Last weekend I finally pulled the trigger. I registered 22 Swamps for what is likely the first time in my life. Despite that, I felt more confident than I had before in the season. Infect was doing well on Magic Online, and some of my friends were speaking highly of it as well.
I knew Infect was good, and certainly well positioned. It just helped to have people who had faith in the deck besides me. In the end, I finished 7-2-1, good enough for top 32; although I beat the crap out of Dan Jordan after I drew with him.
This is what I played:
Over the course of the day, I defeated G/B Pod, U/B, U/B, Mono Red, Mono Red, Wolf Run Ramp, Infect, and U/W Tokens, while I lost to Ramp and Mono Red.
I lost to Mono Red when I kept a hand with one-power fliers and disruption game one. Second game, I stalled on two land, eventually found a third for Crusader, but it was too late. He had already Ancient Grudged me and was attacking with Chandra’s Phoenix and Stormblood Berserker. I swung with a Nexus, hoping he would Grudge it, even though there was no reason to. That way, if I drew a Swamp, I could lethal him with Lashwrithe. He used the Grudge but drew a Perilous Myr to leave me drawing dead. My top card was a spell anyway.
Against the Wolf Run deck I lost to, we had two fairly lopsided games. In the third, we stalemated after he peeled Primeval Titan and then Ancient Grudge, and the math was changing every turn. I tried to spend a few minutes figuring out what to do, but my opponent hurried me along, so I just passed the turn. I’m sure that if I were on MTGO, I could have figured it out.
He then proceeded to think at my end of turn for a full minute as to whether to flashback Ancient Grudge, which would leave me dead on board, but he didn’t. I was given a few turns and started to mount a comeback.
When he drew and passed the turn, I knew I had won. If he drew something to interact with me, I would have been dead on his attack. When I attacked with everyone, he cast his freshly drawn Ancient Grudge, and I was dead on the counterattack.
I felt like I got slow rolled, and we were in extra turns already, so waiting didn’t do anything for me. Overall, a fairly awkward experience, especially since it was the match that knocked me out of top eight contention.
In theory, the deck should be pretty flimsy. I mean, who is realistically going to die to a deck full of 1/1 fliers? As the day went on, I liked my chances better and better. U/B was a complete joke. If they ever tapped out for anything, they usually died. There’s also the sideboard Postmortem Lunge to get them when they think you are drawing dead.
You should usually be playing your spells into their counters and planning your turns ahead of time. Prepare for the turn where you get to play Trigon around Mana Leak, so that you can punish them with Inkmoth Nexus if they ever decide to tap out. If you think they’re about to play a Grave Titan, hold onto that Lashwrithe for a big turn.
For the most part, you want them to use their mana to stop your threats. If you give them a turn of reprieve, they just start sculpting a better hand with Think Twice and Forbidden Alchemy. They don’t always have it.
Surgical Extraction is one of those cards that someone sides in against a linear strategy like Wolf Run Ramp. That’s not what it’s there for, nor am I one of “those guys.” However, it is useful against control decks. They only have so many ways to interact with your threats. If you remove U/B’s Mana Leaks, they have what, three or four Dissipates to stop your Lashwrithes?
In a pinch, you can Extraction whatever they are targeting with Snapcaster Mage. I wouldn’t necessarily blow it on the first pitch though. If their Snapcaster target isn’t great and them casting it doesn’t hinder you in some major way, perhaps you should wait. Being able to see their hand and play around whatever removal they have is awesome, but it’s an added bonus. Be patient.
Wolf Run Ramp is a tougher matchup to figure out. I didn’t ask for sideboard notes from Jesse Smith, aka Smi77y, although maybe I should. I just thought I’d figure it out, but this one stumps me. I know that I want some amount of removal. The Doom Blade seems fine, but I needed to kill Inkmoth Nexus a lot. Having a little extra reach would be nice too, so I think I want all four Virulent Wounds. If the game plays out in such a way that they never put Nexus into play and never try to block with it, you’ve already lost.
The Whispering Specters, who I thought would be all-stars, were pretty bad. I Mind Twisted one person all day. Infect is on the radar enough that everyone knows you’ve got Lashwrithe. Specter is just an overcosted Plague Stinger, and there are probably better options available.
I know they are going to side in Ancient Grudge against me, but the plan should be just fight through it. They have few ways to interact, and Spellskite messes with the non-Grudge ones. A two-for-one isn’t backbreaking; it’s just good.
It seems like Infect should be a heavy favorite, but their deck is very scary.
The aggressive decks can be tough, since my maindeck basically sucks against them. If you draw enough Crusaders and Lashwrithes, and not many 1/1 fliers, you should be okay though. You want to play a control game against them, and that’s difficult to do with so many poor creatures.
I already mentioned that Whispering Specter underperformed, but it wasn’t the only culprit. Trigon of Rage was good at times, but mostly it was a huge mana sink. I think I’d rather have Piston Sledge or even Livewire Lash.
Jesse said the situation where they have one blocker to your two attackers, pumping the unblocked one is relevant. I’m willing to believe that, but it isn’t a major selling point for me. I’m not as anti-Trigon as I was a week ago, but I still reside in the skeptical camp.
Skithiryx was great at times, but he does cost five mana. Sometimes he would rot in my hand, and there was nothing I could do about it. Despite that, I felt like I was playing a land too many and often sided one out. Post-board vs. decks like Ramp and Mono Red, I felt like 26 lands was correct, as I was taking a more controlling route.
While Distress was awesome, sometimes I was glutted on two-drops. If Despise were a little better, I would play that instead. I might make that swap anyway, just to have fewer two-drops.
If any one card over-performed, it was Spellskite. Unless they have Ancient Grudge, you can safely “go for it” when you have a Spellskite. He’s like the best Distress of all time. Sometimes the downside to discard hits you hard, like after you take their Titan, and they immediately peel another one. If it were a counterspell, at least they would have invested the mana into it. Spellskite is like that but rolled up into one card. I’d add the fourth for sure.
I was going to cut the Tezzeret’s Gambits, but after looking at the decklists from MTGO and States, I saw that every single Infect list that won matches had two or three Gambits. Now, that doesn’t necessarily prove anything, but it shows that even if they were bad, the deck can still win. If they were bad, I would think that the hive mind would eventually realize it and you’d start to see Gambit fall out of favor.
During the course of the day, I felt the entire gamut of emotions when I drew Gambit. It was terrible against Mono Red, great when I was flooded, and sometimes provided the lethal poison counter. Two sounds about right, but I’m not convinced either way.
Sunday went much worse for me. I built another do-nothing U/B Control deck, tried to audible into U/W at the last second, but everyone had shotgunned the Tundras. I didn’t mind playing U/B, until I got paired vs. Goblins of course. I even drew my single Damnation and got destroyed.
Second round I took my third career loss to Merfolk. He Wasted my Polluted Delta, sided in Tormod’s Crypts vs. me, but drew a whole lot of Kiras. With Progenitus and Emrakul basically out of the format for now, I figured I could skimp on Edicts, but I was wrong.
The Draft Open started in a couple hours, so I decided to join a Standard win-a-box with my updated Infect list. It was getting kind of close since the first match in my bracket took over an hour. There was an opponent waiting on the finals before I even started the semis.
In the end, I defeated two Wolf Run Ramp decks and split the box right as seatings for the draft were being called. I was seated at a table full of masters, including Eli Kassis, Edgar Flores, Jonathan Suarez, and Ali Aintrazi. My pod was easily the toughest at the table.
I love drafting either side of the mill deck, so I was looking for that or G/W aggro. When I opened a pack with four insane blue cards and Geist-Honored Monk, I felt like my path was chosen for me. I could fight for blue, or I could take a sweet white rare that was probably better than the other blue cards anyway. It came down to Monk vs. Forbidden Alchemy, and I took the Monk.
Awkwardly enough, I moved into blue a short time later, and a Makeshift Mauler even tabled from my opening pack. I settled into U/W, looking for a mill theme but never really finding any. It looked like if I had stuck to the BUG mill plan like I had been drafting, my deck would have been awesome, but oh well.
I was short on two-drops, so playing first was of the utmost importance. Naturally, I lost every single die roll and ended up losing in round three to Eli. We 20% split, and he ended up winning, so good for him. His deck was much better than mine, and he easily crushed me.
I’m not sure if I’m headed for Kansas City this weekend, as flights are pretty expensive. If I were going, I’m not sure if I’d be playing Infect again, as I kind of want to try some new stuff. However, I totally respect anyone who is willing to sleeve it up. If anything, last weekend showed that it was a contender.
The core that I would play with is:
4 Plague Stinger
4 Phyrexian Crusader
3 Spellskite
4 Lashwrithe
x Virulent Wound
y Spot Removal
z Disruption
Sideboard
1 Spellskite
3 Surgical Extraction
My version wasn’t optimal, and I’m looking forward to improving on that. Still, I wouldn’t mind giving U/B Control another go at it. This time, I’ll play it how I wanted to play it with virtually zero creatures. If I get good matchups, I probably won’t lose.
Can everyone out there do me a favor? Please, please, please don’t let me play a blue deck in Legacy without Stoneforge Mystic or Tarmogoyf again. While my deck was basically Drew Levin deck but better, I relied far too heavily on ignoring the 10% of the metagame that I needed to. With Tarmogoyf in my deck, I feel like I can take on anyone.
For those of you going to KC, good luck!
GerryT