Dark Infect v0.1

EDIT: v0.2
EDIT: v0.3
EDIT: v0.4
EDIT: v0.5
EDIT: v0.6
EDIT: v0.7
EDIT: v1.0 (CURRENT - Has full writeup)

Hey everybody!
This is TallSharkandHandsome. You may have seen me commenting on reddit or discord under the same name, or if you're one of 24 lucky viewers, you got to watch me lose every game of my first ever stream on Sunday. If you have any questions, comments, or just want to tell me how handsome I am, leave it below! I really appreciate feedback.

Back in the fledgeling days of Fall of Argenport, I crushed my way to masters with a Hooru Berserk deck, which I lovingly called Legacy Infect in homage to the Magic the Gathering deck that shares many similarities. (It's also blue and green, and tries to deal tons of surprise damage with pump spells)

Then Alessi came out, and TJP Berserk showed itself as the more popular, and possibly better deck of the time.

Recently, fellow streamer, new father, and luxurious bowlcut-haver JayOSU and I decided to hop aboard the Infect train again, and splash some Shadow. We'd both dabbled in it separately, first trying out Acquisitive Crow, then Paladin Oathbook, but it just didn't put up the same results.

We just had a massive brewing session, and I'm pleased to provide our first iteration of Dark Infect.

The basic goal is identical to the original Legacy Infect deck: We want to give our units berserk, get them through the opponent's defensive line, and buff them with some fast pump spells to deal maximum damage to the opponent's face. Pretty simple.

Let's go over our card choices:

=====UNITS=====
- DUSK RAIDER gives every unit you draw Berserk. This guy seems innocuous because it's usually not the endgame unit that actually beats the opponent's face in, but it plays a super important role in the deck. It draws you extra cards off its Nightfall trigger, and it gives your beefy boys berserk.
- TERRITORIAL ELF has Berserk naturally, and he can't block, but he does some real damage with pump spells. Not to mention his low cost.
Each of these beefy boys get a temporary bonus when you play a spell:
- RILGON'S DISCIPLE gets Double Damage
- KOSUL BATTLEMAGE gets +1/+1 until the end of turn
- GEOMAR, THE STEEL TEMPEST, gets +2/+2 and lifelink until end of turn.
These three beefy boys are the ones you want to give berserk to so you can pump them up and hit your opponent hard. Twice.
- JENNEV MERCHANT gives us access to the specifically chosen cards in the Market, in exchange for a not-as-useful card from our hand. I'll get into this a little later. He also gums up the ground, and his Aegis makes him stick around after a Harsh Rule.

=====REMOVAL=====
Now let's talk about the removal suite. It's kind of small, but our pump spells can also double as removal if absolutely necessary.
- PERMAFROST stops other fliers, Teacher of Humilitys, and Dawnwalkers really well. It can also pop aegis on things like Throne Warden or Vadius, Clan Father. Also takes care of most units for the big fat Time decks, as well as Vara, Vengeance-Seeker.
- VANQUISH is mostly to stop Sandstorm Titan, but it can also take out Rizahn, Greatbow Master or Icaria, the Liberatorif you can pop the aegis first. It's a pretty great catch-all for the problematic units for this deck. I originally had this as a 4-of, but Jay convinced me that Annihilate would be better as a fast spell, and with the current meta what it is. I kept one in as we are still testing the build. The only real problem cards that Vanquish hits and Annihilate doesn't are Caiphus, Wandering King, Tavrod, Auric BrokerTavrod, Champion of Cunning. Testing will tell the correct balance of these.
- ANNIHILATE is mostly to stop Sandstorm Titan and Vara, Vengeance-Seeker. This also takes out many big fat mono-time units, Amilli, Cloudmarshal, and lets you do this on their turn, leaving you power free for pump spells on you turn! Jay, you're so smart.
- SAVAGE DENIAL The only weakness this deck really has is to fast spells. Torch, Annihilate, Equivocate, these all let our opponents deal with our creatures after we've committed at least 1 spell to them. Savage Denial stops these fast spells. I've tried Backlash here to stop Harsh Rule as well, but we don't have as big of a problem with that if we're playing correctly. Don't overextend, and go off when they have used all their power or you know they don't have a fast spell to stop you. Savage Denial costing 1 vs Backlash costing 2 is also a key point in this decision. You don't usually have extra power to play with on the turn you attack. It seems pretty great in theory, but I'm not sure if this should just be some form of hand disruption instead. Shakedown or Sabotage.

=====PUMP SPELLS=====
Now onto our spells that buff our beefy boys.
- FINEST HOUR is the best pump spell available. It's the Torch of Justice. Finest Hour can also pop aegis if need be. It gives Geomar, the Steel Tempest +5/+5 and Lifesteal for 1 power. How busted is that?
- GIFT OF BATTLE gives any unit berserk, letting them attack twice. This is really useful if you don't happen to get Dusk Raider on turn 2. It also happens to be a spell, which buffs your beefy boys.
- JUMP KICK primarily will be used to hop your beefy boy over their defensive line and smash your opponent's face in. Again, this can pop aegis when the need arises, but it also gives +1/+1. This used to be Levitate and also a 4-of, but since the nerf from 1 power to 2, Jump Kick is the card we're testing, and only as a 1-of at the moment.
- RAPID SHOT is most of the reason why we're going Shadow. This card, coupled with a berserk unit gives +8 damage for 2 power if left unblocked. Not to mention the buff your beefy boy gets naturally. On a Rilgon's Disciple with berserk, this thing can do 24 damage on its own.
- CROWNWATCH STANDARD, in addition to being a power when we need it early, can transform into a 2 cost Finest Hour that also gives Lifesteal. This power is incredible, but it's also relatively hard to play. My rule of thumb is if this would be my 5th power, I will hold it unless my hand has a ton of other action. If it would be my 4th power, I'd rather play it and play Geomar, the Steel Tempest on time than hold it to be a spell later. However, if your hand has nothing else, you may want to hold it. Every situation is different.
- CABAL STANDARD does the same transformation as described above, only it turns into a Rapid Shot, and splits it among two targets. This thing, when put on Geomar and Rilgon's Disciple is basically two Rapid Shots. I like it a lot, but it can't be used defensively, so we're trying 1. May go up to 2 if it performs well.

=====RECURSION=====
Both of these recursive spells turn on our beefy boys. We're running two forms of it because the meta is full of removal, and making the most of our 21 units is important.
- HAUNTING SCREAM will bring any of your units back (including Geomar) with flying and charge. This should need no introduction after last month's ladder. Screaming and Pumping is an easy way to end the game.
- DARK RETURN will bring your units back for round 2 as well, but permanently and with +1/+1. If you've Screamed the unit before? It keeps the charge and flying too.

=====POWER BASE=====
For our power base, you'll notice I'm not using Crests. This deck REALLY doesn't want its power to come down depleted. Banners get played on Turn 1, and then undepleted power turn 2 or 3 to play a unit. Crownwatch Standard and Cabal Standard both double as removal spells in the late game, reducing the number of power in the deck once we get to the 5th power. Our deck is power light, and likes it that way.

=====MARKET=====
Now, as for that market. Jennev Merchant allows you to swap a card in your hand for a primal card in your market. Lets look at our choices.

- GIFT OF BATTLE - Berserk is important to our plan, and having 3 Dusk Raiders, 2 Gift of Battles, and 4 Jennev Merchants that can get you another copy of Gift of Battle makes it much easier to achieve. Sometimes I wish there was a pump spell in the market instead of this, but often Gift is the right card here. Maybe I'll try Jump Kick, but not over Gift.
- PERMAFROST - We want to squeeze past blockers and stop them from gaining extra life. Permafrost is perfect for that. It can stop Vara, Rizhan, sometimes Caiphus.
- UNSTABLE FORM is here to both deal with Sandstorm Titan effectively, and trigger our beefy boys twice. I used to run Substitute in my old version of Infect. Normally I would rather KNOW that the Titan is going to be a 3/3 dinosaur when I attack. However, sometimes you want to turn your already berserked units into something else. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. Did you know that as of set 4, there were exactly 100 units that cost 5? Did you know that 20 of those have Flying, with a few more that could if conditions are right? Playing Unstable Form on a Sandstorm Titan has a 1 in 5 chance of giving your opponent a flying blocker anyway. If you use the other Unstable Form to bring it up to a 6-cost unit, there are again 20 of those with flying, out of 76 possible 6-cost units, this turns into an almost 1 in 4 chance. I did that math to prove that Substitute was better than Unstable Form, but I'm testing Form this time.
- HAUNTING SCREAM will bring any of your units back (including Geomar) with flying and charge. This should need no introduction after last month's ladder. Screaming and Pumping is an easy way to end the game.
- MIRROR IMAGE not only causes spell triggers, copies units with permanent buffs, and can make our Haunting Screams absolutely terrifying, but it is often simply used to copy the merchant to gum up the board and get another market card.


There are a million other cards we thought of, but here's a few key considerations when we were making the deck:
- Hooru Pacifier. This was played in the JP version of the deck. Weapons cannot be played. This stops Auric Runehammer, Sword of Icaria, and Sword of Unity just to name a few. It also is a pretty decent unit to buff if you don't have a beefy boy left. The overwhelm can basically just ignore any chump blocker they throw in the way of him. The meta has changed, however, and weapons are not as popular as they once were.
- Valkyrie Enforcer does double duty here. Not only is it a mid-sized flyer that can sometimes just chip away at the opponent's life total, but it also stops Sandstorm Titan. In addition to stopping Sandstorm Titan, it can also silence Sandstorm Titan. Did I mention that this deck really needs to answer Sandstorm Titans? All joking aside, if your opponent is not playing Sandstorm Titan, this can drop a flyer to the ground, letting you Haunting Scream your beefy boy over their blockers. There were a couple of these left in here when we were building the deck, but we needed to squeeze in Seek Powers. Who knows, that may change in the future.
- Jump Kick the original deck ran 4 Levitates, since it replaces itself. But with the cost hike from 1 to 2, Jump Kick may be what want to play to hop over ground blockers. We're testing one at the moment, and that may increase if it performs well.
- Shakedown is a proactive way to protect your "combo" kill turn. You can Shakedown to discard their cheap removal (or blockers) and then pump, or save it for the next turn. The only problem with waiting a turn is that the nightfall gives your opponent two draws to get out of it. We may still use this or Sabotage to stop the removal before it happens, but for now we're trying Savage Denial.
- Seek Power is phenomenal for a tri-colored deck. that being said, our biggest cost requirement is JJ. It's not like we're trying to get to Icaria, the Liberator power here. I can see the number of Seek Powers going down to fill out a playset of something elsewhere in the deck.