Infected!

From Essential Magic.

Hayden here, just wanted to add a couple thoughts to this piece. First, infect played out very well at the Scars bloc drafts I and my circle have played. It adds an element of urgency to the game, and its just plain old fun to try to embarass a player by killing them with poison counters!



Mark Rosewater has talked in numerous places about his journey to making poison a major component in a block. He succeeded with the new Mirrodin block and I’d like to say that from the very first time I heard about Infect I was HOOKED.

Love…

I loved Infect right from the start because it meant I could win by dealing ten damage to my opponents. That’s HALF as much as they have to deal to me to take me down. That’s pretty epic.

The day the full spoiler was posted on Magic’s website I “built” a “conventional” Black/Green Infect deck and a Blue/Black Proliferate/Infect deck. Now I just needed to wait until I could get some cards.

My first time playing with Scars of Mirrodin was a sealed-deck tourney with some friends. I didn’t pull enough cards to run Infect but I did get a Hand of the Praetors which made me all kinds of happy.

A booster box and a fat-pack, combined with the six decks I had from my sealed deck experience, gave me fifty packs to work with. As much as I liked the Blue/Black idea that I originally thought would be best I dropped it and went with the more conventional Black/Green. Corpse Cur and Hand of the Praetors like other Infect creatures MUCH more than they like Thrummingbird (although I REALLY wanted Inexorable Tide)!

But with access to the Green Infect creatures, as well as Giant Growth and Nature’s Claim (because I don’t CARE how much life you have) I think it would be a mistake not to run Black/Green. That IS how Wizards designed Infect, so who am I to argue?

I built and tweaked, and tweaked, and tweaked a little more until I had my Infect deck they way I wanted it. The first three or four matches I played with my Infect deck were mirror matches. It was FUN only dealing ten damage for the win, but that’s all my opponent had to do too, so it was more of a race to ten than a “real” Magic match.

The next several matches I played were not against Infect and while I didn’t win all of them it was AWESOME when I did win!

…HATE…
So I had my Infect deck and tweaked it a little more here and there and I was on top of the world because it was SO MUCH FUN to win that way. I put that deck aside and started on a Myr deck and had a lot of fun putting it together and tweaking it.

The first match I played against was…Infect. It hit me like a ton of bricks when my opponent played a Plague Stinger on turn two. I thought “Oh CRAP…this guy only has to deal ten damage to me.” That’s HALF as much as I have to deal to him. That means I have to work TWICE as hard as he does. I lost more of these matches than I won.

I was suddenly angry at Mark Rosewater for making me have to work twice as hard to win. Yes, I’m singling him out because it was HIS passion (his word!) to make poison relevant! I LOVED Infect when I was the one doing the infecting. But I never realized how NOT fun it is to get a guy down to four or five life and then lose to the tenth poison counter!

I thought; “What have you done Rosewater?????” Infect players have a built-in ten-point handicap (which is why I loved it so much)! A handicap is meant to level the playing field between players of unequal skill, not make it EASIER for the better player to win! (Check the last section of this article by Richard Garfield for more about handicaps)

I felt like Infect could ruin the game!

In truth, this period of “hate” in my relationship with Infect didn’t last very long for several reasons. Before I tell them to you though, I want to tell you a story…

Friday Night Magic

I’m not bragging when I say that in my playgroup (about a dozen friends, co-workers, friends of co-workers, etc.) I’m one of the better players. It’s a fact that can be backed up by data and verified by the other members of the playgroup. When we get together I win much more often than I lose. We all play a very casual game though, and as such none of us are pro level players.

When I got back into Magic with Shards of Alara after a several year hiatus I built a deck that was regularly beating everyone in my playgroup. So I decided I was going to FNM and I KNEW that I was going to walk out of there winning the whole thing.

Not so much! I won’t even show you the laughably bad deck that went 0-2 twice before I dropped from the tournament in embarrassment.

There’s a saying that goes “Failure is your best tutor.” I can’t agree more. Losing that badly told me MANY things about my deck and I eventually scrapped it (even though in my playgroup it was winning). Failure has made me a stronger deck builder and a better player.

I only go to one FNM event a month now and I use the experience to tweak my decks. I go in prepared to lose and in doing so learning what I need to do to make my deck better. When I win (I can usually win at least one match now-a-days, which is VERY rewarding) it’s just icing on the cake.
Bringing it back around…LOVE!
So how does that story relate to my love of Infect?

I want to remind you that above I said that my entire playgroup is casual. We are NOT pro level players and the reasons I give are from the point-of-view of a casual player. These are my opinions and I would love to hear feedback and discussion about them. It may sound like I’m saying that I think Infect is the end-all of decks…THE deck to beat! That’s not the case. I’m basing my reasons on the experience I’ve gained as a casual player.

Let’s start with my playgroup. I mentioned how I feel Infect is a way of handicapping. I stated it as THE reason I hated Infect, but after more thought I realized that this was a good thing for the game and contributes to two of my reasons for loving it.

1)    If my playgroup can use a ten-point head start to win a little more often than usual I welcome it. I don’t want my friends to not play with me because I win more often than they do. I truly don’t care how many matches I win. I just want to PLAY. If them winning with Infect lets me play more games then I’m all for it!

2)    I will absolutely continue to use Infect because I like the handicap too! I may not use it as often as some of my other decks but when I’m down a match or two when friends come over I can pull out my “handicap” deck and maybe win a couple.

Infect can add drama to a game!

3)    Just as winning at Friday Night Magic is pretty rewarding it can be VERY satisfying to beat an Infect deck when I’m not running it too. Beating someone when you have eleven life left isn’t nearly as exciting as beating them when you have nine poison counters! When you can get your last damage through for the kill while sitting at nine poison it’s a “BANG!!!! TAKE THAT!!!!!” moment!

I have one more reason for loving Infect. It has made me lose a little more often, which has bettered my game. How?

4)    Failure is your best tutor!

I have walked away from my losses to Infect decks with a new attitude towards deck building. In the past I have always asked myself if I thought the deck I had just built could deal twenty damage before my opponent’s deck did. I have modified it slightly and from now on I’ll be asking myself if the deck I’ve just built can deal twenty damage before my opponent’s can deal ten! It’s going to help me speed my decks up a little and help me make card selections. Now, maybe if I’d been asking this all along I could have done a little better at FNM?! Whether playing against Infect or not I feel this can improve anyone’s game.

From a casual point-of-view I think Infect is a good thing. I would appreciate hearing from more advanced players about their take on the mechanic.

Find the original post here: http://www.essentialmagic.com/em2/Doc.aspx?hdocid=292&hdocpage=3