If Delver and Lands come back in greater numbers, we can shift more SB slots (which used to go to Miracles probably) to taking them on. If you haven't tried Absolute Law against Bolts and Punishing Fires, I encourage you to see how great that is.
I'm going to a decent size legacy event at the weekend ~110 players and going with the following list.
Maindeck:
- 4 Verdant Catacomb
- 2 Misty Rainforest
- 2 Windswept Heath
- 4 Tropical Island
- 4 Inkmoth Nexus
- 1 Pendelhaven
- 1 Forest
- 1 Dryad Arbor
- 4 Noble Hierarch
- 4 Glistener Elf
- 4 Blighted Agent
- 4 Force of Will
- 4 Daze
- 4 Brainstorm
- 4 Gitaxian Prove
- 4 Invigorate
- 2 Become Immense
- 2 Berserk
- 3 Vines of Vastwood
- 2 Spell Pierce
- 1 Sylvan Library
Sideboard:
- 2 Crop Rotation
- 1 Karakas
- 1 Bojuka Bog
- 1 Spellskite
- 1 Viridian Corruptor
- 1 Krosan Grip
- 2 Submerge
- 2 Flusterstorm
- 2 Hydroblast
- 1 Sylvan Library
- 1 Pithing Needle
I'm not really sure what to expect out of the meta so the sideboard is pretty generic.
Also I'm considering putting in a 3rd Berserk just to try and be as fast as possible, what is the general thought on this?
Just won a weekly tournament (18 players) in Paris, France.
I went 3-0-1 with a list with stifle, flusterstorm and double wasteland maindeck. Sylvan Library went out the 60, because I expected less control decks.
I ve beaten affinity (2-0), Elves (2-0), Sneak Fit (2-1) and had a draw versus Junk.
The list had been pretty solid during the four rounds and also during the last tournament I attended, with 30 players (for a 3-1 result).
The MVP was clearly probe, which helped me a lot to set up the right plan to win (eather grinding or going all in).
I ve been lucky not to be paired with difficult matchups, but to reply to Psyala: you should never go out without a wasteland main, especially now that Miracles is down.
The reason is simple : lands will come back with Its annoying package made of Groves and utility lands.
I'm now considering to bring the 4th VoV in the 60 because of all the decay/bolt/stp decks.
Sorry for my rusty english.
My 2 cents.
@Adibou1er
I have been thinking about a wasteland with the crop rotation(s) in the main, but I've been leaning to the more streamline build and a lot of the time crop rotation felt awful to play
I like having a Crop Ratation when I play two Become Immense. Being able to Rotate for a fetchland puts 3 cards in the grave and is mana neutral. If you're going for speed, having that lets you cast Become Immense turn 2 on occasion. Plus all the other things Crop Rotate is mainly used for.Originally Posted by Psyala
Hello guys, i have just signed up to the site but i have been lurking thru the thread a lot of times.
Infect is my deck of choice and i want to share with you some of my thoughts; if the meta shifts back again to maverick stoneblade and aggroloam (i don't belive it due TNN beeing the best creature in the format right now) is it worrh to move S.library back to the side and add, for example, more pump spells or misdirection(along at least one more in the board)maindeck to fight back decay and hymn?
Thank you all!
I've been thinking about moving Sylvan to the side as well. Going to run it tonight, as I don't expect my local weekly meta to shift that fast, but I'll be at a larger tournament in 3 weeks and I'm thinking about moving Sylvan out for the 4th Vines. I like the idea up above of having access to a second Wasteland as well.
I have a strong urge to fuck with the various Delver players at my LGS, what`s the best possible sideboard card against them? I`m considering Bridge or Meekstone. I`m Bant, so the Swords and RIPs are already in my 75.
I've found Mom to be annoying for Delver. It'll draw Dazes, Bolts, and Pushes without fail and then getting a lethal protected hit through is trivial with Mom in play. If the lists are BUG and not Grixis, look out for Golgari Charm. You may want Tundra over Savannah for Mom>Daze. It's a bigger change than just adding a sideboard card but something to consider.
Hey everyone, after bouncing the tier bottom of the barrel for the past few months (I played copy cat combo to
a 3-1 finish one FNm only losing to miracles) I decided to return back to infect as GP vegas approaches.I have back to back top 8's in GPT's
to show for making the switch. My list is pretty straight forward:
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Glistener Elf
4 Blighted Agent
2 Gitaxian Probe
4 Force Of will
3 Daze
1 Flusterstrorm
4 Invigorate
1 Become Immense
3 Vines of vastwood
3 Blossoming Defense
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
2 Bersrk
1 Crop Rotation
4 inkmoth nexus
3 misty Rainforest
2 verdant catacombs
3 windswept heath
1 Forest
1 Wasteland
1 Drayad Arbor
3 Tropical Rainforest
Side board:
1 Wasteland
1 Karakas
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Natures Claim
1 Krosan Grip
1 Viridian Corrupter
1 Green sun zenith
1 Spell Pierce
1 Flusterstorm
2 Dismember
1 Surgical extraction
1 tormods crypt
1 Pithing Needle
1 Sylvan Library
Round 1 (1-0, 2-0) vs imperial boomberman, we played five turns total. I countered chalice he was tapped out combo kill both games.
Round 2 (2-0, 2-0) vs grixis delver, grindier matches playing against one of my teammates and we are very familiar with eachother.
Decided to send myself to 3 life to kill a delver with dismember figured i was dead to bolt either way, it bought enough turns to
get me the win.
Round 3 (3-0, 2-0) vs Hexmage Combo. Crop rotated into karakas to save me from dying to an early marit lage g2. Note to myself crop rotation is great.
Round 4 (3-1, 1-2) vs UR delver (old school delver with guides, swiftspears, and delvers and all the burn spells).
I had the win in hand game 3 and an awkward set of lands in front of me. For some reason I decide to pump with pendelhaven.
This reduces the colored sources I have and now I can't cast Vines kicked, berserk, and have pierce back up. I lose the game.
round 5 (3-1-1 ID) draw into top 8. I have the third seed locked up, UR delver player already has byes and drops from event.
Quarter Finals (2-1) played against UW control. Former miracles player trying to find a deck he likes. He has a solid UW list
and makes the wins tough to come by. He also is convinced I always have exactly what I need to beat him so I'm going to continue
leveraging that against him.
Semi Finals (4 color deathblade control) It was a weird deck, I never drew pump spells and he drew all the removal. Bomberman eventually wins the event.
Overall infect felt amazing. My sideboard needs some tweaking. I tried a few things and I don't think I liked them at all.
Moving forward I will swith crypt back to bojuka bog. I want to find room for a second rotation. I am thinking about cutting library all together.
I will be cutting 1 of natures claim, seal, or K grip. I think I want spellskite in the board. The dryad arbor main could be a second wasteland unless
LOTV continues to rise in popularity. I have seen an uptick in diaboilic edict out of the BUG lists so I might not make that move just yet.
I finally went back to a basic build of infect. I cut all of the cute pet cards I had been playing and the deck is performing like it used to for me.
Hi guys,
I'm very happy to join this group. I started playing infect in legacy about a year ago and ever since my results have gotten increasingly better. I never want to play a different deck again! I finished top 8 in five of my last six tournaments and I'm looking forward to continue learning from all of you to keep getting better!
I've been playing spellskite in my SB for a while now, and It's been absolutely amazing so far. I'm even running two copies now since the top ban. If you really want to screw the delver players, I'd play skite. Their main removal is bolt, which is useless with the nice little horror on the board, so they almost always have to use a fatal push or a dismember on it. PS: Bonus points if u save the skite with a vines.
If you're on the white splash and are worried about red Delver variants, Absolute Law is great (bonus for protecting our dudes and getting Elf through against Burn)
I'll second the Mother of Runes against Delver. Absolute Law does work against Grixis, but it leaves something to be desired against BUG Delver or even UR Delver which is often a bit too fast to care about a 2 mana enchantment. Spellskite is also a bit clunky in testing, compounded by the artifact hate that people bring in for Inkmoth Nexus.
Congrats on your tournament performance. Would like to echo the sentiment that the simpler builds of Infect have been performing better, as I've cut the Stifle entirely and moved the Crop Rotation to the sideboard. Wasteland would probably be sideboard as well if I had space, but as it is having a main deck out to Glacial Chasm isn't the worst.
How's 3 Blossoming Defense working out for you? I tested the card a bit when it first came out, but I was never too impressed with it and have even gone down to 2 Vines of Vastwood maindeck since.
I actually like the way it performs with berserk, I rarely go for the combo kill unless I have the protection or know the coast is clear. Usually I'm pinging away 1-2 at a time blossoming defense gives me another out once 2-4 damage has been dealt. It's also a good way to bait out a removal spell when going for the kill. Not having the extra green requirement for the pump is really nice. My meta has shifted to an insane amount of creature hate. Maybe it's not just my meta but the format. Abrupt decays are everywhere, bolts, swords, fatal push, dismember, diabolical edict is making a comeback even jtms minus ability. I felt I needed the extra protection and was happy to have it all day. It is one of the options for sideboarding which helps when bringing in certain packages. If you are doing well with only two vines then keep at it. I think 6 protection/pump spells is where the deck needs to be right now.
Hello guys,
here is a small tournament report from the 22nd Win-A-Dual tournament in South-Germany. I went 4-2 and got placed 7th in a field of 42 players. This is my list: UG Infect.
Since this is all from memory (I should really start taking notes I guess), this report might be incomplete.
Round 1: High Tide (Win 2-1)
Game 1: I lost the roll and mulliganed to a mediocre 6 Card hand. I chipped in for 1-2 damage each turn and he had enough time to go for it. Luckily for me, he generated an absurd amount of mana and storm, but fizzled after his Time Spiral did not show him anything besides Turnabout.
Sideboarding: -3 Vines of Vastwood, +1 Flusterstorm, +1 Force of Will +1 Surgical Extraction
Game 2: I again mull to 6 and find another mediocre hand. After chipping in for a few damage he comboes of and kills me with stormcount 19 and Brainfreeze. I saw some Snap's so I boarded my Vines of Vastwood back in for 2 Inkmoth Nexus an the Surgical Extraction
Game 3: No Mull this time and I get him to 5 poison on turn 5. He makes his 5th landdrop and passes back. In my hand was Flusterstorm, Vines of Vastwood, Invigorate, 2 Force, Ponder and Misdirection. I swing and win the counterwar over Invigorate with Vines and Flusterstorm still in hand.
Round 2: Burn (Win 2-0)
Game 1: I lost the roll again and start with a pretty okay 7. My opponent plays Goblin Guide and reveals Pendelhaven to me. I start with Forest into Noble. Turn 2 I play Blighted Agent and protect him until I win. Sidenote: Forcing a Fireblast feels like a win everytime.
Sideboarding: -3 Probe, +1 Hydroblast, +1 Spellskite, +1 Flusterstorm
Game 2: I mull to 6 again but have a great hand consisting of countermagic, infecters, pumps and one land. His Goblin Guide is nice enough to give me another land drop. At some point in the game I'm down to less than 4 life (argh) with lethal on the board and Hydroblast in hand. Well, that's game.
Round 3: Death and Taxes (Win 2-0)
Game 1: On the draw again with a good7: We durdle around, I can protect my Infecter through turn 2 and kill him on my third turn with Invigorate + Berserk trough Thalia taxes.
Sideboarding: -3 Daze, -1 Misdirection, -1 Spell Pierce, +1 Viridian Corrupter, +1 Seal of Primordium, +1 Sylvan Library, +1 Pithing Needle +1 Crop Rotation
Game 2: My starting hand was ok and I'm Gitaxian Probing him on my first turn after Forcing his Aether Vial. I see that he is stuck on lands (2 Karakas in hand, 1 Cavern on the Battlefield). I berserk his Thalia and protect my Inkmoth Nexus through three of his removal spells and I'm able to kill him on turn 6ish.
Round 4: Jens who won the tournament on Grixis Delver (Loss 0-2)
Game 1: I'm on the play and have a pretty good hand: 2 Inkmoth Nexus, 1 Fetchland, Noble, Cantrips and an Elf. I start with Fetch->Tropical into Noble and play my Noble. He plays a land and a DRS. I draw Probe for turn, probe him and see a Wasteland. I play Elf and Inkmoth. In his turn he wastes my Nexus and kills my Elf - that was calculated risk. I play my second Inkmoth and start cantripping to find protection or another infecter. I don't find it. He topdecks Wasteland and kills my second Nexus. I never draw any Infecters and lose quickly.
Sideboarding: -2 Probe, -1 Ponder, -1 Become Immense, +1 Flusterstorm, +1 Hydroblast, +1 Spellskite, +1 Sylvan Library
SN: My games against Grixis Delver seem to be quite grindy, so I usually bring in Sylvan Library to draw into action.
Game 2: I playing a fetchland and Ponder into a Force. He probes me, sees my hand (2 Agent, Force, another Fetchland, Vines, Become Immense) and Cabal Therapies me, which I have to Force, or I lose both Agent's without even fighting. He has the Daze and clears my hand off of Agents. I never draw any other Infecter in this game and get overflown by an Insectile Aberration.
Round 5: Felix on Grixis Delver (Win 2-0)
Game 1: I'm on the draw nd play a turn 1 Noble into his Volcanic and Delver. He wastes my Tropical and attacks for 1 (Delver didn't flip). I play a Glistener Elf with another Tropical and Ponder to draw into something - I draw Misdirection. He Lightning Bolts my Elf and I have the Misdirection+Pitch to get rid of his Delver and keep my Elf alive. I kill him the turn afterwards.
Sideboarding is similar to the match above.
Game 2: I'm able to kill him with Inkmoth Nexus in a quick fashion. I can't realy remember any details.
Round 6: Florian on Sultai Delver (Loss 0-2)
Game 1: I'm on the draw and I'm going for the combo kill twice and twice has Removal + Counterbackup through my countermagic. Sad story.
Sideboarding: -2 Probe, -1 Ponder, -1 Become Immense, +1 Flusterstorm, +1 Pithing Needle, +1 Surgical Extraction, +1 Sylvan Library
Game 2: I get a Noble, Agent and Elf on the Board with which he responds with an Engineered Plague. I'm left with a Forest and an Inkmoth with him at 4 Poison and a Tarmogoyf. He is in topdecking mode, I have a Become Immense in hand. I'm able to take 4 Tarmogoyf hits to find another land. I don't and lose.
Some choices of my maindeck: I really like the third Beserk, since it gives a usage to a midgame Glistener Elf. I was testing Wings of Velis Vel for some time, but man, CMC 2 is hard sometimes. I also anticipated quite a number of Abrupt Decays, so I went for three Vines of Vastwood.
Do you have any ideas on my sideboarding? That's still the part I'm worst at (and sometimes the evaluation if I should go for the combo kill or not).
Fun fact: my friend borrowed my 4C Loam deck and got 4th with it :D
Greetz,
DrinkMe
Infect | Elves
I'm only decent with the deck so don't take my word as law but your sideboarding seems fine. I have some comments to think about. One thing is in a lot of matchups I change how I side play vs draw. Like I like having Sylvan Library against DnT and Delver decks on the play but on the draw, I'm just way too likely to get it Dazed or can't get it resolved through a Thalia/Waste/Port. In matchups that could go either way for them, Daze gets worse on the draw and Force gets better. Other things to keep in mind. Crop Rotate, the Ponders, the second Become Immense, the 3rd Berserk, the Misdirection, are all not part of the stock core and can be subbed out pretty easily. Don't overboard, but it's a good thing to keep in mind.
I definitely want the fourth Force against DnT. Vial on turn 1, Jitte, and SFM are all must counter. Sometimes you should counter Thalia but she's pretty easy to play through. Canoeist too situationally requires a counter.
I also take the fourth Force against burn. Forcing Fireblast, like you said, is amazing. Eidolon and Pyrostatic Pillar both often require a counterspell. Don't spring on it immediately though if you have Blighted or Inkmoth in play. A lot of times you can just kill through it.
Against High Tide, Wasteland isn't doing much for you. Probably want the Vines as an additional pump. I may want the Surgical or Vines over Crop Rotate too. Misdirection also seems suspect. They have counters but it's only ok as a Force for Force.
I like Crop Rotate against Delver. Plays around Waste decently well. I'm not sure how I feel about Force versus Delver. I may trim one on the play.
Disagree with most of this matchup advice
Between 4 vials and 2-3 Caverns, your counter magic is regularly dead in this matchup. Yeah it's great to be able to t1 Daze the Vial, or Force the Swords after a lethal pump, but keep in mind that this is a deck that could regularly play through the Counterbalance lock of Miracles, which is arguably far stronger than any collection of permission spells you can assemble.
Your sideboard should be pretty full of reactive answer cards, I'd look to take out most of your counter magic and replace it with creature removal, Needle/Null Rod effects, artifact hate, and whatever other tools you may have to deal with Jitte.
There's rarely a reason to be playing so many Force of Wills against Burn, as experienced burn pilots will play this as a control matchup and simply save instant speed burn spells for your creatures. Leaving a single Force in to hedge against aggressive starts is defensible, but for the most part this one turns into a game of patience where the opponent tries to tempo you out while holding up enough Burn to prevent you from comboing off. The white splash brings a lot of powerful sideboard tools (StP, Absolute Law, Mother of Runes), but outside of that you'll just look to bring in cheap enchantment removal for Eidolon and one for one permission spells like Flusterstorm and Hydroblast.
I'd trim down to 0-1 copies of Vines in all of your combo matchups. Especially against High Tide, Vines requires a pretty heavy mana commitment and tapping out for this can leave us vulnerable to the combo. Keep in mind we play these combo matchups as a tempo deck, while the combo kill is secondary. Our best bet is to hold up mana for counter spells while pressuring life total with small hits from cheap threats.
Of note is that we can set up a kill faster than High Tide, so it's not a bad idea to dump Invigorates early to try and bait out counter magic. If both players trade their counter magic to disrupt the combo, we're favored because we still have a clock.
Ehhh side out Force of Wills against Delver, these matchups almost entirely come down to card advantage. You can leave in a copy of Force if you're expecting a haymaker from Delver (something that generates massive card advantage like golgari charm, staticaster, or Jitte), but otherwise just board them all out.
Huh, that's very counter to my experience playing against DnT. Comparing our deck to Miracles and its counter-suite doesn't make much sense to me. We aren't trying to establish a lock and go long like Miracles. Their powerful anti-countermagic effects aren't as relevant because our plan doesn't let them fully leverage that ya know? We're just looking to get them on the backfoot and find an opening. It's not like we aren't bringing in all those Needle, Rod, artifact removal cards. We're just cutting Ponders, Probes, Spell Pierces, Wasteland, maybe a Daze, maybe another on the Draw, instead of Force. Against DnT, I'm just looking to make sure the game doesn't go long and keeping Jitte from getting counters any way I can. Force helps that. That may just be because I don't play any creature removal other than Submerge like the person asking for Sideboard advice though. I'd probably end up eyeing Force next if I had a Plow or Dismember to bring in.
DnT I can see what you're thinking and I'll be trying out your style in testing but the Burn I'm having more trouble. I'd love to hear your thoughts more. Burn traditionally has 6-8 instant speed removal spells+Fireblast (which I'd argue we always want Force for) post-board. They'll usually have the 4 bolts and 2-4 Searing Blaze. The vast majority of the deck does not answer our creatures at instant speed so we can comfortably play through the removal they do have as so much of our deck counters their removal. I'm much more interested in cutting the Probes, Ponders, Crop Rotate, Wasteland. And there's no creature removal in OPs or my list so I don't have those to bring in.
Yeah we agree on High Tide/Combo. I was thinking 1 Vines may be the best thing to bring in over the Wasteland which is dead.
For Delver, I've liked the the 2 Force postboard I suggested. I'll try going down to 0 in the future.
I disagree with this. Force of Will and countermagic in general are very good against burn. Outside of Invigorate, I think it is just one of your best cards against them. I agree that burn pilots will try to control the board and hold instants, but it is hard for them to fight us on the stack unless they have exactly multiple Bolts and our hand is awkward. In this case, adding more cantrips or spells that cost mana will not help, while free counters make a big difference. They have so few spells that actually matter, and even though their spells are cheap, ours are cheaper. Bolt is good, but Chain Lightning is a sorcery, Searing Blaze is awkward, and Fireblast comes at a very heavy cost. If we are fighting this with the maximum number of 0 and 1 mana spells, it is easier to come out on top.
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