I finished second overall at my local last night (15 players) with 2 wins and 1 tie.
Having enjoyed the recent discusion of this pox variation and that, I decided "Screw it! I just want to run an 8-Pox build and hit all resources mercilessly." Usually I run lists that use the graveyard but don't depend on it. This time though I went all in with a variation of Greg Russell's list linked in the primer.
I'm missing Tabernacle and Vindicate so I ran Maze of Ith and Liliana in their slots. I also swapped in one Entomb for a Crop Rotation. Sideboard was put together right before heading out the door
4x Barren Moor
1x Bayou
3x Overgrown Tomb
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Cabal Pit
1x Marsh Flats
2x Maze of Ith
4x Mishra's Factory
1x Nantuko Monastery
2x Polluted Delta
2x Scrubland
1x Swamp
2x Verdant Catacombs
4x Wasteland
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Life from the Loam
4x Pox
4x Sinkhole
4x Smallpox
3x Liliana of the Veil
4x Mox Diamond
3x Crop Rotation
1x Entomb
1x Nether Spirit
1x Worm Harvest
Sideboard (15)
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Pithing Needle
3 Oblivion Ring
1 Raven's Crime
4 Can't remember
Games were
1-1 vs a homebrew Trading Post control-combo deck.
2-0 vs Jund
2-0 vs High Tide
I also played a few practice games after,
2-0 vs Dreadstill
1-1 vs MUD.
3-0 vs RUG, all on the draw
The deck leans on Mox Diamond for its early plays, running fewer one-drops (no Inquisition, Thoughtseize, or Innocent Blood) in order to run slower but more devastating effects.
Mox Diamond is a card I'd never quite understood, but it's absolutely sick in this style of Pox--and almost essential. Liliana had SOME games where she did heavy heavy lifting, but I really missed having the versatility of Vindicate or Abrupt Decay in the main.
Nantuko Monastery made a very respectable finisher with 4 land tutor effects and the ability to dredge into it with Loam.
I was fortunate not to run into serious gravehate.
I can't necessarily say it's the strongest way to build Pox, but that was the most fun I've had playing pox.
Congrats! I have brought newly built decks to tourneys and it never get better than 2-2.
Hey thanks! I got pretty lucky with match-ups and didn't face the worst gravehate.
Playing the deck was enough fun that I nearly bought the Tabernacle I've been staring at for months on display at the store.
As we all know, 8-Pox builds are strong against decks running fewer, but high quality creature threats. The Tabernacle (with Crop Rotation) would help loads vs decks that try to spam the board with fodder to protect the better creatures from edict effects.
I had several games that were like
T1 Land, Mox Diamond, Hymn
T2 Land, Sinkhole
T3 Pox, discarding Life from the Loam
Dredge into Factories, Wastelands, ...
The biggest issues I notice are
1) Where to fit Abrupt Decay if not running Vindicate (or perhaps running both)
2) Sucks if you can't hit that first Loam. More dredge, dig, or tutor needed.
3) I'd like another win condition I can dredge into. Dredging loam and hitting Nether Spirit or Worm Harvest is productive.
Looking at
White: Vindicate, Lingering Souls, Nantuko Monastery, Ethersworn Canonist, maybe Sorin, Oblivion Ring (Side).
Blue: Intuition, Creeping Tar-Pit, Academy Ruins-->Artifact win condition, maybe a singleton Memory's Journey.
Akuta, born of ash should work well with Loam.
You all convinced me than in mirange control, loam pox is better (you can splash it white, obvius). The card advantage is huge.
I'm more interested in discuss about aggro tempo-denial.
About the card selection, thats why I include 4 Thoughtseize. And Hymn of tourach is obvius a great and devastating card in firsts turns. Maybe playing without the acceleration of Dark Ritual it is not so bad. As someone said, it always get out for SB.
About the finishers and evasion. Tombstalker it is hard to cast, sometimes it must be discarded by pox effects, and is vulnerable to contermagic. Nihilith it is not vulnerable to counter magic, but is still too slow as top deck; and it is problematic to be castind before pox, wich makes it vulnerable to that. But I agree it is better.
"I get it. It is very clever". But that is about a midrange control pox.
Darkblast seems to be a good discover. And it can be fetch by Entomb.
You said you wanted to go aggro-tempo... wouldn´t entomb be too slow in such a shell?Darkblast seems to be a good discover. And it can be fetch by Entomb.
About the creatures, once more:
tombstalker being countered - the deck plays a lot of discard, if you have already poxed them they´ll probably have spent the counter on that OR they got no counters. remember that counterspells require mana to cast (wich you are destroying) or another card from their hands (in the case of FoW). Also, Nihilith can be stifled afther the last suspend counter is removed, for that matter.
For a while I played a bgw pox that used lingering souls, bloodghast and mishras as kill conditions. It NEEDED to hit a dredge spell to work properly, though,and I gave up on it.
Iirc Nihilith cannot be stifled, but it can be countered.
Hey guys, I don't really know if someone already suggested Tainted Aether for this deck. I was thinking this could be an alternative since I am unable to afford Nethervoids or The Abyss. Thoughts?
Thanks :)
Here's a draft of what I was planning on running:
Creatures - 1
1 Filth
Instants - 6
4 Dark Ritual
1 Spinning Darkness
1 Soulspike
Sorceries - 22
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Innocent Blood
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Sinkhole
4 Smallpox
2 Raven's Crime
Enchantments - 3
2 Tainted Aether
1 Painful Quandary
Planeswalkers - 2
2 Liliana of the Veil
Artifacts - 3
3 Phyrexian Totem
Lands - 23
14 Swamp
1 Cabal Pit
2 Bojuka Bog
1 Tomb of Urami
3 Wasteland
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Sideboard
2 Pithing Needle
3 Engineered Plague
2 Leyline of the Void
2 Extirpate
2 Spinning Darkness
2 Perish
1 Tainted Aether
1 Damnation
Extravagance is the enemy.
"It doesn't really feel good when it works, it just feels bad when it doesn't" - movie title unknown
Abyss and nethervoid are played because people think they are cool, and can afford to buy them. They are not necessarily the best cards for you.
Tainted Aether is bad because it is conditional, and painful quandary will be played too late to have much of effect. They both have the advantage of being immune to abrupt decay.
The filth have no use with so few creatures in your deck. Besides it is also conditional: if your opponents have swamps, And you have creatures that can attack, THEN...
Phyrexian totem is nice, but cost too much to use.
Unless you want to play Liliana fast you have not much need for dark rituals. You are not running Pox either and won't have so much mana problem that you need rituals.
Soul Spike is a sideboard card against Storm decks.
Raven's crime is nice and suggest you should run The Rack as kill condition. Four of them. Too many Pox players make the mistake of playing Just one or two.
One can get very fast kills with multiples of the track in play
Also, if you want to be mean and cruel try add four ankh of mishra to your deck. With all the land destruction they will be nasty.
Thank you! Your feedback is most appreciated.
I haven't been able to test the build I posted yet but would be making your suggested changes.
I am also considering leaning towards the discard pox build. Although at the moment I don't have access to Pox and Lili 3-4
Extravagance is the enemy.
"It doesn't really feel good when it works, it just feels bad when it doesn't" - movie title unknown
I was wondering if Death Cloud Goes well with a Mox Diamond-build. I would think so, but what are your opinions? Sure, it costs more, but it give me the feeling of being able to be precise.
It is in the exile zone so I am not sure you can target the card with anything. I have no idea but will keep looking.
However, Digging in rules I found that suspend does not use the stack. Easy to overlook.
Suspend uses the stack like anything else but Morph and you can just Stifle the ability that says "when the last time counter is removed, you may put this spell on the stack" or something similar.
Humphrey is always correct.
Here's my discard pox proposed build. Hopefully I'd be able to test it within the week.
Creatures - 4
4 Bloodghast
Spells 22
2 Raven's Crime
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Inquisition of Kozilek (blackmail)
4 Funeral Charm
4 Smallpox
4 Innocent Blood
Permanents - 10
2 Liliana of the Veil (working on getting 2 more)
2 Phyrexian Totem
3 Shrieking Affliction
3 The Rack
Lands - 24
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Bojuka Bog
1 Cabal Pit
3 Wasteland
16 Swamp (I don't own factories)
Sideboard
1 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Extirpate
4 Duress
2 Infest
3 Perish
2 - free slot - Needles?
I'm also thinking if wasteland is really necessary for this build.
Extravagance is the enemy.
"It doesn't really feel good when it works, it just feels bad when it doesn't" - movie title unknown
Your deck is great. Congratulations. 8-Pox is the truth.
About "biggest isues":
1) I don't know what to say, but you will know it after testing (very obvius).
2) + 1 Entomb (to use Crop Rotation is a refreshing idea).
3) Sinegized win conditions for Pox, I only know in black: Nether Spirit, Bloodghast, Gravecrawler + Mutavault, Akuta, Born of Ash, and Nim Devourer (not so good, but attacks 4).
My observations:
-1 (or -2) Raven's Crime. Difficults landfall for Bloodghast.
- 2 Funeral Charm (at least). Have you considered Wrench Mind or Nezumi shortfang?
(-4 bloodghast) if you are not running manlands, why not use Ensnaring Bridge on main?
I love Funeral Charm, It really does a lot, especially when getting your opponent into top deck mode. It really only has two abilities, unless you plan on using it with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth with a late game finisher.
I have been toying with a one of Words of Waste, but I main deck Ensnaring Bridge, and use Words of Waste along with Liliana to keep my hand empty for Ensnaring Bridge.
I used to fight against Wasteland, but its a 60 dollar uncommon for a reason. In Legacy, lands are an obvious premium, and Wasteland is really the best form of land destruction.
I dont really play Pox competitively, I take it to tournaments, and love it, but I really cant bring myself to play anything but 8-Pox. It is impossible for me.
The best bang since the big one!
Big Pox was crushing last week.
Since Liliana was printed I've heard it said that she replaces Pox. I very much enjoyed having both.
Having so many cards I don't mind discarding, running 29 land to rebuild, and Loam-Wasteland for a soft lock make it feel that much better.
I posted earlier that, "I can't necessarily say it's the strongest way to build Pox." What I meant was that it has major vulnerabilities--namely gravehate. The raw power of the deck is awesome, and much of that is tied in with Pox.
1) I hope so. Russell's original list had 3 Vindicates, which I look at as a the flex slots for the moment.About "biggest isues":
1) I don't know what to say, but you will know it after testing (very obvius).
2) + 1 Entomb (to use Crop Rotation is a refreshing idea).
3) Sinegized win conditions for Pox, I only know in black: Nether Spirit, Bloodghast, Gravecrawler + Mutavault, Akuta, Born of Ash, and Nim Devourer (not so good, but attacks 4).
2) I ran a 3/1 Rotation-Entomb split last week. I'd consider a 2/2 or even 4 Entombs (like Ali Aintrazi's build) except I recently sold off the rest of my Entombs!
3) I think I'll add 1-2 Bloodghast. They can be played for mana if need be, and they come in for free.
I looked at Akuta, but having to sac a swamp--even with Loam-- is a big price.
No doubt they're expensive and they require a bit of building around. They're way more than just cool inclusions, though; Nether Void is one of the strongest, most abusive cards I've ever seen.Originally Posted by Hardcore
Last edited by Sockosensei; 04-08-2013 at 12:27 AM.
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