[Primer/Deck] Pox

[zenitramleirdag]

i'm going to have fun playtesting a hybrid build of pox tomorrow, one with big dudes(like tombstalker and desecration demon) racks, hymns and sinkholes etc, based on Tomelleri Roberto list: http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=5868&d=234074 ..i might revert back back to my current build though because i just feel safer with it with all the true-name nemesis and delver variants running around in my meta..the only thing that i find lacking in my build right now is the fast kills that tombstalker provided so i'll play with the build with a high threat density again, just for kicks..

[Megadeus]

Im not sure how "Pox" this build is, though it could certainly run SMall Pox. But here is a version of a GBw build I have been brewing and plan on testing:

4 Exploration
4 Mox Diamond
4 Life From the Loam
2 Enlightened Tutor
2 Entomb
2 Crop Rotation
1 Smokestack
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Innocent Blood
1 Worm Harvest
1 Ravens Crime
1 Nether Spirit

4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
1 Forest
1 Swamp
2 Maze of Ith
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Riftstone Portal
4 Wasteland
1 Cabal Pit
1 Dark Depths
2 Thespian Stage
1 Buried Ruin
1 Nantuko Monastery
1 Mishras Factory
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Glacial Chasm
2 Tranquil Thicket
2 Barren Moor

[Hardcore]

3-1 with this deck today.I'll add comment tomorrow .




4 Bloodghast
2 Necroplasm
4 Pack Rat
2 Tombstalker

2 Phyrexian Arena

4 Smallpox
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Pox
4 Encroach

4 Dark Ritual
3 Darkblast

3 Liliana of the Veil

20 Swamp
2 Dakmor Salvage

SB
4 Surgical Extraction
4 Desolation
4 Thorn of Amethyst
3 Engineered Plague

[zenitramleirdag]

desolation ftw!!!

[Hardcore]

My first opponent played a borrowed 12 lands deck.
He got severely mana denied in all three games but managed to Show out an eldrazi on the second game. When sideboarding I replaced Darkblasts with Surgicals.
Pack Rats is a good threat here. They help with that annihilator thing and smallpoxing one your rats is a small price to kill an ekdrazi.
2-1

I think UWG delver deck with confidant was next.
Starting hands like swamp, ritual, Encroach, Encroach and swamp, swamp, ritual, hymn, hymn, ruined his day. I heard him sigh a lot.
Tombstalker is king in these games because he is mostly to big for a successful trade with an attacking goyf.
I had no real good sideboard cards, but don't feel I need it for that matter.
2-0

PiF tendrils was next iirc. I can't remember but I think he won first, and made a miscalculation the second. Third game I played three Thorn of Amethyst and that was that.
Sideboard: ToA and surgicals. But really, only ToA mattered.
2-1

My winning streak ended with 0-2 result vs an ramp artifact deck. I got bad starting hands but it's a bad match-up anyway and I had no SB tech for it.


Encroach was a late substitute for wastelands, and is worse in some ways, better in others.
I'll Keep it for now. Same with rituals.
Creature count was to low.

[zenitramleirdag]

My first opponent played a borrowed 12 lands deck.
He got severely mana denied in all three games but managed to Show out an eldrazi on the second game. When sideboarding I replaced Darkblasts with Surgicals.
Pack Rats is a good threat here. They help with that annihilator thing and smallpoxing one your rats is a small price to kill an ekdrazi.
2-1

I think UWG delver deck with confidant was next.
Starting hands like swamp, ritual, Encroach, Encroach and swamp, swamp, ritual, hymn, hymn, ruined his day. I heard him sigh a lot.
Tombstalker is king in these games because he is mostly to big for a successful trade with an attacking goyf.
I had no real good sideboard cards, but don't feel I need it for that matter.
2-0

PiF tendrils was next iirc. I can't remember but I think he won first, and made a miscalculation the second. Third game I played three Thorn of Amethyst and that was that.
Sideboard: ToA and surgicals. But really, only ToA mattered.
2-1

My winning streak ended with 0-2 result vs an ramp artifact deck. I got bad starting hands but it's a bad match-up anyway and I had no SB tech for it.


Encroach was a late substitute for wastelands, and is worse in some ways, better in others.
I'll Keep it for now. Same with rituals.
Creature count was to low.

thanks for posting a tournament result..


darkblast is a good recurring removal but i feel innocent blood is still the best one mana removal available to mono black pox..but since you're running an unconventional pox list, i'm not so sure if it would apply to you.. IB also inmproves your game against SnT..

your next match looks like a dark bant variant to me, this deck usually folds to dragon stompy, decks with price of progress and luckily to our beloved pox too because of its greedy manabase..i could totally see why the encroaches hurt him..but i still think that inquisition of kozilek would be a better card for that slot..give it a try, i promise you won't look back..

since your build runs more creatures than a conventional pox deck, i can see why thorn of amethyst would be a better fit in it than sphere of resistance or trinisphere against storm..

what is a ramp artifact deck? uhm, stax with metal worker i assume? can you give more details on that match?

correct me if i'm wrong, but you're running a 61-card deck, right? i have no pangs about that..

[OmniStrata]

Encroach was a late substitute for wastelands, and is worse in some ways, better in others.
I'll Keep it for now. Same with rituals.
Creature count was too low.

12 creatures is low? Don't sub wasteland for anything else. If you can't afford them (sinkholes too) then just go the hard discard route. I'd replace your encroach with Cry of Contrition. Lots of your threats don't care about dying and haunting a creature your opponent thought was expendable to Poxing is great. As for Wrench Mind, I'll continue to sing praises to simply cause foes throwing artifacts to it is a great place to be for a Mono-B deck. It matches the Sinkhole cmc too.

Loving the Desolation sideboard. I found it successfully works best with a duo of Phyrexian Totems. Nothing like ripping Plains users a new one or even killing them with it. Nothing like a stable manabase to blank all wastelanders.

How do pack rats deal with Annihilator 6 unless it's late game and you've got 18 mana of sorts to cancel it out? 3 mana to summon is awkward and since they can generate infinite threats over time, how can you say your threat count is low?

[slave]

Hey peeps,

Wondering if I can ask a few questions as an outsider looking in.
I play dredge a fair bit, and to be honest, this deck is pretty much an auto-win in most cases. But I want to know more about the deck. Do you guys run much in the way of gravehate that can hurt the fast decks like Reanimator/dredge etc.?

And secondly,
Will the release of the new "Dark Prophecy" change how people play this deck?

[Claymore]

Desolation seems to go well with Tabernacle...

[Hardcore]

Lots of questions and many answers here:

The omni decks here are usually of the sneak and show variant. Mana Denial is the way to win here I figure. I haven't met one yet but I would likely board in the thorns.

The artifact deck ran metal workers but also sundering titan, wurm coil engine and such. Ugly.

12 creatures is low because a starting hand with disruption but no threats is weak. I'll replace Liliana with Nihilith.

Pack rat vs Annihilator is situational. Most likely I am the attacker, and my opponent at low hp.

Desolation is cool and intended as tech against miracles, but it has seen too little play yet.

[zenitramleirdag]

The artifact deck ran metal workers but also sundering titan, wurm coil engine and such. Ugly.

12 creatures is low because a starting hand with disruption but no threats is weak. I'll replace Liliana with Nihilith.

that's a stax deck..i also hold a bad win-loss ratio record against it especially when they're on the play..because they'll plop down a first turn chalice of the void for one via city of traitors or ancient tomb; or trinisphere via grim monolith..

i'm not sure how a "starting hand with dusruption but no threats is weak" in a pox deck because our aim is to disrupt them first..i think that pox decks need not worry about that because we aim for the long game and we'll soon eventually draw into our threats..if you take a look at mono black pox lists that have a good finish in tourneys, you'll notice that they don't run very many threats(usually only 7, 8 or 9)..and i implore you to reconsider your plan on replacing lili with nihilith! i think that's a big mistake..

but then again, you're running an unconventional list so i'm not sure how usefeul my advice is for you..

[beez]

Hey peeps,

Wondering if I can ask a few questions as an outsider looking in.
I play dredge a fair bit, and to be honest, this deck is pretty much an auto-win in most cases. But I want to know more about the deck. Do you guys run much in the way of gravehate that can hurt the fast decks like Reanimator/dredge etc.?

And secondly,
Will the release of the new "Dark Prophecy" change how people play this deck?

I find I beat Dredge and Reanimator most often with Leyline of the Void. I think you guys are prepared for more common stuff you see like Surgical, so I find some players put off by it a bit. You can Vapor it but with Dark Ritual it is out again the next turn. You have one turn against me, if I haven't destroyed your hand and lands. Make it count.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

that's a stax deck.

No, it's referred to as MUD. It's doing fairly well and is much more aggressive than stax ever thought of being. There's a thread on it here in this sub-forum.

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

[slave]

I find I beat Dredge and Reanimator most often with Leyline of the Void. I think you guys are prepared for more common stuff you see like Surgical, so I find some players put off by it a bit. You can Vapor it but with Dark Ritual it is out again the next turn. You have one turn against me, if I haven't destroyed your hand and lands. Make it count.

LotV? That surprises me a bit to be honest.
Is that a common choice? I thought POX was more an extraction type list. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[zenitramleirdag]

No, it's referred to as MUD. It's doing fairly well and is much more aggressive than stax ever thought of being. There's a thread on it here in this sub-forum.

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

you're right! thanks for correcting me, MUD is actually what i meant..

[Hardcore]

The sideboard need some work.
SB
4 Surgical Extraction
4 Desolation
4 Thorn of Amethyst
3 Engineered Plague


Right now there are few creature heavy decks in the Meta. Given that EP is an global enchantment I can just as well cut two of them.
Desolation is a card to use against miracles, and other decks that like cantrips too much. At least that is the idea behind it. I could cut one while it still is in testing.
Now that give me three slots. Perfect for the three Liliana I removed main deck! (Against control if you wonder.)

[zenitramleirdag]

ha ha ha..i can just imagine how painful it'd be casting brainstorm and other cantrip spells with a desolation in play..
put liliana in the main my friend! liliana is NOT sideboard material, LILIANA IS POX!..

[OmniStrata]

liliana is NOT sideboard material, LILIANA IS POX!..

Quote ftw. The reason Pox is starting to show up is because of her. Heck, some decks have replaced the Big Pox with her due to her overwhelming prescence. She's even considered by some to be on par or just behind Jace Mind Rapist. [which eludes me since she can't kill her opponents by herself]

You are attempting an aggro version of a deck which quite frankly detests creatures on both sides of the field. If your idea is to play threats first and then disrupt your foe, I think you're going to need to run a cheaper list of threats. My old builds that I gave up on were Creature rushdown builds that utilized a combination of Suspend [cheap cheap cmc casting] and Pox dodging.

Threats for cheap high powered aggro: Epochrasite, The Rack, Corpulent Corpse, Dirkwood Baloth (this left fielder is a monster for Golgari type Pox builds), Nihilith, Tombstalker. Pack rat seems ok though I dislike that 3 cmc ability. If it were 2 cmc, I'd be more inclined to love the card. Instead of Phyrexian Arena, I'd say try 1-2 Undead Gladiator. Though slower, you have a threat that turns top deck dead draws into 3/1 threats that never go away short of exiling.

In this regard, I'd actually recommend you shy away from 1 cmc discards and pile up on 2-3 cmc disruption. This will smooth out your mana curve so the deck flows like turn 1-2 -> threat/suspend; turn 3+ -> disrupt like a madman.

I have low faith in aggro pox since I failed so many times with it but I look forward to being proven wrong. Sadly, Pox itself is anti-creature...

[zenitramleirdag]

liliana just takes over games..especially once you get her going and started ticking her up, its as if two pox players are ganging up on your hapless opponent..

i wouldn't run any pox build, whether it be , , or any kind without lili..

[zenitramleirdag]

LotV? That surprises me a bit to be honest.
Is that a common choice? I thought POX was more an extraction type list. Correct me if I'm wrong.

it actually depends on the meta..right now, it seems like dredge have fallen a bit out of flavour(not necessary non-existent because it still out there)because of the plethora of gravehate usually even in the main so many feel that surgicals and/or extirpates would suffice..but leyline of the void is actually a common sideboard material in pox..