Makes sense. I didn't notice you were running 4 Big Pox. Most Pox players I know have cut down on Big Pox copies, which means they are more willing to play > 3 lands and are more likely to have mana to spend. Not true with the full set. I haven't played with 4 Big Pox since I used to maindeck Crucible (pre-Liliana days), so I probably can't appreciate how tight on mana you are. Also, I don't play with Spinning and Charm, so my Pox decks lack spot removal without Scroll (only having edicts can be limiting). I'll have to try out 1-2 Spinning Darkness. Seems useful.
I see two good reasons to want to dump your hand: 4 Liliana and maindeck Ensnaring Bridge. Especially with fewer copies of Big Pox, you don't need to sandbag lands as aggressively, so you're encouraged to regularly dump your hand to make Smallpox/Liliana that much more assymetrical. If you're usually tight on mana and keeping cards in hand, story changes and I see why Scroll would be awkward.
Yeah, I rarely actually board in Ratchet Bombs either, but on the other hand it can be nice to have an out to a resolved artifact/enchantment. IMO its like grave hate slots. Sure, maybe no one is playing Dredge lately. But if you start skimping on those SB slots, you can bet you're going to get stomped by it soon.
@Cinfrix
I think Dark Ritual is deceptive -- it makes people feel powerful because the accelerated disruption kills a bunch of things very quickly. In reality though, the acceleration just provided you with card disadvantage, robbing part of the benefit of some of that disruption. Pox on the other hand causes mass amounts of disruption.
I've tested against ANT with and without rituals and my win percentage went down significantly by adding rituals. It's just not a great card for us.
As a general guideline in any pox deck (with 4x smallpox, 3-4 urborg, and 3-4 factories), you want a minimum of 15 black sources plus the number of big pox. One additional black source provides more stability, which is what I've done with my list. I very rarely need to dredge back a dakmor salvage for mana.
Tombstalker isn't bad, it just has a lot less synergy with our pox effects than bloodghast & nether spirit. I think I would want to change some of the removal if I were to add him.
I read your tournament report. The game against miracles you lost even though you had both ratchet bombs. Against affinity G1 you said it killed a mox opal and G2 it killed a creature. It just doesn't sound spectacular -- you also might kill the rack or liliana in the process.
@FTW1987
I'm not super tight on mana, but I just don't have enough to spare for scroll.
Land Drops
We operate on 1-3 lands, so it is generally wise to hold lands in your hand if you have 2 on the board. Holding these lands gives you options when deciding what to discard to Smallpox/Pox. Furthermore, extra lands in hand provide additional fuel for Raven's Crime OR additional land drops to return Bloodghast.
Keep in mind that if you play a 4th land, you will now have to sacrifice 2 lands to Pox.
I guess you could use my list -4 pox +1 liliana +3 ensnaring bridge. Maybe a couple rituals tossed in. Some matchups would get better, but many others would get worse. My current list is pretty decent against just about everything so I'm not sure I want to make any MUs worse. I feel pox is really ultra-powerful against everyone else with the possible exception of creature swarms.
This isn't the only deck I play (nor is it the only pox build I run). However I took it to the weekly Legacy tournament this week. I would hate to be a hypocrite maintaining a primer for a deck I don't use.
My first time with the retooled SB.
R1 BUG Delver
I felt the pain of Treasure Cruise. Lost both games and then a 3rd game for fun. I only boarded in the chains and 2 needles. maybe I should think about changing toxic deluge to drown in sorrow so I can board it in here.
G2 I got really close but I had poxed down to 1 land and didn't draw anything useful over a period of turns while his 1 DRS and lands whittled me down.
R2 Merfolk
I just stomped him in 2 games. Surprising since this hasn't been a great MU for me in the past. He played standstill at least twice but he had to trigger it every time since my factories and discarded bloodghasts were putting in work. Factory > Mutavault. One time, the standstill trigger drew me a spinning darkness, which I used immediately to kill the creature he played.
R3
I play swamp and pass. He plays mana confluence and faithless looting, The arch-nemesis! Aw crap I have ZERO graveyard hate in my 75. I scoop up my swamp in response and go to G2. I bring in plagues, bridge, deluge, and rituals. I decide against null rod even though it stops LED.
G2 I land an early bridge with the help of a ritual and successfully empty my hand while the racks whittle away.
G3 Plague on horror and a timely smallpox sacrificing nether spirit to exile multiple bridge from below gets me there eventually... on turn 5 of turns after the round time limit! Early scoop for the win!
R4 Burn
G1 I just don't find win-cons soon enough and don't have enough pox spells to keep him off mana. Lucky guy.
G2 was closer but I was a turn too slow. I was having a difficult time playing around Eidolon and getting in damage. Didn't see big pox at all in either game -- it's actually very good against burn.
So it was a strange day of losing good MUs and winning bad MUs.
The only think I dislike about Dark Ritual is that it only buys you a one time advantage, and actually makes their bad plays good. What I mean by that is that normally Force of Will is one of their worst cards against us, but with Dark Ritual, they can wait to see what we try to cast off of the Ritual and Force that. Usually them casting Force is like us getting a free Hymn to Tourach, so I don't mind it at all. But if our Turn one is "Ritual, Lili" and they Force the Lili, then that ended up being a really *****ty play.
Personally, I took the Dark Rituals out of my build and am running a small number of Mox Diamonds instead (currently 2, might go up to 3). I don't really need them for the colour fixing, but it's nice to have a source of mana acceleration that a) sticks around even if whatever it was accelerating gets countered, and b) doesn't count towards Pox counts for mana sources, further breaking Pox symetry in our favour. Mox Diamond is also a good discard outlet for things like Crucible of Worlds in the main, so if I discard lands I know I'll get a shot to recur them in the long run.
I'd be interested in hearing everyone else's thoughts re: Dark Ritual vs. Mox Diamond as acceleration sources.
To DR, or not to DR, depends on the mana curve of your deck. Attempting to keep that low result in a more efficient deck, but at the cost of not running cc3 spells. It's trade off: powerful spells and dead draws, or reduced lethality and better top decks.
The former is probably more control oriented since running DR inviges to run other cc3, or four, spells. Likenether void and 3sphere. Of course, this leaves less room for win conditions. A common problem.
Chrome mox is quite playable in monoB. This because your deck consist of about 2/3rds spells.
Wether mox or ritual is better is wrong question to ask: both are good if you play many expensive spells, otherwise not..
This isn't the only deck I play (nor is it the only pox build I run). However I took it to the weekly Legacy tournament this week. I would hate to be a hypocrite maintaining a primer for a deck I don't use.
My first time with the retooled SB.
R1 BUG Delver
I felt the pain of Treasure Cruise. Lost both games and then a 3rd game for fun. I only boarded in the chains and 2 needles. maybe I should think about changing toxic deluge to drown in sorrow so I can board it in here.
G2 I got really close but I had poxed down to 1 land and didn't draw anything useful over a period of turns while his 1 DRS and lands whittled me down.
R2 Merfolk
I just stomped him in 2 games. Surprising since this hasn't been a great MU for me in the past. He played standstill at least twice but he had to trigger it every time since my factories and discarded bloodghasts were putting in work. Factory > Mutavault. One time, the standstill trigger drew me a spinning darkness, which I used immediately to kill the creature he played.
R3
I play swamp and pass. He plays mana confluence and faithless looting, The arch-nemesis! Aw crap I have ZERO graveyard hate in my 75. I scoop up my swamp in response and go to G2. I bring in plagues, bridge, deluge, and rituals. I decide against null rod even though it stops LED.
G2 I land an early bridge with the help of a ritual and successfully empty my hand while the racks whittle away.
G3 Plague on horror and a timely smallpox sacrificing nether spirit to exile multiple bridge from below gets me there eventually... on turn 5 of turns after the round time limit! Early scoop for the win!
R4 Burn
G1 I just don't find win-cons soon enough and don't have enough pox spells to keep him off mana. Lucky guy.
G2 was closer but I was a turn too slow. I was having a difficult time playing around Eidolon and getting in damage. Didn't see big pox at all in either game -- it's actually very good against burn.
So it was a strange day of losing good MUs and winning bad MUs.
Nice report!
Thoughts:
-Toxic Deluge still works against BUG, just maybe not as good since you risk losing life for nothing
-R1 G2 is exactly why many players I know have cut down to 1-3 big Pox. big Pox is amazing against control (Landstill, where art thou?) and combo and prison and the old-school tempo decks. I find it bad against the new tempo decks, because they can run off so few lands and deal you damage so quickly that the land/lifeloss can make you just lose first. They're so efficient that the symmetry can hurt you even if you Pox optimally. This seems like one of those games.
-R2 sounds like a bad Merfolk player more than anything. You don't jam Standstill against a better manland deck than yourself unless you develop a winning board position. Funny that he didn't learn from his mistake and did it again.
-R4.. Lucky? Do you consider burn a favorable match? I always considered burn one of the worst matchups for the 4 Pox build. Unless you lock them on 0 lands they can just topdeck Bolts for days while you damage yourself. Their curve is even lower than ours, making symmetrical land destruction weaker. And Eidolon is brutal.
@FTW1987
In my opinion the risk of playing deluge against a deck with lots of permission is too large.
R1 G2 I never resolved a big pox -- just smallpox. My apologies if my words were confusing. Getting mana-screwed is something that can happen to any deck. The new TC is really brutal though; we need to run answers to it if this deck is to survive.
R2 He was an utterly terrible merfolk player, but I still think my deck had the upper hand. Since rack pox is rogue, many players will not know how to play well against it.
R4 Counting this double loss, my record against burn with this build is even (56%). Believe it or not, big pox is good in this MU. My losses here are quite possibly from never drawing it.
@maniard
Wasteland would be the preferred land destruction (LD) "spell" since it is free, mostly uncounterable, and helps recur bloodghast.
The bigger question is why not to run wasteland (or wasteland plus sinkhole). All I can say is that LD by itself doesn't do enough to help us win.
If you want to go more into the LD plan, take a look at playing prison pox (more control, less winning). You could get away with tossing in a few copies of wasteland into this build though; it's definitely good in certain situations.
...and welcome to the forum!
What are the reasons against using Sinkholes? They weren't mentioned in any of the sections.
Rack Pox doesn't want pure LD as that just discourages them from playing out their hand, which makes Racks worse. At least Smallpox also hits their hand too. As someone with more experience with Prison Pox than Rack Pox, I can add to this.
Pox used to run 4 Sinkhole always. Team America used to run Sinkhole. But as the format has sped up, Sinkhole got worse and worse. You don't see decks running Wastelock anymore either. (Crucible of Worlds/Life from the Loam+Wasteland). That used to be all over Legacy! The fact is, slow land destruction has gotten worse because by the time it is online opponent might have already flipped a Delver or Stoneforged a Batterskull or cast Show and Tell or otherwise comboed off. And there's Deathrite Shaman.
Also, most of the tier Legacy decks are just not that weak to a 2cc land destruction. They either don't need many lands to win (like RUG, UR Delver, Burn) or play DRS (BUG, Elves, Jund) or play Aether Vial (Death and Taxes, Merfolk) or are a combo deck with ample mana acceleration and protection (SneakShow, Reanimator, Storm) or don't play lands at all (Dredge). I guess you could grind out Miracles and Stoneblade decks. But if you're on the draw, a lot of decks have already done something dangerous by the time you get your turn 2 Sinkhole off.
Controllish versions of Pox often still want it. But it's not the auto-include it used to be. You would definitely max out on Smallpox and Wasteland before adding any Sinkholes. And often Sinkhole doesn't make the cut because there are so many other great options for Pox too. It depends. Some people still run 4.
Had anyone used bloodchief ascension? I'm thinking of replacing the rack since TC is out of control and I HATE losing delver MUs with pox. Obviously it will require building around and I'm thinking of adding red for bolt and pillar, possibly additional burn or cursed scrolls.
Bloodchief looks insane once active and doesn't care how many cards the opponent draws. Granted it doesn't do anything for a couple turns while we try to get in some damage.
Thoughts or ideas?
Alright, barring a change in testing, this is probably the list I'm bringing to SCG Oakland in two weeks. I'll play in the side events on Saturday; if I do alright, I'll go through the main event on Sunday.
I switched out Innocent Blood with Disfigure. Since the top decks are D&T, Elves, Burn, and all manner of Delver, Disfigure seems better than Innocent Blood. The deck will do worse against 'goyf and TNN, but better matchups against Thalia and Young Pyromancer are a must. I tested this build and it is stronger against the new U/R Delver builds than my previous one. I still don't have the crushing one-sided victories against delver I had pre-TC (seriously, I didn't even board any cards against them), but its definitely better than before.
Heh, totally forgot that thing exist. My only concern is that deathrite shaman might consume it before I can kill the elf.
Well, if I'm running a dredge card, what does everything think of extractor demon? I saw in the sideboard of that modern smallpox loam deck that made Top 8. Good points in its favor: its uncounterable from the graveyard, allows us to race faster, and opponents will be hesitant to expend removal on it since its going away after the turn is over anyway. Plus in rare cases it could even be hardcasted. Downsides are that its mainly one-shot use and its a bad topdeck/we don't want it in our hands. And it makes us even more reliant on the graveyard.
I like disfigure more than darkblast for your list (and I like the idea of it replacing IB). There are a lot of relevant x/2s around, especially DRS. Plus you already have funeral charm as spot removal for x/1s.
I'm mainly concerned you don't have enough win-cons.
Is 23 land really enough in the stock build? It seems like far too few, but perhaps there's something I'm missing. Is it just that Top does enough to make up for it?
I've played hundreds of games with the Modern version which runs 22-23 land and definitely can't support Pox effects, so I'm interested in what makes it work in Legacy.
There are a few difference I can see:
-we're not reliant on discarding lands to raven's crime.
-SDT helps a lot to find needed cards.
-dakmor salvage (can be entombed) recurs although I rarely need to dredge it for mana.
-the pox effects actually slow the game down enough to allow us time to draw more lands.
-we're also not as reliant on casting 3-drops (bridge) because we have cheap removal.
I see two good reasons to want to dump your hand: 4 Liliana and maindeck Ensnaring Bridge. Especially with fewer copies of Big Pox, you don't need to sandbag lands as aggressively, so you're encouraged to regularly dump your hand to make Smallpox/Liliana that much more assymetrical. If you're usually tight on mana and keeping cards in hand, story changes and I see why Scroll would be awkward.
Yeah, I rarely actually board in Ratchet Bombs either, but on the other hand it can be nice to have an out to a resolved artifact/enchantment. IMO its like grave hate slots. Sure, maybe no one is playing Dredge lately. But if you start skimping on those SB slots, you can bet you're going to get stomped by it soon.
I think Dark Ritual is deceptive -- it makes people feel powerful because the accelerated disruption kills a bunch of things very quickly. In reality though, the acceleration just provided you with card disadvantage, robbing part of the benefit of some of that disruption. Pox on the other hand causes mass amounts of disruption.
I've tested against ANT with and without rituals and my win percentage went down significantly by adding rituals. It's just not a great card for us.
As a general guideline in any pox deck (with 4x smallpox, 3-4 urborg, and 3-4 factories), you want a minimum of 15 black sources plus the number of big pox. One additional black source provides more stability, which is what I've done with my list. I very rarely need to dredge back a dakmor salvage for mana.
Tombstalker isn't bad, it just has a lot less synergy with our pox effects than bloodghast & nether spirit. I think I would want to change some of the removal if I were to add him.
I read your tournament report. The game against miracles you lost even though you had both ratchet bombs. Against affinity G1 you said it killed a mox opal and G2 it killed a creature. It just doesn't sound spectacular -- you also might kill the rack or liliana in the process.
@FTW1987
I'm not super tight on mana, but I just don't have enough to spare for scroll.
We operate on 1-3 lands, so it is generally wise to hold lands in your hand if you have 2 on the board. Holding these lands gives you options when deciding what to discard to Smallpox/Pox. Furthermore, extra lands in hand provide additional fuel for Raven's Crime OR additional land drops to return Bloodghast.
Keep in mind that if you play a 4th land, you will now have to sacrifice 2 lands to Pox.
My first time with the retooled SB.
R1 BUG Delver
I felt the pain of Treasure Cruise. Lost both games and then a 3rd game for fun. I only boarded in the chains and 2 needles. maybe I should think about changing toxic deluge to drown in sorrow so I can board it in here.
G2 I got really close but I had poxed down to 1 land and didn't draw anything useful over a period of turns while his 1 DRS and lands whittled me down.
R2 Merfolk
I just stomped him in 2 games. Surprising since this hasn't been a great MU for me in the past. He played standstill at least twice but he had to trigger it every time since my factories and discarded bloodghasts were putting in work. Factory > Mutavault. One time, the standstill trigger drew me a spinning darkness, which I used immediately to kill the creature he played.
R3
I play swamp and pass. He plays mana confluence and faithless looting, The arch-nemesis! Aw crap I have ZERO graveyard hate in my 75. I scoop up my swamp in response and go to G2. I bring in plagues, bridge, deluge, and rituals. I decide against null rod even though it stops LED.
G2 I land an early bridge with the help of a ritual and successfully empty my hand while the racks whittle away.
G3 Plague on horror and a timely smallpox sacrificing nether spirit to exile multiple bridge from below gets me there eventually... on turn 5 of turns after the round time limit! Early scoop for the win!
R4 Burn
G1 I just don't find win-cons soon enough and don't have enough pox spells to keep him off mana. Lucky guy.
G2 was closer but I was a turn too slow. I was having a difficult time playing around Eidolon and getting in damage. Didn't see big pox at all in either game -- it's actually very good against burn.
So it was a strange day of losing good MUs and winning bad MUs.
Personally, I took the Dark Rituals out of my build and am running a small number of Mox Diamonds instead (currently 2, might go up to 3). I don't really need them for the colour fixing, but it's nice to have a source of mana acceleration that a) sticks around even if whatever it was accelerating gets countered, and b) doesn't count towards Pox counts for mana sources, further breaking Pox symetry in our favour. Mox Diamond is also a good discard outlet for things like Crucible of Worlds in the main, so if I discard lands I know I'll get a shot to recur them in the long run.
I'd be interested in hearing everyone else's thoughts re: Dark Ritual vs. Mox Diamond as acceleration sources.
The former is probably more control oriented since running DR inviges to run other cc3, or four, spells. Likenether void and 3sphere. Of course, this leaves less room for win conditions. A common problem.
Wether mox or ritual is better is wrong question to ask: both are good if you play many expensive spells, otherwise not..
Nice report!
Thoughts:
-Toxic Deluge still works against BUG, just maybe not as good since you risk losing life for nothing
-R1 G2 is exactly why many players I know have cut down to 1-3 big Pox. big Pox is amazing against control (Landstill, where art thou?) and combo and prison and the old-school tempo decks. I find it bad against the new tempo decks, because they can run off so few lands and deal you damage so quickly that the land/lifeloss can make you just lose first. They're so efficient that the symmetry can hurt you even if you Pox optimally. This seems like one of those games.
-R2 sounds like a bad Merfolk player more than anything. You don't jam Standstill against a better manland deck than yourself unless you develop a winning board position. Funny that he didn't learn from his mistake and did it again.
-R4.. Lucky? Do you consider burn a favorable match? I always considered burn one of the worst matchups for the 4 Pox build. Unless you lock them on 0 lands they can just topdeck Bolts for days while you damage yourself. Their curve is even lower than ours, making symmetrical land destruction weaker. And Eidolon is brutal.
In my opinion the risk of playing deluge against a deck with lots of permission is too large.
R1 G2 I never resolved a big pox -- just smallpox. My apologies if my words were confusing. Getting mana-screwed is something that can happen to any deck. The new TC is really brutal though; we need to run answers to it if this deck is to survive.
R2 He was an utterly terrible merfolk player, but I still think my deck had the upper hand. Since rack pox is rogue, many players will not know how to play well against it.
R4 Counting this double loss, my record against burn with this build is even (56%). Believe it or not, big pox is good in this MU. My losses here are quite possibly from never drawing it.
@maniard
Wasteland would be the preferred land destruction (LD) "spell" since it is free, mostly uncounterable, and helps recur bloodghast.
The bigger question is why not to run wasteland (or wasteland plus sinkhole). All I can say is that LD by itself doesn't do enough to help us win.
If you want to go more into the LD plan, take a look at playing prison pox (more control, less winning). You could get away with tossing in a few copies of wasteland into this build though; it's definitely good in certain situations.
...and welcome to the forum!
peace
Rack Pox doesn't want pure LD as that just discourages them from playing out their hand, which makes Racks worse. At least Smallpox also hits their hand too. As someone with more experience with Prison Pox than Rack Pox, I can add to this.
Pox used to run 4 Sinkhole always. Team America used to run Sinkhole. But as the format has sped up, Sinkhole got worse and worse. You don't see decks running Wastelock anymore either. (Crucible of Worlds/Life from the Loam+Wasteland). That used to be all over Legacy! The fact is, slow land destruction has gotten worse because by the time it is online opponent might have already flipped a Delver or Stoneforged a Batterskull or cast Show and Tell or otherwise comboed off. And there's Deathrite Shaman.
Also, most of the tier Legacy decks are just not that weak to a 2cc land destruction. They either don't need many lands to win (like RUG, UR Delver, Burn) or play DRS (BUG, Elves, Jund) or play Aether Vial (Death and Taxes, Merfolk) or are a combo deck with ample mana acceleration and protection (SneakShow, Reanimator, Storm) or don't play lands at all (Dredge). I guess you could grind out Miracles and Stoneblade decks. But if you're on the draw, a lot of decks have already done something dangerous by the time you get your turn 2 Sinkhole off.
Controllish versions of Pox often still want it. But it's not the auto-include it used to be. You would definitely max out on Smallpox and Wasteland before adding any Sinkholes. And often Sinkhole doesn't make the cut because there are so many other great options for Pox too. It depends. Some people still run 4.
Bloodchief looks insane once active and doesn't care how many cards the opponent draws. Granted it doesn't do anything for a couple turns while we try to get in some damage.
Thoughts or ideas?
3 Bloodghast
1 Nether Spirit
4 Shrieking Affliction
4 Pox
3 Liliana of the Veil
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Funeral Charm
4 Disfigure
3 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Spinning Darkness
4 Engineered Plague
3 Pithing Needle
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Massacre
I switched out Innocent Blood with Disfigure. Since the top decks are D&T, Elves, Burn, and all manner of Delver, Disfigure seems better than Innocent Blood. The deck will do worse against 'goyf and TNN, but better matchups against Thalia and Young Pyromancer are a must. I tested this build and it is stronger against the new U/R Delver builds than my previous one. I still don't have the crushing one-sided victories against delver I had pre-TC (seriously, I didn't even board any cards against them), but its definitely better than before.
Any thoughts?
Heh, totally forgot that thing exist. My only concern is that deathrite shaman might consume it before I can kill the elf.
Well, if I'm running a dredge card, what does everything think of extractor demon? I saw in the sideboard of that modern smallpox loam deck that made Top 8. Good points in its favor: its uncounterable from the graveyard, allows us to race faster, and opponents will be hesitant to expend removal on it since its going away after the turn is over anyway. Plus in rare cases it could even be hardcasted. Downsides are that its mainly one-shot use and its a bad topdeck/we don't want it in our hands. And it makes us even more reliant on the graveyard.
I'm mainly concerned you don't have enough win-cons.
-we're not reliant on discarding lands to raven's crime.
-SDT helps a lot to find needed cards.
-dakmor salvage (can be entombed) recurs although I rarely need to dredge it for mana.
-the pox effects actually slow the game down enough to allow us time to draw more lands.
-we're also not as reliant on casting 3-drops (bridge) because we have cheap removal.
Peace