[Primer/Deck] Pox

[OmniStrata]

ankh of mishra

But that only works if they're at 2 hp and don't want to die. I will admit, dealing 5 damage per fetch land forcing them to fetch only 3 times per game sounds good, but it's never actually locked out my enemy's mana as well as Contamination has. The principle is similar to Trinisphere in that they need 4 lands in play to cast anything. The demand for the card early means I need to stuff 3-4 of them into the deck which I don't have space for.

[Aronesxd]

for the nonbasic lands you could play one or two Extirpate in main deck to attack their manabase a lot more, you have enough lands to do it for as fetchlands or nonbasic from sinkhole, smallpox

[Mr. Safety]

There's a few cards on my mind lately. I want to get 3x engineered plague into my sideboard for sure, it seems better than golgari charm overall and has a faster impact than pernicious deed. Here are a few cards I'm curious if anyone has tried:

1) sickening dreams (mostly for loam pox, discard three lands and get 3 damage all around, for only two mana. In monoblack it can allow for dead cards in hand to convert into a wiper. Synergy with cursed scroll to get to one card in hand.)

2) death cloud (probably only as a singleton, but it seems like it could be good with loam and maybe veteran explorer. Some crossover potential from nic fit.)

3) sign in blood (sometimes you just need more cards.)

Thoughts?

[Hardcore]

sickening dreams have i played occasionally in mono b. Would be better in loam probably for obvious reasons. Main drawback is that one doesn't want it countered because of the cases card disadvantage. I have had more use for it as a finisher than creature kill.

[Mr. Safety]

I have found that smallpox is insane when allowed to be played in multiples. In a few games I've had double smallpox and enough lands/chaff to pull it off turns 2+3 and I end up so far ahead its almost impossible for opponents to muscle back into the game. If there's a loam involved to let me chain fetches I can get a similar effect with death cloud for 2-3. With loam/rotation/library I have a ton of live draws after developing a degenerate game state. Its just a thought, maybe a better option over the singleton pox most folks use (monoblack).

[Stroggi]

In preparation for Grand Prix Seattle/Tacoma, my store is running a legacy event this Sunday. I'm expecting around 10 people there. I've gotten a lot of good ideas and information from lurking on this primer for the past year, so I figure it's about time I actually contribute by writing a tournament report of the event and posting it here on Sunday evening or Monday. I'm planning on attending the event tomorrow, and the GP in November, with the following list. I've given up on B/R Pox for the time being...

Main Deck:
3x Cursed Scroll
1x Ratchet Bomb

1x Nether Spirit

2x Night of Souls' Betrayal

4x Dark Ritual
2x Spinning Darkness

4x Mishra's Factory
12x Swamp
4x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4x Wasteland

4x Liliana of the Veil

4x Hymn to Tourach
3x Innocent Blood
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Sinkhole
4x Smallpox

Sideboard:
2x Ensnaring Bridge
3x Pithing Needle
1x Ratchet Bomb
1x Engineered Plague
4x Leyline of the Void
2x Nether Void
2x Duress

The main deck is devoted to killing creature decks as consistently as it can, with the sideboard devoted to hate cards against combo and graveyard strategies. Any thoughts and opinions are greatly appreciated. I might have enough for one more big purchase, barring Tabernacle. Should I prioritize purchasing Chains of Mephistopheles or the Abyss? Any other improvements I could make to get ready for the grand prix meta?

Thanks!

[Hardcore]

Since Night of Souls' Betrayal is legendary it might be better to replace one of them with an engineered plague.

[Stroggi]

Since Night of Souls' Betrayal is legendary it might be better to replace one of them with an engineered plague.

The reason I'm playing two is in hopes of seeing it more often. The odds of me having to worry about the legendary rule are still not very high with two in the main deck. I have one E. Plague in the sideboard to compliment the NoSB if I need more of that effect post sideboard.

[Aronesxd]

I'm curious not sure if i shut play Dark Rituals or not ?
In my Opinion is this Card very good in this deck to lock people out as early as possible : T1- swamp Inquisition / T2 - Swamp , Dark Ritual -> Hymn , Sinkhole. Or even t1 Lillis ....
On the other hand, while we are topdecking is this a very very poor draw and you also doesnt want to have more then 1 ritual in your opener.
So the reason because I`m so curious is that I see two different Pox decklists. One with dark ritual for the nuts openers which shell give the deck a more powerful early game and the other is a more midrange oriented deck with maybe some fechtes / tops + bloodghast CA .
I have no Idea what's the way to go, Reid Duke played a lot of Rits in the past but he said the played them because he didnt want to fall behind on board ( Inquisition not printed / Thoughseize not played ) and no other T1 plays.

[Hardcore]

I read somewhere that one can consider dark ritual as equivalent of 0.5 land. Thus four rituals could replace two land, and the net loss to rituals would only be two slots.

[OmniStrata]

I read somewhere that one can consider dark ritual as equivalent of 0.5 land. Thus four rituals could replace two land, and the net loss to rituals would only be two slots.

Actually that applies more so to mana dorks. I don't treat rituals as land replacements but more like burst mana for when I'm on two land due to Poxing and if I need to do a big pump into my Cursed Scrolls or attack with multiple Mishra's Factories while keeping excess land open for other spells. 0.5 land is more for like say, Llanowar Elves, or Mox Diamonds (maybe not Diamonds since you're throwing land away). Charcoal Diamond? (laughs)

I've added more land killing to the deck and after analyzing my meta, I've removed Ensnaring Bridge from the sideboard as Omni-Show deck players aren't as happy losing Dig Through Time but the Sneak Show monsters are less affected I'm told. Ultimately, I have less trouble with combo decks and have devoted more SB slots (5) to my most hated matchup: Miracles/Counterbalance control. It also has the excellent side effect of alleviating Poxes biggest problem: Non-land Non-creature permanents.

I'll post more details on the deck development but my meta is less tribal/fast weenie aggro and more mid range than before. Night of Souls' Betrayal has been dropped and my Contamination testing has been stagnant since my hypocrisy of starting to use tutors and essentially making a 'combo-lock' has been met with inconsistency of which I should have expected *facepalm*.

Unofficially speaking, I've dubbed my deck False Quad-laser Pox.

Current sideboard:
1 Culling Scales
2 Powder Kegs
2 Ratchet bombs
2 Tombstalkers (I missed this boss )
2 Extirpate
2 Leyline of the Void
4 Engineered Plague

[OmniStrata]

There's a few cards on my mind lately. I want to get 3x engineered plague into my sideboard for sure, it seems better than golgari charm overall and has a faster impact than pernicious deed. Here are a few cards I'm curious if anyone has tried:

1) sickening dreams (mostly for loam pox, discard three lands and get 3 damage all around, for only two mana. In monoblack it can allow for dead cards in hand to convert into a wiper. Synergy with cursed scroll to get to one card in hand.)

2) death cloud (probably only as a singleton, but it seems like it could be good with loam and maybe veteran explorer. Some crossover potential from nic fit.)

3) sign in blood (sometimes you just need more cards.)

Thoughts?

A) 3-4 Plague is fine.

1) I've found sickening dreams to be a terrible top deck (of which we're trying to avoid) and since we are already hitting ourselves with massive card disadvantage, making it worse isn't a good thing. Granted, Loam could pull through it if your meta is slow enough.

2) Death Cloud is inferior to Pox. Just run more Poxes HOWEVER, if 8 Pox effects still isn't enough, and you can feed it enough land (at least 6 mana is necessary for any real returns since Smallpox is DC=1 for 4 cmc, which is terrible) by all means DEATH CLOUD THEM...

3) Phyrexian Arena would be far better and your opponent will have a much tougher time dealing with that than a single Sorcery. It's also immune to your own Poxing and if you can keep your life total flowing, it works. I used to run the Arena but kept dying to it so I stopped. However, Sign in Blood has the most epic side effect of killing your opponent that the Arena doesn't. Personally, I'd rather hit them with a creature/Cursed Scroll but it's funny and it works.

[Hardcore]

"...has been met with inconsistency of which I should have expected *facepalm*."

I feel your pain.

[Mr. Safety]

A) 3-4 Plague is fine.

1) I've found sickening dreams to be a terrible top deck (of which we're trying to avoid) and since we are already hitting ourselves with massive card disadvantage, making it worse isn't a good thing. Granted, Loam could pull through it if your meta is slow enough.

2) Death Cloud is inferior to Pox. Just run more Poxes HOWEVER, if 8 Pox effects still isn't enough, and you can feed it enough land (at least 6 mana is necessary for any real returns since Smallpox is DC=1 for 4 cmc, which is terrible) by all means DEATH CLOUD THEM...

3) Phyrexian Arena would be far better and your opponent will have a much tougher time dealing with that than a single Sorcery. It's also immune to your own Poxing and if you can keep your life total flowing, it works. I used to run the Arena but kept dying to it so I stopped. However, Sign in Blood has the most epic side effect of killing your opponent that the Arena doesn't. Personally, I'd rather hit them with a creature/Cursed Scroll but it's funny and it works.

Thanks for the reply. I agree with all of your points, and I don't think any meta is slow enough for loam to compensate for dreams. I'll stick with 3 plague for now but I may play 4 if the meta shifts to more yp, lsouls, or esper mentor. I do see goblins and elves occasionally too.

Sign in blood I think has a better chance of resolving than arena imho. I like that it gives controlled lifeloss where arena can add up over several turns. I also already have library, which is superior to both options. I had an open slot and I felt it could be a draw option (3rd barren moor to make 27 lands, sign in blood.)

[OmniStrata]

If you have an open slot, and are in doubt, just throw Big Pox in there and call it a day. I've never seen it 'miss' before and if it does, that means they have no permanents in play or cards in hand, in which case, you just made your clock 33% faster.

[Hardcore]

After watching Tom Ross play a friendly Modern game http://www.starcitygames.com/article...VS-8-Rack.html I have been thinking of make that deck legacy legal.

Perhaps something like this

4 Liliana of the Veil

4 bloodghast

1 ankh of mishra

20 Swamp
1 Dakmor Salvage



4 The Rack
4 Shrieking Affliction
4 Dismember
2 Funeral Charm
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Raven's Crime
4 Smallpox
3 pox
4 hymn to tourach

[OmniStrata]

After watching Tom Ross play a friendly Modern game http://www.starcitygames.com/article...VS-8-Rack.html I have been thinking of make that deck legacy legal.

Perhaps something like this

4 Liliana of the Veil

4 bloodghast

1 ankh of mishra

20 Swamp
1 Dakmor Salvage



4 The Rack
4 Shrieking Affliction
4 Dismember
2 Funeral Charm
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Raven's Crime
4 Smallpox
3 pox
4 hymn to tourach

That Modern Smallpox deck looks amazing for fighting agro and the sideboard makes it even more so. Must have had a lot of creatures facebutting him. I'd most likely swap the Dismember for Smother and get 3 Funeral Charm, 1 Raven's Crime. Then swap the Bloodghasts for Ensnaring Bridges or some removal and let the 8-racks go to town.

If only my meta wouldn't have so much mid-range and had more agro gah!

[Hardcore]

I suppose more discard in the sideboard, like wrench mind, would be nice against mid range.

[OmniStrata]

I've found Liliana and Hymn plenty enough discard for mid-range decks. Thing is people tend to cast what they draw and drawing more land kill gives you a better chance at a target than top decking a discard spell. I'm running 4 Poxes now main deck but if I were to do some tweaking, I'm bouncing between 4 Pox, 8 threats, 24 land configuration or 2 Pox, 9 threats, 25 lands.

Anyone here running 25+ lands run into situations where you get mana flooded often? I find even with 24 lands + 4 Dark Rits I get mana screwed and sometimes wish I ran 32 lands... I've found that 9 threats allows me to kill a Jace more efficiently since he'll just Fateseal to live off of a single threat and we need 2+ threats to bury his ass efficiently.

[Toxboy]

Well this isn't exactly what is getting discussed right now, but I'm thinking alot over some card choices over this past weeks since dtt got banned and how much this affected my thinking and card choices.


These are mostly releveant for the B/G loam pox list but I would say it has similarities to list running crucible and trying to establish a lock.

General differences
Bad:
More JTMS, since you can't dig for them you can often find around 1 more in most stock list 75 cards(at my Meta) and often times 1 in certain deck sideboard.
More aggresive lines, this is not always bad but since people are worse at grinding against your deck they can go more all in and sometimes be paid of.
More shardless, seriosuly how do you win vs turn 1 drs, turn 2 shardless into ancestral.


Good
Can't dig themselves out of your lock,
more focus on threats (good if you pack more answers otherwise bad as I noticed)
Less focus in going wide with pyromancer and mentor. Also harder for these decks to find their pieces.
Omnitell is dead, it's old cousin sneak and show is not that scary compared to it.
Barren moor can now almost always replace the singleton bojuka bog in the main since it doesn't randomly kill dig in certain match-ups.


I wanted to write about this since I Oddly enough I felt weird (in a bad way) after the recent dtt ban, since I got so used to playing against it every match up felt wrong, my sideboarding felt of and I had to many dead cards really.

But I sat down today and looked through my list and potential cards, in the end I decided I wanted to try to play the 4th abrupt decay since people just pack more threats instead of digging for them now.

The general changes made were,

Mainboard
+1 vengeful pharao (was out during the last part of the dtt meta, but now that deck really can't recharge themselves you can really afford to draw i as well)
+1 abrupt decay (was a hymn to tourach)
- 1 hymn to tourach (combo is less of a threat
- 1 toxic deluge (no need to 2 for 1 any fair decks really)

sideboard
- 1 innocent blood (you are more scared of having your removal countered so the extra abrupt does the work here
+1 vraska, the unseen (my new pet kill target jace card), it worked beautifully today as I played it plus 1 (knew he had jace in hand), he played jace because the ulti would have been game


further changes I'm thinking about is
cutting
trinisphere for a sphere of resistance specifically for the food chain matchup that can be pretty rough.
getting a golgari charm in the sideboard
getting a chains of mephistopheles in the sideboard
getting a nether void into the sideboard

Potential cuts are
Null rod, duress, extirpate, trinisphere (trini only for another sphere effect)

current sideboard
Duress
Coffin Purge
Extirpate
Innocent blood
Hymn to Tourach
engineered plague
Massacre
Null rod
sphere of resistance
2 trinisphere
krosan grip
maelstrom pulse
vraska, the unseen
Barren moor


If anyone have suggestions feel free to say so, also if you want to know anything specific about loam pox I can give some insight in a couple of match-ups.