[Deck] Elephant Stompy (formerly Elf Stompy)

[Happy Gilmore]

In testing this deck had it all against most of the archetypes, more consitency than the other artifact agro decks. The one thing it lacked was the ability to win against control decks like landstill. I am still not too sure about how to fix this. Krosan Grip doesn't solve the problem, it has more to do with not having a moon effect.

[nitewolf9]

In testing this deck had it all against most of the archetypes, more consitency than the other artifact agro decks. The one thing it lacked was the ability to win against control decks like landstill. I am still not too sure about how to fix this. Krosan Grip doesn't solve the problem, it has more to do with not having a moon effect.

What about running 4 chokes in the board along with something like ankh of mishra? Seems like that combination would be a beating for landstill to deal with.

[georgjorge]

One idea I had for this deck was: Natural Order, with probably a singleton of each Simic Sky Swallower and Hellkite Overlord. Hear me out: it functions a bit like Equipment in that it's useless without a creature. But where with Jitte, you equip a creature (which usually dies in combat), then play a second one, equip, and start dominating the board, with Natural Order you just get a 8/8 haste flyer and beat your opponent two or three times with it. It dies to Swords, but that's the only thing it dies to - nothing else that is widely played. If your opponent IS playing Swords, chances are his deck is not aggro, and you can beat him with the Swallower.

Of course, what Jitte has going for it is that it's one the few cards you can drop on turn one with a Tomb. I'm not saying you need to replace Jitte with this, anyway, just that it seems to be at least as good at making use of a creature.

It would also give Elephant Stompy something the other decks are missing - DS has superb disruption, Faerie Stompy has Force, but none of them has a 8/8 flying trampler

[rufus]

How about Tsabo's Web or Heartwood Storyteller?

There are a couple of other potentially interesting Natural Order targets like Regal Force or Woodfall Primus.

[georgjorge]

Yea, that's the other bonus...especially against combo, where beaters don't suffice, I'm sure there are creatures to fetch that stop the opponent dead (like Gaddock, only bigger ).

[Watcher487]

Here's my current list. There are a few variable slots as of right now. Please note here that I run a very very light disruption and pump heavy list for a few reasons.

Less disruption usually makes for a faster deck. The more pump is to handle other aggro decks better.

4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
10 Forest
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Chrome Mox

4 Chalice of the Void

4 Sword of Fire and Ice
2 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Briarhorn
2 Stonewood Invocation

3 Call of the Heard
4 Garruk Wildspeaker
2 Ravenous Baloth
4 Spawnwrithe
2 Timbermare

2 Natural Order (test slot)
1 Hellkite Overlord (test slot)
1 Woodfall Primus (test slot)

Currently the test slots have bounced between the Natural Order version and running the 4th Call, Briarhorn and 2 Primal Commands. The pump is in the deck to help Spawnwrithe, and create bad situations. Timbermare is a finisher.

[raharu]

Not to be random, but I figured that you guys would like to have Gift of the Gargantuan brought to your attention, considering as you like lands and creatures, and have it has been mentioned that A) the forest count is (or was) a bit lower than you'd like it to be, and B) Card advantage is a good thing. While I like Krosan Tusker's versatility a bit more, as it grabs a basic for sure, and beats if you don't need the land drop or the card. While it might prove to be win more since it can't grab disruption, it's something worth looking at, in the least.

[Happy Gilmore]

Timbermare sounds good, but I wouldn't cut Goyf or Briarhorn from this deck. Both are stellar.

[morgan_coke]

If you need a moon effect type thingy, what about Primal Order? It should be pretty brutal vs. landstill etc. Winter Orb is also available and plays nicely with Moxen and 2 mana lands.

[1maarten1]

Could anyone give me some matchup analyses?
How does this deck perform against the rock/aggro/control loam and aggro decks??
thanks

~Maarten

[Joon]

Rock is bad news if it play Deed (what it usually does). Deed screws you. Only Garruk remains. Against Rock you should not overextend (to keep some critters in Hand after Deed wiped the board). Usually Garruk + random critter forces them to blow up Deed and then you just replay a threat or start producing Tokens with Garruk. If Garruk gets vindicated...you've got a problem

Against nearly all Loamvariants Chalice @ 2 should buy you enough time to beat him to death as his only out to this are usually 2-3 EE which they have to find first. If you get a Chalice @ 0 too he has lost (PREboard, POSTboard you'll face grips and maybe he goes for Wish --> Shattering Spree before you get Chalice online).

Aggro is good if you get a 3sphere or a Chalice online. If you don't have one the Burn of Goyf Sligh can be annoying, Briarhorn can make Cardadvantage here. Any Equipment is pretty good here as Jitte/Warhammer/SoLaS give you life (always good against aggro) and SoFaI kills their pesky guys like Lavamancer/Confidant and so on. SoFaI protects also from all kinds of Burn.

[1maarten1]

Ok thanks :) are many people playing this? Does it have potential against other top decks in the meta?

~Maarten

[georgjorge]

Against nearly all Loamvariants Chalice @ 2 should buy you enough time to beat him to death as his only out to this are usually 2-3 EE which they have to find first. If you get a Chalice @ 0 too he has lost (PREboard, POSTboard you'll face grips and maybe he goes for Wish --> Shattering Spree before you get Chalice online).

This is overly optimistic. First, getting to four mana for Chalice is not always possible by using nonbasic lands against Wastelands. Second, if you get Chalice @2 and Chalice @0 (the one at zero is not relevant unless played in the first turn, and two Chalices are not very likely anyway), his "outs" besides Explosives are also dropping a 9/9 Terravore or a soon-to-be-9/9-and-bigger Crusher and beating with them.

[Kuma]

I don't have problems getting to four mana vs. Loam. The real issue is whether or not it's worth holding onto the Chalice that long.

I haven't been working on this deck much. While we have good aggro and aggro control matchups, we have a near auto-loss to Landstill/ITF. Aggro Loam, Combo, and any deck running Deed/EE are serious problems as well. There just aren't enough reasons to run this over Faerie Stompy or Dragon Stompy.

[Maveric78f]

My updated list. It remains a subpar deck, because it's not consistent enough.

// Lands
10 [5E] Forest (1)
4 [EX] City of Traitors
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb

// Creatures 22
4 [LRW] Garruk Wildspeaker
3 [LRW] Briarhorn
4 [LRW] Imperious Perfect
4 [SHM] Spawnwrithe
3 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
4 [AL] Elvish Spirit Guide

// Spells 20
4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
4 [DS] Trinisphere
4 [UL] Smokestack
4 [TSB] Call of the Herd
4 [MR] Chrome Mox

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [DIS] Loaming Shaman
SB: 3 [EVE] Wicker-Bough Elder
SB: 3 [TE] Choke
SB: 3 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 3 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt

[Mordel]

At a glance, your list actually looks more consistant than other tomb aggro variants. When you say consistant, where is it falling short? This deck started to intrigue me immediately so I am pretty curious. I haven't really seen any reports and the deck looks like it can end a game pretty fast. What gives?

[Maveric78f]

Well, the best is that you test it yourself. Maybe the aggro-chalice hating MWS-shuffler was the reason why I gave up the deck. Maybe I was missing 1 or 2 lands. I don't know.

[puppektion]

Just so you know, I believe this will be my first post on The Source... Please don't eat me alive ;)
So... I've been playing around with this deck ever since I first saw Spawnwrithe... Here's what i've been working with most recently:

// Mana
10 Forest
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Chrome Mox
3 Wall of Roots

// Threats
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Spawnwrithe
4 Call of the Herd
4 Hystrodon
2 Iwamori of the Open Fist

// Everything Else
4 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Plow Under

// Sideboard
4 City of Solitude
4 Choke
1 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Plow Under
4 Krosan Grip

I know some of these slots seem a little off, but hear me out:

Wall of roots is one of the hardest cards to justify in the deck, but I had to play through the goblin wave, and there's no way i'm going to be letting a turn 1 Lackey hit me

Iwamori: I used to play Ravenous Baloth until i found it to be the weak link in the deck. Iwamori is bigger, Trample-ier, and basically without a drawback (3 possible exceptions: Erayo, Mangara, Kiki-Jiki)

Hystrodon is big, scary, and card advantage in green. The morph is nice, and for the most part, usually draws me at least one card (or is one helluva lightning rod). He's kinda like Spawnwrithe: Deal with him or it gets out of hand.

Plow under actually gives my deck amazing game against most decks. It slows them down 2 turns, giving me more time to either draw with the hystrodon or duplicate with the spawnwrithe.

That's my list... What do you all think?

[tsabo_tavoc]

There has been a discussion on Trinisphere in Dragon Stompy. After some testings, I believe the right number of Trinispheres in Elephant Stompy is 4 Maindeck.

Elephant Stompy, an amazingly explosive and consistent deck when goldfished, has presently only 4 MD disruptions. Trinisphere could work here because the deck owns cards like Spawnwrithe, Garruk and Jitte, which creates card advantage but can get hosed effectively by cheap spells such as FOW, Daze, STP, Thoughtseize, Snuff out accompanied by a creature named Tarmogoyf.

What a Trinisphere brings is firstly slowing you down by 1 turn. If it gets countered, other threats are saved; if not, it becomes a threat. Turn 1 Trinisphere leaves 2 Spawnwrithes and a threat to be solved, while one played in turn 2 assures the landing of 1 threat. A later drawn Trinisphere is not a waste at all as its effects lasts at least until turn 6 when STP+Goyf, Brainstorm+FOW can see play, and longer if your opponent is stalled on 5- lands.

As an extra point, Trinisphere also serves for trimming the curve, since Spawnwrithes and Elephants are the only 3cc threats. Its inability to imprinting on Mox is not that crucial: The deck can support 3 Swords of F&Is, why not 4 Trinispheres in their places? Although it can still not solve the mass removal problem, it could prove its merits in the generally tempo-oriented Legacy metagame.

Hystrodon is big, scary, and card advantage in green. The morph is nice, and for the most part, usually draws me at least one card (or is one helluva lightning rod). He's kinda like Spawnwrithe: Deal with him or it gets out of hand.

Hystrodon is way too costly on a medium body and the drawing is conditional. I would play Hungry Spriggan over it.

[puppektion]

I don't like Hungry Spriggan... Yeah, the fact that its a 4/4 trampler while attacking is nice, but I do disagree with your coment on Hystrodon. He never seems to be too costly (he does have morph) and the card advantage is too good to pass up.

However, Tsabo, I will completely agree with your coments about the trinisphere. It needs to be main deck. Dragon stompy has a little difficulty fitting it in, but they already have the moon effects. Being in green, we haven't been blessed with that luck (damn you R&D for not colorshifting Blood Moon to green in PC). Trinisphere hurts so many decks so badly, it's kinda a good idea to keep it in there.