MTG Salvation

Quote from The Argus

I can't recal a time when a money card was banned. It the undercosted cheap cards that get banned. Ex: don't ban Fact or Fiction, ban Sword of the Meekinstead; don't ban Arcbound Ravager, ban Disciple of the Vault and Skullclamp.

If CAW blade ever becomes 100% dominant it will be the seagulls that are banned not the swords or mystic.

Quote from Brandon Brawlers

I have to, respectfully, disagree.

I know that there aren't really any true "end-all-be-all" sources in the Magic community, but there are a few that different people rely on. I would say that two of the most common ones relied upon, are Patrick Chapin and LSV. And since one of them is especially known for being a blue/control genius, we have to take what they say, at least somewhat seriously.

And what have both Patrick Chapin and LSV said? That Jace needs to be banned, because he is just that strong.

And the evidence we have proves that. Do you know what the Caw-Blade win percentage for the month of March is? 58.87%. Caw-Blade wins over half the matches it plays in.

Do you know what the second highest win percentage of any deck is, in that same time frame? RUG. At 57.19%. Again, that is over half the matches it plays.

Those two decks have a few things in common. Islands, of course. Blue fetchlands. And Preordain and Jace. The two true powerhouses of the decks.

That shows us that Stoneforge isn't the problem (but should seriously be looked at for banning), that the Swords aren't the problem, that Lotus Cobra isn't the problem, but either Jace or Preordain is.

Quote from JanglesPrime

Ok, point to you.

Speaking of Mind Sludge, I sleeved up your deck for testing and even with only 3 copies of Sludge, I seemed to get it more often in my hand than I like. Now, I am goldfishing and have not had a chance to play anyone with it but with three copies you expect to cast it more than once, correct? Assuming the first doesn't get countered, will the second or even third copies help you out that much? I'm sure actually playing against someone will show me the power of Mind Sludge, but I was just curious how it was working for you. Just wondering whether it would do to run only 2 copies of Mind Sludge and maybe add a Sign in Blood or Tumble Magnet. Or maybe run Mind Rot over Mind Sludge? Having several 3cmc discard card rather than 5cmc discards in hand seems better.

Quote from Thunderkiss

In the current meta Virulent Wound is amazing.

Quote from Beloved

I disagree with this statement wholeheartedly. First, adding blue can slow down a lot of things in a deck. The best infectors all have BB in the casting cost. If you get color screwed, or etbft land screwed, you are slowed quite a bit. As an example, I will post my Mono-black deck and the game results from FNM last Friday.

DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
21 Swamp 3 Inkmoth Nexus 4 Phyrexian Vatmother 4 Phyrexian Crusader 4 Necropede 3 Gatekeeper of Malakir	3 Duress 3 Doom Blade 3 Go for the Throat 3 Sign in Blood 3 Tumble Magnet 3 Mind Sludge 3 Contagion Clasp	Sideboard: 3 Sadistic Sacrament 2 Black Sun's Zenith 3 Vampire Hexmage 2 Phyrexian Revoker 3 Grasp of Darkness 2 Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon

Opponent: Mr. West
Deck: Kibler's U/B Infect
Total Rounds: 3

This was a deck I had hoped to face tonight. I wanted to test out the deck my friends and I built against one of the strongest Infect decks that have popped up. I was not disappointed in the least.

Game 1 - I lost the roll and kept a hand of Inkmoth Nexus, Swamp, Swamp, Sign in Blood, Necropede, and Tumble Magnet. West played an Inkmoth, and passed the turn. I drew into a Contagion Clasp, played my Nexus, and pass. He drew, played Darkslick Shores, animated Inkmoth, and hit me for 1 poison and then passed the turn. I drew into a Swamp, played the Swamp, and animated my Nexus, hit him for 1 and passed the turn. He played an Island, cast Necropede, and passed his turn. I draw into a Duress, I play a Swamp, cast my Necropede, and pass my turn. He draws, and looks at the board for a few minutes, and laughs at the mirror moves we had been playing. I laugh too, and he plays Drowned Catacombs, casts Contagion Clasp, killing both Necropedes, and then cast a Necropede, and passed turn. I drew into Necropede, cast my Clasp, killing his Necropede, and cast my own second one. I pass the turn. He draws, plays Creeping Tar Pit, and then passes his turn. I drew into Vatmother, played my Swamp, and thought about my next move. With 5 mana opened, I decided it was time to break away from the mirror. I cast duress, and he leaked it. I cast Sign in Blood, and drew into a Swamp and Mind Sludge. I passed my turn, and he drew and cast Tectonic Edge, destroyed my Nexus, and cast Phyrexian Crusader and passed turn. I draw into Duress, play my swamp, cast Duress, only to get it deprived. I took a chance I cast Mind Sludge, and he can't counter it thanks to the Duress he countered. 2 Tezzerets, and a few other little things that didn't matter. I passed, and he drew and played a land, and animated Nexus and swung, then proliferated. I drew into Doom Blade, cast Go for the Throat on his Crusader, and then cast Vatmother. I swung with Necropede, and passed the turn. He drew, played a swamp, animated Nexus, and then proliferated me to 5. I drew into Crusader, took 1 poison, cast Crusader, and swung with Necropede and Vatmother for 5, putting him at 6. He just sighed when he drew, dropped his land, animated Nexus, and found Doom Blade lying in wait. He passed his turn, I drew into Go for the Throat, took a poison, and asked if he could prevent all the poison with 1 Tar Pit. His answer was yes, and so I swung all in. He animated the Pit, and I cast Go for the Throat on it. On to Game 2.

G2 followed a stricter pattern. I sided out the Mothers for Revokers and 2 Sacraments. I ended up losing thanks to him using Vatmothers and me not getting a good first hand. I milled to 5 in the end, keeping Inkmoth, Swamp, Swamp, Duress, and Sadistic Sacrament. I ran out of steam at T5, and couldn't race him any longer. I expected the loss, however

G3 I sided in Skittles for 1 Mind Sludge. I kept a hand of Inkmoth, Duress, Swamp, Swamp, Necropede, Contagion Clasp, Sign in Blood. I played a Swamp, cast Duress, and took out his Tezzy early on, while making notes for the Deprive, Mana Leak, Plague Myr, and Vatmother in his hand. I passed, he played Creeping Tar Pit, and passed. I drew into Sadistic Sacrament, played a swamp, and cast Necropede. He drew, played Darkslick Shores, and cast Plague Myr. I drew into a swamp, played it, and cast Sign in Blood, drawing into Inkmoth and Tumble Magnet. I swung with Necropede, he did not block, and I passed. He drew, played an Island, tapped Plague Myr, cast Phyrexian Vatmother, and passed his turn. I drew into Duress, played my land, cast Duress and got rid of Deprive, and then cast Tumble Magnet. I passed my turn, and he drew, played a Drowned Catacomb, and went to swing with Vatmother. I respond by tapping it with Magnet. He passed, and I draw a Duress. I cast Duress only to have him leak it, which I was more than happy to let him do. I then played Sadistic Sacrament, removing 1 Tezzy and 2 Magnets from the game. I pass the turn. He draws, drops a land, drops a Clasp, killing my Necropede and in turn his Myr, and tried swinging with Vatmother, only to have it get tapped down again. I draw into Sign in Blood, cast it, drawing into Swamp and Skithiryx. I play the Swamp, cast my Clasp weakening his mother, and pass the turn. He draws, plays IoK, and sees the doom upon him. He attacks, gets his mother tapped down for the last time, and passes. I draw into a Tumble Magnet. I know he has 1 counter left in his deck, so I take it easy and cast Magnet. 3 more turns go by with him not getting anything but land, and he scooped after the last draw.



While we might have had turns where we did nothing, we both understood that it was patience that would win. Since he was running U/B, he could not pack as much field control as I could, nor could he use Mind Sludge, which I will admit, was one of the best cards I could ever ask for.

Now then, some might be curious as to my card choices. Let me explain.

1. No Plague Myr.
I was all for Plague Myr when I first saw the card. Mana ramp, for infect? Of course I wanted to play it, and for a while I did. But, it never made much of a difference in the end. I mean, sure, I could get Vatmother and Skithiryx out 1 turn early, but in the end, it ended up being wasted space, so I set off to find something that could deal with cards I had no answers for, like Blightsteel Colussus.

2. Only 3 Inkmoth Nexi.
The reason for this, which is quite easy to see, is the amount of cards that required BB to play. I did not want to get 2 Inkmoth Nexi and 1 Swamp in my opening hand, which happened a lot when I had 4 Inkmoths in there. In total, I have 27 cards with BB in their casting costs, which meant that I needed less Inkmoths and more Swamps.

3. Skithiryx in the SB.
Ok, hear is what will shock many Infect players. The second best infector is in the SB, and as a 2 of. The reason is quite simple: I already have enough high costing cards in the MB, and Skittles is, in my opinion, quite terrible to draw into early game. Normally when I side him in, it is against other Infect Decks, and I usually remove 1 Mind Sludge to play him.

4. So many 3-of's.
The reason I run mostly 3 of's is because it allows me to play more of what I need without running the risk of not drawing it. In fact, the only cards I want to constantly get are my 3 Infect creatures. The rest varies, and since I run 3 of everything else, I could afford to use similar cards, Like Doom Blade and Go For The Throat.

5. Grasp of Darkness over Disfigure.
Ok, hear is my beef with Disfigure, T1, it is a great draw against many aggro decks. T2, not so much. T3-T6, that -2/-2 isn't helping much. Grasp, on the other hand, allows me to kill most things that see play these days, for just BB. A great example is Skittles. A 4/4 haste Infector with Regen. Disfigure will not stop him. Grasp, on the other hand, laughs at it for thinking Regen will save it.



Mind you all, this is still a work in progress, and my MB/SB cards rotate back and forth a lot. Last week, I ran Grasps MB and Tumble Magnet SB. I am trying to get ready for the SCG tournament in June, which is why I am so heavily set on control than aggro. Kuldotha Red will always out-pace my deck aggro wise, but if I can deal with their threats with 2-for-1 cards like Necropede while stalling to get what I need, then you better believe I will.

Quote from Skythrixthepineapple

U need a skithriyx and an equip for double strike and +1/+1 u win in about 2-3 turns of playing skithryx

Quote from Ultralisk!

Has anyone tried out Painful Quandary? There are no other 5 drops to speak of in MBC's arsenal apart from Liliana Vess, who is generally a very average card, despite tutoring what you need vs aggro and continued discard vs control