If I could take this comment and inject it into my veins I would 😂😂😂 if you are a sinkhole degenerate then you know baby!!! Reason tangle wire has been my card forever haha
Round 1 game 2 "And my opponent tilts off into the stratosphere..." The reason I still play pox in paper right there. When the planets align and a well timed smallpox just dumpsters your opponents plan it is absolutely exquisite!
even before watching i love the story told by the chapter bars on this one... round one being no time at all but your deck pushing every other round to basically the same length
I love watching Pox. There are not many decks like that in whole Magic, it's special in itself. Yes it's hard to win with Pox, you need to think a lot and have patience. But the joy of victory (sometimes with psychological warfare) is absolutely awesome. Shame you do not play explorer/pioneer, I would love to see you play BR sac (cat-oven combo) but without knowing format a lot it's nearly impossible to play.
After I tried Phyrexian Totem in Pox, I never looked back... Pox is good at keeping the board clear, and a 5/5 Trample you can turn on for only 2B is pretty sweet IMHO. I run them with Erebos' Titan, some Animate Dead and some Pestilence, and my fantasy hand is a Dark Ritual into a Phyrexian Totem into an Inquisition or Innocent Blood, followed by a Phyrexian Arena turn 2 after a Mishra's Factory. Pox can be better than people think, but you need to include things like card draw and an efficient clock, especially because Pox rarely runs enough removal to deal with high creature count decks. I also like Bloodghast type decks, those seem decent in principle, and I love that you can run x4 Bloodghast and maybe x1 or x2 Buried Alive, especially in a Smallpox deck where you both run extra lands and can afford to discard the second Buried Alive. I really think you want an aggressive clock in Pox, it's an overly slow deck that isn't actually bad at gaining an early edge, and the problem is the deck gets overcome by the opponent drawing better cards over time. Sinkhold is a bad card turn 8 in almost every game, and Hymn to Tourach tends to go down sharply in value as the game goes long, Pox is ironic because it's supposed to be a fast deck, but people run it like it's a slow deck. You need fast clocks, be they Rotting Regisaurs or Erebos' Titans or Phyrexian Totems, and you also want card draw, but interestingly enough Phyrexian Arena comes out sooner than The One Ring, so if you play both on curve (turn 3 and 4) you're not much behind in many match ups, and Arena is still a lot cheaper (but is probably being driven up by Commander). The thing is though, Phyrexian Arena giving you 1 extra card is usually what you actually want, when you have lots of Innocent Bloods to hit and have a Totem out the opponent is probably in trouble!
I run Ensnaring Bridge in my Rack/Pox deck. It's a very, very good card in there, I support including it if you can expect a small hand size, that deck uses 5 discard Enchantments that sit out and shrink hands, once one is out and Bridge is out I can't be attacked meaningfully. That deck uses Bontu's Reckoning as a cheap wipe that works with my deck rarely needing mana to deal damage (when things are going well), but it's only got x1 of each main board, sometimes I prefer Reckoning, sometimes I prefer the Bridge. I think Rack decks are exactly where you want a card like Reckoning, it also has some synergies with Smallpox by costing only 3 mana, it's the perfect panic button vs 'go really wide' decks that otherwise roflstomp Pox.
As a long time Pox player, this is a very interesting comment with some very interesting take on that deck. Do you still playing Pox ? Maybe we can share some ideas.
23:30 Is there any consideration to not shrinking the Army? If they draw Bowmaster, they could attack Lili and cast it before damage to slow down her minus ability. But if they draw Borrower first, and you didn't shrink, they can just hit her that way, too.
At around 21:40, I think you missed the fact that Sheoldred's Edict could remove the Murktide Regent through the orc army. Of course, Orcish Bowmasters prevents that immediately afterwards, but at the time you had an out.
14:00 what was the reason not to use the boost from the 2nd land to make it a 4/4 and win the combat? Summoning sick, didn't consider it since usually it's a land
Man throw in some thorns just for the tickles haha. I can watch pox/stax all day everyday omg hahah. That first match hahha. Best feeling in magic… taking peoples souls
about not running bowmasters, big difference between engineered plague and plague engineer is the original is symmetrical. your creature has 2 toughness so it's safe if you choose human, but bowmasters would not be safe from orc.
In round 5, sideboarding after game 1 at around 1:27:00 or so, what was the reasoning for leaving out the Ensnaring Bridges? They stop both zombies and Marit Lage while you draw to removal and build up your own zombie swarm. Are they too easy for Lands to remove?
I kept that out rationalizing that I need every opportunity to end the game ASAP since I am NOT the beatdown in this matchup. They have inevitability over me.
It looks like you are really struggling vs m-u where they put tokens in play. Maybe having some orcish bowmaster somewhere in the 75 may be a good idea ?
I saw a Restore Balance league that relied on emptying your hand into artifact mana and either Beseech the Mirror or As Foretold to immediately balance your opponent to 0 lands and no hand. Might be an idea.
What a way to describe sinkhole. You're going to look me in the eye, acknowledge that at one point DINGUS EGG was banned because of the degeneracy of sinkhole, and say it's from a more civilized time? You're trying to sell me something here, Phil.
Round 4 game 1: I heavily disagree with down ticking Ashiok so aggressively. 1. They can't search their library while it's alive, natural order targets don't matter. 2. The odds of hitting all natural order targets are very slim just randomly milling 4. 3. You want to keep Ashiok as healthy as possible, since it staying alive is huge for you, and as you point out, bowmasters can hurt it. I see the idea to clear the yard for fiend artisan and reclaimer, that seems fine. But not every turn? I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on this, I could be wrong. But coming from playing amulet titan in modern, it's a common misplay to down tick Ashiok in that MU.
@@ThrabenUniversity I was just thinking that down ticking provides you no additional value, while weakening Ashiok to things like bowmasters or endurance. Even on the off chance of milling a Natural Order target, they couldn't have searched for it anyways. Care to provide more insight? Even to an empty board keeping Ashiok healthy means it stays alive longer means N/O and other searching never happens or happens much later into the game.
I'm newer to legacy and have been queing with this in the tournament practice lobby, but after I win a game, people just leave :( they can't take a lil' sinkhole
This list is almost "edgy" in a way, looks like fun! Also, while i almost never concede if i'm not dead on board, i can kind of understand first round opponent😂 They've had a long day, they wanted to relax playing magic and think :" my deck is not top tier but i have a good sideboard against the current meta, i have some tricks maindeck, i can do pretty good.." and then, out of the blue, Phil with a random smallpox deck! 😂
yeah thought the same, was kind of painful to watch... it doesn't matter if it had summoning sickness or not, the +1/+1 is an activated ability, it just can't attack.
Pox could be the worst deck in the format and I'd still rather watch that than delver. :) Also, playing pox without Urza's Saga just seems so suboptimal for me. Shadowspear to offset life gain and having bodies to deal with bowmaster tokens among other things just seems too good to pass.
![[DRIP] ‘CLIK CLAK’ PREVIEW](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/bcxkcOSbpac/mqdefault.jpg)
I love sinkhole so much. Very little says "I'm dedicated to you not having as much fun as me" as sinkhole.
Lantern of Insight is typing...
/Time Sifter enters the chat
If I could take this comment and inject it into my veins I would 😂😂😂 if you are a sinkhole degenerate then you know baby!!! Reason tangle wire has been my card forever haha
Round 1 game 2 "And my opponent tilts off into the stratosphere..."
The reason I still play pox in paper right there. When the planets align and a well timed smallpox just dumpsters your opponents plan it is absolutely exquisite!
Even if they didn't give straight up, they were tilted enough you know they're not going to open on chalice.
even before watching i love the story told by the chapter bars on this one... round one being no time at all but your deck pushing every other round to basically the same length
37 :16 jumping straight from "winter gloves" story to "my hand's now very slow" I was briefly worried about your hand, you know the cold one.
"And my opponent tilts off into the stratosphere."
Beautiful.
45:45 the odd use of surgical from the opponent was to get one more card in the graveyard to be able to play hogaak
Agreed. Thraben talks too much shit about his opponents. Wish he would quit being so snarky.
21:57 Amazing lol
Ultimating a poaneswalker so much is the testament of a good stall strategy
I feel like where the legacy metagame is, Ensnaring Bridge could be in the main.
That said, this list is sweet.
I'm only two and a half games in, but ensnaring bridge is holding up the midgame so well that seems like a very good idea.
@1:10:55 the reason your opponent attacked with 3 creatures to kill Lili is because Snuff Out is a commonly played legacy card.
and bowmasters
Winning on turn 18 with a Liliana the Last Hope emblem is Magic as Richard Garfield Intended ™️.
9:55 i love that they titled off like that. They had creatures and mana but couldn't handle the salt.
51:08 You could have just used the Ashiok as one of the cards exiled as a cost for the Cling.
I was thinking the same thing, even if it doesn't effect card quality of future draws, it is still making more efficient use of escape fuel.
I love watching Pox.
There are not many decks like that in whole Magic, it's special in itself.
Yes it's hard to win with Pox, you need to think a lot and have patience. But the joy of victory (sometimes with psychological warfare) is absolutely awesome.
Shame you do not play explorer/pioneer, I would love to see you play BR sac (cat-oven combo) but without knowing format a lot it's nearly impossible to play.
1:02:56 evil laughing Phil
1 hour and 44 minutes? This is going to be a proper Pox league.
After I tried Phyrexian Totem in Pox, I never looked back... Pox is good at keeping the board clear, and a 5/5 Trample you can turn on for only 2B is pretty sweet IMHO. I run them with Erebos' Titan, some Animate Dead and some Pestilence, and my fantasy hand is a Dark Ritual into a Phyrexian Totem into an Inquisition or Innocent Blood, followed by a Phyrexian Arena turn 2 after a Mishra's Factory. Pox can be better than people think, but you need to include things like card draw and an efficient clock, especially because Pox rarely runs enough removal to deal with high creature count decks. I also like Bloodghast type decks, those seem decent in principle, and I love that you can run x4 Bloodghast and maybe x1 or x2 Buried Alive, especially in a Smallpox deck where you both run extra lands and can afford to discard the second Buried Alive. I really think you want an aggressive clock in Pox, it's an overly slow deck that isn't actually bad at gaining an early edge, and the problem is the deck gets overcome by the opponent drawing better cards over time. Sinkhold is a bad card turn 8 in almost every game, and Hymn to Tourach tends to go down sharply in value as the game goes long, Pox is ironic because it's supposed to be a fast deck, but people run it like it's a slow deck. You need fast clocks, be they Rotting Regisaurs or Erebos' Titans or Phyrexian Totems, and you also want card draw, but interestingly enough Phyrexian Arena comes out sooner than The One Ring, so if you play both on curve (turn 3 and 4) you're not much behind in many match ups, and Arena is still a lot cheaper (but is probably being driven up by Commander). The thing is though, Phyrexian Arena giving you 1 extra card is usually what you actually want, when you have lots of Innocent Bloods to hit and have a Totem out the opponent is probably in trouble!
I run Ensnaring Bridge in my Rack/Pox deck. It's a very, very good card in there, I support including it if you can expect a small hand size, that deck uses 5 discard Enchantments that sit out and shrink hands, once one is out and Bridge is out I can't be attacked meaningfully. That deck uses Bontu's Reckoning as a cheap wipe that works with my deck rarely needing mana to deal damage (when things are going well), but it's only got x1 of each main board, sometimes I prefer Reckoning, sometimes I prefer the Bridge. I think Rack decks are exactly where you want a card like Reckoning, it also has some synergies with Smallpox by costing only 3 mana, it's the perfect panic button vs 'go really wide' decks that otherwise roflstomp Pox.
As a long time Pox player, this is a very interesting comment with some very interesting take on that deck.
Do you still playing Pox ? Maybe we can share some ideas.
Care to share a decklist? Have you seen how good Court of Ambition was for Bosh n Roll for the reasons stated? It's card draw + clock + discard...
Have you considered using surgical extraction? Would have been better against annoying reanimate decks
1:22:05 weird Phil laugh
23:30 Is there any consideration to not shrinking the Army? If they draw Bowmaster, they could attack Lili and cast it before damage to slow down her minus ability.
But if they draw Borrower first, and you didn't shrink, they can just hit her that way, too.
At around 21:40, I think you missed the fact that Sheoldred's Edict could remove the Murktide Regent through the orc army. Of course, Orcish Bowmasters prevents that immediately afterwards, but at the time you had an out.
9:48
If you look at the priority window and attention prompts you can see someone having a PTSD flashback in realtime
14:00 what was the reason not to use the boost from the 2nd land to make it a 4/4 and win the combat?
Summoning sick, didn't consider it since usually it's a land
Good call, I was wondering the same thing!
That match 2 was why I play mtg. I'm not really interested in having a lot of friends but it's fine... good stuff
Man throw in some thorns just for the tickles haha. I can watch pox/stax all day everyday omg hahah. That first match hahha. Best feeling in magic… taking peoples souls
about not running bowmasters, big difference between engineered plague and plague engineer is the original is symmetrical. your creature has 2 toughness so it's safe if you choose human, but bowmasters would not be safe from orc.
1:33:00 The classic Wooded Foothills Bayou
Awesome play, just missing some innocent blood.
In round 5, sideboarding after game 1 at around 1:27:00 or so, what was the reasoning for leaving out the Ensnaring Bridges? They stop both zombies and Marit Lage while you draw to removal and build up your own zombie swarm. Are they too easy for Lands to remove?
I kept that out rationalizing that I need every opportunity to end the game ASAP since I am NOT the beatdown in this matchup. They have inevitability over me.
It looks like you are really struggling vs m-u where they put tokens in play. Maybe having some orcish bowmaster somewhere in the 75 may be a good idea ?
Playing pox is like saying it’s not important for me to win, it’s important for you to lose. I’m here for that energy
51:46 why was castle medium? Isn't it an engine at this point and best value play except lili?
I saw a Restore Balance league that relied on emptying your hand into artifact mana and either Beseech the Mirror or As Foretold to immediately balance your opponent to 0 lands and no hand.
Might be an idea.
Small pox is always castable. I once used it to draw a game.
That must have crushed opp.
Stabilizing after a feed the swarm on a troll is most impressive
Before we start. What if those 4 combo pieces were just old daddy pox?
also im at 2nd round and every game so far has been hillarious :D 4d chess all around, and that bridge moment!
Mono red players conceding way too early is such a staple of every format lol
What a way to describe sinkhole. You're going to look me in the eye, acknowledge that at one point DINGUS EGG was banned because of the degeneracy of sinkhole, and say it's from a more civilized time? You're trying to sell me something here, Phil.
a 2 of sedgemoor witch+chain feels like it's leading to really clunky results, without having watched the video yet =/
Just started the video and its over an hour in a half so I know this is gonna be a grinddddd lol
3x Castle Locthwain main don't make too much sense imo, since they depend on you having a swamp out to be ETB untapped
i love love love pox!!! but only when its not being played against me lmao
Need a bigpox that kills planeswalkers
It's called Invoke Despair.
Round 4 game 1:
I heavily disagree with down ticking Ashiok so aggressively.
1. They can't search their library while it's alive, natural order targets don't matter.
2. The odds of hitting all natural order targets are very slim just randomly milling 4.
3. You want to keep Ashiok as healthy as possible, since it staying alive is huge for you, and as you point out, bowmasters can hurt it.
I see the idea to clear the yard for fiend artisan and reclaimer, that seems fine. But not every turn?
I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on this, I could be wrong. But coming from playing amulet titan in modern, it's a common misplay to down tick Ashiok in that MU.
Looks like round 2 you're more into this idea.
Uh, if memory serves, in game 1 the board was fully empty, while in the other game I either had less removal or there were already creatures on board.
@@ThrabenUniversity I was just thinking that down ticking provides you no additional value, while weakening Ashiok to things like bowmasters or endurance. Even on the off chance of milling a Natural Order target, they couldn't have searched for it anyways.
Care to provide more insight? Even to an empty board keeping Ashiok healthy means it stays alive longer means N/O and other searching never happens or happens much later into the game.
The ashiok kill was peak
That R1 moral damage to the opponent.
Thraben playing mbc Smallpox with Sinkhole? Sooo good ❤❤❤
I'm newer to legacy and have been queing with this in the tournament practice lobby, but after I win a game, people just leave :( they can't take a lil'
sinkhole
You might not like Castle and Cling, but this deck NEEDS them.
All that land and rituals with no card draw or selection would be trash.
This list is almost "edgy" in a way, looks like fun! Also, while i almost never concede if i'm not dead on board, i can kind of understand first round opponent😂 They've had a long day, they wanted to relax playing magic and think :" my deck is not top tier but i have a good sideboard against the current meta, i have some tricks maindeck, i can do pretty good.." and then, out of the blue, Phil with a random smallpox deck! 😂
Match 2 was so enjoyable.
57:45 you at four, 2 from castle, two bow master pings. 2+2=4, 4-4=0, 0=dead, 2 games to one=oppo wins match.
Seth playing 36 warth in standard and Phil playing pox in legacy it Christmas again
Call the Midwife: Phil Gallagher Edition
it's an ICE B I R T H boys
14:10 missed second factory activation to save the second mishras, it can target itself.
Summoning sickness.
08:10 just curious but isn't torpor orb an actively worse card than the rest vs blood moon stompy due to turning out fury's evoke?
Shutting off Sticker Goblins, Muxus, Initiative creatures, etc. vs these sorts of decks is incredibly important.
round 1 speedrun?
Could you like the discord for the pox server please?
discord.gg/ZSgnhkJe
In round 2 game 1 could you not have made the second Mishras a 4/4 with its own pump to survive the 3/3?
Summoning sickness.
nice games :)
couldn't you make the Mishra's Factory into a 4/4 with both tapping at 14:04 ?
Not sure but its probably summoning sick
The other was summoning sick
ah sure
yeah thought the same, was kind of painful to watch... it doesn't matter if it had summoning sickness or not, the +1/+1 is an activated ability, it just can't attack.
You should reread rules on summoning sickness. Once it is animated into a creature, it cannot tap to activate that ability ;)
Compromised
It’s pox time!!!!
im a simple guy
i see pox, i click
Nice
Pox could be the worst deck in the format and I'd still rather watch that than delver. :)
Also, playing pox without Urza's Saga just seems so suboptimal for me. Shadowspear to offset life gain and having bodies to deal with bowmaster tokens among other things just seems too good to pass.
round 3 game 2 you drew 9 lands in a row
Wait... This isn't Brian! Who are you and why are you playing Pox?!
I mean, I'd argue that I'm probably better known than Brian for Pox at this point XD
@@ThrabenUniversityYou only need two games with a Bosh deck and then you'll be more BoshNRoll than Brian too.
Game5 killing all lands of a lands player feels sick.
Is this a "Pox Deck" or is this a "Top Deck Bridge or Removal Deck"? Kappa
Maybe Game 1 Opponent wasn’t having a good day and you just ruined it for good. Hope he is doing better now…
SECOND
nice ads
having your lands blown up is very much not fun
Thanks so much for playing this list. It's truly inspiring. It's great to see what else Mono Black can to these days besides scam.
This was black magic at it's best!
It’s sad that actual factual pox isn’t good to my knowledge. Is it good in any format?