Card/Deck Making Gruul do more than stompy, or make stompy Gruul more interesting?
- Thread starter Rasmus Källqvist
- Start date
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
The mana denial/lands is an interesting discussion, because it goes into a lot of the knobs and gears. I'm not sure if its really a power max focused discussion.
The lower your cube's CC, the less important mana development becomes to advancing your game plan, which means those sorts of mana denial plans suffer.
More lessons from poor MODO environments:
The lower your cube's CC, the less important mana development becomes to advancing your game plan, which means those sorts of mana denial plans suffer.
More lessons from poor MODO environments:
!
Okay, so, expanding this theme: (you might run some of these already, and a few are reaching)
no synergy piece is worth including without sick followup plays:
Cross-theme:
other thoughts:
with Primal Forcemage out, 1/1s trigger Ferocious
fling and fight effects get a little more interesting
Electropotence and Warstorm Surge are both tra$h and unplayable but a custom version in the middle might not be
hasty phoenix subtheme? works great w/ red looting
we all know this is gonna rule with Pod to grab yr next hasty beater every turn so that's sweet too
yasova dragonclaw t6 to steal Pelakka Wurm? (e: to steal Griselbrand?)
I think this is very much on the money, and probably why no one has really had much success with Wildfire archetypes in general, and in particular on this forum. Aside from destroying lands, which hurts decks slower than itself, the archetype would need a way to curb aggressive starts from the faster decks. I'm going to try your suggestion of Caldera Hellion as a start, as it feels like it could function as a poor man's Phyrexian Rebirth. Aside from that, I guess the usual assortment of Pyroclasms and Anger of the Gods will come in handy, though those spells sometimes actively work against green's acceleration via its mana dorks. Perhaps I need to swap out an Arbor Elf for another non-creature ramp spell to support this strategy.
I think you can use this approach, but keeping it some elves in might let the wildfire ramp decks and 1drop-3drop aggro ramp (like, hiearach into loxodon, big zoo stuff) be distinct. I wonder what a GR Wildfire deck vs Big Zoo would feel like?
Christ why couldn't this card have decent stats, like a 3/2 or maybe a 4/2 even. I'd love to run it but as it looks right now its just abysmal.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
The planeswalker idea seems passable
Big Cheats Combo/ramp
+ hasters
+ sacrifice value
Some mass removal options
I wish I could add something to this list but I think it's like, Gruul Theft Auto Pod? What is the other idea with the planeswalkers? In what context do we slot it in, Wildfire? I'm curious because there seems to be a lot going on. In other news, I feel like I've come further with the lands idea in terms of having it slot into a regular riptide cube relatively smoothly!
Lumberjack Gruul
The idea here is exactly as before, we want to use lands to get up to big plays, and a back up plan or a different angle of attack is to use our lands as fuel for Hammer and Flame Jab. Jab happens to work well from just the graveyard, so you don't even need to cast it the first time. If you happen to draw it and don't feel like pinging something you can just loot it down. Life from the Loam is an obvious choice for an engine card, and it helps getting back fuel for the Jab.
Hammer helps sacing lands for Titania, who in turn now makes hasty 5/3 elementals next to the Hammer 3/3 golems. We've got cobra and courser to stay in the game and get things going faster, and have ramp cards that help getting lands into our grave as well as triggering Titania.
There's a bunch of more neat stuff you can do I think but this felt like the most clean way of joining green and red in a lands theme that isn't just yelling it into your face. I'm super grateful for the suggestions of harrow and edge of autumn. It feels like the stuff that glues this idea together.
For added bonus I think you could run some flashback cards like Call of the Herd, Grizzly Fate, Firebolt and Reckless Charge.
Lumberjack Gruul
The idea here is exactly as before, we want to use lands to get up to big plays, and a back up plan or a different angle of attack is to use our lands as fuel for Hammer and Flame Jab. Jab happens to work well from just the graveyard, so you don't even need to cast it the first time. If you happen to draw it and don't feel like pinging something you can just loot it down. Life from the Loam is an obvious choice for an engine card, and it helps getting back fuel for the Jab.
Hammer helps sacing lands for Titania, who in turn now makes hasty 5/3 elementals next to the Hammer 3/3 golems. We've got cobra and courser to stay in the game and get things going faster, and have ramp cards that help getting lands into our grave as well as triggering Titania.
There's a bunch of more neat stuff you can do I think but this felt like the most clean way of joining green and red in a lands theme that isn't just yelling it into your face. I'm super grateful for the suggestions of harrow and edge of autumn. It feels like the stuff that glues this idea together.
For added bonus I think you could run some flashback cards like Call of the Herd, Grizzly Fate, Firebolt and Reckless Charge.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Plus some threshold cards
Don't forget the awakener druid for lands theme. Love me some awakener druid. So vorthos.
Between this thread, Eric jib-jabbin' about Boros, and my existing love for Boros, I'm all wantin to make a Azorius(gross)/Boros/Gruul/Golgari/Dimir cube. And I don't even have a 1.0 version of the Selesnya/Simic/Izzet/Rakdos/Orzhov cube yet!
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
You end up with a solid midrange/control monsters deck, with combo and pod sub themes.
Basically, see the unwritten is a natural gruul card because:
1. Its a great ramp target
2. Gruul triggers ferocious better than other colors
3. You are more likely to get sweet monsters off of the top 8 than other colors
You can run some TOL tutors to help set it up (beast tracker/worldly tutor)
There are also a few other big cheats cards that you could run:
1. Garruk, caller of beasts
2. summoning trap
And there are a lot of tutor effects you can run with them: besides the aforementioned tutors, you have primal command, summoner's pact, fauna shaman, survival of the fittest.
The planeswalkers provide the value train and are the glue that hold the deck together. While card draw options in green suck, planeswalkers can just sit there giving you a tempo positive effect every turn, which is a big deal when most of the deck will probably cost 3-5 mana. It lets you sequence multiple effects in a turn if you can stick one.
The ramp options are stuff like abundant growth (cantrips, 1 mana), harrow (risky/powerful), and sakura-tribe elder (fogs a turn, ramps).
Vines/blessing help keep the deck from folding to bounce spells.
Than you have fatties you want to cheat into play. I went a little outside of the box with Thromok (which is sadly too cute for titan land) but its a sweet thought having him come out, eat a bunch of red goblin tokens, and than swinging for leathal off of a reckless charge. Take your pick here for fatties/big midrange guys: primeval titan, craterhoof behemoth, whatever.
Than you have a bunch of flexible haste effects, and if you are going to be running a bunch of threatens anyways, you might as well support G/R pod. Another very strong archetype in its own right.
After that you have some mass removal options to help you stabalize, which won't kill your wall of fat. Mizzium mortars, anger, and firespout are the most interesting, especially since firespout naturally pushes people into gruul.
Wildfire dosen't fit into the deck because I don't think its a very good card.
I wouldn't count Abundant Growth as ramp.
Thromok is super badass, I had never seen it before. Really wish it had trample.
Edit: if we have enough self-mill/discard enablers, which incarnations are worth including?
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Ah, you're right about that. Well, I guess that means sakura-tribe elder is the go to 2 mana ramp spell. I can't imagine fertile ground passing muster outside of peasent/pauper power levels.
Yeah, the card looks really fun, but it would need a lot of setup to come across for a one shot knockout.
I like Ulasht, the hate seed as well (now a hydra hellion). Sarkhan vol has a sweet anthem effect, but nothing really pulls you into R/G tokens besides those two hellions.
Edit: well, brawn and anger are worth including if we are running Thromok: he can eat them to solve all of his problems.
Yeah, the card looks really fun, but it would need a lot of setup to come across for a one shot knockout.
I like Ulasht, the hate seed as well (now a hydra hellion). Sarkhan vol has a sweet anthem effect, but nothing really pulls you into R/G tokens besides those two hellions.
Edit: well, brawn and anger are worth including if we are running Thromok: he can eat them to solve all of his problems.
Then again Hexproof is pretty eww?
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Honestly I don't really mind hexproof, especially if it's just on a dumb evasionless beater.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I will be trying out Fleecemane Lion to see if I can stomach hexproof on an evasionless beater.
I already run Lightning Greaves, which is pretty perfect for guys like Thromok.
I already run Lightning Greaves, which is pretty perfect for guys like Thromok.
See the Unwritten is kinda fucked up because its a six mana card that encourages you to be drafting more six mana cards and that wants you to already have a large creature in play to make it work lol. Some pretty Zzzzzz green decks right?
Natural Order is probably my fave big cheater.
It's pretty fucking fun to play with ferocious on. Might be my timmy side talking. Don't mind flipping my deck over, esp if you end up using the stuff you binned as well.