Green is my other favorite color, next to Blue. My first named deck (Psuedo-Stompy) was Green, and it performed admirably for years despite only have 13 land, which makes NO SENSE. Hey, maybe I can remake it? Or maybe it will still be a terrible idea! Let's find out!
Arbor Elf is the first card that jumps out at me, so let's talk about the elf contingent in M13. As one of the two major creature types in MTG (the other being Goblins) they're expected to show up in every core set and it should be possible to make a tribal deck. I doubt that's possible here, with only five elves, and only one which cares about being an elf. Arbor Elf is a good Llanowar Elves with the bonus that there are some shenanigans you could get up to by untapping Forests - my first thought is giving Awakener Druid's Treefolk companion pseudo-vigilance, but I'm sure there's something more impressive you could do. A well designed card, with decent enough flavor.
Elvish Archdruid and Elvish Visionary are two good choices for reprints, with the Archdruid being the most flavorful of the elf lords over the years. The Visionary is just a good utility creature that shows off that Green gets card draw, but attaches it to creatures.
I have no clue if I like Yeva, Nature's Herald. She gets bonus points for being from Ravnica and riding a bear, but Flash isn't the most flavorful ability to grant. Still, she combos well with Yeva's Forcemage and the many Green creatures that have ETB effects. Overall, I think I like her design more than her flavor, which is the opposite of her Forcemage. He won't be played unless you build a deck Yeva, but his flavor text indicates Gruul membership, but Yeva is clearly Selesnya. A partial breakdown of the Guilds? Selesnya and Gruul allied? Mass hysteria!
I love Fungal Sprouting so much. Not only does it feature my favorite type of creature token, saprolings, but it has a quote from my favorite Commander legend, Ghave, Guru of Spores. This love of all things saproling is relatively recent (only starting around Time Spiral) but is rooted in one of my favorite green cards of all time: Waiting in the Weeds. Pseudo-Stompy was built around that card, and forever more will I be in love with mass token generation, particularly in Green.
I really enjoy the callbacks on Ground Seal and Mwonvuli Beast Tracker. Sadly, aside from the callback to Seton, Ground Seal doesn't do well in design or flavor. Its two abilities don't feel like they connect at all, and I just don't know what's going on flavorfully. And besides, isn't Green the second best at manipulating the graveyard? This card confuses me. Thankfully the Beast Tracker does better. Its flavor text explains its keyword requirement well, while the fact that it doesn't put the creature in your hand could be because the Tracker just shows you were it is and doesn't catch it for you. Well done.
Rancor is the current example of crazy powerful cards getting reprinted, continuing the trend that Lightning Bolt started. I really wish they had changed the art on this, because the flavor here is terrible. Why is Multani shooting lightning? I get that this has major nostalgia power, but that's not a good enough excuse.
Roaring Primadox is very interesting. At first glance it reads like it has a drawback, until you look at the almost absurd amount of creatures that have ETB effects in this set. This feels like a learning experience for new players - sometimes you want to bounce your own creatures! Oddly, this helps them understand white bounce and flicker effects too.
How did it take so long for Green to get a Plague Rats variant? The primary difference here is that Timberpack Wolves only triggers on creatures you control, which makes perfect sense. Wolves will only help their pack while a plague doesn't discriminate. The fact that this takes up the bear slot (2/2 for 1G) is interesting. The wolves clearly need to be common, as you want as many as possible, but it would be silly to reprint Runeclaw Bear when there's a clearly superior common card here - after all, there isn't any bear tribal (though there should be!) I'm really happy with this, though I can admit that a part of that is my anger at Runeclaw Bear for replacing my dear Grizzly Bears.
Best Design: Roaring Primadox. A fun card with a weird bonus that doubles as a learning experience? This is wonderful!
Best Flavor: Timberpack Wolves. It's a pack of wolves that gets stronger as it grows!
Best Overall: Fungal Sprouting. Because I seriously love saprolings, guys.
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