If I remember correctly, a budget version that has worked for some players in the past is Mono-green defenders. They generally rely on Overgrown Battlement and Wall of Roots to accelerate early mana. Sometimes they include Joraga Treespeaker and Oracle of Mul Daya. It'd also make Green Sun's Zenith much easier to use. Also, a potential budget Candelabra that someone posted is Deserted Temple. Basic optimal plan would be defenders -> turn 3 Primeval Titan -> Win with Eldrazi T4, 5, or 6.Originally Posted by dougmtg
One thing to be wary of though is this deck has to commit to the field, so it suffers to creature removal. In those cases, Explore, Rampant Growth, or even Farseek (if you're playing Breeding Pool) could work to mitigate the dependency on the field, and Crop Rotation is not an expensive card. It'd take me awhile to tinker with the idea, but I could probably find or brew something... You should probably be looking too. The deck has gone through two threads (here's the other one), and I'm still mining both of them for new information.
I found a mono green build. It's an old one, not optimized or anything but it seems decent though:
CREATURES (6)
2 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
2 Primeval Titan
SORCERIES (16)
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Explore
4 All Is Dust
4 Clear the Land
INSTANTS (4)
4 Crop Rotation
ARTIFACTS (11)
3 Sensei’s Divining Top
4 Expedition Map
4 Pithing Needle
LANDS (23)
4 Cloudpost
4 Glimmerpost
4 Vesuva
8 Forest
1 Eldrazi Temple
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Eye of Ugin
SIDEBOARD
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Powder Keg
4 Krosan Grip
1 Bojuka Bog
3 Mindbreak Trap
A great budget version to Candelabra of Tawnos would be Magus of the Candelabra, especially if you decide to run Green Sun's Zenith.
So it you use this old build as a ground, and start brewing and optimizing a bit I think you can come up with a really nice decklist.
Isn't running Clear the Land risky? you could get rid of all your win cons. and what I did was just took out all of the blue form Rock Lees list, replaces all the other land with forest/forest fetch, and added pithing needle explore and expedition map
clear the way and ancient stirrings work, but they each have their own weaknesses. Both are sorcery speed, making them weaker, and with Ancient stirrings you can't get titan or crop, debately your two best cards. With Clear the Way, which I like far more than ancient stirrings, you can't copy a cloudpost you flip with a vesuva if you don't have a cloudpost in play already. The other team getting lands doesn't matter, especially if you're running high land count.
All that being said, I think that crucible + exploration is a far better build of mono green. Check out the list I did well with during mental misstep era. I'll try to geta list later, when I'm not in a rush.
Last edited by Rock Lee; 01-29-2013 at 01:22 PM.
I get to run this deck tonight, finally! #Stoked. It's just gonna be a local with probably like 12-14 people, but whatever. I don't have Thespians and Explorations, so I can't test out your new build -- I'll be running something closer to your pre-GTC optimized build, with a few tweaks to the main and side (I only own 3 Show and Tells, for example). If you want I'll throw up a report tomorrow, but I'm not sure how much data from a pre-GTC list really matters.
All data matters. What I oppose is conjecture, the opposite of data.
I said the build was old and not optimized either.
Clearly you have to change the manabase and change the main aswell.
I beleave Exploration has its place in mono-green, don't know what the crucible would be there for though. Maybe I miss something obvious.
Would be fun to try GSZ+Magus, which also gives you more ways to play and find Titans.
Here's the mono green version that might work with the current meta. Lots and lots of testing required.
// Lands
4 [FNM] Cloudpost
4 [TSP] Vesuva
4 [SOM] Glimmerpost
4 [B] Tropical Island
1 [WWK] Eye of Ugin
1 [LG] Karakas
1 [CMD] Bojuka Bog
1 [IA] Glacial Chasm
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
2 [GTC] Thespian's Stage
1 [ZEN] Forest (3)
1 [TE] Wasteland
1 [FUT] Horizon Canopy
// Creatures
1 [ROE] Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 [ROE] Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 [ROE] Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
4 [M12] Primeval Titan
2 [ZEN] Oracle of Mul Daya
// Spells
4 [UL] Crop Rotation
4 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
2 [AQ] Candelabra of Tawnos
4 [ZEN] Expedition Map
3 [MR] Oblivion Stone
3 [US] Exploration
2 [FD] Crucible of Worlds
// Sideboard
SB: 4 [CMD] Flusterstorm
SB: 2 [FUT] Venser, Shaper Savant
SB: 2 [B] Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 1 [LG] The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
SB: 1 [CMD] Oblivion Stone
SB: 3 [MR] Chalice of the Void
SB: 2 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
Crucible serves 3 purposes: recycle fetches, replay destroyed Locus lands or lands Crop Rotated out, or loop Wasteland and Horizon Canopy.
I'm not a big fan of Magus because of summoning sickness, but I guess being searchable and being awesome if he lives warrants some playtime, but I'd at least keep Deserted Temple in mind if we're talking budget for Candelabra.
Last edited by Mockingbird; 01-30-2013 at 12:10 AM.
Is there a possibility that I can get a green or artifact sideboard, because the only reason I want mono green is to avoid the tropical islands and show and tells, and obviously a couple of expensive cards like candelabra.
Took 1st at my local tonight, going 3-0-1 (draw was unintentional, in r1 vs RUG). Report to follow tomorrow.
There's no proper substitute for Candelabra of Tawnos, although Magus of the Candelabra, Deserted Temple, or Garruk Wildspeaker are your best bet for a budget alternative. I'd say go for Garruk personally because he doesn't have summoning sickness, untaps more than one land, and can do other things in a pinch. And in the main board, there is no substitute at all for Karakas. Other than that, you should be able to get Rock Lee's list without having to bleed a pay check that hard.
Side-Note: As for Tropical Island, you can still play the blue sideboard with Breeding Pool. It hurts more to fetch it, but the price tag (as of 1/29/2013) is about 1/10 as much. Also, if you can't afford the fetches like Misty Rainforest... you're probably going to be stuck with replacing them with Forests because Terramorphic Expanse and Evolving Wilds mess with how a deck curves.
Otherwise, for a relatively budget side that stays in mono-green and pretty close to Rock Lee's list, I'd advise testing:
Sideboard
2 Beast Within
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Elephant Grass
3 Nature's Claim
1 Oblivion Stone
3 Pithing Needle
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
Other cards to consider are things like Cursed Totem, Phyrexian Revoker, Mindbreak Trap, or Spellskite. But those are things you're figure out during testing because of what your meta may or may not have running in it.
Last edited by Mockingbird; 01-30-2013 at 12:39 AM.
I respect that Mockingbird is trying, but he is not backing his info with testing or tournament experience, so really take his "advice" with a grain of salt. Reminds me of some of the deck's previous fans, such as TheBoozeCube.
The biggest weakness of mono green is its extremely weak sideboard, and that is why you run trops main. If you insist on a non-blue sb, then go with something like this:
// Sideboard
SB: 1 [MR] Oblivion Stone
SB: 1 [LG] The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
SB: 4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
SB: 4 [ZEN] Mindbreak Trap
SB: 3 [MBS] Spine of Ish Sah
SB: 2 [6E] Cursed Totem
Okay, so report time. This was the list I played:
4 Vesuva
4 Cloudpost
4 Glimmerpost
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Tropical Island
2 Island
1 Eye of Ugin
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Karakas
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Kozilek, the Butcher of Truth
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
4 Primeval Titan
2 Trinket Mage
4 Crop Rotation
4 Brainstorm
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Expedition Map
1 Pithing Needle
2 Candelabra of Tawnos
3 Show and Tell
4 Repeal
1 All is Dust
1 Oblivion Stone
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 2 Mindbreak Trap
SB: 2 Chalice of the Void
SB: 2 Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 2 Venser, Shaper Savant
SB: 2 Elephant Grass
SB: 1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
SB: 1 All is Dust
SB: 1 Oblivion Stone
Fairly stock list. I split the sweepers up primarily because of the presence of an Imperial Painter player, which makes All is Dust dangerous. In the end, though, I actually liked the 1/1 - 1/1 split.
R1: RUG
I know that this is supposed to be a decent matchup for 12post, assuming it hits a Show and Tell or can hardcast a Primeval Titan. Game one, I weather his initial onslaught, play a ton of posts, and the spaghetti monster's noodly appendages do their thing. Easy mode. Game two, I keep a rocky hand primarily because my opponent was agonizing over his keep. It was a very risky hand with Island/Top, but then also like Expedition Map, Elephant Grass, Crop Rot, and other good stuff for the matchup. Naturally I rip Cloudpost off the top like a Greek God, and proceed to draw Top-assisted lands for the next few turns. My opponent had kept a very land-heavy threat-light hand, and spent most of his filtering and cantripping. On his t4 he played a Wasteland, and attempted to Waste my Post. I break a Misty in resp, intending on Rotating it into another one, and he stifles my fetch, which leaves me just my basic Island again. That REALLY slowed me down.I eventually dug out of it, but by that point he had a horrifying board presence. I sued Glacial Chasm to buy me a turn, then I had to let it die before it killed me. He Bolted me on draw step and that was that. I don't remember an enormous amount of game 3, other than that he derped and forgot to attack with a Goyf one turn for 2 damage. Later that game, as I was at 2 life (I then gained a bunch from Glimmers), he was tilting a bit. Didn't matter, though. He was screwed for double red with 2x Sulfuric Vortex in his hand, and I was screwed for double green with 2x Primeval in mine. I hit my second green on turn 4 of extra turns, which meant that I could cast Primeval Titan and have the win on board....but no time to execute it.
0-0-1. I never saw a single Show and Tell, even with Tops/Shuffles/etc going. I was also incredibly annoyed at Primeval Titans clogging my hand constantly.
R2: Miracles
Game one I just sit there and make land drops while he has Counter/Top online. He does manage to find a Terminus to CB a Titan, which saddens me. Eventually I Top into Eye of Ugin, and proceed to take infinite turns. Game two he has a fast CB/Top lock, and I can't get any of my tutors (or my Top) through. He makes a pair of Angels and starts smacking me for 8 a turn, while I keep drawing and playing Glimmers and Vesuvas-as-Glimmers, trying to stay alive to hit a space monster, or the Eye to find one, since I had literally a million mana. I eventually hit a Venser as I'm dead on board next turn. I drop it, and he casually flips Jace from the top of his deck. Cool story, bro. Game three he gets mana screwed as he keeps a shaky hand. But it's okay, because he has ALL FOUR **** FORCE OF WILLS. While annoying and obnoxious, it's not especially dangerous, and after casting Kozilek 3 times, I finally go sufficiently broken that he scoops them up.
1-0-1.
R3: Bant
More akin to Noble Fish, from Vintage -- maindeck Meddling Mages and such. I guess you could call it Bant Tempo, but it doesn't run Stifle.
Game one he curves out Noble Hierarch->Geist of Saint Dickbag->Tarmogoyf/Meddling Mage (Show and Tell)->Tarmogoyf/Meddling Mage (Primeval Titan), with a Force of Will for my All is Dust. The degrees to which I die are enormous. He sideboards out all of his Dazes and Spell Pierces, which I'm able to elicit from between-game chatter. I'm fine with this, since I don't have to worry about my tutors getting tempo'd. Game two I pretty much faceroll him. I don't remember details, but I know it wasn't close, and it was a fast game. I think I just curved straight up into space monster via Candelabra.
Game three was a nail-biter. He comes out swinging again, and knocks me down to 1 life with a board of Qasali, Goyf x2, Geist. I end up playing a Glimmerpost (4), then a Candelabra, then using Candle to get my 2nd green for a Primeval Titan, fetching Glimmer x2 (14). He swings, I kill a goyf, and drop back down to 2. Then I swing, get another Glimmer and a Cloudpost, going back to 9, and cast All is Dust, which resolves. Shortly thereafter, Kozilek and Emrakul tag-team ripping his face off. Note that I'd already had to use Glacial Chasm to stay alive that game, so I couldn't even get Chasm+Glimmer. Scary shit.
2-0-1.
R4: TES
He makes like 12 goblins turn 2. I make a Trinket Mage into a Primeval with Glimmerposts into a spacemonster. He gets me lowish, even with the Glimmerposts, but he's one turn too slow to draw the means to re- go off. Game two I can't find any hate, so I mulligan into 5 lands + Map, which I keep. I figure that I've got the mana to do anything, and I have a tutor for Tabernacle in case he goes Empty again. His hand turns out to be questionable, too, as he's forced to Diminishing Returns and pass back. The DR isn't really kind to me, either, but I do have a Chalice, which I drop on 0. It turns out that that's enough to get me there, as he has a bunch of artifact mana and can't blow up the Chalice in time before I go off.
3-0-1, good for first place.
Thoughts after actually playing the deck now:
The maindeck Pithing Needle was ass. I thought that a 1-of as a Trinket target would be okay. I was sorely mistaken. Everytime I saw it on a Top or drew it, I wished it was anything else.
Trinket Mages, however, were amazing.
The deck feels really soft to hard aggressive starts. Like, the games I lost to RUG and Bant were because they just kept playing dudes. I held them off as best I could with Repeals, but that didn't do enough. Repeal was still sweet, don't get me wrong -- but it feels like the deck needs more anti-aggro stuff. Also entirely possible that I'm not experienced enough to know how to weather those kinds of hands, though.
Relatedly, I feel like I'm not a good enough pilot to know when to Glacial Chasm effectively yet. I was fine with it in Lands, but that was because I had the recursion to where I didn't have to think about it. It seemed that whenever I hit Chasm, I was too low to really keep it around, which meant that I couldn't build my resources to find an out at all. Chasm coming at the cost of developing my mana base is a rough price to pay.
O-Stone didn't impress, but that might be because my opponents had artifact destruction. I couldn't just play it out and let it sit there Fate-countering stuff. I had to use it as an 8-mana destroy everything, and I feel that negates a lot of the strength of O-Stone. I do think that this justifies an Aids/Stones split, at least for my local meta.
3 Tops felt fine to me. I had Trinket Mage to grab one whenever I didn't just draw it, and I didn't have as many extra Tops floating around needing to be cashed in.
I adored the sideboard, with the exception of Elephant Grass. I opted for the Grasses over some other aggro hate card because I knew someone in the room would be playing Manaless, and I wanted to be able to stop the zombie horde cold while I hit Bojuka Bog. Probably unnecessary even vs Manaless, tbh. Grass wasn't really that great at all, and will probably become something else for vs aggro decks.
I also feel that I am an insufficient pilot to know when to Crop Rotate effectively, but hopefully that comes with time and experience.
So yeah. I'm definitely cutting the Needle and the 2 Grasses...not sure of the replacements yet, though.
1 or 2 copies of this are good
Arian, in your bang game 3, why not get 2x glimmer post when swinging back with Titan, putting you to 20 life and no need to all is dust?
I only had 1 Cloudpost in play at the time IIRC, so I didn't want to take a chance on him ripping a Wasteland or some such and knocking out my space-monster mana. He only had one card in hand, so I wasn't too worried about the All is Dust getting countered.
Also, my Candle had been Krosan Gripped, so I couldn't rely on the 1x Cloudpost with like 8x Glimmerposts to generate all of my mana for me.
He said that he's not running Tropical Island because he can't afford them, so then unless he already owns Tabernacle, how is he going to get ahold of Tabernacle when it costs two to three times as much as a single Tropical Island? I'm working under the assumption he can't afford it. Hence Elephant Grass to slow down aggro.
So with that said, the only true difference between our boards is Spine vs. Pithing Needle, Thrun, and Nature's Claim. Postboard, Pithing Needle answers threats as soon as Turn 1 as opposed to Turn 4 (though granted in different ways, but ways that Oblivion Stone and Eldrazi covers as well for the same range of mana), and Thrun works similar to Venser vs. Control (and helps against aggro instead of combo). Nature's Claim works like Spine for the majority of matches it be sided in for.
And forwithout a way to recur Spine outside Oblivion Stone, (a point from the Development thread), why not go for Karn Liberated? He can either be a two shot Spine, hit hands, or say screw this game, let's try this again. And as a bonus, he draws opponents' resources away from you.
Venser is there against Show and Tell and replaced by Spine in non-blue sideboards. Neither Thrun nor Karn fulfills the role.And for
On the Sep 2011 Ban List Updates,
I see. Good enough reason for me.
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