Why only 3 Pox?Quote:
Originally Posted by Sea R Hill
When I play the deck I wish I draw Pox so often I would play 5 if possible.
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Why only 3 Pox?Quote:
Originally Posted by Sea R Hill
When I play the deck I wish I draw Pox so often I would play 5 if possible.
Agreed, If your meta is aggro heavy you want 4 Pox and 3 Small Pox. Small Pox is only good against aggro post pox. Otherwise you cut too many resources off yourself on turn 2 or so while the aggro opponent just replaces the one dead guy. At least big pox takes a huge shave off your opponents life total, making it easier for you to come back mid game and kill them before they assemble a second army.
Agreed, If your meta is aggro heavy you want 4 Pox and 3 Small Pox. Small Pox is only good against aggro post pox. Otherwise you cut too many resources off yourself on turn 2 or so while the aggro opponent just replaces the one dead guy. At least big pox takes a huge shave off your opponents life total, making it easier for you to come back mid game and kill them before they assemble a second army.
I've recently started testing a build that runs 3 factories and 3 crucibles and cuts idol's for totems to address the comments that suggested that totem is better than idol...
It's also performing fairly strong and I'm not sure if it indeed is worse than the first iteration of this deck in the opening post. Any comments on this either way. Figuring it out and answering the below questions I think is the final step in completing this deck and getting it moved to the open forum.
The cheif questions as I see them are...
Duress vs. Funeral Charm - I think this is just a meta call.
How many Crucible of Worlds? I've ran none in my build for a while in between, before I threw the Factories back in. And as you can see, now I'm trying three, as the card is quite good.
Mishra's Factories or Swamps. I think 2 Factories is an autoinclude if you're running any crucibles, and they're solid all around, but only if you make absolutely certain that you don't fall below 18 swamp. Otherwise, you're just asking to mana screw yourself.
Chimeric Idol vs. Phyrexian Totem - This HAS got to be the toughest call to make. I really like Idol's ability to block, and it's ability to become a creature even when you just have 2 lands in play. But some players here who's opinion I value seem quite certain that Totem is the way to go. Idol is almost certainly the way to go if you're not running any Factories or Crucibles, but if you are, then I think Totem may be the better choice.
The problem is, I've tested all of these variations, and there was never a clearcut answer for any of them. And I keep getting tempted to run 4 Nether Spirits, just because of the massive tempo boost you get from discarding it to smallpox, just to get it into play the next turn.
Okay, here is what I settled on taking for an upcoming tourney. It's a mix between the deck in the opening post which has served me well for months, and what I've been testing recently. Any last minute suggestions will be appreciated.
18 Swamp
4 Wasteland
2 Mishra's Factory
4 Dark Ritual
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Sinkhole
4 Pox
4 Smallpox
4 Innocent Blood
3 Nether Spirit
3 Chimeric Idol
2 Crucible of Worlds
Sideboard: (Unfortunately, I recently sold off a lot of my excess cards, including most of my sideboard cards at the moment. Here's roughly what I have to work with, but I can get any cards (Cabal Therapy?) if you think they're very important.)
4 Funeral Charm
4 Infest
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Spinning Darkness
1 Smother - Didn't want to run too many Spinning Darkness.
1 Crucible of Worlds - Great versus deadguy, the mirror etc.
1 Pithing Needle - One is all I have.
So any suggestions for this build? One problem with the sideboard is that, against burn... Innocent Blood, Pox and Wasteland should all get the boot, but the only thing I have to bring in is Duress and possibly Spinning Darkness.
And just to throw one last wrench into the mix. I've run across a very different deck that runs Dimir Machinations, Nether Spirit and Contamination. Seeing as how this deck already runs 3 Nether Spirits, plus also features the Crucible + Factory combo, plus the ability of Machinations to deprive your opponents of topdecking lands, I think throwing these cards into the mix is a rock solid plan. I'll atleast be running 3 in the sideboard.
Why doesn't anyone play the rack?
// Lands
4 [TE] Wasteland
18 [OD] Swamp (3)
// Creatures
3 [MM] Nether Spirit
// Spells
4 [7E] Duress
4 [IA] Pox
4 [ON] Infest
4 [PY] Chimeric Idol
3 [TE] Cursed Scroll
4 [FE] Hymn to Tourach (1)
4 [TS] Smallpox
3 [R] The Rack
2 [OD] Innocent Blood
3 [U] Sinkhole
// Sideboard
SB: 2 [OD] Innocent Blood
SB: 4 [US] Oppression
SB: 3 [6E] Perish
SB: 4 [UL] Engineered Plague
SB: 2 [UD] Phyrexian Negator
The four mainboard infests have been awesome. Dark ritual sucks after turn 4ish, so I nixed it. I dropped edicts for smallpox.
Crucible is really bad in pox. This is why I am running Chimeric Idol instead of factory.
I really really hate playing cursed scroll with a passion. Honestly as a win condition, it feels slower than molasses. It sucks in 3 mana each activation, and to do what, to occasionally deal 2 damage to a target.
As for the rack, I just prefer to have my win conditions to be a tad bit versatile. Meaning, I like that I can block with my Chimeric Idol and Nether Spirit, and that you don't have to empty your opponents hand to start doing damage.
I don't think it's that good but you can run it if you really really want, but if you do, you need more discard. I would run Funeral Charm in place of Infest (Infest is more of a sideboard card to bring in versus Goblins). And I would play a full set of Sinkholes. There is absolutely no reason not to.
@ Clavio:
Having just 22 lands, with no Ritual / Crucible / Totem, seems troublesome, especially with 8 Pox effects and 4 self-saccing lands [Wasteland]. Reacing 3 mana post-Pox may be too hard, making Infest and Idol potentially difficult to cast. Activating Scroll could be a pain too, especially since you have to leave your mana open to activate it, meaning you can't cast what you draw, making you accumulate cards in your hand and making Scroll all the more dubious.
You could run lower cc cards to get around this, or run more lands. Or both.
-4 Infest
+4 Funeral Charm
is probably the first step here. It's still removal, and it gives you more discard to help the Rack as well. Maybe also
-2 Innocent Blood
-1 Scroll
+2 land (Swamp?)
+1 Sinkhole
The last 2 Scrolls, they could be Crucibles or Totems, or they could remain as Scrolls. You could also mix around the number of Idol / Rack / Scroll.
Also, taking something from the underplayed cards thread in the Open Forum, has anyone tested Lose Hope? It's removal and it fixes draws in a deck that HAS to topdeck well.
Good post, I agree with you on all counts.
This is unrelated to anything talked about thus far but... game after game after game, I find that single most consistent means that this deck wins is through it's land destruction.
As players tend to mulligan land flooded hands, virtually any game where I see a steady stream of land destruction elements such as sinkhole, smallpox, pox, wasteland, I win.
This makes me wish that there was more land destruction card I could play in this deck in place of either Innocent Blood, Duress, or Funeral Charm.
Thinking about it, I recall the two budget options I used before I was able to get my hands on Sinkholes... Blight, Rancid Earth or a white splash for Vindicate.
Here is what each does...
Blight BB, Card type: Enchant Land
Card text: When enchanted land is tapped, destroy it.
Rancid Earth 1BB, Card type: Sorcery
Card text: Destroy target land.
Threshold - Instead destroy that land and Rancid Earth deals 1 damage to each creature and each player.
(You have threshold if seven or more cards are in your graveyard.)
I particularly like Blight, mainly because eventhough your opponent gets one last bit of mana from the land, the casting cost works far better considering all the self destruction that your own lands undergo. The one problem with it is if your opponents leave the Blighted land around anticipating that you will topdeck a Pox or Smallpox.
Rancid Earth is nice because it has a mini Infest packed in with the land destruction.
Vindicate is of course the ideal solution and is very versatile, but requires a splash.
The question is, does Blight or Vindicate have potential in this deck, just as a way to keep the land destruction coming and really screw your opponents over? I think it might.
Vindicate is obviously the best card of the bunch, but adding a white splash changes the deck's entire dynamic. You'd be wary of saccing your W mana sources, so you leave them on the board, where they could get wasted. You'd need to run fetches, which deplete your life and lead you to be more careful about Pox-ing. Before you know it, you've cut Pox for Braids... and Bw Braids already has its own thread.
Blight is nice and speedy, but allowing one more use of the land could be a difference maker tempo-wise. Rancid Earth's 3cc is difficult to justify in this deck, where 3cc usually means a gamebreaker spell [Crucible, Pox, beaters]. The life loss could add up as well.
I think Blight is worth testing as a 4-of, in the Innocent Blood / Funeral Charm slot, while Rancid Earth could be a 2-of, just to round the deck out, or be part of a 3/3 split with Smallpox.
Powder Keg
Seriously, the deck's fundamental flaw is artifacts. Artifact mana, Aether vial, pithing needle, etc. Keg hits all those while also being an extra removal against aggro. It adds consistency and shores up an obvious flaw, it just makes sense in the archetype especially with turn 1 vial being one of the most popular plays in the format. Smallpox also just makes perfect sense in the deck. If you're going to run cards that break the symmetry of Pox, those same cards break the symmetry of Smallpox. It also acts as the extra LD, discard, and creature removal to reach a "critical mass" of all three effects. Who needs dark ritual when your deck's full of cheap, efficient, sometimes brutal disruption that won't always cost you a card and won't be dead on its own? I know it sounds like heresy, cutting dark ritual, but play without it. Put powder keg in its place.
Quote:
Originally Posted by erdjinn
Pox is terrible against aggro, because it takes your life total down from 1/3. It is often harder to win after a Pox against aggro than before. In some versions, Pox isn't even played.
Against Goblins, I side them out for Infests, because Goblin is too much explosive. Pox only removes the weakest creatures, and helps the opponent to attack your life total. Pox is only good against control, and you already have cards against control. So 3 is a maximum.
Powder Keg is awesome, I run 3 MD. It is very effective for getting rid of Vial, Needle, 1 and 2 drops. Basically all aggro decks.
I play 4 pox. My build is:
Instants:
4x funeral charm
Sorceries:
4x pox
4x smallpox
4x hymn
4x sinkhole
4x duress
Creatures:
4x nether spirit
Artifacts:
4x powder keg
4x chimeric idol
Lands:
20x swamp
4x wasteland
It's worked out pretty well. I didn't used to run 4 nether spirits, fearing drawing too many. But it's actually pretty good to run 4. Casting turn 2 smallpox with the spirit in hand is always good. Usually if two do end up in the yard you gained a decent bit of card advantage to get them there. And if your opponent is playing STP the more spirits the better. The 4 spirit/4 idol config is aggressive enough to put on a decent clock and has tons of synergy. They also don't rely on having 3 mana up or my opponent having an empty hand or anything like that. I've liked this build so far.
I was testing for a while a build which is actually very similar to the above one without Dark Ritual, albeit making room for Crucible & Factory, and with Totem over Idol.
18 Swamp
4 Wasteland
2 Mishra's Factory
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Phyrexian Totem
3 Nether Spirit
4 Pox
4 Smallpox
3 Powder Keg
4 Funeral Charm
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Sinkhole
Factory / Crucible / Totem help solidify the deck overall, and Keg covers a lot of the deck's weaknesses.
I'm currently testing Rancid Earth, Blight, and Lose Hope, so I've put the Rituals back in for now. I also have Skeletal Scrying in the deck for now as well. It draws cards, which is good, and the life loss is controllable so you don't have to lose more than necessary. It also eats up late game Rituals and extra Spirits in the yard, which is a bonus.
Hey guys,
I took pox to a local friday night tournament
and took first place with it...
I used the following decklist.
Lands:
17 Swamp
4 Wasteland
Spells:
4 Duress
4 Hymn
4 Pox
4 Smallpox
3 Spinning Darkness
2 Inncocent Blood
3 Powder Keg
2 Phyrixian arena
4 Dark Ritual
Kill:
3 Ninja(nether spirit)
4 Chimeric Idol
2 Phyrixian Totem
Sideboard:
3 E.PLague
2 Infest
3 Perish
2 Virtues Ruin
2 Funeral Charm
1 Innocent Blood
1 Spinning Darkness
1 Powder keg
First round was against 5 color slivers...I dont think i need to explain much further...
Second round Was against zoo...
Game one....
Started off with applying the disrution then poxing followed up by smallpox with chimeric idol P.Totem and Ninja swinging for the win.
Sided in 3 perish 2 virtues ruin 2 infest
Game two I killed off her creatures with the sideboard cards and railed ninja and idol for the win...
Third round was mean girls with a black splash...
Game one was nothing....Normal pox game
I sided in 2 virtues ruin 1 blood 1 keg
Game two
He starts out the game with freakin Leyline!!!
I play some disruption drop a keg and hard cast ninja which promptly gets swords...He plays bob and i blow up keg in the same turn. He doesnt see anymore creatures for the rest of the game while chimeric idol owns him.
Round 4
I play against discard
I empty my hand game one and he drops rack...nuff said
I sided out spinning darkness for infest and one keg...
Game 2 I play a normal pox game and win
Same for game three
Sorry for lack of info on the fourth round i dont really remember to much of it.
Just though I'd share my success with it.
Feel free to critisize me!
I like your list, but I think virtue's ruin is unnecessary.
Arena is an interesting choice.
This is the current decklist of Pox I've been running
Lands:
20 swamp
4 Wasteland
Creatures:
3 Nether Spirit
Other:
4 Pox
4 Small Pox
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Innocent Blood
4 Sinkhole
3 Chimeric Idol
3 Phyrexian Totem
3 The Rack
Just to point out this whole thread on Pox just seem to be deck theory. Can't we at least get some rudimentary matchup data up?
At any rate, I don't use Crucible as I don't think it's really all that needed in the deck, therefore I don't run Mox Diamond. That and the fact that I run Chimeric Idol has made me dropped Mishra's Factory out of the deck as well. I personally like the Rack as even if its not dealing damage, you basically make your opponent play around it. I picked Totem over Cursed Scroll, as it also fits utility by making mana, and it is a 5/5 beater if need be. My meta is control mostly which further makes me like it. Sometimes I have trouble getting black mana so I upped the swamps to 20. I cut Dark Ritual, as it becomes useless later game, and early game, while you can certainly get broken first or second turns, I went for consistencey over explosiveness which in my opinion is always the way to go.
I can do some testing and see if i can get some numbers down for you guys.
I can get the match up data for goblins, threshhold, landstill but i'm not too sure about the solidarity matchup.
Which list should be used for testing???
They're all basically the same, with the most varience being in what's used to win. Bane's build is almost exactly the same as mine, so I'd recommend using either his or mine as we've both played the deck quite a bit and arrived at almost identical lists independently.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jankwolf
I can give some matchup analysis from tournaments where I've played against competent opponents. I don't have exact numbers as I seem to have lost the few notes that I took, but here are general impressions.
Goblins: You lose if they drop Aether Vial early. Not only does it circumvent your LD, virtually all of your removal is sorcery-speed, allowing them to pull off all sorts of EOT shenanigans. I board Powder Kegs expressly for this purpose. You have a good chance without Vial as long as you play aggressively and don't get randomly mana-flooded/screwed like I seem to do quite often. Your sweeper (Infest) should be saved until the situation becomes dire, as you usually have more than adequate targeted and semi-sweeper removal to deal with their creatures (if they play them at a reasonable rate).
Any Stompy Varient: <3 these decks. You run more removal main than they have men. Post-board, I brought in Sudden Deaths in place of Infests so I could own more, although I've since dropped them from the board. Basically, they won't have more than one or two men on the table at a time, so you run 10 Innocent Bloods at least - Pox, Smallpox, and of course, the Blood of Innocence itself. I also bring in Duress and Keg vs. Faerie Stompy to combat Chalice of the Void and counters.
Solidarity: This depends on your draws, really. If you get a discard and/or LD heavy opening hand, you are good to go. Otherwise, mulligan. The goal is to destroy as much of their hand and mana base as possible as quickly as possible. Think balls-to-the-wall suicidal destruction, first turn Smallpox, that sort of thing. The less hand or lands they have, the happier you are. Even if they do try to go off, if you've done a good enough job with your disruption, they should fizzle unless they draw Teh Nutz. Also, Oppression is golden here. They MUST bounce it before they go off or they will lose.
Thresh: No one plays this deck around here except me, as I've recently acquired all the cards for it (but I'm playing Miracle Grow instead because I like nitrates). I haven't met too many players who play this well on MWS, but I will say that Leyline of the Void is pure ownage - it's uncounterable, their guys suck pre-thresh, and they have virtually no way to remove it once you drop it before the game starts. Leyline = GG n00bz.
Iggy Pop: Leyline rocks hardcore here, but the important thing is knowing what to rip with your targeted discard. Tutors of any stripe are high-priority, as are IGGs themselves. LD doesn't matter so much here because they can go off with just their artifact mana sources. Chalice might help but I don't use it.
Salvagers Game: someone around here always plays this at a tournament and I always demolish it. Sudden Death was an all-star here, and Leyline is awesome too, as it buys you A LOT of time. Even though vitually no one I know plays this deck, I still include it because the matchup is so one-sided.
Loam-based decks: Your LD is worthless, but it's fun to watch them waste a Loam target on getting back lands you nuked. Post-board, Leyline of the Void once again goes to work for you, and you should probably bring in more discard. If you don't open a hand with Leyline, mulligan. This is not optional.
Hope that helps. Wish I could remember some numbers for you but I've put this deck aside for the time being to mess with Gro. If you want to test with me over MWS, once I figure out how to re-update the damn Online Play thing, drop me a PM and we can play.
Jankwolf, I still recommend the original build posted...
20 Swamp/18 Swamp, 2 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
4 Dark Ritual
4 Duress/Funeral Charm
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Sinkhole
4 Pox
4 Smallpox
4 Innocent Blood
3 Nether Spirit
3 Chimeric Idol
2 Phyrexian Totem/2 Crucible of Worlds
But I suppose an additional crucible and four fetchlands wouldn't be too bad either. And running Totem over Idol in a build running Factories might be warranted. I would however NOT cut Smallpox or Nether Spirit. Both are very powerful and synergic with the deck.
I've played the deck since Smallpox was spoiled and wish I had kept a record of the matchups I've faced. The goblins and thresh matchup seem about even thanks to a large amount of sideboard aggro hate. Goblins is probably better for them thanks to Vial. But a sideboard with a lot of aggro hate can compensate a good bit. Most other aggro is favorable and combo is favorable in builds running maindeck Duress.
Aggro Zombie's anaylisis is on the mark, except that of the Stompys, Fairie Stompy is the one matchup that I can definitively say is not favorable. All their creatures fly making Funeral Charm and your blockers useless and all of them are out of Infest range. And they're high cc making Powder Keg too slow as well. Chrome Mox is a huge boon for them as they can easily play a 2 mana land and cast whatever they need to even if you have a very good mana disruption hand. But I can't offer up specific numbers or percentages.
As tempting as playing 3-4 man lands is, I've repeatedly found myself in situation where I was stuck with colorless sources rather than colored ones leaving me unable to Pox or Smallpox when needed.
The alternations are all heavily meta dependent. In many metas, aggro is very predominant and there, you run Funeral Charm and Innocent Blood, and could even opt to run 2 maindeck Infests. But Duress is a must have against control and combo. When running Duress, either Innocent Blood or Funeral Charm must be cut. Innocent Blood is better than Funeral Charm against Threshold, Reanimator, and generally any decks playing evaders or fat thats out of Infest range.
The only sideboard card that is automatic four of is Infest. Leyline and Powder Keg are also extremely good.
Yes, Faerie Stompy can be unpleasant for you, but this is the matchup where Sudden Death is the best card you could wish for. Not only does it kill their men dead, it kills their men dead while they have Force of Will in hand. Duress is also helpful here as it can rip counters. Keep in mind that the biggest threat from FS is not the dudes but the counterspells. Dudes can be handled with Innocent Blood (better by far in a meta where Goblins isn't the majority deck - and I mean majority, as in >50%), Smallpox, and Ritual/Sudden Death, all of which are early game cards that should keep you from hemoraging life even if they push a turn one Sea Drake. The problem is that, once they know what you're playing, the FS player typically won't field men without some way to defend them, so if you see a turn one guy that means they almost certainly have counters in hand. Try baiting counters with discard spells and then follow that with your removal. If they don't counter your discard, they either don't have a counter or want you to make them discard it for some reason.Quote:
Originally Posted by Clark Kant
Infest is also generally subpar against the Stompy decks as it doesn't kill things that are equiped with SoFI and you usually don't get better than a 2-for-1 out of it, in which case I'd rather just use Innocent Blood or something like that. Of all the Stompy decks, Angel Stompy is probably the only deck where you don't want to side out all or most of your Infests because killing a Mom after she recovers from summoning sickness is golden. Not that it's usually a problem, just sayin'.
If you have more Stompy decks in your meta than Goblins, I would say it might be worthwhile to test Sudden Death main instead of Infests and maybe work some Diabolic Edicts or Smothers in there. The instant-speed capabilites these bring to your deck give you the opportunity to respond to equips by nuking the equipment target, as you generally can't get rid of the equipment itself. Once they have it sitting in play, they can play a creature and equip it the same turn, effectively making it immune to Infest. That's why Diabolic Edict/Innocent Blood style removal cards are so much better here than against Goblins.
Also, Jankwolf: I got your PM but I won't be on much for the next few days because I'm doing work on my fraternity house over the break. MWS is free + the cost of your internet connection, though, and I can send you the software for it over MSN when I get the chance.