So, hyalapterouslemur and I got into a spirited debate (I hope lemur would describe it the same way!) over in Magic General about whether Green is always the worst color in draft. I won't summarize his arguments here, as I don't want to risk misrepresenting them, but in short, the claim was made that with a couple exceptions (ROE and AVR) green has consistently been the obvious worst color in draft formats of recent years. I contend that it's been the worst on occasion, but that this isn't typical, let alone universal.
So, what do people think of Green in general?
Always the worst?
Usually the worst?
Better/worse than average most of the time?
(Color arguments often seem to get intense for whatever reason [personal identification with colors?], so please, spirited debate but let's not get abusive)
I'm not Draft expert by any means, so take this with a grain of salt.
Green has 2 things that I feel are really good for Draft.
1. Good bodies/creatures. Even though they often don't have Evasion, it's still nice to get a good P/T at a decent mana cost, and if your opponent has weaker creature with evasion, that's great, but eventually he will have to block if your winning the "race"
2. Combat tricks in the form of "giant Growth", which can serve as indirect removal.
I'm not sure if that makes it the weakest or not. I think a lot of it depends on what you open/get passed and how well it synergizes with your current cards or compensates for what you're lacking.
There's a discussion in the General forum about how removal has been getting weaker (sorcery speed, expensive, conditional). As removal has gotten weaker, green has gotten better. I would say that green was one of the best colors in ISD draft, and G/W was probably the default "best deck" in the sense that it was the easiest to draft and get a good deck with. Selesnya was one of the best guilds in RTR, while Gruul and Simic were probably the 3rd and 4th most generically powerful guilds in GTC.
In some of the recent core sets, though, green has been awful. In M10 and M11, I wouldn't touch green unless I opened an Overrun, and even then I wasn't happy about it. This was pretty directly related to the high-quality instant speed removal (Doom Blade specifically) available at common in those sets.
Well... let's see. Perhaps we should just start by looking at the last few draft formats and whether there was a strong green deck or not.
3 x M14 - Too early.
3 x MM - U/G was a strong deck I think? I didn't get to draft it super often.
DGM/GTC/RTR - Honestly not sure here
3 x GTC - Simic was a good deck
3 x RTR - Selesnya was once of the strongest 2 decks along with Rakdos
3 x M13 - Green was really strong IMO. UG was a good deck, and GR wasn't bad either if I recall correctly.
3 x AVR - I can't recall this format very well to be honest
DKA/ISD/ISD - Spider Spawning was strong I think.
3 x ISD - WG AND Spider Spawning were both good decks (though slightly at different points in the format I think).
Other people should chime in on that list though, as I don't have a ton of experience.
So, hyalapterouslemur and I got into a spirited debate (I hope lemur would describe it the same way!) over in Magic General about whether Green is always the worst color in draft. I won't summarize his arguments here, as I don't want to risk misrepresenting them, but in short, the claim was made that with a couple exceptions (ROE and AVR) green has consistently been the obvious worst color in draft formats of recent years. I contend that it's been the worst on occasion, but that this isn't typical, let alone universal.
So, what do people think of Green in general?
Always the worst?
Usually the worst?
Better/worse than average most of the time?
(Color arguments often seem to get intense for whatever reason [personal identification with colors?], so please, spirited debate but let's not get abusive)
I think green has basically always been the worst in core set for sure. They just print way too many vanilla creatures. Even when you get creatures who are above curve for their mana cost, you open yourself up so much to instant speed removal and tricks.
Other than core set, it really depends. Green was pretty amazing in innistrad, I would say green was probably the best color in both avaycn restored and scars of mirrodin, so there's two examples of formats where it was excellent. However, it had a lot more utility and different types of effects than we usually see in core set, which is a big reason it was so good.
Limited often plays out as a string of the most efficient bodies you can get your hands on being played in sequence, removal is in varying amounts of short supply but rarely is it just free flowing and tempo tends to have less of an impact the slower the format is because you have plenty of time to replay your meaty beatys before you're killed.
Green as a mono color tends to lack sufficient means to interact with your opponent which can mean even though it is overall fine, against decks with a clear single big bomb or a quirky plan that is easily disrupted you have little to no good way of reaching across the board and stopping it without help from another color.
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I ran green more than any other color in M13 draft, with great results. Usually either U/G or B/G Primal Huntbeast + Tricks of the Trade/Mark of the Vampire or the Primadox bounce deck. I felt it was the strongest color in that set for sure.
Honestly, I generally avoid blue more than any other color in limited.
I think that it's fair to say that green is usually the worst colour because of it's colour identity.
Because weaker players overrate green creatures, green as a colour is typically overrated and overdrafted by them, making green a bad colour to be in for most others. Talking about my LGS here.
Green has meat, but no spice. You can build a fine deck if the calls fall your way (chortle,) but I find it's best to pair with another color... GU means fat evaders with enough control to keep from losing, GB is similar with more control and less evasion, and GR is aggro beef with hot sauce. GW can be a few things, generally protected fatties (armored rhinos.) Ramp is a beautiful thing if the set allows it.
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They are all pretty balanced for the most part. Green was awesome in Innistrad block. I don't remember anywhere else where is was that good...
In limited, removal and resilient (evasive) finishers are usually fantastic, but green doesn't get those on a premium. This means if often can't stand on it's own, but that doesn't make it the worst color. Blue usually can't stand on its own, either.
Green on its own is pretty bad, but paired with another colour, it helps fill a lot of roles that make it a powerful splash option. Big beaters, beefing effects, hexproof, stuff like that goes really well alongside red, black, and white removal, blue counters, etc. It also helps put pressure on the opponent and the bears it offers can make for decent mid to late pack picks.
On its own, I think green's a lot better than blue in most sets, but that isn't saying much considering how infrequently strictly monocoloured decks are drafted.
In draft, saying any color is the "worst" is kind of meaningless, since you'll nearly always do better drafting what's open, regardless of what deck is the best in a vacuum. Sure, green may be a little subpar, but if it's what's open, you lose a lot and gain zilch by being picky.
In sealed, it's hard to really say. If you're good at the game, green doesn't offer a whole lot in the way of cards that let you make decisions, and that means it's always going to be a little inferior when you're playing against weaker players, where lots of decisions means lots of chances to outplay them. But for the exact same reason, green has better tools for playing against opponents who are better than you. It lets you focus on the basics: have good mana, good curve, lots of threats, and you can hope that a little luck and a lot of raw power will get you a win where a tricky U/R deck would get you outplayed and crushed.
Green gets a bad rap because it isn't great tactically, but strategically, it has its place.
Wit's End is the PERFECT answer to your opponent's Monomania however.
Just hold on to your Wit's End when they Monomania, so you can Wit's End them on your next turn!!!
I think this is fairly reminiscent of the "Jace Battles" we have seen in past standards.. My guess is we will soon witness the great Monomania-Wit's End battles.
Well... let's see. Perhaps we should just start by looking at the last few draft formats and whether there was a strong green deck or not.
3 x M14 - Too early.
3 x MM - U/G was a strong deck I think? I didn't get to draft it super often.
DGM/GTC/RTR - Honestly not sure here
3 x GTC - Simic was a good deck
3 x RTR - Selesnya was once of the strongest 2 decks along with Rakdos
3 x M13 - Green was really strong IMO. UG was a good deck, and GR wasn't bad either if I recall correctly.
3 x AVR - I can't recall this format very well to be honest
DKA/ISD/ISD - Spider Spawning was strong I think.
3 x ISD - WG AND Spider Spawning were both good decks (though slightly at different points in the format I think).
Other people should chime in on that list though, as I don't have a ton of experience.
M14 - it seems a bit on the weak side to me so far but it's still early.
MM - I think every color is viable though I only did a few drafts. I know Imperiosaur.dec could be pretty good at least.
DGR - too much stuff going on to really say what the "best" color was. No color combination stood out to me as particularly weak.
GTC - Gruul was also good in GTC, probably even better than Simic IMO though no guild was truly bad other than Dimir.
RTR - Yes Selesnya was good, Golgari less so but it could still make for a good grindy deck with dumb fatties. Izzet was probably the weakest color combo but not to the same extent as Dimir in GTC.
M13 - I remember green being pretty good as well, though M13 was a fairly well-balanced set.
AVR - green was the best color by a lot. The green soulbond guys were head and shoulders above the soulbond the other colors had (Druid's Familiar and Trusted Forcemage being the cream of the crop, though Geist Trappers were no slouches either). The lack of good removal in this format meant green could do it's thing relatively unchecked.
DII/3x ISD - All the colors were viable and well-balanced. Just one of many reasons why this is considered one of the best formats of all time.
I'm digging it so far in M14, but then again, green has always been a favoriteof mine for the sheer damage potential. I loved G/W in Innistrad and G/R was great for me in both M13 and GTC while Simic was something I did very well with in RTR full block.
It seems to be getting more and more interactive too. Briarpack Alpha is so nice to have back and Hunt the Weak is a great spell.
I ahve always preferred creature-centered slugfests, so green comes naturally to me.
I'm digging it so far in M14, but then again, green has always been a favoriteof mine for the sheer damage potential. I loved G/W in Innistrad and G/R was great for me in both M13 and GTC while Simic was something I did very well with in RTR full block.
It seems to be getting more and more interactive too. Briarpack Alpha is so nice to have back and Hunt the Weak is a great spell.
I ahve always preferred creature-centered slugfests, so green comes naturally to me.
Same here, I'm pairing it with black a lot for removal, and I've been doing well with it in M14 drafts, at least the past two days.
Is it just me, or is giant growth a hell of a lot better in this format than in any other I can remember in a long while? Maybe its because of all the 2/1s and 2/3s running around. In 3x RTR or block draft I would pick GG maybe mid pack if nothing better was around (unless I was Selesnya populate+tricks), and I was happy to have it, but so far in M14 GG is a high pick for me. Paired with wring flesh and early drops, you can really just mentally dominate your opponent after G1.
Green was really good in M13, a lot of the Green commons (Arbor elf, Centaur Courser, Deadly Recluse, Farseek, Elvish Visionary, Sentinel Spider ,etc) are playable.
In Ravnica, Selesnya is very strong.
M14 have a weaker Green. The inclusion of the Slivers and enchantements theme, maybe is a factor.
Is it just me, or is giant growth a hell of a lot better in this format than in any other I can remember in a long while? Maybe its because of all the 2/1s and 2/3s running around. In 3x RTR or block draft I would pick GG maybe mid pack if nothing better was around (unless I was Selesnya populate+tricks), and I was happy to have it, but so far in M14 GG is a high pick for me. Paired with wring flesh and early drops, you can really just mentally dominate your opponent after G1.
No, Giant Growth has always been good. It wasn't an archetypal card for populate decks, but in general, it's a fairly high power limited card.
I'm not going to engage in the best/worst discussion here. Green also isn't my favorite color in draft (that would be red), but I will say this:
Green makes it easier to splash or even double-splash. I appreciate the mana fixing green usually provides.
Green is probably the color I'm least likely to splash. Is that kind of like saying it's the worst?
Nah. Green's strength lies in its creatures P/T, and many of the efficient ones are GG. Can't splash for an Elvish Warrior.
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Grimgrin, Corpseborn Modern: Polytokes IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
This question always comes up when core sets release, and the reason is pretty clear. Core sets have to maintain the expected identities of all of the colors, as that's the best way to introduce new players to how the current iteration of the color pie fleshes out.
Green's identity is generally to be relatively uninteractive and to be a blunt object of sorts, using its advantage in creature size to make up for what it generally can't provide in tempo and interactivity. Every single core set spoiler that we see prior to the release leaves people convinced that green is very strong, because it's always full of relatively curve-savvy and size-efficient bodies, at least much more so than any other color. The problem is that games of limited Magic are far more often decided by the player who has more "play," or more opportunities to interact with their opponent, be that proactively or reactively, as it presents more utility for any given card and forces the uninteractive player to play more on their terms. Green is often in this unfortunate spot in core set limited, as it requires a pretty hefty commitment to be a main color, and every other color dwarfs it in its ability to dictate play during each phase of each turn. When a base-blue deck can basically pick and choose when to lay and initiate threats and when to sap a green deck's tempo or pull the trigger on removal, the green deck loses a metric ton of functionality and power.
This is not to say that green is ever bad, per se, but it always gets worse the higher level the competition gets. Even if it generally has more size and a more balanced curve, a base-green deck is a bit like a big, strong wrestler who just attacks and blocks. When up against a smaller but much smarter wrestler (say, a base-blue deck), even if he has more brute strength and attacks better, the smarter wrestler can often parry and counteract in a way that provides him an advantage, even if his deficiencies in size and ferocity wouldn't have implied he could.
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Green was bad in modern masters, pretty much only good cards were Kodama's Reach and Search for Tomorrow. Green cards just were underpowered when compared to other colors.
What's that one green card? Seeing play in all formats? Oh I remember! Goyf, Dorks, Life from the Loam, Scavenging Ooze, DR shaman, Voice etc... etc.... Green's got the bodies you need for your other cards to shine. It's like the lynchpin of the pie.
"If fetch lands are reprinted I really believe they will be in allied colors (aka Onslaught fetches). If the fetch lands are reprinted you better believe that we'll all be fetching up basics. This would lead me to believe that the set after THS may have a reprint as the temples can't be fetched but it's pure speculation." - posted 03/22/2014 proved correct during Khans spoiler season.
"The set releases for fall 2015 (Blood, Sweat and Tears) and fall 2016 (Lock, Stock and Barrel). One or both of those 2 blocks (I'm betting) are going to contain either Fetch reprints or (more likely) Filter reprints. Filter lands still need a reprint. They are getting pretty high up there and it's been longer than ZEN so it makes a little more sense that Filter lands would see print earlier that fetches." - posted 03/22/2014 proved incorrect about filters coming earlier than fetches, still pending on filters in Origins block.
Green was good in MM.... tromp the domains... 5 colour green was a thing.
normally U/G base.
Green won the 1 14 draft I have played....I was playing U/R tempo deck (but it was my first draft and i didn't quite have a tuned deck.. and get that scroll thief is good).
The green creatures in M14 are just very big, much bigger in other colours. the trick is getting enough removal and evasion.... normally that is the big problem for green... I feel like green is getting much better recently.
Selesyna was very very good in RTR it just had all the tricks and enough agression to match it with Rakdos. Green was a little weaker in DGM/GTC/RTR, but there were a bunch of green cards that could really break it open... gruul was much better in the three set over the GTC... simic was a little well... odd but beetleform mage was nuts just hard to abuse evolve.
Green was bad in modern masters, pretty much only good cards were Kodama's Reach and Search for Tomorrow. Green cards just were underpowered when compared to other colors.
I would have love to have been where you were. Green/X won almost every draft I witnessed. It was undervalued by a lot of people. I saw great domain decks, storm/suspend deck, U/G goodstuff, and the scariest of all..... Thallid/Doubling Season decks.
In general Green always gets fatties but AVR is the only place I saw those being the reason green was the best color. I used to judge green based solely on it's ramping/fixing but now I also look for fight effects. It has great critters but they are usually slightly betterthan others and not better than the bombs in other colors.
I feel that Blue with a Control cards + flyer, and black with removal + random dude set the bar for a set. Red burn has too be cheap or very available to compete. White needs a gimmick (exalted) .
Green almost never gets card advantage unless they double block you. You need trample and hexproof, just above curve creatures but that usually get you a 2-1 record. You need splashing /ramping etc. Many of the cards have GG, so you are usually are G/x.
White feels worse to me but functions very well as X/w. It has more removal, bombier bombs, and more evasion. Can always be part of aggro, midrange, and control build.
Blue has more crap so seems thinner in the pool but has bombier bombs, more removal, and more evasion. Usually more tempo-mid ranged, or control. Second most flexibility of design.
Black is all about removal, and I almost never care about my black creatures as long as they have a pulse. This color is allowed the most flexibility in design space. It's drawback (bad creatures) has been getting better. Very midrangly but pairs well in aggro and cortrol.
Red has burn. That is often enough. More weenies, more board control, and more evasion. Usually aggro or midrange.
Green has creatures, and so does everyone else. But the damage is done by creatures CMC 3-6. White and red usually are better weenie/token decks. So green is almost exclusively a midrange deck. And this is green's biggest problem. Gruul decks could combo out in gatecrash, Soulbound decks controled AVR because they were resilent and removal was so bad. Fighting aggro decks is fine, but any format with decent control decks forces green to look to other colors for help.
I never used to feel the green got the short shrift, but after trying to beat the Chandra deck in DotP with the Garruck deck. Shudder....... I dream for cards that could interact with my opponent.
And my personal bone to pick with Wizards is that Green is the reach color. But in exchange it gets almost not flyers. So to get the most out of this ability I have to play defensively and give up the advantage I gained by dropping my fatties early.
As others have said, Green isn't very good by itself, but most mono-colored decks tend to have glaring weaknesses that require a second color to fill the gaps.
It is not uncommon for G/x to be one of the strongest color combos in any given draft format, as long as "x" has sufficient removal. Your creatures will overpower theirs, so they have to either having to take the damage, or double block and risk getting blown out. A simply, yet very effectivate game-plan.
Green also tends to have the only color fixing, so it works great as your primary color in a G/x/x deck.
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So, what do people think of Green in general?
Always the worst?
Usually the worst?
Better/worse than average most of the time?
(Color arguments often seem to get intense for whatever reason [personal identification with colors?], so please, spirited debate but let's not get abusive)
Green has 2 things that I feel are really good for Draft.
1. Good bodies/creatures. Even though they often don't have Evasion, it's still nice to get a good P/T at a decent mana cost, and if your opponent has weaker creature with evasion, that's great, but eventually he will have to block if your winning the "race"
2. Combat tricks in the form of "giant Growth", which can serve as indirect removal.
I'm not sure if that makes it the weakest or not. I think a lot of it depends on what you open/get passed and how well it synergizes with your current cards or compensates for what you're lacking.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=409478
In some of the recent core sets, though, green has been awful. In M10 and M11, I wouldn't touch green unless I opened an Overrun, and even then I wasn't happy about it. This was pretty directly related to the high-quality instant speed removal (Doom Blade specifically) available at common in those sets.
3 x M14 - Too early.
3 x MM - U/G was a strong deck I think? I didn't get to draft it super often.
DGM/GTC/RTR - Honestly not sure here
3 x GTC - Simic was a good deck
3 x RTR - Selesnya was once of the strongest 2 decks along with Rakdos
3 x M13 - Green was really strong IMO. UG was a good deck, and GR wasn't bad either if I recall correctly.
3 x AVR - I can't recall this format very well to be honest
DKA/ISD/ISD - Spider Spawning was strong I think.
3 x ISD - WG AND Spider Spawning were both good decks (though slightly at different points in the format I think).
Other people should chime in on that list though, as I don't have a ton of experience.
I think green has basically always been the worst in core set for sure. They just print way too many vanilla creatures. Even when you get creatures who are above curve for their mana cost, you open yourself up so much to instant speed removal and tricks.
Other than core set, it really depends. Green was pretty amazing in innistrad, I would say green was probably the best color in both avaycn restored and scars of mirrodin, so there's two examples of formats where it was excellent. However, it had a lot more utility and different types of effects than we usually see in core set, which is a big reason it was so good.
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Limited often plays out as a string of the most efficient bodies you can get your hands on being played in sequence, removal is in varying amounts of short supply but rarely is it just free flowing and tempo tends to have less of an impact the slower the format is because you have plenty of time to replay your meaty beatys before you're killed.
Green as a mono color tends to lack sufficient means to interact with your opponent which can mean even though it is overall fine, against decks with a clear single big bomb or a quirky plan that is easily disrupted you have little to no good way of reaching across the board and stopping it without help from another color.
Honestly, I generally avoid blue more than any other color in limited.
Standard:
RW Boros devotion/Purphoros combo
RGB Jund Midrange
Modern:
WB Martyr.proc
Because weaker players overrate green creatures, green as a colour is typically overrated and overdrafted by them, making green a bad colour to be in for most others. Talking about my LGS here.
My Decks:
EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn
Modern: Polytokes
IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
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In limited, removal and resilient (evasive) finishers are usually fantastic, but green doesn't get those on a premium. This means if often can't stand on it's own, but that doesn't make it the worst color. Blue usually can't stand on its own, either.
On its own, I think green's a lot better than blue in most sets, but that isn't saying much considering how infrequently strictly monocoloured decks are drafted.
In sealed, it's hard to really say. If you're good at the game, green doesn't offer a whole lot in the way of cards that let you make decisions, and that means it's always going to be a little inferior when you're playing against weaker players, where lots of decisions means lots of chances to outplay them. But for the exact same reason, green has better tools for playing against opponents who are better than you. It lets you focus on the basics: have good mana, good curve, lots of threats, and you can hope that a little luck and a lot of raw power will get you a win where a tricky U/R deck would get you outplayed and crushed.
Green gets a bad rap because it isn't great tactically, but strategically, it has its place.
M14 - it seems a bit on the weak side to me so far but it's still early.
MM - I think every color is viable though I only did a few drafts. I know Imperiosaur.dec could be pretty good at least.
DGR - too much stuff going on to really say what the "best" color was. No color combination stood out to me as particularly weak.
GTC - Gruul was also good in GTC, probably even better than Simic IMO though no guild was truly bad other than Dimir.
RTR - Yes Selesnya was good, Golgari less so but it could still make for a good grindy deck with dumb fatties. Izzet was probably the weakest color combo but not to the same extent as Dimir in GTC.
M13 - I remember green being pretty good as well, though M13 was a fairly well-balanced set.
AVR - green was the best color by a lot. The green soulbond guys were head and shoulders above the soulbond the other colors had (Druid's Familiar and Trusted Forcemage being the cream of the crop, though Geist Trappers were no slouches either). The lack of good removal in this format meant green could do it's thing relatively unchecked.
DII/3x ISD - All the colors were viable and well-balanced. Just one of many reasons why this is considered one of the best formats of all time.
It seems to be getting more and more interactive too. Briarpack Alpha is so nice to have back and Hunt the Weak is a great spell.
I ahve always preferred creature-centered slugfests, so green comes naturally to me.
Same here, I'm pairing it with black a lot for removal, and I've been doing well with it in M14 drafts, at least the past two days.
Is it just me, or is giant growth a hell of a lot better in this format than in any other I can remember in a long while? Maybe its because of all the 2/1s and 2/3s running around. In 3x RTR or block draft I would pick GG maybe mid pack if nothing better was around (unless I was Selesnya populate+tricks), and I was happy to have it, but so far in M14 GG is a high pick for me. Paired with wring flesh and early drops, you can really just mentally dominate your opponent after G1.
Standard:
RW Boros devotion/Purphoros combo
RGB Jund Midrange
Modern:
WB Martyr.proc
In Ravnica, Selesnya is very strong.
M14 have a weaker Green. The inclusion of the Slivers and enchantements theme, maybe is a factor.
No, Giant Growth has always been good. It wasn't an archetypal card for populate decks, but in general, it's a fairly high power limited card.
Green makes it easier to splash or even double-splash. I appreciate the mana fixing green usually provides.
Green is probably the color I'm least likely to splash. Is that kind of like saying it's the worst?
Nah. Green's strength lies in its creatures P/T, and many of the efficient ones are GG. Can't splash for an Elvish Warrior.
My Decks:
EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn
Modern: Polytokes
IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Just a friendly reminder that I will drive this car off a bridge
Green's identity is generally to be relatively uninteractive and to be a blunt object of sorts, using its advantage in creature size to make up for what it generally can't provide in tempo and interactivity. Every single core set spoiler that we see prior to the release leaves people convinced that green is very strong, because it's always full of relatively curve-savvy and size-efficient bodies, at least much more so than any other color. The problem is that games of limited Magic are far more often decided by the player who has more "play," or more opportunities to interact with their opponent, be that proactively or reactively, as it presents more utility for any given card and forces the uninteractive player to play more on their terms. Green is often in this unfortunate spot in core set limited, as it requires a pretty hefty commitment to be a main color, and every other color dwarfs it in its ability to dictate play during each phase of each turn. When a base-blue deck can basically pick and choose when to lay and initiate threats and when to sap a green deck's tempo or pull the trigger on removal, the green deck loses a metric ton of functionality and power.
This is not to say that green is ever bad, per se, but it always gets worse the higher level the competition gets. Even if it generally has more size and a more balanced curve, a base-green deck is a bit like a big, strong wrestler who just attacks and blocks. When up against a smaller but much smarter wrestler (say, a base-blue deck), even if he has more brute strength and attacks better, the smarter wrestler can often parry and counteract in a way that provides him an advantage, even if his deficiencies in size and ferocity wouldn't have implied he could.
:dance:Fact or Fiction of the [Limited] Clan:dance:
What's that one green card? Seeing play in all formats? Oh I remember! Goyf, Dorks, Life from the Loam, Scavenging Ooze, DR shaman, Voice etc... etc.... Green's got the bodies you need for your other cards to shine. It's like the lynchpin of the pie.
"The set releases for fall 2015 (Blood, Sweat and Tears) and fall 2016 (Lock, Stock and Barrel). One or both of those 2 blocks (I'm betting) are going to contain either Fetch reprints or (more likely) Filter reprints. Filter lands still need a reprint. They are getting pretty high up there and it's been longer than ZEN so it makes a little more sense that Filter lands would see print earlier that fetches." - posted 03/22/2014 proved incorrect about filters coming earlier than fetches, still pending on filters in Origins block.
normally U/G base.
Green won the 1 14 draft I have played....I was playing U/R tempo deck (but it was my first draft and i didn't quite have a tuned deck.. and get that scroll thief is good).
The green creatures in M14 are just very big, much bigger in other colours. the trick is getting enough removal and evasion.... normally that is the big problem for green... I feel like green is getting much better recently.
Selesyna was very very good in RTR it just had all the tricks and enough agression to match it with Rakdos. Green was a little weaker in DGM/GTC/RTR, but there were a bunch of green cards that could really break it open... gruul was much better in the three set over the GTC... simic was a little well... odd but beetleform mage was nuts just hard to abuse evolve.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
I would have love to have been where you were. Green/X won almost every draft I witnessed. It was undervalued by a lot of people. I saw great domain decks, storm/suspend deck, U/G goodstuff, and the scariest of all..... Thallid/Doubling Season decks.
In general Green always gets fatties but AVR is the only place I saw those being the reason green was the best color. I used to judge green based solely on it's ramping/fixing but now I also look for fight effects. It has great critters but they are usually slightly betterthan others and not better than the bombs in other colors.
I feel that Blue with a Control cards + flyer, and black with removal + random dude set the bar for a set. Red burn has too be cheap or very available to compete. White needs a gimmick (exalted) .
Green almost never gets card advantage unless they double block you. You need trample and hexproof, just above curve creatures but that usually get you a 2-1 record. You need splashing /ramping etc. Many of the cards have GG, so you are usually are G/x.
White feels worse to me but functions very well as X/w. It has more removal, bombier bombs, and more evasion. Can always be part of aggro, midrange, and control build.
Blue has more crap so seems thinner in the pool but has bombier bombs, more removal, and more evasion. Usually more tempo-mid ranged, or control. Second most flexibility of design.
Black is all about removal, and I almost never care about my black creatures as long as they have a pulse. This color is allowed the most flexibility in design space. It's drawback (bad creatures) has been getting better. Very midrangly but pairs well in aggro and cortrol.
Red has burn. That is often enough. More weenies, more board control, and more evasion. Usually aggro or midrange.
Green has creatures, and so does everyone else. But the damage is done by creatures CMC 3-6. White and red usually are better weenie/token decks. So green is almost exclusively a midrange deck. And this is green's biggest problem. Gruul decks could combo out in gatecrash, Soulbound decks controled AVR because they were resilent and removal was so bad. Fighting aggro decks is fine, but any format with decent control decks forces green to look to other colors for help.
I never used to feel the green got the short shrift, but after trying to beat the Chandra deck in DotP with the Garruck deck. Shudder....... I dream for cards that could interact with my opponent.
And my personal bone to pick with Wizards is that Green is the reach color. But in exchange it gets almost not flyers. So to get the most out of this ability I have to play defensively and give up the advantage I gained by dropping my fatties early.
It is not uncommon for G/x to be one of the strongest color combos in any given draft format, as long as "x" has sufficient removal. Your creatures will overpower theirs, so they have to either having to take the damage, or double block and risk getting blown out. A simply, yet very effectivate game-plan.
Green also tends to have the only color fixing, so it works great as your primary color in a G/x/x deck.