i agree that Bob is playable in Pox.
Maybe I should fork out the money for a play set... It is an investment after all.
Someone mentioned losing because of not enough win cons. I ran a deck with ghosts, bloodsoaked champions and the rack last week. I got 1-1 result vs fish and miracles because I failed to find something to kill them with:'(
Sure Bob is "playable" since it is a powerful card... but you're probably cutting pox to fit them in.
This really weakens the resource-denial plan and shifts the deck to an aggro plan, sort of like a bad version of jund. Jund honestly utilizes much better cards if you want to go the bob aggro route.
Pox's strength lies in resource denial and win-cons that go along with that strategy. The 10-14 win-cons we typically run plus pox taking life generally close out games easily enough.
I don't get it, Bob is dope in this deck. He has zero draw backs if you drop him after you've Smallpoxed your opponent. No excuse not to play him unless you are on a budget. The card advantage you gain after forcing your opponent to dump their hand makes it really hard for them to make a comeback. I'm not sure why there is even a discussion about this. So what if he dies if you cast him before you cast Smallpox. No big loss, especially if he's been around a turn or two and has replaced himself. He replenishes cards you've pitched to Smallpox, and often you have Bob and a Bloodghast in play. Sac Bloodghast instead of Bob, problem solved. Let's not forget, he's a great blocker and beats for 2 adding to the clock. I've had people scoop when I've dropped him.
I agree that dark confidant is a powerful card. Killing him with smallpox is inexcusable unless you need to protect your life total.
My point is that pox is the best card in this deck and the only reason to play the deck. The amount of disruption it provides is devastating and unmatched.
The other thing to consider when building a deck is that Jund is doing what you want, but with way better card quality.
See for yourself... compare the disruption and win-cons in these decks:
Bob rarely dies to Smallpox but he does die occasionally. I feel his benefits out way his disadvantages and I've tested him extensively. We can agree to disagree on this subject. Concerning the comparison of my Rack Pox build to Jund, I see your point, although I'm fairly certain that Rack Pox (while really good) is a choice you make when you can't afford a set of Tarmogoyfs, Dark Confidants, and Dual Lands. It's a great competitive tier 2 deck but it is not tier 1 as in the case of Jund. If you have the budget for Jund you probably won't play Rack Pox.
Fair enough.
Still, if I had the opponent at the mercy of a single creature, I'd rather have something that will actually close out the game like tombstalker or pack rat (3 turn clock) rather than a draw engine that's vulnerable to everything and brings down my life total... I am glad he's working out well for you though.
I not saying it's a budget deck by any means but just that it's not a $2000-$3000 dollar Jund or Delver. I been revamping my build and trying some new strategies. I'd love to see it tier 1. There are some new cards available like Gurmag Angler and some older cards that are over looked. I'm toying with two different list now, one with Skittering Skirge and the other with the Ensnaring Bridge and Chains of Mephistopheles + Anvil of Bogardan lock.
Within the context of rack pox:
Green offers decay and loam/crime.
Red offers direct damage and blood moon.
White does have some decent removal but inferior to green. I guess there's also 1 playable win-con.
Blue doesn't give us anything compelling.
Rakdos Keyrune in place of or along side of Bloodghast also appears not too shabby in black red builds. Blightning is also really good. Thoughts on these and Storm World? I'm going to proxy this up.
I don't like keyrune or blightning because of the high cmc and the fact that blightning lets the opponent choose the cards and it doesn't act as removal. Low cmc win-cons are better like bloodchief ascension, hellspark elemental, or grim lavamancer... I would definitely be including pox in my list.
1-2 copies of storm world would be OK... You can only have one in play.
Hellspark Elemental I've tested and it's really good with Cabal Therapy. In theory Rakdos Keyrune should work well. Remember you can tap it immediately for mana and it's another source of damage that doesn't die to Smallpox. And he'd be a great blocker with his first strike.
I had a chance to do some extensive testing versus Punishing Jund, with and without sideboards, finding that I won 4 out of 5 or possibly 9 out of 10 games. Pox just seems to outdo it, even with 4 Deathrite Shamans. Since then, I have moved back to using a Nether Spirit instead of Filth, went to 2 Entombs instead of 3, and decided to replace the 1 Entomb and my 3 Innocent Bloods with 2 Disfigure and 2 Smother.
Up next is testing against a very orthodox legacy Burn deck I also have, with initial runs seeming to suggest Pox can deal with it pretty well.
During your testing against burn, you might find yourself wanting the 1x spinning darkness that I run. It deals with eidolon very nicely (among other things).
I went with two Pithing Needles versus Deathrite and Wasteland, and two Tombstalkers, taking out Liliana and a Bloodghast. His own Liliana didn't matter to me much of course, I would usually just dredge up a pre-Entombed Drakmor for her +1.
For Burn, I'll try the Spinning Darkness, and in the meantime I've put Trinisphere in my sideboard. Other ideas for life gain that I think would fit this version of Pox are the first part of Plunge into Darkness, and Crypt Incursion. They're not as cheap as Spinning, of course, but mid or late game, after Burn is out of gas, I think they'd make a topdecked Fireblast less, ah, impactful
I would not bring in needle versus jund. .. it would be better to bring in removal, assuming you still have smother in the board. Think about it.
Our own lilis are still good in this matchup as well. Tombstalker is solid if the opponent boards out Lili (which they should). Extirpate may be useful to get rid of punishing fire (since it kills ghast, kills factory, and works against the rack & SA), but it may be too narrow to bring in.
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying about dakmor. You're dredging it just to discard it?? That can't be right.
My recommendations for burn are in the primer. Plunge into darkness and crypt incursion are both bad in my opinion -- narrow and inefficient.
I disagree with 3sphere honestly. It doesn't answer any of our problems and it doesn't fit well with our tempo gameplan. I was dumb for mentioning it.
Well, I still got him consistently. Not sure what was going on, but yeah the Dakmor/ Crime thing was dumb of me.
I went to a more competitive legacy tourney last night and went 1-2. First match was Storm, which I just wore down in the first game, lost, and then Extirpated Infernal Tutor on the third and won. Second match was Storm as well, in which I made a very bad mistake of Extirpating Brainstorm, I think my reasoning was I had some discard in my hand and I wanted him to quit hiding stuff from me. Cost me the second game, match loss.
Third match was a strange midrange deck with all sorts of stuff in it, most importantly of which was Young Pyromancer. For some reason I forgot to bring in Necroplasm and Massacre from my board, and lost the third game. I think I've been overfocusing on Pithing Needle and need to think more carefully about my boarding (and stop being so impulsive, haha).
Jund is probably one of our easiest matchups. It's good your testing confirms that.
ANT/TES will try to do one of two things against us:
Go for an early kill if possible, since we have no countermagic. Surgical extraction is our best defense against this. 1cmc discard obviously helps too.
Otherwise they will play out their artifact mana and try to setup a later past in flames or ad nauseum kill, with pif being more common. Null rod is great for stopping this plan, along with our other disruption. Yard hate should target infernal tutor or burning wish, or tendrils/pif if you are lucky enough to get one of those. You can cut a lili in addition to the creature removal; she's a bit slow plus they won't kill her so you don't want to draw multiples.
Young pyromancer is the main reason to run targeted removal like disfigure and spinning darkness. I'm not a big fan of necroplasm (too slow) but I think it is playable since it's decent against pyromancer and can be entombed... UWR pyromancer builds aren't very common so massacre isn't as useful for hitting pyromancer.
This week did 2-2, beating Elves and White Stax and then losing to a Food Chain deck disguised as Shardless and then RUG Delver. I felt the Food Chain deck was me never playing against the deck and not knowing what to hit, and RUG was just unfortunate draws, plays, and a lack of research on my part. I got two Lilys Dazed two turns in a row in one game
Apparently countermagic is something I'll need to learn to deal with. I would say going slower and planning ahead, but that's tough when there's two delvers whacking at me, or seeing the guy put three Mistborns in exile and then FOW'ing my followup discard. I'll keep working on it.
The Sadistics are considered suboptimal and jank, I realize, but I figured they would take care of Storm well enough, and help against Miracles if I could get them off.
A 2-2 finish is actually good, nothing to be ashamed of, especially since you're new to the deck... and maybe competitive legacy?
It'd be a little crazy to expect to show up and crush everyone. The deck is reasonably good but can only push win percentages so high.
Deciding when and how to play around counterspells isn't easy, even when you know what to expect. Playing slower isn't always the thing to do; sometimes we need to bait out counters or just try to jam spells to wear them down.
This week did 2-2, beating Elves and White Stax and then losing to a Food Chain deck disguised as Shardless and then RUG Delver.
Delver is actually a good matchup for us (when they don't have treasure cruise) and I consider RUG to be the easiest one (if they're running the nimble mongoose version). Some tips:
Their best countermagic is actually spell pierce. FoW means they're hymning themselves for us. Daze can be nuisance, but you must realize that it comes with two significant drawbacks: 1. they fall behind in tempo 2. they have to bounce a land even though delver lists are typically low on real lands (i.e. not fetchlands). If they use daze too much, they might lose even more land to our discard in addition to whatever lands they lose when they have to sac lands.
Focus on killing their creatures. Delver lists are light on creatures, so if you kill those creatures, you'll never be threatened. Funeral charm is actually really useful if you expect a lot of delver.
Lightning Bolt is not just three damage. Bolt is an unexpected and unwanted surprise when you cast a pox, a way to remove liliana, and a way to end the game even when they're creatures are in the graveyard. Its okay to thoughtseize a bolt because you're doing more than saving on one life.
I agree that dark confidant is a powerful card. Killing him with smallpox is inexcusable unless you need to protect your life total.
My point is that pox is the best card in this deck and the only reason to play the deck. The amount of disruption it provides is devastating and unmatched.
It's a mistake to assume that dark confidant and pox can't be in the same deck. Obviously its very suicide black and not recommended if bolt or storm are common. However, I've tested having both in the same list against u/w Miracles and D&T, where the pace of the game can be slower. Dark confidant is actually pretty good in those matchups if you discard their removal.
I also think killing bob with a pox effect is totally acceptable. Bob doesn't have to be on the board forever; drawing two or three cards and then sacing him when we're ahead on cards is a decent game plan against the two match-ups I mentioned. I saw some 8 rack lists in modern that ran Bob and smallpox and the pilots often used smallpox to sac Bob when they were in a strategic advantage, not just when their life total was low. We're in a different format obviously, but the lesson is still applicable: timing when to sac Bob to gain card/board advantage can be more valuable than keeping Bob on the board for as long as possible.
@Darth Bunny
Running all swamps in your list helps against RUG because their stifles and wastelands are much less impactful.
However I believe the amount of value gained by factory and fetchlands outweighs the decrease in manabase stability. I know we disagree on this point.
RUG should still be a favorable matchup for my list, especially since it has not adopted dig through time.
I can't say much else about confidant. I cannot conceive a list non-inferior to another deck... maybe someone smarter than me can make one.
A 2-2 finish is actually good, nothing to be ashamed of, especially since you're new to the deck... and maybe competitive legacy?
It'd be a little crazy to expect to show up and crush everyone. The deck is reasonably good but can only push win percentages so high.
Deciding when and how to play around counterspells isn't easy, even when you know what to expect. Playing slower isn't always the thing to do; sometimes we need to bait out counters or just try to jam spells to wear them down.
I like the reports; keep 'em coming!
Oh, I was quite happy with the 2-2, considering that yes, I'm new with the deck, and new to Legacy in general. I've been playing Magic for a long time, but have never been good at the game itself. Poor decision making, impulsiveness, etc. On the other hand, I enjoy rogue decks and am reasonably good at deck tuning, curves, mana bases, etc. Getting to play a deck I truly like (like Rack Pox here) and win a few games in the meantime is awesome. I especially like that I occasionally whomp $3k+ piles of cardboard with my $600 pile of cardboard, makes me feel like a hobo who wandered into the yacht club and started socking people
That one was a rough couple of games. We did some for funs afterwards and I did get him 3 out of 4, so I'll just have to play more carefully when I face it in the future and mulligan more aggressively. Thanks!
A 2-2 finish is actually good, nothing to be ashamed of, especially since you're new to the deck... and maybe competitive legacy?
It'd be a little crazy to expect to show up and crush everyone. The deck is reasonably good but can only push win percentages so high.
Deciding when and how to play around counterspells isn't easy, even when you know what to expect. Playing slower isn't always the thing to do; sometimes we need to bait out counters or just try to jam spells to wear them down.
I like the reports; keep 'em coming!
Oh, I was quite happy with the 2-2, considering that yes, I'm new with the deck, and new to Legacy in general. I've been playing Magic for a long time, but have never been good at the game itself. Poor decision making, impulsiveness, etc. On the other hand, I enjoy rogue decks and am reasonably good at deck tuning, curves, mana bases, etc. Getting to play a deck I truly like (like Rack Pox here) and win a few games in the meantime is awesome. I especially like that I occasionally whomp $3k+ piles of cardboard with my $600 pile of cardboard, makes me feel like a hobo who wandered into the yacht club and started socking people
A few years back I showed up at a local GP side event running pox. I think there were about 120 players for that event alone. I only had one liliana and no thoughtseize back then, and my entire deck was maybe $100 at most. At one point during the tournament, I was the only undefeated at 5-0. I finished that tournament at 6-2, only losing to one other person and dropping the final round cuz it was 1 am. I ended up getting sixth place and a box of Gatecrash.
During the tournament, I was constantly trash talking. Whenever I inquisitioned somebody, I told them their opening hand was more expensive than my deck. Maybe that tournament was a fluke, but I know the pleasure of beating more expensive decks with my budget build very well
That one was a rough couple of games. We did some for funs afterwards and I did get him 3 out of 4, so I'll just have to play more carefully when I face it in the future and mulligan more aggressively. Thanks!
Yeah no problem. I would take Dromar's advice to heart though: if the builds are different, that will impact the matchup. My deck might have advantages and disadvantages your build does not. For instance, I've made my deck wasteland and stifle proof, so RUG delver is far less effective against me than builds running factories or fetchlands.
Oh yeah, before anyone thinks I'm perfect, I found my notes from last year's SCG Oakland. I didn't compete in the main event, only the open trial. My notes:
Match 1 - Dredge
Game 1: He opened with putrid imp, lion's eye diamond, dumped his hand to the imp, flashback faithless looting with the diamond, dredge 12 from two grave-trolls, and passed. I drew my card and debated whether I should play a land. I conceded so he wouldn't know what my colors were. We were on to game 2 before the other players had even finished shuffling for their first games
Game 2: I went swamp go. He faithless looting two golgari thugs and passed the turn. I extirpate him and removed the two thugs in his grave and a third one in his hand. The rest of his hand were lands. He drew nothing, and I hit him with discard and then dropped shrieking affliction. He eventually discarded a stinkweed imp, but I had the surgical extraction for it. An e. plague on horror bought me enough time for affliction to carry the game.
Game 3: He went putrid imp and discarded a stinky. I removed it with surgical extraction, but he drew and discarded a grave-troll the following turn. I spent my next two turns laying down two shrieking affliction and two e. plagues naming horror and illusion. Of course, he flipped a few bridge from belows and suddenly I was racing zombies. Tombstalker bought me time for the afflictions to win me the game, but he was one turn away from reanimating an ashen rider. I won, but man is dredge nerve-wracking. Its been like six months, but even without the notes I still remember the match.
Game 1: I get the godly hand with thoughtseize, double hymn, and pox. I thoughtseize a veteran explorer, knock out jace and tops with my hymns, and pox away a deathrite shaman. Tombstalker plays cleanup.
Game 2: He goes first and thoughtseizes a smallpox. I inquisition a top and lay down Liliana. He abrupt decays my planeswalker. We trade spells for a couple of turns, but he has the TC to bounce back. I get beaten by random creatures.
Game 3: I lead with a shrieking affliction and he plays veteran explorer, then uses cabal therapy on his next turn to sac the explorer and remove my pox. I draw blank and he plays jace, the mind sculptor. I counter with pithing needle, but he draws pernicious deed off TC. My shrieking afflictions and needle are removed from play. I topdeck a Liliana and we begin racing planewalkers. Nether spirit buys me a turn, but he plays nihil spellbomb, stranding a tombstalker. I activate Liliana's ultimate while Jace is one trigger away from his ultimate. However, he manages to get another veteran explorer in play. I split his permanents into two piles: lands in one pile and jace/veteran explorer in the other. He takes the jace and explorer, and then activates jace. I'm left with no cards in my library except for a useless tombstalker.
Match 3: Merfolk (Regular build)
Game 1: He leads with vial, which frustrates my discard throughout the first game. He counters a hymn but can't stop a Liliana. Unfortunately, I can't protect her from mutavault beats. I trade removal with fish and tombstalker starts racing, but he's drawn one lord too many for me to win the race.
Game 2: I smallpox a lord and then cast a plague. He counters the first one, but I follow up with a second. I counter each of his creatures with innocent blood or a pox effect and shrieking affliction seals the game.
Game 3: He counters a hymn and then plays nothing but lords. I die despite playing two plagues.
Match 4: Merfolk (Maindecks chalice and factories)
Game 1: I hit him with a hymn, which rips a creature and a fow. I walk liliana into a daze, and he begins applying pressure with manlands. Pox arrives too late to the party to deal with his growing army of fishfolk.
Game 2: He plays chalice of the void for one, and then another chalice for two. Mutavaults and factories beat me down.
Conclusion: I ended up going 1-3, which is my worst record to date. I'm surprised I beat dredge, but it helps that I already had a game plan if I ever faced dredge and it worked. Nic Fit is honestly a bad matchup with veteran explorer, but I did a lot better than expected. If TC hadn't been legal back then, I think I could have pulled the victory. Losing both merfolk matches was disappointing, since I had gone undefeated against merfolk until SCG Oakland and I landed a double E. Plague in one game I had lost. The second merfolk running chalice of the void threw me off though, and it demonstrates a major weakness in our deck. I'm not looking forward to playing MUD.
I loaned my friend my list for a 4-round SCG legacy challenge event this weekend... just for fun since he doesn't really play competitive legacy.
He beat RUG Delver R1. I watched part of his 4th round vs MUD and he could very easily have won that match as well.
Maybe I should fork out the money for a play set... It is an investment after all.
Someone mentioned losing because of not enough win cons. I ran a deck with ghosts, bloodsoaked champions and the rack last week. I got 1-1 result vs fish and miracles because I failed to find something to kill them with:'(
This really weakens the resource-denial plan and shifts the deck to an aggro plan, sort of like a bad version of jund. Jund honestly utilizes much better cards if you want to go the bob aggro route.
Pox's strength lies in resource denial and win-cons that go along with that strategy. The 10-14 win-cons we typically run plus pox taking life generally close out games easily enough.
Peace
Currently Playing:
Burning Reanimator
Eldrazi and Taxes
Bug Threshold
Enchantress
Dead Guy Ale
Combo Zombies
Pyromancer Pox
My point is that pox is the best card in this deck and the only reason to play the deck. The amount of disruption it provides is devastating and unmatched.
The other thing to consider when building a deck is that Jund is doing what you want, but with way better card quality.
See for yourself... compare the disruption and win-cons in these decks:
4x Bloodghast
4x Dark Confidant
4x The Rack
Disruption
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Raven's Crime
4x Smallpox
1x Toxic Deluge
2x Wrench Mind
2x Ghastly Demise
3x Liliana of the Veil
1x Cursed Scroll
3x Dark Ritual
Lands
1x Bojuka Bog
3x Mishra's Factory
13x Swamp
2x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3x Wasteland
4 Dark Confidant
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Bloodbraid Elf
Disruption
4 Thoughtseize
4 Punishing Fire
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Hymn to Tourach
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Sylvan Library
Lands
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Badlands
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Bayou
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Forest
1 Swamp
3 Wasteland
Currently Playing:
Burning Reanimator
Eldrazi and Taxes
Bug Threshold
Enchantress
Dead Guy Ale
Combo Zombies
Pyromancer Pox
Still, if I had the opponent at the mercy of a single creature, I'd rather have something that will actually close out the game like tombstalker or pack rat (3 turn clock) rather than a draw engine that's vulnerable to everything and brings down my life total... I am glad he's working out well for you though.
Peace
[EDIT]: Also toying with a red splash for Lightning Bolt, Blightning and Storm World. White has some interesting choices as well with Vindicate and Gerrard's Verdict.
Currently Playing:
Burning Reanimator
Eldrazi and Taxes
Bug Threshold
Enchantress
Dead Guy Ale
Combo Zombies
Pyromancer Pox
Green offers decay and loam/crime.
Red offers direct damage and blood moon.
White does have some decent removal but inferior to green. I guess there's also 1 playable win-con.
Blue doesn't give us anything compelling.
Currently Playing:
Burning Reanimator
Eldrazi and Taxes
Bug Threshold
Enchantress
Dead Guy Ale
Combo Zombies
Pyromancer Pox
1-2 copies of storm world would be OK... You can only have one in play.
Currently Playing:
Burning Reanimator
Eldrazi and Taxes
Bug Threshold
Enchantress
Dead Guy Ale
Combo Zombies
Pyromancer Pox
Up next is testing against a very orthodox legacy Burn deck I also have, with initial runs seeming to suggest Pox can deal with it pretty well.
How did you board against jund?
For Burn, I'll try the Spinning Darkness, and in the meantime I've put Trinisphere in my sideboard. Other ideas for life gain that I think would fit this version of Pox are the first part of Plunge into Darkness, and Crypt Incursion. They're not as cheap as Spinning, of course, but mid or late game, after Burn is out of gas, I think they'd make a topdecked Fireblast less, ah, impactful
Our own lilis are still good in this matchup as well. Tombstalker is solid if the opponent boards out Lili (which they should). Extirpate may be useful to get rid of punishing fire (since it kills ghast, kills factory, and works against the rack & SA), but it may be too narrow to bring in.
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying about dakmor. You're dredging it just to discard it?? That can't be right.
My recommendations for burn are in the primer. Plunge into darkness and crypt incursion are both bad in my opinion -- narrow and inefficient.
I disagree with 3sphere honestly. It doesn't answer any of our problems and it doesn't fit well with our tempo gameplan. I was dumb for mentioning it.
Peace
I went to a more competitive legacy tourney last night and went 1-2. First match was Storm, which I just wore down in the first game, lost, and then Extirpated Infernal Tutor on the third and won. Second match was Storm as well, in which I made a very bad mistake of Extirpating Brainstorm, I think my reasoning was I had some discard in my hand and I wanted him to quit hiding stuff from me. Cost me the second game, match loss.
Third match was a strange midrange deck with all sorts of stuff in it, most importantly of which was Young Pyromancer. For some reason I forgot to bring in Necroplasm and Massacre from my board, and lost the third game. I think I've been overfocusing on Pithing Needle and need to think more carefully about my boarding (and stop being so impulsive, haha).
ANT/TES will try to do one of two things against us:
Go for an early kill if possible, since we have no countermagic. Surgical extraction is our best defense against this. 1cmc discard obviously helps too.
Otherwise they will play out their artifact mana and try to setup a later past in flames or ad nauseum kill, with pif being more common. Null rod is great for stopping this plan, along with our other disruption. Yard hate should target infernal tutor or burning wish, or tendrils/pif if you are lucky enough to get one of those. You can cut a lili in addition to the creature removal; she's a bit slow plus they won't kill her so you don't want to draw multiples.
Young pyromancer is the main reason to run targeted removal like disfigure and spinning darkness. I'm not a big fan of necroplasm (too slow) but I think it is playable since it's decent against pyromancer and can be entombed... UWR pyromancer builds aren't very common so massacre isn't as useful for hitting pyromancer.
Peace
Apparently countermagic is something I'll need to learn to deal with. I would say going slower and planning ahead, but that's tough when there's two delvers whacking at me, or seeing the guy put three Mistborns in exile and then FOW'ing my followup discard. I'll keep working on it.
Sideboard went:
The Sadistics are considered suboptimal and jank, I realize, but I figured they would take care of Storm well enough, and help against Miracles if I could get them off.
It'd be a little crazy to expect to show up and crush everyone. The deck is reasonably good but can only push win percentages so high.
Deciding when and how to play around counterspells isn't easy, even when you know what to expect. Playing slower isn't always the thing to do; sometimes we need to bait out counters or just try to jam spells to wear them down.
I like the reports; keep 'em coming!
Delver is actually a good matchup for us (when they don't have treasure cruise) and I consider RUG to be the easiest one (if they're running the nimble mongoose version). Some tips:
Their best countermagic is actually spell pierce. FoW means they're hymning themselves for us. Daze can be nuisance, but you must realize that it comes with two significant drawbacks: 1. they fall behind in tempo 2. they have to bounce a land even though delver lists are typically low on real lands (i.e. not fetchlands). If they use daze too much, they might lose even more land to our discard in addition to whatever lands they lose when they have to sac lands.
Focus on killing their creatures. Delver lists are light on creatures, so if you kill those creatures, you'll never be threatened. Funeral charm is actually really useful if you expect a lot of delver.
Lightning Bolt is not just three damage. Bolt is an unexpected and unwanted surprise when you cast a pox, a way to remove liliana, and a way to end the game even when they're creatures are in the graveyard. Its okay to thoughtseize a bolt because you're doing more than saving on one life.
It's a mistake to assume that dark confidant and pox can't be in the same deck. Obviously its very suicide black and not recommended if bolt or storm are common. However, I've tested having both in the same list against u/w Miracles and D&T, where the pace of the game can be slower. Dark confidant is actually pretty good in those matchups if you discard their removal.
I also think killing bob with a pox effect is totally acceptable. Bob doesn't have to be on the board forever; drawing two or three cards and then sacing him when we're ahead on cards is a decent game plan against the two match-ups I mentioned. I saw some 8 rack lists in modern that ran Bob and smallpox and the pilots often used smallpox to sac Bob when they were in a strategic advantage, not just when their life total was low. We're in a different format obviously, but the lesson is still applicable: timing when to sac Bob to gain card/board advantage can be more valuable than keeping Bob on the board for as long as possible.
Running all swamps in your list helps against RUG because their stifles and wastelands are much less impactful.
However I believe the amount of value gained by factory and fetchlands outweighs the decrease in manabase stability. I know we disagree on this point.
RUG should still be a favorable matchup for my list, especially since it has not adopted dig through time.
I can't say much else about confidant. I cannot conceive a list non-inferior to another deck... maybe someone smarter than me can make one.
Peace
Oh, I was quite happy with the 2-2, considering that yes, I'm new with the deck, and new to Legacy in general. I've been playing Magic for a long time, but have never been good at the game itself. Poor decision making, impulsiveness, etc. On the other hand, I enjoy rogue decks and am reasonably good at deck tuning, curves, mana bases, etc. Getting to play a deck I truly like (like Rack Pox here) and win a few games in the meantime is awesome. I especially like that I occasionally whomp $3k+ piles of cardboard with my $600 pile of cardboard, makes me feel like a hobo who wandered into the yacht club and started socking people
That one was a rough couple of games. We did some for funs afterwards and I did get him 3 out of 4, so I'll just have to play more carefully when I face it in the future and mulligan more aggressively. Thanks!
A few years back I showed up at a local GP side event running pox. I think there were about 120 players for that event alone. I only had one liliana and no thoughtseize back then, and my entire deck was maybe $100 at most. At one point during the tournament, I was the only undefeated at 5-0. I finished that tournament at 6-2, only losing to one other person and dropping the final round cuz it was 1 am. I ended up getting sixth place and a box of Gatecrash.
During the tournament, I was constantly trash talking. Whenever I inquisitioned somebody, I told them their opening hand was more expensive than my deck. Maybe that tournament was a fluke, but I know the pleasure of beating more expensive decks with my budget build very well
Yeah no problem. I would take Dromar's advice to heart though: if the builds are different, that will impact the matchup. My deck might have advantages and disadvantages your build does not. For instance, I've made my deck wasteland and stifle proof, so RUG delver is far less effective against me than builds running factories or fetchlands.
Match 1 - Dredge
Game 1: He opened with putrid imp, lion's eye diamond, dumped his hand to the imp, flashback faithless looting with the diamond, dredge 12 from two grave-trolls, and passed. I drew my card and debated whether I should play a land. I conceded so he wouldn't know what my colors were. We were on to game 2 before the other players had even finished shuffling for their first games
SB: In 2 Extirpate, 2 surgical extraction, and 4 engineered plague.
Out 4 innocent blood 4 pox
Game 2: I went swamp go. He faithless looting two golgari thugs and passed the turn. I extirpate him and removed the two thugs in his grave and a third one in his hand. The rest of his hand were lands. He drew nothing, and I hit him with discard and then dropped shrieking affliction. He eventually discarded a stinkweed imp, but I had the surgical extraction for it. An e. plague on horror bought me enough time for affliction to carry the game.
Game 3: He went putrid imp and discarded a stinky. I removed it with surgical extraction, but he drew and discarded a grave-troll the following turn. I spent my next two turns laying down two shrieking affliction and two e. plagues naming horror and illusion. Of course, he flipped a few bridge from belows and suddenly I was racing zombies. Tombstalker bought me time for the afflictions to win me the game, but he was one turn away from reanimating an ashen rider. I won, but man is dredge nerve-wracking. Its been like six months, but even without the notes I still remember the match.
Match 2: Nic Fit (with Treasure Cruise)
Game 1: I get the godly hand with thoughtseize, double hymn, and pox. I thoughtseize a veteran explorer, knock out jace and tops with my hymns, and pox away a deathrite shaman. Tombstalker plays cleanup.
SB: In 3 Pithing Needle Out 3 Innocent Blood
Game 2: He goes first and thoughtseizes a smallpox. I inquisition a top and lay down Liliana. He abrupt decays my planeswalker. We trade spells for a couple of turns, but he has the TC to bounce back. I get beaten by random creatures.
Game 3: I lead with a shrieking affliction and he plays veteran explorer, then uses cabal therapy on his next turn to sac the explorer and remove my pox. I draw blank and he plays jace, the mind sculptor. I counter with pithing needle, but he draws pernicious deed off TC. My shrieking afflictions and needle are removed from play. I topdeck a Liliana and we begin racing planewalkers. Nether spirit buys me a turn, but he plays nihil spellbomb, stranding a tombstalker. I activate Liliana's ultimate while Jace is one trigger away from his ultimate. However, he manages to get another veteran explorer in play. I split his permanents into two piles: lands in one pile and jace/veteran explorer in the other. He takes the jace and explorer, and then activates jace. I'm left with no cards in my library except for a useless tombstalker.
Match 3: Merfolk (Regular build)
Game 1: He leads with vial, which frustrates my discard throughout the first game. He counters a hymn but can't stop a Liliana. Unfortunately, I can't protect her from mutavault beats. I trade removal with fish and tombstalker starts racing, but he's drawn one lord too many for me to win the race.
SB: In 4 Engineered Plague 3 Pithing Needle Out 4 Pox 3 Funeral Charm
Game 2: I smallpox a lord and then cast a plague. He counters the first one, but I follow up with a second. I counter each of his creatures with innocent blood or a pox effect and shrieking affliction seals the game.
Game 3: He counters a hymn and then plays nothing but lords. I die despite playing two plagues.
Match 4: Merfolk (Maindecks chalice and factories)
Game 1: I hit him with a hymn, which rips a creature and a fow. I walk liliana into a daze, and he begins applying pressure with manlands. Pox arrives too late to the party to deal with his growing army of fishfolk.
SB: In 4 Engineered Plague 3 Pithing Needle Out 4 Pox 3 Funeral Charm
Game 2: He plays chalice of the void for one, and then another chalice for two. Mutavaults and factories beat me down.
Conclusion: I ended up going 1-3, which is my worst record to date. I'm surprised I beat dredge, but it helps that I already had a game plan if I ever faced dredge and it worked. Nic Fit is honestly a bad matchup with veteran explorer, but I did a lot better than expected. If TC hadn't been legal back then, I think I could have pulled the victory. Losing both merfolk matches was disappointing, since I had gone undefeated against merfolk until SCG Oakland and I landed a double E. Plague in one game I had lost. The second merfolk running chalice of the void threw me off though, and it demonstrates a major weakness in our deck. I'm not looking forward to playing MUD.
He beat RUG Delver R1. I watched part of his 4th round vs MUD and he could very easily have won that match as well.