[Deck Ideas] MonoGreen Hate - Neo-Oshawa

[Kerz]

Hey all.

Preface: I'm going to break form and post a new topic in the Open forum. I hope I won't be dissappointed.

The Metagame, full of Mono U, Workshop, and Control Slaver, seems like it has allowed an old hate deck - Oshawa Stompy - to be amazing again.

The deck isn't really hurt by Nonbasic hosers (exept losing your Bazaars), and has hate cards like Null Rod, Ground Seal, and Root Maze to play a very contolling game while beating down hard with undercosted fat. Maindeck artifact destruction (Oxidize, Naturalize, Te-Jilad justice) may be warrented with all the Stax and 5/3 around also.

Crucible looks like a great addition, and could compliment the deck well- but with no fetchlands, is it worth it?

The deck is very flexible, and needs to be worked on, in my opinion. I will post a starting point decklist, and we can begin brainstorming ideas.

Oshawa Stompy Two-Kay-Four

//Creatures
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Arrogant Wurm
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Hidden Gibbons

Control Elements
4 Null Rod
3 Root Maze
3 Ground Seal

//Engine
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Squee

//Land/Mana
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
11 Forest
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald

In this list, the Seals could become Oxidizes, depending on the metagame. I think Welder is showing up in large enough numbers to warrent the seal, though.
JP has worked on a similar deck, but was more Survival-Oriented with a few one-of silver bullets. Another idea is Eternal Witness. I'm no expert on the deck, but I'm sure this deck can be great with help from the community.

The sideboard is of lesser importance at the moment, but feel free to post ideas on that too.

[Machinus]

I think Guerrillas are much better than Gibbons. Also, three root maze seems kind of random. I would take a null rod out and put a maze in.

This deck does't really have any strategic advantages. There is some disruption and medium-sized beats, but everything is pretty much easy to answer. A monogreen survival deck needs to have 1-ofs like viridian zealot and probably eternal witness. Crucible is too expensive.

[JuJu]

Control Elements
4 Null Rod
3 Root Maze
3 Ground Seal

Maybe go 4 Root Maze, 4 Seal and 2 Crucible. Putting the Rods to the board? Crucible could be really nice with Wastelands AND Bazaars.
Eternal Witness might be a nice idea. Not sure where you'd find the room though.

[dicemanx]

I do not believe that there is a defining O.Stompy decklist right now, since it is difficult to tell exactly how many hate cards should be run in relation to the creatures. First, let's start off with the basic skeleton of the deck (cards that absoultely should be included), then examine what the remaining options are. That way, people can mix and match depending on what their local meta is like.

Creatures (11):
==========
4x Wild Mongrel
4x Basking Rootwalla
3x Arrogant Wurm

This is the bare minimum for the creature base. While at least 3 Arrogants are mainstays in O.Stompy, in my opinion the 4th Wurn might be a bit too much. It is not that easy for O.Stompy to generate 3 mana, especially if you're using one of your early turns to drop a Bazaar and start drawing cards.

Card drawing engines (12):
==================

4x Survival of the Fittest
4x Bazaar of Baghdad
4x Squee, Goblin Nabob

While it is possible to axe the Squee Bazaar engine completely (and keep just one Squee for the Survivals), that would make for an entirely different topic. Let's for now work with the fact that the Bazaar and Survival engines are the defining parts, apart from the madness mechanic, of O.Stompy.

Hate/Disruption (4):
=============

4x Null Rod

The Null Rods are a mainstay, as your primary concern are the full powered decks, especially Tendrils/Belcher combo and Workshop decks. All 4 should be run to give you maximum redundancy; drawing multiples is never bad, because you want to ensure that you see one very early and that it makes it into play and past any disruption. Additional Rods beyond the first resolved one can always be pitched to Mongrels/Bazaars.


Mana (23):
=======

4x Elvish Spirit Guide
1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Emerald
4x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine
12x Forest

Usually 23 sources is a good number for O.Stompy, as dipping below 23 is asking for trouble when trying to build mana for your 3-cc permanents (depending on how many you end up running). The 12th Forest could be replaced with a Sol Ring in order to build your mana for cards like Crucible or Arrogant Wurm, and to give you another way to power out a quick Null Rod, even if it were to shut off the Sol Ring itself.


The mainstays total up to 50, which leaves us with 10 slots to work with. Here are the possible considerations:

Creatures:
=======

1. 4th Arrogant Wurm

2. 2-4 Troll Ascetic - This might seem like an odd choice as the card has nothing to do with the madness mechanic and it has GG in its casting cost, but Troll can be quite strong against a large number of decks. Trolls were present in the original deck designed by Ray Mitchell (Razor) as a way to crush Landstill decks, but they turned out to be quite effective against aggro and other control decks like 4CC.

3. 1-4 Eternal Witness - Witnesses might be too costly in this deck, but they do generate card advantage and are another way to recur Wastelands or countered hate spells. Either running one to fetch with Survival or up to 4 for redundancy are possibilities, although I think this card will not be making the cut too frequently.

4. 1-4 Tracker - Just like the Witness, it can be either used as a silver bullet with Survival, or more than one can be run for added redundancy. Their primary target is Goblin Welder, although they could also take out the entire Fish team if they don't get a Grim Lavamancer down first. Might not be necessary if Ground Seals are being run in the main deck though, which looks like a very good option right now (see below).


Hate:
====

1. 3-4 Ground Seal - This card is almost an auto include if you are expecting to face a lot of Welder-based decks or Dragon combo. The fact that Seals only cost two and cantrip makes this a four of in Stompy in most metas.

2. 2-4 Oxidize - Artifacts are prevalent in today's meta, because of both the popularity of Workshop/Welder based decks and because of the presence of Crucible of Worlds. Oxidize gives you more answers to artifacts if you don't draw your Null Rods quickly enough, and they give you a way to destroy a Chalice set for two once Chalice becomes popular again. In the worst case scenario, if you fail to draw a Null Rod, you can use an Oxidize to nail a Mox and keep your opponent mana shorted along with your Wastelands.

3. 2-4 Naturalize - In the majority of cases Naturalize will be inferior to Oxidize (especially when facing a Chalice for 2), but there are two main upsides to running the card in the main deck: they can destroy Oath of Druids (which could be a huge problem for this deck come Oct 20th), and they can also stop the Dragon combo. Those two factors alone might warrant their main deck inclusion.

4. 2-4 Crucible of Worlds - This one is debatable. You can abuse it with Wasteland, but you don't have any other ways to exploit the power of this card. Since O.Stompy doesn't rely of Bazaars, and it won't be losing its Forests, there might not be enough targets to make Crucible powerful enough. Furthermore, it costs 3 mana, which can sometimes be problematic early enough when it would count the most. I'm still on the fence about this card in this deck.  

5. 3-4 Hidden Gibbons - This card can be strong at times, but sometimes it will do nothing for you especially if you are drawing it mid game. I'd try to avoid running conditional cards that are dead against many archetypes. Even a first turn Gibbons vs 4CC is not any sort of guarantee. I'd relegate this card to the SB and play more flexible cards in the main deck, like those mentioned above.

6. 3-4 Root Maze - Like the Gibbons, this card is conditional. It is a poor mid-late game draw, and even if drawn early it might not do enough for you. Sure it can slow down fetchlands for a turn if you actually get a Maze out early, and it might occasionally steal the odd game from Tendrils combo, but I do not feel it is strong enough for the main deck. And no, this card doesn't beat Dragon. Most likely at best it will make a Dragon player draw the game, but Dragon might have resources available to it that would  allow it to get past this card (like certain Witness-based kills or Sliver Queen kills outside of the combo).


If given the choice right now, I would run the following cards in the last remaining 10 slots:

4x Ground Seal
3x Oxidize
1x Naturalize
2x Troll Ascetic

I would also experiment with -2 Oxidize, +2 Crucible of Worlds.

[Kerz]

Control Elements
4 Null Rod
3 Root Maze
3 Ground Seal

Maybe go 4 Root Maze, 4 Seal and 2 Crucible. Putting the Rods to the board? Crucible could be really nice with Wastelands AND Bazaars.
Eternal Witness might be a nice idea. Not sure where you'd find the room though.

Eternal Witness + Ground Seal = not a combo.

Also, Null Rod is really, really key to the deck's "hate" strategy. It isn't cuttable.

Crucible is okay, but when running Root Maze, recurring wastelands becomes pretty mediocre. I wonder if Chalice could be worked into the deck? It's such a ridiculous card in this format- we'd obviously have to make a few adjustments, but could it work?

[jpmeyer]

There's nothing wrong with recurring Wastelands while Root Maze is out (if anything, it's slightly better since you can often hit fetchlands,) but one thing that I thought might be worth looking at is the fact that you can lock very quickly with Azusa, Lost but Seeking with Crucible.

[serracollector]

Thats a very interesting idea JP on Azuza.  Also Crucible allows you to pitch lands to the bazaar if needed, so you can keep the important stuff thats non-madness, because you can play the lands again with the Crucible.  I would go 4 Rod/4 Maze/2 Crucible and leave Ground Seal sided.  

My 2 cents

[dicemanx]

Azuza is way too slow in this deck (plus her ability is pointless unless you actually have a Crucible Waste lock going, but then you don't really need her). Plus, the Crucible might be too slow as well without full power and Workshops.

Root Maze is too much of a gamble in this deck, which I think is unnecessary. It won't be doing much for you most of the time, and even when you do face a deck which it could potentially be good against, you have to see it early enough without purposefully mulliganing into it. The Maze is pretty much a wasted draw mid/late game.

[TrixR4Kidz]

While it is possible to axe the Squee Bazaar engine completely (and keep just one Squee for the Survivals), that would make for an entirely different topic. Let's for now work with the fact that the Bazaar and Survival engines are the defining parts, apart from the madness mechanic, of O.Stompy.

I can't say that I really like the bazaar's in there, I don't really like bazaar in any aggro that isn't BoB.  I think that crucible should be a definately addition to this deck, along with mainboard oxidize.  Also, root maze is very imporant at this point, and I'd definately add a fourth.  

The groundseals own goblin welder, but I don't know about mainboard, I don't really like to play with cards that are "dead" in certain matchups.

Also, if you are thinking at all of adding crucible, Mainboard crop rotation would be great.

Hidden Guerillas I really like the idea of with all the artifact decks running around, I luv gibbons as well, But i'd possibly think about trying out guerillas, they are such tanks when they get going, and EVVVERRRY deck runs artifacts.

[WildWillieWonderboy]

I really don't like the "turns into a creature" enchantments simply because they don't do anything by themselves, and the deck already has enough of those kinds of cards.

Imi statue may be better than null rod, as most activated abilities involve tapping anyway, not to mention that cheap fat requires the absense of trinisphere. The synergy with root maze seems pretty cool, sort of like the old skool stasis + winter orb + kismet, but efficient and without the symmetry. The obvious trade off, of course being that imi statue may not be good enough by itself, as it is only good if they have multiple artifacts that aren't any good when they're tapped. I much prefer the silver-bullet creatures to using non-swinging ground seals in the main, the problem with that being that there are no ground seal-like creatures that are either green or artifact. Azusa definately looks like a beating in the $T4KS matchup, which is looking otherwise fairly rough.

[MIZEnhauer]

i would try running troll ascetic over hiddon gibbons as gibbonsd can just sit there as an enchantment the whole game

[timmy]

I played a deck very similar to this in the finals of the last power tourny i went to.  First off gibbons/guerrillas are awesome, even if they do just sit there all game because they make your opponents play around them.  No opponent is gonna drop a turn one mox if you have a guerrillas in play, same for gibbons.  How many people would play a brainstorm so that you can have a 4/4.  I also think that the deck should run 4 arrogant wurms, they are just too good to pass up.

One other note, when we were working on this a while back, we talked of adding a few fetches and duals so that it could either run anger or wonder.
without wonder madness is almost an autoloss, which my opponent found out when he played me.  Also I believe he also tried a lone copy of brawn, while it was  okay, he said in the end he would rather have had a couple berserks.