Last year green was unplayable. It had issues with card quality. There were no value creatures. The best decks in the format played four maindeck color hosers. Everyone had ultimate price. Then m15 got printed followed surely after that by set rotation. Now green has strong engines, solid value creatures and nothing left to fear.





“Deck has to be built right,”- Todd Anderson. Build it sort of like this.





Devotion is an inherently broken mechanic. The green devotion cards are particularly gross because they are all reasonable cards on curve even if you don’t have devotion. There’s no “frostburn weird” card that turns on your other cards. Every card in the deck makes mana or is a threat or does double duty. This allows you to play games from behind without sacrificing card quality but when you get ahead you start to do unbeatable things. As we saw last standard with Master of Waves and Grey Merchant cards with devotion are not reasonable when you build around them. Between the explosive early starts with mana dorks and the strong late game with devotion most decks only have one or two turns where green is really vulnerable.





Is this a good turn against aggro? This is what happens when you put devotion to work for you!



Genesis Hydra and Hornet Queen are the best green cards from m15 and playing four of each gives you tons of gas. Green probably should not have been allowed to play a card like Hornet Queen. This deck can power it out as early as t4 and it usually serves to end the game as soon as it resolves. There are three types of decks that are popular in standard right now- aggro decks that can’t beat 5 deathtouch blockers, midrange decks that can’t beat 5 deathtouch blockers, and control decks that need to play Bile Blight against your Polukranos deck otherwise they can’t beat 5 deathtouch attackers.



Genesis Hydra tutors for the queen. It also tutors for nearly every card in your deck. It’s very rare that a hydra where x=7 or more misses. It creates multiple blockers against aggro and it’s card advantage and card selection in the other matchups. I’ve won several matches with a hail Mary Genesis Hydra for x=3 hitting a courser or a highland game and putting two blockers into play against Rabblemaster. It stabilizes close games and it decisively ends all the rest. Some people play Chord of Calling but it’s just much worse. Chord doesn’t leave behind devotion, it isn’t a 2-for-1 and the honest truth is that when you’re playing this deck you don’t need “bullets”. You might occasionally want to tutor for a reclamation sage (which you shouldn’t be playing), a Nylea or a Nylea’s Disciple but you want to draw and play Genesis Hydra every game. Not being able to fire off an emergency chord for 1 or 2 is also a huge drawback. The flexibility of a card like Genesis Hydra should never be underestimated. There’s a single Nylea in the maindeck that’s mainly there as a tutor target for when you have the hydra and need to close out a game through blockers.





Mulligan and get stuck on lands? Genesis Hydra is your fairy godmother.





The other threats in the deck were chosen because they are the best mana dorks or the best bodies for their size. Elfish Mystic and Voyaging Satyr are the best early mana guys. Elf comes down t1 and Satyr untaps nykthos and is an excellent blocker for Rabblemaster tokens. Caryatid can be awkward, but, it blocks and it doesn’t die to magma spray. Acolyte is Nykthos 5-6 and absolutely busted in the midrange green mirrors. You also play Courser of Kruphix. Having a bunch of dorks and Nykthos means you can keep hands with only 1 or 2 lands and lots of gas. The more hands we can keep the fewer times we mulligan.



Courser is a card that synergizes with our deck. It’s 2 devotion. It’s a card draw engine. It shows us the top card of our library to make informed decisions with Fetchlands and Genesis Hydra. It blocks and gains life against aggro. There aren’t a lot of good options at 3 and this deck would be much more inconsistent and vulnerable early if it wasn’t for playing this fat butt value engine on turn 2-3 every game we draw him. This is also a good time to talk about the mana. We have forests, fetchlands and nykthos. We can afford to run 24 lands in this deck and not run out of gas because we’re going to be using Courser and fetchlands to get rid of a lot of the excess forests in our deck. This is a key part of the strategy against control and removal decks.



Polukranos and Arbor Colossus both fight things which is just kind of stupid when you think about it. Polukranos in particular often fights everything your opponent controls. These cards come down t3 and can’t be killed by Stoke the Flames or Bile Blight and they block just about everything. They race the big flyers like Sarkhan and Stormbreath. They’re in contention for the best attackers, blockers and removal in the format. The UWR tempo deck in particular has few options for dealing with a resolved Colossus.



Nissa is in the deck. She doesn’t do anything particularly broken, although sometimes you will use her to drop a Polukranos or a Nylea’s Disciple the same turn as you play her. You can also use her to ramp in a pinch. Her main role is producing an endless supply of 4/4 trample lands that requires an immediate response from midrange and control players. Mono Green has a structural weakness to End Hostilities and Elspeth and Nissa as a 3-4 of in the 75 gives us a plan that isn’t reliant on building up devotion to win. The fact that the lands trample is also excellent against several cards, notably Elspeth and rival Hornet Queens.



Our sideboard is still kind of shaky but it is getting better. One auto-include is 4x Nylea’s Disciple which comes in against every deck trying to kill us with aggro creature strategies or burn. Along the same lines are 3-4 copies of Highland Game. I’ve been very impressed with this card as an answer to Rabble and I even bring it in when facing decks like Mardu midrange. The deck can be vulnerable to one-drop rush strategies in the early turns and we only need to stick one or two high end threats to take over the game so curving down and playing the defensive lifegain creatures is wise. Also in the SB are some fight-based removal spells and additional threats for the mirror and control matches. The second copy of Nylea is particularly important as she is a strong card in the mirror and is one of the best ways to beat rival hornet queens. Back to Nature is better than reclamation sage as many of the enchantments you want to kill are best dealt with at instant speed and it also serves as a plague wind against Mono Black Aggro or constellation decks.



Sideboarding is pretty simple. Against aggro decks you take out some of the high end and remove cards like Nylea and her Acolyte in favor of Highland Game, Nylea’s Disciple and Setessan Tactics. You might also take out a land or a couple mana dorks since you’re curving down. The same goes for tempo and burn decks. They will be trying to kill you with cards like Stoke the Flames and Deflecting Palm and Nylea’s Disciple will stop that right away.





Heroic aggro is the natural foil to a devotion strategy.





Against control and other midrange decks you take out some of your mana dorks and possibly a land and play more fight spells and threats. Our sideboarding is intentionally light for these decks because they’ve shown to be very positive matchups. Our sheer card quality outpaces their removal and threats. We can put cards like Polukranos or Arbor Colossus into play on t3 and then follow it up from them with even more pressure with value cards like Genesis Hydra, Nissa and Hornet Queen. If we get into a topdeck war our courser+fetchland package is great at finding us gas. There are no cards to punish us on tempo from these decks like Lifebane Zombie or Desecration Demon did last season. Our threats are large enough that we don’t have to overextend into Elspeth or End Hostilities. The main thing is playing carefully and making sure not to die to a t3 ashiok or a t6 elspeth.





But isn’t this deck weak to wraths and removal? No.



A brief guide to splashes. Some people splash red for Xenagos and Crater’s Claws. Some people splash black for a constellation package. A RUG splash with sagu mauler and rattleclaw mystic powering out crater’s claws is popular. Some people enjoy reanimating Hornet Queen instead of casting it with devotion. Please do not do these things!!!!



These decks fall into one of two basics traps. Some of them reduce the consistency of an already-consistent deck! Mono Green wins a lot of games by playing a t3 Polukranos or a t4 Hornet Queen. You can put a Nissa and a Hornet Queen into play on an empty board with just a Karametra’s Acolyte in play! You can not do this as often when you’re playing taplands and non-forest basics. We already draw 2x Nykthos hands too often as it is. Mono Green can not afford to mess around in the early turns against aggressive decks and it must rush to establish a board presence before other midrange and control decks can catch up. Playing taplands or low-impact non-green cards prevents you from going off as quickly and consistently as the deck would enjoy.



These decks also have a habit of trying to solve perceived problems with the mono green deck that don’t actually exist. The lists that splash red for Xenagos and Crater’s claws would be served just as well playing Karametra’s Acolyte, Nissa and Nylea if they want mana acceleration, mana sinks and continuous planeswalker advantage. The lists that splash for Eidolon and Doomwake giant to beat opposing Hornet Queens end up themselves cutting Hornet Queen, Nylea and Nissa from their deck. These are our best cards AGAINST other Hornet Queens! They’re also just better cards than Eidolon and Doomwake Giant in all but the most specific of circumstances.



Play mana dorks, curve them into guys with GG, do something ridiculous on turn 5 or 6 with all that mana you have. There’s not currently a need to try to reinvent this plan. It’s already a more proactive linear strategy than the aggro decks can muster, it’s a more consistent combo than Jeskai Ascendancy or Ensoul Artifact, and the inbuilt value creatures and the courser-fetchland card advantage engine give you an incredible long game.