Mono-Green Showcase: The POWER Of Creatures

Mono-Green is a color that primarily focuses on creatures. Despite seemingly being more narrow in options compared to other colors, there is a lot of variety in Mono-Green. Although it’s creature-focused, you can go in a variety of directions. In this Mono-Green Showcase, we’ll go over six different decks, each fitting into two distinct archetypes. Looking for your next deck? Look no further than here if you want to dabble in Mono-Green builds.

Mono-Green Showcase: Tribal Decks

The decks in this section of the Mono-Green Showcase will be ones built around one specific creature type. These decks have big synergies within their own type. The two decks gone over here will look over lesser-played archetypes, so don’t expect to see a generic Elf deck here! Instead, see some of the more niche creature types available in Mono-Green, but they are just as powerful!

Fangorn, Tree Shepherd (Treefolk)

For a Treefolk commander, Fangorn, Tree Shepherd is the go-to when it comes to Mono-Green. It makes all your Treefolk creatures into mana generators. This is very helpful, as Treefolk tend to have high casting costs. The excess mana can bring out Shriekwood Devourer and Kalonian Twingrove, which can help you to push your advantage state further since they’ll make mana too.

There are a lot of different Treefolk in the deck. Dauntless Dourbark can become one of your strongest while also giving itself trample. With how expensive some Treefolk can be, Bosk Banneret discounts them all (and your Shamans). You may be able to cast a Treefolk for free with Leaf-Crowned Elder. Timber Protector gives all your Treefolk indestructible to make them much harder to remove.

A trait of Treefolk is a lot of them care about the number of Forests you control. So, there are a lot of ramp cards, including Skyshroud Claim, Kodama's Reach, Shared Roots, and Cultivate. The more lands you can gather on the battlefield, the better.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. As with most Tribal decks, creatures make up the majority of the deck.

If you’re interested in Fangorn because you’re a Lord of the Rings fan, then you can see more Lord of the Rings commanders in our Lord of the Rings Showcase.

Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro (Shaman)

When you think of a Tribal deck, the Shaman creature type isn’t one that often comes to mind. However, Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro is a fantastic commander for that archetype. It turns all your Shamans into powerful mana dorks that help you to ramp quickly. Utility Shaman cards like Eternal Witness and Yeva, Nature's Herald can be used to generate mana on top of their original effects.

The deck can generate a ton of mana. It’s more of a Ramp deck than a traditional Tribal deck. There are a lot of great spells to dump mana into. Vitalizing Wind can be used for a win condition, as can dumping mana into Helix Pinnacle. You can use Gigantomancer as a way to make your creatures giants. Coat of Arms and Door of Destinies both help to close out games quicker with massive stat boosts.

There are various cards that care about the number of tapped creatures you control. Harvest Season helps you to ramp quickly, dumping a bunch of basic lands onto the battlefield. If you have a lot of creatures, Throne of the God-Pharaoh has the potential to deal a bunch of burn damage (sometimes, enough to take everyone out). A way to bring out a bunch of creatures is with Crash the Party. Since it’s an instant, you can surprise opponents with an army of Rhino tokens.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. You drop a ton of Shamans onto the battlefield, make a bunch of mana, and cast a ton of spells.

Mono-Green Showcase: Voltron

For this section of the Mono-Green Showcase, we’ll be looking at a few Voltron decks. These decks are ones built around stacking up a ton of power onto your commander itself with Auras and Equipment. They win the game quickly through commander damage and a variety of effects to make the 21 damage threshold easy to break through. Luckily, Mono-Green has a ton of powerful effects to boost up the stats of your creatures quickly and efficiently.

Want a deeper dive into Voltron as an archetype? You can read our full overview of Voltron to learn all the ins and outs of it.

Omnath, Locus of Mana

Omnath, Locus of Mana is a unique Voltron commander where you want to make Green mana, but never actually use it. The more mana you have in your mana pool, the stronger your commander is. So, cards that make a lot of mana are perfect for the deck. Nyx Lotus can create a ton, and Doubling Cube can put even more mana into your mana pool.

Tanuki Transplanter is one of the best Equipment for the deck, as it creates more Green mana for you to put into your pool. Your commander is likely to have a high toughness, so Arbor Adherent is very useful too. Another useful mana dork is Fanatic of Rhonas, which can consistently make a ton of mana every turn. Unlike other Voltron decks, a lot of your stat boosts come from just making mana instead of only Auras and Equipment.

One downside of Omnath, Locus of Mana is that if it gets removed, you lose all the mana you had stacked up. So, protecting him is very important. Bear Umbra gives it a layer of defense, so it’s harder to remove it. Darksteel Plate gives it indestructible, and Whispersilk Cloak makes it both unblockable and gives shroud to make it impossible to target.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. Most of the creatures are mana dorks of some kind, along with more ramp than average to pump up Omnath, Locus of Mana‘s stats.

Wilson, Refined Grizzly / Raised by Giants

This partner pairing goes hand in hand. comes with multiple good keyword abilities, and Raised by Giants makes the base power 10/10. Admittedly, you often don’t need to cast Raised by Giants, but if you do, you’ll usually be winning the game. It does force removal, as if it’s unanswered, 10/10 plus all the other stat boosts is enough to take someone out of the game with one swing.

Since you’re in Mono-Green, you’ll have a lot of Forests. This makes it so Staff of Titania provides a giant stat boost, while also creating more Forests in the form of Dryad tokens. Belt of Giant Strength acts as a secondary background as another way to give a creature a 10/10 base statline. To guarantee you can close out games, Genji Glove gives both double strike and an extra combat to easily reach the 21 commander damage needed.

You do cast a good bit of enchantments, which can turn into draw power. Both Eidolon of Blossoms and Verduran Enchantress are creatures that draw you cards when playing enchantments. For more draw power, Colossal Majesty will almost always trigger, as does Level Up once your commander has a few counters on it.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. There are a ton of Auras and Equipment in the deck to really make Wilson, Refined Grizzly the scariest Bear anyone has ever seen.

Mono-Green Showcase: Specific Creatures

For the last decks in this Mono-Green Showcase, we’ll look at ones that are built around a specific subset of creatures. They aren’t quite Tribal decks, but are decks that care about a specific type of creature as opposed to literal creature types. These decks are less restricted than Tribal decks, while playing a similar style to them. The two decks we’ll go over here are a bit “generic” when it comes to the creatures, but can do a whole lot when paired together.

Casal, Lurkwood Pathfinder / Doric, Nature’s Warden

Originally released as Doric, Nature’s Warden as a tie-in card to the Dungeons & Dragons movie, Casal, Lurkwood Pathfinder is a great commander to lead a Mono-Green Legendary matters deck. You are always transforming it if you can, giving legendary creatures constant stat boosts. Some other helpful cards to boost up legendary creatures include Master's Guidance and Heroes' Podium to give your creatures massive stats.

There are plenty of amazing Green legendary creatures to choose from. Eladamri, Korvecdal can cheat around mana costs and put creatures onto the battlefield directly. Saryth, the Viper's Fang makes your creatures into threatening attackers by giving them deathtouch when attacking since they tapped, and protecting them with hexproof when not. You can double the stats of all your creatures with Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus to make winning combats that much easier. It triggers every combat, so you’ll rarely find yourself defenseless.

This deck is heavily combat-focused, so you want ways to ensure you’re dealing a ton of damage. Cards that give your creatures trample are fantastic, such as Garruk's Uprising and Surrak and Goreclaw, both having other great utility effects as well. You can really bump up stats as well with Beastmaster Ascension, which gives a very easy to achieve +5/+5 stat boost. Unnatural Growth helps as well, which can stack with the aforementioned Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. If you love combat and swinging wide, this is the deck for you.

Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma

This is perhaps the most Stompy commander you can play. Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma is a simple deck. Play a bunch of mana dorks like Elvish Mystic, then cast giant creature spells like Apex Devastator. You’re either ramping up your mana, or casting creature spells and attacking. Your commander makes it easier to get to your best creatures by discounting them by two whole mana.

Most of the creatures in the deck have four or more power, which is an archetype in and of itself. Vaultborn Tyrant makes them into draw power as well as lifegain. Similarly, Outcaster Trailblazer can draw you cards while providing an extra bit of mana when it enters. To make all your creatures harder to block, Challenger Troll makes it so only one creature can block yours. Since you often have trample, this leads to a ton of damage.

You do have a lot of creatures that cost a lot of mana, but there are multiple ways to get them onto the battlefield quicker. Monster Manual can put any creature from your hand onto the battlefield for just two mana. It takes six mana, but Smuggler's Surprise gets two creatures onto the battlefield for the price of one. You can bring any two creatures out from your library with Defense of the Heart, assuming an opponent has three or more creatures.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. If you love the Stompy archetype and playing big dumb creatures, look no further than a Goreclaw deck.

In Conclusion

Mono-Green is a very unique Mono-Color to build around. For the most part, every major commander involves creatures of some kind, be it Voltron, Tribal, or just plain turning cards sideways. Despite this, each flavor of Mono-Green is different, and none of them play quite the same. A lot of Mono-Green staples are fairly cheap, too, so if you want to build budget versions of any of the decks shown off in this Mono-Green Showcase, it’s quite easy to do so.

Overall, Mono-Green is a very consistent set of cards. Thanks to having access to all the best ramp cards, you’re never starved for mana like other color combinations tend to be. So, it becomes quite easy to cast all your best spells. If you’re a fiend for creatures, one of these decks will fit right into your rotation of decks.

And if you enjoy playing Mono-Colored decks and want to see what it looks like at the highest level of cEDH, check out our Mono-Colored cEDH Showcase.