Yeah I always wondered why Loam Pox didn’t have it’s own thread. It’s closer to Land variants than Pox.
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Yeah I always wondered why Loam Pox didn’t have it’s own thread. It’s closer to Land variants than Pox.
It is now, but 'back in the day' Loam was definitely a Pox engine. Punishing Fire is a better removal engine than Smallpox and Gamble is a tutor for Loam/PFire/Grove/Depths combo pieces. They are both control decks, just attacking a different axis. The Depths combo is what made Loam Pox obsolete because it gave an alternative to black control: a fast combo that just killed opponent's rather than grinding card advantage.Quote:
Originally Posted by naynay666
Hey gang, going to a Legacy for Staples event tomorrow. Got a tip from a guy who plays regularly at the store that there will be a lot of lands and 8 moon. I don't think I've played against those much... any tips? sideboard tech?
I figure they're both kinda bad matchups. Lands has Loam, which is a beating, and 8 moon has Chandra, which is hard to interact with. Blood Moon isn't game over for us, but it does shut down our wincons. Maybe I'll maindeck a pithing needle against Chandra and Stage...
Hero's Downfall and Cranial Extraction. I've been wondering how you Pox guys can succeed against Jace without the initial card anyways.Quote:
Originally Posted by aslidsiksoraksi
depends how your deck looks like. Can¨t say much without the deck list.Quote:
Originally Posted by aslidsiksoraksi
Yeah good call. Here's my list as of now:
Maindeck SB 4 Lilliana of the Veil 4 Smallpox 4 Mishra's Factory 4 Leyline of the Void 1 Liliana, the Last Hope 4 Inquisition of Kozilek 4 Wasteland 2 Bitterblossom 3 Innocent Blood 3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth 2 Tombstalker 2 Cursed Scroll 2 Hymn to Tourach 1 Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale 2 Pithing Needle 1 Ensnaring Bridge 2 Toxic Deluge 1 Cabal Pit 2 Lost Legacy 2 Phyrexian Totem 1 Beseech the Queen 1 Bojuka Bog 2 Collective Brutality 1 Crucible of Worlds 1 Spawning Pool 1 Ratchet Bomb 4 Dark Ritual 1 Maze of Ith 1 Night of Souls' Betrayal 1 Fatal Push 10 Swamp 1 Nether Void
Also looking for something to cut so I can fit in an extra Bridge on the SB (figure it's good against Lands, and I know Sneak & BR Reanimator will be there too), and something to cut for Chains MD.
Thanks!
I think you should focus on tuning your deck to beat one of them, and hope to dodge the other. Given your reliance on non-basics I would think you are very vulnerable to 8 moon. Chalice of the void at one will also hurt you much. Lands is difficult but you have tools against it.Quote:
Originally Posted by aslidsiksoraksi
This is not ideal since 8 moon actually has the weakest gameplan (hate ftw). WIth another build you can blank much of its cards. Thing being as they are, however, dodging 8 moon and focus on lands is your best bet. Unless you want to completely transform your deck.
I would put a second bridge main deck, and some surgicals in the sideboard.
Pithing Needle, targeted discard, and keeping them off 4 lands with waste/smallpox/hymn. Lost Legacy had replaced cranial, and surgical/extirpate are typically better than those.Quote:
Originally Posted by Erdvermampfa
Any other questions?
@aslidsliksoraksi: I would be playing at least 2-3 ratchet bombs on the board. It works under moon effects and has value across multiple decks. I personally would be playing 2 maindeck bombs if I sleeved up pox.
Pithing Needle is very good against both Lands the deck and Chandra the card. I would consider upping your count. I run 1 in the main and 3 in the side to fight 'walkers and Stage/Depths. Ratchet bomb is good against Moon Stompy because it hits Chalice and Goblin Tokens. Bridge is great against Lands. Leyline is also great against Lands. Collective Brutality is decent against stompy because it kills Magus, Rabblemaster and spirit guide, and it can be cast off 1 swamp under moon effects. In my experience vs. Moon Stompy it is more important to resolve a Liliana early than it is to Wasteland them early, so keep that in mind. Both decks are real good, and we have to fight hard against them, but they are definitely beatable.
Hey thanks for the advices everyone! I did end up maindecking a needle and an extra bridge, as well as putting in the chains (cut the totems and a dark ritual). Went 2-3, losing to lands, dredge, and elves, beating some monogreen stompy thing and a budget storm build. Highlights were dying to bitterblossom the turn before dredge would have decked himself, and watching storm make 14 goblins turn 1 before going turn 1 tabernacle. So yeah.
Had better luck this week at the usual weekly. Tweaked the list a bit, put necropolis regent in the maindeck as a 2x. I figure he can fill the place of tombstalkers, but is more spicy and does more stuff in a way. In a way he's a cross between stalker and scroll, in that he provides repeatable removal (ie card advantage) as well as a fast clock. In the games I played he could have been a tombstalker and maybe better as such, but i think i'll keep him as is for now (plus the prerelease foils are so cool looking).
here's the list I ran:
Pox
SB 4 Lilliana of the Veil 4 Smallpox 4 Mishra's Factory 4 Leyline of the Void 1 Liliana, the Last Hope 4 Inquisition of Kozilek 4 Wasteland 2 Bitterblossom
3 Innocent Blood 3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth 2 Pithing Needle 2 Necropolis Fiend 2 Hymn to Tourach 1 Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale 2 Lost Legacy
2 Toxic Deluge 1 Cabal Pit 2 Collective Brutality 2 Cursed Scroll 1 Beseech the Queen 1 Bojuka Bog 2 Ratchet Bomb 1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Spawning Pool 1 Extirpate 1 Crucible of Worlds 1 Night of Souls' Betrayal 1 Maze of Ith
1 Nether Void 10 Swamp
3 Dark Ritual 1 Chains of Mephistopheles
1 Fatal Push
Round 1: Czech Pile
Game 1 I go for the turn 1 inquisition and see Strix, DRS, Snap, and K command, along with the lands to play them. Doesn’t feel good man. I take K Command. End up dropping a Lili, but she gets bolted. Next turn he has his own Liliana. He follows this up with Leovold. I’m able to use a Scroll to keep his Lili from ultimating, and I drop a Chains to stop him from drawing like mad with Leo, but the beats get there.
SB: out 3 rituals, 1 bridge, 1 push, 1 tabernacle; in 1 ratchet bomb, 2 needles, 2 Bitterblossom, 1 Brutality
Game 2 was a beautiful game of Poxiness. I’m on the play. Swamp go. He gets turn one DRS. I play turn 2 Hymn and hit all the gas - his Lili and his Engineered Explosives. Turn 3 my Lili kills his Shaman. Then followed by Chains so he can’t really draw out of it and I start ticking up. He dies to Spawning Pool, 1 point at at time. Search for Azcanta does show up and get around Chains, but feels too late and eventually gets wasted. Highlight of the game was my dumb butt playing a smallpox that made me discard my crucible :frown:
Game 3 was very interesting but I didn’t take a ton of notes. I drop a scroll early and he doesn’t have a lot of action fast. He does drop his own Lili Last Hope though, but he’s a little low on creatures so he's just plus-ing into space. Then he gets a Sylvan Library and flips a search for azcanta. At this point I’ve got my own Liliana and a pair of scrolls, to go with a factory. I tick my girl up and she’s at six counters when he drops a Stryx. At this point he’s pretty low on life (7) thanks to library, but if he keeps his Lili I will lose to her minus ability on the Strix as he will make forever blockers. And he has pulled far ahead on cards, holding 4 to my one. I go for the ultimate - he can keep either 4 lands (including the Search) or Library, LiLH, and the Strix. I feel if he keeps the nonlands I will lose to them, but he takes the lands; it was risky either way. I drop the wasteland I’m holding, hit his Search. And then a few scrolls later he’s dead.
Overall I love this matchup, not because it’s easy but because it’s intense and always feels close and tight. I messed up a few times and almost threw the game away in the last one, but hey.
Games 2-1, Matches 1-0
Round 2: Grixis Delver
He’s new to the deck and playing borrowed duals. Game 1 he plays 2 DRS and 4 Delvers. Liliana wishes she could hide behind her veil. No deluge arrives, and although I waste his only mana source and take some potshots while he waits for his delvers to flip, eventually they do and I die fast.
SB: out 2 hymn, 1 spawning pool, 1 crucible; in 2 ratchet bomg, 2 collective brutality
Game 2 he forces my ritual. I got turn two chains. he flips a delver and starts hitting me. Find an answer to the delver, but then he drops a zombie fish. Gets a hit in with it, drops a DRS. I rip the Deluge, and go to 4 life to wipe the board. Over the next turns he draws nothing, I drop Factory and Nether Void and take the game.
Game 3 is an odd one. I kept a one land hand with a basic swamp, mostly because it was a mulligan and I had some 1 cmc action. But he, oddly enough, kept a 1 land hand with only a pithing needle. He goes wasteland, needle name scroll. I play way more lands than him, so I draw a few of them, and play Chains (I drew this card 6 time in 11 games, real MVP that night). I manage to keep him low on lands (that’s what we do, after all), and then drop Nether Void. Not long after Necropolis Fiend shows up to mop things up.
One thing that happened both game 1 and 2 where that I went turn 1 ritual and he forced it. I told him it's usually better to force the payoff, not the ritual, but maybe he's on to something?
Games 4-2, Matches 2-0
Round 3: BR Reanimator
Game 1 he mulligans to 5 and I think I might just get there. I have turn 1 inquisition and he’s holding entomb, unburial rites, grisel, and a collective brutality (he played his land for the 5th card). I take Brutality. He entombs a new grisel. At this point I feel okish - it’ll take him a few turns to get to the rites, and maybe I can make him discard it… Nope. Reanimate off the top. GG boys
SB: out 2 LotV, 1 crucible, 1 nether void, 1 spawning pool, 1 tabernacle, 1 scroll, 2 toxic deluge, 2 hymn, 1 NoSB, 1 push; in 4 leyline, 1 extirpate, 2 lost legacy, 2 needle, 2 bitterblossom, 2 brutality
Game 2 he mulligans to 4. I’m on the play with swamp and holding up extirpate. He manages to take that from me with a brutality. But his hand has no way to put anything in his graveyard, but his holding Exhume. I draw 3 factories and start to close fast. He finally does get grisel at 7 life, but I have Liliana for it. I had her on board in fact, but wasn’t plusing her just in case he was holding a reanimate target.
Game 3 I keep a one land wasteland hand on the strength of Leyline. It messes him up enough to where he tries to go for a turn1 grisel but just ends up unmasking himself pointlessly. He has no lands in hand, but does have enough mana off free sources to burning wish for a way to remove leyline. But without lands he has to draw into it. So we both are on the draw lands plan - but I play 26 and he plays 12. I get more. He finally destroys my Leyline and entombs Griselbrand but without a way to reanimate it. I Bojuka Bog. Then get a second Leyline up and running. Necropolis Fiend ends the game.
Games: 6-3, Matches 3-0
Round 4: ANT
This is where the Pox dream dies my friends. Game 1 was kind of close. I knew he had 2 tutors in hand, but he ended up using both to get mana sources. I know his hand is all mana sources except for one card he just drew. He’s got 2 lands. I can choose between wasting his land or playing a factory; I decide to start a little pressure. That’s a mistake - the unknown card is the 3rd infernal tutor and that’s the game. In retrospect I was holding Necropolis Fiend, so maybe I shouldn’t have rushed it with factory and just held him back as long as possible, since Fiend is the real clock here.
SB: out 1 Beseech, 1 maze, 1 NoSB, 1 LiLH, 3 blood, 1 push, 1 crucible, 1 scroll, 1 bridge; in 4 Leyline, 2 Lost Legacy, 2 ratchet bomb, 2 brutality, 1 extirpate
Game 2 I inquisition and see a hand that thoughtseize would wreck - all mana sources and a single ad nauseum. But unfortunately, I can’t do anything that good. So i just take a mana source. Ratchet bomb seems decent against his two LEDs, but he ramps to AN and the T soon follows. Not sure exactly how to time bomb against LED, but I did the first one when the second was on the stack, so he couldn’t pop it in response and before he could play Ad Nauseum. I think that’s correct
Games: 6-5, Matches 3-1
I liked fiend in the deck, helps to have a clock in the MD. I'll keep him around for a bit. Also digging the high land count list, i feel i'm starving for mana much less.
Just a reflective thought - I think I read somewhere that one reason Pox isn't that popular or hyped is that it is both somewhat expensive (at least the pricey enchantments) and actually really difficult to play. I think this last point is a good one (either that or I'm not that great a player). Targeted discard, reciprocal effects, planeswalkers, etc, all require a lot of decisions and you need to read the opponent's weaknesses a lot. I've played control/prison for most of my magic life but usually you either drop a lock piece and hope for the best or you counter what matters as it comes up. Here you have to be somewhat preemptive in cutting off resources, and the locks are rarely so hard you can just sit on them. Plus since taking their stuff also means taking your own, you always have to estimate the value of your cards vs theirs, etc. I feel I'm improving but I think it's true that the deck takes a lot of practice. Anyway just a thought.
In other news, pretty darn pumped to play the new Karn. Might be just the card draw engine we've been hoping for.
Much love to the Pox fam
Lands, Elves, and Dredge are literally the worst matchups for Pox. UGGH. That must have been painful. None of them unwinnable, but those are uphill battles for sure.
Good set of tools against dredge though. I count at least nine cards to comfortably bring in from the sb. Generally speaking dredge is a niche deck. I myself wouldn't worry about it. Lands is more common and harder to defeat.
Thanks for the writeup!
I am excited about exploring this. Did you kill a bunch of Deathrites or was it a 20% slower Tombstalker?Quote:
Originally Posted by aslidsiksoraksi
Did it run into your Bridge at all?
Yeah these are both kinda miserable, but at least Dredge is fringe. I have been running into Lands far too often lately.Quote:
Originally Posted by lands and dredge
It didn't run into bridge (I only run 1). In the matches I played it was admittedly just 20% slower than Tombstalker. I feel like I still want to keep trying him though. As a finisher he's slower but I think he's better from behind. Doesn't trade with Angler, but does a lot better if you keep him back as a blocker, since he can kill their stuff EOT (and if he's not summoning sick and you have a card in yard, he can block and kill angler without trading). Figure he'll also help against things like Elves/Pyromancer where you need targeted removal and not sac effects. And big butt means can survive Deluge, ideally. Too slow to be the thing you lean on to kill DRS really.Quote:
Originally Posted by naynay666
Mostly just theory though at this point. If you try him let us know how it works!
Just now I played turn one fetch, dark ritual, dark ritual, tombstalker for the win in the local tourney. A baleful strix stopped it temporally but I top decked Collective Brutality.
hell yeah. feels good.
Having lost a game online to omniscience i have had second thoughts about Lost Legacy. Given my disruption i should reach three mana and cast it in time, something in doubted earlier. It would likely be good against many decks that are not blue control.
Quote:
Originally Posted by aslidsiksoraksi
Thanks for your great report and the solid finish :-)
I am a big fan of your list and would play almost the same:
Main:
1 Nether Spirit
1 Tombstalker
2 Cursed Scroll
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Nether Void
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Smallpox
4 Thoughtseize
4 Innocent Blood
3 Hymn to Tourach
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Collective Brutality
4 Dark Ritual
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Cabal Pit
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
12 Swamp
SB:
1 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Ratchet Bomb
1 Engineered Plague
1 Bontu's Last Reckoning
2 Bitterblossom
1 Chains of Mephistopheles
1 Lost Legacy
2 Surgical Extraction
4 Leyline of the Void
I would like to start a discussion about a few cardchoices:
Discardspells:
Thoughtseize >>> Inquisition of Kozilek
Is your meta full of burn or what is the idea behind your choice? If there is burn, we should play more Collective Brutality.
Furthermore Collective Brutality is a maindeck and no sb card for me. It is flexible but no specific hate. What's the idea of having it in your sb? Is it good enough to play 2 or even 3?
I do like 3 Hymn to Tourach and tend to board them out in most of the creature-matchups.
Finisher:
Don't you miss Nether Spirit? I like to discard him and he is a really good blocker.
Which finisher is better: Tombstalker or Necropolis Fiend? Lower manacost vs. useful but expansive ability?
Rest:
I don't like Sinkhole anymore because of Deathrite Shaman. Any objection?
I do love Ensnaring Bridge and would like to play 3 but don't have the space. It is a must-answer for so many decks.
Does Lost Legacy outplays the usual Pithing Needle in our sbs? In theory i think so, what do you guys think?
That's it for now,
Greetings Stephan
1) I am sold on Bitterblossom maindeck as a finisher, along with 1-2x Bloodghast, and 4x Mishra's Factory. I also like Tombstalker, but I find it unnecessary with 4x BB main.
2) Burn will always be a bad matchup. The only way to really punish them is to play a faster combo (like Leyline/Helm in the sideboard.) It's a matchup we basically concede as bad and move on.
3) I am also a strong supporter of maindeck Ratchet Bomb. Fast starts can be problematic, and Ratchet Bomb can create virtual card advantage (just like Bitterblossom.) It's never dead and opening up 2-3 slots in the sideboard can be very helpful for addressing your particular metagame.
The burn match up can be anything from autoloss to favorable. It totally depends ones build. Thoughtseize or not has minimal impact on that however. It is surely a card to board out since it doesn't do anything for you. Destroy the lands, apply pressure and race is the classic way to win. Taxing effects are also valuable.
Good cards: sinkhole, Smallpox, Pox, Hymn (double timewalk) Mishra's, Bloodghast, Collective brutality, trinisphere, nether void, chalice of the void etc.