[DECK] Go Wild.

[Aethan]

Here is a deck I've been having a lot of fun, and success, with on MWS. I originally wanted to build a casual deck that incorporated Garruk, simply because I have a lot of fun playing him. After that I added mana critters for acceleration and to abuse his -4 ability. Since the deck was green Tarmogoyf was a no-brainer. With all the little green men it wasn't much of a leap to add the Progenitus package. I added blue for library manipulation / control and ended up with what you see here.

// Creatures
4 [A] Birds of Paradise
4 [CFX] Noble Hierarch
4 [OD] Werebear
4 [OD] Nimble Mongoose
1 [CFX] Progenitus
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf

// Spells
3 [LRW] Garruk Wildspeaker
4 [A] Counterspell
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [LRW] Ponder
4 [IA] Brainstorm
4 [VI] Natural Order

// Lands
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
2 [UNH] Forest
2 [UNH] Island
1 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
1 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [A] Tropical Island
1 [FUT] Dryad Arbor

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [REL] Vexing Shusher
SB: 4 [SHM] Gleeful Sabotage
SB: 4 [GP] Leyline of the Void
SB: 3 [SOK] Pithing Needle

The mana critters serve to accelerate into Natural Order / Garruk while being fodder for NO and pumpables for Garruk. Noble Hierarch also solves Goyf stalls, and helps with beats throughout the game while allowing extra blue mana for Counterspell and draw. Werebear is an accelerant early and a powerful beater midgame. Goose is very useful when the opponent is packing heavy removal and you are having trouble keeping a creture around long enough to NO it. Permission is generally reserved for protecting NO or major threats, there isn't enough of it to counter everything.

Garruk is very versatile while also being fun to play with. He stalls most aggro decks and the 3/3 tokens will either eat or trade with most of what the opposing Zoo player can field. If you have 4 mana sources of which at least 2 are land, then he can also give you enough mana to NO while reserving 2 more for a Counterspell. I've often won games just by using his +1 ability to power out Goyfs, Bears and Geese then -4ing them to victory. I've stalled games into NO with the -1 ability several times as well.

Natural Order is generally an autowin if it resolves, but the deck doesn't rely on it to win. It's just nice when it happens.

The SB should be obvious: Shusher handles CounterTop variants, Needle takes care of man-lands and other randomness, Leyline kills Dredge / Loam / Reanimator decks. Gleeful sabotage is an answer for artifact mana or Stax decks, the conspire ability gets it around counter based control (but not Counterbalance) along with being fully capable of hitting 3 targets w/ an average turn 4 hand.

[majikal]

Why Llanowar Elves instead of Birds of Paradise?

[Hawdes]

I would use another permission spell instead of counterspell... Spell Snare, Daze or something else, easier to cast (does not require UU) and I bet there are a bunch of other spells that are better.

[jrsthethird]

Don't you ever come up short for blue cards to pitch to FOW? You're only running 16.

How about...

Slippery Bogle
Coiling Oracle
Selkie Hedge-Mage
Lorescale Coatl?

Bogle - 1-drop, shroudy, helps dodge removal while you wait for NO.
Coiling Oracle - helps the mana-advancement plan, can help this by setting it up with Brainstorm or Ponder
Selkie Hedge-Mage - Gain tempo against aggro decks by bouncing their large attacker, boosting your life, and then chump blocking/trading/NO-ing
Lorecale Coatl - beater that gets Moldervine Cloaked when you cast Brainstorm

I also agree with Spell Snare instead of Counterspell. Daze is bad when you're trying to ramp into a lot of 4-mana dudes.

[Aethan]

Why Llanowar Elves instead of Birds of Paradise?

Great thought; Synergy with Hierarch for evasive critter to beat with and another multicolor manasource. Added. Thanks! :cool:


I would use another permission spell instead of counterspell... Spell Snare, Daze or something else, easier to cast (does not require UU) and I bet there are a bunch of other spells that are better.

When this deck counters something it wants a hard counter - it only counters things that will lose the game if left alone, otherwise it leaves them alone.. Spell Snare is too situational. Daze is useful only in the early game as a counter AND slows the fundamental turn of this deck down by 1. UU is not that hard to manage in this deck, with all the acceleration it is very doable. The trick is knowing when you should leave mana open for Counterspell and when you should tap out to drop a threat. This deck is an aggro deck with some control, not a control deck with some aggro.

[troopatroop]

Counterspell should be mana leak. Consider Mystical Tutor for Natural Order. Wall of roots/blossoms is probably better than Werebear.

[Aethan]

Counterspell should be mana leak. Consider Mystical Tutor for Natural Order. Wall of roots/blossoms is probably better than Werebear.

When this deck counters something it wants a hard counter - it only counters things that will lose the game if left alone, otherwise it leaves them alone.

Werebear is strictly better than either Wall of Roots or Wall of Blossoms in this deck. It has the same cost. Wall of Roots can only defend and the use of mana kills it. Wall of Blossoms does not produce mana, cannot attack and does not allow you to drop another land so it's not accelerating the deck - it DOES tie up 2 mana on a permanent that could have been spent to cast something that does. I'll illustrate the importance of being both an accelerant AND a threat with a few examples:

Scenario 1: You have Noble Hierarch, Birds of Paradise and 2x Werebear in play. You have 4 lands and 2 cards in hand. There are 2 cards in your graveyard, your opponent has 19 life and you have 20 life. He casts Pox. What do you do? Put the Hierarch and Bird into the gy, your Werebears now have threshold and you swing on the next turn for 8. He drops Tombstalker the next turn. You swing for the win. This happened not more than 2 hours ago.

Scenario 2: Now suppose you have the same scenario but this time you have Wall of Roots and Wall of Blossoms in play instead of the 2 bears. What do you do? Sac the 2 walls and swing next turn with the Bird for 1. He drops Tombstalker. Big trouble.

This should illustrate the point that an aggro deck wins by bringing the opponents life total to 0, the more ways you have to do this, the better off you are.