I attended an invitational 5K event over the weekend, which was incredibly fun since there were 9 rounds of swiss, with 3 rounds of each constructed format (legacy, modern, then standard). I played the above build for the Modern portion of the event and went 3-0.
Round 4 vs Burn: This build of ponza has the best game 1 against agro and burn strategies thanks to the massive amount of MD lifegain. I don't remember too much of this match, other than the fact that Courser and Finks put in work, with Thragtusk making an appearance to pad my life total. My favorite thing to do against burn is cast a Trinisphere the turn after they suspend a rift bolt for maximum feel-bads, which happened in game 2. Since my opponent paid for it, it gave me the window to resolve a life-gain effect the next turn and win from there.
Round 5 vs Grixis Death's Shadow: This player was piloting a newer build that resembled the build advocated by Ben Friedman here. It ended up not working out for him, since in 2 of the games he was quite flooded on Mishra's Baubles. I think he took game 1, but I sided out the evolutions since I wanted as much action as possible for games 2 and 3. In game 3 I landed a turn 3 Chameleon Colossus which just ended the game in 2 turns since he didn't find the Snapcasters to chump with and he was at 16 life. This build of Ponza felt especially good against shadow with the MD Finks along with the token-generating creatures. I'll need to test more to see if my results are consistent against the deck or not.
Round 6 vs. Titanshift: I got this in two games, and it wasn't particularly close. Game 1 I decided to drop a threat before playing my Moon, which was good to put him on the backfoot after my turn 3 moon shut off his turn 4 win/stabilization. He cast his Primeval Titan and I decided to cast a titan of my own the following turn. I declined to trade titans during his next attack since I was at a high life total and had Nissa, Voice of Zendikar in hand to add a counter making my titan larger. He dropped a 2nd titan afterwards but couldn't get through my board as I had played a Pia and Kiran before minusing to add counters to the team. Game 2 I kept an awkward hand with Elf, 2x Sprawl, 2x Stomping Ground, Chandra, Magus of the Moon. I didn't want to play a turn 2 moon and have my sprawls fall off, so I played a turn 2 Chandra instead. I ripped an inferno titan off the top, and played it only to have my opponent play his titan and get 2 valakut triggers to kill it. I decided the bite the bullet then and play my moon effect which cut off my mana, but I proceeded to draw an Evolution and Huntmaster, so I evolved the huntmaster into a titan to put him at 3 which was low enough for my leftover dorks and the attack trigger of titan to get me there.
I ended up getting top 4 in the event (the cut to top 8 was a draft), and we split the prize in the top 4 instead of the top 8, which means I walked away with either $1000 cash or $1100 store credit. Since I only ever use extra money to buy cards anyway, I opted for the store credit and was able to finish my legacy Sneak & Show deck (getting 2 Volcanic Islands and the 2nd City of Traitors) and finally get a playset of Liliana of the Veils along with some smaller wants.
This build felt great against the BG attrition and burn decks, and of course was great against the land-matters deck. It might be worse than traditional ponza in game 1 vs affinity or merfolk though due to not playing MD bonfires, but it has the normal agro hate in the SB. I have yet to play this against the newer control builds that are going around, but I feel like moons plus trinispheres would be enough to help me protect a threat long enough to close out a game against them. I'll need to test against a control list soon to make sure though. Evolution felt strong, and 3 is the right number for the deck. If I can get enough testing in, I might be convinced to play this in the pro tour since it felt more proactive than traditional ponza, but not as conditional as monster ponza.
