Pattern Recognition #156 - Green Filling

Features Opinion Pattern Recognition

berryjon

18 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.

Almost done, I promise! Then we'll be done with colours and all that jazz, to let's get down to it. But I hope you'll stick with me just long enough for me to finish covering how interacts with the other colours from their perspective.

When combined with , forms the Selesnya Enclave, to use the parlance of Ravnica. This combination is a curious one as how they interact is both obvious and at the same time,, not really obvious.

What is the obvious part is that both colours are colours that care about their creatures. Of the five, they and are the ones that get the most creatures in any given selection of cards. But even this love is expressed differently. While is the namer for the "White Weenie" deck, so called for the horde of cheap creatures that are boosted with global anthem effects, is embraces the notion of the "Giant Stompy" deck. No, not because there are Giants in that deck - those are in different colours, but rather because outside of outliers in the early days of magic, becomes more efficient in terms of what it gets out of a creature the more mana that gets put into it. And they get more creature for the same amount of mana that others put into it.

Yes, I am aware that the classic Grizzly Bears, a card that costs for a vanilla 2/2 is still a creature, but nowadays when I open a pack, I'm more likely to see Terrain Elemental or Greenwood Sentinel, cards that due to power creep on creatures, exceed the Bear Standard.

In Core 2021 we get Scavenging Ooze. Yes, it's a rare, but it still shows that even today, makes creatures better. And this plays into the other major difference between how the two colours share a bond but express it differently. I said that likes their Glorious Anthem effects, and this is true, but really doesn't buy into the whole "benefit everyone" schema of cards. Now, I admit that they do with cards like Craterhoof Behemoth or Avenger of Zendikar, but they are more likely to have cards that pick a single target and make it greater and better. From the classic Giant Growth to the new Invigorating Surge, take the great and makes them greater.

Of course, this isn't the end of their interactions. Convoke, the Selesnya Guild mechanic that reached Core Set status, is one that embraces the fact that and have no problems making token creatures, then making them work. Culminating in March of the Multitudes, this joint mechanic embraces everything that these two colours work towards.

Seriously, Convoke deserves its own article. In time.

Moving on though, I had trouble thinking about how to talk about how and work together. When I talked about how this colour pair interacts from the side, I talked mostly about how they both loved bug creatures and giving them abilities. With Ikoria opening up space for ability keywords being made into counters, I can see this colour pairing co-opting this sort of thing in the future. Or as one person described it: "The Simic must never learn of Ikoria" simply because of how they would embrace the Mutate and Ability Counter mechanics wholesale.

And my initial description of how and work together hasn't changed. They are the ones that will most manipulate their creatures, to change what they are and what they are capable of at the drop of a hat. Adding +1/+1 counters is only the beginning as they can embrace Biomass Mutation as an end-game, or exploit their mutual ability to fetch and copy creatures to win the game with Biovisionary.

This colour pair doesn't have an easy way to describe it, and that makes it actually pretty good. You see, when and get together, there isn't a solid format that it takes, which sows the seeds of doubt in the opponents mind. Is that Growth Spiral and Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy a harbinger of a massive mana base that allows them to cast all the cards they could ever want?

Or maybe it's a Merfolk deck. Who knows?

Third, we come to . The Ravnican Golgari are a powerful combination thanks to how they expand on the Graveyard as a resource. I mentioned last time that exploits the graveyard as a resource, while sees it as just a place to hold cards after they have been used until they can be used again. The infamous Dredge mechanic combined the two, allowing you to recover cards from the graveyard in the place of a card draw by self-milling, putting more cards in the graveyard in the process.

But when these two colours, who each see the graveyard in a different way, decide to cooperate? Well, if there was a most-powerful colour pair in the game, I would give serious consideration to it being this one simply for this synergy. There is no resource outside of their reach. likes to sacrifice creatures while makes them by accident it seems. I mean seriously, Fungal Rebirth not only lets you recover a creature sacrificed to Village Rites, but also makes creatures to do even more sacrificing!

This coming and going is a brilliant and effective use of resources, something that this game is built around. And walks hand in hand with one of their enemies, in this beautiful thing.

And when the graveyard is exhausted of resources, you can still use it with Deathrite Shaman. Nothing only gets used once.

Lastly, we come to .

I've mentioned several times that likes their creatures, and this is still true. No matter how often I may say it. No, what brings to this union is a measure of persistence and toughness. And no, I don't mean the mechanic, but I do mean the number after the power and the slash.

is a colour that rarely cares about keeping things around, seeing its creatures and spells as utterly expendable in the pursuit of victory, something it shares with . They just go about it in different ways. What adds to this mix is the realization that creatures that stick around can do more damage. That rather than heedlessly and recklessly attacking headstrong into an enemy, sometimes the best way to hunt is to pause, take a step back and prepare for the attack before going all-in.

But there is something else that these two colours do, something that is a weird intersection of one of 's core ability to generate mana, and how is experimenting with the same to the point of free spells like with Fire of Invention.

They get Wild Cantor and Burning-Tree Emissary. Domri, Anarch of Bolas and Domri, Chaos Bringer. Escape to the Wilds, Gran Warlord Rhada, Klothys, God of Destiny and Manamorphose.

and make mana. They accelerate with 's aggressiveness, pushing into more and more mana, burning other resources in the process, like having an Overabundance of mana can lead to damage. The Gruul of Ravnica are the best mana makers in the game as long as you are willing to pay the cost.

brings many things to the table when it combines with other colours. But in the end, I think the most important aspect it offers is power. And not just on creatures when they turn sideways. acts to bulk up not on ly itself, but other aspects of various colours, filling in a common weakness in its enemies while reinforce a strength in its allies.

Though that should be true for all colour combinations, I think it's easy to find in because it is a colour that doesn't hide what it does. It's big, it's proud and it treats its friends well and its enemies harshly.

But do not mistake ease of understanding for simplicity. brings some very complex interactions to the game when paired up with other colours, especially . I maintain that I would certainly use this colour for teaching, but this has to be tempered with the knowledge that if I go too far, I can confuse people with the same things that make good.

lacks the ability to really obfuscate what it is doing, but on the other hand, it doesn't need to.

Sometimes the best win is the one everyone sees coming and can't stop, no matter how much they try. And delivers.

Join me next week when I talk about a subject. Not sure what it is yet, but I'm sure it'll be fun!

Until then, please consider donating to my Pattern Recognition Patreon. Yeah, I have a job, but more income is always better. I still have plans to do a audio Pattern Recognition at some point, or perhaps a Twitch stream. And you can bribe your way to the front of the line to have your questions, comments and observations answered!