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It is an interesting idea. I would go mono - b since the are no important white cards in the deck, and to get a more resilient mana base.
I would probably cut the wastelands and factories and add dark ritual for faster play of the lock.
Liliana have no function in the deck.
Sensei's divining top?
That deck looks too cute to me. I like the WB version of Pox with Lingering Souls, but Contamination just feels like it's too hard to setup for the payoff. Blood Moon works because there are no conditions once it's out. I also think he's playing too much single discard. I would rather have access to Sinkhole or Vindicate than that discard suite.
Sinkhole makes no sense because if your opponent is Contamination-locked then killing their lands is irrelevant.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chiptoon
Dark Ritual is also a suspect suggestion because yes, adding BBB to your mana pool helps you pay 2B for Contamination, but it doesn't help you pay for creatures to feed it and if you're using your turn 1/2 to set up Bitterblossom/Nether Spirit then Ritual isn't going to help Contamination come out much earlier anyway.
Jitte sounds like a pretty good idea and maybe should replace one of the Engineered Plagues.
I still am not sure whether Contamination is the most effective strategy. Unlike Moon/Chalice decks you have no way to deploy your lockpiece on turn 1/2 which is a significant drawback, but Pox has always wanted something that prevents the opponent from topdecking their way out of having no cards and Contamination seems ideal for that role.
I may be a little late but I'm a total noob on the source. I'll be honest I'm here for NicFit and any dabbling I do is really to further my goals there. I want to take that deck toward GB and I'm curious if maybe something convergent between here and there is where I'm headed. Also I'm a big fan of the card Smallpox as a "pet" card.Quote:
Originally Posted by ClimbGneiss
I think this quote is not totally correct but also I think it has some merit. I'ts ok to be... (I'll use miracles for example) a great counterbalance deck but not -the best- Sensei's Divining Top deck. But still you want SDT, and overall miracles is still a great deck. So for smallpox I don't think that 'not' being Turbo Depths precludes us from using the Dark Depths combo; but it is relevant to consider why we would want it and if we should want it. And it may be useful to consider why and how "the best deck doing that thing" is doing it. And I think your totally right in that we need to consider what -are- we the best at? And I think your right that pox might be the best resource denial deck (though I like D&T for that as well).
I've tried the DD combo in GB builds before and while it is like "Ooops, I win!" sometimes, it has not been consistent enough for me. That said I do still like Crop Rotation despite it's weakness to counterspell (Force of Will).
Also, as (NicFit is) a deck with Pernicious Deed, I'm also "particular intrigued by the idea of collective brutality and maximixing our graveyard happy cards." (alongside smallpox, but that is obvious here.) Deed kills Rest in Peace so good. I've seen some people here using Pernicious Deed. (NicFit is so good with Deed because Veteran Explorer makes tons of mana for that deck)
(also NicFit runs Cabal Therapy which I have seen some people recommend and has been graveyard happy enough for me.)
*It seems I may be recommending someone put a NicFit package in their Pox deck and playtest it for me ;) That seems to be where I'm trying to go.
That was a lot of words just to say 'hey, has anyone tried mashing veteran explorer and pox together?'
Short answer, quite likely, but I haven't heard about it. Most of the pox lists that use green are either already abusing Loam, in which case they want utility lands and are playing few enough basics that they wouldn't truly benefit from explorer or are barely touching green, in which case explorer is going to be too unreliable to cast. I also will point out that such a deck will likely want to be consistent about finding/casting veteran explorer, which borderline requires you be on green sun's zenith and be a base nic fit deck instead of a base pox deck. the basic pox control engine has few enough play slots and little enough flexibility in the mana base (see how many of our turn 2 plays are BB and how little we like actually being vulnerable to wasteland) that I don't think it's feasible to start with a pox she'll for that engine. You'd likely be better off (and more likely to see what you're looking for) over in the nic fit forums, although I do think sliding smallpox into nic fit is a potent option. One of our local nic fit players toyed with the idea for a bit since smallpox did basically everything he wanted it to do, but I can't remember if he ever got around to testing it out.
Of course I am on the nicfit thread. And I don't mean to highjack here, rather I'd like to be involved in the conversation. I uh- didn't mean to get there so soon I guess. I just have noticed some players here using pernicious Deeds, and also I genuinely am interested in a pox deck that maximizes collective brutality and graveyard happy effects. I picture a deck like this moving toward where I am in NicFit- especially if it uses Loam as one of it's graveyard happy effects. Maybe since it was my first post I just smashed too many ideas together at once.
I've noticed some discussion about how the win conditions are so slow in this deck. A miracles deck grinds out control then BAM! Entreat the Angels. But Pox needs to get it's wins slowly. But things like Mishra's Factory can be even harder to answer than say Entreat, especially alongside Crucible or Loam. This is why I think a deck which maximizes collective brutality and grave happy effects could be effective, because it focuses on exactly that-continuing to draw the game out with a limited amount of resources available to each side while just putting on a bit of continued pressure. I guess I need to put a decklist together.
I can see a lot of games where a Veteran Explorer strategy makes Smallpox awful by giving your opponent free lands, and an equal number of games where Smallpox makes a Veteran Explorer strategy awful; you cast it and sac off your land and now you don't have enough mana for your Spiritmonger (or whatever is the latest flavour of the month 5 drop).
By not being able to maximize the power of either Smallpox or Explorer it seems like you would just end up with some sort of bad Jund deck.
Well since you've chosen to engage me (hehehe)- It would seem this way, the biggest pitfall being giving lands away that you later try to remove. But so many decks run so few basics that in practice Vet is so often one sided. Miracles is the big exception here. But also I have moved away from LD as a strategy in general and removed Sinkhole from my Pox lists. LD is too inconsistent. It works good in say delver, where you don't need to keep them off everything forever, just long enough to make delver great. And it's not so great against Delver, where they just cast most of their stuff for 1 anyway. And it works for D&T where you have two and three drop creatures that act like LD. But I find that pox is a better discard and creature removal deck. LD sometimes works, but it is so inconsistent that I prefer to have it work incidentally than to make that the focus.Quote:
Originally Posted by kombatkiwi
On the other side of the Vet/Pox coin, losing your extra lands does keep you off the big stuff, unless your plan involves lots of recursion. But it lets you actually cast your midrange stuff more reliably. And again, many decks do not play enough basics to get as much advantage from Vet as the deck playing Vet.
That said I often use Smallpox more just as a discard+creature removal spell, incidentally keeping the tempo of both decks in check. I try to get better value here by discarding things like bloodghast or cabal therapy, and by utilizing Crucible or Loam. In this scenario Vet shifts the tempo part of the equation, but smallpox is still effective as discard+creature removal.
Except miracles, that is the deck where LD is good because the real threats of that deck are high CC. And giving them lands can be bad. But I think that unless your on Sinkhole, you probably already have to SB pretty deep to beat Miracles. Discard is not great against them because they play so well off the top. And creature removal is typically not great either.
My point was that Sinkhole and Vindicate are more reliable than Contamination. There are just too many conditions and deckbuilding constraints that go along with the card. Back to Basics and Blood Moon maybe even Choke are more efficient mana denial sources. The payoff just doesn't seem to be there.Quote:
Originally Posted by kombatkiwi
The payoff of Contamination is higher than Moon/B2B/Choke in almost all matchups. Many decks play basics to beat Moon/B2B/Wasteland, but Contamination doesn't care. Just look at the DTB of Miracles/DNT/Sneak&ShowQuote:
Originally Posted by Chiptoon
With a Contamination in play the only things that these decks can do AT ALL are
Miracles
1) Cast and activate Divining Top
2) Cast Engineered Explosives for 1
3) Force of Will
DNT
1) Vial
2) Revoker
3) Equipment
4) Waste/Port
Two of these things get shut off by Needle/Null Rod
Sneak and Show
1) Lotus Petal
2) Force of Will
All of these decks can play around B2B/Moon/Choke or kill them after they resolve.
- Contamination is similar or possibly slightly worse than Moon against the various multicolour Blue decks (Delver, Shardless, 4c etc) (they can't really do anything threatening against either card but they can get out of Contamination with 1 DRS + any land to cast Decay).
- Slighty worse than Moon against Eldrazi (it doesn't disable Eye of Ugin or manlands but it does the same job of eliminating all colorless mana).
- The only place where moon has a significant edge is against any Dark Depths deck.
- You are also probably much more likely to run into Burn/Dragon Stompy/MonoR Sneak Attack/Red Painter (where Contamination actually does something and Moon is just a blank) than another Mono-Black deck.
I wonder if Contamination+Gravecrawler could be a thing? Not sure if anybody ever tried it in the Zombardment decks.
@ShadWills I kind of see what you're saying but against decks that can't get any lands off an Explorer trigger you should be favoured regardless. If you want more cards that provide value by sacrificing Explorers there are plenty out there that don't conflict with your plan of casting expensive spells (Diabolic Intent, Innocent Blood, Bone Splinters,max copies of Therapy, Mind Slash, Night of Souls Betrayal, etc)
*notices Contamination Pox deck* *sudden CARD-GASM!* :eek:
I'm with the agreement that having a 3 COLOR splash for a Contamination deck is goofy as hell. However, I'm going to reconstruct that 3-1 winning deck [maybe he got lucky?] into a Mono-B flavor and see how it goes.
On the other hand, resisting the deck by using GY hate is a thing so the sideboard turns into a counter Hate configuration where your ultimate goal, like Dredge, is to protect your graveyard.
And it's true what was mentioned about Contamination being superior to the other mana denial enchantments like Blood Moon or Back to Basics. Whatever land you have is now replaced with tap for B. Not R, not 3, not 2, not BBR, just one fecking B.
Surgical Extraction is a thing so I'm probably going to be using Ophiomancers in place of Bitterblossom. I run Big Pox so life loss is not an option for me.
Well, aside from a Dark Ritual chain of Entomb targeting Nether Spirit and Contamination on turn 1, the other play would be:Quote:
Originally Posted by kombatkiwi
On the Draw, pass the turn and discard Nether Spirit.
Opponent has 1 turn to play Magic the Gathering.
Dark Ritual, Contamination. And your enemies shall curse your name upon reaching turn 2.
It has happened to me once long ago. It's VERY unlikely to go off but when it does, it's got the same scary effect as a turn 1 Liliana, but this practically wins you the game on the spot vs. non Mono-B decks.
Unfortunately, Deathrite Shaman and Abrupt Decay are pretty widely played. I love Contamination, my Shirei prison EDH is one of my all-time favorites however the card just feels clumsy for Legacy. I think Ophiomancer and Bloodghast are a more natural fit than the Lingering Souls brew, but it still feels like it's too many pieces to not win on the spot.Quote:
Originally Posted by OmniStrata
Hey Y'all This Contamination Pox thing looks like fun!
I was also at SCGWOR (I was 3-1 at some point too!) I was running a more traditional Pox build:
9 Swamp
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Cabal Pit
1 Ghost Quarter
4 Dark Ritual
4 Innocent Blood
4 Thoughtseize
3 Cursed Scroll
1 Surgical Extraction
4 Sinkhole
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
1 Collective Brutality
4 Liliana of the Veil
2 Toxic Deluge
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Night of Soul's Betrayal
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Pithing Needle
3 Collective Brutality
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Engineered Plague
1 Nether Spirit
1 Perish
I don't think Pox is a great choice for a large event; It has a bad Burn matchup, and burn will be there, and it has a rough time against random pet decks (I know, it is a random pet deck). I think the proper place to deploy Pox is medium sized tournaments with a defined meta. Anyways, I played pox because it's my favorite, not because I thought it was the correct choice. I ended up dropping after round 8 at 4-4, a disappointing end to a reasonable start. I won't do a full report - No one needs all the details of a 4-4 performance, but here's the quick and dirty:
Round 1: Elves. 2-0 No problem, My Toxic Deluge heavy build is pretty good here, and post board, Plagues and Perish make it ridiculous.
Round 2: Reid Duke Midrange. 2-1. 1-for-1ing vs TNN and Leovold is pretty good. Thanks Innocent Blood, Smallpox, and Deluge.
Round 3: U/G Enchantress. 0-2. Sigh. Game 2 I have turn 1 Needle on Words of Wind, turn 2 Ritual into NOSB (to kill Cloud of Faeries) and turn 3 I Surgically Extract Cloud of Faeries. I Sinkholed multiple enchanted lands. I still lost to bouncing Rec-Sages and Word of Wind bouncing my board. I believe this dude was on camera later. His name is Arnauld, he was a pleasure to play against, he seemed to be an expert with the deck.
Round 4: 4-color Delver. 2-1 I was confused what he was playing game 1 - I didn't see Delver, and it seemed like some sort of Leovold Brew, so I sided incorrectly, but I quickly realized my error and proceeded to shred him like Pox is supposed to shred Delver.
Round 5: Burn. 0-2. As always, I reduce him to 0 permanents, 0 cards in hand and start in on his life total. A couple top decks later and I'm dead. Collective Brutality helped, but not enough. Seriously considering Chalice.
Round 6: U/R Delver. 2-1. This one can be touch and go - They can burn me out from a very low base, but I was able to hold them down. Very interactive match-up and fun games.
Round 7: Mono-Red Sneak Attack. 0-2. Extracting Through the Breach and Needling Sneak Attack was a good start, but this is another match-up that doesn't need cards in hand or lands in play to function. Smash Needle, draw Emrakul, gg. At this point (4-3)I know I'm at like 1% to day 2, but I'll play it out to shoot for top 100.
Round 8: Miracles. 0-2. I like my matchup against Mentor, but this was the Entreat build. Game 1 I extracted Entreat, so it was a long grind, and eventually he assembled the lock and beat down with Snapcasters. Game 2 His had less air in his deck and was able to setup an Entreat pretty early for the win. My heart was not in this match, I might have been able to win game 1 - he had so few win conditions, I was just not feeling able to navigate vs Counter-Top.
Round 9: Drop. Props to Toxic Deluge main and SCG for a great event. Slops to the fragility of Pithing Needle and the ubiquity of Burn.
Things I Learned:
I devote too many slots in the side to Creatures.
Pox really needs either Lock pieces (Chalice/Contamination/Trinisphere) or a more aggressive Clock (Ghasts/The Rack/Tombstalker) if it plans to beat random A+B Combo Decks and Burn.
9 Rounds of Pox is more tiring than 9 rounds of Belcher, but really not too bad.
Thanks for the report.
I agree that you probably have too many answers for creatures in your 75 but it didn't seem to cause too many problems for you.
It's unfortunate that you still find Burn to be a bad matchup even with 4x Collective Brutality postboard, I might have to reevaluate the overall usefulness of this card. What is your main reason for playing 4 Thoughtseize and 0 Inquisition/Duress? You can make other marginal changes to improve the Burn matchup like cutting some number of the removal spells for Spinning Darkness but I don't know if you can swing the matchup enough in your favour for it to be worth it.
I'm not so sure about maindeck NOSB right now
- Mentor
- Entire decks based around X/1s e.g. DNT/Elves/Aluren
- Against 4C it kills Baleful Strix and Snap so you can more reliably edict Leovold
- Puts Leovold in range of dying to Collective Brutality/Cursed Scroll (I don't think there is any other X/3 in the format lul, Serra Avenger maybe)
- Anything with TNN or Young Pyro in it
But there also seem to be a reasonably high number of matchups where it just does nothing. I guess you are mostly favoured to win creatureless matchups anyway? Thoughts? If you had to cut 1 Deluge or 1 NOSB from your maindeck which would it be?
You can add Nether Void to the list of Chalice/Trinisphere/Contamination as lock cards, I agree that at something like this is needed (the Japanese technology of Sanitarium/Chains also works but it's a specific 2-card combo and Decay gets out of it).
What do you think about your Extraction maindeck? Modern lantern decks also do this for a similar reason.
I like the idea of destroying someone with Haunting Echoes but at 5 mana it's probably too expensive or worse than other similarly-costed options.
I would like to have seen your UG Enchantress match. It seems like this would be one of the worst possible matchups for that deck:
- Infinite ways to kill Argothian (E-Plague/NOSB/Deluge/Innocent Blood/Liliana/Perish)
- Ways to kill lands with Wild Growth on them (Ghost Quarter/Sinkhole/Waste+Smallpox)
- You even have 2 Ratchet Bomb
How did you side for game 2?
The Brutalities were effective against brun alongside Trinispheres, but I got cocky and cut the spheres.Quote:
Originally Posted by kombatkiwi
I like the NoSB. It's good against so much. I would cut it before the Deluges though. I could move it to the board for the Nether Spirit also.
Nether Void and Chains are on my radar but out of my current price range, unfortunately. Saving for Voids, but it will take a while.
I like the Extraction main. I always have a couple flex slots, and using sideboard cards in there makes it possible to run the full 4 post board, which I like. I agree about Haunting Echoes. I don't like the Ob Nixilis plan for the same reason.
I agree about the enchantress matchup, I feel ok about it vs G/W Enchantress/Solitaire, but UG was able to combo me out. My hate was not permanent enough, and they were able to deal with it. I think I could beat him post-board. My hand just didn't line up right. I had early hate, but no continuing action. I boarded in 3 Extractions, 3 Pithing Needles and 2 Ratchet Bombs and took out Crucible, Collective Brutality, 1 Sinkhole, 1 Smallpox, 1 Liliana, 1 Deluge, and 2 Cursed Scroll. I think Extracting the right piece is important. Cutting the Fairies meant he could not go infinite, but he could still bounce my permanents. Part of the problem is that I have no answer to resolved enchantments, so once he gets a Words of Wind active, I'm pretty screwed.
So, has anyone given thought to the new zombie one drop? it looks like a reasonable run if we want to go a more aggressive rout with gravecrawlers (and possibly a reliable enough recursion engine to make contamination a serious consideration)
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/cards/am...dread-wanderer
personally, i'm not sure it's good enough to de-throne nether spirit in hard-ball grindy pox, but the fact that it's a self-recurring 2 power 1 drop is relevant. it would be infinitely better if it was a cheaper recur mana wise or was instant speed, or could come back untapped at the 'cost' of being a 2 drop, but i'm at least thinking it could be worth looking at.
So I've fallen victim to the Contamination trap many times... It looks great on paper obviously, but with a large percentage of decks now-a-days preparing to face Blood Moon/Back to Basics/etc., Contamination gets some splash hate for those decks. Also Deathrite Shaman is a thing, so people can play under a contamination lock. And Abrupt Decay can kill Contamination. Some decks run lotus petal. Hell, even a majority of decks in the meta right now are running black...Quote:
Originally Posted by Quitrex
As for the new 1-drop, I personally don't like it because the creature threats that we have in Pox currently, bloodghast, nether spirit, tombstalker, etc., are better threats than that. I feel that if its ability cost 1B, then it might be good.
Bingo. Contamination actually helps some of these decks cast their hate card against the lock piece. They can literally fetch Savannah or Tropical Island and still Abrupt Decay or Maelstrom pulse it away with a Deathrite Shaman on the board.Quote:
Originally Posted by MrFrowny_
There are worse cards, in know, but somehow [card] shadow of the grave [/card] seems like the crappiest ever printed.