Magic: The Gathering

[SubzeroDiabolos]

Yea I was pretty sure about that, but a confirmation doesn't hurt. Gratias.

[zoobernut]

Went to FNM last night with my infect deck. Got stomped, can't figure out why. It usually does really well but last night it was so inconsistent. One game of the three would be really close but I would end up losing in the long game, one game I would completely destroy my opponent very quickly usually between turn 3-5 and then one game I would get destroyed extremely fast. So annoying.

[Tricen]

What decks did you play against? Infect kind of gets shit on by anything that plays arc trail and bolt.

[zoobernut]

First deck was this white weenie deck centered around equipments. The second deck used grave titan and that planeswalker that is black/red to turn the 2/2's into 5/5 flying dragons and the third deck that I lost to was a red/blue control/burn combo deck that relied on creatures that get +3/+0 whenever its controller casts an instant.

My deck did destroy a myr deck and another similarly built infect deck.

It was strange though because my deck would sometimes do really well and then others do not so well. It was just so inconsistent. At least if I got stomped straight across I would have a better idea of what was going on. I think I did better when my opening hand guaranteed one creature out on the second turn as well as having a giant growth to jumpstart the poison counters. I also tended to do better when I had a Hand of Praetor in my opening hand as well.

My deck as I ran it last night:

Forest x10
Swamp x12

Garruk Wildspeaker x2
Corpse Cur x4
Hand of Praetors x4
Skithiryx, The Blight Dragon x2
Contagion Engine x2
Ichor Rats x4
Necropede x4
Blight Mamba x4
Carrion Call x4
Plague Stinger x4
Giant Growth x4


I think I am going to replace the Garruk's with x2 untamed might and 2 of the corpse curs with Ichorclaw Myrs or maybe all 4 of the corpse curs with ichor claws. The corpse curs were nice to get cards back from the grave yard but they didn't help that much because by the time I was able to use them I was usually already in trouble. I think the ichor claws would be good because they are cheap to put out and discourage blocking.

[Tricen]

You need vines of the vastwood or canopy cover. Both are very strong. I would cut carrion call and contagion engine for vines or canopy cover and contagion clasp.

[zoobernut]

Wow at vines of the vastwood I will definitely put that in. Thank you for the suggestion. I think maybe I will cut carrion call to just 2 for now and see how it plays first. Carrion call actually did save my butt quite a few times for blocking since it is an instant. My opponent would attack thinking I had nothing and I would bust out with carrion call and block them. But then again Carrion call was a pain in the butt because I had to keep 4 mana untapped and available.

[Tricen]

It's not as good as you want it to be. Vines leads to more favorable combat tricks and can straight up win you the game. Canopy covers is really solid too.

[Nama]

So I just recently started playing Magic again so this thought might not be too competitive but What are thoughts of Lirewire Lash with infect decks? Seems like a way to punish players that keep poping your creatures plus a way to add up more poison or get around a defense. However lash seems better in a long game and infect trys to win fast but it could least be a decent sideboard card perhaps.

[Tricen]

It's not a bad idea. 2 of in an infect deck is a solid number for it.

[oldoldman]

Here Zoobernaut: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazin...daily/boab/115

It also makes me mad when people say that someone got lucky for making top 8 of worlds, I'll stop arguing the useless point but to say that a top 8 worlds player only got there on luck is a dick move.

[Zilong]

then what do you call being lined up against decks that has good matchup with yours instead of flat out murdering it?

while it's not entirely luck, if you can manage to not run into decks that will absolutely destroy yours when the tournament's metagame is teeming with it, it plays a decent amount into it. No matter how good your deck is, and how good you are at playing it, odds are luck will still play a decent amount on your wins and losses.

Not gonna take his achievement away from him, but had he run into a U/B control sooner, he wouldn't be on the top 4. Not to mention now that it's a proven fact that U/B is the best deck on standard, more people are gonna run it, at which point playing a deck that just folds to it is not a good idea.

[zoobernut]

Here Zoobernaut: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazin...daily/boab/115

It also makes me mad when people say that someone got lucky for making top 8 of worlds, I'll stop arguing the useless point but to say that a top 8 worlds player only got there on luck is a dick move.

Thanks for the link. That is very helpful for me. As was the vines of the vastwood suggestion above. Currently I replaced my engines with clasps, added 4x vines, took out the four carrion calls, replaced the corpse curs with ichorclaw myrs and added in 2 putrifax for later game. Now there are twice as many boost cards and overall my creature cost went down. The deck plays much faster now and better so far but I will have to keep playing it more to know for sure.

Thanks for the help.

[Tricen]

Also, primal bellow if you wanna go that route

[zoobernut]

I wonder if primal bellow will be good in a dual color deck. I wonder if Ground Swell or Prey's Vengeance would be more consistent. Also there is the possibility of adding in red for those lands to make creatures boost or unblockable like in the article though I am always reluctant to do a tri color deck. But if I did add in red I could also get assault strobe which can make very quick work of an opponent with an unblocked creature.

(I will probably keep this deck green/black)

[Tricen]

B/U/G Infect might be a strong possibility. Renegade Doppelganger, thrumming bird, fetch lands if you want to run cobra. Etc, seems like an interesting concept.

[zoobernut]

It might be able to work but I would be worried about stretching my deck too thin and making it less about speed which is really the main area where infect seems to excel. I am thinking about taking out the clasps and replacing them with livewire lash. Boosts my creature and then also gives them an additional 2 poison counters every time my creature is targeted.

I was playing around with another really fun (but usually unsuccessful) deck that when it works it really pisses my opponent off because they can't play anything. It is a blue/black control deck focused around discarding and bounce cards. So it is full of Aether Tradewinds, Aether Adept, Lilliana Spectre, Into The Roil, Mind Rot, Psychic Miasma, and 4 mimic vats. Really fun to play when it works though it is super weak against other control decks and straight burn decks because the opponent doesn't have anything on the playing field to control.

[zoobernut]

http://www.gatheringmagic.com/mirrod...spoilers-0155/

Don't know if it was posted or if anyone saw this but some of the cards coming up in Mirrodin Besieged. Also pictures of the faction specific boosters that you will get special at the pre-release party.

[oldoldman]

Not gonna take his achievement away from him, but had he run into a U/B control sooner, he wouldn't be on the top 4.

This is the last post I will respond to on the subject but he beat U/B to make the top 4.

[zoobernut]

So did any of the resident magic players here get any cards for Christmas? Anything new to add to your arsenal or are you all so pro that you have all the cards you need already?

I got a Scars fat pack which included a Wurmcoil Engine and 2 Platinum Emperions.
I also got 4 Zendikar boosters and ended up with 2 Bloodghast and 1 Misty Rain-forest. I was pretty happy to receive get quite a few good cards in only 12 booster packs. I usually have bad luck with booster packs.

Not sure if/where I will work any of these cards into decks yet, I will probably end up using the Wurmcoil somewhere as well as the 2 Bloodghasts and I might try to trade the Misty Rain-forest for a Verdant Catacombs as I don't usually play g/u but I do often play g/b.

[Tonko]

I didn't get any cards, but I gave a bud a playset of Jace (the good one) and he started crying when he got 'em. Dude was emotional.