[Deck] Polymorph Stompy

[Captain Hammer]

Warping Wail's printing made me want to revisit an idea I've toyed with before. The premise is to construct a deck that uses the Fairy Stompy shell (acceleration, disruption and protection) and pair with a consistent combo that can win in a single turn.

Here is the list I'm currently exploring...

6 Island
4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
3 Khalni Garden - Could be Mishra's Factory instead.
4 Lotus Petal - Could be more Islands instead.
4 Talisman of Dominance - Could be Grim Monolith, Mind Stone, Sky Diamond or Crystal Vein instead.

4 Proteus Staff - Combo 1-4.
4 Polymorph - Combo 5-8 and more blue to feed FoWs/MisD in a pinch.
3 Intuition - Tutors up a combo component when needed. Adds to your blue count, and can even be used to tutor up a FoW at instant speed when needed.

4 Warping Wail - The card that makes revisiting this concept worth considering IMO.
3 Mortarpod or Abstruse Interference - Viable alternatives include Wind Zendikon and Flayer Husk but both are shut out by a Chalice at 1.
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn - Duh!
1 Blightsteel Colossus - Alternative to Emrakul that dodges Karakas and wins the same turn that it swings.

4 Force of Will - Duh!
4 Misdirection - FoW 5-8.
4 Chalice of the Void - Works well with FoW and MisD to shut down other combo decks and potential problem cards such as StP. If you don't feel like playing Chalice at 1 can win games by itself in your meta, you could opt to play Brainstorm here and Flayer Husks instead of Mortarpods.
3 Propaganda/Trinisphere - Yet more ways to slow your opponents to a crawl. Propaganda increases the blue count to feed FoW and works best in a creature heavy meta. Trinisphere is golden in a more combo heavy environment. Both cards should make it into the sideboard if not maindeck.
X Lightning Greaves or Swiftfoot Boots- Lets you win the same turn you combo out. Protects your token until you're ready to combo. Protects your Emrakul from Jace, Worldbreaker and Endbringer.

The build plays 10 token makers, 8 Polymorph effects, 3 tutors that can fetch any missing combo component and a crapton of ways to protect your combo for free. Hopefully, this is enough to make the deck consistent and simultaneously explosive thanks to all the mana acceleration.

The lack of options if I draw both Emrakul and Blightsteel is an issue. If I wasn't playing Chalice, Brainstorm would be a great option.

The manabase could also be an issue with my list. Not playing a lot of blue sources so I should probably find a way to squeeze in a few more. Talisman of Dominance is a great option for this.

Lightning Greaves might not be worth it. Intuition/Propaganda/Trinisphere maybe better options.

As a two card combo, the deck is comparable to reanimator but with the advantage that it doesn't rely on your yard, doenst cost you life to reanimate, doesnt need to devote several maindeck slots to creatures, can play chalice, Trinisphere and more countermagic and the token makers are all useful multipurpose cards.

It's advantages to Show and Tell is that it doesn't let your opponent play a threat off of your combo, it can play chalice, Trinisphere and more countermagic and the token makers are all useful multipurpose cards.

Being monocolored, it also has a more resilient manabase than both.

Optimization of the manabase is the main area that needs more development.

Here's the current build being tested...

10-11 Island
4-3 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Khalni Garden
3 Mox Diamond
2-1 Mishras Factory/Crystal Vein

4-3 Polymorph
4-3 Proteus Staff
3-4 Intuition
2-3 Thirst for Knowledge

4-3 Warping Wail
3-2 Abstruse Interference
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Blightsteel Colossus

4 Force of Will
3 Misdirection
4 Chalice of the Void

[Esper3k]

If you want to use Lightning Greaves, Swiftfoot Boots is probably better since it gives your guys Hexproof instead of Shroud (so you can actually target them with Proteus Staff / Polymorph).

[Captain Hammer]

Yeah, that's a good point.

The Greaves are mainly there to let you win a turn earlier since the Chalice/FoW/MisD should be enough to protect your threats. Swiftfoot Boots costs a mana to equip so it's usually not going to let you win a turn earlier. But it does a better job of protecting the token when you're comboing out so it might be worth the trade off.

[jrsthethird]

See Beyond or JTMS could solve your drawing threats problem. Anything that discards a card/loots works too, with the graveyard-shuffle riders on both.

[Captain Hammer]

See Beyond or JTMS could solve your drawing threats problem. Anything that discards a card/loots works too, with the graveyard-shuffle riders on both.


Both great suggestions. Thanks. I don't think the manabase can support Jaces cc though. Thirst for Knowledge and the sorcery version of it for lands could work well too and dig a little deeper. Impulse/FoF work as card drawers that dig deep. I suppose one of these should replace some Intuition and/or Abstruse Interference/Trinisphere.

[jrsthethird]

Both great suggestions. Thanks. I don't think the manabase can support Jaces cc though. Thirst for Knowledge and the sorcery version of it for lands could work well too and dig a little deeper. Impulse/FoF work as card drawers that dig deep. I suppose one of these should replace some Intuition and/or Abstruse Interference/Trinisphere.

You run plenty of artifacts that TFK is great regardless of whether you need to pitch a dude back or not; hell, even Blightsteel counts for that too.

[Captain Hammer]

You run plenty of artifacts that TFK is great regardless of whether you need to pitch a dude back or not; hell, even Blightsteel counts for that too.

Actually I quite like Compulsive Research plus Mishras Factory in the list. Research is great with all the utility lands the deck plays.

Factory gives added resilience to your token being killed in response to your combo. You can respond to the removal by saccing your token for mana and using that mana to animate your Mishras factory so you have a valid target for polymorph/protues staff

But it might still be better to play Factory plus TfK for the instant speed so that you can leave mana open for the 2U countermagic/tutoring

[Captain Hammer]

Here's the newest list. The only thing I'm not sure about is the Mox Diamond manabase.
This is very much a work in progress. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

10-11 Island
4-3 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Khalni Garden
3 Mox Diamond
2-1 Mishras Factory/Crystal Vein

4-3 Polymorph
4-3 Proteus Staff
3-4 Intuition
2-3 Thirst for Knowledge

4-3 Warping Wail
3-2 Abstruse Interference
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Blightsteel Colossus

4 Force of Will
3 Misdirection
4 Chalice of the Void

Alternatively, am considering dropping Chalice entirely to play


10 Island
4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Khalni Garden
4 Chrome Mox

4 Polymorph
4 Proteus Staff

4 Brainstorm
4 Intuition

4 Warping Wail
4 Wind Zendikon
1 Progenitus
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

4 Force of Will
4 Misdirection

[apple713]

This deck seems very very weak. Not only is it susceptible to counterspells (on staff / polymorph), your combo can be countered by just about ALL creature removal. So now, even a match like burn that should be good because they are weak to combo actually have a fairly good chance. Delver decks must be unwinnable because they run both counterspells and removal.

It would be nice to see a report on the games you've played because I've been interested in this concept for a while but it just doesn't seem to have enough upside compared to other combo decks. I think consistency is good but successfully comboing with the deck is going to be hard Even with misdirection.

[Weapon X]

This reminds me of the mono blue stax list I played 10 or so years ago. The problem is that the deck beats itself sometimes more then your opponent because of what it tries to do.

[Captain Hammer]

This reminds me of the mono blue stax list I played 10 or so years ago. The problem is that the deck beats itself sometimes more then your opponent because of what it tries to do.

Not sure what you mean. Yes it locks out lots of decks with a chalice at 1 and sometimes at 2 but aside from that, the deck has nothing in common with stax.

Unlike stax, it tries to win in a single turn with a single swing with emrakul or blightsteel.

The whole deck is built around combo, not locking out your opponent

The main reason for the chalice is that it disables the vast majority of the removal played in legacy.

And the reason for the 11 counterspells is to win counter wars against other decks that play 4-7 counterspells.

It even plays 8 cards to combo with (4reusable) along with a ton of tutors and card draw to ensure it can combo out a third time even if your opponent manages to stop your combo the first and second time.

[The Nobodys]

What about something like a Thopter/Sword plan a/b to the polymorph route? A blue/black tezz shell might work.

[Captain Hammer]

What about something like a Thopter/Sword plan a/b to the polymorph route? A blue/black tezz shell might work.

That's an interesting idea. Going this route would also let the deck play Bitterblossom which, like Thopter goes great with Polymorph. But alas, I don't see how squeezing this combo into the list would make it stronger.

Might be hard to make room to squeeze another combo into the deck , and it also messes up the manabase quite a bit, though talisman could help smooth it out some.

Did you have a list in mind?

[Weapon X]

Nope, it is basically the mono blue stax list I played so it has everything in common. The only difference is that you are playing more polymorph cards beyond the staff and fewer stax elements. I had propaganda for example which pitches to FoW. The deck is built around locking your opponent out so that you can combo kill.

[Redkid43]

Would you mind showing us the list and explaining how your list and his are the same?

[Weapon X]

It's easily been at least 10 years since I played it so I'll expect a lot of errors in the list, but this should be close-ish

4 ancient tomb
3 city of traitors
3 faerie conclave
4 mishras factory
6 islands

4 mox diamond
4 chalice of the void
3 smokestack
4 propaganda
4 proteus staff
1 blightsteel colossus
2 Lightning greaves
2 mana severance
1 goblin charbelcher
4 force of will
1 scroll rack
4 mana leak
1 crucible of worlds
3 fabricate

Something like that. Like most stax decks it beats itself when it can't implement its plan so I stopped playing it. You play control for the bulk of the game until you can resolve a combo while at the same time playing resource denial. I'm certain I had tangle wires for example. Most cards can probably be updated now but the principle is the same. A man land will wait her slowly whittle away your opponent while resource denial/control keeps us alive, or the land becomes a hasty blightsteel. Failing that a charbelcher can also kill with the numerous ways to control the deck.