[Report] Rampaging through Vienna - 1st with DoD

[Aernil]

I've been playing Legacy for 6 years now, but due to me living too far away from Vienna, where the only Legacy tournaments are held and budget limitations, I've only played Legacy on MWS so far.
But this summer I got a job in Vienna, so I packed up the few cards I owned, and went to every weekly tournament.
But the big tournament in Vienna is the Sunday Legacy at the Spielraum store, where you actually could win something.
I didn't expect to win, as I have played just 5 tournaments before and I missed some cards.
Well, I got there soon enough, wrote down my decklist and the tourney started.
What I would have played if I had the cards:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?18807-

What I played:

// Lands
11 [UNH] Swamp
3 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
2 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
2 [TE] Wasteland

// Creatures
4 [FUT] Tombstalker
4 [FUT] Nihilith
4 [ZEN] Bloodghast

// Spells
4 [TSP] Smallpox
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [IA] Pox
4 [OD] Innocent Blood
4 [FE] Hymn to Tourach
4 [CS] Mishra's Bauble
4 [OD] Ghastly Demise
2 [US] Duress

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 4 [PLC] Extirpate
SB: 2 [US] Duress
SB: 3 [ON] Chain of Smog
SB: 1 [TE] Perish
SB: 1 [MM] Snuff Out
SB: 1 [ON] Infest
SB: 1 [SOK] Pithing Needle

I was short 2 Wastelands, and I had to borrow 3 Extirpate and the SB is kinda crap


(may be a bit unprecise, I didn't take notes)
Round 1 vs. Andreas Trejtnar with UG Vengevival
I really just thought I'm screwed, as Andreas won 2 of 7 Sunday Legacy, and is in the top 30 of Austrias best Eternal players.
I suspected he played Belcher and kept a hand with double Pox, land, Chrome mox, Bloodghast, Innocent Blood and some other stuff.

He starts with fetch into Tropical Island and Hierarch, and I was really relieved.
I drew Pox, removed (I think it was a Nihilith) and play innocent Blood to kill his hierarch.
I don't know what exactly happened then, but I played all Pox, the first got countered and I got 2 additional Ghasts and attacked for 6 post Pox.
1-0

I borded 4 Bauble for 4 Extirpate.
He played too much goyf and I saw just one Ghast.
1-1

I kept a hand with Duress, Smallpox, Chrome Mox, Innocent Blood, Ghastly Demise and land
I played Duress, he reveals a hand full of creatures with 2 lands.
In his turn he play hierarch
I play Ghastly demise
In his turn he plays goyf, I play Innocent Blood in mine
He plays a War Monk
I play smallpox (Suspended a Nihilith before I think), discarded a Ghast, played a land, he discard Faerie Macabre and removes ghast.
Next turn I play a Stalker for 2 and he scoops.
2-1
1-0 (2-1)

Round 2 vs Benjamin Geberovich with Rg Burn (with Grove of the Burnwillows and Punishing Fire)
I just thought I'm f***ed now, because I just can't win against Burn unless he's screwed.
I kept my staring hand (Smallpox and Duress being most relevant) and he says his hand is kinda risky to keep against me.
He starts with suspended Rift Bolt off a Barbarian Ring.
I draw Ghast, Duress him and see a whole hand with burn but no land.
I take Flamerift and pass.
He Burns me, draws, burns me again, and passes.
In my turn I play smallpox discarding ghast.
he fails to draw lands and loses.
1-0

I'm really buffed I managed to win and hope for another screw or some mulligans.
-4 Innocent Blood
-1 bauble
+3 Chain of Smog (just for Burn in the SB)
+2 Duress

From this game I just remember playing Nihilith and 2 Chain of Smog, and destroying his 2 lands with Pox and Smallpox.
2-0
2-0 (4-1)

Still euphoric from the win against my worst matchup, I expect no really hard games anymore.

Round 3 vs Philipp Socher with GW Survival (with Loyal Retainers, Iona, Shield of Emeria and Vengevine)
Philipp is the guy who lent me the Extirpates, and we both know each others decks. But he's still in top 30 of Austria, so I'm not really expecting to win.
Well, my deck does what it's supposed to do and soon we shuffle for G2
1-0
-4 Bauble
+4 Extirpate

He starts with Horizon Canopy into Hierarch, I suspend a Nihilith off a Mox
He drops a Fauna Shaman and passes.
In my turn I play a Innocent blood, he sacs his Hierarch, and I play a Bloodghast.
In his Upkeep he activates Shaman searching for Iona.
I attack for 2
He discards Iona to find Retainers, plays and sacs it, and i got the extirpate, getting nihilith to 2 counters.
In my turn I play Pox, discard a Ghast, play a land and attack for 8.
2-0
3-0 (6-1)

Round 4 vs Rene Elsner with Zoo (running Survival + Squee + Anger)
I just remember suspending Nihilith 1st turn, being able to kill all his drops and playing 2 Smallpox.
1-0
-1 Duress
+1 Perish

He gets a bunch of creatures, I get a bunch of removal, he gets a Squee off Survival but I manage to keep him off 2 lands.
Eventually he dies to a Nihilith.
2-0
4-0 (8-1)

I was really excited to win my first (serious) tournament, and getting a foil Vengevine.

Props:
+ Triple Pox and triple Bloodghast in first game. Awesome
+ Borrowing 3 Extirpates from Philipp and winning with them against him, and he's still cool
+ My deck. It's so damned brutal against decks playing no counters.
+ Winning against my worst MU
+ Winning against some of the best Legacyplayers in Austria in my 6th Legacytournament EVER
+ Awesome and cool opponents
+ Fear on Nihilith

Slops:
- drawing 1 Wasteland in 9 games.
- just having 2 Wastelands
- playing against Philipp winning with his own Extirpates against him
- my unfinished Sideboard
- German Limited Red Elemental Blast for Rene, should have been something more worth

[Philipp2293]

Nice report over there. Your deck is definitely putting up a hard fight. You also should have mentioned the Nihilith in the props, as nobody knew that he had fear, and that guy comes out of suspension way faster than I had thought before.

[Aernil]

Yea, Nihilith is damned strong, you're right about fear, edited Props.
It's as strong as Tombstalker, but i'ts kinda fun to suspend it and the opponent sees it coming turns before its actually played.
I think I won most games with Nihilith -> Pox -> discard Bloodghast

[ScatmanX]

Nice report. I really like pox decks, and this seems a damn good one.

Were Bubbles really better than Duress#3-4, or even Sinkholes?

Congrats!

Ps: try Wrench Mind instead of Chain of Smog next time. It may come in against more opponents.

[Cthuloo]

Nice report. I really like pox decks, and this seems a damn good one.

Were Bubbles really better than Duress#3-4, or even Sinkholes?

Congrats!


Agree with the congrats and the remark about the bubbles. I can see the sinergy with pox ( you drop them and use them to draw after you discard ), but has it been worth it?

[jazzykat]

Congratulations! I wanted to make that tournament but my wife isn't well yet. Given the artifact cantrip type thing, why not use a top for 1 mana more (Maybe that's too much?) you get to have library manipulation and a random card if ever you want it.

Also, think about squeezing in 1 or 2 Crucibles because they are unfair with wasteland/sac/discard/bringing back bloodghasts.

Hope to see you guys in October.

[Aernil]

@ ScatmanX:
The current slot for Sinkholes is currently taken bei Ghastly Demise (mostly because I haven't gotten mine yet. I tested the slot with Demise on MWS instead and really liked it, so I decided to keep them)
As to Wrench Mind:
I actually put the Chains just for the Matchup against burn in, and because I left my Wrench Mind home XD
And I actually really want my opponent to copy chains, as I usually get more out of it (expecially against burn)

@ ScatmanX & Cthuloo
Although Bauble seems really weak and bad I really love them.
I see them as kind of weak brainstorm in this deck:
It's a cantrip, it fills the yard, it costs neither speed nor mana, has a nice synergy with fetches or allows to see what the opponent will get next turn.
In the first game against zoo I was able to bauble him every turn, drawin into another bauble so I could better decide what to play in those 4 turns and also allowing to get a Stalker for 2.

And to the issue of boarding them out:
I board them out not because they are bad, but because I just need all the other stuff in my deck.

@ jazzykat
I really dislike top, because drawing blind off it is generally worse than bauble, and the mana for actually looking at the top 3 is in the early turns where you need cards the most (or rather faster more cards than the opponent) I'd say Bauble is superior to top.
To bring it to the point: Bauble is currently the best way for this deck to play a 56 cards deck.

@ Crucibles:
I really don't wan't them in the deck just because I can't expect to cast them reliably with the current manabase and it would cost just to much
speed (in my opinion at least).
Just be aware: this isn't a Pox deck, it's more like Mono Black Sligh^^

I hope I can make it in October to Sunday Legacy, but coming on Wednesdays is probaly gonna be hard

[Plm]

Hi, congratulations !

I like your take on pox ( aggroish creature intead of netheir spirit ) .

There is a few things I would like to ask you about :

moxen instead of ritual : is resilience better than one shot acceleration ? I mostly like ritual for post side game, bringing the hate on turn one.
how is the card disavantage?

Load of removal : ghastly demise ? I didn't try it I must confess, I tried disfigure for lackey/bob removal but found it lacking . How fast do you go to threshold ( meaning how fast have you enough card in the grave to kill goyf? even with 4 stalker.)?

12 creatures : while it is more than the traditionnal " controlish " pox list use, I found it a bit short when they deal withe your 2 first guy.
4 stalker isn't too much? I had problems to cast the second one in my list ( and finally went the 2 stalker/2 nihilth split instead of the 4 of him) some times grave hate comes game 2 and having 8 creatures suffering from it was bad .

About the baubble, nice nostalgia feeling , sinergy with demise and stalker , sinergy with the pox effects , I should try but is it good enough whithout demise ?

what about gatekeeper? he is a nice edict effect , and another beater ( but real small I admit )

I gonna trade some baubble, dust off my ghastly demise and test your list.

[Aernil]

Well, today I went to a tourney.
Weren't much people ther (9?)
Although I went 3-1 I still won (thanks to 3 decks running blue and coutnerbalance)
The one game I lost I was screwed in G2, and had at the end of G3 exactly 1 land left in library.
In the last I borded all the baubles out and I think if I would have let them in, I'd propably have drawn more business (expecially fetch+bauble)

@ Ritual vs Mox
I think I would never ever run Ritual over Mox, just because Mox lets you keep a pretty reliable manasource after a Pox effect.
And I actually don't know what to do with a first turn ritual (except Hymn, but that works off Mox too)
Currently I'm totally fine with Mox and I think I won't change it.

@ creature count:
If you count the baubles for what they are, virtually no card at all, you have 56 card deck running 12 creatures, wich is 1/5.
In every tournament I played (not many, but still) I always had enough creatures to win pretty fast.
Additionally I don't think there is even one creature wich would fit into the deck.
Epochrasite comes close, but is easily topped by Ghast.

@ removal
The slot currently taken by Demise was at first Sinkhole, but here in Vienna are far more creature-heavy decks than mana-hungry ones, I decided to test them on MWS, they performed quite well and so I kept them until I find a better use for that slot.

@ 4 Stalker
usually you play one stalker, if it resolves, fine, if not you just got another card in the yard.
And if that happens you are usually able to play Smallpox or Pox without saccing a relevent creature (Nihilith), so you get another 2-4 cards in the bin.
One stalker in hand usually is fine, 2 are OK, three are bearable (poxing them away, imprinting them etc...) and 4 get mulled away.
Today I lost a match where I drew 3 stalker, but mostly because I lacked ANY Pox effect.

@ keeper
See above.
I really don't like that weak creatures with that high cost. (I mean, you really just need and want 3 mana for Pox, and thats it)

FYI:
I went 3-1 today:
1-2 against Supreme Blue (screwed as hell)
2-1 against Dredge (won g2 without hate, but managed a first turn Nihilith off mox, poxing it away removing 2 bridge from below, winning off Stalker)
2-1 against Temple Bell
2-1 against Countertop Painter
Most of the games I lost to drawing too much land and not enough Pox effects.

@ bauble
I ran Bauble pretty much since the first versions of the deck, and I never removed it for more than a few test games.
It has been that good for me, I even tried playing 4 Urzas's Bauble, but that wasn't THAT great, due to the total inability to judge when to take a mulligan or not.

Edit:
I added a link to the deckprimer in first post.
Check it out

[1rakete]

Most of the games I lost to drawing too much land and not enough Pox effects.
Check it out

Thats the reason why lots of people think pox is a bad deck. It is just so inconsistent. To fight this issue, I would try to add SDT and 1 or 2 more fetchlands. This also helps to avoid dead draws, of which the deck has plenty (chrome mox or discard against empty hands for example).

But back to the topic. Nice report!

[Aernil]

Well, you certainly can't tell me that getting 17 of 18 lands is happens often enough to call the deck inconsistent^^
I think I'll probably go back running 6 or 7 fetches and just never boarding Bauble out.

But I think its interesting.
In the primer thread people whine how low my landcount is for a deck running pox, also suggesting to cut Pox and Mox, where I happened to just lose 2 games EVER to my manabase, where I happened to be flooded instead of screwed.

If I'll lose in the next 2 tourneys I'm able to attend again to my manabase, I'll test Top.