Most people who know me, probably associate me with playing either a stupid combo deck, or UR CounterBurn, and they are not wrong as those decks are some of my favorite decks. I have however one more pet deck, and that deck is what I will write about today.
I call the deck 4 Color Green, which may sound a bit stupid, but there is a reason for that. The mono green ramp deck is almost as old as the game itself, but it is most often seen as a budget deck. Why? I don't know, but I decided to see how good the archetype could be if I removed the budget part. The first thing the non-budget version gets is of course the moxen and the Black Lotus, which of course helps the ramp plan quite a bit. The second thing is that we also can play with duals to splash things like blue power and other restricted cards that aren't green, like Mind Twist, Wheel of Fortune and more.
The foundation of the deck is however the same as the mono green budget build, and that means mana dorks and big creatures. So let's now take a look at what cards are in the deck and why I chose those specific cards.
Creatures
Let's start with the creatures. One of the big problems with ramp decks is that you need the perfect mix of mana and creatures. Otherwise you either sit with only mana in your hand, or only big creatures that you can't cast. To lessen this problem I decided to add some cheaper creatures to fill out the curve a bit in case the main plan doesn’t go as you want.
I knew I wanted some number of 3-drops as they are so good when you play Elves and other cheap ramp spells, because that means that you almost always can play it on turn 2. That helps the deck put out some early pressure and not die if the opponents can disrupt the ramp plan. For the same reasons I also wanted a couple of 4-drops and to be completely honest this deck can play a 4-drop on turn 2 a surprising amount of times. I decided that a playset of both should be fine.
These creatures also helps against decks with swords to plowshares because the opponent often need to answer them straight away before they win the game by themselves, and if the opponent kills your early creatures, your big creatures will be able to stay on the battlefield when they arrive. The hardest part was to decide on how many creatures that cost 5 or more mana I wanted to play. After some extensive testing I think 5, or maybe 6 creatures is the correct number. If you play more, you often sit with them in hand in the early game, and if you play fewer you don't draw them when you have the mana to play them. This means that the deck plays 13 to 14 creatures, and together with some of the restricted cards the deck has a lot of threats that just needs to be answered by the opponent. Against many opponents Braingeyser, Mind Twist, Timetwister and Wheel of Fortune absolutely can be seen as threats in this deck.
Avoiding removal
One thing I wanted was to avoid as much removal as possible and the easiest removal to avoid is Lightning Bolt by choosing to only play creatures with 4 or more in thoughness. I chose Serendib Efreet and Erhnam Djinn for the 3- and 4-drops as they are some of the best creatures around. The big problem here is of course that the both die to City in a bottle but I don’t know what else I could play. Maybe Spitting Slug, but that one just “bounces” on Mishra’s Factory isn’t really that big of a threat with only 2 in power. Gaea’s Avenger is also an alternative, but when playing it turn 2 it is probably small even against heavy artifact decks. As an alternative for Erhnam we have Su-Chi, but then we turn on the opponents Disenchants as counterspells. Also it dies to Psionic Blast and trades with Serra Angel instead of beating it.
Then we had the big creatures and you may ask yourself why I play all the strange legends in those spots? I promise you that there is reasoning behind it. At first I actually played Craw Wurm (Got to love me some Craw Wurm!) in the 6 mana slots, but the wurm trades with commonly played cheaper creatures like Serra Angel, Sengir Vampire and Su-Chi. That is of course not very good when your plan is to go bigger than the opponent and you spend more mana on each of your creatures. Therefore I started to search for creatures with both power and toughness 5 or more, that way they only trades with Juzam Djinn.
I also didn't want to my big creatures to be blue as the opponent probably will side in Red Elemental Blast against this deck, because of the Serendibs and Power. That means that I can’t play Mahamoti Djinn or Sol’Kanar the Swamp King. Also, creatures like Juzam Djinn and Shivan Dragon are out of the question as they cost double black and double red which is a bit of a stretch on the mana base.
This creature configuration means that most control decks only will have four Swords to Plowshares and five counterspells for all of the decks threats. That is the main plan of the deck, play more threats than the opponent can answer. And I almost forgot, none of the creatures in the deck can be blocked profitably with Mishra’s Factory.
The three problem cards the deck faces are the classic anti creature cards, Moat, The Abyss and City in a Bottle. We’ve already talked about the city so let’s take a look at the other two. Moat is an absolute beating as we only have 4 flying creatures, but at least we have some flying creatures at all so we can still win with them and a well timed Fireball. I would however like to play one more flyer. The next card is The Abyss, a card that actually isn’t that amazing if it isn’t played super early. Mostly because we have a lot of cheap mana dorks to sacrifice. I would however like to play answers to these cards and therefore I have now started playing five colors to be able to play Disenchant.
Big mana = Big spells
Having a lot of mana also makes some non-creature spells really good. For example X-spells are amazing in this deck. Braingeyser is more often than not one of the MVP:s as it can give you a new hand without problem when you have run out of threats. A common situation is that your opponent needs to swords your early creatures, counterspell your later threats and then be blank when you play your Braingeyser to refill your hand.
Also, of course Mind Twist is super good when you can play it for a lot really early.
At first I only played one Fireball in the deck, but I it’s too good to only play one. It is not uncommon to be able to do 10 damage with a single Fireball and just end the game on the spot. Two Fireballs is probably the most you can run though, as you can’t cut to many creatures from the deck.
Two other spells that really shine in this deck in the same way that Braingeyser are Timetwister and Wheel of Fortune. The reason to this is that you often empty your hand super fast with all the cheap elves and then some threats. More often than not you do that faster than the opponent. Also, after you have played a draw seven for three mana you probably still will have a lot of mana left to play with so that you can use the cards first.
Flex slots
After ramp, creatures and restricted cards have been added to the deck there aren’t many more slots left, especially if you want to play a couple of Fireballs. The first thing that comes to mind for these flex slots is some sort of removal, but not for creatures as the plan is to overpower your opponents creatures, not kill them. But some answers to problem cards should probably be added.
I started out playing a couple of Crumble as there are almost always targets for some artifact destruction and it kills problem cards like Icy Manipulator and City in a Bottle. They do however not kill Enchantments, so I also played a Desert Twister in my first version, even though it is very expensive and actually quite bad.
I still don't really know what the correct choice is here, so I would absolutely see these slots as flex slots still. Right now I’m trying to play five colors and some number of disenchants main deck.
Other cards that I have on my radar is Sylvan Library, Concordant Crossroads and Berserk. Sylvan is quite good against control decks, but I already like that matchup quite well as long as they don’t play too much hate in the form of Enchantments. Concordant Crossroads is also good against control decks and also kills The Abyss, so I could see playing one of those in the main deck. It is however quite bad in many matchups. Berserk is the most fun of the above cards, and you can end a game from nowhere with it. But truth be told, it is probably just worse than one more Fireball.
Conclusion
There you have some of my reasonings behind this deck and as you may notice it is far from finished. Therefore, I won’t do an analysis of matchups and things like that. Neither will I talk too much about the sideboard except for a few last notes.
The deck performs way better than expected, especially against The Deck. You do however need a plan against the hate cards, those are the only cards the deck win with, not by countering and swording. If you don’t play white, Tranquility in the sideboard is a must.
Fast Juzams is a problem, but only if they also play Lightning Bolts and Sinkholes to disrupt your mana development, otherwise you run them over. But that matchup may need something in the sideboard.
Blood Moon is of course a bit annoying, but mana dorks and a bunch (3-4) Blue elemental Blast in the sideboard help a lot here. Combo decks can be a pain so pack some action in the sideboard for that.
Icy Manipulator is a hell of a card against Force of Nature!
Have a plan for decks with multiple Maze of Ith. I play one Armageddon main deck right now.
Any questions? Just comment below.