Is 10 Poison Counters TOO GOOD for Commander? | Spike on the Mic ep. 07 | Infect
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Spike on the Mic is a video podcast where Jim (and sometimes guests) take a deeper dive into the strategy and gameplay of Commander. Today he's talking about the the argument to increase the poison counter threshold in Commander from 10 to 20.
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I find it really sad how much irrational hate poison gets in general, outside of the big offenders like Blightsteel, Skittles and the pump spells its honestly difficult to even eliminate one person if they're actually trying to defend themselves. I play a Fynn deathtouch deck, so I'm already handicapped by playing mono-green which has a somewhat shallow pool of deathtouchers.
It's not irrational
Blightsteel can go into any deck as a top end
And the pump spells make it far to easy to get to 10
That says nothing about a deck that's dedicated to poison counters
Thank you all for the excellent content you provide!
I played skittles, I only feel bad when I take out one player early (not letting them play and have to sit and watch). After I take out that first opponent the table usually turns on me and it becomes a 2v1 I rarely win the game.
This is a classic issue for any voltron deck. Good voltron commanders like Rafiq and Shu Yun can usually take out the first opponent pretty fast just through commander damage
This is excellent content. Keep it coming.
My pods are high power and infect falls off but a well crafted Yargle deck can hold it's own.
First thing, this content is FANTASTIC. Really informative, clear, well-thought. It's clear that you thought a lot about this and you know how to deliver that information to others.
I completely agree, infect does not need to be changed.
The "problem" with infect is that it's a feelbad moment when you die from it. And, usually, you die to it quickly, and/or unexpectedly. In the former case, since it's used in casual games, you will usually look at people having fun for 30+ minutes after your death, because after infect worked once, unless some strange shenanigans happen, it won't work again.
The only time i've seen infect closing a table were times in which 1) no one had interaction at all in that one turn (very rarely in multiple turn, like 3 consecutive combat phases in three turns) 2) Triumph of the Hordes was played, or Blightsteel Colossus was played, or Tainted Strike (but that usually only kills one person) 3) Some strange combo/synergy happened. For example, once the entire table lost because we all received one poison and boom, we got proliferated to death.
Veeeery rarely this happens.
A minor part of the problem is that it does not have direct countermeasure, except that ONE card from Homelands. Leeches. That does not feel (and it's not) enough. It's all prevention and not cure (damned phyrexians! You didn't even invented poison counters.)
And some people do not like that.
For normal damage, gaining life is enough.
Last point, about Fynn: there are 57 cards that mention deathtouch with a colour identity of green (or colourless.) 1 is Fynn and 5 do neither have deathtouch nor grant deathtouch, but do other things. It's more of a 2 card combo with Bow of Nylea or Ohran Viper. Ok, more of a 5 card combo XD (three other creatures)
So i'd say it will not be problematic. I would kind of argue that it's even more difficult to win with him, since you WILL see that coming.
So, to wrap it up, let's talk with other people about infect, especially if we use it, and let's have fun together!
I play Infect using Volrath the Shapestealer. I find that while my deck is aggressive and can kill one player as early as turn 3, it is very easy to run out of steam very quickly. Good blockers often present a real problem. I think Infect is fine where it is and agree that if WotC found MaRo taking a nap and printed a few Uros with Infect, we might need to revisit our conversation.
In my usual playgroup people use infect as a backup plan or secondary wincon. I also think it's fair, cause usually everyone teams up against the infect players, so they end up been the arch enemy.
Great content, keep up the good work.
Love from Brazil
Heck yeah, Jim. Another argument could be that you have to deal 30 poison counters to win a game, rather than 10. But yeah, the rule is totally fine. I have really been enjoying this series of Spike on the Mic episodes, stay safe out there y'all.
Even with the release of ONE, i dont think im seeing any more infect decks than I was before. People complain about the Corrupting Influence deck beating out 'better' decks, but were they even good decks if you weren't running board wipes and creature removal?
Really well thought out arguments. I really like that you’re consistent with the length of the episodes and the production quality is great. Thank you for this content!
These are basically a lot of the same feelings I have on infect. You definitely articulated the points well here.
I play Triumph of the Hords but it basically just works as a cheaper more potent Overrun, and sometimes actual Overrun would be better since I often end up able to take one or two people out but then have 3-5 infect damage that's basically wasted. My friend also has a Hapatra deck that has it as an alternate win con which is perfectly fine. Mostly it kills with infinite tokens or something but putting a few poison counters on people then using proliferate can provide a decent clock to push the game forward.
I 1000% follow and agree with everything said in the video. I like playing infect and infect cards by themselves (Triumph and Blightsteel, specifically) and the biggest pushback to this argument that I get with some members of my playgroup is that an increase to 15 or 20 would make it so that Blightsteel doesn’t kill someone outright. (Which I also don’t agree with, considering blockers, exile removal, and some cards? Just win sometimes? And that’s not a bad thing?)
Hmm this is a reasonable argument I know the only Infect my group sees is Blightsteel Colossus and Triumph of the hordes. But they come up to the point we discussed fiddling with the Infect kill point. Though I am curious how much your stance has changed with Ajani sleeper Agents ult and the Toxic mechanic?
I think the big issue people who want to increase the poison counter lose condition are having is they think about it on an individual player basis, as opposed to on a game-wide basis. If you look at it from a game-wide perspective, you have to deal 30 poison counters to win, as opposed to 10 in the 1 vs 1 context. You have to do this with one third of the resources to leverage, relative to 1 vs 1, and your creatures don't scale to the amount of opponents.
Now, infect can be quite unfun to play against if you end up being the first one to get knocked out, this is true. This, unfortunately, is a byproduct of your run of the mill infect creature being rather bad compared to non-infect creatures, in terms of mana economy, relevant keywords, etc, combined with the very pervasive perception that Infect is OP and needs to be taken out first. This necessitates the infect player to latch onto one player at a time until they're dead, to have a chance to make it past that first player kill.
So, in essence, I think the more fair way of thinking about infect is like voltron, but a lot worse. And voltron doesn't draw even 1/10th the amount of ire that infect does.
It would be interesting to see what a new release with better infect creatures would do to the above points. It would definitely justify the perception of infect being a threat by default, but I also wonder if this would make it possible to play infect in another way, to not just bash one opponent at a time into smithereens. If you had infect creatures that were more relevant for defensive play, for instance, I reckon that would diminish this need to lay into one player at a time, go all-out aggro with it, and as a result would lessen the animosity against the mechanic rather a lot.
Infect is a panic mechanic. As soon as you get 5 or so poison counters you start to panic and scramble to try to protect yourself from getting more. Additionally, as soon as the table sees one person get hit with 10 poison counters they panic to stop from sharing the same fate. Just like ifthe voltron or aggro player one shots someone. As soon as the table sees lethal is achievable they panic and turn against the player that achieved it. This is what leads to the feel bads of one player getting knocked out and the other two stopping what caused them to lose dragging the game on further as a three player game.
One way of thinking about infect might be that as the life total has been scaled by a factor of 2, you'll probably end up staying in the game twice as long (obviously a bit less if you count the number of turns, but you can adjust for the rate that damage is output at), and so the amount of work you should have to do to win should also be scaled by a similar amount. Assuming you're in a 4-player pod, and one of your opponents gets taken out of the game by someone else, you win if you deal 20 infect damage across your other opponents, which is also a 2 times scaling.
Wanted to start with saying that I really appreciate these videos.
To the topic, I think I agree that currently the rules surrounding poison counters don't seem to warrant a change, but am open to something down the line requiring it to be looked at again. It doesn't come up frequently in my games, but I am looking to try out the Fynn the Fangbearer kill in my Yasharn deck, as I am constantly trying to find effective win cons in that deck that I can work around my stax pieces.
I love infect because it speed up the game. Atlest in my play group
I play a lot of EDH, with a lot of different people, both at my lgs pre Covid, and now online on Spelltable. I've died to infect (other than triumph of the horde) I think once in my entire time, and that was against the Blight Dragon.
It's just not enough of a problem. I feel like people who think infect is a problem don't play against it often. It's a scary thought but not really that big of a problem.
I do run some some infect in a couple of my decks. I run it for a off chance of winning with it late game. Also some of the infect cards just go good with the theme of the deck like kaalia, also the ur dragon. But I do have some infect in my Nicolas bolas deck
Infect leeds to some feelbads but rarely wins games. I'm also usually not a big "dies to removal" guy but infect gets punished by removal really hard. It might be one of the only strongholds of actual factual aggro in commander left and it is fine where it is.
I'm in big agreement on the philosophy of "does this solve a problem that needs solving". There's not enough infect printed out there today that it's causing problems at casual tables, and last I checked it doesn't show up in CEDH either. How can it be considered problematic if it's not widespread at any level of the competitive scale? The players I've seen lose to infect would have lost to any other 2-5 card combo that was used in place of the infect damage, and I certainly wouldn't remember those games if it wasn't infect that killed them.
I don't even think Infect deserves the same sort of caution and consideration that we give to MLD or Stax today, because at the end of the day, you're trying to win with finite combat damage. If my opponent has a threat on board, whether it's a six-six flier or a 1/1 infect creature, I should have some sort of answer to it. If they're flashing it in and combat tricking it up to lethal, then the same responses to infect and big creatures are the same.
That may have been the case a year ago, now however it's far from it
Infect and poison simply can't stay at 10
@@sharktenko267 it is fine at 10, if it went any higher, then you kill some of these decks
@@pug8714 mate 15 is sitll faster than commander damage.
@@sharktenko267 I could maybe see 15, but that would mean needing to spread out 45 instead of 30, across 3 players, that can target you, and are often not helping you
I'm a Nekusar player who uses infect as a backup wincon. It's not the best way to win but when playing against lifegain decks it's one of my few outs since I won't be winning through commander damage. In those instances though in order to be able to take out a player I have to be setup to wheel for a minimum of ten cards in one turn. The upside is in that instance it usually ends the game for the table.
I've faced other infect decks and it does often lead to a 1v1 game as the infect player almost immediately gets removed after presenting a quick lethal strike. If that player isn't removed then it's still usually a quick game for the rest of the players as they get removed to infect.
I have also used tainted strike on an opponents creature to take a player out that thought they were too far ahead to be dealt with. I think in it's current state infect it leads for interesting interactions and another facet to consider when playing the game.
The people who want to increase the # of poison counters to lose in EDH don't grasp (or perhaps they do) that it would make infect unplayable. It would de facto ban an entire mechanic. Now, I do play infect--I love it. It's my bread, butter, jam, milk, and bacon. And it gets a lot of hate.
I am so glad you are on the CAG. very well spoken and thought out.
I see it more as a secondary wincon or for fringier decks. As a back up in Rafiq, Atraxa, or Ezuri, claw of progress, I feel like that is where it really shines. Or Skittles. But primarily the first 3. Fynn will be super fringe, and all these decks require set up to make it work, atraxa being an exception as if she gets wiped, the deck can still perform even if players have 1-2 counters on them.
I used to play in a group where our decks were mostly whatever we had access to at the time. Due to the low level of optimisation in our group poison was a pretty rough mechanic which could wipe you off the table before you had the chance to get established. As such we house ruled it to 20 and it became much less oppressive.
By comparison I wouldn’t have a problem bringing a poison deck to my current table which is significantly more optimised (nowhere near spike level, but still way higher than I used to be). We plan on using the 10 rule if it ever comes up.
I think it comes down to the social nature of the format, and you can adjust things to fit your group.
My Ex put together Atraxa Infect. Pretty popular Commander. Gives you access to all the best infect creatures, and putting Phyresis on it is pretty gross. You get the whole Commander damage+Pump spells thing. If you Invigorate your Atraxa, and it's the 21st point of Commander damage, well GG I guess?
Firstly, I greatly enjoy these videos and look forward to more.
Your argument on how the multiplayer aspect of the format reigns infect in is really interesting to me. I've always been seeing remarks from other people how "instead of 120 damage, you only need to deal 30". The whole thing about having other players help you with the 120 damage is a huge factor, compared to only dealing 30 to three separate players.
I feel the issue with infect in commander lies less with the mechanic and more with ways to cheat blightsteel/skytherix. Even then I don’t think it’s too problematic
This is a fair point, and that dips more into a banlist discussion of those two cards rather than a sweeping, systematic change like the number of poison counters discussion. Maybe another topic for another day!
i came into this listen with the opinion that 10 poison makes things feel not great, but you made some very valid points when talking specifically about infect specific cards. I personally am not a fan of infect, but i like having a card like triumph of the hordes and glistener elf for my elves or grafted exoskeleton for rafiq for a back up plan. infect still gets a lot of boosts from buffing cards, equipment, and other little goofy tricks like the new vorinclex, but that speaks more to your point that you have to have a toolkit that makes the glass cannon tactic land consistently.
I played both Yawgmoth Infect and Glissa Infect, and now that I think about it, it is kinda hard to stack up those Infect counters without proliferation. Yawgmoth gets a pass, due to being able to proliferate by himself, but with Glissa, it can get hard to break through boards.
Infect, like most aggro strategies, tends to run out of gas before it gets across the finish line. The most common scenario that plays out is that the infect player takes one person out, then gets hated out of the game by the other two.
I completely agree with what Jim said. I orginally built a Yawgmoth infect deck, however I found that the moment I got a single poison counter out, everyone kinda goes on high alert because of how few poison counters it takes. For me, it meant seeing my commander get blown up pretty regularly, cards like solemnity started getting added to my playgroup as well as other lesser known options to combat infect. Furthermore, there was really only 2 cards that they worried about, and those were ichor rats and skittles. 2 cards out of the 99 wasnt enough to make me arch enemy every game, just was something that my playgroup was mindful of whenever I would use a tutor. Thanks for your view Jim!
If you love reading the comments then let's provide reasons for that: I appreciate you Jim
Curious to see if New Phyrexia has changed your opinion on this.
I think there's 2 things going on with ONE:
1) Toxic: for all intents and purposes, I think this is more fair and balanced in Commander than Infect is. It does increase the density of playable cards in decks and works towards the same goals as Infect does. It still scales in the same unfavourable way as Infect does.
2) Proliferate: this is probably the biggest boost that the strategy got. It allows you to play commanders that are really good at putting the first counter on but typically have problems finishing once the board gets gummed up with chump blockers (Fynn etc.).
I haven't seen anything that screams "problem" to me, but some things look pretty strong. My default position for this kind of thing is to wait and see how people actually play the cards, so I'll probably give it a few months before I really reconsider my position.
Infect works best when you’re able to kill multiple opponents in the same turn. For example, if you put grafted exoskeleton on malignus and play chandras ignition. It could be any creature, but that one’s especially spicy because damage can’t be prevented haha.
My playgroup has an atraxa infect list and it’s not really a problem. He doesn’t win a lot tbh but we all have fun with it too. Especially since it makes us all better players and give us better threat assessment
Well said, this is a well put together argument.
I think that there is an interesting difference in perceived difficult on Infect as a win condition. In a 4-player pod where only 1 player is playing infect there are 2 very different view points. The non-infect players are sitting there thinking "This isn't fair, shouldn't the number of poison counters be increased? Should it not take 2x more infect counters to be equal to 20-life formats?" Then you have the infect player that ACTUALLY has to do 3x more work than normal because they are operating on a win-condition that no one else is participating in and now must do it 3 times. So while the non-infect players are thinking it should require 2x more infect counters to kill them individually to avoid them feeling bad about it, the infect player already has to dish out 3x more infect counters than normal to win.
when you're on the receiving end, it's hard to remember the difference between "10 Poison Counters Kills a Player" and "30 Poison Counters Wins The Game"
Just want to point out that in order to win with infect in commander, you have to do 200% MORE damage than 1v1. That's 30 poison counters. Double what you'd have to do in 2HG. Unless someone else is also playing infect.
I play a very vicious Otrimi Infect as well as using infect in a lot more decks. Especially Tainted Strike and Triumph of the Hordes. I've had a lot more success than any other Infect player I've spoken to and often end up playing one to two games till I win with it before rotating it out for a less vicious deck.
The reason I like Infect is it is one of the only viable creature based strategies other than Voltron. I play Magic because I like summoning creatures. And, although I think the higher lifetotal in Commander is a good thing, it makes creature based strategies at a massive disadvantage. More players + Higher Lifetotals really ends up hurting what I think should be the heart of the game. Though, I do understand that Magic is very interaction based so this belief is more idealism than reality.
I think what trips people up is they want a way to interact with Poison Counters and ignore that their decks should have ways to interact with creature strategies already. Either just by summoning their own creatures or by using removal or by pillowforting. Poison Counters are scary, and honestly there probably should be counters to them that have other modes.
However, I'm strongly of the opinion that creatures should be a core part of magic. My biggest problem with the format is the low number of creatures that have an offensive impact in the format. I think there need to be more Magister Sphinxes in the game, not less Infect.
Another point against infect in Commander is you don't need 10 to win you need 10 to the out a player. In 1v1 you need to get to ten to win but that's 30 to win in Commander.
So a friend and I play 1v1 commandeer games. Do you think 30 life total and 15 poison would be a good balance? Maybe something like 40 life 20 poison? For context we have been running with 40 life 10 infect so far and I just get rolled every time
Well put and I felt non-biased look at infect in relation to commander. Weighing in from both majority sides and making an adjustment for both. Well done sir will done. How speaking from my experience is only felt bad one for killing with infect and was soon over it realizing the rarity of it ever happening again, and that being a turn 3 blightsteel with my jhoira of the ghitu deck. It's the first deck I built for commander some 5 years ago and in the hundreds of times I've played her it's happened once. I feel, you have a better chance of hitting a 3 or 4 card jank combo.
Replace "command zone replacement effect" with "hybrid color identity" and nothing about the argument needs to change.
Still not sure why the RC hates Shadowmoor.
I play infect and it’s very hard to win I can normally only kill one or two people and the die if it was 20 I would not even kill anyone most of the time and would probably dismantle the deck.
My commander I use is Volrath, the shape Steeler
I love playing my Brokkos infect deck. I would prefer the rules to stay the way they are now. If not, then it will be just general damage for that deck. I am glad you are against it.
Good episode! I have no problem with dying to infect. It's a viable strategy with a narrow card pool.
Sadly Infect decks suffer the same strategic shortfall that most Voltron decks suffer: they're able to eliminate one player but then they're stopped or stalled-out. I'd like to see more cards printed that make it easier to eliminate an entire table at once with poison counters! (And no: I don't have a dedicated infect EDH deck.)
Just finished building Fynn the Fang Bearer it has zero infect creatures and is not running Triumph of the hordes maybe I won't get hated off the table instantly
We have one player in our group, who is not using infect as a strategie, but as his win condition (he is palying lazav). I am super ok with it, he has to work for it and if he pulls it off, he wins fast with it. So I have a good time playing against that deck. Overall I think infect is fine the way it is, but I also did't had to play a pure infect deck yet. Luckily though ^^
in a format with too many infinite combos, infect especially Triumph of the Hordes a one card combo for the creature deck
which is fair if you ask me
I'm ok with them making a variant rule for 1v1 commander needing 20 infect counters, but in a normal pod, in order to win, you need to do 30 infect damage against three decks with answers to you. One wrath can set an aggro player back a lot, a control player can just hold up their counters for specific pieces, and someone playing big creatures can just play creatures that are bigger then yours.
10 infect makes aggro viable, not broken.
I totally agree, infect seems very powerful at first but for having played it in modern, it's totally different in EDH and I would say almost impossible to make it work fast enough in cEDH. Yes 30 poison counters to win the game seems easy but in practice its really not, most of the time other combo decks will win way before you and control decks will make you useless. I think Skittles could've been a good cEDH commander if he was at the very least two colora
infect is only not an issue because it's so seldomly played. why is it seldomly played? would changing the rule make it be played more?
Agreed. Infect isnt very popular and I'm willing to bet most playgroups dont even have an infect deck present. Infect isnt a super popular strat according to edhrec
I personally hate(d) infect as a mechanic (in 1v1 formats), but even then there are like 3 decent Infect cards that fit better in commander than in other constructed formats: Triumph of the Horde, Grafted Exoskeleton and Blightsteel Colossus (ignoring Tinker in Vintage here). First is a go wide finisher, second is a creature combo finisher and the third is a 12 mana ramp target. How often are you losing games that you would not have lost against other overrun style effects/A plus B combos/other big mana artifact creatures like Battlesphere respectively. The rest are either really small creatures like Blighted Agent and Inkmoth Nexus, that are way better in modern/legacy than commander, or just bad draft creatures. All in all, not a problem.
Compare all of these to other alternative win cons in commander. Empty library wins are actually a real problem, as they are easier and harder to interact. But also Felidar Sovereign, Helix Pinnacle, Lilianna's Contract, Mortal Combat, Happily Ever After, Hellkite Tyrant and Revel in Riches are all easier zo fulfil than in 1v1 contstructed. And nobody is asking for 200 counters on Pinnacle, 40 creature cards for Mortal Combat, 8 Demons etc. for these cards to win the game.
I have no issue with infect per se, and I built an infect-proliferate Yawgmoth deck thats dece. I think the issues with infect stem more specficially from Triumph of the Hordes specificially which causes infect.
You argue, correctly I believe, that the average card quality of Infect cards is fairly low and it is a high mountain to climb.
Triumph of the hordes invalidates this. Allowing for a variety of alphastrike scenarios in low to high power, id say sub cedh games. Now it does require a board but that can be achieved in myriad ways in any green X or mono green deck. Im running elf ball. Boom Triump and its lethal. Then infect gets the hate cuz thats what caused the loss.
Xenagos, triumph, pick a 5/5 and someones dead.
I won't say its uninteractable because its not but I think Triumph is where all the feels bad comes from as its 4 mana end a game.
I will say that i think its PERCEPTION is worse than its reality but I wouldnt mind a discussion around Triumph specifically, as I think that card could go(solving feels bads) and not overwhelmingly impact infect.
I love infect. I have infect in almost every deck I own and I have 2 decks built around infect (or at least a large part of it is infect). I think it is an awesome mechanic and I hope it get more support. That being said, it is a VERY difficult mechanic to win by. As you said, you are typically all on your own which is hard. But what makes it even more difficult to win with is that people are afraid of infect. If I ever do get someone to high poison counter totals, 8 or so, or if I can kill one person with infect, I have just painted a HUGE target on my back. Then everyone comes after me and I am out quick because my typically small infect creatures can't contend with multiple high power commander decks at once. For this reason I have a very low win rate with my infect decks. Even with combat tricks and proliferation, infect is hard to win with. Infect makes it easy to kill, but hard to win.
@@BeFourCM So the infect player just sits there watching the rest of the pod play? Isn't that just the same issue, but turned around? So it is ok if it happens to the infect player, but not to you???
But now, as they say in the video, there is less need to just go after one person for a quick win and infect might (I say might because we haven't really seen it in the wild yet) have the ability to play into the late game and get later game kills. That way everyone gets to play.
I feel like infect feels worst because it usually knocks a player out early then loses. So it sort of kingmakes in a way because it quickly turns a 4 player game into a 2v1 into a 1v1.
That said i think that is a problem that all combat damage win cons have and changing the infect rules will not help that. I agree that infect should not be changed
I used to be on the side of making the change to 20 poison for EDH, but am beginning to see why it should stay the way it is. I actually saw someone comment in a FB group I am in saying their playgroup actually played games with 15 or 20 poison damage. According to them the change made infect almost completely unviable as a strategy.
15 is fair 20 is too high
Should be 30 like a few articles have stated.
I think infect works fine as it is the biggest prob I have with it with my play group is it makes people salty cuz I have seen a turn 3 infect take someone out of the game and people don't like that but I have played or in arena with the new card when death touch creature deals damage it gives 2 posien counters it's a gimiky deck but fun to mess around with but I don't think super competitive but that's just my opinion
The problem of infect is wipe boards and counters
Infect always dies fast because everyone hates it and kills that player.
Zero infect decks that I've seen. Too much work for one person to do alone. Leave it at 10 counters.
So, I have a thing to say here. I do not play infect and have only lost to it due to the triumph of the hordes craterhoof wombo combo ONE TIME. In a lot of years playing the format. ONLY ONE TIME.
Not to say I haven't played against a lot of infect. Au contraire. I've seen the whole gambit of infect decks. And yeah, they might have eliminated A player from the pod. It's just that. A player. Out of three opponents. Whoooo boy are those just bad odds.
And people want to NERF infect?
Ya'll out there playing against power level 8 infect decks all the time?
Damn. Try working a little anti counter tech in the deck or run better removal/ streamline your own deck.
Cause they aren't winning whole pods. Maybe just knocking you out early.
Most of the infect hate comes from people who don't like losing to it. Which is mostly just hate to losing in general. Yeah Tainted Strike can be mean but the Muxus' and Winota's are the real problems here.
Infect is about as good as voltron in my opinion. You put all your resources into 1 creature and if it gets removed you lose hard, and (skittles aside) you won't always be able to redevelope an infect creature, because there are a limited number of quality options. It might be good at getting the 1st elimination, but unlikely to get 2.
I think a large portion of the feelbads associated with Infect in commander is due solely to Blightsteel Colossus. There fact that there is an indestructible creature who can just one shot people makes for really easy pubstomping. And getting oneshot by it makes people feel bad and reflexively think about the fact that it's the only cause of death that isn't more difficult in commander.
I loved this video. I'm an infect player, actually got my start in Magic during the Scars block, and I've been saying for a while now that infect isn't a problem in commander because except for a select few cards, infect cards are terrible and are only good because they have infect stapled on. Like how Blackcleave Goblin would be unplayable if it didn't have infect. It's nice to see someone with influence over the game I love have similar thoughts as me
Infect is fine, leave it be.
Totally agree. I think there is a real downside to building around infect for the reasons you outlined. Because people are chipping away at each other's life totals over the course of the game, even cards like corrupted conscience and triumph of the hordes are often the same or worse than Overrun and Control Magic.
That being said, I think there is a great niche with damage to creatures being -1 counters along with something like perhaps The Scorpion God -- this kind of different strategy makes infect interesting but not particularly powerful
Our playgroup is doing 15 only because one of our buddies infect pops off faster than our other fastest decks
man, this did not age well. with the new set MOM and all will be one etc.. infect are like cedh lvl 8 decks now.
The cEDH community would definitely disagree with you about that.
I love infect, I play it in Modern all the time. It is not too strong in commander because of the insane amount of hate and irrational actions that happen when people see a creature with infect on it. the only cards I see win with infect in commander is the occasional blightsteel. Maybe the occasional Tainted Strike after blocks are declared.
That being said, I did once proliferate someone to death. That was hilarious for me, and he was super salty, held the grudge for like a month.
Infect is just too slow for a multiplayer format. Sure you might get to kill one opponent in a single turn, but it will get increasingly difficult to kill the other two once they know what you are doing.
Infect is basically a no no because of the feel bads. I honestly find it sad there are certain types of decks that just can't be played in 99% of commander games.
Only play 1v1 commander,
If an opponent puts out an infect deck, Fold, it saves time.
sounds awful lmao, stop playing commander in a 1v1 when most decks are built for 4 player
It is too easy to give someone 10 counters but let's not forget how easy it is to go infinite and win early game so something has to be done about infinite combos first if something is going to be done about infect
10 poisons counter still are a lot in edh.
Infections creatures don't have an high power even in an atraxa infection killing one player is hard by poisons counter
Increase the number of poisons counter you need put on a player will just make infect useless
Ok. Now redo this episode with the Phyrexia: All Will Be One set in mind. Because uh... The $45 Corrupting Influence precon is taking out $700-$1000 decks.. Consistently..
Honestly, this rule has to be changed or commander is just going to be a toxic sludge fest... Lmao.
skill issue
toxic doesnt scale with increased power. if a creature has toxic 1, it can only apply one point of poison no matter how much damage it deals. If you don't run creature removal or like to durdle and play a bunch of combo pieces with no blockers out, you deserved to get hit with that. also, that has to be a bold faced lie about the precon beating out 700-1000$ decks because what idiot would spend all that money to include no removal, board wipes, or counters? Sounds like the precon is just beating garbage decks jammed with expensive cards if that's even true.
The hate around infect genuinely baffles me: pretty weak archetype that does nothing to harm opponents unless they actually completely kill them, unlike say normal combat damage or stax pieces. Plus you gotta do three times as much work unless a second infect player is in your pod. Finally and importantly aggro decks are good for a healthy ecosystem!
Poison counters are too low, it should be set to 15
As Commander is a casual format, you can introduce this change with your group.
The only thing I dislike about Infect is that it's non-interactable (see also: Emblems.) With extremely few exceptions*, you can't get rid of Poison counters, they sit there and no matter what you do you're always that close to losing the game. If there were a way to remove them (excepting those niche cards) then I'd be fine with it. (*Leeches, Melira but she doesn't remove them)
Infect is just a bad way of playing Voltron 🤷♂️