[Deck] DemonStompy

[Aernil]

Some days ago, I played Faerie Stompy and tried to splash black, mainly to improve combo MU and get Engineered Plague against goblins.
After some testing I quit the idea.
But soon after I tried to create a black "faerie" stompy, realizing that black has as good undercosted fatties as Faerie Stompy has.
That's the result:

//Lands
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
5 Swamp
3 Tomb of Urami

//Beaters
4 Skittering Horror
4 Priest of Gix
4 Grinning Demon
4 Bane of the Living
4 Phyrexian Scuta

//Utility
4 Chrome Mox
4 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
4 Sword of Light and Shadow
4 Dark Ritual


//Sideboard
4 Winter Orb
4 Nether Void
4 Engineered Plague
3 Pithing Needle


It plays similar to Faerie Stompy, but has some important differences:
1) The Speed
With City/Ancient Tomb, Chrome Mox, Priest of Gix AND Dark Ritual
the possibilities for a massive first or second turn increase dramatically.
Example: Playing Mox, City, Priest and SoFaI or a morph.
2) The Power
Faerie Stompy usually plays 18 creatures, only 8 of them a threat on their
own. 7 creatures are utility creatures (Cloud of Faeries and Trinket Mage)
This deck runs 20 creatures, 8 of them able to kill most creatures
currently played in combat. 4 of them also serve as boardsweeper as soon as turn 2.
4 creatures serve as Timewalk and chump blockers, and 4 can kill most creatures without needing combatstep.
Just 4 creatures die blocking a Lackey/Unthreshed Mongoose/Werebear...
3) The Lock
In times where Chalice and Trinisphere are standard for each of the Stompy decks,
Demonstompy has another goodie available: Nether Void.
Usually played against Control, it is able to create a softlock, crippling every controlplayer.
But together with Trinisphere it is able to create a lock thats pretty much unique.
Example of a good play: City, Mox, Trinisphere (maybe with Priest).
Next turn Tomb of Urami, Void.

But the deck has negative aspects as well:
1) Massive pain
The damage taken from Ancient tomb and Grinning demon is sometimes
really much, depending on game between 4 and 12.
2) No toolbox
The deck has no opportunity to search for Chalice, Needles or Crypt,
forcing you to play 4 pieces to find them early enough.
3) No active disruption
Well, black simple has no FoW.
The only way to get rid of dangerous cards is to let them discard.
But because of the manarequirement and the Chalice Duress and Hymn
can not be played.

//Card explanations
Maindeck

Tomb of Urami
Tomb of Urami is a generally not that useful, but it happens sometimes that you need a beater with evasion.
But the main reason to play it is because of Nether Void.
It allows broken play with it, sealing the game almost everytime a Void locks the board.

Skittering Horror
A very questionable slot is taken by Horror.
It is actually the Metagame slot.
But 4 power for 3 is reasonably, and it fits perfectly in the curve.
The drawback isn't so brutal, because you have 8 equipments to pimp it.
And generally it will either catches removal or gets blocked dead (sometimes 3-1 trade).
Also Horror in yard + SoLaS equipped on creature = recurring chump blocker.
Other choices: Bone Shredder, Plague Spitter, Phyrexian Negator or Nekrataal

Phyrexian Scuta
Well, a creature with power greater than its cost, with almost no drawback.
I decided to play this over Juzam and Plague Sliver because it just needs B.
It is pretty much needed to either race other aggro or simple block their critters to death.

Priest of Gix
What Cloud of Faeries is for FS, is this little guy for this deck.
It is Timewalk, Mana filter, accleration, blocker and attacker in one card.
It allows broken plays that tend to win the game.
Sometimes you can even fake to play a weird storm deck, by counting the spells played, thus making the opponent play different, in your favour.
Although Priest dies to everythink, it's just a wasted removal.
Works well with every creature in the deck (except maybe Stalker), loves equipment and likes to be equipped.
BBB is also useful to unmorph a Bane or Grinning Demon.

Bane of the Living
My favourite crapcard in this pile.
It fits perfectly into the curve, and is sometimes just a 4/3 for 5 mana.
But more often it tends to empty the board, or deal 2 unexpected damage.
This card is the reason you are always happy about TES and Belcher switching to ETW mode.
Along with the discard and Chalice this card is the reason you have a decent chance G1 against combo.
When its wearing equipment it's also able to kill practically EVERYTHING.
Without equipment it would do too, but not survive
Gets rid of Goblins, Elves, Goblin tokens and may wreck Thresh and Fish.

Trinishpere
Obvious why it is played here, but again the reasons:
Fits into the curve, doesn't hurt you much, slows down almost all decks, and is an autowin against Belcher.
Also very decent against any Storm based deck.

Dark Ritual
I decided to cut it first, but soon I recognized (and the guys here made me recognise it) that it is a necessary card.
Although it hates 3Sphere and Chalice, it is the best acclerant ever, allowing broken first turns.

Chalice of the Void
Same reasons to play it as with Trini.
Wins alone against Burn, hurts Thresh and Combo and slows down every other deck.

Sword of Fire and Ice
Obvious why to play it, but here again the reasons:
Currently the best equipment available (except for Jitte).
SoFaI makes all your critters even fatter than they are, makes a lone Skittering Horror into a gamewinner
and turns Priest into a beater.
Pro red owns goblins, and Pro Blue Faery Stompy.

Grafted Wargear
Currently just in testing, but I tend to play it over Jitte, because it powers your creatures massively for "free".
It really helps to make Priest and Shredder to real threats with just a minor drawback.
Should be boarded out if you expect lots of artifact hate.

Sideboard
Nether Void
Generally THE card against controllish decks and Combo.
If you manage to resolve one it should be a pretty short game.
Either you get faster more mana than the opponent, or you already have a threat in play (sometimes even Priest) or you get a Urami online.
No matter what happens, Nether Void will seal the deal.

Winter Orb
Usually boarded against control, this card helps to slow the opponent down.
Together with either 3Sphere or Nether Void Orb cripples every control player.

Pithing Needle
These 3 slots are Metagame slots, and so its up to you what to play.
I play needles expecially against Landstill and Belcher, but it has also other uses.



some short MUs as far as I played them:

Goblins
Depending on beaters and equipment available its either a walk in the park or like a massacre.
As long as you get Bane, Jitte or SoFaI you should be able to win fast enough
In game2 chalice get replaced with plague.

Thresh
Like in Faerie Stompy Chalice is the key to success.
Set on 1 it stops theri cantrips and there removal.
If you have no Chalice, its important to play around a possible Daze.
And as long as they don't have Thresh, you can block all of their creatures, except Gofy.
Board Crypt, removing some 1-ofs.

Fish
Should be very easy.
You have fatter guys, massive equipment, Chalice and Bane.
As long as you play around Daze, making him Force the wrong cards you should win.
You also have 8 creatures that can block Grunt and survive without equipment.



The deck has gone into different directions during evolution, and the most outstanding is credited to BreathWeapon.
The different versions are mostly different in their creature choice:
Hippie, Juzam Djinn, Phyrexian Scuta + Graveborn Muse, Plague Sliver and Phyrexian Negator.
Most of the versions have an equal powerlevel, so the creature choices are mostly metagame and budget decisions

Thanks to the advice from all kind of experienced players the deck evolved from a raw shape to a
pretty solid deck, being able to beat nearly every deck, inluding Thresh, Belcher, Goblins and Fish.
The inclusion of Nether Void was the idea of BreathWeapon, and although it is a brutal card, able to win games alone,
it is just in SB in my built. if u expect a lot of Control or Aggro/Control decks, it's a good choice to play Void Main.

BEFORE YOU POST YOUR IDEAS, READ THE COMPLETE THREAD!!!

[Xurcks]

Hi man.Nice to see someone else trying to unleash the true power of a DEMONstompy deck
I've been playing with this deck for a while and it's been doing well.
Just for comparison and to trade ideas here is the decklist:

Devil May Smile.deck

18 Lands

4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
9 Swamp
1 Tomb of Urami

16 Creatures

4 Plague Spitter
4 Phyrexian Scuta
4 Grinning Demon
4 Bane of The Living

26 Spells

3 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Dark Ritual
3 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Chimeric Idol
4 Powder Keg
4 Phyrexian Arena
4 Chrome Mox

Sideboard
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Leyline of Void

Tell me what you think of it and what we could improve in our builds.
Cya

[Barook]

While it doesn't have synergy with Priest of Gix, how about Plague Spitter? It has the ideal casting cost and gives you crowd control and reach to a certain degree.

Sure, Black doesn't have FoW, but you can try Unmask.

I love Tombstalker, but i don't see how you can take advantage of him without the ability to put enough cards in the graveyard.

One last thing: If you run Unmask, Plague Spitter and Skittering Horror in one deck, Cabal Therapy should be amazing (although not so hot when you set a Chalice to 1, but you can still pitch it to Unmask or Chrome Mox).

[Aernil]

Response to spam deleted. - Zilla

@Xurks
I really dislike the idea of Scuta and Spitter, because they damage you before they damage the opponent.
I also tried Spitter myself, but it mostly sucks.
When u try to play it fast, you porbably lose life from Ancient tomb.
That would be a total of 3 life lost, before it even deals damage.
Also its too dangerous with the morphs.
And playing it from a Priest is also a little bit stupid.
And be Hymn and Arena are too colorintensiv.
Another point is, that my deck tries to win ASAP, but yours seems to be made for longer games.
I'm really not the person who is able to give you advice on your deck, because it would turn into my built

I really think my creatures are worth their slots, and what I want to improve are my utility spells, making the deck playing better against control and any from of disruption.

[Phantom]

I agree that Unmask should be run as the discard of choice. Also, Rend flesh is a hell of a removal spell that fits in the curve perfectly.

[Aernil]

It seems that all people agree to play Unmask.
And I KNOW that it would fit perfectly, but what to cut?
The Stupors?
Or anything else?

I know that I really can't support Stalker like he(it?) deseves it.
But it is fat, likes decks that destroy something of you/let you discard, it kind of protects from Extirpate (hell, nobody plays it, but just to get sure ) and, the most important fact:
It FLIES.
It is the only way to get past a Moat, go into defense against FS and its the only creature without drawback.
(And I don't have Juzam Djinn )

I dont like the idea of adding more cards that get affected by Chalice, and I would almost never sac a creature to anything.
And it is most likely that every creature gets killed by your opponent.
It's alomst never a problem to only have a Skittering in play.
If they STP it, be happy to gain live, and play one of the creatures that you kept in your hand, not playing it cause of Skittering.

[MattH]

You're looking for black cards with {2} in the cost and you didn't find Negator?

[xsockmonkeyx]

Is Phyrexian Negator not your cup of tea?

I dont like the skittering Horror. You have to wait just as long to support 2B creatures as you do to support a BB creature (Land + Mox or 2 Lands) and 2B is much easier to handle.

[Aernil]

Ahhh, finally, the first one speaking of Negator.
Well, actually it was the reason why I considered Monoblack Faerie Stompy playable.
It's just HUGE to drop that little cutie on turn 1.
The only problem is, that it gets blocked dead by almost everything.
As long as I don't want to lose my board, I have to sac the Negator.
The only way to protect it, is Chalice set to 1, a equipped SoFaI, and playing lots of removal. That time I played Contagion and Diabolic Edict main, but I still had to sac every game lots of permanents.
I actually boarded it out every game, because I just got owned from it's drawback.

Edit:
The cc 3 isnt a problem of the deck, it is it's aim.
You should have 3 mana available turn 2 consistently.
And I do'n wan to run cc 2 cards, because I want as much cards playable when a Chalice for 1 or 2 counters is on the board as possible.

Response to deleted content deleted. Incidentally, Aernil is absolutely right. It's fine to disgree with his card choices, but you goddamn well better explain why, or you're wasting everyone's time. - Zilla

[Di]

As long as I don't want to lose my board, I have to sac the Negator.
The only way to protect it, is Chalice set to 1, a equipped SoFaI, and playing lots of removal.

Yet Red Death runs Phyrexian Negator without Chalice of the Void and they seem to have no problem at all. You actually have Chalice of the Void to make it that much better.

Phyrexian Negator is by far the best creature for this deck and its drawback is minimal compared to its power.

[Aernil]

I know that Red Death plays it.
And I have no idea why Im not able to play it efficently, maybe Im just a bad player.
But my point of view is, that you can't attack with Negator into a full board with creatures, without ruining your own board.
And therfor I play Skittering: It attacks into masses, you lose one card, the opponent far more, mostly 2 creatures are needed to get Skittering down.

Edit:
If someone would give me a detailed tutorial how to use and play Negator most efficient, please tell me.

[Tacosnape]

1. Phyrexian Negator. Chalice aggro decks love anything that costs and one mana of their respective colors. He's the best creature in Legacy.

2. Umezawa's Jitte. Offsets the lifeloss of Ancient Tomb and Grinning Demon. And did I mention it's the most nutbar equipment ever printed not named Skullclamp?

Take it from someone who invented this deck about a year and a half ago (And by "Invented" I don't claim to be the first to invent it, just that I made it out of my own brain processes): There is absolutely no acceptable reason you shouldn't have 6-8 slots running 3-4 of these each.

As far as playing Negator goes, this is the perfect deck for it. Almost everything Negator fears except maybe Pyrokinesis is stopped by Chalice for 1. You can also drop additional Chalices for 0, dead Chrome Moxes, and so forth just for Negator fodder.

[Pale Moon FTW]

Actually he's already running Jitte.
And I think Negator is more a question of meta than skill.
Since you're in the european meta you probably play against more aggro than the americans working on the deck.

[Aernil]

Damned.
It seems nobody is reading neither my first thread nor the others.
I know Negator is the best Creature available at this cost.
I know it wins games.
I know it loves Chalice.
But I don't know how to play it correctly, so I don't dare to play it without getting tips when to play it, when to attack, what to sac and so on.
Is ANYONE able to help me in that case?
I don't want another 4 threads describing how good negator is and that I really have to play him.

Edit:
The problem is, I have no meta at all.
There are just no Tourneys within 150 km range, so this is all theoretical, I'm just able to test on MWS.
I want to make the list competive, so that someone pilots it into T8 of an important tourney.
Like, for the greater good

[BreathWeapon]

You need to abuse Trinisphere and Nether Void in this deck, Trinisphere is a double Time Walk for Pirest of Gix after Ancient Tomb, Chrome Mox/black, Priest of Gix, Trinisphere you either attack for four points of damage or you get to equip Sword of Fire and Ice and attack for 12 points of damage and draw two cards. You can do the same thing with Nether Void after Swamp, Chrome Mox/black, Dark Ritual, Priest of Gix, Nether Void and attack for six points of damage. You asymmetrically break Nether Void by using 2 Mana Lands, and if you combine Trinisphere with Nether Void you've locked your opponent out of the game.

Persecute also looks border line broken as a Mind Twist for the SB.

So, I'd go out Stupor, in Trinisphere, out Tombstalker, in Nether Void and I think I'd get rid of those Umezawa's Jittes for Unmasks.

I actually agree with you on Skittering Horror > Phyrexian Negator.

This deck seems really strong in theory.

[Happy Gilmore]

If you have problems with the way another member posts, address your concerns to the Mod staff via PM, NOT in the open forums. To do otherwise only derails conversations and fuels flame wars. - Zilla

Possible options instead of Stupor:
Trinisphere
Tangle Wire
Wasteland
Port
Powder keg

As your only discard spell Stupor will be a minor impact. Since you already run Chalice, Trinisphere gives you yet another spell you can ritual out on turn 1 that can straight up lock down certain decks. Tangle Wire might also be a good option because of the large number of permanents and threats you are running.

As for a SB (Assuming you chance Stupor to Tangle Wire or Trinisphere):

4x Persecute
4x Engineered Plague
4x Powder Keg
3x Tormod's Crypt

[Cait_Sith]

Yet Red Death runs Phyrexian Negator without Chalice of the Void and they seem to have no problem at all. You actually have Chalice of the Void to make it that much better.

Phyrexian Negator is by far the best creature for this deck and its drawback is minimal compared to its power.

The problem for Negator comes from enemy creatures. Red Death can rip apart an opponent's defence easily thanks to its robust removal suite; this deck doesn't have said removal suite.

That means pretty much every blocker out there either "trades" or can generate card advantage.

[raharu]

this might seem out of place, but does anyone else see that shimian specter might be fairly insane in this list? removing every card that won't get killed by chalice from their deck looks like it might be useful. with all the acceleration in the deck, it should be viable, and you could fill in the slot from stupor without losing the little disruption the deck has.

Proper capitalization is required on these boards. Please use it in the future. - Zilla

[Maveric78f]

Playing negator is only a question of meta, not a question of skill. In the current meta (tarmogoyf and gobs everywhere), I'm pretty sure that it's very poor in this deck. In red death, it's greatly different as red death has the power of creature removals.

Skittering in good in this deck because stompy decks usually need only 1 equipped creature to win. A 4 power creature has to be got rid of.

Instead of discard, I agree that trinisphere would be good as it hurts almost everybody except you and as it gives as much tempo as discard and as it kills combo decks as long as it remains on the field. It's a bit redondant with chalice and antisynergic with dark ritual, but it remains a very strong card that should be at least in SB.

And I'm not a fan of tombstalker. I would rather play 8 equipments than play 3 tombstalkers.

And I don't like your discard SB you'd better find something else. I have no idea to help you.

[Iranon]

1.) Disruption

I'd definitely run Trinisphere for the second disruption card. You have an utterly disgusting amount of fast mana and should be able to get it out turn 1 more than anyone else. Your mana base is even less colour-stable than that of most other chalice aggro decks.

Unmask does not seem to fit all that well in the deck - you play few 'possibly great, possibly useless' cards (Phyrexian Negator comes to mind. Have you considered it?*) to make its pitch cost more palatable.


2. Creatures

There is too much that needs double black. Bane of the Living is fine; it contributes a lot to the deck and you will often be content to let it remain unmorphed for some time.

I agree with Grinning Demon over other, generally better cards. It can swing on turn 2 and can be played when colour screwed (not breathtaking, but if you have equipment available it can be very relevant)

You do not seem to put all that many cards in the yard; I doubt Tombstalker overtakes regular creatures in the time frame you would want. While the first might occasionally be a bargain, topdecking another after the first got handled might suck. With two liabilities (colour issues, graveyard dependence), I would replace the card with something more reliable).

Phyrexian Scuta seems the best fattie without major drawbacks if that is desired (moderate colour requirements), but I would tend towards abusing the possibility of busted openings with something in the 3-mana range.
If something that endangers your own permanents is out of the question for you (I'd favour Gator or at least War Beast), Nim Abomination seems to fit the bill quite well.




* just joking. Please put that axe down.