Smallpox

I never realized just how powerful Smallpox is.

If you’ve never read “The Demon in the Freezer” by Richard Preston (author of “The Hot Zone” and “Cobra Event”), you should; it’s awesome. Some strains of variola, the smallpox virus, are so contagious that they can escape even from quarantine tents to infect people. There’s no treatment for the disease itself, but it can be prevented by vaccination, and even vaccinated patients may contract a modified version of the disease.

My favorite part of the disease is the symptoms. I’ll quote for you from the Center for Disease Control’s website on smallpox because I’m not sure I could—or indeed would want to—make it sound any worse. This happens between 9 and 21 days after initial infection, depending on the length of the incubation periods.

A rash emerges first as small red spots on the tongue and in the mouth. These spots develop into sores that break open and spread large amounts of the virus into the mouth and throat. At this time, the person becomes most contagious.

Around the time the sores in the mouth break down, a rash appears on the skin, starting on the face and spreading to the arms and legs and then to the hands and feet. Usually the rash spreads to all parts of the body within 24 hours. As the rash appears, the fever usually falls and the person may start to feel better.

By the third day of the rash, the rash becomes raised bumps.

By the fourth day, the bumps fill with a thick, opaque fluid and often have a depression in the center that looks like a bellybutton. (This is a major distinguishing characteristic of smallpox.)

The bumps become pustules—sharply raised, usually round and firm to the touch as if there’s a small round object under the skin. People often say the bumps feel like BB pellets embedded in the skin.

The pustules begin to form a crust and then scab.

By the end of the second week after the rash appears, most of the sores have scabbed over.

The scabs begin to fall off leaving marks on the skin that eventually become pitted scars. Most scabs will have fallen off three weeks after the rash appears.

The person is contagious to others until all of the scabs have fallen off.

Neat, huh? I’m pretty sure the line they forgot between every paragraph in that is “If the patient survives...” My favorite part is when the pustules break open in your mouth and discharge a slurry of live virus into your mouth and throat. Plus, you get scarred for life!

Just so you know, smallpox was supposedly eradicated in humans in 1977 through vaccinations and careful quarantining (the last recorded case in the United States was in 1959). The CDC in Atlanta stored some virus and the Institute of Virus Preparations (Preparations?!) in Siberia stored some, which they may or may not have lost track of at the end of the Cold War. As such, since the terrorist attacks in 2001, the U.S. government has started preparing for the possibility of a genetically modified, “weaponized” version of smallpox being unleashed.

Unfortunately, vaccines we could make based on strains of variola we saved in the ‘70s would probably be ze goggles against any genetically altered version of the virus that would show up today.

Have a good night and a pleasant tomorrow.

Okay, okay, just because smallpox is horror-movie cool doesn’t mean I would devote an entire blog to it. My real topic for today is the pet deck I have in development, Black Stax.

There are some cards in Time Spiral that I think could be really, really good for the deck, namely Smallpox and Deathspore Thallid.

More so Smallpox.

Smallpox
BB
Sorcery
Each player loses 1 life, discards a card, sacrifices a land, and sacrifices a creature.

Doesn’t all of that fit exactly into Black Stax’s plan?

Discard? Check.
Killing creatures? Check.
Hitting their mana? Check.
Killing at a slower than reasonable pace? Oh yeah!

Seriously, though, for two mana? That’s pretty good. I’ll say it’s better than Hymn to Tourach because with all the Meandeck Gifts and PitchLong running around, there’s an inordinate number of Misdirections just itching to tag you back.

My friend Justin’s been doing most of the testing on Black Stax, and the biggest complaint he’s had is that it pretty much rolls over to any kind of aggro. Duress can’t touch Goblins, for example, and Braids’s effect is just a bit too slow for a fast start.

Smallpox could help with that because it gives the bonus of killing a creature—including things like Oathed up Angels and Tinkered up Colossi. For two mana! That’s even competitive with Diabolic Edict.

Plus, it’s pretty good as a second-turn play. Duress their best card on turn one, then take their worst card and their only land on turn two. Solid.

It’s effect is good enough to be at least a three-of in the deck, and it might make it to four of, just because it’s better early than late.

Deathspore Thallid is a card I was pretty much just throwing out there. It performed well enough for Jeff and me at the Time Spiral prerelease, but I have a feeling it will lack some of that luster in tournament-quality Vintage. It’s too fragile and slow to deal with aggro in any meaningful way. You need at least two out for it to do any significant good against other creatures, and at 1/1 for two, it’s underpowered in Vintage. If it were 2/1 or even 1/2 it might make the cut.

So probably not. You’re better off playing Drowned Rusalka, which can trade with 2/2s and kill Goblin Welders all day.

Anti-aggro in black just isn’t what it used to be. Without something that kills creatures without dying itself, I’m not sure if Black Stax will ever cut it against powerhouse Vintage creature decks like UW Fish and stupid Goblins.

Do you think No Mercy would be any good?

All right, maybe not No Mercy (though it could be worth a look).

The three creatures that are probably more worth a look—in my humble and undereducated opinion, at least—are Juzam Djinn, Black Knight, and the most evilest bunny, Kezzerdrix. These were the two creatures I came up with for the sideboard in UB Fish.

Juzam Djinn, besides being sassy as all get-out, can tangle with 90% of the creatures you’ll meet out of a creature-based Vintage deck. It kills anything in UW Fish and even bests Jotun Grunt in one-on-one (faster than he looks, uses elbows well, and keeps forcing the Grunt onto the dead-spots on the court). Plus, it avoids the new-fangled Threads of Disloyalty sideboard tech by costing more than three.

Black Knight, as I said earlier, fits more easily into the mana curve of a Vintage deck. Protection from white means it can block Jotun Grunt all dang day, and first strike means it can kill pretty much any other creature Fish tries to throw at it, not to mention Flametongue Kavu as long as the Knight’s not in play when the Kavu shows up.

Kezzerdrix is, at least, good for a laugh. No one will be expecting it in a million years. (Except for you all, of course, those with whom I share the secretest tech). Bunnyman is 4/4, which would trade with Grunt, except for the fact that Kezzerdrix also has first strike making him the victor. He dies to anything that kills Jotun Grunt, pretty much, but he passes the Threads of Disloyalty test. Plus, his drawback? Not really a drawback.

In the end, it’s probably best to just be bold and choose whether you’ll answer aggro with size or evasion and just pick Juzam or Black Knight. Kezzerdrix is for the wishy-washy.

Sigh. So many insane mono-black plays.

Anyway, I look forward to doing some testing on Black Stax at some point. I have such high hopes for the deck just because I know it can beat Gifts and Slaver with mana denial and discard and can beat combo almost exclusively on hand disruption. The only problem is that some decks really like their permanents, and permanents give this deck fits.