Agent Frank Horrigan Infect

Commander Overview

Agent Frank Horrigan is a true powerhouse of a commander and can allow us to proliferate an absolute ton, combining that with our overall infect gameplan and not only are our opponents life totals reduced to ten, its very easy for us to get there, nearly every card in our deck gives poison counters or proliferates and if left unchecked and to own our devices dropping Frank Horrigan can easily end the game for an opponent. Agent Frank Horrigan is firmly in a support role within this deck, and they are most often used for their ETB and attack trigger to get the final few poison counters that we need.

Please note: While we don’t run any Game-Changers or infinite combos, this deck is absolutely oppressive and extremely hard to stop. Once opponents get even one poison counter, the game can end very quickly. For this reason, this deck is a bracket 3 deck, and the decks I tested it against are bracket 3 as well.

How to Play the Deck

Playing this deck is criminally easy, and it is criminally easy to give our opponents poision counters, whether its an early game counter from a creature like Glistener Elf or a spell like Infectious Inquiry opponents will get poison counters and we have so many instances of proliferation even outside of Frank Horrigan that we can be extremely hard to stop. Even if opponents kill our commander and blow up our board, we have so many non-creature ways to proliferate. If we are not targeted immediately and killed, we are insanely tough to deal with. I would say this deck is good for an intermediate player; it does have some more complicated interactions than most decks, and it certainly isn’t a deck I would hand to a brand-new player.

Synergy’s in the deck

Our whole deck is synergized around giving our poison counters and proliferating them. We have near-infinite ways to do both, since our opponents’ life totals are effectively reduced to 10, which is great for us and not so great for our opponents. We don’t even need to deal combat damage to an opponent to give them poison counters since we have cards like Infectious Inquiry and Phyresis Outbreak, which are both cheap and easy ways to get the poison party started. We can continue the party with cards like Unnatural Restoration, which provides recursion and proliferation for only two mana! Grim Affliction is another cheap way to proliferate. Even without all of our infected creatures, we are great at giving poison counters to our opponents.

Phases of the Game

Early-Game: We have a lot of early-game creatures, and we want to get the poison party started as soon as we possibly can. We can roll out some great early-game attackers like Glistener Elf, Bilious Skulldweller, and Venerated Rotpriest. We really like getting in some early-game infect to as many opponents as we can because it makes the mid-game that much easier.

Mid-Game: The mid-game is great for us and extremely dangerous for our opponents, by this point our opponents have at least one poison counter and because of that we are easily able to continued proliferating and giving them poison counters, even with just the spells in our hand we are very strong at this stage of the game, even if our opponents remove all of our creatures we can still proliferate. The mid-game is great for our deck.

Late-Game: We rarely make it to the late-game since our opponents life totals are effectively reduced to ten but if we do the core gameplan doesn’t change at all, attack when its convenient and give our opponents as many poison counters as we can, once we have a lot of mana and can easily cast Frank Horrigan and attack our opponents are not long for this world.

Card Breakdowns

Ramp

We have a little bit of ramp in the deck, but it certainly is not a huge focus for our deck. Priority #1 is always giving our opponents more poison counters and ensuring the proliferation of infect continues. Cultivate and Kodama’s Reach allow us to cast devastating spells like Caress of Phyrexia early, and if we have been proliferating and poisoning our opponents, it can easily lead to their death. Birds of Paradise is another cheap source of ramp for the deck that can be good mana fixing, and after their usefulness is all used up, they are a great flying blocker for our deck too. While we do have a little bit of ramp so we can speed out Frank Horrigan, we don’t need them.

Card Draw/Card Advantage

Even our card draw infects our opponents! Well, not all of our sources do, but cards like Infectious Inquiry are a great early-game way to start the infection and prepare for when we proliferate. Phyrexian Arena is one of our other sources of card draw, and this is pretty much it, since all the cards in the deck synergize so well, and we are often able to use what we have and don’t need a ton of extra cards. While our card draw package is small, I had no trouble in my testing games.

Removal

Just like everything we do, some of our removal infects our opponents. Cards, like Anoint with Affliction, which are almost always two mana exile a creature, since it’s very rare that our opponents don’t have three or more poison counters. We also have some true format staples like Putrefy, Assassin’s Trophy, and Beast Within, all of which are cheap and efficient ways to get rid of our opponents’ problematic stuff. We are especially good at removal in this deck since nearly all of our creatures have infect and deal damage to creatures in the form of -1/-1 counters, so we can kill smaller creatures or severely weaken bigger creatures, great against decks that are heavy on trample. Vraska’s Fall is a great card at any stage of the game, but especially good in the early game, since we can cheaply start the infection.

Protection

We are not great at protection; we are better at recursion for all of our stuff. While we have very few ways to protect our stuff from dying, they usually do come back with the help of cards like Unnatural Restoration, which is a great way to recur something and make our opponents’ poison counter situation that much worse. Glissa’s Retriever is a little bit pricey mana-wise compared to the rest of the deck, but their death trigger can allow us to get some of the best cards we already cast back.

Utility / Support

We have so many awesome creatures, let’s highlight some of the best! Hand of the Praetors is a stupid magic card and is a true nightmare for our opponents, and since almost all of the creatures in our deck have infect, we can dish out poison counters very quickly, and when combining that with the rest of our deck, it is just crazy. While Venerated Rotpriest doesn’t trigger something like Hand of the Praetors it is another ridiculous card, while it is only one-mana its ability is where it shines, if an opponent targets our stuff or if we target one of our creatures with something like Tyvar’s Stand we can give our opponent a poison counter, just a crazy effect for only one mana. Whispering Specter is another very interesting card for the deck, since our opponents always have some amount of poison counters. For the most part, this card can be discarded one or two cards, and in the mid-late game, it basically says an opponent discards their hand, just another great piece of support for the overall game plan. By far my favorite blocker in the deck is Reaper of Sheoldred, which will give an opponent a poison counter if it is damaged. While this is primarily for blocking, it can also be crazy against ping-focused decks or decks that deal minor damage to the whole battlefield.

Mana Base

Our mana base is pretty simple. I do love Inkmoth Nexus as a cheap and easy way to hit for one poison counter, and this can be a great game-ender if our opponents don’t have a flying blocker. The Black Gate is another great non-basic for the deck, making one of our creatures unblockable can help us to a win easily, being able to hit with a Glistener Elf and then playing something like Tyvar’s Stand to deal the final poison blow is truly great. Beyond that, we have pure efficiency from our bond, shocks, and fetch lands in the deck. I like this mana base a lot and didn’t have any trouble during testing.

Win Conditions

Our only win condition is through poison; it’s what we do best. Once an opponent gets even one poison counter, then the proliferate game begins. When we are playing Frank Horrigan, our opponents are effectively at ten life.

Strengths of the Deck

There are very few ways to get rid of poison counters, because of this, our opponents only have ten life, and getting to ten poison in this deck is deceptively easy.

Nearly every card in our deck either gives us an opponent a poison counter or proliferates, so we can end games very quickly.

Weaknesses of the Deck

If we have a slower game, all of our opponents will target us once they realize what we are up to. If they are very aggressive or quick, we can struggle.

We have a rough matchup against control decks; heavy control decks try their best not to let any of our stuff resolve.

Deck Testing/Matchups

I tested this deck against three different decks

Game 1: Vs Grand Arbiter Augustin IV. Matchup Record: 2-2

This was a split but tough matchup for our deck. I played against a stax version of Grand Arbiter, and they didn’t let most of our stuff resolve, which naturally made our game a lot tougher than it normally is. The best thing to do here is get early poison counters on your opponents so you can proliferate them slowly.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Vraska’s Fall, Infectious Inquiry and Glistener Elf.

Game 2: Vs Giada, Font of Hope. Matchup Record: 4-0

I had no trouble with this matchup. We are just quicker, and they have almost no way to stop us. Sure, they can kill our creatures with Swords to Plowshares or Path to Exile, but that certainly doesn’t stop us. Stick to the core game plan here, and you should have no trouble.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Phyrexian Crusader, Tyvar’s Stand and Anoint with Affliction.

Game 3: Vs Caesar, Legion’s Emperor. Matchup Record: 3-1

This was another very good matchup for our deck. In the game we lost, they had a very aggressive start, and I had a slow one. Don’t underestimate Caesar; they can get out of hand, and we can struggle to beat them in combat. We rely on early poison counters and proliferation to end the game.

Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Atomize, Grim Affliction and Whispers of the Dross.

Conclusion

Thanks so much for reading to the end! I hope you all enjoyed this one! This is a very crazy deck, and I totally understood why my testing group absolutely despised this one, because of the newer infect cards and poison counters being put onto spells, it’s just extremely tough to beat this deck if you get even one poison counter. Our opponents need to focus on us hard to stop this.