Basic principle of the deck is more or less to get a 1/1 infect creature out turn 2, hit it with pump and distortion strike on turn 3, and look for the win on turn 4. Some control and destruction in there for sake of guarding it's few cards. Considering putzing around with Livewire Lash in this regard. So far it's been fairly competitive. Any advice you may be able to offer? Thank you kindly from a new player.
I have tried an UB infect deck before, except a played a bit less control. I played thrummingbird (which after the first poison counter basically has infect, and being a flier it's plague stinger 5-7 (I only played 3 copies)) and since I'm into UB I played the amazing Creeping Tar Pit along with the B card that grants +1/0 and infect (which by the way makes T-bird hit for 3 counters!) I also played a couple Contagion Clasps and Throne of Geth that really gives me a late game (usually infect decks weakness) along with Jace 1.0 who benefits from proliferate.
It did much better than the BG version and I only stopped playing it because it's too linear for my taste.
I'm calling it right now- worst rare in the set. Even good limited players will find better bombs at common and uncommon no sweat. Worst. Episode. Ever.
I really do predict this to be our worst rare in set award winner. I'd be happier opening a jar of eyeballs, so I think anything worse is highly unlikely. This card wont just have zero constructed potential, but not be significantly better than a mass of ghouls in a draft.
I've been messing around with a similar deck on MTGO. Mine has less Blue and more creatures (and no rares, ATM). I don't have a list handy right now because it is continually evolving, but here are my thoughts on a few cards:
You need to up your creature count. This isn't GR All-In-Fect. You don't have the robust selection of pump to be able to consistently put people down in a single attack.
Personally, I've found Ichor Rats to be solid. Often, I can sneak in that last poison counter by casting it. Plus, your opponent can't mimic vat or mystifying maze it effectively as they'll just give themselves another poison counter.
I wasn't a fan of Virulent strike. The +2/+0 is nice, but rarely got me there as well as just slow rolling and making good trades.
One card you might have overlooked is Stabbing Pain. Faux-evasion, plus dork removal is decent for one mana.
I'm not sold on Counterspells MD, though I do have a few in my sideboard. The only Blue I MD is Distortion Strike, for obvious reasons, and Diminish, which is deceptively useful for trading, especially when there's a necropede involved.
Because I'm so light on blue, I replaced 4 Islands with Soaring Seacliffs. It plays the same role in the deck as Smoldering Spires does in GR or BR infect variants: temporary evasion. Nothing like Jumping, Vampire Biting Ichor Rats to seal the deal. ;-)
Another way to go with blue is Narcolepsy, which is pretty solid creature control.
Thrummingbirds Are interesting, but I haven't had huge success with them. Sometimes they get you there, but I hate it when I have to mulligan them away because they're the only creature in my opening hand. (Perhaps I'll revisit this card now that I've played the deck more.)
When I first looked into playing poison, I figured if it was at all viable, UB would be the only way. I would definitely use proliferate stuff. The synergy is badass, especially with Jace Beleren.
@OP: 4th mana leak for sure. Personally, I hate the Ichorclaw and Necropede. I would use Ichor Rats and also 2-3 Skittles. I found that running pumps made the deck way inconsistent. If your opp. kills your guys, you got nothing. But when those are replaced with some control type cards like counterspells and removal, you can better ensure that your guys do get through.
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i agree, Jace 1.0 should definitely be in UB infect
the synergy with him x2 or x3 and Contagion Clasp x4 is amazing
you get permanent free draw plus clock your opponent starting turn 4
you have to have 4x ichor rats for the unblockable counter
then go crazy with blue and black removal and have at least 16 other infect creatures, including Curs, Stingers, Myr and Necro.
i advise against Thrumming Bird for the reason stated earlier, if he's on the board with an infect guy they just shoot the infect creature down before you get a counter in and bird just swings for 1 damage
contagion engine may be viable for UB since you're drawing alot more
skith should be a 2 of in EVERY infect deck. he's auto-roll if they can't kill him and killing him is no easy task.
id say run throne of geth sideboard as well against control, since they cant really deal with it other than ratchet bomb and even then you response sac
as long as your not facing an aggressive aggro like elves or goblins you should win every game
I disagree with Doppelganger, it just sits there most of the time. Also disagree with Unsummon. You don't need to worry about early creatures, you need to worry about early Pyroclasms and sweeps. Use 4 Mana leak to take care of early threats. I use 4 Vampire's Bite and 4 Distortion Strike as well.
Most recent piddlings with it were a removed Distortion Strike, another Corpse Cur, removed a Roil and...something else, added 2 vampire hexmage. Turned out to be a pretty good move in the tournament for killing Jace and the like. Still considering Livewire Lash somewhere in there, if they lightning bolt, they take 2 even if I leak or negate the bolt, and then I can make them take another 2 for each pump I play on it. Thinking about replacing Jwar Isle with Darkslick Shores if I can get a few, I think that'd speed up my mana a tad over the Isle, the lifegain isn't much.
As I see this, the deck looks like it goes 2 ways:
Control:
Creatures:
Rats, Skitty, Praetors, Necropede
Spells:
Control suite + proliferate, mimic vat
I think the midgame build is more common, but I believe the control build is pretty solid too. I don't have a list yet, but playing around with it in my head makes it seem like it'd work pretty well (especially if you run some mimic/geth proliferation with necropede. Pretty dope.)
i'm surprised nobody runs Throne of Geth in their artifact infect builds. it gets the last, like 4 to 5 counters of poison on your opponent for the win
i know it has little to no affect on the early game but as your myr, pedes, and curs die the throne converts them to counters. against other infect decks which seem to be gaining some popularity throne always demolishes.
even against rachet bomb it just sacks itself for a counter
i'm surprised nobody runs Throne of Geth in their artifact infect builds. it gets the last, like 4 to 5 counters of poison on your opponent for the win
i know it has little to no affect on the early game but as your myr, pedes, and curs die the throne converts them to counters. against other infect decks which seem to be gaining some popularity throne always demolishes.
even against rachet bomb it just sacks itself for a counter
Throne of geth is good, but contagion clasp is better.
I'm calling it right now- worst rare in the set. Even good limited players will find better bombs at common and uncommon no sweat. Worst. Episode. Ever.
I really do predict this to be our worst rare in set award winner. I'd be happier opening a jar of eyeballs, so I think anything worse is highly unlikely. This card wont just have zero constructed potential, but not be significantly better than a mass of ghouls in a draft.
how can contagion clasp be better? its 4 mana. seems a bit steep price for me if you're only focusing on the poison counters o.o translate to life, its 4 mana for 4 life o.o
Yeah, contagion costs 4 mana to activate. That basically sets you back an entire turn when you pay the activation cost to proliferate. With Geth you just have to tap it and sac something. Something that was probably about to be destroyed by the opponent anyway.
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Simply having people die meaningless deaths over the outcome of a gamble... It's better that way.
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That's where the real pleasure in gambling is.
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Yeah, contagion costs 4 mana to activate. That basically sets you back an entire turn when you pay the activation cost to proliferate. With Geth you just have to tap it and sac something. Something that was probably about to be destroyed by the opponent anyway.
Now that's a different story. First of all, throne of geth either:
1. Is a card disadvantage (at least slightly)
or
2. Limits your activation timing by your opponent's actions (activate in response to them removing an artifact)
In addition, its activation requires that you have an artifact to sacrifice, which means at key times, it may have to sacrifice itself.
Contagion clasp has the downside of costing 4 mana, but can be played whenever you wish (usually EoT). It also drops a -1/-1 counter on an opposing creature which, on turn 2, is usually extremely relevant.
This is my deck idea and I wanted any input. Throne is kinda better then clasp and works with necropede. On the other hand stinger is better the neropede as it can fly.
I just started thinking about this deck today and saw this thread.
I was going to run distortion strike, sleep, and the U/B manland just to make sure my business ends up getting through. Probably also Into the Roil, etc. for clearing their board of nice things.
I think I'm a big fan of sleep, mostly because it allows us to bring the sickest beats if we are in a matched board position. Other than being an alpha-strike enabler it also can bide us a turn if we need it.
ok you want input for your deck, ForTheWin, here's what I got:
thrumming bird- usually below average on doing its job, mostly ends up chumping or being useless when they can just shoot your infect creatures and take 1 from your bird
I would replace with Ichor Rats 4x, they get the guaranteed counter on your opponent which is all you need to proliferate them to death. once they have the counter they go on the clock
Jace beleren and Steady Progress- i love these in this deck, great idea to include them, this is inexpensive one sided CA that also helps you win, perfect
Stoic Rebuttal and Negate: I woudl put negate in the sideboard and replace with Mana Leak so you can counter a wider range of early spells, which is what you need to worry about (being over run early by offensive opponent spells/creatures). For Stoic Rebuttal, I'd replace with Doomblade or Brittle Effigy. Doomblade will take out just about everything as will Effigy, but Effigy gives you the added bonus of a turn 1 artifact you can sit on and sac for Throne counters if you need to race your opponent (its very handy)As far as deciding between Clasp and Throne, I'd take out 2 Hand, and 2 Cur, and replace with 2 throne and 2 Skithiryx, then have the 4 clasps.
I would normally say keep BOTH plague stinger and necropede, but since you have steady progress I'd say keep the necropedes and replace ichor claw myr with plague stinger. necropede punishes them for killing it so he's always good, and plague stinger's flying is very good at 2 mana. ichor claw usually just gets in for 1 or gets shot down, so i'd lose it
21 lands is kind of low but since you have the draw engine of jace you might be ok
i think this should work well, if you end up not liking throne, id just replace it with the 2x of whatever creature you opt not to run
I initially ran something like this but had issues with losing speed. In my experience with poison thus far.
Hand of Praetors is nice, but you won't have it out before turn 4.
I also ran Contagion Clasp in the interest of using it's -1/-1 as a chump killer before proliferating my opponents, but really the proliferation wasn't helping, and the mana cost was kicking my teeth in early game.
Same deal with Thrummingbird, it just wasn't doing it for me. Without a counter already on them, it's just not worth it. May wish to run Tainted Strike if you're going to do a Thrummingbird in there, especially since the proliferate goes off AFTER it deals it's shiny new bit poison counters.
Throne of Geth in this doesn't strike me as the greatest of moves, you don't have -that- many artifacts you can sack, especially in the vein of cheap ones.
You can definitely win with this I think, but so far...speed seems to be the name of the game in poison. Proliferation takes a whole lot of time and this isn't all that built for any degree of turtling that will let you live that long. The local meta here has a few decks that'll strike you down in 6 turns or less. Don't know about where you're at, but here, if you're running infect, you've got to be looking for that turn 4 win.
Random note, why no mana leaks? They're incredible, then again I tend to make my game at a lower turn count where it's painful for my opponent to have to tap 3 extra to do something.
I think you're misjudging proliferate, especially Throne of Geth. There are several artifacts already in the deck (the creatures) which you can sac when they unavoidably are targeted by removal. Moreover, it is by itself a sorcery that for 2 gives a player a poison counter if he already has one. That's the cheapest and harder to deal with poison effect there's in the game. If you play a couple of livewire lash and contagion clasp, you'll have even more targets. Moreover, proliferate also multiplicates -1/-1 counters, making clasp and necropede very powerful; for example, saccing a necropede to Throne let's you kill an X/2 creature.
I'm calling it right now- worst rare in the set. Even good limited players will find better bombs at common and uncommon no sweat. Worst. Episode. Ever.
I really do predict this to be our worst rare in set award winner. I'd be happier opening a jar of eyeballs, so I think anything worse is highly unlikely. This card wont just have zero constructed potential, but not be significantly better than a mass of ghouls in a draft.
Wait, how can you sac a necropede to the Throne to kill a x/2? I'm assuming you mean proliferating the necropedes counter ability. The necropede's -1/-1 ability doesn't go off until it's put into the graveyard, which would be AFTER you sack it to the throne. You'd get to proliferate from the sac, but you would have to already have something on it.
Wait, how can you sac a necropede to the Throne to kill a x/2? I'm assuming you mean proliferating the necropedes counter ability. The necropede's -1/-1 ability doesn't go off until it's put into the graveyard, which would be AFTER you sack it to the throne. You'd get to proliferate from the sac, but you would have to already have something on it.
1. You pay the cost of throne ability. necropede is sent to the graveyard. Throne ability is placed on the stack.
2. Necropede's ability triggers, placed on the stack.
3. Necropede's ability resolves, placing a -1/-1 counter on a creature
4. Throne of Geth's ability resolves, proliferating.
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Creatures: 14
4x Plague Stinger
4x Necropede
4x Ichorclaw Myr
2x Corpse Cur
Spells: 26
4x Vampire's Bite
3x Virulent Swipe
2x Doomblade
1x Grasp of Darkness
3x Preordain
4x Distortion Strike
2x Negate
3x Mana Leak
4x Into the Roil
Lands: 20
3x Island
7x Swamp
4x Drowned Catacomb
2x Jwar Isle Refuge
2x Halimar Depths
2x Terramorphic Expanse
Basic principle of the deck is more or less to get a 1/1 infect creature out turn 2, hit it with pump and distortion strike on turn 3, and look for the win on turn 4. Some control and destruction in there for sake of guarding it's few cards. Considering putzing around with Livewire Lash in this regard. So far it's been fairly competitive. Any advice you may be able to offer? Thank you kindly from a new player.
It did much better than the BG version and I only stopped playing it because it's too linear for my taste.
You need to up your creature count. This isn't GR All-In-Fect. You don't have the robust selection of pump to be able to consistently put people down in a single attack.
Personally, I've found Ichor Rats to be solid. Often, I can sneak in that last poison counter by casting it. Plus, your opponent can't mimic vat or mystifying maze it effectively as they'll just give themselves another poison counter.
I wasn't a fan of Virulent strike. The +2/+0 is nice, but rarely got me there as well as just slow rolling and making good trades.
One card you might have overlooked is Stabbing Pain. Faux-evasion, plus dork removal is decent for one mana.
I'm not sold on Counterspells MD, though I do have a few in my sideboard. The only Blue I MD is Distortion Strike, for obvious reasons, and Diminish, which is deceptively useful for trading, especially when there's a necropede involved.
Because I'm so light on blue, I replaced 4 Islands with Soaring Seacliffs. It plays the same role in the deck as Smoldering Spires does in GR or BR infect variants: temporary evasion. Nothing like Jumping, Vampire Biting Ichor Rats to seal the deal. ;-)
Another way to go with blue is Narcolepsy, which is pretty solid creature control.
Thrummingbirds Are interesting, but I haven't had huge success with them. Sometimes they get you there, but I hate it when I have to mulligan them away because they're the only creature in my opening hand. (Perhaps I'll revisit this card now that I've played the deck more.)
@OP: 4th mana leak for sure. Personally, I hate the Ichorclaw and Necropede. I would use Ichor Rats and also 2-3 Skittles. I found that running pumps made the deck way inconsistent. If your opp. kills your guys, you got nothing. But when those are replaced with some control type cards like counterspells and removal, you can better ensure that your guys do get through.
BS is BS, any way you look at it!!!
the synergy with him x2 or x3 and Contagion Clasp x4 is amazing
you get permanent free draw plus clock your opponent starting turn 4
you have to have 4x ichor rats for the unblockable counter
then go crazy with blue and black removal and have at least 16 other infect creatures, including Curs, Stingers, Myr and Necro.
i advise against Thrumming Bird for the reason stated earlier, if he's on the board with an infect guy they just shoot the infect creature down before you get a counter in and bird just swings for 1 damage
contagion engine may be viable for UB since you're drawing alot more
skith should be a 2 of in EVERY infect deck. he's auto-roll if they can't kill him and killing him is no easy task.
id say run throne of geth sideboard as well against control, since they cant really deal with it other than ratchet bomb and even then you response sac
as long as your not facing an aggressive aggro like elves or goblins you should win every game
Sooooo sick if you turn it into a Hand of the Praetors.
Standard:
UBU/B TezzeretBU
WWW QuestW
RMetal GoblinsR
Legacy:
UCounterTopU
thanks to DarkNightCavalier at Heros of the Plane for the sig
Lands WUBG
EDH:
Doran WBG
Control:
Creatures:
Rats, Skitty, Praetors, Necropede
Spells:
Control suite + proliferate, mimic vat
Midgame:
Creatures:
Rats, Stinger, Necropede, Ichorclaw, PERHAPS praetors
Spells:
Pumps, evasion, proliferate
I think the midgame build is more common, but I believe the control build is pretty solid too. I don't have a list yet, but playing around with it in my head makes it seem like it'd work pretty well (especially if you run some mimic/geth proliferation with necropede. Pretty dope.)
i know it has little to no affect on the early game but as your myr, pedes, and curs die the throne converts them to counters. against other infect decks which seem to be gaining some popularity throne always demolishes.
even against rachet bomb it just sacks itself for a counter
Throne of geth is good, but contagion clasp is better.
Even better, run both.
Simply having people die meaningless deaths over the outcome of a gamble... It's better that way.
That gets closer to the meaningless death that is the essence of gambling.
I'll get closer to it's depths.
That's where the real pleasure in gambling is.
-Akagi Shigeru, The Genius Who Descended Into the Darkness
Now that's a different story. First of all, throne of geth either:
1. Is a card disadvantage (at least slightly)
or
2. Limits your activation timing by your opponent's actions (activate in response to them removing an artifact)
In addition, its activation requires that you have an artifact to sacrifice, which means at key times, it may have to sacrifice itself.
Contagion clasp has the downside of costing 4 mana, but can be played whenever you wish (usually EoT). It also drops a -1/-1 counter on an opposing creature which, on turn 2, is usually extremely relevant.
4x Necropede/Plague Stinger
4x Thrumming Bird
4x Corpse Cur
4x Hand of Praetors
20 Creatures
4x Steady Progress
4x Negate
4x Stoic Rebuttal
3x Jace Beleran
19 Spells
4x Darkslick Shores
10x Island
3x Swamp
21 Lands
This is my deck idea and I wanted any input. Throne is kinda better then clasp and works with necropede. On the other hand stinger is better the neropede as it can fly.
I was going to run distortion strike, sleep, and the U/B manland just to make sure my business ends up getting through. Probably also Into the Roil, etc. for clearing their board of nice things.
I think I'm a big fan of sleep, mostly because it allows us to bring the sickest beats if we are in a matched board position. Other than being an alpha-strike enabler it also can bide us a turn if we need it.
thrumming bird- usually below average on doing its job, mostly ends up chumping or being useless when they can just shoot your infect creatures and take 1 from your bird
I would replace with Ichor Rats 4x, they get the guaranteed counter on your opponent which is all you need to proliferate them to death. once they have the counter they go on the clock
Jace beleren and Steady Progress- i love these in this deck, great idea to include them, this is inexpensive one sided CA that also helps you win, perfect
Stoic Rebuttal and Negate: I woudl put negate in the sideboard and replace with Mana Leak so you can counter a wider range of early spells, which is what you need to worry about (being over run early by offensive opponent spells/creatures). For Stoic Rebuttal, I'd replace with Doomblade or Brittle Effigy. Doomblade will take out just about everything as will Effigy, but Effigy gives you the added bonus of a turn 1 artifact you can sit on and sac for Throne counters if you need to race your opponent (its very handy)As far as deciding between Clasp and Throne, I'd take out 2 Hand, and 2 Cur, and replace with 2 throne and 2 Skithiryx, then have the 4 clasps.
I would normally say keep BOTH plague stinger and necropede, but since you have steady progress I'd say keep the necropedes and replace ichor claw myr with plague stinger. necropede punishes them for killing it so he's always good, and plague stinger's flying is very good at 2 mana. ichor claw usually just gets in for 1 or gets shot down, so i'd lose it
21 lands is kind of low but since you have the draw engine of jace you might be ok
i think this should work well, if you end up not liking throne, id just replace it with the 2x of whatever creature you opt not to run
Hand of Praetors is nice, but you won't have it out before turn 4.
I also ran Contagion Clasp in the interest of using it's -1/-1 as a chump killer before proliferating my opponents, but really the proliferation wasn't helping, and the mana cost was kicking my teeth in early game.
Same deal with Thrummingbird, it just wasn't doing it for me. Without a counter already on them, it's just not worth it. May wish to run Tainted Strike if you're going to do a Thrummingbird in there, especially since the proliferate goes off AFTER it deals it's shiny new bit poison counters.
Throne of Geth in this doesn't strike me as the greatest of moves, you don't have -that- many artifacts you can sack, especially in the vein of cheap ones.
You can definitely win with this I think, but so far...speed seems to be the name of the game in poison. Proliferation takes a whole lot of time and this isn't all that built for any degree of turtling that will let you live that long. The local meta here has a few decks that'll strike you down in 6 turns or less. Don't know about where you're at, but here, if you're running infect, you've got to be looking for that turn 4 win.
Random note, why no mana leaks? They're incredible, then again I tend to make my game at a lower turn count where it's painful for my opponent to have to tap 3 extra to do something.
1. You pay the cost of throne ability. necropede is sent to the graveyard. Throne ability is placed on the stack.
2. Necropede's ability triggers, placed on the stack.
3. Necropede's ability resolves, placing a -1/-1 counter on a creature
4. Throne of Geth's ability resolves, proliferating.