Hope everyone had a helluva October!

Yeah, time does fly, and looks like we’re hitting the home stretch before the year-end holidays are upon us.

The coming holidays are all about merriment – but us gamers will never stop trying out the good stuff. That means, unleashing havoc and misery on your hapless foes.

I’ve written a fair bit about Magic of late, and forgive me while I continue so. Hey, it’s all in the spirit of the new decks that have popped up since Scars of Mirrodin appeared.

While I may have voiced my scepticism on the set’s power levels, it’s still fun on quite a few levels.

You’re toxic

The new crop of poison decks are a fine example: they’re powerful, but not overly powerful that every game becomes an autowin if someone wields the deck.

Check out the latest MagicTheGathering.com Building on a Budget update for some really affordable ways one can poison his opponents.

There’s really no better way of putting it – the decklists above provide some fine inspiration to killing your opponent in one of the most efficient ways possible.

Remember, you can’t remove poison counters! Unless you play Legacy / casual of course – this is where Leeches will come in handy. It was printed in Homelands, arguably one of the worst ever Magic expansions to be ever produced.

So what do us non-Legacy dudes do when facing poison decks? Well, if you’re playing Red, you should be in good shape: burn everything that comes your way. Then burn some more – it leaves the end-game finely-balanced, but hey, all decent burn decks should have a finisher of sort so at least the odds look better for you!

Discard strategies should also work strongly against poison. Hit them hard, and hit them often, so nothing, or so few things hit the battlefield that your own threats will just take them out.

My own strategy these days is to pack at least eight removal spells – some days I go up to 12 or even 15, just so I’m guaranteed a kill / exile spell in hand when faced with an Infect-ious bugger.

It’s easy to die to poison when one is unprepared, so be safe and pack the appropriate countermeasures. And what better way to do that than 4x Path to Exile, 4x Swords to Plowshares, 4x Oblivion Ring and 3x / 4x Condemn?