Hey everyone, and welcome back to a very special Green edition of The Real Deal. No, we aren’t suddenly becoming environmentally conscious (though that joke I’m sure was recycled) — we’re going to talk about Magic’s most maligned color, Green.
The problem with Green isn’t a problem of power level — Green is doing just fine right now in Extended and Standard, which are the most heavily played Constructed formats. The problem with Green is one of identity and flavor. Simply put, Green is the most boring color in Magic.
Black: Black can do anything short of removing enchantments and artifacts. Sometimes it requires a payment of some resource (be it life, permanents, or cards in hand), but Black’s willing to sacrifice to make things happen. This gives Black access to a myriad of effects, making it an interesting color to play.
Red: Red is home of a ton of really wacky, build-around me rares. For every Doubling Season Green gets, Red gets a Warp World, Mindmoil, Flame Fusillade, Searing Meditation, and Razia’s Purification. Bloodbond March does not an interesting enchantment make. Red’s creatures are also a lot more interesting than Green’s. Green gets big ol’ fatties. Red gets a horde of Goblins that work well together. For example:
Red’s creature interaction: Cast Skirk Prospector. Sacrifice Mogg War Marshall to add R to your mana pool. Sacrifice the two goblins it makes to add RR to your mana pool. Cast Goblin Warchief. Tap RR to cast Goblin Matron. Get another Mogg War Marshall. Tap R to put it into play. Sacrifice it and the Matron for RRRR. Cast Goblin Ringleader. Go nuts. Have a party.
Green’s creature interaction: Tap Llanowar Elves to cast Wild Mongrel. Discard Basking Rootwalla to Wild Mongrel. All three creatures no longer care the others exist. Wheee.
White: White is probably the most underpowered color in Magic right now, but it has a lot of interesting cards — all its weenies do something (and aren’t just bodies), it has various removal spells, can swing the life in the game, and has the tax mechanic, which basically makes it like Black in reverse.
Blue: Blue can do anything. Even after they’ve powered down Blue, Blue can still do everything. Blue can now kill weenie creatures easily thanks to Planar Chaos. So basically, if you took the other four colors, put them together, and made a fifth color, that color would be Blue.
Green: Green gets enchantment and artifact removal, which is boring. Green gets lifegain, which when done in Green, is usually boring. Exalted Angel, Descendant of Kiyomaro, and Loxodon Hierarch are more exciting than Wellwisher, Wandering Stream, and Nourish. Yes, Loxodon Hierarch is Green/White. However, the good parts are White (lifegain, sacrificing the regenerate other creatures — White gets the comes-into-play gain life creatures. Green usually doesn’t), and the only part that’s really Green is the 4/4 body.
Green gets mana-producing Elves, most of which are one or two mana, and tap for a colorless, a Green, or any color mana. Birds of Paradise, Llanowar Elves, Boreal Druid, Elves of Deep Shadow, and Utopia Tree are all of varying degrees of power level, but they are all essentially boring. Look! I get a 1/1 or 0/2 or 0/1 creature that can tap for mana, and do nothing else! Magus of the Library is the exception that proves the rule — an Elf that does something!
Green gets lots of mana acceleration, such as Kodama’s Reach, Wood Elves, Explosive Vegetation, and Farseek. These accelerants are used for three purposes — to whore Green out to other colors, to accelerate combos that involve Early Harvest, and to grab multi-colored lands. Some of these are interesting effects, but they are usually played in decks that aren’t primarily Green. Those decks are playing the Elves, above.
Green gets fatties. Big, dumb, large creatures that can beat down. Again, the question here isn’t power level — Iwamori, Call of the Herd, and Spectral Force are fine men. They are all also pretty boring. Morphling and Torchling have five abilities. Jaya Ballard has three. Braids was a “build-around me” card in both iterations. Meloku could create an interesting board situation. What does Spectral Force do? Swing for eight. It’s very effective at swinging for eight, but not much more than that. Scryb Ranger is interesting. Scryb Ranger is another exception to the rule.
I’m not here to bitch and whine about Green’s lack of interesting mechanics or thematic runnings. I’m here to offer five solutions that can make Green a much more interesting color. Again — the problem isn’t with the power level of Green, but that Green, as a color, is narrow and boring compared to other colors.
Fix #1: Keyword “Web”, “Stealth”, and “Untargetable”
There are three abilities that show up regularly on Green cards. These are untargetability, the ability to block flying creatures, and the ability to only be blocked by flying creatures. Let’s take a look at recent examples of these creatures, and see how much text these abilities take up on cards:
Giant Spider (9th Edition): Giant Spider can block as though it had flying.
Silhana Ledgewalker (Guildpact): Silhana Ledgewalker can’t be blocked except by creatures with flying.
Simic Sky Swallower (Dissension): Simic Sky Swallower can’t be the target of spells or abilities.
All three of these are abilities that have been around for a long, long time — the Spider ability was introduced in Alpha (Giant Spider), Untargetability in Legends (Spectral Cloak), and can’t be blocked except by creatures with flying debuted more or less in Legends (Elven Riders, though with the wall clause) and came into its own sometime shortly thereafter. So in short, these are three abilities that appear primarily on Green cards, have been around for over a decade, and have been repeated as themes set after set after set.
One way to expand design space on Green cards is to keyword these abilities. Players from all eras of Magic have been exposed to these abilities, so it’s not a matter of familiarity or lack of creatures with these abilities. If these were keyworded as a single word, it would free up a line or more of text on creatures to expand on other abilities. For instance, Let’s look again at Simic Sky Swallower:
Flying, trample.
Simic Sky Swallower can’t be the target of spells or effects.
Change that to:
Flying, trample, untargetable.
A lot more simple, a lot more elegant, and an ability that most expert-product level players understand by this point.
I would keyword the abilities as follows:
Untargetable: The keyword for “Can’t be the target of spells or effects.” There are some variants on this, such as “Can’t be the target of opponent’s spells or effects” (Troll Ascetic), or “Can’t be the target of spells”, but those are fewer are further between than total untargetability.
Web: The keyword for “can block as though it has flying.” This is homage to both the card Web (which allows creatures to block flyers) and to the fact that a vast majority of creatures with this ability are spiders.
Stealth: The keyword for “can’t be blocked except by creatures with flying.” This is the keyword I’m the least sure of (is stealth as descriptive of the ability as the other two words?), but it does describe the ability — you can sneak around others unless you’re spotted by an eagle eye in the sky. Please feel free to jump into the forums if you have a better name for a keyword of this ability!
Fix #2: Rework the Poison Mechanic
I came up with a fix for poison that I think is both simple and elegant in execution.
Get rid of the Poison rule.
Confused yet? Bear with me! When Pit Scorpion was originally released in Legends, here’s how it read:
“If Scorpion damages opponent, opponent gets a poison counter.
If opponent ever has ten or more poison counters, opponent loses game.”
And in Visions (the last set to feature Poison before Time Spiral), here’s the text from Suq’Ata Assassin:
“Suq’Ata Assassin cannot be blocked except by artifact or black creatures.
If Suq’Ata Assassin attacks and is not blocked, defending player gets a poison counter.
If any player has ten or more poison counters, he or she loses the game.”
With the exception of Swamp Mosquito in Time Spiral, the “If any player has ten or more poison counters, he or she loses the game.” is a static effect on the card, and not part of the rules reminder. It would be extremely simple to remove the rules for poison entirely, and make it function similarly to Arcane spells in that in-and-of itself, it does nothing. This would free up design space for Poison, while allowing every single poison card in Magic (except for the Time Spiral Swamp Mosquito) to function as written!
Under the reworking of Poison, here’s how it would function: Players can get “Poison” counters. This is tracked independently from Life Totals (this is the only downside of Poison that still remains, but it is a very trivial number to keep track of, given the breadth possible if poison is used properly!).
Poison counters could be given to players through various means (creatures, spells, etc), and different cards would have effects based on the number of poison counters that player had. For instance:
Pit Scorpion
Poison: 1 (This would be a shorthand way of saying that if it deals damage to a player, it gives one poison counter)
If an opponent has ten or more poison counters, that opponent loses the game.
1/1
Let’s say you have another creature:
Poisonous Asp B2
Poison: 1
If an opponent has four or more poison counters, their hand size is reduced by three.
2/2
When you play Poisonous Asp, if your opponent has already gotten 4+ poison counters, the ability would happen immediately (or, in this case, they would discard down to four at the end of their turn.) If, through other means, you got an opponent to ten poison counters and then played Pit Scorpion, you would win the game at that point (under the reworking, you’d probably want to raise that number higher than ten, or do away with any “you win the game” clauses associated with poison).
This opens up a ton of design space. First of all, you can use self-poisoning effects as a drawback for spells or lands. For instance:
City of Poison
Land
Tap: Add 1 to your mana pool.
Tap: Add 1 mana of any color to your mana pool. You gain a Poison counter.
or
Poisonous Juzam
Creature — Djinn
At the beginning of your upkeep, you gain a poison counter.
5/5
This would also open up space for creatures that change modally depending on how many poison counters you (or your opponent) has.
Blinded by Poison
W1, Aura (Enchant Creature)
Enchanted creature can’t attack. If it’s controller has two or more poison counters, it can’t block as well.
And
Poison Growth
G, Instant
Target creature gains +2/+2. If an opponent has five or more poison counters, target creature gets +4/+4 and Trample instead.
(Trample being defensible because if your opponent is weak from poison, the creature will be able to trample them more easily. The same can go, flavorfully, for first strike, vigilance, haste, whatever!)
Also, you could use poison counters as a resource:
Purifying Apes
G3, Creature — Apes
You may remove any number of poison counters from an opponent. For each counter removed in this way, Purifying Apes gets +2/+2 until end of turn.
3/3
or
Blood Leeches
B2, Creature — Leech
Remove two poison counters (on you? you control? Not 100% sure how to word this): Lose a life and draw a card.
1/1
(The flavor being that you use the leeches to remove the poison from your own system).
Poison would be a mechanic that probably would end up splitting time primarily in Green and Black, but that would allow Green to thematically have abilities that show up in other colors. It’s a very versatile mechanic under the rework, and one that could give Green a very interesting boost.
Fix #3: Give Green Fewer Effects That Rely on Other Permanents
This one is courtesy of artist and former StarCityGames.com employee Josh Strickland, who brought this flaw in Green to my attention. No other color has as many effects that require you to target your own permanents, have creatures in play to pump to gain a benefit, or just plain need something else to work as Green. Let’s take a look at 9th Edition as an example:
Commons:
White (4): Angelic Blessing, Holy Strength, Infantry Veteran, Warrior’s Honor
Blue (3): Crafty Pathmage, Fishliver Oil, Flight
Black (2): Fear, Unholy Strength
Red (2); Firebreathing, Reflexes
Green (3); Giant Growth, Overgrowth, Treetop Bracers
So far so even, more or less.
Uncommons:
White (3): Blessed Orator, Inspirit, Serra’s Blessing, Spirit Link
Blue (1): Levitation
Black (2): Horror of Horrors, Nantuko Husk
Red (2): Anarchist, Enrage
Green (6): Blanchwood Armor, Ley Druid, Llanowar Behemoth, Regeneration, Web, Yavimaya Enchantress
Somebody’s jumping ahead here…
Rares:
White (4): Glorious Anthem, Oracle’s Attendants, Righteousness, Worship
Blue (0)
Black (2): Grave Pact, Hell’s Caretaker
Red (1): Relentless Assault
Green (5): Biorhythm, Emperor Crocodile, Greater Good, Might of Oaks, Verduran Enchantress
Final Count:
White: 11
Blue: 4
Black: 6
Red: 5
Green: 14
Well, Green and White are both pretty badly off here (and are by coincidence the two colors with the most problems right now), and Green has more need-your-own-other-permanents cards than any two non-White colors put together! Still not convinced? Let’s take a look at Time Spiral (Slivers not included!)
Commons:
White (2): Fortify, Pentarch Ward
Blue (2): Ophidian Eye, Tolarian Sentinel
Black (1): Traitor’s Clutch
Red (3): Bogardan Rager, Ghitu Firebreathing, Viashino Bladescout
Green (5): Aether Web, Herd Gnarr, Strength in Numbers, Thallid Germinator, Thrill of the Hunt
And we’re off to the races!
Uncommons:
White (2): Griffin Guide, Spirit Loop
Blue (1): Fool’s Demise
Black (1): Fallen Ideal
Red (1): Undying Rage
Green (5): Aspect of Mongoose, Might of Old Krosa, Pendelhaven Elder, Scryb Ranger, Tromp the Domains
Uh Oh!
Rares:
White (.5): Saffi Eriksdotter (Half)
Blue (0):
Black (1): Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder
Red (0):
Green (2.5): Saffi Eriksdotter (Half), Stonewood Invocation, Verdant Embrace
Timeshifted:
White (2): Auratog, Consecrate Land
Blue (1): Unstable Mutation
Black (0):
Red (1): Fire Whip (kinda)
Green (3): Avoid Fate, Hunting Moa, Pendelhaven
Let’s see the totals!
White: 6.5
Blue: 4
Black: 3
Red: 5
Green: 15.5
So, while other colors are having spells which stand alone, aren’t enchant (your own) creatures, or pump spells, Green is diddling with their own guys, with as many self-targeting and other-permanent necessitating spells and creatures and effects as the next three highest-tallied colors put together.
Wizards, just stop giving Green so many Giant Growths and the like. Try to come up with effects that don’t require you to have other creatures in play, or to play other creatures to get an effect. In short, stop shortchanging Green with so much chaff compared to the other colors, in this type of spell!
Fix #4: Stop Shafting Green on 5-Color Cycles of Flying Creatures!
The Juganator. You all know him, and you all think he’s pretty horrible compared to Yosei, Kokusho, Keiga, and Ryusei.
“But Ben, Green’s doesn’t get good flyers! They had to make him bad!”
“But Ben! Green could accelerate the fastest, so they had to make it color intensive to make it harder to cast!”
Well, how about the Kirin Cycle?
Doesn’t Bounteous Kirin suck ass compared to Celestial Kirin (3/3 flying Powder Keg for four), Infernal Kirin (3/3 flying Persecute for four), Skyfire Kirin (3/3 flying Threaten for four), and Cloudhoof Kirin (Air Elemental with a bonus). Green gets a 4/4 flyer for seven (!) mana with built-in lifegain.
What… the… hell?
Forum member RemusShepherd put it best in the forums of my article from last week:
“The desire to keep flyers away from Green is what makes all the Green dragons suck. Personally I wish the designers would accept that a dragon doesn’t have to fly. I much preferred the pit-fighter cycle from Onslaught, where every creature had its own set of abilities with no relation to the others.”
I agree wholeheartedly! Why not play to Green’s strength, and make their “Dragons” (or Kirin, or whatever cycle du jour there is) more, well, Green? How about giving them Stealth (see above)? How about giving them trample? What about Jedit, who gets Forestwalk — that’s a step in the right direction. Take note: Silvos and Jedit = good design in a cycle. Bounteous Kirin and the Juganator = sad panda.
Fix #5: Make Mother Nature Matter
Hail Storm. Hurricane. Tsunami. Typhoon. There are all the work of Mother Nature, and are basically the angry side of Green’s Wrath. White gets Wrath of God. Green gets Wrath of Nature…but less so these days. Now they get Squall Line, Wild Pair, and Stonewood Invocation. There are not cards that elicit any sort of fear. I want the primal Mother Nature, the one that makes you poop your pants. I want the Mother Nature that makes you go:
This one is just advocating for flavor in Green, pertaining to nature. I don’t have specific ideas on what mechanics these should be built around, or exactly which aspects of nature should be here, but let’s see more natural disasters make their way into Green!
Ah heck, how about I throw in a card here:
Tropical Cyclone
3GGG, Sorcery
Destroy all lands that do not produce (G) mana.
Simple, to the point, and survivable on both sides. Maybe needs an up in the mana cost? I just know that this aspect of Nature would frighten the living bee’s wax out of my tender underbottom.
Oh, and make Dinosaurs the iconic Green creature type, instead of Beasts. Just sayin’.
So, these are the five changes I would propose to fix Green’s flavor in Magic. By all means, please pipe in on the forums with your thoughts and feelings. Agree? Disagree? I want you to speak with a loud voice and let me know your ideas about how Green can change for the better.
This article is dedicated to Jamie Wakefield. May the Green be Greener on the other side of the pond!