[Deck] Pox

Graveborn Muse is 4 mana, something, as you can see from the deck's CC's, I'm totally against. Sensei's Top sounds good. As does Sign in Blood. Going for 4 TS and 3 Werebear's doesn't sound like a bad idea. Thoughtseize is $15.00, so out...

But you didn't mention what I'd use in my sideboard aside from Blackmail. Duress seems to be the consensus "must have" answer to combo if TS is out of reach, but are there others? Engineered Plague seems like overkill since there's already 16 cards that smash creatures.

The 2:2 split for GY hating I'll consider definitely as well.

Thanks for the advice!

ok, proxy goyfs then ^_^

You'd be better of proxying stuff, but just like what was said by one of the posters... Keep in mind to keep the discussion about what are possible upgrades for the deck, not just your budget deck. Since everyones trying to mix and match cards together, regardless of cost to get the pox archetype to it's utmost potential.

Pox is doing fairly well on MTGO Classic, the lists have cut Pox outright ages ago for Smallpox and splash green for Goyf, Deed and Pulse-almost like Eva(Crucible/Loam recurring Wasteland is really good).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OmniStrata

ok, proxy goyfs then ^_^

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I have a color printer, whenever I feel like building a deck, I just print out high quality proxies and then sleeve them up and playtest. People sometimes get annoyed if you have like a deck full of plains with a piece of torn paper taped on it with a barely legible 'new jayce beleren' on it, but nobody does if you have them printed out, actually I don't even have to ask anymore because they look just like the real cards once sleeved.

Then once it comes time you want to enter a tournament, you can just borrow the proxied cards from a friend. At first it might feel dirty playing with proxies but once you get used to it you save lots of money buying cards for new decks only to find out you don't like playing them.

Is anyone here willing to test a deck along these lines?

19 Swamp
2 Urborg
4 Mishra's

2 Dark Ritual
4 Innocent Blood
4 Smallpox
4 Pox

4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Wrench Mind
2 Raven's Crime

4 Noetic Scales
4 Chimeric Idol
3 Phyrexian Totem


Sideboard:
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Baruka Bog
3 Wretched Banquet
3 Oppression
2 Powder Keg

I really can't think of many outright bad matchups for such a decklist. Except for 43 Land.dec. Maybe I should play some sideboard Ankh of Mishra for that matchup.

Engineered explosives seems great for builds featuring mox diamond. A B/W or B/G build with diamonds would be able to drop explosives for 3, although 2 will usually be the right number.

It seems a natural replacement for the slow, outdated, and clunky powder keg. Combined with vindicate a B/W build can remove basically anything. Those plus poxes give plenty of creature control. Plus duress/TS/hymn for combo supression. I would forego the sinkholes, land destruction just isn't that great anymore. Decks are too resilient, most decks feature plenty of lands along with searching/drawing/cheap threats. It's great that poxes have LD tacked on, but using a card slot on dedicated LD is a waste as pox just can't win fast enough to capitalize on it, or rather decks can recover too fast to allow pox to capitalize.

EE has been good to me, going 2 for 1 with goyf+counterbalance. I still like pox in addition to smallpox. It makes the burn MU a bit worse but I find in other MU's it is either countered or devastating. I also run nether spirits and bloodghasts, so poxes always net me CA by putting those guys in the grave. Hymn nets me more CA, EE is often CA and when it only goes 1 for 1 it "feels" like CA. I also maindeck 4x bojuka bog in place of swamps, they keep tarmogoyfs small and make the lands matchup winnable game 1. Combined with tombstalkers they can keep tarmogoyfs very small.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Androstanolone

Engineered explosives seems great for builds featuring mox diamond. A B/W or B/G build with diamonds would be able to drop explosives for 3, although 2 will usually be the right number.

It seems a natural replacement for the slow, outdated, and clunky powder keg. Combined with vindicate a B/W build can remove basically anything. Those plus poxes give plenty of creature control. Plus duress/TS/hymn for combo supression. I would forego the sinkholes, land destruction just isn't that great anymore. Decks are too resilient, most decks feature plenty of lands along with searching/drawing/cheap threats. It's great that poxes have LD tacked on, but using a card slot on dedicated LD is a waste as pox just can't win fast enough to capitalize on it, or rather decks can recover too fast to allow pox to capitalize.

EE has been good to me, going 2 for 1 with goyf+counterbalance. I still like pox in addition to smallpox. It makes the burn MU a bit worse but I find in other MU's it is either countered or devastating. I also run nether spirits and bloodghasts, so poxes always net me CA by putting those guys in the grave. Hymn nets me more CA, EE is often CA and when it only goes 1 for 1 it "feels" like CA. I also maindeck 4x bojuka bog in place of swamps, they keep tarmogoyfs small and make the lands matchup winnable game 1. Combined with tombstalkers they can keep tarmogoyfs very small.

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I'll never lose the sinkholes from this deck. In my playtesting its just awesome. Between wasteland, smallpox, and pox it really compliments the land destruction aspect. Sure they might get sideboarded in some matchups but sinkhole turn 2 on the play? ... Priceless.

Ok, on MWS and proxy testing, I've ditched Goyf [wtf?!]
Here's current Tempting Tombs Pox as I've found...

/Threats (10)
4 Tombstalker
3 Tempting Wurm
3 The Rack

/Discard (9)
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
1 Raven's Crime

/Creature Kill (12)
4 Pox
4 Smallpox
4 Innocent Blood

/Board Wipe (4)
3 Infest
1 Necroplasm

/Recurring (2)
2 Life from the Loam

/Land (23)
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Bayou
4 Tainted Wood
1 Volrath's Stronghold
2 Barren Moor
5 Swamps
1 Forest

Sideboard

4 Nihilith (vs. non black, somewhat comical vs. dredge)
4 Krosan Grip
2 Tormod's Crypt; 2 Relic of Progenitus
3 Vampire Nighthawk

The deck is mana cheap with everything costing 2 or less save Pox, nukes, and sideboard. With Tombstalker cannibalizing 'goyf, and only 10 threats, I needed more consistency. When I ran Goyf, weakening their goyf by delving my entire GY turned mine into a wimp too... What's amusing is some people will go ahead and empty their hand with 2 racks out if Tempting Wurm hits the battlefield 2x. Chances should be good if you gathered info using Duress, your Wurm threat beats 2-3 of their threats in damage. Don't play the Wurm if you see Iona in their hand [durr* etc.]

Most of the times, Wurm can tangle with Goyf quite well too. With Wurm for ground duty, TS for quick clock, and Rack for 'mortar' support damage, as well as a 'draw threats' engine using VS, LftL & Barren Moor, I didn't think I needed something like SDT, though it feels like a 'weaker' version of my R/G Aggro loam engine...

Thoughts?

I've recently come to realize how effective Noetic Scales (and Ensnaring Bridge) are with continous discard effects. I play it with Oppression and it's been fantastic. Making your opponent's creatures useless is a very good bonus for this strategy.

I think we've looked at this deck from the wrong direction. If we want to lock them out, this is what we should play.

Quest 2.0 (Abusing Ensanring Bridge and Noetic Scales)

19 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Wasteland
4 Dark Ritual

//2cc Disruption
4 Hymn to Tourach

//3cc Disruption
4 Pox

//Lock
4 Oppression/Bottomless Pit
4 Necrogen Mist
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Noetic Scales

//Win
4 The Rack
3 Quest for the Nihil Stone
1 Powder Keg

I really don't see any flaws to this deck. Do you?

I'm thinking, maybe the best option for this deck is to a Stax route (minus the Chalice of the Void).

Something akin to...

10 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors

4 Dark Ritual
4 Thoughtseize

// The four synergic cards that are the reason to play this deck.
4 Necrogen Mists
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Uba Mask
4 Noetic Scales

4 The Rack
4 Powder Keg
4 Trinisphere
4 Mind Shatter/Mindscrew/Mind Rot/Mind Twist/Persecute/Profane Command

Uba Mask is fantastic. It combos with Ensnaring Bridge or Noetic Scales to lock your opponent's creatures out. Necrogen Mists likewise works well with all of those cards. It also prevents all instants, countermagic and other shenanigans that Stax had never been able to use and was always vulnerable to.

Alternatively, the deck could play Chalice and maybe Chains of the Mephistopheles but it would have to cut The Rack, Quest, Dark Ritual and Thoughtseize and use Sorin Markov and maybe Megrim for the combo. The problem is that Uba Mask isn't great with Megrim.

Or maybe the deck should through the Contagion combo in their as well along with Crucible of Worlds, Wasteland, Mishra's Factory, Mox Diamond and Smokestack.

I wanted to quote a very good suggestion for the deck which gave me the idea for Uba Mask.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dahcmai

I'm just going to start off with saying I really, really, hate Quest for Nihil Stone.

Uba Mask. Kind of solves a lot of problems for you.

1. Activates Ensnaring Bridge and keeps it in the golden range.
2. Turns off Counters.
3. Makes stuff like Necrogen Mists, Duress, and such pretty much perma discard.
4. Lots of stupid tricks are opened up by playing this card. Note the Bazaar trick in Vintage. Draw two, no discard thing.

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I agree with you on Quest. I could easily see myself cutting it and playing Phyrexian Totem instead if I ever decide to cut Ensnaring Bridge and just count on Noetic Scales for the lock.

Uba Mask an awesome suggestion. It actually makes only 4 copies of Necrogen Mists/Oppression neccesary.

Also, what do you think is better in a deck like this,

Bottomless Pit

or

Necrogen Mists

or

Oppression

You only need one of those three when you're playing Uba Mask imo. Bottomless Pit is more disruptive. Mists is more consistent. But Oppression is more one sided (it affects your opponents (esp with all the Brainstorms running around) more than it does you).

I'm playing 3 Bloodghast at the moment together with a landbase of 2 Undiscovered Paradise, 2 Wasteland, 2 Urborg Tomb. and it works great. I think I'll go up to a playset. The lifeloss of Pox enables the haste-ability quite fast.

What do you guys think of a list like this? I got the idea from Craig's recent MBA deck that played wastelands. Upping the creature count seems solid for this deck.


4 Gatekeeper Of Malakir
4 Abyssal Persecutor
4 Tombstalker
2 Bloodghast

4 Smallpox
3 Pox
3 Sign in Blood/Phyrexian Arena

4 Dark Ritual
4 Hymn To Tourach
4 Sinkhole

8 Swamp
4 Wasteland
3 Urborg, Tomb Of Yawgmoth
3 Bojuka Bog
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Polluted Delta
1 Phyrexian Tower

That list, clark, is similar to what I'm currently running. Except I've dropped all of the Pox and I'm using Sign in Blood and Sinkholes over the Arena and the Hymns. I think beaters backed by copious amounts of LD is the best way to go with the deck. Dropping Pox is also the right call imo if you're gonna add Abyssal Persecutors since getting to four mana will be much harder with more than 4 pox effects. The life loss of pox also pretty much sucks against Zoo.

Bojuka Bog is horrible. CIPT is a deal breaker for this card.

Awesome. Can you post your list?

This is the actual card text of Bajuka Bog (It also works fine in your curve thanks to Dark Ritual).

Baguka Bog B
Sorcery
Exile target players graveyard. Make their goyfs tiny, their Tombstalker uncastable, crucible shenanigans moot, Lavamancer useless, and severely impeded Ichorid and Reanimator in the process.
This spell cannot be countered.
At the start your next upkeep, search your library for a swamp, put it into play untapped, then shuffle your library.

You're right about Sinkhole and Sign in Blood. I updated my list to mention them.

The question is, should the deck play Crucible of Worlds or maybe more lands?

I cut Duress and a couple of Innocent Blood to make room for it and will try Sign in Blood in place of Arena.

I would never cut Hymn though, that card is ridiculously awesome.

As for Pox, it's both a plus and a minus.

Yeah, against zoo it sucks and you will need to side it out to bring in vampire nighthawks and more removal.

Against most decks it's a bomb. You supplement your LD, you fill your yard to cast Tombstalker, you discard your Bloodghast, you make it so you can kill your opponent much faster with Tombstalker, Persecutor and even Sign in Blood.

All the recent lists seem to have been more along the lines of Monoblack Aggro with Smallpox rather than the more controllish Pox decks of yesteryear.

I have a list that I love and is a lot more controllish.


19 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Mishra's Factory

2 Dark Ritual
4 Innocent Blood
4 Smallpox
4 Pox

4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Wrench Mind
2 Raven's Crime

4 Noetic Scales
4 Chimeric Idol
3 Phyrexian Totem


Sideboard:
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Baruka Bog
3 Powder Keg
3 Oppression
2 Wretched Banquet

I love Dark Ritual but hate it when I draw it in multiples. So I only play 2 and it works well at 2 I think. Wrench Mind and Noetic Scales are likewise very underrated imo. And yes, 2 Urborg is the correct number when you have so many ways to sacrifice or discard lands.

The focus is on hand control and creature control rather than land destruction because I found land destruction inconsistent. In the board, Oppression, Chalice and Bog give you great options against combo. Oppression is fantastic against cantrip based decks like Team America and Countertop. And Banquet and Keg really do a great job of bolstering your already strong aggro matchup. But I feel like there's something I forgetting in the sideboard. Do you have any suggestions for it?

It's really awesome in the current meta. It rapes decks like Zoo, Bant and Countertop. And I really can't think of many outright bad matchups for such a decklist except for 43 Land.dec. Maybe I should play some sideboard Ankh of Mishra for that matchup.

Do you have any suggestions for it? If you have any questions about the card choices, I think a quick run through MWS can answer them better than I could.

I think the reason people started to play a more aggro-version of Pox is because the control versions fails against Zoo, which is a pretty common deck now.

There are a couple of reasons why Noetic Scales isn't good enough.

A) It costs four mana. You really don't want 4 mana with this deck, because it makes you sac half your lands when you use Pox.
B) If it's stopped you're whole plan won't work. It's cute to bounce creatures and then discard them, but if they just recast it every turn, they only have to wait for an answer, while you have discards spells.
C) If you don't draw discard, they can fill there hand up. Remember that this deck doesn't run draw and you are depleting your hand quite fast, so you are in top-deck mode fast. an opponent can fill up his hand and keep the thread on the board for long enough to kill you.

-Benie-

I'm sorry but srsly?
Bojuka Bog is worse than a basic swamp. A basic swamp... and even a non-basic swamp re-print would hold it's own against Bojuka Bog.

Noetic Scales costs 4 mana. Dark Ritual is not a land which taps for 3 mana. That means that just cause you have DR doesn't make every 4 drop in your deck passable as a 2 drop.

Tombstalker is the best beater this deck has. What beater do you want to see more than tombstalker if you could see it once in your hand mid to late game (when pox plans to lay down the beats).

4 drops don't work.

"I really don't see any flaws to this deck. Do you?" -- Really? Look your list over.

@Menace13: MTGO Classic meta != Legacy meta
therefore: MTGO Classic pox is different than Legacy Pox.

Pox rarely sucks. I also saw this whole burn problem ages ago. And dealt with it. Sun Droplet.

@OmniStrata I don't understand how tempting wurm makes the deck any better?

@Kangaxx Anvil of Bogardan, cool card!

Keep it cool.

I would play the deck as B/W with:

4x nether spirit
4x bloodghast
2x tombstalker

4x hymn
4x thoughtseize
4x smallpox
3x engineered explosives
4x vindicate
3x pox

4x mox diamond

4x scrubland
8x fetch
4x wasteland
2-3 bojuka bog
3-4 swamp

White opens up sb options like kor firewalker if you're worried about burn.

Also the myth that you can't play too many nether spirits together needs to be dispelled. I have been playing this deck with 3-4 nether spirits for years and it's no problem. The most common removal you'll face for NS is swords to plowshares. It's just not a problem. Bloodghast comes out of the grave to let nether spirit come out. Tombstalker gets rid of extra nether spirits if it comes to that (barely ever).

Engineered explosives is possibly the most important card in the deck. It is so versatile and powerful. With diamond you can put it at 3 if you need to. Play EE on turn 1 for 2 and watch 90% of the meta squirm. Turn 2 cast a pox and pitch your spirit/ghast and start beating on turn 3. That's very fast for pox. I just wish I could justify 4 EE and 4 pox, but I have to keep the list at 60.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jon Stewart

I'm thinking, maybe the best option for this deck is to a Stax route (minus the Chalice of the Void).

Something akin to...

10 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors

4 Dark Ritual
4 Thoughtseize

// The four synergic cards that are the reason to play this deck.
4 Necrogen Mists
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Uba Mask
4 Noetic Scales

4 The Rack
4 Powder Keg
4 Trinisphere
4 Mind Shatter/Mindscrew/Mind Rot/Mind Twist/Persecute/Profane Command

Uba Mask is fantastic. It combos with Ensnaring Bridge or Noetic Scales to lock your opponent's creatures out. Necrogen Mists likewise works well with all of those cards. It also prevents all instants, countermagic and other shenanigans that Stax had never been able to use and was always vulnerable to.

Alternatively, the deck could play Chalice and maybe Chains of the Mephistopheles but it would have to cut The Rack, Quest, Dark Ritual and Thoughtseize and use Sorin Markov and maybe Megrim for the combo. The problem is that Uba Mask isn't great with Megrim.

Or maybe the deck should through the Contagion combo in their as well along with Crucible of Worlds, Wasteland, Mishra's Factory, Mox Diamond and Smokestack.

I wanted to quote a very good suggestion for the deck which gave me the idea for Uba Mask.




I agree with you on Quest. I could easily see myself cutting it and playing Phyrexian Totem instead if I ever decide to cut Ensnaring Bridge and just count on Noetic Scales for the lock.

Uba Mask an awesome suggestion. It actually makes only 4 copies of Necrogen Mists/Oppression neccesary.

Also, what do you think is better in a deck like this,

Bottomless Pit

or

Necrogen Mists

or

Oppression

You only need one of those three when you're playing Uba Mask imo. Bottomless Pit is more disruptive. Mists is more consistent. But Oppression is more one sided (it affects your opponents (esp with all the Brainstorms running around) more than it does you).

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I like Necrogen Mists. I've tested bottomless pit and Mists and sometimes the randomness of bottomless pit bites, when with a mists you can hold that card you want to follow up with and discard a swamp or w/e. I'm working on a deck similar to what you seem to be working on, and what I can tell you is a one or two of Syphon Life is great in here as an alt win, especially if your opponent has chalice at 1. I like the idea of noetic scales, I will test it out to suppliment bridge in my deck and let you know how it goes.