Casual Legacy — Mono Green Turbo Blessing

Hello all. I am new to this forum. In general I have a tendency to be more of a lurker than a poster in most online communities, but I thought I would share my latest blog entry here in the hopes of garnering some constructive feedback. I am looking for suggestions in making this casual deck semi-competitive while still retaining the fun elements.

A brief preface: I have not played a single game of Magic since January of of 2003, so forgive me if my choices of cards make me sound like a complete relic. I've made an effort to get back into Magic several times over the past couple of years, but every time I try to get reacquainted with the game another few thousand cards seem to have come out and I have to start all over again. This game is maddening in that if you take time off, you really miss out on a lot. It's like taking time off from working out; the longer you wait to get back into it, the harder it is. Inertia is a cruel mistress. Anyway, the other day the Magic bug bit me once more and I cobbled together a deck I first had the idea for sometime around 2002. Doubtless I'm missing a lot of good cards and I intend to download the newest Apprentice patch as soon as I finish writing this. What recent cards I have included are just some goodies I've picked up from lurking on forums.

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Basically, this is a good old fashioned "so-slow-in-killing-your-opponent-it-becomes-akin-to-water-torture" Gaea's Blessing deck that has elements of Stupid Green and Turbo Land, but is strictly mono green combo-control. This is very much a casual deck for the time being, but I would love to fine tune it to the point where it has a shot at being at least a tier 3 contender in a competitive Legacy environment.

Main Deck
4 Exploration
4 Gaea's Touch
4 Horn of Greed
4 Eladamri's Vineyard
4 Harmonize
3 Living Wish
2 Gaea's Blessing
2 Early Harvest
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Creeping Mold

3 Wall of Roots
3 Wall of Blossoms

25 Forest

Sideboard
1 Thawing Glaciers
1 Vexing Shusher
2 Viridian Zealot
2 Zuran Orb
1 Dust Bowl
1 Masticore
1 Spike Weaver
1 Allosaurus Rider
1 Yavimaya Elder
1 Ravenous Baloth
1 Compost
2 Constant Mists

One of the biggest limitations of a mono green Turbo Blessing deck is that it can really falter without a Horn of Greed in play, as green is painfully short on drawing and general manipulation. So I added 4 Harmonize to make it a bit more self reliant without an active Horn, which also gives you something to do with all your mana while you are waiting to go off on your game winning rush.

Note the exclusion of Thawing Glaciers and Dust Bowl (tested them in some goldfishing and they were too slow and self-disruptive). At first I toyed around with Treetop Village and Tranquil Thicket but then decided that I just really wanted to create an infinite mana loop with Early Harvest, and thus the 25 Forest version was born. This also enables me to run Gaea's Touch, which is like having 8 main deck Explorations. At first I didn't realize how good this was, as I tried out 2 copies of Gaea's Touch back when the mana base was much more nonbasic and it just wasn't pulling its weight. But in an all forest deck, this card is actually pretty sweet. Especially since you can sac it when you're tapped out to get off an Early Harvest. It's almost like an MVP in this deck.

I fooled around with Kodama's Reach (and even gave Sprouting Vines a shot) then I decided I would just rather have Harmonize in that slot. It breaks you out of a funk much faster and is a much stronger card when played without a Horn, as previously mentioned.

I think the most interesting card that I've knowingly omitted is Recycle. Recycle is an extremely powerful in that it can win the game by itself if you can get it into play. But I found it unneccessary as you are drawing enough cards as it is and it's actually much harder not to deck yourself with a Recycle in play since you're drawing two cards off every Blessing instead of one, which really messes up the rhythm of the deck in my opinion.

In terms of being a combo deck, it's really too slow to play as pure combo, so it's more combo control as it takes around 6 to 7 turns to be able to actually "go off." What the control consists of: mainly dropping walls and trying to stay alive. I have played around a little with Hail Storm and I really don't know whether it is worth it or not as this is a deck that generally wants to use all of its mana during its main phase. As for what going off entails, it usually starts when you have 2 or more Horns in play and 2 or 3 Gaea's Touch/Explorations. Then it's just land, draw 2, Exploration, land, draw 2, Gaea's Touch, land, draw 2, Exploration, land, draw 2, Early Harvest, Harmonize, Horn of Greed, Gaea's Touch, land, draw 3, Exploration, land, draw 3. . . once you have 1 to 3 cards in your library remaining, begin abusing Blessing with Early Harvest for infinite mana. Sensei's Divining Top helps you get what you want when you want it, replacing the Scroll Rack that would have been standard when last I played. Then Creeping Mold with Blessing to destroy all non-creature, non-planeswalker permanents. Masticore all creatures, even huge ones with regeneration. You can also wish for Ravenous Baloth and use it gain unlimited life.

Noticeable weaknesses from a glance would include getting wrecked easily by Disk/Deed, though you do have the potential to rebuild very quickly.

Cards that didn't make the cut but remain viable options include the following:

Stunted Growth: I could go either way with this one. It's definitely fun to play a green sorcery with such an uncharacteristic off color effect. I guess I could drop a Harmonize for this. I thought about running just one Early Harvest and 1 Stunted Growth but I think that would be a mistake.

Powder Keg: Do people still use this card or what? I don't know, it's definitely worth considering, or would have been 6 years ago back when I still played seriously. In the slot that this would occupy, I just threw in 3 each of Wall of Blossoms and Wall of Roots, both of which have their uses in the early game as much needed defense against creature decks. For artifact removal I am planning to rely on Viridian Zealot/Creeping Mold.

Recycle: I touched on this earlier, but basically I think this card usually just helps you when you are in position to win anyway, and even then it complicates things. Accidental decking is a real concern with this deck, especially since (to my understanding) you are required to draw a card as you play a spell, not after it has resolved (bad synergy with Gaea's Blessing).

Splintering Wind: Heh. A very fun card that is great as a rocket launcher/hive type thing in a deck like this, but basically there's no room and it's too slow. Still, I might throw one in the sideboard just for kicks.

Jester's Cap: How cruel would I have to be to use this as my win condition? It definitely appeals to my sadistic side, as it's pretty fun to Stunted Growth your opponent's hand, Creeping Mold all lands, Masticore all creatures, then deck him for the win. But basically I like the idea of stepping on his face with a 20/20 Allosaurus Rider too much to rely on this for the win.

As far as testing goes...well, I haven't done any yet! Not in earnest at least, just a bunch of goldfishing with Apprentice. I have Magic Workstation installed on this PC and joined magic-league.com a few months ago, so maybe I will look around for games there, if any are to be found.

Well, if any of you actually made it this far, you have something to be proud of. Let me know if you have any feedback/suggestions for what cards to use that have been printed post 2003.