Re: [Deck] Elephant Stompy (formerly Elf Stompy)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Maveric78f
Prog can be dealt with, that NO is 2 for 1, that Smokestack is also usually a 3/4 turns clock.
Progenitus can sure be dealt with, but it's far more difficult than dealing with smokestack, you gotta give me that. And what comes to saccing Progenitus, when you have Progenitus out, you basically have no need to play smokestack. If you have smokestack out, you need a token generator or crucible or a big dude and lots of permanents. I would say just by looking at the decklist that it's way easier to have a green creature to sac for NO than to have a token generator for smokestack.
This deck bashes face. It plays format-hate and fast effective green creatures and turns one of them into Progenitus ignoring opponents plays. Smokestack contradicts with this gameplan. I see your point in using smokestack with various token makers, but in my opinion that is totally different deck. Green stax exists and the new toys could be worth running in that particular deck. Smokestack is terrible if you put it here. To make it worthwhile, you need to add other cards as well. As people have pointed out, it means either cutting the best thing this deck has, NO+Progenitus or Garruk. I don't mind cutting Garruk as I personally find it underwhelming, but if you do, it's one less token generator in the deck. This deck is fast and speed is what keeps it going. Smokestack derails the plan.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Maveric78f
I don't get why you deny this option. I'm not sure the Staw option has been debated enough, particularly since the newcomer of 2010 set.
Because I think it's a bad choice. Based on playing this deck a lot and pretty much knowing what it does and how it works. If you have issues with me saying that, read what others have to say about it. And I'm with Kuma with the new token dude not being an auto-include here. I'd almost rather play Chameleon Colossus, which I originally cut for Natural Orders. He's a house.
But since I don't, I will most likely skip the new guy unless someone proves it to be just what this deck needs. I never felt to be lacking removal when playing with Snakeforms and Briarhorns.
Re: [Deck] Elephant Stompy (formerly Elf Stompy)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
tsabo_tavoc
It is unplayable in Elephant Stompy and a suboptimal choice for Green Stax, if it would ever become competitive.
The simple argument: How does it perform better than Garruk? Master trades 1 for 1 while Garruk gets 1 for 2 or at least 1 for 1 plus fogging a creature attack. 1 for 1 is unaffordable at 4cc and I side out Garruks if the worst scenary is likely to happen (e.g., against Zoo). In a Stax shell, it could function as redundancy for Garruk, however, Crucible might own more merits.
It performs different than Garruk though. Garruk can make blockers but can't attack or block on his own, he also doesn't have removal to take out confidants, pile drivers, and such like Master of the wild hunt does.
Re: [Deck] Elephant Stompy (formerly Elf Stompy)
How about the recently spoiled Awakener Druid?
When Awakener Druid enters the battlefield, target Forest becomes a 4/5 green Treefolk creature as long as Awakener Druid is on the battlefield. (It's still a land).
You'd need a forest, so not really turn 1 playable, but hasty 4/5 on turn 2.
Re: [Deck] Elephant Stompy (formerly Elf Stompy)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
rufus
How about the recently spoiled Awakener Druid?
Too bad that it is worse than Hungry Spriggan. Looking forward to some more exciting :2: :g: cards!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mystical_Jackass
It performs different than Garruk though. Garruk can make blockers but can't attack or block on his own, he also doesn't have removal to take out confidants, pile drivers, and such like Master of the wild hunt does.
Yes, different and worse. For their main roles, both provide a 3/3 body the turn played; Garruk adds a 3/3 while Master adds a 2/2 next turn. Only after that, Master starts to perform better. For their additional functions, waiting 1 turn to trade 1 creature and 1 tapping with another creature is not as promising as the untapping lands or overruning your troup!
My main point is still: dealing 1 creature is way easier for your opponent than dealing 1 creature and 1 Planeswalker.
Re: [Deck] Elephant Stompy (formerly Elf Stompy)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
tsabo_tavoc
Too bad that it is worse than Hungry Spriggan. Looking forward to some more exciting
Is it really? There's the dependence on forests, but the Druid provides more power a better blocker, and seems like he's no more fragile.
Re: [Deck] Elephant Stompy (formerly Elf Stompy)
I think we have to count Awakener Druid as a 2GG card, because we have to choose between tapping that Forest for mana or attacking with it. It's also terrible if we're using a City of Traitors and Forest for mana or a City/Tomb and Chrome Mox.
I don't think we're running this guy either.
Re: [Deck] Elephant Stompy (formerly Elf Stompy)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Hopo
Progenitus can sure be dealt with, but it's far more difficult than dealing with smokestack, you gotta give me that. And what comes to saccing Progenitus, when you have Progenitus out, you basically have no need to play smokestack. If you have smokestack out, you need a token generator or crucible or a big dude and lots of permanents. I would say just by looking at the decklist that it's way easier to have a green creature to sac for NO than to have a token generator for smokestack.
I got your points. I'd just like to point out that in 90% of the cases, there is no need for a token generator to play Stax. That's something a lot of people are wrong about. Stax is good in this kind of deck because you'll draw 1 permanent each turn when most of your opponents will draw half a permanent or spells they can't play. Just count the difference with threshold.
About the second target of NO, primus is really good because it can be quite easily hardcasted too, especially if you have Garruk in play.
Re: [Deck] Elephant Stompy (formerly Elf Stompy)
I've fallen in love with this deck. It's incredible when you run the right cards. It's currently my Chalice Aggro of choice over both Faerie and Dragon Stompy. After about thirty incarnations, this is my current list.
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
5 Forest
5 Snow-Covered Forest
4 Chrome Mox
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
4 Natural Order
2 Progenitus
2 Llanowar Elves
2 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Loaming Shaman
4 Call of the Herd
4 Briarhorn
4 Wickerbough Elder
SB:
4 Krosan Grip
4 Pithing Needle
4 Tsunami
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
(*I'm actually doing this in Chalice Aggro decks after losing a game to where somebody hit a blind Predict on me naming Forest. I figure this is far more likely to happen again than for me to run into snow hate.)
In thirty matches, I managed a 23-7 mark, which I was fairly proud of. I came to the conclusion that my worst enemy was losing the die roll to anything running Discard. Other than that, I found myself having shots against virtually everything.
Things I don't run:
Spawnwrithe or Hungry Spriggan: As beaters who don't really do anything but attack, these guys are weak in a format where creatures bigger than 4/4 reign supreme. I'd rather run guys who give me a shot to get around giant threats. All my threats actually do something.
Other Progenitus targets: Rarely do I ever not just want to grab Progenitus and win. If Progenitus doesn't work, I'll board out the six slots for board tech.
Things I do run that you don't run:
4 Loaming Shaman: I call this deck Centaur Stompy because Loaming Shaman is that amazing. He seriously eats everything ever. Makes Tarmogoyf not an assault-ending problem. Wrecks Ichorid. Hurts Survival, hurts anything with Tombstalker/Lavamancer/Mongoose/Witness. He just does everything ever.
4 Wickerbough Elder: Strong. Four maindeck artifact/enchantment answers prove to be randomly awesome. Tends to do his best work hitting Vial, Dreadnought, and Manlands, but is a beast against lots of other stuff.
4 Briarhorn: Okay, most of you are running this guy. But if you aren't? You should be. He's so good. Whether he's an instant speed 6/6 blocker or a means to power your attack through a larger threat, Briarhorn's the sauce. Randomly gives you even more capacity to massacre Ichorid, too.
4 Fyndowar Llanohorn Elves: Chalice-1 or not, these guys are worth it. Turn two Natural Orders are awesome, as are turn two Chalice-2's. Postboard, these guys are amazing with turn two Garruk's also.
My sideboard choices:
Krosan Grip: The best green board card ever. I run four.
Pithing Needle: I hate Planeswalkers that aren't on my side. I hate Survival. I hate Deed. I hate lots of things that Needle stops. I run four.
Tsunami: This could be Choke, but I strangely like this better. Choke can be circumvented by a well-placed Krosan Grip by some decks. Tsunami has a much sexier ring of finality to it.
Garruk Wildspeaker: Gets boarded in against control and some combo, or any time the NO-Progenitus combo isn't at its strongest. I find him too weak in creature matchups when the deck has virtually no creature removal.
Also note that after a lot of testing, my current opinion is that Call of the Herd is the weakest slot in this deck, especially when I keep having to fuel it with Ancient Tomb. I'll be looking to try other things in the slot, though I'm not sure I'll find anything substantial.
Re: [Deck] Elephant Stompy (formerly Elf Stompy)
I still don't sure about running 1-costs in chalice aggro, but wtf, I sould give them a chance!
I'm pretty sure Noble Hierarch >>> manaelves in each and every non-Elf deck.
Re: [Deck] Elephant Stompy (formerly Elf Stompy)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
eq.firemind
I still don't sure about running 1-costs in chalice aggro, but wtf, I sould give them a chance!
I'm pretty sure Noble Hierarch >>> manaelves in each and every non-Elf deck.
They're pretty good. Amazingly, I find I want to Chalice for 2 as often as 1 in this deck, as 2 shuts off several answers to Natural Order/Progenitus. (Edict, Weirding, Smallpox, etc). The Elves facilitate this happening quickly.
As for Noble Hierarch, possibly. I definitely see the allure of Exalted in this deck. I also like that Elves can block with a power of 1, though. It's made a difference.
Re: [Deck] Elephant Stompy (formerly Elf Stompy)
I've always thought that 3/3 were weak in this format but you seem to like them above all. They are defini telygood against Gob, but they're small against the rest of the field.
Didn't you feel that you played too much mana (Compared to FS, you play 4ESG and 4 mana elves more). I'm aware you're curve is slightly upper, but it looks a lot to me.
Re: [Deck] Elephant Stompy (formerly Elf Stompy)
Just saw this thread again and remembered my own Stompy (which is out of order now because i fell in love with Ichorid again =))
I still wanna post my list since I always found it entertaining (and effective ;P)
4 Ancient Tomb
13 Forest
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Tinder Wall
1 Progenitus
4 Iwamori of the Open Fist
4 Elvish spirit Guide
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Natural Order
4 Chrome Mox
4 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Sword of Fire and Ice
2 Umezawa's Jitte
Sideboard:
3 Krosan Grip
4 Tormod's Crypt
2 Choke
3 Vexing Shusher
3 Thorn of Amethyst
Explanations:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=13949
Re: [Deck] Elephant Stompy (formerly Elf Stompy)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tacosnape
Things I don't run:
Tarmogoyf. Why not?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tacosnape
Spawnwrithe or Hungry Spriggan: As beaters who don't really do anything but attack, these guys are weak in a format where creatures bigger than 4/4 reign supreme. I'd rather run guys who give me a shot to get around giant threats. All my threats actually do something.
Spriggan is bad, sure, but Spawnwrithe is the best creature in the deck. He forces your opponent to answer him or lose. He's kind of a crummy late game top deck, but early on he's stolen more games than I care to remember. I run Briarhorn and Tangle Wire which let him hit way more often than he should. I almost never lose after one hit and I've never lost after two.
Not running four Spawnwrithe is madness.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tacosnape
Other Progenitus targets: Rarely do I ever not just want to grab Progenitus and win. If Progenitus doesn't work, I'll board out the six slots for board tech.
I agree that Progenitus is the only target worth finding, but I don't think running two is correct. The odds of drawing both Progenitus and Natural Order by turn three (your first ten cards) when you have one Progenitus and four Natural Orders is a little over 8%. That's higher than the slightly over 1% chance of drawing both Progenituses (Progenitii?) and a Natural Order by turn three, but is that really worth doubling your chances of drawing a dead card every time you draw a card?
I think you're way too reliant on NO/Progenitus
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tacosnape
Things I do run that you don't run:
4 Wickerbough Elder: Strong. Four maindeck artifact/enchantment answers prove to be randomly awesome. Tends to do his best work hitting Vial, Dreadnought, and Manlands, but is a beast against lots of other stuff.
No way, dude. This guy isn't better than Garruk. What artifacts and enchantments do we need to destroy game one? Dreadnought? Moat? I'll take my chances and not run a sub-par creature.
Garruk lets you power out creature after creature, is nuts with Tangle Wire, and rapes control. You can do stupid unfair things with Garruk like turn two Garruk + Spawnwrithe, turn three hit with Spawnwrithe, play another creature or two, turn four overrun with Garruk. He lets you play out your hand twice as fast while building for a killing blow.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tacosnape
4 Fyndowar Llanohorn Elves: Chalice-1 or not, these guys are worth it. Turn two Natural Orders are awesome, as are turn two Chalice-2's. Postboard, these guys are amazing with turn two Garruk's also.
What do you really want to play turn one: these guys or a Chalice.
I get it, you're going for NO as quick as possible. I just don't think that's the best way to play out the deck. You're one counterspell away from losing with no real backup plan.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tacosnape
My sideboard choices:
Tsunami: This could be Choke, but I strangely like this better. Choke can be circumvented by a well-placed Krosan Grip by some decks. Tsunami has a much sexier ring of finality to it.
I don't think the extra mana required to play it is worth the ability to dodge Krosan Grip. Choke is final most of the time as long as you don't play it for the sake of playing it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tacosnape
Garruk Wildspeaker: Gets boarded in against control and some combo, or any time the NO-Progenitus combo isn't at its strongest. I find him too weak in creature matchups when the deck has virtually no creature removal.
Last time I checked the meta at large is control. I guess if you're mostly seeing Goblins, Merfolk, and Zoo this is okay, but I still think he's pretty solid against Goblins and Merfolk. 3/3 is bigger than their average creature.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tacosnape
Also note that after a lot of testing, my current opinion is that Call of the Herd is the weakest slot in this deck, especially when I keep having to fuel it with Ancient Tomb. I'll be looking to try other things in the slot, though I'm not sure I'll find anything substantial.
Agreed. I don't really like the card, but we don't have anything better. It puts sorcery in the yard for goyf and gives you two creatures for one card, but it's not great. That's why I only run three.
Re: [Deck] Elephant Stompy (formerly Elf Stompy)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kuma
Tarmogoyf. Why not?
Three reasons. I want to Chalice at 2, I run quad Loaming Shaman, and I lack many ways to power him up quickly. He's quite often in the 1/2 range early on.
Quote:
Spriggan is bad, sure, but Spawnwrithe is the best creature in the deck. He forces your opponent to answer him or lose. He's kind of a crummy late game top deck, but early on he's stolen more games than I care to remember. I run Briarhorn and Tangle Wire which let him hit way more often than he should. I almost never lose after one hit and I've never lost after two.
Spawnwrithe is incredibly easy to answer for any deck in existence, though. Any creature larger than 2/2 can serve as a blocker for him, and we can't do anything about that because we're a green deck. And he's horrible lategame. I agree he's fantastic if he hits, I just don't feel like he hits.
Quote:
I agree that Progenitus is the only target worth finding, but I don't think running two is correct. The odds of drawing both Progenitus and Natural Order by turn three (your first ten cards) when you have one Progenitus and four Natural Orders is a little over 8%. That's higher than the slightly over 1% chance of drawing both Progenituses (Progenitii?) and a Natural Order by turn three, but is that really worth doubling your chances of drawing a dead card every time you draw a card?
Possibly you have a point. The counter to this logic is that if I do draw the one I have, Natural Order becomes a very weak card for me. But why not be reliable on NO/Progenitus? It and Briarhorn are the best solution the deck has to the game stalling out by both sides having too many creatures.
Quote:
No way, dude. This guy isn't better than Garruk. What artifacts and enchantments do we need to destroy game one? Dreadnought? Moat? I'll take my chances and not run a sub-par creature.
I'll have to disagree. I think he's a fantastic creature.
Garruk lets you power out creature after creature, is nuts with Tangle Wire, and rapes control.[/QUOTE]
Which is why I keep three in sideboard. I also don't run Tangle Wire, which is only strong if you're running Spawnwrithe.
Quote:
What do you really want to play turn one: these guys or a Chalice.
Depends. Very often I'm not going to get a turn one Chalice. Very often I'm going to want the Chalice at 2 instead of 1. And sometimes if I have the Chalice and the Elf both, I'm going to have a Chrome Mox to imprint it on. And if I'm going second and my opponent's sitting on an open land that can produce blue, I'm probably not going to want my Chalice walking into an otherwise completely dead Spell Snare. I admit there's situations where the Elves are weak, but powering out turn two NO's, Wickerboughs, Chal-2's, Garruks, etc, and hitting your mana curve at maximum consistency is pretty sweet.
Quote:
I get it, you're going for NO as quick as possible. I just don't think that's the best way to play out the deck. You're one counterspell away from losing with no real backup plan.
54 other cards in the deck aren't a backup plan? Trinisphere doesn't protect NO? Chalice doesn't shut down cards? Loaming Shaman doesn't make Tarmogoyf smaller than my guys? Briarhorn can't let me swing through an army? This is kind of a stupid assessment, given that my decklist isn't that far off from any others. If I'm a counterspell away from losing, so is any other build packing NO.
Topping that off, I tend to rape Blue. Blue tends to run Counterbalance, Spell Snare, and 1CC Cantrips, and I eat all of this alive.
Quote:
I don't think the extra mana required to play it is worth the ability to dodge Krosan Grip. Choke is final most of the time as long as you don't play it for the sake of playing it.
Tsunami also doesn't lose to any sort of removal that's already on the board. Eh. This probably could be Choke. I admit I just flat out don't like Choke and should probably try it further.
Quote:
Last time I checked the meta at large is control. I guess if you're mostly seeing Goblins, Merfolk, and Zoo this is okay, but I still think he's pretty solid against Goblins and Merfolk. 3/3 is bigger than their average creature.
Possibly, but I'm better against control than some versions. Quad Wickerboughs and Quad Loaming Shamans give me a lot of random answers to things. A Wickerbough on the board is a nightmare for topdecked Standstills/Deeds. Loaming Shaman shuts down a lot of annoying recursion. I could reverse the Garruks and the Wickerboughs if I really wanted, but I prefer having the maindeck answers.
Quote:
Agreed. I don't really like the card, but we don't have anything better. It puts sorcery in the yard for goyf and gives you two creatures for one card, but it's not great. That's why I only run three.
This is kind of the same conclusion I came to. On the bright side, it also removes itself from the yard, which is kind of neat. I think three might possibly be the right number.
Re: [Deck] Elephant Stompy (formerly Elf Stompy)
If you did use Spawnwrithe, why not use Elephant Guide then instead of Call of the Herd? It'd give you a boost to trample over and offers a hefty guy to fall back on
Re: [Deck] Elephant Stompy (formerly Elf Stompy)
@ Tacosnape
Briarhorn lets Spawnwrithe to connect once (and sometimes trample over a naive blocker) and even one hit is a huge step to win the game.
Tangle Wire makes him a beast and also makes Choke much better.
I tried with 2 Progs, but switched 2nd to 1 Woodfall Primus/Empyrial Archangel and finally just cut that back for more business.
Is it wise to run a total number of 8 art/ench hate? I think the maximum number is 6 and my bet is on 4 Grips sideboard 'cause it solves Deed and Humility and Elder can be just like Garruk's token sometimes. So Maybe -2 Elders, +2 Garruks MD and free up 2 SB slots for something more usefull?
Re: [Deck] Elephant Stompy (formerly Elf Stompy)
Very possibly on the 2 Garruks. I wouldn't be against inputting 2-3 Garruks for some combination of 2 Wickerbough and 2 Call.
I still maintain Spawnwrithe isn't good enough. Any removal stops it. Any creature stops it if you don't have Briarhorn. Stifle stops the duplication. EE sweeps the copies, Deed sweeps all of them. Pyroclasm clears them all. And I find it generally useless after about turn three.
Re: [Deck] Elephant Stompy (formerly Elf Stompy)
EE needs to be at 3 to kill the token copies, same with deed. The tokens are exact copies, so they maintain the converted mana cost.
Re: [Deck] Elephant Stompy (formerly Elf Stompy)
Kuma would you mind posting your list?
Re: [Deck] Elephant Stompy (formerly Elf Stompy)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
rufus
Is it really? There's the dependence on forests, but the Druid provides more power a better blocker, and seems like he's no more fragile.
It is as fragile if you noticed "as long as Awakener Druid is on the battlefield" and more since the Forest can be removed by StP.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tacosnape
(*I'm actually doing this in Chalice Aggro decks after losing a game to where somebody hit a blind Predict on me naming Forest. I figure this is far more likely to happen again than for me to run into snow hate.)
:wink: couldn't express how much I admire that!
@Elder: Most problematic is his 3GG cost. To active after Turn4, the most game breaking play is taking down a Mishra's Factory or a Vedalken Shackles, which is being substituted by Sower. Consequently, I find him only really amazing against Landstill. In other MUs, as you mentioned, he is just random, too random to win the high cc slot.
@Spawnwrithe: He is 2G and trading him with an answer is fair. Unlike Confidant, he is not always a must answer as a Nacatl can nullify him, in which circumstance he would fog an attack per turn. Fortunately, all 4cc slots could serve to boost him, keeping his potential as a must answer. There are certain decks that lack removal: He is there to punish them.
@Elephant: He eats too much mana. I am reluctant to invest that much during the early game. In the later stages, however, I would not expect a 3/3 matter. I am a fun of Gilt-Leaf Ambush, 2 creatures for 1 spell and good synergy with 4cc bombs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kuma
I agree that Progenitus is the only target worth finding, but I don't think running two is correct. The odds of drawing both Progenitus and Natural Order by turn three (your first ten cards) when you have one Progenitus and four Natural Orders is a little over 8%. That's higher than the slightly over 1% chance of drawing both Progenituses (Progenitii?) and a Natural Order by turn three, but is that really worth doubling your chances of drawing a dead card every time you draw a card?
This is still debatable. Additional Prog reduces the chance of having NO without Prog in the library by 8% (10 cards drawn). The extra Prog enhances the odds of drawing a Prog by 16% (12 cards drawn) or 19% (15 cards drawn). Not having fetchable Prog costs one game much more often than drawing the uncastable Prog. Prog in hand is not necessarily dead as it can sit on a Mox and free up another threat.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Carabas
EE needs to be at 3 to kill the token copies, same with deed. The tokens are exact copies, so they maintain the converted mana cost.
Thanks for enlightning me on this!
