Pattern Recognition #155 - Green Crust

Opinion Pattern Recognition

berryjon

11 June 2020

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Hello everyone! Welcome back to Pattern Recognition! This is TappedOut.net's longest running article series. In it, I aim to bring to you each week a new article about some piece of Magic, be it a card, a mechanic, a deck, or something more fundamental or abstract. I am something of an Old Fogey and part-time Smart Ass, so I sometimes talk out my ass. Feel free to dissent or just plain old correct me! I also have a Patreon if you feel like helping out.

And welcome to today's issue! It was supposed to be last week, but I got caught up n another project, and thus had to shelve this one for a bit. Sorry about that!

But regardless, it's now time to start looking at 's piece of the colour pie. And though it is the last colour (before I address colourlessness), I will try to not simply recite everything that came before with the other colours and how they interact with .

Back in Alpha, Green had really two major things going for it, as well as a couple of smaller things. First was that it was the colour of mana acceleration. With cards like Llanowar Elves, Birds of Paradise and Wild Growth, claimed the notion that the forest grows. That by playing , and with the understanding that your mana pool was your connection to nature, that said connection would grow faster and better than everyone else. Even those who tried artificial acceleration like with the Moxen or Sol Ring would still find themselves outpaced in the end by a deck.

And this didn't just apply to permanents on the board. Channel, famously paired with quick mana and Fireball would simply end a game. Or the hella-banned Fastbond, only legal in Vintage and Casual.

Look, what's I'm saying is that stake its claim on mana acceleration from the very first pack opened and has never let go.

Adding to this, is also the best when it comes to Fetching Lands.

Now, every colour dips into this, from the generic Fabled Passage and the whole cycle of infamous Fetch Lands like Arid Mesa. But what binds all of these together is that they are Lands going for other lands.

What embraces is the idea that they can cast spells to get these same effects. They get, on a regular basis, cards from Kodama's Reach to Adventurous Impulse to Boundless Realms to Nissa's Expedition and I would like to think I've made my point clear by now. doesn't need to depend on permanents for more mana. They can pull more lands out of nowhere at the drop of a hat - or a spell.

The other big thing that is known for is quite literally big.

Do any of you remember Craw Wurm? Yes? No? It's flavour text has been that way since the beginning, but when you look at it, many of you are wondering what's so special about a 6/4 for with no abilities like Trample. I mean, Colossal Dreadmaw costs teh exact same, has 2 more toughness and has ... oh wait ... TRAMPLE on it as well.

Sure, it's not all that impressive nowadays, but you have to understand that in the beginning of the game, when creatures weren't as powerful as they were now, being a 6/4 was a huge deal. The only creatures that could really compare were Serra Angel, a card that would trade with it, but was often seen as a losing proposition for the player, the four Elementals of Earth, Air, Water and Fire and rare creatures.

What I mean to say is that Craw Wurm established the notion that would like to get a common, vanilla creature that is HUGE in comparison to all other common creatures, and assuming isn't dipping into their pool of Leviathans or Polar Krakens, will have the biggest creatures on the board.

You see, at the core of is one simple fact, one simple truth that drives them forward into the future, something that has carried them from the first steps to today.

is bigger than everyone else.

But that's not the be-all and end-all of . It can't be, as no colour is that simple. There is depth to and it just requires a little bit of digging. And in this case, literally!

is the second most reliable source of Graveyard Recursion in the game, only behind in terms of the sheer breadth and reach of cards that can look into the graveyard and go "Yep, that's back in my hand or onto the battlefield now". Of course, not everyone understands this, and I recently saw yet another post on the Blogatog where Mark Rosewater had to remind people that as far as is concerned, death and life are part of the same cycle and with one goes the other.

Thus, the Graveyard is a viable resource for . But whereas focuses on the Resurrection of cards, and sees it as more fuel for the eternal engines. Not just pulling them back, but turning them into 2/2 Zombies.

I want to say that while uses the Graveyard more, it is that gets more out of it. It's not an easy distinction to make, but if you think of the Graveyard as part of the circle of life (no, I'm not going to link that song. I have standards), then you can see how works. It's not a Foul Renewal, it's the Seeds of Renewal.

has also slowly taken over from as the lead anti-Artifact and Enchantment colour. Now, this has nothing to do with falling behind, but their focus has differed. Green has focused more upon taking out what is sees as 'unnatural', through Naturalize and its strictly better version, Return to Nature. Green sees things that make other things better as unnatural, and thus, needs to be removed.

Well, except when is doing it, then it's all fine and dandy. Nothing wrong to see here. Just some Blanchwood Armor or a Hydra's Growth. Nothing wrong here at all!

likes their Auras, as long as they're theirs.

But on the flip side, I mentioned a few weeks ago when I talked about the Fight mechanic, that doesn't get boardwipes. Well, that's not quite true. They do get Tranquility. And that's pretty much it. And they traded it to , as they got Tempest of Light while Disenchant and Naturalize made the opposite direction of colour switch.

So yeah, really lost their only board wipe to , as narrow as it was.

Aaand... my editor just told me I'm wrong. does have something that they will still boardwipe without compare, as narrow as it may be. Hurricane, Silklash Spider and every thing they ever have that can target all creatures with flying.

hates flying with a passion, and will cheerfully clear the skies of anything with wings. So I was wrong. And back to my pre-editor's writing.

But as part and parcel of this, I see it as gaining more focus. If decides they want something gone, it is gone one way or the other, but they also don't believe in Collateral Damage.

I'm legit surprised it took until Fate Reforged to get a card with that name printed. But I digress.

Now I know that some of you are about to object, that does to heavy handed damage. And I agree. But the notion that you're not seeing here is that does embrace the notion of overkill. It shares this embrace with . But for , this is in the direct pursuit of a goal, not as an aside to it.

And perhaps the best way to explain this is in 's pinnacle ability. Something that they have taken and defined as something that is theirs and only rarely shared with their friends and if they can help it, never with their foes.

has Trample.

And this ties into one of 's other strengths. That they embrace combat. They turn their creatures sideways and aim at someone's face. That collateral that I was talking about earlier, and how Trample plays into that? Well, with anyone else, you can block and trade creatures when the opponent swings. But with ? Not only are they bigger than you, you can't just throw the occasional 1/1 in the way. That 1/1 is going to be Overrun and it will barely slow down.

You see, when you're in the way of destroying something, you get destroyed too. That's just part and parcel of the nature of .

Now, is evolving. It's picking up more protective tricks, more cards like Fog. It's leaning into to gain Hexproof from cards like Heroic Intervention or Carnage Tyrant. It's leaning more into being more of a scalpel than a broadsword. Not to say that it's losing out on the latter, but has been keeping to its core even as it slowly expands.

I'm not going to talk about some of the issues people have had with over the past couple of years. That's for next week. Rather, I do have a point that I thought of as I was pre-writing this, and something that got reinforced when I made some polite inquiries with other players.

It is my opinion that is the most New Player Friendly Colour in the game. That when and if I would teach a new player how to play the game, I would use as the deck I would hand them as a teaching tool. Why?

teaches players how to search their libraries. All that land fetching I mentioned earlier? That's a tool that is common in this colour's playbook. It teaches a player reliably about casting a spell that has an effect, goes to the graveyard, and has a manifest benefit, more so than a casting of Grim Tutor. More lands means more things they can do, and when I'm teaching a new player, letting them fetch lands and play mana dorks like Llanowar Elves makes sense in a resource building way.

And that's something else that's new player friendly. Not only is bigger than you, it looks bigger. More lands. More creatures, bigger numbers on the creatures. Teach them how combat works by giving them the advantage and rewarding them with victory that they have earned. Use 's self-benefiting cards to give new players a solid and easy to understand win, and leave them wanting more. More of other colours, or more .

But don't mistake this for me saying is easy or dumb. It's not. is not a colour that rewards recklessness. It punishes a heedlessness that comes from thinking that you are invulnerable - on both sides of the table. hides its cunning behind the obvious advantages, something that many people seem to forget.

That's all for this week. See you next week when I cover how interacts with the other colours, and by then, I hope I'll have some other subject to work with.

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