Ponza land destruction with a Valakut burn. Don't be hating now!
Gameplan: Smooth, consistent land removal. This deck is so fucking horrid to play against, I have had opponents nearly flip the table - which I kinda like! Hehehehehehehe
Nut Hand
Starting with a Forest and Utopia Sprawl is the speed needed to ensure a turn two land destruction play. Either that or an Birds of Paradise. Needed in hand is a Stone Rain or Molten Rain to rip that land away early. Surgical Extraction is an awesome way to destroy a playset of land, especially Tron land, Valakut’s and shock lands.
Land Destruction
Once the land removal really begins, it never stops - Stone Rain, Molten Rain and Beast Within doing the business.
Removal
Lightning Bolt helps to remove pesky early creatures and Beast Within destroys any permanent and the resulting 3/3 Beast can easily be dealt with by a bolt or a mid-game big defender.
Creatures
Birds of Paradise adds vital mana used to not only destroy land, but to bring out finishers like Thragtusk, Glorybringer and Inferno Titan.
Lands/Mana
There are 22 lands in this deck which runs two copies of Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle to add a burn element to hasten the win. Sylvan Scrying and Animist's Awakening (fun alternative to Scapeshift) speed up the burn. The deck runs a playset of Cinder Glade, Stomping Ground, Sheltered Thicket, two Forests and three Mountains. Ghost Quarter and Tectonic Edge are pivotal in removing dual lands to slow opponents down to a crawl.
How the deck stands up
This is a very consistent deck that performs well against most top tier decks, but I have had to play test it a lot and make changes to get the formula right. This deck has been mono red, red/black, jund and now red green Ponza. It has regularly beaten Death's Shadow Jund, R/G Valukut, Jeskai Control, Storm, Bant Eldrazi, Eldrazi Tron, Mono Blue Tron, Grixus Control, Elves, Mill and many others. Those decks that rely on fetch lands generally struggle against this deck as the life loss becomes too great. Not the best deck going around but it certainly is a competitive one that is fun to play (for me anyway) as it totally disrupts an opponent's gameplan right from turn one.
“I've got some wrecking to do!”
