From an article... Is green simply the lousiest casual color?

[Istanbul]

Frankly...I'm in favor of green doing a little Cultural Exchange (heh) with blue. Blue gets good fliers, but pays a little extra for slightly worse beef. Green gets good beef...but lately, gets NO fliers at all! Were Scryb Sprites really that broken? What about Killer Bees?

I'm going to look through the recent sets right quick to make sure I'm not just blowing smoke out my adz...

Nothing in 7E...
Nothing in Invasion...
Nothing in Planeshift...
I *guess* you could count Anavolver...
Nothing in Odyssey...
Nothing in Torment...
*checks spoiler*Nothing in Judgement.

In a fully-stocked Type 2 environment, there is not ONE SINGLE GREEN CREATURE that can naturally fly. There are some that can block flyers, but none that fly themselves. So...there's nothing natural that flies? Insects, birds...green should get fliers, IMHO, even if it doesn't get the bargain that blue does for them.

 

[Lotus Mox]

rakso, I have to disagree with you a bit.

I don't really think green is such a weak casual color, it's just that many of its strength were given in the past to other colors (e.g. blue got the best creature) and even artifacts (e.g. mana acceleration).
Also the creature theme was usually underbalanced to the non-creature theme. (I don't want an environment where you can play only creature beats, but I also don't want an environment with The Abyss)
IMO red is is even more inflexible than green, I mean it has burn and.... burn. (and coin-flips )

Green should get its own identity and it should be different from the other colors, of course not every color must appeal to every player, so if you don't like green's "dumb" theme, then well so be it, there are 4 other colors.

That said, I agree with you that some of its themes should get explored better and it might need a few more themes to be on par with blue and black, but honestly green will never get as good in Type 1 as other colors simply because these other colors shouldn't have gotten such broken and out-of-theme cards in the first place.

About Buehler's quote, while he is a blue mage, he isn't the only R&D guy, and IIRC he said he was talking about Onslaught Type 2, and we don't know how good green is in Onslaught.

 

[Duel]

Green is the strongest casual color.... with red coming in a close second. Why are green and red on top of a list when I list blue as the most powerful color for any given format?

Simple: Green and Red are fun. Whenever a new player steps into the game, he seems to instinctively grasp two concepts: Fatties and Burn. Try and explain mana curve and watch his eyes glaze over... Fatties and Burn, Fatties and Burn. The most amusing multiplayer games are those of green/red decks, with fatties and burn as centerpieces, requiring diplomacy and team-forging, because no master enchantments lock the game up.

In seriously competitive multiplayer, blue is, as always, the best color.

If you're having fun, I'll play green or red 90% of the time (the other 10% being wacky combo)

 

[rakso]

Blue? I always got the impression it was white.

Is it because of all those blue tricks and nice big creatures?

 

[Purple_jester]

I pretty much thought that Wrath of God, Balance, Armageddon and Cataclysm were some of the most powerful multiplayer cards. I never play blue in multiplayer.

But regarding green as a casual card, I think it's the most fun color. It doesn't win as often as it should, mainly due to aforementioned inflexebility, but stompy is fun. A lot of fun. Especially when you mix squirrels into the deck. Lots of squirrels.

Next to green, I'd go for red. Nothing like going to hell with the burn and the dragons.