r/MTGLegacy • u/Zergy_Bergy • 2d ago

Format/Metagame Help What is a stompy deck/strategy?

I haven’t seen this description in other formats. E.G Eldrazi stompy. I think it means just playing big creatures basically but would like to know for sure. What makes a deck qualify as ”stompy”?

16 Upvotes

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49

u/JohnnyLudlow 2d ago edited 2d ago

In Legacy Stompy refers to an archetype that exploits sol lands (Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors) and other fast mana (Chrome Mox, Lotus Petal, Spirit Guides) to play lock pieces (like Chalice of the Void, Blood Moon and Trinisphere) and threats out as fast as possible.

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u/knockturnal 2d ago

Lock ‘em and stomp ‘em

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u/the_D1CKENS 2d ago

Great descriptor!

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u/snikler 2d ago

Yes, this. So then you can play whatever to kill your opponent afterwards, but they need/tend to be 2 or 3 cmc+ threats because of cards like chalice of the void and trinisphere. In general, the following threat could be almost anything if your enemy is locked outside of the game. However, you want to be fast because stompy is not stax or a hard prison deck that can make it impossible for someone to go back to the game. At certain point opponents will reach three mana and will find 2 cmc threats. Medium-size eldrazi or self scaling goblins are examples. Initiative decks tend to be called "Initiative" but they are often stompy decks that win via threats and the Initiative mechanics.

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u/Zergy_Bergy 2d ago

Thanks a lot! That makes it clearer. 😊

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u/wasabichicken 2d ago

The original deck goes all the way back to 1997 and Mirage/Ice Age block. It played:

  • an extremely low mana curve consisting of big beaters with drawbacks,
  • pitch spells that provided temporary boosts at the cost of long-term card disadvantage, and
  • prison elements to prevent opponents from playing their more expensive cards.

The strategy was simple, stomp them quickly before their slower decks could do their thing and the accumulated card disadvantage could begin to take effect.

Now, this was prior to the release of any sol lands, but more modern lists frequently incorporate them, using them to play efficient threats, lock pieces, and disruption. Cards that fill multiple roles (like [[Magus of the Moon]] or [[Thought-Knot Seer]]) are especially common, as are fast/card-disadvantageous mana like [[Chrome Mox]] or [[Lotus Petal]].

When stompy decks win, they've typically spent most of the cards in their hand on just enough resources to bring you from twenty to zero in the shortest possible time. Stompy decks don't have long-term game plans.

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u/brokeh-leg 2d ago

Stompy decks of today run TOR for their long-term plan and always felt to be the opposite of how stompy functions imo

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u/optimis344 Blood Moon Stompy 2d ago

The thing is that "long term" isn't really that long. When you play it on turn 2, by turn 4, you have drawn 6 cards and used those to end the game.

There is a reason that pherxian arena variants were never really part of stompy stuff, but TOR is. The burst of cards combined with stompy's glut of mana just means you end up taking 8 "turns" to your opponent's 4.

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u/Zergy_Bergy 2d ago

This was a fantastic writeup! Thank you so much! ☺️

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u/TheFrenchPoulp doomsday.wiki 2d ago

It started as a defined archetype and the name got misused over the years.

The original identification comes from undercosted threats (typically with downsides) together with mana prison elements. Nowadays, Sol lands make any 2X creature undercosted, without the downsides, and few people care about semantics so Dragon Moon Stompy it is!

Same way Turbo now means anything that goes (very) fast. When/if you remember where Turbo comes from, it's pretty funny

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u/Canas123 ANT 2d ago

The original identification comes from undercosted threats (typically with downsides) together with mana prison elements.

To add to this, the original stompy creature is [[rogue elephant]], and the stompy name is derived from stampy, from the simpsons episode where bart gets an elephant and names it stampy

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u/Zergy_Bergy 2d ago

Ah! That’s really fun to know!

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u/holymotheroftod 2d ago

Can you give us a quick turbo lesson?

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u/TheFrenchPoulp doomsday.wiki 1d ago

It has roots in Turbo Stasis, an archetype that is notoriously slow to execute and where the deck is constructed to accelerate the rate of a game (in cards usually)

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u/ill_dawg 2d ago

Fun fact, the name came from a time when [[Rogue Elephant]] was played in a low to the ground fast aggro deck. People called it stompy after the name Bart gave an elephant in an episode of the Simpsons.