[Deck] Vaka Pox

[Clark Kant]

First let me start off by giving props where props are due; major props to my friend and testing partner (wished to remain anonymous) who for more than seven months, was absolutely vital to developing, testing, and tweaking this deck. And major props to Aggro zombies, tylerwylie, Goaswerfraiejen, jebus, Androstanolone, bane of the living, Misobizo, Top Deck, feuerizer, Beebles for Life, Silly Metal Gat, Sea R Hill, clavio, Tacosnape, Illismus, Malhov, Blair Pheonix, erdjinn and the multitude of other sourcers, too many to name them all (and I apolisize for anyone who was left off) that posted on the N&D thread and who were critically important in this decks development, and without whom the below build wouldn’t be possible. And special major props to Top Deck, Anti American and anyone else (sorry if I left you off) who suggested Ghostly Prison.

Vaka Pox - Post Future Sight Build

// Lands
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland
4 Scrubland
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta
3 Swamp
3 Mishra's Factory

// Threats
4/3 Tombstalker

// Disruption
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
4 Sinkhole
4 Vindicate
4 Pox
3 Crucible of Worlds
2 Rancid Earth
2/3 Ghostly Prison

// Sideboard
2 Trinisphere
2 Infest
2 Ghostly Prison
3 Tabernacle of Pendrall Vale
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Chains of Mephistophles

Now that FS is readily available and on the brink of being legal, I believe this is the ideal post FS build of the deck. There was nothing wrong with the old build, but Tombstalker is such a powerful threat here that it's well worthwhile to modify the deck to incorporate it.

But as Goblins was displaced by Iggy Pop and other combo decks as the fastest decks in the format, running Duress is a lot more important. Especially since the deck started running Tombstalker, being able to take out your opponents removal is a very powerful play.

I am now testing cutting down to 3 Tombstalker in order to go up to 3 Ghostly Prison maindeck.

The pro to this is that Tombstalker really works best as a three of. The con is that with only Tombstalker, the number of actual threats you run falls to a meager six.

There were ample oppurtunities to discard away excess or early Tombstalkers before, so cutting it to three may have been been a mistake.

But going up to 3 Ghostly Prison almost certainly isn't a mistake once Hulk is officially banned and goblins makes a comeback though, so even if I go back to 4 Tombstalker, I will cut a Duress rather than the third Ghostly Prison to make room for it.

Here were the cards that were cut about a month or so ago...

Dark Ritual - This was the card I cut for Duress as it was always the weakest card in the deck imho. This deck goes well into the midgame so you topdeck it far more than you see it in your opening hand, and it always made for a horrid topdeck. Plus it did nothing to disrupt your opponent which is a huge minus for this deck.

Trinisphere - A solid card for locking your opponent from playing any spells entirely, but sometimes dysnergic with your own cards and not always the card you want to see. So I cut this for Ghostly Prison.

Rancid Earth/Sensei's Divining Top - I'm still not completely certain whether it is better to filter into more disruption using Top, Fetchlands and Crucible, or to simply run another land destruction spell. When Trinisphere had been cut from the mainboard, I think the build tilted back in Top's favor. But once the build started running Chalice of the Void and Tabernacle in the board, it tilted back to Rancid Earth.

I strongly recommend that people test the deck above exactly as posted before experimenting with it. Each of the changes made from the previous build were neccesary to optimize Tombstalker and the Dark Rituals that came back with it.

Preliminary testing suggests that something close to the above build might be the optimal direction for Vaka Pox to pursue post Future Sight due to the unique ability of this particular deck to abuse Tombstalker. While every other deck tested including Red Death had little to no chance of casting Tombstalker before the fourth turn (no faster than Exalted Angel), this deck was uniquely capable of very frequently casting Tombstalker on the third turn all while having reduced the opponents to one land. This is because not only do Pox and Smallpox heavily stunt the opponent's development, but they also feed your graveyard with 3-4 cards essentially having the Poxes double as both exceptional disruption and the equivalent of a Dark Ritual when it comes to feeding delve.

This convinced us to try pushing the deck away from locking out your opponent completely, which the old build was exceptionally apt at doing, to significantly stunting your opponent, cutting them off of white mana and then putting them on a 3-4 turn clock which they are left unable to deal with. Thus hard locks such as Crucible of Worlds (perhaps Ghostly Prison depending on how testing versus Goblins goes) and Cabal Pit due to it's dependence on threshold, were replaced with tempo boosts.

Though I think there are better options than either, I generally think that Judge Unworthy is superior to Innocent Blood. Not only is it instant speed removal that can do cool things like kill your opponents Serendib Efreet when they block your Mishra's Factory, but it has three advantages over Innocent Blood...

a.) Unlike Innocent Blood, it doesn't force you to sacrifice your own Tombstalker.

b.) Its targeted removal, which works well given the huge number of choose and sacrifice effects that you already run. If your opponent has two creatures for example, you can kill their small creature with this and take out their large creature with a Pox effect. But if your opponent has multiple weenies, being able to choose and kill the most annoying one is nice.

c.) It's similar to Magma Jet in that it's not dead versus nonaggro decks. You can always target your own Tombstalker to provide some very solid card selection. Sure you can't deal 2 damage to the head like Magma Jet can, but the fact that you can Scry for 3 rather than 2 makes up for that.

Dark Ritual (and possibly Chrome Mox or Mox Diamond to a lesser degree, though they make the opening hands very swingy) was made significantly better by Trinisphere which was unfortunately the one card in the list below that wasn't played during testing and which proved it self to be a huge bomb, esp on the first turn when on the play. Also where as previously, games lasted on average 15 turns making Dark Ritual more frequently a dead draw than a bomb, games here can end in the first 7 turns thanks to plays such as turn 1 Fetchland, Dark Ritual Sinkhole, turn two Swamp Smallpox sac a land & discard a card, turn three Swamp Tombstalker, turn four Scrubland Vindicate attack for 5 with your opponent at one land; or turn one Fetchland Dark Ritual Trinisphere, turn three Fetchland Vindicate, turn four Wasteland Tombstalker with your opponent at one land and unable to cast even a single spell. These were actual hands during testing, not optimal hands or god draws by any means. As a rule of thumb, especially if your opponent doesn't have access to white, use up every Pox and Smallpox in your hand before casting Tombstalker, if it means waiting one extra turn to cast it.

Nevertheless, once Trinisphere was cut from the mainboard, Duress displaced Dark Ritual due to the surge in combo decks and the decline in goblins (the one match where you often hated drawing Duress) in competitive environments as a result.

Vaka Pox - Current Build 4/8/2007

3 Swamp
3/4 Scrubland
4/3 Bloodstained Mire
4 Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland
2 Polluted Delta
2 Cabal Pit
2 Flagstones of Trokair

4 Ghostly Prison
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Vindicate
4 Sinkhole
4 Smallpox
4 Pox

3 Trinisphere/Sensei's Divining Top
2 Crucible of World/Rancid Earth
3 Nether Spirit
4 Chimeric Idol

Sideboard
2 Cabal Therapy
3 Infest
3 Jotun Grunt
3 Trinisphere/Crucible of Worlds
4 Duress - Would be in the mainboard if goblins wasn't such a common problem matchup. Cutting any of the above slots for Duress significantly hurts your percentages versus goblins.

Acclertion (Dark Ritual) was tested repeatedly, and while the turn one boost it gives you is nice, the fact that many cards such as Ghostly Prison or Vindicate can only be played one turn earlier with it and more importantly, that it forced you cut away a piece of disruption, testing proved to be much too great a price to pay. Most matchups with this deck go well into the midgame and any copies of Dark Ritual not in your opening hand had you wishing that they were whichever piece of disruption you had to cut to accomidate the Dark Rituals.

If games ended in the first 7 turns, Dark Ritual is a great card, but most games take longer to win and Dark Rituals later on are dead draws. This plays very much like a prison deck but much more focused on mana screw and with a lot more effective prison elements imo, and this didn't run Ritual for the same reason Prison decks don't.

Nevertheless, during testing, Trinisphere was the one card in the above list that wasn't played but proved itself to be possibly the best turn one play in the deck with Dark Ritual. So maybe the card deserves another shot.

Latest Developments

Maindecking Trinisphere was a recent suggestion, and upon preliminery testing proved to be a great tool against burn, combo and any deck that's mana light and relying on brainstorm (thresh, meathooks etc) to get additional lands.

Unfortunately, the maindeck was very tight. The most cuttable slots are Crucible and Top which are most worthwhile when used together, and losing those would be a huge loss to your midgame staying power, and the land destruction package would have to be increased as a result.

Anyways, we're in the process of testing the below build. As indicated, the change improve the matchup versus burn, combo, and thresh, but hurts the landstill, 43 lands and similar matchups against slower decks.

-3 Top
-2 Crucible
-1 Bloodstained Mire
+3 Trinisphere
+2 Rancid Earth.
+1 Scrubland

Earlier Build Tested

-1 Sensei's Divining Top
-1 Polluted Delta
+1 Crucible of Worlds
+1 Scrubland

This build on occasion wasn't able to seal the victory mid game because it was unable to keep the land destruction going. It was why it was determined that 3 Top was absolutely vital.

Earliest Build Tested

-2 Flagstones of Trokair
-4 Chimeric Idol

+3 Mishra’s Factory
+1 Crucible of Worlds/Pox
+2 Chimeric Idol/Phyrexian Totem/Infest


The older build was best against landstill and other controllish decks heavy on removal. The newer build proved itself far better in testing versus fast aggressive decks (due to being able to disrupt early game without having to leave mana open for blockers) and especially goblins, which was key in pushing us to that end, in spite of losing the ability to abuse Crucible and Factory. If most of the goblins decks your meta are replaced with slower control decks, please keep the older version in mind.

What makes Vaka Pox different?

There were two versions of the deck heavily tested over the past seven months. One version played mana acceleration, a good bit more discard and Chimeric Idol to serve as a moderately clock. While the deck was reasonably viable, Idol was often not fast enough to win the game by the time the opposition recovered from the initial wave of disruption, and didn’t have the means to keep it’s disruption flowing through the use of cards like Crucible recursion of Wastelands and Cabal Pit, and Top + Fetchlands to prevent this recovery. The later version dropped Idol and some of the early game disruption for more powerful effects like Infest, slower more resilient threats like Mishra’s Factory recurrable through wasteland and more midgame staying power through Top. The deck was much stronger versus control but suffered considerably in the aggro matchup even with maindeck Infest.

This build is a mix of both builds, and serves to retain the early decks potency versus fast win strategies, while retaining the later builds strengths versus slow controllish decks. Thus the major difference in Vaka Pox is that it leaves out early game cards like Duress from the maindeck for cards like Top that ensured that you can keep your land destruction flowing and win the war of attrition that occurs so often in the midgame. The white splash and locks like Ghostly Prison became better and better as the focus moved away from fast disruption in a hope to win early (proved unviable versus goblins), toward early game stabilization and a means to generate continous disruption midgame.

Playing the Deck

This deck is deceptively difficult to play properly. The deck is unlike any other deck and skill with any particular archeatype will not translate over to this deck. And yet the nature of the disruption makes it so that the deck can win a good number of games in spite of multitudes of play mistakes, mistakenly leading virtually everyone to believe they are playing the deck well. The best way to master the deck is to play it often with an player experienced with Pox pointing out any play mistakes made or to play both sides of the game and keep track of what you would have done had you not known the other person’s hand and analyzing why that would have been a mistake in retrospect. Only then will you learn to be able to anticipate your opponent's actions two to three turns ahead of time and plan your disruption accordingly, become very familiar with the manabases of every archeatype, keep track of how many cards you and your opponent will end up with in hand and how many lands in play the turn that you want to pox and how to maximize pox, when to top, what hands to throw back and essentially be able to come up with a full gameplan based on your opponent's very first turn.

Matchups

I sought out and specifically tested against good players running the decks in the metagame forum.

The key thing to keep in mind regarding these matchup analyses is that you are effectively running 20 land destruction effects. This fact alone lets you completely mana screw your opponent by the fourth turn over 40% of the games you play and significantly disrupt them by then the remainder of the time. Once this occurs, either Top combined with fetchlands or Wasteland recursion is often enough to keep the land destruction flowing to ensure that your opponents stay mana screwed for the remainder of the game. But usually, you can win well before that thanks to Spirit and Idol.

UGw Threshold 60-65/35-40

This matchup in addition to random jank is one of the best reasons to play this deck. The low number of threats, combined with the low number of land, and their extreme vulnerability to your land destruction makes this matchup one you should look forward to if you don’t make any play mistakes. You play more cards that severely set them back than they play countermagic. The key here is to make sure you resolve the most important ones. This is another matchup where stupid things like walking into a Daze when you didn’t need to, not luring out a Force of Will, not saving a Vindicate for Pithing Needle if your gameplan is dependent on Crucible + Wasteland lock etc can cost you the game. Preboard, the matchup is even to only slightly to your favor, but postboard, things get nutty good for you Duress, Jotun Grunt and Cabal Therapy go along way in ensuring that you can resolve anything that helps you signficantly.

UGr Threshold 65/35

This is similar to UGw Threshold, but with fewer threats thus letting you force them to sac the creature you wanted them to sac with ease, with the occasionally annoying Meddling Mages replaced with Lightning Bolt (just don’t walk your Idol into it) and with the fearsome StP to get rid of Nether Spirit replaced with cards like Magma Jet or Fire/Ice that do nothing against you.

Goblins 50/50 (You fare better against builds that splash green, white or black because of Wasteland.)

Note: This matchup has improved considerably over the previous builds 50:50 testing results now that 3 Infests are being run in the sideboard as well.

The prevalence of this matchup is the single greatest reason for the maindeck inclusion of Ghostly Prison and the exclusion of Duress. Unlike most aggro, Goblins used to be an exceedingly frustrating matchup thanks to them maindecking 8 cards that singlehandedly circumvent all your land destruction if left unchecked for even just a couple of turns. Smallpox can deal with first turn Lackey if you are on the play, and Vindicate can deal with Vial. But whereas they lead with one of these cards most games, your corresponding answer to that respective card isn’t always as readily available. Plus having to use your Vindicates on Vial hurts your land destruction strategy. Playskill is absolutely vital in this matchup as explained above. You must be able to anticipate both your plays and their plays as well as your life total and dozens of other variables atleast two turns in advance. If you can stabilize after their opening onslaught, you usually win. And you can stabilize with a single Ghostly Prison, or even without one if you kept them off of Lackey and Vial, you can usually stabilize with either Chimeric Idol, Nether Spirit, or Cabal Pit recursion long enough to find more Ghostly Prisons. If you can get two Prisons into play and keep them off of their splash color, you’re virtually guaranteed your win. Just make sure you keep them off their splash color (pretty easy to do) as a card like Serenity can wreck your day if you don’t have a Vindicate handy.

43 Lands 55/45

43 lands is the most popular of the Loam variants in my meta, and the only loam variant I’ve was able to play against enough to post matchup percentages. But I suspect that Jotun Grunt is as much a godsend versus all Loam variants as it is here. The matchup being in your favor doesn’t make even a tiny bit of sense, but that’s how it turned out. If your opponent foolishly overextends with Manabond for example, a Pox will make them cry, and if combined with a couple more ld spells, will easily win you the game. Much more commonly, a fast clock thanks to the near impossible to kill Chimeric Idol and Nether Spirit to an even greater extent backed up by Pox to mana screw them, will win you the game. But if you can’t mana screw them early thus tying them off from their blocker, the game can reach a stalemate there and won’t be decided until well the midgame. And most of the games you lose there will be lost due to a Loam Wasteland lock, and most that you win will be won because of a Crucible Wasteland lock. In such a situation Ghostly Prison and Nether Spirit are exceptional in helping you buy you enough time to find the lock pieces esp when combined with land destruction. After Loam, the key card card for them here is Exploration which when abused with Loam and Mulch to a much lesser extend can neuter your Wasteland strategy. Vindicate can be a life line here. Postboard, if you can’t keep your opponent under 4 mana, be wary of Disk taking out your Crucible and don’t overextend needlessly.

Red Death 55/45

Their best chance here is to disrupt/mana screw you early on (possible thanks to Hymn, Wasteland and Sinkhole), so don’t keep a mana light hand and disrupt them before they disrupt you. A ritualed out Specter or Negator (if you don’t have blockers) can singlehandedly win them the game as well if you don’t have a Smallpox handy. If they are unable to do either, you can usually stabilize with Pox effects, Spirit or Prison. Then, the fact that they have no card advantage engine, or a way to deal with Spirit, while you can readily keep the disruption and threats flowing with Top, will win you the game. If you have an Idol in play that you need, don’t forget to cut them off from red mana before making it a creature.

Burn 50/50

Note: This matchup improves considerably in builds that run Trinisphere in the mainboard over the tested build which didn't run maindeck Trinisphere.

Yes I know how ludricrous claiming that Vaka Pox beats Burn half the time sounds, but that’s what the testing showed. Game 1 is usually only slightly against you, for a couple of reasons. They run only 18 lands and no card draw. Not knowing what they’re facing, a typical burn player will aim for a hand with 2 land and 5 burn spells, but many won’t throw away a hand with just one land. In addition, Hymn and even Smallpox type effects force them to discard away business spells critical to them not running out steam, all while Nether Spirit and Idol beats face. Even without hymn discarding away business spells, a decent bit of land destruction can easily ensure they never get more than one land in play at a time Game 2 and 3 turn turn very much to your favor thanks to Duress, Cabal Therapy and Jotun Grunt (great clock that’s also out of burn’s range) coming in place of chaff like Ghostly Prison and slower cards like some Tops, Crucibles, or perhaps even Wastelands (depending on the build). And these are the games that push the matchup to your favor. The percentage would be higher except that burn can occasionally recover to deal through enough damage before Idol, and even Grunt race them, if you experience a glut in your land destruction.

TES ~50/50 - Almost certainly a favorable matchup but only ended up being even due to the many factors below.

A big factor here I suspect is that the TES build that was tested against was testing running 4 Duress maindeck in place of 4 Xantid Swarm as a way to fight the mirror and to give the deck a way to get rid of Hymns, Duresses, and Cabal Therapies. This gave the build a huge advantage in this matchup over the traditional builds of TES. Another factor is that the build I was testing maindecked Sensei's Top over Trinisphere. And perhaps an even more relevent factor is that I am not extremely experienced playing against the TES matchup. So I wasn't sure if I picked the right cards with Duress and Cabal Therapy and my opponent wasn't willing to help me out in regards to the best cards to choose for testing purposes. Also This was all because TES combo was the only deck of all those tested not found in our playgroup (hence my inexperience against it) so far fewer matchups (during which he got multiple turn one wins, far fewer than the norm as I found out later) against it could be tested. Were any of these factors not in play, I'm certain this would be positive matchup. The combo proved to be very vulnerble postboard to Duress or Hymn followed up any additional discard via Cabal Therapy, Smallpox or even Pox buying you enough time to find Trinisphere or additional disruption.

Solidarity

I was unfortunately unable to find a good solidarity player to test against. I only played two games here, both preboard due to my opponents lack of a sideboard, and won both games, one to mana screw and one in which my opponent tried to combo out only to have his combo fizzle, possibly due to a play mistake. So I need to test against a more experienced player. If anyone would like to volunteer, please let me know. It seems like the matchup should be easier than TES becuase of the decks vulnerability to mana screw, dependence on getting to four lands to combo out, and effectively much wider window during which you can disrupt them.

Enchantress 50/50

Note: The build that was testing was not running Trinsiphere. Since Trinsiphere's inclusion, this matchup has improved considerably.

This matchup more than any other, even Goblins, the early game is absolutely key. Most of the cards they run don’t disrupt you gameplan at all (except Aura of Silence) and they are vulnerable to all 19-20 of your land destruction spells so you have a great window to disrupt them, but you absolutely must be able to take advantage of it. You can easily take out whatever land they enchant with Utopia Sprawl to get a two for one deal. Exploration can be a problem though. The key here is to disrupt their manabase very early to keep them from getting the mana to cast Enchantress’s Presense. You can deal with Argothian just fine, but if not dealt with asap, once they start drawing cards and lands, you often lose. Fortunately though, the matchup is very winnable thanks to your ample disruption which only gets stronger post board giving you about a 50% chance to pull it off. And have one ace up your sleeve that makes the matchup fall slightly to your favor. Without an Aura of Silence, a crucible wasteland lock early enough will be enough to sometimes slowly turn the tide back to your favor and lock them up.

RGB Survival 55-60/45-40

Only tested versus a RGB variant. This matchup often plays out somewhat similar to Enchantress. Similar to Enchantress, they have few means to disrupt your land destruciton but you have a much bigger window to disrupt their mana base. The low land count (only 20 lands), leaves them very vulnerable. Vindicate is great for blowing up Survival if need be. This is all around a strong matchup almost entirely because of the low land count. I suspect the land count and the lack of white for Enlightened Tutor to get Survival, and only a single Squee in the maindeck is very build dependent and this build was geared to have a shot versus TES as well. I would need to find someone with a better Survival build to test against.

Landstill (About 55/45 but this is very variable)

Your percentages versus landstill is very variable based on the build and the landstill player. If they don’t run Swords, Nether Spirit can singlehandedly stop them in their tracks and might be enough to deck them or force them to break their own standstill to cast Swords. With swords, it's among your worst matchups. You have Wastelands and Cabal Pits to kill their factories. So if they cast Standstill before casting a Crucible. You can just wait them out with Wastelands and/or a Nether Spirit. Disruption early on or a resolved Crucible can also singlehandedly win you the game (unless they get the 4 mana for Disk). And getting a handful of goodies thanks to a Standstill waiting game can help ensure that you resolve your Crucible. In the old build of Pox that ran Mishra’s Factory as well, the matchup was very favorable. Some of the landstill builds run many cards you don’t care about such as Wrath of God, Fire and Ice, Slice and Dice and Lightning Bolt to some extent and these builds are to your favor. Other builds run Pernicious Deed along with Disk, Swords to deal with Nether Spirit and additional countermagic, and those can be challenging. The less countermagic they run, the more likely you can resolve Crucible before they can find theirs, and that’s key to this matchup.

Deck Background

(You can skip this section if you’re already familiar with, or have no interest in the deck’s history and recent evolution).

Pox BBB, Sorcery

Card text: Each player loses 1/3 of his or her life; then chooses and discards 1/3 of his or her hand; then sacrifices 1/3 of the creatures he or she controls; and then sacrifices 1/3 of the lands he or she controls. Round each loss up.

Pox was a monoblack deck with a heavy focus on discard, land destruction, and many inherent synergies and first reared it’s head in 1995. During it’s peak several years ago, the deck relied upon cards such as Pox and Hymn to Tourach and creatures such as Hypnotic Specter and Mindstab Thrull to heavily disrupt the opponent. Pox largely remained under the radar after that, with it’s pilots slowly evolving it to incorporate newer cards such as Chimeric Idol and Nether Spirit in the mix. The main strength of the deck was that with proper tuning, it could be designed to deal with either aggro or combo decks. But when goblins began to maindeck Aether Vial, giving the deck 8 ways to ignore land destruction effects, and went on to become the most popular deck in the format, Pox became essentially unviable.

It wasn’t until the printing of Smallpox (another answer to Lackey that was synergistic with the deck) and Phyrexian Totem in Time Spiral that interest in the deck was renewed and many people contributed to attempts to arrive at a version of the deck that was viable in the current. Below are the specific cards that renewed interest in the deck.

Smallpox BB, Sorcery

Card text: Each player loses 1 life, discards a card, sacrifices a creature, then sacrifices a land.

This recent addition from Time Spiral added an additional element of both creature removal and land destruction working extremely well in a deck that was already designed to abuse Pox.

Phyrexian Totem 3, Artifact

Tap: Add B to your mana pool.
2B: Phyrexian Totem becomes a 5/5 black Horror artifact creature with trample until end of turn.
Whenever Phyrexian Totem is dealt damage, if it's a creature, sacrifice that many permanents.

This card provided the archeatype with another win condition that is immune to Innocent Blood, Smallpox and Pox to the already steller options, Nether Spirit, Chimeric Idol and Mishra’s Factory. It seemed like it had potential, but testing shows that it the high mana investment to activate it and the inability to block makes it unappealing in a metagame with fast aggressive decks.

And yet, it wasn’t until the addition of Tomb of Yawgmoth from Planar Choas that the old 18-20 Swamp manabases began to be abandoned…

Urami,Tomb of Yawgmoth, Legendary Land

Card text: Each land is a Swamp in addition to its other land types.

This land allows this deck to mitigate one of it’s biggest problems, mainly, that running nonblack sources like Flagstones of Trokair/Mishra’s Factories and Wastelands made it sometimes difficult to cast Pox without casting four mana sources thus breaking the ability to maximize Pox by making certain you also have multiples of three in terms of lands in play and cards in hand. Up till this point, my friend and I were convinced that Chimeric Idol was hands down superior to both Phyrexian Totem and Mishra’s Factory by a significant margin, as testing showed. But Tomb of Yawgmoth provided a very strong incentive to run Mishra’s Factory and Cabal Pit, especially when it became apparent that you could get away with running a full four copies of Tomb of Yawgmoth, by saccing or discarding any extras drawn to Pox and Smallpox.

The loss of Idol meant that the deck had a much harder time having a fast clock to accompany early disruption. This meant that the situation of it’s disruption stalling midgame had to stop, and ultimately pushed the deck in more and more of a slow controllish direction to beef up the midgame, which maindeck Top was instrumental in. In addition, where as previous builds rarely ran more than 2 Crucible of Worlds if any at all, 3 Crucibles became strong in this situation due to the multitude of ways to abuse the card, Cabal Pit recursion, Wasteland recursion, fetchland recursion with Top, and Factory recursion. Wasteland recursion itself pushed the deck to have very favorable matchups versus a wide number of matchups. A large number of matchups improved with these changes reinforcing them, but the Goblins matchup was more challenging than ever and the deck remained unviable almost exclusively because of that one matchup. Eventually, a great deal of testing of a wide number of variations caused us to arrive at the build below, one that retains all of the significant gains it made in the midgame, all while also incorporating cards that give it a positive golbins matchup.

Card Analysis

(This section is from a primer prepared almost five months ago for a very different build, so some of the information below is outdated).

For a card to be considered for inclusion in Vaka Pox, it needs to get around cards such as Innocent Blood, Smallpox, and Pox and in addition needs to produce mana, disrupt the opponent, or deal damage. There is a surprisingly large number of potent cards to choose from. No one build is ever optimal for two different metagames. No card is an automatic four of, not even Pox and Smallpox. The specific card choices and numbers are heavily dependent on the particular metagame, and to a lesser degree, the preferred playstyle. Nevertheless, certain cards though they may seem strong on the surface, are in fact poor choices in this deck, and those cards in addition to getting an explanation as to why they are poor choices will be marked with a * to allow people to easily skip past them.

The White Splash

Vindicate - This is just about the best card to splash for in builds running 4 Sinkholes. It works as one additional piece of land destruction, one that can deal with other problem permanents as well.

Ghostly Prison – A vital card in letting you stabilize versus fast aggressive deck, as well as stopping them from attacking entirely especially if multiples are played.

Rule of Law – This decks worst match up is storm based combo. Running four copies of this card gives the deck a fighting chance games two and three. It can also stop Aluren dead in it’s tracks.

Jotun Grunt – An experimental sideboard choice that proved invaluable. Not only does it give you a way to deal with Loam based strategies, opposing Crucibles at times, Threshold, Ichorid and other combo decks, but it’s an exceptional fast clock that’s a great way to try and race burn, fast combos and most any deck.

Gerrard’s Verdict – The one other contribution that white has to offer for this deck.
The major strike against it is that selective discard is never as strong as random discard. Occasionally, your opponents will discard cards with too high casting cost for them to have any hope of casting, or cards that are worthless against you anyways giving you no benefit from the card, and the effect seemed not powerful enough to justify those times that you will top deck this when your opponent has a decent board left and what you really needed was a piece of land destruction that doubles as removal. The card however might be a stronger answer to combo and burn than Cabal Therapy. But Verdict for example will never hit a card like Exploration versus 43land, where as a Cabal Therapy will.

Swords to Plowshares - The life gain that your opponent gets when you Swords one of his creatures can cost games. Ghostly Prison makes additional removal, except perhaps Infest unneeded. If needed, Innocent Blood, Funeral Charm, Smother, Infest, and Spinning Darkness can deal with creatures as well without the lifegain.

Mana

Due to the tendency of cards like Pox and Smallpox to destroy your own lands, this deck needs to play a good bit more mana than would be indicated from a simple analysis of the mana curve.

Swamp – Due to the heavy black dependence of cards such as Pox, Smallpox, Sinkhole and Hymn to Tourach, you will need to play a bare minimum of 18 permanent black mana sources but preferably 20, and a lot of land in general.

Wasteland – This card may make more sense in the Disruption section as that is the general purpose this card serves. As good as this card is, the only reason to play it is if your meta packs atleast a moderate amount of nonbasic lands. The reason for this is that it is absolutely critical that your disruption begins early on with a deck like this, especially when facing a blue mage who if left unchecked will likely build up sufficient card advantage to put you in an unwinnable position, and against who your massive pseudo reset button, Pox is unlikely to resolve. And yet the only disruption element in this deck that can be cast with colorless mana is Infest, which usually is a more a turn three and later type of card, and which is often of little use against blue mages. Where as with just three swamps in play, you can usually Pox without much hesistation, but if a colorless land was played within the first three turns, Poxing early will require you to either sacrifice two lands, or use up a Dark Ritual, both of which are disadvantagous to you as well.

Tomb of Yawgmoth – Being a brand new spoiled card that’s hot of the presses, testing with this land has been limited. But it seems to be a great way to get away with running lands that don’t produce black mana, such as Mishra’s Factory, while still enabling you to Pox early without losing more than one land at a time.

Mishra’s Factory – This card may make more sense in the Kill Conditions section as that is generally the purpose that this card serves. As a kill condition, it’s major weakness is that uses up a land drop.

Dark Ritual - A very solid choice. ability to set up explosive plays early on, and it's equally important ability to let you cast a threat off of just one land, after having used up some combination of Pox and Smallpox or Wasteland to nuke all of your opponents lands but leaving you with only one land in the process. Nevertheless, some players may opt to cut this card in favor of more disruption and more consistent mana sources.

Cabal Pit - The lifeloss that this land causes in a deck that depletes it's own life total rather quickly made this a tough card to recommend in spite of it’s excellent synergy with Crucible. But the recent trend of running 4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth made the card well worth running atleast 2 copies of.

Mox Diamond - Some suggest running these in place of Dark Ritual. It does have synergy with Crucible of Worlds and allows you to pitch Wastelands in matchups where they are not worthwhile. Even then, that this card is better than Dark Ritual is doubtful. An opening hand with 2 Swamps and 1 Dark Ritual leaves you with many more options than a hand with 2 Swamps and 1 Mox Diamond. With the former, you can opt to a play both Duress and a 3cc Threat turn one, only to follow it up with a Sinkhole or Hymn next turn and a Smallpox the turn after should they miss their next land drop indicating that they are vulnerable to mana screw, all while your Idol reduces their life total.

Flagstones of Trokair - Only viable in versions that opt to not run Mishra’s Factory. When White is indeed splashed for cards like Vindicate, this card is easy to recommend due to it's inherent synergy with Pox and Smallpox. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth in specific gives this card a significant boost.

Chrome Mox - Some suggest running these in place of Dark Ritual. But the extreme card disadvantage it creates in a deck where it's own spells cause it to discard cards and that has no means to draw extra cards makes a very difficult card to recommend.

Kill Conditions

While the disruption below paves the way, these are the cards that must end the game, and unfortunately, for the deck to work well, no more than 8-10 maindeck slots should be devoted to them. This means that consistency is key, these few cards must work well every single game. A kill condition that sticks around and consistently damages your opponent each game is preferred over one that works extremely well in some games, but does next to nothing in others. This is the underlying reason why some very popular and disruptive kill conditions such as Cursed Scroll, Hypnotic Specter, and the Rack are not recommended. They are either too slow for the mana investment they require each turn, have poor synergy with many of your own cards to stick around, or simply don’t deal damage in all situations.

Nether Spirit - The best tempo swing you could ask for. Discarding this card to Smallpox not only nets you a card over your opponent but also puts creature into your graveyard thus bringing it to play under your controller during your next upkeep, all without costing you a single mana. Not only does this creature not go away to anything short of Swords to Plowshares, but it can chump block till the end of time and also combos beautifully with Cabal Therapy and Contamination. The only disadvantage is that each time it returns to play, it has summoning sickness which makes it rather slow at times. Regardless, we would gladly run four if not for the fear of having multiple Spirits wind up in my graveyard. When initially learning to play this deck, you must get into the habit of declaring your upkeep step and making certain there isn't a Nether Spirit you could return to play at this time.

Chimeric Idol - Chimeric Idol is a very easy card to compare with Phyrexian Totem. It has the advantage of activating for free thus allowing you to play your disruption and then attacking, and attacking when you only have two lands in play, where as Totem ties up your mana and requires three mana in order to attack.

Phyrexian Totem - This win condition can end the game very quickly after a pox, and can be tapped to produce mana as well, allowing you to recover quicker. But when active, a surprise burn spell could cost you all of your land and probably the game. In addition, Totem takes a full three mana to activate which is a very big disadvantage since this usually means playing a piece of disruption the same turn as you attack is out of the question, as is activating Totem when you go down to two land. All in all, Chimeric Idol seems to have an advantage, due to it’s ability to block but if there is room, there is no reason not to run both.

Kill Conditions That Should Not Be Played

Cursed Scroll - This is likely going to be the most controversial point in this article, but a great deal of playtime went into Cursed Scroll before it was determined that the card just was not consistently good enough to beat out the above options. The reasons are multifold. 1.) The activation cost is too high. The three mana it takes to activate Cursed Scroll can just as easily activate Totem, and deal a full five points of damage rather than two. With such a high activation costs, it has the same disadvantages that make Totem less appealing, it doesn't let you cast disruption the same turn you activate it, and it also can't be used when you only have two land. 2.) The fact that you will rarely be able to activate Scroll the same turn that you play your disruption, means that unless you keep drawing lands, you only have a 50% chance of hitting something with Scroll the second time, a 33% the third time etc. The only alternative is to alternate between casting out your hand and activating scroll. 3.) Your opponent usually ends up knowing exactly what's in your hand and what to expect each time you use Scroll. They'll be able to brace for impact for that upcoming Pox, and will likely change their gameplan based on this. All this work and mana, just to deal two damage every other turn is not a very sound investment for this deck.

The Rack - In a build dependent on mana disruption, the above options are unquestionably better. Mana screwing your opponent prevents your opponent from playing cards, which itself makes The Rack worthless. But in a build of the deck that has more in common with the budget version of the deck. This isn't a terrible win condition due to it’s low casting cost. Even then, to use it well, you would have to load up your deck with discard even more so; and you are still most likely better off with the above options which can all block and kill off weenies, a very significant aspect to making this deck work in an aggressive metagame.

Hypnotic Specter/Mindstab Thrull/Necroplasm - These creatures harken back to years ago, at the height of Pox's success, but also back when not nearly as many noncreature alternatives existed. Now that Smallpox has become a mainstay, it’s best to abandon all traditional creatures with the exception of the very abusable Nether Spirits.

Dark Confidant/Nantuko Shade/Phyrexian Negator/Jotun Grunt - Once again, the addition of Smallpox makes running traditional creatures less desirable and also allows you to instead run cards like Innocent Blood. Phyrexian Negator however remains a decent sideboard option in a metagame filled with combo, due to it’s ability to end games quickly after firing off several bouts of disrutption.

Guardian Idol - Considering how little use this deck has for colorless mana, and the high activation cost for such a small creature, Mishra's Factory, Phyrexian Totem and Chimeric Idol are all far superior choices.

Disruption

Innocent Blood – After Infest, simply the best creature kill this deck could ask for. At a casting card equivalent to Swords, it gets around both untargetability and protection from white, all while not gaining any life for your opponents. It works well with Pox and Smallpox clearing away any creatures left behind, and also has excellent synergy with Infest, allowing you to clear away all your opponents weenies, and then force them to sac the one piece of fat they have left.

Funeral Charm – This card is versatile enough. Not only can it kill first turn lackey, but it can also let your Nether Spirit trade with Werebear (only to return to play next turn), can deal a few points of extra damage ending the game a turn sooner than your opponent anticipated. Swampwalk can be useful at times as well, especially if your build runs Phyrexian Totem. And last but certainly not least, once you empty your opponents hand, instant speed discard can be a very potent tool.

Infest – After Ghostly Prison, this card is the strongest weapon you have against all manners of aggro and single handedly wins games if used properly, and especially if your opponent overextends out of fear of losing their threats to your discard. It also works well with Innocent Blood and Smallpox to enable such game altering plays as clearing away all your opponents weenies, thus forcing them to sac their Exalted Angel. In an aggro meta, running these in the sideboard atleast is essential.

Duress – In a deck that has access to a multitude of tools to deal with creatures and land but little else, and that is highly dependent on being able to anticipate your opponents future plays, Duress is a no brainer. If you anticipate facing mostly straight forward aggro, then relegating this card to the sideboard may be acceptable. But the only reason to cut this card entirely is if you play in very underdeveloped metas dominated by creatures and little else.

Cabal Therapy - Can be flashed back using Nether Spirit, or Mishra's Factory with a Crucible in play. Has great synergy with Duress as well. If you anticipate facing a decent bit of combo, or simply have a little room to spare in your decklist, this is a solid inclusion either in the maindeck or the sideboard.

Hymn to Tourach – This card is an absolute automatic four of. Not only does it create card advantage, but fear of it can push your oppoents to overextend, only to leave them vulnerable to a well timed Infest or Pox. Lastly it can also can cause your opponents to discard away critical lands.

Sinkhole – In addition to providing a huge tempo swing, this card wins games. Many players design their deck to open with 2-3 land. If one of these lands falls victim to Sinkhole, another to Hymn or Wasteland, and yet another to either Pox or Smallpox, your opponents often have no real chance of winning.

Smallpox – You can kill off both a creature and a land. Easily the best piece of disruption that black has seen in a very long time. Yes, the only time this provides actual card advantage is when a Nether Spirit is involved, or when hand is already empty. But if there is one thing that Vintage Fish has shown us, it’s that the importance of tempo should never be underestimated. This also serves to be a critical piece of the mana disruption puzzle.

Pox – This card does everything that Smallpox does, but can do it far better, all for just one more mana. It also very quickly brings down life totals, bringing all your threats within striking range. As a very quick rule of thumb, one that will be elaborated upon in the followup article, you are best served when your lands and cards in hand are in multiples of three and when your opponent’s creatures, lands and cards in hand, are not.

Powder Keg - This is a very powerful and versatile card, one of the few good cards that allows black to deal with artifacts including mana producers, and the card is useful against goblins, affinity and many other matchups as well. A couple warrant being run in either the maindeck or sideboard.

Crucible of Worlds - While not disruptive in and of itself. This card can greatly supplement your disruption engine, by letting you recycle Wastelands, and by letting you play Poxes and Smallpoxes with impunity without fear of manascrewing yourself. Recycling lands pitched to Mox Diamond and reincarnating Mishra's Factories, including those that served as Cabal Therapy fodder can also be huge boons.

Sensei's Divining Top - One of the few means to help keep the threats coming in black, without taking lifeloss. Unfortunately, this still doesn't change the fact that the deck is very tight on free slots as is. May well be worthwhile in the budget version since it has a few extra slots to spare. Of course, the addition of fetchlands can put such a build on a relatively high budget as well.

Expirate - It yet remains unclear whether this card warrants inclusion in the deck. The card by itself rarely generates card advantage. But in a deck such as this, that easily gets cards into your opponents graveyard and that runs into a few cards in certain matchups that greatly hurt it's game plan, cards such as Exalted Angel, Standstill and Goblin Matron. Being able to remove all additional copies from the game can be a massive boon.

Braids, Cabal Minion – Variants of this deck, utilizing it’s mana destruction core along with a card like Braids to give the deck a more Stax type feel are popping up in various forms. Many such variants opt for a white splash for Vindicate and some even run Sphere of Resistence. Of course, utilizing a creature like Braids mandates that Nether Spirit be cut and the heavy stax theme mandates that the decks plays a large number of lands utilizing cards like Mox Diamond for acceleration and Mishra’s Factories to deal damage. This in turn also makes Chimeric Idol unviable due to the inherent disynergy between Idol and Mishra’s Factory.

Smokestack - Combos with Crucible of Worlds and Nether Spirit. But can be slow and mana intensive especially against a deck like goblins. This card is geared for a slower more controllish metagame but in those situations, it can indeed work and work well as long as you are running atleast six Crucibles and Nether Spirits.

Blight – We certainly don’t advocate running this card, as it has its share of problems, but it can act as a budget Sinkhole replacement for some, and can supplement the land destruction route for those that find that this is the main means through which they win games. However, this card is no where near as good as Sinkhole for three reasons. 1.) Your opponent gets one last use of their land, which means that they can still save up mana to cast that Exalted Angel they've been saving up for. 2.) Your opponent can wisely choose not to tap the land and wait for you to topdeck and eventually cast a Pox or Smallpox at some point, only to sacrifice the Blighted land to that. 3.) While this is a minor point, Blight can be destroyed with a Disenchant, Naturalize etc.

Rancid Earth - Another candidate for the budget Sinkhole replacement, or Sinkhole supplement slot. It costs a little more mana which messes with the mana curve a bit, but it also can act as a one hit pestilence once you attain threshold, which can be quite potent at times.

Night's Whispers - Not a disruption slot per se, but this does help replenish your hand and allows you to draw into more disruption especially after your initial disruption spells are used up. Unfortunately, the fact that this deck has little spare room, can't afford to cause much self life loss, and is often tight on mana, often using up whatever mana it has to cast disruption and threats, means that running it probably not worthwhile. Often you would rather that this were an additional piece of disruption rather than a card that eats up one of your turns to cast.

Skeletal Scrying - Refer above.

Phyrexian Arena - Refer above.

Sideboard Slots

Many of the aforementioned cards are just as viable in the sideboard as they are in the maindeck. But in addition to them, here are some sideboard choices that are a bit too narrow to be suited for the maindeck.

Spinning Darkness – Creature destruction plus life gain all without paying a single mana, this card is a great supplement to your existing creature destruction.

Engineered Plague – This card is sideboarded in every other black deck over Infest because it sticks around and stacks and because Infest has the drawback of hitting your creatures. This deck doesn’t care about that drawback, and Infest is generally good against a much larger number of decks. So I would start off any antiaggro sideboard slot with 4 Infest due to it’s utility against a much larger range of decks, and supplement it with as many Engineered Plagues as possible.

Damnation – The single best sweeper black has to offer. Unfortunately, a tad bit above the decks general curve, and I’m not yet convinced that there any particularly difficult matchups that this card would improve. Infest already does a fine job of removing all weenies, and Innocent Blood, Pox, and Smallpox do a fine job of cleaning up the one or two fatty that many decks run that is big enough to survive Infest. But the card is so inherently powerful in a deck like this that the deck itself may warrant tweaking in order to allow you to abuse it.

Diabolic Edict – It is an instant speed Innocent Blood that doesn’t set your Nether Spirit attacks back by a turn. It works well for the same reason Innocent Blood works well, because you have cards like Infest, Smallpox and Pox to deal with the others and because it dodges protection and untargetability. But you have so many other cards that have a similar effect that you are probably better off playing something else. Some people however may opt to simply maindeck this card instead of Innocent Blood due in large part to it’s instant speed.

Smother – Yet another card that supplements your creature destruction well. It’s fairly versatile and it couldn’t hurt to have atleast some targeted removal.

Darkblast – An early Lackey killer that can kill 2/2s as well at the expense of a draw. While Dredge does combo well with Crucible and Cabal Therapy, this deck has many better options in my opinion.

Massacre - Worse than Infest against goblins which is the main reason to run a sweeper such as this in the first place. Don’t bother with it unless your meta is packed with white.

Lose Hope – Scry is a very useful ability for a deck such as this that packs many bombs and no card draw. Nevertheless, it’s too narrow a card to play in a deck with so many better options.

Mutilate – The second best sweeper that black has to offer. But requires many swamps to use effectively. Only bother with this if your play style isn’t as reliant on land destruction and you thus frequently find yourself with a lot of mana to spare.

Sudden Death – A great card that just too mana intensive in a deck that has so many cheaper options.

Perish – Rather narrow compared to the other sweepers you have at your disposal. Only worth running if you see a lot of green.

Virtue's Ruin – See above, substituting green with White

Dystopia - The first permanent is destroyed without any lifeloss. And losing a couple of life to clear your opponents entire board is usually a worthwhile investment.

Leyline of the Void/Planar Void – Crucible, Dredge and Loam decks can really interfere with your gameplan. These cards shut them down. And they’re also quite potent against Reanimator, Threshold, Welder Survival and lots of janky combos, enough said.

Tormod's Crypt – See above.

Pithing Needle – This can deal with some of the randomness that interferes with your gameplan, especially artifact mana and Aether Vial. But Powder Keg does the same thing, and usually does it better.

Kaervek's Spite – This is quite the finisher, especially when your opponent is tapped out. Probably too narrow to devote slots to however. If you do, just remember never to bring this in against any deck playing Force of Wills.

Contamination - Combos with Nether Spirit (and Crucible + Factory) to screw over a lot of decks, a very potent strategy in certain metagames.

Dimir Machination – Supplements Contamination by letting you grab any combo piece you may be missing, while also letting tutor up bombs like Pox. Its normal effect comes in handy at times too.

Misinformation – A good way to ensure that your opponent won’t topdeck anymore lands anytime soon. *Props to Tannascurath for the tech.

Tangle Wire – A great way to supplement your land destruction. This would be an autoinclude if this deck ran more permanents. As it barely runs any, this card is probably not worth the effort.

Trinisphere - If your build is geared heavily towards land destruction, even at the expense of 1cc Discard spells, then this will supplement your gameplan against decks with very low curves very well.

Oppression – Very potent and not just in builds that use The Rack. This card can really devastate Threshold and most control and combo decks.

Chains of Mephistoteles – Another very potent weapon against Threshold, Control and Combo decks. Definitely a worthwhile investment if you can afford it.

Wrench Mind – If your build opts to run The Rack, and it needs more discard spells, this is one of your better options.

Persecute – In builds heavily focused on mana denial, especially if they are also running Dark Rituals, this can be an extremely potent means to decimate your opponents entire hand with a single spell.

Haunting Echoes - Often too mana intensive to be castable in time to matter.

Zuran Orb - Combos with Crucible to gain you life. But the combo is unlikely, especially in deck with no tutoring or card draw. Can provide some life gain as a buffer, but is too narrow a card to recommend devoting slots to. In short, don’t bother wasting slots on this.

Engineered Explosives/Null Rod - Both can destroy most artifact mana, and can hurt Affinity and even Goblins in the case Explosives. Both cards are less versatile than Powder Keg for all intents and purposes however so we would stick with Keg.

Other Splashes

The Red Splash

There are a decent number of cards that a red splash can offer this deck that work very well with the card Pox, Pyroclasm, Grim Lavamancer, and Lightning Bolt among many many others. Unfortunately, these cards all take up slots that are typically devoted to disruption and the focus instead becomes on abusing Pox to kill your opponent very rapidly. At that point we are talking about a different deck entirely, one that has more in common with traditional burn.

The Green Splash

Pernicious Deed – The only other splash worth considering is green, and this is the card that makes it worth considering. Deed is likely the strongest sweeper in the format, and it suits this deck very well.

Life from the Loam – This is another potent tool that green offers this deck. Not only can this card be discarded to Pox and Smallpox with impunity, but it can dredge lands (including Mishra’s Factories and Wastelands) into your graveyard and bring them back to your hand all for just two mana, a significant advantage over Crucible.

[Nydaeli]

Wow, that is a massively long post. It's over 8000 words, apparently.

Isn't it kind of crazy to run no acceleration and no turn 1 plays besides Tops? (It looks from some of your card descriptions that you mean to run Rituals. Is this an omission?)

4 Tomb of Yawgmoth strikes me as being too many (due to the legend rule). I know it helps cast Pox and such, but I still think multiples are going to hurt you.

[BiscuitVader]

Wow, that is a massively long post. It's over 8000 words, apparently.

Isn't it kind of crazy to run no acceleration and no turn 1 plays besides Tops? (It looks from some of your card descriptions that you mean to run Rituals. Is this an omission?)

4 Tomb of Yawgmoth strikes me as being too many (due to the legend rule). I know it helps cast Pox and such, but I still think multiples are going to hurt you.
I wont claim to know what I'm talking about, but I think being able to discard them to both Pox and Smallpox makes running 3-4 not such a bad plan.

I like your introduction thread...I think everyone should put as much effort into their posts as you did.

[Bane of the Living]

I completely disagree with this version being the closest to optimal as far as Pox is concerned. Your doing alot of things wrong and Ill list each one for you to combat.

A) White Splash
Its been discussed over and over that the costs of splashing the color are too great. You dont have a basic plains and wouldnt want one. Your playing 9 'sources' of white mana with 8 cards that need white to be cast. With Stifle, Wasteland, and Rishadin Port all over the meta I can see you fetching into your Scrubland and casting a white card once before you lose your source. Pox costs triple black and your playing it as a four of. I really dont buy your matchup percentages against other decks running Sinkhole/Vindicate. Especially when they have Dark Ritual and you dont. No Mox Diamond to help get white?? Why bother?

B) No 1cc cards aside from top. This is definitly a problem. I always push running 8 minimum in a deck not playing accel or CotV. YOU HAVE NO ANSWER TO GOBLIN LACKEY ON THE PLAY OR DRAW Your not even playing Engineered Plague in the main or side. ROFL.

C) No acceleration. Your lack of acceleration will keep your deck in check by Daze and out tempo'd by Goblins mana cheats. Solidarity will go off easily when you arent playing ritual or duress.

D) Flagstones is terrible in this deck. It doesnt tap for black unless you have tomb.

E) Theres no way your matchups are that good against Burn or Loam decks. Those are pox's worst matches, you win like 20% of them with a GOOD list. The rest of your results also look inane because your 50% or better with everything. Yea right.

You shouldve taken one of the lists from the N&D that was closer to the others. One of the decks 4-8 cards off from the others, not your own personal strange lists.

[Anarky87]

I know this comes from no testing, but based off of your testing, this seems like a deck that's good against a few things, but not great against anything. Most of your matchups barely scratch above the 50% marker, which seems like you could theoretically do, but that means you're coin-flipping pretty much every game you're playing. And even post-board matchups barely improve, which doesn't shout 'Play this!' to me.

[Clark Kant]

Updating this post to keep the most current 2017 version of Vaka Pox on the front page.

Vaka Pox 2017

// Mana
4 Wasteland
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Scrubland
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta
3 Swamp
3 Mishra's Factory

// Threats
1 Bloodghast
1 Gurmag Angler
1 Tombstalker
4 Liliana of the Veil

// Disruption
1 Raven's Crime
2 Duress
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Pox
4 Smallpox
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Sinkhole
4 Vindicate

// Sideboard
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Pithing Needle
2 Trinisphere
2 Toxic Deluge

[Bane of the Living]

The 1cc cards simply didn't have enough of an impact and were dead against too many matchups. More importantly, they were eating up slots for cards that the deck absolutely needed to run.

Thats such a funny quote.



Bane, I know we argued about stuff in the past but that's a shoddy reason for calling me a liar and trying to pick a fight.

Did you read what I wrote at all? If Im picking a fight with anything its your card choices. You have no answer to goblin lackey on the play or the draw. Unless of course you consider playing Smallpox on your second turn an answer.

[Clark Kant]

Bane, Innocent Blood and Funeral Charm were extensively tested, read the N&D forum. Yes, a Lackey does go unanswered for a turn or two at times and this does cost you some games. But many times, even with an unanswered Lackey, you can stabilize with Ghostly Prison or Nether Spirit or Chimeric Idol or Infest and mana screw them from that point on keeping them from playing additional threats. This deck has a large number of ways to stabilize versus goblins and run them out of steam. Innocent Blood while good versus Goblins was a dead draw against too many matchups. This deck has only so many maindeck cards it can devote to dead draws against control, and those slots are far better occupied by Ghostly Prison which wins games versus aggro all on it's own at times, something that Innocent Blood can't claim. Also, please keep in mind that not every deck plays a 1cc cost Lackey remover or blocker. B/w confidant, Enchantress, and a large number of decks don't.

[Awesomator]

Goblins runs right through nether spirit and idol if they get to swing in with a lackey.
Clark Kant, if you want to test we can play a certain decided number of games preboard and then post board. You many be playing against weak goblin players. It would be fun to test the pox match a little more anyway, and then you can maybe change your results or switch your card choices.

[Peter_Rotten]

From the Open Forum Description:

For "finished" decks: Decks which are optimized and thoroughly tested. A deck is not required to have proven itself in a competitive tournament environment to be included in the Open Forum, but it is recommended. A thorough writeup including card choices, strategy, and matchup descriptions is required.

The deck stays in the Open Forum.

[Clark Kant]

Thank you very much for helping keep this thread clean Peter.

Nydaei, sorry for the typo in regards to Dark Ritual. The Card Analysis section, that's the only section btw, is copy pasted from a much earlier primer for the monoblack version of Pox, so it's outdated in regards to just one or two cards such as Dark Ritual. I should have bolded this statement when I first posted this. I went back and bolded it now. The earlier deck had to rely on explosiveness as it had no staying power and couldn't keep the disruption flowing. It also lost a lot more often for this reason. But the section is still invaluable in familiarizing people with the different directions the deck can take.

Awesomator, that's mainly how this deck loses, but Ghostly Prison can singlehandedly shut down goblins, and even without it, this deck does a good job of limiting the number of goblins they can get into play, and picking off their attackers one by one with Spirit and Idol.

I would love to test against the deck some more against goblins though. I played the best goblins player I know but it's not like you can ever overtest the goblins matchup.

I'm at a computer lab and won't have access to my personal computer again till the third week of April though but how about sending me a pm with your MWS name or IM name and we can decide on a time to test.

[Clark Kant]

I want to post a few quick updates. First, I regret that I initially forgot to thank the other people in my playgroup (the people that play at our shop) for their contributions in letting me play and thus test such a frustratingly disruptive deck against them as well. You guys have been great. So here's your mention.

Second, I had a chance to play (though not formally test) the build that ran...

-3 Sensei's Top
-2 Crucible
-1 Bloodstained Mire
+3 Trinisphere
+2 Rancid Earth
+1 Scrubland

and that build performed very well as well. Obviously, it has a disadvantage versus landstill, 43 lands, and generally, the slower decks. But Trinisphere has proven to be a huge boon against fast decks such as Burn especially, and I suspect fast combo as well.

I do miss the lategame staying power that Crucible and Top gives you. But which of these two configurations you opt for should be decided by your metagame, as both perform well.

Third, the reason why most of the people who didn't test the build themselves refuse to believe that it's strong, is that it looks slow, has no turn one play and thus people seem to think that's it's not a very good deck. Yes, it has no turn one plays preboard, and is slow to get started.

But I absolutely promise you that you will change your mind about the deck if you test the deck (especially if you test it in real life after pile shuffling twice before each game, but I'm sure MWS isn't bad either.) The effect of running 20-22 land destruction spells is extremely extremely potent and absolutely devastates manabases, esp when those spells simultanously kill creatures. And even versus decks that get a good bit of creatures down before they start losing all of their lands, the deck has a number of ways to stabilize and eventually completely shut down their attacks, 4 Ghostly Prison (which means you will see one early most games), the infinately chump blocking and weenie killing Nether Spirit, Smallpox and Pox killing off their creatures, Cabal Pit all help you live long enough and either stabilize or completely shut down their attack phase.

And that's why, if you just test the deck out as opposed to judging it based on preconcieved notions about how every curve should look even if it means cutting cards vital to the decks function, I promise that you will confirm the same results that I got, even before you get experienced with the finer details needed to play it optimally. And will likely agree that it's the strongest build of Pox yet (as our testing shows), and a strong choice for the next GP.

P.S. Bottomless Pit and Chains of Mephistophles both look like they have potential in the sideboard. Pit hates combo worse than trinisphere even.

[Clark Kant]

Preliminary testing with Tombstalker was so successful that it pushed the deck in a very different direction post Future Sight.

It's not optimal mind you, and didn't have organized testing, so I would love to hear feedback on the updated build in the opening post.

[Nydaeli]

I like the look of the new build a lot. From my (fairly casual) experimenting with the old build, it felt quite slow. It didn't have a solid turn 1 play, and Nether Spirit was often too little too late. Tombstalker and Ritual go a long way toward fixing both of those problems. I'll play around with it some.

It sounds dumb, but Darkblast might be really good here for feeding Stalker and killing Lackeys.

[Clark Kant]

Darkblast seems like a neat idea. It is a great card overall esp versus lackey. But so far, between the huge number of disruption cards, fetchlands, and pox effects which put 3-4 cards in the yard each time they are used, situations where one or even two tombstalkers couldn't be played were rare.

More importantly, darkblast eats up disruption slots that the deck doesn't have to spare. Every land destruction slot cut makes it harder to mana lock out the opposition. Plus dredge eats up card draws that the deck can't afford to lose.

[JohnnyCage]

I'm sure i will catch some hell for saying this but i played pox in the past, extensively, before smallpox. And anyone can see after testing extensively that there is no synergy between the two cards other then namesake. Turn two smallpox, well that sets the earliest pox for turn 4. Meanwhile you were unable to answer lacky, and other threats on field. It throws off the mana as you well honestly have trouble getting to a pox, so a draw into one will be a dead card. Pox was good, but with the inclusion of smallpox, it isn't helped.

[Clark Kant]

The deck has a number of ways to deal with Lackey on the play and a number of ways to deal with the byproducts of an answered lackey when on the draw (Ghostly Prison, Infest to kill every single goblin they have, recurring Factories or Spirits, 3/3 blockers etc). Pox was forced to run creatures like Chimeric Idol etc to get around losing it's threats, threats that Smallpox has synergy with, I fail to see how that's a bad thing.

Regardless, this deck isn't Pox, it's Vaka Pox. It has a different name because it's mechanistically a very different deck and has a strategy that tested to be viable in the format where traditional Pox wasn't. The focus is 99% on land destruction which is why it run on average 23 land destruction spells. It just so happens that 7-8 of the land destruction spells also double as creature removal, discard, and enable a turn 3 or turn 4 5/5 flyer for just 2 mana.

Before calling this deck pox I strongly encourage you to test the newest build posted...

// Lands
4 Wasteland
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Scrubland
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta
3 Swamp
3 Mishra's Factory

// Threats
4 Tombstalker

// Disruption
4 Dark Ritual
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
4 Sinkhole
4 Vindicate
3 Pox
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Trinisphere
2 Rancid Earth/Sensei's Divining Top

// Sideboard
4 Duress
4 Ghostly Prison
3 Jotun Grunt
2 Infest
2 Cabal Therapy/Chains of Mephistopheles

and see for yourself why it's different from and better than traditional Pox.

[The Grim Reaper]

I think the new list has taken the deck in a completely different direction, removing the ideas behind the original list. Originally, you sought out to make a pox deck that relies on steady card advantage, board position, and card synergy in order to win. Interactions like Flagstones, Idols, Crucibles, Nether spirit and Ghostly prison with Pox/Smallpox. With the new deck, it seems that these interactions are gone and the deck has degenerated into some kind of weak black disruption/aggro. The deck is now extremely vunerable to graveyard hate, which is rampant in the format.

Now don't get me wrong, I love this deck and have been playtesting it like crazy, I just feel that this new list is taking the deck in a direction it should not go. Your thoughts?

-Grim

[Clark Kant]

I can indeed tell you had been playtesting the deck. :smile:

Yes the old build was very strong and consistent at slowly gaining complete control of the board. It was the build that was tuned and tested and I am certain that it's the superior build as of right now.

I do think that something close to the old build may well stay the best build even after tweking and you are right that the old build had no big disadvantage against graveyard hate where as this one does. But the new build does seem like a good direction to explore, because it does seem like Tombstalker has a lot of potential providing the deck with a fast clock that can bring down any creature an opponent is able to cast before the mana disruption kicks in. So I see no disadvantage in developing it further, and trying to optimize that direction as well before determining what it is capable of.

[Clark Kant]

Speaking of Tombstalker, I'm very interested as to what Nihilith can do in this deck.

Tombstalker is a great topdeck midgame, a faster clock and can kill Exalted Angel and such on the offchance that your land destruction plan failed horribly.

But Nihilth early on lets you smallpox and pox recklessly even if it means that not only your opponent's but your manabase is blown to oblivion too. If only it was a 5/5.

It warrants testing, though on the surface, Tombstalker looks stronger. I'll test it, let me know if you guys test it too.

What do you guys think?

[Hummingbird TG]

I prefer Tombstalker. Giving an opponent a Time Walk in which to find an out never was good, IMO. You don't want to blow yourself into oblivion, get screwed over by your topdecks, and on the last turn have your opponent find the STP or the crucial land to play it, and from there proceed to take over the game from your spent disruption...

[Androstanolone]

First off, that's an extremely thorough explanation and analysis Clark. You've done an exhaustive work on the deck and I'd like to commend you for your efforts, insights, and innovation.

I think Tombstalker appears to be a strong addition to the deck. However, this would be in addition to the nether spirits and chimeric idols you already currently run. It's vital to have at least 3 if not 4 of each of those to give you the early game against aggro. Nether spirit in particular grants a huge advantage when pitched to smallpox, so I run 4 to maximize my chances of this play (in addition to being STP protection). They also grant you robust win conditions later in the game when you may be casting more poxes. Tombstalker doesn't do either of these things but rather fills a different, more narrow function. It wants to be dropped in the mid game (after all poxes) to win quickly. Furthermore you need to discard other things to save it from pox. It gives the deck additional resistance to early game removal or fast starts from aggro. So, a couple utility/disruption cards have to be cut for it. I'll be testing it out.

I highly question the usefulness of trinisphere in a deck with such a low mana curve. Trinisphere is relatively symmetrical in this deck since you have no lands that produce 2, no permanent early acceleration, and all cards of 3cc or less. Your only form of acceleration is neutered by trinisphere. 3sphere doesn't belong.

I think I see why you want to run rancid earth. Since you can't deal with the turn 1 lackey you figure you'll wipe the X/1's off the board and smack a land at the same time. Other than this use, rancid earth is hugely unoptimal in the deck. 3cc cards have to be big time as far as impact. They have to be things like Pox and Crucible, which grant immense card advantage/quality/board position. Rancid earth could be any of a number of cards that fit the decks' mana curve better and help deal with specific problems.

With respect to vindicate, it fills a much-needed role in pox, and I have tested out B/W pox with vindicate. However, in testing I have consistently found it to be a bit clunky and unwieldy (for this deck). When playing with vindicate I kept pushing myself to just put powder keg back into the deck. Killing a land with vindicate was usually highly suboptimal. Destroying the occasional enchantment proved useful. But as for destroying creatures and artifacts, powder keg was generally far superior in this deck. It streamlines with the mana curve, it can be played before there's even a threat in sight, can generate massive card advantage in situations (affinity much? lots of 1cc weenies much?) and cheaply deals with pithing needle and aether vial. Once vindicate left the deck, the incentive to play white quickly left with it.

Ghostly prison is an interesting piece of innovation. If this deck had one card to punish all aggro with this would be it. It synergizes with the mana denial and generally slows them down far enough for anything above an abysmal draw to win the game. Granted you need to unclog the ground or have a big evasive beater (tombstalker) to actually win. Theoretically you don't need to deal with turn 1 lackey if you can drop this turn 3. You also don't have to worry about vial so much. Powder keg is just as dead against combo. Funeral charm is more versatile but doesn't shut down aggro. This card deserves very serious consideration by pox players willing to splash white.

Clark: I propose you cut rituals, rancid earth, and trinisphere from the deck at least. Nether spirit has to go in, it has too much synergy not to be played. I'd also run only 3 tombstalkers. I'd put in the 4th pox too. Finally, duress needs to be run in any reasonable meta because there's plenty of IGG and Solid out there, in addition to random stuff you need to get rid of. I know you said duress hurts the gob matchup. I disagree, I've taken vial out of their hand several times. Additionally, snatching their naturalize/disenchant before you cast an important artifact/enchantment (idol, E. Plague, Ghostly Prison, crucible) wins the freakin' game. For three, snatching STP or bolt can keep your future nether spirit/idol/tombstalker around a lot longer (long enough to win the game even).

I still think you are undervaluing funeral charm. It's rarely a dead card for me. I cast it in the early game and they pitch a land then get mana screwed. Or they pitch a spell and now I don't have to worry about that spell. Or I zap lackey. I cast it mid game and they basically skip their draw step. Or I pump my idol/spirit to lethal. Or my spirit trades with an X/4.

Anyway, that's my $.02.

[tylerwylie]

First off, that's an extremely thorough explanation and analysis Clark. You've done an exhaustive work on the deck and I'd like to commend you for your efforts, insights, and innovation.

I think Tombstalker appears to be a strong addition to the deck. However, this would be in addition to the nether spirits and chimeric idols you already currently run. It's vital to have at least 3 if not 4 of each of those to give you the early game against aggro. Nether spirit in particular grants a huge advantage when pitched to smallpox, so I run 4 to maximize my chances of this play (in addition to being STP protection). They also grant you robust win conditions later in the game when you may be casting more poxes. Tombstalker doesn't do either of these things but rather fills a different, more narrow function. It wants to be dropped in the mid game (after all poxes) to win quickly. Furthermore you need to discard other things to save it from pox. It gives the deck additional resistance to early game removal or fast starts from aggro. So, a couple utility/disruption cards have to be cut for it. I'll be testing it out.

I highly question the usefulness of trinisphere in a deck with such a low mana curve. Trinisphere is relatively symmetrical in this deck since you have no lands that produce 2, no permanent early acceleration, and all cards of 3cc or less. Your only form of acceleration is neutered by trinisphere. 3sphere doesn't belong.

I think I see why you want to run rancid earth. Since you can't deal with the turn 1 lackey you figure you'll wipe the X/1's off the board and smack a land at the same time. Other than this use, rancid earth is hugely unoptimal in the deck. 3cc cards have to be big time as far as impact. They have to be things like Pox and Crucible, which grant immense card advantage/quality/board position. Rancid earth could be any of a number of cards that fit the decks' mana curve better and help deal with specific problems.

With respect to vindicate, it fills a much-needed role in pox, and I have tested out B/W pox with vindicate. However, in testing I have consistently found it to be a bit clunky and unwieldy (for this deck). When playing with vindicate I kept pushing myself to just put powder keg back into the deck. Killing a land with vindicate was usually highly suboptimal. Destroying the occasional enchantment proved useful. But as for destroying creatures and artifacts, powder keg was generally far superior in this deck. It streamlines with the mana curve, it can be played before there's even a threat in sight, can generate massive card advantage in situations (affinity much? lots of 1cc weenies much?) and cheaply deals with pithing needle and aether vial. Once vindicate left the deck, the incentive to play white quickly left with it.

Ghostly prison is an interesting piece of innovation. If this deck had one card to punish all aggro with this would be it. It synergizes with the mana denial and generally slows them down far enough for anything above an abysmal draw to win the game. Granted you need to unclog the ground or have a big evasive beater (tombstalker) to actually win. Theoretically you don't need to deal with turn 1 lackey if you can drop this turn 3. You also don't have to worry about vial so much. Powder keg is just as dead against combo. Funeral charm is more versatile but doesn't shut down aggro. This card deserves very serious consideration by pox players willing to splash white.

Clark: I propose you cut rituals, rancid earth, and trinisphere from the deck at least. Nether spirit has to go in, it has too much synergy not to be played. I'd also run only 3 tombstalkers. I'd put in the 4th pox too. Finally, duress needs to be run in any reasonable meta because there's plenty of IGG and Solid out there, in addition to random stuff you need to get rid of. I know you said duress hurts the gob matchup. I disagree, I've taken vial out of their hand several times. Additionally, snatching their naturalize/disenchant before you cast an important artifact/enchantment (idol, E. Plague, Ghostly Prison, crucible) wins the freakin' game. For three, snatching STP or bolt can keep your future nether spirit/idol/tombstalker around a lot longer (long enough to win the game even).

I still think you are undervaluing funeral charm. It's rarely a dead card for me. I cast it in the early game and they pitch a land then get mana screwed. Or they pitch a spell and now I don't have to worry about that spell. Or I zap lackey. I cast it mid game and they basically skip their draw step. Or I pump my idol/spirit to lethal. Or my spirit trades with an X/4.

Anyway, that's my $.02.
I came to some of the same conclusions, mostly the clunkiness of Trinisphere. My Pox build right now is running Spinning Darkness, and Skeletal Scrying. I threw Trinisphere to the board, and Vindicate may soon be cut for Powder Keg, that way I can go back to Mono-black Pox.
The most controversial addition to my deck is Skeletal Scrying, but if you play with the math, it usually works out in your favor. If you're at 17, and you Pox, you go to 11, if you're at 15 and you Pox, you go to 10, so I figure if I set myself at an ideal lifetotal with Scrying, doing it early on for usually 2, sometimes 3 if I really need a card and drop the 4th land down, I can get better board position.

I will have a hard time convincing myself that Vindicate is worth cutting, and that my Scrublands won't be used. One question: If I cut Vindicate and go mono-black, would you run any Fetchlands? I'm not using Crucible in my build as well, and I'll post my decklist, maybe /shifty eyes/ after the GPT depending on how well I do.

[tylerwylie]

*snip* double post my bad guys, database error =(

[Bane of the Living]

I came to some of the same conclusions, mostly the clunkiness of Trinisphere.


I think pretty much everyone on this thread has assimilated against Vaka Pox.

I hope I dont hurt your feelings by hammering on this Clark but I honestly dont think this version of pox belongs in the Open Forum. We have decks like Death and Taxes and AfFOWnity that have a cummulative agreed upon decklists. You've made 2 major revisions to your deck on the first page. The most important feature of the Open Forums is the developed decklist.

Id love to help the prosperity of the deck but we need a common ground on development. I understand your focus is on mid game but there still is an early game to worry about. Ghostly Prison cant be your answer to lackey when lackey has already hit you twice (-2) and SGC and friends hit once (-5). The general concept of Pox has you losing yourself a good 7-10 life on your own, that doesnt make it difficult for aggro to capitalize on your net life loss. Now factor in that Ghostly Prison on turn 4. Its not like Gobs wont have a single Wasteland or Port to slow your mana development. Your not playing mono-swamps.dec

Lets focus on some early spot removal for christs sake.

[tylerwylie]

I think pretty much everyone on this thread has assimilated against Vaka Pox.

Id love to help the prosperity of the deck but we need a common ground on development. I understand your focus is on mid game but there still is an early game to worry about. Ghostly Prison cant be your answer to lackey when lackey has already hit you twice (-2) and SGC and friends hit once (-5). The general concept of Pox has you losing yourself a good 7-10 life on your own, that doesnt make it difficult for aggro to capitalize on your net life loss. Now factor in that Ghostly Prison on turn 4. Its not like Gobs wont have a single Wasteland or Port to slow your mana development. Your not playing mono-swamps.dec

Lets focus on some early spot removal for christs sake.
Innocent Blood is the best answer for early Goblin Lackey's. I tried Vaka Pox for a while albeit with some minor tweaks, and some of his card choices seemed great at the time, but it's not my Pox style.

[Clark Kant]

Bane, the only card there seems to be any real disagreement on is Trinisphere. And I'm commited to testing it until I'm certain that adding the card was the right move.

Except for Trinisphere as a way to fight combo, there was no revision to the original list. Once Tombstalker was previewed, to the very strong synergy the card has, it seemed prudent to post a preview build of what a build utilizing the card might look like. But that build isn't displacing the original list. The testing results pertain to the original list. So what if Trinisphere and Tombstalker are being discussed. Just because a new card is being discussed in no way means that a build isn't developed.

Look at the Threshold deck, everyone is now talking about Llurgoyf. Look at the Fairie Stompy deck, everyone is still talking about TfK vs. Fact or Fiction, Juggernaut or no, Cloud of Fairies or no, if the new Djinn is worthwhile. Is Psionic Blast worthwhile etc. Is Threshold undeveloped? Is F. Stompy? Just because there's a card or two that some people replying to the thread disagree about doesn't say anything about how strong the deck already is.


I think I see why you want to run rancid earth. Since you can't deal with the turn 1 lackey you figure you'll wipe the X/1's off the board and smack a land at the same time. Other than this use, rancid earth is hugely unoptimal in the deck. 3cc cards have to be big time as far as impact. They have to be things like Pox and Crucible, which grant immense card advantage/quality/board position. Rancid earth could be any of a number of cards that fit the decks' mana curve better and help deal with specific problems.

With respect to vindicate, it fills a much-needed role in pox, and I have tested out B/W pox with vindicate. However, in testing I have consistently found it to be a bit clunky and unwieldy (for this deck). When playing with vindicate I kept pushing myself to just put powder keg back into the deck. Killing a land with vindicate was usually highly suboptimal. Destroying the occasional enchantment proved useful. But as for destroying creatures and artifacts, powder keg was generally far superior in this deck. It streamlines with the mana curve, it can be played before there's even a threat in sight, can generate massive card advantage in situations (affinity much? lots of 1cc weenies much?) and cheaply deals with pithing needle and aether vial. Once vindicate left the deck, the incentive to play white quickly left with it.

Ghostly prison is an interesting piece of innovation. If this deck had one card to punish all aggro with this would be it. It synergizes with the mana denial and generally slows them down far enough for anything above an abysmal draw to win the game. Granted you need to unclog the ground or have a big evasive beater (tombstalker) to actually win. Theoretically you don't need to deal with turn 1 lackey if you can drop this turn 3. You also don't have to worry about vial so much. Powder keg is just as dead against combo. Funeral charm is more versatile but doesn't shut down aggro. This card deserves very serious consideration by pox players willing to splash white.

Clark: I propose you cut rituals, rancid earth, and trinisphere from the deck at least. Nether spirit has to go in, it has too much synergy not to be played. I'd also run only 3 tombstalkers. I'd put in the 4th pox too. Finally, duress needs to be run in any reasonable meta because there's plenty of IGG and Solid out there, in addition to random stuff you need to get rid of. I know you said duress hurts the gob matchup. I disagree, I've taken vial out of their hand several times. Additionally, snatching their naturalize/disenchant before you cast an important artifact/enchantment (idol, E. Plague, Ghostly Prison, crucible) wins the freakin' game. For three, snatching STP or bolt can keep your future nether spirit/idol/tombstalker around a lot longer (long enough to win the game even).

Andro, thank you for the very well thought out feedback. I agree with you on Vindicate and Ghostly Prison, they're invaluable.

Nether Spirit however has very poor synergy with Tombstalker. Nether Spirit is a threat that really works best if you run 3 creatures total in your whole deck. I really hated having cut it, and maybe it is more worthwhile than a 2cc 5/5 flyer that dies to your own Pox effects. I would have to test Tombstalker more to see if it really is worth it. But I don't think they would both work together in the same build.

The reason Dark Ritual and Trinisphere were run together was that Dark Ritual to cast Trinisphere (or Crucible in certain matchups) is probably the best play the deck has, esp against goblins on the play. The deck can very reliably keep your opponent at 1 or 2 lands max. Making sure that no 1cc or 2cc spells can be played at the same time is really strong. Dark Ritual is many times worthless after the first few turns. That's why I don't think it's that big a deal that the card is dead by the time you have a Trinisphere out. For the most part, it would be dead even without it. But if you want to run Duress in place of Trinisphere, I encourage you to do so. As was mentioned in the original post, Duress very likely belongs in a meta that's light on goblins. Unfortunately, goblins is very prevalent, and the card is dead far too often against the matchup.

In addition, this deck goes well into the midgame virtually every single game. And any duress drawn after your fourth or fifth is almost always a card that you wish could blow up your opponent's final land instead. That's the main role Rancid Earth serves. Picking of random x/1s is just a small bonus and the reason something like Rain of Tears wasn't run instead.

What you have to keep in mind with this build, is that it's entirely devoted to mana screwing your opponent. Running 22 land destruction cards tends to do that very reliably. And it just seemed natural to abuse your opponents inability to go past one land to ensure they can't play any spells (Trinisphere), or attack with any of their resolved threats (Ghostly Prison). It doesn't matter how many Siegegang Commanders your opponent got out with Lackey, it doesn't matter if they bring you down to five life, if you're holding enough land destruction to ensure they will never be able to attack through Ghostly Prison again.

I've run monoblack Pox decks for a very long time. Those builds just weren't able to always keep your opponent mana screwed after the initial wave of disruption. Addressing that weakness, and abusing this decks greatest area of strength (blowing up land) was the whole point of the deck. And I assure you that it was key in bringing up your percentages against a number of decks.

[tylerwylie]

I've run monoblack Pox decks for a very long time. Those builds just weren't able to always keep your opponent mana screwed after the initial wave of disruption. Addressing that weakness, and abusing this decks greatest area of strength (blowing up land) was the whole point of the deck. And I assure you that it was key in bringing up your percentages against a number of decks.

Then you can drop Vindicate for Black's plethora of 1BB spells that destroy lands if you primarily use it for land destruction, I really only use it for land destruction if I've killed a few of their lands already.

[Androstanolone]

Then you can drop Vindicate for Black's plethora of 1BB spells that destroy lands if you primarily use it for land destruction, I really only use it for land destruction if I've killed a few of their lands already.

If you're going to pay 3 for a spell you might as well have it do everything. Most especially pox badly needs to deal with certain cards like vial, lackey, survival, blah blah. Being able to take care of those problems while still having the option to mana screw is the point of playing vindicate and thus the primary reason for playing white. Playing a 3cc purely LD spell in monoblack pox would be horrible.

[Androstanolone]

Nether Spirit however has very poor synergy with Tombstalker. Nether Spirit is a threat that really works best if you run 3 creatures total in your whole deck. I really hated having cut it, and maybe it is more worthwhile than a 2cc 5/5 flyer that dies to your own Pox effects. I would have to test Tombstalker more to see if it really is worth it. But I don't think they would both work together in the same build.

Actually, I think tombstalker is yet another reason to play 4x nether spirit. If you pox a nether spirit into the yard in the first 3 turns then drop The Big Guy you can feel free to pox away, say, mystic enforcer later on, sacrificing your nether spirit instead of your Big Guy. So spirit acts to protect your Big Man while being very good all on his own (by chumping forever early or just an infinitely recurrable win condition when your opponent is locked down). Furthermore, 2 nether spirits in the yard ailing you? Topdeck The Big Man and remove one to delve and you're good to go. They go great together. Tombstalker may somewhat "replace" chimeric idol, he's not vulnerable to artifact hate but he needs nether spirit to be around to dodge your own removal. In any event, if you're testing tombstalker, you've gotta test nether spirit alongside him.

Dark ritual --> Trinisphere on turn one sounds like a horrible play to me. Mox diamond, ancient tomb --> Trinisphere sounds fantastic because next turn I can cast all kinds of things while my opponent is completely locked down by it (such as thirst for knowledge, uba mask, smokestack, karn, morph EA, yadda yadda). If I ritual out a trinisphere I've just used two of my own cards, consumed none of theirs, and now I have to wait out the next turn just to get out from under my own sphere. I suppose if you hit them with tons of LD after the sphere they may not have time to topdeck 3 mana, which is what the deck is designed to do I suppose. One thing trinisphere definitely does, isturns an otherwise winnable matchup into a bad one (stax).

[Clark Kant]

Andro, good point about Spirit, it might work. When I start testing the Tombstalker build over my current build, I am going to make sure to try running it with Spirit.

Tyler hit the nail on the end. Sure, the majority of the time, Vindicate does hit lands. But just having the option to take out your opponents Crucible or Vial or whatever other problem card they might have instantly makes it far superior to monoblack alternatives.

"I suppose if you hit them with tons of LD after the sphere they may not have time to topdeck 3 mana, which is what the deck is designed to do I suppose."

Exactly. With 20-22 ld spells, it's near impossible for you not to slaughter their manabase. Even at worst case scenario, your first ld gets Forced, your second Counterspelled, but you will always have enough ld to drop them down to 2 lands max by turn 5 and that's the worst case scenario. You simply play more ld than decks play counterspells. And after that, you never have to worry about a counterspell trading with a ld again, and you can usually proceed to sweep up their last two lands.

Meanwhile, with that turn one Trinisphere, you prevented them from casting turn brainstorm into a FoW or whatever else they might have done.

The main point of Trinisphere is that I was getting sick of decks randomly topdecking a land and Swordsing my Spirit or Chimeric Idol when I was just short of winning. Making sure they simply can't play any cards period. But the card is good for so much more than that.

[tylerwylie]

Decklist I'm taking to GPT: Atlanta tomorrow.

3 Nether Spirit
4 Chimeric Idol
3 Spinning Darkness
3 Skeletal Scrying
4 Smallpox
4 Pox
4 Sinkhole
4 Vindicate
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Wasteland
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Polluted Delta
7-8 Swamp
4 Scrubland
1-2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Sideboard:
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Trinisphere
3 Engineered Plague
2 Infest

Reason for only 3 Plague and 2 Infest is that I'm expecting a few non-Goblins aggro decks to show up, specifically white weenie, and am going to run either Massacre or Infest, I believe having 3 Plagues and 2 Infests for goblins is enough, and the only other choices I'm considing is dropping 3 Spinning Darkness and 1 Skeletal Scrying for 4 Innocent Blood, it all depends on what I see for the most part at the GPT.

This is the most successful build of Pox I've been running, thanks in part to Spinning Darkness and Skeletal Scrying helping me keep ahead of my opponent and my opponent thinking it's safe to attack while I'm tapped out. With 20 cards that can pop lands, I should stay ahead of them. The hardest match for me pre-board will be Landstill, after board I throw in Chalice and Trinisphere and it helps the matchup a lot more, specifically because chalice for 1 stops so much stuff that sucks for Pox, etc Swords.

[Gambit]

Clark: I appreciate all the time you've put into this deck as I really enjoy it. I do agree that trying to force the tombstalker in with cutting so many aspects that make this deck's synergy amazing is a poor choice; it makes it feel too much like a worse version of red death.

I have yet to feel the necessity of adding white, vindicate although being a very good card hasn't proved to be reason enough for me to splash (also I don't own scrubs...)

My decklist, this is a step back from where you are, but I believe it to be very strong.

Lands: 23 (With the totems and crucibles this seems to be enough lands)
3-Mishra's Factory
2-Cabal Pit (These should never be cut)
4-Urborg (the glue that holds the mana base together)
3-bloodstained Mire
1-polluted delta
4-wasteland
6-swamp


Creatures: 3
3-Nether Spirit

Spells:34
4-Duress (this is too good a one drop against so many decks to SB)
3-Innocent Blood
4-Small Pox
4-Pox
2-Sinkhole ( I only have two, however Rancid Earth has been very good at times)
2-Rancid Earth (This card doesn't get all the credit it deserves, often times it will be a two for 1, and clear away that small creature to make your Innocent blood or small pox more effective)
4-Hymn
2-Phrexian Totem (I actually like idol better, but not with the factories)
3-Crucible
3-Sensei's Top (MVP)
3-Powder Keg ( I suppose this is doing what vindicate does in your build; yet it has the ability to take out more than one perminant; blowing at zero against affinity to destroy their entire manabase is nice)

Sb:
4-Leyline of the Void
3-Infest
4-Engineered Plauge
1-Powder Keg
3-Cabal Therapy

Experiences with the deck:

Each game with this deck feels like you may lose; yet you almost always stabilize around 10 or so life and your opponent is basically reduced to topdecking with no board. While you beat with recurring Spirits, factories & totems.

During my testing I have found that there haven't been any terrible matchups where this deck just loses (goblins pre-board?). It also doesn't have any matchups that are complete byes.

Dark rituals were cut early on as they are only good in your opening hand, and top-decking is where this deck does and needs to excel!

Other thoughts: This deck get threshold very quick; are there any ways to abuse this? I relize tombstalker can, but I just don't like the fact that it negates the spirit what seems like a lot of the time. I like to use small pox like a sinkhole without caring that the spirit will hit the bin again, I would be much more hesitant to do this if I had to sac the tombstalker.

[Clark Kant]

Gambit, for a budget version of the deck (2 Sinkholes, no white splash), the deck looks really strong. Are you playing it tom too? Good luck man.

Tyler, I really wish you would try Ghostly Prison and run atleast 3 Urborg along with Cabal Pit and other goodies (Flagstones maybe). Plus a couple more slots to hate goblins in the side. But otherwise, the build looks excellent. Best of luck.

[Bane of the Living]

My decklist, this is a step back from where you are, but I believe it to be very strong.

Lands: 23 (With the totems and crucibles this seems to be enough lands)
3-Mishra's Factory
2-Cabal Pit (These should never be cut)
4-Urborg (the glue that holds the mana base together)
3-bloodstained Mire
1-polluted delta
4-wasteland
6-swamp


Creatures: 3
3-Nether Spirit

Spells:34
4-Duress (this is too good a one drop against so many decks to SB)
3-Innocent Blood
4-Small Pox
4-Pox
2-Sinkhole ( I only have two, however Rancid Earth has been very good at times)
2-Rancid Earth (This card doesn't get all the credit it deserves, often times it will be a two for 1, and clear away that small creature to make your Innocent blood or small pox more effective)
4-Hymn
2-Phrexian Totem (I actually like idol better, but not with the factories)
3-Crucible
3-Sensei's Top (MVP)
3-Powder Keg ( I suppose this is doing what vindicate does in your build; yet it has the ability to take out more than one perminant; blowing at zero against affinity to destroy their entire manabase is nice)

Sb:
4-Leyline of the Void
3-Infest
4-Engineered Plauge
1-Powder Keg
3-Cabal Therapy


Welcome to the source.

I dont think your list is a step backward at all. Infact I think it matches the ones that have been most extensively developed in the Pox thread. The only change I would insist is -1 Pox +1 Innocent Blood. Of course you should pick up your last 2 Sinkholes as well.

Id be interested in hearing how Clarks version Vaka Pox does in real tournaments. Have you been taking it to any? I dont see you posting in the top 4 threads.

[tylerwylie]

Gambit, for a budget version of the deck (2 Sinkholes, no white splash), the deck looks really strong. Are you playing it tom too? Good luck man.

Tyler, I really wish you would try Ghostly Prison and run atleast 3 Urborg along with Cabal Pit and other goodies (Flagstones maybe). Plus a couple more slots to hate goblins in the side. But otherwise, the build looks excellent. Best of luck.I did try Ghostly Prison, and I don't think I need Urborg, Cabal Pit may go in, but Prison's were too clunky for me.

[Clark Kant]

I dont think your list is a step backward at all. Infact I think it matches the ones that have been most extensively developed in the Pox thread. The only change I would insist is -1 Pox +1 Innocent Blood. Of course you should pick up your last 2 Sinkholes as well.

Id be interested in hearing how Clarks version Vaka Pox does in real tournaments. Have you been taking it to any? I dont see you posting in the top 4 threads.

It's getting tiresome hearing you go out of your way to attack this deck every oppurtunity you get.

You've made your views on splashing white known now many many times. :rolleyes:

Who cares that Vindicate singlehandedly immediately (as opposed to having to wait 3 turns with Keg) lets this deck deal with virtually every card it hates seeing on the other side of the board, be it Crucible, Aether Vial, all while doubling as land destruction and bringing your land destruction suite to a very potent 20-22. Who cares that Ghostly Prison singlehandedly lets you shut down aggro decks of all forms. I dont know what your reasons for not splashing a color that adds so much resiliency to the deck are, maybe you don't have the cards, maybe it just doesn't feel right to you. Whatever they are, why continue to post in this thread. There's a perfectly good monoblack Pox thread with excellent builds where you can post. Why not just post there instead?

[tylerwylie]

By the way, I take all credit for convincing Clark Kant to go back to White, go check the SCG older Pox threads. Anywho.

Vindicate alone is worth the splash, I don't know about Ghostly Prison, I have them, I like them, but I'd much rather not have to worry about my white mana and focus on disruption. You need Rancid Earth AND Powder Keg to fill in the slot that Vindicate feels.

[Clark Kant]

Yeah tyler, you definately deserve props for suggesting white.

If you don't play in a meta where Prison is as often useful (a meta without as much fast aggro), then of course you should run Duress or something in place of that.

Bane.

Builds have variations all the time. Look at thresh, some builds run 3 Pithing Needle, some don't run any. Some run Daze, some run Stifle etc. This is fine because the variations all serve similar functions. But when you're talking about dropping a color entirely, a card that when dropped turns the deck from one with 20 ld effects, to one that 16 or less, you really are messing with the strategy of the deck, and it's best to discuss it in a seperate forum. By analogy, compare UGW Thresh to UGR Thresh, they're both very distinct decks with a lot of differening strategies and desrve differnt threats. UGR runs a much bigger creature destruction suite for one.

Also, just because I don't have the means and don't in a location where I can readily drive for hours to play in a large tournament, doesn't make testing against very expereienced players any less valid. Most any deck can luck into a bye or two, luck into a couple of favorable matchups, and top 8 at a tournament, but having these results hold up in testing, I think that 's a stronger gauge of the deck.

[Clark Kant]

Yeah tyler, you definately deserve props for suggesting white.

If you don't play in a meta where Prison is as often useful (a meta without as much fast aggro), then of course you should run Duress or something in place of that.

Bane.

Builds have variations all the time. Look at thresh, some builds run 3 Pithing Needle, some don't run any. Some run Daze, some run Stifle etc. This is fine because the variations all serve similar functions. But when you're talking about dropping a color entirely, a card that when dropped turns the deck from one with 20 ld effects, to one that 16 or less, you really are messing with the strategy of the deck, and it's best to discuss it in a seperate forum. By analogy, compare UGW Thresh to UGR Thresh, they're both very distinct decks with a lot of differening strategies and desrve differnt threats. UGR runs a much bigger creature destruction suite for one.

Also, just because I don't have the means and don't live in a location where I can readily drive to a large tournament, doesn't make testing against very expereienced players any less valid. Most any deck can luck into a bye or two, luck into a couple of favorable matchups, and top 8 at a tournament (look at Madness), but having solid results that hold up in testing, I think that 's a much stronger gauge of the deck.

[Androstanolone]

Hey, just checking in.

My limited testing with Tombstalker thus far has been extremely positive. I've been putting him in place of chimeric idol and basically always play him as a 2 drop, which is just perfect. Sometimes I've had problems poxing to two lands and holding onto an idol, waiting for the 3rd land that took too long to come. Tombstalker ends games all by himself.

Can you imagine getting hit with turn 1 duress, turn 2 sinkhole, turn 3 hymn to tourach, turn 4 pox, turn 5 smallpox (discarding nether spirit), turn 6 return spirit and cast Tombstalker? Tombstalker has been insanely good, effectively decreasing my overall mana curve and making me want to replace powder keg with vindicate (thus maintaining the same number of 3cc cards as before). I'm not sure yet though, I've used powder keg to mop the floor against some affinity decks...

Irregardless, tombstalker is awesome so far.

[Clark Kant]

Thanks Andro.

Sorry I hadn't been posting much, I had been preoccupied with Vaka Beatz for a bit. But from my little time with Tombstalker, yeah the card is indeed exceptional. I don't think I'm going to cut it.

[Clark Kant]

Congrats on your GPT performance tyler. God I wish I could take weekends off to go to tournaments.

But way to represent us pox players everywhere. :smile:

[tylerwylie]

Congrats on your GPT performance tyler. God I wish I could take weekends off to go to tournaments.

But way to represent us pox players everywhere. :smile:

Thanks, pox power. I need a shirt of that card.

[Gambit]

Tyler: Can we Get a tourny Report?!

Matches, Sideboarding, misplay's, etc. Thanks!

[Clark Kant]

I think tyler said he wanted to keep his tech a secret for GP Columbus, perfectly understandable given how big a tourney it is imo. It's pretty obvious that he cut Trinisphere if that helps.

[tylerwylie]

I think tyler said he wanted to keep his tech a secret for GP Columbus, perfectly understandable given how big a tourney it is imo. It's pretty obvious that he cut Trinisphere if that helps.

Trinisphere is too clunky, it's on my board for Combo, and Combo it owns.

[Gambit]

How does this deck deal with combo? Trinisphere & Cabal's out of the board? What about against belcher decks? The slow clock seems to allow combo to refill.

[Clark Kant]

I'm glad you brought up combo. Now that FS is readily available and on the brink of being legal, I would love to get some input into optimizing the post FS build of the deck.

There is nothing wrong with the old build, but this is very much a metagame game, and the recent trend of combo decks displacing Goblins decks suggests that some new metagaming is in order. For one, running Duress seems more important, and the card itself seems dead less often now. Especially since the deck started running Tombstalker, being able to take out your opponents removal is a very powerful play. In addition, Tombstalker is such a powerful threat here that it seems worthwhile to modify the deck to incorporate it.

I've been very pleased with Judge Unworthy as removal. Not only is it instant speed removal that can do cool things like kill your opponents Serendib Efreet when they block your Mishra's Factory, but it seems be superior to Innocent Blood for three reasons...

a.) Unlike Innocent Blood, it doesn't force you to sacrifice your own Tombstalker.

b.) Its targeted removal, which works well given the huge number of choose and sacrifice effects that you already run. If your opponent has two creatures for example, you can kill their small creature with this and take out their large creature with a Pox effect. But if your opponent has multiple weenies, being able to choose and kill the most annoying one is nice.

c.) It's similar to Magma Jet in that it's not dead versus nonaggro decks. You can always target your own Tombstalker to provide some very solid card selection. Sure you can't deal 2 damage to the head like Magma Jet can, but the fact that you can Scry for 3 rather than 2 makes up for that.

The question is, how can the deck make room room for both Judge Unworthy and Duress. Here are the opitons...

Dark Ritual - Always was one of the weakest cards in the deck imho. This deck goes well into the midgame so you topdeck it far more than you see it in your opening hand. Plus it doesn't disrupt your opponent.

Trinisphere - A solid card for locking your opponent from playing any spells entirely, but sometimes dysnergic with your own cards and not always the card you want to see.

Sensei's Divining Top/Rancid Earth - Judge Unworthy somewhat already fills the role that Top did. But Top does have some synergy with it, letting you know when you have a Tombstalker near the top to let you kill something as large as an 8/8 with a Judge Unworthy.

[Gambit]

Basically; swap Ghostly Prison for Duress in the MD for the new combo meta?
Should chalice be included in the SB? The problem is chalice at 1 destroys the rest of your combo hate; maybe siding in 3sphere and chalice?
This unfortunately then becomes a race to get some hate down before you lose, which isn't always going to happen.
What about pithing needles? Too shallow?
Judge unworthy appears weak to me; although I haven't tested it. There is the fact that you basically can only do 3 damage at most and are not even garanteed that. I also am still unconvinced about tombstalker; yes it is a fast clock, but in my testing has proved un-synergistic. Making me lose threshold on my cabal pits and not allowing my N. spirit to come back to life.

I feel there is still work to be done; but progress is being made.

[Clark Kant]

Vaka Pox - Current Post Future Sight Build

// Lands
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland
4 Scrubland
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Swamp
3 Mishra's Factory
3 Polluted Delta

// Threats
4 Tombstalker

// Disruption
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
4 Sinkhole
4 Vindicate
4 Pox
3 Crucible of Worlds
2 Ghostly Prison
2 Sensei's Divining Top/Rancid Earth

// Sideboard
2 Ghostly Prison
3 Infest
3 Trinisphere
3 Chains of Mephistopheles
4 Cabal Therapy

The current builds sideboard allows the deck to be very moddable.

If you're playing against goblins for example, post board you have 2 additional Ghostly Prison bringing it to 4 Ghostly Prison, 3 Infest and 4 Cabal Therapy. (I usually cut 4 Duress, 2 Sensei's Top and 3 Crucible of Worlds).

The strategy is to lock them out from attacking with Ghostly Prison, buy time until you can do so with Infest and the various Pox and Hymn effects. Once you get them under Prison and your land destrucion, you have all the time in the world and can eventually use Cabal Therapy to take out their Gempalm Incinerators so that you can swing in with the 5/5 flying Tombstalker for the win while simultanously blowing up their lands. It sounds complicated but the individual pieces work very well by themselves even if you can't do all of them together at the same time and the plan works very well.

If you're playing versus combo, post board you have 4 Pox (great discard), 4 Duress, 4 Cabal Ritual, 4 Hymn, 3 Chains of Mephistopheles, 3 Trinisphere and if you expect that your opponent will go for the Empty the Warrens win, two additional Ghostly Prison and three Infest. Yes, that is a total of 22-29 anticombo cards but I think the current meta justifies it and you can usually cut most of your land destruction (except for Pox since that's such a potent discard spell) versus combo to make room for all these cards. And the disruption is dense and potent enough that you will rarely have trouble slowing them to a complete crawl while Tombstalker + Mishra's Factory provide you with a 2-3 turn clock.

The deck already performs very well against control but postboard, Chains and/or Cabal Therapy or sometimes Trinisphere are well worth bringing in.

Loam decks are a problem for the newer build especially with the loss of Jotun Grunt (which was solid in the older build), but you still have a pretty good shot at disrupting and mana screwing them long enough to lock them out entirely with Crucible and Wasteland or beat them down with Tombstalker. And Chains of Mephistophles is very strong against a lot of loam variants. I am also looking at Extripate in place of the other anticombo cards if the Loam matchup proves to be an uphill battle and traditional combo subsides a bit.

[Cavius The Great]

Just out of curiosity, how does Tombstalker have synergy with Pox and the sac creature spells? Do you find yourself playing around him most the time and do you only play him when you've already established board control? I'm just curious as to how well he's done in testing and if he's really worth it over Nether Spirit.

[Gambit]

I too feel like the synergy is being dismantled by tombstalker / no neither spirit. Pox / small pox is such ridiculous card advantage when you can discard a NS and have a crucible in play that I can't imagine cutting them. The clock maybe slower, but the inevitability is definately there, also I found scooping occurs more than beating for the final points. Have you found hitting BB turn 2 or BBB turn 3 to be a problem? I was having a few issues with both factories, and wastelands ( unless I hit a urborg). I suppose this is also why you have 25 lands.

Leyline of the void I feel is a necessity in the sideboard, at least while flash is around, it also ruins loam, igg, thresh, mirror (to an extent).

[Clark Kant]

I do miss Nether Spirit a lot. And I can't yet say for certain if Tombstalker was the right call. Something like that is very hard to gauge precisely because all the games that Tombstalker won for me, it's probable I might have won if it was Nether Sprit too, it would have just taken me longer. The two cards are so different functionally that it's hard to tell which strategy wins you the game more often. Just play whichever card feels right for you but switch it up and try both and eventually it'll become clear based on how often you win which is the better idea.

Tombstalker is really there as a finisher. You are supposed to use up all Pox effects and most of your disruption on hand before casting it. Tombstalker has synergy with the Pox effects in that each Pox effects adds atleast 3 cards to your yard, throw in a fetchland, and a sinkhole or wasteland or Hymn or Duress or Vindicate or something and you can easily cast Tombstalker while your opponent's mana is heavily disrupted. Not only is it bigger than anything your opponent can cast thanks to all the land destruction, but it flys above your opponents threats and is a very fast clock. And it has great synergy with Duress letting you take out your opponents removal.

Seeing as how it's a finisher, I fully plan on cutting back to 3 and am trying to figure out what to fill the empty slot with. It needs to be a threat clearly, as the 6 threats is too few. Ideally, I can got up to 8. But it's hard to decide as all the options have poor synergy either with Mishra's Factory, or Tombstalker.

More on tombstalker...

This deck does a great job of heavily disrupting your opponent. Pox knocks out a lot of life.

Duress steals aways Swords and other removal that can take out Tombstalker.

And Tombstalker acts as a three turn clock letting you race any deck after a flurry of disruption.

Many times, it's size lets it serve as a blocker and stabilize (long enough to cast Infest or Ghostly Prison postboard). But it's main role is to end the game fast.

[Gambit]

Well after doing some testing, tombstalker is doing pretty well. As sad as it makes me, nether spirit, although netting CA was not much of a force to be reckoned with. The evasion that Tombstalker offers is nice, as with the Ghostly prisons out your opponent may have a few creatures on the board, but with no land can't attack back as the tombstalker beats for 5 each turn. More testing will show whether or not this is optimal. But, as I was being skeptical toward Clark, I wanted to state that this *could* be the path to take.

I am also going to try testing a couple copys of skeletal scrying; yes they have poor synergy with tombstalker, but I may try them in the build without it. It just seems so good for refilling your hand

[eternaldarkness]

I'm going to agree that tombstalker is perfect in Pox. I'm an avid pox player myself and one glaring weakness of the archetype is the lack of a decent way to end games immediately post-disruption.

While Nether Shade and Chimeric Idol were nice and very synergistic with the decks themes (evading all of your pox effects), they weren't perfect win conditions. The lack of evasion and fat make them very poor clocks as any puny 1/1 could chumpblock all day long giving your opponent the chance to topdeck into gamebreaking spells.

Tombstalker solves this problem in one fell swoop. It operates on the same principle as Nantuko Shade in Deadguy Ale in that it kills quickly in 2-3 turns after unloading all of your sinkholes, hymns and pox effects. Imagine a 5/5 beater against a mana screwed, handless opponent with only 8-13 life remaining. That is the exact purpose of tombstalker. Basically, you don't give them time to recover from your disruption and this wins you the game.

The presence of hulk flash has however put the use of tombstalker in Pox into question. The preponderence of leylines of the void makes stalker a dead card. Perhaps once flash gets banned....? I'm not really counting on that happening though.

I also think maindeck leylines is the way to go to fight hulk flash. Use those over sinkholes as ld effects are starting to become less useful with the existence of a 2cc card that says "win the game". Leylines are also useful against threshold and Iggy pop.

I would also like to ask Clark Kant, exactly how good is this deck against Hulk Flash? I really want this deck to do well in Legacy and the existence of Hulk flash is a severe hindrance, IMO, to that dream.

[Clark Kant]

Good question and I wish I had an answer for you. My local group had preeminently banned Hulk Flash before Wizards could get to it, so my testing against the deck is too limited.

I really see not a single good reason to think that Hulk Flash will infact be around after June 1st though...

a.) The community is now at near unianimous consensus that the deck is a problem, invalidates far too many strategies and should have something done about it.

b.) The deck makes this format pretty much identical to Vintage, which kind of defeats the whole point of Legacy in the first place.

c.) We're talking about the dci here, the same people that felt that a easily disruptable green based two card hard to tutor for combo that produces infinite 1/1 squirrel tokens and passes the turn is too broken for legacy.

So I'm really not going to waste a lot of effort into figuring out a way to beat a deck that's not going to be around in 9 days imho.

If it turns out that I am wrong, then I'll get to work on an answer for you.

[eternaldarkness]

Well that is quite an answer. I want Hulk Flash to be banned to come june 1. I know its beatable. Same way Raffinity was beatable with 20+ maindeck artifact hate... :mad:

Anyway, I think maindeck/sideboarded leylines could be more useful than say sinkhole. Leylines really are one of the best - and fastest - disruption available against Hulk Flash. So if you want to play pox NOW while Hulk Flash is out in force, I guess thats one way of fighting the combo. And probably use the traditional Nether spirit/Chimeric idol win as stalkers will get hit by other decks packing leylines.

But then again, that would severely mangle the decklist. *Sigh*

[tylerwylie]

Well that is quite an answer. I want Hulk Flash to be banned to come june 1. I know its beatable. Same way Raffinity was beatable with 20+ maindeck artifact hate... :mad:

Anyway, I think maindeck/sideboarded leylines could be more useful than say sinkhole. Leylines really are one of the best - and fastest - disruption available against Hulk Flash. So if you want to play pox NOW while Hulk Flash is out in force, I guess thats one way of fighting the combo. And probably use the traditional Nether spirit/Chimeric idol win as stalkers will get hit by other decks packing leylines.

But then again, that would severely mangle the decklist. *Sigh*

The thing is, at the GP today I saw 5x more Fish and Threshold than Flash-hulk. I beat those easily and Sinkhole was a major player in mana-denial. They try to run with as few lands as possible so punish them for it. Leyline was on the Sideboard, but really, I boarded in Chalice so many times to Chalice for 1 against Threshold and Fish, which can really lock them out of the game.

[eternaldarkness]

What was your list?

Judging from the results of the Grand Prix, Legacy remains a variable format despite the warping of Hulk Flash. A mono-black aggro deck managed to top four!

Maybe Pox could be a contender? Dunno, we'll have to wait to see how the format further changes. Especially with the addition of FS.

[Clark Kant]

Once Hulk is banned in eight days, I assure you that the build of the deck in the opening post will be a very strong contendor in the format.

I am now testing cutting down to 3 Tombstalker in order to go up to 3
Ghostly Prison maindeck.

The pro to this is that Tombstalker really works best as a three of.
The con is that with only Tombstalker, the number of actual threats
you run falls to a meager six.

There were ample oppurtunities to discard away excess or early
Tombstalkers before, so cutting it to three may have been been a
mistake.

But going up to 3 Ghostly Prison almost certainly isn't a mistake once
Hulk is officially banned and goblins makes a comeback though, so even
if I go back to 4 Tombstalker, I will cut a Duress rather than the
third Ghostly Prison to make room for it.

To accompany this, I also overhauled my sideboard.

I also replaced the 2 Sensei's Divining Top with Rancid Earth to
support the inclusion of Chalice of the Void.

This is what it looks like now...
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Infest
2 Trinisphere
2 Chains of Mephistopheles
2 Tabernacle of Pendrill Vale
1 Ghostly Prison

Tabernacle of Pendrill Vale is perfect in the deck now that Nether
Spirit is no longer being run. It's essentially Ghostly Prison 5-6.
Tombstalker is well worth paying a single mana for, as you only need
to do it for three turns anyways.

Cabal Therapy just wasn't as good without Nether Spirit and with only
Mishra's Factory to back it up. Cutting it meant running Chalice in
the board in now possible.

Hell now, I would have sideboarded Duress and maindecked Chalice, if
it weren't inconcievable that I would ever cast Chalice at a number
higher than one. The latter is better at stopping either Swords or
Combo, while the former is better versus most things.

Now that I have Chalice against randomness like burn and elves,
trinisphere could go down to two.

And all in all this frees up four sideboard slots that could have also
realistically gone to...

Unmask - Combo

Extripate - Loam Decks

Leyline of the Void - Combo + Loam Decks

A Third Trinisphere and a Fourth Crucible of Worlds

Gerrard's Verdict - The card I'm currently using to proxy for Tabernacle till I get a hold of them.

All in all, Verdict is great card, coming in versus both combo and aggro, so maybe it deserves to be run here.

[Gambit]

Well, in the search for another threat I came across a possibly very synergistic card in; Chronosavant.
5/5
1W: Return Chronosavant from your graveyard to play tapped. Skip your next turn.

Bare with me for a second; you can discard it to any # of pox's; and once you burn your disruption / LD, you may not mind skipping a turn as your opponent most likely isn't doing anything during theirs. Let me know your thoughts, I will try some testing soon. It may prove that the turn skipping is just too much of a drawback. How is this superior to tombstalker; it probably isn't, however maybe a combination of them is what this deck calls for.

[eternaldarkness]

Sounds interesting. Also means that you can pox and smallpox even with your big guy in play as savant will just come back next turn. Kinda like a cross between Nether Spirit and Tombstalker. Ok here is my take on the card:

Pros:
-doesn't "die" to pox effects
-can be discarded to pox effects
-easy to "cast" as it effectively costs only 1W
-huge beefy threat

Cons:
-makes you skip a turn giving opponents more time to topdeck into solutions
-comes into play tapped so you can't block with it the turn you played it
-doesn't have evasion
-susceptible to graveyard hate (Leyline of the Void)

I think the list of cons outweighs the pros. Skipping a turn and coming into play tapped are just too big disadvantages that you can't take. Its also the same size and same cc (using the alternate ways to play them) as Tombstalker but without the evasion. And like the demon, Savant suffers from graveyard hate. Still think that Stalker is much more superior.

[Gambit]

I agree with most of those points; however tombstalker is also hindered by Leyline, you have a better chance of "hardcasting" chrono than you do stalker. LOTV is also a reason we pack vindicates!
I do think the lack of evasion could be enough of a reason not to run him, I will still try some testing.

[Clark Kant]

I'm not a big fan of skipping a turn.

Not only are you leaving them undisrupted for a turn, but you're giving them an extra land drop, which is a huge mistake imo.

But I can't say that I've tried the card.

[eternaldarkness]

Ok thought I'd share my list as a point of comparison to Clark's. I'm not using white as I don't have the budget for dual lands so its straight mono-black. I would really love to turn the deck into something akin to Vaka Pox but as such, I don't have the money:frown:

Note though that the list is rough and may seem a bit janky. Hell it looks janky to me, and I built it. The additional cards works for me so far however so they remain for now. Feel free to criticize as you see fit.

DemonPox
Lands (23) - 23 lands seems too low, this is explained below.
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
11 Swamp

Acceleration (4)
4 Dark Ritual

Win Condition (4)
4 Tombstalker

Disruption (25)
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Sinkhole
4 Smallpox
4 Pox
3 Rancid Earth
1 Smokestack
1 Braid's, Cabal Minion

Cantrips (4)
4 Street Wraith

Sideboard (15)
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Engineered Plague
3 Infest

The most janky inclusions are Street Wraith and Smokestack/Braids.

@Street Wraith: I really love the Wraiths as with them your essentially playing a 56 card deck. This the reason why I play only 23 lands as the land percentage with Wraiths equals using 24 lands with a 60 card deck. Wraiths also allow you to draw much more disruption consistently. Early game, you cycle them aggressively. The life loss is usually negligible as cycling them before you pox will only give you a net life loss of only 1 (pox at 20 life yields 13 while pox at 18 life leaves you with 12 life). Note also that I'm not using any fetchlands so I can usually support the 2 life payment. Wraiths however really shines mid-late game where they effectively increase your threat count to 12 (4 Demons, 4 Factories and 4 Wraiths). You can easily cast them with three lands using topdecked dark rituals that would have been dead otherwise. They are powerful clocks post-pox that don't die to bolts, Serra Avengers or nimble mongeese which can easily come down against you even when you mana screwed the opponent. And if you don't have the mana, then just cycle them.

Sensei's + fetchlands however, in a B/W build, is probably more optimal. If dual lands suddenly falls from the sky and lands on my lap, I'd probably play with Sensei's. Probably because Wraiths have been awesome for me.

@Smokestack/Braids: This is more of a meta choice. I play against a lot of MUC type decks including a few Stasis players. If you can't manage to resolve your disruption, having a smokestack at hand as a bomb is invaluable. Basically exhaust their countermagic with your disruption then play this turn 4. It allows you to sweep their entire board over a few turns then play your demons for the win. Against most other decks, these are more of pox fodder. Braids is more of a pseudo-stack that occasionally beats. I'll probably cut them for the second stack once I find a copy.

@Flash: While Clark chooses to ignore Flash, I on the other hand would like to propose a few changes to accommodate the combo deck. In this case, you'd want some more hand disruption as opposed to LD along with a few more clocks. Sinkhole is invaluable in mana screwing opposing Fish decks, so they stay in the main. Rancid Earth's (or vindicates) and Smokestack can be cut for more pinpoint discard. Some options include:

Cabal Therapy
Unmask
Distress
Castigate

These along with my 12 beaters and Leylines from the side should be enough. Hymn to Tourach and Duress are powerful against Flash. Duress can nab their combo pieces and tutors while Hymn can absolutely devastate an aggressively mulliganning Flash player. I still predict that the match-up would be rough.

@Chalice of the Void: I agree with Clark, this card is an absolute MVP. It crushes random decks, Threshold and Burn. Burn has traditionally been a problematic match-up for pox and Chalice will shore up the problem. I can see siding out the Poxes for Chalice in this match-up.

@four copies of Stalker: I disagree going down to three here. You really want to have that beater as soon as the dust clears. Before the demon came, I suffered in that I couldn't end the game as soon as I run out of disruption allowing the opponent to topdeck into a win. You WANT four copies of this demon. Against aggro, tombstalker acts pretty much like Ghostly Prison as it acts as this huge wall that they can't attack into without losing a creature.

@Tabernacle: Seems iffy for me. Unlike Stax, you will usually be blowing up one or two creatures with your pox effects. They will usually be left with only one or two beaters and paying for their mana upkeep isn't that hard in this case. The lack of synergy with Stalker and Factories is also a strike against the card. Also note that with Pox you will usually be playing with low life totals to the point that any creature is a clock against you. If you play tabernacle, they can just slowplay their threats right? Ghostly prison seems a much better choice as they have to pay more and its easier to keep them from two mana than from one.

[Clark Kant]

Your build actually looks pretty good for a monoblack build.

I agree with you that cutting back to 3 Tombstalker is likely a mistake. As a said, I only cut back to 3 because I feel obligated to test it and make sure that it's a mistake especially considering that Vaka Pox is designed to be more of a late game deck than Mono Black Pox.

I don't particularly agree with Street Wraith's lifeloss in Pox, but I haven't tried it.

I really think you want to be running Crucible though. Wasteland + Crucible is insane in soo many matchups. Enough so that I was running Crucible even before maindecking Factories over Idols. Add to that it's synergy with Pox effects and with Factories and with your low land count, and it's a must play imo.

And personally, I would maindeck Infest over Dark Ritual in a heartbeat just because I think you need some maindeck answer to aggro. Infest is solid against every aggro decks except for R/G beats and Fairie Stompy (it's great versus affinity, goblins, white weenie variants, Confidants, the new black aggro deck that emerged and when timed well can take out Nantuko Shaes too.

Tabernicle is a new card that I am testing. It makes sense to test now that the build replaced Nether Spirit with Tombstalker (a creature that's actually worth the one mana to keep alive, seeing as you only need it to attack three times). Just so you know though, it does actually have perfect synergy with Mishra's Factory, unless I'm missing something. If Tabernacle forces your opponent to tap the one or two lands they managed to keep in play to keep their creatures alive, that just means that they will neither be able to cast any more creatures, or attack thru Ghostly Prison either. So I think the card has incredible synergy with the deck.

[Clark Kant]

I've been testing 3 tombstalkers, marking the 3rd Ghostly Prison with a slip of paper, and keeping note of how often I would rather it was a Tombstalker. Inspite of how great a card Prison is, my early testing confirms that the initial instinct of mine to run 4 tombstalker seems to have been the correct one. It's early to say for sure and I don't know what should get cut, the 3rd Prison, the 4th Duress or something else, but I think the deck really should be running 4 tombstalkers.

Theres a new card that I am interested in testing. Peat Bog. Yes, it's a crappy card, but it has sooo much synergy with the deck...

The deck has only 4 first turn plays, three if you cut the 4th Duress.

You have to sac a land to Pox/Smallpox anyways, you can just sac this one after you've abused it.

Tomb of Yawgmoth gets rid of it's drawback so it stays around forever.

It lets you cast Cruicible, or Prison, or Pox, or Rancid Earth if you run it, or Vindicate, on the second turn.

You can replay it with Crucible.

You can make mana with it to remove the last counter, and remove it from the yard for delve, to effectively pay 3 of the mana cost of Tombstalker.

I hadn't yet tested the card, and there's a lot of drawbacks to it too.

I am interested in hearing your input on the card. Because frankly, I am not sure if the card is even worth testing.

[eternaldarkness]

Crucible does seem to be a good addition in the deck, possibly over one or two copies of rancid earth to take the 3cc spot. It does have fabulous synergy with wasteland, factories and smokestack. I'm gonna test it out.

I admit, I do have some trouble with aggro strategies hence the Infests in the side. I am hesitant to cut rituals over infest as rituals are your only turn one play along with duress. I'm hoping that the tombstalkers would help shore up the aggro match game one. Games 2 and 3, I bring in the infests over the least useful cards. Again more testing is required.

I actually had to look up peat bog to see what it does.

Peat Bog
Land
Peat Bog comes into play tapped with two depletion counters on it.
Tap, Remove a depletion counter from Peat Bog: Add Black ManaBlack Mana to your mana pool. If there are no depletion counters on Peat Bog, sacrifice it.

Looks janky Clark. The comes into play tapped thing is a serious blow to it. If you use four copies, there will be games where you draw into it when you really need that comes into play untapped swamp. Most games with pox devolve into topdeck mode where, sometimes, you have to topdeck that second swamp so you can cast tombstalker or pox away that threat. The CIPT clause of peat bog will really hurt your ability to draw into swamps and cast your business cards immediately.

There are a few notable synergies such as with the pox effects and Urborg. Note though that you will only get to use the peat bog once if you want to sacrifice it to pox effects. If you remove the second depletion counter to say pay for pox, then the peat bog is sacrificed immediately before you get the chance to sacrifice it to pox.

The synergy with Crucible while nice isn't really that good compared with wasteland, fetchlands and Factories.If you have crucible, why waste time replaying peat bog when you can just wastelock or recur fetches every turn?

Anyway, that's just my take on the card. Seems good in theory but fails in practice.

@Street Wraith: to each his own. I really fell in love with the card since it was pre-released. The lifeloss is usually only one if you cycle one Wraith before pox. The card really shines because the cycle doesn't need any mana and thus doesn't conflict with your disruption. Mid to late game, you can fuel it out with dark rituals to get an additional beater.

One thing I would like to bring up for discussion: What is the most optimal anti-aggro card this deck could use in the side other than Ghostly Prison? Is infest much better than massacre in the current meta? Most decks run plains in some version to gain access to cards like Meddling Mage and Stp. Massacre would thus seem like a better choice over infest. The downside is you get a much narrower card as opposed to infest which can answer goblins and random non-white aggro decks. Thoughts?

[Clark Kant]

I was originally planning on running 2 Peat Bog.

Nevermind though, I didn't realize that's how the card worked. I was under the impression that you don't have to sac Peat Bog till your next upkeep ,after the last depletion counter is removed (thus letting you sac it to a Pox after you used up the last depletion counter to play the Pox). As is, the land is much much worser, giving you half the acceleration that I thought it gave you.

I'm not going to waste time to test it.

I don't think Massacre is a good idea. The key deck that you absolutely need Infest against, Goblins and Affinity, rarely run plains. Neither does that black weenie deck that put up two spots. And after June 1st, the number of decks running Plains will only go down. Hardcasting Massacre is very difficult because Pox, and this build in particular is built to top off at 3. Were it not for that, I would be running Damnations.

Ghostly Prison is the best antiaggro card. Engineered Plague is the second best against goblins and elves, but does nothing against Affinity and other weenie decks. So overall, I like Infest over Plague for it's flexibility.

Overall though, I wish we could limit the discussion of the deck to those builds splashing white. The flexibility that Vindicate affords you, letting you blow up Crucibles etc all while doubling as land destruction, is absolutely essential to making this deck viable. And like I said, Ghostly Prison is the best anti-aggro card this deck could've asked for. There is an excellent thread in the developmental forum for monoblack pox.

[tylerwylie]

My latest Pox build:

B/W Tylerpox

Lands: 21

Swamp: 7
Bloodstained Mire: 4
Polluted Delta: 2
Scrubland: 4
Wasteland: 4

Threats: 7

Nether Spirit: 3
Chimeric Idol: 4

Disruption: 27

4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
4 Pox
4 Sinkhole
4 Vindicate
3 Ghostly Prison

Card Draw: 2

Skeletal Scrying: 2

Acceleration: 3

Chrome Mox: 3


I'm still teetering between 61 cards and 4 Chrome Mox and 60 and 3. I'm actually liking the card, after testing I realize I need some form of Artifact mana, and the two best sources are Mox Diamond and Chrome Mox.

I chose Chrome Mox for 1 reason, it allows me to run less lands and more disruption. If I was to run Mox Diamond I'd require more lands to pitch, which means more early on disruption but my draws will consist of more lands than if I run 21 or 22 lands and Chrome Mox, as apposed to 24 or 25 lands and Mox Diamond, and really it pays in the long run to have the acceleration early, and after my first few turns I'm just pitching excess Chrome Mox's to Smallpox and Pox.

The other card choice I'm teetering between are Ghostly Prisons and Spinning Darkness. I'm going to test with Prison over Darkness for now, and after another tournament I'll find out which I like more.

[eternaldarkness]

Excellent! Flash is banned so no need to gut the deck to insane proportions just to accommodate for a crazy combo deck.

Now that Flash is gone, I think the meta will go back to the old aggro and goblins format. Ghostly prison is thus a superior choice I think over Spinning Darkness as it can help fight off multiple creatures.

How has Skeletal Scrying been working for you? Isn't more like a cantrip since you won't be having that much mana courtesy of pox/smallpox?

[Androstanolone]

I know some are having success without running nether spirit. Nether spirit exists to be in this deck. Pox without Nether Spirit is like home baked cookies without milk, America without baseball, or pox without nether spirit. It has the ability to net massive card advantage and put aggro in a gridlock. It makes all your removal one-sided. Tombstalker is an awesome addition, but he's not tailor-made for the deck like nether spirit. Tombstalker is more like the latest fastest computer processor. Increasing your productivity, making you wait less, just making your everything run faster and better. But then you go and try to play some of your old classic games on it and they don't work. Either they're totally incompatible or everything happens too fast to respond to. Sure you can get something to slow it down for those games or get an emulator/interface, but who wants to screw with the deck like that?

I hope that makes sense.

I've had a good time with spirit+stalker. Spirit has saved my tombstalker from pox effects. It has pitched to pox early in the game when I couldn't cast stalker and subsequently held off aggro until I could cast stalker. It has chumped various creatures for turn after turn. Stalker has ended games incredibly fast. It has often been the biggest thing on the table. It occasionally has gummed up my hand when I didn't have enough food for it. It also has opened my deck up to graveyard hate. Now everyone's anti graveyard sideboard is much more relevant. The point is: playing nether spirit hasn't cost me anything, while stalker has. I like playing them both together, they go great. Spirit protects stalker. Stalker also comes down for a mere BB after saccing my own lands, a big improvement over idol/totem.

I'm not posting a decklist because I'm currently experimenting with powder keg+vindicate (no funeral charm) and, against popular opinion, sans crucible. These change the dynamics a lot. I needed to argue the case a bit for nether spirit because you're undervaluing them CK.

[tylerwylie]

I know some are having success without running nether spirit. Nether spirit exists to be in this deck. Pox without Nether Spirit is like home baked cookies without milk, America without baseball, or pox without nether spirit. It has the ability to net massive card advantage and put aggro in a gridlock. It makes all your removal one-sided. Tombstalker is an awesome addition, but he's not tailor-made for the deck like nether spirit. Tombstalker is more like the latest fastest computer processor. Increasing your productivity, making you wait less, just making your everything run faster and better. But then you go and try to play some of your old classic games on it and they don't work. Either they're totally incompatible or everything happens too fast to respond to. Sure you can get something to slow it down for those games or get an emulator/interface, but who wants to screw with the deck like that?

I hope that makes sense.

I've had a good time with spirit+stalker. Spirit has saved my tombstalker from pox effects. It has pitched to pox early in the game when I couldn't cast stalker and subsequently held off aggro until I could cast stalker. It has chumped various creatures for turn after turn. Stalker has ended games incredibly fast. It has often been the biggest thing on the table. It occasionally has gummed up my hand when I didn't have enough food for it. It also has opened my deck up to graveyard hate. Now everyone's anti graveyard sideboard is much more relevant. The point is: playing nether spirit hasn't cost me anything, while stalker has. I like playing them both together, they go great. Spirit protects stalker. Stalker also comes down for a mere BB after saccing my own lands, a big improvement over idol/totem.

I'm not posting a decklist because I'm currently experimenting with powder keg+vindicate (no funeral charm) and, against popular opinion, sans crucible. These change the dynamics a lot. I needed to argue the case a bit for nether spirit because you're undervaluing them CK.

I don't like Crucible either, but I'm loving Vindicate and Powder Keg, I'm trying a build with Pernicious Deed as well now, so I'm running Powder Keg and Deed in a B/G Pox build. Edge of Autumn might go in here.

[Androstanolone]

Hey Tyler, that's a very innovative direction to take the deck. Deed is great, sits around waiting to do its thing, and it does its thing really well. It is a little expensive, to cast and then to activate. Let me know how that goes. I could just never get into crucible, I always needed immediate impact cards, not cards that slowly gained me advantage over a relatively long game. Edge seems alright I guess, I donno what you're accelerating into at 4cc though. I don't think it really belongs. Deed + keg seems like a sweet set of board control though :). Perhaps even better than vindicate + keg.

[eternaldarkness]

Met some new people with Legacy decks today (Threshold and Stax). Managed to squeeze in a few games of testing with Tombstalker between enrolling for graduate studies. Still love the demon.

@Graveyard hate: After several games, I have realized that this is a non-issue. The amazing thing about this deck is that with 8 pox, you can just discard the cards rendered useless by an opposing sideboard strategy. They sideboard in leylines/crypts? Just discard the dead demon in your hand and win through Factories/Nether Spirits. Hell the simple fact that they're taking out cards for graveyard hate that doesn't even answer your overwhelming disruption should be an advantage for you.

I've actually found Swords to be a more problematic answer to Tombstalker than graveyard hate. And even using this as an argument not to play the demon is kinda weak as any win condition you could possible use dies to swords (barring Rack and Scroll of course)

[Holo_rip]

though that i'm not a pro of pox deck i really think that we should run neither spirit, cause it has too many synergie with other card.
moreover, one thing that i've been doing in this deck is to fit dark ritual. i mean, if we haven't such a card, we a clearly no turn one spell, and well, even if it is a relatively slow deck, no turn one for me isn't allowed.

Holo.

[tylerwylie]

Hey Tyler, that's a very innovative direction to take the deck. Deed is great, sits around waiting to do its thing, and it does its thing really well. It is a little expensive, to cast and then to activate. Let me know how that goes. I could just never get into crucible, I always needed immediate impact cards, not cards that slowly gained me advantage over a relatively long game. Edge seems alright I guess, I donno what you're accelerating into at 4cc though. I don't think it really belongs. Deed + keg seems like a sweet set of board control though :). Perhaps even better than vindicate + keg.

You never cast Edge of Autumn though, just cycle it if you're at 4 lands, might as well to go to 3 since when pox lands you'll be at 2 lands, etc. It's about the math.

[Androstanolone]

Good point Tyler about Edge.

eternaldarkness: I wasn't arguing against using tombstalker, I was arguing against NOT using nether spirit. Nether spirit should be the first creature in the deck imo. Tombstalker is faster and stronger, but spirit is good in so many ways.

[Cait_Sith]

Combining Nether Spirit and Tombstalkers has its own advantages and disadvantages. The more creatures you run the more likely you are to have your Nether Spirits not return, but the ability of Delve to remove offending creatures from the game is important.

[Gambit]

I've gone to

4- tombstalker
2-nether spirit

It may be that it should be 3 & 3; however you don't really want more than 1 nether spirit and you do for sure want to see a tombstalker: My list:

Land 24
4-Urborg
3-Bloodstained Mire
3-Polluted Delta
1-Scrubland
3-Godless Shrine
4-Wasteland
2-Mishra's Factory
4-Swamp

Disruption -22
3-Duress
3-PoX (I cut one of these for nether spirit as One Pox a game is usually enough)
4-SmallPox
4-Hymn
2-Sinkhole
2-Rancid Earth
4-Vindicate

Creatures - 6
4-Tombstalker
2-Nether Spirit

Good Stuff -8
3-Crucible
3-SDT
2-Ghostly Prison

Sideboard
4-COV
1-Duress
2-Ghostly Prison
8-Undicided (LOV, Engineered plauge, 3sphere, extirpate, infest?) Depends on what I believe meta to be that day

[eternaldarkness]

I've been doing some thinking on Nether Spirit and I've come to one conclusion: Why the hell am I not playing this in my deck?!

So I guess I'm going to add it up to my list along with tombstalker. The two creatures have great synergy together. Got another creature in the yard? Just delve it out via stalker.

@Gambit: looks okay on paper. You'll probably want some more Ghostly Prisons in there if your facing a lot of aggro. I prefer to maindeck Prison over Crucible. Also, you really need to get that playset of sinkholes.

Your 8 undecided slots should probably include at 4 Infests. E-plague is not a good choice since you already have Ghostly Prison and goblins can answer both E-plague and Prison with the same card (Krosan Grip). Thus I advise infest to give you an anti-goblins card that isn't an enchantment. I'd also add a 2-3 Tormod's Crypt somewhere in there to help fight Iggy Pop...though they are susceptible to pithing needles.

[Androstanolone]

I've been doing some thinking on Nether Spirit and I've come to one conclusion: Why the hell am I not playing this in my deck?!

Exactly.

[Androstanolone]

After experimenting quite a bit with the B/w version, I've found gerrard's verdict to be quite worth it in place of duress. I've always been an advocate of duress, but have changed my mind for B/w. The reason is, with 4 hymn, 4 smallpox, and 4 verdict in your deck you don't care so much what's in their hand as much as you care that it's all gone. Verdict is a better topdeck because it can knock away anything, a land, a 3cc creature they might topdeck enough land to play, etc. It's also life gain, and one thing I want almost every game in pox is a way to just gain a little bit of life, giving me the clear edge in a very close race. So, this is the list I run:

4x nether spirit
3x tombstalker

4x pox
4x vindicate
4x smallpox
4x hymn
4x gerrard's verdict
4x powder keg
4x sinkhole
1x something (spinning darkness right now, maybe 4th tombstalker)

4x scrubland
4x bloodstained mire
4x polluted delta
4x swamp
4x urborg
4x wasteland
It can deal with vial easily but can't deal with a swarm. Unlike vaka pox which takes care of both problems via ghostly prison. I opt for a more versatile build with a very potent strategy against all decks in game one while siding some pinpoint hate like infest, plague, extirpate, ghostly prison, etc. The verdicts have been just awesome, completely wiping out people's hands in the first few turns. Then poxes come along to clean up the board, often taking 1 card in their hand they just drew and held. Finally, as mentioned before, the verdicts can function as some very valuable life gain, getting you outta the red zone against aggro.

[Androstanolone]

I messed up posting the version cuz I was in a hurry. It was supposed to have 4 wastelands and 4 urborgs. After playing a lot with the version posted above I was, again, wanting funeral charm. Mostly as cheap efficient removal for confidants and such. I went to 4 funeral charms and 1 verdict:

4x nether spirit
3x tombstalker

4x pox
4x vindicate
4x hymn
4x sinkhole
4x smallpox
4x powder keg
4x funeral charm
1x gerrard's verdict

4x scrubland
4x bloodstained mire
4x polluted delta
4x urborg (I left these out of the last list by accident, I've been playing 4)
4x wasteland
4x swamp

This list is extremely versatile and strong. Good luck everyone else with your pox decks.

[Androstanolone]

Kinda sad that this thread has died, but with the rise of fast, resilient combo, I'm having trouble keeping the deck competitive.

Chimeric idol shouldn't go out completely, though. Graveyard hate can really put winning on hold with only NS/tombstalker. Also fewer creatures in the deck helps NS. I settled on a build with 3 NS, 3 Chimeric idol, and 2 tombstalkers.

3x nether spirit
3x chimeric idol
2x tombstalker

4x pox
4x vindicate
4x hymn
4x sinkhole
4x smallpox
4x powder keg
4x funeral charm
1x gerrard's verdict

4x scrubland
4x bloodstained mire
4x polluted delta
4x urborg (I left these out of the last list by accident, I've been playing 4)
4x wasteland
4x swamp

[zulander]

Have you tried Drakmore Salvage(sp?) the dredge land from future sight? I'd also recommend trying out Phyrexian Totem as well. And give Phyrexian Arena a shot too, drawing cards late game can help refill your hand after a pox.

[Androstanolone]

The problem's bigger than that. Combo is too fast and resilient. It's not a matter of refilling in the late game, really.

[Sanguine Voyeur]

I've heard this described as "most disruptive deck in legacy." How can you have a bad combo match-up?

[Holo_rip]

I've heard this described as "most disruptive deck in legacy." How can you have a bad combo match-up?
Simply because, yes it is one of the most disruptive deck, but it isn't one of the most fast deck ever.
Nowaday, combo deck tend to be faster and faster, and they win the game turn 1/2/3.
But well, even with a relatively bad matchup, thing like discard spell, chalice of the void help a lot.

Holo.

[Clark Kant]

Sorry I hadn't posted in a while. I've sworn off the forums for a while but I've had taken the suggestion of many people to run 2x Nether Spirit in addition to Tombstalker as many people have suggested to heart. It definately works, but I'm still not completely certain that it's worth the dyssnergy between the two cards.

In addition, as you can see in my opening post, Tabernacle of Pendrall Vale have been in my sideboard since May and the card has since proven to be extremely versatile. I've gone on to maindeck them and relegating the Ghostly Prison to the sideboard in their place about a month ago. Being able to sac it to Smallpox against a nonaggro deck is a huge bonus as it not having to pay mana to cast it and its synergy with Tomb of Yawgmoth. My initial hesistation about the card stemmed from the fact that it ate up a land drop and didn't cripple aggro decks as surely as Ghostly Prison does but the tradeoffs seems to be worth it.

I would love to get your thoughts on the card as well though.

[Gambit]

What lands to cut for Tabernacle is the question?

I've since completed my playset of Sinkholes and my sideboard looks like this:

4: COtV
4: Infest
2: Ghostly Prison
3: Trinisphere
2: Extirpate

[Clark Kant]

I moved Ghostly Prison to the SB to make room for the Tabernacle last month. And I never felt it neccesary to switch back. The cards serve near identical functions except that Tabernacle isn't dead versus nonaggro decks. But if you run into a lot of aggro, cutting some other business spell to make room for both Tabernacle and Prison, Duress for example, is a fine call too.

I don't think it's a good idea to cut more than maybe 1 land to make room for Tabernacle. This deck needs a lot of mana producers and it's not a good idea to become too dependent on Tomb of Yawgmoth.

After swapping out 2 Prison and a Polluted Delta for 3 Tabernacle MD, this is what my sideboard looks like...

// Sideboard
2 Trinisphere
2 Infest
3 Chains of Mephistophles
4 Ghostly Prison
4 Chalice of the Void

I'm very pleased with what Chains does to Landstill, Thres and other controllish decks. It's worthless against pure aggro and pure combo but a huge bomb versus everything else making it a nice sideboard card.

But the direction you went with the deck, to pack Extripate and Trinisphere versus combo seems strong too. How has Extripate been working for you.

[Androstanolone]

Tabernacle is huge in here, singlehandedly slowing goblins to a crawl. As per the B/w prison pox thread and Clark's suggestion I put tabernacles back in (tested them some before) and can now replace my suboptimal funeral charms with duresses. This maintains/improves my aggro MU while also greatly improving my combo MU.

Clark, how's your deck doing against TES, IGG, Belcher, etc.? I've found Belcher to be especially difficult because they don't need to really commit anything to the board. They can either go off turn one/two or just hold everything back until they get enough mana and a belcher/tutor to win all at once. So, while I do slow them down some by picking at their hand, my board control (powder keg, sinkhole, vindicate) sit dead in my hand the whole game while they wait for the right hand. They have plenty of time to wait, too, because the clock is slow (unless I draw tombstalker, of which I can only run a couple or risk drawing too many).

The other combo MU's are better, and the sb can certainly help a lot, but I still find modern combo to be much more resilient than it used to be. Duress helps but they generally have many key cards in hand and taking just one isn't crippling.

On a positive note, goblins should be on the decline as a result. Additionally, my goblins MU has been generally satisfactory, especially now having tabernacles. The threshold and sea stompy MU's are favorable. There are a plethora of other decks but the general gameplan is strong. It's just that new combo is so fast and resilient.

[Clark Kant]

Excellent post Andro. You are definately right about Tabernacle.

I am not sure what you cut to run Keg, but if it was something like Chalice, Trinisphere, or Duress that are a big help to beat combo, I think it was probably a mistake. Prison, Infest, Tabernacle are a lot faster than Keg and give you great game versus aggro.

And you are right, IGG, Belcher and TES are in fact challenging matchups.

But it's also easy to fool yourself into thinking they are a worse matchup for you than they actually are because some of your losses are so unexpected that you selectively remember them more.

For example, you will have a some games against combo where even after you Duressed or Hymned them and maybe even managed to cast a Chalice or Trinisphere, they still manage to bounce back the Chalice and Trinisphere, draw more cards to make up for discarded cards, and win anyways.

Those games will stick with you. Because it seems like you did everything you could have hoped to do, threw everything you had at them, and they won anyways. You went from having a very clear resource advantage to losing out of the blue all in just one turn.

But there will also be many games where the combo player loses to bad draws, or crapping out when they try to go off because you Duressed a key card, or a combination of Duress, Hymn, Pox, Chalice and Trinisphere that stalls them long enough for your Tombstalker to kill them. Games that you don't remember quite as well, but that happen frequently.

So unless you keep a tally rather than rely on selective memory, it's easy to mistakenly think combo is a worser match than it is.

The reason for this is that a good top deck is sometimes all that TES, Belcher and IGG need to make a recovery from a Duress/Hymn, and one good turn is all they need to win the game. Thus, the game is as much about how good their draws and top decks are as it is what cards you play to disrupt them.

Compare that to goblins. A single Tabernacle or Ghostly Prison or Infest can stall Goblins down for enough turns that your land destruction/creature kill/discard can utterly mana screw them and deplete them of all resources. Goblins needs to be able to do it's thing for multiple turns to kill you, so you get plenty of time to disrupt their mana, kill off their creatures, or lock out their attack phase. You almost never go from having a clear board/resource advantage to losing all within just one or two turns.

On the plus side, against combo, if Duress, Hymn (or Chalice or Trinisphere) manage to attack whichever element of the hand that they are most deficient in (acceleration or draw/tutoring), you greatly increase the odds that they crap out whenever they do try to go off.

[Androstanolone]

Trinisphere seems like the kinda card that makes a lot of sense with so much mana denial. It makes more sense than crucible to me because trinisphere literally locks every deck out of the game if your own gameplan goes reasonably well. Even if the gameplan goes sub-average and they get to 3 lands, they're still stuck on one spell per turn. Almost every deck in the format wants to play multiple spells in a turn except pox. Pox wants the game locked up to play only one spell per turn. Many of pox's spells are individually so powerful that simply playing one per turn is plenty. Compare a turn of casting hymn, spox, pox, tombstalker, sinkhole, etc. with a turn of casting serum visions, impulse, a goblin, a tinder wall, etc. Most other decks are trying to abuse cheap efficient cards while pox is trying to abuse powerful 2/3 cc cards. 3sphere seems like it would improve matchups across the board in the maindeck. It just has so much synergy. I could go -2powder keg -1 verdict +3 trinisphere.

[Clark Kant]

I haven't seen your list, but yeah, I would definately recommend cutting Keg for Trinisphere.

You're absolutely right, trinisphere is an extremely strong card.

A big problem with the card is that Goblins can effectively ignore it thanks to Lackey and Aether Vial.

Plus, it makes this deck heavily loaded at the 3cc end of the curve. That and combo getting faster and faster were the reasons I wound up replacing Trinisphere with Duress and the 4th Pox, but perhaps that was a bad move on my part.

I could definately see a case made for moving the Trinisphere in the sideboard back into the maindeck esp now that MD Tabernacle replaced the 3cc Ghostly Prison. So I'm going to test precisely that.

One thing I'm undecided about is the land count. Some games, it seems like cutting the third Polluted Delta was a mistake even though I'm running 3 Tabernacles MD that can produce mana when there is a Tomb of Yawgmoth in play. Even with a playset, it's still not a surething that Tomb of Yawgmoth will be seen early enough many games. And it was nice having the freedom to be able to use Smallpox second turn to kill off Lackey knowing that I still had a great chance at getting to the 3 lands needed to cast Crucible two turns from now.

For reference, here's the current test build...

Vodka Pox

// Lands
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland
4 Scrubland
3/4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta
3 Swamp
3 Mishra's Factory
3 Tabernicle of Pendrall Vale

// Threats
4/3 Tombstalker

// Disruption
3 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
4 Sinkhole
4 Vindicate
3 Pox
3 Crucible of Worlds
2 Trinisphere
2 Rancid Earth/Sensei's Divining Top

// Sideboard
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Ghostly Prison
3 Extripate
2 Infest
1 Trinisphere
1 Duress

Both Duress and Pox make perfect sense and 3 ofs because you love to see one early on but rarely more than one. The first Duress takes out your opponents best card and tells you exactly what they have and which resource should be attacked. The second Duress isn't very informative and usually only gets rid of a moderately useful card. Similarly, if you've played land destruction thus far, the first pox is almost always card advantage (or atleast card parity while furthering your mana screw plan) as it knocks out 2 cards from your opponents hand, a creature, and a land in exchange for one card from your hand, a land, and the pox. But the second pox is almost always just card parity.

I'm still working on what should be cut to test the 2 Nether Spirit in this new build as I feel the card warrants more testing than I've been able to give it.

[Androstanolone]

It didn't take long to realize 3sphere just doesn't quite cut it maindeck. It's a great sideboard tool though. It's good against combo and thresh. That in addition to Rule of Law, leyline, crypt, and duresses should keep combo/dredge in check.

In your list, clark, I would cut 1 crucible because it's really a long-game card. I suppose you want the third in case of countering/disenchant effects. So the 3rd is arguable. I would also cut some combination of the 2x trinisphere and the 2x rancid/SDT for nether spirits. You don't need the extra disrupt/manip if you have a constantly recurrable win condition/chump blocker.

I run the win condition configuration now: 4x chim idol, 3x Nether spirit, 2x Tombstalker.

The 4 idols are needed, they evade graveyard hate. They're bigger than spirit. They have more synergy with pox effects than tombstalker.

[Clark Kant]

Can you elaborate on where you feel Trinisphere is subpar (other than goblins) a little bit. I know, I said that its next to useless versus goblins, which is true, but Tabernacle, Ghostly Prison and even Infest do a fine job of owning goblins whenever they resolve. Plus, Iggy Pop and TES seem to be not too expensive decks that have strategic superiority to gobins and are being run more and more by previous goblins players. Flash also seems to have exposed more people to combo in Legacy, but this may all just be my local metagame. Testing Trini again, I just love the fact that it deals with the free counters that were always annoying in blue based decks (FoW and Daze), and atleast served as a must counter card so that this deck could count on resolving more land destruction and other disruptive cards.

Plus, Trini gives the deck that much more of a shot versus combo game one and helps bring the deck very close to my goal for Vodka Pox, to have no bad matchups.

So while I still remain unsure whether trinisphere is something that belongs in the maindeck, I feel it needs more testing before it can be ruled out. Regardless, those two Trinisphere slots are up in the air. If you see a lot of goblins, I would put Ghostly Prison in the slots, else, perhaps Nether Spirit deserves those slots the most. Before Tombstalker, 4 Idols were indeed absolutely essential to supplement Nether Spirit. But Idols don't work here. They are antisynergic with Mishra's Factories. And more importantly, Nether Spirit is just plain superior. Nether Spirit costs no mana, turns the self discard of Pox and Smallpox into an advantage, and comes back for more usually. Chimeric Idol costs 3 mana to cast, eating up a whole turn where you could instead be playing Pox and discard the Nether Spirit instead. I'm going to start testing Nether Spirit in the 2x slots a week or so from now.

P.S. About Crucible, I did test 2x Crucible for a while, but always found that to be an extremely big target of countermagic and artifact destruction. It's a card that just has so many extremely powerful uses. Recycling Wastelands is a hard lock against many decks, but even when not, recycling Factories, Fetchlands with SDT and being able to Pox and Smallpox with impunity is absolutely key early on. So I think the 3x is the right call. But if you don't find the card to be as needed or as much of a target, by all means run two.

[Barsoom]

I'm on a budget then i cut the white and go for a classic Mono-Black Pox Deck, cause i love very much this kind of decks but simply i don't have many money to put in magic. Here my list:

// Lands
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Wasteland
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Polluted Delta
9 Swamp
3 Mishra's Factory

// Threats
2 Tombstalker
3 Nether Spirit

// Disruption
4 Dark Ritual
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
4 Sinkhole
4 Pox
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Innocent Blood
2 Infest

This list is focused on aggro matchups, that with the poxes, blood and infest are very favourable. In my games i found Nether be much stronger than Stalker; is simply too sinergic with the rest of the deck not to play with it. Stalkers are here for finish off the enemies, a thing that is simple also with a pox+nether+mishra however.

[Clark Kant]

Samsunait, while I certainly think Vodka Pox is the best option if you have the budget since it has no truly bad matchups, but as far as monoblack pox is concerned, you're off to an excellent start with the list.

The one thing I would be wary of is thinking that you have a good matchup versus goblins and not having a sideboard equipped to face it. In Vodka Pox, Tabernacle of Pendrall Vale MD and Ghostly Prison MD or SB are awesome because they shut down all manners of goblins and aggro completely, and stick around the entire game. Infest on the other hand only clears the board and gives them a chance to recover, and Innocent Blood is only pinpoint removal. I would suggest playing in the sideboard, more Infest and some Engineered Plague to do well versus goblins.

I really think the advice you would find in my first Pox thread would be far more helpful than anything I can post here. Here is a link to the thread....

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?p=91312#post91312

and my favored lists from it including one so for budgets too low for Wasteland and Sinkhole...




Variant One - Nonbudget

8 Swamp
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wasteland
3 Mishra’s Factory
3 Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Cabal Pit

3 Dark Ritual
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach

4 Innocent Blood
4 Sinkhole
4 Smallpox
4 Pox

3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Nether Spirit
3 Phyrexian Totem

Sideboard:
X Expirate
X Pithing Needle
X Powder Keg
X Engineered Plague
X Infest

Variant Two - Nonbudget

(Mana)
18 Swamp
2 Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland
4 Dark Ritual

(1cc Disruption)
4 Innocent Blood
4 Duress

(2cc Disruption)
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Sinkhole
4 Smallpox

(3cc Disruption)
4 Pox

(Win Conditions)
3 Nether Spirit
3 Chimeric Idol
2 Phyrexian Totem

Variant Three - Budget

(Mana)
18 Swamp
2 Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Mishra’s Factory
4 Dark Ritual

(1cc Disruption)
4 Duress
4 Innocent Blood
2 Cabal Therapy/Funeral Charm

(2cc Disruption)
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
2 Powder Keg

(3cc Disruption)
4 Pox
2 Infest

(Win Conditions)
3 Nether Spirit
3 Phyrexian Totem



The original Pox thread was well before Tombstalker's time. Since Tombstalker was printed, I heartily recommend running 3 or 4 of the card maindeck. Having such a huge flying beater thats a fast clock is so strong in the deck that its hard to explain until you try it.

[Barsoom]

Thanks Clark for the links, but i read all the thread (i take it from SCG forum) in the past 2 days; very nice reading before going to sleep... i like reading tourneys report and deck primers, and your primer of Pox is deeply and interesting.
That said on the lists right now i'm testing the deck, the sideboard will come (i buid the deck up for testing only 3 days ago). About Tombstalker i can say only that is very powerful and can end the game faster than Nether, but for me nether is simply stronger, and deserves the 3 slots instead of him. Maybe if i can go for 3/3 of them, but i don't know what to cut; a 2/3 slot right now is working and i'll continue to keep it.

[Clark Kant]

I should have known that you're already really familiar with the other discussions on Pox, the list you posted looks perfect actually. The 3/2 configuration may indeed be the best. The one small suggestion I could make that wouldn't require you to spend one penny is to trade a Bloodstained Mire for a Wasteland. Wasteland is such a bomb against the vast majority of decks and you always want to see one whenever you get a Crucible on the board. But that's making presumptions about how prevalent nonbasics are in your meta.

I remember the main reason I ran fetchlands in monoblack was not as much for thinning and to feed the yard for Cabal Pit/Tombstalker as it was to support Sensei's Divining Top. So if you're not running Sensei's Divining Top, fetchlands aren't as important as the 4th Wasteland is.

It's been so long since I played monoblack pox and since you've been testing it in the current meta, I would guess you probably know a lot more about monoblack pox than I do for the current meta.

The only other thing I would suggest is to throw together some sideboard cards including more Infest, Innocent Blood and perhaps Engineered Plague or something (ever so important for doing well against goblins) and start playing the deck whenever you can.

[Androstanolone]

First off, any pox deck will always have at least one bad matchup: 43land.dec. With LftL, Mulch, crucible, etc. it's just terrible. It's not a common enough deck, fortunately, but we should all be aware of it in case. I tested the MU quite a bit a while back and found that games 2 and 3 could be made winnable with sideboarded ankh of mishra, leyline of the void, and armageddon. So if 43land.dec becomes 50% of the meta I know what to do... hahaha.

I tested trinisphere only a bit and found it very clunky. Against combo it's often too slow on the draw and sometimes too slow on the play. Also, I couldn't give up powder keg because it eats EtW tokens in addition to destroying affinity, eating manlands against landstill, knocking out tarmagoyf and other creatures, and generally being an excellent piece of board control. My primary gripe with 3sphere is this:

I want to drop it early to have the most impact and to lock out my opponent, but I don't want to run 4 because it's dead in multiples, and I don't want to topdeck it when I need more board/hand control. When you're facing down a few creatures, EtW tokens, manlands, or etc. what is trinisphere going to do then? Nothing. Trinisphere has absolutely no immediate impact on the board, and pox *must* maintain board control or die. Trinisphere has a narrow window of success because you must be ahead for it to work. It puts more strain on the high end of the curve, meaning you can screw yourself out of casting it while your opponent gets a lucky td'd land or 2 and beats you.

[Clark Kant]

Lol, yeah, I had forgotten about 43 lands. Though interestingly enough, I ran into 43 lands a total of two times at local tournaments, and I won both times! I'm certain it was a completely luck sack, but by sheer chance, I was able to hold off their attack phase and then drew exactly the right cards needed to vindicate their enchantment and wasteland+crucible lock them out of the game two of those games, and the other two, I won thanks to Tombstalker plus perfectly top decked Sinkholes/Vindicates to deal with Maze of Ith or what not.

I do believe you. It's very unlikely that a ld/mana denial deck has a favorable game or even game versus a deck running 43 lands and I really need to test the match. But Wasteland/Sinkhole/Rancid Earth/Vindicate's ability to take out all of their most powerful cards (Maze of Ith, Treetop Village) etc gives you some hope I would say.

As for Keg, yeah I hadn't given the card a fair shake down anytime recently. As I already said, Trini is very hit or miss. So I will try Keg out in its place soon too.

[Androstanolone]

I guess the 43land decks you played against either didn't play or didn't draw exploration. Once they drop exploration it doesn't matter if you can wasteland every turn, they can play 2 lands to your one. Even if you run them out of lands and vindicate/duress their crucible, all they have to do is topdeck a Mulch or LftL and they're back in business. I've won matches before, so I believe you, but those were won on the back of aggressively destroying green mana sources and cutting them off (which is possible because so many of their lands are colorless or don't tap for mana) and swinging for enough before they could td the green.

We don't really have a difference of opinion on chimeric idol, clark, but rather on crucible. Once you run crucible you immediately cut idol for mishra's factory, keeping no idols in because of poor interaction with factory. Since I don't run crucible it makes far more sense to keep my black count high and run the 3/3 Idol. I love the idol, a 3/3 that evades pox, smallpox, infest, and innocent blood is golden. If you pox he's essentially a 4 turn clock and costs no per-turn mana investment. I can cast all my spells then use him to block if I need to. He's also not hosed by graveyard hate, which is around in modest amounts even in maindecks. Nether spirit and tombstalker are vulnerable to graveyard hate so it's very nice to have 4x of a 3/3 that is immune to the kinds of answers the other win conditions are vulnerable to. Idol is vulnerable to artifact hate, but not Neither Spirit or Tombstalker. It's great having that 4/3/2 CI/NS/TS mix.

[Clark Kant]

Exploration! That was the name of the enchantment I was trying to think of the name of in the quote below...


then drew exactly the right cards needed to vindicate their enchantment and wasteland+crucible lock them

I don't believe either version ran Crucible though, I would have remembered if an opposing Crucible showed up. So yeah, my guess would be that as you long as they either don't draw Exploration, or you draw the Vindicate needed to blow up the Exploration, you have a decent chance of mana screwing them long enough to win if you have a steady supply of land destruction, a very good chance if you also get the Crucible + Wasteland lock promptly. But the odds of that happening can't be good, so yeah, I have no doubt 43 lands is this decks unfavorable and toughest matchup.

Andro, did you post your list anywhere. All this time, I had no idea you weren't running Crucible. I can certainly imagine a Pox deck not running it, as many of my early versions didn't and ran alright. But atleast the way my deck is currently constructed, it's not an exatteration to say that Crucible is the most important card in the deck as it serves so many different functions. It wins games outright with the Wasteland lock (which maybe one reason I like Trinisphere a little more than you do since Crucible lets me continously play land destruction), it lets you Pox and Smallpox and discards lands to them with impunity knowing you won't ever miss a land drop all while your opponent will be praying to top deck lands, it protects and returns to play other important lands like Tabernacle and Tomb of Yawgmoth, it will hold the game together against aggro with a single Mishra's Factory until you can find a more permanent solution, the glue that hold so many different elements together.

I ran versions both with and without the card and really do believe it a mistake not to run it. I guess you should stick with what's been working for you but I really think you should atleast test the card if you hadn't already.

[Androstanolone]

I've posted several lists in this forum, clark, not a one with crucible.

Maybe I don't run crucible because I'm stubborn. I'd see it in my opening hand and just be annoyed. I'd have the decision of either discarding it, or the land I would need to play it. Then when I did cast it I'd be annoyed because I wish it was just a chimeric idol itself beating down. And then other games I'd be frustrated about colored mana, drawing factories with no urborgs. Finally, the biggest aggravation, was when I'd play one and then need some action, but topdeck another crucible while they proceed to win. Yes there were the games where I recurred lands and gained advantage, but it just didn't feel like enough because I'd lose to strategies that just didn't care about crucible/waste or crucible/factory. I just wanted more utility, board control, and consistency instead of The Power. But maybe I just need to bite the bullet and use The Power.

[Filipinho]

Here's my decklist:
Lands: (24)
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Polluted Delta
2x Godless Shrine
3x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4x Scrubland
4x Wasteland
4x Flagstones of Trokair
5x Swamp

Creatures: (5)
2x Nether Spirit
3x Tombstalker

Other Spells: (31)
2x Chimeric Idol
3x Crucible of Worlds
3x Ghostly Prison
3x Pox
4x Smallpox
4x Sinkhole
4x Vindicate
4x Duress
4x Hymn to Tourach

Sideboard:
1x Ghostly Prison
3x Infest
3x Extirpate
4x Chalice of the Void
4x Orim's Chant

vs. Fast Combo (not land dependant) (SI, TES)
-1x Smallpox
-3x Pox
-4x Vindicate
+4x Orim's Chant
+4x Chalice of the Void
(leave Ghostly Prison in case they can cast an Empty the Warrens, if you want drop it for Extirpates)

vs. Not so fast Combo (Solidarity)
-1x Vindicate
-3x Ghostly Prison
+4x Orim's Chant
(Your LD + hand disruption should be enough)

vs. Goblins
-4x Vindicate
+1x Ghostly Prison
+3x Infest

vs. Graveyard Oriented (Iggy Pop)
-3x Vindicate
+3x Extirpate

And so on.

Urborg is essential, but I think running 4x is too much. I consider the ideal number to be 3. You'll probably see one, but it's hard to see 2x. I think Flagstones are also essential. It allows you to make smallpox a sinkhole + cruel edict + making Flagstones a fetch land. Also it's very good with Smokestack in the SB, and with Crucible of Worlds. I'd run at least 6x duals. No room for more than 2x fetches.

[Clark Kant]

The build looks great actually. It's very similar to the original list posted, running Idol and Flagstone over Factory

I could see problems with the 4x Flagstones, they're great cards but so much white mana can't be good with so many BB and BBB cc cards.

Regardless, it looks awesome and I can't wait to hear a lot more about how it performs

[Gambit]

After playing this deck for a while I'm thinking of splashing red for Burning Wish. Basically every single card this deck wants to cast is a sorcery and also allows you all the wishboard options, my only concern is it may be too slow. Here's the list I'm going to test...let me know what you think, as well as other good options for the board

Land 24
4-Urborg
3-Bloodstained Mire
3-Polluted Delta
4-Scrubland
4-Wasteland
2-Mishra's Factory
3-Badlands
1-Swamp

Disruption - 18
3-Duress
2-PoX
3-SmallPox
4-Hymn
3-Sinkhole
3-Vindicate

Creatures - 6
4-Tombstalker
2-Nether Spirit

Good Stuff -12
4-Burning Wish
3-Crucible
3-SDT
2-Ghostly Prison

Sideboard
2-infest
1-Damnation
1-sinkhole
1-smallpox
2-pyroclasm
4-chalice
1-vindicate
1-Pox
2-Ghostly Prison

[SuckerPunch]

It's an interesting idea.

It seems to me though that most of the time, the main thing you will be wanting to tutor for is just any land destruction spell at all so that you could blow up your opponents last land.

Having to splash a whole color so that you could spent a whole turn just tutoring for the land destruction card, rather than just running all of those ld spells as 4x ofs in the first place seems counterintuitive.

This is the kind of deck where a 2cc card does eat up a full turn regardless of where you are in the game. With all the pox effects, you rarely get past the third land (and your opponent rarely gets past their first).

[SuckerPunch]

Epochrasite looks like it could might work well in the deck.

What do you guys think? Too slow?

[Versus]

I'm gonna chime in here with some dated questions...

I don't notice any artifact mana listed in any builds. I looked at the old shell of a Pox deck I have from Mirage-Tempest days and remembered it had Charcoal Diamonds. You mentioned Mox Diamonds, but gave good reason not to play them, but no mention of Charcoal (unless I missed it).

Also I notice you include The Rack as being something NOT to play here. I can't wrap my mind around that. It seems like a pretty great inclusion and has been a Pox staple for years, but I read your reasons and understand them.

Finally, and I gotta ask...Has anyone considered the green splash for Goyf?

[Clark Kant]

Choarcoal Diamond is a cool idea. The deck was just so heavy on 2cc cards that I never bothered to test another one. But it might work!

Goyf can be chump blocked all day. Tombstalker flies overhead. You have so many ways to kill creatures but have to hold off on them when either Goyf or Tombstalker is in play. There, it's sooo much better to be able to fly over and count on dealing 5 damage each turn than it is to give your opponent the option to chumb block all day long while you can't play your Poxes.

The Rack IS a good card. There just were very few slots left for the finisher cards, and Tombstalker (that consistently beats for 5) is faster and more reliable than The Rack.

Occasionally, your disruption plan doesn't work, and in those situations, the Tombstalker can fly in and save your butt and win the game where the Rack wouldn't.

Very often, your land destruction plan works way too well, and your opponent is sitting on his side without a single land and a fistful of cards he can't play. Once again, The Rack does nothing.

[Versus]

You're right, Tombstalker would be better suited here. I neglected to take into consideration that Pox was BBB. Urborg helps out with the splashing, but mana problems could definitely arise.



Very often, your land destruction plan works way too well, and your opponent is sitting on his side without a single land and a fistful of cards he can't play. Once again, The Rack does nothing.

Hmmm good point, I didn't take that into consideration either.

I'm thinking of picking this up and abandoning Sui. I used to love playing Pox. After recently returning to Magic from a long hiatus, just seeing Smallpox put a big grin on my face. Paired with Crucible and the other post Invasion cards and it looks like a real solid deck.

I wanna mess with the mana base a bit and see if the Charcoal Diamonds work out. I'll let you know if the results are favorable.

[Clark Kant]

Please do.

Just to keep you up to date, the deck now plays 4 Chalice of the Void 4 Tabernacle of Pendrall Vale in the sideboard (incredible with all the LD at hating out thresh, combo and aggro decks).

I am interested to see how Charcoal Diamond works as well.

Phyrexian Totem is awesome, but it's just that the 3cc slot is so full and it's hard to maintain 3 lands with all the pox effects. It sucks if you have to delay playing Pox for two turns or Smallpox for three turns just to ensure you can cast Totem.

Not sure C. Diamond is needed

I used to play Sui Black too. But it just felt like another aggro deck. The cool thing about Pox is that it feels completely different to play than any of the other decks in the format (with the possible exception of Stax).

And if you want, you can do what I did and buy 3 Jotun Grunt, 4 Negator, 4 Specter, 4 Confidant or Wretched Anurid or Shade for the sideboard) and transform the deck into Sui Black every once in a while

[Versus]

Please do.

Just to keep you up to date, the deck now plays 4 Chalice of the Void 4 Tabernacle of Pendrall Vale in the sideboard (incredible with all the LD at hating out thresh, combo and aggro decks).

What remains in our GY with Chalice in play? If we can play the lands from the Yard and Neither Spirit doesn't stay long all we would have to worry about are sorceries? A 1/2 Goyf isn't so scary! I guess if they manage to counter a Totem/Idol he would get a little bigger, but Tombstalker can stop that as well.



Phyrexian Totem is awesome, but it's just that the 3cc slot is so full and it's hard to maintain 3 lands with all the pox effects. It sucks if you have to delay playing Pox for two turns or Smallpox for three turns just to ensure you can cast Totem.

I agree. How does the deck do without it? Are Mishra's , Spirits, and Idols enough to finish the job? You mentioned Tombstalker, but I just realized he's not in any of the decklists from your 07-24-2007 06:55 PM post down below. could the Totem be eliminated entirely?



And if you want, you can do what I did and buy 3 Jotun Grunt, 4 Negator, 4 Specter, 4 Confidant or Wretched Anurid or Shade for the sideboard) and transform the deck into Sui Black every once in a while

AH! A revolving SB! Have you even played the deck out using that? I always try to think of a way to use the SB to change the entire deck around. You take game 1, make the 12-15 card swap for game two, and if it goes to game 3 your opponent has no clue as to which version of your deck to SB against. Everytime I mention it to someone they think I'm crazy. How has that route worked out for you?

[Clark Kant]

I'm a bit confused about your post comparing Chalice to the GY. Are you sure you're not mixing up CotV with Leyline or Tormod's Crypt? You can set Chalice at 0, then at 1 against combo, or just at 1 against Threshold and hurt them a lot, without losing anything.

The build in my opening post runs Tombstalker.

So does my current list.

The revolving sideboard is something I do for fun in casual games. For a tourney environment, I think you are better off with the standard sideboard. The standard sideboard gives you 4 Tabernicle, 4 Ghostly Prison and 2 Infest to completely hate out any creature based strategy. It gives you 4 Chalice, 2 Trinisphere, and 2 Chains along with all your discard to hate out most combo based strategies. It gives the deck an incredible postboard match against so many decks.

So I can't recommend the revolving board for a tournament, just for fun.

For fun though, yeah it works well. And it's an absolute blast to transform into an aggro deck after your opponent sides out all their removal.

P.S. I'm currently trying out that Dredge 2 Black land in place of 2 Swamp. It looks to have some potential.

[Versus]

Ach! I always mix up the "Void" cards. Yes, I was confusing it with Leyline.

I put together your "Variant Two - Nonbudget" deck this morning and loving it so far. I did replace the Wastelands (the opp I'm playing runs all basic anyway) with Charcoal Diamonds, but I have noticed I'm not really using them. I'll continue to test, but Wastelands probably the better choice.

I was trying to fit Rancid Earth in here somewhere. I'd still like to run Tops and Fetches, eliminate Ritual, and maybe try out Crucible, but then I might as well add the Vindicates and the other white cards and go Vaka.

Would simply -4 rituals +1 Urborg/+3 Rancid Earth hurt the "Variant 2 Nonbudget" Build? I realize the true optimal build is to splash white, but what would you consider to be (as close as possible) the optimal mono-black build?

[Illissius]

It's pretty simple -- if it's a creature, it has summoning sickness. If it's not, it doesn't. So you can tap Factory and Totem for mana the turn they come into play (they're not creatures), and you can also turn them into creatures -- but you can't attack with them, and you can't tap them for mana after you've made them creatures.

[Clark Kant]

Illusius beat me to it. But yeah, thats how Idol and Factory work. You can block with them the turn you cast them, but you can't attack with them.


I put together your "Variant Two - Nonbudget" deck

I wasn't sure if this is because you don't know what my current list is, or if you just prefered the monoblack build.

If the former is the case, here's my current up to date list.



// Lands
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland
4 Scrubland
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta
3 Swamp
3 Mishra's Factory

// Threats
4 Tombstalker

// Disruption
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
4 Sinkhole
4 Vindicate
4 Pox
3 Crucible of Worlds
2 Rancid Earth
2 Ghostly Prison

// Sideboard
2 Ghostly Prison
2 Infest
2 Trinisphere
2 Chains of Mephistophles
4 Tabernacle of Pendrall Vale
4 Chalice of the Void

//Optional Transformational Sideboard For Casual Settings Only
3 Jotun Grunt
4 Nantuko Shade
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Phyrexian Negator

[Versus]

I can't really afford Duals and Fetches, that's why I stuck with mono-black Clark.

I just realized I totally deleted my question concerning the Totems and attacking to add to my post before seeing Illisius's reply.

So Totem/Factory CAN tap for mana immediately and CAN turn into creatures immediately, but can't attack the turn they CIP? Totems/Idols/Factories have to wait until your next turn to be able to attack as creatures? In otherwords I CANNOT pay 3 then pay 2B to attack with a 5/5 trampler on the same turn? Not that Pox would have 6 mana at one time any way, but I just wanna be clear.

This really belongs in the rules forum, not here, but you've got it: Factory is a land when it's played and can tap for mana the turn it comes into play, ditto for Totem. You can activate them and make them into creatures, but if so, they can't attack, just block, be sac'd, etc. since they'll still have summoning sickness. So no, you cannot pay 3 to play a Totem, then activate him and attack all on the same turn. - Bardo

[thefreakaccident]

I don't know if this has been brought up or not, but wouldn't it be a good idea to add either tabernacle or EE maindeck so you can kill ETW tokens... It seems the earliest you can deal with the horde is turn 3, isn't that a little slow?

[Versus]

My bad Bardo. I just thought I was playing Factories wrong for the past 11 years and wasn't familiar with the Totem until recently.

I guess all of this should go into the original Pox thread as I wanted to stay mono-black. Clark, are you saying the Archetype just isn't viable any longer hence the evolution to VP?

[BadTouch]

Hi,

first of all, thanks for this primer and your time&work, started to read and cant stop thinking about pox.
Maybe i have some further thoughts.

Firstly, with all those artifacts and enchantments cycling between MB and SB i asked myself why nobody wants to pick enlightened tutor. It can tutor EOT the following stuff:

Artifacts:

Crucible of Worlds / Trinispehre / CoV
SDT / Pithing Needle/Tormod`s Crypt
Chimeric Idol / Phyrexian Totem
Powder Keg/Engeneered Explosives/Cursed Scroll

Enchantments:

Ghostly Prison / Engeenered Plague
Rule of Law / Chains of Mephistofeles
LotV

Obviosly you know the targets, i was just suprised there are so much targets. In addition i like to play with "silver bullets". Of course adding a lot of one-offs isnt reasonable, but mb there is a possibility to get a narrow web :wink:

@Street Wraith

When i first saw this card i rolled eyes. Actually i think its a really nice option for monoblack budget built. Together with Dark Ritual and mb some dredge cards (Darkblast or Land) Tombstalker could enter the game really fast. The life drawback - as already mentioned - shouldnt be a big drawback.
On the other hand it is a neat threat in lategame together with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth it couldn`t be blocked (what i have totally overlooked - same with Funeral Charm)

Another thougt is Horizon Canopy. Is it worth running 2-3 when playing with Crucible when splashing w or g?

Another thing what bears in mind is the red splash. Adding Tombstalker is like trying to finish fast after disrupting in the first rounds. My main problem with older versions was running out of disruption, so that i cant finish my oponent until he recovers.
Cards like Magma Jet, Browbeat sounds not bad to me, also the old Lightning Bolt. Crack the Earth should fit also pretty nice and babarian ring/pyroclasm/lava dart are also nice options - maybe for another budget-try.

There is another nice pox splash with LotL + cycle Lands + Zombie Infestation, which performed pretty well at a german tournament.

So far from me and my thoughts causing headache all the day :rolleyes:

[Top Deck]

Not sure if you are aware of this, but death cloud is FAR, FAR superior to pox. I pulled all of my poxes (aside from small pox) and discovered the secret tech truth.

I built a version of pox i like to call "pray for Death" and a lot of the times I want 3 deathclouds in the deck.

[C-Aleric]

Not sure if you are aware of this, but death cloud is FAR, FAR superior to pox.

I wouldn't jump the gun saying it's better than Pox. I mean, it's XBBB. That's far from an ideal spell. I can see the use of 1-2 of these, but like, doesn't Pox basically do the same thing, but just not cost 2BBB or 3BBB, or 4BBB. Obviously you get my point. That's a lot of mana. This format is speed. Pox coming off a D-Rit, followed by a threat is a good play. Death Cloud is just a sink for your mana.

Hopefully you were just joking, and I can just stop thinking about this.

[Top Deck]

I wouldn't jump the gun saying it's better than Pox. I mean, it's XBBB. That's far from an ideal spell. I can see the use of 1-2 of these, but like, doesn't Pox basically do the same thing, but just not cost 2BBB or 3BBB, or 4BBB. Obviously you get my point. That's a lot of mana. This format is speed. Pox coming off a D-Rit, followed by a threat is a good play. Death Cloud is just a sink for your mana.

Hopefully you were just joking, and I can just stop thinking about this.

Actually no I wasn't joking. Death cloud is a LOT better than pox. Most of the time I want to pox away all the cards in their hands + perms and I want to control the life loss. What happens is most of the time I prefer the usage of small pox to pox.

Death cloud is a variable control small pox. 2BBB or 3BBB is near perfect in the deck especially once you have a crucible of worlds in play. You almost always get 7 mana in play because you have denied all of their mana and then just proceed to death cloud to victory.

[Benie Bederios]

Pox >>> Death Cloud

You don't have the spells, to mess with your opponent until you can finally use Death Cloud to some degree. You want to start with T1 Duress, T2 Hymn/Sinkhole T3 Pox and proceed to win. The gap is just to big between Hymn and Death Cloud. I've played this deck for ages( I'm still playing it monoblack) but the deck rarely has more than 3 mana out. It's bad with Pox if you have 4 lands( means saccing 2 lands instead of 1). Death Cloud is a fixed version of Pox. If played correct, Pox is just about 7 damage, sac 1 or 2 lands, most of the time sac the only creature he has and kill half of your opponents hand. The life loss is great of Pox, because it speeds up your clock big time. Of course if you get 7 mana, Death Cloud is probably better, but than again Akroma, Angel of Wrath is better than Tarmogoyf, once you get 8 mana.

BB

[HdH_Cthulhu]

But Death cloud is realy realy expensive...
Think whene you invest 4 mana thene its only a Smallpox!


You almost always get 7 mana in play because you have denied all of their mana and then just proceed to death cloud to victory

7 mana in a pox deck!? you know you also have to sac lands!^^

Benie Bederios you said it right Death Cloud is the fixed version of Pox! Pox is very unfair :)

[jebus]

BadTouch:
ET+silver bullets may sound may seem like a great idea, what with all the powerful enchantments and artifacts that the deck could use. However, the problem is that Pox can't afford to be a reactive control deck that answers specific situations with single cards. It's a proactive disruption deck that just constantly pressures the opponent and keeps him/her off balance. You don't have the luxury of losing a turn to tutor up a card, and you can't afford drawing dead cards (ie silver bullets that are irrelevant in certain matchups but are in the deck anyway). That's why the entire deck is so homogenuous... multiple discard spells, multiple LD spells, multiple spells that do both.

Also, Street Wraith hurts too much. Pox always goes low on life, so you can't really afford to pay 2 life just to cycle. This may be old tech (it's from the old mono-B Pox thread), but Sensei's Divining Top is THE deck manipulation for Pox. Especially with all the fetches (for the shuffle effect) already in the deck.


TopDeck:
I know I did tell you in your thread that at least you were thinking out of the box, but the fact remains that the spells you use simply cost too much mana to be viable (and even more so considering the mana base you proposed). Death Cloud's effect is only as good as (maybe better than) a well-timed* Pox when you cast it for at least 2BBB, which is an unrealistic total to come up with consistently. 4BBB for Debtor's Knell is even worse. Yes, even with Crucible, because by the time you have built up that much mana the opponent could have recovered as well. Better to cast a Pox (just BBB), then a Tombstalker (just BB most of the time) and end the match right there instead of waiting 3-6 turns just to have the resources to cast spells whose effects could be generated by much cheaper alternatives.

* - a well-timed Pox (when things are at 3x + 1, where x = opponent's creatures/hand size/lands/life), is one of the most powerful effects out there. Blow up the ****ing outside world.


Versus:
I don't think Charcoal Diamond is a good idea, simply because there are LOTS of other things that you should be doing on turn 2 than just casting a mana source that doesn't even work right away. Later in the game, the extra mana source isn't really that important because by then you'd have Crucible and/or SDT. Instead, if you're running Crucibles, try fitting in some Mox Diamonds. Not only do they give you mana sources that survive Pox, they also produce both B and W mana while allowing for a first turn Hymn or Sinkhole (on the draw), which is just amazing.

Another thing... I still have (and prefer) a mono-black Pox deck, although I think it should probably just be used for casual/online play, as it has not been optimized over the past few months. I know I shouldn't post a list here (wrong thread), but if you want you could PM me for it. It's a deck that's easy to build, fun to play, and, best of all, tends to piss people off.


Clark Kant:
thanks for the, uh, thanks on the first page. I only got back to playing Magic the past few weeks, but I will have my eye on this thread. One concern though: too much pain from fetchlands. Having 4 for shuffling with SDT was already a pain in mono-B Pox, so I imagine having 2-3 more would be pretty dangerous. Also, Pox thrives on having the mana stability (and simplicity) to keep it afloat when it's busy blowing everything up... how do you manage that while having 2 colors? I know the answer's somewhere in the thread, but I hope you'd spare me the search.

Also, are Androstanolone and I the only guys left who don't play Crucibles? I suppose it's more of a necessity with 2 colors to juggle, but I still think it's a bit clunky (although with Mox Di, it might actually be good).

[Top Deck]

TopDeck:
I know I did tell you in your thread that at least you were thinking out of the box, but the fact remains that the spells you use simply cost too much mana to be viable (and even more so considering the mana base you proposed). Death Cloud's effect is only as good as (maybe better than) a well-timed* Pox when you cast it for at least 2BBB, which is an unrealistic total to come up with consistently. 4BBB for Debtor's Knell is even worse. Yes, even with Crucible, because by the time you have built up that much mana the opponent could have recovered as well. Better to cast a Pox (just BBB), then a Tombstalker (just BB most of the time) and end the match right there instead of waiting 3-6 turns just to have the resources to cast spells whose effects could be generated by much cheaper alternatives.

* - a well-timed Pox (when things are at 3x + 1, where x = opponent's creatures/hand size/lands/life), is one of the most powerful effects out there. Blow up the ****ing outside world.


Hey I wanted to say thanks for putting in the time to post a long reply, but you are dead wrong. You need to play test the deck I built. I dominated a tourney recently with this build. The deck is very solid.

Tombstalker is simply weak in comparison. You can't even use delve until turn 6 or so.

Death cloud wins games. The mana investment that you put into it always pays out. The issue is how the situation works out. I have been playing pox since before smallpox came into existence. Very early I realized that smallpox was better than pox because:

1) it was lower costed
2) you could control your losses
3) it was never a bad draw.

Pox is always a bad draw late in the game. It is only strong when you cast it fairly early, and in every situation you want to cast pox you rather cast smallpox instead.

Death cloud is the opposite. Drawing death cloud early obviously has very little payout, but late draws with death cloud wins games. You can control how much is lost. Also you can easily deal with multiple creatures in a way pox can't. Pox can do nothing unless they have more than 3 of creatures or lands, and often it isn't worth the payout to lose 1/3rd your life rounded up just to knock that 1 land and 1 creature. Most often you get a decent payout if you can also knock out a land.

Please read in the developing competitive sub-forum with a build I put together called "pray for death". So far with the playtesting I have done (none on workstation but all actual tournament play) the deck is dominate.

[jebus]

I did try your deck, although admittedly just in MWS, and I've even posted in your thread. I was intrigued by the build at first, but after testing it didn't really work for me at all. Too many wraths, low on discard, and the mana was nowhere to be found. If it works for you and dominates your (combo-less?) metagame, then fantastic, but we're talking about optimization here, and Death Cloud is far from optimal.

From what you said, you're not playing Pox correctly at all. It's all about timing it right, using your other disruption spells to set up a gamebreaking Pox, and making the math work in your favor. Remember, it's 1/3 ROUNDED UP for EVERYTHING - lands, creatures, hand, life. That's something that you can and should abuse. And Pox does work even if they have less than 3 of a certain thing. 1/3 rounded up of 2 is 1, for example.

Death Cloud is SLOW SLOW SLOW. By the time you set it up, you should already be winning (or losing) anyway. If it's just for the late game, then how is it better than Pox which is amazing early and borderline decent late, as long as you bother to play it correctly? And as for the mana investment, well if it were just about mana investment then we'd all be playing those 10cc cards that can singlehandedly win the game. But we don't, do we?

And how can Tombstalker, a card that can easily be cast by turn 5 or 6 (or even as early as turn 4) at 2 or 3 mana, be weak compared to a card that you must cast at 7 mana? If you're playing this deck correctly, you won't even get to 5, much less 7 mana anyway. Sure, stealing your opponent's creatures is all nice and good, but you want to win as soon as possible, and Tombstalker helps you do that better than Debtor's Knell.

I think the real problem here is that your deck, while similar to Pox, uses a totally different strategy. You use creature control to get to the late game, then use Death Cloud to bring your opponent to his knees then win with a Dragon or Knell. Pox disrupts early, fucks everything and everyone up, then breaks the deadlock using good old fashioned mathematics and cards that cheat through it (Nether Spirit, Chimeric Idol, and Mishra's Factory don't die to Pox; Tombstalker abuses all the destruction).

And in case you're wondering, I've been playing Pox since... hmm must have been Tempest. Or maybe Mirage. A long, long time ago, in other words. I still even have my Steel Golems and Spinning Darknesses around somewhere.

edit: Yes, Smallpox IS better than Pox, primarily because of its flexibilty. That's why I use 4 Smallpox and just 3 Pox. BUT Pox is more powerful - you just don't want to use it too often. Also, I don't think Smallpox is strictly a better card later in the game than Pox. It really all depends on the numbers involved in the game state.

[BadTouch]

BadTouch:
ET+silver bullets may sound may seem like a great idea, what with all the powerful enchantments and artifacts that the deck could use. However, the problem is that Pox can't afford to be a reactive control deck that answers specific situations with single cards. It's a proactive disruption deck that just constantly pressures the opponent and keeps him/her off balance. You don't have the luxury of losing a turn to tutor up a card, and you can't afford drawing dead cards (ie silver bullets that are irrelevant in certain matchups but are in the deck anyway). That's why the entire deck is so homogenuous... multiple discard spells, multiple LD spells, multiple spells that do both.

Also, Street Wraith hurts too much. Pox always goes low on life, so you can't really afford to pay 2 life just to cycle. This may be old tech (it's from the old mono-B Pox thread), but Sensei's Divining Top is THE deck manipulation for Pox. Especially with all the fetches (for the shuffle effect) already in the deck.

...

Ok Street Wraith is not for the b/w version, moreover for monob without crucible/sdt. But could help to bring some cards (+dredge via darkblast/Dakmor Salvage) very fast into yard. But mb live hurts too much and thats not the right way for this deck.

Regarding ET, i think with SDT in game u can search for one mana the right solotion PREboard. More useless cards - which are boarded out in the 2nd game - like Ghostly prison vs combo could be discarded with the pox-effects.
Maybe some testing worth.

What do you think about Horizon Canopy + Crucible? Too expensive?

In addition, i asked myself all the day, what Mono-B could do vs LotV, if relieng on Tombstalker/Nether Spirit Combo :frown:

[jebus]

BadTouch:
SDT does help you draw the desired silver bullet right away, but then you lose tempo again when you put the SDT on top of your library and draw it the following turn. You want to keep constant pressure, and that's precisely why Crucible (recurs threats and LD) and SDT (maximizes draw quality) are great in this deck, as they help maintain a constant flow of threats/disruption. ET breaks that flow, and I'm not sure if it's worth doing so just to accomodate a silver bullet suite.

Another thing with silver bullets is that aside from being able to search your library for that one card, you also need to find a way to be able to reuse that card and abuse the advantage it provides. The successful silver bullet decks that come to mind all had the ability to recur their key spells. Flores Black had 4 Yawgmoth's Will (IMAGINE! 4 WILLS! WOOO); Parfait had Replenish as well as weird things like Soldevi Digger (what the hell, right?) and Argivian Find; Survival has Genesis, Recurring Nightmare and Living Death; and The Deck/Keeper had Regrowth, Yawgmoth's Will, and I think it even had Recall at one point. In Pox, not only is there a lack of good spells to do this (Argivian Find? But then it's Black Parfait, not Pox), but you don't really have the space in the deck. Perhaps it could be developed, but I think that's going to be an entirely different deck. Maybe BW Braids Stax, with silver bullets + ET + some sort of recursion, and topped off with Vindicate/Spox/Sink/Hymn?

As for Horizon Canopy, it's not really the cost (1 mana to draw an extra card per turn? Not bad!) as much as how you'll fit it into the deck. If it is just a one-of, then it's no problem. But if you want to really use it then you have to make space for it, and the fact that it's a land that doesn't produce B, doesn't attack, and doesn't kill other lands means it probably isn't going to get the nod over stuff like Swamps, Factories, and Wastes. The idea is quite intriguing, though.

Against LotV... hmm. Well for one thing, you really should have either Factories or Idols to support your Stalkers/Spirits, so you won't be in a total mess. I guess that's really it... keep them from casting it (it IS 4cc), but if they get it in their opening hand then you'll have to tough it out with your Factories/Idols. Having stuff like Negators coming in from the board could also help.

[Top Deck]

I think the real problem here is that your deck, while similar to Pox, uses a totally different strategy. You use creature control to get to the late game, then use Death Cloud to bring your opponent to his knees then win with a Dragon or Knell. Pox disrupts early, fucks everything and everyone up, then breaks the deadlock using good old fashioned mathematics and cards that cheat through it (Nether Spirit, Chimeric Idol, and Mishra's Factory don't die to Pox; Tombstalker abuses all the destruction).

And in case you're wondering, I've been playing Pox since... hmm must have been Tempest. Or maybe Mirage. A long, long time ago, in other words. I still even have my Steel Golems and Spinning Darknesses around somewhere.

edit: Yes, Smallpox IS better than Pox, primarily because of its flexibilty. That's why I use 4 Smallpox and just 3 Pox. BUT Pox is more powerful - you just don't want to use it too often. Also, I don't think Smallpox is strictly a better card later in the game than Pox. It really all depends on the numbers involved in the game state.


I have gone the standard pox route forever, and pox wins off of top decks. You are basically taking players down to top deck mode and whoever yields the better top deck will win this war. That ones of the reasons why pox almost always loses to burn. Pox costs you a lot of life and burn's top decks are far better than poxes.

What I found out by playing pox is that pox's strongest point honestly seemed to be the land kill effect. Small pox and sinkhole did the majority of the work. So I ran with that strategy. Remember my build has 4 dark rituals and I can get out knell or dragon by turn 5, and when I don't have LD in my hand my ports can keep them effectively locked out.

Death cloud is simply amazing once you have established control by LD'ing their lands out or getting out 1 knell.

Sounds like you have tested my build, but did you test out with extirpates or not? I found out that the best thing to extirpate is LAND!! You cast small pox then you extirpate their dual land out of the game which means you can KO a deck with just 2 cards.

Most decks in Legacy run less than 10 real lands. They usually have a large compliment of fetchlands and what not. One LD effect KO'es 10% of their mana base. And one extirpate knocks out 30% more of their manabase.

Anyhow that is my experience with the deck. Because often I would cast vindicate to get rid of lands. etc.

[jebus]

TopDeck:
Pox does rely on topdecking... hence my pushing for the inclusion of SDTs in Pox. And besides, just how much better than Pox is your deck's matchup with burn? You have a boatload of cards that they just ignore (the 8 Wraths and the Death Clouds), just slightly more LD (3 Icequake, which is offset by Pox anyway), no real discard to speak of, and threats that are a lot slower than Pox's.

Yes, landkill is Pox's strong suit, and yes, Extirpate* is amazing on duals/fetches, and yes, Vindicate is most of the time an LD spell first and a panic button (for killing a critical creature/enchantment/artifact) second. All these points are valid and correct.

But no, Death Cloud is not better than Pox. As I have already said, your use of Death Cloud is totally different from what Pox tries to do with its namesake spell. Your Death Clouds are for after you have established an advantage, while Pox is precisely for establishing that advantage in the first place. And besides, once you have established control through LD, you're already well on your way to winning, Death Cloud or no.

Having Rituals (actually I remember your deck having just 3, not 4) in your deck doesn't really make Knell/Dragon better than Stalker. Sure, you theoretically CAN cast those cards turn 5... but how often do you manage to do so? That means you had 5 straight land drops (in a deck with just 21 lands), and have a Ritual to spare... the odds aren't really in your favor. Tombstalker, on the other hand, simply eats the stuff Pox will invariably be dumping in its graveyard,** and he will consistently be castable by turn 5 or 6.

The bottom line is, for what this deck is trying to do (massive kamikaze disruption + cards that break parity), Pox (over Death Cloud) and Tombstalker (over Dragon/Knell) are much better options.

*Of which you only run 1... not really a reliable chance of seeing that often. In fact, one of the early tweaks I did while testing your deck was to replace the single Haunting Echoes with a second Extirpate.
**All those sorceries, fetches, and Wastes, plus the cards dumped through Smallpox and Pox, ensure that there's always stuff in the graveyard for the Stalker to, uh, delve.

[Top Deck]

TopDeck:
Pox does rely on topdecking... hence my pushing for the inclusion of SDTs in Pox. And besides, just how much better than Pox is your deck's matchup with burn? You have a boatload of cards that they just ignore (the 8 Wraths and the Death Clouds), just slightly more LD (3 Icequake, which is offset by Pox anyway), no real discard to speak of, and threats that are a lot slower than Pox's.

Yes, landkill is Pox's strong suit, and yes, Extirpate* is amazing on duals/fetches, and yes, Vindicate is most of the time an LD spell first and a panic button (for killing a critical creature/enchantment/artifact) second. All these points are valid and correct.

But no, Death Cloud is not better than Pox. As I have already said, your use of Death Cloud is totally different from what Pox tries to do with its namesake spell. Your Death Clouds are for after you have established an advantage, while Pox is precisely for establishing that advantage in the first place. And besides, once you have established control through LD, you're already well on your way to winning, Death Cloud or no.

Having Rituals (actually I remember your deck having just 3, not 4) in your deck doesn't really make Knell/Dragon better than Stalker. Sure, you theoretically CAN cast those cards turn 5... but how often do you manage to do so? That means you had 5 straight land drops (in a deck with just 21 lands), and have a Ritual to spare... the odds aren't really in your favor. Tombstalker, on the other hand, simply eats the stuff Pox will invariably be dumping in its graveyard,** and he will consistently be castable by turn 5 or 6.

The bottom line is, for what this deck is trying to do (massive kamikaze disruption + cards that break parity), Pox (over Death Cloud) and Tombstalker (over Dragon/Knell) are much better options.

*Of which you only run 1... not really a reliable chance of seeing that often. In fact, one of the early tweaks I did while testing your deck was to replace the single Haunting Echoes with a second Extirpate.
**All those sorceries, fetches, and Wastes, plus the cards dumped through Smallpox and Pox, ensure that there's always stuff in the graveyard for the Stalker to, uh, delve.

You do make some point Jebus; however, pox is also exceptionally weak versus quick rush decks. I put in wrath's because I need the removal. Dragon is great since it is a deck thinner and you can fetch out lands because in my version it is very mana intensive. Discard is weak later in the game. It is only good early. Against combo I can side in discard all day and have a great matchup against it.

Against aggro you need as many wrath's as possible. Wrath completely shifts the play style of an aggro player long enough for me to LD them into submission and deathcloud to secure the victory.

Tombstalker is good and all, but I have seen many a pox player throw away a stalker to a swords to plowshares. Now you are down in your delve and you have lost all tempo you might have gained with the stalker. At this point your only threat are idols. Which can easily be nulified by something like ghostly prison or a maze of ith.

I have played the other version you are referencing and for me. It just didn't work out. Most of the time after you pox you are desperately short on land and short on life. At this point unless you are able to get a ghostly prison out you pretty much fold to aggro unless you can a couple of massive creatures in play. I forgot that idol also is pray to pithing needle.

[jebus]

Against aggro, Pox (depending on the build) has any of the following: Ghostly Prison, Engineered Explosives, Powder Keg, Infest, Engineered Plague, Innocent Blood, Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale... Coupled with the LD and discard, it could hold its own. Your deck invariably loses game 1 to combo, as it has too many dead cards and is really slow.

StoP, Pithing Needle... those two points both go against your own Dragons as well. And again, this is where discard is useful - you set up and protect your threats with it. The only way an oppenent could come up with an answer is if they topdeck it, but then you have Vindicate for Needle, and delve could be set up easily all over again with SDT fixing your draws.

This is the third time I'm going to say it, so please listen this time... your deck is different from Pox, although it does have a similar card pool. If anything, yours is closer to the Crazed Army deck that came up months ago. Don't apply the functional framework of your deck on this one, as it really won't be compatible. Your deck is a reactive control deck, and that's why you're always worried about how to find answers to what your opponent is playing; POX is a proactive disruption deck, as the goal is to make sure your opponent doesn't get a chance to play his game the way he wants to. Sure, you may have some proactive cards (LD), and Pox may have some reactive cards (Infest, Blood, Keg... even Prison and Plague can be seen as proactive), but the strategies are totally different.

[Clark Kant]

Thank you for your posts jebus.

You're absolutely 100% right about everything you posted so far. :)

I agree with everything you said, except the mana stability part.

The mana of this build is just as stable as a standard Pox list. It runs just as many lands that tap for B. Tomb of Yawgmoth is a HUGE help as it helps with Wasteland and Tabernacles too.

[jebus]

Thanks Clark Kant.

Actually I'm trying the BW build out (just on MWS though) and the mana is doing okay. I'm also looking to fit SDTs back in, as the deck just feels a bit off without it, as well as testing the Mox Diamond/Crucible combo.

Another thing... don't you miss having Innocent Blood? I don't think STP would be good in this deck, as Pox is probably the only deck where the life you give your opponent actually matters, but Blood should get some consideration. And what's this Judge Unworthy card you're talking about?

EDIT: There, found it. Won't Vicious Hunger be a comparable alternative?

[feuerizer]

I hope I am not too off in this thread as I am still playing the mono black version of Pox.
One reason is Innocent Blood which doesnt appear in the Bw version. Adittionally I am afraid that the Bw version is too slow (for me). That has already been discussed but there comes Innocent Blood again because it is your turn one answer and it is good against those lonesome Goyfs which show up in many aggro control decks that have a low creature count.

Concerning the SDT issue: I think its pretty much a must. Although I must admit, I have never removed it since it was in the deck.

The white splash imo is only there for Ghostly Prison and Vindicate.


My maindeck at the moment for refference:

Lands:
10 Swamp
4 Wasteland
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Polluted Delta
3 Mishra´s Factory

Creatures:
3 Nether SPirit
3 Tombstalker

Spells:
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Sinkhole
4 Innocent Blood
4 Pox
4 Smallpox
3 Sensei´s Divining Top
3 Crucible of Worlds

[jebus]

feuerizer:
Though I'm giving the Bw version a go, I still prefer my Pox to be mono-black. However, my list looks a bit different from yours - I have a simpler mana base, and I play Idols and Rituals instead of Factories and Crucibles. Also, won't Tombstalker and Nether Spirit just get in each other's way? I've run 4 Idols (TMNT! haha) with either 3 Spirit or 3 Stalker, but never with both Spirit and Stalker at the same time.

One thing about Bw Pox, though... Vindicate is just sooooo good in this deck. Mono-B Pox has reasonable alternatives to Ghostly Prison - Engineered Plague, Ensnaring Bridge, Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, even Powder Keg or Infest - but Vindicate is such an amazing card in this deck it's unbelievable. It takes away that one thing that the opponent is most desperately clinging to. It's almost cruel, actually.

[Top Deck]

Against aggro, Pox (depending on the build) has any of the following: Ghostly Prison, Engineered Explosives, Powder Keg, Infest, Engineered Plague, Innocent Blood, Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale... Coupled with the LD and discard, it could hold its own. Your deck invariably loses game 1 to combo, as it has too many dead cards and is really slow.

StoP, Pithing Needle... those two points both go against your own Dragons as well. And again, this is where discard is useful - you set up and protect your threats with it. The only way an oppenent could come up with an answer is if they topdeck it, but then you have Vindicate for Needle, and delve could be set up easily all over again with SDT fixing your draws.

This is the third time I'm going to say it, so please listen this time... your deck is different from Pox, although it does have a similar card pool. If anything, yours is closer to the Crazed Army deck that came up months ago. Don't apply the functional framework of your deck on this one, as it really won't be compatible. Your deck is a reactive control deck, and that's why you're always worried about how to find answers to what your opponent is playing; POX is a proactive disruption deck, as the goal is to make sure your opponent doesn't get a chance to play his game the way he wants to. Sure, you may have some proactive cards (LD), and Pox may have some reactive cards (Infest, Blood, Keg... even Prison and Plague can be seen as proactive), but the strategies are totally different.


My deck is different from Pox. I was the guy who put Vindicate and Ghostly Prison in pox. That was many years ago. No you don't get my deck. My deck is a proactive LD deck. Wrath effects are there to take out things like Vindicate; however, I noticed whenever I needed to vindicate a guy I rather vindicated a lot of them at the same time hence my inclusion for wrath. And after I went up to 8 wraths I noticed I no longer needed innocent blood, infest, OR ghostly prison. 8 Wraths >>> any number of edicts or innocent blood etc.

The entire deck is proactive (LD), but my main concern was Pox is the worst card IN POX!!! Small pox was far better because you control your own loss. Later in the game if you draw a pox it becomes a dead card because you usually end up losing more perms than your opponents. Discard is always a dead card later in the game with pox and hence I threw out the hymns and gerrard's verdicts (yes I was running those too). Idols are good but needle was a problem for them. Yes you can vindicate a needle, but that's a wasted slot for me.

Debtors' Knell was my solution for needle and I found out that knell was amazing for ripping their critters creating like 2 for 1 situations.

Anyhow pox is a symetric resource denial deck, and hence stuff like SDT or crucible help rectify the situation. Either way though drawing multiple SDT or crucibles are usually dead cards. That's why I would only run 1 or 2 of those cards if I ran any of them.

[jebus]

My deck is different from Pox.

Good. Then stop insisting that a card that you think is good in your deck is outright better than one that is good in Pox. Your deck already has its own thread, discuss your ideas there.

Just to answer the rest of your points, though... Needle, as I have already said, also renders your Dragons useless. Seeing as they serve as your kill card AND your mana-fixer, then losing them to Needle (or to StP) is a lot more dangerous than losing the use of Idols. Also, Hymn, by the way, can become pseudo-LD by nabbing lands out of an opponent's hand before they even hit play.

As for Pox and discard being dead-ish cards late in the game... Debtor's Knell, Death Cloud, and each one of your 8 Wraths are dead cards early in the game. Now guess at which point are most matches in Legacy decided? Yep, early.

Also, 1- and 2-ofs are terrible in a deck like this (or a deck like yours, for that matter). You NEVER draw them when you need them, particularly if that 1- or 2-of is precisely the card that fixes your draws (SDT). 3 is a good number. You can shuffle away any extras you draw later on.

Finally, Pox is not the worst card in Pox... it's just the most dangerous, for both you and your opponent. Used correctly though, it can become pretty one-sided. A good Pox player won't mind blowing up his lands because his spells are cheap, won't mind blowing up his hand because it's either empty or has a Nether Spirit or has duplicate spells that are overkill, won't mind blowing up creatures because his are impervious to being blown up, and won't mind the lifeloss because he's set himself up to win (or at least try to, the deck's not perfect after all) faster anyway.

[feuerizer]

Also, won't Tombstalker and Nether Spirit just get in each other's way?

My answer is: only sometimes.
Its not that often. You try to play Tombstalker as your ulitmate finisher. Nether Spirit is just a friend who helps you to survive but has so much legendary feeling (he wants to be alone in the graveyard). Tombstalker is your out when two Nether Spirits appear. Ok, it doesnt happen that often but when it happens you can rescue your bud.
Spirit blocks (and deals around 4 damage in a game), Tombstalker kills (with just two unblocked attacks, thnx to pox effects and some work of factory and spirit).


I've run 4 Idols (TMNT! haha) with either 3 Spirit or 3 Stalker, but never with both Spirit and Stalker at the same time.


At the moment i prefer the factories. They are so nice with crucible. If you play crucible you should use factories because their interaction is given.
With both factory and Nether Spirit you can simply stall the ground to reign in the air!

[eternaldarkness]

I agree. Factories are uber powerful beaters/blockers especially with the recurring power of crucible. Chimeric idol, while having nice synergy with pox, can't block a thresholded mongoose all day like factory+crucible.

My favorite play of this deck is first turn swamp-dark ritual-crucible followed by second turn smallpox :) Follow this up with additional pox, factories or better yet wasteland!

@List in the opening post: I don't think that a full set of Tabernacles is the way to go. Right now, the most predominant deck is threshold and that deck isn't that greatly affected by Tabernacle since all it needs is 1-2 creatures to smash face with. The main prey of Tabernacle, Empty the warrens style combo decks have also been displaced by Cephalid breakfast. This combined with the fact that multiple Tabernacles also hurts consistency lead me to move at least two copies of the legendary land to the sideboard.

On an unrelated note, anyone out there recently brought Pox to a tourney? I would be greatly interested to hear a report.

EDIT: So far, I have been kinda underwhelmed by Nether Spirit. At the end of the day, its just a bear. Not really the most broken card in the deck...

[Top Deck]

I agree. Factories are uber powerful beaters/blockers especially with the recurring power of crucible. Chimeric idol, while having nice synergy with pox, can't block a thresholded mongoose all day like factory+crucible.

My favorite play of this deck is first turn swamp-dark ritual-crucible followed by second turn smallpox :) Follow this up with additional pox, factories or better yet wasteland!

@List in the opening post: I don't think that a full set of Tabernacles is the way to go. Right now, the most predominant deck is threshold and that deck isn't that greatly affected by Tabernacle since all it needs is 1-2 creatures to smash face with. The main prey of Tabernacle, Empty the warrens style combo decks have also been displaced by Cephalid breakfast. This combined with the fact that multiple Tabernacles also hurts consistency lead me to move at least two copies of the legendary land to the sideboard.

On an unrelated note, anyone out there recently brought Pox to a tourney? I would be greatly interested to hear a report.

EDIT: So far, I have been kinda underwhelmed by Nether Spirit. At the end of the day, its just a bear. Not really the most broken card in the deck...

yaw I brought my version of pox (aka pray for death) to 3 tourneys. I won 2 of them and I top 8'ed the other one (3-1 into the top 8 then scrubbing out 1-2 in the 1st round of top 8--- was too sleepy). But again my version of pox right now isn't going to run pox. It runs small pox and death cloud, and it wins with debtors' knell and Eternal Dragon.

Here is the thread about it: http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6836

[eternaldarkness]

yaw I brought my version of pox (aka pray for death) to 3 tourneys. I won 2 of them and I top 8'ed the other one (3-1 into the top 8 then scrubbing out 1-2 in the 1st round of top 8--- was too sleepy). But again my version of pox right now isn't going to run pox. It runs small pox and death cloud, and it wins with debtors' knell and Eternal Dragon.

Here is the thread about it: http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6836

Now this is annoying. Maybe I wasn't clear the first time. Are there any tourney reports for this Pox deck? You know, the one being discussed in this thread.

EDIT: I think jebus already explained quite well how your deck isn't the same as the one being discussed here.

[feuerizer]

EDIT: So far, I have been kinda underwhelmed by Nether Spirit. At the end of the day, its just a bear. Not really the most broken card in the deck...

Not broken, but a staple in Pox. I want Nether Spirit to block and deal about 4 damage a game. That is enough.

Once you have thrown him into your graveyard, he comes back for you. All you have to do is to take care that he stays alone (and of course dont forget him in your upkeep :wink: )

He is your small advantage card in the game to combine with the discard effect of Pox and Smallpox.

[Top Deck]

Now this is annoying. Maybe I wasn't clear the first time. Are there any tourney reports for this Pox deck? You know, the one being discussed in this thread.

EDIT: I think jebus already explained quite well how your deck isn't the same as the one being discussed here.

Oh sorry. Wasn't aware you were asking about tourney reports for that pox deck. I would think that version couldn't win anything, but that's just me thinking out loud. But I would love to see a tourney report. :laugh:

[Top Deck]

Not broken, but a staple in Pox. I want Nether Spirit to block and deal about 4 damage a game. That is enough.

Once you have thrown him into your graveyard, he comes back for you. All you have to do is to take care that he stays alone (and of course dont forget him in your upkeep :wink: )

He is your small advantage card in the game to combine with the discard effect of Pox and Smallpox.

Yaw Nether Spirit is good because it also functions as a great blocker many times. Still it is funny to get spirit in yard turn 1 with a small pox.

[feuerizer]

Yaw Nether Spirit is good because it also functions as a great blocker many times.

Yes, I mentioned that some posts above.
Blocking and dealing 4 damage per game is his duty.


With both factory and Nether Spirit you can simply stall the ground to reign in the air!

[Top Deck]

Yes, I mentioned that some posts above.
Blocking and dealing 4 damage per game is his duty.

I am just surprised that more people haven't jumped on the Epochrasite bandwagon yet. That guy feels like a haus!

[Holo_rip]

Personnally, i prefer maze of ith than tabernacle.
Pox need to stop 1 / 2 creature that still are on the board, and it is the best way to do it.
Tabernacle only better against ETW tokens.

Holo.

[jebus]

TopDeck, you haven't posted a report either. Until you do, your results are pretty much apocryphal anyway. As for Epochrasite, it just might be useful in this deck, even though it's a lot slower coming back than Spirit and it only chumps once. But still, at least it's something worth looking into. Maybe there's hope for you yet.

My issue with Factory has always been the fact that it needed other cards (Crucible, UToY) for it to be really good. Back when I last worked on this deck, I found that SDT already made sure my mana was stable enough. This meant that all Crucible really did was recur Factories and Wastelands, and for 3 mana in this deck you'd expect something more than just that. With Crucibles out of the deck, the Factories immediately followed.

With that said, I haven't completely dismissed running Factories and Crucibles, and I fully understand why you'd like to do so.

[Top Deck]

TopDeck, you haven't posted a report either. Until you do, your results are pretty much apocryphal anyway. As for Epochrasite, it just might be useful in this deck, even though it's a lot slower coming back than Spirit and it only chumps once. But still, at least it's something worth looking into. Maybe there's hope for you yet.

My issue with Factory has always been the fact that it needed other cards (Crucible, UToY) for it to be really good. Back when I last worked on this deck, I found that SDT already made sure my mana was stable enough. This meant that all Crucible really did was recur Factories and Wastelands, and for 3 mana in this deck you'd expect something more than just that. With Crucibles out of the deck, the Factories immediately followed.

With that said, I haven't completely dismissed running Factories and Crucibles, and I fully understand why you'd like to do so.

Hope for me? LOL man that's pretty arrogant coming from a guy who doesn't win with pox. I have won over and over again with the deck. Man I should take this thing to World's or at least let a pro-player friend play it at worlds.

People can understand Train Wreck and it gets to like 10-12 mana all of the time and yet you can't understand how I can get 8 mana with my version of Pox. It is odd.

[jebus]

We wouldn't be talking about the deck if it didn't win - however it hasn't won enough just yet, which is why we're still talking about it.

And why don't take it to Worlds? Go on, we'll be rooting for you. And didn't you already say your deck was different from Pox? Then why do you keep insisting that you win with Pox?

Train Wreck has 24+ lands, and it has Cabal Coffers. Your deck has just 21 lands and 3 Rituals, plus you run symmetric LD.

Look, all we want is proof. Posting a new, radically different decklist and saying it wins isn't enough, and claiming you consistently win without backing it up with documentation OR sound theory isn't going to cut it as well. If it really does work, then good for you [and it'd mean the rest of us would need to invest in a set of Damnations], but for all we know you could be just fabricating it all or beating up on random scrubs because you run 8 Wraths. Post a report, and we'd get a better idea about your deck.

As for the rest of us, we're all just trying to get on optimizing THIS Pox deck, and your comments are not helping at all. Fine, except for the Epochrasite thing.

[Top Deck]

We wouldn't be talking about the deck if it didn't win - however it hasn't won enough just yet, which is why we're still talking about it.

And why don't take it to Worlds? Go on, we'll be rooting for you. And didn't you already say your deck was different from Pox? Then why do you keep insisting that you win with Pox?

Train Wreck has 24+ lands, and it has Cabal Coffers. Your deck has just 21 lands and 3 Rituals, plus you run symmetric LD.

Look, all we want is proof. Posting a new, radically different decklist and saying it wins isn't enough, and claiming you consistently win without backing it up with documentation OR sound theory isn't going to cut it as well. If it really does work, then good for you [and it'd mean the rest of us would need to invest in a set of Damnations], but for all we know you could be just fabricating it all or beating up on random scrubs because you run 8 Wraths. Post a report, and we'd get a better idea about your deck.

As for the rest of us, we're all just trying to get on optimizing THIS Pox deck, and your comments are not helping at all. Fine, except for the Epochrasite thing.

I actually host legacy tourneys every week. The past two weeks attendance was low (14 and 12) since I was out of town and had a friend run it, but I usually get at least 20 if not 30 ppl who show up for the tourney, and I get a few pro-players here and there.

I usually don't play in my own tourneys though, but I did play once at the beginning of the month.
http://www.txgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5083

That was an easy Top 8 experience with around 20 ppl. But yaw I have won several local Legacy tourneys and the deck works wonders for me. That tourney was the last time I used Pox instead of Deathcloud and I haven't looked back.

The pox deck you are fixated with is extremely flawed. I could go into details on why you are failing with your build, but you aren't paying attention. You are so focused in on winning WITH Pox. I realized that small pox is much better than pox and I was able to ditch pox.

By the way, I was the guy who put Ghostly Prison and Vindicate into pox, and someone along the way decides to take that idea and call it "Vaka Pox". That alone is so humorous. If the group can take my advice and put in both Prison and Vindicate I wonder why they wont go for the Knell. I am just saying that the new demon(tombstalker) is much worse than Debtors' Knell.

Now I am NOT going to say that I deserve credit for the basis of "Vaka Pox". Clark Kant deserves all of the credit for putting together the primer, and thanks again Clark for the credit to me on the very first post. What I don't get is the fixation that Pox needs to be the nucleus of the deck when we all agree that small pox > pox. I just find death cloud is like super small pox. Jebus I am not trying to derail the deck discussion. I just felt a little insulted that you were suggesting that I am making things up. I have played pox probably longer than anyone in this threat has played it, and I was just giving my input on how I saw the synergy or lack there of for some cards.

Overall Pox (and its variants) is a late game deck. It tends to actually stablize much like a control deck, and pox usually wins by Top decking better than the opponent's deck. This is due to the mostly symetrical resource denial. Decks that can top deck and win with just 1 land are the decks that give pox the most problems (ie burn). Decks that require a lot of resources either in hand or perms in play are the exceptionally weak to pox.

I see a lot more synergy with Epochrasite, Debtors' Knell, and Death cloud, but I am running a dark ritual powered version of the deck. If you don't want to go with rituals then I can see why you wouldn't want to include those bombs, but the time to win with the deck works pretty much in line with the timing of those cards. Within 1 or 2 turns of a knell or epochs coming back is about the time you are going to win with pox. Sure you could try to win idol or factory (which is a route that I have gone down before), but they are very weak to needles and suppression field. Knell and epochs are great because they don't care about those forms of disruption, and in my area needles are wildly popular with everyone sporting at least 1 playset of them.

[jebus]

Holo rip: Tabernacle handles swarms of creatures (always difficult in this build). If you need to stop just one creature, Mishra's Factory could always just chump block.

EDIT: I originally wanted to send this as a PM, but I'll post it here instead.

Top Deck:
First of all, good job on hosting Legacy tourneys every week. If I knew someone like you here, I probably would not be playing online most of the time, and definitely not relying on deckbuilding thought exercises just to get my Magic fix.

Second, nobody really cares if you had the idea first, or if you've played Pox longer than anyone else. What really matters is what works for the deck now. Personally, I don't even really like the Vaka Pox build - I prefer a much faster mono-B build (yes, with Rituals) that uses Pox as additional offense and wins rather early.

Third, giving input without acknowledging that your deck may not be as special as you think it is isn't really going to win you a lot of listeners. As for being insulted that I doubted how successful you are with your deck, I apologize for that. Just understand that how you put forward your ideas didn't really sound convincing. Saying you're invariably right and everyone else is invariably wrong makes you come of as ignorant, arrogant, narrow minded, or any combination of the three. And I have tried your deck out, and while it did have some strong points, it left a lot to be desired as well. Maybe in your hands, and in your metagame, it works. But to use that small sample set and to try apply it universally won't work. For one thing, I noticed that the Top 8 you posted lacked combo, which maybe is absent in your meta (?). This certainly works in your build's favor. Also, you always bring up Pox's bad matchups (particularly Burn, which isn't really that bad and against which your deck is probably worse), but aside from Goblins (which your deck is admittedly a lot better against) I don't see how your build is any better against any of them. Burn doesn't care about Wrath, and you don't have discard to slow them down. You have 2 cards which help against LftL, but don't have the means to get to them consistently.

Fourth, you do make great points regarding the weaknesses of the Pox deck, particularly this Bw build... BUT your solutions don't exactly strike me as the right ones. So let's discuss it, but PLEASE with an open mind. Okay?

the mana base
- Vaka Pox (VP) needs mana accel. It gets out of the gate very slow (especially for a Pox deck), and doesn't really press its advantage with LD because of this.
- Pray for Death (PfD) answers this with Dark Ritual. However, the land count, even with Dragon helping, is really too low, especially considering the fact that you want to be able to string 4-5 land drops to open the game, allowing you to stabilize using your bombs.
solution to both problems: Run a stable mana base, with some sort of acceleration. 23-24 lands, along with 4 Rituals should work. Actually, Mox Diamond should be tested in the place of Rituals, as it provides B and W, and the lands lost could be returned through Crucible.

the kill
- VP uses a mix of Factories, Idols, Spirits, and Stalkers. Half of them are dead with Needle, one is slow and the other could be difficult to cast.
- PfD uses a mix of Eternal Dragons, Debtors' Knell, and Epochrasites. Dragon is also quite dead with Needle, and therefore is not a solution to that particular problem. In fact, Needle naming Dragon is much more devastating to your deck than Needle naming Idol/Factory is to Pox, because it also disables your ability to fix your mana base. Debtors' Knell is likewise not a solution to the other problems regarding this deck's kill - it is both slow AND difficult to cast.
solution: Epochrasites should be tested, particularly regarding their interaction with Spirits (ie if it is possible to have them both in the deck). Also, I ask you to give Tombstalker its fair shake. Delve makes it very easy to cast, even multiple times. Debtors' Knell, however, cannot work with this mana base. Either up the land count, or it will remain a wasted slot.

disruption
- VP runs a good balance of disruption spells, topped off with Pox.
- PfD runs LD, topped off with Death Cloud. Extirpate also helps.
solution: Barring Pox, VP still has a decided advantage because of the presence of discard. PfD should at least fit in some Hymns, which complement LD nicely, as well as provide some measure of help against Combo/Control. Extirpate should also be considered for both decks, at least as an SB option (and I think it could be quite good even in the MD).
Death Cloud vs Pox: Pox is better if you're going for all out disruption, and I guess Death Cloud works if you want something more controlling. But have you tried Braids, Cabal Minion in its place? For what you're trying to do, it might be better than Death Cloud, which simply costs too much mana.

creature control:
- VP runs Ghostly Prison and Vindicate. Prison is dead against non-EtW combo, and Vindicate is very slow for simple creature kill.
- PfD runs 8 Wraths along with Vindicate. The Wraths make PfD so much better against aggro in general. However, having 8 is a bit overkill, and they present the same problem as Prison.
solution: Keep Vindicate if you're going with a Bw build, as it is the best spell in those colors for Pox. I don't think 8 Wraths are the way to go, however, as they are slow and inefficient, praticularly if the opponent is expecting them and finding ways to play around them. If they're really that good in your meta, then keep the 4 Damnations, and maybe 1-2 Wraths, but having all 8 is just too much. Also, there are alternatives such as Engineered Plague, Engineered Explosives, and Powder Keg. The latter two are paricularly intriguing considering that they could also serve as artifact-mana denial (which means they're not dead against Combo). Spot removal like Innocent Blood, Smother, Ghastly Demise, Vicious Hunger, StP, or Judge Unworthy could also be used.
This problem is very meta-dependent, so fixing it really depends on the situation. I'd say Smallpox and Vindicate are the base, and one should build from there.

consistency
- VP relies on topdecking. It also depends too much on Crucible for solidifying its mana base as well as for Factory/Waste recursion.
- PfD relies on topdecking and has lots of 1-ofs. This is the biggest problem with your deck, I believe. You've been taking shots at Pox's reliance on topdecking but haven't really proposed a solution for it, outside of having more expensive spells that sit in your hand rather than being cast, giving the illusion of having more options than those ripped off the top of the deck.
solution: 3 SDT, with 4-8 Fetchlands for shuffling, should be used in either build. Also, cut down on 1-ofs, as these really make the situation a LOT worse. Choose which cards are the best for the deck, and run multiples of them to make the deck more consistent and less reliant on blind luck.

There. I believe that has been fair to both sides, and should be considered in any discussion about either deck from here on out. So... discuss.

[Top Deck]

consistency
- VP relies on topdecking. It also depends too much on Crucible for solidifying its mana base as well as for Factory/Waste recursion.
- PfD relies on topdecking and has lots of 1-ofs. This is the biggest problem with your deck, I believe. You've been taking shots at Pox's reliance on topdecking but haven't really proposed a solution for it, outside of having more expensive spells that sit in your hand rather than being cast, giving the illusion of having more options than those ripped off the top of the deck.
solution: 3 SDT, with 4-8 Fetchlands for shuffling, should be used in either build. Also, cut down on 1-ofs, as these really make the situation a LOT worse. Choose which cards are the best for the deck, and run multiples of them to make the deck more consistent and less reliant on blind luck.

There. I believe that has been fair to both sides, and should be considered in any discussion about either deck from here on out.

You did a good job in stating how the cards work on their own, and I applaud your effort. I think you are probably used to writing up a lot of primers. :smile:

Okay first of all combo decks aren't that consistent. You don't need hymn, duress, small pox, and more hand disruption to beat combo. Most of the time combo decks fail on their own accord. I am a combo player myself and I prefer combo. You can sideboard chalice of the void and duress to beat combo since small pox often is more than enough to defeat combo. Small pox disrupts both the mana base and card tempo for combo decks.

Combo decks usually have to mulligan down to 5 or 6 and 1 small pox is devastating versus them. This is probably where testing on magic workstation is giving you bad results. You probably are testing with "best optimal hands". Combo decks will fail on their own 30% of the time. Aside from flash (which is really a control deck with a combo win condition), very few combo decks will win tourneys. Yes they can win, but the majority of the winning decks are tempo aggro decks (goblins, threshold, tarmoX, etc).

Honestly hymn to me is a dead card in pox in both PfD and VP (I like your naming convention). Whenever I drew hymns beyond turn 1 or 2, it felt like a dead card. At this point I just wanted to draw more LD or perm removal (vindicate) or port for that matter.

One thing that cued me into you not understanding my deck build was you never once mentioned port which lead me to conclude that you must have removed port in your build in favor for wasteland. This might sound good on paper, but it is a mistake in my build. Port is much more effective in PfD since it is soft LD without sacrificing your own mana. Ultimately you need to ramp up to 7 lands or 5 with a dark ritual in hand so you can cast debtors' knell. Since right now in Legacy most players will not run 4 disenchant effects and opt to run maybe 2 at most, it is a safe bet they won't have a solution for either crucible or knell (this is one reason why crucible is so wildly popular at the moment).

So test the deck again with ports and you will understand that it is very consistent. And I understand what you are talking about with mana fixing. The thing with PfD is you really don't need much mana fixing at all. Vindicate is the only card that you need white for. Sure dragon needs double white but you can get dragon into play by discarding (either using cycling or small pox'ing it into the yard) and dropping out knell. Wrath uses double white; however, I rarely wrath on turn 4. I usually wrath much later since I have damnations and I can ritual out damnation as early as turn 2.

All of the mana in the deck makes black mana and for the most part PfD is a monoblack deck with a little bit of white. The fact that eternal dragon can go get a black/white dual land means it gets my black as well, but not sure if you noticed but I run 8 black/white duals in the deck, and I run 2 flagstones. It might sound odd but whenever I put together mana base, I don't do it on paper. I just throw in cards and take cards out until I feel that the deck feels consistent. I run the manabase against some of my pro-player friends and see what each one thinks. Manabase is a tricky art. And yes I think that I could improve my manabase but so far it is working for me.

And I think you misunderstand me about Pox and topdecking. Pox's strength is Top decking! Pox usually has better top decks than the opposing deck, but that's where the weakness of pox comes in at. Burn usually has the best top decks and hence burn will usually beat out pox. I mention burn quite a bit because burn and quick aggro are usually the problems to pox, and that's why originally my first solution to this was throw in Ghostly prison and hence VP was born (i threw in verdicts and vindicates into pox too). I honestly admitted that I didn't need 8 wrath effects. I probably will cut down to 4 damnations, 2 ghostly prisons, and 2 barter in blood.

Death cloud works in all of the areas where Pox doesn't work in. Pox often is just another more costly small pox. But if you ever fall behind and you don't establish a solid grip then you death cloud your opponent into oblivion. You are going to say "well you don't have enough mana". If you are running ports then trust me in that you will have enough mana. You can't sac your lands to axe their when you need the mana built up.

Oh yaw last thing. I don't like tombstalker because it gets StP'ed. Dragon gets stp'ed as well, but more often you already have done something with dragon (ramped up your mana by cycling it and buying it back). Tombstalker just comes in and rips 6 cards from your yard and then proceeds to get STP'ed. At this point in the game it will take a long time to ramp up to 6 cards in the yard again. And even having lands in yard with crucible is better than just losing them to delve.

I forgot the number 1 thing I use extirpate for... dual lands and spying their draw. You can and should only extirpate during their draw step because you have a chance to deny their draw with the extirpate and spying on their hand at that moment is the best time. You can beat threshold alone by extirpating 1 dual land (color denial) since they don't run much actual land.

EDIT: I went back read some of the other points you mentioned and I'll try to answer them here. Against burn the biggest advantage I have is port, more LD, and more life. Burn usually runs 16-18 lands. You can port them down to deny their 2 drops and port them to deny their sorcery speed 1 drops. Then you LD their land away and then drop out epochs (which are their worst nightmare) and dragons and the 1 of spirit. Whenever you pox you are doing burn a huge favor. You basically are giving them 2 free burn spells. So instead of 6-7 burn spells to end you, you have cut your clock down to 4-5 spells. You will never pox and lose less than 3 life. Worst case pox will be a loss of 7 life (at 20 life) and best case will be a loss of 3 life (at 7 life). You aren't going to pox if you are at 6 life since you will be 1 fireblast or bolt+lava dart from death.

You ask the question about using Braids over death cloud. No honestly I haven't tried to use braids since braids is more along the philosophy of symmetrical resource denial. Death cloud works like a super small pox. Once you have epochs in suspended mode or in play (doesn't matter which) or have 1 knell or crucible online, you just death cloud for as much as neccessary, and at this point you just save your ports to keep porting them during their upkeep which epochs come back to beat face. Port provides so much tempo it is outrage. People cringe not to sinkhole but to ports. So say later in the game when you have 1 or 2 epochs in suspended mode, if you death cloud for say 3 (6 mana very easy with this deck). You save 2 ports and say urborg at this point you probably have 1 riftstone portal in the yard as well. They can't come back to win since they will only draw 1 land out of 3 cards they won't be able to do much after you port them and LD them into oblivion. Epochs come back and should win the game in 2 - 4 turns at this point.

[jebus]

By mana fixing, I didn't mean getting W mana, but getting any mana at all. Run more lands, it'll help a lot.

As for Hymn, your deck sorely needs good plays for turns 1-4, and Hymn is one of the best at this stage of the game. It's a two for one early, and it knocks lands out of an opponents hand. Later on, it's crippling to an opponent who is trying to recover. And one thing you also don't seem to understand is how discard works as a sort of pro-active counterspell, getting rid of problem spells like StP and Needle.

I actually didn't switch the Ports out. With your deck focusing on LD and using the early- to mid-game primarily just to survive, Port actually served your purposes well. It won't work in Pox, though, as it wants to keep casting disruption and threats asap so it can't afford to leave two lands untapped like that.

Also, I've never cast Pox when its just an overcosted Smallpox. I always look for ways to abuse the rounding up of losses. Again, it's just a matter of patience and timing (which seems counterintuitive in a disruption deck that wants to blow everything up asap, but it does work).

And it seems that you're running into a lot of crappy combo players.

[Top Deck]

By mana fixing, I didn't mean getting W mana, but getting any mana at all. Run more lands, it'll help a lot.

As for Hymn, your deck sorely needs good plays for turns 1-4, and Hymn is one of the best at this stage of the game. It's a two for one early, and it knocks lands out of an opponents hand. Later on, it's crippling to an opponent who is trying to recover. And one thing you also don't seem to understand is how discard works as a sort of pro-active counterspell, getting rid of problem spells like StP and Needle.


If you don't get mana with 21 mana and rituals then learn to shuffle. Standard players can get 2 or more lands with 21-22 lands why can't legacy players do the same.

Hymn again is dead later. And I don't care if they have extra lands in hand. I'll just port them or LD them away. If I fall behind and they get critters out I wipe out those roaches with wraths while dropping epochs. If I fall very behind I death cloud them into submission. Needle isn't an issue since they will only need 1) port 2) dragon. Those cards aren't even essential to the strategy. They just help (notice I only run 2 dragons in the deck). Needle for the most is a dead card to me, and if I really, really need the card they needle, I can vindicate the "bad" needle.

Needle against standard pox right now is a nightmare. Turns idols, wasteland, factory, totem, cursed scroll, etc into junk. Needle and STP is pox's problem. Just setup 1 knell and start ripping their creatures that they pitched to small pox or dead to wrath, and it is gg for them.



It won't work in Pox, though, as it wants to keep casting disruption and threats asap so it can't afford to leave two lands untapped like that.

Also, I've never cast Pox when its just an overcosted Smallpox. I always look for ways to abuse the rounding up of losses. Again, it's just a matter of patience and timing (which seems counterintuitive in a disruption deck that wants to blow everything up asap, but it does work).

These two statement contradict each other. Well timed yet casting stuff every turn. Let's think about it for a moment. If they have 4 lands in play then you are probably losing already with pox. If they have 2 lands in play you can only rip 1. If they have 4 guys in play then you are probably losing. The best time to pox is if they have 1 land in play and 1 creature in play with 5 cards in hand... for a rip of 4 taking them down to 3 cards in hand and no resources established. This is where idols/spirit rules because of their natural evasion to most removal, but if you get to this point most likely you have 3 lands in play and maybe 2 cards in hand.

It becomes a top deck war. They have to top deck into resources and recover you have to top deck into threats and not more lands hence your love for SDT (top). If you draw a hymn, and hymn them at this point, it is still the same top deck race (threats versus resource).

I realize this is the strength of pox and the best draw at this point is more LD or ports then ramp up to a big threat (knell or dragon).



And it seems that you're running into a lot of crappy combo players.

Actually just look at national level or word level tourneys. Very few combo players will come out on top. Combo is by far the easy to sideboard for where as quick aggro (goblins) and aggro control (threshold) aren't. The deck needs to be solid against those decks and not combo decks.

You can stop most combo decks like this:
Leyline of the void,
duress,
chalice of the void,
or even
---gaea's blessing....

Just have 4 of each and mulligan until you get your good card.
I play mostly combo myself and a lot of players play combo in my tourneys, but so far only 1 guy has been able to win with combo and we get very very few top 8's with combo. Combo just isn't consistent enough especially against the bazillion threshold and fish decks out there. Exceptionally bad matchup for combo. The only time combo won was when no threshold or fish showed up.


and test out epochs in the standard pox deck and cut spirit down to a 1 of. You wont regret it.

[jebus]

It's not an issue of not having 2 lands in hand. That's almost never a problem. But 21 lands isn't enough considering how high your curve goes. You have more than 10 spells which cost 4 or more mana. You need land drops every turn for the first 4-5 turns, and you need them consistently.

It's funny how in your analysis, your deck always has the solutions to its problems, while Pox always seems to fall flat on its face. Both have the same number of Vindicates, plus Pox has discard to deal with stuff like StP. Your deck has 1 Knell, and it's your solution to a lot of problems. Again, we want consistency and you're not working towards it.

I did say it was counterintuitive. But that's how the deck works... use the other disruption spells to set up a Pox that is in your favor.

And having answers to combo in the sideboard doesn't warrant allowing game 1 to be an autowin for them.

Yes, Epochrasite will be tested.

[eternaldarkness]

Oh sorry. Wasn't aware you were asking about tourney reports for that pox deck. I would think that version couldn't win anything, but that's just me thinking out loud. But I would love to see a tourney report. :laugh:

I don't think this version can win either. Too many bad match-ups. However, I would also love to see a tourney report.

After reading through the recent posts, I agree that Top Deck may have come off...well not quite that well. The multiple posts bragging about how he was the one who stuck random card into pox didn't really help.

But I do agree with Top Deck when he said that the Pox deck as is has too many weaknesses. The inconsistent topdecks, the weakness against burn, the tendency to fall prey to aggro strategies are all valid points.

One other weakness that Top Deck didn't mention (I may have missed this) is the hard match-up against Landstill which, if the metagame shapes up, could be a contender in the near future. The combination of Standstill, free countermagic, plus the absolutely gamebreaking Crucible/Life from the Loam engine is difficult to beat, especially for Pox.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm sure the match-up is far from unwinnable. However, if the Landstill player drops a standstill or a crucible...or worse gets a Life from the Loam engine running, I really find it hard to believe that the Pox player can win.

Right now I think we have to rethink several card choices to better fit the current environment. That was why I asked for a tourney report in the first place, to see if anyone else have had similar experience with the weaknesses of the deck.

And no, I don't think Top Deck's proposed direction for Pox is the right call not because of some attachment to Pox itself but because his deck's entire strategy seems too slow.

EDIT: Test Epochrasite?? Wouldn't Nether Spirit (despite the fact that I don't like Spirit) be better?

[Top Deck]

It's not an issue of not having 2 lands in hand. That's almost never a problem. But 21 lands isn't enough considering how high your curve goes. You have more than 10 spells which cost 4 or more mana. You need land drops every turn for the first 4-5 turns, and you need them consistently.

It's funny how in your analysis, your deck always has the solutions to its problems, while Pox always seems to fall flat on its face. Both have the same number of Vindicates, plus Pox has discard to deal with stuff like StP. Your deck has 1 Knell, and it's your solution to a lot of problems. Again, we want consistency and you're not working towards it.

I did say it was counterintuitive. But that's how the deck works... use the other disruption spells to set up a Pox that is in your favor.

And having answers to combo in the sideboard doesn't warrant allowing game 1 to be an autowin for them.

Yes, Epochrasite will be tested.

The solution is answering a different question. The real question for pox is how to improve the top decks(draw threats and not dead cards) Your answer is add fetches and SDT. Good solutions since it mirrors threshold sorta in a brainstorm/fetch setup. My solution is forget drawing more threats since you will draw them eventually. Put in more resource denial and make sure it isn't symmetrical hence adding in icequakes and ports, put in big reoccurring threats (epochs, dragons, and knell) and removing discard.

Discard is good early but bad late. This fact has never changed.

[Top Deck]

I don't think this version can win either. Too many bad match-ups. However, I would also love to see a tourney report.

After reading through the recent posts, I agree that Top Deck may have come off...well not quite that well. The multiple posts bragging about how he was the one who stuck random card into pox didn't really help.

But I do agree with Top Deck when he said that the Pox deck as is has too many weaknesses. The inconsistent topdecks, the weakness against burn, the tendency to fall prey to aggro strategies are all valid points.

One other weakness that Top Deck didn't mention (I may have missed this) is the hard match-up against Landstill which, if the metagame shapes up, could be a contender in the near future. The combination of Standstill, free countermagic, plus the absolutely gamebreaking Crucible/Life from the Loam engine is difficult to beat, especially for Pox.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm sure the match-up is far from unwinnable. However, if the Landstill player drops a standstill or a crucible...or worse gets a Life from the Loam engine running, I really find it hard to believe that the Pox player can win.

Right now I think we have to rethink several card choices to better fit the current environment. That was why I asked for a tourney report in the first place, to see if anyone else have had similar experience with the weaknesses of the deck.

And no, I don't think Top Deck's proposed direction for Pox is the right call not because of some attachment to Pox itself but because his deck's entire strategy seems too slow.

EDIT: Test Epochrasite?? Wouldn't Nether Spirit (despite the fact that I don't like Spirit) be better?

Yaw I am aware of Crucible and life from the loam. One of the worst matchups before that I had was 43 Land.dec which is very strong against pox as well since they don't care how often you pox they have mazes and tons of ways to get back land.

That is a very perceptive observation Eternal Darkness, but that's why I have 2 Extirpates main. You extirpate their life from the loam and/or crucible and it is lights out for them. Also remember I have ports to lock down their blue sources then I exploit it with targetted LD and vindicates on key cards. They can't deal with eternal dragon either or epochrasites. Landstill strength comes in the form of 4 Wrath of God and man lands. So for the most part both our wraths are dead cards.

LD might not seem strong against them since they usually don't even care if you smash a land or two here and there right? The best strat against them is 1) aim for their man land and 2) extirpate it. Should be gg right there. The key in Pray for Death against these type of decks is port the right lands. Extirpate key cards. Keep casting getting back dragon and casting it. And then haunting echoes them at the correct time. Landstill always had an issue with recurring threats. If they run plowshares etc try to bait their plowshare and extirpate it. You can make a lot of decks run in fear knowing you have extirpate Main the deck. They don't know how many you are running (usually you only need to run 2 since you only need to extirpate 1 or 2 key cards).

But yes, landstill and 43 land deck was a huge bane for the old versions of pox. I totally agree. For pray for death, not an issue. I ran into a 43 land deck and won via 1 extirpate targetting his life from the loam. I beat 1 land still deck by extirpating his tundra... :thumbsup: He could get blue mana for quite some time. And in the second game we played I just ported him over and over I tricked out his FoW against an epoch (this put it in the yard and not into suspend mode) then extirpated his FoW and then I just deathclouded him into submission. He never had enough mana to get out a crucible.


Also Epochrasite is simply great in the deck. Spirit you have to play pox/small pox around. You don't want to get 2 into play if they have a wrath effect (ala standstill). I like spirit, but that's why I put him at a 1 of slot. He is great with turn 2 small pox no doubt, but epochrasite is just as good turn 2. Turn 2 dark ritual + epoch + small pox is good for me as well. When he comes into play he is a 4/4, and that's why I like it so much. 2/2 are very easy to deal with in Legacy; however, 4/4 seem very troubling especially 4/4's that come back for free eventually. As a 4/4, epoch can block balloths and hierarchs and take them out. Spirits at that point works like a maze of ith just stalling their biggest threat. Also spirit can't attack the first turn it comes into play so really spirit is like suspend 2. ;-) where as epoch is suspend 3. Sure spirit can keep blocking but it can't attack until the turn after it comes into play epoch can attack right away from suspended mode. So for an extra turn of waiting I get +2/+2. It is a tradeoff, but I think it is one that pays great dividends.

[Clark Kant]

jebus, great posts. I'm glad you ran into this thread. You gave me a lot to think about.

This deck has gotten a hell of a lot better now that Thresh (one of it's best matchups) got much more popular.

Top Deck, I agree with you on Epostachare. It's a solid card that might be worth running alongside Tombstalker.

It's the whole runnin 21 lands along with tons of 4cc cards, and some insanely high casting cards like Debtor's Knell all along with 8 cards that make you sac your own land that I am not convinced is ideal.

There were good reasons to go with Ghostly Prison or Tabernacle against goblins over Infest when Goblins was the most popular deck. Clearing the board is just a temporary solution. Eventually, they'll play out another arm. A tabernacle/ghostly prison not only clears the board but prevents them from recovering as well.

The same reasons apply to Damnation. Spending 8 slots for Wrath effects when you could get the same effect by running more land destruction and 4 Ghostly Prison or Tabernacle doesn't seem ideal to me.

And I really think you are underappreciating discard. Even mid-late game, Hymns are pretty devastating.

For me, the whole Nether Spirit + Eposthacare plan sounds solid if you see a lot of nonswords based creature kill but seems too slow compared to a 5/5 flyer that starts beating asap and wins the game before Epostachare ever even shows up as a 4/4.

It was bad enough that each time Spirit died, you couldn't attack with it for two turns. Three turns is even more of a pain.

Plus you can't discard it to Pox or Smallpox for card advantage. But the 4/4 aspect of it may make it the stronger card.

So I think Spirit and Epostachare are both strong and either one may be the optimal call. But I would run Tombstalker along side Espostachare if I had to decide.

I guess it depends on how much removal you see that can deal with a 5/5 flyer but not Epostachare (that leaves out Swords).

[Top Deck]

jebus, great posts. I'm glad you ran into this thread. You gave me a lot to think about.

This deck has gotten a hell of a lot better now that Thresh (one of it's best matchups) got much more popular.

Top Deck, I agree with you on Epostachare. It's a solid card that might be worth running alongside Tombstalker.

It's the whole runnin 21 lands along with tons of 4cc cards, and some insanely high casting cards like Debtor's Knell all along with 8 cards that make you sac your own land that I am not convinced is ideal.

There were good reasons to go with Ghostly Prison or Tabernacle against goblins over Infest when Goblins was the most popular deck. Clearing the board is just a temporary solution. Eventually, they'll play out another arm. A tabernacle/ghostly prison not only clears the board but prevents them from recovering as well.

The same reasons apply to Damnation. Spending 8 slots for Wrath effects when you could get the same effect by running more land destruction and 4 Ghostly Prison or Tabernacle doesn't seem ideal to me.

And I really think you are underappreciating discard. Even mid-late game, Hymns are pretty devastating.

For me, the whole Nether Spirit + Eposthacare plan sounds solid if you see a lot of nonswords based creature kill but seems too slow compared to a 5/5 flyer that starts beating asap and wins the game before Epostachare ever even shows up as a 4/4.

It was bad enough that each time Spirit died, you couldn't attack with it for two turns. Three turns is even more of a pain.

Plus you can't discard it to Pox or Smallpox for card advantage. But the 4/4 aspect of it may make it the stronger card.

So I think Spirit and Epostachare are both strong and either one may be the optimal call. But I would run Tombstalker along side Espostachare if I had to decide.

I guess it depends on how much removal you see that can deal with a 5/5 flyer but not Epostachare (that leaves out Swords).

Tombstalker is good once, but you rarely ever get enough cards in the yard for a second or third delve action from it and you really can't cast the card without delving. Tombstalker dying to swords is way more devastating than epoch or eternal dragon. You can always cast another epoch for 2, and you can always keep using dragons to fetch lands. Also another tactic I use to ramp up a lot of lands is getting double flagstones with crucible in play. I just never had an issue with getting 7-10 land in play. In all of the tourneys, that I have been a lot of pro-players will sit next to me and comment that "this is legacy! you can't get that much land in play..." And everytime we meet up in the tourney sure enough it is the same result, I have 7-10 lands in play and they have none.

Think of dragon as 2 fetchlands. So the mana base is really 21 lands + 2 Eternal Dragons (fetchlands) and 3 dark rituals. It is a strange way to look at it but it works for me. It makes it very easy to get knell out. Knell is so strong that I often want to play 2 knells in the deck.

As for the 8 wrath effects, for me it was initially a joke. Wrath of God (pray) + Damnation (death) + death cloud (death) = pray for death... the name of the deck. People would feel like they are getting crushed with the deck so I built it that way. Honestly I can definitely drop 2 wrath of God and go to 2 ghostly prisons (at the time of the tourneys I couldn't use them because I let my friend borrow my prisons) and go 2 wraths or 2 infest. They all do the job like basically make two for 1's a big thing and drive fear into players from over committing.

Wrath effects slow down goblin players... which is one reason why landstill was so strong. (that and standstill).

Also for self land removal effects, I am only runnning 6 total (2 death clouds and 4 small pox). As a normal pox player you naturally think of course I can never get to 7 mana because you are running wasteland (removes itself), small pox, AND pox. Most of the time pox knocks you back down to 2 land. And whenever you pox to knock out 2 land it is mostly because you really wished you had a damnation in hand and knocking out some critters.

Tombstalker again is good with the common mono-black pox version, but it makes you even more vulnerable to STP'ed than epoch because tombstalker costs you a lot of resources (in this case graveyard).

Thanks again clark for putting up that great primer, but I highly recommend trying to run ports, more LD, and test out the dragon + knell option. You will find your matchups versus quick aggro more consistent in your favor. Your matchup versus control also are in your favor especially if you MD 2-4 extirpates, and don't forget extirpate is the other great LD spell. I won a matchup against a threshold player because I was able to extirpate 4 duals from the game after I smallpox'ed. That pretty much destroyed him. Most legacy decks now a days run very few actual land. Most of the time they have a lot of fetchlands.... like between 30-50% of the mana base is fetches so LD is a strong strategy.

Discard is good for me, but I think of it as a sideboard option. I only need to sideboard in discard against combo matchups. Otherwise why would I discard against aggro or control? I have small pox which helps on the discard, but the main focus is stalling their low land count using LD and ports and then wrecking them in the face with my dragons, knell, or epochs.

[Top Deck]

I had the pleasure to play a few friends who run only combo decks and more particularly solidarity, and with the build that I have posted I was like 1 out of 4 games. The games that I did win were more like random failure on Solidarity's part more so than my disruption; however, after board (Chains of Mephi, duress) I didn't lose a game.

Jebus you did point out that my combo matchup was very unfavorable and you were correct, but after board they have no chance.

[Joon]

Here is my current list:

Fetchies
3 Mire
3 Delta
Mana
3 Swamps
4 Scrubland
4 Urborg
4 Mox Diamond
Utility Lands
4 Wasteland
3 Factory

Win
3 Tombstalker

Landdestruction
4 Smallpox
4 Sinkhole
4 Vindicate
3 Pox
Discard
4 Duress/Thoughtseize
4 Hymn to Tourach
Kewl Cards
3 Crucible
2 Tops
2 Ghostly Prison

61 cards
SB

2 Ghostly Prison
4 Chalice
4 3sphere
3 Extirpate
2 Rancid Earth

In my testings Mox were 3 Tabernacles but I were often too slow. My main thinkings are if it would be better to play Ritual in the Mox Slot and fitting Tabernacle in again (LD, Tabernacle and Prison is very cool), but Mox is just cool with all the Pox Effects and is an colorfixer too. For Tabernacle I've just no space in my deck :frown:

SB

more Prisons against nasty Tokens, Chalice/Sphere against Combo (MU vs. ***** is good enough I suppose), Extirpate is an tool against nasty things like Loam and ancid Earth is to get sided in against Prison in the non-Landstill Control MU.

[Jeet]

Here is my current list:

Fetchies
3 Mire
3 Delta
Mana
3 Swamps
4 Scrubland
4 Urborg
4 Mox Diamond
Utility Lands
4 Wasteland
3 Factory

Win
3 Tombstalker

Landdestruction
4 Smallpox
4 Sinkhole
4 Vindicate
3 Pox
Discard
4 Duress/Thoughtseize
4 Hymn to Tourach
Kewl Cards
3 Crucible
2 Tops
2 Ghostly Prison

61 cards
SB

2 Ghostly Prison
4 Chalice
4 3sphere
3 Extirpate
2 Rancid Earth

In my testings Mox were 3 Tabernacles but I were often too slow. My main thinkings are if it would be better to play Ritual in the Mox Slot and fitting Tabernacle in again (LD, Tabernacle and Prison is very cool), but Mox is just cool with all the Pox Effects and is an colorfixer too. For Tabernacle I've just no space in my deck :frown:

SB

more Prisons against nasty Tokens, Chalice/Sphere against Combo (MU vs. ***** is good enough I suppose), Extirpate is an tool against nasty things like Loam and ancid Earth is to get sided in against Prison in the non-Landstill Control MU.

Is Thoughtseize worth it over Duress? I think the -2 life might be a problem if you play it mid or late game. Sure it can discard creatures but you have so many cards to deal with creatures that I'm not convinced it's worth playing over Duress.

Maybe a combination of both?

What do you guys think?

[jebus]

eternaldarkness:
Any deck with LftL is a bad matchup for this deck, as they pretty much negate everything you try to do. But you should have Leyline of the Void and Extirpate helping out in the SB. Both make your chances reasonably better, especially coupled with discard. The SB should reserve 3-7 slots just for these cards.

That solves one problem with Landstill. The other is Standstill itself, which counteracts your discard. I have no idea how to handle this except maybe just to play through it.

Also, I'm not attached to Pox (the card) at all... I just don't see TopDeck's suggestions as being viable alternatives. I've stressed it again and again: the CC's are too high, the mana sources too few.

Epochrasite is being considered simply because it comes back as a 4/4. That's really all that there is to it. Unfortunately, I haven't had time to test it yet.


TopDeck:
Counting Dragons as part of your land count means slowing yourself down and using mana early in the game just to ensure your land drops. If you really want to lock down your opponent's mana, you shouldn't be wasting time early trying to cycle out lands. Otherwise, the opponent (that is, if he's not braindead) is going to stabilize (in Legacy, 2-4 lands is pretty stable) eventually, and your Sinkholes and Icequakes would be just as dead as the discard you abhor so much.

A low land count with a high curve is bad early, late, tomorrow, yesterday, and every point in between. This fact has never changed.

Also, you keep on going about how you did so-and-so once and it worked so the problem is now solved. Again, what we're looking for here is consistency, not blind luck.


Joon:
How has your experience with Mox been, and why are you considering going back to Rituals?


Jeet:
I think Thoughtseize would be better than Duress in decks not running as much discard as this one does. Some decks (Suicide? Deadguy?) would probably look to run both, but Pox would be very wary of the 2 life it gives away to it. I say stick with Duress.

[Clark Kant]

Just wanted to post the latest list...

// Lands
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland
4 Scrubland
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta
3 Swamp
3 Tabernacle of Pendrall Vale

// Threats
3 Epocharsite
3 Tombstalker

// Disruption
3 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Sinkhole
4 Smallpox
4 Pox
4 Vindicate
2 Rancid Earth
2 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Crucible of Worlds

// Sideboard
1 Tabernacle of Pendrall Vale
2 Chains of Mephistophles
2 Trinisphere
3 Extripate/Other
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Ghostly Prison

I'm not certain if maindecking Tabernacle over Prison and Factory is the right call. Epocharsite is also still being tested but initially seems very good. But there's a chance I might go back to the build in the opening post if Epocharsite doesn't work out. But I think it will. Nether Spirit was a 2/2 with essentially Suspend 2 (because of summoning sickness) and poor synergy with Tombstalker. Epocharsite can't be discarded to get it into play like Spirit can, but is otherwise superior in this build. As you can see, I'm still going back and forth between certain cards a good bit.

// Optional Casual Transformational Sideboard
3 Jotun Grunt
4 Dark Confidant
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Phyrexian Negator

[Gambit]

What's the throughts on Thoughseize? Take the place of hymn? Or Duress? I have to say that I've been less than impressed with tabernacle thus far; I replaced the ghostly prisons in my list and they just haven't proven themselves yet, as if you slow on your mana denial even a second they still can afford to save creatures and swing with all of them. Once ghostly prison hits, it usually mean at most one creature will be attacking, and dropping a second G prison = GG.

[Clark Kant]

Yeah, I'm not absolutely certain that maindeck Tabernacles belong either. Ghostly Prison was incredible.

Now I'm testing...

The most recent list I posted
-3 Tabernacle
-1 Epochrasite
+2 Ghostly Prison
+2 Flagstones of Trokair

Not sure it's the right call (or if Tabernacle or the list in the opening post was better) but I really wanted to run maindeck Flagstones in the deck somewhere.

[Clark Kant]

Time for an update...

It could very well just be a streak of bad luck but Tabernacle failed me too many times in a row that I no longer have any desire to play the card maindeck. Epochrasite on the other hand has been great versus aggro and control alike. And as you can see, I'm now testing Thoughtseize and Epocharsite as four ofs. If Thoughtseize's life loss or Epocharsite's lack of speed start to bother me, I will cut either one to a three of to make room for another Ghostly Prison, Pox or more likely, for a singleton Sensei's Diving Top. Yes losing life sucks, but the added versatility has proven to be extremely useful. Duress used to be the worst card in the deck as it can miss out on taking the most critical card like Lackey or Tarmogoyf. I'm rarely displeased to see Thoughtsieze though. Those few games that the two life wound up mattering, I wouldn't have won anyways. As for Epocharsite, yes something like Chimeric Idol is faster and less vulnerable to land destruction. The main appeal of Epocharsite is it's casting cost. Other than Goyf, every creature this deck worries about even Werebear and Mongoose, Epocharsite can trade with and come back in a few turns. Even with Goyf, it stops one Goyf attack, or buys enough time for you to find Smallpox or Pox, then comes back as a 4/4 once you dealt with Goyf with Smallpox etc. And Goyf is this decks least favorite creature. All for just two mana.

// Lands
4 Wasteland
4 Swamp
4 Scrubland
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Flagstones of Trokair

// Creatures
3/4 Tombstalker
4/3 Epochrasite

// Spells
4 Thoughtsieze
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
4 Sinkhole
4 Rancid Earth
4 Vindicate
3 Pox
2 Ghostly Prison

// Sideboard
2 Chains of Mephistopheles
2 Ghostly Prison
3 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Duress/The Tabernacle at Pendrall Vale

If you meta is packed with creature decks, Tabernacles in the board along with your recurring 4/4s, the Ghostly Prison and the rest of the deck gives you a great matchup against aggro. In such a meta, I would also be maindecking all four Ghostly Prison. But otherwise, Duress is the better card all around with the bonus of giving you an extraordinary amount of sideboard hate versus storm combo.

[Gambit]

So basically you use epochrosite to chump and sometimes trade? Doesn't nether spirit do this without waiting 3 turns between blocks? Epochrosite seems cute but not good. Your list is different then mine in that I run 3x crucible and 3x top along with factories, and that may be why I would be hesitant to run the flagstones as they basically tap for colorless (as the number of white spells is limited). Thoughtseize is something I'm looking forward to using; at least as a replacement for my 3x duress main.

[chocomel]

Hey guys,
This is my list:
Qty Name
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
3 Swamp
4 Scrubland
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Godless Shrine
3 Tombstalker
2 Nether Spirit
3 Pox
4 Smallpox
4 Sinkhole
3 Crucible of Worlds
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Duress
4 Vindicate
2 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Ghostly Prison
60 Lands: 24, Spells: 31, Crt: 5

Ok now the explanations;
urborgs, 4 is the good number, they can let you keep hand's with wastelands, or mishra's factory's and no other mana, many hands where kept this way!

3 Mishra's no more room for another one and 8 kills seems to be sufficient.

Fetches, only 3 because you want to have at least 3 lands in play which sometimes can be difficult if you pox, wasteland everything away, so thinning your deck isn't a good option in my opinion. It also gives you 10 slots to gain white mana...
I also choose to play them because they work well with Crucible, if you can take the live loss.

3 tombstalkers, 4 is just 1 too many.

2 nether spirits, in my experience 3 are to many if you play along with tombstalkers and you don't want to draw a second spirit

2 Sensei's divining top, i really like them, 1 they give you 2 extra 1 turn drops
2 you don't have to play in topdeck mode and 3 they are both good early and mid game.

3 Ghostly prisons, just to good against aggro and they just give you the advantage match 1


Cards I don't like to play:
Flagstones, yeah smallpoxing them seems nice, well actually it isn't.
Optimal hand with wasteland and/or factory are unkeepable because they miss black.
You'll have to wait to turn 3 to play smallpox if you don't have urborg which means goofy or whatever hits you 1 turn extra.
And hey you already play 24 lands and 3 crucibles to make up the losses from pox


Things for the future;
Thoughtseize instead of duress, so it won't be a dead card against goblins.
Duress will probably go sideboard against fast combo decks, so you'll have more turn 1 disruption.

Sideboard:

1 Ghostly Prison
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Infest
3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Disenchant

pretty standard, think ill remove 1 disenchant and 1 infest but don't know what else to put in place.

Well that's it.
I won 1 tournament with this built after a lot of testing and soon i'll play my second tournament with this deck...


Michel

[Clark Kant]

The list looks solid. It's very similar to the list in the openign post. I can totally get behind your changes, running 2 Nether Spirit seems worth trying, and I was constantly goign back and forth on Rancid Earth vs. Sensei's Top already and still haven't made up my mind so I understand your reasons for going with Top. But I think cutting fetchlands was a bad call.

I think six-seven fetchlands are absolutely worth it if you're running crucible and Sensei's top. Fetchlands let you abuse both Crucible and Top which is huge. Top manipulation gives you fantastic long game. I don't see why you think the thinning out lands is a bad thing. By the time the thinning has any impact, you usually have crucible on board and you never want to draw another land anyways. They work well with urborg too. With Urborg, they don't cost you any life. Godless Shrine costs you two life if you want to hymn/sinkhole/vindicate/pox that same turn (you pretty much always are better off playing your disruption one turn earlier), whether you have Urborg in play or not. The freedom they give you to grab basic swamps against magus of the moon helps too. Plus I like having atleast 11 ways to get white esp since the deck has little draw/tutoring. Having a Vindicate in your hand to answer their only problematic card, or their last land, but not being able to cast it sucks.

Ghostly Prison probably deserves to be a 3 of. Epocharsite performs better against aggro than factory which is why I felt like I am fine with just 2 in the maindeck, but if I had the room, I would still be running 3.

Yeah, I would never use Flagstones along with Mishra's Factory. Flagstones came in when I decided to try dropping the Mishra's Factory and Crucible plan. I'm not 100% sure it was the right call or if the list in the opening post is the better option, but so far, Epocharsite has been performing fairly well.

[chocomel]

Yesterday i played pox on a small tournament, 24 people, playing this list:
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
4 Swamp
4 Scrubland
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 polluted delta's

3 Tombstalker
2 Nether Spirit

3 Pox
4 Smallpox
4 Sinkhole
3 Crucible of Worlds
4 Hymn to Tourach
2 Duress
3 Thoughtseize
4 Vindicate
2 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Ghostly Prison

SB:
3 crypts
4 cotv
1 prison
2 disenchants
2 duress
3 infest

I won the first match against survival and lost the second one against some loam deck.
I played wrong I guess and lost to it, because i never had played against it.
Then I lost to pikula and after that i lost to pikula and the last match AGAIN.

So that was one day of bad luck...
But is pikula really that diffucult for pox?
Or did i have bad luck the whole time?

They're playing lots of disruption to with the advantage of dark ritual what really wrecks the game for you.
A lot of times i saw myself duressing a ritual t1 because otherwise the next turn would be for me ritual+duress+hymn or confidant+duress etc etc.
So what to do against it?
Sideboarding out slow stuff like crucible and pox didn't made any difference at all, they'll just mana screw you or let you discard everything and winning the game by a single confidant or shade.
Should we pox player's play dark ritual side board against this kind of jokes?
Or even consider it mainboard?
Should we ignore the bad match-up against MBA, Pikula, and sorts and just live with it, or even switch or pox decks into pikula?

The problem is, I don't know.
And with the dutch national champs coming next sunday i really need some good advice.

Thanks in advance,

Michel

[NIB]

Hello guys.
The list i have been playing.

Moonpox
11 Swamp
3 Polluted Delta
3 Bloodstained Mire
4 Badlands
Total:21
// Creatures
3 Tombstalker
// Spells
4 Duress
4 Smallpox
4 Pox
4 Blood Moon
4 Sinkhole
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Thoughtseize
3 Dark Ritual
3 Infernal Tutor
2 Genju of the Spires

// Sideboard
4 Shattering Spree
3 Null Rod
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Engineered Plague

Ok, first of all, we are playing red, so we play such a powerful card as Blood moon, it can win you the game there, allso with sinkholes in the list its possible to destroy your opponents basiclands.

Dark ritual: It enables heavy first turn disruption and turn two Blood Moon.
Infernal tutor: Enables us to tutor anything after poxing and enables you to get your finishers morelikelym also first turn duress then turn two ritual tutor and searchup another sinkhole, then play it and we have still an another for next turn, this will gives us much time. Infernal tutor allso allowes to tutor up another E.plague if 2 is needed.
Genju: Genju is there for my fear of leyline of the void or extirpate on stalker,
extirpating stalker should not be possible because he wins you the game usually when he hits the table.
He strikes for 6! And can be dropped on turn 1.
Possible to be cutted from the deck.

Some weapons deck haves against some decks:
Combo:Heavy hand disruption, leyline, null rod, ld, moon.
Landstill:Heavy hand disruption, Moon.
Tresshold:Hand hand disruption, Ld, moon.
Goblins: Ld, Engineered plague.
Affinity: Null rod, shattering spree.
Sliver: Moon, engineered plague.

The thing that decks not playing chimeric idol, allows to play null rods, and Moon is good against anything not mono deck due to turn1 discards and ld.

You can usually pox as much as you like even without finisher in hand, the possibility to draw tutor, stalker or genju from top of the deck is good.

[jebus]

chocomel:
Deadguy is raping you simply because you're a lot slower and clumsier than they are. Crucibles and Prisons are slow, and Mishras can hamper your early mana. Any of these drawn early could possibly cost you the game. Deadguy done right is sleek and efficient, and they get the upper hand on you simply by doing what they're designed to.
You see, when Black-based disruption decks (Pox, Deadguy, Rockguy, Red Death, etc) face each other, it often comes down to who first gains even the slightest advantage (CA/tempo) in the war of attrition (a resolved Hymn, back to back disruption spells with no answer from the opponent, a whiffed Duress/Therapy, a Confidant allowed to survive more than one turn, etc). Deadguy having Bob, Rituals, and cheaper spells allow them to pull ahead against you, and your deck just folds because of it.
Solution: streamline your deck, or add acceleration. But you don't need to panic. Given the nature of the match up (and what I just mentioned about such matchups), it could just as well be a streak of rotten luck on your part.

NIB:
only 5 win conditions? why just 3 Rituals? isn't 4 Pox + 4 Spox + 4 Thoughtseize + 6 Fetch (with no SDT) too much pain?

[Clark Kant]

I disagree, Deadguy has not been a problem matchup for me.

The problem is, the matchup is quite dependent on who resolves the first sinkhole/hymn. Whoever gets to cast the first sinkhole/hymn gets a huge advantage in the match.

So it's easy to get unlucky here. But on average, I've found that Pox has a reasonable advantage in the matchup.

Their clocks are slow, which gives you plenty of time to lock them down with Ghostly Prison, Pox effects and mana denial. And Tombstalker is an absolute house in the matchup.

My guess is that you probably got unlucky.

[Bongo]

Has Nihilith been tested as a kill option for this deck?

The suspend cost can be fulfilled very easily (a single Smallpox reduces the suspend by 3) in this deck. It's also "safe" from Smallpox and Pox while being suspended.

[Fons]

i played it in mono black pox with tombstalkers and it did ok

[Arsenal]

So, if Tombstalker is the kill-card of choice in Pox based decks, is there a need for a secondary creature (in case Tombstalker somehow gets removed from your library/game)? I see an oldie-but-goodie, Nether Spirit, in a person's deck. I like that idea, but do you find the 2/2 body to be too fragile and irrelevant? Or by the time he hit the table, you were already in supreme command of the game, so it didn't really matter what killed the opponent? Ever think of Undead Gladiator as an alternate win condition? It's a 3/1 beater, never truly "dies", and it can filter your hand. Thoughts?

EDIT: Also, has Cabal Terapy (especially with maindeck Nether Spirit builds) been thouroughly tested? Opponent hand information, 1cc, and can be used twice is pretty nice for a Pox-based deck.

[Black_Dog]

i play BW Pox. My win conditions are: 1 Nether Spirit, 1 Tombstalker, 3 Mishra's and...

3 Reanimates MD'd.

I think they're great as in the Meta where I live and play (Europe) more often than not I get a Tarm, or a Dark Confidant.

Other times you can really use it to screw with an opponents deck Mechanic or Win condition (Eternal Dragon...hurts like hell though to pick up).

It's a another strat card. You either use it or its immeadiately boarded out for more control.

After playing various degrees of Pox since it dropped in IA, Reanimate IMHO is sort of a diamond in the rough for this Deck (I'm old school but am by no means a pro or consider myself any good),

This is just my style of play but fits the deck. It can kill you if you drop it on something that's too expensive vs a deck that can answer it easily. It's sort of like the card Pox in that sense. To Pox...or Not to Pox...that's the question I ask myself once I got 3 mana in pocket and hand ready to blow. It's the same with Reanimate.

Test it.

ps: after testing with Epoch...its nice b/c it reoccures but its way too slow for my tastes. Nether Spirit is far better in terms of tempo and damage output and playability.

For Epoch, you have to play it, then kill it via smallpox, pox or opponent. So. Lets say you drop it. Wait a turn. Attack for 1 then drop a smallpox. You have 3 turns to wait until you can hit for 4 damage and hope your opponent doesn't have an answer for it by then.

Nether Spirit, you dont have to cast it. You can discard it via Smallpox, Pox or even Thoughtsieze (if you'd really want too...) Wait one turn and throw it in play. Next turn you attack for 2, then keep attacking.

If you broke it down on a turn by turn basis in 5 turns Nether Spirit would deal 8 damage vs Epoch's 5. And if Nether is killed he comes back next turn where as Epoch...you wait...for 3 more turns...

And then again, StP answers all and if you're playing against burn or aggro...let them waste spells an abilities on the nether. Better it than you.

enough my rambling.

Test Reanimate. I think you'll love it.

[xander]

Maybe this won't work so good for Vaka pox. But when i see nether spirit my feeling always goes back to Contimination wich also handles basic lands. I think when i see back to basics and/or bloodmoon effects i think this is a good way to shut down a lot of decks out there, and an easy lock to maintain aswell. I am running a mono B pox.

[Arsenal]

Black Dog, the only initial problem I see with running MD Reanimate is the fact that it's essentially 3 dead cards versus creature-less combo (Iggy, Belcher, etc) or creature-lite (MUC, Landstill) control. I am well aware of the fact that you can Reanimate your creatures too, but... why? The thing I always liked about Pox based decks is that is hoses combo, control, and aggro-control evenly, with no dead cards in the MD.

EDIT: What happened to the REALLY early build of this using Chimeric Idol as a possible win condition? Why no Extirpates in MD or SB for people?

[Maëlig]

In my mono-B build, my kills are :
4 chimeric idol
3 tombstalker
3 nether spirit
3 the rack
2 animate dead
I know this might look alot and is sometimes a bit win-more, but I think it's absolutely crucial to have a threat ready after you disrupt the opponent, and another one in case the first gets handled. I've seen too many games lost because of a single mishra's factory or some other small stuff slowly killing you.
I prefer animate dead to reanimate because you're already tight on the life loss, and you can usually aford the extra mana.
I've tested with 4 nihilith (replacing the nether spirit), and I must say that although no deck could use it in a better way, I'm not quite happy with it. I think it's a matter of tempo, you can't really afford not to play a spell on t2 (especially if you didn't t1), and since I don't play dark ritual...
Undead gladiator looks interesting, I might give it a try (replacing nether spirit), but the card is not amazing by itself.
Epochrasite is too slow I think, altough it has a nice synergy with nether spirit and cabal therapy.
Contamination seems to me waaaaay too situational to be run in any version of pox, even in side.

[xander]

Well if every tapping for mana causes it to be black i don't really find that situational since it can single handidly destroy a lot of decks. But that's me. Not a lot of peeps use mana creatures like Bop or Elves its mostly walls, and wall of roots does'nt see much play. Atleast not in my meta. Well perhaps werebear but even that produces only green. Not even riftstone portal can help certain decks. I think its a solid way to knock every deck off his socks wich is reliant on colored mana. Artifact decks are not really running rampant anyway besides Combo decks using artifact mana. The only crappy thing is a vial.

[Black_Dog]

Arsenal:

i think the initial thing about dead cards such as Reanimate VS Iggy, Belcher, etc is it's a just question of Win Conditions.

I'd never MD out any disruption for a Reanimate slot. I just take out the slots that would normally be filled by Tombstalker, Nether Void or god forbid, Epoch or a fourth Mishra (in my deck at least).

It was just a post about Win Conditions and the best possible card I found for it, IMO.

And besides, if you're up against TES, Belcher, etc and the disruption you run isn't enough, its just more things you're able to MD out for more disruption/control.

Actually a few days ago I played against a semi-decent version of survival and it was pretty fun to Reanimate Squee and really hamper the opponents fetch engine.

[Bovinious]

So I've always wondered this, what does Vaka mean? I think vaca means cow in Spanish or something but I dont think thats what was intended with the name here...

[Black_Dog]

Some guy wrote about splashing White with Pox and put it on the net and called it Vaka Pox is everyone things its Vaka Pox. B/W Pox has been around since IA.

Vaka Pox = Fancy name for B/W Pox

[jebus]

So I've always wondered this, what does Vaka mean? I think vaca means cow in Spanish or something but I dont think thats what was intended with the name here...

Mad cow disease! haha

I still use Chimeric Idols as my 4 main win conditions, and support them with Tombstalkers and/or Epochrasites. They're really the most dependable guys you have that you can run multiples of (Nether Spirit is self-constricting and slows the deck too much).

Undead Gladiator uses up too much mana that you should be using somewhere else. As a creature it's a bit underwhleming, and as a cycling "engine" it is far inferior to simply using SDT to filter your draws.

As for Cabal Therapy, you can only really have so much discard. Duress, Hymn, Smallpox and Pox are already all in the deck, plus you still have Thoughtseize and Funeral Charm (which can be really good in certain metas). And considering how much lacking in actual card advantage this deck is, it can't afford to have one of its discard spells whiff a significant amount of the time (which is a possibility with Therapy).

A better question regarding this deck's discard package is what combination of Thoughtseize and Duress to run. This is one black deck where the 2 life lost to Thoughtseize could actually mean the difference between winning and losing... so is the ability to nab creatures worth further imbalancing Pox's life tightrope act?

[Androstanolone]

One thing to keep in mind is that, if you Thoughtseize on turn one and pox soon after, the thoughtseize really only "cost" you one life. You took 1 fewer damage from your own pox because 1/3(18) = 6 instead of 1/3(20 or 19) = 7 rounded up.

If you pox while at 20 life you'll drop to 13. Then, if you topdeck Thoughtseize and cast it, and pox again sometime later, you are getting the same effect. This scendario is much less likely. Also, if you take even 1 damage from a fetchland or a nimble mongoose, it won't work because you'll go from 19 to 12. Casting Thoughtseize puts you at 10 which means you're losing 4 life off pox whether you cast Thoughtseize that game or not.

Extending scenario one, let's say you went down to 12 or 11 after TS and pox. If you're at 12 and can take 1 damage "favorably", then you can cast thoughtseize and pox again and the seize will effectively cost you 1 life. If you were at 11 from a fetch land or something you will get the same effect.

Finally, cards like Thoughtseize and Duress lose some worth later on in the game. This is also the time when your life total is getting lower. So, thoughtseize's cost/benefit ratio weakens substantially in the midgame. This is the fundamental flaw of the card. A good deck wants its spells' value to increase as the game progresses. This is one of the principles that makes threshold so good, the threats are cheap and small at first but become cheap and big around turn 4 or so. This is the most dramatic example I can think of in legacy. Thresh's threats stop growing after the first several turns, though, which is why they play countermagic to stop cards that get more powerful than theirs after the first 4 (or so) turns. Anyway, thoughtseize does the opposite. It makes you want to run 4 because it's so very good in the first few turns. At the same time it makes you want to run only a couple because you don't want to topdeck them too often in the late game.

Thoughtseize can certainly be good in the late game, just like duress can be. Especially in this deck, which is designed to strand cards in the opponent's hand, thoughtseize and duress get some of their best mileage. However, the drawback of thoughtseize amplifies as the game goes on. I'm not sure how this amplification compares with the strength of the card in the early game and ultimately into win/loss ratios, but it is certainly food for thought.

[Arsenal]

With all the discard/destruction we run, why is Leyline of the Void a SB card? Why isn't this being maindecked? So many Legacy decks use their GY nowadays, it's rediculous.

[Clark Kant]

Because the list is several months old for a meta that had goblins in it.

Recently (when Goblins left my meta) I have adopted maindeck Leyline, absolutely fantastic in this meta.

I'll post an updated list with a miniprimer in two weeks (after finals).

But it's pretty obvious what cards I cut and what I replaced them with.

P.S. The deck is insane in the current meta btw.

[Arsenal]

Good point. I really feel as though this is a "sleeper" deck that most people won't think much of until they play against it. It has answers to virtually everything. Looking forward to your primer.

[tylerwylie]

I am coming back to Magic for now and will be picking up my old Pox deck and tweaking it some more. Had a lot of success with lists from my earlier posts.

[Arne]

Hey,

I've been playing pox for some time now, this is my list. However there are some things i'm just not sure about.

3x scrubland
3x bloodstained mire
5x swamp
4x wasteland
3x mishra's factory
3x urborg, tomb of yawgmoth
1x tomb of ur granny
3x tombstalker
2x nether spirit
3x crucible of worlds
2x sensei's divining top
3x dark ritual
2x phyrexian totem
4x innocent blood
4x duress
4x sinkhole
4x smallpox
4x hymn to tourach
3x vindicate

SB:
2x disenchant
3x smother
2x pithing needle
3x extirpate
3x leyline of the void
2x infest


Now, I'm aware of the difference between the European and the American meta. So let me explain some choices.

I'm from the Netherlands and the aggro/control decks are the decks i face most of the time. So decks like tarmothresh, pikula, meathooks and such. I don't have to deal with combodecks all that much so my SB is mainly focussed on getting rid of creatures like goyf, bob, grunt, 2cc slivers and stalling the fast aggrodecks.
I don't play Pox because I'm not really fond of it. My opponents seem to recover faster than I do. Maybe that's just bad luck or maybe I don't know how to play the card :laugh:.

I'm not sure which card to pick; M. diamond of dark ritual. ritual seems to be better/faster in the early turns while m. diamond can't be targeted by wasteland, sinkhole and the loss of land can be recovered with a CoW.

Any comments?

let me know,
Arne

EDIT: After some games I came to the conclusion I like Dark ritual better. So my list would be

[mujadaddy]

I'm currently working on a monoB-Pox-y deck (I call it " 'andless "), but I found this thread very valuable in working out some of the logic.

Good work people, especially Clark Kant. I'll be posting what I'm working with in the monoB Pox thread -- I just wanted to congratulate you all on the thouroughness of this thread :)

[Arne]

Maybe it's me, but I can't seem to find the mono-B pox thread. I used the search option but it didn't help me... I'm curious for your list.

[Clark Kant]

It was on page one, the day you posted, maybe you didn't search all the forums....

Here's a link... http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4300

As for the list in the opening post, it was up to date for when Time Spiral was first spoiled.

Nowadays, the deck should definately be running 4 Tombstalker as a finisher (over Phyrexian Totem) and atleast 2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

[Arsenal]

@Clark

How's that primer coming along?

@Arne

I played against a B/W Pox deck very similar to yours recently, but the player had 4x Mox Diamond maindeck to help him disrupt very early. I found Mox Diamond to be effective as (a.) it dodges Pox sacrifices, and (b.) has mid-late game synergy with Crucible of Worlds. I can't count the number of times he Poxed, and he had just enough mana sources to continue to operate, while without Mox Diamond, he wouldn't have had enough. Do you think Mox Diamond is worth it in B/W Pox?

[Arne]

@ Arsenal

Yeah, i've considered playing m. diamond but I didn't really like it... When testing the card I found that my handsize decreased citically. I mean, I could keep a hand with 2 lands, a mox and 4 random disruption cards but that would mean I'd end the turn with only three cards in my hand. Plus, I don't play pox anymore so I don't really need to recover from anything other than smallpox (which is easy).

Also I drew into hands with one land and a mox diamond a lot... And that really isn't too good...

[Slayer001]

I have tested out Mox diamond also and it didn't worked for me as good is hoped it would. I have tried chrome mox also, some thing as Mox Diamond. I still play two copies of pox in the deck and 4 off smallpox. You only play pox if your opponent suffers hard from it and you don't suffer to much

[JDunkin00]

Mox Diamond didn't work real good for me either but it does help make factory and wasteland hands keepable. So I still run them. I also like to run 1 godless shrine in my mana base. I too am on board with the thoughseize causing you to lose 1 life with pox plus more targeted discards better helps clear the way for Pox to resolve.

[Land]

i live by mox diamond. too many first turn hymn, smallpox and sinkholes to not run it. as for thoughtseize, maybe as a sideboard but the life totals are usually too close for the 2 life to be spent. i may run them as a 4-of in sb to replace duress but currently i use innocent blood for that.

chrome mox seemed to actually be more detrimental even if i had an optimal hand for it. whatever i put on the mox was rfg and cannot recur, plus a single bounce and i lost two cards. at least the diamond i can crucible/loam my land back.

i also have dropped the Pox from the deck in favor of relying on smallpox. it seems that powder keg and pernicious deed produce better results for the same or less mana in most cases.

in the b/w pox i prefer using Horizon Canopy, i havnt seen anyone mention it yet (maybe i missed it) but it has been a great recurable draw for me. in b/g pox i still use the barren moor as it can save my loam from extirpate, tormods, etc.

[Arne]

It can't save your LftL from being pated because of the splitsecond ability.

I understand why you want to play the mox (turn 1 hymn, sinkhole etc. is kinda nice), but I think that can also be achieved by playing dark ritual. I know the ritual is a lame draw late game (that's why I play three) but so is a late game mox without lands in your hand.

[Land]

i stand corrected on the barren moor, i misunderstood the interaction between cycling and split second.

i like dark rit as well, there are advantages to both the mox and rit, but disadvantages as well. as you stated the mid-late game one is a bit more obvious, but also the recovery method makes a difference. mox with lftl is great because you can have lands in hand anytime you need. with crucible, however, the advantage is not so clear. in that case rit would definately stand out. also it was mentioned earlier the mox bypasses the pox effect, rit does not. the multicolor mana from the mox can also save you in the event they run back to basics or blood moon, etc. 1 mox and 1 swamp are generally sufficient to run your deck, just hold mana for those 3 cast spells as needed.

[Arne]

i stand corrected on the barren moor, i misunderstood the interaction between cycling and split second.

i like dark rit as well, there are advantages to both the mox and rit, but disadvantages as well. as you stated the mid-late game one is a bit more obvious, but also the recovery method makes a difference. mox with lftl is great because you can have lands in hand anytime you need. with crucible, however, the advantage is not so clear. in that case rit would definately stand out. also it was mentioned earlier the mox bypasses the pox effect, rit does not. the multicolor mana from the mox can also save you in the event they run back to basics or blood moon, etc. 1 mox and 1 swamp are generally sufficient to run your deck, just hold mana for those 3 cast spells as needed.

Yes, you do have a very good point. The only difference between our decks is that you play LftL and I play Crucible :laugh: So, I think we both are right... But like I said earlier, I dropped the pox, so the only thing I have to recover from is smallpox. and that's easy...

[JDunkin00]

i live by mox diamond. too many first turn hymn, smallpox and sinkholes to not run it. as for thoughtseize, maybe as a sideboard but the life totals are usually too close for the 2 life to be spent. i may run them as a 4-of in sb to replace duress but currently i use innocent blood for that.

chrome mox seemed to actually be more detrimental even if i had an optimal hand for it. whatever i put on the mox was rfg and cannot recur, plus a single bounce and i lost two cards. at least the diamond i can crucible/loam my land back.

i also have dropped the Pox from the deck in favor of relying on smallpox. it seems that powder keg and pernicious deed produce better results for the same or less mana in most cases.

in the b/w pox i prefer using Horizon Canopy, i havnt seen anyone mention it yet (maybe i missed it) but it has been a great recurable draw for me. in b/g pox i still use the barren moor as it can save my loam from extirpate, tormods, etc.

there are more times you will burn more than 2 life on canopies cause you tap out constantly in this deck. (Refering to not wanting to run thoughtsieze because of life.)plus another non black land is gonna make sink and hymm less consistant unless your running canopy in a spell slot.

[chocomel]

Hey guys,
Yesterday I played a small tournament and won it!
Here's my list follwed by a small report and some explanation's

// Lands
3 [PLC] Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 [TE] Wasteland
4 [U] Scrubland
3 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
2 [ON] Polluted Delta
5 [UNH] Swamp
1 [SOK] Tomb of Urami
2 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (2)

// Creatures
3 [FUT] Tombstalker
2 [MM] Nether Spirit

// Spells
4 [TSP] Smallpox
4 [B] Sinkhole
4 [FE] Hymn to Tourach (2)
4 [AP] Vindicate
2 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
3 [CHK] Ghostly Prison
2 [FD] Crucible of Worlds
3 [TO] Rancid Earth
3 [LRW] Thoughtseize
2 [US] Duress

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [CHK] Ghostly Prison
SB: 1 [FD] Crucible of Worlds
SB: 2 [US] Duress
SB: 3 [ON] Smother
SB: 3 [ON] Infest
SB: 2 [IA] Disenchant
SB: 3 [PLC] Extirpate

2 duress/3 thoughtseize; gives the deck more to cast in turn 1, and the earlier you start to disrupt, the better.

0 pox; i removed them because the always seem to hurt a) me more than my opponent or b) remove only 1 land. Against aggro you don't want to play it and against control you don't need it and against combo you board it out.

removing 2 poxes gave me room to remove 1 crucible, with 3 i found myself drawing a second one to often but with pox you really want 1 in play...

I filled the 3 slot's with rancid earth, filling the lack of land destruction creating better synergie with ghostly prison and some time's killing confidants and tokens.

1 tomb of urami; this card is amazing!! it won me 2 games on the tournament and 6 in total after adding it last week. you don't care much if it gets wastelanded because you can use you scrubland better and the tomb is extra so you can afford to miss it. Sometime losing some live didn't matter to the fact i won the game the same match.

The sideboard:
1 ghostly prison against aggro
1 crucible against staxx
2 duress against combo, control, staxx
3 smother's against confidants goyf's
3 infest against goblins, elves, sometime ETW
2 discenchant against staxx, affinity
3 extirpate against loam and other nasty graveyard stuff

I removed 4 cotv because i didn't used them in quite a while and guessed there wouldn't be any combo around, which turned out to be true.

Report's:

Round 1
Played against a deck called the afterlife, which abusses his loam engine but now added with goyf's and confidant.
I played against in the past and after a long round i found myself losing 2-1.
Couldn't find extirpate's and my draws weren't that good.

Round 2
Staxx
I lost the first match, because me opponent had a 2nd turn crucible in play.
Which i couldn't get away.
The next 2 game's where mine, he stalled me a little with a trinisphere but in turn 4 i sinkholed and wastelaned 2 lands of him, putting him on the hold and won be casting my tombstalker the next turn and keeping him low on lands witn 1 divining top in play and 1 rancid earth in my hands.
Last game was a challenge, I had control with land destruction but my opponent suspended some 3/3 pro black flyer turn 1 which stalled my tombstalker for about 10 turn after which i found a nether spirit and finnaly smallpoxed it away.

Round 3
Draggon Stompy
I won the first match quite easilly but the seccond i lost by finding myself collor screwed by a bloodmoon.
I couldn;t do anything with 4 mountains and 1 swamp and scooped.
The next game i was on the play again and things went how they should go and i won the match.

Round 4
Mono blue control.
I won the game by getting much of my disruption seen countered
And swing with tombstalker for the win.

Second match i kept a very strong hand, with 1 duress and 2 hymns 1 swamp and 1 tomb of urami and 2 other cards.
I see myself winning with a tomb of urami token.

Round 5
Dragon stompy
I won the first round based on luck.
My opponent casted a turn 1 bloodmoon and i fetched for a swamp ( i was on the play)
But luckilly a kept a hand with 2 swamps in it and i was able to disrupt and lock him with his own trinisphere.
I had the luck he thought that bloodmoon didn;t mattered that much against me and he boarded them out.
I was able to win after quite a while, he having his dragon + an other creature me having tombstalker and nether spirit.
And finnally finding myself me second smallpox and pox his creature's away...

I really like my current build, it's very strong and it plays nice.
In the future i might turn to loam pox, because i think crucible falls just out of the mana curve and sometime's i see myself not being able to cast it, 'cause im sitting on two lands...

Please let me know what you guy's think about it :)

Ps. i want to thank you guys, especially Clark Kant for giving so much comment in this forum and posting his lists (which inspired me to play this deck)

[Joon]

What do you think about adding one 'nacle to the list? Together with Smallpox and Prison it would be very nice against Aggrocontrol and Aggro strategies.

[chocomel]

Sounds like a good plan, but they're in holland hard to get and expensive, and i don't want to spend so much money on cards..

[mujadaddy]

Chocomel -- How big is a "small" tournament? Just trying to get a feel...

[Arne]

Back in august, I played at a tournament organised by chocomel... The number of players participating had to be around 20 or so...

[chocomel]

There were 13 people, so not that big :)

[mujadaddy]

There were 13 people, so not that big :)
What I'm interested in is, what decks came in 2,3 & 4? Were those decks scrubby, or worthy contenders? Again, trying to get a feeling for what the metagame was like (I'm working on a mono:b:Pox deck, so I watch this thread with interest :smile: )

[chocomel]

1 Bw Pox
2 Astral Slide
3 GWB Loam
4 Dragon Stompy
5 MUC
6 Dragon Stompy
7 RGB Beatz
8 FEB
9 MBA/Goyf
10 BU Control
11 W-Stax
12 Vial Pikula

[mujadaddy]

Thanks! You're very helpful :laugh:

On MTG.com, I'm having a discussion with a guy about :b::w: vs. mono:b: ... and another guy is saying that Ichorid & other Graveyard-recursion combos will eat Pox alive... I was wondering if anyone had played Ichy...

[Akasha]

Against Ichorid, when you can get fast enough an ghostly Prison, then it is very hard for them to win. Actually, they can't... Same with belcher if they go EtW route.

[mujadaddy]

Well, I was thinking Leyline of the Void, but yeah.

[chocomel]

Yes that's true, I once played against ichorid and raped it with my ghostly prisons :) and after the first match there's always your sideboard..

[Arne]

I've played against ichorid a couple of times and never lost to it... Cards like ghostly prison, extirpate (when used correctly) and Leyline o/t Void will eat that deck alive. This is true for a lot of combodecks vs. Pox (W/B and mono-B)

@chocomel,

How did Slide get that far? I thought it never really made it in legacy...

[Land]

seems like Blood Moon, Magus of the Moon and Back to Basics completely shutdown my deck. i have been using Cranial Extraction to try and get around them and ill side in Thoughtseize to try and discard them. otherwise im stuck with a bunch of mountains or islands and all black cards =\

[mujadaddy]

The defense vs. Moons is to not let them get 3 mana. Sorry to be a damper, but that's about all you've got.

[Arne]

but you're not gonna tell me you don't play basic swamps, right?

Well, to be true, I play the W/B version so I just hold back my scrublands and vindicates when I know my opponent plays enchantments like that... the magus doesn't scare me.

[mujadaddy]

but you're not gonna tell me you don't play basic swamps, right? I play mono:b:Pox with ONLY basic swamps -- not even Wastelands.

I just like to keep an eye on this thread because it has a better discussion of "Pox theory."

[Cavius The Great]

Against Ichorid, when you can get fast enough an ghostly Prison, then it is very hard for them to win. Actually, they can't... Same with belcher if they go EtW route.

That's the exact way I beat Belcher with Geddon Equilibrium. First turn BoP, second turn Propaganda/Ghostly Prison if they go the EtW route. It's funny that that's catching on now.

[Arne]

So, I guess you're done testing the nihilith... how did it work out for you? I didn't test it so I can't say if it's a good or bad card in the deck. I'm not to fond of the nether spirit, so I'm considering cutting it for an extra tombstalker or perhaps a nihilith...

[Dark_Cynic87]

Chocomel: I'm curious if you played against either DS list. I know it runs serious amounts of moon effects and chalices, it seems like it would be pretty difficult to win. They can and do drop a turn 1/2 Moon effect easily. Cranial Extraction is like a week late and a paycheck short by the time you can play it.

I dunno what to do if DS is making a strong showing. The best solution I can come up with is Duress or Ca$hseize into an extirpate, but then you have to worry about Chalices, so...idk. Guess it's up to what ur comfortable with against your meta.

[/chocomel]

I was wondering why you wouldn't play Wastes in the general meta we've been seeing. BTW, does this mean you don't run crucibles? It would seem a bit pointless to run crucible if you don't run wastes and only Swamps. I see where it helps with Pox and DC, but otherwise...it seems expendable.

--DC

[Arne]

With the arrival of DS, pox has become a bit weaker imo. But, I don't think it's a real problem because when you know you're gonna be facing a lot of DS decks, you can just simply pack more basics. I mean a configuration consisting 3/4 swamps and 1/2 plains should be enough to be able to cast a vindicate on bloodmoon... the magus shouldn't be a problem with all the creature removal this decks contains. Also, 3 disenchants on side helps a lot.

Also, I'm still really interested in Nihilith, I think, with it's evasive ability, it could be a real big threat in this deck. Like tombstalker, it has a great evasive ability, can't be smothered or killed by shriekmaw and kicks opponents ass... The only con I can think of is that you really need more than one or two because you want to abuse the smallpox, duress and hymns with this creature suspended. For that to happen the deck must contain at leat three copies...

any comments or suggestions?

[eternaldarkness]

I'm pretty sure nihilith has already been discussed...just can't find the relevant posts.

The gist is that while nihilith looks nice in theory, its a horrible topdeck. The only way to truly abuse it is to have it in your opening hand and suspend it as fast as possible (most likely on turn 2) before you cast your disruption. This is pretty bad since suspending Nihilith would thus get in the way of disrupting your opponents. Stick to tombstalker which can be cast easily after a flurry of discard/LD and whether it was in your opening hand or not.

[mujadaddy]

nihilith looks nice in theoryIt's also too dependant on the opponent--ie, cards hitting his graveyard. It never comes out the turn you want it to...

[Arne]

you're absolutely right... I spent all afternoon testing my deck with nihilith in it... It turned out to be a couple of wasted hours. too bad, like you say, it's nice in theory... but it really does suck.

Well can't blame a guy for trying.

[Rascal]

Hi, all! I´m still interested in reading this topic, nice job....I had some positive results with budget mono B Pox on the tourney (8th from 26), but I would like to improve it.

For some time I want to stay mono B.

Which decklist you think as a optimal for mono B non-budget Pox?
Thanks for sharing your ideas...

[mujadaddy]

Hi, all! I´m still interested in reading this topic, nice job....I had some positive results with budget mono B Pox on the tourney (8th from 26), but I would like to improve it.

For some time I want to stay mono B.

Which decklist you think as a optimal for mono B non-budget Pox?
Thanks for sharing your ideas...

This (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4300) is the place for monoB discussion. (This thread is dedicated to BW Pox, called "Vaka Pox" for some reason.) I recommend reading the whole thread, there, too. My decklist is on the last page or two.

See you there.

[Clark Kant]

Yeah, I started out with that thread, but once Tombstalker got printed and the deck got to be a lot more competive, I eventually ended up with this thread because of the insane synergy white gives you in the form of...

Vindicate - blow up anything be they Lands (perfect for this deck), Goyfs, Counterbalances, Aether Vials, or Planeswalkers.

Ghostly Prison - singlehandedly shuts down aggro of all forms. Shuts down Ichorid, Goblins, and just about every aggro deck.

So I highly recommend running...

// Lands
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland
4 Scrubland
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta
3 Swamp
3 Mishra's Factory

// Threats
4 Tombstalker

// Disruption
3 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
4 Sinkhole
4 Vindicate
4 Pox
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Ghostly Prison
2 Rancid Earth

Another advantage of building this deck is, if you do invest in the cards to build it, you can very cheaply transform it into Budget Eva White (B/W Suicide)...

- 2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
- 3 Mishra's Factory
- 4 Smallpox
- 4 Pox
- 3 Crucible of Worlds
- 3 Ghostly Prison
- 2 Rancid Earth
- 1 Vindicate

+ 4 Dark Ritual
+ 4 Snuff Out
+ 4 Hypnotic Specter
+ 4 Phyrexian Negator
+ 3 Nantuko Shade
+ 2 Swords to Plowshares
+ 1 Polluted Delta

Then when you can afford it, you can get ahold of 4 Thoughtseizes and build a more optimal B/W Suicide build.

So you essentially get two competitive decks for the price of one.

But I can understand wanting to stay monoblack for budget reasons.

If that is the case, then I recommend trying a build like this...

Monoblack Variant

6 Swamp
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wasteland
3 Mishra’s Factory
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Cabal Pit
2 Dakmor Salvage

3 Dark Ritual
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach

4 Innocent Blood
4 Sinkhole
4 Smallpox
4 Pox

2 Nether Spirit
3 Crucible of Worlds
4 Tombstalker

[Thehunter820]

Pox is a fun deck, here's the version I use...

W/B

Lands x22
Scrubland x4
Swamp x4
Plains x1
Polluted Delta x3
Wasteland x4
Bloodstained Mire x4
Mishra's Factory x2

Creatures x4
Tombstalker x4

Disruption x23
Small Pox x4
Pox x4
Hymn to Tourach x3
Duress x3
Vindicate x4
Sinkhole x4

Other x9
Phyrexian Totem x2
Bitterblossom x2
Engineered Explosives x3
Ghostly Prison x2
Crucible of Worlds x3

The other cards that i'm testing are...

Dark Confidant
Engineered plague
Infest
Cataclysm
Armageddon
Damnation

Cataclysm and Armageddon are unfavored draws with my current manabase due to the low amount of white mana sources, which i'll edit soon. and in the side board its more artifacts/enchantments, and Tivadar's Crusade atm.

[Clark Kant]

The build looks solid.

I just have a couple of small suggestions...

Your land count is way too low. You will be saccing lands left and right. There is no such thing as too many lands iwth this deck. You can always discard excess lands instead of business spells. But when you are mana screwed you are mana screwed.

I can't imagine you can get to 3 mana with any regularity with just 22 lands. So I would drop the 2 Totem for two more lands, preferably 3 more.

Run atleast 3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. Pox costs 3 black mana, most of the deck's spells cost atleast two.

Urborg, turns all your Wastelands and Factories, which normally can't tap for black, into black. Trust me, it really helps smooth our the mana needs.

Even better yet, it lets you use fetchlands to make black mana without having to sacrifice them and lose a life in the process.

I'm curious how well Bitterblossom is working for you. I can't imagine it being a good fit here at all. It costs you a lot of life, all for small measly threats.

I honestly find 4 Tombstalker and 3 Factories to be all the threats you need to go the distance.

The key to maximize the amount of disrupiton you run, not the number of threats.

I'm also wondering how good Engineered Explosives is. It seems strong actually, I will have to test it. But are you sure you wouldn't be better if you ran in it's place the 3rd Ghostly Prison, the 4th Hymn (an exceptional spell) and 2 Rancid Earth?

[Thehunter820]

I have been planning on dropping some threats to add 2 more mana, 3 at the very most, and a bit more disruption, and, I like the bitter blossom, because my life count tends to not be low, and the beaters add up quite nicely. I do enjoy using the explosives though, you can hit 2 with it, and im still not too sure about the Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, while it seems useful, and I have tested it, it tends to be irrelevant, so im still iffy on this subject, and the last thing I forgot to previously mention, is that I do have StP in the side, for those that may be wondering.

[Clark Kant]

Remember, Tomb of Yawgmoth lets you tap fetchlands for black mana without having to sac them and lose a life. With 7 fetchlands in the deck, that life loss can add up in a long game. It also lets you tap Plains for black mana.

My favorite play is...

Turn 1 - lay Tomb of Yawgmoth Duress,
Turn 2 - lay Fetchland sac it for Swamp, Sinkhole,
Turn 3 - lay Wasteland and play Pox off the 3 black (that wouldn't be possible without Tomb of Yawgmoth), sac fetchland to Pox.
Turn 4 - lay Fetchland, don't sac fetchland, sac Wasteland to take out your opponents last land and play Tombstalker with your two remaining land.

Odds are, your opponent is completely out of lands and won't see one for a while you have a 5/5 flyer on your side.

Such plays wouldn't be possible without a high land count and lots of Tomb of Yawgmoths and Tombstalkers.

Here are some factors to consider in deciding how many lands to run...

If you have too many lands, you can always discard those to Pox effects and retain your business spells. So in reality, there is rarely such a thing as mana flood, you always have to discard stuff to Pox anyways.

Mana screw on the other hand is something this deck absolutely needs to avoid to keep the disruption going.

A few things to consider though.

I run a full playset of both Pox and Smallpox (something I strongly recommend), so I end up having to discard more than a build with only 6-7 pox effects.

My build runs 4 Wastelands, and I almost always use them to blow up lands as soon as I can.

My build runs a ton of high cc cards, 4 Vindicate, 4 Pox, 4 Tombstalker, 3 Crucible, 3 Ghostly Prison, so it's esp important that the deck not get mana screwed.

Monoblack runs at a lower curve usually, with cards like Innocent Blood and what not, so it's not as mana hungry.

Based on your build's curve, you might be best off running 24 lands, but I really wouldn't go below that personally.

I sometimes play Vaka Pox with 24 lands, but that's only when I am playing a build that plays 3 Flagstones of Trokair.

[Pulp_Fiction]

Yeah, I started out with that thread, but once Tombstalker got printed and the deck got to be a lot more competive, I eventually ended up with this thread because of the insane synergy white gives you in the form of...

Vindicate - blow up anything be they Lands (perfect for this deck), Goyfs, Counterbalances, Aether Vials, or Planeswalkers.

Ghostly Prison - singlehandedly shuts down aggro of all forms. Shuts down Ichorid, Goblins, and just about every aggro deck.

So I highly recommend running...

// Lands
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland
4 Scrubland
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta
3 Swamp
3 Mishra's Factory

// Threats
4 Tombstalker

// Disruption
3 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
4 Sinkhole
4 Vindicate
4 Pox
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Ghostly Prison
2 Rancid Earth



This list looks really solid but is 4x Pox really necessary? In the long run you only want 1x per game, multiples are almost always useless or equally devastating to you when cast. Would 3x Pox be the right number for this deck? Also, Tombstalker is a serious bomb but there is another really underplayed creature in this type of deck, Epochrasite. Do you think they deserve a place?

Also, how does this particular build perform against the various forms of thresh?

[Clark Kant]

Here you go, here is my tweaked build with Epochrasite and 3 Pox effects from October of last year...




// Lands
4 Wasteland
4 Swamp
4 Scrubland
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Flagstones of Trokair

// Creatures
4 Tombstalker
3 Epochrasite

// Spells
4 Thoughtsieze
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
4 Sinkhole
4 Vindicate
3 Pox
3 Rancid Earth
3 Ghostly Prison

// Sideboard
1 Ghostly Prison
3 Chains of Mephistopheles
3 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Duress/The Tabernacle at Pendrall Vale


It's a solid build. I really haven't been able to figure out which build is stronger.

P.S. In case you didn't realise it, Rancid Earth gives you a great way to kill the 1/1 Epochrasite, without hurting the 4/4 Epochrasite (or letting it trade with a 4/5 Tarmogoyf).

[Clark Kant]

Any thoughts on Epochrasite? Has anyone tried running the card with Tombstalker in the monoblack pox lists?

A 4/4 is a pretty strong roadblock against random (ie. nongoyf based) aggro. Much more so than a 2/2. It is one turn slower to get back than Nether Spirit though.




// Lands
4 Wasteland
4 Swamp
4 Scrubland
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Flagstones of Trokair

// Creatures
4 Tombstalker
3 Epochrasite

// Spells
4 Thoughtsieze
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
4 Sinkhole
4 Vindicate
3 Pox
3 Rancid Earth
3 Ghostly Prison

// Sideboard
1 Ghostly Prison
3 Chains of Mephistopheles
3 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void
4 The Tabernacle at Pendrall Vale


I run him in the above list because the deck couldn't support both Mishra's Factories and Flagstones, so I figured Epochrasite would work well as the bonus threat while allowing me to cut Crucible.

But then again, the classic Vaka Pox list that uses both Crucibles and Factories instead is very strong too.




// Lands
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland
4 Scrubland
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta
3 Swamp
3 Mishra's Factory

// Threats
4 Tombstalker

// Disruption
4 Thoughtsieze
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
4 Sinkhole
4 Vindicate
4 Pox
3 Crucible of Worlds
2 Ghostly Prison
2 Rancid Earth

// Sideboard
2 Duress
2 Ghostly Prison
3 Chains of Mephistopheles
4 Chalice of the Void
4 The Tabernacle at Pendrall Vale

It lets me get away with running the full 4 Poxes as I have Crucible and only have 4 creatures that die to Pox.

I'm just trying to figure out which list is better.

[chocomel]

What happend to sensei's divining top?
It was kind of a game winner mid-late game and almost always a keep finding one in your opening hand..
So why did you cut it?