Last weekend, a local store (Dragon’s Lair in Madison) held a Saint Patrick’s tourney. I like these alternative formats – for one thing, there are no netdecks, and the metagame is pretty much whatever you can conceive. At least, there are usually no netdecks. I had mixed feelings upon seeing [author name="Abe Sargent"]Abe Sargent’s[/author] article about this format a while back. On the plus side, he writes well and covers interesting topics. On the down side, now there were netdecks, more or less. However, I noticed that he left out two or three archetypes, so at least I could play something semi-original.
I called the store, and asked about their version of the format. Here’s the rules they described:
- Green cards only – and no gold cards with green (like Spiritmonger)
- No artifacts
- Lands have to tap for green mana, or use green mana in their activation costs
- Everyone starts at forty life and life gain does not work
- Elvish Champion was banned
- otherwise, type one rules
The first thing I noticed is that the all green format had very little removal – but there is some. Contested Cliffs and beasts can kill most targetable creatures. Unyaro Bee Sting is direct damage, albeit slow, small and overpriced. Finally, Gargantuan Gorilla can kill most creatures on the board, provided the opponent has no pump spells.
The Cliffs looked the most worrying. Wasteland and Dust Bowl are the first answers I think of when worrying about non-basic lands, and neither of them were legal. The only format-legal answer I could initially come up with was Creeping Mold, and green cannot search for that card. Green tutoring consists of cards that search for creatures, like Worldly Tutor and Living Wish.
Both of those can search for the one answer I did finally remember – Gaea’s Liege, which can turn any land into a basic forest. This works provided the Cliffs are either not in play initially, or that I have enough forests in play that the Liege is bigger than the opponent’s biggest beast. It could also be an answer to other lands that were causing problems, like Treetop Village or Pendelhaven – or Gaea’s Cradle, if the opponent plays one first.
As mentioned above, I also noticed that Abe Sargent missed some archetypes. First of all, the Earthcraft/Squirrel Nest combo was still playable. Earthcraft will be restricted, of course…. But that’s next month. In mono-green, the blue searching and card drawing that makes Army of Squirrels playable in T1 tourneys is missing, but the combo is still extremely powerful, and if the combo goes off, the format has nothing that can stop a million squirrels. At least, not for long.
The first deck that Abe had failed to mention (yet one that I considered) was Enchantress. Card drawing wins games, and the only viable green card drawing I could see was Enchantress effects, Sylvan Library and Collective Unconscious. Sylvan Library looked worthwhile – especially starting with forty life. (Survival of the Fittest – green’s other broken card drawer – was not as good without the ability to recur Squee and Krovikan Horror. The best I could come up with was Howling Wolf, to search for more Howling Wolves.)
The enchantress deck would be fairly typical – many Enchantresses, lots of cheap enchantments, and Ancestral Mask and Rancor on Birds of Paradise as a win condition. Here’s my initial decklist:
3 Argothian Enchantress
4 Wall of Blossoms (slow the beats)
4 Verduran Enchantress
4 Birds of Paradise (Birds with Mask and Rancor is the kill)
2 Endless Wurm (may not be needed)
17 creatures
4 Enchantress Presence
4 Wild Growth
2 Elephant Grass (a green Propaganda – slows the beats. maybe 4?)
1 Fastbond (40 life? Okay!)
4 Rancor
4 Ancestral Mask
4 Hidden Predators (may not be needed)?
23 enchantments
12-16 Forests
4-8 Cycling Lands
We also looked at some other enchantments. Earthcraft and Squirrel Nest would be good, but it’s a little expensive, and the enchantress kill works okay. Sylvan Library and Abundance are missing, but the deck has lots of card drawing and no shufflers, so Sylvan is not broken. Sylvan/Abundance is – but by the time the deck could get that, it should have won. Other stuff looked interesting, but just didn’t seem to fit: Centaur Glade (too expensive), Night Soil (how many creatures will be dying? This deck blocks with Wall of Blossoms, which doesn’t kill anything.)
One unconventional enchantment I toyed with was Instill Energy. It’s cheap – costing just one green mana, but the real benefit is that it could allow you to attack with a large creature, then untap it to be able to block with it as well.
The other deck archetype that Abe did not discuss in enough detail was forestwalkers. Everyone would be playing forests. Forestwalk would be powerful. (Okay, someone could try to play all non-basics that tapped for green, but nearly all of them are painlands, come into play tapped, or are legendary, so the deck will just lose to everything else. No problem, unless you play it round one.)
Ingrid designed a forestwalker deck: Walls of Roots and Blossoms for defense; some small, cheap Forestwalkers; Rancor and Blanchwood Armor. She had also thought of playing Scarwood Hag (target creature loses forestwalk), but we didn’t own any and none of the local dealers had them on hand. Here’s her decklist:
3 Vine Dryad
2 Heartwood Treefolk
3 Leaf Dancer
2 Mirri, Cat Warrior
3 Rushwood Dryad
4 Shanodin Dryad
4 Rancor
2 Might of Oaks
3 Wall of Blossoms
3 Wall of Roots
3 Blanchwood Armor
4 River Boa
1 Mythic Proportions
4 Treetop Village
17 Forest
2 Yavimaya Hollow
I was looking at something a little more involved: I wanted to give everything forestwalk, then fog out my opponent. I figured Spike Weaver could do that – provided I could get enough counters on it. Once it was in play, I could drop Lumbering Satyr, give everything forestwalk, and finish the game pretty quickly. The trick, of course, was renewing the counters. My answer was Stampeding Wildebeest – the upkeep on Wildebeest is to return a green creature to your hand. Wildebeests work quite well with Wall of Roots, draws extra cards with Wall of Blossoms, and beats for five. The Wildebeest was the heart of an earlier deck archetype – Stupid Green – that was once Tier One, or at least pretty close. It was also sneaky, with the win condition coming by surprise, which I like.
The old problem with Stampeding Wildebeest decks was that if you didn’t find the Wildebeest, the deck didn’t work all that well. I figured that I could play four Worldly Tutors and four Living Wishes, and that eight tutors should be enough to find the combo parts. I also wanted to play Sylvan Library, since paying four life for an additional card is okay when you start with 40 life, and since I would have at least 4 Worldly Tutors to shuffle if I didn’t like the top cards. I also decided to play Yavimaya Elders and possibly a Lay of the Land, to get some extra shuffle effects. Elder / Sylvan is about as good as green card drawing can get.
Here’s the rough decklist I had a few days before the tournament.
21 Snow-covered Forest (for Gargantuan Gorilla)
4 Wall of Blossoms
4 Wall of Roots
3 Lumbering Satyr
3 Spike Weaver
3 Stampeding Wildebeests
1 Dawnstrider
1 Coiling Woodworm
4 Yavimaya Elder
3 Emperor Crocodile / Phantom Centaur
1 Gaea’s Liege
2 Creeping Mold
4 Sylvan Library
2 Moment’s Peace
3 Worldly Tutor
3 Living Wish
1 Regrowth
2 Lay of the Land
Sideboard:
1 Stampeding Wildebeest
1 Lumbering Satyr
1 Spike Weaver
2 Creeping Mold
3 Tranquil Grove
1 Silklash Spider
1 Coiling Woodworm
1 Gargantuan Gorilla
1 Gaea’s Liege
1 Genesis
1 Nantuko Vigilante
1 Nullmage Advocate
The decklist is 65 cards, or so, as I had not decided on final cuts as of Thursday before the tourney. At that point, I was talking to Dan Bock, a local dealer, who had played a the previous St. Valentines tourney. I was asking about Gaea’s Cradles, and he explained that they were really bad because someone else would play them first. Then he explained that the tournament was a large multiplayer game. When I had called the store about the tourney, they hadn’t mentioned that. It did change my thinking a bit, so I never finished the decklist.
I had only played at this store once before – in a sparsely-attended, unsanctioned T1 tourney. I had brought a fully-powered Quirion Dryad/Psychatog deck, and faced people playing an unpowered Army of Squirrels (Earthcraft/Squirrel Nest), an Elf deck, a deck running Drudge Skeletons and a deck with Wild Mongrels and Monstrous Growth! I had called the owner earlier, and asked if I could would be overpowered if I brought a fully powered deck, and he had said that it was fine – that the decks he expected were quite competitive. Not exactly – I won the tourney despite playing some of the worst Magic I have in a while. However, that tourney had been normal duels, although we played round-robin because of the sparse attendance (which was partly because of a raging snowstorm that day.)
I did not expect a multiplayer game. Dawnstrider and Moment’s Peace, while nice methods of backstopping the Spike Weaver, are just not good in a large multiplayer game. On the flip side, Coiling Woodworm, which I figured would be a five or six for 2G in duels, would be insane in mono-green multiplayer.
Here were my first thoughts on multiplayer:
Enchantress might be okay – unless someone played Tranquility. Odds were good that someone would play Tranquility. That thought was stronger, once I recognized the Army of Squirrel player at the event itself. Ingrid and also brought Enchantress along, but with maindeck Instill Energies and a pair of Night Soils. The odds seemed pretty good that someone would have some dead creatures at some point.
I also thought about Seedtime Muse-based decks. I wrote about the insanity of Seedtime Muse with Mobilization and Catapult Master. Mono-green versions don’t have the removal of Catapult Master, but Centaur Glade and fast mana from elves still make the Muse broken. I thought hard about how to handle that, and decided to play some Emerald Charms (which can also untap creatures for surprise blocks), Creeping Mold and possibly Tranquil Grove, for perpetual tranquilities.)
I wanted to play the Seedborn Muse, but wanted to play something more original than the Centaur Glade version. I considered Nemata, Grove Guardian, but worried about how to remove him (he’s a Legend) if someone beat me to it. In the end, I decided to play lots of Elves, Living Wish, and Gargantuan Gorilla to slap opposing Nematas. Gargantuan Gorilla combined pretty well with Seedborn Muse.
I had been talking about the tourney with Dan Bock while beating his unpowered T1 control green deck with my no-rares Squallmonger deck. (I had some luck.) Dan mentioned that Squallmonger would be okay in the tourney, if I could prevent the damage – something that is difficult in this format. We discussed Glacial Chasm, a non-green land, but Dan said he thought it would be legal.
I should mention that the storeowner does not organize the unconventional tournaments, so the miscommunications were not really his fault. However, if Glacial Chasm were legal, I could build a deck around mana acceleration, Seedborn Muse, Hurricane, and Squallmonger. Living Wish could help find the missing pieces. Here’s that decklist:
4 Living Wish
4 Hurricane
4 Emerald Charm
4 Priest of Titania
4 Wirewood Channeler
4 Fyndhorn Elves
3 Quirion Dryad
3 Seedborn Muse
3 Squallmonger
3 Glacial Chasm
3 Wirewood Lodge
forests
Sideboard:
Nemata, Grove Guardian
Gaea’s Cradle
Glacial Chasm
Seedborn Muse
Squallmonger
Gaea’s Liege
etc.
It could develop ridiculous mana, then drop Nemata and make dudes. It could win with Seedborn Muse, Squallmonger, and Glacial Chasm. It could win with a ton of mana and Glacial Chasm. I wasn’t sure about what lands were legal, so I brought this along.
If Ingrid had not been leaning toward playing either Enchantress or the forestwalkers deck, both of which ran enchantments, I would have looked at playing Tranquil Grove maindeck.
I figured the deck could race out of the block quickly, and could probably kill the table on turn 4 or 5. The key was to mulligan to a Living Wish or Glacial Chasm, then look unthreatening until I was read to start blasting. The down side was that it felt like a combo deck, and I really wasn’t happy with playing one not too long after I had blown away the T1 tourney. The store is small and new, but has a friendly atmosphere. I didn’t want to get too many people mad at me.
Ingrid and I cooperated on a fast beats decklist, as well. Wall of Roots and Blossoms for early protection, underpriced multiplayer fatties like Coiled Woodwurm (how many forests are currently in play?), Stag Beetle, Rancor, maybe Silvos (brutal, but dead if someone else plays him first, etc.) The best part was clearly the idea of Coiled Woodworm with Gaea’s Embrace. The deck was powerful and aggressive – but that wasn’t necessarily a great thing for multiplayer. In the end, neither Ingrid nor I wanted to play it. The deck had too big a”kill me first” sign.
I also brought a modification of the Stampeding Wildebeest deck. It had the most options, and while it might not be amazing, it looked okay.
21 Snow-covered Forests
4 Wall of Blossoms
4 Wall of Roots
3 Lumbering Satyr
3 Spike Weaver
3 Stampeding Wildebeests
1 Gargantuan Gorilla
1 Coiling Woodworm
4 Yavimaya Elder
2 Phantom Centaur
2 Creeping Mold
2 Emerald Charm
3 Sylvan Library
3 Worldly Tutor
4 Living Wish
We arrived and found the organizer. I asked about lands, and found that anything was legal. Maze of Ith would be present, and Dust Bowl and Wasteland could be played. I had those in the initial decklist, but when the store manager had said that the lands had to involve green mana, I pulled them. I didn’t have Dust Bowls along, but figured Gaea’s Liege would be enough.
The tournament had nine players. I was in seat nine. The format was general chaos – attack anyone – but you got a point when the player on your left died. The last person standing would get two points. Seating was random. Ingrid ended up two seats to my right. Jordan*, the guy who played Army of Squirrels at the T1 tourney was to my left, and told me he was playing his elves deck with the Earthcraft and Squirrels nest added in.*
We shuffled up, and he cut me to a no-land hand. I asked about mulligan rules, and was pleased to hear that they allowed both Paris mulligans and one no or all land hand mulligan per player. I took mine. The next seven cards were about as perfect as I could ask for: two forests, Wall of Roots, Living Wish, Sylvan Library, two Yavimaya Elders.
I was sitting in last place. The group consensus was clearly that a lot of people would play elves – to the point that one person placed three giant d20s on the table, to count elves. The consensus was right: The first three people all played elves. The fourth player windmill-slammed a Gaea’s Cradle down, so he broke the string – but by the end of the first round, there were a half dozen elves out, and by turn 4 or so, there were over twenty.
My first turn was Forest, go. My second turn was Forest, Sylvan Library. Then they passed the Sylvan around the table, so some of the new players could read it. Turn three I played Wall of Roots, Forest and Living Wish for Stampeding Wildebeest. Turn four I Sylvaned into lands, played Yavimaya Elder. On an opponent’s turn, I ate the Elder to shuffle and get some more lands in hand.
The game developed slowly, as multiplayer generally does. By turn 7, two players had mana problems. Jason (Mr. Gaea’s Cradle) had not dropped a second land, and the mage between Ingrid and me was also mana screwed. This was very good for me, since he was no threat… Yet. On turn 4 he had cast Hurricane for one damage (it was that or discard it) and had just one creature, a Timberwatch Elf, which he finally dropped a turn later.
Ingrid was developing well, and had a pair of Forestwalkers with Rancors and Blanchwood Armor, beating for five and seven. She was primarily concentrating on Jeremy, who had a Maze of Ith, a handful of elves including Wirewood Channeler, and who had just dropped Centaur Glade and Genesis. She had hit him on the previous turn as well. She is good at spotting developing threats, but later explained that she considered me the biggest threat on the table, despite the fact that I hadn’t done anything yet. She just didn’t think it was fair to smash me, based solely on having helped me develop my deck.
The other person with a good start was the person to my left – Jordan in seat number one – who had both a Squirrel Nest and Voice of the Woods cranking out tokens. He also had two Wirewood Heralds. He asked Jeremy to cooperate and kill off the Heralds so he could search for some good elves. I figured it was time for some politicing, before this all got out of hand.
Jordan had some amazing stuff already in play, and searching for more elves would both thin his deck (allowing him to get to the Earthcraft faster), and probably find an Elvish Pathcutter. Since he also had one, maybe two, Timberwatch Elves in play, and since there were, if I recall, twenty-seven elves in play at that point, that combination would be lethal. He was at thirty-nine life, since all he had taken was the Hurricane for one.
Jeremy had an obscenely-large Elvish Vanguard, Maze of Ith, Genesis, Centaur Glade, a Wirewood Channeler which tapped for twenty-seven mana, lands, and a few other random elves. He was at twenty-two life, thanks mainly to Ingrid’s beats. Ingrid’s attack had also ensured that his Maze of Ith was tapped.
My board was okay at this point. I had six or seven lands, the Stampeding Wildebeests, and a Spike Weaver in play. I was bouncing the Wall of Roots to pay upkeep on the Wildebeest. The Sylvan Library had died to a Tranquility about turn 6. In my hand I had a Phantom Centaur, a Lumbering Satyr, another Worldly Tutor that fetched another Spike Weaver at end of my opponents’ last turn, and a Wished-for Gargantuan Gorilla.
After Jordan declared his attacks, sending the two Wirewood Heralds, I begged Jeremy not to block. I told him Jordan was just going to search for some killer elves, and not to help him out. Jeremy decided to split the difference, and block just one of the elves. At that point I turned to my other neighbor, with his three lands and lone Timberwatch Elf and explained that Jordan was going to go nuts when he untapped, making about a dozen Centaurs, attacking with a mega-elf and other stuff, having the Maze for defense, and just dominating. Then I suggested that he target the unblocked Herald with his active Timberwatch Elf and just end the problem.
He did. Jeremy was the first man out of the game.
I went back to being unobtrusive and trying to stay quiet. Until it was my turn again.
Next turn I topdecked and played Coiling Woodworm. It was huge – something like a 33/1. We had some discussion about how big it was – although I did mention that it didn’t have trample (yet, someone commented) and died to any blocker. I mentioned that this was pretty good with Gaea’s Embrace – but it was still smaller than anything pumped with the double-Timberwatch Elves Jordan had in play. I also dropped the second Spike Weaver.
We went once more around the table. People developed, no one did much. Ingrid attacked Gary, the person who was attacking her. He had Elvish Pathcutter and was forestwalking in for a few points here and there. Neither was in serious trouble.
On my turn, I dropped the Lumbering Satyr. Blocking is an overrated part of the game – the Satyr made sure we didn’t have to worry about it. I then sent the Coiled Woodworm and a Spike Weaver towards Jordan, and the Wildebeest and the other Spike Weaver at Marshall in seat 3. Unfortunately, I miscounted forests, and Jordan was not dead – just down to two life. Oops.
Jordan was also a pretty good at playing politics. He offered to help clear the table, provided I didn’t kill him. Since he had a half dozen squirrels, 3 7/7 tokens from the Voice of the Woods, two Timberwatch Elves, and a wide assortment of other elves, he was dangerous. Moreover, Ben, in seat 5 had started feeding his forests to Squirrel Wrangler, and had only one forest left. Forestwalk isn’t as much fun without forests, so I did need help to kill him. I said okay, provisionally.
Remember, we got one point if the person on our left died, but nothing just for killing someone. Jordan had already got one point, when seat two died. By helping to clear the board, he would get at least third place, and possibly higher.
His politicking was good enough. When he sent lethal damage at seats three and four on his turn, I did not Fog. When Ingrid offered to kill him on her turn, I asked her not to – then immediately upgraded that to an offer to buy dinner at Pedros if she attacked someone else. After all, he could kill Ben in seat five, which I could not do unless he kept a forest in play. (I could probably have eventually drawn enough lands to kill the Wrangler with the Gargantuan Gorilla, then use it wipe out his other creatures, but it would have been slow and boring.)
Anyway, he killed Ben, then I killed him. Ingrid also killed the opponent to her left, then Gary on her right. Now I had two points, and Ingrid had one. Jordan had three points – he killed the guys in seats two, three, and five while they were directly to his right. I was in complete control – I had been using spare lands and Walls of Roots to move Spike counters onto one Weaver, then bounced and replayed the depleted Weaver. With the double Walls of Roots, I could have fogged every turn for about eight turns. So I got cocky, and told Ingrid she could have one attack and I wouldn’t fog. She had enough to put me to five – then she cast Might of Oaks for the win. Fair enough – she could have started attacking me earlier, but refrained. Besides, it didn’t really matter – the tourney was over once I got Lumbering Satyr and the ability to fog perpetually.
I will probably keep the deck together for a while, since it should be okay for Emperor…. In the emperor slot, that is. So long as my lieutenants don’t play forests, I can use Gaea’s Liege to turn their opponents’ lands into forests, could eventually begin fogging every time an opponent attacked, and would have Gargantuan Gorilla to remove problems. About the only downside would be Wrath of God or Hibernation, since the house rules at the store I generally play Emperor allow global effects to hit everyone. Still, it should be pretty good. Coiling Woodworm needs to be replaced, of course.
Here’s the first shot at an Emperor version:
22 Snow-covered Forests
4 Wall of Blossoms
4 Wall of Roots
2 Lumbering Satyr
3 Spike Weaver
3 Stampeding Wildebeest
1 Gargantuan Gorilla
1 Gaea’s Liege
1 Spike Feeder
4 Yavimaya Elder
1 Nantuko Vigilante
2 Emerald Charm
3 Sylvan Library
3 Worldly Tutor
4 Living Wish
Sideboard:
1 Seedborn Muse
1 Stampeding Wildebeest
1 Lumbering Satyr
1 Spike Weaver
1 Spike Feeder
1 Nemata, Grove Guardian
1 Silklash Spider
1 Gargantuan Gorilla
1 Gaea’s Liege
1 Genesis
1 Nantuko Vigilante
1 Nullmage Advocate
This works – provided no one plays Perish or serious removal. One potential problem is that, once one of my lieutenants finishes off an enemy lieutenant, the enemy Emperor could remove the Gaea’s Liege and Wildebeest, which would hurt the deck. That aside, the deck should work well.
Comments are always welcome.
* – A quick apology – I did not take notes on who sat where, or names. I’m only sure that Ben was in seat 5, Ingrid in 7, and I was in 9. I think the guy in seat one was named Jordan, Marshall was in seat 3, Jason in seat 4, Gary (I believe) in seat 6. Jeremy was in seat 2. My apologies if I have any names wrong.