[Primer/Deck] Pox

[kombatkiwi]

They are playable for the more controlish variants. Those not running Pox, but stuff like trinisphere.
Otoh, it happen against some decks that you Pox and discard them down to nothing, and cards like torment of scarabs are very powerful then.
So... Time will tell.

If you discard them down to nothing then Torment of Scarabs will deal 3 damage per turn, ie. it becomes The Rack for 4 mana, unless they would rather sacrifice a permanent than lose life, in which case it's worse than The Rack because you are giving them the choice.

In matchups where you can't reliably discard their hand e.g. vs Loam this card isn't much better because then it just becomes a 1-sided Necrogen Mists that your opponent doesn't care about.

[Fjaulnir]

My opinion is the same as what kombatkiwi wrote above. Except against Chalice, The Rack does everything this card does but better


I played a 43 player tournament with Pox today (6 rounds of Swiss) and came in 4th place, good for a Savannah and 3 Modern Masters 2017 boosters.



The list I played:
Mainboard (60)

26 Lands
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Polluted Delta
1 Rishadan Port
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
10 Swamp
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland

2 Creatures
2 Tombstalker


27 Other spells
2 Cursed Scroll
3 Dark Ritual
2 Fatal Push
2 Hymn to Tourach
2 Innocent Blood
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Nether Void
1 Ratchet Bomb
2 Sinkhole
4 Smallpox
4 Thoughtseize
2 Toxic Deluge

5 Planeswalkers
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Ob Nixilis Reignited

Sideboard (15)

1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
4 Dark Confidant
1 Chains of Mephistopheles
1 Damnation
1 Dark Ritual
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Pithing Needle
3 Surgical Extraction


Tabernacle, Chains and Ensnaring Bridge didn't do much (and didn't draw Cage the 1 game I sided it in), other than that most cards served their purpose today.
I *really* liked the Confidant sideboard, I brought them in in 5 of my 8 rounds even! (against Esper Stoneblade, Grixis Control, UW Helm Rip combo, UB Standstill and Topless Miracles) and 2 of the 4 against Death n Taxesm so 5,5/8 even
If I had had him in my opening hand g3 in the semifinals I might have even won that as well, but other than that he won me a lot of games when I *did* draw him.


R1 against Esper Stoneblade (2-0)
I generally consider this a bad matchups, as lingering souls + Jace + batterskull are a living hell to deal with. Fortunately game 1 I can keep him off Jace mana long enough, and can Dark Ritual out a Nether Void while stuck on 2 mana vs his 3 mana. He has Jace and Skull in hand but never gets to cast him while I draw a 4th land for Cursed Scroll and can start beating him with that + Mishra.

Game 2 Confidant draws me just deep enough while attacking him with Confi + 2 Mishra vs his True-Name + Lingering Souls counterattacks. His clock is faster so he doesn't leave blockers. On the turn before I die, confi flips me another land (Urborg) and the next card is Damnation, talk about perfect timing. My Mishra's finish him off.



R2 vs Grixis Delver (2-0)
I can take out his Pyromancers game 1 which are his best cards vs me, and game 2 he starts with Volcanic, Delver. I Dark Ritual - Thoughtseize to make the way clear for a Smallpox, see he has Ponder DRS DRS Angler Angler, so don't have to think a sec to take Ponder + cast Smallpox. He never concedes after not drawing land for 2 turns while I develop a Liliana or something like that.



R3 vs Grixis Control with basics, Jace VP, Anglers and YP. (2-0)
Game 1 he floods out at around 8 mana which sucks, I also have like 8 mana but at least mine do something else, like attack (Mishra) + draw me extra cards (Sea Gate W) which win me the game. I make a misplay though, opponent has 5 mana up (including uncracked fetches) and 1 card in hand, I have enough mana for Rishadan Port + Ob Nixilis but didnt think about him having hardcast FOW so I don't mainphase 1 Port a land to cast Ob Nixi mainphase 2. So he can counter that but fortunately it doesn't cost me the game.

Game 2 we go a bit back and forth between him killing my Confidants and me ticking up Liliana, the Last Hope to kill Young Pyromancers and stuff. He draws Angler and starts killing Lili, we are both getting at a low life total but with lots of lands, and Sea Gate Wreckage again draws me like 2-3 extra cards this game to draw a Smallpox just in time to kill Angler and have free reign with my Factory to kill him.



R4 vs Death n Taxes. (0-2)
Game 1 I start with turn 1 discard, he has 1 land 2 Vials Thalia Flickerwisp so I take the Thalia as taking Vial wouldn't do enough if he had a second. I have turn 2 Sinkhole for his Cavern but Vial is just unbeatable for Pox, especially after he topdecks Recruiter into Stoneforge Mystic (he had already topdecked a 3rd Vial)

Game 2 I open with 2 lands in hand + Dark Confidant so that seems enough mana + draw options. He opens with SFM for Sword of Fire and Ice and after I Peedle SoFaI he drops Sword of Light and Shadow which I also have to Peedle. Bob draws me Tabernacle (makes no mana :( ) and Smallpox, opponent has now a Thalia + Rishadan Port and a Karakas up (he has Wastelanded my 2nd mana/my Wasteland) so I can't Innocent Blood nor cast anything else.
I die to Thalia + Mom beats while only drawing Urborg (giving me 3 mana due to Tabernacle now being turned on; but Thalia + Port still reduce that to effectively 1 mana)
At the moment where I die, I have drawn 6 of the 7 cards I sided in but to no avail.

I don't think I did anything wrong here, not drawing any mana for 4 turns + 3 Dark Confidant Triggers = 7 cards, in a deck with 26 mana lands is just unlucky.



Round 5 vs UW RIP Helm. (1-2)
Game 1 he lands a RIP just a turn after I tick up Ratchet Bomb to 3. He tricked me into doing that by casting Back to Basics first - I am at 1 mana (Wasteland) after he Wasted my Urborg. He then proceeds with Energy Field + Luminarch Ascension, which I actually have no way of beating after my ratchet bomb went up to 3. Except for Liliana -6 maybe, but after I topdeck a 2nd Tombstalker vs his RIP I concede.

Game 2 I open with 3 Dark Confidants in my opener so I start Thoughtseizing him into turn 2 Dark Ritual 2x Confidant. They keep drawing disruption and even more relevant, attack for 4 a turn while he has no removal.

Game 3 I lose due to a sideboarding mistake. I had left 1 Toxic Deluge in, instead of taking all 3 Surgicals in. The reasoning was I was (irrationally) scared of the Angel tokens from Luminarch even if I shouldn't have as it only works with Energy Field on the table, and I also suspected him of having a Mentor sideboard after everyone boards out removal cuz his maindeck has no creatures. Turns out he did have Mentors in SB, but didn't board him in against me also because of RIP I didn't take more than 1 Surgical, but of course as RIP is part of his combo I should just try to discard RIP or Helm and surgical it before he can exile the GYs ;)

Anyway, the game was a bit like this: turn 1 he fetches Flooded Strand. I Thoughtseize him, take Counterspell so he can't counter my turn 2 Bob. I have Confidant TS Toxic Deluge in my hand, he has Force + no blue card in hand and 1 land + 2 Flooded Strands. If Deluge had been the extra Surgical I could have Surgicalled the Flooded Strands and make it very hard to reach Helm of Obedience mana. (also he had brainstormed before the TS, so I could have messed up his "leave a protected card on top" move).
I proceed to drop Bob, draw into more discard but he Fows my next Thoughtseize to protect his RIP, reaches 4 mana and drops Helm. Confi doesn't find my Peedle so I concede.



Round 6 vs UB Landstill (2-0)
Most relevant game 1 was Thoughtseizing his Crucible the turn before he could play it to recycle Wasteland + Mishra which could be unbeatable. He and his Jace die to Cursed Scroll and some other stuff.

Game 2 I brought in Bobs and 1-2 Surgical; most interesting was testing the waters for Ob Nixilis by Surgicalling his Mishra first, I knew from earlier that he had FOW but not yet a blue card 1 turn earlier. He took the bait, FOWed it to save his wincons and I played Ob Nix. I put him up to 9 or 10 counters before ultimating him, by that time I had Needled his Jace and his Liliana was irrelevant even at 6 counters. Just can't beat the 4 dmg/turn from an Ob Nix Emblem when at 12 with a slow control deck in topdeck mode



Made top 8 as only person with 4-2! My tiebreakers were great (around 73%) + there were 9 people with 4-1 so 1 got downpaired against me and the 2 others with lowest resistance couldn't draw because if I lost, my opponent would jump over them and 1 of them would miss top 8.



QF vs UR Delver (2-1)
Some back and forth of Delvers, Swiftspears and burn spells vs sacrifice effects, lose game 2 due to 2 Mishra's getting Smashed to Smithereens. Win game 3 due to resolving a Nether Void with my 1 Factory + Tabernacle vs his 2 Swiftspears and 3 mana only, and me at 12 while he at 4. He made a misplay though (playing only Delver some turns earlier and not yet Swiftspear, so I could Innocent Blood the Delver as his only creature I couldn't beat with Mishra)


SF vs Topless Miracles (1-2)
He's on the play and starts with Volcanic, Portent, shuffle.
As I have a bunch of lands, I see fit to Wasteland him because his shuffle of Portent could mean he's land screwed. Turns out it was his only land until turn 4?, so I drop a Liliana, the Last Hope turn 3 off a Dark Rit. I also had Lili ot Veil, but I knew a control deck could never beat Lili Hope Emblem whereas Lili Veil would just make him sac 2 lands if it ever ultimated. I made sure to discard his Council's Judgment and he concedes a few turns later when he realises the Emblem already makes 2 tokens the turn you play it.

Game 2 I end up dying to a Jace while I have no pressure on the board. I try a bit with Lili Veil, but she doesn't match up against Jace + Mentor eventhough I kill the first Mentor army with Damnation.

Game 3 on the play I board in Dark Rits again as I realise Card Advantage is not the axis I can win on, while playing turn 1 Confidant before they had a chance to set up disruption through Ponder/Portent is my best shot.
I keep a hand of Swamp Wasteland Dark Rit 2x TS Hymn Surgical - boarded in Surgical due to same above reason about card advantage - randomly taking his Plows or Mentors seemed worth it.
I knew it was a risky keep, but mulliganning on the play vs Predict Miracles seemed like a losing proposition too so I knew my chances were bad but if I topdecked Confidant I'd probably win.

Turn 1 Ritual Thoughtseize take his STPlowshares (he has 4 land STP Flusterstorm Clique), Hymn takes a land + Clique. He Flusterstorms my second Thoughtseize but I draw another one so he Brainstorms in response. I see a hand of 3 lands so I Surgical his Brainstorm. Again a high risk, high reward play; bad card disadvantage, but I could shuffle away his 2 protected cards from the top.
Now we're both in topdeck mode and I know his topdecks are better (because he has a cantrip deck) but it was my best chance at the moment, letting him keep his Ponder + Snapcaster on top (as I could see with Surgical) would have lost me the game as well.

I waste him to keep him off Jace mana, but he still topdecks Jace and I lose to Jace into Mentor again while I draw nothing at all.




Still on average happy with the day for playing an inconsistent tier 3 deck like Pox, went 5-3 in matches and 12-7 in games. Made too many misplays but I haven't practiced enough and my opponents made misplays too so that evens out

[OmniStrata]

If you discard them down to nothing then Torment of Scarabs will deal 3 damage per turn, ie. it becomes The Rack for 4 mana, unless they would rather sacrifice a permanent than lose life, in which case it's worse than The Rack because you are giving them the choice.

In matchups where you can't reliably discard their hand e.g. vs Loam this card isn't much better because then it just becomes a 1-sided Necrogen Mists that your opponent doesn't care about.

Rack is also less effective vs. Loam. In defense of the Scarabs however, it does do something The Rack doesn't. It generates card advantage. What's more, it's Abrupt Decay proof and will murder Jace or at least prevent his BS card advantage. If your opponent is just going to pay life to keep their board and hand, then that's a bolt to the dome every turn. A bolt that can be redirected at Jace or any other pesky planeswalker.

Unfortunately, it makes sense to drop it late game when life totals start to dip and I'd consider more akin to Nether Void, however, it's not really a true lock piece unless you're way ahead on board development and it's like a win-more nail in the coffin 4 cmc spell.

I suppose you could run 4 racks and one of these as a mega-rack.

[Mr. Safety]

I may be wrong in this, but Torment of Scarabs causes life loss, not damage. So I don't think it can be redirected to Jace/PW's (could be off on this, not sure on the ruling, but about 95% sure.) The Rack does damage, so it can be redirected to Jace/PW.

Punisher mechanics seem to be bad if you look at history. You have to make both halves of the punishing card work to your advantage at all times, and that's hard to do (this coming from someone that tried DESPERATELY to make Blood Clock/Umbilicus into a real deck long ago.) The only way I can think of is to have multiple instances happening for your opponent with only half, or none, of the instances happening for yourself (think Stasis/Vedalken Mastermind.)

[PirateKing]

I agree the opponent's choice of Torment of Scarabs will sink it's productivity in Pox. By the time you are solving for nonland permanents and cards in hand, you're in a pretty good spot that The Rack or Mishra's Factory should be seeing you through.

Torment of Hailfire seemed strong enough for consideration though. Early game they'd be unlikely to have many nonland permanents out so you'll Mind Twist their hand. As a late game top deck if they're properly Poxed into submission then hitting them by factors of 3 gets lethal fast.

[Mr. Safety]

I think because of the 'fair' way Pox uses Dark Ritual makes this other Torment card better. I would want 4 Dark Ritz for sure if I committed to this card. It definitely has an effect Pox is looking for, better than Torment of Scarabs. If I am reading correctly, the choice is 3 life UNLESS they discard a card or sacrifice a permanent. What I'm unsure about is if they can still decide to discard a card even if their hand is empty. If so, it will be difficult to pull off late game when Pox has already put them in topdeck mode. They choose to discard, lose no life, it does nothing. On the upside, it scales up REALLY WELL. If you live the dream and they have 3 cards in hand you can get some mix of damage/discard. Three life per X is an incredible rate of return and makes the discard option sometimes the more agreeable pick. When you consider Liliana's Caress/Megrim effects have always been 2 life for a discard, 3 is a definite upgrade.

EDIT: I fixed a ton of redundancy/bad grammer.

[PirateKing]

Based on the rulings for Remorseless Punishment if they have no hand and no nonlands out, X=three damage. So yeah, pretty good rate of return.


Target opponent loses 5 life unless that player discards two cards or sacrifices a creature or planeswalker. Repeat this process once.

The player can’t choose to discard two cards unless he or she has at least two cards in hand. Similarly, that player can’t choose to sacrifice a creature or planeswalker unless he or she controls one. This means that if the target opponent doesn’t have two cards in hand and doesn’t control a creature or planeswalker, that player will lose 5 life and then lose 5 life again.

[Mr. Safety]

That's an entirely different ballgame then! I feel that this could easily be slotted into the deck. At the least its a better Mind Shatter, at best it can be a better Pox in the lategame (and that's really saying something!) It could even be a finisher if we sandbag a dark ritual or two (also making them *not* dead late game.)

Pox is already a BDSM experience, and now we have a new twisted dildo to play with.

[MrFrowny_]

Pox is already a BDSM experience, and now we have a new twisted dildo to play with.

That's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard.

[Mr. Safety]

Based on the rulings for Remorseless Punishment if they have no hand and no nonlands out, X=three damage. So yeah, pretty good rate of return.


Target opponent loses 5 life unless that player discards two cards or sacrifices a creature or planeswalker. Repeat this process once.

I didn't even realize Remorseless Punishment was a card. Looking at Torment, it's obviously better because for the same payment you get 3 activations rather than 2. Yes 5 life is more than 3, but that's not the primary role it would play. Primarily it would be a one-sided Pox effect early/mid game with the potential for a late-game Fireball effect. Honestly, this is a black way to deal with Jace if they are hellbent. If they take a ton of life and save their Jace then it could make Jace too slow for them to beat you with him.

[Claymore]

Remoreless - 3BB: 4 discards, 10 life, or 2 creatures/walkers

Torment of Hailfire - 3BB: 3 discards, 3 non-land permaments, or 9 life

Mix and match of course, but that's the max of each mode.

[Mr. Safety]

Remoreless - 3BB: 4 discards, 10 life, or 2 creatures/walkers

Torment of Hailfire - 3BB: 3 discards, 3 non-land permaments, or 9 life

Mix and match of course, but that's the max of each mode.

Thanks for that...I missed the discard 2 cards part of Remorseless. The only upside for Torment is potential for hitting an extra permanent (and it's still ok at 4 mana, whereas Remorseless will always cost 5.) Scaling up I think is still the best part of it. It's sort of like comparing Pox to Death Cloud.

[PirateKing]

I mean taking a summer holiday to Magical Christmasland, what Torment of Hailfire does that Remorseless does not is offer answers to enchantments or artifacts that monoblack is historically weak to. Yeah I'm sure they'll do everything they can to not give you what you want, but if X is big enough they won't have a choice.

Problem is, what would be our ideal X? Turn 4 X=2 seems underwhelming, powering it out with DRit seems cool but is it wise to plan a card around having acceleration? Late game haymaker seems neat, but unless we're flooding out I seem to finish games with 4~5 lands anyway. Pox does so much and only for

[Mr. Safety]

I play a singleton Raven's Crime so mid-late game flood doesn't affect me as often (but also creates tension; I couldn't play Cursed Scroll alongside RCrime, and Scroll seems fairly important in certain metagames.) I am thinking if I put one of these Torments in here it would, out of necessity, have to take big Pox's spot. I've been a little underwhelmed by Sinkhole lately also, cutting down to 3 and still playing fine. That's another spot to squeeze in a copy. Which brings the discussion/theory-crafting to the next part: if any, how many to play? 1? 2? I don't think the power level is good enough to play more than 2 honestly. Smallpox is the king of efficient resource denial, and this card in comparison is anything but efficient. It's simply BIGGER.

EDIT: I don't think we could count on either Remorseless or Torment to actually deal with non-creature permanents (enchantments, pws, etc.) It's a nice effect, but I wouldn't cut any amount of Ratchet Bombs out of my sideboard.

[PirateKing]

EDIT: I don't think we could count on either Remorseless or Torment to actually deal with non-creature permanents (enchantments, pws, etc.) It's a nice effect, but I wouldn't cut any amount of Ratchet Bombs out of my sideboard.

Hah no I wasn't saying that should be it's purpose, I was just making an aside that here is a black card that has the potential to get an artifact or enchantment off the table. The closest example killed creatures. Recent cards have shown black to be okay at outright ending planeswalkers, but this is a modern black card that can kill an artifact. All our best answers before have been artifacts themselves. Just an interesting note.

[Mr. Safety]

Right on.

[Claymore]

Was going through the old Obscure Cards thread, found Bosium Strip. Would that have use here? Pox seems to use a lot of removal spells. The likes of Tombstalker could be useful to trim the yard too.

Probably too expensive to repeatedly use, but thought it was interesting.

[OmniStrata]

I may be wrong in this, but Torment of Scarabs causes life loss, not damage. So I don't think it can be redirected to Jace/PW's (could be off on this, not sure on the ruling, but about 95% sure.) The Rack does damage, so it can be redirected to Jace/PW.

Punisher mechanics seem to be bad if you look at history. You have to make both halves of the punishing card work to your advantage at all times, and that's hard to do (this coming from someone that tried DESPERATELY to make Blood Clock/Umbilicus into a real deck long ago.) The only way I can think of is to have multiple instances happening for your opponent with only half, or none, of the instances happening for yourself (think Stasis/Vedalken Mastermind.)

*facepalm*, no you're right, life loss can't be prevented normally, but it also can't be redirected either. However, we shouldn't ignore the fact that the Scarabs is either a 4 turn clock (should you cast a big Pox and hit with a threat) or a card advantage engine that kills things B spells normally can't kill.

Torment of Hailfire is a mighty fine card but I fear the Force of Will. Then again, if we drop it late game when we're all hellbent, then it'd be a shining catastrophe of doom for our foes. I could actually run it for a LOT of X cause I'm a Crucible advocate.

All things considered, I'd probably just buy both playsets but my theory is this:
Torment is a nuke card for games that don't go too long and has an immediate effect on your enemy, barring counterspells.
Scarabs will wreck their board state if they're almost dead or kill them if they have no board. If Pox does its thing, the latter is more likely. Early game scarabs powered out by Dark Ritual can be damaging to their mental and physical states.

[Hardcore]

The new card Leave // Chance looks sick. I expect lots of combo abuse from it.

[Mr. Safety]

The new card Leave // Chance looks sick. I expect lots of combo abuse from it.

It certainly seems to have a powerful effect, but I'm not sure which combo deck would want it. You would definitely want some number of cards to return to hand, and then you could get a really decent exchange of bad cards in hand into new cards. Dredge? IDK...it seems powerful, but my ignorance of combo decks makes my mind blank to what it could do.