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Bet You Never Thought You’d See Me Again, Now Did You?
Hey guys, it’s me, resident degenerate, Werfs, back with another Degenerate Deck Guide™. You may remember me from my world famous 58 Direct Damage™©® Deck Guide from a little while ago. It has since won multiple Nobel War Prizes, and I will be meeting the Prince of Nigeria later today to reap my successful investments. Anyways, after spamming this degenerative deck with great success on ladder, I’d like to apologize in advance for nothing, as I have no regrets playing this deck at all.
In this deck guide, we will cover why I picked each card, what roles they fill, and a general guide on land placement and how to pilot this deck.
##Deck Overview
As of right now, the meta has little to no single target removal. Crystal Flower is no longer being played, Blue is at an all time low in terms of power level (meaning less Frogifies), Red is cutting Bombslingers in favor of a mid-game AoE tactic, and Yellow is cutting Last Nightmares for Spirit Thefts. What does this mean for Monkey Knight Green Rush, a deck that just sticks down a single creature and bash face with it? Well, you do the math. I merely write the guides, I’m not a mathemagician or anything.
Card Choices
###Deranged Monkey & Blightblade Knight
Both of these cards are extremely powerful. Deranged Monkey can easily value trade in the early game, with its 4/6 body. Blightblade Knight is also a very powerful card with its 6/4 body; with just two buff cards, this card can threaten a two turn clock on your opponent. Prior to Fall of Everlife, the only card that could threaten a two turn lethal on your opponent was Verduran Force. Don’t worry about Blightblade’s negative card effect; as a rush archetype deck, your own orb’s health does not matter.
Verduran Force
The most aggressive creature in Green Rush. A 7/7 body is often times impossible for your opponent to deal with, especially when it is summoned on turn three. Can threaten a two turn lethal easily as well.
###Deepwood Stalker
Yellow is seeing a rise in the current metagame; as such, Manta Rider is seeing a lot more play across games. Deepwood Stalker allows you to effortlessly clean up the 2/2 Manta token left over, and now you are the one with a 2/2 token, which you can further buff and SMOrc with.
###Shamanic Dance
The keyword of the Fall of Everlife expansion is Corrupt, which is an effect that activates once you step onto an opponent’s land any turn after the turn you summoned the Corrupt creature. Corrupt was rumored to be a very strong nerf to rush archetypes as a whole, as your opponent can effortlessly step on any of your empty aggressive lands. Shamanic Dance easily counters Corrupt by simply not allowing your opponents to step onto your lands to activate Corrupt in the first place!
Not only that, Shamanic Dance also does a great job at preventing Havoc from clearing your creatures efficiently by bumping up a creature’s health by 4 for the low cost of two faeria.
###Ruunin’s Shrine
Ruunin’s Shrine is Green Rush’s faeria manipulation system. Getting 2 faeria for free is very strong, as it allows you to cast an extra buff or summon an extra creature during your turn.
###Elderwood Embrace, Tiki Caretaker, Ruunin’s Guidance, Ancient Boar
Pretty standard Green Rush package. Attack buffs that also boost health, allowing Ancient Boar to be played as a 3 drop much more consistently.
##Mulligan
###Must Keeps
Deranged Monkey, Blightblade Knight, Verduran Force, Elderwood Embrace.
These cards easily secure early board pressure. With very strong stats and only 2 land requirements, these cards are very strong at getting your momentum started at the beginning of the game.
###Conditional Keeps
Shamanic Dance, Tiki Caretaker, Deepwood Stalker.
Only keep one of these cards if you already have one of the “Must Keeps” in your starting hand already. Shamanic dance should only be kept if you know you can use it to get multiple value trades early on in the game to secure the board.
###Never Keeps
Ruunin’s Shrine, Ruunin’s Guidance, Ancient Boar. These cards are cards you want to draw into over the course of the game, and not have in your starting hand.
##Land Placement
You know, I had a whole dedicated “Land Placement” section for my 58 Direct Damage guide, because you actually had to build lands in a certain way in order to make optimal use of your early game cards. Well, I’d hate to disappoint you, but you play Green Rush just like any other rush deck.
Forest in front of orb, double prairie up, and then drop a Forest and one of your starting creatures. That’s really it.
So uh, yeah, that’s really it. This is kind of an awkward section ending, huh…
##Playstyle
As the great philosopher Sun Tzu once said, “Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.” That doesn’t make any sense, so we’ll just ignore that one.
Let’s take a look at a different Sun Tzu quote.
“Speed is the essence of war.”
Green Rush is very very very good at setting up two turn clocks on your opponent. As such, your victories will consist of you hitting your opponent two to three times max in a game. Personally, I consider killing my opponent by turn 5 to be pretty damn speedy.
With that knowledge, what is the easiest way to secure those two to three hits for victory? Deranged Monkey is very strong at securing early board position. Combined with Deepwood stalker, you can effortlessly take care of an opposing Manta Rider, and still have a threatening board for the Yellow player to deal with. Spend the first few turns making value trades with your various buff cards in order to prevent your opponent from collecting. Once you have made sure nothing of your opponent is sticking, start swinging face with Blightblade Knight and Verduran Force. Usually, if you can get Verduran Force to hit face even once, you are usually at a position where you have already won the game. Aside from the early “make sure to value trade” gameplan, this deck plays like any old rush deck.
##FAQ
###What If Your Opponent Casts Havoc on Blightblade Knight?
5 faeria for 4 faeria trade, which also allows safer Verduran Force plays later on.
Not to mention, Rush archetype decks tend to only care about one orb’s health, and that is their opponent’s orb. Shrug off that 9 damage; it won’t cause enough havoc to make you need to panic.
###Replacements for tech cards?
I run Shamanic Dance and Deepwood Stalkers as my tech card choices.
You can run Sagami Warriors instead of Deepwood Stalkers if you are not playing against Yellow a lot.
Shamanic Dance can be replaced by Deepwood Grizzly or Queen’s Guard (depending on your playstyle). I personally found a lot of success with Shamanic Dance. Shamanic Dance bumps your creatures out of Havoc range, disable Corrupt creatures from activating easily, as well as helps your matchup against Yellow Rush. I really do not recommend replacing Shamanic Dance at all, it’s just such a good card in the current metagame.
##Conclusion
Green Rush is currently a very strong deck, as single target removal is at an all time low. Deranged Monkey and Blightblade Knight are insanely strong cards in this deck, and especially potent once paired with a buff or two. Shamanic Dance is one of the cards that not only counters Corrupt, but also pushes your cards out of range of direct damage cards.
Remember to focus on securing early tempo and pressure with value trades. Once your opponent has little to no resources, set up an easy two turn clock with Verduran Force or Blightblade Knight and watch those victories roll in!
Good luck out there, I’m going to find a place to hide all these gold bars I stole from that bank heist I took part of recently.
