Poison the Well

Sorcery

Destroy target land. Poison the Well deals 2 damage to that land's controller.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (8)

Edzew on Discard - Specter

5 years ago

you could add in some land destruction as well to help off set the other player not having a hand. Pooling Venom , Rain of Tears , Befoul , Brink of Disaster , Drain the Well , Poison the Well

you could also add in a Howling Mine it might help ya or it might hurt ya... just depends on what the other guy is playing, may also want to have a Tormod's Crypt at least as part of a sideboard as well.

TemplarAssassin on Burn It Down

6 years ago

For the sideboard, I am trying to find a way to deal with Tron's lands.

Maybe Evil Presence? Though I do have a couple Poison the Well I impulse bought a few years ago sitting in my box.

aholder7 on LD Deck

7 years ago

General Notes:

i dont think you need blue here. milling doesnt do anything for you (even if you mill a land that doesnt change the fact that the top card of their deck could be another one). and while making things cheaper is better, if you play 3 drop land destruction (which you should play as much of as possible) then playing a 2 drop that reduces cost doesn't really make things come down faster. And the thing is unless you're casting more than one land destruction spell per turn its probably better for it to be a mana dork (a 1 drop preferably. theres no particular reason for you to use 2 drop dorks). or to replace them with mana rocks that are much harder to remove.

Now lets look at green. what does green give you that red does not have.

mana dorks. good beat sticks. and enchantment hate. if you have green in the deck, make sure you are getting all the benefit you can from it. if you're not then you may as well play mono red (possible, i made a mono red land destruction deck a while ago just to prove you could).

1 ofs are inconsistent. if you put a card in your deck you need to understand how often you want to see it. if you put 4 in, you are generally saying you want to see it every game and in general as much as possible. as a 3 of, you are saying you do not need to see it every game, but you still want to see it most games or its great to have but doesn't do as well in multiples. 2 of means you dont want to see it in most games or you really don't want to see it in multiples. 1 ofs are usually used as 5 ofs or as tool box cards. what i mean is that if i really want to play as many Terminates as i can i will play 4, but i may still want more so i play Dreadbore which is worse, but is basically my 5th Terminate. A tool box card is mostly for decks that can search for cards with things like Chord of Calling or Trinket Mage etc that can search the entire deck for the 1 of that you put in there for just this case. your deck doesn't search so right now most of your 1 ofs are inconsistent. for example why would i play 1 Lightning Bolt, 1 Shock, 1 Harnessed Lightning and 1 Lightning Strike, when i can just play 4 Lightning Bolt.

so lets walk through the deck piece by piece.

Creatures:

Baral, Chief of Compliance: not a bad card, but you don't play very many counters (1) and as i mentioned above it's not much better than Arbor Elf in this deck. especially since most of your instants can't actually benefit from his effect.

Goblin Arsonist: I assume that this card is in here to help protect you early game by disuading enemies from attacking. This card isn't that great at that, and most 1 drops in red really wont be. rather than try and but down a turn 1 wall, you may want to focus on making yourself quicker. so something like Arbor Elf or something similiar might benefit you more.

Minister of Inquiries: as i mentioned above this card does not furthur your goals. the best part about this card is that it gives you energy for something useful like Aether Hub but if you drop blue, then you don't need Aether Hub.

Servant of the Conduit: there are enough 1 drop mana dorks that you don't need to play this 2 drop mana dork. especially since it has limited uses.

Thragtusk: this is actually a really solid card. it gives you a good body with some life so that it has imediate impact, which is important for a 5 drop in modern. the fact that it also has residual value even when removed is what really makes this card great. my only worry is that with 22 lands you might run into problems casting it, but if you add any number of mana dorks this problem should resolve itself.

World Breaker: too expensive. you play 22 lands and this card is 7 mana. even with mana dorks this is too much risk for not enough reward.

Instants:

Appetite for the Unnatural: try Natural State instead.

Lightning Bolt: probably one of the best red cards printed.

Negate: you don't need blue. even if you do stay blue, either put in more counters or take this one out. you don't want just 1 counter.

Shock: you may want something like Pyroclasm to clear the board of several small units.

Sorceries:

Creeping Mold: i'd rather just have another Structural Distortion over this, but if you are seeing lots of enchantments and artifact, then this card is ok.

Crumble to Dust: this is actually one of the better 4 drop land destruction spells, as it can destroy land on their field and some in their deck making them less likely to draw more. (this is different than milling which may or may not alter the ration of lands to non-lands in the deck)

Reclaiming Vines: see reclaiming mold. also see Roiling Terrain.

Stone Rain: Bread of the deck. does exactly what you want to do.

Molten Rain: bread, meet butter.

Structural Distortion: mini Roiling Terrain most of the time, but it does let you exile land which can get the occasional Darksteel Citadel. if you end up putting Roiling Terrain in the deck, you may want to replace this with Poison the Well.

n(not in your deck currently) Boom: this card is fantastic. but usually only if you play it alongside fetches (Wooded Foothills) or Darksteel Citadel. otherwise its just ok.

Lands:

Aether Hub: if you switch to a 2 color deck you can take this out.

Blighted Cataract: regardless of if you stick with blue or not you should take this out.

Botanical Sanctum: obciously if you drop blue you drop this.

Cinder Glade: you actually will probably want to drop this regardless of what you do to your deck. you are on a tight clock. you cannot afford not to have your mana when you need it, and unless you always have 2 basics on the field when you play it, then it's too dangerous to play. you'd rather hurt yourself with something like Karplusan Forest.

Forest: basics are cool.

Game Trail gets better once you drop blue. also gets better if you add any number of Stomping Ground.

Island: this card makes people concede in legacy.

Mountain: glory be to red and all the pain it will cause.

Spirebluff Canal: you drop this if you frop blue.

Ghost Quarter is also an option. it doesn't put them a land down, but once you get enough land that you don't need all of it, you can effectively sac this one to make your opponent downgrade one of their lands or just to remove one from your opponents deck to make it less likely for them to draw more. also works well with Boom.

if you couldn't tell i really think you should drop blue.

hopefully this is somewhat helpful to you. as a tip you should probably add a budget tag since you are looking to keep this under $150.

best of luck with your deck.

aholder7 on

7 years ago

for land destruction i have a mono red list which is fairly cheap (after 1 or 2 pricey cards are cut).

Land

20x Mountain

2x Ghost Quarter

Land Destruction

4x Molten Rain

4x Poison the Well

4x Roiling Terrain

4x Stone Rain

4x Talisman of Indulgence

2x Thoughts of Ruin

2x Avalanche Riders

4x Crack the Earth

Creatures

2x Deus of Calamity (or Shivan Wumpus if you so desire).

Removal

3x Pyroclasm

3x Anger of the Gods

and to help you keep going when you run out of cards

2x Reforge the Soul

This should probably be close to $35 i think but that's including land being priced at $7 for all the basic land, so take this all with a grain of salt. don't play the dues until after you've eliminated all their mana as it feels bad to have him Path to Exile or the like.

as for other cheap decks to build, i think there are some old UW heroic lists that could sneak in around that budget.

lagotripha on Budget Black Incremental Damage

7 years ago

I feel that this is one of those decks that really, really should play Bump in the Night and Night's Whisper. At the moment it is easy for your opponent to tell when they'll take damage, so they can calulate how much life loss each spell they cast will cause, which means you really need to be able to burst down that last bit of health unexpectedly to take the win. Profane Command could fill this slot, as could Soul Reap/Death Cloud/Batwing Brume against aggro, Suffer the Past against graveyard strats. Collective Brutality could have a place. I'm not a fan of sleeper agent, as I remember a time when a 3/3 for 1 was worth paying 2 life an attack for. You don't have enough fog Darkness effects for it to be worthwhile. Bloodchief Ascension could be good with the number of '2 life' triggers. Consume Spirit/Corrupt/Tendrils of Corruption might be good if you can stall for it. Emissary of Despair might function. Bitterblossom/Morsel Theft would be cute, but defeats the point of budget. I prefer Poison the Well/Spiteful Visions to unraveller. Death's Shadow/Rite of Consumption might have a place. Soul Spike could net you an unexpected win, but once more, price. Deepcavern Imp/Blightspeaker, Postmortem Lunge, Mogis's Marauder or Gruesome Encore is another way to mix things up with haste providing burst damage. Ultimately though, its all down to how you want to make things work.

nickiru on The Ultimate Land Decimator!

8 years ago

WOW thanks for the response!!

I mean, most people don't do this. Thanks truly.

You make a valid point about reducing my end game cards. It may seem insignificant but I you convinced me to at least reduce thrag to 1... maybe. I'll run draw % calculations to see what difference it would make.

This deck badly needs more removal which makes this appealing. A lightning bolt wouold be wise because its 1 cost and like you said I can hit the enemy directly for a last bit of necessary dmg.

I made many lando decks and I started with dmg output like the cards you suggested. Optimally that kind of deck with cards like Roiling Terrain, Melt Terrain, Poison the Well, Pooling Venom, etc is good but it only cuts it close. That deck model evolved to a heavy creature base with Avalanche Riders, Goblin Ruinblaster, Acidic Slime, and others to give the deck some bodies which was better. But then there were some blunt weaknesses like fighting control decks and mono-colored decks like merfolk, then affinity...

Then I moved to this deck's predecessor which had stuff like Simic Sky Swallower so when I cast it it STAYS!! but then rock decks with Liliana of the Veil just wiggle by do to sacrifice.

All my experiments over the span of 2 yrs led to this current model with life gain. It lando/ramps up to big critters that WILL do something when they enter (life gain or token) and do somethign when they leave (life gain or token or Batterskull reequip.) I found that even a small life gain greatly enhances this decks performance as the predecesor lando models hardly scraped by when it won and when it failed. This way, all the life gain and big creatures make this deck get way out of reach.

so that's the logic/history/ etc.

Lightning Bolt is considerable because it's removal early game. I like that. end game it has a purpose too.

---

COULD YOU SHOW ME YOUR LANDO MODEL !!! PLZ PLZ PLZ I always love looking at others. it gives me ideas!

aholder7 on The Ultimate Land Decimator!

8 years ago

have you considered Roiling Terrain? it helps put some pressure on while still helping the game plan. Poison the Well is along similiar lines, but not quite as effective usually.

I would argue that progenator mimic would be better off as another wurmcoil or another thragtusk. it simplifis the mana (no need for blue any more) and it increases the consistancy of hitting the double black (can turn the breeding pool into another blood crypt or overgrown tomb). but if it works for you, then it works for you.

Pooling Venom is also an option that allows you to have another T2 option for damage that you can turn into land destruction later. you seem to have plenty of early game options though so im not neccesarily suggesting it. just wanted to make sure you were aware of all of your options.

you also seem to have 6 end game cards. 2 batterskull, 2 thrags, 1 wurmcoil, and 1 mimic. you could probably cut it down to 4-5 to allow yourself to have more removal like Lightning Bolt or another Abrupt Decay. i would like to think that bolt is a good reaction to most threats that get through your mana denial. if you keep them down to 2 land, then the biggest threat is goyf. otherwise it should be something small that bolt can take care of. extra plus of bolt is throwing the last few damage to the face if neccessary.

also i built mono-red and RB land destruction so take everything i said with that in mind.

Kazz3lrath on You Lose Life, You Lose Life, Everybody Loses Life

8 years ago

NOW YOU LISTEN HERE MISSY

THIS RAKDOS GROUPSLUG THING DON'T MESS AROUND

YOU GOT A GREAT COMMANDER CHOICE IN STORM CROW BUT YOU ARE MISSING SOME CLASSICS

Sire Of Insanity BASICALLY READS "FUCK YOU IF YOU HAVE AN ACTUAL WIN CONDITION"

Master of Cruelties IS STRANGELY PHALLIC BUT BEAUTIFULLY FUNCTIONAL IN A DECK WHOSE CARDS CONSTANTLY HURT EVERYBODY

Poison the Well IS HOW YOU ASSERT YOUR DOMINANCE OVER THE LITTLE BITCH AT THE TABLE. WHAT'S THAT? YOU'RE THE LITTLE BITCH? NOT ANYMORE

Rakdos Augermage IS HOW YOU DEAL WITH THAT ASSHOLE WHO HAD Rise of the Dark Realms IN HIS OPENING HAND AND HAS BEEN SANDBAGGING IT ALL GAME. ESPECIALLY DEADLY SINCE YOU WILL BE PERPETUALLY OUT OF CARDS.

Sanity Gnawers AND Hellhole Rats AND Ravenous Rats AND WHY DOES WIZARDS ASSOCIATE RATS WITH DISCARD?

Shauku's Minion AND Shivan Zombie AND Sootwalkers FOR TUMBLR CREDIBILITY (editor's note: do not play these cards)

Skull Rend WILL EVENTUALLY HIT A GROWTH SPURT AND JUST BE LIKE OUR AMIGOS Blightning AND Rakdos's Return WHO WE BOTH KNOW ARE GREAT CARDS

Spiteful Visions AND Underworld Dreams AND Fate Unraveler BECAUSE GOD KNOWS WE COULD ALL USE A LITTLE BIT MORE NEKUSAR.

Tsabo Tavoc BECAUSE ITS NOT FAIR THAT OTHER PEOPLE ALSO BE ALLOWED TO HAVE THEIR COMMANDERS. (editor's note: a potential commander along with Mogis or Kaervek, depending on how the playgroup is)

Citadel of Pain HAS THE MOST METAL NAME EVER

Furnace of Rath AND Dictate of the Twin Gods BECAUSE YOU AREN'T A LITTLE BITCH

Impatience AND Manabarbs ARE FUNNY IN THE SAME DECK

Painful Quandary AND Polluted Bonds ARE LILIANA ALL-STARS AND NOW IT IS YOUR TURN

Price of Glory HAS Kamahl, Pit Fighter IN THE FUCKING FLAVOR TEXT WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT? Breaking Point HAS HIM IN THE ART

Vicious Shadows IS ANOTHER REMINDER THAT ONLY A LITTLE BITCH KEEPS CARDS IN THEIR HAND

HOW THE FUCK IS War's Toll ONLY A BUCK? IT'S FUCKING HILARIOUS

Ward of Bones LOOKS LIKE THE ALBUM ART OF A CELTIC METAL BAND AND THAT IS SO FUCKING FLAVORFUL

Zo-Zu the Punisher LEGITIMATELY IS BORED AS FUCK BEING SHOT AT. HE'S JUST SLIGHTLY ANNOYED. TOP-SHELF DICKHEAD. Ankh of Mishra ALSO WORKS.

YOU ALREADY KNOW THAT Silent Arbiter IS THE BIGGEST DICKHEAD BOTTLENECK EVER

Repercussion : BECAUSE COMBAT IS FOR BONERS

AEther Flash SOUNDS LIKE JACE USING HIS ILLUSIONS TO SEE SOME TITTIES. Spellshock DOES NOT

Bloodchief Ascension IS PURE VALUE AND ODDLY ENOUGH SEEMS MORE SYNERGISTIC WITH THOSE RATS THAN WITH ACTUAL FUCKING VAMPIRES

Desolation BECAUSE SOMETIMES EVEN TUMBLR IS RIGHT. THIS CARD IS WONDERFUL.

DO YOU REMEMBER THAT HANDS ARE STUPID? Gibbering Descent REMEMBERS

Oppression SO THAT YOU CAN GO TO THE OLYMPICS. WHY IS TUMBLR SO RELEVANT TO THIS FUCKING DECK?

Tainted AEther BECAUSE NOT EVERYONE WASHES DOWN THERE

Witch Hunt IS A HARD COUNTER TO DUCK TRIBAL

A DINGUS DOESN'T SOUND LIKE SOMETHING I WOULD LIKE TO BE. Dingus Staff AND Dingus Egg ARE THE ONLY REASONS THAT STATEMENT MAKES SENSE.

Pox AND Smallpox BECAUSE IT AIN'T ABOUT THE SIZE OF THE BOAT

Killing Wave BECAUSE YOU ALSO WILL LEARN TO HATE ANGELS ONCE I MAKE MY DANK Voice of All DECK

Forced March IS BASICALLY THE TRAIL OF TEARS

Curse of the Cabal AND Choice of Damnations BECAUSE FUCK THAT ONE GUY SPECIFICALLY