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
You may also be interested in: