Primer ••• “Weird Ponza” (Competitive-ish)

Modern Casual Competitive Land Destruction Primer Prison RGW (Naya)

JKRice

Land (23)

• 4x Arid Mesa
• 1x Blast Zone
• 1x Buried Ruin
• 1x Field of Ruin
• 4x Flagstones of Trokair
• 1x Ghost Quarter
• 4x Sacred Foundry
• 2x Snow-Covered Mountain
• 1x Snow-Covered Plains
• 3x Stomping Ground
• 1x Temple Garden

Creature (9)

• 4x Akki Blizzard-Herder
• 2x Knight of the Reliquary
• 3x Simian Spirit Guide

Sorcery (12)

• 4x Boom / Bust
• 4x Crack the Earth
• 4x Molten Rain

Artifact (12)

• 4x Crucible of Worlds
• 4x Ensnaring Bridge
• 4x Welding Jar

Instant (4)

• 4x Lightning Bolt

---

Sideboard

Instant (5)

• 1x Abrade
• 2x Ancient Grudge
• 2x Burst Lightning

Creature (3)

• 3x Thrun, the Last Troll

Artifact (4)

• 2x Damping Sphere
• 2x Silent Gravestone

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Chandra, Torch of Defiance

Sorcery (2)

• 1x Anger of the Gods
• 1x Pyroclasm

---

Disclaimer: This is not a strictly competitive deck. It’s not the worst deck ever, but the way it’s structured makes it hard to have a positive win rate in a high paying meta. However, it is still quite fun to play. In a more casual setting, this deck can easily clean up. It is, however, not finished, so if after reading the Primer you feel as though I am missing a needed card, or I should take something out, I would greatly appreciate a comment.

I’m sure you don’t understand most of the card choices here, or what I’m trying to do with this deck other than set everyone (including myself) back to the Stone Age with no lands. So here’s a Primer.

The Deck

My pitch for the deck: this is a land-destruction-Combo-control-lands-matter-Prison-mill deck

This started out with me finding Crack the Earth and immediately crafting a very bad version of Crack the Earth Ponza. It seemed like a pretty good card, like an Innocent Blood that is modern legal and can hit more things. It has evolved over time to what you see today, complete with Welding Jar as our turn one play to sacrifice to crack the earth, Flagstones of Trokair to hit with Boom / Bust , and some utility artifacts. It might seem like jank, but trust me, every card has a purpose. Thusly, “Weird Ponza” was birthed.

This is a faster, but less consistent version of modern Ponza/land destruction. The early game is amazing, and you can usually keep the opponent off the board for the first two or three turns. If you like off-meta decks that are definitely playable in a competitive meta, this is a good choice.

P.S. I realize that this deck would probably be better with blood moon in it. I am not looking for “better”. I am looking for a troll-ish deck that can get rid of literally every single land in the opponent’s deck. Does blood moon do that? I don’t think so. Also blood moon makes it a lot harder to play knight of the reliquary. If you really want a competitive list, you could swap the knights out for blood moons, and win by pseudo milling away their lands with ghost quarter and waiting for them to draw out.

The List

Mainboard

1: Crack the Earth is the turn one land killer. With Welding Jar or Flagstones of Trokair , it becomes asymmetrical.

2: Boom / Bust is the secondary land killer, which only becomes asymmetrical with flagstones.

3: Akki Blizzard-Herder is an interesting card I found. You can use this and crack the earth on your turn three to kill two of their lands and maintain your own land count. You just sacrifice akki to Crack, and sacrifice flagstones to akki. All in all a pretty good trade.

4: Lightning Bolt kills their turn one play so they have to sacrifice a land to crack.

5: Simian Spirit Guide lets us bolt their turn one play AND play crack the earth if we are on the draw.

6: Crucible of Worlds is a main land destruction engine late in the game when paired with Ghost Quarter .

7: Ensnaring Bridge is how we survive from behind. If we don’t keep their land count low, we can sit behind bridge until we draw into Boom / Bust so we can kill all the lands.

8: Knight of the Reliquary is our finisher. Usually, we end up with most of our lands on the yard, and we just have to sacrifice ensnaring bridge to crack the earth in order to swing.

9: Welding Jar can be sacrificed to crack the earth turn one, but it can also save Crucible of Worlds or Ensnaring Bridge .

10: Ghost Quarter / Field of Ruin can be looped with crucible to keep them locked down and strip lands out of their deck.

11: Blast Zone and Buried Ruin can help situationally into certain matchups, and are good cards to find with knight.

Sideboard

1: Abrade/ancient grudge hurt decks like affinity that can get an early lead without many lands

2: Anger of the Gods / Pyroclasm / Shock are there if we need some mega removal

3: Damping Sphere kills combo decks, and we never need to play more than one spell per turn.

4: Silent Gravestone is actually there to protect Ghost Quarter from decks that board in or play Surgical Extraction . It can also come in clutch against graveyard decks.

5: Thrun, the Last Troll and Chandra, Torch of Defiance are midrangey alternate wincons that I am experimenting with.

Notable Exclusions

1: Blood Moon does not work here. Firstly, she makes our ghost quarter strip strategy useless. Secondly, she makes this deck too good. This isn’t supposed to be mega-competitive. Anyone can run blood moon and win.

2: Stone Rain would just be another copy of Molten Rain , which we don’t necessarily need. It doesn’t synergize with any part of the deck.

3: Bloodbraid Elf would be an interesting inclusion, but it would be too easy to get the wrong land killer and end up killing your own land as well. Also it’s pretty sad to bloodbraid into crack and have to sacrifice your bloodbraid.

Gameplay

Starting Hands

Keepers:

• Lightning bolt, welding jar, crack the earth, 2+ lands

This hand has removal for their turn one play and is set up to kill their land and keep yours

• Crack the earth, akki blizzard herder, flagstones of trokair, 1+ other lands

This hand is set up for the turn three combo (sacrifice herder to crack, sacrifice flagstones to herder). Bolts for defense are preferable here, depending on the matchup.

• boom/bust or akki blizzard herder, lightning bolt, flagstones of trokair, 1+ other lands

This is set up to kill their land turn two/three and keep your lan, while also having some board defense. If you don’t kill their land turn one, you will most likely need defense.

• 2+ bolts, Ensnaring bridge, 1+ welding jar, 2+ lands

This is a purely defensive hand. The bolts kill their aggro, the welding jars empty your hand and save bridge from removal. With this hand you will have to rely on topdecks, but in game one when they don’t have artifact removal, you will probably be fine.

There are more keepers than just those four combinations, but those are the for archetypal hands that you will get most often.

When you have the choice, always go first no matter what. Land advantage is YUGELY important in this deck.

Early Game (T1-T3)

You will either have an aggressive or defensive hand. With an aggressive hand, you want to use your bolts to clear the way for crack the earth, or to kill your Akki Blizzard-Herder s. With a defensive hand you want to be more responsive, and just target things that could wind up losing you the game. Either way, you need a good setup. If you are not ahead in lands going in to the midgame, you are probably going to lose. This means be very careful. The one rule for the Early Game is that you are not allowed to play your land destruction in a way that ends up symmetrical. The point is to make them more focused on getting lands and fetching correctly than on killing you.

Mid Game (T4-T5/6)

The mid game is tricky. You definitely want either Crucible of Worlds or Ensnaring Bridge on the field. Both of them at once would be nice too. Both of these cards let you abuse your land advantage. If you don’t have either of the artifacts, Knight of the Reliquary is a good play as well, letting you find Ghost Quarter and Tectonic Edge . Whenever you can, kill more lands. If you have the choice between offense and defense, offense is always better. If you have four or more lands, you can also start to play your symmetric land destruction symmetrically, since then being stuck on one land is a lot worse than you being stuck on three, and three is enough to play anything in your deck. You can transition to the late game strategy once you have a crucible and a ghost quarter on the field, with knight and bridge adding survivability and utility.

Late Game (T6/7-)

If you have Knight of the Reliquary , find Ghost Quarter and Tectonic Edge ASAP. Ghost quarter is basically your wincon along with Crucible of Worlds , and Tectonic Edge keeps them locked out once all their basics are gone. Once you have these in play, you should start to do several things simultaneously. You should start stripping the hell out of their landbase every turn with ghost quarter, and keeping them fully off the board with tec edge. They should start to brick hardcore on their topdecks, because they have no land volume left. This is to make sure they can’t turn the game around. You should also be thinking about how to use your knight. If you know for sure that there is a crack the earth left in your library to deal with bridge, you should start tossing as many lands as possible into your yard with knight, so you can eventually sacrifice bridge and swing for the win. Or, you can do the fun win strategy. You use ghost quarter and field of ruin, looped with crucible of worlds, to strip all of the basic lands from your opponent’s deck. Then, you wait 30 turns for them to draw out. I said in the beginning, it’s a mill deck.

Date added	5 years
Last updated	5 years
Legality	This deck is not Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	0 - 4 Mythic Rares 31 - 3 Rares 7 - 6 Uncommons 19 - 2 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.68
Tokens	Emblem Chandra, Torch of Defiance