Another day, another color. We’re practically at the Prerelease date of Oath of the Gatewatch Limited. It’s time to resume my series on OGW. Let’s see if green got better.
Common Creatures by Curve:
Two Mana
Three Mana
Four Mana
Five Mana
Six Mana
Tricks
Others
Top Tier Commons:
Potential Top Tier Commons:
Oh man, this is the green I’ve been missing. Remember that whole four-toughness thing? Yeah, let’s just bash through that. This is what happens when you take big creatures back from colorless.
Tajuru Pathwarden is just the card of my Draft dreams. Since when do I get to attack and block with my giant trampler? It has all the right numbers too. I want everything this card is selling. Canopy Gorger is even fine, as the fifth toughness means quite a bit. Blocking these cards is going to be as miserable as you expect.
Want to attack me? Yeah, you’d better have the retrick as Green has a one-cost spell (Vines of the Recluse) and a two-drop spell (Elemental Uprising) that both basically read “eat an attacker.” Oh, and both still do work while attacking.
Don’t get confused by Lead by Example, though. Travel Preparations was only great in Innistrad Draft because it was usable twice; you never played it without Flashback. Instant speed adds something to this, but +1/+1 isn’t a big shift in combat.
The draw to Scion Summoner is that it curves really well with support cards. This on three into Saddleback Lagac on four gives you full support value. Also, this on three lets you cast Tajuru Pathwarden on turn four while advancing your board, which is really nice.
Netcaster Spider was great in Magic 2015 Draft; I expect it to be pretty good here as well. It compares well against the common flying creatures in the format, bricking a large number of them and trading up for things that cost five mana.
Loam Larva is a big deal in G/B or G/U where you need your colorless mana to make your cards work. Wastes is a basic land! I’m actually more excited about it than its fellow two-drop Stalking Drone, mostly because Stalking Drone doesn’t break the four-power barrier and just adds to stalls.
Pulse of Murasa feels like an actually good card. It’s two historically mediocre effects stapled together in life gain and Regrowth, but +6 life is a lot of bonus for not going down a card. It’s still something that doesn’t change the board state, so you can’t take it too highly, but I’m expecting this to be something you are happy to see seventh pick or so.
Uncommon Creatures by Curve
Two Mana
Four Mana
Five Mana
Seven Mana
Removal
Others
Top Tier Uncommons:
Potential Top Tier Uncommons:
Green has a lot of really solid options moving up to uncommon. What a great turnaround from last set!
Nissa’s Judgment is removal that adds to your board. Not a lot to talk about here.
Embodiment of Insight is far less exciting than Embodiment of Fury, as it comes with -1 landfall from costing one more to play and gives a much worse ability to creatures that aren’t blocking anyway. It’s still big and makes more power beyond being big, so I’m taking it early.
Seed Guardian is also really big. Reviewing green cards is so easy! The worst part of this card might be that so much of the removal exiles it, meaning the trigger for an X/X Elemental is much less common than you would expect.
Birthing Hulk is also really big, but seven is way more than four or five mana. This notably rectifies boards from behind, which is definitely what you want out of a seven-drop. It isn’t quite as good as the rare high-drops so I’m not going out of my way for it, but if I want a seven and I have this one I’m not unhappy. I guess the real question is if it is better than the third-pack options as 5/4 is really small in comparison to true Eldrazi. It is also the only non-rare in Oath of the Gatewatch that triggers Kozilek’s Return, which is cute.
Baloth Pup feels like a trap. 3/1 is not the right size for the 2/4 format, and the best case if you support it is that you trade two-drops for their Grizzly Bear.
I don’t know what I’m supposed to be sacrificing to Harvester Troll. Historically this has been a pretty big drawback, and just making a 4/5 doesn’t feel worth it to me.
Ruin in Their Wake is a bad Sylvan Scrying most of the time. You didn’t play that card. There are 66 commons in Oath of the Gatewatch and two are Wastes, or 1/33. With ten commons per pack you are expecting one Wastes about every third pack, or about five per draft. Even if you get four Wastes, having this be full-on Rampant Growth is about the same as splashing a two-drop you want to play on turn 2. Gross.
Bonds of Mortality is not a card unless you have too few playables and don’t want the 20th land or something. You aren’t beating Gideon, Ally of Zendikar or Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger by making either destructible.
Rares:
Great
Good
Okay
No Thanks
Green falls a bit flat in the rare category. Nissa is pretty clearly absurd as she’s impossible to kill and runs your opponent over very quickly, but the next tier is just a bunch of high-drops and medium-impact low-drops. Gladehart Cavalry is going to kill them, but so should most seven-drops. And Sylvan Advocate is good for a two-drop, but it isn’t going to immediately break the game the way a good flier will.
Oath of Nissa is on the high end of okay. It’s definitely above replacement level for a playable, but I’m not snapping it off. The one-mana difference between this and Anticipate is a big deal when comparing similar effects.
Second Pick at Battle for Zendikar
Common Creatures by Curve
One Mana
Two Mana
Three Mana
Four Mana
Five Mana
Six Mana
Seven Mana
Removal
Tricks
Others
Winners:
The fatties. Two fewer packs of just being smaller Eldrazi does that to a card, especially Broodhunter Wurm. Welcome to a format where people can appreciate you for doing you, good old 4/3.
Swell of Growth. +2/+2 isn’t great for two, but it’s at least somewhat passable now.
Everything green. You get two good packs leading into this mess!
Losers:
Anything with converge. Good luck figuring that out with colorless as a splash too.
Seek the Wilds. Same as Anticipate and Grave Birthing. Less durdle, more doing.
Uncommon Creatures by Curve
One Mana
Two Mana
Three Mana
Four Mana
Five Mana
Six Mana
Seven Mana
Tricks
Other
Winners:
Sylvan Scrying to find colorless mana in G/B and G/U.
Losers:
All of the above. These are all linear cards that fell short in triple Battle for Zendikar Draft; it’s not getting any better for them in a non-linear format.
Except Tajuru Warcaller. Overrun is still very good.
Rares
Great
Good
Okay
Winners:
I got nothing.
Losers:
Nissa’s Renewal. There are fewer huge mana sinks with less awaken and fewer ten-drops.
Woodland Wanderer… kind of. I’m not sure that this card isn’t just as good despite being more likely to be a 4/4 than 5/5 now. That’s still huge.
Takeaways from Green:
You’d better have your deck in line before the third pack with green. The first couple of packs have some nice ones, but it dries up fast. This means you get less punished for not abandoning ship on green if it appears cut, as you will get the hookup going right in the second pack and not care about passing packs the original way at the end. This also means you want your second color to be whatever is open during the first pack so you can get enough things out of the third pack to matter.
It’s also really funny to me that the draft format swap made the Battle for Zendikar green cards even worse. They were all about narrow synergies you could maybe cobble together, and suddenly none of those exist anymore. It’s just duds for days.