TheSwarmer

Yeah, though many of the decks seem like themed brews that have no hope of ever being optimized into anything competitive. In pauper this is a huge problem as A tier 4 deck costs 5-15$ less than a tier 1 deck.

Thanks for the +1! Running [[Bojuka Bog]], or any other land that enters tapped for that matter, would likely make the deck too slow. It's already a deck that spends its early turns rather passively, I don't think it's a good idea to add to that. Though many of the decks I see online run only 19 lands of which around 9 enter tapped, so maybe I'm wrong.

As for making cuts, neither [[Thought Scour]] nor [[Gurmag Angler]] are cards that you can run less than 4 of. [[Brainstorm]], Anlger, [[Accumulated Knowledge]], and [[Ghastly Demise]] all rely on Scour, and 4 threats is already a number low enough to where losing games due to milling one, getting 2 counterspelled or killed, and not finding the last one is a real danger.

You might be right about [[Forbidden Alchemy]]. The card used to be the main star of the show 2 or 3 years ago in decks like this as it provided card advantage via flashback, card selection for obvious reasons, and also fuel for delve an other gy interactions. These days it's possible the card is no longer any good. Though I'll have to wait for some pauper events to be held to test whether this is the case.

[[feed the swarm]] targets, the main draw of Libation is that it is great against boggles *and* against Tortured Existence, while also being useful against the new threat-heavy cascade midrange decks.

These days with [[Thriving Moor]] and [[Thriving Grove]] the cost of running [[Auramancer]] can be virtually 0. The main advantage of running the latter is a relatively common situation where you prepare for enchantment hate in advance by getting an Auramancer in your hand via TE in expectation of that very TE getting blown up. This is something you cannot do with Gift as it indeed cannot be brought back with TE.

This sounds quite niche buy it is frequently the reason you are able to win games 2 or 3 against midrange decks like Boros or Orzhov.

Furthermore, with [[Dead Weight]] and [[Seal of Primordium]] both being good SB options, Auramancer is simply good in a wider array of situations.

Thanks! I used to have a TE primer that I would simply link in the description each time, but as new viable commons kept coming out I could not keep up & update it so I dropped it.

Most of the silver bullets that comprise the toolbox were chosen such that they have multiple purposes;
[[Fume Spitter]] is a Delver-pooper, a [[Wickerbough Elder]] resetter, a combat complicator, etc. Liliana's Specter blocks Delvers & [[Mulldrifter]]s while also being helpful in grindy matchups, etc.

[[Battlefield Scrounger]] is similarly versatile: It helps fight against GY hate in long games, it prevents you from decking, and it closes the game in 4 swings on its own.

Oh yeah, [[Thoughtpicker Witch]] is extremely good in certain matchups, and once it's legal to do more in the UK than merely sit at a bench with at most one other person, I'll be sure to test for how much better or worse Lampad is. And for example, should I be greeted to a metagame of Tron, MBC and UB control, then it's bye bye Lampad immediately.

But from a purely theoretical standpoint (though hypothetically buttressed by hundreds of games with previous versions of the deck) I think Lampad will - on average - be more valuable.

Exam season is upon me so I'll get back to you once the amphetamines clear my system and my days consist of a wider range of activities than cooking and studying.

Hakoon decks have an extremely polarized matchup spread, which I am not a fan of, the 3 colors are also a turn-off for budget reasons. I have built many Hakoon versions in the past and all of them, no matter the colors, felt clunky. I'm waiting for more knights like [[Nameless Inversion]] until I try that again. And even then, I'd lose to Hakoon's dies trigger after stabilizing too often for comfort.

Relic, Claw, and Surgical were gone a few months after Matthew Dilks came up with his first BW eldrazi deck after Oath of the Gatewatch released, and we're talking 2 years here.
https://untapleagues.com/forgotten-pasts-eldrazi-winter/
No relics here after 2017 here... No relics needed when you go Mimic into Mimic into Smasher swing for 15. It is true that Living end became the answer of choice to the Eldrazi and that shuffled sideboards a bunch, but then again, that's later on and relegated to sideboards.

The 1 extra mana on [[Crackling Drake]] is *steep*. I fully second [[Become Immense]] tho, even as [[Nivmagus Elemental]] doesn't like it.

The former seems like a sideboard card. As for the latter, do you think it's better than Kiln Fiend? But damn, I so wish Storm Entity appeared in lists every now and then.

Man, enough with the prowler xD Bridge is a great card in 8rack where your primary win conditions do not rely on attacking, this deck however does want to attack, and in my mind the cost of running prowler is incredibly higher than the benefit it would provide to a BW samllpox deck with bridges.

1. It is horrible with spirit by being a creature, even now, running 2 Cling to Dust and 3 creatures, 1 of which can only enter the graveyard by being discarded, it happens a non-negligible amount of time that 2 creatures get stranded in the yard without a Cling in sight, adding more creatures to this is not a good idea.
3. Who would ever trade a card for 2 life against a slow deck? Hell, even against burn, you don't often see people valuing 2 life as highly as a card.
4. When facing ultra fast aggro there's 4 sideboard cards, chump blockers from Bitterblossom, Smallox and 11 other pieces of removal, and plenty of lifegain. Bridge is a great card, yes, but not in this deck.
5. When would I need to cling to dust so bad that exiling 1 card would be worth 4 mana and say discarding... 2? 3? If the deck is really graveyard focused (think dredge), then 1 card means very little, if it is [[Past in Flames]] that I am exiling, then on turn 2 I'd have known it's storm I'm playing and I'd have saved Cling. This point is entirely mute.

The other points are fair but not in line with what the deck is trying to do. Tell you what, have a crack at a Prowler Bridge BW pox deck, I'd be eager to see what that list would look like since I personally cannot imagine it working, certainly not working more consistently than this ; which is already more clunky and ergo less good than Orzhov Stoneforge.

There doesn't seem much use in dwelling on lists from Eldrazi Winter. Graveyard hate was at an all time low, resulting in slow graveyard-reliant decks with a decent matchup spread actually being playable and performing well. But it is the Eldrazi Winter no more, [[Faithless Looting]] is banned, and Modern Loam pox (if it can be argued to even so much as exist) now looks nothing like what it did back then.

The issue is that no one plays Loam Pox in modern, there's nothing to compare to. People used play a decent bit of 4 color Loam Pox before [[Faithless Looting]] got banned. But since [[Nether Spirit]] became legal in modern no one has really built, let alone placed with a deck like this. There is one similar list on TappedOut and there's also a few YouTube gameplay videos of similar decks but they are a lot more focused on [[Zombie Infestation]] or [[Knight of the Reliquary]].

I agree as far as Akuta is concerned, the haste and the ability to block are good yes, but the narrow range of scenarios in which I can see myself being happy to recur Akuta kills the idea pretty convincingly.

Never // Return came to mind because it can exile extra creatures should a Nether Spirit get stranded in the graveyard. And as for Rider, milling it over seems like a real possibility that could hinder Spirit unless Cling to Dust is being run. All in all, the idea of running multiple creatures a non-zero number of which are Nether Spirit seems like something that could be either vindicated or eviscerated by some mathematical analysis (at least to some degree). Something to look into in the future.

Thanks a lot for the input, I think you sold me on [[Bitterblossom]], especially seeing as how it is a threat that does not rely in any way on the graveyard and goes wide unlike the spirit.
What's your view on [[Akuta, Born of Ash]], and [[Never // Return]] ?

Hmm, edge can keep them at virtually 2 lands if I happen to draw algae, and cards that are 2 mana or less should be easy to deal with for the entire duration of the game, but I get your point, though if I were to replace edge I'd go for [[Ghost quarter]] however. Unless... isn't it the case that algae checks for state change? Does enchanting a tapped land really kill it outright?

I think an optimal version of this deck would run field of ruin at least as a one-of, but that would require more basics maindeck, which would require a more expensive manabase and likely fetch lands too.

Why? [[Tectonic edge]] is actual land destruction whereas [[Field of ruin]] is not, plus [[Spreading Algae]] makes edge substantially better than field.

Oh yeah, that's why [[Krosan Grip]] is the niche A/E removal of choice, though I may just be paranoid and it may be stupid to run it, hell, that may well have been the case since Twin got banned.

Oh hey, it's you, I found myself admiring your Pox lists a few years ago. I myself have played little Legacy Pox, only games I managed to get in with proxies in a very stale metagame 3 or so years ago. Though I am an 8-rack veteran, whatever that's worth xD.

[[Cling to dust]] was originally in here, as a 2 of in fact, specifically because I thought running 2x [[Nether Spirit]] would be best and because every aspect of the card is useful; the lifegain against the worst matchups, the cantrip in late-game stalemates, the possibility to disrupt Uro and [[Snapcaster Mage]] decks. I eventually cut it for planeswalkers and [[Worm Harvest]] as the deck is very low on win conditions.

My concern with [[bitterblossom]] is just how slow the deck is and just how susceptible to fast and direct damage strategies. But it may be something to look into. More generally, there are many directions in which one can go with threats in a build like this, what you are suggesting is an option I considered, especially [[Murderous Rider]], though figuring out how/if it is possible to keep playing [[Nether Spirit]] with riders in the deck seemed hellish and I don't currently have the time.

Damn, you're the first person I ever met to be on-board with the [[Spreading Algae]] plan. My concern is that the card does less than nothing when you do not have an [[Urborg, tomb of Yawgmoth]]. I've considered running [[traverse the ulvenwald]] to make the synergy more consistent in strangling manabases but it seemed too clunky and even more draw and matchup dependent. 4x [[Barren Moor]] might be too much, especially side by side with manlands that come in tapped, but I want to have a decent-sized data-set before I decide whether 4 Moors causes too many intolerable losses of tempo.

The more I draw sample hands the more I think you are right about the removal, I mean, Lilianas and Vraska are all removal, except they are rather slow and solely sorcery speed. I genuinely did not even know [[Nissa of Shadowed Boughs]] was a card xD Though running her would indeed require a large restructuring of the deck.

Lastly, as for [[Vraska, Golgari Queen]], I've no clue if she's good or not, I have some trepidations about running her but I am nonetheless eager to test her. Oh yeah, and splashes are impossible for me for budget reasons, otherwise all remaining colors would be something to look into and test and fetches would be present even in this 2 color list.

I guess I have a few questions about what you'd think would be the best approaches to refining this. If I were adamant about running [[Nether Spirit]] for reasons that may or may not have something to do with an unhealthy obsession with the card, what changes would it be best to make? And if I were willing to not run [[Nether Spirit]], what would you recommend then in way of changes?

While I agree that recursion should refer to Gravecrawlers and Recurring Nightmares, arguing that a change in nomenclature killed a mechanic is nothing short of asinine. If something is good, if it works, if it wins people will keep doing it, irrespective of whether it's called recursion, reshuffling, or if there is no agreed upon terminology.

Furthermore, would you say that both Dread's trigger and the use of Recurring Nightmare fall under recursion? Because that seems unhelpful, reshuffling seems to me the best word to refer to Dread-like triggers.

I mean, fair enough, but both [[Into the Story]] and [[Drown in the Loch]] got substantially worse after Theros came out.