There are three basic kinds of players known by nicknames in the Magic community. There's a comprehensive article on the official website, but in short there's Spike the tournament player who wants to win, Johnny the creative player who wants to build something unique, and Timmy. Timmy was the first player to get his name, and he is less focused on winning than Spike, but he wants to do big, splashy things on the table to stomp to victory. He typically likes big creatures and big effects.
If an entire series of blog posts about cheap Pauper decks wasn't enough of a clue, I lean more toward the Johnny player type, but it's a spectrum. For this deck, I embrace the Timmy mindset with big stompy creatures, because that's what Green does best.
Previous installments: blue mill, red burn (including a blue deck update), white soldiers, & black death.
Classic green decks tend do two things: make more mana than anyone else, and then use that to cast the biggest creatures to stomp their way to victory. My inner Timmy says, "yes!" Our mana base is 20 basic lands, all Forest for green mana.
For ramp, I have full playsets of Elvish Mystic and Llanowar Elves. Both are functionally the same: 1/1 green elf druids with the ability to tap for green mana. Odds are decent for at least one of these "mana dorks" to be in my opening hand to jump-start the green growth plan, so ideally, turn 1 is play a forest, tap it for green mana, and play one of these.
Elvish Visionary is the sole source of card draw in this deck, and it can be played as soon as turn 2. Ideally, the game starts with 2-3 lands in hand plus 1-2 mana dorks, but even if all one has is a forest and a mana dork, or 2 forests, this can offer an escape from less-than-ideal cards. In the late game, this can add bodies to the board while fishing for beasts or instants.
Advocate of the Beast is the next elf in ascending cost, but not the ideal next card to play. Wait to play this until after one of the beast creatures is on the board. Its job is to make beasts bigger by adding +1/+1 counters to them. Timmy wants to go BIG, remember!
Yeva's Forcemage is the final member of this elf tribe. While the Advocate above grants long-term boons through counters, this gives another creature a temporary +2/+2 boost when it enters. Again, play this card when there is a good target for that ability for maximum effect.
I'm not absolutely committed to the Beast creatures I included, but for now I have four Rumbling Baloths and two each of Alpha Tyrranax and Timbermaw Larva.
This is a creature-heavy deck, but I have a set of Fog to prevent combat damage, especially when an opponent goes all-in on what they think might be a decisive battle. When I go on the offensive, I have Giant Growth and Might of the Masses to make one of my attackers bigger, whether it's a big beast or a weedy elf who suddenly took all-natural organic steroids.
Of these new decks, this is the one I may change the most as I try to fine-tune it. I like the core idea, and the elf/beast combination is thematic, but it's just not quite as consistent as I need it to be. There are other options for card draw and mana ramp, including artifacts. I'm also considering cards which give me beast tokens. Like I did with blue mill, I'll need to explore what works within the Pauper format restrictions and what I already own, so this deck may change considerably, but you can always see the current version on Moxfield.
I've had a lot of fun building decks with these simple restrictions, revisiting older cards, and building new decks for my friends to try out. If you play, give this format a try. As always, use these ideas as a starting point for your own decks, or browse your collection and the bulk cards at your local game shop and see what sparks an idea, especially if you're a Johnny who wants to explore unique ideas.
Don't be afraid to mix two colors into a single deck, either. Many interesting common-rarity cards are printed with more than one mana color in their cost, or even hybrid mana which can be paid with either color in the symbol, so these might give you an idea for a unique starting point to build your own deck. The mechanical color pie can also guide your deck design by choosing a mechanic and seeing which colors offer the most support. The you can browse Ggatherer with those keywords, color restrictions, and format legality modifiers and find new cards you may not have even known existed!
Support your local game shop! You can meet other players, share ideas, learn the local meta, and perhaps even join the tournament scene if that's your style. Yes, Pauper has a cutthroat competitive side, for those of you with more Spike than Johnny or Timmy.
I'm closing this series for now, I think, but who knows what new ideas may spark a surprise sequel post down the road? In any case, I'll see you Planeswalkers somewhere in the multiverse.
UPDATE: I've already started building a sideboard of cards to swap in and out and test variations from the list above. You can see it all on Moxfield.
If you're not on Hive yet, I invite you to join through InLeo or PeakD. If you use either of my referral links, I'll even try to delegate some Hive Power to help you get started.
