Creature (26)
Land (23)
Enchantment (7)
Sorcery (2)
Instant (2)
Sideboard
Creature (11)
Maybeboard
Creature (8)
Enchantment (2)
I was going through my collection and found some old, familiar cards that inspired me to make a new deck! The main goal is to play a bunch of fun creatures that are usually too expensive and impractical to be useful. Oh and winning, the deck can win sometimes too.
Suggestions are welcome!
Background
Like most decks I actually build, I wanted this one to be fun to play, fun to play against, and provide a varied gameplay experience. The aim is to have fun playing some iconic creatures, which are mostly one-ofs to keep things fresh. The deck is still a work in progress so it may change as I dig up other cards.
The deck name is nod to Aberystwyth Town FC (the Black and Green), the greatest football team in the world. I won't defend that statement with anything other than my heart.
How It Works
Our early plays are Tinder Wall and Wall of Roots to get out some blockers and set up for Pattern of Rebirth. Birds of Paradise ramps us into early action as well.
Landing one large threat usually isn't enough (we aren't playing with the best creatures in Magic, just the most fun). In this case, we can certainly cheat other creatures into play, but most of them can be cast the honest way as we get into the mid game. The early threat usually shakes things up enough that we have time to stabilize and deploy other threats.
Apart from being threats, our creatures also provide utility based on the game at hand. Verdant Force and Deranged Hermit get us tokens to go wide or provide chump blockers. Thrashing Wumpus can wipe an opponent's board it they're playing small creatures. Spirit of the Night's protection from black means we can't cast Animate Dead on it, but it also means it's immune to most direct old-school removal. Karn, Silver Golem
's real value is destroying cost artifacts.
The best trick in the deck, which constitutes an automatic (moral) victory, is Teeka's Dragon with Lure and Emerald Charm out of the board. It's a thing of beauty.
Our ideal start goes like this...
Turn 1: Play Tinder Wall.
Turn 2: Play Wall of Roots or Birds of Paradise.
Turn 3: Play Pattern of Rebirth on Tinder Wall, sacrifice Tinder Wall and go get the creature of your choice!
Creature Cheating
- Defense of the Heart - I'd run more, but I only have one.
- Pattern of Rebirth - I can get any creature? Any one I want? Yes, I'll build a deck around that.
- Tinder Wall - Nice blocker and sacrifices itself for free to trigger Pattern of Rebirth.
- Animate Dead/Reanimate - Sometimes someone wants to ruin your fun and you have to get your creatures back. And I'd be lying if I said I've never been on the draw, passed, and discarded a fattie to reanimate it.
Payoff Creatures
- Deranged Hermit - For going a little wide quickly. We'll usually have the mana for the echo cost.
- Ihsan's Shade - The protection from white is nice, but this is a sideboard card at best. I expect to swap it out once I find something more useful in normal circumstances.
- Karn, Silver Golem - Karn was in the original build, dropped to the sideboard, the dropped entirely. Then I realised how useful he is at destroying artifact tokens... Now he's back for good.
- Spirit of the Night - It would be in here just for the art and the memories, but the protection from black is very handy as well.
- Teeka's Dragon - How can you turn down Rampage 4? This is why we have Emerald Charm and Lure in the sideboard. I refuse to let that dream die.
- Thrashing Wumpus - A searchable Pestilence.
- Verdant Force - For going very wide slowly... and getting a 7/7.
Supporting Cast
- Birds of Paradise - Ramp and fixing. Simple.
- Nekrataal - Very nice searchable removal, and don't underestimate a 2/1 first strike!
- Royal Assassin - Nostalgia and removal all rolled into one.
- Spike Feeder - Another self-sacrificing creature for Pattern of Rebirth. It's more expensive than Tinder Wall, but the life gain can be crucial.
- Spike Weaver - While it can sacrifice itself, it's actually here to keep us alive.
- Sylvan Safekeeper - He's just here to protect our investment.
- Worldly Tutor - Seems like a great inclusion with lots of castable utility creatures, but it doesn't get used that often. I would consider these to be flex spots.
- Tinder Wall - The primary target for Pattern of Rebirth. It can also ramp when really needed, and it has been known to provide some fixing for Crater Hellion.
- Wall of Roots - Ramp and blocking, but it can also kill itself pretty quickly to trigger Pattern of Rebirth if needed.
- Wall of Souls - This is also a flex spot, but if someone is swinging with a non evasive fattie this can be a lethal surprise off of Pattern of Rebirth.
- Yavimaya Hollow - More insurance for our investments.
The land base is a little weird, but it's necessary to support casting (or paying the echo costs of) some creatures from the sideboard. is great at beating down, but we need the other colors for some more utility.
One of the most fun aspects of this deck is that the games can be completely different from game to game. Some of the most fun interactions and paths to victory were fully intentional when I build the deck. Many more were pleasant surprises. Here's a few of the more memorable ones.
Teeka's Dragon + Lure + Emerald Charm. I have actually pulled it off. Once. I did not win. My opponent had 4 creatures out, all untapped, one of which was Zulaport Cutthroat. My life total was low enough and my opponent's was high enough that attacking meant I would lose. I did it anyway and claimed victory via style points.
Spike Feeder + Birds of Paradise. My opponent had the ground locked down and I wasn't finding a way to get any of my big fliers in play. I moved both counters from Spike Feeder onto Birds of Paradise and swung for lethal. The end result was very impressive, but the number of turns it took me to realise I could do that was honestly embarassing. None of the Spikes were originally put into the deck to actually move their counters to other creatures...
Spirit of the Night + Teeka's Dragon. I managed to get both in play and swing for exactly lethal. Nothing fancy, just another style point victory.
Tradewind Rider + Nekrataal or Deranged Hermit. I originally added Tradewind Rider to the board to bounce my opponent's permanents because the deck is really weak to non-creatures. However, it turns out it's actually more fun to bounce some of my own creatures!
Reanimate + Spirit of the Night. The reanimation spells are mostly for bringing back creatures my opponents have removed, and Animate Dead doesn't even work with Spirit of the Night. But in one game on the draw I did nothing on turn 1 and discarded Spirit of the Night and cast Reanimate on it on turn 2. Sure, I basically started the game at 11 life, but I'd take that any day to start with a 6/5 flying, trampler in play... Unless I'm playing against burn...
- Clone - It's not often, but sometimes our opponent plays a better creature... Although I kind of want to swap this for Vesuvan Doppelganger.
- Crater Hellion - Board wipe! This has proved vital to a lot of wins against other creature-based decks. Honestly, it could go in the main.
- Crypt Rats - A variation of Thrashing Wumpus
- Elephant Grass - This can be brutal against go-wide strategies
- Emerald Charm/Lure - Well, hello there, Teeka's Dragon :)
- Ifh-Biff Efreet - Kills fliers and is a flier, this is another candidate for the mainboard. Also, doesn't kill itself if you use Emerald Charm to take away its flying!
- Lifeline - Really helpful for us against creatureless or token decks.
- Mother of Runes - Protects our investments, but can also make them unblockable against mono-coloured decks.
- Phyrexian Plaguelord - More creature removal! I'd happily swap this for something more useful in other scenarios. It doesn't come in much.
- Royal Assassin - In case I need to double up!
- Scragnoth - I've found that sometimes against blue, this is all I need.
- Spike Cannibal - Very situation, but very deadly when it's relevant.
- Spike Weaver - Again, for doubling up.
- Tradewind Rider - This is really our best way of dealing with non-creature permanent threats.
Mainboard Flex Spots
- Ihsan's Shade - This should probably be in the sideboard, but it's a decent size, somewhat castable, and protection from white is nice.
- Spike Weaver - I probably only need one of these in the sideboard. It doesn't prove necessary all the time and I'd rarely need the second.
- Wall of Souls - It's a really fun trick to sneak it into play and effectively make an attacking fattie smack its controller instead of me, but I feel like there are better options that would be more universally useful.
- Worldly Tutor - I don't get this one... It should be perfect! I can tutor up any utility creature I want, but most of the time I find myself holding them in my hand at the end of the game. The fact that it replaces a draw often makes it just a little too slow.
Creatures to Consider
- Baron Sengir - Probably not good enough, but a classic.
- Dawnstrider - Tutorable, repeatable fog in case we need to stall the game a bit. The lack of card draw in the deck means I'm often discarding my draw every turn just to stall out the game without a real path to victory. For now, I prefer Spike Weaver for stalling attacks.
- Pygmy Hippo - My thought here is that I can tap out control decks and have the freedom of my second main to play whatever I want. But how do you get the hippo out in the first place? And if I could get the hippo out and protecrt it wouldn't a finisher usually be better?
- Rayne, Academy Chancellor - It's tempting to have some way to gain card advantage.
- Rushwood Elemental - Probably too slow to be great.
- Tidal Kraken - The best evasion possible, but very difficult to cast outside of cheating it into play.
- Uktabi Orangutan - Using Karn, Silver Golem to animate an artifact and then using creature removal is preferable since it's repeatable.
- Vhati il-Dal - Very effective at neutralizing large creatures.
Other Cards to Consider
- Concordant Crossroads - Doing some testing to see how harmful summoning sickness is.
- Dread of Night - Cool art and devastating to white weenie decks.
- Dust Bowl - Sometimes you just need to destroy a land. The deck really onle has one spot for a colourless land and right now Yavimaya Hollow is proving more valuable.
- Hurricane - Fliers are a pain and Spirit of the Night can't kill them all... This is arguably better than Ifh-Biff Efreet, but the Biffer is definitely cooler.
- Winding Canyons - Casting creatures at instant speed would be nice, but again not producing coloured mana is an issue.
Considered and (Mostly) Sidelined
- Child of Gaea - I like the regeneration and the trample, not the upkeep.
- Call of the Wild - You mean I can put a creature into play for 4 mana! Excellent! But not really...
- Catacomb Dragon - I have always thought this was one of the best creatures in the game. I am now being forced to face reality.
- Commander Greven il-Vec - I just feel like there are better options.
- Contagion - Free removal is nice, but having the black card to pitch is a bit tough.
- Elvish Lyrist - I originally had this in to be able to tutor up enchantment removal, but Emerald Charm can hit global enchantments and has other utility as well.
- Gamekeeper - The gameplan shifted away from this being useful.
- Kaervek's Spite - Who doesn't love an all-in finisher? I certainly do, I just can't see when it would be useful.
- Lord of the Pit - Classic! Game ending! Steep upkeep.
- Pestilence - Arguably a better card than Thrashing Wumpus but not as easy to find.
- Pit Spawn - Very impressive, the upkeep turned me off.
- Thorn Elemental - Fantastic evasion, but it feels kind of lame.
- Vine Dryad - I like the idea of a free flash creature, but it just isn't impactful enough.
- Wall of Blossoms - Nice bloacker and replaces itself. Not quite knocking Wall of Roots out of the Main board.
- Yavimaya Elder - The gameplan shifted away from this being useful.
Forests
- Forest - 1x APAC Promo (it's not foil as Tappedout seems to imply)
- Forest - 2x Alpha rocks
- Forest - 1x Beta rocks
- Forest - 2x Alpha path
- Forest - 1x Unglued
- Forest - 2x Urza's Saga, one is signed by PapaGiggles
Swamps
- Swamp - 1x APAC Promo (also not foil)
- Swamp - 1x Alpha
- Swamp - 2x Mirage
- Swamp - 1x Mirage
- Swamp - 1x Portal
- Swamp - 1x Unglued
Two cards in this list break the Pre-Y2K rule, Sylvan Safekeeper and Scragnoth. The Scragnoth is easy to justify; the store didn't have the Tempest version, but I'll swap it out once I find one. I justify Sylvan Safekeeper because the copy I have was signed by Olle Råde and it's too cool not to include. Plus, his invitational card technically should have been printed in the 90s so I say it counts.
- Spike Weaver - The one in the sideboard is from Battle Royale, so I just replaced that with another Exodus version.
- Karn, Silver Golem - I used the price for the regular Urza's Saga version.
- Sylvan Safekeeper - I added an extra Mother of Runes to the main.
- Thrashing Wumpus - Mercadian Masques wasn't out yet, so I used the bulk rare price from the next most recent expansion (Urza's Destiny).
- Basic lands - I did not include the price of basics in the list, assuming I probably had some floating around back then that I could use for free.
Ifh-Biff Efreet is the most expensive card in the deck, which is intriguing that it beat out the duals. The biggest surprise, however, was Phyrexian Plaguelord at $32! Not bad for what today is little more than a bulk rare!
Main Deck
Main Deck Total Cost: $208.70
- 2x Animate Dead - $0.50 (Total: $1.00)
- 1x Badlands - $13.00 (Total: $13.00)
- 3x Birds of Paradise - $10.00 (Total: $30.00)
- 1x Defense of the Heart - $4.50 (Total: $4.50)
- 1x Demonic Tutor - $20.00 (Total: $20.00)
- 1x Deranged Hermit - $5.00 (Total: $5.00)
- 1x Gemstone Mine - $3.00 (Total: $3.00)
- 1x Ihsan's Shade - $2.00 (Total: $2.00)
- 1x Karn, Silver Golem - $5.50 (Total: $5.50)
- 1x Mother of Runes - $0.75 (Total: $0.75)
- 1x Nekrataal - $2.50 (Total: $2.50)
- 4x Pattern of Rebirth - $3.50 (Total: $14.00)
- 1x Reanimate - $0.50 (Total: $0.50)
- 1x Royal Assassin - $8.00 (Total: $8.00)
- 1x Savannah - $12.00 (Total: $12.00)
- 2x Spike Feeder - $1.50 (Total: $3.00)
- 1x Spike Weaver - $5.00 (Total: $5.00)
- 2x Spirit of the Night - $7.00 (Total: $14.00)
- 1x Taiga - $20.00 (Total: $20.00)
- 1x Teeka's Dragon - $5.00 (Total: $5.00)
- 1x Thran Quarry - $11.00 (Total: $11.00)
- 1x Thrashing Wumpus - $0.75 (Total: $0.75)
- 4x Tinder Wall - $0.15 (Total: $0.60)
- 1x Tropical Island - $12.00 (Total: $12.00)
- 1x Verdant Force - $7.00 (Total: $7.00)
- 4x Wall of Roots - $0.15 (Total: $0.60)
- 1x Wall of Souls - $1.00 (Total: $1.00)
- 2x Worldly Tutor - $1.50 (Total: $3.00)
- 1x Yavimaya Hollow - $4.00 (Total: $4.00)
Sideboard
Sideboard Total Cost: $126.85
- 1x Clone - $6.40 (Total: $6.40)
- 1x Crater Hellion - $6.50 (Total: $6.50)
- 1x Crypt Rats - $0.10 (Total: $0.10)
- 1x Elephant Grass - $1.00 (Total: $1.00)
- 1x Emerald Charm - $0.10 (Total: $0.10)
- 1x Ifh-Biff Efreet - $35.00 (Total: $35.00)
- 1x Lifeline - $10.00 (Total: $10.00)
- 1x Lure - $2.00 (Total: $2.00)
- 1x Mother of Runes - $0.75 (Total: $0.75)
- 1x Phyrexian Plaguelord - $32.00 (Total: $32.00)
- 1x Royal Assassin - $8.00 (Total: $8.00)
- 1x Scragnoth - $1.25 (Total: $1.25)
- 1x Spike Cannibal - $0.75 (Total: $0.75)
- 1x Spike Weaver - $5.00 (Total: $5.00)
- 1x Tradewind Rider - $18.00 (Total: $18.00)
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31% Casual
69% Competitive
| Top Ranked |
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| Date added | 1 year |
| Last updated | 10 months |
| Legality | This deck is Casual legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 24 - 8 Rares 12 - 5 Uncommons 8 - 2 Commons |
| Cards | 60 |
| Avg. CMC | 3.24 |
| Tokens | Saproling 1/1 G, Squirrel 1/1 G |
| Folders | Pre-Y2K |
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| Ignored suggestions | |
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