[Deck] Pox

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Originally Posted by Mokaod

I run ritual-less and don't realy miss em. For them to be a house I miss em too little. Didn't realy have situations yet where ritual would make a gameturning play possible.

So to call em a House is a bit too much imo. It's a good card obviously, but not in this deck if you ask me.

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Since I don't know your list, I can't say much. All I can say is that the deck gets a lot faster with ritual, and I say that from my testing. Maybe you should try it out... I've tryed ritual-less versions and I always play at least 3. Ritual helps in lots of situations where you want to delay their game T1, and yet do some other stuff. Also, it gets you crucible t1 sometimes, making smallpox and pox a lot more useful. In the late game it's also quite common for it to help tombstalker #2 to enter. For those reasons I think dark ritual is a house. But again, that's just me...


I think the most important point on this topic is to find a way to do some serious testing together, to try to find a "raw" list for players that actually could run it on tourneys... then the deck may reach DTW. I can do some aggro like Eva Green and gobbos, and some aggro-control like thresh and CB. Not a good combo player, besides painter that is rather easy to play. I can run SI w/ Ad Nauseam, but can't guarantee the results before some testing...

EDIT: Answering Mok.

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Originally Posted by Mokaod

Should anyone want to test the pox primer I can play my IRL Dreadstill and TES AN decks on MWS. But since I live in the Netherlands timeframe could be an issue. If you know when you will test let me know. I might be able to help.

Greets Mok

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Nice, some combo test would be great... I have not a very good idea on how this deck goes against TES... dunno a good TES player to test... Time to test is always an issue... we will have to exchange MSN's in order to meet each other... that may be done by PM if you all agree.

I think we should start by testing a list with greater common sense, even if it means (for me) to let few cards out (like tops and rituals)...
Ideas are welcome there.
My personal one would be:

// Lands
3 Wasteland
2 Tomb of Urami
14 Swamp
4 Mishra's Factory

// Creatures
3 Tombstalker
2 Nether Spirit

// Spells
3 Crucible of Worlds
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Powder Keg
4 Sinkhole
2 Pox
4 Smallpox
4 Innocent Blood
4 Duress
4 Dark Ritual

// Sideboard
SB: 1 Powder Keg
SB: 4 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 4 Engineered Plague
SB: 3 Infest
SB: (missing the card here)

Thoughts?

EDIT: Sorry about the double posts =/

Hmm, well shouldn't a "raw" decklist be a little more budget-friendly?

never mind that.

It isn't that people don't have a good decklist that isn't getting them into t8s. It's that they:
a) need better board cards
b) try splashing silly colors like green for goyf
c) forget about wasteland (especially those that comply with b)
d) don't fully playtest
that's why we aren't t8ing.

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Originally Posted by bowvamp

Hmm, well shouldn't a "raw" decklist be a little more budget-friendly?

never mind that.

It isn't that people don't have a good decklist that isn't getting them into t8s. It's that they:
a) need better board cards
b) try splashing silly colors like green for goyf
c) forget about wasteland (especially those that comply with b)
d) don't fully playtest
that's why we aren't t8ing.

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Probly that, plus the fact that they don't use it since it's not showing up anymore... I still think testing and results shall get pox back to torneys... Noone likes to play uncertain decks when a DTW has testing and results proved...

I think monoB list is the more budget I can go... Anyway, it's a testing raw, not a budget raw... to be used against tier decks...

Pox is at tourneys. Just located primarily in Mexico.

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Nice, some combo test would be great... I have not a very good idea on how this deck goes against TES...

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You can randomly steal game ones if they don't know what you're playing if they go turn 1 Warrens and you turn two powderkeg. This is part of the reason I advocate four (also stops zombie tokens from bridge from below) in the main deck. Pox really needs to gain unexpected momentum in certain matchups: that's part of the reason I've played two or three Extirpates in the main, even though I'm not quite brave enough to advocate it to the rest of the world. (I usually pull them for game two.)

Storm decks with multiple win patterns (usually Ill Gotten Gains/Ad Nauseam/sometimes Doomsday) are highly resiliant to discard: and since your Tombstalker doesn't come online that early, they have all the time in the world to topdeck something that can put them onto the IGG path which you're pretty much powerless to stop (unless you're packing Faery Macabre).

If you have a fair amount of combo in your meta (which really only happens to people who play with actual paper cards), I suggest running eva-green over pox. Goyf is an easier clock to set up, simply put, and you have more board options given you have more/better mana (like splashing white so you can chant back).

A couple rules:

play chalice of the void. Play it for zero. Don't get greedy and wait a turn in order to try to set it for one. That's win-more. Settle for turning off LED. 90% of the time it's the correct play IME. You can always find another chalice if you survive anyway.

Trinisphere is a house. You still have to keep them off of their mana though since they can Wish (at your eot) for WipeAway to play on their turn and then win. And you have to be beating down while keeping them off of mana. This can be difficult.

Trinisphere part two: If you can establish a wastelock, that's great, but wastelock without trinisphere out is fairly useless (as they only need one, somtimes zero, land to go off on certain win paths) and a crucible without trinisphere and wasteland is a horrible card to be holding in this matchup. Think hard about whether you want to keep crucibles post sideboard.

Fear Ill-Gotten Gains. Leyline of the void isn't that hot as a speed bump as it's just an easier to remove trinisphere that comes down sooner. IOW, the advantage is still all theirs. You wasting slots (and potentially mulligans) on Leyline just makes it easier for them to get away with other victory options.

Pox can win pretty easily vs. combo. You just have to be super-aggressive. Hymn comes before sinkhole. Even Smallpox comes before sinkhole. You don't care how much of a disadvantage you're at just as long as they don't have cards in their hand.

^ and then IGG crushes you anyway. There's nothing easy about the matchup and, imo, it's a disservice to imply that it is.

Wow nice! Lots of comments! This thread is coming back to life. :smile:

Don't have the time to read through all of those posts right now. I have to cram my paper :frown: For testing purposes, in two weeks, time frame will be a non-issue for me since I have been known to stay awake until the wee hours of the morning.

And also for the record, I agree with everything rleader said concerning combo. Ill-gotten gains is like Legacy combo's yawgmoth's will. I play with 4 chalice side as hate and sometimes its still not enough.

Gui's list is actually pretty standard. I would personally play 4 Tombstalkers before any other win con and also I would try to squeeze in 2-3 Urborgs, Tomb of Yawgmoth over some swamps. I support using Gui's list as the testing standard.

EDIT: Read through some of the posts. It looks like Mokoad, Gui and bowvamp are on for the testing. If there are no objections over Gui's list maybe they can start testing and post the MWS logs here (logs would be better so we can criticize each other's plays). Other people can join in later if they're interested. Really sorry I can't help out right now.

Well, If IGG crushes we up like that, maybe the sideboard should be:
// Sideboard
SB: 1 Powder Keg
SB: 4 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 Engineered Plague
SB: 3 Infest
SB: 4 Leyline of the void OR Planar Void OR Chalice of the void

OR cut other things to play them together.

On the Stalker issue, maybe that's right, since it seens to be the most usual to try to abuse from it... I don't like playing 4 coz I think it requires too much effort to be played when there are 2 in hand at starter hand...
Urborgs may help, but never forget it can be a additional weakness against wastes... anyway, we shall go for -1 swamp -2 Nether +2 urborg, +1 Stalker and test...

Lol, this is unbelievable! Lol @ TD IGG. They have 4 mana out somehow when they are TDing?

Gui, check your PM. I can fire up MWS right now. Yay for procrastination.

If anyone wants to play, I'm LULZ.

I'm on MWS right now. I'm using my source name with a "private" for the game tag. Use your source name.

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Lol, this is unbelievable! Lol @ TD IGG. They have 4 mana out somehow when they are TDing?

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Yeah, because you can always strip their entire hand every turn for five or six turns while somehow trying to actually win yourself. It's not that hard to have a ritual or a wish when you tap out to play tombstalker.

Really, your attitude here is a bit over the top.

I'm really thinking about sleeving up a pox deck and give it a try. So, besisdes, pox, smallpox, hymn and tombstalker, what are the absolute "haves" for this deck ?

Also, how's the matchup against burn ?

IMHO burn is our worst MU.

The other "haves" are:
Your list should have at least 6 cards that can (even on a 10 turn clock) win you the game.
Your list should have innocent blood or, if you favor it, that new CNF version of it.
It is useful to pick up some Powder Kegs whether it is MB or SB your deck will always use them.
Crucibles, Factories, Wastelands, and Urborgs are widely useful staples and are pretty much a necessity.

@ rleader: I don't want a flame war. Maybe you're poxically challenged as far as beating combo goes, but that's not my problem.

Went to GP. Played pox. Went 6-3 which was good enough for 264th.

12 swamp
4 mishra's factory
4 wasteland
4 urborg tomb of yawgmoth
2 tomb of urami

2 tombstalker

4 duress
4 thoughtseize
4 hymn to tourach
3 the rack
3 crucible of worlds
4 innocent blood
4 pox
4 smallpox
2 raven's crime
1 sun droplet

sb
4 damnation
4 null rod
3 sun droplet
4 leyline of the void

Once again I want to point out the rack is really really good. There are some changes that I'd make, but this list is probably a good starting point. Probably going to drop raven's crime since it never mattered in any of my nine matches.

@clavio : How did Null rod worked for you?I see the card being playable with all the vial's, LED petal affinity running around but is it really viable?

How about sun droplet, the card look pretty good in theory but how did it played out?

How did 4 urborg go? Ever find 2-3 in your hand w/o pox/smallpox?

Null rod is sick! I almost want to run it main deck. I lost game one to belcher because of turn one ETW, game 2 and 3 were no contest thanks to Null Rod.

Sun Droplet helped me win a match against bitter blossom. I never faced burn at gp, but in testing I'd say its the best option. The throw some discard at them, drop sun droplet, drop rack/tombstalker plan seems to be the best plan against burn. Still kind of a hellish matchup.

As far as 4 urborg: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...6&postcount=20

You need to hit triple black, and with only 18 lands producing black without urborg I think it's absolutely necessary. Plus it makes tomb of urami not hurt you. Also you can legend rule fuck if necessary to make an early tombstalker.