I feel like hurling.

[Bram]

Snake Hurler
{G}
Creature -- Warrior
1/1
, Sacrifice a Snake: Target player gets a poison counter.
Snake-throwing is a rite of passage that Xolot children often practice with vines.

So, as promised, my final poison card for the time being.

This is meant to 'combo' with Quiacatl's Incarnation. It's green because, well, it's green. It has an activation cost to prevent abuse. That cost is black because it involves sacrificing a creature. If you somehow ever manage to get Quiacatl's Incarnation and this dork out, you could kill someone if you have have 5BBBBB open and at least 5 poison counters on yourself. Sounds, um, not broken to me
You can also throw other snakes at your opponent if that tickles your fancy. It's a dirty rotten shame Snake basket makes Cobras. I can already see the artwork on this one!
This is not as narrow as you might think because I envision great things (and no, not all of them poison related) for Snake-kind under my theme.

Current wording:

Snake Hurler
1G
Creature -- Warrior
1/1
B, T: Sacrifice a Snake: Target player gets a poison counter.
Snake-throwing is a rite of passage that Xolot children often practice with vines.

EDITS:
- made it tap (jacob)

[Malhavoc]

Just to make you know, these cards create snake tokens that can be used in this combo:

Orochi Eggwatcher
Orochi Hatchery
Snake Pit

[Alfred]

I think that this is a good ability, and reasonably costed, but the name needs work. I was thinking snake charmer, but this seems to be a more central asian occupation. Serpant Wrangler seems like a pretty cool name.

[Razvan]

I thought that Wizards consolidated some creature types into one more tribal oriented type (falcons into birds), but apparently, they ignored Snake Basket.

I really think that requires a change, now that there's actually quite a few snakes running around.

Incidentally, would making the creature 1/2 (if common) or 2/1 (if uncommon) be a bad thing?

[Bram]

apparently, they ignored Snake Basket.

Well, the thing is, there's other Cobras in the game, too (some of the original poison creatures). And Vipers, too. But I guess they could have changed the lot of them, yeah.

Serpant Wrangler seems like a pretty cool name.

It's illegal to wrangle snakes :-) I'm kind of fond of Snake Hurler because it's a semi-comic relief thing we don't have in our set yet. I could always call it 'Xolot Serpent Thrower' but that's kinda dull.

Incidentally, would making the creature 1/2 (if common) or 2/1 (if uncommon) be a bad thing?

Well, no, not really. But you really only wanna run this in a snake/poison build anyway so the P/T won't matter too much. I'd rather be on the safe side myself, but I'm willing to reconsider if many others agree with you.

[Jacob Orlove]

I'd like to see this tap.

[Bram]

You really think it's necessary? It requires a commitment to two colors already, and has an activation cost. Also, the fact that you can only sack snakes makes abuse unlikely. That is, unless I'm missing something, ofcourse. Also, if I make it tap, it looks a lot like Eph's card only much worse.

I'll chnage it but I'd like more opinions on the matter.

[Ephraim]

Actually, after seeing this, which is much more flavourful and which incorporates both green and black, I was going to let my card fade into obscurity.

[Jacob Orlove]

There's plenty of Snakes in Champions, and since there's several snake "lords", I expect we'll see more in the next few sets as well. So that part isn't so tough.

Basically, making this tap stops it from possibly being an instant kill. Isn't that a good thing?

Plus that way you can make this a 2/1 if you want.

[Bram]

Heh. Never thought of looking at the CoK spoiler for Snakes. The thing is, I don't want to make this a 2/1. Does this really need to tap? Think about it. If you seriously think about and come to the conclusion that it needs to tap, I'll clock it like that.

[dandan]

Does this have to kill the snakes? Can't it just be a snake-thrower like Stone Giant hurls little dudes. Throwing regenerating trolls is a tradition in casual play and throwing a River Boa at someone, tapping a creature to do it and paying BG every turn to do it is hardly broken.

River Boas - snakes you can throw again and again.

From a flavour point of view, throwing live snakes is the way to poison someone, although throwing a snake is not good for its health.

[Laurie Cheers]

It doesn't really make much sense that a River Boa isn't poisonous, yet throwing it at someone can poison them...

Maybe we need that Poison keyword.
Poison 2 (Whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player, that player gets 2 poison counters.)

Then the snake thrower can say
T, Sacrifice a creature: Target player gets a poison counter for each point of poison on the sacrificed creature.

[Bram]

We don't have to be THAT exact, Laurie. There flavor is there. We're not with National Geographic.

[Ephraim]

From Mark Rosewater's article, Design 101:
This mistake [too many flavor “add-ons"] is the adding of extra rules text that gives the card more flavor but complicates it as the condition seldom matters.

The flavour of snakes being venomous is uncomplicated and interesting. Going through and trying to tweak the flavour so that it doesn't include constrictors, such as River Boa, or so that it doesn't bother with Snakes at all, would make the card too complex (in the first case) and harm the flavour a lot (in the second case). I think that the idea is properly balanced between mechanical simplicity and flavour, as it is right now.

[Jacob Orlove]

Can we change the name? "Hurler" sounds like a bad goblin card.

[Bram]

'(Xolot) Snake Thrower' sounds too generic. I kinda want this to have a 'funny' goblin-like feel to it. Snake Pitcher would do the same trick but sounds too lame. And basically, this guy really is hurling those babies. It takes quite some effort to pitch a River Boa over to the enemy. I'd like to keep the name if there are no further objections.

Clock.

[Bram]

Closed and added.