Standard: Mono-Green Budget and How to Upgrade it

Today we are going to talk about the deck that has been the most used in Standard tournaments, Mono Green Aggro, but it will be a little different from other articles because here I will show you a budget version of the deck and how to transform it into the standard version, which is a rare card tribal.

For those just starting to play Magic Arena, we know how strange the game's economy is and building the best Standard decks takes some work. The article will make a kind of craft guide from the budget list to the stock version of the most popular deck in the format.

First, let's see what the final list should look like. Some slots will suit the player's taste, especially the curve-topper with Wrenn and Seven and Battle Mammoth, but the base of the deck is well consolidated and somewhat rigid to change because we need the dorks to maximize the times we cast Esika's Chariot on turn 3, this being the best card in the deck and one of the best in the format.

On the budget list, we run only six rare cards from the deck's core, with just a few copies of them.

"And where should I start to craft the rare and mythic rare cards to improve it?" you might ask.

To optimize the Wildcard use on Arena, keep in mind that the deck needs 4 copies of four base cards:

In the budget version we don't run Mammoth, but it is essential for its versatility of being able to be a land when we need it or a 3/3 creature that can be 5/5, putting a lot of pressure on the board. I put Tangled Florahedron // Tangled Vale in place because it's a creature/land that can ramp Chariot or make Contortionist Troupe bigger, but the deck loses a lot with this change.

Starting from the budget list, I would start crafting the 2 remaining Chariots because that's basically what makes the deck so good. Next, the 4/4 troll, the 3/3 wolf and the Mammoth seem to be the best options. Although Ranger Class is an excellent card against the format's grindy decks, we are living in a very aggro environment, making the card a little worse, but I think it comes right after Mammoth to spend the rare wildcards because it's a matter of metagaming to switch to using 4 copies instead of 2.

The cards I consider less essential to craft are Battle Mammoth, Wrenn and Seven and Tovolar's Huntmaster because they are curve toppers that obviously help a lot in the game, but are flexible slots about which card is the best

Another essential card is Inscription of Abundance. The card does a bit of everything, and that's what makes it so strong in this metagame. The problem is that, despite being part of the deck's core, I don't consider it as important as the other rare creatures mentioned. I wouldn't give much priority to spending wilds on 3 or 4 copies of this instant spell because it can play without it, although the deck gets worse with substitutions like Choose Your Weapon and Struggle for Skemfar that nowhere near do the same thing, but end up being useful in certain matchups.

As for the two lands, Lair of the Hydra and Faceless Haven, they are good and rare lands are always what we call safe craft because they play a lot until they rotate. I often tell people who come to ask me that it's best to craft all lands before the deck's bombs, but spending time playing with 1 Faceless Haven isn't that much of a problem since it's a monocolor aggressive deck. The absence of more manlands takes away another attacka angle, and so I left a copy of Faceless Haven. If you prefer, it can be a copy of Hydra, but I prefer Faceless because it costs less to activate and synergizes with Spirit of the Aldergard.

If this deck had 2 or more colors, the ideal would be to craft all the rare lands before the spells because it's no use having the spells in your hand and being stuck because you are missing some color or playing common dual lands that always enter tapped and delay the game. For this and other reasons I don't intend to come close to making an Izzet Turns or Dragons budget deck, it's practically impossible to make a deck with 2 or more colors playable as budget as I did with Mono Green.

Going back to the article's deck, I consider Lotus Cobra and Primal Adversary the most superfluous cards to spend your wildcards on. Lotus Cobra is a good card that plays the role of ramp well, but other cards manages to do this role in a satisfactory way. As for Innistrad's wolf, some lists either don't use or generally use 1 copy, so it's a card that suits the player's taste. It's good when we can activate its ability 2 or 3 times on late game or a 4 mana 4/3 trample, but it's not as essential for the deck as the other cards.

By the time the article is finalized, on October 30th, I haven't seen any good cards from Innistrad: Crimson Vow for Mono Green, but most likely the deck will remain tier 1 simply because its current shell is extremely powerful and synergistic.

That's it for today, I hope this budget list and the “guide” on how to evolve the deck will help new players in Magic Arena. Any questions, comments or feedback I'm available in the comments below.