Green is best known for huge creatures like Force of Nature or Avatar of Might. These cards shaped the perception of the color for a long time. Recently green was blessed with powerful cards like Force of Vigor, Veil of Summer, and Once Upon a Time. But green always offered more than just big creatures.
Green Blooming in Vintage
In the past, we have seen a bunch of green cards that still shape the metagame of various formats to this day. There even are two Vintage strategies built around green cards, and , which we will discuss below. Recently was unrestricted in Vintage and led to various new archetypes—Ziasbond and Crabshack. We will see whether or not fastbonding can continue to be a major strategy, but it sure looks like that.
Honorable Mentions
Before we come to the list of the Top 10 green noncreatures, I want to give out some honorable mentions. This includes a few creature cards, albeit ones that are more combo pieces than actual creatures. Sorry, no here. Instead, we have great sideboard options like or hosing blue decks. Then there are unique creatures like , , and , which enable special strategies in nearly all formats they are legal in. Green players also have access to the most efficient artifact and enchantment hate in . is a super efficient creature tutor which had to be banned in Modern. plus is an all-time great combo and is a widely overlooked card-filtering enchantment.
Top 10 Green Noncreatures
Berserk
Our first card on the list is , a card that is very straightforward and arguably the most powerful pump spell ever printed. It can end games faster than the speed of light. A and a transform your tiny into an 8/8 trampler. In that context I have to mention the second contender for the title of greatest pump spell ever: . These two cards enable the infamous Legacy Infect deck. You essentially make your an unblockable 10/10—at the cost of only 1 green mana!—and win the game in just one attack. Though does not need to be an absurd spell.
Regrowth
is all about value and flexibility. It can bring back your win condition from the graveyard. It can fix your mana by bringing back a land. It can bring back a or to throw a wrench into your opponent's plans. Bringing back cards from the graveyard is nearly always restricted to a specific card type. Black can give you creature recursion, whereas blue and red can bring back instants and sorceries. White normally brings an enchantment or artifact back to your hand—see , , or . But imposes absolutely no limitation on the card it gets back to your hand. It could even give you the opportunity to replay your or . may not be the flashiest card, but it sits at the very top of its field.
Crop Rotation
A green land tutor for only 1 mana, can be the fifth or sixth copy of or . It can search for your or to destroy one of your opponent's critical lands, and it can find the missing piece of the infamous - combo. Many years later, the bigger version——also proved strong and, at times, probematic.
Natural Order
is a busted, straightforward creature tutor and mana accelerator. 4 mana plus the sacrifice of a green creature pays for a or a and consequently the incoming death of your opponent. Welcome to Legacy.
Glimpse of Nature
Do you have a fetish for drawing cards? Then is your card. If you want to draw your entire deck, combine it with the services of the old and . You like quick combo kills? Then you have to play . Put it in a deck with enough Kobolds and other zero mana creatures like and draw yourself to infinity.
Fastbond/Exploration
These two cards extend the rules of Magic, which usually allow you to play just one land a turn. ups this number by one, which already is pretty amazing. Legacy's Lands deck abuses this card in combination with to make dance and stomp all over the opponent's mana base. But goes even further. completely negates the basic restriction. Just play as many lands as you want, why don't you. When you also have in play, you can sweep away all of your opponent's lands with . You could also get a million landfall triggers with . I'm looking at you, .
Life from the Loam
I heard this card called "the green " and it isn't far from the truth. Well, it costs 2 mana instead of 1, but it has its own advantages. It's not just an insane card advantage engine. is the glue that makes Lands decks super resilient and annoying. Even if it gets countered, it will return to your hand and put new cards into your graveyard the next turn. It is great to retrieve a with , but there's nothing like the face of your opponent when you loam back multiple s.
Sylvan Library
Some people argue that this card is essentially a blue card. The effect indeed is kind of blue, but obviously is green and I'm very happy that it is. Just enjoy it in your green deck. Even though the color pie got its basic framework in the first sets, irregularities were not uncommon. Take for instance. It's more black or green than blue. Back to : it's a frantic card-drawing machine. It nets two extra cards every single turn if you want it to. The loss of life is not that tragic in the super fast lanes of Legacy and Vintage. In fact, there are strategies that benefit from a lower life total, for example in Legacy or in Old School. Either way, this card is always worth a copy in a deck with access to green.
Survival of the Fittest
comes in on rank number two. can discard a creature card to your graveyard and gives you a creature tutoring effect for that. Sounds totally fair and reasonable, right? No, not really. It can do two main things: solve problems by delivering the necessary silver bullets, for example to destroy problematic artifacts or to mess with the graveyard strategy of your opponent. Secondly, it's a combo engine. How about discarding s till you discard a and finally tutor for , which you cast for 0 mana? In this example, would be your second creature spell and bring back all your Vengevines. This specific "13 power chain" only requires 4 mana.
I have to mention here, which is some kind of "fixed" take on . Even this weakened version had to be banned in Modern, because it packed too much tutor and combo power.
Oath of Druids
is probably the most busted card on the list—and one of the most budget-friendly ones, by the way. In the right build it is a tutor, some kind of reanimator or mana generator, and even a graveyard accelerator. While a Reanimator player has to do some hard work first to get into the graveyard via or a looting effect, does it all on its own. The famous combo with even gives the Oath player a land that produces every color of mana without loss of tempo or life.
Conclusion
Ramping. Tutoring. Drawing. Filtering. Dredging. Pumping. "Oathing" (there is no suitable word to describe what does). That is a pretty diverse list of functions for a color that is so famous for casting hulky creatures.
In fact, green has the third most cards on the Vintage restricted list and the second and third most on the Modern and Legacy banned lists. It seems that all the really cool green cards get hit by the banhammer. Perhaps this is a reason why people recognize green as a one-dimensional color. Those crazy draw and tutor abilities, which are part of the green color identity, are always a risky venture when it comes to balancing—especially for Modern and Standard, as seen recently with and .
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