@l@mbert101
Do you think you can get any use out of Zuran Orb? I have never had enough lands in play for such things. 12 post can ramp enough for such things but it doesn't look workable in Pox.
Btw, Dark Heart of the wood may be better.
Sideboard. Talk about this was requested a few pages back and I would be happy to start one. Of course, it matter what pox you run, but we could start with Carsten Kötter's new article on the current Meta. http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/s...iumvirate.html
So, stifle/daze tempo decks, DRS mid range and cantrip combo. A sideboard need also cover the Meta response to these decks. Like those listed by Carsten.
Smallpox wreaks havoc with the first two types of decks. Discard is good vs. the third.
The question is if there is need to improve any of these matchup by taking up slots for sideboard cards. Alternatively one can focus to fight the coming Meta evolution.
For my part three-four perish is enough to fight the tempo and DRS decks.
This leave me like 11 slots to fight combo.
(and possibly Counterbalance.)
A Thalia style hate is possible with thorn of Amethyst.. I have not had much success with Duress in sideboard. Four spot discard is not enough to get the job done.
Phyrexian revoker then?
How would a sb like this one be?
3 Perish (best sideboard card)
4 phyrexian revoker
4 Thorn of Amethyst
4 Surgical Extraction
I am not much pleased with revoker either. Needle would be better in a pox deck.
Would be nice to find room for Stromgald cabal
Last edited by Hardcore; 08-25-2013 at 09:28 PM.
I like to have sets of card to board out, and in. Darkblasts, Tombstalker and pox are cards that get replaced most often. Since they come in sets of three the following Sb is handy:
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Stromgald Cabal
3 Perish
3 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Thorn of Amethyst
Because I run a semi 52 card deck having three of each sideboard card is not bad.
Running four would be stronger, but then I would be less consistent when replacing cards. Also, if I feel the need for more reinforcements from the sb, then it's a small thing bring in two three card sets.
How dare you say a turn-1 walker that gives us infinite card advantage and 'perfect' top decking isn't worth itOriginally Posted by Hardcore
. Those small percentages mentioned are actually better than 0%. The benefits to that 5% are preposterously large. Pox really has nothing it can do turn 1 to a blisteringly fast draw. There is no 1 mana drop that will save you from a fast Empty the Warrens. 2 mana is for Nausea [lol]. Dark rit to Engineered Plague, Infest, Liliana, Inq + Hymn, etc. Well, I'm talking from fast aggro meta experience. If you're in a slow slow control-y meta, then ok, I'd leave Dark Ritual at home. My environment demands speed.
"What if you top deck Dark Ritual? Great job wasting your draw..."
"Dark Ritual, naming 'other card in my hand', kill that lord or take two to your dome? Activating Cursed Scroll"
Make dark rit useful late game by running a few cards that feed off its mana. It's the principle behind the "Giant Growth" aspect of Nantuko Shade from old-school Sui-Black.
Scroll and Phyrexian Totem come to mind, though Totem is much worse in a heavy creature meta, Cursed Scroll makes any low cmc/toughness creature deck cry bloody tears. (outside da Goyf)
If fighting a slower deck, I sideboard out the Dark Ritual for less card disadvantage using sideboard hate. I think it's extremely difficult to function without dark ritual. Also, the 3 for 3 that is Dark Rit + Inquisiton + Hymn is a very very strong start vs. any deck type outside GY decks. You are losing 3 cards, they are losing 3 relevant cards they desperately need to play (unless they kept a shit hand on purpose to 'dodge' your discard lol). Nothing screwed my foe over more than killing their 1cmc drop and 2 starting lands on the play, and when it does, the psychological shock is almost insurmountable.
No. There are a select few assholes on the internet that play pox, feel free to join our club any time.
Vindicate, Lingering souls, and StP
There is only so much you can disrupt a guy until he cascades or out-draws you into a win, unless you can bounce back. You need more card advantage than the dark ritual, quick liliana mono-black version. Lingering souls is the card.
Might as well run vindicate and Stp. The deck always lost to a good permanent, Jace et al. Vindicate will fix that plus double as sinkhole numbers 5,6, and 7.
Monoblack can't beat the grindy midrange decks as they are currently being built, and I don't know of a way around that other than going white.
Actually, I'd like to hear the explanation on this.
Giving them health with STP when the deck's namesake cuts your own life down isn't my idea of good synergy. Vindicate sounds awesome though but makes you weaker to Wastelands from an opposing deck. I've experimented with the old "Vaka Pox B/W" and Loam Pox and both run into the same problem. Color consistency and expendability. I find it easier to pick what to discard to Smallpox using Mono-B then color splashed Pox.
While it's true that MonoBlack is more consistent it runs in some problems against tempo/midranged oriented decks in the (at least my) current meta. Todays decks can drop a bomb (Delver, Shaman, Goyf to name a few) too fast, without us even getting started. Discard does not always do the trick. Brainstorm, Ponder et al makes it easier for opponents to react and possibly save their best cards or dig for a new threat. We just play with what we topdeck. LD is much too weak, as some have advocated in the past, and I must agree: playing Sinkhole (while one of my favorite plays) on a basic just won't do the trick. The curve has dropped drastically and it is possible to play a game on three, even two lands. We, the Pox-player, on the other hand must hit multiples. This also means having more land, which could result in drawing too many lands. Also getting an artifact against you can really really ruin your day, especially when staying true to MonoBlack. Even with some sweeper in the board it could be too slow. In my opinion, the main problem is the fact that we are reactive, and therefor too slow.
Splashing colors opens you up to Wasteland, but it gives you so much more options (Decay, Pulse or StP and Vindicate already being mentioned). I liked to splash Green, but was too eager to throw Nether Void on the pile. Maybe I should stick to splashing for Decay, Deed, LotL and Pulse. I never tried white or red. Perhaps we should get beserk and try blue? I don't really know how to make Pox any stronger/ proactive in a super fast way
I gave up a little while ago after being slaughtered for the third time at the monthly tournament at my LGS: it just felt too slow, topdecked horrible and couldn't do anything/ too little against those pesky midranged decks. Worst was when I finally had some softlock, I lacked drawing any kill condition. It was really shitty indeed... Still, I'm tinkering on paper, but just for now dropped Pox and went back to old school Gobbos again (maybe not the best choice, but right now a lot more fun to play).
I ran my UB Pox today. Gitaxian probe worked well, but Shadow of doubt was too clunky to be a main deck card.
I used it with success vs a GW deck, but in general the mana cost is too much to pay
in early game vs decks like young pyromancer.
Will you post your current UB list? I've been messing around with a blue splash as well. I've been considering Brainstorm, Spell Pierce (or other counterspell, something to battle topdecked threats ... perhaps Mana Leak?), Lim-Dul's Vault, Notion Thief in the 'board, and Ancestral Visions. This is for a Rack/discard build, perhaps a blue splash for a LD build might make some use of taxing counters. I'm guessing blue splash is not usually discussed because most of the cards are not synergistic with non-budget Pox cards like Chains and Void.
It is hard to splash blue in the traditional manner. A card like Gitaxian probe just "happen" to be blue. In function it is more like a Mishra's bauble, something which "Day of Disease" ran, but is better.
The current list is almost identical to the one posted earlier but with Probes replacing Shadow of Doubt.
3 Tombstalker
4 Nihilith
4 Bloodghast
4 Order of the Ebon Hand
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Smallpox
3 Pox
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Darkblast
4 The Rack
2 Sensei’s Divining Top
19 Swamp
2 Dakmor Salvage
My list included three SDT yesterday, but I will cut that to two. Excessive use of the top can actually be a problem!
Long term plan is to replaced them with proper card draw.
BoB would work well with Dredge, but I can't afford him yet.
The order have its uses. First strike and protection from white. Would have been helpfull vs the Shardless and Young Pyromancer decks.
Note: Shadow of Doubt is not a bad card, but may be better in a traditional pox deck.
Cabal Therapy + Probe? ^_^ Good times. The Shadow is devastating vs. Tutor and Fetchlands, so I'd sideboard it if my meta had more 3 color decks and combo.
I've had a lot of success splashing green and playing with mox diamonds and sylvan libraries. A common error that I've seen is GB pox decks relying too much on life from the loam. You really only want to be running 1-2 loams, and not relying on your graveyard. I know this seems counter-intuitive since you are after all splashing green, but the small splash gives you exactly what you need: better removal (abrupt decay), speed (mox diamond) better top decks (sylvan library). While the loam engine can be quite powerful, it makes the deck less balanced and too graveyard reliant. When I played loam pox, I found the hate in games 2-3 too strong.While it's true that MonoBlack is more consistent it runs in some problems against tempo/midranged oriented decks in the (at least my) current meta. Todays decks can drop a bomb (Delver, Shaman, Goyf to name a few) too fast, without us even getting started. Discard does not always do the trick. Brainstorm, Ponder et al makes it easier for opponents to react and possibly save their best cards or dig for a new threat. We just play with what we topdeck. LD is much too weak, as some have advocated in the past, and I must agree: playing Sinkhole (while one of my favorite plays) on a basic just won't do the trick. The curve has dropped drastically and it is possible to play a game on three, even two lands. We, the Pox-player, on the other hand must hit multiples. This also means having more land, which could result in drawing too many lands. Also getting an artifact against you can really really ruin your day, especially when staying true to MonoBlack. Even with some sweeper in the board it could be too slow. In my opinion, the main problem is the fact that we are reactive, and therefor too slow.
Splashing colors opens you up to Wasteland, but it gives you so much more options (Decay, Pulse or StP and Vindicate already being mentioned). I liked to splash Green, but was too eager to throw Nether Void on the pile. Maybe I should stick to splashing for Decay, Deed, LotL and Pulse. I never tried white or red. Perhaps we should get beserk and try blue? I don't really know how to make Pox any stronger/ proactive in a super fast way
I gave up a little while ago after being slaughtered for the third time at the monthly tournament at my LGS: it just felt too slow, topdecked horrible and couldn't do anything/ too little against those pesky midranged decks. Worst was when I finally had some softlock, I lacked drawing any kill condition. It was really shitty indeed... Still, I'm tinkering on paper, but just for now dropped Pox and went back to old school Gobbos again (maybe not the best choice, but right now a lot more fun to play).
I’ve been playing roughly this list to some success for a little while now.
1 Cursed Scroll
2 Nether Void
2 Crucible of Worlds
3 Sylvan Library
4 Thoughtseize
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Sinkhole
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Mox Diamond
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra’s Factory
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Bayou
4 Swamp
Sideboard
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Drop of Honey
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Pithing Needle
4 Extirpate
I’ve come to feel that there’s no going back with regard to the green splash. Abrupt Decay and especially Sylvan Library give the mono-black deck exactly what it’s missing: answers to non-creature permanents and library manipulation. Sylvan lets you float answers on top of your library while using Liliana’s +1 with impunity. At the same time, it’s far more powerful in the early game than Sensei’s Divining Top, and dropping it turn one off of a Mox Diamond will often win the game outright.
I think the biggest misconception about B/G Pox is Life From The Loam. To me it’s fool’s gold, and really doesn’t belong in the deck.
Agreed, and better yet: I almost never used the Loam-enginge, which was quiet weird in a sense. I eventually dropped LotL completely, because it never really got the engine going at all.
Again agreed, but I never used Sylvan Library, but Top for it (in my opinion) went better with Deed. I even tried DRS, and it worked, at least a little bit, but it wasn't exactly great either.
Especially in the current meta where RiP and DRS are everywhere...
I was suspecting this would happen. Original Mono-B Pox didn't use it's GY really and Loam Pox is like The Rock with Smallpox thrown in. It's not a 'true' use of Loam, which is waste lock, fetch land, and then tons of 'spell lands' and manlands to keep bombarding your opponent. DRS is a creature that can die. RiP in a B/G deck should easily be handled by Abrupt Decay, but I've found the strength in 'classic' Pox to be that it doesn't put all its eggs in one basket so to speak.
What I'm wondering is if you guys have found any strong lock pieces for Pox. Since we're a top-deck based deck, I've decided to almost carbon copy Reid Duke's idea of simply having STRONG permanents on the field after both players are hand empty and then ride that wave by having superior board presence.
Note, Sylvan Library and Sensei's Top are not superior board presence. Cursed Scroll + Liliana is. The idea is after Pox has done its thing, and the enemy doesn't have 3+ beaters for you, what do you do to ensure his top decks are just dead? The old Nether Void is quite nuts, and thankfully though pricey, you'd really only want one. Trinisphere works if your went hard on the land destruction route or makes your foe cry very hard off a Turn 1 Dark rit. Painful Quandry caught my eye as something to consider as a 1 of. I've had plenty of games where I ultimately lead to my 6th land. Tainted Aether from the board is quite nasty if played after the enemy's creatures are wiped out.
Are there any other lock out permanents Pox can run to practically auto-win games? Since I run Dark Rits, I'm crazy enough to consider spells up to 6 cmc, but like I asked, it should practically guaruntee a win on an empty board state.
Painful Quandary...that just sounds like it would be very bad news for a foe before I even looked it up to see what it did. Between the Pox effects and self discard I find it hard to cast anything more than 3 reliably so 5cc is pretty questionable, though I do find with a Top I can hide some important cards until I cast them. I guess Nether Void is the best lock but it puts a tough mana requirement on us too. But I do agree there needs to be some means of taking advantage of Sinkhole and LD rather than just let them get enough lands to play some cheap spells. Either something more tempo like Tainted Aether or Bitterblossom to take advantage of getting a bit ahead while they are temporarily short on lands or a color, since it is difficult to keep them off lands completely, or just crunching in more of the ol' Nether Void, Trinisphere, Sphere of Resistance kind of thing, keeping in mind that thier spells are just as cheap or cheaper and besides 4 meager Sinkholes every land they sacrifice we sac one too, so it is hard to get ahead or lock with that. The Painful Quandary of using LD. That is some of the attraction of Crucible and Loam, though I do find it best not to be too GY reliant.
Personally, I've never had difficulty closing out the game once I've stabilized. Liliana + any other lock piece usually does the trick, so I try to focus on cards that translate a slight advantage into an endgame (i.e. Nether Void).
Going to have to disagree there. Sylvan Library and Top take us out of topdeck-mode and allow us to save situational cards on top of our library for when they're needed (typically Smallpox and Abrupt Decay). Given its synergy with Liliana, as well as Crucible (with a fetch in the 'yard), and it's early-game power (something lacking in SDT), I regard Sylvan Library as possibly the best card in the deck.
Decks with better card advantage than you are very resilient to our attacks. Play the deck against the field. It's not going to win against a lot of the decks. I found that lingering souls fixes the problem. Vindicate is amazing. Swords is debatable. I haven't had any problems with their lifegain, when I'm winning they are on empty and stay on empty. You must grind them out and you win. It's not a race from 20 to 0 it's a race to fuck them over. Can I fuck them over ASAP? Good, I'm winning.
Mishra's Factory, Cursed Scroll, Liliana and Nether Void. Just love to give my opponent cards which can't be cast and then let them discard cards... and kill them ever so slowly with Factories/ Cursed Scroll
I don't fully agree, but I think I understand where you are going: they are no wincons. Yet they get you better cards from the top, getting those wincons faster. It also gives you more reach to get a answer to whatever your opponent throws at you (something Dolphy already stated). I do agree on winning with 'combo' Scroll and Lilly: together they are awesome. Won a lot of games with those two cards on the field
Can't help you there, I'm still looking myself, but I don't think I would go for something like 6 cmc. As far as I know only Nic Fit can pull that off.
With Thoughtseize getting a reprint in Theros I am considering running it in my deck (assuming the prices go down). At the very least it should be a better sideboard discard than Duress.
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