This thread presupposes that there is a problem with the color green in Legacy. There may not be a problem with green, but here is my reasoning:
You can't play mono Green. You just can't. Off the top of my head, every color has had at least one fairly competitive mono colored deck (Goblins, Faerie Stompy, Sui, Angel Stompy, Wombat, MCS, BBS, etc). I think this goes to the heart of greens problem, it is the least versatile of the colors. It has a severe lack of creature removal, combo hate, and draw engines (WotC appears to be trying to fix this one of late).
A secondary problem, to me at least, is how splashable the quality green cards in legacy are. Loam, Mongoose, 'goyf, Werebear, ESG, Dryad, and many more not only don't require a heavy commitment to green, but actually often encourage running other colors. If you go over to IBAs thread in the metagame forum, you will see that while green is not the least run color, decks that ran green in the top 8 ran about 16 green cards between main and sideboard, the lowest of the five colors.
Other colors seem to be splashable, but also have cards that heavily encourage a commitment to that color (Force of Will, Goblin Lackey, and Dark Ritual to name three).
Anyway, my hypothetical is this:
WotC approaches you and states that they want you to design one or many green cards to be introduced into Legacy card pool directly (so you don't have to worry about Type II power issues) to fix the above problems, and any others you may see with the color, without upsetting the format or color wheel (whatever that is these days) too greatly. What do you suggest or design?
I'd design some hasty or vigilant green weenies, not like goblins, but good utility creatures that can quickly deal with threats on the table. For example, I think a green Goblin Sharpshooter would be fantastic, but I'd change some things about it. Something like Icatian Javilineers:
Quickened Elf
G
Haste
Elf comes into play with an arrow counter on it.
T: Elf deals one damage to target creature or player. Remove an arrow counter from Elf. If at end of turn Elf has no arrow counters on it, remove it from the game and it gains suspend 3.
1/1
That is a solid card that can deal with absurd 1-drops, but it isn't by any means broken. a 1-mana 1/1 that can ping once is like an ication javilineers type thing, but he has advantages and drawbacks. I also think it is green in flavor - if we remove the restrictions we've placed on green, we can make it a better color.
People place too many restrictions on what green can and cannot do as a color. I think green can be much more than just a big trampling beats color. What does green give us? A huge part of nature. Things in nature can fly, be fast, and so on. I was reading a thread on MTGSal (god help me) the other day and people were endlessly bitching about how BoP is out of flavor for green because it flies. I mean, what the fuck?
There is a huge artificial mental block for people in terms of what green can and can't do. I think groundbreaker and keen sense were two steps in the right direction. I also think that green should get more instant speed removal. This can still be done and retain a 'green' quality, as far as I'm concerned. Land disruption could also be green, if you ask me
Lol this is easy
Grass ritual G
Instant
Add GGG to your mana pool
Would fit into greens flavor because green is the color of life. All life grows and the super duper uper green mages could take advantage of all the vegetations energy and use it to improve their spells.
Wizards could in fact directly inject it into eternal formats by banning this card in Standard and Extended.
Call me Ishmael
And here comes the retard parade.
This is a totally useless, one line post that flames for no reason.
Warned.
-PR
The problem with green is that it doesn't have any answers. Blue has counters, red and white has creature removal and black has discard while green has an ugly hat of mould. So the green's problem can't be fixed unless the very basic flavor of the color is changed.
However I don't think green's problem are very serious.
1) When you say that every other color has a viable mono-colored deck you count Sui as a viable deck but I wouldn't do that. Yes, there was a sui deck on the GP top 8 but that was in the flashified meta.
2) Statistically green isn't the least played color (actually it's black). With the expectations of a "combo summer" this will change and green will probably become the least played color, but as things are right now it's not that bad.
3) While green has no answers it does have the best creatures except for red. Creatures like Tarmogoyf and Mongoose are certainly stronger than anything blue and black can show. White does have Exalted Angel but I'll call it a tie.
There isn't a problem with Green. Ironically, Green is the only color in Legacy that's about where it should be. Blue and Red are a good bit overpowered, and White and Black need a significant boost.
Legacy has Duals and Fetches. Most strategies aren't mono-anything. Green is a fundamental part of a number of decks and strategies however, including Threshold, LftL, Survival, CRET Belcher, and Aluren.
Note also: Tarmogoyf >>>> Exalted Angel, Pale Moon.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
@IBA: I do agree with your points except that blue is overpowered. From a certain point of view, FoW and Stifle might seem overpowered but ironically they're absolutely necessary to keep the other overpowered cards in Legacy at bay. (If those cards aren't the ones that you think make blue overpowered I can't see what would; Intuition maybe? But that's not overpowered, but more like just really good.)
Actually, I think the cantrip base is more responsible for blue's strength in Legacy, although Force is definitely a huge part of it too. But a cantrip base lets you cut mana and still get to what you have reliably, and lets you get around drawing too much mana late game.
If you were to cut one mana blue cantrips and Force of Will, blue'd probably be the least played color.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
I'll take a stab at this. Note that all of these prints are assuming Legacy only. And for some reason the first two are Centaurs.
Card #1:
Nessian Battlescout
Creature - Centaur Warrior
2/2
If Green's true form of dominance in the game is having the biggest baddest most undercosted creatures, then in Legacy it needs to be able to compete in the 1-drop category. White and Black shouldn't have better 1-for-2/2 guys than Green.
Card #2:
Nessian Strategos
Creature - Centaur Warrior
3/2
Green creatures you control have shroud.
Green creatures you control have provoke.
Green decks don't have removal and thereby lose the creature battle, which they shouldn't do. This guy gives Green protection from enemy removal while simultaneously giving Green removal of its own.
Card #3:
Taipan's Fangs
Enchantment - Aura
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature has deathtouch.
Whenever Taipan's Fangs is put into a graveyard from play, return Taipan's Fangs to its owner's hand.
An alternate, green-acceptable form of removal. Low-costed and with the Rancor ability, but possibly still underpowered.
Green's got to be able to deal with combo to a degree, also.
Card #4:
Nature's Will
Enchantment
You have shroud.
And there's a fair chance this last card should be white, but meh. I like the concept of a series of stronger, Vanishing Leylines that guarantee you a chance to equalize the board before losing.
Card #5:
Leyline of the Heart
Enchantment
Vanishing 4
If Leyline of the Heart is in your opening hand, you may begin the game with it in play.
You can't lose the game and your opponents can't win the game.
Originally Posted by majikal
I don't see the problem. Green is widely used and builds the core of many decks. Yes, it is splashable and therefore not often used moncoloured. So what? I don't believe that has anything to do with the strength of a colour. After all, it is only convenient to use power cards from other colours when you have a "natural" ability to do so.
The only thing green really suffers from is that people underestimate it all the time. I don't know where this mind set comes from. My hypothesis is that this mindset comes from some old school players who used green when it was still weak (it wasn't really strong in the first years of magic) or because n00bs often use it in their jank decks.
I guess I didn't make this clear enough in my opening post, but I'm not really interested in a debate over whether there is a problem with green. All I'm really interested is answers to the question in bold, so if you don't think there is a problem, you can simply say that you would design nothing (or simply design a cool card or set of cards that doesn't change green in any significant way).
I really like some of the cards so far (although the green ritual might simply make combo go nuts). I was wondering if the mana elfs or birds could be improved? Would a 1/2 or 2/1 elf be overpowered? What about haste? or producing GG instead of G?
First, sorry about the double post (feel free to merge). Second, here are some thoughts:
Completely agreed that green creatures should just blatantly outclass others, and I'd love to see it the Battlescout (nice name too). The only minor is that everyone is just going to splash it the way they do Goose. Maybe aI'll take a stab at this. Note that all of these prints are assuming Legacy only. And for some reason the first two are Centaurs.
Card #1:
Nessian Battlescout
Creature - Centaur Warrior
2/2
If Green's true form of dominance in the game is having the biggest baddest most undercosted creatures, then in Legacy it needs to be able to compete in the 1-drop category. White and Black shouldn't have better 1-for-2/2 guys than Green.3/3 or 3/4 to go along with it?
Now we're talking. Double green and encourages you to play more green. Also, green creatures should all have crazy amounts of abilities. Me likey.Card #2:
Nessian Strategos
Creature - Centaur Warrior
3/2
Green creatures you control have shroud.
Green creatures you control have provoke.
Green decks don't have removal and thereby lose the creature battle, which they shouldn't do. This guy gives Green protection from enemy removal while simultaneously giving Green removal of its own.
This one fascinates me. My only concern is that off color decks might play it (read Solidarity). Maybe it could be conditional, like it only works if you have a forest in play, or maybe it could be Vanishing 2 but add a counter for each forst and/or green creature you drop.Card #5:
Leyline of the Heart
Enchantment
Vanishing 4
If Leyline of the Heart is in your opening hand, you may begin the game with it in play.
You can't lose the game and your opponents can't win the game.
Either way, great stuff.
I like the haste and I like the suspend idea a lot.
Good thing that this is addressed - it was already my request for the Adept discussion:
Are decks which feature Green as one of their main colors underpowered due to Green's total lack of half-way decent combo hate?
White has Chant, Abeyance and various disruptive creatures/enchantments, Blue has counters, Black has discard, Red has at least Pyrostatic Pillar, Blasts against Blue (and LD, if you can count that as effective disruption), but what does Green have? Root Maze? Plow Under? Seriously?
Threshold and similiar decks only splash for a few efficient creatures while running tons of quality disruption in the other colors or, in case of combo decks, they run Green only for mana accel.
Sure, Aluren and Survival both run Green to a certain degree, but not without a disruption package borrowed from black and/or blue.
Trinity Green - disruption based on artifacts, not on green.
Now let's take 43 Lands - Mono-Green (under normal circumstances), no artifact-based disruption, dies horribly to combo.
In the past, I heard sometimes stuff like "R/G Beats would be a beast in the meta game - if it didn't lose so horribly to combo."
Does Green's weakness in dealing with combo (and, to a lesser degree, creatures) make it to the stepchild of the format?Yeah, I hate that this attitude, too. If Wizards tells them that shit is better than (insert tasty food here), you can bet that there are enough R&Dtards who argue why this tasty food is out of flavor.
Back to topic: Like I mentioned above, green suffers due to the lack of both creature removal and cheap, viable disruption.
Wizards wants fat creatures to be the core of green, but ironically, BoP is still considered the best green creature by them. And why? Because they fail at designing decent green creatures most of the times because they are one-trick-ponies or just plain suck. To make things worse, they make cards that scream "I'm green, BITCH!", but put them into the wrong color.
Teferi is the best example for this: Flash (green), grants Flash (green), hoses Counters & other instants (green) - so they made it blue?
Yesterday, i also realized that Jotun Grunt is totally green. To quote a part of the mail i wrote yesterday to "Ask Wizards":
I think it wouldn't hurt green to get some disruptive weenies, similiar to white which have tons of them, while staying into the realm of green abilities - probably something like this:White is about weenies, green about fat creatures. A 4/4 creature is definitely not a weenie, and cheap fatties with a drawback are green's territory (e.g. Tempting Wurm, Sheltering Ancient). While this could be still understandable, the graveyard-based ability is definitely green. While white tends to remove cards from the graveyard (e.g. Morningtide, Stonecloaker), green always deals with the graveyard via bringing the cards back into the library (e.g. Loaming Shaman, Battlefield Scrounger).
Root Mage
Creature - Human Druid
Artifacts and lands come into play tapped.
Players can't play artifacts' activated abilities.
Back to the Roots!
2/2
But I stop here before the thread turns into a "Make your own crap cards"-thread.
Hmm, this is fun. I'll play along.
Big Arse Elephant
Creature
You may not play BAE from your hand if you do not control at least two basic forests.
While BAE is in play, its controller may not play land cards from his or her hand.
4/4
But are more beaters really the answer for Green's supposed weakness?
Survival Too
Enchantment
When you play a creature, you may sacrifice that creature. If you do, you may search your library for up to three copies of that creature and put them into play. Pay an amount of life equal to the cc of each of those creatures.
Sorta silly and probably has a broken combo that I don't immediately see. It could be too powerful with CIP critters, but hopefully the life requirement could keep it in check.
Can we not have a card creation forum/thread/anything? Thanks.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Oh, who's the grinch now?
One card creation thread with a specific focus won't do any harm. I see no problem in allowing this.
This should unquestionably be called "Magus of the Root."I think it wouldn't hurt green to get some disruptive weenies, similiar to white which have tons of them, while staying into the realm of green abilities - probably something like this:
Root Mage
Creature - Human Druid
Artifacts and lands come into play tapped.
Players can't play artifacts' activated abilities.
Back to the Roots!
2/2
Probably not, but it's the only thing that has a chance to approach the problem under the current design policy without automatically being shit. For example, let's address Phantom's cards under the current policy:
#1: No - White is the weenie color, not green.
#2: Very good design, but I guess some R&Dtard would start complaining about Limited and bump the manacost into janklivion.
#3: Interesting approach, but as you said, probably underpowered. I would rather see something like that working:
Taipan's Fangs
Enchantment - Aura
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature gets +1/+1 and has Provoke.
Whenever Taipan's Fangs is put into a graveyard from play, return Taipan's Fangs to its owner's hand.
#4: Ivory Mask costsfor a reason because it shuts down too much stuff like discard or burn ("non-interactive"). However, we'll eventually see a green Ivory Mask when Wizards runs out of ideas again (Planar Chaos, i look at you). Mark my words.
#5: Problem is that such card would be considered too "non-interactive" - besides, combo would just bounce it like all the other cards that hose them from going off.
Edit:Rather "Magus of the Null Root"
I think Chapin's response to Yawgmoth's Will for Vintage was to print like a 5/3 green creature that when the opponent cast something with "Yawgmoth's" in the title and you had the creature in your hand, you could play it for free and counter that spell. I don't think Legacy Green needs that level of fixing though!
All green has going for it is undercosted stuff. I think "magus" approaches look fine.
Also, this thread needs more Tarpan.
#1. Why?#1: No - White is the weenie color, not green.
#2: Very good design, but I guess some R&Dtard would start complaining about Limited and bump the manacost into janklivion.
#3: Interesting approach, but as you said, probably underpowered. I would rather see something like that working:
Taipan's Fangs
Enchantment - Aura
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature gets +1/+1 and has Provoke.
Whenever Taipan's Fangs is put into a graveyard from play, return Taipan's Fangs to its owner's hand.
#4: Ivory Mask costs
#5: Problem is that such card would be considered too "non-interactive" - besides, combo would just bounce it like all the other cards that hose them from going off.
#2. Well, in fairness, the original post specified that these designs were for Legacy only. And in further fairness, I don't think this guy's all that much better than Troll Ascetic, which has become core. They can just print him along with a Pyroclasm-clone and everybody's happy. I'm actually most proud of this card.
#3. I don't think your print is any more powerful, but it gives me an idea for a compromise here. What about:
Taipan's Fangs
Enchantment - Aura
Enchant creature
Split Second
Enchanted creature has Deathtouch and Provoke.
Whenever Taipan's Fangs would be put into a graveyard from play, return Taipan's Fangs to its owner's hand.
Alternately, either one could be given Split Second. Split Second would make the Aura far more appealing by getting rid of the 2 for 1 thing and making the Rancor ability absolute.
#4. Alright, valid point. I don't think I'd ever want Lonelybaritone getting ahold of this card. I might cry.
#5. Alright then. What if we merge cards #4 and #5 into some kind of Vanishing Green Shroud Leyline?
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Reply With Quote
