We are a couple of weeks into the New Standard Meta and the format is rapidly transforming. There is a lot of aggro floating around, and there are a few different decks that can do one turn kills. We know things are noticeable different now, so we must ask: what is something that could be flying under the radar and be sneakily good? We know that Bant Poison and Selesnya Poison have been around for a little bit. Heck, there have even been a few Abzan Poison lists that could at least be considered competitive. A lot of us look at poison lists, and we always have wanted to include white and green in some way, but something that has often been overlooked and maybe even underutilized is Golgari Poison. This deck will rely on stacking the Toxic Ability, so that we can connect out of nowhere for a big poison hit. A lot of the decks rely on more of a go-wide strategy that generates tokens and uses other resources to flood the board with toxic creatures. In this deck, we are going to use enchantments, artifacts, some proliferation, and some recursion to get our opponents to ten poison counters as quickly as we can. Before we get to the deck and the noteworthy cards, I'll say that I have only played it in best of one - and although the deck has done well, I would venture to say it is most well-positioned in the best of one meta. There are some viable cards for the sideboard if it were to be a best of three deck, but this list is at it's best when it is grinding those quick best of one contests. Also, did I mention this deck is really light on the wildcards/wallet? We are only running eight rare cards in the main deck and no mythics. We do run some rare lands, but those can be relatively easily be swapped out. As long as you can get off to a fast start with your mana base, you will be fine.
Old Cards Making A Big Impact
This card saw some fringe play when it first came out, but for the most part, that was it. This one is great because of how much removal there is in standard right now, and because it allows us to stack the toxic ability - as it is one of the only abilities in MTG that stacks. We have creatures that hit the board with toxic 2, and this allows us to stack it up to toxic 4 when they are able to attack, and it really gets us in for some quick poison damage early in the game. This causes our opponent to either play more carefully and slows down their gameplan, or they begin to race us, and we don't mind a race. We only have to get to ten. They have to get to twenty.
I'll be completely honest here: I didn't know this card existed until I went to put together this deck. It once again allows us to stack toxic, but it also buffs the toughness of our creatures, making them less likely to die in combat in the early game. It is also really good for our deathtouch creatures. It can easily deter attacks from our opponents. It's also nice to have a static permanent that stays on the board after removal, and not every deck has artifact removal.
Here is one of the commons that is arguably the best two drop in the deck. It's very simple why we love this card so much. It costs two mana, and it has toxic two. We want to ideally play Venerated Rotpriest on turn one, and then Stalker on turn two. We can get in for some serious poison counters this way, and if the opponent targets either creature, they are already stacking the counters. It gets even more out of hand on turn three with a Necrogen Communion or Prosthetic Injector going on either creature.
This card still sees play in some Golgari and Jund Decks, and it is excellent removal. One of the main reasons to include it is because Temporary Lockdown is our biggest enemy. We want to be able to get back all of our stuff. Since that is such a problem for these decks, it is the main reason why we don't generate many tokens, and focus more on stacking toxic on our creatures.
The deck uses some other staples within toxic archetypes, including other toxic creatures, and protection, proliferate, and fight spells.
Possible Sideboard Additions
If I were to make a sideboard for this deck, I would definitely include one of the new cards. I believe that Lively Dirge would be really good in this deck, as it would allow us to reanimate two of our creatures for pretty cheap. It would be great to bring in against removal-heavy decks. We could also add more protection spells for this reason.
Having access to some extra Drown In Ichor spells would be great, or anything that proliferates for the matter. Sometimes the deck just needs those last couple poison counters after we are topdecking to get things done.
We could also include March of Wretched Sorrow for the Mono Red matchups that might be killing us too fast.
Equally, March of Burgeoning Life isn't a bad option either, as it allows us to target one of our creatures and tutor for another. This is especially good if we want to find a Venerated Rotpriest, or another toxic creature that can help us get there.
Since we are running black, I would also have a few Duress in there as an auto-include.
Staff of Compleation might even be worth considering as a one of because of being able to proliferate and draw cards. If we are in a control matchup, we have the luxury of using our life total as a resource, so we can spend some life to apply extra poison counters to our opponent.
Lastly, I think that Vraska, Betrayal's Sting could also be a decent one of, as some late game proliferation and removal could be really good. Not to mention, she would help deter attacking our life total and possibly absorb some damage while we build the rest of our board.
