I started to play Pox because of your build some pages ago I thought it was pretty easy to get and not too expensive. And it was.
Well, now I spent a lot more money than I intended to, but it was worth every cent.
I still like your list though. It's pretty straight and more aggro-based. But have 4 big Pox been working for you? I can't imagine 4 of them being too good. I'd think you pitch them a lot to other discard spells/effects?
How is the single Nether Spirit working for you? Have you considered playing Filth instead for more aggressiveness? Well, you might have to add some Urborgs if you want to play it, but Urborg just does not seem that nice, at least not 4. Speaking of which, how do you get along with Factories without Urborg?
And if you're playing a Rack list with 3(!) Dakmor Salvage, you should probably try Raven's Crime if you haven't already. Maybe you should try Entomb for access to Raven's, Syphon Life and Darkblast (and even Necroplasm if you want it). It could also get your Nether Spirit and works very well with the Dredgers, since they also get your Ghasts (and maybe the Filth) in the Graveyard.
I also think you should add another Liliana, it's pretty much standard to play four. But I can also see the point of running only three. Nevertheless, you probably want her in every game.
I suppose you're not playing Wastelands because of money?
Overall, if you want to add Entomb, this is how I would do it (just a suggestion!):
- 2 Pox
- 1 The Rack (it does nothing in the early game)
- 1 Innocent Blood (you get a Darkblast)
+ 2 Entomb
+ 1 Darkblast
+ 1 Raven's Crime
maybe also make some room for a 4th Lilly
And for the SB then:
- 1 Darkblast
- 1 Syphon Life
+ 1 Necroplasm (if you want to)
+ 1 Pithing Needle / Engineered Plague OR maybe add another Entomb
A downside to playing Entomb is that many opponents will add GY-hate after G1. If it isn't Leyline of the Void, it's not that problematic, but if it is, Entomb becomes quite useless. I don't see lots of Leylines in my meta, so it is not a problem here. I just read you have a GY-heavy meta, well then just ignore the part about Entomb :P.
Also, a question for the others: Do you prefer Engineered Plague or Infest? (This probably has already been discussed?).
Thanks for the critique and suggestions Geist! I'd like to take a moment to talk about some of the points you mentioned regarding my list =)
First off, the 4 big Pox. I love em. The big Pox probably does more work for me to win games than anything else in the deck, and I never mind drawing multiples because I can/will cast 2 of them in a game if given the opportunity. The effect is just backbreaking for the opponent, the only time I'll ever side any of them out is against Burn or the rare Zoo matchup, there are a few people in my meta still playing Zoo. The 4 big Pox is part of the reason I run 3 Dakmor Salvage. Being able to Pox, dredge back your land, then Pox again is enough to stop most decks cold in their tracks, especially if you had any kind of disruption beforehand. In short, I love the 8 Pox effects and would never even consider cutting any of them. They're the heart of the deck IMHO.
Regarding Nether Spirit, I like him a lot and I've actually already tried cutting various things from the deck for Entombs to increase my consistency of getting him. Unless the opponent has Swords he's pretty much a never ending blocker, and the Entombs did help me get him more frequently. However I never liked having to cut things that I felt made the deck function optimally to fit in the 3x Entomb with maindeck Syphon Life + Raven's Crime + Darkblast plan. The one thing I felt least awkward about cutting to fit in the Entomb package was the 2x Cursed Scroll and 4x Inquisition of Kozilek. Inquisition can be pretty critical for combo and control matchups though, and I found myself never feeling quite comfortable not being able to peek at my opponent's hand and take things I didn't want to see.
I did try it for a while, playtesting for a few weeks against various decks and then hitting up a few Legacy tournaments, and ultimately I ended up preferring to just leave the drawing of Nether Spirit and sideboard tech more up to chance. I just wasn't willing to reduce the deck's consistency by cutting the numbers of other important cards to fit the Entomb package in. Also, in a meta filled with an over abundance of graveyard hate I think reducing my graveyard interactions is a good thing.
About Lili, I have tried running 4x Liliana and honestly I just didn't like it. Way too many times I'd encounter two or even three copies of her in game. Sure, you can always pitch the extra to the one you play, but that extra could have been a different card that might have been useful. She does do a lot of work for us (Liliana + The Rack usually seals most games for me) but I don't think we ever need her to win the game, so I'm quite content with 3 of her. I think if I wasn't running an 8 Pox build I might want 4 Liliana, but the 8 Pox effects do most of the work for the deck and Lili just tidies things up afterwards if she comes along. Plus I think running any more than 7 three cost spells would be just a bit too much for the deck's mana curve to handle, even with Dark Ritual and the ability to dredge back some of the lands.
Lastly, regarding Wasteland and Urborg, the reason I don't run them isn't a monetary cost issue. I just don't like them lol I tried playing with 4x Wasteland and 3x Urborg for quite a while and to me they just ruined the deck's consistency. Even with 3x Urborg, having 8 of your mana sources only tap for colorless made it impossible to consistently get BBB for big Pox. I think if I wasn't running big Pox it might be feasible to run the 4x Factory + 4x Wasteland + 3x Urborg plan, but if you're trying to cast big Pox it just makes the mana base way too inconsistent running that many colorless sources. Even with Dark Ritual I found that mana base setup to be totally unworkable.
It's not that I don't like doing techy control things like running an Entomb package and Wasteland, it's just that I've yet to play a list incorporating those things that I felt performed as consistently as the rather simple mono black list I've been running for a long time. It does a very good job of completely wrecking the game state and then mopping up with some small creatures and artifact damage, and any time I tried bringing some other techy strategies into the mix I felt like the deck's consistency went way down. I've been trying to come up with a 8 Pox list with Crucible or Loam involved for a long time (you have no idea how much I'd like to play with Tabernacle and some other neat 1-of lands) but every list I tried never seemed to perform as consistently and brutally as my basic mono black list. All the Crucible/Loam lists I've tried seemed like they just durdled around too much and my tournament results were never as good with them. So I play what works for me and wins, even if it doesn't seem quite as techy or cool as some of the other lists out there. My mono black list may be comparatively cheap and simple but it's very fast and efficient at wrecking the opponent's hand, creatures, and land base and doesn't durdle around.
And oh! I tend to swap between 3x Engineered Plague and 3x Infest in my board depending on the meta. I like Infest better against Merfolk and aggro Elves, but E. Plague really seals the game against Goblins, combo Elves, and Bitterblossom decks once it hits the board. And right now there are quite a few of those latter decks in my meta. If I felt like the deck's mana curve could support a couple Damnation I'd be running them, but 4 mana is just too much for a 8 Pox build to consistently get to. It's the same reason I don't run The Abyss or Nether Void. They're good cards with powerful effects, but 4 mana is too steep for an 8 Pox build to hope to reach. And I don't think there's anything that could convince me to cut the 4 big Pox. Again, IMHO they're the heart of the deck.
Thought I'd toss in the mono black list that's been performing for me very well lately. It's a little different than the list I had been running the last year or so in that I swapped out the 2x Tombstalker I had maindeck for 2x Cursed Scroll to give me some recurring targeted removal for the currently more creature (and graveyard hate) heavy meta. It also serves nicely as an additional win condition and when coupled with 4x The Rack gives me 6 ways to hit planeswalkers maindeck. Since I'm now running Scrolls I also pulled the 3x Null Rod out of the sideboard and replaced them with 2x Pithing Needle and an additional Ratchet Bomb. That all said, here's the list that's been doing well for me...
I'm of the same mind as Tecnik on this one. Simply said, Innocent Blood > Tragic Slip. Also, Funeral Charm > Tragic Slip. Take your pick of which you want to play, but either are more consistent and versatile options.
I love your decklist too Jin15. I just didn't read anything about your opponent boarding in GY hate, did they not play it (if you know) or do you think they didn't think it was worth it, and do you think it would hurt you?
Thanks!
As a habit I generally board out 1 or both of my Tombstalkers for game 2, assuming graveyard hate is coming, but I didn't see any hate all night. The Burn player mentioned that he wished he would have brought in his Tormod's Crypts for Games 2 and 3 but didn't think to do it. Apparently the 12 Post player did bring in Wheel of Sun and Moon for game 2 but never saw it.
In general GY hate is a bit annoying but doesn't cripple my build. Between Mishra's Factory and The Rack you'll usually find a way to kill them that doesn't rely on the graveyard for recursion. Even just casting Bloodghast as a 2/1 haste is often enough to get there after a big Pox if there's a Leyline or Wheel on the opponent's side of the table.
Nice read thanks. Quick question. Did you choose not to use Wastelands or do you just not have them? Do you think 22 Lands is really enough? I must get a couple of Dakmor Salvage as I love doing the Syphon Life combo in my Loam-Pox deck so it would be nice to be able to do it in Mono-Black as well.
You're quite welcome
Regarding Wastelands, I have them but prefer not to use them in a 8Pox style Pox deck due to the constant need for double and triple black mana in the deck. I tried really hard to make Wastelands work in it (always coupled with 3 or 4 Urborgs of course) but no matter how hard I tried to make them work the mana base always seemed really inconsistent and led to many losses due to color screw. Once I dropped the Wastelands though and just stuck to Factories the deck became much more consistent and better performing for me. Wasteland does offer a nice additional option for land destruction (especially if you're running Crucible or Loam) but the downside of nerfing the consistency of my mana base made it more trouble than it was worth for me. IMHO an 8Pox style deck really needs at least 22 black sources (that's including the 4x Dark Ritual) to be able to consistently generate double and triple black mana. So ultimately I had to choose between running Wasteland or Mishra's Factory, and in my experience I found having 4 more threats (bringing my total number of threats to a nice consistent 15) to be more important than 4 more land destruction spells.
Regarding the number of lands to run, I would say that 22 is indeed enough if you're packing 4x Dark Ritual as well (which IMHO every mono black 8Pox build should). Without Dark Rit I'm not sure exactly what would be the right number for lands would be, but I'd speculate somewhere between 23 and 25 depending on if you were running a Crucible + Entomb package or not.
Regardless of how many lands you run though I do think it's really important to have some kind of land recursion ability. Whether it's Crucible, Loam, or Dakmor Salvage. Take your pick. I tried them all and settled on Dakmor Salvage myself, mainly for the reason that Dakmor doesn't take up any critical threat or answer slots in the deck. They simply replace a few swamps, tap for black mana, and will just about never get hit by Wasteland even though they're non-basic. I also like having 3 more cards I can discard to Lili & Pox effects and still get value out of them (bringing my total number of cards that I actually like discarding up to 8) and they're great for recurring Bloodghasts, keeping myself in good supply of mana after multiple Pox effects, or just getting a few more cards in the yard to help power out a Tombstalker. Last night was actually the first time I had a chance to use Dakmor Salvage in conjunction with a Retrace spell, but it sure worked great for that as well. All in all I think Dakmor Salvage is a really versatile card that can do a lot of good things for us (uncounterably I might add) without using up any important threat/answer slots in the deck or requiring any mana investment. If you haven't tried Dakmor Salvage in mono black Pox yet I'd highly encourage you to give 2 or 3 of them a try.
I played in a 30 or so person Legacy tournament last night with my Pox deck so I figured I'd do a tournament report. The tournament was 4 rounds of swiss and was located at Monster Den in Minneapolis, MN. That said, here's my list and a brief tournament report
Round 1 : Burn
==========
Game 1 : I keep an opening hand without much in the way of discard but several Innocent Blood and a Pox. He does what Burn does and burns me out on turn 4.
Game 2 : I side out 2x Pox and bring in 2x Syphon Life. I keep an opening hand with an Innocent Blood, some swamps, Inquisition, Smallpox, Dark Ritual, and Hymn. I then proceed to Ritual into Inquisition and Hymn on turn 1, Innocent Blood his Goblin Guide, and eventually beat him down with a couple Bloodghasts while The Rack does it's job.
Game 3 : I spend the early turns Innocent Blood'ing a Goblin Guide (once again), Hymn'ing him, and then on turn 3 I cast Syphon Life. Turn 4 I discard Dakmor Salvage to retrace Syphon Life, turn 5 I dredge back Dakmor Salvage and then discard it to retrace Syphon Life. I continue discard Dakmor Salvage to retrace Syphon Life and then dredge it back every turn for the next 7 turns. Lifegain wins the Burn matchup.
Result : Win, 2-1
Current Record : 1-0
Round 2 : Zoo
=========
Game 1 : I Innocent Blood and Smallpox away every creature he lands, Hymn the two Chain Lightning left in his hand away, and kill him with The Rack + Liliana of the Veil after a big Pox.
Game 2 : I board out 1 Tombstalker and bring in 1 Syphon Life. I never see the Syphon Life, but this game goes much the same way as the first one. Kill his creatures, discard his burn, life is good. Nether Spirit + The Rack gets there this game.
Result : Win, 2-0
Current Record : 2-0
Round 3 : 12 Post
============
Game 1 : Two bombs from big Pox keeps my opponent from getting the mana he needs to start casting Eldrazi. He uses Sensi's Divining Top twice a turn every turn for the rest of the game but never finds what he needs to recover and Liliana + The Rack kill him. That's about all there is to say here.
Game 2 : I board out 3x Innocent Blood and bring in 3x Null Rod. I Dark Ritual out Liliana on turn 1 (discarding Dakmor Salvage) and drop Null Rod on turn 2. Null Rod shuts off Top, Expedition Map, and Candelabra of Tawnos and my opponent is left with few options for cranking out Eldrazi. After resolving a Crucible of Worlds he does eventually get the mana to drop Kozilek but it's one turn too late, since at that point he was at 1 life from a combination of a Bloodghast, Mishra's Factory, and The Rack. I win this one.
Result : Win, 2-0
Current Record : 3-0
Round 4 : U/W Stoneblade
=================
Game 1: I keep an opening hand with 3 Innocent blood, 2 Inquisition, Hymn, and 1 swamp. I never draw another land for the entire game and Batterskull hits the table on my opponent's turn 6. I sit there holding a hand full of Liliana, Smallpox, Pox, and Hymns and die to Batterskull.
Game 2: I board out 1x Tombstalker and 1x Bloodghast, bringing in 2x Ratchet Bomb in hopes of giving me some more outs to Jace and Batterskull. I keep an opener with 2 swamps and a Factory, Inquisition, Hymn, Dark Ritual, and Liliana. My turn 1 Liliana gets Forced, my Hymn gets Spell Pierced, but my opponent seems to not have much else to do. I draw another Factory and a Bloodghast, and shortly thereafter both my Factories and my Bloodghast get Swords to Plowshares'd. Eventually my opponent lands Stoneforge into Batterskull, but fortunately I'm able to get out The Rack and Tombstalker and then draw 2 more copies of Hymn. We race for a bit but I'm able to make him lose life slightly faster than he is gaining it and win a very close game with The Rack.
Game 3 : I keep an opener with 1 swamp, 2 Inquisition, 2 Innocent Blood, and a Tombstalker after mulling to 6 from a no-lander. Bad call, as I never draw another land and end up mana screwed just like in Game 1 while he beats my face in with a Batterskull. Note to self : Do not keep sketchy 1 landers.
Result : Loss, 1-2
Final Record : 3-1
So I ended up going 3-1 and walked away with $10 cash for my prize. All in all it was a pretty good night and I did learn quite a bit. Executing the Syphon Life + Dakmor Salvage lock against Burn really made my night, but in retrospect I really should have brought in Null Rod instead of Ratchet Bomb against Stoneblade (since that way I'd only have to kill Batterskull once) and should have mulliganed to safer opening hands with more than 1 land in games 1 and 3 against Stoneblade. It's a tough matchup but is quite winnable with enough discard, the only real problem is dealing with the recurring Batterskull and having a big Pox or two really helps there as well.
That's all for now and I hope you enjoyed my tournament report!
After enjoying a continued run of decent tournament success in 30-40 person tournaments (one 5-0 night, one 4-1 night, and two 3-2 nights) in a well developed metagame with my Pox list I thought I'd share a little bit of tech I came up with that I think greatly helps the overall performance of non-Crucible/Loam builds.
One of the things I struggled with somewhat regularly in my Pox build was getting my Bloodghasts to consistently come back from the graveyard when both my opponent and myself were in topdeck mode. I tried a variety of different things, from Crucible and Loam to lands like Undiscovered Paradise. Ultimately though what I found to be most effective (in my list at least) was running 3 copies of Dakmor Salvage in place of some Swamps. That said, here's my current list...
It's a pretty simple and straightforward tempo build, but it's also very consistent due to it's large quantity of threats, answers, and basic Swamps. When I first tried the Dakmor Salvages I was worried that having 3 lands that came into play tapped would mess with the tempo of the deck but thus far that has not been an issue. More often than not they end up being something I discard to a Pox effect or Liliana and then dredge them back later when I need to get a Bloodghast out of the yard to start attacking. They're also quite handy to sacrifice to a Pox effect since you can get them back later to help break the symmetry of Pox effects and get some more value out of your cards. Between the 4 Bloodghast, 1 Nether Spirit, and 3 Dakmor Salvage that gives me a total of 8 cards that I never mind discarding to Pox or Liliana, which I think is really a big improvement from just having 5 symmetry breakers.
Another less obvious use for the Salvages that's come up a couple times was using them to dredge the last couple cards I needed to get in my graveyard to delve out a Tombstaker. Sometimes just Dredge'ing 2 once or twice will help you get that Tombstalker out when you otherwise might not have been able to.
I also appreciate that unlike Crucible or Loam, Dakmor Salvage doesn't take up any crucial slots in the deck that could be filled with threats or answers. It just replaces a few Swamps, leaving you plenty of room in the deck for the tools you need to get the job done.
All in all I've been nothing but pleased with the addition of the 3 Dakmor Salvage to the deck and I'd highly recommend anyone playing a mono black list without Crucible or Loam give them a try. I think they really help us out quite a bit
Just curious about how you guys feel about the reanimator matchup for mono B pox? I've found it to be kind of a blow out win for reanimator or a rough grindy game for pox. Either they resolve a T2 Iona on black or I get away with T1 or 2 ritual into liliana of the veil and just edict whatever they bring out while I slowly try to grind em out. Is there any way to improve the MU aside from hoping hymn hits reanimation spells then hitting those/reanimation targets with extirpate?
One of my best friends plays Reanimator and I've spent many hours testing against him. From all this testing I've come to one simple conclusion for handling the Reanimator matchup. Board in 4x Leyline of the Void and 4x Hope // Pray, try to mull to Leyline of the Void, and hope and pray you have something else relevant to play. That's pretty much it
Due to their large number of counterspells it's almost an unwinnable matchup without Leyline of the Void or Faerie Macabre (graveyard hate that cannot be countered). If you don't have graveyard hate there's always the off chance that you can win by casting Smallpox or Innocent Blood after they reanimate something other than Iona, but the large number of counterspells in their deck does make this pretty improbable. Game 1 is almost always a loss for you, but if you board in uncounterable graveyard hate and successfully mull to it than you do have a good shot at winning games 2 and 3.
I really want to use Marrow Shards to stop Warrens Goblins and the like from ruining my day. Is this too narrow of a SB card?
Why not board something that does the same job but has other more versatile applications as well? Maybe something like Ratchet Bomb (blow it at 0) or Infest?
Teacher, for TES I boarded out 1 Pox because I really didn't want to cast it twice in one game against that deck. For most decks I actually like seeing 2 Pox in my hand, but against TES I didn't want to risk putting myself at a low enough life total that he could go off with just a few cards and kill me with only 2 storm and Tendrils. So that was the idea there.
Regarding Infest, I didn't really have a chance to put it to good use that night. I know there's a couple people in my meta who play Goblins and Elves and that's really what Infest is for. It's not very good against Zoo or Merfolk, but it'll pretty much wipe the board against Goblins and Elves. It's also good against Belcher and the other red storm decks that usually go for Empty the Warrens as their win condition. In retrospect, I probably should have brought them in against TES as well but at the time I couldn't figure out what to take out for them. Great sweeper for small critters though.
Lyracian, you're probably right about bringing in Leylines versus the deck with Punishing Fire. I did think about doing it at the time but the problem for me was just not knowing what to take out for them. Everything I had main deck seemed very good against them and I wasn't keen on the idea of dropping my threat count, but in retrospect I should have taken out my 4x Bloodghast for Leylines. Bloodghasts just aren't very good when they get killed by Punishing Fire every turn and don't come back until you draw a land, but against this deck I really wanted to keep the pressure on and I was concerned about dropping my number of win conditions to 11 rather than my usual 15. Again though, in retrospect this is probably what I should have done.
Regarding Pox without land recursion, running 22 land and 4 Dark Ritual seemed very nice for me. I never found myself mana screwed and Dark Ritual allowed me to not only pull off some crazy tempo plays (such as turn 1 Liliana or double Hymn on turn 2) but also helps minimize the effects of Pox and Smallpox on my mana base. IMHO if you play Pox without Mox Diamond + 25 land or some form of land recursion (Crucible or Loam) than Dark Ritual is a must have to insure you have a stable and consistent mana base. I also really like having almost all swamps for my lands. There were many many times throughout the tournament when my opponent had a Wasteland that could have totally blown me out and prevented me from casting Pox or Liliana if any of my black lands were non-basic, but the fact that I was running mostly basics kept me safe. Mishra's Factory is worth the small risk though I think, since it's won me more games than just about anything else in the deck and as far as lands go is actually a good top deck in mid to late game.
Got a quick tournament report for you guys & gals!
I played Pox for the first time at my LGS last night in a 32 person tournament, and I'm pleased to say that it went quite well. Before I get started, here's my list...
Round 1 : Zoo
Game 1 : Won the dice roll and kept a good opening 7 with a few swamps, a Mishra's Factory, Inquisition, Smallpox, Hymn, and Innocent Blood. Inquisitioned my opponent turn 1 and took a Goblin Guide, leaving him with a few lands, 2 Bolts, and 2 Goyfs. He plays a land and bolts me then I Hymn him nabbing a Goyf and a Bolt. He drops a Goyf, I Smallpox. I then draw into The Rack and a Bloodghast and proceed to beat him down the Ghast and Mishra's Factory while The Rack does it's job.
Game 2 : I board out 4x Pox and board in 3x Ratchet Bomb and 1x Syphon Life. I kill his early creatures with Innocent Blood and Smallpox, have a Nether Spirit on the field, and drop a Ratchet Bomb and leave it at 2 to handle the Goyf that shows up half a dozen or so turns later. Eventually I win with Nether Spirit and Liliana of the Veil + The Rack locking him out of the game and win.
Result : Win, 2-0
Current Record : 1-0
Round 2 : TES
Game 1 : I know what my opponent is playing beforehand since he's a friend of mine so I try to mull to a good hand of discard. Alas, I'm forced to go down to 5 keeping a hand with 3 land, Inquisition, and Hymn. I Inquisition him turn 1, he casts Ad Nauseam turn 2.
Game 2 : I board out 4 Innocent Blood, 1 Pox, and 1 Tombstalker and bring in 3x Null Rod and 3x Ratchet Bomb. I mull to 6 and keep an opening hand with Ratchet Bomb, a few lands, Inquisition, and Liliana of the Veil. I Inquisition him, take a Ponder (leaving him a few lands, Burning Wish, Infernal Tutor, Chrome Mox, and Rite of Flame). On his turn he Duresses me and swipes my Ratchet Bomb. Rats! I do nothing the next turn so he goes off, Wishes for Empty the Warrens, and dumps 10 goblins on the board. I topdeck Mishra's Factory, he swings for 10 and I block 1 with my Factory. Next turn I mise a Ratchet Bomb off the top of my deck, play it, and crack it at zero to take out his goblin horde and Chrome Mox. After that I drop Liliana, use her to keep his hand empty for the rest of the game, and beat him down with Mishra's Factory for 10 turns.
Game 3 : My opponent mulls to 4, I play Null Rod turn 2, Liliana turn 3, Pox turn 4, and eventually beat him down with a Bloodghast and Tombstalker. I feel extremely lucky.
Result : Win, 2-1
Current Record : 2-0
Round 3 : Naya Natural Order
Game 1 : This game took a very long time, but the long and the short of it is that every time he got a creature on the board I made him sacrifice it, but he did have the Punishing Fire / Grove of the Burnwillows combo which annoyed the hell out of my Bloodghasts and caused a few problems for The Rack as well. I got there eventually with a Tombstalker though.
Game 2 : I wished I had a couple Extirpate in the board, but alas I did not so there was no boarding for me. I honestly don't remember this one too well, but I do remember drawing a few too many lands and not enough creature kill and losing to a single enormous Knight of the Reliquary.
Game 3 : I managed to Dark Ritual into 2x Hymn to Tourach on turn 2 and then mana screw my opponent with Pox effects for most of the game, leaving him stuck with Grove of the Burnwillows and Horizon Canopy as his only lands for the majority of this one. It was a long drawn out game due to his Punishing Fire keeping my creatures pretty pinned down in spite of him being short on mana, but eventually I got there with Liliana and 2 copies of The Rack. I continued to wish I had Extirpate.
Result : Win, 2-1
Current Record : 3-0
Round 4 : RUG
Game 1 : Turn 1 I inquisition him and take one of his two Brainstorms, leaving him with a Brainstorm, 2x Tarmogoyf, 1 land, and Force of Will. Turn 2 I cast Dark Ritual into Liliana of the Veil, he decides not to Force of Will her. Bad call on his part, he can't stop her and I eventually win with the Liliana + The Rack lock.
Game 2 : No sideboarding here, I felt confident that I had all the right tools for the job in the main deck. There were a lot of back and forth plays in this game and it dragged on for quite a while. After the events of the last game he did Force my turn 1 Dark Ritual into Liliana but I got another out on turn 3. I Pox a few times, he Bolts Liliana at some point, he draws and plays all 4 of his Goyfs, I can only kill 3 of them. I die to a 5/6 vanilla creature.
Game 3 : I keep an opener with 3 swamps, 2 Smallpox, and 2 Hymn. He mulls to 6 and I to Dark Ritual into Hymn on turn 2 (I would have cast both Hymns then but he Dazed the first one and I decided to pay for it, effectively nabbing 3 cards out of his hand) and Hymned him again the following turn. He seems a little short on land so I double Smallpox him down to 0 land and that's pretty much where he stays for the rest of the game. I am pleased and win with Tombstalker.
Result : Win, 2-1
Current Record : 4-0
Round 5 : Merfolk
My opponent has to leave early and concedes the game to me before we even start playing. Hooray for last round Byes!
Result : Win, 2-0
Final record : 5-0
So that's how it played out! I ended up taking 1st place out of 32 people and walked away with $17 cash as my prize
Overall I think the night went really well and confirmed my belief that a more tempo based version of Pox, running Dark Ritual and heavy on the threats, is well positioned in the current metagame. I do feel like I luck-sacked the win against TES a bit, but all the other games were good solid showings of Pox's capability as a deck. I'm very happy with my current maindeck although after that incident with Grove of the Burnwillows + Punishing Fire making life very unhappy for my Bloodghasts and Nether Spirit (and also seeing several Loam decks floating around) I would like to find space in the board for 2x Extirpate. I know I'm going to be taking out 1x Syphon Life since I never board in more than 1, but I'm not sure what the other card I'll be taking out will be. One other interesting tidbit is that I went into this thinking that Ratchet Bomb was just plain awful due to it being so slow and didn't really want to play it, but I felt like I needed an out to enchantments and creature hordes that Infest couldn't take care of. As it turns out Ratchet Bomb won me a couple games that I wouldn't have won without it (game 2 against Zoo and game 2 against TES) and I now have great deal more respect for the card. It's a bit slow, but there's just things it does for mono black that nothing else can do for 2 mana. It's a keeper.
I hope you enjoyed the tournament report and may you all have the same success with Pox that I've enjoyed in my first tournament with it!
I like Cursed Scroll more than The Rack. The Rack is very narrow, basically only player damage. Cursed Scroll can be used to kill creatures as well for extra protection.
I'm a big fan of Cursed Scroll as well (I've been playing it in mono red Sligh decks for half past forever) but after playing it in Pox for a while I'm not sure it's the right tool for the job. Well, maybe if you're running a list with 25 lands and Mox Diamonds it's a good tool, but in typical mono black builds you can be prone to mana screwing yourself as well as your opponent from time to time. There's been many times I've been stuck on 2 lands and in the same boat as my opponent (except that I had a threat or two on the board) and in those common situations something that requires 3 to activate every turn tends not to work too well. Because of that I pulled the 2x Cursed Scroll out of my build and replaced them with 2x Tombstalker for a more viable win condition. He's really anti-synergistic with Pox effects and Innocent Blood but he is about the shortest clock you can put your opponent on for 2 mana or less. I'm always looking for something that's more synergistic with the rest of the deck to replace him with, but in spite of his anti-synergy he's won me a ton of games just because my opponent couldn't deal with him in 3 turns or less.
I do still run The Rack in my build and I like it a lot (keep in mind that I am playing mono black with 15 win conditions). More than a win condition, it's also a great control card after you've emptied your opponent's hand. After the first Pox they tend to start getting pretty nervous about their life total, so most of the time when your opponent's hand is empty and you drop The Rack you'll be effectively Silence'ing them for 3 turns. Whatever they draw they're not going to want to play (unless it's something to destroy The Rack) so while you're getting down to business they're playing draw-go. This effect also turns any discard spells you play from this point on into additional Silences and burn spells. Also, you wouldn't believe how many times I've said "Redirect the damage from The Rack to Jace" during my opponent's upkeep. Remember that The Rack causes damage, not loss of life, so you can use it to take down opponent's planeswalkers. Lastly, if you ever happen to have Liliana and The Rack out at the same time and manage to put your opponent in top deck mode with no creatures on the board you just win. Period.
And oh yes, if that all wasn't enough to convince you to play The Rack then just look at the art on the Duels of the Planeswalkers version of it. That art is 10 different kinds of awesome! This alone should be reason enough to run it
I dig the list Keeper!
I'm playing almost the exact same list but without the fetches and instead of the 3x Crucible and 1x Maze of Ith I'm running 4x Dark Ritual. It might be just me but I'm honestly not a fan of Crucible in Pox unless you're running at least 25 lands (including 4x Wasteland) and Mox Diamond. It seems like between Pox, Liliana, and Crucible the deck's mana curve gets majorly top heavy and this has screwed me way more often than I'd like. I found myself constantly ending up with 2 lands in play due to Pox effects and a hand full of 3 CMC stuff I couldn't cast.
I'm not sure if you feel the same way or not, but as crazy as it might initially sound I'd recommend taking out the Crucibles and Maze of Ith and trying out 4 Dark Ritual in their place. The tempo plays Dark Ritual allows you to pull off can be astonishing at times (turn 1 Liliana, Inquisition + Hymn, Inquisition + Bloodghast, etc., etc.). They can also come in handy for securing the BBB required for Pox when your Factories would otherwise prevent it, powering out a early Tombstalker or getting him out through graveyard hate, and worst case scenario if you have a Dark Rit that you don't need in your hand you can always just pitch it to Pox or Lili.
If you don't care for the change than you've lost nothing since Dark Rituals are cheap as chips to try, but I'd highly recommend giving this a shot just to see what you think of it. I've been very happy with the change and who knows, maybe you might be too
If you're interested, the list that I run is below...
And oh, one more thing! Scion, I know this is going to go against popular opinion but I'm really not too convinced that we need to be running 4x Liliana. I'm pretty sure this same argument arose when blue decks first got their hands on Jace, the Mind Sculptor due to the fact that both of them have a way of getting rid of extra copies of themselves. As time went on those Blue mages learned that even though Jace was totally awesome and could get rid of extra copies of himself, any extra copy they drew was still a dead card. And control decks generally don't like having dead cards in their hand so most of those Blue mages eventually cut their Jaces down to 2 or 3 copies after the initial hype wore off. I believe the same applies to Liliana. She's totally awesome, does all the things we like doing, and we really want to draw her. However, any extra copies we draw are still dead cards that could have been something else more useful. Given this I'm of the mindset that 3 is most likely the right number. That number insures that we will draw her in most games, which is great since she is a card we really want to draw, but more often than not we'll only see 1 copy over the course of the game with a second showing up only every now and then.
It may take some time for others to come around to this ideology (just like it did with the Blue mages playing Jace) but I do believe that in time 3 will be considered the preferred number of Lilianas to play. On the other hand, although this logic seems sound to me I could be totally wrong and just talking out of my buttocks. Life is funny like that sometimes
Wow! Thanks for all the great replies everyone!
Now that I have a better understanding of how a Pox deck is supposed to play I've been able to adjust my strategy and lines of play and I'm enjoying it even more. At this point my basic strategy comes down to completely breaking my opponent (I.E. empty their hand of cards, clear their board of creatures, and put a small dent in their mana base and life total in the process) and then killing them quickly with aggressive win cons before they can recover. I'm really enjoying the unique control aspect of the deck, which is totally unlike any other deck I've ever played. You actually stabilize when both you and your opponent are in top-deck mode, which is completely unique among control decks.
I think just about everyone who commented on my build felt that I had a few too many win conditions, but in my limited play testing I've actually found this to be a good thing. It's that old philosophy of "better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it". Since Swords to Plowshares is the most popular and prevalent form of creature removal in Legacy I know I won't always be able to rely on my Bloodghasts going to the graveyard to be recurred if my opponent should top-deck Swords or Path, so I'm much more comfortable if I have 2 or more threats on the board when we both go into top-decking. If there's just 1 threat out there's a decent chance my opponent might find some way of dealing with it, but 2 threats can really seal the game. That's why I like having a total of 15 threats in the deck, even though it leaves me a little less space for utility tech.
From what I can determine at this point it seems like there's 2 basic strategies you can take with Pox. First there's the slower more controlling card advantage based strategy that involves using Mox Diamond, Crucible of Worlds, Wasteland, and other such utilities to generate card advantage while recurring Wastelands to deny your opponent mana and take control of the game. This strategy seems to be primarily focused around mana denial and gradual card advantage to win in the long game.
The other strategy, often seen in more budget oriented builds like the one I've been working with, is a faster and more aggressive tempo based strategy focused primarily on hand disruption and winning quickly with a large number of threats rather than trying to drag the game out. These kind of strategies tend to employ Dark Ritual for early game power plays and The Rack as a win condition to pull out fast wins from your hand disruption. Since this strategy lacks the late game card advantage engine of Crucible of Worlds or Life from the Loam it tends to need tempo enablers like Dark Ritual and a larger amount of win conditions, including quick kill options like The Rack, to insure that you'll be able to kill the opponent shortly after you both hit top deck mode. The lack of a real late game card advantage engine (aside from Liliana) seems to require this kind of build to be faster and more aggressive to stay competitive.
Mind you I could be totally off the mark here, but after some play testing this is impression I'm getting of how the two schools of thought on Pox decks play out. Now I'd like to take a minute to reply to the very kind individuals who replied to my original post
Zathe : I do like the idea of Sensei's Divining Top and may have to try out a couple at some point. I'm not sure what I'd take out for them though, as anything I might remove would most likely be a threat and I'm a little reluctant to start cutting the threat density in a more tempo based Pox deck like mine. If anything I might try taking out the 2 Tombstalkers though.
thnkr : I totally agree with you on Raven's Crime being a great card that can make just about any top decked card useful, even if it's just a land you wouldn't otherwise need. I was actually playing Raven's Crime in my build until I tried out Liliana of the Veil and then replaced Raven's Crime with her. The reason for this is that her +1 ability and Raven's Crime do essentially the same thing, except you don't have to pay any mana to do it and she allows you to discard any card you want (such as Bloodghast, or a no longer useful Dark Ritual) rather than restricting you to only pitching lands to get the discard effect. Combine this with the fact that she also offers built in creature removal should your opponent top-deck a threat and I've come to find her a superior alternative to Raven's Crime. Her initial mana cost is higher, but she performs exactly the same function with some added bonuses as well. That's the reason I'm not playing Raven's Crime in my build, as Lili has taken it's place.
Alfiriel : I bow before thee o' great master of Pox!
I can see you've been playing this archetype for an extremely long time and your wisdom is greatly appreciated. I can definitely see how the slower more controlling strategy of builds with Moxen, Crucible of Worlds, and Wasteland help to break the symmetry of Pox effects you a great deal more card advantage and staying power in the long game than builds without. As much as I hate to say it though I am under some financial restrictions at the moment and the $400+ USD that would be required for the above suite of cards is simply not feasible for me. For this reason I've chosen the faster and more aggressive tempo based route (detailed above) with cards like Dark Ritual and a higher threat density in an attempt to try and break the opponent quickly and then win with my large number of threats before they can recover. I definitely get that builds with Crucible and such don't need a very high number of threats due to the inevitability factor that their card advantage engines generate, but I really think that builds without this card advantage engine require a higher number of threats to insure that they get the job done properly once they and their opponent go into top-decking.
I did take your advice on the 2x Cursed Scrolls though and take them out in favor of something that I think will better suit my strategy and get the job done quicker, which happened to be 2x Tombstalker. If I was running a more controlling and card advantage centered build with Crucible of Worlds like yours I'd definitely go with your choice of Vengeful Pharaoh instead due to the late game insurance he provides, but I think for a more tempo focused build like mine the short clock of Tombstalker is probably better suited for the job. It's for this same reason that I'd like to keep my number of copies of The Rack at 4. Since the effects from The Rack stack with multiple copies on the board I've never found myself unhappy about drawing a second one, it just puts the opponent on an even shorter clock.
You were also totally right about Phyrexian Arena as well! Some playtesting against various Blue decks quickly determined that this thing is just a suicide pill. Fortunately the playtesting also determined that my matchup against these decks is actually pretty good and doesn't seem to need anything special out of the board to handle, so I've decided to dedicate the 3x slots in the board that I had Phrexian Arena in to Spinning Darkness instead to help improve my somewhat difficult Zoo and RDW matchups. That all said, here's my updated list...
Again, thank you to everyone for all the great replies! I'll be really looking forward to finishing my build and getting in some real tournament play with it in the near future. It should be a great learning experience playing a new archetype (I usually just play straight aggro and combo) and I get the feeling that me and Pox are going to be good friends for quite some time
Hello all!
I've been wanting to play MBC or Pox for quite sometime now and after a good bit of thought and testing I've decided to go with Pox, mainly because I think it's ridiculously fun to play and fairly inexpensive to build.
I don't have my deck fully built yet, but I've proxied up everything I'm missing and have been doing a few hours of playtesting here and there against various decks while I'm waiting to get everything together. At this point here's the list I'm working with...
I feel like it's pretty streamlined and functions well for a mostly budget build. There are a couple card choices I'm somewhat unsure about though. I've always been a fan of Cursed Scroll but I think I'm going to try testing out either 2 Tombstalker or 2 Vengeful Pharaoh in it's place. The scroll is a great hard to deal with threat that dodges Pox effects and pretty consistently gets in for 2 damage a turn to the face or any smaller opposing creatures that show up once you go into top-deck mode, but I still can't help but wonder if some other options might be better. The Pharaoh would play quite nicely with the self discard effects from the Poxes and Lili as well.
Regarding the sideboard, I'm trying to cover my bases for common matchups but I'm not sure my board plan is quite ideal. I've got Null Rod for Affinity, Stoneblade, and LED based storm combo decks (all of which my meta has tons of). There's Syphon Life for really aggro matchups like Burn and Zoo and Infest for tribal decks like Goblins, Elves, and Merfolk to a lesser extent. Leyline of the Void comes in for Dredge and Reanimator and anything else graveyard based that shows up.
But what I'm most uncertain about is the 3 Phyrexian Arena in the board. I'd really like something to give me the edge against blue based aggro control decks (which happen to be most of my meta right now) and drawing 2 cards per turn seems like it could win the card advantage battle in the long game, but the unstoppable life loss every turn could turn into a major issue. Anyone have some safer alternate suggestions for this slot?
Edit: One big thing I forgot to ask about and could really use some advice on. Even though I always try to cast Pox in my favor (I.E. Opponent discards 2, I discard 1, opponent sacs 2 lands, I sac 1, opponent sacs a creature, I sac none or one that will come back next turn) it always seems like both my opponent and myself enter top-deck mode at the same time. Is this how the deck is supposed to play? My games seem to consistently come down both my opponent and myself going into top-deck mode at the same time, but with me usually having some kind of small threat on the board at the time (Bloodghast, The Rack, Cursed Scroll, etc.). At that point it just comes down to who top-decks better and if one person top-decks a threat and the other doesn't top-deck an answer they win. Liliana helps a lot with this, always having creature removal and discard at the ready, but in those games that I don't have a Lili on the field the inevitable top-deck war always seems like kind of a dice roll. So I'm wondering if that was how the deck was intended to play out or if I'm just doing it wrong?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks for the critique and suggestions Geist! I'd like to take a moment to talk about some of the points you mentioned regarding my list =)
First off, the 4 big Pox. I love em. The big Pox probably does more work for me to win games than anything else in the deck, and I never mind drawing multiples because I can/will cast 2 of them in a game if given the opportunity. The effect is just backbreaking for the opponent, the only time I'll ever side any of them out is against Burn or the rare Zoo matchup, there are a few people in my meta still playing Zoo. The 4 big Pox is part of the reason I run 3 Dakmor Salvage. Being able to Pox, dredge back your land, then Pox again is enough to stop most decks cold in their tracks, especially if you had any kind of disruption beforehand. In short, I love the 8 Pox effects and would never even consider cutting any of them. They're the heart of the deck IMHO.
Regarding Nether Spirit, I like him a lot and I've actually already tried cutting various things from the deck for Entombs to increase my consistency of getting him. Unless the opponent has Swords he's pretty much a never ending blocker, and the Entombs did help me get him more frequently. However I never liked having to cut things that I felt made the deck function optimally to fit in the 3x Entomb with maindeck Syphon Life + Raven's Crime + Darkblast plan. The one thing I felt least awkward about cutting to fit in the Entomb package was the 2x Cursed Scroll and 4x Inquisition of Kozilek. Inquisition can be pretty critical for combo and control matchups though, and I found myself never feeling quite comfortable not being able to peek at my opponent's hand and take things I didn't want to see.
I did try it for a while, playtesting for a few weeks against various decks and then hitting up a few Legacy tournaments, and ultimately I ended up preferring to just leave the drawing of Nether Spirit and sideboard tech more up to chance. I just wasn't willing to reduce the deck's consistency by cutting the numbers of other important cards to fit the Entomb package in. Also, in a meta filled with an over abundance of graveyard hate I think reducing my graveyard interactions is a good thing.
About Lili, I have tried running 4x Liliana and honestly I just didn't like it. Way too many times I'd encounter two or even three copies of her in game. Sure, you can always pitch the extra to the one you play, but that extra could have been a different card that might have been useful. She does do a lot of work for us (Liliana + The Rack usually seals most games for me) but I don't think we ever need her to win the game, so I'm quite content with 3 of her. I think if I wasn't running an 8 Pox build I might want 4 Liliana, but the 8 Pox effects do most of the work for the deck and Lili just tidies things up afterwards if she comes along. Plus I think running any more than 7 three cost spells would be just a bit too much for the deck's mana curve to handle, even with Dark Ritual and the ability to dredge back some of the lands.
Lastly, regarding Wasteland and Urborg, the reason I don't run them isn't a monetary cost issue. I just don't like them lol I tried playing with 4x Wasteland and 3x Urborg for quite a while and to me they just ruined the deck's consistency. Even with 3x Urborg, having 8 of your mana sources only tap for colorless made it impossible to consistently get BBB for big Pox. I think if I wasn't running big Pox it might be feasible to run the 4x Factory + 4x Wasteland + 3x Urborg plan, but if you're trying to cast big Pox it just makes the mana base way too inconsistent running that many colorless sources. Even with Dark Ritual I found that mana base setup to be totally unworkable.
It's not that I don't like doing techy control things like running an Entomb package and Wasteland, it's just that I've yet to play a list incorporating those things that I felt performed as consistently as the rather simple mono black list I've been running for a long time. It does a very good job of completely wrecking the game state and then mopping up with some small creatures and artifact damage, and any time I tried bringing some other techy strategies into the mix I felt like the deck's consistency went way down. I've been trying to come up with a 8 Pox list with Crucible or Loam involved for a long time (you have no idea how much I'd like to play with Tabernacle and some other neat 1-of lands) but every list I tried never seemed to perform as consistently and brutally as my basic mono black list. All the Crucible/Loam lists I've tried seemed like they just durdled around too much and my tournament results were never as good with them. So I play what works for me and wins, even if it doesn't seem quite as techy or cool as some of the other lists out there. My mono black list may be comparatively cheap and simple but it's very fast and efficient at wrecking the opponent's hand, creatures, and land base and doesn't durdle around.
And oh! I tend to swap between 3x Engineered Plague and 3x Infest in my board depending on the meta. I like Infest better against Merfolk and aggro Elves, but E. Plague really seals the game against Goblins, combo Elves, and Bitterblossom decks once it hits the board. And right now there are quite a few of those latter decks in my meta. If I felt like the deck's mana curve could support a couple Damnation I'd be running them, but 4 mana is just too much for a 8 Pox build to consistently get to. It's the same reason I don't run The Abyss or Nether Void. They're good cards with powerful effects, but 4 mana is too steep for an 8 Pox build to hope to reach. And I don't think there's anything that could convince me to cut the 4 big Pox. Again, IMHO they're the heart of the deck.
3 Liliana of the Veil
[5 Creatures]
4 Bloodghast
1 Nether Spirit
[24 Spells]
4 Dark Ritual
4 Innocent Blood
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
4 Pox
4 The Rack
2 Cursed Scroll
[22 Lands]
4 Mishra’s Factory
3 Dakmor Salvage
15 Swamp
1 Darkblast
2 Pithing Needle
3 Ratchet Bomb
2 Syphon Life
3 Engineered Plague
4 Leyline of the Void
Thanks!
As a habit I generally board out 1 or both of my Tombstalkers for game 2, assuming graveyard hate is coming, but I didn't see any hate all night. The Burn player mentioned that he wished he would have brought in his Tormod's Crypts for Games 2 and 3 but didn't think to do it. Apparently the 12 Post player did bring in Wheel of Sun and Moon for game 2 but never saw it.
In general GY hate is a bit annoying but doesn't cripple my build. Between Mishra's Factory and The Rack you'll usually find a way to kill them that doesn't rely on the graveyard for recursion. Even just casting Bloodghast as a 2/1 haste is often enough to get there after a big Pox if there's a Leyline or Wheel on the opponent's side of the table.
You're quite welcome
Regarding Wastelands, I have them but prefer not to use them in a 8Pox style Pox deck due to the constant need for double and triple black mana in the deck. I tried really hard to make Wastelands work in it (always coupled with 3 or 4 Urborgs of course) but no matter how hard I tried to make them work the mana base always seemed really inconsistent and led to many losses due to color screw. Once I dropped the Wastelands though and just stuck to Factories the deck became much more consistent and better performing for me. Wasteland does offer a nice additional option for land destruction (especially if you're running Crucible or Loam) but the downside of nerfing the consistency of my mana base made it more trouble than it was worth for me. IMHO an 8Pox style deck really needs at least 22 black sources (that's including the 4x Dark Ritual) to be able to consistently generate double and triple black mana. So ultimately I had to choose between running Wasteland or Mishra's Factory, and in my experience I found having 4 more threats (bringing my total number of threats to a nice consistent 15) to be more important than 4 more land destruction spells.
Regarding the number of lands to run, I would say that 22 is indeed enough if you're packing 4x Dark Ritual as well (which IMHO every mono black 8Pox build should). Without Dark Rit I'm not sure exactly what would be the right number for lands would be, but I'd speculate somewhere between 23 and 25 depending on if you were running a Crucible + Entomb package or not.
Regardless of how many lands you run though I do think it's really important to have some kind of land recursion ability. Whether it's Crucible, Loam, or Dakmor Salvage. Take your pick. I tried them all and settled on Dakmor Salvage myself, mainly for the reason that Dakmor doesn't take up any critical threat or answer slots in the deck. They simply replace a few swamps, tap for black mana, and will just about never get hit by Wasteland even though they're non-basic. I also like having 3 more cards I can discard to Lili & Pox effects and still get value out of them (bringing my total number of cards that I actually like discarding up to 8) and they're great for recurring Bloodghasts, keeping myself in good supply of mana after multiple Pox effects, or just getting a few more cards in the yard to help power out a Tombstalker. Last night was actually the first time I had a chance to use Dakmor Salvage in conjunction with a Retrace spell, but it sure worked great for that as well. All in all I think Dakmor Salvage is a really versatile card that can do a lot of good things for us (uncounterably I might add) without using up any important threat/answer slots in the deck or requiring any mana investment. If you haven't tried Dakmor Salvage in mono black Pox yet I'd highly encourage you to give 2 or 3 of them a try.
3 Liliana of the Veil
[7 Creatures]
4 Bloodghast
2 Tombstalker
1 Nether Spirit
[24 Spells]
4 Dark Ritual
4 Innocent Blood
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
4 Pox
4 The Rack
[22 Lands]
4 Mishra’s Factory
3 Dakmor Salvage
15 Swamp
3 Null Rod
3 Ratchet Bomb
2 Syphon Life
3 Infest
4 Leyline of the Void
Round 1 : Burn
==========
Game 1 : I keep an opening hand without much in the way of discard but several Innocent Blood and a Pox. He does what Burn does and burns me out on turn 4.
Game 2 : I side out 2x Pox and bring in 2x Syphon Life. I keep an opening hand with an Innocent Blood, some swamps, Inquisition, Smallpox, Dark Ritual, and Hymn. I then proceed to Ritual into Inquisition and Hymn on turn 1, Innocent Blood his Goblin Guide, and eventually beat him down with a couple Bloodghasts while The Rack does it's job.
Game 3 : I spend the early turns Innocent Blood'ing a Goblin Guide (once again), Hymn'ing him, and then on turn 3 I cast Syphon Life. Turn 4 I discard Dakmor Salvage to retrace Syphon Life, turn 5 I dredge back Dakmor Salvage and then discard it to retrace Syphon Life. I continue discard Dakmor Salvage to retrace Syphon Life and then dredge it back every turn for the next 7 turns. Lifegain wins the Burn matchup.
Result : Win, 2-1
Current Record : 1-0
Round 2 : Zoo
=========
Game 1 : I Innocent Blood and Smallpox away every creature he lands, Hymn the two Chain Lightning left in his hand away, and kill him with The Rack + Liliana of the Veil after a big Pox.
Game 2 : I board out 1 Tombstalker and bring in 1 Syphon Life. I never see the Syphon Life, but this game goes much the same way as the first one. Kill his creatures, discard his burn, life is good. Nether Spirit + The Rack gets there this game.
Result : Win, 2-0
Current Record : 2-0
Round 3 : 12 Post
============
Game 1 : Two bombs from big Pox keeps my opponent from getting the mana he needs to start casting Eldrazi. He uses Sensi's Divining Top twice a turn every turn for the rest of the game but never finds what he needs to recover and Liliana + The Rack kill him. That's about all there is to say here.
Game 2 : I board out 3x Innocent Blood and bring in 3x Null Rod. I Dark Ritual out Liliana on turn 1 (discarding Dakmor Salvage) and drop Null Rod on turn 2. Null Rod shuts off Top, Expedition Map, and Candelabra of Tawnos and my opponent is left with few options for cranking out Eldrazi. After resolving a Crucible of Worlds he does eventually get the mana to drop Kozilek but it's one turn too late, since at that point he was at 1 life from a combination of a Bloodghast, Mishra's Factory, and The Rack. I win this one.
Result : Win, 2-0
Current Record : 3-0
Round 4 : U/W Stoneblade
=================
Game 1: I keep an opening hand with 3 Innocent blood, 2 Inquisition, Hymn, and 1 swamp. I never draw another land for the entire game and Batterskull hits the table on my opponent's turn 6. I sit there holding a hand full of Liliana, Smallpox, Pox, and Hymns and die to Batterskull.
Game 2: I board out 1x Tombstalker and 1x Bloodghast, bringing in 2x Ratchet Bomb in hopes of giving me some more outs to Jace and Batterskull. I keep an opener with 2 swamps and a Factory, Inquisition, Hymn, Dark Ritual, and Liliana. My turn 1 Liliana gets Forced, my Hymn gets Spell Pierced, but my opponent seems to not have much else to do. I draw another Factory and a Bloodghast, and shortly thereafter both my Factories and my Bloodghast get Swords to Plowshares'd. Eventually my opponent lands Stoneforge into Batterskull, but fortunately I'm able to get out The Rack and Tombstalker and then draw 2 more copies of Hymn. We race for a bit but I'm able to make him lose life slightly faster than he is gaining it and win a very close game with The Rack.
Game 3 : I keep an opener with 1 swamp, 2 Inquisition, 2 Innocent Blood, and a Tombstalker after mulling to 6 from a no-lander. Bad call, as I never draw another land and end up mana screwed just like in Game 1 while he beats my face in with a Batterskull. Note to self : Do not keep sketchy 1 landers.
Result : Loss, 1-2
Final Record : 3-1
So I ended up going 3-1 and walked away with $10 cash for my prize. All in all it was a pretty good night and I did learn quite a bit. Executing the Syphon Life + Dakmor Salvage lock against Burn really made my night, but in retrospect I really should have brought in Null Rod instead of Ratchet Bomb against Stoneblade (since that way I'd only have to kill Batterskull once) and should have mulliganed to safer opening hands with more than 1 land in games 1 and 3 against Stoneblade. It's a tough matchup but is quite winnable with enough discard, the only real problem is dealing with the recurring Batterskull and having a big Pox or two really helps there as well.
That's all for now and I hope you enjoyed my tournament report!
One of the things I struggled with somewhat regularly in my Pox build was getting my Bloodghasts to consistently come back from the graveyard when both my opponent and myself were in topdeck mode. I tried a variety of different things, from Crucible and Loam to lands like Undiscovered Paradise. Ultimately though what I found to be most effective (in my list at least) was running 3 copies of Dakmor Salvage in place of some Swamps. That said, here's my current list...
3 Liliana of the Veil
[7 Creatures]
4 Bloodghast
2 Tombstalker
1 Nether Spirit
[24 Spells]
4 Dark Ritual
4 Innocent Blood
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
4 Pox
4 The Rack
[22 Lands]
4 Mishra’s Factory
3 Dakmor Salvage
15 Swamp
3 Null Rod
3 Ratchet Bomb
2 Syphon Life
3 Infest
4 Leyline of the Void
It's a pretty simple and straightforward tempo build, but it's also very consistent due to it's large quantity of threats, answers, and basic Swamps. When I first tried the Dakmor Salvages I was worried that having 3 lands that came into play tapped would mess with the tempo of the deck but thus far that has not been an issue. More often than not they end up being something I discard to a Pox effect or Liliana and then dredge them back later when I need to get a Bloodghast out of the yard to start attacking. They're also quite handy to sacrifice to a Pox effect since you can get them back later to help break the symmetry of Pox effects and get some more value out of your cards. Between the 4 Bloodghast, 1 Nether Spirit, and 3 Dakmor Salvage that gives me a total of 8 cards that I never mind discarding to Pox or Liliana, which I think is really a big improvement from just having 5 symmetry breakers.
Another less obvious use for the Salvages that's come up a couple times was using them to dredge the last couple cards I needed to get in my graveyard to delve out a Tombstaker. Sometimes just Dredge'ing 2 once or twice will help you get that Tombstalker out when you otherwise might not have been able to.
I also appreciate that unlike Crucible or Loam, Dakmor Salvage doesn't take up any crucial slots in the deck that could be filled with threats or answers. It just replaces a few Swamps, leaving you plenty of room in the deck for the tools you need to get the job done.
All in all I've been nothing but pleased with the addition of the 3 Dakmor Salvage to the deck and I'd highly recommend anyone playing a mono black list without Crucible or Loam give them a try. I think they really help us out quite a bit
One of my best friends plays Reanimator and I've spent many hours testing against him. From all this testing I've come to one simple conclusion for handling the Reanimator matchup. Board in 4x Leyline of the Void and 4x Hope // Pray, try to mull to Leyline of the Void, and hope and pray you have something else relevant to play. That's pretty much it
Due to their large number of counterspells it's almost an unwinnable matchup without Leyline of the Void or Faerie Macabre (graveyard hate that cannot be countered). If you don't have graveyard hate there's always the off chance that you can win by casting Smallpox or Innocent Blood after they reanimate something other than Iona, but the large number of counterspells in their deck does make this pretty improbable. Game 1 is almost always a loss for you, but if you board in uncounterable graveyard hate and successfully mull to it than you do have a good shot at winning games 2 and 3.
Why not board something that does the same job but has other more versatile applications as well? Maybe something like Ratchet Bomb (blow it at 0) or Infest?
Teacher, for TES I boarded out 1 Pox because I really didn't want to cast it twice in one game against that deck. For most decks I actually like seeing 2 Pox in my hand, but against TES I didn't want to risk putting myself at a low enough life total that he could go off with just a few cards and kill me with only 2 storm and Tendrils. So that was the idea there.
Regarding Infest, I didn't really have a chance to put it to good use that night. I know there's a couple people in my meta who play Goblins and Elves and that's really what Infest is for. It's not very good against Zoo or Merfolk, but it'll pretty much wipe the board against Goblins and Elves. It's also good against Belcher and the other red storm decks that usually go for Empty the Warrens as their win condition. In retrospect, I probably should have brought them in against TES as well but at the time I couldn't figure out what to take out for them. Great sweeper for small critters though.
Lyracian, you're probably right about bringing in Leylines versus the deck with Punishing Fire. I did think about doing it at the time but the problem for me was just not knowing what to take out for them. Everything I had main deck seemed very good against them and I wasn't keen on the idea of dropping my threat count, but in retrospect I should have taken out my 4x Bloodghast for Leylines. Bloodghasts just aren't very good when they get killed by Punishing Fire every turn and don't come back until you draw a land, but against this deck I really wanted to keep the pressure on and I was concerned about dropping my number of win conditions to 11 rather than my usual 15. Again though, in retrospect this is probably what I should have done.
Regarding Pox without land recursion, running 22 land and 4 Dark Ritual seemed very nice for me. I never found myself mana screwed and Dark Ritual allowed me to not only pull off some crazy tempo plays (such as turn 1 Liliana or double Hymn on turn 2) but also helps minimize the effects of Pox and Smallpox on my mana base. IMHO if you play Pox without Mox Diamond + 25 land or some form of land recursion (Crucible or Loam) than Dark Ritual is a must have to insure you have a stable and consistent mana base. I also really like having almost all swamps for my lands. There were many many times throughout the tournament when my opponent had a Wasteland that could have totally blown me out and prevented me from casting Pox or Liliana if any of my black lands were non-basic, but the fact that I was running mostly basics kept me safe. Mishra's Factory is worth the small risk though I think, since it's won me more games than just about anything else in the deck and as far as lands go is actually a good top deck in mid to late game.
Again, thanks for the great comments everyone!
I played Pox for the first time at my LGS last night in a 32 person tournament, and I'm pleased to say that it went quite well. Before I get started, here's my list...
3 Liliana of the Veil
[7 Creatures]
4 Bloodghast
2 Tombstalker
1 Nether Spirit
[24 Spells]
4 Dark Ritual
4 Innocent Blood
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
4 Pox
4 The Rack
[22 Lands]
4 Mishra’s Factory
18 Swamp
3 Null Rod
3 Ratchet Bomb
2 Syphon Life
3 Infest
4 Leyline of the Void
Round 1 : Zoo
Game 1 : Won the dice roll and kept a good opening 7 with a few swamps, a Mishra's Factory, Inquisition, Smallpox, Hymn, and Innocent Blood. Inquisitioned my opponent turn 1 and took a Goblin Guide, leaving him with a few lands, 2 Bolts, and 2 Goyfs. He plays a land and bolts me then I Hymn him nabbing a Goyf and a Bolt. He drops a Goyf, I Smallpox. I then draw into The Rack and a Bloodghast and proceed to beat him down the Ghast and Mishra's Factory while The Rack does it's job.
Game 2 : I board out 4x Pox and board in 3x Ratchet Bomb and 1x Syphon Life. I kill his early creatures with Innocent Blood and Smallpox, have a Nether Spirit on the field, and drop a Ratchet Bomb and leave it at 2 to handle the Goyf that shows up half a dozen or so turns later. Eventually I win with Nether Spirit and Liliana of the Veil + The Rack locking him out of the game and win.
Result : Win, 2-0
Current Record : 1-0
Round 2 : TES
Game 1 : I know what my opponent is playing beforehand since he's a friend of mine so I try to mull to a good hand of discard. Alas, I'm forced to go down to 5 keeping a hand with 3 land, Inquisition, and Hymn. I Inquisition him turn 1, he casts Ad Nauseam turn 2.
Game 2 : I board out 4 Innocent Blood, 1 Pox, and 1 Tombstalker and bring in 3x Null Rod and 3x Ratchet Bomb. I mull to 6 and keep an opening hand with Ratchet Bomb, a few lands, Inquisition, and Liliana of the Veil. I Inquisition him, take a Ponder (leaving him a few lands, Burning Wish, Infernal Tutor, Chrome Mox, and Rite of Flame). On his turn he Duresses me and swipes my Ratchet Bomb. Rats! I do nothing the next turn so he goes off, Wishes for Empty the Warrens, and dumps 10 goblins on the board. I topdeck Mishra's Factory, he swings for 10 and I block 1 with my Factory. Next turn I mise a Ratchet Bomb off the top of my deck, play it, and crack it at zero to take out his goblin horde and Chrome Mox. After that I drop Liliana, use her to keep his hand empty for the rest of the game, and beat him down with Mishra's Factory for 10 turns.
Game 3 : My opponent mulls to 4, I play Null Rod turn 2, Liliana turn 3, Pox turn 4, and eventually beat him down with a Bloodghast and Tombstalker. I feel extremely lucky.
Result : Win, 2-1
Current Record : 2-0
Round 3 : Naya Natural Order
Game 1 : This game took a very long time, but the long and the short of it is that every time he got a creature on the board I made him sacrifice it, but he did have the Punishing Fire / Grove of the Burnwillows combo which annoyed the hell out of my Bloodghasts and caused a few problems for The Rack as well. I got there eventually with a Tombstalker though.
Game 2 : I wished I had a couple Extirpate in the board, but alas I did not so there was no boarding for me. I honestly don't remember this one too well, but I do remember drawing a few too many lands and not enough creature kill and losing to a single enormous Knight of the Reliquary.
Game 3 : I managed to Dark Ritual into 2x Hymn to Tourach on turn 2 and then mana screw my opponent with Pox effects for most of the game, leaving him stuck with Grove of the Burnwillows and Horizon Canopy as his only lands for the majority of this one. It was a long drawn out game due to his Punishing Fire keeping my creatures pretty pinned down in spite of him being short on mana, but eventually I got there with Liliana and 2 copies of The Rack. I continued to wish I had Extirpate.
Result : Win, 2-1
Current Record : 3-0
Round 4 : RUG
Game 1 : Turn 1 I inquisition him and take one of his two Brainstorms, leaving him with a Brainstorm, 2x Tarmogoyf, 1 land, and Force of Will. Turn 2 I cast Dark Ritual into Liliana of the Veil, he decides not to Force of Will her. Bad call on his part, he can't stop her and I eventually win with the Liliana + The Rack lock.
Game 2 : No sideboarding here, I felt confident that I had all the right tools for the job in the main deck. There were a lot of back and forth plays in this game and it dragged on for quite a while. After the events of the last game he did Force my turn 1 Dark Ritual into Liliana but I got another out on turn 3. I Pox a few times, he Bolts Liliana at some point, he draws and plays all 4 of his Goyfs, I can only kill 3 of them. I die to a 5/6 vanilla creature.
Game 3 : I keep an opener with 3 swamps, 2 Smallpox, and 2 Hymn. He mulls to 6 and I to Dark Ritual into Hymn on turn 2 (I would have cast both Hymns then but he Dazed the first one and I decided to pay for it, effectively nabbing 3 cards out of his hand) and Hymned him again the following turn. He seems a little short on land so I double Smallpox him down to 0 land and that's pretty much where he stays for the rest of the game. I am pleased and win with Tombstalker.
Result : Win, 2-1
Current Record : 4-0
Round 5 : Merfolk
My opponent has to leave early and concedes the game to me before we even start playing. Hooray for last round Byes!
Result : Win, 2-0
Final record : 5-0
So that's how it played out! I ended up taking 1st place out of 32 people and walked away with $17 cash as my prize
Overall I think the night went really well and confirmed my belief that a more tempo based version of Pox, running Dark Ritual and heavy on the threats, is well positioned in the current metagame. I do feel like I luck-sacked the win against TES a bit, but all the other games were good solid showings of Pox's capability as a deck. I'm very happy with my current maindeck although after that incident with Grove of the Burnwillows + Punishing Fire making life very unhappy for my Bloodghasts and Nether Spirit (and also seeing several Loam decks floating around) I would like to find space in the board for 2x Extirpate. I know I'm going to be taking out 1x Syphon Life since I never board in more than 1, but I'm not sure what the other card I'll be taking out will be. One other interesting tidbit is that I went into this thinking that Ratchet Bomb was just plain awful due to it being so slow and didn't really want to play it, but I felt like I needed an out to enchantments and creature hordes that Infest couldn't take care of. As it turns out Ratchet Bomb won me a couple games that I wouldn't have won without it (game 2 against Zoo and game 2 against TES) and I now have great deal more respect for the card. It's a bit slow, but there's just things it does for mono black that nothing else can do for 2 mana. It's a keeper.
I hope you enjoyed the tournament report and may you all have the same success with Pox that I've enjoyed in my first tournament with it!
I'm a big fan of Cursed Scroll as well (I've been playing it in mono red Sligh decks for half past forever) but after playing it in Pox for a while I'm not sure it's the right tool for the job. Well, maybe if you're running a list with 25 lands and Mox Diamonds it's a good tool, but in typical mono black builds you can be prone to mana screwing yourself as well as your opponent from time to time. There's been many times I've been stuck on 2 lands and in the same boat as my opponent (except that I had a threat or two on the board) and in those common situations something that requires 3 to activate every turn tends not to work too well. Because of that I pulled the 2x Cursed Scroll out of my build and replaced them with 2x Tombstalker for a more viable win condition. He's really anti-synergistic with Pox effects and Innocent Blood but he is about the shortest clock you can put your opponent on for 2 mana or less. I'm always looking for something that's more synergistic with the rest of the deck to replace him with, but in spite of his anti-synergy he's won me a ton of games just because my opponent couldn't deal with him in 3 turns or less.
I do still run The Rack in my build and I like it a lot (keep in mind that I am playing mono black with 15 win conditions). More than a win condition, it's also a great control card after you've emptied your opponent's hand. After the first Pox they tend to start getting pretty nervous about their life total, so most of the time when your opponent's hand is empty and you drop The Rack you'll be effectively Silence'ing them for 3 turns. Whatever they draw they're not going to want to play (unless it's something to destroy The Rack) so while you're getting down to business they're playing draw-go. This effect also turns any discard spells you play from this point on into additional Silences and burn spells. Also, you wouldn't believe how many times I've said "Redirect the damage from The Rack to Jace" during my opponent's upkeep. Remember that The Rack causes damage, not loss of life, so you can use it to take down opponent's planeswalkers. Lastly, if you ever happen to have Liliana and The Rack out at the same time and manage to put your opponent in top deck mode with no creatures on the board you just win. Period.
And oh yes, if that all wasn't enough to convince you to play The Rack then just look at the art on the Duels of the Planeswalkers version of it. That art is 10 different kinds of awesome! This alone should be reason enough to run it
I'm playing almost the exact same list but without the fetches and instead of the 3x Crucible and 1x Maze of Ith I'm running 4x Dark Ritual. It might be just me but I'm honestly not a fan of Crucible in Pox unless you're running at least 25 lands (including 4x Wasteland) and Mox Diamond. It seems like between Pox, Liliana, and Crucible the deck's mana curve gets majorly top heavy and this has screwed me way more often than I'd like. I found myself constantly ending up with 2 lands in play due to Pox effects and a hand full of 3 CMC stuff I couldn't cast.
I'm not sure if you feel the same way or not, but as crazy as it might initially sound I'd recommend taking out the Crucibles and Maze of Ith and trying out 4 Dark Ritual in their place. The tempo plays Dark Ritual allows you to pull off can be astonishing at times (turn 1 Liliana, Inquisition + Hymn, Inquisition + Bloodghast, etc., etc.). They can also come in handy for securing the BBB required for Pox when your Factories would otherwise prevent it, powering out a early Tombstalker or getting him out through graveyard hate, and worst case scenario if you have a Dark Rit that you don't need in your hand you can always just pitch it to Pox or Lili.
If you don't care for the change than you've lost nothing since Dark Rituals are cheap as chips to try, but I'd highly recommend giving this a shot just to see what you think of it. I've been very happy with the change and who knows, maybe you might be too
If you're interested, the list that I run is below...
3 Liliana of the Veil
[7 Creatures]
4 Bloodghast
2 Tombstalker
1 Nether Spirit
[24 Spells]
4 Dark Ritual
4 Innocent Blood
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
4 Pox
4 The Rack
[22 Lands]
4 Mishra’s Factory
18 Swamp
3 Null Rod
3 Ratchet Bomb
2 Syphon Life
3 Infest
4 Leyline of the Void
And oh, one more thing! Scion, I know this is going to go against popular opinion but I'm really not too convinced that we need to be running 4x Liliana. I'm pretty sure this same argument arose when blue decks first got their hands on Jace, the Mind Sculptor due to the fact that both of them have a way of getting rid of extra copies of themselves. As time went on those Blue mages learned that even though Jace was totally awesome and could get rid of extra copies of himself, any extra copy they drew was still a dead card. And control decks generally don't like having dead cards in their hand so most of those Blue mages eventually cut their Jaces down to 2 or 3 copies after the initial hype wore off. I believe the same applies to Liliana. She's totally awesome, does all the things we like doing, and we really want to draw her. However, any extra copies we draw are still dead cards that could have been something else more useful. Given this I'm of the mindset that 3 is most likely the right number. That number insures that we will draw her in most games, which is great since she is a card we really want to draw, but more often than not we'll only see 1 copy over the course of the game with a second showing up only every now and then.
It may take some time for others to come around to this ideology (just like it did with the Blue mages playing Jace) but I do believe that in time 3 will be considered the preferred number of Lilianas to play. On the other hand, although this logic seems sound to me I could be totally wrong and just talking out of my buttocks. Life is funny like that sometimes
Now that I have a better understanding of how a Pox deck is supposed to play I've been able to adjust my strategy and lines of play and I'm enjoying it even more. At this point my basic strategy comes down to completely breaking my opponent (I.E. empty their hand of cards, clear their board of creatures, and put a small dent in their mana base and life total in the process) and then killing them quickly with aggressive win cons before they can recover. I'm really enjoying the unique control aspect of the deck, which is totally unlike any other deck I've ever played. You actually stabilize when both you and your opponent are in top-deck mode, which is completely unique among control decks.
I think just about everyone who commented on my build felt that I had a few too many win conditions, but in my limited play testing I've actually found this to be a good thing. It's that old philosophy of "better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it". Since Swords to Plowshares is the most popular and prevalent form of creature removal in Legacy I know I won't always be able to rely on my Bloodghasts going to the graveyard to be recurred if my opponent should top-deck Swords or Path, so I'm much more comfortable if I have 2 or more threats on the board when we both go into top-decking. If there's just 1 threat out there's a decent chance my opponent might find some way of dealing with it, but 2 threats can really seal the game. That's why I like having a total of 15 threats in the deck, even though it leaves me a little less space for utility tech.
From what I can determine at this point it seems like there's 2 basic strategies you can take with Pox. First there's the slower more controlling card advantage based strategy that involves using Mox Diamond, Crucible of Worlds, Wasteland, and other such utilities to generate card advantage while recurring Wastelands to deny your opponent mana and take control of the game. This strategy seems to be primarily focused around mana denial and gradual card advantage to win in the long game.
The other strategy, often seen in more budget oriented builds like the one I've been working with, is a faster and more aggressive tempo based strategy focused primarily on hand disruption and winning quickly with a large number of threats rather than trying to drag the game out. These kind of strategies tend to employ Dark Ritual for early game power plays and The Rack as a win condition to pull out fast wins from your hand disruption. Since this strategy lacks the late game card advantage engine of Crucible of Worlds or Life from the Loam it tends to need tempo enablers like Dark Ritual and a larger amount of win conditions, including quick kill options like The Rack, to insure that you'll be able to kill the opponent shortly after you both hit top deck mode. The lack of a real late game card advantage engine (aside from Liliana) seems to require this kind of build to be faster and more aggressive to stay competitive.
Mind you I could be totally off the mark here, but after some play testing this is impression I'm getting of how the two schools of thought on Pox decks play out. Now I'd like to take a minute to reply to the very kind individuals who replied to my original post
Zathe : I do like the idea of Sensei's Divining Top and may have to try out a couple at some point. I'm not sure what I'd take out for them though, as anything I might remove would most likely be a threat and I'm a little reluctant to start cutting the threat density in a more tempo based Pox deck like mine. If anything I might try taking out the 2 Tombstalkers though.
thnkr : I totally agree with you on Raven's Crime being a great card that can make just about any top decked card useful, even if it's just a land you wouldn't otherwise need. I was actually playing Raven's Crime in my build until I tried out Liliana of the Veil and then replaced Raven's Crime with her. The reason for this is that her +1 ability and Raven's Crime do essentially the same thing, except you don't have to pay any mana to do it and she allows you to discard any card you want (such as Bloodghast, or a no longer useful Dark Ritual) rather than restricting you to only pitching lands to get the discard effect. Combine this with the fact that she also offers built in creature removal should your opponent top-deck a threat and I've come to find her a superior alternative to Raven's Crime. Her initial mana cost is higher, but she performs exactly the same function with some added bonuses as well. That's the reason I'm not playing Raven's Crime in my build, as Lili has taken it's place.
Alfiriel : I bow before thee o' great master of Pox!
I can see you've been playing this archetype for an extremely long time and your wisdom is greatly appreciated. I can definitely see how the slower more controlling strategy of builds with Moxen, Crucible of Worlds, and Wasteland help to break the symmetry of Pox effects you a great deal more card advantage and staying power in the long game than builds without. As much as I hate to say it though I am under some financial restrictions at the moment and the $400+ USD that would be required for the above suite of cards is simply not feasible for me. For this reason I've chosen the faster and more aggressive tempo based route (detailed above) with cards like Dark Ritual and a higher threat density in an attempt to try and break the opponent quickly and then win with my large number of threats before they can recover. I definitely get that builds with Crucible and such don't need a very high number of threats due to the inevitability factor that their card advantage engines generate, but I really think that builds without this card advantage engine require a higher number of threats to insure that they get the job done properly once they and their opponent go into top-decking.
I did take your advice on the 2x Cursed Scrolls though and take them out in favor of something that I think will better suit my strategy and get the job done quicker, which happened to be 2x Tombstalker. If I was running a more controlling and card advantage centered build with Crucible of Worlds like yours I'd definitely go with your choice of Vengeful Pharaoh instead due to the late game insurance he provides, but I think for a more tempo focused build like mine the short clock of Tombstalker is probably better suited for the job. It's for this same reason that I'd like to keep my number of copies of The Rack at 4. Since the effects from The Rack stack with multiple copies on the board I've never found myself unhappy about drawing a second one, it just puts the opponent on an even shorter clock.
You were also totally right about Phyrexian Arena as well! Some playtesting against various Blue decks quickly determined that this thing is just a suicide pill. Fortunately the playtesting also determined that my matchup against these decks is actually pretty good and doesn't seem to need anything special out of the board to handle, so I've decided to dedicate the 3x slots in the board that I had Phrexian Arena in to Spinning Darkness instead to help improve my somewhat difficult Zoo and RDW matchups. That all said, here's my updated list...
3 Liliana of the Veil
[7 Creatures]
4 Bloodghast
2 Tombstalker
1 Nether Spirit
[24 Spells]
4 Dark Ritual
4 Innocent Blood
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
4 Pox
4 The Rack
[22 Lands]
4 Mishra’s Factory
18 Swamp
3 Null Rod
3 Spinning Darkness
2 Syphon Life
3 Infest
4 Leyline of the Void
Again, thank you to everyone for all the great replies! I'll be really looking forward to finishing my build and getting in some real tournament play with it in the near future. It should be a great learning experience playing a new archetype (I usually just play straight aggro and combo) and I get the feeling that me and Pox are going to be good friends for quite some time
I've been wanting to play MBC or Pox for quite sometime now and after a good bit of thought and testing I've decided to go with Pox, mainly because I think it's ridiculously fun to play and fairly inexpensive to build.
I don't have my deck fully built yet, but I've proxied up everything I'm missing and have been doing a few hours of playtesting here and there against various decks while I'm waiting to get everything together. At this point here's the list I'm working with...
3 Liliana of the Veil
[5 Creatures]
4 Bloodghast
1 Nether Spirit
[24 Spells]
4 Dark Ritual
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Innocent Blood
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Smallpox
4 Pox
4 The Rack
2 Cursed Scroll
[22 Lands]
4 Mishra’s Factory
18 Swamp
3 Null Rod
2 Syphon Life
3 Infest
3 Phyrexian Arena
4 Leyline of the Void
I feel like it's pretty streamlined and functions well for a mostly budget build. There are a couple card choices I'm somewhat unsure about though. I've always been a fan of Cursed Scroll but I think I'm going to try testing out either 2 Tombstalker or 2 Vengeful Pharaoh in it's place. The scroll is a great hard to deal with threat that dodges Pox effects and pretty consistently gets in for 2 damage a turn to the face or any smaller opposing creatures that show up once you go into top-deck mode, but I still can't help but wonder if some other options might be better. The Pharaoh would play quite nicely with the self discard effects from the Poxes and Lili as well.
Regarding the sideboard, I'm trying to cover my bases for common matchups but I'm not sure my board plan is quite ideal. I've got Null Rod for Affinity, Stoneblade, and LED based storm combo decks (all of which my meta has tons of). There's Syphon Life for really aggro matchups like Burn and Zoo and Infest for tribal decks like Goblins, Elves, and Merfolk to a lesser extent. Leyline of the Void comes in for Dredge and Reanimator and anything else graveyard based that shows up.
But what I'm most uncertain about is the 3 Phyrexian Arena in the board. I'd really like something to give me the edge against blue based aggro control decks (which happen to be most of my meta right now) and drawing 2 cards per turn seems like it could win the card advantage battle in the long game, but the unstoppable life loss every turn could turn into a major issue. Anyone have some safer alternate suggestions for this slot?
Edit: One big thing I forgot to ask about and could really use some advice on. Even though I always try to cast Pox in my favor (I.E. Opponent discards 2, I discard 1, opponent sacs 2 lands, I sac 1, opponent sacs a creature, I sac none or one that will come back next turn) it always seems like both my opponent and myself enter top-deck mode at the same time. Is this how the deck is supposed to play? My games seem to consistently come down both my opponent and myself going into top-deck mode at the same time, but with me usually having some kind of small threat on the board at the time (Bloodghast, The Rack, Cursed Scroll, etc.). At that point it just comes down to who top-decks better and if one person top-decks a threat and the other doesn't top-deck an answer they win. Liliana helps a lot with this, always having creature removal and discard at the ready, but in those games that I don't have a Lili on the field the inevitable top-deck war always seems like kind of a dice roll. So I'm wondering if that was how the deck was intended to play out or if I'm just doing it wrong?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!