Phyrexian Commanders are Actually Really Bad Infect Commanders 

nah vishgraz is fine. Him being huge is useless either way. You just want to blink him and make a fuckton and a half of mites, and then murder someone.

Imagine not bullying your pod with 100% lore accurate phyrexian decks. Couldn't be me!

The biggest problem with poison imo is that there... really isn't a good area of play for it to fit in at. In low level games the 10 counters are really difficult for newer decks and less experienced players to work around, so it stomps easily. In high level games, especially in modern, it has *some* use... but is ultimately outclassed by other, faster strategies. This kinda just leaves midrange games which tend to still not want to play against poison because the mechanic is unfun to play against even with proper foresight and counterplay. Even with house rules to adjust the amount of counters needed to kill, the mechanic is either slowed down so much its obsolete, or is doubled down upon by proliferate and stax effects that grind the pace of the game down to a halt. No matter how I look at it, a poison-centric deck is just hard to work with, and from what I've seen most people who still want to play poison simply put a few strong poison inflicting cards into their decks as a last resort instant-kill effect. (Tainted strike and blightsteel colossus are the first two to come to mind) Honestly, I'm glad phyrexians have other mechanics aside from being exclusively poison and infect. I really love the art style of the creature type, and it would be such a shame to see such an awesome concept for a world be completely obsolete when put in the actual game.

i have to disagree, making an atraxa poison deck viable in high power edh is doable, with 4 colors you can make an excelent control deck with the inevitability of poison as a wincon. i did just that and the deck performs consistently well.

Honestly i enjoy my ixhel lower power infect deck. Embracing the idea of corrupting the opponent instead of killen them with infect is a way more fun way to use infect imo. The deck is still strong enough to do this gameplan its just not a turbo infect commander like the UG modern variant. Ixhel when build correctly lets you play infect in commander without getting an eye roll from everyone at the table and not beings the problem from turn zero.

I have 2 infect decks, lxhel and volrath But I never really get to play them, ixhel will get targeted immediately because not only is it obviously infect, it also steals people's cards, two mechanics people hate Volrath is fine starting out, but then people see it's an -1/-1 and infect deck and they start blowing up anything that gets counters I love infect, but i know it turns a 1v1v1v1 game into a 1v3 game really quick The one thing I always warn them just so that no one gets blindsided is that if they hit 6 infect they are in the kill zone Also, toxic is just not as satisfying as infect, but some toxic creatures are absolute monsters so it is fine

You know what's funny, last week I just finished making a Phyrexian deck having Marneus Calgar as my commander since I noticed there were good chunk of Phyrexian cards creates a bunch of mite, golem and incubator tokens, I either win by overrunning with said tokens or drain their health away by sacrificing the tokens.

Another commander idea is the new trostani who gives stuff double strike, so you can double toxic hits

I don't build Ixhel as an Infect deck. I build Ixhel as a toxic phyrexian tribal deck, corrupting my opponents slowly. For in the end, I am playing my deck and their decks, so All Will Be One.

My personal "infect" deck is mono-blue proliferate with Reality Chip as the commander.

Having gotten many full-pod infect kills with my Atraxa and Skittles decks, I shall simply disagree.

The slide talking about hammertime singlehandedly convinced me to subscribe. Looking forward to see what videos you make in the future.

As a buddy of mine said once when Infect was new... "If you're making a poison deck, you also need to make the deck make use of Proliferate."

Kamiz is so good as a poison commander. I've been playing them for a while now. When you add tymna, and breena there is alot of card advantage. Also due to the colors you have alot of interaction aswell.

I feel like The Wise Mothman is a good new option for Sultai Infect. It can pump up your small creatures as the game progresses.

Venser is actually pretty good at the poison game. He drops early to push a poison damage early, and his proliferate trigger is deceptively good as a sac outlet for more proliferating. I build venser when phyrexian all will be one released when I pulled him out of my first pack.

How do you make a video about non-phyrexian infect commanders, and you dont mention the GOAT, Mimeoplasm once? Even had a "Sultai Slammers" section and still no mention, smdh /s

The best infect commander now? Felix Five Boots

this is all why i built my infect commander deck with rigo streetwise mentor. a lot of my toxic creatures have low enough power to trigger him, and then once ive spread poison to the table i use the card draw and bant colors to pivot to a slower gameplan (with propaganda/ghostly prison/other control pieces) and eventually proliferate a win. ive found it to be way more fun and resilient than a typical voltron build

Ria ivor is the commander for my infect deck. I dont play infect cards in the deck bc they are so below rate and get outclassed easily. So instead i play evasive disruption creatures that can get in for ria ivor to turn into mites. Basicly your turning a 2 power archon of emeria attack into 2 poison counters next turn which is comparable to 8 regular damage. From all the games ive played with ria she function converts real damage into infect with a turn delay. Also in the form of tokens which you can do alot with.

While all the commanders made for infect kinda suck, my skithiryx deck is pretty consistent with lots of removal, little infect goobers, combat tricks, and direct poison giving for late game, the commander is basically just an 8th hand card to get another infect goober out

Ria ivor at its core is a token deck that i’ve had some good success going wide is still an effective strategy. doesnt seem like much but with evasion you can make 3 or more tokens each turn, not even including token doublers and things like that, its nice when you can get that going. Corpse knight, rosie cotton and intangible virtue are cheap ways to drain and wxpand the board since i know ppl will block and kill the mite tokens

You know, I actually do have an Infect deck in the works. Thanks all-seeing algorithm! :D I'm gonna see how Lazav, Familiar Stranger fares with the Infect strategy: once I've had a chance to play a few games with the deck, I'll let you know how it performed.

I actually have a mono white infect deck with Taranika Akroan Veteran as the commander. Punching your opponent with a 4/4 indestructible infect creature every turn is fun plus white has access to a lot of double strike enablers which just quickens the clock. Its not prefect but its definitely unique.

This just made me realize that Illuna could be a scary infect commander to make a small Temur infect creature become a 6/6 flyer

I run a hapatry visier of poisons infect deck that focuses on applying counters to creatures. It wants you to block the infect. Then it wins either by going infinite or just sacrificing all the tokens to yogmoth thran physician or swinging wide with fynn the fang bearer. It's infect tribal but not oriented on dealing poison counters.

Still run Phyrexian tribal. Not my strongest deck by far, actually one of my weakest. Still Fun

You conflated Toxic, Wither, and Infect throughout the video. E.g. Fynn the fangbearer is not an infect commander, he would just be a toxic/deathtouch commander. Infect adds -1/-1’s to creatures which Fynn cannot do. One problem that I noticed in your video is that you did not include commanders that actually synergize with these infect creatures. Many non-infect commanders still play the counter game, and having access to these -1/-1 counters on creatures can help board states. Think of Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons; Vhati il-Dal; The Scorpion God; Toxrill, and many more. It’s not that Infect is a bad mechanic for commander, it can actually be a great one depending on how you build it; but more towards the point of the video I’m not sure that infect is really a phyrexian specific thing, though a lot of phyrexian’s have infect that’s not like their main deal to my knowledge so it seems weird to pick them out and pick on them for not having the best infect commanders.

The only deck I play that utilizes poison counters is *technically* my Brudiclad deck, since Mirrex spits out toxic Mite tokens. I've only used poison to win once and only because it made the few points difference I needed, but I'd bet someone could go all-in on Mite tokens and/or copy some infect/toxic creatures to make an actual Phyrexian Infect commander. Not sure if it would balance well for Commander, still.

Good video that illustrates the shortcommings of the better known infect-commanders well. Kamiz is a great pick! I can also recommend [Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa]. He offers evasion to the smaller infectues creatures and offers at least two colors (G/W) to counteract the small cardpool.

Atraxa infect can work. It’s nice if you get cards like glistening oil or grafted exoskeleton for Atraxa herself, or her proliferate ability will help reach critical mass with other combos.

This video ignores the importance of proliferating

I have a Venser, Corpse Puppet deck that combos to proliferate infinitely with Dross Skorpion and Throne of Geth. I usually get the first counter placed on my opponents with the Instant/Sorcery spells that give your opponents a counter; rarely do I need to attack them.

There is some partner commander that really works well with infect strategy, like sidar kondor of jamuraa + jeska thrice reborn if you want to go for fast kill with 1 hit k.o. attack, but with the risk to gas out really quickly, or a more consistent one with Sidar kondor of jamuraa + Tymna the weaver

Damn, great video! I feel great things coming for you

Personal Experience: infect(and poison) instantly turns the game into 3 v 1 because you only need so much damage/counters to win. I don't think you have given it a fair showing. I had an Atraxa deck that had a bunch of infect cards in it an I had to cut out all the creatures and just leave the cards that gave infect to be seen as a regular player and not public enemy number 1. I have the base Ixhel deck rn and still win a decent amount of games with it. It's not bad, but it is half grinding out the proliferate and half aggro to get the counters out and that can be difficult to balance.

My friend runs a bit of a memier deck using snpadax mutate onto an infect creature. It serves as both removal and gives a weaker creature better stats and double strike in most cases. Still not great since it’s a removal magnet but fun enough

Great video! Super underrated channel

I need a full Gale infect deck tech lol sounds sweet

Only infect cards I’ll try to squeeze in a deck are Grafted Exoskeleton, Triumph of the Hordes, and my personal fav Tainted Strike. A 9 power creature will touch the battlefield at least once a game, so being able to take out a pillow fort or life gain player when the opportunity arrives is pretty nice

When building Gale and Scion, I seriously thought about running him with a poison theme. The only problem is that there isn't enough good strong spells that poison my opponents. So far I count 4 that I would run, and 8 poison counters isn't enough to win a game. Proliferate can help but that is still just another hoop to jump through once I finally find one of the 4 poison cards in the deck. Thus I settled for a mill strat to have reanimation at my disposal for my opponents creatures and spells, as well as just fueling my own strategy on top of being a win condition! I'll think about doing poison again with him once they make 3-4 more good control spells that also poison, until then I'll still be gladly milling people out

I agree with all of your points here. Poison will always be scary for people who don’t run removal and don’t respect it as a threat, but it really isn’t all that good in commander. For the most part anyone who say it should be 15 or 20 counters to kill has probably just been on the receiving end of tainted strike one too many times, which is more of a combo card than an infect one, frankly. That, or blightsteel which again isn’t really an infect card in my eyes. If you’re looking for another recommendation, Breena is the most success I’ve had personally. She draws aggro away from you, people want her card draw so she seems more fair and they let her stay on board, she refills your hand with weenies, and you can pump your infect guys at an impressive rate. Slap in unblockable or protection techs and she’s a menace that people underestimate every time they play against her even if it’s the same pod, over and over again. Love that deck to death, and it works against pretty high power stuff. Doesn’t always win but can always threaten doing so if not interacted with, which is how infect generally works. Great video!

I'm quite happy with corrupted on ixehl and doomhive actually. Corrupted is just a flavorful means of building advantage which is totally fine. If you lose some corrupted benefit for killing an opponent so what? That's one less player you have to kill and now I'm closer to winning. It's dumb to say a card is bad because it gets worse when your opponents die. There are many cards in the game like that, that's just part of the game. My Neheb the Eternal's ability gets worse once one of my opponents is dead, but that's still a net positive for me in the position of a multiplayer game.

uhhh Brimaz is an insane poison commander, since his proliferate can trigger *every* turn.

fliers don't matter for hammertime because hammer turns off flying lol

Tomer from Mtggoldfish recently built an edh Venser corpse puppet poison deck that absolutely slaps

Ramses Assassin Lord might be the best infect commander as he reads "Whenever a player loses the game, if they were attacked this turn by an Assassin you controlled, you win the game." So now all you have to do is take out a single player with infect to win the game which counteracts infects biggest weakness, also he is Dimir which is infects strongest colors.

I'm trying to make a mid power deck with Saskia, the unyielding, because our local meta is filled with slow artefact/plainswalker grinding decks, with very little interactions

As far as i know you keep the counters even if a opponenf dies the rules say the counters cant be removed

1: i've never heard of Simic being the "do nothing" colors as it's the most broken color combination in the game right now. 2: Speaking of! My Gretchen Titchwillow pauper commander deck's main win con is recycling and recasting a spell that gives each opponent poison counters. Yawgmoth, Thran Physician's backup plan is winning through proliferating poison counters on opponents. 3: Speaking of there are nine commander options that want you to proliferate, Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus making every time you do proliferate happen twice. Talk about blighted agent lol.

You didn't mentioned Ezuri, Stalker of Spheres?

It's really funny how Poison Counters were so mediocre in its standards because they were consistently horrific in the associated drafts.

Nice one!

kamiz infect mentioned!!! been running her that way since the deck came out ❤❤

Volrath is Phyrexian btw

I love the writing in this video! Great job! If you put some more effort into the recording and editing, I think you could produce some really excellent videos. Really excited to see what you do in the future. Also, you say like way too much. Clogs up your points.

Playing poison is a good way to get knocked out of a game first haha

Id only play poison in high powered not casual, or cedh, its good at killing 1 player then dieing to the other 2, its fun to kill the person who targets you first bc chances are your deck can kill them faster than they can kill you

Tyrannax Rex should have been toxic 5.

The best way to play infect is to not play infect except for the last turn of the game.

I have a Yawgmoth infect commander deck. It's the most evil looking deck i have, but it usually doesn't have that feeling when i play it. Granted the other 3 I have win either eldrazi, slivers, or Heliod. 🤭

Great video

Frank Horrigan reporting for duty ;p

Yeah, sadly, triumph of the hordes and one shot robot are kinda the onlybway infect consistently wins in commander.

The Toxic commanders are terrible. Same as Brimaz out of the box. However i swapped the commanders into the 99 and ran Reshek/Jibar partners to make all the mites unblockable, and i made a viable casual infect deck.

blink vishgraz is strong in commander..no need to get him big

Anyone that thinks Atraxa is not a good infect commander never played against a real atraxa infect deck.

Infect was a very good aggro-combo deck in modern for many years though, don't know why you didn't mention it

Your point on the commander deck is that they are bad at infect but it is a corrupt mechanic. 3 infect counters is all you need.

2:55 "I know its a lore thing but I don't care" ...It's not a lore thing. Have you *seen* the lore for most commander precons? Oh, Ixhel actually has a story. huh. STILL, nothing about that story is particularly anti-U. except maybe- WELL ANYWAY, I do not think for one second that the colour identity of Ixhel (or, to be honest, any Magic character ever) was picked because it fit their personality. It's always vice-versa. The deck's commanders aren't U because Abzan colours is where they decided to centre the toxic archetype in ONE, and lore has oh so precious little to do with it. Also, I'll note another downside to Ixhel, namely; everything you stole so far gets taken away once you knock its original owner out of the game.

If you try to minmax infect I am using every removal and counterspell at you, and attacking you each combat, and rallying each player to do the same.

This might be a hot take but poison killing a dude in commander with just 10 counters makes it automatically un-fun.