That's fair. However, since it can be grabbed with Collected Company, it synergizes much better with the deck and fits the curve better on it's own than most other "win more" cards seem to do. And to correct myself, since as a 1-of it usually comes in as about the size of or bigger than a baloth, whether off of a Coco or from my hand, I guess I would consider it to be filling that 4th baloth slot as a (usually) efficient beater with a chance of upside and downside. In these slots it is all preference (if I had a Rhonas, I would replace it with that and see how it ran).
I understand your reasoning about the synergy Reverent Hunter and Collected Company, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a win-more card. One of the greatest things about Collected Company is that it helps you recover from board wipes more easily, but hitting a Reverent Hunter off of Coco after your opponent plays Supreme Verdict is just poor card value. Rhonas, however, is a great card to hit off a post-board wipe Collected Company assuming you have another card to pump. Rhonas the Indomitable is better than Reverent Hunter in every situation. It covers up our poor matchups a lot better than most cards do (especially in mono green decks, where we can't play Narnam Renegade, so the deathtouch ability is relevant when blocking Death's Shadow, Eldrazi, etc...).
I attended my first paper event today. my list was
4x Experiment One
4x Avatar of the Resolute
4x Strangleroot Geist
3x Scavenging Ooze
2x Leatherback Baloth
4x Dryad Militant
3x Groundbreaker
4x Vines of the Vastwood
4x Aspect of the Hydra
2x Dismember
1x Dungrove Elder
4x Rancor
2x Treetop Village
19x Forest
SB:
1x Abzan Beastmaster (expected some janky creature decks)
1x Thragtusk
2x Unravel the Aether (For Wurmcoil Engine)
1x Back to Nature
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
1x Relic of Progenitus
1x Chameleon Colossus
2x Dismember
1x Loxodon Warhammer (for janky creatures lol)
2x Feed the Clan
1x Creeping Corrosion
1x Prey Upon
It was a smaller event hosted at my school that I managed to go 3-0 in.
Match one 2-0
I was facing against a guy who just put together some BG Midrange Elves.
He won the roll but opted to draw for some odd reason. However, he ended up keeping a pretty bad hand and all I did was dismember his arbor elf and he only casted one more spell before I killed him on t4.
G2, he decided to be on the play and main phase casted a tribal instant that had clash and put two elves into play to tap more mana from his archdruid. He then cast a joraga tree speaker kicked twice, which I dismembered and pumped for the win.
Match two 2-0
I faced a dredgevine deck and he kept a pretty slow hand after a mull to six. I kept my 7 with a scavenging ooze, so it was a pretty easy victory. He did plenty of damage to himself and just couldn't block my pumped guys.
Game two we both mulled to 6 and I kept a somewhat shaky hand. It was experiment one, 2 forest, avatar and 2x dismember. I am pretty sure that should have been a mulligan, but I was hoping that my curve and disruption would have given me enough time to try and draw some hate. The only real highlight of this match was he casted a Bile Blight on my experiment one when I had another on the battlefield, I dismembered it in response and was able to get there. Got pretty lucky that he had bad starts. I got to win with Groundbreaker + Aspect Combo
Match three 2-0
I faced a RW planeswalker control deck and yet again got pretty lucky because my opponent mulled to 5 game one and got mana screwed.
Game 2 he snapped kept and I mulliganed to 6. I kept a hand with experiment one, avatar, dismember, 2 lands and a vines of the vastwood.
He bottled my turn one play and then mana tithed my avatar. Luckily I was able to get my next avatar to stick, and had vines back up, but he helixed the avatar and mana tithed my vines. Then we both kind of did nothing for a few turns as we both got stuck on lands, but eventually I was able to stick my 3rd avatar and rancor it. I got him down to 8 and then swung for 5 + 3 from aspect which he deflecting palmed me. Then next turn he deflecting palmed me again, and I was afraid I was gonna lose to mono deflecting palm lol. Eventually I drew both of my tree tops, one got bolted, my avatar got wrathed, and I was just barely able to get there with my last village when he was on 3. I had a handful of creatures, but he got stuck on 4 lands and I had seen earlier in the event him cast gideon, and ultimate Nahiri for Emrakul. The best part of this match is I got to dismember my Strangleroot Geist which was targeted with a path. Feelsgoodman.
Overall the deck felt pretty good, but I could have gotten paired up with 8-rack and UWR control. Not sure how those match ups are, but I am going to consider myself pretty lucky.
Edit: The prize was 4 iconic master's packs. I got pretty lucky and pulled an Elesh Norn and an Aether Vial. Nice $50 when it only cost 5 to enter the event
Congratulation on your win!
I like your list but I have some doubts about the amount of Dismember: I wouldn't run an overall 4x of Dismember because I don't think that you need that much removal and also you don't want to lose 16 life (total) to remove 4 creatures. I think that 2 or 3 between the MB and the SB is the best amount.
On the matchups: I consider UWx control as a really tough matchup because they run a lot of removals which can be pretty devastating for our deck, also the saint graft geists are really annoying for us. Unfortunately I haven't tried a match against an 8 rack deck but I think it will be also a tough matchup considering that we empty our hand pretty soon but IMHO we can manage to win.
I think there are some things to change but I can't find better replacements, so maybe you could help me... I've put 2 Dismember in the SB cutting off a Fog and an Autumn's Veil for 2 Wasteland Vipers and I've cut off Surrak, the Hunt Caller and an Aspect of Hydra for 2 Groundbreaker. Vipers are there because of bloodrush and deathtouch because I don't feel like paying too much life for removal (but I know that dismember is much more efficient) and Groundbreakers are there to make the deck faster and in order to make all creatures selectable for the CoCo.
I feel that vipers can be replaced with some other valuable cards and also the SB doesn't convince me enough. I usually play against my friends which have Affinity, DS, some vengevine decks, Merfolk and Burn, but next week I'm going to play a tournament at my LGS and unfortunately the meta is unknown. Any help or suggestion is really appreciated!
Found Apostle's Blessing as a really interesting card, should I add it instead of vipers in order to have more protection and make one of my creatures unblockable for lethal?
Hmm, I can see how losing a lot of life could definitely be a bad thing. What is considered standard for the number main board? When I first got the deck, I had all 4 main, but in preparation for this tournament I did a little research and just modeled after the list that is on the deck of the day article from CFB (https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/deck-of-the-day-stompy-modern/). I made a few changes, as I didn't expect to face any hardcore blue control decks, and moved thrun to the sideboard along with removing the skylashers from the 75 in total. I added them back in now that I know I could face blue control. The only other competitive decks that I know are apart of my local meta now are tron and affinity. I could easily remove the 4th dismember for another sideboard card, but I feel like 2x main is a good number. Sometimes you just need to remove a blocker or get that extra 5 trample damage.
Edit: Wowza! I didn't know that Prowling Serpopard was a card. I think I should definitely get my hands on one of those.
The 'normal' number of Dismember mainboard is 2, and sadly Prowling Serpopard has 3 toughness, which means that is dies to Lightning Bolt versus UWr, Delver and Nahiri decks.
@dougmtg
Yes, the best amount is 2 in the MB and 1x optional in the SB, but in general I agree with amicdeep: a nature's way could be slower but it saves you 4 life and also gives trample and vigilance to your creature, so you can add it as a fourth removal. Serpopard is also a good sideboard card which it won me so many match against heavy control decks that I encourage you to give it a try.
Has anyone tried apostle's blessing? Sure it costs you 2 life but it can be used to make your creature unblockable for lethal and also gives protection to it
Isn't it better to run cards like Naturalize or Unravel the Aether against Chalice of the Void? I assume that deck with Chalice will put it on 1 against us, and the Prowling Serpopard might protect our creatures against that, but all of our protection, pump and Rancor are still unplayable.
Also, I haven't seen deck reports that used Apostle's Blessing in their 75. I have no idea how good it might be, so if you want to, please try it out! I'd love to hear what kind of results it brings.
Apostle blessings. Quite frankly it's just not as good as blossoming defence. As our main use for it would be reactive it give protection against a single Color and with decks like delver (with removal I'm multiple colores) it becomes hard to keep your creaters alive. It is dead against tron and affinity and its not good against decks that run more that one colors for creaters. So it's unblockable isn't really a thing. I would rather a pump spell with protect my self. Apostles is good as protection for decks that don't run the colores for it (green, white) like dismember dose for decks that don't run the removal colores (white, black, red). We just have better options
Well I don't think it's dead against affinity or tron because if you read the card it says: "Gains protection from ARTIFACTS or from the color of your choice", so your creature would be unblockable for affinity or eldra-tron or whatever-tron. Also it would be unblockable by multicolored creature since you can choose one of their colours and can't be targeted by multicolored removals.
Blossoming Defence is really a good card but I think that a combination of it plus Apostle's Blessing (2x each) would be optimal since you can use them in different situation:
1) Does your creature have trample and need protection? No problem, Blossoming Defence;
2) Does your creature not have trample? Play Apostle's Blessing for protection + evasion.
On the other half Apostle must be casted BEFORE "declare blockers" step and your opponent can remove your creature in response and let you lose 2 life for nothing... Hmm, it's risky but I think it would be worth a try at least, only when your opponent is tapped out or when you're sure he/she can't cast any removal.
Also, I haven't seen deck reports that used Apostle's Blessing in their 75. I have no idea how good it might be, so if you want to, please try it out! I'd love to hear what kind of results it brings.
I'm testing it on XMage and for now it won me a game 2 against Knightfall/Bant Company (Blessing+Aspect on a Groundbreaker) and a game 1 against Jund DS. It seems promising and I think it could be considered as a possible addition for our deck. I'll continue with the tests and I'll bring here the results!
Stompy isn't really played competitively enough for there to be a consensus "best list" (with some number of flex slots) like there often is with top tier decks. Some cards are in almost every list, but those haven't really changed since the primer was written.
One thing I've been wondering about the deck is the number of one drops. Eight seems pretty low, compared to most successful aggro decks from magic's history. Stompy should be geared towards winning as fast as possible, IMO, as we're generally not winning any long games anyway. I've been playing 10 one drops recently, adding two Kessig Prowlers in place of some Kalonian Tuskers. I've also dropped the two Treetop Villages I was playing earlier, as lands coming into play tapped mess up the aggro curve too often. Seems to work, but the sample size is way too small to draw any real conclusions.
I think it depends on what's your gameplan. Yeah, Stompy is for sure an aggro deck but not as fast as the popular once and it will never be, but we have more reliability in the mid-game and we can steal the win sometimes even with a bad hand. I would agree with you that 10 one drops are better for us, but since it hasn't been printed a good one besides E1 and the dryad (and also Narnam Renegade but it works well only in heavy fetch decks) I don't see a good solution which could fit well in our deck.
Talking about the TV I think that 1x is fine, because it saved me so many times after a boardwipe and it is also a mana sink when needed.
The mod asked me who wanted to take over the primer.
I personally am really invested in this, but I have no idea of how editing posts works, or anything like that. I can give a lot of information, and I actively want to help with the primer, but when it comes to editing I am completely new.
Amicdeep, I know that you want to work on it as well. WrenchMind, you too? Which one would be the best when it comes to the actual editing? That person should be the one to take over, I assume.
Anyone else who would like to contribute?
I'll give everyone about a day to respond to this, and if no one wants to take over, I will. (The mod wants to have this done by Monday evening.) You and my one of my friends who posts here will have to help me with the editing if I do it.
If there was a ‘best list’ people could agree on, we wouldn’t be 6180 replies deep.
Some people like Blossoming Defense. Some don’t.
Some like Narnam Renegade. Some don’t.
Rhonas. Groundbreaker. Dungrove Elder. Hashep Oasis. Treetop Village. All of these cards are loved by some and shunned by some.
It would greatly help to have a definition of what is "stompy" and what isn't. So we don't so often fall into discussions around lists that people consider "not stompy" for X or Y reasons, and maybe with a clear definition of what we want stompy to be we can look better at new cards in terms of how they affect our deck.
Unlike other deck archetypes, we don't revolve around a particular combo or card, as far as I understad, our overall definition of stompy is to play creatures that are green and can end the game on turn 4, trying to avoid disruption or using strategies that can be further disrupted or that dilute our initial gameplan: to deal 20 damage by turn 4.
Well, there is a basic 'core' when you talk about stompy. Some lists deviate from that, but there are a number of things you can say about the standard/starting point/basic version of stompy:
It is a mono-green aggro deck, that has a mostly painless mana base and is creature based. It uses strong creatures, pump spells and protection to negate removal spells. One of the cards this deck kind of revolves around is Aspect of Hydra. Devotion is also a theme, and games can be stolen with a well-timed Aspect. +1/+1 counters also play a role, slightly revolving around Avatar of the Resolute.
Another rule is that we do NOT use 4-drops or higher in our main, with very rare exceptions (mostly revolving around Thrun, the Last Troll when facing a meta with a lot of control decks).
We can also talk about different kinds of build.
Other than this list, there is a revolt-list and a Company-list, and there are also people who splash black or white (mostly).
There are also people who play Aspect-less, and people who play Dismember-less.
I think this can be used as a starting point when you look at stompy in general.
I'll give everyone about a day to respond to this, and if no one wants to take over, I will. (The mod wants to have this done by Monday evening.) You and my one of my friends who posts here will have to help me with the editing if I do it.
It has been discussed earlier, maybe you could try to use the search button and see if any of your question has already been answered or at least mentioned By the way I think that those are useful cards only against an heavy control meta, otherwise I don't feel like including them in the SB
I understand your reasoning about the synergy Reverent Hunter and Collected Company, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a win-more card. One of the greatest things about Collected Company is that it helps you recover from board wipes more easily, but hitting a Reverent Hunter off of Coco after your opponent plays Supreme Verdict is just poor card value. Rhonas, however, is a great card to hit off a post-board wipe Collected Company assuming you have another card to pump. Rhonas the Indomitable is better than Reverent Hunter in every situation. It covers up our poor matchups a lot better than most cards do (especially in mono green decks, where we can't play Narnam Renegade, so the deathtouch ability is relevant when blocking Death's Shadow, Eldrazi, etc...).
I attended my first paper event today. my list was
4x Experiment One
4x Avatar of the Resolute
4x Strangleroot Geist
3x Scavenging Ooze
2x Leatherback Baloth
4x Dryad Militant
3x Groundbreaker
4x Vines of the Vastwood
4x Aspect of the Hydra
2x Dismember
1x Dungrove Elder
4x Rancor
2x Treetop Village
19x Forest
SB:
1x Abzan Beastmaster (expected some janky creature decks)
1x Thragtusk
2x Unravel the Aether (For Wurmcoil Engine)
1x Back to Nature
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
1x Relic of Progenitus
1x Chameleon Colossus
2x Dismember
1x Loxodon Warhammer (for janky creatures lol)
2x Feed the Clan
1x Creeping Corrosion
1x Prey Upon
It was a smaller event hosted at my school that I managed to go 3-0 in.
Match one 2-0
I was facing against a guy who just put together some BG Midrange Elves.
He won the roll but opted to draw for some odd reason. However, he ended up keeping a pretty bad hand and all I did was dismember his arbor elf and he only casted one more spell before I killed him on t4.
G2, he decided to be on the play and main phase casted a tribal instant that had clash and put two elves into play to tap more mana from his archdruid. He then cast a joraga tree speaker kicked twice, which I dismembered and pumped for the win.
Match two 2-0
I faced a dredgevine deck and he kept a pretty slow hand after a mull to six. I kept my 7 with a scavenging ooze, so it was a pretty easy victory. He did plenty of damage to himself and just couldn't block my pumped guys.
Game two we both mulled to 6 and I kept a somewhat shaky hand. It was experiment one, 2 forest, avatar and 2x dismember. I am pretty sure that should have been a mulligan, but I was hoping that my curve and disruption would have given me enough time to try and draw some hate. The only real highlight of this match was he casted a Bile Blight on my experiment one when I had another on the battlefield, I dismembered it in response and was able to get there. Got pretty lucky that he had bad starts. I got to win with Groundbreaker + Aspect Combo
Match three 2-0
I faced a RW planeswalker control deck and yet again got pretty lucky because my opponent mulled to 5 game one and got mana screwed.
Game 2 he snapped kept and I mulliganed to 6. I kept a hand with experiment one, avatar, dismember, 2 lands and a vines of the vastwood.
He bottled my turn one play and then mana tithed my avatar. Luckily I was able to get my next avatar to stick, and had vines back up, but he helixed the avatar and mana tithed my vines. Then we both kind of did nothing for a few turns as we both got stuck on lands, but eventually I was able to stick my 3rd avatar and rancor it. I got him down to 8 and then swung for 5 + 3 from aspect which he deflecting palmed me. Then next turn he deflecting palmed me again, and I was afraid I was gonna lose to mono deflecting palm lol. Eventually I drew both of my tree tops, one got bolted, my avatar got wrathed, and I was just barely able to get there with my last village when he was on 3. I had a handful of creatures, but he got stuck on 4 lands and I had seen earlier in the event him cast gideon, and ultimate Nahiri for Emrakul. The best part of this match is I got to dismember my Strangleroot Geist which was targeted with a path. Feelsgoodman.
Overall the deck felt pretty good, but I could have gotten paired up with 8-rack and UWR control. Not sure how those match ups are, but I am going to consider myself pretty lucky.
Edit: The prize was 4 iconic master's packs. I got pretty lucky and pulled an Elesh Norn and an Aether Vial. Nice $50 when it only cost 5 to enter the event
I like your list but I have some doubts about the amount of Dismember: I wouldn't run an overall 4x of Dismember because I don't think that you need that much removal and also you don't want to lose 16 life (total) to remove 4 creatures. I think that 2 or 3 between the MB and the SB is the best amount.
On the matchups: I consider UWx control as a really tough matchup because they run a lot of removals which can be pretty devastating for our deck, also the saint graft geists are really annoying for us. Unfortunately I haven't tried a match against an 8 rack deck but I think it will be also a tough matchup considering that we empty our hand pretty soon but IMHO we can manage to win.
G Mono Green Stompy G
UR UR Delver Prowess UR
URBGrixis DelverURB
RBWMardu PyromancerRBW
Has anyone some advices or thoughts about it?
G Mono Green Stompy G
UR UR Delver Prowess UR
URBGrixis DelverURB
RBWMardu PyromancerRBW
Edit: Wowza! I didn't know that Prowling Serpopard was a card. I think I should definitely get my hands on one of those.
Yes, the best amount is 2 in the MB and 1x optional in the SB, but in general I agree with amicdeep: a nature's way could be slower but it saves you 4 life and also gives trample and vigilance to your creature, so you can add it as a fourth removal. Serpopard is also a good sideboard card which it won me so many match against heavy control decks that I encourage you to give it a try.
Has anyone tried apostle's blessing? Sure it costs you 2 life but it can be used to make your creature unblockable for lethal and also gives protection to it
G Mono Green Stompy G
UR UR Delver Prowess UR
URBGrixis DelverURB
RBWMardu PyromancerRBW
Also, I haven't seen deck reports that used Apostle's Blessing in their 75. I have no idea how good it might be, so if you want to, please try it out! I'd love to hear what kind of results it brings.
Well I don't think it's dead against affinity or tron because if you read the card it says: "Gains protection from ARTIFACTS or from the color of your choice", so your creature would be unblockable for affinity or eldra-tron or whatever-tron. Also it would be unblockable by multicolored creature since you can choose one of their colours and can't be targeted by multicolored removals.
Blossoming Defence is really a good card but I think that a combination of it plus Apostle's Blessing (2x each) would be optimal since you can use them in different situation:
1) Does your creature have trample and need protection? No problem, Blossoming Defence;
2) Does your creature not have trample? Play Apostle's Blessing for protection + evasion.
On the other half Apostle must be casted BEFORE "declare blockers" step and your opponent can remove your creature in response and let you lose 2 life for nothing... Hmm, it's risky but I think it would be worth a try at least, only when your opponent is tapped out or when you're sure he/she can't cast any removal.
G Mono Green Stompy G
UR UR Delver Prowess UR
URBGrixis DelverURB
RBWMardu PyromancerRBW
I'm testing it on XMage and for now it won me a game 2 against Knightfall/Bant Company (Blessing+Aspect on a Groundbreaker) and a game 1 against Jund DS. It seems promising and I think it could be considered as a possible addition for our deck. I'll continue with the tests and I'll bring here the results!
G Mono Green Stompy G
UR UR Delver Prowess UR
URBGrixis DelverURB
RBWMardu PyromancerRBW
Some people like Blossoming Defense. Some don’t.
Some like Narnam Renegade. Some don’t.
Rhonas. Groundbreaker. Dungrove Elder. Hashep Oasis. Treetop Village. All of these cards are loved by some and shunned by some.
Unfortunately I don't know how to do it, maybe we just have to contact a moderator and explain to him the situation.
I think it depends on what's your gameplan. Yeah, Stompy is for sure an aggro deck but not as fast as the popular once and it will never be, but we have more reliability in the mid-game and we can steal the win sometimes even with a bad hand. I would agree with you that 10 one drops are better for us, but since it hasn't been printed a good one besides E1 and the dryad (and also Narnam Renegade but it works well only in heavy fetch decks) I don't see a good solution which could fit well in our deck.
Talking about the TV I think that 1x is fine, because it saved me so many times after a boardwipe and it is also a mana sink when needed.
G Mono Green Stompy G
UR UR Delver Prowess UR
URBGrixis DelverURB
RBWMardu PyromancerRBW
I personally am really invested in this, but I have no idea of how editing posts works, or anything like that. I can give a lot of information, and I actively want to help with the primer, but when it comes to editing I am completely new.
Amicdeep, I know that you want to work on it as well. WrenchMind, you too? Which one would be the best when it comes to the actual editing? That person should be the one to take over, I assume.
Anyone else who would like to contribute?
G Mono Green Stompy G
UR UR Delver Prowess UR
URBGrixis DelverURB
RBWMardu PyromancerRBW
It would greatly help to have a definition of what is "stompy" and what isn't. So we don't so often fall into discussions around lists that people consider "not stompy" for X or Y reasons, and maybe with a clear definition of what we want stompy to be we can look better at new cards in terms of how they affect our deck.
Unlike other deck archetypes, we don't revolve around a particular combo or card, as far as I understad, our overall definition of stompy is to play creatures that are green and can end the game on turn 4, trying to avoid disruption or using strategies that can be further disrupted or that dilute our initial gameplan: to deal 20 damage by turn 4.
It is a mono-green aggro deck, that has a mostly painless mana base and is creature based. It uses strong creatures, pump spells and protection to negate removal spells. One of the cards this deck kind of revolves around is Aspect of Hydra. Devotion is also a theme, and games can be stolen with a well-timed Aspect. +1/+1 counters also play a role, slightly revolving around Avatar of the Resolute.
Another rule is that we do NOT use 4-drops or higher in our main, with very rare exceptions (mostly revolving around Thrun, the Last Troll when facing a meta with a lot of control decks).
You can also say something about a core when it comes to card choices.
The mana base is almost only Forests, with 1-2 Treetop Village and 0-2 Horizon Canopy if people can afford it. (This is a thing because our deck is mostly budget-friendly.)
I think 21 is the average number of lands people play in the basic list.
Most decks run these cards (in playsets):
Experiment One, Dryad Militant, Strangleroot Geist, Avatar of the Resolute, Scavenging Ooze(mostly 2-3 main), Leatherback Baloth (3-4).
Rancor, Vines of Vastwood, Aspect of Hydra (3-4), and mostly Dismember (2).
In general, you need to have a good reason to cut cards like these from the main/deck.
There are a number of cards that some, but not all people use. I won't list them all, but when we talk about 3-drops we can list Dungrove Elder, Boggart Ram-Gang, Groundbreaker and Rhonas the Indomitable as cards that have been used a lot (mainboard).
We can also talk about different kinds of build.
Other than this list, there is a revolt-list and a Company-list, and there are also people who splash black or white (mostly).
There are also people who play Aspect-less, and people who play Dismember-less.
I think this can be used as a starting point when you look at stompy in general.
No problem, I'll help you!
It has been discussed earlier, maybe you could try to use the search button and see if any of your question has already been answered or at least mentioned
G Mono Green Stompy G
UR UR Delver Prowess UR
URBGrixis DelverURB
RBWMardu PyromancerRBW