I fell in love with Slimefoot at the pre-release and I’ve only been further exploring the art of saprolings as time has passed. If you aren't already sold on the Stowaway, let me guide you in the right direction.
The purpose of the deck is to build a moat of saprolings as quickly and massively as possible. Once you do that, any creature that doesn't have some sort of evasion no longer matters to you. You can chump block opponents' big baddies and then sacrifice your little green creatures for value supplied by several instant sacrifice outlets included in the deck with the added benefit of draining every single opponent at the table. You can always let combat damage resolve and chump 9 creatures into your opponent's Pathrazer of Ulamog (which, by the way, is pointless against you because of course you will sacrifice those 3 saprolings). That's it. You build up a bunch of saprolings which provide a ton of value to you when destroyed, swing with a massive amount of 1/1s (hopefully with 1 or 2 global buffs), and/or wipe your own board to eliminate your opponents while also giving yourself a ton of breathing room in terms of life. Your opponents will hate you. You might lose friends. I am speaking from experience.
Saproling Generation
A large portion of this deck is dedicated to cards which generate saprolings. Go figure. There are a lot of cards that do an excellent job of multiplying the board state in the mid to late game, and they're impossible to take out of the deck-list. These include a trio of behemoth enchantments which includes Parallel Lives, Primal Vigor, and Doubling Season which all double the amount of saprolings you would receive in each instance. Another Trio of spells allow you to double all the saprolings that you currently have on the field; Second Harvest, Saproling Symbiosis, and Parallel Evolution, the last of which allows you to do it a second time from the graveyard. Keep in mind, if you have any of those “behemoth enchantments”, that's 4x the amount of saprolings. The next trio of cards (funny how that keeps working out) provide you with a nonstop flow off new saprolings on each upkeep. Yes, that's EACH upkeep so you really must keep UP with these cards; Verdant Embrace, Verdant Force, and Tendershoot Dryad, and the Dryad turns them all into 3/3s because face it, you’re going to have 10 permanents. If you're playing in a pretty standard game with 3 opponents, that's 4 saprolings on each of your turns. There is a fourth upkeep card that can get out of control but will probably draw removal from your opponents (but that's the idea, right?). If you're familiar with any Fungus decks, you're probably familiar with Mycoloth who can devour any number of saprolings (or non-saprolings) and return to you twice that many on each proceeding upkeep (or EIGHT TIMES that amount if you have Doubling Season or Primal Vigor).
The remaining cards designated as "Saproling Generation" are more focused on jump-starting your saproling collection because, like money, it's a lot easier to make saprolings when you have some already. Cards filling this purpose are a little harder to find, and most of them seem over-costed to me, so I will gladly hear any suggestions.
So, what do you do after you get 99 saprolings? You can start to get rid of some.
Sacrifice Outlets
You will probably notice I don't run the standard collection of spore counter fungi that most players build around in saproling decks. For one, I think they're a major pain to keep track of, and two they just work too slowly for my taste. I run four of them and those that I have chosen were selected entirely based on their secondary abilities which each allow an outlet to sacrifice a saproling for additional value. Deathspore Thallid is one of my favorite cards in the deck which can remove a giant indestructible creature in dire circumstances and/or wipe my board if I need extra life or an opponent is in striking distance. Psychotrope Thallid allows us to pay 1 mana to trade a saproling. Utopia Mycon lets us ramp into a huge spell in a pinch while also allowing for a voluntary board wipe. These three come at low cmc as well and are an excellent exchange if they get removed (although you should still be upset). The fourth, and least exciting of the crew I affectionately refer to as the "Spore Boys", is Savage Thallid who was originally tossed out with the rest of the mushrooms but was just recently re-included in the deck-list. His one job is to protect Slimefoot, and he does that exceedingly well. He comes with the added benefit of protecting his spore brethren, facilitating those board wipes I keep talking about, and if nothing else, he represents 5 power.
Your keen eye may have noticed the potential for this deck to combo off. Ashnod's Altar is a standalone ramp all-star if I have some colored sources sitting around that wins the game when paired with any of the 3 “behemoth enchantments”. Before now, we haven't talked about Slimefoot's second ability because it is lackluster in my opinion. It's a decent mana sink if you're holding mana open through your opponent's turns but who wants to pay 4 mana for a 1/1? Okay, but how about 4 mana for two 1/1s? that sounds a little better. But wait, what if I sacrifice those two 1/1s for 4 more mana? It's easy to see where this is going, and Slimefoot’s first ability now essentially reads drain all your enemies to death.
Oh, and uh… This is one of those decks where Skullclamp can do its thing (i.e. pay 1 mana, draw 2 cards).
Vampiric Rites is the reverse Skullclamp that draws 1 card off 2 mana, but it is harder to remove as an enchantment and I will always welcome a card if it draws removal at 1 mana. Viscera Seer (another 1 drop) is one more zero-cost sac-outlet which lets us pick the next card to come out of our library.
“I’m not sure it’s worth sacrificing one of my 1/1 green creature tokens to draw a card, gain life, and damage all of my opponents.” I like the way you think. Here’s how we really pump the value out of our little friends.
Value Town
First and foremost, we have the only three cards that imitate Slimefoot’s first ability. To varying degrees, Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat, and Poison-Tip Archer all drain our opponents faster and win us the game in half the time.
Our fifth trio of the night. Dictate of Erebos makes each of our opponents sacrifice a creature any time one of ours dies or is, in our case, sacrificed. Grave Pact Is a copy for one cheaper and Butcher of Malakir is a stupid expensive copy on a hefty flying body.
With Deathreap Ritual on the board, we can get cards without even doing anything as creatures naturally die out on the battlefield. Where this gets interesting is when we can strategically sacrifice a saproling and draw 4 cards per turn. Where this gets more interesting is when we sacrifice that creature using Viscera Seer and Scry before we draw each of our 4 cards at the cost of 0 mana. I also think it’s important that I remind you at this point that we gained 4 life by doing so and did 4 damage to each opponent. I really like this deck.
Removal
We have several other cards in the deck that double as removal but we’re still going to run some Golgari staples here. Abrupt Decay, Beast Within, Putrefy, Maelstrom Pulse, and the newly printed Windgrace's Judgement. We’re also going to run some board wipers that skew to our favor with in Garruk's Wake and Plague Wind just because there’s a decent chance we’ll have a bunch of mana and we have access to them so why not? Killing Wave can be a 1 drop last resort where we choose to sacrifice all our saprolings (or we can choose a specific number). On your turn, chances are your opponents won’t have a load of mana open and that means we can make calculated plays with this card.
Ramp/Accelerants
In terms of ramp we have some more staples because I’m not very creative and if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Sakura-Tribe Elder and Solemn Simulacrum because if you haven’t noticed yet, it’s good for us when things die. Sol Ring, Golgari Signet, Cultivate, and Kodama's Reach. Growing Rites of Itlimoc helps us navigate our library a little and it almost always hits the battlefield and transforms. After that, our massive amount of saprolings represent a massive amount of mana. Cryptolith Rite does something similar albeit weaker and essentially lets our saproling be forests if they want to.
Other
If you want to go wide with saprolings, Beastmaster Ascension is the way to do it. Say you have 7 1/1s at the start of your turn, put this down for 3 mana and go sideways. You’ll put 7 counters onto this enchantment, and then suddenly before combat damage you’ve got 42 power’s worth of green saproling.
The upkeep cost of Eldrazi Monument is practically negligible if not welcomed in this deck and making it so that only you can manipulate your creatures is vital. That combined with giving all of your already indestructible saprolings flying means you likely won’t ever take combat damage again.
Sporecrown Thallid is a cheap fungus that typically near doubles your combat presence and buffs Slimefoot out of bolt range.
Druidic Satchel ramps land off the top of our deck or gives us an additional saproling if applicable. Worst case scenario we gain two life and our opponents know we might play a second harvest on our turn, but it’s not like we would ever play this ability at a time when they could prepare a reaction.
Gruesome Fate isn’t fancy, but it can end a game on the spot. Swing 15 saprolings (Free), Gruesome Fate for 15 damage (3 mana), Sacrifice 15 saprolings (Free), Win the game. It’s as simple as that.
The land-base for this deck is simple. It follows the instruction of the Tolarian Community College . I do feel I need to mention one land-turned-legendary Demon named Ormendahl. Westvale Abbey is an untapped colorless land, so we have no issue playing it and flipping early will ensure no player besides you gets targeted until you lose.
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