This not, as far as I know, a historical deck, but man is it a blast to play. And sure it’s underpowered — it’s a green deck in Old School — but it also has some genuine, surprising intricacies, and with skillful piloting it can take matches even against some powerful decks.

As with the other decks I’ve posted, this is part of my battlebox of budget decks for people to pick up and play at meetings. As the title of the article indicates, though, this deck is intended pretty much solely as a budget build.

Back in the early days of magic, besides getting the shaft in general, green got what now seems a surprising number of fliers, beginning in Beta with the Scryb Sprites, Cockatrice, and Birds of Paradise:

In fact, of the 52 creatures that had or could gain flying, 14 of them are green or have green in the casting cost, including one of the only creatures in Old School that can give another creature flying: Pixie Queen. Among the mono-colored cards, green’s fliers are equal in number to blue. Somehow, perhaps because it got Hurricane, green soon lost its flying provenance — although, Earthquake in red hardly meant that red wasn’t allowed to have groundpounders.

Faeries in the early game were green, too. With typical disrespect for the green mage, Wizards has given Green only two faeries native to the new card frame, and the Faeries deck, a bogeyman of standards past, was comprised only of green’s enemies, blue and black.

In honor of this nearly-forgotten piece of green’s history, I decided to make a deck with a bunch of little green flying critters. Since we’re using tiny creatures, Giant Growth was a given, but a little digging turned up some other intriguing ways to make our little critters more intimidating:

From this, a green “skies” deck was born, with an Ashnod’s Transmogrant subtheme.

A Budget Sta…

Oh, excuse me:

A Starting Point

4 Scryb Sprites

4 Emerald Dragonfly

4 Argothian Pixies

4 Scavenger Folk

3 Llanowar Elves

3 Wyluli Wolf

2 Cockatrice

4 Giant Growth

4 Ashnod’s Transmogrant

2 Crumble

2 Avoid Fate

2 Zeylon Sword

1 Sylvan Library

1 Regrowth

4 Mishra’s Factory

2 Strip Mine

2 Pendelhaven

12 Forest

A respectable 10 fliers made the cut, which do most of our work. Here’s the deck all sleeved up for testing:

This deck is notably light on Fallen Empires for a budget deck, and I consider Strip Mines optional in a budget environment (I’ve tested with and without them), so this deck can pretty easily be tweaked to be legal under Swedish Rules as well. Zelyon Sword is surprisingly good, though, and there’s no direct replacement.

So what are this deck’s virtues? One is simply that you have a high density of threats: 24 creature spells plus four Mishra’s Factories can simply run over a slower deck that isn’t expecting to kill more than a few creatures. You can race several other aggro decks, even though your creatures tend to, on average, look pitiful. Another is you can play six maindeck artifact destruction spells without neglecting your game plan. Crumble is a fantastic tool against opposing Mishra’s Factories, and it gives the deck a cheap out against some dangerous cards. Since several combo decks in the format are artifact-based, an abundance of really cheap ways to interact with them means that you aren’t just dead the first game. A third strength, which might not be apparent, is that many of your creatures really seem like they just aren’t worth a removal spell. Sure, casting Swords to Plowshares on Cockatrice seems reasonable, but who wants to “waste” it on a Scryb Sprites or Wyluli Wolf? There is virtue in being small!

The artifact removal comes in handy with Ashnod’s Transmogrant. I’ve posted about this card in the past, showing the skeleton of a White Weenie build that might use it. It looks dorky, but has some surprising uses against unprepared opponents. It complicates combat math just sitting on the table and counters some removal spells like Terror and The Abyss. It foils pingers, which otherwise would be the bane of your existence. And Argothian Pixies just love artifact creatures being on the other side of the table.

Rounding out the deck are a smattering of utility spells. Avoid Fate is an important way to save a creature you may have invested multiple cards in during combat, countering clutch Lightning Bolts or Disenchants for a single green mana. Sylvan Library is excellent as always even if it only draws a couple extra cards.

Regrowth is a little anemic here, but sometimes you really just need to get a Giant Growth or Avoid Fate back.

There are a few last things to keep in mind:

Make sure you order pump effects properly with Pendelhaven.

Unlike Deathtouch, Cockatrice’s ability doesn’t care if your opponent’s creature has first strike — if something gets into combat with the Cockatrice, it dies at the end of combat.

Zelyon Sword isn’t equipment — you can activate it at the end of your opponent’s turn, in the middle of combat, etc. Sometimes untapping it is the right call.

As it’s built, there are plenty of decisions to make each turn, but it’s also fun to just go on autopilot and kill with 1/1s.

Matchup Notes

Like some of the other decks I’m posting, this isn’t meant to be a “great” deck, but I’ve made every effort I can to make it somewhat competitive among budget decks, especially against its companions in the battlebox.

White Weenie is always my first benchmark, because it has so many angles of attack. In this case, it seems like a nightmare matchup: You’re playing a deck full of 1/1s and artifacts against a deck with Icatian Infantry, Swords to Plowshares, Aeolipile, and Disenchant. Budget White Weenie is a little soft to fliers, but Crusade means that even their weakest creatures simply outclass the green deck’s. One of the key decisions is what to do with Ashnod’s Transmogrant. Here, I’ve found that you’re best off threatening to turn their creatures into artifacts while using Mishra’s Factories and Argothian Pixies to hold down the ground while pecking away steadily in the air. You don’t want them to be able to use Disenchant on your creatures if you can help it. But you have to play it by ear, of course. If you have Avoid Fate in hand, you can sometimes bait them into casting Disenchant on something solely to gain tempo with the counter.

Against the control decks in the battlebox, we’re advantaged against Titania’s Orb but disadvantaged against The Machine. The Orb matchup is no surprise — one reason I built this deck was to ensure that there was a strong counter to the Titania’s Orb deck in the battlebox. Sometimes Sprites and Co. can take a game against The Machine by running them over early, but if the game goes long, repeating Triskellions mean certain death.

As always, Merfolk provides a bit of a wildcard among the aggro matchups. Serendib Efreet is a beating, and they can race very effectively, sometimes with unblockable creatures that are slightly bigger than yours. Control Magic is never bad against green, even if you don’t have many things particularly dangerous for them to take. This matchup ends up being a race, and unfortunately the Green deck often feels a turn slow.

I’m still deciding what direction I want to take the red and black decks for the battlebox, so I only have a few specific comments about these matchups. Obviously bolts and Fireballs are excellent against a deck like this, but many versions of Sligh in old school run a lot of artifacts, to get around the inevitable Circle of Protection: Red. Scavenger Folk is a lightning rod, and you can use that to your advantage if you need some bait. Mono black ends up with a lot of dead cards — you can blank terror with Transmogrant, discard isn’t very good when you can empty your hand quickly (don’t bother holding Giant Growths), and you have many answers to The Rack.

I’ve pitted this against a few non-budget builds as well. My zoo deck (duals but no power) usually wins, but the games go long and don’t feel hopeless for the green deck. It’s not necessarily the bolts that are the problem (after all, we have 6 maindeck ways to “counter” a bolt) but the fact that almost all the Zoo creatures are more dangerous for similar mana investments. I also split a few games against a fully-powered Atog deck (though in one of those games my opponent’s mana screw was not of my doing).

I would not really want to take this into a room full of other aggressive decks, but if I thought several people were on control, combo, or prison (especially prison), I really would consider it.

Other Cards to Consider

Some of the cards listed below are simply those that didn’t make the cut. Only a few are outside of the budget realm (which I generally consider to be cards easily obtained for under $30). One reason for this is that if you aren’t building on a budget, an almost strictly better deck of this archetype already exists: the Blue/Green deck with Scryb Sprites, Flying Men, Serendib Efreet, Unstable Mutation, Giant Growth, and Berserk. Several versions of Zoo can also give you the same feel but with a smattering of more powerful cards. That said, let’s take a look at some options:

Argothian Treefolk may have their time in the sun eventually, but, sadly, this isn’t it. Awesome Amy Weber artwork aside, they’re competing against Cockatrice on mana, and they don’t fly nor do they offer the guaranteed slaughter of popular Djinns and Efreets. Maybe someday, big guy.

Berserk is one of green’s flagship cards in Old School. It’s excellent in multiples on any creature with three or more power, and even better if Giant Growth is thrown in. Unfortunately, unlike Unstable Mutation decks, which have eight +3/+3 effects, this deck has only four, and far fewer natively good targets. I’ve left these on the sidelines. They’re also not a budget option (by my definition) unless you allow any printing.

Erhnam Djinn should be in the running for any deck running green. He’s not in the maindeck for a few reasons, some good and some bad. One reason is that I didn’t want to make a third deck for the battlebox running him (Zoo and The Machine already have him). A slightly more convincing reason is that City in a Bottle is almost completely dead against this deck, but that’s not a concern in a budget environment. If you want to throw him in, try him in place of the Cockatrices first. If you want three or four, drop the Zeylon Swords or one of the Wyluli Wolves.

Fire Sprites: If we’re playing solely on theme, then of course I’d want them. I would consider them in a budget R/G version, but even then only one or two.

Ice Storm is another option in the three-mana slot, and it’s still budget, though barely. Since this deck isn’t even running the full complement of Strip Mines, as it’s currently built this doesn’t seem attractive. I also think that Eternal Central rules decks run extra mana sources, so if you want this, it’s probably to more reliably hit special lands like Library, Factory, Maze of Ith, Desert, etc. Otherwise, I’m just not interested in trading three mana for a land.

Juggernaught would fall into the same category as Erhnam Djinn. And yes, he dies to everything, and you can’t even use the Transmogrant on him, but maybe if you’re looking for a little more Abyss protection, he’s the right call. Jugs is also notably worse here than in a deck with actual creature removal. You can easily get in a situation where you just shove him into a couple Knights and feel awful.

Killer Bees might seem notably absent. At first they weren’t in the deck because I was running Winter Orb, but even testing without the WOrbs, they didn’t make the cut. We’re mostly looking at them in place of Cockatrice, and it turns out that between the Zelyon Swords, Avoid Fates, Mishra’s Factories, and Emerald Dragonflies, this deck is surprisingly mana hungry turn after turn. The last strike against them is that Pendelhaven doesn’t work on them. I would be more inclined to run these in a big-mana deck, but they’re lackluster here.

Living Lands (or Living Plane) is an occasionally awesome card that would likely be more at home in a big green deck with more forests. While it can be disenchanted, if you’re just looking to overwhelm spot removal, the card is brilliant. Unfortunately, it makes all forests, including dual lands, 1/1 creatures, so it’s not a completely one-sided advantage in a budget build.

Winter Orb does a lot of things, but as noted about the killer bees, this deck is surprisingly mana hungry. In fact, Winter Orb is surprisingly good against this deck, despite the Llanawar Elves and cheap casting costs. Usually if it lands on the other side of the table, you should strongly consider destroying it.

Some Sideboard Ideas

Green has some useful tools but since this deck is always the beatdown, my way of thinking about the sideboard here is, rather than trying to answer the opponent’s cards, can I present some different threats?

With that in mind, look at cards like Storm Seeker, which can push through the last few points of damage against a control deck, perhaps Erhnam to go a little bigger against some other aggro decks (remember, your Djinns are likely to be bigger than theirs, between Giant Growths, Swords, Transmogrants and Wyluli Wolves), and Whirling Dervish against any deck running black removal or The Abyss (which you already have some good defense against).

Green also has a couple potentially useful anti-aggro spells. Sandstorm is excellent against Weenie decks that don’t have a Crusade effect. It’s plausible that Living Artifact can give an edge in a race, but I’m not sure what I’d want to take out for it. Spore Cloud is … well, let me just say that it wins games and leave it at that.

This deck already has some game against Moat, but there are some other enchantments to worry about. I usually have a single Tranquility in the sideboard of any deck with green mana, simply as a reset button against shenanigans or weird prison combos like Land Equilibrium or Living Plane.

Other Colors — Say It Isn’t So! I Thought We Were Talking About a Green Deck!

There’s not a lot of wiggle room on the “Skies” aspect of the deck, but we could have some fun with the Transmogrants.

Except for black, every color in Old School has some way of destroying artifacts, and Relic Barrier means that every color at least has access to a way to control artifact creatures. You may want to take a peek at my white weenie article for some thoughts on a white deck using Transmogrant.

If you stay in green, you could go more thematic on the artifact hate aspect of the deck by running Argothian Treefolk as your “beef,” play more Crumbles, or use Relic Barrier (along with its friends Winter Orb and Howling Mine). You end up leaning hard on the Transmogrants as creature control, but Howling Mine–Relic Barrier is a perfectly respectable engine.

Red gets Shatter, and also Detonate, to blow up a creature that you turn into an artifact. Red also has a lot of incentive to make its creatures colorless after sideboard, when a bunch of decks will be bringing in Circle of Protection: Red or Greater Realm of Preservation. Lightning Bolt is usually better than Giant Growth, and your creatures aren’t on the whole any worse than the green ones. Plus you get a dragon instead of Cockatrice if you really want one, and everyone wants a dragon, right?

I mentioned Energy Flux already. There might be a fish deck running multiple maindeck Fluxes that wants Transmogrant as a bit of creature removal and mana taxing. Blue aggro is also a little soft to The Abyss, so being able to make your Lords of Atlantis artifact creatures might not be a bad idea. You get Counterspells that are a damn sight better than Avoid Fate. You can get several excellent flying creatures if you want to keep the Skies part of the deck and forgo the fish.

Hopefully this has inspired you to do some experiments with Ashnod’s Transmogrant, or pull out the greenie weenies that are languishing forgotten in your commons bin.