One of the most divisive mechanics ever printed in Magic: The Gathering's history is Infect. An infect creature deals damage to a player in the form of poison counters, and to creatures in the form of -1/-1 counters. Most people these days have encountered infect on their Commander tables, and many have seen toxic creatures, from Phyrexia: All Will Be One, but the history of this mechanic goes back a long way, longer than most expect.

The Threat Of Poison

Poison counters end the game early. For a player to die from poison counter damage, they need ten counters attached to them. In constructed Magic, each player has 20 life, and poison halves that value. In Commander, where each player has 40 life, it can significantly shorten the game.

Even when it was in Standard rotation, and it only cut the life total by half, many players were unhappy with the mechanic. However, there's a balance. Most creatures carrying infect were tiny and easily dealt with by removal. In Commander, that doesn't make much of a difference, since there's so many ways to bring back those tiny infect creatures and make them bigger. As a longer Format, slower mechanics like Proliferate play well with poison counters, making it so that a player only needs one before the other player just proliferate them out of the game on a good turn.

Yet, despite its haters, poison counters still find their way onto players, either through incremental spells (Infectious Inquiry, for example), or via a one-off toxic creature that fit's a deck's theme. Yet, infect and poison weren't where poison counters started. For that, we have to go back to the early days of Magic.

The Early Infection

In its early days, poison counters were more of a flavor win than anything else. For example, snakes like Marsh Viper or Sabertooth Cobra were snakes, and dealing damage as "poison counters" made sense.

Yet these cards weren't the first to get the poison counter treatment. Suq'Ata Assassin (Visions) and Swamp Mosquito (Alliances) are among the earliest mentions of the mechanic. Homelands (1995) has a card named Leeches that references poison counters as well. In Legends (1995) Pit Scorpion and Serpent Generator were the core cards featured with the mechanic. It appeared on cards right up until Tempest (1997) before disappearing.

A Timeline Of Poison Counters

After poison counters were rejected as a core design mechanic in Tempest we didn't see them return until Scars of Mirrodin, but with a difference. It seems like R&D was prototyping Infect with a mechanic that came out a few years before in Shadowmoor (2008) - a mechanic named Wither.

Wither wasn't so impactful, but it circumvented a major gameplay feature of Magic itself: Damage is usually removed at the end of the turn. Wither made that damage stick around in the form of -1/-1 counters. As a result, Wither led to grindy board states and not-very-fun interplay at a table. And yet...

In 2010, with the Scars of Mirrodin block, Infect made its debut, combining the elements of poison counters, with Wither to come up with something completely different. Although, eventually, it turned out that giving creatures infect and a handful of cheap pump spells led to games finishing faster than anyone would have expected.

Infect became a top-tier contender in Modern Format, and remained that way until power creep crept the mechanic out of favor. You'll still find one or two infect decks in Modern but for the most part, it's no longer a top-tier deck. However, poison counters weren't completely gone yet, even though it took eleven years for Wizards of the Coast to consider including them in a set.

Poison Makes A Return With Toxic

Infect was too powerful to be included in a current Standard set, but Wizards wanted poison to make a comeback in a Standard-Legal set. Phyrexia: All Will Be One showed off the new Toxic mechanic, and it looked a lot like Poisonous, which dealt damage and then stacked poison counters on the opponent.

So, is toxic just poisonous by a different name? Not quite. Toxic is a static effect, so when the creature with Toxic deals damage, the player gets a certain amount of poison counters. However, Poisonous uses the stack, and as a result, can be countered by anything that would counter abilities, like Stifle or Disallow. Toxic doesn't use the stack and the player just automatically gets the poison counters.

Did Toxic Fix Infect?

Since Infect is such a divisive keyword, it's hard to talk about it being "fixed" if you never considered it broken. However, the inherent advantage poison counters give to a player is impossible to understate.

As we've seen in the Phyrexia: All Will Be One Standard environment, Toxic is still plenty powerful, while avoiding turn one and two wins. Wins can still come out of nowhere, but there's still a lot that a player can do to interact with the opponent.

So, Toxic fixed the worst parts of infect while still keeping the good parts of it. There's no more -1/-1 counters to track on damaged enemies, and a wide variety of ways to progress the game. Sure, it still shortens the game significantly, but who doesn't like shorter games?

Will We See These Mechanics Again?

For now, the Phyrexian threat is settled, but as we know from thirty years of Magic, they're always just building up for a new invasion. As such, we're likely to see poison counters make a return.

On the Storm Scale, Toxic is a 5, Infect is a 7, and Poisonous is a 10 (meaning it'll never make a return). We'll probably see Toxic the next time the Phyrexians rear their ugly heads, but Infect might not be making a return and we'll never see another Poisonous card.

Regardless of if you like or hate poison counters, you have to admit, the evolution of this mechanic is interesting and highly surprising. I, for one, can't wait to see how they spice up Toxic the next time the mechanic makes a return.