In our group we keep it at 10, but it's not much ofan issue, because if a player starts out with infect-critters in our group, he might as well paint a target to his chest and hand out darts.
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Aggro has a hard enough of a time without nerfing it. You might as well ban cards you don't like, even alter starting life totals, if you're going to house rule nerf infect.
There are three infect decks I consider top tier:
1) Skittles vultron (built right). When it's built right, it has a half dozen or less other infect creatures, every black pump spell in the book, mana rocks, pox effects, and most importantly - every reanimate spell 3cc or less. Let Skittles go to the grave, Reanimate, haste pump, equip, win. Should be able to eliminate difficult players, then still be in a winnable position when the game gets down to two.
2) Doran Infect (built right). Abuse high toughness/low power infect creatures, graft, pump, recursion, tokens with Glistening Oil and Triumph, add Meekstone/Retribution of the Meek, Gaddock Teeg, Reveillark Sun Titan, full on aggro/rock. Wins from a variety of board states at any stage of the game.
3) Mimeoplasm Vultron Infect. Aggro/control. Intuition/Buried Alive/vultron. Use lots of clone, proliferate, and especially graft. Placcaster Frogling, Vigian Hydropon, the 7cmc graft, and of course Oran Reif. Mimeo gets one shot hastey kills from lots of positions, and any Infect has the potential of getting to 5'ish power through graft/proliferate. Very flexible deck.
I've piloted all 3 of these in on-line proxy clients and have never been disappointed in their power level.
Nerfing these decks because you don't like them is like banning Trample because you like chump blocks. The mechanic is there for a reason. And personally I feel that the greater variety of non-degenerate top tier decks the better.
Infect is fine, I actually played against an infect mimemoplasm deck last weekend. Admittedly my play group has been building a lot for 1 v 1 lately, so this was a french list deck. We played about six games, I was piloting my child of alara deck. It really came down to the die roll. One the play I often could stabilize and on the draw I was often a turn to slow. The biggest weakness to the poison strategy is that you're often all in. He was running infect dorks and pump but the central issue is the same. You have to go all in early and often and if they have it you're dead.
If you get one shot by blightsteel it is really your own fault. 10 is fine.
My playgroup plays with 10, but the claim that "it's your own fault" for getting OHKO'd by Blightsteel is just not true. There are all kinds of ways for Blightsteel to come out of nowhere and/or get haste and/or get evasion and/or lose your blockers without giving you much chance to respond. "I don't have Swords in my hand RITE NAO" is not "My fault".
My playgroup plays with 10, but the claim that "it's your own fault" for getting OHKO'd by Blightsteel is just not true. There are all kinds of ways for Blightsteel to come out of nowhere and/or get haste and/or get evasion and/or lose your blockers without giving you much chance to respond. "I don't have Swords in my hand RITE NAO" is not "My fault".
Alright, "it's your own fault was harsh". Deal with it is probably better.
Mimeoplasm decks generally benefit from running Skittles. It's not hard to find a 6-power creature to make Mimeoplasm into a one-shot flying hasty dood.
You guys have also forgot about Rafiq infect. You play GWB control, and have an awesome finisher. I think infect is fine how it is. Not over powered if you are prepared.
Mimeoplasm decks generally benefit from running Skittles. It's not hard to find a 6-power creature to make Mimeoplasm into a one-shot flying hasty dood.
That's where my infect deaths come from, but I'm more scared of Gaea's Revenge with 3 or more counters and Wonder and/or Brawn in the yard. Cause at least I can easily deal with skittles unless I tap out. And there is always the possibility to not have the answer.
On topic: Tainted Strike is my most hated card in the game.
My favorite card in the game. A well built Skithiryx deck can sweep a 3 or 4 player pod pretty easily, even if its a 3vs1 situation. You need to build it like a 2h Windfury Shaman from Vanilla WoW and hope the RNG gods shine in your favor. A common misconception about infect decks is that the rest of your threats should be infect creatures or proliferate effects. This is one of the biggest misconception I've seen.
I have a 60%+ win ratio in a 2,000+ game sample against equal level decks with my Skithiryx list. I keep things within the "fair zone" meaning no mechanics that break the game (looking at you Rings+Coffers+Temple, etc.) Considering that many people already play infinite mana and iWin combos, raising the poison counter cap would hamstring an archtype (aggro) that is already in a quite precarious spot in a 40 life format.
While there are times when you simply don't have the answer (note that in this case ANY threat would mean GG, not just because it has infect), if you're constantly losing to infect the I suspect you playing too greedy. Nexus first in Protoss mirror isn't a good idea.
Totally does. Do you play any RTS games? Best annalogy I have is a 4-Gate in Starcraft II. Extreme early pressure "All In" attack. If it's not scouted, or the opposing player has a build order than cannot counter it, you win. If it's stopped then you lose.
The only deck I've played which featured infect was Heartless Hidetsugu with grafted exoskeleton, because I sometimes need to be that kind of person. I do believe that it needs to be 10. The multiple downsides the strategy has greatly outweigh the "cheese" involved. Besides, who doesn't like some delicious cheese? I like gouda.
10 poison hasn't been an issue with me. There are only a handful of playable poison dudes, and the majority of them are pretty underpowered for their cost.
I run a fun Varolz Infect deck for EDH. It doesn't win, unless it topdecks like a boss, but it is still enjoyable to play and usually allows me to knock one or two players out before I get shutdown.
Don't forget that infect works really well with Nekusar, the Mindrazer, too. We usually play with 15 counters in our games and I've seen several games, in which our Nekusar-player hated out the entire table within one round with chaining wheels while he had Glistening Oil on Nek or Tainted Strike in his hand. Also one Azusa-player with token build is rather consistently killing off people with Triumph of the Hordes.
But it's ok with me, because we don't see much infect here and in the end it's nothing worse than any combo you die to.
i think its easier to play it at 10 counters for the win. if you change the rules too much, it becomes harder for the group to deal with new peeps who'd wanna join in.
that being said, i dont think poison has ever been brought up in our group. i dont think anyone here was actively playing during the scars block. unless if marsh viper becomes a thing.
My playgroup plays with 10, but the claim that "it's your own fault" for getting OHKO'd by Blightsteel is just not true. There are all kinds of ways for Blightsteel to come out of nowhere and/or get haste and/or get evasion and/or lose your blockers without giving you much chance to respond. "I don't have Swords in my hand RITE NAO" is not "My fault".
Alright, "it's your own fault was harsh". Deal with it is probably better.
I don't know if it was harsh...the only time I've seen Blightsteel be a problem in a decent meta is when it comes off suspend in a Jhoira deck right after an Obliterate or something like that. And the only reason that ever happens is because everyone used all their answers on the other crazy scary things she suspended.
Infect is fine. We played some 5 player games with that Jhoira deck that has Blightsteel as a win con (among many) and a Skittles deck. No one died to infect. As long as you have two legit Ux decks in the game infect is pretty meh. Infect is only a problem in metas that don't run much removal and where the U decks aren't real U decks.
We already had this discussion, i was on the 15 to 20 countyers wagon, but majority here seems to think tht infect is a no problem, and Sheldon confirmed it in this thread.
So i made an 1v1 Skithyrix deck and launched MTGO.
It took me only 3 games (all won) to have an opponent blacklisting me.
I guess there is some sort of disparity between oppinion of this board (and RC) and reaction of people when you OS them.
Someone blocked you online because you won? News at 11.
I think 10 is fine, but would not cry if it was increased to 15 to keep one shots away (BSC or a well timed Tainted Strike). I played a bad Skittles deck for a while, but had too many bad creatures and not enough Voltron stuff.
If people are sick of reading about stuff just stop taking part. You have 100% control over what you read. Simic Ascendancy isn't going to get banned just because you didn't tell someone to shut up on the internet.
I can't believe people complain about getting one shotted with a creature? So instead, I'll one shot you with my combo or Voltron deck. Must be your play group. A bunch of whiny teenagers.
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Speaking of infect, when I played a more or less budget Zur deck (making a casual Zur deck doesn't work because no one believes you), I used Phyresis as another Battle Mastery.
I think most people only have a problem with Infect if they get "one-shotted" with it, but even then that is more of an irrational reaction than an actual issue in my opinion.
I think Infect is fine at 10. You make it somewhat unplayable at 20, and 15 seems kind of arbitrary. I disagree with the RC statement that "if you are doing 10 then you are probably doing 15". I think it takes significantly more effort to one-shot somebody at 15 counters, and cards like Tainted Strike or Grafted Exoskeleton aren't always lethal. But even then, I don't think that with the current pool of cards it would be necessary to change it.
We always play 10 in my group, just because we haven't seen the need to change it. I wouldn't be opposed to the RC upping it to 15, as I still think the Infect options viable now would still be useful at that number. 20 is probably too high.
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There are three infect decks I consider top tier:
1) Skittles vultron (built right). When it's built right, it has a half dozen or less other infect creatures, every black pump spell in the book, mana rocks, pox effects, and most importantly - every reanimate spell 3cc or less. Let Skittles go to the grave, Reanimate, haste pump, equip, win. Should be able to eliminate difficult players, then still be in a winnable position when the game gets down to two.
2) Doran Infect (built right). Abuse high toughness/low power infect creatures, graft, pump, recursion, tokens with Glistening Oil and Triumph, add Meekstone/Retribution of the Meek, Gaddock Teeg, Reveillark Sun Titan, full on aggro/rock. Wins from a variety of board states at any stage of the game.
3) Mimeoplasm Vultron Infect. Aggro/control. Intuition/Buried Alive/vultron. Use lots of clone, proliferate, and especially graft. Placcaster Frogling, Vigian Hydropon, the 7cmc graft, and of course Oran Reif. Mimeo gets one shot hastey kills from lots of positions, and any Infect has the potential of getting to 5'ish power through graft/proliferate. Very flexible deck.
I've piloted all 3 of these in on-line proxy clients and have never been disappointed in their power level.
Nerfing these decks because you don't like them is like banning Trample because you like chump blocks. The mechanic is there for a reason. And personally I feel that the greater variety of non-degenerate top tier decks the better.
10 poison and you're done.
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Alright, "it's your own fault was harsh". Deal with it is probably better.
That's where my infect deaths come from, but I'm more scared of Gaea's Revenge with 3 or more counters and Wonder and/or Brawn in the yard. Cause at least I can easily deal with skittles unless I tap out. And there is always the possibility to not have the answer.
On Modern Masters 2:
Will be kept until 12/31/2013 to prove if Right or Wrong.Proven right 1/27/2013My favorite card in the game. A well built Skithiryx deck can sweep a 3 or 4 player pod pretty easily, even if its a 3vs1 situation. You need to build it like a 2h Windfury Shaman from Vanilla WoW and hope the RNG gods shine in your favor. A common misconception about infect decks is that the rest of your threats should be infect creatures or proliferate effects. This is one of the biggest misconception I've seen.
I have a 60%+ win ratio in a 2,000+ game sample against equal level decks with my Skithiryx list. I keep things within the "fair zone" meaning no mechanics that break the game (looking at you Rings+Coffers+Temple, etc.) Considering that many people already play infinite mana and iWin combos, raising the poison counter cap would hamstring an archtype (aggro) that is already in a quite precarious spot in a 40 life format.
While there are times when you simply don't have the answer (note that in this case ANY threat would mean GG, not just because it has infect), if you're constantly losing to infect the I suspect you playing too greedy. Nexus first in Protoss mirror isn't a good idea.
Does not compute.
Totally does. Do you play any RTS games? Best annalogy I have is a 4-Gate in Starcraft II. Extreme early pressure "All In" attack. If it's not scouted, or the opposing player has a build order than cannot counter it, you win. If it's stopped then you lose.
WUGDerevi Voltron AttritionWUG
WGRMayael of the Cheated CreaturesWGR
Legacy
WW Death and Taxes WW
Modern
WBMartyr-Proc BW
thats kinda scary actually..
Nekusar - prosperity/wheel of fortune - Glistening Oil or something feels like cheating almost.
i think its easier to play it at 10 counters for the win. if you change the rules too much, it becomes harder for the group to deal with new peeps who'd wanna join in.
that being said, i dont think poison has ever been brought up in our group. i dont think anyone here was actively playing during the scars block. unless if marsh viper becomes a thing.
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
I don't know if it was harsh...the only time I've seen Blightsteel be a problem in a decent meta is when it comes off suspend in a Jhoira deck right after an Obliterate or something like that. And the only reason that ever happens is because everyone used all their answers on the other crazy scary things she suspended.
Infect is fine. We played some 5 player games with that Jhoira deck that has Blightsteel as a win con (among many) and a Skittles deck. No one died to infect. As long as you have two legit Ux decks in the game infect is pretty meh. Infect is only a problem in metas that don't run much removal and where the U decks aren't real U decks.
EDH Decks:
WUBOloro, Combo ControlWUB
UBOona Reanimator ComboUB
BRGProssh, Eater of the Blue MageBRG
UBRGrixis StormUBR
Rebuilding Jenara (stealyourstuff.dec)
Pauper Deck:
UBInspired SirenUB
I am surprised that you are surprised about something from a 2 year old thread.
I think InfNektusar could be pretty strong.
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I think 10 is fine, but would not cry if it was increased to 15 to keep one shots away (BSC or a well timed Tainted Strike). I played a bad Skittles deck for a while, but had too many bad creatures and not enough Voltron stuff.
Speaking of infect, when I played a more or less budget Zur deck (making a casual Zur deck doesn't work because no one believes you), I used Phyresis as another Battle Mastery.
I think Infect is fine at 10. You make it somewhat unplayable at 20, and 15 seems kind of arbitrary. I disagree with the RC statement that "if you are doing 10 then you are probably doing 15". I think it takes significantly more effort to one-shot somebody at 15 counters, and cards like Tainted Strike or Grafted Exoskeleton aren't always lethal. But even then, I don't think that with the current pool of cards it would be necessary to change it.
Jalira, Master Polymorphist | Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder | Bosh, Iron Golem | Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Brago, King Eternal | Oona, Queen of the Fae | Wort, Boggart Auntie | Wort, the Raidmother
Captain Sisay | Rhys, the Redeemed | Trostani, Selesnya's Voice | Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight | Obzedat, Ghost Council | Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind | Vorel of the Hull Clade
Uril, the Miststalker | Prossh, Skyraider of Kher | Nicol Bolas | Progenitus
Ghave, Guru of Spores | Zedruu the Greathearted | Damia, Sage of Stone | Riku of Two Reflections
and you really don't need to nerf it at all.
i never get why some people moan so much about infect one-shotting them when there's so many other ways to get one-shotted...