[Deck] Faerie Stompy

[sroncor1]

Parcher

Thanks for the input. I will try them in place of Sower and see how it feels. The logic is very sound and once on a TNN or SoFI equipped creature seems like great value.

Nimble Obstructionist is an interesting card. I am actually not sure if it has a place in the deck though as I am not sure how much we care about a one time stifle effect. I am toying with testing 3 in the Griffin spot as I can't see it being better than any other card in the main deck. As an instant creature it does make leaving mana open for Stratus Dancer easier and still keep dropping threats which is really good. I am not sure that this and its ability to occasionally blow out with uncounterable stifle, is better than the card advantage that the Griffin provides. ALthough as the deck is built now, the Griffin is the worst card in the deck. Thoughts?


Seth

[R3ndr0c]

Parcher

Thanks for the input. I will try them in place of Sower and see how it feels. The logic is very sound and once on a TNN or SoFI equipped creature seems like great value.

Nimble Obstructionist is an interesting card. I am actually not sure if it has a place in the deck though as I am not sure how much we care about a one time stifle effect. I am toying with testing 3 in the Griffin spot as I can't see it being better than any other card in the main deck. As an instant creature it does make leaving mana open for Stratus Dancer easier and still keep dropping threats which is really good. I am not sure that this and its ability to occasionally blow out with uncounterable stifle, is better than the card advantage that the Griffin provides. ALthough as the deck is built now, the Griffin is the worst card in the deck. Thoughts?


Seth

Having a flash 3/1 that can stifle a Fetchland or more importantly a Wasteland can be huge. Since Wasteland is one of the best cards vs. Stompy decks. It's still just better than Griffin. The card advantage from Griffin isn't so amazing.

[sroncor1]

R3ndr0c

Right that was what I was getting at. Except the CA is not nothing. There is incredible value in having a free body to carry equipment. The ability to pitch to FoW or Mox and then have an additional body turn 4 on is incredibly helpful in some match-ups. I think the thing that was confusing me is that your deck dropped the Sea Drake and added the Obstructionist while keeping some of the Griffins. Sea Drake having 4 power in the air is incredibly important in the deck and running less than 3 seems wrong to me. I know a couple pages back Parcher stressed the need to ensure the deck maintains a solid threat count and not to devolve into a deck with too many utility creatures. I think Sea Drake and TNN are critical to ensure an high number of single threats in the deck. Not to mention Sea Drake ability can really help lead to some explosive plays on turn four, where the mana generation is an actual boon to the deck. It is from this logic I was wondering if people have thought of the Obstructionist in place of all copies of the Griffin. What role does CA play vs the marginal utility of the stifel effect. In a perfect word you are not stifling turn one as resolving chalice or Trinket for Chalice is usually the best first turn play you can make. So turn 2 onward stifle still seems strong, but how strong is what I am getting at.


Seth

[Parcher]

R3ndr0c

Right that was what I was getting at. Except the CA is not nothing. There is incredible value in having a free body to carry equipment. The ability to pitch to FoW or Mox and then have an additional body turn 4 on is incredibly helpful in some match-ups. I think the thing that was confusing me is that your deck dropped the Sea Drake and added the Obstructionist while keeping some of the Griffins. Sea Drake having 4 power in the air is incredibly important in the deck and running less than 3 seems wrong to me. I know a couple pages back Parcher stressed the need to ensure the deck maintains a solid threat count and not to devolve into a deck with too many utility creatures. I think Sea Drake and TNN are critical to ensure an high number of single threats in the deck. Not to mention Sea Drake ability can really help lead to some explosive plays on turn four, where the mana generation is an actual boon to the deck. It is from this logic I was wondering if people have thought of the Obstructionist in place of all copies of the Griffin. What role does CA play vs the marginal utility of the stifel effect. In a perfect word you are not stifling turn one as resolving chalice or Trinket for Chalice is usually the best first turn play you can make. So turn 2 onward stifle still seems strong, but how strong is what I am getting at.


Seth

Another thing to consider is that, again, before Push, non Red removal couldn't hit Griffin. Now, if you see a lot of Blade and Miracles type decks I would stick with Griffin. If you are seeing more decks with Red removal, I would consider Nimble. They are more likely to have Wasteland anyway. The argument for using Nimble against SFM is probably a pipe dream. Since you have to hold up so much mana, it's pretty obvious, and easy to play around. He's definitely in consideration in any case as a one or two of. Higher potential blowouts when they don't see him coming, and once they see one, they have to play around it later on. Which makes them really easy to board out. I've gone down to as few as 2 Drake, and always went back. He's the Delver of this deck. Sure he dies to a lot. But if you land him turn one or two, he has to be answered immediately. Resetting City is always good, and I have the one Diamond that also works with his ability. And later in the game in conjunction with Looter, he's the closest thing to Brainstorm we get.

[sroncor1]

Ok so I played again last night and managed to go 3-1. My only loss was last round against stoneblade and both games I was stuck on 3 mana in total. I managed to beat Eldrazi, Infect, and Show and Tell.

I started to try using Nimble Obstructionist. I figured it may take the place of the Griffin and picked up one copy to try in the deck. I cast it twice on the night. Once I flashed it in EOT, and another I just used it as a beater. It was against Show and Tell that I flashed him in. Thinking back I cannot remember if I had double blue at the time, but the pressure was nice. It is still early but I am leaning towards transitioning all the Griffins out for the Obstructionist. The cycle stifle is a nice upside with corner uses. For me the reason is more due to the mana cost and the ability to leave up two mana to morph the Stratus Dancer.

The board was as follows:
2 Pithing Needle
2 Phyrexian Revokers
1 Basilisk Collar
1 Misdirection
3 Back to Basic
2 Tormod’s Crypt
3 Sower of Temptation
1 Hangarback Walker

Overall it continues to do well. The only loses were secondary to mana issues which is to be expected. In game one on the play I had to mull down to 5 against Stoneblade. Even with this hand I was able to resolve an early Hangarback Walker and Walking Ballista with only three mana to apply pressure. He eventually go a Stoneforge into Jitte but the Hangarback was able to stonewall him. Eventually he had to Supreme Verdict my board away. I had six tokens to attack with and a jitte on the board but not enough mana to equip it. The second Verdict removed my token army and he was able to resolve a Lingering Souls which carried his jitte nicely. I continued to blank getting my second blue source, sitting on 2 TNN in hand which would have easily beat him. The second game again saw me only have 3 mana. I may have misplayed as I elected to go first turn Trinket Mage into Chalice second turn. I had Sea Drake in hand and you can make the argument that more pressure was what I should have went for. He went first turn Thoughsieze and my Chalice was gone. I proceeded to drop a threat every turn, from unmorphed Dancers, Sea Drake. He cast a second turn Stoneforge searching a jitte. Here is where I may have made a second misplay in this game. The board state is him with three untapped lands and an active SFM. He has already sent one Sea Drake farming this game. I know one of his four cards is the Jitte, the other three are unknown. I Have lethal on the table but two removal spells, or Batterskull beats me basically. I made the assumption that he was hoping to Lingering Souls and Jitte again like first game and that was why he searched up the Jitte. I reasoned that he did not have his singleton copy of Batterskull and a STP, thinking 2 removals was just more likely. I attacked with everything and he promptly played Batterskull off SFM. He plowed my second Drake and that was it. Had I only attacked with flyers I win because he only had 1 removal spell. Oh well. I still sort of think I made the right call. Thoughts?

Seth

[sroncor1]

Anyone get any games with this deck lately?

Seth

[Eldariel]

With the metagame in flux, Trinket + Walking Ballista feels pretty good. With top decks being the likes of Grixis Pyromancer, DnT & Elves, those pings have tremendous value and reliable, fetchable removal was something this deck always wanted. Hangarback feels good as a 1-of but I could see 2-3 Walking Ballistas. Sower can still handle the big guys but keeping it alive is pretty hard at least against red Delver lists except when you land Chalice; plain old Control Magic could be worth looking into in the SB slots. I had reasonable amount of success with the card back in the day even though for the longest time I was running Binding Grasp solely due to the easier mana cost (it actually worked out reasonably but yeah, Control Magic is definitely better). Glen Elendra Archmage's stocks are also a big higher than for a while with the success of 4c Control and ANT, both of which it excels against. I'm kind tempted by the idea of a Cloud of Faeries build with GEA, Walking Ballista and Hangarback.

[thebastard2]

I managed to top 8 a 21 man tourney recently with this list:

Main Deck:
3 Sea Drake
3 Serendib Efreet
3 True Name Nemesis
3 Trinket Mage
3 Sower of Temptation
2 Misthollow Griffin
2 Walking Ballista
2 Stratus Dancer
2 Looter Il-Kor
1 Shoreline Ranger

4 Chalice of the Void
2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Chrome Mox
1 Mox Diamond

4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection

4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
9 Island
1 Seat of the Synod

Sideboard:
3 Back to Basics
2 Pithing Needle
2 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Misdirection
1 Stratus Dancer
1 Trinisphere
1 Rushing River
1 Wipe Away
1 Venser Shaper Savant

My matches were:

R1: Aggro Loam 2-0
R2: Grixis Delver 2-0
R3: Infect 2-1
R4: Dredge ID
R5: Eldrazi Aggro ID

Top 8
I lose to Death and Taxes in 2 games

Going forward , I'll replace 1 main Sower with a 3rd Ballista to shore up my D&T matchup.

[R3ndr0c]

I like some of your card choices and I'll have to take a look at my list to see if I can make some changes. Having said that, I'm not a fan of Serendib Efreet and I like to have as much disruption as possible so I prefer Nimble Obstructionist and more Stratus Dancer. I'm also a huge fan of looter in this deck and wouldn't want less than 4.

Raging River is a sweet card that I never knew about. The issue I had with my version is that it had no answer to ensnaring bridge but Raging River looks perfect.

I'll also consider adding a Venser and/or Sower.

[colo]

I recently picked up this archetype (though I prefer to call it Sea Stompy), and like the deck quite a lot so far. One annoying constant in my losses was a certain inability to deal with Batterskull, especiall in Stoneblade-style decks. Is there any kind of secret sauce solution that helps making it less painful to deal with?

Nimble Obstructionist and Stratus Dancer are so awesome in this shell - really can't get enough of those two ;)

[R3ndr0c]

I haven't found a great answer to Batterskull. You can bounce the germ and maybe Revoke the Batterskull afterwards. I also have Dominate on my sideboard which can be good.

[Eldariel]

I recently picked up this archetype (though I prefer to call it Sea Stompy), and like the deck quite a lot so far. One annoying constant in my losses was a certain inability to deal with Batterskull, especiall in Stoneblade-style decks. Is there any kind of secret sauce solution that helps making it less painful to deal with?

Nimble Obstructionist and Stratus Dancer are so awesome in this shell - really can't get enough of those two ;)

Sower and True-Name Nemesis are usually the best answers I've found though simple Needle on Stoneforge off Trinket Mage a solid way to often postpone it long enough that it isn't really a problem (Glen Elendra Archmage is an easy answer if Stoneforge route is blocked). Make no mistake, this deck does do decently later in the game but ultimately you usually want to not have to deal with Skull recursion vs. Stoneforge decks (but they usually won't make 8 landdrops in a row so this is quite late in the game). However, given that most of your threats have evasion, you can usually attack past Batterskull easily enough so it's more a problem defensively than offensively.

[R3ndr0c]

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Chrome Mox
2 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Trinket Mage
4 Stratus Dancer
4 True-Name Nemesis
4 Looter il-Kor
4 Nimble Obstructionist
2 Walking Ballista
2 Sea Drake
4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
10 Island
1 Seat of the Synod

SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Sorcerous Spyglass
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 3 Phyrexian Revoker
SB: 2 Faerie Macabre
SB: 2 Back to Basics
SB: 2 Submerge
SB: 1 Warping Wail
SB: 2 Wipe Away

This is where I'm at right now. My flex spots in the mainboard are the 2 Sea Drakes, (I'm really not a huge fan of that card), and also the single Misdirection. It's possible the Sea Drakes should be Vendilion Cliques, Sowers, and/or Kira, the Great Glass Spinner, Glen Elendra. Thoughts?

In the sideboard I used to have 2x Dominate and I definitely like the card, but I had no answer to Ensnaring Bridge so I exchanged them for Wipe Away, which can serve some similar purposes, like dealing with Marit Lage.

I might cut the Misdirection in the mainboard for a mainboard Sorcerous Spyglass

[Eldariel]

I'd lay off the 1UU - 4 TNN is already quite the strain on the manabase where you're looking at 4-5 turns before you can reliably cast them. TNN is good enough in an equipment-heavy deck to warrant that inconsistency but the other options, not so much. Cutting Sea Drake has a couple of disadvantages (makes City of Traitors significantly worse as you can't bounce it and reuse it, and cuts your clock down significantly) moving the deck in a slower, more controlling direction in which case I'd definitely look more at incremental advantage cards like JTMS and Sower. Hangarback/JTMS is actually a pretty nice package as you can keep Jace protected and accrue incremental CA and shuffle away useless stuff, while Hangarbacks give you a stream of chumpblockers while you setup. Jace also works in the tempo angle bouncing three things and gives the deck an alternate route to victory (you can lock up stuff pretty well with Chalices and Revokers/Needles in many match-ups but something like Ensnaring Bridge can occasionally make winning nigh' impossible otherwise).

[colo]

I discovered a card yesterday which I believe to be the perfect answer to equipment, albeit it's rather narrow: Grip of Phyresis

Will try this if Batterskull and friends continue to give me trouble.

[R3ndr0c]

I've known about this card, but dismissed it. I can't remember my reasoning but probably because it's use it too narrow.

[R3ndr0c]

So this list is pretty much finished, except I'm not sure if I want 2x Misthollow or Sea Drake in the main. I'm really not a fan of Sea Drake, but maybe I'm underrating it. Also not sure if the single Misdirection main is worth it, but if I am running it main the Misthollow is even more appealing. Possibly should add another Spyglass over Needle.

// Blue Stompy


// 60 Maindeck
// 13 Artifact
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Chrome Mox
2 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Sword of Fire and Ice

// 23 Creature
3 Trinket Mage
4 Stratus Dancer
4 True-Name Nemesis
4 Looter il-Kor
4 Nimble Obstructionist
2 Walking Ballista
2 Misthollow Griffin

// 5 Instant
4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection

// 19 Land
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
10 Island
1 Seat of the Synod


// 15 Sideboard
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Sorcerous Spyglass
SB: 3 Phyrexian Revoker
SB: 2 Faerie Macabre
SB: 3 Back to Basics
SB: 1 Submerge
SB: 2 Warping Wail
SB: 2 Into the Roil


Considerations for Sideboard:

Pithing Needle


EDIT:
I think Into the Roil might be better than both Wipe Away and Rushing River.

[R3ndr0c]

This is my favorite deck to play in Legacy, and I it's really serving me well. I win most of my matches. I've swapped Misthollow out for Glen Elendra recently, because it's not too common that the card advantage from exiling Misthollow is relevant, of course sometimes it's completely saved me, but again, very rare. I'm even considering swapping Glen Elendra for Willbender. It's cheaper than Glen Elendra to cast as a morph creature, and it's morph cost is the same as Dancer, so I can leave two mana up and mess with my opponent. Also just having two morph creatures keeps the opponents guessing. Normally opponents don't have to worry about casting their Abrupt Decay even when they know I'm playing dancer, but now they'd have a lot of reason to be concerned, because redirecting it their Leovold would be crushing.

It's effect is better than Misdirection, can you imagine redirecting opponents Wasteland to their land? That's so backbreaking. It has no evasion unfortunately, which is it's only downside.

[TLK]

Same list as above with the Griffin swap?

[R3ndr0c]

Same list as above with the Griffin swap?

Ya. I also think that Submerge is not good in this meta. There doesn't seem to be many green Delver decks, mostly Grixis Delver. I'm going to swap it out for Dominate because I liked having it in my sideboard before.