Scars of Mirrodin: Infect

It stings.

Here are some of my thoughts on the latest Magic: The Gathering set, Scars of Mirrodin.


This actually was the first set I was looking forward to seeing: I'd never been this active with Magic, as I was back then, and am right now. Magic really grew onto me, like a long lost love. Since the Kamigawa block, I hadn't bought any new cards, now and then playing for a bit. Then, with M11, me and some friends decided we wanted to play again, and started with a little tournament over at my place. I ended up second, out of five players.

I pre-ordered a display with one of my friends, we split it in two halves and did a booster draft with my half. I kept the cards of course. The first cards that really sprung out for me were Spikeshot Elder and Myr Battlesphere. I built a burn deck and a Myr deck around these two, not a truly insane deck, but very fun to play with.

Scars brought a diversity of cards with it, that really appealed to me. I now have four scars-themed decks, each completely different from the other. There is the blue-white Tezzeret deck, which focuses on artifacts, my Myr deck and mono red burn deck are both Type-2, and there is my infect deck...

... I really hate infect. Yet when you have the cards, you can't come around it. With the right cards in hand, I have a turn three Plague Stinger killer - and it isn't even that unlikely. An average turn four fear/swampwalk kill isn't bad as well... this makes my fourth deck, an infect deck. It consists of only commons, and is standard save for Aphotic Whisps. Should I play against a deck playing swamps, I use Nighthaze instead.

Though I really do not like playing this deck, in fact, I'm an opponent of infect. It gives you an unfair advantage. Distortion Strike/Tainted Strike decks create unfair decks, alike my own common-infect-deck...

The unfair advantage of infect decks, in my opinion, is that poison counters can be removed by only one card (to my best knowledge): Leeches. Life can be restored, but poison really just can't be 'healed'. Let's hope Wizards implement this in Mirrodin Besieged or in Mirrodin Pure / New Phyrexia...