[Primer/Deck] Pox

[naynay666]

I love all the write-ups late and the discussions on Ritual, 1 mana discards and Bloodghast are all interesting. I did well last night and wanted to share it.

The list.
Recent changes: 2 New Karn, 2 MD NecroFiend, down 3 Rituals, up a Swamp & Maze…

1x The Abyss
2x Fatal Push
3x Innocent Blood
1x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Thoughtseize
2x Collective Brutality
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Smallpox
1x Toxic Deluge
2x Cursed Scroll
2x Phyrexian Totem
2x Karn, Scion of Urza
4x Liliana of the Veil
2x Liliana, the Last Hope
2x Necropolis Fiend
1x Maze of Ith
4x Mishra's Factory
4x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4x Wasteland
13x Swamp

Sideboard
2x Pithing Needle
2x Ensnaring Bridge
2x Extirpate
2x Bontu's Last Reckoning
2x Lost Legacy
3x Leyline of the Void
1x Nether Void
1x Night of Souls' Betrayal


Rd1 Bant Blade
Game 1: Mulled to 5, missed 2-3 early land drops and never recovered.
Game 2: Epic back and forth battle that went on for quite some time. Early Clique saw 3 lands, Bridge, LotV, Toxic Deluge and Bontu’s Last Reckoning. He sent Lily to the bottom and I got an Innocent Blood instead. Fired it off and answered a bunch of bodies after that. Answered two Jaces with Cursed Scroll and Fiend on back to back turns. Had to run through board wipes early and 1 for 1 the rest of the game. An early Sylvan Library kept him in the game until I found Karn to keep up. Game ended when my locked out opponent scooped in order to try for a game 3.
Game 3: I stabilized at 4 life with Needle on Bskull, both Lily’s, Necropolis Fiend & a Cursed Scroll. My opponent had all 3 equipment, no hand, 3 lands and 35 life. Active player turn 0.

In: 2 Bridge, 2 Bontu’s & 2 Pithing Needles.
Out: IOK, 2 Hymn, 2 CoBru & a Smallpox.

0-0-1

Rd2 Death & Taxes
Game 1 & 2: I got to say “Push your Mom” more than once. Steady stream of creatures met a steady stream of kill spells. Allowed opponent to hit 3 bodies before a boardwipe followed by 2-3 Walkers at a time. I did accidentally swing 3 Mishra’s into 2 Jitte counters when I had a Night of Soul’s Betrayal out. It didn’t make a difference in the outcome but it was a little disheartening.

In: Night of Soul’s Betrayal & 2 Bontu’s.
Out: 2 Hymn’s & a Smallpox.

1-0-1

Rd3 Soldier Stompy
Game 1: Opponent mulled to 5 but still had Chalice on One. Early Smallpox and Hymn to Tourach was enough to stay on top of the game until he scooped to Walkers. Liliana the Last Hope was the MVP. She picked off bodies and forced the scoop.
Game 2: Plains, Swamp, Port, Waste your Port, Port, Waste your Port. Thoughtsneeze snagged a Supression Field through a Chalice on One. 2 creatures, Cast LotV, edict, swing kill Lily play another body for 3 turns in a row. When the smoke cleared Liliana the Last Hope and Innocent Blood neutralized board so Mishra’s Factory could steal the Monarch. The next turn Karn came down and created crazy amounts of card advantage. Scoop to Last Hope Ultimate.

In: 2 Bontu’s
Out: IOK & a Innocent Blood

2-0-1

Rd 4 3-0 Food Chain opponent wanted to split and I did’t mind. Bug decks can be hard to keep up with and the combo aspect of it doesn’t make the matchup any easier. My deck and sideboard felt completely stacked against fair decks, and I lucked out by running into nothing but.

The Karn advantage is real. Flipped everything from double Swamps to double Veils. My opponent groaned with every uptick and the downticks were even better. I did run into situations where I was drawing too many cards to utilize Curse Scroll, but it was fine because I had a fist full of answers. Having 8 Walkers makes OG Lily edict much more recklessly and it’s wonderful. Liliana the Last Hope

Necropolis Fiend was always good but not always immediately castable. Having it in hand never messed me up but Nether Spirit would have been relevant more than once. Not having to pay attention to the graveyard was a nice bonus as well. Necrofiend ate a lot of creatures and swung through the air with the greatest of ease.

I think I am going to enjoy taking a break from Rituals. Recent arguments against them have merited testing. Maze of Ith is AWESOME.

[aslidsiksoraksi]

I love all the write-ups late and the discussions on Ritual, 1 mana discards and Bloodghast are all interesting. I did well last night and wanted to share it.

The list.
Recent changes: 2 New Karn, 2 MD NecroFiend, down 3 Rituals, up a Swamp & Maze…

...

The Karn advantage is real. Flipped everything from double Swamps to double Veils. My opponent groaned with every uptick and the downticks were even better. I did run into situations where I was drawing too many cards to utilize Curse Scroll, but it was fine because I had a fist full of answers. Having 8 Walkers makes OG Lily edict much more recklessly and it’s wonderful. Liliana the Last Hope

Necropolis Fiend was always good but not always immediately castable. Having it in hand never messed me up but Nether Spirit would have been relevant more than once. Not having to pay attention to the graveyard was a nice bonus as well. Necrofiend ate a lot of creatures and swung through the air with the greatest of ease.

I think I am going to enjoy taking a break from Rituals. Recent arguments against them have merited testing. Maze of Ith is AWESOME.

Nice work!!! I really do think Karn is a great option for us. Boring comparison, but it's our Jace, we can finally be a big-boi control deck with a card draw engine. And I'm glad you're liking trying Fiend out, I feel like in a fair meta he's just a monster. Maze has been good too, I'm glad i finally got around to adding it in. Pox feels really good in fair-town lately, I'm loving it, and it's extra good against non-blue fair decks where you just attrition them out and then they start drawing blanks while staring down Lili/Fiend/Scroll. Sucks you had to draw the first match though, you clearly had it wrapped up. I'll call it a 3-0

@nether void / scroll non-bo: I have played 2-3 scrolls with 1x void for a long time and never had a problem. i can kind of see why it could be problematic, but scroll also gives you something to do under the void, and you can always throw spells into it to clear out your hand if you want. obviously scroll works extra well with LotV, but barring that or smallpox, you'd be playing spells to clear the hand anyway.

I do like that list Mr. Safety linked, it seems more or less classic and I love Beseech package (should we try the Mastermind package??). Buried Alive/Bloodghast is awesome too, though I think it fits in a more aggressive build. The Bloodghast player who's been putting up top8s hasn't been playing Buried Alive... maybe entomb plus a minor graveyard package could be good? Vengeful Pharoah was discussed, Worm Harvest is a thing...

@ cutting smallpox - this is a possibility. there is a monoblack control decklist in the Developing forum I think. for us I think smallpox is our defining card and really is one of the best we have; breaking it's symmetry and exploiting its effect on opposing mana bases is the defining feature of our decks. in a world where delver wants to operate on 2-3 lands and a DRS, a single smallpox can just wreck them completely. So I dunno, I've thought of going pox-less/light as well, since we can play more of a big-black style (i've seen it especially in Leyline/Helm lists that need to get to 5 mana), but I think we give up too much.





Lately I've been inspired by this Lake list (http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=18983&d=319416&f=LE). I'm thinking of trying out some stuff with Braids + Bitterblossom + therapy. Here's a quick draft, let me know what y'all think:

3 Braids, Cabal Minion
1 Grave Titan

3 Liliana of the Veil
2 Liliana, Death's Majesty
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Karn, Scion of Urza

1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Umezawa's Jitte

4 Bitterblossom

3 Hymn
4 Therapy
4 Smallpox
2 Fatal Push
2 Innocent Blood
2 Inquisition of K

4 wasteland
2 Lake of the Dead
3 Urborg, Tomb of our Fearless Leader
1 Cabal Pit
1 Maze of Ith
1 Dunes of the Dead
13 Swamp

Lots of token producers (BB, Karn, LiliDM, Grave Titan) + Braids should produce a kind of smokestax kind of lock, and even without her we can leverage tokens as inevitability-type clocks and therapy fodder. Any suggestions? Not sure if I want rituals here to get to the big spells faster without a Lake...

Also Dunes of the Dead seems like a spicy little thing to play with, good with Smallpox, but also good with Braids.

[Hardcore]

Blossombraids with jitte is viable. I lost to one the other day. It is the enchantment and equipment that are the key cards there; both as strength and weakness. Controlling life loss is critical.

[aslidsiksoraksi]

Blossombraids with jitte is viable. I lost to one the other day. It is the enchantment and equipment that are the key cards there; both as strength and weakness. Controlling life loss is critical.

would you recommend more than one Jitte?

[Hardcore]

Absolutely.

You could also splash white for sfm and lingering souls.

[naynay666]

I love Bloodghast but not necessarily as a 4 of. It makes DRS and Surgical Extraction a lot better when there are more targets. I do love the idea of a small Entomb package though- Raven's Crime and Coffin Purge are both gnarly. Vengeful Pharaoh also seems like a party.

The Bitterbraids lists look like a lot of fun and a good way to switch it up at a weekly. I used to run a Bitterblossom in the side during the SDT days and it never disappointed. I should pick up a few more.

[ronco]

The downside I see with the bloodghast plan is they can't block. So your only real defense are the factories or tombstalker (or other delve creature of your choice).

Is 8 rack considered a different deck than this? I'm starting to pick up lili's for this deck, but in the mean time i'm running an 8 rack version, 4 ghasts and 4 of little AND big pox and trying to decide on 2x trinisphere or cursed scrolls. The trinispheres work real well when they work, but with big pox i'm finding them to be a little bit of a liability later in the game (And it kind of fights my own deck with the 8 rack strategy). Maybe that's why no one runs them (big pox/3ball) in this build and i'm just behind on the times.

[Hardcore]

The downside I see with the bloodghast plan is they can't block. So your only real defense are the factories or tombstalker (or other delve creature of your choice).

Is 8 rack considered a different deck than this? I'm starting to pick up lili's for this deck, but in the mean time i'm running an 8 rack version, 4 ghasts and 4 of little AND big pox and trying to decide on 2x trinisphere or cursed scrolls. The trinispheres work real well when they work, but with big pox i'm finding them to be a little bit of a liability later in the game (And it kind of fights my own deck with the 8 rack strategy). Maybe that's why no one runs them (big pox/3ball) in this build and i'm just behind on the times.

When playing a rack version you WANT people to empty their hand. Thus wasteland,, Sinkhole, 3sphere etc are not that good. This make you weaker against some decks like Eldrazi and lands. Still, the rack/affliction have won me hundreds of games. The opponent rarely have an answer to them

[ronco]

would big pox be counter productive in that sense too by getting 1/3 of their land, or is the life/discard/creature effect generally worth it? I'd say it is still worth, but I haven't made a lot of runs with this build.

[Hardcore]

No, big pox is essential. Resolving multiples is what you want.

[ronco]

Thanks!

For those looking to pick up pieces at a discount, ebay has 15% off purchases of 50 or more through 6PM CST (4PM PST).

details:
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Only for certain countries, max discount of $100, and its a 1 time use only, so be mindful of your checkouts. Just fill your cart with goodies, checkout, then add this total, then pay after the discount applies. Picked up a chains and some lili's with this.

[naynay666]

...ebay...

Damn. I bought a playlet of Judge Mishra's the day before this sale.

[Hardcore]

I have played much online lately, at Untap.in, and this deck look stable.


4 shrieking affliction
4 Bloodghast
4 nihilith
1 buried alive
2 liliana, the last hope

4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Collective Brutality
4 Smallpox
4 Pox
1 Beseech the Queen
3 liliana of the veil
4 dark ritual

4 bloodstained mire
1 polluted delta
4 marsh flats
13 Snow-covered Swamp




Sideboard


4 To the slaughter
4 Engineered plague
4 Leyline of the void
3 Darkblast

[naynay666]

4 shrieking affliction
4 Bloodghast
4 nihilith
1 buried alive
2 liliana, the last hope
4 Pox
1 Beseech the Queen

This seems fun to jam.

I have no Nihilith experience as it dies to all 8 poxes and never really seemed that impressive. I suppose the synergy comes from blowing up/out 4-6 pieces of cardboard to unsuspend him outta nowhere.

Just a suggestions, but those 4 slots could be a place to fit in 2 Scourge of Nel Toth, a Vengeful Pharaoh and another Buried Alive. The Dragon seems like a beater and the Pharaoh takes care of that whole "can't block" problem the Bloodghasts have.

Is there any reason for 4 Afflictions and no Racks? A 2/2 split helps with Surgical, Echoing Truth or Detention Sphere.

[Hardcore]

This seems fun to jam.

I have no Nihilith experience as it dies to all 8 poxes and never really seemed that impressive. I suppose the synergy comes from blowing up/out 4-6 pieces of cardboard to unsuspend him outta nowhere.

Just a suggestions, but those 4 slots could be a place to fit in 2 Scourge of Nel Toth, a Vengeful Pharaoh and another Buried Alive. The Dragon seems like a beater and the Pharaoh takes care of that whole "can't block" problem the Bloodghasts have.

Is there any reason for 4 Afflictions and no Racks? A 2/2 split helps with Surgical, Echoing Truth or Detention Sphere.

Good questions. The Nihilith is not the best creature in magic but, along with Bloodghast, it looks tailor made for Pox.

1. The correct way to run nihilith is generally to suspend him after some disruptions to the opponents face. It is usually more important to play that Hymn or Smallpox than to play a quick threat. OTOH, Nihilith can be suspended allready turn two if you are short of disruption to cast, or the opponent is not fast. This is a judgement call you make based on your experience.
   A bonus with suspend is peoples confusion over the rules; I am only required to remove counters in upkeep. All other times it is optional. This give me control over when to bring the monster into play. Adding to the confusion is that creatures cast from suspend has haste. (It doesn't say that on the card but on oracle) . That is icing on the cake. Then it has fear. Even Emrakul is afraid of him
   Being in exile protects the nihilith from pox effects, and when in play that protection is provided by Bloodghasts. This is why i only sac my nihilith when it is to my advantage; like when I want to Pox to do that final point of damage to win the game.
   
2. I have tried Scourge of nel toth, and Vengeful. You only need one of each if you play Buried alive. They are nice to pitch to Collective brutality too.
   They can be a bit slow, however, and I don't seem to need them. Still, if you like the idea of the Zombie Dragon that don't stay in the graveyard, go ahead! It is very cool and only takes up one slot in the deck. It should make a good blocker against Marit lage.
   
3. The Shrieking affliction do life loss which is of some utility against glacial chasm. The enchantment is black which make it a card to pitch with Contagion. (old school) It also tend to confuse people; keeping two cards in hand is only a illusory safety; one Smallpox and you will take 1+3 life loss. (many players fail to keep any cards in hand at all. Why they need to play that extra land and empty their hand i have no idea.)
   "Surgical, Echoing Truth or Detention Sphere" have never been a problem. (BTW, the only thing that people tries to surgical are the ghasts. That is no problem either because i run nine fetch lands.) Afflictions are the silent assassin.
   Also afflictions being black enchantment, rather than artifacts, make them look cool.
   

[Hardcore]

I have tested thought-knot seer one or two times. It doesn't suit my deck as the cap of mana cost for spells is at three. (I play Pox you know.) Besides I don't play any lands that provide colorless mana. I figured out the error of my ways before someone pointed it out to me
However I think it would work better in a smallpox shell. The mana requirements would be less of a problem and the discard bit is nasty.
I don't much like it but borrowing ideas and spells from all over the place is all the rage nowadays. Nic Fit with Storm and Depths components? Sure. DnT with blue spells, red spells, eldrazis etc etc. Yeah, yeah. We can do that too!

[kombatkiwi]

Shrieking Affliction is basically strictly better than The Rack now because it's much harder to kill an Enchantment than an Artifact (Grudge and K Command are both way more played than e.g. Detention Sphere or Meddling Mage so there's no reason to play a split and there's basically nothing that kills just enchantments)
The upside of The Rack was that it could kill planeswalkers but with the recent rule change it can't do that anymore

[naynay666]

I never considered Nihilith being an optional ability.

And awesome. I understand why Shrieking is better, especially after the Planeswalker damage change.

I kinda feel bad for our little brothers in Modern grinding 8Rack. They recently got one of our hardest to answer cards in the form of JtMS, and about a month later lost the built in ability to fight him main deck.

[Hardcore]

I will try To The Slaughter tomorrow. The art is terrible but a card to use against Jace and marit lage will be worthwhile. I wonder what modern players will do.

[aslidsiksoraksi]

Tried a Braids Bitterblossom list tonight. Overall not that impressed, playing more expensive cards makes the deck feel clunky and the smallpoxes that much worse. Bitterblossom feels ok without Braids, but so slow. Overall 2-2, beat Maverick and Esper Delver, lost to Omnishow and Aggro Loam (both matches I lost are just generically horrible matchups anyway, so hey).

Might keep trying it out just for kicks

Here's what I ran, for reference:

3 Braids

4 Bitterblossom

3 LotV
2 Liliana, Death's Majesty
1 LilH
1 Karn

4 Hymn
4 Smallpox
3 Therapy
2 Inquisition
2 Push
2 Blood
2 Dark Ritual

1 Crucible
1 Jitte

10 Swamp
4 Factory
4 Wasteland
4 Urborg, Tomb of our Fearless Leader
1 Maze
1 Cabal Pit

Any advice welcome. Much love to the Pox fam