On my commute home I was thinking about powerfulgreenrecursion cards and how they're my primary attraction to the color. Normally I dislike green since I tend to hate creatures and that's what green does, but digging in the dirt of my graveyard has a lot of crossover with black which is (obviously) my favorite color. I also really like control decks, and green has a respectableamount of disruption. However, instead of traditional control which seeks to disrupt opposing gameplans reactively, green takes a rather proactive approach, putting it firmly in the realm of stax.
A brief Google search turned up a few usefulresources but nothing comprehensive about a resource denial strategy. Beyond stax artifact staples like Smokestack, Tangle Wire, and Winter Orb what green cards lend themselves to this strategy? How can we exploit the symmetry? Tokens and mana dorks are helpful but I don't like relying on creatures due to the prevalence of board wipes in every meta and enchantress engines I find are too easily disrupted. This leads me back to recursion cards and generating card advantage over the long term. The deck should be slow as molasses, so spending four turns setting up with Life from the Loam is feasible.
How does the deck win? Primal Order is tailor made for a slow, grindy deck, but isn't reliable against every deck and is only a single card in a deck that can't tutor for it. However, it is from Homelands and killing people with a card from that set fills me with such joy. How can we win without the combat step? aslidsiksoraksi's excellent thread gives some excellent ideas in the form of Hurricanes and Glacial Chasm but it seems a bit mana intensive. Goblin Charbelcher is pretty techy but I fear it's not enough.
More importantly, who helms the deck? Freyalise comes to mind since she helps break parity in multiple ways. Creating dudes to sacrifice or get around land mana denial seems good and from a flavor perspective she's great. Five mana is manageable in a color that can generate boatloads of mana even under duress and every one of her modes is relevant. Dosan the Falling Leaf is a little more direct but isn't as relevant to every deck or our own deck's central strategy.
Am I taking crazy pills? Can this deck come together and form a cohesive whole?
How about Titania, Protector of Argoth as the general? While I don't run much in the way of stax cards in my Titania deck, Torpor Orb effects aside I tend not to be that bothered when my opponents try go all resource denial on me.
While she does win through combat, Titania can be good at doing so with minimal assistance from the rest of the deck, and you don't need to actually run very many creatures in the deck (I have 14 plus the general in my current list). Even just a full package of fetchlands (both the good ones and a few of the weaker ones like Evolving Wilds) can give you a reliable way of getting a good amount of power on the board; combine this with resource denial preventing your opponents answering it and you can ride those 5/3 to victory. And if they do wipe the board, it doesn't take much to rebuild your army.
A good number of effects that are sought after for staxxy builds also synergise with Titania. For example, sacrificing your lands to your own Smokestack feels a lot better when you also get a 5/3 out of the deal. Natural Balance is amazing when you sacrifice allyour lands first, getting a pile of elementals, then get back up to 5 lands while bringing everyone else down. Winter Orb is a hell of a lot less symmetrical when your land is a Lotus Vale or Scorched Ruins, and the risk of running such lands is a lot less when you get 10 power from playing them, and another 5 if someone Strip Mines it.
Speaking of Strip Mine, Crucible of Worlds/Ramunap Excavator and extralanddrops are things Titania really want, and that package is a great way of disrupting your opponents resources (i.e. Staxxing them) - and again, you're getting power on the board from doing so.
Life From the Loam is another Titania staple that you're looking to run anyway.
If you are committed to going down the resource denial route, I would consider Kamahl, Fist of Krosa for the Commander. Turning opposing lands into creatures and then gunning them down can be the backbone of a brutally strong and effective land destruction strategy.
Excellent points. The ability to constantly poop out permanents and fatties while locking the game down to protect them while you win seems very good. The only real problem for me personally is that I don't have fetches which I imagine makes her a lot worse. How does your deck fare when you can't get Titania to stick? I feel like if I have to cast her more than three times in stax I won't be able to get there even with a solid ramp package. Do you have a list I could peruse?
Oooh, that's a spicy meatball. Voltron/aggro is a great way to take advantage of a locked down board. The janky Freyalise list I threw together is basically elfball stax and it performed okay in a 1v1. I used your stax package as the chassis for my own, so, thanks!
I have fond memories of playing Plow Under in standard a long time ago. Being able to set them back a few turns both in mana production and seeing new cards is strong. Stunted Growth has incredible art but I'm not sure it's worthwhile. Hands do get full when opponents don't have mana available so it's very likely you'll never whiff with it but eh, it still seems a tad situational since they get to keep their better cards.
Kamahl is in the list as Wrath protection, and I like that he's both a wincon and a pseudo-disruption card in the command zone but I'm not sure he does enough. I'm also a little wary about direct land destruction. It's fine if people have to tap or sac them to one of my stax effects but to actively go after them with Kamahl and a pinger seems a little much for a casual deck. Then again I'm building stax so my pretension of this being casual is somewhat laughable.
As it turns out manadorks and Winter Orb is a strong combo. They're vulnerable to wrath effects, which is unfortunate, but hopefully I get online before they set me back to the stone age. So yeah, I think the elfball route is very viable. The list I tooled around with had a tendency to run out of gas if I couldn't get Freyalise's ultimate off or recur a huge amount of spells with Seasons Past or Praetor's Council.
Titania seems like a very strong option even if I don't have the proper cards. I'll probably toy around with her a bit.
Excellent points. The ability to constantly poop out permanents and fatties while locking the game down to protect them while you win seems very good. The only real problem for me personally is that I don't have fetches which I imagine makes her a lot worse. How does your deck fare when you can't get Titania to stick? I feel like if I have to cast her more than three times in stax I won't be able to get there even with a solid ramp package. Do you have a list I could peruse?
I haven't got an up-to-date list online, but there's an older one in this thread (partway down the first page), and while I've changed some cards around, the overall gameplan is the same. There's some good discussion there too.
There are a good amount of budget alternatives to the good fetches - they do tend to hurt your speed as the land you get ETBs tapped, but they can still do a job (and I run a few of these even with the fetches): Terramorphic Expanse and Evolving Wilds, three of the panorama cycle, the old slow fetches, Warped LandscapeMyriad Landscape and so on.
While the deck does generally need Titania to be in play to function, even if opponents are killing her, it's not too bad - I run a lot of ramp, Titania herself ramps on ETB (you always want a land in your yard, preferably a fetch, when you cast her) and if the worse happens, I can use one of my 4 unconditional land tutors to get a Command Beacon. The deck can be pretty explosive (particularly with the amount of card draw I run), so it's not uncommon for me to only need to untap with her in play ones, especially late game when I've a lot of mana, in order to go off. For a more staxxy, resource denial list, you probably won't have quite this strong an effect, but overall I'd still expect the deck to be surprisingly resilient for something dependent on the general.
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On my commute home I was thinking about powerful green recursion cards and how they're my primary attraction to the color. Normally I dislike green since I tend to hate creatures and that's what green does, but digging in the dirt of my graveyard has a lot of crossover with black which is (obviously) my favorite color. I also really like control decks, and green has a respectable amount of disruption. However, instead of traditional control which seeks to disrupt opposing gameplans reactively, green takes a rather proactive approach, putting it firmly in the realm of stax.
A brief Google search turned up a few useful resources but nothing comprehensive about a resource denial strategy. Beyond stax artifact staples like Smokestack, Tangle Wire, and Winter Orb what green cards lend themselves to this strategy? How can we exploit the symmetry? Tokens and mana dorks are helpful but I don't like relying on creatures due to the prevalence of board wipes in every meta and enchantress engines I find are too easily disrupted. This leads me back to recursion cards and generating card advantage over the long term. The deck should be slow as molasses, so spending four turns setting up with Life from the Loam is feasible.
How does the deck win? Primal Order is tailor made for a slow, grindy deck, but isn't reliable against every deck and is only a single card in a deck that can't tutor for it. However, it is from Homelands and killing people with a card from that set fills me with such joy. How can we win without the combat step? aslidsiksoraksi's excellent thread gives some excellent ideas in the form of Hurricanes and Glacial Chasm but it seems a bit mana intensive. Goblin Charbelcher is pretty techy but I fear it's not enough.
More importantly, who helms the deck? Freyalise comes to mind since she helps break parity in multiple ways. Creating dudes to sacrifice or get around land mana denial seems good and from a flavor perspective she's great. Five mana is manageable in a color that can generate boatloads of mana even under duress and every one of her modes is relevant. Dosan the Falling Leaf is a little more direct but isn't as relevant to every deck or our own deck's central strategy.
Am I taking crazy pills? Can this deck come together and form a cohesive whole?
[Primer] Erebos, God of the Dead
HONK HONK
While she does win through combat, Titania can be good at doing so with minimal assistance from the rest of the deck, and you don't need to actually run very many creatures in the deck (I have 14 plus the general in my current list). Even just a full package of fetchlands (both the good ones and a few of the weaker ones like Evolving Wilds) can give you a reliable way of getting a good amount of power on the board; combine this with resource denial preventing your opponents answering it and you can ride those 5/3 to victory. And if they do wipe the board, it doesn't take much to rebuild your army.
A good number of effects that are sought after for staxxy builds also synergise with Titania. For example, sacrificing your lands to your own Smokestack feels a lot better when you also get a 5/3 out of the deal. Natural Balance is amazing when you sacrifice all your lands first, getting a pile of elementals, then get back up to 5 lands while bringing everyone else down. Winter Orb is a hell of a lot less symmetrical when your land is a Lotus Vale or Scorched Ruins, and the risk of running such lands is a lot less when you get 10 power from playing them, and another 5 if someone Strip Mines it.
Speaking of Strip Mine, Crucible of Worlds/Ramunap Excavator and extra land drops are things Titania really want, and that package is a great way of disrupting your opponents resources (i.e. Staxxing them) - and again, you're getting power on the board from doing so.
Life From the Loam is another Titania staple that you're looking to run anyway.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/multiplayer-commander-decklists/757570-mono-green-control-nissa-vastwood-seer
Jalira, Master Polymorphist | Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder | Bosh, Iron Golem | Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Brago, King Eternal | Oona, Queen of the Fae | Wort, Boggart Auntie | Wort, the Raidmother
Captain Sisay | Rhys, the Redeemed | Trostani, Selesnya's Voice | Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight | Obzedat, Ghost Council | Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind | Vorel of the Hull Clade
Uril, the Miststalker | Prossh, Skyraider of Kher | Nicol Bolas | Progenitus
Ghave, Guru of Spores | Zedruu the Greathearted | Damia, Sage of Stone | Riku of Two Reflections
Excellent points. The ability to constantly poop out permanents and fatties while locking the game down to protect them while you win seems very good. The only real problem for me personally is that I don't have fetches which I imagine makes her a lot worse. How does your deck fare when you can't get Titania to stick? I feel like if I have to cast her more than three times in stax I won't be able to get there even with a solid ramp package. Do you have a list I could peruse?
Oooh, that's a spicy meatball. Voltron/aggro is a great way to take advantage of a locked down board. The janky Freyalise list I threw together is basically elfball stax and it performed okay in a 1v1. I used your stax package as the chassis for my own, so, thanks!
I saw that thread a few times recently and it's part of the reason I'm trying to do this.
I have fond memories of playing Plow Under in standard a long time ago. Being able to set them back a few turns both in mana production and seeing new cards is strong. Stunted Growth has incredible art but I'm not sure it's worthwhile. Hands do get full when opponents don't have mana available so it's very likely you'll never whiff with it but eh, it still seems a tad situational since they get to keep their better cards.
Kamahl is in the list as Wrath protection, and I like that he's both a wincon and a pseudo-disruption card in the command zone but I'm not sure he does enough. I'm also a little wary about direct land destruction. It's fine if people have to tap or sac them to one of my stax effects but to actively go after them with Kamahl and a pinger seems a little much for a casual deck. Then again I'm building stax so my pretension of this being casual is somewhat laughable.
As it turns out mana dorks and Winter Orb is a strong combo. They're vulnerable to wrath effects, which is unfortunate, but hopefully I get online before they set me back to the stone age. So yeah, I think the elfball route is very viable. The list I tooled around with had a tendency to run out of gas if I couldn't get Freyalise's ultimate off or recur a huge amount of spells with Seasons Past or Praetor's Council.
Titania seems like a very strong option even if I don't have the proper cards. I'll probably toy around with her a bit.
[Primer] Erebos, God of the Dead
HONK HONK
I haven't got an up-to-date list online, but there's an older one in this thread (partway down the first page), and while I've changed some cards around, the overall gameplan is the same. There's some good discussion there too.
There are a good amount of budget alternatives to the good fetches - they do tend to hurt your speed as the land you get ETBs tapped, but they can still do a job (and I run a few of these even with the fetches): Terramorphic Expanse and Evolving Wilds, three of the panorama cycle, the old slow fetches, Warped Landscape Myriad Landscape and so on.
While the deck does generally need Titania to be in play to function, even if opponents are killing her, it's not too bad - I run a lot of ramp, Titania herself ramps on ETB (you always want a land in your yard, preferably a fetch, when you cast her) and if the worse happens, I can use one of my 4 unconditional land tutors to get a Command Beacon. The deck can be pretty explosive (particularly with the amount of card draw I run), so it's not uncommon for me to only need to untap with her in play ones, especially late game when I've a lot of mana, in order to go off. For a more staxxy, resource denial list, you probably won't have quite this strong an effect, but overall I'd still expect the deck to be surprisingly resilient for something dependent on the general.