[Deck] Pox

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Originally Posted by YuanTi

When you run Sinkhole, Pox and Smallpox, your wastelands are most definitely better than theirs. Unless you've been cutting those too?

The Rack is 3 damage a turn max, presuming they discard a lot, and play no card draw. Tombstalker is brilliant as a 5/5 Flier for 2. Nether Spirit is even better, and should definitely be run 4 of.

So, you suggest that Pox should do what it's been doing, but that that plan is wrong?

None of these cards have any coherency with Pox, or the other important cards. They're just random threats. Sure, they might have no cards in hand, but when you blow a Pox, you definitely want Nether Spirit in hand, not Bitterblossom.

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i take it you dont play much pox at all yuan ti. the rack is a turn 1 drop. you can't run 4 nether spirits in the deck!
lol
you realize that nether spirit can only trigger if it is the ONLY creature in your yard? that means if you ever get 2 or more in the yard then none of them trigger?

spirit has always been a 1-3 of ... 3 is pushing it. tombstalker is a card which rips your whole yard away and then they stp it and you are down a ton of cards ;-). to say that casting another stalker would be difficult at that point is a HUGE understatement.

another thing is a lot of ppl also play ensnaring bridge in pox... and you wont ever get the stalker going there.

also pox isn't about LD. LD is a secondary function. pox is mostly a critter/hand disruption deck.

and yes i dont run wastelands in the monoblack version of the deck.

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also pox isn't about LD. LD is a secondary function.

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It's really insulting to say that people "don't play pox" just because you disagree with them. Argue against their points all you want, but enough with the ad homs. Rogue Build did that with me yesterday, as if I'm not pox enough or something for arguing against his build that scarcely even plays pox! Hell, Kant and I are the only ones arguing for the playing of a full four poxes; go back a few pages and see that.

If you're not playing a LD centric route, why bother with any of these symmetrical spells at all? symmetrical spells suck! Just play a coffers deck and win that way. It's clear that a lot of you want to play another deck anyway so the real question is: why the hell don't you?

I certainly can't reccommend playing a full four netherspirits (without spinning darkness or etc., but that lost its utility since the printing of goyf), but I think the point about The Rack stands. None of your decks have enough discard to hurt another control deck (like say Land Still) to the point where they'd take damage under the rack. IF you're going that way, symmetrical discard in the form of Bottomless Pitt, Necrogen Mists etc., might be the way to go. (deck example here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ead.php?t=9644 )

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tombstalker is a card which rips your whole yard away and then they stp it and you are down a ton of cards ;-).

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Down a ton of cards from a 1 for 1 trade (with the benefit of gaining five life)? Does not compute. Pox doesn't otherwise use its graveyard as a resource so you're not really down anything. Between discard and LD keeping someone off white, StP isn't the biggest issue in the world.

OTOH, losing a bitter blossom, 4 tokens that cost you four life, a mox diamond, a grafted wargear, and a Rack to an activated Pernicious Deed is most certainly a "bad trade."

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Originally Posted by rleader

It's really insulting to say that people "don't play pox" just because you disagree with them. Argue against their points all you want, but enough with the ad homs. Rogue Build did that with me yesterday, as if I'm not pox enough or something for arguing against his build that scarcely even plays pox! Hell, Kant and I are the only ones arguing for the playing of a full four poxes; go back a few pages and see that.

If you're not playing a LD centric route, why bother with any of these symmetrical spells at all? symmetrical spells suck! Just play a coffers deck and win that way. It's clear that a lot of you want to play another deck anyway so the real question is: why the hell don't you?

I certainly can't reccommend playing a full four netherspirits (without spinning darkness or etc., but that lost its utility since the printing of goyf), but I think the point about The Rack stands. None of your decks have enough discard to hurt another control deck (like say Land Still) to the point where they'd take damage under the rack. IF you're going that way, symmetrical discard in the form of Bottomless Pitt, Necrogen Mists etc., might be the way to go. (deck example here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ead.php?t=9644 )

Down a ton of cards from a 1 for 1 trade (with the benefit of gaining five life)? Does not compute. Pox doesn't otherwise use its graveyard as a resource so you're not really down anything. Between discard and LD keeping someone off white, StP isn't the biggest issue in the world.

OTOH, losing a bitter blossom, 4 tokens that cost you four life, a mox diamond, a grafted wargear, and a Rack to an activated Pernicious Deed is most certainly a "bad trade."

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sorry but from the way he was commenting on how some cards worked and lacked understanding of the basic play sequence of how pox tends to run. adding 4 nether spirits in the deck gave me the impression that yuan ti isn't a pox player or advocate. of course, i have known him from mtgsalvation also, and pox is an archetype that yuan ti heavily frowns upon.

i have always been playing 4 poxes in the monoblack version. the only time i havent was when i was playing black/white pox with vindicates. pox is your main source of damage at least initially. you are almost counting on it to do about 12 points of damage (if you cast two of them), and you are looking at ways to nickel and dime the last 8 points of damage.

hence nether spirit seems + idols seem pretty good when they can finish you in two swings.

the argument i am making is more or less about HOW you are going to nickel and dime them to death. the idea of say the rack is that it is online immediately the turn you cast it. the rack by itself nearly beats pox's traditional worst matchup - monored burn.

since they can't wait to empty their hand and they love it when you cast pox itself, you want to setup racks and focus in on discarding their hands.

but i do agree that a deed definitely cleans out your board and decks like landstill which can run them is bad news for pox. the thing is in the landstill matchup stalker isn't much better. stalkers are pretty good but they tend to box you in more than open up possibilities and game play. once you toss out a stalker you are pretty much committed to trying to win with it in 3 swings.

if you are going the stalker route, i agree LD is probably the better suit (unless you are facing something like angel stompy), and in the mirror matchup stalker is going to look at a lot better than bitterblossom when faced against an engineered plague. of course one could say the same thing, if you are looking down an ensnaring bridge, stalker isn't too good.

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Originally Posted by Top Deck

sorry but from the way he was commenting on how some cards worked and lacked understanding of the basic play sequence of how pox tends to run. adding 4 nether spirits in the deck gave me the impression that yuan ti isn't a pox player or advocate. of course, i have known him from mtgsalvation also, and pox is an archetype that yuan ti heavily frowns upon.

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Considering that I played it for over a year, I'm completely unsure of where you got that idea from.

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Originally Posted by YuanTi

Considering that I played it for over a year, I'm completely unsure of where you got that idea from.

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when was this? i thought you were a thres player. so you actually ran it in a tourney for a year?

also if you do a forum search for the name YuanTi and say pox on mtgsalvation you come up with 0 results....

Wow, I ignore the boards for a few days and suddenly people start posting on Pox.

Rleader,
My commonets toward you were a result of you saying...

"This is the only thread on the whole board where deck lists keep getting worse and worse as it goes on."

That is a rather heavy stone being thrown, so I threw one back.
However, I never said you SHOULDN'T play Pox, I questioned if you DID play Pox.

You are still welcome to try teaching me a thing or two.

BBlossom -Vs- TombS.
Top Deck and I seem to be on the same page here. We would rather have a creature generating enchantment over a sigle 5/5 flier. I have covered why a few pages back.
On the upside, if you are playing TombS you can removed extra Nether Spirits from your graveyard so you might as well run 4.

Kant likes having his giant 5/5 flier and 3 or 4 Nether Spirits? If it has been working for him, who am I to argue.

I think this is more of a personal style thing that anything else.

I will say that in the past week I have adjusted my Sideboard to include 3 CotV. My batting average against certain combo decks is right around 500 and I'm looking to improve.

My current build:

Land and Almost Lands:
14 Swamps
2 UrBorg, Tombs of Yawg.
3 WasteLands
2 Sheltered Valley
2 Mishra's Factories
4 Mox Diamonds

Creatures and Could Be Creatures:
1 Nether Spirit
2 Chimeric Idol
4 BitterBlossoms
3 Phyrexian Totem

Everything Else:
2 Pox
4 Small Pox
3 SinkHole
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Thoughtseize
3 Bottled Cloister
2 Powder Keg
1 Cru. of Worlds

SideBoard:
2 Eng. Plague (-2)
3 Pithing Needles (-1)
3 Chalice of the Void (+3)
4 Extirpate
2 Powder Kegs
1 Crus. of Worlds

Yes, I am still running only 2 Pox and I know to many of you that is a crime punishable by death, but I find 4 to be overkill. For a long time Goblins was giving me a lot of problems so Eng Plagues were very important to me, but I wasnt running 4 PowderKegs at the time. I'm hoping that 2 along with 4 powderKegs will be enough so i can better my odds against combo with CotV (wich isnt useless against Goblins either).

Like I said many times already. Bitterblossom is good. I just think Tombstalker is better. But there is absolutely no reason that one can't play both. I would certainly play it over Chimeric Idol.

And cutting a pox or two is fine. I personally went down to 3 Pox in Vodka Pox. What isn't okay is to cut down to 3 Sinkhole. Please run the 4th, for your own deck's sake.

I'm still not 100% sold on Bottled Clostier and see no justification for running only 2 Urborg in a built with 7 coloerless lands.

But the build looks good otherwise.

This is what I'm going to test
Poor Pox

4 Smallpox
4 Pox
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Duress

3 Bottled Cloister
3 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Culling Scales


3 Nether Spirit
2 Tombstalker
3 Phyrexian Totem
1 Chimeric Idol

4 Mishra's Factory
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawg
19 Swamps

That's a very well thought out budget list.

Ensnaring Bridge + Tombstalker & Phyrexian Totem is major antisynergy though.

Just for reference, here is the budget list posted in the opening post...

Variant Three - Budget

(Mana)
18 Swamp
2 Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Mishra’s Factory
4 Dark Ritual

(1cc Disruption)
4 Duress
4 Innocent Blood
2 Cabal Therapy/Funeral Charm

(2cc Disruption)
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
2 Powder Keg

(3cc Disruption)
4 Pox
2 Infest

(Win Conditions)
3 Nether Spirit
3 Phyrexian Totem

Of course, that list was back when Goblins and Affinity were popular and Goyf didn't take over the format yet, making Infest and Funteral Charm very solid.

For the current meta, I would go...

-2 Infest
-2 Funeral Charm
+4 Something

Culling Scales, Powder Keg and Ensnaring Bridge are better answers in the current meta. Bottled Clostier is a solid card drawer and a nice combo with Ensnaring Bridge. But I'm not convinced Ensnaring Bridge is worth it over Powder Keg as it likely meaning cutting some Totem and Tombstalker for Bitterblossom.

currently for pox my deck list looks as follows:

threats
4 the rack
3 tombstalker
1 nether spirit
4 bitterblossom

discard
4 delirium skeins
3 pox
4 smallpox
4 hymn to tourach
4 wrench mind

utility
2 sensei's divining top
2 grafted wargear
4 dark ritual

lands
3 sheltered valley
18 swamp

i am focusing in on more discard. in a lot of situations i found that non-targetted by massive discard like skeins felt better than pox in many situations. it was all discovered by accident when i was playing with a few friends and had skein proxied in as something else which i can't remember right now.

and once i accidentially casted skeins forgetting what the original card was. it just felt "better" to use it at that point.

pox is great however most of the time you dont want to ever take out more than 1 critter... if you are taking out 2 critters than chances are they had 4-6 already and we're already dead. the cards that i felt i wanted to control more of were the cards in hand.

i wanted to get my opponents into top decking mode asap because generally my topdecks were stronger in the long haul than their's.

Does this look better?

4 Smallpox
4 Pox
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Duress

3 Bottled Cloister
3 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Culling Scales
3 Innocent Blood

3 Nether Spirit
4 Chimeric Idol

4 Mishra's Factory
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawg
19 Swamps

Yes it def looks better.

If I were to build a Budget Pox deck today, it would likely look like this...

Variant Three - Budget Revised

4 Innocent Blood
4 Smallpox
4 Pox

4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach

3 Bottled Cloister
3 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Meekstone

3 Nether Spirit
4 Bitterblossom

4 Mishra's Factory
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawg
18 Swamps

I'm not sure how much Bitterblossom's go for so the card may take the deck out of budget range.

With the modern domination of Goyf, I would absolutely run the full 4 Innocent Blood in any build without Tombstalker though.

I cut Idol because I am still concerned with antisynergy with Ensnaring Bridge, this time with Chimeric Idol.

You want to activate and attack with Idol after you played out your spells for the turn. So many times, you will end up with 2 cards and thus unable to attack with Idol by the time you can activate him.

I'm not too keen on Bitterblossom due to the lifeloss but it works better than Idol in a build with Ensnaring Bridge.

If you go that route, you have to cut Culling Scales as it has poor synergy with Bitterblossom.

And that's how you would arrive at the list I posted above.

But it depends on you. If you're okay with running Idol with Bridge, go for it.

Well, I just checked the price of Bitterblossom and well, crap.

But that's no big deal.

Meekstone serves a similar purpose that Ensnaring Bridge did in your build but at a cheaper casting cost and without the antisynergy with Idol or Totem (Idol and Totem are just artifacts by your untap phase). The major disadvantage with Meekstone is that they get in one attack before a creature becomes unable to attack.

So you could easily run something like this...

Variant Three - Budget Revised

4 Innocent Blood
4 Smallpox
4 Pox

4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach

4 Meekstone
4 Random Cards

4 Nether Spirit
4 Chimeric Idol/Phyrexian Totem

4 Mishra's Factory
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawg
18 Swamps

First 4 Nether Spirit is too much I think. Especially if you don't have a Tombstalker to remove some out of your graveyard.

Ensnaring Bridge work for you and against you so I don't see why you placed it here too.

I like the Meekstone idea!

I think that in a Pox deck you need crucible of world... and wasteland!

Sinkhole is very useful an can be replaced with river of tears for budget player.


Here's a list I use to play:

Lands
3x Mishra's Factory
13x Swamp
4x Wasteland
2x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Creatures
2x Nether Spirit
2x Tombstalker
4x Phyrexian Totem

Spells
4x Duress
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Sinkhole
2x Pox
4x Smallpox
4x Dark Ritual
2x Crucible of Worlds
4x Thoughtseize
2x Infernal Tutor

Anyway this is just my two cents :)

I really wanted to try out Epochrasite in a more aggressive less crucible oriented build of the deck.

This led me to the following list. What do you guys think?

4 Epochrasite
4 Tombstalker

4 Thoughtseize
4 Hymn to Tourach
2 Ghastly Demise

2 Pox
4 Smallpox
4 Sinkhole
4 Rancid Earth
4 Vindicate

4 Wasteland
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scrubland
4 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yagmoth
2 Mishra's Factory (Could be Flagstones of Trokair/Barren Moor/Dakmor Salvage/Swamp)

Desperately seeking space for inclusion...
2 Sensei's Divining Top

Which land would you play in the last two land slots? I think Mishra's Factory is best but Flagstones, Barren Moor, Dakmor Salvage, Swamps or something else (ex: Cabal Pit) are all viable options?

What other changes would you make to the build?

i have been playing pox for a little while now and have found that i have a hard time forcing the last couple points of damage through. so i tried to fit in a little burn into what was a mono black shell. let me know what you think, i haven't had a chance to test it yet.

3 mox diamond
4 lightning bolt
4 chain lightning
4 pox
4 small pox
4 hymn to tourach
4 thoughtseize
2 tombstalker
3 crucibal of worlds
4 sinkhole

4 mishras factory
3 bloodstained mire
4 wasteland
3 polluted delta
3 badlands
4 swamp
1 moutains
3 urborg

sb
4 extirpate
4 powder keg
3 shattering spree
4 leyline

I like the idea a lot actually. Not sure how strong it is in practice though.

It's a trade off.

I opt to play 4 Vindicate and 4 Rancid Earth because of the extreme consistency they offer.

While slow, this absolute ensures that the deck can wreck havoc on your opponents manabase turn after turn.

But that strategy takes a while, it's a slow burn. I have on atleast a dozen occasions brought opponents down to 2-3 life with Tombstalker or Factories or Pox effects and then had to rely on slowly drawing into multiple Smallpoxes and Rancid Earth to deal the last few points of damage.

By opting to play 4 Bolt and 4 Chain Lightning instead, you do help deal more damage much faster and more efficiently.

But it does have a key disadvantage too...

You are overly reliant on drawing and resolving Pox or Tombstalker every single game. Simply put, the way your deck is, you will never get your opponent within range of a couple of Bolt effects to finish the job if your Pox gets countered or your Tombstalker gets killed. I can go into this in more detail but it's fairly self explanatory.

This one disadvantage is nothing that can't be fixed though. Nor is it something damning to the idea. The idea could well work and become a strong deck.

Anyways, if you go that route, you absolutely should play 4 Tombstalker. He is the best shot you have at getting your opponent within Bolt range.

Why the hell is the same discussion happening in two threads?

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Originally Posted by irrelevant

so i tried to fit in a little burn into what was a mono black shell.

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Here's the main problem with that. The best pox lists play more land destruction spells than most players play land (all of them are versatile like Vindicate, or Rancid Earth to take out armies of elves).

It's okay for most good Pox lists to get into top deck mode. They can count on consistently repeatedly drawing LD and ensuring that their opponent never gets a land on the board until eventually they drew half their deck and topdeck a Tombstalker.

By replacing land destruction spells with burn, you throw that advantage out the window.

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Originally Posted by Clark Kant

Here's the main problem with that. The best pox lists play more land destruction spells than most players play land (all of them are versatile like Vindicate, or Rancid Earth to take out armies of elves).

It's okay for most good Pox lists to get into top deck mode. They can count on consistently repeatedly drawing LD and ensuring that their opponent never gets a land on the board until eventually they drew half their deck and topdeck a Tombstalker.

By replacing land destruction spells with burn, you throw that advantage out the window.

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yea its theory vs practice. unfortunately after play testing it it doesn't seem very good. you lose a lot of the control aspect and do rely heavily on resolving key spells. instead of forcing land destruction i have split the effectiveness of the deck. back to white splash.