OK, so I definitely think there are some nice cards. I was really pining for Rakdos Cackler, but life is cruel
I like Concave Phalanx. I think it can replace the soul sisters entirely in the presence of gond deck as it gain infinite life in the combo turn while doing some offense on its own and block without dying. It also will be good in WW with tokens or vigilance creatures.
Thrummingbird needs some allies I would love a Turn 2 bird into a turn 3 and turn 4 ally please with Serrated Arrows as removal. Also, I think this deck could make some weird token deck with Ivy Lane Denizen and Vigean Hydropon work. Also, I could definitely see a Serrated Arrows/Golem Foundry thing going on for mono blue artifacts or any U/x artifact control.
Speaking of artifact based control. Rusted Relic could potentially be a finisher in that kind of deck. I mean, Galvanic Blast and Thoughtcast are good reasons control could play artifacts, and with mana rocks, you could fit anglers in. Grixis artifact control.
I'm counting on Thief of Hope and Plagued Rusalka to make spirits good. I also think that there are lots of nice token enablers that Plagued Rusalka can.... exploit. I'm looking at Mogg War-Marshal
Speaking of saccers, Cathodion looks good in control decks. You get a nice blocker and a good clock. Lets say you then play Innocent Blood or Perilous Research, you can then start accelerating into your drifters and what not. Also probably good with Carrion Feeder to ramp you to 7 on turn 4
Sheltered Aerie looks like a good enabler for the Freed from the real deck that uses Arbor elfVoyaging Satyr Servant of the Scale looks very easily abused, especially with cards like Hunger of the Howlpack and Undewald Bear. I think it could be a good sleeper in a Green Morbid Deck, especially one with Vulturous Aven, Carrion Feeder Herald of Dromoka. I think that this could really work out for the better. This is a pretty sweet ability Hardened Berserker. I like the concept. Looks really interesting. Good for big red decks if they ever will exist.
I LOVE Impact Tremors. This card is absolutely scary. Coupled with Raid Bombardment. RG or RW tokens looks super amazing at the moment Elusive Spellfist is pretty good. I am quite sure that with that and Jeskai Sage, there is room to brew Delver without Faeries Vulturous Aven is a good Suicide black and Black-green morbid/aristocrats top end. The biggest problem with both decks is that if you play card draw, you aren't getting board presence. This card takes care of that. Sidisi's Faithful looks sweet
Actually, I'm quite certain Walker of the Grove is the best of the bunch. I think that just playing a bunch of evoke creatures gives us a solid game plan that doesn't rely on the solely the Crusher. I suggest a 4-2 Walker/Crusher, and maybe even replace crusher al-together with Aethersnipe
Very rough manifest decklist. Skyfisher can be used to pick up a non-creature card that was manifested. I prefer playing turn to mist as it can be used defensively as well
So I just had an interesting idea I talked about with a friend. Lately, Magic: the Gathering has become a pretty well watched E-sport. With many sports, there exists a fantasy game that is built around the sport. For example, in Fantasy football, people who play fantasy football (the"owners") in a league draft real-life football players to make a team. Each week, the football players earn points based on how many yards, touchdowns, field goals, interceptions etc... and the score of all the players on a fantasy team are added up, and that is the owner's score. People win or lose depending on how many points their real-life players scored.
I think this could be applicable to Magic: the Gathering, especially now that the pro-tour is televised on YouTube, and we can see the winning decklists and everything. My idea is that at the beginning of the game and before each new set is released, players draft cards in that new set. The cards are essentially the player's fantasy MTG team. After the pro-tour and other major grand-prix and tournament, the player gets points based on how many times the card appeared in the top 8 decklists. The winner of each "season" of MTG is the player who scores the most points at the end.
This idea could be really fun, both as an exercise to predict the metagame, and as a fun way to incentivize watching MTG events an E-sport. You will definitely have decks you will be cheering for as some decks will have cards that you drafted on your fantasy team.
The Draft:
The draft is straightforward. For each set in Standard, "owners" draft cards in a serpentine format with a random initial order. This means that when the draft begins in the first round, the player who got the first pick picks any card in the set (eg. Siege Rhino) , then the second player picks a card (eg. Mantis Rider) and so on and so forth. Once all the players have picked, we start the second round, but this time in reverse order so the player with the last pick in the first round gets the first pick in the second round. In the 3rd round, the original first pick player gets the first pick in the third round and so on and so forth until every card is drafted. This is done for each set legal in standard (prepare for a long draft), and the draft is completed when every card legal in the standard format is claimed by an owner.
Redrafts:
Once Standard Rotates, the season is over, and we draft anew.
The Fantasy Team:
The cards you draft make up the fantasy team (lets call it the "cardstock"). You can then proceed to trade your cardstock with other players in the league. There is no maximum limit on your team, so you can do trades like "I'll trade my Bile Blight for a Xenagos, Gray Merchant, and End Hostilities" and the trade will work out, and no one will have to dump any cards.
Scoring:
The scoring system will be based on how well your card does in the meta among the highest levels of competition, and I can only think of a rudimentary system right now. Basically, top 8 decklists only. The more copies your card in a top 8 decklist, the more points you get. I'd also cap the number at 4 per decklist, so if Boss Sligh makes the Top8 and you drafted "Mountain", you get credit for the first four mountains.
An example Scoring system is
2 points per copy in a sideboard in a 4-8th place deck
4 points per copy in a 4-8th place maindeck
3 points per copy in a 3-4th place sideboard
6 points per copy in a 3-4th place maindeck
4 points per copy in a 2nd place sideboard
8 points per copy in a 2nd place maindeck
5 points per copy in a 1st place sideboard
10 points per copy in a 1st place maindeck
Events:
We can score events in several different ways:
One by rotisserie scoring, where all the events in a MTG season are added up. Multipliers can be put in place for the strength of the tournament. The winner is the person with the most points.
We can also score head to head. In this case, each GP, PT, and PTQ are treated as different events, and your score only is compared to that of your opponent that event. The last few events are playoffs.
Why do it:
It sounds fun and crazy, and also pretty cheap. It can help players determine what is good in the metagame, and help them speculate on the value of future sets. It also probably promotes watching MTG as an esport, and who knows, maybe an FXX sitcom will come out of it. We could have our own "Shiva"
Congrats on the result! I just got back to having internet again but its good to see sui-white get results while I was gone. I tried splashing and didn't like it much due to consistency and hate issues but the Boros version of the deck has results as well. Try it out and see!
So here are my thoughts about the board wipes and everything. Yes, electrickery hoses us, but it only matters when the opponent can race you. This is also true for aggro control decks running heavy counters, so Delver, DelverFiend are naturally bad matchups for this deck. I do not include UR post and affinity as bad matchups as I personally don't lose to them very often because they have either no clock or we can hate them just as good (Affinity). As for the 3 or 5 color decklists. The 5C decklist is slower and less consistent but is more resilient and can out hate DelverFiend with our sideboard. We must play CoP:red in our sideboard because it really helps our bad matchups (fast red-based decks). Duress and Dispel also works. The 3C decklist is more consistent and faster but it has a weaker long game and is limited in sideboard options. As for what to play, I currently suggest the 3C decks because it does better against the top tier decks, but if goblins, MBC, or DelverFiend make it big, we should go 5C.
I'll present the matchups from what I've seen in the deck
The good:
Stompy: we can race them, but they can't race Essence Warden.
Affinity: we are a turn faster (given no god draw), and can gain life and chump forever. Although they run powerful SB hate, we do too. Also we are more consistent than affinity.
Hexproof: We are as fast as they are and run the appropriate hate.
FissurePost: It is a pretty awkward matchup for them, because we can win in mutiple ways. We are a turn faster, so we can race them; They are a turn slower because we produce so many guys; we can combo off after a fissure because we have instant-speed token producers only 1 really needs to connect for rites to win (remember fissure gives us like 15 cards in hand!) Here is a video of Bava playing the deck: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjNcyzUb0j. The 5C version has a worse matchup than the 3C matchup
Even+
UR Post: a lot of people seem to have problems with this matchup, and I'm not sure why. We have more 2 for 1's than them and can answer capsize with sprout swarm. We draw more cards, and are much faster. They may play electrickery, but their clock isn't fast enough to beat us, and we can play aggro. This match is probably more even+ than good though. We can curbstomp UB post though!
Goblins: The only reason this matchup isn't defined as "Good" is because of electrickery. The 5C matchup is better though. Just remember, we can win by playing Keep Watch Defensively
Even:
Familiar Storm/UW Storm: The extra creatures they play makes a difference in our combo speed. This is harder than MU Stormpost.
Even-
Burn: This is harder if the burn player is experienced and knows what creatures to burn and what to sideboard out. I will not reveal what that strategy is though
Infect: Its a Race! But they have Rancor.... The good thing is though, that eldrazi spawn can block through a blessing.
MBC: this is even+ to bad depending on their Rats and Witches to Verdict to Spot Removal Ratio. But they have no clock, so we can grind them.
Bad:
Trinket: They can keep our board clean. That's bad!
Delver: Aggro + counterspells means bad news for us though. However, the new faster delver lists are much better matchups.
DelverFiend: This is the reason NOT to play WatchRites. We are slower and are much more easily disrupted. This is the reason we play CoP:red
I never thought about teachings. It is worth a spin though. This does let us look for some other powerful instants that we could use as a toolbox like removal, even if it's just a single doom blade. I would try to cut swarm and some other cards like creatures that 1) don't replace themselves 2) don't produce more than one guy 3) don't fix mana 4) not Essence Warden. I think if you play any cards like peddler, soul warden, guildmage main, teachings would fit right in.
Also to comment about last rites, I tried it and it never works quite the way I want it. It slowed me down a bit and they always seem to draw Mulldrifter. This is probably just bad luck, but fiend and post both seem to run A LOT of dig spells so topdeck mode isn't an autoloss. I do believe that something should go to replace thermokarst. I like pyroblast, but there needs to be one more.
I think either the 3 Color or 5 color ones are acceptable. Its a metagame call for which one. The 3 Color one is a little faster, more resistant to Fissure and delver (although delver is still a crappy matchup), and can play threats that also fix mana. The 5 color one is more resistant to Affinity and Stompy, is slower but runs a lot of strong hate and stall tactics to grind the opponent out.
Just to address the 5C manabase. You should play around 12+ off color sources so you have a 90% chance of having one in the game. This is around as much as how many lands 2C decks have of their off color.
However, if you put too many off-color spells in the deck, you might run into some problems with the manabase. I tested the deck against a fissurepost player and even though the game should have been over turn 4 with a lethal rites in hand but could not draw a fixer in the game, even after playing 3 cantrips. Although this is a very rare case, it does go to show you that our fixers aren't always there when you need them, so spells that can be replicated in mono-green like Raise The Alarm in Gilt-Leaf Ambush or Fists of the Ironwood should always be green. Me personally would rather only play off-color cards that CANNOT be replicated in mono-green or in Stonybrook Schoolmaster's case, synergizes so well with the deck, although I would cut it to 2, and cut Cenn's Enlistment as well but maybe keep Soul Warden. Myr Servitor would probably be a good card to use in the 5C manabase because it has a superior lategame and really puts a damper on the control matchup and ground-based aggro matchup. Also having more diversity in the creatures is good due to color hosers.
One last Drastic Change I pondered for the deck could be to add in the Midnight Guard/Presence of Gond. We could play Nettle Sentinel to make Presence of Gond better on its own and Viridian Longbow to make Midnight Guard better on its own. However, we will need to cut out a lot of very strong cards like Schoolmaster, Warden, Visionary, and more to make this viable.
For the sideboard, the off-color spells have to be EXTREMELY powerful or be able to handle many types of decks to justify playing it, many times the mono green answer is pretty good such as LD, artifact/enchantment hate and flying hate (That was the reason why that after testing, Spidersilk Armor>Magnify, and Thermokarst>Last Rites). The matches I fear the most are Delver and Delver Fiend, so I suggest playing Pyroblast and Circle of Protection: Red in the sideboard. The reason for the circle against fog effects is simply because delver fiend will have dispels that not only stop our combo but also the fog effects. Resolving a CoP red on the other hand can be quite devastating. Pyroblast is also relevant against Post and Fiend while CoP red is also relevant against burn and goblins. My sideboard would look like
the 5C manabase makes this deck the ultimate toolbox deck. We have access the most best hosers for any strategy. We can run everything from Standard Bearer to Pyroblast, although I would advise against anything that costs more than 2 Off-colored mana. Consistency is key to survival: that and surviving Electrickery.
Raid Bombardment looks pretty saucy, potentially as an alternate win-con.
Here is my comment on the direction of this deck. Some people want to play a UR warrenless warrens deck, and it is a bit faster than this deck, but I feel that that deck is just a worse version of UR Fiend because it is slower, need more specific combo pieces to survive, and can be interacted with just as easily. The reason I advocate GUR is for 2 main reasons, 1: it has a better manabase and 2: it can play aggro, control, and combo all at the same time.
The reason I like the manabase better is because we dont really have to give up speed or digging power in order to fix mana, and we can play as many colors as we choose. This allows us to play BACKBREAKING spells in every color interact with our opponent. One thing I want to do is make a rainbow manabase so we can play all 5 colors at the same time at a greater consistency than Affinity. We have VERY powerful mana fixers that can dig, accelerate, and fix with little or no tempo loss Abundant Growth, Springleaf Drum, Orochi Leafcaller, Manamorphose and even Shimmering grotto come to mind. That means we can play powerful spells in every color very easily. One backbreaking spell I want to try is Last Rites. It is quite powerful against our combo matchups fissure and fiend. Most of our cards replace themselves, and our spells are much more interchangable than theirs, and it is a very unexpected play so our opponents will probably not sideboard correctly. Suggest over Thermokarst.
The other reason is that we aren't limited going off before turn 5. The reason Sprout Swarm and Essence Warden are in the deck is because they can easily put the game out of reach for aggro decks and create some strong inevitability for control decks. Other potential cards that create inevitability are Stonybrook Schoolmaster, Myr Servitor and Soul Warden/Soul's Attendant.
The reason I play this deck, is not because it is fast, but rather it plays both the short game and long game exceptionally well, and thus there are lots of options to playing the deck. Here is the decklist I want to try
The fun interactions and unique manabase should be reason enough to play this. Also, how many time does a mono-green deck get to discard your opponents hand?
I like Concave Phalanx. I think it can replace the soul sisters entirely in the presence of gond deck as it gain infinite life in the combo turn while doing some offense on its own and block without dying. It also will be good in WW with tokens or vigilance creatures.
Thrummingbird needs some allies
Speaking of artifact based control. Rusted Relic could potentially be a finisher in that kind of deck. I mean, Galvanic Blast and Thoughtcast are good reasons control could play artifacts, and with mana rocks, you could fit anglers in. Grixis artifact control.
Sphere of the Suns and Telling Time seem to be nice utility upgrades (maybe in that grixis artifact control)
I'm counting on Thief of Hope and Plagued Rusalka to make spirits good. I also think that there are lots of nice token enablers that Plagued Rusalka can.... exploit. I'm looking at Mogg War-Marshal
Speaking of saccers, Cathodion looks good in control decks. You get a nice blocker and a good clock. Lets say you then play Innocent Blood or Perilous Research, you can then start accelerating into your drifters and what not. Also probably good with Carrion Feeder to ramp you to 7 on turn 4
Inner-Flame Igniter looks sweet. Rx tokens looks nice. Especially if you play it alongside Violent Outburst
Gut shot finally gives green burn that doesn't suck. Good in Stompy I guess
Sickleslicer. There has to be a way to make this thing good
Servant of the Scale looks very easily abused, especially with cards like Hunger of the Howlpack and Undewald Bear. I think it could be a good sleeper in a Green Morbid Deck, especially one with Vulturous Aven, Carrion Feeder
Herald of Dromoka. I think that this could really work out for the better. This is a pretty sweet ability
Hardened Berserker. I like the concept. Looks really interesting. Good for big red decks if they ever will exist.
I LOVE Impact Tremors. This card is absolutely scary. Coupled with Raid Bombardment. RG or RW tokens looks super amazing at the moment
Elusive Spellfist is pretty good. I am quite sure that with that and Jeskai Sage, there is room to brew Delver without Faeries
Vulturous Aven is a good Suicide black and Black-green morbid/aristocrats top end. The biggest problem with both decks is that if you play card draw, you aren't getting board presence. This card takes care of that.
Sidisi's Faithful looks sweet
Perilous Research
Ponder
Wormfang Drake
Aethersnipe
Fathom Seer
Treasure Cruise
Judge Unworthy
Aven Riftwatcher
Walker of the Grove
4 Write into Being
4 Mulldrifter
4 Ulamog's Crusher
4 Brainstorm
4 Kor Skyfisher
4 Turn to Mist
4 Cloudshift
4 Angelic Renewal
2 Random Slots (Ponder/Judge Unworthy/ Fathom Seer etc...)
4 Terramorphic Expanse
2 Evolving Wilds
8 Island
8 Plains
Very rough manifest decklist. Skyfisher can be used to pick up a non-creature card that was manifested. I prefer playing turn to mist as it can be used defensively as well
I think this could be applicable to Magic: the Gathering, especially now that the pro-tour is televised on YouTube, and we can see the winning decklists and everything. My idea is that at the beginning of the game and before each new set is released, players draft cards in that new set. The cards are essentially the player's fantasy MTG team. After the pro-tour and other major grand-prix and tournament, the player gets points based on how many times the card appeared in the top 8 decklists. The winner of each "season" of MTG is the player who scores the most points at the end.
This idea could be really fun, both as an exercise to predict the metagame, and as a fun way to incentivize watching MTG events an E-sport. You will definitely have decks you will be cheering for as some decks will have cards that you drafted on your fantasy team.
The Draft:
The draft is straightforward. For each set in Standard, "owners" draft cards in a serpentine format with a random initial order. This means that when the draft begins in the first round, the player who got the first pick picks any card in the set (eg. Siege Rhino) , then the second player picks a card (eg. Mantis Rider) and so on and so forth. Once all the players have picked, we start the second round, but this time in reverse order so the player with the last pick in the first round gets the first pick in the second round. In the 3rd round, the original first pick player gets the first pick in the third round and so on and so forth until every card is drafted. This is done for each set legal in standard (prepare for a long draft), and the draft is completed when every card legal in the standard format is claimed by an owner.
Redrafts:
Once Standard Rotates, the season is over, and we draft anew.
The Fantasy Team:
The cards you draft make up the fantasy team (lets call it the "cardstock"). You can then proceed to trade your cardstock with other players in the league. There is no maximum limit on your team, so you can do trades like "I'll trade my Bile Blight for a Xenagos, Gray Merchant, and End Hostilities" and the trade will work out, and no one will have to dump any cards.
Scoring:
The scoring system will be based on how well your card does in the meta among the highest levels of competition, and I can only think of a rudimentary system right now. Basically, top 8 decklists only. The more copies your card in a top 8 decklist, the more points you get. I'd also cap the number at 4 per decklist, so if Boss Sligh makes the Top8 and you drafted "Mountain", you get credit for the first four mountains.
An example Scoring system is
2 points per copy in a sideboard in a 4-8th place deck
4 points per copy in a 4-8th place maindeck
3 points per copy in a 3-4th place sideboard
6 points per copy in a 3-4th place maindeck
4 points per copy in a 2nd place sideboard
8 points per copy in a 2nd place maindeck
5 points per copy in a 1st place sideboard
10 points per copy in a 1st place maindeck
Events:
We can score events in several different ways:
One by rotisserie scoring, where all the events in a MTG season are added up. Multipliers can be put in place for the strength of the tournament. The winner is the person with the most points.
We can also score head to head. In this case, each GP, PT, and PTQ are treated as different events, and your score only is compared to that of your opponent that event. The last few events are playoffs.
Why do it:
It sounds fun and crazy, and also pretty cheap. It can help players determine what is good in the metagame, and help them speculate on the value of future sets. It also probably promotes watching MTG as an esport, and who knows, maybe an FXX sitcom will come out of it. We could have our own "Shiva"
Cards I am trying to break
Wirewood Savage,Infernal Caretaker,Lava Zombie
I'll present the matchups from what I've seen in the deck
The good:
Stompy: we can race them, but they can't race Essence Warden.
Affinity: we are a turn faster (given no god draw), and can gain life and chump forever. Although they run powerful SB hate, we do too. Also we are more consistent than affinity.
Hexproof: We are as fast as they are and run the appropriate hate.
FissurePost: It is a pretty awkward matchup for them, because we can win in mutiple ways. We are a turn faster, so we can race them; They are a turn slower because we produce so many guys; we can combo off after a fissure because we have instant-speed token producers only 1 really needs to connect for rites to win (remember fissure gives us like 15 cards in hand!) Here is a video of Bava playing the deck: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjNcyzUb0j. The 5C version has a worse matchup than the 3C matchup
Even+
UR Post: a lot of people seem to have problems with this matchup, and I'm not sure why. We have more 2 for 1's than them and can answer capsize with sprout swarm. We draw more cards, and are much faster. They may play electrickery, but their clock isn't fast enough to beat us, and we can play aggro. This match is probably more even+ than good though. We can curbstomp UB post though!
Goblins: The only reason this matchup isn't defined as "Good" is because of electrickery. The 5C matchup is better though. Just remember, we can win by playing Keep Watch Defensively
Even:
Familiar Storm/UW Storm: The extra creatures they play makes a difference in our combo speed. This is harder than MU Stormpost.
Even-
Burn: This is harder if the burn player is experienced and knows what creatures to burn and what to sideboard out. I will not reveal what that strategy is though
Infect: Its a Race! But they have Rancor.... The good thing is though, that eldrazi spawn can block through a blessing.
MBC: this is even+ to bad depending on their Rats and Witches to Verdict to Spot Removal Ratio. But they have no clock, so we can grind them.
Bad:
Trinket: They can keep our board clean. That's bad!
Delver: Aggro + counterspells means bad news for us though. However, the new faster delver lists are much better matchups.
DelverFiend: This is the reason NOT to play WatchRites. We are slower and are much more easily disrupted. This is the reason we play CoP:red
Also to comment about last rites, I tried it and it never works quite the way I want it. It slowed me down a bit and they always seem to draw Mulldrifter. This is probably just bad luck, but fiend and post both seem to run A LOT of dig spells so topdeck mode isn't an autoloss. I do believe that something should go to replace thermokarst. I like pyroblast, but there needs to be one more.
Just to address the 5C manabase. You should play around 12+ off color sources so you have a 90% chance of having one in the game. This is around as much as how many lands 2C decks have of their off color.
However, if you put too many off-color spells in the deck, you might run into some problems with the manabase. I tested the deck against a fissurepost player and even though the game should have been over turn 4 with a lethal rites in hand but could not draw a fixer in the game, even after playing 3 cantrips. Although this is a very rare case, it does go to show you that our fixers aren't always there when you need them, so spells that can be replicated in mono-green like Raise The Alarm in Gilt-Leaf Ambush or Fists of the Ironwood should always be green. Me personally would rather only play off-color cards that CANNOT be replicated in mono-green or in Stonybrook Schoolmaster's case, synergizes so well with the deck, although I would cut it to 2, and cut Cenn's Enlistment as well but maybe keep Soul Warden. Myr Servitor would probably be a good card to use in the 5C manabase because it has a superior lategame and really puts a damper on the control matchup and ground-based aggro matchup. Also having more diversity in the creatures is good due to color hosers.
One last Drastic Change I pondered for the deck could be to add in the Midnight Guard/Presence of Gond. We could play Nettle Sentinel to make Presence of Gond better on its own and Viridian Longbow to make Midnight Guard better on its own. However, we will need to cut out a lot of very strong cards like Schoolmaster, Warden, Visionary, and more to make this viable.
For the sideboard, the off-color spells have to be EXTREMELY powerful or be able to handle many types of decks to justify playing it, many times the mono green answer is pretty good such as LD, artifact/enchantment hate and flying hate (That was the reason why that after testing, Spidersilk Armor>Magnify, and Thermokarst>Last Rites). The matches I fear the most are Delver and Delver Fiend, so I suggest playing Pyroblast and Circle of Protection: Red in the sideboard. The reason for the circle against fog effects is simply because delver fiend will have dispels that not only stop our combo but also the fog effects. Resolving a CoP red on the other hand can be quite devastating. Pyroblast is also relevant against Post and Fiend while CoP red is also relevant against burn and goblins. My sideboard would look like
3 Circle of Protection: Red
3 Gleeful Sabotage
3 Spidersilk Armor
3 Thermokarst
The conclusion for off-color spells is When in Doubt: Go Green, and when hopelessly stuck go other colors
Madness is certainly a direction to go, but idk if Basking Rootwalla does enough to justify its inclusions. Cards that interact well with Last Rites that help us are Acorn Harvest, Deep Analysis, Gathan Raiders, Reaping the Graves, Myr Servitor
Raid Bombardment looks pretty saucy, potentially as an alternate win-con.
Here is my comment on the direction of this deck. Some people want to play a UR warrenless warrens deck, and it is a bit faster than this deck, but I feel that that deck is just a worse version of UR Fiend because it is slower, need more specific combo pieces to survive, and can be interacted with just as easily. The reason I advocate GUR is for 2 main reasons, 1: it has a better manabase and 2: it can play aggro, control, and combo all at the same time.
The reason I like the manabase better is because we dont really have to give up speed or digging power in order to fix mana, and we can play as many colors as we choose. This allows us to play BACKBREAKING spells in every color interact with our opponent. One thing I want to do is make a rainbow manabase so we can play all 5 colors at the same time at a greater consistency than Affinity. We have VERY powerful mana fixers that can dig, accelerate, and fix with little or no tempo loss Abundant Growth, Springleaf Drum, Orochi Leafcaller, Manamorphose and even Shimmering grotto come to mind. That means we can play powerful spells in every color very easily. One backbreaking spell I want to try is Last Rites. It is quite powerful against our combo matchups fissure and fiend. Most of our cards replace themselves, and our spells are much more interchangable than theirs, and it is a very unexpected play so our opponents will probably not sideboard correctly. Suggest over Thermokarst.
The other reason is that we aren't limited going off before turn 5. The reason Sprout Swarm and Essence Warden are in the deck is because they can easily put the game out of reach for aggro decks and create some strong inevitability for control decks. Other potential cards that create inevitability are Stonybrook Schoolmaster, Myr Servitor and Soul Warden/Soul's Attendant.
The reason I play this deck, is not because it is fast, but rather it plays both the short game and long game exceptionally well, and thus there are lots of options to playing the deck. Here is the decklist I want to try
4 Khalni Garden
2 Shimmering Grotto
4 Springleaf Drum
3 Abundant Growth
3 Manamorphose
4 Essence Warden
2 Soul Warden/ Gilt-Leaf Ambush
3 Elvish Visionary/ Coiling Oracle
4 Nest Invader
4 Scatter the Seeds
3 Stonybrook Schoolmaster
2 Sprout Swarm
1 Cenn's Enlistment
4 Keep Watch
3 Rites of Initiation
3 Last Rites
4 Scattershot Archer/ Granger Guildmage
3 Gleeful Sabotage
3 Magnify
2 Raid Bombardment/ Moment's Peace
The fun interactions and unique manabase should be reason enough to play this. Also, how many time does a mono-green deck get to discard your opponents hand?