Legendless Legacy Pox V3

I will never give up on this archetype, even though it's been largely power-crept out of the format it will forever be the case that resolving a Smallpox or two completely alters the fabric of a game, sometimes in a fatally disruptive way.

That's really the whole point, your whole thing is making sure your opponent does not get to do their thing.

The main new thing is of course Bowmasters, which is self-justifying in most black decks capable of running it. Two maindeck bridges along with a Crucible increase the odds of stealing games, which is really what I think mono black pox has to focus on nowadays. The deck is bad when playing from behind and devoid of counter magic, yet still capable of establishing unbeatable locks and of explosively disruptive starts. The idea is to lean into this, essentially accepting that you will lose some games purely by virtue of going second.

It is also worth noting that Dark Ritual into Liliana becomes a weaker and weaker play with every passing year and requires good followups to get a hold on a game. Smallpox used to be that followup, and now so too are Bowmasters and Saga.

You use all your shit to destroy all their shit and hope to emerge out of these exchanges favored, on average this should work out. The main problem of this deck remains the fact that using all your resources to strip all your opponents resources leaves you at the mercy of the topdeck. Urza's Saga, Retrofitter Foundry, planeswalkers, and Castle Locthwain are here to help break the parity; when an opponent has nothing and you have one of these you pull ahead faster than they do. When you don't, you sometimes draw Dark Rituals and then you lose.

• Legacy
• Mono Black
• Control
• Attrition
• Pox
• Prison