Deep Dive: G/U Infect

Been really digging the N Matches with X Deck article layout recently. What Modern deck should I aim to do one of those with (likely N=30ish, not 100)

— Ari Lax (@armlx) June 16, 2018

Infect

Aaron Barich

1st Place at Star City Games Invitational on 06-08-2018

Modern

Creatures (13)

• 4 Noble Hierarch
• 1 Spellskite
• 4 Blighted Agent
• 4 Glistener Elf

Lands (19)

• 2 Pendelhaven
• 2 Wooded Foothills
• 2 Windswept Heath
• 1 Temple Garden
• 2 Breeding Pool
• 1 Dryad Arbor
• 2 Misty Rainforest
• 3 Verdant Catacombs
• 4 Inkmoth Nexus

Spells (28)

• 2 Forest
• 4 Might of Old Krosa
• 2 Spell Pierce
• 4 Vines of Vastwood
• 2 Groundswell
• 1 Distortion Strike
• 4 Mutagenic Growth
• 1 Apostle's Blessing
• 1 Dismember
• 3 Become Immense
• 4 Blossoming Defense

Sideboard

• 2 Relic of Progenitus
• 1 Spell Pierce
• 2 Nature's Claim
• 1 Dismember
• 4 Geist of Saint Traft
• 1 Grafdigger's Cage
• 2 Dissenter's Deliverance
• 2 Shapers' Sanctuary

Here we go.

I got to 29 matches with Infect before realizing any more would be excessive for early Pro Tour testing. What did I learn?

When Would and Wouldn’t I Recommend Infect?

The obvious best case for Infect is when you are dunking on other combo decks. Infect is a more reliable Turn 3 kill than most other combo decks in the format, but importantly is the best combo deck in the sideboard combo mirrors where each player has light interaction. With eight hexproof effects in Vines of Vastwood and Blossoming Defense, it’s really easy to ignore whatever cheap interaction your opponent tries to present and you have Spell Pierce or Nature’s Claim or Relic of Progenitus to fight back.

Sideboarding against Ironworks:

Out:

In:

If Relic of Progenitus were Tormod’s Crypt or even Nihil Spellbomb, you might want it. As is, just kill them and ignore making their combo stutter a little.

Infect is also great against any non-combo linear deck that resembles a combo deck. Light interaction and threats just won’t work, and non-combo decks aren’t going to be as fast as combo decks, so

they don’t even have the out of just killing you first sometimes.

Sideboarding against Tron:

Out:

In:

This matchup is a joke. You can swap up the Nature’s Claim and Dissenter’s Deliverance numbers if you don’t need to tag a Turn 1 Expedition Map for one mana on the play, but that’s it. Don’t forget they can find Ghost Quarter to kill an Inkmoth Nexus.

All the fair matchups are atrocious, however. You can steal a match against Jund, but any of the Lingering Souls matchups like Abzan or Mardu, or any of the Snapcaster Mage matchups? Absolute nightmares.

Right now, I think U/W and Jeskai and Mardu are all big enough parts of the metagame that I’m a little hesitant to pull the trigger on Infecting people, but there’s definitely exploitative value to be had if you dodge all them. Zan Syed couldn’t have won SCG Atlanta without that. I won about 60% of my matches with the deck, which is good but not phenomenal. Honestly, that sounds about right.

Fighting the Fair Decks

Despite saying what I said about the fair matchups being bad matchups, your deck is so maneuverable it feels like there should be something you can do to close the gap. You can get a small amount of that discussion by looking at the Tweet thread I linked, but I think the short version is that you need to find some way to stay maneuverable, not get into their midgame battles, but also not just die when they have their backup one-drop removal at the right time.

Aaron had a few cards trying to push this angle, so let’s discuss them.

Of the cards to protect yourself with against these decks, I found Shapers’ Sanctuary much more effective than Geist of Saint Traft. In games where I resolved an early Shapers’ Sanctuary, I actually felt favored. I get the desire to find something else, as there are diminishing returns on an enchantment that isn’t a creature or pump spell, but Geist isn’t it.

Geist is just…. weird. Your opponents shouldn’t actually have many direct outs to hexproof creatures. Even though your deck is a creature deck that looks like something Damnation would be good against, these fair decks are all trying to beat you with an overload of cheap interaction. They lose when you catch them in a spot where you go for a kill, they react, and you have the answer for their one or sometimes two pieces of interaction. Having Damnation in your deck is a quick way to let that happen, or to just die to Inkmoth Nexus plus Become Immense. Liliana of the Veil is a card, but you have ways to mitigate it and it’s not like any of this category of card helps you there anyway. The U/W decks will have some sweepers, but it’s not like everyone has Kozilek’s Return or something actively great there.

So, if they aren’t likely to have direct ways to kill it, why was Geist of Saint Traft underperforming? They always have a window for Inquisition of Koziliek. Every fair deck has a good blocker, and while you have pump spells to push over it, they have counterplay. One of the more annoying things the U/W deck has after sideboarding is Dispel as another one-mana interactive play to win a big fight with. Even if you do push through a blocker, they often have another one. The time spent pushing through a Snapcaster Mage lets them get to Celestial Colonnade, or they just cast another Tarmogoyf, or sometimes Tarmogoyf is just so big a single +2/+2 pump spell doesn’t do the trick.

They can also just kill you if you’re a turn short casting Geist and had to take damage off lands. Geist is still way slower than an infect creature and they can tread water against the Angel token with removal.

The worst part might be that your deck just isn’t built to get 1WU that easily. You have a lot of sources that only produce green or colorless mana and only so many fetchlands. Your fair deck opponents have cards like Field of Ruin and Blood Moon. It’s a real effort to get going, and sometimes it involves taking so much pain that they just clock you back with whatever threats they’re producing.

Another part of this is that these decks should almost always be killing your Noble Hierarch. A big part of your ability to outmaneuver their answers involves having extra mana, and the exalted damage sets up a lot of easy two-attack kills that just shorten the window where your fair deck must interact.

Geist of Saint Traft can win you games, but I’m not sure it wins you enough games to be worth four sideboard slots and a maindeck land.

I don’t want to put a full sideboarding guide here, as things deviate too much if you don’t have Geist and depending on their exact flavor, so let’s look at bulk cuts and additions.

Spell Pierce is really bad versus Jund, as it lets them generate more mismatches with discard spells. Against Mardu, where it can hit Lingering Souls, I like having one or two, and you want the maximum number versus Jeskai to fight bigger stack fights.

Dismember is only good against Jund. Cut it elsewhere and hope their Young Pyromancer draw doesn’t happen. Same with Dryad Arbor, which only saves you from Liliana of the Veil and isn’t actually a win condition. Distortion Strike is similarly bad against U/W/x but great against Mardu.

If either Dismember or Spell Pierce is good, you want more of them. Dismember is especially against Jund’s when they sideboard Grim Lavamancers.

When in doubt, trim a copy or two of your worst pump spell. I’m just not quite sure which one that is. Versus attrition decks, I don’t like Groundswell, as it takes cardboard to set up. Mutagenic Growth is worse if they have Lightning Helix and Lightning Bolt, but I still like free spells for faster kills here. Might of Old Krosa can be worse in certain Dispel spots against U/W/x, but there generally isn’t a huge difference.

The Other Big Two

So the big two unfair decks of Ironworks and Tron are great matchups. The big two fair matchups of U/W and Mardu are bad.

What about the creature decks?

My record against Hollow One was reasonably favorable, but I’m not sure how representative that is. I felt like every match I could easily lose, their nut draws legitimately outclass you, and that I got some wins against hands that just got weird.

A big part of the nightmare games is that Hollow One is just loading up on Grim Lavamancer these days. If you want to shred Infect opponents, this is the best card and they just have three!

Another weird thing is that Burning Inquiry is really good against you. The way Infect scripts out every game is you deploy your threats and then must use the other half of your hand of pump spells to close. If they just time Burning Inquiry right after you play your game-ending creature, your randomized hand is likely to just lose pump potential and therefore clock potential.

One card that wasn’t as big of an issue as I expected was Collective Brutality. Yeah, it can slow you down, but it’s way more of a Mind Rot than a removal spell. You just spend a pump spell, save your Blighted Agent, and go to town with exalted and Pendelhaven. It’s still good against Infect, but it isn’t a total dealbreaker the way it is against Burn.

Sideboarding against Hollow One:

Out:

In:

I’m not entirely sure on trimming those two pump spells or on needing all the graveyard hate. You might not want two copies of Relic of Progenitus on the draw, as it doesn’t pressure Angler as well. Dissenter’s Deliverance has overperformed by letting you stunt their clock and cycling for one mana, which is way better than Relic’s two-drop cycling that hits your delve fuel.

I started off taking out more Mutagenic Growths, but it turns out that current Infect has made that card way better than the 2012 builds I remember. Back then you had twelve +4/+4s, and a +2/+2 didn’t change the clock much. Now, not only does Mutagenic Growth team up with Blossoming Defense to produce relevant pump chunks, but it also works with the +6/+6 on Become Immense in multiple ways to add to lethal. A one-poison chip shot makes the next attack that gets +8/+8’ed lethal, or just the first attack with exalted. I’m really not interested in sideboarding the card out in any matchup besides Burn, where life is at a premium and +2/+2 still leaves your creature dead to Lightning Bolt.

And Humans?

The matchup seemed close. You lean heavily on Blighted Agent due to Mantis Rider and Kitesail Freebooter in the air, to the point you might just need access to it or Distortion Strike on the draw. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben is a big problem. Sometimes they draw a Izzet Staticaster and things get bad.

But the weird thing is that your deck is great against a lot of their normally good draws. Anything with Aether Vial is just awkward and slow. Champion of the Parish can be too. The draws you struggle against almost all involve Noble Hierarch letting them get their three-drop interactive cards on the stack before you’re set up to win through them. As seen in my above match against Willy Edel, I got trounced by the no-Vial, Avacyn’s Pilgrim version of the deck. Admittedly I kept my Game 1 hand assuming he was playing Jund, but……

So really, as usual, Humans is better against things than people think it is once you understand what is going on. What a shocker.

Sideboarding against Humans:

Out:

In:

Yea, this is definitely a spot where fewer copies of Geist of Saint Traft would mean more good cards. Another Distortion Strike, another kill spell, another anything.

Closing Tips and Tricks

Some final odds and ends I picked up along the way:

• Largely due to Blossoming Defense as added protection and Become Immense letting you one-card pump kill, current Infect often takes a tempo role in matchups. You play at the exact pace your opponent forces you to.
• Dryad Arbor is a surprise chump blocker against many things, but usually it’s Gurmag Angler.
• Don’t forget to pump before casting Apostle’s Blessing on green.
• Vines of Vastwood isn’t hexproof. Casting it on their creature shuts down pump spells in Infect mirrors.
• You’re going to lose to the G/B Infect lists, but I think Blighted Agent is so good I wouldn’t touch these. Also, Phyrexian Crusader just makes bad matchups slightly less bad when your polarized deck is just better.
• Casting Glistener Elf on Turn 1 on the play over Noble Hierarch can be better if the first two-poison hit is a big deal. Honestly, it often is unless a protected Elf is going to be huge.
• You may want to just fire a pump spell on Glistener Elf a bit early if you’re concerned about a blocker later. Especially if it’s Might of Old Krosa.
• Your hexproof pump spells can be fired off before a Become Immense to start a fight, and then, if the coast is clear, used as delve mana. This often comes up with multiples. Similarly, you can just spew a pump spell on their end step as a preemptive delve Ritual.
• Think about if you need triple green on Turn 3. Sometimes, if you have a different threat, you don’t want to also deploy Inkmoth Nexus early because colorless doesn’t pay for pumps.
• Dissenter’s Deliverance is wonderful. It kills Chalice of the Void and lets you hedge and cash it in for a real card. Nature’s Claim still kills Ghirapur Aether Grid, and don’t forget Spellskite also helps versus that card too.

Appendix: Raw Results