The picks of the week are going to be delayed for a few days on account of me not having time to watch Bones and give my opinion of it. I’ll get there. Don’t worry. Today, we’re going to talk Magic. Last weekend, I had the chance to spend the weekend at a friend’s house and we did quite a bit of deck building for T2. The results were pretty nifty, though admittedly, none of what I constructed was technically optimal. The deck I want to show off today is my take on a G/B Poison Aggro Deck.
(26 Creatures)
4 Plague Stinger
4 Ichorclaw Myr
4 Blight Mamba
4 Ichor Rats
4 Hand of the Praetors
3 Cystbearer
2 Necropede
1 Skithiryx the Blight Dragon
(6 Artifacts)
4 Bladed Pinions
2 Contagion Clasp
(8 Spells)
4 Vines of Vastwood
4 Giant Growth
-----
9 Forest
11 Swamp
Now, let me explain some of the design philosophy behind this deck. In general, infect is a quick deck, and it relies a lot on getting smaller creatures through. There are two effective ways to do this, in my opinion. The first is using creatures that the opponent cannot block, via some evasion mechanic like shadow or flying. The second is using creatures that the opponent won’t block, such as first strike or regenerating. This deck takes both of those as two halves of a whole, and uses them to try and run as much damage past the opponent as possible.
Of the creatures in the deck, plague stingers are the icons of the “can’t block this” strategy, and will get the majority of the heavy lifting done. Even one well-timed Giant Growth or Vines can take an opponent halfway to dead. If your flyers are getting through, you’re golden. They’ll be dead soon. Unfortunately, most games don’t go quite that nicely, and so, being the good Phyrexians we are, we need to play dirty.
Ichorclaw Myr is a nightmare to block. So is Necropede. Blight Mambas are little better. Any of these creatures can play havoc with board position. No one wants to block them, because it just makes the situation worse than it was before. You’re either sapping your strength against the Mambas, dying to Ichorclaws, or giving the Phyrexian a 2-for-1 deal with necropede. Neither answer is correct. They’ll either compromise early board position for late-game infection, or let the early stuff through and just lose outright.
For mid-game threats, we have Ichor Rats, which, while small, do provide a solid punch by dropping poison upon cast. Hand of the Praetors are your seigebreakers. Not only do they let you bypass a defensive wall, but they give you the extra punch to just swing through for the kill. Skithiryx is the kill blow, in case everything else has fallen short. It also has the advantage of being regen-able. (Plus, how could you skip the Dragon? Look at it? Best card in the set, in my opinion, for pure aesthetics.)
While the meat of the deck is clearly creatures, we do have an array of support spells to aid our beatdown. I’m running 4 Bladed Pinions mostly because A) Evasion is good. (Anything with a set of those becomes an engine of destruction that’ll do some serious damage past almost any defense) and B) I don’t have Livewire Lash. In an ideal version of the deck, I’d be using those instead.
Contagion clasps are insurance against late-game control. If the board gets locked down somehow, either through a creature standoff, or because of excessive control spells, a well timed clasp can provide removal, and proliferation. I like them, but I think that 4 would be overkill.
The Vines of Vastwood provide two uses. First, they’re cheap protection. Since you’re relying on creatures for the kill, losing them is a terrible blow. Giving them protection is a great way to make them waste great removal, and if it’s not needed, kicking it for a monstrous growth effect is always good. Giant growth is just a solid buff to punish your opponent for trying to kill your creatures off with lightning bolts – or to add some extra punch when your annoying-to-block creatures get through.
The moral of the story here is just to HURT them for not blocking, or HURT them for doing it. Make it seem like there’s no right choice, and you’ll be turning those d10’s up to double digits for the win.
DIVIDE AND GROW, WARRIOR.
Notes: I’d like to note that there are two things I consider non-ideal in this deck. I’d like to have 4 livewire lashes, replacing the bladed pinions. I think they’re a much better threat card, and they punish people for trying to remove the creature. I’d also like to grab four fetch lands and insert them, which will allow me to play Groundswell in place of Giant Growth for an extra point of damage. Other than that, I consider this to be fairly close to ideal. Still playing around with the land balance, and I think that 20 is a good number for this curve, since it’s so cheap.
What do you think? What T2 deck are you building/playing? How has Scars of Mirrodin been treating you?
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