Infect

[Blackhound]

Seeing as I am a poorfag who cant afford to keep replacing standard cards every 6 or so months And a lot more people have been playing modern at my local shop due to Wizards pushing the format. I have decided to get into modern myself by building this quite compeitive and inexpensive deck.


10 Forest
4 hinterland harbor
4 Gemstone mine
4 Inkmoth Nexus

4 Glistener Elf
4 Ichorclaw Myr
4 Necropede
4 Blighted Agent
2 Viridian Corrupter

4 Might of old Krosa
4 Groundswell
4 Vines of Vastwood
4 Rancor
4 [card:
2dw2qtb4]Dismember[/card]




Might of old Krosa and Groundswell give +4 +4 for 1G, which is as good as it gets, vines of vastwood give creature protection as well as pump while Rancor gives pump and reach.

Feel free to make suggestions or rip the deck apart.

[Yannaria]

needs shocks and UG fetch noob


if you're playing groundswell, and can't afford Misty Rainforest, I would play 2-4 Terramorphic Expanse/Evolving Wilds so you can save for some land fall triggers. This would also allow you to play a couple islands to fetch in the event you needed them.

I wouldn't play corrupted main deck, and instead play some protection a la Apostle's Blessing.
Necropede also seems kind of crappy imo.

Here's what I would do
-4 Forest
-3 other lands of your choice, probably Harbors or Forests
-4 Necropede
-2 Virdian Corrupter
-2 Dismember
+2 Apostle's Blessing
+3 Mutagenic Growth
+4 Gitaxian Probe
+3 Evolving Wilds
+1 Island

With a top end of 2 you simply don't need 22 lands, and 19 might even be 1 to many.
Also possibly some number of Counters instead of the Ichorclaw Myrs, but then you'd need a
little more stable mana base.

[Void]

[card]Predator's Strike[/card] might be card of usefulness for this type of deck.

1 colorless and 1 green for +3/+3 and Trample.

[Thrillho]

It is imperative you invest in Misty Rainforest, as it will likely be one (of two) investments you will need to make for this deck (the second being some number of Breeding Pool, which is being reprinted in a few months and won't cost you the arm and a leg it currently will).

As mentioned with the Expanse recommendation, you need to hit your Landfall triggers on Groundswell. With 19 lands, a number of colorless lands, and the ETB tapped/inability to search shocklands effect of non-rare cards, and the fact that you're going for a kill as early as turn 2, delaying your victory puts you way behind every other deck in the format (be it from Dispel, Paths, Mana Leak, a blocker, etc).

The entire rest of the deck is virtually no money, the Misties will do you well in many other decks in the format and older formats, and are so crucial to building an effective deck, I would absolutely bite the bullet on them if you're planning on
playing this deck.

[Blackhound]

I need to get round to updating this, the new card glaring spotlight, second abillity possibly good for an infect deck or is it too slow ?

[Blackhound]

4 [card:avyzyjr3]Misty Rainforest[/card:avyzyjr3]
4 [card:avyzyjr3]Temple Garden[/card:avyzyjr3]
4 [card:avyzyjr3]Inkmoth Nexus[/card:avyzyjr3]
6 [card:avyzyjr3]Forest[/card:avyzyjr3]
1 [card:avyzyjr3]Plains[/card:avyzyjr3]
1 [card:avyzyjr3]Island[/card:avyzyjr3]


4 [card:avyzyjr3]Glistener Elf[/card:avyzyjr3]
4 [card:avyzyjr3]Blighted Agent[/card:avyzyjr3]
4 [card:avyzyjr3]lost leonin[/card:avyzyjr3]
4 [card:avyzyjr3]Ichorclaw Myr[/card:avyzyjr3]
4 [card:avyzyjr3]Noble Hierarch[/card:avyzyjr3]


4 [card:avyzyjr3]Might of old Krosa[/card:avyzyjr3]
4 [card:avyzyjr3]Groundswell[/card:avyzyjr3]
4 [card:avyzyjr3]Vines of Vastwood[/card:avyzyjr3]
4 [card:avyzyjr3]Rancor[/card:avyzyjr3]
4 [card:avyzyjr3]Oust[/card:avyzyjr3]


Hows this ? Noble Hierarch seems good, gives exlaited to an infect creature and can be tapped for mana to play an extra pump spell.

[Tom Servo]

I need to get round to updating this, the new card glaring spotlight, second abillity possibly good for an infect deck or is it too slow ?

I would give it a shot. I'm all for this card finding a home in an eternal format. I don't know what would be a good number or what you would take out though...

Maybe this

- 2 Groundswell
+ 2 Glaring spotlight

[imopen2]

i would cut the leonin and maybe the ousts for more protection. aps blessings are the nut-high in this deck and you should prob have mutagenic growths as well. granted, i used to play infect in standard and used wild defiance which makes both those cards significantly better..

[Azrael]

Needs more evasion/breakthrough potential. I've toyed with infect in standard before, and the biggest problem is that your guys can't win combat with anything. So, they die, or you waste pump spells making them not die, and run out of gas and lose. Card advantage is also a problematic issue.

Like, the standard mono-black infect that was running around standard for a brief moment that used black infect flyers with that living-equipment card, the one that gives +1/+1 for each swamps and uses phyrexian mana to equip - that would be a better platform to start build on than this, I'd guess. At least in principle, it has a way to bash people out quickly, through the air. And its manabase was hella cheaper, basic swamps.

Or even the version that used Tezzeret to make them 5/5 infectors.

There might be some other halfway decent black pump spells out there, too. At any rate, you've got some conceptual problems you really
need to spend some time thinking through before you blow any money on this concept.

I guess, with modern manabases, there's a lot of different ways you could take infect. But its going to need something fairly original to make it in any way not an 0-3 drop deck. Which may mean signifcant $, if you don't go mono-colored.

[Azrael]

Did some digging around to see if I could come up with anything constructive and not end on such a critical note.

The approach I'd recommend is finding as much good, cheap equipment that provides a minimum of a +4 to your front end. That way, a Plague Stinger or an Inkmoth Nexus or whatever the case may be can swing through and deal 5 poison damage, killing them in two swings, if you can also find a way to solve for instant speed removal and blockers getting in the way. That's a big if, but gets us a lot closer to a workable model. Evasion will be a big help, obviously, but if we can just make your guys large enough to go toe to toe in combat and block that counts for a hell of a lot too.

So, starting with equipment. Nightmare Lash, from the original Mirrodin. Empyrial Armor plus four cards in hand. Lashwrithe.
[card]
Adventuring Gear[/card] plus fetchlands - that's a good, 3cc one, so you're not relying on your four slot as much. Umezawa's Jitte. I think that's about it for colorless options. I guess Cranial Plating, if you go an artifact route.

Black doesn't seem to have much to offer. Sinister Strength, Unholy Strength, Deviant Glee - nothing that hits the magical four damage mark.

Blighted Agent, Plague Stinger, and Inkmoth Nexus seem like good creature options for you.

Let's see, the rest.

Contagious Nim. Flensermite. Flesh-Eater Imp. Ichor Rats. Ichorclaw Myr. Necropede. Phyrexian Crusader. Phyrexian Digester. Plague Myr. Phyrexian Vatmother. Hand of the Praetors. Septic Rats. Skithyrx. Whispering Specter.

Whispering Specter flies - 1/1 infect. That seems like an auto pick. Phyrexian Crusader is another pretty good option. Flensermite's lifegain could be helpful. Plague Myr accels - but not terribly well. So about 16 slots of good options plus 4 Inkmoth, and some shaky alternates.
Probably need some hand disruption or countermagic to protect them. Probably the hand disruption.

So in the end, it might look something like:

4 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Marsh Flats
2 Watery Grave
9 Swamp
4 Inkmoth Nexus
24 Lands

4 Inquisition of Kozilek

4 Blighted Agent
4 Plague Stinger
4 Flensermite
4 Phyrexian Crusader
4 Whisper Specter
20

4 Nightmare Lash
4 Lashwrithe
4 Adventurer's Gear
12

[Blackhound]

Cheers for that, speaking of mono black, there was this 4th place deck that did well not so long back.

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Digital/Ma ... #decklists

Uses a lot of hand disruption, weird sideboard though I mean Vampire Nighthawk in an infect deck ? side in against mono red burn ?

[Blackhound]

I will be updating this list again soon. any thoughts on Infiltration Lens ? If they block draw 2 cards if they dont block, they can die pretty fast to infect.

[Blackhound]

Following on from a mini discussion about Phyrexian Crusader the following deck has seen a bit of success not may people play it. As mentioned red and white are not a problem for the Crusader, so that leaves discarding blue, black and green threats that could target the Crusader.

[cards]4 Howltooth Hollow
4 Inkmoth Nexus
13 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Phyrexian Crusader
4 Phyrexian Vatmother
4 Disfigure
1 Doom Blade
4 Funeral Charm
3 Go for the Throat
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Raven's Crime
2 Runechanter's Pike
4 Sign in Blood
4 Wrench Mind[/cards]


Thoughts on a few other cards that could go in this deck

[card]Predator's Gambit[/card] in place of [card]Runechanter's Pike[/card]
[card]Tezzeret's Gambit[/card] in place of Sign in Blood

Any other
ideas.

[hamfactorial]

If you put those in a deck tag instead of cards tag, I can hover over them and see what they do. Right now it's difficult to help via phone.

[Khaospawn]

I was actually just looking at that list yesterday. I even had to search it up from a post Alex made about it months ago.

Personally, I wouldn't change a thing unless I was adding Thoughtseize or fetches.

[tmac]

I play this deck.

Sign in Blood should be [card]Night's Whisper[/card]. The corner case is irrelevant anyway and the mana cost is much easier.

I like this manabase better:

2 Howltooth Hollow
1 Cathedral of War
1 Bojuka Bog
4 Inkmoth Nexus
12 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Pikes should NOT come out. They’re your only chance if they land a white Leyline.

[Khaospawn]

[quote="[url=viewtopic.php?p=140966#p140966:8xhs1zd0]tmac » Wed Nov 13, 2013 4:56 pm[/url:8xhs1zd0]":8xhs1zd0]I play this deck.

[card:8xhs1zd0]Sign in Blood[/card:8xhs1zd0] should be [card:8xhs1zd0]Night's Whisper[/card:8xhs1zd0]. The corner case is irrelevant anyway and the mana cost is much easier.

I like this manabase better:

[cards:8xhs1zd0]2 Howltooth Hollow
1 Cathedral of War
1 Bojuka Bog
4 Inkmoth Nexus
12 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth[/cards:8xhs1zd0]

Pikes should NOT come out. They’re your only chance if they land a white Leyline.[/quote:8xhs1zd0]
I don't know who you are....or what you want...but I can tell you that your manabase is...awesome.

I like the improvements.

[tmac]

I'm a long-time lurker. Hi!

My sideboard:
4 Infest
4 Duress
4 Faerie Macabre
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Pithing Needle (just because)

Some guys swear by Vampire Nighthawk against aggro. Ain't good, he just eats a bolt. Some play Lashwrithe, which is way too slow.

[Blackhound]

Interesting, any chance you could tell me more when you have time best/worst matchups. Is it worth splashing a couler ?

[tmac]

Every aggro deck that can get out of gates before I stabilize can spell trouble. The worst matchup is definitely Affinity. They're too fast, 3 of my kill spells are dead against them, Wrench Mind's not effective.

Best matchup? Combo, I guess. They're basically forced into topdeck mode while I slowly bash 'em with a Nexus. After sideboarding it's not even fair.

Splashing green is a good choice. You get DRS and Abrupt Decay. [card]Nature's Claim[/card] comes in from the sideboard to deal with Leylines and Affinity. I don't wanna buy fetchlands so I run mono-black.

* * *

There's also a BUG aggro version of the deck similar to the Legacy one.

[Blackhound]

Interestingthinking about it there are artifacts such as Spellskite Rachet Bomb and Chalice Of The Void which may have a place in the sideboard.

[tmac]

Why the Spellskites? Mr. Crusader already dodges Bolts and Paths.

I've tried the bombs, they're slow and narrow. Infest is more useful in general and there's always Illness in the Ranks if tokens bother you.

Chalice hurts me as much as it hurts them. I've got must-playables at CMC 1 through 4.

[tmac]

Shadow of Doubt is amazing, I should really play 2 or 3. It owns Scapeshift and Tron so hard.

[Khaospawn]

Shadow of Doubt is amazing, I should really play 2 or 3. It owns Scapeshift and Tron so hard.

Oh, gods, this card is amazing. All of my yes.

Also, dat flavor text. It's like some windstrider would say.

[Jack]

I played against a variant of this on Friday. It had a little trick where it would stick a Funeral Charm on an Isochron Scepter. I actually beat him hilariously game 1 by stalling him out until his own Vatmothers poisoned him to death. Game 2 and 3 he got the double Crusader draw, which Soul Sisters can't do shit about.

[Jack]

Oh, and I'm legitimately interested in building this. It seems really fun, and the mana base is baller. Urborg fits so well. Would anyone care to spoon-feed me a workable sideboard?

[tmac]

Infest and Duress are safe choices, the rest depends on your meta. My sideboard is a couple posts above.

[Jack]

Ah, thanks. I don't know how I missed that.

[Blackhound]

Damnation ?

[tmac]

Damnation ?

Too slow compared to Infest. Also, kills the Vatmommies.

[Alex]

Nothing personal, ladies, but I have a dumbtarded amount of experience playing Infect in all color combinations. I played both popular versions of the deck in Standard, both UG and mono black, (played to the top 32 of 2 Grand Prixs with UG, and won multiple 1ks with the deck) and I hate to tell you, but you've got mono black all wrong.

Mono black isn't an aggro deck, it's a midrange control deck that aims to clear the board for the incredibly fast clock that infect provides. In Standard it did this with efficient removal like Tribute to Hunger, Dismember, Go for the Throat, etc, and won off of the back of either Phyrexian Crusader, Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon, or continuous pecks from Inkmoth Nexus. More often than not, my games were won with a combination of removal and Lashwrithe + Nexus.

Right now there are no lists that do this in the Modern metagame. The closest thing to it is the mono black control deck that
wins with Phyrexian Vatmother and Phyrexian Crusader, but that deck is fringe at best. I believe that there are legs to a list that plays Runechanter's Pike, and I even tried out the card in Standard, but it was really unimpressive on Crusader, and I always felt it left more to be desired on Inkmoth Nexus.

That being said, I've been working on an article that encompasses all of the infect archetypes. I plan on releasing it when the front page of our site goes live. So look forward to that.

I wrote about it at length when it was Standard, though. Here's a primer I wrote on it back then. I didn't play it at anything larger than a Game Day, but I enjoyed the deck and felt it was consistent enough to have an actual shot at being an eternal deck in something like Modern.

[Longtoe]

Is anyone grinding this on mtgo? Getting T3 kills is hilarious. This deck is faster than bogles.

[Blackhound]

Regarding splashing green in the mono black lists, which duel lands would be best ?

[Khaospawn]

Overgrown Tomb.

[Khaospawn]

And Verdant Catacombs to fetch said Overgrown Tombs.

[Blackhound]

Temple of maladay any good ?

[Blackhound]

Black has no artifact or enchantment removal does it

[Blackhound]

Also, Augur of Skulls ?

[Mr. Metronome]

Temple of Malady is bad in a deck that's trying to kill turn 2-4. Augur of Skulls is definitely bad. Black has Thoughtseize instead of good non-creature removal.

[Jack]

Except mono black rarely kills before turn 6.