Once again we will have all the videos included in this very article for this week’s Modern Monday! Be sure to let us know whether you like this format better or not.
Today we’re going to get a little simple with Modern Monday. And by simple I mean “only green creatures, mostly Forests, and four rares in the entire deck” simple. There’s been a little lull in new Modern decks recently, so thankfully I was able to find this Mono-Green Stompy list piloted by Magic Online user ClarkKibodeaux to a 5-0 finish.
4 Aspect of Hydra
4 Avatar of the Resolute
3 Dismember
4 Dryad Militant
4 Experiment One
18 Forest
4 Kalonian Tusker
4 Leatherback Baloth
4 Rancor
4 Strangleroot Geist
3 Treetop Village
4 Vines of Vastwood
Sideboard
2 Feed the Clan
2 Gleeful Sabotage
2 Gut Shot
2 Guttural Response
3 Naturalize
2 Relic of Progenitus
While the deck does seem sweet, this is about as budget and straightforward as decks come. In fact it basically reminds me of a mono-red burn list, only with creatures that are dealing two and three damage rather than burn spells. I imagine I’ve even played a similar list before on Modern Monday, back in the day perhaps, but let’s see if this current version is nearly as effective.
The deck is definitely capable of some explosive starts. At the same time, the Treetop Villages both help and hurt us as we definitely want the power of 3/3 trampling creature lands in our deck, but we also want our lands to enter the battlefield untapped to play things on turns one two and three. All that aside, I was pretty impressed with the deck. Modern is a format where many of its decks are very focused on their own plans. This deck takes advantage of that by disallowing the opponent to ignore our powerful creatures, lest they die in a minimal amount of turns while they try and assemble said plans.
Trample actually proved to be one of the most relevant mechanics in the deck, simply because Modern seems to have a good deal of utility creatures to use as blockers and throw in our way as these other decks are trying to assemble their gameplans. As you can imagine, casting two Aspect of the Hydra for +10/+10 on our Avatar of the Resolute is pretty big game and should often result in a win no matter how many chump blockers are thrown in front of that bus.
Obviously the one downside of playing a mono-green deck is the restrictions on certain as sideboard options or removal. Thankfully all is not lost as we have access to things like Dismember, Gut Shot, and Relic of Progenitus, which shore up some of the holes we might otherwise fear. One of the upsides of being in green is that we have plenty of access to artifact and enchantment removal, though I’m not sure we need five copies in the sideboard. Maybe they’re meant for Affinity?
This deck seemed to be a lot stronger – or perhaps just much easier to pilot – than some of our more recent offerings. It’s also extremely cheap with only four rares in the entire deck, along with a ton of commons and uncommons. I think the most expensive part for me was the high quantity of Unhinged Forests I was using. Nevertheless, if you’re looking for something interesting and powerful in Modern that won’t break the bank, this is a great direction to be looking toward if you’re fond of the occasional aggro deck.
That’s about all we have for this week! Thanks for reading and watching and I’ll see you again next Monday for another Modern Monday, and later this week for another Magic Minute.
Frank Lepore
Facebook | Twitch | Twitter | YouTube
Freshly Brewed Podcast with Ali Aintrazi (available on iTunes and Stitcher Radio)
