Peebles Primers - Mono Green Aggro in Standard

I keep writing articles in short bursts, and then dropping off the face of the planet. Most recently, this was due to StarCityGames.com change in article presentation, but Craig was a good enough person to allow me to start my very own weekly column. The idea at this point is that each week I’ll focus on a major deck in a current Constructed environment, and try to break things down as best as I can.

The deck that I’m starting off with is my current Weapon of Choice for Magic Online’s Standard queues: Mono Green Aggro. The deck first showed up on MTGO after Fcormier did well with it in a Premier Event at the end of November. The basic idea was extraordinarily straightforward: play a handful of tiny guys, make them huge, and swing for the win.

Mono Green Aggro - Beginnings

Benjamin Peebles-Mundy

Test deck on 02-18-2007

Standard

Creatures (24)

Lands (22)

2 Pendelhaven
20 Forest

Spells (14)

Sideboard

The deck didn’t look like a whole lot at the time, but it was capable of getting some very aggressive openings. In my first series of queues, I found that it wasn’t uncommon to attack with a 4/4 Ledgewalker or 5/4 Sophisticate on turn 3. Similarly, there were many different ways to wind up with a third-turn Spectral Force, whether it was an Elf and a Scryb, an Elf and a Yavimaya Dryad, or just two Elves in the first two turns. Finally, Stonewood Invocation simply seemed like one of the most amazing cards I had played with in a long time; any time I drew more than one it felt impossible to lose.

Evolution of the Deck

Once I had enough matches under my belt to feel comfortable with the deck, I started making changes. I’m going to present my current decklist and then explain how it evolved from the original, in approximately the order that specific card choices were changed.

Mono Green Aggro

Benjamin Peebles-Mundy

Test deck on 02-18-2007

Standard

Creatures (26)

Lands (22)

Spells (12)

Sideboard

The first change, which happens to be one of the most important, was the addition of two Boreal Druids. Having an Elf on turn 1 allowed me to play any of my three-drops on turn 2, let me power spells out with Scryb Ranger, and generally just allowed the deck to play at its best. MGA had no need for a mana producer that could make multiple kinds of mana, and Pendelhaven wanted more 1/1 creatures, so Boreal Druid got the nod over Birds of Paradise.

To make room for the Elves, I cut one Blanchwood Armor and one Moldervine Cloak. Since I had two of each card, I figured it was time to determine which one was a better draw, and simply run four of that one. The Dredge on Cloak ended up being the deal-breaker, and so the last two Armors were dropped for the full boat of Cloaks.

My next swap was Spike Feeder for Carven Caryatid. Bringing Caryatids in against Boros (and other Red aggro decks) implied that the deck needed to do a better job of stopping the opposing deck’s creatures. In reality, trading off creatures was usually very profitable, because either a Cloaked guy or an 8/8 would eventually stop their offense and then run them over. The real problem was that they could sometimes assemble enough burn to be able to kill you before your giants could get the job done. Spike Feeder addresses this problem amazingly well: it usually trades for a small creature or burn spell, and then gains you four on the way out. Neat trick: if your opponent points a Helix, Hammer, or Bolt at your Feeder, you can target the same Feeder with the counter moving ability and, in response, give it +1/+2 with Pendelhaven. Your 3/4 Feeder will then survive the burn spell and live to gain you life another turn.

At this point, I was becoming frustrated that I continued to lose to Urzatron decks more than I could beat them. (Aside: at this time, the big Tron deck was Blue/Red, which was much worse for you than the current Blue/White versions. Wildfire killed all of your guys and killed all of your lands, and Hellkite could Wrath you and block all day.) Discussion with teammates led to the conclusion that the presence of Llanowar Elves, Scryb Rangers, and Yavimaya Dryads would allow us to run some colorless lands in the maindeck, so Ghost Quarters were added to break up the Tron. With the ability to stunt the opponent’s access to huge mana, MGA was able to run over the slower control decks much more often.

Much later, one of my teammates convinced me that Call of the Herd didn’t make sense in the deck. The point of MGA was to kill people on turn 5, not to win an attrition war. Since all we wanted to do was get in there for as much as possible, as fast as possible, the powerful-but-slow elephants were shelved for Might of Old Krosa. Might allows you to attack for six on turn 3, and still play another creature. When you get to the point in the game where you’re casting Invocations and Spectrals, it’s really awesome to have your opponent already at ten.

When I made the switch from Call of the Herds to Might of Old Krosas, I also cut a Pendelhaven for a Gemstone Caverns, for essentially the same reasons. All we want to do is start unloading our hand and swinging, so why pass on the ability to play a two-drop on turn 1? At the same time, going this nuts for the aggro plan hurt the deck a little bit against decks like Boros. After all, a 3/3 on turns 2 and 3 (or 3 and 4) for one card was a great way to stem the bleeding. Without Calls, the deck needed to make sure that its Elf openings didn’t get disrupted by an Icatian Javelineers or Seal of Fire. To address this, the Giant Growths in the sideboard were changed into Gather Courage.

Matchups

Dragonstorm (Unfavorable):
We’re going to start off with the bad news: MGA almost always loses to a Dragonstorm on turn 4. Sometimes they’ve got a bunch of dragons sitting in their hand, but even tutoring up two Bogardan Hellkites will usually wipe your side of the board. Even if you have a creature or two to follow up with, you’ll still have to deal with the fact that your opponent has a bunch of guys that completely outclass most of your deck.

There’s good news, too, though. Sometimes the Dragonstorm deck won’t have that fourth-turn win in their hand, and you’ll get a turn or two of extra time. When you’re on the play, usually the most you need is one more turn to put the nail in the coffin. In addition, sometimes you actually can beat the fourth-turn combo. This usually involves messing up combat math with an instant-speed Scryb Ranger, and then swinging back with a gigantic Dryad or Ledgewalker.

Either way, to win this matchup, you need to make sure you have fast hands. You’re much better off keeping a one-land hand that will allow you to play an Elf, Scryb Ranger, and Sophisticate in the first two turns than you are keeping a hand with two Invocations, Yavimaya Dryad, and Spectral Force. After game 1, swap the Yavimaya Dryads for your Giant Solifuges, since they’re usually worth up to six more damage than a Dryad.

Dralnu du Louvre (Favorable):
There are three cards in the Dralnu deck that you don’t want to see, but luckily for MGA they’re all one-ofs. They are, in order of nastiness, Skeletal Vampire, Darkblast, and Seize the Soul. Skeletal Vampire will stop you dead in your tracks unless you have an unanswered Dryad Sophisticate or Spectral Force. An early Darkblast will slow down your elves and break up your offense. Seize the Soul will take out your Spectral Force, and get your Sophisticate or Scryb Ranger for good measure.

On the other hand, there are a much greater number of cards that the Dralnu player doesn’t want to see out of your deck. Silhana Ledgewalkers are a huge problem, since they give you completely safe targets for Moldervine Cloak and Might of Old Krosa. Scryb Ranger is similarly safe from Repeal, but you need to make sure that you aren’t walking into a Darkblast or Last Gasp when you go to Cloak him up. Dryad Sophisticate isn’t particularly hard to answer, since Dralnu has Darkblast, Repeal, Desert, and assorted other methods of getting rid of targetable x/1s, but it will still force an answer or run them over. Spectral Force, if you can get it through the wall of countermagic, is simply too huge to be dealt with outside of Seize the Soul. Lastly, Stonewood Invocation is the trump card, and any time you draw more than one the Dralnu player is going to have a hard time winning, even if you’ve only been able to keep one or two creatures in play.

The general idea behind this matchup is that the Dralnu deck has plenty of tools to slow aggressive decks down, but they are possible to play around. As long as you aren’t giving your opponent free cards and turns by walking your Cloaks into Repeals and your Mights into Last Gasps, you ought to be able to get them into Invocation range pretty easily. Many of the cards that you don’t want to see, such as Skeletal Vampire, are disruptable with Ghost Quarter, since many builds of the deck don’t include any basic Swamps. Sideboarding is very straightforward: take out Yavimaya Dryad for Giant Solifuge. Solifuge demands a Teferi or Skeletal Vampire to kill him, and otherwise kills your opponent in just a couple of turns.

Boros (Favorable):
Boros’s only advantage in this matchup is their ability to start throwing burn at your head when you’re winning the creature fight. Draws that include a large number of Helixes and Chars might be able to send you packing, but usually when that happens it means that they have little to no early pressure in the form of creatures. The two scary creatures that show up on the other side of the board are Knight of the Holy Nimbus and Soltari Priest. With some fast-mana draws, you’ll be able to get enough extra mana to play your game and kill the Nimbus, but that’s fairly rare. The Priest, on the other hand, acts as a burn spell that is good for six to eight damage on its own, depending on how long the game goes.

On the other hand, almost all of your creatures play the role of their Priests. All of your two-drops should be unblockable against them, so they’ll have to remove them or die to a series of Cloaks, Mights, and Invocations. Spectral Force on turn 3 or turn 4 will nearly win the game all by itself, and in most games a “fair” fifth-turn Spectral will still be good enough. Invocation is a particularly good spell against Boros, because it is difficult for them to effectively play around it. Unless you have only one creature, they’re going to want to save their burn for your turn, so that they can respond to a Might or Cloak by taking your guy out. This means that when you attack and they go for the Helix on your Sophisticate, the Invocation ruins their day.

Do what you can to stay out of burn range. If they offer you the trade of their first-turn Lion for your first-turn Elf, take it unless you absolutely need the mana. If they drop a Garrison, consider Ghost Quartering it. Try to use your Mights early, when they can’t burn in response, unless you want to save one to protect a Cloak play later on. Remember, it gives +4/+4 any time in your main phase, not just when you could play a sorcery, so it does a great job letting your Cloak resolve in response to their Helix or Char. During sideboarding you need to decide what your plan against Worship is. Not every Boros deck has Worship in its sideboard, but if they get one into play, you don’t have any maindeck outs to it. If you decide that you want Grips, either because you fear Worship or simply know that they have it, you’ll need to trim a combination of creatures and pump. I think the best bet is to trim two Sophisticates and a Cloak, since Sophisticate and Scryb are similarly fragile, but Scryb Ranger’s untap ability is stronger than the second point of power. No matter what you decide to do about Krosan Grip, you’ll be taking out your Yavimaya Dryads for Spike Feeders, and swapping your Mights for Gather Courages. Courage isn’t as good at winning a race outright, but when it saves your first-turn elf from a Javelineers, you’ll be well on your way to out-powering them.

U/W Tron (Close, but Unfavorable):
The games that you lose to U/W Tron will be because they get their mana online and you don’t draw Ghost Quarter to break it up. Unfortunately for you, Fetters and Wrath buy them a lot of time to find those lands. The result is that you need to balance the need to play aggressively so that they can’t assemble the Tron with the need to play around Wrath and not walk your Spectrals into Fetters.

You do have tools to win this fight, however. Dryad Sophisticate and Silhana Ledgewalker both demand fast answers when they start picking up Cloaks and Mights. It’s usually okay to allow the Tron player to get two creatures and a Cloak (or something similar) with their Wrath, especially if you can follow their Wrath up with guy plus Cloak. If you draw your Ghost Quarters, it’s usually correct to be aggressive with them; if they have two of the three Tron pieces, it’s probably time to blow something up. Even one turn of +4 mana has the chance of letting them completely set up for the rest of the game.

To win games against U/W Tron, you want to make them play fair. A simple U/W control deck with bad mana isn’t in the best position to fight the deck that is most capable of dealing massive damage in the early turns. When you sideboard, you want to bring in Solifuges as post-Wrath plays, and Krosan Grips to hit Fetters and Signets. As with most control decks, you will be boarding out your Yavimaya Dryads for the Solifuges. Against a deck with counterspells, board sweepers, and spot removal, Moldervine Cloak and Spectral Force are both underwhelming. I usually trim one Cloak and two Spectrals for the Grips, though if you have reason to believe that they aren’t packing Fetters it may be correct to leave the Grips in the side.

The Mirror (It depends, but usually Favorable):
This version of the deck has a specific card choice that makes it dramatically better in the mirror than many other builds: Yavimaya Dryad. In this matchup, unlike any other, the three-mana Dryad outclasses the two-mana one. Since Yavimaya Dryads are usually boarded out in every other matchup (albeit for different cards), most people have dropped them from the maindeck in favor of something like Elvish Warrior or Giant Solifuge. You have all the idiots in the world to chump-block a 2/3 when the game goes long, but there’s nothing like creating an unblockable creature that bumps your mana ahead a turn.

The game-play is fairly straightforward: you will each just try to race the other. Because of this, Elf openings are extremely desirable. Scryb Ranger is also amazing to have, since it does so much. In this matchup, it accelerates your mana, allows you to attack and block with the same creatures, and can even give you an out to an opposing Yavimaya Dryad, if you happen to run into one. Spectral Force superiority usually will win the day, but if you have fast evasive creatures and enough pump, there’s not always enough time to get him online. When you sideboard, you should bring in Spike Feeders for Dryad Sophisticate, since the Dryad is essentially a 2/1 vanilla creature, and there will be no shortage of opposing dorks to block it on the other side. Here, more than anywhere else, Spike Feeder’s counter-moving ability will be relevant, since making a bigger and badder threat is often more important that gaining some life. Even so, don’t be afraid to trade him off and gain some life back.

Alternate Builds

Back when the big decks were Boros, Dragonstorm, and U/R Tron, I build a version of this deck with a White splash. It could board into a Glare plan, but the maindeck was simply a bigger version of the MGA deck. Maindeck Watchwolves put faster pressure on the control and combo decks, while surviving through Pyroclasm. Maindeck Loxodon Hierarchs were the game-breaker against Boros. The real reason for the change, however, was for sideboard options. In a world filled with Hellkites and Wildfires, sideboarded Luminesces allowed you to walk over U/R Tron and survive against Dragonstorm. Glares and Worships further increased your percentage against Boros, while giving you a real chance to beat a Dragonstorm deck that went off.

So why did I drop it? To make these changes, I had to leave cards like Might of Old Krosa and Silhana Ledgewalker on the sidelines. While that wasn’t too painful at the time, the presence of Dralnu du Louvre and U/W Tron in the current metagame demands that these cards remain in the deck.

The other, much more realistic, option is to splash Red for Blood Moon. Adding Stomping Grounds to the manabase and changing the Boreal Druids into Birds of Paradise allows you to sideboard an absolute bomb in the Dralnu and U/W Tron matchups. Blood Moon cuts Dralnu players off of Black mana, which in turn cuts them off of their answers. Blood Moon, in tandem with Ghost Quarters, allows you to really lock down a Tron deck’s mana; their Signets will still give them access to their spells, but there will be no more ten-mana plays. Most people replace the Spike Feeders in my sideboard with the Blood Moons, but remember that that makes you weaker against both Boros and the “Mirror.”

Post Planar Chaos

There are a handful of Green cards in Planar Chaos that could be integrated into a MGA-style deck, but the ones that everyone is talking about are Timbermare and Groundbreaker. In addition to those, there is also Uktabi Drake, Gaea’s Anthem, and Mire Boa. Of the bunch, the only one that I would consider simply adding to my decklist would be Timbermare; the drawback half of tapping down every creature is somewhat negated by the presence of Scryb Ranger.

This is not to say, however, that no one will play with these cards. When Planar Chaos throws Damnation into Standard, being able to beat a board-sweeper will become very important. Gaea’s Anthem means that the formerly-unimpressive crew of 1/1s and 2/1s you might have post-Wrath will actually be capable of taking large chunks of life out of your opponent immediately. Timbermare and Uktabi Drake can both come out after a Wrath and start smashing face immediately. The reason that the Drake is reasonable at all is that you can drop him and a creature enchantment in the same turn. Playing a hasted 2/1 flyer and a Blanchwood Armor in the same turn is quite an impressive clock.

It is possible that Planar Chaos will allow the existence of a Green deck where creatures are treated as burn spells, and the only goal is to deal twenty damage as fast as humanly possible. A rough draft of that deck might look like:

Mono Green Burn

Benjamin Peebles-Mundy

Test deck on 02-18-2007

Standard

Creatures (24)

Lands (20)

Spells (16)

Every creature included in the deck has a form of evasion, and Might of Old Krosa and Giant Growth make even a Birds of Paradise frightening. The Birds are included over Llanowar Elves because a 0/1 flying creature is a more appealing target for Blanchwood Armor than a vanilla 1/1. There is a decent chance that this deck will be worse than the current flavor of MGA, but there is no doubt someone will play it online.

So what’s the upshot? In a metagame filled with aggressive decks and non-Wrath control decks, Mono Green Aggro is ready to dominate. If the metagame is more skewed towards control decks, the Red splash is likely the way to go. The current Magic Online PE metagame is fairly hostile, however, since the formerly large number of MGA decks prompted a rise in the numbers of Dragonstorm decks. The Dragonstorm matchup might not be unwinnable, but you’re going to need to get a little bit lucky to pull it out. Even so, Dragonstorm is not so completely dominant that MGA is unable to put up Premiere Event Top 8s. In the last PE that I played, I faced only one Dragonstorm deck in six rounds of play.

Thank you for sticking with me through my return to StarCityGames.com. As always, if you have a question about a specific card choice or a certain matchup, I will be looking forward to discussing things in the forums.

Thanks again!
Benjamin Peebles-Mundy
ben at mundy dot net
SlickPeebles on AIM