The Blood Side of the Moon
Hello everyone and welcome back on 95mtg.com!
Last week we started talking about Legacy and today I’d like to introduce a deck that, thanks to a good mix of hard-locks (like Blood Moon) and very aggresive creatures, has finally started raising up in the leaderbords of Legacy tournaments: MONO-RED STOMPY!
DECKLIST
Let’s start seeing the decklist that I’m currently playing:
Marco Cammilluzzi - Legacy - MonoRed Stompy
Creature (22)
Sorcery (4)
Artifact (11)
Enchantment (4)
Land (16)
Sideboard (15)
*3 Hanweir Garrison are currently missing from this list
Mono-Red Stompy is a deck that tries to disrupt opponent’s plan with cards like Chalice of the Void, Blood Moon and Trinisphere while trying to win fast with 14 creatures that generate tokens and the new Fireflux Squad!
To begin with, we can notice that this deck can be divided in 3 parts:
HARD LOCKS
With these cards we try to stop our opponent from playing any spell in order to gain enough time to kill him thanks to our creatures.
The knowledge on what is the right type of lock to do in every single matchup is the key for this part of the deck: choosing wether to cast a Turn-1 Chalice of the Void instead of a turn-1 Blood Moon or Trinisphere will make, most ot the times, the difference between win or lose the game.
CREATURES
There is just one thing to do: “RUN BABY, RUN!”
All this creatures, if uncontested, can be lethal in 3 turns and they are the perfect way to take advantage from our hard locks.
Let me please spend some words about the addition of Fireflux Squad: this card is GAS!
Some of you might be thinking that a 4-mana creature that dies to Lightning Bolt could just be not enough for a card to be Legacy playable, but you have to believe me, this card represent an increbile fast clock that allows to sacrifice any attacking token for a bigger creature.
EXTRA MANA
The main reason why this deck is very competitive are these cards, that let you “cheat” on mana.
We can’t keep an opening hand without any of these, as waiting Turn 3 to cast one of our threats would makes them less impactful.
The addition of Shatterskull Smashing made Chrome Mox much stronger, as we can play a land that can be imprinted with the Mox.
SIDEBOARD
Let’s talk about the sideboard:
4 Bonecrusher Giant: an all-star-card that has been played in many formats, Legacy inluded. A good card to bring in against Aggro Decks where our lock effects are just not good enough;
3 Leyline of The Void: the best answer to graveyard-based strategies like Dredge, Hoogak and Reanimator decks. If these decks should became more popular, we would add the 4th copy;
2 Fiery Confluence: it looks like the perfect sideboard-card thanks to its versatility: it is a strong card against both, aggro and artifact decks;
1 Magus of the Moon: a great card for matchup like Lands and Eldrazi, that’s why we play the 4th copy in our Sideboard;
2 Sulfur Elemental: Death & Taxes is a hard-to-beat deck and Sulfur Elemental allows to kill cards like Mother of Runes and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. It is also good against Monastery Mentor.You might consider to play a third copy of this card.
2 Torpor Orb: it works perfectly against Death & Takes as it stops ETB effects of their creatures and it’s also good vs Doomsday.
1 Trinisphere: like for Magus of the Moon, we are playing the fourth copy in the sideboard as it’s really good against combo decks.
HOW TO SIDEBOARD
As you can imagine, Game 1 in this matchup is hard to win as they basically ignore our Blood Moon Effects and a turn-2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben stops all our goblins from attacking.
I prefer to cut Magus of the Moon instead of Blood Moon because I want to increase the chance to find Sulfur Elemental with the ability of Fireflux Squad.
Chalice of the Void could be good in the matchup but we cannot risk to let them Flickerwisp our Chalice (as it will return with no counters on it).
Normally, I feel ahead in this matchup but it depends on how many Force of Will and Force of Negation your opponent will find in their first 2 turns: resolving Chalice of the Void or Trinisphere on turn 1 could steal the victory.
Sideboarding Bonecrusher Giant is extremely important, as it can kill Delver of Secrets and Young Pyromancer, but also because it is the only way to kill True-Name Nemesis (as the Stomp part says that damage can’t be prevented so it will ignore the protection of True-Name Nemesis).
Playing 7 Blood Moon effects in our main deck means that this is a good matchup but you should never let your guard down.
In this matchup, a Chalice of the Void for 0 allows you to counter their Mox Diamond so, if you have Blood Moon in your hand, could be a smart move to steal the game.
I like to board in some Bonecrusher Giants as a cheap removal for their Elvish Reclaimer.
Our deck is built to hunt this type of combo decks thanks to the combination of Chalice/Trinispehere and aggressive creatures.
I board in Torpor Orb as it stops Thassa’s Oracle. Chalice for 1 is probably our best weapon.
Before the print of Allosaurus Shepherd, our Chalices of the Void at 1 were extremely good.
The matchup is very close because yes, is true that you can lock them with Trinisphere, but if you fail in pressuring them enough, you would die for their turn-4 Natural Order.
The same as the Doomsday matchup: we are in a strong position but we need to kill our opponent fast.
I board in Fiery Confluence as it is our only way to interact with a fast Empty the Warrens.
Remember that in this matchup we want our Chalices to be with 0 or 2 counters on them. I know that Chalice at 1 can be tempting but I’ve played a lot of matches and I think that we must be scared of Lion’s Eye Diamond and Infernal Tutor the most.
If you’re playing against the Bant version, you can keep the Blood Moons and cut 2 copies of Pia and Kiran Nalaar instead.
Setting Chalice at 1 is a must in this matchup and remember to not flood the board with creatures as they can reset the board with Terminus.
I like to bring in 2 Bonecrusher Giants as they play Monastery Mentor.
This matchup is really hard and I hadn’t the chance to play as many matches against them.
Leyline of the Void is the shining star in this matchup but remember that they have access to Nature’s Claim and Force of Vigor.
I like to board in some Bonecrusher Giants to be able to kill one of our creature in order to remove Bridge from Below from opponent’s greaveyard.
That’s it for today, I hope that someone of you will start to play the deck as it’s incredible fun to play!
I’ll see you next week here on 95mtg.com!
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