Hey guys, long time lurker first time poster here. I'm still pretty new to standard and I'm trying to put together a (moderately) budgeted deck for FNM coming up. I've heard of old miracle grow decks in past rotations and I love the idea so I took a crack at it. I would love to get some advice before I try it out in person, so let me have it
Land: 23 No idea how to distribute. The only dual lands I own are 2 hinterland harbors.
So this deck has been destroying my friends in casual play, but we all know how little that has to do with Standard. The things I'm most concerned with are finding decent drops that can evolve past staticaster. I'm loving staticaster in this deck so far, but there may be better options like Wolfir Avenger or whatever else. I'm also a little heavy on the counterspell side, but I don't really know how else to build. I like having rewind as an option to either Think Twice or throw out a Shambleshark/staticaster after I've countered. Mizzium Mortars should probably go because I cant really pay its Overload cost, I was thinking maybe Clan Defiance? Anyway, all advice is appreciated, thanks!
Welcome to the forum. If you can't afford the mana base, you should probably not run 3 colors. Not trying to be mean, it's just the truth. Evolving Wilds can help, but it only goes so far. Borderland Ranger would be good for fixing as well. For this deck, red is the weak point. Try Cyclonic Rift in place of Mizzium Mortars . It looks like this deck is trying to be 3 or 4 other decks at once, Talrand+flashback/DryadGro/Staticaster without peddler/Evolve, which is bad. You need to find some focus here.
Yea the deck is a little here and there on what it's doing. if you plan on running evolve then your going to need some larger beast as well, right now your getting little use maxin at 2 counters.
you really need to decide on a core thing and build it around it. Nopemx is also right about the mana base, 2 colors your ok without duel lands but 3 without them is going to lead to headaches of having a great hand but lacking the proper sources.
also if your looking to go a +1/+1 counter deck to grow massive beastys I'd say go g/b/u. Corpsejack menace is amazing and the scavenge effect can be a great bonus.
staticaster is also pretty meh without the nightshade peddler combo. Counter spells are great but unless your playing control you shouldn't have many main deck since you should try and keep on curve with your creature drops.
kind of hard to help without knowing just what your wanting to build around tbh.
Like it has been said, you want aome larger creatures in there if you're running evolve stuff. I believe currently that, to run evolve, if you arent running undying creatures, you should run Master Biomancer. If you do want undying, dont run biomancer, but probably Strangleroot Geist and/or Vorapede. Thragtusk and probably Giant Adephage are good too--you have a lot of big creature options in green. That said, using Biomancer with Talrand is a good idea. And yeah, go 2 color for budget. Lands are very important.
Thanks for the responses, guys. I'm pretty sure the deck feels like its trying to do too many things is because it was an abomination created by trying to create a deck around dryad but also being in love with draw-go type strategy. So if I have to pick a strategy I want to play it would be Quirion Dryad above mostly everything else.
I like the base of Cloudfin , Quirion Dryad , Shambleshark to set out a bunch of little creatures early game and let them evolve to keep up with the game while I sit on counterspells or what have you. I would ultimately like to build a shell around those 3 cards as effectively as I can. I don't know if this means I'll have to cut the draw-go strategy entirely or if there is still room to play around with lots of rewind and think twice. If possible I would much rather keep this deck in the control (tempo, ish?) range rather than aggro.
I really like the idea of throwing in Vorapede for late game more so than Biomancer or even Talrand. The synergy with Zameck Guildmage is just too cool to pass up, and the GG cost shouldn't be a problem without red in the mix. Same with Simic Charm since the cost won't be as annoying w/o red.
You can play 3 colors without all the duals, it simply requires you to make other sacrifices.
One of them being that you would HAVE to play 4 farseek, and probably need to play some other forms of mana fixing (not just ramp). That said, I think that you should drop red as in your current deck it provides you with very little. The stuff nopemx said in his first post is definitely solid advice
If you are going to add a larger creature to the deck, I would suggest Master Biomancer. It helps your small creatures remain relevant past the early game without requiring time to grow, and also helps to evolve your creatures.
I also don't like the big Mystic Snake, nor do I like Mystic Retrieval. I think you need more Unsummon effects personally.
(at)MrEnglish22 "still a better Commander card than Emmara Tandris" -On the topic of Squire
