- Abrade is awesome
- Birds suck
- Trinisphere is great
- Less titans
Glad to see you guys are slowly coming to a consensus on the things i've talked about a while back.
I haven't tried the Regisaurs yet and in context, they seem great. Nationals is next week and although I am unable to play the main event, I plan on playing on Sunday. Should there be a modern tourney, I will run the test with it.
I can see how coco decks are an issue. If those are prevalent in your meta, you should cut choke for cages.
What's the benefit of playing Anger of the Gods over Sweltering Suns? Is it a big advantage to exile the creatures against some decks? I think the cycling is good when boardwipes are useless.
AotG is not a maindeck card. It's not a card you'll want to cycle when you bring it in the relevant matches. And yes, exile is super important for stuff like Finks, voice, etc.
The advantage of the cycling is marginal for this deck since you wouldn't bring that card in anyways unless you wanted to ensure you saw it early. I haven't found that it's tangible enough to make the switch.
With the new trend of 2-3 Chandra, Torch of Defiance main deck, could we consider playing Boom // Bust ?
1 - With a fetch land, on turn 3, it s just like a good old Stone Rain
2 - With an actual threat on board, the Geddon effect could be nail in the coffin ?
3 - The Chandra allows up to ramp quite fast to BustGeddon, and she can win alone when all lands are gone
I know it can backfire quite hard sometimes, and it's not anymore a combo with GDD.
Thanks guys
The deck has enough land D. Your strategy is to stop them from playing magic long enough to kill them. GDD just doesn't do that very well and is a non-bo with Boom//Bust. I never really liked that build. 5 mana 4/4 that might allow you to just play a land d spell from the grave has never been my gravy. Just don't think it's powerful enough. Funny enough, when GDD was at its best was when it could bring back Crackling Doom in that old standard format.
Blowing up all your own lands is generally a death knell. Your curve is higher than a lot of the decks out there and opponents tend to be able to recover more quickly than you will.
Chandra is the deck's best win condition, no doubt about that. Everything else you do distracts your opponents from her getting to ultimate. Your goal should be to get there no matter what. Once that happens, every elf you top deck is 5 dmg to their faces. Which is great. Won't be able to do that if you blow up all your lands though...
I went 3-3 at the PPTQ. The temple garden cost me several games, and the extra raw power of the white SB cards didn't make up for it. If not for the garden I go 4-2 easy.
Matchups
Round 1 0-2 loss to Bant knightfall (AGAIN!!!) with vizier combo in it. Game 2 drew 2 RIPS but never had a fetch or sprawl and died to a knight.
Round 2 0-2 loss to red white humans. An aggro humans deck with blood moon, lightning helix and boros charm. Temple garden cost me game 2 single handedly
Round 3 2-0 win vs Grixis deaths shadow (rip helped)
Round 4 2-1 win vs Eldrazi Tron (stony helped)
Round 5 1-2 loss to deaths shadow (Temple garden somewhat cost me game 3)
Round 6 2-0 win vs Boros Burn
What can I say? I hate me some Bant company. F**k that deck.
Damn son. Can you go into more details on how the garden caused the losses?
You running Abrades at all? Feel like they would help in the bant matchup.
Wish you had played affinity though. Would have been a good judge on whether or not the white splash is truly worth it.
Overall, sounds like not to me.
Game 2 of round 1 I died with 2 Rest in peace in hand when I couldn't fetch or sprawl for white. If I had 2 relics I would have been fighting a 2/2 knight, not a 6/6
Game 2 of round 2 vs Red white I couldn't cast a goblin dark dwellers to anger his board because I had drawn my Temple garden, rather than a fetch or Foothills
Then later in the game, I didn't emblem a chandra because I had 1 uncastable card in hand (Molten rain) And it turns out the next card would have been Dark dwellers. So a chandra emblem if I had 2 red cources would have delt 15 in 2 turns and been very very lethal
Game 3 of round 5 I again didn't have double red because of temple garden. This meant I couldn't anger away a pair of young pyros and about 6 tokens n turn 5
maybe the correct land is actually sacred foundry and not temple? seems like your build would have been better suited for that.
Despite the fact that he's an awful topdeck I fell the deck incredibly slow when you don't have your dork on turn 1 , according to @Noct I went up to 22 lands after some tests (adding Sheltered Thicket to mitigate flooding) but I still don't like a start without an accelarator on turn 1 ( It fell like I should mull every hand without it..)
it really depends on the matchup and also whether on the play or draw. I've been on 22 lands for some time (you can see me advocating the chance a few pages back, with the thicket). the deck is obviously better with a one drop in opener, but it's not the end of the world without one. it doesn't stop making birds a bad top deck. it just doesn't do enough regardless. it's kind of like the folks who are still playing kwr...
Hi, the more I read this topic, the more I see Abrade in some list, but I can't understand in wich case it's better than Lightning Bolt??
very simple : artifacts. it's a hedge. burn to the face is not really this deck's game plan. having abrade main helps hedge a matchup in which bolt is so much worse. killing a vial is also big game. card is super versatile. dead in very few matchups.
birds are awful. don't play them.
3 angers are a necessity. this deck struggles vs little guys. bant/humans/affinity. hits a lot of the weaker matchups.
I went 3-3 at the PPTQ. The temple garden cost me several games, and the extra raw power of the white SB cards didn't make up for it. If not for the garden I go 4-2 easy.
Matchups
Round 1 0-2 loss to Bant knightfall (AGAIN!!!) with vizier combo in it. Game 2 drew 2 RIPS but never had a fetch or sprawl and died to a knight.
Round 2 0-2 loss to red white humans. An aggro humans deck with blood moon, lightning helix and boros charm. Temple garden cost me game 2 single handedly
Round 3 2-0 win vs Grixis deaths shadow (rip helped)
Round 4 2-1 win vs Eldrazi Tron (stony helped)
Round 5 1-2 loss to deaths shadow (Temple garden somewhat cost me game 3)
Round 6 2-0 win vs Boros Burn
What can I say? I hate me some Bant company. F**k that deck.
Damn son. Can you go into more details on how the garden caused the losses?
You running Abrades at all? Feel like they would help in the bant matchup.
Wish you had played affinity though. Would have been a good judge on whether or not the white splash is truly worth it.
PPTQ tomorrow. I have added a temple garden to my main, and dropped a fetch. My sideboard now has triple RIP, double stony and an eidolon of rhetoric.
White splash gets a trial by fire.
Good luck bud. Hope the splash works out!
For Chandra tod, even post rotation I doubt she drops below 20$. She's that good. There are many games that she allows you to win that no other walker can. Garruk isn't a budget option since he does something entirely different. Play flamecaller if you want a budget friendly one.
I'd like to talk about an aspect of this deck I find interesting : "What to do with 4 manas"
Optimally, it comes at Turn 2, most of time it's T3 or T4, but that's not the subject.
My thoughts
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - MVP. I prefer 3x. 4x seems too much from my testing but more is better if your meta has a lot of UW/ UWR control.
Mwonvuli Acid-Moss - 3x/4x It does like disrupting ramping+cleaning deck
Huntmaster of the Fells - Meta dependent. Buys time chumping while you get your bigger threats out.
Threats played are meta dependent. Most of the creatures mentioned have only 4 power so if there is a lot of E Tron, Rock, GDS running around, thragtusk is a must. Against UW control, SB Dragons are better. Against CoCo, titans are better than wurm coil. etc etc
I prefer running more P. commands to tutor for the creatures that I want for a certain match up.
GDD and CToD does not play that well together. You will whiff a lot more on GDD if you play both. I may cut GDD out for Lightning bolts or Roasts or more commands. However, GDD may stand in for a budget CToD.
With IMA release, there were changes made to Blood Moon / Magnus of the Moon, we no longer have to play shocklands tapped as ETB effects are rendered useless.
Thanks for replying .
I really like your deck list.
Few remarks :
- I haven't yet the 3 of Chandra ToD, soon maybe, I ll wait
- 0 beast within : Why? I thought it would fit well in a GDD~ shell
- 10 fetches : Not too painful in the end? I get the point of cleaning deck tho.
- Any thoughts about Abrade main deck / sb ?
chandra is the real deal and shouldn't even be a question. play 3. i a play 2 abrades main as there are very few decks it's weak against.
So give me your opinions please. I would also like to see the 0-2 Birds of Paradise discussion go on, is it the right choice, or not.
I've stated my opinion on the birds thing. And I personally feel like 0 birds is correct. Card is terrible. It really doesn't play that well with our game plan is a worse top deck than a land on the 5th turn. Stick to 0, it's correct.
Round 1 - Game 1
I win the dice roll and keep a very good hand with an elf, stone rain, enough lands and a dragon.
I play land and elf, opponent plays a plains.
Stone Rain plains, he plays Hallowed Fountain tapped.
i draw a Stone Rain from the top and the Fountain is gone. He plays an Island.
I play my Dragon and he scoops.
So im boarding against Control. Who wouldnt? I have seen Plains, Island and Hallowed Fountain.
Well... its Knightfall Combo with CoCo. So game 2 ist totally bustet, so many dead cards in my deck... he resolves 2 CoCos and kills me pretty fast.
Game 3 i have to mulligan to 6. I have a somewhat good start with acceleration and turn 3 two Kitchen Finks on the Board. He goes into his Turn 4 and combos off. No Sideboard card drawn...
I hate to start like that... Well... next game.
He starts and i keep a very good hand with sprawl, enough lands, Stone Rain, Acid Moss and Chandra.
Island from him, i cast the sprawl. Island again from him. i play a land and try to destroy one Island, which to my surprise resolves.
He plays another Island.
I Acid-Moss another Island. He misses his land drop. I draw another Acid Moss and kill his last Island, he scoops. Hmmm... this game feels familiar....
So i have sonly seen Island, but im sideboarding more cautios.
Game 2 goes on for a long time. I can destroy some lands but nothing that interrupts him too hard. All my threats, round after round, gets a counterspell. Baloth, Chandra, Titan, Titan, Thragtusk all are beeing answered by remand, remand, cryptic, snapcaster -> cryptic, flash freeze.
Im still in good shape and know that he cant counter everything, some threat will stick in the long run. Through the Breach -> Emrakul and im dead..... Ah.... nice to know.
I hate Through the Breach, stupid busted non interactive card. Oh well, onto game 3.
I can slow him down with LD, make some Damage with a Kitchen Finks, Titan gets countered. Late in the game he resolves Through the Breach into Emrakul. I can handle the Annihilator 6 and take 15. I Manage to play a Thragtusk 3 turns later, he manages to do the same thing again and im dead....fml. Again no sideboard card drawn.
Round 3, well what can happen with 0:2 sitting at the last table of the tournament. Correct, a well experienced and good Affinity player as an opponent.
I start, and again keep a very good hand (despite 2 losses i was very pleased with my starting hands). I play land and Elf. He goes Inkmoth, Thopter, Thoper, Mox Opal, Drum, Signal Pest, Plating, Welding Jar.....WHAT? Is there a camera on me? .... my turn 3 Stone Rain does nothing, turn 4 hardcast Bonfire kills at least the Signal Pest, but im dead the turn after.
Game 2 goes back and forth for a while, i rip a lucky bonfire from the top, killing his board and the game.
Game 3 i have a good hand again, but so does he. 6 Cards on the table turn 1....but no land, so my stone rain in hand is useless. Turn 3 he has 2 platings online and im dust.
Not to mention that again i have not seen a single sideboard card. No Anger, no grudges, no dismember, nothing.
Well thats how you start into a tournament, full with hope and good results in the past, and getting totally obliterated.
I drop out and try to enjoy the rest of the sunday...
Another tournament where i think my deck is strong and well suited, but bad luck decides my results... Thats the second time this happens to me at a big tournament with RG Ponza. Small tournaments of 20-30 players feel like a piece of cake. Big tournaments... 0:6 so far. Sadly i would call all those 6 losses extremely bad luck.
Onto the next tournament :>
Bad beats bruh. However, you can't expect to really ever draw your sideboard cards when you are playing a bunch of 1 ofs. I would definitely cut the Finks and increase the amount of angers. What do you use finks against??? They are slow, don't really impact the board and really don't put much pressure. Cut them. Up your Trinisphere count to 3 if you're worried about burn. Up your count of angers to 3 for sure. Affinity is a troublesome matchup, you want to cut the stone rains both on the play/draw. Keep your moons in and bring the abrade, grudges, angers.
I would also advise against playing 4 Titans. It's too many and you're likely to get your hand clumped up. I found the perfect number to be at 2/2 split with Stormbreath. The haste is undervalued in my opinion. That's part of what makes the card so good. It's incredibly rare that I'd lose a game where I resolved a dragon, especially if I had access to 7 mana. DEFINITELY have choke in your sideboard going forward. Card is a house.
Anyone tried a more midrangy approach to R/G Ponza?
No. It's bad. It may have looked good there, but that version of the deck is something entirely different. It's super grindy. I think some of you have a misconception that the deck is meant to be grindy, it's not. The whole point of ponza is to make plays that stop your opponent from playing magic. That's the whole point of the deck. You're not interested in out valuing your opponent over 27 turns. What you want is them to lose the game within the first 6 turns or less. That's exactly why a card like tracker doesn't belong in this build.
the five drop replaces thragtusk, in my opinion. you get th rbodies immediately. that dude is pretty good. carnage one i would consider in the side. i mean control is already a decent matchup. but as a fun of, why not? worth a try.
Has anyone tried lodestone golem in this deck? seems sweet on turn 2. I could see replacing the current threat base with something like 3-4x wurmcoil, 4x walking ballista, 4x lodestone golem to make sure you can curve out with threats after deploying a golem.
Definitely not something I would even consider.
Stormbreath are great because they invalidate the best removal spell in the format. You wouldn't want to cut them.
Don't think the deck wants walking ballista either. You only ever want to see 6-7 mana.
The core package of threats has already more or less been established. Messing with it is going to give you a sub par version of the deck or a different deck entirely.
I'm pretty sure the deck is close to be optimized.
haha no. that... it's not gonna work. land d is what makes this deck. and you want to replace all of it with expensive planeswalkers?
ive found the deck to be extremely consistent. which is what has drawn me to it. ive juggled with the idea of adding white, but now for rest in peace/stony silence than anything else.
I've had exactly the same thought, but haven't had the balls to pull the trigger on it yet.
ya I'm worried that it'll mess with the consistency. there's also dragonlord dromoka and that 5/5 angel that prevents your stuff from getting sacrificed.
wurmcoil is great vs everything that doesn't run path. but i do side it out against path decks.
now that there's the new legend rule, I'm interested in revisiting the six mana chandra. having both in play would be great.
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- Abrade is awesome
- Birds suck
- Trinisphere is great
- Less titans
Glad to see you guys are slowly coming to a consensus on the things i've talked about a while back.
I haven't tried the Regisaurs yet and in context, they seem great. Nationals is next week and although I am unable to play the main event, I plan on playing on Sunday. Should there be a modern tourney, I will run the test with it.
I can see how coco decks are an issue. If those are prevalent in your meta, you should cut choke for cages.
AotG is not a maindeck card. It's not a card you'll want to cycle when you bring it in the relevant matches. And yes, exile is super important for stuff like Finks, voice, etc.
The advantage of the cycling is marginal for this deck since you wouldn't bring that card in anyways unless you wanted to ensure you saw it early. I haven't found that it's tangible enough to make the switch.
The deck has enough land D. Your strategy is to stop them from playing magic long enough to kill them. GDD just doesn't do that very well and is a non-bo with Boom//Bust. I never really liked that build. 5 mana 4/4 that might allow you to just play a land d spell from the grave has never been my gravy. Just don't think it's powerful enough. Funny enough, when GDD was at its best was when it could bring back Crackling Doom in that old standard format.
Blowing up all your own lands is generally a death knell. Your curve is higher than a lot of the decks out there and opponents tend to be able to recover more quickly than you will.
Chandra is the deck's best win condition, no doubt about that. Everything else you do distracts your opponents from her getting to ultimate. Your goal should be to get there no matter what. Once that happens, every elf you top deck is 5 dmg to their faces. Which is great. Won't be able to do that if you blow up all your lands though...
maybe the correct land is actually sacred foundry and not temple? seems like your build would have been better suited for that.
it really depends on the matchup and also whether on the play or draw. I've been on 22 lands for some time (you can see me advocating the chance a few pages back, with the thicket). the deck is obviously better with a one drop in opener, but it's not the end of the world without one. it doesn't stop making birds a bad top deck. it just doesn't do enough regardless. it's kind of like the folks who are still playing kwr...
very simple : artifacts. it's a hedge. burn to the face is not really this deck's game plan. having abrade main helps hedge a matchup in which bolt is so much worse. killing a vial is also big game. card is super versatile. dead in very few matchups.
birds are awful. don't play them.
3 angers are a necessity. this deck struggles vs little guys. bant/humans/affinity. hits a lot of the weaker matchups.
Damn son. Can you go into more details on how the garden caused the losses?
You running Abrades at all? Feel like they would help in the bant matchup.
Wish you had played affinity though. Would have been a good judge on whether or not the white splash is truly worth it.
Overall, sounds like not to me.
Good luck bud. Hope the splash works out!
For Chandra tod, even post rotation I doubt she drops below 20$. She's that good. There are many games that she allows you to win that no other walker can. Garruk isn't a budget option since he does something entirely different. Play flamecaller if you want a budget friendly one.
Still hate birds in the deck lol
chandra is the real deal and shouldn't even be a question. play 3. i a play 2 abrades main as there are very few decks it's weak against.
I've stated my opinion on the birds thing. And I personally feel like 0 birds is correct. Card is terrible. It really doesn't play that well with our game plan is a worse top deck than a land on the 5th turn. Stick to 0, it's correct.
Bad beats bruh. However, you can't expect to really ever draw your sideboard cards when you are playing a bunch of 1 ofs. I would definitely cut the Finks and increase the amount of angers. What do you use finks against??? They are slow, don't really impact the board and really don't put much pressure. Cut them. Up your Trinisphere count to 3 if you're worried about burn. Up your count of angers to 3 for sure. Affinity is a troublesome matchup, you want to cut the stone rains both on the play/draw. Keep your moons in and bring the abrade, grudges, angers.
I would also advise against playing 4 Titans. It's too many and you're likely to get your hand clumped up. I found the perfect number to be at 2/2 split with Stormbreath. The haste is undervalued in my opinion. That's part of what makes the card so good. It's incredibly rare that I'd lose a game where I resolved a dragon, especially if I had access to 7 mana. DEFINITELY have choke in your sideboard going forward. Card is a house.
No. It's bad. It may have looked good there, but that version of the deck is something entirely different. It's super grindy. I think some of you have a misconception that the deck is meant to be grindy, it's not. The whole point of ponza is to make plays that stop your opponent from playing magic. That's the whole point of the deck. You're not interested in out valuing your opponent over 27 turns. What you want is them to lose the game within the first 6 turns or less. That's exactly why a card like tracker doesn't belong in this build.
Definitely not something I would even consider.
Stormbreath are great because they invalidate the best removal spell in the format. You wouldn't want to cut them.
Don't think the deck wants walking ballista either. You only ever want to see 6-7 mana.
The core package of threats has already more or less been established. Messing with it is going to give you a sub par version of the deck or a different deck entirely.
I'm pretty sure the deck is close to be optimized.
I assume it does a whupping zero damage?
Ya in game is not the time to learn that lesson!
control
fish
chord decks
death & taxes
affinity
comes in vs every thing else.
ya I'm worried that it'll mess with the consistency. there's also dragonlord dromoka and that 5/5 angel that prevents your stuff from getting sacrificed.
wurmcoil is great vs everything that doesn't run path. but i do side it out against path decks.
now that there's the new legend rule, I'm interested in revisiting the six mana chandra. having both in play would be great.