I am with Monk here. I built this EXACT deck a long while back and it is VERY consistent.

Might I suggest Garruk's Packleader? Most of your creatures trigger it, and with a couple of Paragons out, even your Saprolings will trigger it.

Running this one for a bit and having lots of fun with it. It's basically a beast theme deck with lots of card draws from Hunter's Prowess and Garruk's Packleader.

You need Primal Bellow in this list.

Prey Upon looks weak with so many small creatures in the deck. I understand Advocate grows some of those small ones bigger but that's dreadfully slow.

Do you really need an eight-pack of Visionaries/Wayfinders and four Cultivates with a curve this low?

Krasis and Packleader look pretty underwhelming here, you only have eleven creatures with power three or greater in the whole deck that trigger evolve and card draw.

Can you win reliably without sticking an Advocate, Colossus, or Stomper?

I'm guessing there are similar decks posted and here's my version. Attempt to outlast the damage to stabilize and then trample and Primal Bellow for the win. There is a surprising amount of card draw with Hunter's Prowess and Primal Bellow so Kozilek, Butcher of Truth is a must for cycling. Reclamation Sage is definitely sideboard material depending on the night.






edit -
+1 Elvish Visionary
+1 Satyr Wayfinder
-1 Forest
-1 prey upon


elk

I've used a similar deck, but swapped out the Disciples for Mold Shamblers. Slightly weaker against aggro, but it gives you an out against stuff like Angelic Accord, Sanguine Bond, Beastmaster Ascension , Doubling Season, Burning Anger and Armored Ascension. I'd say it's worth it in this metagame.

Which is why I mentioned Reclamation Sage in the post. I don't believe either are main deck options and would be looking at it only based on the way the evening has been playing. Mold Shambler is definitely a consideration since it triggers Garruk's Packleader and can hit lands too but then it's a 6 drop (granted if you're in a bind, you can play it turn 4 but defeats the purpose of 'sideboarding' the card in) and I'd rather be playing other threats at that stage. Regardless, most enchantments and/or artifacts that are concerns are small enough not to focus on. You either can't do anything about it (i.e. Beastmaster Ascension usually comes out the turn it's going to kill you) or you aim to out race the concerns (there is a lot of life gain here which means if you make it to a mid/late game, they're going to have troubles racing your trample damage).

Further to that, your comment/concern of aggro is quite valid. Besides the odd enchant/artifact that will give you some troubles, aggro is by far the decks worst match up. Any deck that aims to win by turns 4 or 5 are a problem. My knee jerk reaction is usually to add even more on the bottom end of the curve for stall but I went the route of incidental life gain to give the deck a chance to stabilize. I REALLY don't want to be drawing Elvish Visionary or Satyr Wayfinder mid/late game.

Anywho I've always played and enjoyed big green stompy and this deck has been no exception (also why I was thrilled that green devotion and green/black constellation had been contending threats in standard).

elk

I really dislike Radiant Fountains, even in mono-colored decks. The miniscule life gain just isn't worth the decrease in mana consistency.

It's a really bad card.

It depends IMO.

If you have 2 and 3 drops with double color costs like Bloodghast, Lilianna's Spectre, Brimaz, Anger of the Gods, etc. or cards that are affected by your land count like Nightmare (I can't remember if Nylea's Disciple is) then yeah.. it's bad. But those type of cards aren't in your (mono colored) deck.. then it's alright IMO.

Nylea's Disciple is based on devotion and there are no early double colors so we're ok there.




I agree with you. It's not a good card by any means. The paltry 2hp however is a free upside here. There is more than enough forests to do the job without effecting any mana consistency issues on your way past 5. This deck should also have more than enough forests available at the time it's swinging for the win (where +1 or +2 isn't changing the clock at that stage of the game). So then if a fountain has any affect at all on a game (which could only equate to an additional turn to stabilize) than it's value; in my opinion, is greater than the forest I replaced (which I'm considering part of the clock).



elk

I've been thinking about this since posting the deck and currently testing more bottom end.

+1 Satyr Wayfinder
+1 Elvish Visionary

-1 Prey Upon
-1 Forest

It's improved having at least something on the board while still keeping tempo so this may be the way to go.

elk

You can't call radiant fountain a bad card.
If you take elk's build and replace the 1 CMC drops, you get that 24 forests + fountain is strictly better than 25 forests.

In elk's deck, mainly because of primal bellow I would probably run 2 fountains.

I can call it a bad card. It is a bad card. Is a singleton niche playable? Sure. But it's still bad.

Just so my posts aren't misconstrued, I will again say that I don't believe Radiant Fountain is a good card. It can have it's place (as Hakeem stated - niche) and even found it's way in to top 8 pro tour play (see Ivan Floch and his UB control build that had 2 of them for recursion with Pearl Lake Ancient. I believe the expectation was 4-8hp) but I'm not advocating the card should find it's way into lots of builds.

Again I'll point out where this deck wins it's game. There is the rush to stabilize over the first 5 turns. Then from turns 5-8 you can start looking at win conditions. So best case scenario is a turn 4 Arbor Colossus followed by a turn 5 Hunter's Prowess and Primal Bellow (this is excluding any 'plink' damage you could have earned since the expectation is to use it for chump). If every land drop was a forest, you'd be doing 15dmg on turn 5. If we get 1 or even 2 fountains, we're at worst case 13 damage. We'd then have to hit another Hunter's Prowess in that draw and the opponent to have a weak enough board to swing for the win. Realistically though we're looking at our next trample play which can't win till the next turn. So I'll refer to my previous post, these best case lines have such a slim chance of changing the clock that the forest count is of little concern. Whereas any ramp/fatty deck falls short to aggro and burn since they are king of the early game. Several tier 1 deck iterations running around can consistently produce wins by turns 4 or 5 so this decks saving graces are early Elvish Visionary, Satyr Wayfinder, Nylea's Disciple and Radiant Fountain. I tend to feel confident I'll see a late game when I've got any combination of those cards in my opening hand (I'm also not implying that a fatty deck or my deck layout is a tier 1 option either but you often have to build for them since they are typically the meta).

elk

THis deck can curve beauty (or not), not the best deck i play but hey its green.
This ramp, play some fatties and gain a little life.

Arbor Colossus and Hunt the Weak and Primal Bellow can act as removal - this deck don't want much removal cause most of your creatures are better.
Life Gain can help with some agroo decks.
Ramp so u can have your real treats out faster.

PS: Done 10 games in a row with this deck - u can read how its goes here - viewtopic.php?f=38&t=6795&start=80#p241023

How is the Hall of Triumph working out for you? I feel like it might not be necessary with 3 Paragons and the fact that your creatures are big as is.

I'm not a big fan of Hunt the Weak. I'd much rather have some Prey Upons.

Hall of Triumph is good!
U can Elvish Pionner at turn 1, Hall at Turn 2, and Paragon at Turn 3! This turns all 1/1 you deck have in Wild Nacalt.
And u have a lot of trample so more damage is not bad, and help too with Hunt the Weak/ Prey upon1s (if u use it). Hall is not a card that i consider take out

trying to decide which mono-green build is better between Jester and Elk...hmmmm.... I think it's Elk's...

Is this based on actual play testing?


elk

i plan on testing both out tomorrow night but I thought it would be fun to see if people had an opinion first before I take them out to sea