MTGNexus

I was perusing the top mono-green commanders page over at EDHrec, and noticed that Cultivate and Kodama's Reach were in 47% and 40% of possible decks, respectively. Meanwhile, the strictly better (in mono-green) Nissa's Pilgrimage sits at 27%. Now, I know Cultivate and Kodama's Reach have a lot of cachet, and that may explain their higher numbers, but I think mono-green players need to get right with the Pilgrimage.

Side note, I may not be interpreting EDHrec's data properly. I assumed that, being on the mono-green page, all of the cards would have the same denominator. For instance, the page says Cultivate is in 47% of 11,590 decks, while Kodama's reach is in 40% of 11,597 decks. I don't get it. I promise I'm not a dullard though. I will say that, anecdotally, I've seen plenty of mono-green decks not running Pilgrimage, but running the other two.

tl;dr: Run Nissa's Pilgrimage in mono-green!

I jam this card all the time even in non-monogreen decks that have lots of forests. Many decks I have built would play 6 copies of cultivate if it were available.

It's a good card. Definitely a snap include in monogreen.

It can be awkward in multicolor decks though - I ran it in my Tasigur deck for a while (which skews very heavily towards green), but cut it because I found myself running out of forests too quickly. Between it and Skyshroud Claim (plus any I fetch with Cultivate, Nature's Lore, or other ramp spells), forests got depleted much earlier than my other basics. That's partially due to the nature of Tasigur though - people give it back to Tasigur activations pretty often, so I'm much more likely to cast it 3+ times and deplete my forests than pretty much any other commander.

Also depends somewhat on what your color requirements look like - unlike Cultivate / Kodama's reach, it doesn't provide any fixing.

....still, not sure how many Forests I would want to be running before I ran it. Maybe 8? Hmmm... My rough heuristic is '# basic lands = # lands fetched by all of my cheap ramp spells (and fetchlands / other ramp). So if I were running Nissa's Pilgrimage, Skyshroud Claim, Nature's Lore, Kodama's Reach, Cultivate, and Myriad Landscape, that would be at least 12 basics, 6 of which are Forests. Which, in turn, means that whether or not I run Nissa's Pilgrimage depends less on the exact number of Forests and more on the ratio of lands to ramp.

RxPhantom wrote: ↑

4 years ago

For instance, the page says Cultivate is in 47% of 11,590 decks, while Kodama's reach is in 40% of 11,597 decks. I don't get it. I promise I'm not a dullard though. I will say that, anecdotally, I've seen plenty of mono-green decks not running Pilgrimage, but running the other two.

My inkling on this is that decks that have been updated since the card has been printed are tracked in these totals. So, there are 7 decks that haven't been updated (since it was printed in Origins?).

Similar discrepancies can be seen across many decks, especially with new cards. It's totally a wild guess, and maybe it's something to ask the edhrec folks about!

Generally: Yeah, this card should probably see play in the mono-green decks that play Cultivate/Kodama's. But, sometimes people just don't know about the card; even when giving advice, lots of people open up with 'cultivate/kodama's' but they don't immediately remember Nissa's Pilgrimage. I think part of it is that it's exactly as you said: Cultivate/Kodama's has cachet, and has been played heavily since before Wizards acknowledged the format.

Kodama's Reach was printed in 2004? And Cultivate in 2010? That's what I am seeing. I guess EDHRec is referencing 7 decks that were put online before 2010.

And yes, it should be more played in mono-green. I wonder what other strictly better cards are not being played when they should be.

In this case, I think it is likely due to the number of printings. Cultivate and KR were printed more times. A lot of commander players just play what they have.

It's good in monogreen. That word "basic" keeps it out of other decks.

Spell mastery is another thing. Look at what green spells do. You're at the point where you're using ramp, fogs, and maybe a combat trick or removal spell here or there.