WotC gives us ASS.

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Rooser

Guest
Of course poison will come back:

1) They barely got creative with it at all the first time around.
2) There's nothing wrong with it mechanically.

In fact, it's only real problem is that it functions an awful lot like a second life total, making it somewhat redundant.
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
Well, the way it is now, it doesn't function like a second life total because there are TONS of cards that affect life totals, cause life loss, deal damage, cause life gain, allow you to pay life for stuff, etc.

There are, I believe, eight cards that mention poison counters. Six of them are creatures that can give your opponent poison counters by attacking or dealing damage. One of them is a token generator whose tokens give poison counters and the other is Leeches. It's a much narrower effect and this produces several important differences.

Plus it's counting up and not down...
 
K

Kode

Guest
From my limited experience, poison is not that great. Mostly, by the time you're about to inflict the last poison counter, your opponent would either be dead or as good as dead due to life total loss. Poison would be great against players who gain a lot of life, but not even casual games focus on life gain. I think its a worthless mechanic, as fun as it might be. It needs a lot of modifications in order to make it even slightly effective.
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
It's by no means worthless. Marsh Viper is the best example. It only needs to deal five damage to a player to kill them. He's the best one though, and he costs four mana. Poison is rather underpowered, but with a little ingenuity, it can be good. I played against casual decks that were not bad at all, but the evasion of poisonous creatures coupled with some standard fare B/G control elements and a little support from weird stuff like Vhati and Abyssal Hunter was able to beat them handily.
 
E

Ephraim

Guest
We've been toying with poison as a mechanic over at The Mana Drain's card creation forum. We're more interested in it as a penalty, since it's harder to get rid of poison counters than it is to get rid of damage. Consider a card like Skeletal Scrying, but instead of inflicting damage, it inflicted poison counters. We're also focusing on cards that give you benefits for removing poison counters from opponents - typically benefits that are greater than having somebody be 1/10 dead.
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
That's similar to the stuff we were toying with in the card creation forums over here (at the CPA).
 
K

Kode

Guest
Marsh Viper is the best one? Isn't it a 1/2 creature for 4 mana? And yes, it only has to deal 5 damage, but how easy is it for a 1/2 to deal that much damage, in any environment? You wouldn't really want to make it outrageously bigger because than you'd be better off just play normal beat down. As far as I can see it, Poison is by far the most inefficient mechanic in the whole game and like I said, it would take massive amount of work and restructuring of the mechanic in order to make it decent. Until I actually see a half-decent poison creature, I wont believe it's possible. :D
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
By far the most inefficient? Whoa, guess you've never heard of banding with others...

It's not that bad. Yes, Marsh Viper is the best. I know all of them pretty well (there are only like six of them anyway).

I do hope they make poison better, because the cards that do use it are not all that great. They are not outright horrible, though. Like I said, I have killed people with them.
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
Originally posted by Oversoul
Poison is rather underpowered, but with a little ingenuity, it can be good. I played against casual decks that were not bad at all, but the evasion of poisonous creatures coupled with some standard fare B/G control elements and a little support from weird stuff like Vhati and Abyssal Hunter was able to beat them handily.
No, not newbies, although the decks weren't AMAZING either...

Anyway, poison being underpowered now is not a reason not to improve it later.
 
R

Rooser

Guest
:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Note the part where I said that they didn't get too creative with it the first time, and then note how my assertion that it functions lot like a life total is in fact correct and intelligent. Poison is narrow and stupid only because:

A) It's mentioned on all of eight cards.
B)The only way to put poison counters on things is to attack people with creatures, which is boring because it was something you were doing anyway.

Like Ephraim said, they could concievably make cards that do all sort of interesting things with poison counters just like they make cards that do all sorts of intersting things with people's life totals.

My original point was that there is a lot of room to make poison interesting in the future - not that it has been particularly interesting up until now.

And again, as a concept, its biggest flaw is that it acts a lot like a life total, making it mechanically redundant. Just because poison counters were only ever used as a combat damage trigger on overpriced 1/2 doesn't make this any less true - it just means that they didn't explore the mechanic well at all the first time around.
 
M

mythosx

Guest
Originally posted by Kode
From my limited experience, poison is not that great. Mostly, by the time you're about to inflict the last poison counter, your opponent would either be dead or as good as dead due to life total loss. Poison would be great against players who gain a lot of life, but not even casual games focus on life gain. I think its a worthless mechanic, as fun as it might be. It needs a lot of modifications in order to make it even slightly effective.
HERESY!!!!

POISON BE AWESOME...

If Mark Rosewater has made a statement about poison coming back..So let it be written, so let it be done....

MOSES!!!
 
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