Quote Originally Posted by beez View Post
It was interesting to see your sideboard. What do you take out/put in for certain matchups? Are two Pithing Needles enough for the Countertop matchup? I have been flirting with using a Tainted Aether for a while as well, good to see you still like that. Maybe I will give it a try sometime.

What are your main Ratchet Bomb targets? Do you use Perish in any other matchup than elves? Is it really worth it if a deck only runs half green creatures like Maverick?

It looks like you run a lot of Spinning Darkness which could really be great in many matchups, though I guess you still have to pox the shamans and Bobs. Is part of the plan to exile the extra Nether Spirit if you draw the second? Though I guess there could be the occasion youhave one in play and the other one comes in on the upkeep. Seems like it could be tricky to time the Spinning Darkness correctly. Plays less well with Bloodghasts I suppose. One of the disadvantages of them.

Our decks are very similar and I suppose one could say traditional, but I am still experimenting with the Top, Dakmore Salvage, Bloodghast, Cruciable of Worlds engine/package/beatdown plan. It's graveyard reliance makes me a bit nervous, though. I love pitching Ghasts rather than 'Business' and casting two pox effects rather than pitching one to the other. But who knows maybe I'll come back to Jesus one day and just Entomb the Spirts for good measure, Spinning darkness away an extra copy and put the Spirit blocks and beats right from the start.
Never forget, sideboards are meta-based and when uncertain, there is also the 'blind' sideboard (4 of anti-aggro, combo, control, 3 Meta guesses/anti-yard). To answer your questions:

The most sideboard-able [sp?] cards in my version of Pox are Dark Ritual and Wasteland. Immediately after game one, I automatically know which of these must go. If you're not fighting a quick draw deck, Dark Ritual is an automatic out. Pox is a card advantage deck and the tempo you gain from Dark Rit I've found only necessary when you HAVE to double Hymn on turn two or Inqui+Hymn turn one, otherwise, Dark Ritual isn't what Pox really wants. Wasteland is a given. Lotsa basics? It's gone. I've got enough mana sources and the overall cmc of the deck is nice and low. You can't side both of them out though, lol. Most of the time, decks with mostly basics are hella fast anyway so Dark Rit stays. (Burn comes to mind among other mono-color aggro decks)

I only run one Needle. Ratchet Bomb does what Needle also does, but does a better job. My main Bomb targets are tokens [EtW combo, Dredge], and any hard targets like enchantments or artifacts. Most non-leyline targets will fall to the Bomb and if they Pithing my Bomb, my Liliana and other threats are happy. Ratchet Bombed a Jace the Mind Scuplter? Well yes, yes I have. ^_^

Perish targets? Elves, Tarmogoyf [oh yeah...], Knight of the Reliquary, Terravore, Progenitus , Sigarda, Host of Herons, Mongoose, DRS, Enchantress, Zoo, Tarmogoyf [oh wait], Noble Hierarch, Scavenging Ooze, Rhox Warmonk, Pridemage... derp derp etc. Perish is almost never dead in a meta with any creatures ^_^ If it hits 2 creatures, you generate card advantage and that's fine by Pox.

Spinning Darkness. Yes, it helps control the Yard and keep only 1 Nether Spirit in there. A free Lightning Helix? Hell yeah, ONLY in Pox. Can't hit players, but when you block their 4/5 Tarmogoyf with Nether Spirit and then follow up with a free Spinning Darkness, well, you get the idea. That's why I run only 2 Nether Spirits in the whole deck.

Going all graveyard dependent with Pox is fine, but you simply become easier to hate. One of my friends thought the Tormod's Crypt would stop me but after getting eaten by Factories, Liliana, and Cursed Scroll, the Crypts became a waste of time. I pretty much net-decked the Duke and did some of my own tweaking based on my meta. Pox built to make an opponent draw nothing useful is the best way to build it. You're the anti-everything deck so long as it's not Dredge or graveyard based.

Sensei's Top. Ah, I used to run that in Pox myself along with Dakmore Salvages to recover from my Poxes. However, since I'm against using fetchlands to reshuffle due to being mono-colored, the Top, by nature causes your draws to stink something fierce. True, you could just dredge away the junk but that demands a dredger and heavy reliance on the yard. But if you have the space, which I don't, I would say yes, include the Top. Sensei's Divining Top deck only hurts pox if you can't throw away your crap after 3-4 turns somehow.

Crucible Pox? Now you're trying to go the MANY non-basic lands route. You want to make your lands do something nasty. Cabal Pit, Wasteland, Factory, Quicksand, all become extremely dangerous card advantage if you land that Crucible. Sadly, the creatures in my meta were too fast for me to include it. Liliana + C. Scroll carried their weight better than my Crucible + goofy lands.

If you successfully cast a Big Pox, you should have timed it so that you can make a strong comeback, or just bury your foe that much faster. It makes a deck with fewer creatures kill faster so if you're a HEAVY aggro deck, I'd actually recommend against using it since your threats are strong enough as is. I always pitch smallpox and poxes to themselves, If I can't win off the back of 3 pox-like effects in a game, I'm probably dead.