[Deck] Pox

[Lord Darkview]

I'm running 4 smallpox, 2 pox at the moment. I'm starting to think like you, though. I wonder if 4 pox, 2 smallpox would be the way to go. (just wondering publicly :wink: My reasoning is partially to do with spell snare running around, not to mention counterbalance...)

re: Nether Spirit -- nevermind -- I use Tombstalkers as three of my kill conditions. So I can't really "manage" to use NinjaSpirit, as I might have a creature in the yard (although, more often he's RFG from StP :laugh: )

I just run a full 4/4, and call it a day. You can always discard spares. The best cards in the deck are probably Hymn to Tourach, Pox, Duress, Smallpox, in that order.

As far as Nether Spirit goes, I find he synergies more than conflicts with Tombstalker. He allows you to Blood/Pox/Smallpox with Tombstalker out, holds the line while Tombstalker swings in, and Tombstalker's later copies can clear their predecessors and redundant Nether Spirits. Most importantly, Nether Spirit is never bad. At best, he's an excellent utility player and blocker breaking the symmetry of Pox or Smallpox. At worst, he's another guy in the yard powering out the next Tombstalker (and you would have ended up discarding something else to that Pox or Smallpox anyway).

[eternaldarkness]

Nether spirit is never bad. But its never excellent either. I doubt that Nether Spirit would actually swing a losing game to the other direction. My experience with it is that it just solves small problems (drawing a smallpox with a tombstalker out) instead of addressing the deck's major flaws (a timely win con...and no 4 tombstalker is not always enough).

Nether spirit is still on my list. But that's just because there's no other better alternative.

[Phaedrus]

Seems like I keep getting raped by Tormod's Crypt and Relic of Progenitus. I'm now testing a build that is much less graveyard dependent.

4 Duress
4 Thoughtseize
4 Hymn

4 Innocent Blood
4 Smallpox
4 Pox

2 Tombstalkers
2 Nyxathid
2 Syphon Life
4 Bitterblossom

4 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
3 Urborg, ToY
1 Tomb of Urami
14 Swamp

Heavy discard oriented to fight combo, which helps make Nyxathid more dangerous. Bitterblossom is cheap and can just win after a Pox. A couple Syphon Life to help offset Bitterblossom, which can potentially give you 2 additional turns of flying beatdown per casting. And just 2 Tombstalkers to acknowledge the graveyard hate that seems to be getting me down.

Thoughts on this maindeck?

Phaedrus

[Raindown]

Nether spirit actually didn't make the cut this time around in reshaping my pox deck, sadly. Also trying it without the Dark Rituals:eek:. Seems like it will run a long game.

Also, I'm keeping my Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, in, along with 4 wastes and 4 factories. We'll see how it goes. Testing tonight, but no tournaments in my area for a while.

[Raindown]

4 Bitterblossom

Phaedrus

I just don't like that card...not for legacy pox. I don't think we can afford the life hits. This being said having never run that card myself and running a crucible pox build.

[mujadaddy]

Nether spirit is never bad. But its never excellent either.

addressing the deck's major flaws (a timely win con...and no 4 tombstalker is not always enough).I've moved on from Nether Spirit. Tombstalker, of course, influenced this decision, but the "never bad, never great" was the main motivator.

What does Nether Spirit do? A little card advantage. A little blocking. A little attacking.

Card advantage: It is my opinion that 2-3 Phyrexian Arena solves this problem. True, it puts YOU on a clock, but it's on the curve and it shortens the top-deck-wait by a Factor of Two. Somebody upthread pointed out that Pox NEVER draws for time. :laugh:

Blocking: Ok, it's actually good at this role. But if we have a Blocking Problem, that means there is a creature we need to kill, doesn't it? Or even too many creatures to kill. Some builds go nuts with Innocent Blood, Diabolic Edicts, or even Thoughtseize to overemphasize the creature problem, yet from time to time creatures are going to hit the board. :b: has the widest variety of ways, in my opinion, to handle enemy creatures, so this isn't the worst problem that faces the Pox deck.

Attacking: Glacial. 2 points every other turn. Landstill does more than that. Pox is also looking for "a timely win con" isn't it? The reason the deck is looking is because Pox can't control the game state forever-- it has to wipe the board, then rush headlong before the opponent can re-establish himself. Nether Spirit doesn't do that.

In review: Nether Spirit is a decent blocker, and doesn't take up your draw step or 3 mana to do it.

The only thing I've suggested here is 2-3 Phyrexian Arena. They cost the same. Over the same amount of time, it does the same amount of damage to YOU as the Spirit could to the opponent. It also requires 3 mana, but only once. But doesn't the extra card sound nice? Every turn? Instead of a summoning-sick 2/2 every turn, you get the next card in your deck, which, if you build the deck right, is wayyyy better.

Right?

(My Pox deck runs more win-cons that the typical Pox deck, so getting them into my hand quickly is a good thing. Your mileage may vary.)


EDIT: Woah, multiple posts while I was typing that up.
reshaping my pox deck ...We'll see how it goes.Care to share? :laugh:

I agree that Bitterblossom is subpar -- you get 1/1s, and you also Pox, so it's tough to get back to damage parity with your opponent. I'm addressing it because I just advocated a card that cost 1 more but does the same 1 damage. I think, and again this is just my opinion, that drawing into more cards is strictly better than a free 1/1 flyer.

I dislike Nyaxthid, even with all that discard. It's the opposite of dealing with a combo player. Do you think you could sub it with 2 Phyrexian Totems, maybe? Try it out at least.

I am becoming a fan of Syphon Life, though. So, in all, here's my recommendation:

-2 Nyaxthid, +2 Phy Totem
-4 Bitterblossom, +2-3 Crucible of Worlds, +1-2 Phyrexian Arena

Try that for a while, see if you like it. With the Syphon Life, Wasteland & Mishra's Factory, Crucibles make a ton of sense.

[eternaldarkness]

I actually considered using Skeletal Scrying (clashes with 'stalker) and played with Night's Whisper about a year ago and never really liked the way they played out. Phyrexian arena sounds good in theory but it may suffer the "doing too little too late" symptom. Minus dark ritual, the earliest it can come down is turn 3 and will only start netting you cards at turn 5. Though getting one out when both you and you're opponent are in topdeck mode sounds pretty sweet.

If you are going to bring in arenas, then the logical choice would be to go down on the copies of big poxes...a trend that most people in this forum seem to be following. I just might test out this arena build.

EDIT: I too don't like bitterblossom in pox. It's a net lifeloss for an effect that is too easy to race/answer. Ironically, bitterblossom has always been bad news for pox, basing on the games i played against it.

EDIT2: If you're going to try out Syphon Life, I would advise against more than 2 copies. Hell, I think 1 is enough. The card can't answer problematic creatures which means it's pure win con; it can't be used for board control.

[Phaedrus]

I dislike Nyaxthid, even with all that discard. It's the opposite of dealing with a combo player. Do you think you could sub it with 2 Phyrexian Totems, maybe? Try it out at least.

I am becoming a fan of Syphon Life, though. So, in all, here's my recommendation:

-2 Nyaxthid, +2 Phy Totem
-4 Bitterblossom, +2-3 Crucible of Worlds, +1-2 Phyrexian Arena

Try that for a while, see if you like it. With the Syphon Life, Wasteland & Mishra's Factory, Crucibles make a ton of sense.

I like the Totem substitution, and will definitely try that. Not so crazy about the Crucible recommendation, since I'm explicitly trying to move away from graveyard dependency. If you were going to avoid GY-based strategies, what would you use in place of Bitterblossom? (other than Arena...)

Phaedrus

[scarlet_moon]

I must defend Bitterblossom!

a) compared to Phyrexian Arena: This are two different slots.
Phyrexian Arena fits in the Crucible-Slot, because it's an utilitycard. While Crucible allows you recurring Wasteland and Cabal Pit, Arena will draw you removal, lands or threats, but without the possibilty to decide, what to get. On the other hand, Crucible is graveyard-dependant.
b) ok, even really compared with Phyrexian Arena...
Phyrexian Arena (3 mana required): Lose 1 life and draw a random card... You must pay the full cost to play this card.
Bitterblossom (2 mana required): Lose 1 life and put a 1/1 flying into play...
And don't forget: 1/1's can chumpblock, sometimes stall a Confidant or other things and a turn 1 Mox+Swamp -> Bitterblossom is a really good threat in early game.

Ok, and now a crazy action:
I am a fan of combinating the recursion of Nether Spirit, Bitterblossom and Crucible with Smokestack. It kills permanents, so even Artifacts and Enchantments or other cards. Yes, it's slow, but it's a lock - it's the lategame bomb that can seal the game.


Another thing: You don't like lifeloss and you like lifegain? And you play Pox? Then play 1-2 Sheltered Valley. The card is really good, because you will never have more then 3 lands and with 3-4 Tombs of Yawgmoth, the colourless mana can be managed.

[mujadaddy]

I actually considered using Skeletal Scrying (clashes with 'stalker) and played with Night's Whisper about a year ago and never really liked the way they played out. Phyrexian arena sounds good in theory but it may suffer the "doing too little too late" symptom. Minus dark ritual, the earliest it can come down is turn 3 and will only start netting you cards at turn 5. Though getting one out when both you and you're opponent are in topdeck mode sounds pretty sweet.

If you are going to bring in arenas, then the logical choice would be to go down on the copies of big poxes...a trend that most people in this forum seem to be following. I just might test out this arena build.

EDIT: I too don't like bitterblossom in pox. It's a net lifeloss for an effect that is too easy to race/answer. Ironically, bitterblossom has always been bad news for pox, basing on the games i played against it.

EDIT2: If you're going to try out Syphon Life, I would advise against more than 2 copies. Hell, I think 1 is enough. The card can't answer problematic creatures which means it's pure win con; it can't be used for board control.I dumped Night's Whisper long time gone... only nets you one card. Skeletal Scrying? "X" in Pox is baaaad :laugh: or at least sub-par. Arena is the card I'm trying right this moment, and it's been a winner. A card for a life is a winner, even though it'd be better if I could use it at instant speed ( :wink: )

@Eternaldarkness: Dark Ritual and Phyrexian Arena <3 each other very, very much. Only when you're way, way behind does Arena become a bad topdeck -- but if the opponent's deck is slow, it's not the worst thing you could see! ...also, if you note my earlier comment, I *had* gone down to 2 bigPox, but that was well before I put in the Arenas (Three, btw.)

Interestingly enough, Crucible, Syphon Life, and Phyrexian Arena all together shore up just about every complaint that people have about the deck.

Now, Phaedrus:

I built my Pox deck to ignore the graveyard... for the most part. However, there's a difference between relying on the graveyard and exploiting it in a limited fashion. You say you're moving away from GY dependency, but there are 2 Syphon Life's in your deck, so you haven't moved completely away.

All you need to do is not lean on the GY as your dominant strategy. Running 3 Crucibles? Probably too many slots devoted to the GY, especially as Crucible doesn't kill the opponent directly. One Crucible? "Surprise! I can recur my lands. Bet you didn't know that."

If you're not sold on Arena, but you want to replace Bitterblossom as a slot... hm, let's think about this...

You can either stick 2-3 Nyaxthid's back in (which I don't really like) to run alongside the Totems and 1-2 Crucibles (which you SHOULD run, especially w/ Tomb of Urami, Wastes, Factories)... or go old school and run 2-3 Hypnotic Specters ... except those have synergy with Nyaxthid... Powder Keg, maybe?

EDIT: Hey, more posts:
I must defend Bitterblossom!

Phyrexian Arena (3 mana required): Lose 1 life and draw a random card... You must pay the full cost to play this card.And a 1/1 Flyer for zero mana shores up which weakness of the Pox deck? I'm genuinely curious as to with what people think 'Blossom helps.

Nether Spirit, Bitterblossom and Crucible with Smokestack. Yes, it's slow, but it's a lock - it's the lategame bomb that can seal the game.So you're keeping Smokestack at one counter? Smokestack is an EARLY GAME bomb in a deck that's made for it. Pox+Smallpox are mini-smokestacks, with discard & creature-kill built in. Pox has enough symmetric destruction to worry about fitting in the "Spirit-Blossom-Stax Lock," I think.

[scarlet_moon]

The thing with Smokestack is, that the card seal the game. I want to repeat this, because this is an important factor: Decks play Sensei's Divining Top, Brainstorm, Ponder and so on... This cards search for the cards the player need, so when both players enters topdeckmodus, it's really annoying if the opponent can recover faster than you.

[coraz86]

-I really like the idea of Tomb of Urami if you're running Crucible, although (as with a lot of threats suggested so far) it again lets Deed and EE shit in your cornflakes, so I'd run one at most.
-I've beaten people in Legacy who run Bitterblossom simply by dropping an Engineered Plague and parrying for a while. Between all the low-end boardsweep and the prevalence of Plague (given that Elves and Goblins are currently solid and sort of common), Bitterblossoms seems bad even if it would fix a problem.
-Crucible is a card your opponent has to deal with, or their chances of winning plummet. Why would you not run it on the assumption that your opponent is going to deal with it? It's too powerful to just not run. Especially since, if you drop it game one, your opponent might side artifact removal, and then you can count on them having narrow cards in hand. Imagine, for instance, playing against Thresh. Thresh needs to board in Grip so you don't Waste-lock them, but then they have to take out, I don't know, StP or Bob or something. I've never been privy to my opponents' sideboarding plans, so I'm not sure what they'd take out, but the point is that you have to run stuff that's unequivocally good maindeck in Legacy, so you're helping yourself by limiting their options when you force them to board in Grip.
This isn't so much a reactive deck. You want to step right up and grab hold of the game. Crucible is a good way to do that.

[Clark Kant]

There's really only one good reason to play Bitterblossom.

And that is to play it alongside Nether Spirit and Contamination.

In all other situations, it simply does too little, costs you too much life and has poor synergy with your own Poxes.

[Mystical_Jackass]

Bitterblossom.. 1/1 flier chump blockers in Pox. My thoughts, just seems a little dangerous. Your life's gonna drop below 10 really quickly in this deck, on top of that you're talkin bout running phyrex arenas would make me nervous. Pox kills your critters too.. you run 8 and prolly plan on using them a lot, so its like you lose 5 life and only 2-3 of them get to remain in play. Seems sorta like it cancels out with Pox, maybe explain I could be missing the strat:laugh:

[mujadaddy]

The thing with Smokestack is, that the card seal the game. I want to repeat this, because this is an important factor: Decks play Sensei's Divining Top, Brainstorm, Ponder and so on... This cards search for the cards the player need, so when both players enters topdeckmodus, it's really annoying if the opponent can recover faster than you.But it still costs you permanents.

[coraz86]

Has anyone tried Cabal Coffers? Especially in builds running Crucible (which would negate it's tendency to be Wasted)? Seems to me the deck could get away with running two.
That would allow a little more flexibility in choosing a finisher, since even post-Pox one could reliably expect to untap and have five or six mana (if you hit a land drop or have Urborg in play). It also would allow you to slide Decree of Pain somewhere into the list (main or SB), which helps the Landstil matchup and some of the fast aggro matchups (Elves and Goblins in particular).

[Clark Kant]

But it still costs you permanents.

Yep, but it would be interesting to pair smokestack alongside...

Nether Spirit
Bitterblossom
Contamination
Crucible of World + Mishra's Factory + Wasteland

would be a very different deck though.

[mujadaddy]

Cabal Coffers?

That would allow a little more flexibility in choosing a finisherPox tries to function on 3 lands. Traditionally, that has tied down the finishers to cheap and/or 'immune' cards.

I tried to put Drain Life in, but it was too slow, even as a 1-of. I hardly ever got to cast it for more than 3 in a non-winmore situation. For coffers, your best case scenario is something like 3 lands, 1 Urborg, 1 coffer. Tap 2, tap coffers, 5 black mana, tap the last 2, seven.

What would you do with that? I'm fishing for responses, not confrontation--I really want to know what "ought to" be done with that 7 mana.

[Mystical_Jackass]

Exactly. This deck doesn't do anything with that mana at that stage in the game, that's the point. You run a low mana curve, low draw. This deck with more land would either have to have a faster draw, or higher mana curve.. both are a tough balance. Unless you're just gunning for Lord of the Pit for some reason, but that's not how the deck works and in most cases you'll have just 2-3 swamps out, draw cabal coffers, and it'll do absolutely nothing but get in the way. Just another land to sac to Pox


If you want to come up with some finishers, well.. you're looking 5cc and lower to be realistic. Lets generate a list of ideal finishers heh, for shi*s and giggles:

- phyrexian totem (2B, 5/5 trample nuf said)
- Mishra's Factory/s (get 2-4 out, you've got 3/3 -- 5/5 lil exhalted facs swinging lol)
- Tombstalker (5/5 flyer. Eats grave, to play cheap. But gd its worthit lol)
- Syphon Life (slow but efficient engine, turns every land draw into a weapon)
- Soul Feast (3BB, opponent loses 4 life you gain 4. 8 life threshold for 5 mana makes it the most dramatic spell in the game for its cost)
- Nyxathid (1BB, potentially 7/7 creature! downside, no trample and fighting opponents draw mitigate it, but yikes at potential for its cost! :)
- exhume/reanimate (reanimate although cheapers & allows to steal opponent, may be too dangerous to play in deck. I'd only use to combo off, like using hellkite overlord or something as discard outlet. This deck can't really guarantee that consistency but good ideas if someone found a way, atm reanimator just does it hella better lol)
- Ritual of the machine (2BB, control magic 4 black, but with a small cost. This would be more of a defensive finisher, but stealing their goyf/flier's a good way to win)
- Ashen Powder (2BB, same ideal but using opponents GY to steal)
- Kaervek's Spite (BBB, yup.. this was like, old school "suicide Pox" finisher)
- Mortivore (2BB, another badass. With all the destruction he has potential, but I'm not sure he's really meant for this deck)
- Yukora (Juzam.. just no drawbacks really. Bout it, no trample though makes it not the best:/)
- Guiltfeeder (3BB, 0/4 Fear. attacks and isn't blocked opponent loses 1 life for each card in graveyard. Cost & slowness are only drawback otherwise this guys awesome, he owns EDH 4 sure)
- Liliana Vess (3BB, god if she only cost 3 that'd rule.. almost work well with Nyxathid. Her tutor ability is the real power..Too slow, too late though)
- Death Cloud (XBBB, you got mana and crucible, this card would really make them pay)
- Profane Command (XBB, Lots of way you could do this, maybe make them lose life and return nyxathid to play, etc.)

Bah I'd think of more but I'm friggin tired lol. Gots to get to bed, lates!

[B is for Big Job]

if youre playing syphon life, you should play crucible to complement it and make those pitched lands useful, pitch a waste, play the spell, play the waste and own a land, maybe an animated one.

factorys are a must, theyre the backbone of the deck and they do win games. also works well with crucible for infinite blockage.

i really like negator totem. not as a finisher, but more along the lines as you play it first turn with rit, 2nd turn pox and you still have a 2nd black source to play shit the next turn, 3 if you have another land (not saying this is the best play for it pending on what else is in your hand or what youre up against). additional mana sources rock. i wouldnt play a full set, prolly 2-3

im not sure what everyone elses view is on extirpate. i think it should be a 2 of. 2 is the best number because its good early with a good hymn or a thoughtsieze. then late game can take out remaining wincons that are left.

chimeric idol is another great beater which should be played. not having enough mana something or tapping out to play stuff. works well with negator totem if you have them both up, swing for 8 sounds goood for me.

i see no reason why tombstalker cant be the finisher for this deck. late game 5/5 just owns, then combined with factory / idol / negator beats. hell, after 1 pox its roughly a 2 turn clock pending how many fetches they played or if you layed on any other beats.

[coraz86]

Pox tries to function on 3 lands. Traditionally, that has tied down the finishers to cheap and/or 'immune' cards.

I tried to put Drain Life in, but it was too slow, even as a 1-of. I hardly ever got to cast it for more than 3 in a non-winmore situation. For coffers, your best case scenario is something like 3 lands, 1 Urborg, 1 coffer. Tap 2, tap coffers, 5 black mana, tap the last 2, seven.

What would you do with that? I'm fishing for responses, not confrontation--I really want to know what "ought to" be done with that 7 mana.

I was kind of fishing myself. I guess I was trying to help address the deck's tendency to peter out and end up in topdeck mode; I fondly remember the Torment-era monoblack decks that ran Planar Portal (and even more fondly the days when Temporal Aperture was useful, although I'm not sure I like that option as much). I was likewise hoping for five- or six-mana threats to become relevant, especially if you can Pox, untap, make your land drop, and make a giant dude. Much as I love Tombstalker, sometimes you don't have enough stuff to delve to easily make him. Especially if you're running Crucible, and even more so if you're running Crucible in conjunction with Retrace stuff.

I guess Coffers would make Staff of Domination okay if you could stick it, but the problem I'm now running into is Krosan Grip. :rolleyes: It would, at least, keep the Grips away from your Crucibles, I guess.

[mujadaddy]

@B is for Big Job: Idols + Factories do not get along.

re: Extirpate -- I certainly run 2 in my old sideboard, and recent retooling along with you fine folk has kicked that up to 4 in the side. I can't speak about maindecking them, because I'm running seekrit tek that requires I leave it out.

re: Grip -- Run more targets for it! :laugh: Arena, Factory, Crucible, Totem should all be fighting for Krosan Grip's attention.

re: Kaervek's Spite -- Yikes. Maybe in the sideboard, but how does it feel to have that countered? :cry: :cry: ...Soul Feast seems strictly better; even if it costs 2 more, it doesn't require you to wipe your board.

re: Ritual of the Machine & Ashen Powder -- Ashen Powder seems like it has more synergy, alongside poxes & other sacrifice effects... but it becomes an expensive dead card vs. some decks... RotM might have more synergy, but you can't steal black or artifact creatures. It seems a safer bet to just kill the enemy creatures with sac effects.

re: Staff of Domination -- that's for a much more mana-hungry deck, I think -- 'regular MBC.'

re: Guiltfeeder -- I'd love to be able to run him. I think he's too slow, though. I could be wrong.

re: Nyaxthid -- I'm not sure which opposing deck this creature would be good against. My experience is that Landstill & Loam decks are tough, tooth&nail matches, and they run too many lands to take care of effectively, and they run cycling lands & Loam to fill up their hands, keeping Nyaxthid small. The other tough matches are fast aggro & burn. Nyaxthid does nothing for either, I think. Leaving your 5/5 or 6/6 around to block weenies, slowly, completely neutralizes his advantage; no trample completely neutralizes any attacking strength he'd have vs. swarms. Against Burn, sure you have a 7/7 that can attack on turn 4, but that's 3 more turns, during which, most of the time, they've finished you. Faster if you Poxed.

So, we're left with Tombstalker and PhyTotem for our big boys, I think. The advantage that both of these have is size, evasion, and speed-to-cast. They fit perfectly after Poxing as 2-3 turn clocks. Unfortunately, they both share a disadvantage: Multiples suck.

[Mystical_Jackass]

I'm now running 2 Tombstalker in my deck. It was a tough choice but cut down from 24 to 23 land, and one dark ritual.

Well, results speak for themself it friggin ran game on friends countertop. Friend thinks I should run more than 2 extirpate main.. just extirpaiting their fetches off the bat messes them up not only land count and card types, but ability to sac and reshuffle 4 top. Extirpating a goyf/top aint shabby either off the bat lol, still I'm not convinced to go more than 2 unless sideboarded :tongue:

Long way before I'm even close to sealing the deck, but I think we're deffinitely moving in the right direction with it. When ya start to shake up the tier 1 decks, shows its a step in the right direction... plus, black is badass, and decks that run blue are Nancy's >.< the english silly nanny's of magic, rofl jk

[mujadaddy]

When ya start to shake up the tier 1 decks, shows its a step in the right direction... Pox.dec completely embarrasses Dragon Stompy -- we run a fk'd up curve, they run very few threats, so just a few Sac effects takes them out of the game.

Counter/Top is also not a tough matchup -- I played a Counter/Top deck earlier today, and I won with a Totem, a Factory and 'Stalker on the board -- he had 3 goyfs & a Heirarch out, but putting out the 'Stalker took out Enchantment & Sorcery from the yard, so the turn Stalker came out, Goyf went from 5/6 to 3/4, and he couldnt' swing into me any more. Counter/Top only runs a few hard counters, and, again, our curve is fk'd up for trying to counterbalance us. (He cb'ed ONCE, Goyf on Smallpox)

Aggro/Loam & Landstill are tough pre-board, because they run the Grips to take out the Crucibles that make the Wastelands dangerous.

I bet maindeck Extirpates even those out though. I only run them in the side, but I've recently gone up to 4 from 2.

M_J: You took out 1 Dark Ritual? How many does that leave you running? Dark Ritual+Tombstalker = BFF's :tongue:


plus, black is badass, and decks that run blue are Nancy's >.< the english silly nanny's of magic, rofl jkHehehe, yeah, I get bored playing a MUC deck. :b: makes you feel like you're destroying something :cool:

[eternaldarkness]

@Mystical Jackass: Pox decks really should just go all out with Tombstalker. I would advise to use at least 3 copies of the demon. I myself use 4 and have never really looked back. The increased number of copies allowing you to draw into tombstalker more consistently after wiping the board clean is a very real advantage. So much so that it completely outweighs the rare "multiple tombstalkers in my opening hand" scenario. And besides, if you have 3 tombstalkers in your opening hand, you really should be mulling.

Use 3-4 Tombstalkers.

[mujadaddy]

I'm as convinced on 3 Tombstalkers as you can possibly be, but when I was testing them in deck initially, 4 seemed like it was too many. "draw into tombstalker more consistently after wiping the board clean" <-- Topdecking a Tombstalker after wiping the board is indeed nice, but 2-in-hand is not.

I'm not saying "Never 4"...I am saying "Always (at least) 3"... It's not like Hymn, or Dark Ritual, where you run 4 to ensure you see one in your opening hand... It's more like, you want to see one per game, but only because it's really unlikely that you'll be able to cast 2.

As always, Your Mileage May Vary, so test it out for yourself. But 3 is the minimum, imo.

[Lord Darkview]

I am convinced that Tombstalker is one of if not the best threat the deck can run, and should be run as four copies. If you have multiples, its not like you can't pitch one to your Smallpox and Pox. He wins games on his own, and you want to run more copies to saturate the opponent's removal.

When I got my first three, I went from a barely winning record to an incredibly successful one with the deck. When I added the fourth I'm not sure if it increased much, but I can say my comfort level playing increased dramatically. I've almost never regretted drawing two in any game where it occurred.

He also is useful against 'goyf, and contrary to popular belief has synergy with Nether Spirit. In fact, I'd go so far as to say people shouldn't choose between the two, but instead understand that running Tombstalker is a good reason to run Nether Spirit.

[mujadaddy]

My question would be, have you ever cast two in the same game? I've been thinking about it, and I'm pretty sure I've never done that.

Also, if your GY is completely full of cards, no, TS & NS don't dis-synergize... it's when NS is in the yard, and you've got exactly enough cards + mana to cast TS that they are a dis-synergy.

...I ran into a B/W/G Madness deck on MWS the other day, that completely worked me over. I'm not even sure why, but he had too much powah for me. My draws were kinda crappy, but he still shouldn't have dominated me like he did. Oh well. I still like my deck.

Anyone have any suggestions for the AN-Tendrils combo matchup?

[Media314r8]

For those interested in a big finisher with cabal coffers/urbrog, helldozer seems to be a fine way to use all the extra mana to lock out your opponent while boasting a respectable body.

Helldozer 3BBB
BBB, tap: destroy target land. If that land is non-basic, untap helldozer.
6/5

I personally dont think coffers is the right direction, but this guy seems like an incredible way to REALLY win a game.

[Mystical_Jackass]

This deck doesn't need a buffed out dwarven miner though.. so many spells in the deck destroy lands anyways heh. We're looking for a flat out "finisher", aka "finish the job quick!"
Also, like over half the decks you'll play will run basics; Pretty much leaves you with a 6/5 nubsicle on a stick @.@

.. tombstalker works on a lower curve and has evasion and does nearly the same damage, I'd even go soul feast over that 'cause it does its effect right away with an 8 life margin.

[coraz86]

Anyone have any suggestions for the AN-Tendrils combo matchup?

You do realize you're on the Pox thread, right? A thread about a mono-black deck with more hand control than a sober cheerleader?

[eternaldarkness]

You do realize you're on the Pox thread, right? A thread about a mono-black deck with more hand control than a sober cheerleader?

Hand control (+black LD) doesn't really do anything against combo. Yes, it will buy you time. But if you can't finish the game quickly then the combo player can just go Ill-gotten gains --> win. I have demolished ANT players in the past--keeping them off 5 mana with pinpoint discard and LD while hitting at their life totals can work--but it is far from easy and not really reliable against good players/builds.

As for mujadaddy's original question, I typically board in chalice of the void against storm combo.

[mujadaddy]

As for mujadaddy's original question, I typically board in chalice of the void against storm combo.Yes, all that other stuff, too. ANT is really, really fast.

G1, I didn't realize he was Combo until he started going off. G2 -- I did use Chalice, got one out for zero, and I had the guy Burning Wish for Meltdown :rolleyes: . I even had an Extirpate in hand, but they run too many different types of acceleration for that to work (I tried :laugh: ) ... I didn't have the pure nut-draw, but even G1, I Hymned him, and he still went off by T3.

It's a coin-flip, but I don't think it's in our favor at all. I also don't think there's much room in the sideboard to actually worry about it, other than 4x Chalice.

[Mystical_Jackass]

I think you'd almost have to have dark ritual- trinisphere to even have a chance, storm's just so fast. Yeah, dark ritual, hymn, duress, pox, ... only way to slow them down to try to pull a rabbit outta your hat >.<

[mujadaddy]

... only way to slow them down to try to pull a rabbit outta your hat >.<And sometimes that happens, it's just very inconsistent.

You bring up a point, though. Since we already run acceleration (Ritual or Mox Diamond), would it be possible to put Trinispheres in the maindeck? That would be a house, along with the regular land & hand pressure. It might slow us down a tad, but the deck doesn't run that many 1's or 2's, really. I know it's more appropriate for the sideboard without completely transforming the deck, but I've already kinda transformed my version of Pox, so try to think about it post-sideboarding, if you care to comment.

Restated, does Trinisphere help against more decks than just Storm Combo, and if so, enough to run 4 in the sideboard?

[scarlet_moon]

I run Extirpate main against Combo. Since this card is never dead and always nice to have, it`s really a good mainboardsolution for a combointensive metagame. Yes, sometimes they will just go into their combo turn1 on the play and maybe even with protection... But in other cases, there is often time to play some sort of discard and then, extirpate on whatever there is in the GY will help.

Examples: Against Solidarity, Extirpate on Meditate, Reset or High Tide is really gamebreaking. Against Ichorid, Extirpate on Bridge from Below will help, sometimes it`s possible to remove Ichorids or Dredger or other pieces. Against Stormcombo (if they have no Orim`s Chant to play) you can just remove a draw-4-card or something equal.

[Mystical_Jackass]

Ichorid.. leyline the void wins. crypts, planar void, extirpate, ebony charm.. all good options too.

Storm. I dunno, pray they dont 1st turn kill you. Get a good discard hand to slow them down, they need at least 5+ cards to combo effectively.

I dunno, you'd really have to pull a rabbit outta your hat.

I suppose you could do something really tricky.
Prolly play bonds of agony, drop eachother down to 1 life. Next turn, try to ritual + syphon.. er, swing with factory or something. Anything over turn 3 is prolly a deathwish though

[mujadaddy]

bonds of agony, drop eachother down to 1 life.
Did you miss the "X" in the casting cost? I know I did the first time I read the card, but not the second :wink:

[coraz86]

Trinisphere actually isn't a bad idea, that or Sphere of Resistance. You could drop one of the long-game ingredients against combo to sideboard these in. I think I'd try Trinisphere first, but SoR is notable for it's lower mana cost.
Trinisphere is solid against decks like Thresh, Goblins, Merfolk, unexpecting mirror matches, etc. where the goal is to get way ahead early and keep you on your heels. It might not be the best option in other matchups, but it's certainly good enough to try.
Chalice@1 shuts off your Rituals and Duress (and Thoughtseize if you're using it). It's not bad on zero though. I'd rather keep with the mana denial element (Sphere of Resistance, Trinisphere, Thorn of Amethyst even), so I personally wouldn't SB Chalice, but that's a taste issue rather than a card quality issue.

Also note that second turn Ritual->Pox against ANT not only deprives them of cards in hand and land, but seven life. That's often the difference between them spilling fifteen life on Ad Nauseum to draw half their deck and them hitting an IGG, another Ad Nauseum, maybe two or three other cards and saying 'go' because they were too low for AN to go nuts. Not to mention they don't really run board control, so heavy early disruption followed by Tombstalker can get there.

[Lord Darkview]

My question would be, have you ever cast two in the same game? I've been thinking about it, and I'm pretty sure I've never done that.

But I most certainly have. *shrugs* Luck of the draw maybe.


Also, if your GY is completely full of cards, no, TS & NS don't dis-synergize... it's when NS is in the yard, and you've got exactly enough cards + mana to cast TS that they are a dis-synergy.

To be clear, even in this case, they're still not antisynergistic. In this case, Nether Spirit is just like any other card that Tombstalker can delve. So as opposed to positive synergy (most of the time), you get no synergy (a little of the time), not anti-synergy (a vast minority). The only time anti-synergy happens is if the Spirit and Tombstalker are both in the graveyard, and in this case, you'll be quite glad you're running four of the demon.


...I ran into a B/W/G Madness deck on MWS the other day, that completely worked me over. I'm not even sure why, but he had too much powah for me. My draws were kinda crappy, but he still shouldn't have dominated me like he did. Oh well. I still like my deck.

Must have been a real fluke occurance. Madness usually doesn't run enough real critters to scare me, my double-edged sacrifice effects are still effective.


Anyone have any suggestions for the AN-Tendrils combo matchup?

Usually, your disruption package (Duress, Hymn, SPox, Pox, etc...) will handle it. Some days though, they just plain win.

[Mystical_Jackass]

Did you miss the "X" in the casting cost? I know I did the first time I read the card, but not the second :wink:

Rofl. Sorry, I must be getting old.. at the age of 25 my eye site isn't what it used to be lol Think I'm confusing it with hatred >.>

I like that idea of Pox dropping their life for Ad Nauseum, land and cards. Lowers the amount of storm they need to kill you though :{

[mujadaddy]

Lowers the amount of storm they need to kill you though :{
The amount of storm they need isn't the issue, though, it's the fact that they have to be perfect with their Ad Naseum reveals once they're lower than about 15 life.

The more I think about it, though, I think Oppression is actually the answer... that card totally screws Fast.dec, no matter the flavor. EDIT: Ach! Except that Ad Nas will be putting a BUNCH of useless lands into their hand as they go off. Shoot.

Also, M_J... I'm serious about how I misread Bond of Agony the first time. I thought I'd found the holy fucking grail, but I was wrong :laugh:

[Mystical_Jackass]

I know lol, dangit.. that'd be so broken though >.<

What about this spell. It wouldn't be effective till turn 2 though. Maybe duress, slow 'em down then..

Imp's Mischief
1B
Instant
P/T:
Change the target of target spell with a single target. You lose life equal to that spell's converted mana cost.

ouch.

[bowvamp]

I know lol, dangit.. that'd be so broken though >.<

What about this spell. It wouldn't be effective till turn 2 though. Maybe duress, slow 'em down then..

Imp's Mischief
1B
Instant
P/T:
Change the target of target spell with a single target. You lose life equal to that spell's converted mana cost.

ouch.

I have already considered this card with my group of playtesters (newbs that I taught how to play certain decks well) and we have come up with the following: Take the 1 off the beginning and this card would be UBER add it back again and it's sorta meh. Face it guys, turn two we already have our star players coming in from the side and a multitude of other options to choose from MD. The life loss just seals the deal for the usefulness of Imp's Mischief in Pox. We already win by small margins more often than other decks do, so lets not forget about that life loss!

[mujadaddy]

Yes, the Black Misdirection is underwhelming, esp. vs. Storm, where it'd be useless.

Trinisphere helps vs. Burn, too--Trinisphere & Chalice...

SB: Trinisphere, Chalice, Leyline, 3*Engineered Plague...?

[Mystical_Jackass]

Prolly right about the trinisphere. I'd almost just chalice for 0, eat all the mox and lotus petals galore. Heh, run both of them lol

I forget about storm.. it'd copy the spell X times so redirecting does nothing :*{ Even some sorta COP would suck

Went against a storm deck with my enchantress today. Lossed :[ He broke loose first game and won, managed to Halo him 2nd naming tendrils.. he felt silly cause he didn't sideboard, 3rd game got out another but he bounced back to my hand and finished storm :[

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BTW, what about this card??

Underworld Dreams
Black
Enchantment
Uncommon
Underworld Dreams does one damage to opponent for each card he or she draws.

“In the drowsy dark cave of the mind dreams build their nest with fragments dropped from day’s caravan.” —Rabindranath Tagore

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[eternaldarkness]

The problem with trinisphere is you will need that dark ritual in hand to help get it out fast enough. If you try to mull for trini+ritual, then your going to be losing extra discard spells which is crucial to fight storm. The way to beat storm combo isn't any single hate card but that hate card combined with as much disruption that you can throw at them. Now compare trinisphere with chalice at zero on t1. Not only is it more consistent than Trini+ritual, it is also arguably as disruptive. You can even 'scope' your opponent with a turn 1 duress to see whether its better to wait a turn and drop Chalice for 1 instead (if they're holding a grip of tinder walls or dark rituals).

The scenario muja gave where the Chalice at zero got burning wished --> meltdown will happen. Good storm combo has ways to fight sideboard hate and most good players will use them. That's why ANT and it's like never really go away. The deck is that resilient. The idea is with using board hate is that the combo player will be wasting resources to answer that Chalice, giving you time to disrupt them further and just dig a hole they can't get out of. That hate card is NOT supposed to single-handedly win you the game. Just remember that drawing your hate card along with a lot of chaff is NOT optimal against combo. You need multiple disruption to get there.

Pox is often a double-edged sword against combo. You knock out a large amount of life making Ad Nauseam more dangerous to use (I've played against people who killed themselves with it after a timely pox). But remember you are also knocking out the same amount from your life, making it easier for the combo player to kill you. Them going ritual, ritual, wish --> empty the warrens after a pox is bad news. And that's just with a storm count of 4! Hell even 2-3 storm count with EtW is problematic if you don't have a tombstalker/factory.

Anyway, while we're brainstorming for anti-combo hate, here's a few I've been toying with:

Null Rod --> might be good, though Chalice at 0 seems better.

Phyrexian Negator --> fast clock + disruption = gg

Extirpate --> I'm not a fan of this card since it sometimes does too little too late, but it might be good when combined with other disruption

[Mystical_Jackass]

I'd say you need:

4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Pox
4 Small Pox
4 underworld Dreams
4 Chalice of the Void
2 extirpate

This sounds almost crazy, almost considering 4 Lotus Petal or something, cut a few lands and/or spells? It'd make an interesting sideboard but I think I have room for like 3 more cards lol

Here's the funny thing about storm, they have NOTHING for in-game threats. Its an empty deck with like 2 spells lol, I totally see where your coming from dropping Negator.. its like, why not swing they got nothing.. less they grapeshot it and you for like 12 damage rofl.. crap.

That was the second time I've played this kid and he's won, but I'm serious about Underworld Dreams.. every time he's beaten me he's had to draw and go down to 5, 8, 7, etc life. I can guarantee he's drawn at least 12 cards to pull it off... on top of the 13+ life he usually eats to get enough spells to storm I'm pretty sure that would end him, Chalice at 0 would counter every mana artifact he'd need to pull off a capsize or storm or anything so he'd have to keep drawing more into his grave.

[mujadaddy]

Underworld DreamsHeh, if you look way upthread, I actually maindecked 3 of those for a long time. The reason I dropped them is because they were too slow, and I wanted to pack more cards that actually changed the board state -- aka threats & answers. As far as an anti-combo card, it would really help vs. Solidarity, but Ad Naus actually puts the card into their hand as opposed to drawing them where Underworld Dreams would hurt them.
That hate card is NOT supposed to single-handedly win you the game. Just remember that drawing your hate card along with a lot of chaff is NOT optimal against combo. You need multiple disruption to get there.Quoted for Redundancy, for anyone not familiar with the Combo matchup.

Pox is often a double-edged sword against combo. If you can Pox them down to 13 life, early, an Ad Nauseum player will almost NEVER be able to win. 14 life? They probably can.

Other types of combo are much more vulnerable to discard. If you can resolve a Hymn and then just play your deck normally, you can pretty much beat them. Enchantress is different from other types of combo b/c they can take a LONG time to go off, so Normal Pox Play is ok versus them.

Null Rod --> might be good, though Chalice at 0 seems better.

Phyrexian Negator --> fast clock + disruption = gg

Extirpate --> I'm not a fan of this card since it sometimes does too little too late, but it might be good when combined with other disruptionNull Rod -- Make sure you side out your Phyrexian Totem!! :laugh: ...actually, I think Null Rod might be too narrow to actually take up a spot. Chalice at zero does the exact same thing we want Null Rod to do, at least vs. Combo. What else does it stop that's worth stopping? Top, maybe?

Negator -- In the sideboard, that's certainly an option...But waiting for T2 to swing into Combo is often too slow. Much better to drop a Trinisphere with the dark ritual T1, or even Chalice@1 and take a point of mana burn.

Extirpate -- if the card has hit the GY, it's generally too late. Leyline of the Void is a much wider sideboard solution--it really helps the Landstill matchup. However, a few of you are running Extirpate maindeck, so if that works, keep it and let us know how well it works.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

IF YOU ARE GOING TO RUN CHALICES vs ANT, you want to set one at ZERO early, then ASAP, set another at TWO. I don't care that this cuts off half your deck. If you get them off Burning Wish and Infernal Tutor, they're finished. You actually would WANT to set it at 2 first, if you could. So, if you're on the play and your hand is Chalice, Swamp, Swamp, Ritual, Hymn-----it's MUCH more important to set the Chalice at 2 on turn 2 than to Hymn.

[bowvamp]

I'd say you need:

4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Pox
4 Small Pox
4 underworld Dreams
4 Chalice of the Void
2 extirpate

This sounds almost crazy, almost considering 4 Lotus Petal or something, cut a few lands and/or spells? It'd make an interesting sideboard but I think I have room for like 3 more cards lol

Here's the funny thing about storm, they have NOTHING for in-game threats. Its an empty deck with like 2 spells lol, I totally see where your coming from dropping Negator.. its like, why not swing they got nothing.. less they grapeshot it and you for like 12 damage rofl.. crap.

That was the second time I've played this kid and he's won, but I'm serious about Underworld Dreams.. every time he's beaten me he's had to draw and go down to 5, 8, 7, etc life. I can guarantee he's drawn at least 12 cards to pull it off... on top of the 13+ life he usually eats to get enough spells to storm I'm pretty sure that would end him, Chalice at 0 would counter every mana artifact he'd need to pull off a capsize or storm or anything so he'd have to keep drawing more into his grave.

Um...
Ok, ditch underworld dreams. It just isn't as good as it is on the kitchen table.
If you have the money, you could put in 2 Chains of Mephistopheles in the SB to help vs. him.
Cut extirpate main, this is a card that you board in.
Storm doesn't normally have anything on the board for 2 reasons:
a) You have destroyed their hand, quite obvious here.
b) They are storm. Storm wins before permanents reach their full worth...

If your meta has 1 person running storm, I'd just forget him and take the 2/3 matchup in your favor that is pretty easy to reach just so long as you don't go for straight creature kill MD and have at least enough cards in the SB that have an effect so you can board out all creature kill. If you're playing against soliditary alot, Chains becomes even better just sayin...

[Mystical_Jackass]

But Muja just said that AN doesn't actually draw the card, it simply gets put into your hand so does that mean Chains wouldn't work either? :{


Lol, that'd be a lotta $$ to find out its bogus bro

[mujadaddy]

Ad Nauseum (http://magiccards.info/ala/en/63.html): Reveal the top card of your library and put that card into your hand.

That won't trigger Underworld Dreams ~or~ Chains of Mephistopheles. Plus, Chains is like 80 bucks a copy. :eek: ...I don't even run them in MWS, because I'd feel cheap.

[Mystical_Jackass]

... just like if I had to run Glacial.. w/e the name of the land is lol. With that money, its like..I could feed a shelter full of orphans... or buy a playset of those to win!! (personally, I'd prolly do neither Lol)

[bowvamp]

Umm, MJ (is it alright if I address you by this?), Glacial Chasm isn't all too good in Pox... and I would feed orphans any day. Just felt like I needed to affirm my non-scroogy-ness :tongue:

[Mystical_Jackass]

Umm, MJ (is it alright if I address you by this?), Glacial Chasm isn't all too good in Pox... and I would feed orphans any day. Just felt like I needed to affirm my non-scroogy-ness

Yarp. ..oh, would you now? Even if the orphans turned out to be zombies?

..then again, that would really bring to question why the zombies would need to eat at all then. Hmm.. you can never be too certain though @.@



Man, my Pox was winning against mono blue, waited for him to tap out and dropped a tombstalker when I was at 20 and he was at 14 life. He got his morphling out and kept dropping these 2/4 fliers so I couldn't race him, I had 1 Pox, 2 smallpox in my hand. He ended up putting me right at 1 life after I traded my stalker with his morphling the turn before, couldn't even pox. I'm not sure what the right move woulda been.. stalker can be sorta a double edged sword sometimes 'cause I dont want to lose it to Pox and I can't afford to not attack in that situation against control. Oh, I also had 2 swamp, 1 factory, and a totem out which didn't really go well against his evasion either.

[hungryLIKEALION]

couldn't you have activated factory and smallpoxed?

[Mystical_Jackass]

Actually that's a very good idea. lol yup, that deff would have done it :laugh:

@BowVamp
You inspire me Vamp, if someone as sinister looking as your icon can reach out to the orphan children, then by god... maybe I can too.. some day :)

[Old School Jim]

This is my first post but I’ve been reading this post for about a month. I’m new to Legacy and to this forum. That why I had to wait to write my report of my first legacy tournament. I finished second on about 30 players. It was organized by a local shop and it my first legacy experience. I’ve been a Vintage player for year some other players just convince me that Legacy is a really fun and competitive format. So I had to find something to play. So I just started to read about the format and I discovered that there was an old deck that I loved to play back in the days but wasn’t viable in Vintage: POX.

So I dusted my old box and made some majors modifications to be able to survive to the format (I used to play and old version with the man of steel and the scroll). So, with all your posts as a source of inspiration, I came to a solid list that looks like this. :
LANDS
4 Mishra’s Factory
4 Wasteland
2 Urborg
15 Swamp
CREATURES
3 Nether Spirit
3 Tombstalker
SPELLS
4 Pox
4 Smallpox
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Dark Ritual
2 Syphon Life
4 Chainer’s Edict
3 Crucible of Worlds
SIDEBOARD
4 Null Rod
2 E. Plague
4 Leyline of the void
3 Bottomless Pit
2 Spinning Darkness

The sideboard is really crappy since I didn’t know what I’d face. I used the Plague against an elf deck and I used once the Darkness once against an agro deck.
I LOVE Tombstalker! He’s so huge compare to I use to run before and with tarmo runnig everywhere in the format, he’s really useful to get rid of your yard.
The Chainer’s edic are there cause I didn’t find innocent blood for the tournament. Look like no one kept those in a binder so I’ll have to shop on the net to find some. But when I started to play with the edict, I started to doubt cause some game, I used it to get rid of a flying blocker with the stalker on the table to give me victory. And I even flashback it once in a late game situation where we were both on the top deck.
With a well timed small pox, I have the impression to play a sinkhole on crack. Man that card is so fun to play and it is, IMHO, way better that than the old one but with both in the deck, it is so sick.
So for the report, I’ll try to remember what I did two weeks ago and what I faced.

Round 1 against weird dragonstorm combo. (Won 2-0)
The guy look like a new player and I hate that cause Pox is the kind of deck that makes people quit playing cause your lock down in so many way. It has been a quick death since he was running a ton of non-basic (like ursa’s land and cloudpost) and I’ve been able to install an early crucible lock on the board. Always funny to have a duress see dual Kokusho and a dragonstorm with no land on the board.

Round 2 Suicide Black (Won 2-0)
A good player but he wasn’t able to handle the poxes and edict. Tombstalker finished the job.

Round 3 EVA green (Lost 0-2)
The player is one of the local store employees and he’s a great player. He’s running a lot of creatures and I’m not able to get rid of all of them. I lost to the fact that I didn’t see a wasteland for his green sources the 2 games I had and to big N. Shades.

Round 4 Survivor elf (won 2-0)
That player is actually the one that convinced me to play Legacy. I know that he’s a excellent Vintage and Legacy player and that the game will be difficult cause there a lot of elves to sacrifice. But I’m lucky and I’m able to kill the elves as fast as they come into play. The plague and the stalker finished the job in the second match. I have to say that I’ve been really lucky for this one cause we played for fun after and he owned me the 3-4 games we played, period.

Round 5 GWB agro the rock style (ID)

We don’t need to play this one but we play for fun cause he’s a good friend and a good player and we will face each other in the coming top 4. This look bad cause he’s packing noble hierarch, kitchen finks (THAT BAD) and natural order for Progenitus . He even run Wilt-Leaf Liege in sideboard fir the discard outlet. He literally raped me during the 3-4 games we played for fun before the top 4 (and that was far from fun).


Top 4 GWB agro the rock style (Won 2-0)
Yeah I won and I don’t know how the hell I did that! I’ve been lucky and he didn’t. The timing was right each time I poxed, killing land and creatures. He had bad top deck draw and I drew stalkers when the time was right. Good Karma seems to finally pay in my life.

Final White stack prison (Lost 0-2)
Yeah I lost, period! Chalice of the void did hurt my deck and I didn’t draw wasteland for his 2 colorless lands (A. tomb and City of Traitor).Elspeth sealed all hopes I could have for a victory.

That was a great experience for a first one. Legacy is indeed a fun and competitive format and Pox still have chances in a format where creatures based decks rules. For my sideboard, I think I’ll run Chalice of the Void and 2 more Plagues. And I’ll probably replace the 2 syphon life for 2 Phyrexian Totem for more punch.

[mujadaddy]

Hi there! Welcome to Posting at The Source :wink: I can tell you've been reading this thread from your list!

Did you find that against the Eva Green deck that it was their discard that hurt you, or was it purely the amount of creatures hitting the board?

Against the Stax deck, what did you sideboard in (other than Null Rod) and out?

I'm not sure that Syphon Life and Phyrexian Totem are a straight trade-out. Granted, you're looking for more punch, but against a creature deck (Eva Green) Totem isn't what you're looking for, I think. Of course, Syphon Life isn't either... Which leads me to the question, did Nether Spirits pull their weight for you?

[Old School Jim]

Hi there! Welcome to Posting at The Source :wink: I can tell you've been reading this thread from your list!

Did you find that against the Eva Green deck that it was their discard that hurt you, or was it purely the amount of creatures hitting the board?

Against the Stax deck, what did you sideboard in (other than Null Rod) and out?

I'm not sure that Syphon Life and Phyrexian Totem are a straight trade-out. Granted, you're looking for more punch, but against a creature deck (Eva Green) Totem isn't what you're looking for, I think. Of course, Syphon Life isn't either... Which leads me to the question, did Nether Spirits pull their weight for you?

Thank for the welcome!

Well I know that the totem is not the punch I need against Aggro (I still play Negator in Vintage cause it is soooo fun and dangerous :wink: ). The idea was more that the deck could need a bit more punch overall to kill asap once you disrupted the board with your sac effect. Syphon Life is not fast enough. I know that the discussion over pox was about if it is a control deck or not and I definitly say it is a control deck but it is a form of control that your need to use asap the board position you just gain after a pox, so you have 4-5 turn max cause after that you'll need to build more pressure with more disruption. I don't know if I'm clear enough with those explanations but I know where I'm going.:tongue:

For neither spirit, I keep them because of the fact that I wanted to keep a card that I knew and that I played with it before. It has been useful as a nice discard outlet and he get even better with the stalker since you can remove a excess copy in the grave. But, as a clock, it is not worth it. As a term of speed, it look like a Syphon life that doesn't require mana but require a perfect clean board. If it got an obstacle, the spirit become a good blocker.... but you don't need to block those critters, you need them dead. That job was originatly done by cursed scroll but in these days and ages, where creatures have more that 2 of resistance, the scroll can't make the cut. So I'll try to work on a possible solution. Neither Spirit does have a place in this deck but not along side of the Syphon. It is either one or the other but definitly not both.

Agains Stack, I didn't actually use null rod cause I didn't see any artefact that could be shut down (CotV, Smokestack, Triniphere). I side in Bottomless pit cause Primo : I thought that an early Pit could be a real surprise and could be really difficult for him to recover cause Stack is kind of slow to install and all I need is a Neither spirit that it the grave and Secondo : I didn't know at all what to use since I didn't think that Stack could be a deck played. I side out the edict since it wasn't useful. After my defeat, I thought of an old teck I use to run in my old pox and it was Distopia. Since they play white permanent as lock (ghostly prison) and kill card (Elspeth). It could be something to try but I'm not sure it could be fast enough.

For the Eva Green Match, it was really the creatures that hurted me (in every possible ways). N.Shade gave me a hard time, since the tarmo weren't helping so they just get sac and, with just a small amount of black, it could get bigger than the Stalker. I could handle one with a Spirit but, when he drop the second Shade, I knew that it could be tuff to win. So I'll probably side in Eplague next time insteed of the Leyline (I side them in to fight Tarmo and the Stalker but it didn't help with Shade on the board:frown: )

Anyway I'll try to find more developpement and ideas to share them with you, but I'm moving to my new appartment July 1rst so, right now, all my cards are in taped boxes all around my appartment so they are not really useful :laugh:

[Clark Kant]

Sorry I've been not posting here much guys.

Yeah Innocent Blood is solid.

If you feel overwhelmed by creatures, Wretched Banquet works really well, even better than Innocent Blood in many ways since it saves your Tombstalker, unlike Innocent Blood. You can always attack with or block with your Nether Spirit to get it killed before casting Wretched Banquet to take out your opponent's creature. I play 4 in the sideboard against heavy aggro decks and never once regretted them.

[clavio]

// Lands
12 [7E] Swamp (3)
4 [PLC] Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (4)
2 [SOK] Tomb of Urami
4 [TE] Wasteland

// Creatures
2 [FUT] Tombstalker
2 [FUT] Nihilith

// Spells
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
4 [OD] Innocent Blood
3 [TSB] The Rack
4 [FE] Hymn to Tourach (3)
4 [TSP] Smallpox
4 [5E] Pox
4 [10E] Crucible of Worlds
4 [CNF] Wretched Banquet

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [FNM] Engineered Plague
SB: 4 [US] Duress
SB: 4 [WL] Null Rod
SB: 3 [MR] Sun Droplet



Well, my other pet deck isn't doing so well right now so I've gone back to pox. I took the list I t8'd with (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=23889) and tried to make it better.


One of the main problems with pox is that it gets railed hard by the new popular counterbalance decks. Null Rod helps with this.

I have 4 innocent blood 4 wretcheds in the MD. If you're expecting more combo than aggro, just switch the duress and Wrecthys. Pox has trouble dealing with hordes of creatures, so this much MD creature removal should help. For combo resolving a turn one duress or thoughtseize should be enough to keep you alive for the other hate you have to become relevant unless they had the god draw, in which case you were dead anyway.

Nothing for Ichorid. Theres just not enough sideboard space to turn an unwinable matchup to a favorable one. The only way you can win this is if they are really terrible or really unlucky. Even starting the game off with

2/2 split between nihilith and Tombstalker. Nihilith is underrated. Tombstalker is bad if you get more than one early.

Idk why nobody is running the rack. It's bad turn one, but it's pure gold any time after that.

[mujadaddy]

3 [TSB] The Rack

One of the main problems with pox is that it gets railed hard by the new popular counterbalance decks.

Idk why nobody is running the rack. It's bad turn one, but it's pure gold any time after that.
Does The Rack help vs. Countertop decks? You say you have a bad matchup with them -- I think it's because that list doesn't have enough threats (ie, 2 'Stalkers but 4 Crucibles?) ... In my personal experience, my Pox deck has a fantastic Countertop matchup -- at least 60/40, if not better, with no changes post-sideboard. (The decks I have problems with are Gobbos, Death & Taxes and various Loam-using decks...sideboarding never works out right for me vs. Loam.dec.XYZ :laugh: )

Back to threats, "Nihilith is underrated" -- is he, or is he just win-more? I don't run him, so I'm asking what your experiences with him have been (based on how contentious some other deck threads are, I feel like I have to state that :smile: ). One problem with Nihilith is that he conflicts with my chosen sideboard 'enemy graveyard hoser' -- Leyline of the Void.

Clavio, do you think that running 4 Blood, 4 Banquet & 4 Thoughtseize is the right call? I would put the Thoughtseizes into the SB, and put the Duresses in their place.

Instead of Null Rod, what about Pithing Needle? Needle hits whatever you need (Deed, enemy manlands), not just artifacts.

[Old School Jim]

Idk why nobody is running the rack. It's bad turn one, but it's pure gold any time after that.

IMHO, You don't want to rely on a source of damage that you don't have the control on (Your opponent don't control the rack but still control his hand) Sure, if you run a lot of discard, it can be useful but, most of the time, the rack deals 1-2 damage a turn and the card lost often hurt more the opponent than the damage itself(a way to see it as a slow overkill). Sure the rack is fun to play (I still want to use my AQ playset) but I don't think it is competitive anymore.

Long ago, I tried an other one drop that just became deadlier than the rack. I didn't use it in my new version but I think it could be something to try if I find the place for. Here take a look!

Lurking Jackals
http://magiccards.info/ud/en/62.html

[clavio]

As far as duress vs thoughtseize, I will probably be facing quite a bit of merfolk so thoughtseize is much better there as it can creatures.

Null rod is very good against combo and affinity. Affinity is a popular deck because it's so cheap to build. Null rod shuts down ravager, cranial plating and all of their lands.

The only time nihlith isn't awesome is when an opponent drops a standstill. Otherwise I'd almost say I like him more than tombstalker. I have gotten gy hate sided in against me to stop crucible nonsense which ends up making tomb stalker bad.

4 crucible is probably too many now that I'm not running any retrace spells.

I don't see how the rack can be bad. The only time I've had it not be spectacular is against loam which is a very tough matchup anyway. It's actually the only threat the deck has thats fast enough to do anything to ichorid.

[mujadaddy]

I gotcha. All very reasonable.
The only time nihlith isn't awesome is when an opponent drops a standstill. Otherwise I'd almost say I like him more than tombstalker. Wow, that's high praise. I have to test that out. When I took out Nihiliths, my deck looked completely different, but maybe there's room now.

[OurSerratedDust]

Could you post your most recent list, mujadaddy? I'm interested to see what you're running.

[mujadaddy]

Could you post your most recent list, mujadaddy? I'm interested to see what you're running.I can after the Source Tournament. "I may've already said too much" ... Last tourney (the Goyfless one), I ran a suboptimal list and hit bad luck with opponents, getting many (3+) draws, as well as going 1-2 in all my matches down the stretch. My current list is much stronger, but we'll see how it goes. I will post the decklist afterward, of course.

[Mystical_Jackass]

so with the new rules, can abilities be triggered on the stack.. like mishra's factories becoming 3/3 when blocking?

I just came back from a friggin week and half vacation, like everything's just changed lol

[mujadaddy]

so with the new rules, can abilities be triggered on the stack.. like mishra's factories becoming 3/3 when blocking?Yes, but only in the Beginning, Attack, and Blocker Steps. "I block, then tap it to pump itself" ... as opposed to "I block. Damage on stack, I tap it to pump itself." That's the major difference -- if the creature doesn't live until the Damage Step, it doesn't deal its damage. It mostly affects creatures with sacrifice {me} abilities, most conspicuously Mogg Fanatic.

[coraz86]

I remember Nihilith being pretty badass when it was in Standard. Haven't tried it in Legacy yet, but I do have to say that it's best when suspended earlyish. You can knock four or five counters off of it with a single Pox (since Nihilith can remove cards when a card goes to your opponent's yard from anywhere, not just play). If you draw it late, though, it may take a few turns to come down, so if you need a beater right away, Nihilith isn't the best choice.
I also wonder whether fear is better than flying, although I suppose that's fairly dependent on one's local meta. Of course, both being big evasive dudes for small mana investments, there's no reason you couldn't rock like three of each.

[mujadaddy]

If you draw it late, though, it may take a few turns to come down, so if you need a beater right away, Nihilith isn't the best choice.If I remember correctly, this is exactly why I cut him many iterations ago. Topdecks need to be welcome rain, not "FAAAK! How am I going to get this to work?!?"... Tombstalker is certainly the former most of the time. One thing that Nihilith might work out in swap for is Phyrexian Totem...

...I got TWO mirror matches yesterday on MWS; one USian (I think) and one Russian. Their lists were fairly standard (one was :b::g: goyfpox), and I'm glad to say I went 4-1 vs. them with my list, even stabilizing at 2 life and taking down all 18 of my opponent's in the last game. The Russian guy obviously liked what he saw -- he kept saying "Email me your list -- [xxx@yyy].ru" ... He needs to learn the magic word :wink: (I will make the list public after the current Source tournament, as I mentioned above.)

[Mystical_Jackass]

show us NOWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!! :frown: :frown: :frown: <frownx100^15>

[mujadaddy]

show us NOWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!! :frown: :frown: :frown: <frownx100^15>That's a big frown. Are you in the tournament?

[Mystical_Jackass]

naw I wish. Stuck in NC working 60 hours this week <frown>, I wanna try out my new decklist. I'm considering maindeck Chalice of the Void.

Crazy insane, or insane crazy? I dunno. Double edged sword? I dunno. Just the thought of dark ritual, duress, chalice seems sexy.

My plan, since I only run 2 innocent blood.. was to just drop it all together. I'm not gonna lie, this card is prolly my least fav card in the deck.. I always seem to draw it mid game when opponent has like 3 creatures out and I wish it was something better. Small pox is just so much more awesomerer
This leaves me with 4 dark ritual, 4 duress for 1cc's. Since these cards are sorta mitigated after the first few turns anyways I don't really think it steps on Chalice or vice a versa, as much as I'd think. Anyways, I gotta try it out. IMO, worst case scenario it gets pitched to pox, but knowing the decks out there its just too powerful at shutting down all their utility cards

[dyzzy]

I was thinking of building a Pox deck, so I looked at the Pox thread over at MTGS. I really like the variant they call Crucible Pox and want to use it as a starting point, here is a sample decklist:

Lands (25):
4x Mishra's Factory
4x Wasteland
3x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2x Tomb of Urami
1x Urborg
1x Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1x Volrath's Stronghold
1x Cabal Pit
1x Undiscovered Paradise
7x Swamp

Acceleration (4):
4x Mox Diamond

Disruption and Control (21):
2x Raven's Crime
4x Funeral Charm
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Smallpox
4x Pox
3x Crucible of Worlds

Creatures (4):
2x Nether Spirit
2x Tombstalker

Other Threats (6):
3x The Rack
2x Cursed Scroll
1x Syphon Life

Sideboard (15):
4x Extirpate
4x Engineered Plague
2x Spinning Darkness
2x Syphon Life
3x Tormod's Crypt

I was wondering what you guys would do with this list. First off, I wanted to make these changes:
-2 Cursed Scroll, -1 Urborg (normal, not Tomb), -1 *something else* (maybe The Rack? 3 might be unnecessary), +4 Thoughtseize
-3 Tormod's Crypt SB, +3 Leyline of the Void SB

Also, what do you guys think about Mox Diamond vs. Dark Ritual? I don't want to have to drop $100 on Mox Diamonds if my Rituals work just fine.

[mujadaddy]

@dyzzy:

My view is that Mox is unnecessary if you're not splashing. It causes you to run too many lands. I use ritual, but your list doesn't have very many plays with it. Let's assume you'd keep rituals, though,for the moment. (-4 MoxD/+4 DarkRitual)

-1 (regular Urborg) -- Those guys on Salvation have no idea what they're doing.

-1 Mikokoro -- Why are we giving the enemy a card?

-1 Cabal Pit -- Not really impressed with this one...

-1 Urami -- Too much of a drawback to run 2, I think.

-1 Volrath -- You're running 4 creatures :-/

-2 Cursed Scroll -- Agree with you there. I don't like showing my cards, and I don't like spending 3 mana for 2 damage, even if it can hit critters.

Now that I've cut 5 lands, maybe another Urborg, Tomb of Yawg to keep the :b: available, and another swamp? (+1 UToY, +1 Swamp)

That leaves 5 more slots, if my math is right. I think you're light on removal. +3 Innocent Blood.

You need another Tombstalker. +1 Tombstalker

That leaves 1 slot. Maybe Powder Keg, maybe another innocent blood.

Sideboard looks pretty good, except you NEED 4 Leylines if you want to see them games 2 & 3. Cut a syphon life. (-1 Syphon/-3 Tormod/+4 Leyline)

What do you think? The only problem I see is that you might be a little weak on your combo matchup, relying on your (admittedly heavy) discard alone.

[ykpon]

hi. i have never played pox but i think i should try it because i like the idea and also have nearly all cards for it. the thing i'm interested in are sinkholes. nearly all builds from deckcheck run it, but the lists i've seen here on the last 3 pages don't. is it because they aren't needed anymore or just because you haven't them? i'm sure it had been already discussed, but unfortunatly i didn't have enough time to read the whole thread yet so the link to a page i need would be ok. thx.

[dyzzy]

@mujadaddy:

Thanks for the advice!

I really don't know why half those lands are in there either. However, I can at least explain the presence of Mikokoro. The idea is that when they run out of cards in hand (especially when you're playing a discard heavy build), you can give them a card and force them to discard it. Alternatively, if they only have one card in hand, you can give them a second one to get the most out of Hymn. I'm not sure how well this works in practice (haven't gotten out a Mikokoro in playtesting yet), but I used to do shenanigans like this in my old casual discard deck.

Besides that, I really like the other changes you made. Do you think I could fit more Powder Kegs somewhere? Maybe unnecessary.

And in regards to Dark Ritual: Do you think I should still keep them in despite "not having very many plays with it"? It's till a really good card though, and I see no reason to dump it.

[mujadaddy]

the thing i'm interested in are sinkholes. nearly all builds from deckcheck run it, but the lists i've seen here on the last 3 pages don't.
My thoughts: (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=345688&postcount=958)
On Land Destruction as a strategy: Sinkhole & Wasteland are powerful, no question. However, Legacy is a format where spells cost 0,1 and 2, and bombs cost 3 & 4. YOU CAN'T STOP ANYONE with mana denial. You can slow them down, but in my experience and for my play style, I think dedicated Land Destruction is overrated. I play 2 Pox 4 Smallpox, primarily for the discard & creature hate. I'm much more concerned with other things than lands. There are corner cases where I would need more land destruction, but versus most decks, I don't miss it at all versus having more threats.

Your mileage may vary.
Dark Ritual: Do you think I should still keep them in despite "not having very many plays with it"? It's till a really good card though, and I see no reason to dump it.I love dark ritual. Love it. Some young whippersnappers don't like it, but I do. I would keep it for sure, but that's me.

Also, a mix of 2 Powder Keg/2 Innocent Blood might be good.

[dyzzy]

How about something like this?

Lands (22):
4x Mishra's Factory
4x Wasteland
4x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Tomb of Urami
1x Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1x Undiscovered Paradise
7x Swamp

Creatures (4):
2x Nether Spirit
2x Tombstalker

Spells (34):
2x The Rack
4x Dark Ritual
2x Raven's Crime
2x Funeral Charm
2x Innocent Blood
4x Thoughtseize
2x Powder Keg
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Smallpox
4x Pox
3x Crucible of Worlds
1x Syphon Life

Sideboard (15):
4x Extirpate
4x Engineered Plague
1x Syphon Life
4x Leyline of the Void
2x Spinning Darkness

It's probably too discard heavy, but I really wanted to fit Thoughtseize in there. Questions about SB:

1) Think something like Dystopia might be useful?
2) What about Pithing Needle or Null Rod?
3) I don't know if I like Spinning Darkness, is it really necessary?

[mujadaddy]

How about something like this?The only thing I'd worry about would be finishers, but maybe between Nether Spirit and Factory/Crucible (+rack+'stalker) you do have enough.

It's certainly ready to pilot a bunch of times.


1) Think something like Dystopia might be useful?
2) What about Pithing Needle or Null Rod?
3) I don't know if I like Spinning Darkness, is it really necessary?My opinion is that Dystopia is too slow to help... except vs. say Moat or Humility. Spinning Darkness only hits creatures, so I'm not positive it's needed... maybe something like Smother or the other 2 Innocent Bloods?

Pithing Needle & Null Rod: Helpful, I would think. Needle naming Elspeth would've been AWESOME in my last match... Null Rod is narrower (only artifacts) and can shut down your factories abilities (so you couldn't pump your blocking Factory with Rod out)... but if you have a ton of Affinity around, it's the better choice.

[wizmentor]

muja (and anyone else),

I want your opinion of blackmail. I've put it in my current list over duress because,
a) it hits creatures
b) it can act as a discard outlet and I play x4 animate dead (along with x3 s. titan)

Are these good enough reasons, or should I just go back to duress? What do you think?

peace,
wiz

p.s. when's the tourney, when do we get to see your list?

[Old School Jim]

I also though about blackmail but never over Duress. On the firsts turns, duress is strickly better than the mail. Blackmail get better as the game go on and it could be better in some way (counting on the fact that you attack your opponent manabase with waste/pox effect). But I've never tried it so I could maybe give it a swing to see if it worth it.

On the other hand, If you want to use it with titan and animated dead, it could be more useful. But could it be better to run funeral charm/cabal therapy insteed?:really: I think that could be something to try (I like this idea but I don't know what I could remove to find room for titan AND A.D. probably neither spirit)

[mujadaddy]

blackmailMy question would be, do you really play Animate Dead+Sundering Titan? That seems like it takes up too many slots. Animate Dead is reactive, but the worst kind of reactive for Pox --- it's not discard, it's not removal, it's hopeful synergy with your discard and/or removal.

...buuut, let's go back to Blackmail. It's not terrible. It's strictly better than Thoughtseize when they only have 3 cards in-hand. I tend to cast discard early in the game, though, when they have 5 cards or so in hand... so Blackmail turns into a "brainstorm" where they can hide what they're most interested in keeping. For topdeck mode, I think Funeral Charm is better, as it can discard that card during their beginning step (instant speed)... but Blackmail is certainly a substitute for Duress or Thoughtseize if you can't get your hands on them.


p.s. when's the tourney, when do we get to see your list?Round 2 just started today. I got up at 5am to play Nihil in Italy in Round 1, and I made some (in retrospect obviously) bad plays during the games and went 1-2. However, MTGSalvation is running a tourney right now too, and I'm 3-1 (6-3) in that one after Round 4.

[wizmentor]

My question would be, do you really play Animate Dead+Sundering Titan? That seems like it takes up too many slots. Animate Dead is reactive, but the worst kind of reactive for Pox --- it's not discard, it's not removal, it's hopeful synergy with your discard and/or removal.

shrug. I like animate dead - reanimation spells have been suggested multiple times in this thread. Pox and smallpox are discard outlets, cards like hymn work well with animate dead. I also play a singlets of shriekmaw and mournwelk , both of which combo well with animate dead.

Yes, certain conditions must exist for animate dead to function - but that's true for tombstalker as well.

Again, shrug.



...buuut, let's go back to Blackmail. It's not terrible. It's strictly better than Thoughtseize when they only have 3 cards in-hand. I tend to cast discard early in the game, though, when they have 5 cards or so in hand... so Blackmail turns into a "brainstorm" where they can hide what they're most interested in keeping. For topdeck mode, I think Funeral Charm is better, as it can discard that card during their beginning step (instant speed)... but Blackmail is certainly a substitute for Duress or Thoughtseize if you can't get your hands on them.

OK, thanks. I'll try a combination of duress and blackmail, and see how it goes.



Round 2 just started today. I got up at 5am to play Nihil in Italy in Round 1, and I made some (in retrospect obviously) bad plays during the games and went 1-2. However, MTGSalvation is running a tourney right now too, and I'm 3-1 (6-3) in that one after Round 4.

good luck - you've put a lot of time and thought into it. I hope you do well.

[carnifex]

Hey guys I've recently managed to ditch withered wretch in my sideboard for 4x leyline of the void, they're still on the way but i've been pondering...

My SB also runs 4x extirpate (a card that's crucial in my experience vs some matchups and I am intent on keeping in the SB) and I'm worried about the anti-synergy with the two cards. Is there a matchup in which both extirpate and leyline are necessities, and does this cause problems?

[mujadaddy]

Is there a matchup in which both extirpate and leyline are necessities, and does this cause problems?I think that 4 of each of those are necessities in the Sideboard. (Although some people fit 2 Extirpates maindeck, so, YMMV) ... G2 vs. anything that loves the graveyard [Ichorid | AggroLoam | Landstill | randomLoam], you want to ensure that you see one of those 8 cards. A good pilot of those decks will eventually bounce your turn 0 Leyline, so multiples don't hurt (unless you see 3 in a game), and the Extirpates are there in case you dont' feel like mulling into the Turn 0 Leyline. In short, I like 4/4 in the board because it gives you options. The rest of the board should be for the Combo matchup, imo.

[dyzzy]

The rest of the board should be for the Combo matchup, imo.
What cards do you suggest against combo?

[mujadaddy]

Sideboard (15):
4x Extirpate
4x Engineered Plague
1x Syphon Life
4x Leyline of the Void
2x Spinning Darkness
If you know for sure there'll be combo, don't bother with Engineered Plague, I think. -4 Plague -1 Syphon Life -2 Spinning ... then pack Chalice of the Void & Trinisphere (4/3?), siding out some 1cc spells (but NOT ritual -- need those to power the hate out as soon as possible!) that you'd otherwise not get to land with Chalice on the board. Also, don't side in Extirpate v. Tendrils combo unless they pull IGG in game 1 or 2 -- it's much more important to keep their solutions at the high end of their curve than to hate on specific techniques. In fact, if they DO pull IGG, you may want to use Leyline instead of Extirpate, keeping your regular discard package.

As discussed upthread, vs. Combo you need 3 things -- fast discard, fast hate (Chalice & Trini), and a lot of luck. Also, if you have a hand with 2 rituals and a chalice, you want to cast it at TWO -- if they can't Burning Wish for their 'anti-hate-hate', the game is over, I think. Two is the most important, followed by Zero. One is ok, but that's the order of importance: Two, zero, One.

Oh, also, keep the poxes in -- if you can cast one, it's almost impossible for them to Ad Nauseum successfully if they're at 13 or less life.

(In my estimation, Ad Nauseum is the only combo deck to worry about -- it's faster than other combo decks by at least a turn, if not more; it packs varied ways to get to its kill condition so it's harder to hate out narrowly; and the normal Pox discard/kill lands plan works much better vs. the other combo decks, so AdN is the only one that you really *have to* sideboard for...

...isn't it interesting that AdN & Ichorid, two nominally :b: decks, are the decks against which the normal Pox 60 is insufficient?)

[Nekrataal]

Hi Guys,

CARDS (34)
4*Small Pox
1*Pox
3*P.Deed
4*Sinkhole
4*Hymn to Tourach
4*Innocent Blood
1*Raven´s Crime
4*Life from the Loam
2*Eternal Witness
4*Mox Diamond
2*Phyrexian Totem
1*Epochrasite

LANDS(26)
5*Swamp
1*Forest
1*Urborg,Tomb of Y.
4*Wasteland
4*Bayou
2*Mishra´s Factory
1*Volrath´s Stronghold
2*Tranquil Thicket
1*Barren Moor
2*Polluted Delta
2*Bloodstained Mire
1*Windswept Heath

SB(15)
4*Leyline of the Void
3*Krosan Grip
1*Pernicious Deed
3*Diabolic Edict
2*Damnation
2*Engineered Plague



I did some playtesting with a very similar version with 1 more Cycling Land and 3 Tombstalkers in the place of Epochrasite and Eternal Witness. Tombstalker wasnt always great because Swords just needs 1 Mana and although the opponent often is locked down to 1-2 lands he manages to play something. Volrath´s Stronghold is just worseless then. Also I often played him using his alternativ costs and removing non lands, sometimes also lands from the graveyard which wasnt very synergistic but nevertheless had to be to drop a win condition. All in all I wasnt very happy with Tombstalker. What about Gigapede, it at least has Shroud and can be recurred at almost no cost with Loam. Also a more TrainWreck like Wincondition like Helldozer could fit in.

I also was thinking about adding Kitchen finks SB against R Aggro. Persist is quite good with sacrifice effects and it good do more then just be a Syphon Life. What do you think?

[civ]

edited

[Droxis]

Hiya! I've always been a fan of pox, but it's always been bumped back on my list of "new decks to play." Well, not this time! My local meta is practically entirely homebrew control decks and a mishmash of aggro decks that can range across the whole board of aggro decks. Merfolk, red/green beats, burn, Zoo, white weeny, and a particularly powerful aggroloam deck. We do get your occasional oddball deck (Last week had a blue/red scepter counterburn deck). To say the least, combo is non-existent.

So! I took a read over this thread and cobbled a list together based on all the information and now I'm looking for some criticism to knock out anything I'm not aware of. Here:

// Lands
2 [SOK] Tomb of Urami
2 [PLC] Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
10 [CST] Swamp (1)
4 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (2)
4 [TE] Wasteland

// Creatures
3 [FUT] Tombstalker

// Spells
3 [CFX] Wretched Banquet
2 [TSP] Phyrexian Totem
2 [EVE] Raven's Crime
1 [EVE] Syphon Life
4 [5E] Pox
4 [TSP] Smallpox
3 [FD] Crucible of Worlds
4 [OD] Innocent Blood
4 [FE] Hymn to Tourach (1)
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
4 [CST] Dark Ritual

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [GP] Leyline of the Void
SB: 4 [PLC] Extirpate
SB: 3 [UD] Powder Keg
SB: 4 [7E] Engineered Plague

I'm mostly confused on figuring out a sort of rule of thumb for balancing out the crippling cards (should I even bother running sinkhole without vindicates on top of it?), creature kill, and finishers. Asking that is probably a little strange, considering how much this deck can be mutated, but if anyone has any insight I'd appreciate it! :laugh:

[mujadaddy]

The only things that leap out at me are the two Tomb of Urami -- I could see that being a problem in a long game, possibly, as the costs to use either ability are fairly significant (I personally dislike the card entirely, but recommend you cut it to one) -- and the 3 Wretched Banquet -- you say you have a creature heavy meta, but that will only ever hit the weakest creature on the board, which might feel underpowered if you top deck it and there's, say, a Trinket Mage and a Dreadnought on the board. Consider Smother.

Otherwise, I'd say that looks good. Play it a bunch and let us know what you think! :smile:

[Droxis]

Points taken and tweaked it a little. I have one Urami now and I included them mostly because I'm unsure of how many threats I should run or which ones I should run. Seems like the pool of options is comprised of tombstalker, phyrexian totem, mishra's factory, and a pile of random stuff that seems to mostly be used on taste (nether spirit, cursed scroll, nihilith, urami).

I suppose I'm wondering how many finishers should Pox run?

[mujadaddy]

I suppose I'm wondering how many finishers should Pox run?That's, of course, a good question. Currently, I'm running 3 Tombstalkers, 1 Totem 4 factories (and 2 Syphon Life). I focus on board control, sneaking my damage in when I can, usually through Pox & Factories, then a Tombstalker at the end for the 1-2 turn clock.

You really have to answer that question for yourself, though. Play with what you've got :smile:

[civ]

Hey all,

I don't think this idea was specifically mentioned but if so, sorry I overlooked it. I am gearing towards a Crucible based build with 4 main deck ThoughtSeize and am still considering running 1-2 Phyrexian Arenas. I know its inherently too dangerous what with all of the other life loss, but has anyone had luck using it in conjunction with Zuran Orb? I feel as if 1-2 Arena and 2-3 Orb may be entirely too hefty on the slots, but since I am choosing not to use Dark Ritual it may work out well. It seems this could be a steady middle ground for the card acceleration.

Any Ideas?


thanks

[Pltnmngl]

Not sure if I should start a new thread or not, but I was reading Doug Linn's latest article. He mentions Sign in Blood and how using it with Night's Whisper, Pox, and Smallpox might be tech. Is it worth another thread?

[mujadaddy]

Not sure if I should start a new thread or not, but I was reading Doug Linn's latest article. He mentions Sign in Blood and how using it with Night's Whisper, Pox, and Smallpox might be tech.So...what's the use case with Sign In Blood? I don't see how giving the opponent 2 cards could EVER help unless they're already at 2 life.

[Pltnmngl]

It could be relevant when you're going to pox after that. I'm still trying to formulate something. I'll be back.

[mujadaddy]

It could be relevant when you're going to pox after that. I'm still trying to formulate something. I'll be back.Yeh, but you're not trying to MILL them with a Pox deck. I think there's a lot that can go wrong with it.

[B is for Big Job]

I think thats the whole point of the card, either you use it on yourself to draw threats or use it for kill. Not sure if it would be worth playing. It does give you advantage but there isnt really much room to take things out.

[bowvamp]

Well, I personally think sign in blood represents at the very least a step up from night's whisper. However, when was night's whisper ever needed in Pox?

[keys]

Have you guys tried the Helm/Leyline kill? Leyline is good on its own, and a combo finisher seems appropriate for this deck.

[bowvamp]

Have you guys tried the Helm/Leyline kill? Leyline is good on its own, and a combo finisher seems appropriate for this deck.

No.

Okay, here's why: Leyline is good on it's own AS A SIDEBOARD CARD.

Also, combo kills are just as beautiful as goldfishing with a nihilith against an empty board/hand for some people...

[keys]

No.

Okay, here's why: Leyline is good on it's own AS A SIDEBOARD CARD.

Also, combo kills are just as beautiful as goldfishing with a nihilith against an empty board/hand for some people...

:eyebrow: Painter/Grindstone have no use on their own. Leyline at least hoses Ichorid and Loam, and gives Threshold decks problems.

[bowvamp]

:eyebrow: Painter/Grindstone have no use on their own. Leyline at least hoses Ichorid and Loam, and gives Threshold decks problems.

Well then, you have just proven why Leyline combo is better than Painter/Grindstone for pox.

Feel free to run leyline as a SB card, but trying to turn that into a combo win just doesn't make sense...

[Mystical_Jackass]

A normal black disruption would seem more fitting to rock a combo like that, with confidants for draw and such. I find combos like that can be pretty inconsistent too.. someone disenchants your Void or counters and its like F', match over. Like putting too many eggs in one basket to me

[keys]

Well then, you have just proven why Leyline combo is better than Painter/Grindstone for pox.

Feel free to run leyline as a SB card, but trying to turn that into a combo win just doesn't make sense...

Well I'm just saying it's a potential third turn kill with a Ritual (or first turn with two) and you could even add redundancy with Planar Void the same way Stifle/Nought plays Trickbind.

Eliminating creatures seems sensible when you're trying to create disparity with Smallpox, etc...

Sample:

3 Helm of Obedience
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Planar Void
3 Beseech the Queen
2 Duress
4 Dark Ritual
4 Innocent Blood
4 Thoughtseize
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
2 Crucible of Worlds
3 Powder Keg
4 Wasteland
18 Swamp

[Old School Jim]

The combo doesn't work with planar void cause it is a triggered effect and not a replacement.

When I started to play pox years ago, I learned one thing : you need to calculated in the way pox work, that mean on a base of three. Anything that cost 4 to 6 mana mean that you'll loose 2 lands in the pox. Dark Ritual can help but you can't always count on it so you need to calculated based on the fact that you'll need to hard cast those top deck cards.

Even with the new changes and the printing of small pox, I always try to calculate like this. IMHO, small pox became pox 5-8 in my deck and a uber sink hole. So, since I'm still playing the old one, I don't want my spell to cost more than 3 (that why I like Tombstalker and P.Totem so much cause they fit for the deck) Personally, a killing condition that cost 5 plus one that cost 4 (cause you need to calculate that you won't always have LotV in your starting hand) simply can't make the cut in this deck.

The combo is good but in a deck more like MBC where you have access to an excellent mana producer, cabal coffer.

[clavio]

You know, at first I thought that that combo would be complete garbage here but I've changed my mind. Leyline helps against some tough matchups (ichorid, loam bs) while being randomly good elsewhere. I would def test out the combo kill, and even if it sucks leaving in leyline maindeck might be a solid idea.

[Mystical_Jackass]

You know, at first I thought that that combo would be complete garbage here but I've changed my mind. Leyline helps against some tough matchups (ichorid, loam bs) while being randomly good elsewhere. I would def test out the combo kill, and even if it sucks leaving in leyline maindeck might be a solid idea.

If you do the math, you run 4 Leyline of the Void. That's 4/60 cards = 1/20 cards in the deck, after 7-8 cards that gives you (1/20+1/19+1/18..etc) like 40-50% chance of drawing it. If you're forced to Mul that brings the odds down slightly less but you have a better total chance of getting it, but at the loss of a card :[

The same probability goes for drawing a dark ritual, and/or Helm (much less for helm) within the first 1-3 turns.

Decks like that seem pretty inconsistent, any deck after game one that says "This is how I win" is in danger of getting shut down. I could be totally wrong, its a pretty sweet combo I'll say that much. But yea... like I said before I wouldn't even really use Pox or smallpox 'cause you have no discard outlets to benefit it and what are you gonna do, discard your helm, crucible, land.. er w/e?

[Jak]

4/60 = 1/15...

Edit- also if you drew a card from a 60 card deck, you would then have 59. 4/59 does not equal 1/19.

[clavio]

Ok, the combo sucks here but leyline is still really good in some bad matchups.

[scarlet_moon]

Did you see this freaking new decklist?
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=27730

The player became 3 of 78 with this list of absolute randomness xD
WTF?!


creature [1]
1 Nether Spirit

instant [2]
2 Crop Rotation

sorcery [23]
3 Hymn to Tourach
1 Life from the Loam
3 Living Wish
2 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Pox
4 Sinkhole
4 Smallpox
3 Thoughtseize

enchantment [5]
2 Contamination
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Still Life

artifact [6]
2 Crucible of Worlds
4 Mox Diamond

land [24]
4 Bayou
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Cabal Pit
1 Forest
1 Maze of Ith
3 Mishra's Factory
1 Riftstone Portal
3 Swamp
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Wasteland
1 Wooded Foothills

61 cards

Sideboard:
1 Nether Spirit
1 Tombstalker
3 Choke
2 Engineered Plague
3 Leyline of the Void
3 Chalice of the Void
1 Maze of Ith
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale


I just can't understand, why he was so successful... Any thoughts? oO

[beastman]

Blind luck, bad opponents, and amazing matchups ftw

[bowvamp]

Blind luck, bad opponents, and amazing matchups ftw

Agreed. In fact, I believe I saw this list along time ago and my thoughts went like this:

Is this real?
Wow, large tourney nice.
What the hell, still life, crop rotation, living wish, and fetches with a pox shell?
It must be at least okay.
*comes back after first match on mws with this pile of crap*
This is even worse than when I tried to make Dovescape work with affinity...

[Mystical_Jackass]

Interesting.. use of living wish, maze of ith, and ..zomg Riftstone portal, who woulda known ^.^ Loam and crucible woulda fixed mana base, he deffinitely must've gone for stall using deed & pulse and kill with contamination lock, very strange deck though, kriky so many 1, 2-of's I can't believe he pulled it off lol, still Life seriously?? heh
Where Pox usually comes off as somewhat of a mix of aggro & control, this deck is like 99% control

[clavio]

This deck actually has a lot of neat ideas. Drawing more than one tombstalker (or just one too early for that matter) can suck. Deed is really good esp if you arent playing the rack (Jitte + Bitterblossom = gg for pox). The fact that nether spirit is his one creature is really good. Still life is kind of WTF (esp w/ contamination?). I guess its better than chimeric idol?

I've messed with a green splash, but at that point Train Wreck is just better.

[mujadaddy]

EDIT: Umm, apparently I did this prematurely, but as I'm out of top-8 contention for the Source Tourney, I owe you guys a list. Behold, SnowPox:


// Lands
19 Snow-Covered Swamp
4 Mishra's Factory

// Creatures
3 Tombstalker
2 Necroplasm
2 Shriekmaw

// Spells
3 Withering Wisps
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Dark Ritual
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
3 Pox
3 Phyrexian Arena
1 Culling Scales
2 Syphon Life
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Phyrexian Totem

// Sideboard
SB: 3 Culling Scales
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 4 Big Game Hunter
SB: 4 Extirpate

I missed the Top 8 in the (9th) Salvation Legacy tourney very narrowly. My losses were to the 1 & 2 seeds (Death & Taxes and mono-black Eva with Top).

I lost 1-2 in almost every game I played in the Source Tourney, though, b/c imo the Source Legacy Meta is far superior. Plus, I got paired against really good players playing really bad matchups. Oh, also, I completely suck at playing Magic. I made more play errors in the 6 rounds of both of those tournaments than anyone who doesn't hara-kiri themselves deserved to make...

~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~

The general idea of the deck was to include Chalice maindeck as a way to counteract 1- (and to a lesser extent 2-) drops that define Legacy. Four, of course, to get one in the opening hand.

This meant, of course, that I had to eliminate the one-drops in my own deck to make the Chalices one-sided. Dark Ritual is the only 1-drop in the deck.

(That, in turn, means that this particular deck configuration has an AMAZING matchup vs. Countertop. Amazing. I beat Countertop every time in the two tourneys, and can't remember the last time I lost a set, only dropping a single game here & there.)

Creatures: Necroplasm -- I've been running him for quite a while, even pre-Chalice. He draws a lot of attention, can do a lot of tricks, and he recurs himself if you need a critter for the low low price of Dredge 2. Sometimes you can even get 9 damage out of him, but don't count on it. Another good trick is to bait an opponent to block with a man-land then drop him post combat. Shriekmaw -- the only targeted removal in the deck. Who doesn't love Terror plus Fear-Legs? Tombstalker -- of course. I don't think anybody disputes him.

Spells: Most of these are pretty standard, so I'll just detail the ones that aren't.

Culling Scales -- AMAZING, even if it just delays the opponent from dropping their stuff. Only one of main, though, b/c of the Chalices.

Phy. Arena -- Very good also. Not the worst top deck in the world. Arena has killed me on occasion, but I'd have died earlier if I'd been getting half as many cards.

...and now the namesake for the deck, Withering Wisps -- It's relatively mana-expensive, it's slow, it hurts you, too... But jeez if the cards run even slightly in your favor, it is an absolute game-winner, period. I readily admit that it looks like the wrong card, but I love it deeply. Tricks with Wisps+Factory make me smile. It's not targeted. It buys time when they drop a fatty; it makes your fatties kill much faster. It ends the game.

~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~

Back to matchups, even though SnowPox trashes Countertop, it has a number of less-favorable matchups. Ready? Decks with 12+ counters, decks that bring tons of good (ie, non-vanilla) creatures, decks that attack your hand, decks that attack your land. Basically, the "meta-mirror" -- you're attacking their hand & land -- if they're doing the same, including packing a zillion counters, you need a good hand and a lot of knowledge & playskill (as I've mentioned, I lack the last entirely -- ie, I kept in Chalice vs. UW Stompy).

Chalice maindecked makes some traditionally bad matchups fairly good, or at least prevents them from sliding into 'unwinnable' territory: Burn, Zoo, Goblins are all slowed down enough by a Chalice at 1 that the Pox shell can keep up. Basically, Chalice compliments Hymn in proactive resource denial.

~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~

I encourage better players than I to build this deck and to see what damage they can do with it. Even I was able to get 1/3 against the best of the field.

[Old School Jim]

The Wisps!! I haven't seen that card since the deck of one of my friend many years ago called Snow White. I always loved Pestilence and that card is just plain better.

I've always been conservative with pox, keeping the same cards MD like duress but your deck is completly new to me and look really fun to play.I'll surely give it a try. Probably not good as a player but you have to give credit to yourself as a deck builder. It is really original. Nice work!

[ScatmanX]

Why not play Trinisphere in Snowpox?
You have only 4 Rituals at 1cc, and very few 2ccs, so why not?
And why no Wasteland + Urborg, tomb of yagmoth?
What matches do you side Extirpate in? Do you remove CotV in them for it?

I don´t understand why dropping Necroplasm after combat is good. can you explain it please?
Thanks.

[mujadaddy]

Thanks for the kind words :smile:

I actually brought up Trinisphere several posts up -- at the time, I mentioned it as SB tech vs. Combo, asking if it would help any other matchups, in order to test the thinking of the group as to mainboarding it. I decided to test it, but I had to wait until after the Salvation and Source tourneys. My thought is to replace 4 *SOMETHINGS*, but I haven't determined what (or where -- in the side? Main?) yet. That's what the testing would be for :D

Re: Wasteland -- It is my opinion, mentioned upthread, that Land Destruction is a losing battle. It loses you the tempo to drop the Wasteland instead of a swamp or factory, and it loses you the mana for the turn if you Sinkhole. Legacy spells cost 1, or 2, and bombs cost 3. You *cannot* sustain the long game with Pox hoping to avoid spells at those cheap costs. That's why I played Chalice (and am trying to fit in Trini) - If I can cut off the 1cc spells, my small/poxes might stand a chance at cutting off the opponent's manabase, or at least cutting him off a color. If Wasteland didn't take a land-drop for the turn, I probably would've kept it in, but it does, causing an imo unacceptable tempo loss. No wasteland means that I can play a mono-colored mana base, adding 4 rituals and the 4 factories to maintain steady supplies of mana WITHOUT dropping the number of high-value utility cards. With 19 swamps, that means Urborg would only help the opponent -- also, I only run 4 targets for opposing Wastes, which has proved nice.

Extirpate generally comes in versus decks with a ton of counters and vs. Combo. Leyline comes in versus Ichorid and Loam; in those cases, sometimes I do bring in Extirpate too, just to increase the likelihood of hitting grave hate.

The Necroplasm trick -- It's basically something you only use in emergencies, but it's there. In my deck, you generally only use it when you have a lot of mana but aren't drawing answers. Let's say you have 2 factories, 3 swamps, and nothing but a necroplasm in hand. The opponent has the 4/4 manland (and a Noble Heirarch I guess), let's say, and he's about to put the hurting on you next turn, killing your factories a turn at a time and knocking down your pox-shrunken life quickly after that. Activate a factory with a swamp, swing with one factory; make it look like a play mistake so he blocks the 2/2 with his 4/4 manland. In the second main phase, drop the Necroplasm. End of turn, all creatures w/ cmc=0 die, including his manland. Narrow, but it's there.

~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~

I have at least 1 more round in the Source Tourney, only for bottom-half placement, unfortunately. Afterward, I'll start testing where Trinisphere can replace other cards, but I must admit it's really tight already.

[Gui]

Did you see this freaking new decklist?
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=27730
The player became 3 of 78 with this list of absolute randomness xD
WTF?!

creature [1]
1 Nether Spirit

instant [2]
2 Crop Rotation

sorcery [23]
3 Hymn to Tourach
1 Life from the Loam
3 Living Wish
2 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Pox
4 Sinkhole
4 Smallpox
3 Thoughtseize

enchantment [5]
2 Contamination
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Still Life

artifact [6]
2 Crucible of Worlds
4 Mox Diamond

land [24]
4 Bayou
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Cabal Pit
1 Forest
1 Maze of Ith
3 Mishra's Factory
1 Riftstone Portal
3 Swamp
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Wasteland
1 Wooded Foothills

61 cards

Sideboard:
1 Nether Spirit
1 Tombstalker
3 Choke
2 Engineered Plague
3 Leyline of the Void
3 Chalice of the Void
1 Maze of Ith
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

I just can't understand, why he was so successful... Any thoughts? oO

Control, Land Destruction, Pox effects for massive kills which doesn't affect him anyways, some sideboarding, a good land option pile to use crop rotation
Most likely it plays pox in a very Controlish way...
Looking at top8, i don't think it was just luck... he got quite a few hard matchs there, which may have been good matchs, but even so, those decks usually crush inconsistancy easly
I shall give it a try if I get some time ^^

[ScatmanX]

Thanks for the replies.
I understood the trick now.
It can also work with an untapped Vial in play, at 1, 2 or 3. =]
I think you will like Trinisphere. While testing, I'd suggest you to test with any number of Wasteland (go with 2 if you think it makes the manabase that much worse), then let me know what you think. Imo, it is nice to have Wate + Crucible under a Trinisphere.

[deadlock]

// Lands
19 Snow-Covered Swamp
4 Mishra's Factory

// Creatures
3 Tombstalker
2 Necroplasm
2 Shriekmaw

// Spells
3 Withering Wisps
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Dark Ritual
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
3 Pox
3 Phyrexian Arena
1 Culling Scales
2 Syphon Life
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Phyrexian Totem

// Sideboard
SB: 3 Culling Scales
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 4 Big Game Hunter
SB: 4 Extirpate

Finally you revealed your list, was about time. Your list looks really good, its quite difficult to build a deck like Pox imo and you did a great job. Like Dreadstill this deck isnt easy to hate out, because you have so many aspects to screw your opponent.

I am new to the Pox archtype so my questions may be stupid.
-What happened to Infernal Tutor or something similiar (Beseech the Queen)?
Tutoring for a Arena if you are in topdeck mode looks quite good. It may be too clunky though.

-Playing Pox, is it normal to stay at three lands to only lose one land to Pox? If so it looks difficult to fully utilize Wisps. Also if you have a Pox in your opening hand, do you try to blow away your hand as fast as possible and then play the Pox in order to not have to discard any cards to it?

-Biggest concern is running out of gas, no draw / search outside of Arena and you reduce your hand aswell with Small-Pox.

-CB, you said you have a very good matchup againsst it, how do you handle a resolved CB, outside of your single Scales (an amazing card!). Am i overseeing something here?
While you have a lot of three drops, which usually doesnt get hit by CB (at least in g1), you have to handle that they make the deck quite clunky. As you wont have DR in every opening hand.

[mujadaddy]

Re: not easy to hate out -- True, but as I said, some standard strategies already screw it over :smile: ...the good news, though, is that they have to draw them first!

Legacy-Legal tutors are too slow, or they force you to reveal what you drew. Even Infernal Tutor is too slow, as you generally won't have the mana to cast the topdecked hellbent tutor and the spell you tutor for in the same turn. I did have a single Infernal Tutor for a while. The only thing it ever did was in this opening hand: Swamp, Ritual, Ritual, Tutor, Tombstalker, x, y. On the play, swamp, ritual, tutor for ritual, ritual, ritual, Tombstalker w/ Daze-protection. Nice turn 1, but with 2 swamps, 2 rituals & a Tombstalker you can do the same thing turn 2 anyway (although w/o the Daze-protection).

re: Pox staying at 3 lands -- Sometimes you TRY to stay at 3 lands, but sometimes you don't -- the point of Pox.dec is, although your Poxing is symmetric, *YOU* are the one who knows when it's coming. Sometimes you Pox even when you're going to come out the worse, card-advantage-wise, because you're steadily denying the opponent his resources. You will *not* immediately know when it's best to Pox or to wait -- you must practice (this is actually the part of playing Magic that I'm good at -- Poxing. Sideboarding, keeping opening hands, and making some other game decisions? I'm pretty bad :laugh: )

Sometimes you do blow through your hand to minimize how much discard you'll take from a Pox, but you have to think 2+ turns ahead, as to how your hand MIGHT play out before you make those decisions.

Sometimes Wisps doesn't work. Pitch it to a pox effect. Sometimes it does, though, and there's nothing that could've replaced it besides a Damnation or something. But I'd much rather have the Wisps once I get a creature on the board than Damnation-- Big D doesn't ping the opponent's life!

re: Running out of gas -- Pox forces topdeck mode, for both players as its gameplan. That's why you try to build the strongest cards into the deck, and things like tutors (and too much late discard) actually weaken the deck for the mid-game. Efficient spells is the name of the game.

re: Resolved CB -- without a Top out, CB does NOT AFFECT SnowPox. I've had exactly one spell counterbalanced in probably 40 games when they didn't have Top (hymn vs. goyf, fyi). Even WITH a Top out, the deck's "clunkiness" is its advantage. I won't run out of 3cc spells. They might have 6, total. As you said, post-sideboard, they'll try to put more 3-cc spells in, but meanwhile I side in the other 3 Culling Scales :cool:

By the way, I've always been lucky with Dark Rituals in my opening hand -- especially at the table (I do my playing these days on MWS).

[workingdude]

As you said, post-sideboard, they'll try to put more 3-cc spells in, but meanwhile I side in the other 3 Culling Scales :cool: ...which also kills their 'goose & 'goyf, etc. etc...

It hits goose?

[mujadaddy]

It hits goose?See what I mean about not being a good player? :rolleyes:

[bowvamp]

See what I mean about not being a good player? :rolleyes:

Mujadaddy, you have inspired me to keep reinventing my pox list. In no way are you a bad player.

Necroplasm is pure genius.

I did the following changes:

MD:
-1 Fulminator Mage
+1 Necroplasm
Leaving me at 1 Fulminator MD which is perfect, because as it is a win con I want to draw it as a pleasant surprise at a random time.
SB:
-4 Chains of Mephistopheles
+3 Necroplasm
+1 Powder Keg
Ok, I admit I'm not sure why I have keg SB these days, but at least I have a full set of 4 now. Chains is less effective than necroplasm especially against tribal.

EDIT: turns out I don't fully understand the rules change which is supposed to make the game more understandable :P. Still I NEED a black deathtouching win-con!

[mujadaddy]

Just finished round 5 of the tourney vs. Roopa w/ Enchantress. Lost 0-2.

En-frikkin'-chantress -- a deck with almost no creatures and a million draw effects. Oh, and Sterling Grove, so Culling Scales doesn't work.

Also, I didn't see Hymns in either game. Without Necroplasm to kill the 4/4 Pegasi (TURN AFTER TURN AFTER TURN AFTER TURN), the games would've been blowouts. Solitary Confinement bought him time; then it was really Words of War that finished the job. Also, I've been getting really cruddy mixes of hands -- tonight I saw 1 Tombstalker (G1), 1 Dark Ritual (G2), and 1 Phy Arena (G2, but late).

Thoughts: SnowPox is tuned for a Threshold metagame. Apparently SnowPox rolls to random decks that you "never" see T8'ing. Those random decks get played, but Thresh usually hates them out.

So, what SnowPox needs to advance in a tournament setting is Byes :laugh: :laugh:

@Bowvamp -- yeh, I'm a bad player. Remember the thread IBA made a few weeks ago "Playing isn't Deckbuilding"? I'm more of a conceptualist, who can play but is so out of practice that when it comes down to it, I do things like MWS-sideboard IN Leylines and OUT Tombstalkers cuz I didn't recall from memory that Leyline only affects your opponents.

Why Fulminator mage? I'd run Wasteland (as a "spell") before him, esp. if you have Crucibles... (It's late here, so I'm not going to backtrack to view your list right now, sorry :P )

re: Necroplasm -- it was a card that I discovered on my own, pouring through magiccards.info lists of "black creature <=3cc" ... to my surprise, both here and on Salvation it's in the opening guide posts for Pox. To my further surprise, NOBODY ever talks about it again after that. Good luck testing -- I'm going to see where I can fit Trinisphere in, then start testing that.

[bowvamp]

Yeah, I remember that thread. Ok, you can be thought of as a bad player if you want to be...
I want to be absolutely certain that I'm building off the right foundation right now.
Currently almost all of the games I play I end up going t1: Swamp, Suspend Mindstab.

I would like a fresh opinion on whether Mindstab is worth the four suspend turns. It certainly at least helps against landstill and the like, but combo is definitely not autowin any more. Still no chalice at 1 problems. Funny, cause I used to be the primary combo player of my meta when I played extended.

[Koby]

I ran Necroplasm in a published list about 3 years ago. It's a great tool against Threshold (1 & 2 cc), and can deal about 9 damage before it expires. Pox is a great deck in a Threshold metagame, esp if you run Powder Keg main, as it supplements the Necroplasm.

I ran a straight forward list (altho horribly outdated):

4x Pox
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Duress
4x Dark Ritual
4x Funeral Charm
4x Sinkhole
4x Plague Spitter
3x Necroplasm
4x The Rack
3x Powder Keg
1x Cursed Scroll
4x Wasteland
17x Swamp

It was from a time when Goblins was still big, hence the Plague Spitters to "wrath" their board. Maybe it's still good in this metagame too.

[Gui]

I'm starting to think Pox deck should be an aggro-hate deck that can deal with controls by disrupting then up... almost every new solution this deck comes up is some way to deal with creatures swarming against you
Examples are pox effects themselves, powder keg, now necroplasm, and all the discussion over edict vs. blood (at least on the past)

Was just wondering if we should try a very aggro-hatefull list with few disruption in order to get rid of the huge amount of aggro -n- aggro-control decks in the format, and side-in more disruptions against the few massive-control we find...

[mujadaddy]

Ok, you can be thought of as a bad player if you want to be...Eh, I just want to warn people :laugh:


I would like a fresh opinion on whether Mindstab is worth the four suspend turns.If you run land-destruction, yes. Otherwise, they'll dump their hand, or the important bits, before it triggers on turn FIVE.


Was just wondering if we should try a very aggro-hatefull list with few disruption in order to get rid of the huge amount of aggro -n- aggro-control decks in the format, and side-in more disruptions against the few massive-control we find...
Clark_Kant's last list, iirc, is very anti-aggro. The "basic" Pox list is rather anti-aggro, too, it just falters a bit vs. fast swarms, like Merfolk & Goblins.

Pox & smallpox hitting creatures is certainly part of the reason those cards are run...

To your point, though, one of the issues with Pox decks isn't the hate to run, it's the win-conditions.

[Gui]

I was wondering if taking it to extreme could work

We usualy run like 12-16 anti-aggro, counting smallpox and pox, and possibly thoughtseize too

Maybe if we ran like:
4 powder keg
4 smallpox
4 innocent blood
4 diabolic edict
4 necroplasm
4 thoughtseize
4 duress

Or something close to that. We would increase our chance to win against stuff like Threshold (at least the Tempo version of it), Aggro-loam, Swarms like merfolk and gobbos and elves and most recently white soldiers...
And against the control decks, we play disruption just to prevent then from locking us.
Hard idea, to be refined maybe?

[mujadaddy]

4 powder keg
4 smallpox
4 innocent blood
4 diabolic edict
4 necroplasm
4 thoughtseize
4 duress

Plus...
4 Pox
4 Hymn
4 Tombstalkers

...It's a thought. How would you sideboard vs. non-aggro?

[coraz86]

I was wondering if taking it to extreme could work

We usualy run like 12-16 anti-aggro, counting smallpox and pox, and possibly thoughtseize too

Maybe if we ran like:
4 powder keg
4 smallpox
4 innocent blood
4 diabolic edict
4 necroplasm
4 thoughtseize
4 duress

Or something close to that. We would increase our chance to win against stuff like Threshold (at least the Tempo version of it), Aggro-loam, Swarms like merfolk and gobbos and elves and most recently white soldiers...
And against the control decks, we play disruption just to prevent then from locking us.
Hard idea, to be refined maybe?

Your removal suite then is Smallpox, Pox, Innocent Blood, and Diabolic Edict (which don't target, and all of which besides Edict are symmetrical), plus Necroplasm and Powder Keg (which take time to get to the right number of counters to kill whatever you're gunning for). Does it not seem like you'd have problems hitting whatever you're trying to hit? Would it be okay to stick Smother or Rend Flesh or something in here?

I can see that being good versus Zoo, possibly okay against RGBSA or Goblins, but not so much against just about anything else. That list, for instance, rolls over and dies to anything with Counterbalance and Divining Top. I can see it having issues with Merfolk (or, honestly, anything else with Aether Vial, since the removal is all sorcery-based).

I actually like that idea better versus combo and control, as much discard is in it. You'd have to run Factories to keep them from saving their countermagic for Tombstalkers, but it seems solid. The only caveat being that I think I'd want Rituals for that.

To make my rant bite-sized; I think it needs both more instant-speed and more targeted removal (possibly to be addressed in the same cards). I suspect the deck could handle Damnation if you arranged it properly, too.

[Gui]

Your removal suite then is Smallpox, Pox, Innocent Blood, and Diabolic Edict (which don't target, and all of which besides Edict are symmetrical), plus Necroplasm and Powder Keg (which take time to get to the right number of counters to kill whatever you're gunning for). Does it not seem like you'd have problems hitting whatever you're trying to hit? Would it be okay to stick Smother or Rend Flesh or something in here?

I can see that being good versus Zoo, possibly okay against RGBSA or Goblins, but not so much against just about anything else. That list, for instance, rolls over and dies to anything with Counterbalance and Divining Top. I can see it having issues with Merfolk (or, honestly, anything else with Aether Vial, since the removal is all sorcery-based).

I actually like that idea better versus combo and control, as much discard is in it. You'd have to run Factories to keep them from saving their countermagic for Tombstalkers, but it seems solid. The only caveat being that I think I'd want Rituals for that.

To make my rant bite-sized; I think it needs both more instant-speed and more targeted removal (possibly to be addressed in the same cards). I suspect the deck could handle Damnation if you arranged it properly, too.

I always used dark ritual in my lists, and was considerind a list with it indeed. I'm not sure about big pox, since it's slow and will only get really great when they are already in some advantage against you, and the whole deck idea would be keeping their speed low and hitting a factory/nether/chimeric/whatever-anyone-comes-up/tombstalker and keeping it alive, hitting. Tombstalker would be a weak choice, at least running 4 of it, since there are too manny symetrical kills... I think that maybe this deck should run a set of Mishra, Nether and chimeric, and 2 Tombstalkers at most. That would keep it fast while you can disrupt their attackers.

CB/Top has always been the bad match I guess, since it pretty much owns your curve. But, running a set of Duress -n- of Thoughtseize to slow they down as much as you can may be the better chance we always had anyways... Not that I think it will be a good match, but I still think running the deck that way has a better chance that running land disruption, for eg.

Powder keg takes his time to hit something, but helps you dealing with swarmish -like decks... it's not that you have to take their turn 1 creatures with that, but maybe prevent high amount of stuffs with a single keg@1~2

But despite the merit of the cards, the hole idea whould be to run those removals for whatever-hits-the-board, try to slow then down with pox-advantage and hit their dangerous cards with duress and thoughtseize.

Edit: No real reason to post shit before it works, right? removed decklist.

[Mystical_Jackass]

EDIT: Umm, apparently I did this prematurely, but as I'm out of top-8 contention for the Source Tourney, I owe you guys a list. Behold, SnowPox:


// Lands
19 Snow-Covered Swamp
4 Mishra's Factory

// Creatures
3 Tombstalker
2 Necroplasm
2 Shriekmaw

// Spells
3 Withering Wisps
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Dark Ritual
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
3 Pox
3 Phyrexian Arena
1 Culling Scales
2 Syphon Life
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Phyrexian Totem

// Sideboard
SB: 3 Culling Scales
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 4 Big Game Hunter
SB: 4 Extirpate


HAha... awesome, new and improved aye.

Withering Wisps is a sweet add-on, its funny 'cause a while back I was just thinking about this oldschool crappy Peste' deck with Urza's Armor I used back in the day *gets nastalgic* ohh, the memories. Anyways, I was wondering if there was a way to work in that spell, completely overlooked that one. I'll have to try it out...

A while back, you gave me a sneak peak and I took your advice and my decks been really working well because of it. My deck's pretty similar, I use 4 Chalice, 3 syphon, 3 Arenas.. but I'm using 2 crucibles, 2 totems, & 2 wastes at the moment. I totally hear ya on wastes, I deffinitely "cut down" on them in terms of repetition in the deck, but crucible + waste lock is too good to not take advantage of sometimes, I dunno to each his own right :)
I'm using the Tombstalkers you have.. but just 2 nether spirits instead of the necroplasms & Shriekmaws... I know, same ol' boring Pox *bows head in shame* lol

Chalice isn't always amazing in every match, but since I've pitched all 1cc's except for duress & ritual, I've gotten the Arena/Crucible/Chalice1-2 lock on players before and their life is just owned.. drawing 2 cards a turn, one will be a land I can retrace then play, build up faster graveyard, then finish with Tomby. Chalice does so great against quick combo decks like Storm too, I found. When I'm actually winning against those decks that means something's going right :)

My sideboard does seem much different than yours though, must be my meta. Mine is..

4 Leyline the Void (Ichorid, Lands)
4 Engineered Plague (Tribal... lotsa nubb Tribal -.-)
4 Spinning Darkness (Zoo.. aka, any deck that goes fast WITH burn)
3 Dystopia (Still testing out, I have a lotta random G & W creature decks around me)

Hey, keep coming up with all these good ideas.. I'm still playing catchup, I wanna keep testing more of this good stuff out, I just gotta tell my work to quit scheduling me 58 hour weeks each weak :[ jerks. I love the Snow-Pox deck as soon as I get around to it I wanna try it out and kick some countertop @$$, my friend plays nothing but countertop and I hate that crap lol.

[lorddotm]

Why doesn't this deck run Sinkholes??

4 Pox, 4 Smallpox, and 4 Sinkholes seems really good.. Also, aren't Duress and Thoughtseize better than Funeral Charms?

Is Ichorid playable in this deck, or is Nether Spirit better?

[Dembones]

There aren't enough creatures for Ichorid to eat to reanimate itself, hence the Nether Spirit.

I'm guessing it's been mentioned in this thread, but what's the thought on Chimeric Idol?

[workingdude]

There aren't enough creatures for Ichorid to eat to reanimate itself, hence the Nether Spirit.

I'm guessing it's been mentioned in this thread, but what's the thought on Chimeric Idol?

Doesn't work to well with well with Mishra's Factory

[Raindown]

For those of you running Chalice of the Void, would you actually mull a hand to get the Chalice or is it not that critical to pull off the win?

[Mystical_Jackass]

Naw, rarely. It really depends on the matchup and your hand. Generally Duress, Hymn, small pox go first to pave the road & Chalice sorta follows behind to seal them out. Turn 2 chalice 1 or 2 is rarely a bad thing though, depending if you have ritual but I like to go stepwise and save my rituals for Crucible, Arenas, Totem, or slick hymn + duress plays ^.^ Attacking their hand, land, & creatures is always gonna be first in my book, but chalice offers great synergy locking them out in some matches. If its just not helpful, like in some tribal it can always be sided out for Engineered Plague and such.

[bowvamp]

Why doesn't this deck run Sinkholes??

4 Pox, 4 Smallpox, and 4 Sinkholes seems really good.. Also, aren't Duress and Thoughtseize better than Funeral Charms?

Is Ichorid playable in this deck, or is Nether Spirit better?

Ok, maybe it isn't mentioned at the front of the thread or something (don't wanna check, the opening post is huge) and if it isn't it should be. EVERY Pox deck runs sinkholes in order to compete at all. If you see a list dropping those tell the poster of their mistake.

Very few people run funeral charms and those that do run them for utility, not just discard. They find the charms to be a good top deck.

As stated, Ichorid in general needs creatures and most lists run what, maybe 10?

[clavio]

Muja talked about sinkhole a few pages back...

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=23889


See how many sinkholes I ran? There are some things I would change in that list, but the number of sinkholes is not one of them. Sinkhole does not does not help you win, and never really hampers your opponent enough to warrant it's inclusion. The only time I've ever really found sinkhole to be good was against mono red burn, and it's much weaker than say hymn to tourach there.

I don't see why you act like THE authority on this deck. You have some good ideas (sun droplet) but saying things like EVERY pox deck runs sinkholes or else it's crap is insane.




EDIT: The main thing thats so great about pox is that it's highly customizable. The only cards that are in EVERY pox deck are hymn and swamps. Dark ritual is crap in some lists, but it's absolutely an effective card in mujadaddy's list. Some decks run 8 poxes. Some run 4 or 6. The rack is amazing in this deck, but it's completely reasonable not to run it if you are running powder keg. If you're playing against lots of storm combo you're probably going to play more discard than if you're in a meta with lots of merfolk.

[bowvamp]

I'm sorry if it sounded like I was a self proclaimed pox-god.
Now, about the sinkhole... I personally find mujadaddy's point one of the more shortsighted of the points that I don't agree with. Sure, two mana one turn means you can't disrupt other stuff and sinkhole is horrible if it's late-game. Now for the pros:
-Early games, as you stated 1 2 and 3 drops are very powerful and the two mana you spent has probably just put them 1 mana per turn behind you, that means that even if it doesn't mana screw them as it does to alot of decks, it still pays for itself in the next two turns and keeps on giving you profit for the rest of the game.
-The longer their spells are in their hand, the longer your discard will be effective. This is especially important because it means that your discard (whatever it may be) is a better topdeck.

Now for wasteland...
Ok, here is where mujadaddy went too far. Wasteland is played in almost any and every mono-colored deck (or even multi-colored ones that can support it). Dropping a waste as your opener essentially gives you time to get your one-drop and making your disruption-curve more fluid. Dropping waste also means that you lose waste-lock.

Jus' saying

[Mystical_Jackass]

@BowVamp

I 100% know what you mean. I can't argue the effectiveness of slowing down the opponents tempo one turn.

My reason primarily is just for deckspace. If you go sinkhole, you pretty much gotta go 4 or go home, I'd much rather have that space for other spells that have a more drastic affect on my mid-game like tombstalkers, arenas, syphon life, chalice of the void, etc.
My next reason is that Small Pox & Pox already do a pretty good job, if you play around 3 lands (ie. I'll draw a land for the turn, Pox at 3, make opponent sac 2 lands then drop my land) they work just as effective on their own. Now on the flipside, if my mana's always higher that may work against me?
I agree with you though, although I cut back on wastelands in my deck for effectiveness I believe that Crucible + waste lock is too powerful to go without-- But, I'm not gonna go 4 waste, 3 crucible when 70% of my meta runs basic shyte ^.^

Lastly, I do agree a lil' bit that in 1.5 some of the common power decks like Zoo, Vials, etc. it doesn't do enough to slow them down, and its horrible mid-late game draw turns me off. I'm not gonna go into fetches and daze 'cause I think its sorta a nonpoint.

Until Pox is Tier 1, nothing's set in stone :P

[bowvamp]

@BowVamp
Until Pox is Tier 1, nothing's set in stone :P

True!
I want to address a couple weird MUs that I need a better SBing strategy against.

Merfolk: Ah, the mermen. They confuse me because when I side in a card that's normally crazy good against swarm decks, they just sit back and counter my cards before they rush. I mean who wants to sit and wait for their board control to not be a dead card? Also, is Tabernacle good against them? How about Necroplasm? Do they rely enough on their brainstorms for lands that sinkhole should stay in?

Combo that doesn't use it's life as a resource: Mouthful to say, and as it looks to me, the only competition worth an SB spot in pox. Solidarity, TES and Belcher come to mind. With the combo that uses it's life (ANT, SI I 'm looking at you) you can just attack that and make their combo fizzle. But with these you have very little of an edge. At best we can side in Keg (or keep it main) and hope that we end up on top. This is the MU where I wish I had a traditional one-drop discard.

Any thoughts? Are there any fancy tricks I should know about?
:frown:

[Mystical_Jackass]

Merfolk: Its been a long while since I've played, the girl that used to rock one rarely shows. Basically they just abuse vial and light counters to lock you out if I remember, some of the better ones use islandwalk too.

Hmm..Dark rit is a good card to abuse here turn 1, or have in general. If they let it resolve you can play duress first, remove their counter, follow that by hymn/small pox. If you can discard nether spirit, he'll be a pain in the ass for them to deal with.
Phyrexian Arena/Bitterblossom are great cards to use depending on your deck. If you generate too much card advantage for them to deal with, you can literally stop them dead in their tracks.. they just cant deal with all the weapons your throwing at them. Obviously.. SB, engineered Plague is the best choice imo. Its the classic U vs B matchup, their spells are always gonna be quicker but your spells are gonna be more dramatic, and as usual timing is everything. Wasteland does nothing, but Factory is an uncounterable 3/3 blocker each turn which gives you a slight advantage early on at least. And honestly unlike combo I think time is on your side in this matchup, its just surviving is all :)

Combo: I've played ANT, not TES. But it seems like it'd be much more fragile to hand disruption. Seems like hymn, duress, smallpox, dark ritual.. in w/e combination is the way to go. Chalice of the Void at 0/1 is pretty nasty if you can shut down their LED's, petals, mox, or brainstorm/tutors.
Disrupt them, seal them out.

[Gui]

Sinkhole seems weak in the format right now, since eveyone seems to run fast 1cc and 2cc solutions, and vials, and you almost never get them locked fast enough with sinkholes...
I would prefer running 4-of thoughtseize n duress instead of it, if it was the case...
Also, not sure about the power of hymn to tourach those days... seems to be weaker than it was...
I'm not saying they are not good cards. I mean, 2-for-1 and any-land-break are huge. But they just appears to be weaker nowadays.

[Mystical_Jackass]

Well, just played my friends White control (Eskimo: scepter, chant, abeyance, scrying, WoG, stp, painter, Eternal Dragon etc) 4-2.

The games he won, basically got scepter/abeyance lock on me, Halo on factories and/or moat, and managed to dig for WoG each Tombstalker, and combination of Arena & Eternal Dragon ended me, but I can proudly say the games I lost were with him at like 2-5 life lol. Now all the games I won, I'd get great early disruption with Hymn to tourach/small pox/duress, followed by a Chalice-1. The mvp was prolly phyrexian arena in the long run, I was just totally out-endurancing him, when I'm constantly at 5-7 cards in my hand he couldn't deal with the constant spells getting thrown at him, it just comes down to he can shut down maybe the factory or the totem, but then tombstalker comes out, has to wrath, on top of that I'm drawing lands and retracing them incessantly to syphon life while Poxing. Also, chalice-2 shut down painters servant and halo in some games and only took a few turns to Pox, Tombstalker, swing with it + factory ftw.
I'm not saying all games, but I can clearly see in this one sinkhole woulda been 100% worthless. I'd hymn/small pox at times, in response he'd plainscycle.. and working scrying sheets, sensei's, etc. Even with me Poxing at 3 land & him at 4, then dropping my land for the turn it seemed he never went mana screwed except for one outta the 6 games.

[mujadaddy]

Dropping a waste as your opener essentially gives you time to get your one-drop and making your disruption-curve more fluid. Dropping waste also means that you lose waste-lock.I only run 1 Crucible -- it's not a main strategy, more of a singleton surprise -- but to the point of losing "waste as your opener": I never want to miss a land drop. Missing land drops really, really hurts a deck that does symmetric land destruction. Wasteland 1)misses your black-mana drop 2)takes up your land drop and 3)destroys itself. I don't have the room to run the Crucible wastelock in my deck. YMMV, but land destruction alone does not win enough games. The land destruction that I run is Pox+Smallpox+Hymn.

Also, Gui: "not sure about the power of hymn to tourach those days... seems to be weaker than it was..." :eek: :eek: :eek: ...feel free to stop running it. Let us know how that goes :wink:

@M_J: chant/abeyance -- blech...bastards. :-P

[bowvamp]

From my experience, Quinn is pretty easy. But then again, I'm not the voice of the people here (I am probably the only one running 4 Mindstab as my preferred one-drop).

About first turn waste: I only use it when I am sure that at best they'll get a brainstorm out of it. I rarely get stifled, but it does happen. Most importantly, I get my waste in the yard t1 which makes crucible all that better. I now run 1 crucible SB with 2 MD because I felt like I was siding them out almost every match.

Hymn is and will always be amazing. You've been playing too many decks that run Spell Snare most probably.

[Mystical_Jackass]

Hymn is friggin awesome, it just so works into the gameplan of how Pox works, getting them into topdeck mode where you can control/lock them out. I love the play I had one game lol.. played swamp, passed. Played 2nd swamp, dark ritual.. small pox, he chooses and discards the card he doesn't need, sacs a land.. then followed that with Hymn, then he had to discard 2 of the 3 cards he didn't wanna ditch.

It especially works well with Phyrexian Arena 'cause you're accelerating faster than them while shutting them down every time they get up to 1-3 cards, you just keep locking them out.

Wasteland is just one of those.. you at least want 2 man. Scrying sheets was really busting my balls, but once I got Arena, Crucible, chalice lock going I drew into wasteland a few games which is a blessing 'cause I could retrace it to syphon (which helps me from dying too fast to Arena @.@! I get a lil Nervous after a good 1-2 Pox when we're in the 5-8 life region, I start to like count the turns lol), then waste his sheets each turn. By then we'd both be at like 6-7 lands anyways, but every player has those few really crappy lands that you wanna nuke like Port, factories, glacial chasm, Maze of Ith, Kor Haven etc. (nothing better than going all out to get a Tombstalker in play and watch it get Maze'd each turn -.-) Even played some kids a lil bit ago playing some spiffy T2'ish deck, drops a triple color land into play tapped first turn, that land might as well have a target that says "waste me" er.. yea >.>

[Gui]

Hymn is and will always be amazing. You've been playing too many decks that run Spell Snare most probably.

Well, not it, but, too many decks that get a solution on table faster than hymn can be, causing lots of problems... most likely cb/top decks, which are huge im my meta... Also got lot of problems against Aggro-loam, which is also pretty huge in my meta.

[bowvamp]

True, CB/Top will kill any 2 drop just like they were designed to do. How often do they win when they've got that lock? That's right, nearly always.

Loam, although it isn't too good for you hymn can still kill their finishers and possibly delay enough for you to win through their recursion. Loam voids our LD more than it voids hymn.

[Gui]

True, CB/Top will kill any 2 drop just like they were designed to do. How often do they win when they've got that lock? That's right, nearly always.

Loam, although it isn't too good for you hymn can still kill their finishers and possibly delay enough for you to win through their recursion. Loam voids our LD more than it voids hymn.

Yet, discarding Loam or a Land, which is most probable to happen, will slow they down a little, but mostly not enough...
Either ways they got best matchups against Pox, and they are still the most popular decks in the format, at least for me... =/

[bowvamp]

What's your analysis on Null Rod SB in pox, general pox community? It seems most of the classic targets for pithing needle are covered and it shuts down quite a lot of nice cards.

[mujadaddy]

Pretty sure Null Rod is discussed upthread. It's considered a very viable option if activating artifacts are a big problem.

What are you considering part of your big problem? That's the question you have to answer if you want to devote slots to it.

Re: Loam -- That's what Extirpate is for, thanks for reminding me. :wink:

[bowvamp]

Mainly, I was thinking of using it as a sort of catch-all for our bad matches like I used to use pithing needle except better against combo. Still, I need to get to two mana against combo which could be hard.

[mujadaddy]

Shutting down LED? Try Chalice in the board, maybe. You'd much rather cast smallpox or hymn for two mana, imo.

[bowvamp]

no, not LED. I was talking about traditional combo, not ichorid. Either way shutting down LED is not my main focus as it is a spell often served turn 1. Yeah, I guess I'm back to pithing needle as my all-rounder.

[coraz86]

no, not LED. I was talking about traditional combo, not ichorid. Either way shutting down LED is not my main focus as it is a spell often served turn 1. Yeah, I guess I'm back to pithing needle as my all-rounder.

I believe mujadaddy was referring more to ANT, or storm in general if Solidarity starts making a comeback. Chalice for zero is nice against such decks, and for one is also solid. If you're running Rituals, that's an even better idea (you can play Chalice at one first turn, plus now you don't take burn for that extra mana if you have nothing else to do with it). I would go for zero first to counter their LEDs and Lotus Petals, then one if you have a second one to counter Dark Ritual, Rite of Flame, and dig. I have little proof of this, but I think if you lead off at one, they'll just play LEDs and Petals and win around it.

I also would venture that Chalice at one would be a house against Zoo and Goyf Sligh/mono-red burn. It does shut off Thoughtseize, but those are decks you don't want to be 'seizing anyway; they have enough burn for your face without you helping. Best of all, they won't see it coming from a black deck, and you might get a free cake win for surprising them, plus you then stand a better chance if it goes to game three and they bring in Grips. Those are such terrible matchups for us that it seems worth a shot to me.

[Mokaod]

I believe mujadaddy was referring more to ANT, or storm in general if Solidarity starts making a comeback. Chalice for zero is nice against such decks, and for one is also solid. If you're running Rituals, that's an even better idea (you can play Chalice at one first turn, plus now you don't take burn for that extra mana if you have nothing else to do with it). I would go for zero first to counter their LEDs and Lotus Petals, then one if you have a second one to counter Dark Ritual, Rite of Flame, and dig. I have little proof of this, but I think if you lead off at one, they'll just play LEDs and Petals and win around it.

I also would venture that Chalice at one would be a house against Zoo and Goyf Sligh/mono-red burn. It does shut off Thoughtseize, but those are decks you don't want to be 'seizing anyway; they have enough burn for your face without you helping. Best of all, they won't see it coming from a black deck, and you might get a free cake win for surprising them, plus you then stand a better chance if it goes to game three and they bring in Grips. Those are such terrible matchups for us that it seems worth a shot to me.

Chalice is no problem for storm combo tbh as long as they can generate enough mana. Storm count also goes up when you play a card that gets countered. So Chalice on zero doesn't mean you completely shut him down and neither does chalice on one, it's just that he has more problems generating enough mana to play stuff. Also remember both TES and ANT pack a lot of hate directed mostly at needle, chalice and trini (shattering spree works with a chalice on one, and is wishable).

I'd rather go even more discard against TES and ANT to pull out their business spells before they hurt. Adding Chalice means most probably a cut in our discard suite since the rest is needed for our game plan which makes you stronger and weaker against combo at the same time. It's subbing one anti-combo-card for another imo.

[Gui]

Chalice is no problem for storm combo tbh as long as they can generate enough mana. Storm count also goes up when you play a card that gets countered. So Chalice on zero doesn't mean you completely shut him down and neither does chalice on one, it's just that he has more problems generating enough mana to play stuff. Also remember both TES and ANT pack a lot of hate directed mostly at needle, chalice and trini (shattering spree works with a chalice on one, and is wishable).

I'd rather go even more discard against TES and ANT to pull out their business spells before they hurt. Adding Chalice means most probably a cut in our discard suite since the rest is needed for our game plan which makes you stronger and weaker against combo at the same time. It's subbing one anti-combo-card for another imo.

Well, that mainly depends on what you are running anyways... It's a fact that every discard spell we run in the deck are houses against combos. But maybe chalice, to be used @0 and @1, in this deck is not such a bad idea. It can be good in manny matchups @1, and some matchups that they are not even considering it. If you run a suit of 4 thoughtseizes MD, with anything else @1cc, like switching innocet for edict, and in game two you take then out to run chalices, you will be able to cast then @1 without worring a bit.
Maybe we should give it a try...

[bowvamp]

@Gui, To take out one of very few one drops just to add a 2 drop in this deck isn't the best idea I've heard.
@Mokaod, we don't normally side out our discard. We just take out our creature removal along with anything that won't see play.

@Chalice in general, Chalice is not the best card imho because to side it in you need to side out one of your two drops or ruin your disruption curve. Just a slight bias.

[Gui]

Well, I wasn't saying it is the best option... just saying it could be considered, since it's hard to know for sure how the deck would work with chalices as one of it's main defenses... Maybe it gets too slow indeed...

Probably best card options against almost every deck in the format are Duress and Thoughtseize... probably we should run 4-of each along with anything we consider the most important part of the deck, ou of:
- Killing creatures and keeping yours (innocent, edict...)
- Killing lands to slow they down (sinkhole, wasteland...)
- Killing cards to slow they down (hymn...)

That idea on using a more aggro-hate deck is still in my mind... but could not test it properly yet...
And I still didn't test the hymn to tourach-less deck eighter... maybe I'll test both issues in the same deck, cutting hymn to fit aggro-hate. It can be an SB option though...

[mujadaddy]

storm combo
wishable
....that's why, upthread when discussing chalice vs storm, I say that your preffered action is to cast chalice at two, THEN at zero.

The problem with siding in more discard is that you have to *cast* it. This takes time, mana, and the card. It's the same principal Countertop decks use -- most don't run Counterspell bc they see it as card disadvantage.

Also, while you're busy casting discard to tread water, they probably haven't drawn their business spells yet. They only need the slightest opening to sneak in a win.

I don't mean to overstate the presence of storm combo; but you really can't overstate their power and speed.

[Raindown]

I tired chalice and so far I'm not a fan, pox is set to run on low mana and it just seems too passive for perhaps a drop at 1 or 0 and maybe at 2.

People can just play around it and only takes a chance at eliminating threats. Plus beyond the first few turns, it just becomes meh ok. There is no magical way that you are going to beat storm that goes off turn 1 or 2. IMO one of the best early storm defenses is attacking the hand.

There many other decks that are more commonly played to be worried about

[bowvamp]

I tired chalice and so far I'm not a fan, pox is set to run on low mana and it just seems too passive for perhaps a drop at 1 or 0 and maybe at 2.

People can just play around it and only takes a chance at eliminating threats. Plus beyond the first few turns, it just becomes meh ok. There is no magical way that you are going to beat storm that goes off turn 1 or 2. IMO one of the best early storm defenses is attacking the hand.

There many other decks that are more commonly played to be worried about

I agree with all of this except the last sentence. Most of the allure of pox to me is that you ALWAYS have at least a fighting chance in your bad MUs and with the right top decks you can take the game from them at 2 life (excluding burn).

Now with all that said and done, what you said about no magical way to beat storm is also slightly untrue. Let's delve deeper... Storm plays alot of spells, that's just what it's good at. Storm, meet trinisphere. Getting to turn 3 is a challenge but there's just no way storm can get past a 31 mana roadblock to go off. Yeah, it can cast hate that it wished for but it's hate costs more too. If we could consistently Dark Rit->Trinisphere storm would die.

I like to focus on every MU because if you play at a large enough tournament (as Chicago showed us) you need a strategy for every MU. But yeah, Pox is inherently good against stuff that uses their life as a resource because of it's namesake card.

[mujadaddy]

There is no magical wayThe Winner: It's You! :laugh: :laugh:
that you are going to beat storm that goes off turn 1 or 2. IMO one of the best early storm defenses is attacking the hand.The point is to have chalice AND your discard so that you stand a good chance of having your countermeasures in your opening hand. Nobody is siding out discard, I'd say ever, for any matchup.


There many other decks that are more commonly played to be worried aboutBut are the answers to these decks maindecked or in your sideboard? SnowPox isn't the standard build, but I've won a lot of games with Chalice@1 out, keeping Lightning Bolts, StPs, Mongoose, etc etc etc in the opponent's hand.

On that last point, the strategy of Pox is to DENY your opponent the ability to play their strategy. Pox, the card, attacks the hand, lands, life, and creatures. Far from being passive, Chalice attacks the mana cost with which the opponent has built his deck. Trinisphere is much more "passive" than Chalice is.

I like to focus on every MU because if you play at a large enough tournament (as Chicago showed us) you need a strategy for every MU.I completely agree.

On the storm matchup I've come up with a little "flowchart" for when you have Dark Ritual in-hand versus ANT:
Ritual, Swamp, Trinisphere, Pox, (x), (y), (z) -- Play? Ritual, Trinisphere ... Draw? Ritual, Pox, discard 2, keeping lands & Trinisphere.

Ritual,Trinisphere is the strongest play vs. ANT and usually the strongest play vs. most other decks. Therefore, I'm excluding it from the remaining flows.

Ritual, Two Swamps, Chalice, Pox, (x), (y) -- Play? Swamp, go (or x/y, if they're 1's); Pray; then Swamp, ritual, chalice for 2. Two shuts off Infernal Tutor & Burning Wish. Turn 3 Pox should get you right where you want to be. Draw? Chalice for 0, ritual, Pox, discard x&y

Ritual, Two Swamps, Chalice, Hymn, (x), (y) -- Chalice for 0, ritual, hymn (M10=no mana burn) ...If you don't know the opponent is storm combo, obviously you keep your Chalice to cast at 1 on turn 2.

Ritual, Two Swamps, Smallpox, (x), (y) -- Mulligan. You need more discard or other disruption.

Thoughts?

[Raindown]

Not a fan of Trinisphere for Pox, if we have 3 lands to cast our spells it means so do they and their 3cc are going to be nasty.

The low mana use and land/mana denial is an unquestionable aspect of the deck. I'm not saying you have to run sinkhole (I don't) but you have to considered that a part of the deck, if not play MBC.

[bowvamp]

This is exactly why I don't run Trini, because it is in no way a halfway point and if I commit fully to combo hate and run it in my SB, I would lose alot of my good matchups that I otherwise would have.

[Mystical_Jackass]

Chalice at 1 is brutal, 'cause you're shutting down their brainstorm, ponder, tutors and hate (chain of vapors). All else, I'd drop for 0 to shut down artifact mana, you hold off's gonna get you duress'd.

[B is for Big Job]

first turn rit, duress/thoughtsieze, grab somethin good, then chalice at 1 sounds like a strong first play to me, the follow up with a 2nd turn hymn and a 3rd turn pox would be rape

[Gui]

first turn rit, duress/thoughtsieze, grab somethin good, then chalice at 1 sounds like a strong first play to me, the follow up with a 2nd turn hymn and a 3rd turn pox would be rape

Not the way we have to think though... considering best card options in our opening hand in the play will get you 5-10% of the matchs...

I'd rather running 4 ritual, 4 duress and 4 thoughtseize instead of any combination of it plus chalice.
Chalice isn't a maindeck card @ Pox. That's a fact. The deck doesn't try to lock you opponents buy keeping their solutions in hand. Instead, it should try to force then to no solutions in hand while you abuse pox-friendly cards... That's also the main reason we should focus on not running 4-of tombstalkers as our main kill condition. Our best options are creatures that come back, manlands and artifact-enchantments that can finish the game.

On another thought, that's also the reason why hymn to tourach isn't going to be out of maindeck ever, and thus I will give up just Sinkhole for now...

[Mystical_Jackass]

I'd rather running 4 ritual, 4 duress and 4 thoughtseize instead of any combination of it plus chalice.

4 Duress, 4 Ritual gets too poor mid-endgame draw for me as is. You're gonna tag on 4 more thoughtseize?

Chalice of the Void is versatile though, it locks out their ability to ponder, stp or bolt your tombstalkers/factories/spirits and eventually all 2cc when you lock them out. That is a very powerful card to have, and as I continue to win a lot I'ma continue to run it for now.

And thoughtseize is a dangerous card later in the game when we're both at 8 life, especially if you're playing phyrexian arena, which you should be. Its overkill though imo, yeah you can remove a creature in their hand too but you run so much creature removal in this deck already.

[mujadaddy]

4 Duress, 4 Ritual gets too poor mid-endgame draw for me as is. You're gonna tag on 4 more thoughtseize?

Chalice of the Void is versatile though, it locks out their ability to ponder, stp or bolt your tombstalkers/factories/spirits and eventually all 2cc when you lock them out. That is a very powerful card to have, and as I continue to win a lot I'ma continue to run it for now.

And thoughtseize is a dangerous card later in the game when we're both at 8 life, especially if you're playing phyrexian arena, which you should be. Its overkill though imo, yeah you can remove a creature in their hand too but you run so much creature removal in this deck already.What's going on in the thread right now is that there are two approaches to a mono-:b: Pox deck:

1. Traditional -- lots of 1cc (Duress/'seize/blood/sometimes rack & scroll), because you're going to be destroying a lot of your own lands with small/pox. Your deck is aggressive, doing a lot of 1-for-1 trades, and you hope that wastelock/factorylock plus a few beaters can get you over the top of your opponent's strategy.

2. More Controllish (including SnowPox) -- Few 1cc's, plus Chalice maindeck. This creates a longer game -- Since your opponent is slowed down, you run more cards at 2 & 3 that do good things, like the Phyrexian Twins (Totem & Arena). Your deck gets card advantage out of every card (save Ritual that provides massive tempo advantage, usually), and hopes that card quality can overwhelm the opponent's strategy.

Neither of these approaches, in my view, are "wrong"... They are tuned for different metagames, though. I think that the aggressive version is tuned for an aggro-heavy, more "casual" metagame, whereas the control version is tuned for a more counterbalance/"pro-tour" meta...

Yes, I realize that sounds offensive, and isn't strictly correct.

[Gui]

What's going on in the thread right now is that there are two approaches to a mono-:b: Pox deck:

1. Traditional -- lots of 1cc (Duress/'seize/blood/sometimes rack & scroll), because you're going to be destroying a lot of your own lands with small/pox. Your deck is aggressive, doing a lot of 1-for-1 trades, and you hope that wastelock/factorylock plus a few beaters can get you over the top of your opponent's strategy.

2. More Controllish (including SnowPox) -- Few 1cc's, plus Chalice maindeck. This creates a longer game -- Since your opponent is slowed down, you run more cards at 2 & 3 that do good things, like the Phyrexian Twins (Totem & Arena). Your deck gets card advantage out of every card (save Ritual that provides massive tempo advantage, usually), and hopes that card quality can overwhelm the opponent's strategy.

Neither of these approaches, in my view, are "wrong"... They are tuned for different metagames, though. I think that the aggressive version is tuned for an aggro-heavy, more "casual" metagame, whereas the control version is tuned for a more counterbalance/"pro-tour" meta...

Yes, I realize that sounds offensive, and isn't strictly correct.

Right... it's set in stone then: SnowPox will be the next DTW and classic pox should RIP in oblivion.

[bowvamp]

Except just how many examples of strategy two do you have? I mean phyrexian twins?

I think a better example of strategy two is what we are all trying to acheive:
2) Stop focusing on the 1 drops yet maintain early game control and make every top deck count. You have three to four tempo advantage cards and hope to ride card advantage for the win.

[mujadaddy]

Right... it's set in stone then: SnowPox will be the next DTW and classic pox should RIP in oblivion.

Now now, i'm not saying that. What I am saying is that pox steals games out from under an opponent, and traditionally Poxs' successes, if they may be called that, come in events with few participants, relatively speaking. The whole of the Legacy metagame considers Pox a bad joke.

I've given an effort in analyzing the first tier of tarmodecks and found a core idea of abandoning the dedicated LD path and freed up a lot of slots for different effects that compliment poxing.

That core construction, btw...As far as I'm concerned is

EssentialPox:

12 swamps,
plus 7 swamps OR 3 urborg&4 wasteland
4 mishras factory
Hymn
Smallpox
Dark ritual OR mox diamond (Anyone still use these w/ crucible)
3 Pox
Tombstalker
1-3 crucible

...
Leaving 16-18 more slots for what-have-you.

[bowvamp]

\
EssentialPox:

12 swamps,
plus 7 swamps OR 3 urborg&4 wasteland
4 mishras factory
Hymn
Smallpox
Dark ritual OR mox diamond (Anyone still use these w/ crucible)
3 Pox
Tombstalker
1-3 crucible

...
Leaving 16-18 more slots for what-have-you.

Ok, I see what you are saying. Except the number of Poxes is just personal opinion. I run these numbers and it works well:
4 Pox
2 Crucible, SB 1 Crucible
3 Tombstalker
3 Chrome Mox
4 Smallpox
4 Hymn
4 Sinkhole
14 Swamp
3 Urborg
3 Factory
3 Wasteland

That might sound like a huge core, but it works really well. *FOR ME*

[mujadaddy]

Your core is 47 cards. Mine is 42-44 cards.

My list -1 wasteland -1 moxD, -1 mishra => your list; otherwise what you've done is add onto the essentials I mentioned.

My question is "what're the remaining 18?" Yours is "what're the remaining 13?"

I want to answer those questions :smile:

[Mystical_Jackass]

we're all pretty much playing a really similar shell but differ a little bit from there. Fortunately, those last 12-14 cards really dictate the flow of your deck. Some decks just play quick, attack their cards and lands and go for the kill while they're down... My deck plays a little more control in a way, in a strange way I almost relate to my deck more as a Black Survival engine, setting up Phyrexian Twins heh, Crucible, then recursion combo off nether spirit, syphon life, wasteland/factories/urborgs, Tombstalker, etc. I learned that that extra draw is very crucial, so that you have enough resources to shut them down while setting up to finish them. When you're both topdeck, its difficult to do both and other decks with chalice or countertop generate huge card advantage over you simply by shutting you down, you need all you can get.

But again as Muja said it depends on your meta. I tried, but classic pox was just old and outdated and I found myself squirming by against bad players too often when I first started, lol. Then there's the old, lose to some crappy Elemental Tribal 14 year old 'cause he just gets a few too many creatures out for innocent blood and crap to deal with.. gotta bust out the sideboard every time which oftentimes I barely manage to squeak by. It sucked, I'm done losing matches 'cause in 4 turns all I draw are 1cc duress, swamps and 1cc innocent blood and opponent has 2-3 creatures out Rofl. THOSE games, you shouldn't need sideboard to beat that garbage, in my new deck I draw and play faster my cards are more dramatic, and we all know control dominates this meta. Snow Pox just seems like the natural evolution of this deck, and who knows maybe a year from now it'll go a different direction but against some of the better decks now..

[CB4SN13]

Hi everyone, I'm just picking up Pox, and I'm toying with something like this:

Lands (24)
4 Bayou
3 Mishra's
3 Wasteland
2 Urgborg, Tomb of Yawg
6 Fetchies
6 Swamps

Creatures
1 Gigapede
1 Tombstalker

Other
4 Innocent Blood
3 Diabolic Edict
3 Pernicious Deed
4 Smallpox
4 Duress
4 Hymn
2 Raven's Crime
3 Culling Scales
3 Phyrexian Arena
2 Loam
2 Syphon Life

I'm just wondering if I should play Crucible over Loam, or the other way around? My deck can't really take advantage of Loam's returning lands to your hand, except for Syphon Life and Raven's Crime. The thing Loam has over Crucible is costing 1 less to cast (doesn't matter too much), and is harder for the opponent to deal with.
I thought about Wurm Harvest, but it seemed a little bit too reliable on Loam. What are your thoughts on it?

Oh, and another thing, I'm not really playing in tournaments, I'm just going to be playing with friends, if that makes any difference to you guys. Thanks for the help! Looking forward to playing the deck :smile:

[Mystical_Jackass]

Without cards like exploration & fastbond, Loam doesn't really play fast enough in comparison with crucible IMO. Its a great idea, but you gotta hard cast it and skip a valuable draw which sorta turned me off. Crucible pretty much does the same thing but gives you an immediate effect, you discard your land to ravens/syphon, play it. Then again, if you're playing Deed I see no way around it, you're gonna have to stick with Loam unless you wanna blow your Arenas & Crucibles. Look to add exploration, then I'd look to add 1-2 Maze of Ith, paired with urborg it can be pretty deadly. Glacial chasm is a possibility if you're rich. You may even wanna try out crop rotation.

Personally I can't stand Pox without dark ritual, it just gives more explosive speed. But if you need to fix your mana, it might not be worth it. Try some stuff out and let us know how it works :wink:

[mujadaddy]

4eak has a really good :b::g: Pox deck upthread that you may get some ideas from. Running Crime and Syphon says to me to run Loam over Crucible, but I'm not as well-versed with the green splash.

[CB4SN13]

Thanks for the swift reply. 4reak has a really nice B/G list. Unfortunately, I don't have Mox Diamond or Sinkhole, and I'm pretty tight for cash atm, so that's a no-no.

I am not too sure about Mox Diamond with Pernicious Deed, but then again, Loam will get you lands back.

I'm thinking of using Wurm Harvest as the win-con, and make the deck more control oriented. I'll post a new list after I find time to tweak it.

[CB4SN13]

So here's my updated BG list, mainly influenced from 4eak's list...keep in mind my list and opinions are based on playing with my friends, so it may not reflect the metagame of any Legacy tournaments.

Lands (25)
4 Wasteland
2 Mishra's Factory
1 Volrath's Stronghold
4 Bayou
2 Tranquil Thicket
4 Barren Moor (for some reason, all my copies are in Spanish :confused:)
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp

Killing Creature Stuffs (19)
4 Innocent Blood
3 Diabolic Edict (Thinking of changing it to Chain Edict, sorcery/instant speed usually don't make much difference, this deck can't take advantage of it anyways)
4 Smallpox
2 Shriekmaw
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Culling Scales

Discard (8)
4 Raven's Crime
4 Hymn to Tourach

Other (8)
4 Life from the Loam
2 Eternal Witness
2 Worm Harvest

SB
2 Smother
2 Eternal Witness
3 Phyrexian Arena
3 Krosan Grip
1 Volrath's Stronghold
3 Choke
1 Pernicious Deed

So here are some things I noticed when I played the deck:

1. Culling Scale has weird but nice synergy with Worm Harvest. Worm Harvest allows you to keep Culling Scale in play (you destroy your own worms), which can delay the game even longer. If opponent plays creatures, just use your worms to block, and eventually, you'll run out of worms, and Culling Scales will start killing opponent's creatures.
2. Culling Scales and Pernicious Deed makes opponents keep their cards in their hand. Raven's Crime will dismantle their hand. It also makes Hymn to Tourach effective later in the game.
3. However, sometimes I wish Culling Scales was spot removal, or even Innocent Blood, since it takes a turn for the Scales to take effect.
4. Eternal Witness bringing back a Culling Scale is funny, especially when the opponent had already waited a couple turns for the Scales to kill itself.

5. Shriekmaw is awesome. I had a game where I hardcast it, killed a creature, then proceeded to attack and win the game. However, it can't kill stuff like Bob and Nantuko Shade and Tombstalker...but it kills Tarmogoyf! Shriekmaw and Smother is up for toss, whichever you prefer.

6. Volrath's Stronghold is awesome. It can bring back Shriekmaw and Eternal Witness. I board in the extra Stronghold when I play control/aggro control.

7. Eternal Witness is boarded in for every match up, but boarded for different cards. Witness is awesome, as always.

8. Drawing Worm Harvest early in the game really sucks. Even when you do have mana, sometimes, you don't have enough lands in the GY to make it effective and worth the 5cc. Life from the Loam will remedy that, when you start dredging =)

9. Against aggro, I board out Hymn to Tourach + 1 Raven's Crime when I'm on the play, and bring in 2 Smother, 2 Witness, and 1 Pernicious Deed. I'll be playing catch up, and first and second turn is better playing creature destruction. Then Culling Scales/ Deed follows. By then, Hymn is much less effective. I don't know if this is the right play, I just find Hymn to be a burden after like the 3rd turn. Top decking one sucks as well.

10. With Raven's Crime, LftL, Wastelands, Volrath's Stronghold + Witness (brings back Smallpox to destroy basic lands!), and Worm Harvest as a kill con, it rarely loses to control. Their hand and lands will both be destroyed. They will have to choose whether to Extirpate LftL or Worm Harvest. You can put a Gigapede in your board for another win-con (Mishra's factory and Witness is so damn slow...). If they target LftL, it may hurt a bit, but you're still left with your win-con. If they get both...well, that's gonna suck. Tormod's Crypt don't do much, since you're not overly dependent of the GY. You can Grip the Crypt, then start dredging.

11. This list sucks when facing combo. Pray you draw some discard and Wastelands, and hope that is enough. But my friends don't play combo decks, so this list isn't made to beat combo. You can alter this list to include Mox Diamond or Dark Ritual in the main deck, and put some Chalice in the board, since this deck doesn't have too many 1cc cards (just Raven's Crime). I'm not sure if that's enough to beat combo though.

That's my take on it anyways :tongue:

[Phaedrus]

It appears that the new Zendikar Planeswalker will be black (Sorin the Vampire Dude). I am hoping that his CMC is 3 or less (BB with loyalty 2 would be nice...) and that he's got some pox-synergistic abilities. I think that a low cost black PW could fit into Pox nicely and help fill one of the creature slots that often has come up for debate in the past (Nether v Epochrasite v XYZ). I'm thinking:

+1: Target player loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.

would be a good place to start...seeing as he is a vampire of some sort.

Or maybe an ultimate ability that's a larger version of that...to erase the loss of life from Smallpox/Pox...

Could be interesting. Could be a total dud...

Phaedrus

[bowvamp]

Well yeah, if this guy has a low mana cost, I'll probably test him in my chrome mox slot (I'm getting tired of the card disadvantage, also alot of the time they seem like worse dark rituals). I'd like either an effect that stops aggro (Vengeant-ish) or an effect that stops combo(No p-w has done this before, but if it's aggressively costed one conceptually could have a trinisphere or sphere of resistance effect).

[Mystical_Jackass]

That's pretty awesome news. Can't wait to see what turns out.

[TheMightyQuinn]

Has Demigod of Revenge been tested as a wincon in Pox? Discarding them to Pox effects then playing one mid-late game seems strong.

[Romanus]

Has Demigod of Revenge been tested as a wincon in Pox? Discarding them to Pox effects then playing one mid-late game seems strong.

Damn good idea. He would be a VERY fast clock and ok to see in multiples, unlike Stalker.

[Mystical_Jackass]

I could deffinitely test Demigod out. I use him in a B/R Avatars deck.. it works sorta different, but the MAIN reason I just don't see him working is...

A) Mana Curve. This deck is at a constant battle getting up to 2 lands, then 1, then up to 3, then Pox down to 2... lol. Basically what I'm getting at is, with Tombstalker there is no waiting till you hit exactly 5 mana, you can drop him out at 3 at times which seems to fit the deck curve a little better. I'd deffinitely suggest a deck using him running like 3 Arena, 3 Totem or something to keep your draw and mana count high.

B) Too situational. So his addition pretty much is an all or nothing deal, so you need a playset to be effective discard outlet. This replaces what.. 2 Nether Spirit, 2 Syphon Life. Nether spirit can hit the graveyard as soon as turn1 or 2 and immediately come into play, syphon life is the same thing where it can take action fast. Now neither of those cards would be nearly as powerful as 2 Demigods hitting play but then you're sorta playing a dice rolling game that you'll be able to draw into it fast enough.

I'ma try him out, maybe in this next tournament lol. But if I'm 100% wrong, then I take back everything I said lol and you get all my Star Wars action figures.. except the Fett one @.@

[Romanus]

Crucible will always keep you at a mana advantage too. Running ritual would make hitting 5 mana much easier as well.

[Mystical_Jackass]

Yea that's deffinitely true, I run 2 Totem, 2 Crucible, 3 Arena, & 4 Ritual in my deck yet it still can be tricky to hit 5. I run ONE 5cc spell -- Haunting Echoes. It's the only one.. it isn't gonna get slapped in the nuts by Propaganda, Humility, Prison, ensnaring bridge etc too. It just hits play & goes "gbye" Lol.

I'm just skeptical, mainly 'cause the fact of the matter is it costs 5x Black Mana. Without Urborg, having 4 swamp and even a waste/factory is a no go for Demigod :[ . Also, the situationalness (is that even a word?) of it as well as the fact that after discarded... unlike cards like Nether Spirit.. it just "sits" there in your yard till it gets recurred.

Also, this play just happened today lol, but it gives a great example IMO:

Hand was Urborg, swamp, ritual, smallpox, syphon, Pox, duress. I drew a waste, then ritual + duress + smallpox discarding syphon. Turn2, wasted their land. Turn 3, drew tombstalker played it for 2 Black :laugh: I'm not saying this is the "common play", but this is what dreams are made of and what this deck IS capable of.:cool:

[XSivPSI]

Also, this play just happened today lol, but it gives a great example IMO:

Hand was Urborg, swamp, ritual, smallpox, syphon, Pox, duress. I drew a waste, then ritual + duress + smallpox discarding syphon. Turn2, wasted their land. Turn 3, drew tombstalker played it for 2 Black :laugh: I'm not saying this is the "common play", but this is what dreams are made of and what this deck IS capable of.:cool:

First turn you played 1 land and sac'd it to small pox, 2nd turn you played waste and sac'd it, third turn you played a land, you're only land and had 2 black? I guess another ritual?

[Mystical_Jackass]

Wups, you're right. Dangit, I knew I deff had waste & urborg.. bleh. Anyways, I do remember it was turn 3 and I had two lands when it came out, I guess that was really the point I was getting at Lol. I have a poor memory, my bad :smile:

EDIT:

Here's my most current list I'm trying. I have yet to test it out, but deffinitely looking forward to trying it out a lot these next coming weeks:

Land (21)
13 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth (cut down to 2, problems running into eachother >.<)
2 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory

Acceleration (4)
4 Dark Ritual

Disruption (19)
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Small Pox
3 Pox
3 Chalice of the Void
1 Haunting Echoes (M10 suckas! :P)

Combo-licious (10)
2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Nether Spirit
2 Syphon Life
2 Bitterblossom
2 Contamination

Other Awesomeness (6)
2 Phyrexian Arena
2 Phyrexian Totem
2 Tombstalker

Sideboard (15) *still working on this
2 Ensnaring Bridge (If unanswered, wins games just from this cards. Syphon/Pox ftw?)
2 Gravepact (evil with blossom/spirit.. I chump 4 free, you sac a creature :P)
3 Engineered Plague
1 Chalice of the Void
4 Leyline the Void
3 Dystopia (can wreck enchantress & control decks with moat, humility, sylvan library, etc)


Obviously everyone knows how to read :) But this deck evolved from somewhat of a beatdown deck to what it is now, which is almost flat out control. But very strong control nonetheless. If you just observe the trends going down, the highest priority spells generally fall under disruption whereas a lot of the 2-of fall after to mitigate their probability of showing up in multiples. They also tend to be numbered according to converted mana cost, for instance haunting echoes is a 1-of, so generally it "shouldn't" hit until at least mid-late game.

Turn 1-2 generally is gonna go cater toward the disruption this way, but following turn 3.. there's a smorgesborg of 2-of spells that are all pretty good on their own. We got Phyrexian Arena, Totem, Bitterblossom, Chalice of the void to lock them down afterwards.. Tombstalker coming out for close to nothing. Contamination, another lockdown.. used in combination with Nether Spirit/Bitterblossom this can lock just about most decks out of winning.

I dunno, let me know what ya think. I'll deffinitely be able to give you more feedback after I test it out in a few more tournaments, too.

[K_Rot_T]

Are the 2 Contamination really that useful? When i look at your List, your only possibilities for that "lock" are:
Contamination+Blossom
Contamination+Spirit, nothing else, so when you wanna play that?
You need to draw about 22 Cards, to have a chance of 50% holding Contamination and Spirit or Blossom. Otherwise, the Contamination is just dead in your Hand.
I think there are alot more useful cards than Contamination, like more Arenas, or Sinkhole. Even a Rishadan Port, seems more useful, as you can tap 1 of the few lands they will have after Pox.

[Mystical_Jackass]

I guess we'll have to see how it works out here in the next few weeks :)

About Contamination. It's a 2-of, but worst case scenario it gets pitched to one of the 7 Pox. Next best, activate factory, that's 2 turns you bought. Next best lock, crucible + factory.

Sinkhole is good, just don't have the room atm :[ Port prolly isn't really that good in this deck, its more colorless mana I can see it being more annoying than helpful lol

[clavio]

21 lands seems really low. Among other things. I wouldnt play this list. You have no creature removal other than poxes!

[Tangle.Wire]

I guess we'll have to see how it works out here in the next few weeks :)

About Contamination. It's a 2-of, but worst case scenario it gets pitched to one of the 7 Pox. Next best, activate factory, that's 2 turns you bought. Next best lock, crucible + factory.

Sinkhole is good, just don't have the room atm :[ Port prolly isn't really that good in this deck, its more colorless mana I can see it being more annoying than helpful lol

How u can have no room for sinkhole+4 wastelands while playing such many 2x slots which aren't needed at all? :D Extirpate will give you more win situations than haunting echoes cause you won't be able to play it if u run 7 pox. :rolleyes:

For the Sideboard i just dont like grave pact as it seems to manaintensive too, maybe if u can u should rethink the plan of mainboard chalice+duress and dark rituals as you wanna drop it to 1 i guess. Maybe u try out Mox diamonds instead of rituals to low down your 1cc spells or even move chalice to the sideboard. Also i am a fan of powder keg and pithing needles on poxlists.

[Mystical_Jackass]

I initially had 23 land from testing it before, I dropped down to 21 since I hate to say it, I was drawing too much land lol.

Usually just getting out one or two Arena, Crucible, or Totem early saves my arse, but I'll see maybe I will need more :)


As far as the creature removal. I'll see, I haven't used my deck in a tournament for a few months but most of the top seats I've encountered or seen have been control & combo: I'm talking Landstill, Countertop, Ichorid, ANT, Stax (GWr, WW mainly), Blue Control.. I saw Zoo & merfolk final games a few times too. But majority of those decks run few creatures & my deck fairs really strongly against those.
Tribal is not a fear for me... okay, either I disrupt them and lock them out with Engineered Plague, etc. Or I dont find answers fast enough. Innocent blood is NOT a great answer. Maybe the first one, but midgame you make them sac like... 1 siege token lol.

[Phaedrus]

It appears that the new Zendikar Planeswalker will be black (Sorin the Vampire Dude). I am hoping that his CMC is 3 or less (BB with loyalty 2 would be nice...) and that he's got some pox-synergistic abilities. I think that a low cost black PW could fit into Pox nicely and help fill one of the creature slots that often has come up for debate in the past (Nether v Epochrasite v XYZ). I'm thinking:

+1: Target player loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.

would be a good place to start...seeing as he is a vampire of some sort.

Or maybe an ultimate ability that's a larger version of that...to erase the loss of life from Smallpox/Pox...

Could be interesting. Could be a total dud...

Phaedrus

And...total Dud it is... 3BBB. totally uncastable.

No Pox synergy here. Move along. Nothing to see.

[Mystical_Jackass]

NOOOOooooooooo!!!!! :cry: PADAME!!!!! Rofl

That sucks though, well better luck next time :rolleyes:

[P.S.]

4 Pox
3 Small Pox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Duress
4 Cursed Scroll
3 The Rack
4 Sinkhole
2 Phyrexian Totem
4 Chrome Mox
2 Crucible of Worlds

18 Swamp
4 Wasteland

On the draw, playing against turn 1 AEther Vial is an annoyance. Quick question, is there a card like Sand Golem that doesn't say "controlled by opponent" on it, because that seems ideal.

I even thought about Charcoal Diamonds. :cry:

[Nop]

Quick question, is there a card like Sand Golem that doesn't say "controlled by opponent" on it, because that seems ideal.

Excluding Basking Rootwalla, no such creatures exist. Under the traditional Pox approach, the deck isn't capable of reliably discarding your cards (only Pox and Smallpox). Nether Spirit is as close as you'll get, which can be easily hard-casted when necessary.

[lorddotm]

3 Nether Spirit

4 Pox
4 Small Pox
4 Dark Ritual
1 Cabal Ritual
4 Hymn to Tourach
2 Duress
4 Thoughtseize
4 Sinkhole
2 Phyrexian Totem
3 Mox Diamond
3 Crucible of Worlds

14 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland

[jebus]

I haven't played Magic in a couple of years, but i just put this list together. I like it, a bit more lean and aggro than usual for a Pox deck. A bit heavy at 2cc, though.

18 Swamp
4 Wasteland
4 Dark Ritual

4 Tombstalker
4 Nyxathid

3 Powder Keg*
3 Smother

4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
4 Pox
4 Sinkhole

Just not sure if it's a bit outdated (especially the Kegs), but i do like how it plays.

[carnifex]

Powder keg is NOT outdated. I've had 3 in the MD for a long time now and they've never been useless. And when I do face a deck with very few / no artifacts and creatures, they're SB'd out. The sheer versatility of the card keeps me using it, and has been a godsend more than once.

[Koby]

4 Nyxathid might be too many and clog up your hand, especially with the Tombstalkers. Maybe a mix of 2 Nyxathid 4 Stalker?

Powder Keg is still amazing! But it can't hit Counterbalance unfortunately. I've gone down to 3 Pox myself, since I want to keep the extra creatures around.

For SB options, 4 Engineered Plague is a must, as Tribal is just fucking annoying and tough to deal with.

[coraz86]

I discovered recently that Leyline of the Void, besides being good against Ichorid, also is excellent against Landstill; it shuts off their Academy Ruins and Crucibles. Something to think about when building a board; I'm never going to not run a full set in any black Legacy deck again now.

[Phaedrus]

2 spoiled cards from ZEN that look interesting for Pox.

This one...eh..situationally perhaps:

Tomb Lord's Quest - B
Enchantment
Whenever a creature is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, you may put a quest counter on Tomb Lord's Quest.
Remove three quest counters from Tomb Lord's Quest, sacrifice Tomb Lord's Quest: Put a 5/5 black Zombie Giant creature token onto the battlefield.

This one looks very intriguing however, especially in Crucible builds, too bad it can't block, though. A recurring 2/1 hasted creature though...seems playable. There seems to be some question as to the correct name on this card though (source MTGSalvation):

Blood Extractor/Abomination - BB
Creature - Vampire Spirit
Blood Abomination can't block.
Blood Abomination has haste if an opponent has 10 life or less.
Landfall - Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, you may return Blood Abomination from your graveyard onto the battlefield.
2/1



Discuss.

[jebus]

Nice to see Kegs aren't outdated yet. Makes me feel not too much behind. I am considering cutting 1 Pox for the 4th Smother though.

I have 4 Nyxathid and 4 Stalker because I want to disrupt then lay a threat down immediately. I haven't had much trouble with them clogging my hand, at least not yet.

Also, I much prefer being able to end games early than to slowly eat away at opponents with Factories and Spirits. I remember I used to lose a lot of games because my threats were too few and too weak, and over a long game other decks would simply recover better than I would from my own disruption. With my current list I could blow the world up, then play a big guy that the opponent would have to address with his limited and ever-decreasing resources.

And yep, my black decks always have 4 Plague and 4 Leyline in the SB.

[workingdude]

2 spoiled cards from ZEN that look interesting for Pox.

This one...eh..situationally perhaps:

Tomb Lord's Quest - B
Enchantment
Whenever a creature is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, you may put a quest counter on Tomb Lord's Quest.
Remove three quest counters from Tomb Lord's Quest, sacrifice Tomb Lord's Quest: Put a 5/5 black Zombie Giant creature token onto the battlefield.

This one looks very intriguing however, especially in Crucible builds, too bad it can't block, though. A recurring 2/1 hasted creature though...seems playable. There seems to be some question as to the correct name on this card though (source MTGSalvation):

Blood Extractor/Abomination - BB
Creature - Vampire Spirit
Blood Abomination can't block.
Blood Abomination has haste if an opponent has 10 life or less.
Landfall - Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, you may return Blood Abomination from your graveyard onto the battlefield.
2/1



Discuss.

Tomblord will be interesting. Its a terrible topdeck, but if you land it early, you have control of when to crack it. I dont know what slots it would take.

The vampire doesnt seem as good as nether spirit is. nether spirit often ends up as a recurrable blocker. Its not likely to run both of them, either, because nether spirit doesnt like company in the yard.

Its only advantage is conditional haste, although with pox, getting to 10 shouldnt be unrealistic when you are beating.

[Mystical_Jackass]

yea I just noticed those man. The tomb lord's request seems like an interesting win cond, especially if you're running Spirits & Bitterblossom. Pox, drop a 5/5 into play and kill kill

The vampire, we'll just have to see it seems like a weak finisher compared to like Tombstalker. In a Pox with equip, maybe jitte & meekstone it could be good. The haste, less than 10 life makes it too convenient not to try out in this deck

... I can already smell the Sorin/Blood Extractor decks cooking >.> That's funny

[carnifex]

I don't like the enchantment as much as the creature because its a one time thing without evasion and eats up a slot in the deck and, frankly, I have no idea what it could replace. It doesn't carry the same appeal as phyrexian totems to me.

The creature on the other hand lends an extra aggro capability to the deck without necessarily clogging your graveyard of nether spirits. It's slightly underwhelming though, and can't infini-chump like a nether spirit nor does it return nigh-garaunteed (more like a 30% chance ballpark of a land draw vs the much higher chance that of the 4 creatures in the deck, there is only one in GY). Might be something to toy around with but neither of these cards scream auto-include to me.

[coraz86]

The creature on the other hand lends an extra aggro capability to the deck without necessarily clogging your graveyard of nether spirits. It's slightly underwhelming though, and can't infini-chump like a nether spirit nor does it return nigh-garaunteed (more like a 30% chance ballpark of a land draw vs the much higher chance that of the 4 creatures in the deck, there is only one in GY). Might be something to toy around with but neither of these cards scream auto-include to me.

Does your 30% chance of drawing a land account for the extra drops you'd be making with Crucible? Or do you not run them? Either way, Blood Abomination seems like the recursive dude we've all wanted nether spirit to be in decks with Crucible. I'd agree that it's not a four-of, but if they print this as spoiled I won't run Pox again without giving him a shot.

[conboy31]

nm.

[Mystical_Jackass]

If you totally revamped your deck (no pun intended @.@), I could see ppl running a deck with

4 Meekstone
4 Blood Extractor
2 Nether Spirit
3 Damnation
4 Bitterblossom
3 Phyrexian Arena
3 Crucible of Worlds
2 Phyrexian Totem
etc

Just a thought, could tinker with the Pox Shell. But board sweepers & Pox followed by totem and 1-3 blood extractor with haste would make a great finisher. Possibly replace Tombstalker as a more reliable finisher?

[ScatmanX]

Pox would be very good in that deck, once that for Blood Stractor work, opponent need to have less than 10 life.
Quest for the Gravelord is also a card to think about, since you dont care about your dudes dying, not even blossom tokens! =)

[jebus]

Possibly replace Tombstalker as a more reliable finisher?

How is Tombstalker not reliable? I often get to cast it for just 2 mana, and it can end the game in 2-3 turns (counting Pox damage and other miscellaneous loss of life). I think it is still Pox's best finisher.

My vote is that Blood Extractor is cute but not quite worth it:

1. It can't chump forever like Nether Spirit, or block and kill small-to-medium threats like Tombstalker can. It can't block AT ALL.

2. It doesn't even have evasion. And by the time it gains haste (10 life or less), it'll still need to hit up to 5 times--and do so without evasion. At the same stage in the game, Tombstalker would just need to hit twice for you to win... and it has evasion to make this even easier.

3. It is dependent on land drops for recursion. Good luck with that if you don't have Crucible, as you have no library manipulation to ensure that you can topdeck lands when you need them.

4. If you ARE running Crucible, then Factories are still much better.

Bottomline is, it's only good when Pox is already winning (opponent at 10 life or less, you're getting consistent land drops or have Crucible in play, and you don't need to block). As for the Meekstone build, it may be intriguing, but it would no longer be Pox.

[Nekrataal]

Two cards catched my eyes reading the Zendikar rumored spoiler. Quest for the Gravelord and the GB Fetchland. Since if been testing LoamPox the enemy fetch is a great addition. The Quest Enchantment could hang around and get counters surely and quickly. You still can choose when to activate it.

[ScatmanX]

I liked the Zendikar enchantment here.
I´m wondering, of course, about Entomb, in a CotVless list.
It get you Nether Spirit, Bloodghast, Cabal therapy, or a Mishra or Waste if you have Crucible.
If you play Loam, it also gets you loam! =)

[Phaedrus]

Bloodchief Ascension - B
Enchanment
At the beggining of each players end step, if an opponent lost 2 or more life this turn, you may put a quest counter on Bloodchief Ascension.
Whenever a card is put into an opponents graveyard from anywhere, if Bloodchief Ascension has three or more ascension counters on it, you may have that player lose 2 life. If you do, you gain 2 life.
Rare

Discuss.

[workingdude]

Bloodchief Ascension - B
Enchanment
At the beggining of each players end step, if an opponent lost 2 or more life this turn, you may put a quest counter on Bloodchief Ascension.
Whenever a card is put into an opponents graveyard from anywhere, if Bloodchief Ascension has three or more ascension counters on it, you may have that player lose 2 life. If you do, you gain 2 life.
Rare

Discuss.

Not great either. Only pox and nether spirit can really add quest counters unless the opponent is terrible and triggering it himself (ie thoughtseize, or I play a smallpox, they crack a fetch).

By the time I'm putting down a tombstalker or swinging with a totem, I should have pretty good control of the game.

Also, what slots does it take? I think quest has a better chance.

[ScatmanX]

Ok, so here is the firt scketch i´ve been toying with pox since zendikar came out:


// Lands
4 [4E] Mishra's Factory
3 [PLC] Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 [TE] Wasteland
13 [4E] Swamp (3)

// Creatures
2 [FUT] Tombstalker
4 [ZEN] Bloodghast
2 [RAV] Necroplasm

// Spells
2 [AP] Phyrexian Arena
2 [10E] Crucible of Worlds
4 [B] Sinkhole
4 [TSP] Smallpox
4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
1 [EVE] Syphon Life
4 [AT] Hymn to Tourach
4 [SH] Mox Diamond
2 [DS] Trinisphere
1 [MR] Chrome Mox

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [OD] Innocent Blood
SB: 4 [GP] Leyline of the Void
SB: 4 [7E] Engineered Plague
SB: 3 [LRW] Shriekmaw

Bloodghas alow you to virtually run 4 Nether Spirit, that keep coming back!
It is always MVP in games.
Duress was removed, so challie can be set at 1 with no worries at all.
Currently testing Mox diamond in place of rituals, and curently liking it very much. May need to up the Crucible count to 3 though.
Necroplasm was finally tested and, man, does this dude plays. He often clears the board in 2-3 turns.
Side is quite random.
Still think that Wuest for the Gravelord may have a place in here, but 1cc scares me because of challice...

[beastman]

What about having 2 dark depths and that vampire dude?

[ScatmanX]

What about having 2 dark depths and that vampire dude?

Both cards suck on they´re own, use to many slots, have zero sinergy with the rest of the deck, and really don´t add anything.

[Cthuloo]

Why only two Tombstalkers? I know that 4 may be too much, but I think the deck can easily support three, and in my experience they're the best finishers for pox.

And I was also curious about the single Chrome Mox: do you need this bit more of acceleration? Isn't it a bit clunky with only 23 black cards?

[jebus]

Ok, so here is the firt scketch i´ve been toying with pox since zendikar came out:


// Lands
4 [4E] Mishra's Factory
3 [PLC] Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 [TE] Wasteland
13 [4E] Swamp (3)

// Creatures
2 [FUT] Tombstalker
4 [ZEN] Bloodghast
2 [RAV] Necroplasm

// Spells
2 [AP] Phyrexian Arena
2 [10E] Crucible of Worlds
4 [B] Sinkhole
4 [TSP] Smallpox
4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
1 [EVE] Syphon Life
4 [AT] Hymn to Tourach
4 [SH] Mox Diamond
2 [DS] Trinisphere
1 [MR] Chrome Mox

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [OD] Innocent Blood
SB: 4 [GP] Leyline of the Void
SB: 4 [7E] Engineered Plague
SB: 3 [LRW] Shriekmaw

Bloodghas alow you to virtually run 4 Nether Spirit, that keep coming back!
It is always MVP in games.
Duress was removed, so challie can be set at 1 with no worries at all.
Currently testing Mox diamond in place of rituals, and curently liking it very much. May need to up the Crucible count to 3 though.
Necroplasm was finally tested and, man, does this dude plays. He often clears the board in 2-3 turns.
Side is quite random.
Still think that Wuest for the Gravelord may have a place in here, but 1cc scares me because of challice...

Chrome Mox seems random, as does Trinisphere and Phyrexian Arena. The deck looks a bit scattered and unfocused, but at least it's trying something different. I don't mind Syphon Life as a 1-of with Crucible, but you should run more than 2 CoWs for that to work well.

I don't like Bloodghast, but I am intrigued by Necroplasm. I should test that one out. And Tombstalker is at least a 3-of.

[Eatatjoes]

That list looks all over the place, not enough kill spells. What kind of meta do you play in? Aggro has been real popular lately, necroskitter sucks, he will be dead before he does anything. Innocent blood should be played main. Drop 1 tomb of yawg. I like bloodghast alot, but you have to be the aggressor, i would suggest playing him with pox as well. In my build i was running 23-24 lands, and i would constantly be top-decking lands, so bloodghast makes them useful. Blood ghast cant block, so you cant stall with him. I would up the crucible count to 3 or 4, because factorys and wastes will be putting in alot of work, and out tempoing your opponet, waste there land, and get 1-4 dudes back a turn sounds pretty fuckin solid. Also 3 tombstalker is the magic number, just enough to where you can find him when its time to seal the deal. 2 trini sucks with no way to find them, I would drop them, unless you want to go that route, but they could end up fuckin you up more then your opponent. I would lose the random one ofs and such, you dont have a way to find them besides lucksacking into them

[jebus]

I would lose the random one ofs and such, you dont have a way to find them besides lucksacking into them

Exactly. Pox is a deck that relies on its homogeneity, based around the effects of its namesake card. Lots of discard, lots of LD, lots of creature kill, and not much space for cuteness. Cards that aren't worth running 3-4 copies of are often not worth running at all.

[ScatmanX]

Ok, so here we go:

Chrome Mox was really random. Found the 3rd Crucible slot.
Phyrexian Arean is great. You don´t wan´t to see more than 1 in a game, so 2 is the right number.
I like the random Syphon Life, but it can easily be cut. (3rd Staker here)
In testing, Necroplasm and Bloodghast were great, so I´m not cutting them right now.

Actually, what has been torning me are the 4 Hymn to Tourach as my only discard. Often I drew them while my opponent was already locked by CotV, Wastelands and or Trini. I´m tempted to let them go, adding 3rd Trini, and 3 Smother.

So, summming up, I´ll test with:
-1 Chrome Mox; -1 Tomb; -4 Hymn; -1 Syphon;
+1 Trini; +1 Stalker; +1 Crucible; +1 Swamp, +3 Smother or Maw.

[jebus]

Ok, so here we go:

Chrome Mox was really random. Found the 3rd Crucible slot.
Phyrexian Arean is great. You don´t wan´t to see more than 1 in a game, so 2 is the right number.
I like the random Syphon Life, but it can easily be cut. (3rd Staker here)
In testing, Necroplasm and Bloodghast were great, so I´m not cutting them right now.

Actually, what has been torning me are the 4 Hymn to Tourach as my only discard. Often I drew them while my opponent was already locked by CotV, Wastelands and or Trini. I´m tempted to let them go, adding 3rd Trini, and 3 Smother.

So, summming up, I´ll test with:
-1 Chrome Mox; -1 Tomb; -4 Hymn; -1 Syphon;
+1 Trini; +1 Stalker; +1 Crucible; +1 Swamp, +3 Smother or Maw.

given the fact you're leaning towards more of an LD/prison-y type of deck than Pox, I suggest running Braids (maybe in place of Arena and Necroplasm). She'd go well with LD + Crucible + CotV + Trini. But then you'd have a version of Braids Stax (w/ a bit more aggro to it).

[DragoFireheart]

Bloodghast is amazing in this deck. Every list should make room for 4.

[F3lix]

Both cards suck on they´re own, use to many slots, have zero sinergy with the rest of the deck, and really don´t add anything.

You're right about depths, but I believe Hexmage will see some play regardless.

A 2/1 with first strike by itself is not too bad, but the ability to kill planeswalkers, chalice, EE not played and activated next run, set back vials, shrink Countryside crusher, set back smokestack, AND combo with DD, among other things still gives him enough utility to see play regardless of depths.

I'm sure I forgot many other uses too.

[ScatmanX]

You're right about depths, but I believe Hexmage will see some play regardless.

A 2/1 with first strike by itself is not too bad, but the ability to kill planeswalkers, chalice, EE not played and activated next run, set back vials, shrink Countryside crusher, set back smokestack, AND combo with DD, among other things still gives him enough utility to see play regardless of depths.

I'm sure I forgot many other uses too.

It would be nice if they killed Goyf too! =]
But I agree, Hexmage aint that bad, maybe can grant some SB slots. (it also kills Gemstone Mines =p)

And I agree I'm leaning towards a more prision side of Pox. I just realized now it is leening towards Braid Stax. Guess is kind of a hybrid of both now.
Will test also 2 Braids in place of 2 Arenas, since they fulfill the same role (CA).
Won´t be removing Necroplasm, cause the deck still lacks some creature kill, and it works well as a beater also.

Random thought: now that Bloodghast has entered the deck, could Flashbag Marauder enter Shriekmaw or Smother slot? I'm not sure, but am going to do some testing even so.

[Cthuloo]

You're right about depths, but I believe Hexmage will see some play regardless.

A 2/1 with first strike by itself is not too bad, but the ability to kill planeswalkers, chalice, EE not played and activated next run, set back vials, shrink Countryside crusher, set back smokestack, AND combo with DD, among other things still gives him enough utility to see play regardless of depths.

I'm sure I forgot many other uses too.

I agree that it will see some play, but probably not in this deck. I think it will be great in some sui black build, but it has no sinergy with pox (except saccing it to destroy something when you pox/smallpox).

[Gui]

Bloodghast is amazing in this deck. Every list should make room for 4.

I agree with this. Bloodghast just seems to be what the deck needs. It come back with haste every turn, seems a perfect target to pox, even if nether is in the grave!

Wanted to know the opinion of everyone on that... is it being used?

[Jon Stewart]

Why aren't more people playing Gatekeeper of Malakir. It seems awesome here. I wish bloodghast could block. Then it would've been perfect. I still like Bloodghast though.

I like that guy who was going the prison route with the deck. Chalice seems really strong. And also, Gatekeeper of Malakir seems awesome.

I would really like for someone to put together a more creature/permanent based deck with...

3 Braids, Cabal Minion
4 Bloodghast
4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Wasteland
3 Mishra's Factory
etc.

I think such a deck should also play...
4 Contamination
4 Bitterblossom

All those cards have great internal synergy with each other.

Maybe that deck could even cut Gakekeeper so it can have a manabase like other stax decks with...
4 Mox Diamond
3 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Trinisphere
3 Tombstalker
3 Shriekmaw
4 Powder Keg

That kind of a deck could a powerhouse, if it could be made consistent.

[XSivPSI]

Black braids/stax already exists... This is the pox thread.

[Mystical_Jackass]

I had cut Chalice of the Void down to 3 in my deck. That way I could open with disruption turn 1-2, then follow up with it turn 3-4.

Its effective as a lockdown when you both get into topdeck, but not what you want if your opponent sneaks a few creatures by. THere's deffinitely a checks-and-balances.

Gatekeeper would be great in MBC or Sui Black IMO, but the fact that it can die to Pox sorta makes me shy away from it. There's always the hope that you'll get some bloodghasts/tokens out to sac, but still.. I dunno

[zabuza]

HI everybody,
I was trying to improve my pox declist and i´ve done some changes i think could be very interesting so i would like to know what do you think about my list. This is A-POX:


3 Dakmor Savage
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland
10 Swamp
4 scrubland
-----23 lands

// Creatures
3 Tombstalker
4 Bloodghast
3 Nihilith
-----10 creatures

// Spells
4 Mox Diamond
4 Thoughtseize
4 Sinkhole
4 Smallpox
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Ankh of Mishra
4 Vindicate
-----28 other spells


// Sideboard
SB: 2 Innocent Blood
SB: 4 RAvenous trap
SB: 4 Engineered Plague
SB: 3 Infest


Now the explanations.

Beside of the core of the deck i´ve selected any new cards that i´m going to explain in the next few lines.

Thoughtseize: Is the best one mana discard spell, take care from everything you want and can save you from combo or PAINFUL CARDS. I was thinking about changing them with cabal therapys (because are better with bloodghast) but not know yet.

Dakmor savage: This lands is nuts in this deck, you can sac it to smallpox, or discard it with mox and recover when necessary. Beside of that usually you can dredge for more bloodghast or cards to feed tombstalker. The only problem of this land is that it comes into play tapped but .....

Nihilit: Dodges counterbalance, has evasion and a big body and comes into play fastly when you cast smallpox (3 time counters, hymn two counters,....). I think this is the decck for this creature.

Bloodghast: Comes and comes till they are removed. Good creature, i would like to have more powerfull spells that can take advantage of it´s recursion hability.

Mox diamond: They are against dark ritual. I prefer mana stability and you can discard dakmor (and recover laater if needed). BEside of that provides whiter mana for vindicate.

Ankh of mishra: The new toy, a very powerful card nowdays (lot of feches everywhere) and lot of sinergy with a deck that destroys lot of lands like this one. Opponent is taking 2 damage for each land (which is wasted or sinkholed) and 5 for each fetch (so bloodghast become very happy soon ;)). They are not bad in multiples and limit the land ccount for any apponent. Prevent us from tricking with lands and lot of decks suffer a lot under it. I think this is an understimated nice card.

Vindicate: Everybody knows what is it ;).


The only problem of the deck is that i think i need more creature removal Maindeck (but not sure about) and i don´t know what to replace and what cards must i play like creature removal (doom blade, shriekmaw, innocent blood, damnation, infest, death mark,........).

Another topic is that i thin i could splash for green too (thanks to mox diamond) in oreder to play maelstrom pulses (8vindicates are good i think) and gaining krosan grip for sideboarding.

What do you think about everything i´ve posted. Any help would be welcomed.

[slylie]

HI everybody,
I was trying to improve my pox declist and i´ve done some changes i think could be very interesting so i would like to know what do you think about my list. This is A-POX:


3 Dakmor Savage
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland
10 Swamp
4 scrubland
-----23 lands


No fetches??




// Creatures
3 Tombstalker
4 Bloodghast
3 Nihilith
-----10 creatures


Nihilith is countered with a stifle and is a bit junk anyways, bloodghast I've found to be a bit crap, since in so many situations he's just sitting there not attacking and not blocking either, and when he's not getting stp'd hes not the fastest clock either. It would be the best card printed since goyf *if* it could block. Since it can't block, and 90% of creatures played in legacy can just block it and not die, its probably just the best black creature from zendikar. I'm sure people have their own opinions why bloodghast is good, and I'd love to hear them, I'm not doubting the potential of the card, its especially good if you are playing Cabal Therapy, but he just seems really unexciting for me so far.



// Spells
4 Mox Diamond
4 Thoughtseize
4 Sinkhole
4 Smallpox
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Ankh of Mishra
4 Vindicate
-----28 other spells


// Sideboard
SB: 2 Innocent Blood
SB: 4 RAvenous trap
SB: 4 Engineered Plague
SB: 3 Infest


Now the explanations.

Beside of the core of the deck i´ve selected any new cards that i´m going to explain in the next few lines.

Thoughtseize: Is the best one mana discard spell, take care from everything you want and can save you from combo or PAINFUL CARDS. I was thinking about changing them with cabal therapys (because are better with bloodghast) but not know yet.

Dakmor savage: This lands is nuts in this deck, you can sac it to smallpox, or discard it with mox and recover when necessary. Beside of that usually you can dredge for more bloodghast or cards to feed tombstalker. The only problem of this land is that it comes into play tapped but .....

Nihilit: Dodges counterbalance, has evasion and a big body and comes into play fastly when you cast smallpox (3 time counters, hymn two counters,....). I think this is the decck for this creature.

Bloodghast: Comes and comes till they are removed. Good creature, i would like to have more powerfull spells that can take advantage of it´s recursion hability.

Mox diamond: They are against dark ritual. I prefer mana stability and you can discard dakmor (and recover laater if needed). BEside of that provides whiter mana for vindicate.

Ankh of mishra: The new toy, a very powerful card nowdays (lot of feches everywhere) and lot of sinergy with a deck that destroys lot of lands like this one. Opponent is taking 2 damage for each land (which is wasted or sinkholed) and 5 for each fetch (so bloodghast become very happy soon ;)). They are not bad in multiples and limit the land ccount for any apponent. Prevent us from tricking with lands and lot of decks suffer a lot under it. I think this is an understimated nice card.

Vindicate: Everybody knows what is it ;).


The only problem of the deck is that i think i need more creature removal Maindeck (but not sure about) and i don´t know what to replace and what cards must i play like creature removal (doom blade, shriekmaw, innocent blood, damnation, infest, death mark,........).

Another topic is that i thin i could splash for green too (thanks to mox diamond) in oreder to play maelstrom pulses (8vindicates are good i think) and gaining krosan grip for sideboarding.

What do you think about everything i´ve posted. Any help would be welcomed.

Ank of mishra is crap, we aren't playing burn and even in burn.dec its not played.

I'm thinking the Hexmage+Depths combo is what this deck really needed to shine. A combo that can win the game in a turn once we have ripped apart their hand instead of giving them x turns to recover. Also a turn 3 win with a hand that has Hexmage, urborg and depths. We have built in hand control to make sure they can't deal with our 20/20 legend, as well as ways to recover the combo later in the game with Crucible and grave discovery.

I'm thinking Hexmage/Depths is going to be to this deck what Dreadnought/Stifle is to dreadstill.

[Eatatjoes]

Ha, you make me laugh. The reason dreadnought/stifle is so good, is because of the colors it plays, and its supporting cards, trinket mage/card draw/library manipulation. Throwing dark depths, and hexmage into a pox deck is complete crap. How are you going to find it? Mull into it? Goodluck, get blown out. Pox is good, because all of its cards support each other and are good on there own. You dont want to dilute the deck with 12 cards that suck on there own. Please dont compare dreadnought/stifle to hexmage/depths anymore, you sound comical.

[slylie]

Ha, you make me laugh. The reason dreadnought/stifle is so good, is because of the colors it plays, and its supporting cards, trinket mage/card draw/library manipulation. Throwing dark depths, and hexmage into a pox deck is complete crap. How are you going to find it? Mull into it? Goodluck, get blown out. Pox is good, because all of its cards support each other and are good on there own. You dont want to dilute the deck with 12 cards that suck on there own. Please dont compare dreadnought/stifle to hexmage/depths anymore, you sound comical.

oh Look what we got here. I forgot why I had avoided forums for so long but thanks for reminding me once again. Why are people so condescending and belligerent when behind the safety of a computer screen or steering wheel?. And with horrid spelling mistakes and grammar as well. :really: I'll accept this provocation on grounds playing/talking magic is probably what you do best.. :wink: .

Internet flirting aside, where are 12 cards that suck on (there)their own? I admit dark depths is crap in multiples, or without the combo but we run urborgs so it can tap for black mana, Hexmage is a 2/1 for 2 mana with first strike that ruins a lot of random things:

kills planeswalkers
kills ravager
resets vials
kills gemstone mines
resets chalice to zero
can be sacked at anytime to remove bridge from below
can block a 54/2 goblin piledriver or basically any goblin and live.
hot vampire chick with cleavage art to look at.
ect


and ... what is the third crap card you are talking about? I'm guessing grim discovery, which would be run as a 2 of at most, doesn't read "return target dark depths and hexmage to your hand oh and this card sucks" it can also read "return target wasteland and goyf to your hand" .. and it's not even part of the combo, just noticed it in Ken Adam's decklist.

PLUS. pox is not a "combo" deck, we don't need to go "turn 1, dark depths, led, lotus petal, play infernal tutor, sac led with it on the sac, get hexmage, cast hexmage, go." Just like Dreadstill is not a combo deck, its just a control deck with a built in combo.

that said, I'm not even sure how good the combo is because I haven't tested it, I'm hoping other people do and let us know if its the real deal or just a joke.

It certainly doesn't look like a joke here:


SCG 5K Legacy Open - Philadelphia (147 players)
1st Brian Peters [Trinistax]
2nd James Bishop [Threshold]
3rd Matthew Bartlett [Dredge]
4th Johnathan Mosier [CounterTop Progenitus]
5th Timothy Hunt [CounterTop Goyf]
6th Cedric Phillips [Charbelcher Combo]
7th Chris Woltereck [42 Land]
8th Ken Adams [Hexmage Depths]

I can't remember the last time I saw Pox in top 8 of a tournament with over 140 players. I guess he was just a complete lucksack since his deck was diluted with this crap combo.
:tongue: