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This thread is for discussion of this week's ReConstructed, which goes live Tuesday morning on magicthegathering.com.

Personally I would run more Gut Shot s and cut the Lash and Increasing Savagry. 
Just cause, you know. How many Delver variants are there again? 

Yay! Acknowledgement!

I agree with a lot of these choices (Gut Shot yes, Increasing Savagery no, going down to one Lash...uhh, no), and will adjust my deck accordingly when I can.

I think it's only a matter of time before green decks start sideboarding Melira against this deck.

Also, have you seen the first of the bonus decks? The longer I look at it, the more cool interactions I see.

I ran Livewire Lash in my old BG infect deck. It was really useful. Besides the normal +4/+0, you could pump the equipped creature prior to combat and eliminate potential blockers.

Isn't there actually a turn 2 kill in this deck?

Turn 1: Land, Glistener Elf
Turn 2: Land, 3x Mutagenic Growth, 1x Titanic Growth ... Swing

Seven cards, 10 power of infect damage on turn 2.

*yawns*

Aww, infect... I hate infect! :P

Nice to see another of my decks get a mention here, even though 'only' a honorable one. (I thought 3rd time would be the charm, but no luck!)

I actually played my Big Red deck on FNM last week, with some slight changes to the sideboard and a minor change to the manabase (-3 mountain, +2 Evolving Wilds, +1 Forest for Ancient Grudge from the board) and went 3-1, losing against my personal nemesis who played... Dumdumdum... Shape Anew and went 3-0-1 with it. I only lost that match because I had answers to Shape anew, but he didn't have Shape Anew and killed me with a Restoration Angel ... Then when he did have the Shape Anew in game 3, I didn't have the answers of course.
Anyway, if you want to try out a nice anti-aggro list, Big Red is something you should consider!

why is no one talking about the seance deck, that is sweet. 

When I started writing this post, I was going to criticise the Séance deck. But as I wrote more about it, I kept spotting more interactions, until... yeah, that's just darn cool. I want to build that now. 

With the exception of the somewhat superfluous caverns, this is budgeter than most of the budget decks in the budget column on this site :P.

I had a go at a deck like this but gave up because it completely rolls over to curse of death's hold.

...I probably wasn't the first to make the deck, but I was probably damn close. 1 week out of the release, I started trading for Wild Defiances and Livewire Lash.

Deck is spoilered b/c it would take up room. Thoughts? This is version 3. Maindecked the guiles. Spellskites in 'Board. This thing wrecks my friends, but I haven't been able to take it to a tournament yet.

Spoiler: Show

Also, does anyone else REALLY want to say Lashwrithe when they mean Livewire Lash ?

EDIT:

May 29, 2012 -- 6:22AM, Squibfish wrote:

I had a go at a deck like this but gave up because it completely rolls over to curse of death's hold .

So? Black Decks have a sideboard option that comes online t5. Wow. Excuse me if I'm just a bit underwhelmed.

has anyone else ever sent in a decklist only to find it is short of enough cards to be legal? Cause I did that for this week.
 oh well, there is this week... EXCEPT IT'S MODERN AND I HAVE ONLY BEEN PLAYING FOR ONE YEAR!!!!!!!!!!

time to hit gatherer.

Infect is fun, I remember when I use to trample all over my buddy because he was so proud of his elf deck to only get cream by my one infected elf :D

Infect has never been good and WotC needs to stop peddling these articles to people who don't know any better.

May 29, 2012 -- 7:51AM, Suudsu2200 wrote:

Infect has never been good and WotC needs to stop peddling these articles to people who don't know any better.

Been playing this list for 2 weeks. Won both FNM's.  Whether this is a case of people just not paying attention or the deck actually works. I dunno.

I also say lashwrithe all the time.

Livewire is amazing, wild defiance less so because the livewire can still infect without the need to attack. The livewire also gives you some protection against enemy gutshots and blasts.

4 Ranger's Guiles is necessary.

Less Turn 3 kill and more "Make sure your glistener elf is around for attacking on Turn 4 as well" and you'll win plenty of games.

I play vapor snag over artful dodge. Not really sure why, just like it better. Also since Blighted agent is already unblockable the vapor snag can be used defensively as well as trying to push an inkmoth through.

Sideboard doesn't matter. Just put in 4 Mental Missteps (to stop 1cmc spells that hurt you) and the counter if poisoned (to stop curses).


You're screwed if they lay down a curse. But less and less people are playing Esper Control.  Righteous Blow on Turn 1 can be an issue sometimes too. So just give up on the matchup and win vs everyone else.

won my local game day with
4x glistener elf
4x blighted agent
4x inkmoth nexus  
4x wild defiance
4x  ranger's guile
4x artful dodge
4x livewire lash
4x mutagenic growth
4x ponder
4x apostle's blessing  
4x  evolving wilds
4x hinterland harbor
6x forest
6x island

I never ended up using my sideboard.  I only lost a single game and it was due to me getting cocky and keeping 5 lands foolishly in a game 2 of the matchup,  of course drawing back to back to back lands even after a ponder reshuffle.  Even when i played a removal heavy mono black deck (which i was told sided in curses for game 2) I out carded him every time he tried removing my lowly glistener elf.  after his 2 removal followed by my rangers guile then apostles blessing, he scooped as i attacked with my 19/19 unblockable infector.  I think the key is 8x removal counterspells (AB + RG).  Since i only run 12 creatures i need to keep them alive.  The inkmoths survive the board clearers and sorceries and won me many games.  Do not underestimate the livewire lash, as it saved me after 2 wild defiances were naturalized, and won me a game outright when i didnt get to any wild defiances

tho i never used it in this way during the course of the tourney dont forget u can use apostle's blessing to make ur guy unblockable vs the color u pick too

May 29, 2012 -- 6:22AM, Squibfish wrote:

I had a go at a deck like this but gave up because it completely rolls over to curse of death's hold.

Note that one of the things he took out of my deck is two Witchbane Orb in the sideboard, which not only stops CoDH but burn and even some planeswalker abilities, specifically Gideon's plus (which also hurts this deck badly).

forigive my ignorance, but would someone like to spell out how the seance deck works?

I love how when I post this deck nearly 25 days ago and other variations it gets NO RESPONSES. im so tired of people who only want to hear what pros are scheming up and go out of their way to build those deck the next day. maybe im just tired of the personalities on these forums who think there is only the archetypes and everything else is just noobish.

community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758...

@ silpheed- the deck spends it's early turns using cards like desperate ravings, faithless looting, and forbidden alchemy to get rid of cards with ETB effects. Then, play Seance (and maybe warstorm surge). Return an ETB dude back every turn, use their ability, flicker them via Venser, the Abuser. Use control aspects like O-ring to stay alive. Of course, there are a ton of tinier interactions within the deck to...

Seance puts a token copy onto the battlefield, so flickering it with Venser does nothing.

seargeantwolf, thanks for the rundown of the seance deck! (and lol @ "venser, the abuser")

Venser is really an afterthought in the Seance deck, as stonehorn locking your opponent provides a nice alternate way to win games. Ideally you just want to loot a mirror-mad and then Seance it and shuffle away the token. You ought to mill 15+ cards before finding a real mirror mad, and these cards will include some number of sphinxes, stonehorns, lootings, and desperate ravings. In two or three turns from there you'll mill the rest of your deck from there and win with a lab maniac. Sometimes you can do this this without resolving another spell.

If anyone is going to try building the deck I suggest: +1 forbidden alchemy, + 2 phyrexian metamorph (for more interactions), -2 desperate ravings, -1 Warstorm surge (it's cute but a bit clunky, probably has a spot on the sideboard)

Infect decks are cute, and I think they can make good surprise metagame choices...but I'd rather be playing something with Phyrexian Crusader, with all the white and red cards running around right now. Of course, Strangleroot Geist makes infect decks gnash their teeth.

The real problem with a deck like this is that sometimes it just doesn't draw threats...and rolls over and dies once the first one is off the board. Without aggressive and skillful mulligans, this problem just becomes worse, and

Delver is a deck that plays a similar threat density, true, but it also plays 8-12 cantrips - effectively increasing said threat density dramatically, as well as augmenting card selection. Stick a bunch of Ponders and Probes and Thought Scours and maybe even a Runechanter's Pike in there...and perhaps infect would have more staying power.

I made a version of this deck a couple weeks ago for FNM.  I went with:
Spoiler: Show

The main differences between my list and what Gavin came up with are that I run fewer land and fewer creatures, but the list is a little more consistent.  I use Inkmoth to cheat the creature count a little and can pump my guys up.  Since this deck wants to win in the first couple turns Ponder shows you exactly what you have to work with so you know right away whether you have what you need or not.  If you don't you can shuffle it away and try again.  Tandem Lookout was added as an experiment, he works pretty well but you don't want too many of him.  If you stick one, you're winning the game.  He could possibly be replaced by Blight Mamba but the extra card draw is really valuable, especially in situations where you don't have a Lash or Defiance.

So far I've only played the deck in side matches during FNM and haven't actually used it as my deck choice for the night but it's had a pretty good record so far, going 6-0 but I haven't gone up against bad matchups yet, only against aggro decks which is where a strategy like this shines.

May 28, 2012 -- 10:48PM, 256k wrote:

Isn't there actually a turn 2 kill in this deck?

Turn 1: Land, Glistener Elf
Turn 2: Land, 3x Mutagenic Growth, 1x Titanic Growth ... Swing

Seven cards, 10 power of infect damage on turn 2.

There used to be one:

Turn 1: Forest, Glistener Elf

Turn 2: Mountain, Cast Assault Strobe on Glistener Elf, *Elf gains doublestrike*, Cast Groundswell *Because a Mountain came into play the Glistener Elf gains +4/+4 until end of turn* then swing with the Glistener Elf for 10 infect.

But this went out when Zendikar crashed and burned.