A while back, I found this post from Music City Old School about mono-green budget weenie deck and was enamored with it. It runs a bunch of cheap, efficient creatures and a full set of Winter Orb to lock out the opponent while constantly having threats to drop. I played it a handful of times with my usual group as it was and then started tweaking it to my personal liking. I was pleasantly surprised when I returned to the article to see the update about removing a bunch of stuff and adding in a load of wolves. Be still, my beating heart! I’d made very similar changes once I realized that the old green wolves worked very well in the deck. I tried to get Aspect of Wolf to fit as well, but it just doesn’t work very well.
Since I played it a bunch of times, I realized that I wanted more wolves. Sadly there aren’t any other green wolves, and Master of the Hunt‘s mana cost for making hounds (with Banding!) is a nonbo with the Orbs, so I had to look elsewhere. My changes have made it much less of a budget deck, which I’m somewhat saddened by because I have a deep love of inclusive decks that can entice newbies into the format. On the plus side, the changes I’ve made were all with cards I already owned, so didn’t cost me anything. I’ve yet to test this version out, and I’m a bit worried about the mana base, but I think that it will still work out. I know that splashing in white for Disenchant and Swords to Plowshares is very cliché, but if I’m already in white for Tundra Wolves, I might as well ditch Crumble for better removal.
Having a second Berserk really helps me want to play this deck more as it’s effective as both a beater and removal in an emergency. I can’t wait to use Timber Wolves and banding shenanigans with it. I know that Tundra Wolves aren’t as powerful as Elvish Archers, but they aren’t canines, and their cmc is twice that of the former! This deck still has a very low curve, topping out at 2 cmc, so shouldn’t have problems casting spells whenever necessary, even with an Orb in play, while also running 25 creatures.
There are two minor changes that I’m thinking about making, but am unsure of what to remove to get there. The first is to run a second Ankh of Mishra to further punish my opponents for wanting to play lands. As a singleton, it’s probably not worth it and could be swapped out to make room for the second change. I think that this deck screams for some card advantage, most likely in the form of Land Tax, but possibly a Sylvan Library, although I’m reticent to freely give up life in a deck like this. Side note, it took be far too long to recognize that life is just another resource to manage, and I still have issues with it. Sideboard ideas basically turn it back into something more closely related to the Music City version, since the creatures in the mono-green list have much more utility than “12 wolves” do.
I’m going to play it as is and see how it does for a while. Gw is quite possibly my most comfortable color pairing, and this has a lot of cards that I love, so no doubt that I’ll enjoy playing it, even if it doesn’t perform super well.