22 lands, zero Birds has been great for me. The zero birb idea is discussed above, but it's completely correct. Don't look back, the birb is too fragile and is not doing enough to justify its existence here.
But I'm very happy with 11 Forest and two Stomping Ground. There doesn't really seem to be much of an upside to carrying a third. You can contrive situations where we need a third red source off our Moss or our Gx fetch, but these don't usually come up in practice. With the above land package, your deck has 19 lands that represent a safe Utopia Sprawl target. This helps us with consistency. The deck works when you're casting a 3- or 4-mana card on T2.
22 lands also gives you a better chance of a playable mulligan hand. This is a deck you have to mulligan aggressively, again really digging for the explosive T2.
I currently Play U-tron and my meta is just full of greedy mana bases and I'm thinking about picking up this deck. I have a list put together for testing. https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/740813#paper
Any thoughts on this list? I really enjoy the coursers for passive card advantage and life. We have 3 burn players, 3 storm players, ad naus a bunch of tron and a couple copies of counters company. Tons of 8Rack as well. I really enjoy the idea of punishing people and throwing bombs at them.
If your local meta has 3 burn and 3 storm, you should strongly consider moving the Trinispheres into your maindeck. It's a reasonable game one disruption piece anyway, and it will just wreck those decks.
Has anyone tried lodestone golem in this deck? seems sweet on turn 2. I could see replacing the current threat base with something like 3-4x wurmcoil, 4x walking ballista, 4x lodestone golem to make sure you can curve out with threats after deploying a golem.
It is not an artifacts deck so I don't really see the point of using Lodestone here.
It is not a real threat and will just needlessly tax your own spells.
Has anyone tried lodestone golem in this deck? seems sweet on turn 2. I could see replacing the current threat base with something like 3-4x wurmcoil, 4x walking ballista, 4x lodestone golem to make sure you can curve out with threats after deploying a golem.
Definitely not something I would even consider.
Stormbreath are great because they invalidate the best removal spell in the format. You wouldn't want to cut them.
Don't think the deck wants walking ballista either. You only ever want to see 6-7 mana.
The core package of threats has already more or less been established. Messing with it is going to give you a sub par version of the deck or a different deck entirely.
I'm pretty sure the deck is close to be optimized.
the five drop replaces thragtusk, in my opinion. you get th rbodies immediately. that dude is pretty good. carnage one i would consider in the side. i mean control is already a decent matchup. but as a fun of, why not? worth a try.
The regisaur is a straight up addition. 7 power of which 3 is hasted, 2 bodies, all make it a contender even against Stormbreath, who can nonethless be Terminated or Galvanic Blasted into nothing. Ofc stormbreath is still king against white control decks, but regisaur is definitely 5 drop that's playable in modern. That we could do it turn 3 is just delicious.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
Played another pptq today, started out strong and then punted two chances for win and in top 8. Played very similar list too my top 8 list I posted awhile back.
Recent tech / matchup / moving forward thoughts:
The games I punted were keeping value hands that had no hate for the matchup. I lost my first win and in against burn. I lost because I kept a blood moon hand thinking he would play other colors and he just burned me out. I should have kept a trinisphere / cheap life gain hand. My second loss for win - in top 8 was against mono blue taking turns w/ as fortold. This matchup turned out to be a race as you're gonna lose once they can cast just a few extra turns then they don't lose. Trinisphere punishes as fortold and because of howling mine interaction the stormbreath monstrous effect is really good. Also hexproof creatures can be good because they can't target to tap down and then relic proved valueble as this build ran exlixer of immortality for the shuffle effect. I really think choke could be a two of in the sideboard for this and esper draw-go decks, this with trinisphere can do some good work. Also trinisphere slows burn down by limiting the number of spells/tricks they can cast per turn.
Many of you are talking about new inclusions from the upcoming set. The main card I'm looking to make a 4 of is the Dino - thrun, the 7/6 uncounterable hexproof trample dude. This card is a good combo of pretty much every creature in the deck minus the 3 split damage and flying. I really like that it's green as double red can sometimes be rough. I think I'll try a lot of him paired with some number of thragtusk and SBD. As much as I want thragtusk to be something else it really helps regain control of the game making up for lost life to fetching, shocking, and early aggro/creature deck beats. I still like the curve cap to 5, a number of lightning bolts to flex your game one wins via creature or face and walker removal, and I still like 2 of primal command as it acts as a beefy catch all situation type card.
The only other challenging cards I've faced lately is sacrifice effects via liliana of the veil or cards like blessed alliance. also I played the mirror last week at an FNM and realized the key is to hold back, you can beast within your own lands if they attempt a stone rain, also if the deck ever gets popular - or the Todd Stevens Azusa -- excavator deck gets more popular we'll need to play with a crucible of worlds in the side
So give me your opinions please. I would also like to see the 0-2 Birds of Paradise discussion go on, is it the right choice, or not.
I've stated my opinion on the birds thing. And I personally feel like 0 birds is correct. Card is terrible. It really doesn't play that well with our game plan is a worse top deck than a land on the 5th turn. Stick to 0, it's correct.
Round 1 - Game 1
I win the dice roll and keep a very good hand with an elf, stone rain, enough lands and a dragon.
I play land and elf, opponent plays a plains.
Stone Rain plains, he plays Hallowed Fountain tapped.
i draw a Stone Rain from the top and the Fountain is gone. He plays an Island.
I play my Dragon and he scoops.
So im boarding against Control. Who wouldnt? I have seen Plains, Island and Hallowed Fountain.
Well... its Knightfall Combo with CoCo. So game 2 ist totally bustet, so many dead cards in my deck... he resolves 2 CoCos and kills me pretty fast.
Game 3 i have to mulligan to 6. I have a somewhat good start with acceleration and turn 3 two Kitchen Finks on the Board. He goes into his Turn 4 and combos off. No Sideboard card drawn...
I hate to start like that... Well... next game.
He starts and i keep a very good hand with sprawl, enough lands, Stone Rain, Acid Moss and Chandra.
Island from him, i cast the sprawl. Island again from him. i play a land and try to destroy one Island, which to my surprise resolves.
He plays another Island.
I Acid-Moss another Island. He misses his land drop. I draw another Acid Moss and kill his last Island, he scoops. Hmmm... this game feels familiar....
So i have sonly seen Island, but im sideboarding more cautios.
Game 2 goes on for a long time. I can destroy some lands but nothing that interrupts him too hard. All my threats, round after round, gets a counterspell. Baloth, Chandra, Titan, Titan, Thragtusk all are beeing answered by remand, remand, cryptic, snapcaster -> cryptic, flash freeze.
Im still in good shape and know that he cant counter everything, some threat will stick in the long run. Through the Breach -> Emrakul and im dead..... Ah.... nice to know.
I hate Through the Breach, stupid busted non interactive card. Oh well, onto game 3.
I can slow him down with LD, make some Damage with a Kitchen Finks, Titan gets countered. Late in the game he resolves Through the Breach into Emrakul. I can handle the Annihilator 6 and take 15. I Manage to play a Thragtusk 3 turns later, he manages to do the same thing again and im dead....fml. Again no sideboard card drawn.
Round 3, well what can happen with 0:2 sitting at the last table of the tournament. Correct, a well experienced and good Affinity player as an opponent.
I start, and again keep a very good hand (despite 2 losses i was very pleased with my starting hands). I play land and Elf. He goes Inkmoth, Thopter, Thoper, Mox Opal, Drum, Signal Pest, Plating, Welding Jar.....WHAT? Is there a camera on me? .... my turn 3 Stone Rain does nothing, turn 4 hardcast Bonfire kills at least the Signal Pest, but im dead the turn after.
Game 2 goes back and forth for a while, i rip a lucky bonfire from the top, killing his board and the game.
Game 3 i have a good hand again, but so does he. 6 Cards on the table turn 1....but no land, so my stone rain in hand is useless. Turn 3 he has 2 platings online and im dust.
Not to mention that again i have not seen a single sideboard card. No Anger, no grudges, no dismember, nothing.
Well thats how you start into a tournament, full with hope and good results in the past, and getting totally obliterated.
I drop out and try to enjoy the rest of the sunday...
Another tournament where i think my deck is strong and well suited, but bad luck decides my results... Thats the second time this happens to me at a big tournament with RG Ponza. Small tournaments of 20-30 players feel like a piece of cake. Big tournaments... 0:6 so far. Sadly i would call all those 6 losses extremely bad luck.
Onto the next tournament :>
Bad beats bruh. However, you can't expect to really ever draw your sideboard cards when you are playing a bunch of 1 ofs. I would definitely cut the Finks and increase the amount of angers. What do you use finks against??? They are slow, don't really impact the board and really don't put much pressure. Cut them. Up your Trinisphere count to 3 if you're worried about burn. Up your count of angers to 3 for sure. Affinity is a troublesome matchup, you want to cut the stone rains both on the play/draw. Keep your moons in and bring the abrade, grudges, angers.
I would also advise against playing 4 Titans. It's too many and you're likely to get your hand clumped up. I found the perfect number to be at 2/2 split with Stormbreath. The haste is undervalued in my opinion. That's part of what makes the card so good. It's incredibly rare that I'd lose a game where I resolved a dragon, especially if I had access to 7 mana. DEFINITELY have choke in your sideboard going forward. Card is a house.
Anyone tried a more midrangy approach to R/G Ponza?
No. It's bad. It may have looked good there, but that version of the deck is something entirely different. It's super grindy. I think some of you have a misconception that the deck is meant to be grindy, it's not. The whole point of ponza is to make plays that stop your opponent from playing magic. That's the whole point of the deck. You're not interested in out valuing your opponent over 27 turns. What you want is them to lose the game within the first 6 turns or less. That's exactly why a card like tracker doesn't belong in this build.
I'd like to talk about an aspect of this deck I find interesting : "What to do with 4 manas"
Optimally, it comes at Turn 2, most of time it's T3 or T4, but that's not the subject.
My thoughts
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - MVP. I prefer 3x. 4x seems too much from my testing but more is better if your meta has a lot of UW/ UWR control.
Mwonvuli Acid-Moss - 3x/4x It does like disrupting ramping+cleaning deck
Huntmaster of the Fells - Meta dependent. Buys time chumping while you get your bigger threats out.
Threats played are meta dependent. Most of the creatures mentioned have only 4 power so if there is a lot of E Tron, Rock, GDS running around, thragtusk is a must. Against UW control, SB Dragons are better. Against CoCo, titans are better than wurm coil. etc etc
I prefer running more P. commands to tutor for the creatures that I want for a certain match up.
GDD and CToD does not play that well together. You will whiff a lot more on GDD if you play both. I may cut GDD out for Lightning bolts or Roasts or more commands. However, GDD may stand in for a budget CToD.
With IMA release, there were changes made to Blood Moon / Magnus of the Moon, we no longer have to play shocklands tapped as ETB effects are rendered useless.
I'd like to talk about an aspect of this deck I find interesting : "What to do with 4 manas"
Optimally, it comes at Turn 2, most of time it's T3 or T4, but that's not the subject.
My thoughts
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - MVP. I prefer 3x. 4x seems too much from my testing but more is better if your meta has a lot of UW/ UWR control.
Mwonvuli Acid-Moss - 3x/4x It does like disrupting ramping+cleaning deck
Huntmaster of the Fells - Meta dependent. Buys time chumping while you get your bigger threats out.
Threats played are meta dependent. Most of the creatures mentioned have only 4 power so if there is a lot of E Tron, Rock, GDS running around, thragtusk is a must. Against UW control, SB Dragons are better. Against CoCo, titans are better than wurm coil. etc etc
I prefer running more P. commands to tutor for the creatures that I want for a certain match up.
GDD and CToD does not play that well together. You will whiff a lot more on GDD if you play both. I may cut GDD out for Lightning bolts or Roasts or more commands. However, GDD may stand in for a budget CToD.
With IMA release, there were changes made to Blood Moon / Magnus of the Moon, we no longer have to play shocklands tapped as ETB effects are rendered useless.
Thanks for replying .
I really like your deck list.
Few remarks :
- I haven't yet the 3 of Chandra ToD, soon maybe, I ll wait
- 0 beast within : Why? I thought it would fit well in a GDD~ shell
- 10 fetches : Not too painful in the end? I get the point of cleaning deck tho.
- Any thoughts about Abrade main deck / sb ?
chandra is the real deal and shouldn't even be a question. play 3. i a play 2 abrades main as there are very few decks it's weak against.
what is the forum's consensus on Carnage Tyrant? is it worth running as a 1-of? maybe in lieu of a copy of a dragon or a colossus? i don't feel like replacing a titan..
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"I am the purifier, the light that clears all shadows."
—Seal inscription
Could Garruk Wildspeaker work in this deck? I'm not gonna spend 30€ a piece on Chandras, so if he could be a budget replacement. If you have Utopia Sprawl and Arbor Elf on turn 2, you can cast Garruk AND a Stone Rain/Blood Moon. His other abilities aren't bad either.
Chandra, the Firebrand won't allow you to copy a spell you cast on the next turn. Her -2 ability specifically states "When you cast your next instant or sorcery spell THIS TURN" (Sneaky Wizards!). So, unless your're casting her with 7-8 mana on the field the double land destruction shenanigans will have to wait a turn.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
11 Forest
1 Mountain
2 Stomping Ground
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Gx fetches
0 Birds of Paradise
22 lands, zero Birds has been great for me. The zero birb idea is discussed above, but it's completely correct. Don't look back, the birb is too fragile and is not doing enough to justify its existence here.
But I'm very happy with 11 Forest and two Stomping Ground. There doesn't really seem to be much of an upside to carrying a third. You can contrive situations where we need a third red source off our Moss or our Gx fetch, but these don't usually come up in practice. With the above land package, your deck has 19 lands that represent a safe Utopia Sprawl target. This helps us with consistency. The deck works when you're casting a 3- or 4-mana card on T2.
22 lands also gives you a better chance of a playable mulligan hand. This is a deck you have to mulligan aggressively, again really digging for the explosive T2.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/740813#paper
Any thoughts on this list? I really enjoy the coursers for passive card advantage and life. We have 3 burn players, 3 storm players, ad naus a bunch of tron and a couple copies of counters company. Tons of 8Rack as well. I really enjoy the idea of punishing people and throwing bombs at them.
It is not a real threat and will just needlessly tax your own spells.
It is like suggesting Thalia to U/W Control.
Definitely not something I would even consider.
Stormbreath are great because they invalidate the best removal spell in the format. You wouldn't want to cut them.
Don't think the deck wants walking ballista either. You only ever want to see 6-7 mana.
The core package of threats has already more or less been established. Messing with it is going to give you a sub par version of the deck or a different deck entirely.
I'm pretty sure the deck is close to be optimized.
It's true! As a bonus, on top of invalidating the best removal spell, it blanks Path to Exile too!
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
Recent tech / matchup / moving forward thoughts:
The games I punted were keeping value hands that had no hate for the matchup. I lost my first win and in against burn. I lost because I kept a blood moon hand thinking he would play other colors and he just burned me out. I should have kept a trinisphere / cheap life gain hand. My second loss for win - in top 8 was against mono blue taking turns w/ as fortold. This matchup turned out to be a race as you're gonna lose once they can cast just a few extra turns then they don't lose. Trinisphere punishes as fortold and because of howling mine interaction the stormbreath monstrous effect is really good. Also hexproof creatures can be good because they can't target to tap down and then relic proved valueble as this build ran exlixer of immortality for the shuffle effect. I really think choke could be a two of in the sideboard for this and esper draw-go decks, this with trinisphere can do some good work. Also trinisphere slows burn down by limiting the number of spells/tricks they can cast per turn.
Many of you are talking about new inclusions from the upcoming set. The main card I'm looking to make a 4 of is the Dino - thrun, the 7/6 uncounterable hexproof trample dude. This card is a good combo of pretty much every creature in the deck minus the 3 split damage and flying. I really like that it's green as double red can sometimes be rough. I think I'll try a lot of him paired with some number of thragtusk and SBD. As much as I want thragtusk to be something else it really helps regain control of the game making up for lost life to fetching, shocking, and early aggro/creature deck beats. I still like the curve cap to 5, a number of lightning bolts to flex your game one wins via creature or face and walker removal, and I still like 2 of primal command as it acts as a beefy catch all situation type card.
The only other challenging cards I've faced lately is sacrifice effects via liliana of the veil or cards like blessed alliance. also I played the mirror last week at an FNM and realized the key is to hold back, you can beast within your own lands if they attempt a stone rain, also if the deck ever gets popular - or the Todd Stevens Azusa -- excavator deck gets more popular we'll need to play with a crucible of worlds in the side
I've stated my opinion on the birds thing. And I personally feel like 0 birds is correct. Card is terrible. It really doesn't play that well with our game plan is a worse top deck than a land on the 5th turn. Stick to 0, it's correct.
Bad beats bruh. However, you can't expect to really ever draw your sideboard cards when you are playing a bunch of 1 ofs. I would definitely cut the Finks and increase the amount of angers. What do you use finks against??? They are slow, don't really impact the board and really don't put much pressure. Cut them. Up your Trinisphere count to 3 if you're worried about burn. Up your count of angers to 3 for sure. Affinity is a troublesome matchup, you want to cut the stone rains both on the play/draw. Keep your moons in and bring the abrade, grudges, angers.
I would also advise against playing 4 Titans. It's too many and you're likely to get your hand clumped up. I found the perfect number to be at 2/2 split with Stormbreath. The haste is undervalued in my opinion. That's part of what makes the card so good. It's incredibly rare that I'd lose a game where I resolved a dragon, especially if I had access to 7 mana. DEFINITELY have choke in your sideboard going forward. Card is a house.
No. It's bad. It may have looked good there, but that version of the deck is something entirely different. It's super grindy. I think some of you have a misconception that the deck is meant to be grindy, it's not. The whole point of ponza is to make plays that stop your opponent from playing magic. That's the whole point of the deck. You're not interested in out valuing your opponent over 27 turns. What you want is them to lose the game within the first 6 turns or less. That's exactly why a card like tracker doesn't belong in this build.
My thoughts
Threats played are meta dependent. Most of the creatures mentioned have only 4 power so if there is a lot of E Tron, Rock, GDS running around, thragtusk is a must. Against UW control, SB Dragons are better. Against CoCo, titans are better than wurm coil. etc etc
I prefer running more P. commands to tutor for the creatures that I want for a certain match up.
GDD and CToD does not play that well together. You will whiff a lot more on GDD if you play both. I may cut GDD out for Lightning bolts or Roasts or more commands. However, GDD may stand in for a budget CToD.
With IMA release, there were changes made to Blood Moon / Magnus of the Moon, we no longer have to play shocklands tapped as ETB effects are rendered useless.
7 Forest
1 Mountain
2 Misty Rainforst
4 Stomping Ground
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
CREATURES (12)
4 Arbor Elf
2 Inferno Titan
2 Stormbreath Dragon
1 Thragtusk
1 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
3 Molten Rain
3 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
4 Stone Rain
3 Anger of the Gods
2 Primal Command
OTHER SPELLS (11)
4 Blood Moon
4 Utopia Sprawl
3 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Destructive Revelry
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Trinisphere
2 Chameleon Colossus
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Choke
chandra is the real deal and shouldn't even be a question. play 3. i a play 2 abrades main as there are very few decks it's weak against.
—Seal inscription
By the way, how does Blood Moon interact with an Utopia Sprawl enchanting Stomping Ground? Do you lose the Sprawl once Blood Moon resolves?
Edit: And how about Chandra, the Firebrand? You could copy a Stone Rain/Mwonvuli Acid-Moss the next turn for double land destruction.
Chandra, the Firebrand won't allow you to copy a spell you cast on the next turn. Her -2 ability specifically states "When you cast your next instant or sorcery spell THIS TURN" (Sneaky Wizards!). So, unless your're casting her with 7-8 mana on the field the double land destruction shenanigans will have to wait a turn.