MegaPlow (extended green control deck)

Tasonir · Joined: 11 Apr 2009 Posts: 8

I've been tweaking this deck over the past few weeks, I'm sure a bunch of you have heard me trying to find extended games all the time. I just played World, who requested a decklist, so I'm posting it here for comments and him. Any suggestions on improving it are welcome.

13 forest
4 Stomping Ground
4 Mosswort Bridge
1 mountain

4 Llanowar elves
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder

2 Primalcrux
4 Eternal Witness
1 Deus of Calamity
1 Oversoul of Dusk
4 Plow Under
4 Kodama's Reach
4 Fireball
4 Primal Command
2 Harmonize

SB:
2 oversoul of dusk
4 Naturalize
2 Nourish
2 Doomgape
2 Cloudthresher
1 Glissa Sunseeker
2 Carven Caryatid

I'll post more on playstyle/match ups in about an hour when I have more time to type.

Tasonir · Joined: 11 Apr 2009 Posts: 8

The basic idea is to control your opponent's access to land/new card draws via putting permanents (mostly lands) on top of their library. Then you can drop a large creature and swing for the win unopposed.

Fireball is used to remove small threats. Faeries, especially sower of temptation, various aggro creatures, the random elvish piper/progenitus deck, etc. Witness provides some very useful recursion, and keep in mind that you can loop primal command and search for a witness to keep the chain going, returning lands to their library and completely locking their library until you run out of either primal commands or witnesses. Unless they have something in their hand to shuffle their library or draw more cards, of course.

The rest of the deck is mostly mana accel and land fetch. I've been tweaking which creatures I use for the kills, and lately favor Primalcrux due to how easy it is to pump him up, especially when you can search out both of them. Deus of calamity was orginally used to kill lands as they returned them to play after you plowed them, but I haven't found myself wanting to do that as much lately. Oversoul has some very useful protections.

Carven and nourish were in to help against aggro, and I like the carven, although I think nourish should probably go. I'd probably add banefire.

The deck is currently slightly under 50% against most of the decks I've tested, but it's not that far off. I have beaten faeries, and I think there's some promise here, although it's not likely to sweep the format.

Tasonir · Joined: 11 Apr 2009 Posts: 8

With regards to the second color: I've considered either splashing blue or white a lot, and I used to have a decklist that ran mulldrifters for card drawing, but I've lately settled on harmonize to stay on color and allow me to splash red for fireballs. But if anyone's interested in suggesting a different or multiple splash colors, I think the mana base could support it, especially if it's a color already on the noble hierarchs.

Quetzilla · Joined: 29 May 2005 Posts: 63

Primalcrux seems like Win-More -- if you've already got Oversoul or Deus out then making an 11/11 for 6 is kind of underwhelming. Thornling would probably be a better choice.

Eldar · Joined: 27 Nov 2006 Posts: 416 Location: Rochester

Play a better X spell than fireball for crying out loud you have demonfire and banefire available. Also have you ever thought of magus of the vineyard? Seems good and you can always board him out against decks that can use the green mana.

Tasonir · Joined: 11 Apr 2009 Posts: 8

I'm personally fond of splitting fireball and using it to remove two creatures. Specifically against faeries or aggro weenie decks, it's not that expensive to do. After a kodama's reach you should have plenty of mana to do it. The fact that it can be counter spelled is a bit of a problem, but faeries has only a few counters as they are unlikely to be able to spellstutter sprite a fireball that's 5 or more mana.

Nevertheless, I think I am going to add banefire to the SB.

Primalcrux is often the first fat that I'll drop - he is simply stronger than deus, and it can make the difference. One of the best perks of primalcrux is that it only takes one primal and an eternal witness to trigger the mosswort bridges; or a primal and two mana elves. It's a good bit harder to trigger it with a deus or oversoul. Putting down a second fat creature when your first primalcrux no longer has summoning sickness adds another 5 or 6 damage to your first attacker; it's almost as if your fatties have haste at that point. And a single swing with a 12+ primal can often finish off a game. Thornling does look pretty interesting though and I'll give him a shot.

A way to give my creatures some more resistance to removal would be nice. I can tutor up additional fat creatures and get around it but path to exiles can be a pain.

P.S. I'm looking for someone to do some through testing with me, if you'd like to play against this deck with a couple decks in the current meta let me know. I'm on IRC most of the afternoon/night EDT.

r3wind · Joined: 24 Jul 2006 Posts: 1253

Ug is the way to go. I would start with the List that won the Extended trial. This is more blue then green though. Keep the Goyf and Venser. Lose the Spellstutters. Keep most of the counterspells and explosives. Add Primal and Plow Under. There you have it. I am not saying that your new deck would be better then the deck that won the trial but is a great start. I do think that Ug Fae could be a little more on the green side. FYI don't play mana guys it's just not going to work. If you do play mana guys then drop Ancestral Vision for Harmonize as it would be faster.

Ug Faeries
1st - JedD
Main Deck Sideboard
8 Island
2 Breeding Pool
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
4 Mutavault
2 Riptide Laboratory
1 Steam Vents
4 Vendilion Clique
3 Tarmogoyf
4 Spellstutter Sprite
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
4 Mana Leak
4 Spell Snare
4 Engineered Explosives
4 Ancestral Vision
3 Vedalken Shackles
2 Condescend
2 Cryptic Command

Sideboard
2 Sower of Temptation
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Firespout
3 Stifle
2 Flashfreeze
1 Threads of Disloyalty
1 Trinket Mage
2 Ancient Grudge

Tasonir · Joined: 11 Apr 2009 Posts: 8

It's an interesting suggestion, to merge with a faeries deck. I've started to do so, but it's going to require removing all of the large green creatures I was previously playing. Primal, dues, and overseer are all 100% green mana, and won't work in a dual color deck. Cloudthresher damages fliers, which I'll now have several of. Doomgape might be workable, but he's a bit heavy on mana costs, especially if I remove the mana elves as suggested.

I also don't think I'll be able to run cryptic command with the altered mana base. I'm not sure running primal command is worth it, with the large creatures and eternal witness no longer tutorable. Tarmogoyf is still there, venser (although revealing it to your opponent beforehand can ruin the play), or perhaps a sower after SB; but I'm not sure running it for those options is worth a 3GG spell, especially when you're trying to keep mana open. It's in my list below, but I'm skeptical.

I made the following changes, but frankly I don't think they improved much, if anything:

-2 island
+2 breeding pool
-4 polluted delta
-4 flooded strand
+8 forest (the fetchlands are useful, but I am aiming this for next season a bit preemptively, so I don't mind putting in basic forests.)

-4 Spellstutter Sprite
+4 plow under
-3 Vedalken Shackles
-2 Cryptic command
+1 Condescend
+4 Primal command

I'm really not sure what else I could take out without eliminating the entire faeries aspect of the deck; at which point it's basically my decklist + EE and tarmogoyf.

I'm a bit worried about getting color screwed without a land fetcher like sakura tribe elder, so that or kodama's might have to go in.