And now we come to my least favorite color, green. I’m pretty sure that my disdain for green stems from the fact that when I first started playing Magic, I would often lose to green decks and not understand why. My compadre Hayes would infuriate me with a Spike Weaver deck that tied me up until it started plowing me under and eventually got around to winning. On the other side, my friend Kurt and cousin Blake both played Elf decks that ramped quickly into massive threats. If you’ve ever been on the loosing end of a Balance because your opponent kept a Caller of the Claw in their hand, you have my sympathies.
I tried for years to make a mono-green deck that I liked. The closest I came was Nine-Land Stompy. Then it occurred to me that I didn’t dislike what green did, I just had bad memories of playing against it and never really cared for its aesthetic (recurring fog is annoying and Elves are dumb). This deck started forming in my mind during Kamigawa block with the printing of Reki and Time of Need. A green-backed legend deck. I just needed the right legends.
As I’ve stated, Elves are dumb, and green doesn’t get many non-Elf legends. Then starting with Ixalan, I started seeing green legends that I liked. Behemoths that were worthy of the title LEGEND. Dinosaurs. Giant Apes. And finally, a thirty-foot wolf. It was time to go on a rampage. It was time to bring the biggest, baddest monsters in cinematic and videogame history to the table. When they printed a Godzilla card, destiny was set.
This deck spends the early game ramping up its mana base and hiding behind Plants. Once you’ve hacked your way through the jungle, you’ll wish you hadn’t because you’ll be face-to-face with one of the original titans: King Kong or Godzilla. Since even the biggest baddies need some backup, I added George and Ralph from Rampage (but sadly, haven’t found a card for Lizzie yet). I even found a place for Reki, represented here by George’s favorite primatologist. Consider the scale of my creatures if the Rock himself is a 1/2.