16 replies to this topic

[Bad-People]

Other than basic forests of course.

[Kalam Mekhar]

Swamps.

Well isn't that useful?

 

The only ones I can think of off the top of my head are Ant Queen and Scute Mob, but there are tons of different Insect cards. A quick search on Gatherer would yield you great results.

[Bad-People]

Why would you play green and not play black as well?

Mostly to simplify things. I'm not opposed to mixing in a few blacks but right now I'm focusing on putting together the basic deck an refine it later. 

[Kalam Mekhar]

Yeah, there are plenty of awesome Insects in green. I've considered making a similar casual deck a few times. I recommend using Swarmyard. Regenerate Insects, Rats, Spiders, and Squirrels!

[Bad-People]

There are more insects in Green than Black.

[Kalam Mekhar]

Here is a list of all the mono-green Insect creatures that seem good or at least decent. There are a few absolute bombs on this list, too.

 

Ant Queen
Coiling Woodworm
Deadbridge Goliath
Emerald Dragonfly
Giant Adephage
Giant Caterpillar
Giant Dustwasp
Gigapede
Goliath Beetle
Hornet Queen
Ironshell Beetle
Killer Bees
Living Hive
Marker Beetles
Moldgraf Monstrosity
Nantuko Cultivator
Nantuko Elder
Nantuko Mentor
Phantom Nantuko
Saber Ants
Scute Mob
Skylasher
Stag Beetle
Symbiotic Beast
Symbiotic Wurm
Tangle Mantis
Thriss, Nantuko Primus
Unyaro Bees
Vorapede
Xantid Swarm
 

Beacon of Creation is the single Insect-making spell I found. Other spells you may want would be ramp and possibly creature boosts or something. I bolded the ones that stand out to me. Hope that helps. Also, I excluded the couple cards with infect and/or poison. I figured you wouldn't want poison and non-poison ones in the same deck, and there are far more non-poison ones.

 

And here's the black ones just for fun:

 

Bane of the Living
Blister Beetle
Caustic Crawler
Endless Cockroaches
Fog of Gnats
Mortician Beetle
Nantuko Husk
Nantuko Shade
Phyrexian Battleflies

 

Some of these I would only recommend in a mono-black Insect deck or a deck featuring plenty of sacrificing (Mortician Beetle especially).

[Bad-People]

Doesn't mean they are good.

That's a matter of opinion, green might fit my play-style better. 

[Kalam Mekhar]

Cards in different colors are better at different things. That's called the color pie. Kind of a central thing about Magic. It's rare that a card in one color directly trumps a card in another color as automatically 'better.' Maybe in a certain deck, sure, or this one mana 2/2 is better than this one mana 1/1 of the same color. Could be. But the green and red cards that are 'better' than the ones in Esper colors are, well, in other colors, so most likely do far different things.

 

As far as I can tell, there is more synergy and powerful things you can do with a pure Insect deck in green than you can in black, or at least just as much. Could you explain how the black Insects are simply better than the green ones, please? Because I think you're a bit off-base there. Speaking as a player who doesn't have a huge love of Insects in general, I am willing to hear the argument fairly.

[Kalam Mekhar]

Okay, I appreciate the well-thought-out reply. Thanks for not just saying, "I'm right, you're wrong, eat it," or something.

 

I was suggesting green over black purely on the basis that what bad-people wanted was a mono-colored deck. After all, his/her goal was to simplify things. Remember, this is a casual deck. It doesn't have to be the best deck Insects could possibly support. It just needs to be a fun green Insect deck. Yes, a black/green deck could be more interesting//resilient/diverse/whatever, but it definitely wouldn't simplify anything and may bog down what the heart of the deck is supposed to be about - Insects. So what I was getting at about cards in different colors being better, was just that if you're dedicated to certain colors, and cards in different colors are better, that doesn't really matter since you can't run them in that deck. Yes, green's or red's or white's, or probably even black's creatures are usually more powerful than blue's creatures, at least offensively. But that's completely irrelevant if you're building mono-blue.

 

As I said, this is a casual deck. It doesn't need discard, or great removal, or whatever else it might need to be tier-1. If they're building Insect tribal, it's probably a good sign they're a Timmy, and they're just looking to have a good time playing with some bugs. I can totally dig that.