GR Ponza ($30)

Modern Budget Land Destruction Midrange RG (Gruul)

hungry000

Creature (23)

• 4x Arbor Elf
• 4x Bloodbraid Elf
• 4x Bonecrusher Giant
• 3x Glorybringer
• 4x Legion Warboss
• 4x Llanowar Elves

Land (21)

• 8x Forest
• 4x Game Trail
• 2x Highland Forest
• 7x Mountain

Enchantment (4)

• 4x Utopia Sprawl

Sorcery (8)

• 4x Pillage
• 4x Stone Rain

Instant (4)

• 4x Lightning Bolt

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Sideboard

Artifact (6)

• 2x Ratchet Bomb
• 2x Sorcerous Spyglass
• 2x Tormod's Crypt

Sorcery (1)

• 1x Flame Slash

Creature (5)

• 2x Obstinate Baloth
• 2x Scavenging Ooze
• 1x Thragtusk

Instant (3)

• 1x Ancient Grudge
• 2x Return to Nature

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Maybeboard

Creature (3)

• 3x Sin Prodder

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Ponza is a Gruul Midrange deck that uses ramp to power out land destruction spells like Stone Rain and Pillage and put its opponents behind on mana; it then plays a bunch of red beaters to take over the game with the tempo advantage. Modern Ponza decks of yore played bigger spells like Mwonvuli Acid-Moss and Inferno Titan as its finishers, but with the unbanning of Bloodbraid Elf in 2018 the deck adapted to play a higher density of three cmc cards to make better use of it. This build features Bonecrusher Giant and Legion Warboss as its main beaters, with Glorybringer and Goblin Dark-Dwellers topping off the high end.

Fun fact: Ponza was invented by a player named Brian Kowal in the late 90s. At the time, it was an innovation on the Mono Red Sligh deck (named after Paul Sligh when he took second place with it at an Atlanta PTQ in 1996) and played land destruction spells such as Stone Rain and Aftershock to supplement the red beatdown strategy. The name of the deck comes from a deep-fried pizza dish called Ponza Rotta, one of Kowal's favorites. From his primer: "The deck can be split up into different classes of cards: crust (land), meat (creatures), red sauce (land destruction), and veggies (ramp). A perfect balance."

Upgrades: Utopia Sprawl, Fury, Klothys, God of Destiny, Seasoned Pyromancer, Blood Moon

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This is part of the Modern Budget Battle Box series, a collection of budget decks designed to make Modern battle boxes fun and affordable! Check them out at my profile: hungry000

Date added	3 years
Last updated	8 months
Legality	This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	15 - 5 Rares 12 - 7 Uncommons 18 - 3 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.44
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Goblin 1/1 R