Hey guys, new to the deck and the thread. This has probably come up at some point in the discussion, but why isn’t Avalanche Riders played more often in the deck? Is the power level of the card simply too low in this day and age of Magic? I always viewed it as a land destruction spell with a shock attached to it. Is it completely unplayable under Modern circumstances?
I mean, of course it’s bad if you pay the echo; I don’t think anyone casts it with that in mind anymore, but it’s still a spell that can blow up basic lands and swing at your opponent for two. But I agree that in this day and age, there are better three and four drops that totally outclass it.
Sorry, crossing over from a Living End deck where he’s actually played, but I suppose it makes sense he can’t be abused in the same way as that deck does.
I was trying to mirror my paper deck. I don't actually own a 2nd Thragtusk in paper so I just replaced it with the Wurmcoil. It can sometimes be relevant, but overall I think Thragtusk is better as pointed out by Weakatchu. My biggest gripe is the no ETB effect.
With all the talk in the thread about Tireless Tracker being good... finally caved in and added two tracker + 3 clue tokens to my SCG cart.
To those who use tracker... how many is good in the main. 2 or 3?
Run 4.
They are fine to ramp into on turn 2, They are great to play on turn 3 followed by a land drop (even better if it's a fetch land). They draw out removal spells so that you're bigger threats tend to stick more often. If they don't remove it, it will generate clues like crazy.
Relevant Story: I played a tireless tracker on turn 3 played a fetch to get a clue and passed the turn (I was pretty sure he had a lightning bolt in hand and was just going to get the second clue if he bolted), he declined to bolt it and let me untap. I now had 4 mana and 2 clues available, he couldn't bolt it now even if he wanted to because I could just spend the 4 mana draw 2 cards and have a 5/4 which would survive the bolt. Basically the moral of the story is don't be greedy in trying to get the second clue of a fetch land too soon, just let your opponent kill it and then respond with the fetch to get a second clue.
Overall Wurmcoil is a great card and due to certain matchups it is better than some cards and worse than others. In the lifegain department it is worse than Thragtusk as Thragtusk helps stabilize upon entry against aggro, however it is better in resiliency than any other creature in Ponza. As for replacing Inferno Titan I don’t think that is the case. Titan does the heavy lifting most of the time and Titan has more potential damage output. It was known as the colorless Titan for a reason and that is because it is just as good as the other 6 drop Titans in their own respects.
As for Tracker it seems that the number should be at least 3 with an argument for 4. The card is way better than Courser unless you are playing in a heavy burn meta where you need the incidental lifegain because we already ramp pretty well. There isn’t a 3 drop creature that comes close to the raw potential of Tracker in red or green for what Ponza needs. From the number of videos I have watched of it on camera and playing it myself I can say that Ponza can topdeck terribly some times, but the drawing from clue tokens help get us to our bombs better. Also our topdeck lands can be cashed in which would in normal circumstances be considered a terrible topdeck it makes it not so bad.
Has anyone tested out Carnage Tyrant as a bomb instead of Titan? Seems cute.
It is meh. Thrun is better and faster at doing what Carnage does from my experiences. Ponza-saur does not work currently. Other 6 drops that you may try could be Wurmcoil or 6cmc Chandra.
Has anyone tested out Carnage Tyrant as a bomb instead of Titan? Seems cute.
It is meh. Thrun is better and faster at doing what Carnage does from my experiences. Ponza-saur does not work currently. Other 6 drops that you may try could be Wurmcoil or 6cmc Chandra.
I disagree. Since they both can’t be countered and have hexproof we can take that part out of the equation. The only time Thrun is better than Carnage is if and only if your opponent plays a Supreme Verdict and you have 2 extra mana to regenerate it. This means you needed 6 mana anyways. People have started running Golgari Charm in the sb to make Verdict terrible and thus to combat that some control lists have moved to Wrath of God which makes Thrun worse than Carnage.
So that is 1 matchup but what about others?
How about Mono Black Control or 8Rack? They play Damnation. Both still die here.
How about the GDS matchup?
This is a slight edge given to Carnage but Thrun make a great argument. So Carnage beats all creatures except for a big Shadow. Thrun can chump all day here but the problem is if they have a Temur Battle Rage then the extra 2 damage you absorbed with blocking with Carnage vs Thrun could matter.
How about normal matchups that don’t have counterspells? Well in every instance Carnage wins here because at this point you have a 4/4 vs a 7/6 with Trample. There isn’t much that can attack into a 7/6 and live. Also Thrun not having any evasion means he can just get chumped forever by say Lingering Souls tokens.
If anyone believe I missed a matchup in which Thrun completely outclasses, or even comes close Carnage please let me know.
Thrun is far better in the matchups where you want a hexproof creature. It's just that simple. Being castable on turn 2 or 3 is highly relevant because of his ability to clock the opponent and regenerate is huge, no matter what some people might be doing with their control decks.
I disagree. Since they both can’t be countered and have hexproof we can take that part out of the equation. The only time Thrun is better than Carnage is if and only if your opponent plays a Supreme Verdict and you have 2 extra mana to regenerate it. This means you needed 6 mana anyways. People have started running Golgari Charm in the sb to make Verdict terrible and thus to combat that some control lists have moved to Wrath of God which makes Thrun worse than Carnage.
So that is 1 matchup but what about others?
How about Mono Black Control or 8Rack? They play Damnation. Both still die here.
How about the GDS matchup?
This is a slight edge given to Carnage but Thrun make a great argument. So Carnage beats all creatures except for a big Shadow. Thrun can chump all day here but the problem is if they have a Temur Battle Rage then the extra 2 damage you absorbed with blocking with Carnage vs Thrun could matter.
How about normal matchups that don’t have counterspells? Well in every instance Carnage wins here because at this point you have a 4/4 vs a 7/6 with Trample. There isn’t much that can attack into a 7/6 and live. Also Thrun not having any evasion means he can just get chumped forever by say Lingering Souls tokens.
If anyone believe I missed a matchup in which Thrun completely outclasses, or even comes close Carnage please let me know.
Thrun comes down 1 or 2 turn faster and that makes all the difference. Ponza weakness is the early game board state which Thrun will do better to stabilise. I've tested Carnage as my flex SB slot for about 2 months (30+ games on it) and most of the time I rather have a Thrun, Titan or Wurmcoil in place of it. If you can cast a Carnage, this also means you can cast a Thrun and have mana to regenerate it. 4+2 is always easier to cast than a 6cmc.
MBC and 8rack are super bad matchups. Fighting Phyrexian Obliterators, undying creatures protecting lilis or getting to 6mana against 8rack are tough. Neither Thrun nor Carnage will be swapped in the deck post sideboard.
I will like to know your list and playstyle against these 2 decks as I'm having problems against them.
GDS - A DS will be able to grow bigger than a Carnage. TBR is also being cut from GDS now so I rather have a repeatable blocker then a 7/6 that will be outclassed.
While Thrun can come down faster than Carnage, which is another merit I didn’t give it in my breakdown of the 2 cards, let’s examine how typical play goes against U/W Control (most common control deck). On the play you are in the driver seat so either a T2 moon or T2-3 Thrun could run away with the game. On the draw however you could have your Forest turned into an Island or they play Wall of Omens and keep digging. This means your T3 even if you managed to get down a Thrun on T2 you will probably get blocked by a Wall. Now your T3 you couldn’t play anything because you needed to keep mana up to regen for the anticipated Veridict right? Whoops they are a deck that plays Wrath instead and now you have literally wasted a turn. They have now taken no damage thus far and you have no creatures on board.
But ok I hear ya let’s assume they did play a Verdict. You feel great cause you blanked their spell. You wasted a turn but so did they. Well their next turn you can almost guarantee big Gideon is coming down and unless you play Stormbreath on your T4 your still not getting in but only 4 damage by their T5. Let’s also hope that you didn’t tap out again to play another bomb because if they have another verdict in hand you are without a board.
So which does better if they have stabilized? They keep plusing Gideon which forces you to attack him instead of the player. Well every single creature gets in Thruns way even little Snapcaster. Carnage will have inevitability due to Trample to push through damage.
So against most multicolored control lists we are favored due Moon and LD package so for game 2 we more than likely will be on the draw.
Now to address how to fight 8Rack or MBC. While I haven’t played too much against it, you need to take out all Moons and go down a couple of your Stone Rain/Acid Moss. You are indeed correct that Thrun nor Carnage would be good in these matches and so I apologize for misleading anyone.
Make sure against 8Rack you have all your value creatures in (such as Kitchen Finks, Thragtusk, Wurmcoil, Huntmaster, or P&K) Also play a couple of Grudges and the hopefully 1 of Fracturing Gusts. Also keep your PW in against this matchup. Even if you can land 1 that will help deal with.
As for MBC you need to hopefully draw Beast Within for Obliterator (which is the most difficult to deal with by far) and whichever board wipe you choose but Anger is strong here as it prevents Messenger from coming back.
Regarding GDS, Battle Rage is still played in some lists in the sb but 2 weeks ago on camera at an SCG tournament someone played it in the main so much like Wrath vs Verdict sure you can hope they don’t play it but you should play as though they do. In general when you sideboard in cards you generally are boarding in stuff not only to fight what the opponent has mainboard but what they also might have sb. What is more relevant is if they don’t have Shadow you are much better off with Carnage than Thrun in every circumstance period.
I hope I helped explain better some things. If want more examples or more clarification let me know. I will try to help as best I can.
UW Control may be the most common control deck for your deck. In my area UW is all but dead, most people moved on from UW to Jeskai. For UW control or decks that have spell queller, Carnage is superior. If your meta has a lot of UW control, go for it. I will do it too if I'm going to face UW control decks more than 50% of the time.
If you are comparing to a larger event like SCG opens, GPs, RPTQs which have a wider range of decks, I take Thrun over Carnage.
Ponza ia a tempo deck and its flex slots are meta dependent. If I T2/3 a Thrun against a UW control, I will not keep up mana for regeneration the next turn. I rather cast something else (Moon or LD) forcing a counterspell out. I don't mind Thrun dying 1 for 1 against any board wipe. Wrath is also very rare for me but it could be for your meta.
Against UW control, letting things go 1 for 1 is advantageous for us. We have more threats than they have answers and they have a slow clock.
If I get a Thrun out and they cast a Gideon in response to nullify Thrun, they are tapped out or have 1 mana open. His shields are almost down. Just cast anything that you want. If he has a 1 cmc counterspell, so be it. Force them to interact with your board state.
Somsone just did a buyout of all the the semi-played Tireless trackers at SCG, because they're at a Christmas discount. I could have sworn there are almost 20 of those two days ago, now all gone. Which forced me to buy 3 of the near mint ones today. Anyway, just 1 Trinisphere, 1 Moon and 4 Sprawls missing before my deck is ready to roll. ^___^
Tempted to tenporarily substitute something else for the sprawls while they're out of stock at SCG... but probably a bad idea even at FNM level....
Somsone just did a buyout of all the the semi-played Tireless trackers at SCG, because they're at a Christmas discount. I could have sworn there are almost 20 of those two days ago, now all gone. Which forced me to buy 3 of the near mint ones today. Anyway, just 1 Trinisphere, 1 Moon and 4 Sprawls missing before my deck is ready to roll. ^___^
Tempted to tenporarily substitute something else for the sprawls while they're out of stock at SCG... but probably a bad idea even at FNM level....
The reason sprawl is out of stock and expensive is that it's not been reprinted and no card is quite like it.
You could play extra birds I guess.
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4x Arbor Elf
2x Birds of Paradise
2x Courser of Kruphix
2x Huntmaster of the Fells
2x Inferno Titan
2x Stormbreath Dragon
1x Thragtusk
2x Tireless Tracker
1x Wurmcoil Engine
3x Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
4x Stone Rain
4x Blood Moon
4x Utopia Sprawl
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Chandra, Torch of Defiance
9x Forest
1x Mountain
3x Stomping Ground
4x Windswept Heath
4x Wooded Foothills
2x Ancient Grudge
2x Anger of the Gods
2x Beast Within
2x Relic of Progenitus
2x Scavenging Ooze
1x Shatterstorm
2x Trinisphere
Sorry, crossing over from a Living End deck where he’s actually played, but I suppose it makes sense he can’t be abused in the same way as that deck does.
To those who use tracker... how many is good in the main. 2 or 3?
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Run 4.
They are fine to ramp into on turn 2, They are great to play on turn 3 followed by a land drop (even better if it's a fetch land). They draw out removal spells so that you're bigger threats tend to stick more often. If they don't remove it, it will generate clues like crazy.
Relevant Story: I played a tireless tracker on turn 3 played a fetch to get a clue and passed the turn (I was pretty sure he had a lightning bolt in hand and was just going to get the second clue if he bolted), he declined to bolt it and let me untap. I now had 4 mana and 2 clues available, he couldn't bolt it now even if he wanted to because I could just spend the 4 mana draw 2 cards and have a 5/4 which would survive the bolt. Basically the moral of the story is don't be greedy in trying to get the second clue of a fetch land too soon, just let your opponent kill it and then respond with the fetch to get a second clue.
As for Tracker it seems that the number should be at least 3 with an argument for 4. The card is way better than Courser unless you are playing in a heavy burn meta where you need the incidental lifegain because we already ramp pretty well. There isn’t a 3 drop creature that comes close to the raw potential of Tracker in red or green for what Ponza needs. From the number of videos I have watched of it on camera and playing it myself I can say that Ponza can topdeck terribly some times, but the drawing from clue tokens help get us to our bombs better. Also our topdeck lands can be cashed in which would in normal circumstances be considered a terrible topdeck it makes it not so bad.
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Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
Has anyone tested out Carnage Tyrant as a bomb instead of Titan? Seems cute.
Bogles / BW Tokens / Skred Red
Legacy
Burn
Pauper
Songs of the Damned / Elves
Commander
Lin Sivvi
It is meh. Thrun is better and faster at doing what Carnage does from my experiences. Ponza-saur does not work currently. Other 6 drops that you may try could be Wurmcoil or 6cmc Chandra.
I disagree. Since they both can’t be countered and have hexproof we can take that part out of the equation. The only time Thrun is better than Carnage is if and only if your opponent plays a Supreme Verdict and you have 2 extra mana to regenerate it. This means you needed 6 mana anyways. People have started running Golgari Charm in the sb to make Verdict terrible and thus to combat that some control lists have moved to Wrath of God which makes Thrun worse than Carnage.
So that is 1 matchup but what about others?
How about Mono Black Control or 8Rack? They play Damnation. Both still die here.
How about the GDS matchup?
This is a slight edge given to Carnage but Thrun make a great argument. So Carnage beats all creatures except for a big Shadow. Thrun can chump all day here but the problem is if they have a Temur Battle Rage then the extra 2 damage you absorbed with blocking with Carnage vs Thrun could matter.
How about normal matchups that don’t have counterspells? Well in every instance Carnage wins here because at this point you have a 4/4 vs a 7/6 with Trample. There isn’t much that can attack into a 7/6 and live. Also Thrun not having any evasion means he can just get chumped forever by say Lingering Souls tokens.
If anyone believe I missed a matchup in which Thrun completely outclasses, or even comes close Carnage please let me know.
Thrun comes down 1 or 2 turn faster and that makes all the difference. Ponza weakness is the early game board state which Thrun will do better to stabilise. I've tested Carnage as my flex SB slot for about 2 months (30+ games on it) and most of the time I rather have a Thrun, Titan or Wurmcoil in place of it. If you can cast a Carnage, this also means you can cast a Thrun and have mana to regenerate it. 4+2 is always easier to cast than a 6cmc.
MBC and 8rack are super bad matchups. Fighting Phyrexian Obliterators, undying creatures protecting lilis or getting to 6mana against 8rack are tough. Neither Thrun nor Carnage will be swapped in the deck post sideboard.
I will like to know your list and playstyle against these 2 decks as I'm having problems against them.
GDS - A DS will be able to grow bigger than a Carnage. TBR is also being cut from GDS now so I rather have a repeatable blocker then a 7/6 that will be outclassed.
But ok I hear ya let’s assume they did play a Verdict. You feel great cause you blanked their spell. You wasted a turn but so did they. Well their next turn you can almost guarantee big Gideon is coming down and unless you play Stormbreath on your T4 your still not getting in but only 4 damage by their T5. Let’s also hope that you didn’t tap out again to play another bomb because if they have another verdict in hand you are without a board.
So which does better if they have stabilized? They keep plusing Gideon which forces you to attack him instead of the player. Well every single creature gets in Thruns way even little Snapcaster. Carnage will have inevitability due to Trample to push through damage.
So against most multicolored control lists we are favored due Moon and LD package so for game 2 we more than likely will be on the draw.
Now to address how to fight 8Rack or MBC. While I haven’t played too much against it, you need to take out all Moons and go down a couple of your Stone Rain/Acid Moss. You are indeed correct that Thrun nor Carnage would be good in these matches and so I apologize for misleading anyone.
Make sure against 8Rack you have all your value creatures in (such as Kitchen Finks, Thragtusk, Wurmcoil, Huntmaster, or P&K) Also play a couple of Grudges and the hopefully 1 of Fracturing Gusts. Also keep your PW in against this matchup. Even if you can land 1 that will help deal with.
As for MBC you need to hopefully draw Beast Within for Obliterator (which is the most difficult to deal with by far) and whichever board wipe you choose but Anger is strong here as it prevents Messenger from coming back.
Regarding GDS, Battle Rage is still played in some lists in the sb but 2 weeks ago on camera at an SCG tournament someone played it in the main so much like Wrath vs Verdict sure you can hope they don’t play it but you should play as though they do. In general when you sideboard in cards you generally are boarding in stuff not only to fight what the opponent has mainboard but what they also might have sb. What is more relevant is if they don’t have Shadow you are much better off with Carnage than Thrun in every circumstance period.
I hope I helped explain better some things. If want more examples or more clarification let me know. I will try to help as best I can.
If you are comparing to a larger event like SCG opens, GPs, RPTQs which have a wider range of decks, I take Thrun over Carnage.
Ponza ia a tempo deck and its flex slots are meta dependent. If I T2/3 a Thrun against a UW control, I will not keep up mana for regeneration the next turn. I rather cast something else (Moon or LD) forcing a counterspell out. I don't mind Thrun dying 1 for 1 against any board wipe. Wrath is also very rare for me but it could be for your meta.
Against UW control, letting things go 1 for 1 is advantageous for us. We have more threats than they have answers and they have a slow clock.
If I get a Thrun out and they cast a Gideon in response to nullify Thrun, they are tapped out or have 1 mana open. His shields are almost down. Just cast anything that you want. If he has a 1 cmc counterspell, so be it. Force them to interact with your board state.
Tempted to tenporarily substitute something else for the sprawls while they're out of stock at SCG... but probably a bad idea even at FNM level....
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Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
(Pro tip: Don't do this.)
The reason sprawl is out of stock and expensive is that it's not been reprinted and no card is quite like it.
You could play extra birds I guess.