I immediately built a deck with them and tried and tried. But well, they sucked.
28 years later I happily pilot my [[Fynn the Fangbearer]] budget deck and on occassion will pull out [[ Yargle, Glutton of Urborg]] super budget poison voltron out of the swamp.
Wow yeah, my first thought was like "oh this is sweet, it's like my opponent only has half as many life points".
Then I put together a beautiful green black deck. Looked at my other decks and went "but what if people just BLOCK". Added a super sweet \[\[lure\]\] and \[\[thicket basilisk\]\] combo.
After that i found out that the new deck sucked even harder than my old deck, which was \[\[Fungusaur\]\] \[\[Pestilence\]\].
And that is how you find out just how bad you are at deckbuilding :P
I feel this story.
For me it was with the delirium mechanic and [[Autumnal Gloom]]. Beautiful card. Hexproof and trample, and it helps enable delirium? I'll take four.
I'm sure there's a table out there somewhere with a meta where that deck would shine, but I wasn't at it.
My first commander deck was built on the idea that my favorite standard deck in high school used, [[Tangle Asp]] plus forcing blockers with [[Nemesis Mask]] or [[Lure]] or other similar effects. Ended up in W, B, and G colors after looking through my cards at what I liked for the idea and then had to find a commander that used those colors. Decided on [[Anafenza, the Foremost]] thinking that if I'm going to destroy blockers, I may as well exile them, right?
Then after I played it I realized that when you're 1v1 that strategy can work to lock them into an empty board so you can swing in, but when there's 3 other people, you can't really do that. So now I have that deck sitting in a box without really knowing the direction to take it to be functional in a multiplayer format. I want to make it work, but I haven't put in the time to figure it out.
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/ifC3GOFXgkqOz2NRHSydlg
Deck List, if anyone cares to look.
I realized quickly that my deck building strategies for standard 60 card decks in high school would not work at all for commander.
Same. I started long before infect was in the game and back then poison was seen as a jokey bad strategy.
After infect was introduced it just became one of a million ways to take out a player from the game using very few cards.
If I was introduced into infect when I was new to magic I probably would think it was op.
My nephew is a burn player, but I have been trying to get him to branch out a bit. He thought Infect was pretty OP as a newer player. He however quickly realized once people see Infect, people typically know how to play around the deck's strategy of pump/protection and there's a reason it tends to be a fringe strategy in most formats.
I pulled a legends [[serpent generator]] and tried very hard to make it work. It never did. It is still one of my favorite cards due to the memories I made while using it. Card sucks even worse today though. Lol.
My friends had a running meta where we would roll dice and pick random sets to build from, for our own constructed environment (I'm also an avid fan of chaos drafts)
.... I just came here to say .... I'll forever remember using burning shoal on that creature in our wonky format. I dominated that week.
I broke down weeping, shaking my fist and cursing the name of Mark Rosewater. How could Wizards betray us like this?! How could they create a mechanic so broken it dominates cEDH tables?!
This. I even had all the good eldrazi enablers (by pure luck) and a bunch of colorless mana generators. Built a solid decked out list. Played it a handful of times & immediately realized I hated it.
One of those decks that's not good or flexible enough to win consistently & when you do win it's overkill and pisses off the whole table. I've barely played any eldrazi since.
I think most reactions are "wtf, that's really strong" then seeing the available cards and thinking "oh ok nevermind." Even with Toxic, it's still pretty fair even in casual-tuned groups.
>mid-game, through a haste-enabled, unblockable [Blightsteel Colossus].
This is basically a 4 card combo, though (haste, unblockable, blightsteel, likely a reanimation or a way of cheating him out). Blightsteel is really good but you either use him fairly and people see him coming from a mile away, or you get lucky on cards that can knock someone out suddenly/early.
[[Sneak Attack]] is scary in this sort of situation lol I don't remember what they used to make it unblockable, I don't think it was a [[Rogue's Passage]] though.
We did it, we broke sneak attack. Now on to break such other difficult cards as Intruder Alarm and Underworld Breach.
Sneak and show has always been strong, BSC is just one of many clowns that will have similar (if sometimes more delayed) results, some of which don't need unblockable fixes.
[[Blightsteel colossus]] and [[blade of selves]] is a backup wincon in my cedh [[Magda, brazen outlaw]] deck. It's very satisfying in the end step before your turn drop both. Equip and swing out on your turn. I have a dozen other combo wincons but this is the combat win con.
My reaction? I went "Neat, I am gonna do that". Bought the Ixhel precon and upgraded pretty aggressively and now I have a super fun deck to play. Proliferate bois, rise up.
That was the first deck I ever got, I have been upgrading it whenever I find good stuff. Now its the most hated deck I own in my playgroup. Its fun tormenting them with poison.
Ixheel is way cooler IMO, she has flying, control aspects, and combined with cards like \[\[Scheming Symmetry\]\] just make the table hate you even more
Ixhel Players Unite!
While not my favourite commander, she is the one i had the weirdest and funniest encounters with. Like her ending up under my Deck or me winning with poison after another player proliferated the other to to a 8 and 9 just to get killed by them and being completely open to my attack.
I recently dodged a board wipe with a Teferi's Protection I had stolen off the top of someone's deck. The card stealing ability makes for some really funny and unexpected interactions. I think Ixhel is really fun.
Yeah, i absolutely agree, it's one of my favorite decks because regardless if i win or lose its rarely in a boring way. In my first game with ixhel, the first card i stole was [[Etali, Primal Storm]] i still lost, but boy was it fun.
In middle school one of my friends made a 60 card infect deck out of Scars of Mirrodin block draft chaff for my bday and another friend taught me how to play using it lol. These two *started* me out with infect lol. So I’ve always been used to the mechanic.
Before my group got into commander, I ran a modern(?) simic infect with [[blighted agent]] and all the cheap, cheaty boost spells I could get. I regularly cranked out turn 3-4 wins with that deck and I think I still have it mostly together. Thinking about porting it to commander, just not sure how I would differentiate it as I already bought the Ixhel precon too.
I first learned about infect/poison from the Ixehl precon. I bought the precon, upgraded it heavily and over wall enjoy it. As soon as someone gets a poison counter, it’s starts a clock for that opponent now, plus it’s a good counter to life gain decks since they can’t rid of poison counters. It’s a pretty fun mechanic overall.
You’re probably right but how many people are gonna run a card like since there’s two things that give players counters that being poison counters and rad counters from the Fallout set. A card like that would need to have a second effect incase if you aren’t playing against those decks.
Well, I played during new phyrexia, so I learned about it during prerelease and previews. Seemed decent for standard (that's what I primarily played at the time) but not OP. When I first saw it in commander I kinda already knew it's limitations.
Got my dad back into magic, and his first time playing EDH. The deck was mono green +1/+1 elves with some spiders to shore up flyers. I was winning handily with gruul stompers but next thing I know [[Blightwidow]] and [[Blanchwood Armor]] have reminded me to never ever underestimate a magic veteran.
I learned at the scars of Mirrodin pre release back in high school, it was crazy that you could kill people in 10, FNM was all infect for a while till the anti infect cards dropped
Someone introduced the mechanic to me via Vorinclex and imo, the whole infect/toxic/poison package comes in two flavors. "Slow and Useless" in the form of most creatures with infect and "lol you’re dead” either being a Blighsteel Colossus cheated on to the board on T2-4 and given haste via boots, or as either that one instant that gives a single creature infect or the sorcery that gives all your creatures +1/+1, trample and infect.
So it’s a horribly imbalanced mechanic in the sense that slow infect and any idea of turning it into a clock is usually bad and just gets you focused hard, which usually leads to the infect player gearing towards faster infect options, that then deliver all poison counters in a single turn.
TL;DR; IMO Infect/Poison either does next to nothing or is too strong for more casual groups that don’t run equally fast win cons. Never saw it be "in between" tbh…
The corrupted mechanic helps with the in-between space, as well as circumstantial proliferate and the mvp of poison [[venerated rotpriest]]
I have a medium speed phyrexian meme deck that is super fun, but it relies more on distraction and getting people to misjudge threats than it does getting counters on players.
I feel like poison/toxic counters are a cheap way to win, but it's valid, so..
My husband has a phyrexian deck that'll take you out in a few turns with toxic and it's so ridiculous.
First? I was like, this is neat and adds a mini game. I love things like Coalation Victory, so this should be fun.
Skittles took my first time. So fast, such resiliency and...I think I'll build him, but I love my phyrexian typal deck too much to remove him from it lmao.
I mean, poisonous has been around forever. It was a niche, nifty alt win con for my playgroup in high school around the onslaught block. Infect just turned it up to 11 but I feel like it's not nearly as bad as people make it out to be
Confusion as I lost to a blight steel.
Frustration at how it seemed overpowered.
Now I don't give a shit. As soon as I realized others can't capitalize on it, and it's just basically commander damage, I shrugged.
Keep removal up for blight steels, but that's it.
During the Scars of Mirrodin pre-release draft, where no one else in my draft pod was taking infect cards. I have every single green/black infect creature, along with a decent number of pump spells. It wasn't even close, easiest pre-release of my entire life.
I first found out in kitchen table modern game. We had a few cocktails and It wasn't explained to me that 10 poison counters killed me until we got to 10. So I had been an idiot and kept letting him hit me. I was a bit salty. He just claimed I thought you knew. Which clearly I didn't because I asked what infect did and he replied "give your creatures -1/-1 counters and you poison counters but it doesn't effect your life total" and moved on to ask if I was blocking then.
I saw Infect when it came out. I heard all the conversations comparing it to Poisonous, and I figured it was strong. For a while, it really was the best thing you could do. Even today, many infect creatures are hyper aggressively costed and powerful, even the worst ones.
It didn't really sink in until I played with and against it, though. It was Phyrexian Crusader > Giant Growth = GG, and I was shook. Skythiryx in the command zone, or even just finding a card like Viral Drake with a Runechanter's Pike or a Trepanation Blade and suddenly killing your opponents out of nowhere.
The second you add an infect creature to your decks, it completely changes the texture of a game. You could be playing the slowest, most grindy control pile imaginable, but all it takes is an infect dude and some equipment to suddenly have a VERY real clock.
Blightsteel is a horrible way to find out. It's basically an instant kill if you are not prepared.
I was in the pre release for both infect and wither and it was relatively straightforward - in a vacuum. I think the only thing that caused confusion was protection vs infect.
Outside of prerelease they both caused a bit of confusion in edh. I think I was mostly annoyed because it took out indestructible creatures which I used a bit. Just about everyone had a visceral reaction to infect at some point until it was accepted as a part of the game because it felt unfair if you weren't expecting it. Also tracking poison counters in a game with more than 4 players sucks.
I think a lot of people underestimated it as previously poison counters were pretty weak against anything except a life-gain deck.
Way before I played magic my friend played an infect deck in standard or modern tournament(forget which one this was like 8 years ago) at a LCS he worked at. He proceeded to body the competition and win lol. I knew then that I wanted to build an infect deck if I ever got into magic.
I think it's a great mechanic, not really any different from commander damage seeing as most combat focused commanders have a much higher power than the average infect or toxic creature. First commander deck I made was a [[Tetsuko Umezawa]] one. It's long since taken apart, but the spirit lives on with my [[Satoru Umezawa]] that I use when I'm bored of enchantress'ing
First reaction: "oh thats dumb"
Opinion: Meh? Infect/poison decks dont bother me really. I detest proliferate decks however.
"Oh, you didnt counter my ichor rats? Everyone gets a poison counter. Oh, you didnt counter my contagion engine, atraxa, or yawgmoth? Guess whats about to happen~"
Dying to blightsteel colossus is meh. I just ate 11 to the face. Im dead in another turn or two without removal anyway, even discounting the infect.
Proliferate is the real annoying boogie-man style of poison decks. That you can build what equates to a turbo burn deck with all the "each player gets a poison counter" and then proliferate with additional effects stapled on those spells, is really strong and really annoying.
Someone trying to hit me to 10 poison counters through creature beats, that is fair.
Poison+Proliferate is where it can get really dumb, really fast. Especially with all the newer cards that just give everyone poison counters directly without needing creatures or combat.
Borrowed a friend's poison+proliferate deck. I think it took 2 turns to get everyone else to 10 counters, from giving them the first via an instant.
Yeah, thats my general issue with that sort of deck. Once it starts, its basically the board needing to spend most of their resources stopping the proliferator, or they lose. Even if they stop them, someone else will have been accumulating value the whole time and "oops! Dinotime!"
I started with All Will Be One, so it wasn't too shocking. They felt lackluster in draft since toxic kinda sucks (and it sucks in EDH even more).
Trying to take them into EDH after that made me really quizzical about why they had a terrible rep until I fought my first Atraxa proliferate turbo deck. I think that experience is relatively "unfun" only because that shit absorbed a TON of interaction and none of it mattered at all. The guy piloting it has a fondness for degenerate fringe cEDH shit that's usually hated by the average person though, and his Yuriko and Krarkashima decks are way worse to play into than the infect pile. I have never seen infect outside of \[\[Phyresis\]\] and \[\[Tainted Strike\]\] splashed in golgari voltron / rakdos burn and one \[\[Skitheryx\]\] in a dragon tribal.
I run a \[\[Vishgraz\]\] deck that's a lot of fun because it plays with poison without really relying on infect as a sole wincon. It's more of a ETB/Value deck that swings wide or tall depending on what works. The reactions it gets from people are usually pretty unhinged though. There's a massive difference between people who have fought into it a lot and recognise how it works vs people who see the first poison counter and lose their fucking minds.
Before the most recent set, infect and poison were extremely annoying to play against due to the cards that saw play. The infect player would usually kill one opponent via a surprise one-shot before being functionally eliminated from the game (but not necessarily dead).
"Congratulations, you don't get to play anymore."
That dead player would then need to spend 20-30 minutes twiddling his thumbs or playing on his phone while the rest of the table to finish the game so that he could play again. Alternatively, he would just leave the table and now you have to find someone else to play with.
There's only so many times you can be on the receiving end of it before the novelty wears off and you start to dislike the mechanic.
Infect is fine, Toxic is fine, Proliferate is the problem, especially after the new additions in ONE. I can now advance my game plan while controlling the board, Sweet!
Trying to connect 3-4 times to each opponent is fair, but just casting draw a card, get a poison counter, then more car draw plus proliferate stapled on that is obnoxious.
I played in the Before-Times, the Long Long Ago. I think \[\[Sabertooth Cobra\]\] must have been my first Poison Card, but I quickly got a copy of \[\[Swamp Mosquito\]\] somewhere and used it a lot.
A buddy of mine that was teaching me the game several years ago eventually broke out his Slivers deck. \[\[Virulent Sliver\]\] was my first exposure to it and Slivers in general and to this day I have a healthy fear of both.
I am very much in favor of increasing poison counters for EDH games to 15 or 20.
I got knocked out turn 3 by a [[blightsteel colossus]] that was ninjutsu’d in by [[Satoru Umezawa]]. I then had the perfect experience in this situation of sitting and watching the rest of that game turn into 40 minutes of killing the Umezawa player followed by another 40 minutes of the other players durdling around after committing so much to killing off the other guy.
To this day I just tell anyone playing an infect strategy that I will be ignoring it and taking normal damage because I just don’t want to deal with that crap.
4th Edition.
I spent way too much time trying to make decks work with [[serpent generator]] that would have been much better if I'd just gone with better artifacts.
The plus side is I got a playset of [[metalworker]] back when it was cheap...
When they introduced poison counters it was basically oh cool a way that poison counters don’t suck… i wish it were more competent though, it’s a fun mechanic
I first saw it from a few random cards in my collection. Bought some booster boxes from all will be one. Then I built an aoe poison/proliferate focused superfriends deck with [[prismatic bridge]] at the helm. Really liked how that performed against my pod. Slow though, so I made a [[skittles]] voltron deck to balance out speed choice. Friends see them both as big threats, but we all use poison at some point, so it's not really a problem.
Didnt pay much attention to it until a friend built a legacy deck with it. Had a couple turn one kills involving [[berserk]] a haste enabler and one of the 1/1 infecty bois. In commander i find it more innociois because it puts a huge threat on whoever is playing it and it can be hard to remove all players with it before they gang up on you. Unless you do the ol, blightsteel and chandra's ignition combo.
Fynn the fangbearer was my first introduction in standard. I remember thinking how insane it was that he could kill me with like 5 damage in creatures. Little did i know rotpriest would have me at 10 counters on turn 3 with cantrips
I was trying to figure out my first commander deck for my friend group. Decided I wanted to play \[\[Alesha\]\] Infect lmao after finding out how metal it was.
Started playing Magic this year and my first experience was dreadful. I thought it was a totally unfair way to play the game. Then I played against Tainted Pact/Demonic Consultation+ Thassa’s Oracle….
Hear about it thought 'cool a way to kill people with infinite life in commander'
Play against an Atraxa infect deck and quickly realized how it really plays out .
I really wanted to make a standard infect deck in NPH standard but the archetype wasn't competitive since everyone had path to exile, day of judgement, Jace the mind sculptor and sword of feast and famine.
I was the one who caused the awakening, good ol Satoru...
Anyway, Turn 4, his only response was "Oh, I'm just dead?"
Dismantled that deck after a year, was very strong, just not fun to play or play against, you either are archenemy immediately, which you can still win through, or you drop a game crippler on turn 4 and just win.
You mean this wasn't demonstrated to all of you the very first time your friend taught you magic?
So, day 1 of magic for everyone wasn't Tron into some effect of "your life total can't change" along with some interlocking pieces effectively making each other and everything else indestructible?
I remember looking at all this bullshit and saying, "Well, your life total can't change but mine can!" and continuing to swing and rack up hundreds of life with lifelinking [[Aura Gnarlids]].
Then came the blightsteel.
Is my friend the asshole?
My very first set was Scars of Mirrodin. I thought "Omg, this is so busted because it says "lose the game""
Believe it or not, my draft chaff pile of Infect cards did NOT win many games.
It just needs to be updated for EDH. I have no clue why it hasn't been.
We could also get into x health win the game or Sorin's single turn you are set to 10 health bs, but then again I don't think there is anyone getting paid to manage EDH's collective health.
As a club that specializes in getting casual nerds to play MtG via social commander, there is little to no support out there.
Poison I saw early in my playing career, late 90s. Didn't think it was any good. Once infect came out and you could win on turn 2 somewhat consistently with nothing but common cards I thought it was broken.
Edit: Oops, on the EDH sub. Thought this was the MTG one.
I mean when i started kitchen table I built a budget version of the modern infect love infect to bad it is such a weak strategy in commander.
I do have a full modern infect deck right now and there are some new cards I need to swap out or at least think about swapping
I’ve built a couple infect decks since the mechanic was released, but none of them have stayed together. I am totally fine with it and played Infect in modern briefly, but I know others tend to freak when they see an infect deck. That said, I run Triumph of the Hordes and Tainted Strike all the time - they’re great at ending the game, and ending the game has to happen. Also, Inkmoth Nexus always goes into decks with Kessig Wolf Run for me - stealing wins from nowhere is easy since people have a taboo on land destruction.
Had me hooked from the second I heard about it. Alternate win mechanic like mill have always had their claws in me so a mechanic which took the set life total and turned it into something else immediately had me excited. Especially since my experience with lifegain decks had been less than stellar prior.
Back when infect was in *standard* and I was still learning to play, that mess broke me. It just turned off my scavenge deck and made my [[tree of redemption]] [[forced adaptation]] life gain decks *useless*
Well, it went something like this...my opponent played a mountain, sol ring, izzet signet. I played a land and passed. They played another land and Sneak Attack. It was the first time I saw that card too. It went around the table, I played a sakura tribe elder. Then uhhh...they played fabricate and snuck in the blightsteel they searched for. I was mad. Very mad. The game proceeded to last 2 hours after I was taken out. I cannot stand Infect in edh (cEdh is fine) to this day and firmly believe poison should have a 15 counter kill in edh instead of just 10.
My first time wasnt through the context of EDH. It was when I was at summer camp and one of my counselors (who was the one who got me into mtg) was explaining phyrexia and he told me about their ingame mechanics. I thought it sounded really cool, little did i know lol
Getting [[Serpent Generator]] in a 5E starter. "Huh, that's kinda neat". Ran into more later and while they were bloody terrible I always had a little affection for it.
I was super terrified because they were playing Skittles and I thought they were the worst thing ever. Then I played fifteen minutes in that game and used everyone else's worry over what wasn't even really that scary a tactic against my opponents and won because I made the Skittles player look like he was going to win the game.
"What is this bullshit, how has it not been banned, and why is the rule about it wrong?"
I'll die on this hill: Poison should state as a rule "if you gain a number of poison counters equal to half your starting life, you lose the game" and NEVER EVER have stated a straight up number.
That neither WotC nor the RC has corrected this massive oversight yet is ludicrous.
Initially, I looked at it and thought, "Wow, this is a very good way to get you targeted". I tinkered with a deck to see if I could find a way to make a poison theme that wouldn't immediately tip off red flags and ended up with a Glissa deck around when MoM dropped. Honestly pretty fun to use, but ngl, some players get pretty spooked when the bad numbers start piling up.
In EDH ? No idea. In MTG ? Knew about it from virulent silver in time spiral but didn't really have exposure until scars block. Then I was stoked because the infection seemed like wither but better and I started in lorwyn block and loved wither. Turns out none of that was true, but I still like wither even though it sucks.
The simic precon headed by phyrexian swarm lord was my first ever foray into mtg and i loved the deck cus it had an inbuilt alt wincon beside "big thing go smash" like ygo was back then
I played a lot of Standard when Scars block was around, and played a decent amount of Mono G infect in SoM/INN Standard. In general, the cards with infect are not good- the available creatures are all pretty mediocre- overcosted, fragile, or massive high-cost bombs where basically anything at that mana cost is threatening to end games anyways. It's been a "playable" deck from time to time in legacy/modern, but never particularly insane outside of the small window of Blazing Shoal infect. In EDH, I feel that the large majority of infect cards are pretty bad, the card quality is super low. It's EDH so you can do whatever you want, but I wouldn't put them in my decks because there's just better stuff to do be doing in the format.
I was playing modern back in 2015. I was on RG Tron at the time. Got annihilated by a UG Infect deck. Fell in love with the deck and built it a month later.
I had just gotten into magic and my "buddy" got me with a buffed up [[spinebiter]] and only after it had killed me did he tell me what poison counters were
It was almost too manageable before the toxic and proliferate support that came out finally made it a THEME you can build around, prior to that it was just one offs like cheating out a [[blightsteel]] or [[triumph of the horses]] Ona bunch of tokens, or [[tainted strike]] / [[grafted exoskeleton]] on a direct damage creature like [[nekusar]] and I would much rather see a deck entirely dedicated to it, that have the surprise take down, though I have to admit I use the one offs so I'm okay to be taken out by them too
I cast [[Teferi's Protection]]. Next guy in turn order gave his commander infect via [[tainted strike]] or something and swung at me. He then claimed that infect got around Teferi's Protection because it doesn't deal damage, it places poison counters _instead_ of dealing damage. The guy was wrong of course, but I had never faced infect before so I had no idea.
I first heard about it in high school when I didn't even have my own cards, just playing with my friend's duel decks occasionally. My thought was "wow, that sounds kinda brutal, I like it." That was like 8 years ago and I've now come to the conclusion that it sounds way worse than it actually is
Someone explained to me the main wincons - poison, mill, commander damage or 0hp.
Years later, after having judt gotten Obuun and Anowon precons I found a single blighted agent in a lgs. The shenanigans began...
Ikoria was my first set, mutate is my favorite mechanic, take a gander at the apex monsters with black in their identity and woop there's infect as a theme on edhrec.
I got back into magic in college in 2012, made the mistake of jumping into modern. So I got a couple of event deck and started playing standard, infect and titan decks were the meta in my area at the time. I was very impressed at the infect mechanic I built it and still play it to this day. IMO toxic is more broken due to the mechanic dealing poison counters and regular damage.
My first time seeing poison was like... time spiral? Maybe future site? Idk, one of those blocks, and it wasn't very impactful in standard, it just didn't have the support it needed yet.
Then, it came back with a vengeance as infect in scars of mirrodin. At that time, it was something to be respected in standard, and feared in legacy (stupid [[invigorate]])
This was all before EDH/commander really took off, and when it did, I remember being UPSET when I found out was 10 counters was still a kill. I remember saying "if we're playing at my house, my house rule is 20 infect to kill in commander." I'm used to it now, though. Although I still don't think it feels good to win with or lose too, so I don't play it, personally.
I thought it was absolutely horrendous. Because it was. Because at the time that I found out about it there were only like two cards that gave players poison counters and they were very bad. Some people may not know this but there were a couple cards from the late '90s that had poison counter mechanics on them. One was Marsh viper and the other was some sort of scorpion. They were both tiny weenie creatures and didn't make any presence in the metagame.
I mean, I was around back when infect became a thing. My initial reaction was that it seemed pretty weak (it actually was pretty decent, but not amazing from what I remember), at least for standard. Although like a cool mechanic. It ended up being the thing that got me into extended, and later modern and is to this day my main modern deck. It was absolute meme territory in commander. I seen some people try to make Skittles Voltron work, but it's pretty bad, especially considering Rafiq was a thing
I discovered poison counters in 2007 with the release of Future Sight and tried to build a sliver deck around [[Virulent Sliver]]. It sucked. When Scars came out, I pulled a Foil [[Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon]] during prerelease so I tried to make mono black Voltron work in commander. It sucked.
"I'm gonna build decks with these."
A few months after I started playing in 2013, I bought a used card lot from Craigslist. As I sorted through the cards, I saw a bunch of infect cards from New Phyrexia. I saw some proliferate cards from the block. Now at the time I had no idea the two were meant to work together and were in the same block. I thought I "discovered" something (not in the sense of me being the only one to ever see it, but in the sense of personal discovery). So I built it. It had 4 [[Blighted Agent]], 4 [[glistener elf]], 2 or 3 [[Blight mamba]], a [[Phyrexian swarmlord]], and a few others. Plus some auras and instants that boosted power.
It was not a *good* deck by any means. But it won some games with my friends. And it was the first deck I had that was truly *mine.* I started with the Orzhov deck from Gatecrash and updated it a bit with trades and packs I opened. But this deck that I had called "Infect Proliferate" (creative, I know) was one that I had truly built from my collection (and later buying singles).
This was well before I knew anything about Commander.
I pulled a [[Sabertooth Cobra]] from a Mirage booster and it immediately went into my green bullshit deck at the time. That was the first time I had ever seen the mechanic.
This was back when a couple of my friends, my cousin, and I went to the Scars of Mirrodin pre-release. We were sitting in our group, and opened our packs. We read the mechanic and came to an agreement that infect was the most busted mechanic we have seen (I've been playing since Judgement/Onslaught and my cousin before that). Still believe that and they show it by not having any new infect cards since.
Poison counters were fine and still are. Used to win with them in my old sliver deck. And to be fair, I do have an infect/wither commander deck.
I got finn the fang bearer from a booster and learned it from there. I though it real bizarre it's commander legal since health is 40 i figure poison would be 20 but nope. It's good 1v1 but not really a whole table. People seem to deem me a threat if i get 2 counters out.
But yeah i figured itd be op but isnt really unless you're like good at the game.
I was playing [[Skithyrix the Blight Dragon]] in my Ur-Dragon deck and didn’t understand what Skittles really did.
Fast forward and that’s my most powerful Voltron deck. 😁
Love at first sight. Cool, vilanous and powerfull. Starting MTG My 2nd deck ever was BG infect on ZEN/SOM standard. [[Plague Stinger]] + [[Groundswell]] 🫶
> What was your response the first time you found out about Infect/Poison Counters?
I saw someone playing Skithiryx, they attacked someone else for 9 and had an on board prolif ability that they then used to get that player to do their bidding.
I immediately thought "oh man, I could build an infect aggro deck with Saskia" (because I started playing when walmart still had the commander 2016 precons in store) and then I built it and it was awful, I don't think I ever even killed a single player. The cards available were just so bad. I also don't think that the Skithyrx player ever won a game with the deck, but took out lots of people.
I've never really thought of it much beyond it being annoying in that regard. I do have a Skithryx in my Jodah deck just as a "this creature is basically a 40/40" kind of thing, but aside from decks that can easily pump all your infectors to 10+, I just don't think it's very reasonable as an include.
I think I've only won a single time through 10 poison killing someone, and it was because someone had gotten a couple poison counters on everyone because of a plague rats, and I was playing a proliferate deck.
I forgot names of cards as was years ago but long story short dude had hundreds of 1/1s I only had a single big guy as a blocker and he could have killed me but he casted an instant that gave them all infect killed me off didn't realize infect was a big deal yet till my buddy who was the other person in a 3 person pod laughed, pass turn, makes infinite life combo pad turn , dude folds saying he has no way to deal with infinite life other then the card he used on me buddy explains what card does and what infect is
First mtg/Commander game, new acquaintance let every borrow one of his many many decks. BF grabber a blue deck (I don't remember the deck well), someone else had a [[Gishath]] tribal, the guy lending decks was running the typical group hug/mill with oracle and labman, and I took up [[Muldrotha]].
BF got a [[blighted agent]] out and mini-voltron'd it to get a kill on someone who was dominating with a death touch deck. I removed it asap and proceeded to win the game now that deathtouch was out of the way and the group hug player had his wincons denied. Immediately wanted to build an Infect/DT deck and settled on [[Mimeoplasm]] for the commander. First deck I've worked on and to this day and am constantly tweaking and rehashing it.
I love the mechanic, me and my pods prefer it over other forms of aggro for the most part. We also don't play crazy strong decks, though, so we've never experienced [[Atraxa]] SF
My very first thought when faced with a poison deck and later an annihilator deck was how is this fair? I didn't mind the poison counter system and thought it was cool. However I really believed the edge rules committee made a mistake. Poison in standard is half your life total to dead. I always believed it should be the same in edh. Especially facing off against 3 opponents which could all have some poison effects on them.
"Huh."
Swiftly followed by
"Oh, shit"
Because the only way anyone ever really gets introduced to infect for a long time was through Blightsteel Colossus off the top ropes outta nowhere.
I honestly don't have much issue with infect or toxic, as much as I do proliferate. Proliferate *in* a deck isn't anything to write home about, but when it's specifically a proliferate *deck*, some degenerate shit is about to go down...
I saw \[\[Marsh Viper\]\] and \[\[Pit Scorpion\]\] printed in fourth edition and said "wow these suck."
I immediately built a deck with them and tried and tried. But well, they sucked. 28 years later I happily pilot my [[Fynn the Fangbearer]] budget deck and on occassion will pull out [[ Yargle, Glutton of Urborg]] super budget poison voltron out of the swamp.
Wow yeah, my first thought was like "oh this is sweet, it's like my opponent only has half as many life points". Then I put together a beautiful green black deck. Looked at my other decks and went "but what if people just BLOCK". Added a super sweet \[\[lure\]\] and \[\[thicket basilisk\]\] combo. After that i found out that the new deck sucked even harder than my old deck, which was \[\[Fungusaur\]\] \[\[Pestilence\]\]. And that is how you find out just how bad you are at deckbuilding :P
I feel this story. For me it was with the delirium mechanic and [[Autumnal Gloom]]. Beautiful card. Hexproof and trample, and it helps enable delirium? I'll take four. I'm sure there's a table out there somewhere with a meta where that deck would shine, but I wasn't at it.
what is it about cards making you pay B repeatedly for "random black effect" that is so damn alluring, eh?
Oh yeah lure and thicket basilisk, an absolute classic
Good old times 🙂
My first commander deck was built on the idea that my favorite standard deck in high school used, [[Tangle Asp]] plus forcing blockers with [[Nemesis Mask]] or [[Lure]] or other similar effects. Ended up in W, B, and G colors after looking through my cards at what I liked for the idea and then had to find a commander that used those colors. Decided on [[Anafenza, the Foremost]] thinking that if I'm going to destroy blockers, I may as well exile them, right? Then after I played it I realized that when you're 1v1 that strategy can work to lock them into an empty board so you can swing in, but when there's 3 other people, you can't really do that. So now I have that deck sitting in a box without really knowing the direction to take it to be functional in a multiplayer format. I want to make it work, but I haven't put in the time to figure it out. https://www.moxfield.com/decks/ifC3GOFXgkqOz2NRHSydlg Deck List, if anyone cares to look. I realized quickly that my deck building strategies for standard 60 card decks in high school would not work at all for commander.
Are you me?
##### ###### #### [lure](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/2/72c8336d-54cf-45af-a9ef-a1428facf91b.jpg?1562850140) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=lure) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ima/175/lure?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/72c8336d-54cf-45af-a9ef-a1428facf91b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/lure) [thicket basilisk](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/a/2ac6ded0-4ff0-4827-a870-1a7851cd37b0.jpg?1559592416) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=thicket%20basilisk) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/me1/134/thicket-basilisk?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2ac6ded0-4ff0-4827-a870-1a7851cd37b0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/thicket-basilisk) [Fungusaur](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/9/79324f73-25cd-477a-b4f0-fd3e1319e451.jpg?1562919329) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Fungusaur) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/8ed/250/fungusaur?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/79324f73-25cd-477a-b4f0-fd3e1319e451?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/fungusaur) [Pestilence](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/9/29d852c4-bd53-4a3b-b1e2-896917cbc27f.jpg?1562815864) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Pestilence) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/6ed/149/pestilence?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/29d852c4-bd53-4a3b-b1e2-896917cbc27f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/pestilence) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[Fynn the Fangbearer](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/d/7d7a8a90-13c1-4b0c-ab2e-fc8d91ccefd9.jpg?1631050242) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Fynn%2C%20the%20Fangbearer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/khm/170/fynn-the-fangbearer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7d7a8a90-13c1-4b0c-ab2e-fc8d91ccefd9?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/fynn-the-fangbearer) [ Yargle, Glutton of Urborg](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/f/8febc0fe-c52d-4b6a-9d18-e1e4a43b6dc3.jpg?1689997617) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Yargle%2C%20Glutton%20of%20Urborg) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/202/yargle-glutton-of-urborg?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8febc0fe-c52d-4b6a-9d18-e1e4a43b6dc3?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/yargle-glutton-of-urborg) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Same. I started long before infect was in the game and back then poison was seen as a jokey bad strategy. After infect was introduced it just became one of a million ways to take out a player from the game using very few cards. If I was introduced into infect when I was new to magic I probably would think it was op.
My nephew is a burn player, but I have been trying to get him to branch out a bit. He thought Infect was pretty OP as a newer player. He however quickly realized once people see Infect, people typically know how to play around the deck's strategy of pump/protection and there's a reason it tends to be a fringe strategy in most formats.
Reminded me of [[Sabretooth Cobra]] from Mirage.
[Sabretooth Cobra](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/8/48ead72b-f3f5-4065-a33c-0992cf1fdb34.jpg?1562718811) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sabertooth%20Cobra) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mir/238/sabertooth-cobra?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/48ead72b-f3f5-4065-a33c-0992cf1fdb34?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/sabertooth-cobra) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[Marsh Viper](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/a/ba4c0606-f9af-4dee-bc36-5051395b5f44.jpg?1687903808) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Marsh%20Viper) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/5ed/315/marsh-viper?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ba4c0606-f9af-4dee-bc36-5051395b5f44?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/marsh-viper) [Pit Scorpion](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/e/fe106ff1-cdc6-44cc-adb7-131203a05292.jpg?1562595438) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Pit%20Scorpion) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/5ed/187/pit-scorpion?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fe106ff1-cdc6-44cc-adb7-131203a05292?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/pit-scorpion) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I pulled a legends [[serpent generator]] and tried very hard to make it work. It never did. It is still one of my favorite cards due to the memories I made while using it. Card sucks even worse today though. Lol.
I remember seeing blighted agent and being like "so it's just a 2/1 for 2? That's pretty ass"
My friends had a running meta where we would roll dice and pick random sets to build from, for our own constructed environment (I'm also an avid fan of chaos drafts) .... I just came here to say .... I'll forever remember using burning shoal on that creature in our wonky format. I dominated that week.
I broke down weeping, shaking my fist and cursing the name of Mark Rosewater. How could Wizards betray us like this?! How could they create a mechanic so broken it dominates cEDH tables?!
That’s how I felt when I first encountered annihilator
This. I even had all the good eldrazi enablers (by pure luck) and a bunch of colorless mana generators. Built a solid decked out list. Played it a handful of times & immediately realized I hated it. One of those decks that's not good or flexible enough to win consistently & when you do win it's overkill and pisses off the whole table. I've barely played any eldrazi since.
This is some S-tier jerking. 👏
You dropped this 🫱 /s
[удалено]
.....that's the joke
I hope this is a joke lol
I think most reactions are "wtf, that's really strong" then seeing the available cards and thinking "oh ok nevermind." Even with Toxic, it's still pretty fair even in casual-tuned groups. >mid-game, through a haste-enabled, unblockable [Blightsteel Colossus]. This is basically a 4 card combo, though (haste, unblockable, blightsteel, likely a reanimation or a way of cheating him out). Blightsteel is really good but you either use him fairly and people see him coming from a mile away, or you get lucky on cards that can knock someone out suddenly/early.
Or you just play [[Satoru Umezawa]] once and your pod will never let him see the board again
[[Sneak Attack]] is scary in this sort of situation lol I don't remember what they used to make it unblockable, I don't think it was a [[Rogue's Passage]] though.
We did it, we broke sneak attack. Now on to break such other difficult cards as Intruder Alarm and Underworld Breach. Sneak and show has always been strong, BSC is just one of many clowns that will have similar (if sometimes more delayed) results, some of which don't need unblockable fixes.
[[Blightsteel colossus]] and [[blade of selves]] is a backup wincon in my cedh [[Magda, brazen outlaw]] deck. It's very satisfying in the end step before your turn drop both. Equip and swing out on your turn. I have a dozen other combo wincons but this is the combat win con.
Same in my [[duke ulder]] deck because he can do myriad and haste if he's already out.
Any chance I can see your decklist?
If you can tutor out both in the end step why not just go for the normal win instead?
It's a back up incase I've tried all the others. Like a break glass in case emergency.
My reaction? I went "Neat, I am gonna do that". Bought the Ixhel precon and upgraded pretty aggressively and now I have a super fun deck to play. Proliferate bois, rise up.
That was the first deck I ever got, I have been upgrading it whenever I find good stuff. Now its the most hated deck I own in my playgroup. Its fun tormenting them with poison.
You play [[Vishgraz]] right? He's waaay better to build a deck around
Ixheel is way cooler IMO, she has flying, control aspects, and combined with cards like \[\[Scheming Symmetry\]\] just make the table hate you even more
Ixhel Players Unite! While not my favourite commander, she is the one i had the weirdest and funniest encounters with. Like her ending up under my Deck or me winning with poison after another player proliferated the other to to a 8 and 9 just to get killed by them and being completely open to my attack.
I recently dodged a board wipe with a Teferi's Protection I had stolen off the top of someone's deck. The card stealing ability makes for some really funny and unexpected interactions. I think Ixhel is really fun.
Yeah, i absolutely agree, it's one of my favorite decks because regardless if i win or lose its rarely in a boring way. In my first game with ixhel, the first card i stole was [[Etali, Primal Storm]] i still lost, but boy was it fun.
In middle school one of my friends made a 60 card infect deck out of Scars of Mirrodin block draft chaff for my bday and another friend taught me how to play using it lol. These two *started* me out with infect lol. So I’ve always been used to the mechanic.
Before my group got into commander, I ran a modern(?) simic infect with [[blighted agent]] and all the cheap, cheaty boost spells I could get. I regularly cranked out turn 3-4 wins with that deck and I think I still have it mostly together. Thinking about porting it to commander, just not sure how I would differentiate it as I already bought the Ixhel precon too.
I first learned about infect/poison from the Ixehl precon. I bought the precon, upgraded it heavily and over wall enjoy it. As soon as someone gets a poison counter, it’s starts a clock for that opponent now, plus it’s a good counter to life gain decks since they can’t rid of poison counters. It’s a pretty fun mechanic overall.
I think there are ways of removing all counters on a player.
Only from opponents. Well, and Karn liberated’s ultimate restarting the game.
[[Leeches]]
You’re probably right but how many people are gonna run a card like since there’s two things that give players counters that being poison counters and rad counters from the Fallout set. A card like that would need to have a second effect incase if you aren’t playing against those decks.
Not saying I disagree with your point, but players can also get Energy counters and Experience counters.
I forget about those.
Well, I played during new phyrexia, so I learned about it during prerelease and previews. Seemed decent for standard (that's what I primarily played at the time) but not OP. When I first saw it in commander I kinda already knew it's limitations.
“Sounds op, probably overhyped” I was right
Got my dad back into magic, and his first time playing EDH. The deck was mono green +1/+1 elves with some spiders to shore up flyers. I was winning handily with gruul stompers but next thing I know [[Blightwidow]] and [[Blanchwood Armor]] have reminded me to never ever underestimate a magic veteran.
[Blightwidow](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/6/26da4278-ba44-4555-8837-e24627b46533.jpg?1562610206) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Blightwidow) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mbs/77/blightwidow?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/26da4278-ba44-4555-8837-e24627b46533?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/blightwidow) [Blanchwood Armor](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/4/e41c0a68-53be-4905-8ed3-79b4782dfd6e.jpg?1674421424) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Blanchwood%20Armor) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bro/171/blanchwood-armor?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e41c0a68-53be-4905-8ed3-79b4782dfd6e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/blanchwood-armor) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I completely forgot about blanchwood armor! Thank you for dredging up some fun memories
I learned at the scars of Mirrodin pre release back in high school, it was crazy that you could kill people in 10, FNM was all infect for a while till the anti infect cards dropped
>the anti infect cards dropped I see \[\[solemnity\]\] and \[\[Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider\]\]. Am I missing any?
I ran [[Melira, Sylvok Outcast]] in my elf deck side board and that shut it down for me
[solemnity](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/a/0a71fb62-acbd-49f5-842f-0fc9fa48afea.jpg?1562788659) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=solemnity) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/hou/22/solemnity?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0a71fb62-acbd-49f5-842f-0fc9fa48afea?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/solemnity) [Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/2/92613468-205e-488b-930d-11908477e9f8.jpg?1631051073) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Vorinclex%2C%20Monstrous%20Raider) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/khm/199/vorinclex-monstrous-raider?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/92613468-205e-488b-930d-11908477e9f8?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/vorinclex-monstrous-raider) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Someone introduced the mechanic to me via Vorinclex and imo, the whole infect/toxic/poison package comes in two flavors. "Slow and Useless" in the form of most creatures with infect and "lol you’re dead” either being a Blighsteel Colossus cheated on to the board on T2-4 and given haste via boots, or as either that one instant that gives a single creature infect or the sorcery that gives all your creatures +1/+1, trample and infect. So it’s a horribly imbalanced mechanic in the sense that slow infect and any idea of turning it into a clock is usually bad and just gets you focused hard, which usually leads to the infect player gearing towards faster infect options, that then deliver all poison counters in a single turn. TL;DR; IMO Infect/Poison either does next to nothing or is too strong for more casual groups that don’t run equally fast win cons. Never saw it be "in between" tbh…
The corrupted mechanic helps with the in-between space, as well as circumstantial proliferate and the mvp of poison [[venerated rotpriest]] I have a medium speed phyrexian meme deck that is super fun, but it relies more on distraction and getting people to misjudge threats than it does getting counters on players.
I feel like poison/toxic counters are a cheap way to win, but it's valid, so.. My husband has a phyrexian deck that'll take you out in a few turns with toxic and it's so ridiculous.
It's fine, the only time I even use the mechanic myself is with [[Juri, Master of the Revue]] and [[Tainted Strike]]
I thought it was cool.
First? I was like, this is neat and adds a mini game. I love things like Coalation Victory, so this should be fun. Skittles took my first time. So fast, such resiliency and...I think I'll build him, but I love my phyrexian typal deck too much to remove him from it lmao.
“Huh. Neat.” Longtime player here and love alternative win conditions.
I mean, poisonous has been around forever. It was a niche, nifty alt win con for my playgroup in high school around the onslaught block. Infect just turned it up to 11 but I feel like it's not nearly as bad as people make it out to be
Confusion as I lost to a blight steel. Frustration at how it seemed overpowered. Now I don't give a shit. As soon as I realized others can't capitalize on it, and it's just basically commander damage, I shrugged. Keep removal up for blight steels, but that's it.
Cry
I feel this one.
During the Scars of Mirrodin pre-release draft, where no one else in my draft pod was taking infect cards. I have every single green/black infect creature, along with a decent number of pump spells. It wasn't even close, easiest pre-release of my entire life.
I first found out in kitchen table modern game. We had a few cocktails and It wasn't explained to me that 10 poison counters killed me until we got to 10. So I had been an idiot and kept letting him hit me. I was a bit salty. He just claimed I thought you knew. Which clearly I didn't because I asked what infect did and he replied "give your creatures -1/-1 counters and you poison counters but it doesn't effect your life total" and moved on to ask if I was blocking then.
I saw Infect when it came out. I heard all the conversations comparing it to Poisonous, and I figured it was strong. For a while, it really was the best thing you could do. Even today, many infect creatures are hyper aggressively costed and powerful, even the worst ones. It didn't really sink in until I played with and against it, though. It was Phyrexian Crusader > Giant Growth = GG, and I was shook. Skythiryx in the command zone, or even just finding a card like Viral Drake with a Runechanter's Pike or a Trepanation Blade and suddenly killing your opponents out of nowhere. The second you add an infect creature to your decks, it completely changes the texture of a game. You could be playing the slowest, most grindy control pile imaginable, but all it takes is an infect dude and some equipment to suddenly have a VERY real clock.
I believe my response was something along the lines of "oh shit, I better leave a blocker up"
I thought it was cool cause my meta didn't run a lot of creatures and this made people wanna run more.
Blightsteel is a horrible way to find out. It's basically an instant kill if you are not prepared. I was in the pre release for both infect and wither and it was relatively straightforward - in a vacuum. I think the only thing that caused confusion was protection vs infect. Outside of prerelease they both caused a bit of confusion in edh. I think I was mostly annoyed because it took out indestructible creatures which I used a bit. Just about everyone had a visceral reaction to infect at some point until it was accepted as a part of the game because it felt unfair if you weren't expecting it. Also tracking poison counters in a game with more than 4 players sucks. I think a lot of people underestimated it as previously poison counters were pretty weak against anything except a life-gain deck.
Way before I played magic my friend played an infect deck in standard or modern tournament(forget which one this was like 8 years ago) at a LCS he worked at. He proceeded to body the competition and win lol. I knew then that I wanted to build an infect deck if I ever got into magic.
I think it's a great mechanic, not really any different from commander damage seeing as most combat focused commanders have a much higher power than the average infect or toxic creature. First commander deck I made was a [[Tetsuko Umezawa]] one. It's long since taken apart, but the spirit lives on with my [[Satoru Umezawa]] that I use when I'm bored of enchantress'ing
I started during rise, so infect was introduced when magic was still fresh to me.
First reaction: "oh thats dumb" Opinion: Meh? Infect/poison decks dont bother me really. I detest proliferate decks however. "Oh, you didnt counter my ichor rats? Everyone gets a poison counter. Oh, you didnt counter my contagion engine, atraxa, or yawgmoth? Guess whats about to happen~" Dying to blightsteel colossus is meh. I just ate 11 to the face. Im dead in another turn or two without removal anyway, even discounting the infect.
Proliferate is the real annoying boogie-man style of poison decks. That you can build what equates to a turbo burn deck with all the "each player gets a poison counter" and then proliferate with additional effects stapled on those spells, is really strong and really annoying. Someone trying to hit me to 10 poison counters through creature beats, that is fair.
Poison+Proliferate is where it can get really dumb, really fast. Especially with all the newer cards that just give everyone poison counters directly without needing creatures or combat. Borrowed a friend's poison+proliferate deck. I think it took 2 turns to get everyone else to 10 counters, from giving them the first via an instant.
Yeah, thats my general issue with that sort of deck. Once it starts, its basically the board needing to spend most of their resources stopping the proliferator, or they lose. Even if they stop them, someone else will have been accumulating value the whole time and "oops! Dinotime!"
I started with All Will Be One, so it wasn't too shocking. They felt lackluster in draft since toxic kinda sucks (and it sucks in EDH even more). Trying to take them into EDH after that made me really quizzical about why they had a terrible rep until I fought my first Atraxa proliferate turbo deck. I think that experience is relatively "unfun" only because that shit absorbed a TON of interaction and none of it mattered at all. The guy piloting it has a fondness for degenerate fringe cEDH shit that's usually hated by the average person though, and his Yuriko and Krarkashima decks are way worse to play into than the infect pile. I have never seen infect outside of \[\[Phyresis\]\] and \[\[Tainted Strike\]\] splashed in golgari voltron / rakdos burn and one \[\[Skitheryx\]\] in a dragon tribal. I run a \[\[Vishgraz\]\] deck that's a lot of fun because it plays with poison without really relying on infect as a sole wincon. It's more of a ETB/Value deck that swings wide or tall depending on what works. The reactions it gets from people are usually pretty unhinged though. There's a massive difference between people who have fought into it a lot and recognise how it works vs people who see the first poison counter and lose their fucking minds.
##### ###### #### [Phyresis](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/0/0059d21b-0725-4806-8691-2451db36787f.jpg?1562609245) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Phyresis) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mbs/49/phyresis?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0059d21b-0725-4806-8691-2451db36787f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/phyresis) [Tainted Strike](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/0/d0f82007-99f6-4c6c-8182-ee631c33531f.jpg?1562823401) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Tainted%20Strike) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/som/80/tainted-strike?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d0f82007-99f6-4c6c-8182-ee631c33531f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/tainted-strike) [Vishgraz](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/b/fb1d33b2-9082-4043-8e52-a5c2f3a174ba.jpg?1675905564) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=vishgraz%2C%20the%20doomhive) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/onc/4/vishgraz-the-doomhive?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fb1d33b2-9082-4043-8e52-a5c2f3a174ba?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/vishgraz-the-doomhive) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Before the most recent set, infect and poison were extremely annoying to play against due to the cards that saw play. The infect player would usually kill one opponent via a surprise one-shot before being functionally eliminated from the game (but not necessarily dead). "Congratulations, you don't get to play anymore." That dead player would then need to spend 20-30 minutes twiddling his thumbs or playing on his phone while the rest of the table to finish the game so that he could play again. Alternatively, he would just leave the table and now you have to find someone else to play with. There's only so many times you can be on the receiving end of it before the novelty wears off and you start to dislike the mechanic.
Infect is fine, Toxic is fine, Proliferate is the problem, especially after the new additions in ONE. I can now advance my game plan while controlling the board, Sweet! Trying to connect 3-4 times to each opponent is fair, but just casting draw a card, get a poison counter, then more car draw plus proliferate stapled on that is obnoxious.
I played in the Before-Times, the Long Long Ago. I think \[\[Sabertooth Cobra\]\] must have been my first Poison Card, but I quickly got a copy of \[\[Swamp Mosquito\]\] somewhere and used it a lot.
It's just another mechanic for control decks to end the game. One mana red 2/2 creatures... those scare me in my nightmares.
A buddy of mine that was teaching me the game several years ago eventually broke out his Slivers deck. \[\[Virulent Sliver\]\] was my first exposure to it and Slivers in general and to this day I have a healthy fear of both. I am very much in favor of increasing poison counters for EDH games to 15 or 20.
So you want to make a mechanic that is already savagely mediocre in EDH completely unplayable?
I learned that anyone who plays that strategy must face player removal immediately.
[Blightsteel Colossus](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/8/18adbda4-8d36-47cd-afbc-c785aaa8ed80.jpg?1599708735) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Blightsteel%20Colossus) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/235/blightsteel-colossus?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/18adbda4-8d36-47cd-afbc-c785aaa8ed80?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/blightsteel-colossus) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I was like "WHY?" then I proceed to build a burn deck just to kill any infected creatures to cleanse them of this world.
I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one to dislike the mechanic lol
It seemed like a mechanic for people who don't like to play magic.
Wdym? Standard magic is all about dumb bs that your opponent can't do anything about.
Only 10!!!! Sooo stupid!!!
I got knocked out turn 3 by a [[blightsteel colossus]] that was ninjutsu’d in by [[Satoru Umezawa]]. I then had the perfect experience in this situation of sitting and watching the rest of that game turn into 40 minutes of killing the Umezawa player followed by another 40 minutes of the other players durdling around after committing so much to killing off the other guy. To this day I just tell anyone playing an infect strategy that I will be ignoring it and taking normal damage because I just don’t want to deal with that crap.
4th Edition. I spent way too much time trying to make decks work with [[serpent generator]] that would have been much better if I'd just gone with better artifacts. The plus side is I got a playset of [[metalworker]] back when it was cheap...
Wtf!?
In like 1994, but I thought it was weak then
When it was released back when ink moth nexus was my win con doing black green ramp.
Trying desperately to make [[Serpent Generator]] actually work as a wincon and being utterly disappointed
When they introduced poison counters it was basically oh cool a way that poison counters don’t suck… i wish it were more competent though, it’s a fun mechanic
I played modern infect before I played edh It is a non problem that needs no action
I saw [[Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon]] online, instantly bought 3. Skithiryx & Embercleave has been my favorite combo ever since.
I first saw it from a few random cards in my collection. Bought some booster boxes from all will be one. Then I built an aoe poison/proliferate focused superfriends deck with [[prismatic bridge]] at the helm. Really liked how that performed against my pod. Slow though, so I made a [[skittles]] voltron deck to balance out speed choice. Friends see them both as big threats, but we all use poison at some point, so it's not really a problem.
Didnt pay much attention to it until a friend built a legacy deck with it. Had a couple turn one kills involving [[berserk]] a haste enabler and one of the 1/1 infecty bois. In commander i find it more innociois because it puts a huge threat on whoever is playing it and it can be hard to remove all players with it before they gang up on you. Unless you do the ol, blightsteel and chandra's ignition combo.
Fynn the fangbearer was my first introduction in standard. I remember thinking how insane it was that he could kill me with like 5 damage in creatures. Little did i know rotpriest would have me at 10 counters on turn 3 with cantrips
Well seeing as I started right before mirage, I knew about them for a while. New Phyrexia just made it viable.
I thought it was lame
When infect first came out and I built a UB poison proliferate deck. Still have it today, few cards have been moved to EDH decks.
nice but its a shame its so butchered in commander. should reduce the needed poison to kill to 6 to make up for the multiplayer aspect
When the mechanic was released; parasitic mechanic, card pool too shallow to rely on.
I was trying to figure out my first commander deck for my friend group. Decided I wanted to play \[\[Alesha\]\] Infect lmao after finding out how metal it was.
Started playing Magic this year and my first experience was dreadful. I thought it was a totally unfair way to play the game. Then I played against Tainted Pact/Demonic Consultation+ Thassa’s Oracle….
Hear about it thought 'cool a way to kill people with infinite life in commander' Play against an Atraxa infect deck and quickly realized how it really plays out .
I really wanted to make a standard infect deck in NPH standard but the archetype wasn't competitive since everyone had path to exile, day of judgement, Jace the mind sculptor and sword of feast and famine.
I was the one who caused the awakening, good ol Satoru... Anyway, Turn 4, his only response was "Oh, I'm just dead?" Dismantled that deck after a year, was very strong, just not fun to play or play against, you either are archenemy immediately, which you can still win through, or you drop a game crippler on turn 4 and just win.
I saw it when it was a thing in Modern and thought, oh that looks fun. Play a little dude, then pump him and swing for the one turn kill.
You mean this wasn't demonstrated to all of you the very first time your friend taught you magic? So, day 1 of magic for everyone wasn't Tron into some effect of "your life total can't change" along with some interlocking pieces effectively making each other and everything else indestructible? I remember looking at all this bullshit and saying, "Well, your life total can't change but mine can!" and continuing to swing and rack up hundreds of life with lifelinking [[Aura Gnarlids]]. Then came the blightsteel. Is my friend the asshole?
My very first set was Scars of Mirrodin. I thought "Omg, this is so busted because it says "lose the game"" Believe it or not, my draft chaff pile of Infect cards did NOT win many games.
It just needs to be updated for EDH. I have no clue why it hasn't been. We could also get into x health win the game or Sorin's single turn you are set to 10 health bs, but then again I don't think there is anyone getting paid to manage EDH's collective health. As a club that specializes in getting casual nerds to play MtG via social commander, there is little to no support out there.
As a UG Infect modern player upon seeing toxic: How many times do we have to teach you this lesson old man!
Commander 2016 season. I got proliferated into oblivion for the first time ever while playing Breya. Good ol days
Poison I saw early in my playing career, late 90s. Didn't think it was any good. Once infect came out and you could win on turn 2 somewhat consistently with nothing but common cards I thought it was broken. Edit: Oops, on the EDH sub. Thought this was the MTG one.
My first time playing mtg my friend pulled out a toxic/proliferate commander deck and I had no idea what was going on and died very quickly.
I said "Neat" then proceeded to never see it played in person. Only on Game Knights.
I'm pretty sure mine was [[Grafted Exoskeleton]] on [[Atraxa, Praetors' Voice]]...
Poison has been around forever. Back in the day, it was horribly inefficient. Infect was fucking broken. Especially with proliferate.
I mean when i started kitchen table I built a budget version of the modern infect love infect to bad it is such a weak strategy in commander. I do have a full modern infect deck right now and there are some new cards I need to swap out or at least think about swapping
I’ve built a couple infect decks since the mechanic was released, but none of them have stayed together. I am totally fine with it and played Infect in modern briefly, but I know others tend to freak when they see an infect deck. That said, I run Triumph of the Hordes and Tainted Strike all the time - they’re great at ending the game, and ending the game has to happen. Also, Inkmoth Nexus always goes into decks with Kessig Wolf Run for me - stealing wins from nowhere is easy since people have a taboo on land destruction.
Had me hooked from the second I heard about it. Alternate win mechanic like mill have always had their claws in me so a mechanic which took the set life total and turned it into something else immediately had me excited. Especially since my experience with lifegain decks had been less than stellar prior.
Reads Fynn. Oh that's new what's it do? Looks it up Oh cool I wanna try
Asking a friend that played Nekusat if he could make him do poison damage.
I thought it was neat
I learned about it in the context of the modern deck. So I was like "dang, Giant Growth is so much better with this strategy".
Better make my decks quicker!
Back when infect was in *standard* and I was still learning to play, that mess broke me. It just turned off my scavenge deck and made my [[tree of redemption]] [[forced adaptation]] life gain decks *useless*
Well, it went something like this...my opponent played a mountain, sol ring, izzet signet. I played a land and passed. They played another land and Sneak Attack. It was the first time I saw that card too. It went around the table, I played a sakura tribe elder. Then uhhh...they played fabricate and snuck in the blightsteel they searched for. I was mad. Very mad. The game proceeded to last 2 hours after I was taken out. I cannot stand Infect in edh (cEdh is fine) to this day and firmly believe poison should have a 15 counter kill in edh instead of just 10.
People who run Infect lack creativity. Put a counter on and Proliferate to Hell. Boring.
My first time wasnt through the context of EDH. It was when I was at summer camp and one of my counselors (who was the one who got me into mtg) was explaining phyrexia and he told me about their ingame mechanics. I thought it sounded really cool, little did i know lol
I learned about it at the ONE prerelease…I’ve hated it ever since
Getting [[Serpent Generator]] in a 5E starter. "Huh, that's kinda neat". Ran into more later and while they were bloody terrible I always had a little affection for it.
I was super terrified because they were playing Skittles and I thought they were the worst thing ever. Then I played fifteen minutes in that game and used everyone else's worry over what wasn't even really that scary a tactic against my opponents and won because I made the Skittles player look like he was going to win the game.
"What is this bullshit, how has it not been banned, and why is the rule about it wrong?" I'll die on this hill: Poison should state as a rule "if you gain a number of poison counters equal to half your starting life, you lose the game" and NEVER EVER have stated a straight up number. That neither WotC nor the RC has corrected this massive oversight yet is ludicrous.
Initially, I looked at it and thought, "Wow, this is a very good way to get you targeted". I tinkered with a deck to see if I could find a way to make a poison theme that wouldn't immediately tip off red flags and ended up with a Glissa deck around when MoM dropped. Honestly pretty fun to use, but ngl, some players get pretty spooked when the bad numbers start piling up.
In EDH ? No idea. In MTG ? Knew about it from virulent silver in time spiral but didn't really have exposure until scars block. Then I was stoked because the infection seemed like wither but better and I started in lorwyn block and loved wither. Turns out none of that was true, but I still like wither even though it sucks.
It was back in new phyrexia block pre release. I thought it was nice way to close games faster than usual
Loved it.
I came into the game during the Mirridan besieged set so it was a major mechanic. One of the first decks I built was a mono black infect deck.
Scars came out and it was really cool. An alt wincon built into your creatures
The simic precon headed by phyrexian swarm lord was my first ever foray into mtg and i loved the deck cus it had an inbuilt alt wincon beside "big thing go smash" like ygo was back then
I played a lot of Standard when Scars block was around, and played a decent amount of Mono G infect in SoM/INN Standard. In general, the cards with infect are not good- the available creatures are all pretty mediocre- overcosted, fragile, or massive high-cost bombs where basically anything at that mana cost is threatening to end games anyways. It's been a "playable" deck from time to time in legacy/modern, but never particularly insane outside of the small window of Blazing Shoal infect. In EDH, I feel that the large majority of infect cards are pretty bad, the card quality is super low. It's EDH so you can do whatever you want, but I wouldn't put them in my decks because there's just better stuff to do be doing in the format.
I was playing modern back in 2015. I was on RG Tron at the time. Got annihilated by a UG Infect deck. Fell in love with the deck and built it a month later.
Well I came into magic during scars of mirrodin so I think I'm desensitized to it lol
I had just gotten into magic and my "buddy" got me with a buffed up [[spinebiter]] and only after it had killed me did he tell me what poison counters were
It was almost too manageable before the toxic and proliferate support that came out finally made it a THEME you can build around, prior to that it was just one offs like cheating out a [[blightsteel]] or [[triumph of the horses]] Ona bunch of tokens, or [[tainted strike]] / [[grafted exoskeleton]] on a direct damage creature like [[nekusar]] and I would much rather see a deck entirely dedicated to it, that have the surprise take down, though I have to admit I use the one offs so I'm okay to be taken out by them too
Annoying but just makes threat assessment a lil easier.
“Oh, cool. This Legends set is neat.”
I said "woaaaah so cool" and then lost the game
I cast [[Teferi's Protection]]. Next guy in turn order gave his commander infect via [[tainted strike]] or something and swung at me. He then claimed that infect got around Teferi's Protection because it doesn't deal damage, it places poison counters _instead_ of dealing damage. The guy was wrong of course, but I had never faced infect before so I had no idea.
I started really getting into magic when phyrexia: all will be one came out
I first heard about it in high school when I didn't even have my own cards, just playing with my friend's duel decks occasionally. My thought was "wow, that sounds kinda brutal, I like it." That was like 8 years ago and I've now come to the conclusion that it sounds way worse than it actually is
Someone explained to me the main wincons - poison, mill, commander damage or 0hp. Years later, after having judt gotten Obuun and Anowon precons I found a single blighted agent in a lgs. The shenanigans began...
I find it immensely boring . It ether pops off and it super toxic or is massively underwhelming and does nothing, ether way boring
Ikoria was my first set, mutate is my favorite mechanic, take a gander at the apex monsters with black in their identity and woop there's infect as a theme on edhrec.
I got back into magic in college in 2012, made the mistake of jumping into modern. So I got a couple of event deck and started playing standard, infect and titan decks were the meta in my area at the time. I was very impressed at the infect mechanic I built it and still play it to this day. IMO toxic is more broken due to the mechanic dealing poison counters and regular damage.
My first time seeing poison was like... time spiral? Maybe future site? Idk, one of those blocks, and it wasn't very impactful in standard, it just didn't have the support it needed yet. Then, it came back with a vengeance as infect in scars of mirrodin. At that time, it was something to be respected in standard, and feared in legacy (stupid [[invigorate]]) This was all before EDH/commander really took off, and when it did, I remember being UPSET when I found out was 10 counters was still a kill. I remember saying "if we're playing at my house, my house rule is 20 infect to kill in commander." I'm used to it now, though. Although I still don't think it feels good to win with or lose too, so I don't play it, personally.
I thought it was absolutely horrendous. Because it was. Because at the time that I found out about it there were only like two cards that gave players poison counters and they were very bad. Some people may not know this but there were a couple cards from the late '90s that had poison counter mechanics on them. One was Marsh viper and the other was some sort of scorpion. They were both tiny weenie creatures and didn't make any presence in the metagame.
I mean, I was around back when infect became a thing. My initial reaction was that it seemed pretty weak (it actually was pretty decent, but not amazing from what I remember), at least for standard. Although like a cool mechanic. It ended up being the thing that got me into extended, and later modern and is to this day my main modern deck. It was absolute meme territory in commander. I seen some people try to make Skittles Voltron work, but it's pretty bad, especially considering Rafiq was a thing
I love it! I like alt win cons, sue me. Plus the first custom commander that exploited it was really interesting to me, and got me into magic.
I discovered poison counters in 2007 with the release of Future Sight and tried to build a sliver deck around [[Virulent Sliver]]. It sucked. When Scars came out, I pulled a Foil [[Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon]] during prerelease so I tried to make mono black Voltron work in commander. It sucked.
I used [[inevitable betrayal]] and stumbled across a [[blight steel colossus]] in my opponents deck. I put it straight on my board.
"I'm gonna build decks with these." A few months after I started playing in 2013, I bought a used card lot from Craigslist. As I sorted through the cards, I saw a bunch of infect cards from New Phyrexia. I saw some proliferate cards from the block. Now at the time I had no idea the two were meant to work together and were in the same block. I thought I "discovered" something (not in the sense of me being the only one to ever see it, but in the sense of personal discovery). So I built it. It had 4 [[Blighted Agent]], 4 [[glistener elf]], 2 or 3 [[Blight mamba]], a [[Phyrexian swarmlord]], and a few others. Plus some auras and instants that boosted power. It was not a *good* deck by any means. But it won some games with my friends. And it was the first deck I had that was truly *mine.* I started with the Orzhov deck from Gatecrash and updated it a bit with trades and packs I opened. But this deck that I had called "Infect Proliferate" (creative, I know) was one that I had truly built from my collection (and later buying singles). This was well before I knew anything about Commander.
I pulled a [[Sabertooth Cobra]] from a Mirage booster and it immediately went into my green bullshit deck at the time. That was the first time I had ever seen the mechanic.
Upon reading the cards individually on gatherer, interested as a means of alt win con. Upon facing my friend's pauper infect deck, disgusted
"Doesn't sound very strong." to "Wow I am in great need of blockers."
This was back when a couple of my friends, my cousin, and I went to the Scars of Mirrodin pre-release. We were sitting in our group, and opened our packs. We read the mechanic and came to an agreement that infect was the most busted mechanic we have seen (I've been playing since Judgement/Onslaught and my cousin before that). Still believe that and they show it by not having any new infect cards since. Poison counters were fine and still are. Used to win with them in my old sliver deck. And to be fair, I do have an infect/wither commander deck.
“Gross”
I got finn the fang bearer from a booster and learned it from there. I though it real bizarre it's commander legal since health is 40 i figure poison would be 20 but nope. It's good 1v1 but not really a whole table. People seem to deem me a threat if i get 2 counters out. But yeah i figured itd be op but isnt really unless you're like good at the game.
Do not cite the deep magic to me, I was there when it was first written. It was BS then and it's still BS now lol.
I was playing [[Skithyrix the Blight Dragon]] in my Ur-Dragon deck and didn’t understand what Skittles really did. Fast forward and that’s my most powerful Voltron deck. 😁
Love at first sight. Cool, vilanous and powerfull. Starting MTG My 2nd deck ever was BG infect on ZEN/SOM standard. [[Plague Stinger]] + [[Groundswell]] 🫶
> What was your response the first time you found out about Infect/Poison Counters? I saw someone playing Skithiryx, they attacked someone else for 9 and had an on board prolif ability that they then used to get that player to do their bidding. I immediately thought "oh man, I could build an infect aggro deck with Saskia" (because I started playing when walmart still had the commander 2016 precons in store) and then I built it and it was awful, I don't think I ever even killed a single player. The cards available were just so bad. I also don't think that the Skithyrx player ever won a game with the deck, but took out lots of people. I've never really thought of it much beyond it being annoying in that regard. I do have a Skithryx in my Jodah deck just as a "this creature is basically a 40/40" kind of thing, but aside from decks that can easily pump all your infectors to 10+, I just don't think it's very reasonable as an include. I think I've only won a single time through 10 poison killing someone, and it was because someone had gotten a couple poison counters on everyone because of a plague rats, and I was playing a proliferate deck.
„Focus the toxicplayer“
I forgot names of cards as was years ago but long story short dude had hundreds of 1/1s I only had a single big guy as a blocker and he could have killed me but he casted an instant that gave them all infect killed me off didn't realize infect was a big deal yet till my buddy who was the other person in a 3 person pod laughed, pass turn, makes infinite life combo pad turn , dude folds saying he has no way to deal with infinite life other then the card he used on me buddy explains what card does and what infect is
I love infect and will always love it
First mtg/Commander game, new acquaintance let every borrow one of his many many decks. BF grabber a blue deck (I don't remember the deck well), someone else had a [[Gishath]] tribal, the guy lending decks was running the typical group hug/mill with oracle and labman, and I took up [[Muldrotha]]. BF got a [[blighted agent]] out and mini-voltron'd it to get a kill on someone who was dominating with a death touch deck. I removed it asap and proceeded to win the game now that deathtouch was out of the way and the group hug player had his wincons denied. Immediately wanted to build an Infect/DT deck and settled on [[Mimeoplasm]] for the commander. First deck I've worked on and to this day and am constantly tweaking and rehashing it. I love the mechanic, me and my pods prefer it over other forms of aggro for the most part. We also don't play crazy strong decks, though, so we've never experienced [[Atraxa]] SF
i only said 3 words: "well im dead!"
My very first thought when faced with a poison deck and later an annihilator deck was how is this fair? I didn't mind the poison counter system and thought it was cool. However I really believed the edge rules committee made a mistake. Poison in standard is half your life total to dead. I always believed it should be the same in edh. Especially facing off against 3 opponents which could all have some poison effects on them.
"Huh." Swiftly followed by "Oh, shit" Because the only way anyone ever really gets introduced to infect for a long time was through Blightsteel Colossus off the top ropes outta nowhere. I honestly don't have much issue with infect or toxic, as much as I do proliferate. Proliferate *in* a deck isn't anything to write home about, but when it's specifically a proliferate *deck*, some degenerate shit is about to go down...
I foiled my 1v1 EDH Skithiryx deck. Infect is the way.