MTG Mechnic Discussion: Infect

Putrefax

It’s been awhile but my friends have convinced me to get back into Magic The Gathering and I fell off the wagon hard.

Earlier in the week I bought a Mirrodin Besieged booster box so I could catch up with some of the new mechanics in this artifact heavy set and I have to say that infect is my new best friend. Now before the haters move in for the kill let me just say that I am a casual player; I don’t play in tournaments and only occasionally do I attend Friday Night Magic and booster drafts. If you want advice on building highly competitive decks then you probably will not agree with most of my suggestions since I play to have fun and not to win money.

Among my friends, milling is perhaps the most feared mechanic. Milling uses cards like Keening Stone, Traumatize and Jace, the Mind Sculptor to deplete your opponent’s library and then Haunting Echoes and Leyline of the Void exile their graveyard to ensure that it cannot be shuffled back into the library. The main reason why I have never built a straight milling deck is that the mechanic is easily circumvented if your opponent happens to have either a Leyline of Sanctity or an Elixer of Immortality.

When a creature with infect deals combat damage to an opponent’s creature it puts -1/-1 counters on it, which is similar to the wither mechanic. The only difference is that the amount of -1/-1 counters is equal to the creature’s power and when it deals combat damage to a player that player gets poison counters instead of losing life. When a player has 10 poison counters they lose the game. The effect can be especially devastating to creature heavy decks but also to white decks because you can gain as much life as you like but once you get 10 poison counters you still lose.

The obvious color combination for infect is black and green because these contain the most infect creatures. The proliferate mechanic, which allows you to increase the amount of counters on any permanent or player, can be found on many artifacts such as Contagion Clasp and (my favorite) Contagion Engine. Sure you can overload your deck with infect creatures can be fun but trying to kill defending creatures in order to poison an opponent takes too much time because remember that you have get at least one counter on a player before you can begin to proliferate.

I am currently refining a black and blue infect deck because even though I like the variety that the green infect creatures offer I enjoy I can never say no to blue. Blue allows you to use cards like Distortion Strike, Sleep and Neurok Invisimancer to completely bypass opposing creatures and put a poison counter on your opponent early in the game. If you are planning on using a Whispersilk Cloak or other equipment to bolster your infect creatures I would also suggest trying to include some Brass Squires.

I chose black over green simply because it is important to keep up the threat early in the game because the infect creatures are generally very small and inexpensive.  Diabolic Tutor is needed to bring out proliferate artifacts to make sure you can take immediate advantage of poison counters applied at turn 3 or turn 4. Black also has Plague Stinger and the simple fact that it has flying can allow you to infect an opponent as early as turn 3 so I would personally load up on these.

I’m hoping that these articles will generate some good discussions of these mechanics and don’t worry about stealing my ideas because, like I said, I do not participate in tournaments. I am, however, always looking for new ways to house my friends so if anyone reading this can think of ways I can possibly improve this unblock-able/infect system please let me know.

Tags: Magic The Gathering