We Need To Talk About Green

wickedwitch74

How many of you see Nissa or Garruk pop up as your opponent and think... "I've got this."?

Green, and it's planeswalkers, is the weakest color. With the rotation of "Scour From Existence" it has lost the only tool it had for dealing with creatures directly, making it even more difficult for green to compete.

I believe Green has a similar handicap in paper Magic, but in Puzzle Quest, this appears to be compounded.

Why is this?

For one thing, Green has historically been able to get out the biggest creatures for the least amount of mana. In Puzzle Quest, the developers seem set on the 2/4/6/8 (who do we appreciate?) design for creature power and toughness, based loosely on rarity. (note: this is a loose estimate)

Green has not seen a real advantage in either casting cost or creature size. A quick look at really big creatures through the color pie shows that green isn't really ahead in this department.

Here is a breakdown of rare/mythic creatures with power greater than 7 by color:

Green: 11 (7)
Red: 14 (5)
Black:10 (3)
Blue: 7 (3)
White: 8 (6)

Note: the numbers in parentheses are post-rotation, so things are getting better for green

But most of us won't be able to play with these mythics, so what about the rank and file rares and uncommons.

The going rate for rares seems to be a power/toughness of around 6/6. Green creatures see no preferential treatment or real advantage here. 

If we look at uncommons, particularly creatures that cost 10 or less, with a power of 4 or greater, we see that green once again lags behind red, and isn't very far ahead of the other three colors.

Green: 13
Black: 9
Red: 15
White: 10
Blue: 11

Looking at the creatures available in Puzzle Quest, green appears to have lost it's advantage as king of the creatures. That's a problem.

Another thing is that creatures don't natively block in this game. So... even if I have a bunch of big creatures, my opponent can still attack through them. The other side of the board is a lot less intimidating when I can swing away with impunity. Green has roundabout ways to deal with creatures, like berserk and web-like affects, but they are sub-optimal compared to the aggressively costed removal and bounce that other colors can throw at it.

Which brings me to the last and most damning problem for green. In paper magic, Green has the ability to "go wide". Lots of cheap creatures, or tokens, that can flood the board and overwhelm an opponent.

With Puzzle Quest, the player is bound to three creatures aside on the battlefield. This makes life especially hard for green. Sure, you can reinforce your big creatures, but that makes removal doubly effective, as we now have a 2-1 trade.

Additionally, building a creature-based deck will lead to a bunch of "dead cards" in your hand once you get three creatures out on the board.

I suggest that the designers look at ways for improving green. Some ways I might suggest would be:

1. Keep you standard 2/4/6/8 design, but give green an advantage with a standard 3/5/7/9 scale.
2. Lower the casting cost for green creatures further. "Prowling Serporpard" is a good start.
3. Stop making under-costed bombs for other colors. Gisela at 12 mana blows just about anything green out of the water.
4. Consider opening up a fourth creature slot on the battlefield
5. Bounce and kill spells could remove the reinforcement rather than kill a reinforced creature outright. Until you implement something like this... bounce and removal will always win the 2-1 battle.

Yvendros

green creatures being cheaper could help.  but the mana-ramp comes in the form of green having most (if not all) of the "convert gem to" spells.  I think they reason that with all of those spells, your creatures ARE cheaper.  a concern with cheaper green creatures is that it just means that the green dual planeswalkers get to use them as well.

i think more reach on more large creatures would help.  i don't much care if i don't have any kill spells available, if i can have a 8/8 reach creature out every other turn.

Corn_Noodles

Maybe a better way to go would be to address the mono-green planeswalkers instead of the cards. That way you don't have to worry about unintended effects on the dual color walkers.

wereotter

I've mentioned this elsewhere but they've failed green in other ways too. Green typically has "fight" effects that allow it to take advantage of the larger size of its creatures to take out enemy creatures. The primary spell I can point to which does this in paper magic, Prey Upon, has been printed both in Eldritch Moon and in Aether Revolt, but due to being printed at common rarity, it wasn't included. Green in this game needs the ability to utilize these effects by having one of your creatures deal damage equal to its power to an enemy creature.

The second failing is green's inability to interact with permenant effects placed on creatures. In paper magic green excels at artifact and enchantment destruction. Green has its support removal here, but compared to red, it's sadly over costed, and has a lesser effect. Additionally, too many effects can't be interacted with once applied. Mantle of Webs is an enchantment in paper magic, but a spell here. Green needs the ability to remove that +1/+3 and reach buff from another creature. Similarly Honed Khopesh here is a spell, but is an artifact in paper magic, so green should be able to take away that +2/+2 buff. 

Lastly green normally excels at making its board immune from opponent interference, largely through hexproof effects. However most creatures and effects that have or grant hexproof have been changed and the effect is removed here leaving green just as vulnerable to removal spells as other colors. 

shteev

Yvendros said:

green creatures being cheaper could help.  but the mana-ramp comes in the form of green having most (if not all) of the "convert gem to" spells.  I think they reason that with all of those spells, your creatures ARE cheaper.  a concern with cheaper green creatures is that it just means that the green dual planeswalkers get to use them as well.

IMO some serious thought needs to be put into design of green cards which mono planeswalkers get better use out of than dual planeswalkers. You know, like Corrupted Grafstone.

mixed bag

Glad this has been brought up (again) and I agree with most of the above. Here is what I would like to see:

1. More Reach+Deathtouch even if it was a 1/1 token. It could still be beaten by a first striker or unblockable creature.

2. More Trample+Beserker creatures, all in one card and not having to cast two cards to make them both occur.

3. What happened to Regenerate? If we are only to have max 3 creatures on the board, give green have a slight advantage, considering our mana gains can not dump the entire board with creatures. Undercity Troll is only 1 creature.

Whether these ideas are executed through inherent creatures or spells or even PW abilities it would certainly give mono green its own removal and edge.

wereotter

Regenerate isn't a very common mechanic in paper magic, which probably why it isn't in here. But you do bring up a good point. They have it to Linvala even though she doesn't have it on paper magic.

Green's heavy reliance on creatures means it should have more regenerate and more spells to restore creatures to full toughness. 

cmassive13

wereotter said:

Regenerate isn't a very common mechanic in paper magic, which probably why it isn't in here. But you do bring up a good point. They have it to Linvala even though she doesn't have it on paper magic.

Green's heavy reliance on creatures means it should have more regenerate and more spells to restore creatures to full toughness. 

I'm pretty sure they phased regeneration out of paper magic entirely

also 100% here for making green more competitive in more ways than making mana faster than other walkers

Eglyntine

I don't know, I really think that it depends on how you build the deck combo and the cards you have available. As I have said many times before I have been on the dupe train for a long time but Green is something I get a lot of for some reason. I really love both Nissas and there are a lot of cards that buff your creatures along with the PW abilities. Nissa's Pilgrimage is hands down one of THE best mana producing supports out there. Are that with Nissa 1's abilities for gaining life and mana and buffing. You have a strong base to build on in my opinion.

There are many spells that give your creatures Reach which takes care of both types of creatures. A lot of the creatures have trample already. There are a lot of blockers on green even without casting a reach spell. Green has many options for getting rid of supports.

Overall I think it is pretty lethal if the deck building is solid. It does lack common lifelink and destroy target creature which many ppl are really used to but you just have to build around that. Are you gonna Koth or Nahiri your way through a game? "No." But I rarely come up against Nissa 1 or 2 and think, " This is going to be easy. " Even Garruk can steam roll you if the person has built the right deck. And I don't mean colorless cards, I'm talking the right (mostly if not all) green cards.

As for paper Mtg, Green can be seriously brutal and one of my very favourite colours to play. Just my two cents though. There could always be improvements to Green PWs in this game but they aren't the Short bus players club either.


Edited: I do agree green needs regenerate creatures/spells like paper Mtg and a way to draw more cards without the need of a mythic. Maybe there are more draw cards spells for green and I just don't own them. 

wereotter

cmassive13 said:

wereotter said:

Regenerate isn't a very common mechanic in paper magic, which probably why it isn't in here. But you do bring up a good point. They have it to Linvala even though she doesn't have it on paper magic.

Green's heavy reliance on creatures means it should have more regenerate and more spells to restore creatures to full toughness. 

I'm pretty sure they phased regeneration out of paper magic entirely

also 100% here for making green more competitive in more ways than making mana faster than other walkers

It's not entirely gone since it was in Origins. It's just really rare. 

Phase

Give green more reach for sure. Would be VERY wary of giving green more draw, however. It's an intended weakness of the color for good reason. If you want to make it conditional based on creatures in play (you know, like the ACTUAL Rishkar's Expertise!) then balance it correctly and we can have more things like a stronger Elemental Bond and such. 

Also like paper magic, when green gets too good it is the easiest color to splash into existing successful decks because the mana ramp and fixing makes almost anything better. So I'm OK if green is down a notch if it means all the G/X multicolor planeswalkers aren't overpowered for it.

ElfNeedsFood

I think the creature cost could be offset just by making the mana generation high on the mono green Planeswalkers...  Like a +14 total at lvl 60 or something. Instead they seem to make Red and Red/Blue the big mana gain pws. 

cmassive13

wereotter said:

cmassive13 said:

wereotter said:

Regenerate isn't a very common mechanic in paper magic, which probably why it isn't in here. But you do bring up a good point. They have it to Linvala even though she doesn't have it on paper magic.

Green's heavy reliance on creatures means it should have more regenerate and more spells to restore creatures to full toughness. 

I'm pretty sure they phased regeneration out of paper magic entirely

also 100% here for making green more competitive in more ways than making mana faster than other walkers

It's not entirely gone since it was in Origins. It's just really rare. 

Per Mark Rosewater's blog on September 17, 2016: 

"What I mean is we’re going to stop using Regeneration and on new cards where in the past we used Regeneration we’re going to use “indestructible until end of turn”. Regeneration isn’t changing. Old cards with it will keep working as they always have."

So since origins (almost 2 years ago), they have made a conscious decision to stop using regeneration in paper magic
However, since damage doesn't wear of in this game, it should be used more freely in at least green, maybe black

wereotter

White vigilant creatures could possibly have regenerate occasionally as that's not out of character there too.

I also think cards like Dark Dabbling might be the right way to go. Granted the paper card regenerated the creature and here it restores the creature to full toughness, but I think it's a good way to go. It's unlikely, but they could have done that this time around with Shed Weakness or Hapatra's Mark

Monkeynutts85

Things like Rabid Bite were never introduced to MTGPQ. " creature deals damage equal to its power to another "
gruesome slaughter was brought in for colourless eldrazi, but the green equivalents weren't. I agree Green is weak for removal of any kind. Im having to play Metalwork Colossus to block the damage for example.

mixed bag

There's a difference in paper mtg that regenerate brings the creature back with full stats. In mtgpq, it "restores" the creature's toughness - happy with that. For green, without direct removal beserker/reach/defender would become the only option and regenerate would give green the advantage to remove creatures in line with it's traditional traits.

Monkeynutts85

There is paper removal, wherecreatures fight etc, but it hasn't been translated into MTGPQ. Or the interpretation is different.