Subject: Green's Drawbacks Date: Fri,27 Mar 98 13:37 GMT From: Jacob Busby To: FROM: ITDCJB --HANTSCC TO: I0059567--INTERNET 27/03/98 13:37:26 To: I0059567--INTERNET From: Jacob Busby, Trainee IT Analyst/Programmer, Tech Futures, IT Data Centre, Hampshire County Council, The Castle, Winchester. Tel: (01962) 845375 Subject: Green's Drawbacks Re: Green flaws --------------- Seeing as everyone else is slagging off Green I thought I'd join in. :) Here are a few problems facing the mono-green mage nowadays. Lack of creature control: Every other colour has some form of creature control. Whilst White lost StP it still has creature enchantments (Pacifism, Spirit Link) and some sorceries/instants open to it (Tariff, Afterlife, Smite), blue has no real damage potential beyond the occasional Tim but does have several impressive unsummon cards (Undo, Capsize), which can be combined with Counterspells if the blue mage considers the loss of card advantage to be worthwhile. Red has plenty of direct damage spells, as anyone who has been on the receiving end of a Sligh deck can testify. Black has a number of burial and destruction effects, the most pertinent being Drain Life, Terror and Diabolic Edict. Let's compare these with Green creature control: Direct Damage ------------- Unyaro Bee Sting - Too pricy to be considered for a serious deck. Superior Numbers - A better card but valueless unless you have several creatures in play. "Tim's" ------- Granger Guildmage - Unviable in mono-green due to red mana requirement. Thorn Thallid - Not available in Type II. Too slow to much use. Tracker - Not available in Type II. Expensive usage cost (GG plus potential death of Tracker) Freyalises' - Not available in Type II. Requires red or white Supplicant creatures to operate. Other options ------------- Lure, Tempting Licid - Reliant on creature(s) being able to block and Trumpetting Armodon, on an attacking creature not being removed before Elvish Bard, Provoke the "Declare Blockers" stage. Giant Growth - And derivatives... Again relies on blocking or be blocked to be effective. Overrun - Potential Game winner. Amongst the best cards on offer to a green mage - but still not targetted ... cannot be used against a Peacekeeper. Cheap Fatties - A popular option - but like Overrun above, not really creature control - more "Block me or lose" Can be inihibitted in lots of ways (Spirit Link, Terror) and requires both speed and some sort of enviromental factor (Winter Orb, Armageddon) to prove most effective. And that's about it. What Green needs is a few more options available to it. Ideally these cards should be creatures (as this is the "trademark" of Green, in the same way that inhibitting enchantments suit White, damage suits Red, Burial suits black and bounce suits Blue) a decent Tim variant would suit Green. Here are a couple of options that aren't overpowered but do give a Green mage a little more lattitude: Elven Sniper GG1 1/2 Forestwalk. T: Elven Sniper deals one damage to target creature. Elven Assassin GG1 2/2. When Elven Assassin comes into play it deals damage equal to the total number of creatures you control (including Elven Assasin) to target creature. Lack of Shadow Defence: When Tempest was introduced three colours were given Shadow creatures, spectral creatures that could only block or be blocked by their own kind. These creatures were agressively minded and encouraged players to play small aggressive creature decks. Green, the creature colour, did not receive any of these spectal creatures. In some ways this flaw is analagous to Green's lack of good fliers. However whereas Green has a number of useful defenses against flying creatures (Hurricane, Femeref Archers, Skyshroud Archer) and a few fliers of it's own (Killer Bees) a green mage can do very little against Shadow creatures. Green's shadow defense comes to Skyshroud Dryad and Reality Anchor, both of which stop one shadow creature max. On its own this would not be a problem but when coupled with Green's lack of creature destruction this becomes a serious problem. Whereas a Red mage can destroy almost every shadow creature it faces Shadow creatures can easily overwhelm a Green mage who wants to play for the long game. Green needs some good cards to deal with Shadow creatures. Here is are a couple of options that should be available to a Green mage. Skyshroud Treefolk GG3 2/5. Skyshroud Treefolk can block creatures with Shadow. Grove of Light G Enchantment. Grove of Light deals one damage to all Shadow creatures which attack you. The Perish Question: If Perish had been costed differently (BB1) then it would not be splashable and a Green mage would have the option of Lifeforce available to him or her. But Perish can be splashed, and playing Lifeforce against a 5CW deck (for instance) or a U/R/b deck is remarkably inefficient. At present a Green mage can only really combat Perish with Artifact creatures (not much of an answer seeing as they are open to any mage) or with Licids (which can hop onto an opponents creatures and hop of later) Whilst I don't think Perish should be banned I think the Green mage needs a few cards to combat it. Again I give a couple of feasible examples. Faerie Fire GG1 Enchantment G, Remove target black card from target opponents graveyard: Put target Green creature from your graveyard into play. This creature now has Cumulative Upkeep: 1. Skyshroud Faerie GG 2/1, Protection From Black. GG: Put Skyshroud Faerie from your graveyard directly into play. Use this ability only if target opponent controls more permanents than you. At present Green cannot play for the long game. Running over the enemy (particularly using mana-inhibiton like Winter Orb) seems to be the limit of a Mono-Green deck. Green needs a little direct damage creature control. Anyway that's my $0.02 worth - You'll probably disagree with them but, hey it's a free country. You can mail me at: itdcjb@hants.gov.uk -- Jacob ^ _________ __ ___ ____ _____ ______ _______ ________ /__ __/ /__ __ ___ ____ _____ ______ _______ ________ __/ / / . / __ ___ ____ _____ ______ _______ ________ /___/ /____/ __ ___ ____ _____ ______ _______ ________