This was the version I had at PT:DC:

By Zvi · 2000-03-01

Originally published on Brainburst · Available at the Internet Archive

Green Control : Deck Analysis

October 4, 1999

Before we perfected Zero Effect, the Mogg Squad hadn't thought of putting Wildfire into our R/U artifact deck, and we were looking at a format that seemed to be dominated by green. Our green decks were beating just about everything. Finally, Scott Johns decided to spend a weekend figuring out how the mirror matchup worked.

He came back with some solid conclusions. Mana superiority was key. If one player played a second turn Priest of Titania and the other a second turn Albino Troll, the one who played the Priest would soon make up his lost time and then some. And the Priests could prevent games where the opponent had the Cradle from turning into a lost cause. Combining that with Weatherseed Elf and Deranged Hermit, we almost always had the tools to turn that mana superiority into control and a win. The Hermits also allowed you to win a lot of games where your opponent seemed like he'd stabilized, as well as solve stupid situations with a ton of creatures on both sides or Lifeline out or an Eastern Paladin going on a rampage. They gave the deck the thing a deck needs most to be truly dominant: It wore different hats with different draws. Albino Troll, Gaea's Cradle and Rancor all change the way you have to fight the deck; now there was another card like that, but even more radical.

That's the background. Gaea's Cradle got banned and Rofellos got printed. Once again, I looked into the green mirror matchup. I wanted to consider green, but if I couldn't win the mirror matchup there was no point. Rofellos seemed to be performing the same function as Gaea's Cradle. Whoever had Rofellos had a huge mana advantage. That player could reliably activate any number of Villages (and Hollow, if it came up), could use Masticore much better, could cast Plow Under. Often the deck would be slowed down quite a bit while it paid echo. The problem was still the same as the one with the Cradle. You couldn't take full advantage of it, because that would make you dependant on it. Still, I was finding that the Phantom Menace was having much more trouble with versions with all four Rofellos. They could work around the format's bad counterspells and pay insane amounts of mana. Sometimes they just got an 'I win' draw.

So once again I returned to Priest of Titania. Four Rofellos wasn't enough, especially if there was a 50% chance your opponent would get it out first. Soon I had all 4 Priests in the deck. At this point it was safe to put higher casting cost cards into the deck. I decided to play the best expensive spells that couldn't be effectively stolen by Treachery. This deck was going to have a hard time stopping one of its own Thorn Elementals if it came to that. Besides, the ideal draw gave you six mana on turn three, not seven. So the high end of the deck became Deranged Hermit, Plow Under and Child of Gaea. The lower end was still standard monogreen fare: Elvish Lyrist, Albino Troll, Rancor. Yavimaya Elder was obviously just too good not to play. With Yavimaya Elder, Rancor and Deranged Hermit in the deck, you could almost always win a Smokestack war. I loved the card, with the only problem being that against green it wasn't fast enough to work against Rancor. That kept the fourth in the sideboard.

What I noticed was that the deck was all or nothing. Every so often you'd win off a Rancored Troll, but in general Albino Troll didn't win games where I couldn't 'escape' to where I could cast all my spells, and it wasn't powerful enough for when you did escape. Same problem with Rancor. In fact, I found that Rancor wasn't even needed to make Smokestack work. Sometimes you could even make Smokestack work against a Rancor. Instead, it was better to add Yavimaya Granger, because it helped you escape and worked well with both Priest and Rofellos. I needed more mana without more mana-only cards, and this was a big help. Finally, I gave up and put in Masticore. I didn't want it because against decks with Treachery he was too risky to play unless you were desperate. But it was just too important to too many matchups. I wanted a third way to get Masticore without risking getting stuck with two too often, so I added a Citanul Flute. When the Flute really got going, it could do insane stuff like pump out a Child every turn. It also let me trim another Lyrist out of the deck.

I considered playing this deck in Memphis. It's a lot of fun to play, and it's competitive. Your sideboard then includes cards for every major deck type. The fourth Smokestack, Harmonic Convergence, Splinter, the other Masticores, Mishra's Helix. As always, I hesitate to give exact sideboards because they should be tuned to your local metagame.

There's also another version of the deck. After I gave the deck to Barry Young to try out at a GP Trial during PT:DC, Joe Cain started working on the deck. He ended up playing a variant of it. His problem was that he couldn't get the Smokestacks to work for him. They always worked well for me, but maybe that's because I had more confidence in them and used them more aggressively. Instead, he made the decision not to run Smokestack, and because he didn't run Smokestack he decided not to run Deranged Hermit either. That gave him a lot of space, and this was his final version:

As with the Phantom, at this point I'll comment on each individual card:

Forest. You want to maximize the number of basic forests because of Rofellos; often you'll want three of these out on the third turn to cast a Child. Still, one of the easiest ways for this deck to run into trouble is to draw too many. Twenty-four land seems to be the right number.

Treetop Village. Since your only 1-drop other than the Village is Lyrist, this ends up counting as a 1-drop and therefore rarely ends up slowing you down. The primary disadvantage is that they don't count as Forests for Rofellos. Note that the Villages in the Rofellos deck are much better than those in Stompy, because you have the mana to activate them every turn later in the game without it even slowing you down.

Yavimaya Hallow. Your biggest creature already regenerates, but the Hallow is probably too powerful not to play one. Again, your mana allows you to use this to its full extent, especially regenerating Treetop Villages. More than one probably isn't worth it.

Rofellos. Rofellos is the most important card in your deck. When you have an active Rofellos, the deck almost doubles its mana supply. You should almost never pass up the chance to cast one. But every deck can get more mana than it knows what to do with. Stay on the lookout for when it's better to just trade Rofellos off or go in for the beatdown. In general, you need to keep six mana around once you run out of spells to cast, and against many decks it's better to have eight. Also don't forget to cast Yavimaya Granger before tapping Rofellos if that comes up.

Priest of Titania. Because four copies of Rofellos isn't enough. Many of your other creatures are Elves, and that's not an accident. Stay on the lookout for ways to get more mana by putting your Elves out before tapping the Priest. Against another green deck the Priest will often be as powerful as a Rofellos would be.

Yavimaya Granger. All the deck has are Forests, although if there's a sideboard card you really want you can put in a single off-color basic land for Granger and Elder. It's a strange format where I looked for a card I would want but couldn't really find anything worth wasting a slot on a basic land. You end up paying echo for the Granger more often than not, because a lot of the time his being an Elf gives you an extra mana. Still, don't hesitate to not pay echo if you've got better things to do. Needless to say, if you can trade him off before paying echo jump at the chance. One final note: If your opponent is playing tight, don't hesitate before going to get the Forest, or Rules Cheese could occur.

Yavimaya Elder. I still don't think the Elder belongs in the standard green deck. In fact, it's exactly what that deck doesn't want. But here it's good. If there's one thing to keep in mind when playing the Elder, it's not to get greedy. Don't refuse to trade the Elder because you don't have the mana to draw the card, and don't refuse to sacrifice it because you want to get a trade. If you have nothing to do or need the mana, sacrifice the Elder already. If you can trade the Elder for a creature, you should almost always just do it.

Deranged Hermit. If they have a way to kill the Hermit without using a card, don't bother paying echo. Otherwise, you generally want to pay. If given the choice between the Hermit and another play, you generally want to hold the Hermit for later. Certainly you should try and cast Plow Under and Child of Gaea first unless you're under pressure. Whether these are worth it without Smokestack is a judgment call. And of course, don't forget he's an Elf.

Child of Gaea. It regenerates. It tramples. It even has an upkeep, so only green decks can steal it. Great card. Thorn Elemental just isn't as good here. If you're playing against Wildfire, you want to keep mana to regenerate it and get six lands on the table so you can pay the upkeep after a Wildfire. Generally, it's not that hard. You draw about four, so sacrifice an Elder and you're there. Still, it's generally not a good idea to hold the Child back. You'll draw into more mana, so don't worry if the upkeep seems to be preventing you from casting spells; of course, a lot of the time that spell is the second Child.

Masticore. This is the only creature in the deck that your opponent can steal and profit by in a major way. After this, the next best target he can keep is Priest of Titania. Between that and the upkeep cost, you don't run all four in the maindeck, although there's certainly enough matchups where you want four to have them all after sideboarding. You already have an action card problem sometimes, and the chance that Masticore is useless just makes it worse.

Smokestack. If your deck includes the Hermits, in addition to Elder and Granger, you can win a Smokestack war against anything short of Rancor and often against Rancor as well. If you're not in trouble often you should cast Smokestack and go in for the kill. There's a ton of stupid tricks to do with Smokestack nowadays; it may even be worth it to review them with the judge before the tournament. In general, put enough counters on it to wipe out the other side.

Citanul Flute. If you have a ton of mana, this is the best way to use it. I have been in games where I've pumped out Child of Gaea three turns in a row. It also gets Elvish Lyrist and Masticore a lot. You don't want too many because the mana requirement is huge, but when it's working it more than doubles the strength of your deck.

Plow Under. This is amazing at turning second turn Rofellos (or sometimes Priest) into an autowin. It also works wonders when you're trying to accelerate a Smokestack, plus it's 2-for-1 so it helps in the long term war as well. If you're sideboarding this out, your opponent's deck is lightning fast. The only decks that's a good idea for are probably Suicide Black, Stompy and some kinds of Red. If they're trying to burn you out this is very good; if they're going with the Lackey plan it's useless.

Temporal Aperture. This kicks in faster than Citanul Flute, and works better if your mana still has reasonable limits, unless you need one specific creature instead of general card advantage. It's also much easier to sneak it by counterspells. I think the first Citanul Flute is probably better, although I can see running one of each. This is a card most people will assume you're not just running one of.

Mishra's Helix. It doesn't deal with what's already on the table and often has a one turn delay, which is why I'm reluctant to run these main deck. When you play your top level cards you often need to stabilize more than anything else. But the ability to totally lock up the game is so good it may be worth it. If you don't start it you almost have to sideboard it. Note that the other changes in the Helix version work well with the Helix, because they make the rest of the deck more direct and immediate. The different secondary synergy of the two versions is why I present them both.

Sideboarding:

Harmonic Convergence. At least three, probably four.

Thran Foundry. You shouldn't need it with all the Convergence, but if you need to bring out even more guns it's available.

Masticore. The rest of them go here.

Citanul Flute. If you're going to have time to use it and the room to run it, you can bring in an extra Flute.

Splinter. You probably want four of these to cover certain holes in the deck.

Hidden Guerillas. Again, if your primary solution isn't enough in your area, you have extra help available. You shouldn't need it, though.

Mishra's Helix. If you don't start it, it should be waiting here for control.

Smokestack. If you run three, the fourth goes here. There are many decks where if you can keep it out you just win.

Other Basic Land and an Off-Color Card. I couldn't find anything that was worth the space. If you decide there's something you want that costs one colored mana, this is a practical choice.

The most FAQ I get about UBC:

Q: What should I play?

A: I would play Phantom because it's my deck. Of all the standard decks, the strongest may be ConTroll. Phantom, Big Green, Replenish and Squirrel-Prison (probably too big a target right now) are all good choices as well. Play whatever you like to play.

Zvi Mowshowitz