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Paul’s Perspective
Poison Deadly Moving It Slow
September 8th, 2010  

Reader's first I apologize for the horrible Bell Biv Devoe reference, in truth I could not find a better pun to put in the column title relating to the song “Poison”. With a full fledged Phyrexian invasion on the horizon casual players can more than likely look forward to facing decks packed with poison, from the few tidbits we have seen so far this preview week the return of poison via the Infect mechanic looks to interesting not only from a game play perspective but a flavor perspective as well. The evil taint of Phyrexia is slowly seeping its way into Mirrodin and the inhabitant's are taking up arms against the invaders. Player's should expect to do the same with no hint yet of answers to poison counters other than a cryptic reference to leeches from Mark Rosewater, the infection may spread and become incurable. I fully expect casual deck builders to tinker with poison and proliferate insuring the bewildered stares of fellow players as they timidly ask  “what are poison counters?”. One of the often neglected ways to win the game right behind Battle of Wit's decks, if a player has 10 or more poison counters he or she loses the game. A sickness that once upon a time had a cure in a horribly narrow white card that removes poison counters but forces the player to lose life equal to the poison removed.

              

This often played and incredibly large card pictured here may rise to Jace The Mind Sculptor prices as Infect rears its ugly head. Building a poison deck now is a frightening prospect even with a new legendary dragon that puts players on a three turn clock, poison has historically had lackluster creatures 0/1 creatures and ground 1/1 creatures with poison were some of the highlights, Scar's of Mirrodin seeks to remedy this by giving Infect creatures some evasion as well as forcing players to decide if they want their creatures to become infected or become infected themselves via poison counters. As a deck building addict I love the challenge presented by poison counters as an alternative win condition as well as the exciting interactions of proliferate, being able to pump Ascensions, Planeswalkers, Leveler's (the Zendikar kind) and assist both -1/-1 and +1/+1 counter decks allow proliferate to be an interesting concept for Johnny's and Spike's to collectively explore its unique possibility.'s So the Phyrexian's have once again invaded a plane, they wait patiently amassing their number's and scarring the plane of Mirrodin with their unnatural taint, players and planeswalker's have been warned of the sinister corruption and its only a matter of time that the infection spread's on a greater scale.

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