[Deck] Pox

[Poxrocks]

I would agree with Jin, CIPT for a 0/1 token is a pretty crappy deal IMO. I ran 2 Bojuka Bogs maindeck just as a gotcha card against some decks and had CIPT bite me in the ass more often than not.

Speaking of lands that generate tokens, how do y'all feel about Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai? It works well with Pox/Smallpox/Zuran Orb/Crucible.

I use Entombs, which becomes a land tutor with Crucible of Worlds in play. Then again, the whole point of entomb is to become Bloodghast #5-8. However, the thought of a land card that helps break Pox's symmetric symmetry always makes me happy.

[bowvamp]

@Poxrocks:
It seems that your list is pretty gy dependent. How much dredge hate do you have in your meta?
Also, God's Eye kind of doesn't work well with Pox/Smallpox. It produces colorless mana and doesn't make the token till after you've sacced your creature.
You run Zuran Orb?
@jin:
The purpose of the 0/1 is to protect you (and your creatures as previously mentioned). With one card invested, you get a chump blocker + land. CIPT isn't that big of a problem if you just run more lands. Basically, the 0/1 is a Maze of Ith activation effective as soon as your opponent plays something. And in the meantime, unlike Maze, Gardens taps for mana.

IDK, just a little idea I had.

[jin]

@Poxrocks:
It seems that your list is pretty gy dependent. How much dredge hate do you have in your meta?
Also, God's Eye kind of doesn't work well with Pox/Smallpox. It produces colorless mana and doesn't make the token till after you've sacced your creature.
You run Zuran Orb?
@jin:
The purpose of the 0/1 is to protect you (and your creatures as previously mentioned). With one card invested, you get a chump blocker + land. CIPT isn't that big of a problem if you just run more lands. Basically, the 0/1 is a Maze of Ith activation effective as soon as your opponent plays something. And in the meantime, unlike Maze, Gardens taps for mana.

IDK, just a little idea I had.

Oh, I see now. Yeah CIPT is really really bad. I think God's Eye is better, but you can no longer run Mishra's Factories. generic mana is fine since you will be running Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. I run 3 in my list of 23 lands. I stil think Mishra's Factory + Crucible is better than both options though..

I only run 3 colourless mana in my 23 with 3 Urborg though. The number has to be quite low for it to not screw you.

I think running more lands is not so good in this deck that already needs so many lands. Too man lands make bad topdecks if you want your post-pox to be stronger

[jin]

stupid double post.. sorry.

[Poxrocks]

@Poxrocks:
It seems that your list is pretty gy dependent. How much dredge hate do you have in your meta?
Also, God's Eye kind of doesn't work well with Pox/Smallpox. It produces colorless mana and doesn't make the token till after you've sacced your creature.
You run Zuran Orb?

GY hate in my meta is pretty random; as far as I know, I run the most sideboard GY hate out of most people I've played. I do worry about how much Pox seems to rely on the GY nowadays what with Tombstalker, Bloodghast, and Nether Spirit.

I only suggested God's Eye because it's superior the Khalni Garden in Pox IMO. However, neither really have the power to warrant replacing their respective Swamp/Bayou.

I probably shouldn't have mentioned Zuran Orb, it's a sideboard card in burn heavy metas. It was just another reliable way to sac lands.

[Smea.gol.lum]

Heyho,
unfortunately I went 2-3-1 drop at the GP but I still think that Pox is a very strong deck with a lot of potential, however it's very unforgiving.
I won my first round against UGW Midrange but lost Round 2 against Maverick which has been a good matchup in my testings.
G1 I made a slight mistake of not wasting a Maze of Ith immediately, because I didn't know that it can still untap a creature that has already dealt damage(pretty dumb imo). That would have bought me 1 more turn to find something with Senseis's Div Top.
G2 i lose despite a T1 Liliana via Ritual. I discard Nether Spirit to her first ability.
He responds with T1 Bojuka Bog into Turn 3 Hierarch + Scavenging Ooze.
I haven't got any removal in my hand and in the top 3, but a second Liliana.
On my 4th turn I have got 3 lands in play and a Liliana with 6 counters in play and i decide to activate Top, although i knew that the top 2 cards weren't a removal spell or a land.
The third from the top wasn't one either, so I couldn't ultimate Liliana and play another one afterwards to remove his second creature, too.
So I used Liliana's Sac ability(4 counters left). In his next turn, he pumped Scavenging Ooze to 4/4 and played Windswept Heath and killed Liliana.
When I played my second Liliana, he fetched a Dryad Arbor in response( which I didn't think of) to her sac ability.
I still got control of the game with the Culling Scales Sensei soft lock, but he topdecked Pridemage soon and then bomb after bomb.
Very unlucky series of events, but it could still have turned out in another way if I had played pefectly.

In round 3 i was paired against Goblins. In game 1 he was manascrewed for about 5 turns but I couldn't find a win condition for about 10 turns....I won this game however after about 20 min.
He won a long Game 2 which he grinded out with Ringleaders.
It wasn't much time left for Game 3 so we decided that the player that would have probably won would get the win because a draw wouldn't get us anywhere.
At the end of game 3 I had stabilized at 3 life with an Engineered Plague and the Culling Scales Sensei soft lock, a Dismember in my hand and a Factory in play together with 3 other lands.
He claimed that he could have won the game as well with a Warchief, a Piledriver and a Ringleader in hand and 3 lands in play(1 Rishadan Port) but I think my chances for the win were much higher than his. Result: Draw

In Round 5 I got bashed (by a U/w Stoneforge Deck) by 3 Snapcastermages in G1 and as well in G2 in which I didn't see any Plagues :(. Nothing I could do here...

[clavio]

Hi everyone. It's a bummer how much the new Liliana costs. What do you all think about playing a build that does poorly against fast aggro but pretty much beats the hell out of everything else? I think it might be worth trying at the moment.

Also I think that dark confidant might be worth running. I really don't think that the life loss is too big of a deal since he can very often win the game just by staying alive.

Also obligatory you all are still underrating the rack.

[clavio]

Totally in love with confidant.

What do you think is better at this point, go for throat or diabolic edict?

[Koby]

Totally in love with confidant.

What do you think is better at this point, go for throat or diabolic edict?

Ghastly Demise.

[clavio]

What is everyone sideboarding against merfolk these days?

[Jin15]

Hey everyone!
I've been wanting to play a Pox deck for years now, but it wasn't until the release of Liliana of the Veil in Innistrad that I finally said to myself, "That's it self, you have to build this deck now!"

So I finally got off my backside and came up with half a dozen different potential Pox lists and started testing them against established decks. After quite a bit of tweaking and tuning and conversing with some long time Pox players here's the list I settled on...

==========
Legacy - Pox
==========
[3 Planeswalkers]
3 Liliana of the Veil

[7 Creatures]
4 Bloodghast
2 Tombstalker
1 Nether Spirit

[24 Spells]
4 Dark Ritual
4 Innocent Blood
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
4 Pox

[4 Artifacts]
4 The Rack

[22 Lands]
4 Mishra’s Factory
18 Swamp

~~~~~~~
Sideboard
~~~~~~~
3 Null Rod
3 Spinning Darkness
2 Syphon Life
3 Infest
4 Leyline of the Void


It's fairly basic compared to a lot of the popular lists right now (note the lack of Mox Diamond, Crucible of Worlds, and Wasteland). Rather than go for the slower more controlling mana denial and late game card advantage plan employed in Crucible builds I decided to take a more aggro route. My list runs a total of 15 threats, which is more so than most Pox decks, and is primarily focused on tempo rather than card advantage, employing Dark Ritual to this end. The goal here being to empty your opponent's hand as fast as possible (which due to the nature of Pox tends to empty yours in the process as well) and then knock their life down to 0 with a couple threats before they can recover. The deck still plays very well without Crucible, you just have to play it a little differently. A faster pace and a higher number of threats allows a Pox build like mine to get the job done quite well without a card advantage engine like Crucible IMHO.

I've been really happy with how the main deck plays so far although I do think my sideboard plan needs a bit of work. I'm not too fond of Spinning Darkness due poor synergy with Tombstalker and I'd like to find something else to put in instead for the Zoo matchup. In any case, once I get the sideboard all figured out I'm really looking forward to getting in some good tournament time with this deck. It's one of the most fun decks I've played in quite sometime and is just plain brutal on the opponent. ^_^


Oh, and Clavio, for Merfolk I've been going -1 Pox, -2 Innocent Blood and +3 Infest. It's not an ideal board plan, as Infest isn't effective at all once they get 2 lords out, but my meta doesn't have a whole lot of Merfolk in it so I haven't majorly dedicated sideboard space to that matchup. If you see a lot of Merfolk in your meta (or any large number of Aether Vial decks really) I'd suggest trying out a few Ratchet Bomb in the board.

[zathe922]

Try Perish in the sideboard, its great against zoo and all those green/white decks that are popular right now.
About your list, i dont really like that nether spirit with all those other creatures.

i would probably remove it for a 1-off Sensei's Divining Top. some fetch lands would be nice as well.

[clavio]

I like your build alot Jin. To be honest though, after testing the hell out of pox the past two months I've been really underwhelmed with Liliana.

Good call on 4 racks. I would never leave home with less than 3.

My build right now that I'm probably going to play on Saturday:

New Age Retro Hippie Pox
12-13 Swamp
4 Mishra's Factory
3-4 Wasteland
4 Urborg tomb....

3 Nether Spirit (Blocking is relevant imo)

4 The Rack
2 Cursed Scroll (Seems crappy, but the fact that it can pick off Insectile Aberrations and some Merfolks makes it kind of ok again. Otherwise I would absolutely run something like Syphon Life.)
3 Sensei's Divining Top

4 Innocent Blood
4 Pox
4 SmallPox
4 Duress/Thoutseize....but probably Duress.
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Hymn to Tourach

SB something like....
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Extirpate
Perish/Spinning Darknes/Infest/Gate to Phyrexia?(no)/Engineered plague/Ensnaring Bridge/Hypnotic Specter?!?!/Oppression!?!?!?
---------

I don't have a fast clock but the only time It really mattered was against shit like High Tide. I don't miss crucible.

[Hulk]

What is everyone sideboarding against merfolk these days?

Mono blacks best choice is engineered plague. One engineered plague down doesn't stop them in there tracks, but it helps. Two will generally shut them down assuming they don't have enough lords out to keep going(if they did, you probably have all ready lost).

If you are splashing white your could run Ghostly Prison.

[clavio]

I think I'm going to go with 4 Leyline 4 Extirpate 4 Engineered Plague 3 Infest.


Edit: Perish or infest. I'm on the fence.

Edit2: Going with Infest. There isn't alot of zoo and I think it's a favorable matchup anyways (especially compared to Mefolk). Also people love Goblins. Also it can kill pretty much every creature in those Gw decks except Knight of the Reliquary, things that carry equipment and Goyf (Although I might want extirpate instead. I don't know.). Also it's going to be excellent when I can legitimately board in 15 cards against DREDGE.

[Dragon_mage]

Hi there, I posted into the Eva Green post and they told me that you could help me guys

I was testing this decklist triying to get the optimus version, I play a version with splash to Green for play LftL and Goyf, including a Sylvan library also... here is my decklist:

Creatures (14)
4 Bloodghast
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Gatekeeper of Malakir
3 Abyssal Persecutor

Other (23)
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Smallpox
2 Life from the Loam
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Go for the Throat
2 Darkblast
2 Ghastly Demise
1 Sylvan Library

Land (23)
2 Marsh Flats
4 Verdant Catacumbs
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland
3 Bayou
1 Dakmor Salvage
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Forest
2 Swamp

I play a dakmor salvage 'cause it helps with the smallpox effect, discarding or sacrificing a land, also make the bloodghast better in the case we don't have land in hand but it is the Gyard

I only have two doubt, the first one is that I wanna include a Phyrexian Tower into my manabase to help me with the task of put the abyssal out of the field but I don't know what land to cut off, and the second one is my sideboard which looks like this, so far:

4 Surgical Extraction
4 Pithing Needle
2 Krosan Grip
2 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Pernicious Deed

I don't know if it would be better include some perish instead the pernicious deed and if include some chokes... I will be waiting for your comments and/or critics

regards

[zathe922]

I would cut 1 Urborg for the Phyrexian Tower.

And the sideboard is a meta call, if you are facing a lot of green decks, its probably better than the deeds. Im not sure if i would play those surgicals, extirpate is way better when you play a black deck, i would also play some crypts since you sometimes wants to be able to remove whole graveyards. Bojuka bog would also be a nice card to run in the deck.

[zathe922]

You dont need the chimeric idols remove them and play 2 more wastelands, Smallpox is better than "Bigpox" and you need some removal, like innocent blood.

[iamfrightenedtoo]

dragonryder
let me tell you how you will lose most of your matches.
against one inkmoth nexus. guaranteed every time.
Small pox is in no way better than Pox.
None of the Idol creatures are any good. they seem good, but they are too slow, and cost too much to cast against everything else that is out there.

You have no hand disruption beyond Pox, and Hymn, you need Thoughsieze, Duress, or IOK I prefer IOK and Duress.

crucible always seems important to the new Pox player, I promise you it is not.
I have been playing Pox almost since it was printed, and I can almost always cast a firggin Corrupt at least once in every match.
Crucible is a waste of a three spot. You want an honest opinion?
Ensnaring Bridge, is amazing. most decks have a creature win condition. of they cannot attack, they cannot win.

also, you need a way to get rid of Planeswalkers if you are not going to run any dependable discard. even though I believe Hymn is one of the best discard cards printed, it is not as reliable as just looking through your opponents hand and choosing.

I am alone, in this, but Liliana, is not that great of a Pox card. She is decent, but no reason to start torturing yourself with Pox now.

Raven's Crime is an amazing Pox card. people want a reason to start playing Pox? Raven's Crime. it seems silly and useless. it is not. almost over powered.

[Kich867]

dragonryder
let me tell you how you will lose most of your matches.
against one inkmoth nexus. guaranteed every time.
Small pox is in no way better than Pox.
None of the Idol creatures are any good. they seem good, but they are too slow, and cost too much to cast against everything else that is out there.

You have no hand disruption beyond Pox, and Hymn, you need Thoughsieze, Duress, or IOK I prefer IOK and Duress.

crucible always seems important to the new Pox player, I promise you it is not.
I have been playing Pox almost since it was printed, and I can almost always cast a firggin Corrupt at least once in every match.
Crucible is a waste of a three spot. You want an honest opinion?
Ensnaring Bridge, is amazing. most decks have a creature win condition. of they cannot attack, they cannot win.

also, you need a way to get rid of Planeswalkers if you are not going to run any dependable discard. even though I believe Hymn is one of the best discard cards printed, it is not as reliable as just looking through your opponents hand and choosing.

I am alone, in this, but Liliana, is not that great of a Pox card. She is decent, but no reason to start torturing yourself with Pox now.

Raven's Crime is an amazing Pox card. people want a reason to start playing Pox? Raven's Crime. it seems silly and useless. it is not. almost over powered.

BTW, what exactly do you win with? Syphon Life?