haha you played 3 spells in the whole match.
I took the liberty of categorizing... hope you don't mind:
===== Aggro 6-8 =====
Death and Taxes: 1-3
Burn: 0-2
Bug Delver: 1-1
Napoleonic Delver: 1-1
Jund: 1-0
Goblins: 1-0
Burg Tempo: 1-0
Counterburn: 0-1
===== Control 6-5 =====
Miracles: 2-2
Nic Fit: 3-0
Jund Depths: 1-2
Lands: 0-1
===== Combo 5-10 =====
Elves: 1-2
Imperial Painter: 0-2
Sneak and Show: 0-2
Storm: 0-2
Oops! All Spells: 2-0
Dredge: 0-1
Reanimator: 1-0
Food Chain: 0-1
Cheeri0s: 1-0
As far as over-extending... that is very player-dependent. This decklist allows you to keep cards in your hand and has enough threats that you can hold back if you need to do so. This deck definitely rewards skillful play.
15-18 swamp
X lotus petal or possibly chrome mox
4 dark ritual
8-10 targets (minimum 3 sire of insanity)
X putrid imp
4 entomb
4 reanimate
4 exhume
4 animate dead
X thoughtseize
4 cabal therapy
4 gitaxian probe
Note that putrid imp can flashback therapy. You could try serum powder instead of probe if you want to test some options.
However, UBx reanimator is much more powerful; instead of underground sea you could try 2x darkslick shores and 2x watery grave.
Peace
Apologies for the delay. Life gets in the way of Magic.
Thoughts on your build/meta:
Rather than duress I would run funeral charm; it is a lot more versatile. It requires a bit more skill to use, so give it a chance if you are feeling up to it
Depending on the toughness of creatures in your meta I would consider testing out Disfigure in place of some number of innocent blood. Instant speed helps and it doesn't nuke our own creatures, which is relevant.
The rack's advantage over shrieking affliction is that it can deal damage to planeswalkers (Jace). If your meta doesn't have Jace, switch to affliction.
Lastly, think about picking up or borrowing some black fetch lands if you can. They help A LOT with SDT and bloodghast. Lili is obviously important too, but less so in this style of pox build.
...
I like the second deck you posted more than the first. You do seem to have a good grasp of the rack pox deck construction!
Main-deck cursed scroll is bad for several reasons off the top of my head:
I do not reliably empty my hand.
I do not reliably have 3 lands in play. They are in my hand (see the primer Section III).
It is a slow win-con in a deck that generally wants to win quickly rather than lock down. Be on the offensive!
We have a lot more spells to play than traditional prison builds, so we need the mana to play spells and activate factory/SDT rather than activate scroll.
Peace
As always, happy to answer any questions about the list.
As with any non-blue deck, the main issue is bad luck (or bad decisions). The list is pretty solid in my opinion and I've been moderately successful with it, winning about half my matches.... More than with other pox builds I've tried.
Peace
Nice, thanks for pointing that out. I've had more success with my aggressive tempo build than the more common control builds, but a good finish is still nice to see!
Flux and dark deal are not playable. I can explain further if needed.
Recoil could be OK in place of some of the other bounce spells in my list.
Peace
Thank you!
The list does have zombies and snapcaster to block a mongoose. RUG hasn't really been that common around me but if I had an infested meta I would probably add a couple innocent blood or smallpox. Or honestly just play pox at that point. TNN is worse since it becomes a race, but hopefully we can prevent thm from casting it..
Although I believe this deck may be compeitive I don't really have the time/desire to find the best mix because I have a lot of other decks I like. Despite that, I can try to help anyone interested in further development.
@RedKid43
If you like entomb and bloodghast, try out my list over on the walking dead thread in established.
Peace
I wouldn't run coffin purge. Surgical effects are way more powerful vs ANT and dredge (and pretty much everything else I can think of that we would bring in yard hate against). Removing ALL the copies and potentially taking cards out of their hands is generally more powerful than either removing two cards or being able to entomb it.
Peace
Your list looks reasonable enough, but I can share my opinion on a few things:
I'm not sure how I feel about the lack of chain of vapor or echoing truth.
Iona is generally for burn and various combo matchups including sneak show/omni-tell, reanimator, every storm deck, and painter (especially once they play the painter). She is also useful against pox, elves, and merfolk under most circumstances. Because of her strength against opposing combo, she should be somewhere in the 75. In my next event there's a good chance I'll be running her in the SB rather than main.
Elesh is auto-win against dredge combo and elves (assuming no progenitus in play). She is randomly good against merfolk, goblins, and affinity. I've also found her useful as a second creature in a lot of situations, sometimes just to close a game a turn sooner. Wiping the opponent's board is a useful tool to have in the box and empty the warrens is a thing. I wouldn't say she needs to be maindeck though.
I don't buy the "fast clock" argument for grave titan and I think the situations where you'd really want him are too narrow to justify the slot. If they swords it, 2-4 zombies will probably not win the game. I'm still open to ideas about why this is a good option.
Peace
Black is terrible at dealing with non-creature permanents, so if I were to run mono-black I would go for more speed:
15-18 swamp
X lotus petal or possibly chrome mox
4 dark ritual
8-10 targets (minimum 3 sire of insanity)
X putrid imp
4 entomb
4 reanimate
4 exhume
4 animate dead
X thoughtseize
4 cabal therapy
4 gitaxian probe
You could try serum powder instead of probe if you want since probe actually decreases the number of keepable hands. Note that putrid imp can flashback therapy.
Peace
Your creature win-cons are just as vulnerable to RIP post-board if they're inclined to bring it in and they are even more vulnerable to StP since bloodghast can chill in the graveyard and we can insta-kill it with something if we really need to save it. I'm guessing your percentage against D&T is comparable to mine since you also called the MU "Slightly Unfavorable to Unfavorable". D&T is a pretty easy MU to fix post-board with Dread of Night and Massacre or even maybe Darkblast.
My win percentage against BUG should speak for itself but bloodghast being blocked by goyf or removed by DRS isn't really something the deck cares too much about. Bloodghast is being discarded to a pox effect about 75% of the time, so anything we get out of it after that is just value.
I can understand wanting to run a rock-solid manabase with all black sources, but the work factory puts in outweighs the instability. My thorough testing has shown 20-21 black sources to be optimal in my list (which also has SDT and urborg to smooth things over). Learning to play around stifle, wasteland, and price of progress is just a part of Legacy for most decks. I've never had back to basics or blood moon brought in against this list.
peace
Post and Nic Fit are almost impossible to beat in a long game as their topdecks become more powerful.
I think you're missing out by not running factory and bloodghast. They help close games a lot faster before allowing the opponent a chance to recover. Factory blocking is relevant and both help a lot vs planeswalkers.
If the opponent brings in graveyard hate, well they took something else out and they're essentially dedicating resources to removing things we discarded. I'd call that value.
Peace