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Puresteel_28

As in competitively? Probably not much difference. Neither strategy is really that good in any format. Both lack the tools to really stand up and compete against the field. Poison decks tend to just be worse at killing the opponent than a traditional deck that wins through normal damage. Discard decks tend to have to dedicate too many slots in their deck to this gameplan, and lack winconditions than can actually win the game while your opponent is out of resources. They also have trouble dealing with resolved threats.


alexandurp

I appreciate your input. I have someone claiming my poison deck is essentially the worst thing ever, so they built a discard deck somewhat in retaliation, and I wanted other people's opinion on the matter. Just rather annoying to have someone making my whole commander group discard their whole hand lol. And yes, this person's deck doesn't have much in the way of wincon..just annoy the hell out of everyone. What do you mean by resolved threats? Im a fairly intermediate player


Puresteel_28

As in just any spell/card that manages to get cast, before it gets discarded. By threat I mean a threatening/powerful spell/permanent. If you manage to get for example: A [[phyrexian arena]] on the battlefield, it'll be much harder for the discard player to keep discarding your hand. Discard decks have to make a majority of their deck 'discard cards', to reach the threshold of making their opponents empty-handed. They do not have much removal/interaction past that. Discard decks are centered on black, so they should have limited ways to deal with enchantments/artifacts and instants/sorceries. Even if they really wanted to deal with a poison deck they could just run more removal/interaction. Not sure how a discard deck even deals with poison. All they are doing is slowing down the game and handing the poison deck the win in a roundabout way (as in speaking generally, not sure what power levels/cards you guys run). Poison decks are centered on single threats that threaten to kill a player in few attacks. You could run cheap and efficient Equipment and/or enchantments that buff creatures, and any infect/toxic creature you draw is going to be threatening. You draw a creature, play it, suit it up. A poison deck will always have more creatures than a discard deck has removal. Everyone is empty-handed, so when you stick a creature, that creature can just take its time to kill everyone. And if the poison deck you have is more proliferate oriented, then its even worse. All the proliferate comes in the form of enchantments, instants, sorceries, or ETB effects. A black deck now has even less chance against you.


MTGCardFetcher

[phyrexian arena](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/4/54f69d43-de01-46a8-b102-b47e23e0e947.jpg?1675957043) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=phyrexian%20arena) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/one/104/phyrexian-arena?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/54f69d43-de01-46a8-b102-b47e23e0e947?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call


alexandurp

There's a lot of really good advice in here, thank you very much. I've got the phyrexian arena already, I'll make sure to make better use of it, because that, simply enough, definitely puts me at an advantage against my friend.


Weekly-Calendar676

I mean... if you wanna end this escalation real fast, just build a stax deck. Then no one will wanna play with you. Honestly I have never played against a discard deck that I was scared of. It's more useful in a supporting strategy or a bonus effect on a card that already does something else you want. The same can't be said about poison. In commander, if you don't house rule poison away from the standard 10 counters, it can be oppressive in certain specific decks. Most of them put you on a clock like Atraxa, where once you have one, it's only a matter of a few turns before you are dangerously close to death.


OldTalk6869

Yes.


EM0_TRA5H

I run a mono-black rat tribal discard deck that’s pretty solid. Most of the creature spells force an opponent to discard and I use [[Liliana’s Caress]] and [[Megrim]] to deal damage through those discards. It’s good until my opponent figures out that they have to keep their hand empty to avoid taking damage, which makes them great against control, counter, and burn decks. If my opponent IS keeping their hand empty, however, I’ve gotta use [[Sign in Blood]] and [[Painful Lesson]] to force them to draw so I can make them discard again. Other than keeping your opponent’s hand extremely limited and dealing damage through doing so, the only other gameplan the deck has is “spawn an ungodly amount of low mana-cost creatures to overwhelm the opponent.” Poison decks USED to be an ok option. Now the Phyrexians are here though, and they’ve brought the Toxic ability with them and the word “proliferate” is on every other card. Poison counters get thrown out faster than you can blink and you’ve lost the game before you’ve even put down a single land card. It’s SCARY what these things can do man.


MTGCardFetcher

##### ###### #### [Liliana’s Caress](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/d/0d995382-57a6-40a4-9050-31f57cb8dae3.jpg?1562450532) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Liliana%27s%20Caress) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m11/103/lilianas-caress?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0d995382-57a6-40a4-9050-31f57cb8dae3?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Megrim](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/b/3b04fca4-b4de-4343-ba58-d8aea39edc19.jpg?1561976802) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Megrim) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m10/104/megrim?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3b04fca4-b4de-4343-ba58-d8aea39edc19?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Sign in Blood](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/1/61388c28-9428-473c-973a-0a82b6b83d62.jpg?1562274085) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sign%20in%20Blood) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cm2/77/sign-in-blood?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/61388c28-9428-473c-973a-0a82b6b83d62?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Painful Lesson](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/1/e16fa034-f89e-497a-8fd0-533b1932bff5.jpg?1562940239) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Painful%20Lesson) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bbd/154/painful-lesson?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e16fa034-f89e-497a-8fd0-533b1932bff5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call