Core:
4x Restoration Angel (ambush blocker(s), reuse enter/leave the battlefield abilities, protect vs removal, threaten planeswalkers, well-positioned vs. 3/3's, easy to cast)
4x Thragtusk (card advantage to the max, keeps us alive, beats down, good vs wrath, easy to cast)
Good Non-Creatures:
3-4x Selesnya Charms (ambush blocker, instant interaction, early interaction, threatens planeswalkers, gets damage in, deals with huge threats/recursion. Takes a hit from a 4-of as we add cheap instants from other colors)
2-3x Garruk, Primal Hunter (card advantage, planeswalker, deals with Thragtusk, proactive. Count limited by casting cost(5, and GGG), and legend rule.)
Solid 3-drops:
This one-two-(three) punch at the three slot ensures you continue drawing breath to cast your big guns. It's essential when playing a deck with Restoration Angel that you have something to do with the trigger when you cast it on four. It's also important to have some sort of game when you don't have Farseek, or you just don't want to take pain on turn 3 after Farseeking. Having guys in play means you get to start interacting with your opponent, you have things to buff with Township, and you can start pressuring your control opponent. (Smiter + Cloudshift turn 3 is also pretty unbeatable for aggro, no?)
Smiter seems like the better option for the first four, but I would include a couple Healers main if I played this now, just because of how much aggro there is. Their creature types aren't amazing for Cavern, but that's about all that's not great here.
Cool One-Ofs
1x Cloudshift (mini Restoration Angel, requires a board presence, doesn't combo well with tokens.)
1-4 Gavony Township (Takes stalled boards to the next level. Count depends on other special lands)
1x Acidic Slime (Prime targets: Kessig Wolf Run, Gavony Township, Vault of the Archangel, Detention Sphere, Assemble the Legion, Runechanter's Pike). Less important if we have Detention Sphere. Can't overdo it on 5's.
Finishers:
You can't afford too many of these category, just because you may not live to cast them, but these seem to be clearly the best high-drops in standard (perhaps with Gristlebrand in the top 3). Both of these work well creature-type wise with your other important cards for Cavern of Souls, so the triple-color is not as big a deal as it might seem, especially since the overall casting cost is so high, and over half the lands in the deck (~16) will tap for Green or White depending on which is included.
Craterhoof is not a finesse card. It wants you to have a board presence, and then it doesn't care what your opponent was trying to do up to that point, because the game is over once you cast it. It can pretty easily translate into 40 damage after blockers, which is what you need in a board stall. It goes well color-balance-wise with Garruk, since you will need to skew your base to Green to ensure casting both of these. I really like that it ends the game(tm) in a board stall, and gives you some hasty damage against your control opponent. (6 solo, 11 with a end-of-turn Sel-Charm)
So why not just Green-White?
Going just G-W would let us do things like max out on Gavony Township and Cavern of Souls, but our mana really doesn't get any better outside that. We'd be replacing basics with duals that largely enter the battlefield untapped (between Farseeks and Shocks), and we'd just have to be careful with the spells and creatures we splash that we aren't getting TOO aggressive with their mana costs.
If you look at the spells we've included above, you will see that we're actually in pretty awesome shape as far as the colored mana costs. Sel-Charm, and "Big Garruk" stress the mana the most, because they aren't creatures for Cavern, and they have the highest colored cost to total cost ratio (Finishers have Cavern to help them, and you don't need the mana for them early, so I expect them to be pretty easy to cast once we get to that level).
We'd like to cast Sel-Charm on 2 against aggro, but it is certainly not dead even in the late stages of the game. Garruk PH is good to have on-curve, but we might be Angel-Tusk-Gavony-Cloudshifting at that level to keep us busy.
So what we should look for from a splash color(or colors) is:
1) Easy to cast (low colored mana cost) creatures, and especially spells. (not Gristlebrand, Olivia, would be ideal if they had useful creature types. Double-off-color spells will be especially difficult)
2) Removal (we don't have much now outside combat)
3) Solid sideboard options. (trumps to strategies)
4) Early/cheap interactive spells (instants)
5) Card drawing. (we have some danger of flooding with ~32 mana sources)
6) Upgrades to what we already have. (Less important, unless it's a big upgrade)
We'll be comparing and contrasting the possibilities (Red, Black, Blue) in upcoming articles.
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