The other advantage Bioshift has is that instead of only saving a dying creature, say you attack with a large hydra and an 0/1 birds. They block the hydra but not the birds, you just move your counters to the birds to get in big damage. Still, I do not think this is worth trying to work into the deck.

Yeh. That's kind of why i liked it (Though not sure why I'd attack with a 0 power creature). But I just don't know what I can afford to take out. That's the bit I'm struggling with now, most cards provide some real cool advantages and play opportunities, but something has to come out for it to be put in the deck y'know? So for now... I think I'll leave Bioshift out. But for anyone reading this who might design a similiar deck, definitely consider Bioshift.

I think what might work with Bioshift would be too take 2 Solidarity of Heroes out. Than put 2 Bioshift in. have you thought of replacing Doubling Season with Hardened Scales?

scratch that last sentence lol.

I think that would work for bioshift. However I think I prefer the functionality of solidarity for this deck.

So i've bought most the deck. Struggling to get hold of 2 Kalonian Hydras, 2 Asceticism, 2 Managorger Hydras, and 2 Doubling Seasons. If anyone knows of anywhere (preferably within the UK) that sells decent conditions version of these cards let me know.

Your 5-drop enchantments are good, but a Spell Pierce would ruin your day. Hardened Scales and Metallic Mimic can help get hydras bigger and are solid early plays. In Modern a lot of decks are winning by Turn 4-5, and so Doubling Season for example is kinda clunky as it takes all your mana to cast and doesnt do anything until you are able to resolve a Hydra or Planeswalker the following turn. Mistcutter in the side is obviously great against decks but the haste also makes it a decent early play too. Plus the creature count, hydras particularly, is kinda low for a creature-based strategy and you dont wanna end up with a hand full of lands and enchantments. Id probably drop Alpha Auth all together (sets up a sweeper 2-for-1) and go to 2 copies Doubling. I like things like Vines of Vastwood or Blossoming Defense better as you get them to waste a removal spell, much harder to play around and allows leaving up to bluff. Sweepers can foil your plan, maybe Heroic Intervention could help hedge.

Ive always been a fan of Polukranos, World Eater, a 5/5 on Turn 3 is pretty solid and later it can be used as removal/mana dump.

Cavern of Souls is helpful if you have a lot of blue decks in your meta. Birds of Paradise is ok but in mono-green something like Llanowar Elves or Arbor Elf might be just as good but can also chump block and potentially kill something small. Aspect of Hydra is another thing to consider, especially with things with trample or haste. Only other thing I can think of is Surrak, the Hunt Caller to give your following turns Kalonian Hydra haste.

Looks good, keep up the tweaking +1

Yeh, notably this deck seems to have a weakness to removal, but I'm a bit stuck with what to do on it. I have Vines of Vastwood's on order with much of the rest of the deck and it'll go in the sideboard, so i can play around with whether I take out Alpha Authority and 1 doubling for Vines. Vines seems more useful than blossoming defense in this deck as I'm likely to have the mana to spare for the kicker on it, and if not it can still be played as a 1-drop, it seems like the windows blossoming would be preferable in would be quite small, especially as with this deck delaying a turn often doubles the counters anyway (as with Primordial Hydra).

Hardened scales and Heroic are both nice cards. Again, i feel scales fits in a very specific window. I'll need 3 mana to cast something like Primordial Hydra, at 4 mana, i can just pay 1 extra mana to double the number of tokens i put on it using the cards effect. At 5 mana I can cast doubling season. I agree with this is of limited use until adding counters next turn, and this is probably where scales would be better.

Heroic, again nice cards, would be useful, but what do i remove? I remove creatures and I lower that creature count. I remove protection, but then i'm removing protection to add protection. I could lower the doubling season count, but it would only really get 1 in there, and I wouldn't want to go below 2 doubling seasons.

Vines of Vastwood are in the sideboard already, may just rotate them in to the normal as you suggested by lowering doubling season to 2, but I've decided since I've ordered both sets of cards to do that just by playtesting.

I've looked a Polukranos, and I don't really understand why it's a good card. It's 4 mana for a 5/5 which is nice, and uses the counters like most my hydras. But it's a crap load of mana for the removal (and if we're thinking of winning by turn 4-5, I've got to cast it turn 4, then probably wait till next turn for monstrosity, and the effect damages it, possibly harming it's ability to press the advantage until turn 6)m and the removal hurts it back, it's handy as a removal, but this seems like something beast within would do cheaper. It seems a little like it's doing both jobs but not super good at either one. But maybe I'm missing something, I'm pretty new to all this, so if i am, the explanation would definitely be appreciated.

Cavern of souls, is a nice way to stick some extra protection in via the land. It is a very expensive card so might pursue that one after I've bought the initial deck. Would you suggest removing 4 forest for 4 caverns?

Arbor Elf is already in there, so can't have any more as I'm at 4 maximum. I also have some Llanowar elves handy so can switch that when convenient, but further up the comments is a big discussion about Llanowar Elves or Arbor Elf / Utopia sprawl, and the latter seemed to win out. The birds are in there as a flying chump block, which Llanowar can't do, at the cost of having 1 power, but there are Arbor Elves for that!

Aspect of Hydra was on my list of initial considerations, and if it would be giving +X +1/+1 counters I think I'd have used it, and it is certainly nice to power up in a pinch, but it seems like I'm either going to use it to power something up enough to survive (in which case, maybe protection is a better choice), or it's a finishing move to power something up enough to really hurt with trample, but I've got things like big Garruk for that, and Hydra Broodmaster (Which also fills the mana dump slot that Polukranos might occupy, but by adding tokens, and it works with doubling season). The other thing is every turn delayed adds a factor of 2 tokens to things like Primordial hydra anyway, and aspect only last one turn, so much the same thing could be achieved with a card that delays one turn and allows the hydras to keep their gained tokens. Thoguh i accept that aspect would be much more flexible in this regard. I'm also not sure what I would take out for it.

Surrak looks really nice, I'd never heard of the card prior. It would be nice to work in to the deck, what would you suggest removing for it and how many?

Cheers for the +1 and taking the time to write all the tips, very much appreciated!

Nick

Also just got 2 Asceticism and 2 Kalonian Hydras left to source. When i've finally sourced those I will re-write the description section to explain how the deck works and explain any results i had from playtesting to reflect the 'final state'. thanks for the help so far everyone!

Looks good, I dont know that youd need all 4 Cavern of Souls unless theres a ton of countermagic/blue mages in your local metagame. Only way Id go to all 4 probably is if you splashed for Savageborn Hydra and/or Apocalypse Hydra. If you did the red could open more options for removal in Sideboard. Rosheen Meanderer is legit in R/G Hydras. The Meandering: X Tribal is my EDH version, R/G Exxs is my Modern one. I suggested these cards but if you stay Mono-Green please disregard.

Good stuff!

Playtests really well! Ive won Turn 5 goldfishing a couple times. Alpha Authority actually really solid on an early-cast Primordial.

You reckon maybe 2 caverns in the deck, and 2 in the sideboard for if I'm up against control?I have no idea what my local metagame is if I'm honest - Guess I'll find out soon.

Which deck were you saying playtests really well?

This one!

Oh right, woo, that's reassuring. Thanks!

How do you do the playtest on this site? I mean i see a playtest button on the menu, but it doesn't seem to play against anything, i can just draw play and tap cards.

Yes the playtest feature on this site is a "goldfishing" tool meaning that you play as though your opponent is a goldfish (i.e. doesn't do anything). So you just draw and play your cards without any interaction to see how consistent it is, and how you would play out opening draws.

As for the Cavern question, I wouldn't run more than 2, and none in the sideboard. If you get stuck having to play it early as your only landdrop left in your hand, then you may not be able to use it the way you'd like. For instance, on t2 you might have to name Elf just so it can tap for colored mana to play an Arbor Elf.

Looking forward to playtesting it for real.

I went with 2 in the end as per your suggestion. Also I'm pretty sure I can't afford 4 of those things.

I have re-written a lot of the description now to reflect stats and stuff about the final deck layout. I'll leave the comments here for anyone looking to build similiar because there's some interesting discussions. And of course, added my thanks to all your guys who helped with your suggestions and comments. Cheers!

Have you thought about Lightning Greaves 2 cost, and can protect a ton of creatures. Plus giving haste

id take out the Alpha Authority as the boots are much easier seeing you can get them out turn two, and when you start pumping hydras, you have immediate protection.

I liked this suggestion re: Lightning Greaves, so have added them.

Added some playtesting information

Thanks for the acknowledgement! In answer to your questions:

A) To make the deck faster you would probably need to change the main focus of the deck away from hydras to something more akin to the Green Devotion decklists (there are several variations on these).

B) if you wanted to include a way to make smaller creatures into a threat, I would actually change the manabase to include Wooded Foothills and Stomping grounds plus Kessig Wolf Run. Buffing an 0/1 flying Birds of Paradise is often a great way to punch dmg thru. Replacing forests for this means you dont have to cut other cards in the deck. The downside is that fetchlands and shocklands are rather expensive.

just came across Twilight Mire, and thought it could add a little more tempo in your deck seeing you can have one extra mana turn 2 or three.

Twilight Mire does not provide extra mana; it filters mana from or into any combination. Because it requires a mana to activate, plus tapping the land itself, it takes essentially two mana to produce two mana. This is good for casting with only + Twilight Mire available. I love the filter lands, but since this deck is mono-green, Twilight Mire is irrelevant.

Sorry for the long reply time guys - been on holiday.

Agree re: Twilight Mire, it keeps the actual mana available per turn constant, and just changes the colour. Would be good for someone building a black / green version of this though.

I like the suggestions about Kessig, Wooded Foothills and Stomping Grounds. I'll investigate and see how much they cost to get hold of. It's not like this deck is going to count as a 'budget deck' at this point at £400 ($540).

Thanks for all your help everyone, especially the repeat helpers!