"Phyrexian Swarmlord: The Infect Tokenator"

"Coming back from the useless pile!"

"Phyrexian Swarmlord: The Infect Tokenator"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.

At first glance the Phyrexian Swarmlord seems like an unimpressive trash rare from New Phyrexia. During Standard the fast builds involving Black infect creatures like  the Flying Plague Stinger or the more efficient 1 drop Glistener Elf(which were G-Growthed and Vines of the Vastwooded) were the "Infectors" of choice. Most players would often choose the high impact Putrefax or Skithiryx who offer better stats and better casting cost as game enders of the clunky Phyrexian Swarmlord. I remember a lot of players groaning when they get one of these in a New Phyrexia pack often because it had no spot in their current infect decks and were often relegated into card piles that were often not heard of again.

This 4/4 Monstrosity at 6 mana might be a good finisher but it never saw much play in Standard. It's ability was never fully utilized as well because battles involving Infecting Phyrexian mages ended very quickly. Seldom are there long drawn out games when you have green or black mana involved so the ability to put in 1/1 Infect Insect Tokens( IIT's) each upkeep for each poison counter on your opponent was seldom( if ever) maximized. Your opponents won't simply be there. 

"What?!!! 10 poison counters already?!!!"

Move fast forward in time and we find ourselves at the current EDH setting where the Phyrexian Swarmlord takes on a new relevance.There are two current formats. 1 on 1 EDH battles , that might end fast and then there is the usual 4 on 4 player battles that usually takes a whole lot longer and this is where the old trash rare becomes a rare card worth looking for in those old piles of unused cards. These are games that are long drawn out , there are inherent political tactics involved. You are not able to antogonize all of your opponents since appearing too strong will cause them to unify and decide to take you out of the game first. 

This is the part where as a Phyrexian Infector you can't go for the full on  Infect damage  , you have to be insidious. You have to be a disease that looks benign but actually much deadlier.In EDH games 10 poison counters are enough to end a players life and normally they don't mind if they get 3 or 4 poison counters because they believe that they can still win before all of those counters actually kill them.So the trick is to damage small and early but not enough to alarm your opponents. Then enters the Phyrexian Swarmlord. With at least 4 counters on each of your opponents you are now looking at 12 1/1 Infect Insect Tokens on your side of the board! With the Phyrexian Swarmlord itself it represents 16 points of Infect damage! If you have some way of giving your creatures haste then you could actually kill off 2 opponents in one Swing and then leave the weakest until the next turn...

"Swarming...That's all we do..."

So Damage early but not alarming enough...

Then Swarm...

Time to search that pile now...