With a little fun and games over at the Magic: The Gathering official site yesterday, one of the first major spoilers from Scars of Mirrodin has been revealed, a new keyword known as infect.
Infect: This creature deals damage in the form of -1/-1 counters and to players in the form of poison counters.
The infect keyword combines the very, very old-school and rarely seen win condition known as poison with another more recent one, wither. This matrimony of abilities has created a very unique ability that will be seen on some of the denizens of Scars of Mirrodin with some very interesting possibilities.
Creatures featuring infect are highly interesting, since a player facing them down can choose to take "alternate" damage (20 life/10 poison life per player is now relevant) or block with a creature that will take "permanent" damage.
The presence of infect also poses some other tantilizing possibilities for Scars of Mirrodin, such as using poison counters as alternate payment costs for other cards.
Scars of Mirrodin information is ready to flow out of the spoilerducts anytime now, with PAX Prime events coming up with plenty of new information regarding this highly anticipated expansion set for Magic: The Gathering.
Be sure to follow all of our coverage as we'll be on the scene tweeting all sorts of goodies from Magic: The Gathering including Scars of Mirrodin, infect, more keywords, and plenty of other surprises!
Scars of Mirrodin news and spoilers
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Comments
Lame ability. recycling old stuff.
Oooooh. It's an oldie, but a goodie. :)
Dan, I got call you out on this. The word seems to not make the dammage optinal. So i dont beileve you can chosse to take dammage or Posion, you have to deal posion, its a replacment effect
Nowhere do i say you get a choice of what kind of damage you take - you are correct, the damage can ONLY be poison to a player. The line i believe you're referring to includes the other option to taking this alternate damage (Poison) which would be blocking and having a creature take "permanent" damage in the form of -1/-1 counters. You definitely do NOT get to choose, I'm sorry if the wording in the article did not clearly display this. You may also be referring to the fact that poison damage makes a player essentially have 2 different, relevant life totals over the course of a Scars of Mirrodin game. Hope that clears that up!
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