Mono Green Stompy for Pioneer

Magic is a great game full of skill and tactics. It has intricate combos and synergies which can take an age to get a handle on. While I class myself as a competent player, I know that even with my seventeen years of experience, I still have a long way to go as a player. I often watch with envy as pro players battle it out and blow their opponents away with the almost “beautiful mind” level sequences that will play out over a single match.

However, sometimes you don’t want to try out intricate combos and high skill decks. Sometimes you just want to rock up to an FNM or game night and turn the creatures sideways. Sometimes you want to get in touch with your inner Timmy, Power Gamer and hit your opponent’s life total with some big beefy monsters. Today’s deck is one of those brews. Today we jump into the wild world of Pioneer and stomp all over the competition with a giant stack of green meanies.


Mono Green Stompy is a deck that has been around for a while in Modern, and even occasionally pops up in Standard every now and then. It has a very simple game plan. Play creatures that have high power and toughness relative to their converted mana cost, and then turn them sideways and literally ‘stomp’ our opponents out of the game. It’s a lot of fun to play and I believe it’s a severely underrated strategy that doesn’t get the respect it deserves. Well, all that changes today as we throw the deck into the Pioneer format.

We start off with a couple off creatures that have the same basic function. Experiment One and Pelt Collector are both one drop creatures that get progressively better when more powerful creatures enter our side of the battlefield, becoming real threats thanks to all the +1/+1 counters they can generate. They aren’t identical however, as Experiment One can spend its +1/+1 counters to regenerate itself while Pelt Collector gets better even when our own creatures start to die. Both are great and are a strong start to our game plan.

Moving on to the two drops, we have a playset of Avatar of the Resolute and a couple copies each of Barkhide Troll and Scavenging Ooze. Barkhide Troll is effectively a 3/3 that can protect itself from removal by down grading to a 2/2, while Scavenging Ooze is a great mainboard answer to graveyard decks and other aggro strategies. Avatar of the Resolute on the other hand is a house of a creature that only gets better if we have any number of other creatures with +1/+1 counters on them, such as the above mentioned Experiment One and Pelt Collector.

Up next we have some solid three drops with playsets of Steel Leaf Champion and Jadelight Ranger. Steel Leaf Champion can win games on its own if our opponent doesn’t have any high-power blockers, while Jadelight Ranger gives us some solid card filtering and power thanks to its Explore ability.

Our final couple of creatures are a pair of legendaries. Renata, Called to the Hunt can be a one hit kill if we have enough devotion to green, while also having the added benefit of adding extra +1/+1 counters to our creatures. Lastly, two copies of Ghalta, Primal Hunger give us a real threat at our top end, often bringing an end to the game if our opponents run out of removal.

When it comes to non-creature spells, we have a couple of instants in the form of Aspect of Hydra and Blossoming Defense. Blossoming Defence not only works as a decent pump spell but also protects our creatures from targeted removal, while Aspect of Hydra can pump up one of our threats to a ludicrous degree if our devotion is high enough.

The only issue that can arise is if we run into a player who can throw enough chump blockers in the way to stop us from getting in lethal damage. In the Modern build of the deck this problem is resolved by the addition of Rancor to give us some recurrable trample, which is sadly not legal in the Pioneer format. Instead we run a playset of Talons of Wildwood, which does a decent job of replicating it.

For lands we are going super budget, with eighteen Forests and a couple of copies Hashep Oasis to give us some additional pump when it is needed.

Creatures (28)
Experiment One
Pelt Collector
Avatar of the Resolute
Barkhide Troll
Scavenging Ooze
Steel Leaf Champion
Jadelight Ranger
Renata, Called to the Hunt
Ghalta, Primal Hunger

Instants (8)
Aspect of Hydra
Blossoming Defense

Enchantments (4)
Talons of Wildwood
Lands (20)
18 Forest
Hashep Oasis

Sideboard (15)
Feed the Clan
Unravel the Aether
Shapers' Sanctuary
Heroic Intervention
Scavenging Ooze
Vivien, Arkbow Ranger

For the sideboard we aim to cover as many bases as possible. Feed the Clan gives us additional life when we come across mono red, while Unravel the Aether helps against Enchantments and Artifacts. Shapers’ Sanctuary keeps our hand full of threats if we come up against target removal, while Heroic Intervention protects us from sweepers. Finally, two additional Scavenging Ooze for when we really don’t want a Uro coming back onto the board, and Vivien, Arkbow Ranger for our own removal and more +1/+1 counters.

And that is Mono Green Stompy for Pioneer. I have had a lot of fun testing this particular brew out, and it can hold its own against most other decks in the format. I might have to give it a whirl on stream sometime in the near future to show you what it is capable of.


But what do you think of the deck? Is it the kind of brew you would want to play? What changes would you make to the deck if you were to run it? Why not let us know about it in the comments below. While you’re there you could like and subscribe to keep up to date with all we do here at Master of Magics.

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