Hey Mark I've been away from this Tumblr but I'm wondering why a card wasn't made to counter the effects of poison? Like a reprint of solemnity or even a card that would take a few turns to remove all poison in flavor of the story how they used a spark and melira to cleanse the spark of ajani and what they tried with Nissa. I think that was a flavor fail and playpoint fail. My hope is you guys at least print something that fixes this in the future for standard. I had so much fun with the prerelease this past weekend by the way. I love the enchanted tales addition. I had to run green as I pulled a doubling season and a foil defense of the heart lol.

One of the defining qualities of poison in the game is that it can’t be removed. It makes it play very differently than life and makes the mechanic feel more threatening. Note there are cards that can help you prevent getting future poison, just none that take away what you already have (okay except Leeches, but I pretend that card doesn’t exist).

We now have at least 3 cards in standard -- SunCleanser, Nahiri, & Price of Betrayal, that have irrelevant text on them compared to the set they were released in. I appreciate that you attempt to branch out and design cards in a larger context, and I understand it's just free power on top of what the cards already do, but I think I'm of the opinion now that it's just too weird. I would have vetoed these cards were I on the team and suggested to wait until the whole text were relevant.

Constructed is a very popular way to play Magic. : )

RE: Does Suncleanser (and cards like it potentially in the future) create space for using poison counters as a high risk thing a player would want, and that opponents would want to remove? We tried it in Scars of Mirrodin and it created too much tension. How so? Isn't high risk, needle's tip play supposed to create tension?

Having players sometimes want poison counters made attacking with poison more confusing than we wanted. Getting a poison win in limited was tough enough.

Does Suncleanser (and cards like it potentially in the future) create space for using poison counters as a high risk thing a player would want, and that opponents would want to remove?

We tried it in Scars of Mirrodin and it created too much tension.

Hi Mark! I'm really stoked for M19, I was curious if Suncleanser's second option was ever target player instead of target opponent to offer up a protection against poison counters, I love the design of the card and how it works with energy and experience counters on players but it's interesting to see that it can't act as a "cleanser" for its controller

That card targets an opponent specifically to prevent you from removing your own poison counters. An important quality of poison counters is you can’t remove them. It makes them function differently than life.