Infect at FNM

So close. Went 3-1 at FNM, and came in 5th due to tiebreakers.


I played the exact list that I posted yesterday:

Deck
Land - 24 4 Inkmoth Nexus 4 Misty Rainforest 2 Halimar Depths 5 Island  9 Forest Creatures - 10 4 Glistener Elf 4 Blighted Agent 2 Viral Drake Spells - 20 2 Tezzeret's Gambit 4 Mutagenic Growth 4 Groundswell 4 Vines of Vastwood 2 Distortion Strike 2 Dismember 2 Beast Within	Planeswalkers - 2 2 Garruk Wildspeaker Artifacts - 4 2 Contagion Clasp 2 Piston Sledge	Sideboard 2 Dismember 2 Beast Within 4 Nature's Claim 3 Twisted Image 4 Apostle's Blessing

I didn't have the Halimar Depths or the Garruk Wilkspeakers when I showed up, but I managed to trade for them before the games started.

MVP of the night

Once again, I was destroyed by shuffling. The only match that I lost was the first one of the night against a Venser deck. In both games I had very strong starting hands. Also in both games I proceeded to draw nothing but land for 7+ turns. Both times that was plenty of time for him to get out a Venser and get an emblem and ruin my chances of winning.

My second game was against Vampires. The first game was very close, with him at 9 infect and me at 4 life, but it was his turn, and he managed to get there and finish me off. I sideboarded out my Dismembers and Beast Within for my 4 Apostle's Blessing, because of the amount of creature hate he was running. The sideboard served me well, every attempted Go for the Throat or Doomblade was met with a Vines or a Blessing. Game 2 ended with a Blighted Agent equipped with Piston Sledge, and game 3 ended with an Inkmoth Nexus, he tried to Doom Blade it, and in response it got a kicked Vines of Vastwood.

My third game was against a Soul Sisters deck. I've gotta say, this is probably the easiest match up ever. Game 1, she really didn't have any answers to anything I was playing. She tutored up a Mortar Pod with her Stoneforge, but as soon as she played it I Dismembered the germ token, forcing her to shoot at me as there were no other valid targets out. I then swung for the win with lethal pump on Inkmoth. Game 2 and she had sideboarded in Spellskites, the first one that came in got Dismembered, which allowed me to get 1 pump hit in with Blighted Agent. She played a second one the following turn, and I casually equipped a Piston Sledge onto my Agent, and there was nothing she could do to stop him.

My fourth game was against a Grand Architect deck. In game 1 he played out a Grand Architect, and before he could do anything fancy with it a Dismember took it out. Once again Inkmoths prevailed and lethal pump finished it. Game 2 had a lot more back and forth, as he managed to get out 2 Inkmoths of his own. I had a Blighted Agent on the field with Piston Sledge attached, and when I swung he Into the Roiled it back to my hand. I played the Agent back out, and passed the turn. He felt pretty safe and passed back to me with all mana untapped. I decided to go for it, I tapped one Inkmoth to turn itself into a creature, and then sacrificed it, putting Piston Sledge back onto the Blighted Agent. I attacked with the Blighted Agent, and dropped a Mutagenic Growth onto it, trying to lure out whatever he left mana open for. He responded with a Go for the Throat, and the Vines of Vastwood I played next sealed it, dealing 8 more infect when he had already racked up 2 from earlier Inkmoth attacks.

Next came the long wait. There was only 1 person that had gone 4-0, so my chances were looking pretty good. I went and talked with my friend that was there running a similar Black/Blue infect build, and he had faced the Venser deck in round 3, and had soundly beaten him. They were both 1-1 going into the match, which means the only win that he had gotten was against me in the first round. Uh-oh. I ended up being at the very bottom of the 3-1 group, putting me in 5th place. The top 4 broke out to determine placing and walk away with their shiny Squadron Hawks. So close!

Despite not making it into the top 4, I feel the deck still did very well. My opponent in the first round even apologized to me as he saw me draw land after land after land. The only person I can blame is myself though, I should have done a much more thorough job of shuffling before starting.

I know some other people out there ran some variation of this deck at their own FNMs, I'd love to hear how you all did, leave a comment and let me know!

Thanks for reading!