“Don’t cry. You’re perfect.”
Art:Beastrider Vanguard
by Andrey Kuzinskiy
Green is a very interesting color in this set, coming through with some really high highs and some very low lows. With the heavy focus on vehicles and saddle creatures, it can be quite tough for Pauper EDH since both of these mechanics are not super fleshed out, and it makes some of these cards much worse because of it, if we have more sets in the future that have both vehicles and saddles a lot of these cards can get a lot better but for now some of them are rough. Green still has a pretty strong showing within this set! Without further ado, let’s get it!
Please note: I am going to skip some cards that have been printed a ton, like Broken Wings
:
Let’s get straight into it!
Rating for Venomsac Lagac 6/10:
I’m not all too hot on the saddle cards, but I think this card could actually be decently good in a creature-heavy strategy like Fynn, the Fangbearer
. I think it having deathtouch is a big plus, and its ability to become more defensive can be pretty good. I only rate this a 6/10 because I cant see much use for it outside of Fynn and don’t think it will even widely be played in Fynn, I think its a good landing spot for a Fynn deck that has a lot of other combat and creature focused decks at the table. While I don’t think this card will be a worldbeater or anything like that, I think it will find a place in, at the very least, a Fynn deck.
Rating for Veloheart Bike 2/10:
If this card were colorless or just an artifact, it would be pretty ok. I think what hurts this card is not a ton of vehicles in the format and a ton of competition with all of the amazing mana dorks that green has to offer; green also has even better life again than this! This card is pretty much just a miss for the format and I don’t think it will see really any play. I love the flavor, but a three-mana 4/2 that is sometimes a mana dork is not going to cut it in a mana-focused color like green. If vehicles become more prevalent, I think this could find a home, but not for now. While it is a vehicle its kind of bad and I don’t even know if it would see play in Miriam, Herd Whisperer
.
Rating for Stampeding Scurryfoot 2/10:
I just don’t like this one, even though green is a decent token generator in a lot of Selesnya tokens decks I still don’t think this makes the cut, it doesn’t do much for a good majority after its played, and a 2/2 and 3/3 for five mana is just really slow, there are a lot better cards to produce tokens and this one is just unremarkable, another miss for green in Aetherdrift.
Rating for Silken Strength 9/10:
Green finally has a hit in Aetherdrift! This card is really good and will slot very nicely into Voltron strategies like Killer Bees
; being able to untap your already attacked Voltron creature can be a very nice combat trick, and the buff and reach are pretty good as well. It has some good competition in the green aura space, and while it is certainly not better than Spidersilk Armor
in most decks, it’s still a really good card for any Voltron strategy and definitely worth running. I loved this one in testing.
Rating for Run Over 4/10:
This card has some really stiff competition in green. There are a ton of amazing fight spells in the format. This card is not bad at all, but it goes back to my original point that there isn’t a ton of support for these cards. I think this could work pretty good in Miriam, Herd Whisperer, but I really can’t think of any other deck that would want this.
Rating for Pothole Mole 9/10:
I like this card quite a bit; I can see it working quite well in a lands-focused strategy or, more importantly, a graveyard deck; I think this card is going to be busted in graveyard decks like Kagha, Shadow Archdruid
. I am really hot on this card, and in testing in some of my existing graveyard decks, I found that it performed very well. I am a big fan of this one.
Rating for Migrating Ketradon 7/10:
I think this card is pretty good, it’s a strict upgrade over cards like Colossal Dreadmaw
, which sees play in a decent amount of stompy decks; this card provides a shocking amount for a six-mana 6/6, providing reach and life gain or alternatively some supplemental card draw through its cycling ability. I have been testing this one out in my stompy lists and loving it; most of these lists have played Colossal Dreadmaw, so this was just a strict upgrade.
Rating for Loxodon Surveyor 1/10:
It’s not a very good card; in my opinion, it’s Start Your Engine’s ability is quite weak, and it’s a three-mana 3/3; this just doesn’t do very much, and I can’t think of really any decks that would want to run this. This card definitely feels like it was solely for drafting, and it’s where it’s likely going to stay!
Rating for Jibbirik Omnivore 3/10:
An absolute banger for Jasmine Boreal of the Seven
, but outside of pretty much the only deck that would actually want to play this card, this card is nothing more than a vanilla creature, not great for decks that aren’t Jasmine, if Jasmine didn’t exist this would absolutely be a one out of ten.
Rating for Hazard of the Dunes 10/10:
I am a really big fan of this card, its prefect for pretty much any stompy deck or a deck focused on +1/+1 counters. Both of these strategies have quite a bit of support within the format, and this card is really strong; I tried this in a bunch of my different counter decks, and it overachieved every time. I am a huge supporter of this card and think its very strong, turn four trample in a counters strategy is really good and the reach is an amazing bonus, the exhaust is also shockingly easy to do in green or green adjacent strategies.
Rating for Bestow Greatness 9/10:
A great aggressive combat trick for green, when I was testing in decks with this card I used it to finish off opponents multiple times, especially in mono-green opponents never expect this one ,and it can help you hit really hard, this is a strong additional damage source for the deck and perfect for a huge creature who doesn’t have trample.
Rating for Beastrider Vanguard 8/10:
I think this card is really strong, I knocked it down to an eight because it has really bad survivability but if it can stick on the board is extremely strong, it’s a great piece of card selection for green decks, and in the mid-late game you can easily activate it one or two times a turn, this card is great if it can live, I would definitely recommend running something like Tamiyo's Safekeeping
or Snakeskin Veil
in a deck running this card.
Rating for Alacrian Jaguar 6/10:
Finally, a saddle card with actual survivability and a decent mana cost for what you get! I still hold the same opinion for Alacrian Jaguar as I do about most of the saddle cards, but I think this one has some potential in a creature-heavy stompy deck since it is quite good on its own and definitely doesn’t rely on its saddle ability. I like this one much more than the others.
Conclusion:
Thanks for reading to the end! I’m not sure if Red is better than Green or vice versa; both colors we’ve reviewed so far have some really good options and some duds as well. I’m very interested in reviewing the rest of the set, and I hope you all are as well. Stay tuned and tap in!