Intro:
Hello There! This is my attempt at making Saprolings a viable deck in Modern! Although it strays away from the budget feel it once had, I feel it's more fun to actually try playability than price seeing as I have that little bit extra money. In my opinion, Saprolings need just that extra push to be a decent threat so here's my attempt, there's just something missing. I've splashed White for protection instead of the usual black that Fungus has as I'd prefer to keep my board rather than lose it and get benefits that way but black is always a possiblilty. This is just a saproling deck I use at the moment which is quite fun to play with friends or even at FNM. After playing a G/W deck for while I wanted something more fun (and something with tokens cause I'm a sucker for tokens) so I made this. I don't really have that much experience in making decks so that's why I'm looking for some help.
Mana:
Okay, first let's start off with the mana. This deck runs 4x
Sunpetal Grove
, 5x
Plains
and 12x Forests. While this might seem a little low at first, I've found that you don't really need much mana to make an uncontrollable amount of Saprolings.
Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
is nice to play on turn one if you don't get
Llanowar Elves
or
Tukatongue Thallid
(which it unlikely) or can go in turns 3 or 4 once
Growing Rites of Itlimoc
hits the battlefield and you can pump up your swarms. It's a tricky card as can sometimes slow your ramp a turn if you don't get enough land so it's kind of a beta card in the deck, I'm still debating if it'll stick around.
I'm also running 3x
Llanowar Elves
. Now, these guys are in a funny spot in this deck as every time you put one down turn one, they'll usually get removed as it helps us ramp, which isn't such a bad thing and they can take the hit for
Champion of Lambholt
or
Tendershoot Dryad
that you'll be playing later down the line. If they do stick around, that's great as it potentially means
Champion of Lambholt
on turn 2!
Now then,
Growing Rites of Itlimoc
is amazing with this deck and along with
Champion of Lambholt
can really get our game off to a good start. It's ideal to cast it on turn 3 or 4 so that you have enough creatures to flip it immediately on your end step to prevent any pesky enchantment removal. From then on, you can just spew Saprolings onto the battlefield turn after turn with cards like
Saproling Migration
. It also helps ramp into
Mycoloth
pretty early, letting you get so many more Saprolings.
Creation:
Ah, the bulk of the Saproling deck, the Saprolings.
4x
Saproling Migration
is excellent as it can work both early and late game, allowing for good flexibility when it comes to mana. I prefer to play it early in the hopes that I can beat my opponent fast enough so that the game doesn't drag on.
Spore Swarm
does what is says on the tin, 3 Saprolings can really help boost your army at any time so it's a good allrounder. It's especially good as an instant so you can cast it for some surprise blockers.
Now,
Tendershoot Dryad
is a tricky one. For five mana it's by far the most expensive card mana-wise and can just be hit with some removal but the price is worth it if it stays alive and Ascend is pretty much always active since we have so many cards on the board. If not then the dryad helps towards it anyway and so long as he hits the battlefield, Ascend is always active.
4x
Tukatongue Thallid
is great turn one and can help you build back up after a board wipe and can help out by just mindlessly attacking to get
Beastmaster Ascension
up as people usually don't want
Champion of Lambholt
to get buffed up. Also nice one drop helping towards
Growing Rites of Itlimoc
in the early game.
I'm putting
Fists of Ironwood
in this section purely because two mana for two Saprolings is always very useful and the trample can always go on
Champion of Lambholt
if necessary. It's also quite good for starting your army, just enchant any creature on the field for a good starting point.
Yavimaya Sapherd
have always been odd in this deck. 3 mana for 2 bodies, a sapling towards our cause and a 2/2 fungus that gets buffed from
Sporecrown Thallid
is by no means bad, just rather basic. I'd much prefer another Champion or Spore Swarm over it in certain situations but sometimes a 2/2 blocker and extra saproling early game earns this card it's place. In some cases I feel the deck lacks production, sometimes coming up with multiple Sporecrown's rather than actual saprolings but I guess that's just the luck of the draw. Once
Huatli, Radiant Champion
eventually and inevitably makes her way into the deck, the sapherd will definitely be the ones to go.
Buffing:
All hail Champion of Lambolt the king of the deck, the hero we need but don't deserve because. This is probably one of the best cards in the deck, if you play a
Fists of Ironwood
or even a
Saproling Migration
, or many of the others cards in the deck to buff him up and he can allow for insane amounts of damage, not just from the card itself but from your all your creatures and can easily win you games. A good card turn 2 or 3 in your first game when your opponent won't know what to expect and he'll be buffed up in no time. The only problem is removal. Starting off as a measly 1/1, he can be hit by any damage and just die so you better pray that your opponent says 'pass turn' without hitting him but otherwise, the foundations for your master plan have been set.
Beastmaster Ascension
is much like the Champion in many ways, sometimes it can win games, others it can just end up stranded and useless. While it's potential is amazing, application can be a little slow if you don't have an army already on the battlefield. I feel like cutting down to 2 copies or just all together purely for the unreliability but I wouldn't know what to replace it with.
Sporecrown Thallid
is probably the best two-drop in the deck, nice turn two to get your creatures to come nice and buffed up, plus if you have multiple they can survive better than the tokens. Nothing more to say really, if your interested enough to of read this far then you most likely already know how good cards like this are in tribal token decks.
Intangible Virtue
is nice as it can work just as well as
Sporecrown Thallid
in preventing 1 damage to all creature style cards from decimating your army but only effects tokens, vigilance is a good addition but sometimes you don't have enough tokens to make this a worthwhile play, good thing is it's only two mana so can be dropped without ruining your flow.
Might of the Masses
is a great card in this deck. I can't tell you how many games I've won off it by all out attacking and just sticking it on whatever creature my opponent doesn't block. It can come out of nowhere to deal massive amounts of extra damage, killing big threats or, as mentioned, finishing games.
Oath of Ajani
is a good two mana to put a counter on all your creatures, replacing the spot Collective Effort once had in the deck. While Effort gives you more options, Oath is just that bit cheaper, making it better in my opinion. It's also rather nice to swap out with
Heroic Intervention
if board wipes come into play on second games as I keep
Oath of Ajani
in for casual games with friends as they don't really have access to the ginormous pool of modern cards like regular FNM players do. I'm thinking of getting
Huatli, Radiant Champion
to go with the deck so these two would pair quite well together, too.
Sideboard:
Right, the sideboard. So far, it's only really
Heroic Intervention
to stop sweeping removal.
Bow of Nylea
is for going super aggro, most notably for the deathtouch when attacking and the ability to put a counter on a creature. Overall it's very versatile so works well. My sideboard fluctuates with my mainboard if I'm feeling it, I'll just keep some of the cards in the main deck instead.
Tactics:
Depends what type of deck your opponent's playing (obviously). I find playing
Champion of Lambholt
turn 2 or 3 and building him up from there. Mainly just hold off on attacking until you have enough creatures to trigger Beastermaster Ascension or have a really buffed up
Champion of Lambholt
, by then you'll usually go down to about 10 life and by then, don't be afraid to block, you never know what direct damage spells your opponent might have and you can build Saprolings back up relatively easily. Your opponents creatures won't really be much of a problem once you have a Champion and a couple buffed Saprolings down so removal isn't such an issue this time but would be useful. If you don't pull a Champion in your opening hand I find just flooding the board works just as well.
Conclusion:
This is by no means a perfect deck, it's missing a bit of removal for opponents big creatures so the plan's mainly to just kill them quick but it's a green and white deck so that's to be expected - if anything comes at you there are plenty of options on how to block, but that's probably the main weakness, apart from a singular
Goblin Chainwhirler
turn 3 or something with Flying. However, I feel the deck lacks something probably good cheap anthem effects. The more I play, the more I'll update and change the description but the core of the deck will always stay the same, it's too fun to change.
I'm looking to change the deck up a bit, throwing in cards like
Huatli, Radiant Champion
but I'm running out of room, I just have no idea what to swap out. Another option is to slip in some more +1/+1 counter cards just to give the Saprolings that little extra boost.
Hopefully this hasn't been that boring to read through and it would help we a lot if you could give any helpful advice, tips or anything like that which can help the deck out! Thanks!
