The Standard Green Land-Grab Triumvirate
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mattlohkamp
27 July 2009
2006 views
Currently in Standard, there's a gang of green 3-cost landgrabbers that I find intriguing: Farhaven Elf, Civic Wayfinder (now Borderland Ranger in M10) and Fertilid. Each costs one green mana and two colourless, and each is capable of fetching a basic land - but each does it in their own way.
Farhaven Elf
The Farhaven Elf is a clever concoction. It's an Elf Druid who takes after the Elvish Pioneer moreso than the Llanowar Elves, with a Rampant Growth slapped on top. This works out to be a 1/1 for three mana that puts a basic land directly into play (tapped) from your deck. Ever since Sigil Captain's arrival, I always keep an eye out for useful 1/1 creatures, and Farhaven Elf certainly fits.
Borderland Ranger
The only difference between Tenth Edition's Civic Wayfinder and M10's Borderland Ranger is the creature type: what was once an Elf Warrior Druid is now a Human Scout. Since the elves already have a land-fetcher, I feel okay with the change - to be honest, the art and flavor of Civic Wayfinder already seemed more like a Human anyway. The Ranger has its ups and downs: instead of a vanilla 1/1 elf with Rampant Growth, it's more like a Cylian Elf with a free Wanderer's Twig (no sacrafice or mana cost necessary) thrown in.
Fertilid
I've been interested in the Fertilid lately - partly because its sort of the odd-man-out, generally passed over in favor of the two others. It's certainly less conventional, combining the best traits of each in kind of a weird way. It doesn't have the racial benefits of being an Elf - instead, it's an elemental. Also, rather than getting a free Rampant Growth, you get two uses of the spell as a creature ability - the second of which kills the poor Fertilid. However, until you fire the ability for the first time, it enters the battlefield at Grizzly Bears (or Runeclaw Bear as we must now call them) strength. If you can find a way to 'recharge' the +1/+1 counters on Fertilid, you can potentially use it passed its normal expiration date, which is an intruiging posibility - and thought its slower, and ends up killing itself, even without 'overclocking' it still fetches twice as many lands as its more conventional peers. Fertilid also enjoys the somewhat dubious honor of being the only one of its peers that is able to force another player to search for a basic land - possibly good for helping your allies in a multiplayer game?
Personally, I would almost always pick Farhaven Elf over Civic Wayfinder, especially once it changes to Borderland Ranger and loses its elf tribal synergy - I'd rather have a land in play than in my hand. I can see there being some exceptions, though - in particular, games where hand-size (Overbeing of Myth) and the ability to discard (Razormane Masticore) matter.
Fertilid bears some consideration, especially coupled with something like Incremental Growth, or possibly some of the Morningtide cards with the 'Reinforce' ability, like Hunting Triad.
In general terms, an extra land is never going to go to waste - it's just a matter of how fast you can get that land out, and how much doing so is going to set you back. Farhaven Elf gets it out the fastest and the cheapest; Fertilid puts more out, but is potentially slower and requires more mana to begin with; and the Borderland Ranger is potentially slower, but the creature itself is beefier and adds a card to your hand. Keep them in mind, the next time you're considering mana-fixing for a deck that includes green.
27 July 2009
2006 views
Farhaven Elf
Borderland Ranger
Fertilid
Engineer_of_Eos says... #2
Cool article! I'd love to see some decks based around the ideas you put forth. You listed each card's strengths and weaknesses very well, and even threw in some synergistic cards. I'm just a sucker for deck-building, though, so I was hoping for a few crazy decks. Or heck, one deck that plays all three of those cards! You would certainly have a LOT of mana, hahaha. Howl of the Nightpack, anyone?
And since youre playing green, Fog seems like a good way to lock up the early game. And Overrun or 3 to swing for the over-kill, and, why not, let's thrown in some Rampant Growth. Lots of mana accel/searching, a card that rewards you for forests, and a trample-enabler. I like it. While we're at it, we can fill in the other spaces we have left over.
Garruk is alternate overrun, as well as a creature producer. He can also untap lands because, really we need more mana. We should throw in Regal Force to refill our hand. I know it's not great, but I would LOVE a singleton of Helix Pinncale as an alternate win condition. I also wouldn't mind playing Hunting Triad and the Ambush card that puts Elves into play (possible deathtouch after clash.) Those would provide elves as well or counters, making for fun combat tricks. PLUS they provide elves, which we can champion with Wren's Run Packmaster. Wolves get deathtouch, and we can churn out more. What's not to like?
This is, obviously, a casual deck. And it does have some glaring weak spots, hahaha. Still! I like it, and if anyone wants to contribue some ideas, we'd all be happy to hear them!
For convenience, here are some numbers, roughly thrown together -
21 Forest 3 Fertalid 3 Borderland Ranger 3 Farhaven Elf 4 Regal Force 3 Wren's Run Packmaster 3 Garruk, Wildspeaker 3 Overrun 3 Hunting Triad 4 Elish Ambush (what's the real name!?) 2 Fog 4 Rampant Growth 4 Howl of the Nightpack
Voila! 60 cards. No sideboard. Rough numbers. Have fun with it!
August 3, 2009 12:40 a.m.
Engineer_of_Eos says... #3
Hm... the formatting in my last post is rather hard to read. Not to mention the fact that I neglected to link cards. So here's a second shot at the decklist:
LANDS
21x Forest
SPELLS
2x Fog ; 3x Garruk Wildspeaker ; 3x Overrun ; 3x Hunting Triad ; 4x Howl of the Night Pack ; 4x Rampant Growth ; 3x Gilt-Leaf Ambush ;
CREATURES
3x Fertilid ; 3x Borderland Ranger ; 3x Farhaven Elf ; 3x card:Wren's Run Packmaster; 4x Regal Force ;
SIDEBOARD
To be determined. This deck obviously has a lack of spot-removal. Or removal of any kind. The general strategy is to overwhelm the opponent.
I would suggest 4 Vexing Shusher and 2 Gutteral Response, just to ensure that we can play our spells against 5CC and Faeries.
I'd also suggest SOME kind of general, instant-speed pump spell. Because losing all of our 2/2 Wolves hurts, especially when we go in for the overrun.
I'd also suggest putting Mosswort Bridge in the mainboard. With all of our tokens, 10 power shouldn't be too difficult.
And as for dealing with Combo Elves.... I don't got much, hahaha. But hey, this is a casual deck.
Put Windstorm in the sideboard to deal with the fliers. 4-of, probably, because that's our only wat of hitting them.
Also, since we're racing (all the time, pretty much), should there be lifegain in the sideboard?
August 3, 2009 10:25 a.m.
Always enjoy Matt's perspective.
This artcle could use a Rev 2.0 regarding Zendikar's release and the general changes to the format. VERY much looking forward to what we see from Green and it's abuse of the Landfall mechanic.
mattlohkamp says... #1
oops - fixed the formatting issues.
July 29, 2009 3:20 p.m.