De-Volving Mono-Green Superfriends

Here's what I played on Friday:

Mono-Green Superfriends | War Standard | Michael Flores

• Creatures (16)
• 4 Arboreal Grazer
• 4 Incubation Druid
• 4 Jadelight Ranger
• 4 Llanowar Elves

• Planeswalkers (13)
• 1 Vivien Reid
• 4 Karn, the Great Creator
• 4 Nissa, Who Shakes the World
• 4 Ugin, the Ineffable

• Sorceries (8)
• 4 Bond of Flourishing
• 4 Nissa's Triumph

• Lands (23)
• 18 Forest
• 1 Field of Ruin
• 2 Blast Zone
• 2 Karn's Bastion

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Sentinel Totem
• 1 Thaumatic Compass
• 1 Amulet of Safekeeping
• 2 Diamond Mare
• 2 Sorcerous Spyglass
• 1 Crucible of Worlds
• 2 Chaos Wand
• 1 The Immortal Sun
• 2 Meteor Golem
• 2 Vivien Reid

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Okay, that's a filthy lie; but it's what I think you should play. I couldn't find my Crucible of Worlds - I swear I own a Crucible of Worlds - in time; so it didn't make it into my sideboard.

I played three Vivian Reid in the sideboard and still ran one Planewide Celebration. When asked what I ever sided out with this amazing deck, Planewide Celebration shot to the top of the list, regardless of the matchup; like... Planewide Celebration is slow against Mono-Red and other aggro, despite being powerful. And against Control? I'd just always want the grinding excellence of the archer, Reid.

She's been a gem every time I've seen her, anyway. Shot down a Feather, the Redeemed on MTGO in practice. Got a Crackling Drake last Friday night; arrow tore up its wing before it could get even one swing in... Should have been called Crashing Drake. Somehow she dodged the Sorcerous Spyglass in favor of a Nissa, Who Shakes the World I hadn't even drawn yet (obviously drew her the next turn). 5-drop female woods-witches locked arms and put it all together, together (obviously). Viv is just great.

Also, what's up with this?

Did you buy a lot of M19 packs? (Neither did anyone else.)

— Evan Erwin (@misterorange) June 14, 2019

Thanks, boss.

To some degree, this is a de-volution of Mono-Green Superfriends. In a bunch of ways I just got closer to Matt Koerbel's original build. Maybe that's less of moving forward in some way and more of me just finding out he was right to begin with. Back in the 1990s when we were roommates, Adrian Sullivan and I had this adage that if you were to pick up a new rogue deck design you were supposed to try it before making a lot of changes yourself. I broke that initially, and it turns out that Koerbel had put way more thought into some of these implementations than I'd realized.

For example...

What's great about Crucible of Worlds?

Look at some of the top decks in the format:

• Jeskai Superfriends might have one Island.
• Five-color Dreadhorde might have three basic lands... But they'll all be Forests. Might have as few as one Forest.
• Both of the Esper decks top up at one Plains and one Swamp; either might have half that many basics; and no Plains.

It's better, obviously if they've already got their basic at the point that you start breaking the Crucible, but even if they don't, they're potentially in trouble.

Many of these decks are on-par with Mono-Green Superfriends on maximum power level, and Five-Color Dreadhorde is potentially stronger due to Command the Dreadhorde - the over-the-top battlecruiser in a matchup of all battlecruisers - is arguably stronger. But if you work their mana bases; especially if you can yank all their Black mana... That's something.

It helps that Karn can help you get your one Crucible of Worlds on demand, and that you don't actually have to ever have it in your sixty in case you're up against the Red Deck.

You can rip the one Field of Ruin, I guess; and Bond of Flourishing quadruples your ability to find that singleton naturally. But of course Nissa's Triumph with Nissa, Who Shakes the World on the battlefield becomes a cross between Demonic Tutor and Ancestral Recall. Which is bananas.

I cut Wayward Swordtooth; rather, it stayed cut for this iteration, but if you had Swordtooth AND Crucible AND Field of Ruin you could rip apart the opponent's mana base and double-Ramp every turn but good. I found that just single-Ramping (you keep pulling basic Forests out of your library and onto the battlefield) WHILE Stone Raining the opponent to a single basic to be plenty effective. Especially in generally beatdown-poor shells. You're really not likely to lose to, say, a Narset or a three-mana Teferi before you've gotten a huge advantage, and then you can go all cleanup with The Immortal Sun or Ugin, the Ineffable.

Definitely, definitely, reintroduce Crucible of Worlds if you foolishly cut it like I did. Definitely.

What's great about Meteor Golem?

Meteor Golem is just fast.

I know that's a weird thing to say about a 7-drop, but it's fast in the sense that you can grab-and-Vindicate in a big spell matchup essentially on demand. I'm not far enough along that I think Helm of the Host is where you want to be (among other things I'm not confident that even if you pull it off, it's good enough to get you out of the real troublesome endgame), but double Golem seems like a good investment. Especially as we freed up all that 6-drop space.

Serious Talk: Is it worth playing (or even sideboarding) Carnage Tyrant in Standard any more?

— Michael Flores (@fivewithflores) June 14, 2019

So what happened to Carnage Tyrant?

I really only wanted Carnage Tyrant as a gear-shift to beat Control, and it didn't seem good enough in isolation. Liliana, Dreadhorde General and even Massacre Girl make this card not-inevitable. Heck, Kaya's Wrath makes it not-inevitable.

I leaned more and more on Vivien Reid in testing, and found that I just liked the dimension that that additional planeswalker gave me, more. If you start on Vivien on turn three (I mean super ideally, but you get the picture) you can absolutely go to town with her [+1]. The thing is, this deck is full of utter asteroid strike-level bombs. I guess even the old Golgari and Sultai decks were always capable of nice follow ups like the aforementioned Carnage Tyrant or Hydroid Krassis... But Nissa and Ugin give you a truly compelling next chapter given the wealth of this deck's mid-game resources.

Given that Carnage Tyrant is no longer a straight "I win" card, the ability to build more and more resources (some of which are potential game-winners themselves) gives the nod to Vivien Reid against Control, and just more room for cards like Crucible of Worlds and Meteor Golem even for controlling or Big Spell opponents.

Second Chaos Wand, huh?

More on that, later. It's all part of our Master Plan!

What's Great About Mono-Green Superfriends?

There are a lot of powerful decks you can choose from in Standard. Some of the competition even seeks to break Nissa, Who Shakes the World also!

Both Command the Dreadhorde and the Mass Manipulation decks have stronger endgames than Mono-Green. So why play it?

One reason is Mono-Green's wide span of play. The Karn customization is largely a "get out of jail free" feature and you can really go to town with some of the interactions. Karn's Bastion + all the different permanents with counters in this deck is just something different than any other deck is offering. For example at FNM last week I played my second Nissa, Who Shakes the World against a Phoenix deck with two hasty 3/2s and a Goblin Electromancer in play.

I ticked up to 6 loyalty and let fly with my newly animated Forest for 3. This is hitting pretty hard already, right? A couple of previous Forests had met Lava Coils, but another way of looking at it is that my basics were drawing off business spells.

He went to his turn and swung both his Phoenixes into the Nissa; who, being freshly [+1], was, again, at 6 loyalty.

That animated Forest? It had an untapped friend. On top of keeping Goblin Electromancer scared at home, each tapped for (so four total)... Or, just enough to set off Karn's Bastion. It was a bloodbath of counters! Or rather, a bloodbath was averted, and my Planeswalker remained intact for another fecund turn.

While not the most powerful deck in the format, Mono-Green is more powerful than n-2 at the most, and has the ability to shut off entire strategies with one tick-down of Karn. Jeskai Superfriends? Meet The Immortal Sun. A lot of your good stuff, like double mana from Forests, the extra clause on Nissa's Triumph, and so on will continue to function under The Immortal Sun; and you can go crazy with other card advantage engines while laughing off the opponent's reliance on his usually-so-good Planeswalkers.

Another plus is the sheer synergy of the deck. Karn's Bastion is the big headliner but there are subtler ones. For instance, I added Arch of Orazca this week, at the cost of the eighteenth basic Forest. Ugin, the Ineffable is a nice (if not obvious) combo with this card. You essentially can play multiple permanents immediately with Ugin + the top card of your library. This can get you to The City's Blessing even faster. Like I said: Not obvious, but plenty welcome.

None of that is the real reason you would want Mono-Green.

Mono-Green Superfriends is blazing fast.

It's not fast in the same way as, say, White Weenie, but it's attractively fast in a way no other decks have been in recent Standard formats.

Back around the time of Guilds of Ravnica, there was a concept for Green decks (usually Golgari) where they would draw two copies of Llanowar Elves and de facto win the game on turn three. They'd hit a third turn Vivien Reid or Doom Whisperer and get so far ahead that it would be extremely difficult for another such deck to catch up.

When I won a Grand Prix New Jersey Standard Trial I beat an opposing Golgari deck with such a draw. In my case it was Llanowar Elves into turn two Wayward Swordtooth (perhaps ironically) + a second Llanowar Elves into turn three Carnage Tyrant... But you probably get the gist. Even if the opponent has a big response card it's usually not going to be enough. Kaya's Wrath isn't going to save him from Vivien Reid or Nissa, for instance.

Mono-Green Superfriends has three times that many super fast starts!

Arboreal Grazer gives you redundancy on Llanowar Elves on turn one. Even better, where Llanowar Elves is terrible against Goblin Chainwhirler, Arboreal Grazer badly taxes Viashino Pyromancer and Ghitu Firewalker. While accelerating your mana! You can of course follow up with Incubation Druid to help hit fives faster.

Just a note, I changed Matt Koerber's two Paradise Druids into four Incubation Druids primarily because of Mono-Red. Paradise Druid is just too weak to Goblin Chainwhirler; alongside Karn's Bastion, Incubation Druid, on the other hand, can be a substantial endgame threat.

So anyway, this deck establishes its battlefield presence like lightning. Then, presuming you have sufficient resources, it never takes its foot off the gas pedal.

For instance at FNM last week I lost a Vivien Reid, Karn, and Nissa all to Phoenix - who was on a decent draw and had two birds going - and I just kept playing big threats. All of them did something before demanding a significant resource to go away; the advantage just snowballed despite Shocks, Shivan Fires, Lava Coils, and a Finale of Promise.

The Pros and Cons of our Master Plan

Okay!

So everyone should go out and buy all the Mono-Green Superfriends cards and play nothing else now, right? I mean it's the b-

Hold up a second...

Works? Meet spanner.

Mass Manipulation is the boogeyman for this archetype; and sadly, it's the top end card of arguably the best strategy in the format.

Yikes!

Um... Auto-lose?

It's not good.

But!

It's also not hopeless.

Remember Crucible of Worlds? It's not inconceivable - at least against the Bant Ramp version - that you can lock them out of because they only have two Islands. No, this is not a good or reliable way to go about doing things, but it's a way. That said, it's not useful whatsoever against straight Simic.

But again, it's not hopeless!

Karn up your Chaos Wand. Wand their Mass Manipulation and burn it for 0 to get it out of their deck.

— Michael Flores (@fivewithflores) June 14, 2019

This is the best I could come up with.

If you spin four times, theoretically you can clear all their Mass Manipulations and the endgame is yours. Then again, they can be building toward something else during that time period so you might lose some other way... But at least you're not completely kold.

Comically, you can actually get Entrancing Melody for 0 on an opposing Nissa animation! That's pretty cool, right? Probably not going to win on its own, but good to know.

Anyway, even this "master plan" has some potential holes.

1. Time is an issue. Like I said, they might just kill you with something else while you're wasting four turns. All versions of Mass Manipulation have good creatures, and some have great creatures, to attack you with.
2. They might have already drawn a Mass Manipulation. Even if you get them, say, three times; you could very plausibly lose to the one already in hand. Like, say...
3. They just take your Karn. Now you can't even tap your Chaos Wand! Stupid Karn :(

Yes, this is all straight-up miserable. I just wanted you to know that it's not hopeless, though! But you should know this endgame risk if you're going to entertain Mono-Green. Elsewise? It's been a hoot to play, and super reliable. Much recommend.

LOVE

MIKE