The new keyword mechanic “Toxic” from the newest Magic: the Gathering set Phyrexia All Will be One is looking to be format-defining in Standard. The reason is because of the synergy of the creature cards and spells that supports it and had also opened a new archetype with several build variance. This is another opportunity to gain more knowledge of the rulings and gameplay, and also have fun experimenting with new strategies and cards.

Today’s Standard deck tech feature opens the opportunity of building the Abzan (Black/Green/White) Toxic deck. With Green and White as the solid core colors, the addition of Black makes it more efficient with spot removal card options and discard spells in the sideboard.

Here below is the video discussion I made of the Standard archetype Abzan Toxic, referenced from a user-submitted decklist on MTG Goldfish.

You can also check on the previous Standard ONE deck techs on my Youtube Channel DeathMarked TV.

The upcoming Magic: the Gathering set Phyrexia: All will be One will introduce a new level of deck archetypes for the Standard format. One that is most I am excited about is the new version of the Infect deck: Toxic. We had Infect decks before during the Mirrodin Besieged Standard and so this time is another deck strategy to impose using the Toxic mechanic.

For a quick explanation of this new mechanic, the player damaged by the creature with Toxic will take life point damage and the number on the card after the Toxic keyword will give them the same number of Poison Counters. This effect and the return of Proliferate will surely have the deck a sure-win condition that disregards life gain effects and a high life total.

I assume the colors would be Black and Green or Golgari but other options such as Red-Green is also possible. My first choice is Black-Green as based on the previous builds of the Infect decks in Scars of Mirrodin Standard. Using Green has huge trample creatures with Toxic, and Black for access to spot removals, and recursion spells and to disrupt opponents with discard spells to carry out your gameplan as smoothly as possible.

We will do a check again once the Phyrexia: All will be One complete spoiler is out. We will see and consider some relevant Toxic creatures from the set as a potential candidate for the deck. Also, I will be posting a Standard deck tech discussion to feature this archetype.

That is a wrap for now, until the next blog post.