Poison the Waters
Sorcery
Choose one —
• All creatures get -1/-1 until end of turn.
• Target player reveals their hand. You choose an artifact or creature card from it. That player discards that card.
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Final Fantasy
- Price
- $0.14
- EDHREC rank
- #13489
Poison the Waters puts a -1/-1 counter on every creature an opponent controls — a one-sided board suppressant that scales with the widest board at the table. The cost is steep at six mana, but Maha, Its Feathers Night laughs at that number, turning the counter distribution into direct power on the spot.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Maha, Its Feathers Night
Maha, Its Feathers Night gets +1/+1 for each -1/-1 counter placed on creatures, so Poison the Waters hitting a full board doesn't just answer threats — it can represent a lethal power spike in a single cast.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Poison the Waters does real work against go-wide strategies and token decks, and any deck running Maha, Its Feathers Night treats it as a core piece rather than a sideboard-style answer. Outside Commander, the picture is grimmer: six mana is a prohibitive rate in Legacy, Modern, and Pioneer, where targeted removal and sweepers that cost two or three mana are the baseline. Standard is the one non-Commander 60-card context where it might see fringe play if the format slows down enough, but it hasn't broken through. Oathbreaker shares the Commander dynamic — if your planeswalker cares about -1/-1 counters, Poison the Waters earns its slot.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.14 bulk tier
At $0.14, Poison the Waters is pure bulk — easy to acquire as a throw-in or bulk buy. Bulk rares rarely hold above their floor unless a deck breaks out, and this one's ceiling is tied entirely to how popular Maha, Its Feathers Night stays.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.