Green has always been one of my favorite colors in Magic. There’s just something about ramping into a huge monster or playing extremely aggressive creatures and stomping your opponent.

Through the years I have played many varieties of green decks. I’ve played everything from Wild Nacatl to Birthing Pod to Primeval Titan and everything in between. While I’m not as dedicated to green as Craig Wescoe is to white, if I think I can get an angle on the format with some green spells, I’m going to dive right in.

When I scour new spoilers, I am often drawn immediately to the green cards, and M15 is no different. This exciting new core set has gifted the green mages out there some great new tools. M15 has everything from tutor effects to utility creatures. There’s a lot to be said about M15, but this week I’m green with envy.

Let’s start with the return of the other green planeswalker, Nissa.

Nissa is obviously powerful in many ways. Identifying powerful cards is an important aspect of this game, but we don’t have to stretch our imaginations much to discover her powerful nature. Sometimes Wizards makes us work to uncover strong cards that are hidden behind walls of doubt like Doomed Traveler.

No one would have guessed that Doomed Traveler would have been a highly played card but with the other cards legal at the time, this innocent one-mana 1/1 served synergy in multiple decks. While we don’t have to work hard to find Nissa, she still gets my vote for most exciting card in the set.

Lately we are seeing many more planeswalkers with two plus-one abilities. This model for Magic’s hardest-to-deal-with card type might be the most powerful as well. No matter what you choose to do with your planeswalker, you are making them harder to remove. Fortunately for Nissa, both of her loyalty increasing abilities are quite good.

The first one, making your land a 4/4 with trample, will give you a huge army very quickly. I can’t help but compare this ability to that of Koth of the Hammer because they both make your lands into the same sized creature. I know I’ve said it before but turning your lands into 4/4 haste creatures is going to put some major pressure on your opponent extremely quickly.

This ability has some synergy with another card being reprinted in this set as well, Darksteel Citadel. With this land, you can make indestructible 4/4’s! Even though that is a potent interaction, I’m not certain that playing colorless lands will be viable in your Nissa deck, but it is definitely worth considering.

For her next trick, Nissa will magically make your lands reappear! Okay, okay, yes I know, cheesy, but still. If you are casting her when you first reach five mana, this is the ability you will be choosing. Making her virtually free is something I never thought I would see Wizards do again. They did though, so we now have the ability to play our planeswalker along with any other cards we want that cost four or less all on the same turn.

Once you’ve untapped with her in play, then things start getting out of control. As long as you are hitting your land drops, you go from five to ten mana in the span of one turn! Why anyone thought that was a good idea I’ll never know, but we cannot ignore one of the best ramp spells ever printed.

Her first two abilities work well together also. If you have made a 4/4 army and your opponent is somehow not dead yet, you can untap them and still use them for mana. Ya know, because that’s completely necessary.

Sure you need to play mostly forests to get the most out of Nissa, but when have drawbacks stopped Magic players from playing powerful cards before? The constraints are well worth building your deck around her.

If her first two abilities were not enough, the ultimate should win the game for you. Granted your opponent has a turn to overcome your 4/4 army, but that is not likely to happen other than them casting some wrath effect.

What are we going to do with all of our mana from Nissa, Worldwaker? Luckily M15 also gives us some great things to do with our mana.

When the convoke mechanic was first revealed to be in M15, rumors began to fly about Chord of Calling being in the set. Obviously this would be good for Modern players because its price was getting out of control, but I never thought they would put it in Standard. Granted, without Wall of Roots, this green tutor is not nearly as powerful, but any tutor effect is worth considering. We’ve seen the power of Chord of Calling in Modern, but will it be enough in Standard?

Luckily for us, Nissa gives us all the extra mana we could want and we can put that directly into casting a huge Chord. Maybe we might want to Chord for one of these new bad boys on the block.

Coincidentally, when we untap with Nissa, Worldwaker, even if we miss our land drop for the turn, we have access to nine mana. So, with Chord of Calling we can find either of these new ‘titans’ and get them into play immediately. While these are both extremely strong cards, we don’t even need to play more than one copy of each because we can always use our tutor to find whichever is best for the situation!

Next up on our new Chord targets list is a subtle yet powerful one.

For a long time, I’ve been playing Harmonic Sliver in Modern as a bullet to get with both Chord of Calling as well as Birthing Pod as it complements Qasali Pridemage quite well.

Reclamation Sage is a better Harmonic Sliver. Harmonic Sliver might actually be good in Standard right now were it to be printed, but giving this effect to a creature with a more aggressive body attached to an easier casting cost is pushing the power level a lot. There are a lot of targets to be destroyed with this effect, so much so that playing more than one to tutor for might be ideal. Either way, Reclamation Sage is my pick for best card under the radar.

Getting back to ramping with Nissa, here’s a card that I haven’t seen anyone talking about yet.

While this may look like a hit among the casual crowd, Genesis Hydra fits right into Nissa’s social group. It’s a perfect card to cast once you untap with Nissa in play or a great way to find Nissa once you have access to seven mana.

Genesis Hydra may not be as good as Genesis Wave, but it’s still a green card that provides card advantage and synergy with our ramp deck that’s in the oven cooking. If you are playing Courser of Kruphix, you’ll even have the knowledge about one possible card to hydra into.

There’s one more card I want to discuss that has green mana in it and that is a new Golgari planeswalker!

When I first saw new Garruk’s abilities I dismissed him because of his mana cost. After further consideration, I think he will definitely see some play in Standard. If you are playing black mana with Nissa, Worldwaker, he seems like a great thing to ramp into, but he could fit into other decks as well.

The main reason he will be undervalued initially is because of his mana cost but the reason he will be undervalued later on is because he only puts 3/3’s into play. I don’t know what Garruk’s obsession with 3/3 beasts is but if he put larger creatures into play it would be easier to nail down his power. Keep in mind that although they are only 3/3’s, they do also have deathtouch so they will trade with any other creatures. That is not something that should be overlooked.

All four of his abilities are solid and provide you with a great toolbox to work with. The fact that our second planeswalker with four abilities costs almost double the first one is hilarious to me and a nod to how much of a mistake Jace, the Mind Sculptor was to print.

Well that’s it for this week. Stay tuned next week for more info on sweet M15 Cards!

Until Next Time,

Unleash the Force!

Mike Lanigan
MtgJedi on Twitter
Jedicouncilman23@gmail.com