Not a card, but Wizards looks at poison

[Anusien]

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/askwizards/0805

Q: "Where would 'poison' currently fall in the color pie?"
--Spencer
A: From Brian Tinsman, Magic R&D:
...
So to answer your question, I think it's blue, black, and maybe a little white.

Does this change the way anything would be done in the TMD set?

[Bram]

Heh. I was just about to post that. OK, here's the whole answer:

"Traditionally poison has been green and black. This was mainly for flavor reasons since snakes, assassins, and other poisonous critters make sense in green or black. Theoretically, if poison came back in a modern set it would probably be on a relatively high number of cards. If it's going to be an interesting alternate win condition, it should appear in high enough levels to make it a reasonable strategy in limited play. That means it would probably spread over at least two and maybe more colors.

"From a purely philosophical approach, poison is delayed gratification. You attack now for a benefit (winning the game) later. Red wants to win NOW, so it's out. Blue on the other hand, likes playing the long game, investing early for late game dividends. Black's 'win at any cost' philosophy might also work well with the difficult-to-remove poison. Green's philosophy is to bash opponents with giant creatures, so it generally eschews indirect strategies like poison. White can thrive in the long game, and wants to create order and impose its own rules on the game. It might get a little bit of poison. So to answer your question, I think it's blue, black, and maybe a little white."

To answer your question: not really. We've not been giving red too many poison related abilities, and the way we're using poison is fundamentally different from the way it used to be used. In that light, them not giving it to green doesn't make sense. Besides which I think they're wrong anyway. Poison is an ability every color could have, if they somehow use it in a way that's consistent with that color. Poison as a win mechanic to me more resembles something like a 'power / toughness combination' (which all colors get, in different proportions and varying relative to the mana cost) than a color-tied mechanic like haste or flying.

[Anusien]

We had a throwdown on #TMD, and at least I agree with the way poison was originally used, as a naturally occurring defense in Green a la Marsh Viper, and as a poison (although Pit Scorpion was a black card, not a green card).

Blue doesn't seem the type to poison.  I suppose in some of the depths of blue political intrigue or trickery, a blue mage might employ a poisoner to remove an enemy, but such a mundane way of eliminating an enemy seems black (Royal Assassin), not blue.  Blue gets spiritual magic, not a perversion of the natural world to create a mundane weapon.  The best blue gets in terms of actual fighting weapons and techniques are magical artifacts imbued with spiritual power (like the Swords).  Even so, there is no Sword with green (nature)-aligned magic.  I just can't see it, unless it's a gold spell with black/green.

White doesn't seem to use poison; it's not the right style.  White would use diplomacy/words to convince an enemy to give up (Swords to Plowshares, Lieutenant Kirtar, Second Thoughts), or just execute the enemy (Reprisal etc) if they have broken a law.  If White absolutely has to destroy an enemy though, they're much more likely to do it on the battlefield in an honorable duel than to poison them in their sleep.  White, the color of law, is not likely to murder its foes.  It isn't above taxation though.

In short, poison seems to fit B/G, not B/U/w.

[dandan]

In addition, Wizards just printed a s***load of Green snakes and I am under the impression that snakes have been know to use poison. As have Spiders (Green), Insects (mainly Green) although I guess you could point to poisonous fish for Blue (although in Vintage Fish are often neither Fish nor Blue.

Perhaps Wizards are concerned about Green having too much of the colour pie what with it having card draw, reanimation, discard, creature kill, flying, first strike, fatties ,counterspells, permanent theft of permanents, temporary theft of permanents, fast mana, Elves, library manipulation, massive global effects and many many other good abilities

[Bram]

You know, sometimes I really hope someone at Wizards reads you posts, Dandan.

[Limbo]

Just to defend the viewpoint that blue is on the colorpie for having poison:

Snakes are small part of the blue world of trickery. I think not much is more blue then a small snake that slithers into enemy territory unnoticed, every time delivering a little bit of poison until its target collapses under the gathering amount of poison.

That being said, I think it is b******t that green gets no poison, and white does get poison. Poisons main source in the "magic-environment" is nature (plants and animals / insects alike) and the main applicator of said poison is the assassin-guild which tends to work for the more shady, darker mage. Protection against / curing of poison should be a white ability, with red neither bothering about using or protecting against poison. That being said, I'd say the color pie for poison should be GBu -W instead of BUw.

[dandan]

You know, sometimes I really hope someone at Wizards reads you posts, Dandan.

Ask yourself if Portal will soon be legal.
Ask yourself if Artifacts still look the same as White cards.
Ask yourself if the mana symbols in the rules box are still grey.
I hope they listen, I think they listen and I see evidence they listen. This doesn't mean that they do listen, but at least I know I am an optimist. In any case, I feel better getting stuff off my chest and I hope that even if they don't care, occasionally there is sufficient entertainment value to warrant the time spent reading Dandan and everyone else here at TMD.

As a realist, I also email Wizards when I care about something.

*Not that I think I was necessarily a factor in any of the above, although I can delude myself that I helped.

PS I just had a terrible vision of Naf's Asp as a white 1/1 that gives a poison counter if you don't pay the 1 mana (clearly a taxing card)

[Matt]

Blue would give you cancer, not poison you. Blue is radiation, black is toxic waste ([card]Irradiate[/card] notwithstanding).

[dandan]

I guess Blue might convince you that you had been poisoned and Red might risk exposing itself to poison but only Black and Green are adept at Poison (and though White might claim some knowledge, playing with Leeches exposes White's amateur status)

[Jacob Orlove]

The question answered again, this time by Rosewater:

Q: "Where would 'poison' currently fall in the color pie?"
--Spencer

A: From Mark Rosewater, Magic Head Designer:

"Yesterday you got to hear Brian Tinsman's take on poison. As it differs a bit from my take, I thought it would be interesting to follow up with how I see poison as it applies to the color wheel. Traditionally poison has been black and green. This has to do with how poison has been used, through creatures. And when one looks at what kind of creatures would be poisonous, you end up at black and green. Black for the unnatural poisoned creatures (the kind that got turned that way through different means or that ended up poisonous as the result of dark forces). Green had the naturally venomous creatures. And as long as you're delivering poison through creaturesI think the traditional approach is correct.

"That said, I do believe other colors could have access to poison if poison was handled differently. White for example has a taxing theme that could work nicely with poison. Both black and red have a history of taking damage to themselves for gaining some ability (black usually doing it with a more long term goal than red). This means that these two colors would make sense poisoning themselves. If we decided to make spells that delivered poison through spells rather than creatures, black and blue seem like the most likely candidates as they are the sneaky colors that like to win through deception.

"I actually disagree with Brian in that I don't see poison as 'delayed gratification' but rather 'a willingness to think outside the box.' Poison's most defining trait is that it supercedes life. That doesn't feel much like white to me although as I said above I do think there could be ways to make a white-flavored poison card.

"In short (although this is the fourth paragraph), poison is more of a tool than a mechanic. It has many different potential uses and each use would make different sense in terms of the color pie. So what colors are poison? All of them, but each in its own way."

[dandan]

If Maro keeps agreeing with me, people will start to suspect we are the same person (especially given our track records on flavour text).

Note how he all but spelt out my nighmare scenario of a reprinted Naf's Asp in White with poison instead of damage as a penalty for not paying the 'tax'.

[Bram]

Poison is an ability every color could have, if they somehow use it in a way that's consistent with that color.

That said, I do believe other colors could have access to poison if poison was handled differently.

...

Poison as a win mechanic to me more resembles something like a 'power / toughness combination' (which all colors get, in different proportions and varying relative to the mana cost) than a color-tied mechanic like haste or flying.

In short (although this is the fourth paragraph), poison is more of a tool than a mechanic. It has many different potential uses (...)."

...

Props to Mark for reading my post and confirming my opinion on the mechanic Seriosously, I think we've been on the right track with our poison cards, and I'd be surprised of Wizards didn't end up doing something quite similar. Which is going to be tons of fun.

[dandan]

Maybe Bram is Maro.

I do find it interesting how often Wizards are in agreement with the denizens of the CCF.

Huge props for the new shocklands. I'd have been proud of creating them.

[Bram]

Yeah, I was thinking about that. I probably would have deemed them too good, even.

[Godder]

Yeah, I was thinking about that. I probably would have deemed them too good, even.

Were it not for the Reserved List, Randy would have pushed for the original Duals to be reprinted. I think the current R&D is much more willing to push power levels of this sort of thing than any before them. They also like printing bigger, better creatures at higher casting costs than ever before, which is very cool.

[dandan]

If Spiritmonger didn't prove too be too strong, it is pretty hard to make a broken fattie (Tinker targets aside). For 5 mana you get a fattie that mows down weenies, for 6 mana a 6/6 flying dragon with a cool ability or an 8/5 Trampler with regeneration. Fatties are way cooler than they used to be.