Melira, the Living Cure
Poison had a wallflower named Melira long before this one: the original stopped Infect cold and shut down the whole -1/-1 counter subgame with a single static line. This version keeps that lineage's core function (the poison cap is a hard shutter against the fastest infect and toxic clocks, letting exactly one counter land and sealing the door for the turn) but bolts on a second identity that answers a completely different question. The exile ability is the wrinkle: pay her to exile, tag a creature or artifact, and anything that kills that thing this turn hands it right back to the battlefield the moment it reaches the graveyard. Because the clause carries no timing restriction, it works reactively (hold priority, exile her as a target is being removed, and let it rebound) as readily as proactively, set up before a block. The two halves pull opposite directions, which is what makes the card odd to evaluate: the poison clause is defensive hate that wants to sit on the board, while the exile clause spends the body itself, a one-shot that removes her from play to fire. A 3/3 for two mana in these colors is a fair enough shell to carry both without asking you to build around either, though committing the exile means surrendering the poison hate for the rest of the game. A hate bear that also doubles as insurance for a single blowout, a pairing that rarely lives on the same card.




