Is Infect The New Affinity?

Scars of Mirrodin has brought us a new mechanic, one that may either be a serious contender among deck types, wind up on the casual play heap, or might, like affinity before it, prove to be a meta-game altering force.



The mechanic in question is infect, and by my own observation, as well as the comments of people who play farther and wider than I do, its already getting a workout in tournaments.

The appeal is easy to understand.  From a strategy point there just isn’t a lot out there that directly works against it.  There are combos I’m sure, after all there’s always a combo isn’t there, that would blunt the assault, but nothing really direct and nothing that specifically balances the game…at least not yet.  From a pure numbers standpoint it’s equally attractive.  In the simplest of terms, if you have to do twenty points of life damage, and I only have to get to ten poison counters on you, then every poison counter I get through is one hundred percent more effective than every point of life damage you score.  All things being equal, I’ll reach my goal in half the time.

The problem isn’t the mechanic itself, and believe me I have no animosity towards it.  In fact I have a bitchin’ black and green infect deck that got me into the top eight at the October Game Day tournament sponsored by Wizards of the Coast.  The problem is what happens next.  While I hate to see the manly might of my own infect deck weakened, I think its incumbent upon Wizards to bring in mechanics or abilities that balance the effect that infect may impose on the meta-game.

For any of you with short attention spans, or for those who hadn’t yet been assimilated into the world of MtG when the original Mirrodin block was introduced, a recap is in order.  One of the new mechanics in that block was affinity which greatly reduced the cost to play artifacts, and seeing that the overwhelming number of cards in the set were artifacts, that was a biggie.  Add to that the introduction of artifact lands and the fact that those land fueled affinity to new heights, the absolutely mind-bogglingly brokenness of Skullclamp, and the devastating effects of Disciple of The Vault which affinity itself fueled and you had the makings of a major problem.

That problem was manifested not in the game per se, but rather in the meta-game.  Game developers realized quickly that at the tournament level there was a polarization among players.  What they found was a rapidly escalating trend towards a vast majority who were either playing affinity, or anti-affinity and not very much else.  Since the variety or cards and deck types are a key component of the game and the meta-game, this was a problem.  While there are always deck types that dominate the tournament environment, they are usually in a state of constant flux.  Affinity had a very real chance of becoming the dominant deck type, and staying that way.

The result, a huge list of banned cards that gutted affinity once and for all.  Not only was it finished as a tournament deck, but the word gained a sort of distasteful connotation that remains to this day.  Just think of music artists like Michael Jackson or Milli Vanilli.  Despite a long line of successful hits, a scandal not only disgraced them personally, but musically as well.  The day after the news hit that Milli Vanilli were lip synching their songs there was this terrific “Milli Vanilli Sucks” backlash.  Heaven forbid you defend the music lest aspersions be cast upon you as well.  Affinity was like that.  Everyone was playing it and loving it, but it seemed like just moments aft Wizards pulled the plug saying it was bad for the game, everyone jumped on the “affinity sucks” bandwagon.

The point is that Infect could end up the same way.  Its an interesting twist to the game that people obviously enjoy, but unless its strength and potential invasiveness is balanced it could get real out of hand real fast.  There are many ways to do this; here are some of my ideas…


1.     White spells that heal poison counters or grant immunity for a turn or a specific length of time.
2.     Green plant spells that heal counters or grant immunity.
3.     Red burn spells that do extra damage to creatures that carry the infection.
4.     Blue spells that attach a cost to the player doing the infecting like life lost for each poison counter bestowed or counter-proliferation spells, perhaps even a spell that creates a reverse proliferation effect.
5.     Black undead creatures that can’t be infected (ever heard a zombie cough for instance?)


These are just musings mind you.  I am not a professional game designer (I don’t even play one on TV).  The point is this, make infect like any other mechanic in the game, potent if well used, but always defensible.  Better to do this in the near future rather than suffer through another round or complaints and bans like we did with affinity. Otherwise we’ll have yet another exciting development in the game relegated to the scrap heap before its time.