Pauper Ponza

by DedWards on 27 February 2018

Main Deck (60 cards)

Sideboard (15 cards)

Creatures (3)


Artifacts (3)

Submit a list of cards below to bulk import them all into your sideboard. Post one card per line using a format like "4x Birds of Paradise" or "1 Blaze", you can even enter just the card name by itself like "Wrath of God" for single cards.


Deck Description

With Pillage being printed as a common in Masters 25, I decided to take a look at converting Ponza to Pauper levels. To do this, I needed to boil it down to it's basic components, and my end result was this:
Mana dorks to both ramp and help play mana disruption early.
Mana disruption to buy time to ramp into big threats.
Big threats to win the game.

*Edit 21 April 2018*
-2 Llanowar Elves
+2 Wild Growth
Similar effect, but with greater defense against removal and combo's with Arbor Elf similar to Utopia Sprawl.

How to Play

The basic idea is to disrupt the opponent's mana as soon and often as possible while ramping into your own big threats.

The ramp:
Arbor Elf + Utopia Sprawl is the bread and butter here. On their own, they're basically just mana dorks that allow a turn two land destruction spell, but together they ramp for a lot of mana, allowing for a possible kicked Mold Shambler on turn 3.
Llanowar Elves are just to increase the chance of a turn two land destruction spell.

Mana disruption:
Being limited to commons because of the format meams no Blood Moon, so that was substituted by adding more land destruction.
Stone Rain and Thermokarst are the easiest to cast on turn two. Utopia sprawl + a Mountain is needed for a turn two Molten rain.
With the Arbor + Sprawl turn 2 combo, Mwonvuli Acid-Moss is playable on turn two too.

Big threats to win the game:
With the heavy land destruction package. Blocking a Thresher Beast is even more dangerous.
Mold Shambler's kicker gives much needed removal that doubles as land destruction.
Ulamog's Crusher is a big beat stick that helps keep the opponent's field empty.

Deck Tags

  • Pauper
  • ponza
  • Land Destruction
  • Ramp

Deck at a Glance

Social Stats

14
Likes

This deck has been viewed 5,490 times.

Mana Curve

Mana Symbol Occurrence

0001336

Card Legality

  • Not Legal in Standard
  • Not Legal in Modern
  • Legal in Vintage
  • Legal in Legacy

Deck discussion for Pauper Ponza

Why Naya Panorama over Evolving wilds or Terramorphic expanse, surely its bad right?

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Posted 01 March 2018 at 01:59

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Panorama comes in untapped and can add {C}.it's in fot mana fixing /IF/ I need fixing. Need that untapped mana in the early game to optimize the land destruction.

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Posted 01 March 2018 at 04:04

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Oh i see thanks, i have been misreading it for ages :D

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Posted 01 March 2018 at 04:45

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It's actually a trick I learned while trying to make mono red Dragonstorm work under the current Modern legalities. Maybe I should revisit that deck sometime...

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Posted 01 March 2018 at 07:48

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This is a good deck, but I'm not completely sure it stacks up with the pauper meta. A lot of decks seek to cast really cheap, synergistic stuff early in the game, and some actually have a flooding problem as the game goes on. Also, Gush and Daze aren't uncommon and they can stifle the land destruction spells. With the right opening hand, this deck can probably pretty consistently beat a lot of other decks, but it just needs to get there.

Actually, I think an early Thresher Beast could disrupt enough decks to pull off a decent win percentage. People probably won't be expecting to sideboard for a Ponza deck. On that note, I am curious as to why you have more Naturalizes than Ancient Grudges in your SB.

Good luck!

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Posted 09 March 2018 at 23:12

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The artifact hate is because of some affinity players at my LGS. A lot of the lands they use are the artifact lands

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Posted 10 March 2018 at 10:53

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Love the idea. Going to try it!!!
Only one question... how about adding some Giant Growth or Vines of Vastwood to upgrade Thresher Beast as a finishing move?

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Posted 21 April 2018 at 07:44

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By the way, Thermokarst is uncommon.

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Posted 21 April 2018 at 08:07

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Thermokarst is a common im Masters Edition II

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=184676


The problem with adding pump spells is you end up thinning other important card slots.

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Posted 21 April 2018 at 09:43

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I see... thanks!

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Posted 21 April 2018 at 10:21

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I'm actually thinking of replacing Llanowar Elves with Wild Growth. It's a safer option vs kill spells. It also combo's with Arbor Elf like Utopia Sprawl does, even if only for {G}.

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Posted 21 April 2018 at 10:50

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Sounds right. Trying to get some of the cards to test it next weekend ??

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Posted 21 April 2018 at 13:56

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And would be fun using Seton's Desire on Threshers

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Posted 21 April 2018 at 14:05

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My club cycles the formats we play. This week we tested out Brawl, so no Pauper LD for me. So far, Brawl has been fun.

Seton's Desire, or any "Lure" style effect on it would be awesome. There's a surprisingly low number of them in Pauper that can be granted to specific creatures (in green at least). Shinen of Life's Roar is a nice once off. But again, each trick added comes at a cost. of all the cards, Ulamog's Crusher is the most likely to be replaced (because of its cmc), if anything at all, but it's just so good when you do get it out early.

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Posted 21 April 2018 at 20:56

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Ok, built a version based on yours and looks pretty nice. A bit slow so I'm going to tweak it and publish it so you can compare :D

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Posted 16 May 2018 at 15:17

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Here it is: https://www.mtgvault.com/luishj/decks/rg-ponza/

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Posted 16 May 2018 at 15:58

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