Infect, EDH Vhati il-Dal

This deck is so fun to play, it's also been very effective in my play group. So much so that even though the rules for EDH still allow death at 10 poison counters, we've gone ahead and bumped it to 15 in our house rules. But if you want to kick some butt, you can follow the rules and stay at 10.

I want to talk about certain cards just jump out as being amazing in this type of deck, the first card that shines is the general, Vhati il-Dal there's just so much shenanigans that this guy can normally perform, and then add to that -1/-1 counters and he becomes the ultimate in tricky combat assessments.

Surestrike Trident has never been this good. With Vhati and an infect defender it's first strike ability can kill any attacker and then you can unattached it EoT to get through for poison counters!

Virdian Claw is normally so-so but with infect it makes any 2/2 superior to 3/3 in combat and with Vhati it's a kill. So it's just better not to block ;)

Blinding Powder with infect allows you to attack into anything and either get through for poison counters or give a creature a -1/-1 counter or two. Then reequip to an untapped infect creature for a very unappetizing board presence before passing the turn.

Tangle Angler is awesome, pay 4-6 green and you might be able to alpha strike for lethal. It'll kill most any utility creature and with Vhati it's point removal. With the current play state of Indestructible Gods it makes Tangle Angler even that much better.

Vigor. He's a win condition and he makes every infect creature amazing! It gives me smiles.

So the deck is very much an attrition build. I could attempt to get 5-6 infect creatures and then play Craterhoof Behemoth, but that's not what I decided to do. This deck takes a bit of patience. 1-2 poison counters for each opponent is it's real goal as proliferate can do the rest if it has too.

It's a very creature heavy deck so the key is to play smart and not over extend the deck by playing too many creatures. A board wipe can be very bad if you play every single card from your hand. The importance is to realize that this deck is not going to swarm through for the win. It's going to create combat states that aren't fun for an opponents to attack into, nor defend against. So the way to win is going to play a couple creatures and use the general or artifacts to pick away at opponents.

Most EDH decks are not built to deal with -1/-1 counters well, so use that to your advantage.

And most importantly have fun!

• EDH
• Black
• Green
• Mechanic