Ode to my por por green deck

Ode to my por por green deck

Alas! My poor green deck! Where art thou?



Modernized and out of standard like a rapacious cow thats where!

Along with the lions tigers and bears! Oh my! Well an ode is usually a song is'nt it ? Ah well.

Anyways if you have been reading this blog. You must be bored . Real bored.


























I mean really bored.
































In fact if you are a mousehunter you must be desperately finding some
way to kill fifteen minutes :p or you are just sounding the horn once
per hour keeping your presence, helpin' ya mates ya?











































Now that we have bored the magic half, let's go back to lions tigers and bears, oh ya? Hell ya!































To my fellow mousehunters let's look forward to the end of October :)




























































Now about the zoo.
















...





























There's really nothing.



























































It's dead. Gone. Poof. Capish?

Well sorta. Mono green lost shitloads of cards.





Like most decks.








It's inevitable, with 4 sets out and one in, unless homelands was the exiting set, a huge loss was inevitable.






But m14 has been kind, and theros was....



Average? In fact theros seems to hint to a different kind of green.









































One with Nylea and one without.

























































...




















































Oki now u either think I suck (which probably is'nt too far) or YOU my friend
are a Nylea fan boy and are licking your chops.























































I am gonna ignore both groups and talk to myself now.







Now, the list, pre-rotation, that I used for mono green was as follows:


MB:

4 Predator Ooze
4 Garruk the Relentless
3 Witchstalker
4 Kalonian Tusker
4 Kalonian Hydra
3 Mana Weft Sliver
4 Predatory Sliver
1 Megantic Sliver
4 Mystic Elf
4 Renegade Krasis
1 Primeval Bounty
1 Vastwood Hydra
4 mutavault
19 Forest


SB:

4 Burning Earth
3 Acidic Slime
2 Windstorm
2 Selesnya Charm
4 Scavenging Ooze



the previous stuff on it is here.


Essentially the deck tries to

1. swarm or
2. go big with the big hitters


The Predator Ooze allows for the swarm strategy. Each attack with
surviving Oozes means you can still swarm next turn.

Without the oozes, the army is frequently destroyed. The indestructibility
is key in maintaining the swarm. It is better than hexproof. Hexproof creatures
will still get killed in combat. Predator Ooze marrys indestructibility with Phat.

Hence with the loss of predator ooze, the swarm strategy is somewhat circumvented

The big hitters are still there so no biggie. *cough*


The other big loss is Garruk the Relentless. Garruk provides what little removal
this deck has. Sure there is pit fight and the like, but those are just spells
forcing combat. Not true removal. Further more Garruk provides a Survival of the
fittest. With Garruk, I have the ability to turn up the pressure, which can be
invaluable. And finally, Garruk aids in the swarm strategy and builds a defensive
fort with his death touch tokens (with the ability to go big with them!).

So Garruk was a pretty big loss.


The final loss is Acidic Slime. This is the veritable alternative removal PLUS
stabiliser. Many a Phatty has been held back by the lowly 2/2 ooze.



What all this means is the deck has lost a substantial core, so more tweaking is
in the works if mono green is to be viable.


I wanted to bring a deck to FNM this week. I did not make it anyways but I brought this:


Le Sad Cow:



MB:

1 Arbor Colossus
2 Garruk Caller of Beasts
2 Reverent Hunter
1 Nylea
1 Bow of Nylea
1 Boon Satyer
3 Witchstalker
4 Kalonian Tusker
4 Kalonian Hydra
3 Mana Weft Sliver
4 Predatory Sliver
1 Megantic Sliver
4 Mystic Elf
4 Renegade Krasis
1 Primeval Bounty
1 Vastwood Hydra
4 mutavault
19 Forest


SB:

4 Burning Earth
3 Bramble
2 Windstorm
2 Selesnya Charm
4 Scavenging Ooze










Obviously I put a lot of thought in it.






*ahem*






Well, obviously I just dumped what ever seviceable card was available
to make a standard legal deck.



It was pretty bad. Le sad cow had really just one stratgy, and that was to
 sit and moo! Moo! MOO!





True story bro.





it just sat there and did nothing.



My only strategy was to sit and wait for an alpha strike.


Any attempt to strike leaves me open to combat tricks and this deck is
really simple =P

That plus I am still in noob mode and failed to remember Spear of Heliod
is an anthem.

I also failed to see that the spear takes 3 to activate (I kept thinking its 4
to activate)

So seriously the deck was bad, but my play was bad too lol


But the mistakes beared out the fact that my only hope was really the alpha strike.


I was only left with the strategy to overwhem (well and swarm, but its not really
a strategy when you can only do it once lol)








It really made me see the importance of the lost cards.




Well thats the bad part.






It also availed the strength (and weaknesses) of the new cards.






Now the call you have all been waiting for.


Nylea sucks.



No, not really =)



Actually all the new cards kinda sucked, but that was my fault. They were in the wrong deck.


This deck really loves counters. and it wants to hit hard, hit fast. A six mana garruk
is the epitome of a sissified beast caller (he must be calling wussies). Garruk is too slow.


He is really good when he is up and running, but until then, he is just sitting in your hand.

He is good, but not for this deck, his home might even be mono green, but not this one, not really.


I still snuck one in though.


So 1 Garruk the Slow Beast Caller.




Reverent Hunter, Nylea, Bow of Nylea. They are all friends and want to be together!!!

but not here.

Not in this deck. The reverent hunter is very fast. If he does'nt get doomed or dentained or burned to a crisp,
you should be winning. Does'nt always turn out that way of course. And he no trample. Big Phat with
no trample will be chump blocked all day long.

Nylea changes that equation tho. In a deck with fast phatties with no trample (which is often!), Nylea
actually does something!! The key to the god cards, is that they must be relevant even when not manifested.

Bow of Nylea would have been cool with the swarm. Sadly the swarm strategy just died with the ooze.

Unless there is another way to swarm, bow is at best a sideboard for aerial offenders.

Arbor Colossus is good. Phat and fast. I likez it. but I already have 4 Kalonian Hydras and they are on a
different level in terms of threat.

Arbor Colossus, brings to the table the ability to deal with Phat flyers. Unfortunately, you will
need to dodge lots of removal, making it only really good against a certain hasty dragon.

If he had trample, he might have been a relevant threat. Without trample he is too slow.


At best a sideboard card in this deck.


Its not that he is bad. Its that this deck wants to be fast and Phat, and there happens to be faster Phat!


And its Pochahuntas!!! well thats what i call Polukranos, World Eater anyways.

From the threat level angle, Polukranos, World Eater comes down a full turn earlier.  4 Polukranos versus 4 Arbor colossus.

Thats a full possible 4 turns more of action. Think about that for a moment.

And we are not talking monstrous yet.


Now that we are done with Colossus, other stuff about Polukranos, World Eater:



It is pretty good removal





...if it survives


It is not as good as the Garruk the relentless, but it can hit bigger things than Garruk.

That kinda makes up for it. Polukranos also sweeps weenies. Something Garruk could not do
(but he can swarm and protect)


The card I was particularly impressed with was Boon Satyer.


It is the new Thragtusk.






Well no, it no gain you life. But consider this:


5 cc
3 stuff you get


Thragtusk, you get 5 life, a 3/3 and a 5/3


Boon Satyr you get +4/+2 or a hasty 4/2 the third is actually the combat trick part.
(yep don't forget to flash in its bestow)

Boon Satyr can situationally be better than Thragtusk and though most times it will be
exactly what Thragtusk was: a value creature.



Now thats not saying it is exactly the same as Thragtusk, in fact they serve different
decks and purposes. (Edit: Come to think of it it will likely not be as popular as Thragtusk
the main reason being it not as splashable)

In the same way, it does not fit this deck of mine.


I toyed with the idea of 4 Boon Satyrs, but seriously it is right up there with
Nylea and friends. How to make a 4 power dude count? Give it trample!!

In this deck of mine, it is a one shot pony with no backup to speak of.




So Polukranos is in and i am leaning towards 3-4, the 1 card may be a Bramblecrush.

I'm not sure yet.

But the speed, and ramp in the deck and the fact that Polly MUST be dealt with IMMEDIATELY
means 4 might be the right number (remember that Polly is legendary so multiples will
sit in your hand)



With that in mind, this is the post rotation build of


Lions Tigers and Bears!! Oh My!


MB:

1 Garruk Caller of Beasts
4 Polukranos, World Eater
2 Sylvan Caratid
4 Witchstalker
4 Kalonian Tusker
4 Kalonian Hydra
3 Mana Weft Sliver
4 Predatory Sliver
1 Megantic Sliver
4 Mystic Elf
4 Renegade Krasis
1 Primeval Bounty
1 Vastwood Hydra
4 mutavault
19 Forest


SB:

4 Burning Earth
3 Bramblecrush
2 Arbor Colossus
2 Selesnya Charm
4 Scavenging Ooze



If it loses alot I reserve the right to call it Le Sad Cow. =D


The deck really loses alot of utility with Garruk Relentless.

Nothing we can do about, so 1 Caller of Beast is to give some late game
draw and hopefully that works out.

The reentry of the fourth Witchstalker (previously the 3 cc
slot of flush with oozes) helps to shore up the offensive gap left by the oozes.

It obviously falls short, but its a good pretender. =P


Polukranos, adds more threat and some removal. It should be noted that it is
slower removal. By a full turn and alot less reliable. But if you cannot eat the
world, that means Polly ate a cracker. I mean removal. So its all good. One for the
team ya ;)


The two caratids are to help support the newly more mana hungry deck.

I removed 4 3cc 4 4cc

Garruk is 6cc and the 4 Polukranos are 4cc,  so overall the mana requirement is a little
higher.



Thats most of what I have got to say about mono green.


Good luck!