It would be format warping across the board, and its completely unrealistic. It would be sweet though.Originally Posted by Quitrex
Thanks for sharing! When i saw the list I noticed thoughtseize no. 5 and thought it could be cut for something else. Yes, why not for nether spirit
? ☺️ Btw, I also see you are very light on win cons.
Add a rack or two. They are good vs planeswalkers and deck that empties their hands fast, like burn and delver.
Last edited by Hardcore; 03-06-2017 at 01:35 AM.
"Pox early, Pox often, and Pox hard!" - Le_Lepreux
I feel like 4 cursed scroll might be a bit overkill, I don't hate an Ob nixilis walker in the board (either one) for the long game matchups. I think I like a crucible and/or a nether spirit in the main. I also don't hate experimenting with ratchet bomb as a way to deal with non-creature/non-land cards. I also don't hate a cabal pit or two as additional creature control without investing your spell spots. I don't think 4 brutality is actually necessary, and I prefer surgical effects for my gy hate in the board, as it can help peel delver decks off of whichever color is troubling you the most, and keep depths stule decks off of top decking the combo. I am also unsure how your build will fare against sneak and show/D&T, but I do agree about the two main board deluges.
Great losses often bring only a numb shock. To truly plunge a victim into misery, you must overwhelm him with many small sufferings."
—Ratadrabik of Urborg
Thanks for the comments.
The Collective Brutality are for the Burn match-up, and extra Duress effects vs Sneak and Show. I like the idea of Surgical Extractions vs Delver, but I'm not sure what main-deck cards I'm cutting for them game 2, and I'm not sure they help my Dredge match-up enough for my comfort. (I have a Dredge player and a Reanimator player in my local meta) Maybe I'll try it.
I felt the lack of Nether Spirit in the control games. A single recursive threat would be nice. I think I will try -1 Inquisition of Kozilek, +1 Crucible of Worlds. -2 Swamp, +2 Cabal Pit.
I have monkeyed around with Ratchet Bomb in the past. It always felt way too slow, but I was using it in Loam Pox where I had Abrupt Decays and Maelstrom Pulses. It may feel better here. I'm also considering To the Slaughter to deal specifically with Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Nahiri, the Harbinger. Ratchet Bomb is more versatile for sure. Maybe -1 Cursed Scroll, +1 Ratchet bomb in the main is worth testing.
I added the second Toxic Deluge over a Yahenni's Expertise. The Expertise was powerful, but too cute, and bad vs Tarmogoyf. Originally the slot was Night of Soul's Betrayal, but I think I like the Deluge better with the proliferation of Deathrite Shaman/Leovold, Emissary of Trest Decks. Night is super good vs Death and Taxes though. The Pox could be one of these effects as well, but I like the additional land destruction it offers, as well as the clock help.
I will keep tweaking and report back! I like this angle of Pox, no hard locks, no aggression. Just pure disruption - that's why I cut the Nether Spirit, it's not disruptive.
Having a full disruption Pox deck means you can't kill your opponent. Actually, the only reason one should cut Nether Spirit is if their deck has too many creatures in it. If they printed a Nether Spirit type threat without the 'only creature in graveyard' condition, it'd be an absolute automatic 4 of in any Pox player's deck. It can block the biggest threats (tarmogoyf) forever, it can be discarded to smallpox, pox, or Liliana for a free creature you paid no mana for, it can be countered by an overzealous opponent or killed [not exiled] and NS doesn't care, and innocent blood stops hurting yourself.
The only time I tried a Pox deck without Nether Spirit was when I built a hyper aggressive version of Pox using Nyxathid, Nihilith, and Epochrasite with truckloads of hand destruction effects. It ran Hymn and Wrench Mind in full playsets cause 2/3 of the threats love it. Ultimately, letting most of my foe's creature removal become useful didn't float my boat with Pox.
Technically, Nether Spirit is very disruptive. Your opponent is trying to kill you with a single threat? NS denies that kill. Opponent is attacking you with a biggie and 2 small creatures? The big creature never hits you. So in that point of view, you can consider Nether Spirit a way to "kill" an opponent's largest threat by having it unable to damage you. And that disruption is fine by me.
Three Lilianas to rule them all. One Pox to find them. Smallpox to bring them all and in the Sinkhole bind them!
Good Points! I will reconsider.Technically, Nether Spirit is very disruptive. Your opponent is trying to kill you with a single threat? NS denies that kill. Opponent is attacking you with a biggie and 2 small creatures? The big creature never hits you. So in that point of view, you can consider Nether Spirit a way to "kill" an opponent's largest threat by having it unable to damage you. And that disruption is fine by me.
What's the deck list?
Three Lilianas to rule them all. One Pox to find them. Smallpox to bring them all and in the Sinkhole bind them!
I'd recommend replacing 1 Leyline of the Void with 1 Nihil Spellbomb. Leylines are "bad-ish in multiples."A cantripping Tormod's Crypt is epic.
Three Lilianas to rule them all. One Pox to find them. Smallpox to bring them all and in the Sinkhole bind them!
Hey guys, I am planning on bringing a Pox list to a tournament in a few days - but I am not the most experienced Pox player, so I appreciate any comments on how to use certain cards (I was mostly durdling with BR reanimator, certain Nic Fit Variants and Zombardement). My basis was Tamura Shigeyuki's Bw list.
- Had to find a substitute only owning 2 Scrublands. Goldfishing, I found the Courtyards to work nearly as good - together with 2 Scrublands of course.
- Due to my local meta I want to have answers to Burn. Either Collective Brutality or Gerrard's Verdict. Not sure yet. I would love to make some room for brutality in the MD anyways, since there are 7 cards to put in the grave.
- I found that lots of decks use pretty wanky mana bases atm. Do you think pro-active Surgical Extractions are worth it? E.g. the now-popular RUG lists play 3 Tropical and 3 Volcanic. Extracting one of those would go a long way in this game. BUG on the other hand relies heavily on Underground Seas. Still not sure about this, since people always tell me that pro-active Extractions are bad.
- When do we board out the Dark Rituals? I guess when the 2-for-1 risk is too high = counter heavy decks like miracles and Delver variants?
- I like Armageddon. Playing it in this list makes me smile. However, against whom? Miracles, I guess. Other Control stuff too.
- When do we board out Smallpox? Especially in this list I can see some matchups where we want to get to 4 mana fast.
25 Lands
2 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta
4 Marsh Flats
1 Plains
5 Swamp
2 Scrubland
4 Wasteland
4 Concealed Courtyard
5 Creatures
3 Bloodghast
2 Tombstalker26 Instants and Sorc.
4 Dark Ritual
3 Hymn to Tourach
3 Innocent Blood
4 Lingering Souls
4 Smallpox
4 Thoughtseize
1 Toxic Deluge
3 Vindicate
4 Other Spells
4 Liliana of the Veil15 Sideboard
4 Surgical Extraction
3 Pithing Needle
2 Armageddon
2 Lost Legacy
1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Collective Brutality
Ah. And one other question!
- Is it common to board out 1-2 lands in games where Smallpox are also boarded out?
So, I've said it before and I'll say it again, burn doesn't like the first collective brilutality and can't actually beat the second one as long as you have a clock. They'll usually have their hand empty enough that unless you get a Gerard's verdict on/before turn three you won't really hit anything, and even on 2 you might not hit a land. I'd rather go with the leaving less to chance.
I find that it's common for me to board down to 25-27 mana producers regardless, and it's just a matter of which ones are weakest, eg. Get rid of wastelands where you can't punish their mana base hard enough and don't have use for the colorless mana. (I commonly trim 2 vs D&T when I'm on Rits) Get rid of the rituals when you expect absurdly long and protracted games where you can't afford the card loss as much (2-3 out vs shardless and miracles) maybe a couple courtyards out in matchups where white isn't as important and having non-basics can be a liability (looking at D&T and burn here)
Proactive surgical effects can end games, pure and simple, but are never worth putting in the main for that purpose. If you find yourself in a position where you have too many cards to board out and not enough to board in, it is perfectly justifiable to try and hit certain cards. Vs shardless, I found that my priority target is usually actually deathrite followed by goyf, jace, and Liliana. Burn I would go after PoP, eidolon, vortex and fireblast. That kind of thing is, while not generally optimal, perfectly acceptable if you can't do much else.dark ritual comes out when they also want a long game and you don't have as many things that just end the game on turn 1-2, such as miracles, shardless and a reasonable number of grixis pyromancer variants.
Armageddon is for all the decks where they want to make their land drops. That includes miracles, D&T, eldrazi, shardless, and lands. Land you generally won't want to cast it until you've surgicaled their loams, but...
Smallpox generally stays in unless 2 or more of the three main modes are actually bad for you, ex dredge doesn't care as much about the land, wants to sacrifice it's creatures and wants to discard. Smallpox finds itself coming out. I usually trim 2-4 vs lands (in spite of just telling you Armageddon is palatable there) and trim a couple vs reanimator. Decent rule of thumb is do they not play creatures, function the same on two lands as on four, and want some number of their cards in the gy? Yes: board out some number of smallpox, no: try to leave smallpox in.
In the matchups where smallpox out, you will generally consider trimming down a few extra mana sources, since you have less to do with your extras at that point.
Great losses often bring only a numb shock. To truly plunge a victim into misery, you must overwhelm him with many small sufferings."
—Ratadrabik of Urborg
Thank you for the insights - I think I got the points now!
Would you try to make room for brutality in the main?
1. Don't worry too much about burn. [Local meta]... Erm, ok. I'd recommend the land killers like Armaggedon, Sinkhole, and Smallpox. I've found discarding them down buys you time but in this match burn has inevitability. Things like Nether Void and Trinisphere can REALLY put a damper on them and if they can't destroy your Sun Droplet, it's pretty much your game. Stop them from casting spells.
2. Wanky mana bases means more Wastelanding. Nuking their Dual Lands after they hit the yard is a bit annoying since it's a non-bo. Running Ghost Quarters against decks with less than 6 basic lands is golden. Even more so if you can recycle them some how.
3. Board out Dark Rituals when the game goes past turn 3. You don't need the speed nor the disadvantage nor the shitty top deck.
4. Blowing up land is the reason I became a Pox spell caster. Armaggeddon just makes the splash that much better. 2-3 sounds perfect. In fact, I'd consider a 4th Vindicate cause well, if you're in a situation where you don't have a target, you've already won.
5. I'd board out Smallpox only against GY dependent decks. Dredge being offender #1 and to a lesser extent Life from the Loam. Determine how well your enemy can function without their GY. If they can't function without it, all Smallpoxes gotta go. If they can still kill you without a GY, then 1-2 Smallpoxes at best. Your Leylines should be able to handle it.
Three Lilianas to rule them all. One Pox to find them. Smallpox to bring them all and in the Sinkhole bind them!
I haven't been able to play Magic much lately, but I have found a fun and surprisingly versatile sideboard card in Imp's Mischief. I really only began using it because I'm unable to afford a Chains at the moment, so I had to get creative. So far, I have stolen an Ancestral Vision, had my opponent Reanimate my Nether Spirit, returned a Hymn to Tourach back to sender, and sent an Abrupt Decay at a Goyf. It's a little cute for sure, but it's also incredibly satisfying to resolve.
Ancestral, hymn and decay are all found in shardless, a deck that is difficult for Pox. I usually have three flex slots in sideboard and this could be worthwhile.
"Pox early, Pox often, and Pox hard!" - Le_Lepreux
Lost miserably 0-3.
R1 against Elves. 0:2
G1 Turn 3 combo. Sacrifice effects are not sufficient.
G2 Again no timely Deluge. Had a needle on Wirewood that helped keeping me in game till combo Turn 5.
R2 against 4c Delver 1:2
G1 I win with Lingering Souls beatdown and a few sac effects.
G2 I lose to Young Pyromancer that sac-protects a TNN and two Bolts. Additionally a Dread of Night kills 4 souls tokens that could have raced it.
G3 I lose to myself being greedy. I extracted a Volcanic Island early - completely stripping him off red. But I should have gone for the also-in-gy Deathrite Shaman, that won him the game (also by sac-protecting TNN and an Angler).
R3 against B Pox 1:2
I lost twice against multiple The Rack. A real killer in the Mirror :D. G1 he had a Top online too...
Conclusions:
- Made a few minor and one big mistake. 0-3 is harsh but ok for a fist time pox i guess.
- I liked the white splash although against elves a Tabernacle would have been nice ;).
Question:
Did someone build a Pox with red-splash in the last months? Is this any good? In theory a little bit of reach would help a lot sometimes.
I have had BR in mind since the days when Necropotence splashed red. I still am looking for something that make it better than mono-B.
"Pox early, Pox often, and Pox hard!" - Le_Lepreux
That's the exact matchup I put it in the sideboard for, but it turns out that it is often better than a Dark Ritual, Hymn, or Sinkhole in other matchups. Hitting a Visions is definitely the best because you don't even lose any life for it either.
I think Warping Wail would be better as you can top deck it and it's modes are still usable. Imp's sounds good early game, but when top decked and you want your Liliana ticking up, you'd end up losing it. One of the reasons I don't keep reactive instants in the sideboard is that I have to hit top deck mode asap and that ends up ruining defensive counter-style plans/cards.
On the other hand, Abrupt Decay aiming at Liliana's chest being misdirected by a black spell is freaking epic sauce...
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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