This was originally published here. Please visit the site if you like this post or wish to comment on it. Pulled from Direweasel If you know anything about Magic: the Gathering (MtG) then you know there are several ways to win the game.
Over the game’s 15 year history, more and more cards have been printed that say something like, “If you control 1, 2 and 3 and an X, Y and a Z you win the game.” As a result, there are now all sorts of conditional winning effects. Wizards of the Coast (WotC) even expanded the rules to use conditional effects for not losing the game. Platinum Angel is a prime example, the card text of which says, “You can’t lose the game and your opponents can’t win the game.” To avoid the obvious confusion when effects interact or contradict with one another and occur simultaneously, there’s a primary rule in the game which states that: “102.3e If a player would both win and lose simultaneously, he or she loses.” That such a rule is necessary is a sign of how crazy things became.
Back in the early days of the game, before 30+ flavourful cards appeared that stated other ways of winning, things were nice and simple by comparison. When a player’s life total reached zero or when he or she could no longer draw a card when they must, that player lost the game. It was good. Then Legends the 3rd expansion for MtG came along and a third win condition was introduced; poison counters.
Back in the time of 4th Edition when the popularity of MtG exploded we saw a few poison counter decks floating around in casual formats. They were always a little bit too slow for effective tournament play and eventually the poisoners fell out of general play. This in itself was a pity because alternate win conditions are always something that the metagame loves to build strategies around. Curiously enough, since first appearing in 1994 only 9 cards have seen print that can give poison counters. Of these, 7 are creatures with the ability, 1 artifact that makes creature tokens with the ability and 1 enchantment that gives the ability to the creature it enchants. Way back in Homelands (which is commonly felt even amongst MtG staff to be the worst set ever1) they printed a white card designed to remove poison counters.
While so far this is a small number of cards, one of MtG’s lead developers Mark Rosewater (MaRo2) was last year quoted as saying that poison counters will be making a comeback in a forthcoming block. This year’s release schedule from WotC sees the second two sets in the Alara block (Conflux in February and Alara Reborn at the end of April). July is the expected release of the latest Core Set (Eleventh Edition for those of you keeping count3). The last release of the year will be part 1 of a new 3 block set, currently codenamed Live – Long – Prosper4 which has MaRo as lead designer.
So, speculation is now rife that the Live – Long – Prosper block will now see the return of Poison as a mechanic. The hint’s are there. MaRo in a lead position was always going to start speculation that poison would return following his comments last year. The other big hint was the future-shifted cards that appeared in Future Sight. In a set where the “future” cards potentially spoiled forthcoming mechanics and cards, the only “future” game mechanic to appear on more than one card was Poison. The fact that a keyword ability of Poisonous has already been assigned to the mechanic only goes to further support the theory.
As it’s still only speculation, there’s no guarantee of when poison counters will see resurgence but it will happen. However, the rumour mills are usually on the ball about these things so I would be surprised if Live block, launching in September 2009, doesn’t bring back one of the oldest ways to win. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to dust off those Leeches either. It’s the only known cure so far and it could be one of the few cards to save your life when people start running their old poison counter decks again.
[1] Worst set – actually referred to as Magic’s all-time design low due to having no new mechanics and an unexpectedly low power level compared to previously released expansions, with very few cards used for competitive play.
[2] Yes. The card Maro is named after him.
[3] This will be a smaller sized set overall and will include reprints of the Lorwyn Planeswalker’s and Ravnica’s Shock Lands amongst others. Also confirmed is that from 11th edition on, all core sets will be black-bordered.
[4] All Blocks get wacky names in development. “Time Spiral – Planar Chaos -Future Sight” block was codenamed “Snap – Crackle -Pop”. After “Live – Long – Prosper” will come “Lights – Camera – Action” and then “Shake – Rattle – Roll”.
12-Jan-2009 Donn Maguire
Posted in Articles Tagged: ccg, Live-Long-Prosper, magic, maro, MTG, poison counters, wizards, Wizards of the Coast, WOTC
