[Primer/Deck] Pox

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Originally Posted by z0anthr0pe

Hi all, I'm contemplating sleeving up this list:


All in Pox

1 Nether Spirit

1 Bloodchief's Thirst
2 Cling to Dust
4 Dark Ritual
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Shrieking Affliction
4 The Rack
4 Thoughtseize
4 Hymn to Tourach
2 Liliana's Triumph
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Smallpox

4 Castle Locthwain
1 Mishra's Factory
17 Swamp

Now that Ragavan is gone, do you fancy my chances of at least going 3-2? The local meta includes Doomsday, Storm, Burn, D&T, Lands, Ragavanless Delver.

Sorry, couildn't figure out how to do the card name links. Help welcome.

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I'd drop Inquisition of Kozilek for more Factories & Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. 8 1 MV discards only worsen your topdeck potential. 7 Hand Destruction spells are usually enough. Liliana's Triumph, Hymn to Tourach & Liliana of the veil have you covered. If you must feed your 8-rack, adding more lands and Raven's Crime would help. Ensnaring Bridge is the final piece of this puzzle. Consider Funeral Charm if you would cut removal spells in consideration for Ensnaring Bridge.

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Originally Posted by z0anthr0pe

Sorry, couildn't figure out how to do the card name links. Help welcome.

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Just remove the spaces:

[ c a r d s ]Zap[ / c a r d s ]
Zap

IMO, not playing Urza’s saga in your fair non-blue deck is just wrong. It’s the best printing for non-blue legacy decks in a long time. Not the best with small pox but it even synergizes with rack.

In almost every situation it is going to better than shrieking affliction and mishra’s factory, as long as you play a few urborgs alongside it.

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Originally Posted by Reeplcheep

IMO, not playing Urza’s saga in your fair non-blue deck is just wrong. It’s the best printing for non-blue legacy decks in a long time. Not the best with small pox but it even synergizes with rack.

In almost every situation it is going to better than shrieking affliction and mishra’s factory, as long as you play a few urborgs alongside it.

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I don't like Saga personally, but I can see the wisdom in this. I'd drop Factory and 2 Castles for 3 Sagas and 3 Swamps for 3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. Saga will fetch your The Racks too while making chunkier tokens. Consider Chains of Mephistopheles or Uba Mask if budget is of concern. Permanent Hellbent is good.

Oh boy, here I go again!

Looks like it's been 12 years since I was active here, no clue about meta, but I feel like buying a couple cards again.so I read the last 50+ pages of the thread to get reacquainted.

And the biggest 'wtf' from my seat is the lack of Pox in most of these versions. Pox is unfair. Pox & Hymn makes people disconnect. Thoughtseize and Smallpox don't. I'm not playing a monoB pox archetype because I want to swing in for 20 for sure. So, my preference is to have 3 Poxes, and the choices in the rest of the deck rely on knowing you're going to Pox at least 1/game.

That aside, I definitely see some good evolution of the cardbase available. I have just started toying with a list, but here are my wincon thoughts, and I'm thinking singletons:

Tombstalker - remember that 13 life? Yeah.
Court of Ambition I like the idea of topdecking this!
Phyrexian Totem
Liliana, Waker of the Dead

Three Racks, 4 Factories, and a Syphon Life. 4 Smalls, Rituals, Hymns. 3 Pox.

Leaves ~12 to tune, and I know Liliana Veil should be here too. Do people still play Duress & Innocent

Rotting Regisaur, Plague Reaver has replaced most combat wincons in linear decks like this. More success generally being seen by combining Dark Rit with Opposition Agent, Dauthi Voidwalker, and Ashiok, Dream Render. That Liliana would have a hard time proving it is more castable and higher perfoming than Karn wish Crucible. As far as GY as a resource goes, Cling to Dust >>> delve Goyf. (particularly b/c of how awful Pox is vs Uro)

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Originally Posted by Fox

Rotting Regisaur, Plague Reaver has replaced most combat wincons in linear decks like this. More success generally being seen by combining Dark Rit with Opposition Agent, Dauthi Voidwalker, and Ashiok, Dream Render. That Liliana would have a hard time proving it is more castable and higher perfoming than Karn wish Crucible. As far as GY as a resource goes, Cling to Dust >>> delve Goyf. (particularly b/c of how awful Pox is vs Uro)

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Thanks for the response! I saw Regisaur, and he's a big boi for sure, but Plague Reaver looks like it's set up to abuse Ensnaring Bridge maybe? I'm not quite ready to go all-in on that.

Saw the Opposition Agent interactions,but put her in my 'side' once I saw how much they cost lol. Ashiok seems like matchup specific too: I get prevent defense, but am building up my jank-core before I worry about tiering the meta. And no, Im not considering Big Lil for more than a "4-finisher" -- top decked out of gas draw like the monarchy jank: supports what youre already doing (and besides costing more, I like it in Pox more than 3-Lil)

Cling to Dust. Glad you brought it up, looks very strong, cheap easy draw. Not sure I even think it opposes in a [2 Cling, 1 Tombs] configuration. Do people run 4? IIRC I only saw 2-ofs in the last few lists that use it.

Interestingly, the top versions of Pox I can throw together seem to only be $50-60 on MTGO. 3-Lil at $65+ each makes paper more of a 'goal acquisition' haha. Like 4-waste Crucible, I'm just not there yet ;)

Speaking of Karn. Yuck! That's a totally different deck, built for the meta. I could see a BETTER Black Artifact deck using him, but "hose a set of artifact strategies" is a boring reason to use him. He doesn't cause damage or discard, he stops artifacts. I definitely defer to meta considerations, but I think that Karn isn't the way I like to see my deck play.

Anyhow, I like the way the 60 I made last night draws, so I'm ready to get some practice in! Thanks.

Stuffed Bear is better than the turtle that saw play forever, and situationally better than Phyrexian Totem, ....which probably isn't played either anymore.

Mardu Shadowspear looks cute, actually. EDIT-- played a game; drew him on the mulligan but put him on the bottom bc I had better stuff.

EDIT: I'm playing with what I have here........ Cards got stolen way back, so I have nothing at all. The point I'm hitting right now is that $25 into MTGO, I need to drop real money to improve the little deck I have... and If I'm hitting real money, I might as well get real cards for a real deck.

So far, what I've found is kinda where it was when I stopped for a while 10 years ago: Pox has no business trying to be a top deck, but it strengthens the meta if it tries.

It's a fun-for-me deck that's cheap to build, and makes your opponents really mad (especially online lol). And if you get the god-draw? Cmon, that confirmation bias is why we keep playing this, right?

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Originally Posted by mujadaddy

Thanks for the response! I saw Regisaur, and he's a big boi for sure, but Plague Reaver looks like it's set up to abuse Ensnaring Bridge maybe? I'm not quite ready to go all-in on that.

Saw the Opposition Agent interactions,but put her in my 'side' once I saw how much they cost lol. Ashiok seems like matchup specific too: I get prevent defense, but am building up my jank-core before I worry about tiering the meta. And no, Im not considering Big Lil for more than a "4-finisher" -- top decked out of gas draw like the monarchy jank: supports what youre already doing (and besides costing more, I like it in Pox more than 3-Lil)

Cling to Dust. Glad you brought it up, looks very strong, cheap easy draw. Not sure I even think it opposes in a [2 Cling, 1 Tombs] configuration. Do people run 4? IIRC I only saw 2-ofs in the last few lists that use it.

Interestingly, the top versions of Pox I can throw together seem to only be $50-60 on MTGO. 3-Lil at $65+ each makes paper more of a 'goal acquisition' haha. Like 4-waste Crucible, I'm just not there yet ;)

Speaking of Karn. Yuck! That's a totally different deck, built for the meta. I could see a BETTER Black Artifact deck using him, but "hose a set of artifact strategies" is a boring reason to use him. He doesn't cause damage or discard, he stops artifacts. I definitely defer to meta considerations, but I think that Karn isn't the way I like to see my deck play.

Anyhow, I like the way the 60 I made last night draws, so I'm ready to get some practice in! Thanks.

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A lot of the reason Pox utilizes Karn is the deck is so starved of valid win conditions it will utilize win conditions that aren't even synergistic with the deck. What Karn offers though is it help patches Mono Black's artifact weakness game 1, provides card selection, and provides card advantage. He is a card that gives Pox free wins sometimes. Is he a must play for Pox? No, but the most recent Pox results all use Karn because that's how weak Pox has become. Loam Pox for that reason is surpassing Mono Black Pox in almost every aspect and taking over most of the quality results as it actually maintains its original gameplan and it only improved with Urza's Saga by a landslide.

If you don't want to play Karn I reccomend maybe trying a Rack Pox deck (Urza's Saga helped to some degree, or the Hogaak Pox deck). If you want to just play Pox for fun then just build what you like. Pox has barely done anything competitive lately as whole in Mono Black. Mono Black in Legacy is best as a Curses deck.

It is also worth mentioning that Karn is the single best Chalice kill spell in U, B, and UB...and it isn't particularly close.

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Originally Posted by BlogBoy

If you don't want to play Karn I reccomend maybe trying a Rack Pox deck (Urza's Saga helped to some degree, or the Hogaak Pox deck). If you want to just play Pox for fun then just build what you like. Pox has barely done anything competitive lately as whole in Mono Black. Mono Black in Legacy is best as a Curses deck.

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Yes, The Rack is the direction the build goes.

And I'll just say it again: Karn looks like a busted card, I just think you build a better deck than Pox around that :4: yknow? Tutoring for sideboard artifacts is fine, I guess. As you said, "non synergistic win con". And as you said "artifact weakness game 1". But modern sets have better artifact hate than I had 12 years ago.

I believe that if your meta doesn't include facing off against discard (yknow, the thing that Black does in the color pie?!), not just Thoughtsiezes but real focused discard, then your meta is too 'inside itself' --- that's what allows Pox to show ANY wins in any matches, the meta is tuned away from doubleblack. TopDecks build defense against SOME discard, but 3 turns of it hurts.

Good chats, fellas.

Welcome back Muja! That Avatar is a welcome sight ^_^. Stuffed Bear XD. Try Tourach, Dread Cantor. I've liked the lore and flavor behind the guy. Protection from White is super relevant too. :cool:

https://mtg.cardsrealm.com/en-us/dec...tructed-league

Anyone know how to squeeze in 2 Feed the Swarm? Or just work as is because win % is more important than dealing with everything?

How does that deck even win? Is it with Lili zombies? Looks like you're hurting yourself with some of those cards.

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Originally Posted by z0anthr0pe

How does that deck even win? Is it with Lili zombies? Looks like you're hurting yourself with some of those cards.

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7 threats can carry through when spheres and Nether Void prevent Playing at all. Castle Locthwain helps dig for what you need and becomes a filter for single junk cards in your hand if needed with Chains of Mephistopheles.

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Originally Posted by z0anthr0pe

How does that deck even win? Is it with Lili zombies? Looks like you're hurting yourself with some of those cards.

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Opponent's losing the will to live is a valid win condition

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Originally Posted by OmniStrata

Stuffed Bear

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Heya, good to be back, thanks. :2:🐻 I don't have any Liliana's so
Tourach, Dread Cantor looks interesting, at minimum, with the kicker option; don't really want him early in this deck though. I still think Syphon Life is the stuff, especially with Crucibles.

That 5-0 prison list is.... a bit showy, but it looks like it worked. I know I'm old fashioned but, Hymn?

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Originally Posted by mujadaddy

Heya, good to be back, thanks. :2:�� I don't have any Liliana's so
Tourach, Dread Cantor looks interesting, at minimum, with the kicker option; don't really want him early in this deck though. I still think Syphon Life is the stuff, especially with Crucibles.

That 5-0 prison list is.... a bit showy, but it looks like it worked. I know I'm old fashioned but, Hymn?

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Hymn is perfectly fine, but this Flakmonkey list went Thoughtseize for pinpoint power. I think if you want hymn to tourach, you need only drop the Spheres of Resistance and Nether Voids. Losing the will to live occurs off of Dark Ritual > Thoughtseize > Discard their counterspell > Sphere of Resistance on the play. Haven't seen people stick around after that. Or they scoop on turn 3 sinkhole/smallpox ^_^.

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Originally Posted by OmniStrata

Hymn is perfectly fine, but this Flakmonkey list went Thoughtseize for pinpoint power. I think if you want hymn to tourach, you need only drop the Spheres of Resistance and Nether Voids. Losing the will to live occurs off of Dark Ritual > Thoughtseize > Discard their counterspell > Sphere of Resistance on the play. Haven't seen people stick around after that. Or they scoop on turn 3 sinkhole/smallpox ^_^.

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It's challenging to teach over the internet, but it's how you cast the spells that helps in them losing the will to live. Your body language needs to convey that you're not here to win. You're not here to lose. You're here to punch tickets to a personal hell of which no player gets to do anything, ever. And you like it there. It's a subtle smugness that makes them question if just taking the loss and going outside for fresh air maybe isn't the worst thing ever.

It's a Pox player's most useful weapon :D

It's Prison Pox where Death is slow and Agonizing as 2 damage pulls tiny bite sized pieces out of your arse every, single, turn. Mishra's Factory, Cursed Scroll and Liliana, the Last Hope Ultimates cause your Nether Void managed to stick after they countered your Sphere of Resistance, Trinisphere & Thoughtseizes. :laugh: