Infect is one of those decks that you either adore for its unique playstyle or hate because it can kill as early as Turn 2. Often lurking in the shadows, it can spike tournaments when the time is right. With the recent banning of Probe, Daze, and Gush, is that time now? Let's find out!
Now, there are Infect cards in every color and Simic is particularly well-suited for poisoning people to death thanks to its plentiful ways of making creatures unblockable, but I decided to go Mono-Green for maximum speed and consistency.
Without further ado, let's get to the deck!
Now, where does it hurt?
Creatures
We're running a tight package of Infect creatures, just 12 in total. You can't keep an opening hand that doesn't have at least one or two of these so don't be afraid to mulligan.
Glistener Elf
is our cheapest and best little hypodermic needle. Getting one down on Turn 1 has us favored to win if our opponent doesn't kill it right away, but it's also nice on later turns since we can keep up one of our protection spells alongside it.
Ichorclaw Myr
is more expensive but it also has real advantages. We have several ways of granting Trample, including at Instant speed, so its ability can put our opponent in a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't scenario where we actually deal more damage if they try to chumpblock. Plus you can just attack freely into boards with less than 2 total power.
Blight Mamba
can be fairly mana-intensive but it's fantastic if the game goes a bit long. At the very least, chumping
Gurmag Angler
's for a turn or two can buy us enough time to win on the crackback.
This might sting a little...
Pump
The rest of the deck is pump spells, and here are our best for pushing raw damage through:
Giant Growth
is the OG, the classic, the purest way to pump our dudes. +3/+3 for G is a great deal. Simple but effective.
Seal of Strength
does the same thing as
Giant Growth
, better in some ways and worse in others. Telegraphing our combat math is a real downside, but being able to drop a
Seal of Strength
a turn or two before we go for the kill really helps us make maximum use of our mana.
Groundswell
requires a teensy bit of setup for maximum effect but it's absolutely devastating when we can trigger Landfall. +4/+4 for G is just so darn strong.
We're also running the full playset of
Mutagenic Growth
for ludicrous levels of efficiency. With such a low land count, being able to toss in another pump spell without paying mana is key to the deck's success.
Right this way, please
Trample
Green's main way of pushing damage through is with Trample, and we're packing a bunch of it.
First,
Rancor
. You know it, you love it, it's the pump that keeps on pumping. Like
Seal of Strength
,
Rancor
helps us spend our mana across multiple turns but it also giving us some resilience. Even if one of our creatures bites it, at least we'll get a pump spell back.
Next,
Larger Than Life
. This one's a bit expensive and slow, but +4/+4 and Trample together let us attack through just about anything in the format.
Finally, Mode 2 of
Vitality Charm
. This little guy lets us sneak damage through when our opponent least expects it.
Time to bandage you up
Protection
With so much removal flying around, we need some ways to keep our guys safe from harm.
First, we come to the real reason we're running
Vitality Charm
: its Mode 1, creating a 1/1 Insect token. Edict effects are our worst enemy, so being able to create a garbage creature for just 1 mana at Instant speed can really save our bacon when we're going for the kill. We can even use this mode as a bad
Fog
in a pinch.
Apostle's Blessing
is technically off-color but we're perfectly happy to pay 2 life for the privilege of saving one of our guys from an
Electrickery
or
Doom Blade
. Depending on our opponent's board, we can also use Blessing to sneak past their defenders (if they're all one color), but mostly it's here to keep our little murder machines alive come Hell or high water.
Our last bit of defensive technology is
Vines of Vastwood
. It's a one-mana counterspell to targeted removal, but ideally we would also kick it for a huge power and toughness boost. Two mana is a lot but having such a big pump spell tacked onto a counterspell makes it well worth the cost.
Are you remembering to wear sunblock and stay out of the direct sun?
Lands
The lands are super simple: just 18
Forest
. With such a low curve, we can afford to run a very low land count and by running only basics, we can explode out of the gate without stumbling over taplands.
That said, there's a case to be made for running a few copies of
Khalni Garden
as additional protection from
Chainer's Edict
. I'm hoping that
Vitality Charm
has us sufficiently covered but if you find a lot of Edicts in your meta, you may want to consider this.
Take two and call me in the morning
Sideboard
Our sideboard is focused on dealing with our bad Control matchup, as we don't have too much trouble racing everything else.
For targeted removal, we can board in the fourth copy of
Apostle's Blessing
and a full four copies of
Ranger's Guile
. Against Edict effects, we have the one more
Vitality Charm
and
Young Wolf
, which is polite enough to eat two Edicts for just one mana! Against decks running small flyers,
Spider Umbra
has our back while also helping us generally against removal. And finally,
Nature's Claim
can come in to help us deal with Circle of Protection,
Pestilence
, or other such enchantments that wreck us permanently.
And that's the deck. Thanks for reading and I hope you liked it. Any and all advice would be appreciated. Have a nice day!