MTG Challenger Decks 2021: Mono Green Stompy Upgrade Guide

Got the Mono Green Stompy Challenger Deck 2021 and want to make it even better? You’ll find all the information you need in this Mono Green Stompy Upgrade Guide!

You can find a budget upgrade and a full upgrade for each of the 2021 Challenger decks. This way you’ll be able to find the one that’ll work best for you.

Mono Green Stompy Challenger Decklist

Mono Green Stompy Challenger Deck 2021 Budget Upgrade

The decklist for Mono Green Stompy is a good start for a Stompy shell in Standard. However, we can make it better by increasing the quality of creatures, and improving the mana base.

(Out/In shows which cards will be replaced and what for.)

• OUT: 4 Wildwood Tracker IN: 3 Tangled Florahedron, 1 Kazandu Mammoth
• OUT: 2 Syr Faren, the Hengehammer IN: 2 Old-Growth Troll
• OUT: 3 Thrashing Brontodon IN: 2 Gemrazer, 1 Vivien, Monsters’ Advocate
• OUT: 2 Turntimber Symbiosis IN: 2 Faceless Haven
• OUT: 1 Ram Through IN: 1 Faceless Haven
• OUT: 19 Forest IN: 16 Snow-Covered Forest, 3 Castle Garenbrig

The total costs of these upgrades is quite reasonable (probably under 40 dollars). Let’s check out how they will improve your deck:

Budget Upgrades Explained

Mana Base Changes

The first upgrades you might notice are to the mana base. We increase the number of total lands in the deck to 22, plus an additional 7 lands from double faced cards.

To make room for 3 Tangled Florahedron and 1 Kazandu Mammoth, we cut a playset of Wildwood Tracker. Tracker is the weakest card in the deck, being only a 1/1, and at times a 2/2. Because it doesn’t provide ramp or a large body, which is essential to stompy strategies, it is cut for better mana fixing.

The biggest change to the mana base is adding snow lands to support Faceless Haven. This land is a key piece of any mono-colored aggressive strategy, doubling as a land and a creature to finish off the opponent. It also avoids many board wipes that are played in Standard, like Shadows’ Verdict and Extinction Event.

We replace 19 Forest with 16 Snow-Covered Forest and 3 Castle Garenbrig. Castle is a strong flex land that helps to maximize the creatures you can cast in a turn, and playing it comes at a very low cost as it almost always enters the battlefield untapped. Snow-Covered Forests are naturally added to support the Faceless Havens.

To include Faceless Haven in the deck, we cut 2 Turntimber Symbiosis and 1 Ram Through. Turntimber Symbiosis can be expensive at 7 mana, while Faceless Haven only costs 3 mana to activate, meaning that it can be used much more frequently, while also doubling as a land when you need it to.

1 Ram Through is cut because the Challenger decklist already plays 7 fight spells, which is a large amount, and we need more room for the third Faceless Haven.

Other Changes

There are also a couple of non-land changes made to increase creature quality in the deck.

2 Syr Faren, Hengehammer are cut for 2 Old-Growth Troll. Syr Faren is a weak card, providing only a 2/2 body that will most likely die when attacking. Because of this, it is cut for the Troll which has a much more impressive body and effect.

The final change made in the budget upgrades is removing 3 Thrashing Brontodon for 2 Gemrazer and 1 Vivien, Monsters’ Advocate. While Thrashing Brontodon is strong Artifact and Enchantment removal, Gemrazer is simply stronger, as it doesn’t require you to sacrifice it to use its Mutate ability. We also add 1 Vivien, Monsters’ Advocate as a powerful flex card that can grind through longer games.

That’s all for the Mono Green Stompy upgrade – at least for the budget version. Now let’s look at a fully upgraded Mono Green Stompy deck.

Mono Green Stompy 2021 Challenger Deck – Full Upgrade

The fully upgraded Mono Green Stompy deck list is based on Maxim ‘Rint’ Salmin’s deck that he played to a 7-2 finish in the Star City Games $5K Strixhaven Championship Qualifier. These are the changes you’d have to make (to the budget version) to have the same deck:

Main Deck

• OUT: 2 Wildborn Preserver IN: 1 Stonecoil Serpent, 1 Questing Beast
• OUT: 2 Old-Growth Troll IN: 2 Questing Beast
• OUT: 2 Yorvo, Lord of Garenbrig IN: 2 Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider
• OUT: 3 Ram Through IN: 3 The Great Henge

Sideboard – OUT

Note: Sideboard changes are optional

• 1 Chainweb Aracnir
• 2 Run Afoul
• 1 Snakeskin Veil
• 2 Return to Nature
• 2 Khalni Ambush
• 1 Thrashing Brontodon
• 3 Oakhame Adversary

Sideboard – IN

• 1 Shadowspear
• 3 Ram Through
• 1 Scavenging Ooze
• 2 Wilt
• 2 Garruk, Unleashed
• 1 Vivien, Monsters’ Advocate
• 2 Kolga, the Titan Ape

Full Upgrade – Explained

Let’s take a look at how Maxim’s changes optimize the deck for competitive play.

Bigger Creatures

Firstly, 2 Wildborn Preserver are replaced with a Stonecoil Serpent and a Questing Beast. Preserver is a strong card and a good mana sink, however we have better ways to use our mana in the optimized version. Because of this, we rather have a Stonecoil Serpent, which is a strong and flexible card, and a Questing Beast, which fits into our stompy game plan.

2 Old-Growth Troll are also replaced for 2 Questing Beast. Despite costing 1 more mana than Old-Growth Troll, Questing Beast has many more advantages, as you can see from its crowded rule box.

The next change is replacing 2 Yorvo, Lord of Garenbrig for 2 Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider. While Yorvo is strong, it will often achieve little over the course of a game due to not having trample. In addition to this, you already have many 3-drops, so it is beneficial to add more top end to your mana curve.

Vorinclex also plays well with all of the cards in your deck that grant creatures +1/+1 counters, and shuts down opponent’s cards with +1/+1 counters and opposing Sagas.

The Great Henge

The final maindeck change is the most crucial one. Three Ram Through are replaced with 3 copies of The Great Henge. This is a staple card for Mono Green Stompy, providing extra mana, life gain and most importantly huge amounts of card advantage over the course of a long game.

The addition of The Great Henge takes Mono Green Stompy to the next level, giving it a late game presence and the ability to grind with most other decks in the Standard format.

We cut 3 Ram Through from the main deck because we already play 3 fight spells in Primal Might, and the extra fight spells can be a bit of an overkill. Ram Through is a dead card when you are not playing against a creature deck.

Sideboard

That’s it for the maindeck changes. As for the sideboard, I’ve included the changes that Maxim ‘Rint’ Salmin put in his sideboard but I would recommend building your own sideboard for the metagame you expect to face. If you want any help with that, let me know the decks you play against the most in the comment section of this article.

Stomping Out

Thanks for reading this article. That’s all you need to know about upgrading Mono Green Stompy on a budget and into its final form.

If you want to try the Mono Green Stompy Challenger Deck, you can buy it on Amazon. You might want to get some sleeves and a deck box. You can find the best MTG sleeves here, and deck boxes here.

Want to read about the other Challenger Decks? Check out our Challenger Deck 2021 Guide.

Happy stomping, and see you next time!