Curving from Voice into P&K is just stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. Suddenly this deck has 4 power in the air, and 8 on the board total including the cute plant that just grew some baby teeth. It just doesn't make any sense, ponzacally speaking. Previously the best I could do with 4 mana was drop an obstinate.
And when a tracker is followed by a fetch and P&K, the clue tokens become ammunition along with their normal draw action. That's pretty sweet utility if you need to remove a bunch of small threats (affinity) more than you need the card draw.
And more than once, the thopter tokens have saved me from being killed by an Etched Champion. Its stupid how easily that 2/2 can just end us, especially if there's a plating.
Hey thank you for bringing something else to the table about the discussion that wasn’t previously touched on. I truly appreciate it. While I do admit the interaction between Nissa and P&K is pretty sweet, many people just aren’t running Nissa. Most people are running 2 Chandra TOD and a Garruk PH, or just Chandra. But let’s be realistic for a second, let’s say you run a Nissa and you run 2 P&K, your probably of T2 Nissa into T3 P&K is low (I didn’t punch it into the calculator to give exact numbers). I will give you this though it does make a great pro in the column for P&K just not very realistic in normal play.
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.
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.
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.
Tireless Tracker is probably the 2nd best creature card in the deck behind Stormbreath Dragon. So much value in one card. A decent topdeck as it makes every topdeck land after actually relevant. Self pumping while drawing cards is worth the 3 mana investment. I have had GDS players push him after I crack a fetch to prevent more clue tokens. T2 Tracker into T3 into Acid Moss feels great. I would run 4 copies but we already run so many 3 drops that we need to still fill out the remainder of our curve so I just run 3.
There was no debate about Chandra or Tracker. The debate is over the 4 drop slot regarding creatures which I explained out pretty thoroughly I believe as to why P&K is not as strong as Huntmaster if you walk into a blind meta.
I didn’t say it was a bad card. I said it was decent and I am glad it is working for you. What we have to do unfortunately is look at the most common removal in the format and see how well it does given the format we are in currently. So Path, Bolt, and Push are cards we need to see how well X card is going to be especially since it being in a 3 to 4 drop spot means it will be our first threat and will presumably eat one of said removal.
With this understanding we can look at the 3 most played 4 drop creatures for Ponza which are Baloth, P&K, and Huntmaster:
All die to Path and Push.
Baloth is the only one out of the 3 that survives Bolt and gains 4 life upon entry so it is a great option if you are in a burn heavy meta or heavy discard meta because a free 4/4 that gains you 4 life is literally an insane rate.
P&K leaves behind 2 1/1 flyers. So in theory you paid 4 mana for 2 1/1 flyers but that isn’t a great rate. Moonbreaker you also mention it being really strong in the GDS matchup but if we add a card that is commonly played in it (k command) then they get even more value out of it and now you are left with just 1 1/1 flyer.
Huntmaster gains 2 and leaves behind a 2/2 which isn’t necessarily a great rate either, but the extra 2 life can be relevant. It basically removes the life lost from playing a Stomping Ground. This minor life gain helps in 2 matchups specifically which are burn (means they need an additional burn spell to close out the game) and valakut (being at 20 or above is key here for when they go off if you don’t have Blood Moon already in play).
Now let’s assume that either P&K or Huntmaster stay alive and we start a trip towards magical Christmas land... Huntmaster wins in this category as well as gaining more life and doing damage while making even more tokens outshines P&K.
In summary our 4 drop slot is not super great outside of Chandra, but in an open meta, which modern is by far the most open meta out of the constructed formats, then Huntmaster might be the best option we have as a creature in this slot.
You get 3 bodies, 2 of them fly, you can sac artifacts for damage as a mana sink or to control the board and mess with combat maths, and make tracker bigger. You can also block a deaths shadow 3 times.
It is a decent card but it isn’t that great. Sure you get 4 power spread across 3 bodies, but beings that it will probably be your first threat it dies to most removal ran in the format which mean you paid 4 mana for 2 1/1 flyers with no chance to get in the extra damage because you tapped out. If the stance is you play it later so you have open mana to activate it the for 7 mana we have much better options which costs less.
Can someone do a probability thing, I’m not very good at those, with the outcomes for at least 2 lands and 1 ramp card. Scenario is 20-22 lands (I don’t think anyone is running 23) and 8-10 ramp cards?
Here's the hypergeometric calculator I use to crunch probabilities; very handy resource to bookmark.
Edit: Here's an MTGgoldfish article I found explaining how to use the calculator to determine probabilities related to MTG. He does a much better job than I could at explaining it haha.
The problem is I can do one with ramp cards and I can do 1 for lands but I am not sure how to go about an answer for them together. As in the result needs to have 2 lands and a ramp spell in the opener but I am not sure how to input both into the calculator correctly.
Has anyone given any thought to running Regisaur Alpha in some of the more go-wide Ponza builds? Five mana is very doable for this deck and it buys a 4/4 and a 3/3 with Haste and Trample. Combine that with Nissa, Voice of Zendikar's -2 and that becomes a 5/5 and a Hasty Trampling 4/4. It's a big, hard to handle threat that plays nicely with what the rest of the deck's doing. I picked one up the other day to round out a trade because it seemed like something I might try out in Monster Ponza. Especially for those people who seem a little lukewarm on Huntmaster right now, might this be better than the second Wolf Man?
Has anyone given any thought to running Regisaur Alpha in some of the more go-wide Ponza builds? Five mana is very doable for this deck and it buys a 4/4 and a 3/3 with Haste and Trample. Combine that with Nissa, Voice of Zendikar's -2 and that becomes a 5/5 and a Hasty Trampling 4/4. It's a big, hard to handle threat that plays nicely with what the rest of the deck's doing. I picked one up the other day to round out a trade because it seemed like something I might try out in Monster Ponza. Especially for those people who seem a little lukewarm on Huntmaster right now, might this be better than the second Wolf Man?
I think the reason much in the same boat as P&K is the 4 drop slot is not great outside of Chandra.
Can someone do a probability thing, I’m not very good at those, with the outcomes for at least 2 lands and 1 ramp card. Scenario is 20-22 lands (I don’t think anyone is running 23) and 8-10 ramp cards?
I don’t remember how to post a decklist but my current list is:
8 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Kessig Wolf Run
3 Stomping Ground
1 Cinder Glade
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
The inconsistency is real! Lol. I tested it last night against a friend of mine who runs and BUG control list and out of 4 games I lost only 1 but I was not sure what hands were bad yet so I just kept starting 7 every time (every hand I had at least 1 land Sprawl or dork and a 3 drop except 1 hand was 3 lands and a couple of 3 drops.)
I already think I am going to change the list up some. I like 1 Courser but 2 might be wrong. I enjoyed the first one and drew the 2nd which felt like a dead card. So I may switch out 1 for another Titan or Stormbreath. I need to play test waaaaaaaaaaay more.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Hey thank you for bringing something else to the table about the discussion that wasn’t previously touched on. I truly appreciate it. While I do admit the interaction between Nissa and P&K is pretty sweet, many people just aren’t running Nissa. Most people are running 2 Chandra TOD and a Garruk PH, or just Chandra. But let’s be realistic for a second, let’s say you run a Nissa and you run 2 P&K, your probably of T2 Nissa into T3 P&K is low (I didn’t punch it into the calculator to give exact numbers). I will give you this though it does make a great pro in the column for P&K just not very realistic in normal play.
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.
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.
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.
There was no debate about Chandra or Tracker. The debate is over the 4 drop slot regarding creatures which I explained out pretty thoroughly I believe as to why P&K is not as strong as Huntmaster if you walk into a blind meta.
With this understanding we can look at the 3 most played 4 drop creatures for Ponza which are Baloth, P&K, and Huntmaster:
All die to Path and Push.
Baloth is the only one out of the 3 that survives Bolt and gains 4 life upon entry so it is a great option if you are in a burn heavy meta or heavy discard meta because a free 4/4 that gains you 4 life is literally an insane rate.
P&K leaves behind 2 1/1 flyers. So in theory you paid 4 mana for 2 1/1 flyers but that isn’t a great rate. Moonbreaker you also mention it being really strong in the GDS matchup but if we add a card that is commonly played in it (k command) then they get even more value out of it and now you are left with just 1 1/1 flyer.
Huntmaster gains 2 and leaves behind a 2/2 which isn’t necessarily a great rate either, but the extra 2 life can be relevant. It basically removes the life lost from playing a Stomping Ground. This minor life gain helps in 2 matchups specifically which are burn (means they need an additional burn spell to close out the game) and valakut (being at 20 or above is key here for when they go off if you don’t have Blood Moon already in play).
Now let’s assume that either P&K or Huntmaster stay alive and we start a trip towards magical Christmas land... Huntmaster wins in this category as well as gaining more life and doing damage while making even more tokens outshines P&K.
In summary our 4 drop slot is not super great outside of Chandra, but in an open meta, which modern is by far the most open meta out of the constructed formats, then Huntmaster might be the best option we have as a creature in this slot.
It is a decent card but it isn’t that great. Sure you get 4 power spread across 3 bodies, but beings that it will probably be your first threat it dies to most removal ran in the format which mean you paid 4 mana for 2 1/1 flyers with no chance to get in the extra damage because you tapped out. If the stance is you play it later so you have open mana to activate it the for 7 mana we have much better options which costs less.
The problem is I can do one with ramp cards and I can do 1 for lands but I am not sure how to go about an answer for them together. As in the result needs to have 2 lands and a ramp spell in the opener but I am not sure how to input both into the calculator correctly.
I think the reason much in the same boat as P&K is the 4 drop slot is not great outside of Chandra.
8 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Kessig Wolf Run
3 Stomping Ground
1 Cinder Glade
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Tireless Tracker
2 Courser of Kruphix
1 Thragtusk
2 Stormbreath Dragon
2 Inferno Titan
1 Birds of Paradise
4 Arbor Elf
1 Obstinate Baloth
2 Mizzium Mortars
2 Beast Within
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
2 Primal Command
4 Blood Moon
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Stone Rain
4 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
3 Firespout
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Relic of Progenitus
3 Trinisphere
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Beast Within
1 Fracturing Gust
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
I already think I am going to change the list up some. I like 1 Courser but 2 might be wrong. I enjoyed the first one and drew the 2nd which felt like a dead card. So I may switch out 1 for another Titan or Stormbreath. I need to play test waaaaaaaaaaay more.