To understand where I'm coming from, my cube is located here
Lately I've been having a lot of trouble with Green feeling wrong in my cube. No matter what I try to do with it, it just doesn't seem like the cards get played enough. Fundamentally, I think part of it is that there just aren't that many cards in the color that make me go "I want to play green" if I see them early, the way cards like JTMS, Elspeth, good Burn, Dark Confidant do for their colors. About the only card that does that for me is Survival of the Fittest. Part of it, though, is that the color just doesn't seem to have a good identity.
To some extent, I think this is caused by the fact that I'm running cards like Jungle Lion, Pouncing Jaguar, and Wild Dogs, but then don't support hyper aggro the way red, black, and white do. White likes lots of little dudes because of the abundant anthem effects, and red and black like them because they can clear the way and keep getting those guys in, but my green aggro cards keep suffering horribly because they just don't do anything after about turn 2 or 3. Drawing Jungle Lion on turn 3 is pretty depressing in a way that drawing Jackal Pup there never seems to be.
Adding to that, Green doesn't seem to ramp to anything in particular. The best fatties in the cube are in other colors. I'm trying Moldgraf Monstrosity right now, and i"m thinking about trying Hornet Queen, but the fact that I'm looking at those two cards I think highlights how bad Green's fatties really are.
So if green is bad at fatties and bad at aggro, it just becomes the midrange color. Is that ok? If that's ok, how do you rebuild your green section to accomodate that fact? It seems like you might actually run less Cultivate style ramp effects (i.e. don't run both Cultivate and Kodama's Reach), run fewer bad fatties, run fewer cards like Jungle Lion and more cards like Call of the Herd, Thornling, Genesis, Harmonize, Master of the Wild Hunt, Mwonvuli Acid-Moss, Vinelasher Kudzu.
I'm not sure that would make me want to draft green, but clearly whatever I'm doing now isn't working, so I figured I'd throw that out there.
To be clear, I'm not trying to make Monogreen draftable, I'm just trying to make Green at all worth playing. I've had SO many decks lately where I had good green fixing, but nothing else green I wanted to play, and it made more sense to cut the green altogether and play 2 colors than to play 3 and use the green fixing.
One last thing: most of these observations come from Winston drafting, not 8man drafting, if that means anything.
Suggestions, comments, criticism, etc are all welcome. I'm just trying to start some dialogue and see what experiences people have had with green in their cubes.
Drawing Jungle Lion on turn 3 is pretty depressing in a way that drawing Jackal Pup there never seems to be.
I find this surprising, since they're usually in the same decks together. I have no problem with green aggro being great, and it serves as one of green's main functions. We don't play mono-green aggro, but adding in Wild Dogs next to my Savannah Lions in WG aggro is perfectly fine.
As far as advice on the whole color identity crisis goes, I can't really help. We have absolutely ZERO problems with green. Primarilly as a mid-range color, with a far amount of aggro support as backup. Works like a charm, particularly in winston and sealed.
Konfusius's cube just went through a re-definition of green that's exactly what you're talking about. He got rid of most of the aggro and focused it more primarily on mid-range and ramp. He seems to be enjoying the change just fine.
I feel as though removing aggressive elements from green would make it very UNdesirable to draft. If there is one deck I don't like AT ALL drafting in Cube, it is a green mid-range strategy.
While I do think that elf into 3-drop into 4-drop or elf into ramp into 5-drop are the best green aggro starts, the 2-power 1-drops play an important role in green's contribution to aggressive Cube decks.
I totally agree with wtwlf and Antknee here. I think part of the problem is also that many players go into cubing with the thought that green is the weakest color, so they don't see the value of its cards.
Jeff, I just disagree with you that green is bad at aggro and fatties. Woodfall Primus, Terastodon, and Pelakka Wurm are pretty amazing fatties and they are all monogreen. Simic Sky Swallower is fantastic and it's in UG, which is a pretty frequent ramp build in my cube. When I play green aggro, I'm not looking for green to do everything; monogreen rarely happens here and when it does it's a resilient midrange deck. When I play green aggro, I most often try to be in red so I can clear blockers and finish off with burn. However, whatever other color you end up in, you use green for the great bodies, some ramp, and artifact/enchantment/land killing.
I also think green has several cards that will pull me right into it. Besides Survival, there's Eternal Witness, Garruk Wildspeaker, Sylvan Library, Plow Under, and Troll Ascetic. I'll happily move into green if one of those cards shows up in a pack. If I'm already in red or black aggro, seeing Wild Mongrel, Tarmogoyf, or one of the Boas will likely pull me happily into green aggro. I almost never draft mono aggro of any color; I don't know why it seems lately that folks want monogreen aggro to be drafted and be great.
Green does have a somewhat divided identity in cube, but I think most of the colors are just as divided (except maybe blue, which is pretty firmly control in most lists). White supports aggro and control, with a side of tokens. Black has aggro and control with reanimation. Red is primarily aggro, but Wildfire, Crater Hellion, X-spells, Pyroclasm, and Inferno Titan are awesome control cards. Green does aggro, midrange, and ramp (ramp cards can be good in aggro and midrange, depending on the individual cards).
Green is drafted often in my group, and GX decks do well. I think the most underdrafted color in my cube is red, not green.
Even then, only two of those (Wildspeaker and Primal Hunter) detract me from taking these cards and keeping my options open.
All other colors (except maybe red) have many, many more "pull" cards that make you want to jump into a color or splash it.
Green aggro has worked here at the 540 and 450 powered levels, I imagine it will actually get worse going to 360 (not as a result of the actual decks getting worse, but their competition getting tougher). I'm optimistic, however, that it will balance out and naya aggro, as well as R/G and W/G will support the green aggro cards enough to support their inclusion.
When I play green aggro, I most often try to be in red so I can clear blockers and finish off with burn.
That's really what I wish green did in my cube. However, every time I draft that list, I end up with way more red cards that support the strategy than green ones. By my count, only about 15 of the 60 green cards in my cube support that strategy. On the other hand, probably 45 or so of the red cards support the strategy.
Green aggro cards in my cube with GG in their cost
Winter's Grasp
Eternal Witness
Viridian Zealot
Vines of Vastwood
So what happens is I get the R/G aggro deck that has Hell's Thunder, Pillage, Blood Knight, Kargan Dragonlord, and 3 red 1 drops, then it has like Pouncing Jaguar and Lotus Cobra. If I don't have amazing fixing, it's not worth running green because I have to have enough red mana to make Blood Knight and Kargan Dragonlord good, and the green cards I have are only really good early.
Compare that to a white or black splashes for removal that you don't necessarily need immediately, and green seems like a much worse splash color, since the green cards that are good in the deck are important early, while most of the other colors some of their essential cards aren't good only on turn 1.
And even if you do compare the same cards, the black 1 drops like Fume Spitter, Carnophage, Vampire Lacerator, are all better to draw late than Jungle Lion or Pouncing Jaguar (although I admit Wild Dogs is probably the best late of the 1 drops).
I feel like my fixing is already pretty good, but maybe what I'm running into is the result of playing Winston draft with a 450 cube, where so often the lands you need to play a certain aggro color combination simply aren't in the group of cards you're using. I'd probably be more willing to run the green one drops in the R/G deck if I had a Taiga and 3 or 4 fetches that could find it every time.
That's really what I wish green did in my cube. However, every time I draft that list, I end up with way more red cards that support the strategy than green ones. By my count, only about 15 of the 60 green cards in my cube support that strategy. On the other hand, probably 45 or so of the red cards support the strategy.
And for the record, I like green's 1-drops better than most of red's, except Goblin Guide and Grim Lavamancer. I'm not sure why you think the black 1-drops are better to draw late than green's. I'd think Pouncing Jaguar and Jungle Lion is often going to be better in the late game than Carnophage, but all of the aggro 1-drops are better early anyway.
I do run Troll Ascetic, Viridian Zealot, and Viridian Shaman, but I've cut River Boa, Mire Boa, Albino Troll, and Great Sable Stag. I've never run Wild Mongrel or Uktabi Orangutan.
I found both Boas, the Troll, and the Stag to be thoroughly underwhelming. They got cut begause they never got run.
I tend to think the black one drops are better late, becuase in my aggro decks if we've gotten to the late game, then I'm losing, and the 1 drops that can chump effectively are better than the ones that can't. This is probably particualrly narrow minded, as you point out Carnophage isn't exactly amazing late.
I tend to try and avoid 4 and 5 drops in my aggro decks, as that turns them into midrange decks. When I do run 4 and 5 drops in my aggro decks, I want them to deal the finishing blow. All of the cards you mentioned are pretty slow at doing that. I want the 4 and 5 drops in my aggro decks to be Keldon Champion, Hero of Oxid Ridge, Blistering Firecat, Skizzik, Koth of the Hammer, Braids, Elspeth 1, Ajani Goldmane, Armageddon. All of those cards have massive impacts the turn they come down (or on my opponent's next turn, in the case of Braids). All of the 4 and 5 drops you mentioned in green don't do anything aggressive until MY next turn, which is pretty midrange, IMO.
Which seems to prove my point. Green is better at midrange, so why not support it better?
Green aggro cards in my cube with GG in their cost
Winter's Grasp
Eternal Witness
Viridian Zealot
Vines of Vastwood
I don't run 3 out of 4 of these in my 740 card cube (I think it's pretty easy to tell which is the one I do run). The GG is certainly a giant hurdle when dealing with the fact that green is generally the support color in an aggressive strategy instead of the primary one. I think you would do much better for you cube running the two Boas and something like Arbor Elf in those slots.
I totally agree with wtwlf and Antknee here. I think part of the problem is also that many players go into cubing with the thought that green is the weakest color, so they don't see the value of its cards.
I think it is the weakest color, actually. I agree with Blimpy here, there are quite few cards that make you want to play green and a lot of those you can actually just splash for.
Jeff, I just disagree with you that green is bad at aggro and fatties. Woodfall Primus, Terastodon, and Pelakka Wurm are pretty amazing fatties and they are all monogreen. Simic Sky Swallower is fantastic and it's in UG, which is a pretty frequent ramp build in my cube. When I play green aggro, I'm not looking for green to do everything; monogreen rarely happens here and when it does it's a resilient midrange deck. When I play green aggro, I most often try to be in red so I can clear blockers and finish off with burn. However, whatever other color you end up in, you use green for the great bodies, some ramp, and artifact/enchantment/land killing.
I agree with Jeff. Sure, the fatties you list are quite good, but all the other colors just have better fatties. As for aggro, we had the same experience as Jeff in that our GR decks all turned out Rg and it was the same for all GX aggro decks. Nobody wanted to play base green aggro, and seeing how few truly aggressive green cards there are, that makes sense. I'm with eidolon here, green has really solid creatures, but for most of them aggro is not where they are at their best.
In my experience, there is a general misconception about the classification of cards.
While you can play cards like the above mentioned Scavenging Ooze, Lotus Cobra and Eternal Witness (probably not Call of the Herd) in an aggro deck, this is not where the cards perform best. Sure the cards are all cheap, but all of them perform better in a deck that is designed for the mid-late game.
Green does have a somewhat divided identity in cube, but I think most of the colors are just as divided (except maybe blue, which is pretty firmly control in most lists). White supports aggro and control, with a side of tokens. Black has aggro and control with reanimation. Red is primarily aggro, but Wildfire, Crater Hellion, X-spells, Pyroclasm, and Inferno Titan are awesome control cards. Green does aggro, midrange, and ramp (ramp cards can be good in aggro and midrange, depending on the individual cards).
The problem with greens identity is not that green tries to do more than one thing. I think all colors should do that to have a diverse and interesting draft format. The problem is that green is not a color you want to draft for something other colors can't do better, and therefore, most of the time, you just don't want to draft green. Aggro? Red, white and black do it better, they even have removal, disruption and reach! Fatties? Green has the worst. Ramp? Artifacts cover that pretty well without a color commitment, thank you very much. What green is good at are solid midrange creatures. Most green decks were BG rock and Bant or Jund control with an occasional GW midrange deck thrown in. Green aggro cards either went undrafted or got moved to the sideboard because the few desirable early plays were not worth having a worse mana base.
My current solution to the green identity crisis is to cut fast artifact mana. That way, green has something unique that players actually want to draft. More ramp, more fatties and more control instead of the aggro one drops nobody wanted to play here. I'm happy with it so far, but it is still an experiment. I think aggro has enough support with white, black and red as primary and blue and green as secondary colors.
Initially I didn't run much in the way of green aggro, having the early drops as almost exclusively mana ramp/fixing. I was persuaded by this forum to add more green aggro support, and I found it a positive change. It doubled the number of viable aggro combinations and improved the value of cards like Kird Ape, Loam Lion and Wild Nacatl.
Where green fails for me as a aggro colour is its lack of disruption and reach. White has evasion creatures and anthem effects; black has discard; red has land destruction and burn. I don't think that black and red aggro creatures are that much better than green's, but it is the support that makes them much better aggro colours.
I do feel that I get most value out of running forests from my mid-drops. The card advantage gained from the various ETB creatures is where the colour really shines. I can see the argument for running more ramp to bring these creatures into play sooner, but I'm concerned that my aggro in the cube as a whole would be weakened.
As a side point, it has been some time since I drafted standard at any serious level, but when was the last time green was a good draft colour? And was it only good because it was so bad that nobody else would draft it so you would be drafting it unopposed?
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." -Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
While you can play cards like the above mentioned Scavenging Ooze, Lotus Cobra and Eternal Witness (probably not Call of the Herd) in an aggro deck, this is not where the cards perform best.
All of these cards are excellent for aggro decks. Particularly the Cobra and the Call of the Herd.
All of these cards are excellent for aggro decks. Particularly the Cobra and the Call of the Herd.
Yeah, just because the cobra itself isn't the best attacker because of the 1 toughness (even though it does have 2 power), that doesn't make it a bad aggro card. Accelerating out higher/more threats has a lot of value as well. And Call on t2 is pretty darn good, and adding on top of that the ability to get extra value with flashback.
On curve beats that increase your threat density is exactly what aggro wants. Call of the Herd is one of my favorite cards to play in aggro of any kind.
And Lotus Cobra isn't just ramp. He ramps and bashes for 2 at the same time; allowing you to cast a spell and a creature on T3 without missing an attack step. That's why he's so much more badass than Rofellos.
On curve beats that increase your threat density is exactly what aggro wants. Call of the Herd is one of my favorite cards to play in aggro of any kind.
And Lotus Cobra isn't just ramp. He ramps and bashes for 2 at the same time; allowing you to cast a spell and a creature on T3 without missing an attack step. That's why he's so much more badass than Rofellos.
Yep, complete agree with everything said here. Call of the Herd is an awesome aggro card.
And Lotus Cobra isn't just ramp. He ramps and bashes for 2 at the same time; allowing you to cast a spell and a creature on T3 without missing an attack step. That's why he's so much more badass than Rofellos.
I really don't consider Rofellos a beatdown card; just one that can beat with the other 2-drops when he needs to while being a primo card in ramp decks.
Yep, complete agree with everything said here. Call of the Herd is an awesome aggro card.
I agree with the Call of the Herd part. It is good in aggro, because you can splash for it (and Bloodbraid Elf or something). The Cobra would be ok as well if there was any incentive to play base green aggro, but I just don't think there is.
I really appreciate this thread. We have never had problem with green as a group, but I personally have a problem finding reasons to go into green. It certainly has the least number of pick ones out of all the colors. I find that not running signets or talismans in an unpowered cube makes green a lot more desirable. I strongly dislike what signets do to cube drafting...
I agree with the Call of the Herd part. It is good in aggro, because you can splash for it (and Bloodbraid Elf or something). The Cobra would be ok as well if there was any incentive to play base green aggro, but I just don't think there is.
Why do you have to be based in green aggro for the Cobra to be good in aggro decks that are green? If my aggro deck has green in it, the Cobra is certainly worth playing. Gives you an extra tempo boost while still swinging. Your line of logic is what stops GG beaters from being good in aggro; not the guys that cost 1G.
It's two decently costed bodies from one card, which increases your threat density in aggro. I think it's a great card for aggressive builds, and we've had a lot of success with it.
Lately I've been having a lot of trouble with Green feeling wrong in my cube. No matter what I try to do with it, it just doesn't seem like the cards get played enough. Fundamentally, I think part of it is that there just aren't that many cards in the color that make me go "I want to play green" if I see them early, the way cards like JTMS, Elspeth, good Burn, Dark Confidant do for their colors. About the only card that does that for me is Survival of the Fittest. Part of it, though, is that the color just doesn't seem to have a good identity.
To some extent, I think this is caused by the fact that I'm running cards like Jungle Lion, Pouncing Jaguar, and Wild Dogs, but then don't support hyper aggro the way red, black, and white do. White likes lots of little dudes because of the abundant anthem effects, and red and black like them because they can clear the way and keep getting those guys in, but my green aggro cards keep suffering horribly because they just don't do anything after about turn 2 or 3. Drawing Jungle Lion on turn 3 is pretty depressing in a way that drawing Jackal Pup there never seems to be.
Adding to that, Green doesn't seem to ramp to anything in particular. The best fatties in the cube are in other colors. I'm trying Moldgraf Monstrosity right now, and i"m thinking about trying Hornet Queen, but the fact that I'm looking at those two cards I think highlights how bad Green's fatties really are.
So if green is bad at fatties and bad at aggro, it just becomes the midrange color. Is that ok? If that's ok, how do you rebuild your green section to accomodate that fact? It seems like you might actually run less Cultivate style ramp effects (i.e. don't run both Cultivate and Kodama's Reach), run fewer bad fatties, run fewer cards like Jungle Lion and more cards like Call of the Herd, Thornling, Genesis, Harmonize, Master of the Wild Hunt, Mwonvuli Acid-Moss, Vinelasher Kudzu.
I'm not sure that would make me want to draft green, but clearly whatever I'm doing now isn't working, so I figured I'd throw that out there.
To be clear, I'm not trying to make Monogreen draftable, I'm just trying to make Green at all worth playing. I've had SO many decks lately where I had good green fixing, but nothing else green I wanted to play, and it made more sense to cut the green altogether and play 2 colors than to play 3 and use the green fixing.
One last thing: most of these observations come from Winston drafting, not 8man drafting, if that means anything.
Suggestions, comments, criticism, etc are all welcome. I'm just trying to start some dialogue and see what experiences people have had with green in their cubes.
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I find this surprising, since they're usually in the same decks together. I have no problem with green aggro being great, and it serves as one of green's main functions. We don't play mono-green aggro, but adding in Wild Dogs next to my Savannah Lions in WG aggro is perfectly fine.
As far as advice on the whole color identity crisis goes, I can't really help. We have absolutely ZERO problems with green. Primarilly as a mid-range color, with a far amount of aggro support as backup. Works like a charm, particularly in winston and sealed.
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Konfusius's cube just went through a re-definition of green that's exactly what you're talking about. He got rid of most of the aggro and focused it more primarily on mid-range and ramp. He seems to be enjoying the change just fine.
Check out his Post #492 for the details!
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While I do think that elf into 3-drop into 4-drop or elf into ramp into 5-drop are the best green aggro starts, the 2-power 1-drops play an important role in green's contribution to aggressive Cube decks.
-AA
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Jeff, I just disagree with you that green is bad at aggro and fatties. Woodfall Primus, Terastodon, and Pelakka Wurm are pretty amazing fatties and they are all monogreen. Simic Sky Swallower is fantastic and it's in UG, which is a pretty frequent ramp build in my cube. When I play green aggro, I'm not looking for green to do everything; monogreen rarely happens here and when it does it's a resilient midrange deck. When I play green aggro, I most often try to be in red so I can clear blockers and finish off with burn. However, whatever other color you end up in, you use green for the great bodies, some ramp, and artifact/enchantment/land killing.
I also think green has several cards that will pull me right into it. Besides Survival, there's Eternal Witness, Garruk Wildspeaker, Sylvan Library, Plow Under, and Troll Ascetic. I'll happily move into green if one of those cards shows up in a pack. If I'm already in red or black aggro, seeing Wild Mongrel, Tarmogoyf, or one of the Boas will likely pull me happily into green aggro. I almost never draft mono aggro of any color; I don't know why it seems lately that folks want monogreen aggro to be drafted and be great.
Green does have a somewhat divided identity in cube, but I think most of the colors are just as divided (except maybe blue, which is pretty firmly control in most lists). White supports aggro and control, with a side of tokens. Black has aggro and control with reanimation. Red is primarily aggro, but Wildfire, Crater Hellion, X-spells, Pyroclasm, and Inferno Titan are awesome control cards. Green does aggro, midrange, and ramp (ramp cards can be good in aggro and midrange, depending on the individual cards).
Green is drafted often in my group, and GX decks do well. I think the most underdrafted color in my cube is red, not green.
Cheers,
rant
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There are only a few cards that I open and make me want to go green:
Even then, only two of those (Wildspeaker and Primal Hunter) detract me from taking these cards and keeping my options open.
All other colors (except maybe red) have many, many more "pull" cards that make you want to jump into a color or splash it.
Green aggro has worked here at the 540 and 450 powered levels, I imagine it will actually get worse going to 360 (not as a result of the actual decks getting worse, but their competition getting tougher). I'm optimistic, however, that it will balance out and naya aggro, as well as R/G and W/G will support the green aggro cards enough to support their inclusion.
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That's really what I wish green did in my cube. However, every time I draft that list, I end up with way more red cards that support the strategy than green ones. By my count, only about 15 of the 60 green cards in my cube support that strategy. On the other hand, probably 45 or so of the red cards support the strategy.
Green Aggro cards in my cube
Wild Dogs
Twinblade Slasher
Pouncing Jaguar
Jungle Lion
Wild Nacatl
Tarmogoyf
Scavenging Ooze
Lotus Cobra
Skinshifter
Rancor
Call of the Herd
Green aggro cards in my cube with GG in their cost
Winter's Grasp
Eternal Witness
Viridian Zealot
Vines of Vastwood
So what happens is I get the R/G aggro deck that has Hell's Thunder, Pillage, Blood Knight, Kargan Dragonlord, and 3 red 1 drops, then it has like Pouncing Jaguar and Lotus Cobra. If I don't have amazing fixing, it's not worth running green because I have to have enough red mana to make Blood Knight and Kargan Dragonlord good, and the green cards I have are only really good early.
Compare that to a white or black splashes for removal that you don't necessarily need immediately, and green seems like a much worse splash color, since the green cards that are good in the deck are important early, while most of the other colors some of their essential cards aren't good only on turn 1.
And even if you do compare the same cards, the black 1 drops like Fume Spitter, Carnophage, Vampire Lacerator, are all better to draw late than Jungle Lion or Pouncing Jaguar (although I admit Wild Dogs is probably the best late of the 1 drops).
I feel like my fixing is already pretty good, but maybe what I'm running into is the result of playing Winston draft with a 450 cube, where so often the lands you need to play a certain aggro color combination simply aren't in the group of cards you're using. I'd probably be more willing to run the green one drops in the R/G deck if I had a Taiga and 3 or 4 fetches that could find it every time.
J
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You don't run Troll Ascetic, River Boa, Mire Boa, Albino Troll, Great Sable Stag, Wild Mongrel (one my favorite aggro cards of any color), Viridian Zealot, Uktabi Orangutan, or Viridian Shaman? I'm happy to have any of these in my GX aggro deck. Also, assuming your aggro decks don't stop their curve at 3, you can top out with Phantom Centaur, Thrun, the Last Troll, Chameleon Colossus, Wickerbough Elder, Thornling, and Plow Under. Some of the ramp cards are fine in aggro, including Llanowar Elves, Noble Hierarch, Fyndhorn Elves, and Sakura-Tribe Elder.
And for the record, I like green's 1-drops better than most of red's, except Goblin Guide and Grim Lavamancer. I'm not sure why you think the black 1-drops are better to draw late than green's. I'd think Pouncing Jaguar and Jungle Lion is often going to be better in the late game than Carnophage, but all of the aggro 1-drops are better early anyway.
Cheers,
rant
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I found both Boas, the Troll, and the Stag to be thoroughly underwhelming. They got cut begause they never got run.
I tend to think the black one drops are better late, becuase in my aggro decks if we've gotten to the late game, then I'm losing, and the 1 drops that can chump effectively are better than the ones that can't. This is probably particualrly narrow minded, as you point out Carnophage isn't exactly amazing late.
I tend to try and avoid 4 and 5 drops in my aggro decks, as that turns them into midrange decks. When I do run 4 and 5 drops in my aggro decks, I want them to deal the finishing blow. All of the cards you mentioned are pretty slow at doing that. I want the 4 and 5 drops in my aggro decks to be Keldon Champion, Hero of Oxid Ridge, Blistering Firecat, Skizzik, Koth of the Hammer, Braids, Elspeth 1, Ajani Goldmane, Armageddon. All of those cards have massive impacts the turn they come down (or on my opponent's next turn, in the case of Braids). All of the 4 and 5 drops you mentioned in green don't do anything aggressive until MY next turn, which is pretty midrange, IMO.
Which seems to prove my point. Green is better at midrange, so why not support it better?
J
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I don't run 3 out of 4 of these in my 740 card cube (I think it's pretty easy to tell which is the one I do run). The GG is certainly a giant hurdle when dealing with the fact that green is generally the support color in an aggressive strategy instead of the primary one. I think you would do much better for you cube running the two Boas and something like Arbor Elf in those slots.
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I agree with Jeff. Sure, the fatties you list are quite good, but all the other colors just have better fatties. As for aggro, we had the same experience as Jeff in that our GR decks all turned out Rg and it was the same for all GX aggro decks. Nobody wanted to play base green aggro, and seeing how few truly aggressive green cards there are, that makes sense. I'm with eidolon here, green has really solid creatures, but for most of them aggro is not where they are at their best.
This.
The problem with greens identity is not that green tries to do more than one thing. I think all colors should do that to have a diverse and interesting draft format. The problem is that green is not a color you want to draft for something other colors can't do better, and therefore, most of the time, you just don't want to draft green. Aggro? Red, white and black do it better, they even have removal, disruption and reach! Fatties? Green has the worst. Ramp? Artifacts cover that pretty well without a color commitment, thank you very much. What green is good at are solid midrange creatures. Most green decks were BG rock and Bant or Jund control with an occasional GW midrange deck thrown in. Green aggro cards either went undrafted or got moved to the sideboard because the few desirable early plays were not worth having a worse mana base.
My current solution to the green identity crisis is to cut fast artifact mana. That way, green has something unique that players actually want to draft. More ramp, more fatties and more control instead of the aggro one drops nobody wanted to play here. I'm happy with it so far, but it is still an experiment. I think aggro has enough support with white, black and red as primary and blue and green as secondary colors.
"What am I looking at? Ashes, dead man."
Where green fails for me as a aggro colour is its lack of disruption and reach. White has evasion creatures and anthem effects; black has discard; red has land destruction and burn. I don't think that black and red aggro creatures are that much better than green's, but it is the support that makes them much better aggro colours.
I do feel that I get most value out of running forests from my mid-drops. The card advantage gained from the various ETB creatures is where the colour really shines. I can see the argument for running more ramp to bring these creatures into play sooner, but I'm concerned that my aggro in the cube as a whole would be weakened.
As a side point, it has been some time since I drafted standard at any serious level, but when was the last time green was a good draft colour? And was it only good because it was so bad that nobody else would draft it so you would be drafting it unopposed?
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All of these cards are excellent for aggro decks. Particularly the Cobra and the Call of the Herd.
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Yeah, just because the cobra itself isn't the best attacker because of the 1 toughness (even though it does have 2 power), that doesn't make it a bad aggro card. Accelerating out higher/more threats has a lot of value as well. And Call on t2 is pretty darn good, and adding on top of that the ability to get extra value with flashback.
-AA
I use descriptive language. Assume that I'm being nice and respectful. (I'll tell you when I'm not.)
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And Lotus Cobra isn't just ramp. He ramps and bashes for 2 at the same time; allowing you to cast a spell and a creature on T3 without missing an attack step. That's why he's so much more badass than Rofellos.
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Yep, complete agree with everything said here. Call of the Herd is an awesome aggro card.
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I really don't consider Rofellos a beatdown card; just one that can beat with the other 2-drops when he needs to while being a primo card in ramp decks.
-AA
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"What am I looking at? Ashes, dead man."
Why do you have to be based in green aggro for the Cobra to be good in aggro decks that are green? If my aggro deck has green in it, the Cobra is certainly worth playing. Gives you an extra tempo boost while still swinging. Your line of logic is what stops GG beaters from being good in aggro; not the guys that cost 1G.
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Call of the Herd has an OK power to mana ratio and it is card advantage and it is cheap enough so I think it is good in all theaters.
"What am I looking at? Ashes, dead man."
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 49th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from MKM!
Blue is very close though. Blue gets sucked up into control though, so you don't get to see the really annoying U/G midrange beasts.