Welcome back to our Thursday installment of the coolest daily deck-a-thon this side of the Atlantic Ocean! Each series of daily decks sees me try to include one each of several different types of deck. I try for a really silly deck for those who just want to have fun. I try for a decently tuned deck for those with a more competitive metagame. I try to build around a funky card for those who like their decks ultra-Johnny. After that, it’s just two decks that strike my fancy.
Today I am shooting for the well-tuned deck. I’m going to delve into Invasion Block a bit and see what turns up. Since I know that this will be a Green/Black control deck, I might as well decide right now to make this a Magic: the Electronic friendly deck so that all of our online players can build this one. I hope that you enjoy this deck!
Pine Needles
4 Putrefy
4 Rend Flesh
4 Recollect
2 Tranquility
4 Kavu Titan
4 Vulturous Zombie
4 Bane of the Living
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Silklash Spider
2 Twisted Abomination
4 Llanowar Wastes
10 Swamp
12 Forest
This deck uses creatures in order to help establish control. Bane of the Living and Silklash Spider help stave off and wipe out opposing forces. They work very well together. Each can dominate a table, and neither usually kills the other. (Unless you have to have a very large board wipe with the Bane).
I wanted to try out Vulturous Zombie, so I reduced the Spider count to just two. These guys look amazing, but they’ll die to a Spider that decides to Hurricane if they haven’t grown enough. I don’t believe that the cards are too disharmonious, because the Zombie can grow quickly to a size that can’t be easily killed by a Spider.
I tossed in both Elders and Abominations in order to help smooth out mana. The Twisted Abomination can also be a nice beater later in the game. Because this deck can really gain in mana after a bit, I wanted a way to help out in the early game, and yet be useful in the late game.
Another card that fits that theme is Kavu Titan. This spot was originally dedicated to a cheaper Ebony Treefolk, but I felt that since I cut corners financially earlier in the deck building process, I could go with the better card here. Note that the Treefolk is also useful early as a nicely sized 3/3 for three mana while also being pumpable later in the game with extra mana to a nice size. You could split the difference and run two of each.
Nevertheless, I prefer the Titan. If your mana situation is safe for the moment, the Titan is the better early drop compared to an Elder. It also has trample when you pay the kicker, which can help get in some damage later in the game when a pumped Treefolk that might be bigger would otherwise be stopped for no damage.
I had to run Putrefy. Like Vindicate and Terminate, Putrefy essentially begs to be played in every deck that includes those colors unless something very weird is going on.
I like having emergency creature removal. If the Putrefy has to take out a Mind’s Eye or something, then I want something else to fall back upon. Years of playing with Vindicate have taught me that it cannot be used as your solitary form of creature removal – you have to have something else as well.
I really like sweeping enchantment removal in multiplayer. There are usually more artifacts as targets, but the enchantments are usually more threatening. Sure, a Naturalize can also pop a Sol Ring or something, but since we aren’t running any enchantments of our own, I figured that we could use that to the deck’s advantage and run Tranquility. Putrefy can be a backup artifact removal if necessary.
Recursion is great in this deck. Initially there were a pair of Restocks here, but I replaced them with a quartet of Recollect. I didn’t want to waste an entire turn Regrowing something. Instead, I wanted to get it back then immediately play it. Control doesn’t often want to lose the sort of tempo that Restock sometimes provides opponents. Recollecting a key Putrefy or Zombie can really turn the tide all on its own.
I wanted to include Pernicious Deed and/or Spiritmonger, but they are both massively expensive online. Feel free to include them if you have them. Also not included for money was Overgrown Tomb, and that’s another card you can use if you have it.
Another thing that I like to do is try and find one or two more morph creatures when I play something like four Bane of the Living. It’s nice to toss in a single copy of, say, Skinthinner or Nantuko Vigilante or Patron of the Wild or something. It keeps opponents on their toes.
If you were to look back into Magic’s past, beyond Invasion, then there are all sorts of ideas that pop up in my mind. From Phyrexian Plaguelord and Yavimaya Elder to Living Death and Avatar of Woe – there are a lot of places you could look for more ideas.
By the way, this deck gets its name from two things. The colors black and green combine to make a dark green. In Crayola boxes, I remember dark green being known as Pine Green. Secondly, the picture of Putrefy has what looks like needles exploding, so that’s the name I chose.
Good luck with your needles.
Until Later,
Abe Sargent