I agree with almost all of this. I would love to see your list.Originally Posted by iamfrightenedtoo
I haven't played a few months, playing Pox is like having full time dementia and insomnia. I traded away most of my Pox win conditions to get Ooze combo stuff.
I used to use Bloodghast and Nether Traitor, as my main creatures. they are easy to get under a bridge. even though bloodghast usually gets STP'd or just blocked by a bigger creature.
anymore I really like bump in the night. the problem with Pox, is there is always a time in every game where your opponent is at 6, you can no longer do any damage because he or she has several creatures out, but they cannot attack you because of your bridge. Bump in the Night seems like a decent try.
I have a 20+ man tourney coming up in a few days and I think this is what I am going to run with.
the main deck is this
4 duress
4 IOK
3 ensnaring bridge
4 dark ritual
4 hymn to tourach
2 zombie infestation
2 reanimate
4 extirpate
4 geth's verdict
17 swamps
TWO SIDEBOARDS (i will obviously have to start with one of them as the main deck.
I play transformer
3 Raven's Crime
4 Pox
4 Underworld Dreams
4 Bump in the Night
2 exhume
1 Triskelion
1 Phyrexian Devourer
3 Necrotic Ooze
3 Deesech the Queen
4 Buried Alive
1 Reanimate
Underworld Dreams is a decent win in Legacy. a lot of people go straight to the "slowness of it" but in, 3 turns I can have my opponent at less than 9 life. also, at that point, I can have a total lock against aggro, and creature decks.
9 turns, or even less with Bump in the Night goes by very quickly.
With Raven's Crime I would seriously consider using The Rack, I have a friend who runs a Rack, Death Shadow win condition, and he does decent.
again with Pox slow win conditions are okay (to a point) discard has the best lock, with the right pieces, and like I said two Poxes (which happens almost every game) your life total is 9. so is your opponent, maybe even less life because almost every deck runs 5+ fetch lands.
The Ooze combo will most likely be taken out. It needs more cards than 15 to be effective, but I just want to try it once (still have not gotten to a tournament since getting the combo) and I refuse to play any other deck but Pox, and the occasional Affinity.
I stick with Affinity because I once played in a sealed tournament, and built an affinity an won the tourney. It only had three affinity cards, but those Myr enforcers with a bunch of junk were amazing back in the days of mirrodin. I then built it for type two and play it when Pox just drives me crazy.
The reason I say playing Pox is like having dementia, and Insomnia all at once is this.
the deck is awful, Wizards hates Black I am sure of it. Mono Black or any mono color not Red or Blue is awful.
Mono Black is especially awful. playing Pox is bad, you lose a lot, because there is no good win condition, and even though I think discard is the most effective control, in actuality it sucks.
so most of the time you spend trying to tweak the deck, and find new things. you go to tournaments with ideas that seem like genius level plans only to 0-x
you stay up late writing lists and scheming that you do things like add the idols, and totems thinking because they are artifacts and not inherently creatures that they wont be affected by Pox, but the truth is, they are just not effective.
there are two simple answers to Pox
1: don't play it.
2: give up on creatures. and go for control, and figure out win conditions that way.
here are some fun facts about Pox.
1: Sinkhole, is a Sinkhole. it is expensive, and worthless. it is a trap, a sinkhole is a natural trap. and that is what the card is too. a trap to get you to buy 80 dollars worth of cards, when you could just get awesome alpha dark rituals, or shit... IDK ANYTHING else.
2: nonbasic lands are not needed. why? what are they good for? i would maybe run Inkmoth Nexsus, if only to kill another friggin Inkmoth Nexus, but if that is your plan, it is just going to get wasted anyway. stick to basic, and you'll have no problems.
3: if you are only going to run one edict spell, make it Geth's Verdict. it has the same casting cost at Diabolic Edict, but also makes the opponent lose a life.
4: always go first. a lot of Pox players like to go second, because the idea for the deck is to get your opponent down on card advantage, and by going second, they start with 7, and you start with 8. I don't care, they can have 8, I want a chance to dump a card in their graveyard before they get to cast it.
5: Small Pox is in no way better than Pox. people who think that never played Pox before, and are not Pox players. a single Pox will usually get rid of two lands, two creatures, dump one card from their hand, and lose at least 5 life. Small Pox does one of each. I could care less about one creature, and land. I want the life loss thank you, that is the way you win last time I checked. get your opponent to lose 20 life before you do.
6: BEST PLAY IN MAGIC HISTORY EVER!!!!! Lay down a Swamp, tap Swamp, cast Dark Ritual, cast Pox. BEST PLAY EVER!!!!! and if I draw two Swamp, a Pox, and dark Ritual, I do that play just out of spite for Wizards of the Coast. is it a bad play, most of time, but sometimes its amazing, and your opponent never recovers.
7: the only good Mox in Legacy for Pox is Diamond.
don't look at this list, and just take me as a dump player.
because the truth is, I have played in tournaments with builds that were worse, and my list changes 100 times a week. the tournament is Tuesday, I will change it 15 times before then, and twice before the thing starts, while I am at the event.
Take me as a dump player because I have been playing Pox since Tempest. I lose more than I win, mostly (and I cannot stress this enough) mono black Pox has been bad for years. I did once beat a type one artifact deck full of power (the artifact deck that ran Tinker before it got restricted) I ran no power. won win an Underworld Dream/ ensnaring Bridge lock. he did nothing until he got to 4 life, he cast an Ensesteral recal hoping to find a win, he didn't. instead of saying go, to make him lose because he would have drawn a card for his turn, I cast a Demonic Consultation, named Pox removed two Poxes which were in my top 6 cards, I already played one, and drew to about <10 cards left, got it, cast it, won.
it is the reason I play the deck, with a Pox-Ensnaring Bridge-Underworld dreams core, I won the same way in the same tournament against the same deck (different player) with The Rack, and demonic Consultation to a Pox with the opponent being at 1 life before the Demonic cast. It was the Columbus Grand Prix back in 2003 or 2004, might have even been 2002 I cant even remember the year.
I feel I owe Pox at least that much.
also, the way I figure it, one day a card will be printed, that will make Pox great, and at that point, I will have the leg up having already been playing it. If that card is never printed, then, I still get to play a deck I love, and have fun with.... win or lose.
Its like having a bad child. yeah he or she is a terrible person, and causes you grief. you still love them though.
As others have pointed out earlier in this thread, Pox is fundamentally flawed.
It attempts to play fair in a format that has such broken cards and interactions, you're cheating yourself out of a fair shot of doing well in a tournament.
That being said, I do love the deck and now is the time to sleeve Pox up again if it's one of your pet decks.
The reason for this is the rise of threshold decks and the printing of Liliana of the Veil.
I believe Sinkhole is a fine card for Pox. If anything, it is remarkably good against combo decks. They're no longer safe to fetch for an Island to ensure cantripping mana. You're now attacking from a lot of angles. The combo player really has to play careful. It's also good against Zoo decks. You can cut them from a color if they're not careful. It's also good Spell Snare bait because it's rather annoying getting your land destroyed. A follow up with Hymn to Tourach or Smallpox can be nice then.
The best Edict spell is Innocent Blood. Not Diabolic Edict or Geth's Verdict. The one mana is crucial for keeping up on the draw. If you don't answer that turn 1 Wild Nacatl it will be joined by a Tarmogoyf or Qasali Pridemage next turn. And because pox effects can only deal with one creature at a time, you are already dead. They will easily be able to keep dropping critters while you're taking 3 or 4 a turn.
Dark Ritual is useless in this deck. It goes against everything Pox is trying to do.
Liliana of the Veil is awesome in this deck.
I would play something like this:
4 Innocent Blood
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Sinkhole
4 Smallpox
4 Liliana of the Veil
3 Chimeric Idol
2 Pox
4 Tombstalker
4 Bloodghast
23 Swamp
Still a fan of Chimeric Idol. A three mana 3/3 with shroud and protection from sac is pretty good. With clever use of him you can make sure the opponent never gets to point a Swords or Bolt at him (Go for the Throat? Hehe). Also, I want enough threats to actually close out a game. As you can see this build is a bit more tempo oriented. Ideally it tries to destroy the opponent's resources while binning a ghast in the meantime. Then follow up with a stalker and start beating face. If there's no threat at your disposal yet, try to stick a Liliana. This will keep the opponent under pressure and stalls the game out until you find a finisher. As you can see, Sinkhole is crucial in the plan 1, 2, 3 plan.
T1: Inquisition (on play/draw) or Innocent Blood (on draw)
T2: Sinkhole, Hymn or Smallpox
T3: (Small)pox, Liliana or Idol
T4: Either land a Tombstalker, Pox away and start crashing in with idol (+ghast) or disrupt more with Liliana.
This could actually lead to a good number of wins. It's a focused plan and works well against such decks as Canadian Threshold or Zoo. It's nice how Idols are pretty big against Zoo. Between disrupting their mana base to shrink cats and apes, you can attack the yard postboard (we usually only really have sorceries and lands, making goyf 2/3) so that your Idol fights off Goyfs. That's why I like Idol much better than Nether Spirit. It's a good beater while avoiding the symmetry of Pox in a clever way. Liliana also helps out as you can force them to discard the removal before you animate your turtle.
The reason Nether Spirit sucks is because Pox is fundamentally too weak to try and play the control role. It's impossible, our topdecks are way worse and the powerlevel of the cards aren't sufficient to keep up. Spirits are 2/2 weenies that can't get shit done. All they do is stall out. Stalling is the equivalent of giving up in this deck.
No, the power of the deck lies in it's early disruption. It's the best you can ask for. Targeted discard, random discard, blowing up lands, blowing up everything. There's not much left except dropping a Liliana or Stalker and ride it to a win. If you give too much time to recover, or rather too much topdecks, other decks will catch up and put you away easily.
Screw Wasteland. Sinkholes replace them. You need your land drops so it's better to pay two mana for destroying a land than trading lands. It helps you landing at least two devastating effects before landing a threat, all in four turns. No mana base was better than the one I started out with, which was all Swamps. It's really inconvenient to weaken your own mana base to attack their's twice as much. The deck is much better equipped to spend BB to a destroy a land, than to mess up your mana base for it. The thing about Sinkhole is getting ahead on lands, Wasteland doesn't help you do that. Also, this may come as a surprise but for a deck that attacks resources so much, this deck can't stand having hiccups along the way itself. Wasteland is an example of that. Sinkhole works much smoother in the curve (especially now with Liliana).
My list is as good as any list. But I wanted to talk about my personal preferences and my findings while playing this deck for a long time.
ReinVos
I have played your exact list. with the exception of Liliana, as she was not a card when I ran the deck.
you are right, your list is no worse than any other Pox list. the problem is, creature/aggro/tempo Pox doesn't work. Your list may, because you only play two Pox, and honestly, at that point, just take out Pox all together.
as for Dark Ritual being no good.
I understand this, because Pox wants to get each player in top deck mode, and a top decked Dark Ritual is usually a bad thing.
But
what are you going to do on turn four or five, when you need to cast a Pox, or an innocent blood and a Stalker? or a Hymn, and a Duress, or anything that cost more than one black mana, and you only have a single swamp, or two in play?
Dark Ritual was made for this deck. actually, Dark ritual came out first, Pox was made for Dark Ritual.
A top decked Dark Ritual is a good thing in those situations, and those situations happen all the time.
I have rarely lost a game because I Poxed with one mana in play and had to sac it. I lose when I have five or six mana in play.
I like your list, I like creature Pox, I just cant get it to work.
your deck only has ten creature removal spells. most decks run, as many creatures, merfolk, zoo, and a select other aggro decks run way more. they will over run your deck, because those decks also run removal, and counters. your creatures will all get STP'd, Oblivion Ringed, Bolted, or just countered. Bloodghast doesn't worry about counter, or Bolt, but it sire does suck to get it STP'd.
Liliana disrupt is with her ability to kill a creature, every other turn. Her end all ability is horrible. I like the ability to make an opponent discard every turn, but I have a decent time with Raven's Crime and all the other discard spells that I do not need her, no one does.
I only play with 17 Swamp, I do not understand, how I am the only player in Magic history to get flooded with Mana, playing 17, I cannot imagine what it would be like to run more than 20, I never, have ever, had mana problems. I also Pox more than the average player. as I believe there is never a bad time to play the card.
why not run Death's Shadow, it gets big at your most vulnerable time.
I also agree with you about Innocent Blood, to a point. It is all about the style of play. I like the one mana cost, and I don't play creatures so I could care less about sacrificing my own. but I am willing to pay the extra one black mana, to have the instant speed of Geth's or Diabolic.
I am interested in hearing a tournament report for this list, if you wouldn't mind posting something the next time you pilot it in a tourney.
Hi All, I used to play pox when it was good in extended (in the academy period - it was about the only deck that actually had a reasonable match up with academy). I'd not suggest it in any real tournament in legacy, but it is a blast to play.
One card that I think you are missing is cursed scroll. It was always a mainstay, since you rapidly empty your hand and are looking for things to do with your mana (typically, conveniently, having 3 in play). It mops up endless streams of snapcasters, aberations, Bobs, grim lavamancers, etc leaving the edict effects for the big guys; not to mention taking chunks out of planeswalkers and speeding up your clock.
I'd suggest you give it a whirl - there is a reason that it was once the most expensive card in extended!
Also I am a fan of chrome mox over ritual. Both are, in essence, -1 card advantage, but the mox lives through pox.
I have not played Legacy in awhile. I stopped playing when Mental Misstep was everywhere. That is no longer an issue. I am thinking about making Pox my deck of choice. Reid Duke was instrumental in that decision but I have been trying to champion Smallpox for months, even before it was reprinted, because it eats a lot of decks in Legacy right now.
This thread, especially the last few pages, has been somewhat enlightening. After seeing the list that Duke had posted on SCG, there were a few cards that I was just not a fan of. I also saw a lack of The Rack and Ensnaring Bridge, both of which I like a lot. I also think that I like Mox Diamond.
The Underworld Dreams idea posted on this last page was interesting too.
So I am going to work with some friends, do some testing and try to come up with a list that I am happy with. There are a lot of suggested cards that I am not sold on, such as Chimeric Idol or Tombstalker, but we'll see.
I'll agree with iamfrightenedtoo's feeling that playing Pox is like having dementia and insomnia at the same time, but fortunately for me this fits nicely since I've spent most of my life as an insomniac and anyone who knows me will tell you I'm more than a little bit crazy
Actually, outwardly I'm a very calm and laid back person who just has eons worth of repressed rage and extremely sadistic desires towards my fellow Magic players (especially the Blue mages) and Pox gives me a healthy outlet for those feelings. Killing everyone and everything and inflicting as much suffering as possible on your opponent over the course of a friendly game of Magic can be very therapeutic.
There's few things I enjoy more when playing Magic than that utterly broken look your opponent gets on their face when you've made them discard their whole hand, killed all their creatures, and laid waste to their manabase by turn 4. Seeing their confidence in their deck crumble before your eyes and the resulting look that crosses their face when they've been broken is satisfying beyond words. I think that's the best reason to play Pox
But anyyyyyhoo... It's been quite interesting and informative seeing all the different opinions about various cards over the past few pages, and it really seems like the most majorly contested card in Pox has got to Dark Ritual. It does carry an element of inherent card disadvantage, but the power plays it offers you are often well worth the disadvantage IMHO.
So for those who think Dark Ritual doesn't belong in our deck, I ask you this...
Have you ever Dark Rit'ed out a Liliana of the Veil on turn 1 on the play?
Have you ever gone Dark Rit - Inquisition of Kozilek - Hymn to Tourach on turn 1?
Have you ever been mana screwed due to your own Pox effects and just really needed to get out that 2 or 3 CMC card?
Has game 2/3 graveyard hate ever left you short on mana to power out that Tombstalker?
I you answered yes to any of the above, you should have some understanding of why I feel Dark Ritual is excellent in Pox. It enables some crazy tempo plays, can pull you out of a mana screw, and worst case scenario it's a card you can pitch to Pox/Smallpox/Liliana if it's no longer needed. Admittedly though more aggressive takes on Pox will make better use of it. If your game plan is some kind of late game prison strategy it might not work nearly as well as in lists packed with lots of threats that can apply pressure early on. Dark Ritual is a pure tempo card and therefore will be most effective in a tempo based strategy, where as Mox Diamond is probably much better suited to the more prison centric variations of Pox with Wasteland, Crucible of Worlds, and the like.
I will say though that I'm not on board with frightened's suggestion of going Turn 1 Dark Rit - Pox. I know he's been playing this deck quite a bit longer than me, but I can safely say that I've never won a single game from doing this and in most cases it's pure suicide unless you've got a couple of Bloodghasts in hand and land to spare (although I would consider doing it on the draw if the opponent had a turn 1 Goblin Lackey and I had no other means of killing it).
In regards to Liliana, I'm astonished that there are some who feel she doesn't belong in the deck (especially if you enjoy playing Raven's Crime). What if I told you that Wizards printed a Raven's Crime that you could pitch not just land but any card to, could make your opponent sacrifice creatures as well, and only had to invest mana in once instead of every turn? That would be totally awesome right? I give you Liliana of the Veil.
I do dig iamfrightenedtoo's suggestion of Ensnaring Bridge though. In my experience the only types of decks Pox really struggles in dealing with (even post board) is decks that spit out 1 or 2 creatures every turn for the first 4 turns. Zoo is pretty much the nightmare matchup for me and Affinity is sketchy at best until I bring in the 3x Null Rod from my sideboard. Pox can take on Junk, RUG, Bant, U/W Stoneforge, and all those other aggro control decks that are so popular right now all day long and come out on top. But when the opponent brings a really aggro deck to the table that's when the trouble starts. Decks like Goblins and Elves can be easily answered with a grip of Infest from the board and Affinity just folds to Null Rod, but Zoo is causing me nothing but troubles. At this point my best answer for them has been Ratchet Bomb, but that's still pretty sub-optimal due to it's slow speed and only works well against the Sligh builds of Zoo that are almost entirely 1 drops and Tarmogoyf.
Fortunately Ratchet Bomb serves other purposes and tends to be particularly effective against Merfolk (but that matchup is already pretty good without it) and absolutely wrecks Enchantress, but isn't quite what I'm looking for against Zoo. So I may have to find some board space to see if I can give a few Ensnaring Bridge a try ^_^
Sligh : Winning with bad cards since 1996
Pox : Enjoy the crisp refreshing taste of your opponent's suffering
I entered a tournament with pox last saturday
Pox was the first legacy deck I made because its low-budget nature made it attractive
Now cards are easy for me to come by so I wanted to give it a go with some better options
I wasn't able to get the exact list I wanted but this is what I ended up using
4 Liliana
4 Hymn
3 Inquisition
2 Thoughtseize
2 Duress
2 Nether Spirit
2 Tombstalker
4 The Rack
2 Crucible
4 Smallpox
3 Pox
3 Innocent Blood
1 Ravens Crime
4 Mishras Factory
20 Swamp
SB
2 Duress
3 Dystopia
1 Innocent Blood
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Leyline of the Void
2 Dark Ritual
2 Go for the Throat
At the last minute as I was writing my decklist waiting at the stop for the (late) bus I decided to cut wastelands for factories. With the rack as my main win condition it didn't make sense for my opponents to have cards stranded in their hand - trying to attack their hand and manabase just seemed unnecessarily greedy.
I didn't expect to go amazingly, and guess what, I didn't (2-2-1) but I learned a lot and I just wanted to share some of it.
For the record
Junk: Win
Reanimator: Lose
Casual Bant Deck That Was Almost Modern Legal Except For I Think Swords To Plowshares Sigh: Lose (Got blown out by Wilt Leaf Liege in game two AND three)
A controlish build of Eva Green: Draw
Armageddon Stax: Win
Liliana is easily the best card in the deck. With all the removal (IBlood, Smallpox) it is rare that the opponent has more than one creature on the board. Usually, they don't have many cards in hand either, due to your discard spells. Therefore, with an active liliana, your opponents turn goes like this:
a) They draw a land and play it: you don't even care
b) They draw a creature and play it: Liliana eats it
c) They draw a card they can't play or don't want to: Liliana discards it
The one problem with Liliana is that it doesn't actually win the game but it stalls your opopnent out so much that one of your threats will eventually be able to grind out a win. The card is absolutely amazing and the deck feels completely different with its inclusion.
The most notable thing Liliana did for me was against a stax player where half of his permanents (Trinisphere, Chalice) didn't let The Rack resolve and the other half (Port, Ensnaring Bridge) didn't let Mishra's Factory attack. That was the only time I used Liliana's ultimate the entire day but the first 2 abilities really are that big of a deal and I would still play 4 copies of this card for sure if it didn't even have the ultimate.
Don't play less than 4 copies, if you end up drawing 2 copies you can easily just discard the spare one.
I was always able to get quite a lot of value out of crucible whenever I drew it but a lot of the time it was unnecessary - like one of the above posters said, in many games I had enough mana to cast a Corrupt, so the extra lands were unnecessary. The only times it was valuable was when I was able to recur dead Mishra's Factories which allowed me to win the game.
Tombstalker was fine but sometimes it was awkward when my own removal spells killed it and because you can't deploy it in the early turns it often ended up being discarded to Liliana.
Nether spirit is always amazing. I would always play it over bloodghast because the fact that you can block is so important. Due to the attrition war created by your strategy often you will both be topdecking and you want to be able to stall out their Knight or Goyf while you find an answer: you aren't going to be racing either of those with a bloodghast.
The fact that it gets discarded by Lilliana/smallpox is just gravy
In one of the games I forgot to recur it for a couple of turns and after the match my opponent complimented me for successfully being able to play around Swords to Plowshares :P
Raven's Crime is amazing with The Rack. The card is just absurd. It's Liliana's +1 effect. If I wasn't using The Rack I would probably not think that it was worth it but if you are trying to win with The Rack it is definitely MVP and I would main 2.
I had never used Mishras Factory before because the budget version played Chimeric Idol but they were very good.
24 Lands though is just way too many. I flooded out almost every game and always sided out lands
One problem with trying to win with the rack is that loam decks just rape you in the bumhole, hence the SB surgical extraction. I played against 2 loam decks, bet one and drew to the other. Life from the Loam is the main reason why I do not like using The Rack as the main win condition.
The SB was mainly more removal for creature decks (removal is better than discard against a creature deck of course because you make them use mana on the spell and you can react to the creature if you draw the spell later on), more discard for combo decks, and gravehate for graveyard decks.
3 Pox was too much and I sided one out every game for the more specific hate in the sideboard. If I played again with this deck I would only main 2.
The dystopias only went in for one match: in the game where I drew it, he was able to deal a lot of damage to me very quickly so I was unable to pay for the cumulative upkeep after only one or 2 turns. I still think it's a useful card which warrants testing. It pretty much directly conflicts with perish for a sideboard slot so this should always be considered.
Now I want to talk about Reid Duke's Pox deck which he used to come to a 3rd place finish in the Starcitygames invitational:
//Mono Black Pox, by Reid Duke
//Downloaded from StarCityGames.com
13 Swamp
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Hymn to Tourach
1 Pox
4 Liliana of the Veil
1 Nether Void
2 Nether Spirit
3 Innocent Blood
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Wasteland
3 Cursed Scroll
4 Smallpox
4 Sinkhole
4 Dark Ritual
1 Spinning Darkness
// Sideboard:
SB: 4 Engineered Plague
SB: 2 Leyline of the Void
SB: 1 The Abyss
SB: 2 Extirpate
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Perish
SB: 2 Spinning Darkness
Now this guy is not bad which is clear by his finish at the event, MOCS etc. Not many good players have ever taken pox to a serious event such as this and seeing as he did so well with it, it would be good to seriously consider his build of the deck and at least give it a go. I just want to talk about the way he has built his deck and how I believe there is a lot of synergy in its design.
Anybody who has played with liliana will wonder if there is any way that they can ramp it out on turn 1. The earlier you can start building up counters on it the more effective it is at dealing with opposing creature threats while not coming into burn range or having to minus-2 with only 2 counters on it. Dark Ritual is the obvious choice for this. A lot of people try Dark Ritual in pox, love the god-draws when you go turn 1 Hymn + something, but then get rid of it for generally being too inconsistent. I think it is now correct to play Dark Ritual in Pox, because turn 1 Hymn or turn 1 Liliana is just such a serious beating on the opponent.
Dark Ritual means you run out of in-hand cards faster which makes the +1 of Liliana much stronger because there is a greater chance of the opponent having some cards and you having none.
After including Dark Ritual in the deck, you probably want another 2 or 3 drop spell to play off it to consistently have more explosive openings (everybody knows that the turn 1 smallpox or turn 1 pox is a terrible play). Reid decided to go with Sinkhole. Just like Dark Ritual, in previous versions of the deck that liked to win through The Rack, sinkhole was not very good, because attacking both their hand and their manabase was too greedy and you ended up having an opponent with no lands and a rack that did nothing or an insipid mix of both types of spell that did not end up having a serious disruptive effect on the opponent.
With liliana, you have a repeatable discard threat. Often, you +1 Liliana with no cards in the opponents hand, which is fine, but sometimes YOU will have a card in hand, and the opponent does not, which is an awful feeling. By including land destruction in a Liliana deck, you delay the casting of the opponents threats and give Liliana more time to grind away at their hand.
As one of the other posters in this thread pointed out it is also not too bad against combo.
Also, Reid has done away with the popular Rack, and decided to play Cursed Scroll instead. After my tournament last weekend, I can wholeheartedly agree with this decision. The randomness of the ability is almost never a factor as you run out of in-hand cards very quickly. What this means is that you have a 1-Mana artifact with the ability 3,T: Shock. The 3 mana cost is usually moot as you floot out a lot and with Liliana keeping everybody locked down and playing a deck whose main function is to put both players in topdeck mode, you often don't have anything else to spend your mana on. Now cursed scroll is basically:
1 - Artifact
T: Shock
If there really was a 1 mana artifact with T: opponent loses 2 life then it would almost certainly see play over the rack. But you can go one better than that, and have a 1 mana artifact with T: Shock
Here is what you can shock
Stoneforge
Fishies
Lavamancer
Delver
Snapcaster
Goblins
Hierarch
Mother of Runes
Heaps of other GW shit like pridemage and teeg and so on
Elves
Quite a lot of what affinity plays
Goblin Guide
Clique
Spellstutter
Here is what Karsten Kotter says about the card in his latest SCG article
It does seem very goodFinally, there's another way to beat diverse strategies—by figuring out which base they haven't covered and giving yourself a way to attack there. Reid Duke's Cursed Scrolls received a lot of commentary in the coverage of the Invitational for exactly that reason. The U/R Delver deck doesn't have a single creature that will live through an active Cursed Scroll and has no way to get rid of it. Essentially, just by playing a Cursed Scroll, you give yourself absolute inevitability. If they win, it's going to have to be early so if the rest of your deck will keep them from doing so, things are looking good.
You wouldn't play 4 because if you have 2 in play finding the mana to activate both is a bit unreliable.
One thing that I find odd looking at Reids deck is the fact that he plays so many lands (25). Playing this deck I found mana flood to be quite a serious problem and in this deck the only way to really mitigate that issue is that you can use the mana for cursed scroll activations.
The other way of looking at it is that wasteland is a spell, in a way, so perhaps this problem is not as bad as I think it is.
There's no downside to playing 4 Urborgs as if you have multiples you will end up discarding them for Smallpox or Liliana. The fact it is nonbasic is irrelevant as opponents will be targeting your Mishra's Factories.
The other thing I found strange is the decision to play IoK over thoughtseize, particularly because he is playing Dark Ritual
Imagine that you are on the draw against this pox deck (g2 even so you know what's going on). You have FoW and a blue card, the pox player leads with Dark Ritual. You can:
a) FoW the ritual and be down a card
b) Wait and see what he plays, if it's a Liliana you counter that and you made a 2 for 2 trade, which is still what the pox deck wants to be doing
c) Wait and see what he plays, and have your FoW taken by a discard spell then the other 2 mana spent on a Hymn or something
Except you can't have C if you're playing Inquisition over Thoughtseize
I don't really have much to say with regards to his bullets (Pox, NVoid, Spinning Darkness) as I haven't given them a go before (except Pox of course). If I tried them and didn't like them I would just cut them for more 1-mana discard spells (Thoughtseize or Raven's Crime). Nether Void seems like a total blowout if it resolves and you always have Dark Ritual to make sure you get the mana for it.
He kept Nether Spirit because the card is fantastic but he got rid of tombstalker completely which is probably correct because it just doesn't have a lot of synergy with the rest of the deck. (The symetrical edicts and the nether spirits)
Some people might say "Oh, well, this isn't even a pox deck, he's only got one copy of Pox". This is because Liliana pretty much replaces pox. Liliana does usually what pox does only in the most clutch of situations, which is absolutely rape every last one of your opponent's cards. Liliana is almost a strictly better version of the card pox.
In the SB he has extirpate instead of surgical extraction, perish instead of Dystopia, Spinning Darkness and the Abyss instead of Go for the Throat but the philosophy behind its build is quite similar to the one I made and I agree that sideboarding in that way is very effective.
The 4 Engineered Plague is definitely needed against goblins which otherwise is an extremely bad matchup and Merfolk and Elves are very popular too so you have additional hate for those decks.
With dark ritual you can play it on turn 1 which gives you additional power for those matchups (criticism of plague against fish often comes down to the fact that when you land a plague they often negate it by already having a lord out.)
I'm going to test this build tomorrow and ill let you guys know how it goes.
Here are the links to related SCG Material about the deck
Karstens Article
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/l...trategies.html
Feature match where Reid gets pwned, unfortunately
http://www.starcitygames.com/events/...ini_vs_re.html
Deck Tech Interview
http://www.starcitygames.com/events/...ox_with_r.html
For some people I may be preaching to the converted but there are others in this thread who even deny that liliana is a good card.
For the record, I would never ever play either mox in this deck
I don't understand how ReinVos you think that pox can't play the control role
You think that the success of the deck is its early disruption
Sure
But after you've disrupted the opponents early game, you then land liliana or cursed scroll and lock it up
You don't play like Nantuko Shade and try and race the opponent
You say the opponent will have better topdecks than you
Well sure
But if you have liliana (or even cursed scroll sometimes) then it doesn't matter AT ALL what they topdeck because you're just going to get rid of it regardless
And then
Ping goes the cursed scroll
Ping goes the nether spirit
Ping goes the mishras factory
The deck is one of the most controlling I have ever played, it's like MonoB Landstill or something.
You even say "drop a Liliana and ride it to the win!" How is that not a control deck? You need something to win the game for you because Liliana isn't going to get there on its own unless they actually cast Lich and you ult it away. Nether spirit is perfect for this.
I agree with you that innocent blood is the best edict spell, and I used to agree with your views on wasteland but now I think that I can work if you treat it as a spell and play lots of lands to compensate for that.
Adding my 2c to some more of the discussion in this thread
Death's Shadow is almost strictly worse than tombstalker
Underworld Dreams is worse than cursed scroll (slower, can't kill dudes) and PROBABLY worse than the rack but it's an interesting idea for sure
Always on the play of course because you want to hit them with a discard spell
Yeah if you want to debate any other card I'm keen for a discussion because I really like this deck and I want to see it do well
I messaged Reid Duke and asked him why he didn't play any copies of The Rack. Unfortunately, he never responded.
We can speculate about why, obviously, and even from a common sense perspective, we could brainstorm logically why, but I would have rather just heard it from his side, you know? Oh well.
I'm not super-sold on his build. Too many 1-ofs for my liking. I would cut Spinning Darkness, The Abyss & Nether Void altogether...and that's coming from someone that loves Nether Void. I just don't like the inconsistencies here. Reading his deck summary he even kind of hinted at them just being in the deck because he's old school and wanted to wax nostalgic. I've been playing since 1994, so I understand...but they just don't fit.
We all seem to have a pretty solid base deck but I would like to champion Duke's mana base. 25 land might seem like a lot but the biggest difference is that he always wants three mana sources in play so he can activate Cursed Scroll. His deck doesn't even really play like a Pox deck a lot of the time it feels. It's more like Mono-Black Control if you play it. Sure, it has 4x copy of Smallpox, but that is just like getting hit with a Wasteland, really (in regard to you losing a land I mean). The singleton copy of Pox makes it so you hardly ever even see it. A lot of games you'll play you'll see that you have enough mana sources to activate Cursed Scroll and animate and swing with a Mishra's Factory. Is that too much at one time? Maybe for his build, I guess but I sort of like having options post-Pox.
Anyway, from some testing here are some things that I like:
* Contagion - I like it against Goblins and Merfolk. I certainly like it more than Spinning Darkness.
* The 2x copies of Nether Spirit - I like them but they will be the only creatures that I ever play. I would also Sideboard them out against any deck with Swords to Plowshares or Path to Exile. I like my opponent having dead cards. So if all of their removal is dead, that's a positive. Even if they just pitch those cards to Lilliana/Smallpox. It's more dead draws later. Nether Spirit almost makes me want to play Contamination Sideboard but I guess Nether Void is better there since quite a few decks do stuff with black. Even still, I'll probably end up creatureless.
* Multiple copies of Pox - I think it's deck dependent though. I have actually cast a first turn Pox which won me the game, although those scenarios are very few and far between. I was on the draw and my opponent went Mountain, Goblin Lackey, go. I didn't have an Innocent Blood, so he lost his Mountain, Lackey, two cards and seven life instead. Even still if he played an Ęther Vial on turn 2 I would have been in a lot of trouble. I like more copies of Pox, but I like playing Mox Diamond too.
* I will champion Dark Ritual - Tempo still matters in Magic, especially in Legacy. With the banning of Mental Misstep, worst case scenario is they Force of Will whatever you try to speed out. That's almost like them just getting hit with a Hymn to Tourach, so I'm OK with that. Yes, drawing them late is bad, but so is drawing a lot of things late, like land or, my favorite, multiple copies of Lilliana when they Pithing Needle her.
Here are some things that I dislike:
* Tombstalker - Just a critter removal target, really. And the majority of the game, since you don't have a lot of targets, they'll just be holding it anyway. Sure, you can attack their hand/mana base so that when he hits he can win the game, but I don't like having to take otherwise dead cards just to be able to finish the game. Obviously I could argue this card from both sides of the equation, because if they get rid of all their removal pitching to Lilliana or whatnot then the 'stalker will go all the way, but there's a difference between theory and execution and in execution I'm not a fan. He feels clunky.
* Crucible - Great card, I just don't like it here. Re-playing lands that you blow up with Pox/Smallpox is cool, I guess, but if that Crucible were a threat you could just be trying to end the game instead of re-playing lands and looking to finish. Occasionally you can Wasteland lock someone but people can play around Wasteland a lot and if you're blowing up basics so you can hope to Wasteland non-basics later, you aren't eliminating a color like you could.
* Sinkhole - Only good for games where you mana-hose them. Which is due to a lot of things, like them keeping subpar hands, you getting lucky on a Hymn or blowing up so much stuff they become relevant mid-game. I kind of just want more business.
We have a lot better options now than several years ago. I remember playing Pox where one of my win conditions was Steel Golem. So we've come a long way. Lilliana of the Veil is a great card. I like Inquisition of Kozilek too because we do enough damage to ourselves as it is so we don't need the shock from Thoughtseize too.
Right now, I'm a big fan of being anti-aggro main and Sideboarding to make my deck stronger against Control. I love Underworld Dreams out of the Side. My deck is starting to come together but card choices are so vast it's hard to narrow it down to a seventy-five that I'm completely comfortable with.
I don't like it at all here, man. I like Perish better against Green and I like Gloom a lot against White. Especially since you're playing Dark Ritual. Or Massacre. I don't feel our decks can keep paying life. Especially when each turn they just sac their smallest threat and then still get in the Red Zone. Dystopia is just too slow.
Some of the cards I still want to try are: Tanglewire, Night of Soul's Betrayal & Tainted Ęther. I don't know if any of them will come close to making the cut (most likely not), but I still want to try new ideas instead of outright dismissing everything.
I still have a lot more playtesting to do. A lot more metagame decks to play against. I still have a few months until the Indianapolis Legacy tournament, which is where I hope to play this at.
PS you have some good feedback
I think he didn't play the rack because he thought cursed scroll was better than it. He doesn't have any space really to play both, what would you cut from his list to include it?
I agree that from Reids interview he implied that the only reason he played Pox, Nether Void and the Abyss was that they were kind of his pet cards.
Pox is still decent as a one of but in testing I found that Nether Void was really weird as I often wasn't in a good position to cast it. Considering that you can play it and then lose anyway to manlands, aether vial and dredge. It feels like more of a sideboard card as a one-of against combo perhaps, but even then it seems extremely sketchy due to the high manacost.
Spinning Darkness on the other hand I was always happy to draw and I would keep the one mained. The only thing that's stopping me from taking out Nether Void for another one maindecked is that in the early game it can be hard to get black cards in the bin quickly and if you draw 2 it will be very difficult to play both.
4 Urborgs was sometimes awkward. Once I had urborg and 2 other lands in play, urborg and another card in my hand, and something I really had to kill with my cursed scroll, so I had to float the mana off my lands and then legend-rule half my manabase away in order to get a guaranteed reveal. It did help me cast a lot of my spells though so I'm not sure yet if I want to cut it to three.
I completely agree with your comments on Dark Ritual, Tombstalker and Crucible, Dark Ritual especially because turn 1 Liliana is RETARDED. Most decks have no way of dealing with it AT ALL if it resolves. If they force it, well then like you say, the Liliana might as well have just been a resolved Hymn to Tourach.
I feel like 2 pox is the right number after playing the tournament with three and then testing with only one and from Reid's list I would cut the Nether Void for it.
I disagree on what you're saying about sinkhole though
It's not only good for the mana-denial but it's also good for the fact that it can reliably blow up manlands which are otherwise very difficult to deal with ( I <3 Spinning Darkness)
Turn2 Sinkhole into Turn3 Liliana leaves their 3 Drop (or 2 drop, depending who started) stranded in their hand which gives you the opportunity to discard it. Admittedly the card isn't the best in the deck but it is useful and it fits in the curve very well so I don't really know what else I would use.
In testing I used lilianas ultimate a couple more times. Even if they don't have anything in play, when it gets up to about 8 or so counters just using the -6 ability as Rain of Salt is powerful enough for the opponent to get worried about.
Contagion I feel is worse than Engineered Plague for those matchups
The fact that it's only -2 toughness means that it can really only kill one creature
There are plenty more options for black like Disfigure or Dead Weight or Vendetta or Ghastly Demise or maxing out on Innocent Blood that perform a similar function but without the card disadvantage.
The problem with Massacre and Gloom and Perish is that they hate on green and white but not both at the same time which means you either take up a lot of sideboard slots or miss hate for a certain matchup
The fact that you can kill any permanent not just creatures can also be relevant, eg Elspeth, Thopter Foundry, Enchantress (Although gloom does a pretty good job with these)
Admittedly, the one game I did play with Dystopia, it suffered from the exact problem you describe, but I still want to test it out more.
What matchup do you board Underworld Dreams in?
Night of soul's betrayal I am not keen on mained for the shrinking of factories and nether spirit. The opportunity cost of Night of souls betrayal from the SB is that it could be an Engineered Plague instead.
Tainted Aether is a cool card but against creature decks 4 mana might be too slow. The interaction with nether spirit is also a complete disaster. The abyss seems better for this purpose.
I don't see how Tangle Wire is better than Sinkhole, but like you say, test new ideas instead of just throwing them away.
Not sure how you can argue fewer than x4 Pox in a build with x4 Rack. Getting your opponent's life low, low, low makes Rack absurdly good.
Hand OR Land destruction is also key as noted by players with a ton of experience in page after page throughout the thread ;).
Completely agree Ritual into Liliana is so good it might actually make Pox tier 1 with the right build.
I'm also liking x1 Underworld Dreams main-deck with possibly 1-2 in SB. It's damn good right now with Ponder/Brainstorm everywhere. At the very least, every little bit helps with Pox, Rack, and Cursed Scroll.
Still deciding on x1 Vengeful Pharaoh.
No clue how Reid or anyone can argue Nether Spirit over Bloodghast. Being able to abuse Bloodghast recursion in multiples and having haste as gravy is "strickly better" ;). Why would blocking be an issue when you have Pox, Smallpox, Liliana, Dismember, Pharaoh... if anyone needs to block, it's your opponent so your Rack, Cursed Scroll, or Underworld Dreams doesn't kill them the next turn.
Also, all swamps is the answer... screw the other shenanigans (man-lands) - you don't need them and they can cause game losses by missing a key Hymn or "Pox." I'm loving only x22 Swamp atm in my build... almost feels like playing RuG tempo ;).
Will gladly share a report after I try the build I'm testing in a larger tournament - hopefully soon.
I used to run Tangle Wire in Pox, I played it more like Mono Black Stax with Pox though.
I love Nether Void, amazing, do not own one, but would run a oneof, if I did. I also actually love Trinisphere too in Pox. I wish I could remember my old Vintage build with Tangle Wire, Trinisphere, and Pox, it could handle the old vintage deck's speed, I cant imagine it would be much worse in a slower Legacy format.
especially with Liliana. Ill be honest. I originally looked at Liliana, and like other Planeswalkers I looked at her end all ability (which sucks)
But Liliana is not about her end all, its the edict, and Raven's Crime ability before the end all.
screw it, it might take a while, but I am going to build my old triniwire pox, with Liliana.
The problem I found with many (3 or more) copies of pox is that
a) It's very hard to cast more than one copy, due to the sacrificing and discarding of all your lands and
b) you rarely ever want to because it puts you on such low life that all their topdecks become very scary
I tested a lot of games against elves and when they werent able to combo off nether spirit being able to block kept me alive for quite a few turns because they didn't want to waste cards by attacking into it.
It's also good for blocking against decks that want to just stick one decent threat and keep swinging with it while you try to find an answer (reanimator, delver decks, a lot of UG goyf decks)
When you block with nether spirits it also lets you kill X/4s with your cursed scroll and I have done that to Germ tokens a few times which are difficult to race even if you are recurring all 4 of your bloodghasts
I played against a Hypergenesis deck for a few games that tries to resolve show and tell or ardent plea/violent outburst by using the Tinder Farm cycle of lands
Sinkholes and wastelands were amazing and made sure he could never resolve his win condition while I keep making him disard all his cards away
Pretty much any deck that plays Brainstorm is what it seems like so far. Maybe not the Delver deck. Also, a lot of the cards you're talking about costing me too much, remember that I play both Mox Diamond and Dark Ritual.
Also, although it makes cards like Innocent Blood & Geth's Verdict weaker, Contagion can shut down offensive creatures w/out killing them. Making a 2/x creature a 0/x creature is a big deal. It's stopping four damage in the Red Zone a turn. And you don't have to worry about the drawbacks that Spinning Darkness gives you. Like the creature being black or you not having the cards in the GY to remove.
For the life of me I cannot understand why everyone in this forum is having a difficult time casting more than one Pox.
Seriously, it kept me up last night.
I run 17 Swamp, and usually cast two Pox a game, and if I could draw them, I can usually cast more.
Honestly with 4 Pox, casting multiple, I can almost cast a Corrupt in every match (not game) but more times then I care to remember, I sit at the table looking at my opponent while were in top deck mode. I think to myself. "I wish I had a friggin Corrupt." I almost bought a 4 pack last month because I was tired of having 6-7 Swamp in play with nothing to do with them, its why I play Raven's Crime.
PLay testing is nothing like playing.
it is a different atmosphere, when you play test, you do it with people whom you play a lot with, and with that, you know how each other plays.
Ive also been thinking, Underworld dreams, I use it, but always think there is something better. there is not.
Underworld dreams in Legacy is amazing. so many decks run draw. every deck draws at least one card a turn, it is damage every turn.
and when you play Pox, you do not need a lot of other damage outside of Pox. with Cursed Scroll, Underworld Dreams, and Pox, you almost do not need any other win conditions.
you all have convinced me though, Liliana has a small place in Pox. I would not run 4 f her though, 3 yes, but not 4. I only want to run into her once, never twice.
Why would you have a different rule for Liliana than for Pox? They essentially run in the same slot, except Liliana is far more controllable but more susceptible to dying. I would run more Liliana than I would run pox.
Additionally, I'd like to add that Reid's deck isn't too strange running that high of a land count because Pox decks generally hurt themselves with Pox effects, so running 24+ lands is quite normal if it's not aggro pox. I think the Inquisition vs Thoughtseize argument has been addressed in the SCG article. He said that he likes to see FOW being casted because of the 2 for 1, so he cares more about the life loss than the FOW, which makes sense.
What's interesting is actually why he doesn't run Sensei's Divining Top, because most of us would agree that that's a superior card in the top deck race.
@Jin
I want to see two Pox every game, at least one.
Liliana is not going to win me any games, she will just help me control them. Pox is one of the main win conditions.
If I see Liliana more than once, it is a dead card in my hand. I am not concerned with my opponent attacking me/ or Liliana. If she gets in play, the likelihood of her being in play at least three turns is good. I only need her for about 3-4 turns. I am concerned however, that I cannot do enough damage to my opponent.
I do not play Pox for killing lands, creatures, or hands. I play Pox because it deals damage as well as other things.
If Pox was one or two black mana, and I was able to choose between 1/3 life, hand, creatures, or land, I would almost exclusively choose life.
This is why I have different rules for Liliana and Pox.
oh yes, you've mentioned this before. I suppose it's been working out for you. I'm more about controlling. I think if you play Pox that way, you might consider a more aggressive build then. Liliana doesn't seem too viable in your list.
Extra Lilianas are good. They allow me to use some of Liliana's removal ability, which is necessary sometimes. It also lightens the opponent's pressure on you since Liliana can tank some damage for you, but she'll be back very soon..
@Jin
Your right. I originally did say Liliana was not going to be good. I was wrong. She has a place in the deck, I guess my original negativity for her was due to me not playing the average Pox strategy.
I think I might turn towards a more controlling version of Pox though, and have been looking into acquiring Liliana.
I still think her end all ability is a joke.
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