Everyone Plays Poison | Commander Clash S14 E5

Deck Strategies

• 

  Atraxa, Praetors' Voice

  Utilizes proliferate and multiple colors to amplify poison counters on opponents while maintaining board control and card advantage, aiming to win by overwhelming poison accumulation.

• 

  Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon

  Aggressively applies poison counters through infect damage, supported by removal and disruption to clear the way for lethal infect swings.

• 

  Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer

  Leverages unique creature tutoring and non-traditional infect colors to find and deploy key infect creatures, aiming to surprise opponents with powerful infect threats.

• 

  Ixhel, Scion of Atraxa

  Focuses on corrupting opponents with poison counters to gain card advantage and control the game, using incremental poison effects to eventually finish opponents.

Gameplay Insights

• 1

  Proliferate effects from creatures like Cankerbloom played a pivotal role in accelerating poison counters on all opponents, increasing the pace of the game.

• 2

  Players prioritized ramp and board development early to ensure they could deploy key infect threats and maintain tempo against other aggressive poison strategies.

• 3

  The strict poison-only win condition created a tense metagame where players had to carefully balance aggression and defense, avoiding traditional damage wins while maximizing poison application.

• 4

  Non-green infect decks, such as Rocco's, introduced unique strategies and unpredictability, forcing opponents to adapt their plans accordingly.

• 5

  Removal spells were heavily included to disrupt infect creatures and prevent quick poison victories, highlighting the importance of interaction in an infect-heavy meta.

Notable Cards

• 

  Cankerbloom

• 

  Plague Stinger

• 

  Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon

• 

  Atraxa, Praetors' Voice

Summary

The game featured four players each piloting infect-themed decks with a strict win condition of delivering 10 or more poison counters to opponents, disallowing traditional damage-based kills. Early turns focused heavily on ramping and establishing board presence with infect creatures and proliferate synergies. Players were cautious, aware that infect damage could end the game abruptly, leading to a tense metagame where strategic deployment of creatures and removal spells was critical. Key plays involved proliferating poison counters and protecting infect creatures to steadily increase poison totals on opponents. Midgame saw players jockeying for positioning while trying to avoid early elimination, with some players leveraging card advantage through poison counter interactions and others focusing on direct infect threats. The game unfolded as a battle of attrition and tempo, with each player balancing aggression and defense to reach the infect threshold first. Ultimately, the infect-focused strategies created dynamic gameplay revolving around poison counter manipulation and careful timing of attacks and spells.