Green Infect

[Xavious]

Yet another infect deck. This time Green with a splash of Red for additional damage. I'm trying to keep a low mana curve here so I can easily get things into the battlefield.

16 Creatures
4 Tel-Jilad Fallen
4 Blight Mamba
4 Cystbearer
4 Ichorclaw Myr

16 G Spells
4 Giant Growth
4 Prey's Vengeance
4 Vines of Vastwood
2 Groundswell
2 Quest for the Gemblades

8 R Spells
4 Assault Strobe
4 Goblin Warpaint

Lands
14 Forest
10 Mountain

Side
3 Autumn's Veil
3 Wing Puncture
3 Tel-Jilad Defiance
3 Blunt the Assault
3 Fog

Basically, the goal of this deck is to buff up the Infect creatures to dish out large amounts of poison or -1/-1 counters. I splashed red only for Warpaint allows me to bring out and attack with creatures mid to late game while providing a permanent buff and Assault Strobe for even higher amounts of poison.

The side is if I need to take a more defensive stance with the deck and includes a Autumn's Veil as a counter, Wing Puncture as anti-air, Tel-Jilad Defiance for artifact heavy decks, Blunt the Assault for life gain, and Fog to curb life loss against creature heavy decks.

[Disturbedone0777]

If it's green wouldn't Plumet make for better anti-air?

[Xavious]

Eh... Plummet would in certain situations. However what I like about Wing Puncture is that it costs 1 mana less than Plummet. Also, since all my creatures have infect, I'm dealing neg counters to the opponents creatures. This way, if for any reason, the opponent possesses an indestructible flyer I can still get rid of it. In this manner plummet is lacking.

[Disturbedone0777]

Your largest creature has a power of 3 base. I would argue that plummet is a better card because the power of your creatures is low enough where most actual bothersome fliers aren't going to die to one copy of it. I think you have more of a chance of running into something with a toughness of 4 or above then you do an indestructible flier.

Also for a deck that is focused on it's creatures to deal the poison damage, you only have 16 creatures and no way to cycle through your deck to look for them should you not draw them out. I've had similar decks run with a lot of issues having too few creatures when creatures were the win condition. If I were to use mass removal on your end of the field it would effectively end your game. I don't see any way in the deck to bring back out dead creatures either. Have you tested already and had good results getting creatures out?

The argument was also made earlier to me that the man-lands are a great reason to play allied colors and I'm very strongly in agreement with that. Though Raging Ravine doesn't have infect on it, having it could save you if you aren't drawing the creatures and you need a blocker in a pinch plus is a land that you can use. I also would use four copies of Rootbound Crag since your playing it's colors.

[Xavious]

Even if I haven't managed to get rid of the enemies flyer then its still weakened. I've used this same trick in Scars drafts to bring flyers to zero or less power and only enough toughness to be able to block my infect creatures only once. I'm sold on Wing Puncture as my air removal of choice

I agree about the card draw and its something I've been thinking about. The only problem is that, aside from the cards in my sideboard, only Irresistible Prey, Infiltration Lens, and Temple Bell are the only cards I can see workable with this deck and of those only Temple Bell doesn't rely on creatures.

I'll definitely see if I can get my hands on the non-basic lands you mentioned. I'm a little iffy on Raging Ravine, but Rootbound Crag will definitely be finding its way in there. Especially since its nowhere near as expensive as I thought it was.

As a final thought, I'm thinking of dropping the red altogether and throwing in Overwhelming Stampede or Garruk Wildspeaker as well as a few fetchlands, most likely Harrow. Although if I do this Temple Bell will definitely be added to give me more card draws.

[Xavious]

Okay, I just tested this deck at tonight's FNM. Although only one person with a vampire deck showed up (apparently the flu is going around now) I still got in some good practice with the deck and managed to tweak a few things into a very quick deck that more often then not won me a game by turn four.

14 Creatures
2 Tel-Jilad Fallen
4 Blight Mamba
4 Cystbearer
4 Ichorclaw Myr

18 G Spells
4 Giant Growth
4 Prey's Vengeance
4 Vines of Vastwood
2 Harrow
2 Groundswell
2 Quest for the Gemblades

6 R Spells
4 Assault Strobe
2 Goblin Warpaint

2 Artifacts
2 Temple Bell

Lands
14 Forest
10 Mountain

Side
3 Autumn's Veil
3 Wing Puncture
3 Tel-Jilad Defiance
3 Blunt the Assault
3 Fog

Temple Bell was useful if I didn't immediately have the creatures I needed. Harrow was added to give a boost to land while still having enough lands to cast either more of my buff spells or bring out another creature. Tel-Jilad Fallen and Goblin Warpaint were both reduced to two as they had little impact on the game. The warpaint was left in however as a permanent +2/+2 is nice to have on either the Myr or Mamba.

To go into particulars of the matches, at best I was lucky enough to have two forests, one mountain, and the myr on the battlefield by turn three. At the beginning of my turn Assault Strobe was cast on the myr and, when the opponent tried to doomblade him, I countered with a kicked Vines of Vastwood to bring the Myr to 5/5, thus dealing 10 poison counters since there were no blockers. At worst I managed to make it to late game with several Cystbearers and Mambas on the field whereas he had several vampires equipped with Blade of the Bloodchief, thus neutralizing any neg counters I could give out.

[Xavious]

Over the past month I've been reworking this deck. By now red has become far more prominent in this deck to the point that it now has more of an Infect/Burn strategy.

12 Creatures
3 Ichorclaw Myr
3 Plague Myr
3 Blight Mamba
3 Rot Wolf

12 Green Spells
3 Vines of Vastwood
3 Prey's Vengeance
2 Unnatural Predation
2 Groundswell
2 Giant Growth

12 Red Spells
4 Assault Strobe
3 Forked Bolt
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Arc Trail

4 Artifacts
4 Livewire Lash

20 Lands
4 Rootbound Crag
8 Mountain
8 Forest

Side
3 Mark of Mutiny
3 Autumns Veil
3 Fog
3 Tel-Jilad Defiance
3 Wing Puncture

The strategy is still the same, however I have a stronger mid-game presence thanks to Natural Predation giving trample and my burn spells clearing out any defending creatures. The burn spells have really taken this to the next level.

Livewire Lash is a very fun card for this deck that I hadn't noticed before. By equipping it to any of my creatures they get a +2 to power and deal two points of infect damage when targeted by spells. Most often when this hits the field my strategy switches to buff & burn my own creatures. Example: giant growth on the mamba, target him with arc trail for one, and possibly kill an opponents creature with the two. The opponent gets four poison counters right there and then I'm open to attack with my 4/4 mamba. Depending upon if I have any other creatures to attack with or more spells to use it could be game in that turn.