Planeshift Limited Review: Green Gary Wise We've all heard the jokes about green. You know the ones, about how there are really only four colors in Magic, and how the only good Green cards only serve to get you the mana for the other four colors. In straight Invasion Booster and Rochester, Green became the metagame choice, with its polar opposite, UB, being the deck of choice in the early on. To combat the powerful UB decks, people started drafting 'bears,' that is, they took advantage of the large number of 2-casting cost green creatures with a power of two and literally outran their high-powered opposition. Well, for those of you who like drafting the less popular colors in an attempt to corner the market, there's good news: Even fewer people are bound to want green now. Gone with the third pack of Invasion are one third of the bears green drafters have become accustomed to having in their decks. Gone are the more efficient Green fatties and 'Giant Growths.' In their place, we find so-so facsimiles that serve to weaken the green card pool, all the while depriving those 4 and 5 color drafters one pack's worth of efficient mana searchers. One might think this is my secret plan to draft Green in Barcelona, but more realistically, while I won't deny any option, unless I feel like there is no one drafting Forest-based decks aside from yours truly, Green will be my final option. Commons Amphibious Kavu See, this is my point. One of the better green commons in the set, its really hard to get excited about a Grey Ogre. As far as 2/2s for 3 go, though, this one isn't bad, giving most blue decks fits, acting as an unblockable creature until such time that your opponent feels their life points are more important than their creatures. Sure, the Kavu could work well with color changers like Tidal Visionary and Disciple of Kangee, but really, if you're forced to play that caliber of card in two opposing colors, I don't like your chances. Falling Timber The worst of the sac land-kicker cards, Falling Timber is still playable. Not optimal for your main deck, in a matchup where you forsee a lot of mid-combat creature collision, this card can be great, so I recommend it as a strong sideboard card for the green on green mirror match up. Gaea's Might While not quite as good as its Invasion counterparts like Explosive Growth and Wax/Wane, Gaea's Might is close enough that its existence should have you taking Bears over Growths if you haven't been already. Very simply, you'll get your Growths here while the Bears are missing, so don't be afraid to pass the combat tricks until Planeshift. Primal Growth This is the replacement for Fertile Ground and Harrow? If you need, need, need to draft four or five colors and you can't find any of the superior Invasion mana diversifiers then I suppose this will do, but I'd definitely rather cast Exclude, Bog Down or a creature on turn 3. Pygmy Kavu So black gets a low cost, instant speed Dark Banish-like cantrip, and to balance things out, green gets this? One might say that your opponent only needs 1 black creature for this to equal card advantage, but once in play, the Pygmy is so irrelevant that it isn't worth casting for the one card more often than not. Granted, there are a lot of tricks you can do to gain huge card advantage off this little guy, but I'd prefer a 3/3 for 4 against Black. Quirion Explorer Another poor substitute for a similar Invasion card, the Explorer is essentially a Quirion Elf that doesn't always provide the colors you need. Fortunately, as far as mana acceleration goes, the Explorer and the Elf perform at the same level of efficiency, so if you're short on three drops and long on the fatter creatures, don't be afraid to have this guy give you a jump start. Root Greevil Four mana for a 2/3. In White, I could see that being acceptable, but in Green its poor. Again, at times, you'll need the warm body and this will obviously provide, but more often than not, you can do better. A decent sideboard against those decks that are chock full of Hobbles and Armadillo Cloaks, the truth is that if you're playing green, you probably want to be playing that deck. Stone Kavu Finally we come to one of the few redeeming qualities of the green common core in this set. While not quite as good as Serpentine Kavu, the Stone Kavu is good enough to lower the value of its Invasion counterpart. The common run is short enough that one will likely see one of these through the course of a draft, meaning that the obtaining of fat creatures early isn't very important. A solid card in either RG or WG. Thornscape Familiar The best card in this grouping, the Familiar is a definite bright spot. A fast card that makes the rest of your deck faster, the Familiar is a summary of everything green should be about: a constantly rising, accelerated tempo and sheer brute speed. It's very simple: you can't have enough of these. Uncommons Alpha Kavu Deceptively solid, while this card appears to be a Grey Ogre, it instead is actually a license to attack recklessly. Protecting itself as well as its brethren, this Kavu protects from both direct and combat damage, making it one of the better green cards in the set. It'll even allow you to attack with a few of your smaller Kavu into an opposing Merfolk Raider, with damage-on-the-stack rules making it a lot more dangerous than it would have been once upon a time. Mirrorwood Treefolk Okay, once you get this card going, its really strong. The ability to redirect damage is one of the best that a creature can have in Limited play, so R&D has to make it a rare and wonderful thing. That said, this guy's ability is REALLY hard to access. I mean, leaving four mana available would be tough enough, but to require two colors on the opposite end of the spectrum from one another... well, that's tough. Even so, I think that I'd rather just play this over a Root Greevil in my main deck even if I couldn't possibly access the mana for its activation cost. Things can get worse than four mana for four toughness. Multani's Harmony Don't waste your time with this. If you really need it, you need to go back to the drafting basic lands. Skyshroud Blessing Well, the good news is that it's a cantrip for just 2 mana that can easily be cycled. The bad news is that I don't have enough space for all the bad news. Thornscape Battlemage Finally, a Green card I can speak highly about. This guy is great, utilizing its direct damage function to kill ever creatures with protection from red, while using its white function to protect the caster from those few artifacts that do exist in the set. Throw in the fact that Green's gaters are pretty good and you have some great recursion action. If it's good enough to play four in a 60-card deck, its good enough to draft in your forty-card deck. Rares Gaea's Herald Maybe, if your opponent's only creature defense is 3-4 Excludes, you can side this little guy in. Otherwise, draft it for your trade binder. Magnigoth Treefolk The lesser of the two Planeshift Treefolk, the Magnigoth is a costly card that holds off opposing offenses until creature lock has been attained, at which time it can go in for the kill. That theory is good in practice, but simply put, you're paying 5 mana for a power of two, so you'll probably want to stick with the common 5-casting cost types over this one. Nemata, Grove Guardian Probably the best green card in the set, I'd probably take this over Verdeloth, the Ancient, Nemata's Legendary cousin. Where Verdeloth makes you wait, the Grove Guardian can be dropped when you hit 6 mana with the assurance that, should it survive to untap, its ability will make itself available, and your opponent will have two turns at most to take care of it. A real powerhouse, a few decks will prefer the Thornscape Battlemage, but other than that, I don't think you should pick any green card over this one. Planeswalker's Favor The most interesting aspect of this card is that it can pose a threat while not actually being activated. If your opponent has spells in hand, they have to assign blockers as if the Favor is going to activate, meaning that they won't be blocking. Unfortunately, that will only last for around three turns, as by turn 7 or 8, your opponent will likely be sitting without any spells in hand. Too slow for the early game, not useful in the late game, this one is best left to your sideboard. Quirion Dryad Now this is one of my favorite creatures in the set. Attacking more often than not as a 2/2 on turn 3, the Dryad qualifies as a bear with a tremendous upside. Even in just a 2-color deck, you should have 12-13 non-green spells, so this should be 4/4 within a couple of turns. In the three color decks it gets even better, and if you put it together with a gater, you suddenly find yourself pumping the Dryad as high as your mana reserves will permit. A very strong card.