+2 nether spirit, +2 Tombstalker any problems with too many spirits in the grave is handled by the tombies delve.Originally Posted by sonorous
you could play 2 + 4 if you want to be double sure.
"Pox early, Pox often, and Pox hard!" - Le_Lepreux
Hello everyone,
I’m back with another tournament report. Before going into the matches, here it is my current list with the changes from last week:
Mainboard Changes
Out (8): 1x Trinisphere; 1x Dark Ritual; 1x Phyrexian Totem; 3x Inquisition of Kozilek; 1x Inventor’s Fair.
In (8): 1x Toxic Deluge; 1x Extirpate; 1x Necropolis Fiend; 3x Thoughtseize; 1x Swamp.
Sideboard Changes
Out(3): 1x Helm of Obedience; 2x Collective Brutality.
In(3): 1x Uba Mask; 1x Extirpate; 1x Lost Legacy.
Mainboard
26 Lands
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Ifnir Deadlands
1 Maze of Ith
4 Mishra's Factory
11 Swamp
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland
1 Creature
1 Necropolis Fiend
4 Artifacts
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Cursed Scroll
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Enchantment
1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
7 Planeswalkers
2 Karn, Scion of Urza
4 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
16 Sorceries
2 Hymn to Tourach
1 Infernal Tutor
3 Innocent Blood
4 Smallpox
4 Thoughtseize
2 Toxic Deluge
5 Instants
3 Dark Ritual
1 Extirpate
1 Fatal Push
Sideboard
3 Leyline of the Void
2 Bitterblossom
2 Pithing Needle
3 Dark Confidant
1 Engineered Plague
1 Contamination
1 Uba Mask
1 Extirpate
1 Lost Legacy
Odd Inclusions
• Uba Mask (sideboard): I really like this card and I felt that it can be more relevant than the Helm of Obedience combo.
The tournament only had 7 players, so only 3 rounds. I finished 1 – 1 – 1:
Highlights:
• Casted a Liliana, the Last Hope on turn one to kill a Goblin Lackey.
Round 1 – Monored goblins
Game 1: Started well with an early Night of Souls’ Betrayal thanks to Dark Ritual. But a Goblin Chieftain and two Goblin Ringleaders took the game away.
Sideboarding: Replaced slower stuff for creature and Aether Vial hate.
In (4): 2 Pithing Needle; 1 Engineered Plague; 1 Uba Mask.Out (4): 1 Karn, Scion of Urza; 1 Crucible of Worlds; 1 Extirpate; 1 Thoughtseize.
Game 2: I had a strong start with a Needle to shut down vial turn 1 and managed to kill a couple goblins with smallpox and innocent blood. An engineered plague stalled the game and Karn started drawing cards. He found a Necropolis Fiend that took over the game killing everything, including my opponent.
Game 3: My opponent started with a Goblin Lackey, which got killed by a turn 1 Liliana, the Last Hope. She started ticking up, but my opponent found a Pithing Needle to stop her just before the ultimate. The board is under control at this point with a Liliana of the Veil and a Night of Souls’ Betrayal, but the game goes to 5 turns and we ended up drawing.
Score: Games: 0 – 0 – 1; Matches: 1 – 1.
Round 2 – Death and Taxes
Game 1: I did not know what my opponent was playing and kept a mediocre hand with 2 lands, smallpox, dark ritual, night of souls’ betrayal, karn and something else. My two lands got punished by Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. I removed the first one with a dark ritual and a smallpox, but the second one locked me out of the game.
Sideboarding: I felt that Bitterblossom would be excellent in this matchup. I did not board in any needles because I did not see any Aether Vials.
In (4): 2 Bitterblossom; 1 Engineered Plague; 1 Contamination.Out (4): 1 Night of Souls’ Betrayal; 1 Extirpate; 1 Thoughtseize.
Game 2: I had to mulligan to 6, but kept a good hand with Bitterblossom, innocent blood and smallpox. I started with a Bitterblossom on turn 2 and managed the board with innocent blood and smallpox. The faerie rogue kept spawning to control the board and even managed to take care of a Gideon, Ally of Zendikar and kept hitting until the game was over.
Game 3: The game started well, and I managed to keep the board under control. But then a Gideon, Ally of Zendikar took over the game while I kept drawing lands for a few five turns.
Score: Games: 0 – 1 – 1; Matches: 2 – 3.
Round 3 – Monoblue Merfolk
Game 1: My opponent started with an Aether Vial and kept summoning Cursecatchers. Since he did not have any lords, the board was easy to control. A toxic deluge cleared 3 cursecatchers and a Cursed Scroll closed the game after a few turns.
Sideboarding: Added Aether Vial hate and replaced the NoSB for Plague since it costs less.
In (3): 2 Pithing Needle; 1 Engineered Plague.Out (3): 1 Extirpate; 1 Thoughtseize; 1 Night of Souls’ Betrayal.
Game 2: My opponent starts with a better game this time, with a lot of lords. I take a few hits, but I managed to control the board with a Engineered Plague and both Lilianas. He scoops after Necropolis Fiend hits the board.
Score: Games: 1 – 1 – 1; Matches: 4 – 3.
MVP – Liliana, the Last Hope: Once again, I felt that Liliana, the Last Hope was always relevant. He kills so many things and proved to be a nice win condition when left unanswered. Aside from recursion, her -2 can be used as grave fodder for Necropolis Fiend, but I have not tried this yet.
Top Performers
• Necropolis Fiend: Just wow. When you are behind against a creature deck, casting this guy means you have a great chance of turning the game. Casting him when the game is on par or you are ahead closes the game. He does a lot of things that we want the deck to do: he kills stuff, he can block all day long and he can finish the game on his own. He only lost the MVP to Liliana, the Last Hope because it’s harder to cast him of a Dark Ritual.
• Bitterblossom: I only casted Bitterblossom one time, against D&T, but I must say I was impressed. The whole game I felt I was ahead because it doesn’t matter what you do, you get an extra flier on every upkeep. It doesn’t seem much, but with all the removal we run these guys start to add up.
Underperformers
• Extirpate (maindeck): I did not get to cast this, but I did not want to see it in any of my games this weekend. Maybe it was the matches, but I think I rather have something better on this slot.
Closing Thoughts
I liked this list more than the previous version. From the cards cut, maybe the only one that I missed was Inquisition of Kozilek because all my matches were against aggressive decks. From the cards added, I really liked the second deluge, necropolis fiend and the extra swamp. Liliana, the Last Hope and Necropolis fiend performed very well and, maybe, I will be running more copies. I also liked Bitterblossom, maybe enough to warrant a maindeck inclusion. I also felt that my list does not have enough disruption, so maybe I will increase the discard amount.
In this tournament I watched closely for this issue. On multiple occasions I got two different planeswalkers on my hand.
If you are way behind this is not good because you would rather sweep the board, play a smallpox with an innocent blood or play something like Ensnaring Bridge. In this scenario, it does feel like too much because you can’t reliably cast two planeswalkers on one turn, and when you send one alone you risk it being lost to the board. Example: Double Lilianas against three or more creatures.
On the other hand, if you are a little behind having two planeswalkers feels great. The first one can bring balance back to the game, even if it dies to the board the second one usually puts you ahead. Example: Double Lilianas against one or two creatures.
I’m still happy with 7 planeswalkers, but I noticed that this high count makes us a lot weaker to pithing needle. So maybe a ratchet bomb would be a nice inclusion in the sideboard.
I replaced Trinisphere for the second Toxic Deluge and I have no complaints. I did not miss it, and I’m not sure if I even want it in my sideboard at this point since I already added an Uba Mask.
Thanks for reading!
Only thing I can think of is Undead Gladiator, both can make room for Nether Spirit in the yard but if the mana is too high then look into Reassembling Skeleton. Lastly is Dread Wanderer, but only if you're running Liliana of the Veil with Cursed Scroll. Good luck out there!
Three Lilianas to rule them all. One Pox to find them. Smallpox to bring them all and in the Sinkhole bind them!
hi itsvan, great report! kinda sucks to get NoSB twice against matchups it totally wrecks, only to be hosed out by 2/2s and Thalias :( glad you're liking Necropolis Fiend, I run 2x and I'm loving them. Lots of planeswalkers also strikes me as good, and I agree that extirpate is not worth a slot... 2x Deluge in the MD is a solid call too, I run the same thing. So many creature decks and I found so many occasions where Deluge either just wins the game or it's my only out.
How are you liking Infernal Tutor? are you often Hellbent?
@ expedition map: interesting idea. I'd run more utility lands if I were going with this plan, maybe a Glacial Chasm just as a random out, and a Ifnir Deadlands might be good too. my most common Beseech target is Lili of the Veil though, so I'm not sure map is really what we want, but it worth testing out
@ 2 Lili of the Veil: I'd put in Cursed Scrolls over big Pox if we're looking for replacements. What she's great for is repeatable removal, in my opinion. That's how we generate our card advantage, and how we produce a lock; the more pieces we have that can do this, the better (this also why Necropolis Fiend is nice). So if we're going down to two Lili, replace her with another repeatable removal piece. Or maybe Raven's crime for repeatable discard.
@ Bloodghast replacements: if you replace him with Tombstalkers/NecroFiend, run Fatal Push over Innocent Blood, as those cannot be so easily recurred. I also think 4x Delve fatties is not so good, since delving that much will be hard to do fast more than once. Prolly I'd run 2x Fiend 2x Scrolls over the ghasts, both are win conditions, and the scrolls are resilient to removal which what ghasts are. Neither of them is really as fast, and this kind of list would be more prisony than a ghast list, but Levi's lists aren't exactly all-in aggro anyway, so it should fit well enough.
Don't recall, Don't imagine, Don't think, Don't examine, Don't control, Rest
A friend of mine that plays Loam Pox sent me this youtube link: KMC 95th Legacy Finals in Japan. This is probably Adachi-san.
https://youtu.be/AGyunYDvYwc
YES
i did not know they posted these, will look for more. so cool and thank you
i love how he has to explain scroll to his opponent. BEEN THERE BRO
Don't recall, Don't imagine, Don't think, Don't examine, Don't control, Rest
Yeah, Necropolis Fiend is awesome. Maybe I'll start running another copy on mainboard, after all I still have a free slot from the extirpate.
I'm liking Infernal Tutor a lot, I always manage to cast it hellbent. I usually get a Karn, but sometimes I also get a Liliana or a lock piece.
There were occasions where I drew it with two or three other cards in hand, but I had no problem waiting for a few turns until I my hand was empty. However, it can be awkward if you are holding a lot of lands without a discard outlet like Liliana of the Veil or Smallpox.
Thanks for the link.
Miracles is hard, but I have a few observations.
Thoughtseize did nothing, neither did liliana of the veil. In fact it was probably a mistake to play LotV against a deck built to excel at drawing cards. Adachi hurt himself more than his opponent.
Back to basics showed the weakness of the mana base. I know it is popular to play lots of non basics like Bojuka Bog, Maze of ith etc, but land hate is to be expected in a big tourney today. Moon stompy, the Miracles decks all run it. Then we got rogue builds that splash the necessary color because land hate is so powerful.
"Pox early, Pox often, and Pox hard!" - Le_Lepreux
Hardcore: Good obervations especially with the nonbasics getting hit.
Would bringing in Leylines and Plague, naming humans, post board be a reasonable strategy against Miracles?
I disagree about LotV doing nothing... Ritual Lili is what won him the second game. I can't speak to thoughtseize.
To me it looked like he lost game 1 to Back to Basics and lost game 3 to a slow hand that matched badly against his opponents speed. That, and mentor being in general hard for us to handle.
I agree that upping the swamp count might be worthwhile, Bojuka Bog in particular is so fringe in its value.
Plague on humans should shut down a mentor version completely. Not sure about leyline, would depend on what we're cutting.
Lost legacy was an interesting thing to bring in. I guess if you can take Jace or mentor then they're really low on ways to kill you, and your factories match up well against their snapcasters.
Don't recall, Don't imagine, Don't think, Don't examine, Don't control, Rest
No, yes, yes, and no. Thing is Miracles is getting stronger the longer the game takes, Smallpox deck otoh stay the same or get weaker with time.
Miracles has weaknesses. They are: a weak first few turns. They don't play much counterspells really but rely on digging for answers. This leads us to weakness number two. To handle threats already in play they are mostly oriented towards creature killing with Swords to plowshares and Terminus. For other troublesome permanents they usually have only ONE council's judgement in the deck. Thus, Delver of Secrets is good because it is fast, but Black Vise would be much harder for the miracles player to handle (that is another weakness: they can't empty their hand fast to avoid damage from cards that punish them for hand size. They also like to shuffle their decks a lot. See Psychogenic Probe)
If you got several Miracles players in your meta you might need design a Sideboard against them, but otherwise I would just call it autoloss and go take a coffe break.
"Pox early, Pox often, and Pox hard!" - Le_Lepreux
It was hard to see the cards in play due to glare from the lightning on new plastic sleeves(!), but to me it looked like Adachi was in temporary defense with spawning pool and maze of it. There were no threats to the miracles player so I assume he conceded to avoid a long grindy game (which he would have won given the resources available to him in the deck) and start anew. It was his choice and this really shows how much in control he was and the resulting confidence in winning the next game and the match.
Game three is typical for Miracles player that think the opponent is control like them. They switch gear and go the tempo route like a delver deck. GG. Good to keep in mind; mulligan for cheaper spells if you are on the draw vs miracles.
Against this opponent a turn one LtLH would have been better than LotV. A threat backed up by smallpox disruption. I also noted the value of the cards discarded. Lost Legacy and Nether void vs terminus. LotV is probably the first card to board out in this match up.
Hymn #3 and 4 was also sadly missing. Overall however it is a match-up very much in Miracles favor.
"Pox early, Pox often, and Pox hard!" - Le_Lepreux
Good analysis. Miracles could be slow, but they have the answers, they have the CA and they can topdeck an game-ending Entreat any time (so yes, LotV is not really good against them, even T1).
Maindeck Pithing needle is a must to stop Jace. But Chains is even better (especially if you can tutor it), it tends to even our chances when the game lasts longer. Sinkhole is decent, since they run a lot of basics, and Nether Void goes well the Sinkhole playset. But then what is the best kill ? maybe not creatures since they have access to StP / Snap-StP (I dont mention Terminus, which is harder to trigger against Mishra factory / Phyrexian totem), and since you will want to protect yourself against Mentors and Angels token with a Bridge. Cursed scroll is probably better, but beware of the Nether Void nonbo...
In the end the matchup is not always so bad, it just heavily depends on the build.
Pox --
Miracles --
Lands --
Dragon Stompy -- Eldrazi Stompy --
Hmm, its interesting to think Liliana of the Veil is not relevant in the Miracles matchup.
Although the Miracles player can quickly restock a depleted hand they still have to worry about her ultimate.
A T1 LOTV can get to ultimate very quick...even to seven loyalty to keep her on the board.
Against Miracles, all of LOTV's abilities are relevant, whereas for Liliana, the Last Hope only her ultimate matters.
I would argue that, making Miracles lose a card each turn, while threatening having them lose half their board in four is far more powerful than any other singular option Pox has against the matchup...
Hello fellow Poxers,
This is my preliminary build based off of Song Jie's winning list:
3 fatal push
4 dark ritual
1 bontu's last reckoning
2 toxic deluge
4 thoughtseize
4 hymn to tourach
4 smallpox
4 leyline of the void
3 liliana of the veil
1 liliana the last hope
3 curse scroll
3 ensnaring bridge
4 wasteland
20 swamp
side:
2 ratchet bomb
3 engineered plague
2 pithing needle
4 lost legacy
2 surgical extraction
1 night of souls betrayal
1 liliana of the veil
I used Bontu because I have no Damnation.
I swapped the 2 helm of obedience for 1 thoughtseize and 1 ltlh because why use helm?
side board is a work in progress.
Played the deck on two occasions this week.
I gotta say, this deck makes sense, given the current meta.
Opening with a leyline on game 1 vs fair (DRS) and combo (reanimator) feels good.
Having a leyline, bridge, and scroll (and lotv) is an autoscoop for the opp.
The mana base is resilient against wastes, ghosts, back to basics, and blood moon.
And having 20 swamps ensures I will hit my turn 2 double black spell almost always.
I want to include innocent blood in the deck for some reason; sinkhole probably not.
Why use Helm of Obedience? Because in combination with Leyline of the void it is a instant win combination.
"Pox early, Pox often, and Pox hard!" - Le_Lepreux
Lili ultimate does not do much. I noted, I think it was g2, that Adachi could ultimate, but the only thing the opponent had in play was three lands. This sad opportunity cost Adachi four cards discarded.
"Pox early, Pox often, and Pox hard!" - Le_Lepreux
That's really good.
I've seen the RIP/Helm combo in UW decks.
That would make our deck a little combo-ish instead of control.
Feels a little dirty :)
The "sad opportunity" was Adachi not drawing another land for five turns...
Even then he was still in the game and Lili ultimate was quite relevant @6:55 before he decides to concede.
He could've wasted the opponents Tundra, then ultimated leaving opponent with Island/Snapcaster and still have Lili on the board with Maze backup... opponent flashing in another creature is the only play that kills Lili on the swing back.
One Island is enough for the opponent to get back into the game. After lili ulti he has six turns to draw a land or two, which is very likely to happen since a typical miracle deck runs Brainstorm, Ponder, Portent and predict. It would have taken time to find the actual answer to lili but with no threats on the table there was enough time to dig through the deck. Once Lili is gone he could play the usual miracle robo game for the win.
"Pox early, Pox often, and Pox hard!" - Le_Lepreux
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