(Aeve, Progenitor OozeAeve, Progenitor Ooze | by Andrew Mar)

Hello and welcome back to The Monolith, the series in which we get players building more monocolored decks. Today I'll be continuing my quest to break each archetype out of its regular color pie by building a Storm deck in mono-green!

Storm? In mono-green? It's more likely than you think! And we'll even be storming off with fan-favorite and veritable meme card, Slime Against HumanitySlime Against Humanity.

But how can I win a game without my GuttersnipeGuttersnipe and Archmage EmeritusArchmage Emeritus? What's the point of playing a million spells if there isn't a GrapeshotGrapeshot at the end of it? Well that's simple, we just put our storm payoff directly into our command zone, with Aeve, Progenitor OozeAeve, Progenitor Ooze.

Gooped and Gagged

Let's take a look at our commander for this build.

For Aeve is a legendary 2/2 Ooze with storm. If you've not played with one of the most broken keywords in Magic's history before, storm spells copy themselves when cast for each spell you've already cast before it this turn. So if it's the third spell you've cast this turn, for example, you'll get two token copies of Aeve entering the battlefield with it.

Normally that'd be a problem for Aeve seeing as the card is legendary, but its rules text states that token copies of the card won't count as legendary to stop you from having to sacrifice them all to the legend rule as soon as they enter.

As if that wasn't enough, each of them will enter with a +1/+1 counter on it for each other Ooze you control. That means each copy gets bigger and bigger as it enters, seeing all the copies that came before it, not to mention any Oozes you already had on board.

If we can cast enough spells in a single turn before dropping our commander, we could get ourselves a pretty enormous board. And the wider the board gets, the taller it gets as well.

Slime Time

So we want to be casting a lot of spells on our turn, but the question remains: what spells will we be casting?

For this deck idea, we'll be committing some crimes. Slime crimesSlime crimes.

You're looking at a three mana green sorcery that creates a 0/0 Ooze token and then puts +1/+1 counters on it equal to the number of same-named cards in your graveyard or in exile (plus two). It's one of those silly "you can have any number in a deck" cards, like Persistent PetitionersPersistent Petitioners or Hare ApparentHare Apparent. This card also does well in Ooze typal decks as the card will also check for Ooze cards when dishing out its +1/+1 counters.

Importantly for this build, it's a spell we can cast a lot of and one that makes a progressively larger Ooze creature token each time we do so. The plan is to use that Ooze to make mana, draw us cards, and even buff up our Aeve tokens as they enter. So how do we go about doing that? Let's talk about mana first.

They're Green, They May as Well Be Forests

This deck was predominantly inspired by my favorite Standard deck in the current meta, Insidious RootsInsidious Roots. This Golgari () enchantment makes a Plant token every time a creature card leaves your graveyard. Then all your Plants get bigger. When combined with Tyvar, Jubilant BrawlerTyvar, Jubilant Brawler, which can not only trigger the card's effect but also lets your tokens tap for mana on the turn they come down, you can do some pretty crazy comboing!

But why let the dual colored decks have all the fun? With enough setup (afforded to us by the naturally longer games of Commander) we can do something just as nuts, and have a payoff card ready to roll in our command zone to boot.

Our Ooze tokens might not tap for mana on their own, but there's a few different cards in green that will provide us with the same effect. Enduring VitalityEnduring Vitality is by far the strongest of the bunch, giving us the rules text we need as well as reanimating itself the first time it gets removed. Jaheira, Friend of the ForestJaheira, Friend of the Forest isn't a bad pick either for a cheap option, as we'll mostly want to be tapping token creatures anyway.

The above options cost a little more mana to get on the board, but Elven ChorusElven Chorus does provide us with some potential extra reach if we find ourselves with nothing to cast in hand mid-storm. If there's a creature card on the top of our library, it could get us back up and running just when we need it.

I Need That Mana Now!

The other element of the combo we'll need to replicate is Tyvar's bonus effect of giving activated abilities haste, allowing you to effectively replace your spent mana by tapping the token you've just made. As Tyvar himself is out of your color identity, you'll have to get some other options.

Giving haste to your creatures in mono-green isn't super easy, especially when you need it to be a static effect that'll account for each creature entering the battlefield this turn. That's why colorless cards like Crashing DrawbridgeCrashing Drawbridge unfortunately won't cut it. We do have options, but they're either very expensive to cast, like Surrak and GoreclawSurrak and Goreclaw, very expensive to buy, like Concordant CrossroadsConcordant Crossroads, or both (looking at you, Akroma's MemorialAkroma's Memorial).

A better fit would be the classic Thousand-Year ElixirThousand-Year Elixir, which can find a home in pretty much any deck that cares about creatures tapping. But specifically for this deck, I think you'll struggle to find a better fit for what we want to achieve than Runadi, Behemoth CallerRunadi, Behemoth Caller.

This card is an absolute slam dunk in our deck as it not only works as a mana creature itself, it also gives haste to all creatures on our board with three or more +1/+1 counters on them. For the record, that's basically every Ooze we make after the first. Not to mention that it'll give haste to pretty much every copy of Aeve if things are going well.

Budget Blubber

The next element we need in our cursed combo is something to reduce the cost of our spells. Much like with the flash-in-the-pan Ruby Storm deck we saw in Modern last year, by reducing the cost of our spells we can potentially make them mana neutral (or perhaps even positive!) to allow us to keep comboing off.

We've actually got a decent amount of options here as well, including the green versionthe green version of Ruby Storm's medallionRuby Storm's medallion which will reduce all of our green spells by .

We're in mono-green, so we shouldn't struggle too much for mana, but ideally we want to drop all the colorless cost from our slime crimes. That way we just need to pay for the green, which our token will be able to do for us from the last copy of the spell we've cast. For that we'll need to get two cost-reducers on board.

But just like with our haste problems, there's actually a fantastic card available to us that'll make our lives much easier. The Locket of YesterdaysLocket of Yesterdays makes me feel like someone from the past knew I was going to build this deck one day. Fitting, seeing as it was printed in Time Spiral.

This card will reduce the cost of all our spells for each other copy of it already in the graveyard. Literally perfect for reducing the price of our slime crimes. From the third one we cast onwards, we'll only be paying . And we could even reduce that if we add in Defiler of VigorDefiler of Vigor

Outta Slime, Outta Time

As with every storm deck, you can assemble the absolute perfect engine with everything you need to pop off. But if you run out of spells, your turn will come to a crashing halt and deflating fizzle. Slime Against HumanitySlime Against Humanity isn't a cantrip, which means we need to make sure we're drawing enough cards to keep our engine ticking as we cast it over and over again.

Green has a few ways of drawing cards, but most of them are tied to the creatures you control. Which, for the combo we're assembling here, is kinda perfect! A card like Garruk's UprisingGarruk's Uprising will trigger a card draw for every slime crime we make after the first, as well as giving us trample when we finally swing out with all our tokens.

Outcaster TrailblazerOutcaster Trailblazer gives us double effectiveness as it not only gives the same card draw effect as Garruk's Uprising, but we can also plot it. Plotting allows us to cast it for free on a subsequent turn, which will then count towards our storm tally when we need it! He even comes with a free mana of any color when he enters.

For a wildly good fit in our deck though, check out Selvala, Heart of the WildsSelvala, Heart of the Wilds. Selvala gives us a card draw whenever a creature enters under our control with more power than any creature on the battlefield. As each Ooze will be one point bigger than the last one, we can chain these draws off one after another.

Then with a huge board we can tap for a massive amount of green mana with Selvala's ability - mana we can then use to cast more spells and even our commander to finish off the turn.

I Ooze, You Lose

Now it's time to finish the game. Our perfect board state looks something like this:

We'll also want five untapped mana sources, or Selvala, Heart of the WildsSelvala, Heart of the Wilds in an ideal world, to allow us to cast our commander and also give extra card draw. Then all the slime crimes we already have in hand will give us a head start.

We cast as many of said crimes as possible, effectively paying zero for each one. Our storm count gets bigger and bigger until we tap for five and bring out Aeve, Progenitor OozeAeve, Progenitor Ooze. Let's say we've cast seven copies of Slime Against HumanitySlime Against Humanity beforehand.

One by one, eight copies of Aeve will enter the battlefield. They'll have a minimum power and toughness ranging from 9/9 to 16/16. Every single one will have haste from Runadi, and trample from Garruk's Uprising.

Swing. Win.

That's it for this week's edition of The Monolith, let me know in the comments below how you would build a deck like this. Mono-green isn't the standard home of Spellslinger decks, but I think it has some chops. For more monocolored shenanigans, make sure to tune in next week to The Monolith. Until then, happy slinging and happy sliming!