Stomping in Pauper: A Look at Mono-Green Aggro

This week I want to take a look at Mono-G Stompy, a deck which has been showing up fairly frequently in the 4-0 and 3-1 Pauper Daily results for some time now, but which is still, on the whole, a fairly new and still-developing deck. While some of the cards may vary from player to player, I am generally referring to a deck that looks like this:

Mono-G Stompy by jsiri84

Creatures (25) 3 Garruks Companion 4 Nettle Sentinel 4 Quirion Ranger 2 Shinen of Lifes Roar 4 Silhana Ledgewalker 4 Skarrgan Pit-Skulk 4 Young Wolf Other Spells (18) 4 Gather Courage 4 Groundswell 3 Hunger of the Howlpack 4 Rancor 3 Vines of Vastwood Lands (17) 17 Forest Sideboard (15) 3 Fog 2 Gleeful Sabotage 3 Hidden Spider 3 Hornet Sting 4 Sandstorm

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Why Mono-Green?

When looking at the fundamental elements of a deck, it is necessary to consider what in particular is gained from the color combination you plan on using and what this deck will be able to do that the other decks which are trying to accomplish roughly the same goal lack. In regards to Mono-G Stompy, this translates into the question of why should the deck even exist at all, considering the many other aggro options which Pauper brings to the table. Why is Mono-G worth playing when there are other aggro lists? The concern here is that we never want to be trying to do the same thing which other decks simply do better just for the sake of novelty (in this case, running cheap green creatures as opposed to, for instance, cheap red creatures). I will return to this question throughout the article to highlight what distinguishes Stompy from other aggro decks in Pauper, but for now, I would like to briefly look at Stompy’s game plan compared to that of the other popular aggro decks of the format in order to understand the niche which the deck is trying to fill.

It is appropriate to begin with a rough idea of what Stompy seeks to accomplish, a standard against which the other decks can be compared. In general, Stompy seeks to play creatures which are of considerably high quality for their respective costs with respect to their power-toughness stats alone, such as Rogue Elephant, Nettle Sentinel, and Garruks Companion, or with respect to some type of evasion, such as Silhana Ledgewalker or Skarrgan Pit-Skulk. It is this second category which is essential, since it allows the Stompy player to still swing through a field full of creatures, giving it more resilience against an opponent’s developed board. In conjunction with an aggressive creature base, Stompy utilizes a variety of pump spells (i.e., Giant Growth-esque cards) which allows the deck to speed up its clock and deal large amounts of damage fairly quickly.

Goblins: The key difference between Goblins and Stompy is that one favors quantity of creatures while the other favors quality of creatures. Stompy is content with one Pit-Skulk enchanted with a Rancor or two, swinging each turn, while Goblins needs an overwhelming board presence backed by a Goblin Bushwhacker or a Mogg Raider. This difference is particularly relevant for how people will commonly sideboard against Goblins. Because their creatures are often fairly weak and derive their strength from the number of creatures that are actually on the board, cards like Shrivel or Seismic Shudder are incredibly effective in single-handedly shutting down the Goblins player’s board development (and, naturally, the player’s chances of winning). However, these types of effects, while still effective against Stompy to a degree, are nowhere near the nail in the coffin they are to Goblins. Furthermore, Goblin decks, because the creatures are weak, require quantity to push through an opponent’s board position (allowing enough attackers to go unblocked); conversely, Stompy, as I have already mentioned, is very capable of pushing damage through a more developed board because of evasion or by forcing an opponent to sacrifice creatures chump-blocking, and in this way is harder to interact with.

Affinity: There are really two ways in which Stompy differs from Affinity. The first is that it can generally apply a greater amount of pressure earlier in the game, and Stompy is playing creatures and swinging while Affinity is still playing Chromatic Stars and other mana fixers. The obvious tradeoff here is that Affinity, once it has finally established its mana base, is able to force through huge swings of damage in a single turn through some type of Atog shenanigans in addition to casting Divination for U and playing tons of free creatures; however, in control matchups, the ability to be aggressive early is invaluable since these decks rely heavily on countermagic and have difficulty dealing with cards which are already in play. But even more importantly, though it’s incredibly obvious, Stompy has the advantage of not being so heavily hated out in virtually every sideboard with at least some number of Naturalize-esque effects. What this amounts to is Stompy having an edge over Affinity simply because people are either less prepared for it in their sideboards in addition to there being no obvious silver-bullet, kill-any-permanent cards against Stompy like there are for Affinity.

White Weenie: White Weenie, while being very aggressive, is, in my opinion, much better classified as a midrange aggro deck, which really puts it into a different category than Stompy, which is much more aggressive. I have included it on this list simply because it is technically an aggro deck that represents a significant portion of the metagame; however, it is different enough from Stompy that the two are not really in competition for the same metagame niche of a throw-caution-to-the-wind aggro deck.

Infect: Perhaps this is the deck which most closely resembles Stompy in its use of pump spells on creatures which essentially read, “Double any amount of power this card normally increases.” Because of this similarity in approach to winning, because of the Infect deck having proven itself to be a consistent, legitimate force in the world of Pauper, and because of the demonstrable power of the infect mechanic combined with a variety of pump spells, the “burden of proof” is on Stompy, so to speak, to provide reasons why we should rather be using our Groundswells on Nettle Sentinel instead of Glistener Elf. This demand is one which can be easily addressed through looking at the ways in which Infect decks are usually attacked, namely, through creature removal. Against Infect, creature removal is invaluable, and often a single early Doom Blade can cripple the deck’s ability to apply a significant amount of pressure. This is effective because the creatures are not in any way resilient against removal and because the Infect deck typically runs a smaller number of creatures, and so removing one leaves the player scrambling to find another. Stompy improves upon Infect here this by borrowing the reach offered by Groundswell and Vines of Vastwood (which are essentially green’s Fireblasts) but is resilient against creature removal (at least to a considerable degree more than Infect is) by having a greater quantity of creatures (and thus a higher threat density) as well as having several creatures which are themselves effective against removal (such as Silhana Ledgewalker and Young Wolf).

The Clock

This is normally the part of the article where I dive into the deeper aspects of the deck and the finer complexities and interactions between some of the cards, but Stompy really lacks these intricate, subtle card interactions that are present in control or combo decks. A Groundswell works just as well on an unblocked Silhana Ledgewalker as it does on an unblocked Quirion Ranger. However, this should not be taken to mean that the deck is simple to pilot, as it is very demanding and quite unforgiving in ways other decks are not. This deck essentially operates on the constant calculations of how much damage you need to deal, how much damage you can deal in a given turn, and how long you have to deal this amount of damage. These three elements are what I refer to as understanding your “clock,” which typically guides every single action of the deck (as opposed to control-oriented decks, for example, which also consider things such as card advantage). Unfortunately, understanding the clock is never as simple as it seems because of the unknown information of the contents of the opponent’s hand, the unknown information of the contents of the opponent’s deck, and the random variable of whether or not the opponent draws one of his outs to a particular board state. Furthermore, the opponent can typically interact with at least one of the elements that determine the clock, and it is very important how an opponent will most likely interact with what you are trying to do: Any life gain or a Prismatic Strands affects the amount of damage you need to do. Creature removal or something as simple as a chump blocker or defensive creature can alter the second condition. And the third condition, how long you have to deal the damage, can easily be redescribed as “how long until you lose the game,” but this would not be a complete understanding of what is meant. Rather, it is best understood as the question, “How long do you have until the game is virtually unwinnable?” If I am playing against Cloudpost and know my opponent is trying to set up a lock with Capsize, I have until Capsize can return all relevant threats to my hand each turn to win the game, even if I do not actually lose the game until 20 turns later (which is more often than not what actually happens). With this concept in mind, I would like to look at Stompy’s matchup against the popular decks of the metagame and the ways in which these decks generally interact with Stompy’s clock, and also how Stompy can respond.

Cloudpost

This is typically an excellent matchup for Stompy because the deck is almost always able to play at least one or two threats before their countermagic even becomes relevant, which puts them in the situation of either trying to deal with the current board (and consequently tapping out for you to play more threats), or holding countermagic for future threats and being beaten down by the present board. Even when they do have countermagic backup, the low cost of the creatures in the deck make it possible to play several each turn, which means that they will rarely have both the countermagic and the mana to stop everything. Early on, the deck can only interact with Stompy through removal spells (such as Lightning Bolt and Flame Slash) or with Glimmerpost, but, because Stompy often has several creatures available, it will often take several copies of these effects to really shut down your assault. Ideally, because Stompy is very aggressive, you should generally win this match before they have enough mana for the really game-changing cards like Rolling Thunder or buybacked Capsize. The real game-ending card which they have is Serrated Arrows, which has become the go-to card for hosing creature-based strategies, and is easily the most effective tool Post has in shutting down Stompy.

It is also worth noting that Seismic Shudder, one of the cards Cloudpost relies on either in the main or in the board against Goblins and Warrens Storm is less effective against Stompy because there

Delver Blue

The fact that so much of this deck focuses on being aggressive early while controlling the middle game and the fact that Stompy focuses on being as hard-hitting as possible in the first few turns (thereby making the Delver deck’s midrange control/countermagic fairly useless), makes this matchup fairly favorable, though there exist quite a few difficult elements to the matchup. Unlike the Cloudpost control decks, Delver Blue occasionally runs copies of either Force Spike or Daze to counter early creatures. Spellstutter Sprite is particularly effective against Stompy because it interacts by countering something (which happens very, very frequently since the cost of everything in the deck is so low) and blocks a creature. Snap exists as a way of slowing down your ability to do damage, but this is often seen as a final effort to fend off an aggressive push than as a way to actually interact with Stompy. But the biggest problem card for Stompy is Spire Golem, which, in addition to being free virtually all of the time, provides a 2/4 body which Stompy can rarely push through damage without the help of a Skarrgan-Skulk due to its sizable body as well as its ability to fly. In this matchup, Spire Golem really is the card which hinders virtually everything you are trying to do since it blocks everything very well.

When siding for this matchup, I generally take out Silhana Ledgewaker, since it is generally a 1/1 for 1G against them, and instead replace them with Hidden Spider, which is essentially a 3/5 creature with reach for G in the matchup. Based on the amount of Spire Golems the opponent seems to be running, there is also a pretty strong case for siding in some sort of artifact removal just because of how problematic Spire Golems are for this deck.

Storm

This matchup is the quintessential race. Most of the wins against this deck pre-board come from applying enough early pressure to force the opponent to try to combo off too early and punt. This is made possible by the fact that aside from playing Empty the Warrens or Grapeshot-ing your creatures, Storm has absolutely no way of interacting with you. On the downside, Stompy pre-board has very few ways of interacting with Storm.

It’s also important to note that doing more damage early (that is, using your pump spells sooner rather than later) affects them in their ability to cast Gitaxian Probe or Sign in Blood, which is certainly something to keep in mind.

After sideboarding, Stompy gains a few tools against Warrens in Sandstorm and, to a lesser extent, Fog. But even with these cards, the matchup does not dramatically change, since you are still both non-interactive decks trying to race each other.

Affinity

As mentioned earlier, Affinity generally has a slower start-up time than the other aggro decks including Stompy and Goblins, but compensates for this by playing incredibly powerful things for free and backing up all of this by Atog, which can deal huge swings of damage out of nowhere on its own or with something such as Fling. The two cards which Affinity plays that really slow down this deck are Myr Enforcer and Atog, and Carapace Forger depending on the build. Enforcer and Forger are difficult for this deck to deal with simply in the same way that Spire Golem was difficult in that a 4-toughness body is tough to attack past. That being said, this matchup usually depends on you having some type of evasive creature (such as Ledgewalker or Pit-Skulk), since all other creatures will generally only be able to deal some amount of damage and then get shut down once Affinity starts casting gigantic creatures for free as blockers. Atog is slightly different in that it affects our game plan not only because it effectively acts as a 3/4 blocker, but also because it forces us to leave creatures up to chump block since an unblocked Atog will generally always end the game. This destabilizes our overall board position and thus the amount of damage we are capable of doing.

When sideboarding for this match, I bring in Naturalize effects, particularly Gleeful Sabotage and Fog, which can often lead to blowouts against Atog strikes since it basically amounts to trading Fog for his or her entire board (which was sacrificed to do damage through Atog). This is particularly effective because it is relatively unexpected.

Goblins

This matchup is interesting in that Stompy needs early on to figure out which role it is playing in each game. In some games in which you have a very aggressive start backed by several pump spells, it is easily possible to race the Goblins deck. However, it is equally possible that the opponent has a more aggressive hand, in which case the goal of your deck is to build up enough of a defense to prevent them for profitably pushing through for damage, which is achievable because your creatures, though fewer in number, will be superior to the Goblin player’s creatures. From my experiences, Stompy will more often than not be trying to hold its ground instead of trying to race. This is complicated slightly by spot removal such as Lightning Bolt, multiple Death Sparks, and Sparksmith.

Shinen of Lifes Roar in conjunction with a pump spell is incredibly effective against Goblins since it usually allows you to trade a single pump spell for several creatures, giving you pseudo-removal and also stopping the opponent from developing his board to the degree that new creatures will be untapped and therefore must block and be eaten by Shinen.

Sideboarding for this matchup is generally pretty intensive, and Sandstorms, Fogs, and often Hornet Sting come in, all of which are quite effective at interacting with the Goblin player.

White Weenie

The difficulties in this matchup, similar to several others, lie in White Weenie having many cheap high-toughness creatures, which, in this case, are Kor Skyfisher and Razor Golem, as well as the deck’s having access to some cheap removal. However, because Stompy is so much faster than White Weenie, the opponent really needs to draw these cards in place of the more aggro-orientated cards in the deck, since without any way to stop Stompy from pushing, the race is virtually unwinnable. The real problem card, however, is Prismatic Strands, which is effectively a double Time Walk and can also force unprofitable trades, since an opponent’s creature can deal damage to our creature to which our creature’s damage is prevented.

All in all, this matchup is usually winnable through racing and, similar to all aggro decks, basically comes down to how many of the possible outs the player drew against you.

Infect

The Infect matchup is similar to the Goblins one in that you will be playing the role of the “control deck” since winning a race against Infect is nearly impossible. Instead, the goal is to block creatures as much as possible to force out pump spells and hopefully cause them to run out of gas, which would then allow you to build up your board presence and win.

Sideboarding against Infect demands bringing in Sandstorm, Hornet Sting, and Fog, all of which are incredibly effective. Sandstorm itself is often best used as a way to force an opponent to use pump spells in combination with a chump blocker and not as removal in itself, since the Infect player can easily respond to Sandstorm against an unblocked creature by pumping that creature, thereby nullifying the Sandstorm and gaining value from the pump spell. Hornet Sting is the obvious removal spell against whatever creature the opponent may have. And Fog is used also as a way of baiting and nullifying pump spells.

Mono-Black Control

This matchup heavily depends on the build of Mono-Black control. Against the ones with an insane amount of removal, this matchup is generally winnable since the opponent can just kill everything and leave you with nothing to do. However, the more traditional builds of Mono-Black Control are a different case. The key to this matchup is understanding that Mono-Black Control gains its strength from targeting the hand, and will try to win this matchup by hitting your hand and trying to remove your ability to apply pressure and also develop a board state with several blockers. The best way for Stompy to approach this matchup is with reckless abandon, playing pump spells and creatures at the earliest point possible. In emptying our hand early, we remove the value an opponent gains from the variety of rats and similar effects. In emptying our hand early, not only are we then able to apply pressure more easily, but we essentially nullify many cards in the opponent’s deck.

As with the other matchups, this one comes down to how interactive the opponent can be, particularly with regard to removal, and this is going to be heavily influenced by the specific build of the deck.

Conclusion

All in all, I really am a fan of this deck and its effectiveness in the current Pauper metagame. I know several people have requested videos of these decks in action, and that is something which I plan to do very soon once I figure out a few technical things. Especially since so much of this deck is heavily dependent on the board, the more nuanced aspects of playing it can be more accurately discussed on camera in game. I really appreciate all of your feedback in the comments section below. Also, if you have suggestions for anything you would like to see in upcoming weeks, feel free to let me know. Thanks!