Oh Captain, My Captain!!!

Beast Mode!

Welcome one and all! This is Captain Red Zone coming to you with yet another deck for your viewing delight. I have to be honest with you, I like to think of myself as a Green mage. Green has been one of my favorite colors in Magic. It has the biggest creatures, the best artifact and enchantment hate, the second best card draw, and the fastest mana ramp in town. The only thing Green has problems with is counter magic and creature kill. This is the reason I have always liked green, it hates countering things as much as I do. The creature kill is easy to solve… just play a bigger creature then the other guy. Up until recently, green mages had this part on lock and key. But I have to tell the truth, I’ve played green so much that I couldn’t come up with a deck for this week. So I reached out to a few fellow Green mages and we talked about what to do and it went a little something like this.

Me: Ok guys, this week I have to make a mono-green Commander deck for my readers and I’m coming up blank. I need your help here so where should we go?

Nissa: You can always build an Elf deck.

Me: No one wants to see another one of those.

Nissa: What!? Elves are so cool, and we’re a good choice in every format!

Me: That’s the problem. Why should we play Elves here if we could do the same thing in any other format already?

Sarkhan: What about something with hasty creatures? We could even go with a steal creature theme! Oh and Dragons! Lots and lots of flying 5/5 with firebreathing and raining down fire and…

Me: Woo there buddy! One that sounds more Red then anything green I’ve ever seen and two, who let you in here? I don’t remember calling you?

Garruk: I did… he’s my ride.

Me: Oh, well you should have said that before.

Garruk: Hey, he said he use to do things in green before so I figured why not.

Me: This is going nowhere fast, so let’s get back on topic here.

Nissa: So like I was saying elves are…

Me: Not happening.

Garruk: What about Beasts?

Me: The only Legend they have is Uril and he has a thing for Auras.

Garruk: So, pick a human. Humans make great beastmasters any way.

Sarkhan: And Brimstone and ashes and smoke and boom and…

Me: Ok beasts it is! Just please get those matches away from that guy!

     FIRE!!!

So after and few hours (and a call to the local fire department because of a little incident with a garbage can and some lighter fluid Sarkhan found) we settled on beasts. Garruk pretty much built this deck and just to keep Nissa happy I build a Standard Elves deck.

We sat down and Garruk told me his basic plan. He’s idea was: play Beasts, Ramp into Beasts, Overrun with Beasts, Play More Beasts, draw cards into Beasts,  and in case Beasts are too small... play Wurms.
That was it. I started to think maybe an elf deck wasn’t such a bad idea, but I will never tell Nissa that. Women never let you live that kind of stuff down. So it was on with Plan Garruk or, as I like to think of it as, keep pushing the punch button until you win!

Play Beasts!

Let’s start with our Legend. We need a Commander who can help out our dudes and I have to tell you beast aren’t cheap. So, I picked Azusa, Lost but Seeking.

I picked the one I think is the best for what we need. Low cost, Helps us fix our mana, and the “beauty” to help tame our Beasts. Hey, I needed some way to decide between her and Omnath. So now it’s on to our Beasts.

Fangren Firstborn, Fangren Pathcutter, Krosan Warchief, Paleoloth, Spearbreaker Behemoth, and Rampaging Baloths: These are our beast “lords”, or pack leaders at least. Firstborn passes out +1/+1 counter to our attacking team making our beasts a little bigger then they already are. Pathcutter gives the same team Trample if they don’t already have it, Warchief helps with the cost of these big monsters and is ready to regenerate any beast in need. Paleoloth brings back fallen beast when other bigger one show up. Spearbreaker can give a big enough team Indestructible for the right cost. While Rampaging Baloths pumps out tokens for ever land we drop.

Brontotherium, Feral Throwback, and Venomspout Brackus: These guys help to take care of pesky creatures that refuse to block, attack, or try to fly/evade our guys. Brontotherium and Feral Throwback provoke creatures into fights they don’t want to have while Brackus takes out the fliers for 2 mana.
Canopy Crawler and Glowering Rogon: What’s better then playing a big creature? Playing an even bigger creature! These two and Feral Throwback have Amplify, so for each beast in your hand, they come out a little bigger then their regular size.
Cystbearer, Deepwood Tantiv, Hystrodon, Krosan Cloudscraper,  Plaguemaw Beast, Spinebiter, Thresher Beast, and Ravenous Baloth: These will help change up our battle plans a bit. Cystbearer, Plaguemaw Beast, and Spinebiter bring a infect package making blocking them here a bit of a bad choice while also leading to a chance to posion out a player or two. Deepwood Tantiv  and Ravenous Baloth can gain us a little life while Hystrodon can draw us a few cards. Thresher Beast can get a little LD in there. Krosan Cloudscraper, like a few our other guys, has morph so it can sneak in for a lot of damage your opponents won’t see coming.
Garruk’s Companion, Garruk’s Horde,Garruk’s Packleader, Krakilin, Leatherback Baloth, Obstinate Baloth, Root Greevil, and Terra Stomper: These round out the rest of our beast group. Terra Stomper is our big beast. Companion and Leatherback are our low cost beatsticks. Obstinate brings a little lifegain but is more of a cheap 4/4. Karkilin is as big as we need it to be at any point in the game. Root Greevil is for some enchantment hate. Horde basically is a Future Sight here with this deck being mostly creatures while Packleader brings the draw.
Ramp into Beasts, Draw into Beasts, and Overrun with Beasts!
So now we’re on to the few “Beast Trainers” I added to help keep these creatures under control.
Garruk Wildspeaker and Garruk, Primal Hunter: Who better to keep our beasts under control than the man who came up with the deck?
Argothian Elder, Frontier Guide, Fyndhorn Elder, Elvish Piper, Joraga Treespeaker, Keeper of the Beasts, Seedborn Muse, Totem Speaker, Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger: So I talked this thing out with Nissa and we agreed that a few elves could at least help ramp out our beasts. Agothian Elder, Fyndhorn Elder, and Joraga Treespeaker are walking 2 mana dudes. The Piper can skip around any mana cost we have here. Keeper of the Beasts helps us keep pouring out beast while Totem Speaker makes sure we’re gaining life for each one. Seedborn and Vorinclex are here to double our mana.
Master of the Wild Hunt, Oracle of Mul Daya, and Primeval Titan: The Master of the Wild Hunt is a little slow in this format, but he still provides another creature generator for us. Oracle is here to help Garruk’s Horde with the top of the deck and hey if you need mana, Prime Time is one of the best at what he does.
With that out of the way we move on to ramp…
Mana Reflection, Deconstruct, Explosive Vegetation, Journey of Discovery, Rampant Growth,  and Seek the Horizon: Basically, these are our land search cards. Deconstruct destroys artifacts for free. Mana Reflection gives us extra mana while everything else on this list gets us extra lands to the hand or field.
Now, some card draw…
Collective Unconscious and Harmonize: Draw 3 with Harmonize and Draw X with the Collective Unconscious. This combined with Big Garruk, Garruk’s Packleader, and the various other land search cards should make for a good amount of deck control here.
And of course Overruns…
Overrun, Overwhelm, Overwhelming Stampede, and Triumph of the Hordes: These are our game enders. These all basically say “My Team is even bigger than before, they have trample and/or infect, and you may want to take a moment to kiss your loved ones good-bye.”
In Case of Emergency, Play Wurms!
So here we are at the last point in Garruk’s “Flawless Plan”. If Beasts can’t kill ’em, Wurms will!
Bellowing Tanglewurm, Engulfing Slagwurm, Pelakka Wurm, Penumbra Wurm, Plated Slagwurm, and Symbiotic Wurm: Bellowing Tanglewurm brings Intimidate for our team which in some cases is unblockability. Engulfing Slagwurm brings even more lifegain and some creature removal. Penumbra draws a card and gains life. Penumbra Wurm and Symbiotic Wurm replace themselves when they die. Plated Slagwurm brings a nice size body that can’t be targeted by removal or Pacifism like effects.
I felt we needed a few other things so while Garruk was playing fire chief with Sarkhan I slipped in a few favorites. At least that way I can say I had something to do with this deck.
Desert Twister, Genesis Wave, Pulse of the Tangle, and Savage Conception: Twister is just a way to deal with any permanent. Pulse of the Tangle and Savage Conception are for extra Beast tokens. While Genesis Wave can help fill our board with lots of creatures and lands. This deck has only 15 non permanents so we should be able to ride the wave without worries of missing too much.
While I was going over the deck something seemed a little… off. I couldn’t put my figure on it. Then I look the deck over a few times and it hit me. We’re short one card!
Raking Canopy: A Green Ghostly Prison type card. There. I feel better… What? Stop looking at me like that… Don’t Judge Me!
Out in the Wild!

With 34 Forest, we reach the end of yet another article. Next week we’re headed into… strange waters… really strange… I’m talking cards with borders that aren’t black kinda deal. But the week after that we’re going to start seeing doubles! So go and vote in the new poll to pick which color combination we should start with and I’ll see you next time!

Hope you had fun and please leave any comments or suggestions.  Until next time,

This is your Captain speaking… We’re heading into the Red Zone!