During this week’s WeeklyMTG show, which doubled as the opening act for Edge of Eternities spoiler season, it was made very clear that Wizards of the Coast intends to support a mono-green aggro archetype post-rotation. Printing cards like Frenzied Baloth certainly makes it seem like green is getting some serious support, but the actual potential of the archetype is still in question. For the longest time, Mono Green hadn’t been getting great results… until now.
A new Mono Green aggro build just top eighted an MTGO Standard Challenge, and it not only looks almost rotation-proof, but it shows off a scaling strategy that the current format might not be prepared to deal with.
Mono-Green Aggro is Back?
This new Mono-Green uses a combination of Landfall and +1/+1 counter effects to scale an aggressive curve into extremely large bodies, getting under most midrange opponents before they have a chance to stabilize. Many of these cards were seen in early attempts at Bird Typal decks in Standard, but this engine seems to have been refined around Landfall synergies as a priority.
The cards in the main deck can be arranged into three categories: scaling landfall threats, landfall providers, and a few protective spells to force your big threats to stick around. The landfall providers that this deck uses are, arguably, the most interesting.
Traveling Chocobo and Springbloom Druid‘s primary goal is supercharging Landfall triggers on other creatures. Traveling Chocobo has a decent statline and can occasionally create some card advantage, but Springbloom Druid’s inclusion is really interesting. As a body, this card is mostly irrelevant, but the amount of potential power it can put on the board through other effects is hard to ignore. Because of how unintuitive this inclusion is, it could be the secret glue that the deck needed.
Bristly Bill, Spine Sower puts +1/+1 counters in play on Landfall, and can double counters for a cost. Even better, Mossborn Hydra doubles its +1/+1 counters on each land drop. Combine these two cards, and you can create a massive hydra with little effort.
+1/+1 counters can also scale the rate at which Tifa Lockhart doubles her power. Doubling power, starting from 2, will scale Tifa’s power twice as quickly. Just two land drops from a Fabled Passage has you swinging for eight Trample damage.
Once you have a massive creature, whether it’s a Hydra or a powered-up Sazh’s Chocobo, protecting that threat is important. Overprotect, Snakeskin Veil, and Royal Treatment all do the job, staving off removal with multiple benefits attached. Overprotect can help Sazh’s Chocobo or Bristly Bill Trample through for lethal damage, while Snakeskin Veil can add to your +1/+1 counter synergies by providing some of its own.
Thanks to decks largely being unprepared for aggression like this in the current meta, mono-green has a decent chance of catching many players unawares. While this seems to match up well with a majority of the format’s midrange variants, there are a few strategies that this deck might struggle a bit more against.
What to Watch For
While Mono-Green is equipped to deal with targeted removal, board wipes are something different altogether. This means that mono-white Tokens might be a bad matchup for Green, at least pre-rotation. Chump blocking this deck, in theory, is not an efficient game plan, but the tokens might be able to buy enough time for a board reset. Once that happens, it can be tough for Green to win the game.
Mono-Green also doesn’t have a lot of disruption for combo strategies, especially in game one. Fast Agatha’s Soul Cauldron-based starts from Vivi combo have a high chance of going over the top of what Green is doing before they can really respond. A few Scavenging Ooze in the board would not only fix this, but play into the +1/+1 counter synergies the deck has while offering a strong mana sink for flood draws. I would heavily consider playing Scavenging Ooze in your lists.
As a word of caution, this deck has a lot of lands for an aggressive strategy that tops its curve at 3. This is partially a result of Landfall mattering so much for the deck, but it also means that this particular build may have a bit of a flooding problem. Some form of Manland, a card that can double as both a land and a threat, is the upgrade that this deck will need the most from Edge of Eternities.
More Support Coming
Besides Frenzied Baloth, which is an obvious shoo-in for a deck like this, more support from Edge of Eternities is making mono-green look like a serious archetype for post-rotation. The recently spoiled Mightform Harmonizer, for example, works perfectly in an aggressive strategy focused on landfall shenanigans.
You can Warp Harmonizer ahead of time to try and set up some massive landfall plays, increasing the rate at which Tifa Lockhart doubles her power. Past that, because Harmonizer can double any creature’s power, you can essentially just double the power of whatever threat has the most Landfall benefits when this enters play.
This allows Mono-Green Aggro to start entering combo-aggro territory, which is exactly what ended up getting Red in trouble on the ban list. It also matches patterns of historically successful decks like Mardu Fury back in Kaldheim Standard. All of that said, green should be significantly slower than red was, which means it’s unlikely to become a problem similar to what the Bloomburrow mice caused.
As it stands, the main deck of the current mono-green list is already rotation-proof. Nissa, Ascended Animist will rotate out from the sideboard, which is an important payoff for a deck that’s ramping a ton of lands, but if green gets as much support as advertised, players should have no problem replacing it.
All of this is exciting news for players who want to try and make Green work in Standard. The future looks bright, but as we know, it’s impossible to truly tell the future. This success could just be a flash in the pan for the fan-favorite archetype before it disappears for good.
