[Deck] Druid Chain Gang (Mono-green druid combo)

[Nop]

Introduction
Druid Chain Gang is a creature-based combo/aggro deck that capitalizes on the interaction between Seton, Krosan Protector, Glimpse of Nature, and a deck oozing with 1-cost druids. The combo has considerable redundancy and an effective aggro plan.
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Decklist
Lands
4 Gaea's Cradle
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Windswept Heath
8 Forests

Creatures
3 Seton, Krosan Protector
4 Gilt-Leaf Archdruid *
4 Boreal Druid
4 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Treefolk Harbinger
4 Druid Lyrist

Spells
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Garruk Wildspeaker
3 Tangleroot

Sideboard
4 Krosan Grip
3 City of Solitude
4 Door of Destinies *
4 Thorn of Amethyst

* These cards are from Morningtide. For your convenience, here is their text:

Gilt-Leaf Archdruid
:3::g::g:
Creature - Elf Druid
Whenever you play a Druid spell, you may draw a card.
Tap seven untapped Druids you control: Gain control of all lands target player controls.
3/3

Door of Destinies
:4:
Artifact
As Door of Destinies comes into play, choose a creature type.
Whenever you play a spell of that type, put a charge counter on Door of Destinies.
Creatures you control of that type get +1/+1 for each charge counter on Door of Destinies.
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Card Explanations

Seton, Krosan Protector: Allows you to play a 1-cost druid, tap that druid for :g:, play another 1-cost druid, repeat.

Gilt-Leaf Archdruid: Whenever you play a druid, you draw a card. This works just like Glimpse of Nature for your deck. When his second ability is used, it's bound to be devastating, but most of the time you should be able to kill your opponent at this point.

1-cost druids: Out of the 1-cost druids, I picked the ones that I've found to be most useful. Llanowar Elves, Fyndhorn Elves, and Boreal Druid all accelerate, Druid Lyrist can destroy threatening enchantments, and Treefolk Harbinger can ensure you hit a crucial land-drop and effectively block early-game threats.

Glimpse of Nature: You will acquire extreme card advantage with the amount of creatures you can play in a turn with the help of Seton and/or Tangleroot.

Garruk Wildspeaker: The turn that you play Garruk, you will usually use his first ability to untap two lands (hopefully one of them is Gaea's Cradle). The following turn, use his last ability to promote all of your druids into something lethal. If needed, his second ability can provide you with a reliable stream of 3/3's.

Tangleroot: Just as Seton enables you to play any number of 1-drop druids on a turn, Tangleroot supplies the required mana.

Krosan Grip/Seal of Primordium: There are a handful of artifacts/enchantments popular in Legacy that can make winning near impossible for the deck. Here is your answer.

City of Solitude: Against counterspell-oriented and other reactive decks, getting a City of Solitude to stick will make your life much easier.

Door to Destinies: Single-handedly solidifies your aggro plan.
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Cards to Consider

Nullmage Shepherd: Repeatable enchantment/artifact destruction can favorably boost some particular matchups (Stax). However, tapping four creatures can be a difficult activation cost to meet.

Wild Cantor: This can be a 1-cost druid answer to Bridge from Below. If the bridge is popular in your metagame, consider running Wild Cantor over Boreal Druid.

Staff of Domination: Generally, the deck generates hefty sums of mana, so the staff could be a useful tool. However, you can't go infinite with the staff (like you can in elf combo decks), and that makes it much less desirable.

Tarmogoyf: After all, this is a green deck. However, he's not a druid and you don't contribute much to fueling graveyard card types. He does live through mass-removal such as Pyroclasm, unlike almost all of your druids.

Concordant Crossroads: If done properly, a haste approach to the deck allows you to win on the same turn that you combo off.

Elvish Spirit Guide: Drawing lands in the midst of comboing out is a downer. I haven't experienced many mana issues with the deck, but cutting some lands for Elvish Spirit Guides could be a good move.
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Matchup Analysis
(Note: I have not thoroughly tested out the deck, and this analysis is theoretical. If this disqualifies it from CaNG III, please relocate this to the New and Developmental Decks Forum.)

Goblins: Your druids can chump-block the most threatening goblins until you draw into the combo. Garruk Wildspeaker's 3/3's can kill off any of their attackers. This seems like a favorable matchup.
Sideboard: +4 Door of Destinies

Threshold: Their countermagic will hinder you and potentially prevent you from playing out your combo. You can chump-block until they hopefully exhaust their countermagic, but otherwise their threats are too large for you to combat. The sideboard will help you out immensely. This matchup seems slightly unfavorable.
Sideboard: +3 City of Solitude, +4 Thorn of Amethyst, (+4 Krosan Grip if they run Counterbalance)

Burn: This is a full-fledged damage race! You can generally kill by turn four, and so can they. This matchup is close to even, but likely slightly unfavorable if they run Flamebreak.
Sideboard: +4 Thorn of Amethyst

Various Combo: What a nightmare! Mono-green has few tools when it comes to dealing with combo. Post-sideboard, you will need to pray that you draw into a Thorn of Amethyst. This matchup is extremely unfavorable.
Sideboard: Depending on combo deck, +4 Thorn of Amethyst, +4 Krosan Grip

Various Aggro: This should work out nicely for you. If you can survive the first few turns, your threats will outnumber theirs. This matchup seems favorable.
Sideboard: +4 Door of Destinies
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Conclusion
With its strong aggro plan and a combo that will seal the deal, Druid Chain Gang is a versatile and fun deck to play. It has a weak combo matchup that could use some improvements, but it has a good chance of winning many other matchups.

Please give me some feedback. This deck needs to be fine-tuned, but the engine behind it seems powerful enough to be competitive. Thanks!

[Mental]

I can't say this deck looks very strong, however, I do have a few ideas of how to improve it:
-Run 4x Crop Rotation. That card is INSANE with Cradle, since you can basically get a new cradle, untapped, in middle of going off and continue.
-Run -4x Garruk, +4x Goyf: Goyf is just a better alt wincon.
-Run 1 more Seton...isn't he your enabler?

Anyways, thats my 2 cents real quick.

[Nop]

Thank you for the suggestions, Mental!

Due to how much mana the deck can produce with the help of Gaea's Cradle, Crop Rotation are a good suggestion. The deck is tight for deck space, so making a cut for Crop Rotation is a difficult choice. I might be able to afford to cut two lands for two Crop Rotations.

If I am to include Tarmogoyf, I would prefer to cut something other than Garruk Wildspeaker. His overrun ability ensures a kill for the deck. All three of Garruk's abilities work nicely for the deck. While running Tarmogoyf is a good idea in any green deck, once again I'm not sure of what to cut.

While Seton is my mana-enabler, so is Tangleroot. I think having six mana-enablers (three Seton and three Tangleroot) is sufficient, but I might be wrong. I do have eight draw-enablers, so I could potentially cut one of those so I would have seven of each of the enablers. I'll have to test it out.

[Tacosnape]

Badass idea. Points for catching that the 1-drop Mana Elves were now also Druids, a point which I had completely overlooked in the mass creature type add-ins.

I'll be tinkering around with this when I'm awake.

[Barook]

The idea is really not bad, but I have a few questions:

- How fast is your goldfishing? For a combo deck without a single piece of MD disruption, it seems horrible slow, yet very easy to disrupt (e.g. CotV, Counterbalance, Mass Removal).

- Why is there no MD disruption?

- Why does your main kill have to wait for an entire turn before it does anything? It seems kinda weak. Like Mental suggested, Crop Rotation is a good inclusion. So, with 12 forest searches, why not replacing 2 Forests with Taigas and adding 2 Demonfires (or a similar X-spell)? Use Garruk and Crop Rotations to generate insane amounts of mana with Cradle after comboing out and grill your opponent this turn. If he counters it, you can still go for plan B and overrun him in the next turn.

[georgjorge]

First of all, nice idea. Glimpse is potentially broken, and this at least has a much better chance of turning Aggro than the various decks playing the 0cc artifact creatures and kobolds with it.

Second, it clearly needs some work, as the above posters mentioned, as it doesn't seem really that stable, given that you have no digging at all, and your backup to Glimpse costs five mana, which makes your combo go off turn four at best. I'd reduce the number of Archdruids for their slowness, among other things, and play card filtering and digging in their place which lets you get to Glimpse more constantly while providing overall consistency. If you want to stay mono-green (which I don't see much reason for), consider Sylvan Library, which is a great combo card, paying eight life doesn't hurt much if you plan to win third turn. Also great with fetches.

Third, I see no problem in playing a second color, with eight Fetches and four Harbingers already in the deck. You can now play blue cards, more specifically the generic blue suite that so many decks run. Brainstorm for the so much needed digging, Daze for the protection, and since you can get three mana on second turn reliably, also Compulsive Research or something better for draw. Mystical Tutor to find Glimpse on the second or third turn. Chain of Vapor for a great combo with Glimpse ! Also COILING ORACLE ! Seeing all these options, I think the deck would get SO much better with this splash...


As for your matchup theories, you definitely are overestimating your chances in the Goblin matchup. As you may have heard, the first-turn Lackey on the play is almost always accompanied by some second-turn removal, especially when the creature trying to block only has one toughness. So more often than not, a Siege-Gang, Sharpshooter, or just very large Piledrivers will be beating down before you can go off. Archdruid should be pretty impossible to cast for you here, since you won't have many mana creatures (Incinerator + Fanatic + Edict) and Port will do its thing.

Should you choose to take this deck further (changing cards and doing the testing), I wish you the best of luck with it.

[matelml]

Those could be good ideas, but you should keep in mind that if you add too many combo cards, the deck dies to hate more easily and can't go aggro. The deck will need the aggro plan to be good, because it's not faster or more resilient than other combo decks.

[Nop]

Barook:
Your concerns about no maindeck disruption and not being able to kill until a full turn after the combo are accurate. Splashing a color can help with both of those things. My only concern is when the deck is going off, Seton or Tangleroot will only give me more green mana. This makes Crop Rotation a much-needed addition so I have a way of getting that colored mana in the midst of playing creatures/drawing cards. Quirion Sentinel is another interesting way of gaining access to that colored mana, and I would comfortably kick Boreal Druid out for him.

georgjorge:
With the amount of redundancy that the deck has, I thought that I could do without card filtering. It might be worth the addition, and Sylvan Library would be the best choice within green. You support the splash idea too, and your reasoning is good. However, I think it might be difficult to go too heavy in a second color due to only producing more green mana while comboing.

So there are two things that I want from a splash: disruption/protection and a win condition. Like Barook, I think red might be a good choice since an X damage spell does offer an instant win (Stroke of Genius could work for blue, but I don't dream of accumulating the mana to make that lethal), but I don't know how much disruption it will offer. Kaervek's Torch could put a quick end to things.

I will have to consider what other colors have to offer the deck. Any more suggestions will be greatly appreciated!

[Mental]

My friend used to play this deck. It's based on the same concept as yours so I'll throw it out there as a skeleton.

Engine: 4
4x Glimpse of Nature

0-Drops: 22
4x Ornithopter
4x Phyrexian Walker
4x Shield Sphere
4x Crimson Kobolds
4x Crookshank Kobolds
2x Kobolds of Kher Keep

Wincons: 10
4x Overrun
4x Chord of Calling
2x Doran, The Seige Tower

Mana: 24
4x Gaea's Cradle
4x Lotus Petal
4x Land Grant
4x Dryad Arbor
4x Crop Rotation
4x ESG

Anyways this deck was very solid, killing on T1 or 2 almost every game. It was fairly easy to disrupt though, but the backup plan of Chord of Calling --> Doran was pretty retarded too.

[galeng]

This deck is superb. I tested my customized build in 10 games and went 8-2 against the tier 1 decks. My list:

Lands
4 Gaea's Cradle
16 Forests

Creatures
3 Seton, Krosan Protector
2 Gilt-Leaf Archdruid
4 Woodland Druid
4 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Treefolk Harbinger
4 Druid Lyrist
4 Krosan Wayfarer
4 Elvish Pioneer

Spells
4 Glimpse of Nature
3 Door of Destinies


Sideboard
4 Krosan Grip
3 City of Solitude
4 Choke
4 Thorn of Amethyst

It plays a lot like goblins or old school elves, where it needs very little disruption if any.

And for an instant classic:

(Druids vs. UGb Threshold)

Player plays Engineered Plague from Hand
Engineered Plague's note changed: Elves
<Galeng> Sure
Galen puts Llanowar Elves to Graveyard from Play
It is now the Beginning Phase, Draw Step
Galeng draws a card
It is now the Precombat Main Phase
<Galeng> you picked the wrong type dude
<Player> ...sure
Galeng plays Forest from Hand
Galeng plays Door of Destinies from Hand
Galeng taps Forest
Galeng taps Forest
Galeng taps Forest
Galeng taps Gaea's Cradle
<Player> ok
Door of Destinies's note changed: Druid
Galeng taps Seton, Krosan Protector
Galeng plays Woodland Druid from Hand
<Player> k
Door of Destinies now has 1 (+1) counters.
Galen taps Woodland Druid
Galeng plays Krosan Wayfarer from Hand
Door of Destinies now has 2 (+1) counters.
<Player> k
Galeng taps Krosan Wayfarer
Galeng plays Woodland Druid from Hand
Door of Destinies now has 3 (+1) counters.
Galeng taps Woodland Druid
Galen plays Fyndhorn Elves from Hand
Door of Destinies now has 4 (+1) counters.
<Galen> wtf..............
<Galen> <Player Lost>

Great innovation and new tech from morningtide by Nop. Job well done.

[Srovex]

Hello! I've been tinkering how to get elf combo to work for years now. And in all incarnations it has all boils down to this: you need haste. In my experience it's best achieved with concordant crossroads. It doesn't usually help your opponents too much (goblins have warchief, and other aggro is just too slow as they usually have only one turn maximum left after you drop CC. Sometimes you just plain win.). Only time it backfired me during testing was against survival deck that dropped goblin sharpshooter and shot my team down. Tough usualy that kind of survival decks pack anger as well so it doesn't really matter.
And these were times before Imperious Perfect too. So my deck just roll over and died to the massive goblins hate of that era (Goblins at tier1 = MD Engineered plague, goblin sharpshooter, rifter running rampart etc.)

With that experience I have few suggestions:
-Concordant Crossroads
Usually dropping and getting it stick means you win. It boosts your mana elves, Imperius Perfect and your clock greatly (winning the same turn as you combo off is tech). Multiples are redundant so only 3 is needed. If you trust enough your "non-haste" mana producers (seton, tangleroot) you could survive with 2. I think these are must.
-Priest of titania
yes yes, I know it's druid deck... What? Priest is druid too? most of your creatures are elfs too? How convinient! Boosts your mana to whole new level and enables Staff of domination wins (more on that later).
-Fundamental turn
As unprotected combo you should be able to go off from turns 1-3. If you drag the game to turns 4+ you WILL face some serious problems and winning becomes more and more impossible. Wrath of god, massive removals as Pernicious deed, discard, other combos... list just goes on and on.
Luckily comboing of at turns 2 and 3 can be quite easy even trough some disruption. All you need is some good acceleration and you should be fine. Powering out turn 1 priest of titania and concordant crossroads is usually enough to out-resource your opponent playing counterspells (getting mana to pay daze renders it to FoW fodder. -> typical aggro-control has 4 counters left) and emptying your hand (or filling it) on the second turn makes most players packing discard weep.
-Acceleration
to achieve such outrageous first turns you will need some of the following:
Elvish spirit guide (now also a elf!)
Lotus petal
Lions eye diamond (cracking it in response to some hand filling effect)
Chrome mox (feeding extra concordants and maybe land grants)
Exploration (you propably need a way to get rid of your own Gaeas Gradles to make it work properly, Crop rotation is better in my oppinion)

Also, as your deck doesn't typically need too much forests in play to make it tick you can replace them with some land grants and fetches to thin your deck. I have fizzled many times by running into pile of lands in the mid combo.

-How to win?
Concordant Crossroads is sometimes a way to win by itself, you just run over your opponent with bunch of weenies in couple of turns. Even fizzled combo usually results in multiple elfs on board so traditional beatdown is viable albeit dangerous. This can be emphasized by playing Imperious perfect or timberwatch elf.

I've been tinkering about using Hunting pack as one or two-off as storm based wincon. This is if you want to stay monocoloured or splash into other color (like white, for orim's chant) that has no viable wincons by itself. Number of stifles in your meta should determine usefulness of this.

Staff of domination is a way to go infinite. This one is usually proposed in my elf-combos and I have tested it alot. In my experiences it just don't work. Overextending is bad. Overextending into "what-could-be-going-off" is even worse. Having your priest Sworded, staff Grosan Gripped or basically anything countered in the way to staff combo just breaks you down. Then the mandatory Deed, WoG, massacre, mutilate.. WILL follow destroying everything. gg.

Tribal Forcemage is the elf version of overrun. +2/+2 and trample is usually enough to win with your horde. Wirewood hivemaster versions can choose insects to get the boosts (just cycling elves to get more insects is much easier that trying to get the elves stick (maybe using food chain)). And 2GG is pretty affordable price for creature that is elf. Primal Forcemage is another "could be" win con (I have never really tested this, thats my Jhonny talking).

In the end I write down some list of cards and synergies I discussed above and more:

Massive mana.
1) Priest of titania.
+wirewood symbiote
Offers protection and card re-use. tap Priest, bounce it (untapping another?), play it again (maybe netting card or two) tap it again.
+Quirion Ranger
Re-use and landprotection. Nice trick is to bounce land in response to Hymn or specter trigger when trying to protect combo pieces.
2) Gaeas Gradle
+Crop rotation. This has already been discussed. Provides mad ammounts of mana with hivemasters. Enables you to both boost your mana AND thin you deck of lands.
3) Food Chain, deck needs to be dedicated for this. My testings with it haven't been breaktroughs... yet.

Draw engines.
1) With more elves in your deck you could use Sylvan Messenger as your main mid combo drawer. This is for Elf beatdown finishes where you ramp up your mans and finish with gigantic wave of little nasties. Also draws up ESG.
2) Multanis acolyte. More elaborate draw engine. Needs wirewood symbiote to fully function. Also Masked Admirers, these could work in food chain version (alltough you can't re-use them as the are RFG'd...).
3) Glimpse, IMHO the best draw engine for this deck. It needs to be supported somehow as 4-of is not enough, and extirpate still exists.
4) Archdruid, a little bit expensive to be 4-of (you dont want it in you starting hand.) but fine draw engine as most of your creatures are druids. Can be secondary wincon too!
5) Fecundity, I just need to find decent sac engine(Phyrexian altar maybe?) and this one will be gold.
6) Coiling oracle for UG builds.

Protection.
1) Monocolour.
Thorn of amethyst is pretty much the best it gets... so not much. Your best bet here is your speed and volume of spells your opponent needs to disrupt. They still can't counter everything. And they can't make you discard something you don't have in your hand. Trinisphere is bad times but you can sometimes win right trough it. And it isn't exactly making your opponent any faster.
2) Splash
You all know the splash options. So I post them shortly:
Blue: Deck needs pretty heavy blue splash and it turns this deck to more slow, control-combo deck. Has it's uses but I cant ge't it to work redundantly enough. Should go Staff of Domination route in my oppinion.
Black: rituals, IGG and cabal therapy, haven't really tested this too much. LED and IGG find much better homes in IGGpop and TES. If you want to play those, play them. altough I got to say that IGG -> glimpse and some elves = good times. Birchlore rangers and Tendrils is the way to go in my oppinion. Black version could also use fecundity as secondary draw engine:cabal therapy, culling the weak, sacrifice...
White: Orim's Chant and Abeyance maybe Stop. Nothing much but is also the easiest splash. protect your combo and win. Works just like mono green otherwise.

Utility.
There is really MUCH utility creatures and spells in green and elves. What you need to do is to nail down your most problematic matchups and cards. Then design your utility to beat down those. In my experience you NEED to have anti-Engineered Plague tech in your sideboard or maybe even in your MD. Imperious Perfect and Viridian Zealot are fine choise as they double as wincon and general removal. Grosan grip and elvish/druid lyrist gets rid of GB, Moat, EP, humility or rule of law. Possibilities are endless, even more so if you decide to splash. You just need to know your enemy.
I would still like to bring up one utility card over all. Living Wish.
fetching needed combo part (mana, card draw, win con, protection) in need is really really powerfull. You should think about it.

Winning conditions.
I have discussed these above. In all simplicity: when you get your engine rolling there should be nothing stopping you. When going the beatdown route you should be sure that your opponent don't have any nasty fog (read: instant answers) effects that ruin your day. If you fail, the game pretty much ends there. You are not going to get another change (unless you stole your opponents lands with archdruid, in that case you both need to start from scratch).
You can choose from beatdown, blaze-kind, decking, storm, maybe even lockdown kind of finishes. What ever suits your fancy.

In the end I'm not saying that you should turn your druid deck into elf deck. I'm not saying that you can't merge the two ideas. I'm not even saying that my ideas are better than yours. I'm just bringing out some ideas that can (or won't) improve the deck. I hope you'd like to create a good green combo deck that can reach even the higher tiers. If you have any questions for me just feel free to pm me or post to this thread. I will be watching it very carefully.

Thank you /Srovex

[Nop]

Thanks everyone for the replies and the feedback.

Mental:
Your friend's deck is an interesting take on the Glimpse/Kobold (and other 0-cost creatures) idea, and instead of using the storm mechanic takes an aggro route. The inclusion of Doran is a nice choice. However, I think the decks are a bit different at heart. They share the Glimpse of Nature + play bunch of creatures combo, and they plan on winning by pumping their guys, but the contents beyond that are a bit different.

Galeng:
I'm glad that you've had a great deal of success with your take on the deck! I see that you run more 1-cost Druids (I particularly like Krosan Wayfarer), fewer combo components, and maindeck Door of Destinies. I think I agree with the choice of cutting Gilt-Leaf Archdruid down from four (two or three should be sufficient), but I'm not yet sold on the exclusion of Tangleroot. Removing Garruk Wildspeaker from the deck and replacing it with Door of Destinies seems like a viable option. I will play around with that idea.

Srovex:
Haste could help out the deck a great deal, but I'm a bit concerned exactly how many of my creatures will stay untapped if, in the deck's current incarnation, Seton is tapping all of my Druids. A heavier reliance on Tangleroot would make the haste plan better, as my guys would stay untapped. I'm not going to try to incorporate the haste idea yet, but I will definitely put it into consideration. Regarding the other ideas, I have been a bit reluctant to have non-Druids in the deck. While there is a heavy distribution of elves within the deck, keeping a universal creature type seems necessary to get the most out of many of the cards. I like your idea about cutting down on lands, and I will do just that.

With all of these suggestions in mind, here is my latest build:

Lands
4 Gaea's Cradle
2 Windswept Heath
2 Wooded Foothills
8 Forest

Creatures
2 Seton, Krosan Protector
3 Gilt-Leaf Archdruid
4 Boreal Druid
4 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Llanowar Elves
3 Treefolk Harbinger
4 Druid Lyrist
3 Krosan Wayfarer

Spells
4 Glimpse of Nature
3 Crop Rotation
3 Land Grant
4 Tangleroot
3 Door of Destinies

Sideboard
4 Krosan Grip
3 City of Solitude
3 Choke
1 Door of Destinies
4 Thorn of Amethyst

I've tested the deck out a bit, and I have occasionally missed Garruk Wildspeaker. When Door of Destinies is bounced/destroyed, practically all of your guys are mere 1/1's again. However, Garruk Wildspeaker only pumps them that one time. Door of Destinies does allow for a haste plan, and it ensures that your druids will stay big for as long as it's in play... I'm torn on this decision. What does everyone else think?

Also, I haven't tested out the color splash yet. I will need to put some more thought on where I would like to take that. If anyone has any ideas of what should be cut and what adjustments should be made for an effective multicolor approach, I would love to hear them.

[kicks_422]

I don't think people would board in artifact hate against you just for Door, so anything that would destroy it would most probably destroy Garruk as well, so that's something you don't have to consider. Bounce isn't really played much in Legacy... But if Door does get bounced, isn't it easy enough to play enough Druids to get your guys back to Garruk-pumped size?

And what enchantments are you afraid of with your inclusion of 4 Druid Lyrist? On paper, I'd probably want to add 1 more Seton and probably a 4th Krosan Wayfarer...

[Nop]

And what enchantments are you afraid of with your inclusion of 4 Druid Lyrist? On paper, I'd probably want to add 1 more Seton and probably a 4th Krosan Wayfarer...

The enchantment that I fear the most is Counterbalance, but forcing them to use up/hold onto their Pernicious Deed is also useful. Maybe running four Druid Lyrist is overkill, but I would still like to run a few of them to deal with those troubling enchantments.

kicks_422, you make some good points about the advantages of Door of Destinies. While Garruk's ability to untap lands is nice, it's likely that I don't need that much mana in the deck. Beyond that, Door of Destinies seems to be the superior choice.

[DalkonCledwin]

has anyone considered Baru, The Fist of Krosa for a possible side win condition? He is really powerful if you pull off the Archdruid's second ability while you have 2 Baru, 1 in hand 1 on the field!

[Mr.C]

Interesting concept.

Assuming you are running Concordant Crossroads, you could use Vitalize to untap all you creatures for just {G}.

Actually, Vitalize would be the solution to that untapping problem you mentioned, right?

[C.P.]

Why is Priest of Titania Missing in this deck? She's Druid and enables you to accelerate into your bombs more consistently. I know it is not 1 mana so it cannot chain into insanity, but you will need it if you cannot find Seton.

[rufus]

Summoner's Pact anyone?

UG with Intruder Alarm and Stroke of Genius could be huge.

I wonder if you can get Recross the Paths or Charbelcher to work for you - especially if you run land-lean.

Wild Cantor, Heritage Druid and Birchlore Rangers could be worth considering over Boreal Druid or the Harbinger.

Werebear is pretty decent druid beef.

Also, remember that Changelings are druids (and elves) so you could field a changeling colossus.

Prison-esque elements like Root Maze or Chalice at zero could open up the potential for a Gilt-Leaf archdruid lock.

[Isamaru]

Crop Rotation really doesn't look like it helps much. What about taking it back out for Garruk?

[TheLion]

I dont know if the 1 mana matters, but Coat of Arms looks so much better, than Doors of Destinies. You drop it, and all your dudes get ~ +5/+5 immediately, while Door makes nothing at first, maybe +1 or +2 the next turn.

[Jaynel]

Some thoughts:

- Kaysa is a Druid, and pumps all your guys. Kamahl, Fist of Krosa is also a Druid and helps with the alpha strike.
- Summoner's Pact is pretty awesome at finding Gilt-Leaf Archdruid or the guys I mentioned above.
- Root Maze and Thorn of Amethyst barely affect you.

This is just something I threw together and with which I goldfished a few games, keeping the above points in mind.

Lands:
4 Gaea's Cradle
12 Forest

Dudes:
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Heritage Druid
4 Birchlore Rangers
4 Priest of Titania

Combo/Beats:
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Gilt-Leaf Archdruid
2 Seton, Krosan Protector
1 Kaysa
1 Kamahl, Fist of Krosa

Disruption:
4 Thorn of Amethyst
4 Root Maze

Sideboard is a mess. Some Grips, some Steely Resolves...? I really have no idea. Equipment and Trinisphere to transform into a more aggro based deck?

[Barook]

A list to all current Druids (http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/index.aspx?term=Druid&Field_Type=on&setfilter=All%20sets)

I'd still like to hear why basically all lists here ignore the fact that comboing out and waiting an entire turn without proper protection is a bad idea. Heck, you could even totally ignore using lands for splashing a color (stable mana base ftw) and just use Wild Cantors to get the single red mana to power up one of the X-Nuke spells.

Also, tapping Cantor for mana + saccing it afterwards is just plain sexy.

[rufus]

A list to all current Druids (http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/index.aspx?term=Druid&Field_Type=on&setfilter=All%20sets)
...

That list fails to include changelings - Mirror Entity pump could be pretty burly in a deck like this, and Llanowar Mentor which puts druid tokens into play.

[DalkonCledwin]

The build I am working with is slightly different from other peoples builds. It uses 2 of each of the legendaries. I decided I would test this deck against 7 decks to see how I would do. In these matches I won 2 games and lost 5 games. Burn, Stax, WB Control, and Mill seem to be our worst match ups. And to anyone who says that UGx Thresh is a good match up for us, I would beg to differ, I got a beating when I went up against a UGw Thresh deck.

// Lands
4 [US] Gaea's Cradle
17 [US] Forest (3)

// Creatures
2 [ON] Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
2 [AL] Kaysa
4 [MOR] Gilt-Leaf Archdruid
2 [OD] Seton, Krosan Protector
4 [US] Priest of Titania
4 [10E] Llanowar Elves
4 [IA] Fyndhorn Elves
4 [MOR] Heritage Druid

// Spells
1 [MOR] Door of Destinies
4 [LRW] Thorn of Amethyst
3 [10E] Root Maze
3 [CHK] Glimpse of Nature
2 [FUT] Summoner's Pact

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [MOR] Door of Destinies
SB: 4 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 4 [VI] City of Solitude
SB: 4 [8E] Choke

[Nop]

Cathal:
In the direction that you're taking the deck, it seems like Concordant Crossroads is a better choice than Seton. The majority of your cheap druids have a built-in activated ability that produces mana. I also think some of the cards might be suboptimal, such as Kamahl, Fist of Krosa and Kaysa. They are druids, but they're quite expensive for what they do. How have they been testing out?

In all of the other lists that have been posted, I see the absence of Tangleroot. It seems like a great mana generator to me and a solid way to get extreme profit out of a Glimpse of Nature. Is there a reason this card is excluded?

[largebrandon]

I'm also liking Intruder Alarm and/or Crossroads in this deck! Woo sexy. . . if only clamp was legal. .

[Jaynel]

Cathal:
In the direction that you're taking the deck, it seems like Concordant Crossroads is a better choice than Seton. The majority of your cheap druids have a built-in activated ability that produces mana. I also think some of the cards might be suboptimal, such as Kamahl, Fist of Krosa and Kaysa. They are druids, but they're quite expensive for what they do. How have they been testing out?


I feel like the general gameplan is to drop lock pieces, steal their lands, then swing in for the win the next turn, making Concordant Crossroads rather unnecessary.

[Wobbles The Goose]

I feel like the general gameplan is to drop lock pieces, steal their lands, then swing in for the win the next turn, making Concordant Crossroads rather unnecessary.

This would be fine, but the only druids that actually nets mana with Seton/heritage druid are wild cantor, Elvish Pioneer, Krosan Wayfarer. All of the others suggested tap themselves to keep playing out guys, which means that I've been having one big turn of drawing lots of cards and playing lots of guys (all tapped) and then having to pass the turn. You can't steal lands or drop additional lock pieces during this process. Grapeshot might not always kill your opponent, but it should wrath his board or leave him at low enough life where the next attack is sure to be lethal.

[Elficidium]

Time to get this back to the first page and into the spotlight.

I'm normally a lurker, but this deck seemed like it had potential, so i playtested with it a lot and these are my conclusions.

I wasn't happy with the original version, it just didn't combo out consistently enough. I've tried the Red splash for a Fireball kill or Grapeshot kill, but this didn't work out most of the time, and usually left you with sub-par druids and useless Fireballs/Grapeshots in hand.

Lands
3 Gaea's Cradle
2 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Forest
4 Tropical Island

Creatures
4 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Llanowar Elves
3 Krosan Wayfarer
4 Seton, Krosan Protector
3 Gilt-Leaf Archdruid
3 Treefolk Harbinger
4 Coiling Oracle

Spells
4 Glimpse of Nature
3 Crop Rotation
4 Land Grant
2 Coat of Arms
2 Stroke of Genius
1 Concordant Crossroads
4 Brainstorm

Sideboard
1 Coat of Arms
3 City of Solitude
3 Choke
4 Thorn of Amethyst
4 Krosan Grip

Land:
Added Tropicals and 2 Fetchlands, removed 1 Cradle because you seriously do not want to see multiples in your opening hand, and your Crop Rotations serve as Cradles 4-6 when needed.

Creatures:
Added Coiling Oracle, which is a great Druid, gives you card advantage and can be combined with Brainstorm for a certain extra landdrop. Removed Boreal Druid because it was not good enough compared to the other Druids.

Spells:
An extra Land Grant to make sure you consistently get U.
Brainstorm for card quality and to set up for a combo, also combines with land Grant and Fetchlands to shuffle away unnecessary things.
Stroke of Genius to get going again mid-combo, usually x=3-5, with mana open to keep going afterwards.
Coat of Arms has replaced Door to Destinies, because this thing works the moment it comes into play. Only downside is that it can boost Goblins, if goblins are big in your meta i'd consider switching back to door.
1 Concordant Crossroads, so you can strike for the win the turn you combo out and not get Deed'ed, Wrathed, Damnationed er EE'ed.

I'm open to suggestions, since i really want this deck to work =)

[Jaynel]

Intruder Alarm could be very good at generating lots of mana. With Seton and Heritage Druid, especially.

Edit: Yes, that statement is true. Here's my list now. So broken once you start to draw and finally hit Intruder Alarm.

// Lands
4 [US] Gaea's Cradle
4 [RAV] Forest (2)
4 [ON] Wooded Foothills
3 [U] Tropical Island
2 [U] Taiga

// Creatures
4 [9E] Llanowar Elves
4 [IA] Fyndhorn Elves
4 [MOR] Gilt-Leaf Archdruid
3 [OD] Seton, Krosan Protector
4 [ON] Birchlore Rangers
1 [ON] Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
4 [MOR] Heritage Druid
4 [US] Priest of Titania

// Spells
4 [CHK] Glimpse of Nature
4 [FUT] Summoner's Pact
3 [8E] Intruder Alarm
2 [US] Stroke of Genius
2 [MI] Kaervek's Torch

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [MOR] Door of Destinies
SB: 3 [8E] Choke
SB: 2 [VI] City of Solitude
SB: 3 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 3 [ON] Steely Resolve
SB: 1 [AL] Kaysa