[DECK] Loam Pox

[GGoober]

This is a BG version of the deck Pox. The BW version is called Vaka Pox. Here's the thread on the development for BG Pox

First of all, why green, not white?

White:
Vindicate: Best targetted removal
StP: Best creature removal
Ghostly Prison: Stalls aggro

Green:
Life from the Loam: Easily the best land recursion engine, allows the deck to use Mox Diamonds, just as Aggro Loam does
Eternal Witness: Amazing card, especially with Volrath's Stronghold
Pernicious Deed: Best removal in the game.

Comparing both, I think that Vaka Pox is still a stronger build, but in an optimized build, Pernicious Deed + Witness + Loam + Volrath's Stronghold is easily the best board sweeper, with all the LD and disruption that Pox packs by nature.

Without further ado, here's the decklist for discussion and optimization:


Manabase (24 lands)
1 Forest
4 Swamp
2 Volrath's Stronghold
4 Polluted Delta
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Bayou
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland
3 Mox Diamond

Pox disruption
4 Thoughtseize
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
4 Sinkhole
2 Pox

Board control/threats
3 Life from the Loam
4 Pernicious Deed
2 Garruk Wildspeaker
3 Eternal Witness
3 Tombstalker

Sideboard:
4 Engineered Plague
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Krosan Grip
4 ?? Meta dependent cards

The deck plays a little like BRG Aggro Loam but has the win condition with Tombstalker. I'm considering playing with Epochrasite insteads since they function as better consistent creatures, but Tombstalker is easily the best creature in Legacy right now next to Goyf. Eternal Witness is the heart of the deck, and works great with Loam + Stronghold as in all BG control builds. The 24 lands allow you to play comfortably with 3 Moxes.

Turn one Moxes allow for an earlier Pox, or a turn 1 hymn, but most importantly, it allows you to play your 3cc spells on second turn. Eternal Witness would be able to bring back another thoughtseize/Hymn.

Unlike other Pox builds, this build focuses intensively on disruption the first 2 turns, much like Eva Green or Sui Black. It does so at the cost of its own cards, but there's much more recursion, immediately, to land bombs and recurr threats than in Vaka Pox thanks to Loam + Witness + Stronghold.

Garruk, when resolved, helps in the Pox plan of things. He allows you to double your mana with his +1 ability, and he is unaffected by Pox or Pernicious Deed. Many people know of the Extended build with Garruk + Death Cloud, therefore Garruk serves as a similar role in this deck. He's very much playable thanks to Mox + Loam, and the GG isn't an issue in the deck. After a resolved Deeds/Pox, Garruk would start sending in beasts, untapping lands for continued disruption, and probably would win the game by himself.


Comments would be appreciated, and here are some issues to consider:
- Stifle hurting the manabase and Deed activation. We might want to play safe and run less fetches. And on the Deed activation, I think that we should activate only when necessary, when opponents are tapped out of blue. It will seem fairly obvious if he has a blue open. Or we can simply bait, with a fetchland. It's almost instinct to stifle a Fetchland, and losing a land isn't as bad as losing Deeds, unless you can't blow it up for the required mana

- Heavy aggro matchup. This deck may have problems v.s. Heavy aggro, but the sideboard with Engineered Plague would help. I'm a huge fan of Powder Keg, and I'm intending for this deck to go Poxless, and end up with Powder Kegs. Not sure what to remove. EE is another possibility with the manabase. All these are recurrable with Loam + Witness + stronghold.

[rleader]

Adding green makes pox better against the things it already beats, while it makes it weaker against the things it has difficulty against. I think any exploration of other colors has to take that into account.

My own thinking along those lines has primarily centered on root maze, although I haven't exactly stumbled onto a solution.

[Jaynel]

Your list is 4 cards short. I'd suggest 3 Life from the Loam and the 4th Mox Diamond.

[BenKossman]

No Goyf? Are you worried about bad synergy with Stalker?

[SuperBean]

Looks like it should just be Pox (Small Pox that is) with a splash of green for Deed, Goyf, and Krosan Grip in the board.

Seems like the most efficient?

[Gibbie_X]

I like that idea, but your list seems to be missing stuff.

The Eternal witness is a solid card, but the deck is based around a sorcery for and the could get ugly. How about Reclaim, or i would even throw in Gaea's Blessing, you can trip it with Loam, reshuffle you deck in. Just one of mind you. Garruk falls in that category as well. He could be sick solid in it, and pay for himself, but he still has .

Most builds I have seen have Nether Spirit with Tombstalker as a two of. I never liked goyf, but with this sort of build, I don't know really. He can be a 'deal with me now or die' kind of card, and if you run the Stalker, you just feed dead ones to him. But you will kill him in short order with poxes, where with Spirit you can discard, sacrifice, and he just comes back, and when you have too man in the grave yard, feed one to Tombstalker, and bring the other one back!!!

I call it Gan Green:


Lands
8 Swamp
4 Bayou
1 Tomb of Urami
1 Cabal Pit
4 Wasteland
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Bloodstained Mire

Creatures
2 Tombstalker
3 Nether Spirit

Artifacts
4 Mox Diamond
2 Crucible of Worlds

Spells
3 Sinkhole
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Life from the Loam
1 Gaea's Blessing
4 Duress
4 Smallpox
4 Pox
2 Pernicious Deed

I am a huge fan of Duress, and in this case, where your life is up for grabs, that's eight possible life points when poxes and fetchlands can drop you too close to burn range. The only thing it won't grab is critters, and the poxes and Deed can handle them.

Possible board slots, I think would include Needles, Grips, Putrefy, Leyline, the usual.

[Pulp_Fiction]

Not to try and jack the thread or anything but would this deck be better as G/B Death Cloud? I played Vaka pox for a little while and I always found that when you cast Pox it usually hurts you just as bad as the opponent. I MUCH preferred the versions without Pox because I just found Small Pox to be better in almost every way! Pox is way to situational and if very iffy on killing multiple creatures that need dealing with. Death Cloud on the other hand just owns anything and everything it can without costing you an insane amount of life. Thoughts?

[Phoenix Ignition]

Cool idea, but a little late.
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=11794

[rleader]

Thoughts?

I disagree completely.

Eva-green is a good deck. Play it. Trying to force a middle ground between Pox and Green is just a bad idea, inferior to both, and you'll probably lose to both if they exist within your metagame.

I'll also still stand by the assertion that people who don't like pox [the card] are people who mainly don't play in actual tournaments (where your opponents paid entry fees and are bringing their A-Game) but base their testing off of single games online. You may be the lone exception; I have no idea.

never liked goyf, but with this sort of build, I don't know really. He can be a 'deal with me now or die' kind of card, and if you run the Stalker, you just feed dead ones to him

Eva Green has an advantage over pox against many combo decks: it isn't as disruptive, but then pox has to hit more disruption consistantly until it can get stalker out; whereas Green can present a clock almost immediately. As you say, goyf doesn't play nice with poxes, but that's where manlands come in. However, in order to play them effectively, you need to refine your manabase and that prevents tricks with Stronghold and whatnot.

[Mordenkaynen]

@ Pulp_Fiction
As for creature destroying, Damnation is much better than both Pox and Death Cloud @(>1). I don't know how to make a deck with Death Cloud working in a right way, but to be better than smallpox it would be cost >4 mana, and that's not fast enough in a deck with only mox diamond for acceleration (however, green allow exploration). Sure, if you have 5-6 lands the card is great since it reduce your lands to 3 (which is ok), destroys multiple creatures and hurts hands (actually do you want to discard all your hand?), but usually with 6 mana deed is enough for nonland permanents and there would be no sence to reduce lands in a such late-game.
Have I missed something?

[Captain Hammer]

I don't know how good Eternal Witness is, in a deck with 7 Pox effects that just make you sac it. The GG casting cost for Eternal Witness is also a big problem. It requires a much heavier green commitment than with the white splash. You could play Night's Whispers and draw two cards for one less mana instead.

LoftL is probably better than Crucible, but that can indeed be questionable. LoftL costs less mana to start, but eats up mana like crazy the more you use it and the longer the game goes, and this isn't a particularly fast deck.

Deed is cool, but it costs two turns of mana, and doesn't blow up lands like Vindicate does.

I do like the green build a lot too, but I think you were right on the money when you said that the white splash might be slightly better.

[GGoober]

For people who have played with Eternal Witness, her ability is more valuable if you can Slide her out or play her again, bringing whatever you need. So in the deck that involves a ton of stuff getting sacced, she does well.

Damn, I tried searching for a BG Pox thread and couldn't find one, but I guess there was an older thread. Sorry about that.

I personally don't think Goyf fits into the strategy of the deck. I would prefer Tombstalker as the win condition over Goyf anytime because he flies. Innocent blood does make a good addition, although I'm not sure what to cut off for it.

[Phoenix Ignition]

So I was wondering why there was no addition of Raven's Crime into this list. That was one of my soul reasons for making that thread a couple months ago. It's a ridiculously good card in pox as you can essentially make them unable to play any cards at all.

[GGoober]

Phoenix, I totally forgot about that card, and I've ordered 2 playsets because of its playability in loam decks.

If you're the creator of B/G Pox, mind bumping the old thread up for discussion? Otherwise we can just use this thread. The only change I see different from my list is the inclusion of Garruks. There's another Death Cloud thread going on right now, but I feel that Death Cloud < Pox in terms of disruption.

The basic shell of this deck is to use the Loam/Witness/Volrath engine to bring back any card from the yard, namely Deeds, Pox, Smallpox. Recurring not just lands via Loam, but the entire disruption engine via the deck's strategy is pretty harsh on opponents. Hitting GG isn't a problem in the deck due to Mox Diamonds, which I'm considering to upping to 4 copies. But hitting BBB for Pox is in general a problem if opponents play Wastelands + Stifles. Not sure if we should lower the fetchland manabase.

I had some testing against opponents, and Innocent Blood is a much needed card in the deck. THanks for the suggestions!

[Phoenix Ignition]

Phoenix, I totally forgot about that card, and I've ordered 2 playsets because of its playability in loam decks.

If you're the creator of B/G Pox, mind bumping the old thread up for discussion? Otherwise we can just use this thread. The only change I see different from my list is the inclusion of Garruks. There's another Death Cloud thread going on right now, but I feel that Death Cloud < Pox in terms of disruption.

My thread got derailed and died, I'm happy to see another one come back, so don't worry about that one, or if you like you can just post your list here on it and start this discussion up there. I would be happy to change the opening post for any changes you think are good for the deck.

I would agree that Death Cloud < Pox, especially in this shell, mainly because DC needs so many lands out to power it, and pox loves making the top number of lands you have out be 3. I'm a bit wary about your 4-of Thoughtseize just because Pox uses life like a resource. I realize there could be threats in their hand to be worried about early on (read: goyf), but if you ran innocent bloods as well, you should be perfectly fine for it.

I would also suggest adding in 1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, because this card is an absolute beast to dredge into (although pricey, so if you don't have one it's probably fine). I also suggest cutting 1 wasteland because you can dredge into it and only really need to hit 1 per game to keep a soft lock on them. Also, I know how hard it is to consistently get black mana in here, so the more swamps you can fit in the better.

As for creatures I agree that goyf just doesn't fit in a pox deck, but it also would be well suited for this deck if you can put in some different creature to sac like Nether Spirit. I know it seems crazy to add him with the dredge, but Tombstalker is great at cleaning out extra creatures.

Just a warning though, the addition of goyf ruined my pox deck because so many changes had to be made to accommodate him.

[Raindown]

Any update to this deck. I'm trying to put together a version like this.

I think cutting Pox altogether and just leaving Small Pox in there is the best idea.

My conflict now is my Mox Diamonds and P. Deed getting in the way of each other. Its not that big of a deal later in the game though.

[Aggro_zombies]

Any update to this deck. I'm trying to put together a version like this.

I think cutting Pox altogether and just leaving Small Pox in there is the best idea.

My conflict now is my Mox Diamonds and P. Deed getting in the way of each other. Its not that big of a deal later in the game though.

Pox is far and away the worst card in Pox. Cutting it is a very good idea.

Exploration is probably better than Mox Diamond. The mana acceleration it provides is more permanent and it allows for sick plays with Wasteland.

[Goaswerfraiejen]

Since there was a necro...

With Life from the Loam in there, it strikes me that Bloodghast would be a better choice than Nether Spirit. I say this purely because Loam has a chance of overturning a Spirit, and if it does that, then that screws your recursion temporarily and makes it difficult to block, etc. If it turns up a Bloodghast or two, however, then you've got instant card advantage. Indeed, it would probably be most beneficial to run a full four, precisely so that this scenario can occur as often as possible.

[Ectoplasm]

My friend made top 4 in a 40+ man tournament with BG loam + pox a few weeks ago, I'll ask him about his list when (if) I see him (could take a while). He played pox, tombstalkers, factories and the 2/2 spirit thing that comes back if it's the only dude in the yard.

[leander?]

This is the list.

4 pox
4 smallpox
4 sinkhole
4 thoughtseize
2 raven's crime
4 perniscious deed
4 tombstalker
3 nether spirit
3 life from the loam

3 swamp
4 bayou
3 bloodstained mire
3 polluted delta
4 wasteland
4 mishra's factory
4 hymn to tourach
4 urborg tomb of yawgmoth

side
4 extirpate
4 leyline of the void
4 engineered plague
3 zuran orb