Poison Seeds

Poison Seeds is a common druid spell card, from the Naxxramas set. It summons Treants.

Order of events

 * Along with Mimiron's Head, Reincarnate and Yogg-Saron, Hope's End, these cards utilize the Forced Death Phase mechanic to resolve deaths in the middle of a Phase, rather than at the end of the Phase. This is in order to make room for the Treants to be summoned. If Poisons Seeds obeyed the normal card rules, due to the 7 minion limit, a player who had 5 minions before Poison Seeds was played would gain only 2 Treants, while a player with 7 minions on the board would gain none. Poisons Seeds therefore destroys minions immediately, before then summoning Treants.


 * However, any Deathrattles will still activate before Treants are summoned. This can cause minions such as Haunted Creeper to summon new minions, reducing available board space for Treants. Due to the 7 minion board limit, it is possible to waste potential Treants due to having minions such as Haunted Creeper on the board when Poison Seeds is played.

Strategy
Clearly, this card is most useful when the opponent has substantially higher-quality minions: The 2/2 Treants summoned in their place are far from harmless, but possess no special abilities. This is especially true if the casting player has a greater number of low-quality minions, since not only will the powerful enemies be removed, but the player will be left with a numerical advantage on the now-equal minions. Poison Seeds also synergizes well with Deathrattles such as Mounted Raptor or Soul of the Forest, as the minions will be destroyed instead of transformed. Remember to take care as this applies to enemy Deathrattles as well.

Before casting Poison Seeds, players should look for any attacks that kill an opponent's minion without killing their own (or, more rarely, trading some of their own minions to clear a greater number of the opponent's), resulting in a net gain of Treants over the opponent. One-for-one trades may also be appropriate since the opponent's Treants will be able to act first, possibly allowing the opponent to buff them or deal an unacceptable amount of damage instead of trading. Any minions not used for trading should be used to attack the opponent before being sacrificed. For example:
 * A druid with a 4/3 Spellbreaker, 3/1 Wolfrider, and 1/1 Novice Engineer facing a mage's 2/2 Coldlight Oracle, 4/4 Ogre Magi, and 4/12 Ysera should probably hit the Oracle with the Spellbreaker (a "free" kill) and hit the mage with the other two minions before casting Poison Seeds, resulting in 4 damage against the mage and a 3-to-2 Treant advantage.
 * A druid with 2 3/2 Bloodfen Raptors and 2 2/2 Frostwolf Grunts facing a paladin's 3/5 Sen'jin Shieldmasta, 2 1/1 Silver Hand Recruits, and 8/8 Alexstrasza will want to trade 2 of his minions for the Shieldmasta and kill the recruits with the other two: Even though the 2-for-1 for the Shieldmasta is a bad trade, it's made up for by the "free" recruit kills, resulting in a 2-to-1 Treant count instead of a 4-to-4 even board.
 * A druid with 2 5/1 Magma Ragers against a shaman's 2 2/2 Ironforge Riflemen, 8/8 Nozdormu and 12/12 Deathwing has a choice whether to trade the Magma Ragers for the Riflemen, or to hit the shaman before casting Poison Seeds. He must weigh the value of 10 damage against the shaman with the danger of a possible Bloodlust or similar spell that is much more powerful with 4 minions on the board.

This spell is often comboed with Starfall (using its area of effect damage Choose One option) for a 9 mana full board clear, or Spreading Plague to present an insurmountable wall of taunts, since Treants trade poorly with the Scarabs. This is effective even for removing multiple extremely high-Health targets or those protected by a Divine Shield or elusiveness. Due to the huge number of minions destroyed in that turn (each enemy minion provides 2 deaths: one from the Poison Seed, the other from the Starfall, for a potential 14 deaths), the player might be able to play one or two powerful Volcanic Lumberers to gain board control.

Trivia

 * The artwork for this card comes from the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game "Wrathgate" series, for the card.
 * This card was specifically designed to interact with minions' Deathrattles rather than simply transforming them.
 * This is the only card that allows non-druids to use Treants without involving mind control or copy effects.

Patch changes

 * Nature spell school added.
 * Added.