I'm going to test the following this weekend:
4 Sphere of Resistance
3 Collective Brutality
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Bloodghast
4 Exploration
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Entomb
1 Molten Vortex
1 Sylvan Library
1 Crucible of Worlds
4 Life from the Loam
4 Smallpox
4 Mox Diamond
4 Bayou
4 Wasteland
4 Ghost Quarter
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Maze of Ith
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Barbarian Ring
2 Badlands
1 Taiga
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Sheltered Thicket
2 Wooded Foothills
A cross between pox and lands.
I've thought about taking loam pox in this direction before. please let us know how it turns out!Originally Posted by arj
So for that style deck I would probably want 2 more lands and at least two more fetches and a cabal pit somewhere in the mana base. I also don't want the tireless tracker in the main and am not sold on the molten vortex (with only 3-4 red sources) or the sylvan library (the meta has sped up enough that I don't think it earns a spot in the main when you can already outgrind most decks)
If I was looking at this style I would start with the jund depths lost that did well at a classic a couple weeks back.
Great losses often bring only a numb shock. To truly plunge a victim into misery, you must overwhelm him with many small sufferings."
—Ratadrabik of Urborg
I've been altering a W/B Pox brew that Tamura Shigeyuki used a while ago. Still tinkering around with a sideboard plan, but this is the main board I'm currently rolling with.
3x Bloodghast
2x Tombstalker
4x Dark Ritual
3x Fatal Push
4x Smallpox
4x Thoughtseize
4x Lingering Souls
3x Vindicate
2x Hymn to Tourach
1x Collective Brutality
1x Toxic Deluge
4x Liliana of the Veil
6x Swamp
4x Wasteland
4x Scrubland
4x Marsh Flats
4x Verdant Catacombs
1x Arid Mesa
1x Plains
1x Shambling Vents
The deck feels solid so far. I'm not sure if running Push over Innocent Blood is the right call yet. I'm also debating whether or not I should just run 3x Brutality instead of Hymn altogether. The flexibility is certainly nice, but Hymn has a raw power advantage. I've also considered cutting a Dark Ritual for a flex card, but I haven't really found a card that would be worth it yet.
Deck was a bit underwhelming. Sometimes its really explosive but other times I just draw the wrong cards. After playtesting, this is the tweaked list I'm going forward with:
4 Entomb
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Bloodghast
4 Exploration
3 Collective Brutality
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Crucible of Worlds
4 Life from the Loam
4 Smallpox
4 Mox Diamond
4 Bayou
4 Wasteland
3 Ghost Quarter
1 Glacial Chasm
3 Maze of Ith
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Cabal Pit
1 Barren Moor
3 Verdant Catacomb
1 Swamp
2 Dark Depths
2 Thespian's Stage
Lots of lists floating around! Many are intriguing though I'm trying to avoid reliance on the graveyard, a second color/use sort of any ritual/mox. Today I escaped with no game losses at my LGS!
Round 1: ANT 2-0
Game 1: Last time we met he 2-0'd me, so I'm ready for vengeance! Turn one (he's on the play) blind therapies for IoK and hits the 2 in my hand... I'm left with lands, Hymn, Collective. Next turn he puts himself to 1 with Ad Nauseum (flips Empty, Tendrils), and not having the kill concedes to the Collective Brutality. I will take it.
Game 2: I have a strong hand and strong draws. Inquisition, Chains, Null Rod, Lost Legacy on Tendrils, Tabernacle, Liliana lock this one up.
Round 2: BUG Delver 2-0
Devoured! Don't remember the details of these games well, Chains helped out game 1, with Racks killing in both games.
Round 3: Shardless BUG w/ Natural Order 2-0
Game 1: We both mulligan, he's on the play. Starts out with Visions perhaps, I start with a Rack (looks bad). Then Goyf. Collective brutality kills Goyf and snags Natural Order. We get into the midgame after Visions resolves, but I'm still able to keep pace. The Rack is chipping away, Natural Order makes Progenitus but Factories/Racks are able to race.
Game 2: He's on the play again, Deathrite meets Fatal Push to start things off. Inquisitions snag Pithing Needle and Shardless Agent to make way for Liliana. She kills Leovold before dying to abrupt decay. Eventually Liliana #2 is on 7 backed up by 2 factories, having dodged potential decays from the 2 Shardless Agents now in play. He is in the single digits, I let him choose between lands or agents. He chooses agents but can't recover in time.
Round 4: Burn 2-0
Game 1: I'm on the play on 6, he's on 7. I cast 2 hymns while being zapped down to 8. No racks in sight but smallpox keeps his potential limited while factory gets it done.
Game 2: Both on 7, Goblin Guide gives me some lands before meeting fatal push. It's not long before he is on empty with me around 6 life. Collective Brutality snags an uncastable Fireblast and gains me 2 life. Liliana and factory seal the deal.
This is the first time I've been able to play with Collective Brutality, and 2 seemed quite nice, wasn't disappointed. I was lucky enough this time against Storm, but this is a matchup I am concerned with. I was happy to survive resolved Ancestral Visions without Chains, this is also a potentially scary matchup.
I think Fatal Push is necessary, however foul it is aesthetically, to kill Deathrite and Young Pyromancer on a busy board. I'm also looking to go from 4/2 IoK/Thoughtseize to 2/4 ASAP. Leyline/Helm has failed me way too much recently so I'm back to a Surgical/Faerie split. The sideboard is tight, I would really like 2 Null Rod and certainly 2 Ratchet Bomb, but haven't been able to make that happen.
4x Liliana of the Veil
4x Inquisition
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Smallpox
4x Fatal Push
4x The Rack
3x Toxic Deluge
2x Ensnaring Bridge
2x Thoughtseize
2x Chains of Mephistopheles
2x Collective Brutality
4x Mishra's Factory
4x Wasteland
16x Swamp
1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
SB:
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Faerie Macabre
2x Diabolic Edict
1x Lost Legacy
1x The Abyss
1x Nether Void
2x Sphere of Resistance
1x Ratchet Bomb
1x Null Rod
2x Pithing Needle
Good job! I like your list. Haven't got the collective brutality work myself, but maybe sideboard?
"Pox early, Pox often, and Pox hard!" - Le_Lepreux
It's entirely plausible that part of your issue with storm (and quite possibly other fast combo decks as well) is that you have no acceleration to get your haymakers out quickly. Even a mox diamond to get a turn 2 Liliana after a turn 1 thoughtseize would likely improve the matchup noticeably. I do think that I would want one or two urborg with as many lands as you run that don't produce black, but that's just me getting squeamish about the mana math for once. I don't think it hurts to have access to 1-2 things that use the graveyard, as it actually has a tendency to get people overthinking, mis judging what matters, and mis-boarding if they don't know your actual list. I've always thought shardless was a very close and fun matchup that puts a lot of emphasis on experience with the matchup and the deck, so maybe I'm missing something, since it feels like a fair number of people don't like the matchup. Overall, nice list and congratulations on a flawless night.
Great losses often bring only a numb shock. To truly plunge a victim into misery, you must overwhelm him with many small sufferings."
—Ratadrabik of Urborg
Thanks! Good points. It's true I miss the explosiveness of ritual when facing storm, but not enough to include any in the list again yet, I'm going to abstain as long I can. Against non storm combo I feel pretty ok, they are easier to lock up since they aren't getting bailed out by past in flames. Totally agreed about light graveyard use. Surprisingly I haven't missed urborg at all in the few months since I've cut it.
Shardless has been absent from my local meta for a while, so my experience is limited to some online matches, and I was concerned that winning the game via the rack/factory configuration would be difficult. Looking forward to getting more reps.
@Hardcore you mean you haven't liked collective brutality yet? On paper its flexibility and ability to make dead cards useful was just what I wanted. In practice (though limited) it functioned as I hoped. Gonna play with 2 for a bit and see how it goes.
How necessary are Bitterblossoms in the board of the heavy Legends decks that win with Mishra's/Spawning Pool/Cursed Scroll/Phyrexian Totem? Any other alt win cons that are useful besides Bloodghast? They seem to also run Ensnaring Bridge, so almost seems that Racks would be better for creatureless win conditions.
Like this deck, is Bitterblossom just a hold over from Miracles age? - http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=15182&d=292071&f=LE
Bitterblossom is basically useful against any f the slower decks f the format. It can win games singlehandedly against leovold decks, shardless decks, delver decks and can buy very large swaths of time against lands, eldrazi, and death and taxes. It is still very powerful, but less universally so than it was when miracles was running rampant.
Great losses often bring only a numb shock. To truly plunge a victim into misery, you must overwhelm him with many small sufferings."
—Ratadrabik of Urborg
Jitte
"Pox early, Pox often, and Pox hard!" - Le_Lepreux
going back to the 4 chains list...
i just built this:
36 business cards
3 Liliana of the Veil (i own many but have 3 right now)
1 Nether Spirit
2 Chainer's Edict
4 Smallpox
1 Worm harvest
1 life from the loam
1 syphon life
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Chrome Mox (i own 2)
2 mox opal (i own 2)
3 Crucible of Worlds
4 Mox Diamond
2 Smokestack
1 Noetic Scales
4 Chains of Mephistopheles
1 The Abyss (i own one)
25 Lands
3 Ancient Tomb
2 Geier Reach Sanitarium
3 Mishra's Factory
4 Vault of Whispers
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland
4 Swamps
1 The Tabernacle pendrall vale
gonna have to play several matches to get the feel for my opening 7.
There are many ways to turn 1 a chalice.
Last edited by non-inflammable; 06-08-2017 at 11:40 AM.
Wrong forum for mono red stax
Great losses often bring only a numb shock. To truly plunge a victim into misery, you must overwhelm him with many small sufferings."
—Ratadrabik of Urborg
I deleted it, unfortunately there is no forum for mono red stax.
You can post it in the regular Stax thread, someone posted a red stax list today on there.I deleted it, unfortunately there is no forum for mono red stax.
"The enemy is getting too close! Quick! Inflate the toad!"
I tested my deck yesterday at the local tourney. As you may notice I had only two cabal therapies available at the time, and few fetches.
3 The Rack
4 Bloodghast
3 tombstalker
3 shrieking affliction
2 liliana of the veil
1 Kaya,ghost assassin
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
4 Pox
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 gitaxian probe
2 cabal therapy
2 toxic deluge
14 Swamp
4 bloodstained mire
1 polluted delta
1 blood crypt
1 dakmor salvage
1 Godless shrine
Sb
3 ratchet bomb
4 Engineered Plague
4 surgical Extraction
4 Backlash
My first opponent ran UR Delver. My starting hand was weird: probe, therapy, therapy, Inquisition, shrieking affliction and lands. If not for the win con it would be necessary to take a mulligan.
As it was my opponent's hand was: Daze, chain lightning, chain lightning, PoP, PoP and lands.
I was on the play.
Details of second game eludes me but I won that too.
Second opponent ran Twelve post. I got disheartened when thinking I had no cards in main that could stop him. My first hand was like a Bloodghast and a Hymn. Far too weak for the match up. My next six cards was lands and two Pox. Right, my deck can do THAT thing (doh! ) . The spell suddenly broken i proceeded to nuke us both in the traditional Pox fashion.
Second game I was a bit lucky i think. I had a surgical for cloudpost ready, but when sphere of resistance hit the table I was forced to cast it without the preferred target. I took a crop rotation instead. Soon a second sphere of resistance entered play, and I got more desperate for lands so I could cast my pox (it is pretty much game over if that deck can play a fatty). Still the beatdown killed him before he could find anything to do with his mana. Maybe the surgical won it for me.
Two wins was balanced by two losses. Of course.
The first was to a deck I feel favored against: Storm. Regrettably mulligans and weird draws was my due and no more need be said about that.
Lastly I met wrong opponent. You know that type of intelligent guy you tend to lose against whatever they play. This time he had an untested home brew abusing the enchantment Faith of the devoted, squee and lightning bolts (!).
My deck didn't do much. Embarrassing.
Afterwards I played against another home brew, a friend's soldier stompy deck. We got 3-3 (no sideboard ) which is OK for a deck that doesn't like hordes.
So what do I think? Lowering the mana curve make the deck play smoother, which was probably the main goal of the changes. Success on that count. Cantrips, cheaper spells and fetches makes it easier to get tombstalker in play. I will add four more fetches and perhaps a fourth stalker. A fourth probe maybe not; my final hand against the storm deck was three probes and two lands.
The added discard was nice but the usefulness varies with the opposition.
Stuff i may well test one day: Hatred in the sideboard .
To sum up: beats up delver decks, but not everyone play those:p
Last edited by Hardcore; 06-09-2017 at 02:52 AM.
"Pox early, Pox often, and Pox hard!" - Le_Lepreux
It looks like Reid Duke has picked Pox back up on MTGO. His list is very similar to his old builds with Waste Not and Fatal Push as the main new additions to the deck. He's also packing a set of Bobs in the sideboard that actually worked out quite well. It was definitely fun watching him play the deck again, so hopefully he posts some more videos.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MTGLegacy/c...3S&sh=367f3429
That's incredible. Assume it's for Depths?4 Backlash
I noticed the depths tech as well...pretty cool combo win actually, lol.
I am torn between building two decks right now, a traditional pox list (noted earlier in the thread) and a weird fun deck that plays bug colors and capitalizes on Sinkhole, Wasteland, Stifle, paired with Hex/Depths/Crop Rotation. With only shock duals and no FoW's it will be a fun deck only, but damn, it seems like a lot of fun.
For traditional Pox, how have people been approaching the actual card Pox? I am playing one in place of the 4th Liliana (because I only own 3.) I am also thinking about how I don't have Toxic Deluge (not that its difficult to acquire) and whether that should be a card that I invest in. Current sideboard goes like this:
4x Engineered Plague
2x Pithing Needle
3x Ratchet Bomb
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Nihil Spellbomb
2x Sun Droplet
As I'm just getting back into the Legacy scene, the sideboard is just a rough shot at a mixed metagame. The local meta seems fairly well developed with tier 1-2-3 decks all in the mix.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Reply With Quote