Ponza Scheme
Land Destruction for People Who HATE Land Destruction
by Jeff Zandi


Lots of people like land destruction strategies. I've never been one of
them. When I heard that there was a competitive mono red land destruction
deck in Type II (Standard) constructed, I wasn't very interested. I've been
playing Goblin Bidding and Ravager Affinity for what seems like a very long
time now, and outside of the first two rounds of this year's Regional
tournament, I've been having very good results. But a funny thing happened
on the way to this summer's constructed tournaments. Skullclamp got banned.
With its amazing ability to keep super-aggressive decks from burning out in
the late game, Skullclamp changed the constructed environment immediately
after becoming legal just a few months ago. While Skullclamp was legal, it
made all decks OTHER than Goblin Bidding and Ravager Affinity very difficult
to win with. Regardless of whether you think aggressive decks really were
that dominate or not, everyone has to agree that Skullclamp gave aggressive
decks with small creatures too much of an advantage. As big a change as
Skullclamp brought with it when it arrived, I believe we will see an even
bigger change in constructed formats now that it's gone. Suddenly, its okay
to play decks that take a little bit longer to win. Slower decks make land
destruction strategies better.

Ever since I started playing Magic, I have always thought that land
destruction strategies were kind of a get-rich-scheme that never really
worked. When you play a land destruction deck, the goal is to keep your
opponent's ability to cast spells in check by limiting their access to mana.
The downside is that if your opponent ever solves this problem for even a
few turns, your land destruction deck is suddenly full of cards that don't
matter anymore.

A few days ago, a teammate told me that Ponza (a name borrowed from a very
powerful land destruction deck several years ago when Rishadan Port was
legal in Standard) was good again. I looked around for a good decklist, and
found one that finished in the top eight at Grand Prix Brussels. If it's
good enough for the Belgians, then I see no reason to waffle over a bunch of
other lists.

Mono Red Ponza
3 Arc-Slogger
3 Avarax
4 Slith Firewalker

3 Chrome Mox
4 Demolish
3 Detonate
4 Electrostatic Bolt
4 Molten Rain
4 Shock
2 Starstorm
4 Stone Rain

4 Blinkmoth Nexus
16 Mountain
2 Stalking Stones

SIDEBOARD:
2 Culling Scales
1 Detonate
2 Dwarven Blastminer
3 Echoing Ruin
2 Flashfires
4 Pyroclasm
1 Rorix Bladewing

>From our team's preparations for Regionals this year, I already knew that I
liked mono red control decks with cards like Arc-Slogger and Avarax, and
even Slith Firewalker. Understanding that this decklist didn't have Fifth
Dawn in it yet, I thought I would test the deck in a competitive environment
where no one had Fifth Dawn yet. You guessed it, Magic Online. Generally
speaking, it is a real pain that sets come out in "real life" (I prefer to
say "3-D") months before they are eventually added to Magic Online. This
time, though, PROGRAMMING LAG comes in perfectly handy, allowing me to
vigorously test this deck without Fifth Dawn. I just wanted to see how the
deck felt against the kind of decks it might have faced in Grand Prix
Belgium.

I immediately loved the deck. Against artifact affinity decks, you have a
good bit of main deck artifact kill. Against slow white control decks, you
have lots of hassles for their long-term, high mana strategies. I also have
to say that I really like dropping Chrome Mox on turn one, playing a
mountain and playing and attacking with Slith Firewalker on turn one. When I
saw the Culling Scales in the sideboard, I ALMOST wanted to play them main.
I think Culling Scales has a lot of synergy in a deck with not very many
small permanents against a field in which artifact affinity is still a
factor. I didn't have enough Demolish cards, of all things, so I used Lay
Waste and liked it almost as much. Lay Waste is a bad card that COULD be
useful in this deck. Cycling is a good ability that provides an answer to
the situation where your land destruction deck needs ANYTHING BUT another
land destruction spell in the late game. After playing with the above
decklist for awhile, I decided to switch out the Blinkmoth Nexus cards for
Cloudpost. The Cloudpost occasionally allowed for a little faster play of
your five casting cost spells, but in the end, Blinkmoth Nexus is a much
better card for this deck. Actually, Stalking Stones has been an important
enough part of this deck that I would suggest playing three or four of them.
Avarax is an incredible card for this deck for several reasons. First, in a
deck that has so many slots dedicated to sorceries that destroy lands,
Avarax makes your deck feel like it has access to more creatures than it
really contains. Against the control decks, Avarax creates a special
problem. When you cast Avarax, the control player WANTS to allow you to have
one creature, but they REALLY want you to have two or more creatures in play
so that their Wrath of God will provide optimal card advantage for them.
Against such decks, I will often play the second Avarax (and gaining the
third Avarax from the deck) but not play the third one if I think they are
holding Wrath of God.

Fifth Dawn adds a lot of interesting ideas for this deck. Sadly, Sunburst
cards are of no use to this mono red deck. Beacon of Destruction, or as I
like to call it in my Atkins-diet-addled-brain "Bacon of Destruction" is a
good fit for this deck, it could take the place of the Pulse of the Forge
cards that I have been playing with in the sideboard. Cosmic Larva, the 7/6
trampler for only 1RR is too dangerous to play with this deck's slim 22
piece land base. Engineered Explosives is a slam dunk for this deck, at
least for the sideboard. This is very interesting because Engineered
Explosives is so much like the Powder Keg that was a part of the original
Ponza deck BACK IN THE DAY. Granulate, a 2RR Sorcery that ALMOST does what
Shatterstorm used to do, could be good enough for the sideboard if artifact
affinity continues to be a nuisance. Magma Jet sounds like it could be
better than Shock, thanks to Magma Jet's Scry ability. I don't want to be
too quick to give up on Shock, however, a good one mana cost instant is a
VERY good thing.

Taking all this into account, here is the version I want to start using in
Standard, including Fifth Dawn.

Ponza with Fifth Dawn
3 Arc-Slogger
4 Avarax
4 Slith Firewalker

4 Chrome Mox
2 Demolish
3 Detonate
3 Electrostatic Bolt
4 Molten Rain
3 Magma Jet
2 Echoing Ruin
2 Starstorm
4 Stone Rain

2 Blinkmoth Nexus
16 Mountain
4 Stalking Stones

SIDEBOARD:
2 Culling Scales
3 Engineered Explosives
2 Decree of Annihilation
2 Echoing Ruin
3 Flashfires
3 Pyroclasm


As always, I'd love to hear what YOU think!

Jeff Zandi
Texas Guildmages
Level II DCI Judge
jeffzandi@thoughtcastle.com
Zanman on Magic Online