A compete giude on how to build a fungus deck.
Before I start let me tell you that I have been playing with fungus decks for 2 and a half years and I know what I'm talking about.
NOTE: Parts of this were wtitten on my phone so pls excuse any mistakes. Also it has over 2000 words, so mistakes...
Ok, so to break it down, here are the WORKING fungus decks:
U/G infinite/combo you have combos with enchantments like Xenocraft and Paradox Haze and then you have an OPTIONAL infinite one. http://www.mtgvault.com/theswarmer/decks/budget-gu-fungus/
This one needs work, I admit
PROS: Can win out of nowhere and make littelary millions of saprolings, makes for good and efficient combos and gives you more control over the game with counterspells, doesn't run into mana problems.
CONS: Fragile, both to burn and control. Without your combos or enchantments you are a crappy green deck with counterspells.
G/B classic, removal and deathspore are really good, you also get hand hate
http://www.mtgvault.com/theswarmer/decks/budget-gb-fungus/
PROS: Very well balanced, consistant shell, removal and hand distrubtion, graveyard use, doesn't run into mana problems.
CONS: needs an extremely good balance between all your cards for example fungus creatures to non-fungus creatures, removal to dudes, enchantments to fungi to spells to non-fungui. This means that playing 4 parallel lives for example changes your deck by A LOT. But once the balance is perfect there are no more cons.
G/W most competitive I would say, you get path to exile o ring and some other real good removal and more lifegain. But most of all Glare of Subdual to win, it makes all your dudes worth it and keeps EVERYONE at bay, the only way out of it is killing the glare, you also get Pallid Mycoderm and intangible virtue plus some sweet sb cards.
http://www.mtgvault.com/theswarmer/decks/budget-gw-fungus/
PROS: Most competitive, has A LOT of good options, great sb techs, many options and playstyles like completly turtle like, aggressive, enchantment\anthem deck, you can include human and elf creatures and still be fine, easy access to lifegain.
CONS: Enchantment dependant(does work without them), recovers the hardest, needs path to exile or maybe just oblivion ring to work, has little to no draw.
W/B/G HARD TO MAKE WORK, you can't fit in enough things but I think someone out there will be able to crack the code.
http://www.mtgvault.com/theswarmer/decks/budget-junk-fungus-2/
PROS: Allows for both Putrefy and Mortify, allows for most utility lands, gives access to everything.
CONS: not many ways to build in cuz you have waaaaaaay too many things you aoutoinclude, so it's just really linear
G(ramp) non ramp DOES NOT work, you die way too fast. With ramp you get fast starts into some old saproling cards and you win with overrun.(USUALLY)
HARD TO CRACK. Mostly works in old formats using gaea's cradle and sprout swarm.
PROS: allows for competitiveish play, allows for big non funugs saproling producers, mostly verdant force, verdant embrace, plays fastish and efficiently. Verdeloth the ancient, Essence of the Wild
CONS: hard to crack, not many options, outright dies to some decks game one(depends on meta)
Sporemound plus Essence warden plus life and limb: an infinite green deck, needs tutoring so you might want blue or black to back it up, maybe both to stave off any aggression.
PROS: IDK Haven't tried it :(
CONS: IDK Haven't tried it :(
PAUPER LISTS:
Selesnya almost done!
http://www.mtgvault.com/theswarmer/decks/budget-pauper-golgari-fungus/
BASICS: Focus just on cards that make saprolings or REALLY help you doing it, mainly creatures that make them and throw in some cards that let you live both late and early. Make sure that the deck can win fast and make sure the deck can survive for a long time, ALWAYS include few Thelons as a backup plan. Try to stick to your gameplan when deckbuilding and most of all run at least 20 fungi, not too many spells, not too many non fungi creatures, and NO MORE than 7 or maybe 9 enchantments, decks that don't run blue or white should run no more than 5. Also try to make your sb as hateful vs some strategies as you can, after all you are a tier3 deck at best.
CURVE: is as important as in an evolve deck. You need a 1 drop(try to run at least 6), a 2 drop AT LEAST 8, at 3 you can just do nothing, play a spell, another 2 drop or even just a thallid. 4 should be a sporesower turn, parallel lives is also great if you have at least 3 dudes out, and 5 should be a saproloth or savage thallid turn.
SUPPORT: No deck, I repeat, NO DECK needs support cards more than you do. These cards are anything from Dictate of Erebos, Removal, Counter magic or draw to much needed enchantments like Parallel Lives. Make sure your deck has some sort of support cards in it, sometimes you only need a few and sometimes 12. Also they are very metta dependant, for example if you run itto a lot of delver, aggro and burn maindeck essence wardens.
Core cards you ABSOLUTELY NEED:
4 Utopia Mycon: fixing, blocking, ramping
4 Sporesower Thallid: cause 4/4 for 4 that has a bit better effect than Sporoloth Ancient (you need at least 3 of the ancient) is good, hell is the best
3 or more (ut to 7)GOOD enchantments or artifacts like: Parallel Lives, Doubling Season, Gaea's Anthem, Glare of Subdual, intangible virtue, Coat of Arms, Eldrazi Monument and more.
NO MYCOLOTHS, they are good when they go off but they won't and you know it! The card is just too all in, I feel with you believe me, I bought 3 long ago and now I don't use them.
You need all mentioned above in EVERY fungus deck, when you have the core you can build up in many different ways
If in BLUE you need Paradox Haze, counterspells, Followed Footsteps
If in BLACK you need: Deathspore Thallid, Thelon of Havenwood, grim backwoods, fatal push
If in WHITE you need: Glare of Subdual, intangible virtue, Pallid Mycoderm, gavony township
COOL AND GOOD INCUSIONS:
Tezzeret's Gambit: instead of Psychotrope Thallid. It gives you just slightly less value than ancestral recall, i'm serious(NOT). Getting more counters and more cards!
Pharika, God of Affliction: gives you gass vs black-green-another color decks, and helps in long games.
Winding constrictor: It is basically a thallid, a 2/3 for 2 that doubles your counters is simply amazing in such a deck.
Sidisi, Undead Vizier: A great body that can block anything and break through most boards plus a free tutor, and yes sacing a sap is considered free. I reommend this as a 3 of in any b/g sap deck
Mycologist: While not a fungus it does provide the "thallid effect" and makes chump blocking viable in more cases than not. I'd consider it filler in GW decks but as far as filler material goes, this is as good as it gets.
Garruk Relentless: He makes bigger saprolings, that's good, he can be transformed quickly in this deck, that's also good. BUT when he transforms, man is he good, getting deathtouch dudes is amazing, just plain amazing no matter the deck you're up against. The tutor thing is where it's at through, sacing a sap to get the CARD(not a creature a CARD) you need isn't good, it's broken. And the -3 wins the game even if you are running 4 Thelon.
Horobi, death's wail: and Deathspore Thallid is just AMAZING.
Tragic Slip: An amazing card, you just sac a sap and kill ANYTHING
Dictate of Erebos: every time you sacrifice a dude they have to as well. And their dudes are much, much more valuable.
Saproling Burst: usually combos with overrun and works with anthem like fungus decks(think b/w tokens with saps)
Essence of the Wild: if there aren't many control decks in your meta this makes for a great finisher, play it, make 5 saps, turn them into Essence of the Wild. This stops aggro and wins you the game next turn.
Verdant Embrace: if you don't run into a lot of removal this is actually really good, gives you lots of saps, even better in a anthem like sap deck.
Juniper Order Ranger: If in g/w and you need to fill up the deck, or you are lacking a good decent creature that supports the deck this is the one to go to.
Eldrazi Monument: except when it dies... Oh right, if it doesn't you win right there.
Champion of Lambholt: only if you are not facing lots of aggro, and if that is the case, oh boy is it good.
Inexorable Tide: blue allows for CRAZY combos, few of them revolve around this card.
If you want to know how good your deck is test it vs mono colored decks:
http://www.mtgvault.com/theswarmer/decks/budget-baisic-red-v2/
http://www.mtgvault.com/theswarmer/decks/budget-baisic-blue-v2/
http://www.mtgvault.com/theswarmer/decks/budget-baisic-white-v2/
http://www.mtgvault.com/theswarmer/decks/budget-baisic-green-v2/
http://www.mtgvault.com/theswarmer/decks/budget-baisic-black-v2/
Or vs the challenge decks. If your deck beats all 3 challenge decks at hard difficulty your deck is good.
ADJUST YOUR DECK TO SUIT YPUR META
COMPETITIVE:
It is NOT competitive but the decks can be just fine in any environment with decks that aren't pt viable(maybe they are but you won't see them in the top 8)
I won't go over all the possible matches but I'll do my best.
MIRROR: If this hapens you are in for A LOT of fun, usually the deck that gets the smoother start wins but this veries A LOT cause there are A LOT of ways to build your sap deck. And most of them are not built for the mirror. The way you win is by having bigger saprolings or having none at all. Let me explain. You play Thelon of Havenwood and the sst that is Illness in the ranks or Golgari Charm. If by some miracle your opponents does the same thing the person who can kill more Thelons wins.
ANY CONTROL: This is though, mainly because you don't have the sb space to deal with this. There are 4 ways to win here, the most reliable ones are hoping they get mana flooded or mana screwed. If that doesn't work you have to win using early game creatures and golgari charm, that can go really wrong if they're playing wrath of God. The last way is making 1 threat stay and beat them to death, this means sidisi, Savage Thallid or any 4/4. If they are not able to get rid of your Thelon fast the 1/1 for 1 will become a 5/5, if they don't get rid of garruk he will transform and you'll win, if they don't kill sidisi the 4/6 will kill them, if a single big dude or more small dudes live you win. You just have to hope, hold on to some cards, and pray you draw golgari charm.
MIDRANGE/G/B/X: Duress and removal help A LOT, but what wins here are 3 cards:
glare of subdual: cuz they can't attack.
Dictate of Erebos: cuz 1/1 sap and goyf don't have the same value.
Thelon of Havenwood: a 1 mana 6/6 that grows by +2/+2 every turn is better than a 2 mana 4/5 that grows +1/+1 ecery third turn.
these cards win the game, just draw them and you win.
TWIN: Golgari charm... It kills 80000000000000 tokens of pestermite and makes 8000000000000000 tokens of deciever exarch deal 0 damage.
AGGRO: Well, the only thing you can do is gain life and hope Thelon of Havenwood and Thallid Shell-Dweller will come down before you are at 9 or less life. If nothing else works run more removal or more ways to gain life.
ANYTHiNG THAT USES THE GRAVEYARD TOO MUCH: Just sb in leyline of the void.
BURN: Dragon's claw or if you are in white Santctimony.
TEMPO: Play leaf arrow, or more CHEAP removal, dismember, doom blade...
B/W TOKENS: Play illness in the ranks, sever the bloodline, enchantment hate.
illness in the ranks forces you into Thelon but even if you don't get him you might have a chance. Sever the bloodline kills spirits 2 times and enchantment hate makes sure 1/1s are 1/1s.
SOUL SISTERS: You are fucked unless you kill everything FAST, you need chaep removal, Golgari Charm is the best here. If you can't kill the 1 mana creatures they play you die, cuz you make tokens and unless you have eldrazi monument you can't block a 6/6 and can't get through 300 life fast enough.
I KNOW I HAVE MISSED A BUNCH, IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT SAY THE TRON MATCHUP TELL ME!
THE CARDS THAT MAKE YOUR DECK REAL GOOD:
1. Coat of Arms: nothing beats it, well except removal. But if you get to swing with it on the board you win.
2. Eldrazi Monument: cause it saids Creatures you control get +1/+1, have flying, and are indestructible. What more do you want?!
3. Thelon of Havenwood: gives you a super mode that you can switch in or out of, if you run 4 don't run Parallel Lives. He makes you go offensive and when a creature would die just remove the counters and exile it with Thelon. Also when you need to go on defense he helps to scare away your opponents.
4. Doubling Season: 4 times the dudes, DA DUDES! But it's too big of an overkill
5.Expensive shit, this means Gaea's cradle and combo stuff with sprout swarm. Gives you about 40 saps turn 5 or so. Requires spells and Fists of ironwood to work.(Number 5 cause it costs a lot)
Any good consistent deck with some good side-tech like Beastmaster's Ascension, Horobi, death's wail or Gaea's Anthem is just good enough to be played, maybe even in a tier 3 modern environment. And I hope that one day this deck will be able to compet in modern, even against the tier 2 decks alike. Until then it remains a casual/weak modern/pauper deck, and my personal favorite deck to play...
If you want to get into the strategy, look at all the decks mentioned above, see which one you like the best, then when you know you want to build this one for example:
http://www.mtgvault.com/theswarmer/decks/budget-gb-fungus/
Buy all the cards AND all the cards you think might work in that deck, also buy lots of cards that could work in the sb vs certain decks. I suggest buying at least 90 cards, that means that even through you think you are going to run just 2 Thelon of Havenwood you'll buy 4 and even through you think you won't run any Savage Thallid you'll buy 4, same with almost every card.
This is important cause I rebuilt mine fungus deck 6 times and wasted LOTS of time I could have spent playing.
IF I MISSED ANYTHING I BEG OF YOU POST A COMMENT ABOUT IT. I LOVE FUNGUS DECKS AND WANT OTHERS WHO LOVE THEM TO HAVE FUN PLAYING THEM AND THAT MEANS WINNING. SO PLEASE TELL ME IF I FORGOT, I WANT TO MAKE THIS GUIDE TO COVER EVERYTHING.
GL&HF my lads, hope this guide has helped you, if so pls like comment.