Ready to get your Gruul on?

Do you like to play aggressive decks? Do you like big creatures? Maybe playing lands is your jam? No matter what brings you to playing red and green, you can be sure to find a list that’s right for you. Here is a list of the best decks across all of Arena’s formats that will be sure to have you saying “it’s a good day to play Gruul”!

5. Radha Brawl

Radha, Heart of Keld, Illustrated by Chris Rahn

While not Arena’s most popular format, Brawl has a very steady following and a very defined meta. And after the very prominent Omnath, Locus of Creation, Rhada, Heart of Keld is the most played brawl commander in the format. With card advantage and a late-game win condition, it’s not hard to see why Rhada proves to be so strong.

What is great about this deck:

• Any Brawl deck with access to green immediately allows for some of the most broken cards to be put into your deck. 
• Ramp is a natural fit for Rahda’s abilities, and the ability to play lands from the top of your deck allows you to gain incremental card advantage throughout the game.
• With access to red, this deck also gains a very powerful suite of removal effects, such as Storm’s Rath or Soul Sear.

How This Deck is Played:

• Prioritize cards like Azuza, Lost but Seeking, and Dryad of the Ilysian Grove that allow you to play additional lands during each of your turns (lands you can play off the top of your library with Radha).
• Use other ramp spells like Gilded Goose, Paradise Druid, Klothys, God of destiny, and Solemn Simulacrum to boost you into your late-game threats.
• These threats include Terror of the Peaks, Questing Beast, and Radha’s own ability.
• Your planeswalkers can be just as deadly as your creatures so maintain board protection over your Nissa, Who Shakes the World or your Vivien, Monsters’ Advocate.
• Finally use cards like Ugin, the Spirit Dragon to wipe away any board your opponent has spent the game building up.

Cards:

1x Radha, Heart of Keld

1x Arcane Signet

1x Azusa, Lost but Seeking

1x Beanstalk Giant

1x Bonders' Enclave

1x Bonecrusher Giant

1x Brash Taunter

1x Castle Garenbrig

1 Chandra, Heart of Fire

1x Command Tower

1x Crashing Drawbridge

1x Crawling Barrens

1x Dryad of the Ilysian Grove

1x Elder Gargaroth

1x Embercleave

1x Escape to the Wilds

1x Fabled Passage

1x Gemrazer

1x Grumgully, the Generous

1x Ilysian Caryatid

1x Kogla, the Titan Ape

1x Leafkin Avenger

1 xLithoform Engine

1x Llanowar Visionary

1x Mazemind Tome

1x Mirror Shield

1x Moraug, Fury of Akoum

1x Primal Might

1x Questing Beast

1x Radiant Fountain

1x Renata, Called to the Hunt

1x Robber of the Rich

1x Rugged Highlands

1x Scavenging Ooze

1x Shadowspear

1x Stonecoil Serpent

1x Temple of Abandon

1x The Great Henge

1x Turntimber Symbiosis

1x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon

1x Vivien, Monsters' Advocate

9x Mountain

10x Forest

 

4. Historic Gruul Midrange

Carnage Tyrant, Illustrated by Yeong-Hao Han

Red and Green have some of Magic’s biggest creatures, and this Gruul Midrange list takes full advantage of that. With big beaters like Carnage Tyrant and Zilortha, Strength Incarnate, you’ll be able to stomp on any aggro deck and demolish anyone trying to control you.

What is great about this deck:

• This is the only deck on this list not to include any copies of Embercleave, that’s because where other decks go wide, this deck goes big. With creatures as big as 7/6’s and effective 7/7’s, any aggro deck will have trouble getting in any damage against your giant blockers.
• Thanks to these abnormally large creatures, this deck takes full advantage of the rather fringe card, Sarkhan’s Unsealing, clearing the way for your attackers and dealing excess damage to your opponent’s face.
• Smaller mana dorks allow you to ramp into threats as early as turn three.

How This Deck is Played:

• Mana dorks are key. With one or two ways to ramp in the early game, you’ll be able to punish any player looking to set up a combo or stabilize the board. Even an early Klothys, God of Destiny can ramp you up to some of your bigger threats.
• Bonecrusher Giant and Sarkhan’s Unsealing are the only single-target removal effects in the whole deck, so make sure to use them on your opponent’s key creatures (and yes, that means mana dorks too).
• Gemrazer and Questing Beast can be big threats out of nowhere that pressure your opponent’s non-creature permanents. Naturally good at threatening planeswalkers, Questing Beast will push through small blockers and remain a vigilant blocker. Gemrazer can mutate onto a mana dork to destroy a piece of your opponent’s game plan while dealing 4 damage the turn you play it.
• Rekindling Phoenix and Carnage Tyrant can prove to be hard for your opponents to remove in very different ways, understanding which is good in which situation and playing to your outs is pivotal.
• In a graveyard heavy meta, the sooner you get a Klothys God of Destiny out on the board, the happier you’ll be. Putting a consistent source of damage on the board while exiling your opponent’s Uros is very important.

Cards:

1x Bonders' Enclave

4x Bonecrusher Giant

4x Carnage Tyrant

4x Castle Garenbrig

7x Forest

4x Gemrazer

4x Ilysian Caryatid

2x Klothys, God of Destiny

4x Llanowar Elves

3x Mountain

4x Questing Beast

4x Rekindling Phoenix

4x Rootbound Crag

4x Sarkhan's Unsealing

1x Sheltered Thicket

4x Stomping Ground

2x Zilortha, Strength Incarnate

Sideboard:

4x Anger of the Gods

2x Barrier Breach

3x Grafdigger's Cage

2x Scavenging Ooze

2x Shifting Ceratops

1x The Immortal Sun

1x Ugin, the Ineffable

 

3. Standard Gruul Landfall 

Spitfire Lagac, Illustrated by Dominik Mayer

With the introduction of Zendikar Rising onto Magic Arena, the landfall ability is taking Standard by storm. One variation of this deck is a Red Green aggro deck using cheap creatures to push in for damage when you stack multiple landfall triggers in a game.

What is great about this deck:

• This deck plays one of the best cards in the standard format: Lotus Cobra. The ability to ramp to bigger more aggressive plays early in the game just by hitting your land drops gives this deck a huge advantage.
• Taking full advantage of small efficient creatures with powerful landfall abilities is what makes this deck so strong.
• Cards like Fabled Passage and * let you play multiple lands in a turn, making your threats even scarier.

How This Deck is Played:

• Playing early threats such as Akroum Hellhound and Brushfire Elemental will allow you to set up for some pretty explosive damage on subsequent turns.
• Lotus Cobra will help you ramp up to cards like Radha, Heart of Keld, Kazandu Mammoth, and Questing Beast.
• Don’t fire off your Fabled Passages or Roiling Regrowths too early before you can take full advantage of them.
• Don’t be afraid of playing your Shatterskull Smashings and your Turntimber Symbiosis just to trigger landfall earlier in the game. What’s more important than flashy late-game cards is early aggression.
• Scavenging Ooze can be key in fighting against the incremental life gain of Uro’s escaping from the graveyard.
• A well-timed Ebercleave can make your landfall creatures game-ending threats.

Cards:

4x Akoum Hellhound

1x Bonecrusher Giant

4x Brushfire Elemental

4x Cragcrown Pathway

3x Embercleave

1x Evolving Wilds

4x Fabled Passage

5x Forest

4x Kazandu Mammoth

4x Lotus Cobra

5x Mountain

3x Questing Beast

2x Radha, Heart of Keld

4x Roiling Regrowth

4x Scavenging Ooze

2x Shatterskull Smashing

3x Spikefield Hazard

3x Turntimber Symbiosis

 

Sideboard:

3x Bonecrusher Giant

3x Garruk's Harbinger

3x Gemrazer

3x Primal Might

3x Redcap Melee

 

2. Standard Gruul Adventures

Bonecrusher Giant, Illustrated by Victor Adame Minguez

Unlike the previous installment on this list, Gruul adventures focuses far less on the landfall ability to instead get full value out of the suite of aggressive adventure cards present in the standard format. Its ability to present big threats early and refill its hand along the way makes Gruul Adventures the best Red Green deck in standard.

What is great about this deck:

• Adventure spells have built-in card advantage, the more adventures you play the more you’re getting two cards for the price of one.
• With four Bonecrusher Giants and three Primal Mights, this list is well equipped to deal with problematic creatures.
• This list doesn’t run any Lucky Clovers as its midrange counterparts do, instead, this deck relies more heavily on the pay off of Edgewall Innkeeper to keep your hand full late into the game.

How This Deck is Played: 

• The game plan for this deck is very similar to the other decks on this list: play creatures and attack. But in this deck in particular it benefits you for playing as many spells as possible due to the fact there is so much card advantage inherent in your deck construction.
• Cards like Robber of the Rich can put you at card parody against your opponents early in the game while Edgewall Innkeeper can draw you cards later in the game when you get around to casting the creature side of your adventure spells.
• Bonecrusher Giants, Primal Mights, and a single copy of Spikefield Hazard are excellent at picking off creatures like Lotus Cobra or opposing Innkeepers.
• Lovestruck beast is activated not only by casting Heart’s Desire but also by your Edgewall Innkeepers. But even when you have no 1/1 creatures, Lovestruck beast can be a very strong defender against opposing aggro decks.
• Don’t be afraid to cast the creature sides of adventure spells before you get full value off of them, being aggressive and presenting threats on board is often far more important than casting every adventure.

Cards:

4x Bonecrusher Giant

4x Cragcrown Pathway

4x Edgewall Innkeeper

4x Embercleave

2x Fabled Passage

7x Forest

4x Kazandu Mammoth

4x Lovestruck Beast

6x Mountain

3x Primal Might

4x Questing Beast

4x Rimrock Knight

4x Robber of the Rich

2x Scavenging Ooze

1x Shatterskull Smashing

1x Spikefield Hazard

2x Temple of Abandon

Sideboard:

2x Elder Gargaroth

4x Embereth Shieldbreaker

1x Primal Might

2x Ranger's Guile

3x Redcap Melee

1x Scavenging Ooze

2x The Great Henge

 

1. Historic Gruul Aggro

Questing Beast, Illustrated by Igor Kieryluk

Gruul Aggro has historically been one of the strongest performing decks in all of Magic Arena, no pun intended. Even after the banning of Burning-Tree Emissary, this deck presents a very fast and scary clock against any unrepaired opponent.

What is great about this deck:

• This Gruul Aggro list consists of A LOT of haste creatures. This means that even when an opponent might think they’re safe, their life total can be in very immediate danger.
• Embercleave, Embercleave, Embercleave. Just like most of the decks on this list, Embercleave wins more games than any other card. And slapping down an Embercleave on turn four or five onto your Questing Beast will inspire nothing but fear in your opponents.
• In the place of Questing Beast, which has been overperforming in every deck mentioned so far, this deck opts instead for Collective Company. One of the most powerful green cards in Historic, Collective Company can present a lot of power onto the board when your opponent least expects it. Playing around counter magic and board wipes at the same time!

How This Deck is Played:

• Much like other decks on this list, Historic Gruul Midrange takes advantage of cards like Llanowar Elves to ramp into big threats in the early game. Casting a Lovestruck Beast on turn two sounds back-breaking to me.
• Earshaker Khenra and Rhonas the Indomitable are both different ways of pushing through for damage, either by granting trample to your creatures or stopping your opponent’s creatures from blocking.
• Two copies of Primal Might and four Bonecrusher Giants are great at destroying opposing mana dorks, Lurrus’s, or even Priest of the Forgotten Gods.
• Use Scavenging ooze and your Klothys, God of Destiny to attack your opponent’s graveyard strategies while applying more and more pressure.
• A well-timed collected company can win you the game, so make sure to be casting at pivotal times like at the end of your opponent’s turn or right before combat to hit those haste creatures.

Cards:

4x Bonecrusher Giant

4x Collected Company

2x Earthshaker Khenra

2x Embercleave

8x Forest

4x Gruul Spellbreaker

1x Klothys, God of Destiny

4x Llanowar Elves

4x Lovestruck Beast

5x Mountain

2x Pelt Collector

2x Primal Might

1x Rhonas the Indomitable

4x Robber of the Rich

4x Rootbound Crag

4x Scavenging Ooze

1x Sheltered Thicket

4x Stomping Ground

Sideboard:

3x Abrade

2x Fry

3x Garruk's Harbinger

4x Rampaging Ferocidon

3x Shock

 

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