The History of Infect Decks | MTG Deck History #10

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I Can Feel it Coming Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com )
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[@RaynmanPlays]

"Finally, I learned why Richard Garfield didn't make your starting life total 10."

[@eeneranna9795]

Just another modern Monday

[@nickbalmes6640]

@@eeneranna9795 ahh another person of culture I see :)

[@corradoalamanni179]

Remy is king

[@Methylimidazol]

Infect is, in fact, a toxic mechanic.

[@BAAWAKnight]

It's the best mechanic there is.

[@jackstrawFW]

I see another victim of Phyrexias salt eh

[@richardsmith9615]

@@BAAWAKnight It's good, but it's not as good as storm or dredge.

[@jonxx0333]

​@@BAAWAKnight as a fellow infect player, i agree.

[@ryanharris738]

I love infect, it's not just the mechanic there is such an ominous lore around it and the phyrexians. I'm getting ready to make an infect tribal deck since it's technically tribal now

[@stevesmith5883]

I'm an infect player, why is this concept called "fun", all games should end on turn 2, the flesh is weak, HAIL PHYREXIA.

[@God-ch8lq]

Based

[@thisguy5493]

"the weak should fear the strong" -you, probably

[@ryanharris738]

I want to be hand of the praetors HAIL PHYREXIA

[@demiurge2501]

Lol I can respect that

[@slackwellman5499]

Back in my day I would run BG infect pump in standard. It wasn’t even tier 1, caw blade was the daddy until it got nerfed. I’d play against a lot of valakut titan ramp ( my favorite matchup), and RDW (my least favorite matchup). Good times when I turn one glistiner elf turn two mutagenic, giant growth, Turn three groundswell.

[@refundreplay]

I used BW Infect. Man, I miss that deck.

[@atraxisdarkstar]

I started out BG, went Mono G and finally settled on UG. More than once I got the T2 kill, blue gave so many more protection options, and Livewire Lash and later Wild Defiance made heavy protection suites extremely effective.

[@troythewizard9940]

Just cause Infect is loathed and polarized (it absolutely is), it doesn't mean we still don't want to hear its history!

[@NizzahonMagic]

Indeed, I guess maybe that makes people even more interested!

[@adambriton5394]

Looks at my mono green infect :gaze upon perfection my child

[@faerie7dragon]

I do love throwing my single copy of Triumph of the Hordes in my token decks. All will be one, hail phyrexia.

[@johngleeman8347]

Leeches will save me! Oh shoot it's a sorcery spell. XD

[@alecdelaney2601]

For those wondering a recent rules change has the potential to make infect much weaker as all creatures with infect have gained the creature type phyrexian meaning the 1/1s that see play will die to a plague engineer in both legacy and modern, where the card is a staple.

[@shirmaster1]

Much weaker is a bit of an overstatement, engineer has always been a big pain once it hits the field naming anything that infects and most decks that run it have enough removal to make me pull my hair out

[@pianojoker2]

One thing I think is annoying with infect is that not only you need to receive half the damage to loose, but gaining life back doesn't help you since it doesn't remove the counters. So very few decks can actually deal with this threat. And not being able to deal with a problem you're facing is a quite fustrating feeling no one enjoys getting in a game.

[@richardsmith9615]

I would agree, but I think given that there are 0 mana counterspells in the format, evoke elementals and endless amounts of removal, it sort of balances out now.

[@richardmolano5538]

I stopped MTG 10ish years ago and saw my cards and omg I love this video!

[@destructimus]

Neat. Same concept of the infect deck I scraped together with what I had laying around, but now I know of a lot of more effective cards than giant growth.

[@jonathangoodman9089]

I still remember playing poison before infect. Nothing more fun than Twanos's Wand, Marsh Viper, and Suq'Ata Assassin.

[@ulrichs.3228]

And Fire Whip. Don't forget Fire Whip.

[@jonathangoodman9089]

@@ulrichs.3228 Yess! I always loved Fire Whip + Pit Spawn. Instant death on a creature.

[@guardianeifie]

Has the standard (or historic) Fynn the Fangbearer "psuedo-infect" deck gotten a top 8 at all? I was sort of expecting it to get a mention in this because it's still poison counters.

[@God-ch8lq]

i play it in historic, i use collected company with it

[@Ekair42]

Nah, it's not bad, but that's all, poison by itself is not a mechanic that powerful, and it relies way too much on Fynn staying alive. It cannot really compete with the big boys In the format, like ultimatum or mono white

[@richardsmith9615]

Thought there might have been potential with fynn and Tetsuo Umezawa, but seems a little bit of a glass cannon.

[@mattblom3990]

No mechanic infuriates my opponents more in casual than playing infect lol.

[@blightedadmiral7006]

Yea

[@ameliaward7429]

@@whitehawkomega Leeches comes to mind but yea, not much.

[@Shawns_snapshots]

@@whitehawkomega Solemnity

[@faerie7dragon]

I love throwing a random Triumph of the Hordes on my token decks. I always announce it the same way too. Something about compleat.

[@jordancourtney9142]

Now this is the good good stuff

[@richardboss2892]

I want poison to return. I would even be ok with introducing more ways to remove poison counters. Like, a player can remove 1 poison counter in exchange for an amount of life. That way, they can push poison even harder since there will be ways to heal the poisoned.

[@Ekair42]

Well, it probably will, it already did in kaldheim with fynn and that deck was fair and not particularly broken. So I think there is space for poison to come back. Idk infect tho

[@Taeerom]

The problematic aspect of infect is the possibilty of glistener elf into a turn 2 win. Back then, I played mono green infect in pauper and could win turn two on the play with a mulligan to five. The way to stop it isn't to remove poison, but to stop the creature. Unsommon only cost u, and destroys the deck, for instance.

[@richardboss2892]

@@Taeerom yeah, speed is definitely the biggest problem. Or they'd have to change it to the defending player can choose whether to be hit with a poison counter, or say 3 life. Idk, just throwing out ideas.

[@syferpolski4344]

infect could probably return as an Infect X, where a creature does damage in the form of X poison or -1/-1 counters. That way, it can't be abused by pump spells

[@refundreplay]

back when Infect was still new, I took a Black & White deck to 1st place finish in Standard. Then moved to Green Blue. Still want to make a BW Infect deck for Modern.

[@fo-ef8qo]

The art on Piston Sledge is sick!

[@BAAWAKnight]

60-card infect decks can hang in there; it's really hard to do infect in EDH. I can usually get 1 or 2, but not all 3 or 4 of my opponents.

[@blightedadmiral7006]

YES MY INFECT HOMIEZ GET RESPECT! It’s pretty bad in modern but I persist It’s not broken, people who complain about them are just mad that they weren’t running creature removal

[@Ekair42]

You persist? I thought you infected?

[@blightedadmiral7006]

@@Ekair42 crap you’re right

[@shirmaster1]

New black green lists run laps around the modern metagame from what I’ve seen so far, huge upgrade with ignoble hierarch

[@blightedadmiral7006]

@@shirmaster1 yes, it’s quite good

[@ryanharris738]

We are the creatures of the night glistening in oil and reeking of phyrexian purification

[@GigaBoost]

Hey! Great video, love to see these history videos. Idea for a top 10, how about "top 10 alternate win conditions"?

[@LukasGrossar]

Nizzahon already did a video on that in the past: kzbin.info/www/bejne/a3XYgpyKoJJorJY It talks about cards that offer alternate win conditions.

[@NizzahonMagic]

Already did it! Infect was excluded though.

[@frankvandorp9732]

I used to like poison when it was still a gimmick on a few underpowered cards. Then Mark Rosewater came along with Scars block and didn't understand how powerful halving your opponent's life total was and, to top it off, thought it was a good idea to not give players any way to remove poison counters "to make it different from regular life loss". How that ever made it through an entire team of supposedly competent game designers, I will never understand.

[@Ekair42]

I mean, those cards made poison kind of a meme mechanic, I think they thought that blending it wither wouldn't be as strong as it ended up being. Also, the problem with it is that like milling, infect is not particularly strong, but is also infuriating and stressful.

[@StaveEntertainment]

One thing that would of made infect interesting, instead of 10 it was half your life rounded down

[@vermillionwraith7810]

one of my friends plays infect and it’s actually kind of fun to play against. they are good against agro decks but if you have good removal, control or board wipes they lose pretty hard

[@severusd]

What happened in Legacy to stop Infect being competitive?

[@Rose-rr5gd]

Know thy enemy

[@Bhandy1123]

I LOVE THIS SERIES!

[@RafaelAAMerlo]

Awesome series as always, please keep up the great work :D

[@breadbox1357]

Mono black infect was my favorite block and standard deck of all time. Still try to pay it in modern.

[@shirmaster1]

Splashing green is the way to go with black infect in modern, you get access to much better pumps and the new ignoble hierarch

[@breadbox1357]

@@shirmaster1 oh I know its better but that takes away for being mono black I play modern for fun and to cast my poopy black cards.

[@McCullyClassic]

These are cool. Keep them coming

[@darriusskyler8493]

I remember being the guy who made a Skittles EDH deck to try and best some dude who had begun being competitive with Khalia.

[@icetwister2000]

Goblin shaman breaks infect modern into black, with discard, and crusader.

[@magiccardmaster9921]

Infects deck be like got to go fast got to go faster faster faster faster

[@kaydenchapman3094]

I love infect

[@mikki429]

Are we expecting Infect to start taking advantage of tribal synergies now that most Infect creatures have been errated with the Phyrexian creature type?

[@shirmaster1]

Probably not, it hurts more than helps when it comes to plague engineer, the only big one I see is cavern of souls but it doesn’t allow us to play many/any pump spells due to it only producing colored mana to cast creatures. Metallic mimic is the other card considered but it’s a bit to slow for modern

[@shinobihouzin]

So happy , years of viewing you rewards me with blessed phyrexia

[@myles212]

“Top 10 decks that run 4 Glistener Elf”

[@johnharmon4826]

Weren't there RG infect decks with Kessing Wolf Run and Primeval Titan in Standard?

[@penguinreloaded7756]

It was an alternative win condition in those decks.

[@tylerowens]

A little surprised none of these seem to use proliferate at all, given how key it is to commander infect strategies.

[@omologo95]

Widely different formats. Infect is a glass cannon deck, aiming to get a kill on T2-3. There's no playable Proliferate cards, the decks don't rely on slowly grinding. In Commander, you can tick the proliferation up over several turns (generally speaking) while hiding behind your shields. So yeah, proliferate is just not a good keyword in 1v1

[@dustinwrightson7447]

I run a infect comander deck i can say ppl hate it but most hate how lil damage you need to lose so much so they wanted to change the rule I have to do 21 infect instead cause they think ten to scarey I think there wimps and don't like I found a funny combo that doesn't have do 20 to 40 damage to win I saw plus I can cast it all before some wheels or before they field wipes or force them to waste most of there start removal

[@XNamelessXNill]

Really dont understand the hate on infect. I've played and played against it. It's not impossible to beat

[@Heltonheta]

Can Pauper be ever considered for these types of history videos?

[@NizzahonMagic]

Only if it becomes a premiere format

[@joshuanugentfitnessjourney3342]

Have you done a video on mill decks?

[@heeshka]

Did green/white infect top 8 any events?

[@jordancourtney9142]

I think it’s really interesting how a non infect card like mutagenic growth really helped out a good chunk of those infect decks

[@blightedadmiral7006]

Thats how all combat tricks were made, besides scale up which was prolly made for infect

[@richardmolano5538]

What was Gaudenis Vidugiris sideboard?

[@phyrexian_dude4645]

Those salty people are just blind when gazing at perfection.

[@QuayDawgg]

DO MERFOLK!!!

[@chrisoliver3642]

As someone who gets annoyed about poison decks, I'm thankful to have missed this mechanic entirely.

[@fortress61]

Infect slivers... do i need to say more?

[@gabrielfiorotto1435]

Better Call Melira.

[@KingofPwnersTCG]

I feel he forgot about ounce upon a time infect in 2019

[@alaraplatt8104]

nice

[@NizzahonMagic]

Thanks

[@ebush279]

madcap experiment into blighsteel makes me go PLUS ULTRA

[@OrbGoblin]

You know i started watching some documentary on the Crusades the other day, and I got about 10 minutes in before I turned it off in disgust and said aloud to myself "I wish I watching NIzzahon instead."

[@snekula5353]

I mean, I'm pretty sure Nizzahon has a video about the crusades on his second channel.

[@NizzahonMagic]

I think that was probably his point haha.

[@dungeonmama1590]

I find it to be a slap in the face that so many cards for artifact decks get banned but infect is “ToTaLLy fInE”

[@jeffersonmagnaye5715]

Cool

[@kingginger3335]

I get so distracted by your hands bouncing up and down lmao

[@sshim950]

: )

[@faust167]

I'm pretty salty about infect, but I also voted for it. I just can't vote for Splinter Twin - Long live the meme.

[@grimreefer4110]

Infect is one of my favorite mechanics. Thank you for this video

[@NizzahonMagic]

Glad you enjoyed!