[Primer/Deck] Pox

Yeah we are talking about the same thing. I didn't play the monoblack since a long time, it still looks more consistent than bg (due to all reasons we already said), but it still hits those walls you said.
There is an inherent attribute to Black that is: you CAN drw cards, but this has a cost in life. But, with this heavy disruption, do we care about life loss? And adding effects like phyrexian arena (or whatever draw card you remember of) won't dillute the strategy? (since it looks like all the cards are essential)

I just know that when I did research over Pox over the past couple of years, there were very few B/G Pox lists, while there were alot more mono black pox lists, however there was just enough from B/G lists that I was able to find a couple that had success. It does seem like Loam Pox would be better suited but overall it just hasn't had the performance.

Also the mono black pox was somewhat propelled after it had success at the invitational by Reid Duke at the end of 2011, so the people playing mono black pox might have gone up since then making the appearances of both sides a little more skewed, as in if enough people "jumped ship" and pushed for just Liliana pox at that point, the number of Loam pox players that remained was lower than it was before the Invitational that put Liliana pox in a bit of a spotlight.

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Originally Posted by feline

I just know that when I did research over Pox over the past couple of years, there were very few B/G Pox lists, while there were alot more mono black pox lists, however there was just enough from B/G lists that I was able to find a couple that had success. It does seem like Loam Pox would be better suited but overall it just hasn't had the performance.

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Could this be at all related to Pox being widely considered a budget / pet deck, rather than an archetype that is developed to obtain good win %ages across multiple matchups? I suspect that Pox is underdeveloped in Legacy because there is not much rewarding plays the deck can make, and is picked up more for nostalgic reasons rather than competitive reasons.

Pox is not about control.


Any list that does not run 3-4 Pox is flawed.


The Rack - Hymn - Pox - Pox = Win

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Originally Posted by Hardcore

Pox is not about control.


Any list that does not run 3-4 Pox is flawed.


The Rack - Hymn - Pox - Pox = Win

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That's a very polemic way of saying "I play a pet deck".
In the past, this may have been true. I feel as thought with the printing of Liliana of the Veil, Pox has the opportunity to move into uncharted territory.

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Originally Posted by Koby

Could this be at all related to Pox being widely considered a budget / pet deck, rather than an archetype that is developed to obtain good win %ages across multiple matchups? I suspect that Pox is underdeveloped in Legacy because there is not much rewarding plays the deck can make, and is picked up more for nostalgic reasons rather than competitive reasons.

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That too, alot of times a deck gets "propelled" a bit to a boost after someone somewhere has success with it, while up to that point it's seen as an uncommon strategy.

There is also the "long time legacy decks" that probably keep decks like Pox, Stax, High Tide, Burn, Mud, Goblins, Fish, Elves etc going, just because they've been a strategy for so long and somewhere someplace, someone will always enjoy those strategies of their preference, personally I have a pox / stax deck because, they are so different, and I know they aren't top tier strategies, they are just my "fun but still viable" Legacy decks, so for local game store, smaller weekly events, I play them there.

-edit- & yes, since the Liliana Pox, the actual card Pox itself, has been at most a 1 or 2 of in the maindeck, if it's still ran at all.

Nothing makes a deck popular faster then a few high profile wins. But confusing or attempting to correlate "good" with "popular" only leads you to false assumptions such as:

The deck is the only thing that matters.

Good decks are always popular.

Bad decks are always unpopular.


There are players out there that good enough that they could pilot a ham and cheese to a top 8 win. And players out there so bad they couldn't win a draft if you let them play a type 1 deck completed with power 9.

If you want to know what the real power and weaknesses to any give deck are and how it compares to other decks you really need to do the testing yourself, you need to test against a large number of different decks, piloted by different people that are highly skilled with them, and they need to people you do not normally play against.

In short all you know for sure when you look at placings is how Deck A performs in the hands of Pilot X. That has no bearing on how it will preform int he hands of Pilot Y, or how Pilot X will do with Deck B.

So the point is, if you want to play Pox and try to develop it, then work on it, but do not confuse its success or lack-there-of by people not you as evidence of its power (or lack-there-of) in your hands.


now we can move back to discussing the deck itself...

I see people using the term "tier deck" to describe what Pox is not. I don't have anything nice to say about so-called tier decks, except that a lot of people play those decks. When really smart people (like Reid Duke or Ali Aintrazi) play Pox decks, they do well.

I would advice anyone who wanted play control to build, our buy, a counterbalance deck. Black simply lack the tools for the job. Liliana can't compensate for not having the blue cantrips and counterspells.
The classic plan of the surviving the first turns and then stabilize is not viable for black. It must do the opposite: make a mess of the early game and use that to defeat your opponent.

When I returned to magic last year it was because I realized the potential of the pox effects as the next step in disruption. With the ever increasing power levels in magic the old discard was not good enough. However, I never saw it as control.

Hardcore I saw your day if the disease list (that is nothing more than a pox that tries to win fast). Care to post it in here for more discussion?
+++no offense alert for the next paragraph+++
One more thing, don't say things like "the rack+hymn+pox+pox=win" since a) if you do the match you'll see you can't cast all those cards even if they're on your starting 7 and b) on dreamland dark horizons is the bestestest deck of the world (mana, mox, hymn, bob, vindicate on land, gg)

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Originally Posted by RogueBuild

Pox has the same 2 problems (1 semi-small, 1 huge) today it has had for the 18 years since it was printed.

1) The semi small problem is finishing the game. Oddly enough this has gotten worse as time has gone on, not because our options got worse, not because other decks have gotten so much better, but because our control options have gotten so much better. In the old days Pox was 4 sinkholes, 4 Hymns, 4 Pox, 4 Terror (or something long those lines) and a bunch of cheap creatures supported by often with NShadows and AshGhouls (yes, I'm talking way way back before may of you were playing magic). It played a lot more like Gate then Pox of today. Now, I personally personally prefer the heavy control Pox of today over the Pox of the early days but while packing all that control into a deck we need to keep something in mind: Control Cards Do Not Win Games, Damage Does. So the solution has to be finding that balance of control card count Vs ability to kill.
Liliana is amazing and gives the deck a versatility it desperately needed, but she can not win a game.
With the exception of Mishra, lands do not win games. And yet lands and other mana effect cards make up just slightly less than 50% of the deck.
Unless you are playing with Megrim, discard does not win games.

You can empty their hands, blow up all their lands, remove their graveyards but if you don't have a threat to swing with when they are on the ropes you are just begging them to come back and kick your ass. We have an absolutely horrid topdeck. The average Pox deck has between 5-7 threats, that is roughly 1 in 10. Pox needs to run more threats, BUT, they cant be creatures that interfere with you playing your own cards (this is why I have always opposed TStalker).


2) This is the bigger problem and if you can solve this, problem 1 is reduced. Pox is at its heart a control deck, but unlike nearly every great control deck in the history of Magic, Pox isn't U, U/? or ?/U. Why is U the holy color of control players? Well counterspells has a lot to do with it, but just as important is draw. The 3rd rule of Magic: Draw More, Win More. The problem isn't that black doesn't have any draw abilities, they problem is they tend to kill us. LotL is draw engine, but in Pox it is a bad one. Unless your plan is to win with VHexmage/DDepths LotL is really just a digging machine for lands and 1 or 2 grave effects, meanwhile you give up drawing a card in order to dig. If you wanted to use LotL as your draw engine you really need to retool the entire deck to work around that.


Rather than give my solutions for each of these problems I figured I would see what everyone else thinks of the problem 1st and how they approach solving them. How you approach problem #2 will greatly impact problem #1.

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The critics are spot on, despite being, unfortunately, not new. I will try to address your points (and partially respond to what has been said thereafter).

1. You say this is the smallest of the two problems, but I'm going to disagree on that: IMHO this is the biggest problem that pox has to face. There is quite a number of viable win conditions, 'ghast, stalker, worm harvest, syphon life, hex/depths, terravore... you name it, I've tried it. Unfortunately, none of them fits smoothly with the gameplan of the deck. Bloodghast is too slow and doesn't block, stalker has no sinergy with your removal package, worm harvest is overcosted... the point is, we have no Jace. We have no Entreat the angels. In one way or the other, we have to compromise. Win conditions are dead draws until we get complete control, and this impacts greatly our game. If Liliana could actually close games, I'd think the deck would be much better positioned (Liliana is still awesome, of course).
2. You can go around point 1 by more card drawing, of course. This is what the Bg version does well, in my experience. It's more flexible and versatile, and you should not underestimate the ability of drawing lands. Lands can be exchanged for cards by Liliana and smallpox, or simply by being a Barren Moor or a Cabal Pit. The tradeoff is that the deck becomes less consistent, requires finer tuning to beat the metagame and it's horribly hard to play. It's one of the hardest decks I've ever played, full of hidden sinergies and with a nightmarish decision tree. Playing 99% sorcery speed means you have to plan for many turns in advance, usually. I've had quite good results with the deck in small tournaments ( and I'm a beast during playtesting), but for the big ones, you sometimes just need some easy wins.

A possible solution to problem 1) is the lockdown. If you manage to establish a permanent semi-lock you then are free to wait for whatever win condition you're playing. This is why I'm liking trinispheres in Infectious' list, and why I think land denial is particularly powerful in this moment. It allows you to capitalize on the initial tempo gain due to your barrage of disruption, by gaining a long term advantage. Anyways, I'll do some testing and hopefully come out with something that works.

I can not agree more with this. Pox discards both hands but your opponent almost always topdecks better cards. I did see sweet list with 4 grave crawler 4 mutavault 2 mishra 2 cursed scroll... it might be the way.

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Originally Posted by Koplinchen

I can not agree more with this. Pox discards both hands but your opponent almost always topdecks better cards. I did see sweet list with 4 grave crawler 4 mutavault 2 mishra 2 cursed scroll... it might be the way.

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I don't really se how gravecrawler can be better than bloodghast. Neither blocks, and the 'crawler doesn't ever have haste and has arguably a worse recursion constraint. In any case, it's probably a decent win condition, but not better than anything we already had.

Pox have PLENTY of win conditions. Buy if you insist on wanting full control before employing them you are gonna lose. I say it again: POX IS NOT A CONTROL DECK.
At least not of the classic UW type. Trying to emulate it is quite futile.

I agree that there are wincons, but are they fast enough after the initial onslaught of Pox?

@ Roguebuild
Regarding your second point, if you had to call pox either control or aggro or combo, then yeah I'd lump it into control, but I'm closer to Hardcore's view that Pox isn't just a control deck. It's something different, it's a disruption deck. And you don't have to draw cards to gain card advantage. Pox knows that lands will be going to the grave, and gets to plan accordingly. Pox knows everyone will be discarding, and hand sizes will be small, and gets to prepare in advance. We gain advantage not from playing card draw (although you could with things like sign in blood), but from things like cursed scroll (small hand size enables it, recurring targeted artifact damage), Nether Spirit (discarded to a lil it's like getting a 2/2 that says play me for free, draw a card, and I can't die), hymn (2 for 1), lil (dump my hand so that her +1 doesn't hurt me, or have a cursed scroll so she helps me stay at 1 card to keep it active), or even just smallpox when we have no other cards in hand or creatures in play.

"Lock down" is something that can happen, because lots of decks play with tons of fetchlands and few actual lands, and we're afforded cards like trinisphere and nether void, but I think having that be the majority focus of a pox build is being too narrow.

Regarding your first point, I totally agree that a good number of win conditions is a great idea. Ideally the win conditions get to double as something else (mishra as land, cursed scroll as removal, nether spirit as a free card and amazing blocker, etc). I'd say Tombstalker is one of the MVPs of the deck. I think of pox more as a disruption deck than true control, and once I've staggered someone I want to close the game out quick, and not give them a bunch of turns to draw out with answers. Legacy decks are so powerful (brainstorm, fetch, ponder, fetch, I just looked at 80% of my deck) that I don't think we can hope to completely dictate the flow of the game. A 5/5 flier for 2 mana? Sign me up. Sure he might sometimes hit the grave before a Nether Spirit, but from personal experience it's almost never a problem. I'm often wanting to put a 3rd in because of how easy he is to cast and I want to ensure I get at least one. Casting 2 in a game isn't out of the question either. It's also very very rare that I've got a Tombstalker in play, that hasn't been killed, and I'm holding a smallpox/innocent blood that I look at and think "omg I have to cast this, crap it's going to cost me a tombstalker." But maybe I am just a lucky guy.

@ Cthuloo
I agree on bloodghast. I want to love him, I've tried playing him many times, but he's just too narrow. Maybe in a pox heavy deck (2-4 big pox) he supplements some of your racks, but I just don't think he does enough.

Another idea I was toying with was Chalice of the Void. We don't have anything at 0, so it could be something we drop 1st turn to hurt storm, belcher, LED dredge, Affinity, MUD, etc (all decks we're weak against), and personally I had very little at the 1cmc stop and could turn that weakness into a strength by playing Chalice at 1 (hurting other decks way more than it hurts me, which is right in line with Pox mentality).

Not sure it's the right card, but I think it's the right kind of card to be thinking about.

Pox won the last Legacy tourney at my LGS last week. I wasn't there, but I think he went 4-0, or 3-0-1

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Originally Posted by Cthuloo

I don't really se how gravecrawler can be better than bloodghast. Neither blocks, and the 'crawler doesn't ever have haste and has arguably a worse recursion constraint. In any case, it's probably a decent win condition, but not better than anything we already had.

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http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/dec...0&iddeck=67683

I fully get your point but it would be worth to try it out. I think it allows you to go more agressive. Both GC and BG have their merits - I like the idea of Dark Ritual, Inquisiton, 2 zombies and kill him fast.

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Originally Posted by Infectious

@ Roguebuild
Regarding your second point, if you had to call pox either control or aggro or combo, then yeah I'd lump it into control, but I'm closer to Hardcore's view that Pox isn't just a control deck. It's something different, it's a disruption deck. And you don't have to draw cards to gain card advantage. Pox knows that lands will be going to the grave, and gets to plan accordingly. Pox knows everyone will be discarding, and hand sizes will be small, and gets to prepare in advance. We gain advantage not from playing card draw (although you could with things like sign in blood), but from things like cursed scroll (small hand size enables it, recurring targeted artifact damage), Nether Spirit (discarded to a lil it's like getting a 2/2 that says play me for free, draw a card, and I can't die), hymn (2 for 1), lil (dump my hand so that her +1 doesn't hurt me, or have a cursed scroll so she helps me stay at 1 card to keep it active), or even just smallpox when we have no other cards in hand or creatures in play.

"Lock down" is something that can happen, because lots of decks play with tons of fetchlands and few actual lands, and we're afforded cards like trinisphere and nether void, but I think having that be the majority focus of a pox build is being too narrow.

Regarding your first point, I totally agree that a good number of win conditions is a great idea. Ideally the win conditions get to double as something else (mishra as land, cursed scroll as removal, nether spirit as a free card and amazing blocker, etc). I'd say Tombstalker is one of the MVPs of the deck. I think of pox more as a disruption deck than true control, and once I've staggered someone I want to close the game out quick, and not give them a bunch of turns to draw out with answers. Legacy decks are so powerful (brainstorm, fetch, ponder, fetch, I just looked at 80% of my deck) that I don't think we can hope to completely dictate the flow of the game. A 5/5 flier for 2 mana? Sign me up. Sure he might sometimes hit the grave before a Nether Spirit, but from personal experience it's almost never a problem. I'm often wanting to put a 3rd in because of how easy he is to cast and I want to ensure I get at least one. Casting 2 in a game isn't out of the question either. It's also very very rare that I've got a Tombstalker in play, that hasn't been killed, and I'm holding a smallpox/innocent blood that I look at and think "omg I have to cast this, crap it's going to cost me a tombstalker." But maybe I am just a lucky guy.

@ Cthuloo
I agree on bloodghast. I want to love him, I've tried playing him many times, but he's just too narrow. Maybe in a pox heavy deck (2-4 big pox) he supplements some of your racks, but I just don't think he does enough.

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Pox is control by default. It clearly isn't a combo deck and if you call it aggro, it is the slowest aggro deck out there.

I wont debate TombsS, I've done it numerous times in the past, you can go look it up. For here I will just say it is bad because it makes the deck clunky and is just as likely to be killed by you as by your opponent.

Getting a hard lock with this deck is hard enough in the 1st place, but even if you do, what did you cut to put something like Trini in? threats or disruption? remove threats and now it is harder to get the kill before they find a way to recover. Remove disruption and it will be even harder to get the lock in the 1st place.

I never said you needed to draw to gain card advantage, I said you needed to draw to find the threats in order to finish the game. Card draw is ALWAYS good. If you can't get card draw some form of deck manipulation will be used.
That being said, LotL doesn't do enough for you in this deck. Maybe if combined with STop, like a number of the top finishers listed on the 1st page did, but alone, there just is not enough in this deck to activate from the grave to make it be enough. If you wanted to make this a solid draw engine than I would say you need to rework the deck. Some changes would be to add GraveC and BloodG and more Retrace cards as automatic inclusion, but now you are looking at something more like a very old school Pox deck from 18 years ago (which does have some advantages).

What exactly do you gain by having an empty hand? EBridge works great! But it isn't a staple and I would rather remove creatures from the field then let them sit and wait until the bridge is killed. CScroll doesn't require you have an empty hand, only that it is easier to use with few cards in hand. 1 card works just as well as 4 lands. Pox isn't exactly known for holding cards so in all likelihood if you are holding a bunch of cards 4 or 5 rounds into the game, they are likely land, after all lands and mana sources make up almost 1/2 the deck. Liliana, you don't gain an advantage by having 0 cards in hand, you simply don't have to pitch something, that again, could likely have been another land (we have plenty).

So, in short, generating card advantage will only get you so far if you cant find a threat to kill the opponent with.

Ankh of mishra is fun and Desolation too. It would require running chrome mox and Dakmor salvage.

@ Roguebuild

It's clear that we are missing at least one piece to play the control role properly. The Bg version (with SDT, yes) plays it better, but it's way too convoluted. Comparing to UW miracle, where they just have to sit back and wait until they can drop a Jace or assemble countertop, it's horribly complicated. You have to work twice for the same result.

The monoblack version plays more like a tempo deck, unleashing a burst of disruption in the first turns to gain an edge. In this sense smallpox is the ultimate tempo card, setting the board one or sometimes two turns back. And up to this point the deck does its job egregiously. Arrived at the mid-game, there are three options:

• Play the control role up to the end
• Place a lockdown
• Use the tempo to ride a threat to victory

The first option is the toughest, since the deck naturally topdecks rather badly. If you go this route, you have to include a way to produce massive card advantage. The other two look more viable to me, and this is where Tombstalker is relvant. It has no sinergy with a full control game play, of course, since it's fragile and blanks some of our cards (creating some virtual card disadvantage), but it capitalizes on the tempo gain, and, for once, forces our opponent to be the reactive one and find an answer quickly, instead of slowly circumventing our gameplan. I would like something better, too, but this is what we have and what we can work with, and it can still be enough.

@ Koplinchen

Thanks for the link, but honestly I'm still unconvinced. I could try it out, I guess, probably there's some merit to it.

Hi there!
I've been playing the mana denial version of pox for some time now and I found the green splash to be very strong. The grand mistake most people make with the splash in my opinion, is to think that if you splash, it has to be for many, many cards... that is not true!
The single card that really makes the deck better is Abrupt Decay. While Life from the Loam is a good addition, it rarely is better then Crucible of Worlds, if you want this effect, mainly because you can be color screwed sometimes and it does cost you mana turn after turn (or at least every other turn)

This is the list I had some (local) success with so far. Feel free to criticise or ask questions about it:

Mainboard

2 Cursed Scroll
3 Mox Diamond
1 Crucible of Worlds

2 Abrupt Decay

4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thoughtseize
1 Life from the Loam
4 Sinkhole
4 Smallpox
3 Innocent Blood

2 Nether Void

4 Liliana of the Veil

2 Swamp
4 Bayou
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Marsh Flats
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Rishadan Port
2 Ghost Quarter


Sideboard

1 Abrupt Decay
3 Engineered Plague
2 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Extirpate
3 Pithing Needle
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Nihil Spellbomb


I can second that Pox is not a typical "control" deck, but it is a Lockdown deck. It looks to establish a situation in which the opponent has to topdeck the right combination of cards in sequence to be able to get back into the game all the while we are destroying his board and hand. Coming back under a Nether Void/Liliana of the Veil lock is near to impossible.

I have to wonder if part of the difference in our views comes from our different play styles and how it effects our general board positions. For me to do a turn 1 (on the draw) Smallpox is commonplace, blowing up my own single land. I rarely have more then 3 lands in play. It doesn't matter much how long into the game we are I tend to cap out at 3. If I have 4 lands I am either about to cast Smallpox, Wasteland something, or I have 2 Mishras in play.

For people playing things like Trini or NVoid for a [very soft] lock style deck or if you are playing with CScroll, 3 lands really is not enough for you. Means playing something like LotL is an absolute must because you become more mana dependent then I am.

IMO the use of Trini a NVoid doesn't help. If you wanted to play a purely abusive LD deck (which Pox is only about 6-8 cards away from being) then Trini and NVoid would be great to use, but in Pox, which incorporates as much discard as LD, I would say they are not needed. Plus other then Mishras and any discard-able creatures you pitched early the roadblocks you put in place to stall your opponent also stall you. Of course if you have 5 lands in play and only draw 1 card a turn that likely doesn't matter too much. But the Cards still take up space and adds turns to set-up.


As I see Pox, it is a control deck for about the 1st 4 turns (+/-1). By turn 5-ish we are entering top-deck mode which means we need to already have a threat on the board that can swing because with a deck that is about 42% land (and about 10% threat) only half of what you draw is going to allow you to try and maintain board position. At this point it doesn't really matter what you call yourself, control, lock, aggro, or a pile of lands and a few other things, because you are now just fighting to keep your opponent off balance long enough for your 1 or 2 threats (likely smaller in size) to finish the game.

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Originally Posted by RogueBuild

I have to wonder if part of the difference in our views comes from our different play styles and how it effects our general board positions. For me to do a turn 1 (on the draw) Smallpox is commonplace, blowing up my own single land. I rarely have more then 3 lands in play. It doesn't matter much how long into the game we are I tend to cap out at 3. If I have 4 lands I am either about to cast Smallpox, Wasteland something, or I have 2 Mishras in play.

For people playing things like Trini or NVoid for a [very soft] lock style deck or if you are playing with CScroll, 3 lands really is not enough for you. Means playing something like LotL is an absolute must because you become more mana dependent then I am.

IMO the use of Trini a NVoid doesn't help. If you wanted to play a purely abusive LD deck (which Pox is only about 6-8 cards away from being) then Trini and NVoid would be great to use, but in Pox, which incorporates as much discard as LD, I would say they are not needed. Plus other then Mishras and any discard-able creatures you pitched early the roadblocks you put in place to stall your opponent also stall you. Of course if you have 5 lands in play and only draw 1 card a turn that likely doesn't matter too much. But the Cards still take up space and adds turns to set-up.


As I see Pox, it is a control deck for about the 1st 4 turns (+/-1). By turn 5-ish we are entering top-deck mode which means we need to already have a threat on the board that can swing because with a deck that is about 42% land (and about 10% threat) only half of what you draw is going to allow you to try and maintain board position. At this point it doesn't really matter what you call yourself, control, lock, aggro, or a pile of lands and a few other things, because you are now just fighting to keep your opponent off balance long enough for your 1 or 2 threats (likely smaller in size) to finish the game.

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I agree with your assessment. I am building Pox and have play tested for about a year as I've accumulated the cards. The more I tinker with it the more I want it to be Lands//Land Destruction.The problem, as stated previously by others, is the slooooow kill time. I think i should just build the most durdly deck ever with the intention of never losing but never winning.

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Originally Posted by RogueBuild

I have to wonder if part of the difference in our views comes from our different play styles and how it effects our general board positions. For me to do a turn 1 (on the draw) Smallpox is commonplace, blowing up my own single land. I rarely have more then 3 lands in play. It doesn't matter much how long into the game we are I tend to cap out at 3. If I have 4 lands I am either about to cast Smallpox, Wasteland something, or I have 2 Mishras in play.

For people playing things like Trini or NVoid for a [very soft] lock style deck or if you are playing with CScroll, 3 lands really is not enough for you. Means playing something like LotL is an absolute must because you become more mana dependent then I am.

IMO the use of Trini a NVoid doesn't help. If you wanted to play a purely abusive LD deck (which Pox is only about 6-8 cards away from being) then Trini and NVoid would be great to use, but in Pox, which incorporates as much discard as LD, I would say they are not needed. Plus other then Mishras and any discard-able creatures you pitched early the roadblocks you put in place to stall your opponent also stall you. Of course if you have 5 lands in play and only draw 1 card a turn that likely doesn't matter too much. But the Cards still take up space and adds turns to set-up.


As I see Pox, it is a control deck for about the 1st 4 turns (+/-1). By turn 5-ish we are entering top-deck mode which means we need to already have a threat on the board that can swing because with a deck that is about 42% land (and about 10% threat) only half of what you draw is going to allow you to try and maintain board position. At this point it doesn't really matter what you call yourself, control, lock, aggro, or a pile of lands and a few other things, because you are now just fighting to keep your opponent off balance long enough for your 1 or 2 threats (likely smaller in size) to finish the game.

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Would you mind posting a reference list? If I had it right you play no scroll, no lock and no stalker, what's in in their place? Thanks!

Maybe I'm speaking nonsense' but if we want to go the "tempo" route, maybe dark rituals must become moxen, and we'd need things like nihilith and tombsatalker - and possibli a combination of bloodghast and dakmor salvage. The rest being abusive cards as smallpox, hymn' seize (yeah seize instead of iok 'cause you'll want to take ANYTHING) and big ol' pox. Also, crucible of worlds. Thus we can create a momenum where for a few turns our creatures will outclass anything they can do, thus providing the win.

I like the idea, it's worth the try. Not really sure how i would be building the deck, but for now I'm going to proxy the deck a little.

So, I played in a major legacy tournament this Saturday. Gothcon is one of the biggest gaming events here in Sweden, and iirc we were 78 players.

It was hard to find the last cards for my deck; You could think Innocent Blood was mythic rare!



4 Bloodghast

4 Tombstalker

4 Nihilith

2 Nether Spirit

4 Smallpox

4 Inquisition of Kozilek

4 Pox

4 Duress

1 Buried Alive

4 Innocent Blood

3 Darkblast

20 Snow-covered Swamp

2 Dakmor Salvage



SIDEBOARD



4 Surgical Extraction

2 Powder Keg

3 Hymn to Tourach

3 Jinxed Idol

3 Perish



I went 2-3 drop, and did not get as much info on the deck as I would like too.

My first opponent was a friend. He played some kind of BGW mystics and Abrupt decay. Should have been okay, but I got mana problems in both duels, and to add insult to injury I never drew any pox card.


After that I met another loser like me, but he won because he played Affinity. Dark blast is a good card against myr and frogmite. What killed me was a */* fatty that gave other creatures +1/+1. Powder Keg could have been real bombs if I drew one.


My third opponent was unlucky.

He seemed to play the Gate which is weaker. First game he get two Liliana and two bitterblossom in play. However I dredge into bloodghasts and beat him down.

The second duel is harder. My opponent push my health down to 1 point (i may have helped with a pox, or two:-)) I have a Tombstalker in play and he a bloodghast in the graveyard. I must start attack to win but it is a gamble to do so. I put him at four life and then decide to play Hymn to Tourach. My opponent discard his remaining hand; two swamps... He fail to top deck and scoop.

A win is good for morale and I go to fourth round with confidence.


BR Delver deck with goblin guides. I let goblins do too much gamage to me and lose the first duel. In the end my boys are too big for him to handle. (He even played Fireblast to kill a Nihilith!).

So, 2-2. I would get boosters as prize if i could manage to finish with only two losses. Alas, bad luck would stop me in the next round.


I do not know what deck my opponent played in round five, but he had Hero of Bladehold, and, IIRC, chalice of the void. I win the first duel, but next I draw 6 lands and a Pox. I mulligan to six and get same stuff. I eventually stop at four with no lands in my hand. If my opponent would go slow i could recover. Precisely the time when he should not play turn two mystic for batterskull.

Duel three I get crappy cards, while my opponent play two mystics for two batterskulls. I can’t keep up with my pox effects and spot removal and concede.


I am not terribly sorry for not winning :) and treasure the experience and ideas I got.



Things learned:

Given I have no tutor effects it make sense to have four each of the most important sideboard cards. After the tourney I bought two more powder kegs. Kegs could be due for a renessaince; the tendency is to play low cost cards in legacy, and that make the Kegs quite fast.

If i had won my first round the odds of facing combo would probably been higher. Still, four Duress and four IoK could be too much. Playing just five of them would still mean a good chance of having one in my starting hand. If I should have them in main deck to start with, however...

Speaking to friends I realised I have overlooked the interaction of Dredge effects and Sensei’s Divining Top. Previously I thought i needed fetch lands to play that card, but dredging away unwanted stuff should be equally effective. (I would also have bought Mishra’s Bauble for testing purposes, but the store that held the event has a crappy inventory).
With Top or Bauble it is even possible to play darkblast three times in one turn! Wild Nacatl beware!

Card draw. I actually played Phyrexian Arena in my creature less Pox builds last year. The trick is to win before the minimal life loss become a concern. Here we are helped by the weird Pox effects. Playing pox when at 20 or 19 life still result in you ending up at 13, right? Thus drawing from arena can be virtually free. If at 16 you will end up at ten, as you also will when at 15. etc.

Liliana and Arena is a nice pair too.

Edited

@ Hardcore: some questions regarding your manabase: It looks very solid (being all black-producing lands), but you never wished for more than 22 lands? Also, no Wasteland: did you ever missed those? I can imagine dropping Sinkhole (although, for me, those are one of the reason to play Pox :-) ), but Wasteland could be very helpfull. A last question: what would your decklist look like right now, after you have implemented your thoughts?

I have not had the opportunity to fine tune the mana base:(

As for wastelands, I find them too expensive, and second, I belong to the camp that see them as spells.
In other words, if I play wastelands I need to remove something else. But sure, Sinkhole and wastelands are effective, however you commit yourself to a certain direction in your deck design. You can do well without them I think. After all, while many decks have wastelands you all ready have twice as much landdestruction in spells alone.

As for how it looks now:... Correction: WILL look!


4 Tombstalker
4 Nihilith
4 Bloodghast
2 Nether Spirit

4 Smallpox
4 Pox
4 Innocent Blood
4 Hymn to Tourach

4 Dark Ritual
3 Darkblast
2 Spinning Darkness

2 Sensei’s Divining Top

17 Swamp
3 Dakmor Salvage


SB

4 Powder Keg
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Perish
4 Duress


I know a guy that have a Dakmor Salvage, so that card is quite safe bet I will play three of.
Spinning Darkness is a maybe. (Frankly my local store is crap) Sideboard? Still, with all the dredge I may be able to run them maindeck.
I have only two divining tops, but I figure that is ok for a testing.

The sideboard is not finished however. I simply ran short of ideas and put in 4 duress. Any suggestions for substitutes are welcome:)

And Akuta, born of Ash is another mythic rare. To worthless to have in store stocks apparently:P I think one or two may be all right in the deck (I am always looking for ways to increase creature count)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hardcore

I have not had the opportunity to fine tune the mana base:(

As for wastelands, I find them too expensive, and second, I belong to the camp that see them as spells.
In other words, if I play wastelands I need to remove something else. But sure, Sinkhole and wastelands are effective, however you commit yourself to a certain direction in your deck design. You can do well without them I think. After all, while many decks have wastelands you all ready have twice as much landdestruction in spells alone.

As for how it looks now:... Correction: WILL look!


4 Tombstalker
4 Nihilith
4 Bloodghast
2 Nether Spirit

4 Smallpox
4 Pox
4 Innocent Blood
4 Hymn to Tourach

4 Dark Ritual
3 Darkblast
2 Spinning Darkness

2 Sensei’s Divining Top

17 Swamp
3 Dakmor Salvage


SB

4 Powder Keg
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Perish
4 Duress


I know a guy that have a Dakmor Salvage, so that card is quite safe bet I will play three of.
Spinning Darkness is a maybe. (Frankly my local store is crap) Sideboard? Still, with all the dredge I may be able to run them maindeck.
I have only two divining tops, but I figure that is ok for a testing.

The sideboard is not finished however. I simply ran short of ideas and put in 4 duress. Any suggestions for substitutes are welcome:)

And Akuta, born of Ash is another mythic rare. To worthless to have in store stocks apparently:P I think one or two may be all right in the deck (I am always looking for ways to increase creature count)

---

There is a thread called "Day of Disease" that discusses a pox build that is almost identical to yours. It uses chrome mox instead of dark ritual, but runs the aggressive creatures. I've played the deck in a couple of small tournaments to average finishes. I think the strengths of the deck are a fast clock and the ability to use Sensei's top and dakmor salvage as a reliable engine. For the second tournament I replaced Nihilith with Gatekeeper of Malakir, which was at least more reliable to get into play.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Slag

There is a thread called "Day of Disease" that discusses a pox build that is almost identical to yours. It uses chrome mox instead of dark ritual, but runs the aggressive creatures. I've played the deck in a couple of small tournaments to average finishes. I think the strengths of the deck are a fast clock and the ability to use Sensei's top and dakmor salvage as a reliable engine. For the second tournament I replaced Nihilith with Gatekeeper of Malakir, which was at least more reliable to get into play.

---

Hardcore was posting on that thread, but I don't see how pox players will benefit from having all different variants of the deck placed in different threads since it's essentially the same. A few people here in The Source helped me se that point.

We will benefit more from bringing pox ideas and discussions here instead of scattering through the forum.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sughayyer

Hardcore was posting on that thread, but I don't see how pox players will benefit from having all different variants of the deck placed in different threads since it's essentially the same. A few people here in The Source helped me se that point.

We will benefit more from bringing pox ideas and discussions here instead of scattering through the forum.

---

Correct; you'll notice I didn't indicate he should post in that thread so much as I just mentioned it. Regardless, I like the way the more aggressive pox plays, but I think nihilith is a little unwieldy. Tombstalker and bloodghast are both very easy to put into play, Nihilith requires a very specific sequence of events to unsuspend. Even something like phyrexian negator would be easy to cast with the mana one can expect to have when playing the deck.

Nihilith is easier to put in play that you think, but I understand your point perfectly.
Tomorrow is the testing day and I'll spent A LOT of hours testing 2 decks, and pox will be one. I'll let you know my findings.

anvil of bogardan look interesting if one play with the creatures and dredge spells like I do.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hardcore

anvil of bogardan look interesting if one play with the creatures and dredge spells like I do.

---

Anvil is a neat card but it makes combo much, much better which Pox has trouble with as is. I mean, not just combo but shit, control as well. Since Pox is in it for the long game I would avoid the Anvil.

Tourney report

Went 3-1 today at the local gaming den.


4 Tombstalker
4 Nihilith
4 Bloodghast
2 Nether Spirit

4 Smallpox
4 Pox
4 Innocent Blood
4 Hymn to Tourach

4 Dark Ritual
3 Darkblast
1 Kaervek's spite

2 Sensei’s Divining Top

18 Swamp
2 Dakmor Salvage


SIDEBOARD

4 Powder Keg
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Perish
3 Duress


My first opponent played affinity. Not the best matchup pre-board. Best topdeck pf the day when I dredge back my Dakmor salvage and the two cards that is put inot the graveyard are bloodghasts!. Since my opponent was at less than 10 life I play the land for landfall and attack with ghasts.
The third duel my opponent empty his hand on turn one. Nothing I can do to such fast start so i scoop.
1-2

Next comes a RUG player that got third place at the big legacy tourney at Gothcon last saturday. He remarked his deck type had a hard time vs Pox and it appears to be so. I have tons of creature removal. Darkblast killed his insects and Grim Lavamancer with ease. I replaced my rituals and hymns for Kegs and perish for even more hate.
2-1

A second RU player make an error first duel and give victory away. He play too safe and don't finish me off when he have the opportunity, forgetting I can play big Pox to reverse my fortune. He almost got there with Nivmagus Elemental. Thunderous Wrath was another surprise in his deck on turn two.
My SB was just the Kegs since he didn't play green.
2-0

Fourth and last oppenent plays NO elves. First game he get fatty in play and would have swung for lots. However I respond and use Dark Blast to kill a Quirion Ranger, and suddenly his DRS are small enough to be blockedand killed by my tombstalker. So fatty attack alone and do 8 damage. I lose the duel. To much DRS activity.
I put Perish and Kegs in from sideboard. Perish win me the next duel, and innocent blood and Darkblast the third.
2-1

Summary: Top is nice, and two seemed enough for now. Dark rituals were often replaced when sideboarding; The duels tended to drag into mid game.
The lone Kaervek's spite was just card #60. It will be replaced with something better.
Second note on the rituals:they do make it easier to cast tombstalker.

Please, can someone say why lists don't use the 7-8 poxes?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by EdsonDettoni

Please, can someone say why lists don't use the 7-8 poxes?

---

the lists that use only smallpox are the lists where few attrictions are better than a great catastrophe.
But for monoblack I think there has to be a number of big pox.
***
Tomorrow I'll post my list and thoughts on it. It is very similar to hardcore's