New at this forum thing so sorry that everything isn't as organized as it could be. Been playing a bit of legacy and wanted to get into standard so I put together this deck with the cards I have. feel free to tear it to pieces.
First of all, you want to divide your deck up into parts. It's really hard to read your list because it's not categorized neatly which might be part of the reason you aren't getting many replies.
Second, I used to run the exact same kind of deck as you are right now. I switched to Mono Green a few days ago because honestly other than that Blighted Agent, blue does not have much to offer. Remember you are trying to win in a few turns.
Try to get rid of all the big guys. Drop Corrupted Resolve. Since you won't be using blue, drop Hinterland Harbor. Get rid of all your blue's. Contagion Clasp is great for Blue/Black Infect decks, but you don't need it for Mono Green. Drop that. Blight Mamba is too slow because you never want open mana. Replace Swiftfoot Boots with Livewire Lash. That card is amazing.
If you're going to run a Mono Green, my finished Mono Green is a good model for you to start improving your deck. You don't want to COPY my list, but having many of the same cards will help. My deck has been revised several times so this is why it's a good example for you to follow.
I mostly agree with Anonymous, but I still run U/G, and think it's more than viable.
Blue is still good enough to include, even if only for Agent maindeck and Mana Leak and Turn Aside in the board.
Sideboard is meta dependent. Anon's is good vs. an artifact heavy meta. Mana Leak, Noxious Revival, Turn Aside are also good choices, as are Naturalize and Dismember.
I'll be working on a unified thread for all the G/x Livewire Lash variants soon
New at this forum thing so sorry that everything isn't as organized as it could be. Been playing a bit of legacy and wanted to get into standard so I put together this deck with the cards I have. feel free to tear it to pieces.
Thanks for all the advice and I definitely want to keep blue in there. I haven't gotten a playset of inkmoth's yet so I didn't include them before but I will this time. I'm not too sure about Contagion Clasp as I've yet to get a chance to play it and having to tap 4 mana everytime for one proliferate feels slow to me. Noxious Revival is definitely going in my sideboard as it was very useful against a few of my friends legacy/casual play decks. I was also recommended Viridian emissary and snapcaster mage, though the latter is slightly outside of my price range. thanks for the help so far and i'd love more advice.
Some people aren't made of money... they aren't that much better (in this deck at least) that they are worth the cost.
Batterskull costs way too much mana for an infect deck, sure the swords protection is nice but their other effects aren't worth it.
I'd take Darksteel axe over them. Boots of Swiftness are fine
I'd add 1 or 2 Putrefax with Noxius Revival it will end the game much faster than Contagion clasp If you find yourself actually in late game which is normally really bad for infect.
I actually have two batterskulls and 1-2 swords of feast and famine i opened from booster packs. but I agree that they don't seem to fit in this deck. I've got a few darksteel axes too i think. I'll add that to my sideboard along with putrefax.
Mana Leak I find to be strictly better than Corrupted, and Apostle's Blessing strictly better than Stave off (as it can save your Livewire Lashes).
Contagion Clasp and Tezzeret's Gambit I find to be too slow. 4 mana to give them one poison? Gambit draws you cards, but at sorcery speed. It taps you out which leaves your permanents open for removal. You want to try and end every turn with one mana open, to even threaten a protection spell.
Batterskull and Swords I also find to be too slow. The thing with Livewire Lash is you wait untill you can equip it with mana open, swing, pump, and try to leave one mana open for a protection spell (also if you pump, they respond with a kill spell, which you respond to with a protection spell, your guy survives and they take six poison before the stack even resolves, so if your guy gets through, they're dead already)
I'd also watch out for Viridian Corrupter. With so many artifacts in, unless there's a lot of Tempered Steel in your meta, I find you're more likely to end up blowing up your own stuff (Corrupter isn't a may)
I find it best to think of it like a combo deck. You don't want to tap out unless it's to win the game. You always want to have the threat of counters or protection spells. You want to always anticipate they will attempt to prevent you from equipping Lash and having contingencies. I hope some of this helps.
I have this deck as a casual deck. Your too susceptible to removal that you will want to play swords and batterskull package. I won more games through a sword than livewire and pump spells. But then again i didnt play titanic growth.
Thanks for all the advice and I definitely want to keep blue in there. I haven't gotten a playset of inkmoth's yet so I didn't include them before but I will this time. I'm not too sure about Contagion Clasp as I've yet to get a chance to play it and having to tap 4 mana everytime for one proliferate feels slow to me. Noxious Revival is definitely going in my sideboard as it was very useful against a few of my friends legacy/casual play decks. I was also recommended Viridian emissary and snapcaster mage, though the latter is slightly outside of my price range. thanks for the help so far and i'd love more advice.
You should definitely get rid of Clasp. Some people like it and some people don't. I have experience with it, and I never seemed to use it. It's just not a good card. Proliferating for 4 mana? I have better cards that cost less that I didn't put in my deck because anything above 2 mana starts to get on the slow side of things. 90-95% of your deck should be <3 mana costing spells. Corrupted Resolve is not much needed. Remember, the whole strategy is, get your creatures out. Place tons of pump spells, and win. That should be taken out. The reason I said that you should switch to Mono Green is because the only card you have left that's blue is Blighted Agent. This card is amazing and I love this card, but the reason I took it out and switched to Mono Green is because I wasn't going to put in Islands and Hiterland Harbours just for one really good card. Therefore I switched to Mono Green and I personally think you should too. At this point, very few of your cards are blue . Also Inkmoth Nexus would be a better replacement for Hiterland Harbour.
Sorry, I meant Steady Progress not steady resolve, and I just discovered a card called Thrummingbird which looks really good. I mean 2 mana for a 1/1 flyer that proliferates open each successful hit? that awesome. Alright so the contagion clasps are out. I agree I have very few blue cards but I already have the hinterland harbor's. I'll try a few games with blue-green if I'm losing too much then maybe i'll switch to mono-green. but i'd prefer to stay blue-green if possible.
I have this deck as a casual deck. Your too susceptible to removal that you will want to play swords and batterskull package. I won more games through a sword than livewire and pump spells. But then again i didnt play titanic growth.
Generally speaking, if you can get an Equipment on an Infect creature, swing, and pump it, you probably win right there. Removal should only be an issue in response to the equip. One the creature is equipped, it should be academic anyway, but with Swords, you need to have the right 'color' sword to prevent later removal anyway (Feast or Famine is probably best because it stops black removal and the +2/+2 will probably keep the creature out of burn range, but not neccessarily).
Batterskull doesn't offer any evasion (except size), and has an extremely high cost, especially if you aren't running Birds. If I untap, play a land and have five mana, I should either be winning that turn, or dead anyway.
At least with Lash if you equip your creature and pass turn with mana open, and they target it with a removal spell, and you respond with a targetted protection spell, they take four poison anyway, and are essentially one swing from death even without Titanic or Mutagenic. An unblocked swing followed by any targetting spell will do it.
You can make Swords and Batterskull work, I just happen to greatly prefer Livewire Lash. The versatility it offers makes it worthwhile, in my book.
You should definitely get rid of Clasp. Some people like it and some people don't. I have experience with it, and I never seemed to use it. It's just not a good card. Proliferating for 4 mana? I have better cards that cost less that I didn't put in my deck because anything above 2 mana starts to get on the slow side of things. 90-95% of your deck should be <3 mana costing spells. Corrupted Resolve is not much needed. Remember, the whole strategy is, get your creatures out. Place tons of pump spells, and win. That should be taken out. The reason I said that you should switch to Mono Green is because the only card you have left that's blue is Blighted Agent. This card is amazing and I love this card, but the reason I took it out and switched to Mono Green is because I wasn't going to put in Islands and Hiterland Harbours just for one really good card. Therefore I switched to Mono Green and I personally think you should too. At this point, very few of your cards are blue . Also Inkmoth Nexus would be a better replacement for Hiterland Harbour.
I agree with you on curve and costs. I also agree about Corrupted Resolve, but only because if you're running a fast clock (and I feel U/G really should) Mana Leak is strictly better. Corrupted is predicated on you having already hit them, which essentially makes it useless in the first few turns. Mana Leak only stops being useful when they cast a spell with the 3 open, which either means you're probably already dead, or you're playing RDW and you'll want to board in Mental Misstep. I also generally agree that playing this kind of deck, you generally don't care about their creatures or their strategy. You want to play dudes, protect them, equip them, and get their damage through. You know that you will generally win any race. You don't care about disrupting their strategy, you care about them disrupting yours. I like having Mana Leak because it stops the things that can hinder us: Melira, Day of Judgement, Gideon, Inferno Titan off a Heartless Summoning or Unburial Rites.
Mono Green is certainly a viable option. You get a more stable manabase.
You do lose your untargetted counters; you'll likely want 4 Ranger's Guile and 4 Apostles Blessing, with a couple of Withstand Death in your 75, along with Noxious Revival. You'll likely also want Dismember, because you will find things that need to be dealt with. At lest in my experiences.
Sorry, I meant Steady Progress not steady resolve, and I just discovered a card called Thrummingbird which looks really good. I mean 2 mana for a 1/1 flyer that proliferates open each successful hit? that awesome. Alright so the contagion clasps are out. I agree I have very few blue cards but I already have the hinterland harbor's. I'll try a few games with blue-green if I'm losing too much then maybe i'll switch to mono-green. but i'd prefer to stay blue-green if possible.
I'm generally not big on proliferate in infect decks because your creatures are generally smaller than your opponents, so you generally don't want to have your creatures block/be blocked (thus why I also don't advocate Blight Mamba), thus for me, Proliferate always ends up being just 'Target player gets one Poison Counter'.
Think of it this way. I swing with Blighted Agent when they're at 0 poison. They are tapped out, can't kill it. So on the declare blockers step, I pay 2 life for Mutagenic. Now they take 3 poison. In the exact same situation with Thrummingbid, they would take 3 damage and 0 poison. So I personally don't find proliferate to be worthwhile. I'm not trying to discourage you, or say 'do what I'm doing', simply that I've been playing my build of U/G Infect (or All-Infect as I still call it) since before rotation, and have had a fair deal of success with it at my FNM level, going 3-1 and taking second place 3 out of the last four weeks.
What's important though is to define your strategy and build a deck that executes it most efficiently, and that you enjoy running. I'd recommend testing all the advice offered here, and finding what works best for you. Good luck, and happy hunting.
Is the updated list. I'm thinking of adding some naturalize into the sideboard but I don't know what else. Though I agree, that I should wait until my first fnm to see what the people around me play. I'd just like to be as prepared as possible.
ok so went to my first fnm. One other infect deck was there, green/black. and that was the only round I won.
First round I won the first match, but then the opponent sideboarded hard against me with 4 flashfreezes, two black sun zenith's and two doom blades, which he comboed with his snapcasters to keep my board clear.
Second round was the green black infect deck. which was a close match, again, ran into a problem against doomblades. but managed to win with two titanic growths to swing for 9 infect in one shot.
3rd round i was up against a vampire deck that slowly overwhelmed me, and once again doomblade became a key factor. though I also got mana flooded in one of the matches so that didn't help things.
4th rounds I got a bye. I'm already running 4 mana leaks any tips on what else I can do?
I put this decklist together after reviewing again what you guys said earlier. My sideboard is there for the additional mana leaks (In case ranger's guile/autumn's veil isn't enough or to convert the entire deck into a mono-green one.
First round I won the first match, but then the opponent sideboarded hard against me with 4 flashfreezes, two black sun zenith's and two doom blades, which he comboed with his snapcasters to keep my board clear.
Second round was the green black infect deck. which was a close match, again, ran into a problem against doomblades. but managed to win with two titanic growths to swing for 9 infect in one shot.
3rd round i was up against a vampire deck that slowly overwhelmed me, and once again doomblade became a key factor. though I also got mana flooded in one of the matches so that didn't help things.
I'd really advocate trying to find room for Birds of Paradise. I'd also move the Autumn's Veil to the board and put four Apostle's Blessing maindeck.
Blessing deals with threats from any color, and can protect your Lash as well. It also triggers Lash. Mana Leak you want to save for things that don't target, like Day, BSZ and even Snapcaster.
Snapcaster is a pain. I wish I could offer good solutions to it, I just try to outrace it. perhaps Surgical Extraction.
Really, the trick I find is simply to not tap out unless I'm sure doing do wins me the game, and balancing playing aggressively and pressuring my opponent with not overextending.
To go along with that point, as much as I like Boots, I find they compete a bit too much with Lash. Given a choice between equipping Lash and equipping Boots, I'd generally prefer to equip Lash, even if the creature has summoning sickness.
Okay, I replaced the autumn's veil and the swift run boots with 4 apostle's blessing. and took the rot wolf's out to make room for the 4 autumn's blessing. I'm thinking of taking 1 mirran mettle and 1 ranger's guile out to put in 2 unnatural predation so that can trample over the blockers after pumping up the creatures. what do you guys think?
Predation is good with Ichorclaw and good with a Lash-equipped creature. I would certainly take it over Mirran Mettle. It's cool if you have an Ichorclaw with a Lash on it and they figure they can just chump block it and take the trigger damage from any spells you cast.
They block the Ichorclaw and it becomes 5/3, pay some life for a mutagenic and it becomes 7/5 dealing them two poison, then drop the Predation making it an 8/6 Trample and dealing them another two poison, turning a chump block and a few poison into a lethal swing (you still need to protect it though!)
Two other fun cards to consider for the SB are Mental Misstep (basically a Counterspell against RDW) and Turn to Frog (deals with creatures with annoying abilities like Spellskite
..cards to consider for the SB are Mental Misstep (basically a Counterspell against RDW)..
Ummm no. Shocking yourself in worst case scenario doesn't do anything good against RDW and even when you have the mana you stop what? A turn 1 Stromkirk, Fireslinger, Arsonist, Waif?
Perhaps your trying to keep your creature alive against a Gut Shot or Geistflame? Nope they have better uses and normally play one in response to any pump. Better spells like Arc Trail for efficient 2for1 are quite the pain.
I recently played a build with no Titanic Growths in it (did not have them spare) at a FNM. Even with the lack of our new most powerful pump I was able to cleave through GW tokens and MonoW Humans with ease going 2-0 in every match. I lost to one deck, RDW.
Here my friends is where this deck fails, we have NO effective answers for this deck and they have all the answers they need to ours. I was completely wrecked by RDW and there wasn't anything I could do about it. I was only able to deal the poison once via a Lash (8 poison) that by some miracle wasn't Ancient Grudged.
Would love to hear of some triumphs over RDW but I seriously don't think they exist.
Not sure what people are running in the side but Im starting to think 4 Withstand Death looks good.
After some contemplation I am going to try run Mono Green Infect once more like this:
I haven't played a rdw with this yet but I can see how they would be a problem. Turn to frog is definitely a fun card but I don't know what I could remove to make room for it. Perhaps if I ran 3 of's instead of four I can have a greater variety of cards. Part of the reason I'm running noxious revival is that I almost always have a good use for it. Ex. someone ancient grudges or doomblades my only creature/whip
I know my deck is far from the other decks in this thread, but this is how I've been doing it today (and I didn't want to break the rules either). Heavy control with Infect wincons. I was sick of losing to control decks so I thought I'd make one myself, except that I hate playing with the same cards as everyone else.
So there you have it. Basically the idea is to always leave mana open for countering or the thread of countering and try to only play cards during their turn.
Not sure about the split of Disperse/Vapor Snag. Still testing with that.
Also not sure about having another Steady Progress in there. I had 4 but then switched to 3 so I could include another Putrefax. He punishes people for tapping out (say to destroy some Carrion Call insects or whatever). I was playing 1 and not seeing him enough so 2 it is.
Fuel for the Cause might seem strange, but it's good as a one off. Especially late in the game when you have enough land and need the last couple poison counters.
Frightful Delusion is probably a bad card. I don't know yet. Even when it doesn't counter they still have to discard which is good is most matchups (except Solarflare).
As for the singleton Contagion Clasp, I'm still testing. Seems good against the creatures that make it to the board and for the last few poison.
Not sold on the Missteps in the side, but I imagine there will be a lot of aggro decks around so it could be good I guess.
I hope you guys aren't mad I'm crashing the thread with this different variation. Thoughts?
I am worried about the lack of creature's in the deck it seems all you are trying to do is attack with putrefax.
I think you will spend most of your time blocking with the carrion call insects rather than attacking with them particularly with no creature destruction.
if you are going to play B/G
you have to lean on the advantages of both colours.
in this case Green has creature pump spells.
and Blue has evasion.
U/B infect might work better for you since then you can destroy creatures.
3 mana leaks wont be enough to stop them... corrupted resolve just isn't going to work because you can't hit your opponent with infect easily, oh wait inkmoth... still they can be stopped.
basically you need blighted agent you just can't play blue infect without him.
Yeah, previously I had been playing a UB version with Virulent Wound getting me my early poison counter so that the Corrupted Resolve would almost always be viable. A few times I had to attack both insects into one blocker so that one would go through to get Resolve active.
I totally overlooked Agent though, that was dumb since I also played him in a really janky UR infect deck. Still though, I don't want to play him early as I'm happily countering (or Think Twice'ing). But, I think it's worth a shot. I'll think about it.
I don't like pump in slow builds like this because of drawing into it when you don't need it. Drawing into extra counters/card draw is never really a bad thing.
I try not to cast Carrion Call until very late where I can use them to attack rather than block. I just have to keep the early bounce/counter pressure on to make sure that happens. And often times I'll have an Inkmoth Nexus out at the same time. Attacking for 3 infect each turn ends it quickly.
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7 Island
3 Hinterland Harbour
4 Blighted Agent
4 Glistener Elf
4 Titanic Growth
4 Mutagenic Growth
3 Corrupted Resolve
2 Tezzeret;s Gambit
4 Steady progress
2 Viral Drake
3 Noxious Revival
3 Viridian Corrupter
2 Livewire Lash
2 Contagion Clasp
2 Swiftfoot Boots
1 Blight Mamba
Second, I used to run the exact same kind of deck as you are right now. I switched to Mono Green a few days ago because honestly other than that Blighted Agent, blue does not have much to offer. Remember you are trying to win in a few turns.
Try to get rid of all the big guys. Drop Corrupted Resolve. Since you won't be using blue, drop Hinterland Harbor. Get rid of all your blue's. Contagion Clasp is great for Blue/Black Infect decks, but you don't need it for Mono Green. Drop that. Blight Mamba is too slow because you never want open mana. Replace Swiftfoot Boots with Livewire Lash. That card is amazing.
If you're going to run a Mono Green, my finished Mono Green is a good model for you to start improving your deck. You don't want to COPY my list, but having many of the same cards will help. My deck has been revised several times so this is why it's a good example for you to follow.
4 Glistener Elf
4 Necropede
4 Ichorclaw Myr
Land 24
20 Forest
4 Inkmoth Nexus
Spell 24
2 Gitaxian Probe
2 Mirran Mettle
4 Livewire Lash
4 Rangers Guile
4 Titanic Growth
4 Mutagenic Growth
4 Unnatural Predation
4 Apostle's Blessing
3 Autumn's Veil
4 Viridian Corrupter
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Creeping Corrosion
Good luck!
Blue is still good enough to include, even if only for Agent maindeck and Mana Leak and Turn Aside in the board.
4 Hinterland Harbour
4 Inkmoth Nexus
9 Forest
5 Island
3 Birds of Paradise
4 Glistener Elf
4 Blighted Agent
3 Ichorclaw Myr
2 Rot Wolf
4 Mutagenic Growth
4 Titanic Growth
4 Apostle's Blessing
4 Ranger's Guile
2 Mana Leak
Sideboard is meta dependent. Anon's is good vs. an artifact heavy meta. Mana Leak, Noxious Revival, Turn Aside are also good choices, as are Naturalize and Dismember.
I'll be working on a unified thread for all the G/x Livewire Lash variants soon
That's my input, good luck.
le trade thread
Thanks for all the advice and I definitely want to keep blue in there. I haven't gotten a playset of inkmoth's yet so I didn't include them before but I will this time. I'm not too sure about Contagion Clasp as I've yet to get a chance to play it and having to tap 4 mana everytime for one proliferate feels slow to me. Noxious Revival is definitely going in my sideboard as it was very useful against a few of my friends legacy/casual play decks. I was also recommended Viridian emissary and snapcaster mage, though the latter is slightly outside of my price range. thanks for the help so far and i'd love more advice.
Some people aren't made of money... they aren't that much better (in this deck at least) that they are worth the cost.
Batterskull costs way too much mana for an infect deck, sure the swords protection is nice but their other effects aren't worth it.
I'd take Darksteel axe over them.
Boots of Swiftness are fine
I'd add 1 or 2 Putrefax with Noxius Revival it will end the game much faster than Contagion clasp If you find yourself actually in late game which is normally really bad for infect.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
Is it supposed to be Corrupted Resolve or Stave off?
Mana Leak I find to be strictly better than Corrupted, and Apostle's Blessing strictly better than Stave off (as it can save your Livewire Lashes).
Contagion Clasp and Tezzeret's Gambit I find to be too slow. 4 mana to give them one poison? Gambit draws you cards, but at sorcery speed. It taps you out which leaves your permanents open for removal. You want to try and end every turn with one mana open, to even threaten a protection spell.
Batterskull and Swords I also find to be too slow. The thing with Livewire Lash is you wait untill you can equip it with mana open, swing, pump, and try to leave one mana open for a protection spell (also if you pump, they respond with a kill spell, which you respond to with a protection spell, your guy survives and they take six poison before the stack even resolves, so if your guy gets through, they're dead already)
I'd also watch out for Viridian Corrupter. With so many artifacts in, unless there's a lot of Tempered Steel in your meta, I find you're more likely to end up blowing up your own stuff (Corrupter isn't a may)
I find it best to think of it like a combo deck. You don't want to tap out unless it's to win the game. You always want to have the threat of counters or protection spells. You want to always anticipate they will attempt to prevent you from equipping Lash and having contingencies. I hope some of this helps.
You should definitely get rid of Clasp. Some people like it and some people don't. I have experience with it, and I never seemed to use it. It's just not a good card. Proliferating for 4 mana? I have better cards that cost less that I didn't put in my deck because anything above 2 mana starts to get on the slow side of things. 90-95% of your deck should be <3 mana costing spells. Corrupted Resolve is not much needed. Remember, the whole strategy is, get your creatures out. Place tons of pump spells, and win. That should be taken out. The reason I said that you should switch to Mono Green is because the only card you have left that's blue is Blighted Agent. This card is amazing and I love this card, but the reason I took it out and switched to Mono Green is because I wasn't going to put in Islands and Hiterland Harbours just for one really good card. Therefore I switched to Mono Green and I personally think you should too. At this point, very few of your cards are blue . Also Inkmoth Nexus would be a better replacement for Hiterland Harbour.
Generally speaking, if you can get an Equipment on an Infect creature, swing, and pump it, you probably win right there. Removal should only be an issue in response to the equip. One the creature is equipped, it should be academic anyway, but with Swords, you need to have the right 'color' sword to prevent later removal anyway (Feast or Famine is probably best because it stops black removal and the +2/+2 will probably keep the creature out of burn range, but not neccessarily).
Batterskull doesn't offer any evasion (except size), and has an extremely high cost, especially if you aren't running Birds. If I untap, play a land and have five mana, I should either be winning that turn, or dead anyway.
At least with Lash if you equip your creature and pass turn with mana open, and they target it with a removal spell, and you respond with a targetted protection spell, they take four poison anyway, and are essentially one swing from death even without Titanic or Mutagenic. An unblocked swing followed by any targetting spell will do it.
You can make Swords and Batterskull work, I just happen to greatly prefer Livewire Lash. The versatility it offers makes it worthwhile, in my book.
I agree with you on curve and costs. I also agree about Corrupted Resolve, but only because if you're running a fast clock (and I feel U/G really should) Mana Leak is strictly better. Corrupted is predicated on you having already hit them, which essentially makes it useless in the first few turns. Mana Leak only stops being useful when they cast a spell with the 3 open, which either means you're probably already dead, or you're playing RDW and you'll want to board in Mental Misstep. I also generally agree that playing this kind of deck, you generally don't care about their creatures or their strategy. You want to play dudes, protect them, equip them, and get their damage through. You know that you will generally win any race. You don't care about disrupting their strategy, you care about them disrupting yours. I like having Mana Leak because it stops the things that can hinder us: Melira, Day of Judgement, Gideon, Inferno Titan off a Heartless Summoning or Unburial Rites.
Mono Green is certainly a viable option. You get a more stable manabase.
You do lose your untargetted counters; you'll likely want 4 Ranger's Guile and 4 Apostles Blessing, with a couple of Withstand Death in your 75, along with Noxious Revival. You'll likely also want Dismember, because you will find things that need to be dealt with. At lest in my experiences.
I'm generally not big on proliferate in infect decks because your creatures are generally smaller than your opponents, so you generally don't want to have your creatures block/be blocked (thus why I also don't advocate Blight Mamba), thus for me, Proliferate always ends up being just 'Target player gets one Poison Counter'.
Think of it this way. I swing with Blighted Agent when they're at 0 poison. They are tapped out, can't kill it. So on the declare blockers step, I pay 2 life for Mutagenic. Now they take 3 poison. In the exact same situation with Thrummingbid, they would take 3 damage and 0 poison. So I personally don't find proliferate to be worthwhile. I'm not trying to discourage you, or say 'do what I'm doing', simply that I've been playing my build of U/G Infect (or All-Infect as I still call it) since before rotation, and have had a fair deal of success with it at my FNM level, going 3-1 and taking second place 3 out of the last four weeks.
What's important though is to define your strategy and build a deck that executes it most efficiently, and that you enjoy running. I'd recommend testing all the advice offered here, and finding what works best for you. Good luck, and happy hunting.
Sideboard
2Swiftfoot Boots
2Noxious Revival
2Mana Leak
Is the updated list. I'm thinking of adding some naturalize into the sideboard but I don't know what else. Though I agree, that I should wait until my first fnm to see what the people around me play. I'd just like to be as prepared as possible.
I agree with playing livewire lash. Im suggesting swords or Batterskull as back up to it.
First round I won the first match, but then the opponent sideboarded hard against me with 4 flashfreezes, two black sun zenith's and two doom blades, which he comboed with his snapcasters to keep my board clear.
Second round was the green black infect deck. which was a close match, again, ran into a problem against doomblades. but managed to win with two titanic growths to swing for 9 infect in one shot.
3rd round i was up against a vampire deck that slowly overwhelmed me, and once again doomblade became a key factor. though I also got mana flooded in one of the matches so that didn't help things.
4th rounds I got a bye. I'm already running 4 mana leaks any tips on what else I can do?
Any further tips would be appreciated
Sideboard
3Viridian Corrupter
2Mana Leak
2Autumn's Veil
4Unnatural Predation
2Noxious Revival
2Rot Wolf
I'd really advocate trying to find room for Birds of Paradise. I'd also move the Autumn's Veil to the board and put four Apostle's Blessing maindeck.
Blessing deals with threats from any color, and can protect your Lash as well. It also triggers Lash. Mana Leak you want to save for things that don't target, like Day, BSZ and even Snapcaster.
Snapcaster is a pain. I wish I could offer good solutions to it, I just try to outrace it. perhaps Surgical Extraction.
Really, the trick I find is simply to not tap out unless I'm sure doing do wins me the game, and balancing playing aggressively and pressuring my opponent with not overextending.
To go along with that point, as much as I like Boots, I find they compete a bit too much with Lash. Given a choice between equipping Lash and equipping Boots, I'd generally prefer to equip Lash, even if the creature has summoning sickness.
They block the Ichorclaw and it becomes 5/3, pay some life for a mutagenic and it becomes 7/5 dealing them two poison, then drop the Predation making it an 8/6 Trample and dealing them another two poison, turning a chump block and a few poison into a lethal swing (you still need to protect it though!)
Two other fun cards to consider for the SB are Mental Misstep (basically a Counterspell against RDW) and Turn to Frog (deals with creatures with annoying abilities like Spellskite
Ummm no. Shocking yourself in worst case scenario doesn't do anything good against RDW and even when you have the mana you stop what? A turn 1 Stromkirk, Fireslinger, Arsonist, Waif?
Perhaps your trying to keep your creature alive against a Gut Shot or Geistflame? Nope they have better uses and normally play one in response to any pump. Better spells like Arc Trail for efficient 2for1 are quite the pain.
I recently played a build with no Titanic Growths in it (did not have them spare) at a FNM. Even with the lack of our new most powerful pump I was able to cleave through GW tokens and MonoW Humans with ease going 2-0 in every match. I lost to one deck, RDW.
Here my friends is where this deck fails, we have NO effective answers for this deck and they have all the answers they need to ours. I was completely wrecked by RDW and there wasn't anything I could do about it. I was only able to deal the poison once via a Lash (8 poison) that by some miracle wasn't Ancient Grudged.
Would love to hear of some triumphs over RDW but I seriously don't think they exist.
Not sure what people are running in the side but Im starting to think 4 Withstand Death looks good.
After some contemplation I am going to try run Mono Green Infect once more like this:
4 Glistener Elf
4 Necropede
4 Ichorclaw Myr
Land 24
20 Forest
4 Inkmoth Nexus
4 Apostle's Blessing
4 Livewire Lash
4 Ranger's Guile
4 Titanic Growth
4 Mutagenic Growth
4 Unnatural Predation
4 Autumn's Veil
3 Putrefax
4 Withstand Death
4 Viridian Corrupter
6 Forest
10 Island
4 Hinterland Harbor
4 Inkmoth Nexus
Creatures
2 Putrefax
3 Snapcaster Mage
Artifacts
1 Contagion Clasp
Sorceries
4 Ponder
Instants
3 Carrion Call
3 Corrupted Resolve
2 Disperse
2 Dissipate
1 Frightful Delusion
1 Fuel for the Cause
3 Mana Leak
3 Steady Progress
4 Think Twice
2 Turn Aside
2 Vapor Snag
4 Flashfreeze
4 Naturalize
3 Turn to Frog
3 Mental Misstep
1 Fog
So there you have it. Basically the idea is to always leave mana open for countering or the thread of countering and try to only play cards during their turn.
Not sure about the split of Disperse/Vapor Snag. Still testing with that.
Also not sure about having another Steady Progress in there. I had 4 but then switched to 3 so I could include another Putrefax. He punishes people for tapping out (say to destroy some Carrion Call insects or whatever). I was playing 1 and not seeing him enough so 2 it is.
Fuel for the Cause might seem strange, but it's good as a one off. Especially late in the game when you have enough land and need the last couple poison counters.
Frightful Delusion is probably a bad card. I don't know yet. Even when it doesn't counter they still have to discard which is good is most matchups (except Solarflare).
As for the singleton Contagion Clasp, I'm still testing. Seems good against the creatures that make it to the board and for the last few poison.
Not sold on the Missteps in the side, but I imagine there will be a lot of aggro decks around so it could be good I guess.
I hope you guys aren't mad I'm crashing the thread with this different variation. Thoughts?
I am worried about the lack of creature's in the deck it seems all you are trying to do is attack with putrefax.
I think you will spend most of your time blocking with the carrion call insects rather than attacking with them particularly with no creature destruction.
if you are going to play B/G
you have to lean on the advantages of both colours.
in this case Green has creature pump spells.
and Blue has evasion.
U/B infect might work better for you since then you can destroy creatures.
3 mana leaks wont be enough to stop them... corrupted resolve just isn't going to work because you can't hit your opponent with infect easily, oh wait inkmoth... still they can be stopped.
basically you need blighted agent you just can't play blue infect without him.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
I totally overlooked Agent though, that was dumb since I also played him in a really janky UR infect deck. Still though, I don't want to play him early as I'm happily countering (or Think Twice'ing). But, I think it's worth a shot. I'll think about it.
I don't like pump in slow builds like this because of drawing into it when you don't need it. Drawing into extra counters/card draw is never really a bad thing.
I try not to cast Carrion Call until very late where I can use them to attack rather than block. I just have to keep the early bounce/counter pressure on to make sure that happens. And often times I'll have an Inkmoth Nexus out at the same time. Attacking for 3 infect each turn ends it quickly.