Click here for Vaka Pox (Originally Posted by A Legend
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1/3 Life, 1/3 Land
1/3 Creatures, 1/3 Hand
Round it up, don't round it down
So turn that smile into a frown!
"Consistency" doesn't arise from depending on a second color. White & Green have a lot to offer, but the manabase suffers, in my opinion.
You may be right about Pox-the-Deck. It does miserably bad vs. Burn, rather terrible vs. Vial Goblins, and not good at all if it has a slow start vs. Stax. I also think that the 24+ land manabases of most legacy decks makes land destruction a losing battle.
However, with that having been said, a Pox deck can do a lot of damage to all comers if it sees the right hand. I also think that the massive destuctive power of Small/Pox is a good fit for the MBC shell that Pox.deck, let's face it, is.
Why should a Pox player care about Tarmogoyf or Mongoose? Other decks can pack whatever creatures they want, Idol and Nether Spirit are too busy not dying to symmetric disruption.
Anyways, the only way a Goyf or a Mongoose would be hitting me is if I don't draw the 16-19 cards that would destroy those creatures, the 16 cards that would make you pitch the counters that protect those creatures, the 12cards that destroy the lands you need to cast those creatures, or the 8 cards that do all three things at once.
1/3 Life, 1/3 Land
1/3 Creatures, 1/3 Hand
Round it up, don't round it down
So turn that smile into a frown!
/facepalm
Yes, but isn't this true of any deck? The real test of a deck's strength is how much damage it can inflict in the absence of a God Hand. Threshold is such a powerful deck because it is so consistent in power level even without getting the "nuts draw." If Pox.dec doesn't get the nuts, things tend to go downhill rapidly.
EDIT:Oh, I don't know, possibly because Idol and Spirit suck? Nether Spirit is basically a "Super Legendary" creature because drawing any beyond your first is terrible for you, since losing a second one to discard or something else has the potential to turn off all your Nether Spirits. Chimeric Idol is a 3/3 for 3 that prevents you from doing anything else that turn, as opposed to, say, the 3/3 for one with Shroud that Threshold uses.
Tarmogoyf might get roasted by a Pox, but he's still about ten million times better as a creature and win condition.
Also, how is it that people only look at the effect of a Pox on the opponent? You do realize that, as sexy as it is to make your opponent lose a third of his or her life, you are also losing a third of your life? That really makes the next Tarmogoyf they play that much more dangerous.
I haven't found it too obstructing against decks not exploiting the GY for now (although I guess it would be bad against aggro). The fact is you can simply cycle it when not needed whenever you get a free mana, which usually happens before you get rid of your entire hand. Plus the two (small) advantages of filling up your GY for stalker and freeing up a nether spirit, which occasionaly helped me. Now, I'm definitely not saying that that should be your ONLY GY hate between MD and SB. On the contrary, this is an attempt to include MORE GY without giving up the good SB slots. And honestly, I don't think LftL-decks and ichorid are a good MU even after SB. Leyline is of course golden, but if you don't draw it you don't stand a chance. Plus the fact that ichorid can vapor chain it, and win before you put it back. By the way, I'm having problems to cast it when I draw it during the game. Don't you think replacing it by tormod's crypt could be an option?
I have to disagree with you on this one. I do not see pox.deck as a variant of MBC, for the simple reason that this is not a control deck. You're not trying to gain control of the game, but simply to catch your opponent off-hand and try to win while he is still unsettled. It is a tempo deck, its aim being to win in the middle (and not late) game.
This is why, imo, it's perfectly OK to play cards such as Nether Spirit or Chimeric Idol. I won't deny that those are generally worse than what's available and thus pox has little chances in the late-game. But right after a little discard followed by a small/pox, those are the most effective options to try to win before your opponent recovers.
Consistency the way I used it meant being able to persevere through the match without having to go into top-deck mode (after turn two).
I didn't mean consistency in the broader spectrum. Adding a color would help this deck out tremendously.
Not if you play your own.
I'm not sure why an archetype that's gone 30 pages (and has various versions in the established section) is being referred to as not viable in any way.
Also, FTR, I never said that tutors were what pox needed, just that it's something to think about.
Infernal isn't any good here. The idea is to fetch silver bullets, cards that demolish opposing decks in *game one*: you're not going to have hellbent by the time you need to play those cards.re: Tutors for $200/playset -- Um, Infernals? -- also, why run FOUR tutors? 1 or two should be enough, no?
Being able to dark rit > beseech > find chalice turn 1, followed by chalice for 1 turn two vs. burn is the idea here. Against more controllish decks you're going to want to use your disruption first, before you tutor, but the idea's the same.
Infernal Tutor isn't as bad as you'd think in this deck. When you're dumping your hand to knock your opponent's hand out and playing threats and discarding things to Pox, your hand size will be reduced dramatically. If you play Chrome Mox and/or Mox Diamond, that would be even better because:
A.) They don't die to Pox.
B.) They help thin out the hand a little.
And it's not like searching for another Dark Ritual is a bad thing.
No, it's probably worse than I intimated. What are you going to do with two dark rituals besides hardcast Tombstalker?Infernal Tutor isn't as bad as you'd think in this deck.
I think Moxes are a bad idea for the archetype -- and obviously I'm not alone in that opinion. It's not like you want to ditch any of the business spells in your opening hand (since it's the first three turns where you want to saw a leg off of the game table with disruption) and while you only have to worry about *you* killing your own land for the most part, having to worry about losing mana to artifact hate can cause a pretty quick downward spiral.
First off: Your opponent's hand should be decimated by the ridiculous amount of discard the deck packs, so you put your opponent in top-deck mode. Don't worry about artifact hate - for Christ's sake if your opponent decides to board in Shattering Spree to combat your utterly devastating Chrome Moxen, that's just fine.
Secondly, Infernal Tutor isn't necessary in this archetype, but it isn't horrible either. Assuming you play black (which, in theory, should leave you with no hand after turn three or four), you should have a problem seeking a win condition other than the Hail Mary draw effect. Don't use it.
Pox is a control card at heart, but it's placed around too much aggro to be really effective. It's important to recognize how it works and what supporting cast to place it around.
That's really why the deck hasn't gone anywhere in years. Pox is too situational to be effective and can put you in a deep hole.
Okay, maybe I should explain myself a bit here, since I seem to be the only one in this thread with any experience playing this deck. I used to advocate this deck as ardently as anyone else in this thread...the problem is, then I played it for a long time and realized that "This deck should be theoretically devastating given the right hand" and "Reality" seemed to be mutually exclusive statements. But hey, why believe me? Let's play some theoretical games with Pox against the best deck in the format, Threshold. Also, let's choose the black splash for Threshold since the red splash packs burn, which is obviously bad for you, and the white splash isn't played all that much.
You and your opponent draw seven, and you're on the play. You open with Swamp, Swamp, Ritual, Hymn to Tourach, Thoughtseize, Smallpox, and Nether Spirit. "Wow," you think, "This hand can be really busted." So you play a Swamp, then play the Ritual, then aim a Hymn at your opponent's hand. "Force," says the opponent, removing a Counterbalance. "Well, alright," you say. "I kinda Hymned them." Then you aim a Thoughtseize at them and see: Flooded Strand, Tarmogoyf, Daze, Brainstorm, Ponder. "Oh snap, that's not good." You take the Daze since it'll get in your way next turn, and pass. Your opponent draws a card and plays the Strand, breaks it to get an Underground Sea, and then Thoughtseizes you. ":(" you say, and reveal your hand, which promptly loses its Smallpox. Your opponent (16, 4 cards) passes to you and you untap, draw a Dark Ritual, play your Swamp, Ritual in a Spirit, and pass (20, 0 cards). Your opponent untaps, draws, plays a Ponder, keeps his top three, plays a Tropical Island, and plays a Nimble Mongoose with four cards in his yard (16, 3 cards). "Not so bad," you say. "Than 'goose is only a 1/1 right now, my Spirit can beat it up all day long." Your opponent passes and you untap, draw a Wasteland, and play it. You nuke the Tropical Island and swing for two. "No blocks," says the opponent (14, 3 cards). You pass. Your opponent untaps, draws, plays a Ponder, keeps his top three, plays a Polluted Delta, cracks it to get a Tropical Island (13, 2 cards), and swings for three. "Not as planned D:" you say, and go to 17 (17, 0 cards). "That Mongoose could be a problem here." You untap, draw a Hymn ("Woo!") and play it to take out your opponent's Brainstorm and Tarmogoyf...or do you? He responds with the Brainstorm, shuffles some things around, and casts Daze on your Hymn, returning his Tropical Island. You have two lands in play. Hymn goes off to the graveyard singing about how dazed and confused it's been, and you decide to press your life total advantage by swinging (11, 2 cards). Your opponent untaps, draws, plays a Tropical Island, plays a 3/4 Tarmogoyf, and swings for three (14, 0 cards). "Hmm," you say. "Looks like I need some removal, pronto." You untap, draw a Smallpox, and decide to play it. Nether Spirit duly tromps off to the graveyard, followed by a Swamp (13, 0 cards). Your opponent thinks, then pitches an Underground Sea from his hand, one from play, and a Mongoose. You pass and promptly eat a 4/5 Tarmogoyf to the face (9 life, 0 cards). "Ouchies," you say. "I really need some removal now." You untap, return Spirit, and draw a Swamp. "Damn, not removal," you say. You play the Swamp and pass. Your opponent (10, 1 card) untaps, draws, plays a Top and smashes. You realize you're not going to win the damage race here and chump block in the hope that you can remove 'Goyf soon. He passes. You untap, recur Nether Spirit, and draw a Powder Keg. "Alright, removal!" you think. Powder Keg hits play unopposed and you pass. Your opponent untaps, draws (10, 2 cards), plays an Island, and smashes. You chump. He passes and you untap, recur Nether Spirit, put a counter on Keg, and draw an Urborg. "Well," you say, "it's not removal, but it'll do." You play it and pass. Your opponent untaps, draws (10, 3 cards), smashes unsuccessfully, and passes. "Awesome," you think, and you untap, recur Spirit, charge up Keg, detonate Keg, and draw a Sinkhole. You Sinkhole your opponent's Tropical Island to keep him from playing more men and pass. He uses Top at the end of your turn, then untaps, draws (10, 4 cards), plays an Underground Sea, and plays the Bob that's been lurking in his hand since Keg hit play. "Oh shi-" you say. You untap, draw a Pox, and play it. Uh oh! Force of Will removes a Brainstorm and thwarts your plans (9 life, 0 cards on both sides). You swing and your opponent goes to 7. You pass. He untaps, reveals a Tropical Island, and draws. He plays the Tropical Island and plays a Tarmogoyf (7 life, 0 cards). "Oh Christ," you say, "not this shit again." He passes, you untap, draw a Nether Spirit, and pass. He uses Top at the end of your turn, then untaps, reveals a Daze (5 life) and draws. He plays a Mongoose and smashes (5 life, 1 card). You chump and take your turn, drawing a Wasteland which promptly hits the green source. Your opponent Tops in response and rearranges a few things. You pass. Your opponent untaps, reveals a Brainstorm (4 life), and draws (4 life, 3 cards). Goose, Bob, and Goyf get in there for lethal. "Ugh," you say, and chump block Goyf to go to 4 (4 life, zero cards). You untap, draw a Smallpox, play it and run headlong into the Brainstorm into Force of Will play. You scoop.
Seem bad? Well, maybe I wasn't generous enough to the poor Pox deck. After all, with all that card drawing and countermagic, the Thresh player had a pretty nutty game. Let's go back and replay this match...
You're on the play and open with Swamp, Swamp, Ritual, Hymn, Thoughtseize, Smallpox, and Nether Spirit. You play a Swamp, Ritual out a Hymn (which hits a Tarmogoyf and a Sensei's Divining Top), and play the Thoughtseize to see Trop, Strand, Daze, Brainstorm, Counterbalance. You take the Counterbalance because you can't really deal with it and it'll be bad for you in the long run. You pass (18, 3 cards). Your opponent draws (20, 5 cards), plays the Strand, uses it to get an Underground Sea, and passes. You untap, draw a Sinkhole, and decide to milk some tempo out of the current game. You play a Swamp and Sinkhole the Sea. Your opponent promptly Dazes it. "Sweet," you think, "now I can play that Smallpox without interruption on my next turn." Your opponent draws (19, 5 cards) and plays the Sea again. You untap, draw a Chimeric Idol, and play the Smallpox. Your opponent Brainstorms in response, then sacrifices the Sea, discards a Bob, and loses a life (You: 17, 1 card, Opponent: 18, 3 cards). You pitch your Spirit and pass. Your opponent untaps, draws, plays a Tropical Island, and drops a 3/3 Goose. "Damn it," you say, "I thought I had him off-balance. Now he's got the initiative." He passes (18, 2 cards)...
Starting to look familiar? Even with less interference from your opponent, you're still in an inferior position: 1 land, less life, 1 card, and a 2/2 to a 3/3, one land, and 2 cards. But these games were probably just quirks. Let's look at the typical Threshold matchup:
You're on the play and open with Swamp, Ritual, Ritual, Ritual, Nether Spirit, Chimeric Idol, and Sensei's Divining Top. You play the Swamp, then chain Rituals into a turn one Idol, Spirit, and Top. "Wow, nice hand," remarks the opponent. He plays an Island and passes. You use Top on your upkeep and see Swamp, Hymn, Pox. You leave them like that, draw and play the Swamp, and swing for five. Your opponent draws, plays a Trop, plays a Ponder, shuffles, and passes. You untap, draw the Hymn and play it to take a Goose and a Thoughtseize. You swing for five and pass. Your opponent untaps, draws, plays a Flooded Strand, and passes. You untap, look at your top three and see a Pox, Swamp, Smallpox and reorder it to get the Swamp first. You play it and swing for five. Your opponent casts the EoT Brainstorm, uses the fetchland, and remarks "Maybe running twenty land wasn't such a good idea...". He draws, plays an Island, plays a Bob, and passes. You untap, play Pox, meet no resistance, and swing with Idol for the win.
So really, this deck isn't all that bad. It wins most of the time against Threshold!
EDIT: Okay, those of you with a healthy level of skepticism will probably be saying, "But that was all anecdotal evidence! You can use that to prove anything!" This is of course true, and if we consider the various kinds of rhetorical evidence we would realize that anecdotes are the weakest variety. So let's go to something more logical and empirical. Let's compare threats side by side:
Black Thresh runs Bob (2/1 for two), Tarmogoyf (typically a 3/4 for two or larger) and Mongoose (3/3 for one in most cases). You run Nether Spirit (2/2 for three), and possibly one or more of the following: Mishra's Factory (2/2 for two lands), Tombstalker (5/5 flying for 2 and six other cards), or Chimeric Idol (a 3/3 for three). With the exception of the Demon, all of your threats are less efficient than your opponent's. Furthermore, (again discounting Tombstalker, which by the way doesn't play that well with Nether Spirit), if you drop your opponent to the 10-12 life range off of a Pox, the fastest you will be able to win the game on one guy is four turns (3/3 Idol), whereas the fastest they will be able to win is potentially three (4/5 Tarmogoyf). If they draw any guys in the four turns they have after a Pox, you've stalled because they can now most likely block and kill your threat and then go on the offensive. That's why I was such a big advocate of Phyrexian Totem: if the goal is to kill while they're off-balance, you want to kill as quickly as possible. Attacking five or six times with a 2/2 is not as quickly as possible. Attacking twice or thrice with a 5/5 is.
The thing is, for a deck like Threshold, the effective "off-balance" time is very low because they run a lot of low-cost card filters and a lot of low-cost threats. Combining those two makes for a pretty consistent and pretty speedy recovery period.
But it's a great pitch candidate for Smallpox!
Well, that's true of any deck also... The consistency of Thresh is due to Tarmogoyf and lots of counters... the consistency of Pox is supposed to be from major pains-in-the-ass like Smallpox+Hymn. Sometimes I see an odd mix of cards in my hand (no discard, or all 3 Tombstalkers or something); the rest of the time, though, I really feel like I've got a good chance, even against a handful of counters.
Uh, not exactly. You just have to tap your UNTAPPED lands, not "all of them" ... I don't run Chimeric Idol (it would be stupid with Mishra's Factories), but it's not quite as bad as all that... it's no Mongoose, but...
Because we build our deck to expect it?
Mulligan. You're going to lose if you don't stick it anyway--mulligan until you see it. Ichorid *can* bounce it, but I've never seen them do it (on MWS, anyway... maybe they don't build their SB right, but dropping Leyline in G2 always always always elicits a "G3?" from them.) Crypt--Not really. The winning is done with the FREE, pregame leyline effect. Otherwise, you're packing your sideboard with only one kind of hate.
Like what? Your example is Chalice, but to my knowledge it's only in the past page or so that we've even started talking about it...
But each person plays their own version of the deck. So you can't really justify how you play something over what someone else would choose. In one of the games, you specified opening with a turn one Hymn when you had a creature in your opening grip. Being on the play, wouldn't it make more sense to drop the creature and then Hymn/Thoughtseize turn two? A Spirit can run over a 1/1 Mongoose. And because you have the advantage, now you can nail Goyf with Thoughtseize. This way if they're going to Swords, they're already down two cards (land and Swords), and then another two cards. the goal is to subversively trick your opponent into playing they're hand when they really don't want to. This helps supplement your discard effects after the fact and puts them in top-deck mode. You don't want to know how many times I've seen a player just go Ritual, Hymn turn one and then burn. It can screw them over, obviously, but it's okay sometimes to wait a turn and establish a threat.
In that case, would serum powder be such a bad idea? Considering you also really REALLY want to see your plagues against gobs...
No, because on turn two they have Force of Will and Daze, which makes your discard less effective since Daze is much better than Force of Will against early-game discard. You'd have to lead off with the Thoughtseize to play around the Daze, which is generally worse than leading off with the Hymn.
EDIT: I'm emphasizing the discard here since you seem to emphasize putting the opponent in topdeck mode.
Unfounded arrogance for the win!since I seem to be the only one in this thread with any experience playing this deck.
Your example is almost unreadable.
I sifted through it, though, in an attempt to continue the discussion.
Right off the bat, you Thoughseized for DAZE when there's a Tarmogoyf in his hand? Misplay.
Ritual into Spirit? Probable misplay.
In the middle of that pile, I can't really follow the gamestate -- You detonate the keg at 1 when there's a goyf swinging into you? Misplay.
When you know you're facing a handful of counters, you have to BAIT them out.
Oh, and......arrogant much, Heather? Speaking for myself, my eyes are wide open as to the inadequacies of this deck--I've been playing MonoBlackPile on and off since 1996. Thresh is probably the most popular tier 1 deck out there right now, and manipulating this one into a position to challenge it is important to me.
I played this deck for over a year in multiple real-life and online tournaments, not counting countless MWS testing sessions. Cavius the Great I am not.
EDIT:Yes, I know this. First, you hit the Daze because you're holding a Smallpox. If they play the Goyf and have no counter backup, it's going to eat it to your Smallpox, and you get a Nether Spirit the turn after to boot.
You detonate Keg at two. Sorry, it's a bit dense, but you put the second counter on and then sacrifice Keg.
And yes, I know you have to bait things out. I've played a lot against decks packing counters (Landstill of all stripes and Threshold of all stripes) with decks not packing counters and you have to play very conservatively, or at the very least more intelligently than your opponent.
It was important to me as well. It was also something I couldn't do given the cards available at the time, and I concluded that you'd have to make the deck not Pox to make it better. Forgive me for being a less inventive and dedicated Pox player.
EDIT 2: If I come off as arrogant, it is only because I made the assumption that anyone playing this deck for a long period of time and who was familiar with its style and structure would come to the same conclusions as I did.
I wouldn't think you would want even to test more than 2 in the deck. It's almost completely useless if cast. "Free" mulligans, though, might be pretty cool. Serum powder used to be all the rage not too long ago, right? Why did they fall out of favor? Math?
I meant another color besides white. Pox's biggest problem is obtaining card advantage. I was thinking blue or green, perhaps.
Remember, you're knocking cards out of their hand, but you're also depleting yours as well.
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