Last week I talked a little bit about how I’ve built Infect for both Modern and Legacy. Now that I’ve actually had the opportunity to play with the deck, as well as watch Tom Ross get first place at SCG St. Louis this last weekend I want to review the modern variant of the deck a little more in depth.
The first thing I want to say about Infect is that I really love playing this deck in both Modern and Legacy. It has very powerful creatures, counter magic, card draw, what more can a Magic player ask for? As for the Modern variant, I feel that it is well placed in the format right now and that its boogeyman legacy is well earned due to its ability to end a game quickly and seemingly out of nowhere.
Infect
| Creatures (14) 4 Blighted Agent 4 Glistener Elf 4 Noble Hierarch 2 Spellskite Spells (26) 2 Apostle’s Blessing 2 Become Immense 1 Dismember 2 Distortion Strike 4 Gitaxian Probe 4 Groundswell 3 Might of Old Krosa 1 Rancor 1 Twisted Image 4 Vines of Vastwood 2 Wild Defiance | Lands (20) 3 Breeding Pool 1 Dryad Arbor 2 Forest 4 Inkmoth Nexus 4 Misty Rainforest 2 Pendelhaven 4 Windswept Heath Sideboard (15) 1 Dismember 2 Dispel 1 Grafdigger’s Cage 3 Nature’s Claim 1 Necropede 1 Pithing Needle 2 Relic of Progenitus 1 Spellskite 1 Twisted Image 2 Viridian Corrupter |
I haven’t played with this list long enough to do any brewing/customizing so the list above is a fairly stock list. After having played both this list and the Legacy list I feel like this deck depends more on a comboesque style than the Legacy variant which has more counter magic and removal to dodge. One-third of the list is pump spells making it extremely likely that you will draw all the things you need to be able to pump and kill your opponent on one turn. I enjoy the fact that the draws in this deck are very consistent due to the way it is set up. I rarely find myself drawing a card and wishing I had drawn something entirely different, unless I’m getting mana flooded/screwed which happens to all of us from time to time. I’ve also found a majority of games end extremely quickly, sometimes in as little as three turns. A friend of mine referred to the deck as the Blue/Green Burn and after playing that feels like an accurate description.
So far there are two matchups that I’ve found very challenging, though not impossible. The first matchup I’ve struggled with is Jund. While the matchup doesn’t feel impossible it is definitely a long, drawn out game that is very challenging. I’ve found it is important to be cautious since Jund runs so many removal spells. During games against Jund I find myself holding onto Gitaxian Probes sometimes until I am ready to kill my opponent. Holding back Git Probe lets me know what kind of removal I’m facing before I use up all my pump spells. It can be dangerous since they have discard but so far it has worked well for me. Inkmoth Nexus has also been great in this matchup since they don’t really have any removal for it until it becomes a creature, at which point you will hopefully have a Vines of Vastwood or Apostle’s Blessing to protect it. Wild Defiance is also great since it neutralizes a bolt. Unfortunately they do have Abrupt Decay to remove Wild Defiance, but if the card stays on the board it can be very strong. Spellskite does good work here since it can eat a lot of the removal that Jund has, forcing them to remove the Spellskite before they can remove the actual threat.
Which leads to the second thing (I guess it isn’t technically a matchup per se) I’ve found challenging facing with Infect, Spellskite. It is by far one of the hardest things I’ve had to deal with since I started playing the deck. One night at modern I played against three decks in a row that had mainboard Spellskite, holy cow was that miserable. Twisted Image does a lot of work here. Not only does it kill a Spellskite for U but it also cantrips. Wild Defiance also does a lot of work against Spellskite because even if they redirect the spell to Spellskite your creature will still have been targeted by a spell and get +3/+3 from the Wild Defiance.
Inkmoth Nexus does the most work in this deck. The land destruction in modern is fairly limited right now and once it becomes a creature you have Vines and Apostle’s Blessing to protect it. Blighted Agent and Distortion Strike are also both great in this very creature heavy format, allowing you to get a creature through no matter what their board state is. I’ve also found it is important to remember you can kill with regular damage as well, especially in this format where some decks will fetch, shock, Thoughtseize on turn one bringing their life total down to 15 before you’ve even played a land. I’ve pumped a Spellskite to kill someone before Tom Ross style.
Infect is an extremely powerful deck that many players find rightfully intimidating to face. The deck takes a lot of practice to become good with, never mind master, but I strongly believe that is (or in my case since I’m still learning, will be) worth the time and effort to do so.
Kate hails from Worcester MA and also does a bit of Card Altering. Check her Stuff out on Facebook! She mainly plays legacy and modern though will occasionally find herself playing EDH. She has recently succumbed to MTGO.