[Deck] U/G Infect

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jesture

I think you'd rather just play a main deck Viridian Corrupter. This has way too much potential to just be a completely dead card.

---

Agreed Viridian is probably just better, however this is never completely dead, at worse it cantrips.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jesture

Ponders are an interesting choice. Pros are it helps smooth out draws while also providing more turn 1 plays and a higher blue count for Force of Will. Cons are it's sorcery speed (we're very reactive and like to leave mana open) and can make opening hands more difficult to evaluate. As it is, I personally feel 2-3 is the correct number, but it seems like there's no correct answer and it's largely predicated on personal preference/local meta.
(...)
So I'm the guy who played the unconventional Mother of Runes list at SCG Worcester, and Sean Brown of MTGGoldfish has a pretty well written summary of the tournament here..

---

What changed your mind and made you go from 1 Ponder to 4?
A few weeks ago, I remember you trying my 4 Ponder/1 Tundra list and not finding it very impressive (I don't mind obviously, just trying to understand your motivation). At the time you wrote:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jesture

Took this out for some playtesting last night. To be frank, I don't see how this deck beats Eldrazi or Miracles outside of the Inkmoth + 2x Invigorate hands. Pondering definitely makes for a more consistent mid/late game, but it seems like every "Deck to Beat" outside of Lands is either going to kill us or establish their soft lock before we can sculpt a winning hand. I appreciate the 4x Ponder build against slower fair decks like Maverick, Shardless, or Deathblade, but there just doesn't seem to be enough time to Ponder against Grixis Tempo, DnT, Eldrazi, or Miracles, which are all a much larger presence in the meta.

---

I appreciate Eldrazi isn't as popular as it used to be, but I doubt that this alone justifies moving from 1 Ponder + all green lands to 4 + Tundra. The deck does play out quite differently. To be clear, I'm strongly in favor of 4 Ponder, I've been on this set-up for years. The card brings consistency to the deck, which in turns allows you to grind a lot of decks and/or set-up kills better. I'm just curious what your thought process was for this event and whether you're going to stick to it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bosaapje

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.

---

Since blighted agent is easily our strongest creature, it might be best to sandbag it in your hand until they kill your nexus, if time allows. Inky is more mana intensive, which causes me problems now and again (activating it and still having double or triple green to kick vines or invig+berserk through thalia, etc is often impossible). I feel like i run agent out too early some times.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jesture

So I'm the guy who played the unconventional Mother of Runes list at SCG Worcester, and Sean Brown of MTGGoldfish has a pretty well written summary of the tournament here. The recurring protection effect is strong against highly interactive decks, such as the new 4color Czech Pile control deck, but it's also a great way to give Glistener Elf some late game relevance in the form of evasion. I'm not 100% on if it's worth playing a more fragile mana base to include Tundra for t1 Mother of Runes with Daze backup, but it has been pretty great in testing so far.

---

Do you think Mom is still good without the Tundra? Can't protect her with Daze on Turn 1, but I like to have 5 forests (currently running the white splash with 1 forest, 3 trops, 1 savannah) for Invigorate. I get why you did it with the 4 Ponders, I'm just thinking about Mom's utility in general.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dionykos

What changed your mind and made you go from 1 Ponder to 4?
A few weeks ago, I remember you trying my 4 Ponder/1 Tundra list and not finding it very impressive (I don't mind obviously, just trying to understand your motivation). At the time you wrote:

(Quoted Text)

I appreciate Eldrazi isn't as popular as it used to be, but I doubt that this alone justifies moving from 1 Ponder + all green lands to 4 + Tundra. The deck does play out quite differently. To be clear, I'm strongly in favor of 4 Ponder, I've been on this set-up for years. The card brings consistency to the deck, which in turns allows you to grind a lot of decks and/or set-up kills better. I'm just curious what your thought process was for this event and whether you're going to stick to it.

---

No worries, always happy to talk about card choices. So the thought process behind the 4 Ponders was all part of the plan to run Mother of Runes out of the sideboard. It started with a need for white to cast Mom, then settling on Tundra to protect t1 Mom with Daze (this is why I moved up to 4 Daze). Because I was fetching Tundra early, I found myself with a blue/white source that I was regularly not using from turn to turn. So we added in the 4 Ponders, both as a way to transition better into the mid/late game but more importantly as a way to better utilize the Tundra we were fetching up early. That blue count eventually led to 4 Force of Will main deck, but I'd say those were more of a way to fight against t1 lock pieces that I was expecting at the tournament, and less about the Mother of Runes or any related cards.

As stated in a previous post, I'll probably find myself cutting Tundra and moving down to 2-3 Ponders if I'm not playing Mom. The Ponders were born out of a need to fetch Tundra early, without her I see less of a need to play Tundra and consequently there's less blue mana left over after each turn. For what it's worth, I do think the meta is slowing down enough to accommodate more Ponders. We're less worried about t1 Chalice or t1 Griselbrand which gives us more time to sculpt, and we are without a doubt one of the decks that most greatly benefits from the power to better sculpt hands.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by qomori

Do you think Mom is still good without the Tundra? Can't protect her with Daze on Turn 1, but I like to have 5 forests (currently running the white splash with 1 forest, 3 trops, 1 savannah) for Invigorate. I get why you did it with the 4 Ponders, I'm just thinking about Mom's utility in general.

---

Haven't spent a lot of time testing Mom with Savannah, I just remember trying it a few times and thinking about how much I'd rather have Tundra. If we're fetching up Savannah into Mom t1, we're leaving the shields down for a turn and giving our opponent a chance to interact with us. This time is pretty crucial, as the alternative of t1 Noble Hierarch, t2 Mother of Runes, t3 threat is just really slow and gives our opponent too much time/mana to work with. So yeah, I'd say Savannah for green if you're not playing the Mother of Runes, but definitely try out the Tundra if you plan on playing Mom.

I do agree with upping the land count though. 18 lands in the list I ran just didn't feel like enough, and it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to find room for another land somewhere in the mix.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jesture

I do agree with upping the land count though. 18 lands in the list I ran just didn't feel like enough, and it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to find room for another land somewhere in the mix.

---

Huh ok I'll keep it in mind but with the 3 Ponders I've been very happy with one less land. Ponders 2 and 3 count as half a land a piece for me and I still find I'm drawing too many lands.

So everyone will need to forgive my ignorance here. I just picked up the deck and played my first weekly with it. It went pretty well 3-0(6-0) but wasteland was pretty much hot garbage during the night. I have been reading through the thread and trying to understand different points and counter points about different deck builds but haven't found something significant about wasteland. Can someone point me to some substantial thought on it before I chop it from my list?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rampart

So everyone will need to forgive my ignorance here. I just picked up the deck and played my first weekly with it. It went pretty well 3-0(6-0) but wasteland was pretty much hot garbage during the night. I have been reading through the thread and trying to understand different points and counter points about different deck builds but haven't found something significant about wasteland. Can someone point me to some substantial thought on it before I chop it from my list?

---

It's not often insane, but it can be useful in a ton of different situations. It's great in the mirror, it's a main deck out to Glacial Chasm/Maze/Port, and it can punish some of the Sol land decks. It's saved me from Price of Progress on more than one occasion. And, while it doesn't happen often, it feels reeeeeally good to out-delver the Delver deck and use it to turn off Daze or just set them back.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rampart

So everyone will need to forgive my ignorance here. I just picked up the deck and played my first weekly with it. It went pretty well 3-0(6-0) but wasteland was pretty much hot garbage during the night. I have been reading through the thread and trying to understand different points and counter points about different deck builds but haven't found something significant about wasteland. Can someone point me to some substantial thought on it before I chop it from my list?

---

Another example for you : you can Waste a cavern of souls so you can counter the big drazis.
Last tournament I played, the guy wanted to waste my Karakas, I stifled the waste, bounced the Thalia, and Wasted Its cavern.
That gave me the game, then the round.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Adibou1er

Another example for you : you can Waste a cavern of souls so you can counter the big drazis.
Last tournament I played, the guy wanted to waste my Karakas, I stifled the waste, bounced the Thalia, and Wasted Its cavern.
That gave me the game, then the round.

---

It's not that I don't understand that wasteland will get you wins under certain conditions. My question is really not about the surface level easy to explain pros of wasteland but more about the deeper questions. For example how evaluate deck building requirements to support wasteland properly versus maybe something more consistent. How do you evaluate an opening hand with wasteland in it against a opponent in the blind? How much tempo is too much?. This is why I asked for reference to more point/counterpoint discussions that might of previously occurred.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rampart

It's not that I don't understand that wasteland will get you wins under certain conditions. My question is really not about the surface level easy to explain pros of wasteland but more about the deeper questions. For example how evaluate deck building requirements to support wasteland properly versus maybe something more consistent. How do you evaluate an opening hand with wasteland in it against a opponent in the blind? How much tempo is too much?. This is why I asked for reference to more point/counterpoint discussions that might of previously occurred.

---

I always found it helped to consider Wasteland more of a 1-mana spell than a land. If you do cut it, you shouldn't replace it with a Fetch. You should replace it with a Probe, Vines, Ponder, etc. Keeping that in mind may help you evaluate the card and use it more effectively.

Basically, you should be using it instead of relying on it for mana. There just aren't that many cards in our decks that want colorless mana for one and it does a lot more for us keeping our opponents on the back foot than using the mana unless it's really necessary. The card is of course more powerful because it can make mana compared to a land that can't like Maze of Ith but that's not its primary function. So when looking at your hand or decklist, covering up Wasteland when considering your available lands is more correct than not imho. A fetch/wasteland hand is nearly a one-lander. Luckily we play well off a little mana similar to a Delver deck.

Because we play like a Delver deck Wastelands are cards we want. If starting from scratch, when laying out the cards you'd want in the deck, you'd have written down 4 Wastelands. But then we need our 4 Inkmoth and that's too much colorless lands taking up our land drops so Wasteland got cut. We keep the one because it's still a good card and we often have 1-2 Crop Rotations in our 75 (I do side it out often). So use it like a Delver deck would. Put your opponent down a land on key turns. Make them unable to cast Leovold without tapping out. Take them off White before you move to combat and animate Inkmoth Nexus. Keep them in Daze and Spell Pierce range longer. Dazing with a Hierarch or a threat out is sooo good. Wasteland extends that portion of the game.

And then sometimes there's the situational stuff with Port, Depths Combo, Maze of Ith, Sol Lands, Price of Progress, opposing Dazes, and others because this is legacy and you're going to see some stuff.

Ok, guys, brainteaser/dilemma time. I played in the semifinals of a trial for MKM Series Frankfurt today and was confronted with the following situation.
Context: It's game three, I'm on the play, mulliganed to six. My opponent is on some BUG delver list with stifles, confidants, and the usual stuff. My hand is:

Fetchland, Noble, Noble, Spellskite, Vines, Daze. My scry shows me Inkmoth.

What's the line here:

(1) Play noble, shuffle away inkmoth and hope to draw into a threat/cantrip soon (im on 4 Brainstorms, 0 Ponder)
(2) Play Fetch, pass. Draw inkmoth next turn. Risk to run into stifle.
(3) Mull to five.

I won't spoiler what I did, so you can make an unbiased decision :-)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by batter-call-skull

Ok, guys, brainteaser/dilemma time. I played in the semifinals of a trial for MKM Series Frankfurt today and was confronted with the following situation.
Context: It's game three, I'm on the play, mulliganed to six. My opponent is on some BUG delver list with stifles, confidants, and the usual stuff. My hand is:

Fetchland, Noble, Noble, Spellskite, Vines, Daze. My scry shows me Inkmoth.

What's the line here:

(1) Play noble, shuffle away inkmoth and hope to draw into a threat/cantrip soon (im on 4 Brainstorms, 0 Ponder)
(2) Play Fetch, pass. Draw inkmoth next turn. Risk to run into stifle.
(3) Mull to five.

I won't spoiler what I did, so you can make an unbiased decision :-)

---

Seems like a mull to 5. Hand looks good at first glance with threat, colored source, Noble, soft permission, and a pump spell. But there's no cohesive game plan here, you can't put together a fast kill with the cards presented and you're facing an incredibly difficult uphill battle if you want to win through chip shots. Spellskite seems like a liability against Tarmogoyf decks, and the card also doesn't protect your one Inkmoth from Wasteland, the cleanest way to kill it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by batter-call-skull

Ok, guys, brainteaser/dilemma time. I played in the semifinals of a trial for MKM Series Frankfurt today and was confronted with the following situation.
Context: It's game three, I'm on the play, mulliganed to six. My opponent is on some BUG delver list with stifles, confidants, and the usual stuff. My hand is:

Fetchland, Noble, Noble, Spellskite, Vines, Daze. My scry shows me Inkmoth.

What's the line here:

(1) Play noble, shuffle away inkmoth and hope to draw into a threat/cantrip soon (im on 4 Brainstorms, 0 Ponder)
(2) Play Fetch, pass. Draw inkmoth next turn. Risk to run into stifle.
(3) Mull to five.

I won't spoiler what I did, so you can make an unbiased decision :-)

---

First, I'm probably keeping that. It's going to be better than most 5's I'd think. You have the mana you need and any Infector will put decent pressure on attacking for 3. If your scry is bad, the line of Fetch>Trop>Noble, next turn, Noble+Spellskite is ok. We're playing off the top of course but eh, again 5 likely won't be better. You can start beating for 2 to put some pressure on turn 3 worst case. You have Daze for Tarm/Bob.

Post-scry. Keep. Play Fetch. Pass. Inkmoth and wait on Fetch until they've tapped out. If they go Fetch>pass to us. That's good for us. We have a slow hand. Happy to take that exchange. If they play a Delver, we're clear to go Inkmoth>Fetch>Noble and pray they don't have Wasteland. If we can fade Waste for one turn. We're set up as well as we could hope on a mull.

Curious to see what other people think.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Runner5678

First, I'm probably keeping that. It's going to be better than most 5's I'd think. You have the mana you need and any Infector will put decent pressure on attacking for 3. If your scry is bad, the line of Fetch>Trop>Noble, next turn, Noble+Spellskite is ok. We're playing off the top of course but eh, again 5 likely won't be better. You can start beating for 2 to put some pressure on turn 3 worst case. You have Daze for Tarm/Bob.

Post-scry. Keep. Play Fetch. Pass. Inkmoth and wait on Fetch until they've tapped out. If they go Fetch>pass to us. That's good for us. We have a slow hand. Happy to take that exchange. If they play a Delver, we're clear to go Inkmoth>Fetch>Noble and pray they don't have Wasteland. If we can fade Waste for one turn. We're set up as well as we could hope on a mull.

Curious to see what other people think.

---

whoops, sorry, option (3) is obviously out of the question, since this is a post-scry scenario (I think the keep is reasonable, either way). Too much legacy, haven't gotten a lot of sleep lately.

I'm with Jesture, in that if I saw Fetchland, Noble, Noble, Spellskite, Vines, Daze against that kind of deck, I'd probably just ship it back for a 5. Def a decent chance the 5 is worse, but I think we're losing with that most of the time anyhow.

Since you had already scryed, I like the play the fetch and pass as well. Although, if they play Delver on 1, I'd be inclined to Daze it, because chances are that Inkmoth's not getting through. If they lead with Ponder or Deathrite or something, I'm in for Inkmoth, Hierarch, go.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by qomori

I'm with Jesture, in that if I saw Fetchland, Noble, Noble, Spellskite, Vines, Daze against that kind of deck, I'd probably just ship it back for a 5. Def a decent chance the 5 is worse, but I think we're losing with that most of the time anyhow.

Since you had already scryed, I like the play the fetch and pass as well. Although, if they play Delver on 1, I'd be inclined to Daze it, because chances are that Inkmoth's not getting through. If they lead with Ponder or Deathrite or something, I'm in for Inkmoth, Hierarch, go.

---

That's a fair point, I somehow completely blanked on the fact that scrying means we already decided to keep the 6. Given that we already kept, if I had to choose between playing the t1 Hierarch and the t2 Inkmoth into Hierarch, I'd definitely go with the latter. Only caveat is I might not even Daze the t1 Delver, as shuffling away the Inkmoth to fight over the Delver kind of defeats the purpose of keeping the flyer off the board.

Now really curious to see what choice batter-call-skull made.

You can also make the assumption that they mulled and looked at the top card.

I want to know if you have seen fatal push? If you have seen push I am more inclined to keep the hand because the opponent has overloaded on creature removal and loosing the extra card plus the extra card being on the play is pretty bad against that deck. Also did they sideboard out anything between game 2 and game 3 (did you see stifle in game two?) if I am on the other side I am probably removing some of my mana denial package on the draw against a deck with Noble becasue you probably cannot fully shut them off of land and the infect deck really only needs one or two mana to operate. Its kind of a tough to make an informed decision becasue you don't really have all the context that you had during the games.

I also think that if the opponent doesn't do anything on there first turn deploy inkmoth and pass. You don't crack the fetchland until you see what is going on the following turn after you have drawn your next card.

So, where does the Miracles ban leave us? I feel like more BUG isn't great, but not the end of the world. More Elves and more combo is good. More lands is not that good. Thoughts?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by qomori

So, where does the Miracles ban leave us? I feel like more BUG isn't great, but not the end of the world. More Elves and more combo is good. More lands is not that good. Thoughts?

---

I'm basically thinking the same. Miracles was a good matchup, so in theory we lost a bit. In practice though, alot of people are predicting an immediate Elves resurgance to tier 1, and that's a good matchup for us too. There'll be alot more BUG in the short term, which I agree isn't great, but we can probably survive it.

Is there anything particularly bad for us that Miracles was pushing out of the meta that might make a resurgance?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by out51d3r

I'm basically thinking the same. Miracles was a good matchup, so in theory we lost a bit. In practice though, alot of people are predicting an immediate Elves resurgance to tier 1, and that's a good matchup for us too. There'll be alot more BUG in the short term, which I agree isn't great, but we can probably survive it.

Is there anything particularly bad for us that Miracles was pushing out of the meta that might make a resurgance?

---

I think Delver decks especially Grixis Delver will have a bigger comeback in the short term which is not good for this deck.