long answer, maybe. Arc Slogger and Kumano stand out because they can kill creatures as well, so even if you dont hit them in the dome with their abilities, you can clear any blockers and swing for 4.
Shrapnel works better in big red, but in this deck the best thing you can even count on is Pulse. I dont run it, i just find it better to do without.
My deck:
19 Mountains
3 Stalking Stones
4 Chrome Mox
4 Seething Song
4 Slith Firewalker
4 Stone Rain
4 Molten Rain
4 Demolish
4 Magma Jet
4 Electrostatic Bolt
3 Kumano
3 Arc Slogger
SB
3 Detonate
3 Boil
3 Shatter
3 Sowing Salts
3 Pyroclasm
EDIT/ Whoops,forgot to put in firewalkers in the list. silly me, must have forgotten about them.
I like ur list... looks good. just i like 4 slogger and 2 kumano rather 3 and 3 but that is your choice. I'd also find some room for slith firewalkers IMO. One on first turn really hurts unless u are playing mirror in which they just ebolt it
thanks pli2100hours(evan)..... i am the ponza master to live on. But has anyone done any testing with any BoK cards? will this deck still be competitive after BoK? opinions and thoughts. Post them
Blazing Shoal: No. for the same reason two-headed dragon doesn't belong, you don't need power boosters in Ponza. Boot those and bump the burn back up.
Sowing Salt: 3 is definitly a little much. Useless against everything except T&N. Don't say its good against ravager because by the time you cast it it won't be any help, especially with the absense of moxes.
Furnace Whelp: A 2/2 Pumpable Flier for 4... Can't really see this being good. It just doesn't fit an efficient mana curve. Plus, you're omiting Slogger which is arguably the best creature in Ponza and will continue to be so even after BOK's release. Hearth Kami would be more viable unless you play in an environment that doesn't include Affinity.
Zo-Zu: He is a decent creature and I'm sortof torn myself about whether or not to include him main, but my opinion for now is that he is a sideboard card.
Flames of the blood hand: Very nice card, especially against WW, but also not as versitile as Pulse of the Forge because it isn't recurring. I've won more than one game by mana burning myself into a double-Pulse. Methinks this is Sideboard for WW if there is one in your metagame, and if not, dump.
Blood Moon: I ran this Sideboard post-BOK, and i'm pretty sure i will ditch it in favor of Sowing Salt. As with Sowing Salt, this card hoses T&N only, and there is absolutely no point in playing with both.
As far as land is concerned i would probably Add in a Nexus or 2 and take out a couple more mountains to run Chrome Mox. Seriously, without the mox the tempo is thrown off significantly. Where your deck is now, 2 songs are definitely enough, but if you were to add sloggers back, then you would need to up those to 4 more than likely.
Disclaimer: These are just my opinions and should in no was be taken as insults towards your building style. Different decks are what make any format fun, i just like to throw my $.02 whenever i can.
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-banner by Dementia Blader, avatar by Zoobamaphooza
I quit playing ponza after I went against a g/w deck that played turn 2 sacred ground turn 3 cop: red.
Two games in a row.
If I was still playing it (it's very tempting to build it again) I would run two, maybe three (after testing) shoals. The answer is simple: Winning on turn 4 is better than winning on turn 5. The shoal is a potential 5 points of damage boost for free? If you're running 4 sloggers and 2 kumano (which I remember being the norm) then you have 6 outlets for a free 5 points of damage from a slith, hearth kami, or even another slogger. If not one of them, you also have demolish which adds 4 points. Seems pretty good to me.
shoot thats what i was forgetting, arc-slogger yeah he would have to be added.
well im testing FotBH over Pulse to see how it goes.
blazing shoal is great in this deck. it goes great with furnace whelp.
sowing salt is a great addition to this deck. maybe not where you are but in my local area, affinity and tooth and nail make up 80% of all of our tournaments. usually it comes down to one of those two against each other or a rogue deck like u/g g/w or ww.
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credit to dementia blader
Currently Playing:
Ponza
:symu::symg: Control
In Contstruction:
:symr::symb: Powerhouse
ADD'eM, your metagame is horrible. This also directly makes your deck awful as well. Your build plays just about every card that is suggested against for Big Red. Try working with my decklist (or atleast the ones in the first post) and you'll have little reason to fear Affinity, let alone a Snake deck or White Weenie.
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Quote from Cyan »
...the lack of power of Divining Top is similarly obvious.
ouch that kinda hurt. maybe i should look at your guys list mine seems like crap and i have a horrible meta game. but maybe you should tell people to stop playing stupid decks so my metagame can become better and inreturn my deck will also.
For some reason, I not only have found no room for Pulse of the Forge in my deck, but also I dont miss it.
I am, however, debating with myself whether or not to switch my Stalking Stones for Blinkmoth Nexi. What are your opinions on that?
deck list a few posts back.
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G U A M
This is Bat Country
PROUD OWNER OF TFE'S RESPECT
:bunnycake:
I OWN FEYD_RUIN'S AND CYAN'S SOUL YOURS MAY BE NEXT
well i run stalking stones because i cant afford blinkmoth nexus lol. well i could get them if i wanted them but just i guess the deck does fine w/o them. either is good.
Yea Nexi do tend to run a bit expensive. And usually stones just seems to work better, I dont know why tho the activation cost is higher. But I guess it's the 3/3 part not the 6 part.
you are right. stalking stones are very very fragile. they can easily be e-bolted, hearth kamied, oxidized, shamened, naturalize. lol the list goes on. i've had it happen to me numerous times and it sux a lot because once extractioned out of sloggers and kumanos, then stalking is a game finisher.
Yeah it is just an all too common problem for decks with one win condition like ponza. So you then have to tech out the board to stop things like Cranial Extractions from ruining your entire game like it is has to icic3 apparently. I've faced the same thing before and it is just not fun at all getting Extractioned while running ponza.
Extraction isn't the biggest threat: using 3 kumano and 3 slogger help a bit, as I figured out. Running 4 slogger and 2 kumano hurts you even more.
The biggest problem is, in my opinion, BG Death Cloud. What do we do in this senario? My SB is:
3 sowing salts
3 detonate
3 shatter
3 boil
....ya, problems much?
3 pyroclasm
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G U A M
This is Bat Country
PROUD OWNER OF TFE'S RESPECT
:bunnycake:
I OWN FEYD_RUIN'S AND CYAN'S SOUL YOURS MAY BE NEXT
Extraction isn't the biggest threat: using 3 kumano and 3 slogger help a bit, as I figured out. Running 4 slogger and 2 kumano hurts you even more.
The biggest problem is, in my opinion, BG Death Cloud. What do we do in this senario? My SB is:
3 sowing salts
3 detonate
3 shatter
3 boil
....ya, problems much?
3 pyroclasm
true. there really isnt anything to board in against BG death cloud. You gotta go for the fast win becuase then they start to pull a couple creature kill spells(rend flesh, barter in blood). i played one b/g cloud and i won easily though. it cant handle the speed but if they get a good hand u might see a couple plow unders.
b/g death cloud is my downfall as well. First game i was going for a fast win so
Turn 1:Slith, attack
Turn 2:2 more slith, attack
Turn 3: Stone rain, attack
Turn 4: absolutely nothing because he death clouded for 5...
Game 2: Slightly mana screwed... took a rude awakening to the face for 22 damage... and there i was in the loser bracket.
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-banner by Dementia Blader, avatar by Zoobamaphooza
Do you know how well that B/G player did later on in the tourney. I know he has a good matchup against us, but, it seems like he might get run over by just about anything else. Affinity probably wrecks him, as will just about any other control deck. His Death Cloud is just an "aggro-control" killer because it negates the advantage that the aggro-control player is trying to build on.
The aggro-control decks each have one are that they try and control (for us, its access to mana). That is the control part (mostly). The aggro part is, well, the beatdowns and the burn that we use to win. That is probably why we have so much trouble with it.
i have a question. do any of you other ponza people have a problem when your mirror plays a ryusei? becuase i was playing with a kid at my store and he dropped one and i was like i cant do anything. Any help or suggestions how to get rid of those damn flyers.?
Do you know how well that B/G player did later on in the tourney.
I know exactly how well he did, he was beaten soundly by a Broodstar Affinity deck in the final 4. I made it to the final 4 as well but was beaten by a r/g T&N (those Platinum Angels, Shamans, Plow unders, and Stone rains wrecked me pretty soundly). The T&N that had beaten me went on to defeat Broodstar, but mostly by luck, and it came down to game 3. Nothing scarier than a Broodstar with 2 cranials and a Lightning Greaves...
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ouch that kinda hurt. maybe i should look at your guys list mine seems like crap and i have a horrible meta game. but maybe you should tell people to stop playing stupid decks so my metagame can become better and inreturn my deck will also.
I never said it was your fault that everyone around you can't play magic worth a dime. Though your list may fair well in that backwards metagame, I believe my list (and to some extent, the others posted here) allows you a greater opportunity to win against anything. I really only see Big Red as two decks - anti-affinity and anti-everything else. If you post a list here that can't beat affinity, then you should start posting in the Ponza thread instead. (Though I suppose a Big Red deck with LD added to the maindeck is more powerful than a Ponza deck...) Again, good luck with your list.
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Quote from Cyan »
...the lack of power of Divining Top is similarly obvious.
None of you speak about Heartless Hidetsugu... He's a 5cc creature (fits perfectly in the curve) with a SO powerful activated ability built on him...
Food for thought...
Me 15, them 20 - end of their turn, pulse them to 16 and get back pulse, then tap Hidetsugu. Me 7, them 8. My turn, tap Hidetsugu, they go to 4 and i go to 3, and then pulse for win. Two card win.. I lovit!
More on Hidetsugu later
Man oh man... this is the most pitiful display of decklists I have seen on this topic. I know that's rude but honestly usually is. First off, none of those decks seem to have been play tested at all, ever, once. I played Big Red through all of it's stages and can say that it isn't just "red control" and that it can be whatever you want it to be. Any serious tourney player can tell you that. A bad Tog player might have a good deck or vice versa, right? Well the same is evident with Big Red. Somewhere the metagame and player of the Ponza (version I'll say) Big Red does well where others don't. In the last year alone I tacked another 80 points to my constructed rating with this deck alone. Though the first build and the one I play today are far from similar. I'll post my first and last decklists after I recieve some well earned bashing for this post... I don't go by Nemesis for nothing.
"Ecce! In pictura est Spiritmonger altera!"
Ascetic72 and BTape... it took me all of three seconds after my post to come to this conclusion... I don't know where BTape is from but Ascetic72 is an Aussie so no wonder your decks are so odd. I'm from New York, the toughest Magic playing region in the western hemisphere (damn the french and japanese for their great pro tour caliber players!!!), so I can argue that I have the toughest metagame of all. When I'm playing at Neutral ground in the city againt Mike Flores, Michael Claire, Zvi Moshvitz*, Brian David-Marshal, or Bobby Peacock, John Glass, Jason Imperiale... phew... all of which have 1900-2000+ constructed ratings, I feel my opinion holds precedence. Sorry for coming off strong, just read the magic jerk column on starcitygames.com and you'll understand me better.
"Et Tu Arc-Slogger!"
Posts merged. Use the edit button please.
- sneaky
long answer, maybe. Arc Slogger and Kumano stand out because they can kill creatures as well, so even if you dont hit them in the dome with their abilities, you can clear any blockers and swing for 4.
Shrapnel works better in big red, but in this deck the best thing you can even count on is Pulse. I dont run it, i just find it better to do without.
My deck:
19 Mountains
3 Stalking Stones
4 Chrome Mox
4 Seething Song
4 Slith Firewalker
4 Stone Rain
4 Molten Rain
4 Demolish
4 Magma Jet
4 Electrostatic Bolt
3 Kumano
3 Arc Slogger
SB
3 Detonate
3 Boil
3 Shatter
3 Sowing Salts
3 Pyroclasm
EDIT/ Whoops,forgot to put in firewalkers in the list. silly me, must have forgotten about them.
:bunnycake:
YOURS MAY BE NEXT
I like ur list... looks good. just i like 4 slogger and 2 kumano rather 3 and 3 but that is your choice. I'd also find some room for slith firewalkers IMO. One on first turn really hurts unless u are playing mirror in which they just ebolt it
@qdoom:
NO Heartless Hidetsugu.
4 Chrome Mox
4 Hearth Kami
4 Zozu
4 Slogger
2 Kumano
4 E Bolt
4 Magma Jet
4 Pulse of the Forge
4 Stone Rain
4 Molten Rain
3 Demolish
2 Sowing Salt
SB:
4 Detonate
1 Demolish
2 Sowing Salt
2 Flashfires
2 Boil
4 Pyroclasm
It seems to be solid in apprentice, and i ordered all of the cards, so i will see soon
This user has been banned from trading on MTGsalvation.
LD:
4 Stone Rain
4 Molten Rain
4 Demolish
3 Sowing Salt
Creatures:
4 Slith Firewalker
2 Furnace Whelp
2 Zo-Zu, The Punisher
2 Kumano, Master Yamabushi
Other Spells:
3 Blazing Shoal
4 Magma Jet
2 Seething Song
2 Electrostatic Bolt
2 Flames of the Blood Hand
Land:
1 Shinka, The Bloodsoaked Keep
21 Mountain
SB:
3 Shatter
1 Sowing Salt
3 Boil
3 Flashfires
3 Blood Moon
2 Electrostatic Bolt
its in the test stage right now seeing as i have to wait to get the cards when the set is released. of course i will be buying a box w00t!
credit to dementia blader
Currently Playing:
Ponza
:symu::symg: Control
In Contstruction:
:symr::symb: Powerhouse
Affinity and T&N matchups
Ponza: Aff: W-6 L-5 T&N: W-17 L-21
UG Control: Aff: W-8 L-0(still unbeaten!) T&N: W-5 L-3 T-1
Sowing Salt: 3 is definitly a little much. Useless against everything except T&N. Don't say its good against ravager because by the time you cast it it won't be any help, especially with the absense of moxes.
Furnace Whelp: A 2/2 Pumpable Flier for 4... Can't really see this being good. It just doesn't fit an efficient mana curve. Plus, you're omiting Slogger which is arguably the best creature in Ponza and will continue to be so even after BOK's release. Hearth Kami would be more viable unless you play in an environment that doesn't include Affinity.
Zo-Zu: He is a decent creature and I'm sortof torn myself about whether or not to include him main, but my opinion for now is that he is a sideboard card.
Flames of the blood hand: Very nice card, especially against WW, but also not as versitile as Pulse of the Forge because it isn't recurring. I've won more than one game by mana burning myself into a double-Pulse. Methinks this is Sideboard for WW if there is one in your metagame, and if not, dump.
Blood Moon: I ran this Sideboard post-BOK, and i'm pretty sure i will ditch it in favor of Sowing Salt. As with Sowing Salt, this card hoses T&N only, and there is absolutely no point in playing with both.
As far as land is concerned i would probably Add in a Nexus or 2 and take out a couple more mountains to run Chrome Mox. Seriously, without the mox the tempo is thrown off significantly. Where your deck is now, 2 songs are definitely enough, but if you were to add sloggers back, then you would need to up those to 4 more than likely.
Disclaimer: These are just my opinions and should in no was be taken as insults towards your building style. Different decks are what make any format fun, i just like to throw my $.02 whenever i can.
-banner by Dementia Blader, avatar by Zoobamaphooza
Two games in a row.
If I was still playing it (it's very tempting to build it again) I would run two, maybe three (after testing) shoals. The answer is simple: Winning on turn 4 is better than winning on turn 5. The shoal is a potential 5 points of damage boost for free? If you're running 4 sloggers and 2 kumano (which I remember being the norm) then you have 6 outlets for a free 5 points of damage from a slith, hearth kami, or even another slogger. If not one of them, you also have demolish which adds 4 points. Seems pretty good to me.
well im testing FotBH over Pulse to see how it goes.
blazing shoal is great in this deck. it goes great with furnace whelp.
sowing salt is a great addition to this deck. maybe not where you are but in my local area, affinity and tooth and nail make up 80% of all of our tournaments. usually it comes down to one of those two against each other or a rogue deck like u/g g/w or ww.
credit to dementia blader
Currently Playing:
Ponza
:symu::symg: Control
In Contstruction:
:symr::symb: Powerhouse
Affinity and T&N matchups
Ponza: Aff: W-6 L-5 T&N: W-17 L-21
UG Control: Aff: W-8 L-0(still unbeaten!) T&N: W-5 L-3 T-1
I am, however, debating with myself whether or not to switch my Stalking Stones for Blinkmoth Nexi. What are your opinions on that?
deck list a few posts back.
:bunnycake:
YOURS MAY BE NEXT
you are right. stalking stones are very very fragile. they can easily be e-bolted, hearth kamied, oxidized, shamened, naturalize. lol the list goes on. i've had it happen to me numerous times and it sux a lot because once extractioned out of sloggers and kumanos, then stalking is a game finisher.
The biggest problem is, in my opinion, BG Death Cloud. What do we do in this senario? My SB is:
3 sowing salts
3 detonate
3 shatter
3 boil
....ya, problems much?
3 pyroclasm
:bunnycake:
YOURS MAY BE NEXT
true. there really isnt anything to board in against BG death cloud. You gotta go for the fast win becuase then they start to pull a couple creature kill spells(rend flesh, barter in blood). i played one b/g cloud and i won easily though. it cant handle the speed but if they get a good hand u might see a couple plow unders.
Turn 1:Slith, attack
Turn 2:2 more slith, attack
Turn 3: Stone rain, attack
Turn 4: absolutely nothing because he death clouded for 5...
Game 2: Slightly mana screwed... took a rude awakening to the face for 22 damage... and there i was in the loser bracket.
-banner by Dementia Blader, avatar by Zoobamaphooza
The aggro-control decks each have one are that they try and control (for us, its access to mana). That is the control part (mostly). The aggro part is, well, the beatdowns and the burn that we use to win. That is probably why we have so much trouble with it.
TNS: The New Standard (In Deckbuilding)
-banner by Dementia Blader, avatar by Zoobamaphooza
I never said it was your fault that everyone around you can't play magic worth a dime. Though your list may fair well in that backwards metagame, I believe my list (and to some extent, the others posted here) allows you a greater opportunity to win against anything. I really only see Big Red as two decks - anti-affinity and anti-everything else. If you post a list here that can't beat affinity, then you should start posting in the Ponza thread instead. (Though I suppose a Big Red deck with LD added to the maindeck is more powerful than a Ponza deck...) Again, good luck with your list.
Me 15, them 20 - end of their turn, pulse them to 16 and get back pulse, then tap Hidetsugu. Me 7, them 8. My turn, tap Hidetsugu, they go to 4 and i go to 3, and then pulse for win. Two card win.. I lovit!
More on Hidetsugu later
Man oh man... this is the most pitiful display of decklists I have seen on this topic. I know that's rude but honestly usually is. First off, none of those decks seem to have been play tested at all, ever, once. I played Big Red through all of it's stages and can say that it isn't just "red control" and that it can be whatever you want it to be. Any serious tourney player can tell you that. A bad Tog player might have a good deck or vice versa, right? Well the same is evident with Big Red. Somewhere the metagame and player of the Ponza (version I'll say) Big Red does well where others don't. In the last year alone I tacked another 80 points to my constructed rating with this deck alone. Though the first build and the one I play today are far from similar. I'll post my first and last decklists after I recieve some well earned bashing for this post... I don't go by Nemesis for nothing.
"Ecce! In pictura est Spiritmonger altera!"
Ascetic72 and BTape... it took me all of three seconds after my post to come to this conclusion... I don't know where BTape is from but Ascetic72 is an Aussie so no wonder your decks are so odd. I'm from New York, the toughest Magic playing region in the western hemisphere (damn the french and japanese for their great pro tour caliber players!!!), so I can argue that I have the toughest metagame of all. When I'm playing at Neutral ground in the city againt Mike Flores, Michael Claire, Zvi Moshvitz*, Brian David-Marshal, or Bobby Peacock, John Glass, Jason Imperiale... phew... all of which have 1900-2000+ constructed ratings, I feel my opinion holds precedence. Sorry for coming off strong, just read the magic jerk column on starcitygames.com and you'll understand me better.
"Et Tu Arc-Slogger!"
Posts merged. Use the edit button please.
- sneaky