This is a Mono-Green Ramp deck currently tooled for Dominaria Standard. While still in need of proper testing, the deck performs exceedingly well in a fishbowl environment. This is the first deck I'm really happy with theorying out after a long time, and any thoughts or help is appreciated.
CREATURES
1-Mana: Llanowar Elves - Your standard ramp package, these guys enable our turn 2 fatties.
2-Mana: Druid of the Cowl - More ramp with a fatter butt to block early game threats, though more often than not we'll be tapping them for mana anyways.
2-Mana: Elfhame Druid - Moar Druids! She comes with a smaller behind than her Cowl friends, but makes up for it by helping out for faster Kickers (we have two below)
3-Mana: Jadelight Ranger - These ladies can do some work, either pulling in a couple of lands or beefing up to 4/3's and activating some of our Power-required abilities. Don't be afraid to keep the first explore on top to farm up both +1/+1 tokens.
3-Mana: Mouth - The first half of Mouth//Feed, dropping a 3/3 hippo for 3 mana isn't what we're concerned about here, but an extra body is always useful. Also helps activate the Feed portion
3-Mana: Rhonas the Indomitable - Even as a one-of, this guy is a pretty as a draw or in opening hand because of how easy we activate him with the next two fellows below, let alone our other win cons.
3-Mana: Steel Leaf Champion - 3 mana 5/4 who avoids blocks from power 2 and lower. Yass elf, yaaasss! This guy forms part of our non-godlike strongest opening turns when combo'd with a T1 Llanowar for a T2 drop.
3-Mana: Wayward Swordtooth - There's a lot going on here. His beefy body at 5/5 is countered by the need for an Ascend trigger to be able to attack and block (though it isn't too hard for us to get there), but he's got additional features! With ramp being able to play a second land every turn is more than helpful, but we aren't relying on it. The key is that even if he's sitting as an unusable body on the field, he's still going to activate Rhonas, count as a body for Feed, and best of all takes a huge chunk out of the cost for Ghalta at a low cost. Check out the God Hand below to see Ghalta get dropped turn 3 because of this guy.
5-Mana: Verdurous Gearhulk - This behemoth hasn't seen much play really, but in this deck he's a beast. 5-mana 4/4 Trample isn't really that great compared to the value, but we have options with his 4 +1/+1 counters. We can drop them all on him to make him a 5-mana 8/8 Trample, or we can send those counters off to one of our early beefy drops to provide some extra oomf on attacks the turn he comes in. He's also another activator for Feed and Ghalta.
6-Mana: Grunn, the Lonely King - I really wanted Grunn to be a 2-of, but I guess it fits that he's a singleton. We're never going to cast Grunn for his base cost - we ramp too hard not to wait for the 9 mana to kick him and produce a 10/10 whose power and toughness doubles on attack. Pump him with Rhonas the next turn to make him 24/24 Trample just for fun.
7-Mana: Verdant Sun's Avater - Another singleton, his 5/5 body doesn't really do justice to the mana cost but if we can combo him same-turn or turn-after with just about any of our other creatures 3-mana or greater the health gain can get crazy.
12-Mana: Ghalta, Primal Hunger - This is the kind of card that a deck needs to build around, and boy is he worth it. 12-mana is obviously a huge sink for any Standard game, but with the power of our ramp and the big, beefy bodies we're putting on the field to activate his 'Reduce cost by X, where X is the power of creatures you have on the field' we are often going to be casting him for only 2-4 mana. That's a 12/12 Trample swinging in HARD. While goldfish testing I can often see him on the field by T4 and 5, but check out the god-hand below for a T3 drop.
NON-CREATURES
1-Mana: Adventurous Impulse - Just a great dig card overall. Early game we are likely using it to dig up another land or a T2/3 play to bridge a gap in our opening hand. Mid-Late game we can be searching for fatty wincons, and at the measely cost we can often play what we find the same turn.
3-Mana: Grow from the Ashes - Pretty simple ramp, it will usually be worth waiting until we can cast it with the kicker for 5-mana and dig for 2 lands. An important note is that the lands come in untapped, which means if we're casting kicked we get 2 mana back. We need to be careful about White decks though, what with their Search denial sideboard cards.
3-Mana: Harvest Season - While it doesn't provide Untapped lands like Ashes above, Harvest is going to be useful when we find ourselves inexplicably manalocked at 3 or 4, but with a few creatures on the field. Picking up 3 tapped lands for next turn can change the game pretty quickly.
4-Mana: Feed - The second half of Mouth//Feed, this guy can only be cast from the graveyard but is SUPER worth it with the fat bodies we're putting on the field. Whether we are casting it solo or comboing with a 7-mana Mouth into Feed, we easily are drawing 3-4 cards in the mid game.
6-Mana: The Immortal Sun - Too good not to at least have a one-of. Since we aren't running any Planeswalker's we're free from side effects of it's shutdown, an extra card any turn puts the engine in overdrive and the mana cost reduction to all spells is just icing on the cake. It's not necessary for a win, and we would never want a second one in hand, so it seems perfect as a singleton.
MANA BASE
24x Forests: As a mono-green deck we don't NEED anything else to manafix, and with all the Basic digging we do between Ashes and Harvest we don't want to run short. I'm open to other thoughts if people feel strongly about something though.
SIDEBOARD
- The Sideboard is currently completely theoretical and untested. I've put some thoughts in here but I'm sure it could use some work.2x Broken Bond - For fighting Artifact and Enchantment tricks, the added ramp is a bonus at 2-mana.
2x Carnage Tyrant - The last thing we need is running up against a blue deck and losing our wincons to cheap Counterspells. We aren't necessarily replacing our other wincons always, as the slower gameplay in a control matchup means we can burn off a bit of our ramp in favour of more creature spells.
2x Plummet - Just in case we find ourselves facing something in the air, since none of our creatures have flying or reach.
3x Prowling Serpopard - Another creature for the Control match up, we can also bring him in if we run into a heavy aggro deck that we need to put bodies in front of early.
3x Rhonas's Last Stand - Mainly an Aggro counter, I'm not a super fan of the delay on our lands but sometimes you just need a big body to stabilise for a couple of turns.
1x Sandwurm Convergence - In case of mass flying across the board. This is the card that is most likely to be removed first for something else.
2x Shapers' Sanctuary - Versus removal decks to replace bodies.
The God Hand
T1 - Forest -> Llanowar Elves
T2 - Forest -> Wayward Swordtooth -> Forest
T3 - Forest Forest -> Ghalta, Primal Hunger
Preferred Opening Hands
There are a lot of strong opening sequences in this deck because of our heavy 3-mana curve, since each of our creatures at that cost are strong in body or in utility. Even so, there is on hand that happens fairly frequently that I feel stands above the others as just plain frustrating for opponents.
T1 - Forest -> Llanowar Elves : This is our best turn 1 possible, second only to casting Impulse
T2 - Forest -> Steel Leaf Champion : This 5/4 body, dodging power 2 or less, is going to start swinging on T3 which is a massive threat the enemy is going to need to deal with while we start building our board state. Unless they have a removal spell ready, most T2 and T3 plays from other decks are simply going to be a body block and get eaten up. And if they do have a removal, then it clears it out for the real dangers coming down the pipe.
I'm very much open to comments and suggestions as I test this deck further. Once I'm happy with it, I am fairly certain it's the deck I'll be picking up to play locally and will continue to report when I end up having the time to play.
