[Deck] Dragon Stompy

I've been pretty happy with Mauler. (I like the 24 creature build w/ 2 jittes.) Mauler really hasn't won me any games directly, but it sure does draw a ton of counter and removal away from my other costier creatures, something no other :2::r: creature will do. I think that is worth it in itself. I'd much rather have a slogger stick because they thought they needed to counter the mauler than getting the slogger countered and have a sulfur on the board. There are other pluses too, but I've found that to be it's biggest. There just isn't another creature scarier/better at :2::r:, yet. Also if it's not growing because they can't cast anything, you've already won. If they are casting things they will need to deal with the Mauler quickly or die to it.

Mauler shines in certain matchups and Sulfur shines in others. I play 4 Mauler myself and they are great, they have won a lot of games for me, especially against Thresh and Goblins.
One of the downsides that's really annoying in Mauler is the choice you have to make turn 1; most of the times you'll want to play the Mauler, but when you also have Chalice in your hand it really gets you thinking. Playing the Mauler turn 1 and the Chalice turn 2 means you get a bigger Mauler but gives the opponent a chance to remove it with StP, doing it the other way around means the Mauler probably stays smaller.

Leading with the Chalice also makes the opponent unable to make a 1st turn play: PImp, Lackey, Ponder etc.. and is so more likely to screw with their gameplan.

Sometimes I just go Chalice, Moon, Pit-Dragon or something stupid like that and the mauler is worse than a monkey.

Just saying that chalice-1 on the go has a much bigger impact on the game than a Mauler. I'd lead with that any day.

Yeah, I would lead with the Chalice 9 times out of 10. It's not really a tough choice.

I do think that more often than not, Taurean Mauler is the superior card to Sulfur Elemental. Flashing in a Sulfur as a surprise blocker is pretty worthless against most of the threats in the current format. Goyf, Tombstalker, Dreadnought et al don't give a crap about a 3/2 blocker. It's really only useful against Nimble Mongoose which wasn't a creature that ever really concerned me.

Sure Sulfur has uses beyond the combat phase, but nothing too impressive there either.

Taurean is just more threatening to a lot more decks. An early Mauler stands toe to toe with Goyf. Now that's impressive. It just never seems that way because he draws all the counters/removal. But that's a sign of just how good he really is.

If you manage to lock down your opponent from playing spells by resolving Chalice and Blood Moon. Not being able to pump up Taurean should hardly be a concern.

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A fair warning. YOU'RE GOING TO HATE THIS SUGGESTION. If you're not a fan of novel ideas, avert your eyes.

But has anyone recently (within the past year) tested Stone Rain in this deck?

It can take out your opponents one remaining basic after a Blood Moon resolves. Or it can just act like a Sinkhole to set your opponent behind you by one turn. It also fits the mana curve ridiculously well.

I thought about stone rain, then looked back in the tread to see if it had been tested before. The general consensus seemed to be that if your opponent only runs 1-3 basics (to fight through B2B and wastelock) they typically won't be able to play through an early moon, because they won't be able to fetch it (basically they will need to fetch it before the moon hits or be very lucky). So basically this is still a good match up. Plus most of the time when they get their basic you won't draw the rain and when they don't it will be a dead draw. As for decks that run lots of basics, blowing up one land won't really hurt as a moon doesn't lock their other land. So in the end your slightly improving an already good match up to weaken the deck as a whole. Against basics it's just a just a speed bump and is worthless after turns 1-3 (basically this is why 3sphere isn't run MD anymore). Although I do love the art on the Kamigawa stone rain.

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Originally Posted by DrtyDozen13

(basically this is why 3sphere isn't run MD anymore)

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Really, you need to play in a combo heavy environment or one where Brainstorm, Ponder, StP, Daze, FoW, and Snuff Out run rampant.

kind of strange suggestion but has anyone tried firespout, the :rg: card from shadowmoore. ive been testing it in the pyrokinesis/pyroclasm slot in the sb and it has been working pretty well for me. rarely does the fact that it doesnt hit fliers work against it, and it fits the curve much better, and sometimes that extra point of damage can be useful. also on the stone rain suggestion, i dont buy it personally. how often do you really need to stop one land anyways, ive always found that a moon affect is crippling enough to warrant a victory, if you say to yourself, 'man if only i had a stone rain' then you are probably going to lose anyways. just my opinion, but i havent tested stone rain.

It costs one more mana than Pyroclasm and that extra point of damage is more bad than good. Pyroclasm only kills Magus of the Moon, Simian Spirit Guide, Morphs, Sulfur Elemental, and a Taurean Mauler with no counters on it.

Firespout kills every creature in your deck except a hellbent Gathan Raiders and Arc-Slogger. Oh, and it can't hit opposing fliers. But hey, it "fits the curve better" so it's probably worth running anyway.

Neither Firespout or Pyroclasm is a replacement for Pyrokinesis. Being able to split the damage and play the spell for free is much, much better.

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Originally Posted by Kuma

Neither Firespout or Pyroclasm is a replacement for Pyrokinesis. Being able to split the damage and play the spell for free is much, much better.

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Not entirely true, the reason why Pyroclasm is still played in combo heavy meta's is because It's way better against (turn 0; 1 or 2) ETW and Zombie tokens than Pyrokinesis.

However I DO agree on the fact that Firesprout isn't worth running in the deck because of the reasons you mentioned.

I seriously considered Firespout, but at best, it saves you 1 life from mana burn over Pyroclasm; at worst, it Time Walks you, kills Rakdos Pit-Dragon, and leaves your opponent with Birds of Paradise and/or Hypnotic Specters. Killing Mongeese is unfortunately irrelevant since you definitely don't bring it in against Threshold.

I guess it's a nice trick against those darned Elf decks, though. Slivers, too.

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Originally Posted by overseer1234

Not entirely true, the reason why Pyroclasm is still played in combo heavy meta's is because It's way better against (turn 0; 1 or 2) ETW and Zombie tokens than Pyrokinesis.

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Unless your metagame contains lots of combo and no aggro, you shouldn't run Pyroclasm over Pyrokinesis. Even then, Pyrokinesis still isn't a bad card. Being an instant is huge.

It's perfectly legitimate to run both Pyrokinesis and Pyroclasm, but unless you play in an imaginary metagame where everyone plays Ichorid, TES, Belcher, and SI and no one plays any deck that relies on having specific creatures, Goblins, Tarmogoyf, or any kind of random aggro deck, I don't think you're running Pyroclasm over Pyrokinesis.

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Originally Posted by Kuma

Firespout kills every creature in your deck except a hellbent Gathan Raiders and Arc-Slogger. Oh, and it can't hit opposing fliers. But hey, it "fits the curve better" so it's probably worth running anyway.

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no need to be a dick, im just trying to get worthwhile discussion. has anyone even tried firespout or are you just shooting it down because it sounds worse on paper? another point is that alot of the time chalice for 2 is the right play and where does that leave you with pyroclasm? im not saying replace pyrokinesis but firespout is worth taking a look at imo.

Does Goblins run Pyroclasm? TES run Teeg? Stax run deed? No. That is because they go against the primary goal while hurting you severely. Pyroclasm used to be main deck material, aside from more Goblins, because it didn't kill any Dragon Stompy creatures.

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Originally Posted by Sanguine Voyeur

Does Goblins run Pyroclasm? TES run Teeg? Stax run deed? No. That is because they go against the primary goal while hurting you severely. Pyroclasm used to be main deck material, aside from more Goblins, because it didn't kill any Dragon Stompy creatures.

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Mans got a point, Firespout will kill your team as well as you opponents.

The reason I brought up Stone Rain wasn't just because of the synergy with Blood Moon.

The fact is, most every good Sui Black variant runs 4 Sinkhole. This is because a turn two land destruction can really set your opponent back and at the very worst functions as a time walk.

No one can argue that Sinkhole isn't a uberpowerful card.

Well, this deck can play Stone Rain on turn ONE, and at the very worst, will always be able to play it turn two.

Given the decks curve, Stone Rain is very much the identical of Sinkhole.

Add on to that Blood Moon.

Face it, people know this deck now. When my opponents see me imprint a red card, or discard a SSG etc, they know they are facing off against 8 Blood Moons. If they don't they will know what my deck does by game two atleast.

And the very first land they fetch is a basic land precisely for that reason. They know that next turn, I will be dropping either a Blood Moon or a Magus of the Moon and without that basic land, as soon as Blood Moon hits, their whole deck becomes unplayable.

But in the turn after I drop the Moon, a Stone Rain blows up that one basic they were counting on and singlehandedly seals the game for you.

And as I mentioned before, even without that scenario, Stone Rain is still a Sinkhole/Time Walk. Not bad at all.

So what would you replace in the MB for 4x Stone Rain?

Currently, I'm doing a trail ballon with 2 Stone Rain in the slots that people are running Akroma in. I find Stone Rain more useful far more often. :)

He could in theory also sub in the Trinisphere slots, or the additional equipment slots.

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Originally Posted by pingveno

no need to be a dick, im just trying to get worthwhile discussion. has anyone even tried firespout or are you just shooting it down because it sounds worse on paper? another point is that alot of the time chalice for 2 is the right play and where does that leave you with pyroclasm? im not saying replace pyrokinesis but firespout is worth taking a look at imo.

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You came in here with bad capitalization and grammer suggesting a card that has already been tried and dismissed, and expected to start a worthwhile discussion? Did you read the thread before posting? Did you even do a search to see if the card had been mentioned? When the only positive thing you have to say about Firespout is that "sometimes the one more damage can be useful" without even telling us when that is, what matchups the card would improve, or the results of some testing, what kind of response did you expect to get?

You say you've tested Firespout, but you seem to have missed the very obvious fact that Firespout kills your whole team, which makes us think you haven't really tested the card.

So maybe you really think you're on to something, and maybe your thoughts could lead to something positive in this or other threads, but right now you're just some guy cluttering up a popular thread with 30 second, zero thought posts.

Since you're probably going to come back here posting something like "lolwhut, u didn't address wut I said in the post", here's why you're wrong. Whether or not I've actually played with a card has no bearing on whether or not I can legitimately dismiss it. This is known as an appeal to authority. By your reasoning I could suggest Mudhole in Dragon Stompy, and you couldn't dismiss it until you played games with Mudhole. Not very productive.

I have never been unable to play Pyroclasm because of a Chalice at two. The fact that this situation may come up once in a while does not change the fact that Firespout will kill almost every creature in your deck while Pyroclasm does not. This is a situation that comes up frequently.

In conclusion, if you think Firespout is worth a look, give it a look, and post some well thought out arguments for it backed up by results. Then maybe some people on here will think it worth their time to test it.

The fact of the matter is that I have been following this thread, and there is hardly anything said about firespout. And when I said I have been testing it, I mean't exactly that. Not I have tested it thoroughly, not I've come up with some secret tech, not even this card is better than both pyroclasm and pyrokinesis combined. I was just saying it might be worth taking a closer look at. That being said firespout probably isn't all that great, but for me it has been working equally as well as pyroclasm, but not as good as pyrokinesis. On to stone rain, Clark Kant; is a 'timewalk' as good as a threat? I guess what I am asking is what is a stronger play the turn after a blood moon comes down, a pit dragon that can end the game in two turns, or a stone rain? You may be right, but for me when I am playing the deck I want to win as soon as possible while my disruption is still around, and that means dropping threats and swinging as soon as possible.

You guys should really ease up on pingveno. He suggested a decent card that fits the curve. You can point out the very valid reasons why the card isn't worthwhile without flaming him.

Pingveno,

Stone Rain shouldn't be compared to Pit Dragon. It should be compared to the cards that it's actually replacing. Namely, Akroma or Sulfur Elemental, or the sixth and seventh equipment card. Frankly, I'm not impressed with any of them. None of them make for a very strong turn two-three play after a Blood Moon.

So the idea of playing potent disruption, that post Blood Moon can singlehandedly seal up your win against a number of matchups and otherwise still sets your opponent behind, screws up their curve, and could possibly mana screw them, is appealing.

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Originally Posted by Clark Kant

Currently, I'm doing a trail ballon with 2 Stone Rain in the slots that people are running Akroma in. I find Stone Rain more useful far more often. :)

He could in theory also sub in the Trinisphere slots, or the additional equipment slots.

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You're only running 2 stone rains, wow... I really don't see how this can be of any benefit.

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Originally Posted by pingveno

On to stone rain, Clark Kant; is a 'timewalk' as good as a threat?

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New Sig.

And why not? I explained what the card is there to do and how it functions for the deck.

You know Wallace. It might help if you actually put some explanation/meat into your posts.

These one sentence statements (and really, about 3/4th of your posts so far today have been one sentence or less) without any explanation or line of reasoning really don't contribute anything to the thread.

Though I'm not sure, I would guess he was questioning the testing of it as a 2 of. Seems like it might be better to try it out a 4 of, because if you want to hit the basics they have and really slow them down, you want it early. It would be nice to be able to hit their one basic they were able to fetch.

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Originally Posted by Clark Kant

And why not? I explained what the card is there to do and how it functions for the deck.

You know Wallace. It might help if you actually put some explanation/meat into your posts.

These one sentence statements (and really, about 3/4th of your posts so far today have been one sentence or less) without any explanation or line of reasoning really don't contribute anything to the thread.

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Originally Posted by The Wes

Though I'm not sure, I would guess he was questioning the testing of it as a 2 of. Seems like it might be better to try it out a 4 of, because if you want to hit the basics they have and really slow them down, you want it early. It would be nice to be able to hit their one basic they were able to fetch.

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Better...

Sorry, I wish I could post all of what I thought of the idea but I would probably get a warning for flaming.

Stone Rain is not an inconceivable card. For one, many blue-based lists run only a few basic lands and rely on BEB/Explosives to fight off Moon effects; even though those matchups are already very solid, the deck is inconsistent enough that further improvements are relevant.

More importantly, I can see land destruction buying a crucial turn or two against a dreaded Wrath or Deed activation for 4-5. Granted, I also see it gloomily topdecked in the face of a drearily empty board, half-heartedly cast on a harmless one-of-a-half-dozen land, and then woefully followed by a joyous Standstill; still, the possibility of a blowout is tantalising.


That said, I'm concerned about its role in the aggro matchup - where 'aggro' is meant in the loosest possible sense, i.e. anything that can put up some board presence reasonably fast. I happen to be a fan of Taurean Mauler for precisely that reason, especially since 'aggro' is rarely an opponent you're very happy to sit in front of.
Pairing that up with the extra reason that Turn 1 threat, turn 2 land destruction is usually a lot more sexy than the opposite, I'd be inclined to try out Avalanche Riders before Stone Rain.

Thank you Nihil. I'm not 100% sold on the card myself. But I do think it has several merits, enough to warrant some test slots.

Not a fan of Avalanche Riders. It doesn't fit the curve nearly as well, and often doesn't hit a land till a turn later.

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Originally Posted by Wallace

Better...

Sorry, I wish I could post all of what I thought of the idea but I would probably get a warning for flaming.

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An admission that you're incapable of putting together a rational well thoughtout argument...

I guess that's better than nothing.

Avalanche Riders? If you're after something to pick off random basics, he doubles as a threat.

I'm skeptical that he's worth the additional mana cost and doubtful that you would really want to play the echo cost.

But I guess there's no harm in testing him too. So why not.

I agree with Clark in the fact that stone rain looks better than avalanche riders. its one more mana for a magus sized body, and that is just the turn he comes into play, are you ever really going to pay the echo when you have larger fat in hand? Although I am still not sold on land destruction because I believe that there is already enough mana denial in the deck, stone rain would probably be the only choice.

Wait... isn't the point of Moon effects to buy time so that you can just, you know, win? I don't think Moon effects are there to actually "lock" the opponent, but rather, buy you time to win before your opponent recovers. This is also why a threat in this slot would be much better than Stone Rain. Stone Rain contributes nothing to the deck's game plan because it needs to be used in conjunction with the Moon effect, whereas the threat can independently win on it's own or make use of the time the Moon effect bought for you. So in this case, Akroma would be better because it's a threat and it can win within a reasonable amount of time if Moon had resolved. Jittes and SoFI are different, because you need them to combat the bigger creatures in this format.

Akroma also evasive and has Pro Swords to Plowshares, which is awesome.

And and you're usually not going to unmorph her till turn 6 or so if you get lucky. We all know how awesome that is. Yay.

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Originally Posted by Clark Kant

Yeah, and you're not going to unmorph her till turn 6 or so (and that's if you get really lucky). We all know how awesome that is. Yay.

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Except with double lands, Moxen, monkeys, and Seething Song, six mana is very obtainable before turn six.

Even if you're lucky you can get her and her two friends swinging by turn two.

Only one double land can be used for unmorphing her. It takes multiple acceleration spells and multiples turns to get her into play.

I don't know about you, but I prefer using my Seeting Song on Arc Slogger and company and SSG + Tomb on one of your other spells, than using up all that accleration just to play one threat that you already had to invest three mana in.

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Originally Posted by Clark Kant

I don't know about you, but I prefer using my Seeting Song on Arc Slogger and company and SSG + Tomb on one of your other spells, than using up all that accleration just to play one threat that you already had to invest three mana in.

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Actually, even when you have both Slogger and Akroma in hand, there are lots of decks against which an unmorphed Akroma is much more scary than any two other creatures in your deck, Slogger included. Pretty much anything relying on StP for removal, in fact.

not like it is along the lines of stone rain in the deck, but what about something like Grab the Reins in the sideboard? It can steal and sacrifice one of their creatures if you can entwine it, sac one of yours for the kill/remove bridge from below in an emergency... Imagine stealing and "flinging" a huge countryside crusher. Seems decent in a creature heavy meta

Stone Rain?!

Really?!

I couldn't force myself to reading every post about this so correct me if someone broke the card while I wasn't watching.

You do not want to try and "lock the opp. out of the game", you just want them to slow down so that they can't handle your threats. I don't think I've ever lost a game where my opponent has had to operate on 1 basic, so stoneraining it hardly would have made a difference.

The blowout someone so hardly craved is :
1st turn moon go,
mountain go,
fat go,
mountain go,
beat face, play a second fat go,
mountain go,
.
.
Get the picture? What here is not a blowout? What difference would it make if the opponent started with, say "plains, go"?
Even if they draw all four stops you should have threats to play. (unless you play 7 equipments like someone said)
If they can't do anything else than hope to topdeck a second plains to morph an Exalted, or to draw an island so they can Cunning Wish for a BEB you should be doing great. You know you should have more moon-effects than they can handle under topdeck-mode. And enough threats to end the game before they have time to.



You people, who want to kick a helpless child, should go and play Armageddon Stax.

Also: How the fuck can someone have 7 equipments AND some stone rains? I must have misunderstood something here.

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Originally Posted by deviant

Also: How the fuck can someone have 7 equipments AND some stone rains? I must have misunderstood something here.

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Stone Rain, your read it correctly, I have been trying to understand for 3 days now how stone rain would make this deck better. I finally added it and played about 10 games with it, 5 out of the 10 I wished it was a dude, 3 times it was just discarded to Raiders or for Imprint and the 2 games I cast it, it had no relevance on the game.

I mean I run no equipment and had a hard time fitting it in, Stone Rain is a waste of a slot IMO. The deck is better with a creature here, I mean with 6-8 moon effects MB do we really need another card that fucks with our opponents lands? Lets add Wasteland or Price of Progress while were at it.

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Originally Posted by DrtyDozen13

I thought about stone rain, then looked back in the tread to see if it had been tested before. The general consensus seemed to be that if your opponent only runs 1-3 basics (to fight through B2B and wastelock) they typically won't be able to play through an early moon, because they won't be able to fetch it (basically they will need to fetch it before the moon hits or be very lucky). So basically this is still a good match up. Plus most of the time when they get their basic you won't draw the rain and when they don't it will be a dead draw. As for decks that run lots of basics, blowing up one land won't really hurt as a moon doesn't lock their other land. So in the end your slightly improving an already good match up to weaken the deck as a whole. Against basics it's just a just a speed bump and is worthless after turns 1-3 (basically this is why 3sphere isn't run MD anymore). Although I do love the art on the Kamigawa stone rain.

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I believe I already discounted this in one post immediately after the idea was brought up... again.

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Originally Posted by Wallace

Really, you need to play in a combo heavy environment or one where Brainstorm, Ponder, StP, Daze, FoW, and Snuff Out run rampant.

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As for this there is always Chalice and playing smart. (The quoted post is in reference to not playing 3sphere MD). Also it is still played in the SB so you can bring it in against those decks... :rolleyes:

@Clark Kant: We know you hate Akroma, you can stop saying it now. Just don't put her in your build and when someone says they're playing Akroma pretend they said some creature you do like. That way we don't digress into that discussion again.

Hey, what can I say.

Akroma ate my children and fed their remanents to my grandchildren.

So now I am on a personal life mission to eliminate Akroma from every concievable Dragon Stompy build I can find. An eye for an eye.

And now for my grand finale, my 1000th final post. :)

Hey Clark,

What does your current list look like? My thinking is following up a moon affect with any threat is going to be better long term than stone rain. That doesnt mean than you should run akroma, more equipment, sulfur, etc. I guess I just was wondering what exactly you would cut from this list?

18 Land
- 4 Ancient Tomb
- 4 City of Traitors
- 10 Mountain

24 Creatures
- 4 SSG
- 4 Pit Dragon
- 4 Taurean Mauler
- 4 Arc-Slogger
- 4 Gathan Raiders
- 4 Magus of the Moon

18 Other Things
- 4 Chalice of the Void
- 4 Chrome Mox
- 4 Seething Song
- 4 Blood Moon
- 2 Jitte

Where does stone rain go?