Berserk Stompy wuh?

[Finn]

http://www.tcdecks.net/metagame.php?format=Legacy
Really? I figured that the infect deck would fold with the loss of cheater-ass ancestral recall, but I seem to be wrong. Granted, this data will change before the month is over, but clearly we should be including this deck in format discussions.

[iamajellydonut]

How is Infect supposed to have been negatively impacted by the loss of a card it didn't run?

[rufus]

How is Infect supposed to have been negatively impacted by the loss of a card it didn't run?

It could have been some kind of metagame thing. Decks that kill fast, don't care about the graveyard, and can dodge a counter spell or two can be strong if everyone else durdles around for delve.

[venice]

Infect is (or maybe now was) a fully underestimated deck. I wonder why it took people so long to figure that out.

[TsumiBand]

It's encouraging for me as a budget player to look at some of the lists with, like... Dig Through Time and Become Immense... and go "oh, so I don't need a playset of freaking Berserks, cool". I got my Forces years ago, I'd rock shocklands like I don't give a fuck too. Brawr

These lists make me wonder if anyone's tried and succeeded in a Bant approach. White has a 2/1 Infect guy, maybe in the scheme of things it is redundant, but it's no more fragile or evasive than the 1/1 for G the deck already plays. And you'd get neat shit like Swords to Plowshares and like, Silence or Orim's Chant or whatever for those moments when you just wanna get there. Maybe there's not enough gas in white, I dunno, but the deck also already plays Hierarch, removal seems relevant if you just wanna get there with one dude. vOv

[Finn]

The players in my local meta all had Treasure Cruise. And I can say with certainty that I lost to that deck due to that card (DnT grinds against Infect). But thinking about it, Become Immense is such a natural fit that I bet the deck really did not lose all that much from the ban. 'Cause, it's hard to have both, ya know.

STP seems super sweet in this deck. But I have not been in on the conversation at all. They have probably discussed it.

[M+1]

Treasure Cruise was never that good in Infect anyway, and UR Cruise was one of its worst matchups.

[Sisyphos]

These lists make me wonder if anyone's tried and succeeded in a Bant approach. White has a 2/1 Infect guy, maybe in the scheme of things it is redundant, but it's no more fragile or evasive than the 1/1 for G the deck already plays. And you'd get neat shit like Swords to Plowshares and like, Silence or Orim's Chant or whatever for those moments when you just wanna get there. Maybe there's not enough gas in white, I dunno, but the deck also already plays Hierarch, removal seems relevant if you just wanna get there with one dude. vOv

While a 2/1 guy for 1W might be as fragile and as evasive as a 1/1 for G, playing a Infect guy on turn 1 or turn 2 is a huge difference for the deck. Tom Ross has in the past played a list with white for StP etc in his board, so if you feel the need for removal, feel free to try it. But the creature seems just bad. Also Blighted Agent and Blinkmoth Nexus have evasion, reducing the need for removal against a lot of decks. Can't see Silence or Orim's Chant being better than Daze or FoW in moments you just wanna get there. Your mana will be very taxed when going for it, especially if you have to use Vines. As usual in Legacy, free counters are probably better than answers that need mana.

[TsumiBand]

While a 2/1 guy for 1W might be as fragile and as evasive as a 1/1 for G, playing a Infect guy on turn 1 or turn 2 is a huge difference for the deck. Tom Ross has in the past played a list with white for StP etc in his board, so if you feel the need for removal, feel free to try it. But the creature seems just bad. Also Blighted Agent and Blinkmoth Nexus have evasion, reducing the need for removal against a lot of decks. Can't see Silence or Orim's Chant being better than Daze or FoW in moments you just wanna get there. Your mana will be very taxed when going for it, especially if you have to use Vines. As usual in Legacy, free counters are probably better than answers that need mana.

I totally forgot that Inkmoth Nexus was in the deck. Yeah that makes the White creature far less compelling - I was looking at the deck as if it only had 8 guys.

As for Daze/FoW versus Chant/Silence, I think they're functionally disparate enough that it isn't always as simple as saying free spells > non-free spells. Though obviously Daze and Force cover a lot of ground. But you can kick Orim's Chant to prevent someone from attacking, which is tantamount to a Time Walk against a lot of decks. But it's also :w::w:, so maybe not. I dunno.

[BBG|Scott-Spain]

Burn is tied in that list for 5th place. I'd like to think that also gives budget players a chance. Granted, the style of the deck puts you at the mercy of the current meta, but it's still solid.

[MGB]

I was actually more surprised that Infect has not seen MORE success in the past year or so than it has. In my testing vs. Legacy gauntlets, Infect always seemed to over-perform relative to expectations. I consider it a borderline Tier 1 deck in this format if we use pure theorycraft as a measuring stick.

Just think about Infect in terms of aggro decks attacking life totals - if we scale Poison to match Life, Infect is an aggro deck with access to four copies of a *free* instant (Invigorate) that gives a creature +8/+8 until end of turn. That is basically broken.

[wonderPreaux]

One of the thing I always thought to be strange about Infect was the actual berserks itself. Invigorate, and to a lesser extent, vines, seem like the real stars in the deck, but i don't really like much of the rest.

To me, the deck looks like a Tempo deck, your 1/1 Infect guys are basically 2/1s the whole game, which sort of hedges against Delvers (they don't always flip) Goyf (You don't always have a yard) and Mongoose (Thresh), so while they might be a trifle worse on average, the infect dudes aren't really bad by any stretch. From there, you have Inkmoth to up the threat count and you end up with a standard, but anemic at a glance, selection of threats (and as tom ross has demonstrated, hierarch ain't no slouch).

But what I never really got about the deck was why you'd devote slots to cards like Berserk and Become Immense when you could just be a better Tempo deck. Once you lose control of the board, the pumps seem pretty poor anyway, and the really fast or flashy kills are probably more dependent on Invigorate than anything else, since it costs nothing (or vines since it stops you getting blown out by removal). Idk about the in-depth discussion of the deck, but I think stealing a few games because you opened a bunch of pumps and managed to fade removal seems a lot chancier than having a few extra daze or stifle to lock the opponent down while you still have the primary threat of Invigorate to "steal" a game.

What I do like about Infect is how, for a tempo deck, it does force you to think about a lot of different angles, and while some of it seems a bit too cute for my tastes, it is pretty neat to see such a customizable tempo deck when usually they're pretty lean and standardized (though I realize my above point is kinda advocating for such a build). I hope the deck can continue to garner more attention because it does seem to have some great room for development.

[btm10]

One of the thing I always thought to be strange about Infect was the actual berserks itself. Invigorate, and to a lesser extent, vines, seem like the real stars in the deck, but i don't really like much of the rest.

To me, the deck looks like a Tempo deck, your 1/1 Infect guys are basically 2/1s the whole game, which sort of hedges against Delvers (they don't always flip) Goyf (You don't always have a yard) and Mongoose (Thresh), so while they might be a trifle worse on average, the infect dudes aren't really bad by any stretch. From there, you have Inkmoth to up the threat count and you end up with a standard, but anemic at a glance, selection of threats (and as tom ross has demonstrated, hierarch ain't no slouch).

But what I never really got about the deck was why you'd devote slots to cards like Berserk and Become Immense when you could just be a better Tempo deck. Once you lose control of the board, the pumps seem pretty poor anyway, and the really fast or flashy kills are probably more dependent on Invigorate than anything else, since it costs nothing (or vines since it stops you getting blown out by removal). Idk about the in-depth discussion of the deck, but I think stealing a few games because you opened a bunch of pumps and managed to fade removal seems a lot chancier than having a few extra daze or stifle to lock the opponent down while you still have the primary threat of Invigorate to "steal" a game.

What I do like about Infect is how, for a tempo deck, it does force you to think about a lot of different angles, and while some of it seems a bit too cute for my tastes, it is pretty neat to see such a customizable tempo deck when usually they're pretty lean and standardized (though I realize my above point is kinda advocating for such a build). I hope the deck can continue to garner more attention because it does seem to have some great room for development.

I think the reason Infect doesn't try to be a "better" tempo deck is because the best strategy of all is just killing your opponent. It's basically why we see far more BUG Delver than BUG Control despite the demonstrated power of the latter deck - you don't gain enough in the late game for most people to want to play a grindy control deck and top out with Jace and Liliana unless they're also running Shardless and opening themselves up to combo way more. There's a lot to recommend the "just kill 'em" approach and I think we systematically undervalue it when analyzing decks like Infect.


I was actually more surprised that Infect has not seen MORE success in the past year or so than it has. In my testing vs. Legacy gauntlets, Infect always seemed to over-perform relative to expectations. I consider it a borderline Tier 1 deck in this format if we use pure theorycraft as a measuring stick.

Just think about Infect in terms of aggro decks attacking life totals - if we scale Poison to match Life, Infect is an aggro deck with access to four copies of a *free* instant (Invigorate) that gives a creature +8/+8 until end of turn. That is basically broken.

From my testing it's a straight up tier 1 deck. I have a wider definition of tier 1 than the DTB section and a handful of the "Established" decks, and Infect is definitely a part of my gauntlet.

[wonderPreaux]

I think the reason Infect doesn't try to be a "better" tempo deck is because the best strategy of all is just killing your opponent. It's basically why we see far more BUG Delver than BUG Control despite the demonstrated power of the latter deck - you don't gain enough in the late game for most people to want to play a grindy control deck and top out with Jace and Liliana unless they're also running Shardless and opening themselves up to combo way more. There's a lot to recommend the "just kill 'em" approach and I think we systematically undervalue it when analyzing decks like Infect.

I don't think Tempo is exactly aiming for a long game, it does a pretty fine job of killing the opponent. I think a shift of a few pumps for a few counters would be more like changing from UR Delver to Grixis Delver, as opposed to BUG Delver vs Shardless. Same great Tempo taste, with a bit more disruption.

[btm10]

I don't think Tempo is exactly aiming for a long game, it does a pretty fine job of killing the opponent. I think a shift of a few pumps for a few counters would be more like changing from UR Delver to Grixis Delver, as opposed to BUG Delver vs Shardless. Same great Tempo taste, with a bit more disruption.

I think it would still be a tempo deck, but it would be less of a combo deck with fewer pumps (and especially without Berserk). This isn't to say that an Infect tempo deck would be bad, just that a lot of Infect's strength comes from its ability to combo-kill people out of nowhere

[Alex_UNLIMITED]

Infect is a great deck. It have a different approach to the race and it have an high anxiety-inducing factor for the opponents. It is fast and can win in every moment during a game.

[jrw1985]

One of the thing I always thought to be strange about Infect was the actual berserks itself. Invigorate, and to a lesser extent, vines, seem like the real stars in the deck, but i don't really like much of the rest.

I think the reason Berserk works so well is that it effectively wins the game 1 turn sooner. It works just as well on an Invigorated creature T2 as it does on a 1/1 when your opponent is at 8 poison. From that perspective it is the ultimate tempo card, in that it ends the game one turn sooner than your opponent can get back into it.

[FoolofaTook]

There are many reasons that UG Infect is Tier 1 but the biggest of them is that it breaks the symmetry of the most important variable in Magic, which is life totals and points needed to kill your opponent. There are lots of ways to regain life standing when you have been brought low by your opponent, some of them commonly played. There is no playable way to remove poison counters. Leeches is too narrow to play in a sideboard unless the meta is poison infested. Even then it requires :w::w: to cast and is therefore unplayable in the vast majority of Tier 1 lists.

[iamajellydonut]

There are lots of ways to regain life standing when you have been brought low by your opponent, some of them commonly played. There is no playable way to remove poison counters. Leeches is too narrow to play in a sideboard unless the meta is poison infested. Even then it requires :w::w: to cast and is therefore unplayable in the vast majority of Tier 1 lists.

Even assuming Leeches didn't suck and was slightly playable, it's saving you no more often than lifegain does against Blazing Shoal.

[FoolofaTook]

Even assuming Leeches didn't suck and was slightly playable, it's saving you no more often than lifegain does against Blazing Shoal.

The point still stands. Infect is powerful because it kills twice as fast and there's no way to ameliorate the effects of early "damage" after the fact. Basically you can have a ton of removal and still get smoked because the carrier has hexproof. You can have a bunch of counters and lose one counter war and it's all over. Other things kill fast but there are better ways to interact with them than are usually available for an opponent with infect. The fact that the infect opponent can kill you in increments is also important.

[Finn]

Everyone mark the date. Remember. This is the time there was an actual serious discussion on the merits of Leeches.

[HdH_Cthulhu]

Just think about Infect in terms of aggro decks attacking life totals - if we scale Poison to match Life, Infect is an aggro deck with access to four copies of a *free* instant (Invigorate) that gives a creature +8/+4 until end of turn. That is basically broken.
fixed!

Isnt stompy something with a 2x manabase and trinisphere? Kinda confusing...

[M+1]

The name Berserk Stompy is a TC Decks special feature I think... It was the name used for monogreen aggro decks with Invigorate and Berserk long before the Infect mechanic was invented.
See http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=3053&iddeck=23470

[Gui]

Isnt stompy something with a 2x manabase and trinisphere? Kinda confusing...

Stompy was the name of green decks with a lot of cretures way before Trini+chalice decks existed.

Actually, trini+chalice decks got the stompy name from the fact that they tried to rush these cards along with creatures, and beatdown like earlier stompy decks.

I believe it comes from this deck: http://mtgsalvation.gamepedia.com/Se%C3%B1or_Stompy

[TsumiBand]

Stompy was the name of green decks with a lot of cretures way before Trini+chalice decks existed.

Actually, trini+chalice decks got the stompy name from the fact that they tried to rush these cards along with creatures, and beatdown like earlier stompy decks.

I believe it comes from this deck: http://mtgsalvation.gamepedia.com/Se%C3%B1or_Stompy

I was gonna say, Stompy as a deck term predates Chalice/Trinisphere/etc by many years. 10/9 Land Stompy was one of the first Vintage decks I built after porting Type 2 Goblins over (read: added Lightning Bolt)