Hello awesome folks! I hope you all having an awesome-tastic day today! I have been recently looking at the top cards in each color for card draw of all time for kitchen table play like Commander, Five Color, Highlander, and Pauper/Peasant and all multiplayer formats too. A few weeks ago I did a Top Red Card Flow. This week we'll be doing Green!
Like black and red, Green's card draw tends to be based around a few things:
- The size of your dorks - We'll have things that care about dorks of certain sizes.
- The number of your dorks -We'll also have a number of card draw effects that care about how many you have.
- Sacrifices - Despite the fact that black sacrifices for cards like Village Rites, Green has a surprising amount of sacrifices for card draw we'll look at later.
And then it has one spell that's not on any creature-based category, and arguably one enchantment too.
In order to make today's list, the following must be true: It must have a Green color identity it must be just Green, and finally, it cannot just be a cantrip that draws you one card like Wall of Blossoms or Dosan's Oldest Chant.
Ready for my list? Let's get started!
Honorable Mention #1. (#14. Overall) - Fecundity
The classic death trigger for dorks that draw you a card. This is an uncommon so it's legal for Peasant, and then this classic will draw for all things that die. There's no limit on this, and where this is a problem is that anyone draws the cards, not just you, so this is strongest in decks that have self-sacrifice engines like Vampiric Rites; ideally, you'll want ones that are mana free, like Viscera Seer, Ashnod's Altar or Goblin Bombardment. Love this loads!
Honorable Mention #2. (#13. Overall) - Last March of the Ents
This eight-cost sorcery is next on my list! First, it cannot be countered, so get away Swan Song or Negate. Then you draw equal to the toughness of your biggest dork, nasty since most Green dorks tend to have symmetry like Craterhoof Behemoth or Avenger of Zendikar or Indrik Stomphowler. Then you drop, for free, any number of creatures from your hand to the battlefield! Nasty!
On an uncounterable mass card draw effect like this? And Green is the color of ramp and can cast this mid-game if you want to and then you can win the game with this card draw machine! How many card draw effects win too? Nasty! I love it Type Four with infinite mana but just one spell per turn, barring a free spell with an alternate cost like Force of Will. Since only one spell per turn is castable, counters are nasty, and thus an uncounterable draw win con here is powerful there and your dorks tend to be nasty size so you can go really big, really quickly.
Honorable Mention #3. (#12. Overall) - The Enchantresses
Let's knock out a class of card draw stuff at once, the Enchantress category. Ever since Alpha, Green got heavily played card draw machine Verduran Enchantress that draws you a card when you cast an enchantment. It's so powerful and was the card draw engine with Aspect of Wolf on a Rabid Wombat for the win. It also was in the Lure + Thicket Basilisk + Regeneration combo that was beloved back then too. Today there are many other cast and ETB triggers in mono-Green like the constellation ETB Eidolon of Blossoms or the two-drop shroud Argothian Enchantress as well as things like Enchantress's Presence in enchantment form. This is iconic!
Honorable Mention #4. (#11. Overall) - Regal Force
This is here for that ETB trigger to draw equal to your Green creature count! That's nasty good in all of the places, like in tokens matter with Green dorks, aggro to refill your hand, or landfall making dorks like Insect tokens from Scute Swarm to draw a ton cards in decks with just Green or other colors like Simic Landfall or Selesnya Tokens. Love it loads!
#10. Collective Unconscious AND Shamanic Revelation
Next are all of the "Draw cards equal to your critter count" which are better than Regal Force since they count all dorks even colorless or other colors. This began with Collective Unconscious before Modern. A five-mana version was printed with Shamanic Revelation that also gains you four life for each dork of a power four or more you control as it resolves. Nice plus even in 40 life formats like Commander. I love this going wide pair of sorceries that reward your aggro or token or landfall decks but more applicable than the Regal Force. Nice group here!
#9. Power Based Card Draw
Next are the section of cards that will draw you cards for five or six mana equal to your biggest creature's power. If I recall correctly, this began in the core set with Garruk, Primal Hunter with a rough five-cost with triple Green, but then +1 to make a 3/3 Beast that's Green or -3 once to draw. Then we've had many others. Soul's Majesty targets the dork, so it can be countered normally with Counterspell or with taking out the target.
The instant speed Return will only work on non-Humans but it can pump them as a combat trick to save them or to kill out of nowhere. The Expertise is the only one that costs six, but you get a free five cost spell from your hand. Since we know how big our dorks are, you can imagine how key these four cards are in Type Four as well Last March of the Ents.
#8. Power Matters Triggers Over Time
This also debuted with Garruk's theme in a Core Set with Garruk's Packleader that costs five for a 4/4 uncommon and then as stuff with a 3 or better power arrives, you draw a card and Garruk usually makes 3/3 Beasts to trigger. Note this will work with tokens too.
Then we have a group of these like the recently printed enchantment that gives your stuff trample, draws when dorks of power four or more arrive instead of three, and you can draw when it ETBs. Both are uncommon for Peasant purposes. I like this suite better than one shots for a few reasons. First, they always doing thing and contribute to your board position. They are also better on a naked board or after a mass removal effect. I'd rather top deck Garruk's Packleader than Soul's Majesty after a Wrath of God cleared things out. Also, when you just have a small, powered dork out like three, you'll often hold onto the Soul's Majesty effect to get better or overpay a fat costly effect. That's why they are a spot better. Nice Garruk card flow out!
#7. Hunter's Prowess with a Shoutout to Hunter's Insight
The Prowess costs five at sorcery speed. Then it gives a dork a boost in size of +3/+3 and trample. Then when it deals combat damage to a foe, you draw that many cards!!! Not one, but all of the cards. Note that this will give evasive and +3 power boost to often draw more than its base power like Soul's Majesty, and this actually gets you to win the game, and then casting this on your Commander can get a Commander damage kill out of nowhere. Also, a shout out the Insight. This costs just three, is instant speed, and draws equal to damage deal as well. Since one helps the game move forward and the other is an instant for what didn't get blocked, this is two higher than the power-based card draw. If I had one spot open for card draw in a damage-based Green deck, I'd rather run Hunter's Prowess.
#6. Recursive Combat Damage Triggers
From one spell that draws you a ton of cards in one hit to a combat trigger that spreads out over time and can draw you many. Our final spot before the Top Five begins proper. These are all on creatures that will trigger themselves for combat damage. The best is Ohran Frostfang that gives your attackers deathtouch so folks won't want to block to trade down. Then when they connect, you'll draw that card! Toski is next best costing just four but for just a 1/1 body but with indestructible to stay alive, and then it cannot be countered either. It has to attack so no muddying up the ground with it as a blocker barring vigilance which you will want to give it. The worst is Keeper of Fables that only triggers when non-Humans deal combat damage and just once per damage barring someone with double strike.
#5. Cast Trigger for Dorks
Let's knock out another category in our initial Top Five thing. As you can see, this is drawing one card per creature spell cast, typically for free, although the Lifecrafter's Bestiary costs mana. Then you can draw for casts, like the Verduran Enchantress so you draw even if countered, save for Soul of the Harvest which is an ETB trigger for nontokens. This category began in spell form Glimpse of Nature so good it was banned in formats. Then Primordial Sage was the first dork printed! Also, since the six-drop beater 6/6 trample Soul of the Harvest is an ETB one, you can get it over and over again with blinks or recursion. Then you got the pushed in cost Beast Whisperer that is the best now.
#4. Harmonize
This is the spell card I mentioned that wasn't connected to creatures above or the classic Enchantress ones. This four-cost uncommon for Peasant uncommon slots, draws three like Concentrate in Blue or Ambition's Cost or Ancient Craving. It's one of the best card draw spells in this color since you will always draw three no matter what your battlefield looks like. This is the highest-charting spell, everything else is an enchantment from here on out! (Sorta...)
#3. Up the Beanstalk
This two-drop uncommon (Peasant) will draw you a card when it ETBs so if destroyed after arrival, you'll never be down a card by investing in it. Then as a cast trigger, stuff you cast with a cost of five or more draws you a card. Anything, sorceries, instants, dorks, artifacts, anything! This has already dominated Standard and then gets play in many older formats and was banned in one already. It's so strong! This is the maybe enchantment I mentioned above.
#2. Sylvan Library
This two-drop enchantment is the most played Green enchantment in Commander according to EDHREC. In Commander, swap this with #1. In your draw step you can draw, for free, two more cards and then place two cards you've drawn on your deck in any order, so it's like a free Sensei's Divining Top, and if you replace those draws with something like Abundance then you'll not have anything to put back so you get all three effects. Then you can swap four life for a card. That's why it's better in a 40-life format like Commander, rather than 20 life. It's great anywhere and broken in Life Gain brews.
#1. Greater Good with a Shout Out to Momentous Fall and Life's Legacy
Here's where the sacrifice theme hits hard in our final spot with the best mono-Green card draw machine ever printed, Greater Good. You can sacrifice, for free, any dork without spending any resources. Then you draw that many cards equal to its power. Then you discard three. For a three-powered dork that's good since Looting for three will draw and then discard what you don't need or cannot cast. Then once you start hitting bigger powers, you are grossing tons of cards and netting many too. And it's all at instant speed! This is amazing in any big power or going wide deck as well as sacrifice matters and with Fecundity from earlier. Nasty! Do this in response to chump bocking, mass or targeted removal or exiling effects to recur them later.
Shout out to the sacrifice spells that draw you power like Life's Legacy, a sorcery at two mana and then the instant Momentous Fall that also gains life. That' s strong spell shoutout as well as trigger death triggers.
And there we go! I hope that you enjoyed my look at the top Green card draw cards ever printed!