Winning at the Legacy Open Qualifier with Pox

Hey folks. My name is Patrick McElligott and I had the chance to play my favourite format last Sunday at the Wizards Tower Open Qualifier. I decided to bring a deck that I had been brewing for some time as I thought that it was ready for battle. Well, the deck performed great as I was undefeated throughout the day. I felt very comfortable with the deck since it had a good Miracles matchup and expected thy enemy to be in full force. I wanted to create a more aggressive version of Pox that can actually close out games. The brew developed over the past couple of years and has certainly come a long way.

Here is the list:

Aggro Pox

()

Main Deck: (60)

4 Bloodghast

1 Bloodstained Mire

2 Buried Alive

1 Cabal Therapy

4 Chalice of the Void

4 Dark Confidant

4 Dark Ritual

4 Hymn to Tourach

4 Liliana of the Veil

4 Mishra's Factory

1 Mutavault

4 Smallpox

10 Swamp

3 Thoughtseize

1 Toxic Deluge

4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

1 Verdant Catacombs

4 Wasteland

Sideboard: (15)

2 Collective Brutality

2 Dread of Night

1 Engineered Plague

1 Ensnaring Bridge

4 Leyline of the Void

1 Null Rod

2 Pithing Needle

1 The Abyss

1 Toxic Deluge

The list is certainly a spicy one. It is a new take on Pox that I think is quite successful in today’s Legacy.

The Swiss Tournament:

Round 1: Miracles (2-0)

Round 2: UW Stoneblade (2-1)

Round 3: 12Post (2-0)

Round 4: UW Stoneblade (2-0)

Round 5: Miracles (drew for top 8)

Top 8:

Quarterfinals: 12 Post (2-0)

Semifinals: Walking Ballista Brew (2-0)

Finals: Miracles (2-1)



I ended up facing Miracles multiple times as well as UW Stoneblade. Chalice of the Void was an absolute beating while followed by a Liliana of the Veil. I always love my games with UW Stoneblade as it is a grind fest with a lot of interaction.

The deck has decent threats that can quickly apply pressure to close out games. The Buried Alives were great to find my beloved Bloodghasts and to put my opponents in difficult positions. I was able to Buried Alive my Bloodghasts in the Finals after my opponent cast Terminus. 
The list has some powerful Black magic cards and they all came together to grind my opponents down.

These are the match-ups that were on my radar: Death and Taxes, Miracles, Sneak and Show, Delver, and BUG lists. I side-boarded accordingly with various tools that are common in Pox decks of old. I wanted to test Collective Brutality, as it acts as a catch-all that can be played with a Chalice of the Void on 1. Burn is a close matchup so Collective Brutality has been pretty stellar in testing.

Hope you like my aggro version of Pox.