This thread is primarily as a reference and a walkthrough just in case my decklist suddenly gets lost in Æther. This will not be a primer for making green decks though it will attempt to be detailed, just in case I forget what card X does in the future and how the deck actually works. This is officially my third EDH deck (next to Grand Arbiter Augustin IV and Azami, Lady of Scrolls).
Originally, this deck was supposed to be a secondary EDH deck as a "fairer" alternative to my older Azami.dec. While the current placeholder general is Omnath, Locus of Mana, the deck was originally designed around Kodama of the North Tree. I believe that while this may not be an optimal build for all green decks, it is a good starting point for monogreen decks. In any case, feel free to critique, disagree or otherwise comment on the deck, the card choices, the choices of my font, etc.
Note that due to the nongeneral-specific nature of this deck, this deck is playable with almost any other monogreen or green hybrid generals (this will be elaborated below).
This deck adheres only to the official Dragonhighlander.net ban lists though it is theoretically possible to make this deck 1v1 legal given that the only banned card from the 1v1 here is Sundering Titan and we could really use some other bombs in its place.
Who should play this deck?
This deck seems decent enough for the players with little, or no prior background in EDH (but otherwise with some experience with Magic: The Gathering. It is relatively easy to understand as long as you understand most of the mechanics.
Players with a relatively low budget should be able to build and play with this deck too. Most of the cards mentioned here can be purchased with USD4 or less. Any mythic rares listed below can be obtained by participation in prereleases and various other promotional events -- they are otherwise replacable with similar bomby cards.
Players who prefer to smash face to comboing off and players who prefer synergy to combo should also have a go with this deck. Green, after all, has some of the best creatures in Magic.
Why monogreen?
Lets begin with the first point. Why "mono"? I believe that monocoloured decks are inherently cheaper than multicolour decks simply because of the simple mana base. Most of the dual lands are either pricey or comes with some serious limitation which includes -- but not limited to -- coming into play tapped, being "karoo", requiring mana to somehow use it (e.g. the Alara fetches), among others. At the very least, most of these colour fixing lands are nonbasics -- which open themselves to some of the worstlanddestructions available in the format. Mana rocks work fine but somehow, it is my observation that many players start getting addicted to these rocks and lotuses that they start flailing wildly when these are destroyed. Even with the best green and mana rock colour fixing, I find these decks inherently vulnerable to colour screwing despite the best attempts to colour fix. Barring a Contamination or a Naked Singularity type combo, this deck would find itself rarely -- if ever -- colour screwed. Thanks to the nature of the nonbasic played in this deck, this deck is also immune to Wasteland, Shivan Harvest, Back to Basics and Blood Moon among others! That said, playing monocolour does come with some setback of its own. While I would not call this a "setback", it is certainly a trade-off that you lose versatility and options offered by the other colours in return for near absolute stability of the mana and colour base. The lost of versatility will be further discussed in the "General" section
So, why a green deck? Green has the following claim to fame: -
Green holds a near undisputed claim to having the best rampers in the format. Where certain colours are limited to mana rocks, green is able to bring out actual lands into play easily -- which makes it less vulnerable to nonland sweepers. Even when hit with a land sweeper, it can recover and re-ramp quickly enough. With EDH being the format of big mana, having the best rampers in the format helps a lot.
Green has some of the most aggressively costed creature threats in the format. Mana for stats, these creatures are often more efficient and versatile compared to creatures of other colours (barring multicoloured creatures who tend to be more versatile as a "payoff for being multicoloured"). Note that against blue decks, you will need a high threat density to overcome their insane defences.
Next to Blue and arguably on par with Black, Green has some excellent card draw or at least, card advantage engines in the format.
Next to Red -- arguably on par with Red -- Green has some of the best mana disruption abilities. If EDH is the format of big mana, disrupting your opponent's mana is definitely one way of kicking your opponent while you develop your own. Green also has one of the best pseudo-discard spells in the format in Stunted Growth.
Green has arguably the best ability to handle noncreature threats. White can't handle lands with surgical precision (ironically, white has the best land-sweepers in the format), Blue can't handle with resolved spells and lands very well, Black can't handle enchantments very well and has limited options against land-based threats (Befoul and Sinkhole are some good options though) and Red can't handle enchantments very well and relies a lot on burns to handle creatures. Green, on the other hand, has some difficulties in handling creature threats but we shall fix that soon.
Cash-for-power, monogreen decks are relatively cheap to build and for a small investment, you should be able to get anything ranging from a Tier 1.5 deck to a Tier 2 deck with monogreen.
The deck is easy to pilot for EDH newbies. It is decent for bringing new players into EDHland. You only require minimal strategising to use the deck decently though you will obviously need quite a bit of strategy if you want to use the deck optimally.
That said, going monogreen has its disadvantages: -
Green is relatively poor at handling creature threats. Furthermore, Green is not the best at crowd control and can sometimes be overwhelmed by swarms. Therefore, we will need a few creature hate somewhere in the deck. For now, I have opted for a beatdown strategy, attempting to force the opponents into unprofitable blocks. We are less concerned about swarms given that we will try to be the ones outdoing the opponent's swarms, if able.
If Green is poor at handling creatures, it is worse at handling flying creatures. While it has cards like Whirlwind and Plummet which gets rid of flyers easily, we need more versatile tools for our purposes to reduce the chances of having dead cards in hand.
We'll try to manage these disadvantages as we go along
Arbor Elf, Fyndhorn Elves, Llanowar Elves, Joraga Treespeaker - These are some of the most vulnerable rampers in the format; they die to most sweepers in the formats, making them rather unreliable for long-term mana ramping purposes. On the other hand, used wisely and barring any over-extension, these mana dorks can be a huge tempo swing in the early parts of the game. That said, it is best not to be addicted to these rampers.
Special mention should be given to Joraga Treespeaker though. This is probably my second favourite leveller -- behind the turn 2 activeMerfolk Looter, While you are rarely ever going to want to go all the way to Level 5, Joraga Treespeaker is, by itself, good enough at Level 1, as a one drop instead of a three drop Greenweaver Druid (theoretically, it could be a three drop, if needs be).
Fierce Empath - This is almost always a two-for-one when resolved. This leaves us with the tricky question of what to search for. During the early parts of the game, if you have one or less lands in hand, I'd go for Krosan Tusker. If you seem to be flooding with lands, Rampaging Baloth is a good choice. If there is an annoying creature you want to get rid of, search for Duplicant. If you need to recycle a creature in your graveyard, Deadwood Treefolk is good too. If you need to swat down multiple flyers, Cloudthresher can be a good choice. If you feel that you have boatloads of creature in play but few cards in hand, Regal Force is a good choice. Conversely, if you have loads of bombs in hand but you are just short of mana to play all of them for the wow factor, do search for Myojin of Life's Web. On the flip side, if you have access to something to the tune of 20 mana and above, Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is always a fair choice. During the midgame development phase, I usually search for Terastodon though depending on occassions, I may prefer the surgical precision of Woodfall Primus.
Elvish Visionary, Sylvan Ranger - These dorks replaces themselves with either a random draw or a basic land card when played. Nothing too special otherwise.
Eternal Witness - This not just replaces herself when played but helps recycles cards in the yard. Also, the art is just magnificent.
Treefolk Harbinger - This may not replace itself when played but it is a worthy tutor. It goes without saying that if you are short on lands, it helps ensure that your next draw will be a Forest. Besides that, it has quite a toolbox to tutor from. If you're being menanced by some imprudent creature, search for Lignify. If you are being menanced by some noncreature threats, Rootgrapple is generally a good choice as is Wickerbough Elder (if you're specifically looking to destroy artifacts and enchanments). If you are looking to recycle a creature in the yard, search for Deadwood Treefolk. If you just want to draw a random card, Rootgrapple is fine by itself (since you are likely to have Treefolk Harbinger in play anyway to satisfy the "treefolk requirement"). If all you need is a bomb, Woodfall Primus is always there to help you to bash though against a monoblack deck, Chameleon Colossus would probably be a better pick.
Sakura-Tribe Elder, Wood Elves, Yavimaya Dryad - I'd stop short of calling these the "superior rampers" though ramping via these creatures tend to be more stable compared to creature based ramps (barring a Armageddon-class spell). While critics are right to contest their statistical deck-thinning capabilities (especially in EDH), I'd personally argue that these little things do eventually add up in long EDH games. It is noteworthy that in any case, besides the snake ramper, the rest are effectively two-for-ones when they resolve -- as such, feel free to use them as chump blockers thereafter. Also note that most of the time, you'd want to use Yavimaya Dryad to give yourself a forest though I can see deadlock situations where your creatures cannot otherwise deal the final coup de grace thanks to your opponent's wall.
Yavimaya Elder - This card potentially replaces itself when played and almost certainly replaces itself when it snuffs it. All in all, it is a potential 3-for-1, if everything goes as planned. It really shines when you somehow find yourself short of mana. Again, while I realise that the statistical possibilty of this card being an effective deck thinner, in conjunction with the other deck thinners and in long games, this card can potentially make a difference.
Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary - While I frown on most forms of mana dorks, I'll make an exception with Rofellos. It is a threat in its own right and is a "must answer" threat, which threatens either a myriad of threats or a myriad of bombs -- both of which are usually not very healthy for your opponents.
Wall of Blossoms - This replaces itself with a random draw when played. Nothing too special otherwise.
Solemn Simulacrum - This replaces itself (with mana ramp) when played and adds a little bonus draw when it goes to the graveyard from play. Awesome disposable creature.
Budoka Gardener - Of the cycle of rare Champion of Kamigawa flippers, this is one of my favourites (along with Jushi Apprentice and Nezumi Shortfang). Unflipped, the Gardener can act as your spare copy of Oracle of Mul Daya (post-summoning sickness). When flipped, Dokai, Weaver of Life commands a board presence of its own generally spouting out 10/10 or larger Elemental tokens. Even for a format of 40 life, multiple 10/10s can easily end the game.
Oracle of Mul Daya - This is a fair mana ramper with a minor setback of allowing your opponents to plan their next play. Overall though, it can be a source of incredible mana advantage.
Viridian Shaman - You'd generally only play this when there is an opposing artifact in play (which makes this a two-for-one). Given that this deck itself is bereft of many artifacts, it is sometimes possible to play this as a generic 2/2 though this is probably not very exciting. This card is choosen over other artifact hate thanks to it having a CIP effect rather than an activated ability (those could be unreliable).
Acidic Slime - This is practically a Creeping Mold with a body. It is almost always a 2-for-1 (since you can destroy lands too). Deathtouch makes it an excellent blocker though more likely than not, it will deter your opponents from attacking on ground for a while.
Loaming Shaman - Graveyard hate are ever so necessary in the format given the number of decks abusing graveyard recursion. Theoretically, it could be used to recover our own lost creatures back to the library where they can be tutored. This is a less common application of the Shaman though it is something worth keeping in mine in any case.
Masked Admirers - Replaces itself when played. It has decent stats too which makes it versatile enough for early offence and could probably take out somebody's eye even in the later parts of the game. Its built in recursion triggered ability can be a source of repeatable card advantage and / or chump blockers, if needs be.
Duplicant - One of the best spot removals for the deck. Green is notably inferior in handling creatures and Duplicant patches this hole quite neatly.
Genesis - A source of endless creature recursion. Little can be said about this creature besides its near-limitless ability to recur creatures (technically, it can only return one creature a turn though).
Deadwood Treefolk - Tutorable with Treefolk Harbinger, this card is effectively two regrowth effects fused into one. It has a sizeable body too which is very well suited for holding down the fort temporarily. Note that its ability triggers when it comes into play AND when it LEAVES PLAY. This means that it triggers even if it gets bounced by something like Stampeding Wildebeest.
Arashi, the Sky Asunder - While you can play Arashi "normally" (i.e. hard cast it as a 5/5), its Channel allows you to cast a near-uncounterable Squall Line effect (minus the damage to players). It helps that Channel can be played at instant speed too.
Regal Force - One of the best card draw available to monogreen. Generally, you'd want at least one or two mana dorks already on the table when you play this, just so you can draw a boatload of cards. Note that it is possible to draw zero cards from Regal Force if your opponent manages to somehow destroy all available green creature on board in response to its triggered ability. Also note that it counts only Green creatures so your Duplicant probably won't be of much help to Regal Force.
Krosan Tusker - A very versatile creature. It can play a de facto three drop (where it mimics instant speed Divination -- where at least one of the card you "draw" is a land). Later in the game, it can be a decent attacker or blocker with its very meaty stats. Its hefty casting cost is actually a boon if you consider that this allows you to tutor it via Fierce Empath. On an unrelated note that this beast is non-kosher.
Rampaging Baloths - Like Ant Queen, this creature commands a board presence by itself -- and unlike the Ant Queen's miniature (but most likely numerous) minions, Rampaging Baloth seems satisfied with fewer but meatier minions. Notwithstanding that, it is also a nice 6/6 trampler.
Woodfall Primus - This is tutorable via Treefolk Harbinger. It is incredibly versatile and is almost certain to provide insane card advantage when played (potentially a 3-for-1). This card is practically two Acidic Slime melded into one or two Creeping Mold melded -- except that it goes for any noncreature permanents which includes Planeswalkers. It has decent stats too and Trample makes it a very viable offensive war machine. Persist is relevant too -- both to recur its insane CIP ability and to ensure its survival post wrath-effects / post combat trades.
Cloudthresher - Green has scarce methods of dealing with flying threats and Cloudthresher seems to be the best choice for these chore simply because it is not just good against flyers. It is aggressively costed for a 7/7 badass. Evoke is relevant -- this is probably self-explanatory but it is worth mentioning that you can evoke it and with its sacrifice trigger on the stack, you may do something like sacrifice it to Greater Good. Flash is relevant too, giving your opponents' offence a nasty surprise. Obviously, its CIP mini-Hurricane can be relevant against flying token swarms. A 2GGGG casting cost is aggressive for a 7/7 but thankfully sufficiently small enough to be tutored by Fierce Empath. Finally, as the piece-de-resistance, its 7/7 hulk allows it to take down even Akroma-class flyers like a champ -- if you ignore the Sphinx of the Steel Wind... and ignore the fact that it may not survive taking down the Red Akroma but take it down it will.
Panglacial Wurm - Like the Spanish Inquisition, nobody ever sees its coming. As long as it is in your library (which is very likely considering the 99 card-library you'll be playing with), Panglacial Wurm is practically your 9th card in hand (with your General being the "8th card" in hand). With a 9/5 stats, it can be relevant for dealing your final damage or at least likely to trade with almost any blockers being thrown in your way (unless it is something like Baneslayer Angel class). Trample also means that even if it gets chumped, it is probably still going to deal some pain before it snuffs it.
Myojin of Life's Web - At this point of the curve, we are looking at what I'd call "Ultimatum class spells" -- i.e. spells that greatly changes the game dynamics when played. The deck's de facto Brilliant Ultimatum (okay, its effect is similar to a one-sided Eureka but you get what I mean), this spell has allows you to get all your creatures out at instant speed. It is also immortal (i.e. indestructible) pre-Eureka mode and as an 8/8, it can take quite a chunk off your opponent's life totals. It is also a deterrent against any planned alpha strike on you (given that it threatens a nasty "ambush", depending on what is in your hand).
Sundering Titan - This card is especially devastating against decks with multiple colours -- multiple colour decks being common in the format, this card is worth the 8 mana it costs.
Terastodon - This is the deck's de facto Violent Ultimatum. Against a mana light opponent, blasting off three of their lands are probably worth giving them three baby elephants. Against some relevant noncreature threats, it is probably worth giving them a baby elephant in exchange for snuffing off, say, Jace, the Mind Sculptor.
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn - The deck's de facto Cruel Ultimatum, if only for the insane card advantage it nets when it connects. This monster is practically made for EDH. It has an outrageous "when cast" ability which makes it almost certain that it will probably be smashing faces the next turn. Evasion is a nice bonus and its nifty protection means that it is probably immune to most removals. Sweepers should be able to deal with Emmy but its "when cast" ability makes it all but certain that it will probably get a go at the opponent before any sweepers will be able to touch Emmy. Speaking of attacks, its nice Annihilator 6 is relevant too practically giving you at least a 6-for-1 every time it attacks -- this is excluding the poor blocker that will probably snuff it when it chumps Emmy. Its 15/15 stats is very relevant too -- it probably means that it is going to either deal 15 solid damage to your opponent or kill almost any chumpers that is sent against this flying Eldrazi. Its shuffle effect can be a double edged sword in this deck. On the one hand, it can shuffle some of your reanimation targets. On the other hand, this deck does not overly rely on reanimation -- compared to tutors -- so this setback is somewhat mitigated.
Masticore - Our machine gun for the deck. With our limited ability to deal with creatures, this guy helps a lot with the sniping and all.
Steel Hellkite - One of the more stellar contribution of Scars of Mirrodin in addition to Genesis Wave. It can totally wreck decks that overly rely on mana rocks with its sweeper effect
NONCREATURE SECTION
Just a note, unlike creatures, most of the following cannot be tutored so it may be best not to plan around these cards. Basically, the philosophy here is for them to be good if drawn but the deck to be otherwise functional even if it is not drawn. A balance should therefore be achieved between including these cards and having the rest of the deck "built around them". The keyword here is in planning "synergies" rather than "combos" as we do not want to be too disappointed when we fail to combo. As such, do not over-rely on these cards no matter how good they are.
PLANESWALKER
Garruk Wildspeaker - All three abilities are relevant here. Untapping land is relevant (even if it is only for mana ramping purposes). Spouting out a 3/3 beast is relevant too (more about this later). Overrun is similarly devastating and could potentially give you an "I win" button when you least expect it.
ENCHANTMENTS
Lignify - This is tutorable via Treefolk Harbinger. It does everything you can hope for. It shuts down annoying creature abilities, it freezes opposing attackers and to top it all, it disables opposing generals like a champ. A minor note but since it is a treefolk, with it in play, you get to draw a card when you play Rootgrapple.
Sylvan Library - This is an enchantment, making it harder to hit than most other card advantage engine. It is practically a free Sensei's Divining Top every turn and its potential to give you some card advantage (for a small price of 4 life) is quite worth it.
Greater Good - This is not so much a card advantage engine -- it can be one though -- than it is a card quality machine. With a minimum contribution of a 3/X creature, you should be able to net some good card quality. Just as importantly, it is a sacrifice outlet in case any blue mages threatens theft.
ARTIFACTS
Skullclamp - With the amount of mana dorks and other dorks I am running, this is very useful for cycling those dorks with benefits.
INSTANTS
Worldly Tutor - This is the standard tutor for the deck. Originally, I am not really a fan of the Mirage Tutors given the inherent card disadvantage it leads to, especially on decks who cannot somehow recoup this loss of card advantage. On the other hand, I believe that this deck can randomly generate enough card advantage to trade just a little card advantage for card quality.
Momentous Fall - Instant speed Harmonize. Its "setback" ironically punishes light-fingered blue mages who have their eyes on your blubber. While the card draw is the most relevant of the two "payoffs", the life gain is a nice bonus, especially if you've been hitting Sylvan Library too much.
Chord of Calling - This card is excellent. It is probably one of the best tutor this deck can offer and more. It searches for just about any creature in your deck and put them directly into play at instant speed. Convoke is an excellent bonus -- as a note, as long as you have three green creatures, you should be able to convoke stuff even with any Contamination combo.
Rootgrapple - This is tutorable via Treefolk Harbinger (hurrah to Tribal!) and it is a generic instant-speed removal against noncreature threats.
SORCERIES
Cultivate - This is the monogreen's version of Divination. Sure you will "draw" one land and "draw and play" one land tapped but this effectively ramps your mana base and if anything, it all but ensures that you will either meet your land drop this turn or the next turn.
Harmonize - Colourshifted reprint of Concentrate. Green gets significantly less card draw than blue and this one is definitely helpful.
Mwonvuli Acid-Moss - Ice Storm meets Rampant Growth (making this a 2-for-1). This card is just amazing. It simultaneously set your opponent back and advances your board development.
Plow Under - This usually sets your opponent back by no less than two turns -- also note that it is a 2-for-1. Getting rid of two lands is just one thing. Forcing them to draw the exact same land that they lost is adding insult to the injury. Used early in the game, it may totally destroy the opponent's tempo such that they can no longer recover. As a rule of thumb, your best target is usually a karoo land or any other land that somehow requires a cost (good examples would be Lotus Vale, Rupture Spire, etc.). Your next best targets would usually be comes into play tapped lands. Notwithstanding that, if it is possible to colour screw your opponent with Plow Under, you could consider doing it (though this is difficult since the owner of the lands (i.e. usually not you) would decide the order.
Primal Command - This is our second Swiss Army Knife; unlike our mini Swiss Army knife (Evolution Charm), this one allows us to use two appendages at once. Gaining life is not the most relevant mode though in Sylvan Library terms, that is worth 1.75 cards. Delaying an opponent's noncreature is a nifty utility which is at worst, half of a Plow Under. Shuffling graveyards could either help you recycle your graveyard or it could be a de facto graveyard hate against your opponent. Tutoring for a creature is definitely relevant for obvious reasons. Generally, the modes that generate the most card advantage should be the delay mode and the tutor mode at once -- you can even search for Eternal Witness if you want to do it again the next turn! On the other hand, sometimes, you may want to use delay in conjunction with shuffling your opponent's yard to make sure that threat hopefully disappears for more than a turn. On the other hand, shuffle and tutor helps too (i.e. you shuffle your graveyard back) so that you can find a crucial creature which got stuck in the graveyard.
Reap and Sow - This card is deceptively versatile. Obviously, it can be played as a 3G land-destruction spell (you may not want to bother too much with the 3G mana ramp mode) or to play it entwined for six mana for either a 4GG mana Mwonvuli Acid-Moss (where your Forest comes into play untapped) or play it as a 4GG mana double land-d spell by tutoring for Strip Mine!
Skyshroud Claim - This is probably self-explanatory. It allows you to jump from 4 mana to 6 mana (or 7 mana if you play a land) the next turn and mana acceleration is usually key in EDH.
Time of Need - Searches for quite a bit, really. Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary is the top target but Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is a close favourite. Arashi, the Sky Asunder and Myojin of Life's Web can be a good choice sometimes too.
Genesis Wave - Omnath's best friend. This can go to insane amounts in late game. With this deck, even at lower levels, with about 72 noninstants and nonsorceries, you are generally expected to get a substantial amount of permanents from the wave.
Stunted Growth - Pseudo-monogreen discard. This is probably one of the best hand disruption available to monogreen. While it is not always as backbreaking as Plow Under, forcing three familiar draws is often times almost as bad if not worse.
LANDS
Strip Mine - This deck already has a good assortment of land-destruction spells available. The only reason why this is included is for its potential to create a "back-up" copy of Plow Under via Reap and Sow (i.e. Entwine it and destroy one of the opponent's land while searching for Strip Mine and destroying another land in the process).
Forest - The basic building block of the deck. Taps for G, comes into play untappe, is a basic land and is a viable target for all our searches. We don't really need that many nonbasic lands and we can't abuse them adequately anyway.
GENERAL
In my testing, Omnath, Locus of Mana tests as the best general for the deck. While this deck doesn't exactly support Omnath with the inclusion of general backup utilities, I feel that this makes the deck stronger given that it does not absolutely rely on Omnath for the victory though Omnath will obviously boost the deck's victory chances against certain matchups.
Omnath has deceptive amount of abilities in this deck. Its abilities are as follow: -
One-sided Upwelling can be quite broken especially with the number of good green bombs which we have. Note that Omnath's Upwelling is unique in two ways. First, it is one-sided (i.e. only you get to float mana for almost indefinitely). Secondly, you can only float G indefinitely. This minor detail is included to ensure that nobody starts floating Strip Mine mana indefinitely.
Omnath's +1/+1 ability is simply ridiculous to the point of near brokeness. Firstly, +1/+1 ensures that it can quickly grow huge enough to be quite a beatstick (a beatstick that deals general damage, at that). Secondly, +1/+1 is an inherent protection ability which shields it against certain burn effects and "-X/-Y" effects. Thirdly, this ability gives you a huge creature. Why is this relevant? Momentous Fall and Greater Good are some of the good reasons for this.
Omnath is the general for this deck. This makes it a greater threat to your opponent. An early unhandled Omnath can spell your opponent's doom pretty quickly.
Also note that Omnath comes into play as a (1+X)/(1+X) creature where X = the number of green mana already in your mana pool. Therefore, in the theoretical circumstances where you manage to play Omnath from your hand, it is entirely possible that you can Wild Pair for almost any creatures in the deck so long as their total power and toughness are even numbers (this includes bombs like Emrakul, the Aeons Torn!)
Possibility for Other Generals
My favoured general for this deck remains as Azusa, Lost but Seeking even while I use Omnath. The main reason why Azusa is chosen? No, seriously. Azusa happens to be one of my favourite anime characters and having an "Azusa" as my general seems too cool an opportunity to pass up. Also, having Azusa as my general would all but ensure that both of my EDH decks will have a Kamigawa lady as its general. Finally, for more practical reasons, in the instances where our starting hand is filled with two much lands, Azusa can play a rather effective mana ramper at that. As a extra piece of info, apparently the word "Azusa" ("梓") itself means "catalpa", some sort of viny flowering plant. Obviously, in a real Azusa deck, you will want to have a lot more lands in the deck though and in a real Azusa deck, you may want to have more ways of putting lands into your hand (Journey of Discovery type spells are useful here) such that Azusa can play them for you. You may also want Crucible of Worlds and Life From the Loam to combo nicely with Strip Mine (though it is noteworthy that the use of the Crucibles is frowned upon in my playgroup). As such, you will probably not want to use this as a starting point for building an Azusa deck though as mentioned earlier, this is a good starting point for most monogreen decks.
So, what other generals this deck would play well with?
To begin with Kodama of the North Tree was this deck's first general. The strategy for that first draft was simple: Kick the opponent down with the land-destruction and disruption and finish them off with trampling general damage. That strategy worked surprisingly well as my opponents found it difficult to remove a shrouded 6/4 trampler; I wouldn't be surprised if I go back to the North Tree anytime soon.
My second general was Wort, the Raidmother as I started experimenting with the duplication of powerful sorceries, including Plow Under. This worked quite well as a conspired Plow Under usually crippled an opponent and a conspired Tooth and Nail all but ends the game. My tryst with Wort also opened up a world of hybrid cards. I'll just mention some of the relevant ones here.
Wort, the Raidmother - As the general, this one plays well with the many relevant instants and sorceries available to monogreen. Note that Conspire is both a Static and Triggered ability which means that you pay for the Conspire cost as you cast the spell.
Deus of Calamity - 5 mana for a 6/6 is as aggressively costed as it gets (for our mana base, the setback is virtually zero unless the Strip Mine somehow features as our 5th land. Trampling is deceptively relevant and its triggered ability is ridiculous, forcing opponents to chump or risk the land-d treatment.
Impromptu Raid - Given the higher density of instants and sorceries at that time, this card missed more often than not. Even when it "hit", the effect was never really spectacular enough.
Vexing Shusher - This was probably one of the best reason to play the Raidmother. While we have Gaea's Herald in monogreen, this one stops almost all spells from being countered -- it can't be countered either. In a meta with high density of blue mages -- and you don't want to resort to a CIPT Boseiju, who shelters all you might want to give this a try.
Fossil Find: This card was randomly good though I'd complain that it was way too random for my liking.
I didn't actually try Sapling of Colfenor as a general but I could see several relevant cards coming out from having a black hybrid.
Sapling of Colfenor - As a general, this is decent though not as aggressively costed as I'd like it to be. It can be a source of card advantage if you're lucky though if the creature density is too low, it might just reveal you a card for no reason. On the other hand, nobody is actually forcing you to attack. Indestructibility is a nice bonus.
Creakwood Liege - Not the most relevant card given its inherent fraility. The army of worms is nothing to shout about though it can be relevant in conjunction with Worm Harvest.
Deity of Scars - This one is probably worth shouting about. Trample is relevant and the regeneration is fair. With careful timing of the stack, you can use it in conjunction with Wild Pair to search for Power and Toughness values of 10, 12 and 14.
Drain the Well - We have better land-destruction spells available but this is something worth keeping in mind.
Gleancrawler - Decent card and could make friends with the likes of Sakura Tribe Elder or Greater Good.
Worm Harvest - This card turns extraneous lands into juicy and squiggly worms. Whether 2(B/G)(B/G)(B/G) is worth it for those worm is another question altogether.
I haven't tested the deck with Rhys the Redeemed either. That said, the arsenal of Green-White Hybrids isn't all that impressive (unfortunately, Kitchen Finks isn't the most relevant card in EDH). On the other hand, if the deck is geared towards a tokens strategy, this might be the better choice regardless.
Rhys the Redeemed - Great for token strategies. This deck would probably change significantly to include Rhys.
Privileged Position - Nice troll shroud effect for most of your permanents though this is sometimes unnecessary.
There is no Green-Blue hybrid legends (yet) and unless you're planning to build a monogreen deck with a nonhybrid-green-blue general, this combination is beyond the scope of discussion -- though we could have used Overbeing of Myth, Wistful Selkie and perhaps Spitting Image to great effect here.
Note that as mentioned earlier, the limitation of being monogreen becomes obvious when hybrid generals are considered. Having the Raidmother as the general, the tradeoff became obvious when I was unable to abuse powerful red instants and sorceries for my inscrutable use. This is certainly something to consider though in my opinion, I felt that this trade-off is really quite worth it as we have sufficient good cards in green to begin with.
I am sure that there are a few green generals that I have yet to consider (Kamahl, Fist of Krosa seem to be one of them) but feel free to mix and match.
This card gives you a lot of card quality. Rampaging Baloth can be a constant source of card advantage and quality as can Garruk Wildspeaker, though this one is slightly less stable.
Paths not taken
In building this deck, I have stayed off a few possible paths. This will list some of the alternate ways the deck could have developed but didn't.
Their exclusion does not imply that their strategy are inferior or indeed superior. Each of these paths could have been perfectly valid given particular circumstances.
With Azusa, Lost but Seeking as a general, one possible path would have been the 40-land Azusa path where the deck would abuse Azusa's abilities with cards like Crucible of Worlds or Life from the Loam to recur either Strip Mine, Wasteland or any of the land-destroying lands. This strategy is obviously solid against opponents who are either mana screwed or colour screwed. This will often be supported by a good smattering of land-destruction which could make life very difficult for the opponent. The one challenge for the deck, however, is in tutoring for the Azusa-lock pieces -- given Green's inherent difficulties in snagging artifacts and sorceries though as mentioned earlier, tuned-Azusa decks tend to have quite a bit of backup. I have made the decision not to use this strategy as the repeated land-destruction of the CoW combo does reek a little of poor sportsmanship (or at least it does, in my playgroup).
Some Omnath variants attempt to win via general damage, mainly by putting in more support cards for Omnath. This is a viable strategy and to be honest, it certainly does the deck no harm to have a Lightning Greaves here and there. However, relying on the general can be costly in a meta of Condemns and / or Hinder. One of the main reason why I didn't go down this path, though, is that a general-centric would not have satisfied my Timmy desires for having huge and bullky creatures.
Taking a page from the Momir Vig handbook, the Aluren combo is a neat way of going down a more combo-rific path for the deck. With a relatively high density of 2-3 mana creature, an Aluren + Cloudstone Curio could lead to some pretty funky combos, mostly with Elvish Visionary drawing a large number of cards, Wood Elves putting all your forests into play, Viridian Shaman destroying almost all artifacts in play. Again, the fact that none of the combo pieces can reliably be tutored bothers me enough not to run the combo.
Cards not played and their rationale
Despite the forced 100 card deck limit in EDH (no more, no less), there are times where good cards are unfortunately dismissed in favour of better cards. Some of the cuts could be very painful -- it could be painful to part with a foily card which you acquired just for the deck but in favour of a more enjoyable competitive games, some of the cards are unfortunately culled. Note that in a 99 card library, you really don't want to waste any of those 99 slots with subpar cards.
Rather than discussing what cards I am not running, I shall discuss the general criteria of cards that I run. Cards included in my deck generally fulfill one or more of the following criteria. The following criterias are more strictly applicable to cards with casting cost of four and above -- I am more lenient to cards with casting cost 3 and below given that it is usually unrealistic to expect low casting cost cards to achieve wonders. I tend to be slightly liberal with some of my definitions, if only to defend my card choices though do feel free to disagree If a card does not appear on this list yet it fits on the criteria of inclusion, do tell me
Utility
There exist some designated slots in the deck which are allocated to certain toolbox utility cards. I am quite demanding with the utility card slots. Generally, due to the nature of their inclusion, at the very least, I'd demand that those utility cards should most preferably be tutorable. As such, this slot is generally reserved to creatures as Green is best at tutoring creatures and lands over other permanent types. Cards included under this category includes Loaming Shaman, Duplicant (creature removal), Wickerbough Elder (artifact and enchantment removal) though Rootgrapple (general noncreature removal) can also fall under this category thanks to its slight tutorability.
Versatility
Some cards are included for its sheer versatility -- i.e. it can do many different things depending on the circumstances. Primal Command and Evolution Charm are among the prime examples of this category though some mechanics indirectly provides versatility including Entwine. It is debatable but along with those cards, I'd also personally consider cards like Rootgrapple and Creeping Mold to be "versatile" given that it can deal with multiple forms of threats.
Capacity to generate card advantage
This is an important criteria. In EDH, wars of attrition are common and the player with the highest card advantage tends to have the upper hand throughout the game. As such, many cards are included here for their ability to generate some sort of card advantage. This can take several form: -
Card Draw - This is the most obvious form of card advantage and this is what most players think of when they speak of card advantage. However, card advantage can take many other forms, as we shall see later. Examples of cards in this category include Harmonize and Regal Force, among others though technically, cards like Cultivate do "draw" you a land while getting you another land in play and cards like Yavimaya Elder technicaly "draws" you two lands when it hits the yard). This category also includes cantrip spells of any type for example, Elvish Visionary and Rootgrapple (sometimes).
Creatures with CIP abilities - Most creatures in this categories are considered to generate card advantage simply because they achieve something (be it drawing a card, fetching a land, getting rid of something or even achieving some spell-like effects (e.g. Squall, Regrowth, among others) whilst leaving behind a "shell" after it is done. Cards in this category include Masked Admirers, Wood Elves and Acidic Slime
Cards that could produce multiple creatures - Some cards have the ability to generate creature tokens and as such, is said to give some form of card advantage. For example, Rampaging Baloth produces a 4/4 creature (in addition to having a 6/6 body itself) and has the potential to continually do so, hence -- short of a sweeper -- it usually requires more than one card to handle. Cards in this category include Ant Queen and Garruk Wildspeaker. For the purposes of this category, Wild Pair could be considered to achieve this since it potentially gives you two creatures for every creature played.
Potential for recursion - Some creatures generate card advantage simply because of their inherent potential to provide recursion. This could be achieved through several ways, either via its stated ability (e.g. Genesis and Masked Admirers) or via certain mechanics (e.g. Woodfall Primus).
Cards that severely destroys an opponent's card advantage - Some cards achieve card advantage by expending less cards to destroy an opponent's board position, hence giving you the card advantage given that your opponent's loss is usually your relative gain. Cards in this category include Plow Under
Cards that both develop your board position aggressively - Some cards generate card advantage by developing your board with more cards that you utilise. Cards in this category include Kodama's Reach and Tooth and Nail.
Cards that simultaneously advances your board position and destroys your opponent's - Some cards are able to both generate card advantage by disrupting your opponent and at the same time develops your board position with cards practically without expending cards. Cards in this category includes Reap and Sow and Mwonvuli Acid-Moss.
Cards that are playable outside the hand - This category is created to accomodate Panglacial Wurm's unique ability to be played from the library (in addition to any other ways).
Virtual Card Advantage - This will just be mentioned in passing but the deck's nearly-all basic mana base and lack of indispensable artifacts renders your opponent's Back to Basics and Shivan Harvest and Shatterstorm, among others
Matchups
This lists some of the more popular archetypes that I have tested against though this list is by no means exclusive and are by no means the only ways of facing those particular decks. It is ironic but note that sometimes, against less optimal decks, it may indeed be optimal to play less optimally (i.e. less aggressively / more aggressively) depending on the situation.
Mono-Coloured decks
Two Coloured decks
Three to Five Coloured decks
This is generally the easier matchups given that our land-d suite will make short work of their already fragile mana base. Against nongreen decks of these type, you will generally be able to cripple your opponent well enough with an early land-d attack with little chance for your opponent to recover -- at least not before you send in your tanks and heavy artilleries. The following lists some of the notable matchups.
Uril, the Miststalker
While this is technically a three colour deck, many Uril decks have decent mana ramps and colour fixes of their own which can somewhat alleviate some effects of our land-d -- this is especially true with some of the more optimal Uril decks which has at least Ravnica Shocklands instead of the Ravnica Karoos. Also, an Uril onboard is pretty much bad news for us and rather difficult for us to handle -- this does not discount the fact that Uril + Rancor or Runes of the Deus can spell an early death on our part. Also, beware of an incoming Armageddon which Uril may cast once it has stabilised sufficiently.
That said, land-d on the opponent could buy you a few crucial turns before you come up with a game plan of your own. In general, important creatures you will want to look out for are Acidic Slime (to threaten chumpblocks) and Wickerbough Elder (to snipe off crucial auras) while you bring out heavy machineries of your own. Don't rely too much on token generators as a source of chumpblocks given that Uril can gain trample pretty fast, most of the time. Also, you may want to buff your defences a little given that Uril tends to pack a small suite of spot removals just for situations like this. In general, against an optimised Uril deck, you may want a Sundering Titan as a recommended bomb though against a less optimised one, more often than not, a Woodfall Primus may suffice.
Numot, the Devastator
Land-d meets land-d. In general, your land-d suite will work wonders here since you will tend to have the better land-d here and you are likely to recover from their land-d attempts. Artifact hates (such as Viridian Shaman) actually doubles as mana disruption here too given that Numot will try to ramp and colour fix with mana stones.
Should you fail an early land-d attempt, you might want to watch out though. Numot has access to some of the most powerful sweepers in the format -- Hallowed Burial, et. al. so do not overextend unless absolutely necessary. These sweepers often extend to land-sweepers so avoid cracking your Tribe-Elders if it is unnecessary -- it may even be prudent to hold one or two lands in hand, just in case. Also, beware of Numot's "I win" combos. URW has access to some of the most degenerate combos in the format (Pestermite-Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Reveillark, among others) so depending on the combos used, you might want to develop some silver bullets for them (it will be hillarious if you can respond to your opponent's Pestermite combo with a well-timed Cloudthresher). You will face considerably less countermagic due to their less healthy mana base though you might want to be slightly cautious with your spell slingings either way.
Sharuum, the Hegemon
Again, Viridian Shaman and Land-d is your friend here. Your opponent will likely attempt lots of reanimation here so you may want to keep an eye out for Loaming Shaman and Primal Command here. Expect a higher density of countermagic (generally about 10-15 in the deck) so keep an eye on that -- usually, our high threat density would help a lot here. Again, as with Numot, beware of "I win" combos -- there should be tonnes of them in here.
you should add an Oran Rief. It can reset the persists -1/-1 token on woodfall primus, giving you recurrable rootgrapple effects. combine the two with greater good and you really got something. the potential upside from playing such a card (not to mention it combined with your token producers) far outweighs the drawback of adding a nonbasic to your list. If they want to expend their wasteland on your Oran Rief, you've just set them back one mana. Blood Moon still wouldn't hinder you. again, the upside of playing it is huge.
having all forests makes your mana base great. i apologize if you explain this somewhere in your post, bu i see strip mine, yet there is no wasteland, tectonic edge, or dust bowl. These cards are superior IMHO to things like thermokarst and winter's grasp. These non-basics help you screw your opponent's nonbasics.
memory jar is a full hand of gas after you've ramped out and expended your resources. it's the card that will shotgun you back into action and put you out of reach.
I see plow under in your list, but no stunted growth. In a 1v1 scenario, stunted growth is just an absolute monster. Should really be in there.
There has been quite a few changes to the deck. I admit that I got a little lazy upgrading the deck without updating it here. To my defence, most of the cards I am getting are still in the mail and I would really rather have them before I start adjusting the deck.
you should add an Oran Rief. It can reset the persists -1/-1 token on woodfall primus, giving you recurrable rootgrapple effects. combine the two with greater good and you really got something. the potential upside from playing such a card (not to mention it combined with your token producers) far outweighs the drawback of adding a nonbasic to your list. If they want to expend their wasteland on your Oran Rief, you've just set them back one mana. Blood Moon still wouldn't hinder you. again, the upside of playing it is huge.
That said, Oran-Rief, the Vastwood is a great land but not very necessary. It works well with Woodfall Primus but that really is about it. It doesn't do much with the other creatures in the deck otherwise. The only token producer in the deck is Ant Queen and even then, it does not really seem good enough reason to include the Vastwood.
having all forests makes your mana base great. i apologize if you explain this somewhere in your post, bu i see strip mine, yet there is no wasteland, tectonic edge, or dust bowl. These cards are superior IMHO to things like thermokarst and winter's grasp. These non-basics help you screw your opponent's nonbasics.
It does seem like a great idea. I am in the process of adding some land-d nonbasics in this deck but Wasteland may seem out of the reach for the moment; I just spent a bomb on some staples for my other EDH deck and this may have to wait for a bit before I get to Wasteland. That said, I will probably get another Wasteland for this deck sometime Besides, this is my "casual" EDH deck which is supposed to be easier in a more relaxed playgroup and as such, does not need any of the more expensive staples... yet My decklist is supposed to be one of the more budget decklists that will be floating around here -- just to prove a point that you can have a great monogreen deck without throwing too much cash into it.
That said, your suggestions help and when the time comes, I will certainly throw gobs of money into it
memory jar is a full hand of gas after you've ramped out and expended your resources. it's the card that will shotgun you back into action and put you out of reach.
Good point. I will look for it and tinker with it.
I see plow under in your list, but no stunted growth. In a 1v1 scenario, stunted growth is just an absolute monster. Should really be in there.
It is already in there... in my real life deck I will be reupdating the OP once my cards arrive in the mail.
All I can state about my RL deck is: -
Genesis Wave is stupidly good in this deck. Genesis Wave for 23 (23GGG) is probably the ultimate Timmy play -- followed up with a Eternal Witness, that is just... wrong
Skullclamp really should have been in the first draft of the deck. With Ant Queen, it is basically an unlimited amount of green Divination / Counsel of the Soratami for 2G. It gets better with some of those redundant mana dorks in late game
As mentioned earlier, Stunted Growth has really paid off in investments in a ridiculous number of otherwise unwinnable games.
There are a few other modifications to the deck but I will release them all in one go when I receive my cards in the mail (should be any day next week). What I can say is that even at a relatively low budget, this deck could almost easily handle the more pricier EDH decks running around.
My cards finally arrived in the mail a few days ago... after about a month of wait. Tsktsks....
Anyway, thanks to the arrival of these "reinforcements", I think it is fair for me to update my deck. I have tested most of these cards and can reasonably justify these changes (see below).
Prior to the arrival of my new cards, the following changes were made: -
IN: - Skyshroud Claim - This is probably self-explanatory. It allows you to jump from 4 mana to 6 mana (or 7 mana if you play a land) the next turn and mana acceleration is usually key in EDH.
Time of Need - Searches for quite a bit, really. Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary is the top target but Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is a close favourite. Arashi, the Sky Asunder and Myojin of Life's Web can be a good choice sometimes too.
Genesis Wave - Omnath's best friend. This can go to insane amounts in late game. With this deck, even at lower levels, with about 72 noninstants and nonsorceries, you are generally expected to get a substantial amount of permanents from the wave.
Stunted Growth - Pseudo-monogreen discard. This is probably one of the best hand disruption available to monogreen. While it is not always as backbreaking as Plow Under, forcing three familiar draws is often times almost as bad if not worse.
Skullclamp - With the amount of mana dorks and other dorks I am running, this is very useful for cycling those dorks with benefits.
Bind - Excellent surprise that almost always manages to snag something. Even snagging a fetchland can be a delicious experience.
Masticore - Our machine gun for the deck. With our limited ability to deal with creatures, this guy helps a lot with the sniping and all.
Steel Hellkite - One of the more stellar contribution of Scars of Mirrodin in addition to Genesis Wave. It can totally wreck decks that overly rely on mana rocks with its
OUT: - Squall Line - This has been a great card. Unfortunately, it tends to be useless at the beginning of the game, unnecessary when I am winning, usually unnecessary when I am neither winning nor losing (since it can't be tutored whereas Arashi and Cloudthresher could be). If this deck was for multiplayer, this probably deserves a spot though.
Thermokarst, Winter's Grasp, Creeping Mold - I am moving away from a land-destruction strategy to a more aggro-ish beatdown strategy. They are poor late game topdecks and often, as the ancient adage states, if the opponent somehow wriggles out of the mana screw, it is as if the mana screw never happened. That said, the more efficient land-destruction strategies (i.e. the tempo ones such as Mwonvuli Acid-Moss, Rootgrapple, Reap and Sow, etc.) will remain in the deck as an auxilliary strategy.
Wild Pair - This is a fun little enchantment though it can get annoying when we somehow run out of Wild Pair couples.
Evolution Charm - Charming spell and this was a reluctant cut. I have fond memories with this spell, be it spiriting out a Panglacial Wurm at 9 mana, surprising an opponent with a flying Omnath, recurring a key creature spell. Ultimately, this was cut as a meta-call for Bind given how rampant activated abilities are in my meta.
Ant Queen - Another surprise cut. This would have synergised very well with Skullclamp as 2G Divination. On the other hand, it is not pulling its weight at the "threat slot". More often than not, I am torn between expanding gobs of mana on Omnath to expending gobs of mana on Ant Queen. I feel that Masticore would be better able to fulfil this role.
Chameleon Colossus - This hasn't been too outstanding for the deck. Personally, I doubt that we really need it against black decks and as a threat, it is not too great in retrospect.
List in the OP will be updated to reflect this though the explanations will be updated later.
Just updated the OP with all the explanations. It was long overdue, admittedly Truth be told, part of the deck is being used for another experiment and the decks are constantly being swapped between Azusa as a general and Omnath as a general.
I would not risk going down lower than 37 lands given that many of my rampers are really rather fragile -- being mana dorks. I don't want to be caught dead after a strategically placed sweeper. It is admittedly bad to topdeck land in the late game though I find that the lesser of two evils, with the other evil being mana screwing in a monogreen deck
This thread is primarily as a reference and a walkthrough just in case my decklist suddenly gets lost in Æther. This will not be a primer for making green decks though it will attempt to be detailed, just in case I forget what card X does in the future and how the deck actually works. This is officially my third EDH deck (next to Grand Arbiter Augustin IV and Azami, Lady of Scrolls).
Originally, this deck was supposed to be a secondary EDH deck as a "fairer" alternative to my older Azami.dec. While the current placeholder general is Omnath, Locus of Mana, the deck was originally designed around Kodama of the North Tree. I believe that while this may not be an optimal build for all green decks, it is a good starting point for monogreen decks. In any case, feel free to critique, disagree or otherwise comment on the deck, the card choices, the choices of my font, etc.
Note that due to the nongeneral-specific nature of this deck, this deck is playable with almost any other monogreen or green hybrid generals (this will be elaborated below).
This deck adheres only to the official Dragonhighlander.net ban lists though it is theoretically possible to make this deck 1v1 legal given that the only banned card from the 1v1 here is Sundering Titan and we could really use some other bombs in its place.
Who should play this deck?
Why monogreen?
So, why a green deck? Green has the following claim to fame: -
That said, going monogreen has its disadvantages: -
We'll try to manage these disadvantages as we go along
DECKLIST
01 Arbor Elf
02 Fyndhorn Elves
03 Joraga Treespeaker
04 Llanowar Elves
05 Fierce Empath
06 Elvish Visionary
07 Sylvan Ranger
08 Eternal Witness
09 Treefolk Harbinger
10 Sakura-Tribe Elder
11 Wood Elves
12 Yavimaya Dryad
13 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
14 Yavimaya Elder
15 Wall of Blossoms
16 Solemn Simulacrum
17 Budoka Gardener
18 Oracle of Mul Daya
19 Viridian Shaman
20 Acidic Slime
21 Loaming Shaman
22 Masked Admirers
23 Duplicant
24 Wickerbough Elder
25 Masticore
26 Genesis
27 Stampeding Wildebeests
28 Deadwood Treefolk
29 Arashi, the Sky Asunder
30 Regal Force
31 Krosan Tusker
32 Rampaging Baloths
33 Steel Hellkite
34 Woodfall Primus
35 Cloudthresher
36 Panglacial Wurm
37 Myojin of Life's Web
38 Sundering Titan
39 Terastodon
40 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
41 Garruk Wildspeaker
ENCHANTMENTS (3)
42 Lignify
43 Sylvan Library
44 Greater Good
ARTIFACTS (1)
45 Skullclamp
INSTANTS (5)
46 Worldly Tutor
47 Bind
48 Momentous Fall
49 Chord of Calling
50 Rootgrapple
SORCERIES (12)
51 Time of Need
52 Cultivate
53 Kodama's Reach
54 Harmonize
55 Skyshroud Claim
56 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
57 Plow Under
58 Stunted Growth
59 Primal Command
60 Reap and Sow
61 Tooth and Nail
62 Genesis Wave
LANDS (37)
63 Strip Mine
64 Forest
65 Forest
66 Forest
67 Forest
68 Forest
69 Forest
70 Forest
71 Forest
72 Forest
73 Forest
74 Forest
75 Forest
76 Forest
77 Forest
78 Forest
79 Forest
80 Forest
81 Forest
82 Forest
83 Forest
84 Forest
85 Forest
86 Forest
87 Forest
88 Forest
89 Forest
90 Forest
91 Forest
92 Forest
93 Forest
94 Forest
95 Forest
96 Forest
97 Forest
98 Forest
99 Forest
100 Omnath, Locus of Mana
CREATURES
Special mention should be given to Joraga Treespeaker though. This is probably my second favourite leveller -- behind the turn 2 active Merfolk Looter, While you are rarely ever going to want to go all the way to Level 5, Joraga Treespeaker is, by itself, good enough at Level 1, as a one drop instead of a three drop Greenweaver Druid (theoretically, it could be a three drop, if needs be).
Fierce Empath - This is almost always a two-for-one when resolved. This leaves us with the tricky question of what to search for. During the early parts of the game, if you have one or less lands in hand, I'd go for Krosan Tusker. If you seem to be flooding with lands, Rampaging Baloth is a good choice. If there is an annoying creature you want to get rid of, search for Duplicant. If you need to recycle a creature in your graveyard, Deadwood Treefolk is good too. If you need to swat down multiple flyers, Cloudthresher can be a good choice. If you feel that you have boatloads of creature in play but few cards in hand, Regal Force is a good choice. Conversely, if you have loads of bombs in hand but you are just short of mana to play all of them for the wow factor, do search for Myojin of Life's Web. On the flip side, if you have access to something to the tune of 20 mana and above, Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is always a fair choice. During the midgame development phase, I usually search for Terastodon though depending on occassions, I may prefer the surgical precision of Woodfall Primus.
Elvish Visionary, Sylvan Ranger - These dorks replaces themselves with either a random draw or a basic land card when played. Nothing too special otherwise.
Eternal Witness - This not just replaces herself when played but helps recycles cards in the yard. Also, the art is just magnificent.
Treefolk Harbinger - This may not replace itself when played but it is a worthy tutor. It goes without saying that if you are short on lands, it helps ensure that your next draw will be a Forest. Besides that, it has quite a toolbox to tutor from. If you're being menanced by some imprudent creature, search for Lignify. If you are being menanced by some noncreature threats, Rootgrapple is generally a good choice as is Wickerbough Elder (if you're specifically looking to destroy artifacts and enchanments). If you are looking to recycle a creature in the yard, search for Deadwood Treefolk. If you just want to draw a random card, Rootgrapple is fine by itself (since you are likely to have Treefolk Harbinger in play anyway to satisfy the "treefolk requirement"). If all you need is a bomb, Woodfall Primus is always there to help you to bash though against a monoblack deck, Chameleon Colossus would probably be a better pick.
Sakura-Tribe Elder, Wood Elves, Yavimaya Dryad - I'd stop short of calling these the "superior rampers" though ramping via these creatures tend to be more stable compared to creature based ramps (barring a Armageddon-class spell). While critics are right to contest their statistical deck-thinning capabilities (especially in EDH), I'd personally argue that these little things do eventually add up in long EDH games. It is noteworthy that in any case, besides the snake ramper, the rest are effectively two-for-ones when they resolve -- as such, feel free to use them as chump blockers thereafter. Also note that most of the time, you'd want to use Yavimaya Dryad to give yourself a forest though I can see deadlock situations where your creatures cannot otherwise deal the final coup de grace thanks to your opponent's wall.
Yavimaya Elder - This card potentially replaces itself when played and almost certainly replaces itself when it snuffs it. All in all, it is a potential 3-for-1, if everything goes as planned. It really shines when you somehow find yourself short of mana. Again, while I realise that the statistical possibilty of this card being an effective deck thinner, in conjunction with the other deck thinners and in long games, this card can potentially make a difference.
Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary - While I frown on most forms of mana dorks, I'll make an exception with Rofellos. It is a threat in its own right and is a "must answer" threat, which threatens either a myriad of threats or a myriad of bombs -- both of which are usually not very healthy for your opponents.
Wall of Blossoms - This replaces itself with a random draw when played. Nothing too special otherwise.
Solemn Simulacrum - This replaces itself (with mana ramp) when played and adds a little bonus draw when it goes to the graveyard from play. Awesome disposable creature.
Budoka Gardener - Of the cycle of rare Champion of Kamigawa flippers, this is one of my favourites (along with Jushi Apprentice and Nezumi Shortfang). Unflipped, the Gardener can act as your spare copy of Oracle of Mul Daya (post-summoning sickness). When flipped, Dokai, Weaver of Life commands a board presence of its own generally spouting out 10/10 or larger Elemental tokens. Even for a format of 40 life, multiple 10/10s can easily end the game.
Oracle of Mul Daya - This is a fair mana ramper with a minor setback of allowing your opponents to plan their next play. Overall though, it can be a source of incredible mana advantage.
Viridian Shaman - You'd generally only play this when there is an opposing artifact in play (which makes this a two-for-one). Given that this deck itself is bereft of many artifacts, it is sometimes possible to play this as a generic 2/2 though this is probably not very exciting. This card is choosen over other artifact hate thanks to it having a CIP effect rather than an activated ability (those could be unreliable).
Acidic Slime - This is practically a Creeping Mold with a body. It is almost always a 2-for-1 (since you can destroy lands too). Deathtouch makes it an excellent blocker though more likely than not, it will deter your opponents from attacking on ground for a while.
Loaming Shaman - Graveyard hate are ever so necessary in the format given the number of decks abusing graveyard recursion. Theoretically, it could be used to recover our own lost creatures back to the library where they can be tutored. This is a less common application of the Shaman though it is something worth keeping in mine in any case.
Masked Admirers - Replaces itself when played. It has decent stats too which makes it versatile enough for early offence and could probably take out somebody's eye even in the later parts of the game. Its built in recursion triggered ability can be a source of repeatable card advantage and / or chump blockers, if needs be.
Duplicant - One of the best spot removals for the deck. Green is notably inferior in handling creatures and Duplicant patches this hole quite neatly.
Wickerbough Elder - Tutorable with Treefolk Harbinger, this shaman is nifty artifact / enchantment removal with decent stats to boot.
Genesis - A source of endless creature recursion. Little can be said about this creature besides its near-limitless ability to recur creatures (technically, it can only return one creature a turn though).
Stampeding Wildebeests - Ironically, it is this card's "setback" which makes this card so good in this deck. Its compulsory bounce effects enables you to recycle CIP effects -- including (but not limited to) the card drawing dorks, the land fetching dorks, Viridian Shaman, Acidic Slime, Wickerbough Elder, Deadwood Treefolk, among others. Its stats is understandably impressive too. As a sidenote, you may find a functional reprint of Stampeding Wildebeest in Stampeding Serow.
Deadwood Treefolk - Tutorable with Treefolk Harbinger, this card is effectively two regrowth effects fused into one. It has a sizeable body too which is very well suited for holding down the fort temporarily. Note that its ability triggers when it comes into play AND when it LEAVES PLAY. This means that it triggers even if it gets bounced by something like Stampeding Wildebeest.
Arashi, the Sky Asunder - While you can play Arashi "normally" (i.e. hard cast it as a 5/5), its Channel allows you to cast a near-uncounterable Squall Line effect (minus the damage to players). It helps that Channel can be played at instant speed too.
Regal Force - One of the best card draw available to monogreen. Generally, you'd want at least one or two mana dorks already on the table when you play this, just so you can draw a boatload of cards. Note that it is possible to draw zero cards from Regal Force if your opponent manages to somehow destroy all available green creature on board in response to its triggered ability. Also note that it counts only Green creatures so your Duplicant probably won't be of much help to Regal Force.
Krosan Tusker - A very versatile creature. It can play a de facto three drop (where it mimics instant speed Divination -- where at least one of the card you "draw" is a land). Later in the game, it can be a decent attacker or blocker with its very meaty stats. Its hefty casting cost is actually a boon if you consider that this allows you to tutor it via Fierce Empath. On an unrelated note that this beast is non-kosher.
Rampaging Baloths - Like Ant Queen, this creature commands a board presence by itself -- and unlike the Ant Queen's miniature (but most likely numerous) minions, Rampaging Baloth seems satisfied with fewer but meatier minions. Notwithstanding that, it is also a nice 6/6 trampler.
Woodfall Primus - This is tutorable via Treefolk Harbinger. It is incredibly versatile and is almost certain to provide insane card advantage when played (potentially a 3-for-1). This card is practically two Acidic Slime melded into one or two Creeping Mold melded -- except that it goes for any noncreature permanents which includes Planeswalkers. It has decent stats too and Trample makes it a very viable offensive war machine. Persist is relevant too -- both to recur its insane CIP ability and to ensure its survival post wrath-effects / post combat trades.
Cloudthresher - Green has scarce methods of dealing with flying threats and Cloudthresher seems to be the best choice for these chore simply because it is not just good against flyers. It is aggressively costed for a 7/7 badass. Evoke is relevant -- this is probably self-explanatory but it is worth mentioning that you can evoke it and with its sacrifice trigger on the stack, you may do something like sacrifice it to Greater Good. Flash is relevant too, giving your opponents' offence a nasty surprise. Obviously, its CIP mini-Hurricane can be relevant against flying token swarms. A 2GGGG casting cost is aggressive for a 7/7 but thankfully sufficiently small enough to be tutored by Fierce Empath. Finally, as the piece-de-resistance, its 7/7 hulk allows it to take down even Akroma-class flyers like a champ -- if you ignore the Sphinx of the Steel Wind... and ignore the fact that it may not survive taking down the Red Akroma but take it down it will.
Panglacial Wurm - Like the Spanish Inquisition, nobody ever sees its coming. As long as it is in your library (which is very likely considering the 99 card-library you'll be playing with), Panglacial Wurm is practically your 9th card in hand (with your General being the "8th card" in hand). With a 9/5 stats, it can be relevant for dealing your final damage or at least likely to trade with almost any blockers being thrown in your way (unless it is something like Baneslayer Angel class). Trample also means that even if it gets chumped, it is probably still going to deal some pain before it snuffs it.
Myojin of Life's Web - At this point of the curve, we are looking at what I'd call "Ultimatum class spells" -- i.e. spells that greatly changes the game dynamics when played. The deck's de facto Brilliant Ultimatum (okay, its effect is similar to a one-sided Eureka but you get what I mean), this spell has allows you to get all your creatures out at instant speed. It is also immortal (i.e. indestructible) pre-Eureka mode and as an 8/8, it can take quite a chunk off your opponent's life totals. It is also a deterrent against any planned alpha strike on you (given that it threatens a nasty "ambush", depending on what is in your hand).
Sundering Titan - This card is especially devastating against decks with multiple colours -- multiple colour decks being common in the format, this card is worth the 8 mana it costs.
Terastodon - This is the deck's de facto Violent Ultimatum. Against a mana light opponent, blasting off three of their lands are probably worth giving them three baby elephants. Against some relevant noncreature threats, it is probably worth giving them a baby elephant in exchange for snuffing off, say, Jace, the Mind Sculptor.
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn - The deck's de facto Cruel Ultimatum, if only for the insane card advantage it nets when it connects. This monster is practically made for EDH. It has an outrageous "when cast" ability which makes it almost certain that it will probably be smashing faces the next turn. Evasion is a nice bonus and its nifty protection means that it is probably immune to most removals. Sweepers should be able to deal with Emmy but its "when cast" ability makes it all but certain that it will probably get a go at the opponent before any sweepers will be able to touch Emmy. Speaking of attacks, its nice Annihilator 6 is relevant too practically giving you at least a 6-for-1 every time it attacks -- this is excluding the poor blocker that will probably snuff it when it chumps Emmy. Its 15/15 stats is very relevant too -- it probably means that it is going to either deal 15 solid damage to your opponent or kill almost any chumpers that is sent against this flying Eldrazi. Its shuffle effect can be a double edged sword in this deck. On the one hand, it can shuffle some of your reanimation targets. On the other hand, this deck does not overly rely on reanimation -- compared to tutors -- so this setback is somewhat mitigated.
Masticore - Our machine gun for the deck. With our limited ability to deal with creatures, this guy helps a lot with the sniping and all.
Steel Hellkite - One of the more stellar contribution of Scars of Mirrodin in addition to Genesis Wave. It can totally wreck decks that overly rely on mana rocks with its sweeper effect
NONCREATURE SECTION
PLANESWALKER
ENCHANTMENTS
Sylvan Library - This is an enchantment, making it harder to hit than most other card advantage engine. It is practically a free Sensei's Divining Top every turn and its potential to give you some card advantage (for a small price of 4 life) is quite worth it.
Greater Good - This is not so much a card advantage engine -- it can be one though -- than it is a card quality machine. With a minimum contribution of a 3/X creature, you should be able to net some good card quality. Just as importantly, it is a sacrifice outlet in case any blue mages threatens theft.
ARTIFACTS
Skullclamp - With the amount of mana dorks and other dorks I am running, this is very useful for cycling those dorks with benefits.
INSTANTS
Momentous Fall - Instant speed Harmonize. Its "setback" ironically punishes light-fingered blue mages who have their eyes on your blubber. While the card draw is the most relevant of the two "payoffs", the life gain is a nice bonus, especially if you've been hitting Sylvan Library too much.
Chord of Calling - This card is excellent. It is probably one of the best tutor this deck can offer and more. It searches for just about any creature in your deck and put them directly into play at instant speed. Convoke is an excellent bonus -- as a note, as long as you have three green creatures, you should be able to convoke stuff even with any Contamination combo.
Rootgrapple - This is tutorable via Treefolk Harbinger (hurrah to Tribal!) and it is a generic instant-speed removal against noncreature threats.
SORCERIES
Kodama's Reach - Ditto to the above. Indeed, Cultivate is a semi-functional reprint of Kodama's Reach (without the Arcane subtype).
Harmonize - Colourshifted reprint of Concentrate. Green gets significantly less card draw than blue and this one is definitely helpful.
Mwonvuli Acid-Moss - Ice Storm meets Rampant Growth (making this a 2-for-1). This card is just amazing. It simultaneously set your opponent back and advances your board development.
Plow Under - This usually sets your opponent back by no less than two turns -- also note that it is a 2-for-1. Getting rid of two lands is just one thing. Forcing them to draw the exact same land that they lost is adding insult to the injury. Used early in the game, it may totally destroy the opponent's tempo such that they can no longer recover. As a rule of thumb, your best target is usually a karoo land or any other land that somehow requires a cost (good examples would be Lotus Vale, Rupture Spire, etc.). Your next best targets would usually be comes into play tapped lands. Notwithstanding that, if it is possible to colour screw your opponent with Plow Under, you could consider doing it (though this is difficult since the owner of the lands (i.e. usually not you) would decide the order.
Primal Command - This is our second Swiss Army Knife; unlike our mini Swiss Army knife (Evolution Charm), this one allows us to use two appendages at once. Gaining life is not the most relevant mode though in Sylvan Library terms, that is worth 1.75 cards. Delaying an opponent's noncreature is a nifty utility which is at worst, half of a Plow Under. Shuffling graveyards could either help you recycle your graveyard or it could be a de facto graveyard hate against your opponent. Tutoring for a creature is definitely relevant for obvious reasons. Generally, the modes that generate the most card advantage should be the delay mode and the tutor mode at once -- you can even search for Eternal Witness if you want to do it again the next turn! On the other hand, sometimes, you may want to use delay in conjunction with shuffling your opponent's yard to make sure that threat hopefully disappears for more than a turn. On the other hand, shuffle and tutor helps too (i.e. you shuffle your graveyard back) so that you can find a crucial creature which got stuck in the graveyard.
Reap and Sow - This card is deceptively versatile. Obviously, it can be played as a 3G land-destruction spell (you may not want to bother too much with the 3G mana ramp mode) or to play it entwined for six mana for either a 4GG mana Mwonvuli Acid-Moss (where your Forest comes into play untapped) or play it as a 4GG mana double land-d spell by tutoring for Strip Mine!
Tooth and Nail - As mentioned earlier, at this point of the curve, spells tend to be ultimatum-class. If Myojin of Life's Web is Brilliant Ultimatum, Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is Cruel Ultimatum and Terastodon is Violent Ultimatum, Tooth and Nail is as close as you can get to an EDH version of Clarion Ultimatum. Note that you do not have to put the creatures you tutored for into play; you can tutor for two creatures and put creatures already in your hand into play instead. If you are greedy enough to want three creatures instead of two creatures, you could play Tooth and Nail entwined for both Creature #1 and Eternal Witness (returning Tooth and Nail). During your next turn, feel free to tutor for Creature #2 and Creature #3. If you're feeling especially greedy, you can go Tooth and Nail for Creature #1 and Eternal Witness (returning Tooth and Nail), Tooth and Nail for Creature #2 an Stampeding Wildebeest, bounce Eternal Witness, search for Creature #3 and Creature #4, play Eternal Witness targeting Tooth and Nail, so on so on. The latter is possibly unnecessary given that you probably won the game by then or your opponent disrupted this fragile combo.
Skyshroud Claim - This is probably self-explanatory. It allows you to jump from 4 mana to 6 mana (or 7 mana if you play a land) the next turn and mana acceleration is usually key in EDH.
Time of Need - Searches for quite a bit, really. Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary is the top target but Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is a close favourite. Arashi, the Sky Asunder and Myojin of Life's Web can be a good choice sometimes too.
Genesis Wave - Omnath's best friend. This can go to insane amounts in late game. With this deck, even at lower levels, with about 72 noninstants and nonsorceries, you are generally expected to get a substantial amount of permanents from the wave.
Stunted Growth - Pseudo-monogreen discard. This is probably one of the best hand disruption available to monogreen. While it is not always as backbreaking as Plow Under, forcing three familiar draws is often times almost as bad if not worse.
LANDS
Forest - The basic building block of the deck. Taps for G, comes into play untappe, is a basic land and is a viable target for all our searches. We don't really need that many nonbasic lands and we can't abuse them adequately anyway.
GENERAL
Omnath has deceptive amount of abilities in this deck. Its abilities are as follow: -
Possibility for Other Generals
So, what other generals this deck would play well with?
To begin with Kodama of the North Tree was this deck's first general. The strategy for that first draft was simple: Kick the opponent down with the land-destruction and disruption and finish them off with trampling general damage. That strategy worked surprisingly well as my opponents found it difficult to remove a shrouded 6/4 trampler; I wouldn't be surprised if I go back to the North Tree anytime soon.
My second general was Wort, the Raidmother as I started experimenting with the duplication of powerful sorceries, including Plow Under. This worked quite well as a conspired Plow Under usually crippled an opponent and a conspired Tooth and Nail all but ends the game. My tryst with Wort also opened up a world of hybrid cards. I'll just mention some of the relevant ones here.
Deus of Calamity - 5 mana for a 6/6 is as aggressively costed as it gets (for our mana base, the setback is virtually zero unless the Strip Mine somehow features as our 5th land. Trampling is deceptively relevant and its triggered ability is ridiculous, forcing opponents to chump or risk the land-d treatment.
Firespout - Since the deck doesn't actually produce R, this was quickly outclassed by both Squall Line and Arashi, the Sky Asunder.
Impromptu Raid - Given the higher density of instants and sorceries at that time, this card missed more often than not. Even when it "hit", the effect was never really spectacular enough.
Vexing Shusher - This was probably one of the best reason to play the Raidmother. While we have Gaea's Herald in monogreen, this one stops almost all spells from being countered -- it can't be countered either. In a meta with high density of blue mages -- and you don't want to resort to a CIPT Boseiju, who shelters all you might want to give this a try.
Fossil Find: This card was randomly good though I'd complain that it was way too random for my liking.
I didn't actually try Sapling of Colfenor as a general but I could see several relevant cards coming out from having a black hybrid.
Creakwood Liege - Not the most relevant card given its inherent fraility. The army of worms is nothing to shout about though it can be relevant in conjunction with Worm Harvest.
Deity of Scars - This one is probably worth shouting about. Trample is relevant and the regeneration is fair. With careful timing of the stack, you can use it in conjunction with Wild Pair to search for Power and Toughness values of 10, 12 and 14.
Desecrator Hag - Decent but this struggles against the raw efficiency of Deadwood Treefolk and Eternal Witness.
Drain the Well - We have better land-destruction spells available but this is something worth keeping in mind.
Gleancrawler - Decent card and could make friends with the likes of Sakura Tribe Elder or Greater Good.
Worm Harvest - This card turns extraneous lands into juicy and squiggly worms. Whether 2(B/G)(B/G)(B/G) is worth it for those worm is another question altogether.
I haven't tested the deck with Rhys the Redeemed either. That said, the arsenal of Green-White Hybrids isn't all that impressive (unfortunately, Kitchen Finks isn't the most relevant card in EDH). On the other hand, if the deck is geared towards a tokens strategy, this might be the better choice regardless.
Privileged Position - Nice troll shroud effect for most of your permanents though this is sometimes unnecessary.
Wheel of Sun and Moon - Good graveyard hate but there are better stuff out there.
There is no Green-Blue hybrid legends (yet) and unless you're planning to build a monogreen deck with a nonhybrid-green-blue general, this combination is beyond the scope of discussion -- though we could have used Overbeing of Myth, Wistful Selkie and perhaps Spitting Image to great effect here.
Note that as mentioned earlier, the limitation of being monogreen becomes obvious when hybrid generals are considered. Having the Raidmother as the general, the tradeoff became obvious when I was unable to abuse powerful red instants and sorceries for my inscrutable use. This is certainly something to consider though in my opinion, I felt that this trade-off is really quite worth it as we have sufficient good cards in green to begin with.
I am sure that there are a few green generals that I have yet to consider (Kamahl, Fist of Krosa seem to be one of them) but feel free to mix and match.
Combos and Synergies
Paths not taken
Their exclusion does not imply that their strategy are inferior or indeed superior. Each of these paths could have been perfectly valid given particular circumstances.
Piloting the deck in 1v1 play
Piloting the deck in a Multiplayer Setting
Cards not played and their rationale
Despite the forced 100 card deck limit in EDH (no more, no less), there are times where good cards are unfortunately dismissed in favour of better cards. Some of the cuts could be very painful -- it could be painful to part with a foily card which you acquired just for the deck but in favour of a more enjoyable competitive games, some of the cards are unfortunately culled. Note that in a 99 card library, you really don't want to waste any of those 99 slots with subpar cards.
Matchups
This lists some of the more popular archetypes that I have tested against though this list is by no means exclusive and are by no means the only ways of facing those particular decks. It is ironic but note that sometimes, against less optimal decks, it may indeed be optimal to play less optimally (i.e. less aggressively / more aggressively) depending on the situation.
This is generally the easier matchups given that our land-d suite will make short work of their already fragile mana base. Against nongreen decks of these type, you will generally be able to cripple your opponent well enough with an early land-d attack with little chance for your opponent to recover -- at least not before you send in your tanks and heavy artilleries. The following lists some of the notable matchups.
While this is technically a three colour deck, many Uril decks have decent mana ramps and colour fixes of their own which can somewhat alleviate some effects of our land-d -- this is especially true with some of the more optimal Uril decks which has at least Ravnica Shocklands instead of the Ravnica Karoos. Also, an Uril onboard is pretty much bad news for us and rather difficult for us to handle -- this does not discount the fact that Uril + Rancor or Runes of the Deus can spell an early death on our part. Also, beware of an incoming Armageddon which Uril may cast once it has stabilised sufficiently.
That said, land-d on the opponent could buy you a few crucial turns before you come up with a game plan of your own. In general, important creatures you will want to look out for are Acidic Slime (to threaten chumpblocks) and Wickerbough Elder (to snipe off crucial auras) while you bring out heavy machineries of your own. Don't rely too much on token generators as a source of chumpblocks given that Uril can gain trample pretty fast, most of the time. Also, you may want to buff your defences a little given that Uril tends to pack a small suite of spot removals just for situations like this. In general, against an optimised Uril deck, you may want a Sundering Titan as a recommended bomb though against a less optimised one, more often than not, a Woodfall Primus may suffice.
Numot, the Devastator
Land-d meets land-d. In general, your land-d suite will work wonders here since you will tend to have the better land-d here and you are likely to recover from their land-d attempts. Artifact hates (such as Viridian Shaman) actually doubles as mana disruption here too given that Numot will try to ramp and colour fix with mana stones.
Should you fail an early land-d attempt, you might want to watch out though. Numot has access to some of the most powerful sweepers in the format -- Hallowed Burial, et. al. so do not overextend unless absolutely necessary. These sweepers often extend to land-sweepers so avoid cracking your Tribe-Elders if it is unnecessary -- it may even be prudent to hold one or two lands in hand, just in case. Also, beware of Numot's "I win" combos. URW has access to some of the most degenerate combos in the format (Pestermite-Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Reveillark, among others) so depending on the combos used, you might want to develop some silver bullets for them (it will be hillarious if you can respond to your opponent's Pestermite combo with a well-timed Cloudthresher). You will face considerably less countermagic due to their less healthy mana base though you might want to be slightly cautious with your spell slingings either way.
Sharuum, the Hegemon
Again, Viridian Shaman and Land-d is your friend here. Your opponent will likely attempt lots of reanimation here so you may want to keep an eye out for Loaming Shaman and Primal Command here. Expect a higher density of countermagic (generally about 10-15 in the deck) so keep an eye on that -- usually, our high threat density would help a lot here. Again, as with Numot, beware of "I win" combos -- there should be tonnes of them in here.
Token Strategies
having all forests makes your mana base great. i apologize if you explain this somewhere in your post, bu i see strip mine, yet there is no wasteland, tectonic edge, or dust bowl. These cards are superior IMHO to things like thermokarst and winter's grasp. These non-basics help you screw your opponent's nonbasics.
memory jar is a full hand of gas after you've ramped out and expended your resources. it's the card that will shotgun you back into action and put you out of reach.
I see plow under in your list, but no stunted growth. In a 1v1 scenario, stunted growth is just an absolute monster. Should really be in there.
That said, Oran-Rief, the Vastwood is a great land but not very necessary. It works well with Woodfall Primus but that really is about it. It doesn't do much with the other creatures in the deck otherwise. The only token producer in the deck is Ant Queen and even then, it does not really seem good enough reason to include the Vastwood.
It does seem like a great idea. I am in the process of adding some land-d nonbasics in this deck but Wasteland may seem out of the reach for the moment; I just spent a bomb on some staples for my other EDH deck and this may have to wait for a bit before I get to Wasteland. That said, I will probably get another Wasteland for this deck sometime Besides, this is my "casual" EDH deck which is supposed to be easier in a more relaxed playgroup and as such, does not need any of the more expensive staples... yet My decklist is supposed to be one of the more budget decklists that will be floating around here -- just to prove a point that you can have a great monogreen deck without throwing too much cash into it.
That said, your suggestions help and when the time comes, I will certainly throw gobs of money into it
Good point. I will look for it and tinker with it.
It is already in there... in my real life deck I will be reupdating the OP once my cards arrive in the mail.
All I can state about my RL deck is: -
Thanks for the heads-up though
Anyway, thanks to the arrival of these "reinforcements", I think it is fair for me to update my deck. I have tested most of these cards and can reasonably justify these changes (see below).
Prior to the arrival of my new cards, the following changes were made: -
OUT: -
After the arrival of my new cards, the following changes will hereby be made: -
OUT: -
I'll state the reasons here: -
IN: -
Skyshroud Claim - This is probably self-explanatory. It allows you to jump from 4 mana to 6 mana (or 7 mana if you play a land) the next turn and mana acceleration is usually key in EDH.
Time of Need - Searches for quite a bit, really. Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary is the top target but Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is a close favourite. Arashi, the Sky Asunder and Myojin of Life's Web can be a good choice sometimes too.
Genesis Wave - Omnath's best friend. This can go to insane amounts in late game. With this deck, even at lower levels, with about 72 noninstants and nonsorceries, you are generally expected to get a substantial amount of permanents from the wave.
Stunted Growth - Pseudo-monogreen discard. This is probably one of the best hand disruption available to monogreen. While it is not always as backbreaking as Plow Under, forcing three familiar draws is often times almost as bad if not worse.
Skullclamp - With the amount of mana dorks and other dorks I am running, this is very useful for cycling those dorks with benefits.
Bind - Excellent surprise that almost always manages to snag something. Even snagging a fetchland can be a delicious experience.
Masticore - Our machine gun for the deck. With our limited ability to deal with creatures, this guy helps a lot with the sniping and all.
Steel Hellkite - One of the more stellar contribution of Scars of Mirrodin in addition to Genesis Wave. It can totally wreck decks that overly rely on mana rocks with its
OUT: -
Squall Line - This has been a great card. Unfortunately, it tends to be useless at the beginning of the game, unnecessary when I am winning, usually unnecessary when I am neither winning nor losing (since it can't be tutored whereas Arashi and Cloudthresher could be). If this deck was for multiplayer, this probably deserves a spot though.
Thermokarst, Winter's Grasp, Creeping Mold - I am moving away from a land-destruction strategy to a more aggro-ish beatdown strategy. They are poor late game topdecks and often, as the ancient adage states, if the opponent somehow wriggles out of the mana screw, it is as if the mana screw never happened. That said, the more efficient land-destruction strategies (i.e. the tempo ones such as Mwonvuli Acid-Moss, Rootgrapple, Reap and Sow, etc.) will remain in the deck as an auxilliary strategy.
Wild Pair - This is a fun little enchantment though it can get annoying when we somehow run out of Wild Pair couples.
Evolution Charm - Charming spell and this was a reluctant cut. I have fond memories with this spell, be it spiriting out a Panglacial Wurm at 9 mana, surprising an opponent with a flying Omnath, recurring a key creature spell. Ultimately, this was cut as a meta-call for Bind given how rampant activated abilities are in my meta.
Ant Queen - Another surprise cut. This would have synergised very well with Skullclamp as 2G Divination. On the other hand, it is not pulling its weight at the "threat slot". More often than not, I am torn between expanding gobs of mana on Omnath to expending gobs of mana on Ant Queen. I feel that Masticore would be better able to fulfil this role.
Chameleon Colossus - This hasn't been too outstanding for the deck. Personally, I doubt that we really need it against black decks and as a threat, it is not too great in retrospect.
List in the OP will be updated to reflect this though the explanations will be updated later.
I would not risk going down lower than 37 lands given that many of my rampers are really rather fragile -- being mana dorks. I don't want to be caught dead after a strategically placed sweeper. It is admittedly bad to topdeck land in the late game though I find that the lesser of two evils, with the other evil being mana screwing in a monogreen deck
just pointing out.
540 Peasant cube- Gold EditionSomething SpicyAh yes, I was actually saying that for 3G+1G=4GG, Reap and Sow allows you a Mwonvuli Acid-Moss-effect or a Rain of Salt-effect.
ok.
sorry if i came off rude.
540 Peasant cube- Gold EditionSomething Spicyid recommend kozliek
yes ulamog is great, but kozi draws you 4......in green
540 Peasant cube- Gold EditionSomething Spicy