Theorycrafting Infect [Part 1]

With the war for Mirrodin in full swing and the prerelease only a week and a half away, people are starting to play around with the new cards in the format and trying to see what optimal cards and combos are going to be. Today, I'm going to be delving into infect specifically – since it's a playstyle I really enjoy. I think that the MBS cards are going to give infect a new option, but probably won't dramatically alter the strength of the deck.

This time, I'm going to go through the various colors and see what they could add to a possible infect deck, see if they'll work out. I'm only going to note creatures that I actually consider to be constructed worthy – sorry Contagious Nim. You don't make the cut. You're just not good outside of limited.

Black:

Unsurprisingly to many who had heard of the Phyrexians before, Black is a nearly-critical infect color. We've got a lot of the best infect creatures in here, as well as a boatload of support cards that interplay very well. To start out our creature base, Scars brought us the Plague Stinger, Ichor Rats and Hand of the Praetor. All of those see plenty of play in current era infect, and I anticipate they'll all remain staples in the future. Though he's not seen much at the moment (since infect is so fast) is Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon. At five mana, it breaks the curve a little bit, especially if you're planning on playing him turn 6, for the benefit of haste. But we'll see.

Obviously, on the utility end of things, you get Doom Blade, Inquisition of Kosilek, Duress, and all the usual black staples.

Mirrodin Beseiged adds in Septic Rats, which would fill a good creature spot, as well as a strong creature in the Phyrexian Crusader. With protection from Red, White, and most black removal, as well as first strike, the Phyrexian Crusader is just about the deadliest thing this side of the Mephidross. The Phyrexian Vatmother is a huge body that comes with a negligible downside, and at 4 mana, it could be playable. Thusfar though, black doesn't leap much ahead of where it is.

Blue:

Blue seems a strange place to go next, but this is actually my preferred second color for infect. While proliferate isn't spectacular (too slow unless you're playing full-blown control), Blue still provides the best utility package of any color. First, you get access to potent counter magic, add in some gems like preordain for card advantage and distortion strike to make sure your bodies connect, and you'll have a pretty nice low-mana-cost splash. Jace could theoretically see play in variants here, but come on, we don't really *need* a $100 card to assimilate everything, do we? I didn't think so.

However, it is worth mentioning that Tezerret 2.0 can do fun things with the artifact infect creatures. Amusing, yes. Viable? Eh. Other than him, Blue isn't currently rocking any ground breaking news for infectors. Barring an incredible source of proliferation, or a new great utility spell, blue doesn't gain much from the new set.

Green:

Bringing in the Blight Mambas and, of course, Putrefax, Green helps out with the creature base, but holding mana for regenerate hurts infects tempo a lot. Putrefax is a good finisher, but in my opinion, probably not as good as Hand of the Praetor. Green's real advantage is in power-amplification. Vines of Vastwood protects your creatures while getting them up to two-shot range. Giant growth is always beneficial, and Prey's Vengeance gives you some great bang-for-your-buck.

Green gains some creatures in Beseiged, notably the Rot Wolf and Viridian Corruptor (2/2 infects that destroy artifacts are just the answer to those damned Monuments and Wyrmcoil engines.) Phyrexian Hydra's made some splashes – if only for the 7/7 body – but I think that the self-infect drawback ruins it.

Red/White:

I've seen some experimental builds using RDW beatdown plus tainted strike. Sending a gigantic Kiln fiend in and then hitting it with a tainted strike can get you an easy win, but it seems inconsistant and not terribly beneficial over the B/G/U variants. I'm not going to pay much attention to it. On the white end of things, the situation looks even more bleak. Maybe in New Phyrexia, guys.

Artifact:

Infect does get a lot of help in the artifacts – as one would expect from a Mirrodin themed set. Necropede and Ichorclaw Myr are solid artifact creatures that fit into a deck regardless of color identity. Corpse Cur sits a little higher on the mana curve, but still seems decent. Any power increasing equipment (like Darksteel Axe) is solid. Livewire Lash, in my opinion, is the real lynchpin of any good infect deck – and lets you strike creatures and players alike for infect damage with impuny.

Mirrodin Beseiged brings more to the table with Plague Myr, whom I have mixed feelings about. The lower mana numbers are fairly tightly packed. In addition, there's also the giant 11/11 trample infect indestructible Blightsteel Colossus. Admittedly, 12 mana makes him all but unreachable for a deck that isn't designed to tutor him out somehow.

There's a good chance that we'll see some more infect-benefiting cards in MBS before release. At time of writing, we only have 46 spoilers so far, so there's plenty more to go. I'll post my current infect list in a few days, and trying to explain the current strategy against various decks.

What do you guys think about infect as a mechanic? Do you hate how insular it is? Love it? Who do you want to win? Mirran or Phyrexian? Who do you think is going to win? Post em down in the comments.

Making Knights Awesome In Standard

Today, we're going to be previewing my preliminary decklist for the standard rotation once Mirrodin Beseiged comes into play. The spoiler season is just about done with, and I can't see much else managing to find a spot in here. The deck in question is Mono-white knights, which I've lovingly taken to calling Judgment. I posted a similar list a few months ago, but since then, I've streamlined it quite a bit, and the next set should bring it up to par with the best of the field out there. Barring another sexy one-or-two drop that somehow beats Student of Warfare or White Knight, this should be a final list. The deck feels pretty jam-packed with power for it's size. Here's the breakdown.

-23 Creatures
4 Student of Warfare
4 Leonin Skyhunter

3 White Knight
4 Knight Exemplar
4 Mirran Crusader
4 Hero of Bladehold

Twenty three creatures might seem a little light for an aggressive deck. I know a few friends recommended twenty five, but most of these creatures have abilities to help them survive – and with all the sources of indestructible in the deck, they should have some solid survival. Elspeth can help out later as well. All of the picks here seem pretty obvious to me. Student for the 1 drop spot makes any hand with itself and a land into a playable hand. The skyhunters are bears that fly, which is absurdly solid and serves to put any deck without an answer to flying on a clock. With the power buffing that gets thrown around in this deck, even one unblocked threat can win on it's own. White knights were a controversial inclusion. Some wanted the Accorder Paladin (3/1 for 2 mana, battle cry) First strike ended pushing the White Knight over the edge. Losing an accorder paladin to a chump block hurts the early aggression. If he was a 1/3, he'd be a no-brainer, but as is, White Knight serves as the weakest creature on the list (and that's saying something).

As we move up the curve, we see Knight Exemplar, which is an obvious inclusion for the lord-effects, as well as just being a White Knight on his own. Mirran Crusader swings for a truckload and dodges black destruction (except Lightning Bolt, but hey, who's perfect...other than Thrun). Finally, the Hero of Bladehold gives you a heap of tokens, avoids Lightning Bolt, buffs the rest of your plays on the attack, and overall just acts as a turn 4 siege breaker.

One of the things I like here is how easily it curves without any acceleration. Student into Skyhunter or White Knight, into Exemplar, into Hero. Drop (pick a 5 mana card, or a 4 mana card and Brave the Elements, or Exemplar + Journey/Honor) and win.

-14 Spells

4 Journey to Nowhere
3 Brave the Elements
3 Honor of the Pure
2 Day of Judgment
2 Eldrazi Monument

Shouldn't be many surprises here at first. Journey is the best removal in the format at the moment, answering Titans and BSA's and Wyrmcoils all day long. Brave the Elements does double duty as creature protection and allowing the unblockable alpha strike against most decks. Honor of the Pure is a no-brainer in a mono-white creature deck, especially at such a low mana cost, and double especially when more than half of the creature base has first or double strike.

Day of Judgment might seem like a strange play, but with 8 sources of global indestructible, it can be a 4-mana one-sided board wipe. Monuments more than proved themselves in Elves recently, and with the Hero of Bladehold and Elspeth to provide tokens for the sacrifice, there's no reason not to run a pair of them. It practically turns the team into Baneslayer angels. An army of indestructible, flying, first strike, 4/4 or 5/5 monstrosities on turn 5 is just dangerous.

-2 Planeswalkers

2 Elspeth Triel

I'm of two minds on planeswalkers, in general, but in this case, it's a no-brainer. I'll have the board presence to defend her, so we can rate her on her own merits. Elspeth either makes a small army of soldiers on her own (which can be buffed by monument and honor), or she gains me a truckload of life and wipes the board.

-21 Lands

18 Plains
3 Emeria, the Sky Ruin

21 lands is more than enough. I was running 22 a while back, but ended up with just a hint too much. Three Emeria gives the deck some late-game pressure. Recurring Exemplars onto the board isn't something that most decks can effectively handle without killing the land off. It also makes a late-game Eldrazi Monument into a pure advantage.

Side Board:
2 Day of Judgment
4 Kor Firewalker

3 Leyline of Sanctity

2 Revoke Existance

1 White Knight
1 Brave the Elements

2 Luminarch Ascension

More day for the aggro matchup. Kor Firewalker for anti-red hate. Leyline against U/B control and red aggro. Revoke Existance to stop Wyrmcoil engines and monuments and all the other nasty artifacts that are getting thrown around nowadays. The fourth white knight against black decks – because being protection-from-your-deck is fun. The final brave the elements helps against removal-heavy decks. Luminarch, as always, is a staple of “Oh, you're playing control? Great. Next game?”

Overall:

For those of us who have wanted a good mid-range aggro deck but don't think that Quest > Argentum Armor and Squadron Hawks are the best thing ever, this deck should provide a good alternative. It runs a lot of power and control for what it is, and it can board wipe with the best out there. Give it a shot in Workstation, or Apprentice, or whatever it is that you all use now. I think it's got potential at FNM's at the very least – which is where I plan on testing it out.

So throw some comments in the box below. Love the deck? Think I've forgotten something? Missed a card that just HAS to be on the list? Well, let me know below.   

Mastering The Game: Re-tooling a Character

Announcement: First off, back from hiatus. Back to posting daily (or as close to it as possible). Will give a state-of-the-blog sometime in the next week or so. Now to the post.

When it really comes down to it, the most important thing at a game table isn't the dice, or the map. Hell, I've been in games where we rarely, if ever, used either of them. It's not really even the Dungeon Master – contrary to popular belief. They may run the game, but they aren't the reason for it. He may be king of his castle, but the king must serve his serfs.

That is who this article is geared towards – the players. Specifically, the players and the process of creating their characters. This is going to be a multiple part article that is half to help people, and half to prep this character for a campaign being run by my friend Dan. 

First off, I'd like to throw a disclaimer out to begin with. Character creation does NOT end when the campaign starts. The number of times I've created an awesome character, only to realize he needed some tweaks after the start of the campaign, is countless. You not only should permit – but EXPECT – that characters change drastically over the first session or two as you get used to them.

The running example I'm going to use is a character I made for a campaign that just started. His name is Cedric Skavis. He is a white court vampire from the Dresden Files (the system we're using. I've talked about it before. >Link< ) Cedric is a white court vampire – which means he feeds off of an emotion instead of blood.

After thinking for a bit, and knowing that the White Court is known for it's subtlety, I decide that I want to choose rage as my emotion. This leads me quickly to begin identifying Cedric as set apart from his 'family.' He doesn't do things the way they do. He would rather solve a problem with his fists than by employing catspaws and plotting.

As charactrer creation went on, that aspect of his character expanded and eventually took over. “Punch it in the face” became the guiding principle, and I was excited about it. He took some enhanced toughness and recovery options to help him survive the bullshit he got himself into. I picked up methods for him to inspire rage for him to feed on.

And then we started the campaign, and it didn't feel natural.

Sure, he was a raging berserker vampire with a meth habit. It was an interesting character, but the reasonable answers to situations he was in (Charge, Maim, Kill) weren't going to fly in a campaign that was going to rely – at least partially – on diplomacy. We're going to be dealing with Faeries a lot, and Vampires the rest of the time. If all I do is go around punching things, this is going to be a very very short campaign for me, at least. Plus, it's gonna get old and annoying eventually. I decide to make some modifications to the character.

Here's the old skill list:

Great (+4): Intimidate, Fists

Good: (+3): Endurance, Athletics

Fair (+2): Presence, Discipline, Lore

Average (+1): Rapport, Empathy, Contacts, Conviction, Deceit

We're gonna shave off some of that hate and make a slightly more well adjusted being – socially, at least. Just looking at the list, I like his +3's. Endurance and Athletics both benefit his defenses in huge ways, and I see the character as being accustomed to taking hits very well. Fists I'm becoming increasingly unhappy with, but intimidate seems fine. We'll note that Fists is getting moved and take a look at the rest. Moving down, having a two in discipline is necessary from a mechanical standpoint. Any lower and I'll be running around without power most of the time, but any higher and I'd be straining to justify it. Presence I'm likewise unhappy with. The character has a strong drive to prove himself, but exists on the fringes of things. Bumping this one down too, possibly removing it altogether. Lore seems correct where it is, given his supernatural experience.

Rapport is going to be the first thing I pump up. He may not be the go-to guy, but he should know what he's talking about and be able to talk about it. I could see bumping that up to a three or so. Empathy also seems a little bit low. Possibly to be increased to a 2. Contacts will remain a 1, because although he's becoming more diplomatic, his family still thinks that feeding off rage is weird, so he doesn't have the full force of his potential contacts behind him. This might be a good one to pump up with levels. Conviction seems solid where he is. He fixates on things, but he's spastic enough for it to not be an especially good stat. Deceit likewise shouldn't be high, but should be present. Lying comes naturally to White Court vampires, but he's not good at it.

So, overall, we want to do something like this.

Lower Fists

Lower Presence

Raise Rapport

Raise Empathy

If we drop Fists by 2, and Presence by 1, we have 3 points to work with. Jumping Rapport up by two and Empathy by one gives us a final chart looking something like this.

Great (+4): Intimidate

Good: (+3): Endurance, Athletics, Rapport

Fair (+2):, Discipline, Lore, Empathy, Fists

Average (+1): Presence, Contacts, Conviction, Deceit.

With his skills neatly packed away with a solid array of diplomatic skills – and an answer to conflicts other than punching things – we need to meddle with one other thing to finish re-polishing the character. Aspects are quick lines that fully describe your character. The first is a High Concept – the core of the character. Then is the Trouble – that which is the constant thorn in your character's side. Following that are 5 (6 in our campaign, since the DM gave us an extra one) that act as supplemental information.

Cedric's old list looked like this:

High Concept: Right now, I'm thinking Wrath

Trouble: Family Pariah

Other Aspects: Talk once, Punch Twice

Attention Whore

Sleezeball

Battered and Bruised

I Started It

Meth Head.

I'll be honest. I'm not terribly happy with most of these. Two or three of them basically refer to the same thing, and few of them really give deep information about him as a character. The ones I do like are “I Started It” (because chances are, he did, and he's blunt enough to say so.) and “Meth Head” (because his drug addiction is going to be a recurring problem for him).

That gives us a lot of room to play around with. We're gonna revisit both the High Concept and Trouble, plus four other aspects, to see if we can't nail that down.

That, however, is going to be in tomorrow's article. Comments today? Try and come up with the High Concept, Trouble, and 5 aspects that describe a character. Doesn't have to be hugely in depth, but think about them for a minute and see what pops up. I'll be interested to see what you guys come up with.

T2 Mono-White Knights: A Casual MtG Deck

This post is a little late, but I'm still counting it for yesterday, for the record. This is going to be a quick little post about a casual friendly deck that I put together with a friend of mine. It's T2 legal, but probably won't win any major tournaments. In fact, it's pretty much just a fun theme deck. With that, the decklist for Zendikar-Scars Mono-White Knights.

Creatures:

4 Student of Warfare

4 White Knight

4 Knight Exemplar

4 Kemba's Skyguard

3 Sun Titan

Spells:

4 Brave the Elements

4 Honor of the Pure

4 Condemn

3 Day of Judgment

Planeswalkers:

3 Ajani Goldmane

Lands:

20 Plains

3 Emeria, The Sky Ruin

The foundation for this deck is powerful, fast creatures. The Students of Warfare are arguably one of the strongest 1-drops in the game. The ability to have a 3/3 first strike on turn two without much difficulty really helps the deck leap forward. Any spare mana can just get funneled into them, and they're fast enough to dodge most early removal like mana leaks and such. White Knights are solid two drops, and there only to help the deck deploy quicker. The Knight Exemplars are the centerpoint of the deck – both because they're lords (granting +1/+1 to almost every other creature in the deck, as well as indestructibility.) That said, Exemplars are everything bait. They'll get doom-bladed, they'll get hideous ended, they'll be the solitary target of almost every single removal spell your opponant has. That said, feel free to protect your guys early on with Brave the Elements. That's why they're there. Protect your guys early.

Kemba's Skyguards are solid 3 drops, despite their low P/T. They fly, and with the additional power from the Exemplars and Honor of the Pures, they can become significant threats. The additional life is just icing on the cake. I'm partially torn between the Skyguards and Cloud Crusaders, despite the increased mana cost. I'm going to want to playtest both to see how they do in practice.

Sun Titans, obviously, are your finishers. One of them can reanimate a surprising number of your creatures, including exemplars. Getting those lords back on the field can rapidly change the face of the matchup. Combined with the Emerias, which should be going live around the same time as your Titans, you can really start ramping up to a kill rapidly.

Condemn is to handle those pesky Wurmcoils and Primeval Titans and Baneslayers and other threats you can't quite handle. Honor of the Pure seems like a no-brainer, bolstering everything you have in a very creature heavy deck.

Day of Judgment was a controvercial choice when I was making the deck. It does provide a board clear, but only if you have an exemplar out. Once Emeria goes live though, or you have a Sun Titan ready to drop, it becomes extremely easy to repopulate your side of the field.

Ajani is just there to provide some stalling via life gain, possibly dropping the giant avatar on the board for a major threat, but most commonly, allowing you to swing without compromising your defense. If we were using blue, I'd likely replace it with Vencer for the unblockable alpha strike, but we're not.

The deck plays fun, if a little fragile. You need to be prepared to aggressively mulligan if you don't think you can hold board control with your initial draw. Losing one card is not a gigantic loss for the chance to get a much better hand.

Overall, I love this deck more for it's thematic coherency than for anything else. It won't beat the top-tier decklists, but it's enjoyable, especially in a multiplayer format where vigiliance from Ajani, Day of Judgment, and late-game play comes in especially handy.

Picks of the Week: Oct 25-29

 This week's Picks were interesting. Castle wasn't quite what I expected, Glee was something I wasn't looking forward to, and Caprica got cancelled before I could see the episode, so I went in knowing that this was the last hurrah. Without House and Bones, this post looks odd and awkward, but overall, I'm sure that we'll see them back soon.

Missing Out:

Still no Bones or House this week. I'm told they'll be returning during November, and I'm looking forward to one of those a lot, and one of those a bit. We'll see how they shape up.

Glee:

I expected Glee to be on the lower end of the spectrum this week, not because the episode was going to be bad, but because I've never seen Rocky Horror. I wasn't terribly off the ball with that, because a lot of what everyone loves about that music is missing. I don't even know what the original sounded like (one of my problems with all of Rachel and Kurt's songs. I don't know musicals terribly much.)

Nevertheless, the plot of the episode was solid. Stamos is still kicking ass, and I think that all the characters were scripted fairly well this time. No one said anything that struck me as terribly out of character, and while the humor wasn't hysterical (again, might've missed some RHPS-based jokes), I still found myself smiling along a good bit.

Glee didn't hit it out of the park this week, but they didn't strike out either. Not a bad job.

Caprica:

For those of you who missed the announcement, Caprica was canceled and pulled from the lineup on SyFy until later on in the year (Read: After November Sweeps). Because of this, the episode that just aired is the last we'll be hearing from Caprica for an awfully long time. With only five episodes left unaired, we have to address the fact that the show is really not going to wrap everything up in that time.

That said, about this week's episode. I thought that this was actually a remarkably good episode, as far as things go. I'm not going to rate it as a series finale – because it isn't. It is, however, a welcome return to some of the original premises in the series. The Zoe-robot-project takes center stage again, and I actually felt myself sympathizing with Dr. Greystone and Adama. The show has recently been lacking in sympathetic characters at all, so seeing someone I can feel for is a welcome change of pace.

Castle:

This week was incredible. They'd been hyping this one up a little bit (even I saw the advertisements, and I almost never watch television on TV), and the episode really delivered. The story didn't have any huge character revelations, but rather was a culimnation of everything that Castle had become so far, without quite as much humor as usual.

Put simply, this was just a great mystery story. The villains were villainous, the hooks were predictable, but not obvious. The subplot added a little bit of levity to an otherwise very serious episode, and most of all, we got to actually worry about our protagonists for once.

Castle is a show that made it's mark with humor. Casting Nathan Fillian in the lead role almost assured that the audience would be rolling. However, in this episode, he definitely earned his dramatic stripes as well as anyone had.

Well done, Castle