If you want to see powercreep in action, compare this to Ichorclaw Myr.
Ichorclaw costs 1 mana less, is colorless (compatible with any deck), has a Wither effect against creatures, becomes 3/3 when blocked or attacked.
Pit Scorpion... I guess it deals one damage to players as opposed to only a placing a poison counter, I guess. And it's immune to Doom Blade?
Posted By:
Arachnos
(4/9/2012 2:45:22 PM)
As a new player (which was in a time between Scourge and Mirrodin) i was overly astonished when i saw these old poison counter creatures for the first time, thinking:
"A card that had 'he or she loses the game' written on it just has to be awesome, right?"
By now that we're back on Mirrodin i've realized how crappy most of them actually were.
Ask Contagious Nim, he'll agree with me.
Posted By:
Mode
(6/10/2011 3:12:32 PM)
back when there were conservative about poison. Now? Phyrisis and Skithiryx
Posted By:
Kindulas
(1/25/2011 6:10:58 PM)
decent casting cost.
when playing with poison we'll take what we can get.
I wouldn't want to step on that thing!
Posted By:
Chrs84
(10/28/2009 9:11:58 PM)
Poison is a good mechanic, and I'm glad MaRo decided to push it in Scars of Mirrodin Block. :)
I also agree with the camp that thinks it was maybe way too much for Standard. That's why it was so smart to use it with Phyrexians. Then the Horribleness of it is actually FLAVORFUL and you appease a small percent of the haters on that note. :P
Overall, for Legacy, Modern, Casual, and EDH, we have about as much Poison as the game needs, I think now. It would have been fairly tricky to find a way to sneak in that much Poison one card at a time and actually enable Poison Decks. A Poison Block was needed, and I consider the Standard and Limited environments of Scars of Mirrodin Block to be Sacrifices to making Poison as good as it deserves to be in the rest of the formats. :P
As an interesting curio, there are only roughly half a dozen Scorpions in Magic. I personally think they, along with Spiders, ought to be retconned in a second Grand Creature Update to be "Arachnids", since right now ... (see all)
Posted By:
DarthParallax
(3/19/2013 10:10:37 AM)
Plenty different from infect, and in interesting ways. Note that Scorpion still does its regular 1 damage in addition to the poison counter. Also, it doesn't need to do combat damage in order to deliver its poison payload (so you could use something like Quicksilver Dagger with it).
Scorpion wouldn't deliver more poison due to Giant Growth type effects, but it also successfully delivers a poison counter when unblocked even if its power is reduced to 0 (for the same reason that Xantid Swarm has a cool effect even when not buffed).
Posted By:
Salient
(8/31/2011 9:55:13 PM)
Hmmm...a Pit Scorpion with Whispersilk Cloak...
Posted By:
Jokergius
(8/18/2009 9:02:46 PM)
Strictly worse than Sabertooth Cobra.
Posted By:
nammertime
(11/12/2009 4:38:18 AM)
does the defending player get a poison counter and 1 dmg, or just a poison counter?
Posted By:
Zefaris
(4/20/2010 9:26:38 AM)
4th edition and Legends art was better, imho.
Posted By:
creepycrawler
(5/27/2013 7:05:39 PM)