Poison

Poison Counter Mechanic Involvement

Has there ever been consideration to do a mechanic involving poison counters with non phyrexian creatures? Mainly i was thinking snakes

We’ve had poison cards of things other than Phyrexians, and I believe we’ll make more.

Creatures Mechanics Phyrexians Poison Snakes

Understanding Mad Beetdown

On Mad Beetdown from Unglued 2, what did poison: 2 mean?

When it dealt combat damage to a player, it gave them two poison counters.

Poison

Mono-green Villain Example

Could you give an example of a mono-green villain and their motives? I'm having trouble visualizing one that doesn't edge into multicolor. Could be an existing villain in pop culture, or just a hypothetical villain you're creating as an example.

Poison Ivy often falls squarely into monogreen. Her goal isn’t wealth or power. It’s doing right by the earth.

Poison Pop Culture

Exile Vs Poison Counters

What's more important, cards not coming back from exile or poison counters not being removed?

I’ll go with the one that breaks the game.

Poison The Exile Zone

Foil Poison Counter Tokens

Can I request a foil Poison counter token in a future set? ONE seemingly doesn't have one among all of its double-sided tokens, and it'd be a nice piece of bling if Poison returns as a cameo in the future or fits into an appropriate non-premier set.

I’ll pass the note along.

Foils Poison Premier Sets Tokens

Rule Against Removing Poison Counters

Suppose a future set wants a card which removes counters of any type from either player (due to its own mechanics). Would your rule against removing poison counters prevent this card from being made? Assume the set itself doesn't use the poison mechanic.

I don’t think we would make it such that it removes poison counters.

Mechanics Poison Rules

Reception of Poison Mechanism

how did poison was received by the players so far ? I was curious because, given how cautious you and the dev must be with alternative wincon, I was wondering if a New archetype centered around an alternative wincon would see the light of the day in the future.

Poison is actually pretty popular, provided it gets used sporadically. Players, as a generic whole, like to see it, but not regularly.

Colorless Poison

White's Fog Adjacent Effects

You said that white doesn't get Fog effects anymore, but we just got two white cards in the last year that prevent you from being damaged as part of their effect, Everybody Lives and Flare of Fortitude. They technically aren't fog in the mechanical sense, you still get poison and commander damage, but they largely play the same. The fact that we got two of these means it feels less like an outlier too so I'm curious what is happening with these two cards.

White goes get damage prevention, so it is Fog adjacent.

Commander Flare Flare of Fortitude Fog Fortitude Poison White

All Will Be One Theme

Did All Will Be One have a wedge theme at some point in design? It seems like the sets biggest mechanics all appear primarily in sets of wedge colors (WBG poison, URW artifacts, BGU proliferate, GUR oil counters)

Not specifically, but sometimes designs drift in certain directions.

Abzan (W/B/G) Artifacts Colors Jeskai (U/R/W) Mechanics Poison Proliferate Sultai (B/G/U)

Results of Top-Down/Bottom-Up Poll

Now that the polls are closed on your "Top Down/Bottom Up" questions, may you please reveal the correct answers?

Here are the results of the poll: Ixalan Top-down: 38.9%*Bottom-up: 61/.1Strixhaven School of Mages*Top-down: 54.7%Bottom-up: 45.3%Phyrexia: All Will Be One*Top-down: 51.8%Bottom-up: 48.2%The answer is all three sets were bottom-up designs. Ixalan was built as a typal set making use of the two two-color and two-three color faction structure we had originally planned to use for Khans of Tarkir.Strixhaven was built as an enemy-colored faction set with an emphasis on “instants and sorceries” matter.Phyrexia: All Will Be One was built around making poison structurally work. All three sets had strong flavor components that we integrated into the design, but the structure of all three had a mechanical core. The easiest way to think about this is that if you take a top-down set and remove all the flavor components (names, art, creature types, flavor text, etc.) the structure will just seem like random mechanical elements were thrown together while a bottom-up set will have an orderly structure.

Art Bottom Up Colors Creatures Factions Flavor Flavor Text Instants Ixalan Khans of Tarkir Kindred / Typal Phyrexia: All Will Be One Poison Sorceries Top Down

New Poison but No Infect

3 Horizon sets and a return of the phyrexians and no new infect cards. We need a new one drop that can compete with the current power level of modern.

We did make a lot of new poison cards and new poison support, but we decided not to make any more infect cards. We approached poison in a new way.

Infect Modern Phyrexian Poison Power Level

Complexity in Design

"The rise of Commander and the importance of larger formats has shifted how we think about complexity."Is this explained in more detail anywhere? MtG as a whole seems much more complex now. Timespiral is one of my favorite sets, but the complaint about it was that it was too complex, had too many mechanics. Now we have mechanics that are so complex they can't be explained on a card (ring tempts,initiative), more things to track (poison,energy,day/night) and new cards with varying format legality

There were more mechanics in Time Spiral block than existed in Magic before Time Spiral block. Another way to look at it is the difference between the complexity of a Modern Horizons set and a premier set. Yes, the average premier set is higher than they once were, but nowhere close to Time Spiral block.

Commander Day/Night Format Legality Mechanics Modern Horizons Poison Premier Sets Time Spiral

Rules on Playtest Cards

Hi Mark, Since cards with the same name are treated as being the same card, can I play "Pick Your Poison" from Mystery Boosters as "Pick Your Poison" from Murders at Karlov Manor ?

No. Playtest cards are not considered actual cards, and thus, do not have names that usurp other cards getting them, nor count as other cards with the same name.

Boosters Murders at Karlov Manor Pick Your Poison Playtesting Poison Rules

Proliferate in ONE

I've listened to your Drive to Work on ONE. I was surprised to hear you didn't mention the problems of proliferate and corrupted in this set (for limited). Proliferate requires to have a poison counter, which is more likely as the starting player. Corrupted was more likely to achieve as the starting player, resulting in a snowballing effect. Indeed, ONE had a big OTP advantage. I know you prefer to promote attacking, but sometimes that does cause the defending player to have little comeback tools.

I haven’t seen any data that going first in Phyrexia: All Will Be One has a higher win rate than other premier limited format.

Attacking Corrupted Drive to Work Limited Phyrexia: All Will Be One Poison Proliferate

Poison Mechanics Complexity

Do you think it could have been interesting to test poison inherently doing something bad for the player at some threshold lower than the lethal one? like loss or life or something.

I think it adds unneeded complexity.

Mechanics Poison Threshold

Poison Mechanic Design

Whenever poison counters are a major mechanic of a set in the future, do you expect to always use Corrupted or a similar threshold mechanic in that same set?

I believe the best way to design with poison is to make sure that it’s meaningful even if it doesn’t always defeat the other player. Corrupted is one tool to do that, but it’s (most likely) not the only one.

Corrupted Mechanics Poison Threshold

Quad-Color Commander Design

Hello!

Last time I wrote, I asked about Planar Chaos, and whether design might go back to something like that with the color pie. Thank you for your response. I can appreciate how it was a novel idea back then, but you do it more now in small ways over time.

My next question also has to do with color.

Like a lot of people, I love commander. I've created a challenge for myself. I'm trying to build a deck in every color combination.

I finally finished colorless, which was a challenge I've been afraid of since I started playing in Alara. Now I'm looking at four color commanders.

I have Omnath. I love Omnath. Landfall's been a favorite, since Zendikar is close to my heart.

And oh. There's Atraxa. Atraxa excites me. I think I'll focus her on poison counters.

But then there's the other combinations. After the Nephilim in Guildpact, most call them Glint, (no white) Dune, (no blue) and Witch (no red).

I see Breya, Saskia, and Yidris. They're awesome cards, and Yidris excites me somewhat. But it feels like a very tiny box that's been built many, many times before.

And those three cards are really it for those three color groupings. There's a whole bunch of representation for WURG especially with Doctor Who UB, and WUBG has the two Atraxa. But the other three don't get much.

Partner is an option I've considered. But at a glance, it seems a bit forced.

Do you think design will do more with the quad-color groupings? Would a set like Alara or Tarkir be possible, but with quad-color tribes? Or does that overcomplicate design too much?

Four-color legendary cards are in a weird place. We don’t want to make them such that people are just using them to play more colors in Commander, so it means we have to be very focused in what they’re doing, and finding a home for such a design is tricky.

Appreciation Blue Color Pie Colorless Colors Commander Doctor Four Color Glint Guildpact Nephilim Partner Planar Chaos Poison Red Three Color White Zendikar

Removal of Poison Counters

Why you don’t want you to be able to remove poison counters from yourself? You can increase your life total, you can put cards back into your library, so trying to avoiding to lose the game is not that strange.

We want poison to feel different than life, and the inability to remove it makes you treat it very differently. Note we do print answers to poison, such as both Meliras, but it’s preventative of future poison, not getting rid of the poison you already have.

Card Printing Poison The Library

Final Act Card Use

Technically speaking, Final Act is a card that can remove Poison Counters. Was this allowed on the grounds that the "remove counters" part only applies to your opponents, meaning you can't really benefit from it?

Yes, the issue is we don’t want you to be able to remove poison counters from yourself which Final Act doesn’t do.

Final Act Poison

Opposite of Proliferate

If/when: a mechanic that's the opposite of proliferate?

If. Adding things usually advances the game, while removing things tends to slow it down. Also, we don’t want to remove poison counters from players.

If/When Mechanics Poison Proliferate