Hey again!

At first I wanted to write about the PTQ I played on Monday after Easter but i felt that nobody would want to read about a 3-2 drop, so a topic came to mind that I’ve been wanting to talk about for some time now.

I might have mentioned that Infect used to be one of my pet decks in modern. It’s a deck that you either love or hate, since it’s so powerful AND stupid in quite a lot of ways.
The basic idea is to play a cheap creature with infect, make sure the way is clear and then pump it up to 10 power and attack for the win. You often deal 5 infect damage on each of two consecutive turns, it makes no difference.

Just remember this rule:
“104.3d If a player has ten or more poison counters, he or she loses the game the next time a player receives priority. (This is a state-based effect. See rule 704.)”

Some people might remember the first modern Pro Tour, when Samuele Estratti won the tournament with Splinter Twin, beating Zoo in the Finals. This Pro Tour was full of Zoo, Cloudpost and a huge amount of combo decks.

I was playing Zoo that Pro Tour, but did not expect that many combo-decks and felt a little bit too weak for the metagame (finished 6-4). Right before the Pro Tour our testing team played around with several version of Blazing Shoal Infect deck. I was kind of surprised when in round 5 my opponent played a turn-2 Blighted Agent. I was lucky not to get poisoned but when I watched the Top 8, I saw an amazing deck piloted by Sam Black:

creatures

4 Blighted Agent

1 Progenitus

spells

4 Blazing Shoal

3 Disrupting Shoal

4 Dragonstorm

2 Gitaxian Probe

4 Muddle the Mixture

1 Pact of Negation

4 Peer Through Depths

4 Ponder

4 Preordain

1 Snapback

4 Spell Pierce

1 Summoner’s Pact

lands

4 Inkmoth Nexus

8 Island

4 Scalding Tarn

2 Tolaria West

1 Watery Grave

sideboard

2 Deprive

1 Dismember

1 Echoing Truth

2 Jace Beleren

1 Slaughter Pact

4 Spellskite

1 Trickbind

3 Vendilion Clique

 

Some people said, “This is dumb. Just play Nexus turn 1 and attack for the win on turn 2 with Disrupting Shoal backup”, but still this is definitely a masterpiece.

In addition to Ponder and Preordain you also have Peer Through Depths, which is just great since you can find both combo parts (Shoal and Dragonstorm) or some protection if you still have time to go off. The other good card is Muddle the Mixture since it protects your combo and also works as a tutor for Blazing Shoal, Snapback and Blighted Agent off it’s transmute ability. Tolaria West on the other hand, can tutor for Inkmoth Nexus, Pact of Negation and Summoner’s Pact, which can get Progenitus, so you can cast a huge Blazing Shoal and win the game in the end.

But Wizards soon figured out that Blazing Shoal needs to be removed from modern, which put Infect somewhat under the radar for a while. About six months later there was an modern Grand Prix in Turin, Italy and I had no Idea what to play. This was when GR Tron became popular and the whole metagame was full of Jund, Delver and Affinity. Scrolling through decklists on Magic Online I saw that someone finished 10th at a PTQ with 5 color infect.

I did not manage to find the exact list so I’m unable to give credit to the guy who actually invented the deck, but I decided to give the deck a chance and it turned out to be quite good. I worked with it a little bit, changed the manabase, some slots in the sideboard and decided to register it for the GP, where I managed to make day 2 and finish in the Top 64:

creatures

4 Blighted Agent

4 Glistener Elf

4 Plague Stinger

4 Simian Spirit Guide

spells

2 Apostle’s Blessing

4 Assault Strobe

3 Dismember

4 Groundswell

4 Might of Old Krosa

4 Mutagenic Growth

3 Sleight of Hand

2 Vines of Vastwood

lands

1 Breeding Pool

4 City of Brass

2 Gemstone Mine

4 Inkmoth Nexus

1 Overgrown Tomb

2 Pendelhaven

1 Stomping Ground

3 Verdant Catacombs

sideboard

2 Darkblast

3 Nature’s Claim

4 Phyrexian Crusader

2 Spellskite

1 Swamp

3 Thoughtseize

 

The plan was to replace Blazing Shoal with multiple pump spells. The problem was that all pump spells that cost 1 mana only give +4/+4, which means you would need 3 pumps in a single turn to win the game.
That’s kind of risky, since you usually also want some mana up for Vines of Vastwood or Apostle’s Blessing in order to protect it. Mutagenic Growth does a great job here but Assault Strobe is a lot better since it makes your creature exactly lethal with any +4 spell.

Looking at the deck now, it doesn’t seem very solid and kind of risky as well, but most of my opponents did not know what to expect and how to play against this kind of deck. The sideboard was quite nice though and boarding in a Swamp and Phyrexian Crusader against those UWR Delver decks was a solid plan, especially if they Path to Exile one of your early drops and ramp you into it.

I kept playing the deck at some local tournaments and always did well. I remember swapping Sleight of Hand for Gitaxian Probes. Journey into Nyx also provides a great addition to the deck – Mana Confluence might be better than Gemstone Mine 

Six months later, there was another modern Pro Tour which was won by Second Sunrise, and had an infect deck in the Top 8 and one in Top 16.
Kelvin Chew’s Top 8 List was just solid Blue-Green. He used Noble Hierarch to gain access to more mana and used the exalted ability instead of Assault Strobe, just like I did.

Instead of working with the Blue-Green version, I decided to ask Ari Lax for some advice on the BUG list he Top 16′ed with:

creatures

4 Blighted Agent

4 Glistener Elf

4 Noble Hierarch

4 Plague Stinger

spells

2 Apostle’s Blessing

2 Giant Growth

4 Groundswell

4 Might of Old Krosa

4 Mutagenic Growth

4 Rancor

4 Vines of Vastwood

lands

2 Breeding Pool

2 Forest

4 Inkmoth Nexus

4 Misty Rainforest

2 Overgrown Tomb

2 Pendelhaven

4 Verdant Catacombs

sideboard

3 Dismember

3 Grafdigger’s Cage

4 Nature’s Claim

2 Spellskite

3 Thoughtseize

 

Ari was splashing for Plague Stinger and Thoughtseize in the sideboard, which I think was correct, but also makes the matchup against any deck that can burn you down a little bit harder (those two Overgrown Tombs make a lot of difference).

I knew I wanted to play this kind of deck in GP Bilbao in early 2013 and so I made some adjustments. I finished 8-1 on day one but failed 1-5 on day 2, which put me out of the money ranks. I still, however, liked the deck a lot:

creatures

4 Blighted Agent

4 Glistener Elf

4 Noble Hierarch

4 Plague Stinger

spells

2 Gitaxian Probe

4 Groundswell

4 Might of Old Krosa

4 Mutagenic Growth

4 Rancor

4 Vines of Vastwood

lands

2 Breeding Pool

2 Forest

4 Inkmoth Nexus

4 Misty Rainforest

2 Overgrown Tomb

2 Pendelhaven

4 Verdant Catacombs

sideboard

2 Abrupt Decay

2 Dismember

2 Hurkyl’s Recall

3 Spellskite

2 Sylvan Scrying

4 Thoughtseize

 

I really liked the Sylvan Scrying into Inkmoth Nexus against Jund. The best card against any deck that has removal is Noble Hierarch, since it’s the best opening and it allows you to do a lot of stuff like protect your early creatures with the extra mana and Inkmoth Nexus, which is a threat that can only be killed by removal spells at instant speed. If you are careful you will only activate it when you can also protect it or when you want to trade it for a removal spell.
Rancor is a little bit strange since the trample is mostly relevant against flying creatures like Vault Skirge, any Nexus and Ornithopter, but it’s mostly not worth paying a mana for the two extra power you get.

I stopped playing the deck since you often have to rely on your opponents making mistakes. Also the deck is not that solid so your tournament results can go from x-0 to 0-x. In the meantime, more people got to test and improve the deck and if there was a modern tournament tomorrow, I would go with this version:

creatures

4 Blighted Agent

4 Glistener Elf

4 Noble Hierarch

4 Plague Stinger

spells

2 Gitaxian Probe

4 Groundswell

4 Might of Old Krosa

4 Mutagenic Growth

4 Vines of Vastwood

1 Predator’s Strike

2 Apostle’s Blessing

1 Sylvan Scrying

lands

2 Breeding Pool

2 Forest

4 Inkmoth Nexus

4 Misty Rainforest

2 Overgrown Tomb

2 Pendelhaven

4 Verdant Catacombs

sideboard

2 Wild Defiance

1 Gut Shot

2 Abrupt Decay

2 Dismember

2 Hurkyl’s Recall

2 Spellskite

1 Sylvan Scrying

3 Thoughtseize

 

Another thing I considered was running a version with Birds of Paradise (possibly 2 or 3) so you have more mana to do stuff, but it might just not make it in since it doesn’t have the exalted ability… With Birds you could also include Assault Strobe again 

You could also remove Glistener Elfs (they go out most of the times after game 1) and play Birds and more Sylvan Scrying to focus on winning with Inkmoth Nexus. I actually might try that in the near future since I heard PTQs for Hawaii are modern!

See you and thanks!

Holzi