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Senor Stompy - Card Discussion & Mini-Primer

Premodern Aggro Competitive Mono-Green Stompy

molok


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Against Artifacts (6)

Against Enchantments (5)

Against Burn (2)

Against Big Creatures (4)

Against Control (3)

Against Green (2)


Monogreen Classic Stompy in the PreModern format.

This list & notes are my attempt to bring together old Extended and Type 2 decks into the PreModern meta. I am continuing to tinker with the list so expect to see changes over time as I playtest.

Generally a Stompy deck tries to get an early mana advantage, deploy some cheap threats, and then apply disruption to mess with the opponent's gameplan long enough for those threats to close the game. Green Stompy will often target the opposing manabase so they can't wipe our dumb green creatures before losing.
CMC:

Ramp:

Llanowar Elves + Fyndhorn Elves (play 0, or 4-6). The problem with playing a lot of elves is they're terrible in combat, expose you to Engineered Plague, and make the draws more polarizing.

Quirion Ranger can lead to a 4 mana turn off just one land on Turn 2, if it follows an Elf on Turn 1. Excellent interaction with Tangle Wire and Winter Orb, but weak on its own.

Beaters: there are inevitable tradeoffs to be made here and the correct mix will depend on the decks you expect to see.

1-drops that are bad on the first turn:

  • Rogue Elephant is the ICONIC CARD for the archetype and best aggressive creature, but may actually be wrong to play. In a low land count deck, taking the 2-for-1 is often painful. The format's best removal (Swords to Plowshares and Lightning Bolt) don't care about the difference between 2 and 3 toughness at all. All of these facts make the elephant a liability, at least in this style of Stompy.

  • Pouncing Jaguar has echo so it's bad for curving out, but is otherwise an efficient 2/2 body (Play 0-2)

CMC:

Ideally would rather play two 1-drops on Turn 2, rather than almost any 2 drop, because that way maximizes damage. We don't play many 2-drops so they have to be very impactful to make the cut.

  • River Boa Top tier 2-drop with evasion against Blue, plus regeneration making it awkward to kill.(4x)

  • Vintara Snapper has effectively hexproof. Slightly awkward to apply pump spells to it if you're tapping out, but this could give a targeted-removal deck problems.

  • Elvish Archers for first strike, but most good PreModern decks will not have a lot this interacts with.

  • Marginal options that were in some older lists are Albino Troll or Spectral Bears but these cards aren't very good given a larger card pool.

CMC:

Mirri, Cat Warrior is great against green midrange, and other creature decks because it both attacks and blocks.

Elephant Guide makes any small elf into a real threat, and it's sweeper protection but at risk of being bad against Swords to Plowshares or other instant removal. (Play 2-4)

Uktabi Orangutan may deserve a main deck spot if your meta has a lot of artifacts. Otherwise, it's a danger to your own Winter Orb (the butt monkey's ETB effect isn't optional!)

Rancor is perhaps best card in the deck, providing trample, recursion, and a power buff at cheap price. (Instant 4x!)

Giant Growth (3-4x) Wild Might, Might of Oaks have increasing levels of mana cost relative to power buffs, and how many of each will depend on your curve.

For a big finisher, some old Stompy decks would play Overrun however the mana cost is an issue, and this probably only fits if you are playing Gaea's Cradle.

Other niche options include: Briar Shield, Magnify, Seal of Strength, Aggressive Urge, Monstrous Growth, and Symbiosis.

These are card disadvantage in return for speed. I don't think you want more than 4-6 total of these effects.

Elvish Spirit Guide leads to extra-explosive early turns. (2-4x) Also leads to dirty tricks like surprise River Boa regeneration or Giant Growths out of nowhere.

Bounty of the Hunt has a very low floor, being an overcosted Giant Growth, but on the upside can lead to massive combat blowouts or dodge damage-based sweepers. (1-4x)

Vine Dryad is a mediocre body but can be cast with flash, has evasion against Green, and mana value of 4 which gives some small outs to Pernicious Deed. (0-4)

Stompy can often kill by Turn 4, but if you're on the draw, that's too slow to beat a Wrath of God. We need to set our opponent back a turn or two so they can't stabilize in time.

Quality disruptive effects available include:

  • Winter Orb at 2 CMC, this is easy to deploy, and we don't need our lands much at all. Very annoying to play against for decks that need their mana.

  • Tangle Wire operates similarly to Winter Orb but costs more mana. Partners well with Quirion Ranger.

  • Root Maze probably lives in the sideboard, but is still another way to stall control decks by a turn.

  • Wasteland (or possibly even Rishadan Port) to interfere with lands, discussed in the mana base section.

The deck is designed to operate off very few lands, and in fact, you almost never want to draw more than three. Two is plenty. On the other hand, you need at least one forest (or a Land Grant; for this section, I'm assuming those are the same) to do anything at all.

Number of Forests vs. Chance of at least one in opening hand:

  • 12 Forests: 80.9% chance of at least 1 in opening hand

  • 13 Forests: 83.7%

  • 14 Forests: 86.1%

  • 15 Forests: 88.2%

  • 16 Forests: 90.1%

The tradeoff to this is avoiding mana flood. We want to draw mostly gas and not have more than 3 lands in the first 5 turns.

Number of Forests vs. chance of drawing 3 or less in the first 5 turns:

  • 12 Forests: 81.6%

  • 13 Forests: 76.6%

  • 14 Forests: 71.3%

  • 15 Forests: 65.7%

  • 16 Forests: 59.9%

(Notably this is not a conditional probability on mulligan decisions, and assuming you only keep hands with 1 or more lands, your chance of flooding is actually a bit higher than these numbers).

Based on these probabilities, I'd say 13-14 Forests + Land Grants is around the sweet spot, also somewhat depending on how many Elvish Spirit Guide or Llanowar Elves effects you choose to include.

To include Wasteland or no? The main reason not to would be (a) poor synergy with Skyshroud Elite, and (b) awkward draws with Land Grant because a Wasteland in the opener may not cast any spells, but also prevent searching for a forest on T1. This leads to unecessary mulligans. I think Land Grant and Wasteland mostly shouldn't go in the same deck.

Treetop Village is a very good utility land but anti-synergy with Winter Orb, and including it turns on enemy Wastelands.

Older Stompy decks that go higher on the mana curve have used Gaea's Cradle but that's not what we're doing here (also, budget reasons!)

In a low land count deck, Land Grant provides some deck thinning and can be used as fodder for a pitch spell. HOWEVER, the downside of revealing your hand is significant because it makes combat tricks worse, reveals the presence of Winter Orb so opponents can play around it, and so on.

How much does Land Grant thinning matter? Using magictcgsimulator.com and comparing a deck with 10 basics and 4 fetches, vs. 14 basics:

  • by Turn 4, the no-Land Grant deck will draw an average of 8.42 spells, and by Turn 7, an average of 10.707 spells (this is counting Land Grant as effectively not a spell, but rather like a fetch land)

  • By Turn 4, the Land Grant deck will draw an average of 8.4676 spells, and by Turn 7, an average of 10.8146 spells.

In other words, if you play 100 games, you'll see 4.7 extra non-land cards by turn 4 as a result of including 4x Land Grant. That is a minuscule difference, and arguably not even a big advantage: in a deck with 10-14 lands (and some Rogue Elephants), some of those extra land draws will actually be a benefit.

The longer that a game goes, the more that deck thinning theoretically can help. Stompy wants to play short games and if it goes 7+ turns you are probably already in trouble!

The more significant bonus of Land Grant is that it can be pitched to Bounty of the Hunt or Vine Dryad so if you are deep on those cards, it is valuable to have.

Against Blue: Mtenda Lion out, Rushwood Legate in.

Against Burn: Ghazban Ogre and 2-3 Skyshroud Elite out, Acridian and Naturalize in.

Some graveyard-based combo decks will be too fast to race, and for them you need Tormod's Crypt.

From brewers who have excelled before:

SCG: Extended Decks to Beat - Stompy: articles.starcitygames.com/articles/ten-extended-decks-to-beat-part-1-stompy-and-three-deuce/

Nicolai Herzog's Stompy deck that made Top 8 at Worlds, 1999: mtgtop8.com/event?e=9189&d=253020&f=ST

Herzog's entry in the MTG Hall of Fame: magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/top-players/pthof/2007/nicolai-herzog

Svend Geertsen's original Senor Stompy deck played in the 1997 World Championship: magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpcop15/old-school-pro-svend-geertsen-meets-modern-magic-2015-06-21

Frank Hernandez's Stompy deck which took him to Top 4 in US Nationals in 2000: mtgtop8.com/event?e=9176&d=252507&f=ST

Stompy deck played by Ryan Fuller, Canadian National Champion.

Michael Flores' "Tiger Woods" Stompy played in Extended 2004 (not all cards are available in PreModern)

PreModern Archetype Analysis: mtgdecks.net/Premodern/mono-green-analysis-12280/all

Collection of Recent Stompy Decks played in tournaments: tcdecks.net/archetype.php?archetype=Mono%20Green&format=Premodern

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96% Casual

Competitive

Date added 2 years
Last updated 2 years
Legality

This deck is Premodern legal.

Rarity (main - side)

8 - 4 Rares

14 - 3 Uncommons

26 - 8 Commons

Cards 60
Avg. CMC 1.83
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