Nice primer. I just put my Verdeloth the Ancient list up, much of it is inspired by advice you provided me in this thread. I shall have to edit it at some point into a better primer like yours. All those formatting tricks! Not sure how you do all that stuff. I still have to actually playtest mine too, but it sounds like your Patron deck has gotten some testing in already.
I'll swear by Lotus Cobra. It does has done wonders for my Kruphix EDH in the past.
I'm getting a lot closer to a refined Verdeloth the Ancient list myself, but I could use some help with the mana ramp package. As it stands my deck shares a lot of similarities to what your patron deck wants to do, so I'm posting it here so we can continue to bounce ideas off each other. The deck as it is now wants metric tons of mana (I want to to win games off of genesis wave).
Concordant Crossroads and Akroma's Memorial are includes I've found that should let a mono green deck suddenly kill everyone explosively in conjunction with overrun effects.
Problems:
*Needs MORE ramp. Mana rocks, card draw, ramping creatures?
*Would like to tune it to use primal surge effectively maybe
*Needs a good anti-control (or anti-blue + anti-white) package. My number 1 fear with this deck is getting hit with bribery and someone taking an eldrazi or a colossus. Considering I have last counted 3 decks in my meta which have bribery and effects like it in abundance, this is a problem for a deck full of fat. My number 2 fear is my biggest spells getting countered. I needa lot more than boseiju and cavern to answer this problem.
*Tutors?
*Thunderfoot Baloth and more green fatties might make an appearance too
I don't want too fill it with too much toolboxy stuff if I don't have to - but I do have to consider just building this in on direction willy-nilly to do nothing but smash face is just asking for a decent combo/control deck to laugh in its face as it stops me dead in my tracks with a simple, cheap answer. I want to cut cards that don't synergize with what the deck wants to do, which is play absurd amounts of fatties and flood the board with tokens.
Heh, been interesting discussing your mono-green deck in the PMs with ya. Give me a day or two (depends on when I have free time) and I'll see about brewing up a mono-green list myself, noting ideas you've come up with for this one. This general is definitely looking better to me now that I see how it works for you. I'll probably be trying to build around Polukranos, World Eater, Titania, Protector of Argoth, or Kamahl, Fist of Krosa.
I'll be trying to come up with a more goodstuffish list that can run things like Genesis Wave effectively, if I can find a way for it too be viable. I know you don't totally go for goodstuff, but to some degree I feel design success in an edh deck if I manage to somehow find a synergistic manner in which to run /most/ of one or two colors' best/most fun cards together optimally. In that way it almost feels like staying true to that color's strengths, taking along with the deck all the things it's ever been best at doing.
Also, interesting combination you've got here with the group hug coupled with the stax artifacts. I would really like to see how this deck plays for you. You should totally proxy it up and try it out, play about 3-5 games with it and see what happens.
Edit 2: I've got a semblance of a list up for Verdeloth so far, thought I'd post it here to see if any of the optiosn for cards I found might be good adds for your deck. Verdeloth does a few things that are rather similar to Patron, interestingly enough:
I could use some help cutting down the list as I want to run 38-39 lands and have over 100 nonland cards to choose from here, lol. Problems to address: Find ways to deal with being boardwiped by blue bounce spells, finds ways to get haste on stuff. Ugin's Nexus seems like a good card for mono green to get an extra turn to swing after building a board - just have to drop an anti-artifact spell on it to activate it. Does anyone know of non-creature methods green can access for direct damage to players and planeswalkers, btw?
The big problem I see with both of our decks (mine still being in brewing mode) is that either one will probably fall flat on its face to boardwipes of any kind. Sadly for me, my meta doesn't have many aggro decks. Every single other deck is running 4-12 boardwipes, Propaganda, and more. Every time I see someone pull out an aggro deck in my meta they just get blown out into a very difficult place to recover from by a wipe or other annoying spell during their attempt at an attack phase, consistently. All the decks I have so far don't need to commit much at all to the board to succeed or pull of game-ending combos, and they work. But that gets boring after awhile. A swingy green deck would be a fun alternative to play here and there. Hopefully together we can form a couple of decks with good strategies for such scenarios.
I'll swear by Lotus Cobra. It does has done wonders for my Kruphix EDH in the past.
Concordant Crossroads and Akroma's Memorial are includes I've found that should let a mono green deck suddenly kill everyone explosively in conjunction with overrun effects.
Deck I have so far:
1x Avenger of Zendikar
1x Craterhoof Behemoth
1x Darksteel Colossus
1x Dungrove Elder
1x Eternal Witness
1x Fertilid
1x Hornet Queen
1x Hydra Omnivore
1x Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1x Mycoloth
1x Oracle of Mul Daya
1x Pelakka Wurm
1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
1x Seedborn Muse
1x Terastodon
1x Thragtusk
1x Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
1x Utopia Mycon
1x Verdeloth the Ancient
1x Vigor
1x Vitaspore Thallid
1x Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger
1x Woodfall Primus
1x Worldspine Wurm
1x Yavimaya Elder
1x Bramblecrush
1x Collective Voyage
1x Cultivate
1x Explore
1x Explosive Vegetation
1x Genesis Wave
1x Growth Spasm
1x Harmonize
1x Kodama's Reach
1x Overwhelming Stampede
1x Primal Command
1x Rampant Growth
1x Ranger's Path
1x Reap and Sow
1x Skyshroud Claim
1x Tempt with Discovery
1x Tooth and Nail
1x Akroma's Memorial
1x Caged Sun
1x Doubling Cube
1x Emerald Medallion
1x Extraplanar Lens
1x Hedron Matrix
1x Sol Ring
1x Harrow
1x Krosan Grip
1x Reincarnation
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1x Cavern of Souls
26x Forest
1x Homeward Path
1x Khalni Garden
1x Llanowar Reborn
1x Mosswort Bridge
1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1x Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
1x Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
1x Reliquary Tower
1x Temple of the False God
1x Vesuva
1x Concordant Crossroads
1x Eldrazi Conscription
1x Exploration
1x Parallel Lives
1x Rites of Flourishing
1x Sylvan Library
Problems:
*Needs MORE ramp. Mana rocks, card draw, ramping creatures?
*Would like to tune it to use primal surge effectively maybe
*Needs a good anti-control (or anti-blue + anti-white) package. My number 1 fear with this deck is getting hit with bribery and someone taking an eldrazi or a colossus. Considering I have last counted 3 decks in my meta which have bribery and effects like it in abundance, this is a problem for a deck full of fat. My number 2 fear is my biggest spells getting countered. I needa lot more than boseiju and cavern to answer this problem.
*Tutors?
*Thunderfoot Baloth and more green fatties might make an appearance too
I don't want too fill it with too much toolboxy stuff if I don't have to - but I do have to consider just building this in on direction willy-nilly to do nothing but smash face is just asking for a decent combo/control deck to laugh in its face as it stops me dead in my tracks with a simple, cheap answer. I want to cut cards that don't synergize with what the deck wants to do, which is play absurd amounts of fatties and flood the board with tokens.
I'll probably be trying to build around Polukranos, World Eater, Titania, Protector of Argoth, or Kamahl, Fist of Krosa.I'll be trying to come up with a more goodstuffish list that can run things like Genesis Wave effectively, if I can find a way for it too be viable. I know you don't totally go for goodstuff, but to some degree I feel design success in an edh deck if I manage to somehow find a synergistic manner in which to run /most/ of one or two colors' best/most fun cards together optimally. In that way it almost feels like staying true to that color's strengths, taking along with the deck all the things it's ever been best at doing.
Also, interesting combination you've got here with the group hug coupled with the stax artifacts. I would really like to see how this deck plays for you. You should totally proxy it up and try it out, play about 3-5 games with it and see what happens.
Edit: Verdeloth the Ancient! - I know I can break this card hilariously as a general and run all the best things green has. Even Parallel Lives will have a place in the deck with this general at the helm, and so will Avenger of Zendikar and Craterhoof Behemoth!
Edit 2: I've got a semblance of a list up for Verdeloth so far, thought I'd post it here to see if any of the optiosn for cards I found might be good adds for your deck. Verdeloth does a few things that are rather similar to Patron, interestingly enough:
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/the-dangers-of-global-warming/
I could use some help cutting down the list as I want to run 38-39 lands and have over 100 nonland cards to choose from here, lol. Problems to address: Find ways to deal with being boardwiped by blue bounce spells, finds ways to get haste on stuff. Ugin's Nexus seems like a good card for mono green to get an extra turn to swing after building a board - just have to drop an anti-artifact spell on it to activate it. Does anyone know of non-creature methods green can access for direct damage to players and planeswalkers, btw?
The big problem I see with both of our decks (mine still being in brewing mode) is that either one will probably fall flat on its face to boardwipes of any kind. Sadly for me, my meta doesn't have many aggro decks. Every single other deck is running 4-12 boardwipes, Propaganda, and more. Every time I see someone pull out an aggro deck in my meta they just get blown out into a very difficult place to recover from by a wipe or other annoying spell during their attempt at an attack phase, consistently. All the decks I have so far don't need to commit much at all to the board to succeed or pull of game-ending combos, and they work. But that gets boring after awhile. A swingy green deck would be a fun alternative to play here and there. Hopefully together we can form a couple of decks with good strategies for such scenarios.