Thursday, January 20, 2011

Infect: Too Good? or Too Dumb?

Recently, a new mechanic has been added to the Magic: The Gathering rulebook. It is a little thing called "Infect."

What is Infect?
Infect is a creature ability (like Deathtouch or First Strike.) What Infect does is it makes the creature with infect deal damage to creatures in the form of -1/-1 counters, and to players in poison counters.

Creatures
Lets say that your opponent is attacking with an Ichorclaw Myr. Ichoclaw Myr is only a 1/1, so if you defend with your 2/2, then you'll kill it right? Wrong. Ichorclaw's ability states, "Whenever Ichorclaw Mry gets blocked, it gains +2/+2 until end of the turn." Well now your 2/2 is dead. Well what if you blocked with a 4/4? That would be fine! Wrong again. Ichorclaw Myr would be killed, but your 4/4 would be degraded to a 1/1. -1/-1 counters are permanent.

Players
Now players get dealt damage in Poison Counters. This is even worse. It only takes 10 poison counters to lose a game. Yes, 10. And since Poison Counters are dealt out for every 1 damage (so 3 damage would result in 3 Poison Counters), you're basically cutting your life in half from the get go. Pretty dumb right? Well, if I mass an army quick enough, I could just block, and everything would be alright! Nope. Listen to this combo. Let's say that your opponent played a land this turn, he has 2 Green mana and 1 Blue mana. On his Ichorclaw Myr, he puts 2 Groundswells and a Distortion Strike. Now the Ichorclaw Myr is a 10/9 unblockable. That is game over on turn 3.

Two More Creatures That Explain Why Infect is Dumb
Skitheryx, the Blight Dragon- Skitheryx is a 4/4 with flying and infect. First off flying is hard enough to block, but that thing is dealing out 4 poison counters per turn! That's devastating!

Blightsteel Colossus- Blightsteel is a Mythic Rare in the new set of Mirrodin Besieged. 11/11 with Trample, Indestructable, and Infect. Possibly the dumbest card I have ever seen. That is an one attack win. And with trample, it can take out numerous creatures that multi-block it.

Links were attributed by www.mtgfanatic.com and www.mtgmintcard.com.

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