A lot of lists are now more balanced between infect creatures and removal. Initially, I thought that the deck needs a critical mass of infectors (27-28) because it's so linear. However, as a result of this deck's success, you actually want more removal for the mirror and more staying power for everything else. The trend right now is to use only the core 24 infectors (Stinger, Myr, Crusader, Hand, Vatmother, Skithryx), and fill up the 11 last slots with removal.
My suite is:
3 Grasp of Darkness
3 Go for the Throat
3 Contagion Clasp
2 Tumble Magnet
You need the 6 black spells for Glissa, Skithryx, and Carnifex, with an even balance to factor in each's vulnerabilities (Precursor, Nexus for GftT; Sunblast, Vatmother for Grasp). The Magnets are just amazing because they act like 2 removal spells on a critical turn, can delay opposing Magnets, and is a critical 3 drop once you are down to the core infectors. The Clasps play both removal and staying power; exactly what you are looking for to close out games where either Ichor/Septic Rats would be dead.
Inkmoth is only activated when you're out of creatures to play and thus have lots of mana. As the deck stands Plague Myr is just a 1/1 infect creature that will only occasionally ramp into other creatures, since you can only run four.
Being infect, it essentially turns all of our threats (esp. flyers) into 2-3 turn clocks by themselves. I've played a bit with 2 of them, and it really shines in control match-ups when you get to a boardstate where all you're left with is an inkmoth and you drop the axe, and bash for 3 poison out of no where.
They can also be easily boarded out for things like Sword of feast and famine or more removal in matchup where they're not so great.
what matchups would you bring in memoricide (naming?), mimic vat, and ratchet bombs?
also, what would you take out?
I'm pretty sure Memoricide is typically sided in against Big Red and WW Steel (Namng Koth and Tempered Steel)... probably Tezz decks too, but I don't see them around much. Mimic Vat must be best against other black decks and Big Red, which has decent removal. Ratchet Bombs are good against WW Steel and possibly Kuldotha Red (if that's still around).
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I'm pretty sure Memoricide is typically sided in against Big Red and WW Steel (Namng Koth and Tempered Steel)... probably Tezz decks too, but I don't see them around much. Mimic Vat must be best against other black decks and Big Red, which has decent removal. Ratchet Bombs are good against WW Steel and possibly Kuldotha Red (if that's still around).
O ok, thnx. So far It has mainly been the mirror match I have been playing lol. Wha do you think is optimal in the mirror? I usually put in 4 vats and 4 gftt (i have 2 virulent and 4 grasp and 2 clasp main). my goal is usually to pack more removal and get vats online, is that the right approach?
WW now gets to play all its Phyrexian mana creatures with no drawback against it, Red decks get access to Dismember (the biggest reason to play Infect was it destroyed red), which kills everything for 1 mana (again life loss wont matter), and even GB Birthing Pod just wrecks it with all the 2-for-1s.
Observation: The deck seems good enough since I didn't lost a single match defeating several archetypes although I didn't face a Tempered Steel deck. I'm planning on replacing 4 Main Board Exarch into 4 Metamorph since it copies very strong cards into my favor (Opponent's Batterskull and Opponent's Skittles on the said tourney) and replacing the 4 Sideboard Metamorph into 4 Torpor Orb to fight ETB creatures with atrifact destruction since this deck is somewhat semi-reliant to artifacts to get the job done. Appreciate your thoughts and comments on this deck.
Gambit should honestly be Vatmother in my estimation. It's 5 butt is very good against a lot of aggro decks. You simply have to remember to side it out against the mirror or against Tezzinfect. I know metamorph seems like a cool idea, but this deck doesn't really need it. Also, your removal package seems pretty weak. I do not think 2 Dismember is enough, honestly.
I realize this is too general of a question, so here are some of my beliefs to give you an idea of how noob I am:
- Ichorclaw Myr is nice against TS because it counters Mirran Crusader, but bad against big red because of scrapmelter
- What matchups is vatmother good for, and should I always remove 4 creatures if I'm putting him in? I'm guessing it's bad against infect decks because it hurts us, but not sure on this
- effectiveness of dismember vs grasp of darkness vs go for the throat in certain matchups
- what is the purpose of mortarpod and why is it considered good? isn't it just a more expensive version of virulent wound?
- marrowshards is just for tempered steel and infect decks?
- go for the throat is just for consecrated sphinx?
I'm playing Vidugiris' deck on Mtgo and I can probably give you some help.
Just for starters, you have to keep in mind that your win must come within turn 5 at the very most, anything past that and you will be fried by everyone and their grandmothers. The best deal would be having a T1 Despise/Probe and T2-T3 creatures, followed by any pump spell; the ideal hand has 2-3 lands, 1 Despise/Probe, 2 creatures and 1-2 pump spells... don't even think about keeping a creatureless starting hand. Whenever possible, always start on the play because it gives you a huge advantage on T2-T3 creature drops.
That said:
- Ichorclaw Myr is wonderful against early chump blockers, it dies only to infecters and Pyrexian Legionnaire, and it evades GftT. If you worry about Scrapmelters, that means you're already at turn 4 at least, when your game plan is already at "kill or be killed".
- I side in Phyrexian Vatmother for the Virulent Wounds when my opponent is not running small critters of some kind, especially against control decks that need to counter anything smaller that I cast early turns. In those situations, it helps you stall the game to a turn 6-7 win eventually (plus, if one of your Whispering Specter hits, don't worry about keeping the creature in the field -- make them discard if this brings them almost emty handed)
- Marrow shards is a big "meh" for me as well, I have replaced it with Lashwrithes to support any creatureless opponent (generally: -4 Virulent Wound -4 Dismember +4 Vatmother +2 GftT + 2 Lashwrithe)
- You're looking at Dismember as a 1BB card and not as a 1(P/B)(P/B) card: you're supposed to clear any way to your creatures, and since nobody will ever kill you in 4-5 turns unless you're letting them play, your life points really don't matter and can be "spent", while the Grasp isn't helping (which means you side it in when you have many small critters to kick off, like when you face a Mono-W Tempered Steel
- As said before, Mortarpod can help dealing infect damage remotely, when you're needing the last poison drops
What I'm really worried about is a mirror matchup, where I suppose that the brute strength will decide the winner. But I still have to walk those shoes.
Thanks a lot to both of you for the very helpful information.
I want to try and spur further discussion regarding certain matchups, so here are some thoughts after playing a decent number of games. Let me know if you agree/disagree as well as how you like to sideboard + how difficult this matchup is supposed to be:
I don't really find despise useful since they usually have a bunch of low cost creatures. For hero, we can just kill him w/ dismember/grasp. I guess despise helps w/ removing mirran. I remove Ichorclaw Myr since he can't really get through once TS goes up, and what I said before makes no sense, he can't do anything against mirran. Mortarpod + Marrow Shards will help w/ removing a bunch of their small creatures, which makes it difficult for him to set up metalcraft for dispatch, and our overall strat is to rely on flying creatures and phyrexian crusader.
Grasp and Dismember are to make sure puresteel paladin is always removed. Virulent wound is useless since he only has flayer husk/mortarpod that are 1 toughness. Vatmother over Ichorclaw since we can't really rush him and try to win early. We always want to have grasp/dismember ready on his turn so he can't draw extra cards w/ puresteel paladin and/or stick too many equipments on him such that his toughness goes over 4 or over 5.
vs Big red who use Kuldotha Rebirth to attack w/ help of Goblin Wardriver, Hero of Oxid Ridge:
Virulent Wound is not as efficient as Marrow in killing their 1/1's from Kuldotha Rebirth. 1 Grasp over 1 Virulent Wound since it lets us kill their bigger creatures. Vatmother over Ichorclaw Myr since they have shatter/scrapmelter, and we need to take out something for vatmother because he's tough to stop. Our best strat is to get phyrex crusader out as soon as possible and just win the game w/ him. If not possible, we can get flyers out and win games as well, using mutagenic growth to nullify galvanic blast. TBH, I'm not having much trouble in matchups vs any form of big red.
vs Big red who use Kuldotha Rebirth as fodder w/o wardriver/hero:
+4 Vatmother
-4 Ichorclaw Myr
Virulent wound is more helpful here for the poison counters. We don't care about the 1/1's standing in the way since we're mainly relying on phyrexian crusader or flyers.
Not too sure about the sideboarding here, but I think virulent wound for perilous myr isn't going to be very helpful because it'll cause our creatures to die. Grasp is really the only remaining thing we have left with so we stick that in. I guess +4 Vatmother, -4 Virulent Wound might be better, but I'm not so sure. I generally just don't find Ichorclaw Myr very useful vs shatter/scrapmelter/perilous myr. Our strat is still the same, get crusader/flyers out and win the game as quick as possible by poison counter or discarding all his cards. Despise helps w/ killing koth.
Not too sure about this sideboard either. Virulent wound is obviously useless. Vatmother is nice for reasons JoJoFC stated. GftT is for sphinx. I am not sure about the remaining 2 dismembers. But I guess depending on what other creatures they have in the deck, you can keep them in or take them out for 2 mortarpods (to help w/ putting poison counter or sacrifice for piston). I can see why you use lashwrithe instead of shards in your sideboard, since that would be quite helpful here to replace the remaining 2 dismember. I'm guessing we need despise since it kills tezz/karn/sphinx/other big guys he may have.
Our strat here is to win as fast as possible, hopefully getting to see their hand at the start and play accordingly, making him waste all his removals (black sun/stoic rebuttal) on our weak guys and follow through w/ vatmother. If he saves the removals, we can catch him off guard w/ piston/mutagenic growth + whispering since their instant creature removal is only dismember.
vs mirror (exact same deck, not a different version of monoB Infect):
+3 Marrow Shards, +4 Vatmother, +4 Grasp
-3 Despise, -4 Ichorclaw Myr, -4 Whisper
I've been playing around w/ this sideboarding and it seems to be pretty well so far. The strat is to just keep killing his creatures, and then finish him off with Vatmother + Mutagenic growth to counter his dismember. It's like playing a control deck against him. Some things that are really helpful are killing his inkmoth, or when he uses piston + mutagenic growth and you dismember. Whispering is taken out since it has higher mana cost then plague rider, so we can still safely play plague rider + have grasp/dismember ready on his turn.
So I've been playtesting this build with pretty good results. I tested 2 lashwrithes in place of two Piston Sledge but ultimately moved them SB because waiting an extra turn for equip lost me more games than it won. Plus when I was up against an architect deck the other guy killed me with a mindslaver by moving lashwrithe around a few times for the (P/B)(P/B) and I'd rather avoid that sort of thing if I can.
Whispering Specter is absolutely hilarious against control players by the way. Clearing their hand turn 4 basically gives you the game.
Hey everyone, mine is a little different from everyone else's, but it's been working pretty well, here's the list and any suggestions are greatly appreciated!
Also I know I need some Skytherix (2 I presume) and 4 Inkmoth, but they are expensive so I cannot run them yet, although I plan on procurring them as soon as I have the means. Thanks everyone!
Budget discussions aren't permitted in the competitive forums - you need to have Skith and Nexus. You also need to update your list with the NPH cards, most notably Dismember. Go for the Throat is not maindeckable anymore.
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Watchwolf92 (4-0) 3/4/2011
4 Inkmoth Nexus
21 Swamp
Creatures:
2 Flesh-Eater Imp
2 Ichor Rats
4 Hand of the Praetors
4 Phyrexian Crusader
4 Phyrexian Vatmother
4 Plague Myr
4 Plague Stinger
4 Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
2 Contagion Clasp
3 Go for the Throat
2 Grasp of Darkness
2 Black Sun's Zenith
3 Contagion Engine
2 Flesh-Eater Imp
1 Go for the Throat
2 Grasp of Darkness
1 Tumble Magnet
4 Virulent Wound
My suite is:
3 Grasp of Darkness
3 Go for the Throat
3 Contagion Clasp
2 Tumble Magnet
You need the 6 black spells for Glissa, Skithryx, and Carnifex, with an even balance to factor in each's vulnerabilities (Precursor, Nexus for GftT; Sunblast, Vatmother for Grasp). The Magnets are just amazing because they act like 2 removal spells on a critical turn, can delay opposing Magnets, and is a critical 3 drop once you are down to the core infectors. The Clasps play both removal and staying power; exactly what you are looking for to close out games where either Ichor/Septic Rats would be dead.
My deck:
4 Hand of the Praetors
4 Phyrexian Crusader
4 Phyrexian Vatmother
4 Plague Myr
4 Plague Stinger
4 Signal Pest
4 Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
4 Go for the Throat
4 Grasp of Darkness
//Lands (24)
4 Inkmoth Nexus
20 Swamp
4 Black Sun's Zenith
3 Contagion Engine
4 Tumble Magnet
4 Virulent Wound
2
living weapon, creature gets +1/+1 and infect, equip 2
but alas it was not to be.
Infect's still alive and well in Block, with Tezz and Monoblack versions.
We may see some lashwrithe in monoblack infect?
what matchups would you bring in memoricide (naming?), mimic vat, and ratchet bombs?
also, what would you take out?
Being infect, it essentially turns all of our threats (esp. flyers) into 2-3 turn clocks by themselves. I've played a bit with 2 of them, and it really shines in control match-ups when you get to a boardstate where all you're left with is an inkmoth and you drop the axe, and bash for 3 poison out of no where.
They can also be easily boarded out for things like Sword of feast and famine or more removal in matchup where they're not so great.
Thoughts?
I'm pretty sure Memoricide is typically sided in against Big Red and WW Steel (Namng Koth and Tempered Steel)... probably Tezz decks too, but I don't see them around much. Mimic Vat must be best against other black decks and Big Red, which has decent removal. Ratchet Bombs are good against WW Steel and possibly Kuldotha Red (if that's still around).
Currently Playing:
U/W Delver
O ok, thnx. So far It has mainly been the mirror match I have been playing lol. Wha do you think is optimal in the mirror? I usually put in 4 vats and 4 gftt (i have 2 virulent and 4 grasp and 2 clasp main). my goal is usually to pack more removal and get vats online, is that the right approach?
Memoricide is awful, period. I would never side it in for any matchup.
Its not the best card, but the way block matchups play out its not as terrible as it would be in another format.
There are cards you can't beat, namely tezzeret.
It's very very very bad against tempered steel decks though.
4 Plague Stinger
4 Plague Myr
4 Phyrexian Crusader
4 Hand of the Praetor's
3 Phyrexian Vatmother
3 Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
3 Lashwrithe
Spells:
4 Grasp of Darkness
4 Grim Affliction
3 Tezzeret's Gambit
Land:
4 Inkmoth Nexus
20 Swamp
1 Phyrexian Vatmother
3 Black Sun's Zenith
3 Whispering Specter
4 Go for the Throat
4 Virulent Wound
WW now gets to play all its Phyrexian mana creatures with no drawback against it, Red decks get access to Dismember (the biggest reason to play Infect was it destroyed red), which kills everything for 1 mana (again life loss wont matter), and even GB Birthing Pod just wrecks it with all the 2-for-1s.
19 Swamp
4 Phyrexian Crusader
4 Necropede
4 Despise
4 Contagion Clasp
4 Tumble Magnet
4 Lashwrithe
4 Entomber Exarch
2 Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
1 Karn Liberated
2 Dismember
4 Tezzeret's Gambit
4 Phyrexian Metamorph
4 Hex Parasite
4 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Ratchet Bomb
1 Black Sun Zenith
Observation: The deck seems good enough since I didn't lost a single match defeating several archetypes although I didn't face a Tempered Steel deck. I'm planning on replacing 4 Main Board Exarch into 4 Metamorph since it copies very strong cards into my favor (Opponent's Batterskull and Opponent's Skittles on the said tourney) and replacing the 4 Sideboard Metamorph into 4 Torpor Orb to fight ETB creatures with atrifact destruction since this deck is somewhat semi-reliant to artifacts to get the job done. Appreciate your thoughts and comments on this deck.
New to Commander? Read the Above article.
Could someone explain some general strategies with this deck, including how we should sideboard vs certain matchups (Tempered steel, big red, etc.)?
19 Swamp
4 Ichorclaw Myr
4 Phyrexian Crusader
4 Plague Stinger
4 Whispering Specter
4 Mutagenic Growth
4 Dismember
4 Virulent Wound
3 Despise
2 Gitaxian Probe
4 Phyrexian Vatmother
4 Grasp of Darkness
3 Marrow Shards
2 Go for the Throat
2 Mortarpod
I realize this is too general of a question, so here are some of my beliefs to give you an idea of how noob I am:
- Ichorclaw Myr is nice against TS because it counters Mirran Crusader, but bad against big red because of scrapmelter
- What matchups is vatmother good for, and should I always remove 4 creatures if I'm putting him in? I'm guessing it's bad against infect decks because it hurts us, but not sure on this
- effectiveness of dismember vs grasp of darkness vs go for the throat in certain matchups
- what is the purpose of mortarpod and why is it considered good? isn't it just a more expensive version of virulent wound?
- marrowshards is just for tempered steel and infect decks?
- go for the throat is just for consecrated sphinx?
Thanks!
Just for starters, you have to keep in mind that your win must come within turn 5 at the very most, anything past that and you will be fried by everyone and their grandmothers. The best deal would be having a T1 Despise/Probe and T2-T3 creatures, followed by any pump spell; the ideal hand has 2-3 lands, 1 Despise/Probe, 2 creatures and 1-2 pump spells... don't even think about keeping a creatureless starting hand. Whenever possible, always start on the play because it gives you a huge advantage on T2-T3 creature drops.
That said:
- Ichorclaw Myr is wonderful against early chump blockers, it dies only to infecters and Pyrexian Legionnaire, and it evades GftT. If you worry about Scrapmelters, that means you're already at turn 4 at least, when your game plan is already at "kill or be killed".
- I side in Phyrexian Vatmother for the Virulent Wounds when my opponent is not running small critters of some kind, especially against control decks that need to counter anything smaller that I cast early turns. In those situations, it helps you stall the game to a turn 6-7 win eventually (plus, if one of your Whispering Specter hits, don't worry about keeping the creature in the field -- make them discard if this brings them almost emty handed)
- Marrow shards is a big "meh" for me as well, I have replaced it with Lashwrithes to support any creatureless opponent (generally: -4 Virulent Wound -4 Dismember +4 Vatmother +2 GftT + 2 Lashwrithe)
- You're looking at Dismember as a 1BB card and not as a 1(P/B)(P/B) card: you're supposed to clear any way to your creatures, and since nobody will ever kill you in 4-5 turns unless you're letting them play, your life points really don't matter and can be "spent", while the Grasp isn't helping (which means you side it in when you have many small critters to kick off, like when you face a Mono-W Tempered Steel
- As said before, Mortarpod can help dealing infect damage remotely, when you're needing the last poison drops
What I'm really worried about is a mirror matchup, where I suppose that the brute strength will decide the winner. But I still have to walk those shoes.
I want to try and spur further discussion regarding certain matchups, so here are some thoughts after playing a decent number of games. Let me know if you agree/disagree as well as how you like to sideboard + how difficult this matchup is supposed to be:
vs Tempered Steel:
+4 Grasp, +2 Mortar, +3 Mirror Shard
-3 Despise, -4 Ichorclaw Myr, -2 Virulent Wound
I don't really find despise useful since they usually have a bunch of low cost creatures. For hero, we can just kill him w/ dismember/grasp. I guess despise helps w/ removing mirran. I remove Ichorclaw Myr since he can't really get through once TS goes up, and what I said before makes no sense, he can't do anything against mirran. Mortarpod + Marrow Shards will help w/ removing a bunch of their small creatures, which makes it difficult for him to set up metalcraft for dispatch, and our overall strat is to rely on flying creatures and phyrexian crusader.
vs Puresteel Paladin:
+4 Grasp of Darkness, +4 Vatmother
-4 Virulent Wound, -4 Ichorclaw Myr
Grasp and Dismember are to make sure puresteel paladin is always removed. Virulent wound is useless since he only has flayer husk/mortarpod that are 1 toughness. Vatmother over Ichorclaw since we can't really rush him and try to win early. We always want to have grasp/dismember ready on his turn so he can't draw extra cards w/ puresteel paladin and/or stick too many equipments on him such that his toughness goes over 4 or over 5.
vs Big red who use Kuldotha Rebirth to attack w/ help of Goblin Wardriver, Hero of Oxid Ridge:
+3 Marrow, +1 Grasp, +4 Vatmother
-4 Virulent Wound, -4 Ichorclaw Myr
Virulent Wound is not as efficient as Marrow in killing their 1/1's from Kuldotha Rebirth. 1 Grasp over 1 Virulent Wound since it lets us kill their bigger creatures. Vatmother over Ichorclaw Myr since they have shatter/scrapmelter, and we need to take out something for vatmother because he's tough to stop. Our best strat is to get phyrex crusader out as soon as possible and just win the game w/ him. If not possible, we can get flyers out and win games as well, using mutagenic growth to nullify galvanic blast. TBH, I'm not having much trouble in matchups vs any form of big red.
vs Big red who use Kuldotha Rebirth as fodder w/o wardriver/hero:
+4 Vatmother
-4 Ichorclaw Myr
Virulent wound is more helpful here for the poison counters. We don't care about the 1/1's standing in the way since we're mainly relying on phyrexian crusader or flyers.
vs Big red w/o springs+kuldotha rebirth:
+4 Grasp, +4 Vatmother,
-4 Virulent Wound, -4 Ichorclaw Myr
Not too sure about the sideboarding here, but I think virulent wound for perilous myr isn't going to be very helpful because it'll cause our creatures to die. Grasp is really the only remaining thing we have left with so we stick that in. I guess +4 Vatmother, -4 Virulent Wound might be better, but I'm not so sure. I generally just don't find Ichorclaw Myr very useful vs shatter/scrapmelter/perilous myr. Our strat is still the same, get crusader/flyers out and win the game as quick as possible by poison counter or discarding all his cards. Despise helps w/ killing koth.
vs UB Control:
+2 GftT, +4 Vatmother
-4 Virulent Wound, -2 Dismember
Not too sure about this sideboard either. Virulent wound is obviously useless. Vatmother is nice for reasons JoJoFC stated. GftT is for sphinx. I am not sure about the remaining 2 dismembers. But I guess depending on what other creatures they have in the deck, you can keep them in or take them out for 2 mortarpods (to help w/ putting poison counter or sacrifice for piston). I can see why you use lashwrithe instead of shards in your sideboard, since that would be quite helpful here to replace the remaining 2 dismember. I'm guessing we need despise since it kills tezz/karn/sphinx/other big guys he may have.
Our strat here is to win as fast as possible, hopefully getting to see their hand at the start and play accordingly, making him waste all his removals (black sun/stoic rebuttal) on our weak guys and follow through w/ vatmother. If he saves the removals, we can catch him off guard w/ piston/mutagenic growth + whispering since their instant creature removal is only dismember.
vs mirror (exact same deck, not a different version of monoB Infect):
+3 Marrow Shards, +4 Vatmother, +4 Grasp
-3 Despise, -4 Ichorclaw Myr, -4 Whisper
I've been playing around w/ this sideboarding and it seems to be pretty well so far. The strat is to just keep killing his creatures, and then finish him off with Vatmother + Mutagenic growth to counter his dismember. It's like playing a control deck against him. Some things that are really helpful are killing his inkmoth, or when he uses piston + mutagenic growth and you dismember. Whispering is taken out since it has higher mana cost then plague rider, so we can still safely play plague rider + have grasp/dismember ready on his turn.
So I've been playtesting this build with pretty good results. I tested 2 lashwrithes in place of two Piston Sledge but ultimately moved them SB because waiting an extra turn for equip lost me more games than it won. Plus when I was up against an architect deck the other guy killed me with a mindslaver by moving lashwrithe around a few times for the (P/B)(P/B) and I'd rather avoid that sort of thing if I can.
Whispering Specter is absolutely hilarious against control players by the way. Clearing their hand turn 4 basically gives you the game.
Modern:
UR Storm RU
RG Titanshift GR
MTGO: MrPajitnv (Yes I typo'd it)
4x Ichor Wellspring
3x Throne of Geth
3x Grasp of Darkness
3x Go for the Throat
4x Phyrexian Crusader
4x Ichor Rats
3x Corpse Cur
3x Plague Myr
3x Hand of Praetors
Also I know I need some Skytherix (2 I presume) and 4 Inkmoth, but they are expensive so I cannot run them yet, although I plan on procurring them as soon as I have the means. Thanks everyone!