Dime a Dozen #22: Stomp of Approval

Hello everybody! Thanks to all of you who commented on the Dragon’s Maze article. Now that Return to Ravnica Block’s final installment is available online, I’m certainly excited to see what cards from the new set will begin to make it into Pauper tournaments. As we move forward, please continue to leave all of your great feedback!

I’m wondering where the term “Stompy” came from because I honestly don’t know. To my knowledge, it is meant to describe creature-based green beatdown decks, but there may be some other requisites that I’m unaware of. As far as Pauper is concerned, Stompy is generally equated with being competitive and getting aggressive. It is one of the most popular (and most successful) beatdown decks around and plays a number of problematic threats for opponents to neutralize. I’d like to go over some Stompy lists that have placed in order to find the differences and similarities between them. From there I’ll be piloting a Stompy deck myself for the video portion of this article.

Recent Stompy Lists

All of these lists have been taken from a Daily Event that took place on May 11th, 2013. You can find a link to all of the 4-0 and 3-1 decklists right here. Before we get into specific builds, let’s first establish some core elements of the Stompy deck (or at least what appear to be the automatic 4-offs).

4x Nettle Sentinel
4x Quirion Ranger
4x Skarrgan Pit-Skulk
4x Young Wolf
4x Groundswell
4x Rancor
4x Vines of Vastwood

From this selection alone we see that the deck shares quite a bit with both Elves and Infect. Unlike Elves, however, Stompy is going to be considerably more concerned with beating down than it is with generating mana and drawing cards. I find it also a bit surprising how focused on pump spells Stompy actually can be. These pumps can end up making the deck both overwhelmingly fast and unexpectedly difficult to pilot.

The goal of the deck is to use cheap creature threats with helpful abilities and situational evasion to achieve a lethal amount of combat damage within the shortest amount of time. This plan is supplemented by 12 creatures that can become 2/2s for the low cost of G (between Nettle Sentinel, Skarrgan Pit-Skulk and Young Wolf). It’s also bolstered by Quirion Ranger’s ability to generate mana when we miss land drops. Her potential to trigger landfall on cue for Groundswell is also not to be underestimated. In Stompy lists running Wild Mongrel, she can additionally provide some fodder for Mongrel’s activated ability.

Stompy’s pump spells have a number of applications, some of which include dealing extra damage to an opponent, getting rid of a blocked or blocking creature, saving a creature from combat damage or saving a creature from certain types of removal. This wide array of utility helps make the Stompy decks so formidable. On top of Swells, Rancors, and Vines, Gather Courage and Hunger of the Howlpack are often also incorporated for their blowout potential (putting three +1/+1 counters on Silhana Ledgewalker is plenty disgusting).

Now that we’ve glanced at a few of the basics, let’s examine a decklist or two:

Here we’ve got a rather straightforward main deck comprised of mostly 4-offs, with the most aberrant creature choice being Garruk’s Companion. While trample is certainly one of the most relevant items you can pair with pump spells, a 2-toughness body is a little more vulnerable than we’d like. In my experience, card advantage (virtual or otherwise) will often trump attack power in a format like Pauper, so a card such as Safehold Elite may prove to be sturdier in the 2cmc slot. Though Elite still sports a 2-toughness body, it will trade favorably with removal spells and other small creatures. In all honesty, an argument could be made for either 2-drop, but at the end of the day I’m going to test the Elite first. I’m definitely interested in playing with Companion in the future.

Out of the sideboard we’ve got the very handy Gleeful Sabotage for fighting off Affinity and Spire Golems, Scattershot Archer for gunning down Faeries (among other fliers), Serene Heart to combat Hexproof and Vault Skirge for racing life totals. I don’t know how effective the Skirges will be in this format, but they seem to creep up into a number of lists (the mirror in particular may be kind to them, though Hornet Stings and Viridian Longbows seem like a usable counter).

I like how straightforward this list is, and I think it would make a good jumping-off point for additional tweaks and testing. For the sake of contrast, let’s observe a second list from the same Daily Event:

This deck is a bit more spread out, incorporating a split package of Basking Rootwalla and Wild Mongrel (which as you can see have some synergy together). It’s also playing one fewer land and two maindeck River Boas. This card is great in the red zone, surviving any creature that doesn’t have infect or wither by simply regenerating for G. It also slithers past blockers against most Post decks, all Delver decks, and even Dimir concoctions. I can’t speak too authoritatively about the number of copies of each card, but I’m hoping that they are all the result of conclusions that were reached during testing.

The sideboard is equally diverse, with a single Bonesplitter (not sure what this is for), a forest to “go big” with Primal Huntbeast (though 17 land still seems unreliable for that), Spore Frog for close races, and Thermokarst as a means of disruption. I think this deck illustrates how varied the Stompy decks can be, but I’m not sure how reliable this list is ultimately.

Mean and Green

There’s one more Stompy list to look at, and it’s the one I’ll be piloting in the video portion of this article! Let’s give it a glance:

While the above list is a bit cobbled together, I think it’s a decent starting point for testing Mono-Green Stompy. The main deck is wholly uncontroversial, and the sideboard a little (okay, more than a little) thirsty for tuning. Fog is questionable, though (I think) I’d appreciate having a trick like this handy somewhere in the 75. Hornet Sting is one of the few green removal spells, though Viridian Longbow may just end up being better (despite the fact that it’s clunkier). Thermokarst is actually expensive for a deck like this and doesn’t contribute to the board or the clock, so it could very well just be out of place. Nevertheless, I think this is a serviceable list for our upcoming battles!

I will be going more in-depth with the decklist in the introduction video below. Enjoy the matches!

End Step

I’m enjoying Stompy so far, mostly because it’s been winning! I noticed some significant play errors on my part, and hopefully I’ll be able to correct those moving forward. Let me know your thoughts on today’s article, and how the deck can be improved. As always, thanks for reading, thanks for watching and please comment!

You can find Jason
hosting the Pauper’s Cage podcast
on MTGO as BambooRush
on Twitter @dimecollectorsc
and on Youtube at youtube.com/dimecollectorsc