A complete breakdown of the new and exciting Mono Green Aggro deck!

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Zen Takahashi

GP Sydney 2013 TOP 4

GP Auckland 2012 11th

Won a PTQ when he was 13.

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The release of a new set is always an exciting time for deckbuilders. We glue our eyes to the new spoilers that get revealed each day in the hope of finding a new gem that we can build around. We can’t stop thinking about these new cards as our mind is racing with ideas we can’t quite grasp yet. Although M14 will not be making as big of an impact compared to the other sets we’ve seen in the last few years, it has still provided deckbuilders with an abundance of new cards to experiment with.
Over the past week, numerous writers such as Melissa DeTora and Adrian Sullivan had written about Mono Green Aggro and legendary deckbuilder Tomoharu Saito had also posted a list of Mono Green Aggro that he had been working on and having success with at his local store. For reference:

Mono Green Aggro by Melissa DeTora

Creatures

4 Elvish Mystic
3 Dryad Militant
2 Ulvenwald Tracker
4 Scavenging Ooze
4 Strangleroot Geist
4 Witchstalker
3 Predator Ooze
3 Yeva, Nature’s Herald
4 Wolfir Silverheart

Spells

3 Garruk Relentless
4 Rancor

Lands

4 Mutavault
18 Forest

 

 

Mono Green Aggro by Adrian Sullivan

Creatures

4 Arbor Elf
4 Elvish Mystic
1 Ulvenwald Tracker
4 Strangleroot Geist
3 Scavenging Ooze
4 Predator Ooze
4 Kalonian Hydra
2 Acidic Slime
1 Thragtusk

Spells

4 Garruk Relentless
2 Garruk, Primal Hunter
2 Rancor
2 Ranger’s Guile

Lands

3 Cavern of Souls
20 Forest

 

 

Mono Green Aggro by Tomoharu Saito

Creatures

4 Arbor Elf
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Strangleroot Geist
4 Kalonian Tusker
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Predator Ooze
4 Deadbridge Goliath
4 Wolfir Silverheart

Spells

4 Rancor
3 Giant Growth

Lands

4 Mutavault
19 Forest

Sideboard

4 Fog
4 Triumpth of Ferocity
3 Garruk Relentless
2 Thragtusk
2 Akroma’s Memorial

 

 

During the past weekend, we also saw GP Charlotte Top 8 competitor Richard Nguyen prove the deck’s worth as he piloted it to a respectable third place finish at SCG Open Richmond. His list was:

Creatures

4 Arbor Elf
4 Elvish Mystic
3 Strangleroot Geist
4 Predator Ooze
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Wolfir Silverheart
2 Craterhoof Behemoth

Spells

2 Garruk, Caller of Beasts
4 Rancor
4 Revenge of the Hunted
3 Ranger’s Guile

Lands

4 Mutavault
18 Forest

Sideboard

4 Thragtusk
3 Wolfir Avenger
2 Naturalize
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Garruk Relentless
2 Primeval Bounty

 

 

After analysing all these lists, I decided to sculpt a “base” for a Mono Green Aggro deck. Below the list, I have shared some of my thoughts on creating this “base”.

4 Elvish Mystic
4 Arbor Elf
0-2 Other 1 Drops
4 Strangleroot Geist
3-5 Other 2 Drops
4 Predator Ooze
0-4 Other 3 Drops
0-2 Other 4 Drops
4 Wolfir Silverheart
3-4 Garruk Relentless
4 Rancor
2-3 Trick Spells
4 Mutavault
19 Forest
-The deck should definitely be playing the full 8 Mana Elves. The deck’s gameplan is to try and get aggresive so it is important to get ahead before your opponent. These Elves can also attack well, especially with Rancor and Elvish Archdruid
-The deck should be playing more two drops then three drops. While being able to curve into a three drop off a Mana Elf is nice, there’s a large number of early removal spells such as Tragic Slip and Pillar of Flame being played so it is important to have a play on turn two even if you don’t have a Mana Elf. Scavenging Ooze also often acts as a three drop anyway as you want to play around Pillar of Flame by eating a dude before passing your turn.
Strangleroot Geist and Predator Ooze are the best two drop and three drop respectively. Any Mono Green Aggro deck should be playing 4 of each before adding any other card in their mana cost.
Garruk Relentless is the best four drop for the deck. It allows the deck to attack from a completely different angle by presenting a non-creature threat (immune to removal) and provides the deck with much needed removal as it deals with problem cards such as Olivia Voldaren. It becomes a lot better with the new legendary rule but you still may not want to play the full 4 copies as you can never have multiples on the field.
-Since the deck is looking to curve out at its five drop, the deck shouldn’t be playing more than 4 five drops. Wolfir Silverheart is the best five drop for the deck and is much better than the other aggressive five drops such as Kalonian Hydra and Vorapede. While Kalonian Hydra is very powerful and can win a game on its own in two swings, it doesn’t make an immediate impact on the turn it’s cast. Since this deck is looking to win on the fifth or sixth turn, assuming that these five drops only get one or two chances to attack, Wolfir Silverheart deals more damage than the Hydra does. It also helps your other creatures get through combat and is very good on the defensive as it provides you with two large blockers. While Kalonian Hydra is very powerful and works well with Predator Ooze, the fact that it doesn’t make an immediate impact makes it weak against sorcery speed removal such as Supreme Verdict, Detention Sphere and Oblivion Ring as well as Tamiyo, the Moon Sage which is starting to pick up play again. Please note that this deck doesn’t want cards like Thragtusk, Acidic Slime and Garruk, Primal Hunter in the maindeck. These cards are mainly focused in trying to stop early aggression or to try give you an edge in the mid-late game. However since this deck is looking to get aggressive, these cards do not do a good job in trying to close the game fast. They do become relevant as sideboard options though in slow matchups such as control or matchups where we’re the controller such as against faster aggressive decks.
-The deck should definitely be playing 4 Rancor. Rancor is super important for this deck as it helps turn your Mana Elves into relevant attackers and works well with Wolfir Silverheart and Wolfir Avenger if we choose to play him. In addition, the deck should also play 2-3 “trick spells” such as Giant Growth or Ranger’s Guile to try trick your opponent and screw up their game plan. You can also often bluff these, especially if your opponent had seen one before.
-The Garruk, Caller of Beasts package with Craterhoof Behemoth or Elderscale Wurm is too gimmicky and very unnecessary. The Garruk itself is very expensive and trying to fit the combo into the deck is extremely awkward as these large creatures are almost impossible to cast and the deck has no cantrips to cycle them away from your hand.
-The deck can afford to play 4 colorless lands. Mutavault is definitely the best option and although Cavern of Souls and Encroaching Wastes are playable, they are not as powerful as Mutavault in this deck. Should the deck ever want to cut Predator Ooze (I can never imagine this though), I can see the deck being able to support 1 or 2 more colorless lands.
To try fill in these missing gaps, I decided to do a Gatherer search and jotted down every playable option. I then analysed each one to try and determine which one will be the best for this deck.
The One Drop Options

Avacyn’s Pilgrim
Dryad Militant
Wolfbitten Captive
Ulvenwald Tracker
Experiment One

 

 

Avacyn’s Pilgrim is unnecessary as the deck probably doesn’t need more than 8 Mana Elves. It also hurts that Avacyn’s Pilgrim doesn’t allow you to cast a turn two Predator Ooze which is one of the main perks of playing all the Mana Elves.
-With the printing of Scavenging Ooze, Dryad Militant‘s ability has become much less relevant for this deck. The body itself is very weak as it trades with anything. With cards like Doomed Traveler, Lingering Souls and Izzet Staticaster being popular, a one toughness attacker is too fragile.
Wolfbitten Captive is a nice one drop but since almost every standard deck has a play from turn one, the chance of it flipping early is too low for it to be good.
Ulvenwald Tracker is great as it provides the deck with much needed removal and works very well with Predator Ooze, Wolfir Silverheart and Wolfir Avenger if we choose to play it. However there are many situations where your’e forced to trade dudes as the creatures in this deck aren’t too powerful.
Experiment One is the best aggressive one drop option for the deck. However while it’s still great, the deck doesn’t actually have too many ways to evolve it effectively.

The Two Drop Options

Brushstrider
Elvish Visionary
Mayor of Avabruck
Burning-Tree Emissary
Gyre Sage
Scavenging Ooze
Kalonian Tusker

 

 

-Like Dryad Militant, Brushstrider isn’t well positioned in the format right now due to the number of 1/1s being played which it trades with.
Elvish Visionary is very weak on its own but works well with enablers such as Elvish Archdruid. If you decide to go with the Archdruid route, I think it’s great as the cantrip on it is very powerful.
Mayor of Avabruck doesn’t work well in this deck as we have no other humans and it’s too hard to reliably flip it due to the number of early drops being played by each deck (even control decks have early plays like Farseek).
– Burning-Tree Emissary is a very explosive but doesn’t work well in this deck as you can’t cast Strangleroot Geist or Predator Ooze off it.
Gyre Sage suffers the same problem as Experiment One in that there isn’t too many ways to evolve him in this deck. I’d also definitely play Experiment One over any copies of Gyre Sage as Gyre Sage’s ability isn’t too relevant for this deck.
Scavenging Ooze is obviously very powerful as it turns off Reanimator and Snapcaster Mage which are both very problematic cards for this deck. It can also grow bigger throughout the game which helps provide the deck with more late game play.
Kalonian Tusker is very simple and just provides a large amount of power for such a cheap cost. It’s very vanilla and isn’t anything fancy, but it provides a great punch and is exactly the type of card this deck wants on turn two.

The Three Drop Options

Champion of Lambholt
Wolfir Avenger
Slaughterhorn
Witchstalker
Elvish Archdruid
Renegade Krasis

 

 

-I quickly found that once you look into three drops, all these cards are focused more on synergy then sheer power like the two drops. This means that each of these options are relatively metagame dependant.
Champion of Lambholt is great against Lingering Souls and other slow creature decks which makes it very good against RWB Aristocrats. Since the deck has dropped in popularity, it is most likely not as powerful as the other three drops but is still a possible sideboard card.
Wolfir Avenger is great against midrange and control decks as it fights removal well and can trade with Thragtusk effectively. It also works well with Rancor and Ulvenwald Tracker as it provides you with a creature that can trade with nearly everything in the format. I personally think this is the best option right now as removal is very popular right now.
Slaughterhorn is like a mini-Ghor-Clan Rampager and is great in a metagame where there’s a lot of creature combat and little spot removal. It also works effectively against Restoration Angel. However this isn’t the case right now, which makes this card not a great option. It’s also not powerful enough to be played in the sideboard as you have more powerful options available.
Witchstalker is great against the control decks but without any auras like Unflinching Courage, the card just doesn’t make a big enough impact to warrant a spot in the maindeck. There are also more powerful tools that can be played in the sideboard for the control matchup.
Renegade Krasis and Elvish Archdruid are both the most “powerful” three drops available in the sense that they provide the most power. While they can make a big impact on the game as the Krasis can grow to a huge monster and the Archdruid can turn all your Mana Elves and Mutavaults into powerful attackers, they’re both very weak to Pillar of Flame which is the most popular removal spell in standard right now. These cards are much better positioned in a metagame where there is less creature removal and more creature combat.

The Four Drop Options

Rubblebelt Raiders
Yeva, Nature’s Herald
Deadbridge Goliath
Druid’s Familiar

 

 

Rubblebelt Raiders is the card I like the least of these as it’s the only four-five drop that is weak to Searing Spear. It is also very mana intensive which means you can’t cast it if you draw more than 1 Mutavault. I expect this to happen often enough that I prefer a creature that’s easier to cast.
Yeva, Nature’s Herald is very flexible and can provide a very different angle to attack from as you can “ambush” your opponent, but I personally believe it’s unnecessary as the deck is just looking to try be as aggressive as possible so the deck cannot maximize her ability well. Taking her ability away, a 4/4 for four mana is very unexciting.
Druid’s Familiar and Deadbridge Goliath are the most powerful options which is what the deck is looking for from it’s late drops as it tries to close the game. Druid’s Familiar is better in my opinion as it makes an immediate impact and it can help grow one of your smaller creatures into a relevant attacker. While the creature itself is only a 4/4, it provides six power to the board which is more than the Goliath’s five power. The ability to turn your small Mana Elves into decent threats is a strong enough ability that I favour it over Deadbridge Goliath.

The Trick Spell Options

Giant Growth
Ranger’s Guile
Prey Upon
Blazing Torch
Predatory Rampage
Blessings of Nature
Revenge of the Hunted

 

 

– I prefer the cheap spells a lot more than the more expensive spells such as the last three. While Revenge of the Hunted is extremely powerful if you miracle it early, it’s very awkward to have in your starting hand and often just sits there as a dead card. Although Blessings of Nature is much easier to cast then Revenge of the Hunted, it’s a pretty weak effect for five mana so you really have to rely on miracling it to be relevant. Predatory Rampage would have been a great finish to the curve if only it gave trample like Overrun did. At it’s current state, it just isn’t powerful enough to close a game which is the expectation from five drops in this deck.
Giant Growth and Ranger’s Guile look to protect your dudes from creature combat and removal spells. Giant Growth is much better in creature combat but only protects your creatures from burn spells, while Ranger’s Guile is much worse in creature combat but protects you from all removal spells. I think Giant Growth is better positioned right now as the most common removal spells being played are Pillar of Flame and Tragic Slip. Giant Growth is also much better at fighting Restoration Angel which is very popular right now. Ranger’s Guile is still a fine sideboard option against decks like Jund where they’re heavy on removal spells like Abrupt Decay and Putrefy
– Prey Upon and Blazing Torch both act as removal spells for this deck but they are both relatively weak. Prey Upon is often a one for two unless you have a Predator Ooze or Wolfir Silverheart, as the creatures in this deck aren’t too powerful so you lose your creature as well to try deal with theirs. Blazing Torch requires you to have a creature which can make it very awkward as it means you cannot attack with the creature or tap it for mana if it’s a Mana Elf. This can hurt your tempo a lot and give your opponent some much needed time. While removal is important, I’d probably play neither of these as they just aren’t powerful enough for the format. The deck should instead focus on trying to go “bigger” and dealing with other creatures through combat.

With all this analysis complete, this is the final decklist that I came up with.

Creatures

4 Elvish Mystic
4 Arbor Elf
4 Strangleroot Geist
4 Predator Ooze
4 Wolfir Silverheart
2 Kalonian Tusker
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Wolfir Avenger
1 Ulvenwald Tracker
1 Druid’s Familiar

Spells

3 Garruk Relentless
4 Rancor
2 Giant Growth

Lands

4 Muavault
19 Forest

Sideboard

3 Fog
3 Triumph of Ferocity
3 Thragtusk
2 Garruk, Primal Hunter
2 Windstorm
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Golgari Decoy

 

 

The sideboard was largely made based on matchups that I had a problem with post board.
-The Fogs and Thragtusks are for the aggro matchups where we’re looking to be the control player. Thragtusk is great at stopping their early aggression and Fog can help buy time as well as give you free wins where they alpha strike and you Fog them, only to win on the swing back.
Triumph of Ferocity was adopted by Tomoharu Saito and is great against the control decks as it provides you with much needed card advantage which allows you to have more creatures then they do of removal spells.
Garruk, Primal Hunter was my top choice for the midrange and control matchup where you want a powerful threat that is resilient to removal spells. Primeval Bounty and Akroma’s Memorial are just too expensive for the deck to be able to consistently cast.
Windstorm is to deal with Olivia Voldaren which is one of this deck’s biggest enemy, as well as Lingering Souls tokens. Plummet is much more powerful against Olivia Voldaren, but Lingering Souls is very popular right now and is also a big problem for this deck so I prefer Windstorm over it. If any artifacts become popular in Standard, then Crushing Vines may be the best option for this slot.
-The third copy of Scavenging Ooze is there as another graveyard hoser which I can sideboard into in necessary matchups. The body it comes on makes it much better than Tormod’s Crypt or Grafdigger’s Cage
– Golgari Decoy is some nice tech against other slow aggro decks such as Aristocrats and the mirror. These decks are often light on removal and like this deck, are looking to deal with creatures through combat. I originally had Champion of Lambholt in this slot but found in testing that in most games both players end up with very cluttered board states as neither players can swing through. Golgari Decoy allows you to win through these board states as they’re forced to block your Decoy while you get through with the army you’ve assembled. In these games, one attack phase is usually enough to win the game.
Hope you enjoyed this article as I broke down on Mono Green Aggro. While this deck may not be tier one, I still think it’s very powerful and is well suited in the current metagame. I am looking forward to getting to play a Mono Green deck again as the last time I did, I ended up winning a PTQ (Elves in Extended 2011-I was just 13 years old!) As always, I appreciate any feedback or comments so feel free to comment here or tweet me a message. I will try to reply to everyone as soon as possible. Till next time, take care!

Cheers,
Zen Takahashi
@mtgzen on Twitter
StoneColdEffy or planeswalkerzen Everywhere Else