[Primer/Deck] Pox

[OmniStrata]

Top was obviously boss at doing that, but there are very few options in black/artifacts that can help accomplish that. I don't think Crystal Ball is going to suddenly become good.

EDIT: Sea Gate Wreckage?

It's the poor man's Azcanta... That damn land has farked me over enough times, then again, I should do some testing. Sea Gate definitely seems like more card advantage than the scroll, it's effect also allows you to not need the scroll since their abilities are counterproductive. Gotta give it a shot!

[Mr. Safety]

I agree that Azcanta is really good in Miracles, but I don't think it's worth the splash in Pox. Maybe? If I were to splash in Pox, and I am quite biased obviously, would be green. Loam + Cycle lands is a genuine card draw engine, Entomb can enable it easily, and Sylvan Library is easily the best option for filtering draws. A while ago I tried to make Bg pox work with Hexmage/Depths/Stage/Crop Rotation. Then I tried working in Dark Confidant...which eventually led me to dropping the Pox effects and going full-bore into Depths combo. I can't help but feel that splashing a color needs to be for more than just a card draw engine. For a true Pox deck, I really like Tombstalker and Bitterblossom, especially the latter. You don't need card draw if you can just slowly build an army while suppressing your opponent's ability to play the game.

[Chronatog]

With only Snow-Covered Swamps in the deck Scrying Sheets can help to get us to draw more business cards. Haven't tried it yet.

[ghostfire86]

With only Snow-Covered Swamps in the deck Scrying Sheets can help to get us to draw more business cards. Haven't tried it yet.

Yes but after runnIng 8 colorless lands already and 1 non mana producer for those that run Tabernacle, can we really offers to add another when many of our spells are double black

[Mr. Safety]

It's the poor man's Azcanta... That damn land has farked me over enough times, then again, I should do some testing. Sea Gate definitely seems like more card advantage than the scroll, it's effect also allows you to not need the scroll since their abilities are counterproductive. Gotta give it a shot!

Very low risk, we wouldn't be able to support more than 1-2 copies anyways, and it's like a $1 card. My inclination is to cut a Wasteland to make room for it, or just run 26 lands (25 is typical for me, 4 Factory + 4 Wasteland + 4 Urborg + 12 Swamp + 1 Cabal Pit/Bojuka Bog depending on meta)

I would try something like this:

1x Tombstalker
4x Bitterblossom

3x Thoughtseize
3x Cabal Therapy
2x Fatal Push
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Smallpox
2x Collective Brutality
3x Liliana of the Veil
1x Liliana the Last Hope
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Ratchet Bomb
1x Beseech the Queen
1x Raven's Crime
3x Dark Ritual

4x Wasteland
4x Mishra's Factory
4x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
12x Swamp
1x Cabal Pit
1x Sea Gate Wreckage


I really like the Beseech the Queen toolbox with Crucible, Ratchet Bomb, Raven's Crime, and Wreckage; it's slow, but that's ok in Pox. I don't think it will ever be able to grab the Tombstalker, lol (it can always grab a Factory in a pinch if I need a threat.) Fatal Push could be Innocent Blood depending on metagame. If I had the high roller cards like Tabernacle, the Abyss, or Chains I would play them in the sideboard. As it stands I would definitely sideboard 3-4 Engineered Plagues in the board, which makes Night of Soul's Betrayal unnecessary.

Dark Ritual could be at 4 copies, just because there are ways to abuse it late game like escalating Brutality and being able to play Beseech + target in one turn.

EDIT: @Chronotog - Scrying Sheets is a great draw engine, especially if you were to play a Depths plan (it's a snow land...) but the Factory's or Wastelands would have to give. Black Mana is just too important, and Factory as an alternative win condition has been critical since forever.

[OmniStrata]

With only Snow-Covered Swamps in the deck Scrying Sheets can help to get us to draw more business cards. Haven't tried it yet.

A long time ago, I'd have run it with withering Wisps in my Frozen Witch Pox build, but that was during the Divining Top Age. It's less effective with high non-snow land counts and no top to set you up. Default Pox builds already run 12 non swamp lands! 4 urborg, wastelands and Factories. You could try it... But in today's banned top world, I'd advise against it. There is Crystal Ball, but I've never tested it.

[Chronatog]

"No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it."

@ghostfire86 Yes, it is not easy to use Scrying Sheets in the current consensus build and definitely a new deck should be build that can incorporate Scrying Sheets and benefits from this card.

For example, I never liked Wasteland in the deck as it feels clunky. When it works, it works well; and when it doesn't work, it hampers our own mana development. Mishra's Factory is different as it helps to finish the game, but both Wasteland and Mishra's Factory require us to use Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. The question is whether it is possible to implement a pox-like strategy of grindy resource attrition in the current metagame without Wasteland, Mishra's Factory, and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth? These cards take up to 12 slots. I'm not an expert in Pox and am not sure what 12 cards we can bring. But, why not to experiment and deviate from the consensus opinion? Is this what Magic about - building your deck and having fun?

@Mr. Safety I never thought about Dark Depth plan in the context of Pox, but it has it own merits. I am not sure that Pox is the most efficient way to utilize Dark Depth strategy, but this approach may work as a transformational sideboard, I guess.

Basically we will need to substitute 4x Wastelands, 4x Mishra's Factory, and 4x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth with 4x Dark Depth, 4x Thespian's Stage, and 4x Vampire Hexmage. But there is not much space left for Scrying Sheets if we want to improve our draws, and we will also end up with four no mana producing lands, and eight brown lands.

BTW, if you like using Raven's Crime, I think it combines well with Scrying Sheets as you will get more spare lands in your hand.

@OmniStrata Withering Wisps is Pestilence on steroids and I think it fits well into the deck's philosophy. It also combines well with Nether Spirit - return Nether Spirit at the beginning of your turn, cast some discard/sinkhole spells, pass the turn, activate Withering Wisps at the end of the opponents turn. Lather, rinse, repeat. For this build I'd prefer to have some life drain effect so we always have more LPs than our opponent. I'd recommend another cool card from Ice Age - Soul Burn as it is a great thematic addition to Pox, Scyring Sheets, Withering Wisps, and Snow-Covered Swamps, but Drain Life is better (and a Mirage reprint has an amazing art by RKF).

[aslidsiksoraksi]

I can't say I'm into the plan of dropping wastelands, that card is too good too often. If we want to be a Dark depths deck, that's a possibility, but cutting wastelands for DD and factories for Stages leaves us just as many colorless sources, so we'll still need Urborg... And I guess on another level it just doesn't feel right to me to have this kind of thing in the deck; if we were designed to make use of it we'd be TurboDepths, and if we were a control deck using it we'd be Lands. It feels like Monoblack depths Pox doesn't add much that those decks don't have and lacks a lot of what they bring to the table (eg Loam, Crop Rotation).

Pox operates by denying resources - it is a prison deck above all else. If we cut wastelands, then we are removing our ability to attack our opponent's mana base. Given how few sinkholes there are out there these days, that leaves only Smallpox for land destruction. Without land destruction, we're just a more pro-active control deck that can make good use of Lilliana. We'll get beaten by any blue deck there is, since blue will have the tools to outdraw us. Wasteland is key in the Delver matchups, where our route to victory is to choke them out of mana.

We do a good job of smashing all resources, from hand to mana to creatures. The main things we seem to have trouble with are closing out the game and smoothing our draws.. I'm excited to try Torment of Scarabs to help with that first one a little, though I'm a bit worried that without any supplemental pressure it'll be too slow.
I keep trying to think of more interesting ways to lock the opponent, starve them of resources... have been trying ensnaring bridge for a bit with decent success. Bitterblossom is another one that seems quite good at both holding people off and closing things down.

As for drawing... scrying sheets feels like a long shot. I'd try Crystal Ball first. Bottled Cloister is another good one.

Anyway. just some thoughts from a Pox player. love the deck more and more each time I play it.

[naynay666]

Wasteland can be crippling but it isn’t always relevant. I have been screwed by too many colorless sources far too often. All of our double black means we have to have an Urborg or we don’t get to play the game. It hurts when we are not able to Hymn or Smallpox, but worse yet are those occasions when we are helping our opponent. Yeah them getting black mana for DRS from a Fetchhland sucks, but letting them power out a Reality Smasher off of an Eye on turn 2 suuuuuuckkss. Not to mention Urborg’s complications from the Legendary rule.

Mishra’s Factory is the best of our nonbasics. It’s a threat that gets around our edicts that can block really well. I want to test out a 4 Factory, 20 Swamp manabase over 12 nonbasic and 12 basic.

My meta has a lot of Red Prison decks as well as (basic heavy) Miracles with a strong disdain for nonbasic lands either through Back to Basics or Ruination. But it also has a lot of everything else. Lands is always the hardest matchup and giving up Wasteland isn’t going to make that any easier- but giving their Wastelands less targets makes us a little more resilient.

The 4:20 manabase seems good but will be difficult for me to test, as I have just finished foiling Urborg and Wasteland.

[OmniStrata]

@OmniStrata Withering Wisps is Pestilence on steroids and I think it fits well into the deck's philosophy. It also combines well with Nether Spirit - return Nether Spirit at the beginning of your turn, cast some discard/sinkhole spells, pass the turn, activate Withering Wisps at the end of the opponents turn. Lather, rinse, repeat. For this build I'd prefer to have some life drain effect so we always have more LPs than our opponent. I'd recommend another cool card from Ice Age - Soul Burn as it is a great thematic addition to Pox, Scyring Sheets, Withering Wisps, and Snow-Covered Swamps, but Drain Life is better (and a Mirage reprint has an amazing art by RKF).

Actually, back then, my one md spinning darkness was usually enough to keep me afloat. 2 Nether spirit was the secret ingredient to that doom. Just had to count the spinning darkness alt cast carefully so you didn't lose both of them. Factory alone could keep wisps online actually.

[ntropy]

The State of Mono Black Pox: A “Tournament Report” from #SCGWOR
The first time I played Sinkholes in a tournament, Duress had been printed exactly once. Pox had been printed, but I hadn’t read it yet. I eventually caught on, about the time Duress got its second printing. I was jamming Nether Spirits, Chimeric Idols and Cursed Scrolls all day. Over the years we’ve received many, many excellent cards, Tier 1 quality cards. Thoughtseize. Liliana of the Veil. Toxic Deluge. Collective Brutality. Fatal Push. The problem is those cards all go in the Tier 1 decks too. The only card printed since Innocent Blood that only helps Pox is Smallpox. (Fine. Tombstalker too.) Our deck’s MO is to break the symmetry of powerful symmetrical effects to gain “virtual card advantage,” while controlling the game via more traditional, 1-for-1 means. The lack of support for these kind of symmetrical effects means our deck sometimes struggles to keep up with decks that just jam 2-for-1s all day long. Decks with K.Command, any Planeswalker, or Stoneforge Mystic can just out value us by cantripping into the right cards. Some people use Legends cards to lock out decks instead of merely disrupting them, and other people splash colors for access to more powerful cards. I’m budgeted out of either of those options, but I still want to Sinkhole. This is my story.
Tournament Prep:
I was feeling pretty low about my list. I was losing to Delver, exactly the creature deck I felt I should beat. Young Pyromancer was owning me. Brainstorm was owning me. I wanted to tune Pox to beat Delver.
Step 1: Play other builds. I’m not independently wealthy, so Legends lock pieces are a pipe dream for later, as are Mox Diamonds and Duals. I shopped around for some different takes on the deck to try out while I think about my list and what to do with it.
The first list I tried was a Red splash. Young Pyromancers, Dreadbores, K.Commands in the main, Bloodghasts too. Abrades and Magus of the Moon in the board. Pressure for planeswalkers and a faster clock. I cut sweepers and Sinkholes. Young Pyro is a terrible top deck without cantrips, and this deck needs sweepers. Lesson learned.
The next list was Big Pox. Pox hits for 7, Tomby, The Rack and Bloodghasts clean up. No sinkholes, fewer sweepers, more discard (Bottomless Pit!) Decks have got more powerful since the RUG Delver days when we trimmed all of our big poxes to keep up with the tempo – Power up to deal with the creep. Again, creatures are a terrible topdeck. I liked this build, but I seriously doubt it can beat Delver consistently. Relying on 3 mana spells is too slow vs. Daze/Spell Pierce.
Step 2: Revisit my build: More disruption, fewer win-condition top-decks. How can I fight Young Pyro with Smallpox and Innocent Blood? I moved to 2 Ratchet Bomb, 2 Toxic Deluge, 2 Collective Brutality main, in addition to Smallpox, Innocent Blood, Liliana of the Veil. I trimmed a Pithing Needle, an Innocent Blood, my singleton Inquisition of Kozilek. In the board there are 2 more Brutalities, 1 more Deluge, and an Engineered Plague. (Name Human, unless you need to name Elemental). Feels good in testing.
Step 3: Try it out: 6 round tournament for Duals. Round 1, Grixis Delver: Win. Feels Great. Round 2: All Spells. Win. Welcome to Legacy. Round 3, Sneak and Show. Win. Feels Great. Round 4: ANT. Lose in 3. Very close, could have gone either way. Round 5: Grixis Delver. Lose in 3. Very close, could have gone either way. Round 6: Death and Taxes. Lose. Tilted. Played loose. 3-3 record. It’s better than other recent performances, but a bit of a downer after a 3-0 start. Deck felt consistent and powerful all day. I’m ready for #SCGWOR!
Step 4: #SCGWOR: Abandon all hope, it’s not pretty.
Round 1: Lands. 0-1-1
Game 1 I needle Thespian’s Stage, so he’s locked in on Punishing Fire. I get in Mishra’s Factory Beats and work on controlling his Lands – His only red sources for a long time were Barbarian Rings and Groves. Once he gets Fires online I’m at 24, he’s at 4. If I draw a Cursed Scroll I win. 40 minutes later I lose, having not drawn a Cursed Scroll. Game 2 I have 10 minutes to play for the draw. We end in Turns I have Stage Needled and a Leyline of the Void in play. I was attacking with 4 damage per turn, but I didn’t have time to win. His pace of play was fine, it really was a 40 minute game. I didn’t scoop because I had very live draws.
0-1
Round 2: Burn. 1-2
Game 1 I steal with an Urborg/Double Factory Sinkhole start into aggressive factory Beats. He couldn’t keep up. Game 2 and 3 go as per the usual Burn plan. I get him Hellbent with one Mountain in play, and he top decks burn like his deck is supposed to.
0-2
Round 3: Dark Maverick. 1-2
Finally, a creature deck! Turn 2 Smallpox away your board, turn 3 run it back, Crush, Smash, Stomp. Game 2 I mulligan and never assemble anything. Game 3 I’ve over boarded. Needle should go out for this matchup, not come in. Sweepers and Edicts will deal with Knights. I kept a hand with needle, and drew a second one off the top. If it had been any other non-land card I think I would have stabilized, but I got bashed a few turns later by giant (vanilla) knights.
0-3
Round 4: Punishing Theives. 0-2
Game 1 I was able to smash my way through a Dack and a Chandra and a Jace, and I punted it away in the clean-up. He finally found a Grove and I pitched a Sinkhole to Brutality to increase pressure, when I should have Sinkholed the Grove and pitched the Brutality to Lili ‘cause who cares? I proceeded to lose to Punishing Grove mopping up my factories.
Game 2 I mulliganed and never really recovered. Planeswalkers are hard to beat.
0-4 You’d think I’d Drop, but I came to play. Game on!
Round 5: No Show. Easy Win
1-4
Round 6: High Tide. 1-2
What is this, 2011? This is a terrible matchup, our Creature removal is dead, our Wastelands are dead, our opponent can go off from 3 Islands, 2 cards in hand. After board, Leyline of the Void plus extra discard from Collective Brutality can put them under enough pressure that they can whiff, which happened game 2, but it’s pretty hopeless in my experience.
1-5
Round 7: Grixis Delver. 2-0
Ahh, at last, the deck I expected to face all day. Crushed as I hoped.
2-5
Round 8: No Show. Easy Win
3-5
Round 9: Grixis Delver. 2-0
This opponent was a better player than round 7, so it was closer, but my setup worked as advertised.
4-5 (sort-of)
The tournament was great. The venue was great, multiple friends day 2’d, Legacy is great. Don’t Ban DRS. No artist’s alley was a disappointment, but the dent and scratch case was kind to me as usual.
Step 5: Moving forward with Pox:
My record was terrible, but both the lands match and the Maverick match were 100% winnable, just caught some variance. My immediate change to the list is add a Bitterblossom. I picked one up and I can’t wait to try it out. I think a Liliana, the Last Hope is in order as well. I also plan to fiddle with the Big Pox list some more, and as always, I’m saving for Bayous and Mox Diamonds so I can dive back into Loam Pox. I may take a break for a few weeks at the local to play some combo decks, or maybe not. Despite the bad performance, I still feel good about the deck. There’s no tier 2 deck I’d rather pilot.
Keep Destroying Any One Land!

[ntropy]

Oh yeah, My list:

4 Thoughtseize
4 Dark Ritual
3 Innocent Blood
2 Cursed Scroll
1 Pithing Needle
4 Sinkhole
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
2 Collective Brutality
2 Ratchet Bomb
4 Liliana of the Veil
2 Toxic Deluge
1 Nether Spirit

11 Swamp
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth'
1 Cabal Pit

Sideboard:
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Tombstalker
2 Pithing Needle
2 Collective Brutality
2 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Engineered Plague
1 Toxic Deluge

[Hardcore]

If you want to empty your hand for cursed scroll activation you should consider Contagion.
Also, with your game plan and shaky mana base: Crucible of the worlds.

[aslidsiksoraksi]

Man if we're posting reports... I'm pumped! Thank you for that one ntropy, and thanks for repping Pox at the SCG! How was 4 sinkhole? I feel like it's good against land-light Delver and the like but against other stuff it feels like it does too little. I'm down to two right now. I'm also pumped to try the Bitterblossoms, please do report back on how it goes. Also nice work against SnShow, I always seem to bomb in that matchup... what's the secret??

I didn't go anywhere as cool as SCG but here's my report for tonight's little Legacy Monday.

Decklist:
4 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the last Hope
1 Fatal Push
3 Dark Ritual
1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
1 Nether Void
1 Collective Brutality
1 Beseech the Queen
1 Cabal Therapy
3 Hymn to Tourach
2 Sinkhole
2 Toxic Deluge
2 Innocent Blood
4 Smallpox
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Cursed Scroll
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Cabal Pit
1 Geier Reach Sanitarium
10 Swamp

SB
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Trinisphere
2 Tombstalker
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Pithing Needle
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Collective Brutality

note on the list: I've been trying out 3x bridge in the MD. My meta is very creature heavy, so I thought it might be good (that's also the reasoning behind 2x Deluge). I think my conclusion is that it's not that good. It doesn't fit with the other ways of destroying resources, since it makes things irrelevant instead of destroying them. And we can't do enough from behind it; all we have is Lilliana and Cursed Scroll, the latter of which is kind of lackluster behind a Bridge. I'll probably cut them down to maybe 1 or 1 on the board.

Round 1: Big Eldrazi
I've been playing against this guy over and over and we joke that we're the definitive authorities on the Pox/Big Eldrazi matchup. It seems kind of even, though probably a little in his favor, maybe 60/40. Game 1 he got an early Ugin. I had beats with factory but chose to hit him instead of Ugin. Turns out this was kind of stupid since he ulted (I should read the dang card) and well that's all she wrote. I thought I could get there because of how much he hurt himself with a double Tomb draw but no such luck. Game 2 we are back and forth a bit, him hurting from tombs and me killing his creatures. Eventually he sticks an Endbringer. I drop a Tombstalker. Over the course of the next few turns I tick up ratchet bomb until it can kill Endbringer so I can finally swing in. Luckily he wiffs a lot so I'm able to pull it off. Game 3 I slow him down a lot with some Smallpoxes. This time Tombstalker is raring to go straight from the gates with smallpox for fuel. Closes the game out pretty fast.
1-0

Round 2: Miracles
Never played this guy before but he talks like plays a lot. So that's something. Game 1 I go ritual Liliana Last Hope. Apparently he kept a 1-land hand with two cantrips. Don't do that against Pox. I defend Lilliana and play Smallpoxes. He does some stuff with Snapcaster to try and kill her, but it doesn't really work out. He never gets past 2 mana and concedes when I hymn a land out of his hand (he must have gotten 2 off a Brainstorm or something). Game 2 my opener is the nuts against Miracles. I feel like in this matchup you have to be proactive. I've got 2x Scroll, 2x Lilliana. I play one after another after another and eventually he scoops to the dark queen of Pox herself. Tombstalker is again what seals the match.
2-0

Round 3: Aggro Loam
This matchup sucks. Game 1 I mulligan a probably keepable hand. But it in any case I lose to a ton of creatures and a Lilliana ult that makes my 3 lands and a bridge look stupid. Bridge did save me a lot, but it also did not win the game. Game 2. I get a Leyline which is pretty important. But eventually he destroys it with rec sage. A lot of slow grinding but Sylvan Library + Life from the Loam is honestly more than we can handle. Maybe a Tombstalker could have helped me get there in time, but he had too much value for me to pull out. Loam decks are bad matchups, that's all there is to it.
2-1

Round 4: Esper Blade
Game 1 we trade back and forth, with a Cabal Therapy hitting his batterskull after Collective Brutality revealed his hand. I'm feeling pretty good behind a bridge but he's got Stoneblade. I do something dumb like flashback Therapy trying to get his Jitte when he can just flash in Jitte with the Mystic. So yeah, that's what he does. I can never drop to less than 1 card in hand, and Stoneblade plus Jitte gets there in the end. I also lost to my own Nether Void, which is a dumb feeling (drew her after playing it and could have played Lilliana to empty my hand but she got countered by the void). Game 2 is grindy as hell (this matchup kinda is that way) and we go back and forth a lot. I'm hitting him factories early on and he is land-light. I have therapy after Inquisition this time, and I would have hit double snapcaster except that he brainstorms to hide them. He swords the first factory, and I don't attack with the second, knowing he can snap-swords again. So we stall for a bit, with some mild pressure from Lilliana as she upticks. Eventually he snaps to brainstorm his way out of this. I kill the snapcaster, and go for it with the factory only to see... a third snapcaster?? So he snap-swords my boy. Oh well. I have push for the snapcaster and he scoops to Lilliana's ultimate a couple turns later. Game 3 was the grindiest of all though, a true pox game. He has no actions the first few turns, and I do some small things. Eventually he has three uncracked fetches, two of them Flooded Strand. I play Pithing Needle - you win when your opponent misplays right? But he's smart enough to crack them. I name Stoneforge Mystic and start coming in with Factory. I've seen his hand with an Inquisition and it is very slow, with the no creatures and most important card being Jace. I play Smallpox twice into an empty board and he uses Force of Will on it both times. It seems like his plan is to get to 4 lands and hope Jace can carry the day. He's on his heels for a bit but finally gets a decent manabase, and at 3 lands, I flashback Therapy for Jace, using my factory. He topdecks the 4th land the next turn. I probably should have hit the Jace sooner, but hey we got there in time. We continue to trade back and forth, I land a Lilliana, he Engineered Explosives it away. I do it again and kill a TNN before he gets another explosives. In the end, I'm sitting on Lilliana and Cursed Scroll when he casts Intuition for Jace, Sorin (the one that makes tokens, it's a tech thing he runs), and a disenchant for a scroll i just landed. I give him Disenchant, reasoning that by dumping the walkers into the grave I leave him with virtually no more wincons. And so it is - he scoops not long after.
3-1

Party on! I'm impressed with Tombstalker. Unimpressed with Bridge, though it was worth trying. Nether Void, by the way - not really worth the money, it doesn't do enough. I've been playing it for a couple months and it's won 1 game for me and just looked stupid the rest of the time. The Abyss might be better, if we're going old-school lock style. Anyway. Still committed to the old-school grindfest Pox build. Excited to hear how Bitterblossom plays out. Keep slinging swamps y'all

[Hardcore]

Thanks for posting reports, guys. Even if you don't always get feedback they're always read with interest by the followers of this topic.

[ntropy]

Man if we're posting reports... I'm pumped! Thank you for that one ntropy, and thanks for repping Pox at the SCG! How was 4 sinkhole? I feel like it's good against land-light Delver and the like but against other stuff it feels like it does too little. I'm down to two right now. I'm also pumped to try the Bitterblossoms, please do report back on how it goes. Also nice work against SnShow, I always seem to bomb in that matchup... what's the secret??

Not gonna lie, I'm always happy to see Sinkhole. There are matches I board it out. All Spells, for example, or Miracles. But without choking their mana, our opponents can too easily cantrip their way back into a game. For Sneak and Show I cut 2 Toxic Deluge, 2 Ratchet Bomb, 4 Dark Ritual, 1 Cursed Scroll. for 2 Ensnaring Bridge, 2 Pithing Needle, 2 Collective Brutality, 3 Tomstalker. It's not fantastic, but Needle for Sneak, Grisel, Brutality for discard, Bridge to stop their huge monsters, and TStalks to clock them. They can absolutely still overpower/outrace us, but this seems to be OK.

I will let you know how Bitterblossom goes!

[aslidsiksoraksi]

That's an interesting point about the Sinkholes and I think a good point too. The best games for Pox are the ones where the opponents are starved on mana. I've been focusing on shutting down creatures and hands for the most part, with a smaller emphasis on mana. Maybe shifting gears would make sense... something to think about.

By the way, I've been keeping track of my matches since I picked up the deck in August of last year. I thought you all might be interested in seeing the results so far, so here's a link to the google doc (let me know if it doesn't work):

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

Decklists aren't always correct or up-to-date just because I'm always mussing about with stuff. If you like I could make a more complete sheet for everyone to add info to, but I'm not sure how much people actually care.

[Hardcore]

Numbers coupled to changes made would have yielded more useful data, of course. That would take it to a scientific level and that would mean a lot of work.

[ntropy]

That's an interesting point about the Sinkholes and I think a good point too. The best games for Pox are the ones where the opponents are starved on mana. I've been focusing on shutting down creatures and hands for the most part, with a smaller emphasis on mana. Maybe shifting gears would make sense... something to think about.

By the way, I've been keeping track of my matches since I picked up the deck in August of last year. I thought you all might be interested in seeing the results so far, so here's a link to the google doc (let me know if it doesn't work):

Awesome. I ought to start keeping track of my numbers.

Historically, Pox needs to control all 3; cards in hand, board presence, and access to mana. Otherwise the effectiveness of the cards Pox and Smallpox are lessened, and if we're not trying to maximize those cards, we should just play Jund. (or The Rock, or Abzan, or whatever) We also need the flexibility in our sideboard if one of those areas is irrelevant. We need something to put in instead of Hymns vs. Dredge, instead of Sinkholes vs. Miracles, and instead of Innocent Blood vs. Storm, for examples. That's why I think Sinkhole is important.

[Hardcore]

Rack Pox don't bother much with land destruction. It is to its advantage that people can empty their hands.