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BMoor's Magic The Gathering Deck Garage
Death by Dragon Fungus
October 27, 2009

Hey dude, I really like your deck garage, I am totally an amateur, but I have a classical deck I am working on and I would be very happy if you would take a look at it and give your feedback :)
 
Right now it looks something like this:
 
Lands: 23
 
14 forest
6 mountain
3 deserted temple
 
Mana Acceleration: 11
 
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
3 Kodama's Reach (or Harrow, not sure which I like the better)
 
Creatures: 12
 
4 Mycoloth
4 Predator Dragon
2 Brawn
3 Elvish Lyrist
 
Spells: 14
 
3 Squirrel Nest
4 Chatter of the squirrel
2 Acorn Harvest
4 Fecundity
 
 
If you would take a quick look at it would be most appreciated, I really admire your work!
 
Arrownax

I'll need a search of my archives to confirm this, but I'm pretty sure Arrownax wins the prize for being the first person to send in a Devour deck. Granted, his only Devour creatures are Mycoloth and Voracious Dragon, but perhaps that's best. Food chains are not like Hydras-- they work best with fewer heads.

My first impression of your deck is that there doesn't really seem to be a need for two colors. Voracious Dragon is the only red card in the deck, yet you've got Birds, Kodama's Reach, and Sakura-Tribe Elder all devoted to getting enough mana? Seems awfully excessive to me. You can take Voracious Dragon out, and the you'll have plenty of room to devote to making the deck as a whole operate better.

The first card we need to find a replacement for, then, is the Dragon itself. In a monogreen deck, you have two Devour options besides Mycoloth: Skullmulcher and Gluttonous Slime. The Slime I think is a very potent card, since you can play it in response to your opponent trying to kill one of your creatures, devour the doomed creature (in addition to whatever else you have lying around) and suudenly your opponent finds his Path to Exile was actually a Pongify. But in your deck, I'd say Skullmulcher is the better choice, since not only does it get big, but it also refills your hand. Gluttonous Slime is a better creature with devour, but Skullmulcher has more potential power in a deck built to capitalize on devour. Heck, you could probably find room for both.

Next, we no longer need all that extra fixing. Kodama's Reach can become something a little more on-topic. Perhaps Gift of the Gargantuan, to still help find extra lands yet also bolster your creature ranks? Or maybe Nature's Spiral, to recover slain Mycoloths or devoured creatures.

No, better, yet, how about Vines of Vastwood? Since devour is inherently an "all-in" mechanic, you'll be pretty sad if you feed all your tokens to a Mycoloth only to have your opponent shrug, untap, and play a Doom Blade on it. The Vines is as close as you can get to being able to counter such unpleasantries in Green, with the added bonus of a kicker cost that will deliver a +4/+4 bonus suitable for beating people's teeth down their throats. Stonewood Invocation accomplished a similar job back in Time Spiral, but the Vines cost less mana for a slightly smaller bonus and the lack of split second.

Of course, if this is a deck dedicated to producing plenty of sacrifice fodder, it'd be a crime not to include Overrun. The quintessential card for creature-heavy green decks. In fact, pretty much any time a player plays a mostly green deck that puts out a lot of tokens, any savvy opponent will be expecting the Overrun.

Finally, Elvish Lyrist just isn't effective enough here. Try Lullmage Shepherd instead-- she works well with a token-producing deck, is reusable, and lets you keep her on the board. And she's a decent blocker as well.

Good luck!

~BMoor