Historic Simic Stompy Deck Guide

Hey everybody! My name’s Maxim Salmin aka Rint and today I’m introducing you to the refined Simic Stompy deck that I used to 6-0 an SCG Satellite tournament and land at #137 on the Arena ladder this season.

As a big Mono Green enthusiast I quickly realised it was absolutely necessary to splash the second color of mana to cope with a combo-oriented metagame of the Historic format post Mystical Archive release. I used some of the Pioneer Simic Stompy lists for inspiration and despite lacking some of the pretty important pieces in Historic this is where I currently am:

[sd_deck deck=”VdMDjN7Nb”]

Card Choices

The number one new addition is the sweet Strixhaven uncommon Decisive Denial. It really fits the style and philosophy of our deck perfectly (which is to reduce your opponent’s life total to 0 by attacking with creatures and protect this win condition from board sweepers and combo finishes) and presents great card quality as it’s never dead in our hand and is good both vs creatures (where we can effectively fight most things with our big bodies) and non-creature decks (where we can effectively counter most dangerous spells and protect our team).

The 2-2 Collected Company and Vivien, Arkbow Ranger split happened as the result of our most threatening match-up being Orzhov Auras. Sure, Collected Company is great vs any control matchup, but so is Vivien and our Collected Company is just not as impactful in some scenarios as we don’t have powerful synergies or strong enter the battlefield effects (like creatures in Jund Sacrifice, Skyclave Apparition, Spirits, or Angels). Getting a couple bodies just won’t be powerful enough in situations where you desperately need interaction to deal with opposing key threats (Kor Spiritdancer, Spawn of Mayhem, Dreadhorde Arcanist and so on) or trample to push the damage through.

4 Llanowar Elves are pretty self-explanatory, playing your biggest threats one turn earlier is a massive advantage, for that same reason we would want to play 4 more copies and get our hands on Elvish Mystic but since it’s currently unavailable we have to resort to 4x Pelt Collector, it’s not a mana-accelerant but it’s the best possible aggressive 1-drop.

4 Barkhide Troll, a two-mana 3/3 and other creatures with above-average stats compared to their mana cost is the bread and butter of any aggro deck. It contributes a lot to the beatdown (6 damage before they Wrath of God) and contests other aggressive creatures immediately (Robber of the Rich, Bonecrusher Giant, Burning-Tree Emissary, etc).

2 Scavenging Ooze. With somewhat of a decline of Sacrifice decks and earlier ban of Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath the only real need for strong graveyard hate in the mainboard could be required only for Rakdos Arcanist, Ooze could be underwhelming by itself and against many exile effects the Historic format offers so we don’t need to draw it early or in multiple copies.

4 Old-Growth Troll. Above-average stats, built-in Trample, and removal resilience makes it a great threat and Company target. This is our choice over Lovestruck Beast since we’re running a Collected Company version and might severely miss out on the 1/1 enablers.

4 Steel Leaf Champion. A 5/4 with evasion on turn 3 or 2? Sign me up!

2 Rhonas, the Indomitable. Great versus Wrath of God effects and absolute terror for opposing creature decks. Don’t think we’d ever want to run more than two copies since due to his Indestructible ability we’d rarely be happy to draw multiples.

3 Primal Might helps up a great deal vs Orzhov Auras and mostly that’s the reason to run this many copies, the card’s just phenomenal quality in general since regardless of present targets we can always turn it into a burn spell.

Mana Base

We want to consistently cast our 4-drops on curve and we will be quite mana hungry in general since we’d often need to hold two mana up for our Decisive Denial. At certain points in the game we might even be sacrificing some of our lands to (Old-Growth Troll or Hashep Oasis) as well. You don’t ever want to flood with this deck, but more mana is never a bad idea either.

With 4x Llanowar Elves and 2x Kazandu Mammoth our land count is roughly at 27 which is a great spot for an aggressive deck. If we had 4x Elvish Mystic we would be able to cut down to 22 straight-up lands, but it was definitely wrong of me to do that in the earlier decklist.

I do like Hashep Oasis so I personally prefer not to play more than one copy of Hinterland Harbor. Generally you’ll very rarely have problems having a blue source by the time you need to cast your Decisive Denial.

Potential Inclusions

[cdb_tooltip name=”Vivien Reid”]: Not really having an anwer to Grafdigger’s Cage could make things a little awkward so this would be my choice since we can mostly expect this card in heavy control decks like Azorius and Jeskai. If you wanted her, I would replace 1 copy of the Great Henge in SB with her as our mana-base supports it and it’s a great card in control match-ups. Alternatively you can find some space for a couple of copies of Reclamation Sage since it’s also going to be a target for your Collected Company.

Garruk’s Harbinger: A great Company target with a poweful effect, but drawing random creatures and risking to bottom our key non-creature spells is not something you really want. This was solid, but I switched over to Kazandu Mammoth as nothing beats an extra land.

Matchups and Sideboard Guide

vs Orzhov Auras

OUT	IN
-1 Rhonas, the Indomitable	+3 Barrier Breach
-2 Collected Company

While Barrier Breach is not quite Back to Nature, try it out in this match-up, you’re gonna have fun! Remove their creatures on sight and race with evasion.

vs Tainted Pact Combo

OUT	IN
-2 Rhonas, the Indomitable	+3 Nimble Obstructionist
-2 Vivien, Arkbow Range	+2 Collected Company
-3 Primal Might	+2 Shifting Ceratops

My choice to add to the Denials over any other counterspell at the moment is this Nimble Obstructionist fellow. 3-mana is extremely painful to hold up, but you compensate for that playing instant speed Companies, it’s a decent beater to cast by itself if you have multiple copies, and it can’t be affected by conventional counters. Watch out for the fact that you can lose on turn 4, so start holding that blue mana early and look forward to Stubborn Denial in Historic one day.

vs Selesnya Company

OUT	IN
-2 Vivien, Arkbow Ranger	+2 Collected Company

A very hard matchup where I’d personally rely on Collected Company over other expensive sorcery-speed cards (like Henge or Vivien). Getting taxed and having a high-power creature removed is mostly how you lose from my experience. Protect your threats with your own Company, watch for the opportunities to counter their non-creature spells with Denial.

Vs Jeskai Control

OUT	IN
-3 Primal Might	+2 Collected Company
	+1 Shifting Ceratops

Vivien is great here and I’ve always liked to keep a haste creature in my sideboard for the -5 ability. Watch out for the Torrential Gearhulk version of Jeskai and don’t forget that your Ooze can help with their graveyard Magma Opus. Rhonas is your best friend vs Wrath of God so play around Censor when you try to jam it.

If you cast Company at the end of their turn into open mana, make sure you have a good follow-up if it gets countered (multiple creatures or Vivien). Try to have at least two creatures deployed or Company available going into their Teferi, Hero of Dominaria turn so you can pressure it.

vs Dimir Rogues

OUT	IN
-2 Vivien, Arkbow Ranger	+2 Collected Company
-1 Rhonas, the Indomitable	+2 Scavenging Ooze
-3 Primal Might	+2 Shifting Ceratops

They are in hell cause we have it all: stronger early-game creatures, graveyard hate, a lot of instant speed plays and an ability to counter Into the Story.

vs Gruul Aggro

OUT	IN
-2 Vivien, Arkbow Ranger	+3 The Great Henge
-2 Collected Company	+1 Scavenging Ooze

A resolved Great Henge should get you a free victory quite often, Denial is your answer to Cleave since we don’t have any other way to deal with artifacts or enchantments so keep that mind.

vs Mono Black Aggro

OUT	IN
-4 Decisive Denial	+2 The Great Henge
	+2 Collected Company

The toughest part here is a lot of hand-disruption and cheap instant speed removal, so we want to compensate for that by trying to resolve Collected Company and Henge. Spawn of Mayhem is a must-answer threat. Don’t overcommit with 3 copies of Henge here since your good early starts can be butchered by discard spells and hard removal which could leave Henges stranded in the hand.

Tips and Tricks

• Always drop your Botanical Sanctum first unless you want to save some life playing a tapped Breeding Pool vs aggressive decks. There’s a small chance you’ll draw 3 Sanctums and you want to make sure they’re not entering tapped.
• Make sure you have a Forest available when you’re casting Old-Growth Troll or when it’s about to die. Arena auto-tapper could let you down so make sure you leave up an untapped Forest to potentially bring out the token immediately if possible.
• Don’t hesitate to drop your Kazandu Mammoth as a land if it helps you curve out efficiently.
• It’s never a bad idea to cast Collected Company on your turn right after a sweeper when your opponent is tapped out, when you are missing a 4-power enabler for Rhonas, the Indomitable or when you can safely benefit from pumping your Pelt Collector in combat.
• Llanowar Elves allow you to cast Collected Company right after a sweeper off of 3 lands, set up a stop before the next phase or go full control before that Wrath of God resolves, add mana to your mana-pool and cast Company after the Wrath is resolved.
• Generally speaking you always want to sacrifice your Old-Growth Troll aura at the end of your opponent’s turn, but don’t forget that it can serve as an activator for your Rhonas, the Indomitable or add an extra +1/+1 to your Scavenging Ooze.

That’s going to be it for my Simic Stompy tech, hope you enjoyed it and can lay a good-old beatdown out there in the Historic format!