Playing Pauper: Mono Green Infect

by Jake Stiles // Dec 7, 2016

Welcome back to more sweet Playing Pauper action! This week's Infect deck is pulled from the published 5-0 leagues on Magic Online and was piloted by user fer_magic. Unlike other infect decks that utilize blue mana for Blighted Agent or red mana for Temur Battle Rage, this version is mono green (excepting the Phyrexian mana of course). I had a lot of fun piloting it, and if you like aggressive decks you should definitely check it out.

Check out the matches, then read the discussion below. If you enjoy Playing Pauper, subscribe to the MTGGoldfish YouTube channel! It helps us draw more people to the channel, and it helps you to never miss any of our great video content.

Mono Green Infect Intro

Mono Green Infect vs Temur Tron

Mono Green Infect vs Bogles

Mono Green Infect vs Temur Tron

Mono Green Infect vs Dimir Control

Mono Green Infect vs Affinity

The Deck

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While a deck like Stompy gets to play the best Green common creatures printed to date, Infect has to deal with the understated choices above. Their saving grace is the infect ability which means we can win the game by dealing ten poison instead of twenty damage.

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The deck plays the most efficient pump spells available to cheaply boost our creatures' power so that we can kill our opponent in just one or two attack steps.

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Llanowar Augur and Rancor offer the extremely valuable trample keyword, while Vines of Vastwood and Apostle's Blessing help protect creatures from removal spells.

The Sideboard

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Fog can buy an entire turn against other aggressive decks and Gut Shot can move those aggressive deck's blockers out of the way.

Scattershot Archer can single-handedly take down most of Mono Blue Delver's creatures.

Gleeful Sabotage completely ruins Affinity's mana base or board presence depending on the stage of the game.

The Matchups

Since Infect can win as early as the second or third turn, opponents who lack early disruption just lose when Infect has a good draw. The key to winning with Infect or against Infect is the same: you have to know when to fight and when to let your opponent act first.

As Infect's opponent, if you can afford to take three poison and have only one removal spell in hand, maybe you wait to Lightning Bolt the creature until after the Infect player has committed to playing Vines of Vastwood. It's a delicate balance of deciding exactly how many protection and pump spells you can afford to play around before losing.

As the Infect player, you need to wait for your opponent to make a mistake, for them to tap out, or for the opportunity when you can attack for lethal and have enough Vines of Vastwood or Apostle's Blessing to win a removal war.

Infect hopes to have opponents like Elves or Bogles that have little or no disruption since Infect can often win the race. Infect's worse matchups include decks packing tons of removal such as Mono Black Control and Dimir Teachings.

Conclusion

If you like to win quickly and want to do so with poison instead of boring old damage, this is the deck for you. If you prefer to play control, then keep your removal spells handy and try not to lose on turn two to an impossibly large Glistener Elf.

Submissions

Viewer submissions are open! I'll still be playing known decks occasionally, but I'll mostly be playing:

Decks submitted by viewers

Decks created from viewer challenges (e.g. build a deck around Horned Kavu)

Decks created by Jake (especially ones comprised of cards from new sets such as Aether Revolt)

Email me at pauper@mtggoldfish.com or Tweet to me @JakeStilesMTG with your decklist or challenge, and I'll give you a shout-out if I use your submission!