I had a hell of a run with Stompy at Bootleggers going 6-1 taking 3rd place. I don’t mean to beat a dead horse here, but I’m proud of her and wanted to send it off with some final (final) thoughts, mostly on the sideboard, and very briefly talk about a couple of my matches.

It’s been about a year ago that I started working on this deck and after a fairly in depth blog post about it, Mano invited me to run through it on his podcast, All Tings Considered. During the cast he mentioned the Maze of Ith seemed a little unnecessary, so I thought about it that day and cut it from the deck. I’m pretty sure that was the last thing I did to the main other than switching out a couple of creatures here and there. The sideboard on the other hand has always fluctuated other than a handful of cards.

Before the event, the only thing I tested out in the main was cutting 1 of 2 Crumble for a 2nd Scavenger Folk. Not a big change, but I scrapped that and kept it as is. I needed to put more time into the sideboard. It’s always sported 3 Meekstone, 3 Whirling Dervish, 2 Tranquility, and 1-2 Crumble, the rest of it was all over the place. The first thing I did was decide on only 1 Crumble and added 2 Scavenger folk. This was sort of a last minute decision to just fill up slots. I figured more artifact destruction on a stick couldn’t hurt. I also added 1 Timber Wolf. I have 3 in the main which has been enough for banding tricks, but when playing decks full of fatties the 4th copy can help. The last 3 slots went to what is probably my favorite card in the board-Shanodin Dryads. The Scryb Sprites have always done a lot of work, often times pumped with Wyluli Wolves and Pendelhavens getting in for a lot of damage. More evasion from the Dryads has definitely been clutch. So there’s the board.

The night before BLB at the BBQ I decided to throw down a little and test the waters. I only ended up playing two matches that night, one against eventual 2nd place finisher Mike Murtrey on Black Rack and Carter Petray on his new mono Green build. I was especially excited to play Carter and see what the green on green action would be like. I took Mike on Rack 2-1. I’ve had a good history against Rack and usually come out on top. Game 2 he vomited t1 and t2 Hippies, which is never good and he obviously got that one. The other two games were pretty stock and I just overwhelmed him with dudes and for the most part ignored his Racks. The match up against Carter was incredibly grindy and involved a lot of combat math. He ended up taking it 2-0. I don’t remember the match very well, but Tracker did work and Ifh-Biff got in for a lot of damage. I thought if I could land a Winter Orb I’d probably take it. It would shut down his tracker and Ifh-Biff, but I don’t think I saw one. Strange games for sure.

Instead of recapping games, I’ll just run through the decks that I saw and a couple of strange/tough interactions. I played against 2 RUG decks, Shops, 4c Turbo Lands, UG Living Plane, Mono U, and Mono Red Aotg in that order. I’ve also had good history up against RUG and I dealt with those matches easily. The only two matches that did give me problems were Shops, which was my only loss, and 4c Turbo Lands. Game 1 against James Easteppe on 4c Turbo Lands went my way at first as I got him down to 2 before he cast an Abyss to accompany his Tabernacle, Factory, and Maze of Ith. He also had an Ivory Tower on board. After we went draw go for a number of turns he eventually got back up to 15 life from the Tower and I conceded to save some time. The Tabby/Abyss interaction was definitely rough and one I had never seen. He triggered tabby first, making me pay for what I wanted to keep, then I had to sac a dude to the Abyss trigger. The Tabby alone was not a big deal. I had dealt with it for most of the game just fine, but The Abyss put a damper on things. I boarded in my Tranquility’s, which I never saw and probably some number of Scavenger Folk and Crumble. The next two games I think I was able to strip him here and there and overwhelm him with dudes as usual taking it 2-1. The match against Brian Urbano on Shops was the nail biter of the day. He’s on the play game 1 and pukes out a t1 Triskelion. My nemesis. I felt alright though as he had pretty much dumped his entire hand. I had at least 4 creatures in hand and 26 more to draw into, so maybe I’d be alright. I wasn’t. I don’t recall exactly what happened, but it involved a lot of Icy’s and Copy Artifacts. He took it and we went to game 2. Game 2 I remember nothing, but it was basic Stompy and I beat him to death with creatures and a Winter Orb. Game 3 he casts a fairly early City in a Bottle, which is not great as I have 8 AN creatures. I still wasn’t terribly worried as I had a pretty good board state with a creature or two in hand and none were AN. I’d Crumble it if needed, given I drew one. Unfortunately, I see The Abyss shortly thereafter. And shortly after that, I top deck 3 AN creatures in a row. I cast Chaos Orb then pass. He Copy’s his Chaos orb. Losing hope. I activate my Orb. He Disenchants. I try to sandbag some creatures to push through The Abyss and Chaos Orbs. We both draw-go for at least 14 turns combined and time is running out. He eventually draws a Triskelion and then another. That’s all she wrote. But, that was probably my absolute worst match up. Trikes and Abyss are definitely not good for Stompy, but I really enjoyed the challenge and they were all really good games.

So, I’ve learned that I definitely need Concordant Crossroads in the sideboard. Probably 2. I had a copy in there at some point, but it’s long been traded away. I’ll definitely grab some as I feel like they’re very much needed here. Not only will they get rid of The Abyss, but giving a 30 creature Stompy deck haste is pretty mean, so the aggression could be useful in other situations as well. I think that’s about it. I’ll probably cut 1 Folk and 1 Timber Wolf for the Crossroads. An honerable mention for a board slot is Night Soil. Another card that wrecks Stompy is Earthquake so I poured over cards for a long time looking for ways to abate the quake and eventually stumbled upon it. It was also the first card I ever cracked out of a pack, so I really wanted it to work. For GG you get an enchantment that lets you exile 2 creatures from any one graveyard for 1 mana to create a 1/1 token. I tested it out quite a bit and it actually did help me crawl back from an Earthquake on more than one occasion, but I had to give it up as the main-deck Winter Orbs don’t work well with the activation cost. Still, a very cool card.

I’ve put a lot of work into this deck. It’s definitely my favorite one to play and I’m glad to have given it a good record. I’m pretty sure that after adding the Crossroads to the board that it will be absolutely completely finished.

Thanks to everyone I played. They were all great games and great people. Props to my other Music City brethren as well. We filled half of the top 8 with some pretty unassuming brews. This will more than likely be the last write up regarding BLB ’19, so I’ll shut up about it for at least a year. If you haven’t, read Pez Unholy’s guest report, which is below this post on the main page. I’ll also link it at the bottom here. It’s a doozie. Read it. Now see below for a card to look at and music to listen to.

-D

Pez Unholy’s guest report. READ

MUSIC: Descendents

The Descendents have always been my favorite punk band and one of the first I ever heard. They write songs about coffee, fishing, girls, and farting. They’re fast as hell and have a great balance of aggression and melody. I’ll leave you with a short ripper from their 1996 album Everything Sucks. Get Allular.

CARD: Giant Growth

Nothing new here. I usually save this spot for spicier cards or things I’ve been brewing with, but in sending off Stompy I wanted to highlight my favorite card and the decks MVP. It can bolt you, act as a counterspell, or kill your creature and save mine. It’s a house. Fuck Ancestral Recall.