Kroxa Nought

[kinda]

So Pow22 went 4-1 with this and ThrabenU went 3-2 on twitch with it (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/563329394 ). The main idea is to combine the stifle or vision charm plus dreadnought combo with Kroxa, who can also be put onto the field with these, complemented by either scroll of fate or torpor orb. Lazav can copy either of these creatures if they're in the gy, and some cards like liliana, the last hope or ashiok, dream render help fill up your gy. Seems strong but hoping to get other thoughts!


ThrabenU's 3-2 on twitch list:


4 ashiok, dream render
3 kroxa, titan of death’s hunger
3 phyrexian dreadnought
4 stifle
2 torpor orb
2 lazav, the multifarious
2 liliana, the last hope
3 Dark Confidant
4 brainstorm
3 abrade
4 thoughtseize

4 dark ritual
4 bloodstained mire
3 scalding tarn
4 polluted delta
2 swamp
1 mountain
3 underground sea
2 volcanic island
3 badlands

SB:
4 force of will
2 spell pierce
1 plague engineer
1 red elemental blast
4 leyline of the void
3 liliana’s triumph



Pow22's 4-1 list:


3 mire
4 delta
2 tarn
4 sea
2 badlands
1 volc
2 snow swamp
1 graven cairns
2 wasteland

3 ritual

4 dreadnought
3 kroxa
3 bob
2 lazav
3 scroll of fate

4 brainstorm
3 vision charm

4 thoughtseize
2 daze

3 bolt
2 push
2 kommand
1 liliana of the veil

sb:
1 reb
2 pyroblast
2 tormod’s crypt
2 nihil spellbomb
2 fluster
2 abrabe
2 plague engineer
2 liliana’s triumph

[Fox]

Too all-in on hitting with Dreadnought. The problem has never been finding other dudes like Hunted Horror~Kroxa, the problem is that when it’s not working, doing the thing harder isn’t a recipe for success.

Interchangeability of tools is quite low. You can Stifle a Kroxa, but that’s a turn 3 play and you shouldn’t be wasting Stifle on a creature with built in recursion. Torpor Orb isn’t exactly great with Kroxa either, and we’ll also note the lack of Wasteland whereby you have created your own special hell by playing Torpor Orb when an opponent has say Karakas (the second list at least has 2x WL). Lazav works with both, but now the deck is doing nothing against yard hate.

You might think the Karakas point is minor, but that’s literally every deck that does anything land-focused - they’ll be packing yard hate and Karakas. Add a single Surgical targeting Nought to that arc of legacy decks - how are you ever winning with your legendaries? Force of Vigor vs your sorcery speed stuff makes it worse. You’re kinda dead on arrival to Depths, Lands, Maverick, Loam while presenting not-haste threats into Oko and having a really bad time vs Snapcaster + Plow (they all run Oko, so that Torpor Orb is easy to negate).

You’re too heavy on the yard for Dreadnought to bail you out, I’d start again with the Phoenix/Buried Alive/Looting Stuff. As is, either list being registered is too one-dimensional with too many bad matchups to progress deep into a tournament. There’s also significant issues with inherent variance (too many dead draws, dead b/c they can’t work together, ex. Nought and Ritual) - Scroll of Fate being able to transmute dead cards into 2/2s isn’t what the deck wants to be doing, but it is reliable, making Pow22’s list more stable.

[Fox]

Watched enough of Phil’s league; the deck did fine against linear tier 2 decks. As expected 3x colors represents build order loss vs Wasteland [you’ll never recast Kroxa, certainly not before being too far gone]. Have to drop to ~20 lands, get rid of all Nought aspects, refill with Preordains and Ponder, cut down to 2 PW, trim a Kroxa and find room for Buried Alive and Phoenix. Additional room goes to Petal. (Still not a good deck, but it’s the best way to salvage the list)

[FTW]

Sundial of the Infinite works with Kroxa better than Torpor Orb. With Sundial, you can stack the Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger ETB triggers so the discard resolves, then End the Turn to counter the sacrifice. However that's a turn 3 play that requires a 2cc artifact in play. You lose tempo but gain card advantage. Otherwise Scroll of Fate is a good backup plan.

The fatty plan is easily disrupted, so you probably want good spells and card advantage as a backup.


//Creatures: 13
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 Dark Confidant
3 Dreadhorde Arcanist
2 Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger

//Artifacts: 2
2 Scroll of Fate

//Spells: 26
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Stifle
4 Thoughtseize
2 Fatal Push
2 Drown in the Loch
2 Kolaghan's Command

//Lands: 19
4 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island
1 Snow-Covered Island

//Sideboard: 15
3 Abrade
1 Pyroblast
1 Force of Negation
1 Flusterstorm
1 Spell Pierce
2 Liliana, the Last Hope
2 Plague Engineer
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Tormod's Crypt


Curve:
1cc - 22
2cc - 11
3cc - 4
5cc - 4

Dreadhorde and Bob provide card advantage. Cantrips provide fixing. Stifle + Wasteland can play LD. FoW, TS, Push and Drown disrupt the opponent. Scroll is a backup engine that doesn't suck on its own. With this manabase RRBB is theoretically castable in the lategame while cantrips are castable on any turn.

Another option could be to skip blue and just play Black/Red with artifact enablers for more stable Kroxa mana


//Creatures: 14
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 Dark Confidant
3 Dreadhorde Arcanist
3 Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger

//Artifacts: 6
4 Torpor Orb
2 Scroll of Fate

//Spells: 20
4 Faithless Looting
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Thoughtseize
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Entomb
1 Ancestral Vision
1 Crashing Footfalls

//Mana: 20
4 Lotus Petal
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Prismatic Vista
1 Marsh Flats
3 Snow-Covered Swamp
2 Snow-Covered Mountain
2 Badlands

//Sideboard: 15
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Abrade
2 Fatal Push
1 Kolaghan's Command
2 Plague Engineer
2 Liliana's Triumph
2 Pyroblast


Curve:
0cc - 6 + lands
1cc - 22
2cc - 14
3cc - 2

This is a little heavier on the Kroxa plan. Manabase makes the RRBB easy. Fetchlands, Petal and Looting help fill the yard for escape. Torpor Orb and Scroll work for either Dreadnought or Kroxa, but Kroxa can still work lategame without any enabler.

Entomb can grab Kroxa, Faithless Looting, or any spell for Dreadhorde Arcanist (especially Visions for card draw or Footfalls as an alternate win). Looting lets you discard the suspend cards if they're in hand. They could be suspended off Petal mana too.

[Vickas]

I played a version of Kroxanought last weekly legacy, Won against Brainfreeze and MOST, lost to Red prison (should have won this one) and to some Oko deck...
This was meant as a Contamination deck not a Stiflenought deck, thats why i don't play any Blue cards. I really like Scroll of fate and the plan was to make creatures to sacrifice to Contamination.

Scroll of fate makes dead cards in your hand useful, Making creatures every turn put good pressure on the opponent!
I really enjoyed this deck, Kroxa is a Beast! I will keep the Contamination and add Bitterblossom and Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast, cutting Bloodghast making my graveyard less vulnerable.
Playing Chalice of the Void in this deck when not playing Blue I think is the right thing to do. Then Spellpierce, Plow, Push, and Combo decks are less of a problem.


the deck:

4x Ancient Tomb
4x Bloodstained Mire
3x Mountain
4x Prismatic Vista
4x Swamp
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4x Chrome Mox

4x Bloodghast
4x Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger
4x Phyrexian Dreadnought

4x Scroll of Fate
1x Torpor Orb
1x Crucible of Worlds

4x Contamination
4x Chalice of the Void

2x Collective Brutality
4x Hymn to Tourach
1x Pyroclasm
1x Toxic Deluge
2x Abrade

Sideboard
2x Blood Moon
1x Damping Sphere
2x Defense Grid
1x Delirium
4x Leyline of the Void
2x Ratchet Bomb
2x Sorcerous Spyglass
1x Winter Orb

[Fox]

@Vickas
-Crucible is no longer a maindeck playable card, as of 2019 you always put Karn in that slot and move Crucible to the board.
-Bloodghast only has text with Contamination and cannot block to buy time for either Kroxa nor Dreadnought. These are 8 slots of too much variance to sustain (not even Ponder and Brainstorm could overcome drawing of the wrong half of the deck). Scroll can flush them away as 2/2s, but this points to needing to build a more harmonious deck.
-Chalice and Dreadnought is an anti-combo, again absorbing more variance.
-Double colored spells and Ancient Tomb isn’t a great place to be. The two closest decks would be SnT which goes pairs 1x colored mana (SnT/Sneak Attack) with high colorless reqs, and Tezzerator which has Signets full of Moxen (either Diamond or Opal) to overwhelm the double-colored liability.

There’s not really a way to overcome the mana instability of Tomb as it pertains to Hymn and Kroxa. Just as crippling is the inherent variance of two plans which use drastically different tools. At the end, you’re left dumping your hand out as 2/2s with Scroll, but there’s one really big problem with putting all that weight on an artifact with an activated ability - you need to be able to kill a Karn, and yes, it absolutely has to be maindeck.
——
Dreadnought is an overwhelmingly blue card, and you can’t get away forcing it in double-off colors. The level of synergy you need to even begin thinking about it is best embodied by Orzhov Charm, a card which is completely dedicated to the smooth running of Dreadnought and Shadow engines simultaneously while also providing not just removal but life-loss engine removal. Despite everything coming together and allowing Seize and Bob, the deck cannot be pushed forward until a playable effect turns life gain into life drain (i.e. Dreadnought -> Plow needs to read gain 12, drain 12).

Scroll is a powerful card, but you still need to put the work in b/c unlike Mishra’s Workshop (both are 3 colorless mana shortcuts) you have to unlock it. Getting to that point necessitates deck construction that can advance, foster, protect, and maintain that concept of effectively playing Workshop in legacy, visible only through the lens of Dreadnought.

Dreadnought is a reactionary concept where the number 12 was paired with mana cost 1 in the same way that Recall/Rit/Bolt/Salve/Giant Growth were 3 paired with 1. The whole point of what we do is to use that 4x better rate to roll the clock back to Alpha and remind people of the old ways. This is not an archetype for modern-style deck building, putting up the blinders and making the most fragile and predictable piles that jam 1-for-2s into 1cmc kill spells. This style of construction is especially suspect when you add horrific levels of life loss (Bob + Seize) without intention [Shadow], as you will lack the slots to not die to something as simple as a Delver. The modern card for this modern construction is Phoenix.

[pettdan]

@Fox: I had some similar feedback to Vickas when we played (I was on Worldgorger Dragon combo btw, not MOST), and I think Vickas's perspective is more focused on trying to break Contamination. I can see that being a thing (although hard to implement), an early contamination can lock many opponents out of the game, you only need to beat FoW and FoN. If you can delay the game a few turns, a Kroxa or Dreadnought can close it out quickly. Chalice supports that approach, I think. We'll get more input from Vickas later, just wanted to chime in with this.

Thinking a little bit more about Contamination, it doesn't stop Lotus Petal which is a shame... Maybe Karn is a useful addition for that, also Karn getting Dreadnought or the Scroll of Fate (in addition to Crucible as mentioned, not sure what role it fills here though) from the sideboard may be a thing. And.. to play Karn, you kind of need Sol Lands actually.

[FTW]

If Vickas wants to break Contamination, he should look at the Pox thread in the Established Decks section.

He might need to dig deep. But there are Pox builds in there using Contamination backed by Bloodghast, Scroll of Fate and Bitterblossom. Bloodghast actually has relevant text in a deck with Smallpox/Liliana of the Veil. Scroll of Fate is strong in Pox, converting dead draws into threats in a deck that normally struggles to end the game. I hear that deck likes black mana too.

[kinda]

I think lurrus slots very nicely into pow22's version, but needs to run torpor orb over scroll.