Blazing Infect in Vintage – A Guide by T1GlistenerElf

With Vintage tournament season right around the corner, I thought that I might shine some light on my favorite archetype in Magic. I’ve piloted Blazing Infect for nearly four years, as evidenced on my YouTube channel, so I have experience enough to know what goes into making a fine-tuned Phyrexian machine. In the past, I’ve been asked about how to play the deck, so I hope that this gives a good introduction to anyone who’s looking to pick it up.

The following primer is an excerpt from my Infect guide; I’ll have more to say on that after the article.


Blazing Infect

Infect has been a feature of the Vintage landscape ever since Blightsteel Colossus was printed, but that’s almost always the one card with the mechanic in the deck and, until recently, the entire format. Tinker was already something that players were inclined to include; the risk of a two-for-one if countered was more than made up by the overwhelming advantage of getting a powerful artifact into play well below curve. While a powerhouse that closes out games, the Iron Giant of New Phyrexia is not the fastest clock (although Golden Gun Oath can break this rule.) Still, playing two game-winning combo cards that synergize with artifacts that you probably already have is too strong for many blue decks to pass up.

Tinker plus Blightsteel Colossus: the classic.

That said, what if you’d like to play actual Infect, with enough representation to plausibly qualify as a bona fide Infect deck? You are still playing Vintage, so you’d probably need to be able to win quickly, as Infect is wont to do. You’d also likely want to find a way to make use of the fast mana that the restricted list provides. You’d also seek to prioritize decks that can win through a number of different gameplans, precluding the possibility of getting blown out by a single piece of sideboard hate. Unironically, I think that Infect is capable of all of these and is currently being underrated. I tell you all of that to say that, to the best of my knowledge, I invented Blazing Infect in Vintage, though the base idea wasn’t anything new.

Blazing Shoal plus Progenitus, a match made in New Phyrexia

Blazing Shoal had already been banned in Modern, and with good reason. The deck was capable of winning as soon as turn two. The creatures, Blighted Agent and Inkmoth Nexus, don’t typically care about lines of creatures blocking the way, so all of the deck’s resources can focus on just assembling, protecting, or being the combo itself. As such, the deck was remarkably consistent in how quickly it could win the game before the opponent could even really start to establish their board. Even if they did interact with the combo once, the high density of cantrips and tutors could allow it to go off again in the same game. For the highest-placing example, here’s Sam Black’s top four Blazing Infect deck from Pro Tour Philadelphia 2011.

In that deck, however, only Inkmoth Nexus was able to win on turn two, and only Pact of Negation and Disrupting Shoal were able to protect the combo that early, as they were the defensive selections that required no additional mana to cast. The tutors used transmute to go and find other parts of the combo (Muddle the Mixture would get Blighted Agent or Blazing Shoal, while Tolaria West would get Inkmoth Nexus or Summoner’s Pact, which in turn got the one of Progenitus), which allowed the deck to reload at the cost of three mana at sorcery speed. Because of the deck’s hyperlinear gameplan, it did not have a backup win con, though the format was such that it rarely needed one.

In Vintage, the Moxen give Blighted Agent the chance to catch up to Inkmoth’s turn-two potential. The quality of the cantrips and tutors is also far greater, though the quantity suffers due to the restriction of the best pieces, although this comes at the cost of having to use a two-color manabase, leaving its pilot open to Wasteland and Strip Mine. The combo itself also has a different face; while it obviously has to include the copies of Blazing Shoal, the cards to pair with it change from four Dragonstorm and one Progenitus to four Progenitus and one Blasphemous Act.

Blasphemous Act, which can be pitched to cast Blazing Shoal and found by Mystical Tutor

This happens for two reasons:

  1. As with the previously discussed Legacy lists, Progenitus serves as part of a backup win-con with Show and Tell.
  2. Blasphemous Act occasionally has utility against Dredge swarms, Young Pyromancer, Monastery Mentor, and Hangarback Walker tokens, however unlikely this may be to come up.

Importantly, as was true for Legacy Infect and Sam Black’s Modern list, you do not need to have a creature with Infect in order to keep the hand; the wealth of cantrips and tutors is likely to get you there, and both Tinker and Show and Tell give attainable alternate win cons. However, if you do keep a hand with only a single such card and no source of Infect, then you’d better also have a way to force its resolution, as Vintage is a format where a majority of the field runs four copies of Force of Will and a copy of Mental Misstep. Also, remember your matchups when deciding what to keep and find. For example, Inkmoth Nexus is exceedingly strong against Oath of Druids, since it is not a creature on their upkeep, but is the weaker of your turn one creatures against Shops, since they always run the playset of Wasteland (and sometimes even Ghost Quarter!).

Splash Colors

Because of the manaless nature of Blazing Shoal, the colors that accompany it are open to theoretically any color combination. That said, in my estimation, a Blazing Infect deck in Vintage has to be Dimir at the very least. The reasons are two-fold:

  1. Blue gives access to Blighted Agent and some of the best spells in the game, like Ancestral Recall and Time Walk.
  2. Black gives us a host of powerful tutors that make up for the restriction of so many cantrips in the format. Because this is a combo deck with a diverse set of pieces, having these dramatically improves the deck’s consistency. They also open up the ability to retrieve singleton answers to problems, some of which can even answer an entire deck. Lastly, if you are in need of additional creatures, then black lets Plague Stinger make its return from Golgari Infect in Modern.

    That said, a case can be made for each of the other colors as well.

  1. Since the double-red in Blazing Shoal is not an obstacle for the way that the deck prefers to cast it, the color is not necessary, though it does give access to much of the strongest artifact removal in the format, as well as Lightning Bolt for clearing flying creatures out of the way. It also gives an unrestricted tutor in Gamble, though without a way to break the downside of discarding a random card, it is just a gamble. Dack Fayden can also serve as a multi-tool, simultaneously filtering through your deck to find the combo and taking the opponent’s artifacts, if not to use for winning, then at least to protect yourself. He’s a great tool for the Shops matchup, as well as for stealing Blightsteel Colossus when not backed up by Time Walk or countermagic.
  1. Glistener Elf is, of course, always an explosive first turn play. Since a lot of decks in Vintage lack the ability to play early creatures, one can make a case that Glistener Elf could make the cut, as it seems less likely to run into resistance. However, the comparative advantage that Glistener Elf grants is diminished by the fact that fast mana lets Blighted Agent come down on turn one far more readily, and the latter has the ability to slip past defenses, dodge Mental Misstep, and be pitched to Force of Will. As much as I hate to say it, the fact that Shops is a huge portion of the meta, combined with the lack of effects that grant any sort of evasion to creatures who don’t otherwise have it (e.g. being unlockable, trample, etc.) means that it’s harder to complete the swing itself. While traditional Infect can overcome this by using pump spells that also improve toughness, thus surviving creature combat at the cost of a card, Blazing Shoal doesn’t, meaning that you would lose the Elf anyway.

    Beyond this, green grants some of the best reactive interaction in the format now in Veil of Summer, a green situational counterspell and cantrip that is viable against a ridiculous percentage of the field. You also can get Oko, Thief of Crowns, an alternate win con that can deal with problematic creatures and artifacts, of which there are many and can take your opponent’s unintended offerings. You can also transform the sideboard into Oath, in much the same way that the Legacy version of Blazing Infect can transform into Show & Tell, punishing your opponent for sideboarding incorrectly. Collector Ouphe is also an option against Paradoxical Oath, but Null Rod is usually the option for the deck, as you don’t fight on the normal damage-axis, creating the oh-so-common non-synergy between Infect and non-Infect damage. Then again, Ouphe is not subject to artifact removal, as Paradoxical Storm can run cards that deal with artifacts, such as Hurkyl’s Recall and Repeal, more readily than creature removal.
  2. White may be comparatively lacking, but it offers a few benefits. Monastery Mentor is an alternate win con that plays along a different axis than the rest of the deck, making it hard to combat effectively. Access to Swords to Plowshares gives perhaps the best possible removal, able to fell even the mighty Blightsteel Colossus while having the downside of their gaining life being completely negated. It also removes Lavinia, Azorius Renegade, a commonly played hatebear that forces us to use either Tinker or Show and Tell.

    Speaking of removal, Balance can be an excellent board wipe against Shops and decks that go wide with tokens. Since you have very few creatures and almost never control of more than one at a time, you’re unlikely to suffer the downside, though you should still strive to play out enough of your hand that you won’t lose hand advantage needlessly. Also, remember that if you cast Balance while your opponent has fewer than two cards in hand, then you will not be able to retain the combo itself and may need to shift gears towards finding Tinker. Lastly, White is not without its artifact hate thanks to Stony Silence (Null Rod, but harder to remove) and Fragmentize, both of which can help when dealing with Walking Ballista, a weakness of the deck.

With that being the case, I’ve personally found the greatest success with Blazing Infect while playing Dimir. Despite the ease with which mana of any combination of colors can be produced in Vintage, the loss of on-color mana from both Inkmoth Nexus and the off-color Moxen give enough opportunities for failure that I elect not to include any. That said, replacing either the basic Island or an Underground Sea with whichever blue land allows you to splash into a third color can be perfectly fine for sideboard answers and is actually what I do in Legacy for Bant, and what I sometimes try in Modern for Bant as well.

That being the case, here is the version of the deck that saw me make top four in an Untap Open League event:

The now restricted Mental Misstep notwithstanding, the list itself is about what you’d expect from a deck that’s trying to assemble a fast combo. Some options may seem odd, but they are usually meta calls. For example, the Hurkyl’s Recall in the mainboard was there because, at the time, Karn, the Great Creator had not yet been restricted, so Karn Shops ended up being everywhere and was about 50% of the meta for that tournament. Likewise, Fatal Push was there for Lavinia, Azorius Renegade which not only shuts off our combo but was expected to see more play in response to the aforementioned Karn. Dismember would likely be the choice now. Lastly, graveyard hate did not exist in the mainboard because not only is Infect able to outrace Dredge, but the expectation is that it would be less piloted in that tournament, since the fair-weather players would move to Karn for the power there.

For an open meta, here is the Blazing Infect deck that I would recommend:

As you can see, there’s very little difference between the lists. Fatal Push has become Dismember, as it is easier to cast and not susceptible to Chalice of the Void on one at the cost of possibly losing to Lavinia, Azorius Renegade and the now restricted Mental Misstep became Imperial Seal, a sorcery speed Vampiric Tutor that helps to elevate the deck’s consistency even further. Of course, a more specialized tutor, such as the aforementioned transmute cards, could put the card in hand rather than on top of the deck at the cost of more mana, but with all of the best tutors and cantrips already taken, whatever goes in its place is likely to be underwhelming.

Interaction, on the other hand, is always welcome, especially for one-and-one combo decks like Blazing Infect. A mana-intensive example of a hate piece that can further your gameplan is Narset, Parter of Veils. While she does not help the deck to win as quickly as another tutor or cantrip might, she instead plays the long game for you, restricting the opponent’s ability to find answers to you or to assemble their gameplan while furthering yours. Of note, she cannot get an Infect creature, so she doesn’t have the power to find any combo piece. She could instead be Flusterstorm as combo protection that also hits Paradoxical Outcome and TPS, although both of these are also covered by Narset, who does grant card advantage at the cost of two extra mana.

If the meta becomes more geared towards Shops, then please consider adding more copies of Energy Flux. If Dredge gets yet another boost, then instead look to Ravenous Trap or Surgical Extraction; you’re too fast to worry much about the Hollow One sideboard plan that so often comes out of Dredge after game one.

Here’s the sideboard plan for various matchups.

Ravager Shops

In:

Energy Flux and Null Rod are the most important sideboard cards for the Ravager Shops matchup.

1 Echoing Truth
3 Energy Flux
1 Null Rod
1 Damping Sphere (on the play)

Out:

1 Blasphemous Act
1 Gitaxian Probe
1 Imperial Seal
1 Mental Misstep
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor (on the play)

This is thankfully not one of the harder matchups for Blazing Infect, which is a joy given how much of the meta it tends to comprise. Walking Ballista is obnoxious; we have to counter it or find Null Rod in order to make it out alive. Even Hurkyl’s Recall only works if we can then animate Inkmoth Nexus on the same turn, a rare feat against a deck with Strip Mine, Wasteland, and sometimes even Ghost Quarter!

Energy Flux is all but a hard counter to what they’re doing. Most of the time, they have, at most, one more turn before they can’t play any further, since Mishra’s Workshop cannot be used to pay for Flux and most of the mana rocks don’t even pay enough to save themselves. It’s difficult for Shops to play through this, but it doesn’t get more spots because the utility can be limited in even other artifact-heavy matchups, like Paradoxical Storm, where the artifacts can just be played from the hand (or from the graveyard with Yawgmoth’s Will) on the combo turn.

Likewise, Hurkyl’s Recall serves as an asymmetrical reprieve from their pressure and taxing effects (though remember that the manaless nature of the combo means that even a Sphere of Resistance or a Thorn of Amethyst isn’t the death knell that it can be against other combo decks. Null Rod shuts down their mana rocks (and ours, sadly), but its real role is in stopping the creatures, most importantly Walking Ballista, from shutting us out of the game. This effect is so strong that, were it not for the fact that it can hurt us, I would include it in the mainboard in place of Hurkyl’s Recall. Again, the manaless nature of the combo makes this a deck that can utilize Null Rod more readily than almost any deck barring Eldrazi and Hatebears. Lastly, the Damping Sphere serves as an excellent turn one play to both prevent their nine 2+ mana lands from doing their job, but also to hamper their Mox spam on their first turn.

As is so often the case in Vintage, the first thing to do is to remove the cards that do almost nothing, and Mental Misstep certainly fits the bill, as it only counters Sol Ring and Mana Vault, and perhaps Grafdigger’s Cage if you showed them Tinker in game one. Narset, Parter of Veils is pretty close to dead, as they do not have any velocity after the opening hand aside from maybe Inventors’ Fair, and her being three mana makes her too difficult to cast in the matchup. Gitaxian Probe, while able to give us important information, doesn’t provide any selection and is susceptible to Chalice of the Void on one in a matchup where that definitely can come up, and so its slot is better served hosting an answer instead. On the other hand, Mystical Tutor is hand disadvantage in a matchup where that cannot abide, as is Vampiric Tutor, though the latter’s ability to get Energy Flux and Null Rod, or the creature side of the combo, makes it worthy of inclusion on the draw. Because Mystical Tutor is being taken out, Blasphemous Act loses enough utility that it gets cut as well.

Dredge

Ins:

City in a Bottle and Grafdigger'sCage are the most important sideboard cards for the Dredge matchup.

2 City in a Bottle
4 Grafdigger’s Cage
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Strip Mine

Outs:

1 Dismember
4 Force of Will
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Imperial Seal
1 Mental Misstep

It’s important for Blazing Infect to focus first and foremost on outracing Dredge. Gone are the days of Dredge taking advantage of haste enablers like Flame-Kin Zealot or Dragonlord Kolaghan being brought back by Dread Return. As such, you are faster than they are by about a turn on average, so you’re in good shape against them. On the other hand, what Dredge has lost in speed, it has gained in disruption, with Grief acting as a manaless Thoughtseize that also makes tokens with Bridge from Below. Of course, that’s on top of the Force of Will, Force of Negation, and Mental Misstep that many decks had already been running. This means that they can actually stall you for long enough for them to assemble a lethal boardstate using recursive creatures like Bloodghast, Prized Amalgam, and Hollow One, all while Narcomoeba clutters the sky for Inkmoth Nexus.

In game one, this means that the focus should either be on resolving a Blighted Agent and protecting the combo or forcing one of your backup plans: Tinker or Show and Tell. Because of the swarm that Dredge can make on the ground, both Blightsteel Colossus and Progenitus are likely to be two-turn clocks. Generally, however, Blightsteel is better, as it can still be targeted by Blazing Shoal, making for a devastating one-shot through even multiple chump blockers. Other tips include remembering to animate your Inkmoth Nexus if it is targeted by Strip Mine or Wasteland, as that will cause them to exile every Bridge from Below that is in their graveyard.

City in a Bottle disables their ability to play Bazaar of Baghdad. This is hugely consequential against Dredge because it shuts down their ability to pivot to the Hollow One gameplan, which is the typical go-to for combating sideboard graveyard hate. However, because of its limited utility in other matchups, only serving a role against Dredge and Survival, it only occupies a couple of slots in the sideboard right now. Grafdigger’s Cage, on the other hand, is almost a sideboard staple in the format, as it provides hate against both Dredge and Oath. It’s much of why Dredge has to keep Mental Misstep after game one.

That said, both fall victim to Force of Vigor, a two-for-two that is always a four of in the deck, usually from the sideboard. While the restriction of Golgari-Grave Troll hampers the deck’s consistency in finding other green cards, the modern adaptation is to include a playset of Shambling Shell, sometimes along with some number of Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis and Noxious Revival. This may not seem like many green cards, but Bazaar of Baghdad lets them see at least several cards per activation, and the green Dredge creatures can return to their hand with ease.

Importantly, while I have given Dismember as a card that is coming out in sideboard games, it does have utility beyond just taking out janky Dread Return targets like Dragonlord Kolaghan. Rather, its main function in the matchup is to kill an excess creature of ours in order to exile their copies of Bridge from Below. This is an interaction that we’d rather not have, but it is worth noting for game one.

Alternatively, you could keep a copy of Force of Will to counter Dread Return in lists that run that gameplan, though that’s only going to buy you, at most, about a turn. Also, Mental Misstep could be a necessary evil in the matchup, as you can use it to counter Cabal Therapy naming a piece of your combo, and it protects you from their Mental Misstep in turn. As such, its value goes up in open decklist tournaments, where the element of surprise is lost.


What do you all think? Did I overlook something that you noticed? Do you have card suggestions beyond what’s here? I’d like to hear your thoughts so that I can improve my Blazing Infect list even further, so please leave a comment.

Now, I mentioned that this all came from an Infect guide of mine, so pardon my gushing about that for a moment.

For more than a year-and-a-half, I have been literally writing the book on Infect, a passion project with an ever-expanding scope. Seriously, my first version was over 125 pages long, and the current iteration is over 300 pages and 71,000 words! In it, I cover gameplay and deckbuilding theories, card overviews, Modern, Legacy, Vintage, Pauper, and EDH, including sideboard guides and non-standard color combinations for those. Since the guide isn’t finished, I release updates for my patrons on Patreon, so if you’re looking for an archetype specialist to teach a master class on all things Infect, then please check it out.

With that, here’s to good luck playing my favorite format, hopefully with my favorite deck. If you want to try it out, check out our Vintage League page. The tournament is completely free and run over Untap.in.

Author: T1GlistenerElf

T1GlistenerElf is an Infect aficionado, having played the archetype since it was in Standard and continuing to pilot it in Modern, Legacy, Vintage, and EDH. However, with more than a decade of MtG under his belt, he has experience with a host of other decks. His favorite parts of the game and theorycrafting, deckbuilding, and spreading the glory of Phyrxian perfection. He also has a YouTube channel where he hosts mostly paper MtG, streams games from MtG Arena to the Soulsborne series, and plays with T1StoneforgeMystic, his daughter. Lastly, inspired by Stephen Menendian's love of Gush, he is literally writing the book on the Infect mechanic, which so far is over 300 pages long.

2 thoughts on “Blazing Infect in Vintage – A Guide by T1GlistenerElf

    1. Serious answer? Show and Tell is usually the least viable win-con against a creature-heavy deck, so digging for Tinker or Blazing Shoal is likely the way. The sideboard is mostly made for Shops and graveyard-based decks, but Echoing Truth is viable.

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