Forging a New Path

Paris was the epicenter of magic deck tech over the last week. With both a Pro Tour and GP there were a bunch of players in attendance and lead to some cool new developments. LSV, PV, Ben Stark and others were rocking a UW deck that plays like past Merfolk aka Fish decks. Both these decks revolve around placing a early threat on the board then controlling the game with counter spells, wraths, and planeswalkers (not so much wraths and planeswalkers in the Fish deck though).

PV went so far as to say that Stoneforge Mystic is the Bitterblossom of their UW builds and that's the reason why they run four maindeck Mystics but only 2 maindeck equipment. The deck looks really cool and has decent matchups against the field the worst being either Valakut or Vampires in game one.

Here is PV's Deck List (Ben Stark also played it to a 1st Place Finish in PT Paris):

Lands:

4 Celestial Colonnade

4 Glacial Fortress
5 Island
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Plains
4 Seachrome Coast
4 Tectonic Edge

Spells:
4 Squadron Hawk
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Day of Judgment
1 Deprive
3 Gideon Jura
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Mana Leak
4 Preordain
4 Spell Pierce
1 Stoic Rebuttal
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Sylvok Lifestaff

Sideboard:
2 Baneslayer Angel
1 Deprive
2 Divine Offering
2 Flashfreeze
4 Oust
3 Ratchet Bomb
1 Sword of Body and Mind

The deck basically sides out all the counters for the aggro decks and sides in the removal and Baneslayers. The Valakut sideboard is out with the Hawks, a Gideon, and the Lifestaff and in with the Flashfreeze, 2 Oust, Sword of Body and Mind, and Deprive. For control it depends on what you are facing. For example, against UB I would cut the Staff for another Sword and maybe squeeze a Deprive in there if I thought it was necessary. Against the mirror I would bring in Sword of Body and Mind, and maybe a Baneslayer for the Lifestaff,1 Spell Pierce. Against the Quest Decks and Tezzeret Decks I would bring in the Divine Offerings in place of counters depending on how game 1 went along with ratchet bomb for quest.

Because I really liked what the deck looked like on paper I built it and tried it out versus Valakut. Most of the games were pretty ridiculous with someone blowing the other person out. In games where I didn't Oust a turn 2 Cobra it was very difficult to win. The new Valakut decks drop Titans like a boss (turn 3 is not uncommon) and Green Sun Zenith gives the deck a lot of versatility. It is really crucial to have turn 2 Mystic in this match up because otherwise Valakut can get a head of you on lands pretty quickly. But Feast and Famine changes that a lot. Body and Mind is good too because you can mill Titans (or even their deck, I won a couple times that way). While I really like the way this deck configured I think it could use a little adjustment to help against Boros and Valakut.

This is the list I will be running:

Lands:

4 Celestial Colonnade

4 Glacial Fortress

5 Island

1 Misty Rainforest

4 Plains

4 Seachrome Coast

4 Tectonic Edge

Spells:

4 Squadron Hawk

4 Stoneforge Mystic

4 Day of Judgment

1 Deprive

3 Gideon Jura

4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

3 Mana Leak

4 Preordain

4 Spell Pierce

1 Stoic Rebuttal

1 Sword of Feast and Famine

1 Sword of Body and Mind

Sideboard:

1 Baneslayer Angel

1 Elspeth Tirel

1 Mindbreak Trap

1 Sylvok Lifestaff

2 Divine Offering

2 Flashfreeze

3 Oust

2 Ratchet Bomb

2 Condemn

The changes I made should help improve both the Boros and Valakut match ups. The Sword of Body and Mind is better against Valakut, Control Decks, and Elves. The Lifestaff is better vs Vampires and Boros. I think it is better to have Body and Mind in the main than the side to help against those decks, the Lifestaff can come in from the board against Boros and Vamps. Oust and Ratchet Bomb are each reduced by one to make room for 2 Condemn which are better than either of those cards in the Boros matchup. 1 Baneslayer became a Elspeth Tirel because Elspeth is better vs Vamps than Baneslayer and without Sylvok Lifestaff main you want make sure your board is still good for them. Mindbreak Trap might seem like the most odd choice. My thought process was to cut the Deprive for a Flashfreeze against Valakut because I really didn't want to lose any games against Valakut because I had Mana Leak and my opponent could pay for it. But then I also remember that Valakut was gaining control by being much more aggressive in the early game and if you didn't have Mystic on turn 2 with and have Spell Pierce on turn 3 and be able to drop a Sword into play you were really behind. The other thing I noticed was that Valakut is playing a significantly higher number of spells per turn since the addition of Lotus Cobra. It was only during those games where Valakut had a ridiculous good turn in the early game that I lost. Mindbreak Trap is perfect for this matchup now. Before it was U/B's tool for countering Gaea's Revenge. Now you can actually cast it against Valakut for 0 mana and "counter" anything 

without triggering Summoning Trap. Even if they didn't have Summoning Trap maindeck they most definitely sided it in. Mindbreak Trap becomes a lot worse against other decks but is not as bad as it was because with SOFAF you play something and untap your lands leaving mana up for Mindbreak Trap that you couldn't before. 

Aggro in the House!!

At my last FNM I played Valakut expecting a good mix of both control and aggro decks to be present. Well, I was DEAD wrong. Of all the people who showed up (probably 20-30 people) there were 3 control decks, yeah that is what I just said. My maindeck was tuned to beat control because Valakut has the worst game 2 against control that winning game 1 becomes extremely important. I was playing a list that was not too different from the one I posted a little while ago. But, it did have some changes (I'll talk about Valakut in more detail in a later post) but I'm here today to talk about the Aggro decks in the format.

The are two main archetypes for Aggro at the moment. There is Vampires and Kuldotha Red. If you are really up to date then maybe you have seen the Black-Blue Vampires list that came out of Paris. I like the idea of the deck because it has the fast Vampire shell that runs a few counterspells (Unified Will not Mana Leak) and has Go for the Throat. The deck also has the ability to morph from an aggro deck to an aggro control-deck. The deck also doesn't run Creeping Tarpit because the designers felt it was too slow. I don't have a list for you, but I will have one within a day or two so check back if you are interested.

Kuldotha Red in the form that I listed last week was just not pulling its weight. Yeah, the deck is insanely powerful and can kill you on turns 2-3. But when it didn't it just sucked. I mean it SUCKED. When playing against it with Valakut I was able to Pryoclasm on turn 2. Drop my 3rd mountain turn 3 with no green mana or ramp to speak of. Then play Koth on turn 4 with a top decked Verdant Catacombs and after Slagstorm-ing away a Signal Pest and a Memnite I just used Koth to beat him down (my opponent was forced to Lightning Bolt Koth to prevent his ultimate from going off).

How does Kuldotha Red overcome this problem? The answer that Gerry T. came up with was to splash another color. I think the consenus is that the best splash would be for black. This gives you access to Dark Tutelage. Ryan at Casual MTG Creations spoke about this in detail on his blog. Here is the list he came up with:

4x Memnite
4x Ornithopter
4x Goblin Bushwacker
4x Signal Pest
2x Goblin Wardriver

4x Kuldotha Rebirth
3x Devastating Summons
2x Dark Tutalege
3x Raid Bombardment
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Chimeric Mass
2x Jinxed Idol
1x Flayer Husk

4x Mox Opal
3x Dragonskull Summit
4x Blackcleave Cliffs
2x Contested Warzone
8x Mountain


I like this deck. It is indeed much more resilent to sweepers than most K-Red decks. But, there is a definite trade off. This deck will not win on turns 2-3 as often as other K-red decks because of the increased number of 3 drops. There is definitely nothing wrong with the drops in the deck. They all have a specific purpose for why they are there and each card accomplishes that. In my opinion though the speed trade off is too significant. The ability to get "free wins" against some decks is part of the attraction of K-Red. If I was to redo my list here is what it would like:


4x Memnite
4x Ornithopter
4x Goblin Bushwacker
4x Signal Pest
4x Goblin Wardriver

4x Mox Opal
4x Kuldotha Rebirth
4x Devastating Summons
2x Dark Tutalege

2x Lightning Bolt
2x Chimeric Mass
2x Jinxed Idol
1x Flayer Husk

3x Dragonskull Summit
4x Blackcleave Cliffs
4x Contested Warzone
8x Mountain


Card Choices:


Because Goblin Guide was cut from the deck (cause it just is not good, if you don't believe me build it and try it out) I wanted to make sure we have a constant stream of threats to place on board. That is why I upped the number of Goblin Wardriver from 2 to 4. He is just a boss in this deck and gives everyone a power up whereas a card like Goblin Chieftain only helps out goblins. Jinxed Idol was moved into the main to help you matchup against control. I kept 2 Lightning Bolt because they are needed to help deal with Vampire Knighthawk and can combine with another creature if you have to kill cards like Perimeter Captain which Ryan has noted as sideboard in U/W builds like his Snape Anew deck. The reason I didn't include Raid Bombardment in the main deck is because that the card doesn't do anything by itself. Yes, if you have 5 attackers then it can add up. That's a big if. And if I am going to be playing a deck like this I don't want the "if factor" to be associated with a 3 drop because it is too mana intensive for it to not do anything. I think there is still an "if factor" associated with Dark Tutelage because you could still not draw anything relevant (i.e. lands) but then you were most likely dead if you had the Raid Bombardment in that position too. Also, I want the full set of Warzones in the deck. I saw one version with the Warzones and one with out and I am telling you that they make a huge difference. It like the difference between a Bitterblossom hand with Faeries and hand with out Bitterblossom. You can surely still "get there" but you would be a lot happier if you had the card in your hand. There is one less land in this version than the other. This was done so that you have more room to play impact spells. This might not be correct with the two main deck Tutelage if you have only two lands and no active Mox and can't cast Tutelage. But I am confident it shouldn't be too much of a problem, if any.


My reccomendation for this deck is build it. Try it out. Do a SWOT analysis ( identify the Strengths, Weakness, Opporunities and Threats) then tune the deck  to your personal liking keeping the recommendations in mind.


(For those who are Combo or Control Players look for my post about the Tezzeret decks in a few days!)

Kuldotha Red: Post Beseiged

Red Deck Wins. It has been an ever present menace in multiple formats spanning years of Magic tournament play. It is always changing and yet remains the same. Red Deck Wins will kill you faster than any other archetype. (There have been exceptions in certain formats over the years but primarily RDW is usually fastest.) This is going to remain true for Standard post Mirrodin Beseiged as well. I am traditionally a control player. If I do play an aggro strategy it is usually running four Vengevines. But, this deck might make me consider it for an at least an FNM. When the worst opening hand for the deck is Mountain into Goblin Guide and attack for 2 you know it is packing a punch. Here is the list, check it out for yourself:


Main Deck

Creatures:
4 Goblin Bushwhacker
4 Goblin Guide
4 Memnite
4 Ornithopter
4 Signal Pest
2 Goblin Wardriver

Spells:
3 Chimeric Mass
4 Devastating Summons
1 Flayer Husk
4 Kuldotha Rebirth
2 Lightning Bolt
4 Mox Opal

Lands:
4 Contested War Zone
16 Mountain

All the artifacts ensure that you are going to have metal craft for your Mox Opal and more importantly a sac outlet for Kuldotha Rebirth. Kuldotha Rebirth is the name sake of this deck for a reason. Look at this line of play:

Turn 1: Ornithopter, Memnite, Memnite, Mox Opal, Moutain, Goblin Bushwhacker with Kicker, attack for 9.
Turn 2: Constested Warzone, attack for 9
Turn3: They probably already scooped :)

If you are doing that on the play there is no deck that can answer a play like this. The deck has vulnerabilities to sweepers the worst being Pyroclasm. Slagstorm, Day of Judgment, and Black Sun Zenith are most of the time too slow. Even if you get hit by a sweeper the deck can come back the next turn with a Devastating Summons and a Bushwhacker kicked. This should be the nail in the coffin as you have likely dealt a fair amount of damage before you were hit by the sweeper.

Coming up with a sideboard for this deck is fairly difficult. It is similar to Valakut in the sense that it has elements of a combo deck. If you take out the 0 drops you totally ruin the strategy of the deck and the bigger "reach cards" like Hero of Oxid Ridge and Koth are just slow enough that other decks can deal with them. Here is one possible configuration but it is probably not the best.

Sideboard:
2 Goblin Wardriver
3 Tuktuk the Explorer
4 Jinxed Idol
1 Lightning Bolt
2 Goblin Chieftain
3 Forked Bolt

The Tuktuk are great against decks with sweepers. Forked Bolt and Goblin Wardriver help out in the mirror match. Jinxed Idol is for the control decks. Lightning Bolt and Goblin Chieftain are for Black Red Vampires.  As I said before, this is only one rendition of the sideboard and could be built several different ways.

This deck WILL DESTROY any deck that is not prepared for it. It is too fast powerful for you to have any legitimate hope of recovering and stabilizing if you have been hit for 12 to 18 over the first two turns of the game. This deck is extremely budget too so expect some of the new players to wielding it. But, beware that an experienced player might be piloting this deck trying to beat the meta. If that's the case I would expect them to able to play around cards like DoG, BSZ, Slagstorm, and Pyroclasm to an extent. I say you can only play around Pyroclasm to an extent because the deck has to be aggressive to win and sometimes you have to go all out and just hope they don't have it. If you don't believe the potential of this deck check out the websites in the Links section. Lots of people are talking about it.

Brian Kibler's CawVenge Extended

I'm sure most of you are here to see the deck list and get on with your lives. So I will refrain from commenting about it until after you have had a chance to go through it. Well here you go:

Maindeck:

Creatures
1 Baneslayer Angel
2 Birds of Paradise
1 Dauntless Escort
4 Fauna Shaman
2 Kitchen Finks
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Qasali Pridemage
4 Squadron Hawk
4 Vengevine

Instants
3 Path to Exile

Legendary Creatures
2 Gaddock Teeg
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence


Planeswalkers
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

Basic Lands
4 Forest
1 Plains

Lands
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Murmuring Bosk
4 Razorverge Thicket
1 Sejiri Steppe
1 Stirring Wildwood
2 Sunpetal Grove
4 Tectonic Edge
2 Verdant Catacombs


Sideboard:
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Cloudthresher
4 Great Sable Stag
2 Sun Titan
1 War Priest of Thune
2 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
3 Oust

-As designed by Brian Kibler

As you can see there are some interesting card choices. But, to be honest I really don't think I would change much with his deck. I have been experimenting with trying to come up with something along a similar line for standard. I figured this would be a good place to start. This deck makes the most use of Knight of the Reliquary. She (yeah that's right Knight of the Reliquary is one *** kicking girl) is an absolute power house in this deck. Why? Because of the 6 fetch lands and multiple basics, Knight needs those forests and plains.

Squadron Hawk is both one of the most useful and least powerful cards in the deck. The card advantage you get from Squadron Hawk is amazing. A great thing that Squadron Hawk let's you do is overfill your hand to discard Vengevines so you can rebuy them later. Maybe you don't have a Vengevine but you do have a Knight of the Reliquary in play and you are absolutely flooded with mana. Cast the Squadron Hawk discard some Lands and make the Knight huge. But, there are some drawbacks. At the end of the day Squadron Hawk is a 1/1 flyer for 2. So, don't expect that casting a few Squadron Hawks alone will win you the game.

I like that the mana base is much more stable than Naya and that you get access to great removal with Path to Exile which is just really underrated right now. Dauntless Escort is a nice 1 of and I like the synergy it has with Sun Titan coming out of the Board. Qasali Pridemage is a great on curve aggressive threat that can offer some disruption against Faeries by taking out those pesky Bitter Blossoms. However, it is not as great against the Primastic Omens decks as they will usually be able to play around it and the R/G version will go off without it.

Speaking of these decks, I would not recommend Kibler's deck to anyone who expects to face a lot of Valakut the Molten Pinnacle in Extended. Their combo is usually just plain faster than you. Kibler's deck has good match ups against Naya, Mono Red, and Faeries isn't impossible but you have to play smart. However, the Valakut decks in almost all of their incarnations are simply a nightmare. Kibler said he would have to make several changes to the deck if he was going to play it again. Honestly, I'm not sure what he has mind but  I am certainly curious and will let you know as soon I find out.

So, what might Kibler's deck look like in Standard? Here is a brew I am toying with (that means it not done):

Creatures:
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Signal Pest
4 Squadron Hawks
4 Accorder Paladin
4 Fauna Shaman
3 Mirran Crusader
4 Vengevine
3 Hero of the Bladehold
2 Moltentail Masticore

Sorceries
4 Lead the Stampede

Lands:
4 Razorverge Thicket
4 Sunpetal Grove
3 Stirring Wildwood
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Arid Mesa
4 Forest
6 Plains
2 Contested Warzone

This deck capitalizes on being big and being fast at the same time. It hit for 11 on turn 3 with:
Turn 1: Razorverge Thicket -> Birds of Paradise
Turn 2: Razorverge Thicket -> Signal Pest, Accorder Paladin using the Birds for mana
Turn 3: Plains -> Vengevine attack for 11

Obviously this deck pretty much folds to a sweeper. That is why Lead the Stampede is there to help refill your hand and put noncreature cards on the botton of your Library so you don't have to draw them. But, relying on Lead the Stampede to pull out a win isn't a good strategy. So, this is where the sideboard is going to be very important for this deck. You don't want to be blown out by a Black Sun Zenith, Pyroclasm, Slagstorm, or to a lesser degree Arc Trail. Unfortunately, I don't have a sideboard for you (I said it wasn't finished remember) because there is a fine line between being a swarm deck, a midrange deck, and a creature deck that plays too slow and just loses. What I mean is that I need to find ways of being resilent without sacrificing too much speed. Some cards to consider will be Garruk Wildspeaker, Obstinate Baloth, and Thrun, the Last Troll.

Thanks for Reading.

-Mark
The Strategist

Infect: A New Perspective

Hey everyone. So, here is the thing about deck building, for every great deck you make you almost always make 5 or 6 or maybe even more that are well, not so great and others that are just down right terrible. The other important aspect of deck building is card choice. It seems pretty obvious that part of building the best deck is choosing the right cards (how hard can it really be? right?). However, this is the part that's especially difficult. Also, once you have established that a card is important for the deck you also have to decide how many copies you want in the deck.

To exemplify this concept here is a totally different take on Mono Black Infect that is much more aggressive.

Creatures:

4 Plague Myr

4 Plague Stinger

4 Phyrexian Crusader

4 Hand of the Preators

4 Phyrexian Vatmother

2 Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon

Spells:

3 Vampire's Bite

3 Adventuring Gear

3 Sign in Blood

3 Go for the Throat

2 Doom Blade

Lands:

4 Inkmoth Nexus

4 Tectonic Edge

4 Verdant Catacombs

4 Marsh Flats

8 Swamp

Compared to the previous list this version should have a much better early game. I played several game 1s against it. My friend Ryan, author of Casual MTG creations and I tested it against Blue Black Control, Valakut Ramp, and Green White Quest. More testing has to be done against other decks like RUG, BUG, Blue White, Black Red Vampires, and Boros. But, GW Quest, UB, and Valakut were what I had made at the moment and didn't feel like building any of the other decks. I was being a little lazy, I will admit it. But, I was at the Beseiged Prerelease from 8pm to 10:30am. So, being a little lazy was okay with me.

Short Aside:

If you were wondering I came in 15th out of 57 people, which was a little disappointing but considering I didn't have a single removal spell except for 1 Go for the Throat and no other playable cards in black I will take a top 16 finish.

End Aside.

Well, after testing we determined that Infect has a virtual bye vs Valakut. Valakut usually just does not have enough disruption to deal with all the creatures and Adventuring Gear with fetch lands plus Vampire's Bite usually spells disaster for Valakut. Ryan had me tilting and raging hard core. He was to kill me on turn 4 when I was on the play and and even had played a Primeval Titan on my turn. I never even got to play the second one sitting in my hand as a Phyrexian Crusader attacked for 10 poison and my Titan was removed before blockers were declared.

Blue Black has a much better match up. In this match up it is all about having the right answers at the right time. You need a combination of Go for the Throat and some other removal spells either Disfigure or Doom Blade or Black Sun Zenith because there are just enough artifact creatures (8) that can sometimes blank Go for the Throat. Mana Leak was decent but not amazing in this match up. It dealt with Phyrexian Crusader, Hand of the Praetors, and Skittles very well but if you were on the draw it became a lot worse. If your opponent opens on turn 2 plague myr you really are going to wish that the Mana Leak in your hand was a Disfigure because that guy gives Infect a much faster clock. Grave Titan was a champ putting in extra blockers. Even though he dies to Go for the Throat I was able to win one game between Jace, Tarpit and two Grave Titan tokens. Hitting with a Creeping Tarpit in the early game when you can safely do so if very important because you really want to be able to kill them with one Grave Titan attack even when they have a blocker for him (thanks zombie tokens for stealing wins).

Overall, I really like this deck. You are fast and because there is no way to remove poison counters you don't care if your opponent gains life. This has been the downfall of many Red Deck Wins and Boros Decks. Look to see Infect in style at your next FNM, PTQ, or GP.

Thanks for reading.

Mark Meuse

The Strategist

A Return to the Pinnacle of Success:

Once Scars of Mirrodin was release Valakut decks became very popular and highly competitive. They were posting good numbers as there just wasn't a well defined strategy to beat them yet. Well, as we know, because of the success of the deck that is exactly what happened. The birth of Blue Black put Valakut on its heels. With cards like Memoricide, Spreading Seas, Tectonic Edge, Flash Freeze, and discard options Blue Black was able to oust Valakut as the top deck.

Now that Blue Black is top dawg can Valakut do anything to reclaim its title? I feel a Rocky Balboa movie coming along cause this going to be the story of a top fighter who is now the under dog coming to bash some face. Thrun, the Last Troll and Green Sun Zenith might just offer the resiliency that Valakut needs to reclaim its title.

Here is my proposed list:

Valakut Post Beseiged

Creatures:

4 Overgrown Battlement

4 Primeval Titan

1 Inferno Titan

1 Avenger of Zendikar

1 Gaea’s Revenge

Total: 13

Spells:

3 Lightning Bolt

4 Explore

2 Slagstorm

4 Growth Spasm

3 Cultivate

3 Green Sun Zenith

2 Summoning Trap

Total: 20

Lands:

3 Terramorphic Expanse

3 Evolving Wilds

11 Mountains

6 Forests

4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle

Total: 27

Sideboard:

3 Acidic Slime

1 Slagstorm

1 Summoning Trap

1 Avenger of Zendikar

1 Gaea’s Revenge

3 Ricochet Trap

2 Thrun, the Last Troll

Card Choices:

4 Battlement: great early accelerants, offer stall, can't be removed via Lightning Bolt or Slagstorm.

4 Primeval Titan: Come on, really. I'm not explaining this one.

1 Inferno Titan: Great against aggro decks as it can decimate their board. especially if it makes it to the attack phase.

1 Avenger of Zendikar: Not bad verses control or aggro, if you can't answer him he wins the game byself. I like to keep the threats varied so that's why he's a one of with another in the board.

1 Gaea’s Revenge: The variation rule applies here too as he is great against control but not as spectacular against aggro.

2 Slagstorm: This is the replacement for pyroclasm. The extra mana is worth the extra damage it deals. Plus is can hit players and creatures unlike pyroclasm. Also, planeswalkers.

3 Green Sun Zenith: This slot was originally held only by summoning trap. But because of the extra consistancy of the Zenith it gets a slightly bigger nod as opposed to summoning trap.

2 Summoning Trap: This card is still too good not to play it. It is instant speed and can be cast for 0, neither the Zenith can do. It will be better in control match ups than aggro because of its aforementioned abilities.

The rest of the cards in the main deck are fairly simple and necessary. In the board we have:

3 Acidic Slime: Used to take out which of the 3 things it can target is most detrimental depending on the match up. Drawing multiples usually isn't bad.

1 Summoning Trap: This is here to increase of match win percentage against control.

2 Thrun, the Last Troll: I wanted to give control as hard a time as possible. Having to stare down this guy while fighting the Valakut strategy will be difficult.

1 Gaea's Revenge: Here for the same reasons as the Troll.

3 Ricochet Trap: This card is a must have!!! I don't know how I have seen so many player not have this card somewhere in their 75 card list. It makes no sense. This card can let you counter their counter spells and redirect those pesky Memoricides and Inquisition of Kozilek back on your opponent.

Everything else is pretty self explanatory. Look for my version of GW Beats in the up coming days.

How to really make Mono Black Infect:

Hey everyone!!! Sorry I never update this. Life is pretty busy with school and all. I never seem to have the time to really dedicate myself to this blog. However, with Mirrodin Beseiged coming out some of my friends were discussing how they would make a Mono Black Infect deck. This is what they had come up with:

(Note: Some of the cards listed here are from Mirrodin Besieged which will be released on February 4th with the prerelease on January 29th. All Besieged cards can be found at MTG Salvation)

14x Swamp

4x Inkmoth Nexus

4x Fetch lands ie Verdant Catacombs/ Marsh Flats

4x Hand of the Praetors

4x Phyrexian Crusader

4x Plague Stinger

3x Ichor Rats

2x Phyrexian Vatmother

2x Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon

4x Grasp of Darkness

4x Go for the Throat

1x Black Sun's Zenith

This list still has 10 open slots which they weren't sure what to do with. Well I took this as an invitation to take a crack at what I think the deck should look like and here is what I came up with:

Creatures:

3x Plague Stinger

4x Phyrexian Crusader

4x Ichor Rats

3x Hand of the Praetors

4x Phyrexian Vatmother

2x Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon

Instants / Sorceries

3x Inquisition of Kozilek

4x Sign in Blood

3x Grasp of Darkness

4x Go for the Throat

2x Black Sun's Zenith

Lands:

12x Swamp

4x Tectonic Edge

4x Inkmoth Nexus

4x Verdant Catacombs

Sideboard:

2x Disfigure

3x Duress

2x Doomblade

1x Black Sun's Zenith

3x Corpse Cur

3x Memoricide

1x Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon

I have to say that I while I think my friends made a solid attempt at the deck and that I agree with a lot of their choices, their deck left a lot to be desired. I mean it didn't even have 60 cards, what's up with that? :) I chose the list because you have access to early disruption via Inquisition of Kozilek which can hit most cards and you have access to Duress in the board for contol. Corpse Cur is in the board for removal heavy decks or decks with sweepers like Day of Judgment. There will come a time when trading 1 for 1, removal for creature, or creature for creature, will not be advantageous and Corpse Cur gives you the ability to get back one of your critical guys. The one card I did not fit into the 75 that should probably be there is Mind Sludge. I think 1-2 in the side board would be good. Instead I added Memoricide because most top heavy decks are only running one main threat. This may change after Beseiged and I will update the list accordingly. The sideboard also gives you access to other removal options and the ability to overload on removal if you feel it is necessary. The extra Skittles in the board is for those matches you expect to go longer and where you might have to play to conservatively then drop Skittles, give him haste, and win out of no where. With Hand of the Praetors on Board that's a potential 6 poison counters. I only have 3 Hand of the Praetors in the main deck because he can be killed pretty easily but if he resolves and sticks he's really good.

I also want to draw your attention to one of the removal spells, Go for the Throat.

This card is easily one of the best cards spoiled so far. It offers almost no draw backs. Go for the Throat only misses Wurmcoil Engine and Myr Battlesphere. Neither of these cards are being played heavily right now, at least not in standard anyways. But, this spell might change that. (Sorry Grave Titan) Which is why I included Doomblade in the sideboard. Also, think that black is probably going to get played more once Beseiged gets release, as if it wasn't played enough already. So, that's why Grasp is main decked. But, back to Go for the Throat. This card is going to be format defining a removal staple for years to come. It also serious implications for the Extended format.

Faeries has been one of the most dominant decks in Extended right now. Because of that it has been receiving a lot of hate and the varied number of threats it faces has made it very difficult to have the right removal at the right time. This has prompted Faeries to have to rely on discard options like Thoughtseize, Duress, and Inquisition of Kozilek. But, Go for the Throat solves all of Faeries' problems. Many players had been changing their mana base to support Grasp of Darkness but still found the double black requirement hard to get, especially in the early game. Again, Go for the Throat also solves that problem. This might give Faeries the slight edge it needs to stay on top of the meta, at least for right now.

Now that I have gone completely off topic let's return to the Mono Black Infect deck. The cards that really put it in contention are Phyrexian Vatmother and Phyrexian Crusader. These creatures are powerful and well costed. The Vatmother's drawback as of right now is essientially nothing as Infect is not yet a deck and might still be under the radar for the first week or two. But as infect gets more popular it is very possible that the Vatmother might have to played conservatively or not at all in the mirror match. Otherwise, THIS GUY IS NUTS! The only removal spell he dies to is Go for the Throat, which I believe is one of the reasons it was printed. And when he deal combat damage to a player his power is doubled due to the fact that you only need 10 poison counters to kill your opponent. Phyrexian Crusader is just a really solid threat. First Strike and Infect is a great combination and the protection from Red and White make it well positioned in this meta game because he only dies the black removal spells (disfigure, go for the throat, and grasp of darkness). Overall, I think think if a solid two drop or one drop gets printed (which is what I think this deck is really lacking) it will play much like Jund did in Standard in the last season. It would end up being a mid-range beatdown deck with good removal. The only difference is that Mono Black Infect lacks the number and quality of two for one's that Jund had, Blightning and Bloodbraid Elf. But the raw power of Mono Black Infect's creatures might just be enough.

That's all for now. Peace Out.

The Strategist: Mark