[Deck] Monogreen Chalice control

[MGC_player]

Now that I have a playset of Ice Storms being shipped to me I felt that it was time to revisit the topic of a monogreen control deck. Since green is not typically thought of as a control color, building a viable green control deck for Legacy has become a pet project of mine. Taking a couple of pointers from DS and FS regarding the manabase, the land destruction suite has been significantly sped up making turn 1 LD on the draw possible. This combined with Chalice and Trinisphere makes it so that other decks are severely crippled while you continue on your merry way.

Monogreen Chalice Control
Mana Sources: 26
10 Forest
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Chrome Mox

Control Elements: 25
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
4 Ice Storm
4 Fallow Earth
4 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
2 Desert Twister
3 Primal Command

Utility and Finishers: 9
4 Yavimaya Elder
2 Deus of Calamity
2 Sword of Fire and Ice
2 Hystrodon

Sideboard
3 Tsunami or Choke
4 Tormod's Crypt
3 Krosan Grip
4 Hail Storm or Sandstorm
1 Desert Twister

Proxying it showed me that it has potential, but there are still a few spots that to me are questionable in both the main deck and SB.
1. Fallow Earth - should this be replaced by either Winter's Grasp or Thermokarst?
2. Should I use Deus (a repeatable LD effect) or should those be replaced by Argothian Wurms and/or Terravores?
3. Hystrodon or Ohran Viper?

Critiques and suggestions for both MD and SB are appreciated.

[Skeggi]

1. Fallow Earth - should this be replaced by either Winter's Grasp or Thermokarst?
Try Creeping Mold? Krosan Grip MB wouldn't be crazy either.


2. Should I use Deus (a repeatable LD effect) or should those be replaced by Argothian Wurms and/or Terravores?
'Vores 'n 'Goyfs! :)


3. Hystrodon or Ohran Viper?
Viper! You might want to try something like Cold-Eyed Selkie and Jitte's or Rancors.

On a sidenote: you might want to run more mana sources, or replace the cities; these don't stick well.

[Maveric78f]

You have too few options against an early played beater (tarmogoyf for instance). I have no clue.

[Fons]

Garruk and Harmonize seem good.
What about Elephant grass?
Deus' mana cost isn't very friendly.
Goyf is probably your best option for a finisher.
Wasteland+Crucible?

Edit 1: Tornado could be reacurring LD. and a way to get rid of creatures.

Edit 2:
Mono Green Stax?

Mana-28
14 Forest
4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
3 Wasteland
4 Mox Diamond

Win-8
4 Goyf
3 Garruk

Control-18
4 Smokestack
3 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Engineered Explosives

Land Destruction-8
4 Ice Storm
4 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss

[Mordenkaynen]

Not to do many suggestions I'd recomend -2 deus (did you ever cast it in tests?) +2 garruk (you use spells that are not cheap and not many creatures with SOFI which seems strange).
Also I have a note about monoG decks with such manabase can afford many token generators such as garruk, imperious perfect and sylvan library+words of wilding (was mentioned by somebody in elf-reallynonelf-monoG-aggro threat).

[MGC_player]

Yeah. I realized removal is problematic, but then again green typically does not have efficient creature removal.

I'd really prefer not to shift this to Stax due to my own budget constraints at the moment. Perhaps some other time.

I thought about the list some more, and decided I should probably cut the equipment and the Deus (he was really hard to cast). I'd like to put in Garruk, but I currently have none. I do have 2 goyfs I can use so they may make it in for those 4 slots. I was also thinking of using Sundering Titan as a finisher since its comes into and leaves play effects should be great at destroying the multicolor manabases of most decks. Token generators and the usage of Tornado are interesting ideas so I will proxy those up to test. I tried Harmonize in some of the older incarnations of this deck (this was before I switched to a Chalice and Trinisphere approach) and I wasn't too satisfied with it. I may try it again though. I'm probably going to cut the Desert Twisters and replace those with Reap and Sow since they act like an Acid Moss except it can fetch any land. Since the deck has so land thinning effects, would Goblin Charbelcher be useful in this deck to function as removal and a potential win condition?

[GenioDeArena]

Im not proposing -x card for +x card. Just remembering some really old green stax a frind of mine had. It went like this.
Elves -> natural order -> verdant force+rancor.
ice storm, stax, etc
It was really solid, he didnt even used wastelands because he couldnt afford them at the time!!
he also runned Plow under, but I think that is to slow for todays play.

[MGC_player]

I actually redesigned it more. It flows smoother now.

Monogreen Chalice Control
Mana Sources: 27
10 Forest
1 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Land Grant
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Chrome Mox

Control Elements: 24
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Ice Storm
4 Fallow Earth
4 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
3 Trinisphere
3 Reap and Sow
2 Primal Command

Utility and Finishers: 9
3 New Frontiers
2 Sundering Titan
2 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Deus of Calamity
1 Spawnwrithe

Sideboard: 15
3 Tsunami or Choke
4 Tormod's Crypt
3 Krosan Grip
4 Hail Storm or Sandstorm
1 Trinisphere

So here are the changes so far. The Deus and Spawnwrithe are being tested again as potential finishers. With the addition of New Frontiers, It is now much easier to reach the required color mana to play Deus, and it is more one sided since most decks don't run many basics. It also can act as a pseudo Mana Severance for Belcher and doubles as accel to get the Titan on the board which can then wipe most of the basics your opponents have fetched.

[MGC_player]

New list. It is now much faster and is pretty consistent. It is now more or less a Monogreen Chalice Aggro/Control list with the LD effects functioning as the disruption suite. Since it has a faster clock, I am not as worried about aggro now since I now have early threats as well. I was saddened to see some of the other elements of the original deck go, but the increased speed was needed to combat the lack of creature removal.

Mana Sources: 26
10 Forest
4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Chrome Mox

Control Elements: 19
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
4 Ice Storm
4 Fallow Earth
3 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss

Creatures: 14
4 Wood Elves
4 Spawnwrithe
2 Hystrodon
4 Gathan Raiders

Planeswaker: 1
1 Garruk Wildspeaker

Sideboard
4 Pithing Needle
3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Krosan Grip
3 Tsunami / Choke or maybe Engineered Explosives/Powder Keg
2 Gaea's Blessing

Any new suggestions?

[MTG Guru]

Cards that I would suggest and test on my own Mono G Land Destruction deck include Stunted Growth (triple Time Walk with LD), Plow Under (good with Ancient Tombs) and Leonin Bladetrap as additional creature kill. I'd also test Quicksand and Mouth of Ronom, which are great options for green creature kill. I have a few lists I've been testing awhile on MWS so let me know if you're interested in seeing them. :wink:

[Watcher487]

4 Fallow Earth

4 Gathan Raiders


Why are you still running the Fallow Earths? As much as it's a good card, I would think that something like Creeping Mold or Reap and Sow would be better for you.

While the Raiders would be a good card if playing Aggro it's not that good here. I'd consider running 3 more Garruks (which is still amazing T1 or T2) and the 4th Acid Moss.

Now I do have a little bit of experiance playing the MonoGreen Aggro Stompy and something recent that I've like alot has been Snakeform, while it is horrible against control it can make a huge difference in combat.

[insertnamehere]

I agree with snakeform, it kills dreadnought and 'Goyf

[MGC_player]

I currently only have one Garruk thus the one of at the moment, working on increasing it actually. I use the Raiders since it's an early blocker/attacker so I don't have to worry about aggro as much and its a functional 3 drop same thing with Fallow Earth. The deck has actually become a more tempo oriented deck compared to the original concept since it now has a slightly more aggro approach. Fallow Earths have worked well in this particular configuration. I'll consider removing them though to up my Acid Moss Count and run either Creeping Mold or Reap and Sow so that the land removal is more permanent. I'll test Snakeform and see how well it performs (I probably won't use it though since my meta is infested with combo and control).

[Maveric78f]

I did a G-Stax with all the new green creatures factories :

Factories (n' kills) 12 :
4*Garruk Wildspeaker
4*Sprawnwrithe
4*Imperious Perfect

Stax Elements 18 :
4*Chalice of the Void
4*Trinisphere
4*Smokestack
4*Tangle Wire
2*Crucible of Worlds

Draw 2 (+2 Horizon Canopy):
2 Harmonize

Mana 28 (needs some fixing):
4*Mox Diamond
4*City of Traitors
4*Ancient Tomb
5*Forest
2*Horizon Canopy
3*Treetop Village
3*Wasteland
3 Elvish Spirit Guide

I wanted to fit in snakeform, but there's no room...

[Skeggi]

Stax decks are slow, obviously you want to hold back enemy creatures. White Stax has Ghostly Prison, Blue Stax has Propaganda and Red Stax uses Ensnaring Bridge/Bottled Cloister, I believe BlackStax uses Damnation as a hoser. What are you going to do about it? Tangle Wire seems too fragile and obviously Elephant Grass falls out of your mana curve. Plus 4 Garruk seems a bit much to me. Go for 3 I guess.

[Maveric78f]

A lot of white stax players don't play anymore ghostly prison. but Magus of the Tabernacle is the alternate answer I admit. Prison effect permanents are only good against Ichorid. For the rest, I could play Living wish into The Tabernacle/maze/etc if I needed it. But I don't.

To hold back enemy creatures, you have your token factories, stax and wire. For instance, if a tarmogoyf faces a Swpanwrithe, he won't attack (or he'll lose). It should be enough in addition to the Stax elements.

By the way, I'm not sure about Harmonize which could actually be Living Wish.

Playing 4 Garruk is not an an issue at all since it is pretty good game if you can keep it into play and if you can't keep it into play, you'll be happy to have another one in hand. The only drawback is the GG cost. For the rest it's basically awesome.

[TimeFlip]

I think you should try Root Maze. It's pretty good since you have elves for mana. It also opens up some good sideboard cards like Choke and Tsabo's Web. Also, Garruk would counteract the effect of Root Maze (with lands at least). Only thing it doesn't work too well with is Trinisphere, and that's if you play Root Maze before the Sphere.

[MGC_player]

Definitely some interesting card suggestions here. It seems Green actually does have a few options available to it if one wanted to build a green control deck. I'll try some of them out as well and see if they work well with my particular build. It also seems that there are several other directions a green control deck can go which makes me happy to try a few of them out.

[MGC_player]

I'll post some tourney results on how well this performs this weekend. Hopefully I can pilot it effectively and it makes a decent showing (I've got most of the quirks of it down but not all of it).

Also on the topic of Green control, has anyone thought of using some of the ideas in Legion Land Loss? I liked the use of Yavimaya Elders as deck thinning and card draw on a body. It is probably a different direction, but the more controlling variant does use Smokestack. Wall of Roots looks like a choice to stop early bleeding. Snakeform could probably see play in a deck like this as well as some other lesser known green control cards like Stunted Growth. Since the control variant of Legion Land Loss runs at least 12 druids, would Gilt-Leaf Archdruid be a decent option? It seems like a good idea. Deus could also become an option in that decklist.