Pojo's MTG
MTG Home
Message Board
News & Archives
Deck Garage
BMoor Dolf BeJoSe

Columnists
Paul's Perspective
Jeff Zandi
DeQuan Watson
Jordon Kronick
IQ
Aburame Shino
Rare Hunter
Tim Stoltzfus
WiCkEd
Judge Bill's Corner

Trading Card
Game
Card of the Day
Guide for Newbies
Decks to Beat
Featured Articles
Peasant Magic
Fan Tips
Tourney Reports

Other
Color Chart
Book Reviews
Online Play
MTG Links
Staff

120x90 Ad Space
For Rent!

Mattedesa's Deck Garage
Mono-Green Wurm Deck
April 26, 2007

I've been having a lot of fun lately playing this mono green Wurm deck but unfortunately I am getting stomped on 4 out of 5 times when I play in my weekly group game by people playing faster aggro or weenie decks. I really love the deck and don't want to change it all too much but I really need to find away to make it a little faster or have some trick up my sleeve in order to deal with the rush tactics that people use against me. I don't really have a problem against slower aggro, combo, or control decks as usually by turn 4 or 5 I have a lot more mana then them and can start casting my big nasties equip with lightning greaves and proceed to smash face before they can really deal with my fatties. The problem is I don't always make it into this phase of my game plan or by the time I get there i'm so low on life that I can't really do much to stop the inevitable.

Here is the decklist:

4 x reap and sow
4 x sylvan scrying
4 x lightning greaves
4 x crush of wurms
3 x wurmcalling
3 x stream of life
3 x naturalize
3 x silhana starfletcher
3 x panglacial wurm
3 x sakura tribe elder
3 x elvish aberration

4 x cloudpost
4 x vesuva
15 x forest


Ideally the way this deck would run would be something along these lines:

The first 3-4 turns are kind of set up for me casting sylvan scrying, reap and sow, tribe elder, or cycling the abberation in order to start getting myself as many forests, cloudposts, vesuvas (copying cloudpost) into play as quickly as possible and hopefully a lightning greaves or two on the table. The Star fletcher has double duty in the early game of providing me with extra mana as well as a decent body to block early creatures I can also if need be cast a decent wurmcalling without the buyback in order to get another body into play. (Side question here can I block with my sakura tribe elder and still sacrifice him in the same turn? my friends and I constantly argue about this).

once I get to turn five I should have plenty of mana to start casting decent sized wurmcallings, crush of wurms, panglacial (usually cast from the library when i'm doing my cloudpost/vesuva searching), and abberations equip them with the greaves and go on the offensive.
Whenever I do get to this point my deck is fairly difficult to stop as i'm casting fatties that are hasty and untargetable faster than they can deal with them.

The stream of lifes are in there simply because as the game goes on I have massive quantities of mana and am able to gain enough life back to recover from any early beats I took. Also if the game continues to drag on I will have so much mana that any stream of life will put me into the mid 30's or low 40's of life which is usually more than enough to guarantee me a win since they won't be able to race me and my fatties are continuing their onslaught. The naturalizes are self-explanatory.

So pretty much I have no problems in the mid-late game I just need to be able to deal with the numerous early threats that my opponents throw at me. As far as cards I definitely want to keep I'd have to say the greaves and crush of wurms would be the ones, I just love throwing down three 6/6 fatties attaching greaves for nothing and smashing face for 12 in one hasty shot.

Thanks a lot,

-Adolfo


Well, Adolfo, when I asked for information about decks that are sent in, this is EXACTLY what I was talking about! After that introduction, I feel like I have been playing this deck and can understand quite well where you are coming from. A word to anyone else considering turning in a deck: giving an intro like this makes my job easier, and helps me tune your deck in a way that's most likely to be what you're looking for.

So, to start off, lets summarize what we've got going on here. Let me just start by saying that you have a pretty good deck here already.
You've figured out the best cards and put in 3 of 4 of them.
Basically, this deck is all about ramping up the mana so you can get out huge wurms as quickly as possible. You've got some good acceleration with Sylvan Scrying to search for Cloudposts/Vesuvas, and Sakura Tribe Elders to get Forests. By the way, the answer to your question is yes. You CAN block with the Tribe Elder, allow damage to go on the stack and then sacrifice the Elder to search for a Forest.
Damage resolves (with the Elder's one point still hitting the attacking creature) and the Elder is nowhere to be found. So the creature is blocked, you take no damage, and you still get your land!

For additional acceleration, you've got Silhana Stafletcher. If you need the flying blocker, he's a good choice. However, if you're just going for the mana and the ground stall, you'd be better off with a Vine Trellis, which provides one more toughness for one less mana. I would probably be inclined to go this direction unless you're being overrun by fliers. Wall of Roots would also fit the bill here, but it may be a little harder to come by.

With this deck, I think you should be more focused on speeding up your development, rather than slowing down that of your opponents - especially in a group game. For that reason, let's try dropping Reap and Sow for Search for Tomorrow. It's suspend ability allows you to suspend it on turn one (you have no other cards you can play on turn 1) and have an additional untapped land on turn three. Later in the game, you can just hard cast it, or suspend it and still have the mana to cast the Panglacial Wurm after the Search unsuspends. Either way, it costs less than Reap and Sow and still gives you a land.

The only other card I think that we can improve is Stream of Life.

Remember, you win the game once you get your opponent down to 0, whether you are at 1 life or 100. I think you would be better served having something that will help you earlier in the game. I have a deck of my own that I'm tinkering with right now that is mostly green and likes getting a lot of land into play early, much like yours. I use Vinelasher Kudzu to take advantage of that. Every time you drop a land (which with your Elders and Searches could often be twice a turn), your Kudzu gets bigger, giving you that early blocker, but also turning himself into quite a beater to rumble with alongside your wurms later in the game!

With those changes, your deck could look something like this:

4 x search for tomorrow
4 x sylvan scrying
4 x lightning greaves
4 x crush of wurms
3 x wurmcalling
3 x vinelasher kudzu
3 x naturalize
3 x vine trellis
3 x panglacial wurm
3 x sakura tribe elder
3 x elvish aberration

4 x cloudpost
4 x vesuva
15 x forest

Another couple ideas you might try if you still need more good blockers early in the game are Taproot Kami and Carven Caryatid.
Taproot's toughness equals the number of Forests in play (yours and your opponents') - AND he can block fliers. The Caryatid's 5 toughness can block a lot, his 2 power might kill some weenies, and you get to draw a card on top of that!

One more possibility you might play around with is a card that's coming out in Future Sight called Quiet Disrepair. It's an aura that enchants artifacts or enchantments. During your upkeep, you get the choice of gaining two life, or destroying enchanted artifact. So you could put it on your Lightning Greaves (or someone else's card that's not really bothering you) to gain life and survive until it's "Wurmtime", or use it as a delayed Naturalize. Just a thought.

I hope this helps. Like I said earlier, you've got a pretty good handle on this deck already. Try out a few of these suggestions to see if they'll give you that extra turn or two you need!

mattedesa