Quote Originally Posted by ClimbGneiss View Post
Hey Josh! Thanks for the input. I'm glad you shared your thoughts on Mox Diamond. That card confuses me the most in Pox builds. I would tend to agree, but do you find that without it that we cannot beat sneak and show and other combo decks? It looks like your deck has made the hard decisions on the numbers of each Spell to play that I was struggling with. My only question is whether or not you wish you had more smallpox and collective brutality enablers? If so, where would you make cuts?
I agree with excluding DD combo. It's not like we do a particularly good job of utilizing the combo, so I was never impressed and often frustrated by having the rogue dark depths in my opener.

Something I like about your list is that you have a good mixture of targeted discard and cabal therapy, which enhances the vaue of therapy.

What are your thoughts on Toxic Deluge instead of Pernicious Deed? Do you ever find that the extra turn you have to wait to pop Deed loses you the game?

Wheres Fatal Push???
Hey ClimbGneiss, I've been working on GB Pox for awhile and got inspired by Josh's Bloodghast/Cabal Therapy tech. But I disagree with him on Mox Diamond. Its not about acceleration, but more about breaking the parity when we cast Smallpox. We are also a two color deck that runs dual colored/double black cards in a format with Wasteland. I don't run Pernicious Deed, I tried it and felt it was too slow and it doesn't deal with planeswalkers.

Fatal Push imo is the black version of Swords to Plowshares. I find Deathrite Shaman to be a big threat to our strategy and Fatal Push kills him clean.

Two cards that I've been messing with are Mirri's Guile and Bontu's Last Reckoning.
I was running 2x Sensei's Divining Top before it got banned and felt it really helped smooth out our draws/dredging.
Mirri's Guile is not nearly as powerful SDT, but gets the job done, especially when you have Life From the Loam in the yard. To dredge or not to dredge sometimes becomes a big question...Mirri's Guile helps with that alot. Got lands and Bloodghast in you top three cards...loam away; see that Maelstrom Pulse or Liliana 2nd from the top...maybe don't dredge.

Bontu's Last Reckoning went into my Pernicious Deed slot in the sideboard. Consequently, it works a lot better with Mox Diamond. Times where I used Deed it was more of a creature board wipe and less about dealing with artifacts and enchantments.

Lastly,
Two things: Garruk Relentless and DD/Stage combo.
I run the DD/Stage combo. If you run Crop Rotation/Entomb and Life From the Loam it allows another angle of attack that doesn’t disturb the natural flow of the deck. It’s also “softly” resilient to Legacy’s premier removal spell, Swords to Plowshares. Gain 20 life and try again.
Garruk Relentless is great against control and really grindy matchups.

Here’s my current list:

Lands (27)
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Bayou
3 Mishra's Factory
3 Wasteland
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Swamp
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Forest
1 Barren Moor
1 Dark Depths
1 Cabal Pit
1 Bojuka Bog
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Polluted Delta
1 Windswept Heath

Creatures (3)
2 Bloodghast
1 Nether Spirit

Planeswalkers (2)
2 Liliana of the Veil

Spells (24)
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Smallpox
3 Hymn to Tourach
3 Life from the Loam
2 Entomb
2 Collective Brutality
2 Cabal Therapy
2 Fatal Push
1 Thoughtseize
1 Raven's Crime
1 Crop Rotation
1 Toxic Deluge

Other (4)
3 Mox Diamond
1 Mirri's Guile

Sideboard (15)
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Duress
1 Chains of Mephistopheles
1 Crop Rotation
1 Lost Legacy
1 Garruk Relentless
1 Pithing Needle
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Bontu's Last Reckoning
1 Coffin Purge
1 Engineered Plague
1 Karakas