xkcd

by **Woopate** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 10:37 pm UTC

My buddy actually did a neat thing with havengul lich, perilous myr, and heartless summoning yesterday. Pay 1, myr cast from grave for 0, auto-dies from summoning, he gets a Shock. Repeat for each land. He extended the game by a lot by trying to kill me in a flashier way, but this would have ended me fast on it's own.

by **KnightExemplar** » Fri Feb 17, 2012 11:50 am UTC

The Utilitarian wrote:So. Dark Ascension. Opinions?

To me it just seems incoherent. Way too many cards invested in hyper situational mechanics. It feels like all the parts of Innistrad I looked at and went "well, that's kind of neat but has absolutely no place in any of my decks."

There's a couple nice cards of course but the vast majority of it seems too unreliable to build on.

I agree to a large part. Werewolves seem to be the new "Exalted" in many respects... they're clearly trying to make Werewolves standard deck worthy... but I'm not sure if they can ever overcome the inherent disadvantages. Even with Immerwolf, it seems like the other lords just are better.

On the other hand, I really like Undying. It literally says "Fuck you Infect" in so many ways. Undying makes previously braindead cards like Contagion Clasp and Black Sun Zenith significantly weaker, and potentially a very strong metagame choice against the current removal-heavy or infect decks in standard. Plus, I get shennanigans like crazy. In a draft, I went Blue / splash Black for Alter's Reap and Black Cats... and had one of those Relentless Skaabs on the field. I swing in for 4 damage. My opponent doesn't block the 4/4. Then, he swings in with his 3/3 (I left my field open, no more blockers ready).

I then cast Alter's Reap on my Relentless Skaab, killing it, activating Undying, which brings it back to the field untapped and with another +1/+1 counter. All in all, I draw 2 cards and kill an opponent's creature. A friend of mine noted that with Undying, killing your own creatures is now a combat trick. :twisted:

Other cards that undying helps with: Birthing Pod, Fling, Black Sun Zeneth (lol, one sided board wipe even if you got +1/+1 counters on your creatures), any of the proliferate cards (after the +1/+1 counter is placed on, you get easy proliferate). When you start looking at Undying Evil as a combat trick, you can start looking at funky things like Blind Zealot + Undying Evil or other shenanigans. I really like Undying.

by **LLCoolDave** » Fri Feb 17, 2012 12:02 pm UTC

I'm not sure if you understand the interaction correctly, but black sun's zenith on an undying creature with a +1/+1 counter on it still kills it proper: It is put into the graveyard for having zero toughness BEFORE the counters are cancelled out.

I'm also not sure what kind of standard metagame you have in mind, but outside of inkmoth nexus and the occassional phyrexian crussader there isn't much infecting going on, and removal is at a fairly low count right now as well. Maybe your local FNM metagame is vastly different to what's happening on the big stage though, so your mileage may vary.

by **KnightExemplar** » Fri Feb 17, 2012 12:22 pm UTC

LLCoolDave wrote:I'm not sure if you understand the interaction correctly, but black sun's zenith on an undying creature with a +1/+1 counter on it still kills it proper: It is put into the graveyard for having zero toughness BEFORE the counters are cancelled out.

I've looked this up after you've informed me of this... and you appear to be correct. Thanks for the clarification. Still, this beats out forms of non-lethal infect damage, which is pretty awesome in my books.

I'm also not sure what kind of standard metagame you have in mind, but outside of inkmoth nexus and the occassional phyrexian crussader there isn't much infecting going on, and removal is at a fairly low count right now as well. Maybe your local FNM metagame is vastly different to what's happening on the big stage though, so your mileage may vary.

It could be my local metagame... but I could have sworn that a deck with Gutshots and Geistflames and Arc Trails just won some tournament. I forgot the name of it however, I'll get back to you.

by **Plasma Man** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 5:06 pm UTC

I've just concluded an enjoyable weekend of Magic. Standard format FNM on Friday, where I tried out a new deck based around getting lots of tokens and a Falkenrath Noble, then wiping the board with a Day of Judgement. It worked reasonably well, it seemed to do what I wanted it to, but was just too slow to compete with the other decks.
Saturday was draft, and I went white / black with a first pack Vault of the Archangel and a third pack Bloodgift Demon. I had a truly epic game where my assault got stalled by a Niblis of the Breath tapping down my Bloodgift Demon and a large ground army, but they couldn't break through my defence. I managed to send in a few expendable creatures with a Trepanation Blade, and finally won when I pulled an Abbey Griffin that let me get damage through in the air, when they only had 2 cards left in their library and 2 life points.
Today (Sunday) was an unscanctioned Standard tournament, with novelty conditions (e.g. you get a sweet every time you kill a creature [though they did have to amend that as someone was using an infinite combo]). I played a blue / black aggro deck, based around pumping Invisible Stalker, Neurok Invisimancer and Tormented Soul, with the aim of getting enough damage through to beat my opponent before they could really get going. It worked pretty well, and my idea of dropping Piston Sledge on Invisible Stalker was highly successful. I only won two rounds out of four (2-0, 1-2, 0-2, 2-0), but I think the deck has real potential. I'm going to keep it, modify it and see how it gets on next time at FNM. I'm planning on trying to put some green in, giving me better access to pump spells, and I'll also need a bit more land (I only had 22 land in the deck, thinking that being aggro and having low casting cost stuff would make it OK, but I was always marginal on mana at best).

by **Metaphysician** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 3:35 am UTC

I've started playing on modo again and having a blast. I originally built a janky modern deck for cheap, lost interest because I just don't have much fun losing all the time lol. So the other day I decided to check out Block, built a decent block deck without spending any money as I was able to recoup 70 tix from my modern deck. So now I'm running a U/R Delver control deck. I originally just copied the list that seems to be successful at winning dailies but it ran eight janky enchantments that were just terrible unless you had them and either invisible stalker or stromkirk noble in your opening hand. Rather than rely on these cards I decided to build a more interesting deck running only Delvers and Snapcaster Mages. The rest are just burn spells, bounce spells, draw spells, a few board sweepers and counters. I definitely have some tuning to do, and honestly I may need the third expansion to rotate in before the deck is good enough. I'm also working up a G/W/B tokens deck, it's gonna take a while for me to get the cash for it though... and honestly, I'm not sure what the meta will be like by the time I have the money for it so I may just end up running U/W/B tokens instead. It depends though because I really like both Garruk and Sorin.

by **Plasma Man** » Wed Feb 22, 2012 9:50 pm UTC

Okay, can I have some opinions from the thread readers please? Next month, there's a Modern format tournament at my local games shop. I'm not going to stand much chance of doing very well, lacking both the right cards and the necessary experience to produce a good deck. The way I see it, I have two options. Option 1 is to give it my best shot. This would mean going hyper-aggressive, probably with a combination of creatures and burn spells, and hoping to win a game or two by having my deck be simple and, hopefully, reliable. Option 2 would be to admit that I'm not going to stand a chance, and to simply build a deck to do as much stuff that I think is cool and fun, so I can at least try to enjoy the experience of being stomped (and maybe amuse the other people there).
Any thoughts or suggestions?

by **RetSpline** » Wed Feb 22, 2012 11:02 pm UTC

My suggestion differs (though only slightly) depending on the elimination format of the event. If it's a a Swiss tournament, or any other style where you're guaranteed the opportunity to play a lot of games regardless of how well you do then it might be worth building the "Bad but fun" deck. On the other hand, if it's single/double elimination then I personally would advise against it. I obviously can't speak for you, but I wouldn't find it fun to get rolled 4 game in a row then have nothing to do the remainder of the night.

Overall my suggestion would be some sort of very aggressive high risk/high reward strategy. If you feel like you aren't going to get any fair wins, then don't try to play fair. Obviously I'm not advocating cheating, just playing a deck that maybe doesn't operate along the usual axes of attack. Unfortunately, I don't know Modern well enough to make any real deck suggestions. Is mono infect+pumps still a thing?

by **++$_** » Thu Feb 23, 2012 5:26 am UTC

If you're looking for deck suggestions:

The cheapest deck in Modern is almost certainly storm. You will have to fight through dedicated sideboard hate, but the deck is strong and it's mostly commons, so it should be easy to obtain. Here is a list from the recent GP that was undefeated on Day 1:

Spoiler:

The Gifts are probably unnecessarily cute. You can do a more traditional build if you want (and it will be cheaper).

The best all-in aggro deck in modern is Affinity (aka Artifact Aggro aka Angry Robots). It is also quite cheap for a tier 1 Modern deck.

The list of Mary Jacobson, also from the GP, is good (and she made Top 8 with it):

Spoiler:

You can tweak as desired. If it is necessary to make the deck cheaper, things like Thoughtcasts and Myr Enforcers can replace a handful of the expensive cards, but this will weaken the deck. Also, Inkmoth Nexus is not really replaceable, unfortunately. The good news is that it is very easy to trade Inkmoth Nexi right now, so if you build the deck, use it once, and want to get rid of the Nexi afterwards, you can probably get some pretty good stuff for them.

Obviously you die to Ancient Grudge.

A cool deck that is somewhat off the radar is Ad Nauseam Conflagrate. The idea is that you cast Angel's Grace, followed by Ad Nauseam, drawing your entire deck (and going to less than 0 life, but it doesn't matter because you can't lose). Then you flash back Conflagrate for lethal by discarding your hand. The cool thing about this deck is that you get to play 4x Pact of Negation to protect yourself when you go off.

I can't find a totally satisfactory list right now, but if you look around you'll find one. I believe the deck had some good results in online Daily Events. Most of the cards are reasonably cheap, with the main cost being the manabase and Pacts of Negation.

by **halbarad** » Fri Feb 24, 2012 11:25 am UTC

I was in a modern event a few months ago and played Battle of Wits, purely because I had the deck already and it's lots of fun. I went 2-2 against some pretty aggressive decks and most of my losses were due to missing land drops. It's not a deck for people with small hands though as 250 cards are tough to shuffle (and I'd say impossible to shuffle if you use deck protectors). I ran with an almost entirely common and uncommon card pool with the only rares being 4 Battle of Wits and a few copies of Vedalken Orrery and Leyline of Anticipation I had lying around. It's pretty much the ultimate combo deck where every card is either a tutor effect (often a tutor for a tutor), a mana accel (I ran almost every signet that included blue or black) or some way to keep you alive another turn or two.

by **Black Dynamite** » Sun Feb 26, 2012 9:10 am UTC

People have been saying that WOTC are killing combo in modern, but I don't think that is true at all. I think Ad Nauseum is a wonderful modern combo deck, as well as U/R Past In Flames, Martyr-Proc, Melira-Pod, and Eggs. Combo is my favorite sort of deck; I adore that whole, "oops, I win :oops:

," feeling.

I have Eggs completely built and have been playing it in live tournaments since modern started as a format. It really is one of the most difficult to pilot combo decks. It's also very unexpected at tournaments.

by **Metaphysician** » Sun Feb 26, 2012 8:54 pm UTC

Black Dynamite wrote:People have been saying that WOTC are killing combo in modern, but I don't think that is true at all. I think Ad Nauseum is a wonderful modern combo deck, as well as U/R Past In Flames, Martyr-Proc, Melira-Pod, and Eggs. Combo is my favorite sort of deck; I adore that whole, "oops, I win ," feeling.

I have Eggs completely built and have been playing it in live tournaments since modern started as a format. It really is one of the most difficult to pilot combo decks. It's also very unexpected at tournaments.

They just banned out a couple cards making the most obvious, overpowered combo decks non-contenders. As the format develops, people will get less lazy and more inventive, there's plenty of combo out there.

On an unrelated note. I've been playing some ISD Block Constructed lately, this format is extremely homogeneous and pretty much consists thus far of two decks, b/w tokens, r/w tokens, and variations on them with self mill decks making an appearance sometimes. I got frustrated with my delver deck, and sold it. Not having enough tix to be lazy and buy one of the "good" decks I decided to try to ruin the day of people playing the "good" decks and I think I've hit on something rather sick. Basically it's a G/W/B Rock deck, that just plays tons of cards that garner tiny advantages throughout the game, and a couple big finishers that generally make tokens die. Thus far I haven't lost a match, what games I have lost have been due to color screw (still fine tuning the mana base). The deck must be incredibly infuriating to play against because of the five matches I've won today, the person has quit after the first game in four of them. The fifth match the person won the first game, lost the second and promptly quit after losing the second. I am pretty excited as this is probably the first time I've built a deck from scratch and had it do this well.

Oh and the GWB deck I'm playing right now cost less than 25 tix.

My modo user name is net_vagabond if anybody ever wants to play some block.

by **EdgarJPublius** » Fri Mar 30, 2012 10:05 pm UTC

Picked up a 'Rot From Within' event deck last week so I could have a standard legal (with some finagling) deck for FNM. I have to say, it is pretty fun in an evil sort of way. I typically play blue/black but the store didn't have many standard legal decks to choose from so I had to try something new, and I'm glad I did. The only thing it really needs is some Giant Growth and possibly some Blanchwood Armor, unfortunately neither are currently in Standard.
I still may try to splash blue though, because not having counterspells can be really annoying sometimes.

My first tournament in years was a pretty fun experience over-all. The last time I tried to play in a tournament most of the other competitors were jerks and/or asshats and pretty much all of the decks on display were exploitative. While there were still a few exploitative decks, most of the players were easy-going, and even the people with cheap decks were at least nice about it.

Since I'm getting back into magic, I'm trying to rebuild a deck I used to play with all the time that was stolen many years ago. One card in particular has eluded me. Unfortunately, I can't remember the name or set or color or even type (enchantment or artifact I believe, leaning towards artifact.)
The only thing I recall is that the effect was something along the lines of 'You may treat other players graveyards as though they were your own'.
It was a great complement to my organ grinders and painbringers, but searching through online card databases hasn't turned up anything. If anyone has an idea of what the card is, or can even just help narrow the search a bit, I'd be grateful.

by **SecondTalon** » Mon Apr 02, 2012 9:59 pm UTC

You tried here, right?

Can you remember anything else the text might have said?

by **phlip** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 12:23 am UTC

The closest I can find is Shaman's Trance, which (a) isn't a permanent, and (b) doesn't let you consider cards in other players' graveyards as your own for all purposes, it just lets you cast them (eg for things like Flashback that let you cast from the graveyard).

by **EdgarJPublius** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 3:55 am UTC

SexyTalon wrote:You tried here, right?

Can you remember anything else the text might have said?

Yea. just about the only thing I haven't done is use gatherer for an exhaustive search of all cards with 'graveyard' in the text (though I've gotten through several pages of that search)

I feel like the card's name was something along the lines of "'proper noun/demonym' reactor/crucible/forge/powerplant/vault/tomb/crypt/mine" but I haven't turned up anything searching for those words in card names.

by **phlip** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 4:12 am UTC

Well, the card I linked to above was found by searching Gatherer for all cards where the text included "graveyards" plural, and it was the only card in the results that looked similar to what you were after...

by **Telchar** » Wed Apr 11, 2012 3:49 am UTC

Building a Jenara EDH deck. More agro than combo/control, blue mainly being used for card draw (rhystic study etc...) and expensive/interesting creatures (stormtide leviathan, consecrated/ForF Sphinx) and some small ETB creatures abusable by Venser and some graveyard manipulation. Seems to be good in concept and hard to counter because it's not strictly voltron but not strictly agro. No black is bumming me out but Bant has a lot of what I like in black so I think it'll work out.

Anyone else still playing EDH? Any suggestions?

by **Azrael001** » Wed Apr 11, 2012 4:07 am UTC

I'm playing a Kalia of the Vast (one of the commanders from the premade decks) and I'm watching the spoilers of the latest set with baited breath.

by **Telchar** » Thu Apr 12, 2012 8:57 pm UTC

Avacyn spoilers make it look like an edh-esque set. Avacyn herself is probably whites best late-game general. Griselbrand is a really good general, but mono-black has a bunch of those. I see him much more like Elesh, really good but more a complimentary piece.

As for the angels, the R/W one is probably the best general R/W could get, and they needed one since Jor-Kadeem didn't really even feel R/W, more like 2 color weenie esper. The most OP of all of them is probably the U/W one which is just asking for abusive combos with cards like Mind of Matter.

New planeswalker is interesting though I don't if she'll see play in many standard builds especially if the format stays as fast as it is now. As an EDH player, I am enjoing the previews but I could see how they could be a letdown for people who play standard except some of the sweet miracle cards.

by **Jessica** » Fri Apr 13, 2012 2:38 pm UTC

Two new Planeswalkers! One is a previous race, which we haven't seen in a while, the other is a whole new race.

Yay!

by **mosc** » Wed Apr 18, 2012 4:42 pm UTC

A couple of cards now have me expecting ripples through to vintage. That's never a good thing in my mind. Miracle blue cards are a dangerous thing with brainstorm as a 4-of in legacy or just using it for FOW bait if you draw it. Especially for a timewalk mechanic. The wheel of fortune remake could also see legacy play. I'm also dreading to find out that this tribal land that got leaked is actually real:

Land, Rare
When it comes into play, name a creature type
T: add 1 colorless
T: add 1 mana of any color to your mana pool. It can only be used to pay for creature spells of the named type. THEY CANNOT BE COUNTERED.

by **Jessica** » Wed Apr 18, 2012 10:00 pm UTC

I don't think time walk for 1UU and two cards is really all that great... especially if you have to telegraph to your opponent that it's happening

by **Telchar** » Thu Apr 19, 2012 3:24 am UTC

Vexing devil is a ridiculous card and has sold out preorders on multiple sites. The red planeswalker also seems underrated with all the graveyard interaction in the set.

by **mosc** » Thu Apr 19, 2012 8:45 pm UTC

Jessica wrote:I don't think time walk for 1UU and two cards is really all that great... especially if you have to telegraph to your opponent that it's happening

Nope, it doesn't say anything like that

Telchar wrote:Vexing devil is a ridiculous card and has sold out preorders on multiple sites. The red planeswalker also seems underrated with all the graveyard interaction in the set.

It's not that good. Early game you take the damage, late game you take the creature. Neither is what the person casting it would like. It might as well read:
If your opponent has 11 or more life, they take 4 damage
If your opponent has 10 or less life, you get a 4/3 creature
except that would actually be BETTER than the card as written, substantially. It's browbeat all over again. Novice players continue to misunderstand the power of situational choice. 1-drops are not particularly effective cards in terms of board dominance by nature since they come out quickly. 4 Damage a turn will probably get the job done against the majority of standard decks but once they have their defenses set and can handle a 4/3 creature, the damage potential can go to zero. Clearly a 4/3 for R or a 4 damage for R would both be very strong cards but it's important to understand this is neither. It has all of the flaws of both cards, all the time.

The red plainswalker is very situational. Don't overlook the RR cost over 1R. It's going to be hard to cast in the usual graveyard featuring decks in the format. I don't think he'll have a major impact at all.

by **Box Boy** » Thu Apr 19, 2012 8:54 pm UTC

I'm perfectly fine with him being underrated/used/powered in this block - just means I'll be able to get my playset all the cheaper.

by **Xeio** » Thu Apr 19, 2012 9:09 pm UTC

Jessica wrote:I don't think time walk for 1UU and two cards is really all that great... especially if you have to telegraph to your opponent that it's happening

Except that you're net 0 cards (after the draw from the turn). And now you're up a land/turn.

by **++$_** » Fri Apr 20, 2012 2:46 am UTC

There's some confusion going on.

Temporal Manipulation is best played with Brainstorm (also FoW, as mosc correctly points out). But some people are trying to play it with Personal Tutor. That is not good, because you are spending 1UU and two cards for an extra turn. With Brainstorm, you are spending 1UU and two cards for an extra turn and a Brainstorm, which is obviously a different story.

As for Vexing Devil, I think the easiest way to evaluate it is that it is a 4-damage Lava Spike, except that instead it does nothing if your opponent has creature removal in hand (that can be cast next turn). That is not the worst card ever, but it is not insanity on a stick either.

by **Xeio** » Fri Apr 20, 2012 1:41 pm UTC

mosc wrote:I'm also dreading to find out that this tribal land that got leaked is actually real:

I think your dread can be fully realized now.

by **mosc** » Fri Apr 20, 2012 2:06 pm UTC

Legacy control will no longer dominate. That card has so many unintended consequences with creature combo-ing. Magic will rue the day they printed that one. This is the most major "stay on your side of the board please and off of mine" change since they removed sword from 5th.

Just for example, I play an auriok salvager combo deck in legacy with lots of control. I would drop that in and name "human". Just... wow.

by **Telchar** » Sat Apr 21, 2012 10:47 am UTC

mosc wrote:
Telchar wrote:Vexing devil is a ridiculous card and has sold out preorders on multiple sites. The red planeswalker also seems underrated with all the graveyard interaction in the set.

It's not that good. Early game you take the damage, late game you take the creature. Neither is what the person casting it would like. It might as well read:
If your opponent has 11 or more life, they take 4 damage
If your opponent has 10 or less life, you get a 4/3 creature
except that would actually be BETTER than the card as written, substantially. It's browbeat all over again. Novice players continue to misunderstand the power of situational choice. 1-drops are not particularly effective cards in terms of board dominance by nature since they come out quickly. 4 Damage a turn will probably get the job done against the majority of standard decks but once they have their defenses set and can handle a 4/3 creature, the damage potential can go to zero. Clearly a 4/3 for R or a 4 damage for R would both be very strong cards but it's important to understand this is neither. It has all of the flaws of both cards, all the time.

The red plainswalker is very situational. Don't overlook the RR cost over 1R. It's going to be hard to cast in the usual graveyard featuring decks in the format. I don't think he'll have a major impact at all.

Punisher cards are never going to be format defining without being broken, but to say it's Browbeat v 2.0 is also a misnomer. Against good players it will never be what you want (creature early, burn late), plays at sorcery speed, and can't hit creatures. There are legacy burn decks that run non-Mog Fanatic-like creatures that would probably benefit from this. Standard red weenie Hellrider decks will benefit just because their 1 drops are otherwise terrible.

On the topic of the red planeswalker (though plainswalker is good too....I guess...) the particular deck I'm thinking of splashed white and ran primarily R/B with Griselbrand, Necrotic Ooze, Timely Reinforcements, and Unburial rights with the red draw in the set including 2 of the red PW.

by **EdgarJPublius** » Sat Apr 21, 2012 6:50 pm UTC

So, I've made a bunch of trades to augment my 'Rot from Within' deck, but it's grown beyond my ability to manage, with mana-clumpiness being my constant enemy. So I'd like some help turning what I've got into a lean-mean infectious machine for standard tournaments

Here's my latest deck-list:

Spoiler:

Probably a little heavy on land, but as I said, I've been having problems with mana-screw, I'd like more red/green dual-lands for flashback on the Wild Hungers, some targeted damage/removal and potentially for Kessig Wolfruns, but I've only been able to get the one dual-land so far, and no Wolfruns.

Here's what I've got to work with. I've got some other green commons and such that may be useful, but this is a good list of what I think is relevant to the sort of deck I'm going for:

Spoiler:

My biggest problem (aside from land woes) is I can't decide whether to focus on a fast creature swarm, a slightly slower massive token swarm + overrun, or some combination. In games with earlier versions of the above deck (at least when I haven't been mana screwed) It's gone either way, sometimes all it takes are a few fast creatures with titanic growth and/or wild hunger to win, or sometimes my fast creatures are just fodder until I can pop out the swarmlords and overrun, so I'm disposed towards keeping the more general build, but I fear that it's over-burdening the deck and may be in-part causing my perpetual mana problems.

Any ideas? Thoughts, opinions? Any other cards I should keep my eye out for that could go well with what I've got?

by **Telchar** » Sat Apr 21, 2012 7:17 pm UTC

I would replace parallel lives with overruns if possible. PL just seems too slow and an infect deck needs to be super fast to keep the pressure on. I'd also only run 1 or 2 Phyrexian Swarmlords. If they stick late they're great but you need early pressure and if you draw one sooner than turn 3 it's a dead card for too long.

Isn't there an infect thorn elemental?

by **Plasma Man** » Mon Apr 23, 2012 11:14 am UTC

If you can get hold of a Green Sun's Zenith or two, they're really good fun to run with Putrefax. The current infect archetype with my gaming group is a bit different, though - it's basically stalling while they build up mana, then using Inkmoth Nexus and powering the moth up with Kessig Wolf Run for a killer blow.

Had an interesting draft session on Saturday - I opened a Diregraf Captain, then got passed another one, and a Call To The Kindred, so started in on blue-black zombies, but then I started getting cut for blue and black. I started trying to splash into red, but got cut in that as well. In the end I ended up with a blue-black zombies and vampires deck that was relatively weak, but well balanced. I battled through and got second (out of six), and won a booster pack as a prize. Opened it, and I got a Sorin! I'm still grinning whenever I think about it.

by **mosc** » Mon Apr 23, 2012 4:18 pm UTC

The inkmoth + wolf Run combo is a great late game killer, but you really need 4 inkmoths, more duals, and a strategy to stay alive for a good bit longer. Some removal also helps. It's a good strategy, but nothing that really synergies with other infect stuff. If you have board position, you can kill them with lands. Infect decks are terrible at board position, they're pure aggro.

I've built infect a couple ways and none of em are really that good. RG works better than people think. Red offers more than just wolf run. Assault Strobe can really punish your opponent for not having a blocker and set up some second/third turn wins. The new bonfire sorcery seems very solid in this deck as well if you can get a hold of it. I do find myself missing Flame Slash and Teetering Peaks from the Zendicar Block too much to play RG infect anymore. Blue got a new Distortion Strike replacement in DA, Artful Dodge. Blue has a lot of creature tapping/returning to hand effects now too which might make an interesting pairing with green buffing. I'd probably go down that route trying to make it competitive today (ditching Wolf Run entirely). Course, the entire thing misses the core green buffs of Giant Growth, Groundswell, and Vines of Vastwood. They've never been sufficiently replaced.

I would avoid slower strategies like overrun, token generation, etc. Concentrate on trying to win by turn 6 at the absolute latest. It'll help refocus you on your cheap infect creature + buff/evasion concept.

4 Inkmoths make any infect deck better. Even a dual color one hurting on duals. They're just evasive and much harder to control for your opponent. I would prioritize getting this as a 4-of above anything else. You can also use these cards in many other decks in the format. I even use them in Legacy quite frequently as a flexible man-land.

EDIT: Oh, and I like Necropede a lot. And apparently I like Ichorclaw Myr's more than you too. Those are both 4-of's for me. Cystbearer's are too slow. And stay with 24 lands. I like to mulligan with that deck to make sure I have a 2 or less casting cost infect creature in every opening hand. 24 lands helps make that workable. Blight mamba can also leverage the extra mana. Another cheapy to consider.

by **EdgarJPublius** » Tue Apr 24, 2012 12:48 am UTC

I love the Ichorclaw myr, but I only have the two of them, I've been keeping any eye out for more.

I've got a geen sun zenith too, not sure how I missed it.

Thanks for the advice, I'll start playing with some different builds and see what happens come Friday.

by **mosc** » Tue May 01, 2012 9:21 pm UTC

This thread got me interested in trying UG infect. It was a complete failure. But I did put together a pretty solid GB infect deck with just the G+artifact stuff we all know and love along with black removal and plague stinger and virulent wound. Was still fast enough to roll through turbofog (4x naturalize in the board will do that to rights of flourishing) and had enough removal to handle even token based strategies for a couple turns.

8 Forest
8 Swamp
4 GB Inn duals
4 Inkmoth
4 Glistener Elf
4 Necropede
4 Ichorclaw
4 Plague Stinger
4 Mutagenic Growth
4 Titanic Growth
4 Dismember
4 Virulent Wound
4 Skeletal Grimace (been playing around with several cards in this slot. 2xDoom Blade+2x Go for the throat, The G instant that gives +1/+1 and trample, main decking naturalize, and combinations of all of it).

Deathmark and naturalize are two sideboard staples. I also like the 1GG 2/2 infect guy who destroys an artifact in the board.

Many standard decks no longer fear infect and don't have the creature control and fast creatures to deal with it anymore. It was... oddly successful in my latest attempts against some much more mainstream standard powerhouses. I found compared to my old RG version, the evasion on Plague Stinger and the simple elegance of Virulent Wound to really do wonders. Dismember is at it's most format defining nature in a half black deck and the rest of the deck is pretty much infect 101. I had one guy simply rage quit to a game of 1) I go first drop swamp pass 2) he lays a forest and a bird 3) I respond with virulent wound 4) he passes 5) I drop a forest and an ichorclaw. Resign.

You can embarrass a lot of very good decks at your local FNM with this piece of garbage.

by **EdgarJPublius** » Sat May 05, 2012 5:07 am UTC

Last to FNMs got taken over by Avacyn so I haven't been able to test any changes to my Infect deck though.
However, today's FNM was an Avacyn draft and I managed to pull a Cavern of Souls and a Foil Gisela

The Cavern I'm keeping, the Gisella I quickly traded for some Hinterland Harbors, which will compliment some Blighted Agents I found and some Artful Dodges I have laying around. I also got a Copperline Gorge and some Assault Strobes to go with my Rootbound Crag and Wild Hungers so I can have some good options for GR/GU/GRU builds

All in all, quite happy with my recent pulls, I'm eager for next week's Standard FNM.

by **Telchar** » Sat May 05, 2012 4:12 pm UTC

Limited in our meta was dominited by R/W and W/G with lifelink being the primary culprit. The Bear/Pilgrim combo won me many games. Spalshed red for Thunderbolts and 2 of the 4/4 hastey dragons that return to hand.

by **Plasma Man** » Tue May 08, 2012 4:47 pm UTC

Here's the deck that I've just dismantled to make a white-black deck featuring Sorin.

Spoiler:

It worked pretty well for me, but wasn't quite right - especially the sideboard.

Good points:

Golems and splicers worked well with the token boosts of Parallel Lives and Intangible Virtue.
Myr Sire worked well with that as well, and gave me some early game defense.
Glint Hawks and Memnites go very well together.

Bad points:

Took a while to get switched on and was weak against flyers.
Origin Spellbomb, Shrine of Loyal Legions, Elder of Laurels, Thopter Assembly, Myr Superion, Myrsmith and Titan Forge were fairly useless. I'd have been better off putting more splicers in, but didn't have any.

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