For DS, you need an early Blood Moon, ideally. I'd like to test Magus of the Moon against them tbh. Anyway, you need to keep them off black mana as much as possible. Trinisphere is also great to tax their discard and cantrips. I would also bring in Relic to reduce their delve capacity.
Likewise for living end, Relics on Relics. Not sure how many of their creatures Anger hits. I have limited experience in this matchup. You'll probably want to target their Red mana as it's necessary to cast Violent Outburst and Demonic Dread. Blood Moon can work if you have the resources to take out their basic Forests and Swamps. I'd probably bring in more creatures to run some defense.
Hitting their red isn't the way to go as they run Simian, a lot of red sources and we also run BM. Taking away green or black is what you go for early on. This can difficult because they have 2 different spells to cascade with. Trinisphere is good to board in as it makes living end require 6 mana to cast from cascade. Relics are an obvious choice. Anger is not as great here as most of their creatures have 4 toughness. Primal command to shuffle their grave is also good. I like finks in the matchup as it applies early pressure and comes back from a living end to at least block and gain some life. I've even had games where I beast within or bolt my own creatures in response to a living end. This is particularly great when you beast within your own titan.
My primary deck for the last few years was Living end.
-First off about half of all Living End decks run Blood Moon.
-Trinisphere is really good against them if you can also apply the LD pressure to keep them off 6 mana.
-Relic is good, but not alone, every Living end player is used to dumping 3 creatures, cascading, then having their graveyard exiled at the end of your turn only to do it again during their turn.
-Remember they only have 2-3 Living End so if you blank the first one and they have a rushed second one they may or may not have any more combo steam.
-Never double up your Utopia Sprawl, they run 2-4 Beast Within. (and 4 Fulminator Mage but you shouldn't have sprawl on a non-basic ever anyway)
-They are really good at drawing lands since they cycle so much, so know when to skip a turn and go towards the beatdown plan. Especially if you run the low curve version since their creatures will be = size or bigger.
-Anger might hit at most 3 creatures in their entire deck IF they run Architects of Will.
Death's Shadow.
-Runs 6 non-fetchlands, just fyi.*
-Can't play through Blood Moon at all.
-Keeping a hand without threats is ideal since you need to double down on your early game against their IOQs and Thoughseize.
-Leyline of Sanctity would probably lock the game in our favor if we ever wanted to spend 4 board spots. Our game plan does beat theirs unless they rip it apart too much.
-Thrun is a BEAST in this Matchup.
-Trinisphere can often pull the same amount of work as Blood Moon here.
*edit- I just checked 10 of the last MTGtop8 decks.
5 Lands: 1 Deck
6 Lands: 7 Decks
7 Lands: 1 Deck
8 Lands: 1 Deck
Hello fellow Ponza players. I've been building/playing Ponza for 2-3 years now and developed my unique build: Moonless Ponza.
The main focus of my variant is not a red-mana lock via Blood Moon like a tradtional Ponza deck, but is focused rather on chained land destruction to deny an opponent as many resources as possible. Moonless Ponza is unorthodox mainly in that it does not use 4 Blood Moon or any copies of Bonfire of the Damned. The reasoning is that Blood Moon is much easier to play around with cards that are extremely common in Modern, making it less consistent as a central strategy than chained land destruction.
In short, an opponent with no lands is better than an opponent with "mountains" and basic lands. If you'd like more detail, I've written an exhaustive guide where I go into more detail about card choices, theory, and even run a simulation which draws/mulligans 1,000,000 hands to find the probability of good starting hands.
Also, if there is interest, I have a spreadsheet which lists the results of 300+ matches and a tournament write-up that I posted on Reddit a month or so ago.
FNM tonight. Hazoret is gas. Card was phenom. was 3-1, lost to Fish. Fish was on play for g1 and just did was merfolk do. G2 I took with a turn 2 chandra then turn 3 titan. G3 was horrible. Stuck on 2 lands 2 sprawl. 1 sprawl fell off because of a spreading seas. and I couldnt find any help. drew every stormbreath and titan in the deck but no bonfire or angers or even beast within to save my life....literally.
I've tested Moonless Ponza before. While it can work, it feels like you need to apply more pressure than when running Moon, ie less breathing room.
As for the "no Bonfire" thing, I've been against Bonfire since I first sleaved up Ponza. I really don't like how we can't control when to Miracle it (the only time it's good) nor how much mana you need to pump into it when it's in your hand. I prefer Mizzium Mortars both because of having more control over what I can do with the card and because of its interaction with Goblin Dark-Dwellers.
I've noticed a lot of you like Hazoret the Fervent. When I tested it, I didn't like it. Is it maybe because of how differently I pilot the deck? I don't often go below 2 cards in hand with holding onto Mortars, Goblins, and / or Beast Within to use on stuff my creatures can't muscle through. No use in Overloading Mortars if Titan is keeping the board clean, and other cases like that.
Sideboard:
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Magus of the Moon
3 Anger of the Gods
3 Stone Rain
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Fracturing Gust
1 Trinisphere
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Chameleon Colossus
Round 1: Elves
Game 1: On the draw I open with Utopia Sprawl into turn 2 Blood Moon. Turns out elves doesn't really care about Blood Moon, lol. I get enough to cast Bonfire for 2 in an attempt to board wipe him only for him to Chord in response and drop a second Elvish Archdruid to save his elves and crack back for lethal.
Game 2: I keep a six-card hand with arbor elf, bolt, Kitchen finks, Inferno titan, and three land. Never see a board wipe and he Stampedes for 15.
Match: 0-2
Record: 0-1
Losing the first round always sucks, but for some reason it's also when I seem to play my best in knowing that if I don't win out my tie-breakers won't be good enough to attempt to squeak in to top 8.
Round 2: Jund – Tradional
Game 1: Opponent Thoughtseizes a potential turn 2 Blood Moon, Drops Goyf into Liliana, and proceeds to win.
Game 2: Opponent keeps a two land G/R resource hand with double Goyf. I go Elf, then Utopia Sprawl + Chameleon Colossus. A few beats later I run out an Inferno Titan and proceed to close the game with my opponent stuck on 2 stomping ground and a raging ravine.
Game 3: We go back and forth a lot trading resources before I land a Blood Moon, but by that time he has the two basics that he needed. I drop Hazoret and then Chameleon Colossus and continue beats and pitching my cards for shock damage until I finish out the game.
Record: 1-1
Have I ever told you about our lord and savior, Hazoret? <_<
Round 3: Mardu Nahiri
Game 1: Opponent keeps a two lander with removal and a thought seize. He pitches my Blood Moon on turn one. My following turns consist of t1 Birds of Paradise, T2 Kitchen Finks, T3 Chameleon Colossus, t4 Garruk, Primal Hunter. He never comes off of 2 land through the whole game.
Game 2: Opponent keeps a six-card hand with Inquisition, bolt, and other stuff. He pitches my Blood Moon, bolts my dork, and then has no answer for Magus of the Moon. His manabase at the end of the game consisted of basic Mountain, Godless Shrine, and Blood Crypt. Garruk & Stormbreath close out the game in short order.
It wasn't clear until after the games that he was on the Nahiri combo, but ultimately didn't matter either.
Match: 2-0
Record: 2-1
Round 4: Grixis Death's Shadow
At this point I know I just need to win and I should be able to draw into top 8. Pressure is on and I love it!
Game 1: Holy ***** this game was super close. Kitchen finks is a pimp in the matchup. After he t1 thoughtseizes the Chameleon Colosuss, we spend a good amount of time trying to progress our board states and kitchen finks bought me enough time to get to the final turns of the game. Opponent was at 4 life with Gurmag, Death's Shadow, and Tasigur on the board. I'm at 8 with arbor elf and a shrunk kitchen finks. I top deck a Primal Command and cast it. Modes chosen were gain 7 life targeting myself and go get a creature from my library. After a few seconds, I realize he's dead in air and I reveal a stormbreath dragon as my target. After seeing he had a total of 4 discard effects in exile I was hopeful he wouldn't rip a thoughtseize to take it. Pass to his turn, he attacks and I fall to 10, activates tasigur with no mana left and mills over Kolaghan's command and Serum visions. I give him Kcommand and he plays a tapped land, knowing he is dead. He passes to my turn and proceeds to die to good ol' Stormy.
Game 2: This game was SUPER awkard. I keep a 7 card hand on the draw that contains the following: Wooded Foothills, Blood Moon, Blood Moon, Arbor Elf, Utopia Sprawl, Chameleon Colossus, Grafdigger's cage. He thoughtseizes t1 and takes the Utopia sprawl. I top deck a sprawl and proceed to jam it in hopes of a second land off the top next turn. He does his cycle, serum vision thing and passes. I brick on a land draw and play Arbor Elf & Grafdigger's cage. Basically, he plays Engineered Explosives on 1 to eventually blow up Sprawl, Arbor Elf, Cage, and his own death's shadow. Then I never draw another land in the game as he drops double death's shadow into gurmag and eventually gets through.
Game 3: I don't remember the first bits of the game because the ending stuck out the most. I end up with a Courser of Kruphix in the midgame that reveals a Hazoret on top and a groan from my opponent. He kills courser and I drop Hazoret with 2 cards in hand. He gets one free swing to take me down from 17 to 9 Gurmag and Tasigur. I untap, drop a Thrun, the Last Troll. From there I shock him down from 12 to 4, and force him to chump off both of his creatures and he eventually gets a second death's shadow on the field to stop my attacks. What forced the chump blocks were the fact that I had Kessig Wolf Run on the field to give Hazoret plenty of trample damage. Last turn of mine of the game he's at 4 life and I drop an Inferno Titan and burn him down to 1 life. He untaps, draws his card, and extends the hand.
Maindeck Chameleon Colossus and Hazoret will win you games that are otherwise unwinnable boys and girls.
Match: 2-1
Record: 3-1
At this point I'm confident that I can draw into top 8... that is until they post the standings. I'm at 6th place, OMW% is 47.83 and the person in 8th place has a draw and his table (table 4) is going to play. Table 2 opts to play, Table 1 ID's, and we end up opting to play the round to play it safe.
Round 5: BW Smallpox.
I don't remember a ton about these games except he only got to play Smallpox once and between Stormbreath and Hazoret I closed out both games in quick order.
Match: 2-0
Record: 4-1
What made me feel better about having to play an old mtg friend of mine is that after the round, he still made into top 8 at 8th place with excellent tie-breakers.
Quarterfinals: 4-Color Death's shadow / Grixis Death's Shadow splashing white
I'm the 4th seed playing the 5th seed so I get to be on the play.
Game 1: I have a typically great Ponza hand with sprawl, blood Moon, etc. Turns out, GDS's god hands are better. I play land + sprawl t1 then opponent cycles a bunch and plays a land and discards a blood moon. My t2 play a finks, then my t3 drop a Chameleon colossus. Surprise! My opponent ran a 4th color for Path to Exile and Lingering Souls and puts away the Chameleon colossus and eventually the game.
Game 2: Long-winded game. I ended up dropping a Blood Moon in the midgame to lock him out of everything but black with his one basic swamp. Beast Within takes care of Tasigur and Gurmag Anglers. Grafdigger's Cage ends up screwing me royally as I kept in Kitchen Finks and wasn't able to recur the creature, or gain the life, after trading with a beast token. At the end of the game I only needed one more turn to get Chandra, Torch of Defiance to kill the beast token and then rip Inferno titan to close things out.
Overall, a great day. The tournament organizer complimented me by saying how almost every single player in the top 8 was lamenting the possibility of playing against me and my deck. At the end of the day, the elves player that beat me in one round ended up taking the whole thing, which made me feel a little better about losing to him.
Some notes about the current list:
Main deck:
Maindeck should not be touched.
Main deck Kitchen finks is value for days, Chameleon Colossus is great even without the protection from black being relevent.
Hazoret the Fervent is -THE TRUTH-. Those of you that have doubt in running him need to go back, take a second look and playtest further. Indestructibility is an ability that gives a realistic advantage in Modern. He “dies” to Path to Exile and Dismember and that's about it. Being able to Beast Within Hazoret and surprise block what an opponent thinks is lethal feels fantastic. Whittling away at the opponents health in a clogged board state, and know they're holding up counter magic, feels great. Hazoret should just be an auto-include in this archtype and I feel strong about this belief.
After a ton of testing I'm certain that if you run Courser of Kruphix, you should only run one because multiples do next to nothing except guarantee that you can lay lands off the top potentially.
Bonfire of the Damned: I've been off of 4 copies for a long time, but I keep churning between 2 or 3 copies maindeck. This card doesn't feel like a sideboard card. And right now I'm of the viewpoint that 3 Bonfires enables you to find it when you need it more often and 2 copies isn't enough to warrant the card being in at all.
Garruk, Primal Hunter was good enough for the single copy. I won't go up but I also won't be cutting him. Being able to drop him and -3 to draw 3-6 cards immediately is great.
6th mana dork vs 22nd land. I've never been a fan of 21 lands in Ponza. Kessig Wolf Run continues to be a favorable factor in game play and I'll continue to run this utility land.
Sideboard: Magus of the Moon as a 5th Blood Moon affect that provides some pressure is fantastic, especially when the opponent has enchantment removal / counter magic in hand. Althought I don't want a second Magus of the Moon.
Thrun, the Last Troll – Never leave home without him. Our deck is meant to limit the interactivity of our opponent, don't forget this.
Grafdigger's Cage – I tossed this card in the night before as a hedge against the Vizier / Druid combo decks and other Coco decks like elves. And this card would be fine if it weren't for Kitchen Finks. That said, if you're maindecking Kitchen Finks, don't run this damn card – seriously. I'm removing cage and putting in the second relic back in.
Cards that never got sideboarded in during the tournament: Ancient Grudge & Fracturing Gust. Never seen Affinity, Lantern Control, or Bogles although 2 of the 3 were there. Still probably won't remove them.
Overall:
Deck is still great and strongly positioned in the right competitive meta. Few cards I'm debating on are Abrade as a one-of either main or side to help shore up the Merfolk and DnT matchup. Also, considering playtesting Mizzium Mortars in place of Bonfire for its flexibility in both the early game and late game but I'm still on the fence.
P.S: If someone could link me to the tutorials so I can properly link all the card references and format the decklist that would be fantastic!
Reading past few pages on the GDD lists I'm pretty interested in trying as I generally love value and recursion. Also liked the idea of a playset of the mortars as I always felt weird drawing the Bonfire as well. Curious to see list you're currently running (or your core) as sounds like you're running Titan also which seems other GDD players are not. I also am waiting for a few Huntmaster of the Fells to try out, not sure if they are still good in GDD shell or not.
GR Ponza list topped the scg classic in Atlanta today. The list looks a little out dated tho compared to the past month or so of lists I've seen you guys posting.
Reading past few pages on the GDD lists I'm pretty interested in trying as I generally love value and recursion. Also liked the idea of a playset of the mortars as I always felt weird drawing the Bonfire as well. Curious to see list you're currently running (or your core) as sounds like you're running Titan also which seems other GDD players are not. I also am waiting for a few Huntmaster of the Fells to try out, not sure if they are still good in GDD shell or not.
GR Ponza list topped the scg classic in Atlanta today. The list looks a little out dated tho compared to the past month or so of lists I've seen you guys posting.
That's terrible beauty of Ponza, even the "traditional" list is powerful enough to both compete and win
GR Ponza list topped the scg classic in Atlanta today. The list looks a little out dated tho compared to the past month or so of lists I've seen you guys posting.
GR Ponza list topped the scg classic in Atlanta today. The list looks a little out dated tho compared to the past month or so of lists I've seen you guys posting.
That's great. To be fair, Ponza is one of the more flexible decks in Modern; it's not often I see two different players running the exact same build. The classic list is solid and a lot of the deck lists posted around here are tinkered with and optimized for that player's particular meta. One reason why I've come to really enjoy playing it.
Hey, I'm Jon Elgan. I top 8'd the classic yesterday. I've been following this thread since January and used it as a basis for my list. I'm very confident about the main, not so much the side. Sudden shocks should probably be bolts or affinity hate, fracturing gust should probably be shatterstorm (though I did see a bogles player). Wurmcoil and slime in the main were fantastic. Primal command was great. Bonfire was great & did things no other card could have done. Ended up winning two matches off of miracles. I should've mulliganed in the top 8 playing against the 5 color shadow list, I hadn't seen deaths shadow the first two games and kept a 7 game three that had anger, finks, primal command, lands, arbor elf. He ended up playing the half of the deck that I hadn't seen yet. Probably would've gotten the match if my hand had a moon in it. Running no beast withins was a personal choice, I have rarely had that card be good in my play but that's just based on the matchups I've had. I feel like the deck is very well positioned and only lost to grixis delver in the swiss.
Deck I faced: 2 eldrazi tron, rg scapeshift, burn, naya company, grixis delver, mardu nahiri, then drew into top 8.
Thanks for posting the list. I see in your post that you really liked Bonfire of the Damned. It's my thought that in the current Death's Shadow and Tron meta, it can cost upwards of 6 mana for even its Miracle cost to destroy relevant targets. In the right meta (Affinity, Elves, etc) I can see it being powerful, but it seems to me that it mostly encumbers starting hands and provides lackluster miracles too frequently. Any thoughts on that?
It's a card that shines in certain matchups. Against DS it usually will rot in the hand, that's why I hedged against the deck by playing wurmcoil, slime, thrags. Also, Tron & DS are two decks that in my experience really need land destruction or blood moon to shore up, which leads up to a land advantage/lategame where bonfire can shine. Against E-Tron yesterday I had a miracle bonfire wipe a board of smasher, TKS, conduit of ruin. It may be a card to move to the SB against DS if you have colossus. I also don't see a better replacement anywhere. Mortars won't kill many relevant threats in those matchups.
Likewise for living end, Relics on Relics. Not sure how many of their creatures Anger hits. I have limited experience in this matchup. You'll probably want to target their Red mana as it's necessary to cast Violent Outburst and Demonic Dread. Blood Moon can work if you have the resources to take out their basic Forests and Swamps. I'd probably bring in more creatures to run some defense.
Hitting their red isn't the way to go as they run Simian, a lot of red sources and we also run BM. Taking away green or black is what you go for early on. This can difficult because they have 2 different spells to cascade with. Trinisphere is good to board in as it makes living end require 6 mana to cast from cascade. Relics are an obvious choice. Anger is not as great here as most of their creatures have 4 toughness. Primal command to shuffle their grave is also good. I like finks in the matchup as it applies early pressure and comes back from a living end to at least block and gain some life. I've even had games where I beast within or bolt my own creatures in response to a living end. This is particularly great when you beast within your own titan.
-First off about half of all Living End decks run Blood Moon.
-Trinisphere is really good against them if you can also apply the LD pressure to keep them off 6 mana.
-Relic is good, but not alone, every Living end player is used to dumping 3 creatures, cascading, then having their graveyard exiled at the end of your turn only to do it again during their turn.
-Remember they only have 2-3 Living End so if you blank the first one and they have a rushed second one they may or may not have any more combo steam.
-Never double up your Utopia Sprawl, they run 2-4 Beast Within. (and 4 Fulminator Mage but you shouldn't have sprawl on a non-basic ever anyway)
-They are really good at drawing lands since they cycle so much, so know when to skip a turn and go towards the beatdown plan. Especially if you run the low curve version since their creatures will be = size or bigger.
-Anger might hit at most 3 creatures in their entire deck IF they run Architects of Will.
Death's Shadow.
-Runs 6 non-fetchlands, just fyi.*
-Can't play through Blood Moon at all.
-Keeping a hand without threats is ideal since you need to double down on your early game against their IOQs and Thoughseize.
-Leyline of Sanctity would probably lock the game in our favor if we ever wanted to spend 4 board spots. Our game plan does beat theirs unless they rip it apart too much.
-Thrun is a BEAST in this Matchup.
-Trinisphere can often pull the same amount of work as Blood Moon here.
*edit- I just checked 10 of the last MTGtop8 decks.
5 Lands: 1 Deck
6 Lands: 7 Decks
7 Lands: 1 Deck
8 Lands: 1 Deck
How does Trinisphere work with the cascade spells?
The main focus of my variant is not a red-mana lock via Blood Moon like a tradtional Ponza deck, but is focused rather on chained land destruction to deny an opponent as many resources as possible. Moonless Ponza is unorthodox mainly in that it does not use 4 Blood Moon or any copies of Bonfire of the Damned. The reasoning is that Blood Moon is much easier to play around with cards that are extremely common in Modern, making it less consistent as a central strategy than chained land destruction.
In short, an opponent with no lands is better than an opponent with "mountains" and basic lands. If you'd like more detail, I've written an exhaustive guide where I go into more detail about card choices, theory, and even run a simulation which draws/mulligans 1,000,000 hands to find the probability of good starting hands.
Guide to Moonless Ponza - A Detailed Analysis
1x Acidic Slime
4x Arbor Elf
3x Birds of Paradise
1x Courser of Kruphix
3x Goblin Dark-Dwellers
4x Inferno Titan
1x Stormbreath Dragon
Sorcery (12)
4x Molten Rain
3x Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
1x Primal Command
4x Stone Rain
3x Beast Within
Enchantment (5)
1x Blood Moon
4x Utopia Sprawl
Planeswalker (2)
1x Chandra, Torch of Defiance
1x Garruk Wildspeaker
Land (21)
8x Forest
1x Kessig Wolf Run
1x Mountain
3x Stomping Ground
4x Windswept Heath
4x Wooded Foothills
3x Ancient Grudge
2x Anger of the Gods
2x Obstinate Baloth
2x Spellskite
2x Sudden Shock
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
3x Tormod's Crypt
Also, if there is interest, I have a spreadsheet which lists the results of 300+ matches and a tournament write-up that I posted on Reddit a month or so ago.
RG Waxing Gibbous Ponza RG
FNM tonight. Hazoret is gas. Card was phenom. was 3-1, lost to Fish. Fish was on play for g1 and just did was merfolk do. G2 I took with a turn 2 chandra then turn 3 titan. G3 was horrible. Stuck on 2 lands 2 sprawl. 1 sprawl fell off because of a spreading seas. and I couldnt find any help. drew every stormbreath and titan in the deck but no bonfire or angers or even beast within to save my life....literally.
As for the "no Bonfire" thing, I've been against Bonfire since I first sleaved up Ponza. I really don't like how we can't control when to Miracle it (the only time it's good) nor how much mana you need to pump into it when it's in your hand. I prefer Mizzium Mortars both because of having more control over what I can do with the card and because of its interaction with Goblin Dark-Dwellers.
I've noticed a lot of you like Hazoret the Fervent. When I tested it, I didn't like it. Is it maybe because of how differently I pilot the deck? I don't often go below 2 cards in hand with holding onto Mortars, Goblins, and / or Beast Within to use on stuff my creatures can't muscle through. No use in Overloading Mortars if Titan is keeping the board clean, and other cases like that.
Played in a 26 player PPTQ yesterday. 5 round swiss with a cut to top 8.
Just to note: I lost every die roll in the swiss.
The List:
Maindeck:
Creatures:
1 Birds of Paradise
4 Arbor of the Elf
2 Chameleon Colossus
1 Courser of Kruphix
2 Stormbreath Dragon
1 Hazoret the Fervent
2 Inferno Titan
4 Kitchen Finks
Planeswalkers:
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance.
Instant:
2 Beast Within
2 Lightning Bolt
Sorcery:
2 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
3 Bonfire of the Damned
1 Primal Command
Enchantments:
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Blood Moon
Land:
9 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Kessig Wolf Run
3 Stomping Ground
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Windswept Heath
Sideboard:
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Magus of the Moon
3 Anger of the Gods
3 Stone Rain
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Fracturing Gust
1 Trinisphere
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Chameleon Colossus
Round 1: Elves
Game 1: On the draw I open with Utopia Sprawl into turn 2 Blood Moon. Turns out elves doesn't really care about Blood Moon, lol. I get enough to cast Bonfire for 2 in an attempt to board wipe him only for him to Chord in response and drop a second Elvish Archdruid to save his elves and crack back for lethal.
Game 2: I keep a six-card hand with arbor elf, bolt, Kitchen finks, Inferno titan, and three land. Never see a board wipe and he Stampedes for 15.
Match: 0-2
Record: 0-1
Losing the first round always sucks, but for some reason it's also when I seem to play my best in knowing that if I don't win out my tie-breakers won't be good enough to attempt to squeak in to top 8.
Round 2: Jund – Tradional
Game 1: Opponent Thoughtseizes a potential turn 2 Blood Moon, Drops Goyf into Liliana, and proceeds to win.
Game 2: Opponent keeps a two land G/R resource hand with double Goyf. I go Elf, then Utopia Sprawl + Chameleon Colossus. A few beats later I run out an Inferno Titan and proceed to close the game with my opponent stuck on 2 stomping ground and a raging ravine.
Game 3: We go back and forth a lot trading resources before I land a Blood Moon, but by that time he has the two basics that he needed. I drop Hazoret and then Chameleon Colossus and continue beats and pitching my cards for shock damage until I finish out the game.
Record: 1-1
Have I ever told you about our lord and savior, Hazoret? <_<
Round 3: Mardu Nahiri
Game 1: Opponent keeps a two lander with removal and a thought seize. He pitches my Blood Moon on turn one. My following turns consist of t1 Birds of Paradise, T2 Kitchen Finks, T3 Chameleon Colossus, t4 Garruk, Primal Hunter. He never comes off of 2 land through the whole game.
Game 2: Opponent keeps a six-card hand with Inquisition, bolt, and other stuff. He pitches my Blood Moon, bolts my dork, and then has no answer for Magus of the Moon. His manabase at the end of the game consisted of basic Mountain, Godless Shrine, and Blood Crypt. Garruk & Stormbreath close out the game in short order.
It wasn't clear until after the games that he was on the Nahiri combo, but ultimately didn't matter either.
Match: 2-0
Record: 2-1
Round 4: Grixis Death's Shadow
At this point I know I just need to win and I should be able to draw into top 8. Pressure is on and I love it!
Game 1: Holy ***** this game was super close. Kitchen finks is a pimp in the matchup. After he t1 thoughtseizes the Chameleon Colosuss, we spend a good amount of time trying to progress our board states and kitchen finks bought me enough time to get to the final turns of the game. Opponent was at 4 life with Gurmag, Death's Shadow, and Tasigur on the board. I'm at 8 with arbor elf and a shrunk kitchen finks. I top deck a Primal Command and cast it. Modes chosen were gain 7 life targeting myself and go get a creature from my library. After a few seconds, I realize he's dead in air and I reveal a stormbreath dragon as my target. After seeing he had a total of 4 discard effects in exile I was hopeful he wouldn't rip a thoughtseize to take it. Pass to his turn, he attacks and I fall to 10, activates tasigur with no mana left and mills over Kolaghan's command and Serum visions. I give him Kcommand and he plays a tapped land, knowing he is dead. He passes to my turn and proceeds to die to good ol' Stormy.
Game 2: This game was SUPER awkard. I keep a 7 card hand on the draw that contains the following: Wooded Foothills, Blood Moon, Blood Moon, Arbor Elf, Utopia Sprawl, Chameleon Colossus, Grafdigger's cage. He thoughtseizes t1 and takes the Utopia sprawl. I top deck a sprawl and proceed to jam it in hopes of a second land off the top next turn. He does his cycle, serum vision thing and passes. I brick on a land draw and play Arbor Elf & Grafdigger's cage. Basically, he plays Engineered Explosives on 1 to eventually blow up Sprawl, Arbor Elf, Cage, and his own death's shadow. Then I never draw another land in the game as he drops double death's shadow into gurmag and eventually gets through.
Game 3: I don't remember the first bits of the game because the ending stuck out the most. I end up with a Courser of Kruphix in the midgame that reveals a Hazoret on top and a groan from my opponent. He kills courser and I drop Hazoret with 2 cards in hand. He gets one free swing to take me down from 17 to 9 Gurmag and Tasigur. I untap, drop a Thrun, the Last Troll. From there I shock him down from 12 to 4, and force him to chump off both of his creatures and he eventually gets a second death's shadow on the field to stop my attacks. What forced the chump blocks were the fact that I had Kessig Wolf Run on the field to give Hazoret plenty of trample damage. Last turn of mine of the game he's at 4 life and I drop an Inferno Titan and burn him down to 1 life. He untaps, draws his card, and extends the hand.
Maindeck Chameleon Colossus and Hazoret will win you games that are otherwise unwinnable boys and girls.
Match: 2-1
Record: 3-1
At this point I'm confident that I can draw into top 8... that is until they post the standings. I'm at 6th place, OMW% is 47.83 and the person in 8th place has a draw and his table (table 4) is going to play. Table 2 opts to play, Table 1 ID's, and we end up opting to play the round to play it safe.
Round 5: BW Smallpox.
I don't remember a ton about these games except he only got to play Smallpox once and between Stormbreath and Hazoret I closed out both games in quick order.
Match: 2-0
Record: 4-1
What made me feel better about having to play an old mtg friend of mine is that after the round, he still made into top 8 at 8th place with excellent tie-breakers.
Quarterfinals: 4-Color Death's shadow / Grixis Death's Shadow splashing white
I'm the 4th seed playing the 5th seed so I get to be on the play.
Game 1: I have a typically great Ponza hand with sprawl, blood Moon, etc. Turns out, GDS's god hands are better. I play land + sprawl t1 then opponent cycles a bunch and plays a land and discards a blood moon. My t2 play a finks, then my t3 drop a Chameleon colossus. Surprise! My opponent ran a 4th color for Path to Exile and Lingering Souls and puts away the Chameleon colossus and eventually the game.
Game 2: Long-winded game. I ended up dropping a Blood Moon in the midgame to lock him out of everything but black with his one basic swamp. Beast Within takes care of Tasigur and Gurmag Anglers. Grafdigger's Cage ends up screwing me royally as I kept in Kitchen Finks and wasn't able to recur the creature, or gain the life, after trading with a beast token. At the end of the game I only needed one more turn to get Chandra, Torch of Defiance to kill the beast token and then rip Inferno titan to close things out.
Overall, a great day. The tournament organizer complimented me by saying how almost every single player in the top 8 was lamenting the possibility of playing against me and my deck. At the end of the day, the elves player that beat me in one round ended up taking the whole thing, which made me feel a little better about losing to him.
Some notes about the current list:
Main deck:
Maindeck should not be touched.
Main deck Kitchen finks is value for days, Chameleon Colossus is great even without the protection from black being relevent.
Hazoret the Fervent is -THE TRUTH-. Those of you that have doubt in running him need to go back, take a second look and playtest further. Indestructibility is an ability that gives a realistic advantage in Modern. He “dies” to Path to Exile and Dismember and that's about it. Being able to Beast Within Hazoret and surprise block what an opponent thinks is lethal feels fantastic. Whittling away at the opponents health in a clogged board state, and know they're holding up counter magic, feels great. Hazoret should just be an auto-include in this archtype and I feel strong about this belief.
After a ton of testing I'm certain that if you run Courser of Kruphix, you should only run one because multiples do next to nothing except guarantee that you can lay lands off the top potentially.
Bonfire of the Damned: I've been off of 4 copies for a long time, but I keep churning between 2 or 3 copies maindeck. This card doesn't feel like a sideboard card. And right now I'm of the viewpoint that 3 Bonfires enables you to find it when you need it more often and 2 copies isn't enough to warrant the card being in at all.
Garruk, Primal Hunter was good enough for the single copy. I won't go up but I also won't be cutting him. Being able to drop him and -3 to draw 3-6 cards immediately is great.
6th mana dork vs 22nd land. I've never been a fan of 21 lands in Ponza. Kessig Wolf Run continues to be a favorable factor in game play and I'll continue to run this utility land.
Sideboard: Magus of the Moon as a 5th Blood Moon affect that provides some pressure is fantastic, especially when the opponent has enchantment removal / counter magic in hand. Althought I don't want a second Magus of the Moon.
Thrun, the Last Troll – Never leave home without him. Our deck is meant to limit the interactivity of our opponent, don't forget this.
Grafdigger's Cage – I tossed this card in the night before as a hedge against the Vizier / Druid combo decks and other Coco decks like elves. And this card would be fine if it weren't for Kitchen Finks. That said, if you're maindecking Kitchen Finks, don't run this damn card – seriously. I'm removing cage and putting in the second relic back in.
Cards that never got sideboarded in during the tournament: Ancient Grudge & Fracturing Gust. Never seen Affinity, Lantern Control, or Bogles although 2 of the 3 were there. Still probably won't remove them.
Overall:
Deck is still great and strongly positioned in the right competitive meta. Few cards I'm debating on are Abrade as a one-of either main or side to help shore up the Merfolk and DnT matchup. Also, considering playtesting Mizzium Mortars in place of Bonfire for its flexibility in both the early game and late game but I'm still on the fence.
P.S: If someone could link me to the tutorials so I can properly link all the card references and format the decklist that would be fantastic!
Reading past few pages on the GDD lists I'm pretty interested in trying as I generally love value and recursion. Also liked the idea of a playset of the mortars as I always felt weird drawing the Bonfire as well. Curious to see list you're currently running (or your core) as sounds like you're running Titan also which seems other GDD players are not. I also am waiting for a few Huntmaster of the Fells to try out, not sure if they are still good in GDD shell or not.
On my phone and can't use the fancy decklist, so I'll just post a link to my deck:
http://www.mtgvault.com/dedwards/decks/ponza-mana-denied/
This is the list I edit to match my current list.
That's terrible beauty of Ponza, even the "traditional" list is powerful enough to both compete and win
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=115092
Classic but good list.
RG Titan Scapeshift GR
UBWAd Nauseam WBU
CEldrazi TronC
That's great. To be fair, Ponza is one of the more flexible decks in Modern; it's not often I see two different players running the exact same build. The classic list is solid and a lot of the deck lists posted around here are tinkered with and optimized for that player's particular meta. One reason why I've come to really enjoy playing it.
Link to Discord server where anybody from MTGS can keep up with thread topics while everything is being sorted out with the new site.
Deck I faced: 2 eldrazi tron, rg scapeshift, burn, naya company, grixis delver, mardu nahiri, then drew into top 8.
4 Arbor Elf
2 Birds of Paradise
3 Inferno Titan
1 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Stormbreath Dragon
2 Thragtusk
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
4 Blood Moon
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Stone Rain
2 Primal Command
3 Bonfire of the Damned
2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
8 Forest
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Mountain
3 Stomping Ground
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Anger of the Gods
1 Fracturing Gust
3 Kitchen Finks
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Sudden Shock
2 Trinisphere
RG Waxing Gibbous Ponza RG
RG Waxing Gibbous Ponza RG