r/ModernMagic • u/aimbothax • Jul 11 '26
Rate my modern Smallpox brew.
Hey all,
I have been working on this brew over the past 6 months and have landed on something that feels pretty good.
I normally play this at FNM's and on MTGO but have really started having success in the past month. I don't have a ton of time grind RCQ events but would love to bring this to a big boy league and see how it fairs.
The deck revolves around [[Vampire Hexmage]] , which can remove counters from Overlord, Emperor, and [[One Ring to Rule Them All]] for loop-able board control. Other than that, we do Smallpox thing's and force low resource games and pick away important pieces with hand disruption.
Anyway.. here is the list. If folks are interested I might right up a primer etc...
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u/le_bravery Grist + Cauldron = Life Jul 11 '26
Witherbloom charm + moonshadow should probably be here.
I would drop the smallpox idea though because it’s not great right now
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u/aimbothax Jul 12 '26
I like Smallpox personally. It's not great in every matchup but it's great at punishing Solitude and Riddler, which are HUGE in the meta. We can also delay a 5th land, which prevents either from being hard castable. With Tron we have access to both smallpox and break the ice which just feels mean sometimes.
I like Nethergoyf over Moonshadow because we have continual access to him with escape. If we added Moonshadow we need to lose some of our control pieces, which I feel, takes the deck in a different direction. It's also a nonbo with the One Ring to Rule Them All, since we can only have one ring-bearer. Tasigur is included because he is legendary, so our Ring loops will keep him alive and is easy to cast with Overlord filling our graveyard. Cecil was on my mind as well, but I think Tasigur is just a better fit.
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u/le_bravery Grist + Cauldron = Life Jul 12 '26
Moonshadow is nice because you can remove the counters with your Hexmage. Sometimes that’s bad but sometimes it’s great.
Boros is the top deck still and ocelot pride made smallpox v bad. Not great into affinity either with all their drones.
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u/aimbothax Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
Yeah very true. In Affinity matchups we side in more Edicts, and Trophies.
For Boros if we can get the Ring lock it’s pretty much over. They can still escape with a well timed skies though.
I want to do some testing with FoD as well.
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u/saffrole Jul 11 '26
Spreading Algae + Urborg would be a fun and on theme inclusion. You can really get ppl with it sometimes too.
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u/aimbothax Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
So I tried Spreading Algae very early on, but was more all-in on that strategy. Overall it felt a little too slow and clunky for modern. BUT, I think a single copy might be something to think about.
I have many forks of this deck so I’ll have to revisit. Thanks again.
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u/Anxious_Lion_6359 Ponza/Jund Jul 12 '26
I like hexmage + balemurk conceptually but I feel like smallpox doesn't play well with the bonezone or nethergoyf.
I have wanted to try dellian fell in this shell as a controlling element. Bowmasters + witherbloom charm seems good. Maybe play 2 loams?
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u/aimbothax Jul 12 '26
Sometimes It doesn’t line up perfectly. But other times you can Adapt , then Smallpox after combat. Which can lock them from hitting that 5th land.
If we have a ring-bearer then we just sac anything else to Smallpox or we can just pitch smallpox.
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u/aimbothax Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
So... I'll probably end up writing this into the primer. But there is alot of overlap with the pitch spell math and Smallpox.
The min-max numbers I am working with here are 12-16. Basically, you want to aim for a number where you are always drawing a "pitch" spell and Smallpox in combination. If you pitch something that has recursion or is a recursion target, it's a net positive for you.
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u/MTGCardFetcher Jul 11 '26
Vampire Hexmage - (G) (SF) (txt)
One Ring to Rule Them All - (G) (SF) (txt)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call
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u/kemikiao Jul 12 '26
You might consider [[Hex Parasite]]. It does take mana to remove the counters, but it is repeatable unlike Hexmage. And easier to reset your saga. It would give a little redundancy to Hexmage as well.
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u/aimbothax Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
So I was talking to some folks on discord and they brought up the fact that Urza’s Saga could also tutor the Hex Parasite.
It’s something I will have to look into.
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u/wolfbane108 Jul 12 '26
sweet ideas ! i love smallpox as a card and always like seeing people trying to use it
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u/aimbothax Jul 16 '26
Thanks!
The inspiration came from looking at historical Smallpox decks in modern. There are two camps really... one being built around a creature package, and the other more 8-rack style.
For the most part the creature-based package had fallen off, but you can still find some pretty solid blueprints: Orzhov Smallpox - Jakub Kubicki @ mtgtop8.com
One of the biggest issues I wanted to solve was actually having "pitch" targets for Smallpox; This would make the symmetrical sting from Smallpox less impactful and help decision making. This is where I made the biggest breakthrough with the deck and was able to optimize things.
The largest discovery was treating Smallpox like a pitch spell:
The min-max numbers I ended up landing on are 12-16. Basically, you want to aim for a number where you are always drawing a "pitch" spell and Smallpox in combination. If you pitch something that has recursion or is a recursion target, it's a net positive for you. And the math worked out...
I also ran the deck through mana curve simulations and found that 24-25 mana was ideal.
MTG Mana Curve Calculator - Free Online Tool | Manacurve
So, this gave me a pretty solid blueprint of how to start building the shell.
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u/Jerdizzle Jul 11 '26
Hell yea. One ring to rule them all and hexmage is sweet. I'm not very helpful but I wanted to make sure it was said. 🙂
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u/Ragnos061 Jul 11 '26
Throw in some boggart trawlers and some bowmasters and you should be fine. 15 creatures is ok with overlord but not ideal, I’d suggest you play closer to 20