Green has long been the “midrange” color in Magic, being good at just about everything but excelling at nothing (ramp and artifact/enchantment removal being the notable exceptions.) As such, it took me ages and a few Facebook posts to dig up what green is bad at doing. Welcome to the final article in “Things that colors do, but badly.”
Green is notoriously difficult to say it’s bad at something. Card draw? Third after blue and black. Ramp? Head of the pack. Removal? Artifacts and enchantments beware, and green has fight to deal with creatures. Planeswalkers? There’s a little-known mechanic called trample that’s quite handy in this situation. People said green has trouble with evasion, but trample is green’s evasive mechanic and it always has the biggest creatures around. It looked hopeless, until…
Mass creature removal. Green absolutely HATES fliers (I envision green as a short buff dude with a height complex) so it has its Hurricanes and the like, but other than that it can’t really deal with swarms of creatures. As a whole, green cares a lot about creatures, but that comes back to bite it in this case. Single creatures are easily dealt with by fight cards, but taking on the whole board? Doesn’t stop green in the slightest.
Ezuri’s Predation is expensive but by far the most efficient card in this category. You now have an army of Hulks to take on whatever the board may throw at it and while your opponents may have a few creatures hanging on, you now have your remaining 4/4s to deal with them. Setessan Tactics is a bit more versatile, giving up your army for a cheaper cost (depending on your board) and the option for smaller creatures to take down a big one.
Speaking of dumping mana into something, Polukranos, World Eater happens to be a thing. It pumps itself then takes on the board with enough power and toughness to be a one-hydra army. (It just goes to show that the saying “Give me enough mana and a hydra to dump it into, and it shall swallow the world” is true. That’s…how the saying goes, right?) As of this writing, Apex Altisaur has not yet been released in its set. It’s expensive (I’m sensing a trend here…), but a 10/10 that fights when it’s damaged has enough power and toughness to wipe out a small board, at least.
Overall rating: 1/10. These board wipes, while efficient in what they do, just don’t come out early enough, are too expensive, or do anything when you have an empty board. Ezuri’s Predation is probably the best one (4/10) because it matches the board and may leave blockers, but at 8 mana is just a little too late to call it good.
It’s been a wonderful time writing this, so on to the next topic! It’s likely I’ll do these in series because I like connecting themes, but we shall see.
Until next time, everyone! Have a good whatever!
