Budget Magic: $40 Mono-Green (Standard)
Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Budget Magic! Over the past couple of years, green has been widely considered the worst color in Standard, to the point where it basically has been unplayable. But things might be changing. [[Sunfall] decks are on the downswing as everyone shifts to Temporary Lockdown to stop Cori-Steel Cutter. Self-bounce decks—miserable matchups thanks to their endless edicts—are also disappearing because they can't stop Cori-Steel Cutter. Oh yeah, and Mice basically are gone, which makes blocking with big creatures a bit more possible. Add all this together, and the stage is set for a Mono-Green comeback! As such, we're heading to Standard today to see if the format perhaps actually is flourishing, at least in the Bloom-Kin sense, to get stompy with some Mono-Green! The best part? The deck's just under $50 to put together! Is Mono-Green back on a budget in Tarkir: Dragonstorm Standard? Let's find out!
Budget Magic: Mono-Green
The Deck
The goal today is actually pretty simple: play the biggest green creatures possible and smash our opponent into oblivion. Oddly, the best card in our deck might prove that Wizards is right and that Standard is flourishing: Flourishing Bloom-Kin! The two-drop gets +1/+1 for each Forest we control, which means it's typically a two-mana 4/4 or 5/5 thanks to our all-Forest mana base. Meanwhile, Scrapshooter offers an above-the-curve 4/4 for three that can also blow up a Cori-Steel Cutter or Unholy Annex, and Polukranos Reborn gives us a big-butted three-drop that eventually can flip into a pseudo–Wurmcoil Engine.
At the top end of our curve, we have a Surrak for haste and the biggest, baddest five-drop in the format in Agonasaur Rex. Not only is the five-mana 8/8 trample massive on the battlefield, but we can also, in a pinch, cycle it to grow a creature and make it indestructible until end of turn.
Early in the game, we have [[Llanowar Elves] to hopefully ramp us into a three-drop on Turn 2 as well as Keen-Eyed Curator, which gives us main-deck graveyard hate to fight against Omniscience and Oculus decks while also potentially growing into a massive 7/7 trampler once we exile a few cards.
While smashing opponents with big, dumb green creatures is great, we need some card draw in grindier matchups. For this, we have multiple cards that play up our deck's theme of creatures with power four or greater. Both Outcaster Trailblazer and Garruk's Uprising draw us a card whenever we play a creature with power four or greater, which is most of the creatures in our deck. Garruk's Uprising also gives everything trample, which is super powerful with all of our big beaters. Speaking of trample, Herd Heirloom is absurd. It ramps us into our biggest threats; then, once it's on the battlefield, we can use it to give our creatures trample at instant speed, which is super powerful since we can wait until after blockers are declared and give trample to whatever creature is being blocked by our opponent's smallest creature to get in a ton of damage!
For removal, we have Hard-Hitting Question, which is basically the green Swords to Plowshares. Since our deck is overflowing with massive creatures, it can usually kill anything our opponent plays for just a single mana!
Wrap-Up
Record-wise, Mono-Green did great! We finished 4-1 with the deck, with our one loss coming to a super-spicy Sultai Muldrotha deck, of all things, although we did manage to beat Mice along the way, which was a bit surprising. It turns out that many of the current aggro decks in Standard really struggle with big creatures, and our deck is really, really good at adding power to the battlefield.
I also need to give another shout-out to Herd Heirloom. The card is really strong. We got to see it win us some games out of nowhere thanks to its trample-granting ability. And even when it isn't winning us the game, it's typically drawing us an extra card each turn. It, alongside Garruk's Uprising to give everything trample, was key to a lot of our victories by letting us get in massive chunks of damage even through blockers.
So, is Mono-Green back in Standard? I think the answer might be yes! While the meta could shift again in the future, right now—while Sunfall, Self-Bounce, and Mice are on the downswing—seems like the perfect time to get stompy with big green creatures! If you've been missing green, give the deck a shot. It can pour on a ton of damage and draw a surprising number of cards!
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
