From looking at the completely spoiled set, I think the best way to make this deck go is using the one mana phyrexian spells.  Unfortunately, I think those would be a million times better in gro.

Yeah, I don't know why brainstorm wasn't included.

I also really have a problem with overloading the deck with unplayable cards unless dream halls is out, so I avoided too many bombs like that.

I would probably also run a tinker target, and probably a better draw engine.

This deck probably looks incredibly terrible.  To be honest, it probably is, because this is a very rough draft.  Any suggestions are welcome.

The basic premise of the deck actually did not start with Dream Halls, but someone musing as to whether or not Jin-Gitaxias was playable.  At first, it seemed obviously unplayable.  Certainly too expensive to hardcast, not tinkerable, not as good a reanimator target as Sharuum + Possessed Portal in dredge, not as good as Iona or Emrakul or any number of other creatures in oath, etc.  The only obvious pros are that it pitches to Force of Will and has flash, both of which are pretty minor advantages.  It was only when I re-stumbled upon Dream Halls that I started to see the neat interactions: you refill your hand every turn and cast everything for free, and you strip your opponent's ability to take advantage of Dream Halls at all, which most decks are less prepared to utilize anyway.

The core of the deck is Jin and Dream Halls.  I think that Erayo offers a lot though, and has the advantage requiring the deck to run fewer answers.  Top/Magus and Intuition as the main sources of draw, and Magus has good synergy with the rest of the deck, but they aren't required either.  As I said, the deck is in a purely developmental stage right now.

Below is the current decklist.  Any suggestions, criticisms, or questions are totally welcome and appreciated! 

Artifacts (11)
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sol Ring

Creatures (12)
3 Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
3 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
3 Magus of the Future
3 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir

Enchantments (4)
4 Dream Halls

Instants (16)
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Chain of Vapor
4 Force of Will
1 Hurkyl's Recall
4 Intuition
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Spell Pierce

Sorceries (2)
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Time Walk

Lands (15)
7 Blue Fetches
7 Island
1 Tolarian Academy

Yikes.  Yeah, drunk posting for the win.  :/

Anyway.

I think Intuition has some obvious potential as a Gifts replacement in certain circumstances, but I think it is a mistake to try and build around it as though it is the same card, because you'll just sell it short.  Obviously you can use it to make cool piles like with gifts, where they basically have no good option (Regrowth, Will, Recoup or something,) but the ability to just grab three of the same card is really strong.  It costs more than demonic tutor, and it can only reliably get cards you have at least three of, but the fact that the card basically reads as your choice of demonic on an unrestricted card or gifts -1 card is so good.  The fact that it costs less than gifts more than makes up for getting you one card instead of two, in my opinion, because often you just want one of the cards in the pile anyway.

Gifts should still almost definitely be run in a deck that runs intuitions, but just building your deck as gifts with intuition playing the role of gifts 2-5 is wasting its potential.  I think a deck actually built around the card (beyond just a few cute single card synergies, such as AK, recoup, will, etc) would be pretty powerful.  The problem with that is that anything I can think of off the top of my head just ends up losing to dredge (madness, for instance,) and I'm pretty sure intuition would not be all that great in dredge.

The only potentially techy suggestion I have is to try out Cunning Wish with Gifts.  4x Burning Wish used to find Will, maybe this will work too.  The question then becomes "is gifts worth 5UU and two cards?"  Maybe.  I think it might be worth testing, though, and since they have the same cost, it just jumps out at me whenever Intuition comes up as a replacement for gifts.

Wasteland is boring.

You know what I find boring? Worthless spam posts. Please read the site rules here: http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=38003.msg508152#msg508152
-Meddling Mage

I think blue black is the most attractive way to go.

I think Tarnished Citadel is... less attractive, unless you can fill the deck with sufficient cards that have generic mana in their costs.  I also am not a huge fan of city of brass if the deck is only two colors: I think the ravnica duals are a super techy idea.  I think normal duals should be run too, and a couple basics.

Lim-Dul's Vault is amazing, I think.  It is a mini doomsday, not just a topdeck tutor.  And if you run Necropotence, Dark Confidant, and top, it shouldn't matter if you have to wait occasionally.

Force of Will and Thoughtseize are also two non-subpar cards that fit in with this whole theme.

Huh, that's pretty cool.

I still disagree with the concept of an infect deck as being creature heavy, at least with what we have so far.  Until there are some fish-ish utility creatures with infect or something insane like an infecty psychatog, it just won't be competitive.

This would be really interesting as a constructed format, although it might need to be singleton.

I suppose that's true.  And you can find fastbond with tons of stuff in this deck.  That is probably superior to having cityofbrass.manabase lol.

Confidant is still great though, at least as a 3-of, because he beats and comes down turn 1 often for immediate pressure, and he soaks up answers.

I like running 4x Library and 4x Confidant.  I feel that it is very strong to run both.

Frantic Search is Restricted, last time I checked.  Has that changed?

I could see splashing one or two copies of tainted strike in a grow deck, maybe.  I don;t really see a good way to work it in anywhere else.  I'd definitely be interested in seeing your bayoushop list though.

The real problems that I see with the current meta are these:

There are two major players that can easily shut down a multicolor manabase, and they are especially rough on this deck: sphere effects and wasteland.
This deck needs the threat density to effectively race decks based around oath, storm, and vault/key, all while getting through their walls of answers.

Death's Shadow could do this, but the deck is more than 4x Death's Shadow 4x Dark Ritual 4x Hatred.  Even if that was the deck, I'm not entirely sure it would be effective against the current field.

What you really need is business spells that do double duty, like the lovely interaction of Cabal Therapy and Abyssal Persecutor.

The new red artifact goyf dude looks effective, assuming those spoilers are accurate.  I'm not sure if the cards exist to support this idea, though.  The only thing to do is comb through cards and find those most effective at answering your opponent's answers while giving a favorable cost to power ratio.  Disciple of the Vault would probably fit into the deck well, but he doesn't do much in the way of messing up my plans.

Affinity provides a good way to dodge sphere effects, but it doesn't provide any real utility either.

I don't know if there is a viable solution.

I think Mud is a lot stronger without splashing any colors, much less for infect.

I didn't even think of that, that's brilliant.  And if they Force your Duress, that's still nasty.  Even as a purely reactive card, this is great though.

Wow.  I love hyperbole, so that looks like an auto-include as a four-of in every sideboard.  Yikes.  I love it.  Leyline didn't kill ichorid at all, but this has the nasty advantage of being castable, not needing to be in your opening hand, and upping your storm count.  I can think of plenty of decks this won't hurt very much, but I can't think of any deck that would be at a disadvantage running this, unless you simply don't expect to need it and don't want to waste the slots.

Neato.

I'll agree that gush is better than this draw engine almost always, even without fastbond.  I just think that playing gush when one of your wincons is manlands is not a great idea.  Maybe I'm going about it the wrong way.  The advantage of my deck is that you don't really need to protect your spells: all of the counters are there to deal with the opponent.  But maybe I should take another look at the engine, and I'm just being suckered into playing around standstill because I'm using lands.

I still don't think that gush is effective in any version of this deck, though, because I think any version of this deck needs to run inkmoth.  But I'll think about what else might work here.

I am also totally open to the possibility that there will be juicy infect creatures that make a completely different version of an infect deck viable, but this is how it looks to me so far.

The only reason to choose hex parasite would be to abuse the life payment ability, I think.

Death's Shadow can't be the only card that you want low life for, or the deck won't work; he doesn't have evasion or haste.

I do super like this idea though.  Suggestions:

Avatar of Hope
Second Chance
Death Wish
Cleansing
Dystopia
Phyrexian Tyranny

The real question has to be: do you want dark ritual/cabal ritual/yawgmoth's bargain?  It sounds like a stupid question, but if you're going for five colors, I don't think it is.  They're too mana-specific/-intensive, I think, unless you're going straight black.  Necropotence only costs three, so it gets a pass, but I'm not so sure about bargain.

Lmao oops, yes, Merchant Scroll #2 was not supposed to be there.  Chain of vapor or hurkyl's recall would be fine.  Maybe make room for both, but I would go with chain of vapor if I only had room for one.

While I did say that you deck was just a worse tezz or oath, I think that tezz is a great card, and worth including.  If you look at my list though, it is built around infect, even if it doesn't seem like it.  It has seven manlands, and while three don't have infect, they pump the inkmoths, which do.  I think this is a superior strategy to invigorate.  Ninja also combos effectively with the manlands.  They are likely to be unblocked against most decks.  Then the opponent has to choose between blocking your win condition and blocking your draw engine.  He also dodges standstill, as do your manlands.

The deck works.  You might splash black as well for its tutors and duress effects.  The point of this deck is that infect is a viable win condition, it has three other outs (vault, robot, ninjas,) and it wastes no cards on subpar strategies.  I would probably cut mana drain in favor of perhaps mana leak, spell pierce, spell snare, or duress effects to avoid the double blue mana, but that's it.

I would make the sideboard some combination of these cards:

1-2 bojuka bog/other graveyard hate
2-4 mistblade shinobi (against fish/oath/mud/tinker and maybe even one maindeck, depending on your meta)
3-4 null rod (doesn't really hurt the deck, might be a deck card though)
4 steel sabotage (again, maybe some or all maindeck depending on what you plan to face)
1-5 other hatey spells, depending on your meta

Also, this is not a completely polished deck, but I wanted to show it to you so I didn't just sound like I was talking out of my butt, and show what I think is the only viable take on infect atm.  Pump spells are terrible.  The infect creatures are inefficient.  I really believe that inkmoth is the only infect card that is worth anything, and so if you make an infect deck, it needs to be built around that.  I think this deck does that.  I don't know exactly which ten cards need to be changed, but I think this deck is about ten cards off from the optimal list, tops.

It is about using the simple natural synergy apparent in the cards:

Ninja and standstill are an effective draw engine on their own.
They are the perfect complement to inkmoth
Blinkmoth complements inkmoth, ninja, and standstill.

I think these 16 cards are the smartest way to begin an infect deck.  The rest of it is negotiable, but I don't believe there are any wasted slots.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be getting frustrated and/or irritated, especially at me.  Say everything you want, please.  Don't wash your hands after this.  I don't think this is going to be the next "The Deck" or anything, but this is a pretty interesting discussion.

Ha, I forgot about this thread.

My name's Sarah, I registered here years ago, but apparently my login no longer exists!  I was really quiet the last time I checked TMD regularly, so if you don't know me from wotc, you probably don't know me.

I've been playing magic since 2001, and except for brief forays into the relatively unexciting world of standard/extended/legacy, I've been playing vintage the whole time.  My passion is deck building and testing.  I'm often available on mws for vintage testing, just shoot me a message.  You don't have to play a copy paste of a meandeck deck, but please don't play budget and please have a deck designed to compete in a real meta.

My pet deck for years was ubastax, and I love variations on that, but today's mud doesn't really excite me, so I'm trying new things.

If you live in or near Austin, TX, give me a holler, and maybe we can meet up.  There are never any real events here, though, so I'm not holding my breath.

<3

I wonder if you can grab academy/shop with this.  I suppose the wording isn't official.  I'm curious though.

This thing still isn't terrible against mud and ichorid though.  You just have to be prepared to make this a defensive card, depending on their deck.  Steal a leyline and hardcast it against ichorid, or grab a lodestone golem or something and cast it off drain mana or academy; heck, you can probably find a fatestitcher or voltaic key.

I don't think it will spawn a deck where it is an auto four of, but I can see maindecking this.  Just realize that it is a new breed of tutor, in the same way that the wishes required a new train of thought when they came into play.

My first instinct was to really like this card, and I suppose I still do, but with the exception of the cheaper manacost and the fact that it can be used to do things like abuse cumulative upkeep, isn't phyrexian revoker better?  It only affects one card, and you have to name it when you play it, but it affects a lot more cards, you don't have to pay life for it, and it gets around null rod.

I meant the general goal in magic is just to win.


I read your blog, it was hilarious, but I think that inkmoth is literally the only infect critter worth it (and colossus, obviously.)

This is how I would build the deck, using standstill and ninja as draw engines:

Artifact Creatures
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind

Artifacts
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Opal
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Time Vault
1 Voltaic Key

Basic Lands
2 Island
1 Snow-Covered Island

Creatures
4 Ninja of the Deep Hours

Enchantments
4 Standstill

Instants
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
1 Gifts Ungiven
3 Mana Drain
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Mystical Tutor
3 Spell Pierce
1 Vampiric Tutor

Planeswalkers
1 Tezzeret the Seeker

Sorceries
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Tinker
1 Time Walk
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Lands

3 Blinkmoth Nexus
4 Flooded Strand
4 Inkmoth Nexus
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Underground Sea

The deck has potential.  I just think you're getting caught in the trap of fixating on an idea (that may or may not be viable) because you like it.  It is a cool idea.  But look at some of the cards objectively.  Remember that the goal of the deck is not to win with infect, but to win.  Inkmoth is a totally viable win condition, but its advantage is that it is uncounterable.  When you use invigorate and berserk, as cheap/free as they are, you are killing that advantage.  You are also forcing yourself to play green, which might be ok, but I don't think you need it, even if you decide to run the fastbond gush engine.  I think that little combo has anti synergy with running manlands, though.

Right now, the deck wants these things out to win:

inkmoth
a forest
2x invigorate or invigorate + berserk

That right there is pretty weak against wasteland (which fish and mud run) or any counters (which pretty much anything else runs.)  The only deck that doesn't hate this out is dredge, which has a faster, more consistent clock.

Furthermore, you're looking at casting gush regularly, which needs two islands, of which your win condition has none, and that is really tough without fastbond out.

That just seems like tezz or oath with a weaker win condition.  You could probably fine-tune it to work well, but I wouldn't call that an infect deck.  Of course I'm not so convinced an infect deck is viable right now, so that probably isn't a bad thing.

I can't think of any instance where I'd rather have forcefield over bridge.

Yes, I meant in this deck.  Accel and fixing seems like a minor issue for the deck, so while it has worked in other decks, I would think you would want more points of power over what is basically a mana elf here.

I think blue has more to add to the deck than black, but there are already black infect creatures, so it is a toss up.  Both could be added, of course.  I'm just not sure if the deck ultimately has enough oomph to work.  It takes twenty points of damage to win vs ten poison counters.  Imagine every card in this deck doesn't have infect.  Now imagine the power on every card is doubled.  Would you still want to play the deck?  Maybe; invigorate is pretty cool.  But other than that...?

Maybe there will be more options in the next set that make it worthwhile, but I think this deck will end up being one of two things: a fish deck without any of the techy creatures, or a blue/black control deck with a bunch of weenies and giant growths instead of just a tezz or tinker target.

Wouldn't Rancor always be better than hierarch though?  Or heck, magnify?

Invigorate is super techy, though, I love it.  Have you considered bounty of the hunt?  You'd have to have enough green, of course.  But you could replace some fetches with land grant to up your green count.

This!

Replenish is also strong here.

I find that this deck idea works best with 16-20 leylines.  The red one is surprisingly useful, you might wanna check it out.

The hierarch seems terrible.  No duress seems weird and makes me nervous.

Have you considered signal pest?

This whole deck still seems very strange.  Obviously you've tested it, but I'm wondering against what kind of field.  It seems like a goldfish-only deck.