[DECK] Steel Stompy

[GGoober]

22-23 lands should be ideal, and I agree with you, but I just cant draw lands myself (like seriously) so I've been playing 24 (and still getting mana screwed v.s. mana flooded). Regarding the correct ratio of counts. I'll be able to figure that out in a month. I have a spreadsheet that is calculating all the optimal number of cards I should be playing in the deck (obviously this is the theory, but the practice is to play the deck and test it out).

Thoughtcast will most likely make it in if I have spare slots. I could run Faerie Mechanist, but Thoughtcast is way faster, and draws more cards. It's sad there's really not a lot of good artifacts unless you plan to cheat the high cmc cost ones in with MW/Monolith.

[Esper3k]

Shuffle better! :)

Mechanist is interesting. While it draws you less cards, it does give you another evasive body to put Cranial Plating on.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Shuffle better! :)

Mechanist is interesting. While it draws you less cards, it does give you another evasive body to put Cranial Plating on.

Mechanist is an interesting idea, but I'm not sure how I feel about another four-drop. Especially one that requires colored mana - what would be cut to fit it? Lodestone Golem is probably too good to cut, and that would be a lot of four-drops.

[GGoober]

I'll cut 1-2 lands, because running 24 lands with 5-6 moxen is overkill (apparently not for my case when I play it becase running 24 lands always seem to draw less lands than reanimator running 16-18 lands).

Ideally I want to drop to 23 lands with 3 diamond, 3 Opal. The 3rd Opal has been very important to playing the 4 drops before turn 4 and playing faster 3cmc drops. Sometimes I'm able to achieve turn 2 golems, but that's still a little rare. My only worry is the blue-sources. 4 Seat + 6 Mox is pushing it to the verge of instability but since there's only 4 blue spells, by turn 3, I should usually see a blue source. Running 2 more blue cards might unbalance the ratio.

However, the best card-draw engine for the deck is neither Thoughtcast/mechanist. It's simply Sword of Fire and Ice. SoFI was great 2 weeks ago, but I dropped them in favor of Plating. Still up in the air about the configuration. If the meta is truly infested with Gobs/Folks, then I'll be dropping the 3 Plating + 4 Inkmoth for +1 jitte, +2 SoFI and +4 Factories (probably still keep Inkmoth although they are much less impressive without Plating).

Yesterday I tested Darksteel Citadel instead of Ports. It was very nice although we had limited testing (total 12 games). However, 2 out of 12 games had Darksteel Citadel enabling Metalcraft on turn 2 more consistently. Not having Metalcraft on turn 2 for Champion or Opal is a tempo loss and this is one of the big concerns I'm trying to tackle with the current configuration in the deck. Because I can say that I've lost games where I waited 1-2 turns to get champion online with metalcraft. Unlike meandeck MUD and Affinity, this deck isn't completely metalcrafted until turn 3 where the other decks are safely metalcrafted on turn 2.

[AlterEgo]

Cheers, I took this little gem for a walk today.
My list:
//Land
4 Ancient Tomb
3 Blinkmoth Nexus
4 City of Traitors
4 Inkmoth Nexus
1 Island
4 Seat of the Synod
3 Wasteland

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

//Other
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Cranial Plating
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Mox Diamond
3 Mox Opal
2 Sword of Fire and Ice

//Side
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Relic of Progenitus
3 Tormod's Crypt
4 Thorn of Amethyst
4 Ratchet Bomb

1st round: (Cat-)Sligh - 0:2
I lose the first game due to a missplay and get screwed in the second.

2nd round: Dredge 2:0
First game I overrun him with a Golem, second game is saved by a timely Crypt... that enabled a First turn Chalice off Mox Opal and a Seat.

3rd round: Tell-and-Show 2:1
First game he only draws some cards and Forces a Revoker - I have no idea what to board, so I blindly swap the Swords.
Second he Shows an Emrakul on Turn four, and I only have a Revoker and some lands.
Third game he Thoughtseizes once - after I dropped a turn one Master of Etherium off Tomb and Mox. Two turns later Nexus attacks for 2 poison, and then I topdeck Plating, making it an exactly lethal 8/2.

4th round: WB Deadguy 2:0
He leads with a Vial, but I get the riddiculous start: Mox: discard Inkmoth, Mox: discard Blinkmoth, Mox Opal, Master. This is followed by two subsequent Golems. Those three eat two Confidants, one Mother of Runes, and a Stoneforge Mystic (got SoFI). His Vindicate doesn't help because he stopped on 4 lands.
Game two is a little closer, as he gets much more removal (I get a slow start) and Kitchen Finks. Ultimately he has to StoP a lethal 8/2 Inkmoth only to see me drop two Champions. I win in my last EXTRA TURN...!

5th round: GWu "Survival"... well, KotR.dec 0:2
First game is riddiculous - he gets THREE Wastelands in his opener and draws the fourth. I never stand any chance and die quickly to a couple of Knights.
Second game he Krosan Grips one Crucible and lets his Pridemage eat the second. I concede to a pair of Lhurgoyfs - after rescuing myself to 1 life by Crypting his grave.

6th round: Dredge 2:0
I keep a slow hand, make a stupid missplay, but so does my opponent. He concedes after 5 turns, facing a Master and a Golem.
Second game, I play Crypt and a Chalice@1 in the first turn, sacc it in his upkeep (three bridges got removed earlier as my Inkmoth blocked his pumped Tireless Tribe). My opponent concedes the turn before I can drop a Golem.

End result: 4-2-0, 13th out of 35, thanks to bad OppScore.
But I'm okay with that, because my goal was to reach at least a 3-3-0.

Some things I noticed:
- Island is unnecessary - the only game I could have fetched it, I had it in my hand.
- Blinkmoth Nexus did almost nothing for me, except discarding to Moxen and once enabling Metalcraft for Champion.
- Wasteland is BAAAAD, if I have it against me.
- Revoker was unimpressive most of the time (but maybe I just did it wrong)
- The deck needs more card advantage
- SoFI did well

Next time I'll try Thoughtcast instead of Revokers and Darksteel Citadel instead of Blinkmoth and Island.
Although that next time won't be too soon - MUD and Affinity seem to be on the rise again here.

[GGoober]

Some things I noticed:
- Island is unnecessary - the only game I could have fetched it, I had it in my hand.
- Blinkmoth Nexus did almost nothing for me, except discarding to Moxen and once enabling Metalcraft for Champion.
- Wasteland is BAAAAD, if I have it against me.
- Revoker was unimpressive most of the time (but maybe I just did it wrong)
- The deck needs more card advantage
- SoFI did well

Thanks for the report and taking the deck for a spin. And it is nice to see conclusions come from the other side of playtesting where I bring up mine. I brought Steel Stompy for another round despite wanting to play Landstill desperately against an aggro field. My friend mentions that I should playtest whatever I want to bring in a big event, and this is a deck that I feel has potential so I decided to playtest a little bit more.

I'll provide feedback on your analysis based on mine accumulated over 1-2 months of testing, because you definitely make points that are highly valid, which I had gone through as well (although I've been testing this for months, so sometimes to you, one tournament maybe insufficient to draw conclusions).

- Island is indeed unneccesary. This deck loses to Wastelock although most of the time, you are virtually putting a lot of pressure such that Wastelock becomes expensive or unfeasible for the opposing deck. However today was a good example of Big Zoo drawing KotR and Wastelocking me out 3 lands in a row (that is as good as a Wastelock for the course of the game). 1 Island will not change the fate of Wastelock. The only outs are 3 Opals + 3 Diamonds, which will do fine. We have to accept Wastelock is one of the weaknesses of the deck, and cannot be improved without sacrificing other synergies card choices. But I had dropped the Island since 2 weeks ago, and never turned back. There is only currently 1 deck in a given meta that plays Path MD and that is Zoo.

- Blinkmoth Nexus has been in and out for me. I still feel that 6 manlands (flying of course) is the right density if you play 3 Platings. There had been many games where my opponent (big Zoo) is wasting and burning Blinkmoth over Inkmoth simply because Blinkmoth's pump ability is the most threatening when paired with Inkmoth or when going alone adding damage from other sources. When I cut Blinkmoth against Countertop, the matchup became much tougher when they got a Planeswalker online. I was waiting for manlands to seal the deal against Countertop. Similarly, CABJace/Landstill variants have also shown that having 6 manlands was critical to the backup plan. Regardless, I had tested 2 Darksteel Citadel over the manlands and it provides a lot of additional benefits/syerngies to the deck. You lose a little more consistent flying lands with the lord pumps, but you gain an indestructible land that supports metalcraft (much better) on turns 2, and giving Plating and Master both a +1/+1 boost (this is the biggest reason to play Citadel). I'm still testing Blinkmoth Nexus and Citadel, but the list I ran today was 4 Inkmoth + 2 Blinkmoth + 4 Seat + 1 Citadel + 12 staple lands.

- Wasteland is BADDD against me. Yupp. Today Knight of the Reliquary owned me. My games against Big Zoo were pretty close ones though, even though his board position was better. Having my lands cut off while having a big beater against me limited me to power out champions

- Card advantage: Every deck needs card advantage, but yes you are right that this deck needs more cards. However, for this list, I would recommend testing out Faerie Mechanist over Thoughtcast. Mechanist draws 1 for 3U. But it is yet another evasive body that gets pumped by 8 lords, carries plating/SoFI/Jitte over, and scrys away useless lands (when you hit 4 mana, lands become bad draws unless they're Wastelands or Manlands and to some extent artifact lands to pump Master/Plating).

- SOFI did very well today: I ran a 2 Jitte/2 Plating/1 SoFI in my MD today with 1 SoFI in the SB. From testing, it has been interesting to realize that SoFI is actually better than Jitte when for a period of 1-2 months, I thought otherwise. The reason being: SoFI gives +2/+2, which adds to a much faster clock, and in most scenarios, on a Champion/Inkmoth is ALWAYS going to be 1 turn faster than Jitte (waiting a turn to use the counters you gained from Jitte). I'll be running a 3 Plating/2 SoFI in my MD now, and shift 2 Jittes in the SB. I have actually wanted SoFI much more in games than Jitte. SoFI is awesome a good card advantage engine with Etched Champion.


The list I played today:
4 Tombs
4 Traitors
4 Wasteland
4 Seat
4 Inkmoth
2 Blinkmoth
1 Darksteel Citadel

3 Mox Opal
3 Mox Diamond

3 Crucible of Worlds (I want to cut the 3rd, but this card has been quite important, even though sometimes another card could fulfil the purpose better)
4 Chalice of the Void

4 Revoker
4 Overseers
4 Etched Champion
4 Master
4 Lodestone

1 SoFI
2 Jitte
2 Cranial Plating

SB:
3 Tangle Wire (pretty solid so far)
3 Winter Orb
4 Ratchet Bomb
1 SoFI
4 Thorn of Amethyst


Match 1: UB Merfolks
Game 1:
He wins the first game with Island Vial->Daze my Overseer, Chain 2 standstills. I get Champion with SoFI online but his lords get in there while my Ancient Tomb helps out his game.

-1 Crucible, -4 Chalice, +4 Ratchet Bomb, +1 SoFI.
Game 2: Turn 1 Overseer, turn 2 Overseer, turn 3 Etched Champion + manlands was too much pressure for Merfolks.

Game 3:
I kept an insane hand of Overseer, Champion, SoFI, Jitte. He leads with Vial, Dazed Overseer, Wastes my land, so I'm quite setback. I baited with Jitte which he forced and resolved Champion which stops Reejerey. Slapped on a SoFI and start frying some fish and chips. When he was down to 10 life, he Hurkyl's Recalled me (starting to see narrow hate against my artifact deck :P), and I had to rebuild for 2 turns since I had 2 lands bounced as well. He couldn't keep up with Champion + Sword and I win this easily.

1-0 (2-1)

Match 2: Big Zoo
Game 1:
I don't remember much but I lost the tempo war i.e. I play dude, he EOT bolts/Punishing Fire, and starts dropping big dudes, Knights get in there and locks me out of good lands. Punishing Fire Big Zoo is an incredible deck, extremely well-designed and positioned for a meta of Zoo/Gobs/Merfolks/Countertop. It doesn't help that Punishing Fire owns my deck pretty hard if Overseer/Master doesn't get my guys out of x/2 toughness range

Game 2: -1 Overseer, -3 Crucible, -2 Plating, -1 Jitte, +1 SoFI +3 Winter Orb, +3 Tangle Wire
I boarded out Jitte for SoFI since he was playing PFires. For a similar reason, I wanted to tax Big Zoo with Winter Orb (something weird that I reasoned since Winter Orb isn't good against regular Zoo but he seemed to be playing a heavy PFire engines 3PFire/3 Groves I believe)

This was brutal. Winter Orb did lock him out of lands, and I got in there

Game 3:
He led with Hierarch and I lead with Revoker on Hierarch with Winter Orb in hand ready to lock him out. He drops Goyf Knights while bolting off my Overseer and dudes and I am forced to play Winter Orb->Tangle Wire to buy some turns. He was down to 8 life at that point, and Tangle Wire did a good job keeping his board from developing and he went for a slow painful PFires under Winter Orb (not ideal, but he will push +1 damage every 2 turns with Orb in play). At this point, I had 2 more Tangle Wires in hand so Tangle Wire + Winter Orb can definitely buy me time. I just needed to draw a Champion to start beating the last 8 damage through. Did not happen and he got this

1-1 (4-3)

Match 3: Enchantress
Game 1: Bad matchup for me but I led with quite an aggressive hand. Turn 1 Chalice@1, Turn 2 Revoker naming Sterling Grove + Champion (I emptied my hand at this point), turn 3 I topdecked Plating and went in for lethal with Plating on Inkmoth (1 hit 10 poison). Inkmoth is insanely good lol.

Game 2: +3 Winter Orb, +4 Thorn, +4 Ratchet Bombs, -4 Steel Overseer, -3 Crucible of Worlds, -2 Jitte, -1 SoFI, -1Etched Champion
My best game in MTG ever: Turn 1 he opened with Wild Growth. Turn 1 Thorn, Turn 2 he played Argothian without Thorn drawback, Turn 2 I played 2nd Thorn. He frowns passes turn. Turn 3 Lodestone Golem. He puts his hand on his face and starts thinking deeply for 30s and it was over. I killed his hand of Oring, Aura of Silence, Prescences, lol.

2-1 (6-3)

Match 4: GUr Lands
Game 1: He goes with Explorations and the regular stuff. I lead off with double Overseer + Lodestone Golem that beat the combat maths in 2 turns. I had wastelands in hand for any Tabernacle/Mazes he played.

Game 2: +3 Winter Orb, +4 Thorn, out equipments can't remember
I went for turn 1 Overseer again, turn 2 Orb. He gets stuck on some lands but it did not matter since I had Tangle Wire in hand which I did not play during Game 2 since I was holding it for the turns where he would dump more lands out. Winter Orb is so powerful against decks that need a lot of lands (Landstill/Enchantress/countertop/Lands)

3-1 (8-3)

Top 4: Big Zoo
Game 1: Same player. I lead with Chalice @1, Etched Champion, Overseer in that order. I think if you've read my reports/primer, you should know that this game gets in there with Chalice + Champion

Game 2/3: KotR just owns my manabase so hard. I did not see Revoker, but more importantly, Punishing Fire was the culprit to making his Zoo matchup much more powerful against my deck than other Zoo matchups. Both him and I made a couple of mistakes (e.g. he gripped wrong cards ending up with dead cards against an active Chalice etc). Regardless, he gets in there. I was not expecting Punishing Fires, and it definitely made an impact for Zoo. Classic Zoo without Punishing Fire tended to rely more heavily on 1cmc spell, which was a reason why Steel Stompy has good success against Zoo despite their fast starts. Big Zoo + Punishing Fire was not only able to play around Chalice, it had an inevitable burn engine that was strong against my deck. More importantly, PFires was a great free answer for Inkmoth/Blinkmoth, nullifying my backup strategy. Classic Zoo had to burn burn spells to answer my Inkmoths, but PFires was a free burn that keeps my manland strategy in check. It was tough. One game I could have won but once again showing how PFires was relevant:

I had Chalice @1. He was at 6 poison (I swung for 6 poison on turn 3). I cannot swing with Inkmoth because he has PFire mana open to burn a Plated Inkmoth. I drew a Wasteland which was pivotal since he only has 2 mana open. I wasted Grove, he floated colorless in response, and I was still stuck in the same position. My chalice @1 would have stopped any of regular Zoo's removal (Path/Bolt) but it could not stop PFires. I could not get in there with Inkmoth + Plating where I could against other Zoo variants. It was a tough match. Games were close, but his strategies nullified mine. Very enlightening matchups though :)

3-2 (9-5)

Overall, was a fun day, and I was really impressed by Big Zoo + PFires/Groves. Regarding the deck, the thoughts that I've gathered are:

SoFI > Jitte for game 1 unknown opponents. It kills faster, is able to pump Lodestone/dudes out of bolt range immediately. It is always 1 turn faster than Jitte because Jitte has to get counters first. Jitte might be moved to the SB now purely against goblins/tribal. I've been boarding Jitte out quite often against Zoo/Countertop etc.

Revoker is a little weak at times. Against Zoo, he was good against LAvamancer/Pridemage/KotR, but being a 2/1 is only going to be a temporal solution until he's removed. Punishing Fire killed the Revokers in my hands today. I'll relook into playing Revokers. Personally, he's fantastic against Merfolks (Vial/Coralhelm), and mediocore against Goblins (Vial/Siege/Incinerator!) but he is amazing against control, forcing them to blow an StP on him instead of Master. Shutting down Top/Vial is Revoker's main priority, although otherwise he currently the weakest slot.

I will have to relook to playing a few other 2cmc artifact creatures to replace him. Ravager is not too viable an option since he goes against the deck's principles on board position and metalcraft. Faerie Mechanist and Esperzoa are good potential cards to be played, although the mana curve has to be reworked if such a change is implemented. Thanks for testing AlterEgo and thanks for reading everyone!

[Esper3k]

I was the Big Zoo player that Metalwalker played against yesterday (we've known each other for a few years now so I did have an advantage in knowing generally how the deck worked).

This deck is very scary to play against. Even though it has some succeptibility to removal on your lower toughness guys, you can get nasty explosive starts with Etched Champion and equipment that are just very tough to deal with (I lost a game yesterday to that keeping a hand with double Goyf and Punishing Fire combo thinking I was safe).

Wastelands can hurt you, but it can be tough to play them fromyour opponent's perspective as well. Steel Stompy is so fast that you oftentimes have to make the choice if you want to risk killing their manabase or if you want to play some pressure of your own. It's the worst when Steel Stompy has an Ancient Tomb and Mox Diamond out and you Wasteland the Tomb, only to have them drop another Sol Land and keep going. I think Wasteland is only good against Steel Stompy at mid-late game if you see that they aren't making their land drops or you use the Wastelands as removal for their man-lands.

Re Blinkmoth Nexus: I was indeed scared of these guys in our games because of their ability to pump Inkmoths. I oftentimes found myself holding back because I needed to have removal for potentially pumped Inkmoths due to Blinkmoth. If Blinkmoth had been Darksteel Citadel, I would have been more aggressive in many of our games. I think in only one game it could have mattered (where I Gripped your Champion and you couldn't activate the Blinkmoth to give it Metalcraft). However, in that particular case, we had already established it was correct for me anyways to Grip the Chalice @ 1 then Plow the Champion. In that case, having the Nexus be a Citadel would not have mattered.

Regarding basic Island: How often do you find that this hurts you? I think that keeping 1 is just fine to at least get something back from PTE. You do run the small risk of having an Island against Merfolk, but I think that is a pretty rare occurrence.

[GGoober]

Not playing the Island did not hurt at all. You'll lose to wastelock, but since you have no way to fetch that lone Island, with/without it does not make a huge difference in changing the fate of wastelock. But it'll take your opponents some resource to wastelock you out e.g. via Loam/Crucible. Against Loam decks, just board 3 Winter Orb. Against Crucible (Landstill/Stax), you lose. The games I lost to CABJace are purely due to Wastelock (him drawing the lone Crucible in his deck). At that point, you can't do much, it's the same deal as other decks can't do much when you get the Wastelock out. The decks that play PTE currently are: Zoo and some Bant Aggro list running PTE sideboard. If Zoo paths my creatures, I'll treat it as if they've bolted my creature. There's definitely a plus to run Island against PTE decks than not running the basic, although not many decks play PTE. My Island showed up 3 games against 6 matches against Merfolks lol, but that's just bad luck.

Anyway, the main reason to play the Island is basically to up blue count. It's a non-wasteable source of blue, which makes PTE a fair removal. For the current list, I might have to revert back to 1 Island simply because I'm upping the blue count.

Lands: 23
4 Wasteland
1 Island
4 Seat of Synod
4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Inkmoth Nexus
2 Blinkmoth Nexus

Accelerants: 6
3 Mox Diamond
3 Mox Opal

Creatures: 21
4 Steel Overseer
3 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Etched Champion
4 Master of Etherium
4 Lodestone Golem
2 Faerie Mechanist

Resistors: 6
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Crucible of Worlds

Equipment: 5
3 Cranial Plating
2 Sword of Fire and Ice

SoFI is just ages more aggressive than Jitte. I've tested 3/2 Jitte/SoFI, 3/2 Plating/Jitte, 2/2/1 Jitte/Plating/SoFI builds, and the builds with SoFI tend to stand out much better than builds without. On paper, Jitte is in everyway better than SoFI, but as a friend (Esper3k) pointed out, and with playtesting. The main reason Jitte is better than SoFI in most decks is because of being 2cmc v.s. 3cmc. For a stompy deck, that 2cmc-3cmc line becomes less clear i.e. you need your equipment on turn 3 usually (you are playing dudes/lockpieces before then), so on turn 3, 2cmc-3cmc has no difference compared to other decks where playing Jitte/SoFI for 2cmc v.s. 3cmc makes a much bigger difference.

The thing to note is that SoFI kills much faster than Jitte. If you are just racing, Etched Champion is doing 2/2 +2/+2 +2damage and drawing a card v.s. 2/2 getting 2 counters for next turn to set up 2/2 +4/+4 damage without drawing card or using the counters for removal. SoFI is in general much better than Jitte against tribal (always connects since its pro UR). Jitte is better against the Zoo matchup than SoFI but that matchup is primarily won with Champion/chalice (if you don't draw Champion/Chalice, nothing else will make the matchup easier).

With this change, and the new changes to +2 Mechanist, I have a total of 4 Inkmoth, 2 Blinkmoth, 4 Champion, 2 Faerie Mechanist = 12 Evasive beaters carrying Equipments that kill fast (SoFI/Plating). I'm excited to test this out.

I've dropped 4th Revoker and 3rd Crucible for +2 Faerie Mechanist. In testing, the 3rd Crucible has always been in and out. Crucible is a very powerful card in this deck, but I think the list can do fine without it. So by running 2, I'll get stronger games when I do draw one, but still do fine without it, and not risk drawing double Crucibles. Revoker has been amazing, but sometimes felt weak being a 2/1 against bigger creatures. If I draw multiple Revokers and no Overseer/Champion/Master, it feels underwhelming (such draws are not common but do occur).

Mechanist IMO is stronger than Thoughcast. At best, Thoughtcast is U drawing 2 cards (awesome btw). But raw cards is not what this deck needs. Unlike Affinity, your lands are usually not artifact lands aka, you don't get huge synergies from drawing cards as compared with AFfinity which can use even their lands as damage for Ravager/Disciple/Master. To cast Thoughtcast for just U in this deck happens around turn 3 at best (requiring 4 artifacts, remember you only have 4 artiact lands v.s. affinity's 16). At turn 3, you can easily cast Golem/Mechanist, which is why I decided on Mechanist. Sure, Thoughtcast costs just U, but assuming you were spending U and drawing business/creatures, you would still be spending at least on a spell post-thoughtcast. mechanist combines the draw and creature all in one card. Most importantly, she flies, which is quite central to breaking ground stalemates and increasing the power of Plating/SoFI.

Lastly, raw card is not what this deck needs. Card filtering by digging 3 and picking the most relevant artifact seems to be good. All in all, I hope to squeeze 3 Mechanist in, but so far it seems impossible with the setup. I've not run into too much issues with 4Master/2Mechanist v.s. 3Opal/3Diamond/1Island/4Seat. Since Mechanist is usually casted after turn3, the games where colored mana is an issue has not changed compared to the older builds running just 4 Masters.

[AlterEgo]

Maybe it's just a bad idea... but could Arcbound Stinger be an option?
It has Flying and when it dies you do not lose power if you control at least one other creature (or an untapped Nexus).

As I said, I was not impressed by Phyrexian Revoker - whether it has 1 power or 2, it doesn't matter in a format, where you can have an average 3/4 for two mana. Most of the time he just sat there staring at some Lhurgoyf or Imp. IMO he's better left in the sideboard.

[GGoober]

Hmm, the funny thing is: Ornithopter is much better than Arcbound Stinger. I have never really tested Ornithopter, but now that I think about it, it's kind of good

1) Evasion (a nice plus)
2) enables turn 2 metalcraft (very important actually)
3) grown by 8 lords (offsets a 0/2)
4) Carries Plating/SOFI (offsets a 0/2)

Not sure if it'll replace Revoker's MD slot and move Revokers to the SB. I doubt so, but I definitely have something worth testing that slipped my mind. Still doesn't solve the card advantage problem although it does add a ton more evasion and attack-power to the deck. It's free, doesn't clash with Chalice @1 (otherwise Signal Pest would be quite easily included in this deck as minilord 9-12), and with an equipment/Overseer, becomes quite stupid.

[AlterEgo]

(bump)
Hi there - my latest list:


//Creatures
2 Blinkmoth Nexus
3 Faerie Mechanist
4 Etched Champion
4 Inkmoth Nexus
4 Lodestone Golem
4 Master of Etherium
4 Steel Overseer

//Mana (only)
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
3 Darksteel Citadel
3 Mox Diamond
3 Mox Opal
4 Seat of the Synod

//Other
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Cranial Plating
2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Wasteland

//Sideboard
4 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Ratchet Bomb
4 Thorn of Amethyst
4 Tormod's Crypt


some notes:

Faerie - just great!
Revoker - have never missed it, but it stays in the board
SoFaI - this beats Jitte in terms of card advantage - only sad it won't ever kill anyhing bigger that X/2.
Crucible - if I ever decide to go more aggro, these become SoFaI #3 and some creature.
Wasteland - still have only three. Without CoW they'll become two Blinkmoths and one Citadel.

[GGoober]

Hi! looks solid, I'm sharing my list I'm bringing for this weekend (couldn't play last weekend) but I've been tweaking and learning the deck alot, to understand its fundamental strategies.

@AlterEgo:

Mechanist was great, but I found that 3 was a tad too much to support with the manabase. 3 is fine because you only need blue sources around turns 3-4, which is sufficient given the number of moxens in the deck. I would recommend 2 though. However, this is where I entirely shifted away from Mechanist.

Remember that card-advantage can be solved in Stompy decks at a price: diluting the core strategy. Mechanist doesn't really dilute anything because it's a great Ponder on a 2/2 flyer that carries equipment, but at the same time, Mechanist hasn't flowed too smoothly for myself. The reason being, this deck tends towards aggressiveness and beatdown rather than mid-game. The mid-game phase is usually reached simply because you are playing lockpieces early, but irregardless, it's a very fast beatdown deck once a plating/master is involved.

I still hold onto the approach that consistency for this deck is not solved with card-advantage/draw, but rather with more synergy. The greatest issue/block that I ran into testing varying card choices for this deck is: Not being able to hit Metalcraft on turn 2. Sometimes you do, but with the initial list (Opening post, 2nd decklist), metalcraft was hard to achieve on turn 2. This limited a lot of potential plays (turn 2 Lodestone, turn 2 Etched champion, getting 1 more crucial mana on turn 2 for mox Opal).

I am inclined to say that 2 Darksteel Citadel fits the slot of 2 Inkmoth Nexus better, but in testing, 6 manlands was the ideal configuration to not throw the control mirror to a 50-50 matchup (You want your control mirror to be about 60-40 at least because you have about 50-50 matchups against aggro decks, so you want to make sure you at least have an ace card in bigger events).

To solve the Metalcraft problem, we discussed the option on playing more evasive beaters (fundamentally how this deck truly wins), and since I've settled on the 3;2 plating/SoFI configuration, evasive beatdown has become a huge boost to the deck's winning strategy. The metalcraft problem has finally been resolved with the inclusion of 3 Ornithopters. I'll present my current decklist (obviously still need testing), but in the testing I've done, the biggest boon was facilitating turn 2 metalcraft, therefore reducing tempo losses, and at the same time, be a huge threat with Plating/Overseer/Lords;

Lands: 22
2 Blinkmoth Nexus
4 Inkmoth Nexus
4 Wasteland
4 Seat of Synod
4 Ancient Tomb
4 city of Traitors

Accelerants: 6
3 Mox Diamond
3 Mox Opal

Creatures: 22
3 Ornithopter
3 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Steel Overseer
4 Etched Champion
4 Master of Etherium
4 Lodestone Golem

Equipments: 5
3 Cranial Plating
2 SoFI

Resistors: 6
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Crucible of Worlds

I've trimmed down to 22 lands. 24 is practically too much, and I think I've gotten a hang on learning how to shuffle/randomize my deck, so 22 lands has been good in testing so far.

To help you understand my core philosophy and strategy for the deck, I'll break down into the functions of cards from the posted decklist:

Accelerants: 16
3 Mox Opal
3 Mox diamond
4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb

This is what makes your deck significantly broken to non-Stompy decks. Mox Diamonds/Opals IMO is much better than Chrome Mox in other stompy variants, but there is no clear cut comparison since the decklists are fundamentally different, but it's nice that we have Opal aka vintage Moxen with no drawback for this deck, and Diamond which doesn't pitch gas/business spell. The reason why this deck needs all the accelerants it can smoothly fit is because getting the relevant threat/resistor down a turn earlier means everything (e.g. turn 2 trinisphere is quite worthless compared to turn 1 trinisphere, similarly, against merfolks, a turn 1 resolved Overseer is generally very bad news for them)

Pumps/Lords: 13
4 Steel Overseer
4 Master of Etherium
3 Cranial Plating
2 SoFI

The deck is inherently similar to the Merfolk Model, having 8 lords to pump a field of creatures, and scaling attack power very fast. The additional benefit it has over Merfolks is playing 5 equipments that are easily castable with a Stompy manabase than decks not playing Stompy manabases. Having 13 pump effects for 22 creatures, makes sure that every creature drawn is eventually very likely to be useful in terms of combat trading or blocking/attacking.

Creatures: 22, Beefsticks: 8
4 Master of Etherium
4 Etched Champion

These are the biggest threats in your deck, common beefsticks in legacy include creatures that are cost-efficient that are big and tough to deal with e.g. Goyf/Knight of the Reliquary/Terravore. This deck needs at the very least 8 beefsticks. The reason is any less e.g. dropping Master means that against opposing Beefsticks, you need to situationally draw into Overseer/Equipments to match their creatures. you want to have at least 8 creatures that do not rely on anything else to match their 8 creatures.

Evasive beaters: 13
4 Inkmoth Nexus
2 Blinkmoth Nexus
3 Ornithopter
4 Etched Champion

This is where the deck's winning strategy shine. Bulk of the time, you win with this strategy (there are other times where you win with resistors accumulating e.g. Wasteland + lodestone) and swinging with a beefy Master. However, the Evasive beaters allow you to stall the ground while winning evasively. There are many games where Steel Stompy is forced on the defensive (e.g. against multiple goyfs/merfolks), and the goal is to do the combat maths and calculate how many turns you can win with evasive beaters while holding the ground if your resistors failed

Resistors/disrupters: 15 (+2)
4 Wasteland
4 lodestone Golem
3 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Chalice of the void
(+2 Crucible when Wastelock is relevant)

The goal of the deck is to play your creatures normally, and since most of the stuff you are playing naturally tends to slow your opponent's down, this is the disrupting strategy of steel stompy. You want to play your game normally while forcing their game to a slower crawl. Even if Lodestones get removed, remember that they are spending an extra mana on removing him, potentially missing a mana to drop a creature etc. The goal of disruption is simply because your opponent's deck is very likely to overpower your deck if not disrupted (after all, this is a deck of 'cute' creatures). However, to think of this deck as 'cute' with Overseer tricks is sometimes missing the point on how this deck was built. Overseer is indeed 'cute', but when paired up with mana acceleration (ancient tombs), and disruption slowing opponent's gameplay, every turn you buy is significantly increasing Overseer's value in the deck, and since you are ultimately approaching combat-aggro as your win-condition, scaling your creatures to make your opponents trade unfavorably starts becoming yet another foil to their normal gameplan.

These are the core strategies that unite the deck, or at least I am still trying to figure out the optimal configuration.
Recap:
Resistors/disrupters: 15 (+2)
Evasive beaters: 13
Beefsticks: 8
Pump/lords: 13
Accelerants: 16

I am not too mathematical about the breakdown, but on paper, this looks good into always consistently drawing either resistor/evasive beaters/beefsticks/pump/accelerant in every game. Since the deck is ultimately synergistic i.e. drawing multiples of cards in the deck is never bad (unless it's diamond/lands), over the course of the game, the consistency is maintained, without playing any form of card draw/filtering (SoFI is really there to kill, not to draw cards, at least that's how I value SoFI. Most of the time, the extra card wasn't needed, it's the killing speed of SoFI and its relevant pro colors that makes it incredible).


I do need some advice:
junk has been a bad matchup (so much discard/removal/Pernicious Deed). It's a hard matchup pre-board, but I'm not sure how I can make it better postboard.

Thought to consider: Sword of Body and Mind might be better than SoFI but I have not tested this. It is much stronger against Zoo/Bant/Junk decks giving yet more proG (on top of Etched champion and Master of etherium matching their creatures). It is still very strong against Merfolks (since it gives you a 2/2 for free on top of the 22 creatures you are churning out). It's my opinion that Pro UG is a much better color combination than Pro RU, but I need to test this. SoFI's card drawing ability is great, but most of the time, my board position is usually always superior against aggro decks. I can see SoFI being more relevant against control than SoBM, but SoBM can rebuild an army with just manlands after sweepers.

Not sure yet.

Last note: 3 Ornithopter is another 3 temporal out against Lackey on the play. I think the deck's worst matchups are now (in order)
- Junk
- Goblins
- NO Show/Sneak (haven't tested this too much)

Current SB:
3 Ratchet Bomb
3 Winter Orb
3 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Umezawa's jitte
4 Thorn of amethyst


UPDATE: some RL-testing done yesterday, will update opening post someday:

Junk pre-board: 4-6
Junk with Deeds maindeck is very unfavored. You need broken starts to beat the deck (e.g. turn 2 Lodestones or fast platings)

SCG Zenith Zoo preboard: 4-5
The same thing goes, you draw Chalice and Champion you win easily, otherwise you have a hard time. GSZ is very scary though, since KotR is really good against Steel Stompy (wasteland nullifying your manlands strategy yet being a huge creature). KotR maybe simply one of the best creatures in this format right now.

Sidenote: Observing the Zoo decks these days, I think it's great to play 4 Relics against them (in control Decks). It shuts off 4 Goyfs, 4 Knights, 4 Lavamancers.

Show and Tell pre-board: 0-3
This is the list playing Lotus Petal, ESG into Eureka and Show and Tell, very fast, impossible matchup. The ESG and Petal are key to this build. I did get Lodestone on turn 2 and Wastelands in one of these games, but he went off with ESG (Elvish Spirit Guide)

Show and Tell post-board: 2-2
sideboard +4 Thorn, +3 Tangle Wire. Still unfavorable since it gets past Thorn with ESG. This time I have Tangle Wire to play after their Emrakul. It worked sometimes, but you need hands that have big beaters/damage to put them on a clock, survive an emrakul attack and win. Tangle Wire is less effective against Eureka, but those version of the deck aren't too well played.

As I expected, the tough matchups are:
1) junk with Pernicious Deed
2) show and tell, natural order decks.

I mused up a variant of this list, which I might get to testing in the future, however it loses the huge beats from Master but in the process gains more relevant cards in white:

Lands: 22
4 Ancient Den
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Wasteland
4 Inkmoth
2 Plains

Creatures: 21
3 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Steel Overseer
3 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Etched Champion
3 Glow Rider
4 Lodestone Golem

Equipments: 5
2 Sword of Body and Mind/Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Cranial Plating

Resistors: 6
2 Crucibles
4 chalice

accelerants: 6
3 Mox Diamond
3 Mox Opal

SB:
Karmic Justice
Oring
Armageddon
Thorn
Winter Orb

I have no fucking idea how to optimize the white list. Looks good in theory with multiple golem/glowriders/canonist/revoker and having a good clock, but yesterday, Master of Etherium showed me why he's retardedly required for the deck to function:

Zoo Board position: Two 20/20 KotR, 1 Terravore (22/22)
My Board position: Two 16/16 Masters, 1 12/12 Overseer, 1 16/14 Lodestone, 2 Platings making me able to kill KotR if he swung in. Nothing else in this game is an artifact creature and match KotR and Goyf when it comes to mana cost. It's hard to drop Master of Etherium (you also cast him faster in this deck compared to regular affinity).

[GGoober]

UPDATE: some RL-testing done yesterday, will update opening post someday:

Junk pre-board: 3-6
Junk with Deeds maindeck is very unfavored. You need broken starts to beat the deck (e.g. turn 2 Lodestones or fast platings)

SCG Zenith Zoo preboard: 4-5
The same thing goes, you draw Chalice and Champion you win easily, otherwise you have a hard time. GSZ is very scary though, since KotR is really good against Steel Stompy (wasteland nullifying your manlands strategy yet being a huge creature). KotR maybe simply one of the best creatures in this format right now.

Sidenote: Observing the Zoo decks these days, I think it's great to play 4 Relics against them (in control Decks). It shuts off 4 Goyfs, 4 Knights, 4 Lavamancers.

Show and Tell pre-board: 0-3
This is the list playing Lotus Petal, ESG into Eureka and Show and Tell, very fast, impossible matchup. The ESG and Petal are key to this build. I did get Lodestone on turn 2 and Wastelands in one of these games, but he went off with ESG (Elvish Spirit Guide)

Show and Tell post-board: 2-2
sideboard +4 Thorn, +3 Tangle Wire. Still unfavorable since it gets past Thorn with ESG. This time I have Tangle Wire to play after their Emrakul. It worked sometimes, but you need hands that have big beaters/damage to put them on a clock, survive an emrakul attack and win. Tangle Wire is less effective against Eureka, but those version of the deck aren't too well played.

As I expected, the tough matchups are:
1) junk with Pernicious Deed
2) show and tell, natural order decks.

I mused up a variant of this list, which I might get to testing in the future, however it loses the huge beats from Master but in the process gains more relevant cards in white:

Lands: 22
4 Ancient Den
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Wasteland
4 Inkmoth
2 Plains

Creatures: 21
3 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Steel Overseer
3 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Etched Champion
3 Glow Rider
4 Lodestone Golem

Equipments: 5
2 Sword of Body and Mind/Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Cranial Plating

Resistors: 6
2 Crucibles
4 chalice

accelerants: 6
3 Mox Diamond
3 Mox Opal

SB:
Karmic Justice
Oring
Armageddon
Thorn
Winter Orb

I have no fucking idea how to optimize the white list. Looks good in theory with multiple golem/glowriders/canonist/revoker and having a good clock, but yesterday, Master of Etherium showed me why he's retardedly required for the deck to function:

Zoo Board position: Two 20/20 KotR, 1 Terravore (22/22)
My Board position: Two 16/16 Masters, 1 12/12 Overseer, 1 16/14 Lodestone, 2 Platings making me able to kill KotR if he swung in. Nothing else in this game is an artifact creature and match KotR and Goyf when it comes to mana cost. It's hard to drop Master of Etherium (you also cast him faster in this deck compared to regular affinity).

UPDATE UPDATE:
From Matt Elias' article:
Cursed Totem is the card that I am very interested in testing out at this moment. It hits: Lavamancer/Pridemage/Knight of the Reliquary/Hierarch/Coralhelm/Incinerator/Siege-gang/Elves

Most importantly this card single-handedly shuts down the problematic creatures run in Zoo (combination of Lavamancer/Pridemage/Knight beats your combination of Chalice/Revoker naming pridemage). Overseer is actually quite weak against Zoo (they will most likely remove him before he gets to a 4/4). So once overseer is out, all your other creatures have no activated abilities, while Zoo still has 4 lavamancer, 4 knights, 4 pridemage (+4 Hierarch if they play big zoo). Possible SB configuration is:

2 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Tangle Wire (or 3 Ensnaring Bridge against Emrakul decks or 3 Ratchet Bomb)
4 Thorn of Amethyst
3 Winter Orb
3 Cursed Totem

I have not boarded in ratchet bombs in ages. I'm not sure if Bridge is better than Tangle Wire. Bridge is argubly very very narrow where Tangle Wire is great against any deck you're trying to apply more disruption e.g. against control/combo/elves/merfolks. It's less powerful against Emrakuls, but still has limited applications since Show decks don't have a ton of permanents, it gives 1 turn against them, on top of disruption and a fast clock. Probably just give up on the Emrakul matchup and play Tangle Wires.

I've been having some problems with KotR matchups. This is the card I'm looking for, and on top of that, I am testing SoBM in the meta of Junk/Bant/Zoo/Merfolks/Goblins. I think it's going to prove worthwhile, and being able to not get chumped forever by Elves (a bad matchup if I faced one lol)

[Esper3k]

Metalwalker got to give an interview about his deck at SCG Ft. Worth!

[GGoober]

I went Lodestone Golem (5/3) in SCG Dallas Fort Worth. Report coming up tonight or tomorrow, stay tuned!

The deck was great aside from myself being a bad pilot (punting 1 game costing me the game), and drawing a total of 3 creatures against Team America in 2 games. There's quite a lot of potential in the list. Very rarely did I feel underwhelmed except when my opponents were playing GWx decks packing both Zenith + Natural Order (reason being Knight and Natural Order are the weakspots for this deck. Other than that, the deck did almost exactly what it was supposed to do from 2 months of testing and tweaking. I felt that I could have gone a solid 6-2 bracket in the event if I played more carefully. But mistakes like these will always force me not to make them again in the future!

The list I played was:


LANDS:23
4 Seat of the Synod
1 Darksteel Citadel
4 Inkmoth Nexus
2 Blinkmoth Nexus
4 Ancient Tomb
4 city of Traitors
4 Wasteland

creatures: 20
4 Steel Overseer
4 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Etched Champion
4 Master of Etherium
4 Lodestone Golem

accelerants: 6
3 Mox Diamond
3 Mox Opal

Equipments: 6
2 Cranial Plating
2 Umezawa's jitte
2 Sword of Fire/Ice

Lockpieces: 6
2 Crucible of Worlds
4 Chalice of the Void

Sideboard:15
3 cursed totem
3 tangle wire
3 ratchet bomb
2 winter orb
4 thorn of amethyst


MD/SB was a configuration primarily designed to beat:
- Merfolks
- Goblins
- Combo/control

And improve matchup against:
- GWx deck (with cursed totems)
- Outs to counterthopter, belcher tokens, enchantress (ratchet bomb)
- Not autolose to Show and Tell (Tangle Wire)

[Spooks]

Hey Metalworker, i really like this list and i think i'll be trying it out sometime soon. Good work with all the effort you've been putting into it and congrats on your tourney result!

I have 1 question though, is there a reason most of your lsts are 61 cards MD?

[GGoober]

Thanks!

61 card may look off. In testing 22 v.s. 23 lands did seem to make a difference (over 100-200 games total from 2 months). 22 lands seem ideal on paper, but when playing against wastelands etc, 23 lands felt more secure.

The 61st card is the 23rd land is Darksteel Citadel.

The same question was raised during the interview I had and my answer was:

1) I'm a person who believes in math. The 61st card will definitely influence % of cards drawn for other cards, but when I worked the maths out on a spreadsheet (which i did), the % were small. I was willing to accept 1-1.5% drawbacks to drawing the Citadel against the 2-3% improvements to improving metalcraft on turn 2 and 3, and having a more consistent opening with 3 lands.

2) Despite the maths leaning towards running the 61st card as Darksteel Citadel, what really solidified the decisions was tons of playtesting. I usually test alot of builds with 61 cards (this only applies to decks running 23-24 lands, for any other deck, I stick to a strict 60 card). Playtesting really pissed me off when I miss a land drop or needed an extra land when playing with 22 lands.

They mentioned that Gerry Thomspon won the Standard SCG Opens with 61 cards as well and I joked "I'm no GT but there ya go! There's a reason for the 61st card :P"

The real deal is it's just incredibly hard to cut cards. I would possibly cut 1 SoFI and 1 Jitte and play a stock 60 in regular metagames, but for that SCG event, I knew I was going to see many gobs/merfolks, and I felt even the SoFI/Jitte as the 61st card (if you see it in that way) is very well worth the 1-1.5% drawbacks when playing the 61st card.

I typed out my report, then magically hit the BACKSPACE button to reset all that I've typed. So I'm a little pissed lol (report was kinda long). I'll try to have the report up by today.

[Spooks]

Well that explains it nicely mate, i'm into mathematics myself and i understand your reasons for playing like that!

My 5/3 artifact goodstuff deck has been a bit lacklustre recently and this is exactly the sort of thing i've been looking into turning it into, hopefully i can get some good testing in at my local meets and i'll post my results up. However i only get to play Legacy once a month, but any input i can give is bound to help right? :) Hopefully want to get several great Legacy decks built up for Grand Prix Amsterdam in October!

I think if i had to cut that list to 60 i'd go -2 Jitte, +1 Cranial Plating, just as it's the nuts on a Etched Champion or Inkmoth.

Have you considered Duplicant on the SB for Show and Tell shenanagans?

Too bad about your lengthy report man, but these things will happen >.< I'll look forward to reading it if you manage to repost it.

[Plm]

Metalworker, I have a few questions about the list you did bring to scg dfw.

Mainly @ ornithopter , you convinced me that thopter was good as an evasive attacker ( and it is indeed, with a sword or a plating it totally rock) as well a blocking lackey or even chumping emrackhul ( yeah I know corner case.). Why did you dump him ?

@ jitte : I know jitte is good but it's worse than SOFI and less brutal than plating ( specially when equipped to thopter, but you didn't play those ...). so why did you split your equips like that ? In testing it happened too much that the opponment would legend rule my jitte, and once I got to test SOFI I wouldn't go back ( mostly because SOFI pump is active all time and card draw is at a premium is stompy shell)

@ khull : why no bridge sideboard? does tangle wire win enough time to win before the fliyng annihilator monster get a swing ?

As for your report and hitting backspace : GUYS use opera, and you won't have this problem.

[GGoober]

I've actually never thought about Duplicants because it seems to be only good in metalworker decks (being too costly). To drop it against show and Tell also means that you need to play about 3-4 to consistently play with their show and tells. I think Arena of Ancients and Ensnaring Bridge are best outs, but even then I was more wililng to accept these as unsalvageable matchups than try to jeapordize my other matchups. I do have a 50/50 chance against show and tell at best with TAngle Wires and Thorns + Wastelands.

I agree that Plating is the best equipment. There were many games where I felt that if my equipments were just plating, I don't have to worry about life totals and future combat maths when I can win in 2 turns (pumping +7 to +9 power when it's online is simply unfair).

@Plm:
I cut the ornithopters because I was worried about a few things:
1) Grim Lavamancers (played as answers in other decks to the meta of gobs/folks/zoo mirror)
2) Junk with Deeds
3) Fighting the MD slots with 2/2/2 jitte/plating/sofi (biggest reason)

I think overall, the safer route would have been to play 2 Ornithopers with 4 Plating/2SofI in the list for SCG FW. To answer your question on why I went the hybrid 2/2/2 split, I had extensively tested 3/2 plating/jitte, 3/2 plating/sofi, 3/2 jitte/sofi with this deck and I found I enjoy the 3/2 plating/sofi the most. I will probably revert to this configuration. The reason why I went -1 Plating +1 jitte and cut the 3rd crucible for the 2nd jitte was because I felt that Jitte was quite important in a meta of gobs/merfolks/hierarch/dryad arbors. Jitte did save my ass against gobs after a chained Lackey (as I will mention in the report).

I think I'm going to do more testing with 2 Ornithopers and 4/2 Plating/Sofi. The reason I decided against Thopter was also because I've only played with 2 Ornithoper in 1 event (9 games) so I wasn't willing to let 9 games of testing delude myself from the more stable list that I've tested for over 2 months.


EDIT: report is up! Thanks to those for following and developing this deck so far!