Blighted Agent

Creature — Phyrexian Human Rogue

Infect Blighted Agent is unblockable.

Discussion (48)

cyeRunner on BG Infect

1 day ago

Welcome to the Infect-Team :)

The Deck that top 8'd was targeting certain matchups anticipated at the event as you can see in the sideboard, so maybe you might not do as well with the list at your local meta:
7x Graveyard-hate, 7x Artifact- & Entchantment-hate in the Sideboard against Hammertime, Affinity, Amulet Titan and Chalice of the Void with 1 Counter. Ashiok, Dream Render is also good against Titan, but there is no Creature Removal and Lifegain against Burn is missing.

Abrupt Decay vs. Assassin's Trophy: Giving your Opponnent a land-card is currently a huge disadvantage so I would not play too many Trophy's or only in certain Matchups. Decay is a good card, it hits most of the stuff you need to hit, including Wrenn and Six, but excluding Urza's Saga which leads us to ..

Gemrazer! This card has some big advantages over other Disenchant-Effects. Sideboard cards can sometimes be "dead draws", meaning the situation you brought them in has not occoured, so the sideboard card is useless in your hand. Gemrazer can still be played as a Rancor-like effect: "Give your Creatures +3/+3 and trample" for 3 mana is quite good even if you don't use the "Destroy artifact or enchantment"-effect. If you get both you 2for1 your opponent. Also it hits Urza's Saga. Even in the worst case it's a 4-Mana 4/4.

For removal Fatal Push is currently sufficient in my opinion, but I recommend having a sideboard removal-card against bigger creatures like Murktide Regent, Serra's Emissary or Archon of Cruelty.

Generally speaking about Thoughtseize: the obvious reason to run it is to disrupt your opponents hand, but the not so obvious reason is that you are more likely to have something to do on turn 1. 8x 1-drops (Hierarchs and G-Elf) are sometimes not enough to consistently draw one in your opening 7 cards. There were times before Ignoble Hierarch where UG-Infect would run a single Birds of Paradise for more consistent draws. If you have a lot of burn/aggro decks in your local meta swap it for Inquisition of Kozilek.

Phyrexian Crusader is currently a powerhouse since most removal is red or white in the current meta. You are right: Blighted Agent is a lot better than Plague Stinger with a lot of fliers flying around, but the 3 color manabase is just superhard to play.

My prefered budget Replacement for Endurance is Nihil Spellbomb since it can draw you cards. (The effect even triggers if your opponent wants to destroy it)

I am playing BG Infect for ~2,5 years now, if you are interested here is my list: Nobody expects the Kozileks Inqusition - BG Infect

Mana_Mythic_Legendary on Pursuing Perfection, Part 11: Simic …

1 month ago

All hail our magical gene-splicing overlords, having taken all elections by storm via a platform of ignoring the ever-loving Sharktocrab out of Ian Malcolm. Much as I love this color combo, I’m first to admit it’s a bit much: combining the draw and control of Blue with the ramp and board presence of Green is taking things to excess. Glorious, opponent-crushing excess. Play your cards right (haha) and you will neither have an empty hand nor an empty board. Maybe an empty social calendar, but that’s a problem for another color pairing.

All hyperbolic joking aside, there is considerable promise under Simic’s hood. Kruphix, God of Horizons supports the tendencies both colors to a nearly unbearable extreme. Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy doesn’t just break mana dorks, he shatters them, and don’t get any veteran started on the ruinous politics of Edric, Spymaster of Trest. And it’s not just the commanders: Prophet of Kruphix, banned though it may be, is a testament to the potency here. Mystic Snake is a constant presence for a reason, as is the Trygon Predator. There’s even a pair of worthwhile upkeep wins: Biovisionary, with the profligacy of cloning effects, is actually plausible in EDH (and hilarious), while Simic Ascendancy is downright heinous.

Blue and Green together encourage a beautiful game, a dance constantly wavering across the line between strength and subtlety that I, personally, find incredibly appealing. But we’re not here to talk only about the things I like: we’re here to talk about theme, and today we have three: Card Advantage, Counters Matter, and Tokens Matter. As always, please bear in mind that our focus here is not necessarily competitive but rather on thematic, archetypical commanders.

Card Advantage

In most games, you will have a solution to any given problem. Trouble is, that solution is somewhere in your deck and not in your hand. Where Green is equipped to solve the broadest spectrum of challenges, Blue is inclined to sidestep those problems, and fill up on those sidesteps with draw, until a solution to the game itself appears. Filling up Blue-style on Green’s kit? Wondrous. Whether tutoring or going full beast mode and drawing half your deck, Simic is singularly positioned to solve any problem by readying an overwhelming suite of answers and then slamming down enough mana to use all of them at once.

The original vintage of true bullshit, circa 2006. The sheer quantity of quality in Green’s menagerie of ETB effects is staggering. With hot garbage like the Snapcaster Mage and Gilded Drake shoring up those already beastly reserves, if you need it and it comes on a creature-shaped stick, you got it. I just hope you can tutor fast.

What is it about Innistrad and terrifying frogs?! This was the first new legend to impress me in a while. Milling yourself isn’t hard when you have blue on hand, and Grolnok’s presence means that instead of filling your graveyard you’re creating a permanent hand that’s safe from any interference that isn't a Riftsweeper. That’s incredibly appealing to me. It’s a little like a sugar-free, exile version of Enter the Infinite. Obligatory mention of the Hermit Druid goes here, but my first thought was actually Dreamborn Muse.

Every deck reaches a point where drawing land is no longer desirable. Every deck eventually draws lands once too often and suffers a crippling, disappointing crash-and-burn. Aesi is unimpressed. Combining a self-only Horn of Greed and Exploration on a 5/5 body, a little flooding is nothing to worry about. Drop a few things like Reshape the Earth, draw nine cards profit, play the additional lands you drew, draw more cards, and so on. You’ll catch a bit of a stink-eye off your opponents, but that’ll wash out. In mana.

Counters Matter

White hands out +1/+1 counters like candy, but doesn’t do much with them. In justice, any lifelink card with a pile of +1/+1 counters doesn’t need to do much. Just swing. Simic, though, seems to think that getting bigger should get you access to cool new things. Cards, for instance, via Fathom Mage, or creatures via Cytoplast Manipulator. And then, once you’ve done all that cool stuff… well, just swing.

To be honest, I don’t like this section, and our first commander is a perfect illustration why. Fair warning: salt incoming.

Ok, now THIS is a little much. I don’t even remember playing against this guy: I just didn’t like it from the first. It’s very easy to build, very powerful, VERY unsubtle. The reliability that comes of experience counters is undeniably potent and, in my opinion, boring. I like to think my own style is a bit more elegant than simply hosing down midgets, then turning a Blighted Agent loose. But then this is all just my opinion AND I own an Omnath, Locus of Rage deck, so what do I know?

This is both goofy and highly contextual. If you’ve got a Kenrith, the Returned King fanboy running around the local meta, you’re probably going to wreck face. There is a respectable pile of activated abilities in every color, let alone Blue-Green, that would let you build a deck with adequate support. It’s not the most optimal choice, but running the original legendary goo would certainly be the odd bit of fun.

I DO remember playing against this guy, though it was a while ago. If I recall rightly, the pilot refused to add Darksteel Reactor, instead relying on the Elusive Krasis and little else. Dude needed Freed from the Real, too. Things have changed. Now you can do silly stuff with Liquimetal Coating and any number of planeswalkers, ruin lives with Magistrate's Scepter, or whatever other hateful things come to your devious little mind. Options. Vorel has them.

Tokens Matter

This is more my speed. There are several contestants for best in token quantity, though Selesnya is probably the best in blending quality and quantity. Simic watched this contest, watched the parades of copy-paste legions, and decided there was a market for going hard in quality. Progenitor Mimic, Spitting Image, and Repudiate / Replicate are all examples of this trend: token copies. I’m not sure cloning someone’s field is more polite than actually stealing their stuff, but kicking Rite of Replication into the face of some smarmy bastard gloating over his Blightsteel Colossus would be a highlight for anybody.

Very direct, and nothing wrong with a little hexproof lite. Having Parallel Lives for your general, if we’re honest, has got to be a dream come true for a LOT of people. Just don’t cast rite of replication on the sphinx (you know the one) unless you have your Laboratory Maniac ready.

Oooooooooo. I like. Not quite enough to build, but I like! Drop Fable of Wolf and Owl, a card I’ve always wanted but never needed, and drop a clone every turn. And… on second read, this says choose, not target, so shroud does jack-all to prevent this… maybe I do want to build this…

Not bad! It’s not too hard to keep your creature base diverse, and a free copy of anything is nice. As said earlier, there’s a wealth of ETB effects to chose from, and doubling those effects is a great start to a plan. Just stay away from changelings.

And, for my personal favorite:

There is a pervading, understandable trend in commander toward tutoring needful things. My wife, however, hates tutoring: she’s not a patient creature, so asking her to wait while I dig for that one, particular solution is not conducive to a fun game, let alone suggesting she go digging herself. Rashmi was built for her with the intent of drawing so much that tutoring was pointless. Her effect was more a perk than anything. At worst, you draw an extra card every turn. At best, you get a freebie! The deck turned out to be so competitive that I… well, I kind of stole it back. I even splurged and got a Sensei's Divining Top, which with Rashmi is exceedingly rude, and added Counterbalance, a pairing which let me successfully counter Krosan Grip at a tournament. The raw card advantage and efficiency that Rashmi lends a deck, it turns out, can win games by itself.

That's it for this round. Thoughts and questions are welcome. I hope you enjoyed it, and will come back soon for Orzhov!

Selesnya

Gruul

Rakdos

Dimir

Azorius

Green, with links to the other mono-colors

Artatras on The Many-Faced God - [Primer]

2 months ago

Magistarorian

Hey! I really like your list! While undoubtedly less powerful than mine, you haven't distorted the general idea of the deck. The budget inclusions you have made are all very accurate. Here are a few specific suggestions:

• Not a huge fan of Blighted Agent. Its power always stays the same, unless you have a Wall of Blood available. If you want more infect, consider Glistening Oil or Phyresis.

• Mindshrieker is very random and not enough reliable, although it can be fun.

• Mausoleum Secrets is also very situational. If you can't afford Entomb, just go with Unmarked Grave, Oriq Loremage or Vile Entomber. They always get what you need.

• I would remove every single land that comes into play tapped and replace them with basic lands. You don't need too much mana fixing, especially considering Lazav requires colourless mana, and this strategy cannot afford the tempo loss of a land entering the battlefield tapped.

I wouldn't bother with Miscast, as it doesn't scale particularly well in Commander. Rotting Regisaur can be included in your current list, considering you are not running Dreadnought. Access Tunnel is okayish. Four mana total is a lot, but it's better than Rogue's Passage. I would consider it, especially since it comes into play untapped.

Regarding how well I think your deck would perform in a mid-high power setting, it depends. See, this strategy is very fast and all-in because it is very weak at its core. A Voltron deck that relies on the graveyard suffers a lot from both creature and graveyard removal. That's why my deck is so fast, with cheap win conditions and cheap tutors. Because you need to kill your opponents before they can stop your game plan. If you cut all the powerful cards (which are, unfortunately, the most expensive) and replace them with more expensive (in terms of mana) versions, the deck will become significantly slower and thus much easier to stop. So, if your meta tends more towards the mid power-level, I think you deck can stand a chance. But if your play environment is more on the powerful side, I think you should adjust your deck accordingly.

Proxying a few key cards would drastically affect the power level of the deck. Phyrexian Dreadnought in particular is irreplaceable and its inclusion would completely change the way the deck plays. The tutors would also help a lot bring up the power level.

Metroid_Hybrid on What’s your “dick move” moment?

2 months ago

Back when I used to play Modern years ago, one of the brews I would pilot was a janky Midrange Infect deck. So during the first round of this small tournament, a player sitting next to me running Mono- Illusions admitted to me that he wasn’t any removal. Sure enough we were paired up for round 2, and I took full advantage of this volunteered information. I just slammed down a Blighted Agent, and then slapped a couple of Predator's Gambit and/or Deviant Glee on it, and swing twice for the win. Easy turn-4 Win. Game 2 he tried to race me, and I did the exact same thing again. He almost got me too, but when he attempted to AEtherize my Agent, it was met with a Mana Leak.. This guy then did the calmest Rage-quit I have ever seen in my life. He was so salty over losing to an Infect deck (janky brew be damned), that he just calmly packed up his stuff and left the tournament without telling anyone else..

The irony is that if he hadn’t have told me what he did, I would have played more cautiously, and he would’ve been able to just straight run me over... oh well...

Dangerwillrobinson79 on Atraxa, Profoundly Proliferated

3 months ago

These are a few options if I go the infect route with this deck.

Blighted Agent, Flensermite, Glistener Elf, , Hand of the Praetors , Phyrexian Swarmlord , Spinebiter , Viral Drake , Darksteel Reactor , Grafted Exoskeleton , Grim Affliction , Nest of Scarabs , Relic Putrescence

Dangerwillrobinson79 on Dangerwillrobinson79

3 months ago

Some options if I decide to do the infect route.

Blighted Agent Flensermite Glistener Elf Hand of the Praetors Phyrexian Swarmlord Spinebiter Viral Drake Darksteel Reactor Grafted Exoskeleton Grim Affliction Nest of Scarabs Relic Putrescence

Pellaeon on Customized Sneak Attack

4 months ago

added Sword of Hearth and Home , Blighted Agent and Inkfathom Infiltrator removed Bonehoard , Whirler Rogue and Master Thief

MooreDarkwater on MooreDarkwater

4 months ago

Blighted Agent