Infect and Poison counters

I was looking over our rules (yeah, i do that sometimes, whatcha wanna do fight about it?) and i kept stopping on the instant win ruling... technically poison falls under this ruling. Does that mean that poison decks will be banned or does that mean that poison is an exception similar to mill?

Tough call here....poison in of itself shouldn't be too hard to handle as the creatures with poison aren't devastating on their own. However if more than a few people bring them to the table....that could be an issue since you only need 10 counters to die....mill is different because you basically need to be able to mill 60 + cards even over a few people it's hard to accomplish. Maybe need to take a clan vote (however I hate the fact that we are limiting the win conditions in our clan, thereby limiting the unique ways we build decks) My $.02

-Huck

See that is what I kinda thought. I don't like limiting win cons but by all technicalities mill and poison fall under the instant win rule. Here I go again... I dont want to cause controversy.

Kao....why do you always have to rock the boat? lol just kidding I definately understand the issue....however if we look at the cards that beat mill decks....we have Elixir(not a bad card by any means) and of course....the deck itself...you would need a lot of mill to beat more than 1 or 2 opponents (and of course you instantly become the target for multiple people since NO-ONE wants to lose to a mill deck). With poison however...the creatures have wither so it's cause to not attack that person because they weaken their creatures and it only takes 10 poison to win and with literally NOTHING in the system to "heal" poison....well it just seems too powerful a mechanic.

-Huck

While it is a powerful mechanic, let me remind you of some cards that had a very huge stipulation: Swamp Mosquito, Crypt Cobra, Suq'Ata Assassin... all of these cards had one huge flaw, they had to attack and not be blocked... it is strong but it is very unreliable. Oh and there is a way to get rid of poison counters, the only problem is that it hasnt been released online. here is the link to it's gatherer page:

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=3020

see i agree but those cards were significantly weaker as pointed out they had to not be blocked compared to this set with wither dealing equal to the amount of damage so basicly one overwhelming stampede you now jsut won the table pretty much

i think a compermise should be made with the infect decks more of like a deck cant be mainly an infect deck it only allowed an x amount of infect cards so that way were not removing another win condition but limiting it to being way overpowered

but if we are going to limit the number of infect creatures, we may as well just ban the mechanic altogether.

My opinion is that it's too early to decide infect's fate. The set hasn't even been released yet. Sure, it might be overwhelmingly powerful, but I would rather let players try it out and save any possible banning or restrictions until infect is dominating events or making play less fun. There have been overwhelmingly good cards and decks (like luminarch ascension or elves) in our events before and players have responded by ganging up on the threatening player(s) in matches and by bringing the hate in future events.

but also with cards like luminarch and even the threat of elvish wrath, we have answers in the form of mass kill and destruction. Leeches is the only card that cures poison and it isn't even available online.

Most decks don't pack life gain either, should we ban damage dealing as well?

The issue of not being able to heal poison counters is a non-issue. The question is whether or not the 10 life cap decrease (back to 20 life) would be sufficient or not. Although, it's worth it to note that some cards are pretty crazy under this schematic (like putrefax being a 10 power creature if it connects fully o_O).

Minori suggests testing for it first.

Okay, after playing in the sealed prerelease yesterday and facing off against an infect deck (which I was also running), I have to say that it isn't infect that is the problem, it is proliferate. The speed of infect is so slow that without proliferate, it will get nowhere. Bring your artifact and enchant hate because those are the only ways that it will really get anywhere. The creatures themselves are somewhat weak save for putrefax and the blight dragon. none of them go above 2 power. It is just like facing a wither deck... bring lots of creatures to the fight or bring the enchant that takes away negative counters. Infect is not a threat. especially in pauper...

Your assertion is atm correct, Minori thinks. Minori, however, thinks that infect CAN get there as a casual deck without proliferate, though. :3

Also, the 30 life does slow down regular combat, so this can be interesting.

true, i have yet to do a 30/10 or a 40/10 with an infect deck. I haven't seen any mainstream infect decks either. I think it may just end up as a casual format deck style that will never really take off.

oh no theres plenty of infect decks wait till the set hits regular sales there will be enough

I definitely do not agree with infect cards being restricted/banned.

It adds another facet to the game that players need to be ready to defend against.

It definitely does not qualify as an "automatic win" condition, IMO. I always felt that was reserved for global "I win" conditions and not "I can kill a single opponent in one turn" conditions.

that is what i have come to think as well mr jet. I was just bringing it up because it looked powerful but after playing it a few times, proliferate is it's major boon, without it, infect just spreads a little slowly.