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