[Deck] Pray for Death

[Top Deck]

I have been playing pox for a while and I started Tweaking it so much That I eventually axed pox all Together. death cloud for me seemed To make more sense since many Times whenever you pox you have a lot of lands in play and you just want To wipe out The remainder of Their lands, cards in hands, or creatures in play.

here is The decklist That I have proposed:

// Lands
1 [DIS] Ghost Quarter
4 [MM] Rishadan Port
4 [B] Scrubland
3 [GP] Godless Shrine
2 [TSP] Flagstones of Trokair
1 [PLC] Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 [JU] Riftstone Portal
5 [MM] Swamp (4)

// Creatures
1 [MM] Nether Spirit
4 [FUT] Epochrasite
2 [SC] Eternal Dragon

// Spells
1 [FD] Crucible of Worlds
4 [PLC] Damnation
4 [AP] Vindicate
4 [B] Wrath of God
4 [TSP] Smallpox
4 [B] Sinkhole
2 [DS] Death Cloud
3 [MM] Dark Ritual
1 [GP] Debtors' Knell
3 [IA] Icequake
1 [PLC] Extirpate
1 [OD] Haunting Echoes

This deck is very favorable versus most of The creature decks in The format. The inclusion of port over wasteland came accidential because I lent Them To a friend, but I found out That port was actually BETTER Than wasteland for what I was Trying To accomplish.

Porting The opponent's land on Turn 2 keeps Them off-balance in Time for a LD spell on Turn 3 (sinkhole, icequake, vindicate or small pox). The goal is To keep your opponent off balance at all Times. small pox works incredible wonders since you snag a land and a critter. or you can keep porting until you secure a wrath effect by Turn 4.

the deck has mostly creatures for a kill conditions, but you can deathcloud someone out of The game as a finisher. eternal dragon is an odd mvp because you have plenty of Time To fetchlands and keep returning it To your hand and eventually hard cast it. also another huge mvp in The deck is debtors' knell. 7 mana might seem a lot for a win condition in legacy, but you have a lot of Time To achieve it with Tons of creature mass removal and waves of land destruction.

I nicked-named The deck "pray for death" because whenever I played it in a Tourney my competitors would say "please kill me already". Mass land destruction can feel frustrating.

[SuckerPunch]

This deck has a lot in common with...
http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5496

which I promise you is a very strong deck.

Here are a few of the advantages the linked list has...

It locks your opponents mana up much faster due to stuff like Wasteland, followed up with Crucible lock.

It runs more LD effects, 6 more to be exact.

It can afford to devote fewer slots to creatures because it runs stuff like Ghostly Prison and Tabernacle along with all the LD which offer a permanent solution, as opposed to a temporary solution like the Wrath effects provide.

Thus it has slots freed up to play stuff like Duress and Hymn which is good against everything, and hurt combo and control a lot.

Tombstalker is a lot faster than Eternal Dragon.

Rancid Earth is better than Icequake. It can kill armies of Elves, Warren Tokens and Lackey.

Pox is a lot more easy to abuse than Death Cloud. You can time it just right, make sure you have multiples of 3, and use it, and for less mana, you can get rid of a lot more of your opponents cards than your own.

Debtor's Knell is sooo mana intensive for a win condition, I'm curious how you manage to cast it.



Epostharcite looks very promising though. How well has it been working for you? I think you could contribute a lot to the discussion.

And I love the deck's name.

[Top Deck]

I worked on Pox forever. Been playing it for like two years, and I have seen that version of the deck as well. Not sure if he has more LD than I am running, but I was the one who suggested Ghostly Prisons etc.

Prisons are a good thing, and I might put back 1 or 2 prisions in the deck. What I had was 4 wraths laying around and 4 damnations around and I threw the deck together with them together. Having 8 Wraths guarantees no critters are going to be on the table along with smallpox and death cloud.

Tombstalker is cool and all, but he gets plowshared and he ends up removing up to 6 cards from your yard (most likely you are going to remove 4 cards from the yard to cast it), and then he get's STP'ed. Now I am not saying that Epochrasites nor Eternal Dragon can't suffer from the same fate. Dragons are a great mana fixer. I am able to pick plains with him, and if you DONT run wastelands and run port instead then you will have ample mana to cast it.

Honestly you want to aast Debtor's Knell. Think about it. You wont cast Tombstalker before turn 7 anyhow. You need to have ample cards in the yard and you need to remove any potential threats and obstacles before you are "safe" to cast it. Knell is sick amazing since you can use all of their broken creatures and you can get out knell as early as turn 3 with double rituals.

Oh yaw the main reason for 8 wraths is that many times when you face a reanimator deck you need all of those wrath effects against Akroma. Oh yaw and that Eternal Dragon that you plainscycled is great against their exhume.

[zulander]

Dakmor Salvage is tech. Poxed away too many lands? Just dredge one up!

[jebus]

// Lands
1 [DIS] Ghost Quarter
4 [MM] Rishadan Port
4 [B] Scrubland
3 [GP] Godless Shrine
2 [TSP] Flagstones of Trokair
1 [PLC] Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 [JU] Riftstone Portal
5 [MM] Swamp (4)

// Creatures
1 [MM] Nether Spirit
4 [FUT] Epochrasite
2 [SC] Eternal Dragon

// Spells
1 [FD] Crucible of Worlds
4 [PLC] Damnation
4 [AP] Vindicate
4 [B] Wrath of God
4 [TSP] Smallpox
4 [B] Sinkhole
2 [DS] Death Cloud
3 [MM] Dark Ritual
1 [GP] Debtors' Knell
3 [IA] Icequake
1 [PLC] Extirpate
1 [OD] Haunting Echoes


I worked a lot on Pox as well, and I've a couple of concerns with the deck.

First, the number of 1-ofs, without card draw or deck manipulation, is just asking for bad times. You would want a lot of homogeneity in a deck like this because, as you said so yourself, it thrives on keeping the opponent off balance. Throwing yourself off balance because of inconsistent draws doesn't help. Simplify the deck: select your best cards, and run 3 or 4 copies of them.

Second, your mana base is really weak. 21 lands and 3 Rituals is simply not enough, and you're already running a curve higher than most Pox/disruption decks would prefer. Eternal Dragon is simply way too slow and mana-intensive to help. I would go with 23 lands and 4 Rituals, and with all the high-cc spells you're running (Wrath, Damnation, Knell, Echoes, Dragon, Death Cloud) maybe even 24-25 lands. Fetches (in place of Shrines and Dragons) would help as well.

On a related note, why even bother with 1 Ghost Quarter if you thought Wasteland wasn't good enough?

Third, eight Wraths are simply too much. If you want that much creature control, keep the Damnations and add StP or Innocent Blood. It makes your removal more versatile, and eases the strain on your mana base (if the Dragons and the Wraths are cut, the deck won't need WW to be effective, eliminating the need for stuff like Flagstones and Riftstone Portal).

Overall, at least you're thinking outside of the Pox-box. I believe it just needs a bit of streamlining and tuning. Also, check out both the Vaka Pox (link above) and the Crazed Army (link: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4858) threads for other ideas.

And yeah, cool deck name.

[Top Deck]

I worked a lot on Pox as well, and I've a couple of concerns with the deck.

First, the number of 1-ofs, without card draw or deck manipulation, is just asking for bad times. You would want a lot of homogeneity in a deck like this because, as you said so yourself, it thrives on keeping the opponent off balance. Throwing yourself off balance because of inconsistent draws doesn't help. Simplify the deck: select your best cards, and run 3 or 4 copies of them.


Thanks for putting this post into sections. It means to me that you gave the deck some real
thought about how it works and what not. 1-ofs is more of my play style. If you look carefully
at the build of the deck most the cards function in similar fashion. The real 4 of's are like
epochrasite, sinkholes, small pox, etc. Nothing has changed with them.

But you could cluster all of the win conditions as follows:
Nether Spirit (1)
Eternal Dragon (2)
Debtors' Knell (1)
Epochrasite (4)

Basically I am running 8 win condition. It really isn't important which win condition I get
out because the bulk of the deck is just control and disruption. The issue though is conditional.
I used to have 3 Nether Spirits and I found out the hard way that sometimes it would randomly
fail on me, and at the time I also had cursed scroll and idols. But they weren't as reliable.
I just cut Spirit to 1 and then subbed in 2 dragons in place of the other two and haven't looked
back since.



Second, your mana base is really weak. 21 lands and 3 Rituals is simply not enough, and you're already running a curve higher than most Pox/disruption decks would prefer. Eternal Dragon is simply way too slow and mana-intensive to help. I would go with 23 lands and 4 Rituals, and with all the high-cc spells you're running (Wrath, Damnation, Knell, Echoes, Dragon, Death Cloud) maybe even 24-25 lands. Fetches (in place of Shrines and Dragons) would help as well.

On a related note, why even bother with 1 Ghost Quarter if you thought Wasteland wasn't good enough?


Most Pox decks rely on getting a quick recurring beater into play, but mine is more about stalling
out the opponent. I could easily run 23 lands and cut 2 wrath effects. 1 wrath and 1 damnation
to make it more suitable. I just haven't had an issue so far with mana screw. Ghost quarter is
an interesting thing because a lot of the time I just ghost quarter my own flagstones or riftstone
portal. I rarely use it on my opponent's stuff, but it a strip mine versus stuff like threshold.



Third, eight Wraths are simply too much. If you want that much creature control, keep the Damnations and add StP or Innocent Blood. It makes your removal more versatile, and eases the strain on your mana base (if the Dragons and the Wraths are cut, the deck won't need WW to be effective, eliminating the need for stuff like Flagstones and Riftstone Portal).


I might cut the 8 wraths down to 6, but honestly i really like them. StP for me really hasn't been a champion. Innocent Blood just feels redundant. Small pox works better for me than blood, but
the good thing about wraths is that it affects your opponent's playstyle a LOT more than innocent
blood or StP. Think about it. Once they know you are playing pox they will drop out loads of critters, because you will only be able to nuke 1 guy at a time with pox, small pox, vindicate or what not. The only time pox will nab 2 guys is if they have more than 3 critters. So playing pox in my opinion ENCOURAGES the opponent to play more aggressively. Wraths have the opposite effect. Once they see 1 wrath or damnation. They will play more conservatively which will lead to their demise. The real problem I had with pox is that pox itself hits your life way too much, and it is hard to nab two of their lands unless they get more than 3 in play (which is rare in legacy). So i realized that death cloud was far superior in all regards. I usually want to only lose 1 or 2 life and I want to nab 2 of their critters and kill 2 of their lands. Death cloud at 5 was the perfect number for me.



Overall, at least you're thinking outside of the Pox-box. I believe it just needs a bit of streamlining and tuning. Also, check out both the Vaka Pox (link above) and the Crazed Army (link: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4858) threads for other ideas.

And yeah, cool deck name.

Hey thanks for the thought and compliment. Epochrasite is probably the best creature ever created for the deck. I can't believe how many games I won by small poxing them away and then proceed to land deny them for the rest of the game and them just winning.

Oh yaw when you pray for death you will get the wrath of God 8 times. :tongue:

[Finn]

Top Deck, I am usually rather critical of you, but I really like this one. I urge you to consider some of the ideas that you are going to hear over and over.

1. If you have Crucible in a deck built around land destruction, not having Wastelands is just foolish.
2. A long time ago, I disavowed Pox, because, as I bet you have done, I noticed that it was the worst card in the deck named for it.
3. I tried and failed with something very similar to this because I found that these three cards:

Eternal Dragon
Smallpox
Flagstones

...did not work well together. You need a lot of Plains to make Eternal Dragon recursion profitable (7 turned out to be the number I settled on for Dirt). You need your as many Flagstones as possible to make Smallpox work for you, but you need your Plains to produce Black.

What has been your exerience with these?
4. Keep 2 WoG and 2 Damnation in the board.

[Top Deck]

Top Deck, I am usually rather critical of you, but I really like this one. I urge you to consider some of the ideas that you are going to hear over and over.

1. If you have Crucible in a deck built around land destruction, not having Wastelands is just foolish.


Finn we just have different play styles. A lot of your decks are overly narrow and focus in one on aspect of the game. For example in your deck "death and taxes" (I love that name :smile:), you have a lot of synergy going on initially with Karakas and guys like the dust drinker, but karakas becomes a dead card if they resolve a pithing needle, and now you have to waste a card slot to put in something to remove the needle.

The way I built this deck is totally different. It isn't about overloading on one thing, and create a backdoor which is just as effective if not more effective in certain situations. I have 2 Eternal Dragons which for the most part I just plainscycle so I have mana for vindicate or wrath of God. The deck doesn't focus in on "must get eternal dragon into play". Dragon is just a helper/mana fixer. I don't get dragon into play until turn 7 or 8 and only if I have secure board position. It is important that I don't use 3 dragons because after you cycled the first one, then everyone of them afterwards becomes a dead card if they resolve a needle naming the dragon. What I did was sub in 1 debtors' knell for a third dragon, and it has worked wonders for me.

Many times the knell is the game winner. I could use wastelands in the deck, but remember my story? I let a friend borrow 4 wastelands for his deck and I just subbed in port. Port just seems to work better for me.



2. A long time ago, I disavowed Pox, because, as I bet you have done, I noticed that it was the worst card in the deck named for it.


Pox's main problem is the life loss. If you have say firemane angels or something like that in the yard then pox is okay. Also if pox did damage instead of life loss I would be more than happy with it.



3. I tried and failed with something very similar to this because I found that these three cards:

Eternal Dragon
Smallpox
Flagstones

...did not work well together. You need a lot of Plains to make Eternal Dragon recursion profitable (7 turned out to be the number I settled on for Dirt). You need your as many Flagstones as possible to make Smallpox work for you, but you need your Plains to produce Black.


This is true in a way. I have 7 plains and 2 flagstones and 1 riftstone portal. Portal makes all of your lands produce white too. It is a very solid card in my deck. Just like Urborg is a great 1 of and makes everything make black mana as well. But you will have a lot of mana issues if you run wastelands since wastelands don't make colored mana unless you have riftstone in the yard or urborg in play. I ran ghostquarter for partially this reason. A lot of the times I just ghostquarter my own flagstones to mana fix or quarter my riftstone.

I don't want to run 4 flagstones because it ties up my turns if I have a flagstone in play and my only draw is a flagstone. It is better to smallpox a riftstone portal sometimes over a flagstones.



What has been your exerience with these?
4. Keep 2 WoG and 2 Damnation in the board.
[/quote]

You know I could have 4 wrath effects in the sideboard, but right now I am not going to since the decks name is "Pray for Death".:wink: hehe.
In the future I might move 2 Wraths into 2 Ghostly Prisons, but that's down the road.

Also I wanted to note that in my original decklist that I posted I ran 1 extirpate and 1 haunting echoes, but when I played in the tourney I ran 3 extirpates or 2 extirpates and 1 haunting echoes. I think 2 extirpates and 1 haunting echoes is the best mix. Extirpates are basically the uber wasteland if you will (you can wipe out the entire color base of a player using LD + extirpating the land). Also extirpate and echoes insure victory over the bad possible matchup in 43 land.


For all of you who play pox already, I highly recommend throwing in 1 debtors' knell. Remember knell's mana cost is just 7 of anything your lands can produce since it is all b/w guildmana.

[Finn]

I don't think your definition of a dead card is the same as the community as a whole.
...karakas becomes a dead card if they resolve a pithing needle...See, I don't see how a land that taps for white is dead. And this one:

It is important that I don't use 3 dragons because after you cycled the first one, then everyone of them afterwards becomes a dead card if they resolve a needle naming the dragon.Well, you do have the nice 5/5 flier aspect. Not quite dead in my opinion. And if you are going to not put more than two copies of a win condition in becuase the opponent might play a needle, you are really holding back progress.

[Top Deck]

I don't think your definition of a dead card is the same as the community as a whole. See, I don't see how a land that taps for white is dead. And this one:

...Eternal Dragon --- needle comment ---

Well, you do have the nice 5/5 flier aspect. Not quite dead in my opinion. And if you are going to not put more than two copies of a win condition in becuase the opponent might play a needle, you are really holding back progress.

Hey Finn,

Well karakas isn't a "dead card" in that it still produces white, but drawing multiples of them isn't beneficial.

Eternal Dragon's ability of plainscycling and returning it from the yard is what makes it strong otherwise it is a vanilla 5/5 flier. :wink:

But you get my drift about it. Having 1 Debtors' Knell and 2 Eternal Dragons is much better than having 3 Dragons.

[Top Deck]

I got a chance to inspect the decklist from Finn called "Dirt". http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=32637

It has a lot of interesting ideas, but it is definitely different from this version of Pox that I am building. The reason why I included more land kill in my deck was because most of the time I found myself just casting vindicate to smash lands. Thus I realized the strength was mana denial in conjunction with indirect creature removal (small pox, deathcloud, damnation, and wrath of God).

True without sideboard the build that I have posted might have a fit against a combo oriented deck like solidarity, but I feel if a little discard and LD you should have them off balance.