Black Green Energy (Core19 update)

Standard* Naj187

SCORE: 14 | 15 COMMENTS | 9769 VIEWS | IN 6 FOLDERS

FNM 9-29 —Oct. 2, 2017

I'm back to black green after rotation! It's always been a strong deck for me and I'd rather play this than Green Red Pummeler. But if I had a choice i would definitely be playing Temur right now. I think it's the strongest mid-range deck in the meta....regardless of what my 2nd match says :D

Match 1 2-0 against Black White Vampires

Game 1, Pretty straightforward game where he only played 3 creatures, 2x 1/3 flyers and a 2/2 flyer. He did have plenty of removal for my creatures (two walk the planks on critical creatures at critical times can slow down the deck), but like I said above, the creatures just weren't that much of a threat so I wasn't very scared of his damage. The game ended when I was able to play my gearhulk on turn 6. I still had a few threats left in my hand, just in case.

Game 2, I curved out pretty well, and this deck does really well when it's not interfered with. This time i attuned, into snek into rishkar, and then a couple hydras to end the game. A late Walk the plank on my snake just wasn't enough.

Match 2, 2-1 against Temur

What a tough match! this is definitely a great deck and it could have went either way.

Game 1 He had a pretty good curve and got a lot of removal and it was definitely enough to keep my Snake off the battlefield and had most of my creatures just not get the value they should. This is basically how I expected all my games against this deck to go. It can just out value most other midrange decks. Good game Tony!

Game 2 My cub got really big (8/8)and he eventually couldn't really stop up it until it got too much value. He also had to use 8 energy on it with a harnessed lightning. He eventually fell to my cub and rhonas 2 pumch combo. Also, gearhulks help. This game i got a little lucky because my opponent sort of flooded, and i flooded a bit less.

Game 3 I got more bristling hydras than him. This is a critical card in the matchup. After Rhonas, Bristling Hydra is the most important. He couldn't race against my hydra and i got two extra cards from Glint sleeve siphoner. Eventually i had cards in hand a lot of energy(6) and a huge hydra (6/5) that he just couldn't take out with anything he could play. A late Glorybringer helped, but wasn't enough.

Match 3 0-2 against black green

Game 1 Sneak into Rishkar into Gerahulk. K. Even though this ended up being a close game, I was about a turn behind at all points. His creatures were about 2 power and toughness ahead of mine because of the early game. His deck was very different than mine and I really should have taken a closer look at it. I'm not saying his version was better, his version didn't have Cub or Bristling Hydra...which I just can't see how that is better. His deck was definitely faster than mine and had a LOT more removal. He had the addition of Dread Wanderer as a recurring one drop. I like this, but i think maybe scrapheap scrounger would be better even though it's a 2 drop. I learned that i do need to add more removal (he used Walk the Plank) and he also ran (4 i think) Harsh Scrutiny mainboard to take out the big threats, and he had this in his opening hand both games. So i lost 4 total creatures to 2x Walk the plank and 2x harsh scrutiny

Game 2, This easily could have been won if i would have drawn a little bitter. Both games were very close, and my opening hand was bonkers. It's just that he had 2x harsh scrutiny in his opening hand, and took out a lot of my synergy. I had a chance to come back mid game when i had a glintsleeve out there attacking after we both cleared each other's board. I got an extra 2 cards off it, but in the 6 cards i drew over those 4 slow turns, i drew 5 lands, which put me up to 10. He took my snake and my Rhonas. These would have definitely made the game MUCH easier. I'm not unhappy that i lost these games, they made it very clear how good Harsh Scrutiny is.

Match 4 2-0 against monoblack discard

Game 1 What an interesting deck. Each turn i had to manage my hand to play the best thing I could while also playing around different discard and kill spells. I almost never had a decent creature on board, but eventually i started to draw decently and got a hydra on the field. This lasted quite a while until he cast doomfall (great card imo)and made me sacrifice my hydra. It was okay though because i played a cub the next turn with 6 energy and eventually got a ballista and a Rhonas on the field too and took the game...after a long and grueling game.

Game 2 Kept a really shaky hand here. 5 lands and 2x glint sleeve siphoners. BUT, in the next 6 turns, all i drew was gas. He was able to get my first glint sleeve out and kill my 2nd one. But the rest of his discard spells didn't hit a whole lot. I got a Rhonas out there, and he could only take my 2nd one out. He took a fatal push out, but that didn't really have many uses. He was able to keep most of my creatures off the board, but Rhonas hit in for 10 total damage this game, and a really nice Gearhulk top deck on turn 7 or 8 won me the game and the match.

After all these games, Black Green is definitely a powerful deck especially at the FNM level. I can see myself winning the whole thing again one of these times. It has a very powerful early game and I've added in more late game to stand up to midrange and control decks. Now, i didn't go up against Blue White control or Ramunap red, so I'm definitely interested in seeing how it does against those, but i think my sideboard is very much pointed at those two decks. I'm considering adding Blue to the deck for a couple cards, but I'm still wondering if it's a good idea, so I'll think about it and come back next week with the cards i'm interested in adding.

Here is the exact deck list, I would definitely add some Vraska's Contempt once I get them. Pushing the Blossoming defense to the sideboard. Any tips would be much appreciated! 2x Rhonas might be too much mainboard, 4x Glintsleeves might be too many, I'm not sure on everything yet, but it's early in the Meta so I have time to perfect the deck.