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Thread: [DECK] Steel Stompy

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    [DECK] Steel Stompy

    ==STEEL STOMPY==

    Steel Stompy is an artifact Stompy (chalice-aggro) deck that is focused primarily on maximizing tempo advantage in games, achieved by three channels:

    1. Speed: Explosiveness from the Stompy shell.
    2. Tempo: Disrupting an opponent’s tempo development.
    3. Redundancy: Synergy and consistency.


    Keeping the thread as concise as possible, I'll walk through the contents and key components of Steel Stompy:



    1. DECKLIST
    2. INTRO AND HISTORY
    3. CORE STRATEGIES
    4. CARD CHOICES
    5. MATCHUP AND STRATEGIES
    6. CONCLUSIONS & CREDITS




    1. DECKLIST

    Decklist as of 04/11/2011

    Original Decklist since 02/20/2011


    2. INTRO AND HISTORY

    The development of Steel Stompy began with the motivation of playing Stompy decks built completely out of artifacts for two key reasons:
    1. Increased consistency with the Stompy manabase without overly worrying about color-requirements on playing colored spells.
    2. Improved synergy within the creature base, accelerants, and prison+aggro strategies.


    This motivation was initiated from experiences based on piloting traditional Stompy decks in Legacy (Dragon Stompy, Green Stompy, Faerie Stompy, Demon Stompy) to successes and failures.


    The success of traditional Stompy decks fall primarily on resolving game-winning lockpieces such as Trinisphere and Blood Moon before being able to push its creatures through safely for the win. There were inherent issues with such strategies:

    1. Sequence: If one resolves the lockpieces and beaters in the wrong order, then the deck faces a string of problems from opponents.
    2. Consistency: Inconsistencies with drawing multiple lockpieces or having the wrong cards at the wrong time (aka the Stompy syndrome).
    3. Relevance: Lockpieces that do not matter in various matchups.
    4. Sustainability: Locks in traditional Stompy are never sustained, therefore traditional Stompy has to win within the tempo created by temporal locks in order to secure wins. (e.g. Trinisphere and Blood Moon are temporary locks until an opponent hits 3 mana or draws a basic).


    For a more detailed coverage on the nature of traditional Stompy and developments towards Steel Stompy, I refer the readers to partake on a mini-article that I had written on developing this ‘new kind’ of Stompy. The article and decklist may seem somewhat outdated in relation to the current decklist and philosophy, but it serves as an important stepping stone to approaching Stompy from a different philosophy/playstyle. Despite being the deck’s primary engineer and having written an extensive analysis on the ‘new kind’ of Stompy, I am still constantly learning the ins and outs of the deck/archetype, discovering strategies that make the deck more resilient and successful in Legacy.


    WHY PLAY STEEL STOMPY OVER DECK X?

    Here's a list on why someone might want to take on Steel Stompy. Comparisons against other decks are by no means comparisons between the strengths/weaknesses of these decks, but rather, they are comparisons on playstyle, implementation and philosophy.
    1. You play Steel Stompy because you enjoy the explosiveness of Stompy decks over non-Stompy decks first and foremost.
    2. You play Steel Stompy over other Stompy variants because you don't enjoy card disadvantage (Simian Spirit Guide, Chrome Mox pitching business spells, Elvish Spirit Guide), i.e. I claim Steel Stompy to be one of the more consistent and synergistic Stompy variant out there in Legacy.
    3. You play Steel Stompy over other Stompy variants because you prefer to win by applying constant pressure rather than playing bombs e.g. Meandeck MUD
    4. You play Steel Stompy over MUD-Stax/Prison because you want to be the aggressor in games instead on being the control deck.
    5. You play Steel Stompy over Affinity because you don't want to autolose to combo and possibly control decks.
    6. You play Steel Stompy because you are fearless in metagames with little artifact/affinity hate.




    3. CORE STRATEGIES

    IDENTIFYING STEEL STOMPY’S ROLE IN LEGACY

    The biggest catalyst for the recent iterations of Steel Stompy, was the recognition that Steel Stompy, despite its classification under the Stompy family, was fundamentally a deck that should be played as a tempo-beatdown deck. A prime example of a tempo-beatdown deck is Merfolks. I would recommend readers to not think of tempo in terms of the selection of cards that define a tempo deck e.g. playing with Stifles, Tarmogoyf, Daze etc. I am using the term 'tempo' in its very sense i.e. how fast you are developing your game state and board position in relation to your opponent’s. It so happens that there are many decks not running tempo cards (Stifle, Daze) that ultimately base their primary strategies around gaining tempo advantage e.g. Merfolks, Goblins.

    Consider Merfolks, we all know by now that the true success of Merfolks lies in its ability to quickly develop a board with Aether Vial and dropping Lords which increases the board position with minimal resource expenditure. Merfolks not only develops with Vial and Lords, but it also disrupts an opponent's development with free spells such as Daze and Force of Will, making it a very powerful deck in tempo development. They spend their mana building their board while disrupting an opponent’s board position with free counterspells. For many people who still don't understand how Merfolk is truly successful, and continue to attribute its success primarily to Lord of Atlantis' islandwalking ability, I think that they have missed the point on the true synergies and beauty the deck is built upon.

    Similarly, Goblins develop the same way by cheating creatures with Goblin Lackey, Aether Vial, Goblin Warchief while disrupting opponents with Wasteland and Rishadan Port. Although on paper Goblins seems to run less disruption than Merfolk, the huge tempo generated from a connected Lackey offsets the limited number of disruption they play. In addition, the lack of disruption is also compensated by a much faster clock with Goblin Piledriver and superior card advantage with Goblin Ringleader, which ensures that Goblin can maintain the game state and tempo advantage all the way up to the late game.

    One last example to observe is Zoo. Zoo plays quality creatures that are tremendously undercosted in the format e.g. Wild Nacatl, Tarmogoyf and burn. Despite the fact that Zoo does not play any form of disruption, it still strongly maintains superior tempo development in most games simply because they play creatures that are the best in every turn of the game. If an opponent cannot match a Wild Nacatl on turn 1, they will be taking 3 damage a turn until they can answer it. When an opponent does play a creature that matches Zoo, Zoo's burn/removal takes it out, forcing an opponent yet to find another answer while Zoo continues to develop and push through. This is Zoo's strategy of generating tempo.

    These three aggro-decks are commonly played in today's meta and we are well-familiar with how these decks perform. The challenge is to observe whether any fruitful lessons learned from playing these decks can be used to improving Steel Stompy. The bigger challenge, however, is to avoid falling into the danger of "lying to oneself thinking that Steel Stompy can be played as Merfolk/Goblins/Zoo". I would like to stress that when designing Steel Stompy, the greatest challenge was to enforce humility and to not lie to myself that the list was capable of becoming a carbon-copy of Merfolks. However, an understanding on how various decks fundamentally work can provide insights on how one should or should not be playing selections of cards in a deck.


    STEEL STOMPY AND THE MERFOLKS MODEL i.e. TEMPO-BEATDOWN

    A few recaps on why Merfolks is a successful deck
    1. Ability to develop fast with minimal resources utilizing Vials, manlands, lords.
    2. Multiple Lords are a key component to Merfolk's success because playing a single creature whose power level is on-the-curve ends up increasing the overall power level of all creatures in play for very little mana investment.
    3. Disruption in the form of Wasteland, Force, Daze, keep opponents behind the game state and tempo development while Merfolks continues to build up.
    4. Merfolks forces an opponent to deal with their threats but makes it hard for them to do so with disruption.


    There are many strategies in Steel Stompy that already capture these features in Merfolks. Previous attempts at working out a controllish/prison shell failed simply because Steel Stompy was naturally fitting in the aggression role more than the prison-role. Tying this back to the observations in Merfolk, we see that Steel Stompy finds a lot of similarities (some weaker, some stronger):

    1. Steel Stompy can develop very fast with minimal resource utilizing Sol-Lands (i.e. Ancient Tomb, City of Traitors). This is a well-known fact that a Stompy deck can typically out-develop any other deck in Legacy given its explosive manabase. Steel Stompy also develops very fast by simply dropping manlands that scale in size with its lords.
    2. Steel Overseer and Master of Etherium are the Lords for Steel Stompy, and end up increasing the overall force on the board for little mana investment. The advantage Steel Stompy Lords have over Merfolks lords is with Steel Overseer, who will persistently grow guys, and Master of Etherium who conveniently happens to be a huge beatstick.
    3. Disruption in the form of Wasteland, Chalice of the Void, Phyrexian Revoker, Lodestone Golem keep opponents’ board development under control while Steel Stompy continues to build up.
    4. Steel Stompy forces an opponent to deal with its threats but makes it hard for them to do so under disruption.


    We see how similarly Steel Stompy functions in relation with Merfolk. The method it employs is different (running Chalice/Lodestone/Revoker instead of Force/Daze), but the core-strategy is the same: Keep developing a board while making it hard for opponents to develop theirs. Utilize lords and synergies to improve board position with minimal resource-expenditure and from there try to incrementally gain tempo advantage.


    STEEL STOMPY V.S. AFFINITY V.S. MUD-PRISON

    Many times, people have asked me, and this includes myself, what is the main difference between Steel Stompy, MUD, and Affinity. There is a key difference in all three decks. To draw a useful analogy, imagine the comparison for: Merfolks, the Rock, and Goyf Sligh. I would say that Steel Stompy follows the playstyle and philosophy of Merfolks, to build a force while disrupting. MUD follows the playstyle of the Rock, to establish control in the mid-game, and Affinity follows the playstyle of Goyf Sligh, to kill an opponent as fast as possible.

    This is a simple analogy (not a good one), but the important point is to demonstrate that even though some selection in card choices may tend towards classifying Steel Stompy as a MUD Prison or Affinity deck, the truth is, the same selection of cards are utilized different based on the deck’s functions. For example, Chalice is used in MUD Prison as an early game defense to continue to lock an opponent while they bring other lockpieces out, whereas Chalice in Steel Stompy is primarily used as a tempo advantage against other decks, and to protect its own creatures from opposing removal. As a result, changes in the decklist usually will face heavy scrutiny simply because suggested cards have to be analyzed based on what the core strategy of the deck is seeking to employ. Would a card like Brainstorm be amazing in Merfolks? It definitely would be, but the goals of Merfolks as a tempo beatdown deck demands a higher threat density than card selection. Similarly, cards like Metalworker and Trinisphere (popular suggestion for Steel Stompy) simply do not work with the deck’s goal on being the tempo beatdown deck. As I had mentioned before, when the deck was leaning towards a more control-prison deck, it tended to fail, this is because aggressive cards like Master of Etherium, Cranial Plating do not pair up strongly with slower prison cards like Trinisphere and Metalworker. More details will be provided in the later sections.



    4. CARD CHOICES

    In this section, I will group the selection of cards into multiple engines/blocks that synergize strongly with each other. In this way, I hope the readers will understand the role of each card and how they function within the deck rather than individually. This allows us to avoid obvious yet vague statements like "Turn 1 Trinisphere is brutal in Legacy so you need to play it". I hope criticism will be based on analyzing how a card fits or does not fit in a deck and its strategy, rather than analyzing the functions of the individual card.

    I am also working on spreadsheets that give exact statistical implications on running certain cards. These will be uploaded over time as the deck evolves on Google docs, so stay tuned in the future! I will first run through the core cards and card-choices for Steel Stompy, followed by a short section on other less-frequently played cards that are viable within Steel Stompy depending on metagames.


    THE STOMPY MANABASE

    The infamous Stompy manabase that power out fast board development is the main reason one should ever consider playing the Stompy archetype in the first place. 8 Sol-lands are a must in the deck despite how crappy drawing multiple Tombs/Cities can get. Unlike other Stompy deck, Steel Stompy utilizes Mox Diamond over Chrome Mox. The drawback is to play a higher land count. This issue is, however, resolved with the deck design itself where the manlands (Inkmoth Nexus) function with Overseer/Master/Plating/Tezz 2.0, 4 Wastelands pair up synergistically with Lodestone Golems (giving you two turns of tempo advantage) and Crucible of Worlds. By avoiding running Chrome Mox, Steel Stompy can always ensure that it has enough business spell to keep the pressure on. Mox Opal has been a gift from Scars of Mirrodin, being the only Mox in Legacy without any drawback (it's essentially a Power 9 Mox in the deck!).

    Core of the deck is colorless (50+ non-colored permanents), and this gives huge consistency with the Stompy manabase and you rarely have to worry about color issues where other Stompy decks may complain. Even Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas is easily castable with the manabase, requiring you to draw 1 of 8 artifact lands and 1 of 6 Moxes to resolve a game-winning Planeswalker (maths will be worked out eventually)

    *RESERVED FOR CALCULATION*

    Without Simian/Elvish Spirit Guide, you may lose some explosiveness, but recall that the deck is primarily designed to minimize its dependence on turn one 3cmc spells. As such, there are no risks to drawing multiple accelerants late game that become dead cards (exceptions are the 3 Mox Opal, but when you consider the power level of Mox Opal in this deck to Spirit Guides in its role as being a permanent accelerant, metalcraft enabler, pumping boosts to Plating/Master, you’ll see why the overall choice to go artifact Stompy already eliminates a ton of inconsistency problems experienced in traditional Stompy).


    THE COLORS OF STEEL STOMPY

    BLUE-SOURCES
    10-sources producing blue to consistently cast Master of Etherium. Sometimes you may not be able to cast Masters, but there are very few games ~5% (*RESERVED FOR CALCULATION*) where you are holding onto dead Masters since you still have plenty of other spells to play out while having an uncastable Master.

    BLACK-SOURCES
    10-sources producing black to consistently support 3-4 Perish in the sideboard, and the less frequent ability to equip Cranial Plating for BB at instant speed. The Vault of Whispers was the latest improvement for the deck. After realizing that the deck can support UB as easily as supporting just U (since you have the same amount of colored-sources producing U or B), the Vault of Whispers have been a huge asset in improving turn 2 Metalcraft, and boosting Cranial Plating and Master of Etherium, and also being able to support Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas (since all you need is to draw either artifact land and a Mox to cast Tezz 2.0).

    MOX DIAMOND/OPAL RATIOS
    Regarding the 3/3 Mox Diamond/Opal split, I have done extensive testing for 4/2 and 3/3 split. The 3/3 split is in every way superior to the 4/2 split. Steel Stompy’s design was primarily developed to avoid the dependence on turn one 3cmc spells such as Trinisphere and Blood Moon, as a way to improve tempo development when hands that do not support turn one 3cmc spells are drawn (Steel Stompy can still easily generate three mana on turn one, but the deck’s design is trying to limit its dependence on such plays). As a result, Mox Diamond one turn one is usually not required if you have a Sol-land out. Mox Diamond is still critical since it greatly improves getting two mana on turn one in situations where you do not draw a Sol-land.

    Mox Opal is in every way superior to Mox Diamond in this deck since fast mana on turn one is not a primary objective in Steel Stompy. Steel Stompy does not need three mana on turn one, but it very well needs the extra mana on turns two and later, and this is where Mox Opal provides the same benefit as Mox Diamond without the card disadvantage. When drawing the second Opal may seem as a bad dead card, remember that the second Diamond drawn is worse since resolving the second Diamond would have meant that you have invested a total of four cards to the second Diamond (first Diamond, second Diamond, two pitched lands, not counting the other lands in hand dedicated to land drops). The second Diamond drawn is in every way worse than the second Opal drawn. Opal is one of the best cards in the deck, and in my opinion, is a much underused card in the format (I think that decks that can support Opal should play Opals due to its sheer power).

    *RESERVED FOR CALCULATION*

    There’s recent interests in testing a 2/4 or a 2/3 Diamond/Opal split which could prove to be a solution to the deck’s desire to maintain land drops consistently. I am working on spreadsheets to work out the final best ratios and will be documenting these here when they are completed. Recent testing of 2/4 Diamond/Opal has shown great promise in increasing the occurences of early Mox Opal, but the main problem was not drawing double Mox Opal in the 2/4 configuration, rather, it was the lack of opening 2 mana hands when you don't open with a Sol-land where the 3rd Mox Diamond would have benefited more than the 4th Opal.

    *RESERVED FOR CALCULATION*



    THE TEMPO-BEATDOWN STRATEGY

    The ratio of 19 creatures to 5 equipments proves the deck tends towards an beatdown-aggro deck. On top of that, there are 3 flying Inkmoth Nexus manlands, which receive the same pumping benefits (actually x2 effect due to infect) from Lords. Associating this with the Merfolk model, Merfolk runs about 20 creatures with 4 manlands and usually zero-equipment. If Aether Vial is outside of the picture, the tempo/board development of this deck should be on par or exceed Merfolk's development.

    However, we don't play Vial, but we do get flying manlands, equipments, unblockable Champions and huge Masters. Drawing some similar functions to Merfolks:
    - Phyrexian Revoker ~ Silvergill Adept (2/1 body that nets +1 advantage when played)
    - Steel Overseer/Master of Etherium ~ Lord of Atlantis/Merrow Reejery (Lords that pump your army, Merfolk has more tempo/evasive lords while Steel Stompy has bigger bodied-lords that continually grow your army)
    - Etched Champion ~ Coralhelm Commander (Merfolk gets yet another Lord and evasive beater and Champion is the deck's commando just like Coralhelm is Merfolk's Commando that can get games just by himself)

    With such a dense creaturebase which receives synergistic pumps from 8 lords, the strategy of beat-down is similar to Merfolks. You either curve out with Lords and overrun your opponents with 3/2 or 4/3 Phyrexian Revokers, 6/4 or 7/5 Lodestone Golems and a bunch of 2/2, 3/3 flying manlands or you can sit back and defend while Etched Champion and flying manlands get in there the way Coralhelm Commander does.

    MASTER OF ETHERIUM, ETCHED CHAMPION
    Master Etherium and Etched Champion are the main win-conditions in the deck. When resolved, very few decks can handle the P/T of these dudes. Master is a little more fragile to removal (Grip/Pridemage/Ancient Grudge), but for 3-mana, he is well capable of matching the big beaters of Legacy (Knights, Goyfs). Etched Champion is by far the spell you need to resolve against any deck playing aggro or control. Once in play and with metalcraft on, only a few number of spells can deal with him. Etched Champion is unconditionally your best win-condition against most decks due to his inbuilt protection from colors (think of him as a mini 2/2 progenitus in the format). When paired up with Overseer/Plating/Jitte/SoFI, he becomes a very dangerous threat that an opponent can only hope to race you in 1-3 turns.

    STEEL OVERSEER
    Steel Overseer is perhaps the weakest card in the deck, but his importance is crucial to the deck’s core strategy. Steel Overseer, for just 2 mana, is capable of providing much more than a 2 mana investment could ever provide in the deck. It’s a repeating lord effect that permanently grows everything. It is this reason that a turn one Overseer that doesn’t bite a removal is going to create huge headaches in the next two turns for many aggro decks. Overseer’s biggest strength is applying its effects on Etched Champion, Inkmoth Nexus and Lodestone Golem (putting it out of the x/3 P/T bracket). A turn one Overseer is going to gain the deck a lot of value. The philosophy behind Overseer is: It looks weak on paper, but when playing the deck out, you are constantly growing your guys where other decks are playing creatures with fairly static/preset power/toughness. If you can grow your guys outside of that bracket, they are no longer in a position to attack/defend and are set back in tempo. Pairing this philosophy together with a disruptive lockpiece strategy with Wastelands/Lodestones/Chalice, you can see how Overseer gains even more value when an opponent is being slowed down. It is for this reason that Overseer is the key card to winning a Lord-heavy Merfolks matchup. They have to invest more than 1 card to ever match 1 Overseer, who does all the lord effects you will ever need in just 1 card.

    PHYREXIAN REVOKER
    Phyrexian Revoker, despite feeling underwhelming in many situations on having a frail 2/1 body, is still quite a central piece to the deck. Notice that many artifact-based decks usually are forced to run Revokers maindeck/sideboard as an out to a devastating Pernicious Deed/EE. Affinity tends to run a number of Pithing Needles in the SB against decks that target artifacts. Revoker is basically a redundant slot that freed up four sideboard slots, while still being able to focus on the overall strategy of the deck to disrupt and beatdown. When you draw a hand of Overseer + Revoker and that resolves, your Revoker could get into a good position to start swinging. Even then, many creatures in Legacy are better than Revoker, and many opponents find it not worthy enough to trade with a 2/1 Revoker (e.g. Bob/Pridemage). The main philosophy on playing Revoker is: your opponents are going to play cards like Aether Vial and Top. When their Vial and Tops no longer work, you are essentially shutting down the most important cards in their deck. When they do remove Revoker, that’s one less removal for your Golem and Champion and Master, and these guys are the ones bringing you home the wins, not the Revoker.

    LODESTONE GOLEM
    Lodestone Golem is the bread and butter for this build. In the past, I felt that 4cmc was hard to achieve even with the Stompy manabase and had to enforce playing the Golems strictly with Metalworkers. It was until heavy playtesting that I realized the flaw to that logic. Drawing a turn one Metalworker hand accelerating into Lodestone Golem on turn two is far more situational than playing Lodestone Golem naturally with Steel Stompy’s manabase. *RESERVED FOR CALCULATION*. I will present the maths if interested, but it takes a lot of testing, and logical thinking to notice such flawed beliefs that I once found hard to shake off. Lodestone’s main strength is the immediate pressure he presents. When you have a good board position, your opponent is forced to spend a removal on him (usually costing a turn especially if they only left one mana open on your turn when you cast the Golem). This is good enough even at the worst case scenario when Golem is removed. If Golem is not removed, chances are you will be pulling ahead in the game very soon. You have another 3 Golems and 4 Wastelands to further push their development back. Being able to finally convince myself from MUD Prison strategies and focus on the beatdown aspect for Steel Stompy is the main reason I started appreciating Golem’s role in the deck. When you pair up Wasteland with Golem, your opponents will usually find themselves more than two turns away from your (unfair Stompy-based) board development. In addition, receiving just +1/+1 from any lord in this deck puts Lodestone in a terrifying 6/4 beater, dodging a lot of creatures and removal. Some of the best line of plays for this deck include: Turn 1 Chalice/Overseer, Turn 2 Lodestone, Turn 3 Wasteland + Master/Champion/Plating etc. In such a situation (especially with Chalice), they are set back two turns with the synergy of Wasteland + Lodestone Golem.

    INKMOTH NEXUS
    Inkmoth Nexus has been the solidified replacement for Blinkmoth Nexus/Mishra’s Factory. Many people are concerned with the breakdown of damage v.s. Poison, potentially leading to winning issues where damage would had been much appreciated. The analysis done in finally deciding on Inkmoth Nexus was quite extensive, and Inkmoth won the margin by far. I’m quite convinced that future Affinity lists will be converting to Inkmoth Nexues as well in the future:
    1. In situations where you have no pumps/Platings, Inkmoth wins much faster than Blinkmoth. The only exception is if your opponents are already down to 10 life, and it is at this point where Inkmoth breaks even with Blinkmoth. If they are more than 10 life, Inkmoth in every situation without a pump is going to win faster than Inkmoth. If you have a single Lord effect out, Inkmoth is pulling ahead of Blinkmoth.
    2. Against decks that have a form on gaining life (Pulse of the Fields, Cephalid Breakfast etc, random crap), Inkmoth can entirely neglect life totals when it comes to winning.
    3. With a Cranial Plating, Inkmoth can win games in just one swing (very common)
    4. The synergy of Inkmoth + Crucible is not just unfair on the defensive, but rather a scary offensive that keeps coming back.
    5. Inkmoth is much stronger in this deck compared to Blinkmoth because Steel Stompy is fundamentally two turns slower than Affinity. Therefore the desire to go all out on damage is not a big one. A big advantage of Inkmoth in a less aggressive deck (compared to Affinity) is forcing your opponents to have answers for two modes of attack, where in the Affinity case, the opponent only has to worry about life totals.


    CRANIAL PLATING
    Cranial Plating is unargubly the best equipment in the format, yes even better than Jitte and SoFI. The only drawback to Plating is to play an artifact deck. The reason why Plating is in every way the best equipment in an artifact deck is its ability to close games MUCH faster. There is no real reason to get Jitte counters and slowly win inevitably when you could have closed games 2-3 turns faster. Cranial Plating can easily turn a losing game into a winning game, and as many Legacy players have played against Affinity, one of the most feared cards in the deck is specifically Plating. Cranial Plating works great with Inkmoth Nexus (usually providing 1-hit wins out of nowhere) and pairs very strongly with Etched Champion for 2-3 hit wins. At worst, on the defense, you can slap a Plating on a 2/1 Revoker and prevent an opponent from attacking unless he's wililng to trade his Goyf with a Revoker.

    TEZZERET, AGENT OF BOLAS
    Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas' inclusion in Steel Stompy was not a natural move. The 2UB manacost 'looked' very prohibitive in a deck primarily playing 72 colorless permanents. However, the suggestion came from multiple suggestions on the thread, but was primarily initiated from my personal annoyance at the yet-still unfavorable matchups against GWx decks. Back in SCG Dallas, I knew that Steel Stompy could beat Bant and Zoo comfortably but there were still situations where the deck simply lost to Knight of the Reliquary and Pridemage. Witnessing the sheer power of Perish against GWx decks from watching AJ Sacher being set back by Team America's Perish, and having played Perish myself in my Landstill lists, I mused about playing 4 Perish in the SB for Steel Stompy. Surprisingly, it was then when I realized that playing 4 Perish in the sideboard is just as easily castable as 4 Master of Etherium in the MD as long as I ran another 4 Vault of Whispers. After that enlightment, I re-explored Tezz 2.0's contributions for the deck, and comparing against the winning Tezzeret Affinity list in SCG Dallas, I realized that I could cast Tezz 2.0 just as easily as Tezzeret Affinity. In truth, Tezz 2.0 is just a little more difficult to cast than Master of Etherium/Perish, however, with the configured colored manabase of 8 artifact lands and 6 Moxes, you are very likely to see at least 1 artifact land and 1 Moxen in the course of the game, which casts Tezz 2.0 as long as you have any artifact land and a mox in play.

    *RESERVED FOR CALCULATION*

    Now, before Tezz 2.0 made it to the list, Steel Stompy was inherently a fair deck i.e. there were no 'broken' cards unless you consider Cranial Plating to be a broken card. Steel Stompy had some pretty broken starts (Turn 1 Chalice/Overseer, Turn 2 Golem, Turn 3 Wasteland + 3cmc dude), but there was inherently no unfairness to the deck when compared to other Legacy decks. However, with the dawn of Tezz 2.0, the deck finally had some unfair plays. Casting Tezz 2.0 on turn 2 is as feasible as casting Lodestone Golem outside of double Sol-lands i.e. Turn 1 Ancient Tomb + 2cmc artiact, Turn 2 Artifact land + Mox (Diamond or Opal doesn't matter) = Turn 2 Tezzeret. A Turn 2 Tezzeret is most likely going to win you the game right there if uncountered. Even a turn 3-4 Tezzeret is still unfair, considering that your defense for Tezzeret includes Etched Champion, huge Masters of Etherium, chump blockers. Once you get Tezzeret out, you want to immediately use the following abilities:

    +1: Dig 5 cards and put an artifact in your hand. There is NO card in the existence of the format that grants Stompy deck to dig this much. Tezzeret's +1 is what truly breaks this deck. Over 1-2 turns, you will be seeing 5-10 cards deep, grabbing Platings for the win, more Lodestones for sustained locks, multiple Masters of Etherium for beatdown, or more Etched Champions on the defense.
    -1: This is his least used ability. I typically only use this ability if Tezz is helpless with no creatures on the board, or if I am swinging for the win with lethal damage by animating an artifact land or mox. The reason why this ability isn't used is because of his next ability:
    -4: Tendrils of Agony your opponents equal to the number of artifacts you control. Similar to Affinity, Steel Stompy is very capable on having at least 6-8 artifacts by turn 4-5. Once you hit his ultimate, you should have the game, if not, set your aggro opponents so far behind that they can no longer race you. Note that this ability has tremendous synergy with Etched Champion even if you can't Tendrils for lethal. Etched Champion will just sneak in the remaining damage for the win while you have a buffer of life to accomplish this. Most of the time, his ultimate is fetching a 12-16 point lifeswing with just a single turn passed from using his +1 ability.



    THE PRISON STRATEGY

    This is the core-prison collection maindeck. The selection was mainly designed to have applications flexible for either control/combo/aggro. The prison-strategy is enhanced from the sideboard with 4 Thorn of Amethyst and 2-3 Winter Orbs against control/combo decks. Since the goal of the deck is to fundamentally win tempo/board development, the prison-strategy is a supplement strategy to slow opponents down while you develop your position. Note the importance on minimizing cards that are bad when drawn in multiples e.g. Trinisphere and Blood Moon. Crucible is the only card that is bad in the deck when drawn in multiples. Wasteland is powerful enough to win some games by itself, and becomes unfair when paired up with Lodestone Golem and/or Crucible of Worlds. It is important to note that 8 of the prison-strategy are creatures, which all benefit from the lords the deck run. In particular, Lodestone Golem being a 6/4 after pumped by Overseer/Master becomes a terrifying threat for most decks to deal with.

    The prison-strategy is a very important one, despite not being the main-focus of the deck. It synergizes very strongly with Overseer. In scenarios where you are on equal footing on board development, the prison-strategy will slow your opponents down, allowing you to take turns growing your guys with Overseers until they exceed your opponent's board development. What I mean by this is: If your opponent has a board of 2/x's, then growing your guys to x/3's are sufficient to win the board development because they will have to start doing 2-1 trades to answer your board. If your opponent has a board of 3/x's, then growing your guys to x/4's trump the board once again. Without the prison-strategy, you will not be able to have time to develop that board position, and will be forced to play a fair game (or unfair game because your opponent plays better creatures than you).

    Postboard, against combo/control, note the importance of the deck switching its roles. Instead on taking the primary role of utilizing aggressive aggro beatdown by tempo advantage, the prison-strategy will be your main strategy with the aggro-strategy backing that up. It is important to identify what roles you are playing and the sideboard is the selection of cards that improves that strategy. It is this very fact that Goblins have finally trumped its problematic Zoo matchup when historically the matchup was a terrible one for Goblins. By switching roles from being the aggressor and finally learning to board out Lackeys and Piledrivers against Zoo, goblins are enjoying tremendous success against a once impossible matchup. In the same light, understanding what Steel Stompy is achieving in games, and what it is capable of achieving in games is the key component to securing wins.


    OTHER CARDS WORTH CONSIDERATION IN VARIOUS METAGAMES

    In metagames where there's a ton of tribal, 2 maindeck Jitte is very strong. If it's more Merfolks than Goblins, SoFI is stronger. In metagames where decks are primarily GWx, SoBM is a strong addition (allows you to swing in unblocked, get a 2/2 blocker and repeat-rinse)

    For lists that desire to be a little more resilient against Pernicious Deed, Null Rod, Serenit, Energy Flux etc, I would opt to cut black and Tezz 2.0 to run more manlands. Factories and Ports aren't too spetacular as possible cards for the deck, but against control-heavier metagames, ports are great.

    CREATURES:
    Ornithopter
    Ornithopter is a great creature for the deck, the same way Affinity utilizes Ornithopters. However, make sure to play enough Cranial Platings (at least 3-4) if you opt to play 2-3 Ornithopters in the deck. Ornithopter also enables metalcraft nicely for the deck, but for most parts, there are just better creatures that you play over Ornithopter in Steel Stompy

    Depending on your metagame, if it's heavy combo/control, you can use more Sphere of Resistance and/or Trinispheres in the SB. Tangle Wire is a great card in Steel Stompy since Steel Stompy can play very well under Wires. The only problem is Tangle Wire doesn't really solve any matchup at a significant level. It's good as a tempo advantage over decks that need the multiple turns (e.g. Enchantress, combo, Show and Tell), but cutting cards for Tangle Wire usually translates for a loss of tempo on your side as well when deciding what to card. Tangle Wire was mainly played in the past to delay Show and Tell/NO decks, and to slow Pernicious Deed down. With the printing of Phyrexian Metamorph, you now have a decent NO/Show matchup, and it's not worth playing Wires to try to salvage the Pernicious Deed.dec matchup.

    The white splash is an interesting splash. However the main reason why I tend to avoid it is because I value Perish much more in positively increasing the more problematic GWx matchups than Ethersworn Canonist, who only helps beat the matchups you are already good at (control/combo). Oblivion Ring should be the main reason for playing white (against Deeds/Emrakul) but once again, the printing of Phyrexian Metamorph has solved the NO/Show matchup to a large extent the white splash isn't needed.


    4. MATCHUPS AND STRATEGIES

    TOURNAMENT RESULTS

    For the following matchup, I'll post the strengths/weaknesses of the deck against deck X in boxes and make comments on why/how the matchup is favored and the relevant strategies against such decks.


    ZOO
    60-40 (favorable)

    STRENGTHS
    • Chalice at 1 will win you games most of the time, with Revoker backing up Chalice naming Qasali Pridemage
    • Drawing Etched Champion blanks their Tarmogoyf and Knight of the Reliquary.
    • Drawing a Master of Etherium matches Tarmogoyf and Knight (Master is usually still bigger).
    • Wasteland/Crucible/Lodestone combination hinders their development.
    • Cranial Plating is used on the defensive to make trades with Zoo's big creatures (since your creatures are usually smaller) or on the offensive with Inkmoth/Champion to usually win in 1-2 turns while your other forces chump/block.
    • Steel Overseer is not too stellar in this matchup due to removal, but if he gets past the 3/3 body and put your other creatures outside the x/3 range, you can start winning the attrition war and doing favorable trades.
    • Phyrexian Revoker pro-actively names Qasali Pridemage, and can reactively name Grim Lavamancer and Knight of the Reliquary. For most parts, if my hand is prone to getting out-tempo'd by Pridemage (e.g. a hand that relies on Jitte), then I will name Pridemage, otherwise naming Knight is almost always better since KotR is one of the few cards that really beats Steel Stompy (incredibly large creature and a mini-wastelock on Steel Stompy's manabase).
    • Perish in the SB beats GWx decks.
    WEAKNESS
    • Turn 1 Wild Nacatl most often gets there if they are on the play. If you are on the play, you can still survive Nacatls with either Chalice in opening or fast Etched Champions. Regardless Etched Champion/Master of Etheriums are required to solidfy your defenses.
    • Not drawing Chalice does weaken the matchup but only if they draw a heavy Nacatl/burn hand. If they are drawing tons of Knights and Goyfs, they are relatively slow in their board development and you have many answers to a slow Zoo deck e.g. Recurring Inkmoth Nexus, growing dudes bigger than their board, Etched Champion/Master of Etherium, or just racing in the air or with Champion using Cranial Plating.
    • Postboard, the extra hate they bring in the form of Krosan Grips isn't too relevant but since they are most likely cutting some 1cmc spells, your Chalice plan is weaker while they bring in more hate. Grip is ultimately still 1-1 at 3cmc, so it is not ideal against you. Problems I encountered was Vexing Shusher as a solution to Chalice.
    The Zoo matchup isn't unfavorable and for most part is favorable for Steel Stompy due to Steel Stompy's fast board development while slowing down an opponent's development. However, it is one of the harder matchups to play correctly despite being a favorable one. You need to always be aware on what Zoo can burn/remove your plays and this can create huge tempo losses. Sometimes you cannot prevent your creatures from getting burned, but you will have to bait the burn in the correct order. For instance, Steel Overseer is generally bad against Zoo since he is too slow to be safe outside of the x/3 P/T range. However, scenarios are different if you led with a Chalice@1, or a Wasteland screwing them out of mana. Overseer is still critical to winning the game because you need him to grow your 2/1 and 5/3 guys out of the bolt-toughness range, but do not keep hands where Overseers are too slow to do anything against their aggressive gameplan.

    For most parts, Lodestone Golem is extremely powerful against Zoo, yet extremely fragile. Depending on your hands, you want to throw out Overseers/Revokers to bait removal to allow Golem to survive. More importantly, you need to keep every Master/Champion alive to avoid losing to their big creature. With the printing of Phyrexian Metamorph, you not only get more copies of Master/Champion, but you can also now take on their Goyf and Knights, which are stronger on your end because they receive pumps from 8 lords in your deck.

    Good hands to keep against Zoo are hands with a few of the cards listed below:
    • Etched Champion + anything
    • Chalice + anything
    • Master of Etherium + Revoker naming Pridemage
    • Master of Etherium/Steel Overseer + Lodestone Golem (putting him outside of 5/3 into 6/4 immediately)
    • Crucible + Wasteland/Inkmoth/Lodestone + fast-mana


    I am still learning how to board correctly against Zoo. Ratchet Bombs may come in to deal with the potential 1cmc creatures that are problematic (Grim Lavamancer and Wild Nacatl). What I have observed is that Ratchet Bombs are weak on the play against Zoo and decent on the draw against Zoo. This is because on the play, you should be leading off with aggressive starts into Chalice/Crucible/Overseer/Champion/Master and force them to answer your threats. If they choose to play Nacatl, the value of the cards mentioned earlier increases and you will match their board development shortly. On the draw, they will definitely lead off usually with Nacatl/lavamancer which blanks out Chalice's effectiveness (you still keep 4 Chalice in). Ratchet Bomb here will catch the eary culprits that will put your life low.


    MERFOLKS
    (65-35 favorable)

    STRENGTHS
    • Etched Champion is once again very solid on the defense and offense.
    • Jitte/SoFI presents a big threat.
    • Overseer is the best card in this matchup, matching their board development of Lords. Merfolks need more than one lord to match Overseer, who provides an ongoing pump effect that forces Merfolks to draw and draw lords i.e. one Overseer in Steel Stompy requires Merfolks to draw more than one card to match him.
    • Phyrexian Revoker is important naming Vials/Coralhelm.
    • Master of Etherium and Lodestone Golem are safe beaters (5/3 is a good body against Merfolks).
    • Standstill is a dead card in their deck unless they lead with an active Vial.
    WEAKNESS
    • Merfolks can out-tempo you with Daze/Wasteland/Vial so always keep that in mind, i.e. do NOT keep hands that lose to Wastelands.
    • Coralhelm Commander is their trump card so Revoker is critical against him unless you can race the clock.
    • Merfolk can curve out better than this deck.
    • Quite a number of dead cards: Crucible of Worlds, Chalice of the Void (only use is to stop Vial, usually not worth it and should be boarded out).
    I truly enjoy this matchup despite my hate for Merfolks. The matchup for most parts is in your favor. If they draw a combination of Vial/Force/creatures, it's in their favor. If they draw either of Vial/Force + creatures, the matchup is 50-50. If they draw no Vial/Force and just creatures, I am very favored. Both decks are aggressive, with Steel Stompy usually being more aggressive due to bigger-sized creatures. However, when lords are involved, combat gets very different. The key thing here is to realize that Lord-math really influences the matchup. If they draw more Lords than you do, then you are forced to do unfavorable trades or take some free damage. Similarly, if Overseer comes online faster, Merfolk simply has trouble keeping up with Steel Stompy's army size.

    Steel Stompy gets more options with Cranial Plating and Jitte to win the stalemates, and the flying manlands are key when board position is under stalemate. Postboard, boarding out Crucibles and a number of Lodestones (and Chalice if I'm on the draw) is ideal when bringing in 3 Ratchet Bombs and 2 Jittes to improve the matchup. I will not board out Cranial Plating against Merfolks. It's the only unfair trump card you have to break the symmetry between the two decks (the two decks have very similar tempo and board development). Ratchet Bomb is not just effective in answering Vial, but it is critical in sweeping their 2-drops/3-drops.

    The goal here is to abuse the fact that Merfolk plays FoW. You want Merfolk to use FoW whenever they can because this means one less creature against you, which from testing has proved to be highly critical to break the symmetry of board position. The best you can hope for against this matchup that makes it a cakewalk is if they draw a creature-light hand, then you will simply beat them down (the same goes against you, so it's best to mull to aggressive hands with enough threats to match theirs, this is why forcing them to pitch a creature to FoW is very worth it).


    BLUE-CONTROL (Landstill, Countertop, Jace-control)

    STRENGTHS
    • Wasteland/Crucible/Rishadan Port/manlands is a big problem for control.
    • Phyrexian Revoker names Top/Jace/EE which forces them to spend an StP or another removal on Revoker while your bigger threats get in.
    • Etched Champion is immune to everything sans Mishra's Factory, Maze of Ith and EE.
    • Master of Etherium functions as a Merfolk Lord creating a big force and beating hard by himself
    • Lodestone Golem is MVP in the matchup when resolved and shines when Wastelands are paired together.
    • Chalice@1 rocks hard.
    • Steel Overseer is the greatest threat (with/without flying manlands).
    • They can sweep your board but you will still end up with flying manlands (possibly with Overseer counters) that get past Humility/Moat.
    • A resolved Tezzeret means that they will lose the turn after Tezzeret comes online.
    WEAKNESSES
    • Really none, but sometimes control can get in there with Planeswalkers after countering a ton of stuff and having multiple sweepers.
    • You need to watch out for Firespout and if they do recur EE, it's time to scoop it up unless you have enough manlands.
    This matchup is very very favored for Steel Stompy. The key reason why Steel Stompy enjoys a much stronger control matchup is due to its philosophy. Unlike other Stompy decks e.g. Dragonstompy, Steel Stompy is not focused on powering out huge threats with a ton of resources (cards/mana). Steel Stompy is focused on minimizing resources yet maximizing its board position. Against control, you have over 20 creatures (Revoker and Lodestone being disruptive, Master and Overseers being must-answers, Champion being immune to most removal) to pressure control. On top of that, you are creating even more pressure from Chalice and Crucible and Wastelands. Contrast this to decks like Dragonstompy where they spend 3-4 cards powering out 1 lockpiece and 1 threat. When these are handled, the deck starts to fold and lose its position. Steel Stompy plays out similarly to Merfolks against control: keeping the pressure up while disrupting. The backup plan when they do finally gain control is to rely on flying manlands to finish the job.

    Postboard, it becomes very unfavorable for Control if they do not pack relevant hate-cards. You will have a new suite of 4 Thorn of Amethyst and 2-3 Winter Orbs (boarding out Equipments) against them. If they are playing Thopter Foundry/Decree/Elspeth, Ratchet Bombs are always helpful. Always FoW-bait whenever possible to tax their resources/cards or to make them play FoW incorrectly. Tezzeret 2.0 now also provides an additional win-condition outside of the combat phase if the control players ever play too many Moat/Humility/Ensnaring Bridges.



    TOURNAMENT HISTORIES

    Top 4 split: 3-1 (14 man)
    Round 1: Merfolks (2-0)
    Round 2: Bant (2-0)
    Round 3: Zoo (1-2)
    Top 4: ???

    1st place: 4-1 (9 man)
    Round 1: UB Merfolks (2-1)
    Round 2: Zoo (1-2)
    Round 3: Junk and Taxes (2-0)
    Top 4: Zoo (2-1)
    Top 2: UB Merfolks (2-1)

    2-2 (8 man)
    Round 1: Countertop (2-1)
    Round 2: CABJace (1-2)
    Round 3: ???
    Round 4: UB Merfolks (1-2)

    Top 4: 3-1 (10 man)
    Round 1: UB Merfolks (2-1)
    Round 2: Big Zoo (1-2)
    Round 3: Enchantress (2-0)
    Round 4: Lands (2-0)
    Top 4: Big Zoo (1-2)

    SCG Legacy Opens DFW - 27th Place 5-3: (~150-200 man)
    Round 1: Belcher (2-0)
    Round 2: Death and Taxes (2-1)
    Round 3: GW NOrder (1-2)
    Round 4: Team America (0-2)
    Round 5: Bye
    Round 6: Merfolks (2-0)
    Round 7: Goblins (2-0)
    Round 8: Imperial Painter (0-2)

    GP Providence Trial: Top 4: 4-1 (17 man)
    Round 1: Merfolk (2-0)
    Round 2: Junk (1-2)
    Round 3: RB Goblins (2-1)
    Round 4: Pox (2-1)
    Round 5: TES (2-0)
    Top 4: Drop since I'm not going to the GP and don't want to compete for byes from my buddies

    Top 4: 4-0 (13 man)
    Round 1: Spiral Tide (2-1)
    Round 2: Imperial Painter (2-0)
    Round 3: NO Bant (2-1)
    Round 4: Enchantress (2-0)
    split top 4

    CREDITS AND CONCLUSIONS

    Many thanks to:
    Friends at Asgard Games who help me test the deck.
    Drew (drewliusmaximus) who has ordered pieces for the deck :P
    Jeff (Esper3k) and Thomas (admiral_arzar) for providing feedback on the deck.
    Plm: suggested Playing Inkmoth Nexus over Factories/Blinkmoths, and emphasizing the power level of Cranial Plating.
    bruizzar: randomnly introducing the idea of Tezz 2.0 which I dismissed, although he was opting entirely to play a different deck, but the idea to play Tezz 2.0 was still provided from him :P
    rukcus: Suggesting the 2/4 Diamond/Opal split, and testing the deck.
    knightelite: Testing lists, and pointing out Tezz 2.0 + Inkmoth Interactions don't work the way I wanted it to be (i.e. keep a 5/5 flying infect :P)
    alterego: making me explore more evasive creatures, which led to inclusion of Ornithopter, which led to the realization of the importance on turn 2 Metalcraft, which led to further iterations down the road.
    spooks: advocating for Tezz 2.0
    mayckol and many others for reading, and having an interest in the deck!
    Last edited by GGoober; 04-26-2011 at 06:04 PM.

  2. #2

    Re: [DECK] Steel Stompy

    Why not play 4 Metalworkers so that you can dump your entire hand the very next turn while leaving you plenty of spare mana to pump your manlands. At the very worst, it will draw a removal spell that would have hit one of your other creatures instead.

  3. #3
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    Re: [DECK] Steel Stompy

    I'd say MW is a sideboard possibility, to SB in for revoker, but that's at best.


    Anyway, I implore you to consider Sphere of Resistance and 2-3 Esperzoa. Sphere stacks wonderfully with golem and has very little drawback for you as colorless is plently, and esperzoa is great for bouncing relatively inert and replayable artifacts for a super efficient beater and cranial carrier.
    I will make use of every tool that fate presents.

  4. #4
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    Re: [DECK] Steel Stompy

    I definitly would fit in Thoughtcast. Draw 2 cards for U is the best draw, you can have in legacy.
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  5. #5
    (previously Metalwalker)
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    Re: [DECK] Steel Stompy

    @Clark: MW has been tried in other stompy builds that I tested but does not go in the overall strategy of this deck. MW is best used in decks that are truly powering out critical threats that win games e.g. Forgemaster, Wurmcoils, Smokestack.

    The list I've proposed is basically a cluster of efficient beaters in the artifact family. I've not tested MW in this list personally but I've tested MW more than enough to know that he won't do much for this deck. The only slot he would replace is Revoker but Revoker is currently doing much more for this deck than MW simply because I have nothing to abuse with MW and if I wanted to add stuff to abuse with MW, it would develop into a different approach and a different deck. MW decks tend to want to overextend and play out huge bombs, and this deck isn't about playing bombs, it's playing cards that are skewing tempo development (your lords pump, your other dudes disrupt).

    Even if I could find space, the list will sometimes play Metalworker out turn 1 to dump hands on turn 2 which is great, but if Metalworker cannot be played turn 1, it would dump my hands on turn 3 and later, which this deck is already achieving without Metalworker. Most importantly, I don't really have anything to abuse with Metalworker and if I cut something for Metalworker, my curve is shifting towards a heavier 3cmc, which puts more condition on playable turn 1 spells. If I do want to play MW, I would need Grim Monoliths to increase his playability turn 1, but that turns the deck into a different deck.

    @perm: I've tested Spheres in 9-12ball in Legacy. It was considerably weak. Currently, it will have great synergy with Lodestone and/or Wasteland, but Sphere has always been a win-more in matchups that I am already winning. What I mean is this: Against Vial/Noble Hierarch, Sphere does nothing, against decks without Vial/Noble Hierarch, this deck is capable of fighting those decks pretty favorably and Sphere will improve the favored matchups more. Sphere hasn't been able to make the weaker Vial/Noble Hierarch/Lackey/Goyf matchups better. There were many times where I can go Ancient Tomb->Sphere and I lose to a well-timed Wasteland (although this build runs more lands so it's worth testing again). The problem with 9-12ball in Legacy was simply: If you don't draw your lockpieces before they land Hierarch/Vial/Goyf, you're out of the picture since you run little threats that can answer the threats your opponents landed earlier.

    I do love Spheres in the SB, where if I'm on the play, they're insanely powerful or they function best in matchups where they are best in (i.e. control/combo). If there's another taxing effect to try out, it's Rishadan Port. I'm still working on testing 3 Ports over 3 Blinkmoth Nexus. 4 Manlands and 20 creatures should be enough synergy with Overseer, but I really like having 7 manlands for extra board development without spending any additional resources since an online Overseer/Master pumps these critters for free.

    Esperzoa is great, but I can't support another 3-4 blue cards without adding blue sources or cutting other lands.

  6. #6
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    Re: [DECK] Steel Stompy

    Quote Originally Posted by Windux View Post
    I definitly would fit in Thoughtcast. Draw 2 cards for U is the best draw, you can have in legacy.
    Thoughtcast is pretty good. The problem is, this list is incredibly tight. Everything has interlocking synergy with everything else, and there's not really anything that can be cut, other than lands. However, this is built on consistency, and cutting lands would decrease that significantly. In addition, only ten blue sources isn't really enough to consistently cast more blue cards.

    Also, Metalworker should not be in here because it pushes the deck more towards dropping stupid bombs at the expense of consistency. Notably, this deck has no stupid bombs to drop in with the guy. If you want that, visit the Meandeck MUD thread. This deck doesn't care if you remove its first disruptive dude as it will just play more. If you rely on Metalworker, your strategy starts to collapse when it dies.
    Lord of the Chalice

    Quote Originally Posted by Julian23 View Post
    Since playing against Spiral Tide provides a lot fun for both players is something only someone who's not had sex for quite a while could enjoy, I pull out GW Maverick.
    Quote Originally Posted by Brainstorm Ape View Post
    Spikes are supposed to enjoy winning by leveraging their talents, but this card can't fetch the most SKILL INTENSIVE card in all of Magic?

    Clearly aimed at Modern plebs, not gonna be a pillar of our format.
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  7. #7
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    Re: [DECK] Steel Stompy

    Admiral, you said it right completely. The list is very tight now. The only slots I can really cut are Crucibles/Accelerants/Equipments. Crucible itself will give more card-advantage (with lands/manlands/wastelands) more than Thoughtcast, and Jitte is by itself another source of advantage. Plating is really there to win games faster.

    Anyway, I did find some interesting ways to improve the existing list. I tested out Rishadan Ports (goldfishing about 50 games, will have to do real testing this saturday) and it turned out to be very strong pairing up with Wasteland, Moxens, and Lodestone (postboard Port with Winter Orb+Moxen and Port with Thorn is another big tool using your lands as tools against control/combo).

    The changes I made with reasoning are:
    -1 Island
    -3 Blinkmoth Nexus
    +4 Rishadan Port

    -1 Crucible
    +1 Mox Opal

    Dropping to 4 manlands loses some synergy with Steel Overseer, however, in games where you do not draw Steel Overseers, the Blinkmoth do nothing. It's also sometimes hard to have the mana to attack with 7 manlands in the deck and this deck is always almost constantly playing creatures everyturn (creature count is very high in the deck). Ideal case maybe to drop 3 Nexus for 3 Ports and the Island for the 5th manland (Blinkmoth) to retain the synergy to some extent, but I feel that Port has been really stellar in testing.

    You can get the openings of Mox Diamond->Port which acts as a Pseudo wasteland. I've cut the Crucibles to 2 now with the changes. There are times where double Crucibles are drawn, and most games wastelock is win-more anyway. With the addition of Port, Port itself acts as a pseudo mini Wastelock since you are always tapping down 1 land (this time a basic!). There is a drawback to ports, since it is tempo trade on your board development as well, but so far the synergies of port in a list with 3 Diamonds, 3 Opals and 8 Sol-Lands offsets this drawback to some extent.

    The more games I play, the more convinced I feel that Mox Opal is a completely unfair card if you're playing an artifact deck in Legacy. It is essentially a Vintage Moxen (only if you play artifact.dec so metalcraft isn't an issue.

    I've upped the Opal to x3, and there are times where I draw x2 Opals, but that has been about 7/50 games. Regardless, I want to see a turn 2 Opal almost all the time. From more testing, I found that the 4/2 Diamond/Opal split is weaker than the 3/3 Diamond/Opal split. The reasoning being:

    4 Diamond leads to more consistent turn 1 openings with Diamond whcih is great, but it also greatly increases the drawing of x2 Diamonds. 3 Opal does not lead to as often x2 Opal-draws compared to running 4 Diamonds. When you do draw the 2nd Diamond, it's usually almost a dead-card. Since playing that 2nd Diamond involves pitching yet another land (so you have used 1 land a diamond, played a land, and now playing another diamond pitching a land, that's a total of 5 cards to generate 3 mana on turn 2. Contrast this with 1 Opal + 2 land giving the same 3 mana on turn 2). The more I play this deck, the stronger I see Mox Opal in artifact decks, and it's finally made its way into a 3/3 split. I've considered cutting the lone Island instead of the 3rd Crucible to play a 3/3 split but this deck is very land-hungry for some reasons. I really hate drawing less than 2 lands in this deck, which STILL FUCKING happens. It's like Landstill hates me and wants to punish me for playing 24 lands by mana-screwing me. I also considered dropping Cranial Plating to x2 instead of x3 to fit the third Opal, but the Plating has proven to be a valuable tool against aggro and control matchups. It gives your small Revoker a big power to do favorable trades, and just wins instantly with Champion/Inkmoth when online.

    Regardless, the changes show quite a lot of potential. The list for this saturday would be:

    4 Ancient Tomb
    4 City of Traitors
    4 Wasteland
    4 Rishadan Port
    4 Seat of Synod
    4 Inkmoth Nexus (this card is absurdly good in the deck, 1 turn wins with plating, 2 turn wins with Overseer)

    4 Phyrexian Revoker
    4 Steel Overseer
    4 Etched Champion
    4 Master of Etherium
    4 Lodestone Golem

    3 Cranial Plating
    2 Umezawa's Jitte

    3 Mox Opal
    3 Mox Diamond

    4 Chalice of the Void
    2 Crucible of Worlds

    SB:
    4 Thorn of Amethyst
    2 Winter Orb
    3 Ratchet Bomb
    3 Tangle Wire
    2 Razormane Masticore
    1 Sword of Fire/Ice
    Last edited by GGoober; 02-18-2011 at 04:11 PM.
    Decks that I care about:
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    REB is a fantastic sideboard card against blue... in blue decks :/

  8. #8
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    Re: [DECK] Steel Stompy

    I can't help but think "what can Ethersworn Canonist do for this deck?" I know, I know. The list is tight. Splashing a 2nd color isn't even a real option. Still, it would be so cool to play with impunity while your opponent is sitting on one spell a turn. Seems like it would help the combo matchup immensely.
    Brainstorm Realist

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  9. #9
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    Re: [DECK] Steel Stompy

    Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Safety View Post
    I can't help but think "what can Ethersworn Canonist do for this deck?" I know, I know. The list is tight. Splashing a 2nd color isn't even a real option. Still, it would be so cool to play with impunity while your opponent is sitting on one spell a turn. Seems like it would help the combo matchup immensely.
    As I am the combo player that he generally tests against, I'm going to go out on a limb and say his postboard doesn't need to get any better against combo. 4 Chalice, 4 Revoker, 4 Lodestone Golem, 4 Thorn of Amethyst, plus Wasteland, Winter Orb, Rishadan Port, and Tanglewire? That's absolutely absurd. Canonist is completely unnecesary, as this deck just hoses basically any combo deck postboard. It's quite capable of getting there preboard as well, with correct mulligans and a little luck (same as any chalice deck, except this one packs Wasteland/Port, Revoker, and Lodestone Golem in addition). Honestly, the only way you lose to combo post board (short of just bad lack) is them getting the nuts and comboing before you drop lock pieces, or them drawing so much disruption that they counter/discard away all your relevant cards and then kill you.

    EDIT: @ Metalwalker: I'm interested in how the Ports perform. It seems like the extra disruption would work wonders in some matchups, but without AEther Vial it might slow you down an unnacceptable amount at times.
    Last edited by Admiral_Arzar; 02-18-2011 at 09:52 AM. Reason: Additional thoughts
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    Since playing against Spiral Tide provides a lot fun for both players is something only someone who's not had sex for quite a while could enjoy, I pull out GW Maverick.
    Quote Originally Posted by Brainstorm Ape View Post
    Spikes are supposed to enjoy winning by leveraging their talents, but this card can't fetch the most SKILL INTENSIVE card in all of Magic?

    Clearly aimed at Modern plebs, not gonna be a pillar of our format.
    Stompy Discord: https://discord.gg/6cesvkz

  10. #10
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    Re: [DECK] Steel Stompy

    Hi,

    What happenened to the lone island ? With 6 moxen you won't be wasted out of the blue, but I liked the idea of not turning path to exile into a better sword to plowshare. Why not playing 3 synod / 1 island ? lord of atlantis? metalcraft? moe?

    Glad to see you finally saw the strengh of inkmoth.

    Going to 4 manland is a bit on the light side, isn't it ? When playing with the full 12 manland I have enjoyed smashing the control mach up, but thats true that half of them served to power on the others, so I can understand swiching to port.

    Cranial is back!!! That's the right choice, it s so powerfull with champion/inkmoth, but mostly you can trade revoker or a small overseer against Goyf ( or any random fatguy) where the swords don't do as much .

    I really enjoy where the deck is heading, will continue to play it, will post a report if next tournament is insightfull.
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  11. #11
    (previously Metalwalker)
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    Re: [DECK] Steel Stompy

    Hey guys,

    Small tourney (8 man) did bad 2-2.

    Once again, needs testing because 4 Ports looked like tits on paper, but in practice didn't perform as well. It was real hot tapping down Maze of Ith though.

    I played
    Countertop (2-1)
    My deck actually semi-folds to active Countertop. Postboard I try to change that: +2 Winter Orb, +4 Thorn, +3 Ratchet Bomb. Game 2 I had him locked under Orb and beat him down. Last game, Orb came back as well, but he owned me with 5 basics into Back to Basics off an Etutor. He was still short on lands. I played port, tapped his lands down and try to get in with 4/4 Overseer (he was at 16 when overseer was 3/3, I grew overseer to 4/4 and rode him to victory over 4 turns).

    CABJace (1-2)
    had him down to 1-life before he EE-lock me out with Ruins and Wastelocked me with Crucible. Both games he had me EE AND Wastelocked out. Was tough. Maze of Ith stalled that one crucial turn.

    Forgot the next matchup, but I won.

    UB Merfolks (1-2)
    He leads with Aether Vial every game I've played against him. Steel Overseer and Inkmoth drops him to 6 poison counters. He wastes inkmoth and has 2 vials active. Proceeds to dump dudes. I topdeck Inkmoth 2 turns later while stalling with my board. I grow Inkmoth EOT to 2/2, Swing in with Inkmoth pump to 3/3 and with Master's passive, wins with 4 poison to 10. He was at 19 life that game, I was at 3 life :P

    Postboard Razormane masticore lost me both games. Terrible card against Merfolks. It's not going to resolve anyway lol. Last game I drew quite a lot of land, but had Razormane + Champion + Overseer. Still not enough since everything else was lands.

    However, some important lessons learned from that tourney:

    1) Merfolk is still very much favorable (much better than 50-50 than I previously tested) but my postboards end up screwing me over.
    - Razormane Masticore is horrible. The UB Merfolk list I played against had Snuff Outs SB (which btw is amazing in UB Merfolks i.e. spend all my mana developing my board, spend all my free spells as disruptions/counters/removal). Razormane 2 games actually costed me both games. It was slow, and card-disadvantage and tempo dis-advantage. I would be packing 2 SoFI in the SB instead of Razormane from now on.

    2) Rishadan Port is great, but not as great as 6-7 manlands.
    I would say that had my Ports been manlands, I could have won the matchups I lost to Countertop/CABJace more favorably. Port is great when they are on a lock, or you are working towards a lock. But once they start making land drop it's significantly weaker. What's amazing about the manlands are they fly, and will present big problems against control lists playing Firespout/EE/Ensnaring Bridge/Moat (Bridge was annoying)

    Current manabase configuration would be:
    4 Seat
    4 Inkmoth
    2 Blinkmoth
    2 Ports
    4 Wasteland
    4 City
    4 Ancient Tomb

    I think 6 manlands is quite necessary. Ports looked really good on paper, but in practice, having a manland on turn 1-3 to be pumped by Overseer/Master was more invaluable as both defense/offense. More critically, the manlands fly, which presents a huge threat to Planeswalkers, breaking stalemates on the ground.

    Cranial Plating was stellar. I'm quite convinced it's more powerful than Jitte in the deck although the deck needs 2 Jittes against Gobs and Zoo. The 3/3 Diamond/Opal split was great. I only drew double Opal twice, and thankfully not see double Diamonds if I were to run the 4/2 split. The 3rd Crucible was missed since Crucible is so good. With 6 manlands now, I might try to find space for the 3rd Crucible since it's strong with manlands.

    @Plm: I cut the Island because only Zoo plays Path. Bant sometimes in the SB. There are quite a ton of decks in Legacy, and I have rarely seen Path outside of Zoo, which you will kill Path if you played a Chalice (so further narrowing the chances you see Path). I accept that my deck loses to Wastelock (which was how CABJace beat me twice). Other than that, I can't deal with Wastelock so that's an inherent weakness of the deck I won't change since it will dilute its strategy too much.

    3rd Opal feels like cheating when you draw one frequently on turn 2. There is still a fundamental problem with the deck. Having the 6th-8th Artifact land will greatly improve metalcraft. I usually get metalcraft turn 2-3, but not guaranteed turn 2. This has presented some tempo loss in the form of developing my board. Perhaps I should drop the ports and go with 2 Dark Citadel to support Metalcraft. That would make the tempo development on turn 2 stronger, but I'm not sure yet. All I know is sometimes I do not hit metalcraft turn 2, and that has costed me a few games (i.e. 1 swing from winning, or a turn slower where Lodestone/Crucible would had been more backbreaking).

    Thanks for testing the list Plm. Your suggestions are very important so far. Basically I was heading in a more prison-controllish approach where you are going for the throat with 12 manlands. I ended up realizing that the deck is most similar to Merfolks-aggro than any other form of aggro, so when I identified the role of the deck, I went ahead on optimizing card selection. A lot more testing needed, but I think Factory is a waste in the deck. Does not break stalemates, can't kill Jace when needed, and doesn't win games in 1-2 turns. Inkmoth is just stupid good in the deck. Its actually one of the few cards that makes me like a Standard card. I might revert back to 7-8 manlands, but I'm at the same time working out statistics for the deck.

    One big thing that I could probably never get to pilot this deck to its fullest is based on two curses I have with MTG:
    1) Losing die rolls (I think on average, I win 25% of dice rolls, or less). I really feel like quitting MTG because of this (like seriously, not even joking, it's like freaking try hard and end up not worth it because you can't even make 40%-50% of your die rolls).

    2) Drawing less than 2 lands opening hands in over 40% of games. This has been a bane since I started playing Landstill. I always played with 24, because I just can't draw lands opening hands (and no, it's not Wasteland, it's lands in my hand). With this deck, 24 lands, I have mulled 4/9 games last weekend, due to drawing 0-1 lands in my opening hands. Please remind me why I should play MTG when the maths doesn't add up lol. If it's a shuffling technique, I don't care and need to learn how to stack my deck. I need to learn how to RANDOMIZE my deck so I can trust the maths/statistics..

    Here's the calculations (easy one I did):
    Drawing X Lands in Hand
    Lands in Deck

    5 4 3 2 1
    26 9.56% 23.16% 31.22% 23.42% 9.05%
    25 8.19% 21.44% 31.18% 25.22% 10.51%
    24 6.93% 19.64% 30.87% 26.94% 12.10%
    23 5.80% 17.82% 30.29% 28.56% 13.84%
    22 4.79% 15.98% 29.43% 30.02% 15.73%
    21 3.90% 14.16% 28.33% 31.31% 17.74%
    20 3.13% 12.39% 26.98% 32.37% 19.88%
    19 2.47% 10.70% 25.41% 33.18% 22.12%
    18 1.91% 9.10% 23.65% 33.70% 24.45%
    17 1.45% 7.61% 21.73% 33.90% 26.84%
    16 1.07% 6.24% 19.68% 33.74% 29.24%
    15 0.77% 5.02% 17.55% 33.22% 31.63%
    14 0.54% 3.93% 15.38% 32.30% 33.95%
    13 0.36% 3.00% 13.21% 30.98% 36.14%
    12 0.23% 2.22% 11.08% 29.26% 38.13%


    As you can see, with 24 lands, the highest probability to draw X lands is X=3, followed by X=2 lands. Obviously, I always draw X=1 lands with 12% probability. The chances of me drawing less than 2 lands is: 12.10% + probability of drawing no-lands (~4%). Go figure.
    Last edited by GGoober; 02-22-2011 at 02:56 PM.
    Decks that I care about:
    Steel Stompy
    UWx Landstill
    Dreadstalker
    DDFT (10% practice)

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    Quote Originally Posted by Gheizen64 View Post
    REB is a fantastic sideboard card against blue... in blue decks :/

  12. #12
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    Re: [DECK] Steel Stompy

    Quote Originally Posted by Metalwalker View Post
    2) Drawing less than 2 lands opening hands in over 40% of games. This has been a bane since I started playing Landstill. I always played with 24, because I just can't draw lands opening hands (and no, it's not Wasteland, it's lands in my hand). With this deck, 24 lands, I have mulled 4/9 games last weekend, due to drawing 0-1 lands in my opening hands. Please remind me why I should play MTG when the maths doesn't add up lol. If it's a shuffling technique, I don't care and need to learn how to stack my deck. I need to learn how to RANDOMIZE my deck so I can trust the maths/statistics..
    Pile shuffle in seven piles, then make two piles out of those, and riffle them together seven times. Alternate riffling directions so you bend cards both ways, resulting in no bending. This is what I do, and I rarely mulligan due to manascrew, even in decks with 14-16 lands. Also, make sure your sleeves are decent.

    As for the changes, I agree that manlands are probably more important than Ports, at least pre-board. Winter Orb/Tanglewire is what makes Port really brutal. Your 6 manlands/2 ports sounds like a good split. I can see Razormane being bad against Merfolk lol, SOFI should be much better.
    Lord of the Chalice

    Quote Originally Posted by Julian23 View Post
    Since playing against Spiral Tide provides a lot fun for both players is something only someone who's not had sex for quite a while could enjoy, I pull out GW Maverick.
    Quote Originally Posted by Brainstorm Ape View Post
    Spikes are supposed to enjoy winning by leveraging their talents, but this card can't fetch the most SKILL INTENSIVE card in all of Magic?

    Clearly aimed at Modern plebs, not gonna be a pillar of our format.
    Stompy Discord: https://discord.gg/6cesvkz

  13. #13
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    Re: [DECK] Steel Stompy

    You could follow the SFM plan and go in an entirley different direction. You could customize it quite a bit, but the idea is to move away from the pump effects and just play a solid disrupt and beat strategy with explosive possibilities. Seems like a nice compromise between the Bomholt deck and a consistent beatdown strategy. Also has good game agaisnt combo which is great when you are aggro.

    3 SFM
    4 Metal Worker
    4 Lodestone Golemn
    4 Wurmcoil
    4 Steel Hellkite

    4 CotV
    4 Trinisphere
    3 Crucible
    4 Equipment???

    4 Monolith
    2 Mox Diamond?
    4 Waste
    8 Tomb/City
    4 Adakar
    4 Plains

    SB:
    4 Revoker
    4 Canonist
    4 Crypt
    3 Rachet Bomb
    Calls for banning are almost always the scrubs way out. Real men view a challenge as something to overcome, a puzzle to solve, an opportunity to be had, and the source of evolution.

  14. #14
    (previously Metalwalker)
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    Re: [DECK] Steel Stompy

    The main success of Bomholt's deck is packing keys with monoliths. Without key, you will have to rely almost solely on Metalworker or hands with multiple Sol-lands and Monoliths to power out Hellkites and Wurmcoils.

    I could see Key being cut in his list, but once that's gone, it becomes less appealing to run Wurmcoils and Hellkites that come out 1-2 turn slower. And I think we all fully understand why every turn matters to Stompy, it's not really about your opponents getting an extra hit with Goyf or an extra turn to answer your threats, it's really about the extra turn that critically outweighs their options at that turn. Bomholt's deck is based on that philosophy: churn out stuff ASAP on turn 2. If you cut the keys, you're going to be much less likely to churn these threats out.

    My only problem with Metalworker is: aside from Bomholt's MUD list, he has been subpar in any other stompy build. And when he is good, he is deceivingly good i.e. you would have won those games without Metalworker anyway. The reason being: there is always removal for metalworker, but the issue isn't if you can connect him before removal hits (like Lackey), it's about what you're pairing him up with your entire deck. Metalworker has sucked quite bad in all the iterations of Stompy we've seen until Bomholtz, and even then, Bomholtz does not solely rely on Metalworker to power out threats. In your list, Grim monoliths are fine, but they lose a ton of power without key, being a bad Dark Ritual/Lotus Petal that gets past Chalice at 0.

    From my experience prior to Bomholt's decklist (Bomholt's list provides a lot more insight as to why other stompy variants failed where he succeeded), I can safely tell you that running Metalworker in a deck of prison-cards e.g. 3 Trinisphere + 3 crucible + more prison card is a bad idea. Why? If you are leading with turn 1 Metalworker, you could have well played out a lockpiece in the first place. Bomholtz demonstrated that his list was successful, and some analysis signals that the very high bomb-threat in his deck is directly co-related to playing with Metalworker and Grim Monolith. Why has MW and monolith builds not succeeded previously? Because they were focused on some bombs but unlike bomholtz, there was just not enough bomb. metalworker simply became: accelerate drop lockpiece than hope to draw a beater or probably just draw lockpieces and sit there being a 1/2. Bomholtz list allows him to keep dropping threats/bombs, with Lodestone being a disruptive threat on an impressive body (the reason why I run this guy because he's that impressive).

    What is Adakar? It's an interesting list though, but I want to stress the approach of Steel Stompy is to be as consistent as possible, and when I mean by consistent it's like drawing hands that don't have to rely on specific cards to be good i.e. you can always keep a hand as long as it's not mana-screw/flood, and only need to mull when you are paired against a specific matchup.

    In testing, Overseer has pretty much amusingly been the best card in the deck. There are a number of matchups where you want to board him out, and that's against Sligh, combo, and combo and combo. Otherwise, he matches aggro decks on par in terms of overall tempo development (he sucks early game, but after 2 turns, he's the greatest pain if no one has removed him).

    One big thing I need to really work on, is figure ideal sideboard/maindeck slots i.e. how do i board correctly to win matchups. last week, Tangle Wire was completely useless, and on paper I can think of matchups where they are good, but when actualyl playing, I still don't have slots to board them out against said-matchups. I would say that if I had a 3rd Winter Orb, and other relevant SB cards, I could have done better last week.
    Decks that I care about:
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    Dreadstalker
    DDFT (10% practice)

    Mangara on MWS? You must be masochistic. -kiblast
    Quote Originally Posted by Gheizen64 View Post
    REB is a fantastic sideboard card against blue... in blue decks :/

  15. #15
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    Re: [DECK] Steel Stompy

    Adarkar = Adarkar Wastes?

    Seems unnecessary in a deck with no blue. I'd play Ghost Quarter or Flagstones first.
    Red Wizard needs food badly!

  16. #16
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    Re: [DECK] Steel Stompy

    Good analysis of Key's role in Bomholtz brew. I cut it because it's the least relavant card on it's own but it may be the "glue" that holds that deck together as you suggest.
    Calls for banning are almost always the scrubs way out. Real men view a challenge as something to overcome, a puzzle to solve, an opportunity to be had, and the source of evolution.

  17. #17
    (previously Metalwalker)
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    Re: [DECK] Steel Stompy

    My analysis is only based on blarknob's statement "Key cannot be cut", and limited playtesting, but yeah, it is quite critical in what the deck needs to get accomplished. For very similar reasons, my current list is really tight. I've been trying a couple of cards with the Crucible/Equipment/Accelerant slots and still optimizing it. Sure, you can cut 4 Etched Champion or 4 Revokers/Overseer, but since the list was built mainly on synergy, that will be compromised (for the same reason you can cut Keys in Meandeck MUD no problem, but there will be less synergy in generating huge mana early). Last week I played with 2 Crucibles, and definitely felt the need for 3 back. It's not just powerful with Wasteland, but was much needed for its own instability with Mox Diamond/City of Traitors/Opposing Wastes and increasing the power of manlands.

    I'm back to 3 again in the most recent list (posted above). Until I find a way to consistently beat the Zoo/Merfolks/Gobs cluster (which I probably won't in the near future without knowing exactly what is needed for Stompy to beat these decks, i.e. I'm trying to really step out and observe how Zoo/Merfolks/Goblins win games and attacking their weak point instead of thinking the old-saying "turn 1 Trinisphere ggn00bs" because such thinking has proven to be true when it works and totally untrue when it doesn't work, and sadly this strategy really doesn't work as often as it used to). All I know is 2 Jitte is a must since it's a good card against these 3 aggro cluster. Cranial Plating maybe questionable but the testing so far is a little ambiguous i.e. I don't know for sure if my games are won with Plating via fast attack/racing or if Cranial Plating isn't crucial for me to win those matchups e.g. Plating on Champion/Inkmoth. Still a lot more testing to do. Control/Countertop is still quite favorable although last week proved that good Legacy cards can beat mediocore cards. My sideboard was terrible and worthless last week aside from 4 Thorns and 2 Winter Orb.

    Despite creating the initial core of the deck and understanding the basis on where this deck is heading, I'm still learning quite a lot from this deck itself, and it goes to prove that there is more to the deck/archetype that can be optimized. E.g. When I went for more controllish approaches to aggressive matchups like Zoo, I tend to lose. The way to beat Zoo is to be even more aggressive e.g. mulling aggressively into Champion or Chalice or Crucible/manlands. I would have never figured out that being more aggressive against the Merfolk matchup is better than being on the defensive keeping 4 Chalice maindeck trying to shut out Vials on the play. In fact, recent playtesting, I've entirely boarded out 4 Chalice on the play/draw against Merfolks. The key reason being: Merfolks can only draw that many cards (+1 Adept, +3 Standstill which doesn't work against this deck). Running Chalice makes it only worthwhile on the play against Vial. AGainst Merfolks, the successful strategy was to be more aggressive: pack more creatures (bigger ones so that you force them to draw lords to match yours, this is where Overseer is the best card against the deck), and run more equipment to outclass their creatures. Force them to FoW/Daze and offset tempo. Since they only draw that many cards against you, you are quite on par, and start gaining advantage once the board is equivalent or you get Champion/Inkmoth out. This is entirely opposite to Goblins, where I HAVE to play 4 Chalice on the play. It shuts down Lackey + Vial, which is key. Goblins, unlike Merfolks will be able to outdraw you, race you faster, so the initial game is important, and it's harder to maintain the gamestate against Goblins when Vial is in play. AGainst Merfolks, once again, they can only draw that many cards, so you really should be happy to see them pitch a creature to their FoW and having made 2 land drops and a Vial in play aka they have 2 creatures in hand and you have about 3-4, plus all the equipment you're going to start drawing.

    All these observations won't be possible without playtesting and feedback, so there is still a ton for me to learn how to accurately view my matchup against various decks, and work out a good sideboard. Thanks for all the feedback/suggestions though.
    Decks that I care about:
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    Dreadstalker
    DDFT (10% practice)

    Mangara on MWS? You must be masochistic. -kiblast
    Quote Originally Posted by Gheizen64 View Post
    REB is a fantastic sideboard card against blue... in blue decks :/

  18. #18
    Splitting time between Legacy, EDH and Alterations
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    Re: [DECK] Steel Stompy

    This is interesting and fun. I think you are stretching your mana base too much for Master of Ethirium though. I agree he is the tits, but is the splash really worth it? You could play totally mono brown with arcbound ravager instead of Master. Ravager seems pretty decent with Overseer as ravager can sack itself to give other dudes +1/+1. Now you have more drops at 2cc, making the 2cc creature Turn 1, Equipment T2 plan much more feasible.

    Your manabase could look like this:
    4 Waste
    4 Factory
    4 Blinkmoth
    4 Darksteel
    4 Ancient Tomb
    4 City of Traitors

    And the rest of the deck would look like this:

    4 Steel
    4 Revoker
    4 Ravager
    4 Champion
    4 Lodestone

    4 Chalice
    2 Opal
    2 Diamond
    3 Crucible
    3 Cranial
    2 Jitte

    You can then cut your Diamonds and opals down to 2 each to prevent drawing multiples. Now you have up to 8 manlands without worrying too much about your coloured count. I personally think factory is better. This deck is aggro, and you want your manlands to deal real damage and not poison counters. I know that inkmoth is better at defense where you can recur it and shrink creatures, but on the aggro end, I prefer mishra's.

  19. #19
    (previously Metalwalker)
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    Re: [DECK] Steel Stompy

    Ivan,

    Regarding mana issues with Master, that has not cropped up much. In a total of perhaps 100+ games tested since the deck's inception, There were about 5-7 games where I had truly dead Masters in hand. What I mean by truly dead Masters is: my hand has nothing else to cast except Masters and I don't draw the blue source. This number is generally small, and over the course of time, I will draw the blue source to play the Master. Most of the time, I always have something to play (since the deck isn't 1/3 accelerants bent on powering out threats the way Dragonstompy is).

    What makes Master an important pivotal piece to the deck is the following reason (and the reasons are based off testing):
    1) You need Master to match Goyf.dec. Decks playing Goyfs/knights/big dudes can be solved with Etched Champion, but 4 Etched Champion isn't dense enough to handle the matchups. Master counts as the 5th-8th answer against such creatures, and many times I have to draw either Champion/Master to start winning. No other creature aside from Master in the artifact familiar fulfills this role (no creatures that are castable without Metalworker/monolith that is)

    2) Master as the 5th-8th lord is highly critical in the deck's winning strategy. Over time, when analyzing what this deck wants to do, I came to the conclusion that my win-strategy was to: Overwhelm, have creatures with P/T in the range of forcing opponents to make unfavorable trades. Master is the faster Overseer in the deck i.e. he will come down apply lord effects instantly, and beat for huge damage himself. Overseer is obviously more powerful over turns, but Master puts the pressure right there when he's in play.

    3) Pumps Lodestone to 6/4 is critical in Legacy avoiding the 3 damage range from Nacatl, bolts, and kililng 6/6 knights or 5/6 Goyfs. Pumping Champion also allows you to start killing Zoo/Merfolk lords when needed.

    Why Ravager was not played anymore:
    Before MBS was spoiled, Ravager was the only good 2cmc slot before Phyrexian Revoker and was the slot I played. Even before then, Ravager was subpar. Here're the reasons:

    1) He disables or restricts Metalcraft, i.e. you can never sac enough artifacts while balancing Metalcraft
    2) He goes against the very principle of the deck (biggest reason) to have a superior board position.
    3) He only truly shines against removal i.e. nullifying removal by saccing, but even then, you usually need Chalice out to stop StP before you move counters over to inkmoth/champion.
    4) Ravager is actually very very weak without Disciple. I played Ravager pre-MBS and he was good at certain times, but most of the time he was either costing me my board position (saccing artifacts without Disciple has much less value than it looks), or winning-more. The greatest strength of Ravager was to dodge removal for your other dudes.

    When the deck started focusing on building up similarly to Merfolks and applying lord effects, ravager became obvious that he was going against that principle.


    Inkmoth v.s. factory:
    I have tested over 70+ games with factories, and only about 30+ games with Inkmoth, but all I can say Inkmoth is very superior over factory. Inkmoth is much weaker if you don't play Platings so if for some reason you need to cut Platings for better MD cards or relevant cards against a specific metagame, I'd go with Factories. But it is hard to cut Plating given the synergy with champion/Inkmoth, and just in general being the most unfair equipment when playing an artifact deck.

    Factories over 70+ games are only good if you have overseer in play i.e. growing them bigger than goyfs to start swinging in. Inkmoth/Blinkmoth do not need the requirement of drawing lords/overseer. Once you have a neutral ground board position, you can start winning in the air. Regarding the poison/damage split, I was worried about this as well, but I decided to test against that worry (as suggested by Plm) and it turned out much better. The reason is:

    1) In situations where factories cannot attack (a lot of the time), you are wasting turns not being able to swing in. In such situations, Inkmoth goes in. If you have 1 Lord (master) then it's a 5 turn clock. If you have Overseer, it's a 3 turn clock, if you have Plating it's a 1-2 turn clock
    2) Irregardless, Inkmoth is still superior to Blinkmoth. The reason being, assuming no lords, the 1 damage from Blinkmoth is almost negligible despite the damage already done to players by ground units e.g. If an opponent is at 10 life with blinkmoth, Inkmoth still outraces Blinkmoth. Once a lord is involved, or Plating comes in, Inkmoth is ages faster.
    3) Inkmoth, contrary to what you think, is way better on the aggression than defense. I don't block with Inkmoth unless I am planning to shrink dudes so that my ground forces make opponent's trades unfavorable in future turns. With a lord out, you can shrink units -2/-2. The only time you want to use Inkmoth on the defensive is when you are attempting to win the ground battle by making your dudes bigger than opponents and force them into unfavorable trades, or if you draw Crucible/Inkmoth, which is quite powerful.
    Decks that I care about:
    Steel Stompy
    UWx Landstill
    Dreadstalker
    DDFT (10% practice)

    Mangara on MWS? You must be masochistic. -kiblast
    Quote Originally Posted by Gheizen64 View Post
    REB is a fantastic sideboard card against blue... in blue decks :/

  20. #20
    Vintage

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    Re: [DECK] Steel Stompy

    I think that 24 lands may be too many. I've been running 22 with 5 moxen and that works out really well. We already have Crucible to replay lands, and with have moxen to accelerate. The full 8-Sollands are helpful here to that effect as well. The problem I've been facing in my testing is that I draw into mana clumps with no action.

    I don't see why Thoughtcast can't also be included. It's a very beneficial card in this deck that doesn't get affected (greatly) by Golem, Chalice, and the SB Thorns.
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