The fifth intro pack, Wild Rush, demonstrates how powerful a green creature strategy can be enhanced by splashing for some removal. While playing with one colour does make for an easier mana base, it does often limit the flexibility of the deck.
Arbor Elf is part of your mana ramp strategy. Green has the biggest creatures, but they are expensive, so getting to them a bit earlier is important. Having some extra mana also allows for you to cast Public Execution. Destroy one of an opponent’s creatures and watch as the others cower in fear.
A punishing answer to an all out attack. Then, while your enemy is low on blockers, or even if they are not, cast Predatory Rampage and slam into your opponent. Suddenly your smallest creature is a 4/4, and they have to be blocked if able. Suddenly your opponent has a lot less board presence than you.
Rancor is the main reason to play green at the moment. For one mana you give your creature +2/+0 and trample, which is a pretty sweet deal. On top of that, if it hits the graveyard from the battlefield, probably because your opponent wanted to destroy a big threat, Rancor goes back to your hand, ready to make one of your other creatures bigger. The Mwonvuli Beast Tracker allows you to search for a solution to a problem. Fetch something to deal with those pesky fliers, or something that can trample through your enemies defences.
This also allows you to run toolbox cards, one of creatures that solve a certain problem, with a way to fetch them. Yeva, Nature’s Herald, the premium foil in this intro pack, has flash (Aaaahhh!), which allows green mana to be more interactive. When she is on the board, all of your green creature cards get flash as well. Flash allows you to summon creatures during your opponent’s turn. Bring in fresh blockers when your enemy attacks, or summon your trump card at the end of their turn, when they have no mana open, so that it can attack during your turn. This elf is going to cause trouble if left unanswered.
If you are looking for some cost-effective additions to your deck, consider the Ulvenwald Tracker. He allows for the steady removal of your opponent’s spell casting creatures that he is trying to keep safe. He also works well with the Beast Tracker, if you fetched something with death-touch.
Revive is a cheap way for you to return a creature you lost back into action. Running a single Moldgraf Monstrosity, to be fetched with the Tracker once you have enough mana, has the ability to swing the war in your favour. Even if this massive insect dies, you are getting two creatures from your graveyard back onto the battlefield.
Main Deck
60 cards
1 Evolving Wilds
16 Forest
8 Swamp
25 lands
1 Acidic Slime
3 Arbor Elf
2 Centaur Courser
2 Deadly Recluse
2 Duskdale Wurm
2 Garruk’s Packleader
1 Mwonvuli Beast Tracker
1 Primal Huntbeast
1 Sentinel Spider
2 Spiked Baloth
2 Vastwood Gorger
1 Yeva, Nature’s Herald
1 Yeva’s Forcemage
21 creatures
1 Crippling Blight
2 Essence Drain
1 Fungal Sprouting
1 Naturalize
1 Predatory Rampage
1 Prey Upon
2 Public Execution
1 Rancor
2 Ranger’s Path
1 Ring of Kalonia
1 Rise from the Grave
14 other spells
While I wish mono-green would be viable, and it is rather close in M13, sometimes that splash of another colour is what can turn your deck into a powerhouse. Don’t forget that your intro pack comes with two boosters, maybe another Yeva lurks within?
Last Updated: August 13, 2012