Hey just wanted to let you know in your matchups section you have 8-Whack listed twice, I don't know if these are just different variations but its under 67% and 33%. Other than that ponza is a cool deck, and your list has provided me with a great example to test against so thank you.

Oloro_Magic,
Great catch; thanks much! The Goblins are definitely a 33% match-up :-)
Thanks so much for the kudos as well!

Oloro_Magic,
As a follow-up, are you testing this against Hatebears/D&T? If so, I'd CERTAINLY appreciate any tips you may have. I do OK against GW, but I've found the Mono-W version to be a consistently brutal match-up ...

I've tested my G/W Hatebears against the deck yes as well as my Mono-White build sparingly, however I mainly have tested for other people and done substantial testing against my turns deck I have been working on.

I think ponza is not well positioned against the mono-white version of death & taxes especially against more experienced pilots. The deck inherently does not care too much about it's mana, and as a precaution I always play Weathered Wayfarer regardless. As I assume you know the best way to beat the deck is to deny the Aether Vial, yet even then there are ways we can work around that, for example the aforementioned Weathered Wayfarer. The mono-white version is closer to the legacy deck and as such runs it's own mana disruption plan too, Blood Moon removes that threat but at a cost. So basically in my testing my gameplan piloting your deck while I was developing matchup knowledge was turn 1-3 deny Aether Vial and try to land some kind of threat, from there Blood Moon and mana denial, not allowing D&T to rebuild in a turn.

As the death and taxes player however, I decided to go the agro route leaving most of my control to be gobbled, a landed Thalia, Guardian of Thraben could go a long way however. I'll be sure to test Death & Taxes more against your deck so I can give you more concrete tips, but my gameplan when I did use D&T was the agro route whereas others may try to go controlling.

As an aside note I have seen people try to side in Chalice of the Void to shut off one and two for me and I'll admit it can be effective but risky.

Some advice for the matchup I can give psychologically is pay attention to your opponent game one, often D&T players will chose which route they take the deck in game one at some point and you can see which route they take through there plays, for example a player who flickers Blade Splicer with Flickerwisp is favoring agro and is testing to see if game two they can out tempo you, a player who plays a Flickerwisp to deny you resources is likely attempting to use a more controlling strategy (though I'll admit against ponza, getting rid of Sprawl is always tempting). Also a turn three Mirran Crusader or Brimaz, King of Oreskos is probably the clearest indication that the D&T player is going agro and trying to win quickly (when someone does this it may be because they don't have experience however so be wary). People underestimate mono-white D&T as well, the deck will make your life miserable and use a variety of tricks to keep you off balance; I always tell players to not adapt to what a D&T player is doing as that is what we want you to do, if you adapt you are letting us influence your gameplan and from there D&T shines as it builds up a lock on the game the longer you let it go.

Never be afraid to establish priority against D&T, honestly most players forget this but many interactions in D&T rely on priority and the state of the stack. Though more impactful in legacy, D&T still plays mana denial and it will do anything to keep you from achieving your goal. At it's heart it is agro control and must be give the same amount of respect as that U/W control deck or U/B list.

So general notes on my experience against ponza. The most impactful card I have faced was Chalice of the Void (specifically on two), it makes the deck much less adaptive.

Ironically, the least impactful cards I have found, at least against the gameplan I like to use, were the land hate cards, making them more expensive and then landing Weathered Wayfarer made it feel irrelevant.

As I said, I really like your build of ponza so I'll be sure to test my mono-white against it more so I can give you more specific tips. If you made it this far, thanks for putting up with my rambling.

Oloro_Magic,
AWESOME write-up here, thanks tons ... for the info of course, but also for the time you invested in leveling-up my play! I REALLY appreciate it!

Draw well!

Oloro_Magic,
Circling back ... Chalice is just not an option for me in the short term, and I seem to be facing more and more D&T lately. How good is Torpor Orb against you?

Torpor Orb kinda depends on the build but it is still very good against D&T, especially builds that go heavy on Blade Splicer and Flickerwisp. With that said, those who rely more on Mirran Crusader and Serra Avenger as their primary win-con can fight through a Torpor Orb with relative ease, and the tax component of D&T remains largely unaffected.

Just weighing in here: Torpor Orb doesn't do too great against D+T, and I find it to be more useful in other matchups, especially against Eldrazi variants and CoCo decks. I would suggest more Anger effects or, probably better yet, some Acidic Slimes to shoot down their Aether Vials and Tidehollow Scullers and block their other creatures.

I've played against mono white taxes and eldrazi & taxes, and mono-white is by far the tougher matchup. Thalia taxing your LD spells sets our gameplan back a few turns with either build, but Blood Moon stops the eldrazi taxes player cold whereas it doesn't do as much against mono-white. However, Courser of Kruphix is an all-star for the ponza side since it blocks so well on the ground, giving ponza enough time to draw into more lands/threats. Inferno Titan is pretty much game over if you can land one, just make sure you don't put more than 1 sprawl on any forest due to Ghost Quarters. I still keep a number of Blood Moons in after game 1 just to turn off the Ghost Quarter effects, although a timely Flickerwisp can ruin that plan if the taxes player so chooses. I find it to be a very interactive and fun matchup, where both decks can punish slower draws from the other. 45/55 in my experience against mono-white, 60/40 favoring ponza against eldrazi & taxes.

Hey clayperce! What do you think of this guy instead of Baloth?

WizardOfTheNorthernCoast,
Thanks for pointing out Ripjaw Raptor ... I hadn't really taken a hard look at it yet. Seems OK but I'm not sure it's better than the other options in the 3-4 drop range. Certainly not for the Baloth ... I ran the deck without it for a while, but decided the Lifegain was just too useful in too many matchups. Maybe for a Chameleon Colossus though, if Death's Shadow ever dies down? Except Ripjaw's big advantage is draw/card filtering, and for that I think I'd rather have Tireless Tracker, Courser of Kruphix, or another Chandra, Torch of Defiance.

I think the only Ixalan card (so far!) I'm excited about is Carnage Tyrant. I'm not sure it'll earn a slot, but I look forward to testing it.

Thanks again!

Maybe we could splash white and go dinosaur tribal ponza...

"This is a good idea..."

Carnage Tyrant seems like it could be a real SB card against control decks, especially if you already run Thrun in the MD. There's a good esper control player in my meta that I'd like to try it against at the very least.

Bovine073,
That would be fun, for sure! I tried some of the big Infect beaters in a Ponza shell a while back, and though it wasn't remotely competitive, it was an absolute blast to play. And who knows ... depending on what Lizards and Beasts they errata into Dinosaurs, Ponzasaur might actually be competitive.

GeminiSpartanX,
Yeah, I'm definitely going to give it a try. If nothing else, so I can say "deploy the giant, implacable death lizard" when I cast it :-D

Are they actually going to errata some creatures? :O

Bovine073,
Yeah. We don't know much, but we do know that "Existing dinos will get Oracle updates" (source) and "Everything that currently has the Beast type will keep it. (This means some old cards will be Dinosaur Beasts.)" (source).

RAWR Carnage Tyrant lookin' great for us. So pumped for this set!

goblinguiderevealpls,
I'm reaching out for some thoughts on Affinity and various Red decks.

• I've run 3x Ancient Grudge vs. Affinity "forever" and they've worked well for me ... I'm currently at 58% (7-5). But I'm intrigued by the idea of 2x Grudge and 1x Hellkite Tyrant. It's a little slower of course, but it doesn't dilute the deck nearly as much. I'd appreciate your thoughts.
• I'm 57% (12-9) vs. Naya Burn, where Blood Moon is very effective. But I struggle against other Red decks ... e.g., I'm 33% vs. Boros Burn (3-6) and 8-Whack (2-4). Any suggestions for the match-ups?

Thanks in advance!

Oloro_Magic, Moonbar, and GeminiSpartanX,
Just realized I never said thanks for your earlier comments about Torpor Orb and D&T.
So: THANKS! :-)

clayperce,

First off, I'm impressed at how well you've done with a non-meta, jank homebrew list, it looks very slow for modern but not with mana dorks and the like!

I play both decks you asked about, you're right to be running Ancient Grudge vs affinity, some alternatives or additional hate for artifacts

Destructive Revelry

Shatterstorm

Shattering Spree

Nature's Claim

Thats about all you can do vs affinity in gruul colors, destroy artifacts and/or creatures

Molten Rain is surprisingly good vs affinity cuz it blows up Spire of Industry and Inkmoth Nexus

Both decks are bad matchups for you because they outspeed you by a lot, and unfortunately most of the hoser spells are in white, i.e.

Stony Silence, Kor Firewalker, Leyline of Sanctity

As far as burn, theres not much you can do outside of leyline to prevent a Lightning Bolt in your face, you CAN however try and stabilize with cards like Feed the Clan or Obstinate Baloth, Kitchen Finks, the latter 2 which you already have plus thragtusk

especially if the burn player doesnt have access to green, where they would respond with Atarka's Command to stop the lifegain, so take care if the burn player has RG open

I feel like Shatterstorm would perform better in this deck, since you dont have to wait a turn to steel artifacts and it usuallu sweeps nearly their entire board, plus its cheaper on mana and can be cast turn 3 with a mana dork, which is usually when affinity is all in if they havent won yet

You should definitely run 4 Lightning Bolt and maybe a Searing Blaze and/or Searing Blood, since all 3 can kill an Inkmoth Nexus equipped with Cranial Plating that would otherwise be lethal, as well as major burn threats like Eidolon of the Great Revel, good ol' goblin guide and monastery swiftspear, and you can wait until they declare attacks to answer the creatures

But yea, a slower homebrew is going to have trouble with top 5 aggro decks, hope that helps your matchups against them!

Best of luck next modern tournament

Looks like you have plenty of lifegain and land destruction spells already, off to a good start!

If you really have the urge for Hellkite Tyrant, id maybe test a single copy with friends to see how it pairs up,

Also i feel like Primeval Titan would be insanely powerful in this list if you can afford 1 or 2

goblinguiderevealpls,
Thanks much, though I have to confess it's not a total homebrew ... Ponza's no Tier 1 of course, but it can periodically spike a major tournament (e.g., this year so far we've had #15/454 at SCG Open Richmond, #6/151 at SCG Modern Classic Atlanta, #1/547 in Modern at SCG Invitational Roanake, #9/847 at SCG Open Dallas-Ft Worth, and #15/904 at SCG Open Indianapolis), and I've been heavily influenced by the brewers and pilots of those decks.

It's also deceptively fast ... ignoring mulligans and opponent interaction, we have 3 mana on T2 ~60% of them time, 4 mana on T2 ~15% of the time, and 6 or more on T3 ~10% of the time. Sure there are plenty of much slower games, but the look on opponents' faces after Turn 2 Land Destruction and Turn 3 Inferno Titan makes all the slower games worthwhile!

I had totally forgotten about Feed the Clan; thanks much! Also, thanks for the thoughts on Shatterstorm vs. Hellkite Tyrant. I've been considering upping my Lightning Bolt count because of UR Storm ... with your inputs I will go ahead and do so.

And yeah, Atarka's Command and Skullcrack both rot for sure :-)

Thanks again, and good luck to you as well!

goblinguiderevealpls,
Yeah, I'm not really wedded to the idea of Hellkite Tyrant ... saw it in a recent 5-0 list and thought it looked cool. I figured if it made an Affinity pilot go "Oh no!" it would be worth trying ... since it didn't really, I'll probably pass for now.

Primeval Titan is OK in Ponza, but not great. The Trample is great and deck thinning is always nice of course, but we don't normally need the ramp at that point, plus none of our lands have crazy ETBs. If I could fit in another 6-drop, I'd probably just do another Inferno Titan or maybe a Wurmcoil Engine. Though I'm going to try Carnage Tyrant for sure.

Thanks again, mate!

Ah had no idea it was an archetype or that fast, no problem though, and makes sense, running most of what others run with a few deck techs is always a good way to go

Cheers

Love this deck! Ponza has a special place in my heart. I appreciated you citing that article on it's history and for keeping the land destruction alive!