[Deck] Pox

[Nekrataal]

I'm sorry, I forgot Zoo, but of course you're right, it's a bad matchup, although slightly better than Sligh (basically, the less burn they play, the better for us). I never played against elves, so I can't be sure about it, but lacking vial and lackey it should be a little better for Pox, almost even for the Bg version, because you should have the time to land deed. But of course I can be wrong, and if you have direct experience with the matchup this invalidates all the speculations I can make

As for Merfolk I'm not sure it's that bad. It's a more aggro-control deck, instead of pure aggro, and it usually gives us enough time to play our disruption. In addition, we can play very well under a standstill, invalidating their main draw engine. From my tournament experience I will put the matchup 60-40 for Bg Pox (I have never met Merfolk in tournament with other versions of the deck, which could have more problems). OTH, I think goblin is worse than 45-55, unless you have same savage secret tech against them (please, tell me you have )

For the DTB, I will say the odds (for Bg Pox) are roughly:

- Zoo 30/35-70/65 (depending on the amount of burn basically)
- Goblins 35-65
- Merfolk 60-40
- Canadian Thresh 50-50
- NLU/Baseruption 60-40
- Bant Countertop 55-45
- Landstill 65/70-35/30
- ANT 45/50-55/50 (the faster, the worse)

I still think Pox is a decent meta choice, even if Zoo is rising again lately, since all the others common matchups (well, except goblins of course ) are at least winnable, if not favorable.

Perhaps I was too pessimistic about Merfolk. I played against a friend's Elves deck and usually it combos turn 4 into a massive amount of mana which is invested into as massiv amount of creatures and a final big Mirror Entity. However the games where I could keep is mana production short I most often won.

[slylie]

Perhaps I was too pessimistic about Merfolk. I played against a friend's Elves deck and usually it combos turn 4 into a massive amount of mana which is invested into as massiv amount of creatures and a final big Mirror Entity. However the games where I could keep is mana production short I most often won.

I stomp merfolk every single time with this deck, like playing hide and seek with a blind kid.

[Nekrataal]

I stomp merfolk every single time with this deck, like playing hide and seek with a blind kid.

Sure and Thresh as well so I wonder why this deck is not DTB if it beats 3/5 out of the most played decks. Perhaps you can be more specific like ... how you do these marvels repeatedly?

[Raindown]

Landstill is also a very favorable matchup

[bowvamp]

How about our pre-board MU vs. goblins? What-a-breeze.

No seriously, you don't have a clue slylie as to how hard tribal is for pox. Especially your build which takes even more time to set up due to dependence on LftL. Sorry if this sounds harsh

[slylie]

How about our pre-board MU vs. goblins? What-a-breeze.

No seriously, you don't have a clue slylie as to how hard tribal is for pox. Especially your build which takes even more time to set up due to dependence on LftL. Sorry if this sounds harsh

Tribal Goblins and Tribal Mermen is two different things, Goblins is nearly unwinnable pre-board, and merfolk is nearly un-loseable pre and post board. I don't test as much as I should against other decks but my friend plays a standard-list merfolk deck and my list made him all but give up on merfolk, since I often play him and he is testing merfolk I know the matchup inside out.

Sure and Thresh as well so I wonder why this deck is not DTB if it beats 3/5 out of the most played decks. Perhaps you can be more specific like ... how you do these marvels repeatedly?

They play standstill, we play 4 wasteland, and x mishra's factory (which trump mutavult without a lord), they play counters, we play discard, they play daze, we play spells with 1 mana up, they play force of will, we punish them by following up with a hymn. They play some creatures, we play some removal. They play few lands, we play land destruction.

BTW I don't play LftL.. I'm mono-black.. I think you are mistaken.

[workingdude]

They play standstill, we play 4 wasteland, and x mishra's factory (which trump mutavult without a lord), they play counters, we play discard, they play daze, we play spells with 1 mana up, they play force of will, we punish them by following up with a hymn. They play some creatures, we play some removal. They play few lands, we play land destruction.

BTW I don't play LftL.. I'm mono-black.. I think you are mistaken.

This is nice in theory, but you are basically ignoring the old adage of threats > answers.

If you could map out a real game for me I'd be very interested to see how the merfolk matchup is (I dont face much merfolk in my meta).

Especially your build which takes even more time to set up due to dependence on LftL. Sorry if this sounds harsh

The reason I almost never entertain playing LftL. Whenever I hear about it, I just think it's way too slow for practical applications. At least in my meta game and my playstyle/deck.

[Cthuloo]

This is nice in theory, but you are basically ignoring the old adage of threats > answers.

If you could map out a real game for me I'd be very interested to see how the merfolk matchup is (I dont face much merfolk in my meta).

I think slylie analysis is correct. What do you mean with map? If you want I think I have some reports of tournaments wins against merfolk, but I would have to translate them, since they're in Italian. I will do the job only if you guarantee me you can't live without them


Goblin of course, is completely different. I played against a friend piloting the deck in a small direct elimination tournament two weeks ago. G1 I spent like 6 turns to proceed to eliminate every green monster on the table, via innocent blood, smother, smallpox and finally managed to empty the board and stabilize with a pernicious deed. The next turn my friend topdecks ringleader, reveals 4 goblins and proceeds to crush me :( Even if you manage to survive the early wave of attacks (which is definitely not easy), goblin can quickly recharge and stomp you. So if anybody has a secret tech, please share

[Minty]

This List works like a Gem:

4x Swamp
4x Verdant Catacombs
4x Bayou
3x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4x Mishra's Factory
3x Wasteland
4x Barren Moor

4x Mox Diamond

4x Duress
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Smallpox
4x Pox
4x Pernicious Deed

3x Life from the Loam

3x Garruk Wildspeaker
2x Nether Spirit
2x Tombstalker

Garruk is just fuckin awesome!

[Cthuloo]

This List works like a Gem:

4x Swamp
4x Verdant Catacombs
4x Bayou
3x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4x Mishra's Factory
3x Wasteland
4x Barren Moor

4x Mox Diamond

4x Duress
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Smallpox
4x Pox
4x Pernicious Deed

3x Life from the Loam

3x Garruk Wildspeaker
2x Nether Spirit
2x Tombstalker

Garruk is just fuckin awesome!

This looks a lot like my last version of the deck. My problem was not being able to always have the for Garruck reliably. Do you sometimes have this problem? Or is everything smooth?

[Nekrataal]

This looks a lot like my last version of the deck. My problem was not being able to always have the for Garruck reliably. Do you sometimes have this problem? Or is everything smooth?

My problem with Garruk was that he makes me wanny play Witness and/or SDT in order not to dredge him into the bin. I think that Pox is the worst card in the deck and can be replaced at least 2 or 3 times by something else. Pox means autoloss to decks with R. In the current Meta this is sooo true.

threats > answers that sums it up nicely. Sure Goblins can recover more easily since the Merfolk Ringleader is not present in competitive builds and there is no Matron to fetch a Ringleader. I also admitted that the Merfolk matchup is better than I first anticipated but still if Merfolks gets a good start on the play with Vial, Standstill which is not a rare incident then it is a very close matchup. Since I have played Merfolk inside out and I am pretty sure that the g or w splash doesnt really matter for Pox. Mono U eventually has Stifle, Ug has Grip, Uw Disenchant or similar choices to handle a Deed. Of course you cannot keep a slow hand as a Merfolk player against Pox. THat you can beat one specific Merfolk build that is driven by one pilot doesn't prove much.

I just once played that matchup (from the Merfolk side) against a Bgw Pox list with Vindicates and Gigapede as a finisher. I lost 1:2 but games felt quite close. I won game 1 since I was just too fast for him filling the tables with little men. Game 2 I remember he locking me out with his land destruction and then searching ages for a win condition while at very low life. Finally there was Gigapede which I couldn't handle and I didn't draw into something relevant to force through some minimal damage. Game 3 was decided by Engineered Plagues and a quick Gigapede.

[Cthuloo]

My problem with Garruk was that he makes me wanny play Witness and/or SDT in order not to dredge him into the bin. I think that Pox is the worst card in the deck and can be replaced at least 2 or 3 times by something else. Pox means autoloss to decks with R. In the current Meta this is sooo true.

threats > answers that sums it up nicely. Sure Goblins can recover more easily since the Merfolk Ringleader is not present in competitive builds and there is no Matron to fetch a Ringleader. I also admitted that the Merfolk matchup is better than I first anticipated but still if Merfolks gets a good start on the play with Vial, Standstill which is not a rare incident then it is a very close matchup. Since I have played Merfolk inside out and I am pretty sure that the g or w splash doesnt really matter for Pox. Mono U eventually has Stifle, Ug has Grip, Uw Disenchant or similar choices to handle a Deed. Of course you cannot keep a slow hand as a Merfolk player against Pox. THat you can beat one specific Merfolk build that is driven by one pilot doesn't prove much.

I just once played that matchup (from the Merfolk side) against a Bgw Pox list with Vindicates and Gigapede as a finisher. I lost 1:2 but games felt quite close. I won game 1 since I was just too fast for him filling the tables with little men. Game 2 I remember he locking me out with his land destruction and then searching ages for a win condition while at very low life. Finally there was Gigapede which I couldn't handle and I didn't draw into something relevant to force through some minimal damage. Game 3 was decided by Engineered Plagues and a quick Gigapede.

I agree with you on Pox. For some reason I skipped the 4x Pox while looking at the list In my list those slots are basically occupied by pulses.
About Garruck and dredging in general: I think Top is an invaluable tool to know when it's more convenient to dredge and to protect Loam against cript/relic, I really think it deserves at least 2 spots in the deck. With the help of Top, accidentally dredging Garruck should not be a problem anymore. The double green unfortunately is...

About Merfolk again: I'm not saying the matchup is an autowin, of course. Pox will suffer a very fast start, expecially if on the draw. However you usually manage to stabilize, and then proceed to land a big threat that they usually have a hard time to answer. At the moment I am 3-1 in tournaments against Merfolk for matches, and 6-3 for games, meaning that the matchup is not a bye, but that there are definitely worse ones

[e=mc^2]

These BG decks are starting to seem very rockish. If you are waiting until after you drop Garruk to pox most of the time, then I think death cloud is a better option. Deathcloud can kill all of their creatures, and still leave Garruk around to win the game, while Pox only kills most of their creatures.

This deck Looks like a more discard heavy version of my Deathcloud Rock deck, which was great at losing to combo. Does this deck have the same problem?

[Jon Stewart]

Planeswalkers just need way too much mana to cast.

If you have 5 lands on your side, you're doing something wrong. This deck barely ever has more than 3 mana tops when playing properly even with Mox Diamonds. So that's where the curve should top off, at a cc of 3.

That's also why I like Bloodghast, because the 3cc space is too heavy as is.

[bowvamp]

Ok, it's probably just me, but a deck named after a card should have that card in it. Right?

Pox != loss against red. Especially against the kinds of red that pop up in the current meta. Decks that come to mind are: Tempo Thresh (pox helps), Zoo (pox helps, you just have to time it), and if you get it out vs. Goblins it helps immensely. Zoo requires timing because you want to use pox last, start with land hate, go to discard/creature kill until you are sure you can survive casting it.

Pox was built to abuse pox. Taking pox out and using smallpox as your "pox" takes alot of the advantage of pox effects out. Taking out pox lowers our ability to equalize and win by small margins against decks that without pox we would just flat out lose to.

[slylie]

This is nice in theory, but you are basically ignoring the old adage of threats > answers.

If you could map out a real game for me I'd be very interested to see how the merfolk matchup is (I dont face much merfolk in my meta).



The reason I almost never entertain playing LftL. Whenever I hear about it, I just think it's way too slow for practical applications. At least in my meta game and my playstyle/deck.

It's not just in theory its in practice. To be honest I also thought in theory merfolk might be a hard matchup, but really its a breeze. As for mapping out a game ... I'll try to remember the games better next time I test but basically something like first turn thoughtseize, discard relevant card and set up next turn hymn/sinkhole, third turn crucible... or just smallpox if he got a creature out, (ideally discarding spirit here), next turn hopefully like duress to check for counters then tombstalker, which they basically can't deal with once it hits the board. Then following turns spirit chump blocks 9/9 wakethrashers or whatever they swing at you while tombstalker swings overhead for the win.

Tombstalker is key in this matchup because if it hits the board, they have no way to deal with it.


Turn 1 : merfolk man. Island, vial go.
Turn 1 : Slylie. Swamp, thoughtseize: Mefolk man plays force of will targeting thougtseize:
Turn 2 : Merfolk man. Island, lord of atlantis go.
Turn 2 : slylie. mishra's factory. Darkritual.. resolves. Thoughtseize. discarding relevant counterspell. Hymn to Tourach. (he now has 0 cards in hand)
Turn 3 : Merfolk man. Mutavult, attack with adept, go.
Turn 3 : slylie. Smallpox. (discarding spirit). wasteland mutavult. Raven's crime.
turn 4 : Merfolk man. island. go.
Turn 4 : slylie... well, from here they are pretty much finished since we have more utility lands, recurring effects and big 5/5 flyers.

Force of will is a great card, but how good is it against us? force of will our discard? ok.. Im happy to get a counter and another spell out of their hand for a discard spell. Daze? sure its cute when it auto-counters sinkhole but when we are playing land destruction setting yourself back a turn on land can hurt. Aether Vial? Its not as good vs us as against other decks, it kinda messes with our ld strategy, but it is card disadvantage so with all of our discard we are pretty happy to see it.

Basically yes in numbers, they have more threats than we have answers, but really how scary is that silvergil adept alone? merfolk is a cute deck, and the cards have good synergies but our deck packs enough disruption to make swing it in our favor. Our deck when played properly generates tremendous card advantage, the only card merfolk plays that gives card advantage is standstill, and we can play around that.

The games I lose? actually im happy to lose a few here and there just so my friend doesn't feel so horrible about his deck.

Ways we lose against merfolk:
First turn Vial, second turn standstill is a good start.
Unblockable wakethrashers.
Jitte + creature .... sounds good.
......... bad draws?

You can say I don't know what I'm talking about, whatever. I'm just relaying my experience.

[Cthuloo]

Ok, it's probably just me, but a deck named after a card should have that card in it. Right?

Pox != loss against red. Especially against the kinds of red that pop up in the current meta. Decks that come to mind are: Tempo Thresh (pox helps), Zoo (pox helps, you just have to time it), and if you get it out vs. Goblins it helps immensely. Zoo requires timing because you want to use pox last, start with land hate, go to discard/creature kill until you are sure you can survive casting it.

Pox was built to abuse pox. Taking pox out and using smallpox as your "pox" takes alot of the advantage of pox effects out. Taking out pox lowers our ability to equalize and win by small margins against decks that without pox we would just flat out lose to.

These BG decks are starting to seem very rockish.

These are interesting observations. For sure Bg pox is really an hybrid between old school pox and the rock. It can't really support Pox, for many reasons, and goes for a different route. It's even arguable that it's a completely different deck, and maybe it deserves a thread on its own.

Btw: smallpox and pox, despite looking as the little and big brother, fulfill a completely different role. As Bowvamp correctly observed, you need timing to maximize pox and its devastating effects, while smallpox is an excellent early game control card. It's the card that buys you time to further your gameplan, eroding opponent's resources. It's card parity more often than not (if you don't have spirit in your hand), but it's huge in stealing your opponent's tempo. If monblack pox is built around abusing "Pox", Bg pox is deinitely built around optimizing "Smallpox".

@ Deathcloud: even after what I just wrote, I think I would rather play pox instead of Deathcloud. Deathcloud is completely useless early game (when the deck fights to stabilize) and becomes relevant only when you have 6+ mana, when the deck should be winning anyway. I could be wrong of course, not having tested the card.

[Nekrataal]

Ok, it's probably just me, but a deck named after a card should have that card in it. Right?

Pox != loss against red. Especially against the kinds of red that pop up in the current meta. Decks that come to mind are: Tempo Thresh (pox helps), Zoo (pox helps, you just have to time it), and if you get it out vs. Goblins it helps immensely. Zoo requires timing because you want to use pox last, start with land hate, go to discard/creature kill until you are sure you can survive casting it.

Pox was built to abuse pox. Taking pox out and using smallpox as your "pox" takes alot of the advantage of pox effects out. Taking out pox lowers our ability to equalize and win by small margins against decks that without pox we would just flat out lose to.

Short check on deckcheck for Pox reveals that basically all "poxless" list are Bw, Bg or Bgw (splash versions). Only Mono B lists seem to play that Pox but not all. This seems reasonable since splash versions cannot afford to stick to the max 3 land count like Mono B Pox to support 2 or even 3 colours. Also a lot lists are named Poxless (most Bw). Anyway it matches the impression I have in general and from this thread that Pox in Mono B is OK and Pox in Bx is NOK. It is however funny coincidence that the namesake (Pox) is thrown out of the deck and the deck itself still is listed under the category although not playing the card anymore. Do we need a thread like "Poxless Pox" which is a contradiction in itself but anyway .... ?

[Jon Stewart]

If your focus is on LD, then you should play 2-3 Pox atleast, it's as simple as that.

If you don't want any opponents to land more than one land at any time, you will need to play Pox alongside all the other LD, Smallpox, Wasteland, Sinkhole, Vindicate or such.

The non LD focused lists I think would be cool without Pox.

[Minty]

Somebody tried Chalice of the Void in the Sideboard?

@0 stops/slows down Combo (+ Tormod's Crypt)
@1 slows Burn(!!!), Zoo(!!!!!) Elves etc. and many other Decks (Deadstill, Tempotresh etc. etc. ... ) (+ Relic of Progenitus)