Are you running Force of Will?
Three Lilianas to rule them all. One Pox to find them. Smallpox to bring them all and in the Sinkhole bind them!
In the sideboard, the blue count was not high enough in the main board, I really only want Force of Will against fast combo anyways.Originally Posted by OmniStrata
Are you running Force of Will?
What would a Pox player give for Unmask to be instant speed? I used to run it but found the card disadvantage too extreme.
What's more, combo decks don't go off on turn 1 more than 30% of the time. If there was one that could go for the kill on turn 1 more than 50% of the time, it'd be DTB all decade long right?
Three Lilianas to rule them all. One Pox to find them. Smallpox to bring them all and in the Sinkhole bind them!
Combo can fizzle, and the players make mistakes. Let it work to your advantage
"Pox early, Pox often, and Pox hard!" - Le_Lepreux
Ancient Pox, the current update for my current meta (less agro, more beefy tokens, mid range, and long control)
//Win Conditions (8)
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Cursed Scroll
2 Nether Spirit
//Discard (8)
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Hymn to Tourach
//Land Destruction (8)
4 Wasteland
4 Sinkhole
// Pox FX (12)
4 Innocent Blood
4 Smallpox
4 Pox
//Planeswalkers (4)
4 Liliana of the Veil
//Mana (20)
4 Dark Ritual
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
12 Snow-Covered Swamp
//Sideboard
1 Pithing Needle
2 Powder Keg
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Tombstalker
4 Engineered Plague
2 Extirpate
2 Leyline of the Void
Wth? I've got less 1 toughness decks to deal with and find higher strength tokens (4/4 angels gah) getting annoying. Also, I've found pithing to be less effective against things that can be destroyed (Jace) vs. things that can 'dodge' (SDT, fetchlands). Bombs and Kegs work wonders for token armies, enemy needles, and my favorite, Jace murders. A single 'standard' Pox threat can prevent Jace from growing, but can't kill him. I've gone the bombing route, which has worked in the past.
Sideboard choice. Tomby kills fast. It's the best pressure for this deck when they're in top deck mode and need to find that big kill (exile) card. Plague can still come in vs. things like D&T (humans) or Lingering Souls, tribal (empty the warrens) etc.
Pros: much more effective vs. decks looking to go long and hit as many land drops as possible (hating on you Miracles!
Cons: Having no form of board wipe makes dealing with 3+ biggies very difficult. Cursed Scroll can handle most annoyances (as long as you can Bomb their Leyline of Sanctity, which shuts off our Liliana ult and CS) Running 12 symmetric effects means decks that use the GY to generate power become stronger than before. Exceptionally weak to burn. Also weaker to high speed decks so if the meta were to turn into more vials, I'd have to change up again.
Name: every card in the deck is proven as a 'powerfully useful' card in all previous Pox decks so this is all the oldies brought together.
Three Lilianas to rule them all. One Pox to find them. Smallpox to bring them all and in the Sinkhole bind them!
Ancient Pox, the current update for my current meta (less agro, more beefy tokens, mid range, and long control)
//Win Conditions (8)
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Cursed Scroll
2 Nether Spirit
//Discard (8)
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Hymn to Tourach
//Land Destruction (8)
4 Wasteland
4 Sinkhole
// Pox FX (12)
4 Innocent Blood
4 Smallpox
4 Pox
//Planeswalkers (4)
4 Liliana of the Veil
//Mana (20)
4 Dark Ritual
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
12 Snow-Covered Swamp
//Sideboard
1 Pithing Needle
2 Powder Keg
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Tombstalker
4 Engineered Plague
2 Extirpate
2 Leyline of the Void
Wth? I've got less 1 toughness decks to deal with and find higher strength tokens (4/4 angels gah) getting annoying. Also, I've found pithing to be less effective against things that can be destroyed (Jace) vs. things that can 'dodge' (SDT, fetchlands). Bombs and Kegs work wonders for token armies, enemy needles, and my favorite, Jace murders. A single 'standard' Pox threat can prevent Jace from growing, but can't kill him. I've gone the bombing route, which has worked in the past.
Sideboard choice. Tomby kills fast. It's the best pressure for this deck when they're in top deck mode and need to find that big kill (exile) card. Plague can still come in vs. things like D&T (humans) or Lingering Souls, tribal (empty the warrens) etc.
Pros: much more effective vs. decks looking to go long and hit as many land drops as possible (hating on you Miracles!
Cons: Having no form of board wipe makes dealing with 3+ biggies very difficult. Cursed Scroll can handle most annoyances (as long as you can Bomb their Leyline of Sanctity, which shuts off our Liliana ult and CS) Running 12 symmetric effects means decks that use the GY to generate power become stronger than before. Exceptionally weak to burn. Also weaker to high speed decks so if the meta were to turn into more vials, I'd have to change up again.
Name: every card in the deck is proven as a 'powerfully useful' card in all previous Pox decks so this is all the oldies brought together.
for higher toughness creatures, i like to use perish and toxic deluge..perish is good against bug and jund it hits all of their creatures except for dark confidant..
I can't run Toxic Deluge due to having 4 Poxes in the deck. I'm crazy with life loss like that. But I do have 2 Perish lying around. Luckily, the last times I played BUG and Jund, they didn't swarm me so I was able to hold them off for the win. Excess sacrifice spells works against non-swarm, like RUG Threshold, or any other tempo deck ^_^, though I'm glad I brought plagues for the damn Monastery Mentor, I really hate that guy. That and Young Pyromancer, bombs, kegs, and plagues work wonders there.
Three Lilianas to rule them all. One Pox to find them. Smallpox to bring them all and in the Sinkhole bind them!
Hey guys,
A few days ago I saw a Pox list which runs 2 Underworld Dreams maindeck and top 8 out of 36. This also didn't look like an budget version because of The Abyss and two Nether Voids in his sideboard. looks really slow but punishes cantrip's and carddraw pretty good. Some of you might say, that the Rack is a faster clock but this card need no setup discard and punishes cantriping opponents, while we're in topdeck mode, pretty good. What do you think ?
Btw in his list are also 3 Maindeck Pithing Needles.
And the second thing is what you think of the new Commander set. Any Pox-playable cards ? I dont think so, the only one which got me interessed first was one Wretched Confluence, which could be a powerhorse mid /late - game . But 5 Mana is a lot for a deck with 4 smallpox,wastelands maybe some maindeck Pox's . i dont know it has to be tested.
my 2 cents .
That deck's meta must be made of Jace the Mind Sculptor. MD Pithing is not a bad call when you consider every Deck to Beat has fetchlands and activated abilities. Thing is, in game 1, if you have a Pithing Needle on the play, it's 'dead' until you see your opponent's first 3 turns. Maybe less if you see something like an LED start or turn 1 Deathrite Shaman, but if they play a fetchland (score!) or an Island, you probably won't know what to name.
Three Lilianas to rule them all. One Pox to find them. Smallpox to bring them all and in the Sinkhole bind them!
underworld dreams is actually not bad, its good against miracles since it makes using brainstorm and jace's second ability hurt..i can also justify running pithing needle in the main maybe as a 1-of if i'm expecting the meta to be full or miracles, in fact that's actually my guess for what the pilot had in mind when he wrought his spellbase..
i personally wouldn't run underworld dreams..death and taxes, JUND, MUD, etc. all still exists in my meta so i'd rather have something in those slots that are not dead or weak against decks that don't run brainstorm, ancestral visions, etc..
Tournament Report With Mono Black Pox
Hello everyone! I went to the Grand Prix in Tacoma with Mono Black Pox this past weekend and had a great time! This was my first big Legacy tournament, so I wasn't expecting great results, and I didn't put up great results! I went 2-2-1. Even though I didn't do that well, I had a really fun time and learned a lot about my deck, and everything I had to play against. Here's my decklist:
12x Swamp
4x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4x Wasteland
4x Mishra's Factory
3x Innocent Blood
4x Dark Ritual
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Sinkhole
4x Smallpox
4x Liliana of the Veil
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Pox
1x Spinning Darkness
1x Nether Void
3x Cursed Scroll
2x Nether Spirit
Sideboard
4x Leyline of the Void
3x Engineered Plague
2x Duress
3x Pithing Needle
1x Nether Void
2x Ensnaring Bridge
Matches
Match 1 vs. Pox!!!
Game 1: I find my opponent, sit down across from him and comment that we're both using the same sleeves. He wins the roll, puts down a Mishra's Factory and I quickly realize that not only are we both using the same sleeves, we have 90% of the same cards within those sleeves! He opened up with a lot of land destruction, Wastelands were almost always aimed at Factories since that's the only way we had to deal with them. He eventually puts down a Liliana and starts ticking up, but it isn't really doing anything helpful. I eventually draw more factories than he has Wastelands and beat him to death with those.
Sideboard: +3 Pithing Needle, -3 Innocent Blood
Game 2: This game is pretty quick. He beats me down with factories, I don't draw a meaningful way to deal with them. Onto game 3.
Sideboard: +2 Duress, -1 Spinning Darkness, -1 Hymn to Tourach
Game 3: I keep a hand with two Factories, a Pithing Needle and some Hymns. He Wastelands my Factory, then Extirpates it, stripping one out of my hand and two more out of my deck. That felt really really bad until I realized I now know what to name with my own Needle! I put it down next turn naming Factory, effectively Extirpating all of his, and then we draw-go for a bit. I get a Crucible out, ruining his Wastelands and Sinkholes. Eventually I get my Nether Spirits going and he isn't able to do anything about it.
I've never put any thought into the mirror match prior to this tournament, but now that I've played it, I have some thoughts and some theories on why I did better. First, I would have loved to have The Rack for the mirror match. It would be such a good clock against opposing Pox decks, and they would have no way to deal with it. However, I think my deck was already advantaged in the mirror for two reasons: I had 2x Nether Spirit, and I had a Crucible of Worlds. Other Pox decks can't really deal with Nether Spirit very well,and I was more likely to draw mine. Crucible means I'm always going to win against opposing Mishra's Factories if I get Wasteland recursion going. Also, Liliana seemed lackluster in this match up. I didn't cast a single Liliana any of our three games, and whenever he did, I just wasn't really bothered by her.
1-0
Match 2 vs. Lands
Game 1: This was a pretty depressing match. Game 1 he had a turn 1 Manabond, and proceeded to just lock me out with Rishadan Ports, Wasteland, and Life from the Loam. He never even drew a win-con, I just got sick of watching him Port me every turn, knew I had no real way to dealing with the lock and asked to go to game 2, where I thought I'd stand a better chance.
Sideboard: +3 Pithing Needle, +4 Leyline of the Void, -1 Spinning Darkness, -1 Nether Void, -3 Innocent Blood, -2 Dark Ritual (Probably should have found room for Ensnaring Bridge, but I didn't).
Game 2: I saw a Pithing Needle in the hand, but no Leyline of the Void. I kept it anyway, figuring I could slow him down. I wish I had mulliganed more aggressively in hindsight. He Krosan Grip-ed my first Needle. I drew another and made what I would soon learn was a mistake. At some point between him killing my first Pithing Needle, and me casting my second one, he had copied my Mishra's Factory with Thespian Stage. When I cast my second Pithing Needle, I named Thespian Stage. The problem with this was that his Stage was actually named "Mishra's Factory" and it gained the Thespian Stage ability. Because of this he was able to make a Merit Lage token and kill me next turn. If I were a better player that was a really good play from him, because by naming Mishra's Factory to turn off the Thespian Stage, I would have turned off my own Factories.
1-1
Match 3 vs. WU Stax
Before the tournament I was bemoaning how slow Pox was going to be and my brother jokingly told me "you're gonna hit nothing but Stax and go to time every round!" Imagine my horror when I ended up playing WU Stax round three! My opponent this round was Robert Brews, who had been in the feature match against Cedric Phillips round one, so if you want to see what I was up against, go watch that video.
Game 1: I've never played against any iteration of Stax before, so it took him actually playing a Smoke Stack for me to figure out what I was up against. I was not very optimistic about this match for me. I don't like my odds against grindy decks, especially decks that play a lot of permanents I can't interact with like Trinisphere and Smoke Stack. Somehow though, I managed a win, between him doing damage to himself with Ancient Tomb, and having to sacrifice his own Smoke Stack to itself, I was able to land a Nether Spirit and get him down to 1 life. I killed him with a Smallpox the last turn.
Sideboard: +4 Leyline of the Void, -1 Nether Void, -3 Dark Ritual
Game 2: I wasn't really sure how to sideboard against this deck. I had seen some creatures, Magus of the Tabernacle and an angel, I forgot which it was, so I wasn't sure I wanted to take out any Innocent Bloods or Spinning Darkness. I think I ended up bringing in Leylines to stop him recurring lands with Crucible of Worlds. I didn't know the list ran any planeswalkers, so I didn't bring in Pithing Needle. This would prove to be my downfall. I kept a hand with some Inquisitions, but he had a Leyline of Sanctity. He managed to just grind me out, putting down Ghostly Prison to slow my attackers, and killing my lands with a Crucible. Eventually he put down a Smoke Stack, ticked it up to two and just annihilated my lands. If i ever got a Crucible, which I can't recall if I did, it must have been blown up by Smoke Stack. Also at some point he casts Armageddon to great effect. Eventually he starts playing planeswalkers, after I forget to Sinkhole a City of Traitors, allowing him to land a Jace, the Mindsculptor. He started to accrue tons of card advantage, played an Elspeth, then a Tezzeret. I was staring down an army of 1/1 tokens and a Tezzeret ultimate, I proposed we go to game 3.
Sideboard: +3 Pithing Needle, -1 Dark Ritual, -2 Innocent Blood
Game 3: We had about 10 minutes left on the clock, which was really stressful. Fortunately, I saw a way out in my opening hand: Beat down. I had a Nether Spirit, and a Factory, so I was going to go aggro and try to win before he can establish a good lock. I lead with an Inquisition and see an Ensnaring Bridge and a Ghostly Prison. I take the Bridge, since I can at least pay for the Prison later. I get my Nether Spirit down, my first Factory gets hit by Wasteland, and I put my plan into effect. It almost works, I draw my second Spirit and play it. I get another factory and Play it. I've got plenty of life, and plenty of lands to pay for Ghostly Prison. He gets an Elspeth out, but my 2 Spirits a turn is able to push damage through the tokens. I get him down to 2, and he's looking at 4 guaranteed damage, even with blocking something with a Knight token. Then he top decks Armageddon. We instantly are put into turns, I draw no more lands, but he doesn't have enough turns to put out an appreciable amount of damage with his tokens, so it's a draw.
1-1-1
Match 4 vs. Shardless BUG
Game 1: This game went pretty much perfectly for me. I was able to basically Smallpox him out of the game. He was on the play, I had an Innocent Blood turn one, Smallpox turn 2, Hymn next turn and then a Liliana. Every threat he tried to stick got killed, was able to kill him with factories after that with no trouble.
Sideboard: -1 Spinning Darkness, +1 Nether Void
Game 2: This also went well for me. Was able to remove every threat he had with either Inquisition on the first turn or Innocent Blood and Smallpox. I was able to control the board with a Cursed Scroll and Liliana and eventually killed him with it in short order.
2-1-1
Match 5 vs. 4-color Delver
Game 1: This was a pretty bad game for me. I ended up having to mulligan to 5 cards, which is pretty dicey when you don't know what you're playing against. It just didn't work out though, he put threats on the board that I just couldn't keep up with. Gurmag Anglers and True Name Nemesis among others. He was playing Tome Scour though, which gave me some good information on his deck. One Tome Scour he cast put a Young Pyromancer in his graveyard, which tipped me off to the 4-color nature of his deck, since I had pretty much just seen BUG lands prior to that. Because of this, I opted to not side out my Spinning Darkness, which I would have done if it had been straight BUG.
Sideboard: Nothing changed, I wasn't really sure what to bring in, nothing seemed better than what was already in my maindeck.
Game 2: I did pretty well this game, but mostly he got unlucky. He plays two lands and misses a land drop. I Innocent Blood his first play. Turn 3 I drop a big Pox. Turn 4 I drop a Smallpox, taking out his last land, and then Dark Ritual into Nether Void. He scoops.
Game 3: Pretty even game. He plays some Deathrite Shamans and a Tarmagoyf. I'm able to barely keep up with my Removal. I play a Liliana and minus her to get rid of one of his two creatures, a Gurmag Angler and a Deathrite Shaman. He keeps the Angler, kills my Liliana with it next turn, and rides it to victory, never casting another creature. My brother pointed out that I had pitched a Smallpox to another Smallpox earlier in the game, and that if I had ditched a land or something else, I may have been able to kill that Angler. I guess I need to learn to conserve my sac effects better.
2-2-1
That was the last round I played. There was no hope of making day 2 at that point, and I wanted to hang out with my friends the rest of the day. I was overall fairly happy with my deck. There were a few games where I would have liked a Ratchet Bomb though. I think if I had been making better decisions, I could have gone farther. The Crucible didn't come up as often as I thought it would, but it felt pretty good when I did get it going. It makes me feel much more confident casting Smallpox. Playing big Pox over an extra Spinning Darkness felt good, I was never wanting for the Spinning Darkness, though that was probably because I didn't really hit any match ups where it was good, like Burn, D&T, Goblins, Merfolk... I think it was a good call though. Pox is a good card, and Spinning Darkness doesn't really hit anything useful in Shardless BUG it feels like, and there was plenty of that going around.
Anyway, thanks for reading. Hopefully I can pick up some Chains of Mephistopheles or the Abyss before next time.
Thank you for the report!
Was it worthwhile to run four dark rituals?
"Pox early, Pox often, and Pox hard!" - Le_Lepreux
good report !!!
I'd say yes. They help a lot when you need to cast a Liliana or something else after a Smallpox. They also help a lot getting Crucible out fast. I think the only reason I sided them out against Stax was they were going to be hit by Chalice anyway, and I knew it was going to be a long grindy game.
Am I seeing things or is that the original Reid Duke list [main deck] when he won with Pox in a significant tournament?
Ah Crucible. Never mind. 1 swamp for 1 cruicible sounds good. Though I'm beginning to think that the Crucible is better for games where there is no time limit. [extra long casual games vs. 50 min. matches]
Three Lilianas to rule them all. One Pox to find them. Smallpox to bring them all and in the Sinkhole bind them!
Don't fix what isn't broken! The Crucible was kind of a last minute inclusion. I was either going to play another Nether Void or a Night of Souls' Betrayal in that place. I decided on the Crucible because two Nether Voids seems like overkill and I was expecting Shardless BUG to be around, and Night of Souls' Betrayal doesn't do much against that deck. If people were still playing Young Pyromancers a ton like before Dig got banned, I'd have stuck with NoSB. Crucible does a lot of things that Pox wants: It makes Mishra's Factory into Nether Spirit #3-6; it makes Wasteland a valid win condition against mana intensive decks; it compliments Nether Void quite nicely; and probably most relevant to the majority of games, it breaks the symmetry of Smallpox, Pox, and Liliana of the Veil.Am I seeing things or is that the original Reid Duke list [main deck] when he won with Pox in a significant tournament?
Ah Crucible. Never mind. 1 swamp for 1 cruicible sounds good. Though I'm beginning to think that the Crucible is better for games where there is no time limit. [extra long casual games vs. 50 min. matches]
That being said, I only got to use it effectively in the Pox mirror match, in which it was quite good. I don't think Crucible is too slow to be worth it. Even getting to play one land off it after casting a Smallpox makes it worth it. I didn't have many time issues in my matches, even when I was winning slowly with a Nether Spirit or something. In fact the Pox mirror went to game 3 and we finished with ten minutes to spare! The only issue with time I had was against Stax, and I feel like that was unavoidable.
A card that should be effective against loam decks is the Ankh of Mishra.
I am thinking of running that and Chalice of the Void.
"Pox early, Pox often, and Pox hard!" - Le_Lepreux
WHAT ABOUT THIS LIST?
I'LL PLAY TEST IT TONIGHT
//Win Conditions (8)
4 HOWLTOOTH HOLLOW
1 Nether Spirit
3 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
//Discard (10)
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 THOUGHTSIZE
//Land Destruction (3)
3 Wasteland
// Pox FX (12)
4 Innocent Blood
4 Smallpox
4 ABRUPT DECAY
//Planeswalkers (4)
4 Liliana of the Veil
//CONTROL (4)
3 SENSEI ..OR sylvan
1 LIFE FROM THE LOAM
//Mana (4)
4 Dark Ritual
LANDS 12
BLACK & SPLASH GREEN
3 SLOTS LEFT TO CHOOSE, UP TO U.
Last edited by guybrush3; 11-17-2015 at 09:35 AM.
+ 3 crop rotation
"Pox early, Pox often, and Pox hard!" - Le_Lepreux
Go 1 Sensei's top, 1 Sylvan Library, and 4 Sinkhole, oh and that 4th Wasteland.Get medieval on their arse.
Three Lilianas to rule them all. One Pox to find them. Smallpox to bring them all and in the Sinkhole bind them!
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