Rocking Rancor II

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Happy Wednesday MTG peeps,

We promised last week (in the first installement of 'Rocking Rancor') that we would pick up on a Green / White Infect deck featuring the new M13 aura all-star Rancor.  Like the M12 rare enchantment, Angelic Destiny, this aura pops back into your hand should your enchanted critter get pwn'd.  Unlike Angelic Destiny, Rancor is significantly cheaper and provides a highly sought-after ability in today's meta-game - trample.  With token decks still enjoying popularity, there are chump blockers everywhere.  Even with some of those beffy green indestructible cretures, having a bunch of -1/-1 counters pile up after a block seems decent.

Anywhoos - we had read Mike Flores's Proposed Green-White Infect Deck last month with some interest as we had already physically laid out pretty much the same deck on the game table.  We money to invest in a deckset of Inkmoth, so our build was a titch weaker than Mike's.  Righto - let's have a looky-loo . . .


Glistener Elf
Rancor
Mutagenic Growth
Necropede
Ranger's Guild
Ichorclaw Myr
Apostle's Blessing
Lost Leonin
Titanic Growth
Wild Defiance
Dismember

We are also carefully considering a sideboard for this and have a lot of choices which will likely solidify into a proper list after a bunch of games.

We really never had a chance to play with Glissa, the Traitor and now we are contemplating a nice casual green black infect list with Glissa and Rancor but have yet to get anything together yet which plays smoothly.
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We've recently been shopping over at MTG Mint Card for the odd M13 card we've not yet picked up as well as indulging in a bit of nostaligia with the older Ravnica cards (brought on no doubt by this fall's Return to Ravnica set).  Check 'em out.
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Scars of Mirrodin Infect

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Good Day my MTG pickles,

Gather around - We have good (or bad) news for the lot of ya straight from the Wizards Arcana today - here's a hint - What would you get if you if you took the mechanics Poison and Wither, and spliced their genetics (by way of waaay too much punch at the prom) ? Yep - How did ya know ? You would get 'Infect' - a new Scars of Mirrodin keyword.

Players at gaming tables around the world either really loved or really hated poison (the latter we think were in the majority. The reminder text of Infect should read as such :
Infect (This creature deals damage in the form of -1/-1 counters and to players in the form of poison counters.)

The big question now is exactly how many creatures will be printed in Scars of Mirrodin with Infect? A minor number of cards ? Shadowmoor / Eventide had around 35. There were just under a dozen poison type critters way back and around 35 or so cards with 'wither'. Most reacently, there was around 40 landfall tech cards in Zendikar and Worldwake. We should probablly expect the number of cards with Infect to be around 20 in the first set which now that we think of it, kind of thats the shine of our new fav indestructible creature (looking at Knight Exemplar).

If you were not around for it poison works like this - a player with ten or more poison counters loses the game. Kind of simple but let's have a looky-see at the rules around both poison and wither . . .

Poisonous is a keyword ability that uses poison counters. It was introduced in Future Sight, though the concept of poison counters is as old as Legends.

From the Comprehensive Rules
* 502.69. Poisonous
o 502.69a Poisonous is a triggered ability. "Poisonous N" means "Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, that player gets N poison counters." (For information about poison counters, see rule 102.3d.)
o 502.69b If a creature has multiple instances of poisonous, each triggers separately.
o 102.3d If a player has ten or more poison counters, he or she loses the game the next time a player would receive priority. (This is a state-based effect. See rule 420.)

Rulings
* If all damage that a poisonous creature would deal to a player is prevented, the poisonous ability won't trigger.
* The player will get the stated number of poison counters each time the poisonous creature deals combat damage to him or her, regardless of how much damage that creature dealt.
* If a player has ten poison counters, that player loses the game.
* Although several older cards give players poison counters, none of those cards have abilities that trigger on combat damage.

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Wither was introduced in Shadowmoor. Wither was featured as rules card 6 of 6 in the Shadowmoor set and 6 of 8 in the Eventide set.

From the Comprehensive Rules
* 502.80. Wither
o 502.80a Damage dealt to a creature by a source with wither doesn’t stay on that creature (see rule 212.3g). Rather, it causes that many -1/-1 counters to be put on that creature.
o 502.80b Multiple instances of wither on the same object are redundant.

Rulings
* The damage is still dealt as damage, and as such it can be prevented or redirected as normal. If not prevented or redirected, it turns into -1/-1 counters.
* Damage to a player or planeswalker is dealt normally.

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Wow - are you guys still looking forward to Scars of Mirrodin ? Do you think today's SoM spoiler will totally rock your game in October or will you be steering clear of that mechanic altogether (ignore it and it will go away)?
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Lastly . . .
What does Scars of Mirrodin Patinum Imperion and the movie Fifth Element have in common? This guy . . .










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