Gruul Moon

Modern RG (Gruul) RGW (Naya)

clayperce

Land (21)

• 7x Forest
• 1x Kessig Wolf Run
• 2x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Mountain
• 3x Stomping Ground
• 3x Windswept Heath
• 4x Wooded Foothills

Utility (3)

• 3x Rhythm of the Wild

Versatile Threats (19)

• 4x Bloodbraid Elf
• 2x Chandra, Torch of Defiance
• 4x Gruul Spellbreaker
• 2x Inferno Titan
• 3x Kitchen Finks
• 2x Scavenging Ooze
• 2x Stormbreath Dragon

Ramp (10)

• 4x Arbor Elf
• 2x Birds of Paradise
• 4x Utopia Sprawl

Mana Disruption (4)

• 4x Blood Moon

Removal (3)

• 3x Lightning Bolt

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Sideboard

Other (15)

• 1x Abrade
• 2x Ancient Grudge
• 2x Anger of the Gods
• 2x Beast Within
• 1x Chameleon Colossus
• 2x Grafdigger's Cage
• 1x Raking Canopy
• 1x Scavenging Ooze
• 1x Shatterstorm
• 2x Trinisphere

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Ponza, but with Gruul Spellbreaker and Rhythm of the Wild instead of the usual Land Destruction spells.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and suggestions!

Strategy

MOVE TOWARDS THE WIN:

• Arbor Elf , Utopia Sprawl , and Birds of Paradise provide Ramp for 3- and 4-drops as early as Turn 2 and 6-drops as early as Turn 3.
• Rhythm of the Wild may not immediately impact the board, but Riot is simply amazing in this deck. The general rule is to give our mana-dorks Haste whenever we have a card in hand (even if it's just to bluff a play) and a +1/+1 counter when we're hell-bent ... and our other creatures generally get Haste when we're the beat-down, and +1/+1 counters when our opponents are. Of note, a +1/+1 counter will immediately erase the -1/-1 counter on a Kitchen Finks after Persist. Heh!
• Chandra can +1 for Impulse Draw, a few extra points of damage, or Ramp.

PREVENT OPPONENT'S WIN-CON:

• Blood Moon prevents many opponents from playing Magic at all.
• Scavenging Ooze gives us solid mainboard gravehate.
• Lifegain from Kitchen Finks and Scavenging Ooze can buy us the turn(s) we need to beat more aggressive opponents.
• Lightning Bolt , Chandra 's -3 and Inferno Titan 's triggered ability provide some targeted removal.

WIN-CON:

• Turn creatures sideways. Smash opponent's face. Repeat.
• An Inferno Titan with Haste, a Monstrous Stormbreath Dragon , or a huge Scavenging Ooze are best for this role, but Gruul Spellbreaker , Bloodbraid Elf and Kitchen Finks work just fine.

ALTERNATE WIN-CONS:

• Chandra 's Emblem plus a couple low-CMC spells works nicely.
• Kessig Wolf Run is a superb late-game mana sink. And there are very few things as fun as attacking through Ensnaring Bridge with a Birds of Paradise , and then pumping it for the win.
• sometimes, all we need is a Lightning Bolt to our opponent's face.

SIDEBOARD:

• Abrade : It's a worse Lightning Bolt and a worse Ancient Grudge , but it's solid in a world with limited sideboard slots. I especially like it vs. Aether Vial decks.
• Ancient Grudge : IMO the best Artifact hate in the format.
• Anger of the Gods : Great for any go-wide deck, especially those with Graveyard synergy ... even though it's a non-bo with Kitchen Finks 's Persist ability.
• Beast Within : Destroys our opponent's most important permanent, or gives us a Beast Token when we need it most.
• Chameleon Colossus : A silver bullet for Death's Shadow decks. Incidentally hilarious vs. UR Phoenix and Merfork since Chameleon is a Horror (not returned to hand by Awoken Horror ) and a Merfolk (affected by Lord of Atlantis ).
• Grafdigger's Cage : IMO the best Graveyard hate for the current meta ... even though it's a non-bo with Kitchen Finks 's Persist ability.
• Raking Canopy : A silver bullet for Phoenix and Spirits decks. Incidentally solid vs. Hardened Affinity.
• Shatterstorm : A silver bullet for Hardened Affinity and 4c Whir decks
• Trinisphere : Great against anything that needs to cast more than one spell per turn or runs very few Lands ... even though it's a non-bo with Bloodbraid Elf 's Cascade ability.

Magical Christmasland

The deck is designed to cast 3-drops on Turn 2 (~56% chance), and 4-drops on Turn 2 are relatively common (~6% chance). But the deck can actually goldfish a Turn 3 kill. Sure there's at most a ~0.16% chance, and actual Magical Christmasland (1/365) is ~0.27% ... but the point is it could happen :-D

• T1: Green land; Arbor Elf .
• T2: Green land; cast Utopia Sprawl . Tap the Sprawled Forest, activate Arbor Elf , and re-tap the Sprawled Forest for 4 mana. Cast Bloodbraid Elf , Cascading into Rhythm of the Wild . Rhythm resolves, then Bloodbraid ETBs with a +1/+1 counter. Swing with Bloodbraid for 4.
• T3: Play a Land, Utopia Sprawl , or a Hasty Arbor Elf to get 6 mana. Cast Inferno Titan ; it ETBs with Haste and does 3 damage. Attack with Bloodbraid Elf and Titan, triggering for 3 damage and swinging for 10. Good game.

Other Cards Tested

Almost made the cut (i.e., might be perfect for a slightly different playstyle or meta):

• Cindervines : It's a worse Ancient Grudge (though its ability to hit Enchantments is sometimes useful) and a worse Trinisphere (though the incidental damage can sometimes make a difference), but it's a solid option in a world of limited sideboard slots.
• Choke and Dragon's Claw : Superb sideboard hate, but we generally don't want these bad enough to justify a sideboard slot.
• Domri, Chaos Bringer : His +1 is great, and his -3 is usually pure gas. I tested extensively and was surprised to find he's almost exactly as good as Chanda ... except vs. Ensnaring Bridge decks.
• Glorybringer : Better than Stormbreath vs. UR Phoenix, but worse (IMO) vs. the rest of the field.
• Rest in Peace and Stony Silence : It's surprisingly easy to splash White in this deck, and these cards are REALLY good. But the cost (in life) of a three-color manabase is just not quite worth it.

Meh (i.e., fine cards, but not for this deck)

• AEther Membrane : I thought the card had potential vs. Phoenix decks and Dredge. I was wrong.
• Arlinn Kord  : Arlinn is incredibly versatile and her +1 is VERY good in the deck, but she's nowhere near as good as our other four-drop options.
• Courser of Kruphix : The incidental lifegain adds up quickly, her 4 Toughness is VERY relevant, and she synergizes well with Chandra . But Finks #4 is a better option if we need additional lifegain.
• Obstinate Baloth : Great against discard effects, we don't need the effect enough to justify a sideboard slot ... especially since it can't be cast on a Cascade from BBE . And Finks #4 is a better option if we need additional lifegain.
• Tireless Tracker : Amazing in grindy match-ups, where she provides some card advantage almost no matter what, and can completely run away with games if unanswered. But in the current meta, she's frankly too slow for the maindeck, and I found her unnecessary in the side.

FAQ

What are our Good and Bad Match-ups?

The deck has evolved a TON since I started testing, but here are my records (with all variants of the deck) versus the current top decks in Modern:

• Good: Burn (11-1), BG Rock (5-3), Jund (7-2)
• Even or Unknown: Gx Tron (7-5), Hardened Affinity (2-3), UW Control (8-6), 4c Whir (0-1), Bant Spirits (0-1), Ad NauNauseumseum (0-1), Amulet Titan (2-2), Mono-R Phoenix (2-2)
• Bad: UR Phoenix (2-4), Dredge (2-4), Humans (1-3), Grixis Shadow (2-7) ... as you might expect, the current sideboard is VERY much an attempt to improve these match-ups.

Why so little Land Destruction?

• Land Destruction is tremendously fun, but it's a Tempo play, not a win-con. And unfortunately, Tempo plays are not very competitive in Modern at the moment.
• Just in case it's not obvious, there's still a little bit of Land Destruction in the deck: I've killed plenty of Lands with Beast Within .

Speaking of Beast Within ... WTF?!?

• Beast Within offers insane versatility, at Instant speed. Sure, I've lost games to the Beast Token I gave my opp. But I almost certainly would have lost those games anyways ... it's like, "Do I want to die for sure next turn to whatever my opp is doing, or maybe in X turns to a Beast Token?" It's usually a pretty easy call :-)
• The card is superb vs. large Creatures (e.g., few things feel better than destroying Awoken Horror with its Transform trigger on the stack, making our opponent return the Beast Token to their hand), but it's also solid vs. Planeswalkers, Artifacts, Enchantments, and Lands (e.g., versus Titanshift, we can disrupt 5 of the usual 6 Valakut triggers by destroying a Mountain with the triggers on the stack).

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Shout-outs to ...

• Robert Wassing for the original version of this list.
• The WOTC Rules team for this Gatherer ruling on Rhythm of the Wild: Multiple instances of haste on the same creature are redundant, but we're not going to tell the Gruul how to live their lives.

Please don't forget to +1 Upvote if you like the deck!

Top Ranked	Achieved #1 position overall 5 years ago
Date added	5 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Modern legal.
Rarity (main - side)	9 - 0 Mythic Rares 22 - 8 Rares 10 - 5 Uncommons 11 - 2 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.69
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Emblem Chandra, Torch of Defiance
Folders	Modern, Not My Deck, Cool Modern/Pioneer Brews, to build, Not my decks, >> Modern Archive <<
Based on	Serious Ponza clayperce MDN