[Deck] Loam Pox ft. Eumidian Hatchery

[PirateKing]

2025 Loam Pox

In an exercise of not going quietly into the night, I am writing a deck intro for Loam Pox featuring the new darling Eumidian Hatchery. Fresh off the heels of 2025 NA Eternal Weekend where Jacob Murray went on a tear to finish top 4 with a stunning debut of the deck. This deck leverages the devastating power of Smallpox to ruin your opponent while negating the symmetrical effects on yourself, even turning them into outright advantages. Combined with Life from the Loam, Urza's Saga & Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis, this deck can produce a tremendous amount of power on board while keeping the opponent stuck in a Turn 1 Groundhog Day of land-pass until they die. If watching the light drain from your opponent's eyes is something you're into, this might be the deck for you.

Threats of Loam Pox - aka how we win

Despite being a 25-27 land deck (more if you consider Mox Diamond), Loam Pox is a low resource deck. Every permanent is leveraging some advantage to further it's game plan. Mana curves stop hard at 3 and the deck isn't looking for more lands beyond that. Games are scrappy and require high quality threat assessment to avoid embarrassing losses to a 1-drop creature going coast to coast. Getting your various interlaced engines online quickly as you grind them out of the game is critical in the early turns. From there you can proactively disrupt their gameplan while maintaining a near constant barrage of must answer threats until they ultimately succumb. In no particular order, here are some ways you can expect to kill your opponent:

Urza's Saga

Urza's Saga's ability to produce 2 bodies per use while fetching Mox Diamonds and other silver bullet effects often yields 6-11 power on board. 1-ofs like Pithing Needle and Nihil Spellbomb can shore up problematic board states while Lavaspur Boots can push damage before the opponent can brace for it. Recurring Saga through Loam presents a never ending source of creatures that will eventually overpower your opponent unless they can challenge your graveyard or present their own win before that. Current Moon effect rulings freeze Urza's Saga at whatever chapter it's on currently, so a copy on chapter 2 becomes a never ending robot factory. Leverage this to your opponent's detriment. At this point in Legacy the power of Urza's Saga should be well documented to any established player.

Eumidian Hatchery

The card that catapulted Pox into relevance. An untapped on-color mana source that produces value on dying in the form of 1/1 black flying insects does just about everything you could ask from it. Once at 2-4 counters it can stall combat to force them to leave otherwise lethal attackers back lest they die from the crack back. At 6-8+ counters it become a lethal must answer problem for them with no easy solutions. The black color identity is valuable to casting Hogaak as well, representing a double threat of small flying creatures going wide and the large trampler going deep. Representing a "free" sacrifice to Smallpox or just as a target for your own Wasteland/Ghost Quarter powers this deck to it's current form.

Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis

Hogaak is a hard to answer finisher in the likes of Murktide Regent in blue decks. Once the initial flurry of spells and removal pass and the dust is settled, one or two hits with an 8/8 Trampler can be lights out. It's place as another way to break parity of Smallpox as a free discard makes it a key player in keeping the deck functioning despite the self-harming nature of the gameplay. Combined with Haste through Lavaspur Boots will challenge your opponents to find a Swords to Plowshares or some other exile based removal, while leaving them open to the swarm of smaller creatures from Hatchery and the medium sized Saga constructs.

Orcish Bowmasters

Depending on the state of the game, Orcish Bowmasters is 2 power or 20 power. It's use as a flash threat to punish Brainstorm is well documented, and any seasoned player will be aware when casting into 2 open mana. In addition to that layer of stress we can offer our opponents, its ability to produce the requisite colored creatures to cast Hogaak in a single card makes in relevant even in games where opponents never draw an extra card. Often games can become very close and a single point of damage can be the difference, so keeping your opponents fearful can force them to concede to suboptimal lines of play that can accrue you enough time to close out the game.

Support of Loam Pox - aka how we work

The name of the game is recursion. Any card worth using is worth using twice. Since the deck so aggressively uses it's own livelihood to punish the opponent, having a multitude of ways to replay or repurpose cards is key to not suffering from your own machinations. Early interaction protects you from cheap threats that can push you into a tempo disadvantage and move you to the midgame where our deck thrives. Keeping our opponents stuck on low to no resources let's us leverage our threats before they can recover. Recognizing your opponent's decision tree and carefully cutting off paths to lead them to a point they can't recover is a critical skill in a deck without safety valves of Ponder or Force of Will. These are some of the spells that will get you there:

Smallpox

One half of the deck's namesake, Smallpox is the key spell to keep the board growing out of our control. The symmetrical nature can dissuade some players, but recognize the entire deck is aimed at leveraging as much advantage possible. Our creatures are largely expendable, our cards in hand function just as well in the graveyard, and our lands can return to be replayed. Functioning as removal and land destruction without incurring any of the effect yourself can make this backbreaking for opponents. Casting it is not without skill, often just jamming it because you can will punish you just as much as you punish your opponent. A good rule of thumb is to have at minimum 2 of the 4 options be nonissue for you, either by having no creatures in play or discarding a card with Dredge. Sacrificing a Hatchery is an excellent use of Smallpox and why this deck functions so well today.

Life from the Loam

The second half of the deck's namesake. A paramount spell in the deck, it's ability to recur lands discarded or sacrificed while a valid card to be discarded as well makes it the MVP of the deck. Beyond helping us maintain a functioning manabase in the face of our own Smallpox, it enables us to use utility lands like Wasteland and Boseiju as recurring spells. Dredging Loam also functions to fill our graveyard to both find Hogaak and to assist casting him early. A majority of our games will revolve around casting, dredging and recasting Loam. Players unfamiliar with the Dredge mechanic should make efforts to practice not immediately drawing their card for the turn, these simple mistakes could be deleterious to the match.

Witherbloom Command

A modal spell that is never without two positive options. Mill target yourself can kickstart the game and open a variety of options. Tamiyo, Seasoned Scholar and Cori-Steel Cutter are current threats that are answered by Witherbloom Command. At sorcery speed, -3/-1 is often a dud, but has found use to cheat in combat against a Barrowgoyf or Atraxa and make the opponent's anticipated lifegain fall short of keeping them alive. Lastly, a simple drain 2 effect is always welcome. While never run as a 4-of, this card nevertheless functions well in the whole arc of our gameplan.

Mox Diamond

Mox Diamond is the rocket fuel that keeps the deck running at top speed despite constantly destroying itself. A reusable mana source and color fixer that survives Smallpox, the small cost of discarding a land is almost laughable in the face of our land recursion. In both early turns played from hand or as a target for chapter 3 of Urza's Saga you will rely on this card to keep you playing your game. Combined with the construct tokens, each copy can also represent 2-3 additional damage that will quickly add up over time. Unfortunately it represents the largest financial burden to the deck. Budget alternatives exist for dual lands, but no card can accomplish what Mox Diamond can in the deck. I suggest players seek out proxy-friendly stores or practice online, but this is a hurdle a paper player must eventually face.

Sideboard of Loam Pox - aka how we don't die

Loam Pox is at it's core a fair deck. Opponents who seem to cash in 3-4 mana on turn 1 to produce game winning effects will always be a challenge to any deck looking to resolve 2CMC Sorceries, no matter how well positioned they might otherwise be. Our sideboard has options to try an keep relevant against these faster decks and also includes some additional help against decks well suited to our slow grind of a game to avoid having our own gameplans turned against us. Typical inclusions of most sideboards will include the following:

Barrowgoyf

Barrowgoyf is on the high end of our curve, but it's ability to solo games against certain popular matchups makes it a necessary inclusion in our lists. Any deck that seeks to race on damage will be prioritizing removing this creature from play. Your opponents will be forced into bad blocks because a single hit connecting risks making their situation so much worse with a strong mill and potential value of another creature added to the board. Don't be surprised if decks like UR Cutter makes the whole game revolve around this card, it's their most dreaded answer against them.

Endurance

Our instant speed graveyard answer, with lots of upside. Casting it for the 3/4 body isn't unfeasible for us once the immediate combo threat has passed. It's a valid get off Once Upon a Time in an emergency, so make sure to fully count your outs if your opponent is speeding towards Thassa's Oracle. It's a well known answer of the format at this point, so don't expect your opponents to walk into an ambush in combat, at least not more than once in a match.

Force of Vigor

A premium pitch spell with the best of them, Force of Vigor answers many of our sore spots we can expect our opponents to target with their own sideboard hate. Blood Moon and graveyard replacements like Leyline of the Void and Rest in Peace both are ruinous to our gameplan, so a careful combination of informed plays around these risks and having answers prepared is critical to avoid getting locked out of the game. Some decks can utilize Urza's Saga as well as we can, so avoiding getting betrayed by our own tech is welcome as well.

Void Mirror

The rise of monobrown decks utilizing Vintage levels of mana production to maximize Kozilek's Command and Glaring Fleshraker necessitates a high quality response. While not prefect, Void Mirror offers the best option to shut such strategies down. Certain land's abilities to filter mana into any color can unlock their spells in a limited regard, and our own Hogaak's become uncastable in the meantime. Other options have similar pros and cons, Null Rod shuts down our own Mox Diamonds while leaving their own Eldrazi spells free to resolve. Void Mirror has the added benefit of shutting down the swath of free spells like Daze, Force of Will, and anything of Omniscience.

Decklists of Loam Pox - aka if you don't like learning for yourself

These are some of the current examples of the deck to consider:

Jacob Murray's 2025 NA Eternal Weekend Top 4 Loam Pox

2 Bayou
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Boseiju, Who Endures
4 Eumidian Hatchery
1 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Swamp
1 Underground Mortuary
4 Urza's Saga
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
2 Barrowgoyf
2 Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis
4 Orcish Bowmasters
1 Fatal Push
2 Life from the Loam
3 Malevolent Rumble
4 Smallpox
4 Thoughtseize
3 Witherbloom Command
2 Grist, the Hunger Tide
1 Lavaspur Boots
4 Mox Diamond
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Pithing Needle

Sideboard
1 Barrowgoyf
1 Chains of Mephistopheles
2 Fatal Push
2 Force of Vigor
1 Haywire Mite
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Toxic Deluge
2 Void Mirror

In this list you can see Jacob hedged against the decks that Barrowgoyf overperforms in and pushed these into the main deck. Feedback from after the event decidedly put them back into the sideboard. Facing 6 Mystic Forge based decks, 3 Nadu decks, and 5 total Atraxa deck outside of the 3 standard Reanimator decks, this finished 12-3 in the swiss. As the debut list for the deck, you can observe a lot of the key synergies described above working to power this deck to a spectacular finish.

My current 2025 list

2 Bayou
1 Blast Zone
2 Boseiju, Who Endures
3 Eumidian Hatchery
1 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Swamp
1 Underground Mortuary
4 Urza's Saga
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
2 Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis
4 Orcish Bowmasters
1 Entomb
4 Life from the Loam
4 Once Upon a Time
4 Smallpox
4 Thoughtseize
3 Witherbloom Command
2 Grist, the Hunger Tide
1 Lavaspur Boots
4 Mox Diamond
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Pithing Needle
1 Sylvan Library

Sideboard
2 Barrowgoyf
1 Bontu's Last Reckoning
1 Chains of Mephistopheles
2 Dauthi Voidwalker
2 Endurance
2 Fatal Push
2 Force of Vigor
1 Haywire Mite
2 Void Mirror

This is my current list, modified from what I was on at the same Eternal Weekend. I've trimmed from the pseudo quadlaser brute number style it many more 1-ofs to try and maintain flexibility in an open meta. If you're in possession of good data for your local meta environment, many of these choices can default back to their base slots and be a cleaner, more streamlined list.

[PirateKing]

Card Choices of Loam Pox - aka what the current discussion is about

While this deck doesn't purport to invent any new playstyle or mechanic to the Legacy format, it is still a newcomer into a format rich with history. Established decks of today have survived through a crucible of testing that has burned away all superfluous and unnecessary cards to emerge the best variants their pilots can muster. Through that lens Loam Pox is about as green as they come. Some card choices are under active discussion as pilots test and report back their findings. Here are some of the major points of divergence currently:

Malevolent Rumble or Once Upon a Time

The premier debate currently, this is what defines the difference between the Barn Owl and the True Owl. Both cards serve well in the deck, and depending on your personal preferences and views of the deck will inform which you think is better served in the 75. Malevolent Rumble serves well to fill the graveyard and has a less stringent requirement of the card selected. Artifacts and Enchantments are covered that would be otherwise missed from Once Upon a Time. The 0/1 Spawn token has nonzero uses to help pay for the colorless portion of Hogaak, and as a sacrificial outlet to either Grist, Bone Shards or flashbacked Cabal Therapy. At Sorcery Speed and never costing less than 2 mana, it's slower speed can butt heads with the other cards of similar cost and pushes play more into a slower, denser pace that could be challenging for some. Once Upon a Time offers a free casting option out of the early game, and digs 1 card deeper than Rumble. The options are restricted to Creatures and Lands, but deck construction can mitigate these downsides somewhat (ie choosing Dauthi Voidwalker over Leyline of the Void for graveyard hate). Once Upon a Time not filling the graveyard can be seen as a positive in a meta with lots of Surgical Extraction and similar effects, and the reveal of only a single card can compartmentalize public information to your opponent for a more cerebral playstyle. Both camps have reported positive results, and so as of this primer they can be considered equally good and a matter of personal preference. Future results may shift the metrics to find a definitive version.

Grist, the Hunger Tide or Other Removal

Grist, the Hunger Tide was seen as an expensive luxury in a deck that topped out at 2 mana spells. Prior choices for removal ranged from Bone Shards to Bitter Triumphs, even main deck Fatal Push to manage creatures that otherwise sidestepped our Smallpoxes. However in the face of growing adaptation of the rest of the meta to our new threat, repeatable effects like Grist have proven fruitful in the deck. Because of her static ability, Grist is live off either Malevolent Rumble or Once Upon a Time, where the instant and sorcery removal spells are not. There have been documented failcases of Grist not being fast enough or simply dying in combat the next turn for an overpriced 1-of effect, but nothing yet to push Grist outside of a string recommendation in the deck.

Null Rod or Void Mirror or Disruptor Flute

These cards are cover similar uses against the current metagame, each attacking slightly differently. Each come with their own drawbacks that players should be aware of before considering. Null Rod shuts down our own Mix Diamonds and other artifacts, so unless the harm to the opponent's artifacts vastly outweighs the harm we do to ourselves, players should cation against jamming this into the sideboard. Void Mirror makes Hogaak uncastable, and Mox Diamonds suffer from hand they are still live targets off Urza's Saga's third chapter. The effect is less guaranteed with opponent's utilizing the limited colored sources to play through, but our deck functions at fuller power than with Null Rod. Disruptor Flute is a less chosen third option, but the broadband of use cases offers a much more diverse list of affected decks, albeit at the expense of deeper locks towards targeted decks. Any one of these cards would be fine showing up in a list, they just represent the player's expected meta and their choice of how to adapt.

Other Choices

Catchalls like board wipes and other common sideboard tech is being activity discussed. Players are watching the meta to see if Plague Engineer effects are needed if wider aggro strategies start to rise in prominence. A shift into faster turn 1 decks like Oops or any flavor of Turbo (Moon, Reanimator, Initiative) would challenge our fair gameplan and require adjustments to the curve. The modern Legacy decks with 2-3 basics are the norm today, but any rise of a equal tier deck running only basics would also require adjustments to the tempo plan we develop through mana denial. It's hard to say how the future of the format will adjust, but the deck has options to peruse in a variety of ways.

Closing thoughts to anybody who found this Primer on MTG The Source in 2025: are you an archeologist studying the ruins of our once great civilization? For everyone else considering this deck, it's a great time. Winning lines require planning and careful execution to succeed. Legacy has grown to be such a powerful format, any misstep can lead to a punishing blowout that ends the game without mercy. But even still, the plucky little Smallpox is still ruining people day for close to 20 years. I hope this primer gives potential players an overview of the card choices and components of the engines at play within the deck. I'll do my best to be present going forward if any questions arise. Thank you.

[colo]

I have an intense love/hate-relationship with this particular archetype... thanks for posting this, Eumidian Hatchery seems the bee's knees in it! :)

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Where's the decklist?

[PirateKing]

Primer done.

I have an intense love/hate-relationship with this particular archetype

We love that you hate it :D
Half the fun of playing is watching your soul leave you body across from us
Sometimes winning feels like drowning your opponent in an inch of water lol

Where's the decklist?

See above IBA

Good to see you guys after all these years <3

[Ralf]

Good job & very nice list !

I love mono black pox but this is definitely on another powerlevel.

[ntropy]

Hey, just wanted to chime in and share my list. I also played Loam Pox at NA Lagacy Champs at EW. (I did not top8, lol) I had a marginal run, but the deck felt stronger than it has in years. I played a more Lands-based build than Jacob did, with fewer creatures in the list. Here's what I ran:

1 Barren Moor
4 Bayou
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Boseiju, Who Endures
1 Cabal Pit
2 Crop Rotation
1 Currency Converter
4 Eumidian Hatchery
2 Exploration
1 Forest
1 Formless Genesis
1 Ghost Quarter
3 Life from the Loam
4 Malevolent Rumble
1 Maze of Ith
4 Mox Diamond
2 Pox
1 Shadowspear
4 Smallpox
1 Swamp
4 Thoughtseize
1 Underground Mortuary
4 Urza's Saga
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Walk-In Closet/Forgotten Cellar
4 Wasteland
2 Witherbloom Command

SIDEBOARD:
2 Assassin's Trophy
1 Boseiju, Who Endures
3 Endurance
1 Force of Despair
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Karakas
2 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle
1 Tear Asunder
2 Toxic Deluge

I think the OBM/Hogaak build is stronger, Exploration and Crop Rotation were both ok, but not stellar. Formless Genesis is the real deal, however. Keep Poxing y'all!