MTG Salvation

I'm cutting Tombstalker.
Creature bounce makes him look like a huge idiot. Even at 5/5 he doesn't warrant inclusion over any suitable totem out there that might hit for less but at least they don't die to your emergency Pox'ing. The only real removal spell I am holding is often a Pox and if I use it I am forced to sacrifice the Tombstalker anyway. Often my opponent is able to make bigger plays then I can a 5/5 is nothing now. I'd consider running Eater Of Days instead even.

No really the real creatures I would play now are 3 Mishra's Factory , 3 Chimeric Sphere, and 2 Scalding Tongs. If I get any of those out together none of them are anti-synergistic. I mean the Factory and Sphere can't swing together but they can at least with a 4th land.

Quote from Troll_ov_Grimness

I'd consider running Eater Of Days instead even.

I daresay creature bounce makes this guy look like a far bigger idiot than Tombstalker...

No really the real creatures I would play now are 3 Mishra's Factory , 3 Chimeric Sphere, and 2 Scalding Tongs.

As I said earlier in the thread, I can't ever imagine running Scalding Tongs over The Rack in my build at least. Even so, I think this card is just terrible..

That's why nether spirit is better, though I run bloodghast and spirit without any issues

It's not that horrendous versus aggro, since the pox player undoubtedly does way more to keep the board clear of creatures. In a deck heavily tailored against aggro, the ghast actually has a chance to shine through.

I would never run 4 ghasts though, because then it would begin to compromise my disruption elements.

If you have board sweepers ghast shouldn't be that bad against agrro. That is if you run powder kegs, Deeds or necroplasm MD

1) It's 3 black mana that could go towards a pox effect or bigger threat

2) It's 1 damage a turn which is very marginal, whereas something like the rack can deal 3x that much damage a turn at its most optimal

3) It doesn't affect the board state in any way

Dark Ritual is not what you play to get you going. You don't need to accelerate into any spells. You use Dark Ritual when you want to do soemthing like play Hymn To Tourach and then activate a totem in the same turn. That's when the card is really good.

This will probably be the card I drop for Sinkholes though

Funeral charm MD is huge vs goblins and provides the crucial difference, whereas vs zoo i may even side the charms out in favour of harder removal (innocent blood).

I have typically found Spinning Darkness, Funeral Charm and Engineered Plague to be the best choices against goblins.

You can try Infest in the sideboard if you want more support. The problem is that most goblin builds are able to effectively hamper your manabase with Wastelands and Ports, so if you cannot get a Crucible or a Mox Diamond online you will find yourself in dire straits. This is why the cheap or free removal spells are your best options and often appeal more than the several 3+ CC options we have, despite how powerful a resolved Engineered Plague may be. Funeral Charm is more effective now against goblins than before with the addition of Warren Instigator.

Just started trying pox out recently. heres the decklist i've been testing on MWS.

I believe you will come to find 3 nether spirit is 1 too many. I'm actually down to 1 myself, with entomb for fetching if applicable.

Extirpate as a 2 of in the SB? I figure 3-4 is suitable, no?

I'm not too big a fan of perish, I don't find myself swarmed by green ever outside of elves, and of course you're packing 4x plague for that rare matchup. Obviously it eats goyfs, but I just pack extra spot removal when I anticipate a high aggro-control creature count. Especially vs other tribal decks like 'folk and goblins I'd prefer to have the extra removal while you wait for that 3 drop plague to get through (more difficult in the merfolk matchup).

The 2x thoughtseize in the SB could be main in my opinion, and you could thus switch the 2x duress to the SB. There are enough creatures in this format to warrant a few in the maindeck, and if you face ANT or something creatureless, it's still a duress with a small damage tag.

I'd probably throw another 1-2 keg in the SB with perish gone. The 3rd perish slot could go to another extirpate.

I'm not partial to chimeric idol at all, but it's a choice people seem to enjoy. In it's place you could consider phyrexian totem (also not a favourite of mine anymore though we had some good times) or extra cursed scrolls / racks.

It looks good for an early draft, for sure.

Edit: Lol, now there is both a Hive Tyrant and Carnifex in this thread (both warhammer creatures from the same race).

Question: For the Contamination lock, what cards suit it well aside from the obvious Bitterblossom/Nether Spirit? LD seems kinda silly since we have their lands locked down and hand disruption also seems silly since they ideally will have a full hand since they can't cast anything. Do we just beat down?

How often do you find yourself unable to find blue or keep it after 1 of your 2 rivers gets wasted?

Although there's no arguing stifle's usefulness, the blue splash is so light it almost seems pointless.

Is stifle really the thing to come through for you in the SB? What matchups is it most effective in? Next to all decks get their fetches ruined by stifle, and of course stalling a vial is cute, but in such prevalent cases why not mainboard it and increase its presence?

1-of propoganda pull through for you often?

I don't dislike the idea of blue, but you haven't given it enough attention to milk what it's best at in the format (tempo, which you have in the form of stifle, plasma [debatable slot], and propoganda [why a 1-of?], and counters like FoW and daze which you lack).

My take on the Pox Deck, its a great archetype.

Its having a few problems one of which is outracing, Zoo slaughters this things most matches I manage to win one of the 3 most times though.

I can't seem to get the Undiscovered Paradise tech to work. Getting the retrace cards/Bloodghast isn't the issue its just I never draw paradise

Any ideas how to help this deck. I will make this soon enough, and sadly sinkholes are not an option. Which that being said a discard build is more preferred.

So I built the pox deck, and it is very fun, the problem is that it can't win anything.

What do you SB against monoU fish?

Against dredge do you SB leylines or tormods crypt? Or ravenous trap? Or extirpate?

Thanks. hopefully the deck can be more successful now

Quote from kombatkiwi

So I built the pox deck, and it is very fun, the problem is that it can't win anything.

What do you SB against monoU fish?

Against dredge do you SB leylines or tormods crypt? Or ravenous trap? Or extirpate?

Thanks. hopefully the deck can be more successful now

If you run a deck that can hardcast Leyline, it's your GY card of choice.

Quote from kombatkiwi

So I built the pox deck, and it is very fun, the problem is that it can't win anything.

What do you SB against monoU fish?

Against dredge do you SB leylines or tormods crypt? Or ravenous trap? Or extirpate?

Thanks. hopefully the deck can be more successful now

Then your doing it wrong. Fish is easy to beat, discard hurts control terribly.

I use Leyine of the Void against dredge.

and Necroplasm against Zoo

This is my deck as it currently stands:



I've considered dropping Chimeric Idol completely, and may switch Dark Ritual for Mox Diamond at a later date. What else could I try out?

Hey guys. I've been playing with my pox deck for a good 2-3 months now and have had no problems. However, I'm not too pleased with 2 (maybe 3) of the cards in my deck:



The ones I'm debating what to do with are Raven's Crime and Phyrexian Totem.

Phyrexian has won a few games for me. However, I feel as if he could still be replaced for a better card. Any suggestions?

For me the singleton Raven's Crime rarely gets drawn and when it does I don't think I've ever had the opportunity to take advantage of the retrace. And without any land recursion doesn't it hurt me card advantage wise?

Finally, two little things that have been bothering me are:
1. The Rack being a 3-of. For such an amazing little guy not running 4 of them seems weird. However, I have heard that it is best to run 3 of him since an early draw of The Rack just chills for a long time. (Which does make sense)
2. Land count, Think 22 basic lands is too much? I feel as if it works but *shrugs* opinion is always good.

Any other suggestions are always welcome

I strongly feel that Raven's Crime is a highly underrated card. Although it may be performing better for me than for others due to the average casting cost of cards in our respective decks. I do not run Crucible of Worlds in my deck, and there are only two cards in mine that cost more than 2 (four Pox and 3 Nether Spirit, which I rarely pay the mana for). Raven's Crime has won me so many games against control and it helps immensely with aggro. I trade my lands in hand to get rid of their weakest threats. This leads the opponent to try to play their heaviest threats as quickly as possible to avoid being forced to discard them, at which point my Smallpox, Pox, Edicts, and in some cases, Funeral Charms, deal with those threats.

The only creatures I run in my Pox are three Nether Spirit. I've seen Tombstalkers, and seen them do well, but they becomes a casualty when you could otherwise Pox or Smallpox for card advantage, nixing your card advantage. I prefer The Rack instead. This encourages aggro decks to want to play slower and is much harder to kill than a Stalker. I used to run Chimeric Idols in mine as well, but found that the mana cost was undesirable, and I liked being able to play Edicts and Charms at instant speed.

I despise Duress in Pox. It is a terrible topdeck. I would switch them out for Thoughtseize immediately.

The basic philosophy behind my Pox is that I want my opponent to have as many dead cards as possible when facing me (nonbasic land destruction, sorcery speed creature destruction), I want to net as much card advantage as I can when going up against the rest of whatever non-dead cards they may have, and I want to never, *ever*, have a dead card against the opponent. This is a big reason why I don't run Crucible of Worlds. If you do end up having one in play and you draw one, you just drew a dead card. Sure, I don't get my land back after I retrace Raven's Crime, but I only have to worry about having three lands in play anyways, to cast Pox. After one or two Pox resolving, the game shouldn't last much longer. Using the rest of the land to retrace the Crime helps ensure that. This wins you the topdeck game.

I gotta agree man. I run 4 crucibles as well and with maindeck qasali pridemage of Zoo. They will blow that crucible and you lose your advantage of recurring wasteland. Then against control they will counter that so you need to ensure you have more.

@ Carnifex

yay for the two tyranid names!

About chimeric idol and mishra's factory, i see many lists run both and they don't seem to have a problem. if I'm to replace the idols, what else is there to use?

@Keeper: If you are struggling versus zoo, there are 3 things you should invest in, being powder keg necroplasm and cursed scroll.

Powder keg keeps the early to mid game reasonably within your control, often 2-for-1'ing. Necroplasm denies the opponent later opportunities to reestablish board position, and cursed scroll fulfills a similar function while being slightly more selective (while limited by damage). You need these sweeping effects to keep up with the rushing nature of zoo, and of course cursed scroll is just handy as hell in other respects too (being a constant damage source against opposing control).

@Ravana: I'm not surprised you're skeptical on the totem either. I would say, as a budget option it's stellar, and I loved the card to death when I was playing a less powered version of pox, but it quickly became the weak link. Cursed scroll is an effective replacement and you won't look back. Both activations require 3 mana, but the scroll actually effects board position instead of just hitting hard. If you want to hit hard, use stalker.

Hell, the whole 'deny early resources and hit hard!' strategy of pox hasn't even appealed to me in a while. I've ensured with my current build that every source of damage is capable of returning to play or is a passive source (the rack), thus I do not use totem or stalker. My necropox list has been putting up incredibly consistent results all across the board.

@Thinkr: Crucible opens up way more doors than it closes for a pox deck. As for it being a bad topdeck if you have one in play, who cares? Crucible lets your graveyard become much more of a resource than in non-crucible builds, so that a dead topdeck every so often shouldn't be the end of the world. With a crucible online, you're already in a good spot since you're able to recur wastelands, factories, and various other utility lands. Being able to negate the LD effects of your own pox spells with such a powerful artifact is a huge boon for the pox archetype. Of course pox can be tailored to not need crucible as much, but I've tried SEVERAL types of pox builds and crucible is undoubtedly the card that pushes pox over the edge in terms of advantage. Also, people WILL try and kill crucibles as soon as possible, so multiples will not be the sort of dead draw you think they'd be.

Hi everybody.

Im starting to build this awesome deck, considered by me the best Mono-Black deck that can be build in Legacy, over the MBC and MBA. Im going to the Crucible Vertion of it. But now im being struggling by many doubts that i can't figure out by myself and i need opinions. Let's get a look at the deck:

1) First of all. Nether Spirit or Necroplasm??? Because Necroplasm can sweep Zoo and come back by dredge, but Nether spirit can be discarded by Smallpox/Pox and come back.

2) Tombstalker??...i mean, i love him so so so much really... it was hard, really hard to get my set of 4 and im using them now but, are they really ment to be in this deck? im thinking of using 2 of them in the deck but im scared of having to discard for Smallpox/Pox or being killed by my own Innocent Blood.

3) My metagame is really really varied and i see new decks every day. So i cant make desitions of what Removal get in the deck. Innocent Blood / Diabolic Edict / Smother are the best i could find by now. Anyone have experiences in an Aggro Based Metagame?

4) I building with playsets of Thoughtseize/Hymn to Tourach/ Smallpox / Pox / Funeral Charm and 2 copies of Raven's Crime... that's a lot of discard spells, and will be better to run 4 The Rack in maindeck?? or just 2 is ok?...

5) If im going to use Nether Spirit, will be ok to include 2-3 copies of Contamination in the Sideboard as it will destroy MonoU decks?....


PD: Im sorry for the Tags, i'll be putting more in my next post, but im in a hurry and i forgot to tag.

I'm intrigued Carn

Think you can post this list or send it in a PM?