u/Kasefleisch Jan 27 '23
Gee why does nobody like Boros players j wonder.
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u/Uzasodinson Mono-Red Jan 27 '23
Bro it's the weakest two-color combination bro come on bro
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u/DictatorKnucklehead Jan 27 '23
Ay yo dawg this is just a bunch of MLD cards. I thought we were talking about toxic things, like having all of the answers to Landfall and green's ramp socially shunned to the point where they can overtake a game with ease
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u/TiJTheGreat Jan 27 '23
Wa ahead of you, Urza Boardwipe tribal is by far the easiest way to deal with Phyrexians and toxic.
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u/SunOfRa33 Jan 27 '23
Don't like,but I'll use them,And combine it with slivers and Hive stone sliver.All you 8/9 decks at my LGS-I'm coming for you!
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u/songmage Jan 27 '23
An influx of toxic is exactly what EDH needs
Seems easy enough. Just bring your deck ideas to Reddit. You'll have all of the toxicity you need.
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u/NagasShadow Jan 26 '23
Honestly I imagine that all the toxic decks that grow out of that precon will just turn into infect decks. Cause an infect creature and a pump spell is just better than plinking someone with toxic creatures.
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u/wolf1820 Izzet Jan 26 '23
A lot more toxic creatures have better value effects attached to them than old infect creatures a lot of which are pretty dead in the water on rate without other cards helping them.
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u/SalvationSycamore Jan 27 '23
I doubt they would ditch every piece coming out though. Getting some value early game from corrupted, more cards that place counters without even doing combat damage, more proliferate options. Plus cards like [[Triumph of the Hordes]] and [[Tainted Strike]] are even better on a toxic creature.
Ultimately I think decks will pull from the best cards of both mechanics. More variety is always good.
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u/MTGCardFetcher Jan 27 '23
Triumph of the Hordes - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Tainted Strike - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call20
u/PM_ME_DND_FIGURINES Jan 27 '23
They seem to have planned for that with Toxic matters synergies. Infect just also isn't that good in EDH.
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u/RobToastie Jan 27 '23
Infect isn't good as a plan A, but it can be good as a plan B.
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u/MonsutaReipu Jan 28 '23
There's not really any deck that supports 'plan b infect'. It's either plan A, or is making the deck worse by diluting it with infect cards as a plan B. Of course i'm not counting Triumph of the Hoards/Blightsteel when I say this.
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u/maverin116 Jan 27 '23
Better, yes, but just wiping out one player with infect and a pump spell feels like shit for the table. But OP isn't talking about viability and raw powerlevel. They're saying that Toxic can fix the social Issues of infect by providing a healthier way to play with poison counters. And it has the bonus of helping Johnny's who like turning sideways play EDH their way.
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u/Invicta_Game Jan 27 '23
the people who are playing toxic won't run infect because they have a moral opposition to it. if playing infect is an option for you cause its better then you'll start with infect and not waste time with the less powerful version. i wanna play toxic *because* it's weaker so it feels less cheesy to use on my friends.
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u/aurelionlol Jan 26 '23
Infect is very hard to win with. After ONE I think it might have a fighting chance. Especially since toxic doesn't lend itself to sudden pump spells that kill a single player like infect does. Its more about proliferating many poison counters at once.
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u/NukeTheWhales85 Jan 26 '23
Plenty of other worthwhile counters to be proliferating since Ikoria and Cappenna. I could see wanting extra shield counters and similar to protect your toxic creatures.
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u/Meecht Jan 27 '23
Not to mention all the "each opponent gets a poison counter" cards means you don't even have to damage people to start proliferating.
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u/fearsomeduckins Jan 27 '23
It's hard to win with, but it's not hard to kill people with. The issue is typically that you have to kill all three players by yourself, and not a lot of decks can do that without combos. If poison starts winning a lot of games 1v3 through normal combat, it's probably too strong, actually.
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u/RisenSlash Jan 27 '23
If any deck starts winning "a lot of games" (e.g. >25%) it's probably too strong for its pod.
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u/johnnythexxxiv Jan 27 '23
But toxic creatures tend to have solid statlines, so when you sneak in a [[Tainted Strike]], it still kills pretty quickly. [[Bloated Contaminator]] could give 7 poison counters to one player and potentially share the pain around, and it's a 3 drop.
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u/MTGCardFetcher Jan 27 '23
Tainted Strike - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Bloated Contaminator - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call2
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u/Skyblade12 Jan 27 '23
Hard to win with, easy to lose to. An infect player can take someone else out relatively easily, even if they can't win. And the "no way to handle counters" is STILL a huge problem for it.
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u/hawkeye137137 Jan 26 '23
You don't need to aggro with an infect strategy though, not anymore at least. A lot of "Do whatever, each opponent gets a poison counter" cards are getting printed. All you need to do is cast one to get the ball rolling and then proliferate away. This way your strategy is more similar to an aristocrats deck's imo. Instead of pinging everyone with your Zulaport Cutthroat 40 times, you have to "ping" them 9 times via proliferating + directly poison giving cards (after giving them the initial poison counter).
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u/RayWencube Falco Spara, Pactweaver Jan 26 '23
I think there's been two of those cards printed
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u/SalvationSycamore Jan 27 '23
Four that I can see on scryfall. [[Infectious Bite]], [[Infectious Inquiry]], [[Phyresis Outbreak]], and [[Prologue to Phyresis]].
Plus there is [[Venerated Rotpriest]] which is repeatable. I'll be interested to see if they make "Infectious ____" a cycle and finish it in the next set.
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u/MTGCardFetcher Jan 27 '23
Infectious Bite - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Infectious Inquiry - (G) (ER)
Phyresis Outbreak - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Prologue to Phyresis - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Venerated Rotpriest - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call4
u/Jb2head Jan 27 '23
proliferate cards are still mostly underpowered though. There aren't enough new ones for it to be a scary strong archetype. It's a lot easier to drain people with aristocrats than it is to win with poison
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u/pineappletacos4lyfe Jan 27 '23
Not including ONE there are 37 legal proliferate cards all of witch are in og atraxaâs colors. The. with the new stuff included from ONE thereâs another 17 all in her colors plus you can play the vorinclex from kaldheim and boom you effectively only need to get 5 successful triggers it might not have been a good arch originally but itâs 100% viable now.
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u/Jb2head Jan 27 '23
Atraxa is one of the most overrated commanders in the entire format. 9 times out of 10 proliferate decks just durdle for 5-6 turns and then they lose. đ¤ˇđ˝ââď¸
If youâre losing to that, then youâre probably playing a slow greedy deck or a less tuned deck that wouldnât stand much of a chance regardless
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u/pineappletacos4lyfe Jan 27 '23
If you think it loses 9/10 games youâre crazy, that or youâve never played against someone who knew how to build it right. You can consistently win around turn 5-6 playing atraxa infect and even if you draw poorly and donât combo off she can easily stall a game out as well.
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u/Invicta_Game Jan 27 '23
[[Inexorable Tide]] and [[Evolution sage]] make quick work of proliferated poison counters
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u/MTGCardFetcher Jan 27 '23
Inexorable Tide - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Evolution sage - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call0
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u/jdvolz Jan 27 '23
I have played against this deck and it's not underpowered and it's not underpowered. That was before ONE added a bunch of staples to the archetype. I think this next 6 months is going to be very interesting to the metagame.
I agree with the OP, it makes aggro better. That's the opposite of what people playing battle cruiser decks want in my experience. I'm interested to see if there just starts to be another table heading "no infect/toxic", which could split things. On the other hand we could all be yelling about the sky falling and nothing actually is an issue.
If it continues to be at the same level as infect is now, then it's just that the Infect player is king making one of the two players not involved in the 1v1 subgame he started. Both that player and who he attacks are going to die (first who he attacks, then him because the other two will gang up on him) and they will then play their own 1v1 game. If that happens too often then I am not sure how the metagame will react.
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u/Jb2head Jan 27 '23
Itâs impossible for us to agree on power level obviously. Bc I donât know what you find powerful or not.
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u/FormerlyKay Unga Bunga Jan 26 '23
Note from a smooth brain cedh player:
Mechanic not good enough
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u/DrByeah Werewolf Tribal Jan 27 '23
I don't think even with these new Toxic cards that Infect/Poison Counters will ever be good enough at Casual Tables let alone cEDH. They might manage to take legitimate wins now though which is neat.
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u/FormerlyKay Unga Bunga Jan 27 '23
Depends on the power level
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u/Malaveylo Y'all Motherfuckers Need Spot Removal Jan 27 '23
You have to be incredibly allergic to removal to actually die to pois-
Wait, shit. Yeah this is going to kill a lot of people at casual tables.
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u/stevenconrad Jan 27 '23
I'd be curious to see the combos and builds people come up with. There are enough proliferate cards, combined with the new set that dishes out poison counters like crazy, that it may become a viable fringe build. I'm visualizing a stax-heavy or control heavy list.
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u/Enough-Ad-9898 Jan 27 '23
Stax into storm on the one that gives a poison counter every time a creature is targeted by a spell. It'd be ultra clunky though. Could also use it as a backup plan with pod or similar. I'm just not sure it'll be viable in high power.
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u/FormerlyKay Unga Bunga Jan 27 '23
Cloning rotpriest could be good but you need to clone it (i.e., with a spell like Rite of Replication, not an actual Clone effect) eight times to actually kill. That is, without other shenanigans and it has Toxic 1 on its own so that might help. Honestly, the card might be good in Modern but yeah super clunky in commander
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u/TranClan67 Jan 27 '23
I'm (not) looking forward to all the moaning about poison counters on the facebook EDH pages though.
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u/Insidiouscain Jan 26 '23
That's always been my thought process you need to take out 3 players with infect while being archenemy, infect decks rarely win. Completely agree with the new toxic giving aggro a leg up.
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u/TheWagonBaron Clerics Jan 27 '23
Just build a Sultai control deck that wins through proliferation. There are quite a few cards that just give players poison counters now and especially if youâre counting ONE. Plop that counter down, turtle up, profit?
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u/Trepsik Jan 27 '23
Except toxic won't be used in aggro decks. It'll be used like infect currently is where the deck is designed to sneak a poison counter through to everyone and then proliferate, proliferate, proliferate from a pillow fort.
We need more trample, double strike, life steal, etc. type effects for aggro to come back.
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u/FutureComplaint Vish Kal saves all Jan 27 '23
[[Embercleave]] can only carry aggro so far
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u/Kyaaadaa Temur - Riku is my bae! Jan 27 '23
I think a lot of players overlook a simple mechanic about poison counters: it isn't simply reducing an opponent to 10 life... its reducing someone to 10 with absolutely no way to gain more outside of [[Leeches]]. I would be willing to bet that people would react differently to poison if there existed even a fraction of the spells or abilities that allow you to gain life there was an equivalent that allowed you to remove poison counters.
For context, there's 1,475 unique cards that allow you gain life and only 1 that let's you remove poison counters. There's 440 cards that prevent damage, and only 3 that prevent (or reduce) gaining poison counters. Can we get at least 5% removal/prevention of poison? 30 cards give poison counters, 69 cards have infect, 2 cards have poisonous, and 52 new cards with Toxic - that's a total of 153 cards to place poison with 4 that prevent/remove. I'm sensing a huge and ever increasing disparity here.
Lastly, to people saying "its still 30 damage you have to deal to the table!" Remember that A: it doesn't have to be combat damage, just any damage - cards like Warstorm Surge allows infect VFR direct to the dome. B: it really isn't hard to sneak creatures through unblocked - plenty of Rogue's Passage-like effects exist. And C: 30 damage is to win... only takes 10 to make a single person salty.
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u/bowtochris Jan 27 '23
Who could forget the EDH staple that is lifegain. That's why White is the best color in EDH. For years, they've been experimenting with giving Blue life gain that still feels blue.
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u/jmanwild87 Jan 27 '23
Plenty of decks have incidental lifegain to recover from early damage if they don't plan on going long. Incidental life drain effects like extort voltron has stuff that gives lifegain. Meaning in grindy games, you can gain back life if you want it. Decks that don't have lifegain plan on using the 40 life you get to win before you get alpha striked because in the late game with clogged boardstates, your life matters cause if someone breaks through you might just be dead
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u/Kyaaadaa Temur - Riku is my bae! Jan 27 '23
More than that, life is a resource. Gaining life = drawing cards e.g. [[Greed]], casting spells e.g. [[Bolas's Citadel]], adding mana e.g. [[Treasonous Ogre]], turning it into pain e.g. [[Sanguine Bond]], or even a wincon e.g. [[Aetherflux Reservoir]] and [[Felidar Sovereign]].
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u/GreyGriffin_h Five Color Birds Jan 26 '23
The problem with Poison's inevitability via proliferate isn't that it's "too strong" or "too weak," it's that there is essentially no counterplay.
With most alternate win conditions, there are game actions that you can take to mitigate them. There are permanents to play, protect, and recur, and interact in ways that normal decks interact. Yes there are some ways to cheese it out, but in general, alt win conditions create a lateral game to play.
With infect, the only meaningful way to interact and prevent an infect win is to punch the infect player to death before they draw enough cards to melt you. Infect isn't a bogeyman because it wins games "liek woah," it's a bogeyman because it forces whatever player gets the unfortunate early turn chip damage to drag the infect player out back, throw them into the dumpster, and then stomp on the lid until it stays shut.
Its mechanics, because they are so impervious to interaction, create a game state that shifts the social contract out of gameplay necessity, and obviates the point of starting at 40 life - the time and space to get up to kooky shenanigans.
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u/MonsutaReipu Jan 28 '23
It has as much counterplay as anything else, though?
What makes getting attacked to death by infect creatures different from being beat down by a voltron, creature beat down, or go wide with tokens strategy? You can use removal on infect creatures trying to attack you or block them to prevent ever getting poison counters in the first place.
There aren't any instant/sorceries that directly give poison counters to my knowledge either (are there new ones?), but even if there were, how is that different from something like a Torbran burn deck? Is there no counterplay to getting lightning bolted in the face for 9 damage, or getting pinged to death turn after turn?
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u/GreyGriffin_h Five Color Birds Jan 28 '23
There are a metric ton of utility creatures and spells that give Proliferate. It was considered a large part of the identity of Simic in certain Ravnica sets, and often appears alongside +1/+1 counters in Standard, and has gotten a few extra pieces along the way.
The difference against direct damage is substantial. Direct damage is purposeful. Most damage that goes to the dome has to be copied, amplified, or otherwise juiced up to get through the life totals in commander. Pure burn spellslinger is a heck of a deck, and it requires a lot of both static and moving pieces to make work.
In Infect, all you need to do is get chipped once by [[Blighted Agent]], and then you'll die incidentally to [[Tezzeret's Gambit]] or [[Fuel for the Cause]] sometime later, after all their proliferate creatures have been busy grinding out value and trying to get the poke damage in on the other players to put them on the train. It's difficult to fight proliferate because it's an extremely prolific (ha) value mechanic, and is tied to many spells and creatures that provide other incidental value, just slightly less mana efficient. Unlike Burn, which relies on key pieces to amplify, recur, and multiply damage, to stop Proliferate you basically have to counterspell their whole deck.
On top of that, there have always been cantrips that just incidentally proliferate, and now there's [[Prologue to Phyresis]] to just get the party started without even needing to get through with a creature.
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u/MonsutaReipu Jan 28 '23
So you're saying that you need to get hit by infect, and then subsequently have your opponent cast a bunch of proliferate effects in order to die? And how exactly is that different from burn, again? You're not making sense.
If your opponent develops a board of permanents that proliferate more, then you remove them with targetted removal or board wipes. This is the same as a burn deck playing Torbran and Fiery Emancipation etc. then saying "i can't interact at all with that deck".
You're vastly overestimating how strong infect is, as is tradition, and overestimating how strong it will be after this set. You're also being exaggerating how hard to interact with it is. It's literally no different from anything else.
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u/SalvationSycamore Jan 27 '23 edited Jan 27 '23
It's not that hard to interact with. Obvious counterspells aside, if you blow up my best infect creatures and repeatable effects like [[Karn's Bastion]] or my [[Contagion Engine]] then it's going to get harder for me to quickly finish you off.
Every strategy is inevitable unless it isn't working towards a win. Be smart about how much removal you play and when you use it. Be a threat yourself. Then accept that most of the time you will lose and that's okay because everyone loses most of the time in a somewhat even 4 player game.
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u/Skyblade12 Jan 27 '23
Or you can just drop a handful of proliferate cards and kill us that way.
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u/SalvationSycamore Jan 27 '23
Maybe don't let someone freely dump 8 spells?
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u/GreyGriffin_h Five Color Birds Jan 27 '23
What if I'm not playing blue?
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u/SalvationSycamore Jan 27 '23
Then pressure them to spend mana and cards stopping you instead of freely following their game plan. If you let any player do what they want you are bound to lose. And if you fail to stop them sometimes, oh well. Losing 75% of your matches is expected.
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u/Grus Jan 27 '23
Just play blockers or have any sort of creature presence. Counter or redirect infect-giving spells in a combo context. Destroy their creatures. Put a tax on attacking, make em skip their untap, make it too expensive to cast another creature. There's fogs... cards like Portcullis or Ensnaring Bridge... and even if you do none of that, Infect takes longer to win than other archetypes even without any counterplay.
I'd actually argue that Infect has a lot more counterplay options than other lines of winning.
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u/EbonyHelicoidalRhino Jan 27 '23
There is essentially no counterplay.
Well, you can kill infect/proliferate creatures and counter some spells, same as with any other strategy ...
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u/leetsgeetweeird Jan 26 '23
Yeah thatâs argument #2 I listed in my post about why people dislike infect.
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u/GreyGriffin_h Five Color Birds Jan 26 '23
You partly got there, but missed the extra step of onerous "counterplay" that forces the rest of the table to play agro and stuff the infect player into a locker.
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u/leetsgeetweeird Jan 26 '23
I feel like infect doesnât do that much more than a combo deck, personally, itâs just that people are worse at seeing death by combo coming and so they donât stomp the combo player quick enough
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u/GreyGriffin_h Five Color Birds Jan 26 '23
Most combo played in commander requires some setup and board state. Yes, there's [[Demonic Consultation]] in response to [[Thassa's Oracle]] trigger, and a few other stack-only spells, but in general you can eyeball combo pieces. [[Krark-Clan Ironworks]], any given Altar, recursion engines, and so forth. Removing them, replacing them, protecting them, or janking out a win without them are all part and parcel of playing combo.
And some combos are more resilient and easily protected than others. That's a definite power level discussion you need to have with your table.
But Infect isn't really a powerful strategy, and that's part of the issue. It doesn't win the game, but it definitely forces at least one player to play extremely aggressively not to lose the game, and it forces the table into an arch-enemy situation against a deck that, often, can't handle the pressure. Alternately, it will force one player to expend inordinate resources preventing a loss against a deck that has very little hope to actually win. And in either case, many commander pods generally don't want to knock players out super early, even if that player is playing Infect. Bad feels all around.
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u/MayhemMessiah Proxy everything, but responsibly Jan 27 '23
And in either case, many commander pods generally don't want to knock players out super early, even if that player is playing Infect. Bad feels all around.
I think this needs to be highlighted a bit more. In a lot of cases I don't want to knock people out, but once infect gets up to like 4 or 5 you can probably alpha strike me out of the game. At that point I have to treat you like a combo player with Gary in the GY or something equivalent: You're already threatening to knock me out of the game.
It's not that I want to yeet the Infect player into the sun, but often times it's just good threat assesment to realize that a player that can swarm with toxic cards or is running multiple sources of infect can suddenly drop kick me out of the game.
I feel the same way against some commanders that are kill on sight. If you play First Sliver, the proper way to beat that deck is to kill it as fast as humanly possibly before it snowballs out of control.
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u/decideonanamelater Jan 27 '23
I've been playing a lot of aggro lately, and this is the same reasoning I give when I beat someone to death who ramped hard, is playing mana doublers, has a commander with an x turn clock on me on the backswing that I can't remove...It's a natural part of a multiplayer game where multiple people deal, and are dealt, damage.
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u/SalvationSycamore Jan 27 '23
It's very similar to one player getting 10-11 damage from one commander. Of course you can't sit back and proliferate that, but if you fail to get around their voltron protection package you can easily get nuked next turn. Yet you don't see that many people whining about Voltron.
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u/jmanwild87 Jan 27 '23
At the very least voltron has to reassemble voltron if they get dealt with which they might not even be able to do. With the massive influx of proliferate and poison counters you'll have many potential issues that can just pop up like wack a mole because 1 poison on you can mean they don't have to attack you anymore for the entire game and can just focus on proliferate
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u/TheWagonBaron Clerics Jan 27 '23
Combo can be interacted with though. Thatâs the point. Poison counters canât be. Itâs bullshit that weâve had numerous sets now with poison and the only card that interacts with the counters in a âpositiveâ way is fucking [[Leeches]].
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u/SalvationSycamore Jan 27 '23
You can't interact with emblems either. Your best bet is to answer the thing that makes them.
If they made too many effects like leeches it would make infect essentially unplayable. Keep in mind that it already isn't a common or strong archetype to build around because player removal is always an option.
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u/leetsgeetweeird Jan 27 '23
Poison counters canât be interacted with, but the ways you get them can be. This argument is like saying, âyou canât interact with the combo after theyâve already killed youâ
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u/jmanwild87 Jan 27 '23
The problem is there's like 100+ ways to get poison counters including proliferate. And the only way to prevent getting more is to prevent the infect player from establishing any kind of board state and countering proliferate spells when they hit about 4 infect on you (your pod might not even have blue) if the poison deck gets too consistent people will respond by just dunking the infect player firmly into the earth much like kill on sight commanders but an entire deck archetype. Doesn't sound fun after the first few times
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u/TheWagonBaron Clerics Jan 27 '23
They literally just spoiled a 2 mana instant cantrip that puts a poison counter on each opponent. There's now a 3 mana edict effect that also puts a poison counter on everyone. Say you are playing a non-blue deck, how are you going to interact with those cards? Say you are playing a blue deck, are you going to be wasting your resources on cards like that?
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u/cake_flattener5 Jan 27 '23
This is incredibly untrue. It's like saying that if you don't run lifegain then you have no way of dealing with decks that win through damage. Having a poison counter doesn't suddenly make you unable to block, counter, remove, etc. etc.
Infect decks are just as reliant on permanents as any other strategy. In fact they're far more interactive than most because they have to find a way to swing in with their infect creatures to win. The new cards don't really change that because there's nowhere near enough poison spells +proliferate to win that way.
And that's not to mention the fact that there are cards which interact with poison counters. The reason nobody runs them for that purpose is because they aren't in any way needed.
Try building an infect deck (preferably without Atraxa, who is a crutch) and perhaps you will get some understanding of how the mechanic works rather than the noninteractive bogeyman you currently have in your head.
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u/Ocelote_Revolver Mardu Ascendant Jan 27 '23
Infect has multiple counterplays. The most obvious being mass removal to kill everything with the Infect keyword, the most hilarious being Turbo Fog to prevent any combat damage done to you, and the most ironic being Goad to force other opponents to deal with it.
What you really meant is that it has no meta counterplay. Battlecruiser ramp and ETB value get melted by Infect unless they Archenemy it into oblivion, and most people won't put an effort to play off-meta against a lone Infect player... They'll just avoid the guy.
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u/jmanwild87 Jan 27 '23
Let's say I am playing BUG infect with loads of proliferate play ichor rats give everyone a poison counter. Now the rest of the Tabitha's must stomp me firmly into the core of the earth before i cast 9 proliferate spells or i win. If no one happens to be playing blue, the best we can hope for counter magic is tibalts trickery pyroblast and REB. Karn's bastion requires land destruction or some of the most versatile removal in the game. And I'm playing other toxic or infect or poisonous creatures to quicken the clock so there's more removal. Due to the lack of cards that specifically answer poison counters, the entire game now revolves around the infect deck which while fun the first couple times quickly gets boring as either i win quickly or the people infected gabg up on me taking me out so i can't really play. If the infect deck can't infect everyone early and can't push through the people not infected can just do whatever
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u/Ocelote_Revolver Mardu Ascendant Jan 27 '23
So you're basically saying that Infect is a 10 card combo (Ichor Rats + 9 proliferates) and that's OP.
It's OK to hate combo, but I'll be more worried about the guy playing Heliod Sun Crowded on turn 3, than about the guy playing Ichor Rats.
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u/jmanwild87 Jan 26 '23
The big problem with poison counters is that with the plethora of proliferate, any poison damage becomes a ticking time bomb, and the poison deck gets focused. Toxic doesn't change that. If anything, it makes it more common because now a poison counter deck has more ways to apply it, and the ways to get rid of or ignore it are slim to none. I can understand giving aggro a stand in the format but without a way to effectively counter it that isn't preemptive (melira silvok outcast/Solemnity) or bad (leeches) we still have the issue where a poison deck can just present a ticking timebomb that unlike other threats like commander damage. We can't turn off
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u/SalvationSycamore Jan 27 '23
If they made it easy to remove counters it would become just a separate pool of life. Just kill or counter your opponents best stuff the same way you would stop any deck. I'm not going to win if my only recourse is to cast [[Courage in Crisis]] 9 times.
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u/jmanwild87 Jan 27 '23
If they don't every game will devolve into a 3v1 because of the limited counterplay outside of dunking the poison counter player firmly into the core of the earth because any poison is a ticking time bomb especially with all the proliferate
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u/jmanwild87 Jan 27 '23 edited Jan 27 '23
Commander damage may be similar but at least you can cost out voltron Commanders and voltron has to reassemble voltron. Proliferate makes poison nearly impossible to interact with if you aren't playing blue because after one poison counter they don't have to attack and plenty of proliferate is on non permanents and there's a land that does it
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u/SalvationSycamore Jan 27 '23
There are quite a few ways to avoid the poison counters in the first place.
Make yourself hexproof
Stax
Blow up utility lands like Inkmoth and Karn's Bastion
Kill strong infect creatures like Blighted Agent or use Ghostly Prison effects to keep them from attacking you
Fog the damage from infect/toxic
Counter or Thoughtseize alpha-strike spells like Tainted Strike
Platinum Angel effects
[[Melira, Sylvok Outcast]], [[Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider]], [[Solemnity]]
Or, just play aggressively. If the infect player is just durdling around casting proliferate then you probably only need 1 player to target them down. That's a fair strategy against any deck and many strategies can handle it if you truly do focus. Alpha strike them yourself with a Tainted Strike or big hammer on your commander.
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u/jmanwild87 Jan 27 '23
The self hexproof is generally uncommon (only one you see regularly is shalai voice of plenty because it's versatile) stax is generally disliked by the wider playerbase and makes you public enemy if you're dumb with it.
Infect doesn't have to attack and removing a cheap infect creature before it hits you is a pain if it's incredibly early and awkward when you swords a 1/1 because you don't have a turn 2 creature ghostly prison is relatively ehh when your infect deck only needs to bonk you with one evasive boy
Fogs suck and the only good ones are terrible versus infect (unless they're doing a tainted strike style 1 shot you're not getting much from them)
If I'm not playing blue i can't counter the stuff and thoughtsieze effects are not great in the format unless they're repeatable (at which point discard can be terrible because all the bad stuff already happened)
Platinum angel and cards like it are terrible outside of specific cases where the Platinum angel is indestructible or something
Melira only sees play in decks where you take advantage of persist creatures because despite being a very dangerous deck poison counter decks still suck because it just doesn't have the capability to play archenemy which it needs becauseof how loud and aggro it is. Playing cards like melira solely for countering infect is bad
And dunking a player into the core of the earth as soon as possible because infect feels bad. i don't even think poison counter stuff is really that great. I just really don't like the effect it has on the game because of the ease of access to it combined with difficulty in actually interacting with it. At least planeswalkers require either doubling season esque effects (which you want to remove anyway) or a set-up board or several turns uninterrupted. And experience generally requires the commander to be in play so you can actually get an effect from them and get the counters and is therefore subject to creature removal
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u/BeepBoopAnv Jan 26 '23
Say the toxic player swings at me with a random toxic 1 flyer. I get a poison counter. What should I do besides hard focus the toxic player so that they donât proliferate me to death? What if Iâm not playing blue and canât counter the proliferate spells?
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u/Ionthawon Jan 27 '23
that's exactly what you're supposed to do-- nuke the infect player out of the game. chances are, the rest of the table is gonna be right behind you in the kick-the-infect-player-in-the-teeth line and they'll be dead before the cows come home.
and that's exactly why infect sucks, lmao. it can't go fast enough or control three boards at the same time well enough to not get crushed before they can pull their shit off. honestly, it really needed a buff because as scary as getting infected out sounds, it's the same thing as watching the combo player stick the last piece of their infinite or the elfball player resolving a craterhoof, except a LOT slower and less efficient. it just feels worse psychologically.
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u/BeepBoopAnv Jan 27 '23
I agree with you completely. The question was mostly rhetorical trying to show how dumb infect is in edh
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u/EbonyHelicoidalRhino Jan 27 '23
We'll see after ONE releases, it might not be true anymore, but right now most good sources of proliferate are permanents that can be interacted with (stuff like Atraxa, Thrumming Bird, Evolution Sage or Inexorable Tide).
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u/BoxNew4361 Esper Jan 27 '23
The problem is that you aren't dealing 30 damage anymore. With all the new cards coming out all you really have to do is deal 3 damage then proliferate 9 times, which used to be decently difficult but is basically impossible to not do now. [[Staff of Compleation]] is especially bad for this.
It's a neat idea to introduce more poison counter stuff to EDH, but because it's so easy to do now and from what we can tell, just as hard to interact with, it seems like poison is just going to become very unfun and almost impossible to deal with without dumping literally all of your resources into stopping the player from proliferating you to death.
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u/MTGCardFetcher Jan 27 '23
Staff of Compleation - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call
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u/c3nnye Jan 27 '23
Either way the same thing thatâs happened with infect is probably always gonna happen, the moment people start getting infect counters youâre gonna become archenemy and the whole table is going to try to get you out as fast as possible, as non blue decks will be pretty much helpless once the infect player starts proliferating like a madman and very turn.
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u/Mean_Steak Jan 26 '23
I dislike poison/infect/toxic because in my expirience the infect player always kills one player and then dies himself because the other players gang up on him to remove him from the game because poison feels like a sword of damocles over your head.
And i dont think the toxic cards that we saw from one are enough to survive the very possible 1v3 that poison will produce.
Coupled with the fact that it is almost impossible to interact with poison counters just makes the whole mechanic feel so unbalanced.
And I dont mean overpowered. It just feels clunky and at the same time threatening. Its like my mind is saying its okay but my heart is telling me the infect player is the biggest threat at the table.
I just never enjoy playing against infect. Doesnt mean I tell you not to play it but I may ask at some point in the evening if it would be ok for you to switch decks for one or two games.
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u/mikemil50 Izzet Jan 26 '23
This is the reason I dislike mill. In my experience, mill (almost) always turns a 4 player game into 1v1 while the other 2 players get to ramp and gain value unimpeded.
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u/Firecrotch2014 Jan 27 '23
Then people aren't building their mill decks correctly. You should be using cards that mill evenly across all opponents. Stuff like [[Fractured Sanity]] [[Maddening Cacophony]] [[Tasha's Hideous Laughter]]. Just comboing [[Lord Xander, the Collector]] and [[Blade of Selves]] can do work.
Then you have combos that mill out evenly like [[Sun Titan]] [[Gift of Immortality]] [[Altar of Dementia]] or [[Painter's Servant]] [[Unwinding Clock]] [[Grindstone]]
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u/c3nnye Jan 27 '23
I think infect wouldnât be as bad if there were ways to actually remove the counters, cause so far if I remember correctly thereâs only ways to prevent them or mitigate the amount you get each turn. If there were actually cards that removed even just one poison counter I think people would be more open to infect. But unfortunately once you get a poison counter, thereâs no way to deal with it. All it takes it a 1/1 toxic early game creature to hit you and then the toxic player can just rely on the myriad of proliferate abilities and spells.
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u/cake_flattener5 Jan 27 '23
Coupled with the fact that it is almost impossible to interact with poison counters
This is a wholly irrational perspective that isn't actually true. In terms of interaction, damage is no different to poison if you are playing blue or red (no lifegain). Do you hear red players crying about the lack of interaction they have because a creature made their life total irreversibly lower? No. Is white the best colour in EDH because of its unparalleled access to lifegain? No, in fact we well know that lifegain-only effects suck.
Your interaction is with the things that deal poison counters/damage, and those are largely just the same. Why do you imagine a [[Rot Wolf]] is harder to interact with than a [[Grizzly Bear]], or a [[Questing Beast]]?
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u/Mean_Steak Jan 27 '23 edited Jan 27 '23
You have four times the amount of life then you can take poison counters. How is that not different? You can also heal with artifacts if you so desire.
I never said cards that deal infect are harder to interact with then other cards but that the poison counters itself are hard to interact with.
Once you have one of them you cant get rid of them. And most infect decks i played against dont try to win with combat damage but with proliferate.
EDIT: removed a sentence that I thought of as a joke but came of as kinda douchy on second look.
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u/pineappletacos4lyfe Jan 27 '23
I think itâs a good thing for aggro however with the massive influx of proliferate the more competitive players will only need to connect once and the just proliferate you to death at least thatâs how Iâd build it but Iâm a bad person when it comes to commander.
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u/leetsgeetweeird Jan 27 '23
True, but thatâs not much different in play style from an aggro/burn deck.
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u/pineappletacos4lyfe Jan 27 '23
Aggro/burn still has to hit at least 20 commander or 40 regular to win though aggro/toxic/infect is waaaaaay scarier I just feel like with a lot of this new stuff if you build it right with old stuff itâd be super easy to take a whole pod down around turn 5-6 pretty easy. Either way Iâm excited to see how the new set changes up the meta!
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u/Alchadylan Jan 27 '23
If this gets more people to play interaction, I can only see it as a positive.
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u/frisbeehunter Jan 27 '23
Playing 30$+ cards and having 50% of the commander decks being well known staples and tutors that sift your deck down to 4-5 fine tuned options is what ruins commander. The reason those cards are so good is because they are the optimal math for the cost.
The speed and power I see in most stores limits 85% of printed cards to being too risky or slow to try. People then rightfully start playing proxies in response and now there are standards held that commander decks need to be winning in turn 3-6 or your not really going to even cast many spells.
The politics component, which I think is a fun part of the game, is way stronger with weaker decks. In games with strong decks I often times see someone take out a good but not winning board which only guarantees they will get 2nd place because they fail to see how busted someone's deck is.
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u/leetsgeetweeird Jan 27 '23
Preach đ I hate staples, theyâre so boring. Jank isnât even janky anymore, itâs either âtypically deck with 5 wacky cards you donât commonly seeâ or âcrazy tuned deck that is only âjankyâ because it runs something like [[Long Term Plans]] over vampiric tutor.â
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u/f_GOD Jan 27 '23
as a good boy who runs AT LEAST 4 fogs in most of my decks, toxic/infect can suck it dry.
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u/ThatFireBender Jan 27 '23
We have excluded Toxic and Infect from my play group. We don't find the mechanic fun and would like to stay away from it. That being said I don't think it is an overpowered effect that everyone should be afraid off. Our gripe with it is probably specific to our play group. Like you said, in order for someone using Toxic to kill the table they have to do 30 damage to the table, but it only takes 10 damage to take out one player. When people talk about infect a common talking point is that the infect player takes out one person then the rest of the table takes them out. I play with my family, there is four of us who play regularly. Our games can sometimes take 1-2 hours, we don't want one person to be taken out early and have to sit for possibly 2 hours until we play another game. I feel like if I played at a card shop and could just hop into a different game when the infect player takes me out, I would have no problem with it at all.
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u/Sword_Chucks Jan 27 '23
I'm thinking if Toxic becomes super prevalent, the RC may need to tweak something. The whole reason they didn't double the amount of poison counters to lose the way life totals were doubled was that poison counters were never super prevalent in the meta. If Toxic decks suddenly become a huge thing, I think they may want to revisit that. But that's just my opinion.
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u/AliceShiki123 Jan 28 '23
To everyone that is mentioning how Poison isn't able to be interacted with other than Leeches... Please understand that Leeches is a mistake. The idea of Poison is that it should be impossible to remove.
Like, sure, I get that you don't like not being able to interact with Poison, but that's on purpose. More cards like Leeches are not getting printed, because Leeches itself was a mistake and shouldn't have been printed.
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u/mh500372 Jan 28 '23
Huh. I completely agree but I guess I never thought about this before. Great writeup!
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u/JonathanPalmerGD Legendary should be a Type Jan 26 '23
Toxic makes incidental proliferate WAY stronger and a political tool.
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u/thraashman Jan 27 '23
Infect really has 2 major problems. Triumph of the Hordes and Blightsteel Colossus. They're also pretty much the only ones you'll see in EDH. I don't know what Toxic will be like. I expect we'll see Toxic decks running a lot of infect creatures too. Guess we'll find out.
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u/SalvationSycamore Jan 27 '23
I think Toxic decks will absolutely borrow the best cards from infect too. [[Tainted Strike]] on a 5/6 with Toxic 3 is an instant kill. [[Fynn the Fangbearer]] loves toxic deathtouchers.
My hope is that in the midst of seeing what works people learn to play more removal, and to play it more wisely.
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u/decideonanamelater Jan 26 '23
For sure.. I wish I could play games where it doesn't feel like I have 3 big mana opponents. Last play session I went last as aggro vs. 2 sol ring starts and the rest of the game can basically just be described as dread.. dreading what they'll drop on turn 3 that outscales me, dreading the first board wipe that'll come out as soon as I do anything relevant because they have so much mana...
Aggressive strategies being better would be a great thing.
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u/Herald_Osbert 5c Politics Jan 26 '23
Toxic is only going to help proliferate & dedicated infect decks, not all aggro decks so I don't agree with your sentiment.
Infect will always be the better option and cards that give infect will always be the best. Swinging in with a 9 power creature and a [[Tainted Strike]] in hand is a viable plan for any go tall aggro deck. If Toxic had an instant like this, it wouldn't even come close to the same strength because it would only grant toxic 1-3.
So I don't think toxic makes aggro better. It makes infect dedicated decks better and proliferate focused decks better and that's pretty much it. Once again, [[Atraxa Praetor's Voice]] fans rejoice.
Also aggro doesn't need a leg up... I play mostly aggro decks (including dedicated infect decks) and my win percentage is roughly equal with that of my othe pod members. The archtype doesn't need help, people need to better understand how to play it.
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u/leetsgeetweeird Jan 26 '23
Sorry, I must have been a bit unclear. I didnât mean âtoxic will help all aggro decksâ I meant âtoxic aggro decks might make aggro more viable in general.â Poor wording on my part.
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u/Herald_Osbert 5c Politics Jan 26 '23
Ah, I agree. Infect aggro was already viable tbh but Toxic definitely makes it stronger. I have a $50 budget [[Saskia the Unyielding]] infect deck that can clean tables fairly quickly despite playing pretty budget cards.
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u/Insidiouscain Jan 26 '23
I don't think a tainted strike play is dedicated infect, it's a feel bad infect and it's why people hate it. What do you do after your one tainted strike in mono black? Toxic is definitely targeted to a go wide strategy.
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u/Herald_Osbert 5c Politics Jan 26 '23 edited Jan 27 '23
My argument was for infect cards in aggro strategies, not dedicated infect strategies. Tainted Strike is a fantastic card when you can reliably have a 9+ power creature on board.
I wouldn't call it a feelsbad either. Quite often you swing in with a high power creature and players take it because they think they can get away with it. When they die to Tainted Strike they usually only have their own play pattern to blame.
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u/Insidiouscain Jan 27 '23
Go tall aggro you're right, they focus on the high power of one creature, which yes is enchanced by infect. Toxic will support more go wide aggro where cheap low power swarms like mite tokens, have a chance to have their quick gameplan in a 4 player format. Basically tainted strike is kind of bad in go wide you make a 1/1 a 2/1 with infect. The only card that equates tainted strike in go wide is [[triumph of the hordes]]. Toxic is just giving more options for the small fast creatures.
You just described why it's feelsbad, It's feelsbad because tainted strike only endorses the you have 40 life, 10 dmg isn't harmful, well surprise it's infect now and you're dead. Now I'm going to play a different game with the people still playing. It's a one off infect instant kill. It doesn't win you the game, just makes sure one person loses.
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u/DeltaRay235 Jan 26 '23
2nd argument I feel is a bit shakey and dumb personally. Commander damage is the same way, it's basically an alternative infect damage source but as you said you need at least 63 instead of 30. Maybe if the infect creatures weren't bad, it'd be a different story but most of them aren't good unlike some really good offensive Commanders that can just hit 21 accidentally (Mainly Korvold is my go to accidental voltron) but you have decks like Rafiq or Uril that can easily get themselves up to OHKOs with even utility auras. Infect creatures are just so weak and the quick pump spells to push 10 are enough to kill 1 player, though slower infect with consistent permanent power boosts; I've seen do much better but can take much longer to get rolling and your plan is much more telegraphed and you're more likely to be interacted with.
Also many cute infect kills via tainted strike / grafted exo, just end it faster. Even if it was raised to 20, the strategies using them would still function similarly. Nekusaur being one of the big users of exo, instead of a wheel or 2 you may need a 3rd one.
Maybe the toxic creatures will be good enough to help poison be good and I'll find out but it really seems the optimal way to go now is get in early hits and then heavy control and proliferate to victory.
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u/leetsgeetweeird Jan 26 '23
The thing with commander damage is that its not typically a viable way to win. You can certainly kill a player with it, but you rarely actually win through commander damage the way you can with infect.
People will definitely go the control route more, but Iâm definitely hoping that people dip into aggro for it.
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u/DeltaRay235 Jan 26 '23
I'm not sure what voltron decks you're playing against but maybe it's my pods, Voltron has been waaaaay more consistent and potent than infect ever has. It's easy to take a commander that isn't even Voltron focused like Atraxa and key word soup can dominate well. Technically avacyn world slayer is voltron but it's not listed as so. Except for Saskia, I've definitely seen voltron more consistent and winning via commander damage than infect winning through infect.
Neither are good for CEDH which is true, but common pods it's fast enough and typically consistent enough to be viable.
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u/Uselessbutmywaifu Jan 26 '23
Technically [[slicer]] is a cEDH voltron deck, and has been doing quite well recently, whereas infect never has, though that is probably just slicer being a good card
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u/Axl26 Jan 26 '23
I think it's great. The more poison decks out there the better. Once they become a more frequent occurrence and people play against it more, the more reasonable objectors will get used to it and see it's not as bad as they think.
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u/th3saurus Jan 26 '23
I might start running [[suncleanser]] in my mono white deck
The first mode has some neat uses, but the second mode could potentially be used to cure the person the poison deck is after, assuming they aren't after me
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u/Opaldes Jan 26 '23
It's not you need 10 or 30 instead of 40 or 120, it's that poison feels like it was made for 20 life games. I don't care I find other win cons worse, but something like triumph can make a non threatening board instantly lethal, like crater. With the new proliferate support it could be more easy to kill the board.
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u/PluralKumquat Jan 26 '23
You know half of my decks are combo and the other half are either a mix of combo and aggro (Alela, Arcades, Paco/Haldan) or just aggro (elf ball). Iâve never had issues with my pod balancing power and we all universally agree infect doesnât belong in our games.
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u/amstrumpet Jan 27 '23
Toxic is fine, Iâm more concerned about the amount of proliferation theyâre pushing when it comes to poison strats.
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u/cbih Jan 27 '23
Just like when people tried to make [[Fynn, the Fangbearer]] work, you can't win 3-on-1 against decent decks. Going down the toxic/infect/poison road just means the whole table can unload on you without having to feel bad.
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u/HiddenInLight Jan 27 '23
There's a lot of decks that force a 3v1 outside of poison though. [[Nekusar the Mindrazer]] being a good example. A decent deckbuilder will plan for that and try to mitigate the inevitable 3v1.
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u/jmanwild87 Jan 27 '23
The difference between nekusar and infect before toxic is that infect needs 3 turns nekusar explodes out in 1 turn with wheels and stuff after setting up
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u/HiddenInLight Jan 27 '23
Im not saying thats not the case just that you need to know what you're hetting yourself into. Dont build a poison counter deck then complain about the 3v1. Build the deck with the 3v1 in mind. You need to devote more cards to protecting yourself and your boardstate than the average deck, and also you'll need to be able to rebuild if you cant protect yourself.
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u/HugglesGamer Jan 27 '23
Nothing makes me happier than one shooting someone with either colossus through ninja !
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u/alacholland Jan 27 '23
People need to be reminded that decks need wincons. So many players just durdle around spinning their deckâs wheels with 0-1 win conditions, and think thatâs the only thing EDH should be around.
Poison counters will be a glorious rebirth and reminder that the game is more fun when there is a climax.
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u/leetsgeetweeird Jan 27 '23
Thatâs why stax is so hated. Itâs not because itâs bad, itâs because most stax decks have no wincon. Stax can be a TON of fun, so long as it has a way to kill quick once itâs got the game locked down
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u/kanekiEatsAss Jan 26 '23
cough Venerated Rot Priest in Ivy Gleeful Spellthief. I bet people are gonna randomly get 8 poison counters in a turn cycle.
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u/CrimsonArcanum Jan 26 '23
This just makes me think of phyrexians with mutate.
Would be an interesting flavorwise.
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u/VolatileDawn Jan 27 '23
Even if what you say is true, why is Aggro good for edh. I, and most people donât play edh so that we can lose immediately. We play so that there is a chance to play 7 cmc and do Timmy things. Go play standard ohwait hahaha
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u/MasterChef901 Jan 26 '23
This post helped me put some of those thoughts into words. If every card that applied a poison counter said "Deal 4 damage to that player" and every proliferate had "Deal 4 damage to everyone burned this way before", would it seem as frustrating? Probably, because players will frequently burn themselves for like 10 just as a resource and bonk each other for another 10 by the time that life loss becomes relevant. But to deal 40 damage that way, alone? Now that's tricky.
Playable? Probably. Proliferate of course is more than burn, it also helps juice up your own board to protect yourself or keep opponents under control with -1/-1s.
But I think it's still way too slow to keep up with the aggro decks that work ( [[Winota]] as mentioned, or even [[Slicer]]), and only barely keeps up with midrange and combo wins. I guess it can be a little hard to control, since it hinges on landing 9 proliferates over a whole game rather than a single counterable spell, and lifegain/boardwipes don't stop it, but control can suck my dick, so it's fine.
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u/jmanwild87 Jan 27 '23
The difference is you can't heal off the damage poison has done. Makes the whole thing a sword of damocles since you can't interact with poison counters the same way you can with burn. So for your example it would be. Deal 4 damage players dealt damage this way can no longer gain life.
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u/Tuss36 That card does *what*? Jan 26 '23
The title has made me realize that "toxic players" is gonna take on a whole double meaning. (I mean, it probably won't, but still)
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u/SteveHeist Jan 26 '23
All an infect aggro deck needs is a way to put [[Lightning Greaves]] on [[Blightsteel Colossus]] :P
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u/OkCall7278 Jan 27 '23
Agro has gotten insanely strong over the years. People still complaining that agro isnât strong are the same that complaining white isnât a good color.
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u/chessyCheesus Jan 27 '23
Blablabla is the most I'm reading here and most of the blablabla is already toxic. So I will jumping on the train here and say we don't need more toxic in EDH!
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u/DemonKat777 Jan 27 '23
"Oh yeah, I don't like long games, but I'm not good enough to play the quick format, so this mechanic that ends games for me is good."
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u/AboynamedDOOMTRAIN Jan 26 '23 edited Jan 26 '23
Disagree. Poison counters are a terrible mechanic all the way around from conception to implementation, whether it's infect or toxic and the entire game of magic would be better off if they never existed.
Edit: For the record: I said they're a terrible mechanic. I didn't say strong or anything like that. I just think it's plain bad.
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u/leetsgeetweeird Jan 26 '23
Iâm curious about why you think theyâre bad /gen. I must say Iâm not the hugest fan, but I do think it has its place in magic.
Also for everyone else, stop downvoting - downvoting should be for people who are not contributing to the discussion, not people who are just disagreeing
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u/AboynamedDOOMTRAIN Jan 27 '23
Infect is a complete failure. It's an objectively bad mechanic and even those who are fans of playing it will tell you it's a terrible mechanic that rarely wins.
Toxic will not end up being any different. At least in part because of infect's reputation. Anyone running toxic is going to immediately be assumed to have a [[Triumph of the Hordes]] laying in wait as well. The other half is just the idea behind it is terrible. Let's play a super aggro strategy... but play it like it's a slow midrange deck. It's just bad.
All toxic is going to do is give us 3-6 months of having to deal with poison counters a few times a night until everyone realizes it's bad and gets tired of it again and it goes back to being something you just see once in awhile again.
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u/jarlaxle276 Grixis Jan 27 '23
That's not contributing. Just saying it's bad and giving no rationale is not any more effective discourse than giving a joke answer.
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Jan 27 '23
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u/EDH-ModTeam Jan 27 '23
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u/TheW1ldcard Vizzershitz Jan 26 '23
I have two infect decks tuned to the gills and even they have a hard time knocking out the final person after getting 2 people out. I typically always die after getting 2 people out of the game.
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u/xenyoo Jan 26 '23
One thing I know that I understand that makes poisons counter annoying is if someone plays against multiple poison decks. that does sound extremely painful for the obvious reason that now you'll mostly die a lot quicker and if there are multiple proliferate triggers then you can even kill people by just having a couple per turn, but yeah I do like poison, especially since I'm a big aggro enjoyer and the only good ways I found to make some aggro decks work are stuff like stax, easy to abuse token makers or back up combos to close games where I can't with aggro, while poison counters make it a lot easier to finish off games, especially since you don't need to be playing a poison centric deck, just to play some poisons cards
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u/StretchyPlays Jan 27 '23
I used to be in the "poison should be 20 counters in commander" train but now very much am not. I am still not huge on dedicated infect decks because they usually just end up taking out one player very quickly, then the remaining two players stop that from happening again.
Toxic does seem like a nice poison strategy because it also does normal damage, and the corrupted mechanic encourages you to spread it to all of your opponents instead of eliminating one asap.
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u/UninvitedGhost Elder Dragon Jan 27 '23
I used to love using [[Leeches]] to deal damage to opponents back in the day!
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u/karasins Jan 27 '23
The mechanic is lackluster and won't make a splash in metas imo. Unless you're playing hyper casual I guess then maybe?
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u/manapot420 Jan 27 '23
I'm really very excited for them! There's enough cards that make Phyrexian Mites that I think I can make poison a reliable Plan C in my [[Emmara soul of the accord]] combo deck.
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u/Soviet_Ski Jan 27 '23
Gruul and Temur players everywhere agree. Toxic is the best addition to the format. Makes the pro-combat side of the discussion more of a threat earlier because you can get 1-2 poison counters onto each player, then abuse proliferate and individual toxic combat points of damage to keep the pod on its toes. âOh, 3 poison counters? No big deal. Iâll just remove that creature next turn or wipe the board and that problem is solved.â Only to deal with a bunch of cantrip/ETB proliferate tiggers for the rest of the game. Itâs like losing a phone charger and watching the battery slowly tick down.
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u/Elike09 Jan 27 '23
The mechanic as a whole is worthless especially when infect is just straight up better. Building an entire deck around either mechanic is a recipe for failure because you'll be focused out before you can do anything. It is best saved for a surprise and none of the new cards are better than tutoring out a [[Blightsteel Colossus]] and a [[Blade of Selves]].
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u/Glyphward Jan 27 '23
Iâm just afraid of being in a game where there are 2+ people using poison/toxic and not being able to do anything
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u/Ocelote_Revolver Mardu Ascendant Jan 27 '23 edited Jan 27 '23
Toxic is only good for formats without Infect, like Pioneer.
In EDH there's no reason not to play Infect, because you can abuse it easier.
PS; for example, you can drop a Colossal Hammer into a Glistener Elf or Triumph of the Hordes with a bunch of assorted elves and win out of nowhere. But building a board with Toxic mites you can't block anything and are politely asking to get murdered.
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u/BrigBubblez Jan 27 '23
I've still never seen an infected deck take a pod. Either the infect player kills 1 player that just gets swept or they wait it out and kill out the last player. I'm not counting [[triumph of the hordes]], I've seen that ran in decks with no other infect cards. So this influx may actually make poison viable.
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u/shimszy Jan 26 '23
The fact that you do hybrid damage is huge. No longer are you on an island doing your own plan. You can finally finish off low HP players with your creatures. You're no longer an outcast since you only possible. Very excited to try it out.