If you wanted to main-deck a sweeper other than Bonfire, then I would definitely go for Sweltering Suns. Out of the board the cycling isn't relevant and Anger is better.
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Modern Decks
------------ URW Jeskai Control GUWRB Amulet Titan GR Ponza
So, confession time: I don't actually own a Ponza deck. I came across the deck in a Channel Fireball video and was immediately intrigued. The ability to play big interesting creatures AND lose friends? I just couldn't resist! Not owning the cards, I have been testing the deck to see how much I like it through other means. As a result, I have pretty much all options open to me. Because of this, I come before you with a deck list for your scrutiny and a couple of questions.
Grixis:
How does Ponza fair against Deaths Shadow? I've played this match a couple of times now and it feels fine if I get to go first with a Utopia Sprawl turn 1 and Stone Rain turn 2. In any game that I am on the draw however, I find a combination of hand disruption and easy removal makes the match almost always swing one way. In Delver variants I find counter magic wears me down and no hard removal makes those big creatures nearly unstoppable for both decks. Any advice? Where am I going wrong?
Mulligan:
Should I be looking to mulligan any hand that doesn't include a turn 1 play - be it sprawl or elf - and how damaging is mulligan to the deck in general? I've found that going down to 5 cards made it almost impossible to stay in the game, whilst keeping a sub-spar hand at 7 gave equally difficult results. Is this an error with my build?
The Deck:
I have placed my trial build for your perusal bellow. Please feel free to tell me if anything looks off. I struggle with the side-board, having never played Green/Red before, so am quite open to suggestions that may help my testing continue. Happy losing friends and thanks for your attention.
How do we fair against deaths shadow? It's a VERY interesting matchup. They have the ability, on the play, to play 2-3 hand attack/fatal pushes/snap hand attack and SHRED hour hand and leave us with no impact then kill us. We on the play have the aility to turn 2/3 blood monn GG no re. Also, if we rip a moon off the top at any time and they don't have us dead in the next 2 turns on board, then we become the favorite. Same goes for a chameleon colossus really. It comes down to each players keep. I recomed mulligaining aggresivley game 1 to either a turn 2 moon, or multiple LD threats. Don't play around stubs too much either.
Should you mull to 6 more often? Maybe. Against aggresive decks, probably. You can't afford to be a turn slow. Against midrange, control and E tron. Mediocre 7s often win. A turn 3 moon reks midrange and E tron, and tron on the play. But in unknown matchups it comes down to intuition. I was on the play the other week in an unknown and mulled away 6 lands 1 scooze. My 6 was 4 lands, arbor elf courser of Kruphix. Keep, scry land bottom. Got turn 1 thoughtsiezed. By deaths shadow. GG.
Thanks for your response, Moonbreaker1072. Are you not a fan of Primal Command? I see it in a lot of lists and on the whole have found it effective. I might not run it as a 2, though. Once or twice in my testing I have drawn it early and it's been a dead card. But it's almost always felt valuable in the mid-late. What would you replace it with?
I was also looking at Carnage Tyrant. Seems like it has a lot of potential.
99% of the time you use the same 2 modes. Find a threat, gain life. The life you gain makes up for the fact you're doing nothing that turn.
Or, you could just play threats in that slot.
Gain life? I always put a land on top which takes away their next draw.
^This. Primal Commandgives us a ton of options depending on the situation. I don't see myself playing more than two main anytime soon, but to say the card's sole purpose is to find a threat & gain life is a bit off-base.
Puting a land on top for 5 is slow, but a thing the card can do. I like its utility, but, in my experience found it was so often just me taking a turn off to find GDDs or Stormbae that I let it go. If your metas require more subtle touches then go for it I guess.
I beat boggles today. t2 moon really reks them. Love outhating the hate
guys, isn't maindeck split between moon and trinisphere will be better than 4 moons in main? there are so many many agro and combo decks in my meta, including some number of burn and affinity. and even when the moon is good, the second and so on are redundant after installing first one.
I beat boggles today. t2 moon really reks them. Love outhating the hate
You're not kidding. I was piloting Bogles a few weeks ago and got absolutely massacred by another Ponza player; I knew exactly what was coming, but was helpless to stop it haha.
guys, isn't maindeck split between moon and trinisphere will be better than 4 moons in main? there are so many many agro and combo decks in my meta, including some number of burn and affinity. and even when the moon is good, the second and so on are redundant after installing first one.
A resolved Blood Moon is an easy game 1 win in a number of different match-ups. Like with almost any win-con, the redundancy is necessary in order to ensure we draw it in the first place. Assuming a 60 card deck running a playset of Blood Moon and an opening hand of seven cards, we have a ~40% chance of drawing it in our opening hand. If we dilute that number to two mainboard copies, we're looking at a ~22% chance of it appearing in our opening hand.
guys, isn't maindeck split between moon and trinisphere will be better than 4 moons in main? there are so many many agro and combo decks in my meta, including some number of burn and affinity. and even when the moon is good, the second and so on are redundant after installing first one.
Trinishphere is good if you have a burn/ affinity/ Deaths shadow meta. But so is Chalice. I would play it if I needed too, but no deaths shadow in my meta, and I have a good handle on Burn
But plow under is sooo much fun to play! You are right though, primal command has way more utility. It's all about choice, the more choices you get to make, the more you can control the game, rather than the "chance" element of MTG controlling things.
hey guys, i'd also want to share a bit of FNM results. that was 4th FNM i participated in with Ponza, all of them ended with 2:1 results.
yesterday i did lose to UG Infect (2:1, first game was awful, have to mull to 4 second time in my life), and then win (2:1) with monoblack Infect, and finally win against Ad Nauseum (2:0).
feel a bit unlucky (lose all the dice throws).
here is the decklist
there was funny last game against Ad Nauseum. an opponent started with hilarious hand against LD (2 lotus bloom suspended turn 1, ad nauseum + angel's grace in hand, and no lands at all!). but.. then i was very lucky to play turn 2 trinisphere. can't describe, what effect it causes, its ended with 10-min google search about iteraction of suspend with trinisphere. so, finally the game didn't last long after that. i feel, the deck is so fun to play with and seems to be quite competitive (i think i have won much better players than me with it several times). still, i usually hope to avoid affinity/UG infect/monored opponents decks at the tournament.
- Abrade is awesome
- Birds suck
- Trinisphere is great
- Less titans
Glad to see you guys are slowly coming to a consensus on the things i've talked about a while back.
I haven't tried the Regisaurs yet and in context, they seem great. Nationals is next week and although I am unable to play the main event, I plan on playing on Sunday. Should there be a modern tourney, I will run the test with it.
I can see how coco decks are an issue. If those are prevalent in your meta, you should cut choke for cages.
If you wanted to main-deck a sweeper other than Bonfire, then I would definitely go for Sweltering Suns. Out of the board the cycling isn't relevant and Anger is better.
------------
URW Jeskai Control
GUWRB Amulet Titan
GR Ponza
So, confession time: I don't actually own a Ponza deck. I came across the deck in a Channel Fireball video and was immediately intrigued. The ability to play big interesting creatures AND lose friends? I just couldn't resist! Not owning the cards, I have been testing the deck to see how much I like it through other means. As a result, I have pretty much all options open to me. Because of this, I come before you with a deck list for your scrutiny and a couple of questions.
Grixis:
How does Ponza fair against Deaths Shadow? I've played this match a couple of times now and it feels fine if I get to go first with a Utopia Sprawl turn 1 and Stone Rain turn 2. In any game that I am on the draw however, I find a combination of hand disruption and easy removal makes the match almost always swing one way. In Delver variants I find counter magic wears me down and no hard removal makes those big creatures nearly unstoppable for both decks. Any advice? Where am I going wrong?
Mulligan:
Should I be looking to mulligan any hand that doesn't include a turn 1 play - be it sprawl or elf - and how damaging is mulligan to the deck in general? I've found that going down to 5 cards made it almost impossible to stay in the game, whilst keeping a sub-spar hand at 7 gave equally difficult results. Is this an error with my build?
The Deck:
I have placed my trial build for your perusal bellow. Please feel free to tell me if anything looks off. I struggle with the side-board, having never played Green/Red before, so am quite open to suggestions that may help my testing continue. Happy losing friends and thanks for your attention.
4 Arbor Elf
2 Obstinate Baloth
1 Thragtusk
2 Inferno Titan
3 Stormbreath Dragon
(8) Enchantment
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Blood Moon
(2) Instant
2 Beast Within
(22) Land
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Stomping Ground
10 Forest
1 Mountain
3 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
(13) Sorcery
3 Bonfire of the Damned
2 Primal Command
4 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
4 Stone Rain
2 Trinisphere
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Destructive Revelry
3 Abrade
3 Anger of the Gods
1 Creeping Corrosion
How do we fair against deaths shadow? It's a VERY interesting matchup. They have the ability, on the play, to play 2-3 hand attack/fatal pushes/snap hand attack and SHRED hour hand and leave us with no impact then kill us. We on the play have the aility to turn 2/3 blood monn GG no re. Also, if we rip a moon off the top at any time and they don't have us dead in the next 2 turns on board, then we become the favorite. Same goes for a chameleon colossus really. It comes down to each players keep. I recomed mulligaining aggresivley game 1 to either a turn 2 moon, or multiple LD threats. Don't play around stubs too much either.
Should you mull to 6 more often? Maybe. Against aggresive decks, probably. You can't afford to be a turn slow. Against midrange, control and E tron. Mediocre 7s often win. A turn 3 moon reks midrange and E tron, and tron on the play. But in unknown matchups it comes down to intuition. I was on the play the other week in an unknown and mulled away 6 lands 1 scooze. My 6 was 4 lands, arbor elf courser of Kruphix. Keep, scry land bottom. Got turn 1 thoughtsiezed. By deaths shadow. GG.
I was also looking at Carnage Tyrant. Seems like it has a lot of potential.
Or, you could just play threats in that slot.
Gain life? I always put a land on top which takes away their next draw.
^This. Primal Commandgives us a ton of options depending on the situation. I don't see myself playing more than two main anytime soon, but to say the card's sole purpose is to find a threat & gain life is a bit off-base.
Link to Discord server where anybody from MTGS can keep up with thread topics while everything is being sorted out with the new site.
I beat boggles today. t2 moon really reks them. Love outhating the hate
You're not kidding. I was piloting Bogles a few weeks ago and got absolutely massacred by another Ponza player; I knew exactly what was coming, but was helpless to stop it haha.
A resolved Blood Moon is an easy game 1 win in a number of different match-ups. Like with almost any win-con, the redundancy is necessary in order to ensure we draw it in the first place. Assuming a 60 card deck running a playset of Blood Moon and an opening hand of seven cards, we have a ~40% chance of drawing it in our opening hand. If we dilute that number to two mainboard copies, we're looking at a ~22% chance of it appearing in our opening hand.
Link to Discord server where anybody from MTGS can keep up with thread topics while everything is being sorted out with the new site.
I think Primal Command is waaay better.
Trinishphere is good if you have a burn/ affinity/ Deaths shadow meta. But so is Chalice. I would play it if I needed too, but no deaths shadow in my meta, and I have a good handle on Burn
But plow under is sooo much fun to play! You are right though, primal command has way more utility. It's all about choice, the more choices you get to make, the more you can control the game, rather than the "chance" element of MTG controlling things.
yesterday i did lose to UG Infect (2:1, first game was awful, have to mull to 4 second time in my life), and then win (2:1) with monoblack Infect, and finally win against Ad Nauseum (2:0).
feel a bit unlucky (lose all the dice throws).
here is the decklist
4x Arbor Elf
1x Birds of Paradise
1x Goblin Dark-Dwellers
1x Hazoret the Fervent
3x Inferno Titan
2x Obstinate Baloth
2x Stormbreath Dragon
1x Beast Within
1x Dismember
1x Chandra, Pyromaster
8x Forest
1x Mountain
2x Rootbound Crag
2x Stomping Ground
4x Windswept Heath
2x Anger of the Gods
2x Bonfire of the Damned
4x Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
2x Primal Command
4x Stone Rain
4x Utopia Sprawl
3x Ancient Grudge
1x Anger of the Gods
2x Feed the Clan
1x Scavenging Ooze
2x Sudden Shock
2x Tormod's Crypt
1x Chameleon Colossus
2x Trinisphere
1x Witchbane Orb
there was funny last game against Ad Nauseum. an opponent started with hilarious hand against LD (2 lotus bloom suspended turn 1, ad nauseum + angel's grace in hand, and no lands at all!). but.. then i was very lucky to play turn 2 trinisphere. can't describe, what effect it causes, its ended with 10-min google search about iteraction of suspend with trinisphere. so, finally the game didn't last long after that. i feel, the deck is so fun to play with and seems to be quite competitive (i think i have won much better players than me with it several times). still, i usually hope to avoid affinity/UG infect/monored opponents decks at the tournament.
- Abrade is awesome
- Birds suck
- Trinisphere is great
- Less titans
Glad to see you guys are slowly coming to a consensus on the things i've talked about a while back.
I haven't tried the Regisaurs yet and in context, they seem great. Nationals is next week and although I am unable to play the main event, I plan on playing on Sunday. Should there be a modern tourney, I will run the test with it.
I can see how coco decks are an issue. If those are prevalent in your meta, you should cut choke for cages.