Slater hi there and thanks for starting this thread.
I came across this as I was looking for other G/B ideas as I have a G/B deck that I have been enjoying playing recently and has now developed to the point where it is good but I would not say great. Not yet.
I like how you have talked about the development process of the deck so I will share some my own.
I had been playing a deck with beast within and I really think the power of this card is being overlooked somewhat so far in standard. In eternal formats I think it gets a bit more respect.
Beast Within is a instant speed desert twister for half the mana cost. The draw back is it leave a 3/3 token behind. A likely 6 turn clock is a significant threat however so not any deck can run this 4 of without it at times costing you games. The deck needs to be one that can block it easily or remove it some other way without significant resource cost like key removal cards that are intended for other things. I notice your deck runs 2 copies.
My 2nd throught on this tool was to use surgical extraction as a way to remove significant cards from the opponents deck. This can be used against counter magic or permanents you may not want to see again. If it was good enough to use beast within against it is prolly worthy of extraction as well.
This 2 card combination allows us to neuter combo decks like Valakut Pyromancers Ascention and Splinter Twin. Forcing them to have alternate win conditions. This similarly can be good against Tempered Steel but beast within is more of a liability against aggro decks with quick tempo.
So exploring this further I decided that blacks myriad ways of dealing with creatures and also it giving us the option of not having to pay life for the extraction. This seemed like the best option to pair with green and feature beast within.
Somewhere earlier in the thread I think someone said black does not have sweepers in standard. This is not true. In fact black recently got one of the most powerful sweepers I have yet to see in Black Sun Zenith.
So being committed to beast within BSZ seemed like a good way to deal with their creatures if they have them while at the same time removing any beasts you may have given them. That BSZ goes back into your deck after resolving and being mass removal makes it less of a loss of CA to beast within.
Another green card similar to beast within is Acidic Slime. It does not interact with creatures but it can remove most other permanents and it has death touch so it can trade one for one with creatures as well. A beast token if need be.
As you aptly mentioned standard currently is much about establishing strong board position. BW BSZ and slimes gives an awful lot of control of any board state. I think this is the main strength of black green right now. So these 3 cards is mainly what I built the deck around.
I do use a minor Birthing Pod strategy and that has greatly influenced my creature choices (besides acidic slime). But it needs to be said that this may not be the best win condition strategy to pair with the board control. I am still undecided about that and I may prefer to move from the toolboxing aspect of the deck to more consistent threats. I think the birthing pod strategy may function better with higher creature density than I am using and pod may make the deck too busy. One example of this is Massacre Wurm which is nice in some match ups but honestly I would not run it if not for being able to pod to it after a slime.
I noticed quite a bit of cross over in card choices of your future future deck so I thought this might be useful to see what another player has decided on in a similar deck theme.
Good things from your list that I would consider adding to mine are Thrun, Mind Rot, Sign in Blood, Tumble Magnet and Lilliana Specter. I do not use Thrun because of the BSZ plan shrinking him but something I should perhaps have in the SB. I use the 2 ragers in slots that could be SiB or the specter. I have podded into specters before and do really like it. I just like the rager more. Either of them are sick on a mimic vat and good on their own. As for tumble magnet. I don't consider my deck to be very tempo based but with the rise of Phantasmal Image it gets additional value there. Also its not bad to deplete a magnet and then turn it into a beast within token once it is no longer useful. Works well with BSZ also to bait out additional threats from them or to stall until you have more mana. So magnet might be a good addition to my list.
For your list I like where it is just offering my thoughts on possible directions your list could go.
Mimic Vat is a great card in combination with Birthing Pod but it may be more consistent to use 4 of one and not the other. I use the metamorph as a pseudo 3rd copy of each, either is good on its own and I think could be good additions to your deck. The pod requires a more dedicated creature base however to maximize it's potential so I do debate cutting it for more vats or something else. Like I said my list may be trying to do too much.
In play testing it performs really well however. The current standard metagame does have some things that make G/B perhaps not an ideal choice. Sword of Feast and Famine and Mirran Crusader. BSZ and Beast Within are great answers to these problems however.
Good luck with the deck and I look forward to keeping up on its evolution.
Why oh why did you extract his mana leaks and Inquisitions?
I don't think I lost a game back when I ran BUG whenever I would Memoricide Grave Titan or Consecrated Sphinx. Just eliminating their win conditions leaves them basically helpless, they can draw all the cards they want, as long as none of them are bombs, they're pretty much done.
Well perhaps that is the wrong line of play and sure I would like to extract his threats but I have to get them in the graveyard 1st to do so. My opponent was playing smart and I never had the opportunity.
So this is a case where memoricide may be better than surgical. Or maybe I should have despise instead of duress for this match up.
I was not using despise because it works against mimic vat but perhaps that would improve this match up quite a bit for me. Thanks for the feedback.
I played some more games with G/B pod yesterday and it was doing very well until I played against B/U. My build is a bit more controlling I think than most pod decks but B/U has so much raw CA that makes it difficult to control.
Game 1 was pretty even and I think in my favor for a bit after I extracted his mana leaks. But I lost in the end to sphinx.
Game 2 was still tough sledding but I ended up blowing him out with his own grave titan on my vat along with sheoldred and friends.
Game 3 was again difficult and I extracted his inquisitions early on. But he drew 2 duress to get rid on my removal. I had him down to a sphinx and a land for his hand. But after ripping my GFFT it was safe to drop the sphinx. 6 cards for him later I drew a beast within but by this time it was too late as he had flashfreeze to answer it.
The match is winnable and I do think my opponent played pretty well but I consider the B/U the hardest match up right now.
Whats your sideboard like? I'm currently running 3x Memoricide and 4x Despise, along with more toolbox creatures.. I'm not sure if I should drop Despise and go with Surgical Extraction.
Despise is nice to get rid of real problem creatures like mirran crusader and can work well with surgical to go after a 4 of threat. But planes walkers are 3 ofs or less. I generally value duress more than despise. It gets rid of their answers. But I run 3 Black Sun Zenith so I have less fear of creatures.
Well my deck is a bit different. It only has 20 creatures no birds and 3 Black Sun Zenith main deck. 2 Garruk Primal Hunter as well. But I was playing it against countless goblin and steel decks at the time. For sideboard I have 2 surgical extraction with a 3rd as a one of main board. This one comes out if I am playing something I don't want to cripple. Most of the time the other 2 come in. I have run 4 before and this can lead to some bad draws. You don't want more than one in your 1st hand.
The thing I don't like about despise is that it works against mimic vat. I would prefer to kill their creature than make them discard it. If your worried of PW duress covers it. I have one entomber exarch MD. These mostly break down to 3s and 4s. It's just that there is such variety of removal to choose from. This SB can bring 4 more art/enc removal or bring 3 more creature removal. 3 duress w 2 more extraction. The spellskite is a counter for if I expect pod hate game 2 (almost always). I can also increase the creature count to 25 post board although 2 of those are not really threats.
yanloup I do see the noxious revival rarely. I think that is a decent way to try to counter the extraction. However it will have to pass duress 1st more than likely.
ryansolid I do not see the vat as win more at all. In a deck with many creatures where most of them have CA type effects, replicating those effects creates even more effects. You are saying playing more threats is better. In some games that may indeed be so. However I think the Vat has the potential to multiply these effects. And being able to do so even a few times can put you so far ahead that your opponent cannot catch up. Much as the pod can also do. And they work well together. For me I see it as getting more out of fewer creatures instead of having more redundancy.
Then again my disruption package might be better paired with some other win condition than pod/vat that requires a great amount of deck slots and could always use some more creatures.
FoG - I very much liked your post on the vat. I can't think of anything you said about it that I would disagree with. I personally like to run the vat out turn 3 if I can threat or not. In fact having it there before you play a guy gives that creature some protection because they now have to get rid of the vat before they kill your creature in order to deny you value.
Also, Memoricide cannot get ANY land cards, whereas Surgical Extraction can make quick work of a Valakut in the graveyard. And between Tectonic Edge, Slimes, and Beast Within..it should be very easy for us to get one into their graveyard.
Yes. Being able to get rid of lands is essential vs Valakut. And as you mentioned with multiple ways of destroying lands, (I run edges slimes and beast within) enchantments/artifacts PW and creatures. Really no win condition is safe against it. You can use extraction to cripple their protection by ripping all their mana leaks as well.
I been playing the G/B more for the disruption package here than because of the pod. Any win condition would do. I have had the Valakut players just conceding game 2 after they realize they will be totally hated out.
I am at the point with it where I am waiting for someone to start running mental misstep to counter the extractions. Haven't seen that yet but if it becomes common defense then we might have to consider running misstep as well.
ok So first things i were think was that we needed to focus on specific chains that are efficient and always useful yet consistent and less tool box
Creatures: Birds of Paradise: Staple mana ramp, Can hold swords and can be (rarely) used to start a chain (late game).
Sylvan Ranger: Good mana fixer, better then the emmisary IMHO as it doesnt rely on the pod, can also hold a sword. only a 2-of because we dont run to draw multiples AND we prefer not to start a b-pod chain this low in Cc costs.
Cunning Sparkmage: Great against most of the field, most aggro and cawblade, can be sided out against anything else. Again only a 2 of as we prefer to start our chain around 4, if we start one at all.
Solemn Simulacrum: Most value in a Single Creature Can hold a sword and a good blocker do to the card draw. Great way to start the chain.
Acidic Slime: This is the Best Creature For Birthing Pod Its in Almost everylist Highly Efficient good beater (and defender) when sword gripping.
Inferno Titan: This is just The Bomb when compered to other 6 drops it can sweep the board on arrival and is just the nutz. Grave titan my be better against other control decks or valakut.
The Kill:
Dismember: Good Against Everything but Titans, Simply Put.
Go for the Throat: Staple Kill, Switch with Doom Blade If your meta has more Tempered Steel Decks in it.
Arc Trail: The amount of 2 for 1's I've gotten with this card is amazing. Comes out againts control and valakut. If you have an aggro-podless meta, then sub these with more discard or common kill.
The Disruption:
Inquisition of Kozilek: Removes their first turn stuff as well as any hate they bring in g2.
Despise: 1 of that can be switched to duress depending on whether you have more control or valakut in your meta. Always hits something, usually.
The Artifacts:
Birthing Pod: No explanation needed. The main contender of this deck.
Sword of Feast and Famine: Every Creature you have can hold this, can should be able to land sufficient hits with the disruption your running. Untaps your lands so you dont waste a turn hitting with the creature, I.E more spells to play afterwards as well as more b-Podding.
Slagstorm: For any Aggro (if you have more non tempered steel aggro replace this with pyroclasm)
Memoricide: Good againts any Combo decks, Especially valakut
Cards Being Considered:
Different Swords??
Different Creature Layout??
Tectonic Edges??
Planeswalker Additions??
So what do you guys think?
Open to any and all suggestions other then Complete Rejections
Playtesting and tournament results will be updated.
I like this quite a bit. A few suggestions that may be improvements.
+1 ranger or emissary -1 Simulacrum. I understand your comments on wanting to start a pod chain at higher cmc. But I think you your better off ramping up to that more quickly and consistently. Especially if your commited to the swords. Faster creatures can carry swords too and perhaps sooner.
I think you need Beast Within. This would take the place of one of your kill spells like dismember MD and either despise or sparkmage. From SB in the place of arc trails or GFFT/Doomblade. I think Beast Within is a 3-4 of either MD or SB.
Tectonic Edge is nice but can be a problem in 3 color decks sometimes. I do like starting a LD chain of edge slime and beast within however which sometimes can be a blowout.
I would consider Sheoldred to top out your curve. It is very powerful and pod makes it more possible to get into play. I like having 2 wurmcoils at 6 cmc as pod targets to get her out then you can just return the wurmcoil with her on your next turn.
I think running 2 colors may be more consistent than 3. So that is I guess my main question is if the red or black are so important that those slots could not be filled by something else and add more consistency to the list or not. Birds are fragile and spreading seas could be a problem I think as well as opening yourself up to Tec Edge from the opponent. I do agree with your choices for the most part. There are some very strong choices @ 3cmc that you could be using over sparkmage however like vampire nighthawk and rager. If you are commited to the sparkmages then having a basilisk collar or 2 would make them more potent. I would consider that over a sword then. Works well with Inferno Titan also. That synergy would make the red part of the deck more justifiable to me. Otherwise I could see beast within/grave titan/nighthawk replacing the red and just run it G/B.
I like the idea of surgical extraction. I don't know what I would take out to put them in. Maybe I should get a set of them. I have also seen some people talk about using memoricide's for valkut and a few other matchups.
It is very good against Twin decks or Ascension as well. You can rip any key card out of their deck for 0 mana.
The memoricide can do this also. And be proactive about it too not needing to wait until the key card is in the graveyard. But it costs a lot more mana and is not instant speed.
I do like transformation SB strategies. But this deck is not really the best type for one.
Main change I could see going for would be to drop all your pods in exchange for something else. However the potential CA of the pod and the way decks are set up to ramp creatures makes doing so not really favorable.
I think its better to have toolbox creatures that will hurt their strategy come in than transforming the deck to something else.
Usually a tramformational strategy works best when you can shift from creaturless to threat heavy and vice versa. Pod is too creature heavy to do this imo and your better off focusing on moving in threats that are harder for them to deal with or to handle their post board hate.
Just curious as to why no one uses Automatrons? Wouldn't they be another good buffer?
Mainly because exemplar and honor of the pure are better. Less vulnerable to removal and do more.
There are only so many slots available for the deck. If you run the automation it would take the slot of so many other good cards in the 3 slot that are better like crusader and exemplar. Honor of the pure is cheaper and harder to remove.
We have talked about the automation possibly replacing exemplar post rotation but without giving indestructable to all the knights and not having 1st strike it is clearly a step down in what it can do for you by comparison.
About the only time I can see you having an issue with emissary is if you keep a 2 lander and on turn 3 you still need a 3rd land to pod.
This is a very important part of the early game and in this one scenario the ranger would be better. But in almost every other point of the game the emissary would be better than the ranger.
If your running low land count then perhaps consider the ranger a bit more but honestly I have not had problem with my opponent not killing the emissary.
I have been playing a G/B pod deck with mimic vat in it. I think the synergy is too good to pass up. As already mentioned you not only get to put creatures on the vat when you pod you also can use vat tokens to pod up.
People are talking about issues vs. Valakut. If you play beast within and surgical extraction I think it is pretty easy to shut Valakut down completely.
This was the main reason I chose G/B although you do not need to have black to cast surgical extraction. So really any deck as long as it has green could do this.
I just wanted to mention Red Sun Zenith is not only good as a finisher. As long as it resolves it will be shuffled back into your deck. So if the game goes on long enough you will likely see it again.
Normally with a X spell you will save it for the kill shot. Red Sun allows you to play it as removal in the early game as you will be able to draw it again. It also helps against creatures with recursion and in a pinch can keep other things from triggering such as mimic vat.
All around a solid card good enough to compete for slots in the 75.
As for the basilisk collar I think it is more relevant if you have spikeshot elder, grim lavamancer or sparkmage due to the deathtouch. Otherwise a sword might be a better option.
I came across this as I was looking for other G/B ideas as I have a G/B deck that I have been enjoying playing recently and has now developed to the point where it is good but I would not say great. Not yet.
I like how you have talked about the development process of the deck so I will share some my own.
I had been playing a deck with beast within and I really think the power of this card is being overlooked somewhat so far in standard. In eternal formats I think it gets a bit more respect.
Beast Within is a instant speed desert twister for half the mana cost.
My 2nd throught on this tool was to use surgical extraction as a way to remove significant cards from the opponents deck. This can be used against counter magic or permanents you may not want to see again. If it was good enough to use beast within against it is prolly worthy of extraction as well.
This 2 card combination allows us to neuter combo decks like Valakut Pyromancers Ascention and Splinter Twin. Forcing them to have alternate win conditions. This similarly can be good against Tempered Steel but beast within is more of a liability against aggro decks with quick tempo.
So exploring this further I decided that blacks myriad ways of dealing with creatures and also it giving us the option of not having to pay life for the extraction. This seemed like the best option to pair with green and feature beast within.
Somewhere earlier in the thread I think someone said black does not have sweepers in standard. This is not true. In fact black recently got one of the most powerful sweepers I have yet to see in Black Sun Zenith.
So being committed to beast within BSZ seemed like a good way to deal with their creatures if they have them while at the same time removing any beasts you may have given them. That BSZ goes back into your deck after resolving and being mass removal makes it less of a loss of CA to beast within.
Another green card similar to beast within is Acidic Slime. It does not interact with creatures but it can remove most other permanents and it has death touch so it can trade one for one with creatures as well. A beast token if need be.
As you aptly mentioned standard currently is much about establishing strong board position. BW BSZ and slimes gives an awful lot of control of any board state. I think this is the main strength of black green right now. So these 3 cards is mainly what I built the deck around.
I do use a minor Birthing Pod strategy and that has greatly influenced my creature choices (besides acidic slime). But it needs to be said that this may not be the best win condition strategy to pair with the board control. I am still undecided about that and I may prefer to move from the toolboxing aspect of the deck to more consistent threats. I think the birthing pod strategy may function better with higher creature density than I am using and pod may make the deck too busy. One example of this is Massacre Wurm which is nice in some match ups but honestly I would not run it if not for being able to pod to it after a slime.
Here is my current list
I noticed quite a bit of cross over in card choices of your future future deck so I thought this might be useful to see what another player has decided on in a similar deck theme.
Good things from your list that I would consider adding to mine are Thrun, Mind Rot, Sign in Blood, Tumble Magnet and Lilliana Specter. I do not use Thrun because of the BSZ plan shrinking him but something I should perhaps have in the SB. I use the 2 ragers in slots that could be SiB or the specter. I have podded into specters before and do really like it. I just like the rager more. Either of them are sick on a mimic vat and good on their own. As for tumble magnet. I don't consider my deck to be very tempo based but with the rise of Phantasmal Image it gets additional value there. Also its not bad to deplete a magnet and then turn it into a beast within token once it is no longer useful. Works well with BSZ also to bait out additional threats from them or to stall until you have more mana. So magnet might be a good addition to my list.
For your list I like where it is just offering my thoughts on possible directions your list could go.
Mimic Vat is a great card in combination with Birthing Pod but it may be more consistent to use 4 of one and not the other. I use the metamorph as a pseudo 3rd copy of each, either is good on its own and I think could be good additions to your deck. The pod requires a more dedicated creature base however to maximize it's potential so I do debate cutting it for more vats or something else. Like I said my list may be trying to do too much.
In play testing it performs really well however. The current standard metagame does have some things that make G/B perhaps not an ideal choice. Sword of Feast and Famine and Mirran Crusader. BSZ and Beast Within are great answers to these problems however.
Good luck with the deck and I look forward to keeping up on its evolution.
Well perhaps that is the wrong line of play and sure I would like to extract his threats but I have to get them in the graveyard 1st to do so. My opponent was playing smart and I never had the opportunity.
So this is a case where memoricide may be better than surgical. Or maybe I should have despise instead of duress for this match up.
I was not using despise because it works against mimic vat but perhaps that would improve this match up quite a bit for me. Thanks for the feedback.
Game 1 was pretty even and I think in my favor for a bit after I extracted his mana leaks. But I lost in the end to sphinx.
Game 2 was still tough sledding but I ended up blowing him out with his own grave titan on my vat along with sheoldred and friends.
Game 3 was again difficult and I extracted his inquisitions early on. But he drew 2 duress to get rid on my removal. I had him down to a sphinx and a land for his hand. But after ripping my GFFT it was safe to drop the sphinx. 6 cards for him later I drew a beast within but by this time it was too late as he had flashfreeze to answer it.
The match is winnable and I do think my opponent played pretty well but I consider the B/U the hardest match up right now.
Despise is nice to get rid of real problem creatures like mirran crusader and can work well with surgical to go after a 4 of threat. But planes walkers are 3 ofs or less. I generally value duress more than despise. It gets rid of their answers. But I run 3 Black Sun Zenith so I have less fear of creatures.
Well my deck is a bit different. It only has 20 creatures no birds and 3 Black Sun Zenith main deck. 2 Garruk Primal Hunter as well. But I was playing it against countless goblin and steel decks at the time. For sideboard I have 2 surgical extraction with a 3rd as a one of main board. This one comes out if I am playing something I don't want to cripple. Most of the time the other 2 come in. I have run 4 before and this can lead to some bad draws. You don't want more than one in your 1st hand.
Sideboard:
acidic slime
phyrexian rager
dismember
doom blade
go for the throat
2naturalize
2spellskite
2surgical extraction
3duress
sylvok replica
The thing I don't like about despise is that it works against mimic vat. I would prefer to kill their creature than make them discard it. If your worried of PW duress covers it. I have one entomber exarch MD. These mostly break down to 3s and 4s. It's just that there is such variety of removal to choose from. This SB can bring 4 more art/enc removal or bring 3 more creature removal. 3 duress w 2 more extraction. The spellskite is a counter for if I expect pod hate game 2 (almost always). I can also increase the creature count to 25 post board although 2 of those are not really threats.
yanloup I do see the noxious revival rarely. I think that is a decent way to try to counter the extraction. However it will have to pass duress 1st more than likely.
ryansolid I do not see the vat as win more at all. In a deck with many creatures where most of them have CA type effects, replicating those effects creates even more effects. You are saying playing more threats is better. In some games that may indeed be so. However I think the Vat has the potential to multiply these effects. And being able to do so even a few times can put you so far ahead that your opponent cannot catch up. Much as the pod can also do. And they work well together. For me I see it as getting more out of fewer creatures instead of having more redundancy.
Then again my disruption package might be better paired with some other win condition than pod/vat that requires a great amount of deck slots and could always use some more creatures.
FoG - I very much liked your post on the vat. I can't think of anything you said about it that I would disagree with. I personally like to run the vat out turn 3 if I can threat or not. In fact having it there before you play a guy gives that creature some protection because they now have to get rid of the vat before they kill your creature in order to deny you value.
Yes. Being able to get rid of lands is essential vs Valakut. And as you mentioned with multiple ways of destroying lands, (I run edges slimes and beast within) enchantments/artifacts PW and creatures. Really no win condition is safe against it. You can use extraction to cripple their protection by ripping all their mana leaks as well.
I been playing the G/B more for the disruption package here than because of the pod. Any win condition would do. I have had the Valakut players just conceding game 2 after they realize they will be totally hated out.
I am at the point with it where I am waiting for someone to start running mental misstep to counter the extractions. Haven't seen that yet but if it becomes common defense then we might have to consider running misstep as well.
What is the point of suggesting you have lists on a message board and then saying they are secret?
If it is a secret then it would be best kept by saying nothing at all.
I like this quite a bit. A few suggestions that may be improvements.
+1 ranger or emissary -1 Simulacrum. I understand your comments on wanting to start a pod chain at higher cmc. But I think you your better off ramping up to that more quickly and consistently. Especially if your commited to the swords. Faster creatures can carry swords too and perhaps sooner.
I think you need Beast Within. This would take the place of one of your kill spells like dismember MD and either despise or sparkmage. From SB in the place of arc trails or GFFT/Doomblade. I think Beast Within is a 3-4 of either MD or SB.
Tectonic Edge is nice but can be a problem in 3 color decks sometimes. I do like starting a LD chain of edge slime and beast within however which sometimes can be a blowout.
I would consider Sheoldred to top out your curve. It is very powerful and pod makes it more possible to get into play. I like having 2 wurmcoils at 6 cmc as pod targets to get her out then you can just return the wurmcoil with her on your next turn.
I think running 2 colors may be more consistent than 3. So that is I guess my main question is if the red or black are so important that those slots could not be filled by something else and add more consistency to the list or not. Birds are fragile and spreading seas could be a problem I think as well as opening yourself up to Tec Edge from the opponent. I do agree with your choices for the most part. There are some very strong choices @ 3cmc that you could be using over sparkmage however like vampire nighthawk and rager. If you are commited to the sparkmages then having a basilisk collar or 2 would make them more potent. I would consider that over a sword then. Works well with Inferno Titan also. That synergy would make the red part of the deck more justifiable to me. Otherwise I could see beast within/grave titan/nighthawk replacing the red and just run it G/B.
It is very good against Twin decks or Ascension as well. You can rip any key card out of their deck for 0 mana.
The memoricide can do this also. And be proactive about it too not needing to wait until the key card is in the graveyard. But it costs a lot more mana and is not instant speed.
Main change I could see going for would be to drop all your pods in exchange for something else. However the potential CA of the pod and the way decks are set up to ramp creatures makes doing so not really favorable.
I think its better to have toolbox creatures that will hurt their strategy come in than transforming the deck to something else.
Usually a tramformational strategy works best when you can shift from creaturless to threat heavy and vice versa. Pod is too creature heavy to do this imo and your better off focusing on moving in threats that are harder for them to deal with or to handle their post board hate.
Beast Within Naturalize Sylvok Replica or natures claim becomes a must because of this.
Mainly because exemplar and honor of the pure are better. Less vulnerable to removal and do more.
There are only so many slots available for the deck. If you run the automation it would take the slot of so many other good cards in the 3 slot that are better like crusader and exemplar. Honor of the pure is cheaper and harder to remove.
We have talked about the automation possibly replacing exemplar post rotation but without giving indestructable to all the knights and not having 1st strike it is clearly a step down in what it can do for you by comparison.
About the only time I can see you having an issue with emissary is if you keep a 2 lander and on turn 3 you still need a 3rd land to pod.
This is a very important part of the early game and in this one scenario the ranger would be better. But in almost every other point of the game the emissary would be better than the ranger.
If your running low land count then perhaps consider the ranger a bit more but honestly I have not had problem with my opponent not killing the emissary.
People are talking about issues vs. Valakut. If you play beast within and surgical extraction I think it is pretty easy to shut Valakut down completely.
This was the main reason I chose G/B although you do not need to have black to cast surgical extraction. So really any deck as long as it has green could do this.
Normally with a X spell you will save it for the kill shot. Red Sun allows you to play it as removal in the early game as you will be able to draw it again. It also helps against creatures with recursion and in a pinch can keep other things from triggering such as mimic vat.
All around a solid card good enough to compete for slots in the 75.
As for the basilisk collar I think it is more relevant if you have spikeshot elder, grim lavamancer or sparkmage due to the deathtouch. Otherwise a sword might be a better option.
Nice thread.