Hopefully as you read this you remember that Earth Day is tomorrow. While there are many ways that you can help extend the life of our wonderful planet I would like to mention a few to you with the regards to our favorite game. And in celebration I'm going to go Green at the end of this article with some ideas for a Mono-Green Deck that every Timmy should love.

By now we have all heard the Earth Warrior mantra, "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle." But how many of us have really thought of these things involving Magic the Gathering? Now don't go clicking away just yet. I'm not suggesting that you take your cards to the Recycling Bin. I'm just going to give you some ideas that may decrease our Carbon Footprint and maybe even reduce the stress to our wallets at the same time.

I would like to point out that Magic's Footprint is much closer to the Fairie size than the Giant side of the scale. Probably about Goblinish if I were to venture a guess.

Reduce

The idea behind Reducing is to consume less or use less of an item. Say you often have a quart of so of milk left in a gallon jug when its date expires. Instead of just dumping the excess and throwing it away it would be more eco-friendly to buy half-gallons more frequently. For the Magic Player to consume less would mean to buy less cards. I can't support this option very strongly since I am paid by Coolstuffinc.com to write for you.

However I would strongly suggest cracking less packs. I know that feeling of anticipation and surprise you feel when opening a pack. It's almost as good as getting a Christmas present that you actually don't know what's inside. But really all that packs should be used for is limited. An Earth conscious player would just buy the cards they need singly. Then build decks without the surplus commons and uncommons. I know the Kelly Reids out there figure that average value index and will argue that for some expansions you'll get more value from buying tons of packs rather that paying street value for singles. I concede that is true but it isn't a kind to our Mother Earth.

Another way we can reduce is to skip the paper game altogether. Magic Online continues to grow faster that the real life game. Playing the digitally significantly decreases Magic's footprint. I myself am a Online Virgin. With the recent addition of Online PTQ's and the fact that I can barely schedule a chance to attend a PTQ in the real world I'm planning on becoming an Online gamer. I figure that six months ago I didn't even know what Twitter was and now I'm checking in daily. (@Mtgxman on Twitter by the way.)

Reuse

Any way that you can think to Reuse something decreases the amount of impact on the environment. If you go out to my yard shed you'll find multiple peanut butter containers hold various types of nuts, bolts, screws etc. Instead of just throwing them away and filling my local land fill I Reused the containers with a different idea. Dale Lovelace gave us a great way to Reuse cards in his recent piece, showing how to use our cards like Legos to build some cool designs. Notice that you don't have to involve the actual game to find other uses for our older cards. Even something as simple as using an old Spellbook as a bookmark is Reusing it.

I can think of a couple of examples for way we can Reuse cards that still let us enjoy the game as well.

The first way that I ever Reused cards was with a Shoebox Draft. It isn't much of a stretch to say that all players have a substantial number of extra commons and uncommons that they have no plans for using. Many of us just throw these is a storage box of some kind and never think about them again. What we started doing at my school is taking these excess cards and running a draft. Here is how it works. Each player grabs a stack of at least 50 cards from the "Shoebox". Then we sit around a table like you would for a draft. Shuffle you stack until you feel it is randomized. Pass half of you stack to the left (or right). Take the cards you kept and the cards that were handed to you and shuffle again. Repeat this process about once for each player at the table. Now take your cards and bundle them into 3 "packs" of 15 cards. The extra's are just thrown back in the "shoebox". Now draft and have fun. It takes a few minutes to do the shuffling but it saves money and is very Green minded.

"But what about the rares?" you ask. We ran into a similar dilemma. Without the rares the game loses a lot of bombs in the format. Without those bombs the game gets a little staler. Don't get me wrong Shoebox drafting is fun. It just has a different feel to it. For those player missing the bombs and as better practice for limited we started another plan called the "Eternal Box". When the PTQ format was Zendikar sealed we bought a couple of boxes. But instead of just cracking and playing we inventoried what was in each pack. After running a sealed tournament we then resorted the cards back to their original packs. Wrapped each pack with it's contents list and slapped a rubber band around them. Put all the packs back in a box in random order and you're ready to go again. Admittedly, you never get to transfer these cards into the constructed world but being able to run a sealed environment over and over with any additional costs is pretty fun. The benefit to the globe is just bonus.

Another way that a student of mine Reused Magic stuff should be mentioned here. Very few of you will do this but I hear it looks pretty cool. He took wrappers and opened each carefully by the seams. He has then laid out all of these wrappers and formed a type of wallpaper. He currently has one wall of his room totally covered and plans to do the whole thing. I know my parents would have hit the roof if I would have done something like that.

Recycle

Sometimes there are items that we have to buy and have no alternate uses for. Some of these items are Recyclable. The idea being that each item can be broken down and reformed. This remade raw material can then be used to make other stuff. That way our boxes and plastic containers can be made from recycled material instead of using Natures Products.

I would never consider or suggest to any player to Recycle his cards in this fashion. Even the lowly Squire doesn't deserve to be pulped and reformed in this fashion. It is better than just throwing a card in the trash but I would never consider doing that either.

So it may appear that Recyling isn't a viable option for anyone who loves their cards. But at its essence we can. The core idea of Recyling is to give your stuff away so that someone else can make a use of it. This is what I do with my extras. The "shoebox" that I mentioned earlier is basically a collection of cards that I have amassed over time. I allow any student at my school to come in a comb through the cards. I let them take as they please. I figure that them getting use of the cards is better than me hoarding them for no reason. As an additional benefit of running an open shoebox students who may not be able to financially afford the game normally can learn and play with basically no money commitment. I do ask my players that if they ever get out of the game or find themselves with a surplus of cards they should donate back to the box. Thanks to donations from Trick, my local game store, and a couple of readers the shoebox has grown significantly. In October our Standard cards will be greatly depleted so if you care to donate you can reach me at daneckstein@hotmail.com.

Going Green

It never fails! Whenever a new expansion comes out I just gravitate toward Green. I wouldn't consider myself a Green Mage but for some reason I always like the Green cards first. Rise of the Eldrazi is no exception. So in spirit of Earth Day I decided to post a list that satisfies my inner Timmy. Feel free to poke at it in the comments. It isn't really a list I would recommend for anything more than casual.

Earth Day Green

[cardlist]4 Birds of Paradise

4 Noble Hierarch

3 Joraga Treespeaker

4 Omnath, Locus of Mana

4 Mul Daya Channelers

4 Vengevine

4 Aura Gnarlid

3 Spider Umbra

4 Boar Umbra

4 Bear Umbra

4 Momentous Fall

4 Oran-Rief, the Vastwood

4 Verdant Catacombs

4 Misty Rainforest

8 Forest[/cardlist]

While this deck doesn't really interact with your opponent anywhere other than the combat zone it can have some tremendous pressure plays. With 8 accelerants that launch us from turn 1 to turn 3 and 7 more than can jump us up to turn 5 we get some significant early plays. The Vengevine and Momentous Fall help us to reestablish after removal rears it's ugly head. In fact you can often play a Momentous Fall sacrificing a Vengevine and fetching it back with the one drops you draw. The Umbras do some significant duty in the Green world. With the right hand we can often commit with no fear of cards like Day of Judgment. Path can still be a problem but our threat density is high enough that we can play around targeted removal.

The fetchlands are there strictly for Mul Daya tricks. For a more budget friendly build you can substitute Terramorphic Expanse and Evolving Wilds. Be careful of the Enter the Battlefield taps though. Having to wait a turn to start business could be detrimental.

There are my thoughts on this day before Earth Day. Your homework is simple. Find one way that you can help the world and make it a habit. If everyone does just one thing the world will quickly become a better place.