Man reading this thread makes me think like Snow might be the answer to the "UG doesn't have an identity" problem I've had for like 6 years. Does it work that way in practice?
I’ve been thinking about such a format myself and think it would be interesting to see how things shape out. I’ve been tinkering a bit since I replied to you on Reddit…
I think spot removal is very strong at peasant. Flying tokens is a way to make the opponents deck worse, and I think this could be a contender for best fair/midrange deck. https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/4033486#paper
For control we have good spot removal and we have access to god counterspells. Good sweepers are a bit lacking for the control decks…
Sample control deck: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/4035085#paper
Ramp: I don’t think the payoff is strong enough compared to rare/mythic targets?
Aggro can probably be ok, but I would be surprised if there is some broken combo/strategy that would shut it down.
Combo: Persist combo can win on turn 3:
T1 mana elf
T2 Rhytm of the wild/Grumgully
T3 Goblin bombardment+safehold elite/lesser masticore
Is a turn 3 win. Add black for hand disruption or blue to protect the combo?
What I probably would find most fun to play, is some sort of Soulherder blinking toolbox.
This card synergize with a lot of card types/strategies/archetypes: Blink, +1/+1 counters, ramp, combat tricks, anthems… Should be good in aggro, midrange and control, and will be an easy include for me. FTK was my favorite (non elf) card when I played in my younger days.
It won’t make my cube, but it’s interesting that this could make other equipment playable. Equipments are mostly evaluated based on the equip cost, and perhaps there are equipment that would go from unplayable to good?
Colossus Hammer becomes 1 mana +10/+10 lose flying, which seems like an insane ceiling.
Any word on how Kangee is working out for you? Cool looking card that somewhat enables Fliers as a playstyle, but is fine in other stuff unlike Empyrean Eagle and the like.
It’s been good. In my cube I don’t see myself going back to Empyrean Eagle. I often find that flying tokens is enough to cause serious problems for the opponent (which usually means me), and doesn’t depend that much on buffs. The fact that Kangee hits for 5 in the air by itself, makes it a fast clock that has ended several board stalls. I would probably play it in any WU deck, with the exception of the most dedicated blink decks.
Teach by Example is a bad version of Split Decision (which has the weird 'will of the council' mechanic, but ultimately it's the same card except it costs 1U and allows you to copy your opponent's spells as well).
It’s strictly better in non blue decks? I can see playing this in RW, RB and Mardu. I value flexibility highly in a 2 player environment.
Teach by Example seems nice for my hybrid section. I hope to see more good hybrid cards, as they are great for a 2 player cube! Hybrid W/R or W/B one drops are especially wanted.
Frost Trickster seems quite insane to me. Blue 3 drops might be one of the strongest sections in my cube.
I think I have an idea of the different evaluations you have.
I think the most important difference is how large the draft pool is. If you are using 360 cards for 8 players, and each player picks a 2 colour deck only 20 % of duals would be passed around as last picks. Duals would also ensure that if you find an open guild, you are likely to get fixing in your colours. If your goal is that each player should have 3 fixing lands for their guild, 3 sets of duals might be better for achieving that goal. If you only have vivids and the like, the competition for those might cause newer drafters to not get any fixing if they fail to evaluate how early they will be picked up.
When drafting with only 2 players, the numbers would be exactly opposite with 80 % lands being last picks. For my 2 player cube, I'm not even able to support aggro decks with the recommended 7 (?) one drops in a single colour. I considered just cutting all one drops, but instead added 5 City of Brass to make 2 colour aggro viable. In a 2 player draft environment you have a smaller draft pool and have to cut down on any card that won't have a shot of making it into any players deck. That is why I only have lands that can fix any colour.
At 240 (2 player cube) I currently only run lands that can go into any deck. 5 Vivids, 5 Thriving, 5 City of Brass and 1 Gemstone Mine. Before the arrival of the thriving lands and breaking singleton for City of Brass, I ran the trilands. City of Brass is great for supporting 2 colour aggro. Having enough 1 drops in white AND red would take too many precious slots. City of Brass fixes that.
I'm considering adding the bounce lands for GW, GU and GB to support Gxy ramp decks. Bounce lands almost reads as an etbt dual with "etb draw a land." That should be nice when needing 7 mana for the curve toppers. Initially I will add these to my hybrid section.
Edit: I also used to run Ash Barrens, Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse. With a baby on the arm the last 6 months, we decided to cut all cards that forced us to shuffle one handed...
Typically the best green decks from experience tend to be G/U/x or G/B/x goodstuff since they can shore up on weaknesses on green more easily, and generally just play good 4s and 5s. After that G/W counters tends to be good if supported, and I've made efforts to make sure G/R aggro performs well in my cube. I do find however good green decks lean very heavily on specific cards more than other colours which is why I've often found them less consistent.
Do you have a link to your cube? I would recommend putting it in your signature
I tested GW counters, but it felt a bit parasitic as the other green decks didn't want/benefit from the counters.
It seems to me that 3 different strategies might be difficult for me in a smaller cube, if there is a shortage of overlap between them.
I often think of green as the creature colour, but I don't think green has the best creatures until I hit CMC 6... And then it seems a bit costly to go into a colour just for CMC 6+.
A few creatures I would pick before the best green creature at specific CMCs:
CMC 3
Vampire Nighthawk
Aerial Responder
Lingering Souls
Anax, Hardened in the Forge
I've toyed with the idea of making green more focused on manafixing amd increasing the green guild sections. By saying that green decks are good stuff piles of 3 colours, including Gx bounce lands, signets and larger Gx guild sections and cutting down the green monocoloured section. Green can perhaps be a bit top heavy as this is where they have better options than other colours in my opinion.
Is this an insane idea? Are Gx guild cards better than mono green?
Since we play with 2 players, we have often done 120 card sealed and made two decks each. This gives a bit more variety and forces us to try new strategies. Often we make one 2 colour deck and one 3 colour deck. Wall of blossoms and Llanowar Visionary are nice in Bant blink decks and should be fine in a ramp deck? The 16 lands we have can fix any colour, so 3 colour decks are quite easy to make.
I went a bit heavy in my last update on aggressive two drops and added all the green combat tricks. Thanks for pointing out cards that were no longer supported. Renata, Called to the Hunt were mainly for the persist deck and GW +1/+1 counter deck and will also be cut.
I guess one of the issues I've had is that green decks often need defense to not be overwhelmed by W/U/B fliers. My wife loves playing aggressive Wx decks with flyers/tokens. The green decks end up on the defensive and even if I am able to create a board stall, the fliers eventualy end up being able to chip in for damage until the green deck looses. To me it seems that green lacks a big finisher that auto wins if I'm able to jump through all the hoops. No evasion (outside of trample) and little interaction seems like a poor recepie for a deck that often has to play reactive.
I've actually been considering just cutting green from my cube, so I truly appreciate your inputs.
I think I will try to revamp my green section to:
GW/GR agressive (go wide)
UG/BG ramp, with posibility for UBG reanimator.
A slower more value based reanimation should be possible in abzan. Bant blink is also fun. Trostani's Summoner should fit both of these archetypes.
One advantage of green is mana fixing, so I would like to have the slower midrange decks primarily be three colours. No shuffling restriction probably hurts, because I can't run Cultivate. Perhaps Paradise Druid, Utopia Sprawl, Song of Freyalise, Fertile Ground and some signets/bounce lands would be enough at 240. These cards should also be more resilient to "bolt the bird".
I agree that Voltaic Brawler is good, but we cut the energy cards. Ghor-Clan Rampager is flexible and can also push through damage as a combat trick that can't be countered.
Noose Constrictor has been in before, and as someone who played with Wild Mongrel during Odyssey I don't need much to be convinced about that card.
I have considered Hermit Druid for ramp/graveyard decks. What are your experiences with that card?
Thanks for the feedback! I recently tested +1/+1 counters and persist combo in green. My wife didn't like the combo and the payoffs seemed a bit underwhelming, especially outside of Selesnya. You have identified a few cards that should have been cut after the test.
I absolutely agree that I don't have room for many archetypes, and parasitic/narrow archetypes is something I try to avoid. It feels like I have been successful in other colours, but not in green. Including 5 City of Brass supports 2 colour aggro and allow me to play fewer 1 CMC in agreesive colours and still being able to get a decent amount. As green is the only ramp colour, this "burden" can't be split between several colours. Maybe unless I include signets/talismans?
Would you say that aggressive green decks are viable outside of RG in your cube? I guess I'm looking for the strongest and most flexible themes for my green section.
E.g.
White: Aggressive creatures, flying tokens, good removal, anthem.
effects
Blue: Etb/value creatures, counter spells, bounce and card draw.
Black: Death/graveyard matters, strong destroy cards.
Red: Aggro and burn spells
Green: ?
Hi, me and my wife seem unable to make green decks that are successful in our 2 player cube.
A few weeks ago I listened to Lucky paper radio (or Solely Singleton?) where they briefly spoke about their experience with drafting a peasant cube. A takeaway was that it mostly ended in topdeck mode where value (2-for-1s) were more important than tempo. I can also remember LSV mentioning that peasant cube was mostly about getting 2-for-1s.
The mentioning about tempo not being worth it, were in regards to mana elves not being what they wanted to pick. If the tempo advantage from mana elves are too small, are they even worth running? And if they are not worth running, what does green offer that other colours do not? In my experience, ramping into Pelakka wurm has rarely been worth it. If the opponent can just take care of your big threats with removal or deathtouch you are left with mana dorks and low impact cards in play. 7 life and draw a card has rarely been enough to make up for the "cost" of having lots of mana dorks/ramp that have minor impact on board state. Mana fixing through fetching lands to play more colours? If this is it, why not just cut green from the deck?
About our environment: I have banned all cards that forces shuffling of the library and double faced cards for slowing down our games or being a bit tedious. I have cut the "broken"/autopic artifacts, so destroying artifacts is not realy necessary. I guess this artifact/enchantment destruction are one of green's strength. I haven't cut any green cards for power level reasons.
Lately I tried to up the amount of interaction in green through combat tricks, but I suspect that depowering my removal will be necessary to make this work. Currently it seems that WB goodstuff and UW blink are the decks to beat in our environment.
Tldr:
1. What are green decks strength at peasant level?
2. Have green decks been successful in your environment?
3. If yes, what about your environment makes them competetive?
4. Some excaples of green "3-0" decks would be appreciated.
Boreal Outrider is Grumgully the generous, trading the arbitrary exclusion of humans for the more tangibly disappointing exclusion of tokens. Fitting in a monocolored slot, this one probably makes it for me unless I've hit a saturation point with these types of effects.
Also the new card doesn't support persist combo, which Grumgully does.
I agree with this and what Purplemurasaki mentioned. If you could pay the 2 colourless at instant speed, I think this would be a lot better. If your hand has this card and a 2 mana counterspell on turn 2, you could have played this facedown and saved a mana if the opponent did nothing.
I am considering snow lands, and wish they had been included in the bundle.
I like this idea/question, I have the same issue.
I think spot removal is very strong at peasant. Flying tokens is a way to make the opponents deck worse, and I think this could be a contender for best fair/midrange deck.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/4033486#paper
For control we have good spot removal and we have access to god counterspells. Good sweepers are a bit lacking for the control decks…
Sample control deck: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/4035085#paper
Ramp: I don’t think the payoff is strong enough compared to rare/mythic targets?
Aggro can probably be ok, but I would be surprised if there is some broken combo/strategy that would shut it down.
Combo: Persist combo can win on turn 3:
T1 mana elf
T2 Rhytm of the wild/Grumgully
T3 Goblin bombardment+safehold elite/lesser masticore
Is a turn 3 win. Add black for hand disruption or blue to protect the combo?
What I probably would find most fun to play, is some sort of Soulherder blinking toolbox.
Colossus Hammer becomes 1 mana +10/+10 lose flying, which seems like an insane ceiling.
It’s been good. In my cube I don’t see myself going back to Empyrean Eagle. I often find that flying tokens is enough to cause serious problems for the opponent (which usually means me), and doesn’t depend that much on buffs. The fact that Kangee hits for 5 in the air by itself, makes it a fast clock that has ended several board stalls. I would probably play it in any WU deck, with the exception of the most dedicated blink decks.
It’s strictly better in non blue decks? I can see playing this in RW, RB and Mardu. I value flexibility highly in a 2 player environment.
Frost Trickster seems quite insane to me. Blue 3 drops might be one of the strongest sections in my cube.
I think the most important difference is how large the draft pool is. If you are using 360 cards for 8 players, and each player picks a 2 colour deck only 20 % of duals would be passed around as last picks. Duals would also ensure that if you find an open guild, you are likely to get fixing in your colours. If your goal is that each player should have 3 fixing lands for their guild, 3 sets of duals might be better for achieving that goal. If you only have vivids and the like, the competition for those might cause newer drafters to not get any fixing if they fail to evaluate how early they will be picked up.
When drafting with only 2 players, the numbers would be exactly opposite with 80 % lands being last picks. For my 2 player cube, I'm not even able to support aggro decks with the recommended 7 (?) one drops in a single colour. I considered just cutting all one drops, but instead added 5 City of Brass to make 2 colour aggro viable. In a 2 player draft environment you have a smaller draft pool and have to cut down on any card that won't have a shot of making it into any players deck. That is why I only have lands that can fix any colour.
I'm considering adding the bounce lands for GW, GU and GB to support Gxy ramp decks. Bounce lands almost reads as an etbt dual with "etb draw a land." That should be nice when needing 7 mana for the curve toppers. Initially I will add these to my hybrid section.
Edit: I also used to run Ash Barrens, Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse. With a baby on the arm the last 6 months, we decided to cut all cards that forced us to shuffle one handed...
Do you have a link to your cube? I would recommend putting it in your signature
I tested GW counters, but it felt a bit parasitic as the other green decks didn't want/benefit from the counters.
It seems to me that 3 different strategies might be difficult for me in a smaller cube, if there is a shortage of overlap between them.
I often think of green as the creature colour, but I don't think green has the best creatures until I hit CMC 6... And then it seems a bit costly to go into a colour just for CMC 6+.
A few creatures I would pick before the best green creature at specific CMCs:
CMC 3
Vampire Nighthawk
Aerial Responder
Lingering Souls
Anax, Hardened in the Forge
CMC 4
Whirler Rogue
Ravenous Chupacabra
Flametongue Kavu
Skinrender
Talrand's Invocation
CMC 5
Cloudgoat Ranger
Shriekmaw
Mulldrifter
I've toyed with the idea of making green more focused on manafixing amd increasing the green guild sections. By saying that green decks are good stuff piles of 3 colours, including Gx bounce lands, signets and larger Gx guild sections and cutting down the green monocoloured section. Green can perhaps be a bit top heavy as this is where they have better options than other colours in my opinion.
Is this an insane idea? Are Gx guild cards better than mono green?
I went a bit heavy in my last update on aggressive two drops and added all the green combat tricks. Thanks for pointing out cards that were no longer supported. Renata, Called to the Hunt were mainly for the persist deck and GW +1/+1 counter deck and will also be cut.
I guess one of the issues I've had is that green decks often need defense to not be overwhelmed by W/U/B fliers. My wife loves playing aggressive Wx decks with flyers/tokens. The green decks end up on the defensive and even if I am able to create a board stall, the fliers eventualy end up being able to chip in for damage until the green deck looses. To me it seems that green lacks a big finisher that auto wins if I'm able to jump through all the hoops. No evasion (outside of trample) and little interaction seems like a poor recepie for a deck that often has to play reactive.
I've actually been considering just cutting green from my cube, so I truly appreciate your inputs.
I think I will try to revamp my green section to:
GW/GR agressive (go wide)
UG/BG ramp, with posibility for UBG reanimator.
A slower more value based reanimation should be possible in abzan. Bant blink is also fun. Trostani's Summoner should fit both of these archetypes.
One advantage of green is mana fixing, so I would like to have the slower midrange decks primarily be three colours. No shuffling restriction probably hurts, because I can't run Cultivate. Perhaps Paradise Druid, Utopia Sprawl, Song of Freyalise, Fertile Ground and some signets/bounce lands would be enough at 240. These cards should also be more resilient to "bolt the bird".
For my multicolour section, I will probably make these cuts:
Rhytm of the Wild > Ghor-Clan Rampager
Tatyova, Benthic Druid > Shardless Agent
Conclave Mentor > Trostani's Summoner
I agree that Voltaic Brawler is good, but we cut the energy cards. Ghor-Clan Rampager is flexible and can also push through damage as a combat trick that can't be countered.
Noose Constrictor has been in before, and as someone who played with Wild Mongrel during Odyssey I don't need much to be convinced about that card.
I have considered Hermit Druid for ramp/graveyard decks. What are your experiences with that card?
I absolutely agree that I don't have room for many archetypes, and parasitic/narrow archetypes is something I try to avoid. It feels like I have been successful in other colours, but not in green. Including 5 City of Brass supports 2 colour aggro and allow me to play fewer 1 CMC in agreesive colours and still being able to get a decent amount. As green is the only ramp colour, this "burden" can't be split between several colours. Maybe unless I include signets/talismans?
Would you say that aggressive green decks are viable outside of RG in your cube? I guess I'm looking for the strongest and most flexible themes for my green section.
E.g.
White: Aggressive creatures, flying tokens, good removal, anthem.
effects
Blue: Etb/value creatures, counter spells, bounce and card draw.
Black: Death/graveyard matters, strong destroy cards.
Red: Aggro and burn spells
Green: ?
Edit: Spelling
A few weeks ago I listened to Lucky paper radio (or Solely Singleton?) where they briefly spoke about their experience with drafting a peasant cube. A takeaway was that it mostly ended in topdeck mode where value (2-for-1s) were more important than tempo. I can also remember LSV mentioning that peasant cube was mostly about getting 2-for-1s.
The mentioning about tempo not being worth it, were in regards to mana elves not being what they wanted to pick. If the tempo advantage from mana elves are too small, are they even worth running? And if they are not worth running, what does green offer that other colours do not? In my experience, ramping into Pelakka wurm has rarely been worth it. If the opponent can just take care of your big threats with removal or deathtouch you are left with mana dorks and low impact cards in play. 7 life and draw a card has rarely been enough to make up for the "cost" of having lots of mana dorks/ramp that have minor impact on board state. Mana fixing through fetching lands to play more colours? If this is it, why not just cut green from the deck?
About our environment: I have banned all cards that forces shuffling of the library and double faced cards for slowing down our games or being a bit tedious. I have cut the "broken"/autopic artifacts, so destroying artifacts is not realy necessary. I guess this artifact/enchantment destruction are one of green's strength. I haven't cut any green cards for power level reasons.
Lately I tried to up the amount of interaction in green through combat tricks, but I suspect that depowering my removal will be necessary to make this work. Currently it seems that WB goodstuff and UW blink are the decks to beat in our environment.
Tldr:
1. What are green decks strength at peasant level?
2. Have green decks been successful in your environment?
3. If yes, what about your environment makes them competetive?
4. Some excaples of green "3-0" decks would be appreciated.
Also the new card doesn't support persist combo, which Grumgully does.
I agree with this and what Purplemurasaki mentioned. If you could pay the 2 colourless at instant speed, I think this would be a lot better. If your hand has this card and a 2 mana counterspell on turn 2, you could have played this facedown and saved a mana if the opponent did nothing.
I am considering snow lands, and wish they had been included in the bundle.