“All right… I’m going to stop you there. We’re not amateurs, you know.”
Art:Freelance Muscle
by Randy Vargas
Table of Contents
Today’s Featured Commander Is:
Freelance Muscle is the perfect commander for a mono-green stompy deck. They get bigger and better the more and more creatures we have, and luckily for us, we have the perfect supporting cast to make our commander crazy. Overall, this is a very standard stompy deck, and with our commander, it allows us to output a lot of damage and put a ton of pressure on our opponents; this deck is comprised of a lot of the same cards as any other stompy deck but is still a blast to play. This deck has some noticeable weaknesses, like not a ton of card draw, but we can overcome those by being very strong in combat and straight-up running over our opponents. Mono-Green and Stompy is an amazing combo, just like Peanut Butter and Jelly; without further adieu, let’s get it!
The Deck:
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Freelance Muscle Stompy!
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Why Freelance Muscle?
Freelance Muscle is a very strong part of our deck but a card we are certainly not reliant on; while they help a ton and are an amazing attacker/blocker for the deck, we can run this deck independently of them, of course, we prefer to have them but don’t need them. If we are in the position to cast them early we absolutely do, even with just a small creature out and a minor buff on attacking and blocking its still a buff and can help us get a leg up in combat. When we do have the stompy gameplan in full effect, and we can get huge buffs off of cards like Ulamog's Crusher
or Eldrazi Devastator
, we are pretty much unstoppable in combat, especially when we have trample effects which are quite common throughout the deck. Casting our commander is certainly never bad and can be very strong depending on our board state, but even as a normal attacker/blocker, they are quite strong and match up well against the rest of the format.
Deck Matchups:
Since this is Pauper EDH, there are an absolute ton of things that can tip a game in your favor or out of it. While an archetype may seem favorable, there are absolutely good and bad commanders for our deck to go up against; I have included both these, which were all played among my testing groups using various decks, and I have included the sample size for clarity purposes. This is just meant to be a guide after testing a bunch of games with this deck!
The information below is notes about specific decks that were featured in our testing pods and how we fared against them. Naturally, Pauper EDH is a multiplayer game, so these are just a summary of my notes against different commanders and strategies. When we test these decks we try to test to its strengths and weaknesses to give a full spectrum of what the deck has to offer. Various commanders and archetypes/strategies are used to get the most accurate information.
Commanders, we have a good matchup against:
Bear's Companion
Record against Bears Companion 4-0
This is a very favorable matchup for us; while they are able to amass a pretty decent board just the same as we are, we typically are a lot bigger than them and once we get our bigger creatures out we typically just run this deck over, this deck can be a little sneaky so I like to look for hands with a lot of mana ramp so we can get our commander and our other big permanents out as early as we can.
Morbid Opportunist
Record against Morbid Opportunist 3-1
This is a good matchup for us. They do have a consistent source of card draw and quite a bit of removal, but we have a decent amount of protection spells, and this deck typically won’t use their removal on our early creatures, allowing us to get time to get our protection and amass and ramp out a big board. I like this matchup a lot and find it to be quite favorable. Their finishers are considerably worse than ours, and when it gets to a point where they are low on removal, we typically just run them over.
Baron Bertram Graywater
Record against Baron Bertram Graywater 2-0
Baron is a pretty typical token deck with a nice source of card draw. They typically like to swing out as much as possible to end the game, but with the litany of huge creatures in our deck, this can be very tough for them; since we have a lot of sources of trample within the deck, we can often just go over the top and run them over. This is a very favorable matchup for us, they have a lot of the same elements of removal and control you would expect from Orzhov but don’t have a ton of removal at least in my experience.
Commanders, we have a tough matchup against:
Earthshaker Dreadmaw
Record against Earthshaker Dreadmaw 2-2
Earthshaker Dreadmaw is a very interesting matchup for our deck; in my testing games we did split the games, but overall, I think this is a rough matchup; their commander provides an amazing amount of card draw, and dinos are already pretty well-stated, and efficiently costed as is, this can be a very tough matchup, but if we get our ramp out earlier we can be much faster. This matchup bounced a lot between favorable and tough when making my notes on the games, but overall, I think the card draw pushes it over the edge and makes it quite tough for us but still very winnable.
Zada, Hedron Grinder
Record against Zada, Hedron Grinder 0-3
The lack of removal in our deck and inability to remove Zada makes this matchup very tough for us. They are fast, explosive, and can end games very quickly, and all of that comes from Zada; not being able to remove them means we can’t do very much even if we are able to block some of their creatures, this is a hard matchup and we need assistance from our opponents to remove Zada and prevent them from going off.
Coruscation Mage
Record against Coruscation Mage 0-4
This is another very rough one. They just don’t care about what we do in combat, and they just slowly whittle us down. With all of the amazing ways to deal with non-combat damage in red, it comes a lot quicker than you might think. We don’t have much recourse against this deck as they don’t do much that we can interact with, they rarely attack and typically spend their turns pinging us down, this deck is a very bad matchup for us and in testing I didn’t have any success against it.
Deck Overview:
This section contains information about cards in the deck and how they function within the deck! I also highlighted some of my favorite cards in the deck! We don’t have a ton of non-basics we have omitted the landbase overview section.
Creatures:
We have mana dorks on mana dorks in this deck; It is typically what we spend most of our early-game casting. We have common ones like Elvish Mystic
and some less played ones like Whisperer of the Wilds
and Woodland Mystic
while these are a little more expensive committing more and more mana to the board in the early-game is key to our overall gameplan. Once we have a lot of mana at our disposal, we can transition to dropping absolute bombs on our opponents like Fin-Clade Fugitives
and Ulamog's Crusher, just to name a few. We certainly have no shortage of very strong creatures to end the game, like Eldrazi Devastator and Oakgnarl Warrior
. These cards are quite strong on their own, but when we are able to ramp into them and play them two or three turns early, we can really dominate the board and put our opponents into a terrible situation. One of the best parts of this deck is that all of our high power/toughness creatures help make our commander’s trigger better, allowing us to drastically increase the damage and pressure we put on our opponents. While the overall gameplan of the deck is quite simple, we have some very sweet supporting creatures that help at on, like Argothian Sprite
, which is a great late-game mana-sink in testing. I was able to get this creature up to ten power over the course of a few turns; this card works perfectly with our commander as well. I also love Ivy Lane Denizen
because it buffs every creature we have and helps our commander out a ton as well.
Instants:
Even though we are pretty strong in combat, we can certainly run into some rough matchups or spells that make our board go away; because of that, we have the awesome Wrap in Vigor
, which is a very cheap and strong way to save our board. In the event, we don’t have a card like Wrap in Vigor and we are about to get attacked for a ton of damage we can use cards like Moment's Peace
to stop all of it and allow us to get back to a stronger board, if you are feeling extra nice you can even save your opponents with it, build a little good-will at the table, but that, of course, is completely optional. There is so much removal floating around the format that we absolutely have to be running protection spells like Snakeskin Veil
and Tamiyo's Safekeeping
; since we are in mono-green, we can often catch our opponents by surprise, they almost never expect it!
Sorceries:
We have a ton of ramp at sorcery speed, and one of my favorites is Broken Bond
; green has always struggled with artifact/enchantment removal, and being able to get that on a ramp spell is truly the best of both worlds situation and allows us to hurt our opponents while furthering our overall gameplan. Since we have cards like Ivy Lane Denizen and Master Chef
we can actually get a lot of value out of Carnivorous Canopy
and its proliferation effects and lucky for us there are a ton of awesome cheap targets for this. A lot of decks rely on artifacts and enchantments for utility/mana ramp, and many of them are quite cheap, so having this at our disposal allows us to make our board and commander much better and hurt our opponents. Another card I love is Larger Than Life
. Since it is sorcery speed, we can’t get a “gotcha” on our opponents, but it gives a huge buff and trample for only two mana, and with our commander already getting pretty huge, this can allow for the commander to damage one-shot if needed.
Artifacts:
Greataxe
and Slagwurm Armor
are perfect cards to make our commander trigger better, and with all of the ramp in the deck, we can have them out and equip them early. This early burst of offense can help us deal additional damage to our opponents and if we have Slagwurm we can have a great blocker which can save us a lot of life against aggressive strategies. Wedding Invitation
is an amazing finisher for the deck; while we don’t go for commander damage actively, Wedding Invitation is a great enabler that can allow us to simply take out a problematic opponent. We have some mana rocks, including Arcane Signet
, which may seem a little strange in a mono-color deck, but we need as much mana as we can possibly get as soon as we can to speed out our gameplan.
Enchantments:
Master Chef is one of the strongest enchantments we have at our disposal; buffing our commander is great, but being able to buff every creature in our deck gives us a leg up in combat and makes our commanders trigger that much better and since we are a stompy deck we will certainly never complain about more damage. The same is true for Predatory Hunger
which is great on any craeutre we have because it helps trigger our commander and makes us better overall, this deck is filled with effects that help us strengthen our board and the trigger from our commander. Khalni Heart Expedition
and Wild Growth
are both very strong pieces of ramp for the deck; with some of our other ramp spells, it’s actually crazy how quickly we are able to trigger Khalni heart and more mana is always awesome!
Strengths of the Deck:
- We are very strong in combat and can easily overwhelm our opponents.
- We have a ton of ramp and can speed out huge creatures much earlier.
- We actually have a decent amount of artifact/enchantment removal.
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- We have almost no removal for creatures in the deck.
- We can struggle a lot against decks that don’t interact in combat, especially spellslinger strategies or any deck that focuses on non-combat damage.
- In testing, I had a tough matchup against multi-colored stompy decks because they had a ton more utility spells in their decks.
Deck Stats:
Sample Hands:
Conclusion:
Thanks for reading to the end! Stompy is by far one of my favorite archetypes within the format; no matter the “flavor” of it, it’s just a blast to ramp up and turn your entire board sideways! Let us know who your favorite stompy commander is in the format! If you ever have any suggestions for commanders, hit us up on our socials, and we will be happy to write up a deck tech for you. Thank you again for all of your support!