How many poison counters does it take to kill a team in Two-Headed Giant?
Asked by dude1818 14 years ago
Would it still be 10, or would it scale up like life does?
Hang on, I thought in two-headed giant it was a shared life total, and when a creature attacks it attacks that life total which is why either player in the team can block attacking creatures. I would advise looking up some official rulings on this.
November 20, 2010 1:19 a.m.
No where in the comp rules does it mention poison counters and 2HG.
November 20, 2010 1:24 a.m.
Poison Counters aren't the same as a life total. Two-Headed Giant has always been a bit of a rules breaker though.
There is no specific citation for poison counters at the moment, but generally, the ruling is that if there is any effect or ability that would cause one member of the team to lose, they would both lose.
Example : The most popular alternate win condition up until now was mill. If you mill one member of a two-headed giant team until they lose, the entire team loses. One person does not keep playing by themselves.
Although each person in a Two Headed Giant team shares life totals, they do not share poison counters. When you attack them, you must specify which person is getting the poison counters (just like you'd specify who is getting milled), and if either head reaches 10, you lose.
November 20, 2010 1:42 a.m.
Okay, done a little bit of reading, and what I've picked up goes something along these lines:
1) Once one player reaches 10 poison counters, they lose the game.
2) When one player of a 2-Headed Giant team loses the game, the team loses.
3) During damage calculation in 2HG, the defending team chooses which player is dealt any damage which is being dealt to players, and as normal damage it will reduce the shared life total.
4) If, on the other hand, the damage is being dealt as poison counters, these will only be applied to one player, being the player the defending team has decided will take the damage.
My source is a Wizards community discussion. They quote several rules here and I believe I've picked up the proper interpretation.
November 20, 2010 1:43 a.m.
Edit: Misread, the attacking team chooses how the players take damage. My bad.
November 20, 2010 1:45 a.m.
huh.
well, in casual games with friends, we always started at 30 life in a 2HG game and had 15 counters as a loss with poison.
but that was just us.
i think the "official" way might be a lot more proper. considering my team was the only one who played infect, and we'd always beat them. lol
November 20, 2010 2:09 a.m.
thaimaishuu says... #9
I do a lot of 2HG. Siegfried has it down with the rulings. Poison works in nearly the same fashion as mill, it targets only one player. When one player gets 10 poison counters they immediately lose the game and so does the team.
One fix on point 4):
You still must keep track of poison counters separately on all players. This is because cards like Ichor Rats poison every player. This doesn't mean each team gets 2 poison counters, but each player on a team gets 1 poison. So in essence, it is important to note which of the two players you are targeting when dealing infect damage. It is similar to milling, in that you must keep track of who you are milling.
xeratheenigma says... #1
you just need ten poison counters on one player to win.
in two headed giant when you declare attacks you decide which player the creature is attacking and that respective player will recieve the poison counters. so once one player reaches ten poison counters that players team will lose the game.
hope this helps
November 20, 2010 12:02 a.m.