Help me beat my friend's Infect deck!!
Deck Help forum
Posted on Oct. 6, 2011, 5:34 p.m. by n00b24
my friend has this really annoying infect deck and he beats me everytime with those stupid poison counters. i'm trying to avoid using infect myself, while still countering his infect cards. please help!!
hit him faster with a faster deck?or kill everything he plays with a deathspell deck with Phyrexian Obliterator win con or/and Grave Titan
October 6, 2011 5:51 p.m.
hit him faster with a faster deck?or kill everything he plays with a deathspell deck with Phyrexian Obliterator win con or/and Grave Titan
October 6, 2011 5:51 p.m.
MagnorCriol says... #5
It'd help to know what sort of deck you like running first; knowing the colors you're hoping to use impacts our suggestions. Also the legality you're hoping for (so if you're planning on sticking Standard, or Extended, etc) and what your card collection looks like (so we won't suggest cards from Invasion if you've only been playing since Shards, for instance).
For some general notes, though; typically Infect creatures have low toughness, making them weak to a wider variety of removal then normal creatures. Putting in some red direct damage spells, especially mass removal like Pyroclasm or Slagstorm , can really ruin an infect deck's day.
You can also try adding high-toughness beef like Wall of Tanglecord , who can soak up a lot of -1/-1 counters for you (Wall of Tanglecord is also fantastic value for its price, no matter what sort of creature it's staving off).
Living Weapon equipment can be very useful against infectors, as well, due to the way they work. Strandwalker is especially hindering. When the Living Weapon comes down, it comes with a germ token; it'll soak up as many -1/-1 counters as it can, then when it eventually dies, you can put another creature into it, essentially starting you all over again.
(Playing a Strandwalker and Myr Sire together means an infect creature will have to go through a 2/4, then a 3/5, then another 3/5...)
October 6, 2011 6:05 p.m.
rckclimber777 says... #6
Well Infect decks can certainly be fast and they thrive on that. So that means break their tempo or go faster. In this case I'd go with break their tempo. Lots of kill spells and destroy artifacts (if they're running lashwrithe). Spellskite would be an obvious choice if they're running a pump infect.
October 6, 2011 9:31 p.m.
spiralshadow says... #7
Black/red burn/removal with a ton of one and two drops. You need to burn him before he hits you, removing creatures when you can. Burn the Impure is phenom against infect.
October 7, 2011 12:47 a.m.
Break their tempo. I have stabilized many times at 9 counters and won against it. Its not easy but its easily beatable once they run out of creatures to pump.
Life goes to 20Poison goes to 10
So in many ways double the p/t of the creature to realize how valuable it is for the kill. You obviously dont have to but it gets you in a midn set that Plague Stinger is really like a flying 2/2
October 7, 2011 9 a.m.
icekillaxx says... #9
lets say his friend is me
October 7, 2011 9:30 a.m.
icekillaxx:
Well with 15 creatures you have a 28% chance of a creature in your opening 7 cards 7 of those cards cannot be played until at least turn 3.
Also the fact you want to be midrange means with your counter spells you could not successfully cast blighted agent or a 2 drop until turn 4 at least if you wanted to land an infecter. This means that for 5 turns 50% of your counter spells are completely useless.
By the time you are able to land enough creatures to successfully start tacking on a decent amount of damage with your infectors the opponent will than be able to successfully be able to cast a Day of Judgment , card:Black Sun's Zenithor Oblivion Ring , Gideon Jura etc.
That is the easiest way to beat your deck is to stop your tempo with a wrath effect, kill spells, counter spells, O. Rings, and gideon.
What I suggest you do is mainboard 4 Inkmoth Nexus This allows you to be able to poison on turn 2 making all your counterspells effective though you would sacrific being tapped out for 1 turn.
October 7, 2011 11:57 a.m.
rckclimber777 says... #11
ummm.. actually with 15 creatures in a deck you'll have an 87% chance of having at least one creature in your opening hand. As a matter of fact he has a 63% chance that one of the 8 creatures that he can play before turn 3 will be in his hand. (I may have gone to graduate school for mathematics)
October 7, 2011 12:07 p.m.
rckclimber777 says... #12
I do agree however, break the tempo. It's the best strategy period. B/U infect can be tricky to do that against. A turn 2 blighted agent or a turn 1 inkmoth makes life difficult. Tumble magnet, contagion clasp, and DoJ work pretty well.
Play out a contagion clasp turn 2 eliminating any immediate threat. Turn 3 tumble magnet keeping inkmoth or whatever on lockdown and tends to overextend your opponent. Finally DoJ makes them regret overextending themselves. Once you've cleared the initial barrage of creatures you can typically deal with the occasional threat after that.
October 7, 2011 12:13 p.m.
icekillaxx says... #13
ty rckclimber777 i usually have two creatures in hand with kill card and a counter the rest land and maybe a Ponder around turn 5 i usually have skittles in my hand :) it works very well. But yes those tend to fuck everything up xD
October 10, 2011 8:28 a.m.
I dont see how o.0
Granted I was never good at math but 15/60 alone is only 25%
take into account 7 cards drawn you have a 53 card deck so 15/53(?) = 28% with change
October 10, 2011 8:36 a.m.
icekillaxx says... #15
xD do you know how shuffling works? Idk i shuffle well and usually draw lands every other turn and have 2-3 starting and i dont want to do math atm,,,
October 10, 2011 9:04 a.m.
icekillaxx says... #16
Oh and if your running white i would go with some Spirit Mantle s and alot of Stave Off << this card can save alot of your creatures, or it can make sure your opponents dont buff there creatures xD ive done that to someone they were not happy xD hahah
October 10, 2011 9:11 a.m.
rckclimber777 says... #17
He has a 25% chance that EACH card he pulls off the top of his deck will be a creature card.
So if we want to figure out what the odds that he'll actually draw a creature card in his opening hand we actually have to figure out the odds that he won't draw a creature card.
So there is a 75% chance for each card that he won't draw a creature card. So let's take the first two cards. The odds that either of them are not a creature card is 75% each. The odds that are BOTH not creature cards is 0.75*0.75=0.5625 or 56.25%. So we see that already the odds of him not pulling a creature card in the first two cards is just barely over 50%. For an opening hand of 7 cards to figure what the odds are that he wont' draw a creature you take 0.75 7 and that gives you right around a 13% chance.
And there is the stats lesson for the day.
To figure out the odds that he gets two creature cards in his hand is a little more complex and I'll save that for another day :)
October 10, 2011 9:35 a.m.
rckclimber777 says... #18
Just wanted to note here that technically what I did there was an approximation.
The real percentage is actually a little higher that he'll have a creature card in his hand.
The first card he pulls has a 75% chance of not being a creature. The next card he pulls from his deck has a 15/59= 25.4% and the next has 15/58= 25.8 etc. up to the 15/53= 28%. Since all of them are relatively close the approximation will be fine for determining functional odds that he'll have a creature card.
October 10, 2011 9:45 a.m.
Ok.
Still poison not a feasible deck unless you use Inkmoth Nexus + Kessig Wolf Run
October 10, 2011 10:23 a.m.
Oh and thanks Rck for actually explaining as I actually did not understand. Math is not my strong suit I prefer English o.o
October 10, 2011 10:24 a.m.
icekillaxx says... #21
Um i hate when people say its not an infect deck unless you have Inkmoth Nexus granted its a good card. Its just a card i would rather not have/use i sold my only one and i think my deck works wonders without it i dont need it. What happend to being creative? Lately when i see a deck people offer the same advice. Oh your using infect you need inkmoth. OH your using black? Use gravetitan. OH YOU HAVE A DECK THAT HAS LAND FOR MANA!? Wheres Wurmcoil Engine . It seems that in order for it to be a good deck you have to use the same structure as other decks.
October 11, 2011 8:19 a.m.
not necessarily there are just some sick ass cards like if someone says green to me i shout Primeval Titan cuz hes so cool but i see what you mean. i dont play standard because it tends to be the guy with the most money wins and most decks end up the same or very very similar to be competetive, saying that the current standard stuff looks a little mroe flavourful tbh which is really good. i prefer to play EDH because all decks end up different and more flavourful
October 11, 2011 9:06 a.m.
Being creative is fine but to not use a good card in the style it was intended is just stupidity. Inkmoth nexus is turn 2 poison and your other 4 counter spells are officially not useless anymore like they potentially could be for the the rest of the game. Inkmoth demands instant speed removal and nobody will ever run ghost quarter because the card sucks compared to tec edge.
October 11, 2011 9:47 a.m.
i wud prefer to give them a basic land than a kill con still but i agree with ya there. I also agree that certain cards beg to be in certain decks, mono block say hi to Phyrexian Obliterator for example
October 11, 2011 9:57 a.m.
To deny the power of certain cards in certain colors and the powers of the better cards is to build a bad deck and lose horribly.
October 11, 2011 10:28 a.m.
spiralshadow says... #26
"Poison is not feasible without Inkmoth Nexus and Kessig Wolf Run"
LOL okay bud, tell that to my Turn-4 wins without using either. Yes, good cards make it easier, but not having them doesn't make it impossible.
October 11, 2011 10:37 a.m.
i love the release of Kessig Wolf Run for my Uril, the Miststalker EDH deck it made me very happy!lol
October 11, 2011 10:42 a.m.
rckclimber777 says... #28
btw people WILL use ghost quarter. Remember tec edge is no longer in standard and ghost quarter is now the easiest way to get rid of a nonbasic land. With inkmoth everywhere right now, people will sideboard ghost quarter to deal with that threat.
As to inkmoth. We can all agree that it is a good card, however, it is not necessary, but certainly is helpful. I run 3 in each of my infect decks and is wonderful against control. IMO its been overused lately. Decks are simply running it with no relation to infect at all. I'm not a fan of that.
I must agree with icekillax that it does get tiring hearing the same comments concerning wurmcoil, inkmoth, etc. All that to say there are certain cards that are auto-includes in a lot of decks right now. For instance if you're running blue, Ponder is almost an auto-include. If not ponder then Gitaxian Probe and if not those then Forbidden Alchemy . White has Oblivion Ring . Green could probably make a case for Beast Within . Black (and probably all the rest) has Dismember , and red.... well a current mono-red deck is most likely going to be a RDW, which then has a list of auto-includes.
I think saying any card over 3 mana is NEEDED in the deck is a little bit of a stretch in most cases.
October 11, 2011 10:55 a.m.
MagnorCriol says... #29
The reason that people do that is because those are good cards.
Inkmoth provides a very efficient alternate (or sometimes primary) win-con in an infect deck. The Titans are all pinnacles of examples of what something that's 6 mana in a color should do. And Wurmcoil is flat-out value no matter how you shake it down.
Creativity is great in Magic, and is one of the things that makes the game fantastic. HOWEVER. Standard is not an environment that rewards creativity. There's certain combinations of cards that are just better than other combinations of cards for the goal of "winning is the only thing that matters," and there's a host of pro Magic players out there whose entire life centers on determining those combinations.
If we're talking more casual Magic, there's a lot more flexibility, and creativity is very much rewarded there, since winning isn't the thing that matters; having fun is. Since "having fun" changes from person to person there's not a small handful of cards that accomplishes this and there's freedom to explore and do what you want.
But for Standard, again, there's only one goal - winning. You don't have to win with style, you just have to win, and the best cards to do that with have been analyzed and sussed out by all the people who do nothing else but think about that.
This is why I'm not the biggest fan of Standard, since I like to play silly fun decks. But that's not everybody's deal, some people want the competitive feel of Standard, and that's their prerogative.
October 11, 2011 12:04 p.m.
icekillaxx says... #30
I agree with most everyone here, but after a while if you listen to everyones suggestions on using certain cards cause there OP as fuck your deck just blends in with the rest of the decks that look and do the same shit... i like decks that when you look at them it makes you say WTF??? and you play it and it works. Im becoming less of a fan of standard everyday cause everyones deck is standard. Its boring theres no flare decks go under certain categories i miss when magic was a great card game and it was fun! I dont like looking at the decks that won a tourny and they look similar like they stole ideas from each other then i realize its standard no ones deck has much creativity in it anymore. EDH is so much more fun IMO. I liked seeing the decks that won tournys back in the day like the hellbent etc(just an example) but anywho MagnorCriol i have to agree with all you just stated
October 11, 2011 2:07 p.m.
alex_riggin says... #31
my strategy for my 2 friends who use infect decks is just batter them to death. i combined goblins and angels mainly to hit them fast and then hard. if you can get a fast and powerful start with cards like Raging Goblin and pump ur guys up with cards like Brute Force and have good burn spells then you should be straight...but then again i dont know what you got at hand. just my thoughts homie
Spoofed says... #2
Melira, Sylvok Outcast
October 6, 2011 5:44 p.m.