So Bloodghast 2.0 has arrived. Skyclave Shade. Thoughts? I think creatures that can be both sacrificed and discarded, and can be recurred without clauses, is the sweet spot for Pox decks. It lacks the triggered return to play of Ghast and the sometimes haste, but it does present a bigger body late game.
If you only want to play 1 or 2 of them it might be better than ghast just because the kicker can be relevant late and it has more power.Originally Posted by Pittplayer
If you want to play a lot of these it starts to look a bit worse than ghast because it becomes difficult on 1 landfall trigger to pay mana for multiples.
Definitely in the realm of playability though
What about a mix of Ghast and this? A 3/1 flyer is a significantly better threat than a 2/1 ground creature that runs into 1/1 tokens and 3/3 elks for days.
It doesn't actually have flying, unfortunately
(The art looks kind of floaty I guess but it's pretty typical for these kinds of ghostly shades to not fly)
Just some thoughts from a more aggro Pox style player. 4 mana and 1 of these with a sac outlet can activate Vengevine. Also, maybe now playing a 1 of of Anger wouldn't be bad. I could envision a 4 Skyclave Shade, 4 Bloodghast, 4 Gravecrawler, 4 Vengevine, 1 Anger build.
You're way too far into Dredge-vine territory to support a pox plan alongside it. I could see playing Smallpox in Dredge-vine, but there are purely better graveyard decks that play on the same axis and don't need the Pox effects to compete, most notably Hogaak. It doesn't need Smallpox when it can combo-kill turn 2 with Altar of Dementia, which is far and away better than playing a t2 Smallpox.
Also, how on earth are you going to be able to come up with 3 mana to trigger Vengevine when you are playing Smallpox and Wasteland? It would be a super slow version of Dredgevine and probably not as good as traditional Pox.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
Oh wow, I read that as having flying the first 2 times I saw it. Ok it's significantly worse than I thought: just 3/1 that can be 5/3 lategame, vs 2/1 that can have haste and comes back for free
3 mana? There are these things called Dark Ritual. And by your logic, Liliana and Cursed Scroll are also unplayable in Pox. And Aggro Pox is played more as a midrange tempo deck. It looks to spend the first 3 turns disrupting the opponent, then it wants to take that couple turn window to finish off the opponent before they recoup. So by turn 4 we usally have 3 lands in play. Aggro Pox tries to be faster then traditional Control Pox, but is usally not trying to race a turn 4 win like more traditional aggro decks. So no, we are not looking to be as fast as DredgeVine, but we are trying to be faster then the Scroll activations and Factory beats of traditional Control Pox.
Or to put it another way, the advantages that Aggro Pox has over Vengevine and Dredge decks are it does not auto lose to grave hate, it has a better match up vs combo, and it can grind late game. It's not as fast as those decks but it's faster then traditional Control Pox. Why I think it's better then Control Pox is that it can actually finish an opponent off before they Brainstorm back into the game while Control Pox has their fingers crossed on getting a good top deck.
I think the argument is not that 3 mana is unplayable in Pox, but that Vengevine is incompatible with the strategy of Pox decks, and that Vengevine decks don't want 3-mana triggers.
Bingo
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
Which is literally why Pox remains a joke stagnant deck and why people dont like posting on the Pox thread. You may be right, you may be wrong, but anyone who suggests hey maybe we should move beyond a Cursed Scroll win condition just gets shot down. I may be completely off base with my assessment of the new card, but I am not off base with seeing people naysaying the card WHO HAVE NOT EVEN TESTED IT.
Cursed Scroll isn't horribad. The original Pox thread stated as such before Liliana of the Veil existed to give it consistency. 3 cmc is actually the sweet spot. I'm a huge fan of Liliana, the Last Hope. I run OG Pox as Smallpox #5. It's up to your pay style. Cursed Scroll have killed countless Delvers, Goblins, Merfolk, Mother of Runes, etc. It alone generates huge CA.
I do dislike the fact that it's usually tough to activate and cast disruption. But there is Phyrexian Totem. The Skyclave Shade totally should have flying.I'm more of the defensive stance on Pox. Hence why the fun-of big Pox which will accelerate 2/2 clocks 66% faster than normal.
Trying to hybridize Pox with Dredge, Re-animator, or even Dark Depths ends up with a worse version of the originals, usually. I'm probably the only one still running Nether Spirit. I was going to test with Akuta Born of Ash, but the card requirement stinks. What I think we need is a stronger Discardable threat with low requirements.
With that in mind, Pox like fighting hellbent. Been using Asylum Visitor as a grinder Sideboard option against Control matches. She hits hard and likes both players being hellbent. But, Castle Locthwain has rendered her Redundant
Three Lilianas to rule them all. One Pox to find them. Smallpox to bring them all and in the Sinkhole bind them!
We've talked about so many different options over the years it's hard to count. I wasn't naysaying the new card, I was naysaying the Vengevine plan. I am actively building a Vengevine deck for legacy right now and it has 30+ creatures in it. It isn't a compact package, it needs a lot of support to be viable. However, you don't have to take my word for it, try it out and report back.
Honestly, the new threat is ok, would be better with flying, but its a 3 powered recursive threat. It fits Pox pretty good, but by itself is fine, I don't think you need to go deep into Vengevine synergies to make it good.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
The main problem is WOTC just not printing Pox like effects anymore. Big Pox is not ideal, and the deck would love more redundancy. Devastating Dreams is close but super hard to make actually work, and Collective Brutality is super good in some matchups and just a dead card in a lot of matchups. We basically need another Smallpox effect if this deck is ever gonna evolve.
I think it needs a way to control card quality, which Senseis Divinig Top did really well. That's why my current Pox list is centered on Lantern of Insight.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
How does Lantern beat Uro/Oko? Or stop Brainstorm/Ponder?
We've been testing Vengevine brews for months in other threads, and I've played variations of Vengevine decks in Legacy and Modern for years.
Vengevine generally requires a creature-heavy low-curve with 14+ 0-1-drops to be consistent enough. Casting 2 2-drops is just too awkward for the limited value Vengevine gives as a vanilla 4/3. The body is quickly outclassed. It shines with speed and easy triggering. Otherwise it isn't that impressive for the card slot spent.
Gravecrawler generally requires 12+ zombies to be able to cast consistently, especially when it's relied on to recur Vengevine to regroup from disruption.
The problem is that once you add enough cards to make both Vengevine and Gravecrawler playable, you've taken up so many slots with non-Pox cards there aren't enough control slots to support a disruptive Pox strategy. That's why it seems incompatible with Pox. Without adding adequate support, Vengevine and Gravecrawler are probably worse than other options like Prized Amalgam (which is much easier to recur in a Bloodghast + Skyclave shell).
The new card has potential. Aggro Pox could be possible. Vengevine and Gravecrawler just don't seem like the way to get there, because they have too many conditions to be usable. There might be a viable strategy though with 4x Bloodghast, 4x 3-ghast, 4x Amalgam, Smallpox, Liliana, discard. All that recursion breaks the Poxing symmetry.
We've had Death Cloud, but it's too mana intensive. OG Pox is a fine smallpox #5. But Balance was the OG super spell. So OP, it was banned. Wildfire was a thing but with so much 'cheating' in Legacy, you're probably dead before it matters. A nastier upgraded Smallpox would be 2 life discard 2 cards, sac 2 creatures and 2 lands. But that'd be BBBB cause Pox used rounding and that would equal 2 Smallpox castings. What'd really be good is a Nether Spirit upgrade. Bontu, the Eternal can't even be discarded... Had my hopes up for a second. A nether Spirit that had lifelink and paid 1 life to recur itself at instant speed would break the deck in a good way I think.
Three Lilianas to rule them all. One Pox to find them. Smallpox to bring them all and in the Sinkhole bind them!
Or a Smallpox with flashback: BB pay 3.life.We've had Death Cloud, but it's too mana intensive. OG Pox is a fine smallpox #5. But Balance was the OG super spell. So OP, it was banned. Wildfire was a thing but with so much 'cheating' in Legacy, you're probably dead before it matters. A nastier upgraded Smallpox would be 2 life discard 2 cards, sac 2 creatures and 2 lands. But that'd be BBBB cause Pox used rounding and that would equal 2 Smallpox castings. What'd really be good is a Nether Spirit upgrade. Bontu, the Eternal can't even be discarded... Had my hopes up for a second. A nether Spirit that had lifelink and paid 1 life to recur itself at instant speed would break the deck in a good way I think.
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