Easy turn 2 kill and consistent goldfish turns 3-4; 1st at FNM.
Mission: deal 10 damage to opponent asap.
That's it:
10 infect damage = 10 poison counters (not easily removed as opposed to losing/gaining life) = DEAD opponent.
You'll want a small infect creature attacking unblocked and unremoved, pumped up with the cheapest pumping spells so as to have turn 2-3-4 kill.
There is a turn 2 goldfish god-hand: 2 Forests, 1 Glistener Elf, 2 Groundswell, 1 Mutagenic Growth (and another spell):
See that there are 4 copies of each of the god-hand spells (and 13 forests counting the 2x
Pendelhaven
) in the deck, so it's not a-once-in-a-lifetime probability thing, on the contrary... Other infect decks advertise this as "hey! turn 2 win in Modern"... The 2 Groundswell can actually be any combination of Groundswell and/or Might of Old Krosa.
Now check the price of this mono-green Infect deck by Modern deck standards... that's right. Sweet.
Monogreen Infect
This deck started as a budget Infect deck.
It is "only" monogreen and not GU as a competitive Infect deck arguably should be, according to the authorities on Infect.
My aim is to make it a competitive deck via small improving steps. For now, it is monogreen. Next major upgrade will likely be introducing blue for
Blighted Agent
, Distortion Strike, and 1-blue mana counterspells. Land base will likely improve by small steps (painlands and shocklands first, fetchlands next hopefully, finally maybe also Noble Hierarch). Hopefully new MTG sets will allow small changes and tweaks, keeping a personal touch and orbiting but not cloning net archetypes.
It started out from Luiscencias's Cheap Infect deck (kudos to him), which is an awesome starting point to get your hands on an ultra-low-budget Infect deck. I have made slight changes and will keep changing it as I pilot it.
Edit: It seems there is another deck named "$10 Infect" by Odel; it is not the deck I am mentioning, but since apparently I can't link the correct one, I recommend reaching it via the author, Luiscencias.
This deck also caters to the comments and links found on his deck (which I recommend) and other decks and articles found on Tapped Out and on the net while searching for "Infect", mostly from GlistenerAgent (kudos to him also!).
For anyone interested on learning how an Infect deck works, I recommend reading the following, from which I have learned a lot:
(Both articles in Starcitygames), and:
- GlistenerAgent exhaustive description of his deck list Spreading The Sickness
Deck Staples
Creatures:
Pumping spells:
Other spells:
- Without Blue's unblockability, it is important to make sure your small critter survives to sting; there's Apostle's Blessing , Ranger's Guile, and Vines of Vastwood for that. You can also protect the mana dorks.
- Gitaxian Probe allows you to see the opponent's game and draw a card.
-
Pendelhaven
is at worst an extra forest, and can give an extra +1 sting
- Birds of Paradise is just a mana ramper and a placeholder for Noble Hierarch. It can allow you to cast a protection spell and a pump spell in the same early turn. I have sometimes cast a
Wild Defiance
in turn 2 with the Birds, to swing for 15+ damage in turn 3 (a Glistener Elf, 3 lands and the birds: 1 hard-cast pumping spell and 2 Mutagenic Growths yield 1+4+2+2 AND 3 separate instances for the Wild Defiance, ie an extra 3x3 damage, total damage 18... risky but payful.
Maybeboard
- No Revenge of the Hunted: you MUST draw the card on turns 2,3, or 4 to really use the "+6/+6 trample for G" in this deck, which seems very inconsistent... this is a common beginner mistake apparently: you may think you can cast anytime during your turn the miracle card if it is the first card draw. Wrong, you have to reveal and cast it immediately (even if there are no legal targets) if you want to cast it for its miracle cast. That makes Revenge of the Hunted a horrible initial draw, and you don't want to waste slots either, even if they ended in the bottom of your library (something improbable if the deck is correctly shuffled and you pack 4x)...
- No Invigorate either, it is NOT modern-legal (it does not appear in Wizards' banned list because it was not published after 8th Edition).
-
Predator's Strike
seems worth the extra mana over Giant Growth for the budget trample, so I included it, before purchasing Rancor.
- I have included
Wild Defiance
to test it; it seems half the Infect Mages endorse it while the other half think it slows down the deck... For me it sounds very promising, as the most important thing is that triggers are independent; roughly speaking: if someone tries to Dismember or Doom Blade or Lightning Bolt my Glistener Elf and I have a
Wild Defiance
in play, if I cast a Ranger's Guile in response to any of those, I will spare my Elf AND ALSO GIVE HIM +7/+7: 2 separate instances of
Wild Defiance
(the removal and the Guile) and 1/1 from the Guile. If I try to pump my critter and an opponent Spellskite steals the bonus, it will still get +3/+3 from the
Wild Defiance
trigger.
- Some other cards looming in the maybeboard are
Unnatural Predation
, Ranger's Guile,
Sideboard
SB is always environment-dependant, but I will include one for starters, inspired by my local meta...
I think artifact hate is mandatory: Nature's Claim (superior to the good old
Crumble
),
Viridian Corrupter
(so as to not lose creature count nor pump spells count).
Enchantment & Aura hate: Nature's Claim, Back to Nature,
Erase
for indestructibles.
Melira hate and creature hate: Dismember and
Hunt the Hunter
.
Graveyard hate: Tormod's Crypt, Relic of Progenitus.
Against Pack Rat, planeswalkers, Spellskite, living weapons, Deathrite Shaman, bestow, whatever: Pithing Needle.
Coda
I wanted to name the deck after a neurotoxin from the real Necropede (Scolopendra Gigantea, a cool 30cm-long centipede who preys on bats, so maybe this deck is a lethal rival for my other vampire deck, but it seems none of its neurotoxins have a name (and they're not even lethal for humans)... So I named the deck after the infamous US defoliant used in Vietnam, Agent Orange, but then decided it might be too cynical or offensive; as the names of its toxins are not catchy at all, I have settled down to "10 neurotoxins", for the 10 poison counters of Infect...
You might want to check a variation including Blue and Red: 10 GUr Neurotoxins (Modern Temur Infect).
Suggestions and thoughts are very welcome!
