A long time ago in a far-away metagame, there was an underplayed deck that relied on an obscenely low number of lands. This deck was amazingly fast and not many decks could keep up with its speed. This deck was called 9-land green, or Stompy, or one of any number of other names. Anyone that has played a very aggressive deck can tell you that the adrenaline rush you get from flooding the board with creatures and quickly disposing of your opponent is a great and wonderful thing.
This 9-land green deck is built specifically for the Peasant format, and is a great deck to play. As with any format, you want to build a deck that will be able to compete with the rest of the current decks… and this deck definitely has what it takes to stand up to its competitors. It is not uncommon to have two creatures in play on the first turn due to the Lotus Petals. It is also not uncommon to play a first-turn Llanowar Elves or Fyndhorn Elves and drop most of the rest of your hand into play on the second turn.
As far as playing the deck goes, it is very straightforward – and it plays very consistently as well. The object of the deck is to play as many creatures as fast as possible to overrun your opponent in a rush attack. There is one downside to playing a deck like this. If you do not win by turn 5 or 6 (that is about the average kill, but turn 4 is also possible), the deck tends to run out of speed. One possibility for dealing with this is to include Skullclamp so that you can draw into more creatures. (And since the modified High Tide decks can routinely kill on turn 4, you definitely want to think about squeezing them in – The Ferrett)
If you notice I have not included the full five uncommons in this deck. The reason for that is so if you want to build this deck there is room for some good sideboard cards. (Or Skullclamp – The Ferrett) Now, you may be saying that I really didn’t include a sideboard with the deck – but I rarely include sideboards because they are so metagame-specific, especially in Peasant Magic, which doesn’t have a firmly established metagame. I will go into some sideboard options – but let me give you the deck list first.
9 Land Green!!!
4 Rogue Elephant
4 Jungle Lion
4 Pouncing Jaguar
4 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Quirion Ranger
1 Harvest Wurm
4 River Boa
2 Albino Troll
4 Rancor
4 Briar Shield
4 Giant Growth
4 Land Grant
4 Lotus Petal
9 Forest
Now let’s discuss some sideboard options for different metagames. A great card for playing against black decks with a lot of removal is Whirling Dervish. His “protection from black” ability works wonders, since the black mage cannot target him (unless he’s playing with Diabolic Edict, of course). If you are facing down a blue control deck that plays a lot of counters, Multani’s Presence is a great card to play so that you can continue to draw into more and more creatures. I would say that Naturalize deserves a spot for most environments because it deals with so many different artifact and enchantment problems.
Another possible sideboard inclusion is a card to deal with opponent’s fliers. Some examples of cards worthy of note are Taproot Kami and Matsu-Tribe Sniper – or, if you are looking for sorcery-type answers to this problem, Wing Snare or Gale Force. There are many different cards that can be helpful in different situations so think over what you think your metagame will be like and plan accordingly with your sideboard.
This deck actually has not been tested in an actual Peasant format event – but only because no one in my area is playing this format. I have, however, tested this deck at great lengths against many semi-serious and serious Vintage opponents with a great deal of success. I piloted a similar version of this deck about six months back to a top four placing at my local Vintage tournament. I have also tested this deck against many Legacy decks to great success as well… so hopefully, you have a good idea what this deck is capable of in any format.
Have fun playing it – and if you have any questions, email me at [email protected] and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible. (Or talk in our forums – The Ferrett)