General Fight Club

[sigh]

Ok, so doodling around on MTGS, and I happened upon the random-card-of-the-day, and there was a great card that I totally haven't considered in quite a while, but am now realizing may be the perfect 4-slot that I want rather than Sram's Expertise


(vs. Srams, Spectral procession, etc)

 

[Chris Taylor]

I really do love Emeria Angel

 

[ahadabans]

I'm a fan of Emeria Angel. It's in my combo list actually.

The ceiling on this is very high, especially for anyone doubling up on fetch lands or playing super ramp strategies (fastbond, et all). I enjoy running cards like this since you are rewarded for building around them, yet still have decent stats in a vacuum (without being OP). To be fair though, I like landfall more than most people.

 

[ravnic]

Yeah, Emeria Angel is sweet. She's playable everywhere and supports tokens and skies decks really well.
As long as she fits your power level, I would recommend her for sure.

Really puts Rishkar's expertise into perspective a little... some fraction of the time 1 mana draw, 3, 4... 7? That cycle is good.

I'm trying Sram's expertise right now alongside Battle Screech, Lingering souls, and Secure the Wastes. Battle Screech is definitely one of my favorites. Two spells is just good, and I enjoy thay synergy with "spells" decks. Also absolutely slamming with Jeskai Ascendancy


Unless you have some aversion to flip cards, one of the most straightforward green aggro cards is


Other than that, goods synergy with fetches (and bouncelands actually)

Prowler is a little too much for what I want my aggro 1-drops to do. I also would have to cut Jungle Lion and Wild Dogs then because I don't run strictly worse/better cards.

And without Fetchies Renegade seems pretty mediocre for aggro to me.

I still want to know if Rootwalla is fine and could be as good as Jaguar in an aggro deck with little to no discard outlets :-?

 

[Velrun]

Basking was an all-star in the UG Madness deck that we saw in Standard during Odyssey-Onslaught.

However the Madness part was quite important. It’s super difficult to block in the early turns because no 1 drop and almost no 2 drop can do anything about a 3/3. However attacking with mana open means you do not HAVE to pump for +2/+2 unless blocked which is an effective way to constantly deal 1 damage each turn. In later turns of the game it is simply a 3/3 at all times. It’s decent but not spectacular without any synergy and really strong if you have a discard theme.

 

[RavebornMuse]

Do people actually draft Wild Dogs and Jungle Lion as it stands already?

imho I feel like if you're going lower powered for your cube, you have a real opportunity to make aggro really interesting, which is not a luxury high-powered cubes have. Considering this, I don't see myself or any of my drafters wanting to go into a generic 2/1 for beatdown deck in any color when there's fun things to do at midrange and beyond, and given that there's ramp available at T1 in your list already, I don't see how any player winds up in the aggro green deck aside from being really unlucky. Considering the overall creature density of the cube, I'm not even seeing much room for a 2/1 for beatdown plan to seize on a window; it would be different if you had less creatures early in the curve for your "midrange" and "control" colors, but given that they're all pretty well-stocked along the curve, where does this theoretical green aggro deck find a window, and, if it does find a window, why wouldn't it rather launch fatties off of early ramp through it?

Of your live drafts with other players, what percent of the time is green aggro drafted, and how often do the players who draft it actually enjoy their finished deck? If your players really like it, then by all means, stick with it, but I question if perhaps you're not missing out on some more interesting options for the sake of including some colorshifted-with-downside Savannah Lions.

 

[sigh]

Yeah, Emeria Angel is sweet. She's playable everywhere and supports tokens and skies decks really well.
As long as she fits your power level, I would recommend her for sure.



Prowler is a little too much for what I want my aggro 1-drops to do. I also would have to cut Jungle Lion and Wild Dogs then because I don't run strictly worse/better cards.

And without Fetchies Renegade seems pretty mediocre for aggro to me.

I still want to know if Rootwalla is fine and could be as good as Jaguar in an aggro deck with little to no discard outlets :-?

Well, the point of the post was implying that Basking Rootwalla isn't really worth it by offering alternatives. It takes entire turns just to get slightly above curve, and doesn't have much access to its upside. If you want a version of this effect, the best is probably


I would also definitely not run more than of this effect, and you already run Wolfbitten Captive.

 

[ahadabans]

Basking Rootwalla is a card I recently rediscovered. I would agree with the consensus that without discard outlets it's a bit loose, but most lists run discard outlets in green right? Or at least in other colors that pair nicely with green. Much like Emeria Angel, I feel like rootwalla has a nice ceiling that you need to put a little energy into unlocking. But even as a 1/1 that goes 3/3 with open mana, that's certainly playable.

Here's what Nick had to say about it in 2012. He rated it the 9th best 1 drop beater at the time. Clearly not anymore (it is not in his current list last I checked). Those running lower powered cubes it's probably still top 10 FWIW (could even be higher depending on what you are running).

Basking Rootwalla is rarely played in the most balls out agro decks and tends to find himself in quirky agro decks trying to maintain high card advantage instead. Because of the mana requirement to make him a 3/3 you lose tempo rather than gain it by pumping early. He is still fine to have around just nibbling away for one as you often get him for free both to cast and as a card, he is hard to block and is a fine dump for spare mana. He will supplement things like Overrun and has some very nice synergy with cards like Vengevine and Fauna Shaman. Just the other day I lost a game to a 4/5 Rootwalla courtesy of Pendlehaven. A card with a lot of uses that will aid the tempo aspect of various engines.​

https://mtgcube.blogspot.com/2012/08/top-10-one-drop-beaters.html

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I still want to know if Rootwalla is fine and could be as good as Jaguar in an aggro deck with little to no discard outlets :-?

Cards like basking rootwalla aren't really aggro cards in the traditional sense. The need to pump them means it forces you choose between spell velocity, and dmg, which is pretty terrible

Where they work well is in aggressive midrange decks that can afford to spend time hemorrhaging either tempo or dmg in the early game, and than have this mana sink that can apply pressure, while turning closer to more midrange size in the mid or late game.

Because of the nature of the choice it requires you to make, if there aren't a lot of discard for value engines in a format, I would suggest taking careful stock of what decks in a format are interested in thatkind of body, and what signals it sends. Rootwallas ceiling is where you're getting a free body off of a discard for value interaction, which is awesome. Its floor is pretty much everything else, which isn't a terrible floor, but very easily power crept out of a format when you remove the virtual cantrip.

This is a higher power version of a spirtually similar card

 

[ahadabans]

The madness 0 on Rootwalla makes the ceiling on the card very high. It's less about the body and more about what you can do with it. T2 Wild Mongrel/Noose Constrictor, discard Vengevine, discard Basking Rootwalla (play it for free) gets you a 4/3 haste creature on T2 or 8 power attacking on T3 if you wait. And if that's not aggressive, I don't know what is. But you need a list with enough outlets to support that sort of play. Deathdealer is more powerful in a vacuum sure but it's got a painful casting cost and has basically a floor equal to it's ceiling (which is just a little above curve). In my mind, these two cards are basically nothing alike apart from having a +2/+2 pump effect.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

They're both cards that function in aggressive midrange lists--which is the same archtype Nick was alluding too.

Basking Rootwalla is rarely played in the most balls out agro decks and tends to find himself in quirky agro decks trying to maintain high card advantage instead. Because of the mana requirement to make him a 3/3 you lose tempo rather than gain it by pumping early.

Not sure where the disagreement is coming from.

I'm aware you can super cantrip rootwalla, and thats ok. I really hate the idea of running the card largely on that basis (and I don't think Nick was either based on his description, he did seem to care about the body quite a bit, functioning as a fair body).

I'm too tired to write a lengthy explanation, but basically that turns it into a card where the floor is unplayable, and the ceiling is it gets to be playable, based on the density of discard outlets you can gather. I really dislike those types of unforgiving draft picks.

 

[sigh]

Since one of the main bases of the question posed was "can Basking Rootwalla work even with little to no discard outlets", the madness upside is largely moot. If the madness is a large portion of the value of Rootwalla, that's probably an indication it's not a worthwhile include.

FWIW, I don't think the floor is unplayable, but it certainly isn't great.

Definitely agree that these effects are meant for a fast-game midrange style of play. Wolfbitten Captive from the list in question wants you to flip it T2 by pumping, but then making a truly agro play of 1 drop + 2 drop on T3 will flip it back, so it's really looking for you to be curving out with 3 drops, then probably pumping again, etc. Issue as RBM has brought up, is why not just run elvish mystic instead? That can put the 3 drop T2, the 4 drop T3, and achieve a better goal for the fast-midrange deck in question without eating entire turns.

 

[ravnic]

At first, thanks for all the input guys! I think I will order a copy of the not exactly expensive Rootwalla the next time and give it a test run. Maybe it will surprise me. My hope was to have it as a pseudo-evasive 1-drop first and then pump it for the later attacks. In case I don't have Wild Mongrel or Noose Constrictor at hand. Wolfbitten Captive has been excellent for me, but it flips 60% of the time when played T1. Maybe the madness will come up often enough to make a difference. Maybe I should just look for something else.

Do people actually draft Wild Dogs and Jungle Lion as it stands already?

imho I feel like if you're going lower powered for your cube, you have a real opportunity to make aggro really interesting, which is not a luxury high-powered cubes have. Considering this, I don't see myself or any of my drafters wanting to go into a generic 2/1 for beatdown deck in any color when there's fun things to do at midrange and beyond, and given that there's ramp available at T1 in your list already, I don't see how any player winds up in the aggro green deck aside from being really unlucky. Considering the overall creature density of the cube, I'm not even seeing much room for a 2/1 for beatdown plan to seize on a window; it would be different if you had less creatures early in the curve for your "midrange" and "control" colors, but given that they're all pretty well-stocked along the curve, where does this theoretical green aggro deck find a window, and, if it does find a window, why wouldn't it rather launch fatties off of early ramp through it?

Of your live drafts with other players, what percent of the time is green aggro drafted, and how often do the players who draft it actually enjoy their finished deck? If your players really like it, then by all means, stick with it, but I question if perhaps you're not missing out on some more interesting options for the sake of including some colorshifted-with-downside Savannah Lions.

Yes, Jungle Lion and Wild Dogs do see some play. I would say that around 20% of the drafted decks are actual aggro/tempo decks, which is fine for me. And at least every fourth deck of these does contain green. In the last 2 month, roundabout, I do remember 3 G/X aggro decks, which seems fine consindering we hadn't more than 4 players together at the table lately. Also only about one draft per week, maybe two. Most recently I lost in a 2-man draft against my friends Selesnya aggro list. Noteable was also the Golgari deck I went 2-1 with in a 4-man draft a few weeks ago. Im won one match even after losing my Wild Dogs to a life gain effect and another one after mulling to five. And when I talk about aggro, I really mean the 1-drop, 2-drop reckless beatdown decks.

Not all players can draft Ramp, Token and Dredge decks. I think I have a decent amount of cards that are reasons to go into green aggro, strong 1- and 2-drops and cards that can close out games pretty well like Might of Oaks.


But you got my interest, how could I make aggro more interesting? I always try to include cards, that are more synergistic and bring decision making with them. (Sarcomancy into Kor Skyfisher feels great.) But I'd love to hear more about that luxury thing.

 

[ahadabans]

Straight green aggro seems like a fish out of water to me in most cubes. White/Red/Black all have better more aggressive early creatures (and more of them to choose from) and those three colors all have better removal/reach for aggro decks in general. Green is a midrange centric color. I think you can add some control elements to it and/or some aggressive elements, but it always wants to be centered in midrange and the farther it gets from that the weaker your green section will get - just be conscious of the unavoidable depowering you will be doing to green the farther down that road you go. You are making the color do something it's not good at.

Green is a reasonable splash paired with an aggro color for things like rancor and whatever but my 2 cents is Jungle Lion/Wild Dogs are really bad cards and shouldn't be in most lists.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

What's your take on letting green have support for midrangey aggro? Stuff like aggresive 3 and 4 drops and some manadorks.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Green Aggro picks are more about avoiding misdrafts than promoting an actual aggro deck. Sometimes people will take aggro picks in red or white or black, see some green 2 or 3 drop they like, than start to pivot into it, and your job is to make sure that color pair is somewhat playable at low CC. Hopefully, you can tease them up into a more aggressive midrange deck. Its a gap in the card pool, that can lead to misdrafts.

The reason for that is green just has bad one drops, outside of mana dorks. Its an easier gap to fix at lower power, because you can get away by patching it with bland if serviceable cards like wild dogs. The problem with that though, is that these cards are narrow. Then the higher in power level you go the more awkward the problem becomes.

Good efficient mana is a solution, and hoping people figure out they are supposed to be Naya aggro basically all the time (which can happen). One of the advantages of running really good mana is that every guild problem can be solved by a wedge or shard solution, and players tend to be drawn towards color greed. I don't have that luxury though, because my mana base is basically all CIPT.

I basically just want to give green some one drops to help fill those gaps, without wreaking the rest of the list with narrow green aggro cards like wild dogs. So, if someone goes heavy into red aggressive cards, and than is attracted to some aggressive green spell (become immense is the usual culprit) I want there to be a small selection of aggressive green one drops to help fill out their curve. G/B aggressive decks have a similar problem. What I prefer to do is walk them up to more midrangy aggressive decks (and this is where the basking rootwalla style of cards have a niche).

Really, the lack of good green one drops creates a lot of guild headaches for cube.

Thats why this card is so good.



Its a good savannah lion that scales into a midrange threat, and is a solid mana sink with symmetrical worth at all stages of the game--the perfect aggressive midrange card.

 

[ahadabans]

I like adding aggression to green in small doses and having green ramp into it. T1 elf into T2 3 drop is a fine deck concept. Green IMO should be trying to make bigger creatures. Not necessarily racing damage. But that to me is the very definition of midrange.

The options for T2 3 drop aggression is pretty limited in green. You can elf ramp T1 into a red 3 drop with haste I guess, but now you have a complicated mana base to worry about where you need T1 forest into T2 mountain (or have Birds T1, etc). Then you might as well just go Naya and take advantage of Nacatl/Kird Ape basic land type dudes or landfall, etc. That said, you've got stuff like Tireless Tracker, Lotus Cobra and Sylvan Advocate, so there are certainly more options for aggression than in the past.

Green still faces two really big challenges though. Reach - it has little (overruns and that's mostly it). And removal - which it has next to nothing still to this day. Fight cards, Rabid Bite, and it's just worse options for aggressive decks from there (Beast Within is sweet but horrible in aggro). It's all rather awful if you want to beat down with green as your main color.

I much prefer green to be all-in on ramp and just make huge monsters. Or my preferred builds usually have CA engines - so something more like the rock splashing a more natural control color (black typically). Simic combinations I like in theory but they are often underpowered due to both those colors just sucking at creature aggression despite having powerful engine cards to work with.

EDIT: My only objection to cards like Kessig Prowler is that to me it's a bit of a trap. You need a lot of green mana sources in your deck to reliably make T1 green thing. So you are committing yourself to that color. You see Prowler and you assume green stompy is a thing. But then you basically find very little to support it and wind up more midrange. Prowler isn't useless in midrange certainly, but you'd much rather have picked an elf. And so to me you got mislead a bit. Back to Rootwalla, I agree that is the wrong card in list without a critical mass of discard/gy interactions. I don't think you need the full madness suite to support it. To me, it's more a card you try and wheel after first picking a mongrel/masticore/vengevine/genesis level of card. Then if Rootwalla comes back around, you know the Gx gy/discard deck is pretty open. In away, it can function a bit like Cabal Ritual/Lion's Eye Diamond for the storm deck. You really shouldn't first pick those cards because if they aren't wheeling, you are going to have a bad storm deck. Same with Rootwalla. If that isn't wheeling, your Gx discard/gy tech deck is probably not getting there on that game plan alone.

 

[sigh]

I think the part of your post that called to me the most, ahadabans, and the part I want to latch onto is "Green IMO should be trying to make bigger creatures"

Yeah totally agree. And I think Green's number 1 purpose in supporting aggression is to "make bigger creatures":


I definitely don't think it's a primary color in agro, nor should it be. If I were to have final say, the one drop slot in the casual champions cube would collapse to probably only Kessig Prowler and other one drops with different purpose (dorks etc).

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Prowler isn't a stompy trap, the stompy trap already exists, but prowler helps smooth that gap while still being reasonable in other decks.

If you run aggressive red drops and reasonable green cards, you already have all the signaling you need to make someone think stompy is a thing and commit. Prowler helps make that choice a non-terrible one, and in a format leaning towards guild combinations in certain contexts, you need some pieces in place that do that. Otherwise you need to shift people away from two color combinations, and more towards three color aggro, with the third color filling that gap.

This was one of the fundimental reasons for the push towards double fetch/shock three years ago. The aggro decks needed to be 3 color, and the reason they needed to be three color was because of gaps in the card pool. Green one drops is one of those gaps.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I think the part of your post that called to me the most, ahadabans, and the part I want to latch onto is "Green IMO should be trying to make bigger creatures"

Yeah totally agree. And I think Green's number 1 purpose in supporting aggression is to "make bigger creatures":


I definitely don't think it's a primary color in agro, nor should it be. If I were to have final say, the one drop slot in the casual champions cube would collapse to probably only Kessig Prowler and other one drops with different purpose (dorks etc).

Yeah. This is part of the berserker trend I keep on seeing, and prowler does very well in that slot, since it naturally becomes bigger. They misdraft it for the savannah lion, but that decision is rendered harmless because it grows into a bigger creature, which is where we wanted these decks to be anyways.

 

[ravnic]

Rootwalla is probably not good, okay, but I simply can't agree with green aggro being bad. Green shouldn't make a huge majority of your aggro deck, but it has great cards to offer if you pair it with red, white or even black.

In my cube, greens 1-drops are just as good if not better than the other aggro colors'. I'm super happy with Jungle Lion, Scythe Leopard, and Wolfbitten Captive and absolutely fine with Wild Dogs and Young Wolf. It also has more pushed cards with Experiment One and prowler.

It has also good 2-drops that are playable in non-aggro like Mongrel/Constrictor, Skinshifter or Nest Invader. High powered you get stuff like Lotus Cobra and Sylvan Advocate.

Green also has great pump effects for all power levels with Rancor, Might of Oaks and the besten anthem effects in Curse of Predation. Greens 5/5s for 4 are great curve toppers and it is best in dealing with problematic non-creature permanents like Propaganda.

Greens lack of evasion and creature removal is it's weakness, but last time I checked red, white and black do offer a lot of that, so they seems like a good Combination to me. Trample and combat tricks do help though.

I will continue to watch if my green aggro decks will do well or if I will notice some of the problems you mentioned.

On a related note, I had some success with Goblin Glory Chaser, could Honored Hierarch be worth a try? It becomes a 2/2 on turn 2 and could accelerate you starting on turn 3. Captain Lannery Storm has thaught me that a bit of ramp while attacking can be really good for aggro.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

G aggro is probably fine in your context, because you are at the right power level, with painlands. Rootwalla is also prob fine as well.

One of the things I like about your list is that you have breathing room for cards like wild dogs to thrive, which is fun to see. It also opens the door up to bloodlust, which is a nice halfway point for aggressive green decks.

Just a tricky discussion, because there are a lot of factors to the topic.

 

[Wumpa]

Nothing pulls my drafters into green aggro more than an early Collected Company. I highly recommend breaking singleton for two if that's something you're cool with.

On that note, to support a good Coco deck you need a solid critical mass of worthwhile 3cmc and 2cmc targets, and having just overlooked your cube I found that there's very few cards in those slots that I'd be eager to flash in with it (or even curve into because most are very utility based or mana hungry). Your green creatures are anemic in size which could be a larger hindrance than your 1 drop selection. I imagine cards like Rishkar, Peema Renegade, Tireless Tracker, Sylvan Advocate, and Vengevine are omitted for a reason, but I can't help but feel that at least a few more creatures with raw aggressive power could make the archetype much more viable. On that note, two lower power gems that I've been enjoying in my aggro decks have been Merfolk Branchwalker and Borderland Explorer.

 

[ahadabans]

Borderland Explorer does look like it has potential. Pretty sweet with Rootwalla FWIW.

I'm willing to concede most of the argument against green aggro. There are definitely more options now and at the right power level you can make it work. Where I won't budge though is Wild Dogs. It's a 2/1 beater that your opponents sometimes wind up with. Cycling doesn't make up for that drawback. Card is just so so bad. I would take a basic land in a pack over Wild Dogs even if I were in Gx.

 

[inscho]

Agreed. Wild Dogs was almost a decent card for a couple of weeks about 20 years ago.