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12-04-2007, 12:25 PM
PoxLoam (Loaming Pox) seems to be doing decent in Germany. When I started researching the Pox style decks there was a decision to be made early on: Green or White. Green was always a favourite color of mine so here we go...

First off a couple of top8 decklists from German tournaments and then a follow-up with a modified decklist and points of interest.

Loaming Pox by Sebastian Leschinski:
http://www.germagic.de/dc/deck.php?id=11757

Loaming Pox by André Bärlin:
http://www.germagic.de/dc/deck.php?id=9382
Land [23]:
4x Bayou
2x Polluted Delta
1x Bloodstained Mire
3x Cabal Pit
3x Barren Moor
3x Mishra's Factory
3x Wasteland
3x Swamp
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Creatures [4]:
2x Nether Spirit
2x Undead Gladiator

Acceleration [9]:
3x Mox Diamond
2x Phyrexian Arena
4x Dark Ritual

Attrition [18]:
2x Pox
4x Smallpox
4x Duress
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Sinkhole

Recovery [6]:
3x Life from the Loam
3x Pernicious Deed

Sideboard [15]:
2x Infest
3x Pithing Needle
4x Innocent Blood
2x Krosan Grip
4x Leyline of the Void


André's deck was manually listed because it seems to post better results than the first. In the event the hosting site took it down, I wanted a copy of the deck here since I used it as an original point of reference.


Since playing André's deck I found that Phyrexian Arena was putting me in a bad spot mid and late game, which was frequently visited. Pernicious Deed is good as well, but really showed little support early game due to all the land/hand disruption going on. So given those two major points I modified the decklist accordingly.

PoxLoam by Dylan Fleming:
Land [21]:
4x Bayou
2x Polluted Delta
1x Bloodstained Mire
3x Barren Moor
3x Mishra's Factory
3x Wasteland
4x Swamp
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Creatures [4]:
2x Nether Spirit
2x Undead Gladiator

Acceleration [10]:
3x Mox Diamond
4x Dark Ritual
3x Sylvan Library

Attrition [18]:
2x Pox
4x Smallpox
4x Duress
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Sinkhole

Recovery [7]:
3x Life from the Loam
2x Pernicious Deed
2x Zuran Orb

Sideboard [15]:
2x Infest
4x Innocent Blood
3x Krosan Grip
3x Extirpate
3x Pithing Needle

First off, Cabal Pit was dropped due to it's lack of usefulness locally at tournaments. It does have a very good use and may belong in the deck in certain metagames, but here it currently does not.

Wasteland is a great card but with goblins, MUC and a lack of money for dual lands, most of the time these ended up being chaff. Ghostly Quarter is an issue in that it thins an opponents deck in the event he is running a deck that resists Wasteland. There seems, at this time, to be no better option than Wasteland.

Sylvan Library replaced the self-destructive Phyrexian Arena. This was due to numerous game losses that resulted from an Arena staying on the board too long with a slow clock. A couple of lands were dropped as well due to mana floods frequently. This opened up space for another Sylvan. The Sylvan also provides a fix for the problem of not knowing what you're about to dredge. Only the creatures and lands recur in this deck and dredging off a couple Hymn's and a Sinkhole prove to be more detrimental than the Loam was worth.

Zuran Orb many times has turned the tide of a mid or late game by allowing the cycling of lands for life. In a deck that tries to recover from board-wide sacrificing, life is a commodity that cannot be overlooked. A third Pernicious Deed was dropped because they usually was undesirable early game and Orb is always good to have, no matter what turn it is.

Extirpate has replaced Leyline for a couple of reasons. First, Leyline is taking up 4 slots and is still not guaranteed to work properly without Serum Powder (which would take another 3 or 4 slots). Second, Chain of Vapor can defeat Leyline and the last thing this deck needs is a card that hurts it's own recursion. Extirpate in conjunction with the hand disruption has provided favorable results and won a tournament single handedly as well.

Pithing Needle is nice and in earlier versions before Zuran Orb was added, I would run Null Rod in place of the Needle for artifact hate. Where as this was an immediate loss for anyone relying too heavily on artifacts, Pithing Needle is a more reliable side in most matches.


I have tried on numerous occasions to splash white into the deck for Vindicate, Jotun Grunt and Swords to Plowshares. The Vindicate was too high of a casting cost, as with most of the 3cc cards in the deck, since the deck runs best on 2 mana. Jotun Grunt is nice for recurring any card in the deck and hating on Threshold but is not worth splashing Scrublands in favor of Swamps just to recur some Sinkholes and Hymns. The Swords effect can be somewhat replicated with Hymn/Extirpate or the similar. Running Thoughtseize in place of Duress proved fatal most times but was not tested recently.


I have tried the Vaka Pox ( http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5496 ) as well and still prefer the PoxLoam style decks. I would appreciate any constructive comments to improve this deck.

Some points of interest are:

- Are the current lands the most damaging/helpful to play in the deck?
- Land count, too much, too little or just right?
- Life stabilization, is Zuran Orb really the trick?
- Is Undead Gladiator's unique ability to shape your hand/grave really worth it or should a faster clock or more disruption be in it's place.