The biggest problem with green aggro is that there are only really two good green aggro one drops - Experiment One and Jungle Lion. Of course this is supplemented in multicolor by including cards like Dryad Militant and maybe even Tattermunge Maniac, but that's basically it for good green aggro dorks. It's nothing like the recent surge for black aggro, where in the past two years we've gotten five really good two power one drop guys. For green you're forced to run cards like Twinblade Slasher and Wolfbitten Captive and neither of those cards are all that great at anything. They're solid in the mid game, but on turn two when I'm playing my aggressive two drop, I want to be swinging for more than just one damage.
I love the archetype, but I'm an aggro player all around. At 550 it's pretty rare to see an aggro deck that has a big green presence. It's always like my ones and twos are mostly red or white with my threes and fours being heavier green. I'd really like to see green get three or four more good two power one drops in some upcoming sets. That'd really help the aggressive green deck to become an actual thing in cube. Until then I'll keep running my Basking Rootwalla variants.
It doesn't so much make for more aggro (or even stronger aggro), but more aggro options. If part of the table is competing for aggro tools in one of the more commonly used colors, you can scoop up the green tools and build Gruul aggro instead of Boros aggro when white weenie is being contested. The problem we ultimately ran into at 450 (which we didn't see at 360) was that there weren't enough good 2-power 1-drop options in green for it to adequately supplement another aggressive color. So right now, I'm focussing on developing the aggressive midrange package for the X/g "aggro" decks, and waiting for more Jungle Lions before I reintroduce that package at this cube size.
I cut the Jungle Lion-style cards a while ago. No one liked drafting them. Many of my one-drops are now mana dorks. There's still support for aggressive green in the cube, just not in the 2/1 for G sense. Cards like River Boa are fine cards and go into a variety of decks, including aggressive green ones.
I don't agree with that at all. They're two different decks.
I trimmed out green aggro in my last jump to 450 not because the deck wasn't desirable, but because it trapped players into building a deck that didn't have enough tools to support itself. At 360, there was barely enough aggressive green 1-drops to be a secondary color for hard aggro. At 450, I'm short on guys. I don't want players trying to dive into a pool that's too shallow to support itself, and come up with a deck that's short on what it needs at the end. Once I have 3-4 more aggressive green 1-drops, I'm going to jam green aggro back into the list, because it'll then have the quantity of cards it needs to support itself. I don't want players winding up with 4-5 1cc beaters for their aggro deck instead of the ~7 they need because they chose green as their secondary color. So until they can comfortably do that at 450, the safest thing to do for the health of the draft is to exclude it for the time being.
You could make an opinion, but I feel that a typical designer is gonna jam as many 1cmc mana dorks into green. Which is therefore in conflict with those green aggro drops.
We could data mine this, but the hunch is likely that in a pack that has a 4cmc 4/4, an elvish mystic, and a 1cmc 2/1 (all are green), the likelihood is the person taking the elf, then hoping to table that 4/4. Again this is just an example, but is one that comes up again and again. And I believe this is no happenstance.
Furthermore, it's like you said. Shallowness and entrapment also doesn't help its (green aggro) cause.
But I do agree they are two different archetypes; I never alluded to anything regarding archetypes anyway. I'm just referring to pick options, as well as the way a typical cube is designed.
I recently took Elvish Mystic out because I felt there were now too many (I do run Utopia Sprawl).
I also do believe that the viability of green aggro has a lot to do with the cube's size. Aggro requires 6-8 aggressive 1-drops from each 'aggro' colour in a smaller list. Otherwise you can't reliably find enough in your drafts.
We could data mine this, but the hunch is likely that in pack that has a 4cmc 4/4, an elvish mystic, and a 1cmc 2/1 (all are green), the likelihood is the person taking the elf, then hoping to table that 4/4. Again this is just an example, but is one that comes up again and again. And I believe this is no happenstance.
I think this is true for now, but only because the aggressive green tools aren't really there. If this were changed to similar black cards and I had options to take an aggro dork or a more controlling black card (like say Damnation), then it's just about a choice between which deck I want to go into. With green it's a more obvious choice because we know that a heavy green aggro deck just doesn't currently exist.
Green really doesn't have enough tools for aggro by itself. It needs to be paired with another color to make a consistent aggressive start on a cube level. I've recently cut Kalonian Tusker, which makes it the last of the Watchwolf variants that was left in my cube because they can never make a deck on their own. They need reach from red, or permission from blue/black/white. And if the permission is run, there are simply better threats in those colors than green anyway.
I relegate green to ramp and fixing, which can still help aggro from the other colors, but by it self or primarily green aggro has never been effectual in all the time I've been cubing.
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It depends of your preferences and of your playgroup preferences, but I personally think that there's largely enough support for green aggro to be viable in the actual overall cube metagame. You can also question yourself : «Is my actual green aggro section is viable the way it is? Do I like it the way it looks at the moment?». Another important factor is also the list of cards that will be going in to replace to aggro ones. Can you show us some examples of the swaps you're about to make?
If you don't mind, there's some changes you might try out in your green section that will both solidy the ramp and agressive strategies. Considering the fact that you run a 450 cube, maybe you should swap those ones :
Viridian Shaman is slightly/almost irrelevantly better than Uktabi Orangutan since there is the rare-but-not-nothing interaction with Joraga Treespeaker's last level.
Viridian Shaman is slightly/almost irrelevantly better than Uktabi Orangutan since there is the rare-but-not-nothing interaction with Joraga Treespeaker's last level.
But running Uktabi Orangutan means you get to see the monkeys in the back 'interacting' which is totally relevant every game.
I always laugh about that interaction, because it should be an irrelevant corner case ...but it's happened THREE times for our group. So the elf > monkey for my group.
Oh and @Gilete: Green aggro is awesome and you should play it.
If you don't mind, there's some changes you might try out in your green section that will both solidy the ramp and agressive strategies. Considering the fact that you run a 450 cube, maybe you should swap those ones :
BTW, I like EvoLeap pretty much but I think it's more like a 540 and more material.
Thanks, Im gonna try some changes, only problem is Berserk, this one is a pet card for me, like Vinelasher Kuzdu for wtwlf
No probs man. Everyone has their own opinon on pet cards. One of mine is Uktabi Orangutan
Joke aside, I totally understand your point of view. Actually, my green pet card is Mayor of Avabruck and it seems like another will soon be Nissa Voice of Zendikar. No one seems to like her that much around here... That's sad IMO.
Are these, in addition to some angry 2-3 drops, enough to help green support aggro as a secondary color, or would it require scraping the bottom of the barrel for more?
Not exactly interested in running Wild Dogs.
I also have a 450 unpowered and I'm trying to decide what to do with green aggro.
I was all set to just dump it, but then I saw Kessig Prowler, which makes me think WotC may slowly over time start to add more green aggressive creatures the way they have been doing for a few sets running now with white, black and red. (It's about time, if you ask me. As the creature color I think green should have strong creatures all across the curve, but I'm not in charge of R&D.)
So I have three main questions:
1) Should I go ahead and dump most of the green aggro dudes like Jungle Lion on the premise that there isn't quite the critical mass yet, and other colors can just do this job better?
2) What about Experiment Kraj. Curse of Predation and Strangleroot Geist? I see these cards even in lists that aren't really supporting green aggro (in terms of 1-drops anyway), and the argument I hear most often is that they're also fine midrange creatures.
3) What about Kird Ape and Wild Nacatl? Is there merit to Gruul or Naya aggro even if green isn't considered a main aggro color?
Nissa, Voice of Zendikar is a bad aggro card. A 1-shot anthem for 3 mana is not even remotely playable, and the plants are garbage in that deck. There are decks that can take advantage of her, but aggro is not close to one of them.
Plow Under is a good card in decks applying early pressure that want a "nail in the coffin" at the end of the curve. There's lots of great gold cards that support green aggro too. Other stuff, like the oversized 2-drops, Lotus Cobra, the Garruks and a few others are great in aggressive shells and they're already in the cube. Generally, the 2-power 1-drops are the only aggro-exclusive cards that green aggro is missing from most lists to make it viable.
I think to talk about green aggro, you have to talk about the specific decks that green can be aggressive, specifically the color combinations.
A few things to note about green aggro
- In my experience, green tends to not be the dominant color in an aggro deck
- Green aggro decks tend to be a have a slower clock, but has more resilience late game and is able to play 5-drops more consistently than any other aggressive color combination
SAMPLE DECKS I DRAFTED FROM MY CUBE
- Selesnya builds tend to be token based. This deck I'm going to show off is mainly white, but it could have benefitted greatly from any of green's planeswalkers. http://www.cubetutor.com/cubedeck/526934
- Naya decks are usually either straight beatdown, aggressive midrange, or token based. This color combination has a lot of planeswalkers to abuse http://www.cubetutor.com/cubedeck/558305
THINGS TO CONSIDER FOR YOUR CUBE
- A lot of green's best tools come from the guild section.
KEY / USEFUL GREEN SPELLS
- Oath of Nissa
- Rancor
- Sylvan Library
- Garruk Relentless
- Garruk Wildspeaker
- Plow Under
- Green Sun's Zenith
- Gaea's Cradle
- Treetop Village
ARTIFACTS CYCLES YOU SHOULD BE SUPPORTING
- Equipment (as much as you can)
- Stax / disruption support (Smokestack / Tangle Wire / Winter Orb, etc)
Aggro isn't a thing in a lot of cubes. If traditional Boros / Rakdos aggro builds don't thrive in your cube, green aggro won't have a chance. Make sure aggro in general is competitive in your cube before you try and figure out green aggro.
I will have to disagree on that. While Nissa, Voice of Zendikar isn't the strongest aggro card, it is certainly not a bad one. Creating multiple bodies can help an aggro deck recover from a wrath if you do have some pieces of equipment. And being able to steriod your board a couple of times isn't bad either. The card isn't as fast as Curse of Predation, but it does enough on its own to worth a spot in many typic green aggro shells.
Anyway, I was just referring to that card because it is a low costed green spell that loves lands.
Just drafted this base-Green Aggro deck from my cube which seems pretty good. I think a lot of cards already in most cubes can work well here and it doesn't take too much more to support green aggro, especially in two-color decks.
I love the archetype, but I'm an aggro player all around. At 550 it's pretty rare to see an aggro deck that has a big green presence. It's always like my ones and twos are mostly red or white with my threes and fours being heavier green. I'd really like to see green get three or four more good two power one drops in some upcoming sets. That'd really help the aggressive green deck to become an actual thing in cube. Until then I'll keep running my Basking Rootwalla variants.
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Unless your cube runs almost 0 dorks, aggro green isn't gonna get picked.
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
I trimmed out green aggro in my last jump to 450 not because the deck wasn't desirable, but because it trapped players into building a deck that didn't have enough tools to support itself. At 360, there was barely enough aggressive green 1-drops to be a secondary color for hard aggro. At 450, I'm short on guys. I don't want players trying to dive into a pool that's too shallow to support itself, and come up with a deck that's short on what it needs at the end. Once I have 3-4 more aggressive green 1-drops, I'm going to jam green aggro back into the list, because it'll then have the quantity of cards it needs to support itself. I don't want players winding up with 4-5 1cc beaters for their aggro deck instead of the ~7 they need because they chose green as their secondary color. So until they can comfortably do that at 450, the safest thing to do for the health of the draft is to exclude it for the time being.
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We could data mine this, but the hunch is likely that in a pack that has a 4cmc 4/4, an elvish mystic, and a 1cmc 2/1 (all are green), the likelihood is the person taking the elf, then hoping to table that 4/4. Again this is just an example, but is one that comes up again and again. And I believe this is no happenstance.
Furthermore, it's like you said. Shallowness and entrapment also doesn't help its (green aggro) cause.
But I do agree they are two different archetypes; I never alluded to anything regarding archetypes anyway. I'm just referring to pick options, as well as the way a typical cube is designed.
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
I also do believe that the viability of green aggro has a lot to do with the cube's size. Aggro requires 6-8 aggressive 1-drops from each 'aggro' colour in a smaller list. Otherwise you can't reliably find enough in your drafts.
I think this is true for now, but only because the aggressive green tools aren't really there. If this were changed to similar black cards and I had options to take an aggro dork or a more controlling black card (like say Damnation), then it's just about a choice between which deck I want to go into. With green it's a more obvious choice because we know that a heavy green aggro deck just doesn't currently exist.
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I relegate green to ramp and fixing, which can still help aggro from the other colors, but by it self or primarily green aggro has never been effectual in all the time I've been cubing.
Modem Masters, a 500 cube that tries to capture the essence of a Modern Masters set draft. 3 of each common, 2 of each uncommon, 1 of each rare, few mythics. Includes minor changes for balance reasons to give certain archetypes the tools they need to succeed.
Sick green aggro creatures I play:
Not to mention:
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Pelakka Wurm -> Elvish Mystic
Greenwarden of Murasa -> Wolfbitten Captive or Arbor Elf
Surrak, the Hunt Caller -> Polukranos, World Eater
Evolutionary Leap -> Curse of Predation or Uktabi Orangutan
Berserk -> Collected Company
BTW, I like EvoLeap pretty much but I think it's more like a 540 and more material.
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Oh and @Gilete: Green aggro is awesome and you should play it.
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No probs man. Everyone has their own opinon on pet cards. One of mine is Uktabi Orangutan
Joke aside, I totally understand your point of view. Actually, my green pet card is Mayor of Avabruck and it seems like another will soon be Nissa Voice of Zendikar. No one seems to like her that much around here... That's sad IMO.
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now that green is obtaining a nice 2/1 for G in Kessig Prowler, how easily can one support green aggro in a 450 unpowered?
It seems to me that the best green aggro cards so far are:
Not exactly interested in running Wild Dogs.
I was all set to just dump it, but then I saw Kessig Prowler, which makes me think WotC may slowly over time start to add more green aggressive creatures the way they have been doing for a few sets running now with white, black and red. (It's about time, if you ask me. As the creature color I think green should have strong creatures all across the curve, but I'm not in charge of R&D.)
So I have three main questions:
1) Should I go ahead and dump most of the green aggro dudes like Jungle Lion on the premise that there isn't quite the critical mass yet, and other colors can just do this job better?
2) What about Experiment Kraj. Curse of Predation and Strangleroot Geist? I see these cards even in lists that aren't really supporting green aggro (in terms of 1-drops anyway), and the argument I hear most often is that they're also fine midrange creatures.
3) What about Kird Ape and Wild Nacatl? Is there merit to Gruul or Naya aggro even if green isn't considered a main aggro color?
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Plow Under is a good card in decks applying early pressure that want a "nail in the coffin" at the end of the curve. There's lots of great gold cards that support green aggro too. Other stuff, like the oversized 2-drops, Lotus Cobra, the Garruks and a few others are great in aggressive shells and they're already in the cube. Generally, the 2-power 1-drops are the only aggro-exclusive cards that green aggro is missing from most lists to make it viable.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
A few things to note about green aggro
- In my experience, green tends to not be the dominant color in an aggro deck
- Green aggro decks tend to be a have a slower clock, but has more resilience late game and is able to play 5-drops more consistently than any other aggressive color combination
SAMPLE DECKS I DRAFTED FROM MY CUBE
- Selesnya builds tend to be token based. This deck I'm going to show off is mainly white, but it could have benefitted greatly from any of green's planeswalkers.
http://www.cubetutor.com/cubedeck/526934
- Gruul for me is usually just standard beatdown with a little ramp added to hit those game ending 5-drops.
http://www.cubetutor.com/cubedeck/557105
- Golgari aggro is usually in the form of stax / attrition decks.
http://www.cubetutor.com/cubedeck/512366
- Simic / Temur / Bant are normally tempo decks that pair cheap, aggressive creatures with counter magic. Opposition is a big archetype in this color combination.
(Bant (UGW) Opposition) http://www.cubetutor.com/cubedeck/534534
(Temur (RUG) Aggro Ramp) http://www.cubetutor.com/cubedeck/560244
- Naya decks are usually either straight beatdown, aggressive midrange, or token based. This color combination has a lot of planeswalkers to abuse
http://www.cubetutor.com/cubedeck/558305
THINGS TO CONSIDER FOR YOUR CUBE
- A lot of green's best tools come from the guild section.
GRUUL
- Bloodbraid Elf
- Sarkhan Vol
- Xenagos, the Reveler
SELESNYA
- Dryad Militant
- Qasali Pridemage
- Voice of Resurgence
- Kitchen Finks
SIMIC
- Edric, Spymaster of Trest
OTHER
- Wild Nacatl
KEY / USEFUL GREEN SPELLS
- Oath of Nissa
- Rancor
- Sylvan Library
- Garruk Relentless
- Garruk Wildspeaker
- Plow Under
- Green Sun's Zenith
- Gaea's Cradle
- Treetop Village
ARTIFACTS CYCLES YOU SHOULD BE SUPPORTING
- Equipment (as much as you can)
- Stax / disruption support (Smokestack / Tangle Wire / Winter Orb, etc)
Aggro isn't a thing in a lot of cubes. If traditional Boros / Rakdos aggro builds don't thrive in your cube, green aggro won't have a chance. Make sure aggro in general is competitive in your cube before you try and figure out green aggro.
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Anyway, I was just referring to that card because it is a low costed green spell that loves lands.
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Just drafted this base-Green Aggro deck from my cube which seems pretty good. I think a lot of cards already in most cubes can work well here and it doesn't take too much more to support green aggro, especially in two-color decks.
1x Dryad Militant
1x Experiment One
1x Warden of the First Tree
1x Accorder Paladin
1x Lotus Cobra
1x Qasali Pridemage
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Strangleroot Geist
1x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1x Eternal Witness
1x Kitchen Finks
1x Troll Ascetic
1x Vengevine
1x Porcelain Legionnaire
Artifact
1x Bonesplitter
1x Skullclamp
1x Grafted Wargear
Instant
1x Beast Within
1x Secure the Wastes
Sorcery
1x Regrowth
Enchantment
1x Rancor
1x Journey to Nowhere
1x Sylvan Library
1x Curse of Predation
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Temple Garden