Cool, I'll keep doing these reports. I decided I liked the competitive play enough to start building a few other decks so the number of Stompy matches will go down, but I'll do a write up whenever I play Stompy- it's too much fun not to keep it in the rotation.
i enjoy match reports. i like people's explanations of why they run their 75 over a different 75. it'd be cool if you did a more detailed sideboard for each round. would help me tremendously
For me sideboarding has been one of the most difficult trial-and-error learning processes. I've been trying to take notes between rounds on what I put in and what I took out for it as it seemed like a big area for improvement.
Sideboarding is very meta-specific but here's what my general strategy has been for my sideboard:
Affinity, Tron (Oblivion Stone, Expedition map), possibly Infect (Inkmoth Nexus), Storm (doubling enchant), anything relying on Utopia Sprawl effects, anything which leans heavily on 3cmc or less Enchants/Artifacts really Natural State
Any must-kill 5/5 or less creature. Especially decks with fewer creatures which must be dealt with in which the lifeloss isn't crippling- Infect, Goyf decks, Kalitas decks. Also things like Ezuri in Elves. Anything where 1 mana and 4 life is a profitable trade for -5/-5. I did not bring this in vs. UW control- their real threat is not their 3/4 or their 2/1, it's the cards in hand and their lockdown on the board. Dismember
Grindy matchups with lots of control effects- Grixis, Jund, UW, even something like the Skred Red I played last night. The longer the game goes on and the more removal they play the better these are. Dungrove Elder Thrun, The Last Troll
Graveyard-reliant decks- not just Dredge or some sort of Reanimator deck, but Snapcaster decks, Delve decks. Jund/Grixis/UW Control/any of the many decks which use their graveyard as a resource Relic of Progenitus
Burn- any aggressive deck which doesn't flood the board with creatures, in which case the tempo loss from healing is worse than playing another blocker. Was supposed to come in against grindy heavy hand-destruction decks but hasn't seemed appropriate so far Pulse of Murasa
In general, the slower and more controlling the deck is, the more early game threats and Aspect pump I take out because one drops will just play into a board clear and I won't have the board presence to use Aspect to burst them down. If they rely on a handful of medium-sized threats like Goyf or Kalitas to close out the game, bring in Dismember. The faster the opposing deck is, the more late game threats I take out- Dungrove, Scavenging Ooze (unless the life gain seems good, like vs. Burn) because I won't have time to get them out and get value out of them.
I really want to get the 4th Treetop Village/22nd land in the MD, but can't find the room. In the sideboard I want a 3rd graveyard hate spell, I've already softened up to decks like dedicated Dredge lists by dropping down to just 2 Relic. (My recent lists have been playing 2-3 Grafdigger's Cage + 1-2 Relic Of Progenitus.) I also want a second Reclamation Sage, but can't decide if it's worth it. Only realistic cut for that would be a Natural State. Thoughts on the sideboard silver bullets approach? Or the list in general? Constructive criticism appreciated.
You're playing no Dungroves, which makes the Treetops better. I found they slowed down a 1-2-3 curve too often and didn't trade favorably with the bigger threats the slower decks were putting down, but when I was playing them there were a few games where they shined. In the games I've played 4-5 Scooze/Relic has been enough to keep the GY decks in line.
So far I've preferred more generalized sideboard cards which buy you another turn rather than very specific hoser cards. Eldritch Evolution into all those toolbox creatures changes that significantly, though. I liked the idea of 1 Surrak (speed) and 1 Thrun (resilience) mainboard with ~2-3 Eldritch Evolution mainboard and then all of your Silver Bullets sideboard. Obstinate Baloth and Lodestone Golem seem like a nice EE targets in the sideboard I hadn't considered.
Nobody likes Hunt the Hunter anymore? Seems to have fallen out of most people's sideboards recently. Whenever I bring Stompy to my LGS that card ends up being a total all-star out of the board, but maybe it's just a local meta thing.
Really trying to figure out if I should just play bushwhacker zoo over this deck. I handle not having good removal but this deck is just missing another decent 1 drop. Kessig Prowler is not good. He's basically a vanilla 2/1.
No he cannot. Not even close. How often will you get to 5 mana turn 5? and if you are, is it worth just a 4/4? No. I would rather have the ability to gut the graveyard inherently against Grixis, Jund, Jeskai, Storm, etc even Burn. It is not worth the 4/4. Dryad Militant is actually just slightly good enough to be in this deck. This deck's worst match ups are infect and tron. How does a 2/1 with the ability to just turn to a 4/4 with 5 mana help against those match ups? I would never consider playing him especially when a lot of you guys play less than 22 lands.
I'm feelin the Kessig Prowler. I swapped out Tuskers too. It feels better to drop 2 1-drops turn 2 against lots of removal instead of a Tusker (you're left with more pumpable bodies and devotion). Going wider has definitely made my match up against Affinity better. I can almost never beat this one guys Affinity deck and I 2-0'd him on wednesday night. I could apply more pressure with creatures while still having a land up for natural state on his threats. Still haven't been able to flip one yet.
Every once in awhile Kalonian Tusker can be the wall that you need but more often than not it's a bolt target and you feel tempo played when they spend 1 mana to remove your 2 cost threat. I find in various situations he will go uncast in my hand to cast other potential cards such as strangleroot geist or scavenging ooze and then on turn 3 leatherback baloth takes the lead.
There is nothing more irritating than not casting something on turn 1 which with 8 T1 creatures you are bound to do often. With 12 turn 1 creatures you have the consistency of infect for a turn 1 creature in hand so almost all the time you are going to have a turn 1 board presence that they will waste their removal on keeping your better threats wide open in the later game.
Did we ever discuss young wolf? It's undying gives more counters to fuel Avatar of the Resolute and gives the pumps for Experiment One. I don't think it brings enough early pressure game however I have a feeling that it might go unblocked to save it from getting the undying trigger and might be a valuable pump target for Aspect of Hydra and Vines of Vastwood. Just wanting to discuss it's potential.
Young is not good because it needs to die for it to impact the board. It cannot evolve E1 on play. You always want the 2 power for 1 drop. It can be good if it is unblocked and pumped but that's only relevant when it is later in the game and at that point, they will block it. It will come back and not really impact the board. You want your 1 drops to impact the board right away.
Scenario: I have a Wilt-Leaf Liege, a 4/4 Experiment One(pump from Liege already included) and 4 Forests in play. I then cast Dungrove Elder.
Question: Will the Dungrove Elder enter the battlefield as a 5/5(with pump from Liege) and evolve Experiment One?
Thanks in advance.
It'll enter the battlefield as a 5/5, hence evolving a 4/4 Experiment One. On a second thought, I cannot provide you any rules on this, but also I couldn't delete my comment.
So it seems the key was +1/+1 being a "static" ability as El Bastardo mentioned below.
My personal preference is we need at least 10 playable cheap weenies (Kessig Prowler does not cut it). 10-12 two drops (Geist, Scooze, Avatar) and transition to at least 4 Leatherback and maybe 2 Dungrove. Our weenie package is simply too weak to utilize. 1-2 Treetop is best imo. 3 is too much. You can't have that many land coming into play tapped and it hinders the Dungroves too much. Dungrove is a great card.
I am actually thinking of just splashing white or red simply for the better sideboard options. Playing only basics is great for life but the current meta doesn't really care for the life loss. Burn is really bad right now.
My personal preference is we need at least 10 playable cheap weenies (Kessig Prowler does not cut it). 10-12 two drops (Geist, Scooze, Avatar) and transition to at least 4 Leatherback and maybe 2 Dungrove. Our weenie package is simply too weak to utilize. 1-2 Treetop is best imo. 3 is too much. You can't have that many land coming into play tapped and it hinders the Dungroves too much. Dungrove is a great card.
I am actually thinking of just splashing white or red simply for the better sideboard options. Playing only basics is great for life but the current meta doesn't really care for the life loss. Burn is really bad right now.
Wouldn't splashing just result to a bad version of either RG Zoo or GW Hatebears?
I am actually thinking of just splashing white or red simply for the better sideboard options.
Many a time I have imagined how powerful Stompy would be with Blood Moon. If only it were green! Our fast aggression backed up by the strong disruption of the Moon would be unbeatable. That, I think, is the major difference between Stompy with a red splash and decks like bushwhacker zoo: being able to load up on copies of Blood Moon without getting punished in the mana base like Nacatl decks do. That, combined with Lightning Bolt and powerful hate cards like Ancient Grudge , Destructive Revelry, and Pyroclasm make the red splash very appealing... but that brings us back to the classic question: if it isn't mono green, can we really say that it's Stompy? Is the power of Aspect of Hydra worth playing sub-optimal mono-colored creatures even when we have a fetching manabase and could be running things like Wild Nacatl and Tarmogoyf? I want to believe... but I am not totally convinced that it is :/
Sigh I really do not need to clarify what splashing for white/red for sideboard cards means. I am not going to change anything in the main except adding fetches and shcoks. The only cards will be in the sideboard. I feel it is worth it to get a better infect/affinity match up.
And the major difference between Bushwhacker Zoo and Stompy is that our deck has an extremely limited amount of card choices and lower card quality. This causes a more linear deck list that is both resilient and decently quick. Our card pool does not allow us to go anywhere near as fast as Bushwhacker Zoo but it tries to compensate with resilient creatures like Strangleroot Geist and Leatherback Baloth. The consistency of the mana base and not losing life is nice but it doesn't change the capabilities of the deck. Our deck is the fairest of fair for aggro. It's not much risk, is very consistent but you honestly just don't have too many options. On the other hand, Bushwhacker Zoo has 5 viable 1 drops(We have only 2), Burning-Tree/Bushwhacker craziness, Bolt/Atarka's Command with the option of Path in the main. The amount of different sequences you can do with Bushwhacker Zoo is nuts. Even without thinking about Burning-Tree and Bushwhacker you have the much better 1 drop game. You can open with Goblin Guide, E1, Wild Nacatl, and Kird Ape, (Vexing Devil not recommended). But what's crazy is E1 into Kird Ape/Goblin Guide/Wild Nacatl. Add in Burning-Tree possibilities and it's nuts. So when you say the definitive difference is just the mana base. I say no. It is literally how the decks can be played.
I am actually thinking of just splashing white or red simply for the better sideboard options.
Many a time I have imagined how powerful Stompy would be with Blood Moon. If only it were green! Our fast aggression backed up by the strong disruption of the Moon would be unbeatable. That, I think, is the major difference between Stompy with a red splash and decks like bushwhacker zoo: being able to load up on copies of Blood Moon without getting punished in the mana base like Nacatl decks do. That, combined with Lightning Bolt and powerful hate cards like Ancient Grudge , Destructive Revelry, and Pyroclasm make the red splash very appealing... but that brings us back to the classic question: if it isn't mono green, can we really say that it's Stompy? Is the power of Aspect of Hydra worth playing sub-optimal mono-colored creatures even when we have a fetching manabase and could be running things like Wild Nacatl and Tarmogoyf? I want to believe... but I am not totally convinced that it is :/
I had actually ran a splash of red in this deck for an addition of 3x blood moon and 3x ancient grudge in the sideboard. I did end up getting 3-1 four times in a row at my local FNM with the list. The only maindeck change I had was replacing 4 leatherback baloths with 4 boggart ram-gangs and the surprise Giantbaiting. I can say this change was very powerful and gave the deck a fighting chance over our bad matchups like affinity and tron while only making the burn matchup slightly worse. The amount of maindeck haste makes a world of difference and finding red mana was never an issue when needed. Pardon the awkward formatting, I mainly lurk. This is what I ran:
Hey guy's I've been playing Stompy on and off since Experiment One and Dryad Militant were Standard legal. I stopped when Eldrazi rose to power but have recently picked up the deck again. I've been testing with a one of Eldritch Evolution mainboard, nothing too cute, just swapped out the fourth baloth for it. In short its amazing, also recently got the chance to play against the Bant Eldrazi and got smashed 0 - 2. Is this representative of the matchup? I did end up drawing way too many lands but Matter Reshaper's and Displacer's seem miserable to play against.
For me sideboarding has been one of the most difficult trial-and-error learning processes. I've been trying to take notes between rounds on what I put in and what I took out for it as it seemed like a big area for improvement.
Sideboarding is very meta-specific but here's what my general strategy has been for my sideboard:
3x Nettle Sentinel
1x Kalonian Tusker
4x Aspect of Hydra
1x Rancor
2x Dungrove Elder
2x Scavenging Ooze
Tron/Decks which would often play one big threat you could turn on them for the win
Act of Aggression
Affinity
Creeping Corrosion
Affinity, Tron (Oblivion Stone, Expedition map), possibly Infect (Inkmoth Nexus), Storm (doubling enchant), anything relying on Utopia Sprawl effects, anything which leans heavily on 3cmc or less Enchants/Artifacts really
Natural State
Any must-kill 5/5 or less creature. Especially decks with fewer creatures which must be dealt with in which the lifeloss isn't crippling- Infect, Goyf decks, Kalitas decks. Also things like Ezuri in Elves. Anything where 1 mana and 4 life is a profitable trade for -5/-5. I did not bring this in vs. UW control- their real threat is not their 3/4 or their 2/1, it's the cards in hand and their lockdown on the board.
Dismember
Grindy matchups with lots of control effects- Grixis, Jund, UW, even something like the Skred Red I played last night. The longer the game goes on and the more removal they play the better these are.
Dungrove Elder
Thrun, The Last Troll
Graveyard-reliant decks- not just Dredge or some sort of Reanimator deck, but Snapcaster decks, Delve decks. Jund/Grixis/UW Control/any of the many decks which use their graveyard as a resource
Relic of Progenitus
Burn- any aggressive deck which doesn't flood the board with creatures, in which case the tempo loss from healing is worse than playing another blocker. Was supposed to come in against grindy heavy hand-destruction decks but hasn't seemed appropriate so far
Pulse of Murasa
In general, the slower and more controlling the deck is, the more early game threats and Aspect pump I take out because one drops will just play into a board clear and I won't have the board presence to use Aspect to burst them down. If they rely on a handful of medium-sized threats like Goyf or Kalitas to close out the game, bring in Dismember. The faster the opposing deck is, the more late game threats I take out- Dungrove, Scavenging Ooze (unless the life gain seems good, like vs. Burn) because I won't have time to get them out and get value out of them.
You're playing no Dungroves, which makes the Treetops better. I found they slowed down a 1-2-3 curve too often and didn't trade favorably with the bigger threats the slower decks were putting down, but when I was playing them there were a few games where they shined. In the games I've played 4-5 Scooze/Relic has been enough to keep the GY decks in line.
So far I've preferred more generalized sideboard cards which buy you another turn rather than very specific hoser cards. Eldritch Evolution into all those toolbox creatures changes that significantly, though. I liked the idea of 1 Surrak (speed) and 1 Thrun (resilience) mainboard with ~2-3 Eldritch Evolution mainboard and then all of your Silver Bullets sideboard. Obstinate Baloth and Lodestone Golem seem like a nice EE targets in the sideboard I hadn't considered.
Sexy Sig by mchief111 @ Rising Studios
EDH
G Isao
Sexy Sig by mchief111 @ Rising Studios
EDH
G Isao
Here is my deck list moving forward:
4 Dryad Militant
4 Experiment One
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Strangleroot Geist
4 Avatar of the Resolute
4 Rancor
4 Aspect of Hydra
4 Vines of Vastwood
2 Treetop Village
15 stuff
RGWNaya BurnRGW+++RGWKiki ComboRGW
UGInfectUG+++++++++.++++++++UGMerfolkUG
GGNykthos WaveGG++++++++++GGStompyGG
BRVampiresBR+++++++.+++++++BRGoblinsBR
WGBogglesWG+++++++++++++CRSkred RedCR
UBRGDredgeUBRG++++++++++BB8 RackBB
URWJeskaiURW+++.++UBRGrixis DelverUBR
URStormUR++++++++UWGBant CompanyUWG
WUBRGHumansWUBRG+CCEldrazi TronCC
There is nothing more irritating than not casting something on turn 1 which with 8 T1 creatures you are bound to do often. With 12 turn 1 creatures you have the consistency of infect for a turn 1 creature in hand so almost all the time you are going to have a turn 1 board presence that they will waste their removal on keeping your better threats wide open in the later game.
Did we ever discuss young wolf? It's undying gives more counters to fuel Avatar of the Resolute and gives the pumps for Experiment One. I don't think it brings enough early pressure game however I have a feeling that it might go unblocked to save it from getting the undying trigger and might be a valuable pump target for Aspect of Hydra and Vines of Vastwood. Just wanting to discuss it's potential.
RGWNaya BurnRGW+++RGWKiki ComboRGW
UGInfectUG+++++++++.++++++++UGMerfolkUG
GGNykthos WaveGG++++++++++GGStompyGG
BRVampiresBR+++++++.+++++++BRGoblinsBR
WGBogglesWG+++++++++++++CRSkred RedCR
UBRGDredgeUBRG++++++++++BB8 RackBB
URWJeskaiURW+++.++UBRGrixis DelverUBR
URStormUR++++++++UWGBant CompanyUWG
WUBRGHumansWUBRG+CCEldrazi TronCC
Sexy Sig by mchief111 @ Rising Studios
EDH
G Isao
Scenario: I have a Wilt-Leaf Liege, a 4/4 Experiment One(pump from Liege already included) and 4 Forests in play. I then cast Dungrove Elder.
Question: Will the Dungrove Elder enter the battlefield as a 5/5(with pump from Liege) and evolve Experiment One?
Thanks in advance.
It'll enter the battlefield as a 5/5, hence evolving a 4/4 Experiment One. On a second thought, I cannot provide you any rules on this, but also I couldn't delete my comment.
So it seems the key was +1/+1 being a "static" ability as El Bastardo mentioned below.
Btw, for anyone using Eldritch Evolution, how was it? Does it work well for the deck? Or CoCo still does it better?
I am also wondering what cards/upgrades does the deck need to make it more competitive?
I am actually thinking of just splashing white or red simply for the better sideboard options. Playing only basics is great for life but the current meta doesn't really care for the life loss. Burn is really bad right now.
Sexy Sig by mchief111 @ Rising Studios
EDH
G Isao
Wouldn't splashing just result to a bad version of either RG Zoo or GW Hatebears?
Sexy Sig by mchief111 @ Rising Studios
EDH
G Isao
Many a time I have imagined how powerful Stompy would be with Blood Moon. If only it were green! Our fast aggression backed up by the strong disruption of the Moon would be unbeatable. That, I think, is the major difference between Stompy with a red splash and decks like bushwhacker zoo: being able to load up on copies of Blood Moon without getting punished in the mana base like Nacatl decks do. That, combined with Lightning Bolt and powerful hate cards like Ancient Grudge , Destructive Revelry, and Pyroclasm make the red splash very appealing... but that brings us back to the classic question: if it isn't mono green, can we really say that it's Stompy? Is the power of Aspect of Hydra worth playing sub-optimal mono-colored creatures even when we have a fetching manabase and could be running things like Wild Nacatl and Tarmogoyf? I want to believe... but I am not totally convinced that it is :/
And the major difference between Bushwhacker Zoo and Stompy is that our deck has an extremely limited amount of card choices and lower card quality. This causes a more linear deck list that is both resilient and decently quick. Our card pool does not allow us to go anywhere near as fast as Bushwhacker Zoo but it tries to compensate with resilient creatures like Strangleroot Geist and Leatherback Baloth. The consistency of the mana base and not losing life is nice but it doesn't change the capabilities of the deck. Our deck is the fairest of fair for aggro. It's not much risk, is very consistent but you honestly just don't have too many options. On the other hand, Bushwhacker Zoo has 5 viable 1 drops(We have only 2), Burning-Tree/Bushwhacker craziness, Bolt/Atarka's Command with the option of Path in the main. The amount of different sequences you can do with Bushwhacker Zoo is nuts. Even without thinking about Burning-Tree and Bushwhacker you have the much better 1 drop game. You can open with Goblin Guide, E1, Wild Nacatl, and Kird Ape, (Vexing Devil not recommended). But what's crazy is E1 into Kird Ape/Goblin Guide/Wild Nacatl. Add in Burning-Tree possibilities and it's nuts. So when you say the definitive difference is just the mana base. I say no. It is literally how the decks can be played.
Sexy Sig by mchief111 @ Rising Studios
EDH
G Isao
I had actually ran a splash of red in this deck for an addition of 3x blood moon and 3x ancient grudge in the sideboard. I did end up getting 3-1 four times in a row at my local FNM with the list. The only maindeck change I had was replacing 4 leatherback baloths with 4 boggart ram-gangs and the surprise Giantbaiting. I can say this change was very powerful and gave the deck a fighting chance over our bad matchups like affinity and tron while only making the burn matchup slightly worse. The amount of maindeck haste makes a world of difference and finding red mana was never an issue when needed. Pardon the awkward formatting, I mainly lurk. This is what I ran:
Main:
4x Dryad Militant
4x Experiment One
4x Strangleroot Geist
4x Avatar of the Resolute
4x Boggart Ram-Gang
2x Nettle Sentinel
2x Kalonian Tusker
3x Scavenging Ooze
3x Dismember
3x Aspect of Hydra
4x Vines of Vastwood
1x Giantbaiting
2x Rancor
4x Wooded Foothills
1x Stomping Ground
3x Copperline Gorge
12x Forest
Side:
3x Blood Moon
3x Ancient Grudge
3x Pithing Needle
2x Feed the Clan
2x Setessan Tactics
1x Choke
1x Deglamer
Creatures
4x Dryad Militant
4x Experiment One
4x Strangleroot Geist
4x Avatar of the Resolute
4x Boggart Ram-Gang
2x Nettle Sentinel
2x Kalonian Tusker
3x Scavenging Ooze
3x Aspect of Hydra
4x Vines of Vastwood
1x Giantbaiting
2x Rancor
4x Wooded Foothills
1x Stomping Ground
3x Copperline Gorge
12x Forest
3x Blood Moon
3x Ancient Grudge
3x Pithing Needle
2x Feed the Clan
2x Setessan Tactics
1x Choke
1x Deglamer