Standard

MBS Brewing

As a kid, I was all about beating people’s faces in with big-ass wurms. What could beat [card]Plated Slagwurm[/card] when the biggest removal your friends played was [card]Shock[/card]? Well as hard as I tried to find a slot for [card]Bellowing Tanglewurm[/card] in the B/W/G infect deck I played with at my local pre-release, unfortunately it just wasn’t meant to be. The card that DID make it in and won me games was a little suprising, a card I wasn’t totally convinced was going to be good, although I should have known it was amazing. My MVP was a land: [card]Inkmoth Nexus[/card], to be more precise! Not only did [card]Inkmoth Nexus[/card] allow me to do quite well at my pre-release, I think that Nexus is quite possibly the best man-land in standard due to its power, cost, and evasion. With WOTC trying to push infect to be a competitive deck, the final piece of the puzzle has been added for players to finally consider playing it.

But how should an infect deck be built in standard in order for it to rise to the top? The “get em’ in” aggro approach is possible, but the infect creatures available don’t seem good enough to get there yet (looks like I just disappointed the people hoping that after Besieged came out, infect aggro would be competitive, but what do I know?). However, due to control’s slow style, getting ten infect counters on your opponent might be an attainable goal. Once again, [card]Inkmoth Nexus[/card] is the missing card in the gruesome quest to kill by poison.

If one is playing Infect Control, what colours allow for optimal results in the control aspect while providing cards to kill with? After some examination, I believe blue and black would make an interesting infect deck that could potentially be competitive!

Here’s the list I have going right now:

[deck title=Infect Control]
[Lands]
4 Inkmoth Nexus
4 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Drowned Catacombs
3 Swamp
3 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
[/Lands]
[Creatures]
2 Grave Titan
3 Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
[/Creatures]
[Spells]
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Steady Progress
4 Contagion Clasp
2 Everflowing Chalice
3 Mana Leak
2 Spell Pierce
2 Black Suns Zenith
3 Virulent Wound
3 Go for the Throat
4 Preordain
[/Spells]
[Sideboard]
2 SpellPierce
2 Ratchet Bomb
3 Memoricide
3 Doom Blade
2 Disfigure
3 Vampire Nighthawk
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

This is my favourite part about this deck: it’s barely infect yet it has the capability to kill by poison in so many ways! The aim of this deck is to allow yourself to be able to kill him once he has one poison counter on him and proliferate the rest of the way. If that method doesn’t work, Skithiryx can do the trick. Finally if all else fails, [card]Grave Titan[/card] is around to say ROAR I’M BIG AND ANGRY AND STUFF. The goal of this deck was to try to mimic the UB control feel with a spin that can be beneficial (or perhaps better). Seeing as this is the initial build it will obviously have some issues, but I’m willing to work at it to make it more consistent in terms of keepable hands.

In essence, the sideboard allows the player to utilize some more traditional UB control cards to improve unfavourable matchups. While generally a sideboarding plan would be provided for a new deck such as this one, I don’t know what the format will look like once other decks are tuned in accordance with the new set. However, I will attempt to give a general overview for the matchups against the different types of decks.

Fast aggro (Mono Red, Kor Quest, etc.)

The fast aggro matchup is hard to deal with, seeing as your deck doesn’t pack huge removal, although with a good draw the deck can hold its own with some quick [card]Virulent Wound[/card] and [card]Go for the Throat[/card]s followed by Clasps and Zenith. The late game should not be an issue thanks to [card]Grave Titan[/card] and Skittles to help push you over the top; either with damage or poison counters. Here’s how I would side:

+3 [card]Doom Blade[/card] +2 [card]Ratchet Bomb[/card] +2 [card]Disfigure[/card], -2 [card]Spell Pierce[/card] –3 [card]Jace, the Mind Sculptor[/card] -2 [card]Steady Progress[/card] -3 [card]Go for the Throat[/card] (only against Kor equipment, then you keep Jaces in the deck).

Bringing in as much removal as possible for the early game is huge, then hopefully Clasps and Skittles/Grave Titan can take care of the rest. Aggro has a hard time dealing with you postboard!

Ramp (Valakut, Eldrazi Green)

As of right now, I find this matchup to be fairly even preboard; you need counter mana, he needs Trap/More Giant Potatoes than you have counters for. MVP cards here are Skittles (isn’t he always?) [card]Spell Pierce[/card], and [card]Go for the Throat[/card]; evasion and denial are two extremely important things in this matchup.

+3 [card]Memoricide[/card] +2 [card]Spell Pierce[/card] +3 [card]Vampire Nighthawk[/card], -3 [card]Virulent Wound[/card], -2 [card]Black Suns Zenith[/card], -1 [card]Go for the Throat[/card] –1 [card]Preordain[/card] –1 [card]Jace, the Mind Sculptor[/card]

This matchup is heavily in your favour post-board due to the heavy counter mana and removal accessible as well as the evasiveness of Skittles.

Control

I really like the control matchup with this deck. There are so many cards that are threatening for the control player that he has to counter, plus proliferate is just the crazy nuts. Also, your list runs more fatties for him to deal with and Skittles has evasion – he flies on that tasty-ass rainbow and beats the hell out of control.

+2 [card]Spell Pierce[/card] +2 [card]Ratchet Bomb[/card], -3 [card]Virulent Wound[/card] –1 [card]Black Suns Zenith[/card]

This matchup is favorable so more cards can stay in. I keep Zenith in against UB to deal with that pesky [card]Grave Titan[/card] and his buddies. Against UW [card]Ratchet Bomb[/card] can replace Zenith since they don’t play [card]Grave Titan[/card].

Well, I don’t think there’s much more to say other than why I think this list is better than the simple UB list that has been dominating standard for the past few months. I think that UB’s main problem has been that it is extremely dependent upon [card]Jace, the Mind Sculptor[/card] and [card]Grave Titan[/card]. Their other cards don’t really have the capability to win games on their own. In the new UB infect, there is [card]Grave Titan[/card], Skittles, Jace and Clasps that have the capability to get there (in the case of Clasps, with the help of a single poison counter). Also I think that while a simple UB control list may be optimal for the top tier of player (PV, Matignon, etc.), for the less practiced player who can only make the optimal play 8-9/10 times (oh the horror!) this list may be a better selection. By no means am I saying that this deck is better suited for weaker players, but I do feel that it is easier to play than the “traditional” UB control.

While this list may end up to be a huge pile of awful, I believe that innovation needs to start happening from the next generation of magic players in order to ensure the higher standards of this game for the future. Patrick Chapin, Gerry Thompson, and the current ChannelFireball guys won’t be around forever to ship the new best deck to all their viewers, so it’s up to the younger players to do their best to take the place of these staples in the magic community eventually. Websites like manadeprived.com are allowing younger players like myself to have a voice and get their ideas out there, no matter how awful these ideas might be. Sure, perhaps this list is not very good, but with time these lists will get better and hopefully be good enough for other people to consider playing at FNMs, PTQs, and maybe even a big boy PT! Sorry to go all Smi77y on you all, but it’s the truth (big ups to Smi77y for continuing to innovate!). I hope some of you will give the deck a test run before letting me know if it’s good or not, it’d make me really happy!

Enjoy the new-look standard!

Professor M!

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