Advice needed for a green/red deck

[Huggybaby]

Hey folks,

I built a deck from scratch a long time ago and I was never happy with it. Recently I dusted it off, and after removing seven lands or so it actually started working. It needs that final stage of tuning, but I need help, because I'm no deck tuner.

As I look through my cards to figure out what to add I keep saying "that card looks cool", then "that card looks cool too". So obviously, the first danger is that my deck will lose focus which means it will end up working worse than it does now. The solution then is to keep a tight focus, to figure out exactly what I want this thing to do. Conversely and painfully there is a lot it won't be able to do, but so be it. All this is old news to you but not to me because like I said I don't tune decks, in fact I've only built just a few since I've been playing.

Here it is so far:

7 Mountain
2 Mishra's Factory
6 Forest
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Giant Growth
1 Vitalize
2 Birds of Paradise
2 Llanowar Elves
2 Fyndhorn Elves
2 Lava Burst
3 Disintegrate
4 Fireball
2 Incinerate
1 Fertile Ground
2 Stone Rain
1 Tranquility
2 Fyndhorn Elder
1 Clockwork Swarm
2 Fissure
1 Winding Wurm
1 Cockatrice
1 Shivan Dragon
1 Yavimaya Wurm
1 Scaled Wurm

Here are my thoughts so far:

---- The deck lacks synergy. When my buddy plays his sliver deck, every card seems to add to every other card. With this deck there is a serious lack of that action. So not only is the deck less interesting than it should be, it's weaker than it should be. It's real simple, which is what I wanted, but I'm ready to step it up now.
---- I need seven more cards to make 60.

Cards to take out:
---- My deck is not supposed to be a land destruction deck, I just threw those cards in there to make it well rounded. So those cards should probably go.
---- Fissure seems too expensive.
---- Cockatrice isn't so great because I have no lures, and Cockatrice deserves its own theme. It's a good card but doesn't add to the theme. I like that it flies though.
---- Tranquility should be in the sideboard, not in the regular deck.
---- Clockwork Swarm should go, it's not interacting with anything else.

Cards to add:

---- Two more Giant Growths.
---- I think I should have more Shivan Dragons.
---- My buddy said to take out the Mishra's Factories and add Forks. Well, I only have one Fork and I want the deck to be legal for "regular" play. Plus the Mishra's work really well so I think maybe I should have four of them. He probably doesn't like them because they work.
---- There's a card I've been seeing a lot playing the new DotP, Wurm's Tooth. I like it, and there's Dragon's Claw too, NTM Paradise Plume. Should I add some of those? The tradeoff is that gaining life doesn't win games.
---- I need even more mana speed. I'm thinking about adding two more Fyndhorn Elders. But what about Rampant Growths, or some land enchantments?
---- There's a card that lets me do direct damage equal to the converted mana cost of something in my hand, so for a Scaled Wurm that's eight damage. That would be nifty.
---- Elvish Champion or Joraga Warcaller would work great because I have all those elves to make mana. Actually, Elvish Archdruid might be the best of all to feed a kickass fireball.
---- Overrun would be great.
---- Vitalize is nice but since I only have one of them I need to add more or remove it.
---- Should I add more Birds of Paradise? Then I'd have a chance of playing Blightning. I shouldn't even think of that actually, but that card hurts like hell when you get stung with it.

I'll stop now. I think keeping a deck "on topic" may be the hardest part of this whole exercise.

Thanks for your advice.

[juzamjedi]

Quick note: if you want to see an Elf aggro deck check out the July competition in the Manalink thread. I built a mono-green elf deck that is doing pretty well.

For an aggressive Red/Green deck here is something I just came up with that should be pretty decent. It's different from your deck, but hopefully you can get some inspiration from this list.

Lands (23)
4 Taiga (or Rootbound Crag if you don't have these)
7 Forest
5 Mountain
4 Raging Ravine (or 2 Forest + 2 Mountain)
3 Treetop Village
There are 7 man-lands in this list so you shouldn't run out of things to do with your mana.

Creatures (24)
4 Kird Ape
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Skyshroud Elite (could be Pouncing Jaguar or Tattermunge Maniac instead)
4 Grim Lavamancer (could be Jackal Pup or Goblin Guide instead)
4 Tarmogoyf (could be Garruk's Companion or Albino Troll instead)
4 Boggart Ram-Gang (could be Kitchen Finks or Bloodbraid Elf, but I like Ram-Gang better for this deck)
For aggressive decks you generally want between 24-30 creatures.

Spells (13):
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning (could be Incinerate if you don't have these)
2 Umezawa's Jitte (could be Sword of Fire and Ice or Loxodon Warhammer instead)
3 Cursed Scroll (you will empty your hand quickly and this card lets you take advantage of this)
The spells I chose are simply the most efficient or work well with the plan of "play lots of cheap, aggressive creatures"

[DennisBergkamp]

Ouch, yes that looks like a nasty deck, juzamjedi.

[juzamjedi]

Fortunately (unfortunately?) Grim Lavamancer, Chain Lightning and Cursed Scroll are not currently implemented in Forge I built a version similar to the one I posted though and I killed the AI on turn 5.

[Huggybaby]

juzamjedi, your deck is so completely different from mine that it will take some looking at. I was hoping for advice on how to fill in the holes in my deck while keeping the theme (X spells and inflatable creatures).

How does Chained Lightning work when the other guy is playing red. Wouldn't that burn me?

[Snacko]

Huggybaby the problem with your deck is that it needs to be completely redesigned to work competitively.
The deck will work casually sometimes if you bring your weak fatties to the table and the opponent has no response to them, however the slivers deck you mentioned will win against you most of the time.

Chained Lightning can bounce as many times as you / your opponent wants, however you get at least the same amount of fires as he does. It's a very good card even if you play aginst red if you time it correctly.

Going back to the deck, X spells and inflatable creatures don't work well except in casual play. Just see the math Lightning Bolt 3 damage for 1 mana, while Disintegrate/Fireball 3 damage for 4 mana. The only use of those X spells is when you run a combo deck that has this spell as a winning condition. Same goes for Giant Growth and inflatable creatures as those go on stack before resolution so you can spend your mana while opponent just bolts your creature and you're left only with remorse for wasting that precious card and mana.

I would go with juzamjedi deck as even if you swap some of the chase cards it's still a very powerful aggro deck. It's very hard to give advice on deckbuilding if you don't know what the card pool is when it's limited.

[DennisBergkamp]

How does Chained Lightning work when the other guy is playing red. Wouldn't that burn me?

Yep, it would... I actually used 4 copies of this card in a deck of mine a long time ago. And in all of the years playing this deck, I've NEVER seen it returned (even playing against red decks).

[Huggybaby]

Hmm, thanks for the advice, I didn't realize this deck was so weak. I also didn't realize that I could pump a small creature with Giant Growth and then have a Lightning Bolt kill it, but that makes sense because of the last in/first out buffer.

About the only card I have that juzamjedi listed is the Kird Apes; I sold my Taigas. So my deck will stay casual for now but I may keep working on it. Building decks is almost like pulling teeth for me. It takes hours, and I need to make proxies, and my printer is broken, and I don't have any sleeves, and...well, now I remember why I do this so infrequently.

<edit> I wanted to add a note about how this deck works in practice. I never get to fly in for the massive pumped up Shivan kill, or do the 10 point fireball like I dream about. What happens is that whenever he plays a creature, I burn it immediately. That way his slivers don't get a chance to start building. While I keep his creature count low I'm able to keep pinging him with small creatures, while adding lands or other mana sources. So in the end a few medium size X spells will finish him off.

Also, we don't sideboard or tune for specific decks. Otherwise, he'd put in CoP: Reds and then I'd have to do likewise, plus adding something to kill his CoP. Before I would ever get to the point of doing that I would just pull out a different precon and use it instead.

[timmermac]

If you want to keep your theme, get 4x Priest of Titania, then use the other three slots on some combination of Skyshroud Elf, Llanowar Elf, Fyndhorn Elves, etc. I would also dump the Wurms for Dragons. Shivans are fine, Lightning Dragon would probably work as well. I would also take out the Clockwork Swarm and the 2x Fissure and put in Gaea's Anthem to replace them. I'd also remove the 2x Birds of Paradise, the 2x Giant Growth and the Vitalize and replace them with 4x Elvish Champion and another elf. I would also look into getting as many copies of Gaea's Cradle as you can. I would also go as much dual land as you can.

[Clefaria]

I'm not much of a deckbuilder, but I will say to axe every wurm in your deck. Just because those particular three creatures are very lackluster.

[Huggybaby]

They may be lackluster, but when I throw down a 7/6 creature believe me every one of your strategies is going to change and that is the only thing you'll be worrying about. In the meantime all my smaller creatures will be eating you. In fact, I'm thinking of adding even more Wurms because this deck makes enough mana to play them.

I played the new deck about eleven times yesterday. After some tuning it did very well. Mostly it was those reinforcing elves doing the damage. I took out almost every X spell, and never got a Shivan into play in all those games, so my theme is shot unless I retune, but I was undefeated the last five games.

I'll put the new deck list up soon.

[Clefaria]

They may be lackluster, but when I throw down a 7/6 creature believe me every one of your strategies is going to change and that is the only thing you'll be worrying about.

Except for the fact that that 7/6 has no evasion and can be chump blocked all day long. Cards that expensive should be game-winners (hell, most high-level decks would refuse to include any 8cmc cards that couldn't be 'cheated' into play somehow at all). A vanilla 7/6 for 8 is not a game-winner. Duskdale Wurm costs 1 less, requires just one more G, and is 7/7 with trample. Just an example of something that's pretty much 100% better. Pelakka Wurm is the same, except for one more G, you get 7 life when it ETBs, and a card when it dies. You'd be better off with four of either of these than the three in your list.

[Huggybaby]

I like those Wurms, thanks for the suggestions. Chump blockers don't bother me at all. It's not like I'm going to have the wurm out all by itself, and chump blockers don't last very long. I can surely wipe them out faster than my opponent can generate them. If my opponent has a weenie deck with a million blockers, then I'll fly over them or X spell around them.

I want my Shivans to work, but the problem with my deck currently is that I get lots of green mana and not enough red, of course this can be adjusted. A few times I was able to throw a Kird Ape on first turn with a Taiga, which gave me a first turn 2/3.

I can't post my deck now because I'm packing, but there are some excellent suggestions here and I am using them as you will see.

[Huggybaby]

I just got caught up on rares' blog, and in it he mentions Khalni Hydra. I think four of those will be excellent replacements for most of my Wurms. It's an 8/8 with trample, and is liable to cost me only 3-5 mana, and I should be able to play it on turn 4 (or maybe even 3!) which would be brutal. Then the Pelakka Wurm with its trample and lifegiving is very nice.

If my buddy thought his ass was kicked before, he hasn't seen anything yet. I hope. He's going to give up on his homemade land destruction deck next time we play and probably use his sliver deck. That means my deck will play even faster but it will be an interesting challenge because I've currently eliminated almost all direct damage and so his creatures will get to grow as they feed off of each other.

I'm getting real happy over the way this is turning out. The biggest problem is my butt ugly handwritten proxies, but I'll have a new printer in about a month.

[juzamjedi]

The list I suggested above is pretty "Spike". The list might not look like your kind of fun and hey, no problem. But to be honest Pelakka Wurm, or almost any expensive fattie, doesn't matter to me if I can kill you on the 4th or 5th turn. The list I suggested is going to be pretty good at killing an opponent fast.

If ramping into fatties / X-spells is what you want to do then here are some cards you should consider:
Sakura-Tribe Elder. It can chump block a creature to buy you some time and then you sacrifice it to ramp a land.
Yavimaya Elder. Similarly like the SKE, it can chump block an opponent's creature and get you more mana. And if you already have lots of mana it can block + draw an extra card for 2.
Rampant Growth, Cultivate and Kodama's Reach. These are pretty much the best mana ramp cards available, but you don't need all of them.
Birds / Elves are very good yes keep them.
Harmonize. I never met a ramp deck that didn't like getting in touch with nature.

If you have any Banefire they would be my preferred X-spell of choice. Obviously there are a lot of choices here if you don't have em.

For fatties you can play whatever mix you like the best. 6-8 is probably a good number. Personally I like Rampaging Baloths and Avenger of Zendikar a lot. They are pretty big already and give you more bonuses when you play more lands (ie. what the deck does naturally).