MTG Salvation

Hello, and welcome to another installment of Treasure Cruisin'! After my first two articles featured decks over the $100 threshold, I decided to stay under said price for this week. While the budget I set for Modern is $250, I see no need to maximize the cost of a deck if I do not have to. Secondly, we have not featured green yet. So I needed cheap and green? The deck I constructed costs $82, is a solid deck choice for beginners looking to invest in their local game store's scene, and is a classic Magic archetype — Mono-Green Stompy.

Stompy is a very easy deck to play. The basic strategy is to play above-the-curve creatures, such as one mana 2/1's and two mana 3/3's, and then smash the opponent's face with them. The immense size of our creatures allows us to swing through board stalls and dominate creature combat, and anything too large for us is crushed under our pump spells that double as protection. The tradeoff is that we lack much in the way of removal, but this is fine so long as we can continue to rumble into the red zone. We will separate our creatures by mana cost, starting with one drops, and moving up from there.

One Drops

At the bottom of our curve, we have two playsets of one-mana creatures — Dryad Militant and Experiment One. The Militant is a Savannah Lions with the upside of exiling instants and sorceries. At first glance, this may appear to be an ignorable clause. However, a turn one Militant shuts off Snapcaster Mage, stunts Tarmogoyf's growth, forces sadness upon a Gifts Storm player, and makes Delerium much more difficult to achieve for decks that run Traverse the Ulvenwald or Grim Flayer. Militant's ability is not the same as Rest in Peace — notice that Militant does not exile cards already in the graveyard, only cards that would go to the graveyard after the Militant is in play. As for its body, two power is the magic number for one drops in Modern. We want to attack as quickly and often as possible. Thus, we need undercosted creatures with high power, and Dryad Militant fits the bill.

Insert 1950's superhero backstory involving vats of toxic waste here.

Our second one drop has much more impact in the late game while still serving as an early beater. Experiment One is really a 2/2 for one mana, because anytime we play this creature, we can follow it up with a second creature to trigger evolve. All of our other creatures have power greater than one, and many have toughness greater than one as well, so we should be able to trigger evolve off all of our turn two plays, be it two one drops or a two mana creature. After the first trigger, we can continue to grow our human ooze with our three power creatures, and even after that with Groundbreaker. Experiment One also can regenerate by removing two counters, which means it survives board wipes like Supreme Verdict and is ready to grow again. Additionally, Experiment One's ability to grow allows it to scale into the lategame, which means it can keep pace with the opponent's developing board state. Experiment One is our best creature to play on turn one thanks to its resiliency and incredibly aggressive nature.

Two Drops

The bulk of our creatures cost two mana, and many of the most efficient creatures we play also make their home on this spot on the curve. With a whopping 14 two drops, we will consistently play fatties on the second turn. Of these creatures, Kalonian Tusker is the simplest. A vanilla 3/3 for two mana is certainly above the curve and beats most turn two creatures, with the exception of Tarmogoyf. The most critical part of this card is not its three power, but rather its three points of toughness. Many of Modern's best creatures have two power — Dark Confidant, Goblin Guide, small Tarmogoyfs, and Snapcaster Mage can only chump block the Tusker. This means that the Tusker can attack through the opponent's board state and not care about chump blocking. In Stompy, the creatures need to have staying power and be lasting sources of damage, and Kalonian Tusker has that in spades.

The only creature that is so tall it has reach.

Because Tusker is our simplest two drop, we need to compare all of or other two mana creatures to it. If Tusker is better than another creature in our deck, we do not want to play it. To put this idea to practice, we will compare our next two drop, Avatar of the Resolute, to Kalonian Tusker. Avatar is a 3/2 for two mana, as opposed to Tusker's 3/3 body. Looking at Avatar, it is missing the best part of Tusker, the aforementioned three toughness. So what do we get for losing one toughness? Two keyword abilities and an "enters the battlefield" ability which has synergy with Experiment One and another two drop, Strangleroot Geist. In essence, the Avatar is pure value. Trample is extremely relevant in this strategy because it lets us get some damage in through chump blocking. Reach is not as important because we will most likely be swinging every turn, and consequently not in a position to block flying creatures. When it is relevant, it is nice to eat Celestial Colonnade or Lingering Souls tokens as surprise lunch because nobody expects Avatar to have reach. While these abilities are nice, what makes this card shine is the "enters the battlefield" ability. The fact that Avatar can come down as a 4/3 or even a 5/4 swings games into our favor when we need to break through the opponent's board of creatures. For even more value, it can trigger off of itself, so having a copy come in as a 4/3 means the next copy can enter as a 5/4, assuming you have not lost one of the creatures with a +1/+1 counter. Avatar also uses pump spells like a champ, and can easily win the game with a surprise pump spell through blockers. As we can see, Avatar is much better than Kalonian Tusker, and it is important to evaluate the next few two drops in a similar manner, along with any possible additions to this deck at the two mana slot.

Next, we have the aforementioned Strangleroot Geist. At first, this seems like Wizards was hit on their head while designing Dark Ascension. "Why the heck does this green creature have haste?" is a question that perplexes players who have yet to play with the Geist. To put it simply, this card is ridiculous. A 2/1 body with haste means we crash into the red zone on turn two for at least two damage, or four if we played a one drop last turn. Under normal circumstances, creatures such as Geist are fragile due to the vast amount of removal present in Modern. Thanks to undying, though, Geist has to die twice. This means it can trade with an opponent's creature, and come back to haunt them later as it beats in their face. Or it eats two removal spells, which is just enough of an advantage to push us over the top and take over the game. Geist is card that says "kill me now," but very few cards are capable of dealing with it quickly outside of Path to Exile. In a format like Modern, resilient creatures reign supreme, and Stangleroot Geist is just the right mix of aggressive and resilient.

Always remember to thank your friendly neighborhood all-devouring mass of slimy fungus things for eating all the dead stuff.

Our last two drop is a pair of Scavenging Oozes, or "Scooze," as it is affectionately called. Scooze serves many purposes in our deck. Primarily, it is another aggressive two drop and main-deck graveyard hate. No, it is not free like Dryad Militant, but it is far more flexible. We can devour entire graveyards in a matter of a few turns, which grants us precision graveyard hate for Tarmogoyf and Snapcaster Mage. Scooze also grows as we eat creatures. This means that we can repurpose any creature that dies for our own use. We only run two because it is often better to develop our board state in the early turns and then pump up our creatures. Extra copies of Scooze are also redundant and do not affect the graveyard any more than a single copy.

Three Drops

At three mana, our curve drastically thins out. This is an aggro deck, and we cannot afford to clutter our hand with three mana creatures when we want to attack as often as possible. Thus, we need to critically evaluate what we place here. Our three drops must have a gigantic presence on the board and demand an immediate answer, but also not lean on them like crutch. Due to these reasons, we play seven three drops.

Can you imagine the recoil of casting this spell?

First is our playset of Groundbreaker. This timeshifted Ball Lightning originally started as a gag inclusion, but after testing a few matches, the card was over-performing enough that I slotted in a playset. A three mana 6/1 with haste is underwhelming, but tack on trample and suddenly this card is very scary on turn three. No, we cannot block with it, but it does give us reach through mucked up board states. A late game top-deck of Groundbreaker is often enough power to seal the game. Groundbreaker can be treated as a burn spell if need be, or creature removal. Early on, the opponent may choose to not throw a creature in front of it, and when their life total is too low, they will certainly not enjoy losing creatures to the green hadouken. Furthermore, because it is sacrificed at the end of the turn, the opponent will never hurl a removal spell in this creature's direction because it is a strict one-for-zero. This card forces your opponent to play not to lose instead of playing to win. Nobody sees Groundbreaker coming — that alone can make this card powerful. Its stats also make it a solid option for smashing the opponent's face in.

Our last creature is a trio of Dungrove Elder. We are mono green, so growing it is not a problem. Hexproof is also a pain to get around, requiring a board wipe or an edict, such as Liliana of the Veil, to kill it. Elder trades sheer force for staying power, granting us a fatty that will eventually grind out the opponent's defenses. We can also use it as a lightning rod for blockers, where we may sneak an attacker through and cast a surprise pump spell to get a solid chunk out of our opponent's life total. We only run three because we do have awkward hands with Treetop Village, and it also is not as proficient at crashing through creatures as a creature like Groundbreaker. However, it can still take over a game if left unchecked.

Noncreature Spells

To supplement our host of creatures, we run a few noncreature spells. These either make our creatures more powerful, protect our creatures from removal, or clear the way for our rampaging monsters.

We will start with the oddity, a pair of Dismembers. This is the most efficient removal we can get, costing us only one mana, which allows us to continue playing our creatures while clearing a pat. However, we only run two because it is painful to cast, and because most of our creatures will be large enough to force chump blocks and trades — our opponent's board will not be insurmountable very often.

Next is our pump spells, beginning with Rancor. This card has been a green all-star since its first printing in Urza's Legacy, and with good reason. A single green mana for +2/+0 and trample is already insane, and given that it is rarely completely removed, it will consistently come back to annoy the opponent. Games can be won off the back of a single Rancor being attached to many creatures and smashing face. There are only a few ways to stop Rancor from recurring itself — countering it, killing the creature in response to Rancor, or exiling it in response to its recursion trigger. With all of these reasons, there is no reason not to run a full playset.

Aspect of Hydra is a card with which very few players are familiar. Considering we are in mono-green, we have multitudes of green mana symbols on the board at a given time, especially with the double green mana requirements in our deck. Aspect will easily give +5/+5 or even more on a regular basis. It is great for trampling over the defense or pushing an unblocked creature to deal lethal damage. However, due to us needing creatures in play in order to make the card work, along with Modern's tendency to be removal heavy, we only run three.

The last pump spell is Vines of Vastwood, a spell with which I am sure many of you are familiar. For a single green mana, it gives a creature shroud. This is useful for saving our creatures from removal spells, from Fatal Push to Abrupt Decay to Lightning Bolt. Additionally, an extra green gives the creature +4/+4, which more than doubles the stats of most creatures in our deck. In essence, what happens is that Vines pulls double duty, both as protection and pump for our creatures, and this is the kind of utility an aggro deck needs in Modern. I chose to run three in favor of an extra creature to give us threat density. This is easily changeable; we could run the fourth copy with zero issues. It is a matter of personal preference.

Manabase

The manabase is quite simple, as it is for most mono-color decks. The only nonbasic land is Treetop Village, of which we run three. Decks like Stompy cannot afford to gas out too early, and a land that doubles as creature is necessary for staying power. Unfortunately, the land enters play tapped, and can slow us down a few turns. Having three of our 19 lands enter tapped can be a real damper on us, especially considering that Treetop Village does not synergize with Dungrove Elder. We can easily go down to two Villages and up a basic Forest without suffering dire consequences, so if it works better in terms of playstyle, I recommend making the swap. The low concentration of non-basics and lands in general allows us to run more aggressive creatures while minimizing our chances of flooding out, which is exactly what this deck needs.

Sideboard

As always, sideboards should be built to fit one's metagame, but here is a basic template for getting started.

• Three Blossoming Defense assist against midrange and control decks that pack more removal than we can shake a stick at.
• Three Prey Upon serve as extra, painless removal because our creatures are often much larger than our opponent's.
• A triad of Obstinate Baloth work well against opposing aggro decks and decks with heavy discard or Liliana of the Veil.
• Two Creeping Corrosion serve as Plague Winds for Affinity and Lantern Control, along with just being good against artifacts in general.
• A pair of Natural State are also there for Affinity and Lantern Control. These double as enchantment removal for pesky enchantments that are either mainboard or come out of the sideboard, such as Ghostly Prison.
• Two copies of Prowling Serpopard are perfect against decks with counterspells, such as control decks and some slower combo decks.

Upgrades and Adjustments

There are very few true upgrades for Stompy, but there are plenty of "sidegrades" — something that is not strictly better, but just as good and done out of personal preference. For strict upgrades, getting ahold of one or two Thrun, the Last Troll will work wonders for control-heavy metagames. In terms of adjustments, Leatherback Baloth trades Groundbreaker's speed and explosiveness for staying power, which is great for aggressive metagames. Dryad Sophisticate looks like a promising way to force damage through clogged up board states via pump spells. Oran-Rief, the Vastwood is a nice utility land that grows our board and synergizes nicely with Avatar of the Resolute. Some lists play four drops, with the main culprits being the aforementioned Thrun and Surrak, the Hunt Caller to provide haste.

There are also entirely different variants of Mono-Green Stompy in Modern. Hardened Scales picked up steam a few months ago, and there is a variation that goes all-in on it with graft creatures and cards such as Walking Ballista. There is another version that runs Timbermare and Primal Forcemage along with green haste creatures to smash for maximum damage. If this deck does not scratch the big green creature itch, I would look into those two strategies before brewing my own list.

That brings us to the end of this week's edition of Treasure Cruisin'. What do you think of Mono-Green Stompy? For less than $100, it is pretty hard to match this deck's sheer power. Big green creatures are one of the simplest joys in Magic, and for some the greatest joy, and this deck really brings that feeling to the Friday Night Magic tables. Are there any decks that you want to see? Feel free to PM me, and keep an eye out for more of Treasure Cruisin' in the future. If all goes well, I hope to spread into writing about budget Commander, casual, and maybe even an occasional Legacy article in the near future, so stay tuned!