Green White Infect places 4th in a Pro Tour Qualifier

Last weekend a player placed 4th at a Pro Tour Qualifier for the Pro Tour Philadelphia tournament. It uses the same general Green Livewire shell as my Green/Blue deck, but forgoes Blue in favor of white.

Here is the deck list that he piloted to his placing:

Deck
Creatures - 15 4 Glistener Elf 4 Lost Leonin 4 Priests of Norn 3 Viridian Corrupter Pump - 16 4 Emerge Unscathed 4 Groundswell 4 Mutagenic Growth 4 Vines of Vastwood	Artifacts - 6 2 Contagion Clasp 4 Livewire Lash Lands - 23 4 Inkmoth Nexus 4 Razorverge Thicket 4 Sunpetal Grove 7 Forest 4 Plains	Sideboard 1 Contagion Clasp 4 Corpse Cur 2 Dismember 3 Naturalize 3 Nature's Claim 2 Quest for the Gemblades

There are several things that I like here, and some things that I don't.

First, Lost Leonin is amazing, I really never considered him, but he is the only 2 cost 2 power Infect creature that has been printed. He makes for a pretty awesome turn 2 drop if you missed Glistener Elf on turn 1.

Second, Priests of Norn are very good in the current standard meta game. They are just outside of reach for Lightning Bolts (though more people are probably running 4+ damage spells with Spellskite and Deceiver Exarch being so abundant). He also has Vigilance, and once he's equipped with Livewire it is pretty much game over for your opponent if they don't draw some artifact removal fast.

Emerge Unscathed is awesome when combined with Livewire Lash, the rebound and the protection abilities are exactly what this deck wants. I would still like to run Apostle's Blessing, but I think these 2 compete for the same slots.

Viridian Corrupter is a good card in my opinion, but I don't think he's in here for the right reasons. In your first game you should be trying to blow out your opponent, fast creatures, fast wins. An opening hand that had Viridian Corrupter and a Livewire Lash is pretty much useless. No deck in standard plays out an artifact before Turn 3. That means you'll be waiting to play him until turn 4, or casting him without being able to play an artifact before hand. Infectwire is not a deck that likes to be kept waiting.

Contagion Clasp is decent in here, but again, in the first game you're going to be trying to win on turn 2-4, which means Contagion Clasp is just going to be an expensive way to put a -1/-1 counter on a creature.

In the sideboard, Naturalize doesn't make much sense as a 3 of. I would much rather have 2 more Dismembers and 1 more Nature's Claim.

I love the concept of Quest for the Gemblades in this deck, but only because of Priests of Norn. Priests are pretty much the only Infect creature that you could ever hope to have blocked and not die immediately.

After all of the above, this is the list that I came up with:

Deck
Creatures - 12 4 Glistener Elf 4 Lost Leonin 4 Priests of Norn Pump - 21 4 Emerge Unscathed 2 Apostle's Blessing 4 Groundswell 4 Mutagenic Growth 4 Vines of Vastwood 3 Quest for the Gemblades	Artifacts - 4 4 Livewire Lash Lands - 23 4 Inkmoth Nexus 4 Razorverge Thicket 4 Sunpetal Grove 7 Forest 4 Plains	Sideboard 4 Nature's Claim 4 Dismember 4 Beast Within 3 Viridian Corrupter

I think this list might want to run some sort of finisher, either Garruk or Overwhelming Stampede, or something similar. Triumph of the Hordes was brought up, and while the "All creatures get Infect" part is pretty useless, the "All creatures get +1/+1 and Trample" is pretty amazing. It's also 1 mana cheaper than Overwhelming Stampede is, and unless you have a creature equipped with a Livewire already, it's probably going to give just as big of a boost. However, I think both Overwhelming Stampede and Triumph of the Hordes are pretty bad in this list, due to how few creatures there are. We'll see what testing tells us.

I think our Sideboard here is pretty solid.

Against Splinter Twin decks we have 4 Vines mainboard. 4 Dismembers, 4 Nature's Claims sideboard. You could even use Beast Within, but 3 mana is tough to keep up against Exarch.

Against Caw-Blade we can bring in the Corrupter to help with Artifact destruction, we also have the Beast Within to deal with Plainswalkers and Nature's Claim to also help with Swords/Skulls that get flashed in.

Valakut is a pretty rough match. You essentially need to race them, and hope you can go ultimate before they can.

Vampires depends entirely on which version of the list they are running. If they are heavy on the creature sac effects, you're pretty screwed. If they rely more on Lightning Bolts and Doom Blades, you should be able to hold your own pretty well.

Red Deck Wins is another race, and if you can resolve a Priests of Norn, it's likely one that you'll win.

Eldrazi Ramp is a walk in the park. Any of your protection spells will allow you to walk right past their stack of green creatures and swing for the win. Dismembers should be brought in to stop Overgrown Battlement ramping.

Alright, I played against several decks, and this is what I've come up with.

Quest for the Gemblades is bad. I got it out several games, and not once did it's ability matter. I was always sideboarding it out for game 2.

Mono black is very rough with Gatekeepers and Consuming Vapors. No amount of protection saves you from those.

I only lost 2 games out of the 6 I played, one was to this exact mirror, someone running the G/W Infect deck. The other was to a mono-black deck. Game 1 was a blowout win. Game 2 was long and dragged out, and he eventually won with double Obliterators. Game 3 was ridiculous, he dropped 3 Gatekeeper of Malakir and a Consuming Vapors, one after the other, and I had a hand with 2 Emerge Unscathed and a Vines of Vastwood, absolutely nothing I could do, I never got a creature to stick to the field. If I had an Inkmoth, I would have been a lot better off, but it still would have been very difficult.

The other games were against a White/Blue Venser deck, a White/Blue Caw-Blade deck, a Green Eldrazi Ramp deck, and a Green/Blue tempo ramp deck. The Caw Blade match was the toughest, Batterskull coming down on the end of turn 3 every time is incredibly hard to play around. You need a Nature's Claim quick. Because of this, I have put the 3 Viridian Corrupters back in the main board. I've completely removed the Quest for the Gemblades, I can't imagine what kind of match would want those. In their place I've put in 3 Ichorclaw Myr. You can side them in against decks that don't run artifacts but when you still want creatures.

The Ichorclaws are certainly not ideal as the last spot in the sideboard, but I was running out of ideas. You don't want to just put in more pump there, that doesn't help anything. Leylines might be a good idea, but that will heavily depend on the meta. Maybe I'll put Garruk in that spot.