Discussion Forum

The thing with EDH is that it's based on a spirit of fair play and house rules.

there's lots of commanders that kinda break the game or defeat the purpose/spirit of playing the EDH format but which specific ones are banned varies from group to group.

I think most groups have come up with house rules to deal with infect...usually upping the number of poison counters required to win to 15 or 20.

In the end, if the ppl you play with consider infect in EDH to be a dick move, well...don't play infect with them.

To be honest, I think bringing back poison is the worst mistake wizards has done in the last decade.

Cut down on the infect. Make a big creature and give it infect it would be a surprise move. And as for being the worst in decades it's not it's a chalage

in order
1) keeping a deck alive when 2-5 players are all trying to kill it simulatenously is a difficult job for any deck. i mean dude, wizards when wizards made the archenemy variant they gave the archenemy scheme cards for a specific reason right?
2) id say the best way to win isnt so much by changing your deck but by changing your strategy. you said you try to do equal damage to each of your opponents, and my strategys always been "take out the biggest threat first, then the next bi
6ggest, and so on" that way yo eliminate the dangerous opponents before they can kill you
3) it gives you a distinct advantage, yes, but you knew that when you picked infect right? is it unfair? well the EDH ban list doesnt ban any infect cards, so your opponent has just as much oppurtunity to build an EDH infect deck. yes, its fair, though you may want to discuss a higher poison counter total than the basic 10 (since you get 40 life and in general infect should kill twice as fast, i reccomend 20)
4) EDH is a casual format, not a competitive one. that means the game should be about having fun and not just trying to win. do you think youd have more fun with a full infect deck or with just enough infect to handle life gain decks? i personally avoid splitting infect and regular damage on principle, but its thats just my preference
5) u/g control? ive seen more people get pissed off to that combo (not necessarily just in EDH, but in general) than any other deck ever. it seems like the first time you counter a spell that your opponent wanted they cuss you out and quit. im not saying you cant do it... but given your reasoning it seems kinda like the opposite of help
6) is that seriously a question? EVERYBODY LIKES WAFFLES!!!! :D

also... this is the EDH deck i play. http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=306931 its elves, so it has lots of life gain (though it never quite gets infinite life) would i call you a douche for playing infect? absolutely. would i mean it? no. would i scoop up my cards and quit? no. would i be laughing when i said it? yes. would i summon an army of treehugging hippies to run you over and destroy you? of course, thats the point of the game

The reason EDH starts at 40 life is to make the game last longer which means people can start playing cards that would otherwise be unplayable because of high mana cost. A near unplayable card like Myojin of Seeing Winds is actually very good in EDH because you have the time to hard cast it and if you do it generates an insane amount of cardadvantage. It's fun to be able to play cards like that.
So is it being clever to screw over the fundamentals of EDH, what makes the format a playable format? I don't think so, it's being a dick. If you want to kill people in a few turns go play another format, EDH players like long games and you ruin the fun by cheating that.

- Infect is a seriously broken mechanic.
- Playing something really unfair like combo or infect in multiplayer gets you killed, deal with it.
- Using infect as an occasional suprise effect is the way to go, Now you're thinking EDH.

Seems like I find myself agreeing with Seth a lot lately!

Anyhow, I have to echo the above. People don't enjoy playing with infect in EDH because it circumvents the 40 life pool. If you give a blightsteel colossus evasion (which is easy to do, especially because it's already indestructible) you can eliminate each player turn by turn, and because EDH has such a ridiculously vast pool of cards you can potentially be playing, you could cheat this thing out with haste and evasion and swing immediately.

Infect was even maligned in standard and block constructed when it came out because it halfed the dmg necessary to kill. At least in those two formats, it wasn't so powerful that it broke the game because infect cards are generally slower (in EDH, this isn't a problem).

In EDH, we are talking about a (generally) much less competitive, much more social game. If you want to be a social outcast in a social setting, expect to be the first one killed just because the other players at the table have no interest in A) Letting you win, B) Getting to know you or C) Allowing infect to become generally accepted in their circle.

It would be my advice to you to just choose another route. EDH is my favorite format. It can easily be yours too, and there's HUNDREDS of great generals out there for you to build around. Next time, it might be a good idea to pick something that draws less political aggro.

Another option!
You might find it a fun exercise to build a political deck. One where you build everyone up equally with cards like:
Great card draw that everyone will enjoy, and could extend your life by quite a bit.
Howling Mine
Rites of Flourishing
Font of Mythos
Vision Skeins

Great creature cards that won't draw hate, and may actually do the opposite!
Arbiter of Knollridge
Jötun Grunt
Nin, the Pain Artist Possible General
Ruhan of the Fomori Another great general, frees up a third color and is quite strong in 1v1 while very diplomatic in multi.
Spurnmage Advocate
Zedruu the Greathearted Another fantastic general. This one can be REALLY interesting with a lot of cool win conditions, as in "lending" your permanents to others while you gain life/card draw, then stealing them all back with something like Insurrection and killing them. There's also a lot of permanents out there with extreme upkeeps like creature sacrifice or penalties for failing to pay the upkeep, they make great cards to donate via Zedruu.

Cards like these will keep heat off you for a bit while you work on setting up and building a good social/political standing:
Soul Snare
Propaganda
Ghostly Prison
Norn's Annex
Prison Term

And don't forget the Vow cards. They can be handy for building up your creatures in an aggro setting, or switching the aggression of an opponent's creatures that might be hassling you!
Vow of Duty
Vow of Flight
Vow of Malice
Vow of Wildness
Vow of Lightning

Do poeple actually use Nin, the Pain Artist to shoot anything but their own or possibly allied creatuers? If I see Nin I'm thinking insane draw engine.

[QUOTE=Seth]Do poeple actually use Nin, the Pain Artist to shoot anything but their own or possibly allied creatuers? If I see Nin I'm thinking insane draw engine.[/QUOTE]

In 1v1, of course, insane draw engine. In multi, politics gets involved. "Who wants some cards?"

True, and I do love me some multiplayer politics. Politics aside, the guy holding all the cards usually wins the game though so don't be to good to your opponents :)

In our group almost everyone has some degree of infect in their decks for the "just in case" sort of win. Only a few of us actually create dedicated in fect decks mainly due to the lack of decent creatures to win with. Overall infect shouldn't be that big of a deal to beat if they are playing the correct removal. Especially in a 6 player game.


But if your looking to win more then its better to have a "surpise I win" kind of infect attack. Such as throwing tainted strike in to kill someone or having grafted exoskeleton to give an already powerful or resiliant creatuer infect.

Or proliferation also works if you can find a good way to proliferate like a boss.

Infect is a rather weak strategy because there are so few cards with it and most of them are rather underwhelming in an EDH context.

Even with 40 life, you usually are not the person doing all the damage so you truly only have to do 21 general or just the last point to win. With infect, you're likely the only person at the table running it so it will be a lot harder to kill everyone with it. You can usually "rush" or "surprise" kill one player but it is a multiplayer format.

However, because of Blightsteel, Tainted strike, etc our group has upped the requirement to 15 so it's not usually a one shot. Blightsteel is usually too much of a threat of Bribery to be played and Tainted Strike or other "surprise" kill effects only work on one player giving everyone else enough time to answer it or kill you.

If you like infect, go for it. As long as you aren't killing the table before turn 5-6, most everything is fair game. The best bet is going to be proliferate kills (Core Prowler?) and pestilence creatures (Pestilence Demon, Thrashing Wumpus, etc) with exoskeleton or another source giving it infect.