Has Toxic fixed poison counters?
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on Feb. 22, 2023, 1:37 a.m. by TypicalTimmy
Now that the hype has settled down and games have begun, how does everyone feel about Toxic?
Has it "fixed" poison counters?
Have you had a chance to play with or against it?
I bought the Abzan deck and played a 1v1 game which that in of itself isn't very fair. Honestly?
I didn't like it. I think the game ended in just 3 short combat phases? Honestly, it felt terrible winning.
Like it felt like I was losing the entire time. It felt so defeating. Like... Just unfair.
I think I'll retire the Abzan deck. Not my style, and didn't feel right. But that's just my opinion, and that's what it is: an opinion.
What are your thoughts on it?
DrukenReaps says... #3
I never had an issue with infect to begin with really and the toxic player is going to be treated the same as the infect player. So an already difficult to pull off thing is now harder to pull off? For that reason, no thank you.
I'd say the other problem is folks tend not to adjust their decks to counter it. Just like some of my decks where an infinite combo can go off at any point after turn 5 or so, people need to be ready to answer that or lose.
Then we just shuffle up and play again.
Granted infect tends to just end one person early and then everyone else has had time to prepare for it by then... Which leads me back to people not adjusting their decks to counter it. Vicious cycle lol.
February 22, 2023 8:58 a.m.
kortioznikas says... #4
Agree with DrukenReaps - opponents either adjust or do not and it is up to them. Of course, if deck is unfairly powerful, it is no fun to play against it in general. However, since aim is to have fun, there is always room for discussion in your local group to restrict some cards, handycaps, solve poison count problem, etc, although I am not a big fan of it.
At the end of the day, if your deck is known to be nasty and end games fast, you will be target #1 regardless if you mana screwed or not and do not be surprised finding yourself playing 1 vs 3 match.
February 22, 2023 9:13 a.m.
I like toxic as an idea, but to be fair I haven't kept up with reading every card in the new set, so big grain of salt here : )
The nice thing about toxic is that creatures are still doing normal damage and adding poison on top, which can really make poison play better at an aggro table. One problem I've seen with infect is that the infect player swings out constantly to try to take one player down, and if there is another player doing a traditional aggro strategy, the infect player actively kills themselves if they have no other big plays than, infect to win. But having regular damage on top incentivizes an aggro opponent to team up with the poison player rather than just squash them.
Again, not 100% sure because I haven't had a lot of time to look at everything, but that's my initial reaction, probably because my group usually has 2-3 aggro decks at a time.
February 22, 2023 11:52 a.m.
TypicalTimmy says... #6
I do like how toxic is not going to give -1/-1 counters like wither and infect.
I also like how it is specifically tied to combat damage, so you can't ping you way to success.
But I dislike how it's 10. I dislike that a lot.
February 22, 2023 12:29 p.m.
TypicalTimmy That's very true, 10 is maybe not the best number. It's probably hard to make a change to the rules, or it might just be easier to leave it as it is, but it's just rough that infect essentially creates a mini game that 3 out of the 4 players at the table may or may not be interested in playing. I don't think the power of infect is an issue, but maybe the mentality is. I mean, it happens that somebody might get knocked out early in any game, but a poison deck is going to be played by someone who is actively trying to achieve that, and maybe that's too far?
Thinking about it, it actually kind of feels like ponza in 60 card. Like, mana screw happens and I think any magic player can just shrug it off, but it's different when someone is sitting across from you trying their hardest to screw your mana. I don't really mind mana screw, and I don't mind getting knocked out early, but it's a little weird to have someone who is playing just to achieve these things.
February 22, 2023 4:24 p.m.
Metroid_Hybrid says... #8
As the local Infect enjoyer, I'm overall thrilled about the return of Poison Counters. Not so much about Toxic per sè, however Niko9 did make an excellent point, but Toxic was the only way they were going to be able to make a proper "Return to Phyrexia" block without making Infect absolutely busted in the process..
That being said...
The five cards that I am excited about in particular are Phyresis Outbreak, Vraska's Fall, Infectious Inquiry, Prologue to Phyresis, and Infectious Bite. One or more of these five cards are going to find their way into all but one of my existing Infect decks (2 Modern, 3 EDH), plus inspiring more.
I have not spent any money directly on sealed product since (MH1). However, not only did I pre-order a booster box, but a "Compleat" Bundle, and the Ixhel Precon...
Unfortunately, I'm still waiting on the Box and the Bundle.....
February 22, 2023 5:43 p.m. Edited.
TypicalTimmy says... #9
The way I see it is like this
Commander damage is 21 and a lot easier to kill someone with when built right because it's basically 1/2 the damage you actually need to cause. The tradeoff is it MUST be combat damage from your commander.
Infect is even easier at just 10, AND it's easier because there's many sources compared to just 1 Commander, ANNNNND it doesn't need to even be combat damage.
There is no functionally good reason it should be 10.
It's like saying you lose the game if your library is milled to 0 cards and you draw... Or you lose if your hand size is zero.
Wtf how is that comparable. It's not.
February 22, 2023 6:23 p.m.
Metroid_Hybrid says... #10
TypicalTimmy: Sounds like cope coming from someone who has never faced the Archenemy position of bringing Poison Counters to an EDH pod.
Outside of a fine-tuned Atraxa deck, actually winning with Infect is incredibly difficult, because you don't benefit from virtually anything that the other players are doing.
Furthermore, until this set, there has only been three sets to pull from: (SOM), (NPH), and (MBS).
February 22, 2023 6:43 p.m.
How much of the issue is Infect as the whole mechanic vs. Triumph of the Hordes specifically? I know that Infect gets a lot of flak, but I think that might be because people primarily interact with Infect when an opponent resolves a Triumph and ends a game before the other players feel like it's gone long enough to reach a conclusion stage, and don't like that. I know EDHREC isn't an absolute measure of how much a card is used, but there's about 16000 more decks with Triumph than the next card with Infect in its text.
February 22, 2023 7:45 p.m.
Metroid_Hybrid I gotta disagree, winning with infect in EDH isn't difficult, there just haven't been too many options until recently, the primary options being Atraxa, Skittles and occasionally Kamiz because they had the best options for infect creatures and support. With toxic creatures now an option, you can build a poison deck in most colors (other than red). I've been playing Skittles for years and with even a slightly above average hand, you can have 2/3 opponents in a 4 person pod down very quickly.
To answer the original question, Toxic fixes most of the issues with infect, primarily being you can block them. Being able to block and not just watch your board get smaller and smaller is huge, it lets (in standard at least) you be able to run a creature heavy strategy against a toxic deck and be able to block normally. It slows down how fast you can kill your opponent (excluding weird infect storm things) but there's always a chance you can die to damage or poison.
I don't seeing it taking over from infect in modern or legacy outside some fringe builds, I think it's not strong enough outside a few support cards.
As you may have guessed, I'm an infect player, and I've argued for years that "No, 10 is fine because normally you can take someone out but the rest of the table is there to strike back." Which was true for a while. Now though, now I'm starting to think 15 may be a better option. But not because of toxic. A toxic creature still dies to removal and board wipes, they can be chumped and traded with like any other creature. (If you're running one kill spell and two board wipes in EDH and complain about creatures hitting you, your deck needs some work first) For me, the things that's make me reconsider are cards like Infectious Bite or Infectious Inquiry. The entire point of infect and toxic has been, "Hit them, they get poison. Don't hit them, oh well." Removing the combat damage requirement I think is stupid and shortsighted, and for me what pushes us into seriously considering have many poison counters are required in an EDH game, especially with the flood of proliferate on everything.
TL,DR Toxic fixes infect, however other ONE cards are more problematic
February 22, 2023 7:53 p.m.
TheoryCrafter says... #13
I don't really see poison fully fixed until:
-The ten poison counter state based rule is phased out with a spell and ability system that punishes players with poison counters (All Will Be One, Mycosynth Fiend, and the Corrupted ability are a start) and cards including, but not limited to, Crypt Cobra and Pit Scorpion are treated like alternate win cards.
And/or
-The one I prefer, WOTC breaks down and prints more cards like Leeches, Melira, the Living Cure, Melira, Sylvok Outcast and Solemnity where poison counters can be removed or restricted.
February 22, 2023 9:31 p.m.
I honestly think 10 is a fine number. When it comes down to it, a lot of the issues surrounding infect boil down to people not being prepared for more aggressive strategies, and then getting rolled over because their clock is too slow. End of the day, poison counters are going to end one of three ways.
One: proliferation. The Atraxa player slapped everyone with one poison a while ago, and proliferated everyone else up to 10
Two: Triumph of the hordes. Not much to say here, they got a board state, cast the spell, and then won via infect
Three: Tainted strike type deals. You didn't block a 10 power creature, you took 11 poison and died, the Nekusar player forced everyone to draw 10, etc
In all 3 cases, the answer to these strategies is the same, interact with your opponent. The Atraxa player isn't going anywhere fast, and killing Atraxa a few times means command tax slows the deck down to a halt. The tainted strike guy invited a 2:1 where blowing up the creature pre damage means they're down two cards for the price of one, and the triumph of the hordes player has to actually build up a board presence to even hit you in a multiplayer format with a slew of boardwipes.
February 23, 2023 12:53 a.m.
I'm with Niko9 I really like that Toxic decks now can join the discussion with the rest of the table. Infect is a bit of an "all your eggs in one basket" deal... Now, with toxic, you can create decks with adaptive strategies, actually synergize with "dmg dealt" triggers, & if you are disrupted you are not totally dead in the water. Toxic can be made to be harder to telegraph than infect where you are all-in on poison counters or nothing.
Now, being able to deal normal damage involves you in some of midgame pressure application through a different means than just making a lonely stand on your pile of poison counters.
Particularly in a "damage matters" type of meta with a bunch of groupslug or from Niko9's aggro-meta perspective; there is a lot to be said for how much more you can influence the game by joining in on the dmg party. It kind of annoys me that I keep seeing "toxic is inferior" discussions. In a multiplayer, political format, being able to deal additive/cumulative dmg in addition poison is flexibility - not strictly inferior.
So, in one way I think toxic helps "fix" poison counters by removing the need to go "all-in" on poison as a deck's only wincon.
February 23, 2023 11:48 p.m.
Gleeock Yep, I agree on the all-in of infect as opposed to toxic. I haven't played against infect too much, but I've seen a few games where the infect player got targeted and knocked out first, and then it's just a weird feeling because they didn't effectively do anything. Toxic at least is giving them an impact outside of just poison counters.
On a tangent, what does everyone think of Slicer, Hired Muscle Flip? Is it too much commander damage flying around? I've seen some cEDH games on youtube where it seems kind of fun, but it makes me look at it and think what Slicer does in casual. Maybe casual has more blockers and it's not so bad, it's just, I could see a fast Slicer deck being almost worse than infect at knocking one player out at the very start of the game, or just decimate their board trying to block. It also has that aspect where it almost encourages three players ganging up on one.
February 24, 2023 8:24 a.m.
Corrupting Influence is made for a multiplayer experience. Not vs.
It is MUCH harder to win with it, when you have more than one opponent. They will all gang up on you.
February 24, 2023 8:49 a.m.
plakjekaas says... #18
Intuitively, I get a bit icky about an infection you can't actually cure (except maybe with Leeches). That's a really ancient view on healthcare, if you ask me.
The fact that it's unhealable, cumulative damage that can't be healed back like regular lifepoints, on top of not needing as much to be lethal, and the only way to interact with it is to Proliferate, which only adds to it, and can't be reversed... I understand it can drive you to hopelessness and desperation if you're opposing the poison counter decks. That's the MO of Phyrexia I suppose.
I do think we need some interaction with it, some Vampire Hexmage that targets players, or a Suncleanser that can target yourself. Or contra-liferation, "choose any numbers of permanents/ players with counters on them. For each, remove 1 counter of any kind off them."
Being able to heal would also break the parallel with commander damage.
February 24, 2023 9:59 a.m.
plakjekaas some type of counter-proliferate/poison sure would have some interesting political implications.
February 24, 2023 12:08 p.m.
I see a few (every single one an infect player) saying '10 is fine because others will take out the infect player." Except for one thing - not every game of commander is multiplayer. Infect is absolutely atrocious to play against 1v1. The proliferation of proliferate has made it so every player has to have a 1 drop and/or a 2 drop flyer in their decks and mull to those hands or they just lose. Getting in for even 1 counter on turns 1-3 is a very high win % from what I've seen in 1v1. 10 just comes too fast. At the worst, 3 comes WAY too fast to trigger corrupted. Commander scales life from 20 to 40 for a reason. A 1 drop with 1 infect is equivalent to a 4 power 1 drop. And how many 4 power 1 drops are there? Exactly 1. With a triggered ability that turns it into a super lightning bolt instead. Add in the fact that poison counters do not go away. So no, there is no reasonable world in which 10 is fine for commander. The groups (multiple groups) including some of the infect players are discussing trying out 15.
February 26, 2023 9:22 p.m.
I've had a major issue with infect ever since it came out. It's one of the playstyle I affectionately refer to as Simpleton Playstyle. It didn't take intelligence to use, all you needed to do was have an infection source and a way to pump it and that's game. It doesn't take much brainpower to do. I hold infect decks in the same regard as eldrazi titan decks: anyone who plays them is not a fun person to play with/be around, and all they want is the simplest ways to do things.
Infect was clunky from the get go, and I was happy when Toxic was spoiled because literally everything I said they should have done with Infect is what they did to it and called it Toxic. Having to keep track of multiple sources of -1/-1 counters on creatures is extremely annoying when you play in person and not online. Also one of the reasons I make no G/W decks, because I don't like having tokens and counters and other nonsense to keep track of in addition to playing the game.
I hate infect with a passion, but I use Toxic in a couple of my decks and even have a Karumonix, the Rat King deck that uses poison counters and people don't hate me for using it.
So to simplify it, Toxic is easily better than infect. It's not an OP wincon that everyone will have in their deck. While powerful, it can still be stopped and dealt with. And a Toxic deck draws noticeably less hate from the rest of the table than infect decks do.
Infect and eldrazi titans are fun killers that only sweaty tryhards use and try to defend using. They are for people who aren't good at a game but still want to win. They are training wheels used instead of brainpower
March 7, 2024 3:46 p.m.
I still just like that it is less "all-or-nothing". So, if you stall out with toxic you still have a few other "eggs in your basket" - you still dealt some real damage that adds up with the rest of the table & works with additional strategies instead of 100% proliferate.
With infect, I've seen players stall-out & just concede because nothing they did prior now has any game impact if their gimmick does not run to complEATion :) ... Whereas, with Toxic there is a bit of "welcome to the game" some of what you do will impact the table in combination with what other players are doing.
Yisan says... #2
Short answer: yes but really no. Long answer: its better then infect, seems more viable in a fourway game, but 10 is low in a 40 life game. 15 to 20 would be better and put it more inline with commander damage.
February 22, 2023 4:48 a.m.