Going to talk about this deck in a little more detail!
A friend of mine at my LGS mentioned a "Monogreen Aggro" deck he'd heard about and mentioned that it played
Swordwise Centaur
. Since green is my favorite color in Magic, I hardly needed anything else to get going.
Now, I had to work hard to make sure that this deck felt and played like an aggro deck, not a midrange deck, because a lot of the good green cards in Standard right now are begging you to put them in midrange. But I managed! An aggressive, streamlined curve with precious few non-creatures. Let's go through this card-by-card.
Elvish Mystic: Okay, remember how I said that this isn't a midrange deck? It still isn't, even with this guy here. If there were a more aggressive green one-drop I could use in his place, I'd use that. But as it stands, green is the color for mana-ramp, and taking advantage of that in a nice, economical way like this is far from unwelcome.
Experiment One: Of course. Literally the first card that popped into my mind when I heard "Monogreen Aggro". I don't think I need to discuss this.
Dryad Militant
: This one might make you raise your eyebrow. Ever since Innistrad rotated out and flashback stopped being a Standard mechanic, this gal's static ability is basically useless. In today's Standard, it could only ever possibly be relevant if the opponent was using
Psychic Spiral
or something. What's important about her is that she's a green, 2-power one-drop. Exactly what I needed. Thanks.
Kalonian Tusker: Playing creatures with power ahead of their mana cost is exactly what aggro loves to do, and this card is a perfect example of that. Easy, simple, two-mana 3/3. It's good, it works.
Swordwise Centaur
: For all intents and purposes, extra copies of Kalonian Tusker. 3 power for 2 mana, with a boost to devotion.
Scavenging Ooze: Good card. Extra in sideboard for removal/burn.
Boon Satyr
: Much like
Dryad Militant
and Kalonian Tusker, the main appeal of this guy is the 4 power for 3 mana. Simple. But the additional option of playing him at instant speed AND making him an aura are more than enough to make him an instant 4-of. I don't like to have too many 3-drops in an aggro deck, but this is one I'm more than happy to have along.
Reverent Hunter
: Devotion is a mechanic I'm always dubious about, but it seems like it works in something like an aggro deck, where you just want to bum rush out damage BEFORE the board-wipe. It's because of this, however, that there are only two
Reverent Hunter
s mainboard as opposed to
Boon Satyr
's four. The satyr is always good. This guy's only good if you've already got dudes out, something that in today's Standard is a shaky proposition.
Deadbridge Goliath
: Okay, hear me out on this one. So when it comes to an aggressive green curve-topper, your choices are either this guy or Polukranos, World Eater. 5 power for 4 mana either way, but most people would take Polukranos because of the monstrosity - after all, can't they just instant-speed remove whatever you scavenge Deadbridge onto in the late-game? Well, sure, but those are the same decks that really don't care about Polu's monstrosity. The way I look at it, Polukranos is best against decks like Mono-blue Devotion, or smaller aggro matchups, and while it's true that this deck struggles against Mono-blue, green aggro has a huge advantage over red or white simply because your dudes are marginally bigger. I'm a lot more worried about the control matchup, especially in today's Standard, and thus I'm tentatively choosing Deadbridge over Polu here. Plus I've got a ton of Deadbridge promos that have just been sitting around gathering dust for about twenty months, so might as well finally get some use out of them.
Aspect of Hydra
: Probably the biggest draw to a mono-green aggro list. Building up early-game devotion and using this to get in unrecoverable damage or a blow-out combat is plenty attractive. A solid pump spell.
Giant Growth
: Much like
Swordwise Centaur
being extra copies of Kalonian Tusker, this is basically here as extra copies of
Aspect of Hydra
.
Hall of Triumph: Partially in here because of the "these promos are gathering dust" excuse, but also because I think an anthem is a good thing to have in any aggro deck. Not going over two of them, though.
SIDEBOARD:
(Scavenging Ooze was already discussed)
Setessan Tactics
: This is for mono-blue and smaller aggro matchups, or any matchup where my opponent really wants to have creatures on the field. Also works well against Pack Rat,
Courser of Kruphix
, et cetera.
Skylasher
: THIS is for mono-blue. I feel a lot more comfortable in that matchup with four of this motherfucker hanging around. I haven't actually gotten to play with him since he was released, but I'm really excited to.
Mortal's Resolve
: Something to replace
Giant Growth
in any removal-heavy matchup.
Witchstalker
: You have no idea how close I came to mainboarding this guy again.
Plummet
: A one-of with cards like Desecration Demon and
Stormbreath Dragon
in mind.
Now, something that you might notice is conspicuously absent from this list is
Burning-Tree Emissary
. I'm trying this out without her first, just due to the total lack of synergy with her and Kalonian Tusker/
Swordwise Centaur
. The only green two-drop I can think of her leading into besides Scavenging Ooze is
Brushstrider
, which is at least 3 power for 2 mana. I'll keep it in the back of my head, but I'm not convinced enough yet.
Oh, and please do +1!
