Apocalypse Limited Review: Green Gary Wise This is the fourth installment of my series reviewing the cards in Apocalypse. You can find the first three installments here. GREEN Is it true? Can it be? Has the draft cycle come where green is the most important color? For nine months, we've been complaining about how weak green was made, with common slots filled with cards that enabled you to find the mana needed for nongreen spells. We complained about how there wasn't enough fat in the set, and we complained when Planeshift was released and we realized the green equivalents of Magma Burst and Flametongue Kavu were Thornscape Familiar and Alpha Kavu, and rightly so: green pretty much sucked. Now, the Jamie Wakefields of the world are poised for revenge: their time is at hand. Where others laughed when seeing common slots filled by Harrows and Fertile Grounds before, now they cower, knowing those cards will mean the green player will take their cards too. No one is safe, and every card is the green mage's for the taking. In the end, it's neither good nor evil that prevails in this saga: it's nature. Five-color green is obviously one of the most popular archetypes in Invasion Limited, but that's not the color's only use. There are a number of great cards that make a player want to play come combination of green, blue and black, or in the case of Savage Gorillas, all three. When drafting green, understand that five-color is an option, but don't force it too hard: if it comes, it comes, and if not there's a good three-color deck waiting. Commons Ana Disciple there are three strong Disciple abilities and this little guy has two of them, meaning that if you can muster the mana for both, this is a very solid card. I think I've established by now that as a result of gating, good 1 and 2 casting cost creatures are a commodity, but this is more than a warm body to bounce. The black ability is capable of reducing an entire offence to nothing or forcing your fat creature through opposing ranks, and when you find other ways to defend yourself, the blue ability makes your 4/4s fly. Not too shabby. A 5th - 7th pick. Bog Gnarr 2/2 for 5? Come on guys. If this had been made 3/3, it would have some serious potential. As it is, the Gnarr has serious combo potential with Cavern Harpy or Lava Zombie, but those cards stand on their own merits: this one doesn't. A 12th - 14th pick. Glade Gnarr This guy isn't quite as inadequate as its Bog brother. At 4/4 for 6 mana, the Gnarr is not that great a deal, but at least it provides a solid size body for its hefty mana investment. Again, strong with blue gaters, the Gnarr also combines pretty well with a card like Traveler's Cloak, and the possibility of casting Shimmering Wings three times and attacking is kind of cool. A 7th - 9th pick. Lay of the Land This isn't the most powerful card in the set, but it is my favorite. Lay of the Land is a basic land of your choice that thins out your deck, meaning that after you casting it to get your one swamp or one island, you can cast the black or blue spells you're more likely to draw. When building your green-heavy decks, be sure to put a lot of forests in so you can cast the Lay, and remove one non-forest from your deck for this sorcery. Trust me on this one, you'll thank me later. A 2nd - 8th pick, because in 5-color green, you MUST have mana diversification. Penumbra Bobcat Thank god this little fella' wasn't included in the last two sets; he would have changed the entire environment. The Bobcat is very good as is, but back when Invasion draft was all about bears, this thing would have been insane. The Bobcat is the incarnation of card advantage, working especially well with board-clearing effects like Rout and Breath of Darigaaz. In a set full of hard-to-cast cards, this easy one is a breath of fresh air. A 4th - 6th pick. Savage. Savage Gorilla Oh, does the blue-black-green mage love this card! Not only does it produce huge card advantage, wither taking two or three opposing cards with it, but unless you're playing all three colors, it's bad, so it doesn't get drafted too much. Worth splashing in the blue-black deck, the Gorilla has instantaneously become one of the staples of the archetype. A 2nd - 4th pick, but you may be able to long range it. Strength of Night I can't believe you to pay mana for the kicker on this thing, considering how much it already costs. Three mana is a lot to pay here, though it is refreshing to have a creature pumper that gets around opposing Flagbearers. I generally won't run the Strength, but I did recently learn the hard way it can be solid with a mass token generator like Aether Mutation. An 11th -13th pick. Tranquil Path Well, Tranquility is a card that only gets played when you have no other way to kill important enchantments, and the Path seems to fit into a similar mode, though it is a bit better. That the card is a cantrip is a nice bonus, allowing you to 'cycle' it for just five mana, but really, in a format where you'll likely be playing enchantments of your own, it will serve as a rarely used sideboard card. A 9th - 11th Urborg Elf I like this card a lot, much more than the Quirion Elves. With the Gorilla already suggesting you lean towards this three-color combination, the Urborg Elf makes it really easy to do. The diversification it provides along with the obvious acceleration makes this a very strong addition to a format where the number of bears have dwindled while the number of fatties have increased. A 5th - 7th pick. Uncommons Ana Sanctuary Another card with strong three-color aspirations, the Sanctuary is a little difficult in that it's only going to be really strong in a base blue-black deck, inspiring the question of whether it's worth splashing. Obviously its ability is very powerful, so the question is going to be answered by the caliber of the cards in your deck. Careful not to play this against opposing Flagbearers though: things can get pretty ugly. A 5th - 7th pick. Gaea's Balance This card is a big disappointment to me. When I first saw Gaea's Balance, I thought 'super-Harrow,' but it just isn't so. The Balance has a lot of drawbacks, and only accelerates your mana when it is too late. Maybe if you're desperate enough for mana diversification you can use it, but really, if you get to that point, you aren't in good shape anyway. A 10th -12th pick. Kavu Howler In a set that doesn't have much in terms of common fat, the Howler is a 4/5 with a tremendous upside. That one extra point of toughness it has over Glade Gnarr is a big deal in an environment with cards like Flametongue Kavu and Prophetic Bolt, and the potential to net a couple of extra Kavus out of this six mana deal makes for a very solid card. A 4th - 6th pick. Penumbra Kavu Green's best uncommon, the Kavu is a very solid card in that its ability is inherent card advantage while its casting cost is easy. For 4 ManaGreen Mana, the Kavu is easily splashable, and while it may not have the sweeping effect of the common splash variety, in this format where you'll almost always play a third color any ways, this isn't a bad third color card. A 2nd - 4th pick. Sylvan Messenger 2/2 Tramplers, while not exactly common, don't really accomplish much, especially for four mana. When you consider that the elves of this set are all two-drops that are devalued by the time you can cast the Messenger, this thing doesn't do you a lot of good. A 10th- 12th pick. Rares Anavolver Well this guy is obviously just insane. Whether it's an easy-to-cast 3/3, a 5/5 flyer and 4/4 regenerator or all of the above at 6/6, this Volver, while second to its red cousin in power is the most consistent of the set. If you're playing all three colors, there really isn't anything you should be taking over this little guy: he's vicious, efficient and quick. A 1st pick. Kavu Mauler Well, this guy is a bit of an offensive machine. Close in power to the Howler, in the end it's the trample that helps it win out. Simply, it's really difficult to stop a 5/5 or 6/6 trampler, and if that trampler hits for more than a turn, you're pretty unlikely to lose. A 3rd - 5th pick. Penumbra Wurm Well, I hate seven mana cards because of the amount of time they spend gumming up your hand, but as far as they go, this one's great. Simply, if they do have a way to deal with your first 6/6, more often than not they won't be able to deal with its replacement. I've seen a lot of these get Shackled or Manacled, and those are the best ways to cope, but if they don't have one or the other, they're in trouble. A 2nd - 4th pick. Symbiotic Deployment This is an interesting card that doesn't suit Limited play. Never give up your draw step unless the reason starts with 'N' and ends with 'ecroprotence'. A 12th - 14th pick.