Infectwire at FNM

So I took my latest evolution of Infectwire to my local FNM tonight. It didn't perform quite as well as I had hoped, but a lot of that was due to my inexperience against some of the new decks that came out.



Here is the list I took with me:

Deck
Lands 4 Inkmoth Nexus 4 Misty Rainforest 7 Island 7 Forest Creatures 4 Glistener Elf 4 Blighted Agent 2 Viral Drake 4 Ichorclaw Myr	Spells 2 Distortion Strike 2 Tezzeret's Gambit 4 Mutagenic Growth 4 Groundswell 2 Vines of Vastwood 4 Apostle's Blessing 2 Livewire Lash 2 Dismember 2 Contagion Clasp	Sideboard 2 Dismember 2 Contagion Clasp 2 Beast Within 4 Nature's Claim 4 Spellskite

There are some parts of this list that I am very happy with.

Dismember in the mainboard was always huge. There wasn't a single time that I drew it that I couldn't use it. I wouldn't put the other 2 the mainboard, but definitely keep them in the sideboard.


Apostle's Blessing acted as an additional Vines of Vastwood + Distortion Strike. I was able to swing through defenders, prevent damage, and do other fun combat tricks with it.


Distortion Strike never came up in any of my games, and yet I was still doing well. I'm not sure how to interpret this. Does that mean that I don't need Distortion Strike? Is it a win-more card now? I think I need to do more play testing before deciding that.


Ichorclaw Myr did everything that I wanted him to. He came down on turn 2, and straight up intimidated everyone as well as a Blighted Agent would. He might as well have had Unblockable printed on him. I don't think he ever got touched by another creature.




Problems that I had:

Gideon Jura: This guy is still a nightmare for the infect deck. I have the 2 copies of Beast Within on the sideboard, but beyond that I don't even know what I can do to him.


Creature Removal: 2 decks that I played against had a ton of mainboard creature removal. Lightning Bolts, Go for the Throats, Mortarpods, and Black Sun Zenith all made for huge headaches. The only way that I can think of countering this is with more efficient creatures... And I'm drawing a blank on any efficient infect creatures in my colors. Side note, Phyrexian Crusader is going to be a house against Pyromancer Ascension decks.


Word got around pretty quickly that I was running a pump infect deck, which ruined a lot of the surprise factor that I could have gotten.


Sideboarding was a nightmare for me.


When I was on the draw I was taking out my Glistener Elves, and I think that ended up being a huge mistake. Even if they aren't swinging into an open board, they are 1 drop creatures that can win the game for me. I'm going to stop doing that.


Nature's Claim and Beast Within were awesome against Caw-Blade. I'm considering putting more copies of Beast Within in just to help with this match. The problem was that I didn't know what to take out to fit those in. The Contagion Clasps are nice for the proliferate engine, and they can't be bounced by Jace like the Drake can.


Finally, the Blue/Black control matchup. I need to do some test matches against this deck, I really have no idea what I can do when my opponent is holding 2 Mana Leaks and several hard counters, with plenty of mana to cast them. He was playing a pure draw-go deck, and I couldn't get anything to stick to the board. The only thing that I can think of is stock up my hand with several cheap guys, and try and play them all at once and hope that he runs out of mana before I do.


If anyone has any suggestions to any of these predicaments, please let me know.


Thanks for reading.