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Moxonomy

Plague Stinger

Creature — Phyrexian Insect Horror1 generic manaBlack mana

An evasive infect creature exists to do one thing the keyword's design makes ruthlessly efficient: deliver poison counters past blockers. Infect splits a creature's damage into two currencies, -1/-1 counters against creatures and poison against players, which turns this 1/1 flier into a clock that only needs ten connections to win, and flying means most decks have no clean way to interrupt those connections. The body is fragile by design, because the threat infect represents is not the creature but the math behind it: every unblocked swing is a tenth of a player's life total in a counting system that runs parallel to the normal twenty, and any pump spell pointed at an infect attacker is worth double its printed value. That is the tension the small frame pays for. A 1/1 that simply hit for one would be filler; a 1/1 that hits for one poison while ignoring ground defense is a real proactive threat, because the format's life-total math does not apply and the usual race calculus breaks. The whole Phyrexian infect package leans on this pairing of evasion and an alternate kill condition, and a cheap flier is the most reliable carrier the mechanic has: it asks the opponent to find an answer in the air or start losing the game on a track they may not have been watching.

Plague Stinger (onc)
ONC · #96common
Pricing
Normal: $0.67
Foil:
Oracle Text

Rules text

Flying Infect (This creature deals damage to creatures in the form of -1/-1 counters and to players in the form of poison counters.)
Legalities

Format Status

Standard
N/A
Pioneer
N/A
Modern
Legal
Legacy
Legal
Vintage
Legal
Commander
Legal
Pauper
Legal
Brawl
N/A
Historic
N/A
Alchemy
N/A
Timeless
N/A
Standard Brawl
N/A
More formats
Old School
N/A
Premodern
N/A
PreDH
Legal
Pauper Commander
Legal
Oathbreaker
Legal
Gladiator
N/A
Penny Dreadful
N/A
Duel Commander
Legal
Future Standard
N/A
COMPETITIVEBRAWL
N/A
TLR
Legal
Printings elsewhere

Other printings

3 sets
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