It seems that Inferno Titan could've really helped in the Bant Knightfall matchup clearing all those mana dorks and smaller ceatures.
Hahaha perhaps. Stormbae is very good there, dark dwellers bolting an avacyns pilgrim to take him off white was also handy. Inferno titan would certainly have been good, but it's not every day you play against double humans.
Game 1 - Turn 1 Island Aether vial. Stabilised on T5 with Inferno titan and won from there.
Game 2 - Destroyed T1 Aether vial. He casted another on T2. T5 I had a choice to cast anger but I didnt and died the next turn as he vialed in a Master of waves on my endstep for 4 elementals. Mistakes were made.
Game 3 - Angered to kill 2 Cursecatchers. Got a titan placed to the bottom on my draw step by Vendilion Clique, draw another titan off V Clique. Bolt Goblin Bolt FTW
Inferno titan MVP. I need to remember spreading seas hidden among my forests when factoring for a master of waves when factoring my decisions....
Fish finished 2nd overall for the PPTQ.
1-0
Match 2 - On play against Mardu Burn 2-1 Win
Game 1 - Had 2 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss fizzling as opponent casted Shard Volley on the targeted lands. Found a titan FTW.
Game 2 - Got burnt
Game 3 - T2 Trinisphere into LDs.
I threw the game away after stabilising at 2 life by attacking with my Stormbreath Dragon even thought I had lethal damage the next turn. I forgot that my opponent can vial in Spell Queller...
I punted badly for both games. More practice needed against DnT type of decks as I totally didn't expect it.
UW taxes finished 3rd overall.
2-1
Match 4 - On draw against Blue Moon 2-0 Win
Game 1 - LDs into titan into win. I was expecting a storm deck as I only saw typical storm cards.
Game 2 - Opponent misplayed by tapping out and casting Blood Moon on T3. LDed his 2x islands into win a few turns later.
3-1
Match 5 - On draw against Titanshift 0-0-3 Draw
ID against my friend as we were confident of winning our last match.
He finished 6th with 4-1-1
3-1-1
Match 6 - On draw against Through the breach shift 2-0 Win
Game 1 - Did ponza things.
Gamw 2 - Did ponza things again.
Got paired up against my opponent(on 12 points) which was unlucky for him as he couldn't ID into top 8.
4-1-1 into top 8 (^-^)
We split prize winnings and played for the RPTQ invite.
Quarters Against Titanshift
Friend peaced out for dinner. While I was starving and stucked with a semi finals
Semis On draw against GDS(2nd seed) 1-2 Loss
Game 1 : Took a risk and kept a ponza god hand hoping that my opponent didn't have discard. Hello darkness my old friend.... The difference between a T2 Moon and a T3 moon is huge
Game 2 : T2 Trinisphere into LDs into a Chameleon Colossus OTKing for 16dmg
Game 3 : Opponent didn't have a discard on T1 and I resolved a T2 Moon. He proceeds to top deck his most OP card, casting 2x stubborn denial 2x Disdainful stroke for the next 4 turns. Chameleon Colossus came too late to stablise against the anglers.
Final standings(Seeding):-
1. GDS (2)
2. Fish (5)
3. UW Taxes (1)
4. Ponzaaaaaaaa (3)
5-8. Affinity(4), Titan shift(6), 8 Whack(7), E Tron(8)
Overall thoughts
Being on the draw seems fine. My sideboard is still fluid. Need more experience as my late game decisions weren't sharp.
Playing ponza brings in the hate. I feel like I got it more as compared to when I was playing burn or other "fun" decks but most of my opponents were fine with it.
Manamorphose is there for mana filtering as I typically fetch basic forest to take lesser damage. Combos with GDD/ Chandra. Sideboarded out when Trini is brought in. RR is hard to achieve when I'm fetching basic forests.
Trinisphere makes people go from (^-^) to (O_O)
GDD and Trini is a nonbo but it still works. Not sure if it is worth a MB slot. Definitely add it in your SB.
Chandra can be a 3x or 4x. She is just too devastating when you get it out on T2 or T3 as a pseudo card draw engine. Extra Chandra can replace the slots currently taken by GDD or acid moss. If I'm increasing her count, I will be running 12x fetches to lower the overall effective land count to ensure her +1 will be castable.
Stormbreath Dragon feels underwhelming. Dropping it from 2x to 1x may be better if there are not a lot of people running path in your meta.
Primal Command is a great tempo enabler and tutor. Removes any pesky non-creature cards for game 1 if they some how get it out.
Inferno Titan - Dropping it to 2x and replacing 1 with a Wurmcoil Engine may be better. Lack of a ETB effect will be a problem against the number of CoCo decks running around and it doesn't dodge path.
Tormod's Crypt can be replaced by Relic of progenitus. Relic is much better in stopping delve but the 1 mana to activate it may be a problem as ponza typically play on curve
Inefficient spells?
I've tried 0-4 Birds of Paradise and 0 is the best so far. I'm happy with any hands with 3 lands and 2 different T3 play as we can stabilise later. Very poor top deck. Great Sable Stag - Fails bolt test thus fails GDS test Hazoret the Pervet and Rhonas - Too slow Crumble to Dust - Best uses on darksteel citadel or other indestructible lands or on fetches when blood moon is out. Other LDs are better Shaman of the Great Hunt - Too slow. Better 4cmc in Chandra and acid moss Wildfire eternal - Too little payoff if any Thragtusk - Trap. Burn is favoured to ponza pre and post. Top 2 5CMC are Primal and GDD Acidic Slime - Meh Oversoul of Dusk - GGGGG..... Hard to cast when Blood moon is out Plow Under - Just use Primal. Chandra, Flamecaller - 6 CMC. Too slow. Better 6cmc in titan and wurmcoil
Various Garruk - Too slow
Congrats on the finish, the deck looks pretty solid though seeing Manamorphose here is pretty jarring.
I'd rather have Tireless Tracker (draws cards and is a secondary threat) or Courser of Kruphix (blocks, gains life, survives anger) instead.
Also maindeck L.Bolt seems not terrible and frees you 3x extra SB slots (Beast Within is very good with GDD).
Good run bud. Glad to see someone else echo the 0 birds. Chandra is exactly the card the deck wants. it's insane in this build. Its basically impossible to lose when you T2 chandra. the deck is truly powerful and has shown me to be incredibly consistent. i think it's on the verge of going up in tiers. i haven't lost a match since my ptq win. currently sitting at 11-0. the deck attacks the game in a way that virtually no deck can defend against. it doesn't play fair and it's not a combo deck. it's great!
Congrats on the finish, the deck looks pretty solid though seeing Manamorphose here is pretty jarring.
I'd rather have Tireless Tracker (draws cards and is a secondary threat) or Courser of Kruphix (blocks, gains life, survives anger) instead.
Also maindeck L.Bolt seems not terrible and frees you 3x extra SB slots (Beast Within is very good with GDD).
Yea Manamorphose is the weakest card in the deck. It should be dropped for other stuff. It's just a stupid pet card of mine.
MB Bolts give a bad feeling when your opponent is E-Tron/Dredge and they are everywhere in my meta.
Tireless Tracker, Courser of Kruphix and Obstinate Baloth are traps for me. Tracker doesn't survive anger/bolt and is too slow to come online while Courser and Baloth are not suitable for the current X/5 meta. Life gain is overrated as we stabilise around 4~7 life. Fetching and acid moss should in theory thin our deck of lands too. The lack of traditional BGx decks (in my meta at least) means we wont get to freecast Baloth. Baloth will come back in when the meta has more BGx running around.
I need more games with Beast Within . I may be over valuing the free 3/3 beast.
Maindeck Chandra is something I regretted not doing. Thrun is great if you have it. Also blocks X/5s for days.
Good run bud. Glad to see someone else echo the 0 birds. Chandra is exactly the card the deck wants. it's insane in this build. Its basically impossible to lose when you T2 chandra. the deck is truly powerful and has shown me to be incredibly consistent. i think it's on the verge of going up in tiers. i haven't lost a match since my ptq win. currently sitting at 11-0. the deck attacks the game in a way that virtually no deck can defend against. it doesn't play fair and it's not a combo deck. it's great!
It is more consistent than the older lists playing birds/ acidic slime and it is still under the radar somehow. Ponza play style feels like Burn. Knowing when to go for the dome (LD for us) and when to hit creatures (any non LD spell) is critical.
Acid Moss fizzled not Shard Volley. Casted Mwonvuli Acid-Moss on target land, opponent responded with Shard Volley sacrificing said targeted land. End result was still a land gone from burn but I didn't get to ramp.
Another person won a PPTQ with Ponza over on reddit spikes. Hopefully the pilot will appear on here too
I also echo on the tracker. It's just too slow and you're never really cracking clues anyways.
I've also moved the Abrades to the main. My reasoning is that we really don't care about burning to the face since that's really not what our game is about. However, the ability to interact with BOTH creatures and artifacts game 1 is actually really relevant. I've even been contemplating upping the number of abrades as it's essentially never a dead card. Being modal is really key here as both effects are mediocre but when put together really give you flexibility that's needed in this type of deck.
I wish there was a GP near by that had modern so I could really put the deck through it's paces but alas...someone else will need to do this!
Hello fellow Ponza's friends, long time lurker, first time poster,
I've read quite the whole thread, and got some questions :
How is GDD now? People seem to hate it first, now it gets some love, I personnaly appreciate this card, and I m really willing to play it. Plus, I love 3sphere in SB, and it feels bad together.
What about the new 0 Bird decks ? Am I the only guy unlucky enough to feel that not having 9-10 1 mana-cmc ramp can be annoying? I hate playing Birds, but I m quite affraid of cutting them
Why no love for Huntmaster of the Fells? Each time I play it, it feels amazing, against many decks, and I can't really cut them, unless you prove me I'm missing something
I personnaly can't get why people love Primal Command. I always run 2 of them, and it -most of the time- feels clunky, and I m considering cutting them.
What are people thoughts about Beat Within nowadays ? And Abrade? I run 2 BW and I quite enjoy it.
**** Chandra, this pricing is just so high. Do people think price will go down with standard rotation any time ? Or should I buy them before it gets crazier ?
Thanks bro's
The first three points come down to personal preference, more or less. Based on the recent tourney decklists I've seen, there's not one bonafide Ponza build that has consistently performed better than another (e.g. BoP vs no BoP). However, I've been flirting around with cutting BoP myself lately after reading some of the reports here. A GDD build will look different than a non-GDD list b/c you'll want to run additional copies of < 4cmc spells already in the deck or add some new ones (e.g. Bolt, Beast Within, Molten Rain, etc). Speaking of Beast Within, I like the card when I'm playing with GDD and usually MB a couple copies, but otherwise it's in the SB or cut out depending on the anticipated meta.
To your last few points, I personally love Primal Command and recently went up to two copies after sticking to a singleton for the longest time; it's just a great value card. I never felt it was clunky as a one of, but there have been situations when playing two MB wasn't ideal; I'd suggest dropping down to one and feel it out from there. Lastly, Chandra ToD is the real deal, so it's unfortunate that her price skyrocketed following the success of mono red standard decks. I picked up my two copies for ~$18 USD each and remember thinking that was too expensive at the time; I'm kicking myself for trying to pinch pennies and not buying a whole set. You can certainly build a competitive/successful build without her, but it would be remiss to say that Chandra wouldn't make it just that much better. If you're planning on playing Ponza for the next few months and want to play an optimized deck, then it's worth it to just bite the bullet and snag the cheapest copy you can find on eBay. While she does see play in Legacy and various other Modern decks, the Standard meta game is what's currently propping her up, so it's anyone's guess when/if her price will come down.
Edit: Forgot to mention Huntmaster; you're not alone in your love for the wolf man. Two of my creature slots are fairly fluid and I'll cycle different cards in/out depending on both meta and simple experimentation. Huntmaster and Chameleon Colossus are two threats that I've been enjoying a lot as of late. Like I mentioned above, YMMV with Ponza depending on how you choose to go about building it.
New spoiled card Carnage Tyrant looks like it could do well in the deck. Checks off many boxes. Hexproof, Trample, Big Beats, Can't be countered all for 6 mana. Thoughts?
Doubtful. There's a plethora of big dumb beaters at 6+ mana already available. The only 6 CMC cards that get run are Inferno Titan and Big Chandra. Both of them don't just put on a fast clock, they also sweep away our opponents creatures to give us a good board state.
Doubtful. There's a plethora of big dumb beaters at 6+ mana already available. The only 6 CMC cards that get run are Inferno Titan and Big Chandra. Both of them don't just put on a fast clock, they also sweep away our opponents creatures to give us a good board state.
There are a lot of bombs in the 6cmc range, but hexproof and can't be countered are 2 abilities most don't have. At the end of the day it comes down to personal preference and your meta, but I would say this card is more than worthy of being tested.
It might be a decent card against control decks as it can close out games faster than Thrun but it is vulnerable to sweepers (but better against chump blockers).
6 for a 7/6 Uncountable, Trample, Hexproof beat stick is an awesome idea. The problem is, does it help our overall plan? Thrun is still viable as it comes out relatively early. Not sure 6 mana is viable against control through all the disruption that can stop our acceleration.
I would say beating down the opponent is the game plan which it is great at, not to mention running over chump blockers. Dodges all targeted removal which something none of our current creatures do (Stormbreath does a pretty decent job at dodging removal but is still susceptible to some removal)
Dragonlord Atarka immediately struck me as bad, and worse than Bogardan Hellkite instinctively. But cost 1 less and we don't need the flash. It's huge body is a plus as well. ETB damage is similar to Titan's plus the first attack. I don't love this list, but I might try the dragon.
Been away from Modern traveling with work. Should be able to make it to my LGS this week and play.
I like LenX's opinions on a lot of cards. Most creatures are traps that 'Aren't Bad' for us but also completely off track. Also As a fellow Manamorphose lover good to know that I shouldn't try it.
That list definitely has some weird choices. 4 trackers??? :|
But I actually kind of like Atarka...it's not the worst choice ever. Kills anglers!
Hellkite Tyrant though...what do you bring this against??? Affinity? Lantern? That's a weird one. I mean if you hit affinity with this, gg but I would think there are cheaper options!
Most of the players's choices have been backed before. I personally prefer Chandra over Huntmaster since it wins the game a LOT faster.
This list is pretty bad, it tries to be a midrange-ponza hybrid with 4x Huntmaster and 4x T.Tracker which aren't bad but shouldn't take that many slots in the deck especially over PW's like Chandra (or Garruk).
This list is like a hybrid of g devotion and ponza. It feels very much a "if I get to four mana, the game is over!" And speaking as a devotion player, that does not make a good game plan. However I would say that if you switch Crumble with Beast, then hunt master with either chandra or Rabblemaster, then do something about acidic slime and or dl atarka, you have a deck. But you can't argue with results. Or maybe you can.
With everyone on the fatal push plan, does that make Rabblemaster playable? I've seen it in a bunch of decks and it's just so good.
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That's hot tho
Hahaha perhaps. Stormbae is very good there, dark dwellers bolting an avacyns pilgrim to take him off white was also handy. Inferno titan would certainly have been good, but it's not every day you play against double humans.
3 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
3 Molten Rain
4 Stone Rain
Creatures (12)
2 Stormbreath Dragon
3 Inferno Titan
3 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
4 Arbor Elf
Other (16)
3 Anger of the Gods
2 Primal Command
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Blood Moon
3 Manamorphose
9 Forest
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Mountain
4 Stomping Ground
1 Shattering Spree
2 Destructive Reverly
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Trinisphere
2 Chameleon Colossus
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
Match 1 - On draw against Fish 2-1 Win
Game 1 - Turn 1 Island Aether vial. Stabilised on T5 with Inferno titan and won from there.
Game 2 - Destroyed T1 Aether vial. He casted another on T2. T5 I had a choice to cast anger but I didnt and died the next turn as he vialed in a Master of waves on my endstep for 4 elementals. Mistakes were made.
Game 3 - Angered to kill 2 Cursecatchers. Got a titan placed to the bottom on my draw step by Vendilion Clique, draw another titan off V Clique. Bolt Goblin Bolt FTW
Inferno titan MVP. I need to remember spreading seas hidden among my forests when factoring for a master of waves when factoring my decisions....
Fish finished 2nd overall for the PPTQ.
1-0
Match 2 - On play against Mardu Burn 2-1 Win
Game 1 - Had 2 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss fizzling as opponent casted Shard Volley on the targeted lands. Found a titan FTW.
Game 2 - Got burnt
Game 3 - T2 Trinisphere into LDs.
Burn finished 9th for PPTQ.
2-0
Match 3 - On draw against UW taxes 0-2 Loss
Game 1 - Kept 3x Manamorphose, 2x Utopia Sprawl, 1x elf, titan, stone rain and forest. Faced a T1 Island into Aether Vial, T2 Seachrome coast into Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. What. The. FISH!?
I threw the game away after stabilising at 2 life by attacking with my Stormbreath Dragon even thought I had lethal damage the next turn. I forgot that my opponent can vial in Spell Queller...
Game 2 - Out-ponzaed by Leonin Arbiter and Ghost Quarters. lulz
I punted badly for both games. More practice needed against DnT type of decks as I totally didn't expect it.
UW taxes finished 3rd overall.
2-1
Match 4 - On draw against Blue Moon 2-0 Win
Game 1 - LDs into titan into win. I was expecting a storm deck as I only saw typical storm cards.
Game 2 - Opponent misplayed by tapping out and casting Blood Moon on T3. LDed his 2x islands into win a few turns later.
3-1
Match 5 - On draw against Titanshift 0-0-3 Draw
ID against my friend as we were confident of winning our last match.
He finished 6th with 4-1-1
3-1-1
Match 6 - On draw against Through the breach shift 2-0 Win
Game 1 - Did ponza things.
Gamw 2 - Did ponza things again.
Got paired up against my opponent(on 12 points) which was unlucky for him as he couldn't ID into top 8.
4-1-1 into top 8 (^-^)
We split prize winnings and played for the RPTQ invite.
Quarters Against Titanshift
Friend peaced out for dinner. While I was starving and stucked with a semi finals
Semis On draw against GDS(2nd seed) 1-2 Loss
Game 1 : Took a risk and kept a ponza god hand hoping that my opponent didn't have discard. Hello darkness my old friend.... The difference between a T2 Moon and a T3 moon is huge
Game 2 : T2 Trinisphere into LDs into a Chameleon Colossus OTKing for 16dmg
Game 3 : Opponent didn't have a discard on T1 and I resolved a T2 Moon. He proceeds to top deck his most OP card, casting 2x stubborn denial 2x Disdainful stroke for the next 4 turns. Chameleon Colossus came too late to stablise against the anglers.
Final standings(Seeding):-
1. GDS (2)
2. Fish (5)
3. UW Taxes (1)
4. Ponzaaaaaaaa (3)
5-8. Affinity(4), Titan shift(6), 8 Whack(7), E Tron(8)
Overall thoughts
Being on the draw seems fine. My sideboard is still fluid. Need more experience as my late game decisions weren't sharp.
Playing ponza brings in the hate. I feel like I got it more as compared to when I was playing burn or other "fun" decks but most of my opponents were fine with it.
Cutest way to kill someone - Chandra, Torch of Defiance ult into 3x Manamorphose
Manamorphose is there for mana filtering as I typically fetch basic forest to take lesser damage. Combos with GDD/ Chandra. Sideboarded out when Trini is brought in. RR is hard to achieve when I'm fetching basic forests.
Trinisphere makes people go from (^-^) to (O_O)
GDD and Trini is a nonbo but it still works. Not sure if it is worth a MB slot. Definitely add it in your SB.
Choke and Guttural Response may come back to SB just for GDS.
Chandra can be a 3x or 4x. She is just too devastating when you get it out on T2 or T3 as a pseudo card draw engine. Extra Chandra can replace the slots currently taken by GDD or acid moss. If I'm increasing her count, I will be running 12x fetches to lower the overall effective land count to ensure her +1 will be castable.
Stormbreath Dragon feels underwhelming. Dropping it from 2x to 1x may be better if there are not a lot of people running path in your meta.
Primal Command is a great tempo enabler and tutor. Removes any pesky non-creature cards for game 1 if they some how get it out.
Inferno Titan - Dropping it to 2x and replacing 1 with a Wurmcoil Engine may be better. Lack of a ETB effect will be a problem against the number of CoCo decks running around and it doesn't dodge path.
Tormod's Crypt can be replaced by Relic of progenitus. Relic is much better in stopping delve but the 1 mana to activate it may be a problem as ponza typically play on curve
Inefficient spells?
I've tried 0-4 Birds of Paradise and 0 is the best so far. I'm happy with any hands with 3 lands and 2 different T3 play as we can stabilise later. Very poor top deck.
Great Sable Stag - Fails bolt test thus fails GDS test
Hazoret the Pervet and Rhonas - Too slow
Crumble to Dust - Best uses on darksteel citadel or other indestructible lands or on fetches when blood moon is out. Other LDs are better
Shaman of the Great Hunt - Too slow. Better 4cmc in Chandra and acid moss
Wildfire eternal - Too little payoff if any
Thragtusk - Trap. Burn is favoured to ponza pre and post. Top 2 5CMC are Primal and GDD
Acidic Slime - Meh
Oversoul of Dusk - GGGGG..... Hard to cast when Blood moon is out
Plow Under - Just use Primal.
Chandra, Flamecaller - 6 CMC. Too slow. Better 6cmc in titan and wurmcoil
Various Garruk - Too slow
I'd rather have Tireless Tracker (draws cards and is a secondary threat) or Courser of Kruphix (blocks, gains life, survives anger) instead.
Also maindeck L.Bolt seems not terrible and frees you 3x extra SB slots (Beast Within is very good with GDD).
Maindeck Chandra, Thrun or Obstinate Baloth don't sound too bad either.
Yea Manamorphose is the weakest card in the deck. It should be dropped for other stuff. It's just a stupid pet card of mine.
MB Bolts give a bad feeling when your opponent is E-Tron/Dredge and they are everywhere in my meta.
Tireless Tracker, Courser of Kruphix and Obstinate Baloth are traps for me. Tracker doesn't survive anger/bolt and is too slow to come online while Courser and Baloth are not suitable for the current X/5 meta. Life gain is overrated as we stabilise around 4~7 life. Fetching and acid moss should in theory thin our deck of lands too. The lack of traditional BGx decks (in my meta at least) means we wont get to freecast Baloth. Baloth will come back in when the meta has more BGx running around.
I need more games with Beast Within . I may be over valuing the free 3/3 beast.
Maindeck Chandra is something I regretted not doing. Thrun is great if you have it. Also blocks X/5s for days.
It is more consistent than the older lists playing birds/ acidic slime and it is still under the radar somehow. Ponza play style feels like Burn. Knowing when to go for the dome (LD for us) and when to hit creatures (any non LD spell) is critical.
Acid Moss fizzled not Shard Volley. Casted Mwonvuli Acid-Moss on target land, opponent responded with Shard Volley sacrificing said targeted land. End result was still a land gone from burn but I didn't get to ramp.
Another person won a PPTQ with Ponza over on reddit spikes. Hopefully the pilot will appear on here too
I've also moved the Abrades to the main. My reasoning is that we really don't care about burning to the face since that's really not what our game is about. However, the ability to interact with BOTH creatures and artifacts game 1 is actually really relevant. I've even been contemplating upping the number of abrades as it's essentially never a dead card. Being modal is really key here as both effects are mediocre but when put together really give you flexibility that's needed in this type of deck.
I wish there was a GP near by that had modern so I could really put the deck through it's paces but alas...someone else will need to do this!
The first three points come down to personal preference, more or less. Based on the recent tourney decklists I've seen, there's not one bonafide Ponza build that has consistently performed better than another (e.g. BoP vs no BoP). However, I've been flirting around with cutting BoP myself lately after reading some of the reports here. A GDD build will look different than a non-GDD list b/c you'll want to run additional copies of < 4cmc spells already in the deck or add some new ones (e.g. Bolt, Beast Within, Molten Rain, etc). Speaking of Beast Within, I like the card when I'm playing with GDD and usually MB a couple copies, but otherwise it's in the SB or cut out depending on the anticipated meta.
To your last few points, I personally love Primal Command and recently went up to two copies after sticking to a singleton for the longest time; it's just a great value card. I never felt it was clunky as a one of, but there have been situations when playing two MB wasn't ideal; I'd suggest dropping down to one and feel it out from there. Lastly, Chandra ToD is the real deal, so it's unfortunate that her price skyrocketed following the success of mono red standard decks. I picked up my two copies for ~$18 USD each and remember thinking that was too expensive at the time; I'm kicking myself for trying to pinch pennies and not buying a whole set. You can certainly build a competitive/successful build without her, but it would be remiss to say that Chandra wouldn't make it just that much better. If you're planning on playing Ponza for the next few months and want to play an optimized deck, then it's worth it to just bite the bullet and snag the cheapest copy you can find on eBay. While she does see play in Legacy and various other Modern decks, the Standard meta game is what's currently propping her up, so it's anyone's guess when/if her price will come down.
Edit: Forgot to mention Huntmaster; you're not alone in your love for the wolf man. Two of my creature slots are fairly fluid and I'll cycle different cards in/out depending on both meta and simple experimentation. Huntmaster and Chameleon Colossus are two threats that I've been enjoying a lot as of late. Like I mentioned above, YMMV with Ponza depending on how you choose to go about building 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.
There are a lot of bombs in the 6cmc range, but hexproof and can't be countered are 2 abilities most don't have. At the end of the day it comes down to personal preference and your meta, but I would say this card is more than worthy of being tested.
8 Forest
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Mountain
3 Stomping Ground
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
CREATURES
1 Acidic Slime
4 Arbor Elf
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Dragonlord Atarka
4 Huntmaster of the Fells
2 Inferno Titan
2 Stormbreath Dragon
1 Thragtusk
4 Tireless Tracker
1 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Crumble to Dust
4 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
4 Stone Rain
OTHER SPELLS
4 Blood Moon
4 Utopia Sprawl
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Anger of the Gods
1 Dragonlord Atarka
1 Fracturing Gust
2 Hellkite Tyrant
3 Kitchen Finks
2 Primal Command
1 Thragtusk
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
Dragonlord Atarka immediately struck me as bad, and worse than Bogardan Hellkite instinctively. But cost 1 less and we don't need the flash. It's huge body is a plus as well. ETB damage is similar to Titan's plus the first attack. I don't love this list, but I might try the dragon.
Been away from Modern traveling with work. Should be able to make it to my LGS this week and play.
I like LenX's opinions on a lot of cards. Most creatures are traps that 'Aren't Bad' for us but also completely off track. Also As a fellow Manamorphose lover good to know that I shouldn't try it.
But I actually kind of like Atarka...it's not the worst choice ever. Kills anglers!
Hellkite Tyrant though...what do you bring this against??? Affinity? Lantern? That's a weird one. I mean if you hit affinity with this, gg but I would think there are cheaper options!
Most of the players's choices have been backed before. I personally prefer Chandra over Huntmaster since it wins the game a LOT faster.
Crumble to Dust is a pretty bad option as well, should be Beast Within or Molten Rain instead.
Dragonlord Atarka isn't bad but Inferno Titan is just better and easier to cast on time.
I've never like Acidic Slime in the maindeck (maybe as 1x-of in the SB) and having both Thragtusk and Wurmcoil Engine is too much and I'd cut one of them as well for a Primal Command.
With everyone on the fatal push plan, does that make Rabblemaster playable? I've seen it in a bunch of decks and it's just so good.