Contamination Stompy

[Admiral_Arzar]

This is a mono-black deck I've been playing locally lately. It evolved as an attempt to hybridize the locks of mono-black Stax and the aggression of Demon Stompy. The original list:

4 Chrome Mox
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Trinisphere

4 Bitterblossom
4 Contamination

4 Liliana of the Veil

4 Mardu Strike Leader
4 Ophiomancer
4 Braids, Cabal Minion
3 Abyssal Persecutor
3 Desecration Demon

4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
10 Swamp

Sideboard

4 Leyline of the Void
2 Faerie Macabre
3 Engineered Plague
3 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Nature's Ruin
2 Perish

After initial testing, I found both Bitterblossom and Desecration Demon to be sub-par. List 1.1 contained these changes:

-4 Bitterblossom
-3 Desecration Demon

+4 Hangarback Walker
+1 Umezawa's Jitte
+1 Trinisphere
+1 Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath

Bitterblossom killed me more often than I'd like and Desecration Demon's drawback and lack of trample were less than impressive. The new list performed better but the inherent conflict of prison vs. aggro was still an issue. I found myself boarding Ensnaring Bridge in all the time, so it should probably just be maindeck. The big attackers are often superfluous to the main plans of locking your opponents out of either (a) permanents or (b) non-black mana. Thus, list 1.2 will probably feature these changes:

-3 Abyssal Persecutor
-1 Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath

+4 Ensnaring Bridge

This frees up three sideboard slots for Massacre or Toxic Deluge most likely. The deck is strong against non-blue decks which my meta is currently saturated with for some reason. Most combo is beatable at least postboard if not game one. Stoneblade is quite bad - I haven't had the opportunity to test against anything else blue yet which is hilarious but my meta is weird since the SDT ban.

[square_two]

This reminds me of a Human-centric Braids Stax list that I tried a couple years ago. It had Strike Leaders, Dark Confidants, Ophiomancers, and Braids. Having as many as 3 Umezawa's Jitte to help offset the loss of life from Bobs and the Bitterblossoms. If your earlier attempts with Bitterblossom proved too painful, I would suggest Jittes since they work so well with the evasive flyers.

About the only suggestion I thought about, good luck!

[Admiral_Arzar]

This reminds me of a Human-centric Braids Stax list that I tried a couple years ago. It had Strike Leaders, Dark Confidants, Ophiomancers, and Braids. Having as many as 3 Umezawa's Jitte to help offset the loss of life from Bobs and the Bitterblossoms. If your earlier attempts with Bitterblossom proved too painful, I would suggest Jittes since they work so well with the evasive flyers.

About the only suggestion I thought about, good luck!

That list may have actually been my original inspiration for building this deck, as it's been floating around in my head in various forms for a long time. Pretty sure I owe Mardu Strike Leader to you at the very least haha. Hangarback Walker was actually quite solid as a non-painful alternative to Bitterblossom, so I'm not too keen to go back to it honestly.

[Erdvermampfa]

How about some (cheap) draw like Night's Whisper or even a couple of Ancient Craving, Skeletal Scrying or Wretched Confluence? Especially the initial would probably remedy the rather problematic consistency of stompy decks while it would also somewhat alleviate the card loss of all that acceleration.

[mistercakes]

Can I recommend oppression?

[RThomas-]

This deck is really cool! Been playing around with it and doing well against mid-range, fair kind of stuff. I tried out a similar sort of list with some notable interactions, and sought to base it around playing Contamination as often as possible instead of a Stax locky-thing (i.e. stompy). This is just me spitballing thus far:

10 Swamp
6 Sol lands
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Wasteland
4 Dark Ritual
3 Chrome Mox

4 Blood Scrivener
3 Ophiomancer
2 Abyssal Persecutor
2 Gurmag Angler

4 Contamination
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Liliana of the Veil
3 Fatal Push
3 Bitterblossom
2 Innocent Blood
2 Thoughtseize
2 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Collective Brutality
1 (whatever)

Sideboard:
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Helm of Obedience
other appropriate stuff

Obviously a mess, but here are some thoughts I had going into it:

-I wanted some more quick mana (Dark Ritual, Chrome Mox) for a hand-emptying start. This helps with these cards:
---Blood Scrivener: Probably on-par with Dark Confidant and better with Bitterblossom's life loss here.
---Gurmag Angler: A quicker way to power this guy out. Doesn't pair well with Innocent Blood but I think the token-creators get around it. There's a good chance he's unnecessary though with stuff like Abyssal Persecutor, Desecration Demon, or Mindwrack Demon (works well with the Delirium mechanic here). Even tried stuff like Desecration Elemental! Lots of options here.
---Dark Ritual and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth might enable play of Phyrexian Obliterator, enhanced when Contamination is on the field. This guy simply wrecks people.
---May get us to a Liliana lock that much faster.
-I like Bitterblossom every time I play it. This enables us to play smoother with stuff like Innocent Blood, Cabal Therapy (which should really be important in this deck imo), and Umezawa's Jitte. I've tried a nice little combo with Braids, Cabal Minion and Sword of the Meek as well! It's a bit slow but certainly interesting.
-An unexpected sideboard combo of Leyline of the Void and Helm of Obedience has been surprisingly good. There's a non-zero chance you can win the first turn with it, opening with Leyline-Sol land-Mox-[card]-Ritual-Helm; obviously unlikely, but certainly available turn 2 or 3.

I feel like Cabal Therapy absolutely must be played if we choose not to go the Chalice route. The deck has been pretty weak against black-based combo (Reanimate, Storm) without it. Oppression might be a cool way around that weakness but no results to bear that out yet. Also, we've got to strip those counters in Brainstorm-based stuff if we want to land Contamination.

A lot of fun to play! Let's see some more results.

[Admiral_Arzar]

I played the new version with Bridges main and got owned by U/W Stoneblade (as expected haha). Also lost to Belcher after mulling into oblivion for playable turn one stuff but beat Death's Shadow which seems like a VERY good matchup...Ophiomancer is bonkers against them. The deck really can't deal with Jace at all if your draw is creature-light.

[benk499]

Have you considered Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet in place of the desecration demon? Seems like the lifelink and ability to make tokens could be relevant.

If you're just looking for a fat beater Ammit Eternal could work too.

[Fallen_Empire]

I played the new version with Bridges main and got owned by U/W Stoneblade (as expected haha). Also lost to Belcher after mulling into oblivion for playable turn one stuff but beat Death's Shadow which seems like a VERY good matchup...Ophiomancer is bonkers against them. The deck really can't deal with Jace at all if your draw is creature-light.

Has Hasbro not printed any black planswalker hate cards?

[filln]

Has Hasbro not printed any black planswalker hate cards?

To the Slaughter?

[TLK]

Vraska's Contempt, Never//Return

[Michael Keller]

Plague Spitter in non-Bitterblossom lists is amazing. I love me some Cavern of Souls with Nether Void, too.

[Poron]

You play a black combo deck, possibly the best possible thing against blue.

Defense Grid and Unmask should be fine to open the path to Contamination

Hymn to Tourach? I would play 4

Neither Spirit, Phytexian Arena?

[Noctalor]

Dude, Chain of Mephistopheles

[Fallen_Empire]

Plague Spitter in non-Bitterblossom lists is amazing. I love me some Cavern of Souls with Nether Void, too.

Do you have a list?