General Splashability and Green's Role as a Secondary Color

[silasw]

I noticed recently that whenever Green is played in my cube, it's always as a main color, and basically never as a splash. So many of green's good creatures require multiple green mana to cast:

And then I noticed how few commonly-played cube creatures 3 mana or above have splashable mana costs. By accident, my white 3-drops ended up looking like this:
Banisher Priest
Blade Splicer
Brimaz, King of Oreskos
Flickerwisp
Kor Sanctifiers (but really it's )
Mirran Crusader
Silverblade Paladin
Eidolon of Countless Battles


Decks with white either maindecked white for creatures, or splashed it for removal only. If this happens all the time, it seems like it might get stale. Green has it even worse; there's almost nothing worth splashing. Thragtusk, and maybe Regrowth? Nobody splashes for mana fixing or ramp, all the other fatties are double or triple-green, so what else is there?

Have you all encountered this kind of problem? Or does adequate mana fixing make this no big deal? My cube's mana fixing is very dense, but the lands are not the strongest fixers available.

I've been looking at some of these cards to improve splashability among creatures:

 

[CML]

if only there were good green devotion cards to run. this has bothered me too.

the 1WW cost is pretty pervasive, i still think it's worth it to run all the 1WW guys but recently cut Eidolon and Frontline Medic and Champion are in my top 5 white 3's i'm not running

 

[Eric Chan]

Yeah, lack of good devotion incentives in both white and green really bug me. I run Nylea, God of the Hunt, but the jury's still out on her.

I think the only splashable mono-green cards in my cube are Rancor and Tarmogoyf. Luckily, though, there are a ton of sweet multicolor green cards worth dabbling into the colour for.

 

[Dom Harvey]

I hadn't thought about this problem before, but you're right.

Other splashable green cards:



and gold cards:

 

[FlowerSunRain]

Green Devotion isn't too bad. Reverent Hunter is a solid beater, but admittedly he can be awful. If you curve Young Wolf into Strangleroot Geist into Hunter, things looking awesome. If you curve Dryad Militant into Kalonian Tusker into Hunter you are basically all and loose to a wrath. I think the most unfortunate thing for green devotion is that only two of the green multi-color gods are playable, while black and white give you three solid choices.

 

[CML]

I run Nylea, God of the Hunt, but the jury's still out on her.

guilty

multicolor gods are playable

not looking that way over here. to elaborate -- nobody had high hopes for the BNG ones and Ephara, the best of the set, is a pretty loose inclusion on my part. the JOU ones are more interesting but I doubt any but Athreos will stay in long-term, and I'm not even sure there. Kruphix and Iroas are transparently useless. Keranos is pretty far out, though my quibble is he should be a 20/20 for how hard it is to turn him on

the Green devotion card I'd have the most interest in running after the Hunter is Aspect of Hydra, Nylea's Disciple I think is also clearly a more flexible inclusion than Nylea herself, if not also more powerful.

 

[Lucre]

People love their mana elves these days in modern cube design (from power maxers to flatteners) and most of these sorts of cards and to a lesser extent the rampant growths of this world want to be played in decks where green mana is not hard to find on the first and 2nd turns. Since early ramp is one of the most interesting things green does and one of the few things green does that is interesting to a broad range of archetypes, you end up with a lot of decks that want to go heavy on green and work around that.

 

[Diakonov]

People love their mana elves these days in modern cube design (from power maxers to flatteners) and most of these sorts of cards and to a lesser extent the rampant growths of this world want to be played in decks where green mana is not hard to find on the first and 2nd turns. Since early ramp is one of the most interesting things green does and one of the few things green does that is interesting to a broad range of archetypes, you end up with a lot of decks that want to go heavy on green and work around that.

Indeed, this is semi-applicable to most limited formats. Green's splash is often only to include a sizable late-game creature or two.

 

[Eric Chan]

On that note, I suppose this guy is splashable, much like he was in Standard

 

[CML]

Indeed, this is semi-applicable to most limited formats. Green's splash is often only to include a sizable late-game creature or two.

NWO limited has been moving in the direction of "green control" for some time.