Phyrexian Swarmlord

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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Highlander Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Planar Constructed Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Phyrexian Swarmlord

Creature — Phyrexian Insect Horror

Infect (This creature deals damage to creatures in the form of -1/-1 counters and to players in the form of poison counters.)

At the beginning of your upkeep,create a 1/1 green Phyrexian Insect creature token with infect for each poison counter your opponents have.

Optimator on The start of my villain arc

9 months ago

Phyrexian Swarmlord seems really good with your commander. Might be a mandatory inclusion!

Dolmen Gate or Levitation might be good for all the attacking you'll be doing. Depends on how aggro the deck ends up though. A decent amount of your attackers have evasion already. Champion of Lambholt was a brilliant inclusion.

Maybe Steelbane Hydra for removal? SHould be good with your proliferate strategy

Mortlocke on The Song of Phyresis

10 months ago

Managem,

Always a pleasure to have new visitors to the page, welcome. Magic has gone through multiple changes in the past couple of years with everything getting multiple art treatments, power creep, and a whole host of different products that seem to lose more and more relevance with each new iteration. But I digress, I love the Toxic mechanic. Sure it doesn't quite have the explosive potential of Infect, but it can still put in work with it's sibling mechanic Corrupted.

As for your questions about certain notable exclusions from the deck:

  • Inexorable Tide - This was once in the deck, but had to be cut simply due to a lack of space. 5 mana with 2 blue pips is a steep ask for a card that does literally nothing on cast. The usefulness of this card is entirely contingent on how large of a hand I have, and how many counters I have in play to target for proliferation. If none of my opponents have poison counters, and none of my creatures have +1/+1 counters on them...then what's the point? That's the unfortunate position this card holds in that it requires a steep investment for little pay off more often than not.

  • Phyrexian Swarmlord - Much like the previously mentioned, Swardlord requires a great deal of set up to be relevant that amounts to nothing more than a win-more card. If there aren't a plentiful amount of poison counters already on my opponents then this card is simply a 4/4 for 6 - not a worthwhile investment of mana.

  • Evolution Sage - This too was once in the deck until more relevant creatures came and replaced it. I'm not trying to be rude or anything but there was a big retcon that created the Phyrexian tribe. Every creature in the deck is a Phyrexian as a result of said retcon and therefore benefit from cards like Urza's Incubator and Cavern of Souls. Tribal issues aside, Evolution Sage is only as good as the number of land drops I have per turn which at most is only 2. to make this card a worthwhile inclusion I'd have to carve out more space for additional land drops in the form of Burgeoning and Exploration which is more trouble than it's worth. This card would be better suited for a different deck.

The deck is for both a 1v1 and Group setting - the hardest part is overcoming the politics and stigma of playing Poison counters. It's one of my favorite mechanics regardless, and always enjoy my games - archenemy status and all. Thanks for coming by and checking out the deck. Thanks for the +1 and the nice words, good luck with your own build and let me know if you have any questions.

Azoth2099 on Green/Black toxic/proliferate need recommendations

1 year ago

Balvron

Blightsteel Colossus, Spinebiter & Phyrexian Swarmlord don't really do much for the mana investment imo. Runic Armasaur on the other hand could potentially draw you a bunch of cards per game!

Also, is there a particular reason you haven't included Flux Channeler? It's a work horse of a card in this deck imo.

SirHipHopHippo on Ewwww Kros, infect

2 years ago

RedNova700

Hi Nova! Thanks for the comment!

Yes, we all had a budget restriction of $45. You can see the budget version of the deck here. The deck plays really well. In my experience the fogs are imperative for this deck, especially when you get into the 1v1. With Kros you spend all game buffing your opponents creatures and when it gets down to just two players you need to be able to buy time to proliferate the infect counters with something like Contagion Clasp.

As for Paradox Haze I have a very nice hand painted alter of the card, I haven't had a home for it in a while since I took apart another deck so I just have to put it in here. Here's a link to the alternate art if you wanna check it out. There are a lot of cards in the build though that trigger on upkeep Orzhov Advokist, Aven Mimeomancer, Evolutionary Escalation, Sheltering Ancient, Sporogenesis, Crescendo of War, Kumena's Awakening, Phyrexian Swarmlord, and of course the commander Kros, Defense Contractor so I think it will be really strong.

I'm excited to see how Kros can be improved with upcoming sets and more community research.

Kazierts on Pushing Poison

2 years ago

After reading your comment taking another look at your deck, I realized it has 70 cards. While, as I said, I don't intend to change your deckbuilding style, you should basically never go above 60 cards, unless your deck runs Yorion, Sky Nomad or Battle of Wits.

Your deckbuilding guidelines are quite interesting. Here's a few things I'd like to mention regarding them:

  • First, a compliment so it doesn't like I'm just criticizing everything. What you mentioned about legendary creatures is basically the correct way to play with them, in most cases. Too many can brick you and too few makes them hard to draw.

  • While, in some cases, it's good a backup windocondition, that does not apply to every archetype, Infect included. Because of the Infect keyword, the literally doesn't care about the opponent's life total. So, when you suddenly try to change to hit their life total with one or two creatures that don't have Infect, you're basically starting everything from scratch in the middle of a game. This goes into my next point which is your fear of hate cards.

  • I completely understand some cards that can shut your deck down are scary, but I feel like you're letting your fear get in the way of your deck. I'll use my deck as example. My manabase is almost completely made of nonbasic lands, yet Blood Moon doesn't scare me. Why? I have Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek. If that's not enough, then I also have Ratchet Bomb in my sideboard. Melira, Sylvok Outcast? Fatal Push, Damnfoil, Collective Brutality and Liliana of the Veil all deal with it. My point is there multiple ways to deal with threats that don't force you into an extremely narrow path. Also, if you're playing Modern, no one will use Back to Basicsfoil because it's not legal. This also goes into my next point, which is the mana effiency.

  • Despite you saying you like to be mana effienct, a lot of cards here aren't. As I mentioned, some of them basically do nothing. Some actually do, but are overcoste, even in you examples. Sage's Row Denizen is very inefficient because mill decks like to turbo mill (which is something I personally don't like). This means the best mill creatures are Ruin Crab and Hedron Crab. When we come fo poisoning opponents, that's why Hand of the Praetors sees basically zero play outside of commander. Usually people just cast a Glistener Elf turn 1 and a Scale Up turn 2. Also, you're looking at the ratio, but not the usefulness of the creature. Sure, Cystbearer costs the same, manawise, as a Rot Wolf, but is incredibly worse.

If you want to follow this path of winning bast cast infect creatures with the hand on the field, then:

I understand if the above mentioned are a bit above your budget. A lot of these Infect cards haven't had a reprint yet.

I love when people go for nonstandard builds of decks. I hope you cam improve this without sacrificing too much of your own style.

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