Just heading to the gp site in Prague in order to start grinding for last chance byes. So excited!
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Just heading to the gp site in Prague in order to start grinding for last chance byes. So excited!
Best of luck man! And best of luck to everyone else slinging poison counters this weekend, I hope your opening hands are full of nothing less than turn 2 kills with counter backup.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hopo
Alright fellow infectors, I spent the day on site in columbus. There is a lot of infect on the floor should be an exciting weekend!
I just submitted my finalized deck list, there's a lot of decisions in it but I'm really happy with how it is playing, I'll give a tourney report after the event i'll try and tweet updates during the event if anyone is interested (@shocked439).
here's the list:
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Forest
4 Inkmoth Nexus
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Pendelhaven
3 Tropical Island
1 Wasteland
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Become Immense
2 Berserk
4 Blighted Agent
4 Brainstorm
2 Crop Rotation
3 Daze
3 Force of Will
1 Gitaxian Probe
4 Glistener Elf
1 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Invigorate
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Ponder
1 Spell Pierce
1 Stifle
3 Vines of Vastwood
1 Viridian Corrupter
Sideboard:
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Flusterstorm
1 Force of Will
1 Hydroblast
1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1 Karakas
1 Krosan Grip
1 Nature's Claim
1 Spellskite
2 Submerge
1 Teferi's Response
1 Wasteland
My first ever GP, made it to day 2 as a 6-3. Faced Reid Duke with elves, never saw a pump spell both games and lost. Still think it's a good matchup though. Decided to drop with four losses as I was extremely tired (snoring hotel buddy:mad: ) and just wanted to get home and play with my dog. All in all was fun and I enjoyed it, just wish I wasn't so sluggish both days.
As a primarily Elves player just picking up Infect, can confirm Elves is a good matchup for Infect.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bichon_Blitz
Infect in finals at GP Columbus, nice Clay!:)
Wow he won! Nice job kid!
Wow did anyone read the finals game report against Joe Lossett?
http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/c...ire-2016-06-12
Great job kid, and what a way to finish. Talk about style...!! Congrats on the huge, huge win! Fling poison all day, except when you don't and still win a GP! :tongue:
Yea in play testing never really had issues, but makes me feel better hearing from an Elves player.Quote:
Originally Posted by Capt4in
Nice to see the deck take down the GP, I thought he had a better than average chance with 4 miracles decks in there.
Looking at his list 4 daze maindeck seems fine for g1 and probably makes sideboarding a little easier for g2. I cannot figure out what the wasteland in the SB is for. I think this was discussed a few posts back. I feel like the 1-of works fine as a silver bullet to glacial chasm/maze/etc...5 pieces of artifact hate, looks like he came prepared for jittes, chalices, and needles. 3 Probes might be better in a lot of matchups than a 2/1 ponder split. But can't argue with the results! I still like the white sb splash, has done right by me for the most part.
Yeah that conclusion was epic! Just a lowly noble hierarch to one-shot Joe freaking Lossett!
Man, that must be a risky feeling to go that route in the finals :P Plan B ftw!
I like that he cut the ponders for more croprot and daze. I also think the average meta right now justifies not playing the karakas..
Is there any video coverage for GP columbus? Can't find any.
You have to know when to go all in. Sounds like it was an easy decision in that spot.
But wow, congratulations to that young man. Well done.
I had to settle for 11-4 at Prague, and I saw at least one Infect player ranked higher in standings.
What a weekend, first Storm in Prague and now Infect in Columbus. Glad to see that combo isn't dead with Eldrazi in the meta!
@Bichon_blitz: The Wasteland is indeed for Maze of Ith and Glacial Chasm.
Infect was infesting the top tables in Columbus. This deck feels like a prominent member of the tier 1 meta in the US, and if you want to do well at a large American Legacy event you're going to need a gameplan against it.
I like that it's not a tier 1 deck in Europe if you look at the number of people who play it. This means that people are less prepared for it which is good for us.Quote:
Originally Posted by Patrunkenphat7
By the way, I heard Wizards and Tom Ross saying that Infect is one of the most difficult decks to play. Why is this? I find decks like Aggroloam or Lands much more difficult to play because of all the options you have. You have a more straightforward game plan with Infect, just give the opponent ten counters and you're done.
Two parts to this.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bosaapje
The first is how unforgiving Infect can be, attributed to a variety of things but most of all to the inherently disadvantageous nature of pump spells. You'll notice that very few other decks in Legacy play pump spells (The Cure, maybe another I'm forgetting) and that's not a coincidence. Pump spells are weak cards by design, they open you up to card disadvantage if your opponent knows to be patient with removal spells.
It's also an unforgiving deck for reasons such as every creature being a 1/1 and leaning on Noble Hierarch makes it difficult to not overextend into mass removal (can be done, just more difficult with mana dorks).
The second part is... difficult to explain, but I'll do my best. There's an immense mental game that comes hand in hand with playing this deck. Its a combination of a couple of things, like the ability to easily pump any Infect threat to 10, or the potential to pump a Noble Hierarch up to lethal damage, or the danger of EoT Crop Rotation into Inkmoth into untap lethal, basically the explosive power of the deck makes it dangerous and unpredictable. As such, a lot of your game plan revolves around drawing a mistake out of your opponent, which happens naturally against lesser players but can require a bit of creativity against better players. An example would be the Rynkiewicz play against BBD, where he baits out a Force of Will with a Crop Rotation, only to play Inkmoth and untap kill the following turn.
Game 1 for reference: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ugQQ6NACrpY
Then of course it cuts the other way as well, where we don't have the kill but still want to trick the opponent into making suboptimal plays such as unfavorable blocks or passive plays that respect the lethal pump when we don't have it. Stuff like fiddling with your lands with spells on the stack, or even asking your opponent to expressly pass priority in weird places (like in response to a Delver trigger) can go a long way towards getting free damage in with creatures. The extended bluffs like these are more impressive and more difficult to execute in my opinion, but they're also not as flashy and as such often get missed by spectators.
I've never been that good in mind tricks when playing Magic, I need to train that so I can utilise it a bit better. Of course I'll bait stuff like that I play an Agent first to see if it gets countered and if it does I'll play the Nexus but that's about it. Is there a way to practise this more? Because I've had moderate succes with the deck but I still feel that I can learn a lot.
Another thing, I think, is how and when to use vines of vastwood. It can sometimes swing the game one way or the other. How you sequence your pump spells and abilities, along with counters can be at times very confusing.
I don't think it's the hardest deck to play well, there's a lot of intense decision making for some decks. Some games, you will have to think a turn or two ahead, decide whether or not to go for it, or use pump spells defensively or let the creature die.
Not sure if there's anything special to it, other than keeping an open mind and jamming lots of practice games. If you want to get super serious, I'd recommend taking notes during game so that you can recreate and review your decision process. Also make a note of whatever you were thinking at the time, as that can often be just as important as the plays you make.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bosaapje
On a related note, PVDDR just released a pretty cool article on the topic. Not as much geared towards legacy, but a fun read nonetheless. http://www.channelfireball.com/artic...-you-the-game/
I performed as I pretty much always do at gp's starting 3-0 into 4-4-drop. I lost to elves, jund, grixis delver and eldrazis. Won jund, shardless and two miracles.
I could have played tighter against elves while they took game one against me drawing creature heavy seven. Jund is annoying with all the removal. Infect is very strong as seen in Columbus but in my case pilot was eventually rather shitty.
In side events I played basically only bad matchups like lands and couldn't navigate my way to anything worth telling about.
Flusterstorms in main deck were very good and relevant in every matchup. Next step for me is to find room for Sylvan library in main and I wouldn't mind having a second Become Immense either. The 4 Daze plan from Columbus is also very promising.
GP Columbus was easily my worst GP ever. I've been struggling to try and figure out what went wrong and I'm not happy with the answers I have come up with. Here's a round by round summary I'll my opinions at the bottom. I posted my deck list above, As I discuss below I will be returning to the more streamlined version of this deck.
R1-Bye (1-0 event, 0-0 games)
R2-Lost to Storm (1-1, 0-2) game one mull to six keep hand with stifle and one land, knew better than typing out to play something. Opponent git probes, knows stifle is my only permission decide to play blighted agent and put a clock on him. He goes for it and gets there, turns out he had cabal therapy so one piece of permission was not going to get it. Game two keep an aggressive hand with no permission thinking I can force the issue, turns out I forced the issue he probes and goes off. I dislike playing storm, I hate most 50/50 matchups that's why I gave up rug delver.
r3-5 lost to punishing lands, shardless, and the mirror match. Won one game against shardless lost all the others in 2 (1-4, 1-8) At this point I am at a complete loss. I'm not a bad infect player. In all the matches leading up to this event I was unbeatable. I was happy with my build. I am unable to pinpoint why I lost the games. It is easy to blame the game three loss to shardless on a mull to five (no colored sources at 7 or 6) keep a dryad arbor glistner elf, berserk brainstorm hand and get hymmed after casting the elf. I keep replaying the sequences and plays that I made but in the vast majority of the games it really didn't seem to matter, I never had the ability to protect, and pump or I had all the protection and couldn't get an infector.
Round 6 - 8 won three in a row, beat enchantress and don't remember the other two.
round nine lost to abzan in three probably the best match of the day, fittingly it ended with me mulling to 5 in game three and never catching up.
As I looked at the top performing deck lists it became obvious what they all had in common, they valued consistency and information over utility. I love the three flusterstorm package out of the side board from the gp Columbus deck, I also love that it is an easy board in with the three git probes in the main. I had multiple opponents comment about the one ofs in my deck that they were playing around, at that point I realized what my mistake was. My opponents were already afraid of the cards I might have, they had done their job. I should have went with the tighter lists and played for the least variance.
There are infinite cute things to do with this deck, but the best thing is to pressure your opponent.
My good friend plays jund. I can say it is for the most part a pretty easy matchup. Def possible to lose but in playing him 7 times I beat him 6, and he's only beaten me outside of that a handful of times.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hopo
How do you beat Jund? I rarely play them but when I do it feels awful. They have Liliana, PuFi, Decay, Bolt, Wasteland for the Nexus and also a decently fast clock with Goyf. I consider Jund to be my worst matchup.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bichon_Blitz
@Shocked: Sucks to see you doing so bad. What was the list you ran?
Well, I've tried answering the wasteland question here before... Besides obvious utility via a topdeck, the second wasteland... is just another land at times. Against mana denying decks. Do bring it in not only vs lands, d&t and mirror. But also when facing eldrazi, grixis, etc. And, despite opinions around here, it's uber uselfull against elves. Just try playtesting both ends of the matchup...Quote:
Originally Posted by Bichon_Blitz
PS 9-5-1 at Prague :/
As said above, it's sometimes just another land but more often it's an out against Maze of Ith and Tabernacle. I always run it mainboard because there is space enough and you can punish people sometimes just like you can with Stifle. It's very good if you open with an Elf or Noble Hierarch on the play and then Wasteland them. That could be enough disruption that you win the game on the spot.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bichon_Blitz
I'm gonna play the winning GP list this weekend, not sure if two Crop Rotations mainboard is the correct choice with Chalice in the format right now but it's very good against Miracles so I'll see. I'm also not that much fan of three Probes mainboard, it feels just a tad too much but we'll see. The list (and player) has proven itself.
You're only out to an active lilly is inkmoth, but that can sometimes be enough. And honestly that doesn't happen all that often, I'm not sure if they side lilly out or not cause of the slowness. I think my buddy has had better luck against me with duress.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bosaapje
Save brainstorms for discard. Try to save pumps for inkmoth to dodge decay, unless they're tapped out. They might have a hand of bolt and p.fire, but stuff like pendelhaven and pretty much any pump spell. I think I win most of my games with inkmoth against them but I generally try to time my pump spells properly, you know like if you see an untapped badlands play around the bolt. Usually they can't go through 2 pump spells, or even 1 pump spell and a counter. Be aware of ancient grudge on inkmoth coming in g2/3. The majority of my games are over t2-4 against them, but some games because of attrition you have to rebuild and try to reassemble the right to hand and go off at the right time, almost like lands in a way.
I beat jund at columbus but all i can remember is losing g1 on a mull to 5 i think, winning g2 on t2 with invig/berserk on elf and dazing a DRS, and slowly grinding out g3 and getting absolute law out. Gitaxian probe informed me what to play around, i think it was decay and diabolic edict. I'm going up to three of those and not looking back. Absolute law, by the way, is insane against any deck that runs p.fire if that is giving you fits. I will bring it against lands, jund, UR delver, sometimes even grixis delver. And just like spellskite, set that up first, then cast your critters.
5th after 6 rounds swiss in yesterday’s 40-man legacy tournament.
We all decided to split the packs of EMA box between all of us, as it was raining hard, so we can all go home.
record: 4-1-1
1-0 (2-0) shardless BUG
Both games my multiple invigorates paired with permissions helped my inkmoths go through without even worrying on abrupt decays, 2 crop rots are key here, I had one resolved eot for the kill, and had 1 key replacement when he wasted it.
2-0 (2-1) BURN
Lost game 1 easily when he had a main deck grim. Flusterstorm, several pierces and a hydroblast sealed 2 games quickly for the match win
3-0 (2-0) REANIMATOR
Probe was very crucial early on, He had a 1-lander but with fow, daze, entomb, exhume... I opened with glistener, he fetched for delta... I crop rot, he lets it resolved and quickly got a wasteland and landed noble. That’s game right there. 2nd game he mulled to 5 and never got back to the game.
3-1 (1-2) UWR MIRACLES
A maindecked flusterstorm proved very crucial, Lost game 3 on a resolved bloodmoon with me having no fows at hand, never drew any of my removals by not accessing my trops for my cantrips.
4-1 (2-1) ELVES
Inkmoth is just MVP here!
4-1-1 (ID) SNEAKSHOW
We projected a heavy Dnt meta and combos, but then lots of burn showed up! I think we had 5-6 burn decks, a number of BUG variants, 3 played Infect and some miracles. Ive been drawing my invigorates via multiples and that was key for my fast wins, I was suppose to replace them with new EMA version, but I wont anymore with their performance last night haha!
Deck: 1 savannah, 2 crop rotations, 1 become immense, 1 flusterstorm, 1 pierce, 4 fows, 1 sylvan.... everything else is from the usual lists...
Helpers:
1 grafdigger's cage
1 relic progenitus
1 RIP
1 absolute law
2 STPs
2 kgrips
1 seal primordium
2 pithing needles
1 spell pierce
1 hydroblast
1 dispel
1 invasive surgery
Nice finish. :)
How is hydroblast for you? I see it everywhere, but just dislike the card in the board. Dispel is an interesting choice too, I think I'd have liked another fluster in that slot.
Thanks man! well hydroblast for me these days is Huge! burn and grixis tempo is a badmatchup since they have a fast clock and removals... that's why i inserted in a dispel too for variance... alongside an absolute law to minimize creature loss when battling this somewhat hard matchup.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sparkii
Yeah, I'm also playing the white splash, with 3 STP, 2 RIP and 1 Absolute law. Probably going to cut a RIP for a surgical or another form of gravehate to cut reliance on white and come down a turn faster. I'm also still playing Reality Ripple, that card has been great for me.Quote:
Originally Posted by poxy14
How do people feel on the 3/4 Daze maindeck? I am a big fan of the flusterstorm main.
Had to find the new version and take a look. I am puzzled, why would you replace a forest dryad with mad eyes power-throwing a mysterious monster with hooves and sharp teeth, with that? I looks like an anime girl lifting a latex hammer, while posturing for a photo shoot. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by poxy14
And yes, drawing Invigorate in multiples is key to succes with Infect. Sometimes I wonder if win percentage is directly related to the average number of Invigorates drawn.
@Sparkii: I am back and forth on the Dazes, would almost certainly not play 4 even though a deck like that just won a GP. Daze is obviously great if you have everything you need and move in for the kill. If not and I have to play a longer game, then I feel like the cost to my own early mana development is high.
Yeah, I agree haha. I had 1 foil EMA, i'll just sell em and stick to my older ones. Yup, it also boosts our sequencing of plays and confidence once we see invis in multiples early on. It just puts too much pressure on the opposing side when we have em right away. It surely does affect this deck's W percentage versus any other pump spell we have main.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cartesian
@sparkii: 3's the most for me for dazes, I would rather have the 4th fow instead. Probably the easiest way to cut too during sideboarding, except ofcourse vs any combo matchup.
We get one Legacy Grand Prix in the USA each year. This year it was in Columbus Ohio, and a very inspiring young man took it down playing a deck very close to Svyelunite's heart. Check out this week's episode of Legacy's Allure as GP Columbus Winner Clay Spicklemire recounts his awesome tournament performance!
Webcast: https://youtu.be/tolLrPUlZQE
Podcast: http://shoutengine.com/LegacysAllure...cklemire-21016
Also available on iTunes!
Some great stuff in that podcast right there. Congrats to Clay on taking down GP Columbus, and a big thanks to him and Zach for putting this interview together.Quote:
Originally Posted by Svyelunite
Mysterious monster?? It's a sad day in an old-school magic forum when somebody doesn't recognize the original Humpus WumpusQuote:
Originally Posted by Cartesian
I see it now. My sincere apologies. I didn't know.
A new counter for infect ?
http://mythicspoiler.com/emn/cards/turnaside.jpg
It's a reprint, dude.
The effect isn't strong enough, there are better options.
Didn't see sorry :/Quote:
Originally Posted by Cartesian
The new baby natural order looks somewhat interesting as it is practically your fifth agent. Looking forward to test that one.