Images courtesy of Wizards of the Coast

Since the arrival of Bloomburrow’s Mice, red-based aggro decks have been one of Standard’s boogeymen. The Gruul (red/green) variant especially has sat near the top of the metagame for months, providing a powerful blend of speed and durability.

We’re overdue to really break down this metagame titan, and what better time now that it’s utilizing a breakout card from Tarkir: Dragonstorm?

What’s the Game Plan for Gruul Aggro?

Gruul Aggro is one of those “turn cheap creatures sideways” decks.  When the deck draws well and your opponent lacks the removal to stop you, your game plan is just that simple. Gruul sets itself apart from similar decks like Mono-Red and Boros Prowess with a stronger long-game.

This version of Gruul has a few ways to refill its hand, plus a potent new threat that’s taken multiple metagames by storm!

The Creatures of Gruul Aggro

Cori-Steel Cutter headlines our suite of threats, despite not technically being a creature itself. I’ve been really impressed with this card. It regularly supplies a steady stream of Monk tokens that hit surprisingly hard. The Equipment is also often difficult to remove at all, let alone before it creates at least one token.

If you’ve played pretty much any Standard (or read my previous article on Mono-Red Aggro,) you’re more than familiar with the Mice. The trio of Heartfire Hero, Emberheart Challenger, and Manifold Mouse show up in pretty much every red aggro deck.

Heartfire Hero is the scariest one-mana play in the format, threatening to grow into a real monster fast while being a pain to remove. Emberheart Challenger is similarly aggressive and provides card advantage when you trigger valiant, which is trivial to do with Manifold Mouse. Together, your Mice push through a ton of damage fast!

Monastery Swiftspear is our other one-mana threat and another classic inclusion in red aggro decks. Like the Monk tokens, it can hit for deceptively high amounts of damage thanks to prowess.

Rounding out our threats are actually our main two sources of card advantage. Both Questing Druid and Hearth Elemental have Adventures we can cast to draw cards (or play them from exile). These help us find additional threats or spells that push through the last bits of damage. These two creatures also make triggering flurry for Cori-Steel Cutter a lot easier.

The Spells

Our remaining spells mainly help us push damage. Monstrous Rage continues to make blocking a nightmare and trigger valiant beautifully; it’s an auto-include in basically every red aggro deck. Might of the Meek is a card I’ve always been a lot lower on, but the cantrip effect does help us draw more action and trigger flurry more consistently. I’m going to keep testing this card, but I could see it being correct to just play more burn spells.

Speaking of burn spells, Burst Lightning is another staple in this deck archetype. It takes care of most early creatures, like opposing Heartfire Hero or Llanowar Elves, but can also deal direct damage when we need just a little push over the finish line. I’ve seen some versions of this deck supplement it with Shock, which is strictly worse but is our next best option for a burn spell that can deal direct damage. I’ve decided to instead use a few copies of Torch the Tower. While we can’t hit our opponent with it, we can enable Bargain with relative ease, and it’s just as efficient a removal spell as it’s always been.

The Lands

Our mana base is very consistent. Since our only green spell in the main deck is Questing Druid (which usually wants to be cast as Seek the Beast first), we get to lean hard on untapped sources of red mana. This is a lot better than something like Boros Prowess, which stumbles on mana a lot more often. We even get to play a couple of Rockface Village to trigger valiant!

The Sideboard

Ghost Vacuum – Pretty much every deck in Standard needs graveyard hate in the sideboard. You don’t want Omniscience combo and other reanimator strategies getting free wins!

Lithomantic Barrage – This can replace some of your removal against Abhorrent Oculus decks and certain slower white/blue strategies. It also cleanly answers Zur, Eternal Schemer, though often not before it animates an Overlord of the Hauntwoods, so it’s not a catch-all answer to Domain decks.

Pawpatch Recruit – I like this against midrange decks that pack lots of single target removal. It looks worse if it’s getting swept by a Day of Judgment or a Deadly Cover Up.

Pick Your Poison/Heritage Reclamation/Pawpatch Formation – These three cards are all pretty similar, being useful in a variety of situations but mainly dealing with artifacts and enchantments. I prioritize bringing in Pick Your Poison unless my opponent is really flooding the board with targets, making the sacrifice effect less useful (think something like a Simulacrum Synthesizer artifact deck).

Heritage Reclamation can double as additional graveyard hate to supplement your Ghost Vacuums. Pawpatch Formation is your best option against decks with big flyers (Jeskai Oculus often has random small flyers to sacrifice to Pick Your Poison).

Pyroclasm – It’s weird running a sweeper in a red aggro deck, but it does help slow down Convoke decks. 

Tips and Tricks for Gruul Aggro

• Cori-Steel Cutter requires strong sequencing to perform its best. You’ll often want it to be your first of two spells in a turn to immediately trigger flurry, so you can’t treat it as a two-drop the same as something like Emberheart Challenger. The Cutter can also be a little slow against opposing aggro and fast combo decks game one, so keep that in mind when making mulligan decisions.
• As a fast linear deck, we don’t want to dilute our game plan much post-sideboard. Cut some Burst Lightning or Torch the Tower in controlling matchups and cut slower cards like Hearth Elemental when you need to double down on fast starts. If you’re really struggling to find cuts, you can always shave some number of Might of the Meek.
• Questing Druid‘s Adventure only lets you play the exiled cards until the end of the turn. You’ll usually want to fire it off on an opponent’s end step, but keep it in mind in case you need it to trigger prowess or flurry on your turn. If you need to cast it on your turn, make sure not to play your land drop before casting it.
• Hearth Elemental‘s Adventure will often be the last card you cast in a given hand, but don’t be afraid to cast it earlier if you need to dig for a specific card and/or if the cards in your hand aren’t useful. This comes up most often when the game is close to over, and you need something like a burn spell or Monstrous Rage to get just a little more damage through.
• As is the case for all aggro decks, Sheltered by Ghosts is a beating against this deck. The card is less common these days thanks to Pixie decks and Nowhere to Run but you should always keep it in mind, especially against decks like Boros Prowess. Aside from removing the creature in response to the Aura being cast, we have very few options against it.

Tarkir: Dragonstorm Standard is continuing to be an absolute blast. There are still so many cool decks to talk about, so if you want to see an article on a specific Standard deck, let me know. Thanks as always for reading, and I’ll see you next time!

Want to read another Standard Deck Breakdown? Check out my article on Jeskai Oculus.