Modern Meta: Budget Ponza Rhinos Upgraded
With Pro-tour Lord of the Rings finishing last weekend, 3 of the top 8 decks were running Temur Rhinos, a deck built around Cascade Spells like Shardless Agent and Violent Outburst, casting into Crashing Footfalls. In this week's article, I am returning to one of my first budget deck techs, Ponza Rhinos. This deck uses the same core as the Pro-tour top 8 decks but changes up some of the more expensive support cards to play a Ponza game plan and support a substantially cheaper mana base.
Here is the list:
Since the last time, I went over this deck a couple of new cards have been introduced. Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth has created a substantial shift in the meta that makes this deck a great choice again. But before we delve into that we need to go over the gameplan of the deck.
Gameplan
This deck looks to optimize Temur Rhinos' most powerful draw; turn 2 disruption followed by a turn 3 Rhinos and hopefully turn 4 Rhinos again. The Cascade “combo” works as the deck plays no spells of mana value 3 or less other than the 3-mana Cascaders and Crashing Footfalls itself. This means that when you Cascade with any Shardless Agent or Violent Outburst you will always hit a Crashing Footfalls. Likewise, if you cast a Bloodbraid Elf you will always hit either a Crashing Footfalls or either of the 3-drop cascade spells, which will in turn cascade into a Crashing Footfalls. The deck notably still has plenty of action as the other spells in the deck are split cards, meaning they can be cast for less than their total mana value. This is because a split spell’s mana value is equal to both halves added together.
This deck runs 12 2-mana disruption spells, that being 4 Fire // Ice, 4 Boom// Bust, and 4 Repudiate// Replicate. Fire // Ice taps down a land, a great turn 2 play that can often just waste your opponents turn. Boom // Bust when combined with an indestructible land Sinkhole’s your opponent and can set them back. In a format as efficient as Modern it is not uncommon your opponent keeps a 2-lander and Boom sends them back to the stone age. Repudiate // Replicates ability to counter activated abilities means you can counter your opponent’s fetches, Urza’s Saga chapter abilities, Chalice of the Void triggers, and Ratchet Bomb activations. It is very versatile, but don’t be afraid to just use it as a Stone Rain on turn 2. In sideboard games against decks that typically have Chalice of the Void I tend to value it higher as your opponents don’t play around your ability to counter a Chalice of the trigger.
To follow up the turn 2 disruption the deck runs 8 3-mana Cascade spells and 4 4-mana cascade spells. This is 4 more than the typical Rhinos shell and provides an unprecedented amount of consistency to the deck. The 12 Cascade spells are 4 Shardless Agent, 4 Violent Outburst, and 4 Bloodbraid Elf. In a situation with multiple cascade spells against a deck with lots of interaction, it is best to cast Violent Outburst on your opponent's end step and then untap and cast the 2nd cascade spell to tax their mana as much as possible.
Why revise it now?
With the release of Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth many decks now run and heavily rely on The One Ring, making a game plan of mana disruption especially effective. Destroying and tapping your opponent's lands when they are trying to resolve a 4-mana card draw spell is a great plan to have. Additionally, The One Rings’ protection ability is why Questing Beast is in the deck. Questing Beast, among its many abilities, stops damage prevention, making it the perfect counter to the Rings’ Protection from everything text.
Another reason to revise now is the price change in cards has given room for a stronger and more succinct sideboard. Previous versions of the deck could not afford Leyline of the Void and had to run substantially worse graveyard hate.
New Cards
Questing Beast
As stated Previously Questing Beast is by far the best response to a One Ring. Your opponent tapping out under the illusion they are safe only to be hit with your Rhinos and a Haste-y 4/4 typically ends the game. For that reason there is one in the main deck and one in the sideboard.
Lorien Revealed
Lorien Revealed is amazing in normal rhinos, in this deck it is worse as it can’t get shock lands, but is still good as it is a solid draw late game and early is an island.
Reduce // Rubble
Reduce is not a great counterspell and Rubble isn’t a great spell either however, Ponza makes a bad Mana Leak better and the Ponza also makes Rubble a time walk. The sum of its parts make this spell a worthwhile inclusion from my testing. It is very feasible that in more games I cut it for the 4th Dead // Gone.
Bound // Determined
Bound // Determined is like a bad Veil of Summer but is still a worthwhile inclusion as it can even come in against decks with Chalice of the Void, since a 2 mana counter to a chalice trigger that replaces itself is pretty solid. It is fantastic against decks like Murktide, Grixis Death’s Shadow and any other deck trying to spend 2 mana on a counterspell against you.
Dismember
Dismember is a card that previously I had not even considered. It saw a ton of play at the Pro-tour though and for good reason. In a deck like Rhinos that puts such a strong clock on your opponent, 4 life matters very infrequently. In this build of Rhinos it is relevant to mention it can be cascaded into off of Bloodbraid Elf, however in Matchups like Scam having an answer to a turn 1 Scammed Fury or Grief is very important and the slightly lower chances of hitting Rhinos are worth the trade-off.
Ingot Chewer
Chalice of the Void is a big problem and this is just a very cheap answer to Chalice of the Void. Being able to cast this and a Cascade spell on Turn 4 is especially relevant as getting Rhinos down 1 turn sooner is just so strong.
The Dilemma of Turn // Burn
Turn // Burn was a card I have thought about cutting for a long time, but with the rise in Yawgmoth & Scam my thoughts on it have completely turned around. Burn is a fine removal spell, Turn has become a very relevant combat trick, and in a deck with effectively 24 lands Fusing them together is relatively common. Turn is great as turning a Fury or Sheoldred into a 0/1 (often a 1/2 if it’s a Fury) can just blow your opponent out and allow you to Trample additional damage through. In previous versions of the deck when Twinshot Sniper was played there was an overabundance of Shocks. Now, with Sniper gone, a balance has been struck in terms of removal and threats.
Solving the Blood Moon Problem
In the last version of the deck a Blood Moon left you dead in the water. The solution to this was quite simple though, in a deck with relatively low restriction mana costs I began running a lot more basics. This also means fewer painlands saves us a lot of life. Sometimes, you will get unlucky draws and Blood Moon does hurt you but overall it shouldn’t be much of a problem and it will be unlikely people even bring it in against us.
Sideboarding
Scam
+3 Leyline of the Void
+1 Ingot Chewer
+1 Foundation Breaker
+1 Dismember
-4 Boom // Bust
-1 Reduce // Rubble
-1 Turn // Burn
Against Scam a land destruction plan isn’t very effective as they can operate very effectively off of just 1 land so Boom comes out and Reduce // Rubble and a Turn // Burn come out as they are often too slow. Leyline of the Void comes in to stop turn 1 Scamming, Ingot Chewer comes in to kill Chalice of the Void and Engineered Explosives and Dismember comes in as a strong removal spell.
4c Money Pile
+1 Ingot Chewer
+1 Dismember
+1 Questing Beast
+1 Foundation Breaker
+4 Mystical Dispute
-4 Boom // Bust
-4 Bloodbraid Elf
4c Money Pile isn’t a great matchup as Wrenn and Six completely stops any attempted Ponza Plan and Teferi, Time Raveler shuts down Cascade. It is still absolutely possible to win as Rhinos are a great clock but when a deck has 2 separate planeswalkers that each hard shut off a key part of our strategy the game becomes a lot harder.
Mono-G Tron
+1 Questing Beast
+1 Ingot Chewer
+3 Foundation Breaker
+2 Bound // Determined
-3 Dead // Gone
-3 Turn // Burn
Playing a deck with 4 Boom // Bust against Tron is amazing. With the Rise of Handshake Tron, a tron list less all in on tron, Boom // Bust isn’t as devastating but still is great as it prevents your opponent from hitting 4 mana rather well. Your real issue is sticking Rhinos before a Karn lands and stops you from tapping your artifact lands for mana
Burn
+1 Ingot Chewer
+3 Foundation Breaker
-4 Boom // Bust
This matchup is a bit of a coinflip. They can’t kill rhinos but we don’t have too much for them either. Boom // Bust isn’t great and neither is Repudiate // Replicate but not much we can do. When building a deck you can’t tech to win every matchup.
Rhinos
+4 Mystical Dispute
+2 Bound // Determined
-2 Dead // Gone
-4 Bloodbraid Elf
This matchup is nice. Keeping our opponent off their third land is easy and Rhinos pretty much fails to function without 3 lands. Repudiate can counter Fetchlands and the Cascade Trigger of a spell. Not having Force of Negation in this matchup sucks but everything else makes this feel pretty good.
Yawgmoth
+3 Leyline of the Void
+1 Dismember
Maybe +1 Questing Beast if they are on a Ring version
-1 Repudiate // Replicate
-1 Reduce // Rubble
-1 Boom // Bust
-1 Turn // Burn
This matchup I am unsure about what to take out. What I am sure of is that the goal is to slam Rhinos and use removal to limit their fodder
Living End
+3 Leyline of the Void
+4 Mystical Dispute
+2 Bound // Determined
-4 Bloodbraid Elf
-3 Dead // Gone
-2 Turn // Burn
Not a great matchup but try to keep them off of Three Lands. Repudiate can counter Cascade which is very good.
Murktide
+4 Mystical Dispute
+2 Bound // Determined
+2 Leyline of the Void
+1 Ingot Chewer
+1 Dismember
-4 Bloodbraid Elf
-1 Questing Beast
-3 Turn // Burn
-2 Boom // Bust
Lots of Interaction just have to play carefully. Mystical Dispute is very powerful.
Hammertime
+1 Ingot Chewer
+3 Foundation Breaker
+1 Dismember
-1 Reduce // Rubble
-1 Questing Beast
-1 Bloodbraid Elf
-1 Boom // Bust
-1 Repudiate // Replicate
A very fast matchup, try to get rhinos out quickly and pressure them. In the long game their 11/11s win but you can race them as you can generate alot of blockers.
Amulet Titan
+3 Foundation Breaker
+1 Ingot Chewer
+1 Questing Beast
+1 Dismember
-2 Dead // Gone
-1 Turn // Burn
-1 Reduce // Rubble
-2 Bloodbraid Elf
It's a bit of a weird dance of racing and interrupting your opponent. Repudiate can be oddly relevant as it can counter Titans enter the battlefield trigger or an Amulet trigger so it can buy some time but to win you need to pick a turn when you slam rhinos and hope they just don’t have it.
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