Mono Green: Why is it not seeing play?
Standard forum
Posted on Jan. 9, 2014, 6:09 p.m. by eel218
So I've been playing mono Green the past few weeks at my local FNM and its awesome. Surprisingly it's got the best sideboard options of any deck i've played or seen and with the amount of pressure it pours out it plays very well against control and decks that use alot of removal. Against other aggro decks it has bigger creatures and of course a small amount of lifegain is added in both the maindeck with Bow of Nylea and sideboard with Nylea's Disciple . Even with an empty hand you never run out of ways to spend mana. Monstrosity creatures, Nylea, God of the Hunt and her bow's abilities help you not run out of tiny tricks that help you win. Now will somebody please tell me why this deck sees no play in Pro events?
GoldGhost012 says... #3
Green loves to build up tons of mana to drop big creatures, then trample over or through the opponents (but I'm sure you already knew that). The problem is that most of these creatures are big and have trample, but little else. Look at Giant Adephage for example. It's a game ender if you can get its ability to go off multiple times, but its lack of protection makes it a big target for removal and counterspells. You just spent all that mana on your beater, and one Doom Blade or Dissolve later, it's all to waste. Removal is a huge problem in a removal happy meta for creatures that lack some kind of protection.
On the flip side, Mistcutter Hydra is a great card for quick damage, especially against blue, but it lacks trample, something most green beaters have. It can be chumped all day by other colors.
January 9, 2014 6:21 p.m.
Gonna have to agree with GoldGhost012 here. In addition, a lot of the current ramp in decks right now focus on dorks and devotion, both of which get wrecked by wipes such as Supreme Verdict or the occasional Ratchet Bomb . And then it's really hard to come back to win.
January 9, 2014 6:29 p.m.
Mono-Green isn't seeing play because Red/Green has very strong Planeswalkers. Without Domri Rade and Xenagos, The Reveler , your power level really drops.
That, and you'd probably be using Burning-Tree Emissary in a Devotion deck anyways.
January 9, 2014 6:32 p.m.
R/G Devotion kinda plays like Super-Friends anyways. It's always playing at least 10 Planeswalkers.
January 9, 2014 6:33 p.m.
Three-Left-Feet says... #8
Man, the majority of my meta is Gruul and Mono-Green
From a Combo-type deck that gets Worldspine Wurm out on T3 when it works right to a MASSIVE beatdown that keeps topping. These decks have been destroying my Mono Blue deck so bad, I just started working on a completely different deck.
The deck is so fast, and bounces back pretty well against all kinds of removal. It's definitely a deck that deserves plenty of attention.
January 9, 2014 6:36 p.m.
The problem is that, generally green creatures are vulnerable to removal (as has been discussed). Furthermore, green, has almost no removal.
January 9, 2014 6:38 p.m.
The only time you'll see mono-green work is when you have things like Dungrove Elder and Thrun, the Last Troll , which evade removal and have ways to endure all sorts of board-states.
January 9, 2014 6:42 p.m.
ryuzaki32667 says... #11
It gets Polukranos, World Eater its a mono green half bonfire, most lists splash just enough red for the above mentioned planeswalkers and some sideboard tech
January 9, 2014 7:01 p.m.
ryuzaki32667 says... #12
i'm also playing the devotion deck with the red splash, it wrecks a lot of decks, but mentioned above it puts a lot of pressure against mono black usually more that it can keep up with, it has excellent sideboard against blue in Mistcutter Hydra
, and life gain with Nylea's Disciple
I consistently am able to play a 7/7 Reverent Hunter
turn two and passing with the turn with 12 power on board, and early Garruk, Caller of Beasts
to keep the fire going
January 9, 2014 7:07 p.m.
Green just doesn't have interaction with your opponent so while their deck is built to do what it's supposed while stopping you, your deck basically has one option and that is go forward and hope you don't hit a speed bump. That's why the devotion decks are splashing the red, the fight ability of domri and even mortars I believe. That's why I've looked into a buG devotion deck that uses black and blue for removal and creature protection. Nothing has been worked out or finalized but I've thought of some interesting ideas because blue gives you the option of Prophet of Kruphix and with Garruk keeping your hand full of creatures and probably some other draw you can play your monstrosity creatures, like Polukranos, World Eater or Arbor Colossus , on your turn and monstrous them on your opponents very next turn, or flash in those big fatties that green has to block or at the end of your opponents turn to avoid summoning sickness pretty much. Just some ideas, but not sure how feasible it is, U/G might be better for that but gives you fewer ways to directly deal with your opponents creatures aside from bounce and counter spells.
January 9, 2014 7:26 p.m.
endlessfight says... #14
I have played a few FNMs with my mono-green devotion deck, and have either done really well or broken even. When the deck draws the right sequence of cards it works extremely well and steamrolls opponents in spectacular fashion. When the deck doesn't draw the right sequence of cards it just feels sort of mediocre and slow. I find that by turn 5 or 6, if I haven't dropped a Garruk, Caller of Beasts I soon run out of cards to play. The deck plays well against any kind of midrange or beatdown deck, but it can fall short against other devotion decks, aggro, and control. The fact of the matter is that a mono-green devotion deck relies so heavily on ramp and combos that it just isn't reliable enough. I would recommend anyone to put a deck together because of the spectacular and ridiculous things that it CAN do, but caution them against playing it as a reliable competitive deck.
January 9, 2014 7:57 p.m.
@ryuzaki32667 You're able to -consistently- have 6 devotion turn two? That's a lot of Burning-Tree Emissary for me to want to call it consistent.
January 9, 2014 7:59 p.m.
ryuzaki32667 says... #16
Its just Elvish Mystic 2 land, the 2 Burning-Tree Emissary , but on a consistency scale probly a 3 out of 5, it happens a lot when i play it at least, you just have to know when to mull, as mentioned above it sometimes plays out like a combo deck so knowing when to mull is key
January 9, 2014 8:09 p.m.
RussischerZar says... #17
@ Devonin just two. T1 Elvish Mystic, T2 tap Mystic + land for 2x BTE, then add a land for hunter and you have a 7/7 with a total of 12 power on board.
January 9, 2014 8:11 p.m.
endlessfight says... #18
I'm going to have to go with [Devonin] here and say that I would have to err on the side of that play being pretty uncommon, and thus, unreliable. Furthermore, if you aren't on the play, you can consistently rely on getting your [Elvish Mystic] hit with [Chained to the Rocks], [Magma jet], [Rapid Hybridization], etc...
January 9, 2014 8:19 p.m.
ryuzaki32667 says... #20
with just one burning tree a 5/5 rev hunter can be made, the sequence would be
T1: forest into Elvish Mystic
T2: tap forest and Elvish Mystic
for GG, cast Burning-Tree Emissary
then with the RG floating put Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
and tap for devotion, then use the GGG to cast Reverent Hunter
that will become a 5/5
Then pass turn with 9 power
January 9, 2014 8:20 p.m.
ryuzaki32667 says... #21
you link with double brackets [ [ ~~~~ ] ] without any spaces, an as far as chances of losing a Elvish Mystic turn 1 is part of the game of magic, sometimes you get to do crazy stuff , and someday your parade gets rained on
January 9, 2014 8:23 p.m.
NerdPounder says... #22
Gruul devotion decks are pretty sick and function much like mono-green, except with more versatility. So the reason mono green isn't seeing play is "Why play just green when you can splash red for Domri Rade , Xenagos, The Reveler , Mizzium Mortars , and Ruric Thar, the Unbowed in the board?"
January 9, 2014 8:40 p.m.
As much as I love Green, it just can't hold its own against the other colors. Green is an incredibly powerful color with some of the most efficient creatures ever seen (Tarmogoyf , Nimble Mongoose , Kitchen Finks , Noble Hierarch , Polukranos, World Eater , in their respective formats). The kicker is that Green needs an enabling color or pair of colors to really let those creatures do what they do best: smash faces.
Unless we're talking about Combo Elves in Legacy; that's a different story.
January 9, 2014 8:47 p.m.
Sad part is i've never lost against control it's usually mirror matches lol
January 12, 2014 5:01 p.m.
Three-Left-Feet says... #25
Well, I ended up versing Mono-Green again last FNM with my new deck RWB Kill and Spill, I went 2-0 easy without even a struggle...
The dude got a Polukranos, World Eater T-3 with an Elvish Mystic and the Tusker (GG for 3/3), and I ended up killing the Polukranos, World Eater with a Dreadbore , and Chained to the Rocks the Tusker, and ended up beating him down with a Desecration Demon and Blood Baron of Vizkopa with little problem after that (and even when he played an Arbor Colossus , I main like... 11-12 kill-spells, so i kinda just Hero's Downfall ed it, and he got kinda mad..)
His deck got 1st the FNM before that, so i was kind of worried... Surprisingly wasn't an issue for my deck..
January 12, 2014 6:38 p.m.
"Versing" isn't a term for playing your opponent.
Mono-Green is great unless you get a fairly lucky hand with a ton of removal and a bomb with Flying.
January 12, 2014 6:47 p.m.
Three-Left-Feet says... #27
My bad on the terminology, but my point remains.
That's kind of my deck though man, haha. 3 Desecration Demon and 3 Stormbreath Dragon , also, Game 1 I had him down with an Obzedat, Ghost Council and 2 Boros Reckoner s (and plenty of removal.. but again, that's my deck)
RussischerZar says... #2
Actually there are Gruul decks out there that focus on green devotion and one of them even won a PTQ in Belfast a few weeks ago. I also saw a monogreen devotion deck in some recent magic streams in the top8.
Although I'm pretty sure almost none of them use Bow of Nylea mainboard, if even.
January 9, 2014 6:18 p.m.