-I'd want something that gives me great card advantage: Shardless Agent ✓
-I'd want some more tools to lock out my opponent: Counterbalance ✓
-I'd want another blue legacy staple: Brainstrom ✓ (*editor's note: brainstrom is brainstorm's dyslexic cousin)
So lets look at what I ended up with.
I wanted to keep the core of the pox strategy, but as stated above, wanted to throw in all the blue advantage goodies. The idea is to cascade into any of our awesome spells, and also to try and establish an earlier lock with counterbalance. Lets look at out matches.
Round 1 VS: Affinity
G1: I win the roll, play a land, and pass. Villains plays a land into vault skirge, a relatively slow start for affinity. I IoK away an arcbound ravager, and villain plays springleaf drum into toughtcast. I play a turn 3 shardless agent, who kindly gets me a free Sensei's Divining Top. Villain plays a Tezzeret. A second agent gets me a free hymn, but villain's board is getting out of hand as an Etched Champion says "I have protection from you." The next turn I die to tezzeret ult + A Champion I can't block.
SB: +2 Pithing Needle, -3 Sinkhole, +2 Damnation, -1 Nether Void, -1 Counterbalance, +3 Abrupt Decay, -2 ?
G2: I open with an early brainstorm, and shuffle away some extra land I don't need. A few smallpoxes and wastelands later, and Villain has no lands in play. Which is apparently fine for the Mnemite he plays the next two turns. I on the other hand, draw land. Lots of it. Enough land to let Villain draw a few of his own, and start playing scary cards like Arcbound Ravager and Cranial Plating. I get a top on the board and dig like a champion spinning the top and cracking fetches and all the like. I dig and find nothing.
0-1
SB: +2 Pithing Needle, -3 Sinkhole, +2 Damnation, -1 Nether Void, -1 Counterbalance, +3 Abrupt Decay, -2 ?
G2: I open with an early brainstorm, and shuffle away some extra land I don't need. A few smallpoxes and wastelands later, and Villain has no lands in play. Which is apparently fine for the Mnemite he plays the next two turns. I on the other hand, draw land. Lots of it. Enough land to let Villain draw a few of his own, and start playing scary cards like Arcbound Ravager and Cranial Plating. I get a top on the board and dig like a champion spinning the top and cracking fetches and all the like. I dig and find nothing.
0-1
Round 2 VS: ANT
G1: I lose the roll. Villain starts off with a gitaxian probe and then cabal therapies my 2 shardless agents away. I play a top and pass. Villain plays two LED's, and passes (glad I'm not dead yet). I hymn and get a Burning wish and an Infernal tutor. Villain has 1 card in hand and I'm not feeling too terrible about the game. He draws a dark ritual and the one card hymn missed was an infernal tutor, which grabbed past in flames. That was enough to kill me.
SB: +4 Leyline of the Void, +1 Chains of Mephistopheles -3 Sinhole, -2 Smallpox
G2: I open with a turn 0 Leyline of the void followed by a turn 1 Top. Villain gets another probe/therapy hand, and takes my counterbalance. I cast a hymn, but villain still has a LED a Lotus petal, and enough spells to make 18 goblins. I wonder why I didn't board in engineered plague, and die.
0-2
SB: +4 Leyline of the Void, +1 Chains of Mephistopheles -3 Sinhole, -2 Smallpox
G2: I open with a turn 0 Leyline of the void followed by a turn 1 Top. Villain gets another probe/therapy hand, and takes my counterbalance. I cast a hymn, but villain still has a LED a Lotus petal, and enough spells to make 18 goblins. I wonder why I didn't board in engineered plague, and die.
0-2
Round 3: VS
Bye
(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻
1-2
(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻
1-2
Round 4: VS Affinity
G1: I lose the roll. Villain plays a land and an Ornithopter. I thoughtseize away a cranial plating, and villain plays an arcbound ravager instead. I hymn away the rest of his hand, and get beat on a little before two smallpoxes can clear his board. I drop a nether void before he can get anything serious on the table and he scoops.
SB: Same as above, but threw in an engineered plague too
G2: Villain opens with two ornithopters and two mnemites. I waste his land for the turn, but he then surgicals the wasteland, getting one out of my hand. He gets a ravager out, and the game drags out for a bit before he's able to kill me with raw artifact power.
G3: I start off with a hand that has no lands and mull to 6. I keep a 2 lander with two shardless agents and IoK. Turn 1 I IoK away a ravager, and villain plays a skirge. I never draw a 3rd land, and villain eventually kills me with a small artifact army and master of etherium.
1-3
SB: Same as above, but threw in an engineered plague too
G2: Villain opens with two ornithopters and two mnemites. I waste his land for the turn, but he then surgicals the wasteland, getting one out of my hand. He gets a ravager out, and the game drags out for a bit before he's able to kill me with raw artifact power.
G3: I start off with a hand that has no lands and mull to 6. I keep a 2 lander with two shardless agents and IoK. Turn 1 I IoK away a ravager, and villain plays a skirge. I never draw a 3rd land, and villain eventually kills me with a small artifact army and master of etherium.
1-3
My matchups were not really all that good to say the least. I don't think we're terrible against ANT, but back to back hands with probe/therapy kind of wrecked us. Affinity is also a pretty terrible match up vs any pox list.
On paper, the BUG Pox list has a tremendous amount of synergy. I'm just waiting to see it all in action smoothly (I've been on a pretty bad streak of luck recently). There are some things that we can improve on. The lack of answers for things that have hit the board is its main weakness. I'm reluctant to run abrupt decay or innocent blood maindeck though as it's a dead card in some matchups, and not really the card/s I want to be cascading into all that often.
Weakness #2 is that we lose to bloodmoon and wasteland recursion.
I've been working on the decklist with Exoclipse, who has some really fantastic ideas for it. I Think this deck has some serious potential, so stay tuned for next week's LLP to see what changes we're planning on making.
On a final note, I now realize that I was actually playing shardless agent wrong when I cascaded into smallpox and killed the agent. Smallpox (or innocent blood) will actually resolve before the agent hits the board, and in turn will not kill him. The only trouble is when you already have a creature on board.
Thanks for reading.
~TheJGits
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