Interesting idea. Very interesting.
Manabase needs work.
4 vampire hexmage BB
3 liliana of the veil BB
4 sinkhole BB
4 small pox BB
4 pox BBB
Black sources:
4 urborb tomb of yawgmoth
6 swamp
4 Mox Diamond
14
48.75% chance of drawing a Pox in the first three turns, while requiring 21.42% of your deck's black sources.
There are too many four of's. I would cut two Thespians and a Marit Lage. The former is too awkward to use and the later is a won con that will be played after your disruption, rather than before.Originally Posted by apple713
Four nether void should perhaps be cut to three for the same reason.
May I suggest hymn to Tourach?
From what I recall, pricing of cards shouldn't be discussed here, however, there IS another way. Pox's traditional threats are oddly mana hungry such as Mishra's, Nether Spirit, and Cursed Scroll. "Proper" land destruction decks outside Pox are supposed to play/cheat fast cheap threats below 3 mana and then use the 'outside sinkhole' 3 mana spells to nuke lands. Trinisphere & Chalice without Land Destruction will not work nearly as well. Some ideas?
Gravecrawler, Nihilith, Bloodghast, Epochrasite. For later in the game after you've ripped the board to pieces: Tombstalker. "Sinkhole/Waste is too pricey". Ok, in that case, we'll use the all in LD plan. Rancid Earth, Blight, Smallpox, Pox. You can run Rain of Tears instead of Blight if you wish. 3 cmc too expensive? Dark Ritual to cast Phyrexian Totem will give you reliable acceleration. Ghost Quarter is a tempo loss for you but I've found that murdering enemy man-lands with it has won me games where I would have died.
The idea for Pure LD pox would be to omit Hymn to tourach, keep Duress/Inquisition against combo (perhaps 5-7 1 cmc discard) and then go with the play threat, punch, nuke lands routine.
No, LD is not viable based on anything but sinkhole and wasteland. I will try chalice.
In that case, I'd recommend Trinisphere over Chalice. Chalice doesn't stop Abrupt Decay, however with enough Pox effects, 3sphere can lock them out for quite a few turns. My gripe against chalice is that it completely stops my 1 cmc spells, of which Pox likes to have, however, 3 sphere lets me cast everything, even if it's more expensive mana wise. 3 cmc smallpox with an enemy @ 2 land is 1 sided cheese letting my Nether Spirit's and/or Factories deal free hits. Normally I cheat it into play with D. Ritual. I find that play more powerful than turn 1 Liliana assuming foe didn't counter.
That's a good point regarding 3sphere vs Chalice. I still think Chalice is useful against Storm combo, as getting down Chalice @ 0 is very good against their acceleration. Trinisphere also serves a similar role to that of Nether Void in creating a locked up board state that is very difficult to get out of. Nether Void also doesn't stop Abrupt Decay, so Trinisphere makes more sense too.
Typically, if you're going for Chalice @ 1, it would shut off your opponents deck so much that your own 1cc (discard, ritual, The Rack, not sure what else...) is marginalized anyway. Against Abrupt Decay decks, Chalice @1 isn't that amazing, and Chalice @ 2 has almost no utility.
Thus, I would just focus on using Chalice & Trinisphere against spell-based combo. Turns out that Trinisphere is very good against the new Show & Tell decks too.
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Am I missing something here? Nether Void can't be hit by Abrupt Decay and it makes It cost 5 mana.
EDIT- I'm dumb, I see now haha.
Team Hammafist-We don't take kindly to those who don't take kindly."Got any trade boogas?"
Nether Void's trigger doesn't do anything to Abrupt Decay. They just decline to pay the 3 and Void tries to counter AD, but AD can't be countered.
It can't be hit by Abrupt Decay is correct, but it doesn't make it cost 5 since it can't be countered and Nether Void only would counter it if the controller doesn't pay the additional 3.
Yeah, I have been considering 3 sphere too. It is certainly very good for traditional pox. Myself I am playing creatures and am more concerned about how control stop my initial assault. Chalice for 1cc stops StP, blue cantrips and top. No way to dig for answers, and no way to cast any they top deck.
Stops Shaman too, which is nice. Stops burn and Canadians dead.
Given how fast the format is both artifacts are bombs, but best to not over do it by playing both!
Yes, 3 sphere completely stops everything chalice would at 0, 1, and 2 cmc. It's like 3 Chalice's in 1 artifact! ^_^ I can understand your fear of StP since you like win conditions that are vulnerable to such things but I find your fear of cantrips unwarranted. Try to remember that to recover from Pox effects, you need 3 cantrips. Most Pox decks run 5-6 Poxes (4 small and 1-2 big) so to 'properly' recover from Pox they'd need 15-18 Brainstorms!
With Chalice of the Void, I suppose you'd end up playing without 0 cmc Moxes (I approve) and no 1 mana discard (this I'd rather not cut myself off from). I think keeping Dark Rit is your only way to safely cast a Chalice @ 1 with 1 to spare vs. a Daze or what not. Your meta is that combo heavy that you need to counter everything @ 0-1 cmc?
If you're not running man-lands, would you consider the old school Chimeric Idol? He's beefy enough to stop all weenies and can show up after you've done your disrupt. I sort of miss the guy but since I needed to blend threats with mana, I'm sort of forced to run Mishra's.
I disagree about Mox Diamond in Chalice builds. I think its definitely needed, an should also be supplimented by Crucible and Mishra's Factory as well. Effectively such a build would look almost like a black Stax deck with lesser reliance on 1cc discard (but not completely remove them). Liliana, Pox, and 3sphere are already really good axis for a prison deck. The manabase would need to support them with close to 26 lands. Sadly City of Traitors would not help here.
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Find me on MTGO as Koby or rukcus -- @MTGKoby on Twitter
* Maverick is dead. Long live Maverick!
My Legacy stream
My MTG Blog - Work in progress
For interest I add my planned deck here.
4 bloodghast
4 Tombstalker
4 nihilith
4 phyrexian negator
4 smallpox
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 pox
4 hymn to Tourach
4 chalice of the void
19 swamp
2 dakmor salvage
4 dark Ritual
Note that the only card at 1cc is the Dark Ritual.
I figure an early chalice do the same job as any 1cc spot removal.
Care to edit that list for whatever goes in the second Hymn to Tourach line? I'm curious to your list.
Ha ha! Would have been illegal for sure.
Maybe creature kill that can target batter skull. Doom blade?
Another idea is phyrexian arena.
On reflection I recall the need for more mana.
Quite possibly a swamp and a third dakmor salvage (to feed TB)
I made a couple of changes in my deck based on the now apparent increase in play of Chalice and a few other things i noticed about my deck in the last tourney.
First I debated about Needle vs Ratchet Bomb. But I figured I really still needed Needle vs Countertop and other type decks despite its Chalice vulnerable cost. Engineered Plague is a little unreliable against the fast tribal decks but it still may be a step down to expect Ratchet Bomb to handle a swarm of multiple tribals or a bunch of low cost Maverick creatures as I have not tried it with that card. Have any of you? But I figure it can pull it's weight in trying to combat Storm, as I am not a fan of Thorn making my spells cost one more either, and other LED decks as well as getting rid of any Chalices played against me. For Hardcore's aggro deck I like Chalice, but for me shutting off my Rituals, Racks, Inquistion's and Scrolls is a no go.
Speaking of Racks, as much as I want it in here along with Trinispheres, a balanced Pox deck can't really guarantee that the opponent will have no land or no hand. So even though I like the Rack enough in discard Pox to replace land destruction with more discard and Shrieking Affliction, in the more balanced build I find as often as not they have no hand and I have no Rack, or I have a Rack out and no Lilliana, but they still hold several cards. This despite the Rack still sometimes being a great card, like against burn. So I replaced them with Bloodghast as a kill option. Though Bloodghast has often frustrated me in the past, I figure at least it needs less of a situation set up for it than some other cards and it has a natural synergy with the deck I have always liked. I much prefer to pitch a Bloodghast or Nether Spirit to a Liliana or Pox effect than a "business" card I can play next turn while having the card I pitched come into play.
And here comes the other change, then. Dakmore Salvage replacing Bojuka Bog. Salvage has the obvious synergy with Bloodghast if you really need a creature and it is a land I don't mind pitching or saccing to Pox effects. And if it makes me a little more graveyard relient it is not overly so. As someone pointed out before on here, if they want to dilute thier deck to play 4 cards to hate your 6 graveyard loving cards that you could hardcast anyway, then you are already getting the advantage. The other thing is if you are using Top, Salvage provides an excellent card filter! And I do live my Tops especially when you are getting ready to draw land destruction when you need creature kill, or discard when nobody has a hand.
I did like the Bojuka Bogs at times to make goyfs and knights and mongeese smaller and give snapcasters and lavamancers fewer targets, but sac effects don't care how big they are and if a graveyard deck such as Dredge, Loam or Reanimator goes off on the play, then it is too late to respond to it by playing the Bogs next play. Though graveyard dancing deck players will ask you: "did you really maindeck Bojuka Bog!,Gah?"which can be fun. As much as it would be great to run 3x each of Bog and Salvage that is too many lands to come into play tapped. I could hedge and go with 2x Bog and 2x Salvage but that is a recipie for getting neither sometimes when you need them. I will go with dependability so I am inclined to try it with the 3 Salvage, especially as I am a couple cards light on land than ideal.
So I will probably run with this list next time. Nothing revolutionary, but getting towards a synergy I like and a stronger midgame.
1 nether spirit
2 bloodghast
2 sensei's divining top
2 cursed scroll
4 Pox
4 Smallpox
4 Lilliana of the veil
4 hymn to tourach
4 Inquisition of kozeliek
4 innocent blood
4 Sinkhole
4 Dark Ritual
4 wasteland
3 Dakmore salvage
4 misha's factory
4 urborg, tomb of yawgmoth
8 swamp
4 ratchet bomb
4 leyline of the void
2 thoughtsieze
1 spinning darkness
4 pithing needle
Last edited by beez; 06-07-2013 at 04:45 AM.
It looks like people in your Meta don't aim chalice at you but at reanimate and other nasty decks. Quite possibility this will lead to a change in the Meta soon.
Meantime you could try 'blanking' chalice by playing less 1cc mana cards. Unmask instead of IoK, for example. And Contagion instead if Innocent Blood.
Oh, btw, needle will stop your own tops too.
4 bloodghast
3 Tombstalker
4 nihilith
4 phyrexian negator
4 smallpox
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 pox
4 chalice of the void
3 phyrexian arena
3 victim of night
20 swamp
2 dakmor salvage
Victim of night seem the best targeted black removal right now.
Last edited by Hardcore; 06-07-2013 at 08:38 AM.
My favorite batterskull token killer is Smother. The fact it hits every other creature worth mentioning in Legacy is also good to know. I never see myself staring down enemy Tombstalkers. Reanimate fatties and Show and Tell creatures fall to sac effects easily. I wouldn't recommend Phyrexian Arena. Underworld Connections may work if you're going to get more lands into the deck.
But wait... More mana? 24 lands and 4 dark rits isn't enough? I find myself scared of manabases beyond 25 lands due to mana flood risks.
No other color have the unconditional card drawing cards black has. I figure it would be a mistake to take advantage of that.
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