Wow, this deck does look pretty solid, very solid with that simple yet effective sideboard. Very nice. +1

Now, a question: Would Virulent Wound be a bad substitute for Grasp of Darkness? I ask only because it helps with the Infect theme.

I would think probably not because it does much less for board control.

However it might be worth a play test just to see since there are a lot of 1/1 out there right now.

Very solid, +1

Have you considered Inkmoth Nexus ?

Kind of deck i like! Simple and effective. Maybe some drawing for mid-late games? Sign in Blood might be useful instead of your 4 extra swamps, since it would probably make you draw a land and another card. Inkmoth Nexus is of course a good suggestion. Hard on the budget though loll.

One thing you might want to consider is the new living weapon Screamwhip from New Phyrexia. Screamwhip on a skithiryx is a 1 turn win.

I would say running Grasp of Darkness along with 6 other kill spells and 4 Duress and 4 Inquisition of Kozilek is waaaay too much. Not enough creatures will forever be the downfall of the deck. Only one or two kill spells against you and the deck fails. If you draw those hand manipulation spells late game they are empty cards essentially. I would run 2 of each of the discards and either Sign in Blood or Phyrexian Rager for some card draw and some steam late game. Also, consider some black pump spells. Combat tricks with infect have their effect essentially doubled which makes them super cheap and super nasty. Pumping an infect creature means you only have to ever attack once or twice the whole game and then pump for an easy 10 poison counters in one turn. That's always a fun strategy. I would drop 2 each of the discarding cards and add in 4 pump spells. card:Vampire's Bite is amazing in mono black. Virulent Swipe is also sick. Play it when a plague stinger gets blocked and then next turn put it on the Phyrexian Crusader . Such a good card. Also, with 24 land, I would drop 2 Plague Myr in favor of filling out to 4 Hand of the Praetors . Late game if you can't attack for any reason getting that automatic poison counter can be the difference between winning and losing. As someone who has played infect at at least half a dozen tournaments in both limited and constructed, I would say this deck is indeed solid with a good sideboard, but needs some pump to really be a competitive deck. Have fun with it man!

Should get in some fetch lands (for card advantage) and Inkmoth Nexus .

I think 10 kill instants is too many, you shouldn't need that many.

Cut out at least 4 of them and I'd put in 4 Necropede

Too many swamps IMO especially with the mana ability of the Plague Myr

Inkmoth Nexus as was mentioned..

I prefer Phyrexian Vatmother over Hand of the Praetors especially since you won't have many creatures ETB with the way you're set up,

I like the Duress and Inquisition of Kozilek , IMO they work great with a quick infect deck since you can disrupt their early game and start tagging with poison counters

I'd make room for a contagion clasp, I can't tell you how many times I've had an opponent at 9 poison counters and just needed to proliferate and GG, but I was stalled out and my creatures weren't getting through (hello Gideon Jura )

I like MBInfect, I hope the next set can push it over the top.

My .02

Or Ichor Rats to get that last poison counter

Ichor Rats gets the job done well in this deck. and man, Gideon Jura ruins infect decks without Hand of the Praetors or Contagion Clasp or Contagion Engine .

if it were me, i would work some piston sledges in there. they hit hard and fast and can make a plague stinger a real threat. its unexpected and can really cause people to panic. also i agree that inkmoth nexus should go in there too. maybe its just me, but i dont think the mimic vat is all that useful in here. i use it myself but i think a little more aggro would make this deck scarier. just some suggestions.

-2 Swamp -2 Mimic Vat -1 Duress or IOK

+2 Inkmoth Nexus +3 Piston Sledge

Piston Sledge outta' nowhere would be cool, maybe you could drop the Mimic Vat for some Ichor Wellspring for some card draw and something to sac for the Piston Sledge ... for more card draw and poison poundage.

I agree that the Mimic Vat isn't all that useful, It won't trigger your Hand of the Praetors ... but you do have a lot of kill spells, to each his own.

Mimic Vat has actually proven quite useful, especially when up against a big beater type deck, and it is always sideboarded out when not. I also like it there when I have to use black sun's so I can have a token creature with infect to work in the last few points of damage.

I am considering adding in Ichor Rats , a good combo with vat, and Contagion Clasp perhaps a pair of ratchet bombs out for a pair of clasps in.

I also like the idea of card:Vampire's Bite, perhaps I will trade it for some kill spells, or perhaps not, all the board control is coming in very handy where I play.

Piston Sledge seems uesful, but I don't think I am running enough artifacts, plauge myr and vat are my only 2 artifact cards right now, so I think I will hold off on it, though I do think it would be a good combo. Perhaps I will revisit the idea a little later on. But for now I think card:Vampire's Bite would be a better choice.

I am adding in a play set of Inkmoth Nexus for sure though, I just did not have them on hand so I was holding off until I get them. But I will add them in for play testing purposes.

Contagion Clasp is a decent alternative to Virulent Wound does the same thing (mostly) for 2 mana instead of 1 but continues to be a useful tool after the initial effect.

If you run card:Vampire's Bite consider a lash or two? I've had good success with them with Virulent Swipe in my deck as well.

Inkmoth Nexus is tremendously against CawBlade and etc as they can't bounce your creature or destroy the tapped nexus.

What do you think as far as Memoricide Versus Sadistic Sacrament ? Trying to pick one to SB against decks like Caw and Valakut

The reason I am not liking Virulent Wound is because to many creatures have toughness above 1 so while it will give a -1 /-1 counter on a creature it is not guaranteed to give a poison counter.

I think card:Vampire's Bite and Virulent Swipe would both be good additions, I'm just not quite sure I want to make this deck that type of deck, especially since combat tricks like that are well known by now.

As for Memoricide vs. Sadistic Sacrament both have their place, however Sadistic Sacrament can target lands so that would be its greatest strength in my opinion, that and you do not have to have a prenamed card.

The strength of Memoricide is completely ridding a card from the game. I prefer Memoricide because you can also see your opponents hand.

I guess between the two though that Sadistic Sacrament is good for lands or if you do not know what you want to remove, where as Memoricide takes care of a certain card to break combos.

Memoricide is best against Caw but Sadistic Sacrament is best against valakut. Close call, but I would stick with Memoricide because you can always just focus on Primeval Titan and break their combo well enough.

I like this deck!

With Memoricide Would you take out Gideon or Jace first? I run a similar deck and was honestly thinking of the Sword of Body and Mind just to stop jace bounces. Its such a fragile combo though I figure if you could either remove their creatures (theres what, 8?) or a Planeswalker, the deck would fall apart.

I don't have a ton of experience, but this deck is the first one I have where I can actually win standard matches against the common builds. I really have 0 desire in playing a canned build, so I am trying to keep making infect work :)

just out of curiosity: how does the deck fare against UW caw-blade?

i was thinking along the lines of inquisition and duress to keep swords of feast and famine (and jaces) at bay myself, but wasnt sure if it was worth it/enough.

I sideboarded 3x Sadistic sacrament against caw blade , but it seems its a crap shoot they probably already have 1 jace in hand by the time you play it. Duress is nice, but this deck depends highly on draw I think.

Played this at a qualifier and either completely obliterated in 4 turns or died real bad, wasnt much middle ground. Definately needs 2 Contagion Clasp to keep it more consistent.

That said, I won a game against a UB control by blowing hitting my own creature with 2 negative spells to lash for the 4 poison counters I needed, which was pretty cool. Might play around with more lashes and just treating it like a motarpod.

Tumble magnet is rough on this deck. I think I may MB: 1 Magnet, 2 Clasps, 2 Equipments not Lash instead of the pumps and see how that goes

Sorry im an idiot i responded in the wrong post :(

@ Yablargo I would definitely take out jace first.

I wouldn't worry too much about creatures though, since there is a lot of control once they are cast out too, though it might be an idea to get rid of vengi.

@ rampensau I have not had any trouble against UW as of yet, though I have not gone to any tournament yet with this. Just casual play against friend. Check back after next FNM and I'll be sure to have it updated.

-2 Ratchet Bomb +2 Contagion Clasp Sideboard

I'm debating switching Plague Myr for Ichor Rats , the mana cost is a little bit more, but with vat it will do good and it will make my creatures completely doom blade protected, however then I will have no creatures for if someone is pro black and I will loose a little ramp... Or I could try out Ichorclaw Myr .

4 Virulent Wound would be better than 4 Grasp of Darkness in this deck. First or second turn kill a goblin and give them some poison is great. And it is still usefull later in game.