Curse Stompy (Demon Stompy Reborn)

[Reeplcheep]

Image courtesy of Mtgo user overhaul or mtgoverhaul on twitter

Intro here. History, card discussion and matchup discussion below.

Why play Curse Stompy?


Curse stompy is a mono black, chalice based prison deck in a somewhat similar style to moon stompy or titan stompy. Similar to all stompy decks, it plans to use mana acceleration to play a disruptive prison card on the first turn and follow that up with an expensive threat to quickly end the game. If legacy is full of 1 and 2 mana spells, like all other stompy shells, playing chalice of the void on t1 is a good way to get free wins. It has generally great unfair and fair-non blue matchups. If you hate losing to dredge or TES, this is the deck for you! Most of the expense of the deck is froom the stompy staples, so if you already have moon stompy it is pretty easy to try out for a FNM.

Why play this over other stompy decks? You have a more explosive opening than other stompy decks since dark ritual makes 2 mana instead of 1, leyline of the void is free instead of blood moon’s 3 mana, and you have a small chance of t1 kills. Your disruption is more multi-axis than other stompy decks, efficiently answering large creatures, planeswalkers, the hand and the gy. You go over the top of other fair decks; goblins can easily answer Chandra or a TKS but folds to a one-sided humility on t3. Game 1 you are creature-less providing a measure of card advantage vs removal.
What are this deck’s weaknesses compared to other stompy decks? The deck has one of the highest curves in legacy, so it is more vulnerable to mana denial and daze than most other stompy decks. None of our disruption interacts with lands, only our payoffs, so fast land based decks (mostly depths) are very difficult to beat.

Why play this over other fair black decks? The F.I.R.E ug apocalypse (oko, uro, coatl etc.) makes trying to grind out the opponent with efficient 2 for 1s like pox or jund a losing battle. All of our threats go over the top of fair blue; demanding an immediate answer or winning the game. This allows us to sidestep a large portion of the card advantage bullshit gifted to us by 2019 WOTC. Furthermore, veil of summer is a large problem for the traditional thoughtsieze/hymn, but chalice and trinisphere interact quite well vs that card. Traditional black decks like pox or grixis would be better if trying to efficiently 2 for 1 the opponent into the ground until they have nothing was a good strategy, but that type of interesting gameplay is dead forever.

Why is Curse of Misfortunes a card worth building around? The card is essentially vintage build around oath of druids for 3 more mana. Yes, we are trying to resolve a 5 drop in legacy, which seems insane at first glance. However, stompy usually has more issues with card selection than with mana. Karn, the Great Creator has shown that having a 6-10 cmc (karn by himself doesn’t do much until you cast the card found) 1 card combo is great in stompy. Curses is essentially a 1 card combo with suspend 1 win the game in most matchups, does not require board control & is difficult for most decks to deal with once resolved. The opportunity cost of running the targets in a deck with chrome mox is quite low. Additionally, in a sol land deck the difference between 4B and 2RR is pretty small; its more like 4.5 mana.