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The Magic Chest 25: Wood Sage
Wood Sage is one of those cards I've been trying to build a fun deck around for ages. My first serious effort had cards like Sage Owl and Spire Owl to know which creature to name and a few random big creatures, like Sandbar Crocodile, Ephemeron and Spike Colony. By using four of each creature as much as possible, I tried to increase my chances of getting more than one card per Wood Sage activation. Needless to say, the deck didn't work. A better creature selection would have helped, but the real problem was that the Wood Sages and Owls just diluted what was otherwise an aggressive deck. 1/1s just aren't scary. I've recently taken another look at the card and the resulting deck is a lot better. Sure, it's no powerhouse, but it plays a lot smoother, because the cards work better together. The main thing to note is that Wood Sage has a "hidden" advantage apart from drawing creature cards: filling your graveyard. Groundskeeper: One thing your graveyard will quickly fill up with is lands. If you stick mostly to basic lands, a Groundskeeper can fish them out at 1G a piece. By themselves, these lands aren't that useful, but the deck can use plenty of mana and with a few spellshapers spare lands are never useless. Worldly Tutor: Worldly Tutor is the easiest way to make sure you name the right creature when you activate your Wood Sage. It also allows you to play with a few silver bullets (cards that give certain deck types a lot of problems), as long as they're creatures. Haunted Crossroads: Wood Sage won't just fill your graveyard with lands, but with creatures as well. There are faster ways of reusing creatures from your graveyard, like Phyrexian Reclamation, but I didn't like the life cost. Plus, as a bonus, Wood Sage and Haunted Crossroads work beautifully together, especially once there are multiples of a creature in your graveyard. Because these are the only Disenchant targets in the deck, I'm playing with three main deck and one in the sideboard. Portent: If only Portent were an instant. It would be quite a nice card as an instant, if only for the nice anti-tutor effect of being able to shuffle your opponent's library after he or she cast a tutor spell. As it is, it only looks at the top three cards of your library. That makes it not much better than Sage Owl. Brainstorm: Some people are crazy about this card, because the effect is a lot like Ancestral Recall. You get to draw three cards and the two cards you put back can be cards you didn't need anyway. The problem I have with that is that it makes my next two draws useless. In this deck, though, Wood Sage is a good way to get rid of those two cards and usually even get one of them back into your hand if it's a creature. Yavimaya Elder: This guy is easily one of my favorite creatures for casual play. It gets you the mana colors you need, making it a lot easier to splash two extra colors into any green deck, especially if you use Harrow as well. It's also a good way to increase available mana, defeat land destruction and thin your deck. It's useful against hand destruction, especially if you get to choose what to discard and it's a surprisingly good blocker. Against a weenie deck, your opponent will often have to hold back or accept a 4-for-1 trade. Lowland Basilisk: With the skeleton of the deck in place, a little defense is in order. Lowland Basilisk may seem like a surprising choice, especially if Wall of Blossoms is available, but Lowland Basilisk has the advantage of being able to kill almost every creature it blocks. In casual play, you never know what creatures you'll be facing, so it's best to be prepared if the Scaled Wurms make an appearance. Spike Feeder: A bit of lifegain is always useful. Bottle Gnomes are better blockers because of the three toughness, but you just can't beat the Stupid Spike Tricks(tm) you can pull with the Feeder. They can protect a creature against direct damage or make a Lowland Basilisk big enough to survive something nasty. As an added bonus, by reusing the Feeders with the Haunted Crossroads/Wood Sage combo, you can make one creature big enough to deal the killing blow. Spore Frog: A silver bullet against creature-heavy decks. It can be used to just stall for a turn, but it works best with a Haunted Crossroads and Wood Sage in play. Spike Weaver is an even better option for this slot if you have one. Squallmonger: A silver bullet against flyers. As a useful extra, it's an alternative kill method if you use Spike Feeders to stay ahead in life. Bone Shredder: In case there's a non-attacking creature you really need to get rid of. Once you get Wood Sage/Haunted Crossroads going, it can quickly wipe your opponent's creatures out. Carrion Beetles: A silver bullet against other decks that use their graveyard as a resource. Stronghold Machinist: With Stronghold Machinist and Groundskeeper in play, you can counter non-creature spells without losing a card for only UUG1. It's a very important card in the deck, because it's the only way to prevent something horrible like an Armageddon or Earthquake from resolving. Quirion Ranger: With a Quirion Ranger in play, it's possible to use Wood Sage twice in a row or counter two spells a turn with a Stronghold Machinist. It also gets excess Forests from play back in your hands for use with Stronghold Machinist. The deck doesn't need it, but I put one in anyway, because it fits. Reclaim: Reclaim works well with Wood Sage if you use it to get a creature back as a one shot Haunted Crossroads. It also gets a Haunted Crossroads back if one was destroyed by a Tranquility or Disenchant. A useful card, but I only play one due to lack of space. Thalakos Mistfolk: A 2/1 shadow with U: put Thalakos Mistfolk on top of owner's library. It's a useful blocker against shadow creatures, a possible kill card with a few +1/+1 tokens on it and, in case the Haunted Crossroads are all in the graveyard already, it can stop you from decking yourself if you cast it and use its ability each turn. Uktabi Orangutan: A silver bullet against artifacts. Since I'm not really worried about any artifacts, I only put one in the sideboard and none in the main deck. Emerald Charm: Each of the three abilities on Emerald Charm is potentially useful. Untapping a permanent can get you double blue in a pinch or an extra use of a machinist. You can even surprise untap a Basilisk to kill off an annoying weenie. Enchantment destruction is something no green deck should be without and it's also a nice anti-flyer card. When the flyer attacks, cast Emerald Charm to ground it and block it with a Basilisk. Skyshroud Ranger: There's no more room in the deck or sideboard, but if you're worried that the deck is just too slow against the people you play with, four Skyshroud Rangers may speed it up a bit. The lands are a bit hard to figure out exactly, but 22 lands works for me. With only basics, you sometimes get color problems if you don't get an early Yavimaya Elder, but that's easily solved with a Worldly Tutor. If you get an early Wood Sage, use it every turn to try and find a creature you need. If you're getting pummeled, a Basilisk is useful and if you're playing against a combo deck, a Machinist will help. As a rule, though, I found it best to try for a Groundskeeper first. While trying, your graveyard will fill with lands, so as soon as you find the Groundskeeper, you can put it to work. Anyway, here's the deck:
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