Are we really second-guessing a player for a performance where he finished runner-up at a 2k-man Grand Prix? I mean, I also think his article was hyperbolic, but "he lost to green, guess we know who's eating his words" would feel a wee bit more powerful if he didn't put up a monstrous performance at that very tournament.
Nah, Sene I have great respect for Turtenwald, his talent, and his valid points about the format in general. As an avid drafter however, I am always thrilled to watch the "self-adjusting" nature of any given draft format in action. Also, while I agree that green is not great in BFZ, it IS my favorite color, and I'm happy to see it pull it's weight.
Oh, and I've come second in my last 3 drafts, losing to Guardians of Tazeem, so there's that.
Are we really second-guessing a player for a performance where he finished runner-up at a 2k-man Grand Prix? I mean, I also think his article was hyperbolic, but "he lost to green, guess we know who's eating his words" would feel a wee bit more powerful if he didn't put up a monstrous performance at that very tournament.
Agreed 100%. Even then, this is STILL understating is performance in this format.
Owen Turtenwald went 5-1 in BFZ Draft at GP Madison, 5-1 in BFZ Draft at PT Milwaukee, 5-1 in BFZ Draft at GP Atlanta, then 2-1 in the Atlanta Top 8.
His professional record in this format is a staggering 17 wins, 4 losses.
For people to say "Ha! Turtenwald was wrong!" fail to realize that nobody else on the planet has matched Turtenwald's success in BFZ draft.
Nah, Sene I have great respect for Turtenwald, his talent, and his valid points about the format in general. As an avid drafter however, I am always thrilled to watch the "self-adjusting" nature of any given draft format in action. Also, while I agree that green is not great in BFZ, it IS my favorite color, and I'm happy to see it pull it's weight.
Oh, and I've come second in my last 3 drafts, losing to Guardians of Tazeem, so there's that.
Magic is an extremely high-variance game. Green is by far the worst color, but it still has a 48.2% win rate over 80k+ matches in MTGO.
Owen's assertions that Green should be avoided is an optimization choice worth probably less than 1% of your total win rate.
One match means nothing in the grand scheme of things, even if it is the Grand Prix finals. So, I hate to burst your bubble, but this isn't a product of the self-adjusting nature of draft. It's simply variance taking its course.
People need to remember that "green is never positive EV" is not the same as "green can never win". I personally know people who have come out ahead playing slots at Vegas, but it doesn't ever make it correct to play slots for anything other than entertainment value.
Well, my biggest issue with this, really, is that you, in many ways, can't 'choose' to play Green or not in a draft. Put another way, it is very possible that the best deck for your seat is Green. Sure, it might have negative EV, but what happens if all the other decks you could make given the other drafters are worse? Turtenwald makes the explicit argument that this isn't possible by telling you that there is always a better EV deck than one that has Green in it for a draft. That is... well, virtually impossible to state given the variable composition of packs.
Well, my biggest issue with this, really, is that you, in many ways, can't 'choose' to play Green or not in a draft. Put another way, it is very possible that the best deck for your seat is Green. Sure, it might have negative EV, but what happens if all the other decks you could make given the other drafters are worse? Turtenwald makes the explicit argument that this isn't possible by telling you that there is always a better EV deck than one that has Green in it for a draft. That is... well, virtually impossible to state given the variable composition of packs.
I don't think he ever was saying that green decks cannot win, or that green is the incorrect color for every seat. My interpretation of his comments is that green is so shallow and so underpowered that the decision to go green even if it looks open will pay off less often than the decision to fight for other colors. If you take a green card early in the draft you are taking it on the expectation, or at least the hope, that plenty of good green cards will follow. His take is that there simply are not enough good green cards for that hope to come true often enough.
Also, keep in mind that he presented this as his team's approach to the Pro Tour where he believed other seats would not ignore green. If you guaranteed him that lots of strong green would be opened and passed to his seat, he might feel differently (I don't know) but that's not the way anyone gets to draft.
If Green is that unplayable in BFZ draft, I should really start playing other colors - I've played in 4 BFZ drafts, drafted Green as my primary color every single time and only lost a single round. Someone here is doing it wrong, and I'm gonna go with Mr. Turtenwald.
If Green is that unplayable in BFZ draft, I should really start playing other colors - I've played in 4 BFZ drafts, drafted Green as my primary color every single time and only lost a single round. Someone here is doing it wrong, and I'm gonna go with Mr. Turtenwald.
No disrespect intended to you, but you've only drafted BFZ four times. Owen Turtenwald has probably drafted the format a hundred times, and has gone 17-4 in professional level BFZ drafts, and is ranked the #1 player in the world (and if you watch him play, you know that this is no fluke). I'm listening to Owen here, myself.
One very important point that has been brought up:
Also, keep in mind that he presented this as his team's approach to the Pro Tour where he believed other seats would not ignore green. If you guaranteed him that lots of strong green would be opened and passed to his seat, he might feel differently (I don't know) but that's not the way anyone gets to draft.
In a world where everyone stays away from green, obviously the color gets a lot better for that one player who does draft it. But assuming other players don't mind drafting green, suggesting to stay away from it seems like prudent advice.
There is always a worst color in a given draft environment. That being said it isn't outright unplayable like Turtenwald claims it to be. If only one player at a draft table is actively drafting green cards that one player is quite happy I would imagine. Same with every color in a given pod like I remember when black was undervalued and considered poor in avacyn restored limited and I went black at a table and destroyed the pod. People caught on quickly enough though with black in AVR.
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DSF: Saying that it is always better to fight over another color than to take Green even if it's open is equivalent to saying that there is always a better deck for your seat than one that contains Green. Or, at least, I cannot square that circle of determining a lesser position to take, given that Turtenwald couched his terms in absolutes.
Sene: Then why is he saying this? The statement that is considered important here is, really, 'draft formats are self-correcting'. Sure, Green is the weakest color. No one has argued that. Turtenwald's argument, couched as it is in absolutes, has always meant to me that Turtenwald is claiming that the inherent self-correction of Draft formats cannot correct for Green's weakness in BFZ. There is no other way to read his argument. I don't see anywhere where he says that Green gets better (or 'enough better') if there is only one person in it. I don't see anywhere where he says that Green can only support one drafter in BFZ Limited. I do see where he states that no one should draft Green in BFZ.
As I've noted, I have an intense dislike of people who use hyperbole to generate discussion, because it polarizes the discussion early, particularly for people like me who want to discuss the actual argument, not 'the likely view of what the guy actually meant to say given that no rational person would actually make the statement that this person did, in fact, make.'
it is very possible that the best deck for your seat is Green.
While this is true, there's no way you can determine that until all the packs are opened and the draft is completed.
I don't think Turtenwald is making the argument that there is a better deck that can be drafted from that seat by avoiding Green. I don't think he's refuting the possibility that Green can be the best color for a given seat. That's not what he means when he says that drafting Green is a mistake.
The draft process has variance too. The goal of each draft pick is to make the highest EV pick given what you know about the situation.
In Blackjack, under no circumstances is it statistically profitable to split face cards. There is the possibility that splitting face cards can get you two more face cards or even Aces, just like there is the possibility that Green is the best color for a given seat. However, since you're not privy to what cards are on top of the deck, just like you're not privy to how the rest of the draft will pan out at a draft table. You can't predict the future. All you can do is make the decision that yields the greatest expected value.
I think Turtenwald's assertion that moving in on Green is like splitting face cards in Blackjack. While there is the possibility of getting paid off, the risk is higher by moving in on Green than it is to outright avoid it. When someone drafts Green and it pays off for them, they might feel like they made the right decision, just like a Blackjack player getting paid off for splitting two Kings. In Blackjack and in Magic, you're often paid off by making a statistically unwise decision.
Now, unlike Blackjack, draft is a self-balancing format. Also, unlike Blackjack, you're gaining information on the table as the draft progresses. Some people will argue "if you're good at drafting, you can read signals to determine when Green is open".
The truth is: you can't. You can make an educated guess that Green might be open, but you can never tell for sure. Especially because it takes more for Green to be "open" than it does for the other four colors. Green is considered "open" when only two players are playing it, where every other color is still "open" when three players are playing it. This makes it much harder to correctly determine that Green is open. Someone else at the table can move in on Green at the same time that you do. That risk is much higher AND more punishing with Green than it is with any other color.
I wrote about that in a post on Reddit, for those who are interested.
For Green to self-balance to a point where it's as viable as the other colors, it needs to be less than 2/3 as popular as the average popularity of the other four colors. If that's not happening at the PT or GP tables, it's probably not happening anywhere else either.
@scottjhebert: bokchoykn said basically what I would've said. I'm not trying to argue that green decks cannot be the best decks for a given seat, and I don't think Owen necessarily was either. (If he was, I disagree.) But nobody proceeds through a draft with perfect information, and so Owen's belief is that you will do better in the long run by ignoring green because reading green as open and hoping that enough good cards come around to verify that will pay you off less often than just drafting something else.
Just for the sake of full disclosure, my most recent BFZ draft is was RG Landfall. The stats I keep about my drafts are at home (gee...I really should just put them in a Google sheet...) but I'm going to estimate from memory. I believe I have been RG Landfall twice, UR Devoid twice, UB Devoid once, UGxx Converge/allies once, and UWb control once with the rest of the 15 or so drafts being UW Awaken. I'm not claiming that I never draft green, and there are times that it feels like it's where my seat wants to be.
Argue all you want, but someone provided the statistic that green has about 1% less win-rate than other colors. You cannot mesh Owen statement with this fact.
I don't buy Owen's record as proof either. He's good enough that he could be winning *despite* taking a wrong stand on green.
I also don't buy that one would need to see the full draft sets to decide to go green. The argument applies to every colors. That green starts with a 1% deficit should not have that great of an impact that it renders it unpickable early on in a draft. Beside, signals are made of being passed good cards. Getting a tajuru warcaller 4th pick should tell you something.
Argue all you want, but someone provided the statistic that green has about 1% less win-rate than other colors. You cannot mesh Owen statement with this fact.
Color Win Rate
Blue - 52.2%
White - 51.0%
Black - 50.7%
Red - 50.7%
Green - 48.4%
Color Popularity
Black - 48.6%
Blue - 46.7%
Red - 44.7%
White - 44.5%
Green - 38.3%
Green's overall win rate is 2.8% below the non-Green average of 51.2%. This doesn't seem like a lot, but it actually is. Green is going to be paired with another color, bringing down that color's win rate and bringing up Green's win rate. Green decks are also sometimes playing against other Green decks, bringing its win rate closer to 50%.
Green's performance is poor, even despite being by far the least popular color. Despite the self-balancing nature of Draft, Green is STILL performing very poorly.
I don't buy Owen's record as proof either. He's good enough that he could be winning *despite* taking a wrong stand on green.
It's not proof that he's correct. It's proof that he probably understands the draft format better than the vast majority of Magic Pros, let alone Magic players.
I also don't buy that one would need to see the full draft sets to decide to go green. The argument applies to every colors.
Yes, but the risk is higher with Green than it is with other colors. You're more likely to be wrong about Green being open (because Green ideally supports two players while other colors should support three). The punishment for being wrong is more severe.
It is not just Owen Turtenwald saying that green is terrible in BFZ limited. It is a bunch of pros. The degree of stated terrible-ness varies depending upon the individual, and there is no right or wrong answer in my view, but to simply throw out all of these opinions does not seem like a way to improve your game (if that is something one wants to do).
The goldfish and channelfireball stats quoted above in my view show very well how terrible green is, not just slightly terrible.
In any case, Owen revealed on Twitter that he's going to be a guest on this week's Limited Resources, so I suppose we can expect him to elaborate on his views there.
I doubt he'll change many minds. A lot of people are adamantly against the concept of outright avoiding a color. Turtenwalds' article definitely ruffled a few feathers over this topic.
I think a lot of people are unreasonably upset and offended over it. If he preaches his anti-Green approach on LR, they're just going to be more angry.
No one is disputing that green is worse. What is being disputed is that it's entirely undraftable, even when you get passed the good green cards. Don't put words in my mouth that I didn't say, trying to justify your position. I still don't consider a 3% win-rate difference makes a color entirely garbage. Sure, it means that you should not first-pick it, but if you get the signal and the good cards, then you should still draft it.
Entirely undraftable. That's the position being debated.
Yes, it tells me that the three players to my right are, wisely, not picking green cards.
Owen is really, really good at magic. His hypothesis is that you are always better off drafting non-green. Effectively giving you 6 color pairs instead of 10.
Can we actually design an experiment/simulation that would prove him right? Hmmm... too strong. Can we define conditions that would have to exist in the set for this to be true?
No one is disputing that green is worse. What is being disputed is that it's entirely undraftable, even when you get passed the good green cards. Don't put words in my mouth that I didn't say, trying to justify your position. I still don't consider a 3% win-rate difference makes a color entirely garbage. Sure, it means that you should not first-pick it, but if you get the signal and the good cards, then you should still draft it.
Entirely undraftable. That's the position being debated.
Yes, it tells me that the three players to my right are, wisely, not picking green cards.
Well, that furthers the conversation so. much.
The 3% less win rate already takes into account that green is played 2/3 as often as other colors. If you are one of two green drafters at the table, you're still only breaking even -- it's only worth going into green if you're the only green drafter. But how could you ever possibly know that with any confidence, short of cheating and peeking at everyone's picks? The guy sitting across the table from you doesn't send you a signal until pick 5, and by then you've probably passed at least one good green card that someone downstream from you might have taken in the meanwhile. (It might happen if too many people start taking Owen's word as gospel, but based on us having this conversation right now, probably not)
One thing everyone needs to realize: When a color is as shallow as BFZ Green, signals that it might be open become much less reliable and moving in becomes much more risky.
Ideally, a color can support three players at a draft table. If you're sharing a color four ways, you're naturally going to get fewer cards of that color. Meanwhile, BFZ Green only supports two players at a draft table. If you're sharing Green three ways, it's actually even worse than sharing any other color four ways.
Now, suppose you've received a Tajuru Warcaller P1P4, a very good Green uncommon. Green must be wide open, right?
Well, what if the person who opened that pack took Greenwarden of Murasa or Oran-Reef Hydra over the Warcaller? Or what if he took a Drowner of Hope, and later got his own Warcaller? As you can see, getting a Tajuru Warcaller P1P4 does not rule out the possibility that one of the three players to your right can be interested in Green. Also, what about the four players to your left? You have zero information about that half of the table? There could be one or two Green players there too.
What if this happens with another color? Suppose instead of Tajuru Warcaller, it's a P1P4 Ruination Guide or Windrider Patrol. Like the Warcaller, you can't rule out the possibility that one of the three players to your right could be in Blue. However, it's a much more acceptable risk since Blue supports three, while Green only supports two. The signal that Blue may be open is 1.5x more reliable.
The same goes with later picks:
Suppose you saw a Snapping Gnarlid AND Eyeless Watcher P1P8. These are the two best Green commons. Surely, Green must be wide open if none of the other seven players in the table took either of these, right? Well, not really. There could have been a really good Green rare or uncommon in this pack. Also, a RG player will still select Touch of the Void or Stonefury ahead of these cards. A UG player will still take Eldrazi Skyspawner or Clutch of Currents over them too. There are so many plausible scenarios as to why the Gnarlid and Watcher would still be in a pack this late, even with two other Green players at the table.
Add in the fact that Green optimally supports two players while Red/Blue can support three each, and that makes this information even more unreliable.
If you see Touch of the Void AND Stonefury P1P8, this is a very reliable signal that Red is open. If you see Eldrazi Skyspawner AND Clutch of Currents P1P8, this is a very reliable signal that Blue is open and the rest of the table is smoking dope. Snapping Gnarlid + Eyeless Watcher? Not so much, simply because the top tier of Red and Blue (and White and Black) commons are on a higher level than the top tier of Green commons
This is the best explanation I can give on why Green can be considered "unplayable". You can't act on signals that Green might be open, because those signals are so unreliable. The punishment for being wrong is so much worse than being wrong about White/Blue/Black/Red being open.
It's a high-risk and the reward is bringing Green simply up to par with the other colors.
My gosh, and it was against U/R Devoid, too?! Tom Martell, you've done us proud!
Seriously, guys... people should know better by now...
Oh, and I've come second in my last 3 drafts, losing to Guardians of Tazeem, so there's that.
Agreed 100%. Even then, this is STILL understating is performance in this format.
Owen Turtenwald went 5-1 in BFZ Draft at GP Madison, 5-1 in BFZ Draft at PT Milwaukee, 5-1 in BFZ Draft at GP Atlanta, then 2-1 in the Atlanta Top 8.
His professional record in this format is a staggering 17 wins, 4 losses.
For people to say "Ha! Turtenwald was wrong!" fail to realize that nobody else on the planet has matched Turtenwald's success in BFZ draft.
Magic is an extremely high-variance game. Green is by far the worst color, but it still has a 48.2% win rate over 80k+ matches in MTGO.
Owen's assertions that Green should be avoided is an optimization choice worth probably less than 1% of your total win rate.
One match means nothing in the grand scheme of things, even if it is the Grand Prix finals. So, I hate to burst your bubble, but this isn't a product of the self-adjusting nature of draft. It's simply variance taking its course.
I don't think he ever was saying that green decks cannot win, or that green is the incorrect color for every seat. My interpretation of his comments is that green is so shallow and so underpowered that the decision to go green even if it looks open will pay off less often than the decision to fight for other colors. If you take a green card early in the draft you are taking it on the expectation, or at least the hope, that plenty of good green cards will follow. His take is that there simply are not enough good green cards for that hope to come true often enough.
Also, keep in mind that he presented this as his team's approach to the Pro Tour where he believed other seats would not ignore green. If you guaranteed him that lots of strong green would be opened and passed to his seat, he might feel differently (I don't know) but that's not the way anyone gets to draft.
One very important point that has been brought up:
In a world where everyone stays away from green, obviously the color gets a lot better for that one player who does draft it. But assuming other players don't mind drafting green, suggesting to stay away from it seems like prudent advice.
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Sene: Then why is he saying this? The statement that is considered important here is, really, 'draft formats are self-correcting'. Sure, Green is the weakest color. No one has argued that. Turtenwald's argument, couched as it is in absolutes, has always meant to me that Turtenwald is claiming that the inherent self-correction of Draft formats cannot correct for Green's weakness in BFZ. There is no other way to read his argument. I don't see anywhere where he says that Green gets better (or 'enough better') if there is only one person in it. I don't see anywhere where he says that Green can only support one drafter in BFZ Limited. I do see where he states that no one should draft Green in BFZ.
As I've noted, I have an intense dislike of people who use hyperbole to generate discussion, because it polarizes the discussion early, particularly for people like me who want to discuss the actual argument, not 'the likely view of what the guy actually meant to say given that no rational person would actually make the statement that this person did, in fact, make.'
While this is true, there's no way you can determine that until all the packs are opened and the draft is completed.
I don't think Turtenwald is making the argument that there is a better deck that can be drafted from that seat by avoiding Green. I don't think he's refuting the possibility that Green can be the best color for a given seat. That's not what he means when he says that drafting Green is a mistake.
The draft process has variance too. The goal of each draft pick is to make the highest EV pick given what you know about the situation.
In Blackjack, under no circumstances is it statistically profitable to split face cards. There is the possibility that splitting face cards can get you two more face cards or even Aces, just like there is the possibility that Green is the best color for a given seat. However, since you're not privy to what cards are on top of the deck, just like you're not privy to how the rest of the draft will pan out at a draft table. You can't predict the future. All you can do is make the decision that yields the greatest expected value.
I think Turtenwald's assertion that moving in on Green is like splitting face cards in Blackjack. While there is the possibility of getting paid off, the risk is higher by moving in on Green than it is to outright avoid it. When someone drafts Green and it pays off for them, they might feel like they made the right decision, just like a Blackjack player getting paid off for splitting two Kings. In Blackjack and in Magic, you're often paid off by making a statistically unwise decision.
Now, unlike Blackjack, draft is a self-balancing format. Also, unlike Blackjack, you're gaining information on the table as the draft progresses. Some people will argue "if you're good at drafting, you can read signals to determine when Green is open".
The truth is: you can't. You can make an educated guess that Green might be open, but you can never tell for sure. Especially because it takes more for Green to be "open" than it does for the other four colors. Green is considered "open" when only two players are playing it, where every other color is still "open" when three players are playing it. This makes it much harder to correctly determine that Green is open. Someone else at the table can move in on Green at the same time that you do. That risk is much higher AND more punishing with Green than it is with any other color.
I wrote about that in a post on Reddit, for those who are interested.
For Green to self-balance to a point where it's as viable as the other colors, it needs to be less than 2/3 as popular as the average popularity of the other four colors. If that's not happening at the PT or GP tables, it's probably not happening anywhere else either.
Just for the sake of full disclosure, my most recent BFZ draft is was RG Landfall. The stats I keep about my drafts are at home (gee...I really should just put them in a Google sheet...) but I'm going to estimate from memory. I believe I have been RG Landfall twice, UR Devoid twice, UB Devoid once, UGxx Converge/allies once, and UWb control once with the rest of the 15 or so drafts being UW Awaken. I'm not claiming that I never draft green, and there are times that it feels like it's where my seat wants to be.
I don't buy Owen's record as proof either. He's good enough that he could be winning *despite* taking a wrong stand on green.
I also don't buy that one would need to see the full draft sets to decide to go green. The argument applies to every colors. That green starts with a 1% deficit should not have that great of an impact that it renders it unpickable early on in a draft. Beside, signals are made of being passed good cards. Getting a tajuru warcaller 4th pick should tell you something.
Green's performance is poor, even despite being by far the least popular color. Despite the self-balancing nature of Draft, Green is STILL performing very poorly.
It's not proof that he's correct. It's proof that he probably understands the draft format better than the vast majority of Magic Pros, let alone Magic players.
Yes, but the risk is higher with Green than it is with other colors. You're more likely to be wrong about Green being open (because Green ideally supports two players while other colors should support three). The punishment for being wrong is more severe.
The goldfish and channelfireball stats quoted above in my view show very well how terrible green is, not just slightly terrible.
I doubt he'll change many minds. A lot of people are adamantly against the concept of outright avoiding a color. Turtenwalds' article definitely ruffled a few feathers over this topic.
I think a lot of people are unreasonably upset and offended over it. If he preaches his anti-Green approach on LR, they're just going to be more angry.
Entirely undraftable. That's the position being debated.
Well, that furthers the conversation so. much.
Can we actually design an experiment/simulation that would prove him right? Hmmm... too strong. Can we define conditions that would have to exist in the set for this to be true?
The 3% less win rate already takes into account that green is played 2/3 as often as other colors. If you are one of two green drafters at the table, you're still only breaking even -- it's only worth going into green if you're the only green drafter. But how could you ever possibly know that with any confidence, short of cheating and peeking at everyone's picks? The guy sitting across the table from you doesn't send you a signal until pick 5, and by then you've probably passed at least one good green card that someone downstream from you might have taken in the meanwhile. (It might happen if too many people start taking Owen's word as gospel, but based on us having this conversation right now, probably not)
Ideally, a color can support three players at a draft table. If you're sharing a color four ways, you're naturally going to get fewer cards of that color. Meanwhile, BFZ Green only supports two players at a draft table. If you're sharing Green three ways, it's actually even worse than sharing any other color four ways.
Now, suppose you've received a Tajuru Warcaller P1P4, a very good Green uncommon. Green must be wide open, right?
Well, what if the person who opened that pack took Greenwarden of Murasa or Oran-Reef Hydra over the Warcaller? Or what if he took a Drowner of Hope, and later got his own Warcaller? As you can see, getting a Tajuru Warcaller P1P4 does not rule out the possibility that one of the three players to your right can be interested in Green. Also, what about the four players to your left? You have zero information about that half of the table? There could be one or two Green players there too.
What if this happens with another color? Suppose instead of Tajuru Warcaller, it's a P1P4 Ruination Guide or Windrider Patrol. Like the Warcaller, you can't rule out the possibility that one of the three players to your right could be in Blue. However, it's a much more acceptable risk since Blue supports three, while Green only supports two. The signal that Blue may be open is 1.5x more reliable.
The same goes with later picks:
Suppose you saw a Snapping Gnarlid AND Eyeless Watcher P1P8. These are the two best Green commons. Surely, Green must be wide open if none of the other seven players in the table took either of these, right? Well, not really. There could have been a really good Green rare or uncommon in this pack. Also, a RG player will still select Touch of the Void or Stonefury ahead of these cards. A UG player will still take Eldrazi Skyspawner or Clutch of Currents over them too. There are so many plausible scenarios as to why the Gnarlid and Watcher would still be in a pack this late, even with two other Green players at the table.
Add in the fact that Green optimally supports two players while Red/Blue can support three each, and that makes this information even more unreliable.
If you see Touch of the Void AND Stonefury P1P8, this is a very reliable signal that Red is open. If you see Eldrazi Skyspawner AND Clutch of Currents P1P8, this is a very reliable signal that Blue is open and the rest of the table is smoking dope. Snapping Gnarlid + Eyeless Watcher? Not so much, simply because the top tier of Red and Blue (and White and Black) commons are on a higher level than the top tier of Green commons
This is the best explanation I can give on why Green can be considered "unplayable". You can't act on signals that Green might be open, because those signals are so unreliable. The punishment for being wrong is so much worse than being wrong about White/Blue/Black/Red being open.
It's a high-risk and the reward is bringing Green simply up to par with the other colors.