[Primer/Deck] Pox

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Originally Posted by Hardcore

@Ralf, is fetchlands neccessary?

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Well, actually, they are.

1) They let you "adjust" your life pool for infernal contract (like "cabal pit")
2) Reaching your "threshold" could be a matter of life or death (for cabal pit)
3) Considering that you could be "on par" with other attrition based deck, it is also important to "draw" a bit less "lands" when using infernal contract.
The difference could be minor but even if it nets you just another active card instead of another swamp, it is huge. Nothing is worse than dying because your infernal contract give you too many lands instead of active cards.

Your life pool must be used as a "ressource" once you get use to it.
You don't have to wait to play "infernal contract". Sometimes, I go for it as soon as I can. It is extremely dependent of the matchup you are facing, though.

The list I shared is, by no means, a finished one. I'm pretty sure MD can still be adjusted (a 5th draw spell and another wincon for example are a few things I would want to include). Sideboard could certainly be improved by a very large margin.

No smallpox, no Pox, draw more cards, leave your enemy's resources alone? Trade 1 for 1? That's not Pox anymore... :mad: Demigod of Revenge? No Reanimation with low CMC? Yeah, that's mono-black control, that's not Pox.

Mono-black control is fine, but we're about ripping you down to nothing using the most efficent cards. Smallpox is that card. Heck, in my opinion, removing big Pox completely is the edge of sanity. We don't need card draw when we can cast 1 spell to wreck 3 of your cards. We don't care about our cards since we're designed to function under Pox winter.

You're not playing attrition when your threats are 5/4 flyers.
"Attrition - the military strategy of wearing down the enemy by continual losses in personnel and matériel". This MBC is built to do a little bit of disruption and then win before you can come back. Nukes aren't used for attrition.

That being said, it's a good looking deck, but in the wrong thread. :smile:

As for Pox itself, the 'original' super LD form of Pox runs Vindicate. I'll be putting together a slightly faster LD Pox using cheap 'hard to kill' threats and speed up my games a bit. The LD philosphy that works efficiently is to play threats in turns 1 or 2, and then nuke lands for the rest of the game. If you wreck lands first then play threats, your enemy may recover their game since you weren't damaging them early. A more tempo oriented Pox Winter is coming, at least for me, along with use of that new Liliana healer. :eek:

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Originally Posted by OmniStrata

You're not playing attrition when your threats are 5/4 flyers.
"Attrition - the military strategy of wearing down the enemy by continual losses in personnel and matériel". This MBC is built to do a little bit of disruption and then win before you can come back. Nukes aren't used for attrition.

That being said, it's a good looking deck, but in the wrong thread. :smile:

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Actually, I already said it was Mono Black Control and not Pox.
I have posted in the Development section but since Hardcore mentioned it, I made a quick post here.
After all we also are a mono black control deck !!! Don't hate us. :smile:

But I disagree. There is a lot of attrition stuff in there but not as much as in a traditional Pox list.
Pox and Smallpox were just replaced by draw cards or virtual card advantages.
The core is nearly the same. Kill cons are just different. Yet the goal is the same:
- attack your enemy by every possible angles
- deplete their hands
- control the board
- play the top deck mode
- find a kill (be it a slow or a quick one)

I played Pox during a very long time. Among the thousand games I played with it, only one thing bothered me:
The false synergy between Liliana & SmallPox/Pox.

I can't recall how many games where I was stuck @ 2 swamps and 2 cards in hand being unable to play my Pox or Smallpox because discarding Lili away was too detrimental for the game course. Or the other way round, I just played a lili and can't use the +1 because I don't want to discard the Pox or the Smallpox.
Also, I can't recall how many games liliana's ultimate was "less powerful" than it could be if I were not playing Pox/Smallpox.

Yeah. I'm talking about synergy.

In this mono black control shell, Liliana is nearly at her best:
1) Your opponent is still navigating under limited resources (through discard/wasteland)
2) Lili's ultimate will, on average, always catch more permanents than in a traditional Pox list BECAUSE there is no POX in !
3) Infernal contract also creates asymmetry with lili's first ability as there is no other strongest draw cards in legacy for its mana cost (save Meditate)

Land denial & soft lock is nice and all. Beating blue decks because I can almost match their draws is a completely different story and feeling.
F. Yeah !

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Originally Posted by Ralf

I played Pox during a very long time. Among the thousand games I played with it, only one thing bothered me:
The false synergy between Liliana & SmallPox/Pox.

I can't recall how many games where I was stuck @ 2 swamps and 2 cards in hand being unable to play my Pox or Smallpox because discarding Lili away was too detrimental for the game course. Or the other way round, I just played a lili and can't use the +1 because I don't want to discard the Pox or the Smallpox.
Also, I can't recall how many games liliana's ultimate was "less powerful" than it could be if I were not playing Pox/Smallpox.

Yeah. I'm talking about synergy.

In this mono black control shell, Liliana is nearly at her best:
1) Your opponent is still navigating under limited resources (through discard/wasteland)
2) Lili's ultimate will, on average, always catch more permanents than in a traditional Pox list BECAUSE there is no POX in !
3) Infernal contract also creates asymmetry with lili's first ability as there is no other strongest draw cards in legacy for its mana cost (save Meditate)

Land denial & soft lock is nice and all. Beating blue decks because I can almost match their draws is a completely different story and feeling.
F. Yeah !

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Actually, the reason you run 4 smallpox and pox and Lilianas is so that you can afford to discard them. I've not run into a situation where I couldn't use her +1 or -2 the moment Liliana of the Veil hit the field. Truth be told, if my enemy has 3 creatures on the field, there's really nothing you can do, but if your foe has 1 threat, I'll just -2 and make them sac and just save the Smallpox next turn 'just in case'. If you have to cast Smallpox on turn 2 and discard Liliana, I wonder what the heck is up with the rest of your hand.

Liliana of the Veil does what Pox does. Discard, Sacrifice, and LD (with ultimate). Pox needs to disrupt 'now' not later, so if you have to chuck a Liliana to your Smallpox to stop their Phyrexian Dreadnought cause you're stuck at 2 lands, then do it. Saving cards for later and drawing more cards to cast them later is for traditional control.

Pox isn't traditional and the challenge is making it work, not making it traditional. :cool: Need that crazy bum rush forward mentality at times, hence why we play Pox. Beating blue decks by almost matching their draws make me think you should just play a blue deck. I beat blue decks because they use Force of Will vs. Hymn to Tourach. Black's card advantage is much cheaper than blue if you consider the mana.

My meta has burn and an Infernal Tutor is auto lose for me vs. them :(

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Originally Posted by OmniStrata

Pox isn't traditional and the challenge is making it work, not making it traditional. :cool: Need that crazy bum rush forward mentality at times, hence why we play Pox. Beating blue decks by almost matching their draws make me think you should just play a blue deck. I beat blue decks because they use Force of Will vs. Hymn to Tourach. Black's card advantage is much cheaper than blue if you consider the mana.

My meta has burn and an Infernal Tutor is auto lose for me vs. them :(

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I am not trying to convince anyone that MBC > Pox or the other way round.
I just try to improve mono black strategy as a whole.
Thus, I am just sharing and proposing new ideas with a good amount of play testing.

Pox/Smallpox are "good" cards in the right MU.
Against creatureless decks, they are "poor" because you don't get to take advantage of the asymmetric effect they provide (save Pox under some circumstances).

I do feel that Mono Black main deck should be filled with "good" cards in every matchup. Not conditional ones because we are already fighting hard against variance.

I think you meant 'Infernal Contract' not 'Infernal Tutor'. And you could be very surprised against burn with such a deck. Soul spike is a hell of a card and you lose half your life total (rounded up) AFTER drawing 4 cards. That makes the whole difference.

@ thread: Happy poxing, guys ! Wish you luck and if someone is interested in MBC, PM me !!!

Cheers,

Yeah, cards that are relevant against most decks, most of the time, are preferable. Regretably they are blue.

Played against a very stubborn D&T guy tonight who only finally scooped when my board was 6 lands, 2 Cursed Scrolls, Liliana at 4 (after an ultimate), Gloom, Nether Void, Night of Souls Betrayal, Engineered Plague on Cats, and Pithing Needle on Aether Vial.

It was a slog, to be sure.

But a fun slog...for me.

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Originally Posted by zebhillard

Played against a very stubborn D&T guy tonight who only finally scooped when my board was 6 lands, 2 Cursed Scrolls, Liliana at 4 (after an ultimate), Gloom, Nether Void, Night of Souls Betrayal, Engineered Plague on Cats, and Pithing Needle on Aether Vial.

It was a slog, to be sure.

But a fun slog...for me.

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When Pox frustration causes your foe to scoop, ah da awesomez. Overkill and well done. ^_^

@Ralf. Yep, I meant Infernal Contract. Tutor is the more commonly known Infernal 'card' (doh facepalm*). Pox and Smallpox still work against creatureless strategies. Heck, they are even better since you can just cast them faster and you don't have to worry about your enemy saving their best creature. Creatureless decks however are few and far between in the Legacy meta from what I can tell. If the Decks to Beat are any indication, Pox will never be 'shut out' when competing in a large tournament. How many creatureless decks are viable that people can trust? Only ANT in the current DtB list can really be called 'creatureless'. Combo lands tries to murder you with a single 20/20 flier. Times like that make you want to bring in that Diabolic Edict eh? ^_^

Remember everyone, Pox is the 'legal' form of Balance in Legacy. Balance 2.0 I believe it's called. I think the hardest thing for this deck to truely overcome is the creature hurdle. For us Pox traditionalists who run 4 Innocent Blood and 1-3 copies of the Big Pox, our win condition selection has to get trimmed down quite a bit. No surprise that practically all the tournament winning Pox decks pack 4 Mishra's Factories and 2-3 Cursed Scrolls. It's a strong cage, but it's proven to protect us at the same time it limits our builds.

What's all this 'blue draw' people are talking about? The only workable 'hard draw' blue cards in legacy I'm aware of are Jace TMS and Dig Through Time. Are people running into Concentrate and Divinations?

I like to build around chalice. The faster the format gets the more it hurts. The question is if it is worth play it and shut myself out from 1cc spells? Black has lots of those but i think they are inferior to blue.
Still, inferior or not, the 1cc spells allow some lines of deck construction that can't be replicated by Möre expensive cards.

Its card selection more than draw. Brainstorm, Ponder, Serum Visions, Dig, Jace, etc. Piling those up turn after turn leads to some decent hand sculpting if you don't have enough disruption.

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Originally Posted by zebhillard

Its card selection more than draw. Brainstorm, Ponder, Serum Visions, Dig, Jace, etc. Piling those up turn after turn leads to some decent hand sculpting if you don't have enough disruption.

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Card selection I don't really care about. Since it's not real card advantage. Pox without 'enough disruption' is blasphemy! :laugh: I thought people were actually drawing 2-3 cards at the cost of 1. If you do the math, you have to Brainstorm, Ponder, etc. 3 times to get back what was lost to a Smallpox. Dig Through Time gives you 2 cards you didn't have to wait 7 turns for. That's scary. And we all know Jace is free BS.

@Hardcore's Chalice of the Void. For my play group, heavy on creatures, not having access to Dark Ritual and Innocent Blood and Inquisition of Kozilek is too backbreaking for me. Pox Stompy Chalice definitely has promise since all the favorite removal cost 1 cmc and far fewer people I know run things like Smother and Terminate and Diabolic Edict. Your games however, I'm guessing get rough if you don't start with a Chalice in hand. Top decking a Chalice on turn 6 however is probably still good since you shut off any future brainstorms they may have.

I am thinking cheap removal = Snuff out, rather than IB if running chalice. Or Contagion.
Ideally i should not have to make any compromises for running chalice, but it does make discard seem unneccessary.

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Originally Posted by Hardcore

I am thinking cheap removal = Snuff out, rather than IB if running chalice. Or Contagion.
Ideally i should not have to make any compromises for running chalice, but it does make discard seem unneccessary.

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I think that with Chalice, your removal at that point would be Smother and Diabolic Edict. Snuff seems like a really hefty price and Contagion, despite being a 2 for 1, is like a black themed Force of Will. The card disadvantage seems too steep. If you're running 4 big poxes, the life loss and land nuking is to the extreme. Not that I don't mind that but I suppose they're the best replacements for Dark Rituals.

At least as a Chalice based deck, that list you posted has some great damage win condtions. Pox stompy? :eek:

Yeah, it is the quest for better win cons that can end the game faster:/ Some decks, like miracles, are best to just run over as fast as possible.
Against others it wouldn't hurt to have bigger dudes, like when resolving Tombstalker vs BG decks.
I have started to assemble a second pox deck that will be control Pox. Or perhaps Prison pox with Ankh of Mishra etc. Would be fun to experiment with that!

Well, time to rework the deck and free up another single slot, my Chains of OH LORD THATS A LOT OF TEXT WHAT DOES IT TO ANYWAY just shipped out. Decisions, decisions.

I attended another small tournament this Sunday. We were only 49 players this time, and I made 13th [Edit: 15th, my bad] place with a record of 3-2-1.

Sorcery (20)
1x Cruel Tutor
3x Hymn to Tourach
4x Innocent Blood
3x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Sinkhole
4x Smallpox
1x Thoughtseize

Instant (3)
3x Dark Ritual

Planeswalker (4)
4x Liliana of the Veil

Land (24)
1x Cabal Pit
4x Marsh Flats
4x Mishra's Factory
6x Swamp
3x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2x Verdant Catacombs
4x Wasteland

Enchantment (1)
1x Night of Souls' Betrayal

Creature (1)
1x Nether Spirit

Artifact (7)
1x Crucible of Worlds
2x Cursed Scroll
1x Haunted Plate Mail
3x Sensei's Divining Top

Sideboard (15)
3x Ensnaring Bridge
4x Extirpate
3x Pithing Needle
3x Sphere of Resistance
2x Toxic Deluge



Match 1: Oops! All spells. 2 - 1
Game 1:
He killed me before I even got to my turn 1. At least the deck is nice enough to show its full list, when going off. No LED, and Alchemist's Apprentice as the card draw for the win with Laboratory Maniac

-4 Sinkhole, -3 SDT, -1 Crucible of Worlds, -2 Innocent Blood, +4 Extirpate, +3 Pithing Needle, +3 Sphere of Resistance

Game 2:
I keep a hand with Extirpate. Drop a land, say go. He tries to go off unprotected and runs into Extirpate, exiling Narcomoeba. He scoops.

Game 3:
I keep a hand with Pithing Needle, Extirpate and 2 IoK. He mulliganed to 6 I think, and didn't go off turn 1. I IoK him and see 2 Lotus Petal, a Cabal Ritual, Cabal Therapy and I think that white Angel they play and a Narcomoeba. I take a Petal. He then still needs a mana and one of his 8 mill creatures to go off. Turn 2 and 3 I drop another IoK (taking the second Petal. He somehow didn't play it on his turn), a Thoughtseize and a Pithing Needle naming Alchemist's Apprentice. He doesn't play anything and starts discarding while a Factory goes to work on his life total. Not much happening from there.

1 - 0

Match 2: White Weenie with lots of Equipment. 2 - 0
Can't remember much of this Match. My opponent was a flooded both matches, and he never could keep a creature in play. I think he played about 5 creatures in both games.. with a deck that runs 21 creatures. Bad luck I'd say.

2 - 0

Match 3: DnT 1 - 1 - 1
Game 1:
Game 1 played out like most pre board games against DnT for me. He is on the play and drops a Vial turn 1. Not much to do here, I am at 0 6 or 7 turns later.
-3 Hymn to Tourach, -3 IoK, -1 Thoughtseize, -1 Dark Ritual, +2 Toxic Deluge, +3 Pithing Needle, +3 Ensnaring Bridge

Game 2:
I kept a somewhat greedy hand. Wasteland and Factory, Pithing Needle, SDT, Liliana, Innocent Blood and Smallpox it was (I think). He drops a white Leyline turn 0. I played Wasteland into SDT, he dropped Vial again. In my upkeep I looked at the top 3 and found 2 Swamps. I needle his Vial. He drops a Stoneforge Mythic and finds a Jitte. I find another Needle for the Jitte. He lands a Batterskull that hits me two times, bringing me down to 6 and him up to 28. From there on I could stablize and start to eat his life total with a Nether Spirit, Factory and Cursed Scroll. Well... then we remembered his Leyline a turn later. Be both got a warning for game rule violation. I'm quite unfocused at this time and drop a Ensnaring Bridge, that leads to another warning for me. I attack with Factory and Netherspirit with one card in my hand. I could have drawn a card with top, to attack anyway, but I didn't do it. I manage to get him to 0 anyway. We have 3 minutes on the clock left and agree to draw the 3rd game.

2 - 0 - 1

Match 4: UWR Delver 0 - 1 - 1
Game 1:
Longest game 1 ever, for both of us. Smallpox, Wasteland and Lili do their thing, and I manage to take him down to 1 life. He dropped an early Jitte, that ended up killing me. He somehow managed to get a Stoneforge Mythic to stick and started beating me with jitte. I don't really know what I did wrong, but it must have been my fault. I had Nether Spirit, Factory, Crucible and Cursed Scroll. I know I forgot 1 or 2 Nether Spirit triggers, but I can't explain why I couldn't (didn't) kill the Stoneforge before he got counters with Jitte.

-3 Dark Ritual, -1 SDT, +4 Extirpate
Game 2:
I keep a hand with Wasteland, 2 Extirpate and more good stuff, and hope for him to drop a Tundra. I drop a Swamp and say go. He drops fetch, gets Tundra and plays Ponder. I waste his Tundra, and extirpate it. He is screwed. His had ins FoW, 2 Daze, Brainstorm, Stoneforge and Delver. I love this move, and he didn't seem to know this was possible Grin
From there on it would have been easy to win, but I didn't have the time. Factory manages to beat him down to 15, and thats it :/ If I had only played better game 1. When I managed to lock my opponent, and proceed to widdle down his life, I somehow go into autopilot mode, and I guess thats what cost me this match.

2 - 1 - 1

Match 5: Shardless BUG 0 - 2
Game 1:
Ouch. He generated so much card advantage with 2 Shardless and 2 Ancestral Visions and I just die.

-3 Dark Ritual, -3 Hymn to Tourach, -2 I forgot. +3 Sphere of Resistance, +2 Toxic Deluge, +3 Ensnaring Bridge
Game 2:
I kept a hand with Toxic Deluge, Sphere of Resistance, 2 Wastelands and SDT.
The game was over fast. He drops a turn 2 Goyf and I have to kill it using Toxic Deluge. The Sphere of Resistance keeps his Agent somewhat in check, but also blocks me from playing NoSB and Haunted Plate Mail. And just to add insult to injury, I fail to find any more removal. That was depressing.

2 - 2 - 1

Match 6: Mono U StifleNought
Game 1:
I played against this guy at the last event when he was running a similar UB list. He switched to Mono U but still plays like a combo deck, using Lotus Petals to drop a turn 1 Dreadnought. The only thing I'm afraid of is his Vision Charms, as it prevents me from killing a Nought for 1 turn.
I kept an ok hand for this matchup and had plenty of time. He brainstorms and ponders for the first 3 turns. When I found a 1cc discard I saw this hand: Stifle, Stifle, Stifle, Stifle, Trickbind, Vision Charm. I kill him with factory and Haunted Plate Mail.

-1 SDT, -4 Sinkhole, -1 Crucible, +3 Sphere of Resistance, +3 Ensnaring Bridge

Game 2:
I kept another solid hand with Sphere of Resistance,2x Inquisition of Kozilek, Hymn to Tourach, Innocent Blood 2 black producing lands.
He Ponders on his first turn, and I IoK him. He has Stifle, Misdirection, Brainstorm, some counter magic and mana. I need to play around his counters to get my sphere to stick, and I also can't play Hymn, because he'll just misdirect it to me. Next turn I IoK him again, which he then Misdirects. I show my hand, and discard one of my two Hymn to Tourach. I manage to drop my Sphere of Resistance. It takes him a while to get to 4 mana, to even be able to cast Nought/Stifle, and then he can't find his combo. he dies to factory beatdown.

3 - 2 - 1

First tournament where I could test Haunted Plate Mail and Cruel Tutor. HPM performed well, when I had it. Cruel Tutor stuck in my hand most of the time. Once I did use it, but whatever I was looking for wasn't very important. I'm thinking about running 3 Leyline of the Void and a Helm of Obedience instead of Extirpate. I feel Leyline does more in matchups that use the graveyard, and Helm can be used in conjuction as alternative win condition, or even as a suprise win against decks that play RiP. Extirpate is nice against 3 color decks, but that matchup is already in our favor. I'm still wanting something to close out games faster when my opponent is on the ground. I feel I could have played better. I think my sideboarding is good, and the deck plays well, but running on autopilot when I'm trying to finish the game. It seldomly screwes me over since I included SDT.

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Originally Posted by zebhillard

Well, time to rework the deck and free up another single slot, my Chains of OH LORD THATS A LOT OF TEXT WHAT DOES IT TO ANYWAY just shipped out. Decisions, decisions.

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I feel so sorry for you. :tongue:

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Originally Posted by Hardcore

I feel so sorry for you. :tongue:

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Of all the problems to have, right?

It is a little annoying though, because I'm currently really in favor of how the deck is running (despite a 2-2 last week, I was playing on the borderline of heading to the emergency room and lost to bad matches anyway) and I'm not quite certain what to drop so I can slot the Chains into the 75.

Well, you can run 76 cards while figuring it out.

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Originally Posted by Hardcore

Yeah, it is the quest for better win cons that can end the game faster:/ Some decks, like miracles, are best to just run over as fast as possible.
Against others it wouldn't hurt to have bigger dudes, like when resolving Tombstalker vs BG decks.
I have started to assemble a second pox deck that will be control Pox. Or perhaps Prison pox with Ankh of Mishra etc. Would be fun to experiment with that!

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It's actually very difficult to run Ankh as a win con. I fell into the trap of "hey, 5 life for your fetchland? Be my guest". And then for some stupid reason, overloading on LD meant I never could draw it. Bad luck i guess? not sure. I found it a nuisance to run win cons based on an enemy's decisions. They'll obviously stall for the better if they're near death, like holding cards for The Rack or not playing lands once they hit their 3rd land drop vs. Ankh. Dingus Egg would be epic if I could pay 3 mana for it instead of 4. :cry: