Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Infectious Design

This post requires a bit of a pre-script. Around 9pm Monday night I started to type this, got down to the end, it was about 9 pages along, I mean I delved into each and every infect card and cards that help the build, equipment buff spells support spells creatures not of the right type but aided your build. Then I clicked “Save Draft” the page refreshed and it went back to how it was before I started to type.

So, I raged on facebook and went to bed. Around 9:30am Tuesday I started to retype it, fininshed it, started pasting pictures in when one didn't go in the place it should have, I CTRL+Z to take the picture out, and EVERYTHING dissapears and then the document autosaved to be blank.
Lucky for me, I had the preview page without images up. This allowed me to save my rear by taking a screen shot for about 5 or 6 screens, combine into one picture and use freeOCR to turn the image into text document, which I am now editing on OpenOffice.org.


Infectious Design

So, Infect is good yah? Instead of having to get in with 20+ damage you only need to get
in for 10! and that number doesn't change, end of story.
My last post I found to be a bit  bad. It wasn't a deck I made, I had suggestions put Into
it, but It wasn't MY deck. So this week, we'll step away from combo corner and look into a
consistent style deck, you know, the ones that are good. I'll even go through my
thoughts on choosing each and every card.

I've decided on Infect, but what colours should I run? what are the infect cards of each
colour?
Colours

-Lost Leonin: decent, 2/1 infect for 1W.
-Unlife: almost says "gain 10 life".
-Priests of Norn - Standing Troops with infect, It's not that threatening.
-Shriek Raptor /Tine Shrike: To high of a cost for what they bring to the field.

Blue
Blighted Agent: Amazing, a 1/1 infect that is unblockable. for cheap! only 1U to drop.
Chained throatseeker: a un-shatterable Phyrexlan Juggernaut. too slow, but is a major thread if on the board and able to attack.
Corrupted Conscience: Could see It's place in long term control, I would like to take inferno titan with that would be hilarious.
Viral Drake: This is how flying infect should be done. 1/4 for 4. with a statIc proliferate.
Corrupted Resolve: Will spend too much time In your hand, not being cast.
Fuel for the Cause: What‘s important in a counter spell Is the counter. Mana leak Is far
more effective.
Inexorable Tide: too little too late In the game, not a tonne of spells to cast when you're
able to drop this to the field.
Steady Progress: This card has been out modded by--
Tezzeret's Gambit :Draw 2 and then proliferate. Glorious! gets you cards, and prolferates
for relatively cheap.
Thrumming Bird : If this had infect and or didn't require having to make contact with
opponent to work, It would be worth It's spot, but at 1U, I'd rather have an unblockable
dude.

Black
Blackcleave Goblin: Too slow, in a 4 drop I want amazlngness not mediocrity.
Contagious Nim: Vanilla Infect
Flensermite : Cute, but doesn't have much going for it. Would only use this in draft.
Flesh-Eater Imp: This card reminds me of Bloodthrone + Pawn of Ulamog. Could make It
Into a deck wrapped around Itself.
Glistening OiI/Phyresis/Tainted Strike : I want my dudes In an infect deck to already have
Infect.
Ichor Rats : 3cc to put a poison counter on your opponent and get a body on the field?
good card.

Hand ofthe PTBEYOTSZ
LOL, remember that OCR thing I mentioned earlier, it took Hand of the praetor’s and turned it into that, so gonna leave that there!


Hand of the Praetor’s: Really good, a great lord that can make the game really bleak for
your opponents.
Phyrexian Crusader: Best 3 drop for Infect. great card does It need an explanation why?
Vatmother : 4/5 infect for 4? sounds good just don’t kill yourself.
Plague Stinger: 2 mana slot in Infect should be tilled with something that when It attacks,
cannot be blocked :).
Reaper of Sheoldred: Too little too late. Maybe if It slung poison counters like negator
slung damage.
Scourge Servant : Vanilla 3/3 Infect, no thanks, not for 4B
Septic Rats: other rats are better as they guarantee a poison counter.
Skitheryx: sexy sexy card. best flying infect creature.
Toxic nim: If this were a 6/1 with regen B I might use It. But 4/1 for 4BB Is not good
enough.
Whispering Specter: it’s a specter, and not a fantastic one at that.
Grim Affliction Put a -1/-1 on target creature, then proliferate. Kill a */2, put another
poison counter on opponent. Good enough for a 3 drop.
Caress of Phyrexia: Game finisher, 3BBto put 3 poison counters on a player.

Red
Fallen Ferromancer: a prodigal sorcerer, that costs 1 more, still a 1/1, and costs 1R to
deal the ping damage. It would be more effective to give Spikeshot elder Infect.
Ogre Menial: 0/4 Infect for 3R, but It has Firebreathing which is nice. If the Firebreathing
used Phyrexian red mana Instead of regular red, then I would love this card.
Razor Swine: the best red Infect creature? 2I'1 first strike for 3. that's decent for a non
Infect card.
Volt Charge: would help control and do some proliferating, begs to be ran with Koth, but
f that's an entirely different deck.

Blight Mamba: It regenerates, that's the only positive, If it regenerated and had reach it
would have been sideboard material.
Blightwidow: Ok, In green there are good creatures... then there are spiders.
Carrion Call: 4 mana to get 2 1/1 Infecting bugs, That's not enough to help board position
I fear.
Cystbearer: 2/3 Vanilla Infect for 2G I'll pass.
Glistener Elf: Oh Iawd, Is dat sum 1/1 infect for 1? yup.
Phyrexian Hydra: 7/7 infect for 5 Is good. Too bad it's a hydra and gives the blocked or
blocking creature wither. Begs to be used with Melira, Sylvok Outkast.
Phyrexian Swarmlord: if you can keep this 6 drop on the board long enough(2 turns?)
you just win. The down side Is that the opponent HAS to have multiple poison counters
and not be able to kill a 4/4. this just dant hold up against the titans as far as power goes.
Putrefax : good card Is good, don't care If it does at the end oft he turn, means you won‘t
be affrald to attack |Ike crazy with it. Works too well with mimic vat.
Rot Wolf: a good 3 drop, fun to do mind games with. early game this dog won‘t get
blocked, especially if you put Infiltration Lens onto It.
Spinebiter: may not be the same power as the titans but it Is just as effective. Deals damage straight to
the opponent, so attack and they get 3 whether they block or not :).
Tangle Angler: Used mostly to lure opponents creatures away from the dudes you wanna
get in for the damage. Honestly Prized Unicorn would be a better choice for this roll as
you don't have to pay G for each creature you want to divert, this just diverts them all.
Tel-Jiled FallenI/Viridian Betrayers: 3/1s, fallen Is prot artIfacts, Betrayers has Infect if
opponent has a poison counter. Why wouldn't you always just use Tel-Jiled Fallen? but
still for 4 It's not good enough.
Viridian Corrupter : you know a card is good when It gets used outside of It's archetype
just because of It's secondary ability. 2/2 Infect for 2G, and it shatters an artifact when It
enters the battlefield.
Triumph of the Hordes Infect Overrun? hells yeah, card can be cute If the deck Is built
like the Overrun decks of the past.
Pistus Strike: Good sideboard card, kills a creature with flying and gives the creatures
controller a poison counter.


Ok, well that's the coloured cards. The colours that stand out to be good to me are Blue,
, Black and Green. The best of blue has to be Blighted Agent, a weeny that gets damage
where it needs to go. Blue also comes with counters and some neat evasion spells. Green gives us Glisten Elf, Viridian Shaman and various buffing spells. Getting the
Infecters on the board early is important, and whats earlier then turn 1? the early game
stuff for Black is not that Impressive other then Phyrexian Crusader. But I wanna get shit done with this deck, all the while not burning my wallet.

When It comes to artifacts, most of them make great support, Plague Myr is everything
you want in an Infect creature, It has Infect, it's cheap, and It accelerates your mana.
Helps you win in every way.

So, question - Aggro or Control?Aggro, and I don't mean the aggro that scoops if the
match has made It to turn 4 with out a win. An aggro that measures the tempo of the
game and still wins relatively quickly.

ready for this? I don't have a fancy name so here's UG infect.


UG infect
TheWillRogers
Type II

Main Deck:
4 Blighted Agent
4 Glistener Elf
3 Plague Myr
2 Spellskite
1 Viral Drake
2 Viridian Corrupter

3 Distortion Strike
4 Groundswell
2 Ichor Wellspring
3 Lead the Stampede
3 Mana Leak
3 Mycosynth Wellspring
3 Piston Sledge
1 Tezzeret's Gambit

11 Forest
2 Halimar Depths
5 Island
4 Misty Rainforest

Sideboard:
3 Livewire Lash
3 Nature's Claim
4 Spell Pierce
2 Torpor Orb
3 Vines of Vastwood

So you may see lead the stampede In there. The reason I chose this over more tezzeret's
gambit is because this Is a deck that wins with dudes, and there's not very many dudes – only 16.  Lead
the stampede will either refresh your hand of creatures, or cut out the next 5 turns worth
of cards that are not creatures.
Piston Sledge is amazing when put onto any mild threat, makes them a gigantic threat.

The sideboard Consists of
Livewire Lash – in case Piston Sledge isn't doing the trick, or if your opponent is using a lot of creature targeted removal.
Nature's Claim – Kills artifacts and enchantments at G and instant speed. We don't care if they get 100000000000 life, it only takes 10 damage from us to win.
Spell Pierce – great against decks using a lot of non creature spells. Easily deals with their first Plainswalker drop or a Day of Judgment, or even a bolt if it's still early, or you can spell pierce a Mana Leak, that's always cute.
Vine of Vastwood – Some may want this main deck, but I see it as a GG drop, not to rough in this deck, but i'd bring it in against someone running more burn then creatures.
Torpor Orb – stops a lot of stuff dead in their tracks. Including your own Viridian Corruptor, but more importantly titansmysticshawksgatekeeperseldrazigodsetc.
Well then, it's been an adventure trying to get this post done, so I’m gonna toss it up here as is. Will do some play testing soon.

Sheoldredg

Ok, so this post is geared for my bros that play magic the gathering, so if your not one of them, you will find very little in this post.

With that out of the way, lets get onto the real article.

With all the cards from New Phyrexia finally in the greasy palms of deck builders the net has exploded with ideas, way more then there was from just the early leak. I had been mulling a deck idea that revolved around Sheoldred, Whispering One since the leak of the god book, and I think now it's to the place that I would like it to be to take it to Friday Night Magic at my local shop.

So, before getting to this deck, lets take a look at what Whats big in standard.
Birds
Annoying little hawks have been hovering over standard for quite some time wrecking face with a few swords in their talons. What makes the birds so amazing is that they thin your deck, fetch a bunch of flyers, can attack in the almost void air, oh yeah, they have flying. How to deal with birds? take care of them before they get their swords and their protection. cards that easily deal with these guys are cheap removal in all colors. Black offers a few ways to take care of all of the menacing birds in the form of cheap board wipes. Black Sun's Zenith is able able to eradicate many birds and friends at only 3 mana. Shrivel is also a verry good choice as for 2 mana you get to -1/-1 everything, the happy part about this is the sheer number of creatures with 1 toughness are boundless in the fragile standard format right now.

Valakut
Easy to deal with, black and blue have land disruption, and red has land destruction. plus the fragile creatures that power the win-mill can be taken out with black sun's zenith or shrivel.

Titans
really, there are quite a few 6/6 creatures with awesome effects for 6 mana. all can be dealt with easy enough with a doom blade(go for the throat if it's the wurmcoil or massacre wurm). the onyl downside is that once they enter the battlefield they do some epic shenanigans, blue has counters for this, and a mana leak is plenty good considering most players wanna drop these come turn 5 or 6, they won't have the 3 to pay.

Planewalkers
theres a few of these guys around right now, though the Hex Mage has been the black answer to them for a while, things just got better. Hex Parasite lets me rip all the counters off of your planeswalker and buff the bugger. it won't stop you from brainstorming once with JTMS, but it will get the worry of him off of my chest.

Board wipes
There are a lot of these right now, day of judgment, phyrexian rebirth, life's finale, black sun zenith, pyroclasm, slagstorm. i'm probably even missing a few in that list but it happens, and it happens a lot. when your in need of a little extra time you do a board wipe. not much you can do about this. unless you have creatures that benifit from being in the grave yard, such as Bloodgast, Reassembling Skeletons, Vengevine, or the pheonix's.

Weenies
1 toughness seems to be the mantra of creatures right now. Shrivel shuts down elves and kuldotha, black sun is a good sweep on turn 3 to take care of elves and goblins, but great turn 4 to take care of knights, vampires and elves once they have an arch druid out.


Playing off of the weaknesses of the main decks we can see that being able to attack and block in the air is important because of flyers and the lack thereof. Being able to survive and recover from board wipes are very important due to the number of them.

here goes nothing, i give to you Sholdredge.
Sheoldredge, V1
TheWillRogers Type II

Main Deck:
4 Enclave Cryptologist
2 Grave Titan
1 Massacre Wurm
4 Reassembling Skeleton
3 Sheoldred, Whispering One
4 Vampire Nighthawk
1 Wurmcoil Engine

4 Black Sun's Zenith
1 Diabolic Tutor
4 Doom Blade
1 Elixir of Immortality
3 Rise from the Grave
4 See Beyond
1 Traumatize

4 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Drowned Catacomb
3 Island
4 Jwar Isle Refuge
4 Swamp

Sideboard:
3 Evil Presence
4 Hex Parasite
4 Shrivel
4 Surgical Extraction

Let's explain some things.
I'm not using Jace The Wallet Burner, nor am i using Duress/Inquisistion/Dispise, Jace is out of my price range, and the discard spells did more  to slow this deck down than to help it survive.

The Engine
The engine of this deck is to get creatures into your graveyard, and to then dredge them back with something like Sheoldred or Rise from the Grave. Enclave Cryptologist is very effective at this. Something nice about this build is that this only takes 1 level counter for the fish-lady to be the most effective. Rise is aimed to get Sheoldred to the battlefield, She then works to slowly thin the herd on the other side of the field, while bringing back things like Grave Titans and Wurmcoil or Massacre Wurm. If it comes to not having enough dudes in the graveyard, you can always traumatize yourself for epic confusion and rises.

The Toolbox
Reassembling skeleton is the ultimate chump blocker, it's a perfect card to toss to the grave with the Cryptologist as it will eventually find it's way to the battlefield. To deal with flyers Nighthawk is in the mix, not to mention the life gain and ability to destroy the biggest baddy that can be thrown at it. See beyond gets cards you don't need in your hand back into your library, plus you get to draw 2 cards for 2 mana, pretty sweet if you ask me. Diabolic tutor is tossed in just to fetch anything that you need, be it an Elixir of Immortality to save yourself from accidentally traumatizing yourself to death, or just to get some of the sorceries and stuff back into the draw pool. Massacre Wurm is nice for a wipe, not to mention the eventual death of their dudes, which will cause them to loose life. Wurmcoil is amazing because of it's ability to split into 2 equally annoying 3/3 wurms upon death. Grave titan is a fun card to play at all times, to get a 6/6 deathtouch and 2 2/2 zombies at the beginning of your upkeep with sheoldred is really cute.

The lands.
Every dual land possible for standard, with some basics to make drowned catacomb worth while. it's pretty amazing how much 1 life from Jwar Ilse Refuge can help.  if only there were a Blue/Black fetch land :(.

The Sideboard
Evil presence is the card designed to deal with valakut. Nice volcano bro, it's a Swamp. Then they cry; one could use spreading seas instead so that they could draw a card. but I would like to make use of more of my mana on my turn, and i believe the draw engine is pretty solid here.

Hex Parasite is used for lulz against plainswalkers, thats it. One could use Hex Mage if they wanted, because that is sacrifice to kill i chose against it, even though i could easily sheoldred it back when a walker gets dropped again.

Shrivel, this just shuts down alot of the aggro decks and alot of creatures in general. well underplayed.

Surgical Extraction, oh god i love this card, perfect for getting rid of annoyances from the opponent.




I believe this deck will do well, it has the answers and the power and the recurrence, although a Bojuka Bog will become the bane of my existence

The Polyphant Massacre

here at the weekly MTG page I will post a blog every week about Magic: The Gathering. Most will be about deck ideas and my thinking as to why they should be good. Sometime in the future i would like to post results of play testing.

Post Date : 5/31/2011

              Some time ago, Jacob Van Luren, a wizards column writer, wrote about a mass polymorph deck Called "It's Gonna be a massacre". This made me lol so hard, I had to come up with my own version. Luren's deck is designed to be a budget build, using cheap but good cards such as foresee. I decided i would like this deck to win, so i bumped the price up to an uncomfortable position, and did my own build.

Polyphant Massacre
 
TheWillRogers
Type II

Main Deck:



Sideboard:
4 Fog

Alright, lets explain myself. The point of the deck is the same as any mass polymorph deck, get some dudes, then make them into game winners. The main deck focuses on pumping out spawn and then mass polymorphing into a win. let's say you go off on turn 5, they should have at minimum 3 lands and 1 other permanent(artifact, planeswalker, dude, enchantment) you polymorph away 4 spawns and get your 3 Massacre Wurms and 1 Terastodon. Since you are in control here, you get the choice of how your polymorphed creatures enter the battlefield.

First: Terastodon
Trigger off of terastodon: turn 3 enemy lands(or planeswalker if they have it) into 3/3 Elephants.
Second: All 3 of the massacre wurms enter the battlefield simultaneously
Trigger off of Wurms: all of your opponents creatures get -6/-6 until the end of the turn.(-2/-2 for each wurm)
Trigger off Wurms: your opponent looses 6 life for each creature lost this way, if they only had 3 lands and a lack of anything else, that makes 18 life lost.

At this point the opponent concedes to the Johny.

That's the gist of the build. let's examine the rest of the lay out.
Token Generators
Khalni Garden
Awakening Zone
Growth Spasm

Mana Acceleration/Land Ramp
Awakening Zone
Growth Spasm
Explore

Hand Fixing/Draw
Jace, The Mind Sculptor
See Beyond

Combo Oriented
Terastodon
Massacre Wurm
Mass Polymorph

Mid game
Fresh Meat

Removal
Beast Withen

one of my favorite spells in here right now has to be Beast Withen, it does 2 things for this deck. Shuts down other combo decks such as Splinter Twin, it also give you opponents a dude that can be wrecked by the wurms for an additional 6 damage. Fresh Meat is a nice toolbox card to have, if it's in your hand, as soon as  you have 3 spawn and if there is no Mass Polymorph in sight, you should definitely spend your tokens to cast this spell. 3 Spawn, and 1 green mana to drop 3 3/3 Beasts is too good of a trade to pass up, it allows you to live by blocking on the ground for a turn or 2 while you dig up a mass poly morph

Although i despise how much this card costs, you cannot deny how incredibly powerful Jace, the Mind Sculptor is. He is key in getting something like one of your fatties from your hand back in your deck, not to mention a straight up ridicules amount of card advantage. See Beyond serves the same purpose.

The Sideboard
Answers and stuff right? well, Fog is a god send and one of the best cards ever printed, this stops decks like Kuldotha Red for a few turns(Marrow shards works much better against kuldotha, but fog is more versatile). Naturalize is just perfect for the format right now. if they drop a batterskull and don't have the mana base to return the sucker -- naturalize that shit. if they are playing artifact weenies(Tempered Steel deck) naturalize the shit out of everything. really, there is no reason not to play naturalize right now, a glorious sideboard. Vapor Snag, a strictly better unsummon, is great for dealing with combos like splinter-win or Relic Whoreder.(soul sisters combo). it also is a great defense card.

Ok, so after playing this in game one, any good player will side board in answers. Enchantment removal, mass destruction, counters, cards like memoricide. How do we answer that? well, depending on the deck your playing you could just go into game 2 only side boarding out Fresh Meat for some form of control, but if that fails then you can just sideboard in a slightly less expected wincon.
Introducing Team America! Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite; Urabrask the hidden; and Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur. for shiggles lets just toss in blightsteel colossus for added terror.

These guys replace the 3 wurms and the Terastodon in the main deck. Same way to win, mass polymorph, except you're tossing out a card that wrecks their hand, 2 cards that wreck what ever creatures they want to play, oh yeah ... your dudes have haste now, attack with everything, a 13/13 Blight'frigginSteel Colossus? GG