PDA

View Full Version : [Deck] MonkeyPox



xsockmonkeyx
10-27-2006, 11:14 PM
Basic Info

1) The name is a misnomer as this is NOT a Pox deck. Its a MBC deck with tons of draw and removal. The CA(Bob, MoM) allows you to shoot off a Smallpox to cripple the whole game and thereby to your decided benefit.

2)If Suicide Black is aggro and Pox is control, then this deck is somewhere along the lines of aggro-control.

3)The deck is new but my instincts and early playtesting tell me it is strong. It has obvious game against aggro-control(thresh, sliver), combo (iggy, reset), and decent game against aggro (goblins, zoo). If you are running well, Smallpox is usually the final straw against these MU's.

Pox vs Pox
Building your deck around Pox is difficult as you must sacrifice many of the traditional features of a deck (draw, creatures, mana). This is because you will lose 1/3 of your creatures, lands and hand, and you are punished for having many resources. With Smallpox, there is no need for this because of one thing:

Smallpox lacks the 1/3 of everything clause!!!
(duh)

The difference between 1 of each and 1/3 of everything is the reason the rest of the deck looks very different than most pox builds.

You are guarenteed no more than one of each type of card will be lost. This means you can actually play creatures. Additionally, you can have more than 3 lands in play and 3 cards in your hand without screwing yourself over. Thereby, you can afford to to build your resources along more traditional means.

Smallpox also means that you no longer need to have 3 mana to pox your opponant's random stuff. Additionally, you can afford to run fewer lands as you only need 2 mana to operate most aspects of your deck.

Monkeypox
Mask of Memory/Smallpox


4 Dark Ritual
17 Swamps

4 Mask of Memory
4 Dark Confidant

4 Dauthi Slayer
3 Skittering Skirge
4 Hypnotic Specter

4 Sinkhole
4 Wasteland
4 Smallpox
2 Engineered Plague

3 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach



Selected Card Choices
Mask of Memory....is a big part of the deck. Its combination of draw and quality help you keep the pressure on after the game has stabilized. Smallpox, Duress, Hymn, Edict, Sinkhole, all destroy your opponants resources and stifles their development. If your constantly drawing these then your opponants is constantly losing stuff. Constant draw + control = strong. Also, one of the strongest selling points about MoM is that you don't sac it to Pox.

Smallpox - IMO Pox-like cards should be supplimental to your removal and control elements as opposed to the main focus. I feel they should provide a critical mass of general removal to maintain your opponant's weekened position. Relying on your pox effect for removal is dubious at times.

Bob - He does not evade, costs life and has a 1 ass. Yet, he is the MVP hands down. The fact that he is a creature is a double edged sword. On one hand he is vulnerable to creature hate. On the other hand the fact that he can carry the mask (vs. combo mostly) can be a bonus. The latter is probably the biggest reason for him rather than Arena (other than CC).

Dauthi Slayer - its ability to enable the Mask far outweighs its lack of defense. Also, 2 damage every turn is not insignificant.

Skittering Skirge - Pretty decent threat at 2 mana, carries the Mask, has slight synergy w/ Smallpox


Selected Exclusions
These are by no means set in stone by any stretch of the imagination.

Pox(Bigpox)? Most of the time it will do the same thing as small pox, except it costs one mana more and will knock your life total into dubious position. This is an eventuallity against all kinds of aggro on a good draw. Burn. Etc. Think of it like this: the first smallpox costs 2, does the same thing as pox, and knocks you down 1 life. The first pox can put you down 7!!

Jitte - This deck has MD room issues. Jitte will probably make an appearance in the SB.


Questions

Aether Vial - Would it be useful here? overkill?
Jitte - see above
How many swamps?
Should there be alternate mana sources? If so what kind and how many?
How many Smallpox? Would (big) Pox of any benefit?
Phyrexian Arena?
Cabal Pit? (Threshhold is no problem)


Pinder adds: "One thing I notice is that you don't have any spot removal outside of Edicts in there. Is that because disrupting their hand/mana is enough to keep their creatures off the table?"

and

"Also, are you adverse to splashing a color? White here would give you Vindicate (which is more spot removal and helps the LD route), Swords (if you found yourself needing more spot removal), and Jotun Grunt (with all this discard, saccing, and land destruction going on, graveyards are going to get pretty huge, no?)."

Would this deck benefit from spot removal or general removal/sacrificing enough?

and

Are dual lands and a second color necessary? Warranted? If so which color would be the best? (Pinder is hinting at it, no?)


Thank you for your time and any and all suggestions (by anyone) are encouraged.

~monkey

Cavius The Great
10-28-2006, 09:47 AM
I think you're making a big mistake with the land count. I think you should have around 22 and 3-4 should be wasteland.

I also think that Pox and creatures have really bad synergy with eachother. How often do you find yourself saccing creatures against Solidarity? Creatures are a huge waste of a slot IMO. With the exception of Chimeric Idol and similiar cards, I think running creatures in a Pox deck is a bad idea.

vigilante
10-28-2006, 07:36 PM
Your explanations for including Fledgling Djinn and Rotting Giant seem a little weak, especially the parts where you basically say, "if your opponent wastes removal on them, well, they were crappy anyway so who cares?". With that logic you could happily include 4 Chimney Imps. Play with better creatures (or better still, listen to Cavius and make the correct choice: play none).

If you care so little about taking damage from Fledgling Djinn, shouldn't you reconsider Dark Confidant? You're not always going to draw Mask of Memory, and even if you do, you're not always going to have a creature 1) to equip it to, and 2) that your opponent won't block or remove. If card draw is the lifeblood of this deck, at least have some redundancy in that department. If the life-loss starts to add up, just sac him to a Smallpox.

I don't understand how Smallpox and Wasteland are mutually exclusive concepts in the deck. Just because Smallpox generates the same sort of effect as Wasteland (one of your lands for one of your opponents), it doesn't mean Wasteland has no place. It comes back to redundancy once again...wouldn't you rather have 8 cards in the deck that have that effect, rather than 4? Keep in mind that because your card draw at the moment is conditional (you need the Mask, and an unblocked creature), you're not always going to draw Smallpox - especially if you only run 3.

Also, I don't think Smallpox's effect constitutes "Friggin ridiculous game control" by itself. When your opponent loses 1 creature (maybe), 1 land, 1 card in hand and 1 life, I hardly think they're going to respond with "GG".


EDIT: Most of the above points are now moot as xsockmonkeyx has since re-written his original post to address these issues. Seems a bit like cheating to me.

Pinder
10-28-2006, 07:54 PM
I didn't really consider it before but going (mostly) creatureless might not be a bad idea here. If you really need 'unsaccable' card draw, you could always run Arena. It does pretty much the same thing as Bob in this slot, and is far less prone to removal (both yours and your opponents) also, if you decide to consider slimming down your creature count, you could always start running Innocent Blood, the 1 mana edict. That would give you a full 12 sac effects maindeck. Just some thoughts.

xsockmonkeyx
10-28-2006, 11:17 PM
Bumped for opening rewrite.

Negator131
10-29-2006, 01:39 PM
Why is this deck any better than BW Confidant with Smallpox in it? It seems like you run a really bad creature base just for fun.

xsockmonkeyx
10-30-2006, 04:17 AM
This deck is NOT a Pox deck.

It is a MBC deck with tons of draw and removal. The CA, provided by Bob and MoM, allows you to shoot off a Smallpox to cripple the whole game and, thereby, to your decided benefit.

Finn
10-30-2006, 12:20 PM
I didn't really consider it before but going (mostly) creatureless might not be a bad idea here. If you really need 'unsaccable' card draw, you could always run Arena. It does pretty much the same thing as Bob in this slot, and is far less prone to removal (both yours and your opponents) also, if you decide to consider slimming down your creature count, you could always start running Innocent Blood, the 1 mana edict. That would give you a full 12 sac effects maindeck. Just some thoughts.

I find myself in agreement with this. Innocent Blood has the unique ability to kill off a turn 1 Lackey and a Nimble Mongoose. Any deck that can safely run this card has a huge advantage (as long as it is still capable of beating something like Solidarity with that dead card).

That means that you should ideally have no creatures of your own. I really like Guardian Idol in this spot. Even better might be the new Negator artifact (for a more aggro direction). That would take some testing, though. In fact, the more you devote to artifacts, the less you would need to be concerned about deck manipulation and card economy since you win out every time you Smallpox as long as the opponent has a creature and you do not. I think that Smallpox is really cool, but you should still be designing around the Pox format in some ways to get the most out of it. Of course, once you start down that road, why not just add Pox back in. Yikes.

I have been fooling with Smallpox myself, and the major problem I have with it is that you want to cast it both early and while you are in a better board position so you can stay there. But it is hard to manage that since you have to sac a creature. And it's harsh losing mana yourself when it could have been a Sinkhole at that cost.

Do you feel that this deck manages that, Monkey? Or am I missing something?

SillyMetalGAT
10-30-2006, 12:39 PM
Why Mask? You run 14 creatures, your not aggro, the only ones with evasion are hyppie and Djinn, and you end up saccing a lot of your creatures. I know that card draw is awesome in a deck like this, but why not just run Top? Top will pretty much ensure that you see a piece of disruption every turn. Plus, Top NEVER gets destroyed. If you cut out the creatures, that also gives you room for Innocent Blood over Diabolic Edict.

Another card that hasn't been discussed all that much is Chimeric Idol. You dont run any instants, so you dont have any real need to keep mana open during your opponents turn. Also, Phyrexian Totem is the man in any black-based deck. Once he's in play, you can do pretty well with only 2 lands in play. I really think that you should just go with Nether Spirit, Totem, and Idol as your kill conditions. It feels like cheating to discard a Spirit to Smallpox.

xsockmonkeyx
10-30-2006, 02:16 PM
Why Mask? You run 14 creatures, your not aggro, the only ones with evasion are hyppie and Djinn, and you end up saccing a lot of your creatures.

Actually, there are 10 creatures with evasion (slayer has shadow). However, you do make a good point that if you cant get the Mask Through then it is worthless. How many evaders should be in a deck to consistantly use the Mask?

Also, you dont end up as saccing many creatures as you think. If you cast Smallpox twice in a game thats only 2 creatures. You're going to be drawing more than that to replace them.

The mask is there to ensure that you dont sputter out. It's been my experience that MBC tends to run out of steam when you run out of stuff to cast. One for one removal at 2 mana, like Sinkhole, Edict, are efficient but you will never gain any true advantage unless you are removing stuff faster than your opponant can replace it.

The goal of the deck is to disrupt your opponant's opening and get into the mid game with more resources available. The faster you can get the game into topdeck mode to better. This is when you need draw to keep your opponant from recovering.

Bob and the mask can do good things for you if you can get them online. I recommend holding on to extra lands/discard spells so you can discard them and keep the 2 cards that you draw off of the mask. Drawing stuff off of a mask like Sinkhole/Hymn and Edict/Wasteland in one turn makes it harder for your opponant to recover.

I find that Smallpox is usually not something that you cast in the opening unless it can get you a clear advantage. Its there to remove excess stuff when you have already have an advantage. If you have more lands, cards, creatures than your opponanta Smallpox sets them back further than it does you. Would that be considered a win more?


I know that card draw is awesome in a deck like this, but why not just run Top? Top will pretty much ensure that you see a piece of disruption every turn. Plus, Top NEVER gets destroyed.

Actually, thats not a bad idea.

Bane of the Living
10-30-2006, 08:00 PM
Top will pretty much ensure that you see a piece of disruption every turn. Plus, Top NEVER gets destroyed.

Welcome Krosan Grip to the format. This is my new fav Crypt hoser too.

You just recommended he play more evasion creatures for mask but none of the other kill conditions you suggested have evasion, unless you count trample. Have you tried Skittering Horror? Or maybe its Imp. Its the 3/2 flier for BB. Seems efficient.

xsockmonkeyx
10-31-2006, 06:04 AM
Oh, you mean Skittering Skirge:

BB

Summon Creature - Imp

Flying, When you play a creature spell, sacrifice Skittering Skirge.

3/2

Also a good idea. It has obvious synergy with Smallpox and is a much better threat than the Djinn. However, im not sure how much the drawback effects the rest of the deck. The creature count is relatively low right now so it seems like a good choice.

GnomesofZurich
10-31-2006, 09:55 AM
If you do go with Skittering Skirge, you may want to consider running Cabal Therapy over Duress; you will have 6 or more creatures (Confidant/Skirge) which you may want to sacrifice, and 14 total which is enough to fuel the flashback on Therapy.

SillyMetalGAT
10-31-2006, 11:34 AM
Welcome Krosan Grip to the format. This is my new fav Crypt hoser too.

You just recommended he play more evasion creatures for mask but none of the other kill conditions you suggested have evasion, unless you count trample. Have you tried Skittering Horror? Or maybe its Imp. Its the 3/2 flier for BB. Seems efficient.


Thats because I wasnt advocating Mask. I dont see it being better than SDT. Also, Krosan Grip would destroy Mask too, so your screwed by that card either way.

xsockmonkeyx
11-01-2006, 06:49 AM
Skittering Skirge is in. Its a pretty decent threat at 2 mana and can tackle a mongoose. By making it smallpox food you gain a slight synergy but the extra power is the strongest feature. I upped the creature count one and also dropped a mask(for now) to allieviate(sp.?) concerns that it wouldnt be utilized enough. Also, multiple masks is overkill.