Serious Ponza

Modern Land Destruction RG (Gruul) RGW (Naya)

clayperce

Land (21)

• 7x Forest
• 1x Mountain
• 1x Plains
• 3x Stomping Ground
• 1x Temple Garden
• 4x Windswept Heath
• 4x Wooded Foothills

Utility (2)

• 2x Courser of Kruphix

Versatile Threats (14)

• 4x Bloodbraid Elf
• 2x Chandra, Torch of Defiance
• 2x Inferno Titan
• 2x Pia and Kiran Nalaar
• 4x Tireless Tracker

Mana Disruption (10)

• 4x Blood Moon
• 4x Pillage
• 2x Stone Rain

Ramp (10)

• 4x Arbor Elf
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 4x Utopia Sprawl

Removal (3)

• 3x Lightning Bolt

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Sideboard

Other (15)

• 1x Abrade
• 3x Anger of the Gods
• 1x Grafdigger's Cage
• 2x Knight of Autumn
• 3x Rest in Peace
• 2x Stony Silence
• 3x Trinisphere

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Maybeboard

Common Sideboard Options (7)

• 1x Ancient Grudge
• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Chameleon Colossus
• 1x Choke
• 1x Kitchen Finks
• 1x Obstinate Baloth
• 1x Scavenging Ooze

Common Mainboard Options (5)

• 1x Chandra, Flamecaller
• 1x Kessig Wolf Run
• 1x Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
• 1x Primal Command
• 1x Stormbreath Dragon

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Want to destroy lands, cast "unplayable" cards, and have an absolute blast? While piloting a deck named after a deep-friend calzone (yes, really)? Then you will absolutely love Ponza!

The deck changes often, but this reflects what I'm currently playing in paper ... White sideboard and all.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and suggestions!

Strategy

MOVE TOWARDS THE WIN:

• Arbor Elf, Utopia Sprawl, and Birds of Paradise provide Ramp for mana disruption as early as Turn 2 and fatties as early as Turn 3.
• Courser of Kruphix is a superb blocker who also provides card filtering and incidental lifegain. Tireless Tracker brings card advantage that can run away with games if unanswered. Chandra can +1 for Impulse Draw, a few extra points of damage, or Ramp. And the synergy between the three is insane.
• Pia and Kiran Nalaar are extremely resistant to spot removal, and their activated ability is superb, especially in concert with Tireless Tracker. They're also our only tool against Etched Champion.

PREVENT OPPONENT'S WIN-CON:

• Blood Moon, Stone Rain, and Molten Rain prevent opponents from executing their game plan.
• Lightning Bolt, Chandra's -3 and Inferno Titan's triggered ability provide some targeted removal.

WIN-CON: Smash face with Inferno Titan or a huge Tireless Tracker.

ALTERNATE WIN-CONS:

• Chandra's Emblem plus a couple low-CMC spells works nicely.
• Sometimes it all comes down to a Lightning Bolt to the face, a Thopter swinging in the air, or Pia and Kiran Nalaar's activated ability.

SIDEBOARD:

• Abrade: Sure it's a bad Lightning Bolt and a bad Ancient Grudge, but it's a superb use of limited sideboard slots.
• Anger of the Gods: Great for any go-wide deck, especially those with Graveyard synergy.
• Grafdigger's Cage: Solid Graveyard hate, plus it shuts down Collected Company and Chord of Calling.
• Knight of Autumn: LOVE the versatility here.
• Rest in Peace: The best Graveyard hate in Modern, and the reason I'm currently splashing White. Incidentally, it wrecks Modular from Arcbound Ravager and Arcbound Walker, plus Thopter tokens from Hangarback Walker.
• Stony Silence: Superb Artifact hate.
• Trinisphere: Great against anything that needs to cast more than one spell per turn or runs VERY few Lands (e.g., Storm, Burn, Bogles, Living End, Restore Balance, Grisoalbrand, Death's Shadow). Sure, it nerfs the Cascade effect from Bloodbraid Elf, but when I want Trin' I really want it, so it's a fine trade-off.

MAYBEBOARD (MAIN):

• Chandra, Flamecaller: Solid in either a 5- or 6-drop slot. Superb in a meta heavy on Path to Exile (which limits the value of Inferno Titan).
• Glorybringer: A solid 4- or 5-drop option, especially in a Creature-heavy meta.
• Kessig Wolf Run: Replaces the Basic Plains when I'm running straight Gruul. There's just nothing like attacking a Birds of Paradise through Ensnaring Bridge and then pumping it for the win.
• Nissa, Voice of Zendikar: Can block for days, drop +1/+1 counters on the team, and ultimates FAR more often than I'd ever expect. Best with Pia and Kiran Nalaar and Kitchen Finks.
• Primal Command offers insane versatility. I probably tutor just the right Creature 85%, gain life 60%, bounce a thing 40% (especially when I'm close to winning, and I want to make SURE they don't top-deck an out), nuke a graveyard 15%, and give an opponent life to kill their Death's Shadows <1% (but utterly priceless).
• Stormbreath Dragon: Another solid 4- or 5-drop option. Superb in a meta heavy on Humans, Lingering Souls, and Path to Exile.

MAYBEBOARD (SIDE):

• Ancient Grudge: My absolute favorite Artifact hate.
• Beast Within: Insane versatility, at Instant speed ... kills lands, huge Creatures, and Planeswalker; a superb combat trick (Beast Within'ing our own land, or a mana dork, or whatever); kills opps' most important Enchantments and Artifacts (Rancor vs. Bogles, Ensnaring Bridge vs. Lantern, Plating vs. Affinity, etc); nerfs Valakut (sure it's a good match-up already, but it's even better when we can disrupt 5 of the 6 Valakut triggers by destroying a Mountain with the triggers on the stack). Sure, I've certainly lost a ton of games to the Beast Token I gave my opp. But I almost certainly would have lost those games anyways ... it's like, "Do I want to die for sure next turn to whatever my opp is doing, or maybe in X turns to a Beast Token?" It's usually a pretty easy call :-)
• Chameleon Colossus: Insane against Black decks and good against anything ... especially if pumped to 8/8 or even 16/16.
• Choke: Hilarious vs. any deck with Islands.
• Kitchen Finks: Solid lifegain effect, a great chump-blocker, and a Cascade hit. Watch out though, as it's a non-bo with Grafdigger's Cage and Rest in Peace.
• Obstinate Baloth: A decent body, lifegain, and generally messes with discard effects.
• Scavenging Ooze: Superb Graveyard hate.

Iconic plays

Turn 2 Mana Disruption:

• T1: Green Land; Arbor Elf, Utopia Sprawl, or Birds of Paradise
• T2: Land; Blood Moon, Stone Rain, or Molten Rain

or

• T1: Green Land; Arbor Elf
• T2: Green Land; Utopia Sprawl; tap/retap Lands for Blood Moon, Stone Rain, or Molten Rain (plus 1 mana left over).

Turn 2 4-drop:

• T1: Green Land; Arbor Elf
• T2: Green Land; Utopia Sprawl; tap/retap Lands for Bloodbraid Elf, Chandra, or Pia and Kiran Nalaar.

Turn 3 Titan:

• T1: Green Land; Arbor Elf
• T2: Green Land; Utopia Sprawl
• T3: Land or Utopia Sprawl (there are other ways to get 6+ mana too); tap/retap for Inferno Titan

Playtips

For the good stuff, please check out the Crowdsourced Sideboard Guide and various Tips and Tricks over on r/PonzaMTG.

But here are a few tidbits and edge cases:

Arbor Elf: His ability is not a mana ability, so we can't use it to pay costs while casting a spell or while another ability is resolving. This means we can use Arbor Elf's ability before activating Chandra's +1 (Exile the top card of your library. You may cast that card ...), but not during it.

Beast Within: If the target is legal but is not destroyed (e.g., if it gains Regeneration or Indestructible), its controller still gets the Beast token.

Bloodbraid Elf:

• If possible, cast her before playing our Land-for-turn, in case we Cascade into a Tireless Tracker.
• We can use Fetchs to reshuffle our library after we Cascade needed high-CMC spells to the bottom.
• Keeping a Fetch uncracked when Courser of Kruphix is in play is great too, so we can shuffle away an unwanted Cascade card, if desired.
• She's VERY good vs. Control. Forcing them to chose whether to counter the Cascade spell or BBE (because they generally don't have the mana or spells to counter both) is just a GREAT feeling.
• Our Cascade spell resolves first, then Bloodbraid. This is especially relevant if we Cascade into Anger of the Gods ... Bloodbraid resolves second, so she takes no damage from the Anger.
• Because we "Put the exiled cards on the bottom of your library in a random order" after Cascade, we have to offer our opponent a chance to shuffle them too.

Chameleon Colossus:

• The fact it's a Changeling is relevant vs. UR Phoenix, Merfolk, Elves, and Slivers since it's not returned to hand by Awoken Horror, and it's affected by Lord of Atlantis, Elvish Champion, and many Slivers.
• If an opponent attacks with Death's Shadow+Temur Battle Rage, they have to assign lethal damage (usually 4 points) during both first strike AND regular damage steps.

Chandra, Torch of Defiance: Her Emblem is colorless, which is relevant vs. Protection from Red effects (e.g., Story Circle). Watch out though, because her Emblem is not a 'may' effect, which makes it TERRIBLE if your opponent has Leyline of Sanctity in play and there are no Creatures on board.

Inferno Titan: Its Attack trigger is not a 'may' effect, which can be troublesome if your opponent has Leyline of Sanctity is in play and there are no other Creatures on board. Though you can always target the Titan itself.

Primal Command: Because we have to resolve the modes in order, we can also bury things deeply with Mode-2-then-3 (bounce a thing to library, then make opponent shuffle), and pull critical one-ofs out of our graveyard with Mode-3-then-4 (shuffle our 'yard, then tutor a creature).

Trinisphere:

• As a general rule of thumb, when Trin' is in play, your opponent has to pay at least to cast a spell.
• Cost Reducers: Ruling #1 on Gatherer explains that Trin's ability is applied after any other cost increases or cost reductions. For example, even if the opponent has Goblin Electromancer on the battlefield, Pyretic Ritual costs .
• Suspend: Trin' does not affect the cost to Suspend a card (because it's not cast), but it does affect it when it comes off Suspend (because the spell is then cast for an alternative cost of nothing). E.g., Ancestral Vision costs to Suspend and when it comes off Suspend. Heh!
• Phyrexian Mana: Paying Life does not count towards the Trin' tax. E.g., Gut Shot costs 2 Life + or . Here's some more info from MagicJudges.org
• Delve: Since exiling a card from the Graveyard pays for , Delve does count towards the Trin' tax. E.g., Casting Become Immense for five Exiled cards and is the same as paying , so Trin' will not apply an additional charge. Here's some more info from MagicJudges.org.

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Shout-outs to ...

• Brian Kowal and Adrian Sullivan, who invented the original Ponza deck. Here's some early history, if you're interested.
• Itou Manabu, Michael Nielsen, and Matt Mendoza, who pioneered Ponza in Modern, with decks like this, this, and this.
• Andrew Wolbers, who won SCG DFW with this deck.
• Everyone at r/PonzaMTG and also fb/PonzaMTG.
• michael921, as always, for his outstanding ideas and advice.

Finally, please +1 Upvote if you like the deck or find the resources to be useful!

Top Ranked	Achieved #1 position overall 7 years ago
Date added	7 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	7 - 0 Mythic Rares 23 - 14 Rares 8 - 1 Uncommons 13 - 0 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.69
Tokens	Clue, Emblem Chandra, Torch of Defiance, Thopter 1/1 C
Folders	>> Active Modern <<, Modern, modern ideas, Modern Decks, PONZA, Modern Decks, Yas bich, modern, Decks, Insperation