@TheAller welcome to Ponza! Your list looks like a great value midrange list! The only thing i would recommended trying is molten rain instead of beast within in the main. Giving them a 3/3 really turns off BBE's 3/2 haste body so at max its a 1 for 1 cascading into Beast Within. I also think going below 6 MB targeted LD spells is inconsistent so Molten Rain would be the closest swap. I would try to sneak a Chandra in the main too, but your type of list might not want that?
Great list though! Happy hunting!
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Modern Decks
------------ URW Jeskai Control GUWRB Amulet Titan GR Ponza
I'm interested in going in a non-blood moon direction, which may be crazy, but i really like the courser/tracker combo. so to maximize it i'm into the ramunap excavator + wayward swordtooth plan, which allows us to leverage fetchlands, a singleton horizon canopy, and ghost quarter to destroy more lands over the course of a long game, letting us cut down on win-cons to basically a singleton primeval titan, stormbreath, nissa vastwood seer and chandra, with 3 of those fetchable by the primal command. We can get away with this because the swordtooth, tracker, and wolf-run can also turn into threats that end the game rather quickly.
Why configure the deck like this? Because we have no 'bad' hits from the BBE - no doubling up on blood moons, hitting a lightning bolt or beast within that are suboptimal. You are going to hit acceleration, a value creature, or a land destruction spell. Your value creatures synergistically build on each other, with the only one that does actual nothing in duplicate being the excavator. I could see replacing the 2nd one with an E-witness to even get rid of that issue.
What do you guys think of replacing Birds of Paradise for Lotus Cobra. If you accelerate into T1 Elf/Sprawl, T2 Cobra+ Fetch you have 5 mana available in T2. Even if you play in T2 you can play BBE or Stormbreath T3.
It's also a better cascading target than birds, at least it's a 2/1 body. Plus it's nice to play something T2 in situations when you can't find a accelerator T1. I liked it so much than I'm thinking into playing 3 Cobras now...
I have been testing Courser + BBE + Fetch and it's the real deal because you can control your cascades, improving BBE.
@TheAller welcome to Ponza! Your list looks like a great value midrange list! The only thing i would recommended trying is molten rain instead of beast within in the main. Giving them a 3/3 really turns off BBE's 3/2 haste body so at max its a 1 for 1 cascading into Beast Within. I also think going below 6 MB targeted LD spells is inconsistent so Molten Rain would be the closest swap. I would try to sneak a Chandra in the main too, but your type of list might not want that?
Great list though! Happy hunting!
I really like my 2x Beast Within. I started with 4 to be honest (you know, new to the archetype) then I realized they're just plain bad in multiples. However I really like it as 2x. This for a few reasons:
Have to agree with the Beast Within comment. Also have 2 in the main, it's an answer to many things. Beast Within a Goyf, Tasigur, Angler, Rhino.. to make it smaller. A 3/3 beast is often less dangerous than a planeswalker, beast my own land for a surprise blocker / another body to end the game with. Well,, and I do admit that there are situations where I use it on opponent's land - and I take a few hits from the 3/3 afterwards.. but that's just part of the risks with such a versatile card.
As for Tireless Tracker... card is just amazing. It looks pretty harmless, but it can help win games.
With the 4-drop slot presently taken up by 2 Chandra, 2 Thrun, and now 3 Bloodbraid Elf I am considering dropping Huntmaster of the Fells. I have always found him really useful. I am just not sure I have room for him in the deck anymore as I would on the whole be looking to cast one of the others most of the time. Has anyone else experienced this? I am considering going up to 4 BloodBraid Elf and 8 Land Destruction abilities, possibly including a bolt or two main board which might make up for the lost bolt-effect of Huntmaster.
@TheAller
RE: Beast Within
It is a good planeswalker killer and I would rather face a 3/3 than Jace. Other points are reasonable as well. I too am worried about RR with Molten Rain.
Why Slagstorm instead of Anger of the Gods main? Is it just for the damage in case we are ahead on life?
@everyone
Chandra Thoughts:
I do wonder if Jace + BBE in Modern means that Lantern Control gets dunked. If so, having a wincon, i.e. Chandra, that doesn't require attacking is less important. That is why I am testing 2.
However, does anyone know how Chandra works with the new errata of the player/redirect to planeswalker rule? Does Chandra hit "each opposing planeswalker" for 2 damage? Because that would be massive. Or is she only players now and can't hit Planeswalkers? The former would be huge for all of the UBx planeswalker builds that are going appear with Jace.
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"I'm a lead farmer... !" Quote ruined due to policy.
With the 4-drop slot presently taken up by 2 Chandra, 2 Thrun, and now 3 Bloodbraid Elf I am considering dropping Huntmaster of the Fells. I have always found him really useful. I am just not sure I have room for him in the deck anymore as I would on the whole be looking to cast one of the others most of the time. Has anyone else experienced this? I am considering going up to 4 BloodBraid Elf and 8 Land Destruction abilities, possibly including a bolt or two main board which might make up for the lost bolt-effect of Huntmaster.
This is what I'm on. I was running 4 Huntsmaster, cut all 4 for BBE, then changed my Mwonvuli Acid-Moss to x2 Beast Within and x2 Molten Rain. I then lowered my top end and went for just the consistency + disruption route instead of disruption + top end finishers.
What do you guys think of replacing Birds of Paradise for Lotus Cobra. If you accelerate into T1 Elf/Sprawl, T2 Cobra+ Fetch you have 5 mana available in T2. Even if you play in T2 you can play BBE or Stormbreath T3.
It's also a better cascading target than birds, at least it's a 2/1 body. Plus it's nice to play something T2 in situations when you can't find a accelerator T1. I liked it so much than I'm thinking into playing 3 Cobras now...
I have been testing Courser + BBE + Fetch and it's the real deal because you can control your cascades, improving BBE.
I think there's a deck for Lotus Cobra (I.E. Turbolands) but it isn't Ponza. The core strategy of the deck is to have the possibility for a turn 2 Blood Moon or Stone Rain (and in some lists, Molten Rain. Your basically a RG list that relies on mana disruption/denial and either top-end threats (older lists with Inferno Titan and Stormbreath Dragon) or consistency (new lists with Bloodbraid Elf.) Playing your ramp on t2 isn't really what you want to be doing, and cascading into situational ramp doesn't feel that good either, especially considering that this deck runs 20-22 lands.
@TheAller Slagstorm is only maindeck because of the damage then. But maybe Sweltering Suns is better since you can cycle it? I'm not sure I like any of them main, but I was curious. Thanks.
RE: Chandra
Sure, I know planeswalkers are not opponents, but with the change in the rules such that you do damage to players and/or planeswalkers (no more 'redirect damage from the player to the planeswalker'), her wording becomes more awkward. So if you can do damage to each opponent, in EDH you can then do 2 damage to each opponent and redirect that to a planeswalker each opponent controls, on the idea in fact planeswalkers were equivalent substitutes for opponents with direct damage effects. However, under the new ruling the text errata would be "2 damage to each opponent" or "2 damage to one planeswalker controlled by each opponent", or something like that. Her text was clear under the redirect rule, but now it becomes slightly awkward.
TL/DR
I agree with you, that makes sense, but the wording is weird with the new rule. Wanted to see if there was an official errata for her.
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How are you guys building your sideboards for the BBE builds? I've been having trouble deciding on a final 15.
All I've noticed is that Trinisphere shuts down a lot of decks and that some enchantment removal might not be a bad idea
One thing to note about SB in general with BBE is how they interact when hit. 3Sphere makes the BBE hits cost 3 and Enchantment removal isn't an amazing hit. That's not to say you can't run either of them, but it's something to keep in mind when building and when actually sideboarding. Cards like Beast Within can have additional value as SB cards in these scenarios.
One thing to note about SB in general with BBE is how they interact when hit. 3Sphere makes the BBE hits cost 3 and Enchantment removal isn't an amazing hit. That's not to say you can't run either of them, but it's something to keep in mind when building and when actually sideboarding. Cards like Beast Within can have additional value as SB cards in these scenarios.
yeah I considered that, right now I'm testing seal of primordium in the sideboard because if you cascade into it at least you can cast it with no legal targets.
Also has anyone tried Display of Dominance? If a UBx control/tempo deck arises it could be useful
IMO, Fulminator isn't something you want in Ponza. It might be a different story if it could hit basics, but otherwise he's just a 2/2 body that requires two red sources to cast or a sub-par BBE target; not very helpful when you have a Blood Moon out and can make for clunky opening hands. If I had to choose, I'd rather have Magus of the Moon as it plays nice with the rest of the deck and is usually just a 5th copy of Blood Moon.
For those who are playing BBE in a Ponza shell w/ typical ramp (~8-10 sources), I'm curious how you'd compare your BBE list to a non-BBE list? I've played quite a few matches against what seemed like standard Ponza builds just w/ 4 BBE jammed in and it's pretty underwhelming; resolving a BBE and cascading into a Utopia Sprawl is pretty *****ty and occurs far too often. It sucks because the deck has always been pretty budget-friendly, but I really think that overhauling our ramp package with Noble Hierarch is the right move for any list that wants to play BBE. That's just based on the limited data we have since the B&R announcement, but when you consider that a minimum ~17% of the deck consists of bad BBE targets, the writing is on the wall.
For those who are playing BBE in a Ponza shell w/ typical ramp (~8-10 sources), I'm curious how you'd compare your BBE list to a non-BBE list? I've played quite a few matches against what seemed like standard Ponza builds just w/ 4 BBE jammed in and it's pretty underwhelming; resolving a BBE and cascading into a Utopia Sprawl is pretty *****ty and occurs far too often. It sucks because the deck has always been pretty budget-friendly, but I really think that overhauling our ramp package with Noble Hierarch is the right move for any list that wants to play BBE. That's just based on the limited data we have since the B&R announcement, but when you consider that a minimum ~17% of the deck consists of bad BBE targets, the writing is on the wall.
While it's of course preferable to cascade into something more powerful than Utopia Sprawl, I feel I should point out that even if you do, it means you've gotten it "out of the way" and brought yourself closer to more relevant cards to draw.
For those who are playing BBE in a Ponza shell w/ typical ramp (~8-10 sources), I'm curious how you'd compare your BBE list to a non-BBE list? I've played quite a few matches against what seemed like standard Ponza builds just w/ 4 BBE jammed in and it's pretty underwhelming; resolving a BBE and cascading into a Utopia Sprawl is pretty *****ty and occurs far too often. It sucks because the deck has always been pretty budget-friendly, but I really think that overhauling our ramp package with Noble Hierarch is the right move for any list that wants to play BBE. That's just based on the limited data we have since the B&R announcement, but when you consider that a minimum ~17% of the deck consists of bad BBE targets, the writing is on the wall.
While it's of course preferable to cascade into something more powerful than Utopia Sprawl, I feel I should point out that even if you do, it means you've gotten it "out of the way" and brought yourself closer to more relevant cards to draw.
Absolutely. However at that point, wouldn't it be more preferable to just resolve a Chandra? I'm curious to see if typical Ponza lists + BBE ultimately perform significantly better than w/o BBE. In a another shell with a different ramp package consisting of Nobles rather than Sprawls, your "worst" cascade would be into a dork/chump blocker.
It may have been mentioned above, but BBE cascading into Utopia Sprawl is also ramp if you have an untapped Forest to put it on. There's actually a lot of subtle interactions there.
For instance, if you have 4 lands and an Arbor Elf in play, you can cast BBE off the lands, and if you cascade into Utopia Sprawl you can untap the targeted Forest with the Elf and get an additional 2 mana on that turn. That 2 mana can be pumped in to Scavenging Ooze or Clue tokens, for instance.
i.e. Utopia Sprawl doesn't have summoning sickness, unlike Elf and BoP.
Overall I think BoP gets worse with BBE, compared to Arbor Elf and Utopia Sprawl. But you still really want that 9th or 10th 1-mana ramp spell for the turn 2 Blood Moon.
i know i'm eating my previous position, but as I've tested bloodbraid elf, i was also reminded of bring to light. now i'm having conflicting thoughts about whats a better ponza built. 5 mana tutor that gets any of our 3cc spells all for light splash of blue.
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Tireless Tracker + Courser + Chandra is the dream.
------------
URW Jeskai Control
GUWRB Amulet Titan
GR Ponza
Great list though! Happy hunting!
------------
URW Jeskai Control
GUWRB Amulet Titan
GR Ponza
I'm interested in going in a non-blood moon direction, which may be crazy, but i really like the courser/tracker combo. so to maximize it i'm into the ramunap excavator + wayward swordtooth plan, which allows us to leverage fetchlands, a singleton horizon canopy, and ghost quarter to destroy more lands over the course of a long game, letting us cut down on win-cons to basically a singleton primeval titan, stormbreath, nissa vastwood seer and chandra, with 3 of those fetchable by the primal command. We can get away with this because the swordtooth, tracker, and wolf-run can also turn into threats that end the game rather quickly.
Why configure the deck like this? Because we have no 'bad' hits from the BBE - no doubling up on blood moons, hitting a lightning bolt or beast within that are suboptimal. You are going to hit acceleration, a value creature, or a land destruction spell. Your value creatures synergistically build on each other, with the only one that does actual nothing in duplicate being the excavator. I could see replacing the 2nd one with an E-witness to even get rid of that issue.
7x Forest
4x Wooded Foothills
4x Ghost Quarter
1x Horizon Canopy
4x Stomping Ground
1x Mountain
1x Kessig Wolf Run
Creatures (24)
4x Arbor Elf
4x Courser of Kruphix
4x Bloodbraid Elf
3x Tireless Tracker
1x Nissa, Vastwood Seer
1x Stormbreath Dragon
1x Primeval Titan
2x Birds of Paradise
2x Ramunap Excavator
2x Wayward Swordtooth
4x Utopia Sprawl
3x Molten Rain
4x Stone Rain
1x Primal Command
1x Chandra, Torch of Defiance
3x Relic of Progenitus
4x Ancient Grudge
3x Anger of the Gods
3x Choke
2x Beast Within
What do you guys think of replacing Birds of Paradise for Lotus Cobra. If you accelerate into T1 Elf/Sprawl, T2 Cobra+ Fetch you have 5 mana available in T2. Even if you play in T2 you can play BBE or Stormbreath T3.
It's also a better cascading target than birds, at least it's a 2/1 body. Plus it's nice to play something T2 in situations when you can't find a accelerator T1. I liked it so much than I'm thinking into playing 3 Cobras now...
I have been testing Courser + BBE + Fetch and it's the real deal because you can control your cascades, improving BBE.
Have to agree with the Beast Within comment. Also have 2 in the main, it's an answer to many things. Beast Within a Goyf, Tasigur, Angler, Rhino.. to make it smaller. A 3/3 beast is often less dangerous than a planeswalker, beast my own land for a surprise blocker / another body to end the game with. Well,, and I do admit that there are situations where I use it on opponent's land - and I take a few hits from the 3/3 afterwards.. but that's just part of the risks with such a versatile card.
As for Tireless Tracker... card is just amazing. It looks pretty harmless, but it can help win games.
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RE: Beast Within
It is a good planeswalker killer and I would rather face a 3/3 than Jace. Other points are reasonable as well. I too am worried about RR with Molten Rain.
Why Slagstorm instead of Anger of the Gods main? Is it just for the damage in case we are ahead on life?
@everyone
Chandra Thoughts:
I do wonder if Jace + BBE in Modern means that Lantern Control gets dunked. If so, having a wincon, i.e. Chandra, that doesn't require attacking is less important. That is why I am testing 2.
However, does anyone know how Chandra works with the new errata of the player/redirect to planeswalker rule? Does Chandra hit "each opposing planeswalker" for 2 damage? Because that would be massive. Or is she only players now and can't hit Planeswalkers? The former would be huge for all of the UBx planeswalker builds that are going appear with Jace.
Tempo
Modern
Eldrazi and Staxes
Whir Prison
Legacy
5c Humans
DnT
"I'm a lead farmer... !" Quote ruined due to policy.
This is what I'm on. I was running 4 Huntsmaster, cut all 4 for BBE, then changed my Mwonvuli Acid-Moss to x2 Beast Within and x2 Molten Rain. I then lowered my top end and went for just the consistency + disruption route instead of disruption + top end finishers.
I think there's a deck for Lotus Cobra (I.E. Turbolands) but it isn't Ponza. The core strategy of the deck is to have the possibility for a turn 2 Blood Moon or Stone Rain (and in some lists, Molten Rain. Your basically a RG list that relies on mana disruption/denial and either top-end threats (older lists with Inferno Titan and Stormbreath Dragon) or consistency (new lists with Bloodbraid Elf.) Playing your ramp on t2 isn't really what you want to be doing, and cascading into situational ramp doesn't feel that good either, especially considering that this deck runs 20-22 lands.
Slagstorm is only maindeck because of the damage then. But maybe Sweltering Suns is better since you can cycle it? I'm not sure I like any of them main, but I was curious. Thanks.
RE: Chandra
Sure, I know planeswalkers are not opponents, but with the change in the rules such that you do damage to players and/or planeswalkers (no more 'redirect damage from the player to the planeswalker'), her wording becomes more awkward. So if you can do damage to each opponent, in EDH you can then do 2 damage to each opponent and redirect that to a planeswalker each opponent controls, on the idea in fact planeswalkers were equivalent substitutes for opponents with direct damage effects. However, under the new ruling the text errata would be "2 damage to each opponent" or "2 damage to one planeswalker controlled by each opponent", or something like that. Her text was clear under the redirect rule, but now it becomes slightly awkward.
TL/DR
I agree with you, that makes sense, but the wording is weird with the new rule. Wanted to see if there was an official errata for her.
Tempo
Modern
Eldrazi and Staxes
Whir Prison
Legacy
5c Humans
DnT
"I'm a lead farmer... !" Quote ruined due to policy.
All I've noticed is that Trinisphere shuts down a lot of decks and that some enchantment removal might not be a bad idea
------------
URW Jeskai Control
GUWRB Amulet Titan
GR Ponza
One thing to note about SB in general with BBE is how they interact when hit. 3Sphere makes the BBE hits cost 3 and Enchantment removal isn't an amazing hit. That's not to say you can't run either of them, but it's something to keep in mind when building and when actually sideboarding. Cards like Beast Within can have additional value as SB cards in these scenarios.
yeah I considered that, right now I'm testing seal of primordium in the sideboard because if you cascade into it at least you can cast it with no legal targets.
Also has anyone tried Display of Dominance? If a UBx control/tempo deck arises it could be useful
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BWTeysa Karlov, Scion of Orzhov
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IMO, Fulminator isn't something you want in Ponza. It might be a different story if it could hit basics, but otherwise he's just a 2/2 body that requires two red sources to cast or a sub-par BBE target; not very helpful when you have a Blood Moon out and can make for clunky opening hands. If I had to choose, I'd rather have Magus of the Moon as it plays nice with the rest of the deck and is usually just a 5th copy of Blood Moon.
For those who are playing BBE in a Ponza shell w/ typical ramp (~8-10 sources), I'm curious how you'd compare your BBE list to a non-BBE list? I've played quite a few matches against what seemed like standard Ponza builds just w/ 4 BBE jammed in and it's pretty underwhelming; resolving a BBE and cascading into a Utopia Sprawl is pretty *****ty and occurs far too often. It sucks because the deck has always been pretty budget-friendly, but I really think that overhauling our ramp package with Noble Hierarch is the right move for any list that wants to play BBE. That's just based on the limited data we have since the B&R announcement, but when you consider that a minimum ~17% of the deck consists of bad BBE targets, the writing is on the wall.
Link to Discord server where anybody from MTGS can keep up with thread topics while everything is being sorted out with the new site.
Monster Ponza with MD Thrun, P&K, and Stormbreath Dragon. If a there is lot of Grixis, then play Chameleon Colossus main.
You want to make sure each threat is as hard to remove as possible, and that you don't run out of them.
------------
URW Jeskai Control
GUWRB Amulet Titan
GR Ponza
Absolutely. However at that point, wouldn't it be more preferable to just resolve a Chandra? I'm curious to see if typical Ponza lists + BBE ultimately perform significantly better than w/o BBE. In a another shell with a different ramp package consisting of Nobles rather than Sprawls, your "worst" cascade would be into a dork/chump blocker.
Link to Discord server where anybody from MTGS can keep up with thread topics while everything is being sorted out with the new site.
For instance, if you have 4 lands and an Arbor Elf in play, you can cast BBE off the lands, and if you cascade into Utopia Sprawl you can untap the targeted Forest with the Elf and get an additional 2 mana on that turn. That 2 mana can be pumped in to Scavenging Ooze or Clue tokens, for instance.
i.e. Utopia Sprawl doesn't have summoning sickness, unlike Elf and BoP.
Overall I think BoP gets worse with BBE, compared to Arbor Elf and Utopia Sprawl. But you still really want that 9th or 10th 1-mana ramp spell for the turn 2 Blood Moon.