[Primer/Deck] Pox

[OmniStrata]

I would never run less than four Smallpox, but have tried zero big Pox with reasonable results which is why I don't consider it 100% mandatory. However, I do agree that it's a very powerful card and 1-2 main is pretty sweet. The reason for why I usually prefer Sphere of Resistance and/or Trinisphere over Nether Void is that they drop earlier and effectively do the same job against e.g. Storm. Nether Void does have benefits since it creates a harder lock and can't be destroyed by Abrupt Decay, but it's also trickier to time with your own resources, not to mention that it destroys The Abyss due to the World supertype.

Not running Tabernacle because you have a Nether Spirit main is silly, the same line of argument would prohibit The Abyss as well. Given that the opponent have more creatures than you, she/he will be more severely affected. Furthermore, you can stack the triggers so that you have Nether Spirit in play every second turn and Mishra's Factory is still alive and kicking.

Pithing Needle is indeed great in Pox since it can adress both artifacts and planeswalkers that are otherwise problematic for us. I've been running one main and it seldom disappoints. Oppression is a pretty fun card until you've gotten your hands on Chains. It's a somewhat different effect of course (best in a discard heavy build in my experience), but it wrecks some of the decks that you would want Chains against.

Excellent points. I think the biggest point I see with The Abyss is that it won't save you from a bad board position. If they have a lot of damage on the field [3+ creatures], unless your HP is high, you're more than likely dead. Tabernacle on the other hand can hit the field and BLAM, that Dredge player lost all his threats. Night of Souls' Betrayal is my high impact card that is combination board wipe and 'extirpator' for weaklings. I suppose you would find it silly, but since I like Smallpoxing/Poxing with 4 or less land, I'm paranoid with my open mana. Though Tabernacle would be more epic in a non-creature Pox deck. I've tried Uba Mask in place of Chains since it is a replacement effect, and absolutely awkward against a dredger. However, it's high mana cost does hurt a bit.

I'm glad you mentioned Oppression, though I'm not sure how it affects someone who's drawing more cards. My ultimate bane is SDT since it allows a player to essentially play with the 3 top cards in their deck in their hand (or more depending on how many open fetchlands there are). High impact permanents are the name of the game here and Pithing needle is probably my strongest weapon here. Maybe I should just go out and buy more and run 4 in my sideboard. There's always targets a plenty to needle.

[VonHannemark]

you can't needle metalworker. Mana ability. Needle doesnt stop those.

Thank you, I definitely would have made that mistake in game!

[OmniStrata]

Starcity Games Chicago is coming up mid-July. I've reverted back to my Reid-Duke flavored deck with 8 threats instead of 9, 1 Big Pox, and have swapped out my 'spell lands' and Crucible for a very special card I've found to be the ultimate top-deck killer for most of the decks in the deck-to-beat sections.

Both here and MTGSalvation.

My only hope is that luck won't force me to fight a stream of Dredge and Burn since both those deck archetypes, though rare, are 'anti-Pox' as it were.

I'll bring out my trusty gaming notepad and record all the nasty details and will post tournament report here when I can. If you're going to be there, I hope to see ya there.

[PirateKing]

I've found to be the ultimate top-deck killer for most of the decks in the deck-to-beat sections.

Spicy! Any hints?

[beez]

Are you going to bring Underworld Dreams? That seemed like it was working wellagainst Miracles for you.

[OmniStrata]

Spicy! Any hints?

The only hint I can give out:

My deck is Mono-Black Pox... This will be my first like, 'big big' tourney so I don't want prying eyes. For Underworld Dreams, I won't be bringing it. It really doesn't matter what you draw if you can't cast it.

If you figure it out, please no talking... shhh. ^_^

[Hardcore]

Reading Carsten kotter's latest article i feel vindicated. Over a month ago i claimed at the lgs that dig though time was far better than treasure cruise. It is an insane card: you can dig for both an answer AND a threat! Discard is pretty useless against that.

My thinking is that graveyard hate in main is not good enough.
Mana denial otoh should be good. If you have few land then dtt will not be as effective.

[OmniStrata]

Reading Carsten kotter's latest article i feel vindicated. Over a month ago i claimed at the lgs that dig though time was far better than treasure cruise. It is an insane card: you can dig for both an answer AND a threat! Discard is pretty useless against that.

My thinking is that graveyard hate in main is not good enough.
Mana denial otoh should be good. If you have few land then dtt will not be as effective.

Dig through time can't be far better than treasure cruise. If it was, it would be banned instead of Treasure Cruise.

Whoa, in magiccards.info, TC is banned only in Modern.

GY hate works if you can keep it empty indefinitely, so Leyline of the Void would be a mainstay. But I agree with your mana denial statement. You'll just have to draw 2 land instead of a threat/answer.

[zenitramleirdag]

The only hint I can give out:

My deck is Mono-Black Pox... This will be my first like, 'big big' tourney so I don't want prying eyes. For Underworld Dreams, I won't be bringing it. It really doesn't matter what you draw if you can't cast it.

If you figure it out, please no talking... shhh. ^_^

i could be wrong but...
did you just buy what i think you did?! awesome!!

[echofish]

i could be wrong but...
did you just buy what i think you did?! awesome!!

Tell us, already.

[OmniStrata]

Tell us, already.

I can tell you what it's not. It's not symmetrical. It's not Nether Void, though I do wish to get it sooner or later. I need to test it at the tourney. It's less than a month away! Have some patience.

[Charon666]

Tell us, already.

Yes, Please! :)

[Amfibolos]

Hi guys

I have recently joined the ranks of Pox players. Two years ago when I first encountered Liliana's Caress I have immediately fallen in love with discard mechanic. And the time came when I started to become interested in Legacy. Then I found Pox and you know the rest ;]

The deck I have managed to put together so far looks as follows:

Mainboard

2x Cursed Scroll
3x Dark Ritual
2x Tombstalker
3x Hymn to Tourach
3x Innocent Blood
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Liliana of the Veil
2x Nether Spirit
2x Nether Void
1x Night of Souls' Betrayal
2x Pox
4x Sinkhole
4x Smallpox

Lands

11x Swamp
1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
4x Mishra's Factory
4x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4x Wasteland

Sideboard

2x Chains of Mephistopheles
2x Engineered Plague
2x Ensnaring Bridge
3x Leyline of the Void
3x Pithing Needle
3x Surgical Extraction

Regarding the mainboard I, as many other players, have tried to find something that could speed things up. And for now I find Tombstalker to be quite effective.
I used to run one nether spirit but recently I've decided to find some space for a second one, mostly because many a time I was in a dire need of him, and he simply didn't show up. With one copy amongst 59 other cards he just rarely shows up to the point I felt I didn't have him at all. I have experimented with Sensei's Divining Top and I must say it helped quite a bit but only when it hit the board very early in the game. In the mid/late game it had very little impact on the game. On the other hand I'm extremely satisfied with Nether Void. This card really works wonders.
Sideboard is strictly meta dependant and the one above is my universal list. I've been thinking about a few changes as recently at my local shop I haven't had any real need to use leyline of the void. My idea is to - 3 Leylines and + 1 Engineered Plague + 1 Ensnaring Bridge + 1 The Abyss. And one more thing I've been considering to include is Black Sun's Zenith. It can wipe the board, even though it may not be able, at times, to kill goyfs or butterskuls it is still easier to defend against 1/2 goyf etc. And additionaly it serves as a shuffle effect and above all it's a recurring removal.

I will try to post any interesting things that can contribute to the topic. Let's spread the disease!

Cheers!

[OmniStrata]

Hello Amfibolos! What do you do if your GY gets jammed with creatures and you have Nether Spirits begging to come back? Old tech was Spinning Darkness to control the top 3 of your Yard but I've found Murderous Cut to be even better at keeping your GY creature free for Nether Spirit's attendance. Granted, Tombstalker can do it too.

10 win conditions. A faster clock is never bad, unless it eats into your disruption to the point where you're not disrupting enough. Why only 3 hymn to tourach?

[Amfibolos]

It is really difficult to squeeze all those useful cards in just 60 slots ^^. I have Spinning Darkness but I didn't want to swap it for cards like Innocent blood or others. I had one plus 3 IB but later I inserted Big Pox instead of SD for obvious reasons. With 2 Tombstalkers and 1 Nether spirit I had only once encountered a match where I couldn't reanimate NS. And it was a second game against miracles. The first one was quite quick cause even without Sensei's DT my opponent drew angels twice in a row :/, so for the second game we had plenty of time and it so happened that we put each other in a prison situation. My tombstalker got countered and I had enough cards to not include the spirit in the delve cost, but no tombstalker and reanimation. But for half an hour we drew and discarded thanks to Liliana. If it hadn't been for the long game, such situation wouldn't occur. It has never been an issue for me, at least so far, that is why I want to try second Nether spirit to see how this is going to work for me. The reason for only three copies of hymn is that I wanted to have 2 big Poxes, I had to find space for 2 tombstalkers, Night of Souls' Betrayal and there is one flexible slot where I had Spinning Darkness, then SDT, now I have Nether Spirit and I would also like to test Black Sun's Zenith. I could exclude Dark Rituals but the explosivness it provides sometimes is ineffable. It can speed up Nether Void or under its effect I can still cast some more expensive spells. It was rather onerous to leave one behind but I will not cut Sinkhole or smallpoxes which have greater synergy with Nether Void as a mana denial sources.

[Redkid43]

Hey all, getting back into Pox after some time.

Decided to make a pretty standard list, albeit with some flair:

1 Nether Spirit

4 Liliana of the Veil

4 Dark Ritual

4 Smallpox
4 Sinkhole
4 Inquisition of Kozilek/Thoughtseize
4 Innocent Blood
4 Hymn to Tourach
2 Word of Command

1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Cursed Scroll

1 Bojuka Bog
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Maze of Ith
1 Rishadan Port
1 The Tabernacle at PV
1 Spawning Pool
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Urborg, TOY
4 Wasteland
8 Swamp


Word of Command has been a pet card of mine and I'm always trying to find ways to play it. It's very good against 1 card enabler decks, like Show and Tell, and cards that search libraries--Natural Order their best guy, fail to find, etc. it's good at getting cards out of their hands and tripping up their mana for a turn. You can't tap them out like Slaver, but you can make them pay the cost of the spell awkwardly or not efficently, which FEELS like a Mana Short and more denial.

Ghost Quarter lock is a favorite of mine. :)

Suggestion and comments welcomed.

[Hardcore]

wizards are fucking stupid in the head. In the Magic Origins we don't get good cards to build our decks around, but hate cards for their previous mistakes. This is
how we are supposed to handle emrakul griselbrand etc:




White got a better card for that purpose by the way:
Adding insult to injury

[Hardcore]

Hallowed moonlight is is playable even in main deck for all who play white. In fact it would make perfect sense to go BW pox since the card is a better diabolic edict that hit dredge, show and tell, reanimator, vial natural order etc etc etc. very hard. It is also rare and i will get a set or two least for money investment...

[OmniStrata]

wizards are fucking stupid in the head. In the Magic Origins we don't get good cards to build our decks around, but hate cards for their previous mistakes. This is
how we are supposed to handle emrakul griselbrand etc:




White got a better card for that purpose by the way:
Adding insult to injury

LoL. Why does blue get one of the best aggro creatures in the game?! I say we get a Liliana that's BB with two loyalty to start and a +1 that says target player sacrifices a creature!

I agree with you though, their R&D must be on some good stuffs.

[Hardcore]

I would prefer they used the banhammer. These new cards feels like wizard CHEATS, or unwanted charity.