Is mono-green Infect a viable competitive deck in Modern?
Modern Deck Help forum
Posted on June 15, 2018, 9:09 a.m. by StoryArcher
I think I've made it so, and with a few surprising choices (specifically a handful of Auras) and by taking advantage of the Exalted mechanic which mono-green best allows you to do.
Any thoughts and suggestions sought from the Infect players out there, and for those who are curious - give it a chance. You'll be pleased with the results.
The Green Sting
Modern
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Ok, so infect is a deckbilding mechanic that pratically changes the rules of the game - your opponent starts at 10 life in your way to win is infect. However, there is a severe deckbuilding cost - you are building a dedicated combo deck and have not much leeway to improvise. This means that you get a lot of inconsistency.
Further deckbuilding costs:
Mono green offers 0 advantages over the splashes. Blue offers card filtering, which is sorely needed in a combo deck. Black has more reasonable infect dudes and proactive discard like Thoughtseize.
Additional deckbuilding costs:
Even in mono green, I would not run Cathedral of War. Literally all your spells require a single colored mana and because it does not produce a color, you are running weird creatures like Necropede and Ichorclaw Myr. You cannot run 6-7 colorless producing lands.
Super hidden costs:
Canopy Cover is costing you games. Spending your turn to not provide yourself a boost is slowing your deck down by a turn. For it to be wort it over Vines of Vastwood, you have to blank 2 or more removals and the opponent has irrelevant ground blockers. Outside of tokens, blockers vs infect are horrible, and even then Rancor solves that problem. Even if you do both of those spending 2 mana to not deal additional damage to your opponent is bad. There is no other card in your deck that does that.
TLDR: Infect is hard to build and has a lot of deckbuilding costs.
June 15, 2018 11:05 a.m.
StoryArcher says... #4
Boza,
Thanks - I appreciate your input. I understand a lot of what you're saying from a theory standpoint, but some of it just doesn't work out that way in actual games.
The advantages that Mono-green has over the splashes is the fact that I CAN in fact play with the special lands and I don't have to break the bank juggling fetch lands and shock lands and dual lands, etc. With Noble Hierarch I effectively have 18 green mana sources and I generally do just fine with two or three on the board, especially with the reduced dependency on colored mana granted by my weird creatures (which I like a lot, by the way).
Exalted has been a real boon for me and Cathedral has often been the difference between 9 and 10 poison counters in games. As far as Canopy Cover goes, the most common response I get from opponents when it hits the table is 'what does that card do again? oh s#!t...' as all their targeted removal suddenly goes 'poof' in their hands (including Path to Exile. Ditto the effect that Spider Umbra has had on players who rely on board clearers.
I will be the first to admit that this configuration is just a hair slower than some Infect decks - though I still get plenty of turn three wins - but I've found it to be far, far more consistent than any version I've played in the past. From my perspective, giving an infect creature both hexproof and evasion IS a buff, often times making up the timing difference by getting around blockers rather than having to hammer through them or wait around for a Rancor to show up.
Again, I appreciate the input, but it might be something you want to give a shot rather than hand wave away because its not classic theory. I wholeheartedly agree that Infect is hard to build, I just don't agree that there's only one way to build it.
June 15, 2018 12:16 p.m.
StoryArcher says... #5
Mono-green Stompy is actually my favorite type of deck to play, but in this case Infect has a significant advantage over it in that it targets a health pool that 1) is half as big as the life total my opponent starts with and 2) cannot be increased, much less be made infinite.
Also, I've found that with the auras I'm playing, my infect creatures are often a lot less fragile than people might expect.
June 15, 2018 12:20 p.m.
I like the inclusion of auras, but you really should consider adding either/or Vines of Vastwood and Apostle's Blessing. While the auras, especially Canopy Cover do provide permanent hexproof, if you don't have a way to respond to a removal spell as you're equipping, you'll have problems. If cathedral is working, great but you really need a 4th inkmoth, they are an amazing creature. I would go up to 4 ink moth and 3 cathedral. Exalted is great but losing a turn is not. I'd also mainboard a Dryad Arbor, very nice to fetch vs a LotV trigger. Maybe cut a couple of forest for a couple more fetchlands to help with landfall triggers and deckthinning
Hope this helps.
June 15, 2018 1:07 p.m.
UrbanAnathema says... #8
Boza is right with pretty much everything he said. Canopy Cover is a terrible choice, and running it over Vines is pretty much inexcusable. You're cutting yourself off from it's best strength (speed) and significant tools that give the deck what little resiliency it has.
Infect itself is a strategy that has taken a tumble since the printing of Fatal Push and Walking Ballista.
This version doesn't do any better job of mitigating that weakness and unfortunately closes itself off from a lot of the tools that make Infect so devastating (again, its speed) in favor of sorcery speed auras just doesnt make a whole lot of sense in a competitive Modern environment.
June 15, 2018 11:13 p.m. Edited.
OK, lets ponder those responses a bit:
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"The advantages that Mono-green has over the splashes is the fact that I CAN in fact play with the special lands and I don't have to break the bank juggling fetch lands and shock lands and dual lands, etc." - sure, you usually get budget savings by having a non-fetch manabase. However, I am still pretty sure that having 1/3 of your lands produce colorless is a mistake. Additionally, fetches in a low-land count deck have an impact on the chance to draw lands. I do not think you have games where you want a fourth land, so having fetches reduces that chance ever so slightly. Fetches also power up Become Immense, which you are curiously not playing.
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"With Noble Hierarch I effectively have 18 green mana sources and I generally do just fine with two or three on the board" - one of green sources can and should be used as a pump spell. The 4 hierarchs are vulnerable to every removal ever printed, so they are not reliable. You have 13.5 green sources and they are not enough. You cannot afford to run that few. Infect is a combo deck - you want to cast 2 spells every turn, starting on turn 2, until the opponent is dead. You cannot do it with so few colored sources.
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"reduced dependency on colored mana granted by my weird creatures (which I like a lot, by the way)" - neither of them are very good. Necropede is 1/1 for 2 with infect. It does not have flying like the black one or unblockable as the blue one. Ichorclaw myr is medium at best - its ability achives not much without trample, so it is entirely reliant on Rancor. In mono green, Blight Mamba is probably your best choice, since it can blank any non-path to exile removal. But with your current mana, you cannot support it.
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"Exalted has been a real boon for me and Cathedral has often been the difference between 9 and 10 poison counters in games." - pendelhaven does the same and still gives you green. Exalted without trample is probably not very good, so you are making your deck overreliant on Rancor.
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"As far as Canopy Cover goes, the most common response I get from opponents when it hits the table is 'what does that card do again? oh s#!t...' as all their targeted removal suddenly goes 'poof' in their hands" - if I was your opponent, I would say "In response..." and 2-for-1 you.
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"Ditto the effect that Spider Umbra has had on players who rely on board clearers." - In response.., sac effects, exile effects still work wonders though. At least this one grants some power, but 1 power for 1 mana is not where you want to be.
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"I will be the first to admit that this configuration is just a hair slower than some Infect decks - though I still get plenty of turn three wins - but I've found it to be far, far more consistent than any version I've played in the past." - Infect has even t2 kills, but that is outside the realm of the feasible. I have to say - how is it more consistent than UG infect, that has access to serum visions and opt to filter its draws? Or more consistent than GB that can back up its creatures with hand disruption and has more evasive creatures? Sure, with the splash you run higher on getting color screwed, but the benefits outweigh the negatives.
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"From my perspective, giving an infect creature both hexproof and evasion IS a buff, often times making up the timing difference by getting around blockers " - ok, so losing a turn to get around potential blockers is not OK. Losing a turn in a deck that cannot afford to be slower than the opponent. Additionally, unless faced with Young Pyromancer, no ground creature can ever be a problem for an infect creature. Usually, an infect creature vs ground creatures is The Abyss. But in mono green, you cannot afford that since you run the risk of running out of steam.
You have no backup plan in infect, which is good. You are a finely sharpened rapier that strikes a single point hard. But is also easily stopped. Taking a turn off to cast Canopy Cover dulls your blade and makes your opponents stronger.
Other decks are also turn 4 decks - bogles, burn; humans and Company decks (to a lesser extent, but the chumpers are endless); BR Hollow one is even t3, UW/Jeskai control can start casting cryptics on turn 4, affinity is t3/t4 deck, colorless tron has balista on turn 2 or a powerful eldrazi on turn 3. Mardu Pyromancer is probably your worst matchup as they can strip your hand and board by turn 3 and/or simply cast Lingering Souls.
All in all, mono green can work as a budget option for infect, but not for a competitive environment. By playing mono-green, you sacrifice your backup plans, your creatures are worse and you lack sideboard options, you are overreliant on Rancor, all things very detrimental in a competitive environment. I am all for innovation, but this is a step back in terms of competitiveness. If you do not plan to play this at tournament - do anything you want at FNM; but I would not play this version in a tournament.
June 16, 2018 2:51 a.m.
I have tried so so so many different versions of Infect ever since scars came out. The best way I see it being made is U/G.
As others have said, the key to infect is speed. If your cards are not adding poison counters to your opponent, they shouldn’t really be in the deck IMO.
Just my two cents.
June 16, 2018 3:02 a.m.
StoryArcher says... #11
I appreciate everyone who took the time to respond and offer insights, particularly Boza for going into such detail. Hopefully you will be equally enthusiastic regarding other deck ideas I post in the future.
Scouty says... #2
I think at that point, you should just play Green Stompy. Makes your threats less fragile after casting them, and youre less susceptible to getting 2 for 1'd.
June 15, 2018 10:33 a.m.