So I'm super, ultra, MEGA new to Infect (I've read the Primer and watched a few streams, but never officially played the deck). I've loved the mechanic for a while, having just enough pieces to build an Infect sub-theme in a few EDH decks of mine. But I want to try to buy into the deck now (even with its drop in representation after the Push-Probe situation). I plan to start budget Mono-Green then expand as I get store credit/pieces.
That said, I have a crazy question. Would a Red-splash in Infect work? Like a RB deck that uses Red combat tricks (low CMC trample effects), Black Hand attack (clear the way /find information), and RB recursion (K-Command and Claim//Fame to buy back cards) work? Again, I'm super new, so this might be a super bad idea. Is the ideal game-plan for the deck to go as fast as possible and combo-out so slower grinder cards are generally ignored?
I like the forth Relic for the late game draw it represents since I don't care about the graveyard. That said, I haven't figured out a good build ducking it to three, but I will look into it.
For both the Relics and Stoneless deck: My biggest problem has always been mana flood, almost never screw. My decks seem to filter themselves by mana the moment I touch them, with the lands going to the top and any action somewhere at the bottom. Games with 10+ lands on the field are more common than I'd like. Similarly drawing 6 lands in a row, Scrying 2 to the bottom with a Jet, Sheetings 2 twice for 2 lands, and then drawing a land for the turn has happened more than I like. I know it's variance playing a joke on me but it is still frustrating to play with.
As for my meta, last time I played it was a wide variety: Jund, GDS, Tron, Lantern, Fish (tropical and normal), Humans, D&T, UW Control, Esper Jank, Esper Control, Mono-W Goats, Burn, CoCo Value, CoCo Druid Combo, Affinity, Mill, Storm and Ponza. It's a good spread so it helped me learn a lot.
I do think I will go back to the Jets + Stones build but tinker with the flex slots adding Abrade, Suns, and Slags to see what works better in my meta. I'll agree the Burn version stayed a little too far from the Control nature of the original deck.
I've owned Skred for a while, buying into it as a New Year's resolution to play more magic last year. I started on a stock list, altered to hell and back a few months, then went 0-4 for a few months in a row. I don't usually quit things, but that stomping streak coincided with a bad time in my life so I stopped playing MTG altogether. That said seeing your favorite deck on stream will do wonders for your interests in the game, and I wanted to try and ease back into playing again. I'm starting to feel like a person again and wanted to help inject some ideas into this Abrade and Magma Jet card discussion.
I liked to play a more Burn-ie Skred build. So I cycled in Forked Bolts, Magma Jets, Slagstorms, and Exquisite Firecrafts into the deck to see how they would work. I loved the utility of all these cards and I felt they helped grind out my opponent, but being out of the game for a bit I'm not sure how they fair anymore in current meta since the unbannings. So, if you willing to have the perspective of a lapsed Skredder, these are my experiences with some of the cards listed.
Magma Jet - As discussed it simply smoothing draws is powerful. In a lower CMC more burn heavy deck like my build, it helps tremendously. The added bonus of filtering the top deck for ToD's +1, Scrying Sheets, or (in a wild experiment) Thunderous Wrath* is super powerful and feels great. Taking out the Mind Stones feels bad when you are used to turn 3 Koth/Chandra/PnK, but being able to keep the board clean and smooth your draws felt nicer IMO. That said if you get to games where you have 15+ mana and you and your opponent are in the land of Grin, Mind Stone's pure card draw might be better.
*Note: Don't use TW. It is explosive but is just a bit too cute for my liking.
Exquisite Firecraft - This was a sideboard card that actually pulled a lot of work. I slotted it in instead of Ricochet Trap as my LGS apparently has never heard of that card and never has it in stock. Our 3-drop slot is focused on Sweepers, so it is an easy SB against low count creatures decks. The spell mastery has never really been a problem when I ran it, even with disruption (including our Relic) we can get 2 Instants or Sorceries in the bin fairly quickly. That said, I don't think this is ever mainboard material. If we wanted a dual purpose Removal/Damage Spell I've found Slagstorm to be better MD.
Slag Storm - Yeah, this is basically a Sweltering Suns that bolts instead of draws. I'm a player who is fine killing themselves a bit in order to beat the opponent. I prefer the damage aspect to the card draw of Sweltering Suns, but I will admit I've never played with Sweltering Suns. I think with the Magma Jet scry smoothing draws Slagstorm might be more flexible than Sweltering Suns. The self-damage from the bolt mode of Slagstorm is significant though, and it is really bad in fast aggro match-ups or late game when you and your opponent are low. Though you could be the monster who like the end matches with Double KO draws in which case this is your card.
Forked Bolt - This card is really strange. It is mostly another turn 1 play to kill dorks or to kill X/1's mid-game. The fact we have a lot of Sweepers does make this more of a contentious card. But I enjoyed the utility of it, and with the change to Planeswalker damage, it might have a good spot in certain builds of the deck.
Of note: I've loved Hazorret (Dog-Mom) in this deck. A lot of the card I mention being bad in the late she just turns into damage. I only run 1, so there is risk there, but she has yet to fail me. As mentioned by someone else she is like inverse Stormbreath. She beats face, draws removal, and kills if the opponent can't deal with her.
Cards I haven't tried, but have caught my eye but I'm going to test out:
Sweltering Suns - I've read about it here, and it was on my buy-list before I fell out of playing.
Abrade - More redundancy, more utility, more of what I like in my cards. 3 Damage or kill an Artifact. Funny enough, Abrade might be good in the mirror. Blowing up a Mindstone to cripple a traditional Skred decks reliance on turn 4 threats might it silly enough to work.
Searing Blood - Just another card I saw appearing in response to the rise of humans. Another 2 CMC card, it doesn't feel it will be as good as either magma jet or forked bolt, but I've had people swear up and down about it helping against 5c Humans.
Faithless Looting & Bedlam Reveler - I put these together because having one or the other doesn't feel correct. Faithless ideally gets rid of those dead cards I mentioned earlier. However, I feel FL doesn't do enough to overcome its card disadvantage. Bedlam is interesting as it dies to removal non-bolt/push but continues to draw cards. Both these cards are hurt by blowing up our Relic, but at the same time, this is a powerful engine if you can get it off. I want to try this eventually, adding a second Hazoret, and dropping down the curve a bit (less Mom and Dads and maybe only 1 Stormbreath) to see how it plays.
Other Red "HateBears" - This includes Direfleet Daredevil, Harsh Mentor, and Scab-Clan Berserker. Direfleet seems sweet, but too situational, eating a card from an opponents graveyard and casting it sounds powerful, but slows down my preferred plan of burn and churn. Harsh Mentor has the same problems, its a removal magnet that dies to all removal after maybe 1-2 triggers. I want my creatures to dodge some form of removal or have an immediate effect when I play them. Scab-Clan is a pet card of mine. It has the same issues as DD and HM, but the haste makes me want it to be good. There might be a build out there that goes more creature heavy with these three (or even Rampaging Ferocidon) instead of burn cards but that changes the deck to a more Skred & Taxes deck. Or Snow Tax if you will.
Squee - Newest Dominariat Card I saw. His stat line (2/1) leads me to feel he is weaker than Eternal Scourge (3/3); however I will test his out as he is stick has heck, isn't really taxing on our mana-base and if he gets Path'ed he nets a card, unlike Scourge who just dies to the target.
EDITED IN: Flamewake Phoenix - Fate Reforge might be my favorite set ever, lots of weird cards in it that I want to be good. Flamewake is one of those cards. We have a number of ways to recur it in this deck: Hazoret, Stormbreath, and +1 Koth, it's a hasty flyer, it sounds great, but I'm unsure of how it interacts with Relic. Squee and Eternal Scourge laugh at exile effect. Flamewake dies to a stiff breeze, but it keeps coming back, but usually when we are in the lead. It's interaction with Koth though does help give him stabilizing power, but even then it feels risky. Having never played a non-Scourge build I'm not sure much we care about creatures eating removal. Seems good with a Faithless Looting build.
Again, these are just some observations of mine to continue the discussion of Magma Jet and Abrade. Some of the cards mentioned have been used in the past Skred builds and might want to be looked at again depending on your builds. Specifically, a Faithless, Hazoret, Bedlam, Flamewake Phoenix build might be interested in the old Demigod of Revenge deck archetype. No idea if its good, but feels like a starting point.
That said, I have a crazy question. Would a Red-splash in Infect work? Like a RB deck that uses Red combat tricks (low CMC trample effects), Black Hand attack (clear the way /find information), and RB recursion (K-Command and Claim//Fame to buy back cards) work? Again, I'm super new, so this might be a super bad idea. Is the ideal game-plan for the deck to go as fast as possible and combo-out so slower grinder cards are generally ignored?
For both the Relics and Stoneless deck: My biggest problem has always been mana flood, almost never screw. My decks seem to filter themselves by mana the moment I touch them, with the lands going to the top and any action somewhere at the bottom. Games with 10+ lands on the field are more common than I'd like. Similarly drawing 6 lands in a row, Scrying 2 to the bottom with a Jet, Sheetings 2 twice for 2 lands, and then drawing a land for the turn has happened more than I like. I know it's variance playing a joke on me but it is still frustrating to play with.
As for my meta, last time I played it was a wide variety: Jund, GDS, Tron, Lantern, Fish (tropical and normal), Humans, D&T, UW Control, Esper Jank, Esper Control, Mono-W Goats, Burn, CoCo Value, CoCo Druid Combo, Affinity, Mill, Storm and Ponza. It's a good spread so it helped me learn a lot.
I do think I will go back to the Jets + Stones build but tinker with the flex slots adding Abrade, Suns, and Slags to see what works better in my meta. I'll agree the Burn version stayed a little too far from the Control nature of the original deck.
I liked to play a more Burn-ie Skred build. So I cycled in Forked Bolts, Magma Jets, Slagstorms, and Exquisite Firecrafts into the deck to see how they would work. I loved the utility of all these cards and I felt they helped grind out my opponent, but being out of the game for a bit I'm not sure how they fair anymore in current meta since the unbannings. So, if you willing to have the perspective of a lapsed Skredder, these are my experiences with some of the cards listed.
Magma Jet - As discussed it simply smoothing draws is powerful. In a lower CMC more burn heavy deck like my build, it helps tremendously. The added bonus of filtering the top deck for ToD's +1, Scrying Sheets, or (in a wild experiment) Thunderous Wrath* is super powerful and feels great. Taking out the Mind Stones feels bad when you are used to turn 3 Koth/Chandra/PnK, but being able to keep the board clean and smooth your draws felt nicer IMO. That said if you get to games where you have 15+ mana and you and your opponent are in the land of Grin, Mind Stone's pure card draw might be better.
*Note: Don't use TW. It is explosive but is just a bit too cute for my liking.
Exquisite Firecraft - This was a sideboard card that actually pulled a lot of work. I slotted it in instead of Ricochet Trap as my LGS apparently has never heard of that card and never has it in stock. Our 3-drop slot is focused on Sweepers, so it is an easy SB against low count creatures decks. The spell mastery has never really been a problem when I ran it, even with disruption (including our Relic) we can get 2 Instants or Sorceries in the bin fairly quickly. That said, I don't think this is ever mainboard material. If we wanted a dual purpose Removal/Damage Spell I've found Slagstorm to be better MD.
Slag Storm - Yeah, this is basically a Sweltering Suns that bolts instead of draws. I'm a player who is fine killing themselves a bit in order to beat the opponent. I prefer the damage aspect to the card draw of Sweltering Suns, but I will admit I've never played with Sweltering Suns. I think with the Magma Jet scry smoothing draws Slagstorm might be more flexible than Sweltering Suns. The self-damage from the bolt mode of Slagstorm is significant though, and it is really bad in fast aggro match-ups or late game when you and your opponent are low. Though you could be the monster who like the end matches with Double KO draws in which case this is your card.
Forked Bolt - This card is really strange. It is mostly another turn 1 play to kill dorks or to kill X/1's mid-game. The fact we have a lot of Sweepers does make this more of a contentious card. But I enjoyed the utility of it, and with the change to Planeswalker damage, it might have a good spot in certain builds of the deck.
Of note: I've loved Hazorret (Dog-Mom) in this deck. A lot of the card I mention being bad in the late she just turns into damage. I only run 1, so there is risk there, but she has yet to fail me. As mentioned by someone else she is like inverse Stormbreath. She beats face, draws removal, and kills if the opponent can't deal with her.
Cards I haven't tried, but have caught my eye but I'm going to test out:
Sweltering Suns - I've read about it here, and it was on my buy-list before I fell out of playing.
Abrade - More redundancy, more utility, more of what I like in my cards. 3 Damage or kill an Artifact. Funny enough, Abrade might be good in the mirror. Blowing up a Mindstone to cripple a traditional Skred decks reliance on turn 4 threats might it silly enough to work.
Searing Blood - Just another card I saw appearing in response to the rise of humans. Another 2 CMC card, it doesn't feel it will be as good as either magma jet or forked bolt, but I've had people swear up and down about it helping against 5c Humans.
Faithless Looting & Bedlam Reveler - I put these together because having one or the other doesn't feel correct. Faithless ideally gets rid of those dead cards I mentioned earlier. However, I feel FL doesn't do enough to overcome its card disadvantage. Bedlam is interesting as it dies to removal non-bolt/push but continues to draw cards. Both these cards are hurt by blowing up our Relic, but at the same time, this is a powerful engine if you can get it off. I want to try this eventually, adding a second Hazoret, and dropping down the curve a bit (less Mom and Dads and maybe only 1 Stormbreath) to see how it plays.
Other Red "HateBears" - This includes Direfleet Daredevil, Harsh Mentor, and Scab-Clan Berserker. Direfleet seems sweet, but too situational, eating a card from an opponents graveyard and casting it sounds powerful, but slows down my preferred plan of burn and churn. Harsh Mentor has the same problems, its a removal magnet that dies to all removal after maybe 1-2 triggers. I want my creatures to dodge some form of removal or have an immediate effect when I play them. Scab-Clan is a pet card of mine. It has the same issues as DD and HM, but the haste makes me want it to be good. There might be a build out there that goes more creature heavy with these three (or even Rampaging Ferocidon) instead of burn cards but that changes the deck to a more Skred & Taxes deck. Or Snow Tax if you will.
Squee - Newest Dominariat Card I saw. His stat line (2/1) leads me to feel he is weaker than Eternal Scourge (3/3); however I will test his out as he is stick has heck, isn't really taxing on our mana-base and if he gets Path'ed he nets a card, unlike Scourge who just dies to the target.
EDITED IN: Flamewake Phoenix - Fate Reforge might be my favorite set ever, lots of weird cards in it that I want to be good. Flamewake is one of those cards. We have a number of ways to recur it in this deck: Hazoret, Stormbreath, and +1 Koth, it's a hasty flyer, it sounds great, but I'm unsure of how it interacts with Relic. Squee and Eternal Scourge laugh at exile effect. Flamewake dies to a stiff breeze, but it keeps coming back, but usually when we are in the lead. It's interaction with Koth though does help give him stabilizing power, but even then it feels risky. Having never played a non-Scourge build I'm not sure much we care about creatures eating removal. Seems good with a Faithless Looting build.
Again, these are just some observations of mine to continue the discussion of Magma Jet and Abrade. Some of the cards mentioned have been used in the past Skred builds and might want to be looked at again depending on your builds. Specifically, a Faithless, Hazoret, Bedlam, Flamewake Phoenix build might be interested in the old Demigod of Revenge deck archetype. No idea if its good, but feels like a starting point.
EDIT:
Original Deck - https://www.mtgsalvation.com/decks/2902-skred
Burn Skred - https://www.mtgsalvation.com/decks/2903-hot-skred
Added in bit about Flamewake Phoenix.