No worries about the double post. I don't really mind it if people do that. Those aren't bad suggestions. I'll have to keep that in mind. I can't remember why I didn't consider Rancor unless I just couldn't afford it (haven't checked the price in a while). As for the Birds of Paradise, at this point I'm hoping to get some Noble Hierarch in modern masters 2015 and replace the birds with them. I do see what you mean about Wild Defiance though as it can be too slow sometimes.
May 7, 2015 9:35 p.m.
Path to Exile will cost 2 life most of the time anyway, since you generally have to fetch the Temple Garden untapped. It also cannot be cast from any land (Inkmoth and Pendalhaven are the most relevant ones) and is uncastable a relevant amount of the time. The life loss from Dismember is mostly not that relevant against the decks that you want removal against anyway, Affinity being the only exception and you can mostly just outrace them after killing a relevant creature.
I would definitely run a full playset of MooK, Become Immense, GProbe and MutaGrowth. Become Immense is insanely good in the deck - you don't really mind occasionally drawing two of them if the first one is lights out anyway, as it commonly is. Might of Old Krosa and Mutagenic are the best pump spells available after Become Immense, and you really need a healthy amount of pump to make the faster kills happen. You cannot plan to go into the late game.
Gitaxian Probe is something that I would run more than four of if it were legal to do so. The information you get from it is crucial for obvious reasons. It also feeds Become Immense and lets you cast it quite easily in the early game.
Island is super awkard in Infect. You honestly don't get anything out of it but it can very easily ruin your opening hand. The only relevant utility is fetching it out for a Dispel against something like Burn when you're at 2-3 life and going to deal lethal damage the next turn - fetching it earlier in the game is pretty much a Stone Rain on yourelf. You also cannot fetch it from you non-Misty fetches.
While we're on the topic of fetches, run 8 if you can afford them. If you cannot, sell your Misties and get some of the Khans fetches. Fetches are pretty much always better than shocklands due to Become Immense - you should probably only run 2-3 Pools.
You are playing too many counterspells in the main. 4x Vines, 2x Blessing, 2x Skite and 1x Spell Pierce is enough - the second Pierce can be very meh at times and Dispel doesn't even get sweepers (Pyroclasm, for an example), discard spells or Liliana. Protection is vital but too many if too many.
Rancor is generally kinda bleh. It really isn't evasion (like Distortion Strike), doesn't hit that hard for one mana (as compared to Groundswell) and doesn't feed Delve (which seriously is very important: Become Immense if one of you best cards). Rancor is also very awkward with Nexus. At least don't run 2.
Should probably be playing some amount of Wild Defiances somewhere in the 75.
Four hard removal spells is 1-2 too many. You can generally get pretty easily away with 2-3. The relevant one to kill, Spellskite, dies to other options anyway. Is your meta full of Infect or something?
November 17, 2015 5:39 a.m.
Firstly, thank you so much for the detailed response. I really appreciate that, but I will have to defend some of my choices even though I do agree with some of yours.
I prefer path to exile because with the fetches, shockland, and noble hierarchs, I can usually get it out reliably taking at most 3 points of damage and at the minimum, 0. With dismember I am forced to take 4 points no matter what I do.
Mook is a good card and I had 4 in at one point, but it felt super awkward to just cast it during my main phase almost like a sorcery. I'm in the middle of play testing to see if it's better as a 3 of or 4. Become immense is also powerful, I could maybe see bumping it up to 3, but 4 seems like I would see it too much and it might be useless or uncastable if I don't see other cards first. With probe, I just like a one of serum visions for the scry. Maybe I'll consider 4 probes and 1 visions but I'm not sure. Mura is ok, but I feel for two life it doesn't really change much during the game since it's only a +2. With wild defiance it's great though so I like a couple in here, but again I'm testing to see if 3 only is better.
My island is in there solely because I don't like the idea of possibly playing against blood moon and getting a good portion of my deck to be uncastable. I agree about cutting the pools to 2-3, but I've always been curious about fetches. Yes, they are good, but why should I run more fetches than have lands I can actually fetch them with? Could you explain that?
I run the counterspell a and protection mostly just to save my creatures from dyingsince most of the time, I'll only have 1 or 2 out and if they die, it could be game over.
I like the 1 rancor because of the recursion factor so even if a creature dies, I'll still have a buff if I need a little more of a push to finish the game. I agree I should probably take out one though. Which is better to remove? The one in the sideboard or the mainboard? And yes I have 2 wild defiance so in the mainboard.
I will remove the dismember from the sideboard since as stated earlier, I prefer path over it. And yes there are two other infect players in my meta plus a pump/burn deck, and a splinter twin deck which spellskite puts work usually in on the first 3 decks and sometimes it's relevant on the twin deck. What are your thoughts on all of this?
November 18, 2015 10:42 a.m.
Pure_Insanity says... #5
Running 8 fetches and 3 Breeding Pool effectively means that you land base is 11 Breeding Pool, if that makes sense. Also you can sac and not fetch a land (if no valid target) to fuel Become Immense
November 18, 2015 12:21 p.m. Edited.
Ok that makes a little more sense now. Still not sold on completely going 8 fetches and 6 fetch able lands, but I'll at least try 7 and 7 and see what happens from there.
November 18, 2015 12:47 p.m.
"I prefer path to exile because with the fetches, shockland, and noble hierarchs, I can usually get it out reliably taking at most 3 points of damage and at the minimum, 0. With dismember I am forced to take 4 points no matter what I do."You have to have at least two fetches and/or a Noble Hierarch to reliable have access to both white and blue mana, though. A fetchlands that you use to fetch for Breeding Pool can no longer get you the white mana you need to cast the Path. Path is generally better, sure, but it can be very awkward very easily and stumbling on your mana is not something you can afford to do with Infect.
"My island is in there solely because I don't like the idea of possibly playing against blood moon and getting a good portion of my deck to be uncastable. I agree about cutting the pools to 2-3, but I've always been curious about fetches. Yes, they are good, but why should I run more fetches than have lands I can actually fetch them with? Could you explain that?"
The utility against Blood Moon is pretty much irrelevant. You only have four fetches that can get the Island anyway and you generally cannot afford to fetch a non-green source just because you want to have access to blue mana after a Blood Moon. The deck doesn't even have that many blue cards to begin with, and Blood Moon is very easily answerable if you're so inclined - Nature's Claim and Spell Pierce both get it. Having a non-green land in addition to the Inkmoth Nexi can (and will) be pretty terrible from time to time, while the additional utility for your Misties will most likely never matter - you'd mostly prefer to fetch for Forests anyway.
Having more fetches than fetchables is fine. You don't really have a use for additional lands after you're at 4-5 lands anyway. I've played thousands of games with my UG Infect and I've never had to worry about not having enough fetchables, playing 3x Pool, 2x Forest and 8x Green Fetch.
If you really want to run a Rancor, run it in the main. In the sideboard it would just take up valuable sideboard slots. It's basically a weird pump spell -> run it in the main.
"I run the counterspell a and protection mostly just to save my creatures from dyingsince most of the time, I'll only have 1 or 2 out and if they die, it could be game over."
Sure, I understand the need to protect your creatures. It's just that you're running too many protection spells and too few pump spells if you have 2x Skite, 4x Vines, 2x Blessings and 3x 1-mana counters. Apostle's Blessing is better than the counterspells in most matchups, and especially Dispel can be very lackluster in some matchups.
"Mook is a good card and I had 4 in at one point, but it felt super awkward to just cast it during my main phase almost like a sorcery. I'm in the middle of play testing to see if it's better as a 3 of or 4. Become immense is also powerful, I could maybe see bumping it up to 3, but 4 seems like I would see it too much and it might be useless or uncastable if I don't see other cards first. Mura is ok, but I feel for two life it doesn't really change much during the game since it's only a +2. With wild defiance it's great though so I like a couple in here, but again I'm testing to see if 3 only is better."
I understand that you want to try different things out, but there's a reason most people play four copies of Mutagenic, Become Immense and Might of Old Krosa. I'm just saying.
"With probe, I just like a one of serum visions for the scry. Maybe I'll consider 4 probes and 1 visions but I'm not sure."
Visions isn't really competing with Probe for the same slot - they do completely different things for the deck and therefore aren't really interchangeable. Gitaxian Probe is something you really want in every single opening hand. Two life is a bargain for having perfect information and putting a card in your graveyard.
November 18, 2015 5:45 p.m.
Pure_Insanity says... #8
Take a look at The Universally Hated A-Team. It runs pretty well. I'd suggest Dispel and Spell Pierce for sideboard and replace with Groundswell, which runs great when you drop a fetch and landfall the next turn if you don't need it straight away.
Also if you come across affinity a lot I'd side Hurkyl's Recall
November 18, 2015 9:44 p.m. Edited.
Pure_Insanity says... #10
Looks good. Probably drop a Might of Old Krosa or two for one or two Groundswell
November 23, 2015 1 a.m.
Groundswell is inferior to MooK, as well as the other pump spells (Mutagenic and BeImmense). There's generally no sense adding any Swells if you aren't running full sets of the other pump spells.
November 23, 2015 6:20 a.m.
I disagree with 326. Groundswell is better than Might of Old Krosa, since you can play it in response to them taking damage. Full playset of Mutagenic Growth For sure. Slip Through Space is better than Distortion Strike, as the card draw is important. Wait. Misty Rainforest is only $60 now? Maybe more Rancors? Also Apostle's Blessing is very good so more of those.
February 1, 2016 9:31 p.m.
No, Groundswell is definitely not better than Might of Old Krosa. It's just different. You will lose quite a few games to Groundswell not being +4/+4 - it is far less reliable then Might of Old Krosa. Being Bolt protection and allowing you to play it after blockers sometimes makes it better than MooK, but saying it is just better is a flat-out lie.
Whether Slip is better than Strike is also defined by the meta. Getting a lethal swing in with Slip is really quite difficult if you haven't dealt that much damage earlier in the game which is a thing that happens quite often. The pump from Distortion Strike is also extremely relevant - Distortion Strike + Become Immense on the next turn is lethal. Distortion Strike + double MooK is lethal, while Slip + double MooK isn't. Once again, there certainly are reasons to run Slip such as your metagame not being that blocker-heavy. The cantripping is excellent but it mostly comes up if you aren't actually going to kill them - the chances of drawing the last piece if you need for the kill from the top of your library are quite slim, and if you don't kill them that turn your creature won't be unblockable anymore. You generally won't have the mana to just cantrip it unless you have a pretty mana-heavy draw. Infect is pretty much always choked on mana.
Oh, right - if you're only running one cantrip, I'd suggest you play Slight of Hand. It's generally better than Serum Visions after the first turn and running a single Visions will not result in you drawing it for your first turn that often. In my opinion the reason to run Serum Visions in a turbo-Infect shell is to have additional things to play t1 and sometimes dig for creatures when your last one gets killed. The card selection is obviously very good on later turns but once again, you generally won't have that much extra mana floating around on t2-3, which is when Serum Visions is good.
February 2, 2016 5:45 a.m.
Pure_Insanity says... #14
Might of Old Krosa is strictly better than Groundswell. MoorK played in main phase forces an opponent to blow a burn spell trying to kill your creature, in which you can pump further later. Now that I say it, I suppose you could do the same with Groundswell although it's less consistent.
February 2, 2016 6:09 a.m.
Is Sleight of Hand better than Serum Visions simply because it can grab something you need right away, even though the visions lets you dig deeper? If that's so, I can see that and will try it out. Like the others were saying, mook is more consistent than Groundswell so I'd rather use that. Slip Through Space and Distortion Strike are controversial so I still need to test them out. I may have to use slip through space though since I know there's someone building eldrazi in my meta. Also, should I change the mana base up slightly? I was thinking of dropping a Breeding Pool and forest for Dryad Arbor and Wooded Foothills
February 2, 2016 12:34 p.m.
Probably switching the lands is a good idea. You can fetch for an arbor, or a Breeding Pool, or something else. Mook is good, but maybe take out 1 or 2 Vines of Vastwood for groundswell, or at least another Apostle's Blessing. But you really MUST run 4 Mutagenic Growth. +1 for infect!
February 3, 2016 11:37 a.m.
Pure_Insanity says... #17
land switching would be fine. I wouldn't run less than 4xVines of Vastwood and 4xMutagenic Growth is not a necessity, infact that more recently won modern series open only ran 1 MutGrowth
Pure_Insanity says... #1
Sorry for the double post, but also swap out Wild Defiance for Rancor. Put WD in sideboard
May 7, 2015 9:09 p.m.