In a weird twist, two of the most important cards ever printed for beast tribal decks are not beasts themselves, but elves. Advocate of the Beast and Wirewood Savage are both 3-drop creatures that I've attempted to build around many times. Each time, though, I've felt that the end product was not quite up to par compared to my other casual lists. However, as time moves forward, new cards get printed and, eventually, even something as innocuous as Mono-Green beasts deserves a second look. Phyrexia: All Will Be One brought with it two such cards that both populate today's list. Forget everything Disney taught you. Today, there is no beauty, just beast!

Mono-Green Beasts | Casual | James Heslip

• Creatures (33)
• 2 Gemrazer
• 3 Contagious Vorrac
• 4 Advocate of the Beast
• 4 Armored Scrapgorger
• 4 Gnarlid Colony
• 4 Herd Baloth
• 4 Krosan Warchief
• 4 Swarm Shambler
• 4 Wirewood Savage

• Instants (3)
• 3 Vastwood Fortification // Vastwood Thicket

• Sorceries (3)
• 3 Smell Fear

• Lands (21)
• 19 Forest
• 2 Oran-Rief, the Vastwood

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Cost: $13 at the time of publication

The Core

The Backup

On the back of Advocate and Baloth, a light +1/+1 counter theme emerges within the strategy. While this is meant to support Baloth's token production as much as possible, it's not without its other uses. Swarm Shambler, as an example, is much better when backed up with other +1/+1 counter support. Since its triggered ability becomes much more relevant, it forces the opponent to second guess any sort of creature-targeting interaction they might have up their sleeve. The ability to self-grow is also nice. Gnarlid Colony can also place counters on itself, but is mostly included for its second ability, which provides trample to any creature you control that has a +1/+1 counter on it. This effectively makes Advocate of the Beast a trample distributor as well as a power and toughness booster. Finally, Vastwood Fortification // Vastwood Thicket serves double duty as a land or +1/+1 counter, whichever we need at the time.

Proliferate is another means with which we can distribute counters, and as mentioned before, Phyrexia: All Will Be One came with plenty of proliferate benefactors and beneficiaries. Armored Scrapgorger gave the beast archetype some much needed on-theme mana ramp that also happens to benefit greatly from proliferate. Sure, we can use the built-in graveyard hate (which in and of itself is wonderful) to grow its counters naturally, but artificially growing them through proliferation grows the Phyrexian Beast into a threat much sooner. Contagious Vorrac also helps improve our mana count while simultaneously boosting Scrapgorger and anything else that has a counter on it. On the interaction side of things, Smell Fear has the potential to kill off enemy threats while also proliferating oil and +1/+1 counters.

Krosan Warchief is yet another immensely important 3-drop in the deck. Reducing the casting cost of almost every creature in the list is a powerful ability made even more powerful when considering the implications it has with Wirewood Savage. The chief's ability to regenerate any beast on the brink of death is arguably even better, since it provides much-needed protection for key threats like Herd Baloth.

Tips and Tricks

• Contagious Vorrac's card selection ability does not require you to find a land from the cards it reveals to you. If you're happy with your land count and would much rather use it for the proliferation effect, you always have that choice. This makes it much more relevant in the late game after Advocate has spread some counters around.
• Vastwood Fortification // Vastwood Thicket is the deck's only means of adding counters to Baloth at instant speed. This makes for some great combat tricks, since you can create a 4/4 blocker seemingly out of nowhere. In fringe situations, you can also use it to save a creature from lethal damage from a burn spell or something similar.
• Though it is very important for Gemrazer to be included as a means of interacting with opposing artifacts and enchantments, I am sad to say that mutating does not trigger enters-the-battlefield effects. So, Savage will not net you an extra card if it or any of its peers happen to mutate.
• Armored Scrapgorger's graveyard hate ability triggers when it taps, not just when it makes mana. So don't forget to eat opposing cards when it attacks, too!

Additional Options | James Heslip

• Creatures (37)
• 1 Affectionate Indrik
• 1 Arborback Stomper
• 1 Arboreal Grazer
• 1 Baloth Pup
• 1 Berserk Murlodont
• 1 Bloated Contaminator
• 1 Cragplate Baloth
• 1 Druid of Horns
• 1 Elvish Mystic
• 1 Fangren Firstborn
• 1 Garruk's Harbinger
• 1 Garruk's Horde
• 1 Garruk's Packleader
• 1 Gnarlid Pack
• 1 Herd Baloth
• 1 Hunting Moa
• 1 Indrik Stomphowler
• 1 Ivy Lane Denizen
• 1 Kalonian Tusker
• 1 Krosan Tusker
• 1 Kurgadon
• 1 Llanowar Elves
• 1 Lovestruck Beast
• 1 Mold Shambler
• 1 Nessian Game Warden
• 1 Obstinate Baloth
• 1 Perennial Behemoth
• 1 Pollenbright Druid
• 1 Ravenous Baloth
• 1 Renegade Krasis
• 1 Ridgescale Tusker
• 1 Roaring Primadox
• 1 Slaughterhorn
• 1 Snarling Undorak
• 1 Sylvan Brushstrider
• 1 Thragtusk
• 1 Totem Speaker

• Instants (2)
• 1 Snakeskin Veil
• 1 Vitality Charm

• Sorceries (3)
• 1 Adventurous Impulse
• 1 Thirsting Roots
• 1 Unnatural Restoration

• Enchantments (3)
• 1 Dormant Grove
• 1 Ranger Class
• 1 Retreat to Kazandu

• Lands (1)
• 1 Cave of Temptation

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As it sits, this deck can be a little slow to get going. Scrapgorger's printing helped, but we're still dangerously low on playable low-CMC cards. Adventurous Impulse was in the deck for most of my time with it, and I only recently replaced it with Vastwood Fortification // Vastwood Thicket. The early card selection was nice, and so was the ability to dig for either piece of the Advocate/Baloth combo. If while playing you feel you are not doing enough in the early turns of the game, give the sorcery a shot.

Ranger Class was considered as a means of spreading counters and, eventually, generating more card advantage. I didn't like the idea of being forced to attack with Baloth in order to trigger it, though. I left it out, but you might find the benefits outweigh the risks.

If it weren't slightly more expensive than I was comfortable with, I would have certainly made room for Bloated Contaminator. It's pretty much everything the deck wants, and I would easily replace Contagious Vorrac for it.

Finally, there's Ivy Lane Denizen. While not a beast, it's incredibly powerful in the deck since it creates an infinite combo with Baloth. I decided to not include the elf in today's list because I find infinite combos tend to negatively impact the fun of casual games. It's also why I tend to not build or play with combo decks in a casual environment in general. That being said, it's a powerful combo and you might find that your playgroup doesn't mind the "I win" button as much as other groups might.