If P&K were good enough to play in multiples before Humans was clearly tier 0.5, then I don't see how it isn't as good or better now that the cat is out of the bag.
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Modern Decks
------------ URW Jeskai Control GUWRB Amulet Titan GR Ponza
With Hollow one the match is pretty much decided by what you and your opponent discard. If inquiry hit his hollow ones? You're gold. If you dropped your ramp? Yikes.
If both happens, hilarity ensues.
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BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
I'm just jumping into modern with this deck and I have some questions. I played my first two actual matches with it today. The first was TRON. I understand we're supposed to have a decent match up against them. I won the first game to the opponent mulliganing down to 3 cards. The second game I misplayed, playing a Blood Moon, not putting two and two together to realize I was taking myself off green by doing so. That felt pretty bad. Lost the third game to terrible draws.
The next match was against infect. What do we even do against infect? The two games both felt pretty hopeless. Didn't help that he Thoughtseized my Anger of the Gods game 2.
I'm just jumping into modern with this deck and I have some questions. I played my first two actual matches with it today. The first was TRON. I understand we're supposed to have a decent match up against them. I won the first game to the opponent mulliganing down to 3 cards. The second game I misplayed, playing a Blood Moon, not putting two and two together to realize I was taking myself off green by doing so. That felt pretty bad. Lost the third game to terrible draws.
The next match was against infect. What do we even do against infect? The two games both felt pretty hopeless. Didn't help that he Thoughtseized my Anger of the Gods game 2.
Always fetch basic forest first and never sprawl a nonbasic forest.
Regarding infect, its not the best match up but if you can bolt their dork and land a moon they're locked out. Just locking them out of blue is already going to make their life tough, so for that.
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I'm just jumping into modern with this deck and I have some questions. I played my first two actual matches with it today. The first was TRON. I understand we're supposed to have a decent match up against them. I won the first game to the opponent mulliganing down to 3 cards. The second game I misplayed, playing a Blood Moon, not putting two and two together to realize I was taking myself off green by doing so. That felt pretty bad. Lost the third game to terrible draws.
The next match was against infect. What do we even do against infect? The two games both felt pretty hopeless. Didn't help that he Thoughtseized my Anger of the Gods game 2.
Tron is indeed good for Ponza, however, a good Tron hand can beat a mediocre Ponza hand. My experience is Ponza mulligans a lot. You kind of need the turn one dork (or at least Utopia Sprawl). Some specific matchups, you can keep a hand slower hand if it includes removal. Like Marc said, try to always get your basic forest with fetchland, since after Blood Moon lands you'll have someting like 13 mountains and 8 forests remaining in the deck. The only case you need a R/G dual is when arbor elf is in play and you need 2 red and have no other choice.
Infect is a bit weird, it really depends on your build. If you don't play much removal mainboard it's going to be a painful experience. Try to capitalize on that, keep in mid that they can pump as a response, so you probably want to bolt during your turn, and not just before combat. LD works good against them, given you're not dead before. I've seen infect players concede on blood moon resolving on turn 2, because they had no basic into play. Most lists run like 2~4 basics. You can just shut them down with Blood Moon and then Stone Rain. You can still get destroyed by a turn 2 kill, but if that happens, you probably just want to go to game 2. Trinisphere can be good against them (most of the time they cannot pump their dudes enough) on the play. On the Draw, I'd probably wouldn't run them.
Tron is one of those matchups where, if I can afford to, I always run out the Utopia Sprawl before the Arbor Elf. Getting your elf killed on the draw is a tempo loss you usually can't afford against most decks, and Tron is no exception.
Infect I've found is actually not a bad matchup if you have 3x bolts main and board in all your removal/wipes after G2. You also have to understand that every single creature in your deck is a blocker until the opponent has no infect attackers on board, if you hold your Trackers back or tap your Elf for anything other than to play another blocker, you are absolutely setting yourself up to get blown out. We want to force infect to grind, something they are not at all good at. There are lots of little interactions that you will learn by getting blown out and then not doing that again as well, like playing removal on your turn to force the wasting of a pump spell, not boarding in Finks to block (Persist doesn't trigger after infect damage), etc. But overall, T2 Blood Moon > Stone rain basics is usually lights out. I've only ever lost against once Infect player, and he is honestly excellent with his deck, killing me for exactly 10 infect every time.
It honestly boggles my mind that we are the only red deck that I'm aware of which runs some number of bolts less than 4. I run one Abrade in the side as my 4th because the deck is so tight as it is, but the cheap removal is key and it is the most played spell in the format for a reason. I can see an argument for running sweepers, Glorybringers, 2x Chandra ToD, etc instead, but bolt is just such a versatile spell, its hard to leave out.
I mean, Bolt is an amazing card, for sure, and in any other red deck I played in modern, it was instantly a 4 of. I will try to run 3 bolts instead of 1 Sweltering Suns and 2 Abrade, maybe it'll be worth it. I might also Switch out Chandra ToD (currently running 1 main, and 1 side), since she's been somewhat underwhelming for me. Would you rather include Baloth or Thragtusk in your sideboard ? Or even Kitchen Finks, which I need to test.
There is an argument to be made that our axis of disruption is not cheap burn spells, and that 4x bolt further reduces our chances of cascading into a Rain/Moon effect. I have thought about moving away from Bolt entirely, in favor of more payoff spells for all of the ramp we see, and to optimize cascades.
As for ToD, she gets a lot better with courser out, but even without she's pretty great in grindy matchups. Unfortunately the meta is heavy on combo/aggro right now, so yeah, she's not quite as impactful. Still, she can ramp into 8 mana on T3 so thats something.
When it domes to my sideboard cards, I try to have as many BBE hits as possible. So rather than something like Shatterstorm or Fracturing Gust I run more Grudges, instead of Baloth I run a third Finks, and instead of Hour of Devestation I run a single Roast. Watching all your payoff spells and sideboard cards cascade to the bottom, while your shuffle effects are mooned out, feels bad.
I will say, the version of infect I faced was not one I was familiar with since it was BG instead of UG. Hence, getting Thoughtseized in both games. Twice in one. That definitely hurts against them.
I did make the mistake of playing out Stomping Grounds rather than fetching basics. That's how I mooned myself out of the game and I won't be doing that again.
My two cents on the bolt thing? I think that it'd be pretty horrid to have no early interaction with aggro decks. Creatures like Finks are reasonable against normal aggro, but infect doesn't care about life gain. Still, I'd leave most of that up to people who have been playing the deck for longer.
Edit: The infect creatures he happened to get down were also of the flying variety so blockers weren't any good. Only removal would work.
Went to one of the two LGSs tonight. Got a bye in the first round, then faced Modern Saheeli Cat (0-2) and Hollow One (1-2).
I think I'm going to be changing some things about the list I'm running. However, it also just seems like Hollow One is a terrible match up. Saheeli player was able to beat my blood moon by playing Lotus Cobra, so that was a bit of an unfortunate surprise (and I never saw bolts).
The game I won against Hollow One I was on the play and had a fairly aggressive start.
For reference, the list I've been playing to get started is not my own. Got it from an MTGO top 8.
I'm considering ditching Chandra, Flamecaller in favor of two of Torch of Defiance. I'm also considering replacing the Relic with a Grafdigger's Cage. One of the people I played against suggested that the Sideboard might favor artifact hate a little too heavily. Thoughts?
They can combo off so easy and even without combo pieces, the Knight grows so fast that we can't kill It nevermore. Blood Moon and LDs are almost useless.
So I've been playing a ponza list online and its great, love the thing. Now I wanna build it in paper, but don't quite have the funds for that. I have most all the cards in the mainboard/sideboard except for lands and moons, so I decided to try out a heavy green version of the deck until I can afford the mana base.
Pretty much I was wondering if it looks like this build could stand a chance since it doesn't have the Stormbreath/Inferno finishers, and was wondering if there are any better cheap MB cards to replace baloth or if he's fine for the 4 drop slot atm. Another thing I was wondering is if BBE is worth running in my iteration without Molten Rains or if its still a solid value engine despite that.
Hi all! I'm in the process of putting together a Ponza deck for use at my LGS, and with the Standard rotation just a few weeks out, I thought this would be a good time to put together a Modern pile with Hazoret. I've been meaning to make a deck with her for a long time, and I think a Ponza shell would do her well. Here's my first draft:
So far so good, but as much as I love playing with Hazoret I'm not sure how much mileage I'm going to get out of her. Pia and Kiran represent four damage on their own without having to be heckbent, and their activated ability is a pure Shock as opposed to Hazoret's. Worst case, she takes up a spot that could be better used by a planeswalker or third Inferno Titan.
But...I really like playing with Hazoret and I'd be happy if I could find some way to squeeze some more of her in. If anyone's got any thoughts on this, I'd appreciate it a ton. Thanks in advance!
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MTGO Decks Modern Humans || Modern Infect || Legacy Elves || Legacy Burn Paper Decks Modern Burn || Modern Gifts Storm || EDH Angry Omnath
Maybe, splash to white for stony silence and Rest in Peace?
Don't you already have 2-3 relic of progenitus in your sideboard? You can increase the number to 4 if you're facing a lot of it.
These cards do not beat KCI.
Splashing for white for Stony silence and RIP does.
Why does relic not stop KCI? You activate it with Trawler and Retriever triggers on stack. Sounds a lot simpler than splashing an entire color in a blood moon deck.
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It's also worthwhile to mention that K-Grip your KCI in response to casting Trawler means they usually have to take the turn off, even if they have Buried Ruin or Inventors' Fair ready to crack.
On another note, I'm gonna have to agree with Marc on the Relic vs. RiP talk. While you definitely could justify a white splash to justify RiP, you need to keep in mind that you're a Moon deck first and foremost. So if you don't want your Temple Garden to get shut off you need basic Plains to cast RiP under Moon and that means running a basic that might as well be a Wastes in game 1. (Unless you're also running something like Path to Exile main, but then I'd wanna know what you're cutting and why you feel so insecure about the land destruction plan to the point where you feel like you need it.) One good Relic crack immediately slams the brakes on a KCI loop and tells your opponent to reload before trying again, and you can do that without having to introduce a third, only conditionally useful color splash to the deck.
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MTGO Decks Modern Humans || Modern Infect || Legacy Elves || Legacy Burn Paper Decks Modern Burn || Modern Gifts Storm || EDH Angry Omnath
It's also worthwhile to mention that K-Grip your KCI in response to casting Trawler means they usually have to take the turn off, even if they have Buried Ruin or Inventors' Fair ready to crack.
On another note, I'm gonna have to agree with Marc on the Relic vs. RiP talk. While you definitely could justify a white splash to justify RiP, you need to keep in mind that you're a Moon deck first and foremost. So if you don't want your Temple Garden to get shut off you need basic Plains to cast RiP under Moon and that means running a basic that might as well be a Wastes in game 1. (Unless you're also running something like Path to Exile main, but then I'd wanna know what you're cutting and why you feel so insecure about the land destruction plan to the point where you feel like you need it.) One good Relic crack immediately slams the brakes on a KCI loop and tells your opponent to reload before trying again, and you can do that without having to introduce a third, only conditionally useful color splash to the deck.
I actually splashed white to my list, It’s become quite different than a typical ponza list but I’m diggin it. The white has been much easier to cast than I initially feared
I got access to lots of great “silver bullet” enchantments and thus had no more need for artifacts in the board also allowing me to run a well protected madcap combo
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------------
URW Jeskai Control
GUWRB Amulet Titan
GR Ponza
If both happens, hilarity ensues.
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
The next match was against infect. What do we even do against infect? The two games both felt pretty hopeless. Didn't help that he Thoughtseized my Anger of the Gods game 2.
Always fetch basic forest first and never sprawl a nonbasic forest.
Regarding infect, its not the best match up but if you can bolt their dork and land a moon they're locked out. Just locking them out of blue is already going to make their life tough, so for that.
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
Tron is one of those matchups where, if I can afford to, I always run out the Utopia Sprawl before the Arbor Elf. Getting your elf killed on the draw is a tempo loss you usually can't afford against most decks, and Tron is no exception.
Infect I've found is actually not a bad matchup if you have 3x bolts main and board in all your removal/wipes after G2. You also have to understand that every single creature in your deck is a blocker until the opponent has no infect attackers on board, if you hold your Trackers back or tap your Elf for anything other than to play another blocker, you are absolutely setting yourself up to get blown out. We want to force infect to grind, something they are not at all good at. There are lots of little interactions that you will learn by getting blown out and then not doing that again as well, like playing removal on your turn to force the wasting of a pump spell, not boarding in Finks to block (Persist doesn't trigger after infect damage), etc. But overall, T2 Blood Moon > Stone rain basics is usually lights out. I've only ever lost against once Infect player, and he is honestly excellent with his deck, killing me for exactly 10 infect every time.
There is an argument to be made that our axis of disruption is not cheap burn spells, and that 4x bolt further reduces our chances of cascading into a Rain/Moon effect. I have thought about moving away from Bolt entirely, in favor of more payoff spells for all of the ramp we see, and to optimize cascades.
As for ToD, she gets a lot better with courser out, but even without she's pretty great in grindy matchups. Unfortunately the meta is heavy on combo/aggro right now, so yeah, she's not quite as impactful. Still, she can ramp into 8 mana on T3 so thats something.
When it domes to my sideboard cards, I try to have as many BBE hits as possible. So rather than something like Shatterstorm or Fracturing Gust I run more Grudges, instead of Baloth I run a third Finks, and instead of Hour of Devestation I run a single Roast. Watching all your payoff spells and sideboard cards cascade to the bottom, while your shuffle effects are mooned out, feels bad.
I will say, the version of infect I faced was not one I was familiar with since it was BG instead of UG. Hence, getting Thoughtseized in both games. Twice in one. That definitely hurts against them.
I did make the mistake of playing out Stomping Grounds rather than fetching basics. That's how I mooned myself out of the game and I won't be doing that again.
My two cents on the bolt thing? I think that it'd be pretty horrid to have no early interaction with aggro decks. Creatures like Finks are reasonable against normal aggro, but infect doesn't care about life gain. Still, I'd leave most of that up to people who have been playing the deck for longer.
Edit: The infect creatures he happened to get down were also of the flying variety so blockers weren't any good. Only removal would work.
It's not easy, but you can sometimes outrace them.
I think I'm going to be changing some things about the list I'm running. However, it also just seems like Hollow One is a terrible match up. Saheeli player was able to beat my blood moon by playing Lotus Cobra, so that was a bit of an unfortunate surprise (and I never saw bolts).
The game I won against Hollow One I was on the play and had a fairly aggressive start.
For reference, the list I've been playing to get started is not my own. Got it from an MTGO top 8.
8 Forest
1 Kessig Wolfrun
1 Mountain
3 Stomping Ground
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Windswept Heath
Creatures (18)
4 Arbor Elf
4 Bloodbraid Elf
1 Courser of Kruphix
2 Inferno Titan
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tireless Tracker
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Molten Rain
4 Stone Rain
1 Primal Command
Other Spells (7)
4 Blood Moon
4 Utopia Sprawl
1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
1 Chandra, Flamecaller
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Anger of the Gods
1 Beast Within
1 Boil
1 Guttural Response
2 Kitchen Finks
2 Obstinate Baloth
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Shatterstorm
I'm considering ditching Chandra, Flamecaller in favor of two of Torch of Defiance. I'm also considering replacing the Relic with a Grafdigger's Cage. One of the people I played against suggested that the Sideboard might favor artifact hate a little too heavily. Thoughts?
They can combo off so easy and even without combo pieces, the Knight grows so fast that we can't kill It nevermore. Blood Moon and LDs are almost useless.
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4 Arbor Elf
2 Birds of Paradise
4 Bloodbraid Elf
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Hazoret the Fervent
2 Obstinate Baloth
1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
4 Tireless Tracker
1 Wurmcoil Engine
4 Cinder Glade
13 Forest
4 Mountain
1 Windswept Heath
Spells (9)
3 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
4 Stone Rain
2 Lightning Bolt
Enchantments (8)
4 Blood Moon
4 Utopia Sprawl
1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
3 Ancient Grudge
1 Beast Within
2 Choke
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Scavenging Ooze
3 Slagstorm
2 Thragtusk
1 Trinisphere
Pretty much I was wondering if it looks like this build could stand a chance since it doesn't have the Stormbreath/Inferno finishers, and was wondering if there are any better cheap MB cards to replace baloth or if he's fine for the 4 drop slot atm. Another thing I was wondering is if BBE is worth running in my iteration without Molten Rains or if its still a solid value engine despite that.
Don't you already have 2-3 relic of progenitus in your sideboard? You can increase the number to 4 if you're facing a lot of it.
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
4 Arbor Elf
2 Birds of Paradise
1 Courser of Kruphix
2 Lightning Bolt
4 Utopia Sprawl
Land Destruction
4 Blood Moon
3 Molten Rain
4 Stone Rain
Bombs
4 Bloodbraid Elf
1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
1 Hazoret the Fervent
2 Inferno Titan
2 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
1 Stormbreath Dragon
4 Tireless Tracker
8 Forest
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Mountain
3 Stomping Ground
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Ancient Grudge
3 Anger of the Gods
1 Huntmaster of the Fells // Ravager of the Fells
1 Kitchen Finks
2 Obstinate Baloth
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Shatterstorm
1 Trinisphere
So far so good, but as much as I love playing with Hazoret I'm not sure how much mileage I'm going to get out of her. Pia and Kiran represent four damage on their own without having to be heckbent, and their activated ability is a pure Shock as opposed to Hazoret's. Worst case, she takes up a spot that could be better used by a planeswalker or third Inferno Titan.
But...I really like playing with Hazoret and I'd be happy if I could find some way to squeeze some more of her in. If anyone's got any thoughts on this, I'd appreciate it a ton. Thanks in advance!
Paper Decks
These cards do not beat KCI.
Splashing for white for Stony silence and RIP does.
Why does relic not stop KCI? You activate it with Trawler and Retriever triggers on stack. Sounds a lot simpler than splashing an entire color in a blood moon deck.
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
On another note, I'm gonna have to agree with Marc on the Relic vs. RiP talk. While you definitely could justify a white splash to justify RiP, you need to keep in mind that you're a Moon deck first and foremost. So if you don't want your Temple Garden to get shut off you need basic Plains to cast RiP under Moon and that means running a basic that might as well be a Wastes in game 1. (Unless you're also running something like Path to Exile main, but then I'd wanna know what you're cutting and why you feel so insecure about the land destruction plan to the point where you feel like you need it.) One good Relic crack immediately slams the brakes on a KCI loop and tells your opponent to reload before trying again, and you can do that without having to introduce a third, only conditionally useful color splash to the deck.
Paper Decks
I actually splashed white to my list, It’s become quite different than a typical ponza list but I’m diggin it. The white has been much easier to cast than I initially feared
4 Arbor Elf
1 Birds of paradise
2 Spirit of the Labyrinth
3 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
3 Tireless Tracker
2 Platinum Emperion
Spells (22)
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Boom // Bust
3 Blood Moon
1 Ghostly Prison
3 Stone Rain
3 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
4 Madcap Experiment
7 Forest
1 Plains
1 Raging Ravine
1 Sejiri Steppe
1 Stomping Ground
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Rest in Peace
1 Stony Silence
1 Hushwing gryff
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Ghostly Prison
2 Rule of Law
2 Cleansing Nova
I got access to lots of great “silver bullet” enchantments and thus had no more need for artifacts in the board also allowing me to run a well protected madcap combo