The Complete Guide to Mono-Green #5: Analysis and Conclusion

As a quick review of this series’ previous articles, let’s list all of the cards worthy of consideration in the final build of a Mono-Green deck. Beside each of these cards’ names will be notations (Green Weenie (GW), Medium Green (MG), and Big Green (BG)), each of which will have playability rankings (1-3, three being the highest). If a particular build of Mono-Green isn’t mentioned, it’s because the card in question is unsuitable there; for example, although Rhox might have a place in Big Green, it’s definitely not going into Green Weenie. For the purposes of this article, I’ll assume that Elf-based Green Weenie and Medium or Big Green with equipment are bad ideas. This latter point is highly controversial, and you’re free to play whatever form of Mono-Green you like, but it’s key to my understanding of the deck.

One Mana

Birds of Paradise: MG- 3, BG- 3

Elvish Pioneer: GW- 3, MG- 2, BG- 2

Child of Thorns: BG- 1

Jukai Messenger: MG- 1

Elvish Scrapper: GW- 3, MG- 2, BG- 2

Giant Growth: GW- 2, MG- 2, BG- 1

Two Mana

Matsu-Tribe Sniper: GW- 2, MG- 2, BG- 2

Sakura-Tribe Elder: MG- 3, BG- 3

Rushwood Dryad: GW- 3, MG- 3, BG- 3

Slith Predator: GW- 2, MG- 2, BG- 2

Viridian Zealot: GW- 3, MG- 3, BG- 3

Naturalize/Wear Away: GW- 2, MG- 1, BG- 1

Predator’s Strike: GW- 2, MG- 3, BG- 3

Three Mana

Viridian Shaman: GW- 3, MG- 2

Troll Ascetic: GW- 3, MG- 3, BG- 3

Gnarled Mass: BG- 1

Blanchwood Armor: GW- 3, MG- 3, BG- 3

Four Mana

Kodama of the South Tree: MG- 2, BG- 1

Fangren Firstborn: MG- 2, BG- 2

Might of Oaks: GW- 3

Beacon of Creation: GW- 2

Okiba-Gang Shinobi: MG- 3, BG- 3

Five Mana

Kodama of the North Tree: MG- 3, BG- 3

Molder Slug: MG- 3, BG- 3

Plow Under: MG- 2, BG- 2

Enshrined Memories: GW- 3

Six Mana

Fangren Pathcutter: MG- 2, BG- 2

So, how does this compare with established Mono-Green builds?

Mono Green Beats

Rémy POUSSARD

1st Place at Regionals on 03-27-2005

Standard

Creatures (22)

Lands (22)

Spells (16)

Sideboard

Mono Green Beats

Giorgi Floran

1st Place at Regionals on 04-03-2005

Standard

Creatures (23)

Lands (22)

Spells (15)

Sideboard

Well, it’s clear that the Frenchmen and I disagree about quite a lot, and though I have to applaud these decks’ wins, it concerns me that these are the types of Mono-Green people are testing against. One might say that, since Mono-Green’s high showings in France, there’s been much more attention given to the deck, resulting in great theoretical advances. That’s one explanation at least.

Both of these decks are running full sets of Beacon of Creation, and Poussard tops it off with two copies of Blasting Station. The fact that he’s also running Genju of Cedars maindeck is suspect as this enchantment is unsynergistic with both Beacon of Creation and Blanchwood Armor. Poussard also runs three copies of Karstoderm; this may well be a metagame choice, and it’s hard to argue with trophies, yet looking at the best-placing decklists of today, I’d never want this Beast in my hand. Floran plays Dosan, the Falling Leaf while Poussard opts for Isao, Enlightened Bushi, two legends which I’ve disparaged as being inferior to even Gaea’s Herald. All of this is compounded by Floran’s use of Iwamori of the Open Fist in a deck with even fewer large creatures than most builds. Floran’s threat density is awful, a situation hardly helped by the running of cards like Kodama’s Reach (to fuel Rude Awakening), and this is probably why Poussard’s build is viewed as the best one. Neither of these two winners played Molder Slug.

Building upon these decks, Dave Meddish is the last StarCityGames writer to produce a new decklist for Mono-Green Beats:

Green Party

21 Forest

1 Swamp

4 Birds of Paradise

4 Sakura Tribe-Elder

4 Rushwood Dryad

4 Viridian Zealot

4 Eternal Witness

4 Troll Ascetic

3 Beacon of Creation

4 Sword of Fire and Ice

3 Umezawa’s Jitte

4 Karstoderm

Sideboard:

1 Umezawa’s Jitte

2 Sword of Light and Shadow

4 Cranial Extraction

3 Wear Away

2 Splinter

3 Matsu Tribe-Sniper

I approve, of course, of the developments toward Rushwood Dryad and Matsu-Tribe Sniper, but again, the deck is hampered by its use of equipment. Between maindeck and sideboard, there are ten pieces of equipment, and this, in a deck with Karstoderm as its largest threat. Eternal Witness has stolen Blanchwood Armor’s spot despite the fact that, pre-sideboarding, it’ll have nothing to recur but equipment and creatures. That means, you’ll never want to play it on turn 3. The Splinter in the sideboard is, similarly, poorly thought-out since they’ll only rarely snag anything post-Tooth and Nail, and if your real concern is opposing equipment, something like Elvish Scrapper or Viridian Shaman would be much more efficient.

My personal Medium Green deck looks like this:

Solid Green

Medium Green

Adam Grydehoj

Test deck on 05-22-2005

Ravnica Limited

Creatures (30)

Lands (22)

21 Forest
1 Swamp

Spells (8)

Sideboard

You’ll notice a few choices which clash with my own card evaluations. There are so many great cards for Mono-Green now that it’s impossible to play all of the good ones. Kodama of the North Tree isn’t missing because I’m afraid of maindecked Bribery but, rather, because this deck is more focused to beat Tooth and Nail than MUC. Although Kodama of the North Tree is amazing against MUC pre-sideboarding, the very idea of having to consider siding it out is distasteful. Still, if the deck is designed to beat Tooth, where are the maindeck Rushwood Dryads? Rushwood Dryads are a bit iffy maindeck not because they aren’t great against much of the field but because we need room for Elvish Pioneer. Against Tooth in Games 2 and 3, Elvish Pioneer and the otherwise shudder-worthy Jukai Messenger are your only non-Birds of Paradise method of popping out Okiba-Gang Shinobi on turn 3. Although Slith Predator is worse than underpowered when you have no pump, it’s yet another card that your opponent is forced to answer. Fangren Firstborn has a tendency of being sided-out; it’s still a great card, but it’s also a completely normal card. Even though you don’t need that kind of creature against Control decks, it’s harmless enough in the maindeck and will never be awful. This deck’s power against MUC and Tooth and Nail should be obvious, as should the fact that its match-ups against Aggro decks suffer as a result. Sometimes, Big Red will be able to just burn away Solid Green’s threats.

Sideboarding Instructions for Solid Green

White Weenie: -2 Elvish Pioneer, -2 Slith Predator, +4 Matsu-Tribe Sniper

MUC: +4 Okiba-Gang Shinobi, +3 Plow Under, +1 Matsu-Tribe Sniper, -4 Fangren Firstborn, -4 Predator’s Strike

Tooth and Nail: +2 Rushwood Dryad, +2 Jukai Messenger, +4 Okiba-Gang Shinobi, +3 Plow Under, -4 Fangren Firstborn, -3 Molder Slug, -4 Viridian Zealot

B/G Death Cloud: +2 Rushwood Dryad, +2 Jukai Messenger, +4 Okiba-Gang Shinobi, +3 Plow Under, -4 Fangren Firstborn, -3 Molder Slug, -4 Viridian Zealot

Big Red/Ponza: None.

A more Aggro-resistant strain of Mono-Green could look something like this:

Big Green

Adam Grydehoj

Test deck on 05-22-2005

Standard

Creatures (32)

Lands (22)

21 Forest
1 Swamp

Spells (6)

Sideboard

This deck eschews the specialized two-drops and Predator’s Strike for seven more monsters at the top of the curve. If the last deck had few tricks, this deck has none. All it does is attack block. This creature set is selected specifically to deal with Big Red, but it also has more power against White Weenie. Assuming you can survive the initial onslaught, your creatures trump everything White Weenie can put on the table. Out of the sideboard, Iwamori of the Open Fist can knock around Big Red and White Weenie; this is precisely the sort of deck that presents enough threats to warrant running this legend. The sideboard’s Rampant Growths are there primarily for Ponza since good as your opponent’s land destruction may be, it will end up looking kind of silly buried under all of your mana production.

Why, one might ask, if we’re so worried about Big Red, don’t we just add Sword of Fire and Ice to the mix? In today’s Standard, playing a couple of artifacts isn’t going to do you much good against any deck besides White Weenie. Your Big Red opponent would be in a hard spot indeed if she lacked the small amount of removal necessary to deal with four pieces of equipment. Think of Kodama of the North Tree as a replacement for the Swords here; both cards cost five mana, but the creature will kill Arc-Slogger in combat every time.

Sideboarding Instructions for Big Green

White Weenie: -2 Kodama of the North Tree, -2 Elvish Pioneer, -1 Viridian Zealot, +3 Matsu-Tribe Sniper, +2 Iwamori

MUC: +4 Okiba-Gang Shinobi, +3 Matsu-Tribe Sniper, -4 Fangren Firstborn, -2 Fangren Pathcutter, -1 Elvish Pioneer

Tooth and Nail: +4 Rushwood Dryad, +4 Okiba-Gang Shinobi, -4 Fangren Firstborn, -2 Molder Slug, -2 Viridian Zealot

B/G Death Cloud: +4 Rushwood Dryad, +2 Rampant Growth, +4 Okiba-Gang Shinobi, -4 Fangren Firstborn, -3 Molder Slug, -4 Viridian Zealot

Big Red/Ponza: -2 Fangren Firstborn, -2 Elvish Pioneer, +2 Iwamori, +2 Rampant Growth

What, then, are the prospects for Mono-Green in Standard? The deck can be built to successfully combat every major deck except for White Weenie. MUC and Tooth and Nail can be made into extremely good match-ups, assuming you’re willing to leave yourself more vulnerable to Big Red/Ponza. Big Red is far from an auto-loss if you’re running an anti-MUC Mono-Green build, but you can’t always count on getting out Troll Ascetic + Blanchwood Armor. Far more so than with Tooth and Nail, White Weenie, and MUC, it’s important to customize Mono-Green for your expected metagame. White Weenie is a universal weakness; you can only be truly competitive at the expense of your deck’s viability in nearly all other match-ups.

It’s a strange time for Mono-Green to be a relevant deck. The best large creatures in Standard (Keiga, Meloku, Kokusho, Arc-Slogger, Yukora, and the other scary legends) are all in other colors. By the same token, Green’s small creatures are far behind those of White and Black. You could argue that Green has “great mid-sized creatures”, but the only one of these mid-sized creatures that should see any play in Mono-Green Aggro is Troll Ascetic. Blanchwood Armor, meanwhile, has been around for ages, and it’s only become playable now because 1) there are other good reasons to play Mono-Green and 2) Blanchwood Armor + Creature is the environment’s best non-disruption strategy against Tooth and Nail. No, what makes Mono-Green possible today is Molder Slug. Shocking, I know. Most players running Mono-Green don’t even play the Beast.

But they should.

Let’s review the facts. Again. White and Black have better small creatures and the evasion with which to make the bomb equipment fantastic. What use is Slith Predator when you could have Samurai of the Pale Curtain? Also, because there’s so much Green acceleration in the format, the mid-game isn’t terribly important, and because this acceleration almost always doubles as mana-fixing, it’s not necessary to play Green’s large creatures even though Green is your base color. Why bother at all with Kodama of the North Tree if you could just play Darksteel Colossus? Add to this Green’s tradition flaws: No creature removal, little evasion, no direct damage, only high-end card-drawing… The single advantage Green has over the other colors is Molder Slug.

You want some numbers? Here are some from StarCityGames, excluding sideboards: Richie Proffitt Beacon Green deck runs nine artifacts (including four Sword of Fire and Ice). Rick Rust’s Ponza runs seven (three SoFI), and his Tooth and Nail runs twelve. Mike Flores‘ Control Red runs twelve, and his Tooth and Nail runs nine. Dave Meddish Mono-Green runs seven (four SoFI, three Jitte). Every popular deck besides B/G Death Cloud absolutely relies to some extent on artifacts (equipment for Aggro; Vedalken Shackles for MUC; acceleration for Big Red, MUC, Tooth and Nail, and White Weenie). Heck, just about every non-White Weenie Aggro deck, even Mono-Green, is entirely dependent on its bomb equipment. Yet Mono-Green doesn’t have to depend on equipment. Why? Because it has Molder Slug. I feel like writing those last few sentences over and over again until Mono-Green players finally figure things out. I may not agree with Jamie Wakefield regarding Elves, but he’s spot-on about avoiding the threat of artifact removal by, simply, not playing any artifacts.

In order for Mono-Green to be an appropriate deck choice, it needs to fulfill its key goal, that of beating MUC and Tooth and Nail, and it must be at least competitive against other Aggro decks. It’s Molder Slug that achieves the latter. Without any loss in tempo, the Beast makes laughable the best seven or eight cards in every popular Aggro deck except for Big Red (which, due to its playing the amazing Arc-Slogger, merely loses its next best seven or eight cards).

With that, I’ll stop repeating myself. Thanks for coming along for the ride.

Skål!

Adam Grydehøj

[email protected]