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Commanding Mono-Green Saprolings with Verdeloth the Ancient

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I was on a break from Magic during the year 2000. I'd played before that for quite a while, but I was in college, my gaming had turned to TTRPG (I was playing Werewolf: the Apocolypse and Changeling: the Dreaming for you White Wolf nerds out there - we had a very active group in college), and had no local shop, so I had stopped playing.

But after my exploration of the Commanders of the time, part of me wishes I'd been playing. I can't imagine what it did to the game when people first read the ability Kicker, but I imagine it caused quite a splash. It's powerful, it scales well, and it lets you use cards in multiple ways, so it probably was appealing to just about everyone who played. Casual players like it for options. Competitive players like having cards that can be cast for cheap but remain powerful later in the game. And it gave a lot more utility to any individual card.

Today's commander has a Kicker cost that lets us turn a single mana into a 2/2 Creature, which is a great ability to begin with. But I think we can do more. Let's take a look.

Verdeloth the Ancient

Start with the basics. A 4/7 for six mana is... fine. It's fine. In Mono-Green, these days, it's probably a little under powered, but it's fine. It's a Treefolk anyway, which normally means they have higher toughness, and I like that he can block well.

All Treefolk and Saprolings also get +1/+1, which is a solid effect for sure. A Treefolk Kindred deck is probably a bit thin, and the bonus isn't great for them, but for Saprolings, those little 1/1s, this is a solid upgrade.

Then there's that Kicker cost. We pay x and we get X Saprolings, all of which are immediately boosted up to 2/2. This is a fantastic ability - it makes a great finisher in your stompy deck, because no matter when you draw it you'll get a bunch of utility. Cast it on curve? You get a 4/7. Cast it with more mana? Don't waste it! Make more dudes and have more attackers!

The obvious way to go is with Saproling Kindred, and we are today. However, one goal for these articles on looking back was to apply modern technology to Commanders created before the format even existed. While most Kindred decks build on their strengths, adding more and more of the type to the 'field with ever-increasing abilities and strengths, there's one that doesn't do that: Goblins. My blood boils still just thinking about playing against Krenko, Mob Boss, and the way I was suddenly facing a million little Goblins, all rushing at me with Haste. I thought it might be fun to do that to let my opponent's blood boil. So today, we have Saproling Kindred, Goblin style.


The goal here is specific and single-minded: we are going to play Verdeloth with a giant Kicker cost, then hopefully give all our Saprolings Haste and swing for a million. I couldn't quite get it up to Krenko speeds, but I think this deck will be less oppressive because of it, and it also should be more resilient; yes, getting Wrathed and losing all our tokens will hurt, but it shouldn't be the end of everything, because we'll still have a ton of mana and will be able to do it again!

47 Lands may seem like a lot, and, well, that's because it is. If you've read just about anything by me in the last several years, though, you know I tend to lean into more Lands generally, and in this case, we really want to hit our drops, and we want to keep hitting them. In addition, we're going to take advantage of Green's Land fetch spells, and we don't want to run out of Lands to get. So 47 Lands, 38 of which are Snow-Covered Forests, exclusively for Into the North. If you don't feel like doing the Snow-Covered Land thing, you could easily run a more expensive search spell (I always like Peregrination) and just run basics. We've also got a little utility; with the right luck, Oran-Rief, the Vastwood could pump up a big ol' team of Saprolings. War Room is great and I need to remember to order more copies. Rogue's Passage is probably silly but you never know. And Blighted Woodland and Myriad Landscape both ramp from a Land slot, which is always useful.

In addition, we have a bunch of ways to accelerate. While I normally like to go with just ways to get Lands in Green, in this case we're more interested in explosive acceleration, so we're leaning into cheap instead. We have some one-mana dorks like Llanowar Elves, we've got some Auras like Wild Growth, we've got some Land fetch like Nature's Lore and Kodama's Reach, Heartbeat of Spring and Mana Reflection to double up, and even a Sol Ring because it's just so efficient. Pay particular attention to Circle of Dreams Druid, which can be very powerful, especially when you combine it with Life and Limb - in play-testing I tapped it for 21 mana on turn seven!

A few ways to refill our Hand like Regal Force and Skullmulcher do a nice job of making sure we can get some extra cards. Harmonize and Shamanic Revelation both help too. And Skullclamp is a shoo-in for any deck making this many tokens, because as you'll see, Verdeloth isn't the only way we have. Heck, Khalni Garden makes a little dude that Skullclamp turns into two cards. That's worth it right there.

So, the goal is to get to a bunch of mana, then cast Verdeloth and make a ton of Saprolings way before we should be able to. We win by attacking with those Saprolings. We're not going to give them Trample or Flying or anything, because the hope is we make so many it won't matter and we can get around any defenses. However, we do want to - if at all possible - give them Haste, so we can attack the turn they come down. We have two ways to do that: Concordant Crossroads and Crashing Drawbridge.

Both of these cards are cheap to cast and will allow us to give the entire team Haste. This is powerful, but it's also really expensive - Concordant Crossroads is really pricey. If you don't feel like doing that, that's just fine; skip it. The deck will be slightly less threatening but still fun; basically, if they can't wipe the board before your next turn, they'll probably die!

A second way to surprise our opponents is to cast Verdeloth with Flash. Doing that allows us to cast it at the end of turn, right before we untap; that makes all our Creatures able to attack on our next attack phase, and doesn't allow our opponents to have a main phase in which to blow up the board. Yeva, Nature's Herald and Vivien, Champion of the Wilds both allow us to cast Verdeloth whenever we want. Extra options are always good.

We have a few more fun things. Craterhoof Behemoth is an obvious choice here, but again, if price is an issue, Overwhelming Stampede or Overrun will do great in that slot. Same with Finale of Devastation. We have a few things like Nemata, Grove Guardian, who either help us make Saprolings or do something else with them. The goal here really is to make a whole lot of Saprolings all at once, so if you think you can squeeze out a bit more mana by waiting a turn or two, it's nice to have something to do, and making extra Saprolings is a good way to spend that mana and time.

Do be careful with Life and Limb. That thing turns all your Lands into Creatures - which means if someone casts Wrath of God, all your Lands will die. That said, the reward from the risk - drawing a lot more cards off Collective Unconscious, making a bunch more mana off Circle of Dreams Druid, or just casting it the turn after you cast Verdeloth, adding most of your Lands to your Saproling attack count, all make the risk of losing your Lands worth it.

You can always spend more money on a deck if you want, but I don't know why you would. This sort of thing is a fun deck to have in a stable - high risk, high reward, some cool and fun interactions. But I don't think I'd want to trick it out. It's more for the cool, vintage feel with the old Commander and the funky approach, trying to do the Krenko Goblin thing with Mono-Green. If anything, I'd probably start building this with none of the really expensive pieces, instead doing a budget version and just having a blast whacking at people with your Saprolings that explode all over the board.

Thanks for reading.

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