The best way to describe Ponza is as a red green control deck. Control, and Midrange to an extent, seek to deny resources to the opponent. The most common are discard effects like Thoughtseize or counter spells and removal. Cards like Thoughtseize can deprive an opponent of cards in their hand which limits their options. Removal deprives the opponent of creatures which is how a majority of decks win. Counter spells can deprive an opponent of, well, anything that’s a legal target, plus it sets them back on mana. Ponza doesn’t seek to control any of these things. It goes outside the box and targets the opponent’s lands. Land destruction is somewhat frowned upon because when taken to an extreme it’s just not fun to play against, like those blue players who run nothing but counter spells. While Ponza does engage in land destruction, it’s not to the point where it’s unbeatable and I’ll cover this small package first. Pillage and Stone Rain are the only cards that destroy a land. Very few lists run a full playset of these cards, and some versions opt for one or the other. Some lists run as few as 3, but I think 6 is comfortable and I’d advise caution if you want to run the full 8. While you do want to play these cards, you don’t want to go overboard with them. There is a fine line between consistency and oppression here. The deck rounds out this package with 3 to 4 copies of Blood Moon. Now this is not the same as mana destruction; this is mana disruption. Pillage and Stone Rain destroy the land while Blood Moon still allows the opponent to use their nonbasic lands as mana sources, even though they can only produce red mana. Not really that big of a deal, but just disruptive enough that it throws most 2 and 3 color decks off balance, especially those that have no need for red mana.
Gazsi
5 Aug 2021Companion: You can have up to one Companion for each game. That chosen Companion doesn t contain in your main deck and it s a card in your sideboard. If you reveal a Companion outside of the game, for as long as it remains there, you may cast it any time it s legal to cast. Once you do, it comes into the game and behaves like any other card you ve brought into the game. For example, if it s countered or destroyed, it s put into your graveyard, remaining in the game.