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BMoor's Magic The Gathering Deck Garage
Monogreen Saproling Deck
March 22, 2010 

Recently on BMoor's Deck Garage, I fixed a deck built around Emeria the Sky Ruin, but I made a small mistake. Alex, the deck's owner, asked me a rules question I completely forgot to answer. If you're reading this, Alex, the creatures that come into the field during your upkeep will indeed have summoning sickness. In order to not have summoning sickness, a creature must be under your control continuously since before the beginning of your upkeep.
 
But in a way, it's a lucky thing I'm explaining that rule today, because Dan's deck also has a card that can put creatures into the field during his upkeep. Only in Dan's deck, the creatures aren't from the graveyard, they're tokens.
 
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Hey Bmoor,

Big fan of your articles! I definitely think my deckbuilding has got better since I've began reading them.

Anyhow, my project pretty much since I started playing magic has been to build a monogreen saproling deck. I've began acquiring the cards, and I wanted to see if you had any awesome ideas before I start heading down the wrong path.

The deck would be played entirely casually with friends, so no restrictions on formats. I do have a budget, but this has and will continue to be a long term project, so it's not really a big issue, just no 100$+ cards.

Here's the decklist:

Creatures: 18

Llanowar elves- X4
Birds of Paradise- X4
Verdant Force- X4
Mycoloth- X4
Nemata, Grove Guardian- X2

Noncreature Spells: 20

Natural Order- X4
Reap and Sow- X4
Crop Rotation- X4
Doubling Season- X4
Souls Majesty- X4

Land- 22
Forest- X20
Gaea's Cradle- X2

Llanowar elves and the birds provide early turn mana acceleration (which is needed badly due to the high cost of my other creatures,) Verdant force provides early saps when brought out via natural order saccing a bird or elf which will eventually be eaten by mycoloth and reinforced by Nemata with the stupid amount of mana Gaea's cradle can produce. Doubling season is a natural choice in this deck, and it has hilarious interactions with Mycoloths abilities, especially if I have multiples out. Souls Majesty is a card drawing engine used pretty well exclusively on Verdant force to redraw myself a hand, it is not uncommon for me to be able to create enough mana with Gaea's cradle to entirely play that redrawn hand.

I've thrown around the idea of putting more nonbasic lands in there, such as Oran Rief the Vastwood to make all the saps that come into play each turn 2/2's, just for some utility. I am also debating throwing out either the playset of crop rotation or reap and sow in favour of some fogs (you never know, especially in multiplayer) overrun's, (which is just mean,) or heart stone (nemata just pumps out saps like crazy.)

The decks one major weakness is obviously flying (and blue, damned counters,) and I think that I could throw in some windstorms (nice X spells with all the mana I make) to make things a little better. But I honestly don't know what I'd take out.

Anyways, that's about all I have to say about this deck. Hope you think it has potential!

Thanks a lot

Dan
 
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Saproling decks always have potential and they're always fun. Personally, I ascribe it to the fact that there have been so many cards in the history of Magic that make them. The oldest card in your deck, Verdant Force, was first printed in Tempest in 1997, while the most recent Saproling-producing card in your deck, Mycoloth, was printed in 2009.
 
And we all know there have been quite a few between those two extremes, meaning a Saproling deck can take all sorts of shapes or forms. For example, in Ravnica block, most Saproling decks took a green/white form from the Selesnya Conclave, with some folks occasionally splashing red for Dogpile (in drafts) or Flame Fusillade (in constructed). I doubt you want to add a color to this deck, Dan, but that's okay, because Ravnica did give us one little beauty of a monogreen Saproling-maker in Scatter the Seeds. This one is good not only because it can flash in three creatures at instant speed, but because you can tap Saprolings to pay for it as well as lands.
 
That same functionality came back in Future Sight, with Sprout Swarm, a card that can fill a table with glass beads or pennies all on its own. Since you can keep buying it back, and it has convoke, each casting of Sprout Swarm facilitates future casting, all at end of turn of course.
 
What do you pull out for these cards? Some of your mana fixing I suspect. I can appreciate either Crop Rotation OR Reap and Sow in your deck, as a way to find a Gaea's Cradle, but you don't need both. Nor do you need four copies of Llanowar Elves AND Birds of Paradise. In a monogreen deck, the only purpose the Birds serve is to block flying creatures, and there's much better options for that. I'm not convinced you need Llanowar Elves either, especially since your Cradles should have you swimming in the green stuff before too long.
 
Here's a creature I can get behind you playing, though-- Thallid Shell-Dweller. Oh, it's a slow way to produce Saprolings, but it's also an excellent blocker, and resistant to burn spells by dint of its high toughness. A Saproling deck needs time to build up a critical mass of tokens if it expects to press its advantage. Thallid Shell-Dweller can buy you that time.
 
Another card I'd like you to add here is Primal Command. I doubt there's a monogreen deck out there that doesn't want to run Primal Command, and yours is no exception. Not only does it give you an answer to any permanent other than creatures and a weapon against decks that rely on their graveyards, it lets you recover a dead Nemata while putting the rest of your graveyard back into the deck for eventual re-drawing. And the "gain 7 life" option? Remember what I said about your deck wanting to be able to buy time? I may be on record as being down on life gain as a core deck strategy, but don't kid yourself. The gain 7 option is "for real". If your opponent is aggro or midrange, gaining 7 life and putting one of their lands on top is a huge setback for them. Primal Command also means you have cards other than Natural Order that can fetch you a Nemata.
 
And finally, since you're already packing cards that can tutor you up a nonbasic land-- and for the record I'm a bit partial to Reap and Sow over Crop Rotation-- I'd say go ahead and add a copy or two of Oran-Rief, the Vastwood. Other nonbasics that you might enjoy include Treetop Village and Sapseep Forest.
 
Good luck!
 
~BMoor