Hello everyone, and welcome back to The Arcane Sanctum. March has been a busy month for yours truly, however I wanted to get back to this article series, and starting with this one we will provide a little twist.
As many of you know I have been playing Magic for many years, and although I did not start playing at stores until the release of Time Spiral I do have a lot of reps under my belt with various types of decks from Control & Midrange (archetypes I normally play), and even Combo as well as Aggro. Today we’re going to talk about the latter archetype.
I got back into Magic in the summer of 2006 thanks to my daughter, who was in elementary school at the time, wanting me to teach her how to play. We used to hang out every Friday, eat awful fast food, and sling spells. She really enjoyed some of the creatures in Magic at the time, especially this one:
So what was a dad to do? Build a deck around it of course. We did not have much success with it, but one day I was beat by a mono-green deck running Primal Forcemage, which works great with hasty creatures.
While the years have gone by I have unfortunately forgotten most of the deck’s contents, but if I was building it now with these cards this is what it would look like.
Creatures 25
4 Boggart Ram-Gang
4 Groundbreaker
4 Primal Forcemage
4 Uktabi Drake
4 Llanowar Elves
2 Timbermare
2 Briarhorn
1 Birds of Paradise
Spells 11
4 Evolution Charm
3 Giantbaiting
2 Dramatic Entrance
2 Stonewood Invocation
Planeswalkers 1
1 Garruk Wildspeaker
Lands 23
21 Forest
2 Treetop Village
Sideboard 15
4 Quiet Disrepair
3 Call of the Herd
3 Wrap in Vigor
2 Riftsweeper
2 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Primal Command
How the deck works
You are the beat down. You want to go fast, and start swinging for large chunks of damage. You can land Primal Forcemage as early as turn 2, and as long as it survives the next attack is getting a free Giant Growth. While your creatures are fragile there are ways to protect them with cards like these:
Briarhorn can protect a creature from damage, or provide it more growth for the final few points, while Evolution Charm either Jumps a creature, or you can rebuy the Uktabi Drake you did not pay the echo cost of. Other hasty creatures such as Giantbaiting, and Boggart Ram-Gang provide some additional speed to the deck. While the drawback of Timbermare may seem too strong to want to play the card you can put the card into play with Dramatic Entrance, which causes all other creatures to tap allowing you to alpha strike the next turn.
The sideboard has a few cards in it vs Control type decks in Call of the Herd, and Wrap in Vigor. Against graveyard combo you have Wheel of Sun & Moon, and against decks with Artifacts & Enchantments we have Pauper All-Star Quiet Disrepair.
The mana base is really simple too which is always a great appeal when looking at decks. All of these cards are Modern legal, and for me this is what I think about when people mention Mono Green Stompy.
Upgrades
The whole purpose of the “Speaking Casually” series was to showcase old Standard decks. The way the game has been designed in the last few years seems to have taken a turn away from how great Standard decks used to feel during play. While WotC has pushed new cards & design these last few years on thing they have been pushing was to provide good Standard decks, and then encourage players to take them to Modern FNMs with some slight upgrade or changes that will happen organically over time. So I thought I would take the same approach here to discuss possible changes, and will include similar brief sections in future “Speaking Casually” articles.
1: Noble Hierarch.
The benefit of this mana dork is obvious: the keyword Exalted. Possibly the best 1 drop mana producing creature in the game this card has seen play in nearly every format. If you’re upgrading you will want this.
2: Rancor.
This powerful enchantment currently does see play in Boggles, and other Mono Green Aggro decks. In a world full of sweepers & removal having a recurring boon for your creatures is great. It also turns a mana dork into a threat, especially if you have Hierarchs.
3. Bloodbraid Elf.
YES I know. You might be sick of hearing me talk about the Berserker, but this card is great! Being able to put out a Primal Forcemage BEFORE the Elf hits the table (and for free mind you due to Cascade) gives your hasty cascader enough power to punch through all but the toughest of blockers. Cascading into Giantbaiting is also excellent if you have a few untapped creatures already on the board. Attacking for 11 points of damage seems great, right?
You may need to reconfigure the mana, or even add some other red cards like Lightning Bolt if you do go this route. Just make sure you don’t dilute from the main theme a lot. You could even add another Garruk Wildspeaker to help accelerate your mana, as well as provide threats that need dealt with. Don’t forget about his ultimate either.
The sideboard is yours to change to combat your meta as you see fit because the options are wide open for you.
Hasty aggro decks aren’t normally my play style, but this deck hearkens back to some of my favorite memories in the game, and can provide a surprise for your opponents at your next FNM. If you try the deck out let me know your experience in the comments below. Please also follow me on Facebook & Twitter, and thank you all for reading this article.
Until next time…
TAP MORE MANA!!!
-MTGPackFoils
The Arcane Sanctum 