{"id":1879,"date":"2013-11-19T09:15:06","date_gmt":"2013-11-19T14:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ajmtg.com\/?p=1879"},"modified":"2013-11-19T09:15:06","modified_gmt":"2013-11-19T14:15:06","slug":"cuber-dj-examining-the-pox-archetype","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ajmtg.com\/?p=1879","title":{"rendered":"Cuber DJ – Examining the Pox Archetype"},"content":{"rendered":"

There has recently been a lot of discussion about what to do to help Black become viable again in Cube drafts.<\/p>\n

While this was definitely not true when I first created my cube, Black has become the worst color to play in recent times. The rise of creatures has left black in the dust. Wizards has recently decided to give Black creatures with higher toughness than power, to differentiate it from Red.\u00a0 This isn’t going to do much to solve the problem.<\/p>\n

One of the more recent developments to attempt to fix the Black problem has been the advent of the Pox Archetype. It is broken down pretty well in this forum thread: Supporting Pox<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Pox<\/p>\n

The terrible art and paper quality of this Ice Age rare, notwithstanding, Pox can be a powerful card.<\/p>\n

It is also very confusing until you get used to it. The concept of 1\/3 is very unusual for MAGIC.<\/p>\n

I find that art quality has a disproportionate effect on card choice than it should have. For example, Mana Drain<\/a> is often picked later in my cube than I would normally expect. Wordier cards and cards with triple-colored, mana costs have the same issues. Pox suffers from all three.<\/p>\n

In addition, the Pox cube deck is riddled with otherwise 15th pick cards like Carnophage<\/a> and Sarcomancy<\/a>. This does make it easier to draft, but it puts you all-in on some otherwise lackluster cards.<\/p>\n

I played a cube draft over the weekend. I forced this archetype from my very first pick and drafted the following list:
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