[Primer/Deck] Pox

[Quitrex]

sounds almost exactly like my line of thought. also, the additional colorless sources open up the (admittedly not spectacular, but potentially worth mentioning) warping wail. mainly for when your meta is flooded with sneak and show.

[Hardcore]

Triskaidekaphobia
This one...

[OmniStrata]

Triskaidekaphobia
This one...

"The page you are looking for does not exist".

?

[PirateKing]

Triskaidekaphobia 3B
Enchantment
At the beginning of your upkeep choose 1:
-Each player at 13 life loses the game. Then each player gains 1 life.
-Each player at 13 life loses the game. Then each player loses 1 life.

Shadows over Innistrad Rare

[Mr. Safety]

If we're looking for the ability to draw additional cards, I like a pair of Sea Gate Wreckage over basically any other option i've seen. Loam Pox doesn't need much beyond loam plus barren moor in my opinion.

Completely agree, just making a comparison. I actually play 3 moor, 2 sylvan library alongside three loams. I always seem to draw a few extra cards.

[Hardcore]

Using last week's deck i went 3-1 today. Lost to miracles first round, then defeated elves, loam pox and another miracles deck.
It is good to finally have a working configuration.

[Quitrex]

How's the Lands matchup? and Triskaidekaphobia is hilarious, but i don't think we get to use it.

[Hardcore]

Lands is grinding. It is particularly annoying to try surgical loam and have him cycle a land in response.
Keeping him from green mana was key.

I have lost badly to loam decks running dark depths. Maybe i should run leyline of the void rather than surgicals.

[Quitrex]

I've never liked Leyline, I usually prefer a surgical/extraction style effect, but if you're looking for a generic 'everything goes' I wouldn't be opposed to looking at planar void either. Extirpate/surgical don't get hit by Krosan Grip. My issue is that I never draw well against our local lands player for games 2-3 (WtH am I supposed to do when he sees more ports than I find basics and natural assembles Lage on turn 6 through that anyways?) so my data is skewed.

[Hardcore]

right now my sideboard is

3 pithing needle
4 chalice of the void
4 engineered plague
2 surgical extraction
2 extirpate

I have another two surgicals i could put in there.

I also need to hate Miracles and DnT more. Hymn helped a lot yesterday against the former. I may add Chain of Smog, and toxic deluge.

4 engineered plague
4 surgical extraction
2 extirpate
2 toxic deluge
3 chain of smog

perhaps this better. Or maybe not.

[Chatto]

I'm diving into the Pox-archetype again, this time Aggro Pox, and look what did they spoiled:



Could this work?

3 recurring creature, but which one?
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Bloodghast

3 Dismember
4 Funeral Charm
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
4 Pox

2 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Liliana of the Veil

24 lands


Now I understand, there is no way one would splash blue for just one card, but is it possible to make this one work?

And yes, i took Hardcore's deck as a reference

[OmniStrata]

I'm diving into the Pox-archetype again, this time Aggro Pox, and look what did they spoiled:



Could this work?

3 recurring creature, but which one?
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Bloodghast

3 Dismember
4 Funeral Charm
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
4 Pox

2 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Liliana of the Veil

24 lands


Now I understand, there is no way one would splash blue for just one card, but is it possible to make this one work?

And yes, i took Hardcore's deck as a reference

You'll want to look at Reassembling Skeleton, Ashen Ghoul, Ichorid, or Akuta, Born of Ash. The latter I think could work with the Top.

[grokh]

You'll want to look at Reassembling Skeleton, Ashen Ghoul, Ichorid, or Akuta, Born of Ash. The latter I think could work with the Top.

I think the most interesting options of all you mentionned would be Reassembling Skeleton cos it's the only one (in those you mentionned) which can come back at the end of your opponent's turn.

So the Prized amalgam would be untapped and ready to attack on your turn.

All others, can just come back at your upkeep so you'll get a 3/3 tapped at end of your turn.

[Chatto]

Yeah, RS is on my mind too. It would get Prized Almagam back on the field for sure. Of course, if I would throw in some Fetch, that would also give some sort of reassurance.

[Hardcore]

Gravecrawler. It may work with Geralf's messenger too.

I like it, but it may best for zombardment.

[Toxboy]

I'm diving into the Pox-archetype again, this time Aggro Pox, and look what did they spoiled:



Could this work?

3 recurring creature, but which one?
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Bloodghast

3 Dismember
4 Funeral Charm
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
4 Pox

2 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Liliana of the Veil

24 lands


Now I understand, there is no way one would splash blue for just one card, but is it possible to make this one work?

And yes, i took Hardcore's deck as a reference

well, there could be 1 card making you splash blue, it shouldn't hurt playing it and maybe Brainstorm while we do it, maybe 1 geralf's masterpiece as well?

[Quitrex]

Unless you're playing an aggressive card drawing engine and more basics than usually make their home in a 2-color pox mana base, you don't have the ability to consistently get cards into your hand and hit the four mana for geralf's masterpiece. Personally i don't dislike running a few Entomb, and I think that many people underestimate how relevant a light splash is in this archetype, as I've had a surprising amount of success with just splashing 3-4 abrupt decay as the only green cards. mana base usually looks something like 4 on guild fetch, 1-3 black fetch, 1 off black basic, 1-2 dual, 2-3 urborg, 4 wasteland, (potential for mainland, factory or w/e is your on-color tar pit or shambling vent style dude) and the rust up to 24 or 25 land is basic swamp, so for your deck, something like
4 wasteland
3 urborg, tomb of yawgmoth
4 polluted delta
1 Island
1 Underground Sea
2 verdant catacomb
9 swamp

[Chatto]

@ Quitrex: even with such a manabase four mana seems a bit much with Pox and Smallpox in the deck. Seems to me it won't bring PA consistently 'back from the dead', which is the goal in the first place.

Regarding carddrawing: perhaps four Bob's? Then three SDT would be appropiate.

[Quitrex]

PA doesn't care if you can cast it first. you have a surprisingly consistent BB on turn 2 and BBB on turn 3 is more common than having and wanting to cast pox on turn 3. you also have the option of blue hate cards (chill anyone?). that same mana base has very little trouble with either abrupt decay or smallpox on turn 2, and the fetch lands will make EoT bloodghast easier. you can turn a couple more basics into fetches if you want, but i don't recommend more than two more. I can't condone bob in pox, as you have multiple things that force you to sac creatures when you want to keep drawing cards, and there are many matches where your life total is already under a lot of pressure (guess who doesn't help with that!) If you want a huge number of cards in hand, either find room for more colorless lands and use Sea Gate Wreckage or build a loam version. one of the things about traditional pox builds is that they want to capitalize on minimizing everybody's resources. If you're just interested in limiting the other guy's resources, i'd look at shardless variants first.

[mykatdied]

Why do you even need to splash for that card? Aren't discard effects, bloodghast or grave crawler good enough for recursion of this. You literally never have to cast this card. I still think it is worse than just running nether spirit or bloodghast in general. But if you really want to run this you honesty never have to legitimately cast it. Discarding it to liliana, smallpox, etc should be enough to get it into your yard, then recurring other creatures seems a good enough way to get it back.

If you really want to have a mana base for bug colors just look at my shardless pox build that I wrote about on hipsters of the coast in the brew corner column. That mana base has worked really well for me. You could likely change the lumbering falls for creeping tarpit