I run BG Pox, so Mishra's Factory is a nice "redundant" wincon with Life from the Loam; I'm also experimenting with Cabal Therapy and Factory has been quite useful there aswell...Originally Posted by heyjohnsexton
Good discussion on the Factory, thanks everyone!
I'm conflicted about it because like some of you pointed out, it can act as a win condition in a deck that's already low on win conditions.
But at the same time, it's not a particularly good win condition, because it's only 2 power, has no evasion when attacking, effectively costs 2 mana to use every turn, and often gets wasted anyway.
If you're running B/G Loam Pox, I could see Factory being a more reliable win condition through recursion, but even then we're talking about paying a mana to activate it, two mana to loam it back, then use a land drop on it, and then activate and attack the following turn. That just seems way too slow to me.
Pox intends to create a super low-resource environment where every mana spent matters a lot. This quote from Pirate King highlights the situation:
We're constantly low on mana -- often operating on two lands or maybe three. But in those situations, would we rather cast Liliana or attack with Factory?
Factory does have some synergy with Smallpox in the sense that it can dodge the creature kill side of the spell, but it's still a land, and we may end up sacrificing it to our own Smallpox anyway. Maybe it's a little better with Innocent Blood, because we can hopefully hit one of their creatures and then activate Factory after Blood resolves to attack, but given that Fatal Push is on the way, I'm planning to convert my Innocent Bloods over to Fatal Pushes as soon as possible.
To me I think the real issue here is that most of our win conditions are pretty weak in general, and we're settling for ways to win the game that just aren't that strong.
Pox players — including myself — tend to tell the same story about how we lose: "I got control of the game for a while, but then they drew out of it because I didn't have a way to kill them fast enough".
We have so many ways to kind of control the game through discard and removal, but no really good, reliable ways to win.
Even our beloved Liliana of the Veil doesn't actually win the game for us. It seems to me that cards like Mishra's Factory and Cursed Scroll made their way into the deck based on some mild synergy and the ability to act as pseudo win conditions, but both require an ongoing mana investment and special conditions in order to do anything at all, and neither one is a game breaker.
One thing that could actually help with this is Big Pox. Casting this early and smacking the opponent for 5-7 damage means smaller win conditions could make more sense. People seem to say that Liliana of the Veil fills the role of big pox, but when we have tons of ways to make them discard and tons of ways to kill their creatures, and not very many ways to actually kill them, then maybe big pox deserves another look. Of course big pox costs BBB which ties into the Factory discussion above.
Keep in mind that I'm not necessarily advocating that we remove all the Factories or go all-in on big Pox.
I'm just trying to prompt some deeper discussions about the deck and its strategy.
I do however think that we should really explore some other ways of actually winning the game. Land destruction, hand destruction, creature kill -- all of our disruption -- is just a way to control the game. But if we're controlling it we should be proactively leading it toward some sort of endgame where we inevitably win, not just empty the board and then wait for them to draw out of it or hope we have better topdecks (because we generally don't).
To put it more in terms of a specific problem to solve:
What options do we have for stronger win conditions in this deck? What hasn't been considered yet?
How might picking some different win conditions change how the deck is built?
Pox + The Rack are a great way to clock and cripple an opponent.
This could lead to Mishra's factory becoming swamps or dakmor salvage.
Liliana, the Last Hope is a strong option. Pox is good at buying time. If you change the test from winning the game to ultimating a planeswalker, I think you'll find it quite doable. The problem with Liliana of the Veil is that her ultimate doesn't win the game. In fact, it's fairly poor if the opponent doesn't have a pile of resources to be halved. You can certainly use Liliana of the Veil as just a removal engine with no intent to ult, but then you fall back into the problem of needing a real win condition.
The last time I played against a Pox deck and lost, it was playing planeswalkers. Ob Nixilis Reignited was extremely good. I think if you can defend planeswalkers like these and ult them, you'll win the game.
Definitely. I've been experimenting with different Rack-focused builds and I think it makes a lot of sense. The Rack has a lot of benefits:
- It's only 1 generic mana, so we can cast it off anything -- and if opponent destroys it, it costs them tempo every time
- It's a continuous effect, so no further mana investment needed
- The damage can be redirected to Planeswalkers
- It's great in multiples
- Doesn't need to attack to do damage
- Forces opponents into awkward decisions on whether or not to hold cards. Often they'd hold lands, but if we're already pressuring their mana, they probably can't afford to.
And, the effect is still active whether the Rack is tapped or not.
Normally that "being tapped" bit wouldn't be a big deal, but the Rack also makes an ideal enabler for the new Improvise mechanic.
The new Herald of Anguish looks like an amazing card that fits perfectly with the discard and artifacts.
Cursed Scroll suddenly looks a lot more appealing if it's helping to power out this fatso.
Herald may still be too slow or expensive for Legacy play, but with the cost reduction effect and deck building considerations it might not be that much slower than a Tombstalker or a Gurmag Angler. If we could get him to work, Herald would be an awesome finisher.
I've wanted to try Ob Nixilis for a while but haven't gotten around to it yet.
I'm mostly messing around with a slight adaptation of a deck that Top-8ed our national championship in like 2013but replaced a few cards, like the 4th Mishra's Factory with a Sea Gate Wreckage. It surprises me to see noone here is putting it in their mono-B lists? The card has won me literally every game I've had it in play.
(admittedly I have only taken the deck to playtesting nights and not to a tournament yet. Still, drawing 2 a turn turns this into a beast...)
Wincons are 3 Factory, 2 Tombstalker, 2 Cursed Scroll, and 50% of time your opponent just conceding out of misery; the Tombstalker is usually the best way to win.
8 Swamp
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Polluted Delta
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland
2 Rishadan Port
3 Mishra’s Factory
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
2 Tombstalker
3 Thoughtseize
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Innocent Blood
4 Smallpox
4 Sinkhole
2 Toxic Deluge
2 Cursed Scroll
1 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Trinisphere
2 Nether Void
4 Liliana of the Veil
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Lost Legacy
2 Damnation
1 Ob Nixilis Reignited (was something else/only changed that right now)
4 Dark Ritual
2 Ratchet Bomb
3 Pithing Needle
(original 2013 list was +4 Swamp -4 Fetch, +1 Factory -1 Sea Gate Wreckage, +1 Cursed Scroll -1 SDT. Sideboard had 3 Extirpate instead of 2 Surgical/1 Lost Legacy, and 1 Nether Spirit instead of Nixie)
Right, this is a good way to look at it too. The Pox itself doesn't have to win the game outright, but it does need to buy us enough time to facilitate a clear win from some other source.
Planeswalkers or Artifacts seem like an ideal source for this alternate win, because both Pox and Smallpox ignore them altogether.
Per the post above, maybe some sort of Rack, Cursed Scroll and other cheap artifacts as a way to enable Improvise on Herald of Anguish could work, or maybe we're looking at adding another Planeswalker -- and possibly color -- to the mix to get the job done.
I've been looking at Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas a lot lately because all of his abilities are relevant to what this deck needs.
He offers Card Selection / Draw, a way to animate existing artifacts into 5/5 threats that gets around our Pox effects until we're ready, and an easy to activate drain life ultimate that can win the game outright or simply buy time. His abilities are the kinds of game-enders that we could win with if we had a 2-3 turn window of slowdown from Poxes or other resource denial.
So those are some things I'm thinking about as potential paths to explore -- artifact heavy direction with the Rack and either Improvise or maybe even Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas as a finisher. Might not work, but it's something new to try.
Let's say Tombstalker on average costs 3. That's my personal experience, may depend on the build like amount of fetches etc. Would have good synergy with Liliana, the Last Hope's -2 as well which ESG proposed, as you can discard it when uncastable and later return it while also filling your GY more for more delving.
That would mean the Herald needs 4 artifacts in play to cost the same. 2 seems reasonable to achieve in most games (say you resolve 1 Rack 1 Scroll), but then as a 5-mana spell he's still way too expensive.
Adding artifact lands seems like a bad idea in a deck that can't afford to add any more 'risky' lands that may get you Wastelanded out of the game after resolving a Smallpox, unless you cut the Factory - Urborg package alltogether and have only Swamps, Wastelands and Arti lands.
Something like Trinisphere could help this guy out as well I guess.
EDIT: nevermind, it's like convoke so artifact lands don't work twice like with affinity. It also taps so there goes the Trinisphere plan :-)
(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
I believe this is where you want to start. You no longer have Wasteland-able threats, however the argument for Mishra's is the same for Tarmogoyf. Just because it can be killed doesn't mean it shouldn't be run. What makes Mishra's the staple I believe is that it's both a land and a threat and an even better defender, but the drawbacks, as stated mean you need 2 mana to attack or 'big block' with it and that mana means you won't be casting disruption. I lose 3-4 disruption spells when I remove Mishra's Factory from my current build and that is actually quite painful. You also don't need Crucible for going Factory-less.
Personally, I'd lower the Nether Spirit count to 1 and replace them with 1 Cursed Scroll and 1 Epochrasite. Slow, but when it comes back, it's back with a vengeance. From the ancient thread*
Three Lilianas to rule them all. One Pox to find them. Smallpox to bring them all and in the Sinkhole bind them!
One your arguments surrounding Mishra's Factory was limiting color availability, in that case Tezzeret may prove very hard to cast.
When I first built BG Pox I only ran Nether Spirit and found that the deck just durdled too much after assuming control. So I removed the Spirit, added 3x Bloodghast and haven't looked back.
You could move towards a Dakmor Salvage/Bloodghast package.
Also, if you do want to splash blue, Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver is a cheaper wincon than Tezzeret.
Chrome Mox or Mox Diamond could help with mana fixing and even make casting Smallpox more one sided.
There's also Nihilith to consider if you think hitting for 2 is too slow.
With RUG Delver falling out in favor of more BUG style decks, Phyrexian Totem might earn its way back into my list. I recall having a RUG player sandbag his way to a 2 card hand, and I learned they were his only 2 Lightning Bolts left
Damn, there is no deck that has so many different versions and builds. Everyone seems to disagree (in a positive way) what it should have included. I was also considering a white splash for Flagstone, Scrubland, and Vindicate, but it makes the mana base even weaker to wasteland.
What are your opinions on mainboard Chains of Mephistopheles? Is it worth it as a one-off in the mainboard alongside Abyss and Nether Void or would you only consider it in the sideboard? (I know that this may be meta dependend)
What are your opinions on Phyrexian Arena? I have still one slot in the mainboard and thought about it. It generates a lot of card advantage but may be too slow and do-nothing.
Also am I the only one feeling that Dark Ritual feels really bad in this deck? Liliana is the only card I would like to bring on the field earlier and even that card is awkward to draw a third or fourth time.
Not at all, the list I'm currently working on (see a few posts above, 9:56AM) does not play any Rituals in the maindeck :-)
They are still in the sideboard for matches where the speed would really matter, like combo - there the card advantage of not playing Rit doesn't matter as you'll be dead before you can wreck their hand otherwise xD
Against a fair midrange/control deck they're really bad imo.
We are resource limited, but let's not focus too much on being "wasteland safe". This is Legacy, so we should expect a couple licks coming our way and focus on persevering through that rather than blanking their hate at the expense of the whole match. Colored splashes are a big change, literally 200% the colors! If that risk has a greater reward, then go for it. BW and BG have been the most prominent, but I've seen them all. Pox has a lot of flavors, you just need to chose your path to victory and then sharpen that into a deck. Resource denial into The Rack and Shrieking Affliction? Hard control and death by Mishra's Factory? Soft control and hit in the face by Tombstalker? They're all equally valid, you just need know what your focus is and not lose sight of it.
So on the issue of Chains of Mephistopheles is to keep 1-2 in the sideboard. I don't come across enough high draw decks to ensure proper use and instead find it to be a dead card played.
We are missing two things:wincons and draw. Phyrexian Arena would be nice but it would clock us and we don't have enough ensured ways of winning to justify at the moment.
Dark Ritual is....I have mixed feelings. It's awesome early game for the speed but it sux mid to late game because it's most likely a dead draw.
Right, this is an important distinction. I'm not as concerned about losing a land to Wasteland per se as I am losing one of our intended win conditions to wasteland.
Splashing a color does less to harm the mana base than mishra's factories in my mind because we're dealing with dual lands that still produce B. We can still hit our first turn thoughtseize and second turn hymn or smallpox with a Scrubland or a Bayou.
So part of the reason I was raising questions about Factory was that it not only destabilized our manabase, and dies to wasteland, but that in addition to that, it doesn't even make a great win condition.
Consider Creeping Tar Pit as an alternative here. It's slower, but it provides colored mana and it's unblockable. That seems like a reasonable tradeoff if we're considering UB for example.
Yep, and I think this is essentially what we're trying to sort out here. What is the best way to WIN with a Pox deck.
Or what is the best way to win, in general, for which disruption cards like Pox and Smallpox provide ideal support.
How can we build Pox such that it fills a unique space in the meta game and isn't trying to do something too similar to other decks?
We know we'll never be the best hard control deck because we don't have force of will or other counterspells. The closest thing we have to hard control is probably Nether Void -- which I love, but is a little slow and requires a mana denial strategy.
We won't be the best tempo deck either because we don't have early threats a la delver.
We can absolutely be the best discard deck, and in that role we are doing something fairly unique. So that alone makes me think that path is one of the most promising.
Generally speaking, Some of the themes I think we want to satisfy include:
- does not require ongoing mana investment in order to function
- can win without attacking, or at least without worrying about most blockers
- reward us for creating and maintaining a low resource environment
- punish the opponent for being low on resources (e.g. Cards in hand, or cards in play)
- give us a way to take advantage of some "dead" turns in which we may have bought both players to a low resource state
- can dodge or ignore some of our symmetrical effects (manlands, enchantments, artifacts, planeswalkers)
- others?
Whoa, quite the tall order that.
1. Chimeric Idol. Don't let The Rack fool you. If you don't have a functioning Liliana {needled}, then you need extra discard spells which cost mana.
2. The Rack, Shrieking Afflictions, Cursed Scroll, and my personal favorite that satisfies #1, Underworld Dreams.
3. Barren Glory for all you Vaka people
4. The Rack, Ankh of Mishra (only 3 fetchlands allowed! muahah), Black Vise (unbanned but won't work with Liliana builds, low lander situation)
5. Sensei's Divining Top, Sylvan Library, and my personal high cmc favorite, Crystal Ball.
6. The "default traditional MBC" Pox decks satisfy this one by default.
7. The ancient thread had "3 commandments" that Pox cards should be able to do in order to be included in the deck. Some people don't like it, some do. I found my decks more 'functional' when I followed them:
Thou shalt deal damage.
Thou shalt provide mana.
Thou shalt disrupt your opponent.
Sign in Blood, Crucible of Worlds, Phyrexian Arena, Sensei's Divining Top etc. I've found my deck actually wastes turns and loses opportunities more often when I include these mentioned cards that don't follow any of the 'commandments'. Your mileage may vary so it depends on your color setup or your end goals.
Personally, I find the strongest 'new card' that Pox decks are having trouble using is Chimeric Mass. If only it had Idol's activation cost instead of 1 colorless...Another one would be like a lesser version of Haunted Plate Mail. I'd call it, Haunted Chainmail. 3 colorless to cast, same activation cost, 3/3 Spirit creature till end of turn.
Three Lilianas to rule them all. One Pox to find them. Smallpox to bring them all and in the Sinkhole bind them!
Liliana ultimate, target yourself, pass turn, don't die, GG3. Barren Glory for all you Vaka people
Those 3 commandments are interesting. I think the commandments may apply much more to mono black? It's hard to say. I do feel like Sensei's Divining Top is very polarizing, if not for everyone else, then just within my own main deck building of pox. When I was running b/w pox, sometimes I wished I could run a few more win cons or pieces of meta specific disruption, but instead I ran top. At the same time, against any kind of grindy matchup, top shined so bright.Whoa, quite the tall order that.
1. Chimeric Idol. Don't let The Rack fool you. If you don't have a functioning Liliana {needled}, then you need extra discard spells which cost mana.
2. The Rack, Shrieking Afflictions, Cursed Scroll, and my personal favorite that satisfies #1, Underworld Dreams.
3. Barren Glory for all you Vaka people
4. The Rack, Ankh of Mishra (only 3 fetchlands allowed! muahah), Black Vise (unbanned but won't work with Liliana builds, low lander situation)
5. Sensei's Divining Top, Sylvan Library, and my personal high cmc favorite, Crystal Ball.
6. The "default traditional MBC" Pox decks satisfy this one by default.
7. The ancient thread had "3 commandments" that Pox cards should be able to do in order to be included in the deck. Some people don't like it, some do. I found my decks more 'functional' when I followed them:
Thou shalt deal damage.
Thou shalt provide mana.
Thou shalt disrupt your opponent.
Sign in Blood, Crucible of Worlds, Phyrexian Arena, Sensei's Divining Top etc. I've found my deck actually wastes turns and loses opportunities more often when I include these mentioned cards that don't follow any of the 'commandments'. Your mileage may vary so it depends on your color setup or your end goals.
Personally, I find the strongest 'new card' that Pox decks are having trouble using is Chimeric Mass. If only it had Idol's activation cost instead of 1 colorless...
The other thing I've been thinking, with the printing of Fatal Push and Lost Legacy the deck might be best suited as mono black. Or, Maybe it always was best suited to mono black.
I've always run green splash or white splash, so please excuse me for how sloppy this may look, but what about :
Win Cons:
1 Nether Spirit
2 Cursed Scroll
2 Bitterblossom
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Smallpox
3 Sinkhoke
4 Dark Ritual
1 Crucible of Worlds
Discard
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Thoughtseize or Inquisition in a Sinkhole build
Removal
4 Innocent Blood
2-4 Fatal Push
2 Toxic Deluge
1 Ratchet Bomb
2 Diabolic Edict
10 Swamp
4 Wasteland
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
Misc 3 to 6 more lands
Sb
1 Chains of Mephistopheles
2-3 Fatal Push
4 Leyline of the Void (or Surgical?)
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Pithing Needles
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Planeswalker
Etc.
Cute card to consider versus Shardless style decks:
Imp's Mischief
On the subject of card drawing:
We don't necessarily need card drawing, moreso we need cards that provide card advantage. Especially if we consider ourselves the control deck.
Therefore, singleton crucible makes sense as it recurs Wasteland and combos beautifully with liliana. Nether Spirit is obvious versus the tarmogoyf decks of the world. Cursed Scroll also provides card advantage, especially against the dnt and blade decks of the world (also targets walkers ). I think we should consider running a black win con walker out of the board for grindy matchups (shardless, miracles, etc). I'm not sure if one of the two ob nixilis or Sorin markhov is best.
Regarding win cons: personally, I think the deck is meant to operate on very light threat density. And many of threats need to be adaptable to assist the resource denial game plan (Cursed scroll, Nether Spirit and factory blocks, etc.) I've never been bold enough to run Tombstalker.
In the white splash you have the amazing Lingering souls and I ran Sorin lord of innistrad which was amazing.
In the green splash I ran dark depth combo, but that deck felt too fragile.
Bitterblossom may be a good option because most fair decks see it and cringe; however, the life loss is sure to be relevant.
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