Gruul is the label for MTG decks that consists of both red and green cards. Much like the Ravnican guild that it's named after, this color pair is all about kicking ass and taking names! If you want decks that are all about the beat down, check out this list containing the five best Gruul decks from across MTG Arena's card pool.
5. Gruul Midrange (Standard)
With enough mana, Radha can boost her stats to a ridiculous amount.
Gruul Midrange uses cheap ramp effects to land its big bruisers ahead of schedule. Each creature it plays going up the mana curve is capable of hitting for a big chunk of damage. Garruk, Unleashed and Embercleave adds even more power and lets your creatures trample over your opponent’s puny blockers.
What's good about this deck:
- You have an advantage when facing other creature decks because your creatures are generally going to be bigger.
- You have many creatures that hit for a ton of damage and are hard to block. With enough lands, Radha can hit for up to double-digit damage if she connects.
- The threat of an Embercleave out of nowhere forces your opponent to make awkward choices when blocking.
How to play this deck effectively:
- Your best hand consists of Lotus Cobra/Wolfwillow Haven and threats going up your mana curve.
- It’s not necessary to mulligan for your ramp cards if you have early game plays like Scavenging Ooze or Bonecrusher Giant’s Stomp.
- Against creature decks, save Primal Might and Inscription of Abundance to get rid of creatures unless you’re going for lethal damage.
- You don't need to commit many creatures to the board when playing against control. Your creatures have high power so even one is enough to force your opponent to cast mass removal.
- When you have Klothys or Ooze, make sure to always exile cards from your opponent’s graveyard. Decks like Rakdos midrange rely on using their graveyard to gain card advantage.
Cards:
Deck3 Lotus Cobra
3 Scavenging Ooze
4 Bonecrusher Giant
4 Kazandu Mammoth
1 Klothys, God of Destiny
2 Radha, Heart of Keld
3 Questing Beast
2 Elder Gargaroth
2 Terror of the Peaks
2 Garruk, Unleashed
2 Primal Might
2 Spikefield Hazard
2 Inscription of Abundance
1 Shatterskull Smashing
1 Turntimber Symbiosis
3 Embercleave
4 Wolfwillow Haven
4 Cragcrown Pathway
1 Evolving Wilds
4 Fabled Passage
6 Forest
4 Mountain
Sideboard
4 Redcap Melee
2 Heroic Intervention
3 Garruk's Harbinger
3 Gemrazer
2 Vivien, Monsters' Advocate
1 The Great Henge
4. Gruul Company (Historic)
You’re in good company if cheap, powerful creatures are your thing.
This deck uses Collected Company (CoCo) to put two creatures into the battlefield at instant speed. All the creatures have less than three converted mana cost (CMC) so they can work with CoCo. Klothys serves a dual purpose as an indestructible threat and as a way to disrupt graveyard strategies.
What's good about this deck:
- Your creatures have cheap mana costs so you can play them before control decks have enough mana for counterspells.
- It puts the fear of the unknown on your opponent. They always have to worry about surprise blockers or creatures coming out of nowhere and attacking them for lethal.
- The threat of an Embercleave out of nowhere forces your opponent to make awkward choices when blocking.
How to play this deck effectively:
- Your best hand consists of Llanowar Elves, a creature to cast on Turn two, and a Collected Company.
- Mulligan away hands that don't have early game creatures. You need to play threats going up the mana curve every turn.
- Unless you're against control, lean towards picking +1/+1 counters on your Riot creatures. That extra bulk makes them harder to trade with, plus you'll do more damage over time.
- When you have Scavenging Ooze, exile the most threatening cards in your opponent’s graveyard first. The Historic format has many spells that let your opponent reuse cards in the graveyard.
- Use your Collected Company based on the type of deck you’re facing. Against creature decks, cast it on your main phase so you can attack with the haste creatures. Versus control, cast it on the end of their turn to avoid board wipes or sneak it in when they’re tapped out.
Cards:
Deck4 Llanowar Elves
4 Pelt Collector
1 Wildwood Tracker
2 Gallia of the Endless Dance
4 Robber of the Rich
3 Zhur-Taa Goblin
4 Bonecrusher Giant
3 Garruk's Harbinger
4 Gruul Spellbreaker
2 Klothys, God of Destiny
4 Collected Company
2 Embercleave
4 Rootbound Crag
4 Stomping Ground
8 Forest
7 Mountain
Sideboard
2 Redcap Melee
1 Abrade
2 Lava Coil
3 Scavenging Ooze
2 Flame Sweep
1 Lead the Stampede
2 Rampaging Ferocidon
2 Reclamation Sage
3. Gruul Aggro (Historic)
Your opponent can’t target this angry ogre during your turn.
Gruul Aggro embodies the classic take on this archetype. The list starts with four Llanowar Elves then fills out the rest with creatures that have the best stat to cost ratio going up the mana curve. The addition of the recently unsuspended Burning-Tree Emissary allows for very explosive starts.
What's good about this deck:
- It has a great matchup against opposing creature decks. Bonecrusher Giant’s Stomp and Domri’s Ambush combined with your beefy creatures to win damage races.
- You have a ton of creatures with haste. This means you’re able to deal damage before they can answer with sorcery speed removal.
- The threat of an Embercleave out of nowhere forces your opponent to make awkward choices when blocking.
How to play this deck effectively:
- Your best hand consists of Llanowar Elves, Burning-Tree Emissaries, threats going up your mana curve, and an Embercleave.
- Mulligan away hands that don't have early game creatures. You need to play threats going up the mana curve every turn.
- Unless you're against a control deck, choose +1/+1 counters on your Gruul Spellbreakers. That extra bulk makes them harder to trade with, plus you'll do more damage over time.
- When facing creature decks, save Bonecrusher Giant and Shatterskull Smashing to get rid of creatures. The exception is when you have no other plays or are short on lands.
- When you have Scavenging Ooze, exile the most threatening cards in your opponent’s graveyard first. The Historic format has many spells that let your opponent reuse cards in the graveyard.
Cards:
Deck4 Llanowar Elves
4 Pelt Collector
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
3 Gallia of the Endless Dance
4 Robber of the Rich
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Bonecrusher Giant
4 Gruul Spellbreaker
2 Kazandu Mammoth
3 Questing Beast
3 Domri's Ambush
2 Shatterskull Smashing
2 Turntimber Symbiosis
3 Embercleave
4 Cragcrown Pathway
2 Rootbound Crag
4 Stomping Ground
4 Forest
4 Mountain
Sideboard
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Redcap Melee
2 Cindervines
2 Lava Coil
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Rampaging Ferocidon
3 Shifting Ceratops
2. Gruul Landfall (Standard)
As if a runaway brush fire wasn’t bad enough, this one can chase you down.
This deck uses the Landfall mechanic which triggers whenever you play a land. It has twelve creatures with a Landfall ability that boosts their power. Between Ashaya, Soul of the Wild and your modal lands, you will hardly run out of ways to trigger Landfall each turn.
What's good about this deck:
- You have many creatures that hit for a ton of damage and are hard to block. Playing and cracking Fabled Passage gives all your landfall creatures +4/+4 at no cost.
- The threat of an Embercleave out of nowhere forces your opponent to make awkward choices when blocking.
- Your modal lands give you something to do when you’re flooding. Shaterskull Smashing can kill two threats and Turntimber Symbiosis can get a creature and add power to it.
How to play this deck effectively:
- Your best hand consists of landfall creatures that go up the mana curve and a Fabled Passage or Ashaya to get several landfall triggers in a turn.
- Mulligan away hands that don't have early game creatures. You need to play threats going up the mana curve every turn.
- Make sure to play your Landfall creatures early. This lets you maximize your damage from Landfall triggers as you’re developing your mana in the early game.
- Against a deck light on removal, it’s fine to Mutate Gemrazer onto a creature with low stats to get damage in early even when there’s no target for the trigger.
- When facing other creature decks, save your Fabled Passage activation as a combat trick.
Cards:
Deck4 Akoum Hellhound
4 Brushfire Elemental
4 Robber of the Rich
4 Bonecrusher Giant
4 Kazandu Mammoth
1 Radha, Heart of Keld
4 Gemrazer
4 Questing Beast
2 Ashaya, Soul of the Wild
2 Spikefield Hazard
4 Shatterskull Smashing
1 Kazuul's Fury
4 Turntimber Symbiosis
4 Embercleave
4 Cragcrown Pathway
4 Fabled Passage
3 Forest
3 Mountain
Sideboard
4 Redcap Melee
4 Thundering Rebuke
3 Garruk's Harbinger
1 The Akroan War
3 Ox of Agonas
1. Gruul Adventures (Standard)
This giant likes to stomp something first before being summoned.
Gruul Adventures smashes your opponent with all the best green and red bruisers up the mana curve. Embercleave lets you double the damage of your biggest attacker in an instant. The Adventure package gives you more gas compared to regular Gruul builds.
What's good about this deck:
- You get both power and card advantage from your Adventure creatures. Not only do they have excellent power to mana cost ratio, but they also draw cards thanks to Edgewall Innkeeper.
- Compared to other aggro decks, Gruul Adventures mulligans well. Your Adventure creatures have built-in two-for-ones to offset the card disadvantage.
- The threat of an Embercleave out of nowhere forces your opponent to make awkward choices when blocking.
How to play this deck effectively:
- Your best hand consists of Edgewall Innkeeper, a couple of Adventure creatures, and Embercleave.
- Mulligan away hands that don't have early game creatures. You need to play threats going up the mana curve every turn.
- Don't attack with Edgewall Innkeeper if your opponent's deck has cards that can ambush it. For example, decks like Dimir Rogue have several creatures with Flash.
- You don't always have to equip Embercleave on your biggest creature. Equipping Brushfire Elemental lets you attack through small blockers when you don’t have landfall.
- When facing other creature decks, save your Fabled Passage/Evolving Wilds activation as a combat trick.
Cards:
Deck4 Stonecoil Serpent
4 Edgewall Innkeeper
4 Brushfire Elemental
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Bonecrusher Giant
4 Kazandu Mammoth
4 Lovestruck Beast
4 Gemrazer
2 Questing Beast
4 Shatterskull Smashing
4 Embercleave
4 Cragcrown Pathway
2 Evolving Wilds
4 Fabled Passage
7 Forest
3 Mountain
Sideboard
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Scorching Dragonfire
2 Garruk's Harbinger
2 Phoenix of Ash
1 Ox of Agonas
3 Vivien, Monsters' Advocate
2 The Great Henge
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