The love of a mono green deck has never left me. Its always been my go to choice when it comes to having fun. Its the kind of deck build that I consider to be clean and fun to use as well as being pretty effective during a lot of games. This is why when I decided to make a deck that would be able to hold it’s own at gaming events like Friday Night Magic and Standard Showdowns, I had to go with my gut and build a mono green deck.
My first thought was to dig out an archetype from my old days of gaming and build a saproling token deck. At first glance this seemed like a fairly reasonable idea as the cards were mostly cheap to get hold of as well as casting costs being relatively low. After some looking however, it was looking more and more likely that the deck just wouldn’t hold up and be as competitive as I would like. After chatting to a couple of guys at my local game store I hit upon a deck type called ‘Big Green Stompy’. A fairly simple deck that ramps quickly into big brutish creatures that go for the face and run over anything in their path. Big stats and the ‘Trample mechanic would be key.
One issue I had looking back with my original idea for this build was that I still had a love for using fun looking cards and ignoring the mana cost relative to their probable use in the deck. I wanted a deck that could do more things than it should. This unfortunately showed in my original build for this kind of deck. I desperately wanted to use three different cards to give my deck some extra boost. Firstly was ‘Prodigious Growth’. On face value this looked to be an insane card to me. An enchantment that gives a creature +7/+7 and trample. Perfect for a Big Stompy Deck……well no not quite. Even though a mono green deck has the potential to ramp mana quickly with the likes of Llanowar Elves and Druid of the Cowl, stacking my deck with four copies of this would take up too much room and also still leave the creature open to lots of removal spells which would leave me at a huge disadvantage. Secondly I wanted to add ‘Blanchwood Armor’. This card goes back to my old gaming days again and I loved the idea of boosting a creature with a huge bonus in damage potential depending on the amount of forests I had on the field. Running mono green, this seemed like an obvious inclusion. It kind of was and it kind of wasn’t. I do like the card and it did actually work quite well in some cases especially when thrown on a mono green all star like ‘Steel Leaf Champion’. Running four copies of the card though again took up too much space and left me open to bad card draw in certain circumstances. One to consider but not go all in with. The last card I wanted to use was ‘Rabid Bite’. What mono green Stompy needs against a lot of decks is some kind of removal. Removal for taking out a direct threat such as a pesky flying creature that can’t be stopped (damn you WotC, give me back my Killer Bees!) especially when a lot of decks I was coming up against used the white angel herself, ‘Lyra Dawnbringer’. Removal as well to open a path for that final beat down needed to win a game. Either way, it looked like a good card to include. This one seemed to be the one that had the most chance of staying as it did do what it was meant to more often than not. A handy piece of removal in a deck that sorely needs it.
My original build had too much variation in creatures and just wasn’t centered enough. I had two copies of this and two copies of that and one copy of a big card and not enough of another. To be honest it was a mess but it was my first real ‘Home Brew’ build in this new to me ‘Standard’ format. We all have to learn somewhere don’t we. Learn I did. The first few times I tried the deck out, it got annihilated. It was too slow, too draw dependent and just not ready to take on the decks that it was facing. I had to go back and re look at what I was using.
The second build of the deck looked much more focused in my eyes and also had some investment added to it. Firstly a ‘Stompy’ deck is just not Stompy enough without a big ol beast at the top end. In a mono green deck this is the big daddy himself, Ghalta, Primal Hunger. A huge 12/12 beast with trample that could simply walk over opponents creatures and do the damage needed to win. I also loved the fact that the huge casting cost is dramatically shortened with more creatures on the board. A few trades and digging into the wallet provided these bad boys. Next on the list was a new card to come out from Guilds of Ravnica. Nullhide Ferox was a card that I liked on multiple levels. A 6/6 hexproof creature that only cost four mana. A creature that made casting Ghalta a lot cheaper and more importantly, a card that since dropping the ‘Prodigious Growth’ and ‘Blanchwood Armor’ enchantments, didn’t get in the way with its caveat that you cant play non creature cards without paying extra to remove its abilities. This to me was a no brainer to add to the deck as well as having one more thing that i couldn’t resist, amazing artwork. I’m a sucker for a good looking card and Nullhide Ferox was just such a card. Being a new card out and one that people seemed to like, the price was higher than I would have liked but it was a card I felt I needed so the wallet was opened again and four copies were acquired. Lastly was first one then two copies of a card that apparently cost more than its weight in gold and nobody had a spare copy to trade. Carnage Tyrant was the card that everyone wanted and no one had to trade or sell. A card that would finish off my deck in my eyes and worth the investment. Worth the investment was one thing but a budget would only stretch so far so I only managed to get hold of two copies. That felt like enough though.
Putting this second iteration of the Big Green Stompy deck felt much better. Much cleaner and ready to do business. Out went the random cards that I added because I liked the look of them, out went the cards that just didn’t seem to draw well or didn’t do what I needed them to. The deck went through a couple more iterations with a couple of card changes or to be more accurate, a couple of copy numbers changing etc but the core of the deck remained the same. The deck finally felt like it could do well or at least hold its own at the events I was attending. A few outings and this proved to be the case. Now don’t get me wrong, I knew I wasn’t likely to get first place any time soon sonsidering some of the decks and some of the very experienced players I was going up against at my local game store, but I wanted to prove to myself that I can hold my own and at least make other players trip up or have issues dealing with me. A 50/50 win rate would have been fine for this first real deck build in the new to me gaming age.
In fact, the deck worked better than expected. It did come middle of the pack on a good few occasions due to some bad draws and some bad luck as well as just being simply out played by better players but on a couple of occasions it did perform exactly as hoped and gained me a couple of 3rd places at Friday Night Magic events and the same at a Standard Showdown event (work really gets in the way of playing sometimes as I would have loved to have used it more). To me this was the justification I had been looking for. A deck that I put together through testing and looking at cards that would work well together. A deck that was fun to use and I enjoyed playing even when it lost games. A deck that on more than one occasion made my opponant sit back and think far more carefully than they expected to on how to deal with the sheer number of potential threats I had on the board in such a short time.
It’s one deck that I kept sleeved up for quite a while to play against other friends and have as my ‘go to’ deck while working on something else. It has since been retired and some of the cards made their way into a new build I put together for competitive play, A Golgari Midrange deck. However much fun or success I have with different decks, The mono green ‘Big Green Stompy’ deck will always hold a special place in my heart as the deck that really got me back into playing and brought me towards the more competitive side of Magic the Gathering as well as keeping the fun factor that I need to enjoy the game. It might not be to everyone’s taste, It might be to simple a deck for some and I can’t argue that. There’s no convoluted combo or mechanic to memorize, no triggers or steps to remember or forget to trigger. Its a plain and simple deck, a deck that I love to use. If there’s a chance for a new version of a Stompy deck in following releases and rotations then it will be a deck I will seriously consider bringing back out of retirement.
ManaTapped 