Drafting Infect

[Gary Lynch]

The last 3 or 4 times I have drafted infect I have been really unhappy with it. It feels like most packs your picks are pre determined as there is usually only 1 or 2 cards for your deck and often 1 is obviously stronger.

Also sometimes there will be no cards at all that you want in your infect deck, a couple of packs like this and you can really end up with a bad deck.

Is anyone else just feeling that drafting infect is not any fun at all and just random? If the packs are weak on infect cards or other players take your cards(there are a few cards that have infect that anyone can run) then your draft is easily ruined y no fault of your own.

 

Im wondering when is a good time to go infect? If you dont do it in the first 3 picks there is a good chance that even if you get passed some infect cards you probably also passed some, usually meaning your gonna get cut pack 2.

 

Im sure it cant be a good idea, but im just thinking it may be best to never draft infect as its too random.

 

Any thoughts/tips?

[Simon Baldwin]

I once drafted a deck that had about 5 creatures with infect, but most of them were really good ones and I managed to win all my games through poison damage. Other creatures (well, other cards really) were mainly used for controlling the board. Proliferate helped a lot. I did a write up here as even at the time I thought it was odd that I could win with infect with so few infect creatures: http://lhsi-blog.blogspot.com/2011/02/drafting-and-power-of-infect.html

Infect is a bit hit and miss in general. I think there is a point where you have to abandon it if you've not got enough infect creatures, although I'm not sure what the best point to define this is. I have heard that if you have less than 4 creatures with infect by the end of the first pack, its probably a good idea to abandon it, or you are going to have to force infect hard.

I think in some cases the point where you abandon it is when you have one or zero infect creatures by 4-6th pick.

It seems to be a little clearer when you should abandon infect as opposed to when you should stick with it, unfortunately.

If you really like playing infect, then you can try to force it as soon as possible to give you a higher chance to get some good cards, but bear in mind when a good point to abandon this would be, so you don't end up with a bad deck.

I think the best tip is that if you want the option to play infect, but want to be able to safely back out and not later on, and still have some relevant picks is to pick the infect cards that are good in both infect and non-infect. Things like the infect spider, wolf, while one with vigilance. Also, the ones that can win the game on their own can be good, like the imp and the Juggernaut and to some extent the Vatmother.