Discussion Forum

I've been sippin' whiskey so this is going to be very blunt and there may be typos. Apologies in advance if it comes off less than courteous and work with me on the typos.

The only reason to not use Phyrexian Crusader in a black deck based around Infect is if you can't monetarily afford. If that's the only reason you're not, I get it. Otherwise, get'em in there. Alternatives to Phyrexian Crusader are Ichor Rats, Plague Stinger and Whispering Specter. They're not as good or as efficient, but they have a good chance of getting poison counters on your opponent.

If you're going to use Infect to commit to it. Every creature in the deck should be capable of using Infect by itself. Drop the Invisible Stalker. That will make room for Phyrexian Crusader or a suitable alternative. For an Infect deck, your creature-base seems small. I would add in multiple copies of one or two more creatures with Infect.

You're relying on a 3-card combo to get make a permanent copy of your opponent's creature for your own use. The more cards you put into a combo, the less likely it's going to happen. You're also spending a lot of mana to make it happen. You can do the Despise by itself at any given time, but you have to get the Gruesome Encore and Cackling Counterpart off in the same turn.

You should make your opponent spend the time and mana to cast the creature then just steal it with Corrupted Conscience (since you're running Infect). It's only one card, it costs two less mana in total than your 3-card combo and you're effectively getting your opponent to waste a turn and some mana on the casting the creature. With creatures like Sun Titan and Primeval Titan being so popular right now, it's likely your opponent is using a large chunk of their mana base for the creature you're going to steal.

So Gruesome Encore gets cut for Corrupted Consience which enables you to cut Cackling Counterpart from the deck entirely and you could probably sideboard Despise, if you're worried about planewalkers... Which you should be because Liliana of the Veil, Garruk Relentless and Garruk, Primal Hunter are very popular right now.

That gives you room for 8 more cards that either have infect or provide control... Or both. It's a control deck and you only have one counter spell which has a condition to its effect. I'd throw in at least one more counter spell. Mana Leak is popular in any deck with blue in it. Dissipate is a great option since it removes the card from the game entirely.

You're lacking permanent removal. Bounce is good for stalling, but it won't last forever. You need something like Doom Blade, Go for the Throat or Dismember for spot removal. Ordinarily, I'd suggest something like Black Sun's Zenith for board-wipe, but all of your creatures are so small that you'd hurt yourself, too. Still, if your creatures aren't able to stop what's coming at you then it's not a bad idea to have something like that as a last-ditch effort.

Dark Favor is effective, but there's a bad stigma with Auras since an opponent can get rid of two cards in your deck by destroying only one of them (the creature the Aura is attached to.) They get a two-for-one when you play with an Aura. If you're going to take that risk then you should be ready to defend whatever creature you put it on.

Hope that helps.