Ponza

Mono-red resource denial. The deck doesn’t try to kill you quickly — it tries to make sure you never untap with enough mana to cast anything, and then wins at its leisure with lands that attack.

The core is eight hard land destruction spells. Stone Rain is {2}{R} to destroy target land; Pillage costs {1}{R}{R} and hits an artifact or a land, and what it kills can’t be regenerated. On the play, turn-two Stone Rain into turn-three Stone Rain leaves most decks stranded.

Avalanche Riders is the best of them because it does two things at once: a {3}{R} 2/2 with haste that destroys target land when it enters. It has echo {3}{R}, so you either pay again at your next upkeep or let it go — most of the time you take the free Stone Rain plus two damage and move on.

Wasteland and Rishadan Port are the maintenance. Wasteland sacrifices to kill a nonbasic; Port taps a land for {1} at instant speed, which on their upkeep means the land never untaps into anything. Against a stumbling opponent, Port alone is a soft lock.

The win conditions are lands, so land destruction never leaves you empty. Mishra’s Factory becomes a 2/2 for {1}, and Ghitu Encampment becomes a 2/1 with first strike for {1}{R}. Neither is affected by a sweeper unless it’s activated, and neither costs you a card.

Black Vise punishes exactly the position the deck creates. As it enters you choose an opponent; at that player’s upkeep it deals damage equal to their hand size minus four. An opponent sitting on two lands and seven cards takes 3 a turn and can’t do anything about it. Cursed Scroll works the same way from the other side — with an empty hand of your own, the random reveal always matches, so it’s 2 damage every turn for {3}.

Grim Lavamancer, Mogg Fanatic and Lightning Bolt handle the small creatures that would otherwise race you, and Earthquake sweeps the ground while going to the face.

The matchups split cleanly. Any deck that wants a full mana base — Landstill, The Rock, Enchantress — is in trouble. Decks that win off two or three lands are much worse: Sligh, Goblins, and combo decks like Stiflenought don’t care much about a Stone Rain on turn two. Sideboards lean on Pyrostatic Pillar, which deals 2 to any player casting a spell with mana value 3 or less, and Red Elemental Blast for the blue decks.