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U/B control and infect

http://www.mtgvault.com/EditDeck.aspx?DeckID=193194&DeckCardID=4291167
U/B infect and control deck. I'm curious what comments or holes people see with this one and what other cards might be viable or work as replacements or what you think should go on the sideboard and why.
For a quick breakdown the deck is heavy on spells: a lot of black destroy target creature (doomblade, go for the throat, spread the sickness, and consuming vapors for a little bit of life regen) and blue counterspells (mana leak, cancel, and negate plus disperse in case they get something out). For your own deck control preordain and augury owl with Jace and treasure hunt should get you what you need.
As far as creatures go they're mostly cannon fodder. Blighted Agent and Necropede will put the pressure on your opponent, while contagion clasp and trigon of corruption will back them up for knocking out creatures. Occulus is a quick draw card, but it's mostly there for the extra cheap creatures. When you get enough mana get Lilliana, Sheoldread, or Geth to start bringing creatures back and wiping your opponenets creatures off the board.
There's enough power in here to knock out their health, enough infect and proliferate to kill them that way, or you could deck them with jace. Remember proliferate hits your planeswalkers too so you should be able to get towards their finals pretty quick.

The questions I have for the community are:
should I toss out the occulus for either more augury owl's or thrummingbirds?
should I replace disperse with more destroys or counters?
Should I remove one of the sheoldreds?

Any other thoughts or suggestions would be much appreciated.
Posted 05 June 2011 at 00:56

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11 replies

i cant click on your deck. its an edit deck link, and we do not have access.

i would ditch cancel. sideboard mental misteps. put in some control over their hand with duress, despise or kozileks. consider trigon of rage to buff your creatures. have you considered a larger creature like a skithyrix?

bit hard without seeing the deck sorry.

this is my ub infect control deck:

http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=182429
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Posted 06 June 2011 at 02:37

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http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=193194 There. My bad about the wrong link. I don't have a lot of heavy infect hitters because the Blighted Agents pretty much have it covered. The cheap creatures allow me to have the mana to counter spells on my opponents turn. More than half the deck costs 2 or less mana. The deck is way more focused on control than dealing posion damage, but between the four Blighted Agents, the two necropedes and my ability to proliferate I can usually get them to ten posion counters pretty quickly. I've thought about ditching disperse in favor another destroy spell or a different counter, but haven't found a spell that works better. I'm not really too worried about their hand because of my ability to draw and counter and destroy I'm not worried about them getting something out. Skithyrix is awesome and I may try to pick one up and switch out one of the Sheoldred's for it depending on the price.
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Posted 07 June 2011 at 16:27

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[QUOTE=JewsusKhan]http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=193194 There. My bad about the wrong link. I don't have a lot of heavy infect hitters because the Blighted Agents pretty much have it covered. The cheap creatures allow me to have the mana to counter spells on my opponents turn. More than half the deck costs 2 or less mana. The deck is way more focused on control than dealing posion damage, but between the four Blighted Agents, the two necropedes and my ability to proliferate I can usually get them to ten posion counters pretty quickly. I've thought about ditching disperse in favor another destroy spell or a different counter, but haven't found a spell that works better. I'm not really too worried about their hand because of my ability to draw and counter and destroy I'm not worried about them getting something out. Skithyrix is awesome and I may try to pick one up and switch out one of the Sheoldred's for it depending on the price.[/QUOTE]

have you thought about throne of geth? that should help you with your proliferate. also, you may want to replace both geth and sheoldred from some phyrexian crusaders as well as skittles the tasty dragon:) only reason i recommend replacing those 2 is that they are heavy hitters in the infect world and you need more infect if you are going to try and run infect/proliferate. Also, you may want to consider adding some pumps. Actually, thanks to spellskite, i wouldn't really add to many. My personal favorite is distortion strike. awesome card, you get the pump, your creature is unblockable for a free hit, and it has rebound.
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Posted 07 June 2011 at 16:44

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This isn't a heavy artifact deck so I think throne of geth would be a little out of place. I'm not super worried about the proliferate because between 6 1/1 infects (and remember 4 of them are unblockable) as well as four mana proliferate on Contagion Clasp (x2) and spread the sickness (x2). The intention isn't to beat them fast, it's to control them and make them suffer and so far it has done that perfectly. I'm just trying to get it to run more efficiently. I would love to toss a skittles in cause that thing is sexy, and possibly swap out the second sheoldred for it (or if I'm doing more than one I may just replace both of those and geth). However the whole plan was to stop the opponent from playing anything and kill whatever they did manage to get out.

I think I'm going to take out occulus and the augury owls and replace them with 2 more preordains because that pretty much replaces their effects and then drop disperse as well and then I have room for four thrummingbirds which makes the proliferate problem much more negligable.
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Posted 07 June 2011 at 18:01

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Also yeah distortion strike is insane. Probably my least favorite card to go up against. It's the blue version of consuming vapors.
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Posted 07 June 2011 at 18:02

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[QUOTE=JewsusKhan]Also yeah distortion strike is insane. Probably my least favorite card to go up against. It's the blue version of consuming vapors.[/QUOTE]

its def a very annoying card:P instead of getting rid of disperse, have you tried changing it out for its much stronger younger brother, vapor snag? same exact spell except it only costs 1u and target player looses 1 life
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Posted 07 June 2011 at 18:21

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The advantage of disperse is that you could put anything in there hand where as vapor snag only works on creatures. And to be honest I'm much more worried about them getting a boss as enchantment or a world destroying artifact out vs a creature cause I can kill creatures like crazy. I still think I'm going to try swapping 2x occulus and 2x augury owls and 2x disperse for 2x preordain and 4x thrummingbird and see how it plays.
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Posted 07 June 2011 at 18:33

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sounds good, let me know how it turns out:D
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Posted 07 June 2011 at 19:33

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So thrummingbird has kicked ass and the extra preordains haven't been as helpful as I predicted they would be. I think I may switch out some of my draw cards for tezzeret's gamble or steady progress for the proliferate (although Tezzeret's gamble is the same thing for an extra card at the price of two life. I think between the two I'd take tezzeret's everytime).
I really like the mana curve but if there are any suggestions for countering or destroying let me know. I'm also wondering if I should try to switch the balance in favor of a few more destroy cards instead of as many counterspells, although I like the heavy blue feel of the deck.
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Posted 07 June 2011 at 23:23

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Looked up some cheap blue and black critters with infect and two caught my eye Septic Rat and Viral Drake. Flensermite is another possibility. If I put in Viral Drake I'd out the Contagion Clasps and it would give me a little more air support. Necrtopede or Trigon of corruption could drop out for Flensermite or Sepctic Rats. At the same time I like have a little bit of artifact support in the deck and I love necropede. These swaps would keep a similar mana curve, but give me some more creature support. Thoughts?
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Posted 07 June 2011 at 23:36

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Looking at replacing the Sheoldred's and Geth with Hand of the Praetors. I really liked the cards and wanted to use them, but I think the Hand serves the deck a lot better. I don't want to lose Sheoldred's creature control so I may throw in an extra two consuming vapors or maybe two Grim Afflictions.
I'm also adding another swamp because I seem to have an issue with drawing one. Between my swamps and the drowned catacombs I don't think this should be an issue but it has been from time to time so I'm gonna give that a shot.
I think I'm going to replace the two treasure hunts with Tezzeret's Gambit. I never seem to draw more than two cards.
If I'm tossing in Hand of the Praetors I may want to put some more infect creatures in and I think I'll ditch Trigon and the Contagion clasps for Viral Drake.
Debating now whether Inexorable Tide or Contagion Engine has a place in this deck. Thoughts?
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Posted 09 June 2011 at 05:17

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