I just lost the finals to a blue / black infect deck running sub par infect creature count. His deck was a confused assortment of infect creatures mixed with non-infect creatures, and the reason he won was because he played contagion engine turn 6 back to back both games. I could totally tell he wasn't even drafting infect until pack 2 or 3, probably just because he opened contagion engine...because the deck was so janky and lacked focus. And he ended up winning the whole tourney.
Seriously aggravating. I've been running into so many wanna be 2nd tier infect decks lately, and it seems like they win more than they should. It's so frustrating to lose to it, because the deck is terrible. Like half infect creatures and half non-infect creatures, yet somehow it manages to get there?
Anyway, I know a lot of people think infect is overpowered, and others think the opposite and say it's balanced. But this is just my personal experience online lately. Ever since MBS, people think phyrexia is the bomb or something, so even in triple SOM they're pushing infect harder than they used to and coming up with red / black and blue / black infect decks that are terrible and should lose, but in fact win more than they should. It's aggravating indeed. The reason they're pushed into strange combinations is because I think a few people at the table decide from the outset to just push infect and so they're forced to play cards that don't fit. And yet their subpar infect decks are still competitive? Seriously I don't understand and it's very aggravating to lose to it. I know all the "correct" answers with how to play versus infect, like stop their early game and they run out of gas, add more creatures, trade as often as possible, and removal is king etc etc.
Anybody else feel this way. Your thoughts?
I'm not a great player, but probably a little better than average with a limited rating that hovers right around 1800. I've done over 50 SOM drafts by now.
You're basically complaining that a game-winning-bomb got played and won the game for your opponent two times in a row. It happens, sorry.
On the topic of actual metagame shift, the infect decks that you think are sub-par are either:
A) Not actually sub-par and thus deserve to win. (either pilot or deck or both)
B) Are getting lucky (Considering this is a single human's data it is extremely variable)
C) You are human and have only noticed the niche cases as is psychologically observed often, and you basically skew the results from your anecdotal experience against these decks. You don't notice when you crush three of them in first rounds, but you always notice when you lose in the last round.
All things considered, I think blue/black is actually a viable infect deck if you get the cards for it (thrummingbird + plague stingers = win ). And sometimes you get the nuts deck and still just lose man. It happens. Not statistically often, but it's easy to notice when it feels like that.
Last I checked, Contagion Engine wins games. Several color combos would work with that card, provided sufficient support.
Poison only requires 10 damage. With some of the equipment available, you could easily just do 5 infect damage across 2 turns. Add proliferate on top of that, and it's really not too difficult to win with poison.
Happens to everyone. I mean, I've lost games in similar fashion a bunch...it's just part of the game. Sometimes someone will get lucky, or maybe you are underrating their deck (I mean, invisimancer + steady progress can be good in an BU infect deck).
Anyways, don't worry. If your overall rating is 1800 it shows you win more than you lose.
An unfortunate trend that I've noticed with SOM and MBS drafts is that bombs are not just bombs, they are thermonuclear bombs. If you dont have an answer in hand you are pretty much dead in 2 turns.
He got lucky, thats it. Dont fret too much over it.
I can't believe anyone is excited about this card. It is absolutely unplayable. I wouldn't even play her in LIMITED. Easily the worst walker printed since the green elf one. Absolutely terrible.
The main thing from MBS is that there are a ton more infect guys with either bigger power or evasion. The 3/3 at 5mana, and all the fliers at 4mana. They all pair great with equipment that gives them the ability to kill even faster.
Because of this, MBS just made hating on poison that much more important. I always take blightwidows and flesh-eater imps even when not in infect. The blightwidow is an amazing blocker for a non-infect green deck anyways. The flesh-eater imp's evasion allows it to win games on it's own and will go into my normal-damage black decks.
Overall, though, you are correct: Infect is a pretty terrible mechanic. I'd suggest voting with your pocketbook and not giving wizards any more money for creating such a retarded mechanic. Half the stores in my area don't really run drafts anymore (one place actually started running RGD again!!! awesome). The noted reason is that everybody hates infects except for the super-casual players that like to suddenly win despite being idiots (see the OP's story for a nice example about how an idiot player who didn't know how to read signals still ended up winning a draft).
Infect adds a huge amount of variance to the format that simply overwhelms skill. Ironic since it is such a linear mechanic in and of itself. Drafts are simply sh*tstorms now. If you are at a table that is not exactly 8 experienced drafters, expect the best deck to be some bs concoction that was forced.
There is some serious butt hurt happening in this thread.
It's the nature of a card game for there to be some luck involved whether it's in what someone opens in their packs or what they top deck or their opponents getting mana flooded. Contagion Engine is a lucky bomb to open and he clearly had enough skill to recognize its worth, otherwise he wouldn't have switched to infect late. Just give him the win, don't be angry about it, and spend your money elsewhere if you're that pissed about it.
I have previously lost to contagion engine + golden urn + necrogen censer in the finals of an 8-4. Clearly the real title of this thread should be 'Losing to 3rd tier metalcraft decks...' ?
Yeah, I'm really frustrated with SOM drafting.
It's not as much like Magic as it is like gambling. I've lost so many games where I had a better deck than the opponent, but they had opened a Steel Hellkite in their first pack.
If MBS doesn't make it better (I'm playing online, you see), I'm done until July...
Yeah, I'm really frustrated with SOM drafting.
It's not as much like Magic as it is like gambling. I've lost so many games where I had a better deck than the opponent, but they had opened a Steel Hellkite in their first pack.
If MBS doesn't make it better (I'm playing online, you see), I'm done until July...
Yeah, I'm really frustrated with drafting.
It's not as much like Magic as it is like a limited format. I've lost so many games where I think had a better deck than the opponent, but they had opened a generic limited bomb.
If MBS doesn't make limited less luck-intensive (I'm playing online, you see), I'm done until July...
Making assumptions about the way I feel in no way makes you correct.
I had a much more fun time playing Shards and Zen/WWK drafts, than I have with SoM.
If I was drafting bad decks (which I have), making poor plays (which I have), or losing to a player who clearly was piloting better than I was (which I have), then I consider the duel a good game and enjoy myself. Unfortunately, these kinds of duels are a lot more rare in my personal experience than in other Limited environments.
Sounds to me like you should just force infect when you draft. I mean, if bad players can win with bad forced infect decks, shouldn't a good player be able to win much more easily? When I first started drafting SoM I lost to countless bad infect decks piloted by bad players. So I just decided to start forcing infect like they do. Just yesterday I drafted the worst infect deck imaginable. 3 colors, no bombs, 11 infect dudes, many of which were bad (2 Flensermites, 2 Digesters) and I went 4-1. Why? Because I'm a decent player and infect is broken beyond belief. Take my advice, instead of trying to read signals and draft good decks, just forget everything you know about drafting and force infect. I think you'll be happy with the results.
That is a terrible idea. Infect is easy to beat, if you are competent, and its increased presence in Besieged means that more people are trying to get in on the action.
Totally disagree with the whole infect deck thing being broken. I drafted a red/green mid-range deck last night with my only bombs being Spikeshot Elder (with 2x Copper Parace) and Kuldotha Flamefiend. I had 2 Burn the Impure and a Galvanic Blast. Then it was all dudes, common red green creatures. 3x Ogre Resister, 2x Marauder, 2x Myr, Emissary, Spin Engine, Husks and some other decent Scars commons. My deck was solid but not anywhere close to being bomby.
I crushed 3 solid infect decks sporting multiple rares Skittles, Geth and the likes. No games were even close. I guess resisters just wreck infect decks like there is no tomorrow. We had 5 8 man pods at my FNM place. No 3-0 player had drafted infect. Go figure?
Totally disagree with the whole infect deck thing being broken. I drafted a red/green mid-range deck last night with my only bombs being Spikeshot Elder (with 2x Copper Parace) and Kuldotha Flamefiend. I had 2 Burn the Impure and a Galvanic Blast. Then it was all dudes, common red green creatures. 3x Ogre Resister, 2x Marauder, 2x Myr, Emissary, Spin Engine, Husks and some other decent Scars commons. My deck was solid but not anywhere close to being bomby.
I crushed 3 solid infect decks sporting multiple rares Skittles, Geth and the likes. No games were even close. I guess resisters just wreck infect decks like there is no tomorrow. We had 5 8 man pods at my FNM place. No 3-0 player had drafted infect. Go figure?
Pretty much the same here. In the first two drafts of BSS, the top 8s where I draft have had 0 and 1 infect players respectively. Infect is not some impossible to beat juggernaut.
Totally disagree with the whole infect deck thing being broken. I drafted a red/green mid-range deck last night with my only bombs being Spikeshot Elder (with 2x Copper Parace) and Kuldotha Flamefiend. I had 2 Burn the Impure and a Galvanic Blast. Then it was all dudes, common red green creatures. 3x Ogre Resister, 2x Marauder, 2x Myr, Emissary, Spin Engine, Husks and some other decent Scars commons. My deck was solid but not anywhere close to being bomby.
I crushed 3 solid infect decks sporting multiple rares Skittles, Geth and the likes. No games were even close. I guess resisters just wreck infect decks like there is no tomorrow. We had 5 8 man pods at my FNM place. No 3-0 player had drafted infect. Go figure?
I would agree that infect is not broken. at the release draft I won with what was essentially U/R control. Counters, bounce, and burn clearing the board for my pierce strider and spin engines or holding off until my quicksilver gargantuan. Player who came in second was playing dinos splashing white for removal. We agreed our infect match ups were not all too difficult but saw the potential in infect.
oh, also, can I ask how do you have "tiers" in draft, each draft archetype can have on many variations and levels of power depending on what was drafted
While I'm sure you're all great players, my impression was that we were talking about FNMs, where the player pool isn't so great. My point is that infect is the most difficult drafting archetype for inexperienced players to deal with, by leaps and bounds. It's very easy to win if they're trying to race you, and no matter how much removal they have, they won't always draw a proper ratio of removal and dudes. Personally, with the aforementioned flimsy infect deck, I managed to beat a player with 2 burn the impures, a slagstorm, a cerebral eruption, a white sun's zenith, and a hellkite igniter. After all, even though infect dude are weak, morbid plunder and corpse cur help, or so I hear. This guy had multiple bombs, removal, and superior dudes, but he was of low skill level, so infect was difficult for him to deal with. At FNMs it's much easier to win if you're playing infect, especially if it's good infect. R/W can't outrace you, removal doesn't matter so much because morbid plunders are passed very late, and for dinos, well, most decks tend to have removal of their own, yes?
I'm saying it's way too easy to outplay less skilled players with infect. I force infect all the time, the decks are almost always bad, and I always place. It shouldn't be that easy. In a normal, non-broken draft format, bad players can still win with bombs, but now all they need is infect, and in the hands of a halfway decent player, it's truly devastating. You guys can lie to yourselves and say that infect isn't by far the best archetype in this format and say that things like burn the impure, spin engine (lol) and pierce strider (LOL) level the playing field if you want, but poison's fast, whereas damage is slow, and poison's irreversible, whereas life gain is abundant. Sylvok Lifestaff, anyone?
Look, infect is beatable and it hasn't ruined PT's or GP's because at an 8-man table of knowledgable players (which is what it's filtered out to after day 1), infect is fairly balanced and in-fact underpowered since it is a very linear archetype and people hate-draft/take utility infect cards all the time. Viridian Corrupter for example goes into any green deck because even barring infect it is a 2 for 1 which is great in draft.
The main problem with infect is that it is terribly balanced for more casual play and more casual tables (in terms of number). If you go to FNM, the crowd is more casual and tables are almost never the ideal 8. You get pods of 5 and 6 sometimes depending on the number of people that show up.
So:
1) Casual players are not experienced enough to understand signalling. For a linear archetype like infect, this means that someone can get the nuts infect deck because all the players at his table ignore infect cards (which is what many of them do when they are new to drafting). Conversely, you have terrible players go into infect too because of their first rare even though you are upstream of them. They are incapable of seeing that the cards are being cut so both of you end up with awful decks as you don't get enough playables. Or they can simply switch to infect 2nd or even 3rd pack because they get some bomb rare.
Bad players can easily make or break your infect deck at a table because it is such a terribly linear mechanic.
2) You can usually have enough infect for 2 players to have decent decks at an 8 man table. If the pod decreases or increases in size, the math changes a lot. Because infect is so linear, if you are drafting at a 5-man pod and have the only infect deck your deck will be nuts because there aren't enough cards for anyone else to draft a good infect deck.
Conversely, you may have 2 people at the 6 man table fighting over infect. If this is the case, they will both have mediocre decks because there aren't enough cards to support 2 players but because of the size of their table initially, they each thought that infect was open and were committed early on. They may have even read the signals correctly but in the end their fates were dependent on the intelligence or stupidity of others and less on their own skil.
In short because of Infect's linearity AND it's insularity (in terms of not interacting with most other magic cards that deal normal damage), it can lead to giant clusterf**ks in the drafting portion alie.
Infect is simply just an awful mechanic. It's badly balanced for drafting because of the reasons above. Not to mention the fact that it leads to higher variance in your game results too because infect kills so quickly if you get manascrewed or flooded. Now, Zendikar was aggroish too but at least you could be aggroish back as landfall triggers were spread out on a lot of cards. If you face someone who had infect to himself at a table and you were fighting to get value at yours, you are at a serious disadvantage. Infect is simply too quick a clock and you will lose to morons who have no skill simply from the fact that they were lucky enough to be the only idiot at a table of idiots to be in an overpowered archetype.
I honestly really think the bombs in this set have gone too far. Massacre Wurm is the latest example, and it's just like... buuuhhhhhh? If you tap 6 mana for a rare or mythic in this format it almost always blows the opponent out of the water.
It's not a matter of the cards being good. Gleancrawler was an exceptional card, for instance. But if you removed it, you removed it. It's that every single 6 mana rare seems hellbent on totally blowing out your opponent.
If this forum had Greasers, Phoenix, Commons and Semantics would be the leaders of the gang and every time they commented on something they would do a synchronized finger snap then smoke a cigarette.
As far as infect is concerned, I can remember at my last FNM owning people with Melira's Keepers. I drafted two of them and when they dropped on Infect players they just kind of stare at it and go "ugh...." I know that Keepers is more limited due to Unc, but an uncommon froze people in place. Many people who are running infect don't pick choice removal due to needing to take the top infect dude (phyrexian juggernaut > go for the throat) I had two blightwidows in my sideboard as well that stopped them up really fast.
As for the current state of the format, I will say that not having an immediate answer for certain things is pretty much GG. I am just coming back in to magic, but it seems like popping a good mythic generally spells doom for a player if they can not respond within 1 turn. At the same draft I just mentioned I nuked a R/W token guy with Massacre Wurm. He literally just died to it twice in a row before it even swung in. Most of the infect creatures are right at the X/2 mark as well so I just creamed them with the wurm as well.
There are some rares that are neither mythic nor infect that are super bombs though. I haven't seen a White Sun's Zenith resolve that hasn't won the game. There are only a few cards that can respond to it with any real effect like its converse Black Sun's Zenith or said Massacre Wurm.
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Seriously aggravating. I've been running into so many wanna be 2nd tier infect decks lately, and it seems like they win more than they should. It's so frustrating to lose to it, because the deck is terrible. Like half infect creatures and half non-infect creatures, yet somehow it manages to get there?
Anyway, I know a lot of people think infect is overpowered, and others think the opposite and say it's balanced. But this is just my personal experience online lately. Ever since MBS, people think phyrexia is the bomb or something, so even in triple SOM they're pushing infect harder than they used to and coming up with red / black and blue / black infect decks that are terrible and should lose, but in fact win more than they should. It's aggravating indeed. The reason they're pushed into strange combinations is because I think a few people at the table decide from the outset to just push infect and so they're forced to play cards that don't fit. And yet their subpar infect decks are still competitive? Seriously I don't understand and it's very aggravating to lose to it. I know all the "correct" answers with how to play versus infect, like stop their early game and they run out of gas, add more creatures, trade as often as possible, and removal is king etc etc.
Anybody else feel this way. Your thoughts?
I'm not a great player, but probably a little better than average with a limited rating that hovers right around 1800. I've done over 50 SOM drafts by now.
On the topic of actual metagame shift, the infect decks that you think are sub-par are either:
A) Not actually sub-par and thus deserve to win. (either pilot or deck or both)
B) Are getting lucky (Considering this is a single human's data it is extremely variable)
C) You are human and have only noticed the niche cases as is psychologically observed often, and you basically skew the results from your anecdotal experience against these decks. You don't notice when you crush three of them in first rounds, but you always notice when you lose in the last round.
All things considered, I think blue/black is actually a viable infect deck if you get the cards for it (thrummingbird + plague stingers = win ). And sometimes you get the nuts deck and still just lose man. It happens. Not statistically often, but it's easy to notice when it feels like that.
Poison only requires 10 damage. With some of the equipment available, you could easily just do 5 infect damage across 2 turns. Add proliferate on top of that, and it's really not too difficult to win with poison.
Anyways, don't worry. If your overall rating is 1800 it shows you win more than you lose.
*DCI Rules Advisor*
He got lucky, thats it. Dont fret too much over it.
The main thing from MBS is that there are a ton more infect guys with either bigger power or evasion. The 3/3 at 5mana, and all the fliers at 4mana. They all pair great with equipment that gives them the ability to kill even faster.
Because of this, MBS just made hating on poison that much more important. I always take blightwidows and flesh-eater imps even when not in infect. The blightwidow is an amazing blocker for a non-infect green deck anyways. The flesh-eater imp's evasion allows it to win games on it's own and will go into my normal-damage black decks.
Overall, though, you are correct: Infect is a pretty terrible mechanic. I'd suggest voting with your pocketbook and not giving wizards any more money for creating such a retarded mechanic. Half the stores in my area don't really run drafts anymore (one place actually started running RGD again!!! awesome). The noted reason is that everybody hates infects except for the super-casual players that like to suddenly win despite being idiots (see the OP's story for a nice example about how an idiot player who didn't know how to read signals still ended up winning a draft).
Infect adds a huge amount of variance to the format that simply overwhelms skill. Ironic since it is such a linear mechanic in and of itself. Drafts are simply sh*tstorms now. If you are at a table that is not exactly 8 experienced drafters, expect the best deck to be some bs concoction that was forced.
“Legacy is awesome because it lets you play with all the powerful cards from throughout Magic's history, like Jace and Stoneforge Mystic.”
-Aaron Forsythe
It's the nature of a card game for there to be some luck involved whether it's in what someone opens in their packs or what they top deck or their opponents getting mana flooded. Contagion Engine is a lucky bomb to open and he clearly had enough skill to recognize its worth, otherwise he wouldn't have switched to infect late. Just give him the win, don't be angry about it, and spend your money elsewhere if you're that pissed about it.
RRRHeartless Hidetsugu: The Ogre for TrollsRRR
BBBSeizan's Perverted VicesBBB
It's not as much like Magic as it is like gambling. I've lost so many games where I had a better deck than the opponent, but they had opened a Steel Hellkite in their first pack.
If MBS doesn't make it better (I'm playing online, you see), I'm done until July...
more like..
Making assumptions about the way I feel in no way makes you correct.
I had a much more fun time playing Shards and Zen/WWK drafts, than I have with SoM.
If I was drafting bad decks (which I have), making poor plays (which I have), or losing to a player who clearly was piloting better than I was (which I have), then I consider the duel a good game and enjoy myself. Unfortunately, these kinds of duels are a lot more rare in my personal experience than in other Limited environments.
I crushed 3 solid infect decks sporting multiple rares Skittles, Geth and the likes. No games were even close. I guess resisters just wreck infect decks like there is no tomorrow. We had 5 8 man pods at my FNM place. No 3-0 player had drafted infect. Go figure?
Pretty much the same here. In the first two drafts of BSS, the top 8s where I draft have had 0 and 1 infect players respectively. Infect is not some impossible to beat juggernaut.
I would agree that infect is not broken. at the release draft I won with what was essentially U/R control. Counters, bounce, and burn clearing the board for my pierce strider and spin engines or holding off until my quicksilver gargantuan. Player who came in second was playing dinos splashing white for removal. We agreed our infect match ups were not all too difficult but saw the potential in infect.
oh, also, can I ask how do you have "tiers" in draft, each draft archetype can have on many variations and levels of power depending on what was drafted
Ya don't say?
Clearly this requires further study.
RRRHeartless Hidetsugu: The Ogre for TrollsRRR
BBBSeizan's Perverted VicesBBB
The main problem with infect is that it is terribly balanced for more casual play and more casual tables (in terms of number). If you go to FNM, the crowd is more casual and tables are almost never the ideal 8. You get pods of 5 and 6 sometimes depending on the number of people that show up.
So:
1) Casual players are not experienced enough to understand signalling. For a linear archetype like infect, this means that someone can get the nuts infect deck because all the players at his table ignore infect cards (which is what many of them do when they are new to drafting). Conversely, you have terrible players go into infect too because of their first rare even though you are upstream of them. They are incapable of seeing that the cards are being cut so both of you end up with awful decks as you don't get enough playables. Or they can simply switch to infect 2nd or even 3rd pack because they get some bomb rare.
Bad players can easily make or break your infect deck at a table because it is such a terribly linear mechanic.
2) You can usually have enough infect for 2 players to have decent decks at an 8 man table. If the pod decreases or increases in size, the math changes a lot. Because infect is so linear, if you are drafting at a 5-man pod and have the only infect deck your deck will be nuts because there aren't enough cards for anyone else to draft a good infect deck.
Conversely, you may have 2 people at the 6 man table fighting over infect. If this is the case, they will both have mediocre decks because there aren't enough cards to support 2 players but because of the size of their table initially, they each thought that infect was open and were committed early on. They may have even read the signals correctly but in the end their fates were dependent on the intelligence or stupidity of others and less on their own skil.
In short because of Infect's linearity AND it's insularity (in terms of not interacting with most other magic cards that deal normal damage), it can lead to giant clusterf**ks in the drafting portion alie.
Infect is simply just an awful mechanic. It's badly balanced for drafting because of the reasons above. Not to mention the fact that it leads to higher variance in your game results too because infect kills so quickly if you get manascrewed or flooded. Now, Zendikar was aggroish too but at least you could be aggroish back as landfall triggers were spread out on a lot of cards. If you face someone who had infect to himself at a table and you were fighting to get value at yours, you are at a serious disadvantage. Infect is simply too quick a clock and you will lose to morons who have no skill simply from the fact that they were lucky enough to be the only idiot at a table of idiots to be in an overpowered archetype.
“Legacy is awesome because it lets you play with all the powerful cards from throughout Magic's history, like Jace and Stoneforge Mystic.”
-Aaron Forsythe
It's not a matter of the cards being good. Gleancrawler was an exceptional card, for instance. But if you removed it, you removed it. It's that every single 6 mana rare seems hellbent on totally blowing out your opponent.
As for the current state of the format, I will say that not having an immediate answer for certain things is pretty much GG. I am just coming back in to magic, but it seems like popping a good mythic generally spells doom for a player if they can not respond within 1 turn. At the same draft I just mentioned I nuked a R/W token guy with Massacre Wurm. He literally just died to it twice in a row before it even swung in. Most of the infect creatures are right at the X/2 mark as well so I just creamed them with the wurm as well.
There are some rares that are neither mythic nor infect that are super bombs though. I haven't seen a White Sun's Zenith resolve that hasn't won the game. There are only a few cards that can respond to it with any real effect like its converse Black Sun's Zenith or said Massacre Wurm.