Welcome back to The Puzzle Box!

This week we’re going to be digging into the red and green sections of our cube. Referring to the Gruul clan as elegant is certainly counter-intuitive, if not counter-cultural. But when you break it apart into red and green, and then break those two colors down into what they do at their core, we see they are both elegant. Red takes the shortest path to victory—20-0 ASAP, and all the cards serve a similar purpose. The main one is to attack: the red deck want to deal 20 as fast as possible, not play a defensive game. Simple and elegant. Green is not known for its cleverly elegant cards like blue’s [card]Vendilion Clique[/card], but collectively, green comes together. Green’s main focus is to get mana resources out faster and play bigger guys—that’s it: simple and elegant. When you put red and green together, that is when they get confused: one wants [card]Goblin Guide[/card]s, the other wants [card]Terastadon[/card], and apparently only they know how to fight it out. Silly Gruul.

There are, however, two cards in this list that do not do that which I stated red’s mission to be, and I think one of them deserves some attention: [card]Wildfire[/card]. It is the lone card in this section that does not go along with the plan of 20-0 ASAP. However, it’s worth its lonely existence because it is a deck in itself. Basically how it goes is, first you pick a [card]Wildfire[/card] and then take green ramp cards, mana rocks, and land destruction spells. When you are able to add in its P3K version, [card]Burning of Xyne[/card], it greatly increases the consistency of the deck—it just gets out of hand.  Being able to destroy a board full of creatures and eight lands is just incredible value for six mana.  You’ll also want to keep an eye out for [card]Armageddon[/card] if you end up finding enough mana rocks. The creatures you are looking for in this deck are mana makers and any castable creatures with toughness five or more—this way they don’t get burned up in the fire. The game plan goes as follows: get up to six mana, play your titan or whatever you have that survives the [card]Wildfire[/card], then cast it, hopefully when your opponent has only four lands out. You should ideally be casting [card]Wildfire[/card] on turn four. Then proceed to apply the beats with your [card]Wildfire[/card]-proof creature.

Red is one of the best colors to splash because its removal is so cheap and efficient. This is one of the biggest reasons the mono-red deck does not come together for someone who is trying to draft it. I think it’s worth mentioning that this section only cost $15, because many of the best mono-red cards are common and therefore not expensive. This is very good news for the rest of the cube because we’ll have a little wiggle room in the colorless section. Not only does the colorless section have more cards than the WUBRG section, but its cards are on average more expensive because they can go in every deck.

[deck title= The List According to Type]
[1CC Creatures]
Firedrinker Satyr
Grim Lavamancer
Jackal Pup
Mogg Fanatic
Reckless Waif
Stromkirk Noble
[/1CC Creatures]
[2CC Creatures]
Gore-House Chainwalker
Keldon Marauders
Lightning Mauler
Stormblood Berserker
Torch Fiend
[/2CC Creatures]
[3CC Creatures]
Blistering Firecat
Fire Imp
Keldon Vandals
Manic Vandal
[/3CC Creatures]
[4CC Creatures]
Avalanche Riders
Flametongue Kavu
Hellrider
[/4CC Creatures]
[5CC Creatures]
Siege-Gang Commander
[/5CC Creatures]
[6+CC Creatures]
Inferno Titan
[/6+CC Creatures]
[Planeswalker]
Koth of the Hammer
[/Planeswalker]
[Instant]
Fireblast
Burst Lightning
Lightning Bolt
Incinerate
Magma Jet
Searing Spear
Char
Staggershock
[/Instant]
[Sorcery]
Firebolt
Pyroclasm
Arc Lightning
Pillage
Earthquake
Wildfire
[/Sorcery]
[Enchantment]
Sulfuric Vortex
[/Enchantment]
[/deck]

[deck title= List According to Cost]
[$2-$2.99]
Koth of the Hammer
[/$2-$2.99]
[$1-$1.99]
Blistering Firecat
Grim Lavamancer
[/$1-$1.99]
[$.50-$.99]
Inferno Titan
Siege-Gang Commander
Firedrinker Satyr
Lightning Bolt
Magma Jet
Hellrider
Stromkirk Noble
[/.50-$.99]
[$.25-$.49]
Fireblast
Earthquake
Sulfuric Vortex
Avalanche Riders
[/.25-$.49]
[$.01-$.24]
Incinerate
Jackal Pup
Keldon Vandals
Manic Vandals
Torch Fiend
Char
Reckless Waif
Fire Imp
Firebolt
Stormblood Berserker
Pillage
Lightning Mauler
Mogg Fanatic
Gore-House Chainwaker
Flametounge Kavu
Searing Spear
Burst Lightning
Pyroclasm
Wildfire
Keldon Marauders
Staggershock
Arc Lightning
[/.01-$.24]
[/deck]

Green has a few more options than red, but what it really wants to do is to play [card]Pelakka Wurm[/card] or [card]Terastadon[/card] on turn four or five. Cards like [card]River Boa[/card] are cards that don’t particularly fit inside the core of what this color does, but have a high enough power level on their own to warrant inclusion in smaller lists. Also, finding affordable/powerful green two drops can be a bit difficult. [card]River Boa[/card] ends up being a free win against black decks and provides infinite blockers for when you are setting up the turn when you play your big fatty.

Green is also probably the best midrange color in the cube. It has the beefy cards at three mana which you can normally play on turn two with the help of an elf on turn one. Landing a [card]Troll Ascetic[/card]  and being able to untap with it is one of red’s worst nightmares, because if you just keep your regeneration mana up, the red player is going to have a hard time coming up with profitable attacks for the rest of the game. A green midrange deck will almost always be paired with white, red, and/or black to make up for its lack of removal.

Again, one of the cards to which I would like to bring attention is a new one from the Commander 2013 set: [card]Curse of Predation[/card]. In the late game, one of the best things to do with your irrelevant or top-decked mana elves is to feed them to a [card]Skullclamp[/card] and rip through your deck finding exactly what you need. I cannot tell you how many times I have top-decked an elf with the clamp on the table and proceeded to draw six cards because I just kept pulling all of my elves and clamping them away. The look you get from your opponent across the table is one of pure disgust! If you aren’t so lucky to pick up the clamp, [card]Curse of Predation[/card] does a great job of getting those mana elves back in business. If I have CoP in my deck I am more than happy to play four elves, because I know I’ll usually have one on turn one, and they wont be the worst top-decks later in the game.

Another pet card that I think does not get nearly enough attention in cubes is [card]Kessig Cage Breakers[/card]. When you have this card in your deck, especially if you have a way to go dig it out,  it really changes the way you interact with combat and the game in general. You become more than happy to recklessly push your guys into the combat when it seems like trading is in you opponent’s favor. Or you can feel better about chump blocking with your mana guys because they will create serious value for you later. Combining [card]Skullclamp[/card] with [card]Kessig Cage Breakers[/card] can be absolutely game breaking. I have found that this card is actually better at digging you out of a tough spot than many of the other five-drops we find in the green section.

[deck title= The List According to Type]
[1CC Creatures]
Arbor Elf
Fyndhorn Elves
Joraga Treespeaker
Llanowar Elves
[/1CC Creatures]
[2CC Creatures]
Fauna Shaman
River Boa
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Strangleroot Geist
Wall of Blossoms
Wall of Roots
Wild Mongrel
[/2CC Creatures]
[3CC Creatures]
Eternal Witness
Troll Ascetic
Viridian Shaman
Yavimaya Elder
[/3CC Creatures]
[4CC Creatures]
Blastoderm
Phantom Centaur
Wickerbough Elder
[/4CC Creatures]
[5CC Creatures]
Acidic Slime
Kessig Cagebreakers
Thragtusk
Wolfir Silverheart
[/5CC Creatures]
[6+CC Creatures]
Pelakka Wurm
Terastodon
[/6+CC Creatures]
[Instant]
Worldly Tutor
Naturalize
Beast Within
[/Instant]
[Sorcery]
Firebolt
Farseek
Regrowth
Cultivate
*Kodama’s Reach
*Plow Under
*Green Sun’s Zenith
[/Sorcery]
[Enchantment]
Rancor
Awakening Zone
Curse of Predation
[/Enchantment]
[/deck]

[deck title= List According to Cost]
[$3+]
Green Sun’s Zenith
Fauna Shaman
Worldly Tutor
[/$3+]
[$1-$1.99]
Beast Within
Awakening Zone
Thragtusk
Plow Under
[/$1-$1.99]
[$.50-$.99]
Regrowth
Wall of Blossoms
Joraga Treespeaker
Terastadon
Wolfir Silverheart
Rancor
[/.50-$.99]
[$.25-$.49]
Kodama’s Reach
Troll Ascetic
Cultivate
Yavimaya Elder
[/.25-$.49]
[$.01-$.24]
Strangleroot Geist
Llanowar Elves
Phantom Centaur
Blastoderm
Wild Mongrel
Kessig Cage Breakers
Acidic Slime
Farseek
Viridian Shaman
Arbor Elf
River Boa
Naturalize
Pelakka Wurm
Fyndhorn Elves
Wickerbough Elder
Walls of Roots
[/.01-$.24]
[/deck]

I have had a request for the spreadsheet that I showed in the article on the white section.  Don’t worry, I will get it all together as a string of images in one of my future installments. What I plan to do is make a Google doc in which you can enter the size of the cube you’d like which will scale all of the numbers to that size. It is worth noting that this is not the formula on how to build a cube, it is just a very solid starting point. With this document you’ll be better able to tweak  you archetypes and make your cube just how you and your playgroup likes it. After all, that’s what this is really all about. So look for that spreadsheet soon.

As always, thanks for hangin’.

Andrew