A classic deck that everyone knows of but no one uses, Po...

[OutOfPhase]

A classic deck that everyone knows of but no one uses, Pox has remained in the far backround in Vintage Type 1 for quite some time now. With a meta game of Hulk, Stax, and Long.dec, I believe that now is Pox's time to flurish. I searched a number of web sights (including this one) for discusions involving Pox and only found a few topics. However, this decklist is generaly accepted to be prime*:

 Creatures  (2)
2 Nether Spirit

 Spells (28)
4 Pox
1 Balance
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Torach
4 Sinkhole
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Vindicate
1 Yawgmoth's Will
4 Dark Ritual
3 Innocent Blood

 Artifacts (9)
3 The Rack
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
3 Chimeric Idol

 Land (10)
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
4 Scrubland
1 Tainted Field
11 Swamp

*None of the topics I found had resolved the issue of what kill cards in what combination should be used.

It is well accepted that Balance is an awesome card in this deck and is worth splashing white for, especialy because splashing white means Vindicate gets to join the club.

The list above is quite good but it has no answer to Stax and Long.dec. Yes, Duress, Hymn to Torach, and Sinkhole make for massive disruption when combined with Pox, but the top decks can recover from a first turn Duress/Hymn without too much trouble. I played around with the list above for a while and noticed several things:

1) While wasting their hand and resorces I ran out of steam with them. This was a problem even if I had a Rack and a Nether Spirit out because they'd end up drawing a Draw-7 or some other threat and leave me with the top-decking blues.

2) The sideboarding options are quite limited. With a sideboard full of Dystopia, and Null Rods, I found that my hate was often less then sufficient in shutting down opposing threats. For example: against Stax, all Null Rod does is stop their mana artifacts and Memory Jar. While a first turn Rod is a blow to Stax, it doesn't stop Tangle Wire, Smokestack, or Sphere of Resistance from raining on my parade. And it does nothing to help me once artifacts are already in play (instead of in hand where they need artifact acceleration to make a timely apearance).

3) Dropping myself to low life (via Pox) was risky versus aggro decks. It's obvious why Sligh was a problem, but even more then that you can never tell when Stoopid Madness will go nuts and play a 6/6 flying haste wurm out of nothing. Against storm decks it meant they had to play significanly fewer spells to pull a fatal Tendrils of Agony. While the combo player lost a lot of cards and Yawgmoth's Bargain food (life), they had less work to do on me and so it balanced out for them in the end.

From these problems came a new decklist and a new second color: Blue.

 Spells (33)
4 Pox
4 Hymn to Torach
3 Duress **
1 Cabal Therapy **
4 Dark Ritual
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Recoil
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Time Walk

 Artifacts (8)
3 The Rack
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
2 Chimeric Idol

 Land (19)
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
4 Underground Sea
1 Tainted Isle
3 Underground River
3 Polluted Delta
1 Island
4 Swamp

 Sideboard (15)
4 Energy Flux
4 Chill
4 Arcane Laboratory
3 Phyrexian Negator

The most obvious thing about this version, asside from the fact that there's blue, is the lack of Sinkholes. Although Sinkhole is an extreamly disruptive card that was a unnanimous auto-in for this deck, I felt it was worth cutting in favor of Force of Will because of the first turn troubles this deck had as a B/W. Often, I'd Duress and/or Hymn them on turn one only to be met with some power, a Draw-7, and recovery on their part. Sinkhole sat idoly by while all this Tangle Wire and Time Twister action happened on the other side of the board. The next turn, it would proceed to destroy their land, of corse, but it was often too late for that. The game had already been seeled. And too many times has Sinkhole been Misdirected at my own land.

Another point in favor of blue is the Sideboard. With blue on my side I get access to all sorts of hosing cards for the sideboard. Energy Flux and Arcane Laboratoy are devestating to Stax and Storm decks, respectively, and Chill makes Pox's classic rival, Sligh, squirm. There are even more options available to blue, such as Hyrkles Recall and Blue Elemental Blast to name a few.

With new found card drawing power (Brainstorm, Ancestral Recall and Fact or Fiction) Pox can now run fewer kill cards and focus more on disruption like Force of Will and Recoil. Force of Will has saved my hide many a time, just by countering something on turn 1. It also adds a "stay down" aspect to the deck by making it harder for opponents to pull off a turn-the-game-around Draw-7.

** The combination of 3 Duress and 1 Cabal Therapy is my own personal touch to all my decks that normaly use 4 Duress and 0 Cabal therapy. It's advantage is in drawing doubles; drawing a Duress and a Cabal therapy is more productive then drawing 2 Duress's. It's only a very slight advantage, but that's the reason for it.

And now it's time to play devel's advocate with some points against blue:

1) Playing blue with Force of Will means more that a splash. It takes a number of cards to support the Force, and you have to be able to cast them, too. This hurts the mana base by making it more vulnerable to Wasteland, Blood Moon, and Back to Basics.

2) Using blue means there's no way to fit white into the mana base for Balance. This is the loss of a major card advantage generator and all around good card.

3) Without white Recoil gets the nod over Vindicate. Vindicate is just better, plain and simple (although sometimes they're the same thing when followed by a Pox).


Wether you believe B/w or B/U Pox is better, the Pox deck is very strong and should be something to watch out for in future tourniments (if I get my way).

[BurningIce]

I don't like B/U Pox.  Pox is meant to be all about disruption, yes, but it's mostly a Black deck, with the BBB and BB needed for it's spells.  If you dilute the deck with enough blue to make using Force of Wills possible, it just isn't a Pox deck anymore.  Also, I found Cursed Scrolls to be quite good in the deck when I played it, because my hand was always empty.  Pox doesn't generally top deck well and adding an Ancestral won't change that much.  Plus, I don't think your 5 win conditions in the Rack and Chimeric Idol are enough.

[Jacob Orlove]

4 cost spells aren't too great in pox, since if you have 4 lands, pox will kill 2 of them. I'd cut the FoF.

However, Deep Analysis may be worth it here, since you can pitch it to foce or pox, and it helps your topdecking problem.

I'd cut 4x Hymn, and go up to 4 each of Duress and Therapy--against most decks, you should know what to therapy for anyway, and hitting random cards can be dangerous (can you say Welder?). Plus, if you're still running into Mis-d's, hymn is risky.

Your kill does seem light. Cursed Scroll really is excellent in Pox. The Rack against Grafted Skullcap is awesome, however.

[OutOfPhase]

Except for the lone Island, all of the blue mana producing lands in the deck also produce black mana. This being the case, I don't think it would be any more difficult to cast BBB and BB spells. As for the added drawing; Ancestral Recall is not the only addition. You'll notice the 4 Brainstorms for example. Pulling a Brainstorm off the top will let one find buisiness cards, or much needed land, faster then top-decking alone. On the other hand, if Brainstorm was a disruption card (like Sinkhole) there would be no need to look for a new card.
 
Many people have suggested using Cursed Scroll in Pox as a kill/controll card but, just as many have spoken out against it. On the one hand, you have Cursed Scroll as an excelent permision and kill card for 1 mana that is always active because Pox keeps a small or non-existant hand size. On the other hand, paying 3 a turn to activate the Scroll and having to possibly cast a card in your hand to make it work is a little bit mana intensive. Sure, Sligh does it, but Sligh doesn't sacrifice 1/3 of its land at the given oppertunity.

When I first posted the Blue Pox deck I was right behind it, but now I'm starting to loose faith in it's disruptive abilities. Although not as disruptive as straight black (or straight black with Balance), I think the blue version has more staying power for late game and, more and better sideboard options. I also agree that the 5 kill cards I posted aren't going to cut it. What would you suggest I use and what to cut for it?

Running 4 Duress and 4 Cabal Therapy instead of 4 Duress and 4 Hymn to Torach seems counter-intuitive, but it might work very well. I'll have to try it out because there's so many pros and cons to consider that only testing will resolve the issue.

I had innitialy considered Deep Analysis, but couldn't decide how many to run. It could be set up so that the Analysis replaces Fact or Fiction alone or, a Brainstorm could be dropped for an additional Deep Analysis. Also, the life payment is something to consider; you don't want to die to your own Pox, after all.

One last quick thing: What do you think of Ankh of Mishra? It may be a good way to deal extra damage, even force them into more damage by killing lands with Strip Mine, Wasteland, and Pox (and Sinkhole, if it's being played).

[Vegeta2711]

W/O Balance the most brokenest card ever made for this deck, what's the point of even bothering to play Pox exactly?

[pox_Master]

Ankh of Mishra and Chalice are a must for this deck. Sphere of Resistance is like a mini-Nether Void that is excellent right after a Pox.

Balance is strong but it isn't worth Weakening the manabase for 1 card and a couple of seal of cleansinsgs and swords to Plowshares.

[BreathWeapon]

As much as I love Ankh in Pox vs a Control heavey metagame, you have to be willing to accept that you will scoop vs Workshop heavy environments. Ankh is also the MAD tech vs Dragon, and you should probably have 4 Chains of Mephistophelese and 4 Coughin Purge SB as well. The Dragon matchup isn't great, but it is a lot better than Workshop.

From my experience with the deck, you need atleast 7-9 win conditions. I'm a fan of Mishra's Factory myself.

Your comments on Sligh being a bother to this deck are just a little out dated. If you MD 4 Chalice of the Void, you should own Sligh.

I'd be really scared of running Deep Analysis in this deck, as loosing 3 Life is pretty huge in Pox. That said, its a cool idea ... and Ankh is arguably even more suicidal.

That said, the idea isn't awful. Ancestral and Timewalk definately help this deck out a bit, and Hurkyl's Recall is an answer to Workshop decks after SB. That said, I don't know if its worth weakening a great game vs Control with Ankh for a better shot in the dark vs Workshop. Pox is a metagame weapon, I imagine it could do well in NE ... but I wouldn't bank on it anywhere else.

Cabal Therapy>Hymn to Tourach IMO. Netherspirit gives you Flash Back food and selective discard is tech vs Dragon/Madness

[pox_Master]

I just recently found out that the new YMTC2 is completed. What amazes me with this card is how its so synergistic in Pox.

Just listing a few:
Crucible+Strip mine/Wasteland= No land for You.

Crucible+Zuran Orb= Pox's don't hurt me as much as I can recover both land and life.

Crucible+orb+Ankh= I can play a land and tap it for mana and then sac it. It completely gets around the drawback of Ankh at the price of not being able to increase your land count. Wait a minute this is Pox were talking about, we don't need access to huge amounts of Mana.

Crucible+Strip Mine + Sphere of resistance= Pretty soon they can't play anything.

Crucible+ Pox= I think you know what I'm getting at.

It seems that Crucible is synergistic enough that there is no excuse not to run it in a Pox deck. It increases its power overall and helps to shore up weaknesses. Crucible effectively lets you break the strict mana barrier Pox has always had where everything had to cost 3 or less.