Date:    Wed, 31 Dec 1997 17:06:23 EST
From:    BlackKnght 
Subject: Senor Stompy

After reading the recent Duelist article I feel I should write a little about
the history of Senor Stompy and a few topics the article didn't mention:

The very first version of Senor Stompy (I call it the *first* version because
it WAS the first version of straight green EVER named "Senor Stompy") was
created by Bill Macey of the AustiKnights. His version included River Boas,
Fallow Earths, and Thermokarsts, which pre-Tempest Stompy did not have. Bill
created this deck as a fun deck before the '97 Nationals. When we all went to
the Nationals to play in the Nationals Open, me and Paul Gallegher picked up
the deck and tried it out at one of the opens. I played in the 1:00 AM ordeal
which was the first open, and I didn't think Paul had arrived yet. I won my
first 4 matches with the deck, then lost to Mark Le Pine playing Counterpost.
I discovered the land destruction was not effiecient enough to overcome the
advantage Counterpost gained by playing it, and I added Winter Orbs to the
sideboard after the tournament. In a later Open the Winter Orbs worked
perfectly after sideboarding, crushing many decks. The other deck I lost to in
another Open was a 5 color black deck, roughly the same deck that Stompy lost
to in Worlds as well. The Nekrataals, Incinerates, and Man-O-Wars took care of
any of stompy's big creatures, while guildmages killed all the elves. I soon
discovered getting a Heart of Yavimaya on the board was essential to winning
against decks like these. Here's where the changes to the deck started to
occur. After Nationals I went off to Houston and Paul went back to Austin and
we independently started working on the deck. Before we left we had both
agreed the deck needed Worbs standard and the land destruction wasn't
efficient enough. We also noticed Serrated Arrows wrecked the deck, so Boas
were probably going to go as well, leaving only 8 1 tougness creatures in the
deck for arrows to target. So Paul built his version of the deck and won an
Abilene tournament going 7-0 for the day. I built my own version of the deck
and won Texas States, going 8-1-1 with the deck, my only loss to Empyrial
Armor (ouch! put Tranquil Grove in SB after that). My deck and Pauls deck
differed only in the sideboard and a few cards in the main deck (Paul chose
Nature's Resurgence over more Goyfs, and also had a 5th mana elf). I posted my
deck on the Dojo after states (which you may want to note is a month or so
before Worlds began). This is the deck, it is still on the Dojo in old tourney
report:

2 Bounty
4 Mana Elves
4 Gazban
4 Giant Growth
3 Harvest Wurm
2 Jolraels
3 Goyf
4 Quirion
4 Rouge Elephant
4 Spectral Bears
2 Uktabi Orangutang
2 Whirling Dervish
4 Winter Orb

I never posted the sideboard because I always wanted to keep some of the deck
secret and sideboards should be adjusted for the area they are played in.
Anyway, after posting the deck, imagine my astonishment at seeing it make the
top 4 at Worlds! I was sure I would get some credit or recogntion for a deck
doing so well. Nope, no one even remembered I had posted it. The deck Geersten
played was an exact copy of my deck. To the card. I doubt that two people
across thousands of miles could build the exact same deck, so I was positive
he had gotten it from the internet. I'm not trying to take credit away from
Svend, he played the deck splendidly and beat lots of good players, but I
would just like everyone to know where the deck originated from. Since the
article mentioned Paul and Bill, but not me, I just thought I should speak up
should no one remember who the Worlds deck *really* came from. :)

Bryan Hubble
AystiKnights