Gargos Fight Club

Commander / EDH Mono-Green

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Targeting (18)

• 1x Blossoming Defense
• 1x Rancor
• 1x Ranger's Guile
• 1x Run Wild
• 1x Vines of Vastwood
• 1x Withstand Death
• 1x Evolution Charm
• 1x Fortitude
• 1x Mortal's Resolve
• 1x Terrifying Presence
• 1x Verdant Rebirth
• 1x Hunter's Insight
• 1x Reincarnation
• 1x Roar of Challenge
• 1x Snake Umbra
• 1x Pattern of Rebirth
• 1x Hunter's Prowess
• 1x Soul's Majesty

Spot Removal (8)

• 1x Steelbane Hydra
• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Force of Vigor
• 1x Polukranos, World Eater
• 1x Wickerbough Elder
• 1x Foe-Razer Regent
• 1x Terastodon
• 1x Apex Altisaur

Recursion (2)

• 1x Wildest Dreams
• 1x Regrowth

Lands (37)

• 1x Castle Garenbrig
• 1x Command Beacon
• 1x Desert of the Indomitable
• 1x Dust Bowl
• 24x Forest
• 1x Hashep Oasis
• 1x Memorial to Unity
• 1x Mosswort Bridge
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 1x Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Scavenger Grounds
• 1x Tranquil Thicket
• 1x Yavimaya Hollow

Must-Remove Creatures (12)

• 1x Collector Ouphe
• 1x Primordial Hydra
• 1x Scavenging Ooze
• 1x Managorger Hydra
• 1x Ravenous Slime
• 1x Tireless Tracker
• 1x Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1x Kalonian Hydra
• 1x Regal Behemoth
• 1x Soul of the Harvest
• 1x Vigor
• 1x Thorn Mammoth

Sweepers (2)

• 1x Rampage of the Clans
• 1x Bane of Progress

Commander (1)

Ramp/Card Draw (13)

• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Emerald Medallion
• 1x Nature's Lore
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Cultivate
• 1x Grow from the Ashes
• 1x Kodama's Reach
• 1x Nissa's Pilgrimage
• 1x Nissa, Vastwood Seer  ^Flip
• 1x Rhonas's Monument
• 1x Harmonize
• 1x Garruk's Packleader
• 1x Zendikar Resurgent

Other Good Stuff (7)

• 1x Green Sun's Zenith
• 1x Rhonas the Indomitable
• 1x Vivien, Champion of the Wilds
• 1x Wayward Swordtooth
• 1x Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma
• 1x Surrak, the Hunt Caller
• 1x Yeva, Nature's Herald

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Maybeboard

Big Slaps (4)

• 1x Ulvenwald Tracker
• 1x Ancient Animus
• 1x Cartouche of Strength
• 1x Ezuri's Predation

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This is a Gargos deck based almost entirely on his fight ability. The objective is to play Gargos and protect him, sniping threats as necessary, and eventually beat your opponents down with a huge vigilance attacker. Power level is somewhat on the low side, but the deck is tons of fun to play in the right setting. Some notes:

• Most of the creatures are specifically chosen to be high-value threats that either get out of hand over time or cause big problems for opponents. You WANT your opponents to feel like they need to target your stuff with their spot removal, so you can get more free triggers out of Gargos.

• For this reason, all the protection involves reacting to targeting by opponents (as opposed to preventing targeting with things like Lightning Greaves ). You don't want to prevent them from targeting your stuff, you just want to make whatever they're doing useless.

• There are a number of ways to get a bunch of Gargos fight triggers at once, but I prefer to get them one at a time so that the risk of Gargos fighting himself to death is lower. The key to playing this deck is minimizing the amount of commander tax you pay throughout the game, and since the Gargos trigger is not a may, you have to be careful how you use him.

• Vigor is the most powerful card in the deck by a mile. One of the hardest things for the deck to deal with is creatures that are too massive to fight, and Vigor turns that situation on its head with ease and often allows combo kills alongside a flurry of targeting spells.

• Rampage of the Clans and Terastodon really shine in this deck. Gargos keeps most creatures on lockdown, so dealing with noncreature threats is important; converting them into delicious 3/3s that Gargos can eat (and that he blocks vigilantly all day) is a great way to go. Rampage in particular works well alongside protection spells and Yeva, Nature's Herald / Vivien, Champion of the Wilds , since it's an instant.

• Don't underestimate Reincarnation and Verdant Rebirth . They may seem underwhelming as protection spells, but their true value is as quasi-sac outlets to save Gargos from being exiled or hit by a Song of the Dryads effect. The play pattern is like this: opponent targets Gargos -> 1st trigger targets a creature -> you target Gargos -> 2nd trigger targets another creature that will get damage total to 7 on Gargos. When it's like this, Reincarnation/Rebirth and both the fight triggers will go off before the opponent's spell, killing Gargos and getting your spell's value while countering your opponent's spell. Reincarnation can get Gargos back into play for free, and Verdant Rebirth gets you a card and Gargos back in your hand.

• Since Gargos doesn't have evasion, it can be hard to get through blockers sometimes. Evolution Charm and Run Wild are particularly good in the deck because they can grant evasion for a kill, but have other uses as well. I'd toyed with the idea of putting Nylea, God of the Hunt in the deck as well to help with evasion, but I couldn't decide what to cut for her.

• As far as recursion goes, Regrowth effects are preferred since they can get back tricks. Once and Future would also be good here, but I liked Wildest Dreams better for flexibility. Road of Return would be nice for the Command Beacon effect, but the other half isn't as useful since it doesn't get back tricks.

• This is probably obvious, but try not to play Gargos until you can leave up a protection spell for him after he's out.

• There's some more fight cards listed in the maybeboard that I like swapping in for maximum flavor.

Date added	4 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	5 - 0 Mythic Rares 33 - 0 Rares 21 - 0 Uncommons 17 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.40
Tokens	Ashaya, the Awoken World, Beast 3/3 G, Centaur 3/3 G, City's Blessing, Clue, Elephant 3/3 G, The Monarch
Folders	EDH Decks Inspiration