I agree with the person who said removal is undercosted.
In red it is fine because that is really all red has, but in white/blue/black, removal should probably start to cost more. No more cards like Path to Exile and Dismember. If wizards really wants Magic to be more of a creature game, they should start making it harder to deal with creatures.
Then green will become stronger, once the other colors get weaker
Personally though, I think wizards should have simply not had any colors to begin with, just the different types of effects (creatures, counterspells, burn, removal, drawing, tutoring, rituals) and the players would take on characteristics based upon the kind of cards they like to play with.
As a green mage, I agree wholeheartedly with EVERYTHING you say, except I have a point on the plagues you might like. I think if they printed plagues in green, it shouldn't be so much a removal effect, as it is a transforming(not the keyword) or weakening effect. Black Plagues are designed to have an almost 100% mortality rate, while Green Plagues could be more about weakening the the prey to the point where the predator can kill it, i.e. natural viruses.(yes i know that some viruses like the Bubonic Plague are from nature and had/have an extremely high mortality rate)
I think green could also use more "you may have target creature block this one if able" type cards. This could be a help to green's removal problem.
Also I feel that Bushido is a green ability to me. many wild animals look unassuming until they are bothered or hungry or looking for a mate. When you get too close suddenly that cute looking lion doesn't look so cuddly anymore. I feel this is best represented in Bushido. Get too close and you'll be sorry.
I agree with several of the points made in the article and in thread. In particular with seeing more 'resilience' abilities at lower rarities in Green.
The DKA card, Strangleroot Geist, is a step in the right direction.
I agree they made the Titan cycle too strong outside of green (the blue and black titans seem particularly 'wrong' to me, at least in terms of their P/T to Mana Cost ration). And we don't really have to argue that our favorite blue Human Insect is above the curve for what blue aught to be able to do.
Thrun was also a step in the right direction, but it probably should not have been legendary. I'm OK with it being a mythic rare, since seeing cards like that at rare/uncommon in Limited play would be extremely problematic.
A Few Additional Points:
White steps on Green's toes too much. Its creatures usually have equivalent P/T to CC ratios, and white gets spot removal, mass removal, and equivalent art/ench hate. I'm OK with White having good spells like Day and Path, but its creatures should be a bit worse. Baneslayer Angel was too much.
Instead of removing art/ench hate from white, they should give green ench/art hate with tremendous upside. Instead of having Naturalize be the standby, it should be something like this:
1G - Nature's Right
Instant
Destroy target enchantment or exile target artifact. If an artifact is exiled this way, put a 1/1 Saproling token into play.
Cards like Acidic Slime and Viridian Corrupter are steps in the right direction.
It's OK if cards like Mana Leak and Vapor Snag are generally good against green's fatties, but the fatties should have some upside that lets there be some degree of competition (ala Primeval Titan).
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Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction.
This article and this thread illustrate one of the elephants in the room of Magic design: they really, really need new people inside Wizards of the Coast. MaRo's been in design for 16 years, and even a lot of their "newer" people have been there for almost a decade at this point. Ideas like this article and this thread are what Magic needs, not just the content but the difference and the progress.
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Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not watching.
Complaining about Green while Red is and has been getting shafted in so many more ways is completely asinine. At least with Green they are allowing it more tools, card draw, the best creatures, mana ramp... etc. What does Red have going for it? Same thing as always...
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"I have seen the true path. I will not warm myself by the fire—I will become the flame."
—Lim-Dûl, the Necromancer
I believe many of the points in this thread and in the article itself, are vaild.
I believe they should maybe take a bit of the Legions set design view into what Green does. Legions was a 100% creature set, so all the tricks and doodads and all that stuff, had to be attached to creatures. So perhaps green needs more ETB/LTB type of creatures. Perhaps green needs more combat tricks, but not as spells, but attached to creatures. I'm not saying all greens fun should be attached to creatures, but being the creature colour, there should be more interesting/interactive creatures.
Undying, provoke, fight, haste, flash, can't be countered, shroud, hexproof etc. are things that green is about and perhaps need to be utilised more. It is definitely possible to flesh out green more with these mechanics, and convey the cunning feel of green (which I agree on). You don't have to have blue smarts to be cunning (look at the way animals lure their prey/ hunt their prey etc.)
Even something as simple as -
Hungry Bear 1G
Creature - Bear (C)
Flash
2/2
That is why I think green adaptive strength shouldn't be on a single creature card or its ability to keep resisting, but on the green strategy as a whole. Losing a creature, for a green mage, shouldn't be so bad. It actually should be their chance to adapt. The next wave (or iteration) shouldn't die so easily to same thing. Green should have something like:
Evoluted Beast 4[G]
When ~this enter on the battlefield, choose a card from target opponent's graveyard. ~This has protection from that card's colors.
5/4
I dont see why green doesnt just have the best creatures and weak removal. Then change solid removal to be more focused on one color.
So they could change doom blade to be BB in cost, meaning you might want more black in the deck to use it, but then giving black less efficient creatures.
Give green a creature with titan-like efficiency but not other colors. Grave titan usable in a deck that can also have awesome creature removal? (doom blade, etc.) WHY would you use the green titan, other than it's broken ability to grab special lands?
Green should have 4 mana creatures be 5/5 in size, no other color should have this. Then make green have weak removal. it's next to red on the wheel, why can't a 'lightning bolt' be a nature color card? 1GG to do 3 damage to any target. Or even 2G.
Splashing red gives you more efficient removal, but a mono green deck is then viable.
Black having the best removal should have weaker creatures or creatures iwth drawbacks. This is how it was done 15 years ago (force of nature vs lord of the pit) as long as green has no great removal and creatures no more efficient than other colors, it will always fail. Almost every big green creature has a drawback. number of forests in play, or whatever. Green should have had a GGGG Phyrexian Obliterator type creature, not black. Black should have splinterfright or whatever it is, not green. It CAN be huge, but sometimes it sucks (graveyard removal, not great in early game) while an Obliterator is super efficent and awesome. Why give the awesome creature to the color with best removal, and then they wonder why people dont play the other color with no removal and average creatures (Thrun being one massive exception).
Complaining about Green while Red is and has been getting shafted in so many more ways is completely asinine. At least with Green they are allowing it more tools, card draw, the best creatures, mana ramp... etc. What does Red have going for it? Same thing as always...
Red? Shafted? Since when has RDW not been a competitive deck? How about that U/R tempo now a days too? I mean, seriously pal, when was the last time you saw Mono Green going competitive in a standard setting? Or even legacy? Sure, Maverick's pretty big and NO RUG, but those are not MONO. Hell, Red is one of the more efficient colours, considering you can run a Legacy deck with nothing but straight burn and Goblin Guides and faire pretty well in a tournament.
Red? Shafted? Since when has RDW not been a competitive deck? How about that U/R tempo now a days too? I mean, seriously pal, when was the last time you saw Mono Green going competitive in a standard setting? Or even legacy? Sure, Maverick's pretty big and NO RUG, but those are not MONO. Hell, Red is one of the more efficient colours, considering you can run a Legacy deck with nothing but straight burn and Goblin Guides and faire pretty well in a tournament.
I don't think he meant his statement based on power level. I assume his intention was one of mechanics. Red is kind of behind on the abilities department. I would actually place green ahead red in "this color gets shafted department". Red has had the same formula for years. Burn or lots of little swarmy dudes. I guarentee the next set will be exactly the same.
I agree with your statement though. Mono green tends to be unable to compete in its current shape or form barring combo elves in Legacy.
Mono green tends to be unable to compete in its current shape or form barring combo elves in Legacy.
A big piece of what holds mono-green down is mass removal. Since Green's supposed strength is in its creatures, the green mage will most likely need to overextend, because, really, what else can he do to win a game but swarm with small creatures?
Every opponent, save for mono-blue, can just reset the board and then build up their side of the field. White gets *** effects or something like Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, black has things like Massacre Wurm or even Damnation and red gets mass damage sweepers such as Slagstorm or Pyroclasm.
To combat this, how about some indestructible in green? Beetles or other insects (I'm looking at you, cockroaches) are exceptionally hardy, and if we are continuing to examine the "evolutionary" aspect of Green, would it not serve to reason that some creatures would develop the ability to simply survive anything? I do recognize that Predator Ooze, from DKA, is indestructible, but it also costs GGG.
If not outright indestructability, someone else had mentioned regeneration as needing to make a bigger comeback, and I agree with this as well. That is a very Green ability, with nature repairing itself after suffering damage.
Complaining about Green while Red is and has been getting shafted in so many more ways is completely asinine. At least with Green they are allowing it more tools, card draw, the best creatures, mana ramp... etc. What does Red have going for it? Same thing as always...
You do have a point, but here's the thing:
Red is the color of chaos. Their entire repetoire is centered on destroying, damaging and otherwise doing what they want whenever they want. the fact that they have the capability to deal more direct damage to players than the other four colors combined, I think, shows that red is doing better than green. That isn't to say, of course, that red couldn't use some work. However, the truth is that Green has had so much promised to it that was never delivered, and that is worse than never being given anything at all.
I am personally ecstatic that there is an almost unanimous agreement on green needing more interactive creatures to represent the color's adaptive quality.
Great, Great, and seriously something MaRo's team needs to consider.
the more debatable aspect of this article is green removal (and subsequently bacteria and viruses).
Green should never have a removal spell. Never. The desire to eliminate life is not green. Hence the inability for wizards to justify cards like hornet sting and bee sting.
Yet the voracity of certain species cannot be ignored in green's pie either. Point being, this is what a virus or bacteria would and should do. Bacteria and viruses have bodies; they should not be considered just a spell but a body that either ceases to exist [the sacrifice effect on mogg fanatic] when claiming a host [the damage dealt to a creature] or grows in response to claiming life like this on a stick.
Using acidic slime as the posterboy, This is everything a green creature should be. And to be honest, for it's cmc to p/t level, I could even see this printed with flash on it.
Skill is an ability that relates more so to the type of deck that's built and how said player pilots it. It also relates to the ability to assess the board and use the cards available to you in the most optimal way relative to each situation.
When a deck is filled with above par cards and every play is solid, there comes a diminishing need to "think" for the lack of wanting to use a better word.
As a consummate green mage I try to take advantage of the various things the color pie offers me. Some ideas in the article were excellent, but the suggestion someone made about green plagues being more weakening event than a kill is brilliant.
Wasting Plague
G (maybe GG)
Enchant Creature
At the beginning of your upkeep add a -1 /-1 counter to enchanted creature.
When Wasting Plague is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, return Wasting Plague to its owner's hand.
Wulvenheimer also requested a land version of Insist or Vexxing Shusher, yep that sounds fantastic. I'd want a playset.
I'm the only player in my playgroup that plays green in any way beyond Tarmogoyf or Krosgan Grip. I'm also not as Spike as everyone else. But the thing I would suggest as an addition to green within it's colorwheel is sort of a cross between Asceticism and Redirect. Green is willing to sacrifice a creature for the greater good. My specific thought is this.
Food Chain
1GG
Enchantment.
G: Target spell or ability that targets a creature you control instead targets another creatre you control.
"Some must die so others may live."
Think of it as a form of banding, which was mentioned.
Additionally all the comments about other colors getting creature too competively efficient killing green, I completely agree. I think the best example is Vampire Nighthawk. That should cost black 5, and with dark rituals and such even that wouldn't be too hard.
I dont understand why people feel the colors should follow some sort of ideal on what the color 'feels' like vs play-ability. Green shouldn't have removal, although nature 'removes' and kills creatures all the time.
If the colors made sense, why doesn't green have flying creatures? White seems to push humans, why do they then have griffins and other flying creatures, but the color of NATURE has none?
its too late for wotc to change it now i guess, but if they wanted green to have no removal, they should have thte best creatures all around. the colors with removal should have weaker creatures. make the best removal more color focused but then reprint the old duals (i knowit wont happen). the old duals dont really matter if doom blade was BB, and only weaker black cards had only B to cast. this would stop people from using very strong green creatures and splash for top quality removal. if you want great removal, you need to focus on that color, then deal with the weaker creatures.
as long as people can use the best qualities of two colors and get efficient creatures and good removal, why would anyone play mono green with no removal? you dont even get better creatures...
Something I don't get is that WotC is so afraid of printing green control.
If green wants things to stay status quo, why does all its components stay proactive and violent?
Green should hate on noncreature cards to empower its creatures. (Those creatures should, btw, be stronger - currently, esper fatties are the strongest, which is ridiculous) Something massive would be a green negate. But it'd be easier simply to base its noncreature hate on creatures. Protection from instants or sorceries. Sac this creature to counter noncreature spell. And a simple way to present green spiritual balance would be to colorshift Ajani's Mantra or print a green Howling Mine which only affected you.
I agree that the one major flaw in green is the lack of dealing with instants and sorceries. Once this problem is addressed, then green may start seeing some more competitive play in eternal formats, which are filled with instant/sorcery based combos.
I would love to see some preventive measures such as Rule of Law and/or Worship style effects. How about a green Ethersworn Canonist that allowed players to cast only a single noncreature spell each turn. Why should white get all the effects like this?
I enjoyed the article (being a green mage myself). I really havnt done much card development, and I like how you approach it. Usually, I am just playing magic with my friends and we will randomly come up with our own versions of cards, or maybe a new ability now and then. But I like your logical approach and analogies towards each color. I would like to hear more of your color philosophies.
I also like your vision on "plagues and diseases" and how they should be green spells.. not black. This makes sense to me. I think green should have plagues, but they shouldn't be exact copies of damnation. Plagues and Diseases don't just kill people (like damnation would), they shut down nervous systems, they lock up parts of the body, they suck the nutrition out of the host body. So instead of just turning old black cards into green, they should instead change the flavor of the card as to fit greens "biology" theme. (just thinking out load)
One thing that bothers me about Green is that it has abilities already established in its part of the color pie that are rarely implemented, such as:
1. Creatures that cannot be countered. I like the idea that green creatures are stealthy and spring up out of nowhere without the prey being able to react. There have been a handful of them printed, but this should be a more widely-used ability. That way, the blue mage has to play creatures to deal with the problem his green mage opponent creates instead of just tapping a few islands and saying "no."
2. Hexproof and shroud. Green creatures should be seen as evolving over time, and if there is constant exposure to magic, doesn't it seem likely that some would develop a resistance to it? I would argue that both abilities could be utilized depending on the type of creature (non-humanoid with hexproof, humanoid with shroud) instead of the seeming shift away from shroud to hexproof that we've been seeing.
This would also have the outcome that opponents of green mages would have to cast creatures to deal with threats instead of just throwing out a Doom Blade or Dismember, effectively ending the "yeah, but it dies to removal" meme. No, it doesn't, so you're going to have to put a few creatures capable of dealing with a fattie in your deck instead of lazily loading your deck with creature kill spells, pacifism or tap effects or burn.
3. Deathtouch. Glad Ambush Viper got this, but there needs to be more of it. Animals develop natural defenses such as poisons, so why couldn't there be more of this ability out there? I don't mind that Typhoid Rats has deathtouch as well; disease-carrying vermin are just as worthy of having the ability as a snake, but this should be more prevalent in green IMHO.
QFT.
"Cannot be countered" should get its own keyword and be put on 15-20% of all Green cards in each set. It gives answers to counters of which we have very few as is.
I also completely agree with his point on hexproof. Green creatures are meant to fight. They should be able to stick around and fight.
Yes, the "dies to x" meme is tired as hell. Printing Dismember was a mistake imo, and it would be nice to see more creatures like back in the day that made people who just packed a bunch of silver bullets sweat when they couldn't use them.
edit: and I'd love to see a reprint or timeshift or whatever done to Argothian Enchantress. I feel like that card simply belongs in green canon nowadays. Enchantress needs some cards to be viable in Modern and Standard, as well. As of now it is basically unplayable.
I'd also love to see WOTC slam Primordial Hydra into Ajani's Mantra. At the beginning of your upkeep, add a counter, and gain 1 life for every counter on the enchantment! Green has been a little lacking in life gain lately, which is weird because back when I was a little green timmy all my decks packed Streams of Life and other such cards.
edit edit: Forgot to mention the most important part lol. Great article! Kudos
Based on the current description of the keywords, Giant Solifuge could be a mono-green card. I wonder what it would have to cost under the current design paradigm, ie. hexproof rather than shroud?
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Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not watching.
Yes, the "dies to x" meme is tired as hell. Printing Dismember was a mistake imo, and it would be nice to see more creatures like back in the day that made people who just packed a bunch of silver bullets sweat when they couldn't use them.
edit: and I'd love to see a reprint or timeshift or whatever done to Argothian Enchantress. I feel like that card simply belongs in green canon nowadays. Enchantress needs some cards to be viable in Modern and Standard, as well. As of now it is basically unplayable.
I'd also love to see WOTC slam Primordial Hydra into Ajani's Mantra. At the beginning of your upkeep, add a counter, and gain 1 life for every counter on the enchantment! Green has been a little lacking in life gain lately, which is weird because back when I was a little green timmy all my decks packed Streams of Life and other such cards.
edit edit: Forgot to mention the most important part lol. Great article! Kudos
Yeah I would love to see some green creatures with lifelink. BWG could all establish themselves as lifelink colors.
In red it is fine because that is really all red has, but in white/blue/black, removal should probably start to cost more. No more cards like Path to Exile and Dismember. If wizards really wants Magic to be more of a creature game, they should start making it harder to deal with creatures.
Then green will become stronger, once the other colors get weaker
Personally though, I think wizards should have simply not had any colors to begin with, just the different types of effects (creatures, counterspells, burn, removal, drawing, tutoring, rituals) and the players would take on characteristics based upon the kind of cards they like to play with.
Many thanks to DNC at Heroes of the Plane Studios
Also I feel that Bushido is a green ability to me. many wild animals look unassuming until they are bothered or hungry or looking for a mate. When you get too close suddenly that cute looking lion doesn't look so cuddly anymore. I feel this is best represented in Bushido. Get too close and you'll be sorry.
My Saffi deck
The DKA card, Strangleroot Geist, is a step in the right direction.
I agree they made the Titan cycle too strong outside of green (the blue and black titans seem particularly 'wrong' to me, at least in terms of their P/T to Mana Cost ration). And we don't really have to argue that our favorite blue Human Insect is above the curve for what blue aught to be able to do.
Thrun was also a step in the right direction, but it probably should not have been legendary. I'm OK with it being a mythic rare, since seeing cards like that at rare/uncommon in Limited play would be extremely problematic.
A Few Additional Points:
White steps on Green's toes too much. Its creatures usually have equivalent P/T to CC ratios, and white gets spot removal, mass removal, and equivalent art/ench hate. I'm OK with White having good spells like Day and Path, but its creatures should be a bit worse. Baneslayer Angel was too much.
Instead of removing art/ench hate from white, they should give green ench/art hate with tremendous upside. Instead of having Naturalize be the standby, it should be something like this:
1G - Nature's Right
Instant
Destroy target enchantment or exile target artifact. If an artifact is exiled this way, put a 1/1 Saproling token into play.
Cards like Acidic Slime and Viridian Corrupter are steps in the right direction.
It's OK if cards like Mana Leak and Vapor Snag are generally good against green's fatties, but the fatties should have some upside that lets there be some degree of competition (ala Primeval Titan).
—Lim-Dûl, the Necromancer
I believe they should maybe take a bit of the Legions set design view into what Green does. Legions was a 100% creature set, so all the tricks and doodads and all that stuff, had to be attached to creatures. So perhaps green needs more ETB/LTB type of creatures. Perhaps green needs more combat tricks, but not as spells, but attached to creatures. I'm not saying all greens fun should be attached to creatures, but being the creature colour, there should be more interesting/interactive creatures.
Undying, provoke, fight, haste, flash, can't be countered, shroud, hexproof etc. are things that green is about and perhaps need to be utilised more. It is definitely possible to flesh out green more with these mechanics, and convey the cunning feel of green (which I agree on). You don't have to have blue smarts to be cunning (look at the way animals lure their prey/ hunt their prey etc.)
Even something as simple as -
Hungry Bear 1G
Creature - Bear (C)
Flash
2/2
- is a push in the right direction.
You know, something I don't understand is why do green hate flyer? Are not birds evoluted animals, part of the nature?
Love this idea, very green.
So they could change doom blade to be BB in cost, meaning you might want more black in the deck to use it, but then giving black less efficient creatures.
Give green a creature with titan-like efficiency but not other colors. Grave titan usable in a deck that can also have awesome creature removal? (doom blade, etc.) WHY would you use the green titan, other than it's broken ability to grab special lands?
Green should have 4 mana creatures be 5/5 in size, no other color should have this. Then make green have weak removal. it's next to red on the wheel, why can't a 'lightning bolt' be a nature color card? 1GG to do 3 damage to any target. Or even 2G.
Splashing red gives you more efficient removal, but a mono green deck is then viable.
Black having the best removal should have weaker creatures or creatures iwth drawbacks. This is how it was done 15 years ago (force of nature vs lord of the pit) as long as green has no great removal and creatures no more efficient than other colors, it will always fail. Almost every big green creature has a drawback. number of forests in play, or whatever. Green should have had a GGGG Phyrexian Obliterator type creature, not black. Black should have splinterfright or whatever it is, not green. It CAN be huge, but sometimes it sucks (graveyard removal, not great in early game) while an Obliterator is super efficent and awesome. Why give the awesome creature to the color with best removal, and then they wonder why people dont play the other color with no removal and average creatures (Thrun being one massive exception).
Dont get me started on wurmcoil...
Red? Shafted? Since when has RDW not been a competitive deck? How about that U/R tempo now a days too? I mean, seriously pal, when was the last time you saw Mono Green going competitive in a standard setting? Or even legacy? Sure, Maverick's pretty big and NO RUG, but those are not MONO. Hell, Red is one of the more efficient colours, considering you can run a Legacy deck with nothing but straight burn and Goblin Guides and faire pretty well in a tournament.
I don't think he meant his statement based on power level. I assume his intention was one of mechanics. Red is kind of behind on the abilities department. I would actually place green ahead red in "this color gets shafted department". Red has had the same formula for years. Burn or lots of little swarmy dudes. I guarentee the next set will be exactly the same.
I agree with your statement though. Mono green tends to be unable to compete in its current shape or form barring combo elves in Legacy.
A big piece of what holds mono-green down is mass removal. Since Green's supposed strength is in its creatures, the green mage will most likely need to overextend, because, really, what else can he do to win a game but swarm with small creatures?
Every opponent, save for mono-blue, can just reset the board and then build up their side of the field. White gets *** effects or something like Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, black has things like Massacre Wurm or even Damnation and red gets mass damage sweepers such as Slagstorm or Pyroclasm.
To combat this, how about some indestructible in green? Beetles or other insects (I'm looking at you, cockroaches) are exceptionally hardy, and if we are continuing to examine the "evolutionary" aspect of Green, would it not serve to reason that some creatures would develop the ability to simply survive anything? I do recognize that Predator Ooze, from DKA, is indestructible, but it also costs GGG.
If not outright indestructability, someone else had mentioned regeneration as needing to make a bigger comeback, and I agree with this as well. That is a very Green ability, with nature repairing itself after suffering damage.
You do have a point, but here's the thing:
Red is the color of chaos. Their entire repetoire is centered on destroying, damaging and otherwise doing what they want whenever they want. the fact that they have the capability to deal more direct damage to players than the other four colors combined, I think, shows that red is doing better than green. That isn't to say, of course, that red couldn't use some work. However, the truth is that Green has had so much promised to it that was never delivered, and that is worse than never being given anything at all.
Great, Great, and seriously something MaRo's team needs to consider.
the more debatable aspect of this article is green removal (and subsequently bacteria and viruses).
Green should never have a removal spell. Never. The desire to eliminate life is not green. Hence the inability for wizards to justify cards like hornet sting and bee sting.
Yet the voracity of certain species cannot be ignored in green's pie either. Point being, this is what a virus or bacteria would and should do. Bacteria and viruses have bodies; they should not be considered just a spell but a body that either ceases to exist [the sacrifice effect on mogg fanatic] when claiming a host [the damage dealt to a creature] or grows in response to claiming life like this on a stick.
That said the 'stings' on a sacrificial body makes more sense.
That aside: I must admit and point out to the rest of this thread that adaptation is not something that has been ignored whatsoever; it has just been dispersed and isolated mostly within certain cards and somewhat this //gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?type=+[ooze">||subtype=+[ooze]||text=+[ooze]&color=+@([G])"]tribe.
Using acidic slime as the posterboy, This is everything a green creature should be. And to be honest, for it's cmc to p/t level, I could even see this printed with flash on it.
Skill is an ability that relates more so to the type of deck that's built and how said player pilots it. It also relates to the ability to assess the board and use the cards available to you in the most optimal way relative to each situation.
When a deck is filled with above par cards and every play is solid, there comes a diminishing need to "think" for the lack of wanting to use a better word.
Wasting Plague
G (maybe GG)
Enchant Creature
At the beginning of your upkeep add a -1 /-1 counter to enchanted creature.
When Wasting Plague is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, return Wasting Plague to its owner's hand.
Green certainly has some awesome beaters that are a pain to remove. Gaea's Revenge or Quagnoth for example.
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=205033
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=136153
Kuldahar also requested a Hungry bear, 2/2 for 2 with flash, I present you:
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=114905
Same thing.
Wulvenheimer also requested a land version of Insist or Vexxing Shusher, yep that sounds fantastic. I'd want a playset.
I'm the only player in my playgroup that plays green in any way beyond Tarmogoyf or Krosgan Grip. I'm also not as Spike as everyone else. But the thing I would suggest as an addition to green within it's colorwheel is sort of a cross between Asceticism and Redirect. Green is willing to sacrifice a creature for the greater good. My specific thought is this.
Food Chain
1GG
Enchantment.
G: Target spell or ability that targets a creature you control instead targets another creatre you control.
"Some must die so others may live."
Think of it as a form of banding, which was mentioned.
Additionally all the comments about other colors getting creature too competively efficient killing green, I completely agree. I think the best example is Vampire Nighthawk. That should cost black 5, and with dark rituals and such even that wouldn't be too hard.
Overall fantastic article, green needs some love.
If the colors made sense, why doesn't green have flying creatures? White seems to push humans, why do they then have griffins and other flying creatures, but the color of NATURE has none?
its too late for wotc to change it now i guess, but if they wanted green to have no removal, they should have thte best creatures all around. the colors with removal should have weaker creatures. make the best removal more color focused but then reprint the old duals (i knowit wont happen). the old duals dont really matter if doom blade was BB, and only weaker black cards had only B to cast. this would stop people from using very strong green creatures and splash for top quality removal. if you want great removal, you need to focus on that color, then deal with the weaker creatures.
as long as people can use the best qualities of two colors and get efficient creatures and good removal, why would anyone play mono green with no removal? you dont even get better creatures...
I agree that the one major flaw in green is the lack of dealing with instants and sorceries. Once this problem is addressed, then green may start seeing some more competitive play in eternal formats, which are filled with instant/sorcery based combos.
I would love to see some preventive measures such as Rule of Law and/or Worship style effects. How about a green Ethersworn Canonist that allowed players to cast only a single noncreature spell each turn. Why should white get all the effects like this?
I also like your vision on "plagues and diseases" and how they should be green spells.. not black. This makes sense to me. I think green should have plagues, but they shouldn't be exact copies of damnation. Plagues and Diseases don't just kill people (like damnation would), they shut down nervous systems, they lock up parts of the body, they suck the nutrition out of the host body. So instead of just turning old black cards into green, they should instead change the flavor of the card as to fit greens "biology" theme. (just thinking out load)
QFT.
"Cannot be countered" should get its own keyword and be put on 15-20% of all Green cards in each set. It gives answers to counters of which we have very few as is.
I also completely agree with his point on hexproof. Green creatures are meant to fight. They should be able to stick around and fight.
edit: and I'd love to see a reprint or timeshift or whatever done to Argothian Enchantress. I feel like that card simply belongs in green canon nowadays. Enchantress needs some cards to be viable in Modern and Standard, as well. As of now it is basically unplayable.
I'd also love to see WOTC slam Primordial Hydra into Ajani's Mantra. At the beginning of your upkeep, add a counter, and gain 1 life for every counter on the enchantment! Green has been a little lacking in life gain lately, which is weird because back when I was a little green timmy all my decks packed Streams of Life and other such cards.
edit edit: Forgot to mention the most important part lol. Great article! Kudos
Yeah I would love to see some green creatures with lifelink. BWG could all establish themselves as lifelink colors.
Green is in a great state. Beast Within. Hunter's Insight. Rampant Growth. Thrun, the Last Troll. That's destruction for all types of permanent, carddraw, mana ramp and a very efficient creature, all covered with just 4 cards of the top of my head.
Compare that to the shallow colours that are black and red. They are only about creature destruction, and offer nothing else.
The only thing setting green back, is white. White can do anything green can, but generally more efficient.