This isn’t a tournament report. Actual details about games of Magic are usually pretty boring, so I’ll just give you the meat and potatoes. For starters, Dungrove Elder is a real deck, and you should expect to see a decent amount of it in the coming weeks. The Pro Tour will (hopefully) showcase some new ideas, but we’ve got the results from Richmond, and Delver is still running at full force.
This past weekend was the StarCityGames.com Open in Richmond, highlighting the release of Dark Ascension. I was all set to play Delver until Brian Braun-Duin and David McDarby began discussing the Mono-Green Dudes deck they’d been testing out over the last few weeks. It wasn’t pretty, but it was powerful, even though it still needed a lot of work. I wasn’t quite sold on playing Dungrove Elder again because something just felt like it was missing. Without ramping into Primeval Titan, it often felt like there wasn’t much to help close the game. After talking about a few potential cards, the conversation really started to get my creative juices flowing.
Surprisingly enough, it didn’t take much convincing to get me to play 24 Forests.
Some might ask just what sold me on this Limited filler card. The answer was simple: Dungrove Elder. Hexproof as an “evergreen” mechanic is just stupid, both in quality and in practice. The limiting of interaction between players by making creatures one-sided is not fun and should not continue in full force. But hey, people enjoy playing with mythical Swords, and people enjoy playing Rancor-esque auras, so why not give the people what they want? And on that note, why shouldn’t I take advantage of it before they realize exactly what they’ve done?
Free wins are not something that I’m really accustomed to in Magic, but this past weekend was full of them. People are not prepared to beat creatures with hexproof, which should be evident by the fact that Geist of Saint Traft is one of the best cards in Standard. By pairing up these untargetable monstrosities with Sword of War and Peace, you can start pushing your creatures into the Red Zone without fear or doubt. Your opponent will not survive the assault. We spent almost the entirety of the drive thinking about our options and eventually headed to a local game store to pick up some Bellowing Tanglewurms.
After hammering out a list, we all decided to play something pretty similar to this:
Creatures (23)
- 4 Llanowar Elves
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 1 Acidic Slime
- 1 Bellowing Tanglewurm
- 2 Thrun, the Last Troll
- 3 Phyrexian Metamorph
- 4 Dungrove Elder
- 4 Strangleroot Geist
Planeswalkers (4)
Lands (24)
- 24 Forest
Spells (9)
So, why Mono-Green? Why 24 Forests? Why not a Kessig Wolf Run and a Mountain? Why no Primeval Titan? Is playing 4 Swords of War and Peace too many? And why, of all the mediocre Limited uncommons, did I run Bellowing Tanglewurm? The answer to all of these questions and more:
For starters, this deck has been something of a work in progress for quite a while. I posted a similar list a few weeks ago on this very site but virtually gave up on it after a few days of playing more U/W Delver. Delver probably has better nut draws and allows you to outplay your opponent quite easily if you know what you’re doing, but it doesn’t have very many inherently powerful cards. Therefore, if you stumble or ever fall behind, it can be insanely difficult to catch back up and take control of the game. Tempo decks are reliant on their early creatures to pressure the opponent while your spells dictate the pace of the game. If your opponent can break parity by resolving a Titan, or other troublesome creature, things will not likely end well for you.
But this Mono-Green deck is a little different. Beating a resolved Primeval Titan is far from impossible, and you have the tools at your disposal to dispatch many of the format’s best decks. While green decks aren’t known for their aggression, this deck tries something a little different. Strangleroot Geist combined with Green Sun’s Zenith can make for some potentially busted opening sequences. Combined with the format’s premier undercosted fatty, Dungrove Elder, you’ve got yourself a valid clock with some gusto. Traditional removal spells are pretty weak against your deck full of hexproof and undying creatures.
You also gain a pretty absurd tutor package revolving around Green Sun’s Zenith, though this aggressive take on Dungrove Elder puts away the fancy targets in favor of consistency. Strangleroot Geist and Dungrove Elder are going to be your main targets in the early game, but Acidic Slime does exactly what you need it to do. Green Sun’s Zenith is often heralded as a green deck’s best card, and for good reason. It is whatever answer or problem you need it to be, for the paltry cost of one extra mana. Being able to play more copies of any of your best cards is exactly what this type of aggro deck wants. Additionally, the bullets you supply yourself with can singlehandedly swing games, though you would never actually want to draw five Bellowing Tanglewurms.
As for the Bellowing Tanglewurm in question, he fills a very niche role in the deck. Earlier versions of Dungrove Elder focused on resolving a Primeval Titan, fetching out a Kessig Wolf Run and a land that produced red mana. This version, packing Strangleroot Geists and a more aggressive curve, doesn’t have the luxury to play non-Forests and certainly doesn’t have the time to fetch a Primeval Titan. Bellowing Tanglewurm basically turns Green Sun’s Zenith into a Fireball-esque finisher, usually helping to deal upwards of 12+ damage. With all of your creatures becoming basically unblockable thanks to green being the least-played color in the format, Bellowing Tanglewurm is exactly the card you need to finish the job. It does what Primeval Titan does, except it doesn’t take an extra mana or an extra turn to untap with Kessig Wolf Run in play.
On the drive to Richmond, we talked about the deck a lot. David McDarby was a huge proponent of playing Phyrexian Metamorph from the beginning, and his read was absolutely spot on. Metamorph just does it all! Copying Strangleroot Geists gives you the ability to do some cool things with undying, and having more virtual copies of Dungrove Elder can only be a good thing. He’s flexible, which is definitely something you want from that slot in your deck. I copied everything from an opposing Mortarpod to a Massacre Wurm, each time leading to my eventual victory. Thanks to Phyrexian Metamorph, you have more copies of your best creatures (and equipment) as well as a card that can dig you out of plenty of jams. The ability to clone opposing legends, while the original reason for the inclusion, just ends up being an added bonus!
As for the planeswalker setup, we knew that Garruk, Primal Hunter would be the preferred Garruk thanks to his synergy with Dungrove Elder and Thrun, the Last Troll. Hexproof creatures tend to make his draw-ability less risky, where a timely Vapor Snag or Dismember would usually brick his ability altogether. While Garruk Relentless is certainly powerful, you can’t afford to have too many blank draws, and it was clear to us that Garruk Relentless was the worse of the two. With that said, both won me quite a few games, so I think the current split is correct, though we will be experimenting with variations on the numbers to make sure.
I think it is pretty safe to say that I won about one game per match in almost every match I played thanks to the 4x Sword of War and Peace. Having said that, I did play against W/U Humans five times, potentially giving me skewed results. I won multiple games by casting Sword on the second turn thanks to a Bird or Elf, doing nothing else relevant for the rest of the game other than beating my opponent to death with a lowly mana producer. Those wins weren’t pretty, but Sword of War and Peace is a format-defining card for a reason. That reason is why we all played four copies of the mythic equipment and one of the biggest reasons we all did so well. If people continue to play aggressive decks featuring only white creatures, I’m going to continue beating them with Sword of War and Peace. Thanks to hexproof, I rarely have to fear cards like Vapor Snag punishing me for investing so much mana. Without a way to give your creatures trample, Sword of War and Peace is also a way to get your Dungrove Elders through a board clogged with resilient tokens and dorks. Without Sword of War and Peace, any white-based aggro deck would probably just run you over.
We worked on the sideboard up until the very end of player registration, each of us having differing opinions and ideas about what we would face and what we would need against those decks. I was a proponent of Creeping Corrosion from the beginning, but we agreed on most of the same concepts and card choices. The original list started with this sideboard:
3 Gut Shot
3 Ratchet Bomb
3 Tumble Magnet
2 Naturalize
1 Acidic Slime
1 Batterskull (we had one maindeck at the time)
1 Tree of Redemption
1 Viridian Corrupter
As you can see, it wasn’t pretty, but we began with answers to what we thought would be popular. While we all ended up with something slightly different, that’s mostly because I like to try out new things (and I’m incredibly stubborn). When I have an unpopular idea, I go through many stages of denial. The last stage involves me playing the unpopular card just to prove someone else wrong, though I rarely do it out of spite. This time, I just wanted to be different, and it probably cost me a few games.
Mutagenic Growth was not something that should have been in the deck. While the theory behind it was decent, it just doesn’t give you enough value without having the card Snapcaster Mage at your disposal. Mutagenic Growth was in the original iteration as a way to freely save your Dungrove Elders and mana dorks from Slagstorm and Whipflare, but the reality is that it doesn’t always play out like that. The format is currently being dominated by creature-based decks, all with the intent of limiting their interaction with the opponent through various forms of protection. Mutagenic Growth, while a nifty trick on occasion, is much better when combined with Snapcaster Mage to gain an absurd amount of tempo. People won’t play around it, and the Delver decks are set up to take advantage of the tempo, while Mono-Green just wants to sludge through combat with resilient monsters. Delver decks just don’t have that ability. In the future, Mutagenic Growth could continue to be a way to save your Dungrove Elders from Slagstorm and Whipflare, but the reality is that it is just an alright combat trick that any deck can play.
As far as the sideboard was concerned, I think we mostly hit the nail on the head. Aside from the cutting of Gut Shots, I felt like my sideboard was almost perfect. Naturalize came in against nearly every opponent, since they all played Swords, Oblivion Rings, or Pikes. Ratchet Bomb dominated token decks and combined well with Glissa, the Traitor to act as a soft-lock. While Glissa wasn’t exactly pretty—since it was a little difficult to cast should you draw her—she did exactly what she needed to do. With Birds of Paradise giving you the ability to cast her and Green Sun’s Zenith to fetch her out of the deck, she played a very important role in suppressing the ability of the token decks to overrun you. Most token decks lacked solid removal, giving you a way to continually wrath their board for the lowly cost of one extra sideboard slot.
Sword of Feast and Famine made a few appearances against control and green decks, which is exactly where I wanted them. Sword of War and Peace isn’t always at its best when your opponent has neither red nor white creatures, so having a solid replacement can be quite nice. Many of the mirrors in the future will be dominated by this card, and the ability to deal with it handily will decide the victor. This is another place where Glissa can come in handy, since green decks will rarely have a way to kill her. Glissa’s deathtouch and first strike abilities help her dominate combat against most creatures, and her synergy with Ratchet Bomb is just absurd.
Tumble Magnet was specifically for Mirran Crusader, giving you the ability to keep him out of the way while your beasts got the job done. Dungrove Elder looks a bit silly when facing off against the double-striking knight, so you need more ways alongside Sword of War and Peace to fight through that barrier. Unfortunately, you have very few options for beating Mirran Crusader with the current build, so Tumble Magnet was pretty much the only answer. Dungrove Elder decks have trouble beating Humans on occasion thanks to Mirran Crusader, but having the Tumble Magnets alongside the full set of Sword of War and Peace made life much easier.
The Surgical Extractions were a card that we hadn’t experimented with at all, but we knew that we needed an answer to Unburial Rites. We expected many more Faithless Looting decks that relied on the powerful sorcery, and we wanted a free answer to their biggest problem cards. While Surgical Extraction has limited uses and might end up getting the axe in the future, I expect a lot of people to start trying to put Elesh Norn and Sun Titan into play on the third turn thanks to Sphere of the Suns, Faithless Looting, and the Unburial Rites nut-draw. While it isn’t always consistent, I think there is a powerful shell that that has yet to be displayed. The Pro Tour this weekend will hopefully feature some prominent graveyard-based strategies, since most people are afraid to try them out until someone else does well with them.
With Pro Tour Honolulu this weekend, I will be busy testing out some new brews. I hope you guys enjoyed the article. For what it’s worth, this deck is a ton of fun. I got to beat someone on camera in the first round thanks to Bellowing Tanglewurm out of nowhere, and people didn’t stop talking about it all day. In one of my later matches, I cast a lethal Bellowing Tanglewurm against a tapped out opponent. His only response was: “Oh. You’re THAT guy. I heard about that.” As he scooped up his cards, I could only feel a sense of pride that we’d found a way to attack the format from an angle that no one expected and that few people were prepared for.
I will be the first to admit that this green deck might just be a fluke. Delver is still very powerful and can obviously beat any deck given the right draw. Hopefully we come to a consensus this week about what deck to play in Honolulu, as we’re still torn between a few different decks. This past weekend was just supposed to be a trial run for Dungrove Elder, and it passed with flying colors. I don’t think it is necessarily the best deck in the format, but it is certainly powerful and a lot of fun. What else can you ask for? At least you don’t have to play Unsummons.
Thanks for reading.
Todd
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P.S. Brian Braun-Duin version of the deck, as well as his hilarious sense of humor, should be featured today as well. If you want more insight into the deck, as well as some well-timed puns, you should check it out!