[Deck] EpoChONTROL

[Guevera59]

Hello all,

This is my first post so let me introduce myself. My name is Kemper (seriously) and I've been playing Magic for a few years but have started Legacy a few months ago.
The following deck is something that I believe can possibly be viable with a good amount of tweaking involved. The idea is to clear the board with Wastelands, Damnations, Sinkholes, and the star of the show Nevinyrral's Disk. To counteract these mass removal spells, I play recurable creatures like Epochrasite and Nether Spirit and man lands like Mishra's Factory. And now to the decklist-

EpoChONTROL

Land-23
3x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3x Wasteland
4x Mishra's Factory
13x Swamp

Creatures-6
4x Epochrasite
2x Nether Spirit

Spells-31
4x Sinkhole
4x Duress
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Damnation
4x Smother
4x Nevinyrral's Disk
3x Death Pit Offering
4x Dark Ritual

Card Choices

3x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth Due to the massive amount of colorless mana-producing lands, hes almost a necessity.

4x Factories Escapes Damnation and other removal spells. Great w/ Death Pit Offering

4x Epochrasites and 2x Spirits Same reason as to the reason for playing Factories. Once they die, they come back to haunt your opponent once the board is swept.

4x Sinkhole A staple in a deck like this.

4x Duress See Sinkhole.

4x Hymn to Tourach A great card but it doesn't seem to go with the theme of the deck. Perhaps more land destruction like Icequake or Rain of Tears??

4x Damnation Great synergy w/ the featured creatures.

4x Smother Incredible card. Kills every viable creature in the format except for Vine Dryad, Mongoose, and other untargetables.

4x Nevinyrral's Disk Hoses just about every deck in the format. Excellent synergy.

3x Death Pit Offering More of an iffy choice but is great with the creatures and factories. The main downside is that Disk blows it away.

4x Dark Ritual... I play black...


The deck is a blast to play but gets thoroughly owned by combo. I'll post a SB later on when I get a viable one together. Please throw in some ideas for the deck and thanks for reading!! Its a pleasure to be apart of The Source!

Guevera59

[Mordenkain]

If your not afraid of splasing, the white splash may come in handy. Cards that this gives you:

Wrath of God
Eternal Dragon
Swords to Plowshares
etc.

Anyways, the thing that strikes me the most is that the creatures seems way to weak. 1/1, and way later a 4/4 and a bunch of 2/2's ain't gonna cut it imo. If your not going white, a green splash is also a good idea, mainly for Pernicious Deed and the green manland.

Also, believe it or not, but Sinkhole ain't an auto include in these sorta decks. You play that and 3 wastelands to wreck your opponents mana source. There are two ways to go with mana denial strategies imo:

#1 Recurring mana denial, locking him out of the game forever.
#2 Tempo gain mana denial, which should be backed up by fast creatures to capatilize on the tempo gain.

As far as I can tell, your deck doesn't do any of these. If you wanna keep the mana denial in, find a way to abuse it.

Another thing that just truckt me is that you maybe could go with cards like Trinisphere and/or Chalice of the Void. It would make the deck more StaX like, but it would strengthen your combo matchup a lot. Turn 1 land -> dark rit -> trinisphere. GG.

Anyways, I might come up with some more for you later on. Until then, heres some food for thought.

- Mordenkain

[conboy31]

Death pit appears to speed up the decks clock, but some other options could be:
A) Extirpate. People are skeptical about having it MD but combined with the discard it could cause problems for combo you will face/problem cards.
B) Cabal Therapy. Your creatures can always flashback it.

[Mister Agent]

Hello and welcome to the source!

I actually like the idea of the deck this deck reminds me a little bit of trainwreck. Although I would suggest some diabolic edicts and maybe mutilate instead of nevinyrral's disks? Also thoughtseize and possible some cabal therapies would be nice too. Tombstalker would also be great in here too just a thought.

I definetly like the idea though old fashioned and straight to the point and they tend to work in a intensive aggro-control(threshold and fish) environment also these types of decks also work against combo decks too.

[Guevera59]

Thanks for the extremely quick replies folks! First of all, I would rather keep the deck mono black. I like the idea of Mutilates and Tombstalkers. With testing I have discovered that Nether Spirit gets eaten alive by counters because if one Epochrasite is countered, Spirit can't be returned. Cabal Therapy also seems like an excellent idea. Should I ditch the idea of recking my opponents mana base and go straight for the hand w/ Duress, Hymns, Therapies, Thoughtsieze etc. or, should I play Crucibles, Sinkholes, Wastes etc. for the base control.

EpoChONTROL (Mana Denial)

24

4x Wasteland
2x Dustbowl
3x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4x Mishra's Factory
11x Swamp

6
4x Epochrasite
2x Tombstalker/Korlash? (Is Korlash a strong enough finisher)

30
4x Sinkhole
4x Crucible of Worlds
4x Trinisphere
4x Duress
4x Dark Ritual
4x Rain of Tears
4x Mutilate
2x Diabolic Edict

(Hand Control)

20

3x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4x Mishra's Factory
13x Swamp

6

4x Epochrasite
2x Tombstalker/Korlash?

3x Chrome Mox
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Duress
4x Mutilate
3x Cabal Therapy
2x Night of Soul's Betrayal
4x Thoughtseize
4x Dark Ritual
2x Death Pit Offering
4x Trinisphere

I'll test Each idea on MWS and let you all know how they play. Thanks again-

Guevara59

[Happy Gilmore]

Not neccessarily, you can do all of it at once with Pox.

A sample Pox list:

4 Tombstalker
4 Nihilith

4 Duress
4 Hymn to Torach
4 Sinkhole
3 Pox
4 Smallpox
3 Engineered Plague
4 The Rack/Neo-duress/Extripate (still debating, probably Thoughtsieze)

2 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Wasteland
16 Swamps (or 2-3 Urborg)

Nightwolf and I were working on this a couple of weeks ago, could be saucy, who knows.

SB:
4 Extripate
4 Pithing Needle
1 Engineered Plague
3 Powder Keg
3 Cursed Scroll

[Mister Agent]

Not neccessarily, you can do all of it at once with Pox.

oh yeah good point maybe you should make the deck Black Pox Stax or something heh just an idea. Considering its starting to look like a stax deck. ;)

[Happy Gilmore]

oh yeah good point maybe you should make the deck Black Pox Stax or something heh just an idea. Considering its starting to look like a stax deck. ;)

I think you mean that its starting to look like a Pox deck. You really cant fit stax elements in a deck with alot of 1cc cards and many many double color casting costs.

[Wallace]

welcome to the source!

I have to agree with Happy on this one. Pox will do eveything you want to do. If you want to stick with the build you have, splashing white may not be a bad choice. It gives you STP and Vindicate. Death Pit Offering is ok but I don't think you need it. I would like to see a creature in that slot, maybe Undead Gladiator? 4 Nev's Disk's is a little much, you have to much mass removal. 4 x Disk and 4 x Damnation, plus you are running smother and Discard Spells. You find yourself with a lot of removal and no targets. Run another LD spell like Rancid Earth, fits the theam by dealing damge to all creatures. Good Luck!

[Mister Agent]

I think you mean that its starting to look like a Pox deck. You really cant fit stax elements in a deck with alot of 1cc cards and many many double color casting costs.

Yeah I just thought that was an idea though. Pox would be a good idea though well at least it should be consider to be tested at least.

[nikuya]

oh wait. didn't realise you were suggesting running both :S

[Cavius The Great]

3x Death Pit Offering More of an iffy choice but is great with the creatures and factories. The main downside is that Disk blows it away.

Why don't people give me credit for anything? I was the first person to realize the synergy between man-lands and Death Pit Offering (besides Wizards R&D). :tongue:

[Guevera59]

Hey-

Thanks so much for the ideas and the warm welcome! I decided to fool around with a hybrid of Pox and EpoChONTROL. I really want Pox to find a home in the deck because it does everything I've been trying to do.

EpoChontrol

Lands//23
4x Mishra's Factory
3x WAsteland
3x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
13x Swamp

Creatures//7
4x Epochrasite
3x Korlash, Heir to Blackblade

Spells//30
4x Thoughtseize/Cabal Therapy
3x Crucible of Worlds
4x Dark Ritual
4x Duress
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Mutilate
3x Pox
4x Trinisphere

SB:
4x Pithing Needle
4x Tombstalker
4x Engineered Plague
3x ??????

Both Crucible of Worlds and Pox are excellent additions to the deck. I love Korlash in the late game clean-up and his Granduer ability allows me to make up for the loss of lands from Pox. Another plus is that he can survive Mutilate by his regeneration ability. Let me know what you think!!

Guevera59

[Wallace]

Both Crucible of Worlds and Pox are excellent additions to the deck. I love Korlash in the late game clean-up and his Granduer ability allows me to make up for the loss of lands from Pox. Another plus is that he can survive Mutilate by his regeneration ability. Let me know what you think!!

Guevera59

Just so ya know you can't regenerate from mutilate. Creatures with 0 or less toughness will just die off. Regeneration will only save you from lethal damage. I don't like Korlash in this deck, I think you need to look for another creature in this slot. I really like undead Gladiator here. You can cycle him early to get the cards you need and then bring him back when you need a dude.

[Guevera59]

Sacearuse, now that I know that he can't regenerate, How about-

-3x Korlash
----------
+2x Undead Gladiator
+1x Crucible of Worlds

Keep 'em coming!

Kemp

[Wallace]

How about + 3 Undead Gladiator, you really don't need 4 Crucible's and 4 . This would put your creature count at 7 and 4 factories. I would really like to see another creature in the main, run 1 Tombstalker. This will bring you up to 12 beaters. The Epochrasites and Gladiators will keep coming back and the Factories are, well their Factories.

Yeah 100 posts!!

[Happy Gilmore]

You should put E-plague in the main over Mutilate, its faster against agro decks and more importantly it helps you win against Cephalid and ETW combo decks. Oh, and you need Smallpox somewhere, in alot of cases its just better than big pox. Come to think of it....just play smallpox, you have Mutilate for the masses.

[nitewolf9]

Another plus is that he can survive Mutilate by his regeneration ability. Let me know what you think!!


He does not. After he regenerates he will still have -x/-x and he will die before you get priority back due to being a 0/0 (he doesn't get destroyed/suffer lethal damage so he can't regenerate). Damnation is strictly better and korlash is going to be a sub-par finisher. Tombstalker and epoch seem to be the way to go.