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I'm going to start my analysis of the Invasion Block by looking at mono colored strategies. I believe that because the most powerful cards in the set are dual or three colors mono decks do not have the wealth or ability to deal with other decktypes. I'm going to start with green because even as mono colored, its elves enable it to use kicker costs (like those in Thornscape Battlemage) that make up for the lack of utility.

When looking over a single color strategy, you want to take a look at all cards in that color, and also the artifacts. For example, Star Compass is great mana acceleration in all mono decks and will be used in several decks I submit to you.

The most common theme in green has always been Elves and I'm going to start by looking at that deck. We have Elvish Champion to make the deck competitive and a few quality bears. When I examine dual and three color strategies, if green is involved, Elves are always something to consider.

We also have a large amount of green Kavu and they might make an interesting deck. We also have Nemata, Molimo, and Verdeloth all showing up to spice up the pot. Its just a matter of discovering what strategy is right for your play style.

Starting with elves we want to be quick out of the gate and be very aggressive. The 1/1 for G1 Elves are not something we want a lot of as there are so many bears in the format. The core of my elf deck is easy to start with:

4x Nomadic Elf
4x Quirion Sentinel
4x Elvish Champion
4x Explosive Growth
4x Wax/Wane

These cards are simple because they fit in the mono color strategy and all are cheap to cast. The question is how do we fill out the rest of the deck? Let's look at the sligh curve style:

1cc
4x Thornscape Apprentice
4x Llanowar Elite
4x Wax/Wane
4x Explosive Growth

2cc
4x Nomadic Elf
4x Quirion Sentinel
4x Kavu Titan
4x Blurred Mongoose

3cc
4x Elvish Champion

4cc
4x Jade Leech

14x Forest
2x Rith's Grove
4x Elfhame Palace

We put in the Grove and the Palace so that we can use the abilities of the Apprentice and Wax/Wane more consistently. Neither of them hurts the mana consistency of the deck which is what we are trying to do with a mono colored deck. Jade Leech is such a beast at 4cc I think definitely fits the scheme of things. Other elves and creatures would make good sieboard cards, especially Gaea's Herald which might be slipped into main deck depending on the metagame. We can go with such a low land count because our curve realistically stops at two. We could also throw in Thornscape Battlemages but we would have to work on the mana much more.

Moving on to the Kavu deck (which loses quite a bit without red), let's see what we can come up with.

…pause…

Ok I just tried to come up with something, and it sucked really, really badly. Not all theme decks work. Especially not in mono colored. When I get to R/G I'll definitely build a Kavu deck and it will be rather… monstrous. And finally we come to Big Green which was a deck that you had to at least know how to play against in previous blocks. But there just aren't very many support cards for this deck and it also is relegated to dual color design just like the Kavu.

I just can't tell anyone that this deck is very good. Its not that good. If you are going to play elves you should play a dual colored deck with more bears. I'll cover those later. If you always play a mono colored deck and want something semi-competitive, this is a good deck for you.

Next we'll be talking about mono red. Is SRB going to make a comeback or is Obliterate the way to play?

Until then,
Fletcher Peatross
The Biggest Ass in Texas
bludragon@hotmail.com