[Deck] Blue Pox

[Kundalini]

I loved the idea of a pox deck with a blue splash. The idea is to add draw spells from blue, and keep black disrupt and discard engine running longer to establish board advantage and finish the opponent with artifact creatures.

I have a list, and some matchup results. The combo matchups are all supposed to be good for this deck, and the control / aggro-control matchup I tested look improved.

Thruffleshuffle is a very good matchup, as every slow deck is: UGW ***** appears just slightly less favorable, but still decent. I also tested vs. survival a little, but it looks 50/50 so far.

Anyway, it's just funny to play and sometimes it just wins because of the capability of locking your opponent out of resources. List:


//18 lands
6 Swamp
4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
3 Wasteland
1 Academy Ruins
// mana support
4 Mox Diamond
3 Crucible of Worlds
// draw
4 Compulsive Research
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Brainstorm
// disrupt
4 Sinkhole
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
2 Pox
// creatures
4 Phyrexian Totem
4 Chimeric Idol
1 Nether Spirit
// sideboard
SB: 3 Engineered Plague
SB: 2 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 4 Duress
SB: 4 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Stifle

Card choices:
Sinkhole-Hymn-Smallpox-Pox: the usual pox disrupt arsenal. Blue draw spells should allow you to play more of these, so pox is just a 2-of in favor of 4 smallpoxes. These also are very effective in slowing down the opponent while waiting for a suspended ancestral vision to resolve.

Ancestral vision: this is powerful in the deck because you have time to resolve it. If in opening hand, play it first then black disruption stalls the game until 4th turn, then you can start chaincasting more AV while keeping your opponent at disadvantage by your hymns and poxes.

Brainstorm: no need to explaination here.

Compulsive Research: as third draw spell, I choose this because it has great synergy with crucible and because the deck performs great if supported by "quantity" draw.

Chimeric Idol: this is your main win condition; immune to poxes and can be recurred via academy ruins.

Phyrexian Totem: secondary win condition, for mid to late game. Or, for finishing your opponent quickly when his board is empty. Doubles as mana producer, usually casting multiple totems after resolving an ancestral is profitable.

Nether spirit: just great sinergy with poxes, compuls. research, etc. this is the only creature in the deck. Its recursion cumulates with the recursion of totems and idols via academy ruins (which is recurred via crucible) to out-resource the opponent even more.

Crucible of worlds: this is a real card-advantage mvp, wasteland recursion, great sinergy with totem, compulsive research, poxes, moxes, everything in the deck.

Academy ruins: artifacts are important in this deck. Recurring them is huge in so many situations.

Mox Diamond: the piece of acceleration which has most synergy with crucible, compulsive research, and pox effects.

Duress: moved to sideboard because of lack of slots, as I prefer to run more threats and 2-for-1s main to improve survival and aggro matchups.

Tormod's Crypt: not really sure about these, but I think they are needed for NQG, survival, reanimator, etc.

Engineered plague: goblins and slivers.

Pithing needle: again, not really sure about these; the plan is using them in multiples on game 2, with duress and academy ruins.

Stifle: just some more disruption if I see targets for it in game 1.


I hope this deck deserves some hint and developments.

[thefreakaccident]

in your draw 'suite'.. you might want Akumulate Knowledge... you tend to discard cards a lot, and this tends to just get better the more that are in the yard. Since you've added blue to the deck, you might try stifle in the deck (indirect LD, as well as gret utility spell overall).

just some ideas

-fa

[Hummingbird TG]

No reason to play this deck without Tombstalker. You get so many cards into the GY anyway.

[Illissius]

Your sum total defense against Goblins is... 4 Smallpox, 2 Pox, 4 Chimeric Idol, 1 Nether Spirit. You're going to lose. Badly.

[Maveric78f]

Thirst for knowledge should be played instead of ancestral vision. Your SB should be really really anti gob. Because you're really weak against it. Something like 4*silent arbiter, 4*engineered plague, 4*plague spitter.

[nightshade81]

Your sum total defense against Goblins is... 4 Smallpox, 2 Pox, 4 Chimeric Idol, 1 Nether Spirit. You're going to lose. Badly.

I know a million people might flame me for this (mainly Red Death people) but black doesn't beat goblins. Now repeat with me "black doesn't beat goblins." People seem to forget this... of course thier is exceptions, mainly decks that only splash black and combo.

Seriously any Pox deck though has no hope of ever actually making that match positive. If someone claims to, then most likely fudging their results. If a Pox deck does actually have a positive match then it's because they have skewed their maindeck to such a significant decree that they have no hope of beating anything else.

The only way I see a Pox deck ever having a positive goblins (without screwing everything else up too much) matchup is run MD Engineered Plague with MD Tainted Pact to find them. Or doing as Maveric78f said and having an I hate goblins SB, which still hurts you against many decks where you need SB cards. Even with the I hate goblins SB your still only about 60% favored and you have to win two games in a row.

To end say it with me "black doesn't beat goblins."

[greenmage]

How about urborg, tomb of yawgmoth?
I find having coloured mana sources very important in my own pox build, so I think you could benefit from one or two copies, b tapping wastelands sound good in my book.

[Illissius]

There's a difference between having an unfavorable Goblins matchup and an autoloss, which is what this deck seems to have. Can you really concede an autoloss to Goblins in today's meta? Even if you can, you should be completely crushing the rest of the metagame in exchange, which this deck doesn't appear to do. (And then I would drop the pretense completely and remove the Plagues from the board). I mean, really, how is this at all better than Landstill? Does it have a better matchup against anything? (EDIT -- Actually, it might have a chance in hell against Solidarity, which Landstill doesn't really. Too bad no one plays that any more).

To have some constructive input as well, I'd swap the Totems for Tombstalkers, and cut the Researches -- much too slow for Pox, and there's better options. I'm not sure what you could use in their place; Sensei's Divining Top is an attractive option, or an actual business spell. I do like the Ancestrals, which have synergy with the deck, even if they may not be good. Eighteen lands and four Diamonds also seems far too few, so that's a good place for the Research slots to go.

Another idea: Stifle, which is akin to Sinkhole for fetchlands, not useless against Goblins, and very potent against recent combo.

[Geeba]

Not that I have any experience with a deck like pox, but with all the land-destruction, propaganda seems like a very good tool to defeat goblins. The mana denial also prevents them from shooting you out of the game. However, I think you may have to look for an evasive win condition when adding propaganda.