It is brewing season once again as M14 became legal in Standard and we get to use the new and old/reprinted cards in the set. I do hope the chased rares and mythic rares gets their actual use in the existing deck archetypes. What I will discuss today though is a look of an old archetype, in the times when Rancor had its original highlights. Yes, we are stomping back Mono Green.
The list:
Mono Green Stompy by Mark Ian Alloso
Standard
Lands
4 Mutavault
12 Forest
4 Temple Garden
1 Gavony Township
Creatures
4 Arbor Elf
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Kalonian Tusker
3 Kalonian Hydra
4 Predator Ooze
3 Scavenging Ooze
3 Wolfir Silverheart
2 Yeva, Nature’s Herald
Spells
4 Rancor
2 Garruk, Caller of Beasts
2 Garruk Relentless/Garruk, the Veil-Cursed
The deck basically can curve out enough mana elves to ramp out at early hydra or Garruk, or go straight to beatdown with Kalonian Tusker into Predator Ooze. Mutavault fits well with the Elvish nature of the deck, which benefits on the archdruid.
I’ve chosen the tusker over Strangleroot Geist due to Pillar of Flame still being a meta choice of removal. It hits harder than the geist and can trade with Thragtusks and beast tokens.
Predator Ooze might be a slow three drop but it survives most removals due to indestructibility and can act as a one-man army (one-ooze in that case). Tragic Slips might be your problem but you can always board in Rangers Guile for those.
Elvish Archdruid is your option on boosting out your mana elves for an early beating in case you don’t draw your major threat. Plus, its excess mana can later on be used in Gavony Township activations.
Yeva gives you a pseudo-Haste effect as you can cast your hydra at the end of your opponent’s turn. She also makes your creatures being blocked difficult with your flashy Wolfir Silverheart. The other four drop, Garruk Relentless is the deck’s multi-purpose kill and creature generator. Its wolf tokens are another beneficiary of a late game township pumps.
The five drops are your hard hitters, in the form of Kalonian Hydra & Wolfir Silverheart. The hydra, with its high price at the moment, I might recommend two to three copies. I think he might be most effective with Yeva effect, but playing it and passing the turn just give opponents a window to deal with it. Again, you have your Rangers Guile to assist with the matchup. It can bonus pump the oozes in the deck, also those with counters from the township.
Wolfir Silverheart lets you overpower most of the creatures in the meta, and is best used with Rancor to force them into double or triple blocks. It has its uses before in Innistrad Mono Green lists, so it is auto included in the list.
The new Garruk, the Caller of Beasts role is to give you gas in the late game with its Lead the Stampede +1 loyalty. The deck has 31 creatures so it’s unlikely that it will whiff. With the new Legends ruling, it seems pretty hard for most opponents to deal with him: unless, of course, he gets attacked by a hasty hellkite.
My initial sideboard plan is as follows:
2 Garruk Relentless
3 Rangers Guile
1 Ray of Revelation
3 Strangleroot Geist
1 Selesnya Charm
2 Thragtusk
3 Triumph of Ferocity
The additional Garruk Relentless are for the Jund midrange and various control matchups, letting you set board presence without over committing. Rangers Guile also works with those matchups.
The singleton Ray of Revelation is for Bant Hexproof decks, and other relevant enchantments like Curse, and Oblivion Ring.
Strangleroot Geist can be good in most matchups but to be boarded only in definite situations. First, it is good in fending off Red’s early aggression. Just avoid being hit by Pillar of Flame though. Second, it is good against Edict effects, protecting your relevant critter like the Predator Ooze. Third, it is a good clock against control decks in which you might board out your Silverhearts in favor of the geists. You have to make a few observations first so as not to mess up the composition of the deck.
We have a lone Selesnya Charm to deal with any fatties the opponent might have. I included only one due to mana constraints, plus we are the aggressive build so we don’t want to lose that tempo.
Thragtusks also are for aggro decks and work against Jund midrange. Triumph of Ferocity can provide gas against control decks like Esper which lets you cope up with threat against their removal, counterspells, and Sphinx’s revelation.
That’s about it for Mono Green feature for this week’s Marked for Standard. As of this writing, I’ve heard the deck archetype got a top finish on last weekend’s SCG Standard Open and on a Magic-League Trial tournament. That is good news for this archetype’s aficionados.
To conclude, there are still viable strategies in M14 waiting to be uncovered. All we have to do is to brew and test, then repeat the process.
Until next post.