Commander releases inMagic: The Gatheringalways bring something interesting. New mechanics, cards, and different ways to win games with never before seen creatures. Whether you’re looking to upgrade your existing decks with new cards or a good jumping-off point to build something new, every Commander release is always a great time for players.
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The Corrupting Influence Commander deck is one of two Commander decks released alongside Phyrexia: All Will Be One. With a focus on poisoning your opponents and winning through overwhelming card advantage and board presence, there are tons of great cards to spread Phyrexia’s love around with.
10Phyresis Outbreak
In a deckwhere poison counters are incredibly important, cards like Phyresis Outbreak help you give all your opponents the gift of phyresis while clearing the way for your creatures to get some hits in. For just three mana, you can give each opponent a poison counter, starting a very short clock for an alternate win condition. Phyresis Outbreak then gives your opponents creatures -1/-1 for each poison counter its controller has.
Early on, Phyresis Outbreak can deal with smaller creatures or decks that rely on small token creatures to win.
9Geth’s Summons
Now that you’ve started to rack up poison counters on your opponents, you’re able to use cards like Geth’s Summons to start using your cards to their full potential.
Geth’s Summons is areanimation spell on its surface, returning a creature from your graveyard to the battlefield. However, once you hit the corrupted threshold, three poison counters on an opponent, you get to return creatures from each of your opponent’s graveyards under your control so long as they have three or more poison counters.
8Norn’s Decree
If you need a little help getting your opponents to three poison counters then Norn’s Decree can help. Norn’s Decree punishes your opponents when they deal combat damage to you by giving them a poison counter in return.
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Norn’s Decree isn’t done there, adding a level of politics to the game with its second ability. When any player is being attacked, so long as the defending player is poisoned, the attacking player draws a card. Odds are you won’t have any poison counters, encouraging your opponents to attack each other to draw cards.
7Contaminant Grafter
Now that your opponents are poisoned, you need to keep the momentum going with cards that proliferate. Contaminant Grafter can apply poison counters with the dangerous keyword combination of trample and toxic 1, along with a 6/6 body to make it even more difficult to block fully. Then, whenever a creature you control deals any sort of combat damage to an opponent, you proliferate, ticking up counters on any number of targets of your choice.
Once you hit three poison counters on one or more opponents, you can put lands into play from your hand at the start of your end step, helping you ramp up in mana if you have any lingering lands in hand.
6Wurmquake
If you have a ton of extra mana lying around, Wurmquake can be a great sink for all those spare resources. For six mana, you get a 6/6 Phyrexian Wurm token with trample and toxic 1, which is pretty solid overall.
Wurmquake starts to spiral out of control when you meet the corrupted ability triggers, creating additional copies of your Wurm token for each opponent with three poison counters. Then, after a few turns, you’re able to flash it back, creating 10/10 tokens instead and potentially giving you a few turns to poison out your opponents who might not have hit the required amount.
5Norn’s Choirmaster
A 5/4 creature with flying and first strike for five mana is a solid body already, giving Norn’s Choirmaster a fair amount of control over the skies. It gets better the more freedom you have to cast and attack with your commander, and if you have a good start on ticking up your opponent’s poison counters.
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Norn’s Choirmaster gives you a new way to proliferate your opponent’s poison counters up by proliferating whenever your commander enters the battlefield or attacks. It is important to note that this is not a cast trigger, so if you have a way to blink your commander a few times or gain multiple combat steps, you can trigger this effect multiple times in a turn.
4Glissa’s Retriever
This creature does tons of stuff for just six mana. It has haste and toxic 3, meaning it can attack the turn it comes out and adds three poison counters when it deals damage to a player. This makes it a great creature to cast after a board wipe or into an open field. Even if there are creatures out, if their power is two or less, they can’t block Glissa’s Retriever at all.
Being such an imposing creature, Glissa’s Retriever has a bit of a target on it, but when it dies, you get to return X cards from your graveyard to your hand equal to the number of opponents with three or more poison counters on it, helping to refill your hand once it dies.
3Vishgraz, The Doomhive
As the alternate commander for the Corrupting Influence deck, Vishgraz, the Doomhive makes a powerful creature to watch out for. It has two keyword abilities, menace and toxic 1, giving it evasion and a way to add poison counters to your opponents.
It also gains +1/+1 for each poison counter your opponents have, slowly gaining power over the course of the game. You need to be careful with this ability, though, since if a player leaves the game for any reason, Vishgraz will lose power.
2Grafted Exoskeleton
If you want a fast way to close out a game then Grafted Exoskeleton is the way to go. Turns out, giving any creature you want infect byslapping an equipment to itcreates all sorts of problems for your opponents. If you have a creature that is unblockable, you’re able to rack up poison counters quickly.
Another silly possibility is attaching Grafted Exoskeleton to Hydra Omnivore, which deals damage to all opponents when it hits one opponent. Not to mention, it is an 8/8 creature and the extra +2/+2 from Grafted Exoskeleton means you can hit an opponent with ten poison counters and then spread it to all opponents if you’re lucky.
1Ixhel, Scion Of Atraxa
One of the best payoffs for all those poison counters you’ve been handing out is the main commander of the Corrupting Influence deck, Ixhel, Scion of Atraxa. Having flying and toxic 2 lets you rack up poison counters without much interference.
Once you hit three or more poison counters on a player, you start stealing their cards, which is such a wildly good payoff for just three poison counters. The cards exiled this way can be cast as long as they’re in exile, so even if Ixhel gets destroyed or removed from the battlefield, those cards are yours.
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