Land destruction is good, actually. In a game based around having excellent resource management and outpacing your opponents’ resources, you’d think destroying your opponents’ lands wouldn’t just be fair game, it’d be encouraged. But no, land destruction’s fallen out of favor as a means to control the board due to the (incredibly infantilizing) “feels bad” moments it creates that WotC is oh-so-frightened of producing. God forbid somebody wins this game now and then.
I’ve begun terrorizing the only format where you can pull off a semi-competitive land destruction deck. I’m providing you this guide out of the goodness of my heart, in the hopes you, too, will become a terror at your LGS.
What’s Wrong With You? Why Would You Do This?
As any longtime MTG player can attest to, the burnout is real. After 15+ years of serious playing and collecting, plus another five at a card store where I had a very generous discount, a lot of the magic in Magic has been lost on me. I pined for a time when I actually felt like a planeswalker thematically linked to my deck, and not a guy with a disposable income and 15 Commander decks.
I landed on a land destruction deck for pauper when I found the semi-cycle of three-mana land destruction spells in Choking Sands, Icequake, and Rancid Earth. Immediately, I thought about how brutal it’d be to open up a match with a Dark Ritual into an Icequake, and the rest is history.
This deck is incredibly brutal to run, and has some insanely punishing play patterns. Unfortunately, this is what I found compelling about it. I’ve never felt like a more nefarious and evil planeswalker than I do when I pilot this deck.
Ultimately, this is what rekindled my love for Constructed - I’d found a deck that I felt truly emulated the flavor of being a mono-black planeswalker who’s traveled the multiverse in search of only the most oppressive and destructive spells he could get his hands on.
You should play mono black ponza if you’re also disenchanted and disenfranchised from the larger Magic sphere, if you’re searching for a deck with an oppressive and classic-feeling game plan, and you don’t care about the meta. Ponza is for players who want to punish and bully their opponents.
I want to be clear that this deck won’t 5-0 a league consistently, but it will go to game three nearly every time.
Mono Black Ponza 2024
Land Destruction
The basis of this deck is the four copies each of Choking Sands, Rancid Earth, Icequake, and Befoul. Befoul, while costing an additional mana, is still essential to this deck by virtue of being optional creature removal in a pinch, plus bringing us up to 16 total sources of land destruction. We need to see at least one LD spell in our opening hand, but the Befouls will admittedly be the first cards we drop when sideboarding.
Playsets of both Dark Ritual and Cabal Ritual are the other essential cards. We’ll need to see at least one of these in our opening hands as well, and it’s usually beneficial to mulligan down to five to dig for one alongside an LD spell.
Creatures
Where my list differs from some other lists is the creature base: it’s pretty rude to play all this land destruction without an actual out to end the game, so we’re stapling a traditionally valuable two card combo to our low-end in the form of Exhume-ing a swampcycling Troll of Khazad-dun.
Sign in Blood and Dusk Legion Zealot provide gas and a body to put our landless foes on some sort of clock. Finally, Gurmag is some extra 5/5 damage.
In a pseudo-Mono Black Control manner, we’re also running a playset of Chittering Rats. These little bastards are the sand you kick in the face of your opponents after you’ve pushed them to the ground. The possibly most sinister feeling in the world is watching your opponent dig for lands when you’ve locked them down to one (or even zero) mana, then running out the Rats and locking them out of drawing into a land. It’s insanely brutal and I never feel more like a villainous planeswalker than when I land this.
In a similar vein, Crypt Rats acts as both removal versus Goblins, elves, and other creature-heavy decks, or as an additional wincon if we can dump a Cabal Ritual into it in the late game.
Control, Removal
The prevalence of other Trolls of Khazad-dun in the format makes Exhuming our Troll risky; they can always respond to our Exhume by cycling their own Troll, which will then swing in before our Troll and outpace us to victory. Our best defense for this is the Nihil Spellbombs, Tormod’s Crypts, and Bojuka Bogs. It’s very hard for us to deal with an Exhumable threat, which is why we only ever want to use our Divests to toss those pesky indestructible artifact duals, unless we have a Tormod’s or Spellbomb ready to go.
Besides this, four Snuff Outs are just about the best removal in the format, but I’m playing with the idea of running Spinning Darkness instead to help stabilize when we’ve taken a few hits, or Sign in Blood’d a few too many times.
Card Advantage
Since we’re more often than not starting out the game with a two-for-one when we Dark Ritual into a Choking Sands, and then another two-for-one when we Exhume our Troll, we run the risk of running out of gas really quick. To counteract this, we’ve got four copies of Sign in Blood as well as two Dusk Legion Zealots.
Two Thorn of the Black Rose round out our draw. Thorn of the Black Rose is so good in Pauper, and one of the best cards in this deck. It’s usually worth it to Ritual into a Black Rose on turn two if we can stand it - so long as there aren’t a ton of fliers coming our way, we’ll be able to keep pace with our opponent even if we have to keep dropping Rituals to hit their lands.
Mana Base
Playing Pauper these days can start to feel like Modern with the near-ubiquity of the Lord of the Rings basic landcyclers. We’ve seen the average number of lands sink in Pauper decks since then, and this deck is no exception, especially with all eight of our Rituals.
Here, we’re running just 16 lands, and that’s as low as I dare to go. Four Peat Bogs are essential pulls for our opening hand, letting us get an LD in on turn two at the latest. The single Bojuka Bog and Barren Moor come into play more than you’d expect - despite our limited draw power, we tend to see a lot of our deck each game due to the aggressively slow pace we drag the game to when we destroy lands.
How To Play Mono Black Ponza
Opening Hands
Land destruction in pauper sounds like it shouldn’t work. Pauper is a turn two format - meaning most decks’ turn two plays will set the pace for how that game will shake out. However, we’ve got several very strong turn one plays that can ruin our opponents’ turn two - namely Dark Ritual into any Land Destruction. You’ll see this is a theme.
There are several very strong opening hands in this Mono Black Ponza list, but you’ll have to mulligan fairly aggressively for them, or else assume you’ll have a turn or two to set up (versus Faeries, for instance, which tends to run a lot of Dimir Aqueducts, our favorite target for Choking Sands). Our opening hands are also heavily influenced by whether we’re on the play or draw.
The best hand you can keep has the spells and mana to destroy a land on turns one, two, and three. This looks like at least one Ritual, usually a Peat Bog, and at least two LD spells, plus a Troll or draw spell if we can spare it. On the play, we can safely drop a Peat Bog turn one and use it turn two to either Cabal or Dark Ritual into a Choking Sands, using the extra mana to fetch a swamp with the Troll. Turn three sees us untapping with three mana, which we use to blow up another land. Depending on what we’ve drawn into, our options should start to open up: we’ve got five cards in our ‘yard already, almost enough to meet Threshold on Cabal Ritual in case we want to hard cast a Troll, or we can dig for our Exhumes and just get that Troll back while also banking mana for more LD.
Openers with multiple LD spells and swamps to cast them might look like keepers, but we really can’t afford to wait until turn three to start blowing up lands. If we don’t see a ritual or a Peat Bog, it’s a mulligan.
Our second great starting hand is anyway to get the Troll in your graveyard and on the field in the same turn, preferably an early one. If you see a Dark Ritual, Troll, and Exhume in your hand, you’re looking at a turn one 6/5 mega-menacer on the field.
Depending on matchup and the play/draw dichotomy, these hands get better or worse. We’ll cover that in the Sideboarding section.
Strategy
If you’ve made it this far I shouldn’t have to repeat to you that our goal here is to destroy our opponents’ lands, denying the resources they need in the early game while we stick a Troll or Gurmag and start unloading.
Hitting an LD spell on turns one, two, and three is paramount to our success. Usually this is enough to set any other meta deck back enough that they won’t have an opportunity to catch up, even if our only “threats” are Dusk Legion Zealot and Thorn of the Black Rose.
The key to piloting this deck is understanding we are not a traditional control deck. Really, we’re in an amorphous middle ground where we can play an aggro game early on by sticking a Troll, or play the long game with consistent land destruction and never letting our opponents cast a spell. Lock their draws down with Chittering Rats and remove their graveyards with Nihil Spellbombs, Snuff Out any creature they play, and just wallop them with our 6/5.
Sideboarding by Matchup
The best part about bringing Mono Black Ponza to your local Pauper night is watching your opponents struggle to sideboard against you. With such a rarely seen deck (at least in Paper), you’re almost guaranteed to have the upper hand in games two and three. Where we have answers to the meta decks, they’ll have nothing to bring except more counterspells, more or less.
Generally, versus creature decks, you’ll want more removal and more graveyard hate. This means bringing in our Tormod’s Crypts and Nihil Spellbombs to clear their graveyard of creatures before we Exhume our Troll.
There’s this odd sensation I have where it feels like it might be optimal to choose to go on the draw in some matches. I don’t have enough data to back this up, but it’s almost a better option to be on the draw versus decks without turn one plays - you’ll still lock them out of casting anything, but you won’t burn a turn playing a swamp and now Ritualing into any land destruction.
Note that Modern Horizons 3 just hit the field, and we’re still reeling from the Broodscale combo deck hitting the scene, as well as learning to deal with Sneaky Snackers and more.
Versus Affinity
Bringing the Divests into the mainboard is our best hope versus top-of-the-meta Grixis Affinity, and we can usually afford to cut our two insurance Anglers out for Chittering Rats and Snuff Out. Snuffing Out the Myr Enforcers and Divesting the artifact duals out of their hand should be our priority.
Versus Terror
UB Terror also demands we bring our Divests in to deal with that stupid Kraken before they can cast it for cheap. They’ll undoubtedly be filling their graveyard with cheap Mental Notes, and we’ll have to keep an eye out for the Sneaky Snacker. Swap out the Snuff Outs and Befouls for Crypt Rats, Chittering Rats, and the Spellbomb to clear their graveyard before we try to stick a Troll.
Versus Synthesizer
Divests are once again the answer. Your opponent absolutely cannot stick red mana - once they hit a Synthesizer we’ll have a hell of a lot of trouble stopping their land plays. A single Thraben Inspector hitting the field early shouldn’t bother us - if we’re playing well, an Exhumed Troll will roll right past them with its triple-menace. We can board out our graveyard hate in this matchup and bring in Snuff Outs and a Befoul if we think it’ll help, too. We’re not so concerned about them getting a Kor Skyfisher at the same time that we’re getting a Troll.
Versus Gardens
This is one of our hardest matchups, just because they’re also usually running a playset of Trolls. The worst response to our perfect start of a turn one Dark Ritual -> cycle the Troll -> Exhume the Troll can be painfully interrupted by your opponent cycling their own Troll, then sticking it to the field and swinging in first. We can’t fire off our own Exhume combo without a Tormod’s Crypt or Nihil Spellbomb in play to shore up their graveyard, either. Finally, we absolutely cannot let them stick Avenging Hunter - that spells the end for our deck, since we can’t just remove their lands to stop them from advancing through the Undercity and generating advantage.
Versus Burn
Another tough match up, Burn is mostly one-mana spells, meaning our usual Ponza strategy won’t lock them out nearly as well as we hope. We can switch gears to play a more control-y game by bringing in our Crypt Rats and Pestilence to deal with their board of creatures and our Chittering Rats to punish them for only running 17 lands on average.
This matchup is when Rancid Earth’s threshold effect is most useful. Even though Burn typically runs at least two two-toughness creatures in the form of Goblin Blast-Runner and Goblin Tomb Raider, we can wipe the board of Bushwhackers and Epicures if we land a Rancid Earth.
Versus Faeries
The cool thing about playing into Faeries is they have no answer to our Trolls besides their Edicts. To combat this, we’ll sideboard in more Rats (of both kinds) so we always have something to chump instead of our Troll, trading out our Anglers and Befouls. Snuff Outs can stay in the mainboard versus Faeries to deal with the Murmuring Mystics and Ninja of the Deep Hours.
Versus Gruul Ponza
This is kind of a wild matchup, and also the one I’ve played the least of. Normally, I’d say to be afraid of the Generous Ents being cycled into the graveyard, but more often than not Gruul Ponza wants to stick an Arbor Elf, Utopia Sprawl, or Wild Growth on turn one. Punish them for that by blowing up the land, two-for-twoing an enchanted land or rendering their elf useless. This is one matchup where we’ll actually use our Befouls after game one - our number one priority is keeping them off five mana so they can never cast Avenging Hunter, or Boarding Party, or Annoyed Altisaur.
Versus Caw-gates
This is a free win. They have no indestructible lands, and their key cards are all lands we can blow up. Heap Gate and Basilisk Gate are the two main targets, but really we’ll just need to keep them off of white mana so they cannot stick those cheap Squadron Hawks and Sacred Cats.
Versus Tron
This is actually a great match up for us, but not a free win. Tron needs to assemble the Urza lands as quickly as possible with their Expedition Maps and Crop Rotations, which makes it hard to consistently deny their mana base. That said, pay attention to what colors they have access to; you’ll need to carefully remove their filter lands, and Energy Refractors with LDs and Divests, respectively, to keep them off of blue and green mana. This should help us stick our Troll and guarantee the damage gets through when they can’t cast their Moment’s Peace. Side in the Tormod’s Crypts as well to keep their graveyard free from Mulldrifters when we Exhume.
Good Game
While playing this deck, my mind’s often drawn subconsciously to John Prine’s “Paradise”; a song about the strip mining and destruction of the town of Paradise, Kentucky during the coal rush in the 60s. It’s a song about the complete and total leveling of the town for the alleged progress of man - the ever-grinding machine that is fossil fuel consumption uprooting and destroying the histories of hundreds of Appalachian residents. Magic: the Gathering wasn’t around when Prine wrote this song, but if it had been, I’m sure he would’ve included some references to Choking Sands and Sinkhole.
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