[Deck] Pox

[Cthuloo]

Adams' list has many nice sinergies inside, and I think it's strongest feature is the way it abuses of bloodghast with therapies and smallpox. It will be interesting to know how many games he won with the combo and how many with goyf / ghast / mage beatings.

However, going Bg anyway for living wish, I would try to go more "pox-style", fitting in the list some pernicious deed, some crop rotation, that can fetch depths and bring back ghast, and loam instead of crucible. I've not yet tried to assemble a list, but it would be interesting to try.

[Mesercus]

However, going Bg anyway for living wish, I would try to go more "pox-style", fitting in the list some pernicious deed, some crop rotation, that can fetch depths and bring back ghast, and loam instead of crucible. I've not yet tried to assemble a list, but it would be interesting to try.

Yes it could be very interesting.
Maybe loam +syphon life +raven's crime

[Cthuloo]

Yes it could be very interesting.
Maybe loam +syphon life +raven's crime

Yes, the sinergy between those cards is really powerful. This is a list with wich I made 3rd out of 49 people some months ago:

creature [5]
2 Nether Spirit
3 Tombstalker

sorcery [20]
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Life from the Loam
4 Smallpox
1 Worm Harvest
1 Raven's Crime
1 Syphon Life
2 Maelstrom Pulse

instant[1]
1 Smother

enchantment [2]
2 Pernicious Deed

artifact [8]
4 Mox Diamond
2 Phyrexian Totem
2 Sensei's Divining Top

land [24]
3 Bayou
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Barren Moor
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Tomb of Urami
4 Wasteland

Side [15]
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Extirpate
3 Krosan Grip
3 Engeneered Palgue
2 Smother

I was thinking about fitting the combo in this kind of list. Unfortunately the list is very tight, and the combo engine will require approximately 10 slots (3 mage, 1 depths, 3 living wish, 3 crop rotation), making also the easy switch Duress <=> Therapy and Nether Spirit <=> Bloodghast, cutting also the two totems for the 3rd and 4th ghast.
For the combo slots i think we can go -1 barren moor - 1 smother -1 worm harvest - 3 stalker (keeping one in the side for wish) and maybe - 4 mox (but I'm not sure since they have proven to be really useful). Any idea?

[claudio.r]

I can't seem to find any really good and consistent BG pox lists... Can anyone indicate me a thread or something like that, i already have all the staples, but i would like to make it BG with life from the loam and access to krosan grip.

[darkdeal]

Could Sadistic Sacrament be a better sideboard option against ANT or something? Most lists I have ever seen rarely run more than 1-3 win cards with no countermagic backup.

[Nekrataal]

I am playtesting a Bg version for some weeks now with mixed results. Usually U control the game for quite some time but can't do the big punsh to really end the game within a few turns after you established control. I had several games where my opponemt either could nibble away my life with 1/1 tokens or wimpy creatures (Goblins / Merfolk) or come back with sudden key card in topdeck mode (Replenish) while I was searching for a method to deal some points of damage. I am also quite undecided which creatures to play. Nether Spirit is too obvious (although he fits the deck but isn't there somethings better?), Tomb Stalker is anti-synergistic with Loam and often catches PtE or StoP, Witness/Volrath Stronghold seems to timmylike although card reuse is always nice and probably I could play 2 of both, Kitchen Finks were OK but not rocking and Bloodghast simply cannot block which sometimes is just required to stay at comfortable LP (sure it is nice to Dredge for copies of him into the grave 4 and play a land). Gigapede I liked as a finisher because of the shroud ability but it has no evasion :(. What I also like so far is Entomb which basically fetches many things like Loam, Gigapede, Raven's Crime, Stronghold, Wasteland, Cycle Land, Factory (with active Loam), any creature with active Stronghold.

Land (26)
5 Swamps
2 Barren Moor
2 Forest
1 Traquil Thicket
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Volrath Stronghold
4 Bayou
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yagmoth
3 Mishra's Factory
2 Wasteland

Spells (29)
1 Raven's Crime
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Life from the Loam
4 Innocent Blood
4 Sinkhole
4 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Entomb
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Smallpox

Creatures (5)
2 Tombstalker
1 Gigapede
1 Eternal Witness
1 Kitchen Fink

SB:
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Extirpate
2 Krosan Grip
3 Engineered Plague
4 Thoughtseize

Some cards I did't like in the deck so far:
- Worm Harvest: Just doesnt produce enough tokens to be relevant especially if you Loam out lands from the graveyard.
- Tomb of Urami: I never found a good time to actually blow it

Syphon Life I still have to test but sounds interesting. However I wouldn't play Worm Hervest, Raven's Crime and Syphon life at the same time since all depend on your graveyard.

Ankh of Mishra seems odd especially with Dakmar Salvage to max Bloodghast.

[slylie]

I can't seem to find any really good and consistent BG pox lists... Can anyone indicate me a thread or something like that, i already have all the staples, but i would like to make it BG with life from the loam and access to krosan grip.

I think GB "pox" would be moving closer into to a heavy black/green Loam Control build, Deathloam, or a control Rock build. You might want to check out the rock threads if you want some ideas for playing black/green.

Here are a few lists :

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=29304

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=22463

Personally I don't like to rely on graveyard synergies so much because if they bring in hate from the sb it hurts too much. I.E. makes tombstalker basically impossible to cast, bloodghast horrible, cabal therapy... ect.

Having a few graveyard tricks but not having the deck revolve around them when it does fine.

[Cthuloo]

I can't seem to find any really good and consistent BG pox lists... Can anyone indicate me a thread or something like that, i already have all the staples, but i would like to make it BG with life from the loam and access to krosan grip.

Some posts before there's a list I piloted to 3rd place in a 49 people tournament some time ago (you can find a visual version here (http://www.dragonsleague.it/visualizza_deck_immagini.php?id_deck=155) ). I tweaked it a bit in the last months, but the core of the list is still the same.

The biggest problem of the deck has been pointed out by nekrataal: it's very good doing the control role, but lacks a reliable finisher. If you can't manage to make Tombstalker stick, you'll have a hard time winning with factories ans syphon life. In the list before I've used the totems, which are more resilient to removal, but have obviously a lot of other problems. I've yet to try bloodghast, so maybe ghast+syphon+mishra is fast enogh, but then you're really dependent on your graveyard. Leyline or simply a first turn relic can unfortunately severely cripple your strategy.
So I am still searching a non grave-dependent finisher for the deck. I think I will also try Ob Nixilis soon (the direct life loss seems great).

[MGC_player]

Here is a list I am starting to toy with

Land: 23
3 Dakmor Salvage
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Dark Depths
1 Volrath's Stronghold
15 Swamp

Creatures: 20
4 Bloodghast
4 Shriekmaw
4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
4 Vampire Hexmage
4 Tombstalker

Stuff: 17
4 Quest for the Gravelord
4 Thoughtseize/Duress
4 Snuff Out
4 Smallpox
1 Syphon Life

Thoughts?

[Nekrataal]

Some posts before there's a list I piloted to 3rd place in a 49 people tournament some time ago (you can find a visual version here (http://www.dragonsleague.it/visualizza_deck_immagini.php?id_deck=155) ). I tweaked it a bit in the last months, but the core of the list is still the same.

The biggest problem of the deck has been pointed out by nekrataal: it's very good doing the control role, but lacks a reliable finisher. If you can't manage to make Tombstalker stick, you'll have a hard time winning with factories ans syphon life. In the list before I've used the totems, which are more resilient to removal, but have obviously a lot of other problems. I've yet to try bloodghast, so maybe ghast+syphon+mishra is fast enogh, but then you're really dependent on your graveyard. Leyline or simply a first turn relic can unfortunately severely cripple your strategy.
So I am still searching a non grave-dependent finisher for the deck. I think I will also try Ob Nixilis soon (the direct life loss seems great).

Yeah interesting list. I am always undecided wether to integrate Mox Diamond or not. Did you like the speed boost over the 4 slots that could be 4 more business spells? Ob Nixilis doesn't sound too bad but actually not better then Tombstalker imho. Ob Nixilis lacks evasion and falls prey to the same removal than Stalker does. His ability is nice though.




Quote:
Originally Posted by claudio.r View Post
I can't seem to find any really good and consistent BG pox lists... Can anyone indicate me a thread or something like that, i already have all the staples, but i would like to make it BG with life from the loam and access to krosan grip.
I think GB "pox" would be moving closer into to a heavy black/green Loam Control build, Deathloam, or a control Rock build. You might want to check out the rock threads if you want some ideas for playing black/green.

Here are a few lists :

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=29304

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=22463

Personally I don't like to rely on graveyard synergies so much because if they bring in hate from the sb it hurts too much. I.E. makes tombstalker basically impossible to cast, bloodghast horrible, cabal therapy... ect.

Having a few graveyard tricks but not having the deck revolve around them when it does fine.

Funny that you mention it because I had exactly the same thought and were looking at Aggro Loam lists what black could really offer here. The lists however are not very convincing EXCEPT one choice I have to highlight and that is Garruk. I really have to try him as a finisher. He provides a constant flow of tokens (blockers/attackers) and since we have enough removal should be save to play. His ability is also precious since there are always turns when you dredge play loam use Stronghold, play witness that can get quite mana intensive. He is not affected be any spotremoval and apart from creatures is hard to deal with. Even if you play him in th early he may provide the extra mana you need for a Deed or two removals in one turn. I really have to test that out.


Here is a list I am starting to toy with

Land: 23
3 Dakmor Salvage
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Dark Depths
1 Volrath's Stronghold
15 Swamp

Creatures: 20
4 Bloodghast
4 Shriekmaw
4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
4 Vampire Hexmage
4 Tombstalker

Stuff: 17
4 Quest for the Gravelord
4 Thoughtseize/Duress
4 Snuff Out
4 Smallpox
1 Syphon Life

Thoughts?

This is not Pox but rather Mono B midrange aggro ...

[Cthuloo]

Yeah interesting list. I am always undecided wether to integrate Mox Diamond or not. Did you like the speed boost over the 4 slots that could be 4 more business spells? Ob Nixilis doesn't sound too bad but actually not better then Tombstalker imho. Ob Nixilis lacks evasion and falls prey to the same removal than Stalker does. His ability is nice though.


In that list Mox Diamond is a must include. The speed boost is very relevant, since you have a lot of high cc spells. In addition it works very nicely as a reliable source of colored mana, discarding a colorless land that you can always recover later with Loam. Maybe with the new fetches one could rework the manabase, and the colored mana could become less of an issue. In that case I wolud suggest replacing the moxes with some low cc spells to fix the curve, probably innocent blood could be fine.
However I've always been pretty satisfied of mox diamond, and I don't think I will ever drop them.

Stalker is a wonderful finisher if you manage to draw it at the right moment. However most decks pack at least 4 creature removal, and it's not so hard for them to simply topdeck one and kill stalker. Ob Nixilis puts the opponent on a much faster clock in a deck packing Loam. It's not hard to play Nixilis, play fetch, crack fetch, and do the same next turn, which means a possible total of 27 damage in 2 turns, basically giving the opponent only one possibility to topdeck an answer.
I agree that it will not always be so easy, but at the moment I've not found a better finisher for the deck. I also tried Garruck, which is absolutely great for all the reasons you mention, but I sometimes found difficoult to get the :g: :g: to cast him.

[Nekrataal]

In that list Mox Diamond is a must include. The speed boost is very relevant, since you have a lot of high cc spells. In addition it works very nicely as a reliable source of colored mana, discarding a colorless land that you can always recover later with Loam. Maybe with the new fetches one could rework the manabase, and the colored mana could become less of an issue. In that case I wolud suggest replacing the moxes with some low cc spells to fix the curve, probably innocent blood could be fine.
However I've always been pretty satisfied of mox diamond, and I don't think I will ever drop them.

Stalker is a wonderful finisher if you manage to draw it at the right moment. However most decks pack at least 4 creature removal, and it's not so hard for them to simply topdeck one and kill stalker. Ob Nixilis puts the opponent on a much faster clock in a deck packing Loam. It's not hard to play Nixilis, play fetch, crack fetch, and do the same next turn, which means a possible total of 27 damage in 2 turns, basically giving the opponent only one possibility to topdeck an answer.
I agree that it will not always be so easy, but at the moment I've not found a better finisher for the deck. I also tried Garruck, which is absolutely great for all the reasons you mention, but I sometimes found difficoult to get the :g: :g: to cast him.

Well that is true on Nixilis and Mox. However regarding Garruk: You play enough green sources to suport him although not as many to consequently lay him on the table on Turn 3 (with Mox) or 4. Actually with the new Verdant Catacomb that situation should have improved if you are willing to play 4 Bayou/4 BG Fetchies. Maybe at least 1 basic Forest should be in as well. I played 2 myself since I do not have Mox Diamond and need double G for most relevant G spells (Gigpade, Witness, Finks).

So with all these new ideas I will play around with my list and post an update after some test games. I also thought about playing 3 colors to add Vindicate and Ghostly Prison. Often I wished that Pulse would have been a Vindicate. But I fear that manabase is just to weak ... althought with Mox ...

[Cthuloo]

Well that is true on Nixilis and Mox. However regarding Garruk: You play enough green sources to suport him although not as many to consequently lay him on the table on Turn 3 (with Mox) or 4. Actually with the new Verdant Catacomb that situation should have improved if you are willing to play 4 Bayou/4 BG Fetchies. Maybe at least 1 basic Forest should be in as well. I played 2 myself since I do not have Mox Diamond and need double G for most relevant G spells (Gigpade, Witness, Finks).

So with all these new ideas I will play around with my list and post an update after some test games. I also thought about playing 3 colors to add Vindicate and Ghostly Prison. Often I wished that Pulse would have been a Vindicate. But I fear that manabase is just to weak ... althought with Mox ...

I've not yet tested with the new fetches, so I will be really interested to know the results of your testing. However I don't think we can support three colors with the high number of colorless lands we play. If Pulse could hit lands... well unfortunately it can't :frown:

[Humphrey]

Im messing around with some kind of pox

this is the current version


// Lands
3 [REW] Wasteland
4 [A] Bayou
2 [CS] Dark Depths
3 [PLC] Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 [ON] Polluted Delta
1 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
1 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
1 [ZEN] Marsh Flats
4 [ON] Barren Moor
2 [EVG] Tranquil Thicket
2 [BD] Swamp (1)
1 [SH] Volrath's Stronghold

// Creatures
4 [ZEN] Bloodghast
3 [ZEN] Vampire Hexmage
1 [RAV] Stinkweed Imp

// Spells
2 [RAV] Life from the Loam
2 [OD] Ghastly Demise
3 [JU] Living Wish
4 [TSP] Smallpox
4 [B] Sinkhole
1 [EVE] Raven's Crime
1 [RAV] Darkblast
4 [OD] Entomb
3 [AP] Pernicious Deed
3 [FE] Hymn to Tourach (4)

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [REW] Wasteland
SB: 1 [CS] Dark Depths
SB: 1 [ZEN] Vampire Hexmage
SB: 1 [RAV] Stinkweed Imp
SB: 1 [LG] The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
SB: 1 [UL] Treetop Village
SB: 1 [FUT] Tombstalker
SB: 1 [DK] Maze of Ith
SB: 1 [LRW] Shriekmaw
SB: 2 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 1 [SHM] Faerie Macabre
SB: 3 [7E] Engineered Plague

[coraz86]

Very interesting. I for one would be interested in a primer/in-depth write-up.

At a glance, I would recommend a Wickerbough Elder in the Wish-board. Also, I wonder about Treetop Village, between coming into play tapped and requiring green mana to activate. Other than that, though, looks like fun.

[Cthuloo]

Im messing around with some kind of pox

this is the current version


// Lands
3 [REW] Wasteland
4 [A] Bayou
2 [CS] Dark Depths
3 [PLC] Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 [ON] Polluted Delta
1 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
1 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
1 [ZEN] Marsh Flats
4 [ON] Barren Moor
2 [EVG] Tranquil Thicket
2 [BD] Swamp (1)
1 [SH] Volrath's Stronghold

// Creatures
4 [ZEN] Bloodghast
3 [ZEN] Vampire Hexmage
1 [RAV] Stinkweed Imp

// Spells
2 [RAV] Life from the Loam
2 [OD] Ghastly Demise
3 [JU] Living Wish
4 [TSP] Smallpox
4 [B] Sinkhole
1 [EVE] Raven's Crime
1 [RAV] Darkblast
4 [OD] Entomb
3 [AP] Pernicious Deed
3 [FE] Hymn to Tourach (4)

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [REW] Wasteland
SB: 1 [CS] Dark Depths
SB: 1 [ZEN] Vampire Hexmage
SB: 1 [RAV] Stinkweed Imp
SB: 1 [LG] The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
SB: 1 [UL] Treetop Village
SB: 1 [FUT] Tombstalker
SB: 1 [DK] Maze of Ith
SB: 1 [LRW] Shriekmaw
SB: 2 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 1 [SHM] Faerie Macabre
SB: 3 [7E] Engineered Plague



Really interesting list, how is it performing for you? At the first glance I notice your manabase is a bit fragile, have you had problem with stifle, waste or moon effects? Do you miss the t1 duress/thoughtseize? How do you get aroung grave hate g2? Sorry for the bunch of questions, but I'm really interested in the list :wink:

[Wrong Trousers]

Hi Folks, Long time lurker first time poster...

On Sunday I took part in a local 9 person event and went 4-0 with the following list having only goldfished with it before :) My thoughts and a very brief report follow.

4 Bayou
4 Mishras Factory
4 Swamp
3 Polluted Delta
3 Urborg Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Wasteland
1 Polluted Delta
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Forest

4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Duress
4 Smallpox
4 Innocent Blood
3 Pox
3 Smother
3 Tombstalker
2 Nether Spirit
2 Ravens Crime
3 Life from the loam
4 Pernicious Deed

SB: 4 Relic of Progenitus
4 Infest
4 Krosan Grip
3 Cabal Therapy

Thoughts and card choices: 3 Tombstalkers 2 Nether spirits seems to be the right number, in the couple of games where a spirit ended up in the yard with another creature, it was either irrelavant because I was winning anyway or I played a stalker and got right back on track.

Play 4 deed no less they were just great all through the day.

24 Land is the correct number, this deck can and does utilise its lands in various ways I would not play less. The Foothills were there so I had a fighting chance to grab the forest if blood moon or back to basics hit. I would still keep it in and replace the other 4 searches with verdent catacombs. 5 search lands seemed to be the right number. Only once did I struggle for green but beat down with the stalker and factories anyway for the win. On that note do not consider playing with less than 10 sources of green or ways to find it, you really don't want to be stuck looking at the deed in your hand unable to play it.

SB choices: The option of Grip is a very good argument for playing green splash in Pox, it got sided in a lot and was always great.

Relic. (obviously for Ichorid), but chosen over Crypt for 3 reasons 1 it can make a goyf tiny, buying you some time, 2 against combo decks and other creatureless decks its a card drawer that can replace some of the useless creature kill. 3 it can remove that tombstalker that you dredged on top of your spirit to get things going again.

Therapy. Anti combo and control, usually replacing smothers

Infest. Chosen over E. Plague because I personally think its better. It kills gobbos and merfolk very well but gives you better options against the random agro deck that some new kid has turned up with (kithkin, slivers anyone?)

The only change I would make to the deck is to drop a smother for a Syphon Life a couple of times I found myself wanting another win con, Syphon Life would do the job methinks.

Ok now the contentious part, NO MOX DIAMOND! Mox by all accounts should be great in GB Pox and in testing I found that sometimes it allowed some broken plays but in much the same way as ritual. Both got dropped early in testing, yes you lose some great early plays with multiple discard etc, but Pox regularly forces both players into Top deck mode, to capitalise on this position Pox needs to draw business cards or land, middle to late game rituals or moxes are frequently completely redundant, I always wished they were something else.

Very Brief report: I didn't enter the tournament with intention of writing a report so keys plays it is then... If any of my opponants wish to correct me on any points feel free.

Round 1 vs Dave (Belcher)

G1: T1 duressed a ritual out of his hand, he still got the belcher down on his turn but didn't have the mana to activate, I stalled with discard until I got a deed down on T3 and blew up the belcher on T4 Discard kept him out of the game until Tstalker finished the job.
G2: His T1: 12 goblin tokens , My T1 ravens crimed myself to get spirit in the yard. His T2 attack for 12. My T2: play factory. its not enough to buy me the time to get the deed down next turn and he kills me.
G3 His T1: Belcher but not enough mana to activate. My T1 wasteland his only Land in the deck. T2 he does nothing my T2 play land pass this continues for another turn, on my turn 4 I top deck a factory (any land would have done) to grip the belcher, I then get Ravens Crime going and a few turns later crime and therapy leave him with no hand and no cards in play, he concedes.
2-1

Round 2 vs James (Landstill Uw I think)

I really can't remember much about these matches I know I got Life from the loam ravens crime going to make him discard a lot and recur factories in the first game. Second game he started wasteland recusion on me but right on time a grip on the crucible saved me allowing me back in a factory and spirit got him all the way down to 1 life which was handily dispensed with with a smallpox.
4-1

Round 3 Dan? (Sorry if I'm wrong, please correct me) Mono W Mangara/Karakas/Stonecloaker

This was a surprising tough round with mangaras played via vials removing my deeds and spirits, Grunts putting Loams and Crime's on the bottom of my deck and stonecloakers bouncing managaras out of smothers way. I'm pretty sure a Tombstalker raced for a win in 1 round and multiple factories in the other, I found that the vials seemed to be the most important part of his deck so getting a deed off for 1 was a key play. (Sorry I just can't remember much more)
6-2
Round 4 vs Jason (Jamspot on the Source)(Bant threshold variant)

Jason is a really nice guy who made me feel very welcome to the English Legacy scene if you are in the uk check out his site www.magicplayers.co.uk to find other players events etc.

Again can't seem to remember too much but i'm pretty sure I played innocent blood and smallpox in 1 turn to kill a Noble Hierach and a Rhox War monk, Innocent Blood kills a Tarmogoyf like nothing else, I think the factories went the distance in the first game. The second game was the game I really wanted another win con every factory, spirit and stalker seemed to get plowed for a great many turns I had the ravens crime loam going but no way to actually win. Eventually a counterbalance came down but as far a I know there are not many 8 cost cards in his deck, tombstalker finished the job.
8-2 and the tournament

Again if any of my opponants wish to correct my memory feel free.

As a cherry on top of the cake I won a few boosters for my efforts and managed to rip a Lotus Cobra, Nissa Revane and a Misty Rainforest, Winner!

Over to you folks for flaming, constructive critism etc

Wrong Trousers

[johanessen]

Have you tried Bloodghast in nether spirit slot? I think is much better because we are able to block with recurreable mishras, Bloodghast lets us go aggro.


// Lands
2 [PLC] Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 [TE] Wasteland
4 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
2 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
2 [B] Bayou
2 [ON] Barren Moor
6 [OD] Swamp (3)
3 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (4)
1 [SH] Volrath's Stronghold

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

// Spells
4 [TSP] Smallpox
4 [SH] Mox Diamond
2 [EVE] Raven's Crime
4 [FE] Hymn to Tourach (2)
3 [RAV] Life from the Loam
4 [OD] Innocent Blood
4 [A] Sinkhole
4 [JU] Cabal Therapy

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 3 [UL] Engineered Plague
SB: 4 [US] Duress
SB: 4 [PLC] Extirpate

That is the list I suggest, maybe it's necessary to add entomb for search life/raven's/therapy/barren/bloodghast/wasteland/volrath: has multiple interesting targets. haven't tried yet though. Another option is to add eternal witness but i think it's unecessary. Anyone tried Zombie Infestation or Bitterblossom in that kind of decks? It's a possibility to play Dread Return? How was the Darkdepths/Hexmage combo for ones who tried ? I think the weakest card right now is sinkhole, but is a card that win games alone so for the moment i'm keeping them.

[bowvamp]

Hexmage + Depths in Pox is bull. Just saying, that just cause someone built a rock deck with that combo doesn't mean it's ok to put it in pox. Although his deck is a control-rock build, it's still THE ROCK. (ok, it's a bit off from the typical rock, but hey it works for him)

Ok, scratch that^. He deserves a look, but not a hard one. Combo wins have never really been true to Pox. For me it's like building Cerebral Assassin. Why have all of those unfocused combos? The same for this. Why have a control deck with a combo kill? Unless you just lucksack out, big beaters will win the game for pox. That's why the winning deck in that tourney won, it WASN'T pox.

Next, Bloodghast is cool. IF you are already good in your other departments. Personally, he just isn't as useful as a good old fashioned extra man-land or even the oft-forgotten Necroplasm.

@johanessen:
Why are you not running 4 bayou? (I accept monetary issues as sufficient reasoning) What are you gonna recur with that Volrath's Stronghold? Tombstalker? That's insanely low chances you're going with. Why duress SB?

@Wrong Trousers:
NICE :) Might I suggest running >24 lands since you have 2 colors?

@Humphrey:
Do you ever find yourself losing to fast decks in general? Also, what's with Volraths? :P

@Nixilis/Garruk:
Why? I mean seriously, Garruk is random, you aren't a midgame deck. Nixilis is random too, you aren't able to crack lategame baddies. Seriously, in Pox we just want to win when the opportunity presents itself and that doesn't mean a random TD at endgame. That means that you should have win conditions that do more than win, or do the most with very little means to win.

[Sevryn]

I considered bloodghast until actually reading the card and seeing the "can't block" limitation. This would seem at first glance to make bloodghast limited... unless you can match every threat with removal, whatever stays on the board is going to kill you.

Maybe in a more stax-like pox build, where bloodghast + crucible lets you comfortably ramp up the soot counters to 2, which most decks cannot deal with effectively.

[johanessen]

@johanessen:
Why are you not running 4 bayou? (I accept monetary issues as sufficient reasoning) What are you gonna recur with that Volrath's Stronghold? Tombstalker? That's insanely low chances you're going with. Why duress SB?

Duress sb is for the combo match-up, it's necessary in first turns to run discard so we can apply sufficient preassure or LD.
Volrath's Stronghold is for Tombstalkers, but is ok if you change that for a Bayou. Though, the 4th is not needed, you only need green mana to cast Life, and I play fetches and Moxes.

And what's about Entomb?

[Cthuloo]

First of all congratulations to wrong trousers for his result. Then my opinion on some different issues:

- Mox Diamond: they're doing really well for me. However, I can understand dropping them in a list like wrong trousers' one with ten one-drops, since the new fetches make mana stability less of an issue.

- Bitterblossom and Zombie Infestation are not good friends of pernicious deed, unfortunately. :(

- I've not tested entomb, but if I really were to put some instant tutor in the deck it will probably be crop rotation. However, deck slots are really tight, and I don't know if entomb or crop could find some space.

- Nether vs Bloodghast: Bloodghast allows for more broken plays, and you can freely play four of them. However, not being able to block is a big disadvantage. I think that if you choose bloodghast, you should build your deck (and play it) to maximize it's advantage. At the moment I'm trying a Bloodghast build with Cabal Therapies and Darkblast as additional (dredging) removal. I've not yet any consistent result, but it seems that this build is sacrificing solidity for a bit more brokeness.

- Nixilis, Garruck, etc. : In my experience the deck needs a big finisher in addition to Tombstalker. 'Stalker is nice, but it will probably suffer the grave hate packed against us in g2, and is awuful to have 2 of them in your starting hand, so 3 of them IMHO is the correct number. I would like to devote 1-2 slots for another finisher, and Nixilis and Garruck are the best options I've tried yet, as they are grave independent and fit well in the overall deck philosophy . If someone has a better option to suggest, I will be happy to test it. So far I have tried without complete success:

Nihilith
Nyxathid
Phyrexian Totem
Worm Harvest
Schriekmaw
Gargoyle's Castle
Tomb of Urami
Treetop Village


- # of Bayou: it really depends on the list. I play with 3 of them and never have problems to find one, and I feel more comfortable with one more basic swamp.

[Minty]

What about running this as finisher:

4 Bloodghast
2 Umezawas Jitte
2 Tombstalker
2 Bitterblossom
1 Tomb of Urami

Any thoughts?

[Nekrataal]

First of all congratulations to wrong trousers for his result. Then my opinion on some different issues:

- Mox Diamond: they're doing really well for me. However, I can understand dropping them in a list like wrong trousers' one with ten one-drops, since the new fetches make mana stability less of an issue.

- Bitterblossom and Zombie Infestation are not good friends of pernicious deed, unfortunately. :(

- I've not tested entomb, but if I really were to put some instant tutor in the deck it will probably be crop rotation. However, deck slots are really tight, and I don't know if entomb or crop could find some space.

- Nether vs Bloodghast: Bloodghast allows for more broken plays, and you can freely play four of them. However, not being able to block is a big disadvantage. I think that if you choose bloodghast, you should build your deck (and play it) to maximize it's advantage. At the moment I'm trying a Bloodghast build with Cabal Therapies and Darkblast as additional (dredging) removal. I've not yet any consistent result, but it seems that this build is sacrificing solidity for a bit more brokeness.

- Nixilis, Garruck, etc. : In my experience the deck needs a big finisher in addition to Tombstalker. 'Stalker is nice, but it will probably suffer the grave hate packed against us in g2, and is awuful to have 2 of them in your starting hand, so 3 of them IMHO is the correct number. I would like to devote 1-2 slots for another finisher, and Nixilis and Garruck are the best options I've tried yet, as they are grave independent and fit well in the overall deck philosophy . If someone has a better option to suggest, I will be happy to test it. So far I have tried without complete success:

Nihilith
Nyxathid
Phyrexian Totem
Worm Harvest
Schriekmaw
Gargoyle's Castle
Tomb of Urami
Treetop Village


- # of Bayou: it really depends on the list. I play with 3 of them and never have problems to find one, and I feel more comfortable with one more basic swamp.

After some testing I have com eto the conclusion that Garruk is very good but you need Witness as well to make up for the times he just is dredge material. Unfortunately he cannot be recurred by a Stronghold. Also the addition of 2 SDT gives my build some extra peeks to aviod bad dredges and sometimes an extra dredge. Then again this eats up so many slots and makes the build so double green that I am not sure this is the right direction. At least in testing I coulnd't find out because often it needs just "any" win option to win or and the matchups were I could say well better have a Garruk or better have a Stalker arent that often. I guess much more testgames are needed to provide a real conclusion. Anyway I have preferences in the list above:

Nihilith: There are better options
Nyxathid: s.a.
Phyrexian Totem: Everything besides burn is good
Worm Harvest: Dont like. Not enough tokens with Loam
Schriekmaw: Me likes. Black creatures that could block are rare. Still they lack the punch
Gargoyle's Castle: Haven't treid but its on my list. More like a replacement for Tomb of Urami in traditional POx lists since Tomb I render much too dangerous personally
Tomb of Urami: Me dislikes s.a.
Treetop Village: Mishra is just better
4 Bloodghast: Me dislikes the "cannot block part" which often is relevant. When you are already low on live its no good idea to start an aggro race
2 Umezawas Jitte: What for? Bloodghast? This is playing a dependant card on a depedant card. No good
2 Tombstalker: Still the beater
2 Bitterblossom: The lifeloss is intolerable and permanents that have to stay in game for long are in general not Bg Pox style. It negates Deed. That's why Garruk is just better. I still would like to try Sorin who is a syphon life without cost every turn.

[Barook]

Nihilith
Nyxathid
Phyrexian Totem
Worm Harvest
Schriekmaw
Gargoyle's Castle
Tomb of Urami
Treetop Village

Was Vampire Nighthawk ever tested or discussed? While it doesn't have the strongest body, it has evasion, trades with almost every creature in the format and can also gain life back.

[bowvamp]

@Barook:
Vampire Nighthawk seems subpar for a 3 mana finisher. You pretty much are never gonna want to trade.

@Nekrataal:
Nihilith needs better reasoning to be discluded. What comes to mind as a better option? Too much "Me dislikes" with not enough "because".
But I definitely agree with your comments on the list.

@the general subject of debate:
Why is it now assumed that everyone is playing the BG variant. Has it gone from cornercase oddball to smash hit in the short period of workload that has kept me away from these forums?

@Johanessen:
To me it looks like you are already applying enough pressure early. How much do those duresses help?

[Cthuloo]

@ bowvamp: I don't know how the general situation is, but where I live almost everyone is switching to the Bg version. I was among the first to switch eight months ago, but since then many people followed. In my opinion staying monoblack is a suboptimal choice now, or at least it is in my meta.

The finisher: I would like to elaborate a bit. First of all I was assuming that Stalker and Mishra are still the best options for the deck, and I was searching something to complement the finisher package.
For what I have tested, the best options (although still not 100% satisfactory) at the moment are Nihilith, Totem and Shriekmaw, for different reasons.
Nihilith is big, cheap, has evasion and escapes from deed. Unfortunately it suffers the "megrim effect". If you suspend it early, you stop your wave of disruption, allowing the opponent to recover. If you suspend it later it will probably be too slow.
The main advantage of the totem is that you can play it early to use it for mana, and then animate it to swing when your opponent is hellbent. It suffers from burn and doesn't evade completely deed, and it better not swing if your opponent manages to stick a critter.
Shriekmaw is a really interesting card. I played 3 of them basically as additional removal, with the option to speed up the clock if casted late game. It's not a finisher on it's own, however, because - as nekrataal wrote - it misses the punch.

Side note: has anyone tried living wish? I was thinking about a toolbox of:

- Tabernacle
- Maze of Ith
- Glacial Chasm (maybe)
- Tombstalker
- Shriekmaw

Any suggestions?

[Minty]

Here is my complete list:

6x Swamp
4x Undiscovered Paradise
3x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4x Mishra's Factory
4x Wasteland
1x Tomb of Urami
1x Ghostquarter

4x Mox Diamond

4x Cabal Therapy
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Smallpox
3x Pox
4x Innocent Blood

4x Crucible of Worlds

4x Bloodghast
2x Bitterblossom
2x Umezawa's Jitte
2x Tombstalker

[bowvamp]

@Minty: What is the purpose of Undiscovered Paradise? And Nekrataal had a point about your finishers...

@Cthuloo: Why is BG pox better than B pox? I need more of a reason than "It's superior in my meta". What's your meta and why?

Ok, so I've gotten my pox list to a place where it's heavily refined. Now what?! I still have 4 slots that fluctuate in my MD, and I need advice, what are good cards for Mono B Pox these days. Any new tech?

[claudio.r]

My guess is he's using Undiscovered because of bloodghast, i can't understand why, if he's already using 4 crucibles wich on is own should be enough to fuel bloodghast.

[Minty]

Bloodghast + Undiscovered Paradise -> nice!
You dont need Crucible to ensure your Landdrop every turn.
If u dont need Landfall use your Urborg to just tap them for b!

And I dont have to agree with Nektrataal. ;-)

Jitte: just great with Bitterblossom, Bloodghast + Mishras Factory.
The Blocker argument: Factory, Bitterblossom + enough removal should handle most problems.
The lifeloss argument: just irrelevant (+ having Jitte to gain life if u really need it)

[bowvamp]

Minty, I don't think you have played many games with good finishers otherwise the problems with your list would be blatantly obvious to you. Jitte is good, yes, but it's with like only 8 creatures and no library manipulation.

While bloodghast + paradise is cute, paradise + anything else = eek!

The lifeloss argument is incredibly relevant. Control hates clocks, and if you are self imposing one, that hurts!

[Nekrataal]

The reasoning I don't like Nihilith is quite obvious and was already explained. His problem is that he is too expensive without suspense and when suspending him it is too hard to figure out when you should play him actually. BG Pox is a deck that only wants to land a finisher when the field is (almost) clear. Nihilith comes into play almost randomly (since your opponent can speed it up which can be bad) and lategame it can take too much time if you need to suspend him. We play control, right, so we should HAVE control :tongue: when we play things.

However I tried Shriekmaw and really liked him. Since I expect a heavy Zoo-contaminated Meta I could exchange 3 of them against Kitchen Finks Game 2. Shriekmaw lacks the punch but most games tend to get controlled with the opponent at around 12-15 life (Fetchies, Smallpox, minor beats ...), so 4 to 5 rounds are enough while Stalker needs 3 as well. Since the opponent often is in topdeck mode this can be rendered sufficient considering Shriekmaw almost never is a dead card. And becasue it didnt appear in the list of finsihers I am still happy with Gigapede for Game 1. He is just so tough to remove without GY hate.

@Minty: Play your list and post some results. I would be surprised if everything turned out as smooth as it sounds. I would love that Bloodghast works but what I read so far just sounds like theory. As bowvamp said there is so much dependency in your deck that cuteness and eekness are on a razor's edge. I fear that it is eekness far too often.

[Darkenslight]

With Bloodghast, what about Delraich as an alternate finisher to Tombstalker? Or even Dread?

[johanessen]

With Bloodghast, what about Delraich as an alternate finisher to Tombstalker? Or even Dread?
Well, if you play Life from the Loam build it's easy to get many cards in graveyard.

[bowvamp]

The reasoning I don't like Nihilith is quite obvious and was already explained. His problem is that he is too expensive without suspense and when suspending him it is too hard to figure out when you should play him actually. BG Pox is a deck that only wants to land a finisher when the field is (almost) clear. Nihilith comes into play almost randomly (since your opponent can speed it up which can be bad) and lategame it can take too much time if you need to suspend him. We play control, right, so we should HAVE control :tongue: when we play things.

Suspend cards always cost to much without suspend. It's just a nice option to play them that way. With suspend you have the OPTION to speed up when he comes into play. Lategame how would it take too much time? Are we losing late game? Because to me it seems that lategame is the time when we can afford to not sweat the small stuff. Just saying, this isn't a tempo deck. You get a 7 turn window, and there are some pretty basic rules about nihilith:
1. If it's your opponent's turn leave 2 counters on him if they have left mana open (or are floating some).
2. If you have no way of getting that 1 counter off him next turn, you can modify rule 1 to leave 1 counter on him.
3. Remember, he gains haste when he comes into play making dropping him on your opponent's turn not the best idea. (

[Cthuloo]

@Bowvamp: My meta is full of aggro-control (mainly countertop in thousands different versions and merfolk), landstill and various random aggro, with little to no combo.
In this kind of meta is fundamental to be able to respond to counterbalance and planeswalker even preboard, and the monoblack version is not best suited for this task. In addition, the Bg version is stronger in the late game thanks to the huge CA Loam can produce, making landstill (and also dreadstill btw) almost a bye, and it is not a big news that pernicious deed is a house against random aggro (zoo is a bigger problem, but it does not show up that often where I play).
To summarize, Bg pox is great for board control, it's an hybrid with both proactive and reactive solutions and is in general very solid. It's main defect is the slower speed, so a combo or goblin heavy meta will make it an awful choice.

@ Nekraatal: I mostly agree with you about the finisher issue, but sometimes I feel that giving the opponent 2 more turns to react can be the difference between winning and losing. Have you tried Sorin Markov? It's slow as hell, but is more resilient than a creature and the life gain is a huge bonus. I think I will give it a shot before completely dismissing it.

@ Minty: I agree with the others about your finisher package. Also jitte seems a bit random, since you run very few creature that can wear it (even counting mishra and blossom).

@ Darkenslight: even with four ghast, you rarely will have more than one or two in play. If you have three of them you're probably already winning, at least in my experience.

[Sevryn]

Something I've been tinkering with is using both Liliana and Sorin, combined with cabal ritual. Threshold is easy to attain by the time you want to drop a 'walker, and allows you to work with just 3 lands on board. It also doesn't completely suck with trinisphere out... you lose one mana but it's still a dark ritual under trinisphere if you have threshold.

I'm testing 4 Liliana and 2 Sorin, as Liliana can find Sorin and pitches to pox effects when not needed. Running this alongside trinisphere and tanglewire, and a lot of land destruction (smallpox/pox/sinkhole PLUS diabolic edict for manlands). I'm also using rishadan port instead of wasteland.

[bowvamp]

@Sevryn:
Why not just run B Stax?

@Cthulu:
Ahh, so Counterbalance + Planeswalker makes me think you've been against Ultimate Walker. Let's face it, both Mono B and BG are equally equipped to beat that deck. We have absolutely not trouble against aggro control. You right your description of why it's better than mono B without thinking about what's in mono B. For everything you add to BG that makes it special you're taking something out of mono B. Due to your list, I can assume that you are losing out on Pox, manabase stability, and LD, not to mention equally juicy tech. Why is the LtfL such a huge CA card when compared to crucible? Yes, it does fuel itself, but Pox fuels crucible and has LD, discard, and creature kill aspects. These combine to = huge card advantage. Yeah, pernicious deed is a beast, but we have our replacements :P . Necroplasm + Powder Keg = enough to handle the baddest aggro around.

[Sevryn]

@Sevryn:
Why not just run B Stax?
Smart response (no sarcasm). My decklist started as an attempt at a stax/pox hybrid, however I ran into several problems. Running non-permanent disruption significantly reduced the deck's permanent density, which is something that stax very much wants. In my list, I was running duress/smallpox/pox and was having trouble confidently dropping smokestack. Getting to 4 mana was also somewhat troubling, as often the deck would get to 2, smallpox; get to 3, pox. With such low permanent density, I felt forced into running crucible of worlds, which clogs the 3cc spot even more and isn't a threat on its own. I still feel that a stax/pox hybrid has some potential, but it will need some more innovation to deal with permanent density as well as finding room for a consistent enough threat.

I got around this by dropping the stax angle, and going with planeswalkers as permanent threats that don't die to pox effects. Sorin might not be the fastest kill, but he DOES kill people, and without the need of lands once you drop him. This is why I included tangle wire and trinisphere; ideally you cabal ritual into liliana while the board is tangled up. Liliana tutors for more land disruption, shreds their hand some, then tutors for Sorin. Eventually you land Sorin on the board and keep them locked down with land destruction/trinisphere/tanglewire/ports.

I have to do more testing to find this strategy's consistency. Will post more once this is done.


EDIT: current decklist--

// Lands
4 [MM] Rishadan Port
2 [PLC] Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
17 [10E] Swamp (3)

// Spells
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [BD] Diabolic Edict
4 [B] Sinkhole
4 [TSP] Smallpox
4 [OV] Pox
4 [M10] Liliana Vess
2 [ZEN] Sorin Markov
1 [10E] Crucible of Worlds
3 [OD] Innocent Blood
2 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
1 [DS] Trinisphere

// Sideboard (tentative)
SB: 2 [DS] Trinisphere
SB: 2 [10E] Crucible of Worlds
SB: 4 [GP] Leyline of the Void
SB: 4 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 4 [TE] Cursed Scroll

[Cthuloo]

Ahh, so Counterbalance + Planeswalker makes me think you've been against Ultimate Walker. Let's face it, both Mono B and BG are equally equipped to beat that deck. We have absolutely not trouble against aggro control. You right your description of why it's better than mono B without thinking about what's in mono B. For everything you add to BG that makes it special you're taking something out of mono B. Due to your list, I can assume that you are losing out on Pox, manabase stability, and LD, not to mention equally juicy tech. Why is the LtfL such a huge CA card when compared to crucible? Yes, it does fuel itself, but Pox fuels crucible and has LD, discard, and creature kill aspects. These combine to = huge card advantage. Yeah, pernicious deed is a beast, but we have our replacements :P . Necroplasm + Powder Keg = enough to handle the baddest aggro around.

I'm sorry if I was unclear, what I meant was that I face a lot of counterbalance.deck and a lot of landstill, so I must be prepared to face both counterbalance and planeswalker, but not necessarily at the same time :tongue:
With a monoblack version countertop or Elspeth usually mean game for your opponent, and I simply need to have preboard solutions, since I meet one or the other at least 2-3 times every tourney.

About loam: IMHO it works better than crucible because:
- it costs one less to cast the first time (I can assure you this has been a huge difference in my testing, if you want I can be more detailed)
- it has no problems with pernicious deed
- it is "virtually uncounterable"
- it allows you to have a draw engine with cicling lands, or to abuse retrace spells, or to simply have lands in hand to pitch to smallpox

About LD: you're right, I'm doing less LD than the monoblack version. The Bg version has a stronger board control, so usually massive LD is not worth it. As I wrote, monoblack pox is an almost 100% proactive deck, while Bg is a mixture of proactive and reactive answers. I'm not trying to convince you that one version is superior; whether it is more convenient to play one version of another depends on what you are going to face and your preferred playstyle.

If you want I can try to make a rough matchup analysis, from what I have tested or faced in tourney, comparing the two versions, but maybe this is not interesting at all and I've bored my audience enough :tongue:


@Sevryn: looking quickly at your list, it looks like Trinisphere is a very potent weapon. Why only one in the maindeck? And why ports over wasteland if you also run Crucible? Anyway, your list is definitely interesting. How are the Planeswalkers doing for you?

[Al-ucard]

I'll put some hymn to tourach in that list because is a discard card that can play a pox role discarding lands too.

[Sevryn]

On a different note, I took out wastelands and replaced them with rishadan ports. I like that I don't have to sarcrifice them to use them, as sometimes your top-decks just aren't giving enough land drops and with a port at least you have 2 mana instead of 1 if you had a wasteland instead.

[workingdude]

I just won first place at a local 19-player legacy tournament with B/W pox.

1x Marsh Flats
Flagstones of Trokair
3x Urborg, tomb of Yawgmoth
4x Scrubland
4x Mishra’s Factory
4x Wasteland
7x Swamp

2x Tombstalker
2x Nether Spirit
Syphon Life

Wretched Banquet
2x Crucible of Worlds
2x Phyrexian Totem
3x Vindicate
4x Sinkhole
3x Extirpate
4x Hymn
4x Duress
4x Innocent Blood
4x Smallpox


SB:
Disenchant
3x Engineered Plague
1x Pithing Needle
3x Seal of Cleansing
2x Trinisphere
2x Ghostly Prison
3x Planar Void

Went 4-0 with wins over an underdeveloped kithkin, survival, dredge, and bant aggro.

Match 1 – Mono-W Kithkin Aggro

Game 1: He plays. Open with duress, see kithkin. Nab coordinated barrage. He plays golden cricket. He is able to fly over factories for some damage. I cut off his land and he folds.

Game 2: I play. Open with duress, nab thoughweft. He gets mosquito guard and wizenned cenn. Cut off his lands and win.

2-0
1-0

Match 2 – Survival

Game 1: I win the roll. Duress, pick off survival. He enlightened tutors for survival. He drops a chrome mox imprinting spore frog. He drops a goyf down. Gets the survival engine with squee working, but only with 2 lands and the mox. Goyf beats a couple times. I start to cut off lands. Innocent blood nixes goyf. Beat with an unopposed totem.

Game 2: He plays. Powers out turn 2 survival. I destroy it with a seal of cleansing. I extirpate it. He plays plenty of lands and lands a goyf (4/5). I take a hit and then hardcast 2 nether spirits, which serve as blockers. End up smallpoxing the lonely goyf away. Use LD to cut off his white. Nether Spirit + Totem beat for the win. At the end of the game he shows me the StP in his hand.

2-0
2-0

Match 3 – Ichorid

Game 1: I have nothing in my deck but extirpate MD to really serve as much opposition. He is able to dredge decently and mass an army within the first couple of turns. I scoop.

Game 2: I play. He takes a mull. I drop Urborg. He drops gemstone and putrid imp. I play a factory and pass turn. He discards a thug at my EOT. I extirpate it. Take a look at his hand... no dredgers. I get an engineered plague on zombie, wiping out putrid imp. His dredge engine starts going. Gets two moebas but no bridges. I get another engineered plague on illusion wiping out narcomoeba. His zombie army slowly grows after I drop a ghostly prison and nerf his lands. He returns a Iona on black and is just waiting for 2 lands to swing. I wasteland his first drawn land. He finally gets 2 lands with 1 card left in the library when i'm at 15. Ghostly prison stalls me the game until he mills himself.

Game 3: He will play. I look at my opening hand of 2 scrublands, duress, hymn, sinkhole, totem, and factory. Mull to 6. Keep hand with 2x planar void. Play one first turn, he wispmares it. Play one second turn. He gets lands and casts narcomeoba, I swing with totem for the win through the blocker. (Flagstones is so sweet with a totem swinging through a 1/1 chump)

2-1
3-0

Match 4 – Bant Aggro

I came to the tourney with this guy and helped build his deck. His land base is fragile as we didnt have many duals/fetches to properly fix his deck for a good match up against LD.

2-1
4-0


Thought 1: Why has LD gone so out of favor? 3x Vindicate, 4x smallpox, 4x sinkhole, 4x wasteland + hymns can really hurt decks.

Thought 2: Damn I have never loved phyrexian totem so much in my life. I feel very lucky to have drawn it so many times while only running 2.

Thought 3: I didnt end up seeing syphon life, which originally replaced a nether spirit. I was very pleased to see nether spirit though, as a recurrable chump blocker.

Thought 4: I never got crucible out and my deck doesnt seem to need it much anymore because it might only be used with mishras, wasteland, bad-syphon life, or recovering lands. I might mull taking these out.

Thought 5: I'll might bring in StP instead of wretched banquet. StP is good because it can work through the iona (which is a very fringe case) and is instant. Wretched banquet is good because it is black and will almost always hit anything on the board.

Thought 6: What are pox's worst matchups? I know that dredge and burn are two of the worst.

[Cthuloo]

Congrats for your result! I will try to answer to your thoughts, for what my experience with the various versions of the deck suggests me.

1) The format is very fast, and most decks are completely fine with two or even only one land. LD can be a great strategy on the play, but on the draw is often rather slow.

2) I'm with you on totem. After many tournaments and testings I still find they're one of the best option for a finisher in pox (see also some posts before :cool: )

3) I would suggest syphon life only in a version with the green splash. It's really powerful when paired with loam, but only decent alone. Also IMHO Nether Spirit >> Bloodghast

4) This is surprising, land recursion has always worked very well for me, and recurring waste and mishra seems a good enough reason to run crucible... don't know what more to say ;)

5) I would play Innocent Blood over wretched banquet, but anyway StP is obviously a respectable choice. The only problem I might see coming is that looking at your list you run few white mana sources, so it may be difficoult to reliably have a StP active on turn 1. In addition this forces you to drop a scrubland first, exposing to opponent's waste.

6) You're right for dredge and burn, although you can easily correct them post side in a white splash version. Other bad matchups in my experience are Goblin, Sligh, Enchantress (particularly after sideboarding) and very fast combo that can go off before our disruption package comes online.

[Nekrataal]

Congrats for your result! I will try to answer to your thoughts, for what my experience with the various versions of the deck suggests me.

1) The format is very fast, and most decks are completely fine with two or even only one land. LD can be a great strategy on the play, but on the draw is often rather slow.

2) I'm with you on totem. After many tournaments and testings I still find they're one of the best option for a finisher in pox (see also some posts before :cool: )

3) I would suggest syphon life only in a version with the green splash. It's really powerful when paired with loam, but only decent alone. Also IMHO Nether Spirit >> Bloodghast

4) This is surprising, land recursion has always worked very well for me, and recurring waste and mishra seems a good enough reason to run crucible... don't know what more to say ;)

5) I would play Innocent Blood over wretched banquet, but anyway StP is obviously a respectable choice. The only problem I might see coming is that looking at your list you run few white mana sources, so it may be difficoult to reliably have a StP active on turn 1. In addition this forces you to drop a scrubland first, exposing to opponent's waste.

6) You're right for dredge and burn, although you can easily correct them post side in a white splash version. Other bad matchups in my experience are Goblin, Sligh, Enchantress (particularly after sideboarding) and very fast combo that can go off before our disruption package comes online.

You forgot Zoo and Elves and probably Merfolk :D Well to distinguish this a little. I think that every deck that packs a considerable amount of Burn is a threat because we have little against it. In the mentioned tournament workingdude - congratz on you result - played no deck packing red so this of course helps. But winning a tournament is always a combination of playskill, right meta choices and of course some luck with opponents and plays. Just to get that straight ... I in no way want to spoil a win but just want to repeat common sense. ;)

Anyway .. right after decks packing Burn like Zoo or Burn do there are decks that can flood the table with creatures and keep on going thanks to recruiting abilities like Goblins and Elves have with their "Ringleaders" and "Messangers". A good opponents will stretch out a game and lay only a few creatures to make you use your removal spells to only put the next creature on the board slowly nibbling away your life. Discard helps but Goblins and Elves play like 30 creatures so this is just a small relief. I have lost to Goblins and Elves but also won matches most of the times highly depending on if I start the game or not. A nuiscance in Goblin decks is Aether Vial because their is no quick way to shut it down soon enough and it negates our land destruction theme. This also accounts for Merfolks. Aether Vials allows for quick flooding of the table which we cannot handle soon enough (with Deeds usually). Surprisingly Enchantress was a hard matchup as well which I didn't realize initially when assembling the deck. I played and lost to Enchantress once although it was quite close (3 games needed). A topdecked Replenish sealed my fate Game 3. In general to cut them from land is very efficient since their curve is quite high for Legacy. Cutting them from lands also means to hit their enchanted lands with mana accelaration. If you are lucky they play it on a Savannah ;)

Looking at the decks to beat sections their are several hard matchups for us. Zoo I think is the hardest because it has a constant flow of creatures and burn and can operate with a small landcount. Though cutting them from land is not a bad idea since they play so few. Then Merfolks and Goblins come next (OK Goblins almost made it DTB). I am unsure about Canadian Thresh because Thresh generally is one of the better matchups in my experience but I played against a lot of rather "old fashioned" or Bant lists not including red. Combo is on the edge I would say. I havent played it yet. On the one hand we can heavily disrupt them. On the other hand we often give them plenty of time to recover due to the fact that our finsihers are not ready in time or potent enough and that we have a lot of irrelevant cards that cannot be replaced fully even after sideboarding. I have some experience with Train Wreck and had similar problems with that deck against Combo. So subsuming my brainstorming on matchups.

Zoo / Burn ... 30 / 70
Goblins / Merfolks 45 / 55
Thresh 60 / 40 (Canadian Thresh I would render 55 / 45)
Combo 50 / 50 (Dredge is more in our favor especially when playing W whereas ANT can explode again when it gets the time to collect the right cards, Enchantress as has been stated is more likely to be 45/55 or worse after sideboarding)

=> Again looking at the DTB I am unsure if the deck is the right choice right now. I see a lot of Enchantress lately because this is the Meta Deck in a world full of RG Aggro / U Aggro Control decks paired with a lack of real control decks. Also other Combo could thrive but I my opinion there are too less Storm players due to the complexity of playing out the deck and not enough good dredge players that can deal with Game 2-3 hate. That again is a call pro Enchantress. So assuming (at least for my meta which is very competitive orientated) there is a lot of Zoo, Goblins, Merfolk, Thresh, Enchantress, some Combo this doesnt look too good now for Bg Pox does it (apart from the ThreshThreshThreshThreshThresh part)? :cry:

[Cthuloo]

I'm sorry, I forgot Zoo, but of course you're right, it's a bad matchup, although slightly better than Sligh (basically, the less burn they play, the better for us). I never played against elves, so I can't be sure about it, but lacking vial and lackey it should be a little better for Pox, almost even for the Bg version, because you should have the time to land deed. But of course I can be wrong, and if you have direct experience with the matchup this invalidates all the speculations I can make :wink:

As for Merfolk I'm not sure it's that bad. It's a more aggro-control deck, instead of pure aggro, and it usually gives us enough time to play our disruption. In addition, we can play very well under a standstill, invalidating their main draw engine. From my tournament experience I will put the matchup 60-40 for Bg Pox (I have never met Merfolk in tournament with other versions of the deck, which could have more problems). OTH, I think goblin is worse than 45-55, unless you have same savage secret tech against them (please, tell me you have :tongue: )

For the DTB, I will say the odds (for Bg Pox) are roughly:

- Zoo 30/35-70/65 (depending on the amount of burn basically)
- Goblins 35-65
- Merfolk 60-40
- Canadian Thresh 50-50
- NLU/Baseruption 60-40
- Bant Countertop 55-45
- Landstill 65/70-35/30
- ANT 45/50-55/50 (the faster, the worse)

I still think Pox is a decent meta choice, even if Zoo is rising again lately, since all the others common matchups (well, except goblins of course :frown: ) are at least winnable, if not favorable.

[Greenpoe]

Smart response (no sarcasm). My decklist started as an attempt at a stax/pox hybrid, however I ran into several problems. Running non-permanent disruption significantly reduced the deck's permanent density, which is something that stax very much wants. In my list, I was running duress/smallpox/pox and was having trouble confidently dropping smokestack. Getting to 4 mana was also somewhat troubling, as often the deck would get to 2, smallpox; get to 3, pox. With such low permanent density, I felt forced into running crucible of worlds, which clogs the 3cc spot even more and isn't a threat on its own. I still feel that a stax/pox hybrid has some potential, but it will need some more innovation to deal with permanent density as well as finding room for a consistent enough threat.

I got around this by dropping the stax angle, and going with planeswalkers as permanent threats that don't die to pox effects. Sorin might not be the fastest kill, but he DOES kill people, and without the need of lands once you drop him. This is why I included tangle wire and trinisphere; ideally you cabal ritual into liliana while the board is tangled up. Liliana tutors for more land disruption, shreds their hand some, then tutors for Sorin. Eventually you land Sorin on the board and keep them locked down with land destruction/trinisphere/tanglewire/ports.

I have to do more testing to find this strategy's consistency. Will post more once this is done.


EDIT: current decklist--

// Lands
4 [MM] Rishadan Port
2 [PLC] Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
17 [10E] Swamp (3)

// Spells
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
4 [TO] Cabal Ritual
4 [BD] Diabolic Edict
4 [B] Sinkhole
4 [TSP] Smallpox
4 [OV] Pox
4 [M10] Liliana Vess
2 [ZEN] Sorin Markov
1 [10E] Crucible of Worlds
3 [OD] Innocent Blood
2 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
1 [DS] Trinisphere

// Sideboard (tentative)
SB: 2 [DS] Trinisphere
SB: 2 [10E] Crucible of Worlds
SB: 4 [GP] Leyline of the Void
SB: 4 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 4 [TE] Cursed Scroll

I think this deck would definitely benefit if you managed to get in Lake of the Dead and perhaps more Crucibles. Lake of the Dead nets you +3 just like Cabal Ritual with threshold, but with Lake of the Dead, a turn 2 Planeswalker becomes a possibility.

[Knikola]

I've been DYING to make a Pox deck for years, but never really got around to it. The spell is risky business, and I felt that there wasn't enough control for the player. I decided to make a quick list, mind you I did not test this. It probably sucks, but something about it tickles my fancy.

The list:
19 snow covered swamp
4 Mishras factory

4 Dark Ritual
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
3 Withering Wisps
3 Duress
2 Pox

3 Tangle Wire
3 Crucible of Worlds
2 Defense Grid

3 Tombstalker
3 Bloodghast
3 Necroplasm

Sideboard:
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Pithing Needle
4 Extirpate
3 Culling Scales?


First of all, Muja, I LOVE the Withering Wisps idea. Earlier, you brought up how well it synergizes with Mishra's Factory. The more I look at Bloodghast with WW, the more I think about how these two belong together. (IE- Kill everything on the board, play land, bring Bloodghast back. Not sure if this was ever brought up, I am nothing more than a lurker.)

The artifacts - I am looking for mid/late-game control, but I fear that my early-game setup will suffer.


Any suggestions/comments? I sacrificed land destruction for Tangle Wire and Defense Grid. Trinisphere or Chalice or Smokestack might be a better option. Or maybe I should do Sinkhole and Innocent Blood? Grawmph.

[Sevryn]

i think innocent blood is pretty much mandatory because it is one of your only answers to a turn 1 threat (lackey is a big one). when you are on the play you can supplement this with thoughtseize.

[Nekrataal]

I'm sorry, I forgot Zoo, but of course you're right, it's a bad matchup, although slightly better than Sligh (basically, the less burn they play, the better for us). I never played against elves, so I can't be sure about it, but lacking vial and lackey it should be a little better for Pox, almost even for the Bg version, because you should have the time to land deed. But of course I can be wrong, and if you have direct experience with the matchup this invalidates all the speculations I can make :wink:

As for Merfolk I'm not sure it's that bad. It's a more aggro-control deck, instead of pure aggro, and it usually gives us enough time to play our disruption. In addition, we can play very well under a standstill, invalidating their main draw engine. From my tournament experience I will put the matchup 60-40 for Bg Pox (I have never met Merfolk in tournament with other versions of the deck, which could have more problems). OTH, I think goblin is worse than 45-55, unless you have same savage secret tech against them (please, tell me you have :tongue: )

For the DTB, I will say the odds (for Bg Pox) are roughly:

- Zoo 30/35-70/65 (depending on the amount of burn basically)
- Goblins 35-65
- Merfolk 60-40
- Canadian Thresh 50-50
- NLU/Baseruption 60-40
- Bant Countertop 55-45
- Landstill 65/70-35/30
- ANT 45/50-55/50 (the faster, the worse)

I still think Pox is a decent meta choice, even if Zoo is rising again lately, since all the others common matchups (well, except goblins of course :frown: ) are at least winnable, if not favorable.

Perhaps I was too pessimistic about Merfolk. I played against a friend's Elves deck and usually it combos turn 4 into a massive amount of mana which is invested into as massiv amount of creatures and a final big Mirror Entity. However the games where I could keep is mana production short I most often won.

[slylie]

Perhaps I was too pessimistic about Merfolk. I played against a friend's Elves deck and usually it combos turn 4 into a massive amount of mana which is invested into as massiv amount of creatures and a final big Mirror Entity. However the games where I could keep is mana production short I most often won.


I stomp merfolk every single time with this deck, like playing hide and seek with a blind kid.

[Nekrataal]

I stomp merfolk every single time with this deck, like playing hide and seek with a blind kid.

Sure and Thresh as well so I wonder why this deck is not DTB if it beats 3/5 out of the most played decks. Perhaps you can be more specific like ... how you do these marvels repeatedly?

[Raindown]

Landstill is also a very favorable matchup

[bowvamp]

How about our pre-board MU vs. goblins? What-a-breeze.

No seriously, you don't have a clue slylie as to how hard tribal is for pox. Especially your build which takes even more time to set up due to dependence on LftL. Sorry if this sounds harsh :smile:

[slylie]

How about our pre-board MU vs. goblins? What-a-breeze.

No seriously, you don't have a clue slylie as to how hard tribal is for pox. Especially your build which takes even more time to set up due to dependence on LftL. Sorry if this sounds harsh :smile:

Tribal Goblins and Tribal Mermen is two different things, Goblins is nearly unwinnable pre-board, and merfolk is nearly un-loseable pre and post board. I don't test as much as I should against other decks but my friend plays a standard-list merfolk deck and my list made him all but give up on merfolk, since I often play him and he is testing merfolk I know the matchup inside out.


Sure and Thresh as well so I wonder why this deck is not DTB if it beats 3/5 out of the most played decks. Perhaps you can be more specific like ... how you do these marvels repeatedly?

They play standstill, we play 4 wasteland, and x mishra's factory (which trump mutavult without a lord), they play counters, we play discard, they play daze, we play spells with 1 mana up, they play force of will, we punish them by following up with a hymn. They play some creatures, we play some removal. They play few lands, we play land destruction.

BTW I don't play LftL.. I'm mono-black.. I think you are mistaken.

[workingdude]

They play standstill, we play 4 wasteland, and x mishra's factory (which trump mutavult without a lord), they play counters, we play discard, they play daze, we play spells with 1 mana up, they play force of will, we punish them by following up with a hymn. They play some creatures, we play some removal. They play few lands, we play land destruction.

BTW I don't play LftL.. I'm mono-black.. I think you are mistaken.

This is nice in theory, but you are basically ignoring the old adage of threats > answers.

If you could map out a real game for me I'd be very interested to see how the merfolk matchup is (I dont face much merfolk in my meta).


Especially your build which takes even more time to set up due to dependence on LftL. Sorry if this sounds harsh :smile:

The reason I almost never entertain playing LftL. Whenever I hear about it, I just think it's way too slow for practical applications. At least in my meta game and my playstyle/deck.

[Cthuloo]

This is nice in theory, but you are basically ignoring the old adage of threats > answers.

If you could map out a real game for me I'd be very interested to see how the merfolk matchup is (I dont face much merfolk in my meta).


I think slylie analysis is correct. What do you mean with map? If you want I think I have some reports of tournaments wins against merfolk, but I would have to translate them, since they're in Italian. I will do the job only if you guarantee me you can't live without them :tongue:


Goblin of course, is completely different. I played against a friend piloting the deck in a small direct elimination tournament two weeks ago. G1 I spent like 6 turns to proceed to eliminate every green monster on the table, via innocent blood, smother, smallpox and finally managed to empty the board and stabilize with a pernicious deed. The next turn my friend topdecks ringleader, reveals 4 goblins and proceeds to crush me :( Even if you manage to survive the early wave of attacks (which is definitely not easy), goblin can quickly recharge and stomp you. So if anybody has a secret tech, please share :tongue:

[Minty]

This List works like a Gem:

4x Swamp
4x Verdant Catacombs
4x Bayou
3x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4x Mishra's Factory
3x Wasteland
4x Barren Moor

4x Mox Diamond

4x Duress
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Smallpox
4x Pox
4x Pernicious Deed

3x Life from the Loam

3x Garruk Wildspeaker
2x Nether Spirit
2x Tombstalker

Garruk is just fuckin awesome!

[Cthuloo]

This List works like a Gem:

4x Swamp
4x Verdant Catacombs
4x Bayou
3x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4x Mishra's Factory
3x Wasteland
4x Barren Moor

4x Mox Diamond

4x Duress
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Smallpox
4x Pox
4x Pernicious Deed

3x Life from the Loam

3x Garruk Wildspeaker
2x Nether Spirit
2x Tombstalker

Garruk is just fuckin awesome!

This looks a lot like my last version of the deck. My problem was not being able to always have the :g: :g: for Garruck reliably. Do you sometimes have this problem? Or is everything smooth?

[Nekrataal]

This looks a lot like my last version of the deck. My problem was not being able to always have the :g: :g: for Garruck reliably. Do you sometimes have this problem? Or is everything smooth?

My problem with Garruk was that he makes me wanny play Witness and/or SDT in order not to dredge him into the bin. I think that Pox is the worst card in the deck and can be replaced at least 2 or 3 times by something else. Pox means autoloss to decks with R. In the current Meta this is sooo true.

threats > answers that sums it up nicely. Sure Goblins can recover more easily since the Merfolk Ringleader is not present in competitive builds and there is no Matron to fetch a Ringleader. I also admitted that the Merfolk matchup is better than I first anticipated but still if Merfolks gets a good start on the play with Vial, Standstill which is not a rare incident then it is a very close matchup. Since I have played Merfolk inside out and I am pretty sure that the g or w splash doesnt really matter for Pox. Mono U eventually has Stifle, Ug has Grip, Uw Disenchant or similar choices to handle a Deed. Of course you cannot keep a slow hand as a Merfolk player against Pox. THat you can beat one specific Merfolk build that is driven by one pilot doesn't prove much.

I just once played that matchup (from the Merfolk side) against a Bgw Pox list with Vindicates and Gigapede as a finisher. I lost 1:2 but games felt quite close. I won game 1 since I was just too fast for him filling the tables with little men. Game 2 I remember he locking me out with his land destruction and then searching ages for a win condition while at very low life. Finally there was Gigapede which I couldn't handle and I didn't draw into something relevant to force through some minimal damage. Game 3 was decided by Engineered Plagues and a quick Gigapede.

[Cthuloo]

My problem with Garruk was that he makes me wanny play Witness and/or SDT in order not to dredge him into the bin. I think that Pox is the worst card in the deck and can be replaced at least 2 or 3 times by something else. Pox means autoloss to decks with R. In the current Meta this is sooo true.

threats > answers that sums it up nicely. Sure Goblins can recover more easily since the Merfolk Ringleader is not present in competitive builds and there is no Matron to fetch a Ringleader. I also admitted that the Merfolk matchup is better than I first anticipated but still if Merfolks gets a good start on the play with Vial, Standstill which is not a rare incident then it is a very close matchup. Since I have played Merfolk inside out and I am pretty sure that the g or w splash doesnt really matter for Pox. Mono U eventually has Stifle, Ug has Grip, Uw Disenchant or similar choices to handle a Deed. Of course you cannot keep a slow hand as a Merfolk player against Pox. THat you can beat one specific Merfolk build that is driven by one pilot doesn't prove much.

I just once played that matchup (from the Merfolk side) against a Bgw Pox list with Vindicates and Gigapede as a finisher. I lost 1:2 but games felt quite close. I won game 1 since I was just too fast for him filling the tables with little men. Game 2 I remember he locking me out with his land destruction and then searching ages for a win condition while at very low life. Finally there was Gigapede which I couldn't handle and I didn't draw into something relevant to force through some minimal damage. Game 3 was decided by Engineered Plagues and a quick Gigapede.

I agree with you on Pox. For some reason I skipped the 4x Pox while looking at the list :laugh: In my list those slots are basically occupied by pulses.
About Garruck and dredging in general: I think Top is an invaluable tool to know when it's more convenient to dredge and to protect Loam against cript/relic, I really think it deserves at least 2 spots in the deck. With the help of Top, accidentally dredging Garruck should not be a problem anymore. The double green unfortunately is...

About Merfolk again: I'm not saying the matchup is an autowin, of course. Pox will suffer a very fast start, expecially if on the draw. However you usually manage to stabilize, and then proceed to land a big threat that they usually have a hard time to answer. At the moment I am 3-1 in tournaments against Merfolk for matches, and 6-3 for games, meaning that the matchup is not a bye, but that there are definitely worse ones :wink:

[e=mc^2]

These BG decks are starting to seem very rockish. If you are waiting until after you drop Garruk to pox most of the time, then I think death cloud is a better option. Deathcloud can kill all of their creatures, and still leave Garruk around to win the game, while Pox only kills most of their creatures.

This deck Looks like a more discard heavy version of my Deathcloud Rock (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12526&highlight=deathcloud+rock) deck, which was great at losing to combo. Does this deck have the same problem?

[Jon Stewart]

Planeswalkers just need way too much mana to cast.

If you have 5 lands on your side, you're doing something wrong. This deck barely ever has more than 3 mana tops when playing properly even with Mox Diamonds. So that's where the curve should top off, at a cc of 3.

That's also why I like Bloodghast, because the 3cc space is too heavy as is.

[bowvamp]

Ok, it's probably just me, but a deck named after a card should have that card in it. Right? :eyebrow:

Pox != loss against red. Especially against the kinds of red that pop up in the current meta. Decks that come to mind are: Tempo Thresh (pox helps), Zoo (pox helps, you just have to time it), and if you get it out vs. Goblins it helps immensely. Zoo requires timing because you want to use pox last, start with land hate, go to discard/creature kill until you are sure you can survive casting it.

Pox was built to abuse pox. Taking pox out and using smallpox as your "pox" takes alot of the advantage of pox effects out. Taking out pox lowers our ability to equalize and win by small margins against decks that without pox we would just flat out lose to.

[slylie]

This is nice in theory, but you are basically ignoring the old adage of threats > answers.

If you could map out a real game for me I'd be very interested to see how the merfolk matchup is (I dont face much merfolk in my meta).



The reason I almost never entertain playing LftL. Whenever I hear about it, I just think it's way too slow for practical applications. At least in my meta game and my playstyle/deck.

It's not just in theory its in practice. To be honest I also thought in theory merfolk might be a hard matchup, but really its a breeze. As for mapping out a game ... I'll try to remember the games better next time I test but basically something like first turn thoughtseize, discard relevant card and set up next turn hymn/sinkhole, third turn crucible... or just smallpox if he got a creature out, (ideally discarding spirit here), next turn hopefully like duress to check for counters then tombstalker, which they basically can't deal with once it hits the board. Then following turns spirit chump blocks 9/9 wakethrashers or whatever they swing at you while tombstalker swings overhead for the win.

Tombstalker is key in this matchup because if it hits the board, they have no way to deal with it.


Turn 1 : merfolk man. Island, vial go.
Turn 1 : Slylie. Swamp, thoughtseize: Mefolk man plays force of will targeting thougtseize:
Turn 2 : Merfolk man. Island, lord of atlantis go.
Turn 2 : slylie. mishra's factory. Darkritual.. resolves. Thoughtseize. discarding relevant counterspell. Hymn to Tourach. (he now has 0 cards in hand)
Turn 3 : Merfolk man. Mutavult, attack with adept, go.
Turn 3 : slylie. Smallpox. (discarding spirit). wasteland mutavult. Raven's crime.
turn 4 : Merfolk man. island. go.
Turn 4 : slylie... well, from here they are pretty much finished since we have more utility lands, recurring effects and big 5/5 flyers.

Force of will is a great card, but how good is it against us? force of will our discard? ok.. Im happy to get a counter and another spell out of their hand for a discard spell. Daze? sure its cute when it auto-counters sinkhole but when we are playing land destruction setting yourself back a turn on land can hurt. Aether Vial? Its not as good vs us as against other decks, it kinda messes with our ld strategy, but it is card disadvantage so with all of our discard we are pretty happy to see it.

Basically yes in numbers, they have more threats than we have answers, but really how scary is that silvergil adept alone? merfolk is a cute deck, and the cards have good synergies but our deck packs enough disruption to make swing it in our favor. Our deck when played properly generates tremendous card advantage, the only card merfolk plays that gives card advantage is standstill, and we can play around that.

The games I lose? actually im happy to lose a few here and there just so my friend doesn't feel so horrible about his deck.

Ways we lose against merfolk:
First turn Vial, second turn standstill is a good start.
Unblockable wakethrashers.
Jitte + creature .... sounds good.
......... bad draws?

You can say I don't know what I'm talking about, whatever. I'm just relaying my experience.

[Cthuloo]

Ok, it's probably just me, but a deck named after a card should have that card in it. Right?

Pox != loss against red. Especially against the kinds of red that pop up in the current meta. Decks that come to mind are: Tempo Thresh (pox helps), Zoo (pox helps, you just have to time it), and if you get it out vs. Goblins it helps immensely. Zoo requires timing because you want to use pox last, start with land hate, go to discard/creature kill until you are sure you can survive casting it.

Pox was built to abuse pox. Taking pox out and using smallpox as your "pox" takes alot of the advantage of pox effects out. Taking out pox lowers our ability to equalize and win by small margins against decks that without pox we would just flat out lose to.


These BG decks are starting to seem very rockish.

These are interesting observations. For sure Bg pox is really an hybrid between old school pox and the rock. It can't really support Pox, for many reasons, and goes for a different route. It's even arguable that it's a completely different deck, and maybe it deserves a thread on its own.

Btw: smallpox and pox, despite looking as the little and big brother, fulfill a completely different role. As Bowvamp correctly observed, you need timing to maximize pox and its devastating effects, while smallpox is an excellent early game control card. It's the card that buys you time to further your gameplan, eroding opponent's resources. It's card parity more often than not (if you don't have spirit in your hand), but it's huge in stealing your opponent's tempo. If monblack pox is built around abusing "Pox", Bg pox is deinitely built around optimizing "Smallpox".

@ Deathcloud: even after what I just wrote, I think I would rather play pox instead of Deathcloud. Deathcloud is completely useless early game (when the deck fights to stabilize) and becomes relevant only when you have 6+ mana, when the deck should be winning anyway. I could be wrong of course, not having tested the card.

[Nekrataal]

Ok, it's probably just me, but a deck named after a card should have that card in it. Right? :eyebrow:

Pox != loss against red. Especially against the kinds of red that pop up in the current meta. Decks that come to mind are: Tempo Thresh (pox helps), Zoo (pox helps, you just have to time it), and if you get it out vs. Goblins it helps immensely. Zoo requires timing because you want to use pox last, start with land hate, go to discard/creature kill until you are sure you can survive casting it.

Pox was built to abuse pox. Taking pox out and using smallpox as your "pox" takes alot of the advantage of pox effects out. Taking out pox lowers our ability to equalize and win by small margins against decks that without pox we would just flat out lose to.

Short check on deckcheck for Pox reveals that basically all "poxless" list are Bw, Bg or Bgw (splash versions). Only Mono B lists seem to play that Pox but not all. This seems reasonable since splash versions cannot afford to stick to the max 3 land count like Mono B Pox to support 2 or even 3 colours. Also a lot lists are named Poxless (most Bw). Anyway it matches the impression I have in general and from this thread that Pox in Mono B is OK and Pox in Bx is NOK. It is however funny coincidence that the namesake (Pox) is thrown out of the deck and the deck itself still is listed under the category although not playing the card anymore. Do we need a thread like "Poxless Pox" which is a contradiction in itself but anyway .... ?

[Jon Stewart]

If your focus is on LD, then you should play 2-3 Pox atleast, it's as simple as that.

If you don't want any opponents to land more than one land at any time, you will need to play Pox alongside all the other LD, Smallpox, Wasteland, Sinkhole, Vindicate or such.

The non LD focused lists I think would be cool without Pox.

[Minty]

Somebody tried Chalice of the Void in the Sideboard?

@0 stops/slows down Combo (+ Tormod's Crypt)
@1 slows Burn(!!!), Zoo(!!!!!) Elves etc. and many other Decks (Deadstill, Tempotresh etc. etc. ... ) (+ Relic of Progenitus)

[slylie]

If your focus is on LD, then you should play 2-3 Pox atleast, it's as simple as that.

If you don't want any opponents to land more than one land at any time, you will need to play Pox alongside all the other LD, Smallpox, Wasteland, Sinkhole, Vindicate or such.

The non LD focused lists I think would be cool without Pox.

The one thing I don't like about pox (big pox), is its best if they have 4 lands, or 4 creatures on the board, which means you are already in deep shit, and often you want(have) to play it when they have three lands out, or 1, 2 or 3 creatures out, since holding it back just to get a bigger effect gives them a turn to untap with that much land and creatures. So in most cases its just a 3 mana smallpox, perhaps making them discard an additional card and much more life loss. Right now I run 2, I've gone from 4 to 3 and tried without it whatsoever but 2 Seems like the right number.

[Cthuloo]

@ Chalice of the void: I tried trinisphere in a BW version focused on LD and it worked really good. I don't know about Chalice, usually at turn 2 I would rather play Hymn, SInkhole or Smallpox. Even if I could power it out at turn 1 with a ritual or a mox, I think there are better ways to use that mana. But if you have had good results with it, please share :wink:

[lorddotm]

4 Dark Ritual
4 Smallpox
4 Sinkhole
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Thoughtseize
4 Innocent Blood
2 Duress
2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Phyrexian Reclamation
2 Entomb

4 Vampire Hexmage
4 Dark Depths

4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
9 Swamp

What do you guys think?

Dark Depths allows us to end the game very quickly when we need to, giving us a better Combo match up.

[Cthuloo]

4 Dark Ritual
4 Smallpox
4 Sinkhole
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Thoughtseize
4 Innocent Blood
2 Duress
2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Phyrexian Reclamation
2 Entomb

4 Vampire Hexmage
4 Dark Depths

4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
9 Swamp

What do you guys think?

Dark Depths allows us to end the game very quickly when we need to, giving us a better Combo match up.

I really don't know about the combo, how is it working for you? However from what I see Grim Discovery works a lot better than Phyrexian reclamation, allowing you to recover both pieces of the combo (expecially if you are also using entomb). I understand that with reclamation and crucible you can play the combo every turn, but I don't think it will ever be necessary.
The land count looks a bit low, since Urborg is legendary and DD doen not produce mana on it's own, have you ever had mana screw problems?

[Nekrataal]

I recently stumbled about an idea I wanted to share reading some extended reports ... maybe it is to fancy but I would love to try it. IT would require to splash into w and play Bgw but the interactions with Haakon seem to be rewarding. On the other hand they totally depend on the graveyard and Haakon itself. Without it NI is a rather mediocre removal and KoR a good creature that at times may be unplayable because we are out of w since we got screwed or wasted. They benefit of course is that Haakon makes dredged or creatures lost in battle replayable and usage of Loam is less limited.

1 Chameleon Colossus
3 Haakon, Stromgald Scourge
3 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Nameless Inversion

[Cthuloo]

Playing tricolor looks rather complicate to me. You will have to drop the factories and maybe also the wastes, and I don't know if it's worth it. Have you already assembled a prototype of a list?

[Jon Stewart]

If I were to go the Dark Depths route, I would probably splash green for Living Wish, and I would definately play Mox Diamond since you run so many almost useless lands...

4 Thoughtseize
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
4 Sinkhole

4 Mox Diamond
4 Crop Rotation
3 Life from the Loam

4 Living Wish
3 Tombstalker
3 Vampire Hexmage
2 Dark Depths
1 Tabernacle of Pendrall Vale

4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland
3 Mishra's Factory
3 Bayou
3 Swamp

Edit: Thanks for the great suggestion below Chuhloo.

Just an idea, Im sure a few cards need to be changed around, but I see definate potential in it.

[Cthuloo]

If I were to go the dark depths route, I would probably splash green for Living Wish, and I would definately play Mox Diamond since you run so many almost useless lands...

4 Mox Diamond
4 Smallpox
4 Sinkhole
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Thoughtseize
4 Bloodghast
3 Pox
3 Life from the Loam

4 Living Wish
3 Vampire Hexmage
3 Dark Depths

4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland
3 Mishra's Factory
3 Bayou
3 Swamp

Just an idea, but I see definate potential in it.

Going for the combo, I would cut 1 Depths and 3 poxes for 4 crop rotations. This would also allow to play one singleton tabernacle in the main, maybe in place of one urborg.

[slylie]

I recently stumbled about an idea I wanted to share reading some extended reports ... maybe it is to fancy but I would love to try it. IT would require to splash into w and play Bgw but the interactions with Haakon seem to be rewarding. On the other hand they totally depend on the graveyard and Haakon itself. Without it NI is a rather mediocre removal and KoR a good creature that at times may be unplayable because we are out of w since we got screwed or wasted. They benefit of course is that Haakon makes dredged or creatures lost in battle replayable and usage of Loam is less limited.

1 Chameleon Colossus
3 Haakon, Stromgald Scourge
3 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Nameless Inversion

You could just go mono-black and run Haakon, stillmoon cavalier and nameless inversion. 3 colors just for a janky combo sounds like a bad idea.

[bowvamp]

Although it seems like a bad idea at first, I'm a bit tired of having mana open. I feel like it's gone to waste too long. Disfigure seems like the best solution to that problem. What are your thoughts? It's targeted so it gives them no choice, and essentially keeps them on their toes (the opposition). Zoo, Merfolk, and Goblins are significantly less powerful than in the version with innocent blood. Mutavault/Mishra's also don't work very well when you've got it.
Currently testing:
-4 Innocent Blood
+4 Disfigure

[slylie]

Although it seems like a bad idea at first, I'm a bit tired of having mana open. I feel like it's gone to waste too long. Disfigure seems like the best solution to that problem. What are your thoughts? It's targeted so it gives them no choice, and essentially keeps them on their toes (the opposition). Zoo, Merfolk, and Goblins are significantly less powerful than in the version with innocent blood. Mutavault/Mishra's also don't work very well when you've got it.
Currently testing:
-4 Innocent Blood
+4 Disfigure

I think the only matchup I would prefer disfigure over innocent blood is vs. golbins. Its mostly useless against zoo, merfolk it can be ok but I'd still rather just make them sac than having to play around them vialing in a lord. Against all the countertop goyf decks, dreadstill, thresh, dragonstompy, dredge, ect (I.E. the entire top tier -1 and then some) innocent blood is far superior.

[bowvamp]

Zoo
Nacatl - 1st Turn Nacatl isn't frightening
Goyf - isn't too god vs. Goyf
Pridemage - Good
Ape - 1st Turn Ape isn't frightening
Figure - Good vs. Figure
Lavamancer - Good vs. Mancer
Isamaru - Good vs. Isamaru
Goblin Legionnaire - Good vs. Legionnaire

Against dredge, it's instant speed removal, that means you don't have to wait till your turn.
Dragonstompy both are sucky (1cc) but this innocent blood is a bit better.
Countertop Goyf is an ok MU for us anyway and this kills sower, confidant, trinket mage, pridemage.
Dreadstill only has 1 creature. That means all of our creature removal immediately goes towards dreadnought.
Thresh is one of our good MU's anyway and Thresh has a ton of variations. Which one?
Goblins it's obviously good.
If merfolk has there lord out already he's a 2/2 if they have a 1 toughness, you kill their 1 toughness outside of their main phase.
Killing in resp to vial is also a good idea.
Essentially they negate their own vial and only play in main phase or you kill what they've got down.
It's like saying daze is bad vs. Thresh because they could just wait an extra turn to play their threat.

At worst it's a combat trick. I think it's our best instant speed removal option at 1 mana.

[AcidFiend]

I really think the multi-coloured Poxless variants should be in another thread. Anyways, this is my Mono-B version:

4 Rack
3 Tombstalker
2 Phyrexian Totem
2 Nether Spirit
4 Pox
4 Smallpox
4 Hymn
4 Duress
3 Extirpate
2 Crucible
4 Dark Ritual
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Urborg
13 Swamp

The Extirpate is a meta choice as last tournament I played had Reanimator, Ichorid & Loam. I assume they'd be decent against Enchantress too. I really like having either Edict/Smother so I'll probably have them in SB to bring in for Extirpate when its not needed.

Also I'm not sure what is optimal re: ratio of Tombstalker/Nether Spirit and how many Crucibles to run.

Sideboard would probably be something like:
2 Necroplasm
2 Damnation
4 Diabolic Edict
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Powder Keg

[bowvamp]

I don't know why, but 3 MD extirpate just doesn't seem to look good. Maybe because it's only good against 3 decks you played and even if you played all three. There are also better options out there that work better against all three, heck even ebony charm is better...

I'd recommend one of three cards to fill that slot:
1) Withered Wretch (although vulnerable to creature hate, an amazing hate card with a good body to boot)
2) Tormod's Crypt/Relique of Progenitals (simple and effectively eliminate all hope of a yard based solution)
3) Faerie Macabre (can't be countered, costs zero)

Your choice.

In the SB, why are you running damnation? Also, Necroplasm when sided in should have:
+2 Plasm
-2 Nether Spirit
to avoid dissinergy.

[AcidFiend]

I don't know why, but 3 MD extirpate just doesn't seem to look good. Maybe because it's only good against 3 decks you played and even if you played all three. There are also better options out there that work better against all three, heck even ebony charm is better...

I'd recommend one of three cards to fill that slot:
1) Withered Wretch (although vulnerable to creature hate, an amazing hate card with a good body to boot)
2) Tormod's Crypt/Relique of Progenitals (simple and effectively eliminate all hope of a yard based solution)
3) Faerie Macabre (can't be countered, costs zero)

With Extirpate perhaps I was guilty of packing 'good things'. Relic is probably more damaging to the matchups I mentioned anyways, and isn't a dead draw where graveyard is irrelevant.


In the SB, why are you running damnation? Also, Necroplasm when sided in should have:
+2 Plasm
-2 Nether Spirit
to avoid dissinergy.

That was the SB plan yeah. Damnation... its probably not required. I was thinking hmm another answer for Progenitus/Dredge/Tribal and didn't seem that hard up for SB space.

Could Necroplasm could be MD'd over Nether Spirit? I haven't used it myself but it looks great on paper. Takes out all kinds of creatures (killing a Dreadnought would be living the dream), great against tribal. Just seems to be stronger than a recurring 2/2.

PS I don't have Sinkholes and sadly can't afford them. That said, a lot of the format can run on little land and I think the deck is viable either way.

[carnifex]

What does everyone think of this list? I'll avoid commenting on card choices so that people who may not understand certain choices can ask themselves.

Lands - 24:

4 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Cabal Pit
1 Tomb of Urami
11 Swamp (sometimes 1 swamp is undiscovered paradise for retrace abuse, I'm debating its usefulness though so maybe somebody can sway me either way)

Creatures - 3

2 Necroplasm
1 Nether Spirit

Everything Else - 33

4 Pox
4 Smallpox
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Powder Keg
3 Funeral Charm
2 The Rack
2 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Thoughtseize
2 Duress
2 Entomb
1 Raven's Crime
1 Cursed Scroll

Sideboard:

4 Leyline of the Void
3 Extirpate
3 Engineered Plague
2 Tombstalker
2 Smother
1 Powder Keg

[AcidFiend]

What does everyone think of this list?

-Why no Tombstalker MD? This creature is a house. A lot of Legacy spot removal can't touch it, the main exceptions being StP/Path, and you can often discard those. 5/5 with evasion makes even Dreadnought players worried.
-What have you hit with Cabal Pit that makes it worth it? I don't like damaging myself any more than I have to with this deck as you often take some early damage + Pox as it is. And if you go back to Tombstalker MD these have to come out.
-I don't really like the amount of 2's and 1's in the deck. IMO Duress is preferrable to Thoughtseize, as when playing Zoo etc. you don't want to give them a free Shock. Any creatures they put down you should be able to kill.
-I get what you're going for with Entomb into Nether/Necro but I don't think its worth it. 2 cards to get a 2/2 into play isn't optimal.
-I think you need more threats. You have 3 creatures and 2 racks. Thats not enough win conditions IMO. Yes you have Manlands but so do a lot of decks in the format.
-Have you tried Innocent Blood in your Funeral Charm slot? Next time you're facing down a big Dreadnought/Terravore/Goyf/Progenitus/Tombstalker/Dragon you'll be glad to have it.

[carnifex]

Given your advice, what would your changes be?

Also, 'stalker was in the list until I went (most recently) with the whole entomb / nether / necro thing on an experimental basis. I don't want stalkers getting dredged, obviously.

And with regards to that little set-up, its not 2 cards for a 2/2 creature, its 2 cards (only 1 of which you need to draw into) for a 2/2 recurring creature or one that sweeps the field and grows. Getting a spirit into the yard turn 1 has kept many aggro decks at bay in my experience.

Also, cabal pit is actually quite invaluable. It kills a lot more things than you seem to be recognizing, especially with crucible so that I can set up -4/-4 in a turn.

I'm not really protesting your points as much as validating my reasoning a little. Your changes aren't implausible and I'd like to try a few of them.

I may scrap the whole necroplasm deal in order to switch some things around.

[AcidFiend]

First a general aside: the thing is with Pox is when you check DeckCheck, its never consistently done well / been a Deck to Beat. This is despite many people running various configurations. Dont get me wrong I love the deck I just question whether it'll ever be Tier 1 or just something people play because they like it.

@ Carnifex:

The other thing with Cabal Pit is I wasn't sure how often you'd get Threshold. I know running Tombstalker when you want to cast it say turn 3-4, you often seem to have 5 cards in the yard. So it'll at least a turn later to get threshold, then you can sac it to kill... Qasali Pridemage? Goyf will be 5 or 6 toughness by then, even if you had Crucible to get a -4/-4 off. I know Necroplasm helps with threshold and interacts with Crucible when you hit lands and while cute the whole thing seems a little clunky and too slow.

I love Tombstalker but if I had to play without them, Innocent Blood gets better (the few times you have a Stalker on the board with a Blood in hand sucks). With all the sac effects plus Powder Keg (which I really like), you should be able to clear the way for your Totems.

2 Nether Spirit
3 Phyrexian Totem

4 Pox
4 Smallpox
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 The Rack
4 Duress
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Powder Keg
4 Innocent Blood

4 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Tomb of Urami
12 Swamp

Food for thought anyways.

[carnifex]

I used to run totem also and moved on after finding some faster win-cons.

Also, I do have a set of stalkers, they just weren't in my most recent build.

I'll find a way to get them back in, and ditch the necroplasm route, in all likelihood.

And yeah, I run this deck as a sort of pet-deck. Clearly it's not tier 1, and if it WAS tier 1 at any point we'd probably see a resurgence of grave hate and it'd sink back down. I consider pox nonetheless to be a viable choice if you're going for a heavily black based deck in this format and I continue to enjoy playing it - and pissing of tier 1 players when I take them down.

[Nekrataal]

This deck went 2nd in a large tournament in Germany. Meta: Surviving Bant, Enchantress, Canadian Thresh, Merfolk, ANT, Some UB Sui List

http://www.is-magic.de/

=> Click "Turniere" on left menu bar
=> In second row "14.11.2009 Legacy-Cup" click on "Legacy-Cup" below the term Siegerdeck (winner decks) in the third column. Click on the "Deck" Link from the deck placed second in the tournament.

Sorry but I feel remorse dragging someone's good work into the open. However for those really interested, the list is a Bgw Pox list which is quite intriguing. At first sight I would play it a great deal differently. On second sight the deck did just that what I thought of some time ago: Adding w and g => and obviously it seems to work out. What also is special about the build is the reduction to just 2 Winconditions (Gigapede, Worm Harvest). I would lie if I say I like it but the result shows that it was sufficient for the games played. At least Gigapede is hard to get rid off except for GY hate. But GY hate seems to wreck the decks Winconditions hard. Worm Harvest never did it main in any of my builds so I really have to go back testing it. I like the usage of EE and StoP for the slots that are freed of winconditions. I also like Tops and Moxes (although I don't play the latter). I also like the Zurans Orb SB.

[neckfire]

has anyone here tried bloodghast?it is very very good.I play dreadstill and it gets around landstill and conterbalance decks.seems like a good inclusion.just an idea.

[Cthuloo]

has anyone here tried bloodghast?it is very very good.I play dreadstill and it gets around landstill and conterbalance decks.seems like a good inclusion.just an idea.

Honestly standstill is definitely not a problem for pox. The deck usually plays 3-4 factories and 3-4 wasteland, in addition to 1-2 Nether Spirit. Changing spirit for ghast can even be for worse, because ghast can't block opponent factories.

However, I tried ghast and was a bit disappointed. The fact that it can't block is not a minor detail, and I often lost to aggro decks where a spirit would have saved my ass. On the other hand it works very well with Cabal Therapy, with a fetch you can easily rip your opponent's hand apart. I am still undecided about it.

[carnifex]

I run 2x ghast alongside nether spirit and necroplasm. I have 1 spirit, 2 plasm, and 2 ghast as my creature base and it's rediculously smooth. It probably helps to mention that there is also 2x entomb in the MD to increase my selection.

The ghasts serve their purpose perfectly - pushing extra damage and keeping the race going. Thus far it has not adversely interfered with nether spirit. Even if they have died simultaniously, landfall is not a remote issue for a crucible pox build and bringing back hasty ghasts is delicious.

It's not meant to replace spirit IMO. And if it begins to clog my GY too often, I'd undoubtedly remove it before spirit. For now though, the function they're meant to serve is being fulfilled quite well without impeding on nether spirit's recursion (maybe a few turns here and there it's return is delayed but my position has been advantageous in all these scenarios anyways).

This is just my experience though, I was VERY wary of trying out 'ghast initially.

[e=mc^2]

I have been interested in Pox for a while and I finally threw together the following janky list:

4x Bloodghast
3x Tombstalker

4x Mox Diamond
4x Innocent Blood
4x Thoughtseize
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Hymn
4x Smallpox
3x Diabolic Edict
3x Pox
3x Crucible

4x Wasteland
4x Factory
4x Urborg
8x Swamp

Mostly I have just been beating up my friend's 'Geddon Stax and BG Deathcloud lists. I feel like I may have a little too much creature destruction and possibly I should replace some of my 2cc spells with sinkholes. On the other hand sink holes are expensive and I could just replace come creature destruction with The Rack since I have so much discard already. I would like to hear what people know Pox think about the deck.

[AcidFiend]

Emc2: with 7 pox effects and bloodghasts you really should run 24 land. Perhaps add 2 swamp and 2 Urami. I think swapping out edict for the Rack is a good idea too.

[Cthuloo]

Well, Stax and Deathcloud are not known for their overwhelming hordes of creatures, however, looking at the list, you still should be fine without the edicts, assumed you don't have to deal with an aggro meta. In that case you could also swicth to duress instead of thoughtseize.

20 lands are definitely not enough, since you also have to support the moxen. I would play no less than 23.

As for the sinkholes: you can definitely play without, focusing your strategy more on hand and board control.

[Illissius]

This (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=30215) looks interesting, and very close to the ways I've been trying to build the deck, except that he managed to cut it down to a coherent set of 60 cards and make top 8 with it. I'd cut something (probably a Crime) for the fourth Top, but that's about the only obvious change I'd make.

[Nekrataal]

This (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=30215) looks interesting, and very close to the ways I've been trying to build the deck, except that he managed to cut it down to a coherent set of 60 cards and make top 8 with it. I'd cut something (probably a Crime) for the fourth Top, but that's about the only obvious change I'd make.


Well substract Spellweaver Helix and you have the deck I already posted some weeks earlier and made 2nd in a large german tournament (> 70 players). Check out post #1341 .

[dorsch]

@Nekrataal and Illissius and anyone else interrested:

I came during testing, more or less independent from you, to a very similar list:
In a nutshell: no top, no helix and less raven's crimes and added Duress, Hymn to Tourach, 2 Entomb as well as 2 Mishras Factories.

I might understand the cutting of hymn, but don't you miss first turn Duress? Is a playset of Raven's Crime really necessary?
When i play versus some type of Aggro or Aggro-Control my main goal is to survive the first 3-6 turns and stabilize. Neither Raven's Crime nor Top help me early game, but Duress and Hymn do.

[Nekrataal]

@Nekrataal and Illissius and anyone else interrested:

I came during testing, more or less independent from you, to a very similar list:
In a nutshell: no top, no helix and less raven's crimes and added Duress, Hymn to Tourach, 2 Entomb as well as 2 Mishras Factories.

I might understand the cutting of hymn, but don't you miss first turn Duress? Is a playset of Raven's Crime really necessary?
When i play versus some type of Aggro or Aggro-Control my main goal is to survive the first 3-6 turns and stabilize. Neither Raven's Crime nor Top help me early game, but Duress and Hymn do.

The problem is if you are going to play 3 colors you have access to much more valuable cards and it is hard to not play everything which is good. I agree that one should play at least 2 Mishra's and less Raven Crime. I think 1 or two is OK. But personally I wouldn't play Duress, not even Thoughtseize necessarily. I would still play Innocent Blood and maybe Thoughtseize SB. Right now I haven't managed to put in Mox and Tops although both are good. Yeah thats the problem too much good stuff. Also Entomb is sick because it searches for almost everything that is valuable: Lands, Finishers (Gigapede), Loam and Top makes you less flinch when you dredg with Loam.

[Cthuloo]

@Nekrataal and Illissius and anyone else interrested:

I came during testing, more or less independent from you, to a very similar list:
In a nutshell: no top, no helix and less raven's crimes and added Duress, Hymn to Tourach, 2 Entomb as well as 2 Mishras Factories.

I might understand the cutting of hymn, but don't you miss first turn Duress? Is a playset of Raven's Crime really necessary?
When i play versus some type of Aggro or Aggro-Control my main goal is to survive the first 3-6 turns and stabilize. Neither Raven's Crime nor Top help me early game, but Duress and Hymn do.

I agree with you. In my experience the deck lives or dies on a first turn thoughtseize/duress. In some versions of the deck I even played a total of 6 duress effects.

As you correctly stated, the deck struggles to stabilize for the first few turns, and needs duress to fight for survival.

Looking at the list above I would probably cut 2 crimes, the helix and one top to fit in 4 duress. Anyway, the list looks interesting, especially the transformational sideboard. I think it's worth a try.

[Illissius]

Another (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=30495). Very similar to the previous one. 2nd out of 83 ain't bad.

[Nekrataal]

Another (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=30495). Very similar to the previous one. 2nd out of 83 ain't bad.

That's the list I meant earlier. I didn't know it was on deckcheck.

[Illissius]

Because it only just got on there :).

[Brot_Ohne_Kruste]

Hi guys,

if you are interested in reading a primer about the Bgw Loam Control, here is one: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15846 . I wrote a german one too, which is twice as long, but I think that this short primer is okay.

Thanks for the interest in that deck :).

Brot Ohne Kruste

[Nekrataal]

Read the primer. It is worth it :D Liked it very much. Since I am from Germany and I actually think we played each other in Bochum (at least I played against this very deck) I am also interested in the german post. If you could point to it this would be great. However, there are a lot of card choices I would like to questions or ask in more detail how others played out. So I really have to prepare a lengthy first reply ;)

[Mr. Fantastic]

I have been interested in Pox for a while and I finally threw together the following janky list:

4x Bloodghast
3x Tombstalker

4x Mox Diamond
4x Innocent Blood
4x Thoughtseize
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Hymn
4x Smallpox
3x Diabolic Edict
3x Pox
3x Crucible

4x Wasteland
4x Factory
4x Urborg
8x Swamp

Mostly I have just been beating up my friend's 'Geddon Stax and BG Deathcloud lists. I feel like I may have a little too much creature destruction and possibly I should replace some of my 2cc spells with sinkholes. On the other hand sink holes are expensive and I could just replace come creature destruction with The Rack since I have so much discard already. I would like to hear what people know Pox think about the deck.

I would definitely play Cursed Scroll over The Rack. Cursed Scroll was an integral part of the deck when last I played it; that was a while ago however.

Beyond that, the only criticism I have of your deck is the criticism I have of a lot of mono black decks using Mishra's Factory—you need BB and BBB early and often and will suffer for want of it. I'd cut at least 2 Factories, preferably 3-4 as well as all 4 Urborgs since you're just opening yourself up to Wasteland for no real reason. Sure, you have Crucible but do you really want to lose access to BBB on the crucial turn against aggro? Also, if you're using Crucible and Bloodghast, why not use Swamp fetches?

[Temanaras]

Ok, I have two questions:
1) why Thoughtseize? I know everyone loves it, but with pox, small pox, innocent blood, and edicts, is the 2 life really worth it? I feel like in this deck evey life counts. Would duress not be better ion those spots?

2)Megrim, I have not seen it anywhere and I am wondering why. This makes smallpox go from 1 to 3 damage, you duress/thoughsize become a 2 damage nuke, cabal therapy if played right becomes at minimum a 2 nuke. In a deck where you opponent is going to be loosing alot of cards, why not make them loose health in tandem.

[Droxis]

Ok, I have two questions:
1) why Thoughtseize? I know everyone loves it, but with pox, small pox, innocent blood, and edicts, is the 2 life really worth it? I feel like in this deck evey life counts. Would duress not be better ion those spots?

2)Megrim, I have not seen it anywhere and I am wondering why. This makes smallpox go from 1 to 3 damage, you duress/thoughsize become a 2 damage nuke, cabal therapy if played right becomes at minimum a 2 nuke. In a deck where you opponent is going to be loosing alot of cards, why not make them loose health in tandem.

Thoughtseize is rather handy in fighting swarming decks since it can keep their creature level manageable for your non-targeted removal.

Megrim costs too much for too little. It does nothing to disrupt your opponent and does not even come on-line until after some of your starting discard. We want everything in the deck to dick with the opponent, keeping them off balance long enough to make a kill.

[Galroth]

Just a random thought:

What about running Glacial Chasm and/or Exploration in the Bg builds of Pox. It seems like between Life From the Loam, Crucible of Worlds, and Entomb, it might work well.

[slylie]

Ok, I have two questions:
1) why Thoughtseize? I know everyone loves it, but with pox, small pox, innocent blood, and edicts, is the 2 life really worth it? I feel like in this deck evey life counts. Would duress not be better ion those spots?

2)Megrim, I have not seen it anywhere and I am wondering why. This makes smallpox go from 1 to 3 damage, you duress/thoughsize become a 2 damage nuke, cabal therapy if played right becomes at minimum a 2 nuke. In a deck where you opponent is going to be loosing alot of cards, why not make them loose health in tandem.

Thoughtseize is insane. It's duress on steroids. Yes the 2 life loss sucks but it rips ANY non-land card which means its only bad against 43 land.dec. LOL

Megrim sucks in a nuclear way. For 3 mana it doesn't do anything in this deck. Playtest the deck then see if Megrim fits. I have never tested megrim as It would feel blasphemous putting such a crap card next to the likes of sinkhole, hymn, thoughtseize, ect. but I can tell you from playing this deck for 3 years most games the opponent has no cards in hand anyways and is playing off the top, and knowing how much discard we have they just play out threats and hold instants. Meaning the megrim is just useless. (I.e. They draw creature, just play it obv, land, drop it, hold a counter, just counter the discard spell) Rack works 4 times better then megrim, only costs :1: .

[Tacosnape]

Hi guys,

if you are interested in reading a primer about the Bgw Loam Control, here is one: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15846 . I wrote a german one too, which is twice as long, but I think that this short primer is okay.

Thanks for the interest in that deck :).

Brot Ohne Kruste

This deck is just further validation for a point I've been wanting to make for a long time: Pox is a terrible card and I haven't yet heard any -good- justification in a Pox thread to include Pox itself.

For three black, Pox is going to do the following.

1A. Kill one creature of your opponent's.
1B. Kill two creatures of your opponents if they have four or more in play, meaning you've lost control of the board and are about to lose 1/3 of what life you have remaining from them beating your face in with the threats as they hit play, still with your opponent having two or more threats on the board.
2A. Make your opponent lose a land.
2B. Make your opponent lose two or more land if they have four or more, but they'll still have two, and dedicated Land Destruction decks aren't supposed to let the opponent hit four land in the first place.
3A. Make your opponent lose a card in hand if they have one.
3B. Make your opponent lose a couple cards. Decent.
4. Make your opponent lose 1/3 of his life, which you aren't prepared to capitalize on, and make you lose 1/3 of his life, which 3 times out of 4 your opponent is going to be better prepared to capitalize on than you.

For -two- Black, Smallpox does 1A, 2A, 3A, and costs you only one life, and is a far better option.

So why are people running Pox itself?

[Illissius]

Obviously, because you can't run more than 4 Smallpox.

[Deger]

I guess with out adding some kind of splash a leyline kinda effs us???
unless we play disk.. I mean that seems like the only option right??

[(nameless one)]

Hey guys,

My buddy is trying to port his casual mono-black control to Legacy.

She is currently on a budget. I am not the greatest deck builder but this is what I have in mind for her.



16x Swamps
4x Wasteland**

4x Dark Ritual
4x Duress
4x Funeral Charm
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Innocent Blood
4x Pox*
4x Smallpox
1x Raven's Crime

4x Phyrexian Totem
3x Nether Spirit

4x Rack

** - She doesn't have it but I'll lend her my playset
* - She doesn't have it at all, although it can be bought at the store at any time.


Is this good enough as a start? We have a tournament coming up next weekend and I'm wondering if theres other cards that we could add here.

It is obvious that its not the best list but are there ways that we could make this deck better without spending a fortune? We currently do not have access to Crucible of Worlds, even if we had the money.

I've also noticed about the argument concerning Pox. Would it be helpful if we ran Zendikar's Vampires?

[jamis]

(nameles_one):
Without Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Funeral Charm looks less impressive. I'd add 2 or 3 if you can.

Raven's Crime doesn't look as good without Crucible of Worlds, either. I'd take that out until you get some form of land recursion.

If she has some form of targeted removal, I'd suggest that over Innocent Blood. Smother or Snuff Out would be preferred (I haven't tested Snuff Out in this deck, the lifeloss may be too much, I'm not sure), but Doom Blade or even Terror might work.

The land count looks a little low, as well, especially without Crucible of Worlds. Have you guys tested it to make sure with all the land destruction effects, the deck can still finish a game?

[(nameless one)]

(nameles_one):
Without Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Funeral Charm looks less impressive. I'd add 2 or 3 if you can.

Raven's Crime doesn't look as good without Crucible of Worlds, either. I'd take that out until you get some form of land recursion.

If she has some form of targeted removal, I'd suggest that over Innocent Blood. Smother or Snuff Out would be preferred (I haven't tested Snuff Out in this deck, the lifeloss may be too much, I'm not sure), but Doom Blade or even Terror might work.

The land count looks a little low, as well, especially without Crucible of Worlds. Have you guys tested it to make sure with all the land destruction effects, the deck can still finish a game?

Not really. Its just a proposed version.

Whats the ideal land count without Crucible? Worse comes to worst, We'll end up buying Crucibles, as long as they stay around $4-8

[slylie]

Not really. Its just a proposed version.

Whats the ideal land count without Crucible? Worse comes to worst, We'll end up buying Crucibles, as long as they stay around $4-8

I highly recommend running at least 2 Crucibles. Not just to get back lands lost to smallpox but also to combo with wasteland (which shuts down many decks), raven's crime, cabal pit, factories, urami, ect. Also with a fetch and crucible you can sit there pulling all the swamps out of your deck. The totem can go down to 2, I tried it in here during timespiral block but wasn't happy with them. 4 is def. too much. I like tombstalker much better.

[Tlaloc]

I've been running a fairly budget Mono-black Pox deck for a while and the other day I ran into Iona, Shield of Emeria during a game. This card might as well make the game an auto loss for most Pox decks. Anyone have any thoughts on how to counteract this?

I've been playtesting Bloodghast and found it to speed up the game a lot. The versatility of being able to time its return (by playing a land after an innocent blood or smallpox) rather than killing your freshly raised nether spirit is really helpful.

Has anyone come to a conclusion about using Quest for the Gravelord?

[1rakete]

You are actually just dead if reanimator gets ioona on the board (or any other deck) unless you have an incredible amount of creatures on the board and the opponent is low on life. But this might not happen often, i suppose.

There are only 2 things you can do against Ioona after sideboarding:

Leyline and Ravenous Trap as Ioona usually hits play from the grave, where Leyline is way better because it also helps vs 1st turn Iona with discard backup.


But there is actually nothing you can do against a resolved Ioona.

[mujadaddy]

I've been running a fairly budget Mono-black Pox deck for a while and the other day I ran into Iona, Shield of Emeria during a game. This card might as well make the game an auto loss for most Pox decks. Anyone have any thoughts on how to counteract this? Keep them off NINE mana. Reanimating? Leyline in G2 & G3.



First of all, Muja, I LOVE the Withering Wisps idea.Ha, thanks.


Earlier, you brought up how well it synergizes with Mishra's Factory. The more I look at Bloodghast with WW, the more I think about how these two belong together. (IE- Kill everything on the board, play land, bring Bloodghast back. Not sure if this was ever brought up, I am nothing more than a lurker.)Zendikar wasn't out when I last posted in here. I've been busy with other things and haven't evaluated any new cards. Last time I was playing, my experiments weren't working, but the main strategies were.

Defense Grid only hurts their counterspells -- does nothing for vials or other ability activations, so I think it's a total bust.


This deck is just further validation for a point I've been wanting to make for a long time: Pox is a terrible card and I haven't yet heard any -good- justification in a Pox thread to include Pox itself.

So why are people running Pox itself?Even if they printed "Smallpox2" and I could run 8, I would still pack 2-3 Poxes. Pox does something no other 3-mana card in magic does: nukes 1/3 of the gamestate, rounded up. If you're way behind, sometimes Poxing is just what the doctor ordered. If you're slightly ahead and can take advantage of it, Poxing is exactly what the doctor ordered.

Not every deck is built to take advantage of Pox. These decks shouldn't run it. However, no opponent wants to see their opponent pull off Pox well. The challenge is making a deck that does.

[Sevryn]

If you're way behind, sometimes Poxing is just what the doctor ordered. If you're slightly ahead and can take advantage of it, Poxing is exactly what the doctor ordered.

Just from my experience, if you're way behind, Pox doesn't hurt their board enough and loses you 1/3 of your life. Even in the perfect situation of them having 4 lands and 4 creatures, you lose a big chunk of your life total and still have two creatures swinging at you next turn.

[Mikeleroi]

Hey guys, do you think the new demon could take any slot?

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=214161

With a dark ritual is a 6/6 on 2º turn, and then sacrificing the creature is not a problem with all the pox effects. The problem, it doesn´t have shroud :S

[Sevryn]

Hey guys, do you think the new demon could take any slot?

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=214161

With a dark ritual is a 6/6 on 2º turn, and then sacrificing the creature is not a problem with all the pox effects. The problem, it doesn´t have shroud :S

I think it will find a home in Pox. Some lists are successfully running Tombstalker as a finisher, and Abyssal Persecutor is bigger, tramplier, and has no drawback in this deck. Tombstalker has an advantage in that it can be cast off of only 2 or 3 lands, while Persecutor almost forces you to run Dark Ritual. I think it will break down into decks that run Dark Ritual will run Persecutor, and decks that don't run Ritual will run something else.

[kicks_422]

Why not run both? A creature suite of 4 Bloodghast, 4 Tombstalker, and 4 Abyssal Persecutor looks really good.

[Sevryn]

Why not run both? A creature suite of 4 Bloodghast, 4 Tombstalker, and 4 Abyssal Persecutor looks really good.

Well, except for finding space for 12 win conditions. 8-10 is probably more reasonable. Maybe cutting down to 2 Tombstalker would work, since it's hard enough to fill the graveyard enough to power out more than 1 in a game.

[FoolofaTook]

Why not run both? A creature suite of 4 Bloodghast, 4 Tombstalker, and 4 Abyssal Persecutor looks really good.

A deck with 3 Sensei's Divining Top, 5 fetchlands/3 Bayou and 4 Tarmogoyf (instead of Abyssal Persecutor) looks better in my opinion. 4 Bloodghast, 4 Tombstalker and 4 Tarmogoyf means everything you draw is a killer in a successful Poxy strategy.

[mujadaddy]

Just from my experience, if you're way behind, Pox doesn't hurt their board enough and loses you 1/3 of your life. Even in the perfect situation of them having 4 lands and 4 creatures, you lose a big chunk of your life total and still have two creatures swinging at you next turn.I said "sometimes," and I meant it. I don't run 4, but I can't see not running 2 in mono:b:. (Why does EVERYONE forget to mention the 1/3rd of the opponent's life?)

Hey guys, do you think the new demon could take any slot?

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=214161
Holy shit! :eek:

Ummmm... this requires further testing... :eyebrow: My initial impulse is to go 3 TS/3 Persecutor ...

[eternaldarkness]

Well, except for finding space for 12 win conditions. 8-10 is probably more reasonable. Maybe cutting down to 2 Tombstalker would work, since it's hard enough to fill the graveyard enough to power out more than 1 in a game.

Not true. Pox has an insane ability to fill its graveyard, even in mono-black and no fetchlands. Casting two Tombstalkers in a single game isn't an unrealistic scenario. Dark Ritual obviously helps here.

The new demon would look more like an addition to Tombstalker and not something that would replace it. Biggest strike against it is the 4cc. You can't really curve into it after say a turn three pox like Tombstalker outside of a dark ritual.

[caiomarcos]

I wouldn't go for the Deamon because when you drop a 4cc in or a huge body in this deck (aka Tombstalker) you have only one thing in mind - win the game. There's no chump blocking and no other shenanigans, you just want to beat a couple of times and that's it.

I'd think that everyone in this thread knows how precious the kill conditions are in this deck, so why drop one that you will have to kill it yourself?

[coraz86]

I wouldn't go for the Deamon because when you drop a 4cc in or a huge body in this deck (aka Tombstalker) you have only one thing in mind - win the game. There's no chump blocking and no other shenanigans, you just want to beat a couple of times and that's it.

I'd think that everyone in this thread knows how precious the kill conditions are in this deck, so why drop one that you will have to kill it yourself?

The thing is, if you're running Pox, Smallpox, and Innocent Blood, it won't be hard to kill when you need to. I don't think anyone's arguing for dropping another win condition for it, but I think it would make a good secondary one. I think a 4/2 Tombstalker/Persecutor split would work, depending on your shell. I'd be willing to run three if I had Crucibles or Mox Diamonds in the deck (since :2::b::b: can get rough when you're nuking your own lands). It's an okay fattie that we don't have to splash for; the 4 CMC gets around Counterbalance most of the time, it usually can block and kill Goyf, and nobody in their right mind will Shackle/Sower/Swords it. It's also not vulnerable to yard hate like Nether Spirit and Bloodghast (and, frankly, even Tombstalker to an extent).

All I'm sayin' is I'm grabbing a set while everyone hates them and will dump them cheaply, in case it proves useful.

[jamis]

In Pox, I feel cmc 4 is too high, and you won't be able to play him until late in the game when you already have some form of control (and at this point, you wouldn't really need/want to play him). In Poxless Pox, though, he could be a great beater.

[mujadaddy]

In Pox, I feel cmc 4 is too highIt's cheaper than casting a Shriekmaw.

[eternaldarkness]

I have always advocated a more aggressive build of Pox. We aren't running a control deck, or at least a control deck that can afford to wait before killing your opponent. Pox can't really dominate the late game as we don't have a hard lock (ala smokestack+crucible in stax shells) or a good card advantage engine (nether spirit+pox is pretty meh). That's why I have always argued for the running of 4 Tombstalker and have even eschewed the use of nether spirit for being too slow/not aggressive enough.

To this end, I have previously tried a BG Pox list running 4 'Stalkers and 4 Tarmogoyfs in hopes of getting as much aggression in the deck as possible. Sadly the experiment didn't really work out for me. It always seemed like I was playing a bad Eva Green variant at which point the next obvious step would be to just run Eva Green. In this light, I don't think the new demon will solve any of the deck's problems cause at the end of the day, tarmogoyf is still a better threat to run. Goyf can come down after a turn three Pox. Abyssal Persecutor can't. You don't need to save a pox/smallpox/innocent blood to get rid of goyf once its done its job. Abyssal Persecutor requires it.

I'm not advocating that we should all run 4 Goyf. It's just that if adding goyf to this deck still doesn't work, then I don't see how Abyssal Persecutor will be any good. I'd love to be proven wrong though. :frown:

[mujadaddy]

Well, and mind you this is all theory at this point with no testing, the point isn't that you pack MORE "answers" for your own AP, it's that the deck is already full of things that make your creatures go away -- ie, synergy with small/pox.

Also, Pox and :g: = dissynergy ---- so you're right about the Eva Green comment. Frankly, the black cards in Eva give (me & my Pox deck) much more trouble than just about anything else besides some kind of multi-card combo lock.

[FoolofaTook]

I don't understand on a basic level why Pox is not running 3x Sensei's Divining Top in the mix. It's an asset that is unaffected by Pox and Smallpox. It's a way to quickly sort through the chaff and get to the stuff you really need. It's wonderful with fetches, and this deck should be running fetches and Bayous for Tarmogoyf main deck and Krosan Grip in the side. Fetches and Bayous also enable Pernicious Deed in the side.

[eternaldarkness]

Well, and mind you this is all theory at this point with no testing, the point isn't that you pack MORE "answers" for your own AP, it's that the deck is already full of things that make your creatures go away -- ie, synergy with small/pox.

Also, Pox and :g: = dissynergy ---- so you're right about the Eva Green comment. Frankly, the black cards in Eva give (me & my Pox deck) much more trouble than just about anything else besides some kind of multi-card combo lock.

The BG list I ran a while ago didn't run lands that tapped only for green.That would be bad. I ran 6 fetch + 4 bayou. The only green cards I ran were 4 Goyf, 3 Life from the Loam and 3 K. Grips in the board.

I'm not saying we should pack more "answers" main to include the new demon. We already run enough. In fact I believe that if there is a deck out there that can really "abuse" Abyssal Persecutor, it would be a classic mono-black Pox list. All I'm saying is that I doubt that adding more beaters would solve the problems of this deck.

[jamis]

I've been running Black/Green Pox for a few weeks now, and have been loving it. It came from my old Eva Green deck, and I've been finding this build to be better than the Eva Green one (though, I haven't given this as much testing as Eva Green). I don't really feel Green gives any dissynergy to the deck; LftL and Crop Rotation are welcome additions and Volrath's Stronghold makes using Goyf and Tombstalker instead of Nether Spirit and Bloodghast a non-issue. K. Grip and Choke in the board also give the deck something that it really needed.


It's cheaper than casting a Shriekmaw.

Honestly, I wouldn't use Shriekmaw in this deck, either.

[mujadaddy]

I don't understand on a basic level why Pox is not running 3x Sensei's Divining Top in the mix. It's an asset that is unaffected by Pox and Smallpox. It's a way to quickly sort through the chaff and get to the stuff you really need. It's wonderful with fetches, and this deck should be running fetches and Bayous for Tarmogoyf main deck and Krosan Grip in the side. Fetches and Bayous also enable Pernicious Deed in the side.Pox the Deck generally needs all its mana, and can't waste two every turn. Upped threat density beats spending mana looking for them. A while back, in the first or second third of this thread, there were people considering it, but they never reported Great Success.


In fact I believe that if there is a deck out there that can really "abuse" Abyssal Persecutor, it would be a classic mono-black Pox list. All I'm saying is that I doubt that adding more beaters would solve the problems of this deck.The problem of the deck is finishing before the opponent stabilizes. A rather cheap 6/6 fly/trample to up the big-threat-count from just Tombstalkers is intriguing.

[FoolofaTook]

Pox the Deck generally needs all its mana, and can't waste two every turn. Upped threat density beats spending mana looking for them. A while back, in the first or second third of this thread, there were people considering it, but they never reported Great Success.

How often does Pox stabilize the game state in it's favor and then lose anyway because it can't find a wincon, or alternately the opponent de-stabilizes the game state by finding what they need when given a few turns respite as Pox is in topdeck mode?

Looking at the Legacy meta right now it seems improbable that a deck without counters or extraordinarily redundant threats (Zoo/Goblins/Sligh) is going to be able to compete in the midgame without some way to promote card quality. As a 3-of SDT is not an opening hand card that requires being played immediately to have an effect. It could just as easily be the thing you draw in, or hold for a few turns until, the midgame.

[mujadaddy]

How often does Pox stabilize the game state in it's favor and then lose anyway because it can't find a wincon, or alternately the opponent de-stabilizes the game state by finding what they need when given a few turns respite as Pox is in topdeck mode?Over 50% of the time.


card qualityCard quality is important, but it's a fine line between fishing for it and having it, no? Like I said, people have suggested SDT in this thread before, but I don't see anyone putting up any testing with it, much less any results. (Personally, I run Phyrexian Arena and Syphon Life to make more cards and to make more cards more useful, so I absolutely agree that the issue is important, I just don't think spinning the dreidel is the answer in Pox, since EVERY DROP is rather important. Oh, also, I've been wrong before :laugh: )

[jamis]

Bojuka Pit
Land (Common)
~ enters the battlefield tapped.
T: add B
When ~ enters the battlefield, remove all cards in target player's graveyard from the game.
What do you guys think of this land for a sideboard option? It doesn't come down turn 0 like Leyline, but with our land destruction and recursion, it could remove Dredge's graveyard multiple times. It's not vulnerable to Chain of Vapor and Pithing Needle, but it doesn't have the replacement effect like Leyline, so they can still combo in response.

[jamis]

Sorry for the double post, but I'm looking for some advice on my current build.

Lands (25)
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Bayou
3 Swamp
2 Forest
1 Urborg
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Riftstone Portal
1 Volrath's Stronghold
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Maze of Ith

Artifacts (4)
4 Mox Diamond

Creatures (7)
4 Tamogoyf
3 Tombstalker

Instants (7)
4 Smother
3 Crop Rotation

Sorceries (17)
3 Pox
3 Smallpox
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Thoughtseize
1 Raven's Crime
3 Life from the Loam

Sideboard
4 Krosan Grip
4 Engineered Plague
4 Leyline of the void
3 Choke

I was thinking of including Syphon Life or Worm Harvest, but I'm not sure where to fit it (or maybe I should include a win condition that doesn't depend on the graveyard).

Cards like Thoughtseize should be run as 4-ofs, but the list is very tight right now, and I have no clue what could be taken out.

[slylie]

The thing is, if you're running Pox, Smallpox, and Innocent Blood, it won't be hard to kill when you need to. I don't think anyone's arguing for dropping another win condition for it, but I think it would make a good secondary one. I think a 4/2 Tombstalker/Persecutor split would work, depending on your shell. I'd be willing to run three if I had Crucibles or Mox Diamonds in the deck (since :2::b::b: can get rough when you're nuking your own lands). It's an okay fattie that we don't have to splash for; the 4 CMC gets around Counterbalance most of the time, it usually can block and kill Goyf, and nobody in their right mind will Shackle/Sower/Swords it. It's also not vulnerable to yard hate like Nether Spirit and Bloodghast (and, frankly, even Tombstalker to an extent).

All I'm sayin' is I'm grabbing a set while everyone hates them and will dump them cheaply, in case it proves useful.

I'll admit I love the card. Love love love it... Its very ... black. very cool. I can't imagine it being tourney playable tho, especially in our deck. While 6/6 flying trample for 4 mana is a steal, its still not fast enough for legacy, sadly. Also as we know playing pox, the game too often goes into topdeck mode where drawing this with your opponent at 5 life you have to question if you even want to cast it. Because even if he does the last 5 damage (or 15), you know you are going to get screwed by the shuffler not giving you a smallpox/pox/innocent blood when you desperately need it.

I will be getting my set, the art and flavor is too cool not to. Maybe in a deck with lots of sac effects like gatekeeper and cabal therapy, good thing is with therapy they have no way to stop you from saccing him.

Btw: Small thing but you said nobody would dare shackles it, but really they could just shackles it, beat you with it to 0, then give it back to you on their upkeep. :cry:

[Jon Stewart]

If it was a 5/5 flyer for 2B that you would have to kill off later in order to win, it would've been legacy playable. Sooo close. :frown:

But a 4cc 6/6 flyer that requires you to get make sure to get rid of it later just isn't worth it. 4cc is above Pox's curve. Pox never wants to have more than 3 lands in play at once. I would rather just play Grinning Demon or something.

[Cthuloo]

Sorry for the double post, but I'm looking for some advice on my current build.

Lands (25)
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Bayou
3 Swamp
2 Forest
1 Urborg
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Riftstone Portal
1 Volrath's Stronghold
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Maze of Ith

Artifacts (4)
4 Mox Diamond

Creatures (7)
4 Tamogoyf
3 Tombstalker

Instants (7)
4 Smother
3 Crop Rotation

Sorceries (17)
3 Pox
3 Smallpox
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Thoughtseize
1 Raven's Crime
3 Life from the Loam

Sideboard
4 Krosan Grip
4 Engineered Plague
4 Leyline of the void
3 Choke

I was thinking of including Syphon Life or Worm Harvest, but I'm not sure where to fit it (or maybe I should include a win condition that doesn't depend on the graveyard).

Cards like Thoughtseize should be run as 4-ofs, but the list is very tight right now, and I have no clue what could be taken out.

From my experience I can tell you that Syphon Life is simply amazing and must be included even as a 1-of. I don't really like the crop rotation in the list, since you don't have really gamebreaking tutor targets. I would cut them for a Syphon and a Thoughtseize. I would also cut the poxes ( :b: :b: :b: looks a bit hard to get), for some pernicious deed. Basically I would go

- 3 Crop Rotation
- 3 Pox
+ 1 Thoughtseize
+ 1 Syphon Life
+ 2 Pernicious Deed

And the remaining slot could be other deeds, maelstrom pulses or tops (I really would suggest top, but I know many people are skeptical).

[Jon Stewart]

Quest for the Nihil Stone B
Enchantment Rare
Whenever an opponent discards a card, you may put a quest counter on Quest for the Nihil Stone.
At the beginning of each opponent's upkeep, if that player has no cards in hand and Quest for the Nihil Stone has two or more quest counters on it, you may have that player lose 5 life.

... really does seem strong in this deck, and seems like an excellent turn one play.

Between Thoughtseize, Hymn, Smallpox and Pox et. al, getting two counters on Quest seems like a piece of cake.

And Pox is very good at getting both players into top deck mode.

Your opponent will have a tough choice. Either play the card he just drew and take 5 damage, or keep it, only to have it discarded by your Thoughtseize/Hymn/Smallpox/Pox and take 5 damage anyways, but without having gotten to play the spell.

Edit: The Rack serves a very similar function but it slower, though it is more consistent.
//Land
20 Swamp
2 Cabal Pit
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

//1cc Disruption
4 Innocent Blood
4 Thoughtseize
2 Funeral Charm

//2cc Disruption
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox

//3cc Disruption
3 Pox
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Necrogen Mist

//Win
4 The Rack
4 Quest for the Nihil Stone


The Pox and the Smallpox effects do a great job of wrecking your opponent's lands, hands and creatures, buying you all the time in the world to find and resolve the Ensnaring Bridge.

Plus, they do a great job of causing you to discard your own hands without creating card disadvantage, keeping your hand low enough for Ensnaring Bridge to not let any of your opponent's creatures thru.

Other cards worth testing include... Dark Ritual/Wrench Mind/Raven's Crime/Cry of Contrition/Blackmail/Augur of Skulls/Nezumi Shortfang/Null Brooch/Infernal Tutor/Skeletal Scrying.

[AcidFiend]

I also wanted to get peoples thoughts on Bojuka Bog. Most people run 4 Leylines in the board anyways, but what about Bog maindeck?

Do the pros of 1-2 MD Bogs outweigh the cons? Randomnly screwing a graveyard deck vs. a CIPT land thats also non-basic.

[slylie]

I also wanted to get peoples thoughts on Bojuka Bog. Most people run 4 Leylines in the board anyways, but what about Bog maindeck?

Do the pros of 1-2 MD Bogs outweigh the cons? Randomnly screwing a graveyard deck vs. a CIPT land thats also non-basic.

You can try it but in theory, its a CIP tapped land, which means its bad, especially because you usually want to play the CIP tapped land early, and removing their graveyard first turn probably won't do anything. My version of pox already runs too many non-basics, I NEED to have my mana to go 1st turn thoughtseize, 2nd turn hymn/sinkhole.

Also: Did anyone see the list from the SCG article about legacy?


Pox
Suggested by Enric Sastre on 2010-01-31 as a potential deck for Legacy
As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/18707_So_Many_Insane_Plays_Your_EmCompleteem_Guide_to_Legacy_The_50_Decks_of_Legacy.html
Print this deck!
Maindeck:

Artifacts
4 Chrome Mox
4 Sphere Of Resistance

Creatures
4 Nantuko Shade

Instants
4 Dark Ritual
4 Diabolic Edict


Sorceries
1 Icequake
4 Pox
3 Rain Of Tears
4 Sinkhole

World Enchantments
4 Nether Void

Basic Lands
12 Swamp

Lands
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland

Sideboard:
3 Pithing Needle
4 Dystopia
4 Engineered Plague
4 Leyline Of The Void

I've never seen a pox deck like this one, mostly focused on LD. And then Sphere and Void to lock them out. I want to say I like it but it runs sinkhole, pox, icequake ect allongside 12 lands that don't produce (B). Seems like it could use alot of work, first thing bloodghast would shine in here since you can 'cast' him into the graveyard with void out, then just drop a land and beat. Obviously Urborg is needed. Could benifit from discard effects. Then again it seems like turn 1 vial kills this deck flat out. Ah well.

[Deviruchi]

//Win
4 The Rack
4 Quest for the Nihil Stone


All your win conditions are eliminated with Chalice at 1 which could land on 1st turn not giving you time for anything. Loam and Stax are popular now so I think you should diverse your win conditions or add something (EE, Keg) to remove Chalices.



I've never seen a pox deck like this one, mostly focused on LD. And then Sphere and Void to lock them out. I want to say I like it but it runs sinkhole, pox, icequake ect allongside 12 lands that don't produce (B). Seems like it could use alot of work, first thing bloodghast would shine in here since you can 'cast' him into the graveyard with void out, then just drop a land and beat. Obviously Urborg is needed. Could benifit from discard effects. Then again it seems like turn 1 vial kills this deck flat out. Ah well.

I can't imagine deck with Nether Void and without Pernicious Deed and/or Powder Keg. Once I've met 1 guy on MWS that had some success with his list. I will try to find his decklist cause he shared it with me.

[mujadaddy]

Did anyone see the list from the SCG article about legacy?



I've never seen a pox deck like this one.Because it wouldn't work. 4 Shady's to go all the way? Sphere of Resistance? Four 3cc land destruction spells, but no smallpox? Contamination/blossom lock is stronger than this deck's approach.

This is half a strategy. A resolved "almost anything" finishes it off. Mana denial doesn't generate pressure.

[slylie]

Because it wouldn't work. 4 Shady's to go all the way? Sphere of Resistance? Four 3cc land destruction spells, but no smallpox? Contamination/blossom lock is stronger than this deck's approach.

This is half a strategy. A resolved "almost anything" finishes it off. Mana denial doesn't generate pressure.

You are right, don't understand why he chose this list to represent pox. Basically if they go first and play a kird ape you die.

[AcidFiend]

I think that Pox deck was completely random and I'd like to know why SM chose it also. There are various B/G and B/W lists that have won tournies; maybe he thought EvaGreen was close enough and wanted something different.

I'm sure it's come up before but has anyone tested card draw in this deck? Without top I'm not going to run Bob, but other options include Arena and Sign in Blood. I was amongst the staunchest supporters of Pox until I realized I'd invested too much in it. Initial results without it are good; if only there were a better name than 'Poxless Pox' >.<

[wolf197]

I am working on a pox build and was wondering if anyone has any suggestions:
10 swamp
4 Bloodstained mire
4 wasteland
4 sinkhole
4 duress
4 encroach
4 hymn to tourach
4 innocent blood
3 nether spirit
3 chimeric idol
3 chains of mephistopheles
4 small pox
4 pox
3 dark ritual
2 crucible of worlds

[mujadaddy]

Sure, why not...

Encroach is terribly narrow. Funeral Charm, maybe.

You don't have many win conditions. If you're going to run 2 crucibles, swap the Chimeric Idols for Mishra's Factories.

Chains is narrow AND expen$ive. Afraid of Tombstalkers?

Some people are thinking that Bloodghast can replace Nether Spirit, as long as you don't rely on the latter for blocking.

If you cut the Mires, you might find yourself with enough life for Thoughtseize instead of Duress.

[Clark Kant]

wolf197, your list looks fine. The only card seems suboptimal is Encroach.

Otherwise, what you have is pretty good. I suggest reading through the opening post of this thread for more ideas.

If you want more suggestions, I would definately cut the chimeric idols to play a third crucible and 2 mishra's factory.

Btw, the only reason to play Bloodstained Mire (or any fetchlands) is if you're playing Tombstalker. If you're not playing Tombstalker, play regular swamps instead. Also definately play 2 urborg, tomb of yawgmoth. Just trust me on this, you will be glad you did (whether you opt to play mishra's factory or not).

Also Chains of Mephistopheles are fine to play if you have them. They're not a bad card. They're not all that good either, just mediocre. So if you don't have the card, don't bother spending the absurd amount of money needed to get it.

[walkerm]

This is the version of poxless pox I piloted to a Top 8 finish and quarters loss at the most recent Meandeck Open in Columbus, Ohio:
9 Swamp
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Mishra's Factory
1 Polluted Delta
4 Wasteland
1 Phyrexian Tower
3 Abyssal Persecutor
1 Bloodghast
4 Tombstalker
4 Hymn to Tourach
2 Crucible of Worlds
4 Innocent Blood
3 Extirpate
4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
4 Smallpox
4 Thoughtseize
2 Wreteched Banquet

Sideboard:
4 Duress
3 Ravenous Trap
3 Perish
4 Engineeered Plague
1 Extirpate

It's a rather radical departure from traditional Pox, as the original Pox was much too clunky in testing, and was cut for sleeker disruption. The absence of sinkhole was initially due to card availability, but the deck performed well without it, and the combination of Smallpox+wasteland was enough to allow me to beat Zoo two games straight without them ending the game with a permanent on the board. Feedback much appreciated.

[Clark Kant]

I like your build a lot. It's very synergetic how you opted to abuse Abyssal Persecutor all while relying on Phyrexian Arena, Smallpox and Innocent Blood among other cards to give yourself a way to get rid of it.

The general worry I would have is if the deck is trying to do too many things at once, if the deck would be better with more focus and less 1 ofs and 2 ofs.

Also I'm not a big fan of Extripate at all. It's power is grossly overrated. Similary, Wretched Banquet is only viable imo in a deck that doesnt play any creatures with power less than two (unless they're manlands). Playing it in a deck with Gatekeeper and Bloodghast seems incompatible.

And lastly, there is absolutely no reason not to play Dark Ritual in a build with such as yours. Alongside Abyssal Persecutor, the card is a bomb begging to be abused.

Seeing as how you're not playing Pox, and are playing Crucible, you probably don't need to run so many lands, esp after you put Dark Ritual in.

I would absolutely cut Extripate, Wretched Banquet and some colorless lands (Factories) from the deck for 4 Dark Ritual and something else (maybe Bloodghast, or Diabolic Edict/Vindicate to serve as more removal that doubles as a sacrifice outlet, or Sinkhole or something else (perhaps even the 4th Abyssal Persecutor)).

I think you're definately on to something though. Please keep working on this, and I'll work on getting my hands on Abyssal Persecutor to try out something like that first hand.

[kilukru]

Sup all,

I have been off magic for a while but Pox was and still is one of my favorite deck. Played a bunch of game lately and noticed that I use two card in my Pox which seem to be totally disregarded.

Epochrasite : Usefull early on, and the more the game advance the better these guy gets. If your looking for an extra kill to complement Stalker and factories, he's a winner in my book.

Reanimate : as a 2-of it can really shine. Your opponent got 2 land and a tarmo? you have a smallpox and an reanimate hum... 1+1=.....WHAM!. But seriously, for a little blood theres a bunch of target in the current meta, and if you play epoch, you can discard them to your pox, and then, insta recuring 4/4 for B.

Another thing that i once tried, was to play snow-land, Scrying Sheets, STD and mox diamond. Mox gave great early play, Scrying Sheets/STD gave an amazing late game but the deck just feel appart too easely mid-game. Was fun tho.

[Clark Kant]

Epoch + Reanimate are solid. Maybe something like that plus some of Walkerm's creatures minus Pox and we get a very solid Aggro Pox list. Not as much emphasis on LD, but tons of removal and sacrifrice effects plus some creatures you actually want to sac. Seems strong.

Pox has become a deck with a dozen different fantastic threats to choose from, tons of fantastic disruption options and on the verge of having one optimal list that can explode all over the meta. It's just so hard to figure out the right mix of cards.

I'm almost tempted to build a highlander pox deck (with an exception for lands and smallpox) just to figure out which cards are the best out of the 40+ different options.

I do think LD may have to take more of a backseat to removal and threats though and speed is paramount now.

[Moczoc]

I have been testing a monoblack version of a similiar deck with Chain's of Mephistopheles and Anvil of Bogardan. I think that running this particular combo is the best approach when playing Quest, and it's especially good with Ensnaring Bridge, as well.

I read that the Combo can be interrupted with Grip


Why don't you just stick it in a monoblack Crucible Pox build? If I remember, Pox runs The Rack, as well as a number of discard effects. Slotting in Quest would be cake.

In fact, you'd probably be best slotting it in as a damage-dealer in any Pox build. It could go right in to replace any number of life-loss inflicting dudes/artifacts/enchantments.

If you want to know why I wanted to splash a color read my older posts.

But now after some testing I decided that the Quest is too situational to rely on it as a 4 of set. So I can stay mono B. I won games with double quest within 2 turns but sometimes it just waits for the counters.


current list:

Creatures
2 Nether Spirit
4 Bloodghast

Spells
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Pox
2 Ghastly Demise
4 Bottomless Pit
4 Diabolic Edict
4 Funeral Charm
4 The Rack
4 Smallpox
2 Quest for the Gravelord
1 Genju of the Fens

Lands
16 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Wasteland
2 Undiscovered Paradise

(Changes from the last list:

- 1 Necroplasm
+1 Genju of the Fens

-2 Duress
+2 Funeral Charm

removed some swamps for nonbasics)

Observations:

Bloodghast gets haste quite fast
Funeral Charm and Ghastly Demise are great
Bottomless Pit is so strong against control

[woremak]

My biggest issue with Pox lately has been the inability to draw cards. I was wondering what you guys thought of the following options:
Phyrexian Arena
Sign in Blood
Night's Whisper
Any thoughts?

[Clark Kant]

I like both Phyrexian Arena and Sign in Blood.

Phyrexian Arena is fantastic in slow controllish versions of Pox that attack the opponent's mana base.

Sign in Blood is good in the fast very aggressive black aggro decks because it can double as a burn spell to finish off your opponent. If you're playing Persecutors and going the hyper aggressive route (a good choice imo) then Sign in Blood might be the better option.

Walkerm, I love your build and congrats on the win.

What are your thoughts on making these changes to the deck...

Cutting Extripate (it has no effect on the board) and running an actually disruptive or removal spell in it's place.

Cutting Wretched Banquet for better removal since your build does play creatures with power of two or less (Gatekeeper, Bloodghast) thus making it somewhat antisynergic and making Innocent Blood strictly better.

P.S: How was the one of Bloodghast, the Persecutors, and 4 Tombstalker in a build with no fetchlands to feed the yard. Are there any creatures that you would run more or less copies of?

I think you're definately on to something though. Please keep working on this, and let us know what changes you would make.

[Clark Kant]

I gotta say. I absolutely love the idea of playing Abyssal Persecutor, 4 Small Pox, 4 Innocent Blood, 4 Gatekeeper and Phyrexian Tower in the same deck.

Phyrexian Tower is just such a solid idea. If you're going to lose your creature to an Innocent Blood or Small Pox anyways, or if you have a Gatekeeper or Bloodghast just sitting around not doing anything, Phyrexian Tower can abuse them to generate extra mana.

In fact, if the deck could play Dark Ritual and Pox and the 4th Urborg as well, it would be even sweeter and the Pox would fully justify running a full 25 land alongside 2 Crucibles.

[dorsch]

I can't see the advantage of a 4 mana 6/6 flying (with virtually no drawback) over a 2 mana 5/5 flying (with also almost no drawback). Trample is almost irrelevant because of flying and the way this deck is built.

[slylie]

I can't see the advantage of a 4 mana 6/6 flying (with virtually no drawback) over a 2 mana 5/5 flying (with also almost no drawback). Trample is almost irrelevant because of flying and the way this deck is built.

AP is a 6/6 flyer on turn 2 (with a ritual) and is immune to leyline. Its a hard time getting tombstalker out that fast, and basically you will never get one out if someone plays leyline. I think it depends on what direction you want to go. My version of pox doesn't like to remove cards from the graveyard, since it turns off cabal pit, crucible to a degree, and bloodghast. A popular deck in these parts is dredge so a lot of people play leyline sideboard - and the dredge decks play it main. For this reason I only play 2 now and board it out game 2 if it hit the table game 1.

[OmniStrata]

Hey all. First post here. Did some reading on the B/G Pox archetype as is geared toward being more aggro. Caught it off some other forums and did some modifying of my own due to budgetary constraints etc. Here's a minor primer on my take on what'd make a decent B/G Aggro pox. Some of the previous B/G I've seen, especially those involving Wurm Harvest and Gigapede didn't sit well with me considering their mana costs so I did some reading and came up with this.

"The World is Mine - Pox"

/Threats (10)
4 Werebear
3 Tombstalker
2 The Rack
1 Tempting Wurm

/Removal (24)
4 Pox
4 Smallpox
4 Innocent Blood
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Duress
1 Raven's Crime
3 Infest
1 Necroplasm

/Renewal (2)
2 Life from the Loam

/Land (24)
10 Swamp
1 Forest
4 Tainted Wood
4 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Dakmor Salvage
1 Tomb of Urami
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

/Sideboard
4 Krosan Grip (Priority Removal)
4 Blackmail (Combo Defense) OR 4 Engineered Plague (Tribal/Tokens Meta)
3 Vampire Nighthawk (Burn Resistance)
4 Relic of Progenitus (Anti-Graveyard)

My card choices from the threats onward:

Werebear: BUDGET Tarmogoyf. Quite amazed am I to see that Goyf's best [supposedly] replacement costs me $0.50. ^_^ 4/4 for two happens often and is ideal splash being only G in cc vs. GG [gigapede :(]. Great for mana fixing as well since you only need G available to cast every G spell in the deck. You can think of him as a 'safer' Phyexian Totem. 4 of since he also serves as possible pox target.

Tombstalker: Gonna block my bear? Block this!! Obviously the best finisher pox has for the mana cost and I'm glad I bought these when they were still <$6.00. It's true that he does weaken the bear but again, if your foe for some reason has a blocker that's bigger than the bear, Tombstalker can fix that and your bear just becomes a G source again.

The Rack: Budget splash calls for budget non-creature damage source. Rack is cheaper than Totem and Idol mana-wise and is unblockable and ignores most creature shields (Prison using Ensnaring Bridge, Moat, etc.) Ups your G1 damage vs. them, maybe, and if you're doing your job, they'd have no answers to your creatures in their hand AND they get punished for it if they use them. It's also resistant to removal.

Tempting Wurm: I used to run 3 of these monsters for 12 threats but realized that drawing 2 can be fatal to yourself if you don't know what's in their hand [duress] or EMPTY that hand. Since there's recursion in this deck, I've dropped him to a one of in exchange for more aggro hate. If your foe is running wimpy creatures (4 power or less, LOL) and you have The Rack out, it helps.

The Covering Fire:

Pox/Smallpox/Micropox (Innocent Blood): 12 things to keep creatures off the table. Obviously best used first before dropping your own threats. I've also found that you REALLY should be using them when you're winning, but have 3 of each resource available while your opponent has less than 3. Using Pox as a way to equalize the game by yourself having 3 and your foe having 4 of's is usually the only 'losing' viable method for me to use it. Otherwise, they shouldn't be considered 'comeback' cards.

Infest/Necroplasm: 3 board wipe and 1 board shield. If your meta is aggro heavy with tribals, you can add Engineered Plague from your SB to REALLY seal the game in your favor. I find that casting Necroplasm after an Infest will usually deter your foe from playing anything cheaply since the Necro will blast it. In this case, use Tombstalker to ignore your own 'shield' and deck your enemy's face]

Hymn to Tourach/Duress/Raven's Crime: You know what these do, but the Raven / Loam engine pretty much seals the deals for almost all decks with a Tempting Rack setup. Protect your threats with an opponent's empty hand.:cool:

Renewal source:

Life from the Loam: I found it to be better than Crucible should you ever decide to splash green. Safe from most removal save GY hate obviously and allows you to stuff your hand with fetchers and chaff for poxing later. "Life from the Tempting Raven's Rack" is an amusing combo name too.

Mana Sources: (no dark rit since splash builds inherently 'hate' it)

Swamps and Forest: Basic lands give you Wasteland and B2B and Blood Moon resistance. [most resistance like that don't exist in my meta but it's something to consider I'd think]

Tainted Wood: Poor Man's Bayou. Though if you have extra disposable income, running 4 Bayou AND 4 Tainted Wood could be usable. Beware of non-basics hate.

Terramorphic Expanse: all my decks run four. Obviously less efficient than 'real' fetchlands but I keep my health and my $$ in my wallet. "Poor man's" fetch. Deck thinner since there's no real 'draw' engine.

Volrath's Stronghold: Since none of your creatures inherently have rebirth abilities like traditional pox [at the benefit of being fucking gigantic] this land which I luckily purchased at a mere $5 lets you ignore Poxes to a degree so long as it's not Tombstalker. Don't bring Tomby back either, unless you dredge fed him...

Dakmor Salvage: the '3rd' Life from the Loam, kinda. Since the deck is happy @ 2 mana, and very happy to feed Tombstalker, 1 of this thing has kept me afloat in some games.

Tomb of Urami: Alt win condition, can be broken in response to a Loam, just for laughs and if you're that far ahead.

Urborg, Tomb of THE MAN: Yawgmoth likes the fact you're running black. Makes Tainted wood not need a swamp, fetchlands become useful, and Urami doesn't face rape you. Used to run only 1 but Two is definitely better.

Sideboard:

Krosan Grip: BEST REMOVAL IN THE GAME for things B cannot kill. Also does a hella' job guarding your GY. No 'in response' bullshit.
Blackmail: Poor man's thoughtseize? LOVE the fact that it becomes godly as your foe's hand shrinks and can be very good vs. combo after a T1 Duress or T2 Hymn. This slot can be Engineered Plague if your meta is filled with Noah's Ark-loads of creatures. But the MD by default is already geared toward weenie shredding.
Vampire Nighthawk: 0_0 Burn getting you down? Empty their hand and then play THESE babies. They can burn them but they must be removed from the game to be of any real card disadvantage. Great for decks that run GIANTS as well should you need to chump block.
Relic of Progenitus: Discussed this with a friend to be one of the best GY hate AND is cheap on the $$$. Chain of Vapor? whatever, I can cast it turn 2. LotV doesn't give me a card either and unless it's Dredge, you really only need to eat 1 card a turn from your enemies. [and even then, you can blow up your yard at little cost since Dredge fills much faster]


Hopefully that covered the cards well. Some things I might or might not consider, I need your help choosing.

Barren Moor: Save LftL from some GY hating abilities? I don't think I'd want a psudo Aggro Loam draw engine but I'm wondering what you'd think about it. Warning note: the 'useless' Bokuja Bog never uses the stack so if your enemy plays it, you CAN NOT save anything in your GY in response. Someone please claify.

Crop Rotation: ONLY considerable to me if I run Bokuja Bog but I think 2x4 cards to hate GY isn't worth it. That and enemies have to use their GY BEFORE you show them that you're dropping a Bokuja. Must respond to the spell, not the land entering Battlefield. Though it'd be funny if you did it just to summon an Urborg, your foe does something in response, then you play a Bokuja you were hiding in your hand.

Funeral Charm: 2 Urborg Tombs almost demand that these be run, but unless I remove Tempting Wurm [which I don't want to to resist GY hate], being able to see my enemy's hand via duress seems better. My beasts are already stupidly large, but instant speed discard mid game while topdecking may justify it to remove Tempting for another threat and go with 3 FC's instead?

Abyssal Persecutor: $20?! Gone*
Tarmogoyf: same reason as Abyssal and Werebear's Mana source ability is better when the GY Cannibalism hits.

What are your thoughts? Suggestions? Etc.

[Zappa]

Hey all. First post here
Hey OmniStrata, welcome to the source, nice to see you finally join. It's also nice that you spent a lot of time reading trough every pages at salvation and here at the source in order to understand your deck, and how it evolved to how it is, and why certain cards are used. I am pretty sure you know who this.


*snip* What are your thoughts? Suggestions? Etc.
I do not play Pox, nor do I have any interest in doing so. But I have played and talked with a player at College of Dupage in the past, with your benefit in mind. I have played against you many times and observed your matches many times as well. So I'll try to cover however much I can, or atleast how I see it.


3 Tombstalker
Whenever I see you drop this creature, you just flat out win, after you've attacked thier resources. I understand you do not want to see it in multiples, but it is also your strong finisher. Why not run a full set of these guys to increase your chances of seeing it?


My card choices from the threats onward: *snip*
One thing I've always liked about Pox as the archetype, is that it can be pretty flexible to tweak to handle/fight a certain meta. So the couple things you need to do is:

1) Identify the meta.
2) Which decks are problematic?
3) How to go about tuning for it.

If your deck is already positive enough against another deck or a certain archetype, and even with sideboard from them your match up is still positive, I think it's better to move on to another deck or archetype, and focus on those. However, if most of the field is run by a specific archetype, and your chance of seeing it is pretty high, I would then focus more on it, however, this is also without bastardizing your sideboard as well.

1) The meta
Your meta, I would say your meta, since you don't play against my friends nor you go to college of dupage. Your meta seems to consist mainly of jank aggros, with a few control decks here and there. Elves, Soldiers, Mono Black Aggro (If trino's friends becomes a regular), Psychatog, Thopter/Meek, Enchantress, Affinity, Dredge, and randoms at North Eastern University.

2) Which decks are problematic in your meta?
As I see it, you seem to be having a lot of difficulty game 1 versus fast aggro decks and random tribal decks. Enchantress I don't think needs any boarding or working on since the pilot herself gave up the deck, and it's just me piloting the deck. Affinity should not really be a concern since I no longer play and gave up on it after M10 set was released, as for dredge, it is just me playing it and I've only met 1 person at CoD playing it. So playing against it is rare. While I don't know everyone at North Eastern, most of the decks I see are usually just aggro decks, and a few control decks.

3) How to go about tuning for it.
A lot of the decks you are playing against are aggro decks, I would take out your singleton Narcoplasm and probably go with more sweepers. Keep in mind that these aggro decks you're playing against are also watered down version of their established/decks to beat counter part. Infest also does a nice job versus affinity, should someone at north eastern play it, as you can nail a few things. Arcbound Worker, Disciple of the Vault, Frogmite, and Ornithopter. As well as forcing a sacrifice when Arcbound Ravager and/or Atog are involved.

Your game versus control decks like Trino's Psychatog and Aric's Thopter/Meek, already looks strong on both game 1 and game 2, where as game 2 might be slight problematic, it is still in your favor thanks to K.Grip coming in. Seeing as you also do not run any Wasteland it looks like you'll be fine going down to 23 Lands, instead of 24.


There are a few cards that also catches my attention, aside from the Tombstalker that I have already mentioned.

- 4 Relic of Progenitus
I am in favor of you going for a 2:2 split between Relic and Crypt, and I'll tell you why. Diversifying your hate, while it may seem awkward to you, actually gives a slight resilience on those part to getting answered or taken care of by the opponent. For example, game 3 when opponent now knows what kind of hate you brought in for them, if you have you boarded in 2:2 split of relic and crypt you increase the chance of the opponent missing with a blind guess when they play Cabal Therapy. You also are avoiding putting everything in one basket should the opponent play Pithing Needle to shut down your hate. I understand that you run K.Grip and you can just use it to destroy the needle, but you'd rather save those for the cards you truly intended on using them on to begin with.

- 4 Blackmail
This card wont really do anything versus combo. By combo I am also guessing you mean storm based kills via Tendrils agony correct? Since we've talked many times about that in the past and even yesterday *sweat*. Combo's regarding enchantments/artifacts should be fine as you have Krosan Grip in the board.

Also, I understand your budget, and that you don't want to spend money on cards like tarmogoyf, and I understand, I wouldn't spend that much money on it either >_<". But atleast, do consider getting your hands on a couple of Pernicious Deed, it doesn't have to be a playset, just 2 will do, as the card is just perfect for your meta.

Also, I am not too fond of top decking. I would try to make room for either card draws or tutors or just some way to manipulate your draw at least. either go with:

- Sign in Blood or Phyrexian Arena
Sign in blood I prefer over Night's Whisper as it has the added gimmick of being able to finish off your opponent.

- Graveborn Muse
Can act as a win condition as well, while drawing cards for you.

- Sensei's Divining Top
Nice way to manupulate your draw, however to really make this card shine I would advise increasing your "fetchlands" to atleast 6.

Aside from those, your deck is looking pretty good, while, your upgrades is coming about rather slow, which is understandable due to bills and other things, atleast you're slowly upgrading them. But anyways, glad you joined here at the source, lots of nice and good players here, I'm sure you'll learn a lot from them.

[slylie]

Yeh thanks for coming and writing the post but as a general rule this forum is for discussion on developing pox to make it a better deck, assuming we all have access or are willing to buy the cards needed or proxy them for testing.

Flat out not playing cards because they are 'too expensive' won't fly up here.

I suggest trying the casual/budget forum, or just proxy up a set of goyfs.

[OmniStrata]

Graveborn Muse is 4 mana, something, as you can see from the deck's CC's, I'm totally against. Sensei's Top sounds good. As does Sign in Blood. Going for 4 TS and 3 Werebear's doesn't sound like a bad idea. Thoughtseize is $15.00, so out...

But you didn't mention what I'd use in my sideboard aside from Blackmail. Duress seems to be the consensus "must have" answer to combo if TS is out of reach, but are there others? Engineered Plague seems like overkill since there's already 16 cards that smash creatures.

The 2:2 split for GY hating I'll consider definitely as well.

Thanks for the advice!

[OmniStrata]

ok, proxy goyfs then ^_^

[Zappa]

You'd be better of proxying stuff, but just like what was said by one of the posters... Keep in mind to keep the discussion about what are possible upgrades for the deck, not just your budget deck. Since everyones trying to mix and match cards together, regardless of cost to get the pox archetype to it's utmost potential.

[menace13]

Pox is doing fairly well on MTGO Classic, the lists have cut Pox outright ages ago for Smallpox and splash green for Goyf, Deed and Pulse-almost like Eva(Crucible/Loam recurring Wasteland is really good).

[slylie]

ok, proxy goyfs then ^_^

I have a color printer, whenever I feel like building a deck, I just print out high quality proxies and then sleeve them up and playtest. People sometimes get annoyed if you have like a deck full of plains with a piece of torn paper taped on it with a barely legible 'new jayce beleren' on it, but nobody does if you have them printed out, actually I don't even have to ask anymore because they look just like the real cards once sleeved.

Then once it comes time you want to enter a tournament, you can just borrow the proxied cards from a friend. At first it might feel dirty playing with proxies but once you get used to it you save lots of money buying cards for new decks only to find out you don't like playing them.

[Jon Stewart]

Is anyone here willing to test a deck along these lines?

19 Swamp
2 Urborg
4 Mishra's

2 Dark Ritual
4 Innocent Blood
4 Smallpox
4 Pox

4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Wrench Mind
2 Raven's Crime

4 Noetic Scales
4 Chimeric Idol
3 Phyrexian Totem


Sideboard:
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Baruka Bog
3 Wretched Banquet
3 Oppression
2 Powder Keg

I really can't think of many outright bad matchups for such a decklist. Except for 43 Land.dec. Maybe I should play some sideboard Ankh of Mishra for that matchup.

[Androstanolone]

Engineered explosives seems great for builds featuring mox diamond. A B/W or B/G build with diamonds would be able to drop explosives for 3, although 2 will usually be the right number.

It seems a natural replacement for the slow, outdated, and clunky powder keg. Combined with vindicate a B/W build can remove basically anything. Those plus poxes give plenty of creature control. Plus duress/TS/hymn for combo supression. I would forego the sinkholes, land destruction just isn't that great anymore. Decks are too resilient, most decks feature plenty of lands along with searching/drawing/cheap threats. It's great that poxes have LD tacked on, but using a card slot on dedicated LD is a waste as pox just can't win fast enough to capitalize on it, or rather decks can recover too fast to allow pox to capitalize.

EE has been good to me, going 2 for 1 with goyf+counterbalance. I still like pox in addition to smallpox. It makes the burn MU a bit worse but I find in other MU's it is either countered or devastating. I also run nether spirits and bloodghasts, so poxes always net me CA by putting those guys in the grave. Hymn nets me more CA, EE is often CA and when it only goes 1 for 1 it "feels" like CA. I also maindeck 4x bojuka bog in place of swamps, they keep tarmogoyfs small and make the lands matchup winnable game 1. Combined with tombstalkers they can keep tarmogoyfs very small.

[slylie]

Engineered explosives seems great for builds featuring mox diamond. A B/W or B/G build with diamonds would be able to drop explosives for 3, although 2 will usually be the right number.

It seems a natural replacement for the slow, outdated, and clunky powder keg. Combined with vindicate a B/W build can remove basically anything. Those plus poxes give plenty of creature control. Plus duress/TS/hymn for combo supression. I would forego the sinkholes, land destruction just isn't that great anymore. Decks are too resilient, most decks feature plenty of lands along with searching/drawing/cheap threats. It's great that poxes have LD tacked on, but using a card slot on dedicated LD is a waste as pox just can't win fast enough to capitalize on it, or rather decks can recover too fast to allow pox to capitalize.

EE has been good to me, going 2 for 1 with goyf+counterbalance. I still like pox in addition to smallpox. It makes the burn MU a bit worse but I find in other MU's it is either countered or devastating. I also run nether spirits and bloodghasts, so poxes always net me CA by putting those guys in the grave. Hymn nets me more CA, EE is often CA and when it only goes 1 for 1 it "feels" like CA. I also maindeck 4x bojuka bog in place of swamps, they keep tarmogoyfs small and make the lands matchup winnable game 1. Combined with tombstalkers they can keep tarmogoyfs very small.

I'll never lose the sinkholes from this deck. In my playtesting its just awesome. Between wasteland, smallpox, and pox it really compliments the land destruction aspect. Sure they might get sideboarded in some matchups but sinkhole turn 2 on the play? ... Priceless.

[OmniStrata]

Ok, on MWS and proxy testing, I've ditched Goyf [wtf?!]
Here's current Tempting Tombs Pox as I've found...

/Threats (10)
4 Tombstalker
3 Tempting Wurm
3 The Rack

/Discard (9)
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
1 Raven's Crime

/Creature Kill (12)
4 Pox
4 Smallpox
4 Innocent Blood

/Board Wipe (4)
3 Infest
1 Necroplasm

/Recurring (2)
2 Life from the Loam

/Land (23)
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Bayou
4 Tainted Wood
1 Volrath's Stronghold
2 Barren Moor
5 Swamps
1 Forest

Sideboard

4 Nihilith (vs. non black, somewhat comical vs. dredge)
4 Krosan Grip
2 Tormod's Crypt; 2 Relic of Progenitus
3 Vampire Nighthawk

The deck is mana cheap with everything costing 2 or less save Pox, nukes, and sideboard. With Tombstalker cannibalizing 'goyf, and only 10 threats, I needed more consistency. When I ran Goyf, weakening their goyf by delving my entire GY turned mine into a wimp too... What's amusing is some people will go ahead and empty their hand with 2 racks out if Tempting Wurm hits the battlefield 2x. Chances should be good if you gathered info using Duress, your Wurm threat beats 2-3 of their threats in damage. Don't play the Wurm if you see Iona in their hand [durr* etc.]

Most of the times, Wurm can tangle with Goyf quite well too. With Wurm for ground duty, TS for quick clock, and Rack for 'mortar' support damage, as well as a 'draw threats' engine using VS, LftL & Barren Moor, I didn't think I needed something like SDT, though it feels like a 'weaker' version of my R/G Aggro loam engine...

Thoughts?

[Jon Stewart]

I've recently come to realize how effective Noetic Scales (and Ensnaring Bridge) are with continous discard effects. I play it with Oppression and it's been fantastic. Making your opponent's creatures useless is a very good bonus for this strategy.

I think we've looked at this deck from the wrong direction. If we want to lock them out, this is what we should play.

Quest 2.0 (Abusing Ensanring Bridge and Noetic Scales)

19 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Wasteland
4 Dark Ritual

//2cc Disruption
4 Hymn to Tourach

//3cc Disruption
4 Pox

//Lock
4 Oppression/Bottomless Pit
4 Necrogen Mist
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Noetic Scales

//Win
4 The Rack
3 Quest for the Nihil Stone
1 Powder Keg

I really don't see any flaws to this deck. Do you?

[Jon Stewart]

I'm thinking, maybe the best option for this deck is to a Stax route (minus the Chalice of the Void).

Something akin to...

10 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors

4 Dark Ritual
4 Thoughtseize

// The four synergic cards that are the reason to play this deck.
4 Necrogen Mists
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Uba Mask
4 Noetic Scales

4 The Rack
4 Powder Keg
4 Trinisphere
4 Mind Shatter/Mindscrew/Mind Rot/Mind Twist/Persecute/Profane Command

Uba Mask is fantastic. It combos with Ensnaring Bridge or Noetic Scales to lock your opponent's creatures out. Necrogen Mists likewise works well with all of those cards. It also prevents all instants, countermagic and other shenanigans that Stax had never been able to use and was always vulnerable to.

Alternatively, the deck could play Chalice and maybe Chains of the Mephistopheles but it would have to cut The Rack, Quest, Dark Ritual and Thoughtseize and use Sorin Markov and maybe Megrim for the combo. The problem is that Uba Mask isn't great with Megrim.

Or maybe the deck should through the Contagion combo in their as well along with Crucible of Worlds, Wasteland, Mishra's Factory, Mox Diamond and Smokestack.

I wanted to quote a very good suggestion for the deck which gave me the idea for Uba Mask.


I'm just going to start off with saying I really, really, hate Quest for Nihil Stone.

Uba Mask. Kind of solves a lot of problems for you.

1. Activates Ensnaring Bridge and keeps it in the golden range.
2. Turns off Counters.
3. Makes stuff like Necrogen Mists, Duress, and such pretty much perma discard.
4. Lots of stupid tricks are opened up by playing this card. Note the Bazaar trick in Vintage. Draw two, no discard thing.



I agree with you on Quest. I could easily see myself cutting it and playing Phyrexian Totem instead if I ever decide to cut Ensnaring Bridge and just count on Noetic Scales for the lock.

Uba Mask an awesome suggestion. It actually makes only 4 copies of Necrogen Mists/Oppression neccesary.

Also, what do you think is better in a deck like this,

Bottomless Pit

or

Necrogen Mists

or

Oppression

You only need one of those three when you're playing Uba Mask imo. Bottomless Pit is more disruptive. Mists is more consistent. But Oppression is more one sided (it affects your opponents (esp with all the Brainstorms running around) more than it does you).

[Moczoc]

I'm playing 3 Bloodghast at the moment together with a landbase of 2 Undiscovered Paradise, 2 Wasteland, 2 Urborg Tomb. and it works great. I think I'll go up to a playset. The lifeloss of Pox enables the haste-ability quite fast.

[Clark Kant]

What do you guys think of a list like this? I got the idea from Craig's recent MBA deck that played wastelands. Upping the creature count seems solid for this deck.


4 Gatekeeper Of Malakir
4 Abyssal Persecutor
4 Tombstalker
2 Bloodghast

4 Smallpox
3 Pox
3 Sign in Blood/Phyrexian Arena

4 Dark Ritual
4 Hymn To Tourach
4 Sinkhole

8 Swamp
4 Wasteland
3 Urborg, Tomb Of Yawgmoth
3 Bojuka Bog
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Polluted Delta
1 Phyrexian Tower

[eternaldarkness]

That list, clark, is similar to what I'm currently running. Except I've dropped all of the Pox and I'm using Sign in Blood and Sinkholes over the Arena and the Hymns. I think beaters backed by copious amounts of LD is the best way to go with the deck. Dropping Pox is also the right call imo if you're gonna add Abyssal Persecutors since getting to four mana will be much harder with more than 4 pox effects. The life loss of pox also pretty much sucks against Zoo.

Bojuka Bog is horrible. CIPT is a deal breaker for this card.

[Clark Kant]

Awesome. Can you post your list?

This is the actual card text of Bajuka Bog (It also works fine in your curve thanks to Dark Ritual).

Baguka Bog B
Sorcery
Exile target players graveyard. Make their goyfs tiny, their Tombstalker uncastable, crucible shenanigans moot, Lavamancer useless, and severely impeded Ichorid and Reanimator in the process.
This spell cannot be countered.
At the start your next upkeep, search your library for a swamp, put it into play untapped, then shuffle your library.

You're right about Sinkhole and Sign in Blood. I updated my list to mention them.

The question is, should the deck play Crucible of Worlds or maybe more lands?

I cut Duress and a couple of Innocent Blood to make room for it and will try Sign in Blood in place of Arena.

I would never cut Hymn though, that card is ridiculously awesome.

As for Pox, it's both a plus and a minus.

Yeah, against zoo it sucks and you will need to side it out to bring in vampire nighthawks and more removal.

Against most decks it's a bomb. You supplement your LD, you fill your yard to cast Tombstalker, you discard your Bloodghast, you make it so you can kill your opponent much faster with Tombstalker, Persecutor and even Sign in Blood.

[Jon Stewart]

All the recent lists seem to have been more along the lines of Monoblack Aggro with Smallpox rather than the more controllish Pox decks of yesteryear.

I have a list that I love and is a lot more controllish.


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

2 Dark Ritual
4 Innocent Blood
4 Smallpox
4 Pox

4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Wrench Mind
2 Raven's Crime

4 Noetic Scales
4 Chimeric Idol
3 Phyrexian Totem


Sideboard:
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Baruka Bog
3 Powder Keg
3 Oppression
2 Wretched Banquet

I love Dark Ritual but hate it when I draw it in multiples. So I only play 2 and it works well at 2 I think. Wrench Mind and Noetic Scales are likewise very underrated imo. And yes, 2 Urborg is the correct number when you have so many ways to sacrifice or discard lands.

The focus is on hand control and creature control rather than land destruction because I found land destruction inconsistent. In the board, Oppression, Chalice and Bog give you great options against combo. Oppression is fantastic against cantrip based decks like Team America and Countertop. And Banquet and Keg really do a great job of bolstering your already strong aggro matchup. But I feel like there's something I forgetting in the sideboard. Do you have any suggestions for it?

It's really awesome in the current meta. It rapes decks like Zoo, Bant and Countertop. And I really can't think of many outright bad matchups for such a decklist except for 43 Land.dec. Maybe I should play some sideboard Ankh of Mishra for that matchup.

Do you have any suggestions for it? If you have any questions about the card choices, I think a quick run through MWS can answer them better than I could.

[Benie Bederios]

I think the reason people started to play a more aggro-version of Pox is because the control versions fails against Zoo, which is a pretty common deck now.

There are a couple of reasons why Noetic Scales isn't good enough.

A) It costs four mana. You really don't want 4 mana with this deck, because it makes you sac half your lands when you use Pox.
B) If it's stopped you're whole plan won't work. It's cute to bounce creatures and then discard them, but if they just recast it every turn, they only have to wait for an answer, while you have discards spells.
C) If you don't draw discard, they can fill there hand up. Remember that this deck doesn't run draw and you are depleting your hand quite fast, so you are in top-deck mode fast. an opponent can fill up his hand and keep the thread on the board for long enough to kill you.

-Benie-

[bowvamp]

I'm sorry but srsly?
Bojuka Bog is worse than a basic swamp. A basic swamp... and even a non-basic swamp re-print would hold it's own against Bojuka Bog.

Noetic Scales costs 4 mana. Dark Ritual is not a land which taps for 3 mana. That means that just cause you have DR doesn't make every 4 drop in your deck passable as a 2 drop.

Tombstalker is the best beater this deck has. What beater do you want to see more than tombstalker if you could see it once in your hand mid to late game (when pox plans to lay down the beats).

4 drops don't work.

"I really don't see any flaws to this deck. Do you?" -- Really? Look your list over.

@Menace13: MTGO Classic meta != Legacy meta
therefore: MTGO Classic pox is different than Legacy Pox.

Pox rarely sucks. I also saw this whole burn problem ages ago. And dealt with it. Sun Droplet.

@OmniStrata I don't understand how tempting wurm makes the deck any better?

@Kangaxx Anvil of Bogardan, cool card!

Keep it cool.

[Androstanolone]

I would play the deck as B/W with:

4x nether spirit
4x bloodghast
2x tombstalker

4x hymn
4x thoughtseize
4x smallpox
3x engineered explosives
4x vindicate
3x pox

4x mox diamond

4x scrubland
8x fetch
4x wasteland
2-3 bojuka bog
3-4 swamp

White opens up sb options like kor firewalker if you're worried about burn.

Also the myth that you can't play too many nether spirits together needs to be dispelled. I have been playing this deck with 3-4 nether spirits for years and it's no problem. The most common removal you'll face for NS is swords to plowshares. It's just not a problem. Bloodghast comes out of the grave to let nether spirit come out. Tombstalker gets rid of extra nether spirits if it comes to that (barely ever).

Engineered explosives is possibly the most important card in the deck. It is so versatile and powerful. With diamond you can put it at 3 if you need to. Play EE on turn 1 for 2 and watch 90% of the meta squirm. Turn 2 cast a pox and pitch your spirit/ghast and start beating on turn 3. That's very fast for pox. I just wish I could justify 4 EE and 4 pox, but I have to keep the list at 60.

[slylie]

I'm thinking, maybe the best option for this deck is to a Stax route (minus the Chalice of the Void).

Something akin to...

10 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors

4 Dark Ritual
4 Thoughtseize

// The four synergic cards that are the reason to play this deck.
4 Necrogen Mists
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Uba Mask
4 Noetic Scales

4 The Rack
4 Powder Keg
4 Trinisphere
4 Mind Shatter/Mindscrew/Mind Rot/Mind Twist/Persecute/Profane Command

Uba Mask is fantastic. It combos with Ensnaring Bridge or Noetic Scales to lock your opponent's creatures out. Necrogen Mists likewise works well with all of those cards. It also prevents all instants, countermagic and other shenanigans that Stax had never been able to use and was always vulnerable to.

Alternatively, the deck could play Chalice and maybe Chains of the Mephistopheles but it would have to cut The Rack, Quest, Dark Ritual and Thoughtseize and use Sorin Markov and maybe Megrim for the combo. The problem is that Uba Mask isn't great with Megrim.

Or maybe the deck should through the Contagion combo in their as well along with Crucible of Worlds, Wasteland, Mishra's Factory, Mox Diamond and Smokestack.

I wanted to quote a very good suggestion for the deck which gave me the idea for Uba Mask.




I agree with you on Quest. I could easily see myself cutting it and playing Phyrexian Totem instead if I ever decide to cut Ensnaring Bridge and just count on Noetic Scales for the lock.

Uba Mask an awesome suggestion. It actually makes only 4 copies of Necrogen Mists/Oppression neccesary.

Also, what do you think is better in a deck like this,

Bottomless Pit

or

Necrogen Mists

or

Oppression

You only need one of those three when you're playing Uba Mask imo. Bottomless Pit is more disruptive. Mists is more consistent. But Oppression is more one sided (it affects your opponents (esp with all the Brainstorms running around) more than it does you).

I like Necrogen Mists. I've tested bottomless pit and Mists and sometimes the randomness of bottomless pit bites, when with a mists you can hold that card you want to follow up with and discard a swamp or w/e. I'm working on a deck similar to what you seem to be working on, and what I can tell you is a one or two of Syphon Life (http://sales.starcitygames.com/carddisplay.php?product=51492) is great in here as an alt win, especially if your opponent has chalice at 1. I like the idea of noetic scales, I will test it out to suppliment bridge in my deck and let you know how it goes.

[Mystical_Jackass]

All the recent lists seem to have been more along the lines of Monoblack Aggro with Smallpox rather than the more controllish Pox decks of yesteryear.

I have a list that I love and is a lot more controllish.


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

2 Dark Ritual
4 Innocent Blood
4 Smallpox
4 Pox

4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Wrench Mind
2 Raven's Crime

4 Noetic Scales
4 Chimeric Idol
3 Phyrexian Totem


Sideboard:
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Baruka Bog
3 Powder Keg
3 Oppression
2 Wretched Banquet



You want 4 Dark Rituals to guarantee that turn1 explosiveness, otherwise I'd lose them all. If you don't draw it opening hand, you wont want it 5 turns later, that's my rational. It's all or nothing my friend.

Noetic scales seems good. The mana cost is it's worst drawback, I'd cut 2 of them at add 2 Crucible of Worlds. I think Crucible is a must in Pox, whether regaining CA from lands sac'd to Pox or recurring factories as blockers, it's deffinitely needed. You need a pitch outlet to Pox's, I suggest bloodghast over totem. That's part of the CA you gain, it's needed IMO.

Lose the Wrench Mind card. It's mind rot with benefits, it's horrible. You need "specific" hand removal - Duess/Thoughtseize, to play your "Turn1, remove countertop, or remove standstill, or remove stp". That's all I got now, rest seems pretty good. Although I would throw in ~2-3 Tombstalkers just to have, they're so good, I'd almost say too good not to run.

[bowvamp]

What are the thoughts on Death's Shadow? It obviously isn't viable as anything more than a 1-2 of, but it adds late game stomping power and can often save you against decks like Burn, 'Goyf Sligh, Zoo, and Tempo Threshold. I'm obviously not going to suggest running it if you don't run Pox, but as a 1-of, it helps. A lot. No dependency on the graveyard is also nice.

Bloodghast is also better at low life, but landfall doesn't work when I'm faking a good hand(a tactic that owns decks w/ discard).

Current Beater Regiment:
3 Tombstalker
1 Death's Shadow
1 Nihilith
1 Necroplasm

The reliance on the graveyard is hard to avoid, but I find that most graveyard hate these days is targeted.

[Androstanolone]

With regards to beaters like tombstalker and death's shadow. Once you're running nether spirits and bloodghasts you don't have to worry about sacrificing your beater to a pox. These creatures already have so much synergy with the deck, but they additionally alleviate the antisynergy of "regular" creatures. Tombstalker is that much better with a spirit/ghast on the table to be sac'd in its place.

I don't find myself "faking a good hand" very often. I mostly play a land for 2 free damage. Bloodghast is awesome.

I don't agree that 3 is the right number of stalkers. It is tempting to run 3, I know, because it ends games. But 3 is too many, and 2 is not quite enough. 2 is closer to the right number, though. The fact is, your deck should be strong enough to win every game without tombstalker. Tombstalker should be a "nice to have" that steals a game here and there. You shouldn't be relying on stalker as it can be slow and antisynergetic, especially in multiples.

Death's shadow has potential. Even against the more controllish decks out there my life total usually gets low. Take a hit or 2 from a tarmogoyf and pox once, your life gets below 10 pretty easy. He's easily a 4/4 or 5/5 for B. He's kinda weird cuz he really sucks if you're winning and is really awesome if you're losing. One problem is that he has no evasion, so even if you're way behind on life he can't necessarily steal the game away as they can just chump him and swing with another guy ftw. So when you're losing he'll likely be on defense, acting as a big wall. And I think pox can generally do better than a big wall. Of course pox can do a good job of keeping creatures off the board, so if you're losing and he's unblocked he can completely turn the game around. Let me know how it goes with the card, seems really swingy.

[slylie]

What are the thoughts on Death's Shadow? It obviously isn't viable as anything more than a 1-2 of, but it adds late game stomping power and can often save you against decks like Burn, 'Goyf Sligh, Zoo, and Tempo Threshold. I'm obviously not going to suggest running it if you don't run Pox, but as a 1-of, it helps. A lot. No dependency on the graveyard is also nice.

What is there to think about? the card sucks and doesn't get a spot.


Bloodghast is also better at low life, but landfall doesn't work when I'm faking a good hand(a tactic that owns decks w/ discard).

Current Beater Regiment:
3 Tombstalker
1 Death's Shadow
1 Nihilith
1 Necroplasm

The reliance on the graveyard is hard to avoid, but I find that most graveyard hate these days is targeted.

When do you ever need to fake a good hand with pox? We aren't playing islands. We rip apart their hand and destroy the perms they play. We are never playing out more than 3-4 lands so you auto hold back lands for landfall or raven's crime anyways. I doubt you will ever feel it was a mistake to play a land to bring back a ghast.. ever. You regiment of beaters is all over the place. whenever I see so many one-ofs in a deck with no tutors it only means one thing - bad deckbuilding. You use the creatures that fit the strategy best, which in some cases is bloodghast, nether spirit, tombstalker, perhaps epochrisite or persecutor. If you want something that is mono-black and huge in this deck, try Nyxathid. He is good when you are winning and good when you are losing. In this deck he is often a 7/7 or a 6/6 and rarely smaller. For a death's shadow to be a 7/7 you have to be at 6 life. To have more than one death's shadow on the board just sets you up for a 2 for 1 with swords.

[bowvamp]

What is there to think about? the card sucks and doesn't get a spot.



When do you ever need to fake a good hand with pox? We aren't playing islands. We rip apart their hand and destroy the perms they play. We are never playing out more than 3-4 lands so you auto hold back lands for landfall or raven's crime anyways. I doubt you will ever feel it was a mistake to play a land to bring back a ghast.. ever. You regiment of beaters is all over the place. whenever I see so many one-ofs in a deck with no tutors it only means one thing - bad deckbuilding. You use the creatures that fit the strategy best, which in some cases is bloodghast, nether spirit, tombstalker, perhaps epochrisite or persecutor. If you want something that is mono-black and huge in this deck, try Nyxathid. He is good when you are winning and good when you are losing. In this deck he is often a 7/7 or a 6/6 and rarely smaller. For a death's shadow to be a 7/7 you have to be at 6 life. To have more than one death's shadow on the board just sets you up for a 2 for 1 with swords.

First off, the aim of my deck, in case you haven't noticed is to last to the late game. This means that if I don't see the "right" beater for the MU I'm playing, I try and push it longer into the late game. That acts as a psuedo tutor, albeit very slow and random. Most of the time anything will do, so why do I have to pick the "one beater to rule them all" when I could just get a couple beaters that handle the whole meta well?

Secondly, the faking a good hand thing is simple. Your opponent plays discard, you hold your lands in your hand. They play something like duress or thoughtseize and can't nab anything. Another advantage of holding your lands when you don't need them is that by holding your non-basics specifically, you deny your opponent more targets for wasteland.

Nyxathid... wow. That's even less viable than well... anything. If you're doing well, you should win anyways. If you're losing, he sucks. I don't know where you're coming from on that... them having 4-7 cards in hand make him a horrible card.

I only have one death's shadow in my deck. How is it possible for me to have two on the board. If they stp shadow, it resets me up to 13 life inherently.

As for my testing, it's been amazing so far. I love it's ability to out-clock pretty much everything in the format if they're stupid enough to try and race. That just spells win.

[slylie]

First off, the aim of my deck, in case you haven't noticed is to last to the late game. This means that if I don't see the "right" beater for the MU I'm playing, I try and push it longer into the late game. That acts as a psuedo tutor, albeit very slow and random. Most of the time anything will do, so why do I have to pick the "one beater to rule them all" when I could just get a couple beaters that handle the whole meta well?

Secondly, the faking a good hand thing is simple. Your opponent plays discard, you hold your lands in your hand. They play something like duress or thoughtseize and can't nab anything. Another advantage of holding your lands when you don't need them is that by holding your non-basics specifically, you deny your opponent more targets for wasteland.

Nyxathid... wow. That's even less viable than well... anything. If you're doing well, you should win anyways. If you're losing, he sucks. I don't know where you're coming from on that... them having 4-7 cards in hand make him a horrible card.

I only have one death's shadow in my deck. How is it possible for me to have two on the board. If they stp shadow, it resets me up to 13 life inherently.

As for my testing, it's been amazing so far. I love it's ability to out-clock pretty much everything in the format if they're stupid enough to try and race. That just spells win.

Allright I guess it depends on the build you are playing, my build I always hold lands in my hand anyways as I play 2 raven's crime and crucible maindeck and I never need more than 3-4 lands out at a time.

Nyxathid is a good card. I don't play him but I've tested him and he can really be huge in this kind of deck. I can't fit him anywhere in my build but he is very viable and is going to sit in your hand a lot less often than death's shadow.

[Clark Kant]

There's a HUGE number of viable win conditions in pox. And almost all of them are quite good. Tombstalker is imo heads and shoulders above the rest if you're playing fetchlands and many pox effects. The only way I wouldn't play it is if I wasn't playing fetchlands or Pox or if I was playing something techy like Ensnaring Bridge or Noetic Scales.

But after Tombstalker, all of the following threats work well...

Bloodghast
Mishra's Factory + Crucible
Nether Spirit
Nyxathid
Nihilith
Death's Shadow (I'm iffy on this)
Necroplasm
Epocrasite
Chimeric Idol
The Rack (iffy on this)

And atleast half a dozen other great threats.

[Top Deck]

well i haven't been here in a while, but i decided to put up my new spin on pox due to number of very critical new cards that have been introduced. let me state my logic about some of these cards. pox decks are basically a symetrical (balance) type of effect and your top decks are probably going to be better than your opponent's.

however pox has a problem with both burn and recursion (ever play landstill with pox? and you find out quickly it is near unwinnable). also swarm creature decks can be somewhat problematic at times if coupled with burn (ala zoo).

so several new cards have been introduced that haven't received enough attention so i am posting once again.

1) bojuka bog --- this card is a house very recursion for very obvious reasons. it doesn't waste a slot because it is a land and we need land in pox since we are blowing up our's :D.

2) death's shadow --- wow this card is simply amazing... why? because we are always low on life in pox and often we need to cast a big threat with little or no mana (hence the desire to use tombstalkers)

3) dark depths + vampire hexmage --- now this is very strange because i came upon this decision based off the meta. right now pox can't beat ichorid because they don't lands or cards in hand to go off, but they do need bridge from below. what better way to beat that deck than just have 1 creature which allows you to nerf their bridges by just saccing? also with the huge flood of vial decks like merfolk and others, a land denial strategy is not as beneficial as before.

so i decided to incorporate both expedition map (to fetch either the bog and other goodies) and tabernacle. tabernacle is a house against swarm decks simply because they wont have the mana to maintain their army. and with that setup i figured i might as well replace my wastelands (which seem very dormant as of late) with the dark depths combo to give you a quick win con.


so here's my deck list:

lands: 23
swamp 16
bojuka bog 4
dark depths 2
the tabernacle at pendrell vale 1

creatures: 19
dark confidant 4
vampire hexmage 4
gatekeeper of malakir 3
nyxathid 4
death's shadow 4

spells: 21
hymn to tourach 4
wrench mind 4
smallpox 4
pox 3
basilisk collar 1
expedition map 2


the spells that i am thinking about interchanging is gatekeepers for poxes and vice versa. quest for the nihil stone is at times underwhelming, but many times it keeps them from spending their hands so i can hymn them. a lot of times i can win with vampire hexmage + dark depths combo fairly quickly.

questions and suggestions are welcomed.

[Clark Kant]

swamp 16
bojuka bog 4
dark depths 2
the tabernacle at pendrell vale 1

smallpox 4
pox 3
.

Why the heck aren't you playing 4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. Cut expedition map and add another dark depths and play 24 lands total.


Just play it. The card was printed for your deck and is the difference between it being unplayable and viable.

swamp 12
bojuka bog 4
dark depths 3-4
the tabernacle at pendrell vale 1
urborg tomb of yawgmoth 4

expedition map 0

pox 3
smallpox 4

You absolutely should be playing urborg tomb of yawgmoth. And 4 at that, not even one less (you can sac and discard extras to your Pox effects). The same applies to dark depths (you can play 3-4 because extras serve as Pox and Smallpox fodder.

[Top Deck]

Very good rationale.

i cut the maps in favor of your manabase.

[Clark Kant]

Excellent. I assure you that you won't regret it.

4 Urborg and 3 Dark Depths are easy to support with 7 Pox effects.

[Androstanolone]

well i haven't been here in a while, but i decided to put up my new spin on pox due to number of very critical new cards that have been introduced. let me state my logic about some of these cards. pox decks are basically a symetrical (balance) type of effect and your top decks are probably going to be better than your opponent's.

however pox has a problem with both burn and recursion (ever play landstill with pox? and you find out quickly it is near unwinnable). also swarm creature decks can be somewhat problematic at times if coupled with burn (ala zoo).

so several new cards have been introduced that haven't received enough attention so i am posting once again.

1) bojuka bog --- this card is a house very recursion for very obvious reasons. it doesn't waste a slot because it is a land and we need land in pox since we are blowing up our's :D.

2) death's shadow --- wow this card is simply amazing... why? because we are always low on life in pox and often we need to cast a big threat with little or no mana (hence the desire to use tombstalkers)

3) dark depths + vampire hexmage --- now this is very strange because i came upon this decision based off the meta. right now pox can't beat ichorid because they don't lands or cards in hand to go off, but they do need bridge from below. what better way to beat that deck than just have 1 creature which allows you to nerf their bridges by just saccing? also with the huge flood of vial decks like merfolk and others, a land denial strategy is not as beneficial as before.

so i decided to incorporate both expedition map (to fetch either the bog and other goodies) and tabernacle. tabernacle is a house against swarm decks simply because they wont have the mana to maintain their army. and with that setup i figured i might as well replace my wastelands (which seem very dormant as of late) with the dark depths combo to give you a quick win con.


so here's my deck list:

lands: 23
swamp 16
bojuka bog 4
dark depths 2
the tabernacle at pendrell vale 1

creatures: 19
dark confidant 4
vampire hexmage 4
gatekeeper of malakir 3
nyxathid 4
death's shadow 4

spells: 21
hymn to tourach 4
wrench mind 4
smallpox 4
pox 3
basilisk collar 1
expedition map 2


the spells that i am thinking about interchanging is gatekeepers for poxes and vice versa. quest for the nihil stone is at times underwhelming, but many times it keeps them from spending their hands so i can hymn them. a lot of times i can win with vampire hexmage + dark depths combo fairly quickly.

questions and suggestions are welcomed.

Your creature base doesn't synergize much with pox. Death's shadow should probably be a 2 of at most, and I think a 1-of. Gatekeeper is good but you already have 7 edicts, and sacrificing gatekeeper to a pox negates the card advantage he gained you in the first place. I'd go with:

4x bloodghast
4x nyxathid
4x hexmage
4x dark confidant
2x tombstalker
1x death's shadow

bloodghast acts to "protect" your other creatures from pox. Now you can pox with nyxathid or death's shadow out, just sac the ghast instead and bring it back with landfall. Ghast also often gets haste from them having less than 10 life pretty quickly.

Wrench mind is pretty bad, I just plain wouldn't play it. In fact, I'd rather have augur of skulls in this deck. It always hits 2 cards (wrench doesn't) and can block a tarmogoyf for a while until you draw removal (which wrench mind will also never do). It can even swing for 1 when the opponent is stalled in topdeck mode, making it useful even if the opponent has no cards left in hand (something else wrench mind will never do).

I think the hexmage/depths combo is a reasonable "oops I win" throw-in. It may even find a place in more traditional pox lists because it can just outright win the game in a single turn.

Cutting the maps was a good call. 4x urborg is an autoinclude.

[bowvamp]

We've already discussed HexDepths.
When is basilisk collar better than jitte. Even more important, when can we sacrifice options in our hand for purely extra-offensive options?

[OmniStrata]

I'm sorry but srsly?
@OmniStrata I don't understand how tempting wurm makes the deck any better?


For the discard form of Pox, using Duress [or thoughtsieze], if your foe has any threats that are bigger than a 5/5, you obviously don't play it. 5/5 for two mana when your foe's hand is empty? (or has blah* threats) Duress/ThoughtS, Hymn, Smallpox, Pox. Odds should be good that you shred their hand and Raven's Crime + Life from the Loam?

Outside TombS, what other Black or Green creature can be that huge without GY? Goyf and Tomby do cannibalize each other and it could work if you don't care about 'one or the other, but NEVER both' scenario. Tempting Wurm after shredding their hands alongside a Tombstalker I'm sure would work out well, unless for some god awful reason you can't draw 3 of your 17 discard cards...

sorry for the late reply, was busy

[Pernacious_D]

This was my build, with a couple of modern additions:

x4 Pox
X4 Vindicate
x4 Sinkhole
x4 Hymn to Tourach
x3 Duress
x4 Innocent Blood
x4 Dark Ritual

X4 Chimeric Idol
X2 ]Nether spirit
x2 Cursed Scroll
x1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
x1 The Abyss
x2 Extirpate
x2 Sign in Blood

x4 Scrubland
x4 Polluted Delta
x11 Swamp

Sideboard:

x3 Wasteland
x2 Disenchant
x3 Circle of Protection: red
x2 Rule of Law
x2 Perish
x2 pithing needle
x1 Funeral Charm

[bowvamp]

Ok, the cards to look at for the future of pox: (Rise of Eldrazi SPOILAHS!!!)

Inquisition of Kozilek - B
Sorcery
Target player reveals their hand. Choose a nonland card with CMC =< 3 , they discard that card.

The reason Inquisition is good in pox would be as a duress/'seize replacement. We'll just have to wait and see how much CMC limit will impact the success of this card imho.

Consuming Vapors - 3B
Sorcery
Target player sacrifices a creature, you gain life equal to its toughness.
Rebound (Remove this card from the game, play it again for free your next upkeep)

The reason Vapors has even the slightest chance in pox is that it because it 2 for 1's. It comes with special sauce like non-targeting and life gain. It also punches through counters. And GY removal. Really, it's plain out awesome. Not sure we can get to a level where 4 mana is acceptable for a reactive spell.

The black leveling creatures we've seen so far don't work in pox.
Just my 2cents.

[Doombear]

Hello,

this will be my first post in this forum after a few months of just reading. I play Pox now for several months and i want to give you my list for discussion and disposition.

Creatures:

4x Bloodghast
1x Necroplasm
1x Nether Spirit

Spells:

4x Dark Ritual
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Funeral Charm
4x Innocent Blood
3x Thoughtseize
4x Smallpox
3x Crucible of Worlds
2x Duress
2x Entomb
1x Raven's Crime
1x Syphon Life

Lands:

14x Swamp
3x Verdant Catacomb
4x Wasteland
1x Cabal Pit

Sideboard:

4x Leyline of the Void
3x Engineered Plague
3x Dystopia
4x Extirpate
1x Bojuka Bog


I know my deck is not that aggressive but it works pretty decent vs several match-up, but first i give you some explanations why i picked some of these cards.
Dark Ritual, Hymn to Tourach, Duress, Thoughtseize, Raven's Crime and Funeral Charm allow me to have powerful first-turns. Especially versus mulligans it's great.
Entomb gives me some tutoring for interesting targets like Necroplasm, Bloodghast, Cabal Pit if necessary etc. I wish for first turn Entombs for Nether Spirit.
The creature combination turned out to be some kind of sac-and-control rotation, if Necroplasm is involved.
Smallpox, Innocent Blood, Funeral Charm and Cabal Pit keep the board clear, so that my little critters can do their job.

My matchups so far, as i can say concerning my meta:
vs. Zoo - i have good chances, LD + Removal, the Burn is handled via Syphon Life tutored by Entomb
vs. CanTresh - good, basically i can kill more threats than he has in his deck
vs. any kind of Survival - bad, just bad in first game. in game two and three it gets better
vs. Goblins - really good
vs. Combo - even to slightly unfavourable, post-board little better


so guys, what would you change and what ideas can you give me?
thanks and sorry for eventual bad english, i am not a native speaker

[Jon Stewart]

Ok, the cards to look at for the future of pox: (Rise of Eldrazi SPOILAHS!!!)

Inquisition of Kozilek - B
Sorcery
Target player reveals their hand. Choose a nonland card with CMC =< 3 , they discard that card.

The reason Inquisition is good in pox would be as a duress/'seize replacement. We'll just have to wait and see how much CMC limit will impact the success of this card imho.

Consuming Vapors - 3B
Sorcery
Target player sacrifices a creature, you gain life equal to its toughness.
Rebound (Remove this card from the game, play it again for free your next upkeep)

The reason Vapors has even the slightest chance in pox is that it because it 2 for 1's. It comes with special sauce like non-targeting and life gain. It also punches through counters. And GY removal. Really, it's plain out awesome. Not sure we can get to a level where 4 mana is acceptable for a reactive spell.

The black leveling creatures we've seen so far don't work in pox.
Just my 2cents.

Good finds.

I think Inquisition is a fantastic replacement for Thoughtseize and Duress.

Duress sucked especially in top deck mode in that it could whiff if your opp is just left with lands and creatures after your Smallpoxes and such. Plus it didn't discard goyfs when thats what you most wanted to discard.

Thoughtseize sucked in that it shocked you and your life.

But Inquisition is solid. I think lots of black aggro decks would play it too, possibly alongside Reanimate and Thoughtseize.

[slylie]

Hello,

this will be my first post in this forum after a few months of just reading. I play Pox now for several months and i want to give you my list for discussion and disposition.

Creatures:

4x Bloodghast
1x Necroplasm
1x Nether Spirit

Spells:

4x Dark Ritual
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Funeral Charm
4x Innocent Blood
3x Thoughtseize
4x Smallpox
3x Crucible of Worlds
2x Duress
2x Entomb
1x Raven's Crime
1x Syphon Life

Lands:

14x Swamp
3x Verdant Catacomb
4x Wasteland
1x Cabal Pit

Sideboard:

4x Leyline of the Void
3x Engineered Plague
3x Dystopia
4x Extirpate
1x Bojuka Bog


I know my deck is not that aggressive but it works pretty decent vs several match-up, but first i give you some explanations why i picked some of these cards.
Dark Ritual, Hymn to Tourach, Duress, Thoughtseize, Raven's Crime and Funeral Charm allow me to have powerful first-turns. Especially versus mulligans it's great.
Entomb gives me some tutoring for interesting targets like Necroplasm, Bloodghast, Cabal Pit if necessary etc. I wish for first turn Entombs for Nether Spirit.
The creature combination turned out to be some kind of sac-and-control rotation, if Necroplasm is involved.
Smallpox, Innocent Blood, Funeral Charm and Cabal Pit keep the board clear, so that my little critters can do their job.

My matchups so far, as i can say concerning my meta:
vs. Zoo - i have good chances, LD + Removal, the Burn is handled via Syphon Life tutored by Entomb
vs. CanTresh - good, basically i can kill more threats than he has in his deck
vs. any kind of Survival - bad, just bad in first game. in game two and three it gets better
vs. Goblins - really good
vs. Combo - even to slightly unfavourable, post-board little better


so guys, what would you change and what ideas can you give me?
thanks and sorry for eventual bad english, i am not a native speaker

First of all, I love the direction your deck is going. Using the entomb to get answers for most decks game 1. I like it.

Some ideas, you know the deck better than I but maybe more questions than suggestions?

1. Why not 1 of Bojuku Bog maindeck?
2. I know its a tall order, but 1 of Taberknackle?
3. Since entomb is so good in this deck, why not up the number to 3, or 4?
4. I think the discard is a bit much. Why does funeral charm make the cut?
5. Why no urborg? You can tap the pit without paying life, tap wastelands for (b), tabernacle, ect.

[Chtulhu]

We've already discussed HexDepths.


I find hexdepths unbelievable in pox. It has been discussed already (to some extend), but it think it deserves to be discussed thoroughly.

Best reason why: It gives you a much faster killing option besides Tombstalker (which is insufficient as a lonesome killing option). In an ideal play you would disrupt your opponent 3 or 4 turns, cast Tombstalker, and attack 3 or 4 turns. That gives you 7 to 9 turns to finish the job, if all goes well. Hexdepths potentially finishes the job for you in 3 turns - making the deck much more viable against fast aggro or burn, simply because it's a deal-with-me-or-die situation. And it's independant of the graveyard, which makes it a balanced addition to tombstalker.

To find both combopieces, I use living wish, which I find amazing. Actually living wish is the mainreason why I find hexdepths very synergical with pox. It gets you hexmage and DD, but also Tombstalker, Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale or Maze of Ith. Especially Pendrell Vale is great against fast weenies,and living wish solves the fact that you don't run multiple copies maindeck. Sensei's divining Top with fetches/dredge searches the library for hex/depths (or every other card you might need).

I tossed my factories out and replaced them with DD, replacing a slow and defensive card with a hyperefficient killer combocard (there is the argument that a factory can give a colorless mana, but you need only B in pox). I never really liked factory as it was too slow to be a threat and when needed for chumpblocking, I mostly lost the game anyway. I also cut crucible, replacing it with Life from the loam. Dredge is simply card advantage: discard it to pox and dredge back when needed - crucible forces you to discard other cards. Also, dredge is great with Sensei's divining top: if you don't like what you see, dredge away.

Here's my list:

- 2 tombstalker
- 3 hexmage
- 3 dark depths

- 4 smallpox
- 4 sinkhole
- 4 hymn to tourach
- 3 duress (to be replaced with Inquisition of Kozilek)
- 2 pox

- 4 living wish
- 3 sensei's divining top
- 3 life from the loam

- 4 mox diamond
- 4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
- 2 bloodstained mire
- 4 verdant catacombs
- 4 bayou
- 4 wasteland
- 3 swamps

Sideboard
- 1 hexmage
- 1 dark depths
- 1 tombstalker
- 1 tabernacle at pendrell vale
- 1 maze of ith
- 4 extirpate
- 3 elephant grass
- 2 pernicious deed

[Cthuloo]

I find hexdepths unbelievable in pox. It has been discussed already (to some extend), but it think it deserves to be discussed thoroughly.

Best reason why: It gives you a much faster killing option besides Tombstalker (which is insufficient as a lonesome killing option). In an ideal play you would disrupt your opponent 3 or 4 turns, cast Tombstalker, and attack 3 or 4 turns. That gives you 7 to 9 turns to finish the job, if all goes well. Hexdepths potentially finishes the job for you in 3 turns - making the deck much more viable against fast aggro or burn, simply because it's a deal-with-me-or-die situation. And it's independant of the graveyard, which makes it a balanced addition to tombstalker.
Almost all pox-decks run crucible/factory together - but in a way hexdepths does the same job so much better. A factory can chumpblock all day long, but MaritLage simply is the best blocking creature imaginable, which swings for victory the next turn. I tossed my factories out and replaced them with DD, replacing a slow and defensive card with a hyperefficient killer combocard (there is the argument that a factory can give a colorless mana, but you need only B in pox).

To find both combopieces, I use living wish, which I find amazing. Actually living wish is the mainreason why I find hexdepths very synergical with pox. It gets you hexmage and DD, but also Tombstalker, Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale or Maze of Ith. Especially Pendrell Vale is great against fast weenies,and living wish solves the fact that you can't run multiple copies maindeck (manastability). And for searching the library for hex/depths (or every other card you might need), I use Sensei's divining top with fetches.

Here's my list:

- 2 tombstalker
- 3 hexmage
- 3 dark depths

- 4 smallpox
- 4 sinkhole
- 3 hymn to tourach
- 3 duress (to be replaced with Inquisition of Kozilek)
- 2 pox

- 4 living wish
- 3 sensei's divining top
- 3 life from the loam

- 4 mox diamond
- 4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
- 2 bloodstained mire
- 4 verdant catacombs
- 4 bayou
- 4 wasteland
- 4 swamps

Sideboard
- 1 hexmage
- 1 dark depths
- 1 tombstalker
- 1 tabernacle at pendrell vale
- 1 maze of ith
- 4 extirpate
- 3 elephant grass
- 2 pernicious deed

I played a very similar list with decent success (although I never brought it to a tournament up to now). The differences in my list are:

- 3 hymns
- 2 pox
- 1 wish
+ 3 pernicious deed
+ 2 maelstrom pulse
+ 1 duress

And goyf instead of stalker in the wish board. The mana base was also slightly different, since I managed to fit 3 factories in it. I have experienced an overall improvement in the bad matchups my old Bg pox list had, but still felt ANT was hard to beat unless you had both disruption and a fast combo.

I then tried something different, with maindeck Chalice of the Void, so that I'm basically preboarded against combo and can protect marith lage from those annoying plows (and even more annoying paths). From my previous list I went:

- 4 duress
- 3 top
+ 4 chalice
+ 3 sylvan library

Chalice is really strong, of course. The problem is, if you don't have chalice or mox diamond in your opening grip, things may be hard. I'm not sure what the best configuration is, I will be glad to hear how is the deck performing for you, any particular good/bad matchup or anything you may want to share.

[Jon Stewart]

I feel like Ankh of Mishra combined with Land destruction is godly powerful, especially given how many decks are dependent on fetchlands (which Ankh slaughters). Sinkhole, Vindicate, Wasteland and Smallpox are fine effects to this end (though Smallpox and Wasteland make you lose two life to replace the land, it's not a bad deal. Losing five life each time you fetch something is the definition of painful.



Is there any way we can abuse this card?

[Narcissism]

The only problem I can see with this strategy (although it could perfectly fit as a rogue tech) is if your opponent plays an Aether Vial turn one!

If so, how would you be able to combat that? Vindicate requires 1BW, which will be quite hurtful for your part as well.
Kudos for the idea though, but I personally would never added Ankh of Mishra maindeck. One more thing that could be brought up is its dead-draw factor. A late game Ankh of Mishra is not something I would draw, because the Sinkhole/Pox/Wasteland disruption is meant for the early game.

I would ask you to test it out on MWS and repost your findings if it is not too much, because I find it interesting.

[Androstanolone]

ankh of mishra:

Good/solid on turn 2, pretty crappy after that. Too much variance imo.

You could dip into red for zo-zu, so you can run 8 ankhs. Also run moxen to crank out a turn 1 ankh, turn 2 zo zu, turn 3 sinkhole/pox/smallpox/wasteland/etc. Pretty savage.

As savage as that is, it is so much more draw-dependent than the more traditional pox builds.

[slylie]

The only problem I can see with this strategy (although it could perfectly fit as a rogue tech) is if your opponent plays an Aether Vial turn one!

If so, how would you be able to combat that? Vindicate requires 1BW, which will be quite hurtful for your part as well.
Kudos for the idea though, but I personally would never added Ankh of Mishra maindeck. One more thing that could be brought up is its dead-draw factor. A late game Ankh of Mishra is not something I would draw, because the Sinkhole/Pox/Wasteland disruption is meant for the early game.

I would ask you to test it out on MWS and repost your findings if it is not too much, because I find it interesting.

Personally I think the Ankh sucks, especially if you lose the die roll. It just sounds bad and I couldn't imagine what would be cut for it. The decks that run vindciate (white splash vakapox or whatever) have a worse matchup against the deck the runs vial (Merfolk), as your land destruction is matched by them stifling your saclands and wastelanding your scrublands, not to mention the Ankh is going to do damage to yourself on top of the thoughtseizes, smallpox, pox, cabal pit, tomb of urami, ect ect.

[Narcissism]

Personally I think the Ankh sucks, especially if you lose the die roll. It just sounds bad and I couldn't imagine what would be cut for it. The decks that run vindciate (white splash vakapox or whatever) have a worse matchup against the deck the runs vial (Merfolk), as your land destruction is matched by them stifling your saclands and wastelanding your scrublands, not to mention the Ankh is going to do damage to yourself on top of the thoughtseizes, smallpox, pox, cabal pit, tomb of urami, ect ect.

Is the Pope a catholic?
Of course this strategy will not work for a PT scene at all, but you never know what it could do to a local tournament scene or similar. Splashing white for Vindicate (the post I replied to) is something he mentioned as a nice effect. Mono black can never get rid of artifacts or enchantments, so I brought light on the question, what can you do if the player plays an Aether Vial turn one? Nothing. Automatic game loss, if you ask me.

[Slayer]

Is the Pope a catholic?
Of course this strategy will not work for a PT scene at all, but you never know what it could do to a local tournament scene or similar. Splashing white for Vindicate (the post I replied to) is something he mentioned as a nice effect. Mono black can never get rid of artifacts or enchantments, so I brought light on the question, what can you do if the player plays an Aether Vial turn one? Nothing. Automatic game loss, if you ask me.

You could use Powder keg, I know its not great but it does help against a lot of things if playing mono Black.

[InfiniteJest]

Anyone have any imput on the Smallpox depths variants?? Im considering runnig one of these lists this weekend...I used to play pox back in the day and think foregoing it in favor of smallpox is a good idea. Im also considering playing Eva Green. Specifically these two lists:

Artifacts
3 Crucible Of Worlds

Creatures
4 Bloodghast
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Vampire Hexmage

Instants
3 Ghastly Demise

Sorceries
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Grim Discovery
4 Living Wish
4 Sinkhole
4 Smallpox

Basic Lands
2 Swamp

Lands
4 Bayou
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Marsh Flats
1 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland

Legendary Lands
4 Urborg, Tomb Of Yawgmoth

Legendary Snow Lands
3 Dark Depths

Sideboard:
4 Dark Confidant
1 Tombstalker
1 Vampire Hexmage
4 Ravenous Trap
1 Maze Of Ith
1 Treetop Village
1 Wasteland
1 The Tabernacle At Pendrell Vale
1 Dark Depths

And:

creature [13]

4 Dark Confidant

2 Gatekeeper of Malakir

4 Tarmogoyf

3 Vampire Hexmage

instant [4]

2 Crop Rotation

2 Ghastly Demise

sorcery [17]

4 Hymn to Tourach

3 Living Wish

2 Maelstrom Pulse

4 Smallpox

4 Thoughtseize

artifact [3]

3 Sensei's Divining Top

land [23]

3 Bayou

1 Bojuka Bog

1 Cabal Pit

3 Dark Depths

1 Forest

2 Polluted Delta

2 Swamp

3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

4 Verdant Catacombs

3 Wasteland

60 cards

Sideboard:

1 Tombstalker

1 Vampire Hexmage

3 Krosan Grip

2 Perish

3 Engineered Plague

2 Bojuka Bog

1 Dark Depths

1 Karakas

1 Wasteland

THere is also this Eva Depths list:

60 cards
4 Bayou
3 Dark Depths
1 Forest
3 Marsh Flats
4 Swamp
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland
24 lands


4 Dark Confidant
2 Gatekeeper of Malakir
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Tombstalker
3 Vampire Hexmage
15 creatures 4 Dark Ritual
2 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Living Wish
2 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Smother
4 Thoughtseize
21 other spells

Sideboard

1 Acidic Slime
1 Dark Depths
2 Deathmark
3 Engineered Plague
1 Eternal Witness
2 Extirpate
1 Gatekeeper of Malakir
2 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Vampire Hexmage
1 Wasteland
15 sideboard cards

[slylie]

Is the Pope a catholic?
Of course this strategy will not work for a PT scene at all, but you never know what it could do to a local tournament scene or similar. Splashing white for Vindicate (the post I replied to) is something he mentioned as a nice effect. Mono black can never get rid of artifacts or enchantments, so I brought light on the question, what can you do if the player plays an Aether Vial turn one? Nothing. Automatic game loss, if you ask me.

Well then you have no idea what you are talking about. If anyone knows the smallpox/merfolk matchup inside out, its me. I play vs my friend all the time to the point he hates me because the matchup is so bad for him. Vial is a automatic game loss? LOL. Thats the funniest thing I've heard in a long time... well at least pertaining to magic. How does vial win them the game when we run so much creature removal and discard? The vial is already card disadvantage so getting hit with a hymn right after laying down a pair of vials is devestating. Yes, it helps them against our LD strategy, but not every build runs sinkhole, and the ones that do can sink their mutavaults. The best chance merfolk has against this deck is to land vial and chain standstills, but even then its not a sure win for them. I'd love to hear your theory on how vial is an auto-win against pox.

And anyways to suggest splashing another color to run vindicates just to deal with vial is stupid, as I said the fetches turn on their stifles and wastelands, so you are making the matchup worse just to maybe be able to kill their vial on turn 3 or 4, and anyways if you are so worried about it you can just run Pithing needle naming vial without having to splash anything.

[Puzzle]

Well then you have no idea what you are talking about. If anyone knows the smallpox/merfolk matchup inside out, its me. I play vs my friend all the time to the point he hates me because the matchup is so bad for him. Vial is a automatic game loss? LOL. Thats the funniest thing I've heard in a long time... well at least pertaining to magic. How does vial win them the game when we run so much creature removal and discard? The vial is already card disadvantage so getting hit with a hymn right after laying down a pair of vials is devestating. Yes, it helps them against our LD strategy, but not every build runs sinkhole, and the ones that do can sink their mutavaults. The best chance merfolk has against this deck is to land vial and chain standstills, but even then its not a sure win for them. I'd love to hear your theory on how vial is an auto-win against pox.

And anyways to suggest splashing another color to run vindicates just to deal with vial is stupid, as I said the fetches turn on their stifles and wastelands, so you are making the matchup worse just to maybe be able to kill their vial on turn 3 or 4, and anyways if you are so worried about it you can just run Pithing needle naming vial without having to splash anything.I'm very surprised that a list that would beat Merfolk the way you say is good enough against the rest of the field.
Can you please post yours ?

[Nelis]

I'm very surprised that a list that would beat Merfolk the way you say is good enough against the rest of the field.
Can you please post yours ?

And Id like to see the merfolk list as well.

[Cthuloo]

I think the merfolk matchup was already addressed somewhere before in the thread. I find it to be favorable for every version of the deck (in my experience it ranges between very favorable for Bg, favorable for monoback and slightly favorable for Bw). I'm surprised to hear the contrary. I can share some lists if you want, but I don't think there's any secret tech to share.

The strength of Merfolk is in numbers, Any single merfolk isn't really scary, except maybe Wake Trasher. Every other merman alone gives a 10 turn clock (and can easily be blocked by a factory). This gives us plenty of time to get our disruption going: it shouldn't be so hard to avoid being swarmed, playing something around 10 removal (if you're playing a smaller number probably you're doing it wrong). Vial is a problem only if followed by a Standstill, otherwise I don't see how can it be an auto loss. Btw, I even managed to win a game in tournament where I was forced to break 4 Standstills.

Lists splashing for Goyf can apply more pressure, but become very vulnerable to denial.

Some other general considerations on the matchup, in no particular order:

- Remember they can't remove tombstalker (except the UW version, which doesn't see much play). If you manage to stick one, is usually gg
- You can safely ignore their first threat. Go for Hymn if you have it (and they don't have a cursecatcher). If they don't have vial, go for it even if you risk a daze. Setting them back a turn for free allows you to have more disruption going.
- Hide factories and waste if they don't have vial and you don't need them. You can trick them to drop a Standstill when you have the upper hand.
- For monoblack: powder keg set at two is a house. For Bw: explosives is even better. For Bg: pernicious deed of course is simply devastating.
- Like slylie remembered, if you fear vial there's pithing needle. Remember it can also stop mutavault, making standstill a dead card.

I don't know if this was helpful. There's something in particular you have problems to deal with?



@InfiniteJest: I like the second list more than the other, but I'm not convinced on some choices. I will elaborate better when I have more time,

[slylie]

I'm very surprised that a list that would beat Merfolk the way you say is good enough against the rest of the field.
Can you please post yours ?

I never said it was good against the rest of the field, its obviously not the best deck or everyone would play it, but I find it has favorable matchups against a lot of the top decks. In my opinion it makes Merfolk and Threshold look like casual decks (which is what I test against most). I was testing last weekend vs my friend, he plays NO bant and Thresh. I think out of about 20 games we played, maybe 15 with his thresh and 5 with his bant, I might have lost 2 against each deck, including one game he kept 7 and i mulled to 4. Where I live, there might be 20-30 people TOTAL who play legacy, so my testing is limited to only a few decks.

My list changes quite often, but basically its a more traditional mono-black build, and goes a little something like:

3x Tombstalker
2x Nether Spirit
2x The Rack (I understand 90% of people will disagree with this being good, but to be honest its always been a solid card in this build)

2x Thoughtseize
3x Duress
2x Raven's Crime
4x Hymn

4x Small Pox
4x Diabolic Edict
4x Sinkhole
4x Dark Ritual
3x Crucible

9x swamp
4x wasteland
3x mishra's factory
1x tomb of urami
2x Urborg, TOY
2x Bojuku Bog
2x Cabal Pit

As for the Merfolk and Thresh list, I don't know the exact lists they are pretty standard. The merfolk list is mono-blue (no splash). The thresh is canadian thresh, goyfs, mongeese, and old school werebears. The bant list, im not sure.

[Puzzle]

I never said it was good against the rest of the field, its obviously not the best deck or everyone would play it, but I find it has favorable matchups against a lot of the top decks. In my opinion it makes Merfolk and Threshold look like casual decks (which is what I test against most). I was testing last weekend vs my friend, he plays NO bant and Thresh. I think out of about 20 games we played, maybe 15 with his thresh and 5 with his bant, I might have lost 2 against each deck, including one game he kept 7 and i mulled to 4. Where I live, there might be 20-30 people TOTAL who play legacy, so my testing is limited to only a few decks.

My list changes quite often, but basically its a more traditional mono-black build, and goes a little something like:

3x Tombstalker
2x Nether Spirit
2x The Rack (I understand 90% of people will disagree with this being good, but to be honest its always been a solid card in this build)

2x Thoughtseize
3x Duress
2x Raven's Crime
4x Hymn

4x Small Pox
4x Diabolic Edict
4x Sinkhole
4x Dark Ritual
3x Crucible

9x swamp
4x wasteland
3x mishra's factory
1x tomb of urami
2x Urborg, TOY
2x Bojuku Bog
2x Cabal Pit

As for the Merfolk and Thresh list, I don't know the exact lists they are pretty standard. The merfolk list is mono-blue (no splash). The thresh is canadian thresh, goyfs, mongeese, and old school werebears. The bant list, im not sure.
Sorry but I'm not convinced you slaughter a decent Merfolk player.


Card-advantage-wise :
- Dark Ritual corresponds to Aether Vial : trading CA for mana advantage.
- Smallpox is unlikely to generate CA.
- With 12 basic lands + 8 non-basic + 4 Vials + a low curve on Merfolk's side, your LD and Crucibles are not likely to be very efficient.
- In fact, Crucible will be pretty limited and too often card disadvantage, corresponding to Fow, which is more card disadvantage but better quality of spell.
- your Hymns are the only real source of CA, corresponding to Merfolks' Adepts.
In short, you do not really have CA over Merfolk, neither do they against you.


Tempo-wise :
- Merfolk's classic opening of Cursecatcher or Vial is a spanner in your wheels.
- your 8 removal spells trade 1-for-1 with their 20 creatures (excluding manlands and wastes on both sides) : you can't hope to remove more than 1 creature OF THEIR CHOICE per game while they will draw 3-4 over the first 3-5 turns.
- you need to stabilize to win in this matchup.
- 3 of your lands bleed you. If you open into them, you'll bleed 3-4 life in the game, as you do need all the mana you can get.
- 2 of your lands CIPT.
- 4 of your spells bleed you.
- you are more open to Wasteland than Merfolk and if they waste you early, it will give them a lot of time to kill you.
- your discard suite, apart from Hymn, does not slow significantly down a Merfolk strategy as it doesn't rely on a given card but is a synergetic deck
- your LD, as explained above, does not slow them down very well either.
In short, Merfolk has a serious tempo advantage, which is what it thrives on.


Your main problem is that although LD and discard may stop Merfolk if pushed hard enough, the conjunction of the two on a lower scale will probably do little to hinder them.
Your best chance is to get a Tombstalker through, which means you used your discard first, which in turn means you let Merfolk develop their game tempo-wise.



All the above pre-supposes a mono-blue Merfolk.
Against a white splash, your LD improves in value but your Tombstalkers drop.
Against a green splash, your tempo problem and lack of targetted removal become pretty nasty.



You've got things going for you they are imo not big enough to call Merfolk a walk in the park. In my book, it's probably slightly negative against a competent Merfolk player.

[slylie]

Excellent! So this could only mean all three of my friends who play merfolk suck, and I'm just awesome.

I have my biggest mid-term exam tomorow and I don't really have time to argue with someone who has no idea what they are talking about. Crucibles are card disadvantage because they don't do much against a merfolk deck? How about maindeck edicts against combo? How about duress vs ... affinity. Jeeze. Of course there are going to be cards maindeck that have little use against other decks. I thought this was really obvious to all magic players. That said Crucible is awesome in here and generates sick card advantage late game even against merfolk. Saying its a bad because its card disadvantage is like saying smokestack is bad for the same reason.


Tempo-wise :
- Merfolk's classic opening of Cursecatcher or Vial is a spanner in your wheels.
what is this supposed to mean? Aren't decks built to disrupt other decks and fight disruption?

- your 8 removal spells trade 1-for-1 with their 20 creatures (excluding manlands and wastes on both sides) : you can't hope to remove more than 1 creature OF THEIR CHOICE per game while they will draw 3-4 over the first 3-5 turns.
Yeh I guess I should switch out edict for barter in blood.

- you need to stabilize to win in this matchup.
thanks for the tip, I'll remember that next time I try to go aggro with my 5 creatures.

- 3 of your lands bleed you. If you open into them, you'll bleed 3-4 life in the game, as you do need all the mana you can get. 1. the fact they win/save games makes up for the 'blood'. 2. with urborg out, they tap without pain. 3. They are the first to be sacced/discarded to smallpox, since they are most useful late game and with crucible out.

- 2 of your lands CIPT. Last I checked Tormods crypt doesn't tap for mana.

- 4 of your spells bleed you. ? Hello and welcome to the pox thread... there is a lot of bleeding going on.

- you are more open to Wasteland than Merfolk and if they waste you early, it will give them a lot of time to kill you. Yeh and the wastelands suck against burn decks so I guess I should take them out.

- your discard suite, apart from Hymn, does not slow significantly down a Merfolk strategy as it doesn't rely on a given card but is a synergetic deck Discard isn't good against aggro? damn.. ok I guess I should move it all to the board?

- your LD, as explained above, does not slow them down very well either.
In short, Merfolk has a serious tempo advantage, which is what it thrives on.

Thanks for the matchup analysis, a heck of a lot of stuff said that doesn't really say much. Again my friends are pretty good players yet somehow I often end up with the board like me with 3 lands, a creature, and a card in hand vs. them with no lands, a vial, no creatures and no cards in hand. I guess its cause im smart enough not to constantly tap my pain lands to 'bleed' myself to death. Pox isn't a tempo deck, isn't aggro nor dedicated control. It pretty much wins the game by blowing up everything, and having the ability to recover through reccuring effects like bloodghast, neither spirit, crucible, raven's crime, ect.

You say that pox has no way to generate card advantage, well let me make it simple.

You have no creature out, you smallpox. Discarding neither spirit (or bloodghast). Sacrifice a land. Cards "lost" 1 smallpox spell. (considering land can be played again, and discarded creature can be played from grave.)
Opponent discards a spell, sacs a creature, a land.. binning three cards that they will never get back. Once a crucible is down the card advantage is just too much for merfolk. You can block/kill everything they have with recurring factories, you can waste their mutavaults over and over, you can pick off their team with cabal pit one at a time (or a 4/4 every other turn). Dark ritual allows for explosive plays like turn 1 sinkhole/duress on the draw, turn 1 crucible, turn 1 eplague out of the board. Its card disadvantage, yes but its needed to bring up its game against problem matchups.

I'm guessing the people responding in the thread saying merfolk kills pox are just disgruntled merfolk players that are getting tired of losing games to it. I've noticed the people who make solid contributions in the thread and actually play the deck KNOW that merfolk is a good matchup for us. We discussed it before and I'm sure someone who knows the deck better than I do can explain better why it is.

[clavio]

Merfolk is going to be an uphill battle for pox. I would never leave home without 4 eplagues in the board. Pox makes it's living by beating aggro control, combo and dedicated control (excluding loam type decks).

[Doombear]

First of all, I love the direction your deck is going. Using the entomb to get answers for most decks game 1. I like it.

Some ideas, you know the deck better than I but maybe more questions than suggestions?

1. Why not 1 of Bojuku Bog maindeck?
2. I know its a tall order, but 1 of Taberknackle?
3. Since entomb is so good in this deck, why not up the number to 3, or 4?
4. I think the discard is a bit much. Why does funeral charm make the cut?
5. Why no urborg? You can tap the pit without paying life, tap wastelands for (b), tabernacle, ect.

hey, sorry for the late reply, but i was playtesting a lot and messed around a bit.
my changes so far
-2 swamps
+1 bojuka bog (vs ichorid it was good to have instant gy hate + recurring wasteland synergy)
+1 gargoyle castle (pretty good in this deck)

updated list:

Creatures:

4x Bloodghast
1x Necroplasm
1x Nether Spirit

Spells:

4x Dark Ritual
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Funeral Charm
4x Innocent Blood
3x Thoughtseize
4x Smallpox
3x Crucible of Worlds
2x Duress
2x Entomb
1x Raven's Crime
1x Syphon Life

Lands:

12x Swamp
3x Verdant Catacomb
4x Wasteland
1x Gargoyle Castle
1x Cabal Pit
1x Bojuka Bog

Sideboard:

4x Leyline of the Void
3x Engineered Plague
3x Dystopia
4x Extirpate
1x Bojuka Bog

i tested tabernacle as well but i came to the conclusion that it doesn't help me too much, because i dont pull on enough pressure to destroy my opponents lands

i'm thinking of adding 2 copies of sceletal scrying. what do you guys think? maybe another copy of entomb?

greetings and sorry for bad english =)

[Cthuloo]

Anyone have any imput on the Smallpox depths variants??

Here's the more detailed answer I promised.

First of all I think Bg (small)pox is a powerful shell for the combo. In my opinion there are two possible routes: an aggro-control with the added "bonus" of a fast finisher or a combo-control build. The two lists you posted are taking the first route, so I will focus on that one. Btw, before I wrote that I liked the second list more, but it was a mistake, in fact I prefer the first one. Let's look at what doesn't convince me.

- Crucible of worlds: IMHO Life From the Loam is strictly better. Not only does it cost one mana less (an important issue, if you are smallpoxing on tun 2), but can dredge into all sort of good things, like therapies, ghast and of course the combo pieces, that you can then recover with Grim Discovery.

- Ghastly demise: I am not sure about this one. I doesn't answer t1 nacatl or lackey (unless you fetched), and this is the only good reason I can see for running it. If you want a targeted removal for :b:, maybe wretched banquet is better. Otherwise, there's always good old Innocente blood, or, if you are not concerned about the CC, you can go for smother or shriekmaw ( which can also be recurred via grim discovery and can act as a finisher in the late game.

- Volrath's Stronghold: it could be a powerful addition to the deck, even as a 1-of. Don't know how your manabase is performing, though.

- Board: I will change a lot of it. I can't really understand what the confidant are for: when do you side them in? The Treetop village looks pretty random, I don't know when you would like to wish for instead of stalker. A single faerie macabre can also substitute a trap, being wishable. I think you may also need the usual krosan grips and maybe something against combo. This is what I would assemble:


1 Tombstalker
1 Vampire Hexmage
1 Faerie Macabre
3 Other grave hate
1 Maze Of Ith
1 The Tabernacle At Pendrell Vale
1 Dark Depths
3 Krosan Grip
3 Duress (can also be trinisphere to capitalize your denial, but might be a bit slow, since you don't play mox)

Let me know if I missed some reason behind your choices, and if you find my comments unreasonable.



@ Merfolk:



Pox makes it's living by beating aggro control

Merfolk is an aggro control deck. It's definitely slower than zoo or goblin. To overcome a single nether spirit they need a lord, two for a factoy. Usually it's not hard to keep their creature count low. Smallpox here is a powerful tempo card, it can set them back for a turn or even two.

[clavio]

I think you are underestimating how good standstill jitte and vial are, cards pox traditionally has no answers for. I'm not saying it's an entirely un-winnable match up but saying it's strictly positive is misguided. I guess it is indeed aggro control, but they aim to get more than one creature on the field. This is much more difficult to deal with than a single tarmogoyf. Preboard the matchup is better than goblins, but not overwhelmingly so.

Also smallpox gets much worse after a resolved vial.

[Cthuloo]

I think you are underestimating how good standstill jitte and vial are, cards pox traditionally has no answers for. I'm not saying it's an entirely un-winnable match up but saying it's strictly positive is misguided. I guess it is indeed aggro control, but they aim to get more than one creature on the field. This is much more difficult to deal with than a single tarmogoyf. Preboard the matchup is better than goblins, but not overwhelmingly so.

Also smallpox gets much worse after a resolved vial.


It appears that we have had a different experience with the matchup. I'm not trying to convince you that the matchup is in fact positive, when you feel it's not, just giving some last tips, hoping to be helpful. As a side note, I don't think merfolk it's a piece of cake, just that it is in general positive.

I find smallpox to be the best card to combat vial. Vial is scary to me if it allows them to deploy many creatures each turn. With smallpox I can:

- remove a creature in play
- remove a land, making harder for them to drop 2 creatures next turn
- remove (maybe) a creature in hand
- have (maybe) a free nether spirit to block with next turn

I'm not underestimating Standstill + Vial. In fact I think their better chance to beat us is chaining standstills. But Standstill without vial can be useless. In fact it happened that some of my opponents sided them out, or brought pithing needle (for factories) in, thus diluting their aggro potential. The last suggestion I would like to make if you really need something to combat merfolk is Culling Scales. It will hit a fish every turn, and can remove vial and jitte.

[djeyjey]

Hi all

Been reading this thread for a while and i'd like your thoughts on a card that i think could be interesting. Of course it won't make Pox the next DTB but i'm surprised this card hasen't been discussed here :

Viscera Dragger (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Viscera%20Dragger)
Can be discarded when poxing, and unearth mechanic makes it kick for 3… Plus the cycling bringing card quality in topdeck mode

[Cthuloo]

Hi all

Been reading this thread for a while and i'd like your thoughts on a card that i think could be interesting. Of course it won't make Pox the next DTB but i'm surprised this card hasen't been discussed here :

Viscera Dragger (http://deckbox.org/mtg/Viscera%20Dragger)
Can be discarded when poxing, and unearth mechanic makes it kick for 3… Plus the cycling bringing card quality in topdeck mode

Its CC of 4 means that you will rarely manage to cast it, and even in that case it's only a vanilla 3/3 that can esily be dealt with. It can come back from the graveyard, which is nice, but only once, while nether spirit continue to come back, acting as a perpetual blocker and possibly also as a finisher.

[djeyjey]

Its CC of 4 means that you will rarely manage to cast it, and even in that case it's only a vanilla 3/3 that can esily be dealt with. It can come back from the graveyard, which is nice, but only once, while nether spirit continue to come back, acting as a perpetual blocker and possibly also as a finisher.

Thx for your answer…

I did not actually intend to

1/ cast it
2/ replace nether spirit

I just thought of it as a card quality engine via Cycling with Unearth as a bonus, and wondered if it was worth including it in a Pox deck

[slylie]

Thx for your answer…

I did not actually intend to

1/ cast it
2/ replace nether spirit

I just thought of it as a card quality engine via Cycling with Unearth as a bonus, and wondered if it was worth including it in a Pox deck

I've tried it before in BC's the Rat Pack as it can be reanimated by balthor, cycled, unearthed and flashback therapy, but even then in the end it didn't make the cut. Nether Spirit and Bloodghast are superior.

[slylie]

I think you are underestimating how good standstill jitte and vial are, cards pox traditionally has no answers for. I'm not saying it's an entirely un-winnable match up but saying it's strictly positive is misguided. I guess it is indeed aggro control, but they aim to get more than one creature on the field. This is much more difficult to deal with than a single tarmogoyf. Preboard the matchup is better than goblins, but not overwhelmingly so.

Also smallpox gets much worse after a resolved vial.

Jitte is a problem. We can hope to keep them off creatures to equip, but a loaded jitte is hard to beat for any deck.

Vial really isn't the problem you guys are making it out to be. Pox doesn't care if you are vialing in guys instead of playing them, it might help them get around the LD aspect of the deck, but it only makes our discard worse for them. Vial and Standstill are obviously good but its a two card combo...

Standstill. I've always thought of it as a two mana draw 3 spell or draw 3 discard 2 spell, since the card's best effect is the psychological effect it has on players not wanting to break it. That said if you don't have any way around standstill, break it. Ideally at the end of their turn when they have 7 cards in hand already. Otherwise if you are playing a list similar to the one I am, some tips to playing vs. standstill with pox.

Tips to playing vs. a resolved standstill.

Their Board = >1 aether vial, standstil: Crack (they got the nuts and you will never get them to crack their own standstill here)
Their Board = < standstill, creature/and or mutavault : Don't crack (Merfolk generally plays 4 wastelands and 4 mutavaults, where as we generally play 4 wasteland and 3-4 mishra's factories. If your opponent just played a standstill on the back of mutavault and/or 1 creature, we have a good chance to force the opponent to crack his own standstill.)

*If you are playing bloodghast, he can be discarded at EOT then played next turn from the graveyard by dropping a land under a standstill.
*Factories beat mutavaults. They can block as a 3/3 alone, mutavaults are always 2/2 without a lord.
*its the right play to waste their wasteland before you drop a factory. They are running at least as many wastelands as you are factories so you can't just run them into wastelands and let the mutavaults own you.
*Crucible of worlds is obviously really good. Bringing back a factory or a cabal pit each turn is really really good. I can't beleive someone said this is card disadvantage.

I have been playing this deck for years. I'm by no means a pro or even a close but I know the decks I play and I can tell who has experience actually playing this deck (Clark Kant, Cthuloo, Jon Stewart, Mystic Jackass, Adrolestolone, and even newcomer Doombear is bringing some good ideas) and some who are just trying to comment based on predictions or theory. Pox is without a doubt my favoirite out of 10+ decks I own. When I bring my decks to the card shop, many of my friends ask if they can sit in the drivers seat and pilot it against their friends deck because they think it is so strong. It's pimped out with korean dark rituals, russian smallpoxes, japanese crucibles, ect. It's really fun, really mean, and it just works. I can't count the number of times I have left my opponent with absolutley nothing (no cards in hand, no perms) and myself with lands, creatures and spells in hand. Looking at the list it might be hard to figure out how that is possible, but the people who actually play the deck know.

So why isn't the deck tier 1? if it is so good?
A short answer is basically because it has a hard time against swarms and burn. Dedicated aggro strategies like zoo, goblins, .. elves.. are hard to overcome. That said, I don't have extensive testing experience so maybe someone can chime in.

[clavio]

(Clark Kant, Cthuloo, Jon Stewart, Mystic Jackass, Adrolestolone, and even newcomer Doombear is bringing some good ideas) and some who are just trying to comment based on predictions or theory.

You realize I have top 8'd with pox while most of these guys haven't. But whatever. I guess Im just making comments based on predictions or theory.

[slylie]

You realize I have top 8'd with pox while most of these guys haven't. But whatever. I guess Im just making comments based on predictions or theory.

To be honest when I see your avatar I think of the thread you made about the orb lockdown deck, I can't remember any posts you made about pox. If you made top 8 with the deck, good on you. Did you write a tournament report or can you link the list you played?

btw: There are of course other people in the thread that are contribuiting but I only included the most recent and fresh in my mind. Simply saying a deck is a problem without really explaining why doesn't count as bringing something to the table. You just said Jitte, Standstill, and Vial are all good cards pox doesn't have answers to. So that makes it a bad matchup? Tombstalker, netherspirit, bloodghast, crucible, ect, are all cards mono-blue mefolk dont have 'answers' to.

I'm not trying to insult anyone or be a prick but just saying X deck is an uphill battle and not giving solid reasons, then claiming you are reputable because you top 8'd with pox yet still not making points isn't constructive, posting the list, explaining why you had trouble against merfolk would be much better.

Cheers man and hope you can contribute your experience to the thread.

[Cthuloo]

Thx for your answer…

I did not actually intend to

1/ cast it
2/ replace nether spirit

I just thought of it as a card quality engine via Cycling with Unearth as a bonus, and wondered if it was worth including it in a Pox deck


It still seems weak to me, to be honest. It's a not exctiting beater with not exciting card quality attached; I think the deck needs more focused cards. I've not tested it, so I might be wrong of course. Maybe it's abusable in some shell when you cycle him, get him back via unheart, swing, and sack it to cabal therapy, but even in this case probably bloodghast looks better.

@ The whole merfolk thing: I don't know what more to say, I finished my "generic suggestions". If someone who is having problems with the deck wants to analyze the matchup in greater detail, I'll be glad to contribute again.

[Moczoc]

For everyone else who still plays The Rack:

I tried different constant discard

Raven's Crime (too slow)
Sceptre of Fugue (too slow/weak)
Necrogen Mist (too symmetrical for the effect)
Bottomless Pit (great, but conflicts with Tombstalker)

now I'm testing Unburden! And it works great so far as a whole playset. It is not really constant discard, but it causes much card advantage / damage from the Rack when needed and cycles otherwise.

[ScatmanX]

Wrench Mind seems way better than Unburden.
I know that cycling looks interesting, but that extra mana can be a pain in the ass I guess...

[Moczoc]

I played Wrench Mind but it was just a bad Hymn. And it sucked while both players are in topdeckmode without a Rack on the table. Unburden gives you the choice at that point. You are right to be careful about the cc=3 slot, but I am playing a version without crucible.

I'm currently working with this list:

Creatures
2 Tombstalker
4 Bloodghast
2 Gatekeeper of Malakir

Spells
4 The Rack
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Pox
4 Smallpox
2 Doom Blade
4 Unburden
3 Diabolic Edict
4 Funeral Charm
2 Executioner's Capsule OR 2 Innocent Blood (testing)

Lands
16 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Wasteland
2 Undiscovered Paradise

[Puzzle]

I have been playing this deck for years. I'm by no means a pro or even a close but I know the decks I play and I can tell who has experience actually playing this deck (Clark Kant, Cthuloo, Jon Stewart, Mystic Jackass, Adrolestolone, and even newcomer Doombear is bringing some good ideas) and some who are just trying to comment based on predictions or theory. Pox is without a doubt my favoirite out of 10+ decks I own. When I bring my decks to the card shop, many of my friends ask if they can sit in the drivers seat and pilot it against their friends deck because they think it is so strong. It's pimped out with korean dark rituals, russian smallpoxes, japanese crucibles, ect. It's really fun, really mean, and it just works. I can't count the number of times I have left my opponent with absolutley nothing (no cards in hand, no perms) and myself with lands, creatures and spells in hand. Looking at the list it might be hard to figure out how that is possible, but the people who actually play the deck know. Instead of going ad-hominem against those who disagree with you, maybe you could consider the ever-so-small possibility that you're not right ?

For ref, I used to play Pox quite a bit.
I stopped doing so when the format became faster and more aggro, which made Pox weaker.
Others, like you, chose to continue by ditching Pox for Smallpox and trying to maximize disruption.
I didn't go that way because I don't believe in the double-prong (sp.?) approach of LD+discard and because it leads to poorer CA (including battlefield), which is what Pox used to bet on.

Because I chose not to go with Smallpox and the LD+discard approach doesn't mean I don't understand it.
It just means that I disagree with it being good enough when Gobs, Zoo and Merfolk are rife.



So why isn't the deck tier 1? if it is so good?
A short answer is basically because it has a hard time against swarms and burn. Dedicated aggro strategies like zoo, goblins, .. elves.. are hard to overcome. That said, I don't have extensive testing experience so maybe someone can chime in.We agree on that.
Now, consider this : isn't Merfolk a swarm strategy, slower than others but backed-up with tempo-efficient counters ?



I'm not looking for conflict.
I'm just underlining why I disagree with your view on the Merfolk matchup.
If you want to do well with Pox, like any other deck, you need to be aware of its weaknesses as well as its strengths.



By the way :

- I think that Culling Scales is a good idea to work on : it creates CA and tempo stem against aggro. Well, it would even more if people still played Maze of Ith...

- why is no-one playing Inquisition of Kozilek ? It's a card that does exactly what Pox wants : reduce the quality of the first turns of the opponent. FoW isn't a big problem for this deck.

[bowvamp]

@Slylie
I'm sorry, but you did a couple things that I'm going to have to call you out on:
Not mentioning Clavio on that list,
Calling Merfolk easy,
and alienating everyone else who has contributed to pox.
Also, Clavio posted on this thread a while before you did.
Cracking standstill isn't as simple as a little calculation. In fact, it normally depends on how good you are at drawing poxes. If you can resolve a game-breaking spell through standstill (pox) or have a suitably efficient discard spell in your hand, you have no need to worry. Mindstab, Hymn, or even any mass creature removal (if they have many) are great ways to break standstill. Standstills broken early cause Poxes to be even more effective later.
@Puzzle
If you drop LD (which is an option) you can't drop Discard (not ever an option, just don't drop it) as well.
That said, dropping LD will necessitate you get more discard and removal, and increase the quality to boot.
Pox is good in that as a deck, it can run the best removal, discard, and LD cards in black. This makes it harder to play when you choose to abandon one of the center points as you go into sub-optimality.

My testing of death's shadow:
Definitely a keeper.
It has won me games I really shouldn't have won. I think it works very nicely with the main goal of pox. Run cards that work in a very broad range of scenarios, causing hurt to both sides (Pox/Smallpox/Hymn to Tourach) with cards that work only in certain contexts. The narrower cards are what lets us win games that pox/smallpox/sinkhole wouldn't win on their own. They include Wasteland (useless against monocolor) Creature Removal (useless against control that drops maybe 1-2 creatures a game) and targeted discard (useless against Lands/Ichorid, and slightly less useful if they have brainstorm). While death's shadow is a bit more narrow, running 1 copy allows us to not worry about obsolete-ing our finishers as a whole, the legendary effect, and moat.

[Captain Hammer]

I recall that people brought up Noetic Scales in the deck and it was quickly dismissed.

But I played against a pox deck with Noetic Scales, with various decks of mine, and let me tell you that card is a huge pain in the ass.

It single handedly slaughters my reanimator deck when it resolves. It slaughers Progenitus, Tarmogoyf, Tombstalker, and every other creature in the format when combined with some discard. Players are too busy answering Smallpox and Pox effects, that by the time a Noetic Scales hits the board, they're run out ways to answer it or deal with it.

It doesn't seem like it's very difficult for Pox to get to four mana. It's a slow deck, it plays tons of lands, and it plays Phyrexian Totem, so getting four mana shouldn't be a big deal for the deck at all.

[Puzzle]

@Puzzle
If you drop LD (which is an option) you can't drop Discard (not ever an option, just don't drop it) as well.
That said, dropping LD will necessitate you get more discard and removal, and increase the quality to boot.I agree up to here.


Pox is good in that as a deck, it can run the best removal, discard, and LD cards in black. This makes it harder to play when you choose to abandon one of the center points as you go into sub-optimality.Here is where I disagree : for me, sub-optimality comes when you try to do too many things at once and end up doing none of them right :
- 12 LD elements mean destroying about 2 lands per game : rarely worth the mana and card expense.
- Discard without CA only works if you can put pressure quickly enough : not Pox's case. (*)
- Raven's Crime, Smallpox and others that let the opponent decide do not really disrupt their game enough.

(*) that's not to say that discard shouldn't be played but that there needs to be a kill-strategy behind it and that the discard choices match that strategy.


You also take the risk of drawing into the wrong strategy in given games, which lowers your chances to do well in a tournament.


I should add that in a meta as fast as today's, LD doesn't feel like the right strategy.
Sinkhole was already not good enough years at the time of non-Instigator gobs and no-Zoo, I doubt it's doing much more good today.

[Captain Hammer]

I agree with leaning heavier on discard that produces card advantage, ala Hymn, and Pox (when timed properly).

But other than those two, what are the options as far as discard that produces card advantage are concerned? Wrench Mind?

I do think Noetic Scales is very abusable in the current meta, esp when paired with discard.

[Puzzle]

I agree with leaning heavier on discard that produces card advantage, ala Hymn, and Pox (when timed properly).

But other than those two, what are the options as far as discard that produces card advantage are concerned? Wrench Mind?

I do think Noetic Scales is very abusable in the current meta, esp when paired with discard.Worth testing imo.
Phyrexian Totem did change the setting and I don't know of anyone giving Noetic Scales another try since.

Regarding heavy discard, Delirium Skeins seems silly but could be worth looking into with Tombstalker, Bloodghast, Nether Spirit and/or Noetic Scales.

[Moczoc]

Noetic Scales is indeed very strong, I played it in other Black Control Decks. But it requires a source of constant discard and in "Pox" the mana cost is quite difficult. Maybe it is playable in a version with Mox Diamond (+ Crucible?) and Phyrexian Totem.

[Captain Hammer]

It doesn't require a source of constant discard. Most aggro decks play far bigger creatures than their hand. They playing 5/6 goyfs, 5/5 tombstalkers, even 3/3 Wild nacatls are too big to stick in an aggressive deck that gets hit with Hymn and/or Pox even once. Noetic Scales aren't ideal against goblins probably, but against all the aggro control decks running around, and stuff like NO and Reanimator, it seems more than ideal.

I just wish there was a way Pox could function and win without creatures at all, so that it could abuse both Ensnaring Bridge and Noetic Scales.

[bowvamp]

@Noetic Scales/Ensaring Bridge:
Meekstone much?

Also as an aside, I just met someone on mws who strongly believed that ALL blue decks had to run stifle md. He also cited zoo as a good place to board in engineering plague. Lol.

@Unfocused Lists:
LD helps to keep cards in their hands long enough for you to discard them. LD isn't worth the mana and card expense? orly? It's not only 1-1 in card expense, it also allows us to beat out those annoying aggro strategies by manascrewing them.

Discard w/o card advantage isn't actually very good. I only run 6 cards like that md (including smallpox).
I might seem like a bit of an annoyance, but I will say once again, Mindstab is +2 card advantage.

Drawing into the wrong strategy is impossible with strategies that cover the entire format. What decks don't draw 7 cards at the start of every game, and what decks don't run a single land?

I may as well post an update on my list:
4 Wasteland
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Mishra's Factory
15 Swamp
3 Tombstalker
1 Necroplasm
1 Death's Shadow
1 Nihilith
4 Pox
4 Sinkhole
4 Smallpox
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Mindstab
2 Crucible of Worlds
1 Sun Droplet
4 Disfigure
2 Thoughtseize
SB: 2 Crucible of Worlds
SB: 3 Sun Droplet
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 4 Duress
SB: 2 Do or Die

Things this list does differently:
--Duress SB for combo
--Disfigure vs Innocent Blood for 1 way removal plus more mana turn 2 in case of turn 1 creature
--Mindstab is still going strong netting me a solid +2 Card Advantage most games
--25 lands allows me to count on land drops alot like landstill can.
--Death's Shadow and Sun Droplet rocks against aggro.