After reading this thread for a bit and thinking some, I'm going to give cutting green aggro a bit of a shot. I'm going to try a bit of a midrangy toolbox style approach to green and see how it works.
+1 Arbor Elf
+1 Deranged Hermit
+1 Hornet Queen
+1 Birthing Pod
+1 Green Sun's Zenith
+1 Life from the Loam
+1 Oracle of Mul Daya
+1 Thornling
After that, I'm going to also remove some of the fast artifact mana, but not as much as Konfusius did.
-1 Mana Crypt
-1 Mana Vault
-1 Grim Monolith
Going to just run at 447 for now until I decide what to replace them with, there's no reason it has to be a perfect number.
I'm currently planning on keeping the Sol Ring and 4 Signets (I only run the blue ones), because I'm leaving the Tinker and Tezzeret package intact in the cube. That may eventually change if the green deck still isn't worth running, but I really do like having the artifact deck available, and since I'm running both Tezzerets, it'd be a pretty major change to cut all of that out. I'm not saying it won't happen, just that I want to play with this change a little first. I realize it's only 11 cards out and 8 in, but it still seems like a lot.
I'm so glad my proxy version of the cube will put green on the aggro and beat down map. Green has always been the slave child to all other colors never getting to show what it can really do.
I'm not sure what you're trying to contribute to the discussion . . . . I feel like I've tried pretty hard to get green to show what it can really do, and what it can really do is effective midrange, not aggro. Is there something special you're doing in your cube that you think would help those of us who think Green doesn't do aggro well?
I'm not sure what you're trying to contribute to the discussion . . . . I feel like I've tried pretty hard to get green to show what it can really do, and what it can really do is effective midrange, not aggro. Is there something special you're doing in your cube that you think would help those of us who think Green doesn't do aggro well?
Yeah I include the exact cards YOU are cutting. Maybe your group doesn't like green aggro, so it doesn't get drafted, it doesn't mean it sucks.
I rarely get to see U/B tempo, one of the most powerful deck types in the cube, but people don't always jump for it.
After reading this thread for a bit and thinking some, I'm going to give cutting green aggro a bit of a shot. I'm going to try a bit of a midrangy toolbox style approach to green and see how it works.
+1 Arbor Elf
+1 Deranged Hermit +1 Hornet Queen
+1 Birthing Pod
+1 Green Sun's Zenith
+1 Life from the Loam
+1 Oracle of Mul Daya
+1 Thornling
Most of those cuts seem fine, but I would not make ALL of the changes that you proposed there. I've used strikethrough on the cards that I think would be weaksauce to swap.
@JeffDerek: I'd try the changes as you propose, looks reasonable. The only questionable addition is Pod, but it is a build around card and these cards are hit or miss for a cube group, so no harm in trying it. My group still likes to play a Isochron Scepter deck, even though it is suboptimal to do so. It is also fun, see
I think Hornet Queen is really good by the way, it provides exactly the amount of offense and defense that you need in a given situation where alll other green fatties do not. And Green Sun's Zenith makes green toolbox strategies so much better.
About the mana artifacts, I'd really cut Sol Ring if you go after fast mana, it is just so broken. But it is your cube, so feel free to keep it. I don't know what other mana artifacts you still have, but I kept two Signets (OK, they are Talismans now, but you know what I mean) in the guild section and some two mana artifacts in the colorless section (Mind Stone, Coldsteel Heart, Guardian Idol, Everflowing Chalice, Prismatic Lens). These are important for the slower decks to have a shot as well, but they are not broken or anything and fit perfectly on curve to be hit by Manic Vandal.
My point is, you haven't really given me anything to go on. I said "I'm thinking of cutting these cards", and gave a ton of specific examples, and you came on here and said "I'm glad my cube is gonna be able to have green aggro". How is that helpful? What am I supposed to take away from that? How am I supposed to use your input to better answer my question about the identity of green? And if you're not here to try and answer the question I asked in the title, what is your purpose of posting in the thread?
Most of those cuts seem fine, but I would not make ALL of the changes that you proposed there. I've used strikethrough on the cards that I think would be weaksauce to swap.
I think you're still thinking of green as an aggro color. If I'm focusing on midrange, what is Twinblade Slasher going to do for me? I'm specifically trying to do something different with green, and your suggestions seem to be that I change 5 cards out of a 65 card section and expect it to make a difference.
I'm not convinced the 8 cards I'm swapping will really be enough, but the two engine/toolbox cards (Pod and Zenith) I think will be essential to building green in a different way. Green will now have several engine cards to build around, beyond just Survival, now you have Loam, Pod, Zenith (less so, obviously), to mess with, all of which support midrange very well. What exactly is Wild Nacatl doing for me? It's usually going to be a 2/2 unless I end up in a very specific color combination, and I've already decided 2/2's for 1 isn't where I want to be in green.
I'm not convinced I'm going to keep these changes forever, but I think if I'm going to try and make green a toolboxy midrange color, then I really need to make substantial changes and try something completely different. Halfassing it won't be noticed.
We've had some success with R/G aggro decks, and W/G aggro decks, but never with G/R or G/W. Green is always a support color, which means the GG aggro dudes never see play.
Regardless, this is pointless. There was an entire thread about why I have had trouble with green aggro, and while many people liked it a lot, I wasn't the only person who didn't find it getting drafted much. I didn't bring this up in hopes that you could all talk me back into green aggro. Explaining to my group that they should draft Jungle Lion when it hasn't been good ever when they've drafted it won't result in them drafting it. I had hoped that someone else might actually find this idea kind of cool, but instead almost all of the comments have received have been about how green aggro is actually good, and how Upheaval belongs in all cubes, and and how all the cards I was talking about were already in everybody's cubes.
Since nobody seems to be interested in discussing the thing I wanted to talk about, but instead wants to correct my opinions, I think the best thing to do is let this topic die. I will try to do this on my own, and if it works, I'll post it in my own cube topic. I'm not trying to be a problem, and I never intended for this to end up in the DKA spoiler thread, so just let it go.
J
Alright, alright. I was just making sure before II started slinging comments around. I suppose if you are going to want to give green a new identity I would start going the route of bomby/midrangy area.
Does your group typical draft aggro in general, or just focuses more on what ever they want? My group hardly ever goes hard aggro, there are some control but most it is just mid range. And if I overhauled green to support only mid range, I'm sure they would love it, but they do draft green alot because of the fat, then me and my other friend who actually like aggro generally start packing g/w aggro and g/b aggro.
Aggro is actually fairly popular, but it usually involves red, white or black. Braids aggro is pretty popular, as is red with mana denial (splash for armageddon, winter orb, ankh of mishra, or all the red LD spells). I brought in some green LD, but green just didn't end up working out as an aggro color.
The problem I ran into was this:
1) Only about half of green's cards work in aggro, while way more than half of red or black's cards work in aggro
2) As a result, when attempting to draft G/R aggro, it always ends up being R/g aggro, with the few real green aggro cards being one drops.
3) You're left with a deck that has 16 red cards and 7 green cards, and 3 of the green cards are 1 drops or cost GG. Now your mana just sucks, because you can't play the green guys on turn one reliably, and they aren't any good in the late game.
White, Red, and Black all make much better splashes in aggro decks, because they all have cards that are good in aggro that are decent on turn 4. You can splash white in your aggro deck for Armageddon, Path, and Soltari Champion pretty easily.
Green aggro happens here, but not mono coloured or as a splash.
Either green is splashed in a 90% red aggro deck for the powerfull Red-Green cards iand power cards like Sylvan Library and Regrowth, or green is the main colour and red and white are splashed for removal (burn or STP) or as always power cards (FTK, Armageddon,...).
Your group doesn't like cards like Lotus Cobra, Skinshifter, Call of the Herd, Nacatl, Kird Ape, Loam Lion or the Boa?
I do follow you that green aggro on itself is too weak compared to the rest of the cube and could use some help. Green midrange is good and players can easily be tempted to add good cards like sex monkies or Thrun and aggro suddenly becomes too midrangy to be fast enough. But green works ok in RG or WG or RGW for us as the main colour. It mostly sucks as a splash though apart from the few cases I listed above.
With a ton of Elves available, green midrange can be faster then other midrange decks and thus keeps the initiative more.
But there is a lot of group think and individual tendencies in stuff like this and in the end it might be easier for a cube owner to change the cube , then to change the players tendencies. If I go aggro I like to go weenie with 15 lands if possible, some players like to have the option to play a couple of 4 or 5 drops in their aggro deck (which is way too risky with thelow land count I like aiming for generally). Both these decks would be called aggro here but they play and draft very differently. I think it matters a lot that you believe in cards when you draft and play them. Not in a mystical sense but if you are not sure about cards, this will be reflected in the your following picks and during deck construction. This is one reason why some of us have good experiences with cards, while others have bad experiences with the same card. Personally I don't believe in Mirrari's Wake for example and the card never worked for me, Fredo (my cube co-owner) has tried multiple times to draft and play Crucible of Worlds but it never worked because, in my mind, he doesn't believe in the card and doesn't fully go for the Crucible idea.
A lot of rambling here, but hey I am in a temporary job here and it is very boring
One of the best decisions I have made in my cubes lifetime is to cut the green mediocre 1-mana dorks (compared to white's options anyway). I have replaced them with more 1-mana accelerators such as Arbor Elf and Avacyn's Pilgrim. This have enabled green as an aggro/midrange color even more, and just generally makes the color more interesting.
Embrace greens identity and remove the "crisis" from your cube. Green is the midrange/acceleration color, and enforcing this particular strategy makes green more desired. It have come to a point in my playgroup where green is overdrafted because everyone want to make "The land deck" or "The Green/x aggro with onemana accelerators".
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.
This is what I have to say about the green identity issue. I still think that greens main problem is the lack of something it is actually better at than the other colors as long as you run fast mana.
So to reiterate with some more experience with my changes, I too had the issue that nobody wanted to play green aggro or green at all for that matter. I went ahead and cut green aggro, cut fast artifact mana and increased the number of ramp targets and toolbox creatures in green, plus I added cards to get those creatures in GSZ, Birthing Pod and Natural Order. I feel like green sees more play now, and more importantly, players are now actually willing to commit to green early on. This has a lot to do with the playgroup, though, because if your players do not like to build decks around GSZ or Birthing Pod or something, what we did might not work for you.
edit: It may or may not work without cutting fast mana, the green identity issue was not the only reason I cut it, it also has to do with the variance a card like Sol Ring adds to games.
I run green aggro support and GSZ is still worth playing. In a one-of toolbox format, with the best creatures around (the majority of whom have ETB effects), it is one of my top green cards.
I run green aggro support and GSZ is still worth playing. In a one-of toolbox format, with the best creatures around (the majority of whom have ETB effects), it is one of my top green cards.
Me too.
GSZ and Birthing Pod is part of what makes green interesting along with survival of the fittest and cards like that.
@ Konfusius: your theory is interesting, although I don't think cutting fast mana is strictly necessary to obtain the result you're aiming for.
Our cube is fully powered, and we have had very good experiences with the way our green section is currently set up, the main deviation from the norm being running many more mana elves than usual, as well as Natural Order and Green Sun's Zenith.
We have since had several mono-green (or with a small splash, usually for white or black) ramp decks that performed well, in some cases completely wiping all opposition. The aforementioned 1-drop mana elves, Natural Order and GSZ played a big role in this success.
The Green Zenith was the biggest surprise for me. It has been consistently great, tutoring up either a 1-drop mana elf turn 2 or the biggest threats in the late game (which usually really is the midgame from the opponent's perspective), regularly even in the same game. It's also been used as a toolbox tutor, getting an Orangutan/Stomphowler/Acidic Slime to get rid of some bothersome artifact, enchantment or land while building board presence at the same time.
I could see expanding on this idea by adding Worldly Tutor and/or Birthing Pod for added toolbox shenanigans. Since you're recommending it now, I presume Pod has been working out for you, Konfusius? I think I'd enjoy playing with it.
I could see expanding on this idea by adding Worldly Tutor and/or Birthing Pod for added toolbox shenanigans. Since you're recommending it now, I presume Pod has been working out for you, Konfusius? I think I'd enjoy playing with it.
It is still a relatively new addition, but it was well received. I had the good luck to open Birthing Pod pack 1 and went ahead to draft a deck around it, and it was fun (and quite strong as well). I was a bit afraid during the draft that I might not end up with enough creatures at 3 and 5 mana, but I got them in the end.
Cutting the aggressive early drops for creatures with good ETB abilities really helped to push GSZ, Birthing Pod, Natural Order and Worldly Tutor. My players pick these cards up early, because they can be certain to get a reasonable number of creatures to go with them. They also do it the other way round, that is starting to pick good green ETB creatures in the hope to push them over the top with one of those cards or with Recurring Nightmare, Erratic Portal, Crystal Shard, Flickerwisp and the like.
I think Birthing Pod is a great build-around card, and powerful enough to run it if your players like to draft it. If they don't, it is a card that can be left out of the cube, no harm done.
Here's a Gu ramp deck I went 4-0 with yesterday. The strategy is land control and creature recursion:
Green Sun's Zenith
Worldly Tutor
Birds of Paradise
Joraga Treespeaker
Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
Uktabi Orangutan
Viridian Shaman
Eternal Witness
Thrun, the Last Troll
Deranged Hermit
Acidic Slime
Plow Under
Genesis
Woodfall Primus
Wasteland
Strip Mine
Crucible of Worlds
Mana Vault
Mulldrifter
Ancestral Vision
Upheaval
Simic Signet
Chrome Mox
Wall of Blossoms
Crystal Shard
Mishra's Factory
Lotus Cobra
Rancor
this deck was powerful and felt very green to me. It has a huge weakness with resolved creatures (Baneslayer Angel was a nightmare) but has the ability to do crazy things, to me this is the essence of green. The tutoring effects make getting up to acidic slime, plow under and woodfall primus pretty consistent. Upheaval offers a reset button if things get scary. This kind of deck has had a lot of success in our cube, and I've been pushing green in this direction.
edit: I would have LOVED a birthing pod in this build, so I'll have to try it when I get my hands on one
Ramp one of the two main archetypes my cube supports for Green, the other being midrange. My cube still has a near full complement of fast mana (no mana crypt or Vault but has moxen sol ring Monolith...) and green ramp is a viable archetype, because it has a very high density of spells that let it ramp and not all of them are high picks.
I think if you give a critical mass of ramp it will be a solid archetype. I have 12 cards in my green section that are dedicated to ramping up mana, and I have no complaints about it.
Green is a very offensive color with little in the way of defense, so it has to chip away at your opponent's resources (via artifact/land destruction) as a preemptive measure.
Against other heavy creature decks it is very good though - it tends to hold the ground well. But against noncreature decks, it has to race them (and maybe gain a bit of life)
It is slightly less aggressive than red, about equal to white, but without all the other things white has.
The one thing it does over white is mainly mana accel.
Green is a very offensive color with little in the way of defense, so it has to chip away at your opponent's resources (via artifact/land destruction) as a preemptive measure.
I can definitely agree that land destruction/disruption can be a very viable plan for a green deck with lots of cheap ramp. I've seen savage decks that ramped into stuff like Ice Storm, Creeping Mold, Bramblecrush, Plow Under, Smokestack and Lodestone Golem that were quite hard to beat for any deck because it just blew up your board before you had the chance to get any kind of plan going. Stunted Growth is not a popular card on this forum, but in such a build it is devastating. The best colors to complement such a strategy are obviously red and black, but I've seen a monogreen build once or twice that performed very well.
I originally dismissed this idea without giving it much thought. Upon reflection though, what does green add to aggro? Sure, it increases the critical mass of aggro dudes but...what else? (Is that enough to justify it?) It has no removal, hardly any disruption, and with power creep green creatures aren't even significantly better than other colors' at any given slot. Not once have I drafted an aggro deck in which green in the dominant color.
I feel there's enough aggro support in the other colors to give green a 'unique' identity. On top of that, there's less cards in green than any other color which will make me think 'damn I really want to go green now'.
Why not just run the best cards in green? Run the aggro critters that you feel are objectively strong enough, and run the better midrange cards too. White has enough support for amazing aggro and control decks, and midrange builds itself there. Green only needs to support midrange (ramp is part of this) and aggro, and most of its cards lend themselves naturally to midrange. As better green low cost creatures are printed, we can integrate them as and when we can. Wolfbitten Captive and Geist go a very long way to helping, FWIW.
Lotus Cobra is still fine on turn three, because you can still play another two drop after it (ore even a three drop if you have a fetchland in hand).
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
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My current green changes
-1 Wild Dogs
-1 Twinblade Slasher
-1 Pouncing Jaguar
-1 Jungle Lion
-1 Wild Nacatl
-1 Viridian Zealot
-1 Vines of Vastwood
-1 Overrun
+1 Arbor Elf
+1 Deranged Hermit
+1 Hornet Queen
+1 Birthing Pod
+1 Green Sun's Zenith
+1 Life from the Loam
+1 Oracle of Mul Daya
+1 Thornling
After that, I'm going to also remove some of the fast artifact mana, but not as much as Konfusius did.
-1 Mana Crypt
-1 Mana Vault
-1 Grim Monolith
Going to just run at 447 for now until I decide what to replace them with, there's no reason it has to be a perfect number.
I'm currently planning on keeping the Sol Ring and 4 Signets (I only run the blue ones), because I'm leaving the Tinker and Tezzeret package intact in the cube. That may eventually change if the green deck still isn't worth running, but I really do like having the artifact deck available, and since I'm running both Tezzerets, it'd be a pretty major change to cut all of that out. I'm not saying it won't happen, just that I want to play with this change a little first. I realize it's only 11 cards out and 8 in, but it still seems like a lot.
J
My MTGSalvation Cube Page (not always up to date, but sweet pics of my alters)
My MTGSalvation Cube Page (not always up to date, but sweet pics of my alters)
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
Yeah I include the exact cards YOU are cutting. Maybe your group doesn't like green aggro, so it doesn't get drafted, it doesn't mean it sucks.
I rarely get to see U/B tempo, one of the most powerful deck types in the cube, but people don't always jump for it.
Look at your thread title: Green Identity Issues?
You ask the question before we even get started.
Most of those cuts seem fine, but I would not make ALL of the changes that you proposed there. I've used
strikethroughon the cards that I think would be weaksauce to swap.I think Hornet Queen is really good by the way, it provides exactly the amount of offense and defense that you need in a given situation where alll other green fatties do not. And Green Sun's Zenith makes green toolbox strategies so much better.
About the mana artifacts, I'd really cut Sol Ring if you go after fast mana, it is just so broken. But it is your cube, so feel free to keep it. I don't know what other mana artifacts you still have, but I kept two Signets (OK, they are Talismans now, but you know what I mean) in the guild section and some two mana artifacts in the colorless section (Mind Stone, Coldsteel Heart, Guardian Idol, Everflowing Chalice, Prismatic Lens). These are important for the slower decks to have a shot as well, but they are not broken or anything and fit perfectly on curve to be hit by Manic Vandal.
"What am I looking at? Ashes, dead man."
My point is, you haven't really given me anything to go on. I said "I'm thinking of cutting these cards", and gave a ton of specific examples, and you came on here and said "I'm glad my cube is gonna be able to have green aggro". How is that helpful? What am I supposed to take away from that? How am I supposed to use your input to better answer my question about the identity of green? And if you're not here to try and answer the question I asked in the title, what is your purpose of posting in the thread?
I think you're still thinking of green as an aggro color. If I'm focusing on midrange, what is Twinblade Slasher going to do for me? I'm specifically trying to do something different with green, and your suggestions seem to be that I change 5 cards out of a 65 card section and expect it to make a difference.
I'm not convinced the 8 cards I'm swapping will really be enough, but the two engine/toolbox cards (Pod and Zenith) I think will be essential to building green in a different way. Green will now have several engine cards to build around, beyond just Survival, now you have Loam, Pod, Zenith (less so, obviously), to mess with, all of which support midrange very well. What exactly is Wild Nacatl doing for me? It's usually going to be a 2/2 unless I end up in a very specific color combination, and I've already decided 2/2's for 1 isn't where I want to be in green.
I'm not convinced I'm going to keep these changes forever, but I think if I'm going to try and make green a toolboxy midrange color, then I really need to make substantial changes and try something completely different. Halfassing it won't be noticed.
J
My MTGSalvation Cube Page (not always up to date, but sweet pics of my alters)
Alright, alright. I was just making sure before II started slinging comments around. I suppose if you are going to want to give green a new identity I would start going the route of bomby/midrangy area.
Does your group typical draft aggro in general, or just focuses more on what ever they want? My group hardly ever goes hard aggro, there are some control but most it is just mid range. And if I overhauled green to support only mid range, I'm sure they would love it, but they do draft green alot because of the fat, then me and my other friend who actually like aggro generally start packing g/w aggro and g/b aggro.
The problem I ran into was this:
1) Only about half of green's cards work in aggro, while way more than half of red or black's cards work in aggro
2) As a result, when attempting to draft G/R aggro, it always ends up being R/g aggro, with the few real green aggro cards being one drops.
3) You're left with a deck that has 16 red cards and 7 green cards, and 3 of the green cards are 1 drops or cost GG. Now your mana just sucks, because you can't play the green guys on turn one reliably, and they aren't any good in the late game.
White, Red, and Black all make much better splashes in aggro decks, because they all have cards that are good in aggro that are decent on turn 4. You can splash white in your aggro deck for Armageddon, Path, and Soltari Champion pretty easily.
So thats why we don't see much green aggro.
J
My MTGSalvation Cube Page (not always up to date, but sweet pics of my alters)
Either green is splashed in a 90% red aggro deck for the powerfull Red-Green cards iand power cards like Sylvan Library and Regrowth, or green is the main colour and red and white are splashed for removal (burn or STP) or as always power cards (FTK, Armageddon,...).
Your group doesn't like cards like Lotus Cobra, Skinshifter, Call of the Herd, Nacatl, Kird Ape, Loam Lion or the Boa?
I do follow you that green aggro on itself is too weak compared to the rest of the cube and could use some help. Green midrange is good and players can easily be tempted to add good cards like sex monkies or Thrun and aggro suddenly becomes too midrangy to be fast enough. But green works ok in RG or WG or RGW for us as the main colour. It mostly sucks as a splash though apart from the few cases I listed above.
With a ton of Elves available, green midrange can be faster then other midrange decks and thus keeps the initiative more.
But there is a lot of group think and individual tendencies in stuff like this and in the end it might be easier for a cube owner to change the cube , then to change the players tendencies. If I go aggro I like to go weenie with 15 lands if possible, some players like to have the option to play a couple of 4 or 5 drops in their aggro deck (which is way too risky with thelow land count I like aiming for generally). Both these decks would be called aggro here but they play and draft very differently. I think it matters a lot that you believe in cards when you draft and play them. Not in a mystical sense but if you are not sure about cards, this will be reflected in the your following picks and during deck construction. This is one reason why some of us have good experiences with cards, while others have bad experiences with the same card. Personally I don't believe in Mirrari's Wake for example and the card never worked for me, Fredo (my cube co-owner) has tried multiple times to draft and play Crucible of Worlds but it never worked because, in my mind, he doesn't believe in the card and doesn't fully go for the Crucible idea.
A lot of rambling here, but hey I am in a temporary job here and it is very boring
I feel compelled to repeat everything I hear
Embrace greens identity and remove the "crisis" from your cube. Green is the midrange/acceleration color, and enforcing this particular strategy makes green more desired. It have come to a point in my playgroup where green is overdrafted because everyone want to make "The land deck" or "The Green/x aggro with onemana accelerators".
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So to reiterate with some more experience with my changes, I too had the issue that nobody wanted to play green aggro or green at all for that matter. I went ahead and cut green aggro, cut fast artifact mana and increased the number of ramp targets and toolbox creatures in green, plus I added cards to get those creatures in GSZ, Birthing Pod and Natural Order. I feel like green sees more play now, and more importantly, players are now actually willing to commit to green early on. This has a lot to do with the playgroup, though, because if your players do not like to build decks around GSZ or Birthing Pod or something, what we did might not work for you.
edit: It may or may not work without cutting fast mana, the green identity issue was not the only reason I cut it, it also has to do with the variance a card like Sol Ring adds to games.
"What am I looking at? Ashes, dead man."
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
Me too.
GSZ and Birthing Pod is part of what makes green interesting along with survival of the fittest and cards like that.
My Tribal cube
My 93/94 old school cube
My Artifact cube
My Hearthstone Quiz App for iOS
Our cube is fully powered, and we have had very good experiences with the way our green section is currently set up, the main deviation from the norm being running many more mana elves than usual, as well as Natural Order and Green Sun's Zenith.
We have since had several mono-green (or with a small splash, usually for white or black) ramp decks that performed well, in some cases completely wiping all opposition. The aforementioned 1-drop mana elves, Natural Order and GSZ played a big role in this success.
The Green Zenith was the biggest surprise for me. It has been consistently great, tutoring up either a 1-drop mana elf turn 2 or the biggest threats in the late game (which usually really is the midgame from the opponent's perspective), regularly even in the same game. It's also been used as a toolbox tutor, getting an Orangutan/Stomphowler/Acidic Slime to get rid of some bothersome artifact, enchantment or land while building board presence at the same time.
I could see expanding on this idea by adding Worldly Tutor and/or Birthing Pod for added toolbox shenanigans. Since you're recommending it now, I presume Pod has been working out for you, Konfusius? I think I'd enjoy playing with it.
Cutting the aggressive early drops for creatures with good ETB abilities really helped to push GSZ, Birthing Pod, Natural Order and Worldly Tutor. My players pick these cards up early, because they can be certain to get a reasonable number of creatures to go with them. They also do it the other way round, that is starting to pick good green ETB creatures in the hope to push them over the top with one of those cards or with Recurring Nightmare, Erratic Portal, Crystal Shard, Flickerwisp and the like.
I think Birthing Pod is a great build-around card, and powerful enough to run it if your players like to draft it. If they don't, it is a card that can be left out of the cube, no harm done.
"What am I looking at? Ashes, dead man."
Green Sun's Zenith
Worldly Tutor
Birds of Paradise
Joraga Treespeaker
Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
Uktabi Orangutan
Viridian Shaman
Eternal Witness
Thrun, the Last Troll
Deranged Hermit
Acidic Slime
Plow Under
Genesis
Woodfall Primus
Wasteland
Strip Mine
Crucible of Worlds
Mana Vault
Mulldrifter
Ancestral Vision
Upheaval
Simic Signet
Chrome Mox
Wall of Blossoms
Crystal Shard
Mishra's Factory
Lotus Cobra
Rancor
this deck was powerful and felt very green to me. It has a huge weakness with resolved creatures (Baneslayer Angel was a nightmare) but has the ability to do crazy things, to me this is the essence of green. The tutoring effects make getting up to acidic slime, plow under and woodfall primus pretty consistent. Upheaval offers a reset button if things get scary. This kind of deck has had a lot of success in our cube, and I've been pushing green in this direction.
edit: I would have LOVED a birthing pod in this build, so I'll have to try it when I get my hands on one
I think if you give a critical mass of ramp it will be a solid archetype. I have 12 cards in my green section that are dedicated to ramping up mana, and I have no complaints about it.
Against other heavy creature decks it is very good though - it tends to hold the ground well. But against noncreature decks, it has to race them (and maybe gain a bit of life)
It is slightly less aggressive than red, about equal to white, but without all the other things white has.
The one thing it does over white is mainly mana accel.
I can definitely agree that land destruction/disruption can be a very viable plan for a green deck with lots of cheap ramp. I've seen savage decks that ramped into stuff like Ice Storm, Creeping Mold, Bramblecrush, Plow Under, Smokestack and Lodestone Golem that were quite hard to beat for any deck because it just blew up your board before you had the chance to get any kind of plan going. Stunted Growth is not a popular card on this forum, but in such a build it is devastating. The best colors to complement such a strategy are obviously red and black, but I've seen a monogreen build once or twice that performed very well.
I feel there's enough aggro support in the other colors to give green a 'unique' identity. On top of that, there's less cards in green than any other color which will make me think 'damn I really want to go green now'.
Here is what I am thinking:
Out >> In
Berserk >> Fastbond (Testing)
Jungle Lion >> Fyndhorn Elves
Pouncing Jaguar >> Avacyn's Pilgrim
Wild Dogs >> Arbor Elf
Wild Nacatl >> Green Sun's Zenith
Vines of Vastwood >> Birthing Pod
Mire Boa >> Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
River Boa >> Natural Order
Blastoderm >> Primeval Titan//Rampaging Baloths (Thoughts?)
Treetop Village >> Hornet Queen
Thoughts?
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms: