added concussive bolt to the sideboard. it's not main-deckable because lots of decks pack artifact or mass-removal. thus metalcraft is not attainable. in certain matchups though (although the 4 damage is useless) it can win games.
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concussive bolt! i KNEW there was a card i'd forgotten about! it's sitting right here in my pile of red cards! right. i'll do some re-thinking and shuffle a couple of them into the deck. excellent suggestion.
i'll playtest it for sure. but for the record, initial testing has shown ajani to be a BEAST. so we'll see.
thanks very much! i've really taken to infect as a deck concept and i'm determined to make it work, one way or another. and as i said in my previous deck... "infect + giant growth" is unimaginative, inconsistent and easy to play around. i think the main aim is to make it more like a tournament weenie deck, with strong controlling elements and ramping spells like tempered steel.
i actually tried 4x signal pest on sunday, and 2x contested warzone as well.. signal pest was rubbish, lol. didn't do anything valuable. contested warzone on the other hand was awesome. totally worth it and a solid 1 or 2x in the deck, easy.
hihi. tried semblance anvils and they were actually really cool when they didn't get destroyed, which was just about every game, lol. indomitable archangel won't get metalcraft that often with this deck. the dudes cost too much.
uhm. it's an extended deck. why would i make it standard? besides, standard is dull and expensive compared to other formats. it revolves far too much around 'money' cards. i say, give it a try anyway. you may be surprised.
dude, grim poppet is a late-game tour-de-force in this deck. he can redistribute counters from a black sun's zenith at instant speed. and he's recurrable through glissa.
second update of the day: elspeth is a FAR better planeswalker than ajani. i'll be doing a straight swap for elspeths. =)
more changes! (see the previous post) +2 phyrexian juggernaut. a lot of the games ended up going long, which was fine, but it's nice to have one or two late-game bombs in the deck, just for such an occasion. these guys either draw all the removal away from your other guys, or they win you the game. with a tempered steel they are frankly a bit nuts. -2 corpse cur corpse cur did the least out of any of the cards in my deck last night. even if my opponent had some removal or a live valakut, there was always something better to play for 4 mana. in the end, they are a useful sideboard card to side in against decks with masses of board-wipe. otherwise, you're better off with an aggressive beater.
ok guys. mega update: yesterday i spent the afternoon playing games against my friends' standard and extended decks. - valakut ramp (win, lose, win) - blue white control (win, win) - mono blue value control (win, win) - R/G aggro (lose, win, win) - vampires (lose, win, win) - elf ramp overrun (win, lose, win) - mono red burn (win, win) - soul sisters (win, win) - white weenie with baneslayers (win, lose, win) the result. I WON. against EVERYTHING. that's a good sign right there. here's the changes i made during the matches: +2 tempered steel -1 ajani goldmane -1 condemn i take everything back about tempered steel.... after consistently playing the deck against the best decks in the field, i'm telling you, you WANT four tempered steel. and at some points you really don't care about drawing more than one in your hand. in one game, they kept wiping the board at sorcery speed, so i had no creatures, but two tempered steel in play that they couldn't deal with..... drew an inkmoth nexus off the top. game. ajani is still great, but in some matchups i found he ended up sitting in my hand for longer than i would like, so i dropped the count by one. mimic vat didn't perform as well as i would have hoped last night. i didn't draw it at the right times. kept drawing it after they'd just wiped all my creatures. however, my previous experience with this card is that if you get it early, it's a star. today i'm going to try the deck with elspeth in it, to see how it goes. i'll borrow a couple off my mate. but yeah seriously. tempered steel has rocketed to being the most important card in the deck, next to inkmoth nexus (which put more reliable poison counters on other players than any other card in the deck). one thing though. watch out for lightning bolts. my nexus got bolted a good three or four times over the course of several games. ouch!
Here's an update to collectively answer some of your questions: - Yes, I have considered cheap pump spells. No I don't consider them a tournament winning strategy. I have a casual deck for that :). - Elspeth is a real contender for space in this deck. I like her style and i'm going to test her out this weekend. - No, I don't want livewire lash in this deck. - Steel overseer is only awesome when you can somehow give him haste. - I will be keeping this version mono-white. I'll make another which splashes for extra effects such as ajani vengeant. thanks for your support. I'm overwhelmed by the responses to this deck. Thanks again!
There's an extremely good reason why I run tempered steel istead of overseer. tempered steel gives +2/+2, and it does it instantly. You can even use it like a pseudo overrun if you have a few guys on the board. It has an immediate effect and that's what you want. overseer sits there for an entire turn doing nothing, vulnerable to removal and opening you up for a 2for1 if your opponent blasts it before it gets to use its ability. and in addition to this, it takes a steel overseer three turns to give the same effect as a single tempered steel. For a non-infect, vulnerable 1/1 creature that's a very long time. tempered steel is way better my friend. if the overseer had haste somehow, it would be different. But short of mimic vat there's not much out there which can do this.
Hey there. Actualy there's been some discussion on this already :). the general premise is that the lack of haste, and having to wait a turn to use the overseer's ability, is too slow and ends up being a bad play if he gets removed before you can use him. the searcg function on your browser can help if you're looking for specific cards mentioned on this page :)
Ha-haa! mortarpod..... What a great idea :). certainly, if there were 4x mimic vat in the deck they would be an auto include. As it is i'll have to do some testing. Seems like a solid choice though.
Thanks for your other suggestion. if you'd glanced at the sideboard you'd have seen 2x corpse cur right there. the reason they arent main decked is simple: you don't always need a gravedigger type card. Against decks with little removal he ends up beinga very expensive 2/2 and a very poor draw if you're trying to be aggressive. core prowler lets you keep tempo when you are the aggressor by deterring your opponent from blocking or destroying it. At a pinch it also boosts your sub-strategies and defenses such as tumble magnets, everflowing chalices etc. In other words it's useful a lot more of the time than corpse cur. against heavy removal i'll side in the other two curs and drop two prowlers.
Well done, you're the first to notice I didn't use path to exile. :) there's a couple of very good reasons for this though: 1) this deck doesn't care about opponent gaining life. This makes condemn very cheap with no downside whatsoever. Path to exile gives them lands which, in a deck which doesn't like seeing lots of enemy creatures on the board, is a bit harsh. 2) this deck also isn't concerned with winning as quickly as possible with giant growth etc..... It's quite content to sit and wait until it's threatened before removing something. Condemn is therefore a fine choice, especially when you think that an enemy creature isn't really worth removing until it's a threat :) thanks for your comments though. Much appreciated!
Yeah, besieged added a lot to this deck (it already existed just working from scars cards).. funnily enough, apart from inkmoth nexus, core prowler was one of the better cards that was added from the set to this deck. i've got a couple of booster boxes which i'm going to open at the weekend. Hopefully some other cards will present themselves as well :).
The issue of land is one I was keen to resolve very early in the deck's testing... And it'a tricky thing i'll tell you! as of yet, after approximately 50 games, I can say with some certainty that yes, it needed one or two more lands. 21 seemed optimal, given that the curve of this deck is very low. It doesn't need to ramp into anything. The addition of plague myr solved this issue for the most part. It's an elegant solution being as it also gives infect opportunities. you'e got a good eye for mana though. Nobody else mentioned it so far :)
Wow thankyou :). believe it or not, I originally had three steel overseers in the deck, to use with mimic vat. It even worked sometimes, but I found the addition of three non-infect creatures a bit hard to play in a real-time situation... Mostly because in a deck such as this, every creature-drop counts, and the overseer draws a lot of removal. ultimately, if the deck was R/G with Fires of Yavimaya, yeah it's an awesome card. Otherwise, the fact you have to wait a turn is hard to swallow. gideon is awesome. Don't own any though. Oops! Haha blightsteel colossus is pretty much never going to get hard cast though lol. Awesome card to be sure but it belongs in super ramp or tinker decks. thanks for your praise and suggestions! Means a lot to recieve such comments.
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