So there is already a thread for this down in the budget section. But after seeing some decent results, including a PTQ top8, I've started to wonder, if we took away the budget lens, what could we do with this deck?
The PTQ top8 list for reference and a starting point:
Sure, not much would change probably. But what would? I don't know if I would run fetches unless I was splashing a colour. I feel like Goyf is bad here since you can't grow it yourself. Playing a set of harizon canopy's is probably right in case you start to get flooded.
But what else? What else could go in this that has been discarded as being over budget?
After playtesting with this deck, there is nothing much you wanna add, if you run the dungrove elder version of this deck like I do (meta call) adding in some fetches are good as it fetches more forest into play, thus growing your elders.
If your not running dungrove elders, maybe Horizon Canopy could provide some card draw and fetches for deck thinning and to shuffle away bad draws.
Goyf does not belong here as you can't grow it much, also noble hierarch is a bad replacement for dryad militant as you won't be attacking with just 1 creature at a time, other than the mana acceleration, there is nothing much where as dryad militant does shrink goyf by 2 and hoses flashback.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Standard : What is Stand-tart
Modern : Huh?
EDH : UBGW Thrasios / Tymna Combo UBGW // GRW Mayael Big Stuff GRW // GU Edric Timewalkers GU
So this is my take on a non-budget Stompy splashing black. The idea is simple: access to Abrupt Decay. No paying 4 life for Dismember to just have it get countered and no sorcery speed Prey Upon.
I'm still on the Fence about the 2x Dungrove Elder and Mutagenic Growth though. We're essentially cutting 3 total creatures for Bow of Nylea and 2x Mutagenic Growth. Not sure that's the right move, but I figure with Dungrove having Hexproof, he'll be much more difficult to remove than Kalonian and can make the loss of 2 creatures doable. I might be wrong though, only testing will tell.
Thoughts?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
My favorite Magic Card of all time is Traumatize. I don't win very often.
I kinda like the idea of the black splash, though I think you're a bit over the top on pump. Would cut Dungrove, Mutagenic and Aspect for Dismember and Tusker/Garruk's. Would also cut a Treetop for another Tomb
I know that Root Maze seems strange there, but I suggest it because it does silly things to Affinity, and because it would affect this deck far less than most other decks, like Pod, control variants, etc. I would definitely not run fetches in a deck with it, though.
Also, I think Genju of the Cedars could work better than Treetop Village. It costs G, which is essentially the same as having Village come into play tapped, it hits for one more (but no trample), costs the same amount to activate, keeps coming back if it is removed (which Village doesn't do), and adds to devotion count. And, it laughs at Blood Moon
Hate to say it, but this deck really wants Tarmogoyf. In almost all cases, a turn 2 Goyf is going to be at least as strong as Kalonian Tusker by the time you attack with it on turn 3. And it will definitely be stronger once you get past turn 4.
Adding Goyf means adding fetchlands, which gives us a chance to splash another color. I'd love to splash red, but the lack of an allied-color fetchland makes it less efficient. So that means looking in the enemy color pairs.
Hate to say it (again), but that probably means we are splashing black. In Modern, all of the best disruption is black; Abrupt Decay, Dismember, Thoughtseize, etc. I don't think all of that needs to be maindecked, but it definitely needs to be in the sideboard. For the maindeck, we would probably want 4 interactive spells so we don't flat out lose to a deck like Twin, Storm, Infect, etc. That should almost definitely be 4 Thoughtseize because that card has the best chance of catching a threat.
We can then move stuff like Decay, Dismember, Thrun, etc. into the sideboard. If that frees up maindeck slots, you could put Dark Confidant into those slots, or a Sword or two.
I'm not sure if I like the dual Bobs there (Maybe should be a playset? Maybe doesn't fit deck at all?). But it can't hurt to try them out.
In the Sword department, I'd opt for L&S over other options because the recursion seems very strong in this deck. But SoFI and SoFF are "better" in most cases, so those are also options.
If the aim would be to design a GR build, what would it look like?
How would you improve the deck below (while not replacing or removing the red color)?
Have you seen a R/G (Gruul) Zoo list. At that point you are just building a bad Zoo list and you should just build towards that instead. Might as well play will the more optimized idea of where the list is heading. Check out Lantern's Zoo thread, he even has budget options which makes it more accessible.
Mono green stompy is a very consistent deck while Zoo is, well you have a Zoo deck so you know. It is not for "unlucky" people.
The structure I suggested as some sort of a starting point for idea crafting is actually really close to mono green version. One pump replaced with other (Ghor-Clan Rampager), Dryad Militant replaced with Devil, 2 Prey upon's replaced with bolts, and then there are 2 Keldon Marauders. Problem is the manabase that causes inconsistency in relation to monogreen stompy (basically slows the deck down). Zoo takes that problem to whole another level, so that does not look - to me - the way to go to search improvements to Stompy deck.
I once you start adding another color with cards that fully depend on that other color instead of just staying Mono Green, it does make it less consistent like a Zoo deck. When you start adding in Vexing Devils, Ghor-Clan Rampagers and Lightning Bolts I would say that you are moving into the Grull Zoo ideology. There's nothing wrong with that, it's a good deck. I'm just pointing out that if you are exploring into the red splash (and making your mana weaker, like in the list you posted) you might as well just try playing with the list you are getting close to.
Anyways, just as a general comment on the list setting the discussion above aside, I would be worried about running Rootbound Crags and having it slow you down. It wouldn't be good having that card coming in tapped and having it mess up your speed/curve/consistency.
Treetop Village has great potential to slow us down at the early game. I think that is the reason many people do not auto include it in their stompy, even tho it is good card otherwise (and used in Rock).
Tarmogoyf with Dryad Militants and Scavenging Oozes? If it works, sure, but I am somewhat skeptical. I don't think anyone has tested or at least reported how Tarmogoyf did in this deck. Would be interesting to read.
I don't also get Dark Confidant (in this deck). Sure it is very good card, but its body is not impressive, so basically drawing it instead of stronger creature slows the deck ~ a turn, again. Sure, it will/might make up for that, but later. Maybe the Thoughtseizes would give more time, idk, I am way too tired of probability calculations for now to even try to figure that out.
Sword of Light and Shadow seems very useful, tho it is also slow. To me, even Grafted Wargear felt slow, and it is faster than a sword, but I am no-way the best person to draw results from playtesting (I simply don't play enough). I have been searching something that would make the late game small critters less useless.
Multicolored deck could support few Aspect of Hydra's, if not splashing deep, and Giant Growths are quite common in the stompy lists that have resulted well. (Not that there is enough data to say did they play any role.)
Ooze and Goyf are a fine pairing. Every BGx deck in the format uses that. Dryad and Goyf, however, are not; I missed that when I was quickly looking over the list. Given the importance of Goyf in the format, I think we would be better off picking it over Militant any day of the week.
Confidant, Village, and Sword give this deck some badly needed reach and recovery power. I think these cards are important because Stompy has a poorly defined gameplan right now. Is it a fast aggro deck? If so, it's at least a turn slower than Affinity and Burn, and not much better than Infect or the Zoo variants. So we need something else going for us besides speed. One thing we do have on our side is economy. Our creatures are extremely efficient and are almost all good on their own. Does that make us a more midgame dominant aggro deck that looks to apply early pressure and then keep slogging through defenses? If so, it's not going to overcome a Jund or UWR Midrange midgame, so we need to add a little staying power in matchups like that.
That's where these three cards come in. They give us a little durability as we get past turn 4, and unless we are winning on turn 4, we need that durability going into the midgame. They also don't take up that much room, at just 5 slots total.
Not sure what I would replace the Militants with. As a really corny option I'm sort of liking GNARLED SCARHIDE in the 1 drop slot, but that seems cuter than it is strong.
The synergy between the wilt leaf lieges with the rest of the deck is good, almost all creatures will get +2/+2 when they are out, also with some of the hatebear core, it can either slow the game down, free creatures upon discard or go against counters.
Most of the creatures are above 3 toughness or could be above 3 toughness makes it resilient towards anger too.
Hate to say it, but this deck really wants Tarmogoyf. In almost all cases, a turn 2 Goyf is going to be at least as strong as Kalonian Tusker by the time you attack with it on turn 3. And it will definitely be stronger once you get past turn 4.
Adding Goyf means adding fetchlands, which gives us a chance to splash another color. I'd love to splash red, but the lack of an allied-color fetchland makes it less efficient. So that means looking in the enemy color pairs.
Hate to say it (again), but that probably means we are splashing black. In Modern, all of the best disruption is black; Abrupt Decay, Dismember, Thoughtseize, etc. I don't think all of that needs to be maindecked, but it definitely needs to be in the sideboard. For the maindeck, we would probably want 4 interactive spells so we don't flat out lose to a deck like Twin, Storm, Infect, etc. That should almost definitely be 4 Thoughtseize because that card has the best chance of catching a threat.
Hate to say it... but like you, I thought that "green's best creature" would be awesome in the deck, I had them in my original list, but my playtesting showed me otherwise. Here is my reasoning:
- Goyf was inconsistent: with turn 1 Dryad Militant, Goyf was rarely larger than a 0/1, 1/2, or 2/3. The addition of Scavenging Ooze complicates the situation further.
- Goyf wants fetchlands, and fetchlands hurt the deck. Running fetchlands (and splashing colors) frequently add a turn to Scapeshift's clock, and two turns to Burn's clock.
With regards to the Twin matchup, my list has 6 answers to the combo: 4 Vines and 2 Dismembers. I feel that both are better than Thoughtseize because if you T1 Thoughtseize, they can just draw or scry back into the combo. Thoughtseize is also contradictory to the deck's aggressive game plan, where you want a creature turn 1. Also, Thoughtseize is a free turn for Scapeshift/Burn. Splashing colors also makes the deck less consistent.
Suppose you would have to mix things up somehow if for nothing else, just for the fun of it: How would you approaching it?
Did you try out the "blue's best creature" w/o Militants? What was/is your reasoning for picking Militants over Goyfs?
Zoo decks aren't doing well in the meta right now because 1: all of the turn 4 combo decks, and 2: the attrition decks (GBx and UWR can trade 1 for 1 while generating card advantage.
The Stompy deck provides enough hate (Dryad Militant, Scavenging Ooze, Vines of Vastwood, & Dismember) to hold off the combo decks long enough to win with a decent (turn 4-6) clock.
Versus the attrition decks, this deck has resilient creatures such as Experiment One, Strangleroot Geist, Leatherback Baloth, & Thrun. It does this while disrupting opposing removal with pump effects and hexproof (vines). The aforementioned hate also helps versus those matchups by shutting off snapcaster mage and shrinking opposing goyfs... The pump spells also assist the creatures in getting past potential stabilizers.
The deck looks like a simple beatdown deck, but it is far from that. It is tuned with efficient beaters that also provide advantage/hate against the meta. The Dryad Militants provide an important addition to that hate (good vs Storm, Snapcaster, Goyf, Flashback). Goyf doesn't help with the hate plan, and Leatherback Baloth is a more consistent version of Goyf for this deck, so I use him.
If I were going to mix things up, I would move to a G/W beatdown deck that also has a decent aspect of hate, but I feel that this mono green version does a great job while being able to be more consistent with it's mana.
Suppose you would have to mix things up somehow if for nothing else, just for the fun of it: How would you approaching it?
Did you try out the "blue's best creature" w/o Militants? What was/is your reasoning for picking Militants over Goyfs?
Zoo decks aren't doing well in the meta right now because 1: all of the turn 4 combo decks, and 2: the attrition decks (GBx and UWR can trade 1 for 1 while generating card advantage.
The Stompy deck provides enough hate (Dryad Militant, Scavenging Ooze, Vines of Vastwood, & Dismember) to hold off the combo decks long enough to win with a decent (turn 4-6) clock.
Versus the attrition decks, this deck has resilient creatures such as Experiment One, Strangleroot Geist, Leatherback Baloth, & Thrun. It does this while disrupting opposing removal with pump effects and hexproof (vines). The aforementioned hate also helps versus those matchups by shutting off snapcaster mage and shrinking opposing goyfs... The pump spells also assist the creatures in getting past potential stabilizers.
The deck looks like a simple beatdown deck, but it is far from that. It is tuned with efficient beaters that also provide advantage/hate against the meta. The Dryad Militants provide an important addition to that hate (good vs Storm, Snapcaster, Goyf, Flashback). Goyf doesn't help with the hate plan, and Leatherback Baloth is a more consistent version of Goyf for this deck, so I use him.
If I were going to mix things up, I would move to a G/W beatdown deck that also has a decent aspect of hate, but I feel that this mono green version does a great job while being able to be more consistent with it's mana.
I have a few issues with this analysis:
1. Right now, this deck is confused. It isn't sure if it wants to be Gx Hatebears, if it wants to be Gx Zoo, or if it wants to be something all its own. I am obviously inclined to look in that third category for answers. And that shouldn't mean that we combine a few elements of Hatebears with a few elements of Zoo to get a new deck. That generally just leads to a deck that is worse than both the original versions.
2. The Goyf issue really comes down to playing Militant or not. Ooze isn't a factor; plenty of decks run Ooze alongside Goyf and it's a fine pairing. But Militant definitely doesn't play nice with Modern's iconic beater, so we need to make a decision about which card is better for the deck. As I am going to talk about later, I think it's fine to ditch Goyf IF we really amp up our graveyard hate.
With that in mind, I want to look at some cards in the deck that are NOT part of either Hatebears or Zoo. These are the cards that make the deck distinct. If these cards are actually good on their own, then this deck is on the right track. But if this deck is just including other good cards (e.g. Goyf, Ooze) to compensate for bad cards it was running in a budget version (e.g. Baloth, Geist), then that is a problem. Thankfully, I'm not actually convinced that the "bad cards" are bad! Moreover, I think that they put the deck on a direction that we should be moving towards when currently we are moving away from it.
Strangleroot Geist/Leatherback Baloth
To me, these are the most iconic cards in this deck. No other deck in the format, except Nykthos Green which is doing something different, runs these cards. But these cards are actually pretty strong. Geist is really annoying for fair decks to deal with, especially in tandem with Rancor. Baloth is basically a 3 mana Goyf in most situations (Goyf average is about 4/5), but it's completely independent of the graveyard. More on that later.
Rancor/Vines of Vastwood
These are the other two cards that make this deck distinct from stuff like Zoo and Hatebears. You see them in Infect but that deck is also doing something a bit different. Here, these cards give us resilience, burst, and midgame potential to convert anything into a serious threat. They are also very well positioned in this metagame, at least in a deck like this. Decaying a Rancor after it resolves doesn't actually stop the creature. And Decaying a creature in response to a Rancor cast forces mana to be left open, and if that creature is Geist then you still have to deal with a larger Geist!
These aren't necessarily the BEST cards in the deck (Ooze and E1 are awesome), but they are the cards that distinguish us from other decks. Speaking of which...
Dryad Militant/Scavenging Ooze
How do we get away with not playing Goyf? We play cards that punish the graveyard. In fact, we just go all-in on those cards because we know we aren't going to play Goyf and we know that everyone else is. We also know that if you aren't playing Goyf you are probably playing Pod or Snapcaster, so you need some graveyard hate too. We run a playset of each of these and we guarantee that GY-based decks are going to have a bad day.
That brings us to the "Core" of this deck, which is where I want to start from when building it out.
That's 24 cards total. Assuming we run about 22 lands, that gives us room for another 14 cards in the deck. I feel that THIS is the Stompy core, and I also feel that this core is both unique and powerful, and that it is where we should start from.
At first I though 4 Oozes is quite a lot, as most list run 2, but it might not be after all, because having more Oozes at once you would like, should not happen too often.
Odds of getting one or more, Round 1: 39%, Round 8: 66%. And flooding should be quite rare, as odds of getting two or more are low, Round 1: 5%, Round 8: 22% (19% change for 2, 3% for 3). Range for one or more Ooze while having 2 of them in the deck is, R1: 22%, R8: 41%.
With 4 Ooze and 4 Militants odds of having one or more, R1: 65%, R8: 89%. Having 2 or more (of any combination of Oozes and Militants), R1: 21%, R8: 52%.
Redundant Oozes are rarely going to be an issue. This is a serious removal magnet, so chances are that your first one is going to die. The format also has enough sweepers and virtual sweepers (Verdict, Wrath, Anger, Electrolyze, Pyroclasm, etc.) that you are likely to lose both Oozes and Militants by turn 4. Getting more of them means that the very decks that use those sweepers will still have to worry about getting their graveyard wrecked.
Having identified the core of the deck, and we can still discuss that core if people think its inaccurate, the next thing I want to talk about is deck color. The budget version of the deck is Mono Green. The PT winning version is Green as well. But does that mean that the best version is also just Green? Or do we splash and add some fetch power? I don't think it's a cut and dry issue because I think there are some real advantages to running just forests in this deck, with maybe an incidental Horizon Canopy and/or Treetop Village. I also think there are some real disadvantages to this approach, and I want to weigh the two against each other.
MONO GREEN ADVANTAGES
Painless manabase
Ignores nonbasic land hate
Can capitalize on devotion/forest effects (e.g. Baloth's GGG cost, Nylea or Dungrove)
There are probably some other pros/cons I'm missing but I think these are the big ones.
Looking over the list of advantages, the thing that really jumps out to me is that each of these advantages is really two advantages in one! You can either passively capitalize on the mono colored theme (dodge Blood Moon, play Baloth) or you can actively capitalize on the mono colored theme (play Blood Moon, play Nissa, Worldwaker. If we are just passively capitalizing on being Mono G, I don't think that is going to outweigh the disadvantages. But if we are actively building our deck around the advantages, that puts us in a really strong position.
With that in mind, let me reframe the passive advantages as active ones:
Apart from that last one, those are some excellent ways to take advantage of our monocolored manabase. We don't have to use all of them but we should at least be using a few.
Here's how I would modify the core of the deck to account for all this theorizing:
I like Nissa here because fair decks MUST deal with her or they lose. Witness got added as a form of card advantage and because we have a lot of cards worth recurring. That would leave 3 free slots in the deck that could go towards a bunch of stuff.
- Nissa, Worldwaker is in conflict with Horizon Canopy.
- Dungrove Elder is not working well together with Horizon Canopy or Treetop Village.
Good point. I'd ditch the Canopies and just make them Forests. Treetop still lacks synergy with her, and Dungrove, but it's a good enough card that I feel it's worth the 2 slots. Especially against the resurging BGx shell.
Used to play Mono-Green back in Mirrodin Standard (The first Mirrodin). I even top 8'ed Regionals with it at one point. It is a different deck than the stompy route discussed here, but it would use a bunch of the same cards.
My original 2004 list played Umezawa's Jitte of course. And it also rocked a playset of Beacon of Creation. I don't think the Beacon is right here, but it's a decent after-board-clear card and I had a spot open. Jitte is of course banned, but Rancor does a fine job of getting damage through. As discussed previously in this thread, Vines of Vastwood is a great card, so it's here as well.
List focuses more on the three drops, which means I'm valuing a turn 1 mana dork high. Elvish Pioneer seems out of place but when you're jamming Dungrove, he's better than Llanowar Elves or even Noble Hierarch.
A word on the sideboard... Since Birds is in the list and Sakura-Tribe Elder is there, I thought why the hell not, right? I mean, we're already talking about a walking tree person and his little raccoon buddy, why the hell not?
Actually, my original 2004 list had 3 Worship and 1 Plains in the sideboard for aggro matches, but I think that is a bit less powerful than the Blood Moon "Shut your deck off" effect.
Anyway, just a different take on what is going on here. I loved playing this type of deck back in the day, and I'll probably test this version a bit.
Most of the creatures are anger proof, Cutted lots of cards from the mono green stompy list to make the creatures bolt proof, obviously they still can be wrathed, pathed and abrupted away.
Basically this deck is capitalizing on birds to push 3 drops out on turn 2 and then buffing the 3 drops with wilt leaf's +2/+2 lord effect. This list is still untested thou.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Standard : What is Stand-tart
Modern : Huh?
EDH : UBGW Thrasios / Tymna Combo UBGW // GRW Mayael Big Stuff GRW // GU Edric Timewalkers GU
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
The PTQ top8 list for reference and a starting point:
But what else? What else could go in this that has been discarded as being over budget?
It's a good deck. Boring though.
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
Tattermunge Maniac
Talara's Battalion
My Modern decks:
B/R/G Living End G/R/B
G/R Tron R/G
U/W/G/R Gargageddon R/G/W/U
R/W/G Naya Burn G/W/R
If your not running dungrove elders, maybe Horizon Canopy could provide some card draw and fetches for deck thinning and to shuffle away bad draws.
Goyf does not belong here as you can't grow it much, also noble hierarch is a bad replacement for dryad militant as you won't be attacking with just 1 creature at a time, other than the mana acceleration, there is nothing much where as dryad militant does shrink goyf by 2 and hoses flashback.
Modern : Huh?
EDH : UBGW Thrasios / Tymna Combo UBGW // GRW Mayael Big Stuff GRW // GU Edric Timewalkers GU
4x Dryad Militant
2x Dungrove Elder
4x Experiment One
4x Leatherback Baloth
2x Scavenging Ooze
4x Strangleroot Geist
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
LANDS
13x Forest
2x Treetop Village
4x Verdant Catacombs
3x Overgrown Tomb
4x Vines of Vastwood
4x Abrupt Decay
2x Aspect of Hydra
2x Mutagenic Growth
ENCHANTMENTS
4x Rancor
1x Bow of Nylea
2x Creeping Corrosion
2x Obstinate Baloth
2x Pithing Needle
2x Raking Canopy
1x Relic of Progenitus
3x Skylasher
1x Tormod's Crypt
2x Unravel the Aether
So this is my take on a non-budget Stompy splashing black. The idea is simple: access to Abrupt Decay. No paying 4 life for Dismember to just have it get countered and no sorcery speed Prey Upon.
I'm still on the Fence about the 2x Dungrove Elder and Mutagenic Growth though. We're essentially cutting 3 total creatures for Bow of Nylea and 2x Mutagenic Growth. Not sure that's the right move, but I figure with Dungrove having Hexproof, he'll be much more difficult to remove than Kalonian and can make the loss of 2 creatures doable. I might be wrong though, only testing will tell.
Thoughts?
Black splash for Dismember or Abrupt Decay and Phyrexian Arena, we will become like a budget rock deck.
White for Path to Exile, Oblivion Ring, Stony Silence, Rest in Peace, etc, we will become like a G/W Mid Range type of deck.
If i would make a budget B/G stompy it would look like this
4x Dryad Militant
4x Kalonian Tusker
4x Leatherback Baloth
3x Scavenging Ooze
4x Strangleroot Geist
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
4x Overgrown Tomb
2x Swamp
2x Treetop Village
4x Woodland Cemetery
2x Abrupt Decay
3x Dismember
2x Giant Growth
4x Vines of Vastwood
2x Phyrexian Arena
4x Rancor
Modern : Huh?
EDH : UBGW Thrasios / Tymna Combo UBGW // GRW Mayael Big Stuff GRW // GU Edric Timewalkers GU
I know that Root Maze seems strange there, but I suggest it because it does silly things to Affinity, and because it would affect this deck far less than most other decks, like Pod, control variants, etc. I would definitely not run fetches in a deck with it, though.
Also, I think Genju of the Cedars could work better than Treetop Village. It costs G, which is essentially the same as having Village come into play tapped, it hits for one more (but no trample), costs the same amount to activate, keeps coming back if it is removed (which Village doesn't do), and adds to devotion count. And, it laughs at Blood Moon
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
Adding Goyf means adding fetchlands, which gives us a chance to splash another color. I'd love to splash red, but the lack of an allied-color fetchland makes it less efficient. So that means looking in the enemy color pairs.
Hate to say it (again), but that probably means we are splashing black. In Modern, all of the best disruption is black; Abrupt Decay, Dismember, Thoughtseize, etc. I don't think all of that needs to be maindecked, but it definitely needs to be in the sideboard. For the maindeck, we would probably want 4 interactive spells so we don't flat out lose to a deck like Twin, Storm, Infect, etc. That should almost definitely be 4 Thoughtseize because that card has the best chance of catching a threat.
We can then move stuff like Decay, Dismember, Thrun, etc. into the sideboard. If that frees up maindeck slots, you could put Dark Confidant into those slots, or a Sword or two.
Deck would look like this:
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Treetop Village
1 Swamp
7 Forest
4 Dryad Militant
4 Experiment One
4 Strangleroot Geist
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Leatherback Baloth
2 Dark Confidant
3 Thoughtseize
2 Dismember
Pump: 9
4 Rancor
4 Vines of Vastwood
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
I'm not sure if I like the dual Bobs there (Maybe should be a playset? Maybe doesn't fit deck at all?). But it can't hurt to try them out.
In the Sword department, I'd opt for L&S over other options because the recursion seems very strong in this deck. But SoFI and SoFF are "better" in most cases, so those are also options.
This looks pretty fun to play!
At that point, just go play R/G Zoo.
Have you seen a R/G (Gruul) Zoo list. At that point you are just building a bad Zoo list and you should just build towards that instead. Might as well play will the more optimized idea of where the list is heading. Check out Lantern's Zoo thread, he even has budget options which makes it more accessible.
I once you start adding another color with cards that fully depend on that other color instead of just staying Mono Green, it does make it less consistent like a Zoo deck. When you start adding in Vexing Devils, Ghor-Clan Rampagers and Lightning Bolts I would say that you are moving into the Grull Zoo ideology. There's nothing wrong with that, it's a good deck. I'm just pointing out that if you are exploring into the red splash (and making your mana weaker, like in the list you posted) you might as well just try playing with the list you are getting close to.
Anyways, just as a general comment on the list setting the discussion above aside, I would be worried about running Rootbound Crags and having it slow you down. It wouldn't be good having that card coming in tapped and having it mess up your speed/curve/consistency.
Ooze and Goyf are a fine pairing. Every BGx deck in the format uses that. Dryad and Goyf, however, are not; I missed that when I was quickly looking over the list. Given the importance of Goyf in the format, I think we would be better off picking it over Militant any day of the week.
Confidant, Village, and Sword give this deck some badly needed reach and recovery power. I think these cards are important because Stompy has a poorly defined gameplan right now. Is it a fast aggro deck? If so, it's at least a turn slower than Affinity and Burn, and not much better than Infect or the Zoo variants. So we need something else going for us besides speed. One thing we do have on our side is economy. Our creatures are extremely efficient and are almost all good on their own. Does that make us a more midgame dominant aggro deck that looks to apply early pressure and then keep slogging through defenses? If so, it's not going to overcome a Jund or UWR Midrange midgame, so we need to add a little staying power in matchups like that.
That's where these three cards come in. They give us a little durability as we get past turn 4, and unless we are winning on turn 4, we need that durability going into the midgame. They also don't take up that much room, at just 5 slots total.
Not sure what I would replace the Militants with. As a really corny option I'm sort of liking GNARLED SCARHIDE in the 1 drop slot, but that seems cuter than it is strong.
4x Birds of Paradise
4x Dryad Militant
2x Fleecemane Lion
4x Loxodon Smiter
3x Qasali Pridemage
3x Scavenging Ooze
2x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
2x Voice of Resurgence
4x Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers
2x Wilt-Leaf Liege
3x Path to Exile
Enchantment (4)
4x Rancor
Land (22)
2x Brushland
3x Forest
3x Plains
4x Razorverge Thicket
2x Stirring Wildwood
4x Sunpetal Grove
4x Temple Garden
The synergy between the wilt leaf lieges with the rest of the deck is good, almost all creatures will get +2/+2 when they are out, also with some of the hatebear core, it can either slow the game down, free creatures upon discard or go against counters.
Most of the creatures are above 3 toughness or could be above 3 toughness makes it resilient towards anger too.
1x Back to Nature
2x Choke
2x Creeping Corrosion
1x Relic of Progenitus
2x Rest in Peace
2x Stony Silence
2x Torpor Orb
With white, we could add in tons of nice sideboard cards, such as rest in peace and stony silence.
Modern : Huh?
EDH : UBGW Thrasios / Tymna Combo UBGW // GRW Mayael Big Stuff GRW // GU Edric Timewalkers GU
The birds are there to ramp your mana slightly, turn 2 3cmc drops are pretty cool in a way.
Also, the deck is build according to my budget, so yeah no horizon canopy =(
Modern : Huh?
EDH : UBGW Thrasios / Tymna Combo UBGW // GRW Mayael Big Stuff GRW // GU Edric Timewalkers GU
Most prob the ziggs are 2 of, since you dont wanna get coloured screwed once the sideboard comes in.
Modern : Huh?
EDH : UBGW Thrasios / Tymna Combo UBGW // GRW Mayael Big Stuff GRW // GU Edric Timewalkers GU
Hate to say it... but like you, I thought that "green's best creature" would be awesome in the deck, I had them in my original list, but my playtesting showed me otherwise. Here is my reasoning:
- Goyf was inconsistent: with turn 1 Dryad Militant, Goyf was rarely larger than a 0/1, 1/2, or 2/3. The addition of Scavenging Ooze complicates the situation further.
- Goyf wants fetchlands, and fetchlands hurt the deck. Running fetchlands (and splashing colors) frequently add a turn to Scapeshift's clock, and two turns to Burn's clock.
With regards to the Twin matchup, my list has 6 answers to the combo: 4 Vines and 2 Dismembers. I feel that both are better than Thoughtseize because if you T1 Thoughtseize, they can just draw or scry back into the combo. Thoughtseize is also contradictory to the deck's aggressive game plan, where you want a creature turn 1. Also, Thoughtseize is a free turn for Scapeshift/Burn. Splashing colors also makes the deck less consistent.
Zoo decks aren't doing well in the meta right now because 1: all of the turn 4 combo decks, and 2: the attrition decks (GBx and UWR can trade 1 for 1 while generating card advantage.
The Stompy deck provides enough hate (Dryad Militant, Scavenging Ooze, Vines of Vastwood, & Dismember) to hold off the combo decks long enough to win with a decent (turn 4-6) clock.
Versus the attrition decks, this deck has resilient creatures such as Experiment One, Strangleroot Geist, Leatherback Baloth, & Thrun. It does this while disrupting opposing removal with pump effects and hexproof (vines). The aforementioned hate also helps versus those matchups by shutting off snapcaster mage and shrinking opposing goyfs... The pump spells also assist the creatures in getting past potential stabilizers.
The deck looks like a simple beatdown deck, but it is far from that. It is tuned with efficient beaters that also provide advantage/hate against the meta. The Dryad Militants provide an important addition to that hate (good vs Storm, Snapcaster, Goyf, Flashback). Goyf doesn't help with the hate plan, and Leatherback Baloth is a more consistent version of Goyf for this deck, so I use him.
If I were going to mix things up, I would move to a G/W beatdown deck that also has a decent aspect of hate, but I feel that this mono green version does a great job while being able to be more consistent with it's mana.
I have a few issues with this analysis:
1. Right now, this deck is confused. It isn't sure if it wants to be Gx Hatebears, if it wants to be Gx Zoo, or if it wants to be something all its own. I am obviously inclined to look in that third category for answers. And that shouldn't mean that we combine a few elements of Hatebears with a few elements of Zoo to get a new deck. That generally just leads to a deck that is worse than both the original versions.
2. The Goyf issue really comes down to playing Militant or not. Ooze isn't a factor; plenty of decks run Ooze alongside Goyf and it's a fine pairing. But Militant definitely doesn't play nice with Modern's iconic beater, so we need to make a decision about which card is better for the deck. As I am going to talk about later, I think it's fine to ditch Goyf IF we really amp up our graveyard hate.
With that in mind, I want to look at some cards in the deck that are NOT part of either Hatebears or Zoo. These are the cards that make the deck distinct. If these cards are actually good on their own, then this deck is on the right track. But if this deck is just including other good cards (e.g. Goyf, Ooze) to compensate for bad cards it was running in a budget version (e.g. Baloth, Geist), then that is a problem. Thankfully, I'm not actually convinced that the "bad cards" are bad! Moreover, I think that they put the deck on a direction that we should be moving towards when currently we are moving away from it.
Strangleroot Geist/Leatherback Baloth
To me, these are the most iconic cards in this deck. No other deck in the format, except Nykthos Green which is doing something different, runs these cards. But these cards are actually pretty strong. Geist is really annoying for fair decks to deal with, especially in tandem with Rancor. Baloth is basically a 3 mana Goyf in most situations (Goyf average is about 4/5), but it's completely independent of the graveyard. More on that later.
Rancor/Vines of Vastwood
These are the other two cards that make this deck distinct from stuff like Zoo and Hatebears. You see them in Infect but that deck is also doing something a bit different. Here, these cards give us resilience, burst, and midgame potential to convert anything into a serious threat. They are also very well positioned in this metagame, at least in a deck like this. Decaying a Rancor after it resolves doesn't actually stop the creature. And Decaying a creature in response to a Rancor cast forces mana to be left open, and if that creature is Geist then you still have to deal with a larger Geist!
These aren't necessarily the BEST cards in the deck (Ooze and E1 are awesome), but they are the cards that distinguish us from other decks. Speaking of which...
Dryad Militant/Scavenging Ooze
How do we get away with not playing Goyf? We play cards that punish the graveyard. In fact, we just go all-in on those cards because we know we aren't going to play Goyf and we know that everyone else is. We also know that if you aren't playing Goyf you are probably playing Pod or Snapcaster, so you need some graveyard hate too. We run a playset of each of these and we guarantee that GY-based decks are going to have a bad day.
That brings us to the "Core" of this deck, which is where I want to start from when building it out.
4 Dryad Militant
4 Leatherback Baloth
4 Strangleroot Geist
4 Rancor
4 Vines of Vastwood
That's 24 cards total. Assuming we run about 22 lands, that gives us room for another 14 cards in the deck. I feel that THIS is the Stompy core, and I also feel that this core is both unique and powerful, and that it is where we should start from.
Redundant Oozes are rarely going to be an issue. This is a serious removal magnet, so chances are that your first one is going to die. The format also has enough sweepers and virtual sweepers (Verdict, Wrath, Anger, Electrolyze, Pyroclasm, etc.) that you are likely to lose both Oozes and Militants by turn 4. Getting more of them means that the very decks that use those sweepers will still have to worry about getting their graveyard wrecked.
Having identified the core of the deck, and we can still discuss that core if people think its inaccurate, the next thing I want to talk about is deck color. The budget version of the deck is Mono Green. The PT winning version is Green as well. But does that mean that the best version is also just Green? Or do we splash and add some fetch power? I don't think it's a cut and dry issue because I think there are some real advantages to running just forests in this deck, with maybe an incidental Horizon Canopy and/or Treetop Village. I also think there are some real disadvantages to this approach, and I want to weigh the two against each other.
MONO GREEN ADVANTAGES
MONO GREEN DISADVANTAGES
There are probably some other pros/cons I'm missing but I think these are the big ones.
Looking over the list of advantages, the thing that really jumps out to me is that each of these advantages is really two advantages in one! You can either passively capitalize on the mono colored theme (dodge Blood Moon, play Baloth) or you can actively capitalize on the mono colored theme (play Blood Moon, play Nissa, Worldwaker. If we are just passively capitalizing on being Mono G, I don't think that is going to outweigh the disadvantages. But if we are actively building our deck around the advantages, that puts us in a really strong position.
With that in mind, let me reframe the passive advantages as active ones:
MONO GREEN ACTIVE ADVANTAGES
Apart from that last one, those are some excellent ways to take advantage of our monocolored manabase. We don't have to use all of them but we should at least be using a few.
Here's how I would modify the core of the deck to account for all this theorizing:
17 Forest
3 Horizon Canopy
2 Treetop Village
Creatures: 22
4 Dryad Militant
4 Experiment One
4 Scavenging Ooze
4 Strangleroot Geist
4 Leatherback Baloth
2 Eternal Witness
2 Nissa, Worldwaker
Pump: 8
4 Rancor
4 Vines of Vastwood
Disruption: 3
3 Dismember
3 ???
I like Nissa here because fair decks MUST deal with her or they lose. Witness got added as a form of card advantage and because we have a lot of cards worth recurring. That would leave 3 free slots in the deck that could go towards a bunch of stuff.
Modern : Huh?
EDH : UBGW Thrasios / Tymna Combo UBGW // GRW Mayael Big Stuff GRW // GU Edric Timewalkers GU
Good point. I'd ditch the Canopies and just make them Forests. Treetop still lacks synergy with her, and Dungrove, but it's a good enough card that I feel it's worth the 2 slots. Especially against the resurging BGx shell.
Used to play Mono-Green back in Mirrodin Standard (The first Mirrodin). I even top 8'ed Regionals with it at one point. It is a different deck than the stompy route discussed here, but it would use a bunch of the same cards.
My original 2004 list played Umezawa's Jitte of course. And it also rocked a playset of Beacon of Creation. I don't think the Beacon is right here, but it's a decent after-board-clear card and I had a spot open. Jitte is of course banned, but Rancor does a fine job of getting damage through. As discussed previously in this thread, Vines of Vastwood is a great card, so it's here as well.
Here is a list I'd play...
Deck:
I AM GROOT
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Elvish Pioneer
3 Strangleroot Geist
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Dungrove Elder
4 Troll Ascetic
4 Vines of Vastwood
2 Beast Within
1 Beacon of Creation
2 Garruk, Primal Hunter
4 Blood Moon
3 Firespout
1 Mountain
2 Torpor Orb
2 Back to Nature
2 Creeping Corrosion
1 Thragtusk
List focuses more on the three drops, which means I'm valuing a turn 1 mana dork high. Elvish Pioneer seems out of place but when you're jamming Dungrove, he's better than Llanowar Elves or even Noble Hierarch.
A word on the sideboard... Since Birds is in the list and Sakura-Tribe Elder is there, I thought why the hell not, right? I mean, we're already talking about a walking tree person and his little raccoon buddy, why the hell not?
Actually, my original 2004 list had 3 Worship and 1 Plains in the sideboard for aggro matches, but I think that is a bit less powerful than the Blood Moon "Shut your deck off" effect.
Anyway, just a different take on what is going on here. I loved playing this type of deck back in the day, and I'll probably test this version a bit.
Thanks to anyone who was interested.
4x Birds of Paradise
4x Dryad Militant
4x Loxodon Smiter
2x Qasali Pridemage
3x Scavenging Ooze
4x Strangleroot Geist
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
2x Voice of Resurgence
4x Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers
2x Wilt-Leaf Liege
8x Forest
3x Plains
4x Razorverge Thicket
3x Sunpetal Grove
4x Temple Garden
4x Path to Exile
Enchantment (4)
4x Rancor
Most of the creatures are anger proof, Cutted lots of cards from the mono green stompy list to make the creatures bolt proof, obviously they still can be wrathed, pathed and abrupted away.
Basically this deck is capitalizing on birds to push 3 drops out on turn 2 and then buffing the 3 drops with wilt leaf's +2/+2 lord effect. This list is still untested thou.
Modern : Huh?
EDH : UBGW Thrasios / Tymna Combo UBGW // GRW Mayael Big Stuff GRW // GU Edric Timewalkers GU