Much Abrew: I'll Blow Up All Your Lands with Only Commons!

Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Much Abrew About Nothing! Some of you have been asking me for a long, long time to play more Pauper, and the recent changes in the format, with some super-powerful cards being unbanned, have gotten me interested in the format. Then, as I was browsing through the metagame page, I realized that blowing up all the lands is a semi-real strategy in the format. So today, we're heading to the new and (hopefully) improved Pauper format to play some Ponza! The plan is to ramp on Turn 1, start blowing up lands on Turn 2, and then finish the game with big cascading finishers like Boarding Party and Annoyed Altisaur! Is land destruction a legit plan in Pauper? What's the format look like these days? Let's get to the video and find out!

Much Abrew: Pauper Ponza

Discussion

• Record-wise, Pauper Ponza felt great! We ended up going 4-1 in our league, just narrowly missing a 5-0! More importantly, the Pauper format itself felt super fun! We played against five different decks doing very different things, and despite the common-only restriction, the decks felt surprisingly synergistic and powerful! Oh yeah, and it's super cheap to play, with tier decks mostly costing around $50. Why haven't I been playing Pauper all along?
• As far as our deck itself, the plan is pretty simple. On Turn 1, we look to ramp with Arbor Elf, Utopia Sprawl, or Wild Growth, which is actually the same plan that Modern Ponza used to use when it existed. Any of these cards on Turn 1 gets us to our land destruction on Turn 2 in Thermokarst, Stone Rain, and, the following turn, Mwonvuli Acid-Moss. Ideally, we spend the next couple of turns blowing up lands as we transition into our finishers. In the mid-game, we have a couple of ramp Eldrazi in Writhing Chrysalis and Eldrazi Repurposer, which get us to Avenging Hunter to venture through some dungeons and our big cascade finishers Annoyed Altisaur and Boarding Party, which let us build a massive board to close out the game quickly. 
• One of the reasons the plan works so well is that Pauper players tend to play an absurdly low land count. If you look at the top decks in the meta, the deck playing the most lands is Tron at 20, while most decks are in the 15-to-18 range. This means that if we can blow up a couple of lands, the odds of our opponent drawing replacements are fairly low, which we saw time and time again throughout our league. A lot of times, blowing up just two lands is enough to disrupt our opponent's game plan severely and buy us enough time to win with our big common beaters. 
• Our one loss came to Bogles, and honestly, that felt like a horrible matchup. While we do have some enchantment removal in our sideboard, it's unlikely to be enough. Our best hope is that our opponent has a bad draw, but barring that, it seems tough to win. On the other hand, we played a bunch of top-tier decks throughout our league, and in general, our land-destruction plan seemed to line up super well with the meta.
• Oh yeah, one quick note on the sideboard. While Gorilla Shaman and Deglamer look like artifact and enchantment removal, in reality, they are actually more land-destruction plans. Artifact lands, including the indestructible lands from Modern Horizons 2, are super popular in the format. These cards are hilariously strong against decks built around artifact lands, not only giving us cheap or repeatable land destruction but also sniping many of our opponent's best nonland cards as well. Keep this in mind if you decide to try the deck. Hitting an artifact land with Deglamer on Turn 2 feels amazing.
• So, should you play Pauper Ponza? Should you play Pauper at all? I think the answer to both questions is a resounding yes! The deck was a blast and felt strong, and Pauper was super fun to play! If you're looking for something different to try, give the deck and the format a shot! It's cheap and easy to get into and surprisingly diverse!

Conclusion

Anyway, that's all for today. As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter or Bluesky @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.