Stompy

[spevack]

I don't have too much to say about Stompy, since I feel like the list is fairly optimal.

Stompy

4 Giant Growth
4 Rancor
4 Bounty of the Hunt

4 Ghazban Ogre
4 Skyshroud Elite
4 River Boa
4 Rogue Elephant
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Druid Lyrist ***
4 Hidden Gibbons ***

4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Land Grant
12 Forest

--------------------------

I like this maindeck a great deal.  I am a fan of Land Grants in Stompy (great with Bounty), and likewise I am not a fan of the Emerald.

What I would like to discuss here is the Lyrist slot, the Gibbons slot, and the sideboard.

I think the Lyrists still belong in the maindeck.  They are good against Rector Trix, Nether Void, Pernicious Deed, Abyss, and other random enchantments.

I have been debating between Hidden Gibbons and Hidden Herd as the final slot.  Hidden Gibbons is good against blue-based control, Hulk, Sligh, and pretty good against Trix.  It is not so great against Stax.  Hidden Herd is good against Stax as well as Keeper, Hulk, etc., but suffers against mono-colored decks.

I think it is easier to play around Herd than Gibbons, so I think the Gibbons should stay main as well.

So I guess all I've really done here is tried to make my argument as to why I think D'Avanzo's old list is still "correct."

Now on to the sideboard.  I think the first three slots are fairly self-explanatory

4 Naturalize
4 Hidden Herd
4 Rushwood Legate
3 Null Rod

I had Null Rods in my sideboard last night, and they didn't do much for me.  Against Stax, they don't turn anything off.  Against Keeper, I feel like I don't need them to win.

However, the threat of Powder Kegs in matchups I didn't face, as well as Academy-style decks (with or without Tendrils) is enough to warrant their inclusion, but I think 3 is enough.

Winter Orb, I think, doesn't belong in Type 1 Stompy because it doesn't do enough.  Moxen negate the Orb's value, as well as things like Workshop.

I think this build (essentially D'Avanzos -- cutting a Null Rod and 3 Emerald Charm for 4 Naturalize) is better than the one Rakso presented in his column http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=4758

What do you think?

[TracerBullet]

Fundemental Problem with Stompy-

1: 1st turn 5/3's>>>>>2/2's
2: Tangle Wire>>>>>>1 Forest and 1 Dude
3: Pernicious Deed>>>>>Everything
4: Nether Void>>>>>>9 Lands in deck
5: Fire/Ice>>>>>>Pump
6: Powder Keg>>>>>Everything in your deck
7: Illusions>>>>>>>>You


You simply don't stand a chance against all the best decks of the metagame.  Stompy is not, nor will be for quite some time, anything even pretending to be a competetor.

[spevack]

Everything you say is true.  There is no claim at all being made that Stompy is particularly good.  I guess I'm just curious about what the best version is, in spite of the metagame problems that the deck has.

[Akuma (gio)]

@Tracerbullet - I think I will have to bring my stompy deck to the next tourney and proceed to OWN YOU  

I think Spevacks "Stompy" is pretty much as optimal as this archetype is going to get. Tracer makes some obvious observations (5/3 > 2/2 and so on  ) and this is all true. I think your best bet with stompy is the lack of respect it commands. People will pretty much ignore it, and this could lead to some stolen wins here and there.

And let's not forget, Elvish Spirit Guide and Rancor could potentially screw over Smokestack decks  

[Kaervek]

....or, at least, in theory.

As it happens, I have played with Stompy against Stax a little while ago (hey, the deck is worth about as much as the sleeves it's in, and all of the cards in it are useless in any other deck / format anyway, so it'll remain intact for years to come). The first 3 games went to me cause of Ranger + land under Tangle Wire, while he (Pyro, for those IRC'ers among you) adjusted. The following 478 (rough estimate games went to him. And yes, that was AFTER me SB'ing against him, even though he obviously had no real SB options against me. Believe you me, unless you're playing against mono-U control or something, you're dead. I'll grant you immediately that Stompy is a fun deck to play once in a while.

About your decklist: solid. You could include power, although I grow weary of people elaborating on why a Mox Emerald is bad in this deck. It is simply not. If you own it, put it in. The difference is however admittedly *very* minimal.

One word, though: Wooded Foothills (dammit, that's two words). I loved 'em to death in this deck. Just replace 4 forests and presto! You have Land Grants 5 through 8. Deck thinning 4L. It's much more important than you may think. Just make sure you don't go: Turn 1 - Foothills - Fetch Forest - Ghazban Orge - Go

Oh, and I know how lame this sounds, but 2x Elvish and 2x Druid Lyrist is ever so slightly superior to running 4 copies of either

[Fishhead]

Quote Believe you me, unless you're playing against mono-U control or something, you're dead.

Actually, it gave Paragon Keeper a good spanking.  Not particularly surprising as that version currently is running maybe one card on TracerBullet's list of "Tings that Own U".  (And, frankly, Fire/Ice doesn't even belong on that list.  In his own parlance "Hidden Gibbons >>>>> Fire/Ice".)  

I'd suspect that MonoU has a better matchup than Abyss-less Paragon Keeper right now - at least they have 4 Kegs to try and cope.

[jntemp777]

My friend was using a similar build except it was running hidden herd vs. Skyshroud elite and it savagely killed a Keeper that also ran abyss.  Lyrist's are golden at times.  But then again, the second game, abyss steamrolled over poor stompy.      

I personally like stompy as a [Budget Deck].  When stompy hasn't been played in awhile, decks get kinda fat and lazy and remove cards like abyss.  

[suicide_slushy]

If your looking for an optimal list of stompy wouldn't a full set of berserks be worth looking into?

[Vegeta2711]

Berserk is only good when comboed with pump which means spot removal is that much better. W/O the extra boost it's simply worse than a normal pump spell.

[Matt The Great]

To be fair, Trix doesn't COMPLETELY own Stompy. An active Lyrist is a living hell if your only answer is 1x Rushing River.\n\n

[Mon, Goblin Chief]

We have tested with Stompy a little over here, too, and we found a card we really loved in the deck: Root Maze. It feels like multiple Time Walks against Control and helps you race combo by making there mana-artifacts similar to Mirage-Diamonds. Not to mention it hits Fetchlands twice. I know it looks janky, but if you want to play Stompy, just test it out. It wins.
We where also quite disappointed in the Lyrists, as they just didn't offer enough pressure.
In addition I hated the manabase you ran (we started of from that list, too), as I was flooded much to often. I have cut down to 10 Mana Sources in my testdeck. Two of those are Mox E and Lotus, as those just let you win games you have no business winning and I have yet to loose a game where I had Lotus and my opponent didn't have Balance ready.
For reference, this is what I use for a testdeck now:

4 Giant Growth
4 Rancor
4 Bounty of the Hunt
4 Root Maze

4 Wild Dogs (Fire/Ice is a non-issue right now, Sligh isn't)
4 Skyshroud Elite
4 River Boa
4 Rogue Elephant
4 Skyshroud Ridgeback (we needed another 2/x creature, didn't want more Ghazbans)
2 Druid Lyrist
4 Hidden Gibbons

4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Land Grant
8 Forest
1 Mox Emerald
1 Black Lotus

SB: (pretty much untested)
3 Null Rod
4 Naturalize
4 Rushwood Legate
4 Whirling Derwish (to go in for Wild Dogs against Sligh, for Gibbons against Sui)

Oh, yeah, Quirion Ranger had to go because under Maze it's just a simple 1/1 for 1 that untaps creatures by costing you a mana next turn.

Right now the deck does look pretty promising, not that I think it's that great. But it wins more than I have seen Stompy win in a long time.

[Aroxisis]

Mons, why do you run Wild Dogs over Ghazban Ogre? Is the cycling aspect of the dogs that important? I run the Ogre in their spot.

[airwalk]

Quote (Mon @ Goblin Chief,July 12 2003,04:38)4 Wild Dogs (Fire/Ice is a non-issue right now, Sligh isn't)

He allready answered your question Aroxisis.

[Magimaster]

Root Maze looks quite interesting...I may tinker around with it.

[Rakso]

Say when you're getting back to Stompy. I do figure you may as well maindeck Null Rod now instead of three/four more creatures.

[Zherbus]

Lots of posts were deleted. Everything should be back on topic. The RIGHT thing to do is to give MoreFling and Spevack both warnings. MoreFling, leave your nose out of threads unless you really have something to add to them. Spevack, talk to your friend Dave. He has faith in me that if he reports a thread to me (I just so happen to not read the Stompy nonsense that transpired), that I will moderate accordingly. Flipping out at someone in a thread (when it could have been PM'd, really) is obviously not the correct thing to do here.

[Bastian]

Root Maze may be cheaper than Null Rod but at least the rod unnables your opponents from using their artifact mana, mask, masticore, triskelions, powder kegs...

Root Maze just stops their artifacts for a turn. Their best use may be to make lands come into tapped. That's what may be worth look into when using the maze.

[Zeon dragonlord]

I know this may sound like a really dumb idea, but I run exoskeletal armor side board.  They are awesome agianst sligh and decks that burn stompy.  I was just messing around and took them up to my local shop (which has lots of burn decks) and I just cleaned house with 'em.

[wuaffiliate]

as it is stompy just break sligh, sligh will be lucky to take 1 of 20 games.

[Melmoth]

Damn, I really like that decklist (the original one at the top of the post)--and somehow it looks so strangely familiar.    

I would swap Hidden Gibbons maindeck with Hidden Herd (which I had 4 of in the SB).  It will make you a little weaker against Sligh, but Sligh is not a very good deck right now and Herds are excellent against the general field right now.  However, if your envirionment is full of Sligh (you know how it is, there are a lot of people that will play mono-red no matter what) you may want to stick with what you've got, but you'll be much happier with turn 1-2 Herds against all the top decks in the field today.

One final point is that 12 Forests is just too many.  I had an Emerald, Lotus, and 10 Forests or 9 and a Lotus Petal (I lost interest in magic before I could test which was better).  I only went up to so many mana sources because 2-3 of them were more fragile and did not combo with Rogue Elephant.  You can -easily- get away with 10 Forests and a Lotus Petal in an unpowered Stompy deck.

I'm interested to see how Naturalize will turn out for you.  It's obviously a wonderful card, but I fear it's a bit reactive for such a fast deck and,more importantly, I dislike the two mana.  I might actually play Crumbles instead since, I assume, those Naturalizes are mainly coming in to deal with problem permanents that Stax lays out like early Smokestacks and Tangle Wires.   G1 is probably doable in most cases, but if a Sphere of Resistance (let alone two) is on the table it will become quite unwieldy.

Oh well, something for people to test for sure.  

--M.  D'Avanzo

P.S.  Sorry, couldn't help myself--I like seeing Stompy played as it can keep the rest of the decks in a field honest.  One of the reasons my current control deck and most other good contorl variants get away with no longer playing an Abyss (let alone a Moat) is that simple blitzkrieg decks like Stompy are simply not played.\n\n