Losing twice in a row to a first turn Glistener Elf followed by enough pump to kill on second turn through removal is not fun.
"He just had the nuts draw" and "Won't happen every game" isn't good enough, those two games were so infuriating I'm finished with pauper.
I'm here to voice my opinion that this 'deck' has never produced an intellectually stimulating game of magic, and in fact exists for players who dislike thinking of all kind.
I don't expect to win even a majority of matchups against every deck. What I do expect is to brew a reasonable 75 and battle someone in the same situation, not lose 2 games in less than 3 minutes to a lazy player who made less than ten decisions. I hope other people feel the same way, but if not, that's fine. Enjoy your broken format and I'll find one that doesn't cater to the simple-minded.
I'm ok with combo decks in most formats as long as you can legitmatetly answer them.
Storm you can either race or have SB answers, and you hope you either race them or find your SB stuff in games 2 or 3.
But yes I agree infect is annoying. Turn 1 elf turn 2 enough pump to kill is almost impossible to answer.
I think invigorate should be banned. This way mono green stompy infect will still be a tier 1 deck, but will not allow for broken turn 2 unanswerable swings for the win.
Invigorate is almost a zero mana 8 damage burn spell.
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Originally Posted by Massive Marc
You know back in the old days, when there wasn't EDH, these "griefer" cards in decks were the norm. If you played a Winter Orb when you're opponents were tapped out, it was a good play. Now, you get people tell you they wanna punch you ? It's really sad how carebare this format is, to the point that some loser has to rip up your cards.
I'm assuming your playing red and tried to burn the elf when it swung. Kill it on your turn, make him waste a pump or two to save it.
First game:
E: Forest, Glistener Elf
G: Mountain, Chain Lightning. E invigorates in response.
E: Forest, Rancor, Groundswell, Mutagenic Growth x2
Second Game:
G: Terramorphic for Mountain
E: Forest, Glistener Elf
G: Mountain, Bolt. E invigorates in response, I bolt in response, he invigorates again.
E: Forest, Groundswell, Groundswell, Mutagenic Growth.
He had ridiculous hands both games. It happens. Invigorate might need to be banned, but again, nothing he was doing was particularly good; he only won because he had an extremely explosive draw. If your turn-1 play had been Innocent Blood, Dead Weight, Fume Spitter or Fog, he easily could have lost that match, however. Maybe his build is creature light and tailored to get those nut draws; in which case, it's also very brittle.
Try to run an infect deck and you wont be impressed at all. You lost yes, but the infect guy will probably lose to xxx other games. Almost every blue deck has echoing truth, black has its doom blade and green can fog it. + a great opening hand is always tough.
I pretty much agree exactly with Napoleon. Infect is by no means broken, it can have very inconsistent draws, and I'd put it on a level below the top few decks in the format. Losing to infect on the draw is a pretty awful feeling though. Most of the games with it pretty much come down to two things, did they go first, and did they have a nuts draw? If the answer to both of those is yes, you will probably get crushed. If they are both no, you should be able to work around them without to much trouble. If one is yes and one is no, then the game will be up in the air.
I don't think it creates for the most fun game, and think that banning Invigorate would probably be perfect to keep the deck around but slow it down a bit. I am sure that some people really enjoy the deck though, atleast for a little bit. It is really up to WOTC to decide. The one thing that worries me the most is that I have been seeing some of the grinders complain that they hate infect, while they are playing infect. They keep doing it anyways because the 3-4 minute matches make it very easy to double or triple queue.
I also think it is a little bit funny how many people are complaining about Infect making games a bit to fast while last year everyone was complaining that Familiar Storm was making games go to long.
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you lost to lucky draws, don't need to cry about it
agreed, to the op, if you want to only play formats that are never decided by god draws you are going to find yourself horrendously limited in your choices.
if you want to cut yourself off from so many formats because you get unluck once in a while that's your call but i really dont think you will be enjoying yourself in the long run.
White: Hope you have gideon's lawkeeper in your opening hand. If you do, hope they don't have vines of vastwood.
Red: Have more burn than they have pump. (rofl)
Blue: Don't be on the draw. If your on the play hope they don't have more pump than you have counterspells.
Black: Between fume spitter, doomblade, snuff out, dead weight, you really shouldn't lose to infect. If you do it's on turn 2.
Green: Play creatures to block and hope they don't have rancor.
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Originally Posted by Massive Marc
You know back in the old days, when there wasn't EDH, these "griefer" cards in decks were the norm. If you played a Winter Orb when you're opponents were tapped out, it was a good play. Now, you get people tell you they wanna punch you ? It's really sad how carebare this format is, to the point that some loser has to rip up your cards.
Invigorate needs to be banned. I have no problem with the infect deck (not saying i don't lose to it) when they don't draw Invigorate but losing to it just isn't fun and really ruins games.
I just had a match with my sporling deck (even if the insane lifegain doesn't matter vs infect) where I had a really good hand. Past turn 2, i should have been able to keep churning out chump blockers and stay afloat even if they got a good draw.
I know that's extreme, but the other game they one in the match was the same thing, except with two creatures on turn 3 and I could only block one because I played a bounceland.
Does anyone even know if Wizards even watches the health of pauper? Like I mean I know they banned plating and that one free card draw spell, but how long ago was that?
For the health of the format invigorate does need to be banned.
Originally Posted by Massive Marc
You know back in the old days, when there wasn't EDH, these "griefer" cards in decks were the norm. If you played a Winter Orb when you're opponents were tapped out, it was a good play. Now, you get people tell you they wanna punch you ? It's really sad how carebare this format is, to the point that some loser has to rip up your cards.
if you have sideboard for it, mulligan correctly and play right infect is no better than any other deck in the format, calling for a ban on invigorate sounds an awful lot like bad players in legacy whining because they lost some games to dredge.
ftr, infect isn't as obnoxious as dredge and there is a ton of simple hate for infect in a bunch of colors. If we banned every card that annoyed people we'd have an awful format. The evidence for the banning of invigorate needs to be a lot better than it wins fast. If you actually have evidence for infect dominating this format i'd love to see it, im just pretty sure that evidence doesnt actually exist.
EDIT: i thought id also point out that i dont have infect built and have never played with it, i have sat across from it many times and have lost to it quickly many times and also have seen it wiff hard many times. what i do when i lost to it is see where my sideboard could be improved to handle it, what hands should have been mulliganed to handle the upcoming onslaught and also anything threat i didnt assess properly(when i should have left back blockers etc). I dont pretend like my opponents deck was brokesauce when anyone looking at the situation honestly would see that that particular claim is absurd.
I also recognize when a deck has a bad matchup with infect and if that is the case i dont get upset when the loss happens as that is to be expected when you run a slow deck
Frantic Search was the draw spell that you were talking about that got banned. It got banned last June, so they do watch it, but it takes a whole lot of noise before they change it. Familiar Storm (the deck using Frantic Search) was much much worse than Infect though. Not only was it the top deck in the format, but it was awful to play against. You would spend 15-20 minutes a match f6'd while your opponent combo'd usually.
I think the deck that I would most compare Infect to is Goblin Charbelcher in Dredge. The starting hand quality, die roll, are very very important. If they have things go your way, the match is over before it starts. If it is not, it should be a pretty easy match for you. The main differences between Belcher in Legacy and Infect in Pauper is that Infect is a turn 2-3 deck instead of a turn 1-2 deck, and that Infect is a top 5 deck in the format instead of a random deck that rarely shows up. They are both basically coinflip decks though. It is a matter of personal opinion if having that as one of the top decks in the format is good or not.
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Originally Posted by Massive Marc
You know back in the old days, when there wasn't EDH, these "griefer" cards in decks were the norm. If you played a Winter Orb when you're opponents were tapped out, it was a good play. Now, you get people tell you they wanna punch you ? It's really sad how carebare this format is, to the point that some loser has to rip up your cards.
Invigorate 0
Instant
Target attacking unblocked creature deals 8 damage to target player.
This. In legacy is ok since force of will exist. In a format without force of will a coinflip deck that wins on turn 1 or 2 should not exist.
I'm fine with storm, since usually by the time they combo off you can have mana/enough time to find an answer.
With infect its. Do you have an answer in your opening hand, if you do, do they not have a vines or more pump spells.
your imaginary spell is neat and all but you are ignoring that every deck gets their nut high cards, affinity has a creatures that costs two mana an approches phage the untouchable levels. Blue gets counterspell and daze and delver, all of those cards are absurd. you also forget to mention that invigorate has a pretty horrendous drawback, you have to play infect guys. i dont know if youve seen most of those creatures but they are pretty awful. glistener elf is pretty good but they dont always draw him and if they dont draw him they dont win until turn three and the earliest.
also please explain what deck in pauper is winning on turn one, because im pretty sure it isnt infect.
Again, your arguments seem to be able to be boiled down to "infect feels broken". That is cool but that argument doesnt actually work in the real world. If you have actual evidence of infect creating problems id love to see it otherwise we are just talking about feelings.
Daze and counterspell are not "absurd" in any way.
Storm has legitimate answers. Infect doesn't unless your black.
Turn 1 elf.
You have ONE turn to find and cast an answer, if you don't your dead.
I am not saying the deck is broken. I am saying that coinflip decks that take ALL the skill out of the game should not exist in a format without force of will.
Banning invigorate still allows infect to be a deck, but it hinders their turn 2 win.
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Originally Posted by Massive Marc
You know back in the old days, when there wasn't EDH, these "griefer" cards in decks were the norm. If you played a Winter Orb when you're opponents were tapped out, it was a good play. Now, you get people tell you they wanna punch you ? It's really sad how carebare this format is, to the point that some loser has to rip up your cards.
every color including green has answers so im not sure where you are coming from with this line about only one color having answers.
white has the flagbearer which shuts down almost all of infect
red has a ton of burn and also can run out bunches of blockers, it may not be perfect but it still has answers.
blue has counters and bounce not to mention also has cheap blockers, blue is arguably a better deck for beating infect than black, so saying black is the only deck that has answers is probably incorrect.
green has it rough vs infect but it has to make some sacrifices in order to have a good matchup against the rest of the field. it generally devotes some spots to fog or hornet sting, so all is not lost.
so what were you saying about only black being able to handle infect? do you actually tune your sideboards for matchups you are worried about? if you spent the time that you are using to argue that invigorate needs banned instead to tune your sideboards you might actually stand a chance vs infect. also if you think turn one elf means that always win you havent played infect enough. yes sometimes you need an answer or atleast a blocker but sometime they can only rancor him once or twice.
if you think infect is a non interactive coinflip deck you are giving it no credit whatsoever. you are also not thinking very hard when it comes to handling infect if you think it is only a coinflip. put some removal in your sideboard and if you dont think your hand can handle what infect is going to be coming at you with mulligan it. in such a swingy kind of matchup it is appropriate to mull to make sure you have game vs infect.
also i find it highly ironic that you have hat quote in your signature while arguing to ban invigorate. it is pretty sad how care bear you want this format to be.
ps. daze and counterspell arent absurd that may have been hyperbole, but delver is pretty nutso and daze and counterspell are really good and if a deck can run oth of those invigorate is looking pretty mellow
You do understand that burn does nothing against infect right? Have you even read the first three posts?
Also standard bearer is a two drop. If your on the draw your dead before you can even cast it. If your not dead you are either at 8 or 9 poison.
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Originally Posted by Massive Marc
You know back in the old days, when there wasn't EDH, these "griefer" cards in decks were the norm. If you played a Winter Orb when you're opponents were tapped out, it was a good play. Now, you get people tell you they wanna punch you ? It's really sad how carebare this format is, to the point that some loser has to rip up your cards.
Burn does plenty against infect. At worst, it trades for an Invigorate or Vines; at best it kills their guy. And yes, mull aggressively for game against Infect.
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On average, Magic players are worse at new card evaluation than almost every other skill, except perhaps sideboarding.
if infect is really as absurdly consitent as your arguments are making it out to be why isnt the 4-0 section of tournament result covered with it? i understand you claim it is a coinflip deck, if so id appreciate it if your sample draws reflected this. if you arent bound by the rules of an argument ill gladly concede the point right now.
burn makes them waste an invigorate which is huge in all but the most absurdly bad luck situations.
standard bearer is stated as one of the reasons hornet sting is in infect sideboards, so if it so worthless vs infect why does infect need to run sideboard hate for it?
nathed in part by bonsequitur, thanks so much for chiming in bon, i really respect your opinion on all things pauper
I personally love Infect as a mechanic - I'm only disappointed I didn't see it back when I was playing Magic. Plague Sliver was my favorite Sliver just because it sounds badass - I mean, c'mon, Plague Sliver.
And Virulent Sliver gives poison counters.
Basically, venomous-sounding stuff and poison counters are awesome, IMO. Get some Hivestone + Virulent Sliver up in here. (Can you tell I played from Ravnica to Lorwyn?)
Poison is an awesome win mechanic and I love that it has an efficient creature-demolishing method. More people should run Poison/Infect.
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Look at what his opening hand must have been, in both games. Perfection. Apart from the fact that it arbitrarily kills you on turn two rather than any other turn, this is just an example of a godly draw. It might feel "dirty" or "cheap" when you lose to it because you thought you "deserved" to win, but nearly every good deck has godly draws...and a lot of bad decks do, too. God draws happen all the time, you just have to accept it. Infect is a good mechanic in pauper, and invigorate is a great card for that deck. Again, you just have to accept it. Good players recognise it simply as variance...and if they keep losing, good players adapt.
It's absolutely the same in other formats - everyone knows the standard delver deck has the dreaded turn 1 delver - turn 2 reveal mana leak draw. In modern there's some sick dredgevine draws, off the top of my head, in legacy there are a ton of turn 2 kills/locks/whatever. Even in limited, you can be facing the travel preparations deck's godly draw.
It's all perfectly arbitrary. If your opponent gets the godly-draw, you normally just lose. Console yourself with the fact that everyone else loses to it too. At that point, it's similar to losing to mana screw or mana flood, you should chalk it up to variance and move on with your life. In the bigger picture, infect isn't a big force any more. The good decks have adapted to deal with it, and it just doesn't put up decent numbers any more.
I didn't deserve to win, I deserved a game of magic. Your examples of god draws are great, but find me one that uses only commons that kills on turn 2. I accept the existence of variance, but let me spell this out plainly:
I was not a magic player during these games. I was a warm body inflicted ~20 poison counters in a matter of minutes. Any attempt I made to influence the game was dismissed and this frustrates me.
This is not the mantra of the scrub, this is a long-time player recognizing the absurdity of a deck that can win on turn 2 through removal in a format that is usually won by whoever has the most bears in double-digit turns.
If the backside of Delver was 10/5 trample and infect, your apologist argument might have some substance.
I am basically going to disagree with everything Madmanquail just said. There are a lot of players that do not like infect. When I see infect players in the daily event chat talking about how boring the deck is but they play it so they can double queue easy, that does not seem like a good thing. I know that I hate when I have to play against infect win or lose, many of the other competitive players do too. I would not call infect overpowered by any means, just that winning the die roll and getting the nut draw is far more important than any other deck in the format. The games where infect either does not have a nut draw into an early win or is completely out of the game are few and far between. If this is good or bad for the format is really up to WOTC to decide, and they have the numbers to do that.
-I think that using that mantra of the scrub article is way off. The OP did not call the guy a jerk. He stated that the deck was simple, and that it can commonly win on turn 2. Even in that article he states " The point is that if a game becomes "no fun" at high levels of play, then it's the game's fault, not the player's." That is directly from the article you linked. The OP did not call the guy a jerk. He stated that the deck was simple, and that it can commonly win on turn 2. Raising opinions on problems with decks is a valid thing to do in Magic. Sometimes banning cards needs to be done to make sure that it is "not the game's fault." I would argue that Infect is more dependent on getting the correct starting hand and has less tough decisions to be made during the match than any other top deck in the format by far. If WOTC thinks this is an unhealthy thing for the format, they can look at cards and have the option to ban something. Nobody is blaming a player for trying to win with what they have available.
-"In the bigger picture, infect isn't a big force any more. The good decks have adapted to deal with it, and it just doesn't put up decent numbers any more." This makes me think that you really have not been playing much competitive Pauper. I have played atleast one infect deck in my last 11 daily events. In fact, I had one event where I played four infect decks in four matches. If you look through replays of Daily's going on, you will see a huge upswing in the numbers playing the deck. I am sure when the next Decks of the Week come out, a whole lot of Infect decks will be showing up. It is not the top deck in the format, but to say that it doesn't put up decent numbers anymore is completely false.
I do not think that Infect is an overpowered deck. I have adapted to face it, and despite any frustration I may have, still have a winning record against the deck in competitive play. However, I would still be happy if Invigorate got banned. I think that infect matches put a huge emphasis on hoping you draw well and going first on both sides of the table, and much less importance on tough in game decisions. I don't know if creating what some think to be an unfun or to random of a format is enough to ban something. WOTC banned Frantic Search last year largely do to how uninteractive and long the games involving Familiar Storm went. If Infect caused enough people to be unhappy with the format or some to even leave the format than I am sure WOTC would keep an eye on it. If they do not, I will probably not be happy to play Infect, but everyone has decks that they do not like to face. I will just keep adapting my decks to the meta, and be prepared to flip a coin an average of once a Daily Event.
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"He just had the nuts draw" and "Won't happen every game" isn't good enough, those two games were so infuriating I'm finished with pauper.
I'm here to voice my opinion that this 'deck' has never produced an intellectually stimulating game of magic, and in fact exists for players who dislike thinking of all kind.
I don't expect to win even a majority of matchups against every deck. What I do expect is to brew a reasonable 75 and battle someone in the same situation, not lose 2 games in less than 3 minutes to a lazy player who made less than ten decisions. I hope other people feel the same way, but if not, that's fine. Enjoy your broken format and I'll find one that doesn't cater to the simple-minded.
Storm you can either race or have SB answers, and you hope you either race them or find your SB stuff in games 2 or 3.
But yes I agree infect is annoying. Turn 1 elf turn 2 enough pump to kill is almost impossible to answer.
I think invigorate should be banned. This way mono green stompy infect will still be a tier 1 deck, but will not allow for broken turn 2 unanswerable swings for the win.
Invigorate is almost a zero mana 8 damage burn spell.
You know back in the old days, when there wasn't EDH, these "griefer" cards in decks were the norm. If you played a Winter Orb when you're opponents were tapped out, it was a good play. Now, you get people tell you they wanna punch you ? It's really sad how carebare this format is, to the point that some loser has to rip up your cards.
First game:
E: Forest, Glistener Elf
G: Mountain, Chain Lightning. E invigorates in response.
E: Forest, Rancor, Groundswell, Mutagenic Growth x2
Second Game:
G: Terramorphic for Mountain
E: Forest, Glistener Elf
G: Mountain, Bolt. E invigorates in response, I bolt in response, he invigorates again.
E: Forest, Groundswell, Groundswell, Mutagenic Growth.
I've played magic before, thanks.
I don't think it creates for the most fun game, and think that banning Invigorate would probably be perfect to keep the deck around but slow it down a bit. I am sure that some people really enjoy the deck though, atleast for a little bit. It is really up to WOTC to decide. The one thing that worries me the most is that I have been seeing some of the grinders complain that they hate infect, while they are playing infect. They keep doing it anyways because the 3-4 minute matches make it very easy to double or triple queue.
I also think it is a little bit funny how many people are complaining about Infect making games a bit to fast while last year everyone was complaining that Familiar Storm was making games go to long.
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agreed, to the op, if you want to only play formats that are never decided by god draws you are going to find yourself horrendously limited in your choices.
if you want to cut yourself off from so many formats because you get unluck once in a while that's your call but i really dont think you will be enjoying yourself in the long run.
Red: Have more burn than they have pump. (rofl)
Blue: Don't be on the draw. If your on the play hope they don't have more pump than you have counterspells.
Black: Between fume spitter, doomblade, snuff out, dead weight, you really shouldn't lose to infect. If you do it's on turn 2.
Green: Play creatures to block and hope they don't have rancor.
You know back in the old days, when there wasn't EDH, these "griefer" cards in decks were the norm. If you played a Winter Orb when you're opponents were tapped out, it was a good play. Now, you get people tell you they wanna punch you ? It's really sad how carebare this format is, to the point that some loser has to rip up your cards.
I just had a match with my sporling deck (even if the insane lifegain doesn't matter vs infect) where I had a really good hand. Past turn 2, i should have been able to keep churning out chump blockers and stay afloat even if they got a good draw.
Instead
Turn 1: Land, Elf
Me: Land, Soul Warden
Turn 2: Rancor, Invigorate, Land Groundswell
GG
I know that's extreme, but the other game they one in the match was the same thing, except with two creatures on turn 3 and I could only block one because I played a bounceland.
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For the health of the format invigorate does need to be banned.
You know back in the old days, when there wasn't EDH, these "griefer" cards in decks were the norm. If you played a Winter Orb when you're opponents were tapped out, it was a good play. Now, you get people tell you they wanna punch you ? It's really sad how carebare this format is, to the point that some loser has to rip up your cards.
ftr, infect isn't as obnoxious as dredge and there is a ton of simple hate for infect in a bunch of colors. If we banned every card that annoyed people we'd have an awful format. The evidence for the banning of invigorate needs to be a lot better than it wins fast. If you actually have evidence for infect dominating this format i'd love to see it, im just pretty sure that evidence doesnt actually exist.
EDIT: i thought id also point out that i dont have infect built and have never played with it, i have sat across from it many times and have lost to it quickly many times and also have seen it wiff hard many times. what i do when i lost to it is see where my sideboard could be improved to handle it, what hands should have been mulliganed to handle the upcoming onslaught and also anything threat i didnt assess properly(when i should have left back blockers etc). I dont pretend like my opponents deck was brokesauce when anyone looking at the situation honestly would see that that particular claim is absurd.
I also recognize when a deck has a bad matchup with infect and if that is the case i dont get upset when the loss happens as that is to be expected when you run a slow deck
I think the deck that I would most compare Infect to is Goblin Charbelcher in Dredge. The starting hand quality, die roll, are very very important. If they have things go your way, the match is over before it starts. If it is not, it should be a pretty easy match for you. The main differences between Belcher in Legacy and Infect in Pauper is that Infect is a turn 2-3 deck instead of a turn 1-2 deck, and that Infect is a top 5 deck in the format instead of a random deck that rarely shows up. They are both basically coinflip decks though. It is a matter of personal opinion if having that as one of the top decks in the format is good or not.
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Instant
Target attacking unblocked creature deals 8 damage to target player.
This. In legacy is ok since force of will exist. In a format without force of will a coinflip deck that wins on turn 1 or 2 should not exist.
I'm fine with storm, since usually by the time they combo off you can have mana/enough time to find an answer.
With infect its. Do you have an answer in your opening hand, if you do, do they not have a vines or more pump spells.
Edit: Also can that answer be played on turn 1 or turn 2.
You know back in the old days, when there wasn't EDH, these "griefer" cards in decks were the norm. If you played a Winter Orb when you're opponents were tapped out, it was a good play. Now, you get people tell you they wanna punch you ? It's really sad how carebare this format is, to the point that some loser has to rip up your cards.
your imaginary spell is neat and all but you are ignoring that every deck gets their nut high cards, affinity has a creatures that costs two mana an approches phage the untouchable levels. Blue gets counterspell and daze and delver, all of those cards are absurd. you also forget to mention that invigorate has a pretty horrendous drawback, you have to play infect guys. i dont know if youve seen most of those creatures but they are pretty awful. glistener elf is pretty good but they dont always draw him and if they dont draw him they dont win until turn three and the earliest.
also please explain what deck in pauper is winning on turn one, because im pretty sure it isnt infect.
Again, your arguments seem to be able to be boiled down to "infect feels broken". That is cool but that argument doesnt actually work in the real world. If you have actual evidence of infect creating problems id love to see it otherwise we are just talking about feelings.
Storm has legitimate answers. Infect doesn't unless your black.
Turn 1 elf.
You have ONE turn to find and cast an answer, if you don't your dead.
I am not saying the deck is broken. I am saying that coinflip decks that take ALL the skill out of the game should not exist in a format without force of will.
Banning invigorate still allows infect to be a deck, but it hinders their turn 2 win.
You know back in the old days, when there wasn't EDH, these "griefer" cards in decks were the norm. If you played a Winter Orb when you're opponents were tapped out, it was a good play. Now, you get people tell you they wanna punch you ? It's really sad how carebare this format is, to the point that some loser has to rip up your cards.
white has the flagbearer which shuts down almost all of infect
red has a ton of burn and also can run out bunches of blockers, it may not be perfect but it still has answers.
blue has counters and bounce not to mention also has cheap blockers, blue is arguably a better deck for beating infect than black, so saying black is the only deck that has answers is probably incorrect.
green has it rough vs infect but it has to make some sacrifices in order to have a good matchup against the rest of the field. it generally devotes some spots to fog or hornet sting, so all is not lost.
so what were you saying about only black being able to handle infect? do you actually tune your sideboards for matchups you are worried about? if you spent the time that you are using to argue that invigorate needs banned instead to tune your sideboards you might actually stand a chance vs infect. also if you think turn one elf means that always win you havent played infect enough. yes sometimes you need an answer or atleast a blocker but sometime they can only rancor him once or twice.
if you think infect is a non interactive coinflip deck you are giving it no credit whatsoever. you are also not thinking very hard when it comes to handling infect if you think it is only a coinflip. put some removal in your sideboard and if you dont think your hand can handle what infect is going to be coming at you with mulligan it. in such a swingy kind of matchup it is appropriate to mull to make sure you have game vs infect.
also i find it highly ironic that you have hat quote in your signature while arguing to ban invigorate. it is pretty sad how care bear you want this format to be.
ps. daze and counterspell arent absurd that may have been hyperbole, but delver is pretty nutso and daze and counterspell are really good and if a deck can run oth of those invigorate is looking pretty mellow
Also standard bearer is a two drop. If your on the draw your dead before you can even cast it. If your not dead you are either at 8 or 9 poison.
You know back in the old days, when there wasn't EDH, these "griefer" cards in decks were the norm. If you played a Winter Orb when you're opponents were tapped out, it was a good play. Now, you get people tell you they wanna punch you ? It's really sad how carebare this format is, to the point that some loser has to rip up your cards.
burn makes them waste an invigorate which is huge in all but the most absurdly bad luck situations.
standard bearer is stated as one of the reasons hornet sting is in infect sideboards, so if it so worthless vs infect why does infect need to run sideboard hate for it?
nathed in part by bonsequitur, thanks so much for chiming in bon, i really respect your opinion on all things pauper
And Virulent Sliver gives poison counters.
Basically, venomous-sounding stuff and poison counters are awesome, IMO. Get some Hivestone + Virulent Sliver up in here. (Can you tell I played from Ravnica to Lorwyn?)
Poison is an awesome win mechanic and I love that it has an efficient creature-demolishing method. More people should run Poison/Infect.
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I didn't deserve to win, I deserved a game of magic. Your examples of god draws are great, but find me one that uses only commons that kills on turn 2. I accept the existence of variance, but let me spell this out plainly:
I was not a magic player during these games. I was a warm body inflicted ~20 poison counters in a matter of minutes. Any attempt I made to influence the game was dismissed and this frustrates me.
This is not the mantra of the scrub, this is a long-time player recognizing the absurdity of a deck that can win on turn 2 through removal in a format that is usually won by whoever has the most bears in double-digit turns.
If the backside of Delver was 10/5 trample and infect, your apologist argument might have some substance.
-I think that using that mantra of the scrub article is way off. The OP did not call the guy a jerk. He stated that the deck was simple, and that it can commonly win on turn 2. Even in that article he states " The point is that if a game becomes "no fun" at high levels of play, then it's the game's fault, not the player's." That is directly from the article you linked. The OP did not call the guy a jerk. He stated that the deck was simple, and that it can commonly win on turn 2. Raising opinions on problems with decks is a valid thing to do in Magic. Sometimes banning cards needs to be done to make sure that it is "not the game's fault." I would argue that Infect is more dependent on getting the correct starting hand and has less tough decisions to be made during the match than any other top deck in the format by far. If WOTC thinks this is an unhealthy thing for the format, they can look at cards and have the option to ban something. Nobody is blaming a player for trying to win with what they have available.
-"In the bigger picture, infect isn't a big force any more. The good decks have adapted to deal with it, and it just doesn't put up decent numbers any more." This makes me think that you really have not been playing much competitive Pauper. I have played atleast one infect deck in my last 11 daily events. In fact, I had one event where I played four infect decks in four matches. If you look through replays of Daily's going on, you will see a huge upswing in the numbers playing the deck. I am sure when the next Decks of the Week come out, a whole lot of Infect decks will be showing up. It is not the top deck in the format, but to say that it doesn't put up decent numbers anymore is completely false.
I do not think that Infect is an overpowered deck. I have adapted to face it, and despite any frustration I may have, still have a winning record against the deck in competitive play. However, I would still be happy if Invigorate got banned. I think that infect matches put a huge emphasis on hoping you draw well and going first on both sides of the table, and much less importance on tough in game decisions. I don't know if creating what some think to be an unfun or to random of a format is enough to ban something. WOTC banned Frantic Search last year largely do to how uninteractive and long the games involving Familiar Storm went. If Infect caused enough people to be unhappy with the format or some to even leave the format than I am sure WOTC would keep an eye on it. If they do not, I will probably not be happy to play Infect, but everyone has decks that they do not like to face. I will just keep adapting my decks to the meta, and be prepared to flip a coin an average of once a Daily Event.
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