Venum,

Sorry to spam but I finally remembered why I cut Defense of the Heart - it's hit or miss and more often than not it misses hard. Let me explain, so in my playgroup poison generally gets focused down on early in the game. With DotH on the field everyone immediately bands together because they already know that either two praetors or Blightsteel Colossus is hitting the board. Sure, I can maybe get rid of one or two players but more often than not I just get dealt with. In short - I cut it because of the bad politics Defense of the Heart brought.

Venum,

Thanks for the quick reply! Tekuthal is an addition I feel like should have been there all along.

As for my reasoning with the Sword of Truth and Justice I think it's all about building my creatures tall rather than wide. The static bonus of +2/+2 is significant on an Infect creature, and the +1/+1 counters can make the creature a consistent threat while I use other elements to tie down the board. I think the sword gives a nice easy target for opponents to focus on - and again more often than not it'll have evasion - of the 22 Phyrexians in this deck only 8 lack an Evasion keyword.

Again, I thank you for your thoughts - for now the sword will stay until Wizards produces another busted insane card that's a must include for poison decks.

Venum,

I think that the Sword of Truth and Justice is the better add over Vraska's Fall, and if you don't mind i'd like to walk through my logic on this and get your opinion. Hope you don't mind. Vraska's Fall has the big benefit of getting poison counters on players - but the edict effect becomes less beneficial as the game continues and It costs more than other similar spells (e.g. Infectious Bite and Prologue to Phyresis. The Sword of Truth and Justice requires more set up - it requires a creature on board and an extra for the equip cost. The payoff however can be significant at any point of the game. It further enhances Infect creatures but more importantly provides an additional source of +1/+1 counters. Without the sword only 2 cards in the deck can create +1/+1 counters.

On the subject of +1/+1 counters, should I try and find a spot for Ozolith, the Shattered Spire? It only has partial synergy with the deck, being only dedicated to +1/+1 counters, but it can make infect creatures lethal. What do you think?

Venum,

I think you're right. Norn's Choirmaster only shines if I can attack more than once with my commander while Tekuthal synergizes with the deck as a whole giving consistsnt added value. Also, once upon a time in the deck's earlier iterations Defense of the Heart was in the deck, I dont remember why I cut it though.

Hi Venum,

Thank you for the nice words, i'm glad you like my deck. Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus definitely pinged across my radar when he was first released, I even went so far as to get an oil slick copy of him as the price became more affordable. The problem was that I just couldn't find a slot for him in the deck. I'm flirting with the idea of swapping it in for the recent addition of Norn's Choirmaster - both are very similar cards with Tekuthal more synergy with the deck overall, but is not a proliferation source. The Choirmaster is a proliferation source, but requires the Commander to be in play - which is something I generally want. I don't know, the verdict is out on this one. Thoughts?

Bishoprage, just realized I didn't tag you in my previous post. So you're tagged now.

Bishoprage,

I'm going to be honest with you, I haven't broken out my deck in months. Mostly because I didn't have the desire to swap out my Mana Crypt. But today I decided to finally do it - and I swapped out the cards to make the deck match the decklist. I'm almost considering setting up a Break in Case of Unban! shadowbox or display frame in my office.

Those bans made me unhappy and impacted my vision for some of my decks. I am strongly resisting the urge to just go into a full blown rant about just how deeply out of touch the rules committee was with the community they supposedly represented despite never being voted in or even interacting with said community. So you only get a semi-rant. LOL. Anyways, I plan on taking my Slivers to my next FNM this upcoming Friday. I'll do my best to try and get Thrumming Hivepool into play as often as I can and i'll let you know my thoughts.

Also free Paradox Engine! Just kidding I know that card is degeneracy of the highest order - but I still love it. It's my favorite card after Sliver Queen. What's yours?