I was wondering about this myself. I would suggest there are pros and cons for each. Treetop Village dodges sorcery speed removal and wrath effects, but can be a poor top deck and costs mana to activate each turn you want to attack with it. Kazandu Mammoth on curve is a 3/3 for 3 - not good enough for this deck. If you get to untap with it and you play a build with fetch lands it would hit hard, but lacks evasion.
My gut shot feeling is that it isn't quite good enough in a non fetchland build, but might be worth trying with fetches. Needs testing, which is difficult with how little Modern is actually being played at the moment (not very much, thanks to Pioneer and Covid). I also suspect this deck is falling out of favour a bit, as people look to play newer decks. But it's one I would love to come back to - I've still got an older version of this deck sleeved up. I'd like to upgrade it with some of the newer cards and take it along to FNM to play between draft rounds . . . if anyone else actually has a Modern deck with them!
Does anyone have a more recent list, one they've tested with / used in the last few months?
Good to see good ol' Stompy still getting some development love. This was my first Modern deck back in the day - I play Magic more to enjoy myself than to actually try to win tournaments, but because I generally prefer playing established formats (like Modern), I tend to play in events more than playing kitchen table / casual Magic.
Most of the fun for me with Stompy was to show up at events, and beat decks that cost 20 times the price of my pile of uncommons - very satisfying, and way more fun than showing up with an expensive deck and not having such a good day! At various times since my first foray into Modern with Stompy, I've piloted Infect, RG Ponza (another favourite), UR / Grixis Delver, a ridiculous Soulflayer / Vengevine dredge combo deck (which was hilarious when it went off), and lately a RUG Zoo Evolve deck (recently piloted by Sam Pardee on CFB) . . . but I've just dug out the old faithful Stompy deck - still had it sleeved up - and am looking to jam a few games with it again.
Hey folks! Checking in having first seen the deck piloted by Sam Pardee over on CFB. As a long-time supporter of Mono-G Stompy as an effective budget strategy, this deck appealed to me immediately. I've sleeved it up and intend to jam some games with it soon - probably more as a fun deck than anything else, but that's what this deck delivers in spades!
So far in my time in Magic I've played very little casual - I mainly play limited (drafting the current set, or sealed), Standard, or Modern. However, I've got a group of friends who like a casual game now and then. One of them has nearly 50 casual decks built (most of them 80 or 100 cards), so most of the time we just pass those out and have some fun, but I thought I'd put together a deck myself so I could play my own deck for a change. I've been thinking about what sort of deck I'd like to build, and thought I'd start off with a simple G/W Humans build. Here's my initial list:
It's actually Modern legal written up like that, but I doubt it'd be competitive in that format. Doesn't matter though, the object here is to have a bit of fun! There are a number of creatures that could be included, such as Tireless Tracker, which I imagine would be great - I just don't own any, and am rather poor at the moment because I'm between jobs (hopefully that'll be fixed soon). Anyway, anyone have any thoughts? Are there any obvious omissions I should consider? Is Avacyn's Pilgrim a bit pointless in this deck? I feel like maybe I should put Town Gossipmonger in there instead . . . or are there better options? Would Abzan Falconer be hilarious? Is 21 land too many? Should I be running some removal / interaction? Happy to discuss these points.
Before we get to that, some background: 1. This is casual, where only one of the players really knows what he's doing - the others aren't serious and just want to have some fun, so . . . 2. This deck doesn't need to be super competitive - if I want that, I'll go play Modern or Standard. It just has to be fun. 3. We mostly play 4 players, sometimes 3, sometimes just 2.
Fixed the deck list above - oops. Should work now.
I've found Bonfire to be pretty good against the many creature strategies out there, from Abzan Company to Hatebears, Affinity to Bogles. Sure, there are some matchups when it's poor (and you want to side it out for those), but on the whole I like it a decent amount. I'm happy with Anger of the Gods out of the SB for the matchups when it's useful. The deck has enough finishers - most any of the creatures get the job done - without needing to burn them out.
I don't think Garruk is very good for this build - he's more about ramping out big things, which this list doesn't really do. There's 24 lands, 10 G ramp spells, and 4 GG ramps - that's plenty for our few 5- and 6-drops. Other than those I want to cast Obstinate Baloth - the body is very well sized, and the 4 life is always good too - lots of aggressive strategies out there at the moment.
I'd have Blood Moon over Trinisphere, no question - it's great in the current meta. There are so many decks it just stops cold, then you don't care how many lands they have in play. I'll have to have a look at some of those articles - thanks for the links!
Has anyone seen Eric Froehlich's deck guide article on this, on Channel Fireball? If you haven't, here it is. I just saw this primer and was surprised to see no reference to it yet.
Anyway, EFro played this deck to an 11-4 finish at GP Los Angeles in May - a much more respectable finish than I'd have thought possible at a Grand Prix level event.
Anyway, I read the article shortly after he posted it, and knew immediately I wanted to try it out. I've played a few decks in modern - I started off with mono-G Stompy (a great budget intro to the format), then moved onto UR (and later Grixis) Delver, with my latest deck being UG Infect - I had a reasonable amount of success with Infect, but in spite of doing well I never enjoyed it as much as good old Stompy. I wanted a change, and as I already had a playset of original Blood Moons from The Dark laying around doing nothing, this seemed like a great choice. I sleeved it up and started battling.
I haven't played it at any tournaments yet, but it's been doing a great job generally hosing people whenever I've played with it, and it's been a ton of fun. Nothing quite like going:
T1 Forest, T, Arbor Elf, go;
T2 Play a land, use that to cast Utopia Sprawl on the Forest choosing red, T Forest for GR, T Arbor Elf to untap the Forest, T Forest again so you have GGRR, cast Mwonvuli Acid-Moss (allowing your opponent to read the card haha) on their land, fetching up a tapped Stomping Ground, go;
T3 Inferno Titan, wreck your board / face, stifle your giggles.
This deck seems to have quite a few decent matchups, with Affinity being one of the more problematic (as it is for most decks). I'm looking forward to having a crack with it the next time my LGS hosts a modern event.
I still like this deck even in the current meta. Eldrazi are everywhere of course, and if they get the nut draw they are nigh-unbeatable . . . but once SOI is out and changes to the ban list are announced, we'll definitely see a change there. If they don't get a nut draw / Thought Knot Seer early, we can definitely beat them.
I find the Abzan Company deck to be one of Infect's worst matchups - it's quite consistent for a combo deck, and has all the right pieces in the main to be able to fight against what we're doing. For this reason I'm running 2x Spell Pierce in the main - it fights against Coco and Chord (since you can't pay the 2 with Convoke), as well as a couple of Dispel in the SB. Still, post Eldrazi bannings it's going to be a powerhouse I think. I'll still pilot Infect though, every deck has to respect its ability to win out of nowhere.
I've only drafted Origins a couple of times, but by far the most amusing deck was UR good stuff, with a Thopters subtheme. I managed to pick up a few Thopter makers (a Whirler Rogue, a Ghirapur Gearcrafter, and a Thopter Engineer) without really trying to, and then picked up a late Thopter Spy Network pack three pick four or five - pretty happy! Harbinger of the Tides was an early pickup and a nice Shivan Reef pickup (again sometime in pack 3) helped fix the mana. Some handy red removal went in too. I only went 2-1 due to an unfortunate bout of mana screw in all three games of match two, but the deck was great fun and Thopter Spy Network was hilarious.
So what's the best colour? The one that's most open and has some good stuff in the packs - this will differ from draft to draft. Chances of making a decent Thopter deck with Thopter Spy Network aren't all that high really. Red's pretty solid, has some great bombs and a nice variety of removal and solid creatures. I like Green too. Black is probably my least favourite but has got plenty of potential, depending on what you pick up. White can be filled with weenies and lack top end if you aren't lucky enough to pick up something great, but can also aggro its way to victory too. I like the set, I think it's well balanced.
Have a look through the last dozen or so pages - yes people have tried it out. TL;DR: It isn't quite good enough to make the 75. Occasionally it's good, but not often enough to justify cutting other well tested cards.
There's a Modern PPTQ at my LGS this weekend - looking forward to it!
Welp, so much for this! I went 1-3 drop. Things just weren't going my way.
Round 1 against Jund: 1-2. We split the first two games, then for game 3 I mulled to 6 on the draw, to have my opponent go Inquisition, Thoughtseize, Thoughtseize to decimate my hand. Sigh, whatever.
Round 2 against Affinity: 1-2. Again split the first two games, then mull to 5 for game 3. Still pushed him close, but a couple of timely Etched Champion draws on his part stopped the beats.
Round 3 against Grixis Control (no Delver or Twin - odd): 2-0. Stompy did what stompy does, and stomped.
Round 4 against American Control: 0-2. Permission, permission, permission, removal, board sweepers. Sigh. Can I play this? No. How about this? No. This?! NO! Am I allowed to play any Magic ever? Hmm . . . no. Aite, I'm done, had enough.
Easily the worst I've done with Stompy, not very much went my way. I still love the deck though and want to keep playing it. I even picked up a few FNM promo foil Rancors and foil Vines of Vastwoods in order to bling the deck a little. I'm up to 15 Beta edition Forests (this is my way of pimping my lands - loads of people use Zendikar or Unhinged full art lands in their decks, but everyone sits up and takes notice when I play a Beta land. It's sweet )
Have you considered Stompy? The whole deck can be had for close to $30 from scratch, if you exclude things like Spellskites out of the board, and can compete against most decks pretty well. It might be more of an aggro deck than you want perhaps, but it's remarkably effective for the cost. Check it out.
What would you guys say is the worst match up for the deck?
In my experiences so far I've found GR Tron to be a fairly tough matchup. If you have a good start and they don't have Tron early then you can win before they do anything, but if they get going early you're screwed. Amulet Bloom, same thing. I think both are matchups we can win, but we want them to have a slower start.
Other tougher matchups are Abzan, Merfolk, Affinity, and Infect. I've been fortunate not to have to face an Abzan deck yet in paper magic, but others say it's a rough matchup for us. I find Merfolk tough as it's fast and messes with our mana, also making their things unblockable in the process. I've won against it before but often because of an opponent's play mistake (like leaving one of my guys unblocked when they have me dead on board). We've all been on the receiving end of a turn 2 loss at the hands of infect if it gets a god draw, but even without an amazing draw they're still faster than us and often unblockable. Affinity is also a bit quicker than us and can fill the board quickly, stopping us pushing through damage - I've found that tricky too.
Most decks we face have the ability to win on their day. On the whole I think Stompy competes very well with much more expensive decks, especially once you get a bit of experience with it, know your matchups, and can play accordingly. It's one of the decks I've consistently enjoyed playing in Modern.
I think this depends on your local meta. For me at my LGS the Spellskites are better in the main than Scooze, which stays in the board for now. There's a lot of matchups where he just doesn't do enough, whereas Spellskite seems to be much stronger against a wider range of decks. I can see arguments either way and I like having the available Scoozes in the sideboard, but for me Spellskite is the better maindeck option.
There's a Modern PPTQ at my LGS this weekend - looking forward to it! Still tossing up between using 2x Spellskite main or 2x Scavenging Ooze - splitting doesn't seem great. I'm leaning towards Spellskite - I'm pretty happy to draw that against most decks, whereas the Ooze is great against less decks I think. I did a bit of play testing last night against Living Twin (a Living End deck that can use the Twin combo as well) - Spellskite was pretty much a dead card against it but on the whole the matchup wasn't a bad one. I also tested against Merfolk a couple of times, winning more because my opponent didn't know my deck than because I deserved to! In spite of my opponent's protestations I still think Merfolk isn't a great matchup.
I was wondering about this myself. I would suggest there are pros and cons for each. Treetop Village dodges sorcery speed removal and wrath effects, but can be a poor top deck and costs mana to activate each turn you want to attack with it. Kazandu Mammoth on curve is a 3/3 for 3 - not good enough for this deck. If you get to untap with it and you play a build with fetch lands it would hit hard, but lacks evasion.
My gut
shotfeeling is that it isn't quite good enough in a non fetchland build, but might be worth trying with fetches. Needs testing, which is difficult with how little Modern is actually being played at the moment (not very much, thanks to Pioneer and Covid). I also suspect this deck is falling out of favour a bit, as people look to play newer decks. But it's one I would love to come back to - I've still got an older version of this deck sleeved up. I'd like to upgrade it with some of the newer cards and take it along to FNM to play between draft rounds . . . if anyone else actually has a Modern deck with them!Does anyone have a more recent list, one they've tested with / used in the last few months?
Most of the fun for me with Stompy was to show up at events, and beat decks that cost 20 times the price of my pile of uncommons - very satisfying, and way more fun than showing up with an expensive deck and not having such a good day! At various times since my first foray into Modern with Stompy, I've piloted Infect, RG Ponza (another favourite), UR / Grixis Delver, a ridiculous Soulflayer / Vengevine dredge combo deck (which was hilarious when it went off), and lately a RUG Zoo Evolve deck (recently piloted by Sam Pardee on CFB) . . . but I've just dug out the old faithful Stompy deck - still had it sleeved up - and am looking to jam a few games with it again.
4x Champion of the Parish
4x Avacyn's Pilgrim
4x Mayor of Avabruck
4x Duskwatch Recruiter
4x Thalia's Lieutenant
2x Lambholt Pacifist
4x Hanweir Militia Captain
2x Banisher Priest
4x Silverblade Paladin
1x Heron's Grace Champion
2x Sigarda, Heron's Grace
4x Always Watching
Land
4x Temple Garden
4x Canopy Vista
4x Sunpetal Grove
2x Windswept Heath
4x Plains
3x Forest
It's actually Modern legal written up like that, but I doubt it'd be competitive in that format. Doesn't matter though, the object here is to have a bit of fun! There are a number of creatures that could be included, such as Tireless Tracker, which I imagine would be great - I just don't own any, and am rather poor at the moment because I'm between jobs (hopefully that'll be fixed soon). Anyway, anyone have any thoughts? Are there any obvious omissions I should consider? Is Avacyn's Pilgrim a bit pointless in this deck? I feel like maybe I should put Town Gossipmonger in there instead . . . or are there better options? Would Abzan Falconer be hilarious? Is 21 land too many? Should I be running some removal / interaction? Happy to discuss these points.
Before we get to that, some background: 1. This is casual, where only one of the players really knows what he's doing - the others aren't serious and just want to have some fun, so . . . 2. This deck doesn't need to be super competitive - if I want that, I'll go play Modern or Standard. It just has to be fun. 3. We mostly play 4 players, sometimes 3, sometimes just 2.
Otherwise, GO!
Fixed the deck list above - oops. Should work now.
I've found Bonfire to be pretty good against the many creature strategies out there, from Abzan Company to Hatebears, Affinity to Bogles. Sure, there are some matchups when it's poor (and you want to side it out for those), but on the whole I like it a decent amount. I'm happy with Anger of the Gods out of the SB for the matchups when it's useful. The deck has enough finishers - most any of the creatures get the job done - without needing to burn them out.
I don't think Garruk is very good for this build - he's more about ramping out big things, which this list doesn't really do. There's 24 lands, 10 G ramp spells, and 4 GG
I'd have Blood Moon over Trinisphere, no question - it's great in the current meta. There are so many decks it just stops cold, then you don't care how many lands they have in play. I'll have to have a look at some of those articles - thanks for the links!
Anyway, EFro played this deck to an 11-4 finish at GP Los Angeles in May - a much more respectable finish than I'd have thought possible at a Grand Prix level event.
Here's the list he ran:
1 Mountain
3 Stomping Ground
9 Forest
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
Creatures
4 Arbor Elf
2 Birds of Paradise
2 Obstinate Baloth
4 Inferno Titan
1 Stormbreath Dragon
2 Thragtusk
4 Utopia Sprawl
2 Beast Within
4 Stone Rain
4 Blood Moon
4 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
4 Bonfire of the Damned
1 Chandra, Pyromaster
1 Lightning Bolt
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Anger of the Gods
1 Dismember
1 Fracturing Gust
3 Kitchen Finks
1 Natural State
1 Obstinate Baloth
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Sudden Shock
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
His list featured a single Misty Rainforest and Verdant Catacombs over the third and forth Windswept Heath, but for all intents and purposes any green fetch serves the same purpose.
Anyway, I read the article shortly after he posted it, and knew immediately I wanted to try it out. I've played a few decks in modern - I started off with mono-G Stompy (a great budget intro to the format), then moved onto UR (and later Grixis) Delver, with my latest deck being UG Infect - I had a reasonable amount of success with Infect, but in spite of doing well I never enjoyed it as much as good old Stompy. I wanted a change, and as I already had a playset of original Blood Moons from The Dark laying around doing nothing, this seemed like a great choice. I sleeved it up and started battling.
I haven't played it at any tournaments yet, but it's been doing a great job generally hosing people whenever I've played with it, and it's been a ton of fun. Nothing quite like going:
T1 Forest, T, Arbor Elf, go;
T2 Play a land, use that to cast Utopia Sprawl on the Forest choosing red, T Forest for GR, T Arbor Elf to untap the Forest, T Forest again so you have GGRR, cast Mwonvuli Acid-Moss (allowing your opponent to read the card haha) on their land, fetching up a tapped Stomping Ground, go;
T3 Inferno Titan, wreck your board / face, stifle your giggles.
This deck seems to have quite a few decent matchups, with Affinity being one of the more problematic (as it is for most decks). I'm looking forward to having a crack with it the next time my LGS hosts a modern event.
I find the Abzan Company deck to be one of Infect's worst matchups - it's quite consistent for a combo deck, and has all the right pieces in the main to be able to fight against what we're doing. For this reason I'm running 2x Spell Pierce in the main - it fights against Coco and Chord (since you can't pay the 2 with Convoke), as well as a couple of Dispel in the SB. Still, post Eldrazi bannings it's going to be a powerhouse I think. I'll still pilot Infect though, every deck has to respect its ability to win out of nowhere.
So what's the best colour? The one that's most open and has some good stuff in the packs - this will differ from draft to draft. Chances of making a decent Thopter deck with Thopter Spy Network aren't all that high really. Red's pretty solid, has some great bombs and a nice variety of removal and solid creatures. I like Green too. Black is probably my least favourite but has got plenty of potential, depending on what you pick up. White can be filled with weenies and lack top end if you aren't lucky enough to pick up something great, but can also aggro its way to victory too. I like the set, I think it's well balanced.
Welp, so much for this! I went 1-3 drop. Things just weren't going my way.
Round 1 against Jund: 1-2. We split the first two games, then for game 3 I mulled to 6 on the draw, to have my opponent go Inquisition, Thoughtseize, Thoughtseize to decimate my hand. Sigh, whatever.
Round 2 against Affinity: 1-2. Again split the first two games, then mull to 5 for game 3. Still pushed him close, but a couple of timely Etched Champion draws on his part stopped the beats.
Round 3 against Grixis Control (no Delver or Twin - odd): 2-0. Stompy did what stompy does, and stomped.
Round 4 against American Control: 0-2. Permission, permission, permission, removal, board sweepers. Sigh. Can I play this? No. How about this? No. This?! NO! Am I allowed to play any Magic ever? Hmm . . . no. Aite, I'm done, had enough.
Easily the worst I've done with Stompy, not very much went my way. I still love the deck though and want to keep playing it. I even picked up a few FNM promo foil Rancors and foil Vines of Vastwoods in order to bling the deck a little. I'm up to 15 Beta edition Forests (this is my way of pimping my lands - loads of people use Zendikar or Unhinged full art lands in their decks, but everyone sits up and takes notice when I play a Beta land. It's sweet
In my experiences so far I've found GR Tron to be a fairly tough matchup. If you have a good start and they don't have Tron early then you can win before they do anything, but if they get going early you're screwed. Amulet Bloom, same thing. I think both are matchups we can win, but we want them to have a slower start.
Other tougher matchups are Abzan, Merfolk, Affinity, and Infect. I've been fortunate not to have to face an Abzan deck yet in paper magic, but others say it's a rough matchup for us. I find Merfolk tough as it's fast and messes with our mana, also making their things unblockable in the process. I've won against it before but often because of an opponent's play mistake (like leaving one of my guys unblocked when they have me dead on board). We've all been on the receiving end of a turn 2 loss at the hands of infect if it gets a god draw, but even without an amazing draw they're still faster than us and often unblockable. Affinity is also a bit quicker than us and can fill the board quickly, stopping us pushing through damage - I've found that tricky too.
Most decks we face have the ability to win on their day. On the whole I think Stompy competes very well with much more expensive decks, especially once you get a bit of experience with it, know your matchups, and can play accordingly. It's one of the decks I've consistently enjoyed playing in Modern.
I think this depends on your local meta. For me at my LGS the Spellskites are better in the main than Scooze, which stays in the board for now. There's a lot of matchups where he just doesn't do enough, whereas Spellskite seems to be much stronger against a wider range of decks. I can see arguments either way and I like having the available Scoozes in the sideboard, but for me Spellskite is the better maindeck option.
Anyway looking forward to Saturday!