Caress of Phyrexia

Combos Browse all Suggest

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
Oathbreaker Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Caress of Phyrexia

Sorcery

Target players draws three cards, loses 3 life, and gets three poison counters.

Coward_Token on Phyrexia: All Will Be One …

1 year ago

Going back to content that's actally confirmed:

Norn's Choirmaster feels like it's just going to be an expensive Grateful Apparition most of the time. The main exceptions are partner decks with a counter theme, e.g. Reyhan, Last of the Abzan + Tymna the Weaver or Yannik, Scavenging Sentinel + Nikara, Lair Scavenger. Maybe you could also use it in a flicker + counters theme deck?

(Speaking of which, when is black getting a Thrummingbird?)

Even though it's pretty weird that the mirran faction mechanic is a tweak on living weapon, I like the implied flavor of the token probably dying and then someone else taking up the sword, so to speak.

Without the haste, Goldwardens' Gambit could have easily been a white instant.

A little awkward that Otharri, Suns' Glory synergizes with proliferate

Hexgold Slash could have also dealt extra damage to creatures with oil counters on them

With corrupted around, Caress of Phyrexia got a little more interesting

ManfredManhunter on Marchesa, the Poisonous Rose

3 years ago

Marchesa really is a good commander, but my version of an infect deck with her didn't work for me in my meta.
Infect allied the whole table against me the moment my first creature hit the board.
The idea was that my opponents would either try to leave me on the throne so I couldn't recur my board of infecting creatures, or "protect" themselves by making sure another opponent was a better target. What happened was I got smacked pretty good and then often had to attack the same person over and over because they stayed at the highest life and my ability to recover without the counters was almost zero. Having a bunch of threats that dont die is a really really cool idea, but I never really got to live the dream. ;(

One of the issues I ran into outside of politics was that infect creatures aren't very cost effective and not having very good ramp made the deck feel pretty slow getting off the ground. In the handful of games I played I also found myself out of cards fairly quickly, so card draw could be improved as well.
I didn't iterate on the deck at all before shelving it, so there is definitely room for improvement. Outside of improving the speed and card draw I never figured out the optimal number of infect cards the deck wants. For example I never asked myself something like "is Caress of Phyrexia a good way to finish out the game or is a 5 mana do-almost-nothing sorcery not good enough?". I think most of the one-shot proliferate effects are also a bit bad. Cheap cantrips and rocks would likely serve the deck better than most of them looking back at it.

Even with the issues I had, I would encourage you to build an infect deck! The archenemy nature of it is pretty fun and taking one or two people out fairly quickly leads to more games in a session :P I definitely would like to give infect an honest try again someday, but I think Saskia the Unyielding will be at the helm instead.

Mortlocke on The Song of Phyresis

3 years ago

Wicker, I appreciate the compliment. This deck is a constant work in progress, and I've yet to implement all these changes. I've considered Exotic Orchard, but none of the battlebond lands. If I do go ahead with your changes then Farseek would definitely be the recommended change. My only hesitation regarding Farseek is that the tutored land always comes in tapped. Reanimate is simply some graveyard recursion. I'd imagine an opponent would get some form of removal to target an important creature on my board such as a Praetor. Reanimate was just something I had on hand. I haven't come up with a more elegant solution, or anything different to address removal. Caress of Phyrexia did come across my radar at some point, but the CMC is far too high for my taste. just to give a player 3 poison counters just isn't impactful enough. Honeslty, I have my breath held for some more infect support in the upcoming Commander Legends set being released later this year.

TortillaConfetti on

4 years ago

Hand of the Praetors Could be a nice add if you go Infect all the way with creatures, and Caress of Phyrexia as a finisher for someone on 7 poison hahaha

Mental_Floss on Wait...Proliferate???

4 years ago

No Caress of Phyrexia ? The "Hey, you wanna draw some cards?" joke is so fun to have pulled on you and probably to do as well.

LordKunai on The Song of Phyresis

5 years ago

LVL_666, DEFINITELY better mana and creature base. Although, in response to your identity crisis comment-literally the EXACT same thing is happening to my atraxa-infect deck. It pulls so much aggro it's absurd. I pull the deck out and before I even play anything I am the target. Unfortunately, I have been leaning towards going back to +1/+1 counters and superfriends/planeswalkers because then at least I got to play haha. Maybe keep in a few cards with infect such as Blightsteel Colossus, Tainted Strike, Phyresis, Corrupted Conscience, Glistening Oil and maybe Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon, Caress of Phyrexia, Blighted Agent, and/or Phyrexian Swarmlord just for those instant infect kills. I play against a sliver deck and he kills people with poison more than i do. Sadly Atraxa-infect is not competitive enough and is hated way to much to be fun :(. Here's my deck Atraxive Infection, in case there are any cards in there you may be interested including that you haven't; but like I said... I think I am going to go a different direction so I can actually play her and have fun again. Let me know what you think!

Frytrix99 on

5 years ago

List of cards that might interrest you :

Double your damage : Bitter Feud, Insult // Injury, Inquisitor's Flail, Furnace of Rath, Dictate of the Twin Gods

Protection for you and your creatures (and some boost in power) : Shalai, Voice of Plenty, Vines of Vastwood, Heroic Intervention, Blossoming Defense

Evasion (Unblockable, trample, etc) (Plus boost in power?) : Champion of Lambholt,Whispersilk Cloak, Surestrike Trident, Trailblazer's Boots, Fireshrieker, Rancor, Triumph of the Hordes (Overwhelming Stampede is a cheaper and maybe better option in your deck, since most of your creatures have infect)

Removal : Putrefy

Surprise infect/poison counter (mostly to finish someone : Tainted Strike, Caress of Phyrexia,

Anafenza, the Foremost : I thought it could fit well. Since people don't want poison counter, they won't really care about this creature. You can boost your other creature, little by little and mostly, instead of going to the graveyard, the creatures of your opponent will be exile (depending of your meta, that may be important)

Load more
Have (1) reikitavi
Want (1) concorde