Every workday while the Streets of Capenna are new, Insight takes a quick look at another deck featuring the fresh cards! There's a new Titan in town, and it's ready to storm the festival and butt heads for some veritable Rhino-plasty. Amid the multicolor mayhem, monogreen still succeeds in Standard!
The performance of decks in the Standard meta has been an interesting affair since the card was first released in Innistrad: Midnight Hunt. After all, it's card advantage and board advantage rolled into one, and repeatable to boot. The only problem is that we need six mana the first time we want to crash the party, and a whopping ten for the encore. A ramp shell is mandatory, and the approach has usually resulted in a partnership between a heavy green base and a secondary color: either blue to exploit and , black for and solid removal, or white to take the landfall route into more top-end options like and .
But now we live in the Streets of New Capenna, and green is tempted to just say, "Screw those other colors. I'm fully capable of ramping on my own." The latest tech to accomplish it is this weird ornamental hedge plant called . Its ramp increment is barely on curve for a three-mana spell, but the 4/4 vigilant body contributes to the pressure later. Earlier too, actually, as it's just the right size to crew . Its ramp is nicely complemented by other land fetchers like , , and .
Turn one Dryad to chump and sac on turn two, followed by Topiary Stomper on turn three, leads to a turn four Storm the Festival. The sorcery can then hit more ramp and/or threatening permanents like or the second coming of , also known as . also shows up as a secondary Storm target that can reward us with its huge versatility, potentially closing the game by giving trample to large Treefolk tokens or a into which we sunk all our mana.
The primary goal of the deck's ramp isn't even Storm the Festival anymore, since New Capenna gave monogreen the amazing , one of the color's best finishers since . Those seven mana (either the Titan's regular hard cost or a finding it) routinely translate into a 7/7 trampling reach body that can't be easily killed, plus a spare 4/4. It's a board state most opposing decks won't be able to come back from.
Between Titan and Warchief, the true signature card for this whole era of green, , now gets to copy Rhino tokens as well. There won't be any new set added to Standard before Kaldheim rotates out in September, but so far each of them has made the Chariot better.
Monogreen Ramp by SanPop, 7th at Standard Challenge, April 30
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