Cactus Game Design Message Boards

IMHO Teal/Green needs to be run as a small offense with a heavy defense because it will not beat most auto-block defenses quick enough so you play with defense that can hold out long enough to get out your pre-block Spiritual Warefare, Burning incense, and then Zeal.

I half-agree with you. The problem is that teal/green inherently requires a relatively large offense to work properly, especially against larger defenses. It's too slow to run as an offense-heavy strategy however, so I think a balance (slightly more offense heavy but a ratio of something like 25-20 is usually okay) is the most effective way to approach the theme.

Haggai is very nearly a staple in Teal/Green, much moreso than Habbakuk.

In a small teal/green offense I would run Z-Temple priests with Micah Jeremiah Phineas and another prophet maybe habbakuk. You could then run provision recursion and Z-Temple endless rescue. I would also run Scribe on defense to get back Zeal at least once.

The problem here is this, the most efficient 'small offense' is not efficient enough.  Let's look at what cards a 'small Z-temple offense would need.

Z-temple + Micah + Haggai + Phineas + Zechariah + Josh + Hur + HT + Gifts + Zeal + Spiritual Warfare + Provisions + Pentecost + Burning Incense = 14 cards.  This offense lacks some of Teal/Green's most powerful cards namely Moses + Aaron and U&T.  This offense could have a lot more power even if you added just six or so cards.  Defenses these days don't draw that much, unless of course you use pharisees, expanding the offense allows you to add Feast of trumpets, Lampy, Joiada and other cards that allow you to maximize your drawing. 

If you want to go herolite Teal/Green I think that Zeke is probably a better option.

With that offense you would take out Hur, Gifts, Pentecost and any other speed cards. If you run a small offense you don't need speed. Your defense should hold out long enough to get out the offense you need and it is wasted card slots.

That's just not true. Every deck needs some speed to be competitive. You can pack your defense full of anti-meta cards, but if I've drawn four ways to get rid of those cards at least temporarily before you draw more than one of them, you're not going to win that game.

That's not what I've found.  But even if that is what I found it would be worth the risk.  Even the slightest possibility of a +7 would be worth it in my opinion.  Additionally Pentecost + Provisions + First Fruits and a defense that draws well is going to be enough to get you to Hur + Gifts in most cases.  Of course this is just what I've found to be true, and the meta I play in is not quite the same as the ROOT meta. 

I think that Chronic (Chronic I apologize if I'm misquoting you here) and I are saying that midsize offense is superior to a lite offense because it allows for that drawing.

Wait I'm a little confused.  Are you saying that he should leave it out if he has some other sort of speed, and to use it only when it is his sole engine for drawing?  That's what I'm inferring from your statement but I'm not quite sure if that's the conclusion you wanted.   

Ah, smart man.    Thanks for clarifying.  A plus one to you good sir.