Can someone explain to me the thought process behind infect? Not only does it wear down creatures to kill them, weakening AND killing them, rather than only killing if they're stronger, but it also only needs to do 10 damage to kill a player.
How is infect a balanced mechanic?
it's awesome mechanic with which i made goat deck.
The short answer is, it's really not, but the long answer is that it's not printed on any particularly powerful creatures, at least as far as constructed play goes. Phyrexian Crusader and Phyrexian Juggernaut rekt my shit in casual play, but Glistener Elf, Blighted Agent, and Inkmoth Nexus are the only dudes that see play in Tier 1 infect (All of which are 1/1s)
Tl;dr you aren't seeing a Tarmogoyf with infect for a reason
Lack of synergy with non infect creatures. You either need your infect creature to be able to kill someone by itself (Inkmoth Nexus or Glistener Elf) or you need to go all in with it. Since there's a limited card pool of infect, you only have a handful of good infect creatures to work with as well.
Infect = Poison + Wither
mediocre mechanic + mediocre mechanic = good mechanic
Hey! Wither was great.
>5 mana for a 3/3
That's part of the answer
>mediocre mechanic + mediocre mechanic = good mechanic
Quick! We need to apply this very scientific equation to every mediocre mechanics!
Most of the times, Wither is inferior to Deathtouch.
Only exception being vs Indestructible creatures and there isn't that many of them.
Bushido+frenzy
Bestow + Morph : can be cast face down as a +2/+2 enchant
Tribute + Undying : pay the tribute or it will came back stronger than before!
Cards are expensive, usually on weak as shit creatures, always a risk going for broke and having damage redirected effectively instantly killing yourself. I tried running a sloppy slapped together infect deck, it was very easily raped as any time I went in for the kill I'd get slapped with some kind of damage negation, redirect, or some other horseshit. Like another user mentioned, infect doesn't really work well with non-infect cards so if you have like 1 infect creature out and 2-3 that aren't infect, you're basically trying to do 30 damage for the kill since it inflicts poison counters and not actual damage. Although sneaking in some kind of prolifrate cards can ease the burden.
>How is infect a balanced mechanic?
You posted a 3/3 for 5CMC, there's no way you can't know the answer to this question unless you're a complete idiot.
would love this
I was initially thinking of going for a joke like banding and flanking, but that one was actually kind of decent.
If your opponent is playing infect, you can spend your life all the way down to one and be entirely safe.
Most of its creatures are shit which is why infect only uses the absolute most broken ones
Ichorclaw myr anyone? Also, infect is perfectly balanced in a world with swords/path/bolt.
Are you implying undying is mediocre? It's super powerful and as such was mostly stuck on bad cards.
wheres my ninjustu?
>Are you implying undying is mediocre?
No, I actually forgot about the "mediocre" part.
Let's say tribute was bad enough for two?
Geralf's buddies say hi
Dredge and numbers bigger than 6.
Splice onto split second.
Voltron spells.
You know what, that's completely fair.
Delve + flashback
Ripple x + Rebound=Reverb: Reveal the top x cards from the top of your library. You may cast cards with the same name as this card then exile them as it resolves. During your next upkeep you may cast this card from exile without paying it's mana cost.
Transmute+Champion=Foster: Pay the cost, exile the transmuted card, and search your library for a creature that shares a type with the transmuted card and put it into the battlefield. When that card leaves the battlefield the transmuted card enters the battlefield.
Cipher+Aura Swap=Embed: The spell becomes embedded into the creature but you can pay the Swap ability to return the original cipher card back into your hand and replace it with a cipher card in your hand.
Because there is a very limited number of infect creatures, and MOST of them are shit overall - and playing noninfect creatures with infect creatures is kinda pointless.
Putting counters on creatures is Weaker Deathtouch in general. Your guy still dies, theirs might not - unless your guy was bigger to begin with in which case it's like normal combat.
In general, infect creatures aren't very good compared to regular creatures of the same cost/abilities. A few are, but not many.
Because cards with it tend to cost it heavily. Just look at the one you posted. A 3/3 for 5 is quite far off curve, but Infect makes up the difference.
It is still quite a strong ability and it's easy to make a dangerous deck focused on it, though it's still reliant on getting creatures through, so it can be dealt with.
Not quite.
Poisonous creatures don't give extra Posion counters when pumped, and deal normal damage in addition to those counters.
> Bushido+frenzy
Kinda clunky.
> Bestow + Morph
goat
> Tribute + Undying
If you don't pay the Tribute it would reproc off of Undying.
Or are you suggesting that it not have any other incentive to pay Tribute?
> Dredge and numbers bigger than 6.
...
> Splice onto split second.
How often do you see this being relevant?
> Delve + flashback
10/10
> Ripple x + Rebound
Or just give Ripple a number greater than 4.
And how are you trying to work this? The Rippled cards clearly Rebound, but does the initial cast not?
>Transmute+Champion
bender_neat.gif
>Cipher+Aura Swap
Does this need two full cards of reminder text to explain how that interaction behaves?
>How often do you see this being relevant?
Makes anything spliced on the split second card basically uncounterable bar stuff like counterbalance, sounds pretty relevant in a lot of occasions to me.
>Or are you suggesting that it not have any other incentive to pay Tribute?
I meant to say: when your creature dies, your opponent can give you/sacrifice stuff, if he doesn't your creature come back angrier.
Pay homage to the spirits, man.
Banding+Exalted
All creatures in a single banding get +1/+1 as long as you have no other creatures attacking or blocking.
Untap + outlast
Phasing + cumulative upkeep.
Haunt...just by itself.
But instead of having the ETB text/haunted creature leaves play text, it has the current keyword by itself and 'Haunted creature gets/has/whatever' like an aura. 'Haunted creature can't attack or block'. 'Haunted creature has flying'. 'Whenever haunted creature deals damage to a player, that player discards a card'. 'At the beginning of your upkeep, the haunted creature deals 1 damage to its controller and you gain 1 life'