Time for a bit of Stompy history, culled from many sources from the vast 'net. I hope this information is entertaining and informative. It's been a pleasure to write this, as Stompy in particular, and green in general, has brought me much pleasure.

It all began back in the early days of Magic. The Stompy deck type was created by Paul Gallagher and Bill Macey, both from Austin, Texas. The name, of course, is because of this deck's propensity for "stomping" the opponent with large efficient creatures.

Stompy has been played by hundreds, if not thousands, in their own home without the players being aware of the fact. Think back to when you started out as a casual player - indeed, you may still be one now. What kind of deck did you start out with? If you're like the typical Magic player, you probably started out by playing some sort of creature deck, which is the easiest and most fun type of deck to begin with.

And what color gives you the best creatures? That's right; green.

At the tournament level, green, at least in the beginning, had not done that well. A couple of successful decks were Winnipeg and Battleford decks; Canadian Stompy decks that won some tournaments before 5th edition.

Here's an almost complete version of the Winnipeg deck. The rest seems to be lost.

4x Erhnam Djinn
4x Elvish Archers
4x Fyndhorn Elves
4x Grizzly Bears
4x Leaping Lizard
4x Llanowar Elves
4x Scryb Sprite
4x Whirling Dervish
4x more 3CC unknown creatures
4x Giant Growth

16x Forests
4x Mishra's Factory

Some of the cards look a bit sub-par to me. They wouldn't make the cut today, but must've been the best available at the time. Grizzly Bears?? Leaping Lizard? A green creature that can fly? That was news to me!

I have always liked Elvish Archers, and wonder why they're never used today - I guess because there is the Albino Troll and River Boa at the 2CC slot. But wait until Urza's block rotates out. They may make a comeback.

The other deck, Battleford - named after the town it was created in - was invented by a green master, Shane "Nev" Neville, and that deck goes like this.

2x Erhnam Djinn
2x Foratog
4x Jolrael's Centaur
4x Llanowar Elves
4x Mtenda Lions
4x River Boa (Before Visions, it was 2x Whirling Dervish and 2x Elvish Archers.)
4x Scryb Sprites
4x Yavimaya Ants
4x Armor Of Thorns
2x Desert Twister
4x Giant Growth

18x Forests
4x Mishra's Factory

I had never heard of Mtenda Lions before today, but it looks good to me. A 2/1 for G, with the only drawback being a blue mage can pay U to have the Lion deal no combat damage the turn it attacks. I like it.

Armor Of Thorns is okay also. It's the green version of red's Giant Strength, but can be played as an instant, which, I guess, makes it slightly better. Don't think it would see much play today, though.

Stompy typically has a low mana ratio with plenty of cheap but effective creatures, some with special abilities. Stompy's mana curve is flatter than Sligh's because Stompy has elves, which allow a green mage to cast threats a turn or more sooner. Hence, Stompy has larger and more powerful creatures than Sligh.

A pure Stompy mana curve would go like this:

1cc 14-17
2cc 9-12
3cc 2-4
4cc 2-3
Xcc 0-2

In the past a Stompy deck would use around 32 creatures, half of them costing 1cc. Today I think Stompy uses a bit less creatures, usually around 22-28, because the booster spells - Giant Growth, Seal Of Strength, Invigorate, Might Of Oaks, Rancor, etc. - are better than in the past, and you don't have to "Stomp" quite as much because your creatures are of a higher quality and pack a heftier punch.

A couple of years back, a typical Stompy deck would include Llanowar and possibly Fyndhorn Elves, Quirion Rangers for their tricks, Rogue Elephant (a powerful 3/3 for G with - at least to me - the small drawback of saccing a forest when it comes into play), and Ghazban Ogre, a fickle creature (kind of like Wild Dogs, another of my favorites, but probably not a problem since you should be ahead on life from the start).

Other used cards were Spectral Bears, Harvest Wurm, Whirling Dervish, and the mighty Uktabi Monkey.

At 4cc, Lhurgyof seems to have been the weapon of choice. Winter Orbs also saw heavy action, as your opponent would usually feel the slow down of mana more heavily than you would, since you would have other ways of producing mana.

Here is Senor Stompy, played by Svend Geertsen. A deck that made it all the way to the top 4 in 1997's World Championships:

4x Fyndhorn Elves
4x Ghazban Ogre
3x Harvest Wurm
2x Jolrael's Centaur
2x Lhurgoyf
4x Quirion Ranger
4x Rogue Elephant
4x Spectral Bears
2x Uktabi Orangutan
2x Whirling Dervish
2x Bounty Of The Hunt
4x Giant Growth
4x Winter Orb

16x Forests
2x Heart Of Yavimaya

This deck looks damned tough to me, but Bounty Of The Hunt doesn't appear that strong. It costs 3GG, and if you remove a green card from your hand, you get 3 +1/+1 tokens and place them as you choose until the end of your turn. Not that hot, as far as I'm concerned, but then I'm a scrub and Svend isn't.

In 1998, the Stupid Green Deck, designed by master deckbuilder Seth Burn, took Bryce Currance to a top 4 finish and a spot on the US National Team in that year's world championships.

4x Llanowar Elves
4x Spike Feeder
4x Spike Weaver
4x Stampeding Wildebeests
2x Uktabi Monkeys
3x Wall Of Blossoms
4x Wall Of Roots
4x Creeping Mold
3x Desert Twister
4x Eladamri's Vineyard
1x Survival Of The Fittest

4x Cursed Scroll
15x Forests
4x Wastelands

In researching this column, one thing is becoming crystal clear: The cards are getting more and more powerful, which some players like, but which a lot of players seem to hate.

Notice that though this deck is considered Stompy, it is, at least to me, more of a control deck, with the Spikes pulling their token tricks, and the walls to hold your opponent back. Lots of utility. Notice the Monkeys, Molds and Twisters. Pretty versatile cards.

In fact, I see a lot of Jamie Wakefield's famous Secret Force deck in Seth Burn's creation. Wonder if this is where he gathered some of his inspiration?

I really have no need to talk about today's Stompy. It's better than ever, with Gaea's Cradle leading the way, and a host of powerful, inexpensive creatures and the mighty common Rancor. I have my fears for Stompy come September, when the Cradle rotates out. It will be much slower. And in anticipation of that happening, I've started to build a more controllish version of Stompy with Vine Trellis, Monkeys, Twisters, Molds, stuff like that.

Hey, kind of sounds familiar. Maybe history does repeat itself.

Hope you've enjoyed this brief trip through the history of Stompy. Let me finish this off with a few links to some interesting articles.

This first link is to WotC, where Seth Burn's SGD is discussed. A very nice article.
http://www.wizards.com/duelist/Issue_30/DeckDecon.html

And here's a link to an interesting review of green in Mercadian Masques. Yes, I know MM has been out for a bit, but this material is worth going over, if just to see if YOU missed anything the first time around.
http://www.thedojo.com/column2/col.990930jwa.shtml

Finally, here's a link to the greatest tournament report I've ever had the pleasure to have read. Only problem is, that as of this writing, the link didn't seem to be working?! It's worked in the past, so I've included it in case it's up and running when this article hits the stands.
http://www.thedojo.com/column/col.990401jwa.shtml

Hope you enjoyed...

Sean Erik Ponce
Deranged Dad